Ford at the Litblog Co-op

Take time this week to visit The LitBlog Co-op where Jeffrey Ford's The Girl in the Glass will be the topic of conversation. Gwenda Bond has already posted some initial thoughts on the book. Also, some time this week, Ed Champion will be posting a podcast interview with Ford.

Jeffrey Ford wins an Edgar award

Jeffrey Ford's novel "The Girl in the Glass" won the Edgar for Best Paperback Original. Congratulation Jeff, it's well deserved. The more attention the book gets, the better.

Also, next week, check out the Lit Blog Co-op for more on the Girl in the Glass. Ford will be blogging at the site and there will be a podcast interview with him as well.

Novel features pulp novelists

Professor Hex pointed out something to me recently: "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril: A Novel." Now, for that name alone, the novel should be interesting. But the fascinating part comes in the description of the novel:

Ravaged by the devastation of the Great Depression, America turned to the pulp novels for relief, for hope, for heroes.

And the pulps delivered in spades.

The science fiction story, the hard-boiled detective, the superhero were all born on these cheap yellow pages, found behind blood-drenched covers dripping with sex and violence. Return now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, enter at your own risk into the dark and dank lair known as The White Horse Tavern, and meet Walter Gibson, the mind behind The Shadow, and Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, as they challenge one another to discover what is real and what is pulp.

For Gibson, writing a new novel about The Shadow every month is a way to evade his own dark past. For his rival, Lester Dent, creating Doc Savage is an attempt to bring the light of better days to desperate millions. In their lives and loves Gibson and Dent are as different from one another as the heroes they’ve created. But now the hideous murder of the fringe pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft — victim of a mysterious death that literally makes the skin crawl — will set these two men on a collision course with each other, and face to face with a terrifying and very real evil that could have sprung from the pages of their own pulps.

From the palaces and battlefields of warlord-plagued China to the seedy waterfronts of Providence; from frozen seas and cursed islands to the labyrinthine tunnels and secret temples of New York’s Chinatown, Dent and Gibson will find themselves in a dangerous race to stop a madman destined to create a new empire of pure evil. Together with the young pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard, a mysterious stranger, and a sexy psychic with a chicken, they will finally step out from behind their creations to take part in a heroic journey far greater than any story they have imagined. Their quest will force Gibson to look beyond the shadows and discover the true evil that lurks in the hearts of men, while Dent will learn that the nature of a true hero is not found in a fictional superman, but in the faith of the woman who challenges death itself to love him.

A novel that features pulp writers as heroes. Perfect! This is going on my "to buy soon" list. (The novel comes out in May.) In the meantime, check out PaulMalmont.com, where the author offers a lost chapter (though you'll have to crack a code first) and a nice collection of links about pulps and writers of the time. Also, if you hae a podcast, no matter how small, Malmont would like to be involved. Check out his Web site for details.

This seems to be the latest in a trend that may even become a genre unto itself: Novels featuring authors as characters fighting fictional menaces. Off the top of my head, similar books include Move Underground by Nick Mamatas and The List of 7 by Mark Frost. I know there was also a novel that featured H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith fighting an ancient evil. Can anyone think of any others?

Writing update

I'm getting back on the horse with my writing. I still haven't rewritten the story I was working on previously. But it's still there waiting to be attacked. In the meantime, I've been writing a spontaneous story in one notebook and putting the pieces of another story together on my computer. I've also been journaling in notebooks and practicing some parts of my writing. So I'm back on track with writing every day, though my output is still not real stories. The writing keeps me happy though, so I'll keep it up.

Fear for 'The Stars My Destination'

Alfred Bester's classic "The Stars My Destination" is headed for film, kicking and screaming no doubt. This is a great novel, one which I will have to reread before the movie is released. It has plenty of amazing visuals that would be amazing on film with today's technology. But this is Hollywood we're talking about, and no doubt they'll screw up the story so much the visuals won't matter. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Found elsewhere

At one time, I wrote much about giant squid here. I've since fallen off that wagon, though I still find them intensely interesting. If you're still looking for news about giant squid, or squid in general, check out Squid, a blog with all the latest news, merchandise and general weirdness about squids. Well worth your time.

Jeffrey Ford's new collection going out

According to Jonathan Strahan, Jeffrey Ford's new collection, The Empire of Ice Cream, has started shipping. He posted the table of contents (also available at the book's site):

Introduction - Jonathan Carroll.

1. The Annals of Eelin-Ok
2. Jupiter’s Skull
3. A Night in the Tropics
4. The Empire of Ice Cream
5. The Beautiful Gelreesh
6. Boatman’s Holiday
7. Botch Town
8. A Man of Light
9. The Green Word
10. Giant Land
11. Coffins on the River
12. Summer Afternoon
13. The Weight of Words
14. The Trentino Kid

I've read all the stories except "Botch Town," which is new to the collection, "Coffins on the River" (from Polyphony #3) and "Summer Afternoon" (apparently from "Say ... Is this a Cat?"). Based on that, I'd say this is a great collection. Getting "Empire of Ice Cream" and "The Weight of Words" alone would be worth the price of the book. So order now! In the meantime, check out Ford's blog at 14theDitch.

Apologies

Sorry for the absence. I just haven't felt like it lately. Plus, I haven't done much with my writing, so I'm pretty ashamed of that. And besides that, March is absolutely the worst month of the year. It's not quite spring yet, but I'm horribly tired of winter (even a warm winter like this one). It teases you with bits of warmth before taking it away again. Then there's the wedding being planned and worries about my house going up for sale. Too much on my mind. (Not that these are good excuses for the writing failures.)

I've been reading lately, despite the unchanging nature of the box to the left. (Blogger was giving me problems changing the template.) After "Engines of God," I read "Snakes and Earrings" by Hitomi Kanehara, "With Respect to the Japanese" by Bill Condon, and am currently reading "Rashomon and other stories" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. If you're looking for some good reading, check out storySouth's notable short stories of 2005. They've lined up some of the best short fiction found online over the last year. Strange Horizons and SciFiction get special attention for their work. Also, Elizabeth Bear has posted the first chapter of her upcoming book "Blood and Iron" online.

Hopefully, I'll start doing more in the next few days. See you soon.

Write how you need to write

Meg McCarron takes issue with the writing every day edict. What she has to say is smart and gives an alternative for those who don't like writing every day.

Personally, I think each person needs to try out different methods and find out what works for them. That's what I've been doing. I find that I can keep myself to a "write every day" schedule if I'm working on a story. It's between those stories, or weeks like now when I should be revising a story, that I find I skip days and have a hard time concentrating.

Each writer is different and each one needs to explore how they write. What's important is that you are dedicated to it, whether you write once a day, once a week or for a full month at a time nonstop when you've come up with an idea. Whatever works for you, as long as you are serious, that's the only rule.

Odds and ends

What a lousy weekend. Don Knotts, Darren McGavin and Octavia Butler died. They were all good at their respective crafts and each was important to me in some way. Unfortunately, I've not read much Butler, although I have at least two of her books on my shelves. I guess it's about time I corrected that oversight. (And if you're interested in Butler, be sure to check out the Bat Segundo Show interview.)

In my writing life, I've actually gotten a little bit done. I've pieced together all the parts of my current short story. It doesn't add up to a first draft. There are holes in the narrative, there are parts that I wrote at least three times and there are plenty of parts that just don't work. The worst thing is that the ending is not earned, either for the character interaction or the supernatural aspect. I need to add foreshadowing and character work. So writing and revisions continue.

This may be the most true truest post on writing ever.

Technorati Tags: writing

Cave chambers of New England

Professor Hex linked to a fascinating article about the Upton Cave:

"The caves -- ranging from Putnam County in New York’s Hudson River Valley to southern Maine -- bear many similarities to "beehive" chambers built in Ireland by ancient Celtic tribes, said Barbara Toomey, the Massachusetts coordinator for the New England Antiquities Research Association.

Here's another site about "America's Stonehenge." According to that site, there are 62 of these chambers in Connecticut, and yet I've never heard of one of them.

They give the example of the Gungywamp in Groton.
Besides containing beehive chambers and petroglyphs, the Gungywamp site has a double circle of stones near its center, just north of two stone chambers. Two concentric circles of large quarried stonesó21 large slabs laid end to endóare at the center of the site. Extensive fire burning on some of the slabs is apparent which leads many to believe it was an ancient altar. Nearby there are several large pillar stones and one boulder slab that have been carefully positioned along astronomical site lines.

I may have to take a road trip one of these days. Fortunately for me, I can learn more about it through The Gungywamp Society.

iBooks bankrupt

Publisher iBooks has gone bankrupt, according to Johnathan Strahan, among others. The company has apparently been on the skids since the tragic death of founder Byron Preiss. For Strahan, this means his anthologies, Science Fiction: Best of 2005 and Fantasy: Best of 2005, are left in limbo.

I think it's a tragedy. In the last few years, iBooks has reprinted some of the great works of science fiction. On my bookshelf next to me, I can find Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley and the first two Wild Cards anthologies thanks to iBooks. They are also responsible for republication of Cordwainer Smith's Nostrilia and Robert Silverberg's Nightwings. I'm sorry to see them go.

Masters of Science Fiction

ABC has given the green light to Masters of Science Fiction, according to Sci Fi Wire. The show, produced by the same people who made Masters of Horror (which I've only heard good things about), will adapt classic science fiction stories into TV movies. They've already named Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury stories among those they adapt. ABC has agreed to four episodes, but the company plans on doing six.

Now I wonder who they'll get for directors. Masters of Horror combined great horror short stories with famed horror directors. Who are the classic science fiction directors?

Not much to say

I've been writing, getting closer to a finished draft, but I'm not there yet.

A Scanner Darkly trailer

A full length trailer for "A Scanner Darkly" is up now. [Link found via SFSignal.] Check it out.

The movie uses a drawing technique first pioneered in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" in which real actors are drawn over. In some ways, this is perfect for this movie. However, most people are going to be used to seeing this technique in recent commercials. And it looks pretty stupid in those. Every time I see it, I think to myself, why not just film the people? At least, this movie has a purpose behind using it. In the book, by Philip K. Dick, a central idea is that new technology makes it impossible for people to hide their identities with new identities. Also, it's a major plot point that you don't know how much delusion is going on.

I'm still excited about this film, despite the above worry and Keanu Reeves acting. The other actors -- Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson -- are all people who I've loved in some films and actively hated in others. They all have certain tics they rely on that bug me, but sometimes they get past it. (Reeves rarely ever does. They can just sometimes make the movie around him, like The Matrix.)

On the plus side, the film looks very faithfult to the book, which is one of Dick's novels I highly recommend.

UPDATE: Fascinating article from Wired on the troubles Linklater faced in making this film happen, particularly concerning the animation. The story also makes me feel better about Reeves, who is a big Dick fan (I crack up just writing that) and worked for scale pay to see this film made. If only he were a better actor.

New writing gadget

I downloaded something new. It's called yWriter and it's a program to help you create writing in a project format. (Link found via Paperback Writer.) It breaks down your stories scene by scene (or chapter by chapter). This was a perfect thing for the work I've been doing on my current story since I approached it exactly that way. Plus, yWriter allows you to add character notes, goals and conflict notes for scenes, and even allows you to keep track of the time elapsed in your narrative.

I must admit, downloading freeware like this is mostly a way for me not to write. I fidget around with the program, get everything sorted in it exactly right. All of which just eats away my writing time. Despite that, the program actually was helpful. I started going through the pieces I've written so far and editing them. They're not as bad as I thought. This will hopefully put me back on track. I've been writing different versions of the same scenes, over and over. And it's not helping. Getting organized with this program helped me get it all in order and figure out what I'm doing. I may even be nearing a finished first draft, just some connective tissue needs to be added. I can hardly believe it.

Actually, maybe that first draft should be amended to say "zeroth draft." When I read writers' blogs, they seem to write a first draft and then send the thing out to their first readers. I don't think my first draft of this story would be ready for anybody. Is this me being too cautious over my drafting? Or is it that writers get better over time and their first drafts are just cleaner and better?

writing

Wrestling squid and octopus!!

My god I must have this film: The Calamari Wrestler. Read that first link, there is a great description of what this is all about and some pictures. I've added it to my wishlist. I must have it!

Catching up

I haven't posted anything on my writings in the past week or so. Sorry about that, for those of you who are interested. I haven't stopped writing, however. In fact, I've been writing and writing and writing on this story, though I'm still nowhere near completing a single draft.

I started this story writing out a plot outline, writing character sketches and getting a solid idea behind what happens at the end of it all. And I've found out that those things don't corner you at all. In fact, I've found a million different ways to go with this story and I've already tried hundreds of them. I keep writing the beginning of the story and then start over from a different perspective. I've tried third person omniscient, third person from each character's point of view, first person by one character and first person by the other character. I've also written in different voices, not quite finding the character's voice I'm looking for.

This is both good and bad. The bad is obvious. I've been laboring over the same story for a few weeks now with no real results to show. The good is I'm learning. I'm learning what can be done, I'm learning where I'm weak and I'm learning I don't know all I thought I knew.

That last one is especially important. I've been writing nonfiction for newspapers and blogs for the last 12 years. You'd think that would help me. It doesn't. I'm learning what I've read a million times over the years from writing books and author interviews: You learn to write fiction by writing fiction. That's it. You can study and that will help, you can pick apart other stories. But until you keep at the keyboard and create characters and have them interacting, you don't learn anything.

So I'm struggling. I haven't grown weary of the story. This is a good sign, I think. It means there's something to it, something I'm trying to reach. I have confidence in the rickety plot and ideas I'm working through. I just need to keep working.

I also need to focus. I write every day now. Now I need to spend more time each day. I waste much of my day and only spend about an hour on a day's writing. This is terrible. I get antsy. I'm working on getting control of this.

One day at a time, I'm working to become a better writer.

Technorati Tags: writing

Discovering Cordwainer Smith

Chris Roberson is having the profound joy of reading Cordwainer Smith for the first time as an adult. I only read Smith's stories about five years ago and it was truly a mind blowing experience. I read "Scanners Live in Vain" from the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume I and was amazed at how good this thing was. So I took a trip to the library and found The Rediscovery of Man, a complete collection of Smith's short stories.

Every science fiction reader should read this book. It's absolutely essential. Smith's stories speak to today, most of them holding up better than the more welll known golden age science fiction. His imagination knows no limits. And most, if not all, of these short stories are tied together in a history of the Instrumentality. Do yourself a favor and read these books. At least check out "Scanners Live in Vain," it is a classic story. (You can read a little bit about the story here.)

Here are some good links about Smith:

• Jeff Vandermeer's appreciation of Smith's work. Smith was a big influence on Veniss Underground.
• Wikipedia entry
• Cordwainer Smith checklist
• Walter Jon Williams also loves his books.
• Cordwainer Smith appreciation page

Andreas Katsulas, RIP

Andreas Katsulas has died. He was 59. Katsulas was best known (to me anyway) as G'Kar on Babylon 5. Katsulas and Peter Jurasik's Londo were the best reasons to watch that show. Sad to see him go, especially at such a young age.