Working 'round the Clock

I've been busily compacting several week's worth of writing and writer activities into the last five days in anticipation of suffering down time while the family comes up from Oklahoma. You see, if I worst case scenario the situation (I'm not going to accomplish any writing for the rest of the month because of preparations for the visit, the visit, school, and other obligations) then when I do actually manage to get some writing in, I will be greatly cheered. You know, whatever gets one through the day and all that.

I've been ignoring the novel for the last few days as I happily write away on a short story concept I've had percolating around in my head. Tentatively titled Stopping By the story breaks one of the rules I promised I would follow when I took up writing again: Thou Shalt Not Write A Time Travel Piece. Here I am, gleefully breaking my own rule, and enjoying it, by golly! The story isn't about time travel really; it's about the relationship of Todd and Melody. It's just that he exists in the here and now, and she exists in 1945 is all. A minor thing really.

Sent Over the Bridge and Callooh Callay out the door this week. Felt good to get them gone. careswen is poised to attack Into This Land with the Red Pen of Doom ™ soon, so I may yet reach my goal of five pieces in circulation by the end of summer. Then I have five more pieces lined up behind them.

The lovely careswen stopped at Half-Price Books in St. Louis Park and brought home the goodies. A nice book about financial planning, a cool gaming book that was good and cheap, and a couple of books for the writer person (Though be not fooled, careswen is an excellent writer in her own right).

Aliens and Alien Societies written by Stanley Schmidt and edited by Ben Bova is a basic writer's guide to creating plausible aliens. Now, I don't really write much true SF because frankly, hey, liberal arts major. I'm a Classics and Letters kind of guy. Hard sciences make my head hurt. I have enough of a basic understanding of the hard sciences to, A) not embarrass myself in public and, B) admire greatly anyone who does understand the hard sciences. But from a first skim through of this book it makes one wonder if one couldn't write a nice plausible SF story, despite of one's lack a solid background in the sciences. The book talks about so many things, in such detail, in such an easy to understand manner, that it makes me want to break another of my writing rules: Thou Shalt Not Even Think About Attempting To Write A Hard SF Piece.

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book derived from a workshop she runs. In the introduction, she says she put together the workshop because she had met so many otherwise talented storytellers who were terrified of things like semicolons. Now, I will be the first to admit that I can, at times, be more than a little grammatically challenged. I own all sorts of helpful books, such as Elements of Style, Chicago Style Manual, and the one that got me through my three semesters of college, The Little Brown Handbook, but I still find myself paying for all that nap time back in high school. I'm hoping the exercises in the Le Guin will help me correct that problem.

careswen is reading Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, which makes me want to re-read it (I re-read the Amber series once every three or so years), but I am still marching through White's The Once and Future King for the time being. So many books, so little time.

Speaking of time, back to work I go.

Peace and Hot Nookie
Michael

Working 'round the Clock

I've been busily compacting several week's worth of writing and writer activities into the last five days in anticipation of suffering down time while the family comes up from Oklahoma. You see, if I worst case scenario the situation (I'm not going to accomplish any writing for the rest of the month because of preparations for the visit, the visit, school, and other obligations) then when I do actually manage to get some writing in, I will be greatly cheered. You know, whatever gets one through the day and all that.

I've been ignoring the novel for the last few days as I happily write away on a short story concept I've had percolating around in my head. Tentatively titled Stopping By the story breaks one of the rules I promised I would follow when I took up writing again: Thou Shalt Not Write A Time Travel Piece. Here I am, gleefully breaking my own rule, and enjoying it, by golly! The story isn't about time travel really; it's about the relationship of Todd and Melody. It's just that he exists in the here and now, and she exists in 1945 is all. A minor thing really.

Sent Over the Bridge and Callooh Callay out the door this week. Felt good to get them gone. careswen is poised to attack Into This Land with the Red Pen of Doom ™ soon, so I may yet reach my goal of five pieces in circulation by the end of summer. Then I have five more pieces lined up behind them.

The lovely careswen stopped at Half-Price Books in St. Louis Park and brought home the goodies. A nice book about financial planning, a cool gaming book that was good and cheap, and a couple of books for the writer person (Though be not fooled, careswen is an excellent writer in her own right).

Aliens and Alien Societies written by Stanley Schmidt and edited by Ben Bova is a basic writer's guide to creating plausible aliens. Now, I don't really write much true SF because frankly, hey, liberal arts major. I'm a Classics and Letters kind of guy. Hard sciences make my head hurt. I have enough of a basic understanding of the hard sciences to, A) not embarrass myself in public and, B) admire greatly anyone who does understand the hard sciences. But from a first skim through of this book it makes one wonder if one couldn't write a nice plausible SF story, despite of one's lack a solid background in the sciences. The book talks about so many things, in such detail, in such an easy to understand manner, that it makes me want to break another of my writing rules: Thou Shalt Not Even Think About Attempting To Write A Hard SF Piece.

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book derived from a workshop she runs. In the introduction, she says she put together the workshop because she had met so many otherwise talented storytellers who were terrified of things like semicolons. Now, I will be the first to admit that I can, at times, be more than a little grammatically challenged. I own all sorts of helpful books, such as Elements of Style, Chicago Style Manual, and the one that got me through my three semesters of college, The Little Brown Handbook, but I still find myself paying for all that nap time back in high school. I'm hoping the exercises in the Le Guin will help me correct that problem.

careswen is reading Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, which makes me want to re-read it (I re-read the Amber series once every three or so years), but I am still marching through White's The Once and Future King for the time being. So many books, so little time.

Speaking of time, back to work I go.

Peace and Hot Nookie
Michael