The Journal of Michael Merriam

I'm holed up on the third floor of Coffman Union on the U of M campus. This is my last full day of classes, and then I just have to drop off my final portfolio project and my last major paper next Friday and take an exit survey. It feels weird knowing that I'm not coming back next semester, but I know it is the right choice. I don't even have to come back to campus to take the final for my Independent Distance Learning Class, because the final is open book and non-proctored.

The third floor, which is usually quiet, is currently overrun with small blonde female clones all wearing the same white cotton blouses and khaki Capri pants. They are chattering excitedly and dashing in and out of the Mississippi Lounge Annex. I would investigate, except they are actually starting to frighten me with their creepy cloned likeness. Same clothes, same hair style, all of them small, blonde, and over-tanned. *shudder*

Generic nolove from Fantasy Magazine. It has been awhile since I received a generic rejection (except from magazines that freely admit sending nothing but generic rejections). I suppose I should take a closer look at the story involved.

I finished Carrie Vaughn's Kitty and the Midnight Hour. I thought it was good for what it was, and it did what it was supposed to do within the confines of what it was, and did it well. I was entertained, and the book pokes some gentle fun at some of the more well-worn tropes of dark fantasy, all the while using them, without being smarmy or wry about it.

I've started reading Tim Pratt's The Strange Adventures of Ranger Girl, which is a different beast entirely. Yes, indeed it is.

I just saw a tall redhead vanish into the roomful of blonde clones. There was a series of sudden shrieks. I think they sacrificed her, but I'm not sure. I should probably leave before they summon some kind of brain-eating demon by accident and it goes on a rampage.

One final day of classes to finish.

In Peace
Michael

During spring break I managed to spend most of my time-off working on ficion. Now that classes are in session again, I find myself having a hard time getting back into the flow of doing course work instead of making more short stories or starting the next novel.

Luckily, it seems that I've hit another moment of being between projects. "Equation" has been cut down to 7600 words and is now in that stage where it needs to sit for a week or two. The Lighthouse and Sea-Ghoul story is up on the shop. I poked at various other pieces, but none of them showed any signs of life past a twitch or two.

I did wake up this morning with the lines "Somewhere in the world at any given moment, Roy Orbison is singing. It's very important that you remember this." We will see if it goes anywhere.

Since I've hit a stopping point, I figure now would be a good time to knuckle down on course work, especially my Short Story Class, which is self-directed and paced.

Yup.

Yesterday, I discovered that Neko Case has a new CD out. Glee!

In Peace
Michael

Today I must rewrite an essay for Comp II. I expect this to take about two hours of my day. After that I need to read four short stories for my Short Story class. Then a few business calls and, in-between all that, housework.

I usually don't do fiction writing on Monday, but I really want to make time today. I woke up this morning with a nebulous idea for a story in my head and it has been firming up all morning, pestering me, wanting me to write it.

But before I do, I need to spend some time studying the theory of space travel across vast distances. More importantly, I need a basic understanding of weight and thrust and speed and fuel and how they all interact on a voyage in space.

This writing thing is hard.

You know, when I started writing seriously I thought I would be writing high fantasy sword and sorcery tales. What I ended up writing was urban fantasy and magical realism. Well, okay, the Rija stories are high fantasy, I will give you that. But lately I've been writing something different, something I never thought I would write.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to commit science fiction.

Again.

Twice in one year.

Watch out Analog and Asimov's, I'm going to be flinging stories your way very soon!

In Peace
Michael

My first on-campus class went fine, though two and a half hours in one class is a bit much. There will be a lot of papers to write (three major papers and about 8 minor one) for this class, on top of the ten medium sized papers for my Short Story class, but hey, am I a writer or what? We had a change of Prof, which was a little weird, but he seems like a nice enough guy.

After I finished class I needed to run errands in the city, so off I went. There were some interesting moments.

I went to the Fine Line Music Café to pick up tickets for Gaelic Storm. The ticket office is in the basement of the building, nestled among the narrow hallways and many turns. Found it. Bought tickets.

As I'm walking down 4th street heading for the bus stop on Hennepin Avenue, a too thin woman in a too small skirt and leopard print coat walks up to me and says, "Hey baby, need a date?"

Right in front of the police station.

"No. No thank you," says I, moving along.

Right in front of the downtown Minneapolis Police Station.

At two in the afternoon.

I rode the number 4 bus to Lyndale and Lake, and as I step off the bus, barely clearing the tangle of free newspaper boxes, trash cans, sign polls and other obstacles, a voice says directly to me, "Hey, can you spare some change."

So I turn toward the voice, white cane, Ray Charles glass and all. "Dude, do I look like someone with spare change?"

"Oh, sorry man, I didn't know. God bless you." And off he goes, soliciting from the next person.

So I'm walking down Lake Street toward Dreamhaven Books, and I can hear someone on a bull horn, pitching Liberty Tax services. As I close in on the street corner, I encounter this six foot five, three hundred or so pound man, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, shouting at passing motorist about Liberty Tax Service.

God, I love this town.

I wrapped up my Dragonlance Mini-campaign last night. We ran late. Really late. There was an epic battle, mass chaos, betrayal of the party by another character at a critical moment, a couple of character deaths, the complete destruction of a small mountain, and the saving of the day with time running out and no easy answers left.

It was good. Now I need to not run a game for a few months.

Tonight I have birthday party fun with some friends and tomorrow is Twin Cities Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup. I will be doing a short reading at the meeting.

In Peace
Michael

Technically I do not have a class until Friday, but the semester actually starts tomorrow, and I have an Individual Distance Learning class, so today is the end of winter break for me. Tomorrow I will start working on my IDL class (Reading and Analyzing the Short Story).

I made three new icons for myself today, finally bringing myself to the full six I can have with my free Live Journal account. We will see if I ever use them.

I completed a short story today, despite the roar of the new video game system the children next door apparently got for Christmas. There is a constant deep drone coming through the wall of the children's room into my office. I know their classes start tomorrow also. We shall see what happens.

The story is up on OWW. It has the same title as a story I had up last month. That story went into the trunk. This new story in no way bears any resemblance to the old one.

If you're curious.

In Peace
Michael

I should be working on my Perspectives in Multicultural Relationships paper, which is due on Wednesday, but I really need to do some writing of my own today, for my own sanity, such as it is. I have the rest of the weekend to worry about the paper for class.

I usually do not write two short pieces at the same time. I'm okay doing a first draft on one piece while cleaning up a second, but I never work on multiple first drafts of short fiction simultaneously. Until now, anyway.

It's good, though. The Ghost Dog story is heavy, tough writing, while the Hag story is much more light-hearted in nature. It's nice to be able to switch back and forth between them.

Back to work.

In Peace
Michael

I've done nothing all day except work on my two papers for class. I'm just about ready to go barmy, and I've got miles to go. The only reason I'm not running around the neighborhood naked, swinging a sword, and screaming "I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!" at the top of my lungs is (besides modesty and good-sense) the fact that my hard copy of Gryphonwood showed up in the mail box today.

I opened the mailer and pulled out the magazine. There was my name. Yup, that's my name, right on the cover.

Weird.

Just...

Weird.

My brain refuses to reconcile the fact that the name on the cover and the person it resides in are one and the same.

I have become invisible.

You wouldn't think I would be invisible. You would think, as large as I am, wearing this red and white shirt, and carrying a white cane, I'd be easy to spot.

Apparently not.

Since I've started taking classes at the University this semester, I've noticed this strange phenomenon of the disappearing Michael.

It all has to do with flyers. If you've ever attended college, you know what I'm talking about. All over campus you can find students from various organizations handing out flyers, leaflets, coupons, even tickets to some event. All kinds of interesting stuff.

As people walk by, they offer the leaflets, flyers, or information, typically giving a one or two sentence spiel. Usually the object of their attention simply walks on past, but sometimes they take the offered information.

But whenever my course intersects theirs, they grow strangely silent, their eyes sliding past me to the next person. This morning four students from some evangelical group all turned away as I approached the high traffic area where they were pressing their information on passing students.

The don't know I can see their reactions. They don't know I can see them turn their backs, that I can see them look at me and make their decision to not engage. They don't know that I can see the aversion in their eyes. They don't seem to get that, if they speak to the person before me and behind me, I can hear them not speaking to me.

Apparently a blind person has no interest in their Jesus, or in freeing the Palestinians from oppression, or tickets to an event on campus. No, no interest at all.

I know I could simply say something. I could call them out on their behavior, and I probably should. But it gets tiring being a walking Public Service Announcement. I shouldn't have to.

I admit to being a bit baffled by their behavior. Surely they realize what they are doing? Surely their aversion to someone who is damaged goods cannot be so strong that they actually ignore that person. Surely they haven't stopped seeing me as a human being, with feelings and emotions, just like they are?

No, surely not.

So I must be invisible.

In Deep Peace
Michael

I start classes at the University of Minnesota today. I decided to drop my one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for simple logistical reason, like the fact that I am going to spend three and half to fours hours everyday just on the bus getting to and from class. It did not make sense to spend all that time on the bus for one class. I have classes all day on Monday and Wednesday.

Nolove from Deep Magic. The editors liked the story and the writing, but felt it was a shade too dark for their 'zine. They seem open to seeing something else from me, and I have just the place to send the story they passed on. It's all good.

Well, I have to go be a forty-year-old blind student for the day, see everyone tomorrow.

In Peace,
Michael

I have not written any new fiction since finishing the novel. I'm starting to feel twitchy. I think tomorrow and Friday I will ignore the entire world while careswen is at work and find something to work on. I have five short stories in various stages of disarray, so I might well pick one of them up and run with.

I might go ahead and start the next novel. I had not planned to start writing on it until Old Blood's Fate was past it's final rewrite and ready to start collecting rejections, but...

I failed to pass a CLEP test yesterday, despite my score being considerably above what is required by most Universities. The U of M has extremely high standards. I initially thought I would be, well, bummed about it, but actually I'm just kind of, "meh," about the whole thing.

After studying how the buses run, I have come to the conclusion that I will need to engage in some creative time management if I'm ever going to get any writing done. I'm going to end up spending anywhere from two to three and half hours on the bus getting to and from the U, Monday through Thursday. I may be forced to try writing on the bus by talking into my micro-cassette recorder, or some other type of silliness. Writing in the evenings does not work for me for a variety of reasons, and I rarely write on the weekends because that is when we are social, and even Caveman Ook needs human contact from time to time. And I know when I'm home on Friday, I will be too tempted to do all the housework that needs attention. Somewhere in there I have to wedge in assignments from class. Yeah. I'll figure something out.

To make my schedule tighter, I'm seriously considering going back to work, at least part-time. I've given it two years for the writing to try and make up the (not terribly large) difference between my disability benefit and what I made working. I'm not even close. And we really want to buy a house.

One thing that will help me is my new sleep schedule. I discovered that the reason I was having trouble sleeping was that I was trying to make myself sleep too much. Eight hours is more than I need. For the last two weeks I've been getting up at six in the morning and going to bed at midnight. I feel great. I may see if I can creep it up another half-hour and get up at five thirty. If I can learn to use that time in the morning to write, that would rock. I also expect that I may be forced to cut back non-writing related online time. Unfortunately, that will probably include Live Journal, though maybe not, as I get a lot of contact with other writers, as well as bits and pieces of market/industry news, from LJ.

We will see how it all plays out.

In Peace
Michael