The Journal of Michael Merriam

Line edits on Last Car to Annwn Station are finished and returned to Editor Melissa at Carina Press. It should be a couple of weeks before the CEM arrives. I have a week to finish that, then the manuscript will be complete and delivered. There will be a final proof galley, then at last a book. I can’t wait.

My reading at DreamHaven Books was a success. I started off reading too fast, but got my footing and by the time I read from Last Car to Annwn Station I had settled in. Everyone seemed to enjoy the reading, and several folks said they are looking forward to the novel coming out this summer. We had a great crowd, 41 people by our count.

Super Bowl party was fun, with about 20 people at my house, some of whom cared about the game, many of whom did not, and everyone having fun. There was lots a good food and great company.

Had a nice night out with some other local writer folks. Good conversation, goods people, and a smashing beer and scotch selection at The Muddy Pig in St. Paul.

Speaking of food, we have a new Japanese restaurant in Hopkins, Aji. There is nice review here: http://www.weeklynews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=8267&SectionID=49&SubSectionID=110&S=1

We went with some friends and found everything cooked to perfection and the sushi bar well presented, with a good selection of excellent and flavorful sushi.

We went to see Bill W. and Dr. Bob (http://www.illusiontheater.org/events/bill-w-dr-bob) at the Illusion Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. This show is well worth seeing, and the discussion after the show with the director and actors was great fun.

The MinnSpec meeting today was a presentation about giving presentations and being on panels. There was some really good stuff, though I feel like we focused a little too much on PowerPoint stuff. I know some people really dig the PowerPoint, but I don’t use it. There was also good discussion about what to do in difficult situations (a cellphone goes off, crying children, that one person in the audience who tries to hijack the panel, that one expert in the audience who asks you the one question you don’t know the answer to, that sort of thing). We talked about different things you can do the make your public speaking better, including joining Toastmaster and taking some basic acting and voice classes. Over all a very positive meeting, plus we figured out the topics for the next couple of meetings.

Getting gear up for Con of the North this weekend. I will be spending my birthday at the Con.

I sent in my panel picks for CONvergence. We shall see what happens.

Speaking of panels, I have my schedule for MarsCon:

Friday, March 4:
6:00-6:45 PM--Krushenko's/Concierge (Room 1332)
Fiction Reading: Michael Merriam

Saturday, March 5:
6:00-6:45 PM--Re(a)d Mars/Taylor (2nd Floor)
Panel: The Woods Are Lovely
How do we create modern fairytales and myths? How do we tap into the primal emotions of fairytales in a modern era?
Michael Merriam, mod.; PMF Johnson, Naomi Kritzer

Sunday, March 6:
11:00-11:45 AM--Re(a)d Mars
Panel: Ask a Writer
Always wanted to know how a novel is born? How does a writer structure their day? Is it all glittering parties and intelligent company? Come ask a panel of working writers anything!
Michael Merriam, mod.; Roy C. Booth, Catherine Lundoff, Anna Waltz

1:00-1:45 PM--Krushenko's
Panel: The Western as Fantasy
Myths about the Old West began before the West was old, making it one of the first shared worlds in American culture. We'll discuss the rise and fall of the Old West mythology, and how it has influenced and lent its energy to current genres including fantasy and science fiction.
David Christenson, mod.; Eric M. Heideman, Michael Merriam

2:00-2:45 PM--Krushenko's
Panel: Writing in a Series: Harmonies and Discords
Writers who have done multiple novels or stories about continuing characters and/or a linked world share their experiences, positive or negative, and their advice to aspiring series writers.
Michael Merriam, mod.; Lois McMaster Bujold, Naomi Kritzer

I’ve acquired shooting scripts from several televisions shows and one from a motion picture. I plan to read and study these, watch several episodes of Being Human, Eureka and Warehouse 13, and then create spec scripts. I am also outlining a feature movie script.

My counselor at State Services for the Blind has, in support of my quest for a part-time job, hooked me up with Lifetracks in St. Paul. My worker there has already sent out my resume to a potential employer that looks to be a good fit for me, except it might be too much travel by bus. Still, if they can find me a possible position before I’ve ever had a meeting with them, I’m impressed.

Tomorrow night I will cook Valentine dinner for my Bunnee. We stay in and avoid the crowds on Valentine's Day. There will be good food and small gifts.

Also, still sick. This is the start of week three. I suppose I should go see a doctor.

I've started picking my reading material for the Speculations Reading at DreamHaven Books on February 4th. I'll be reading something from The Horror at Cold Springs, Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep, and Last Car to Annwn Station. There will be baked good to eat, prizes to give away, and books for sale. With luck I will have some postcards to hand out.

Carina Press let me know that the developmental edits are about half-finished for Last Car to Annwn Station. The editor emailed me with a couple of questions about whether I meant to use remote or close third-person, since I have places where it switches, but is mostly close POV. We plan to make it close third-person.

Now I need to check the mail, give the cat some food, clean up after lunch, and then get back to working on the new short story. It is swirling around in my head, slowly coming together.

I've been awake since about 4:00 am, which for me isn't exactly unusual.

My plan is to do domestic stuff early, practice reading my material later this morning, have lunch out (I think I might walk down to the Depot Coffeehouse: it's rainy and dreary, my kind of weather), do a little writing, read my material again this afternoon, shower and all that good stuff, and then call out for Chinese food for dinner. Right now I am baking (it's what we midwesterners do when stressed). My master plan is to distract them with food. There will be brownies and lemon bars for the audience tonight.

I have taken allergy meds to avoid sniffles. I've taken aspirin so I don't have a heart attack and keel over. I considered taking a bottle of scotch, but figured that might be a bad idea.

One more time with the details:

What:Speculations Reading with Michael Merriam

When: Friday, October 24, 2008 6:30 PM

Where:
DreamHaven Books (New Location!)
2301 E 38th St
Minneapolis MN 55406
612-823-6161

I will have copies of Shimmers & Shadows for sale, and we will be giving away prizes, and there will be homemade baked goods for the audience.

As always, the group will convene after the reading at a local eatery for food and great conversation. Please note that DreamHaven Books is no longer located on Lake Street in the Uptown/LynLake area.

Unimpressed.

The weekend was packed with stuff.

Saturday was all about the gaming, with some writing and housework thrown in. The gaming session went well, I thought, though another character bit the dust, again through nothing I did as a GM, but instead caught in "Friendly Fire" during a particularly nasty battle. That's the second character causality, and we're just now getting to the hard stuff.

On the negative side, I broke a glass at the host's home, and kept walking into people, things, walls, and otherwise stumbling over stuff like some gigantic club-footed blind cow. I know the why of it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The Twin Cities Speculative Fiction Network meeting was good as well. We talked about world building, and as you might guess with a room of over a dozen Spec Fic writers, things got a little weird. I won't talk too much about what we came up with, because I think some members of the group might want to try writing stories in the world we created as a group. More power to them.

My main contribution was, I think, the Giant Space Kraken lurking hidden somewhere in the dark matter of space, coming out in answer to the prayers of the aquatic life on the planet we created and destroying the human spaceships in orbit. Because really, I think most spacefaring science fiction and space opera stories could be improved with a god-like Giant Space Kraken lurking in the dark matter, waiting to pounce on hapless and unsuspecting starships.

Next month we are hosting Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm looking forward to the Q&A.

Sunday night I helped careswen a little bit with her paper for class by going through her textbooks and flagging pages she might need for citations.

I wrote a little bit this weekend, mostly while waiting for buses, though if I am to be completely honest, I wrote a little during the TCSFWN meeting as well.

I talked to my mother, who is much improved from her surgery.

I'm not going to Wiscon this year, not because I didn't enjoy it last year (I did!) but for purely financial reasons. I've picked up 4th Street Fantasy Convention instead, which is local and promises to be filled with coolness.

I applied for a full-time position with a major shipping company, because the pay and benefits were simply too good to ignore. It is unlikely I will even make the cut for an interview, but I have to try. And yes, I realize that I had trouble writing when I was working part-time and given that, working full-time might well stop me cold as a writer, but the siren song of the pay and benefits could not be ignored.

I also applied for a couple of part-time positions, and started writing a short (200-250 word) article on spec for a local news and media outlet that is considering posting short pieces of local Twin City interest on their website.

I feel pensive, sad, and worn. I wonder if I am not the most terribly tedious correspondent in the entire blogosphere. I suspect that I might be whining at this point. I suspect I need a decent nights sleep.

Dark Water Blues


ETA:I bought a French Press. It makes little individual cups of coffee heaven!

...despite laundry and missing the bus both ways which forced me to walk to and from downtown Hopkins to run errands and taking out the trash and exercising and ordering groceries and paying bills and answering emails and cooking meals and Princess Puffy Tail (aka Reverend Selena) leaving a bloody gash on my hand and all the other myriad distractions of day-to-day life...

...I managed to write nearly 1000 words and sent out 3 submissions today.

Go me.

I've never seen a vacuum cleaner spew so much black smoke. It actually set off the fire alarm.

I sat at the kitchen table working on the laptop. My brain has started thinking in and about stories again, considering new pieces, looking at different angles for works in progress, considering characters and plots and theme and tone. It's a bit like having a beloved friend return from a long trip where they were incommunicado.

Except it's doing it at bed-time, which is a bit of a frustration.

Last night I pulled out the notebook and hand-wrote four pages of outline and notes for the ever expanding Fey and Mage story. But now I have an ending in sight, something I can write toward, though I've all ready moved away from the outline I wrote last night.

But I digress.

I sat at the kitchen table, typing out the outline I had written last night. I have the windows closed and the AC running, mostly because the sun is hitting the house and warming it a little too much for my taste. I can hear voices outside, but that's nothing new, I live in a townhome complex and we have a lot of children and teenagers. I ignore the voices outside and go on working.

Until I hear a high-pitched yell, a solid thump on the dining room window, and an elaborate string of curse words. Our dining room window, which is four feet off the floor, is also level with the ground outside. The cursing increases in volume, speed, and complexity. I decide to get up and investigate.

I open pull open the shades and find myself face to face (well, there's a glass window between us, but still) with a young woman, somewhere between sixteen and eighteen years old if I'm any judge. Pretty face, platinum shoulder length hair with about two inches of fuchsia at the ends. Nose piercing, multiple piecings in the ear I can see. She's holding her arm and letting fly the worst of the English language, in a manner that would make a sailor pale and back away.

I open the window as she notices me. For a moment we stare at each other, forty-two year old man and late-teenage alterna-girl.

"Are you going to be okay?" I ask.

"Um, yeah." She looks a bit embarrassed, but in true teenage spirit, she's going to game it out. She flashes me a smile full of perfect teeth before she turns and looks up the small mound that leads down to my window at another young woman. This one has short black hair, is dressed in muted earth tones and wearing heavy boots. "Someone was supposed to roll down the hill with me," Platinum and Fuchsia-haired alternative-grrl says, glaring at the black-haired young woman, who appears to be laughing quietly.

Note: There's a rather large hill/earthen berm that leads down to the south side of our townhome. Kids roll down it all the time in the spring and summer, and in winter small children slide down it on sleds. There is a large electrical box and about three feet of rock garden right outside my window.

Alterna-grrl has apparently rolled all the way into the rock garden. She holds up her arm so she can examine where she has scrapped it up.

"Fuck-shit goddamn!" She looks back at me and gives me a small smile. "Sorry."

I shrug and return the smile. "Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to make sure no one needed an ambulance or anything.

"I'm all right."

"Well, don't come crashing in through my window or anything, okay?"

"Yeah, hey, no problem."

"Good, 'cause I'd hate to have to explain to my wife why some strange woman is lying on our floor, bleeding all over the carpet."

She laughs aloud and stands, hitting her head on the overhang. More colorful language follows. I cringe in sympathy, having hit my head on it once myself. By now her black-haired friend had come down the berm to retrieve her.

"Maybe we should get that looked at," black-haired girl says, leading P&F grrl, who is now rubbing the top of her head, away.

Platinum and Fuchsia-hair alterna-grrl turns and looks at me. "Really, sorry."

"It's all good. Be careful," I say. I close the window as they move up the hill.

I settle down at the laptop and look up, watching them out the window for a few moments. They sit on top of the berm. Black-hair looks at Platinum and Fuchsia-hair's arm, finally kissing her injury. P&F Hair throws back her head and laughs before grabbing Black-hair by the collar of her shirt and yanking her over. They both roll down the hill toward my window, a tangle of limbs, laughing and shrieking. They stop well before the rock garden.

P&F grrl ends up on top the other young woman. They both laugh and then P&F leans down and places her lips on her friend's. The kiss is both gentle and fierce, and I realize that I'm intruding on something private. I reach over and, as they deepen the kiss, wish them well wherever fate may take them, close the window shade, and return to work.

To the outside world, I don't always "present" as blind. For instance, when I'm visiting the homes of my friends, I rarely use my cane to navigate, at least after the first couple of visits. Once I've spent some time at their homes, I usually have it memorized and can move about without too much difficulty. I just need to be alert for small moving objects such as children and pets as I walk slowly and carefully.

In public it is another matter. I need to be highly aware of my surroundings, keep my senses alert, and use the cane. Maintaining any semblance of independence depends on my using my training constantly. If I want any freedom in my life, at least when dealing with the outside world, I have to work at it.

Sometimes it's not enough.

Last week I was in the grocery store in downtown Hopkins. I kept veering off into things and one point there was a small collision with an end-cap that resulted in it tipping precariously. Fortunately, nothing was knocked over and nothing was broken. The end result was me standing there, frozen in place.

I could have asked for help. The store is required to provide me with assistance if I need it, but I hate asking. I admit that I'm one of those people who, if you found me at the bottom of a well, my arm caught in a bear-trap, sinking in quicksand, I'd tell you I'm fine. I hate asking for help.

Instead, the floor manager came over and asked if I needed any help. There was nothing for it: I did, and that was that. I ended up with a nice young lady--who turned out to be the manager's daughter--helping me find my groceries. She was good about it, friendly and funny, and helped me find everything I needed. She even helped me find a couple of things I wanted and didn't know they had, like hushpuppy mix.

On the one hand, it was nice to have the help, to have someone go around with me and find the items I needed and to, well, make sure I didn't wreck the store. There was, truthfully, a bit of relief involved.

On the other hand, it was another piece of lost independence. It was another thing I have to let go. It was another adjustment, one I'm not sure how I feel about.

In Peace,
Michael

Now that housework for today is finished (sort of, laundry is a never ending battle), the plan is to turn my attention back to writing, assuming I can continue to fend off the encroaching headache.

Novel revisions are on tap today, once I've made my novel_in_90 words for the day (we're going to talk about the whole novel_in_90 thing later this week). I've printed out the notes I made so I can scribble all over them. I've figured out approximately how I want to restructure the novel. I'm also a bit worried that the ending might not pay-off as well as it could, wild fight for survival in the basement not withstanding.

One thing I need to pay careful attention to is the aftermath for my characters. I've begun to think there is a reason most characters in Urban Fantasy seem to be people who live on or very near the fringe of things, with few of the normal ties-that-bind: it's easier to wrap up the aftermath. When your characters can go back to being a musician/artist/actor/street performer/starving poet after all the weirdness, it makes things simpler for the writer. There's less to explain, especially to your character's employers or government officials. The life they return to fits in (well, has a higher potential to fit in) with all the weirdness they've experienced.

Me, I have two characters who work for the county, one in child protective services, one in the law library, and another who's an ex-waitress now working as a flight attendant. Among the characters you'll find in the two novels I've written, there's a barista, a short-order cook, a staff writer for an outdoor magazine, a surveyor for the county, a receptionist, a couple of police officers, and other people with, you know, everyday jobs. Jobs they're going to have to go back to (or not) once all the mystical magical woo-hoo (that's a technical term) is over. Because you know, I think Jill's boss is going to want to know where she's been and why she's wearing an eyepatch all of a sudden.

Speaking of work, time to get back to it.