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Jun. 28th, 2009

more acceptances!

My essay "Dr. Giggles: Unsocialized Medicine" will appear in the book Butcher Knives and Body Counts.

My short story "Four a.m. at the Emerald City Windsor" is being held for final review for the "Shadows of the Emerald City" anthology.

Jun. 8th, 2009

An Acceptance

My prose poem "A Partial Failure of the Kurzweil Process" will appear in the Nov-Dec issue of Star*Line, a science fiction poetry magazine edited by Bruce Boston.

Posted at 08:04 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

May. 15th, 2009

Nonfic

Moving up the charts over at Amazon. As of yesterday I noticed I was ranked four spots higher as a reviewer than Newt Gingrich. (2,864 vs. 2,868). Of course, my accomplishment is diminished by the fact that Mr. Gingrich stopped writing reviews about a year ago. But I wouldn't want to mention that here.

I've received several emails and telephone calls about my recent story in the Colorado Lawyer magazine about G. I. Norman, an infamous con man who was recaptured after he stole a car from a Colorado Supreme Court justice and went on the lam for 23 years. One of the calls was a little creepy, from a guy who's afraid that Norman may still be alive even though his obituary was published in a Salt Lake City paper three years ago. Anything's possible, I guess.

A friend approached me about helping me with a history project he has been assigned by a publisher. There is money involved. Contacts are wonderful, aren't they?

Posted at 06:18 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

blue nightmare

My younger daughter just dyed her hair blue. Her bathroom looks like Norman Bates killed a Smurf in there.

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Apr. 2nd, 2009

evil knowledge

Saw a bumper sticker this morning:

"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil."

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Mar. 30th, 2009

Lee Battersby Wins 2008 Australian Shadows Award

Lee Battersby just won the 2008 Australian Shadows Award, the Australian equivalent of the Stoker Award. The best part is, his winning story, "The Claws of Native Ghosts," was contained in an anthology called "The Beast Within," put out by a small press venue, Graveside Tales. (Graveside published one of my stories in its first anthology, Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths.)

Let's hear it for Lee Battersby and Graveside Tales!! It's great to know people pay attention to what appears in the small press. You can read an excerpt from Lee's excellent story here.

"RuinsCon" in Seattle May 1-2

From Eric Reynolds' blog (I won't be able to attend these events, but I wish Eric and the Hadley Rille gang the best):

Ruins Terra author Lancer Kind has arranged book signing/reading events for the Hadley Rille Books Ruins anthologies in the Seattle area for May 1st and 2nd.

May 1st, 6:30PM, Ruins anthologies readings at Lake Forest Park's Third Place Books, http://www.thirdplacebooks.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

May 2nd, 12:00 PM (noon), Ruins anthologies readings at Redmond's Flying Saucer Pizza, http://flyingsaucerpizza.com/zgrid/proc/site/start.jsp

Participating authors listed below.

Any other Ruins authors who would like to participate, please let me know.

Lancer Kind will sign copies and read from Ruins Terra.

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camillealexa will sign copies and read from Ruins Extraterrestrial

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camillealexa will sign copies and read from Ruins Metropolis.
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saycestsay might be there as well.

Tags: hadley rille books

Posted at 08:31 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Mar. 28th, 2009

More Rejections

Two more short story rejections, each with personal comments. The comments were a bit odd in each case, showing that the editor wanted something from the story that it wasn't designed to deliver. But I know I can't ignore them. What I take away from them is that perhaps I've been too subtle or convoluted for what the market is looking for right now. I am going to try a more formulaic approach, bludgeon the reader a bit more with my narrative, and see how that works.

Mar. 18th, 2009

Internet Science Fiction Database

So, I recently found out that I am listed in the Internet Science Fiction Database. My listing is here. Three of my recent short stories are listed. It's a sort of wiki-style compilation and it is pretty comprehensive. You can search for people and I found friends Ahmed A. Khan, Joel A. Sutherland, and Michael Stone rather quickly. I hope I can get some more pub credits soon to expand my listing!

Mar. 7th, 2009

Kubrick: The Shining

In his book Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze, Thomas Allen Nelson says this about Jack Torrance, the villain of "The Shining," played by Jack Nicholson: "In part one, even though Wendy and Jack appear to be a 'normal' heterosexual couple . . . the film visually develops several juxtapositions that objectify latent disorders at work both in their marriage and in the family." I wonder if we can go a step further. Is Jack Torrance secretly gay? Could that be part of his problem?

Here's my evidence from the film. First, after he and the family arrive at the Overlook, Jack is shown reading a "Playgirl" magazine. That is hardly the usual reading material of a solidly heterosexual male. Second, there is the disquieting scene in the bathroom of the Gold Room, between Jack and Delbert Grady. The two men swap fluids (Delbert dumps some avocat liquor on Jack, and Jack slaps Delbert on the back, leaving a whitish stain.) Then, they have their disturbing conversation in the men's room, in which women are denigrated in favor of male solidarity. Delbert, with his phallic-looking bald head, at first appears to defer to Jack, then ends up dominating him. After the bathroom scene, the next time Wendy sees Jack, he behaves in a very strange fashion, mincing around and swishing at her, talking in falsetto. Part of this is his attempt to frighten Wendy by making fun of her. But overall in this part of the film, he behaves in the sort of campy, pseudo-gay style people in my generation associate with, say, Paul Lynde.

(Jack's strange behavior starts at about 3:09 on this clip, and continues to 5:46, when he becomes more overtly menacing.) Later on in the film, near the end, Wendy develops the ability to "shine" under extreme stress, and sees a man dressed in an animal suit performing a sexual act on another man, dressed in formal attire. Around this time, Jack is down in the hedge maze, bellowing like an animal. Delbert Grady was dressed in formal attire. Coincidence? Maybe. All of the ghosts that Jack sees are male, except for one: the woman in Room 236. She has a strangely masculine face and when he embraces her, she turns into a rotten old hag. Again, not the strongest endorsement of Jack's heterosexuality.

Kubrick liked to cast doubt on his male leads' sexuality, as in "Eyes Wide Shut" where Tom Cruise is hectored on the street by bullies who accuse him of being gay. I wonder if there could be something like that going on here.

Posted at 02:28 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Kubrick: Full Metal Jacket

I've been re-watching some of my favorite Stanley Kubrick films lately. "Full Metal Jacket" is awesome. When I first saw it, 20 years ago or so, I thought Sergeant Hartman was a scary dude. Now I think he's kind of funny, a sort of bantam rooster, strutting around, spitting out profanity and vulgarity, easily offended and emotionally volitile. I'm glad I didn't end up in the Marines with a drill instructor like Sergeant Hartman. I probably would have laughed and got in trouble, like Joker or Private Pyle.

Posted at 01:48 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Mar. 4th, 2009

Colorado Lawyer article

Had my most recent history piece published in the March issue ofThe Colorado Lawyer. It's titled "Corpus Delicti: Three Unusual Colorado Cases." I analyze three cases, from the 1890s, the 1940s and the 1950s, in which the Colorado courts reversed murder convictions because there was insufficient proof that the death resulted from a homicide (as opposed to a suicide or natural causes). One of the cases is so bizarre that the facts read like something out of Stephen King. There are a lot of old cases out there with very peculiar facts if you take the time to look for them.

Mar. 1st, 2009

"Psycho" parody

A few years ago I posted my first and only fan fiction piece at fanfiction.net. It was a fractured retelling of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." In my version, Norman Bates was entirely innocent and Sam, Lila, and Marion were crooks who teamed up to cheat him out of his motel by scaring him out of his wits. The story is told from Sam's point of view.

There was no subcategory for the film "Psycho," and I couldn't get them to create one, so my piece was buried deep in the "Misc. Movies" category. But every once in a while, someone still discovers it and I get an email about how much they enjoyed it.

In case anyone is interested, here is the link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2706906/1/

Posted at 12:46 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Feb. 21st, 2009

Another Rejection (sigh)

Another rejection notice today. This one was personal rather than a form rejection, at least. The editor let me know my story made it into the final batch for consideration, but not into the anthology.

It has been over a year now since I've had a story accepted. (I did get one tentatively accepted, subject to a line edit, last May. That line edit has still not taken place yet.) My writing "career" is very odd, I think; the better my stories get, the more rejections I seem to gather. My first sale ever back in 2003 was at a professional rate, and I haven't sold another at that rate since.

All I can do is keep writing, I guess, and hope things turn around for me eventually.

Feb. 6th, 2009

Tales of Biblical Terror; novel-in-progress

The editor of the "Tales of Biblical Terror" antho got back to me and told me my story's in the "maybe" pile. He promised a final response by March. I have three other stories pending out there in the ether--it's all about quality, quality not quantity, I keep telling myself.

I did my taxes recently. Good news: I grossed nearly $2,000 from freelance writing in 2008. Bad news: (1) Only $35 of that came from writing fiction -- though I would have made more if one of my publishers hadn't gone out of business and failed to pay; and (2) I spent more than the two grand renting the office space where I've been working on my novel, plus the cost of my HWA membership. So, writing was a net loss for me in 2008, as it was in 2007. Good thing I've got a day job.

Over 25,000 words on my novel, and another 5,000 maybe sitting in the "scrap" file that may get re-integrated as I continue the work. I need four more hours per day to work on it...if I could only have four more hours each day...

Jan. 16th, 2009

Tales of Biblical Terror; Scary religious music

So, I submitted a story for the Dybbuk press anthology "She Pounded a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror." The idea was to take a Bible story and build a horror tale on it. The editor of that particular anthology has some very specific ideas of what he wants, so I have no idea whether my slant on the tale of the Gadarene Demoniac will make the cut or not.

This whole thing got me reflecting on how many chilling musical compositions are based on Biblical themes. Some that stand out for me are:

(1) "The Dream of Jacob" by Krzysztof Penderecki -- probably one of the creepiest pieces of modern classical music regularly heard by the public, used in the horror film "The Shining" and the David Lynch film "Inland Empire" and mimicked in the remake of "the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." This piece is always used in films to show psychological deterioration or a world gone very, very wrong, If I were making a Hallowe'en CD I would definitely include it on there.

(2) "Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum" by Catholic composer Olivier Messaien, which I think would make an excellent soundtrack for a zombie film.

(3) "Requiem" by Gyorgy Ligeti. Part of this one made it into another Stanley Kubrick film, "2001," but the part he didn't use is the really creepy part.

Jan. 11th, 2009

Some excellent Vine fiction

As part of my work for the Vine program at Amazon.com, they send me upcoming fiction releases to review. I am reading two extraordinary books right now. The first is Daniyal Mueenuddin's "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders," a series of realist short stories about life in Pakistan. This book is excellent, as intriguing a study of daily life in a corrupt and stratified society as anything I've read by Dickens, Balzac or Zola.

The other book is Jonathan Raab's "Shadow and Light," a noirish murder mystery set in 1927 Berlin. Raab is a master of plot and mood and I have enjoyed his book immensely so far. Reading authors who write this well can be kind of intimidating; it certainly lends some humility to my own writing efforts.

Tags: amazon vine

losing some weight

Somehow I managed to gain ten pounds in a relatively short period of time. Usually I would not have worried too much about this, but I began to experience some negative effects on my health. I am not obese, just a bit overweight, but these problems distressed me. So I decided to lose some weight.

I picked a no-nonsense approach. I would allow myself a baseline of 1500 calories per day. No futzing around with carbs or fats or any of that falderol, though I did make sure to eat a healthy quantity of fruits, vegetables and whole grains as part of the 1500. In addition to my 1500 calories, I would allow myself to comsume enough calories to compensate for my workouts at the gym. So, if I burned 350 calories on the treadmill, I could eat 1850 calories that day. A good incentive to exercise!

I have been at this for about a week, and have lost 3 pounds so far. I am hungry as hell some of the time, but OTOH my physical symptoms are much better. Also I have become very conscious of what I am eating and just how many calories are actually in various forms of food. I would estimate that without even realizing it, I was probably eating twice the number of calories I am consuming right now...3000 calories a day. So it's no wonder I put on a few pounds!

Jan. 10th, 2009

Evo Psych -- RIP?

From the current issue of Newsweek: "[Evolutionary psychology] holds that we all carry genes that led to reproductive success in the Stone Age, and that as a result . . . every human behavior is 'adaptive'--that is, helpful to reproduction. But as Harvard biologist Marc Hauser now concedes, evidence is 'sorely missing' that language, morals and many other human behaviors exist because they help us mate and reproduce."

Thank God for common sense and empirical observation! Maybe "Mr. Simply-Survive-and-Reproduce" can now join the Purely Rational Man of traditional economics, the Stimulus-Response Zombie of behavioral psychology, the Penis-Envying Woman of Freudian thought, and the Class-Conscious Robot of Marxism in the trashcan of history. What is it that makes otherwise intelligent people fall for such simplistic accounts of human behavior? We are immensely complex creatures, people! The only remotely successful reductions of human behavior to a single principle have been those that are so broadly-conceived that they can stand for just about anything (e.g., Spinoza's conatus, or Nietzsche's "Will to Power"). And I would argue that even those fail to account for the full range of human aesthetics, spirituality, and sense of awe faced with the infinite (though Spinoza tried to account for this in the fifth section of his Ethics, the part least satisfying to commentators today). Let's just admit that there is a great deal that is mysterious and unpredictable about us, and that the writers, poets, and psychologists of the world are not out of a job yet.

Posted at 07:50 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jan. 1st, 2009

Surreal Botany trailer

There is now a very classy trailer for the Field Guide to Surreal Botany available on Youtube. It can be found here.

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