New Look

Is this easier on the eyes than the last design? I'll never be a pro at webdesign, but I'm trying to make this blog look at least somewhat decent. I like this new format, but we'll see how it ages. I was really starting to hate the last design there at the end. I'm a fan of the color green, but I may have gone a bit overboard...

My goal is to one day make this blog look like a newspaper. You know, those flimsy, cream-colored things your mother used to buy out of a box in front of a grocery store? I know there aren't many around these days and those that are tend to be used to line the puppy's crate. I've always liked the clean lines and straight-forward, in-your-face professionalism the best newspapers had. A box for everything and everything in its box, knowhatah meen?

I just checked my stats for the first time ever, and I want to share my amazement that there actually seems to be a few people wandering on to this blog every once in a great while. Hello, strangers! Drop a comment somewhere and keep a lonely geek and writer company for a little while! I'm going to make more of an effort to keep this blog updated and interesting, and I'd love feedback as to whether I'm going a good job or not.

Also, maybe I should go back and edit some of the more retarded things I've said on here... there are plenty to chose from.

I have to blame Jeff Vandermeer for this decision (gawd, his blog is always full of the weirdest, most delightful shit), so if you need to blame someone for my continuing desire to post my blatherings on the interwebs take it to him. I've been sampling his book on living as a professional writer and he's lit a fire under my ass.

Booklife has given me a few ideas of what I can do to get my writing life together, starting with actually making room for myself to write. After all, that is numero uno in how one becomes a writer, yes? I'm starting with a few simple goals to motivate myself.

• First, I will write one short story every month.
  
• My goal is to reach between 750 and 1000 words per sitting, and this number will go up as I gain speed and endurance. I'm already pushing the upper limit of this goal most times I sit down to write, and twice last week I stayed strong through over 1500 words in a sitting. I'm going to try for another mega-session tonight.
  
• I will write at least three times a week, possibly more once I get a better grasp on what my schedule will need to become for me to meet my goals.
• Any and all editing will not be considered as a writing session. Maybe later, when I'm more comfortable with my level of productivity, but at this initial stage I'm worried that I'll use "oh, but I did some editing" as an excuse not to sit down and write. I'm old enough to know the way my brain works.
• I'll work on something Fairway related at least once a week. I'm more concerned at this point with writing short stories, but I'm not going to let this novel sit on the back burner forever. I want to go somewhere with these characters, even if I'm not entirely sure where.
  

Fairway is still so much a work-in-progress that I'm sort of embarrassed to bring it up, but I haven't given up on it completely, oh no. I've been indulging in my bad habit of deleting things after I write them because they don't make me happy. Starting today I will not continue this habit, and may I do penance for a thousand years if I ever hit "delete" again. No more deletion, only revision. This I swear.

I'm almost finished with a horror story that I started fiddling with at the end of last month. I think with one more significant push I can end the story and get on with revising a few things I can already see have gone wrong. This is the first real effort I've put into fiction writing in some time, and I'm so excited and relieved that I'm relearning how to tap into this energy. I'm already looking forward to putting together the pieces for next month's story.

Between Vandermeer's guidance and Damon Knight's advice, I just might find my motivation to do what I've been talking about doing for years.

I'm Still Alive!

My apologies for disappearing for so long. Class and work have been keeping me occupied from dawn til far past dusk, and I haven't had time to wash dishes, much less blog. In fact, I'm only on here because I'm taking a break from writing my latest paper. I have a few announcements to make, just to catch up with myself-

Miyavi will be performing in Dallas on my 21st birthday (in less than one week). I'm not going. I don't want to discuss it.

Last Drink Bird Head is on its way to my doorstep! It's the latest anthology from Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, and I'm terribly excited about it! It's a limited edition, 160 page collection of flash fiction from 80 writers (if my counting can be trusted) including Hal Duncan, Felix Gilman, Jon Courtney Grimwood, Jeffery Ford, K.J. Bishop, Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, Ekaterina Sedia, and Jeffrey Thomas. I'm so excited about this book that I sacrificed Miyavi's concert for it. Even better, all proceeds from the sale of this book go to ProLiteracy.Org, which is just as totally awesome as the book itself. Anyone who hasn't bought a copy yet should order one- it's a guaranteed keeper and it benefits a great cause. Now I just have to order Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife...after another paycheck or two.

Halloween is this weekend! I have to work on Saturday, sadly, but I'll be working in my costume. Beware the zombie elf behind the counter at the bookstore!

World Fantasy is also this weekend. Again, I won't be there, but this year's lineup for the World Fantasy Awards is, naturally, pretty freaking badass. I may have to stream the ceremony at work, because (except for every category Gaiman is in) there is some seriously stiff competition. I'm not even sure who I want to win in some cases...

In fact, Ekaterina Sedia's The Rhetorics of Fantasy , which I've already posted about here, is up for an award, and I just found out that she's written another book on the genre with Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy. Jeez, I'm going to need another shelf by the end of the week. That, and another job.

New Anthology (And Awards)

The Vandermeers have done it again. Once again, they've got an AWESOME anthology with a totally bad-ass lineup on the way- Last Drink Bird Head, due out in October/November. (Basically on my 21st birthday. I may need to buy myself a present.) It's a limited print, and the release party will be held at the World Fantasy Award ceremony (where the Vandermeers will be holding their own award ceremony for the newly inaugurated Last Drink Bird Head award.) Yes, it's a strange name. Yes, it's probably a very strange anthology. And yes, I want the damn thing so bad I can taste it. Hey, it's only $30...plus shipping...maybe I can sell my TV. You only turn 21 once, right? I deserve it.

And damn Vandermeer for also releasing Booklife in the month I am the most broke. (I think it's coming out this month, at least. Maybe not!) And I missed the very short print life of Steve Berman's latest book, Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader. Damn, damn, double damn. It was released in August and it's already out of print and unavailable. I knew I should have pre-ordered the damn thing. I wonder if he'll be putting out another Wilde Stories anthology this year?

New Arrivals

Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi

Eidolon by Jonathan Strahan

Three Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernada Alba by Fredrico Garcia Lorca

The New Weird edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer

Upcoming Releases- 2009

So instead of reading or writing or really doing anything remotely productive, I spent the evening browsing Amazon and checking out upcoming releases by my favorite writers. I already have Anne Bishop's new book The Shadow Queen (which I'm not as pleased with as I had hoped, unfortunately) which snuck under my radar until I stumbled across a copy at Barnes & Noble. To keep this from happening again, I decided to compile a list here for books I'm gonna have to order A.S.A.P!

First off is Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer. Though I normally avoid books on writing like the plague on society they are, I think I'll have to break my own rules and check this one out. Vandermeer's non-fiction is, strangely enough, the reason I started reading him in the first place, and this book looks like it's going to deal with issues that actually are important for modern day writers including, as Amazon.com claims, "personal space versus public space, deadlines, and networking, [and] the benefits of interacting with readers through new technologies". This one is due out in October, so I've got a while to wait before I can get my hands on a copy.

China Mieville's new novel, The City & The City, is coming out this May. I'm fighting the urge to pre-order it...at least until it gets a little closer to the release date and my willpower breaks. I'm a little behind on my Mieville books, but this one looks pretty intriguing and I just might have to bump a few things down on my reading list to make room for it.

I was hoping to get a copy of Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest at one of my local bookstores, but once again I forgot how weak the fantasy sections in my Hastings and Barnes & Noble are. I'll be buying this one off of Amazon before long, I fear.

Neil Gaiman has another children's book (Crazy Hair) due out at the end of May. I already have a copy of his other new children's book, The Blueberry Girl, and I love it. Charles Vess' artwork is unbelievably beautiful in The Blueberry Girl, and I'm sure Dave McKean's illustrations in Crazy Hair will be as odd and wonderful as they always are.

Oddly enough (for me), I'm greatly tempted to read Drood by Dan Simmons. Like books on writing, I tend to avoid fiction about writers, but I think Simmons may be on to something with his novel about Charles Dickens and his last, unfinished manuscript, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Besides, this is one giant sucker of a freaking novel, which hopefully translates into plenty of reading entertainment for me!

I'm also looking out for a copy of Steve Berman's Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader, which doesn't have a release date yet, sadly. Like Valente, I'll probably have to order this one off Amazon, since my local bookstores don't know who he is, either (ugh! I need to have a chat with the people who pick stock. Whoever these Robert Jordan and R.A. Salvatore guys are, they need to quit taking up so much room on the store fantasy shelves!).