Author Archives: ogresan

Unknown's avatar

About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

Monday. Just…Monday.

Posted on by

th_02e3658482b7a537b889b02165923b2f_cover86

I spent Sunday installing cat doors so the boys could go out and play on the hillside. They choose not to, since it’s cold and windy out but inside they can lie in a warm sunbeam as Bast intended. Still, it’s good to have the option, and I’m sure they’ll use it. Probably in the spring. For the nonce, however, the squirrels are safe.

Something that almost came up before, so I thought I’d mention it and get it out of the way: I stopped doing formal reviews years ago and these days I don’t review that much, and when I do, I don’t review books by people I know personally. That is, friends. The reason is simple: I value the friendship more than the urge to voice an opinion. I make an exception for Parke Godwin mostly because 1) there was little chance of my NOT liking something he’d written. He was and remains one of my favorites and 2) Despite his better than decent career, I still consider him underrated, and anything that gets the word out is a good thing. In contrast to another book I’m reading. By a friend, and a very good writer, but this is early work and while not bad, should have been cut by at least a quarter. Very wordy, and believe me, I know wordy, being guilty of it myself on occasion. (Pause now for the Muse to stop laughing).

Anyway, I won’t review it because there’s little point in criticizing someone for something they used to do. And I value the friendship more than etc. Just so you know.

I was shocked to hear of David Bowie’s passing. He wasn’t that old and I had no idea he was ill. It’s impossible to overemphasize the influence the man had and continued to have on popular music since I was aware of music as a separate thing. “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” was the soundtrack of my college years, and it feels like the passing of an era.

There and Back Again

Posted on by

IMG_0402

Starting to get a little better understanding of the “village vibe” we got when we moved here. We’d met exactly one of our neighbors at the time. In a day or two another neighbor came to talk to me for a bit. He already knew where we were from and that I was a published author. I have a strong feeling that the entire blocks knows. It reminds me of growing up in a small southern town where everyone knew everyone and if anything at all happened, in short order everyone else knew about it. There are good and bad sides to this. On the one hand, everyone’s all in your business. On the other, well, I remember as a kid my friends and I were free to go anywhere we wanted in town or around it, do anything we wanted, with the understanding that, if what we did was something stupid or dangerous (or both), we’d likely either be stopped or, if possible, saved from the worst consequences of said stupidity. Our lack of supervision was strictly an illusion, because everyone in town, directly or indirectly, was on the job.

I’m not completely sure that I’ve missed that. But I do recognize both the value and drawbacks in it.

After picking up Carol at the Albany airport, we got home around 2AM. Now it’s 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I don’t think I want to go outside, but there are things to do, unfortunately, that don’t involve sitting behind a computer. Some days, I wish there weren’t.

Flying South

Posted on by

IMG_0377Up at 4AM to take Carol to the airport for an early flight. She’s attending a workshop down in Florida, so I’m on my own—save for Da Boyz—for the next few days. On the way back I could see several large V-formations of Canada Geese heading south as well. I won’t be. The first real snow of the season is on its way tonight. I have my studded snow tires, my snow shovels, my salt. I’m as ready, I guess, as I’m going to be.

I’m still astonished at the number of crows that call the Mohawk Valley home. On the return drive I passed a flock that I swear stretched out at least half a mile. I’ve never seen so many crows in one place before in my life.

One casualty of the dead hard drive and missing backup is that the completed manuscript for Power’s Shadow is gone. Poof. Fortunately I do have the ebook edition, but this will delay the print book for quite a while. I’m behind on The Emperor in Shadow for obvious reasons, so it has to take priority for the next few months. I still hope to see a print edition of PS, but don’t ask me when because I have no earthly idea.

On the plus side, I’ve shifted enough boxes to reach the other wall of my new office, so that’s something like progress. I have plans for wall to wall bookshelves. A man can dream.

 

Questions

Posted on by

IMG_0393

Taking a break from painting, but can’t afford to be away from it for too long. One thing I’ve discovered about living in a valley in a more northerly latitude during wintertime is that daylight is a fleeting commodity. By about 3:30pm the light is pretty much gone, and when you’re painting floor and window trim especially, you kind of need it.

My office may be one of the last rooms we get sorted out. Too many others have priority. Which is fine—I have a functional workspace, so I can do what I need to do. I’ll just be doing it surrounded by boxes. Most of which I’d really like to get into. Especially my references, since The Emperor in Shadow sticks as closely to the historical timeline of actual events as I can manage. Working within a well-documented historical period is rather like writing sonnets—you are working with strictures on what you can and cannot do, and the trick is to be creative within those constraints. Indeed, I find that they work with me more than against. Sort of like, “Well, if this thing happened then, what was going on behind the scenes? What do we not know about it?”

Asking the right question at the right time is a hell of a lot better than knowing all the answers to the wrong questions. If writing doesn’t teach a person that much right off, they’re just not paying attention.

Another Fine Mess

Posted on by

New OfficeMy new office. Or it will be once I figure out what boxes go in the attic and what needs to be unpacked and what sort of physical storage object type thing they need to be unpacked into, and well, you get the idea. Our stuff was delivered (mostly) intact. Which means it all has to be sorted out and placed where it can be most useful. Some of it will likely fall into the “Why did I think I needed this?” category and be purged or stored.

One thing I haven’t talked about too much because it’s both serious and embarrassing: almost literally the day before the movers were set to pick up our stuff so we could hit the road for Upstate, my hard drive died. Shouldn’t have been a problem. I keep backups. Only 1) Primary backup proved almost useless and 2) Secondary backup I managed to lose in the move. I don’t know how I managed it, but I did. I was looking at the almost complete loss of all my working files, including my story inventory and the work to date on The Emperor in Shadow. Fortunately I also had a third backup, not quite as up to date as the first two, but I was able to recover my story inventory. I still have some hope of recovering the working fileas on TEIS too, but it’ll be a few days before I can know that one way or another. It could happen, but if not I’m looking at starting over. Sigh.

Wouldn’t be the first time.