Category Archives: real life

Lost and Found

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SleepingBuddhaWhen my wife’s parents passed away a few years ago (married over 50 years, and went within a year of each other) we were part of the family crew cleaning out their old house. Which partly inspired the two of us to do some cleaning out of our own, since it’s just bloody amazing the sheer amount of STUFF two people can accumulate in a small space. Despite really not wanting to accumulate more STUFF, there were a few things we claimed. Mrs. Ogre claimed a cameo she had given to her mother as a momento of a school trip to Rome. I took a pair of carvings I did years ago, an American Eagle display I’d made for her dad and a carved cardinal (the bird, not the prelate) made for her mom.

Also stumbled across a package I’d sent them loong ago, containing some of my earliest published work. My in-laws were always supportive and proud of my writing, much more so than my own family, so I got in the habit of sending them things over the years, and I had totally forgotten this lot. This even predated my fanzine work, containing my first ever published story(“The Courtship of Tharga-Roth”) from a college lit. mag called Microcosm and my SECOND ever published story from a pamphlet done as a group project by an early writer’s group that worked out so well I didn’t join another one for over twenty years. The “book” was titled THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN 13 DECATUR SF STORIES IN THIS BOOK, BUT OUR CRAYON BROKE. I swear to Heaven, that’s the title. Our group leader actually sent a copy of it off to Locus, who no doubt did the charitable thing and burned it.

So, hurrah or alas, I have the only known copies of both remaining, so no one else will see them until I’m dead. Or maybe not even then.

Things That Make Writers Cranky, Things That Make Writers Happy

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eBook cover for Ghost Trouble--The Case Files of Eli MothersbaughThings That Make Writers Cranky

Working on a story for a week or more, juggling nuance, testing for subtext, reading for continuity, trying to understand your own theme so that you’ll understand what the story is really about even if no one else ever does, doing all the things you know to do to make a story work.

And knowing all the time you’re sweating over the thing that, at this point in time and with the condition of the short story market, there isn’t any darn place anywhere that you can send it.

It’s no mystery why many writers drink. The real mystery is why they all don’t.

Things That Make Writers Happy

Milestones. We like them, probably because there aren’t that many. Unlike growing self-confidence and Writer’s Arrogance (a separate topic), there just aren’t many indications that you’re making progress, or getting it right. There are a few: your first non-form rejection (harder to parse in email, but possible). Your first re-write request. Your first story sale. Your first anthology invite. Your first novel sale. Your first award (any award) nomination. Your first “Best of the Year” nod.

One problem with a “career” that lasts more than a few years is that, after a while, you start running out of milestones, and as I said before, there aren’t that many to start with. Makes it a little harder to figure out where you stand. So I was pleased no end to finally hit another milestone last weekend: I walked into the local Barnes & Noble and found Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter on the “New SF/F” shelf. Now, granted, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in a book in a bookstore. Happened a lot with an anthology. But my one previous novel sale was to a publisher who specializes in selling to libraries, so the book didn’t get general distribution. I’ve had three other collections, but most collections don’t get general distribution either. This was the first time a book that was “MINE! ALL MINE!” was in a bookstore that I could walk into and find it there. Just like any other real book.

So another first, and I was positively giddy. And, trust me, I haven’t been giddy in a long, long time.

FYI: I’m slowly working through my backlist in an attempt to make everything that is currently available, currently available in all formats. So GHOST TROUBLE: THE CASEFILES OF ELI MOTHERSBAUGH now has a print edition. For those of you who like your books to be, you know, tangible.

Forests and Trees, Redux

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Japanese MaskSometimes it’s hard for me to read. That is, to read as someone who reads strictly for personal pleasure does. I made that connection a long time ago. I know there are writers who can turn their editor brain off and just read for pleasure, and I envy them. I can still do it, but only under two special circumstances: one, the book has to interest me (simple enough, but when combined with–) two, it has to be the sort of book that I would never, ever, be interested in trying to write. Which is why I can read both the Harry Potter series and classic-age science fiction without the writer brain going “Okay, that was a clever transition there. Let me see how they pulled it off… And boom, your reading experience has just been blown out of the water, since now you’re reading for technique, not pleasure, and you’re on the outside of the book looking in, instead of properly immersed in the world the writer created for you. Which is why I do have so much trouble reading for simple enjoyment. I remember doing it–ages ago, it seems now, but I do remember. Which is probably why I am inordinately fond of something like Harry Potter, or Clifford Simak. They give that back to me, at least for a little while.

As I said, I’ve been coming to terms with that for quite some time. So what actually did come as a bit of a surprise was the understanding that the research bug was having the same effect. Now even books I normally could read for pleasure are tripping me up, and I’ll hit something and go “Hmmm. I didn’t know that about Japanese Buddhism as opposed to the versions that came through China. I wonder if it’s accurate….” Boom. Tossed out of the book on my butt once again. Worse, now it’s not just books. I mean, seriously– you know you’re suffering from research overload when you’re watching Kurosawa’s version of MacBeth (“Throne of Blood”) and think, “Ok, all those blades are in tachi mounts, and the secondary sword is a tanto, and only the foot samurai are carrying what appear to be katana…therefore this was set sometime after the Kamakura period, probably into the Muromachi period.”

Dang. There go the movies. No wonder I took up guitar.

Meet the Boyz

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Sterling and Sheffield

Meet the Boyz: The one on the left with the white streak on his nose is Sterling, and his big brother is Sheffield.We can only tell them apart so far from the fact that Sterling has both that one white streak on his nose and a white patch on his butt. Long story short–we paid a visit to MARL (Mississippi Animal Rescue League) and found these two guys who’d been given up by their owners for reasons I can hardly imagine. Regardless, Carol fell in  love with them and that was that. Despite their size, they’re still kittens at about 10 1/2 months old. After appropriate surgeries (sorry, guys) we brought them home and they had their first regular vet visit today. We had not planned on acquiring new cats so soon after the loss of Summer. So why were we at MARL in the first place? Wasn’t that asking for trouble? Yes. It was. But all I can say to that is…just look at those two. Honestly. What else could we have done?

Clockwork Phoenix #4

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Not a bad way to start the new year. Almost literally. I got a request from Mike Allen, the editor of the Clockwork Phoenix anthology series, for a small tweak in the story I’d submitted. The request came in just before midnight on the 1st, I approved it, and the confirmation of the sale came in just after midnight, January 2nd. So my slightly surreal, modernist fairy-tale, “Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl,” will be appearing in CP#4.

Pleased as I am about that, it’s not really what I wanted to talk about today, other than to note that “Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl” has something in common with “Three Little Foxes,” an entirely different sort of story that appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #105 last year– those were the only two usable stories I wrote last year. Right. All year. While 2012 was a pretty good year in some ways, so far as writing progress goes, it kind of sucked. While I’m not the most prolific writer I know, I’m usually more productive than that. I generally manage 8-12 stories a year, and usually sell most if not all of them. Those two stories I did write were, in my humble opinion, pretty good ones and I sold them both which makes me happy, but they shouldn’t have been alone. 2012 was a fallow year. Continue reading →