The Self-Avowed Geek

Grinding Along Means You Still Got Some Gears Left

2013-02-27T21:38:53Z

The writing recently has planed off in good ways, but the challenges remain.

The Short Story Collection: The TOC of Down These Secret Paths stands tighter with a more reasonable flow for the stories, at least as group-things.

Untitled Southern Arthuriana Novel: Pretty much have the act-to-act plot holes nailed down. Not nearly as much to add as I thought going through the zero-draft, but much of that's still open, too. Just so many jigsaw pieces that will fit, but they still have some factory burrs on 'em.

Footpaths of Small Town Gods: Oh, this one gets some heretofore unseen mo' Lovecraftian treatment. Also, domestic drama of this sort for the protagonist: You're not a bastard, but your dad sure is. Yeah, that. (ETA: wendigomountain, Yes, indeedy-do, Feeling will find out his dad's identity, and it makes another throughline/subplot make more sense.) A major chunk of that novel's Act 3 material becomes Act 1 stuffery of a cosmically horrific sort. Sorry, FoSTG Act 2, you get *nothing* for the time being.

Grunt Work Cycle: Volume One: The Revisioning: A Rambling Not-Self-Analysis of Process

2013-02-19T16:17:56Z

I thought back to an old post where bogwitch64 was curious about my writing process for the Southern Arthuriana novel. Now that zero-draft is done (and that's so loose a term it's pathetic: done for a rough-rough draft), it's time for sifting through legal pads and files. See, I'm a marginalia type guy. Got notes for the notes for the notes. Probably would've made a great monk except for that whole celibacy thing, but that's another issue entirely. Or non-issue. GET IT?!

Anyhow, I write in chunks. This novel came in bouts of threes--three acts and three sections per act (yes, there's some funky numerology at work, just go with it). While I didn't avoid the muddle in the middle per se, that damage spread out among the three acts. However, I'm a firm believer in happy accidents and trusting my gut when I write; anytime I have *ever* gone with my red flags or hunches, it's paid off ("The Girl in the Green Sequined Dress" and both Model Mark robots stories come immediately to mind). Here, though, whatever infodumping might have wound up in the novel comes in the form of interstitial bits: news clippings, obits, letters, even episodic chapters from the POV of a POV character who shapeshifts into a crow. In each act, there are around three to four addenda that need filling in to the bubbles left behind in the narrative. I can't even say entire chapters at this point because there come little scenes, too, what require attention. Tidbits and such. In fact, based on how I set up a horse named Tater in the final chapters of Act 1 along with Tater's ghost in the rest of the book--there are a good many ghosts in this story and two of them being critters--it's a matter of going back and writing a smallish scene with a very young version of the protag and the horse.

In my mind's eye, it's always been a question of "Where's this act ending? What's it setting up?" And then writing to those points. Definitely helped me with characters' motivations through and through.

What's it all really mean?

Lots of grunt work, still. I sat down last week and identified those aforementioned bubbles. In many respects, with the damage done to them--and I put them through the mill--what's on deck seems like so much pouring salt in their physical and psychic wounds. Even spiritual. But them's the breaks, folks (and characters). What's already in the text and needs excising? It's not concerning me much because, in many respects, leaving those narrative bubbles in play allow latitude; never once did I feel I'd written myself into a corner, but during the climactic chapters, I had to be quite careful.

So, just a bit about process is all.

That's a Wrap, Folks

2013-02-17T22:05:07Z

Zero-draft done, this 17th day of February, 2013. Maybe in the loosest since, there's a novel there. A family saga. A contemporary retelling of part and parcel of Arthurian legend.

It is a hot mess with a double-handful of bubbles to fill, but the throughlines are there. The narrative arcs set up in the first chapters wrapped.

Now comes the merging of the acts into the master file and the filthy-dirty-naughty revisions.

But for now, I'm going to rest a bit.

In Which An Announcement Drops

2013-02-13T23:09:56Z

Keeping this short and sweet due to many things, the least of which includes making sure I can function amid the excitement.

I'm proud to announce that Kris O'Higgins of Scribe Agency will be representing my works.

Seems surreal right now. Lots of sinking in going on.

And for all my homeskillets here: Thank you for all your support and encouragement over the years.

Non-Genre Acceptance News

2013-02-03T22:38:34Z

Got news today that last summer's non-genre exercise, "Submitting the Abyss," a mixed martial arts experimental short story, found a home at http://thunderdomemag.com/ in their upcoming Bloody Knuckles anthology. Personal takeaway: Sometimes flexing other writing muscles (getting out of one comfort zone) while sticking closely to a passion (not even a comfort zone, but a permeating thing) does pan out.

Anthology News on Deck: Clarkesworld: Year Three

2013-01-31T23:02:25Z

Because the magazine rocks, and the TOC rocks harder: http://neil-clarke.com/clarkesworld-year-three-ebook/. Always great to get one's work back out into the world, and in fine company.

Writing and Walking with Borges

2013-01-20T16:34:33Z

Sometimes it only takes a tidbit, a quote, to set off dynamite in ye olde imagination. Last night, Ennis Drake posted a quote from Borges.

Now, I'm in the mood for some re-reading of Jorge Luis Borges and just plowed through that old standby, "The Garden of the Forking Paths." I'll be reading throughout the day and thinking about the novel, working on the same, and wondering if, when I take a walk later, the highway and dirt roads and two-paths road become part of a labyrinth.

Will I have walked the center of the labyrinth without having realized it?

Will the going out and coming in be more like walking a Mobius strip?

Or have I already completed the writing *and* the walk, and this now-me just hasn't run up against the then-me?

Awards Season Post OR Pimpin' Ain't Easy

2013-01-10T22:18:50Z

It's a short list, for anyone interested. "They Shall Falter Against the Stone I Become" in Issue 44 of Abyss & Apex.

What? An Actual Post? OR Because Pride and Ego Are Synonyms for Failure of the Immuno-Response Kind

2013-01-09T20:19:02Z

Wherein a *touch* of TMI follows (so delicate types needn't continue reading, but you will anyway) . . .

The vast majority of sick days I ever take are for immediate family. Generally, I will tough it out and work through being sick, but as my previous update indicates, pride and falling and whatnottery.
...
So, I make it to Apple Care--GET IT?! Apple a day? Bullcrap! As we were--in Jesup, where I haven't graced the doors in almost two years. Get through paperwork, etc., get seen about.

Prognosis: beginnings of bronchitis (no dice on what's up with the invisible vise grip on my face, yo. That issue is glossed over . . .)

And for the first time in my life, I receive shots--note that: plural--steroid and antibiotic. Shots don't bother me. I'm not a fainter.

"The steroid will burn a bit," said Nurse.

"Didn't feel a thing." ['cause I'm a grown man!]

"Here's the antibiotic."

"Jeez! Why's that burn but the steroid didn't?" ['cause WTFFIREINFLESH!]

"The antibiotic is thicker and has particles in it."

Now, I'm thinking of weird pharmaceutical stuff floating in the subcutaneous tissue of the top of my butt, which most medical folks deem "the hip." But the top of my butt burned.

Nurse said, "Okay, sit down for a few minutes. I'll come back to make sure you don't pass out."

Me: "I'm good." [translation: "I ain't no fainter, woman!"]

Nurse returns with scrips for a Z-Pak and high-test cough suppressant. I am sent On My Way(tm).

Got the scrips filled, and, all in all, there went three hours of my life and lost workday I'd prefer to have back, but, hey, I'd rather miss one day than pretend toughness and end up missing two days.

Feeling better already. Except the top of my butt-not-hip.

Bonus: PA told me to drink plenty of fluids.

Me: "I already drink a liter and a half to two liters a day."

PA: "Of fluids?"

Me: "Well, just water. And protein shakes and coffee besides."

PA: "I think you won't have trouble hydrating."

Bonus Bonus: Nurse: "How long have you been teaching?"

Me: "Sixteen years."

Nurse: [quizzical look] "You can't have."

Me: "Unh-huh."

Nurse: "No way."

Me: "I'm thirty-nine."

Nurse: "Huh-UH!"

Me: "Thanks." So, even sick as a dog, I maintain youthful vitality and boyish charm.

Bonus Bonus Bonus: If I (1) tell front desk nurse my symptoms, (2) write same symptoms down, (3) tell Nurse same-same symptoms, and (4) tell PA as well, yes, the story *will* add up. Plus, fluorescent lights are poor excuses for naked-light-bulbs in interrogation rooms.

#bringbettergame #consistencyofanswersduringinterrogation #always

So, how's *your* hopefully not-sick day going?

Philosophy and Bonding on a One-Mile Walk

2012-12-08T22:27:39Z

The boy and I took a walk, and here are some of the conversations that emerged.

Philosophy and Bonding on a One-Mile Walk, Part the First:

Me: "If I have to, I'll shove you in the ditch to protect you. You know, just in case."

Heath: "That's dangerous, and I don't want that to happen."

Me: "Me neither, but you have to be ready for danger at a moment's notice. Just like death. It's the way of the samurai, son."

Heath: "Like Power Rangers Samurai--"

Me: "No! Nothing like that crap. If you're ever asked 'What is the way of the warrior?', there's only one acceptable answer."

Heath: "I don't want to answer it."

Me: "We all have to one day. It's 'Death.'"

Philosophy and Bonding on a One-Mile Walk, Part the Second:

Me: "Dude, check out that flattened possum carcass up ahead."

Heath: "Ewww. Man, that's nasty."

Me: "Why don't you roll around in it like a dog?"

Heath: "That wouldn't make sense. It would make me sick, and I'd miss school next week for being in the hospital."

Me: "Good answer, son."

Philosophy and Bonding on a One-Mile Walk, Part the Third:

Me: "Once we get to those mailboxes, we turn one hundred eighty degrees and go home."

Heath: "I don't know what that means."

Me: "To go the opposite direction. Look." [drawing circle with quadrants and such; truck comes by; we move]

Heath: "Man, that man's gonna run over our circle. This sucks."

...

Me: "He's moving aside. Okay." [I finish the degrees and explanation and feel like Socrates and THE MENO for a moment. Kind of.]

Heath: "Oh, I get it. We just turn around and go back the way we came."

Me: "Uh, yeah. Pretty much."

Philosophy and Bonding on a One-Mile Walk, Part the Final:

Heath: "You know what?"

Me: "What?"

Heath: "I like poking holes in the dirt with a stick."

Me: "It's awesome, isn't it?"

Yeah, so . . .

2012-12-02T13:40:29Z

Thin on the writing but fast and arrow-straight on the submittery this week. With the feast-for-famine of writing, and I've had a dry spell breaking for a few months now, it just reminds me that I did plenty of writing just because for the longest time and still do. Win some, lose some. And just when I began doubting myself long about the beginning of summer, but continued to work on rough copy, inventory boosting, some shifts for the positive came.

Too, when I began focusing so much on the novel, that put me in the position to do just that: focus on the novel. I let short fiction slide but not poetry, which was interesting. While I can work on several short stories at one time, that multitasking has begun falling to the wayside when it's novel-ing time. Fine by me.

Not much left on that sucker, by the by. Still lingers sans title, and that *really* burns this guy rightchere. And the addenda material is in the how-to-screw-over-Art-and-Co. phase. Have to fracture a good mentoring relationship between C.V. and the witch Eva. Need to build resentment between C.V., who stays in Fogle Co., and Art, who leaves for a time for college. Then there's the matter of the funeral scene I haven't written yet because it hurts too much--ol' Luther Penderton's funeral and the grieving of his son and a certain to-be-maimed (not-king) Old Man Fisher.

Sharpening the writing knife.

It's got to cut clean and deep this session.

Recent Writing News: Flash Fiction Sale to Kaleidotrope and Other Stuffery

2012-11-25T14:27:59Z

Have had a couple of pieces over the years appear in Kaleidotrope. Fred Coppersmith has an interesting eye for pieces (not saying that about mine but others). I even met a LiveJournal friend,marshall_payne,via our appearance on a TOC years ago. Good stuff.

So, I've been keeping a flash piece--weird and fabulistic and post-apocalyptic--in the slushpiles vying for oxygen, and ol' Coppersmith let it come up for air for the 2014 schedule.

The story is "Rhyme in Seven Parts."

On a related note, the line edits for Old Souls and the Grammar of Their Wanderings went well. I have another round of reading to do just to shore up any missed items before sending the e-galleys back to my editor.

Glad that things have picked up for this here writer here lately. Been needing it.

Popping In

2012-11-21T13:46:18Z

Been a typically busy vacay week, but the family time has come a welcome thing. Fortunately, the kids haven't gotten on each others' nerves too much or ours. Always good, that.

Heath has a business model for his expansion into the writerly realm (Aliens vs. Predators: Restoration): comic book, action figures, DVD.

Abby asked me for a mini-tool a few days ago, so there's that. Both kids now inculcated in the ways of whittling sticks, making dog fennel spears, and cuttin' fools!

Becky and I both love the new HP laptop, but the Windows 8 takes some getting used to. Also, it lacks a numeric keypad, and, wow, muscle memory sucks when your hand hovers far-right on the keyboard and . . . nothing.

Anyhow, I hope my LJ bubs who celebrate Thanksgiving tear up the vittles. Appropriately enough, tomorrow is also my cheat day on the diet/meal plan, so I intend to get filthy, dirty, naughty with the food tomorrow.

Just in Time for the Holidays: Writing

2012-11-17T15:21:39Z

We have next week off for Thanksgiving, and just as I geared up to do a big push on the untitled Southern Arthuriana novel, I received a nice birthday gift from papaveria: the e-galleys for Old Souls and the Grammar of Their Wanderings. So, I'll spend a good chunk of the break making sure I do my part getting it high-and-tight. Only a few more tidbits to add (a dedication page and some blurbs!). This is something that makes a body happy.

What's good, though, is taking a bit from the mini-collection's novelette, "Folks Unstuck and Haunted by Creatures Parlous Strange," re: a certain C.V. Deal (Perceval) and a shift in his relationship with Eva (Lady of the Lake). Now I have the joy of figuring out just what shifted between them from events in the novel to the novelette. It's a strange bit of relationship material there, and I will enjoy exploring that in C.V.'s later teen years as bits and pieces of motivation bubble to the surface. He's personally one of my fave secondary POV characters after Eva.

So, the good: line editing a mini-collection.

The better: seeing how it all fits and folds into the novel project!

Hola, Mis Amigos y Amigas.

2012-11-10T14:56:45Z

Checking in and checking up. Had a long week. Haven't committed words to page yet on the novel, but that's on deck for the weekend.

Kids are killing it in school. Abby might very well be entering polymath status, near as we can tell. Heath has become a math wizard and adores social studies and science--Columbus and the constellations high on the hitlist.

Becky continues being the maternal glue holding us together--longsuffering wife that she is.

Home, work, gym, home, work, gym. Squeeze in writing. That's pretty much it here lately, but back to the novel. The creeping effect of the addenda chapters now has gained on the overall structure, and Act 1 presents some challenges. All the acts have that muddle-in-the-middle going for them since I wrote all over the place.

But still . . .

* ghosts
* monsters
* creepy whisper-hearing kids (Morris, Clint, Morris!)
* wrath of the Horned God
* grandfathers, fathers, and sons

That is all.

As you were.

Cripes, Four Months between Posts?!?!

2012-11-09T02:06:36Z

Such a Facebook sheep, I am.

See most all y'all over there, but this blog has, by my own hand, become a haunt and haven for spambots.

Anyhow, still working out the kinks on the novel. Had two stories published recently: "Blur" at The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review and "They Shall Falter Against the Stone I Become" over at Abyss & Apex.

It's been ridiculously busy on the home and work fronts, but in good ways. Still lifting and keeping stress at bay by hacking my body's system four or five times a week now.

What's up with all y'all (not including the ugg boot spambots, of course)?

Long Time, No Post

2012-07-21T14:17:42Z

Poor blog is neglected blog. Glad it's not a spouse, child, or small animal. Or large animal, for that matter.

The summer draws to a close pretty fast on this end, but the writing continues apace. The beginning of the novel has shaped up fine while I wrapped the fourth draft a few days ago of a non-speculative short story. Many thanks to first-readers--Pete, Darin, Jason, and, in advance, Clint--for taking time to read this one. As a departure, it's a story that's been bugging me for a full year, and I'm proud of it even it it's a limited one (Q: Who's really in the market for a mixed martial arts bout of short fiction with an experimental structure written in the 2ndPPOV? A: Almost no one!).

Story-sub-wise, got stuff out to markets, including that beast of a long poem from a while back. Got some stuff dropping (poetry) in August--The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Hopefully soonish I'll have a Lovecraftian piece going live at Lovecraft eZine. Tentative anthology news although it's been a done-deal for a few years now--just something in print as a reprint.

Needing to jump back to that uplifted chimp story and am researching Archaeopteryx for a poem about that critter. Fascinating, actually. The critter, not the poem as it's gestating. Redneck version: "It's gestating it's time getting from my head to paper."

Still trying to figure out why I can log in to post, but get kicked out of LJ if I log in, then click to read f-list (all those locked posts I can't read! What kinds of juicy stuff am I missing-UH???)

Test

2012-06-27T14:25:53Z

Just a test run. I've had trouble remaining logged in, especially when I try to jump to the Friends Page.

Mundane Fitness Report

2012-06-23T15:22:02Z

Summers are a time for catching up on a great many things as a teacher. We catch up on family time around these parts. I plow through books at an ADHD-like pace, including but not limited to having up to four books going at once (you hesh up, Pete!). Writing, naturally. And fitness.

This includes sleep/naps. The past couple of years have been an effort to hack my body--to work out smarter, eat healthier, and rest better. This past academic year I stopped staying up until eleven or eleven thirty in favor of hitting the sack betwee nine thirty or ten. It was a simple decision that made a difference as the school year progressed. I've caught up on naps this summer, and that's not to rub it in for my f-lister friends and homeskillets who don't have the advantage or, dare I say, privilege of saying, "I'ma take a mofo-ing nap, yo." Again, it's about hacking my own system. Rest is recovery, and I've been fortunate over the years to take cat naps and be able to dream. Hitting REM state is vital if you're all about recovery and fitness. It's the state when your body is most willing to release the HGH for repairing damaged cells. And talk about dreaming . . . I have had some powerful nighttime dreams, due in no small part to taking a supplement from Betancourt Nutrition called Endocrine-IGF. It's supposed to help you sleep and produce a bit more HGH during the night. It's a five-week cycle, and I just finished week four; you take it five nights, off two, then repeat. It has produced vivid, wild, massive dream states for me, and I generally wake feeling refreshed though groggy but with plenty of energy during the day. Pretty good stuff in that regard, but I've learned that taking it right before bed on a virtually empty stomach is the way to go--hits the system faster.

While my interval cardio has changed for the better, and I've lost a few pounds in the past month, I've noticed some redistribution of weight. It's difficult to attitbute it to the supplement alone; my diet is consistent on the 1800-2100 kcal front per day with roughly 100 g carbs and 185-220 g protein a day. I eat/snack five to six time a day. However, better sleep will never fail to help muscles recover better. Well, stretching, maybe, and I do that at least four times a week. The plus all the way around, though, is less soreness. I've only had two or three occasions in the past month of rough DOMS from that second-day leg soreness. Other than that, I'm pretty good to go. In other general terms, my strength hasn't flagged with having lost eight pounds since April, and I'm *right* there where I was around October/November, so I've more or less maintained weight through the school year but should return to school in August almost fifteen pounds *lighter* than the previous August. And stronger. And with better cardio-pulmonary stamina. These ought to be counted good things. Shorts and jeans feel saggier, and I'm going to need to get some shirts, more larges. NOTE: Two years ago/three summers back, I sported XXL shirts and have lost six inches in my waist. Just sayin'.

It's been a lesson in patience and delayed gratification.

Epigraphs

2012-06-22T00:23:52Z

Here are the epigraphs for the novel. The first one hints at the rationale for the structure (three acts with plenty of those digressive interludes). The second gets at the issues of identity among the various unstuck folk in the story while the third also deals with identity and place (Fogle County, the Other, the secret paths).

“How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise--the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream--be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.”

--Cannery Row
John Steinbeck

“. . . I seemed to by lying neither asleep nor awake looking down a long corridor of gray halflight where all stable things had become shadowy paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had felt suffered taking visible form antic and perverse mocking without relevance inherent themselves with the denial of the significance they should have affirmed thinking I was I was not who was not was not who.”

--The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner

“Two worlds touch here. You think men have power to call forth what they will? Evoke a world, awake or sleeping? Make it breathe and then set out upon it figures which a glass gives back or which the sun acknowledges? Quicken those figures with one’s own joy and one’s despair? Can a man be so hid from himself? And if so who is hid? And from whom?”

--Cities of the Plain
Cormac McCarthy

Snippet from WIP: Art, C.V., the Mexican, and the Chicken

2012-06-16T15:28:28Z

It is what it is, folks. A bit of levity. Art and C.V. had some help on a handyman job, and the Mexican needed a ride home. Then a totally non sequitur moment involving the chicken occurs. Also, this scene is not-so-loosely based on an actual event.

. . . In dropping off the Mexican, C.V. and Art had no context for what happened next. Chickens scattered from the side yard. A slow one got caught by the Mexican, who promptly rang its neck.

“Reckon it’s suppertime,” said C.V. The Mexican then took his pocketknife and gutted the chicken, still leg-kicking in reflex. Stray feathers swirled lazy circles to the ground as the Mexican pooled entrails in his hands and brayed litanies in Spanish and another language at the sky.

“C.V.”

“Art.”

“I ain’t so sure about this.”

“He’s sacrificing that poor chicken, ain’t he?”

“Yep. And I don’t aim to find out why, lest folks start praying us out of Hell just for casually observing it,”

“This is true, Art.” C.V. put his truck in gear and eased off. “Smartest thing we’ve done all day, leaving. What else was he saying?”

Art said, “Sounded like bastardized Latin to me.”

“But he’s Mexican.”

“A somewhat educated Mexican, from the sound of it,” said Art.

“How’d he know something like that?”

“Christ, C.V., I don’t know. You writing a novel?”

“I just might.”

“Anyhow, Spanish is a romance language, and there ain’t no telling besides.”

C.V. snorted. “Didn’t sound romantic, nor look it, based on the chicken.” . . .

It's amazing

2012-06-15T14:31:18Z

how writing all over the place, chunking chapters and scenes into four separate folders for one novel, ends up yielding right at 70k. Now that I've dropped everything per folder/files into more contiguous order, the shape of this thing is exciting me. Not dreading revision on it the way I was a few weeks back.

I let go months and months ago. Just trusted myself to go where this story has been taking me. In order to set up several climactic scenes in each of the three acts, I wrote up to their resolutions and left them. Why? I know how they'll end, and I've taken time setting them up. In a few cases, there will be some brutal, blow-by-blow tying of loose ends. In a few other cases, it's going to have to hang on some ambiguity. Going for balance. It's hard and weird referencing scenes not yet written, and in one case, I have to have a character kill another one--a fertility god--twice: two separate cases over a several-year period.

The gaps are closing, and while I'm not yet thinking of what's next for these characters as I work through the next couple ten thousand words to wrap, I know there's more to *where* they're traveling. Fogle County, FTW.

This is all thinking-out-loud neepery for wrapping this untitled novel. Thanks for tuning in.

OT, but close: As I drove home from a quick trip into town yesterday evening, the shadows fell hard amid the greenery at the fringes of a creek. In one massive divot of foliage, it looked like a gigantic maw yawning, and I thought of the Horned God. That was all it took to get me back on the novel last night.

Reclaiming the Study

2012-06-12T14:42:08Z

The study, since last summer, became this creeping, monolithic, all-purpose room. Since adding the wireless router months and months ago, even moreso with that room and its purposeful purposelessness. We're talking Sterlite containers of seasonal clothes and kids' toys as they overtook it, etc., etc. We had gone in and done a perfunctory cleaning a while back, and this morning I was all, "Screw this, I'm reclaiming the study today." Almost there. The only computer in there is the old EMachine el cheapo, which still works fine for listening to music and for writing (hadn't written on it in a long, long time). Out of curiosity, I open some folders and found about half a dozen poems about which I'd totally forgotten. This was as great a find as opening that old zip drive the other day. So, I'll be transferring some files shortly and brushing them up and sending them out to some spec poetry markets because they're all spec poetry. Win!

Anyhow, I can write anywhere, but I'm thinking of using the study, writing-wise, as a location for revision. I've cultivated the ability over the years of writing anywhere and under a variety of situations. However, that's rough drafting. Here lately, revising focus has shifted, and I find myself needing a much more isolated space. The reclaimed study should fit that bill.

Regarding other uses and issues, the kids can hang out while I'm not revising for their playing the old Playstation. Becky and I assessed the bookshelving situation which translates into needing at least two more five-shelf bookcases. Sheesh. It's a good problem to have, even for a family reading more and more on our respective Kindles.

So, going to get back on it in a few. Good thing as the brainpan opened up on some of the problems with Act 2 of a short story which is under revision-fire right now.

In Which the Boy Gets One over on Me OR Shark Attacks and Statistics

2012-06-09T20:19:45Z

The Things are watching those awfully scripted and acted SyFy original flicks. Today's theme: sharks.

Abby: "Heath, whatever you do, do NOT become a lifeguard."

Heath: "But I want to."

Abby: "You'll die because of the sharks. At St. Simons Island."

Heath: "There are no sharks at St Simons Island."

Me: "Ahem. They're all along the East Coast. The incidents of attacks are just ridiculously low. But sharks are out there."

Both Things: "YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!"

Me: "Nope."

Heath: "All right. This is what we do. We take a gun to the beach and--"

Me: "It's not really allowed, son."

Heath: "But we got to do something about the sharks."

Me: "Again, ridiculously low chance of a shark attack."

Heath: [gets up and grabs a piece of paper on which is writ large in childish font 1,000] "You see this?"

Me: [thinking WTF?] "What's with the number?"

Heath: "That's how many people are killed by sharks."

Me: "How'd you arrive at that number?"

Heath: "I just know."

Me: "From watching Dinoshark and Malibu Shark Attack, no doubt."

Heath: "Un-huh! I know things."

Me: . . .

Heath: [puts down paper and returns to dreams of protecting the East Coast . . .]

Me: [Googles shark attack statistics and ends up at the website for the Florida Museum of Natural History; I follow links to the statistics for unprovoked shark attacks in the USA; daggum if it’s not 1,085 for total attacks and 44 for total fatalities; I showed the kids the numbers]

Heath: “See? I *told* you.”

Me: “Because your 1,000 number was a close guess.”

Heath: “Yes.”

Me: “So, you’re feeling pretty vindicated because of the research.”

Heath: “Yes.”

Me: . . . [Okay, I’ll give the kid a win on the lucky guess end of the discourse. This time.]

State of the State of the Novel

2012-06-09T18:19:25Z

Having gained much ground the past few weeks, I thought I'd hit a slump this week. Not really. Just slow is all. As I fill in the gaps, I'm having to be much more careful, much more deliberate so as not to write myself into a few corners, especially a subplot with the Morgan le Fay character.

A while ago I sat down and tinkered with titles. Here are the tentative (and, thus, nonbinding and non-comprehensive) results:

* Forgotten Paths
* Southern Vulgate
* Down These Secret Paths (snurched from the chapbook I'm shopping should that project stall)
* Southern Idyll
* or Southern Idyll, Being a Continuation of the Arthurian Cycle

Then I turned around and wrote a list of reminders and such. Notes to self, if you will (or won't!):

* I have established a foundation of publishing credits with the Fogle County stories. Branching out to novel-length will work.
* Be deliberate. Be methodical. Be obsessive.
* Trust the tangents and digressions. It worked for the medievalists.
* Dialogue, dialect, and dichotomies (of a cultural sort). Stay focused.
* Think lean, though loose and with rambling flourishes. (Perhaps the most pretentious sentence I'll write today. As you were.)