2. When I decide to listen to the next of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, I should really take a week off and do nothing else. Or something. I thought I might listen to A Storm of Swords immediately after a Clash of Kings, but that seems like a very dangerous (or at least, highly irresponsible) thing to do.
3. The thing that encourages me the most as a writer is when I read (or listen to) something that just absolutely knocks me on my ass and leaves me with a stupid grin, wondering how the author did that. Could I ever do that? Or have that effect on someone else? (This is not directly related to note #2.)
4. Be excellent to everyone.
5. I desperately need a vacation. In one week, I'm getting one.
Also, Anna and I asked a lot of cool people to help us do a full cast reading! Anyone who can place Rachel freaking Swirsky's voice without cheating and looking at the cast list gets a no-prize! But also: Norm Sherman, Wilson Fowlie, M. to the K. Hobson, Graeme Dunlop helped out Peter, Anna and myself hugely with this one. And we got Ann Leckie, Alasdair Stuart, our forum mods Talia and Ocicat, and Marshal Latham to put the icing on the cake as our geek chorus.
It's a looooong one, but it flies by, so go listen, and spread the word! (More Words, MORE WORDS!)
Thanks for listening!
Ah, well. Somewhere in the Impossible Dreams video library...
However, I had the immense privilege of being asked to record Ferrett Steinmetz's story "Devour" for Escape Pod, and I have to say, I'm incredibly proud to have been a part of bringing this one to the audience. When you read a story, you go over it and over it and over it, and I was (once again) impressed by how much Ferrett packed into his story. This is a dark story, but it's the best kind of dark - brimming over with humanity and love.
Ferrett's a writer to keep your eyes on, if you aren't already.
It's also an Escape Pod original, so this is currently the only place you can listen to (or read) it.
- Music:BRMC - The Toll
The month off was really interesting. And I don't mean interesting as a negative. I got a ton out of it - but maybe not what I thought I'd get out of it? Suffice to say, I did some writing on a daily basis, and I'm very happy about that. But that's probably another post.
Other things I've been doing:
Emma and I watched Season 1 of Downton Abbey. I liked it a lot. It made me want to revisit Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it made me hope we'll someday see another Big Novel by Susanna Clarke.
I just finished listening to John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation and enjoyed the hell out of it. It's everything you expect from a Scalzi novel, including bacon! Actually, I was surprised how emotional I got over it in the end.
I just finished reading Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon. It's very, very fun. There's quite a bit I like about it, and Anna and I will be talking about it at a PodCastle Spotlight soon!
Also, I've watched the Spider-man preview over and over and over again. (I think it might be the best one yet, but I'm often overly optimistic about these things!)
So...how have you been?
Frex: January, I hread M. John Harrison's Viriconium, and read by Simon Vance. I'm tempted to listen to it again straightaway. Alas, there are other books I want to hread too.
So I'm trying to get back in the habit, and I'm writing stuff. And OMG it is hard. I've never been a fast writer, but I feel so out of shape right now it's pathetic. The worst part is, I second guess myself all the time about everything from my word choice to whether anything's happening to where is this going to inner-whine is this boring?
So I've developed a plan.
I've written a bunch of openings for different short stories, and the openings that I like the best are the ones I'm going to keep playing with, one at a time. (Although I'm still giving myself permission to write more openings.) It's kind of liberating to just try and write some good openings and not really worry about what's going to happen next. Well, I'm not sure any of them are good, but I'm having fun with them at least, and that's something.
I'm still second-guessing myself a lot, but I've gotten stuff down this week, and I'm pretty sure on at least a couple stories I'm going to go after. There the ones I keep thinking about.
I just wish Oliver wouldn't get up so early...
- Music:Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
I want to do a post about resolutions and stuff, but I thought I'd kick the year off by listing everything I read last year. Honestly, I think this is the most I've read (and listened to) novel-wise since my kids were born, in no small part due to Audible and the books on CD at my local library. My TBR pile is still ENORMOUS, but I blame that on reading stories for PodCastle! Anyway, it was a pretty good year for me.
My Have Read Books:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin
Stargirl, by Jerri Spinelli
Water for Elephants, by Sara Guren (Audio)
The Broken Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin
The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMasters Bujold (Audio)
Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Audio)
White Cat, by Holly Black (Audio)
Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers (Audio) -
The Dragon’s Path, by Daniel Abraham
Love Wins, by Rob Bell
Hunter’s Run, by George R.R. Martin, Gardener Dozois, and Daniel Abraham (Audio) -
A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (Audio) - I am now a fan
Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach (Audio)
The Body Mod, by Dru Miller
Kraken, by China Mieville
The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury (Audio)
Red Glove, Holly Black (Audio)
Unclean Spirits, by M.L.N. Hanover
The Patriot Witch, by C.C. Finlay
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (Audio)
Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
On the Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Swords and Deviltry, by Fritz Leiber (Audio)
Briarpatch, by Tim Pratt
Bone Shop, by T.A. Pratt (Audio)
James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl (Audio)
Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury (Audio)
Boy at the End of the World, by Greg van Eekhout
Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman (Audio)
Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Ellen Kushner and Holly Black
The Traveling Vampire Show, by Richard Laymon (Audio)
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury (Audio)
Vicious Circles, by Mike Carey (Audio)
Clementine, by Cherie Priest
The House on Haunted Hill, by Shirley Jackson (Audio)
Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (Audio)
The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Audio)
Isle of the Forsaken, by Carolyn Ives Gilman
Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz: Three Adventures, by Garth Nix
Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris (Audio)
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Stories (Audio)
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (Audio)
Comics:
Captain America: Winter Soldier, by Ed Brubaker, various.
Nightwing: Brothers by Blood, by
Locke and Key: Keys to the Kingdom, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Ex Machina: Term Limits, by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris
Red Robin: Collision, by Chris Yost and Marcus To
Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels, by Mike Mignola and Ben Steinbeck
Batman and Robin, by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Philip Tan
Currently Reading:
Embassytown, by China Mieville
The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers (Audio)
After the Apocalypse, by Maureen F. McHugh
Three Messages and a Warning, edited by Edward Jimenez Maya & Chris N. Brown
Hebrewpunk, by Lavie Tidhar
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James (Audio)
Death’s Heretic, by James L. Sutter
Black Hills, by Dan Simmons
Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantino
The Best of Gene Wolfe, by Gene Wolfe
Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders
Metatropolis, by Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, and Karl Schroeder (Audio)
Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers
- Music:Alabama Shakes - Hold On
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7){kind=small}
tinaconnolly asked for some short story recommendations for the upcoming award season. And yeah, I'm kind of curious too. What have you read this past year that you think is particularly awesome and worth checking out, short story-wise?There's a storybook my parents had that's disappeared everywhere but in my mind. When I was a kid, I had this book about Christmases around the world, and there was this one story in there about Saint Nicholas and Krampus coming to visit a little girl. HOLY SHIT, I loved that story, and had my parents read it to me over and and over again (probably, it disturbed them a bit - they were extremely conservative and while they somehow tolerated Star Wars, they weren't big fans of sorcery or horror or anything demonic like that). Anyway, in that story, you got the feeling that Saint Nicholas was actually the girl's uncle or neighbor or something dressed up. But Krampus? He was a little demonic elf. I always wondered, who in that story dressed up as him? And this story kind of stems from that, along with some other questions I asked myself later on, like, why would Saint Nicholas need a demon to help him? So for those of you who have been missing my spiritual noir, this might hit some of your squids.
Marie Brennan (aka:
swan_tower) gave it an AMAZING read. It's been about a year and a half since I finished writing the story, and so listening to it on my morning commute this morning - well, I got all tense during one of the scenes in the middle. Not because I'd forgotten what happened, but because Marie read it so so perfectly. And Alasdair's comments at the end were, of course, the best icing on the cake.And I really can't express how nice it is to listen to my story after all that time, and think, you know, I really did okay with it.
Huge thanks to all my friends who beta read this one for me:
bogwitch64, avocadovpx, voidmonster, prusik, and Anna Schwind. They definitely made this story so much better than it would've been. Anyway, that's probably enough out of me. If you've got half an hour, give it a listen and let me know what you thought of it!
- Music:Sting - Soul Cake
Also, I am having fun writing about vampire pumpkins. And then I want to finish up a couple of other stories by the end of the year and sub Sub SUB!
- Music:Okkervil River - Lost Costlines
1) It’s the first major genre con I’ve ever been too, unless you count ComicCon, which I don’t. That’s more of an amusement park. (Not that that’s a bad thing.)
2) Having dinner that first night with all my VPX pals.
3) Also: getting to see VPX pals I hadn’t seen in 5 years – Terri-Lynne, Barbara, Nikki. Hugs all around!
4) Readers Theatre with 20+ people in CSE Cooney and Tina Connolly’s room. I was the anonymous troll asshole in one of the plays, which was fun. Especially Terri-Lynne as a punk rock freak.
5) Having a couple of people recognize my voice. MY FREAKING VOICE. That was fucking awesome, and totally flattering, and made my weekend right there.
6) Meeting so many of the cool authors and readers from PodCastle, and getting to talk and hang out with them a bit.
7) The Escape Artists coffee hour with Mur, Hobson, Tina, Caroline, Sam, Bart, Kelly, BlueLu, and Tempest .
8) Kelly taking Bart, Sam, and me off-campus to have dinner at El Zarape, and the subsequent walk and conversations post-dinner. Awesome stuff was talked about, and I apparently only know the half of it. (Or more likely: probably even less.)
9) That Neil Gaiman and Connie Willis were the guests of honor.
10) Walking into a VP jam session. Awesomely surreal.
11) Talking with Ferrett and Keffy for a couple hours outside of a couple of parties, talking about the hazards of slush, writing, and other fun things.
12) The ridiculously huge autograph session.
13) Reconnecting and expanding my tribe and feeling generally pretty damn inspired to do some more writing.
In short, if I met you at WFC and got to hang out with you, whether it was for a couple minutes at the bar or the con suite, or at night, or something else, THANK YOU SO MUCH. You inspired me, and you’re awesome. I hope I get to hang out with you again soon!
I think the thing that amused me most about all this is at some point when we were scooping out the pumpkin guts, Claire decided my pumpkin was a vampire pumpkin, and she was turning into a vampire pumpkin herself. She got really into waving her hands all around, and doing the Bela Lugosi voice. She especially liked putting the cut pumpkin teeth from my Jack-O-Lantern in her mouth, which was kind of awesomely gross.
Part of what amuses me about this is the poor thing is still traumatized from stumbling across this book in her classroom. (I'm not kidding about this, either. We're talking mortal fear here. Clearly, we haven't listened to the Ghostbusters song enough this year.)
So I was happy that for a little while, she was able to embrace and tease the scary.
I really need to read Bunnicula to her at some point soon...
Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!
bogwitch64, voidmonster, and kirizal, as well as meet Terri's husband. And last week, a special little package showed up on my doorstep. One filled with some very interesting bottles. Observe - PodCastleAle!
A couple months back, I talked to a PodCastle listener* who happened to let slip that her husband was a homebrewer. I got to thinking...we have a lot of magical awesome magical things in the ol' PodCastle (Electric Pentacles, Possible Swords, Wonder Scout Uniforms) but one thing that's missing is a fine beer. We don't just drink any meager beer. We're a fantasy podcast, and thus, we want a beer that's fantastic. Thus was born PodCastAle - one brew to rule them all, and in the darkness...er, drink them? It's what's for second breakfast? How about...Man, I had a rough night, and I hate the fucking eagles, man. Anyway, it's a very good beer, and I'm drinking it. Right now.
See you all at WFC this weekend!
(Come by and say hi! Even if I am all out of beer by the time you see me!)
*Many, many thanks to the awesome Dani Daly and her alchemist husband Brian who sent me this really awesome beer. It's FANTASTIC.
Please note: This is not a complaint.
I've talked some before about my TBR Pile. But HOLY GOD this is a whole new level. My actual Currently Reading pile is throttling me.
I'm currently reading:
Embassytown, by China Mieville (Hardback)
Clementine, by Cherie Priest (e-book)
Black Hills, by Dan Simmons (e-book)
Something Wicked This Way Comes*, by Ray Bradbury (audiobook I downloaded)
Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (audiobook from my library)
Metatropolis, by Scalzi, Bear, Buckell, Lake, and Schroeder (audiobook I downloaded)
This does not count the two comic books I'm reading (Witchfinder, Batman and Robin) or the (literally) 10+ collections/anthologies I've been playing musical bedside table with. And there are at least three other books I want to start reading ASAP, but I probably won't crack them until after WFC.
(Oh, wow. I know I'm going to pick up a few books at WFC.)
I need to take a reading sabbatical. Among a bunch of other sabbatical things.
*One of the other things I have to do is blog about rereading this book. I remembered it being great, but I'm kind of shocked by how amazing it still is.
I mentioned earlier about the whole Starfire controversy in which a seven-year-old explains what we want to see from female characters.
Then, yesterday, reviews for Frank Miller's Holy Terror started going live. Ouch. I'm sure I've talked about my disdain for this comic in the past, as far back as when it was going to be a Batman comic. But basically, the premise is Batman vs. Al Qaeda, and it sounds even worse now than it did then. Muslims are of course the villains (it is the war on terror, yo! - Who else?) there's a mosque in Manhattan funded by Muslim terrorists, for Muslim terrorists. Essentially, it sounds like Miller is saying, "If you're a Muslim, you're part of the problem."
According to Frank Miller, this was supposed to be the equivalent of him doing propaganda - you know, like Superman or Captain America punching Hitler in the face. Except, Seal Team Six already actually beat him to the punch on that one, I guess? And as Saladin Ahmed points out in the comments over at Tor.com's review, it actually demonizes an entire people group, not a political figure.
Also over at Tor.com, blogger Tim Callahan talks about why he enjoys Miller's work so much. He makes some interesting points - not so much about this book itself, but about Miller's archetypes. For example: "Frank Miller's villains are vile and disfigured." He goes on to call them one dimensional.
I got to thinking about that.
(Let's not even get started on people with disabilities and/or deformities and/or GLBT. I'm looking at you, 300.)
I soured on Frank Miller somewhere during Sin City, I think. I avoided The Dark Knight Strikes Again because of what friends had told me about it and what he did to Dick Grayson. And All-Star Batman and Robin? Goddamned Bah. For those who don't know (SPOILER ALERT) Dick Grayson (AKA the original Robin) turns out to be the Bad Guy in the Dark Knight Strikes Again. Now, this could actually be a good plot twist, if handled well. But as we know, Miller's villains are all very one dimensional, and I'm pretty sure Grayson's never given much depth or layering in DKSA. And I'm kind of confused by how any comic book writer could have such hatred for Dick Grayson to make him a one note villain. If you're gonna write that shit, it better be Shakespearean.
Somewhere, there should be a picture of Dick Grayson punching Frank Miller in the face. Because that would be AWESOME. (I would also be happy to accept Nightrunner, Superman, and/or Batman doing the same deal.)
Then again, maybe it should be one of the above kissing Frank Miller's cheek, because he seems to enjoy hating people (and being hated) a little too much. Wouldn't it be nice if he could learn a little platonic love and acceptance?
What happened to you, Frank Miller? We thought you were a golden god, but right now, you smell more like that yellow bastard.
