Two items of note for my short story collection 10 Pairs of Shorts:
1. I have concept art for the cover. Even ebooks need covers. I’m hoping to have something a little more professional than some self-published books. I’m not suggesting the below is not professional by example. I mean, there is no Comic Sans used at all. Still.
2. Another story is more or less ready for the collection, bringing the total up to six of 20 or three pairs of shorts. I hope to have another half-pair ready by next week.
By happenstance I happened across a post in the Random Thoughts and Questions thread on Broken Forum where someone mentioned a song they had been listening to called “Papa Was a Rodeo”. They had linked the YouTube video (as I have below) and at first I gave it little thought. Most people on BF don’t post about music in the random thoughts thread because there is another dedicated to posting all about your favorite bands I’ve never heard of and will never listen to.
Papa Was a Rodeo is a song from a band that falls into this category, an indie group called The Magnetic Fields.
I returned back to the post because the name of the song did kind of intrigue me and I found the name of the band interesting.
The first thirty seconds of the song I was struck by how tuneless the singer’s voice seemed. Something kept me listening, though, and I realized the slow, stately rhythm of the song had hooked me. (I later found the frontman of the group Stephin Merritt has an untrained voice.)
One catchy song does not a great band make yet I still found myself buying the box set featuring “Papa Was a Rodeo”, a sprawling three disc album called 69 Love Songs. The nice thing about buying your music digitally is I don’t have to worry about losing any of the discs or misplacing the box.
I kind of miss having the box, actually.
The album covers a wide range of musical styles and features multiple vocalists, though Merritt dominates. The lyrics are dry, sardonic, bitter and even occasionally tender. This is a perfect example of having a hunch, taking a chance and having it pay off. I haven’t even gotten to the third disc yet and love this giant mess of songs about love (which is different than love songs, as Merritt would remind you). Definitely recommended.
I decided to put together a spreadsheet that would finally collect together all of my various writing projects from over the years.
I left out anything that was little more than a sketch or idea. It had to have at least enough substance to count as unfinished to make the list. I also left out all of the treasure of my youth that were scrawled in crayon, written with a leaky fountain pen (they all leaked) or made via the incredible clatter of my portable Smith Corona typewriter, which looked very much like this one (yes, it was blue and it was awesome…at making a racket):
“I can’t hear you, I’m creating art!”
In the end I was somewhat surprised to have sixty stories listed, ranging from finished copies suitable for publication/framing/lining bird cages to others that were little more than a few rough scenes desperately clinging to life. Fittingly, one of these is a short story called “Writer’s Block”.
I’ll edit this post to go into a bit more detail about the genres and so on soon.
Average pace: 5:31/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce Loop and Conifer Loop
Distance: 7.04 km
Weather: Fog and low cloud
Temp: 3-5ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 558
Total distance to date: 2501 km
I was going to run last weekend but both days we had monsoon-like rains and motivating yourself to do your second run after seven weeks off when there are monsoon-like rains is…challenging.
But today the weather was calm, with low fog and a brisk temperature that was only 3ºC. Still, no rain meant no excuses, so I headed out late in the morning.
My plan was to officially run 5K but to extend that if possible as I was only 6 km away from hitting the 2,500 km milestone (kilometerstone?) on Nike+. I would walk whatever was left and take the SkyTrain back from the Production Way station not too far from Burnaby Lake.
Since my last run was 13 days ago I figured my time would be worse and it was–5:31/km vs 5:22/km. Because I didn’t feel too bad while running and the time off I’m not overly concerned with the slower pace.
I also managed to push to 7 km total and really could have run farther but my leg muscles were starting to cry like a pair of kids that had their ice cream snatched away. This meant I did indeed pass the 2,500 km total. It would have been nice if I had done it while running blazing fast but I finished upright, so it’s all good.
The very tiny miracle was me passing a pair of women who were jogging ahead of me around the 4 km mark. Granted they were barely moving fast enough to qualify as running and I passed in the most deliberate way possible but still, it was nice to know I could still pass others.
I felt a stitch or two early on but nothing serious and although my left foot was a bit sore before I even headed out, it didn’t get any worse and was overall fine. The Achilles tendon was pleasantly a non-factor again. I think maybe it actually healed or something.
I’m looking forward to running more regularly and getting back into peak form again.
The light jacket and t-shirt proved sufficient despite the cool temperatures. It’s also nice to not have to bring gloves as my hands warm up fairly quickly without them. I saw a few other joggers that were bundled up like it was 40 below or something. Maybe they’re from anywhere other than the west coast.
After some very good feedback on my writing within the increasingly awkward confines of the private messaging system of Broken Forum I decided to go all out and create an entirely new forum devoted specifically for new(ish) writers to receive (and give) feedback on writing projects.
It’s called slightrewrite.com (the name was coined by kerzain, one of the members of both BF and now SR). I’d forgotten how fun it was to code basic HTML and CSS, to configure a forum and get everything working just right. And then when it doesn’t the hosting company suggests you upgrade your host package ($$$) so you do and then hope it really runs properly.
The forum is only intended for a small group of people so I’m not looking to strike it big here. In fact that would almost certainly lead to more headaches than it would be worth, so just ignore this post, OK?
If it works for even one person (it doesn’t even have to be me) I’ll consider the endeavor worthwhile.
Back in the old days writers used to face hazards like getting lead poisoning from pencils, being stabbed by critics with ivory-handled fountain pens or getting eaten by a bear, as writers would often be forced to write outside to have sufficient light and bears were pretty much everywhere back then.
By comparison today’s writers have it pretty easy. We have computers to write with. We have delete keys. We have indoor lights and doors that can lock and keep out bears. But there are still perils to writing, even in this modern age of flying cars and zero calorie sodas.
This week I could not work on my writing on my lunch break, even though I took my laptop with me to work every day and it was in perfect working order. What prevented me from writing? Was it a sudden zombie apocalypse? Did aliens blanket the world with rays that prevented the normal operation of all electronic devices? A little of both?
No, it was perhaps worse than these things. The wireless network was acting flaky, forcing me to use my laptop in scary offline mode. Suddenly the world was at my fingertips but instead of offering a bounty of knowledge and diversion it offered stony silence. Not to mention plenty of “this page cannot be displayed”. No big deal normally (lie) but I keep my writing in the cloud, specifically the very popular Dropbox. With no wireless access my Dropbox folder was inert. Sure, I could have made my important stuff available for offline mode but that sort of planning (like outlines) is for losers.
The thought of writing something entirely new from scratch this early in the new year was too frightening and so I simply ate my lunch and listened to ABBA. Somewhere Harlan Ellison was laughing at me as he finished another handwritten page in one of his many legal pads.
But you wait. When the zombie apocalypse does arrive, what do you think will be more effective in braining a zombie? My computer or Harlan’s legal pad?
As part of a writing exercise a few years back I wrote the following. The exercise was to write something where each line used the next letter of the alphabet. It’s not a poem, really, because it has no meter or whatever it is poems have.
At the start it was just another minor medical news story.
But then I saw a man in the alley behind Tara’s Organic Foods.
Clutching a cat in his hands, he chomped on it like a burger.
Dumbfounded I watched until he’d had his fill.
Eyes turned on me and he sprinted, blood spraying from his lips.
Five days later the police shot him as he dined on a doberman.
Good news, the doctors told me, you can return to work.
Health care officials stream past my office in panel vans.
I’m told it’s nothing when I ask, nothing to worry about.
Just keep your nose down (and on your face).
Killings continue, more pets and then an old man named Gus.
Loner, outcast, found under the train trestle, no pics please.
More health care officials in their vans, DO NOT WORRY.
No suspect yet but we have leads, we have leads.
On the tenth day a woman is found on the street.
Painted on the pavement in her own blood.
Questioning a health official, I am pushed away.
Reassurances are made but I recognize the fear.
Safety will not be found here anymore.
Taking an hour, I pack what I need, my survival kit.
Under one arm I cradle a gun I just bought.
Veiled eyes follow as I go to my car.
Watching as I drive away.
X-rays revealed nothing at the time.
Yet I cannot deny the events behind Tara’s.
Zombies have come and I’m in the mood for brains.
When I next post about this (take two) it will be after I’ve turned this a poem. I expect it to be wretched, perhaps gloriously so.
Thanks to a long work commute I read a whopping (for me) 23 books in 2013, with a 24th finished in the first few days of 2014. 2013 was the first year I did not read any paper books. I still have a stack of them threatening to topple over (the stack is not that high, just poorly arranged). I have to admit I am thoroughly in like with being able to cart around a four pound Stephen King doorstop in an ebook reader that weighs a few hundred grams. And yes, I know I mixed imperial and metric there. I still can’t make myself think in kilograms for some reason.
2013 was also the first year I subscribed to the two magazines I read regularly in digital format. I find the 9.7″ display of the iPad works reasonably well but if someone handed me a larger tablet that didn’t weigh a ton I wouldn’t kick it out of bed, either (Samsung has just announced a 12.2″ tablet, actually, though like much of Samsung’s stuff it seems kind of plasticky and cheap, though it won’t be priced that way). The two magazines are Runner’s World and Writer’s Digest, by the by.
My favorite book of last year was probably the seven volume The Dark Tower series, which I gorged on in the last few months of the year. King going meta almost ruined it but he makes it work and the conclusion didn’t feel like one of his typical “well, I’ve run out story” endings.
I also quite enjoyed Vernor Vinge’s space saga A Deepness in the Sky and the quirky, quaint Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Sussanah Clarke. Rounding out my list of favorites was David Wong’s John Dies at the End, a very silly, juvenile and altogether enjoyable read.
I’m still working on reviews on some of the books I read in the latter half of the year and who knows, I may even update my sad and neglected Goodreads page. Stranger things have been written.
Average pace: 5:22/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce Loop, Conifer Loop and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 4ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 399
Total distance to date: 2494 km
I had a simple goal in mind for today’s run: beat the sluggish pace of the previous run and get the new year off to a faster start.
As I’ve been waylaid by injury the past few winters I’ve not done a cold run in awhile but it was only 4ºC when I headed out early in the afternoon under sunny skies. Fortunately there was little wind but my hands still felt chilled even stuffed in my jacket pockets.
The jacket did not prove to be too much even after I warmed up but I was glad I skipped gloves because my hands were fine after a short distance and remained warm even on the walk after.
The run itself mirrored the pattern of the previous in that the first 500 meters was fairly zippy then my pace dropped precipitously and stayed fairly level for the remainder, ticking up slightly at the end. The major difference this time is that the pace leveled off sooner and came in at 5:22/km, 13 seconds better than the last run.
Surprisingly both feet felt fine right from the start. The Achilles tendon was feeling better than I can recall in quite awhile. The left foot showed signs of hurting after the run but never progressed much beyond that.
I could feel I was doing better once I got past the first km. I never felt winded or experienced any cramps. My biggest issue was probably how cold my butt was. Do you lose a lot of heat through your butt? It certainly felt like it.
Apart from that minor issue the run went well and I am pleased at the progress. It’s a good start to the year.
My next run will likely be my second attempt on the treadmill. I expect I will stop just shy of the next Nike+ milestone of 2,500 km, so I should hit that on my next “real” run during the coming weekend.
In the last few months of 2013 two things happened:
I stopped running.
I started eating a lot of shortbread. Delicious, yummy shortbread.
In October at my annual physical I weighed in at 160 pounds. This was eight pounds more than the previous year. It was also ten pounds above my usual target of 150 pounds. This was bad.
On January 1st I stepped on the scale (it cried out) and saw these numbers: 174.6.
Yes, I was nearly 25 pounds over my target weight and more than 30 pounds over my low of 2012 when I tipped the scale at a mere 143 pounds during the height of my summer runs.
My size 30 jeans were no longer feeling comfy. I had to stand really straight to get a sort-of flat tummy in profile. I felt blah and listless. I kept stuffing shortbread into my face.
With the new year conveniently at hand I put myself back onto a weight loss regimen. As of this morning that horrific 174.6 number has changed to the slight-less horrific number of 172.2. It could be water, it could be a rounding error, the important thing is it’s going in the right direction and even though there is shortbread here right now, mere feet away from me in the kitchen, I AM NOT EATING IT.
I have been mostly snack-free these four days and the snacks I’ve allowed myself–a cube or two of Havarti cheese, some popcorn, a few carrot sticks–have kept me well under my daily calorie total. This is the hard part, the first week where my fat stomach says “I’m hungry, please continue to shove food into the mouth, okay?” and I must tell my stomach “No, you big stupid fat thing. You’ll have your two carrot sticks and you’ll like it!”
I’ll check in once a week or so to report whether my brain or stomach is triumphing.
John Wyndham’s 1953 novel The Kraken Wakes is at times quaintly British and outdated but still an intriguing portrayal of a truly alien attack on Earth.
Telling the story from the first person perspective of Mike Watson, a reporter with EBC, a fictional competitor to the BBC, the novel chronicles three phases of an alien invasion that starts with red meteors plunging into the deepest parts of the world’s oceans–a frontier that no human had visited back then (and few have visited since). For a time there is no immediate connection between the meteors and any kind of alien incursion. This changes when great quantities of sludge churn up from the deeps, suggesting an intelligence at work.
Investigation leads to unseen retaliation, as a bathysphere sent down to investigate is compromised and its crew of two killed. Britain responds by dropping a nuke into the deep but they have no way of knowing what happens. The aliens then disrupt shipping with unknown weapons that shatter ships apart in moments and follow by sending remote-controlled and/or organic “sea tanks” to attack coastal populations, snaring people and dragging them back to the ocean depths for unknown purposes (food? entertainment? both?) The tanks are discovered to be very vulnerable to explosives and are for the most part repelled.
This leads to the third and final phase, with the aliens warming the ocean’s waters, causing a precipitous rise in sea levels across the globe. The aliens clearly don’t want to share their new home with landlubbers.
The main characters of Mike and his co-worker and wife Phyllis, are witness to several events directly and their employer the EBC uses them to present stories covering the drawn-out invasion. The meat of the story takes the form of long monologues by characters recounting incidents or expounding on what can or must be done. This creates a bit of a distancing effect, in spite of the husband and wife team being intimately involved or witness to much of the action. It does allow Wyndham to recount various opinion pieces and the prevailing mood of the public and government, which lends a journalistic “witness to history” feel that somewhat compensates for the distancing effect of the monologues. A large part of the novel details the reaction of the world to the years-long invasion events, with public interest waxing and waning with activity and governments generally disinclined to take more decisive action. It’s somewhat depressing in how authentic the reactions and actions feel. Basically humanity waits until it’s too late.
The science is kept fairly low key and holds up credibly due to the vagueness–and the fact that nukes are the answer used most often. The most outdated part of the novel is the still-entertaining back and forth between the West and the Soviets, with the Soviets playing up the rhetoric against the fascist, capitalist West (and trying to blame every alien attack on them, while they only wish to preserve Peace with a capital “p”).
Perhaps my least favorite part of the novel comes right at the end. Wyndham paints an increasingly bleak picture of a world greatly depopulated and only just hanging on above the rising water and appears about to end the story on this depressing and uncertain note. Instead, a person delivers a message to Mike and Phyllis on their newly-made island refuge that the Japanese have created a sound-based weapon that kills the aliens dead and everything will be peachy after all (apart from the depopulation and newly terrible climate, that is). The revelation comes so late in the story that it feels like a deus ex machina, a happy face sticker to make the reader feel better about things.
Still, it’s not enough to detract from the overall story and it is clear the surviving people still have a long struggle ahead of them to restore society to something that doesn’t get regularly eaten by possibbly jelly-like beings living five miles below the ocean surface.
Also I don’t think I’ve read a novel where two characters refer to each other as “darling” more than this one. Maybe it was the style (of writing) at the time.
Average pace: 5:35/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 8ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 363
Total distance to date: 2489 km
I resolved to get in one last run before the end of the year. Knowing it had been over seven weeks since my last run (and that one being my first on a treadmill), I expected to be slow. Coupled with being out of shape was my new rounder shape–I’ve picked up about 12 (!) pounds since the last run. Egad.
I ran the Brunette River trail and had discovered on a walk a few days earlier that the entire roadway/trail had been resurfaced with fine gravel that was nicely compacted. This turned the trail from an obstacle course of potholes (some of near-epic size) that required constant zig-zagging to one you could run in an actual straight line. It’s nice!
It was around 8ºC and overcast, threatening showers but dry. There was no wind. I wore a jacket that I ended up not needing. I was never cold, thanks to the mild conditions and the extra layer of fat I’d developed over the last few months.
For the first 500 m it was like I hadn’t missed a day of running. My pace was around 4:31/km. After 500 m it felt like a thousand agonies. This continued until the last 500 m where in a nice bit of symmetry I was able to actually pick up the pace, though not quite to the level of 4:31/km.
My average pace was 5:35/km. To put this in perspective, my last regular run on October 25 had a pace of 5:06/km. However, if we go back four years to 2009 the pace of my run on December 29 (my first 10K, as it turns out, though my 24th run of the year) was 5:50/km so even when fat and way off peak condition I take solace that I’m still better than I was when I was only a few months into running.
Here’s hoping the next run will be a tiny bit easier.
