cybermonklives
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "cybermonklives" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:21 pm
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Feeling spiritually Indigenous
From ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nihilistic_kid's journal: a description of a panel at some American SF convention, to wit:
"Indigenous peoples everywhere have experienced the natural world as imbued with spirit. Their beliefs, long dismissed as superstition, are now being echoed in the findings of quantum physics. Which SF/F works address this fusion of environmental science and spiritual truth, and how persuasively do they make the point?"
Amazing how patronizing and stupid you can get in so few words.
Question: Is "indigenous" the new "ethnics"? (answers on a postcard, please)
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10:03 am
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Novella question
I may have asked this before, but - any recommendations for novella publishers?
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12:08 pm
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A shout-out -
Check out two new forthcoming collections -
Josh Rountree's Can't Buy Me Faded Love (Wheatland Press) and Mama's Boy by Fran Friel - both first story-collections, I think.
Meanwhile, I've written a new story, more or less (I can't help but think it needs something more. I shall wrestle with it not unlike Jack Black in Nacho Libre). And I've gone back to the short novel I wrote last year - Martian Sands - and started reading it - I finished it around November last year so it's been about 6 months, which is a good time to leave a book. And I am so relieved! I'm reading it, and I like it! It was such a hard book to write that I thought it might be quite painful to read. As it turns out, it seems to go very smoothly so far. At the moment I'm just reading through it, making notes on what needs changing/adding to etc.
Also, Part One of the Tel Aviv Dossier needs to be finished. It's up to 22,000 words...
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08:06 pm
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It must be May...
Looking at my f-list, clearly I am not the only one to be griping about something. Is it the changing of the seasons? Over here the rainy season is in full swing - we had a massive storm last night, with the sort of lightning you only get in the tropics, the ones that seem to just go on and on. I've been a bit stressed recently because of a new book idea that I'm trying to figure out before starting - I think I'm close, but not quite there yet. Meanwhile I am hard at work on my newish pulp project, which is a hell of a lot of fun to do. And I think I'm going to try and work again on a novella project that's stalled twice already. Nothing if not tenacious, though, me.
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02:11 pm
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Stories
So I finished the really weird story, having decided the place where it ended was the right place to end it - went over and polished etc., and it should be out to the editor in question for the anthology in question, though I have no idea if it's going to fit...
Will be going over and submitting the new shorty - the 1000 word one - today. It's a pretty little thing - I quite like it. Not sure where to send it though, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.
I have quite a few story submissions out now, not even counting various reprint submissions and what not - but nothing. No replies, of either the good or bad sort. Go figure. Is it me? Or is it the wrong month?
Meanwhile, new Internet cafe opened next door to new Chinese restaurant, which is handy - took the laptop in there and am busy downloading updates of various sorts, codecs, and necessary software, none of which I can do on dial-up. Then home to cook a sort of beef and mushroom stew, I think. Should be nice.
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05:23 pm
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Wrote a story
Only a short one - about 1000 words. Still, it was fun. I hope I get to write more short stories this year.
Oh, and apologies for that massive jpeg below. I thought it was a thumbnail when I linked it!
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07:41 am
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Apex Subscription Drive - Pimpage
Apex Digest is doing another subscription drive, with $20 for a one year, 4-issue subscription, or $100 for a life-time subscription, which seems cheap to me. Take advantage of the weak dollar!
Or you can get a copy of current issue 12 (containing my story "Covenant") or previous issues.
/end pimpage
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03:56 pm
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Chinese Food and Weird Fiction
Are they linked? In no more than two thousand, words, explain...
A new Chinese restaurant opened by our place a couple of days ago. It bills itself as a dumpling restaurant, but has a wide variety on the menu. I had the dumplings with meat and celery, which were very nice - you get about 10 to a plate - and also chicken with fried peanuts, which was not quite kung pao (it didn't have the dried chillies) but was nice, and sweet-and-sour pork, which was light, lemony and crunchy. It's pretty much the only real restaurant around - we get a lot of small eatery type places, doing soups and a bit of barbequed meat-on-stick (which is more like fat-on-stick) and a local beer-bar that also does some nice food, but otherwise you have to go into town.
And meanwhile, been writing a seriously weird new story - the kind of story that, as I'm writing it, I wonder who in their right mind would buy it, and whether I even know what I'm doing. Sigh. I got to a point today and suddenly thought - wait, that's the end. I think. But... it's all very confusing. It's meant for an anthology, but I have my doubts. Well, we'll see.
Am going to cook schnitzels and potato salad today, with a vegetable salad on the side and pineapple for dessert. Still not feeling very well - don't know why, the kind of low-level urgh feeling, and I wish it would go away.
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03:51 pm
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Phantom anthology table of contents
Edited by Sean Wallace and Paul Tremblay, and coming out in the American summer of 2008 from Prime Books. According to Paul's blog, it's an unthemed/loosely themed anthology of "literary horror," and contains 14 original stories.
The TOC:
Intro: Literary Horror: Dude, you made that up!
The Cabinet Child, Steve Rasnic Tem
The End of Everything, Steve Eller
A Ghost, A House, Becca De La Rossa
The Ones Who Got Away, Stephen Graham Jones
After Images, Karen Heuler
The Ladder of St. Augustine, Seth Lindberg
What President Polk Said, Vylar Kaftan
Kinder, Steve Berman
Set Down This, Lavie Tidhar
A Stain on the Stone, Nick Mamatas
Mr. Wosslynne, Michael Cisco
Jounquils Bloom, Geoffrey Goodwin
Invasive Species, Carrie Laben
She Hears Music Up Above, F. Brett Cox
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09:57 pm
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Del Rey Book and StorySouth
Yesterday was publication day of The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow and containing my story "Shira" (and stories by Jeffrey Ford and Kim Newman and Pat Cadigan and, you know. Real writers). Check it out. The last Datlow anthology I was in won the World Fantasy Award. Just sayin'...
And for the second year running, one of my online stories makes it to the StorySouth Million Writers Award Notable Stories list (bit of a mouthful, that), this time it's Elsbeth Rose from Fantasy Magazine. So nu. What do you know.
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05:44 pm
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Wife Slithers Out of Home
We get Thai newspapers occassionally. This was in last week:
"The python-wife of an Udon Thani man has left him. She crawled away sometime this week.
The 35-year old Ban Don Yanang villager Satien Kankudlung tearfully says python Sitthida, whom he wed recently, fled the marital home.
The snake is believed to be his soul mate of more than 600 years. He found her in a local swamp and married her after she would not leave.
Visitors flocking to witness the bizarre union and hopefuly get lucky lottery numbers are being left disappointed.
Satien believes Sitthida left before spiritual figure Yuan Kongsuwan came to take her away after the deity told him his wife was wanted. A fortune teller told him earlier the reptile would flee after Songkran. Satien says he'll wait for his wife's return, forever."
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02:32 pm
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Still alive
I'd like to think of myself as the sort of smokin', drinkin', cussin' red-blooded male not unlike Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, but the reality suggests I am more of a wuss. So, the day being hot and the way long, I decided to take the bike for a ride. We bought it last week but not used it yet. So I did. And - it was terrifying.
It took a sandwich combo and two ice coffees to get me to stop shaking quite so much. And then I had to face driving the bloody thing back. Well, I am back, and still alive. It feels good to be alive...
(I had the other ice coffee, by the way, because I figured if I get killed on the way back at least I'd had that extra coffee before it. Perfectly logical, captain. Also, not many cars on the roads but the ones there are are all of the Chelsea Tractor variety - huge monstrosities that could crush you and not even get scratched. Yarg).
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12:20 pm
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Rewrites - finished!
Yes! Did the last 3 chapters this morning. This book was cut down from 116,000 to 91,000 words - 25,000 words ruthlessly cut - feel the heat! - streamlined, polished, and - hopefully - is a better book for it. I think it is.
So I think I'll go on a food slash dvd mission again.
Next up, I think I'll go over the first draft of Martian Sands, the short novel (it came in under 60,000 words) I wrote last year. I haven't looked at it since I finished it. It's def. the weirdest thing I've written, so I'm not sure what its fate is going to be yet. Well, read and go over first.
Also have a new short story to go over, so there's plenty of this non-writing business going on!
Anyway, a productive morning. Ice-coffee now, I think.
Current Mood:  pleased
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01:33 pm
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Wow!
"Revolution Time" accepted by Escape Pod!
I am so chuffed by this. It's my first sale to them and, I have to admit, something I'd wanted to happen for a while...
Work-wise, not so bad today:
1 more chapter rewrite (only three left!)
More work on Tel Aviv Dossier
More work on the two other current projects.
I think I just earned myself a trip to the coffee shop for an ice-coffee and a sandwich...
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02:11 pm
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"Depopulator" for podcast
"Depopulator", from Horror Literature Quarterly, will be done as a podcast on Well Told Tales - my second story with them.
And I overdid the cooking last night - I peeled and chopped three fat garlic bulbs (and preserved them in olive oil - it lasts months this way and the smell as the garlic matures is incredible) - and I cooked some big red chillies Vanuatu style (de-seed and clean, fry in oil with finely-chopped garlic, onion and grated carrot - though I didn't have carrot so did without - you can also add ginger but I didn't this time - cook in oil, add salt, leave to cool, put in jar. Let it sit for at least two days before eating - the taste really does need to mature first). I burned my hands, of course. And I cooked a sort of pork curry, a bit like a rogan josh, the pork marinated in yogurt, garlic, ginger and spices, and cooked with golden-fried chopped onions, green peppers and some lovely local mushrooms and quartered fresh cherry tomatoes. Some herbs, some lime juice, and served with plain white rice.
Pretty knackering. But I did read a really good Chinese SF story after dinner. And today - procrastination, which seems to be my middle name...
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04:43 pm
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Work and food
I've done a fair bit of work today! For a change.
This included what is hopefully the last major rewrite in the book I'm, well, rewriting - only 4 chapters left and I'm done, and I really want it over by Friday - plus 800 words on The Tel Aviv Dossier just now, and 400 words on another project after I've tried to come up with a dirty joke involving frogs (don't ask, but I've been obsessing about it last night and this morning before coming up with my own, absolutely horrid one), and then some reading for another project and some e-mails re same project so, all in all, not bad (with a lunch break in town in between) so I'm going to go cook.
Does anyone have any good recipes for squid pasta, btw? I've been meaning to ask for a while. Or squid in general, really. For tomato sauce I've been using fresh cherry tomatoes which are absolutely gorgeous - basically, just frying garlic in a bit of oil, adding cherry tomatoes cut in half, a little bit of water, some fresh herbs and some salt and pepper, and leaving it to cook slowly until the tomatoes melt in the pot. Much, much nicer than tinned tomatoes! The herbs I get here are dill (one of my favourites), basil, coriander and a lemon-leaf thing - what's it called? very nice - oh, also mint. no parsley though, which is the one thing I miss.
I'm going to pickle some garlic and some chillies (seperately), I have a kilo of garlic waiting for me and some very nice long red chillies. And some gorgeous local mushrooms, which I'm going to cook tonight. Hmmm.
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07:21 pm
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Interzone Mundane Issue
 Table of Contents:
How to Make Paper Airplanes by Lavie Tidhar
Endra – from Memory by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
The Hour is Getting Late by Billie Aul
Remote Control by R.R. Angell
The Invisibles by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Into the Night by Anil Menon
Talk is Cheap by Geoff Ryman
Quite an international cast there...
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11:08 am
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Book sold
I'm glad to say that my collaborative project with Nir Yaniv, The Tel Aviv Dossier, has been sold to Chizine Publications for an early 2009 release.
This will be a possible novella/short novel. It's the first time I sold something based on a sample and synopsis - which, yes, means we still have to write the bloody thing. And I do mean bloody. Hehe.
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09:53 pm
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HebrewPunk on Locus New & Notable
...Which is very nice!
And I should have some exciting news to report for 2009 soon.
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01:43 pm
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The truth about Lonely Planet...
We always suspected, but now...
Thomas Kohnstamm, co-author of a dozen Lonely Planet guides to Latin America and the Caribbean, has written his own book. In it he tells how the life of a travel writer is one of poor pay, dealing drugs to make ends meet, cribbing information from other sources and, in one case, failing to visit the country he was writing about.
"I found out very quickly I was not able to go to all the places I needed to go to," he told interviewers at the weekend. "I was not able to make the money stretch out to the end. They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating who was an intern in the Colombian consulate."
(Guardian Online)
Current Mood: amused
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