Thoughts From the Frozen Tundra

It’s always kind of baffled my mind that there are certain things you can’t sell on eBay.

I mean, I get the point. We probably shouldn’t be able to sell, say, body parts or small children or illegal street drugs.  But there’s this very long, slightly crazy paragraph within their rules and regualtions of things that absolutely cannot be sold on eBay, and one item in particular on that no-sell list boggles me a bit– the soul.

Really?  I mean…no, really?  But why not?

(There is an obvious and nefarious answer to that question, but I’m not going there.  It’s too early and I haven’t had enough coffee.)

Once confronted with the knowledge that I can’t sell my soul on eBay, I started wondering, what if I could?  What if someone auctioned off their soul?  Who would buy it, and for what reason?  And most important, what would happen when the buyer showed up to collect?

So yesterday I’m sitting in my little house, watching the snow fall.  It’s day 3 of forced winter hibernation because, as most people know, snow and the PNW do not exactly have the best relationship (sing it, Art Thiel!).  I’m getting a little stir crazy, which is usually a good time for me to shake my brain around and see what kind of goodies fall out.  Aside from some dust and a few cobwebs, that shiny idea floated by me one more time– what would happen if someone auctioned off a soul on eBay?

3,500 words later, I had an answer, in the form of a short story called 2-3 Business Days.  It’s not nefarious.

Well, not really.

*shifty-eyed look*  I think maybe we should get on that snow melt before I ponder any more stir-crazy induced ideas.

Wrapping Up 2011

There’s something about the end of the year that sends me into a reflective mood. Maybe it’s the after-Christmas fallout, maybe it’s the New Year buildup, but there’s this feeling I get about the last week of December; it’s “null” time, that time where there’s nothing to do but prepare for other times. Weird.

2011 was a pretty good year. I spent the first part of the year doing a quick revision on CtW, working to get it in shape for the ABNAs. Didn’t advance to the second round, but I still feel the story is stronger for that revision, so…win. Then I completed a slew of short fiction for a creative writing class I took. Woot woot, three new shorts for the portfolio! I also worked on a project called Negligence, which ended up being just longer than a story and just short of becoming a novella. It started as a submission for a themed anthology, but soon turned in to something else entirely. I’m pretty happy with it, though it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the story once I get in to revisions.

I was pretty lucky to meet some interesting, cool writers this year. First, in April, I had the opportunity to go to a reading by Amber Tamblyn. Not only is her poetry awesome, but she put on the kind of reading I’d love to be able to do— intimate, fun, and inspiring. I met Miss Am-Tam afterwards, during her book signing; snagged an awesome picture and an autograph. Sweet.

In September we went to Bumbershoot, the local music, film, and arts festival, and caught a panel discussion by the writers of Battlestar Galactica. Ron Moore was there, and it was interesting to listen to the panel talk about how they worked collaboratively, particularly on a project that comes with a background steeped in canon and a rich fan base. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pics during the panel; I managed one blurry shot when the security team’s back was turned, and that was all. But I went home inspired and hungry to work, and that was good. I also managed to finally watch all of Battlestar Galactica. What? Sometimes I’m a bad fan.

School started up again, and in October I had the chance to meet with Kate Bernheimer, author of several contemporary fairy tales. Kate talked with us about the emerging popularity of fairy tales and their influence on today’s fiction, and then we all ate wonderful finger sandwiches as she read a tale about a boy…made into sandwiches. It was awesome to sit in a room full of writers and talk about writing (even if the sandwich thing was a little off-putting).

The author meet-ups continue into the New Year. Earlier this month I got a secret email from the university inviting me to see Amy Tan. You can bet I hopped on that right away (which is a good thing, too, as they’d booked 195 of the 200 seats for the event!). I’m super excited to see her. Dude. She played in a band with Stephen King. That’s, like, the dream.

I’ve got pretty big plans for 2012, but for right now I’m taking advantage of my null time and prepping for the new year.  Here’s wishing you and yours the best in 2012!

Two months later…

So bad with the blogging consistently. *sigh*

Million Word March

Goal: 500,000      Total: 484,000

That’s a little bit of an approximation but contains a guesstimate of what I wrote for the CtW rewrites and also work crafted during creative writing class.  Also, Negligence, the short story I finished over the summer (if you call 11K short) is in there.  Still leaves me with 16K to pump out if I want to make goal by the end of the year, which would be nice.

It was kind of awesome to finish off Negligence, but at the same time that left me without an active project and now I’m sort of…flailing about in the breeze.  The only other established project I have to work on is the draft of HtF, but reality is that CtW has changed so much that any work on a sequel now would be silly.  This also sucks because the 30K of words I have on the sequel should possibly now be scrapped.  Ugh, all that work… *sad face*

So really I’m twisting about in that end of year purgatory where active projects have been finished off but it’s not quite time to jump into next year’s work.  What do I do with the next month?!?  Will I make my goal of 16K?!?  Tune in next time…

 

Hi.

Yeah, okay, so.

I need a new book. Don’t get me wrong, I love my current book. I love the world, the characters, the relationships. I’m just, you know, a little tired of writing them. And rewriting them. Ad infinitum.

What I need is a new book, something small. Not a trilogy. I need myself a stand-alone. Problem is, I haven’t had a stand-alone idea in a long time. So long, I’m not even sure I’ve got anything buried in the recesses of my dark brain. But oh, I miss the writing, and oh, if I have to write about werewolves this Nano I might tear my eyes out.

So.

Conundrum.

Things I Learned from Creative Writing Class

1) Readings aren’t so terrible. I mean, they are, but at some point you just have to swallow the panic and stand up and get it done. I go into a zone when I read– a blind, out-of-body experience zone. It’s nice and fuzzy, like Xanax. I suggest you try it (the reading or the Xanax, whatever floats your boat).