"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
My Boog Pages
Tuesday, July 5
Back from Vacation, Holiday, Whatever
I'm back dammit. Had a week off, then the Fourth, but now I'm back and ready for action. Well, actually I don't feel a damn bit like writing, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be, and if not me, who? If not now, when?
Finished up the stories from the "Going Twice" project over my vacation. Pretty solid stuff, all around. I think John Rickards and Bob Tinsley deserve some kind of award for going so far outside of the usual, and of course Pat Lambe, Bill Crider, and some others I'm forgetting made the rest of us look like losers.
Jim Winter didn't participate, giving him more time to kick my ass at novel writing. The book isn't going well. I'm still in work-avoidance mode, which means watching The Fellowship Of The Ring is just MUCH more important than writing the scene with the Wandering Daughter's college advisor. Procrastination: never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
I thought it was interesting that Steven Torres and I both wrote prison stories, and both had men facing changes in their lives because of women. They were going in the opposite directions, though.
Torres also has some chapbooks of his stories available from Cafe Press, which I think is a good idea and is something I had considered myself - but it's like, you know, work. It's another example of my theory on The Future Of The Short Story: technology will make it easier and easier to distribute them, but pay will go down accordingly. I mean, in two rounds this year the White/Quertermous project has published 37 short stories. There aren't many venues that will run that many stories in 6 months. But they were, of course, free.
The best thing about the blog story project is its portability. If some science fiction geeks get hold of this idea, they could easily do their own version, as could writers of fantasy, romance, or whatever.
The Lunatic Is On The Grass. I watched the Wimbledon final between Andy Roddick and Roger Federer on Sunday. I'd never seen Federer play before, but good God, everything they say about him is true. He barely seemed to break a sweat as he out-served Roddick, won a higher percentage at the net, and totally dismantled him on groundstrokes. He was a wall out there. To quote the late, great Mitch Hedberg, "It's really frustrating that no matter how good I get, I'll never be better than a wall. I've played a wall before, man. They're relentless."
Roddick never gave in, and was clearly trying everything he could think of, but unless he sucker punches Federer during a changeover, I don't see him having much more success.
New Phone Books, One More Time. My story "Payday", a personal favorite of mine, was accepted for publication last week. I would say it "sold", but that would imply that money changed hands. More about that when it gets closer to publication.
