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 So It Begins, So It Ends (Just Not Purple)             
 Sunday July 22, 2007   |    comments

INSPIRED by Greg van Eekhout's recent post about first lines, I thought I might share the opening lines of each of the first eight chapters of my work in progress, as they exist now:

    "Imagine a pair of young sisters," said Tina, fanning herself with the plastic lid of her take out.
    Gavin dropped his boots out his bedroom window.
    "Hi, Paula. What's up?"
    A few steps inside the heavy doors, just past the cigarette machine and the stool where the bouncer sometimes checked IDs, Eric paused to take in the Fat Cork.
    The sun was up nearly half an hour, which, Greg realized, meant that he'd been awake for 24 hours.
    Gavin's mother stared out into the backyard, as she held a soapy plate and water ran into the sink.
    "Ooh look, it's an space monster," Annie shouted, pointing through the windshield.
    People drifted in twos and threes toward the side doors of the high school gym.

And just for the heck of it, how about the last lines of those same chapters:

    "Now, how's that lovely wife of yours?"
    "Shit," he muttered.
    He reached for the uniform he'd just shed.
    They both laughed, and Eric tipped her, not for the drinks because she hadn't served him, but for the punch line.
    "Out-of-towners--just what we need."
    "You guys want to go see?" he asked as if he'd just thought of it.
    "Maybe to stay for a while."
    The mayor winked.

I find it interesting that, put all together like this, these lines do offer a taste of what I'm trying to do. Yet, most individual lines, taken out of context as they are, seem so pedestrian somehow. Ah, well, it can't all be purple prose, I guess. At least the opening lines tend to establish who's in the new scene and a bit about the setting. And I hope the concluding lines hint that there's something interesting to come, or at least that something interesting is happening.

 Washed Up in the Tide of Pottermania             
 Saturday July 21, 2007   |    comments

I HAD EXPECTED sidestep all the hoopla over Harry Potter by waiting until the new movie comes to the cheap show (or even video) and staying out of the bookstores this weekend. If last time a Harry Potter novel came out was any indication, there's no need to preorder weeks ahead of time or stand in long lines overnight. A bazillion of them are being printed, and we'll no doubt find a copy at Wal-Mart or someplace in a few days for half-price. I can wait; I'll probably be number three in this household to read it anyway (just ahead of the dog).

But being a parent and a neighbor of parents, it turned out that we ended up in a nearby suburb that had blocked off their main street and turned it into Diagon Alley (well, sort of—they didn't exactly go crazy with the decorating or anything). Lots and lots of people, many of them in cloaks and witch's hats and round glasses, waiting in lines to have their faces painted, their fortunes told, to buy personalized wands, and so forth. I didn't do any of that. I managed snag a magic corndog and magic potion that tasted remarkably like bottled iced tea (in a goblet disguised as an ordinary styrofoam cup!), and consumed them both sitting on the curb by a trash can. So romantic.

When it came time for the book to come out, I somehow ended up with a copy of Ally by Karen Traviss instead. I sure didn't expect that to happen! I must have been ensorcelled!

 Sky Watching versus Fiction Writing             
 Thursday June 21, 2007   |    comments

THE SOLSTICE is upon us, the so-called longest day of the year (I generally can't resist pointing out that all days are 24 hours long). What I've been finding lately is that if I plan to get some writing done in the evenings, I don't actually get started until 9:30 or 10:00. While there's still daylight, I'm often busy doing something else, which doesn't leave me much writing time. Still, I'm making some progress. The chapter I've been revising the past couple of days has swelled from 1,600 words to 2,800.

Yesterday was one of those days I put off writing until too late. About the time I might have torn myself away, the girl stumbled in and relayed that word was going around that the space shuttle would fly over at 9:30; a neighbor had seen it the night before. Well, I haven't done any sky watching in a while, so I went out and asked around. The updated story was that the international space station would fly over between 9:40 and 9:55. A number of us waited in a neighbor's front yard, joking that various airplanes were "it" or that we wouldn't see it of the computers were down and the lights shut off. Sunlight faded and stars began to pop out. But as the time approached, thin clouds began to form and obscure the stars. I could only make out a few of the Big Dipper stars. I didn't really expect to see much, if there was anything to see.

I remembered watching satellites on Boy Scout camping trips, when the skies were crisp and clear. They were so small and so faint that it was only the movement that would catch your eye, and it was a challenge to follow them all the way to the horizon; you could blink and lose track of them altogether. If there was even the faintest hint of cloudiness, you were out of luck.

So last night the expected window was about to close, nearly 9:55, and a couple of the kids had left out of boredom, a couple of adults drawn away to practical pursuits, when suddenly there it was. Brighter than the stars, smaller than the aircraft, but unmistakable in its movement. The shuttle Atlantis had already separated from the space station, and trailed in the space station's wake, the two of them sliding steadily, straight as an arrow to the southeast.

Well worth the wait, and worth giving up half an hour writing time.

 When Is Too Much Withheld?             
 Monday June 18, 2007   |    comments

THE QUIET here hasn't been a reaction to the analysis of the opening chapters of my WIP by the Semi-Os. In fact, that went quite well. Sure there were some things I will have to clear up, some exposition that could have been handled better, but by and large people were getting out of it what I wanted, asking the questions they should be asking, and noticing the things they should be noticing. I couldn't have been happier. And amused to hear a pronouncement not about this story in particular, but about the way I craft stories in general: I withhold too much information. Who, me? Do I really do that? I could tell you who said that, but that would be ... telling.

No, the quiet here this past week was because the results of the critiques were overshadowed by my father-in-law passing away a week ago today. You'd think you might anticipate such a thing when someone was clearly struggling against cancer (and diabetes and many, many side effects of radiation and chemo) for months the way he was, but still it happens rather suddenly and unexpectedly. There was a big party on Sunday, extended family and old friends came in to see him on what turned out to be the very day he was released from the nursing home where he had been receiving unnecessary physical therapy and fighting an especially contagious infection. Things got teary when he decided he was tired and had to go; there were many hugs all around, and photos taken. Then he went home, to his own bed at last, and essentially never left it.

So it was kind of a rough week. But life goes on. There are stories for me to crit, chapters to write or revise. There are books to read and paying work to be pursued. Back to normal, whatever that is.

 Insert Clever, Playful Headline Here             
 Tuesday June 5, 2007   |    comments

THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE is still blasting away at the neighborhood with its phasers. They don't seem to have taken out Larry the Cable Guy, though. He slipped away after spending all day filming a movie at the neighborhood BBQ joint. Darn clever, these celebs. And sneaky.

I still love the sounds cicadas make, from the buzzing to the chirps, and even the screams. But man, are they loud right now. In my front yard, you can hardly hear yourself think. We did get a brief break when it rained, but then the racket came right back again as soon as the sun reappeared. We're about halfway through this infestation. I hear it hasn't been as widespread as first predicted, but you couldn't tell that from here. I'll be glad when we return to the usual level of cicada activity.

Some writing news: I received a curt but polite no thanks from Strange Horizons the other day. Sadly, that brings me back down to zero subs in circulation. ::sigh:: Lately I've been focusing on this novel draft. I gave the first three chapters a quick polish and sent them off to the Semi-Os for some feedback. I hope I haven't made a mistake. I guess I'll see on Thursday.