I began writing the third novel in my Torth Empire series in January 2009. I completed it on June 1st. This first draft weighs in at 128,000 words (roughly 500 pages), and I hope to shave off a few thousand words on the second pass. But it was an absolute joy to write. I would have completed it much faster, if real life didn't keep me so busy. I poured in a few hours here, a few hours there, usually late at night. The characters showed up vibrant in my mind, ready to continue their story. It all came together nicely.
I'm still high from the experience of writing it, so don't trust my judgment ... but I think this is the best novel I've ever written.
Of course, that's not saying much, since this is the first NEW novel I've written in over seven years. I've improved as a writer and as a person since the early 2000s. But the experience has taught me that I am a writer at heart. It is in my blood. I enjoy it too much to deny it. I will write many more new novels in the coming years.
Book 3: City of the Dead picks up where Book 2: Caves and Canyons left off. The characters think they're escaping to safety, and then ... well, I can't dilvulge the details. You'll have to read to find out. And by the way, I am always interested in test readers. I welcome feedback, even criticism, and I will never pressure you to finish reading, so there is no obligation involved. Let me know if you'd like to test read!
Just for fun, here are a few out-of-context quotes from my new novel:
"My calculations would take an average genius weeks to work through. I did it in half an hour."
"You have free will. Now turn around once in a complete circle."
"I recommend that we fly into the sun and kill ourselves."
"They have a system called justice. I very much like the idea."
If you know my characters, you can probably guess who said each of those quotes.
And now I will begin to climb the mountain of marketing. I have plans to make an official author site for myself, which will include a high quality, interactive TORTH section. What do you think? The TORTH net will include an alien encyclopedia (with information about culture, physiology, and native habitat for each intelligent species), a guide to choosing your own spacecraft, a photo guide to Torth and their ranks, and either a web comic based on the Torth universe, or an interactive "Thomas Guide," where the user can view Thomas's childhood on Earth in a series of animated vignettes which Thomas comments upon. If you can suggest other ideas, please do so.
My time for marketing is now. I've come to the stunning realization that I can market my work before I get published. The science fiction book genre industry is a fickle business, and some of my newly discovered heroes among authors include Scott Sigler and Mark Jeffrey, who put a lot of effort into networking with fans and marketing their books, as well as honing their writing skills by welcoming feedback. I admire how they built their careers from the ground up, circumventing the traditional route of agent-editor-publisher. Like every other unpublished novelist, I want to go the traditional route, but in this economy and with the changing climate of publishing, there are no guarantees. so we'll see what happens. But I have confidence that someday, my Torth series will see the light of publication--and I hope that my readers, new and returning, will help me get there.
Jun 2, 2009
Nov 12, 2008
Doggy graduation!
I work at home, so this dog is my full-time companion. We take daily hikes. I've owned her for six months!
After her graduation, I took her to the RedBud dog park in Austin. It's on an island, so the dogs can't easily escape. What a great park! There were about thirty dogs on the island, chasing and wrestling each other, fetching balls, swimming. Saphira had the time of her life. I had a good time too, chatting with other dog owners while our furry friends played.
After her graduation, I took her to the RedBud dog park in Austin. It's on an island, so the dogs can't easily escape. What a great park! There were about thirty dogs on the island, chasing and wrestling each other, fetching balls, swimming. Saphira had the time of her life. I had a good time too, chatting with other dog owners while our furry friends played.
Jun 27, 2008
The Next Big Move
Some people may be wondering if I've disappeared off the map. I wonder the same thing myself sometimes. I've had a lot of R&R time here in Missouri, more than I thought possible for myself. So what have I done with all this amazing mana-from-heaven free time? Did I use it to further my career? No. Did I change my life in any fundamental way? Nope. Did I get engaged or married? No, but I got a puppy. Did I get a novel published? No, but I'm still trying. Did I write a new novel? No, but I wrote the first half of one.
Mostly, I spent the last few months trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I'm at a major crossroads. Do I want to remain in the game industry or seek a new start? Do I want to work for myself or for a major corporation? Do I ever want to settle down and raise a family? How much effort is my writing non-career worth, and what balance should I seek?
These may seem like simple choices to you. You've probably already made the decisions, and they're sealed ... or you have a very strong idea of what you want in life.
When I was in high school, people would tell me how envious they were of my ability to KNOW what I wanted in life. They would say, "You're so lucky you're an artist; you know what college to go to and what job you'll have afterwards." And I felt lucky. I loved having my shining future planned out. Of course, at the time, I never doubted that I would be highly happy and successful by the age of 25. I saw myself as the next James Baxter of animation, or maybe I'd be like Brad Bird and direct my own blockbuster animated features.
Okay, I'm not in Los Angeles any more. What's more is, I don't particularly WANT to move back to Los Angeles. The city is loud, smoggy, expensive, pretentious, and animation is often not the glamour job it's reported to be. I lived in Los Angeles for twelve years. I have unpleasant memories of applying at TV and movie studios, and taking on crappy freelance jobs. My animator friends have similar experiences. The industry hasn't changed. But I've changed. My tolerance for the low pay, job instability, and lack of respect towards artists has gone way, way, way down. I almost enjoyed it at age 22. I wear my bad experiences like a badge of honor. Animation is like a fraternity; you have to get hazed by bad jobs before other animators will admit you're one of them. But my hazing days are over. I've been there and done that.
I'm moving to Austin, Texas, with my boyfriend Phil. Austin is a city of technology and video game development. I took a break from full-time work while we lived in Missouri, but I plan to pick up my career in Austin. I have a lot of worries about what sort of job I'll be able to find. I want something that's fun, challenging, and pays well. I'm worried that such a job doesn't exist, so what do I settle for?
And then there's my love life. I won't be airing any details here (sorry to disappoint), but Phil and I disagree on one major, important issue. I'm afraid to think in terms of engagement and marriage right now, because this one issue does not allow for compromise. Could I ever be a mother and raise kids? If you know me, you know my reaction. And being a mother means making all kinds of sacrifices that I think would lead me into deep depression. I don't feel as if I've fulfilled my potential in life yet. I don't want to cut short my remaining opportunities. Yes, I really want to leave a mark somewhere. I want to have an impact in the book industry, or in games, or on the internet. I feel as if I can make an impact, given the right time and resources. I don't feel as if my "destiny" (using a cliche here) is to be someone's mom. You may go ahead and cite J.K. Rowling as an example of a mother who made her mark, but I dare you to name another.
And then there's my goal of being a career novelist. I've aimed a lot of effort into this goal over the past ten years, and so far, the tree ain't bearing no fruits. My mantra is "I will keep trying to get published, even when I'm 80 years old." But now the question becomes one of balance. How much time is this effort worth? I write novels instead of making new friends. I write novels instead of updating my animation reel and applying for jobs. I write novels instead of furthering my software skill set. I get nice reader reactions, but I have trouble inducing any literary agents or publishers to look at my work. I write because I believe in my ability to communicate and affect readers, and because it's fun ... but should I refocus my efforts on another project in another medium? Maybe I should create my own animated show. It would require more work and it might be a hair less fun for me, but it would get more immediate reactions and hone my art skills.
I could work on my Darwin's Gap project and finish a funny webisode or two. My short animations might gain noteriety in contests and stuff.
I could make a more serious animated show, set in my Torth universe, and put it all online for free. This might generate interest in my novels.
I could create and maintain an educational website about a subject I'm interested in, and keep it entertaining, thereby gaining noteriety.
I could found my own art outsourcing company for video games, and try to make life better for video game artists.
I could finish my horror-thriller screenplay, enter it in contests, and try to get my foot into the screenwriting industry. Maybe I'll have better luck there than in novels.
I could get a job as an environmental artist to further my 3D skills (I already know animation and low poly modeling), use this knowledge to create an amazing 3D short film set in my Torth universe, and use the film to generate interest in my novels or get a job at Pixar.
I could write story and dialogue for video games, and possibly design a game based in my Torth universe, thereby generating interest in my novels.
I could go into architecture or marketing, and learn completely new things in a completely different industry.
Or I could continue writing novels and wait for one of them to sell to a major publisher.
Tell me, what would be the best use of my time? I can't decide. I can't do all of the above (unless I get another 300-400 years of life). Every option has pros and cons, and I always second-guess my choices.
Enough of that. For your viewing pleasure, I've posted puppy photos of Saphira (below). She's a nine-month old heeler-basenji mix. We adopted her from a shelter. She's very sweet, friendly, and playful, and oddly quiet for a dog.
And our cat Fiona is up on the LOLCATS website! Here's the links:
Fiona 1
Fiona 2
So is our neighbor's cat, Mary:
Mary
Mostly, I spent the last few months trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I'm at a major crossroads. Do I want to remain in the game industry or seek a new start? Do I want to work for myself or for a major corporation? Do I ever want to settle down and raise a family? How much effort is my writing non-career worth, and what balance should I seek?
These may seem like simple choices to you. You've probably already made the decisions, and they're sealed ... or you have a very strong idea of what you want in life.
When I was in high school, people would tell me how envious they were of my ability to KNOW what I wanted in life. They would say, "You're so lucky you're an artist; you know what college to go to and what job you'll have afterwards." And I felt lucky. I loved having my shining future planned out. Of course, at the time, I never doubted that I would be highly happy and successful by the age of 25. I saw myself as the next James Baxter of animation, or maybe I'd be like Brad Bird and direct my own blockbuster animated features.
Okay, I'm not in Los Angeles any more. What's more is, I don't particularly WANT to move back to Los Angeles. The city is loud, smoggy, expensive, pretentious, and animation is often not the glamour job it's reported to be. I lived in Los Angeles for twelve years. I have unpleasant memories of applying at TV and movie studios, and taking on crappy freelance jobs. My animator friends have similar experiences. The industry hasn't changed. But I've changed. My tolerance for the low pay, job instability, and lack of respect towards artists has gone way, way, way down. I almost enjoyed it at age 22. I wear my bad experiences like a badge of honor. Animation is like a fraternity; you have to get hazed by bad jobs before other animators will admit you're one of them. But my hazing days are over. I've been there and done that.
I'm moving to Austin, Texas, with my boyfriend Phil. Austin is a city of technology and video game development. I took a break from full-time work while we lived in Missouri, but I plan to pick up my career in Austin. I have a lot of worries about what sort of job I'll be able to find. I want something that's fun, challenging, and pays well. I'm worried that such a job doesn't exist, so what do I settle for?
And then there's my love life. I won't be airing any details here (sorry to disappoint), but Phil and I disagree on one major, important issue. I'm afraid to think in terms of engagement and marriage right now, because this one issue does not allow for compromise. Could I ever be a mother and raise kids? If you know me, you know my reaction. And being a mother means making all kinds of sacrifices that I think would lead me into deep depression. I don't feel as if I've fulfilled my potential in life yet. I don't want to cut short my remaining opportunities. Yes, I really want to leave a mark somewhere. I want to have an impact in the book industry, or in games, or on the internet. I feel as if I can make an impact, given the right time and resources. I don't feel as if my "destiny" (using a cliche here) is to be someone's mom. You may go ahead and cite J.K. Rowling as an example of a mother who made her mark, but I dare you to name another.
And then there's my goal of being a career novelist. I've aimed a lot of effort into this goal over the past ten years, and so far, the tree ain't bearing no fruits. My mantra is "I will keep trying to get published, even when I'm 80 years old." But now the question becomes one of balance. How much time is this effort worth? I write novels instead of making new friends. I write novels instead of updating my animation reel and applying for jobs. I write novels instead of furthering my software skill set. I get nice reader reactions, but I have trouble inducing any literary agents or publishers to look at my work. I write because I believe in my ability to communicate and affect readers, and because it's fun ... but should I refocus my efforts on another project in another medium? Maybe I should create my own animated show. It would require more work and it might be a hair less fun for me, but it would get more immediate reactions and hone my art skills.
I could work on my Darwin's Gap project and finish a funny webisode or two. My short animations might gain noteriety in contests and stuff.
I could make a more serious animated show, set in my Torth universe, and put it all online for free. This might generate interest in my novels.
I could create and maintain an educational website about a subject I'm interested in, and keep it entertaining, thereby gaining noteriety.
I could found my own art outsourcing company for video games, and try to make life better for video game artists.
I could finish my horror-thriller screenplay, enter it in contests, and try to get my foot into the screenwriting industry. Maybe I'll have better luck there than in novels.
I could get a job as an environmental artist to further my 3D skills (I already know animation and low poly modeling), use this knowledge to create an amazing 3D short film set in my Torth universe, and use the film to generate interest in my novels or get a job at Pixar.
I could write story and dialogue for video games, and possibly design a game based in my Torth universe, thereby generating interest in my novels.
I could go into architecture or marketing, and learn completely new things in a completely different industry.
Or I could continue writing novels and wait for one of them to sell to a major publisher.
Tell me, what would be the best use of my time? I can't decide. I can't do all of the above (unless I get another 300-400 years of life). Every option has pros and cons, and I always second-guess my choices.
Enough of that. For your viewing pleasure, I've posted puppy photos of Saphira (below). She's a nine-month old heeler-basenji mix. We adopted her from a shelter. She's very sweet, friendly, and playful, and oddly quiet for a dog.
And our cat Fiona is up on the LOLCATS website! Here's the links:
Fiona 1
Fiona 2
So is our neighbor's cat, Mary:
Mary
May 24, 2008
I drove from Los Angeles to St. Louis, Missouri
Earlier this year, I drove 1,650 miles with my friend Val. We managed the drive in 4 days and included some sightseeing along the remains of old Route 66.
CLICK HERE for a photo journey of our trip.
Cities we spent the night in:
Sites we saw:
The trip was a lot of fun. If you check out my photo journal and would like to use one of the photos, just let me know. Here's a small sample of the Painted Desert:
CLICK HERE for a photo journey of our trip.
Cities we spent the night in:
- Flagstaff, Arizona
- Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Springfield, Missouri
- St. Louis, Missouri
Sites we saw:
- Calico Ghost Town, California
- Petrified Forest, Arizona
- Painted Desert, Arizona
- Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Amarillo, Texas
- Tulsa, Oklahoma
The trip was a lot of fun. If you check out my photo journal and would like to use one of the photos, just let me know. Here's a small sample of the Painted Desert:
Jan 30, 2008
Moving to Missouri
If you include my four years of college, I've lived in the same Southern California valley for nearly 12 years. Now I'm going to enter a new decade of my life by moving to the American midwest.
Why Missouri, you ask? Well, 1) boyfriend is waiting there, 2) new job is waiting there, 3) house and lower cost of living, and 4) just for the change. As much as I enjoy living in California, I've grown increasingly bored with the lifestyle. It's almost too easy. I can go to Disneyland or San Diego, ocean kayaking or skiing, out to the high desert or up to wine country, clubs or theatres, whenever I want. And all my friends are here. Oh, okay ... so I'll miss California. A lot.
All the same, I'm excited about this new lifestyle awaiting me. I never expected I'd end up in Missouri, but then, I never expected I'd live in California for 12 years, either. Here's a photo of Phil and our Missouri "front lawn" (actually a park across the street):
I don't know how many tornadoes we're going to face, or how my new job will compare to the old, but I look forward to all of it. And I will continue aiming to get my novels published. That hasn't changed.
As my new life gets started, I will make an effort to update this blog more often. For now, let me show you some pretty pictures of California and what I'm leaving behind.
Why Missouri, you ask? Well, 1) boyfriend is waiting there, 2) new job is waiting there, 3) house and lower cost of living, and 4) just for the change. As much as I enjoy living in California, I've grown increasingly bored with the lifestyle. It's almost too easy. I can go to Disneyland or San Diego, ocean kayaking or skiing, out to the high desert or up to wine country, clubs or theatres, whenever I want. And all my friends are here. Oh, okay ... so I'll miss California. A lot.
All the same, I'm excited about this new lifestyle awaiting me. I never expected I'd end up in Missouri, but then, I never expected I'd live in California for 12 years, either. Here's a photo of Phil and our Missouri "front lawn" (actually a park across the street):
I don't know how many tornadoes we're going to face, or how my new job will compare to the old, but I look forward to all of it. And I will continue aiming to get my novels published. That hasn't changed.
As my new life gets started, I will make an effort to update this blog more often. For now, let me show you some pretty pictures of California and what I'm leaving behind.
Oct 28, 2007
Southern California Fires
I get tired of living in a disaster area ... actually, it could have been a lot worse. The fire department fought quickly and efficiently. Every time a new fire started, it looked as if helicopters were dropping water on them immediately. They stopped a lot of fires before they even got going.
These photos were taken last week, when the smoke started rolling in.
Pretty, but I had a sore throat all that week!
Several neighborhoods near me had to evacuate. None of them lost their homes. Unfortunately, thousands of people did lose homes in San Diego and other regions of Southern California.
Right now, the sky is a clear blue and back to normal. We finally got some rain.
These photos were taken last week, when the smoke started rolling in.
Pretty, but I had a sore throat all that week!
Several neighborhoods near me had to evacuate. None of them lost their homes. Unfortunately, thousands of people did lose homes in San Diego and other regions of Southern California.
Right now, the sky is a clear blue and back to normal. We finally got some rain.
Oct 14, 2007
Home Sweet Home
I've had an eventful week, but I'm going to blog about something news-related. Last night there was a major accident that closed the 5 freeway at the Newhall Pass. Several people died in flames. Traffic was stopped on the freeway for upwards of 7 hours.
On Friday, I spent the day with a friend who visited me from New Hampshire. We toured around Los Angeles and saw the play "Avenue Q" in the Ahmanson Theatre. Then I dropped my friend off at her hotel on Wilshire Blvd. and headed north for home. That was around 10:30pm.
First of all, it was raining. This was the first rain we've had in many months, and traffic accidents always happen in L.A. during rainy nights, so I was prepared for some heavy traffic. I figured I'd be home by 11:30pm.
I needed to get to any northbound freeway in order to get to the 5 freeway. Most freeways of Los Angeles feed into the I-5, which runs through the center of the city and continues south to San Diego and Mexico, and north to San Francisco and other states. I drove over a bridge across the 110 freeway and saw how clogged it was, so I skipped it and headed towards the 170 Hollywood freeway. In my limited experience, the 170 moves fast.
I crossed Hollywood Blvd. and headed up Highland Ave. Traffic stopped. It inched along, and then it completely stopped. I sat at the same block for half an hour. I figured a concert must have just gotten out from the Hollywood Bowl, and decided that the 170 was a bad choice. So I turned around as soon as I was able, which involved a lot of manuevering and luck. I made my way through a warren of traffic-clogged alleys and finally back to Sunset Blvd., which was mostly empty. I decided I'd cross the city on surface streets and take the 405 freeway.
Around 11:30pm, I was on the 405 freeway. I passed a sigalert roadsign that said the 5 freeway was closed, and there was a detour at Balboa Blvd. (a two-lane street). I thought: WTF?! The 5 freeway DOESN'T close. Impossible. It's a vital freeway to the city. The last time it closed was when the Northridge earthquake destroyed an overpass in the year 1994. As far as I knew, there was no reason for it to close. I drive it every weekend, very often on Friday or Saturday night, and I've never seen it with heavy traffic near midnight. The heavy traffic is reserved for rush hour...
I saw brake lights around a bend. A bunch of cars quickly exited at the nearest exit. I got into the exit lane, and figured I'd use the next exit if traffic turned out to be really slow.
It stopped. For 7 hours.
I was very fortunate, because I was only stuck for 2 and a half hours. I don't know what happened to the cars in the other lanes; I suspect that some of them were stuck there until dawn or later.
I had no entertainment except for radio and music. The guy in the car next to me had a reading light and was reading a book or magazine. I shifted my gear into park, and there it stayed. People were getting out of their cars and walking around in the rain, trying to see what was holding up traffic. I tuned in to the radio news stations.
The news claimed that the 5 freeway was closed, and so was the 14 freeway, and the 210 freeway. Balboa Rd. was hopelessly clogged. In other words, there was no way for anyone to get to the suburbs 15 minutes north of L.A. unless you took a loooooooooong detour of 3 or 4 hours. None of the channels could give an ETA of when the freeways would open. Every channel reported a different story of what the accident was. One report claimed that four big rigs had collided and caught on fire. Another report said it was fifteen trucks. Another said they were in a tunnel that was collapsing from the heat. But none of them explained why that would close an entire freeway of 6 lanes northbound and 6 lanes southbound, or why two other freeways were closed. I later learned that the explosions in the tunnel created a danger of road collapse. All of the surrounding freeways and surface streets near the accident were clogged enough to necessitate closure.
I listened to this news, and I considered taking an obscure mountain route home. The obscure road is known as "A Street" in Filmore, also known as route 23. It has a section of tall, sheer cliffs and hairpin turns. It's a dangerous road to take at night in the rain. This is mudslide country.
Even so, I had hours in which to ponder. The obscure route 23 is not common knowledge even to local residents. I'd be home in under two hours if I could exit and get on the 118 freeway towards Moorpark.
I happened to be parked near the next on-ramp. As I pondered, I watched cars drive up the ramp, pile up, and then drive down the ramp on by one, in reverse. It was like a parade.
Around 2:15am, a motorcycle cop wove between the parked cars and went to the on-ramp. He began directing cars to drive down the ramp. At long last, traffic was moving ... off the freeway. Even so, most people chose to stay. I guess they didn't want to lose their place in line, and they believed traffic would HAVE to move soon. Traffic accidents are statistically common in Los Angeles. Locals depend on the fact that accidents get cleaned up swiftly. Otherwise, we'd be stranded all the time. The city is too spread out for freeway closures.
When I exited the freeway, I had no idea it would remain closed for days. Like everyone else, I believed it would be open within a few hours; I just was unwilling to wait those hours.
I drove down the least clogged surface street until I was well away from the freeway. Then I stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break. While I bought a drink for the road, a man in white collar business attire walked up to the register and asked me if I knew what had happened on the 5 freeway. He'd been stuck there since 11pm. He lived in the same town as me, and was also trying to get home. I told him about the obscure mountain road, but I couldn't remember the street names necessary to give driving directions. He was distraught, because he had nowhere to stay. He bought a toothbrush and asked the gas station attendant for directions to the nearest motel.
I'm fortunate, because I have someone to stay with. I called up my boyfriend, Phil, and warned him that I might need to crash at his place for the night. Then I headed for the obscure mountain route.
As soon as I got onto the westbound 118 freeway, I saw a line of traffic on the eastbound side, all of them trying to get onto the 405 north, where I'd been parked for the last two hours. I finally pictured the scope of this traffic jam. The standstill went for miles and miles. These freeways all have 4 to 6 lanes. They can carry hundreds of thousands of fast-moving cars. If it had gotten to this state between 11pm and 2:30am, it would get much worse with the morning traffic.
If I turned back, I'd get stuck in the eastbound 118 traffic trying to get to the 405 north trying to get to the 5 north. Wow. But it wasn't too bad yet. In a few more minutes, it might be.
The rain became a downpour. I imagined myself navigating the hairpin turns on the edge of that cliff, with the road slick from dust and oil loosened by the season's first rain. The road might become impassable from a mudslide.
I turned around, and I made it to Phil's place by 3am. I'm grateful that I had a place to go. I kept thinking about all the cars still stuck there, and the exhausted man who had to get a motel room less than 15 minutes from his home.
In the morning, I watched the news to make sure the 5 freeway was open. It wasn't.
I got a horrible, frustrated feeling that's hard to convey here. I couldn't get home. I wanted a change of clothing, and I needed to do my laundry, and so forth ... and I couldn't. My home was less than 40 miles away, but it might as well have been in another state.
We researched detours. It turned out that the obscure mountain route 23 was being used by trucks bound for Los Angeles and San Diego. I shuddered to think of all those trucks on that cliff. I imagined them shoved sideways on the hairpin turns, or stuck in mud. The auto traffic was diverted to Calgrove Blvd. and the 14 freeway. Estimated travel time to my home: At least four hours.
I spent the day with Phil. He cheered me up, but I still had to face a long journey to get home. The drive usually takes me half an hour. Instead, I figured I'd go all the way around to Ventura County. That would be about three hours, if traffic stayed light.
I changed my mind mid-drive and headed for mountain route 23 after all. The radio news reported that southbound I-5 traffic was diverted that way, but they never mentioned northbound. I figured it was worth the risk, since traffic tends to be light around that time, and it wasn't raining.
What a pleasant surprise! I encountered no northbound traffic whatsoever. I began to think the 5 freeway was open again. Then I saw a long line of cars and trucks heading southbound over route 23. Now I'm left to wonder why northbound traffic wasn't diverted that way. I made it home in less than two hours.
The latest news is that the 5 freeway might be open as early as Tuesday. Until then, thousands of suburban commuters have no useful way to get to their jobs. All the residents of Los Angeles and San Diego who flocked to Northern California for the weekend will have a hard time getting home. All the trucks that deliver produce and goods to these major cities will have no good way to deliver them.
The 5 freeway closure had to happen, because that was a hell of a serious accident. But I think this is a warning that a valley with only a few routes in and out can become a trap. I hope something good will come from this disaster. Maybe whoever is in charge of Los Angeles infrastructure will add a few more roads through the mountain passes.
On Friday, I spent the day with a friend who visited me from New Hampshire. We toured around Los Angeles and saw the play "Avenue Q" in the Ahmanson Theatre. Then I dropped my friend off at her hotel on Wilshire Blvd. and headed north for home. That was around 10:30pm.
First of all, it was raining. This was the first rain we've had in many months, and traffic accidents always happen in L.A. during rainy nights, so I was prepared for some heavy traffic. I figured I'd be home by 11:30pm.
I needed to get to any northbound freeway in order to get to the 5 freeway. Most freeways of Los Angeles feed into the I-5, which runs through the center of the city and continues south to San Diego and Mexico, and north to San Francisco and other states. I drove over a bridge across the 110 freeway and saw how clogged it was, so I skipped it and headed towards the 170 Hollywood freeway. In my limited experience, the 170 moves fast.
I crossed Hollywood Blvd. and headed up Highland Ave. Traffic stopped. It inched along, and then it completely stopped. I sat at the same block for half an hour. I figured a concert must have just gotten out from the Hollywood Bowl, and decided that the 170 was a bad choice. So I turned around as soon as I was able, which involved a lot of manuevering and luck. I made my way through a warren of traffic-clogged alleys and finally back to Sunset Blvd., which was mostly empty. I decided I'd cross the city on surface streets and take the 405 freeway.
Around 11:30pm, I was on the 405 freeway. I passed a sigalert roadsign that said the 5 freeway was closed, and there was a detour at Balboa Blvd. (a two-lane street). I thought: WTF?! The 5 freeway DOESN'T close. Impossible. It's a vital freeway to the city. The last time it closed was when the Northridge earthquake destroyed an overpass in the year 1994. As far as I knew, there was no reason for it to close. I drive it every weekend, very often on Friday or Saturday night, and I've never seen it with heavy traffic near midnight. The heavy traffic is reserved for rush hour...
I saw brake lights around a bend. A bunch of cars quickly exited at the nearest exit. I got into the exit lane, and figured I'd use the next exit if traffic turned out to be really slow.
It stopped. For 7 hours.
I was very fortunate, because I was only stuck for 2 and a half hours. I don't know what happened to the cars in the other lanes; I suspect that some of them were stuck there until dawn or later.
I had no entertainment except for radio and music. The guy in the car next to me had a reading light and was reading a book or magazine. I shifted my gear into park, and there it stayed. People were getting out of their cars and walking around in the rain, trying to see what was holding up traffic. I tuned in to the radio news stations.
The news claimed that the 5 freeway was closed, and so was the 14 freeway, and the 210 freeway. Balboa Rd. was hopelessly clogged. In other words, there was no way for anyone to get to the suburbs 15 minutes north of L.A. unless you took a loooooooooong detour of 3 or 4 hours. None of the channels could give an ETA of when the freeways would open. Every channel reported a different story of what the accident was. One report claimed that four big rigs had collided and caught on fire. Another report said it was fifteen trucks. Another said they were in a tunnel that was collapsing from the heat. But none of them explained why that would close an entire freeway of 6 lanes northbound and 6 lanes southbound, or why two other freeways were closed. I later learned that the explosions in the tunnel created a danger of road collapse. All of the surrounding freeways and surface streets near the accident were clogged enough to necessitate closure.
I listened to this news, and I considered taking an obscure mountain route home. The obscure road is known as "A Street" in Filmore, also known as route 23. It has a section of tall, sheer cliffs and hairpin turns. It's a dangerous road to take at night in the rain. This is mudslide country.
Even so, I had hours in which to ponder. The obscure route 23 is not common knowledge even to local residents. I'd be home in under two hours if I could exit and get on the 118 freeway towards Moorpark.
I happened to be parked near the next on-ramp. As I pondered, I watched cars drive up the ramp, pile up, and then drive down the ramp on by one, in reverse. It was like a parade.
Around 2:15am, a motorcycle cop wove between the parked cars and went to the on-ramp. He began directing cars to drive down the ramp. At long last, traffic was moving ... off the freeway. Even so, most people chose to stay. I guess they didn't want to lose their place in line, and they believed traffic would HAVE to move soon. Traffic accidents are statistically common in Los Angeles. Locals depend on the fact that accidents get cleaned up swiftly. Otherwise, we'd be stranded all the time. The city is too spread out for freeway closures.
When I exited the freeway, I had no idea it would remain closed for days. Like everyone else, I believed it would be open within a few hours; I just was unwilling to wait those hours.
I drove down the least clogged surface street until I was well away from the freeway. Then I stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break. While I bought a drink for the road, a man in white collar business attire walked up to the register and asked me if I knew what had happened on the 5 freeway. He'd been stuck there since 11pm. He lived in the same town as me, and was also trying to get home. I told him about the obscure mountain road, but I couldn't remember the street names necessary to give driving directions. He was distraught, because he had nowhere to stay. He bought a toothbrush and asked the gas station attendant for directions to the nearest motel.
I'm fortunate, because I have someone to stay with. I called up my boyfriend, Phil, and warned him that I might need to crash at his place for the night. Then I headed for the obscure mountain route.
As soon as I got onto the westbound 118 freeway, I saw a line of traffic on the eastbound side, all of them trying to get onto the 405 north, where I'd been parked for the last two hours. I finally pictured the scope of this traffic jam. The standstill went for miles and miles. These freeways all have 4 to 6 lanes. They can carry hundreds of thousands of fast-moving cars. If it had gotten to this state between 11pm and 2:30am, it would get much worse with the morning traffic.
If I turned back, I'd get stuck in the eastbound 118 traffic trying to get to the 405 north trying to get to the 5 north. Wow. But it wasn't too bad yet. In a few more minutes, it might be.
The rain became a downpour. I imagined myself navigating the hairpin turns on the edge of that cliff, with the road slick from dust and oil loosened by the season's first rain. The road might become impassable from a mudslide.
I turned around, and I made it to Phil's place by 3am. I'm grateful that I had a place to go. I kept thinking about all the cars still stuck there, and the exhausted man who had to get a motel room less than 15 minutes from his home.
In the morning, I watched the news to make sure the 5 freeway was open. It wasn't.
I got a horrible, frustrated feeling that's hard to convey here. I couldn't get home. I wanted a change of clothing, and I needed to do my laundry, and so forth ... and I couldn't. My home was less than 40 miles away, but it might as well have been in another state.
We researched detours. It turned out that the obscure mountain route 23 was being used by trucks bound for Los Angeles and San Diego. I shuddered to think of all those trucks on that cliff. I imagined them shoved sideways on the hairpin turns, or stuck in mud. The auto traffic was diverted to Calgrove Blvd. and the 14 freeway. Estimated travel time to my home: At least four hours.
I spent the day with Phil. He cheered me up, but I still had to face a long journey to get home. The drive usually takes me half an hour. Instead, I figured I'd go all the way around to Ventura County. That would be about three hours, if traffic stayed light.
I changed my mind mid-drive and headed for mountain route 23 after all. The radio news reported that southbound I-5 traffic was diverted that way, but they never mentioned northbound. I figured it was worth the risk, since traffic tends to be light around that time, and it wasn't raining.
What a pleasant surprise! I encountered no northbound traffic whatsoever. I began to think the 5 freeway was open again. Then I saw a long line of cars and trucks heading southbound over route 23. Now I'm left to wonder why northbound traffic wasn't diverted that way. I made it home in less than two hours.
The latest news is that the 5 freeway might be open as early as Tuesday. Until then, thousands of suburban commuters have no useful way to get to their jobs. All the residents of Los Angeles and San Diego who flocked to Northern California for the weekend will have a hard time getting home. All the trucks that deliver produce and goods to these major cities will have no good way to deliver them.
The 5 freeway closure had to happen, because that was a hell of a serious accident. But I think this is a warning that a valley with only a few routes in and out can become a trap. I hope something good will come from this disaster. Maybe whoever is in charge of Los Angeles infrastructure will add a few more roads through the mountain passes.
Aug 1, 2007
Photos of New Hampshire
I just returned from a vacation to Colorado (4 days) and New Hampshire (7 days). I figured I'll post the photos in order of most recent to earlier, so they'll show up in correct order to anyone who scrolls down my blog. So here's the "last" installment!
Above: I grew up in a historic district of a New England town. I always found the thick woods to be creepy. In summer, it's a bug-filled jungle. In winter, it's a Robert Frost poem.
Below: High noon in New Hampshire during a thunderstorm. It doesn't get very bright even during the rare cloudless days, because the trees block out the sunlight.
Ah, the old view out my bedroom window. I grew up with this view. No matter what time of year, it was always gloomy, because the overhang of the roof and the trees blocked out the light.
I like to try to describe New England to Californians, because it's such an alien place to anyone who grew up in the western states. This is a typical road in New Hampshire. They're hilly, winding, in poor repair, overgrown with trees and other plants, with many blind turns and hidden houses. You never know what's around the bend. You can't see it until you get there. Very often, street signs and even STOP signs are obscured by plant growth during the summer months.
Here's an oak tree that serves as a landmark for many locals. In California, the trees are fewer but older, whereas in New England, trees grow like weeds and are mostly younger than a century or two. This tree is unusual because it's more than two hundred years old.
One of the many things that always struck me as weird about my hometown was how much trash and litter you can find on the roadsides, despite the love of nature professed by the locals. I don't see this much litter in western states.
Some more typical New England scenery. This is in Manchester, New Hampshire.
And then my vacation ended, and it was time to fly back! (Don't worry, I'll post more of these vacation photos soon.) For now, here's an aerial view of New Hampshire.
As you might suspect, the logging and paper industries are big in northern New England. So is the export of maple syrup. Lots of tree products. The forests grow back very quickly, and logging companies tend to plant new trees in deforested areas.
Above: I got a lot of nice cloud shots from the airplane trips. More to come.
Below: Back in the West! This was approaching Las Vegas.
Above: I grew up in a historic district of a New England town. I always found the thick woods to be creepy. In summer, it's a bug-filled jungle. In winter, it's a Robert Frost poem.
Below: High noon in New Hampshire during a thunderstorm. It doesn't get very bright even during the rare cloudless days, because the trees block out the sunlight.
Ah, the old view out my bedroom window. I grew up with this view. No matter what time of year, it was always gloomy, because the overhang of the roof and the trees blocked out the light.
I like to try to describe New England to Californians, because it's such an alien place to anyone who grew up in the western states. This is a typical road in New Hampshire. They're hilly, winding, in poor repair, overgrown with trees and other plants, with many blind turns and hidden houses. You never know what's around the bend. You can't see it until you get there. Very often, street signs and even STOP signs are obscured by plant growth during the summer months.
Here's an oak tree that serves as a landmark for many locals. In California, the trees are fewer but older, whereas in New England, trees grow like weeds and are mostly younger than a century or two. This tree is unusual because it's more than two hundred years old.
One of the many things that always struck me as weird about my hometown was how much trash and litter you can find on the roadsides, despite the love of nature professed by the locals. I don't see this much litter in western states.
Some more typical New England scenery. This is in Manchester, New Hampshire.
And then my vacation ended, and it was time to fly back! (Don't worry, I'll post more of these vacation photos soon.) For now, here's an aerial view of New Hampshire.
As you might suspect, the logging and paper industries are big in northern New England. So is the export of maple syrup. Lots of tree products. The forests grow back very quickly, and logging companies tend to plant new trees in deforested areas.
Above: I got a lot of nice cloud shots from the airplane trips. More to come.
Below: Back in the West! This was approaching Las Vegas.
Jun 17, 2007
Dune Buggy Ride
I have a photo gallery on my website, but I've decided to give blogging with photos a try, since Blogspot makes it so easy.
So Phil took me on a dune buggy ride for our 6 month anniversary of dating. It turns out that we can't rent dune buggies and drive them ourselves. I guess there's some kind of liability involved, since it's somewhat dangerous. So we rented a ride from a guy in Desert Palm Springs, and let him drive us around.
Here's the rental place:
The ride was somewhat wild! The dune buggy was actually a VW bug chassis with a topless shell on it.
At one point, our driver pointed out this oasis:
And had us hike to see it up close!
Later, we visited the windmill farm and finally learned why those windmills exist. Apparently each windmill is sponsored by a different company (like Texaco, Enron, etc.) and produces tons of electricity, which they sell to the grid for a profit. The companies pay to maintain their own windmills.
The windmills are a highly efficient energy source in the wind corridor of Desert Palm Springs. According to our guide, each windmill generates enough electricity to power a small town. Why don't they build these things across the windy deserts of America and save on oil-based fuels? Anyone who's driven from California to Arizona or Nevada knows there's hundreds of miles of empty land.
So Phil took me on a dune buggy ride for our 6 month anniversary of dating. It turns out that we can't rent dune buggies and drive them ourselves. I guess there's some kind of liability involved, since it's somewhat dangerous. So we rented a ride from a guy in Desert Palm Springs, and let him drive us around.
Here's the rental place:
The ride was somewhat wild! The dune buggy was actually a VW bug chassis with a topless shell on it.
At one point, our driver pointed out this oasis:
And had us hike to see it up close!
Later, we visited the windmill farm and finally learned why those windmills exist. Apparently each windmill is sponsored by a different company (like Texaco, Enron, etc.) and produces tons of electricity, which they sell to the grid for a profit. The companies pay to maintain their own windmills.
The windmills are a highly efficient energy source in the wind corridor of Desert Palm Springs. According to our guide, each windmill generates enough electricity to power a small town. Why don't they build these things across the windy deserts of America and save on oil-based fuels? Anyone who's driven from California to Arizona or Nevada knows there's hundreds of miles of empty land.
May 25, 2007
Sculpting a Novel
A couple of weeks ago, I finished the rough cut of my novel rewrite.
I'll assume that most readers of my blog haven't followed along with the trials and tribulations I've experienced with this project, so let me give you a quick recap. I wrote the original first draft in the year 2000. It was 519,100 words (roughly the size of Stephen King's unabridged The Stand). When I look back at that original, I judge the story to be good, but the writing to be amateur and bloated. I went through a long learning process. I split the book into three books to make it more palatable to editors. I reduced the total word count to 475,600 words. I let strangers read it and give me their honest reactions. I edited and polished it frequently. I submitted it to literary agents and publishers, and got one excited manuscript request (without a follow up) from a well-known agent, and one rewrite request from Baen Books.
As I became a better writer and learned the ways of the genre book industry, I realized (around 2004-2005) that my masterpiece needed a complete overhaul. So I set out to restructure it, to tighten the pacing and get rid of the bloat.
In order to focus on this huge task, I shoved aside my other writing goals and projects, many of them ideas which I was (and still am) excited about. I immersed myself in Thomas's and Alex's journey until I got sick of it. I reread my original epic in bits and pieces, then sliced it up and pasted the paragraphs into new places, and reread them, and slimmed them down, and changed details, and reread them again. I took notes on my own writing so I wouldn't forgot what I'd put where. I applied techniques I'd learned at the Odyssey Writing Workshop and since to my reborn novel. I gained more of a social life while I procrastinated facing this huge project every night. I gained a sense of the work involved in being a professional writer.
After all that, I won't know if my hard work paid off until years from now. I have a feeling that it will, but I've never trusted hunches or feelings. I only know that this confidence is highly unusual for me. Even though I'm sick of the project, I still look back and think it's good. I still get excited about it. I hear opinions from people who've read the first three chapters or more, and I hear good news. I don't think this is wishful thinking, since I've heard and given my share of harsh critiques. I can tell when readers genuinely like something.
But there's no immediate payoff. By now, everyone around me must think I'm a jack-off, just someone who creates endless busywork for herself and talks big. I know I'm not this person. When I started this rewrite, I knew I'd be in for a difficult journey, with a gamble for a payoff. I took the journey, gamble and all, because I believe in the power of my words. I'll market this book any way I can, because I see a fan following in its future. I'm fully aware that I may be self-deluded here, but I can't ignore the possibility that I'm right. Had I decided not to do the rewrite, I'd be second-guessing myself for the rest of my life, always wondering if it could have been the next major best-seller. What's the point of living if you don't take risks like this?
I combined the first two sections of my original and reduced the word count from 278,300 to 127,400 words. That's amazing. That means my total word count (including the original, unrewritten third section) is down to 324,700 ... and I'm positive that I can cut out another 100,000 words from that third section (it will be book 2 instead of book 3, now). The story didn't change. The characters are the same. Most of what I removed was excess description and wordage.
Is this new version much stronger than the original? I'm not sure. I wish I was. Parts of it are definitely improved. The whole is lighter and faster, with tons of excess wordage deleted, but I'm afraid I may have accidentally deleted crucial bits of character development and story pacing. I might have taken out the spice that gave it its bite. If it turns out that test readers respond with less enthusiasm than they did for the original, I'll try to fit the missing character development back in there without overinflating the word count.
But these are worries for later. Right now, I'm working on new material for the first time in two years. It's a short story!
Yay!!!!!
I absolutely needed the break. I needed to write something fresh before I forgot how a first draft feels. It's pure joy. And I also need a couple of months when I'm not thinking about slavery, snobby mind readers, and berserk giants who kill people.
In July, I'll return to the Yeresunsa universe and polish my rewrite. My goal is to have it readable by September 1st. Would you care to be a test reader this winter? Here's the synopsis!
Thanks for reading my blog.
I'll assume that most readers of my blog haven't followed along with the trials and tribulations I've experienced with this project, so let me give you a quick recap. I wrote the original first draft in the year 2000. It was 519,100 words (roughly the size of Stephen King's unabridged The Stand). When I look back at that original, I judge the story to be good, but the writing to be amateur and bloated. I went through a long learning process. I split the book into three books to make it more palatable to editors. I reduced the total word count to 475,600 words. I let strangers read it and give me their honest reactions. I edited and polished it frequently. I submitted it to literary agents and publishers, and got one excited manuscript request (without a follow up) from a well-known agent, and one rewrite request from Baen Books.
As I became a better writer and learned the ways of the genre book industry, I realized (around 2004-2005) that my masterpiece needed a complete overhaul. So I set out to restructure it, to tighten the pacing and get rid of the bloat.
In order to focus on this huge task, I shoved aside my other writing goals and projects, many of them ideas which I was (and still am) excited about. I immersed myself in Thomas's and Alex's journey until I got sick of it. I reread my original epic in bits and pieces, then sliced it up and pasted the paragraphs into new places, and reread them, and slimmed them down, and changed details, and reread them again. I took notes on my own writing so I wouldn't forgot what I'd put where. I applied techniques I'd learned at the Odyssey Writing Workshop and since to my reborn novel. I gained more of a social life while I procrastinated facing this huge project every night. I gained a sense of the work involved in being a professional writer.
After all that, I won't know if my hard work paid off until years from now. I have a feeling that it will, but I've never trusted hunches or feelings. I only know that this confidence is highly unusual for me. Even though I'm sick of the project, I still look back and think it's good. I still get excited about it. I hear opinions from people who've read the first three chapters or more, and I hear good news. I don't think this is wishful thinking, since I've heard and given my share of harsh critiques. I can tell when readers genuinely like something.
But there's no immediate payoff. By now, everyone around me must think I'm a jack-off, just someone who creates endless busywork for herself and talks big. I know I'm not this person. When I started this rewrite, I knew I'd be in for a difficult journey, with a gamble for a payoff. I took the journey, gamble and all, because I believe in the power of my words. I'll market this book any way I can, because I see a fan following in its future. I'm fully aware that I may be self-deluded here, but I can't ignore the possibility that I'm right. Had I decided not to do the rewrite, I'd be second-guessing myself for the rest of my life, always wondering if it could have been the next major best-seller. What's the point of living if you don't take risks like this?
I combined the first two sections of my original and reduced the word count from 278,300 to 127,400 words. That's amazing. That means my total word count (including the original, unrewritten third section) is down to 324,700 ... and I'm positive that I can cut out another 100,000 words from that third section (it will be book 2 instead of book 3, now). The story didn't change. The characters are the same. Most of what I removed was excess description and wordage.
Is this new version much stronger than the original? I'm not sure. I wish I was. Parts of it are definitely improved. The whole is lighter and faster, with tons of excess wordage deleted, but I'm afraid I may have accidentally deleted crucial bits of character development and story pacing. I might have taken out the spice that gave it its bite. If it turns out that test readers respond with less enthusiasm than they did for the original, I'll try to fit the missing character development back in there without overinflating the word count.
But these are worries for later. Right now, I'm working on new material for the first time in two years. It's a short story!
Yay!!!!!
I absolutely needed the break. I needed to write something fresh before I forgot how a first draft feels. It's pure joy. And I also need a couple of months when I'm not thinking about slavery, snobby mind readers, and berserk giants who kill people.
In July, I'll return to the Yeresunsa universe and polish my rewrite. My goal is to have it readable by September 1st. Would you care to be a test reader this winter? Here's the synopsis!
Thanks for reading my blog.
Apr 17, 2007
The Blame Game
Against my good judgment, I'm going to blog about a current event.
I just went to a section of BBC.com where readers can post comments about the Virginia Tech shootings. As I scrolled through the comments, I saw a few condolences for the victims and survivors. I saw a lot of America-bashing and pro- and anti- gun control rants.
Why is it that when a tragedy makes world headlines, people IMMEDIATELY fling accusations and blame around? People seem unable to just sit and absorb the news. A disturbed man murdered 33 innocent students. This is not the fault of the students, the school faculty, the senators, the NRA, America, or TV and video games. It's the fault of the guy who locked students in a building and shot as many as possible. Please, assign blame where it's due. He deserves your anger. He's dead, but that doesn't make him any less guilty.
I just went to a section of BBC.com where readers can post comments about the Virginia Tech shootings. As I scrolled through the comments, I saw a few condolences for the victims and survivors. I saw a lot of America-bashing and pro- and anti- gun control rants.
Why is it that when a tragedy makes world headlines, people IMMEDIATELY fling accusations and blame around? People seem unable to just sit and absorb the news. A disturbed man murdered 33 innocent students. This is not the fault of the students, the school faculty, the senators, the NRA, America, or TV and video games. It's the fault of the guy who locked students in a building and shot as many as possible. Please, assign blame where it's due. He deserves your anger. He's dead, but that doesn't make him any less guilty.
Mar 20, 2007
Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley
I went on a ski trip this weekend! It was St. Patrick's Day and the snow was melting, but we had a great time. Click the photo to see more.
Mar 7, 2007
Scott Smith's "The Ruins"
It's been a long time since a book made me so angry as the one I just finished.
I can't stop thinking about it, which I suppose is the sign of a successful author. And I finished it, which is usually a sign of enjoyment. I'm not compelled to finish books I hate. Yet I'm angry. I wouldn't recommend this one. I can't voice my criticism without giving spoilers, so brace yourselves. There's spoilers.
SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS
This is a book about a man-eating vine. It sounds stupid, but it's surprisingly well written. This author has been compared to Stephen King, and I understand why: He can make you believe anything. Giant alien spiders that lure children into sewers? Sure. Sentient jungle plants? No problem. Scott Smith is one of those authors who brings you into the weirdness step by careful step, starting in the land of normalcy and ending in the land of lunacy. He takes you into the characters' heads in such an intimate way, you feel their terror, and their struggle with insanity as they try to comprehend the incomprehensible. This is Horror fiction.
But I felt like I was watching a train wreck. The self-absorbed idiocy of the characters had me wincing from the beginning. They harbor secret resentments towards each other. At first, I struggled to like them, because the quality of writing drew me in. They hiked into the jungle for a good reason, to find their buddy's missing brother. So what if they ignored all the classic signs of impending danger? I mean, if it were me, I would have turned back when the creepy truck driver said, "This is a bad place," and drove off in a hurry. But not everyone thinks like that.
When they became trapped on the vine-covered hilltop, surrounded by natives with pistols and arrows, I read breathlessly to find out how they would escape. They heard a cell phone ringing at the bottom of a mine-shaft. They decided to send someone down to find it. Did they check the rope? No. The rope had been sitting out in the weather for countless weeks, and no one bothered to uncoil it or test its strength. Of course, the rope broke, and we've got our first major injury. Pablo broke his spine. He's lying at the bottom of the shaft, screaming. What do the characters do? Well, they spend the entire rest of the day figuring out how to send someone else down there to bring Pablo up on a backboard. Meanwhile, they're rationing their water, the hilltop is littered with the skeletal remains of previous people who've died there, and they can't escape. WTF? I'd think they have bigger worries than the guy with a broken spine. He's already a goner. Yet the characters keep whining about how they need to get Pablo to a hospital, as if they have any way to accomplish this.
By that point (about 1/4 through the book), I knew these characters would die from terminal stupidity. Maybe Jeff, the relatively smart one who used to be an Eagle Scout, would survive. The women were annoyingly dumb. I can't stand how so many male authors write about survival situations with dumb, whiny female characters. Why not make one of the women competent? In fact, I think women are better suited to survive trauma than men. Also, resourceful characters are easier to like.
I wouldn't want any of these characters for friends. Let me tell you, this book terrified me on multiple levels. It works as a horror novel for all the good reasons. There's suspense, there's gore, there's tons of creepy scenes. And then there's the horrific idea of having to die with a group of idiots. What if you were trapped in a deadly survival situation, and your only companions want to drink tequila instead of planning a way to gather water when it rains? What if no one around you even thought about escape? What if you had to trust your life to their thoughtless non-vigilance? Scary! I get chills thinking about it. And Scott Smith made these characters very, very believable.
I came away from this book with fresh cynicism about humanity.
Before I wrap this up, I need to mention a few great ideas that never occurred to these characters. I wonder if they occured to the author.
1. My escape idea.
The natives keep watch day and night, and the vine makes an alarm noise if anyone tries to sneak past the sentries. But what about a diversion? Pablo, the guy with a broken back and hastily amputated legs, is shrieking in agony. They could drag him down the hill, let the natives shoot him to death, and flee while they're busy. Pablo would then die for a good cause instead of in vain. Okay, I'll concede that the natives might not fall for this diversion, or it may be too quick. But there's always victim #2: Eric. Eric is slowly bleeding to death from multiple self-inflicted wounds made with a dirty knife. By the second day, they all know he'll die without medical attention or food. He could martyr himself to save the rest of them. But no one thinks or suggests this idea. They discuss eating Amy's corpse on the third day, but they never discuss any practical escape attempt. Even Jeff, the former Eagle Scout, doesn't think of this. I hate them.
2. My communication idea.
The natives don't speak Spanish, which is why they were unable to warn travelers away. I don't buy this. The natives live in Mexico, and they obviously trade with Mexicans, because they have things like bicycles and T-shirts. At least one of them must speak enough Spanish to communicate. Jeff (who speaks high school level Spanish) should have tried communicating. Also, these natives are too cruel to be believed. They just let travelers wander into the vine, again and again, and hold them captive until they die. Why don't they flat-out kill them? Why do they waste resources by watching the travelers suffer in a long, drawn-out process? What if a little child or baby came with the travelers? Would an entire village--men, women, children--let a child die slowly like that? I don't believe these people.
3. My S.O.S. idea.
The vine yanks down any sign they put up. They find old S.O.S. signs hidden around the base of the hilltop, the sort of signs that might have warned them to keep away. But why don't they carve into the trunks of trees? That's what I'd do. If the vine covers their etchings, they could climb up and spend all day hacking off tree branches. That would leave some strange-looking trees, which might be enough to warn other innocent people to keep away. It might even be noticed if an airplane flies overhead.
4. My suicide idea.
Every character dies in a unique, tragic, gruesome way. By the third day, the remaining survivors (all three of them) know they're doomed. Eric skins himself alive because he's convinced the vine is inside him, Mathias gets stabbed in the heart, and the final survivor, Stacey, slits her wrists and bleeds to death. Why, oh WHY, don't any of them think to set the hilltop on fire??? They have a book of matches and a bottle of tequila. The vine recedes when it gets burnt. I'd say it's time for a Molotov cocktail and a forest fire. At least that way, they'll have saved future travelers from much pain and suffering.
Okay, I feel better now. Stay away from "The Ruins" unless you enjoy torture.
I can't stop thinking about it, which I suppose is the sign of a successful author. And I finished it, which is usually a sign of enjoyment. I'm not compelled to finish books I hate. Yet I'm angry. I wouldn't recommend this one. I can't voice my criticism without giving spoilers, so brace yourselves. There's spoilers.
SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS
This is a book about a man-eating vine. It sounds stupid, but it's surprisingly well written. This author has been compared to Stephen King, and I understand why: He can make you believe anything. Giant alien spiders that lure children into sewers? Sure. Sentient jungle plants? No problem. Scott Smith is one of those authors who brings you into the weirdness step by careful step, starting in the land of normalcy and ending in the land of lunacy. He takes you into the characters' heads in such an intimate way, you feel their terror, and their struggle with insanity as they try to comprehend the incomprehensible. This is Horror fiction.
But I felt like I was watching a train wreck. The self-absorbed idiocy of the characters had me wincing from the beginning. They harbor secret resentments towards each other. At first, I struggled to like them, because the quality of writing drew me in. They hiked into the jungle for a good reason, to find their buddy's missing brother. So what if they ignored all the classic signs of impending danger? I mean, if it were me, I would have turned back when the creepy truck driver said, "This is a bad place," and drove off in a hurry. But not everyone thinks like that.
When they became trapped on the vine-covered hilltop, surrounded by natives with pistols and arrows, I read breathlessly to find out how they would escape. They heard a cell phone ringing at the bottom of a mine-shaft. They decided to send someone down to find it. Did they check the rope? No. The rope had been sitting out in the weather for countless weeks, and no one bothered to uncoil it or test its strength. Of course, the rope broke, and we've got our first major injury. Pablo broke his spine. He's lying at the bottom of the shaft, screaming. What do the characters do? Well, they spend the entire rest of the day figuring out how to send someone else down there to bring Pablo up on a backboard. Meanwhile, they're rationing their water, the hilltop is littered with the skeletal remains of previous people who've died there, and they can't escape. WTF? I'd think they have bigger worries than the guy with a broken spine. He's already a goner. Yet the characters keep whining about how they need to get Pablo to a hospital, as if they have any way to accomplish this.
By that point (about 1/4 through the book), I knew these characters would die from terminal stupidity. Maybe Jeff, the relatively smart one who used to be an Eagle Scout, would survive. The women were annoyingly dumb. I can't stand how so many male authors write about survival situations with dumb, whiny female characters. Why not make one of the women competent? In fact, I think women are better suited to survive trauma than men. Also, resourceful characters are easier to like.
I wouldn't want any of these characters for friends. Let me tell you, this book terrified me on multiple levels. It works as a horror novel for all the good reasons. There's suspense, there's gore, there's tons of creepy scenes. And then there's the horrific idea of having to die with a group of idiots. What if you were trapped in a deadly survival situation, and your only companions want to drink tequila instead of planning a way to gather water when it rains? What if no one around you even thought about escape? What if you had to trust your life to their thoughtless non-vigilance? Scary! I get chills thinking about it. And Scott Smith made these characters very, very believable.
I came away from this book with fresh cynicism about humanity.
Before I wrap this up, I need to mention a few great ideas that never occurred to these characters. I wonder if they occured to the author.
1. My escape idea.
The natives keep watch day and night, and the vine makes an alarm noise if anyone tries to sneak past the sentries. But what about a diversion? Pablo, the guy with a broken back and hastily amputated legs, is shrieking in agony. They could drag him down the hill, let the natives shoot him to death, and flee while they're busy. Pablo would then die for a good cause instead of in vain. Okay, I'll concede that the natives might not fall for this diversion, or it may be too quick. But there's always victim #2: Eric. Eric is slowly bleeding to death from multiple self-inflicted wounds made with a dirty knife. By the second day, they all know he'll die without medical attention or food. He could martyr himself to save the rest of them. But no one thinks or suggests this idea. They discuss eating Amy's corpse on the third day, but they never discuss any practical escape attempt. Even Jeff, the former Eagle Scout, doesn't think of this. I hate them.
2. My communication idea.
The natives don't speak Spanish, which is why they were unable to warn travelers away. I don't buy this. The natives live in Mexico, and they obviously trade with Mexicans, because they have things like bicycles and T-shirts. At least one of them must speak enough Spanish to communicate. Jeff (who speaks high school level Spanish) should have tried communicating. Also, these natives are too cruel to be believed. They just let travelers wander into the vine, again and again, and hold them captive until they die. Why don't they flat-out kill them? Why do they waste resources by watching the travelers suffer in a long, drawn-out process? What if a little child or baby came with the travelers? Would an entire village--men, women, children--let a child die slowly like that? I don't believe these people.
3. My S.O.S. idea.
The vine yanks down any sign they put up. They find old S.O.S. signs hidden around the base of the hilltop, the sort of signs that might have warned them to keep away. But why don't they carve into the trunks of trees? That's what I'd do. If the vine covers their etchings, they could climb up and spend all day hacking off tree branches. That would leave some strange-looking trees, which might be enough to warn other innocent people to keep away. It might even be noticed if an airplane flies overhead.
4. My suicide idea.
Every character dies in a unique, tragic, gruesome way. By the third day, the remaining survivors (all three of them) know they're doomed. Eric skins himself alive because he's convinced the vine is inside him, Mathias gets stabbed in the heart, and the final survivor, Stacey, slits her wrists and bleeds to death. Why, oh WHY, don't any of them think to set the hilltop on fire??? They have a book of matches and a bottle of tequila. The vine recedes when it gets burnt. I'd say it's time for a Molotov cocktail and a forest fire. At least that way, they'll have saved future travelers from much pain and suffering.
Okay, I feel better now. Stay away from "The Ruins" unless you enjoy torture.
Mar 3, 2007
My Blog's New Look
I'm not a programmer, so I decided to go with a quick and easy blog rather than hosting it directly on my website. Here it is! And here is a very lame post.
Nov 26, 2006
After the Turkey Day
I hope all you American readers had a happy Thanksgiving! Heck, I hope my blog actually HAS readers ... I really don't update it often enough to get any kind of following.
I will spare you the boring details of my actual Thanksgiving with mom, dad, aunt, & grandma. I stuck around for six days, and just before I flew back to L.A., I went to my ten year high school reunion. With trepidation. I was a shy, artsy loner in high school, and my way of coping with a misspent youth was to not remember much about it. Therefore, I was worried that I wouldn't remember or recognize anyone at the reunion. I decided to go because I keep in touch via email with a few friends from high school. I also had contact with a few more people from my class of 1996 via MySpace (isn't that site amazing?). I figured if nothing else, it would be cool to blog about the experience.
You know, I'm glad I went. I didn't invent Post-it notes or anything to brag about, but I found some cool people whom I never talked to when I was in high school. Maybe we never shared classes, or maybe I was too shy. In any case, it was like meeting them for the first time, in a setting where we all had something to talk about to break the ice. There were a few people whom I remembered being friendly with, and they were as nice as I'd remembered. And what about the so-called "popular kids", the cliques? They became ordinary. Or rather, I saw them as ordinary in a concrete way for the first time. Some seemed much nicer than I remembered, which I'm sure is an aspect of my memory and not a fundamental change in their personality. I was amused by how a few people were much taller or shorter than I remembered. I have no idea what happened there. As far as location goes, I was surprised by how many stayed in New Hampshire. It's a small enough state that the borders are never more than an hour's drive, maybe two hours. I was also surprised by how many from my class became teachers. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since we were between Harvard and Dartmouth, and New England tends to be big on education. And ten years leaves a lot of room for marriage, so quite a few people showed up with bored spouses. A few high school sweethearts got married, some pairings that seemed strange to me. I wasn't the only single there, although I thought it skewed towards women. Oh well!
One of these days, I'm going to write an article about why I don't like New Hampshire. I mean no offense to those who like it. The things that I find repulsive (statewide headlines about a telephone pole getting knocked over, for instance) are the same things that attract people to that state, in ways I understand. But there can be no doubt that I exist more easily on the West coast. The people are different, the atmosphere is different, the climate, the houses, the terrain, the wildlife, the businesses, and everything is different. I think I'm happy for the reminder every once in a while. When I went to my high school reunion, I saw a few glints of the things that irritate me about people from my home town, and I sort of breathed a sigh of relief when I got on the plane.
I will spare you the boring details of my actual Thanksgiving with mom, dad, aunt, & grandma. I stuck around for six days, and just before I flew back to L.A., I went to my ten year high school reunion. With trepidation. I was a shy, artsy loner in high school, and my way of coping with a misspent youth was to not remember much about it. Therefore, I was worried that I wouldn't remember or recognize anyone at the reunion. I decided to go because I keep in touch via email with a few friends from high school. I also had contact with a few more people from my class of 1996 via MySpace (isn't that site amazing?). I figured if nothing else, it would be cool to blog about the experience.
You know, I'm glad I went. I didn't invent Post-it notes or anything to brag about, but I found some cool people whom I never talked to when I was in high school. Maybe we never shared classes, or maybe I was too shy. In any case, it was like meeting them for the first time, in a setting where we all had something to talk about to break the ice. There were a few people whom I remembered being friendly with, and they were as nice as I'd remembered. And what about the so-called "popular kids", the cliques? They became ordinary. Or rather, I saw them as ordinary in a concrete way for the first time. Some seemed much nicer than I remembered, which I'm sure is an aspect of my memory and not a fundamental change in their personality. I was amused by how a few people were much taller or shorter than I remembered. I have no idea what happened there. As far as location goes, I was surprised by how many stayed in New Hampshire. It's a small enough state that the borders are never more than an hour's drive, maybe two hours. I was also surprised by how many from my class became teachers. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since we were between Harvard and Dartmouth, and New England tends to be big on education. And ten years leaves a lot of room for marriage, so quite a few people showed up with bored spouses. A few high school sweethearts got married, some pairings that seemed strange to me. I wasn't the only single there, although I thought it skewed towards women. Oh well!
One of these days, I'm going to write an article about why I don't like New Hampshire. I mean no offense to those who like it. The things that I find repulsive (statewide headlines about a telephone pole getting knocked over, for instance) are the same things that attract people to that state, in ways I understand. But there can be no doubt that I exist more easily on the West coast. The people are different, the atmosphere is different, the climate, the houses, the terrain, the wildlife, the businesses, and everything is different. I think I'm happy for the reminder every once in a while. When I went to my high school reunion, I saw a few glints of the things that irritate me about people from my home town, and I sort of breathed a sigh of relief when I got on the plane.
Oct 26, 2006
The Three Musketeers
Whenever I finish a book, I want to discuss it, but the urge usually goes away because I'll start a new book before I can sit down and write a well-thought out review. Lately I've been spewing out spontaneous reviews on my MySpace blog because it's convenient. Tonight I'll break the habit and spew it out here.
The only other book I've ever read by the great Alexandre Dumas is The Count of Monte Cristo. I enjoyed it enough to buy two more books by him, and considering the fact that the author died in 1870 and I usually stick to modern genre fiction, that's really saying something. If Dumas were alive today, I believe he'd regularly hit the bestseller lists.
Okay, The Three Musketeers takes place in 17th century France, so it's historical fiction written by a 19th century Frenchman. At first, as the main character was introduced, I had trouble liking him and getting into the story. I had the impression that Dumas was trying too hard to settle into the literary tropes of the past. He took pains to compare his protagonist to Don Quixote, although D'Artagnan has nothing in common with the former. But the story quickly picked up. Dumas has what I think of as a modern sense of pacing. He devotes most of his words to action, dialogue, and suspense, and he builds scenes so you have to turn the page and find out what will happen next. In reading this book, I expected a conventional swashbuckling tale of friends who go around doing heroic deeds. But this book exceeded my expectations by a long shot. I think one of the main elements that sets it apart from similar fiction is the villain. She's a clever, beautiful, ruthless bitch. This story takes place in a time when women were considered lesser creatures, but all of the male characters are terrified of her, and with good reason. It sounds cartoony, but Dumas makes her believable without reducing the heroism of the protagonists in any way. She's almost funny, mostly scary. In the end, I respected her and wanted to kill her myself. We've all seen our share of ruthless female villains, but this one stands out in my mind as being a cut above the rest. She doesn't use magic--it's not that kind of book--but her skills at seduction are pushed just slightly beyond the realm of human ability, and she's pretty much a genius, so she achieves a demonic status to the male characters and to the reader.
Of course, a kick-ass villain is nothing without kick-ass protagonists. D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are a study in contrast. One is brave and too impulsive, one is a near-suicidal former nobleman, one is a gigantic idiot, and one is a peaceful wannabe monk. The way they meet each other is hilarious, and their interaction throughout the novel is just pure fun. I think the reason Dumas's novels are so popular is because everything is pushed just slightly beyond the bounds of reality, without becoming fantasy or even beyond possibility. The relationship between the four protags isn't quite as silly as that between Egon, Ray, Venkman, and Winston from Ghostbusters, because these guys have their serious moments and their arguments. As with any great story, the larger-than-life characters are portrayed as real people.
I feel a little silly for reviewing a novel that must have been reviewed by thousands of people before me. Oh well. I'm glad I bought Queen Margot, because I want more Dumas.
In the meantime, I'm taking a break from translated French novels to listen to a modern crime/action novel by David Baldacci. It's called Last Man Standing. So far, so good, although it's a little too testosterone-laden for my tastes. I would rather read about a guy's inner feelings than the specifics of all the guns he owns. But I like the premise. An FBI hostage rescue team goes into a drug operation to take out the bad guys, but it turns out the team was set up, and everyone gets killed except for one fluke--the main character, who froze at the critical moment and therefore missed the gunfire meant to kill him. Now people believe he betrayed his team, and he has to endure the accusing stares of the widows of his best buddies, not to mention his coworkers and bosses. I suppose his moment of freezing must have been psychic intuition, but I will read and find out.
Since I'm on this long review kick, I'll add a final blurb about the movie The Prestige. It's worth seeing, and it will bend your mind in weird new ways. However, I thought it was a bit too convoluted. The ending was especially hard to get, at least for me. You have to think outside the magic box. Still ... fun premise, awesome acting, cool cinematography, and so forth. And it is very different from The Illusionist, so see both of them if you can.
The only other book I've ever read by the great Alexandre Dumas is The Count of Monte Cristo. I enjoyed it enough to buy two more books by him, and considering the fact that the author died in 1870 and I usually stick to modern genre fiction, that's really saying something. If Dumas were alive today, I believe he'd regularly hit the bestseller lists.
Okay, The Three Musketeers takes place in 17th century France, so it's historical fiction written by a 19th century Frenchman. At first, as the main character was introduced, I had trouble liking him and getting into the story. I had the impression that Dumas was trying too hard to settle into the literary tropes of the past. He took pains to compare his protagonist to Don Quixote, although D'Artagnan has nothing in common with the former. But the story quickly picked up. Dumas has what I think of as a modern sense of pacing. He devotes most of his words to action, dialogue, and suspense, and he builds scenes so you have to turn the page and find out what will happen next. In reading this book, I expected a conventional swashbuckling tale of friends who go around doing heroic deeds. But this book exceeded my expectations by a long shot. I think one of the main elements that sets it apart from similar fiction is the villain. She's a clever, beautiful, ruthless bitch. This story takes place in a time when women were considered lesser creatures, but all of the male characters are terrified of her, and with good reason. It sounds cartoony, but Dumas makes her believable without reducing the heroism of the protagonists in any way. She's almost funny, mostly scary. In the end, I respected her and wanted to kill her myself. We've all seen our share of ruthless female villains, but this one stands out in my mind as being a cut above the rest. She doesn't use magic--it's not that kind of book--but her skills at seduction are pushed just slightly beyond the realm of human ability, and she's pretty much a genius, so she achieves a demonic status to the male characters and to the reader.
Of course, a kick-ass villain is nothing without kick-ass protagonists. D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are a study in contrast. One is brave and too impulsive, one is a near-suicidal former nobleman, one is a gigantic idiot, and one is a peaceful wannabe monk. The way they meet each other is hilarious, and their interaction throughout the novel is just pure fun. I think the reason Dumas's novels are so popular is because everything is pushed just slightly beyond the bounds of reality, without becoming fantasy or even beyond possibility. The relationship between the four protags isn't quite as silly as that between Egon, Ray, Venkman, and Winston from Ghostbusters, because these guys have their serious moments and their arguments. As with any great story, the larger-than-life characters are portrayed as real people.
I feel a little silly for reviewing a novel that must have been reviewed by thousands of people before me. Oh well. I'm glad I bought Queen Margot, because I want more Dumas.
In the meantime, I'm taking a break from translated French novels to listen to a modern crime/action novel by David Baldacci. It's called Last Man Standing. So far, so good, although it's a little too testosterone-laden for my tastes. I would rather read about a guy's inner feelings than the specifics of all the guns he owns. But I like the premise. An FBI hostage rescue team goes into a drug operation to take out the bad guys, but it turns out the team was set up, and everyone gets killed except for one fluke--the main character, who froze at the critical moment and therefore missed the gunfire meant to kill him. Now people believe he betrayed his team, and he has to endure the accusing stares of the widows of his best buddies, not to mention his coworkers and bosses. I suppose his moment of freezing must have been psychic intuition, but I will read and find out.
Since I'm on this long review kick, I'll add a final blurb about the movie The Prestige. It's worth seeing, and it will bend your mind in weird new ways. However, I thought it was a bit too convoluted. The ending was especially hard to get, at least for me. You have to think outside the magic box. Still ... fun premise, awesome acting, cool cinematography, and so forth. And it is very different from The Illusionist, so see both of them if you can.
Aug 5, 2006
An Evening With Harry, Carrie & Garp
I needed that vacation!
I just got back from a two week trip, in which I went to Comic Con in San Diego, then flew to New Hampshire to visit my family and friends, then drove to Manhattan to see my film screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and more visiting. I plan to post lots of photos online soon. You'll see me with a bunch of Storm Troopers, some nice views of Lake Winnipesaukee, and a few great shots of Manhattan, if I do say so myself.
Are there any J.K. Rowling fans reading this blog? How about Stephen King or John Irving fans? I admire all three, and consider myself their fans, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see them perform readings at Radio City Music Hall on August 1st. There's a lot to respect about these authors. They've become wildly successful in a waning industry where the odds are stacked high against any writer, and they've actually earned their success (so I believe). Also, unlike many celebrities, they respect their fans, and aim to please them, rather than treating fans as a nuisance. These qualities make them rare among artists of any discipline and any level.
I could talk about the rest of my vacation, but I'll save that for another blog entry, if at all. "An Evening With Harry, Carrie & Garp" was for two nights only, and these are three of the world's most respected living authors. I doubt they'll do another public event together again. I need to share the experience. No cameras or recording devices were allowed in the theatre, so it's all words from here.
Six thousand people bought tickets; the show was sold out. As the seats filled, I noticed lots of families with Harry Potter aged children. Some wore wizard robes and hats. I heard a lot of buzz about Rowling, and I began to worry that 1) these kids would get bored and restless during the readings by the other two authors, and that 2) fans of King and Irving would be a minority, which seemed unfair, considering how many readers they must have.
Whoopi Goldberg, a fan of all three authors, came onstage to give a warm introduction. She mentioned that the King and Irving fans were out there, just not as outspoken as the Harry Potter crowd. I was happy that each author received a huge round of applause; Rowling had not overshadowed the other two.
Each author got a separate introduction by a surprise guest celebrity-fan. Kathy Bates introduced King, relating a story that King used to carry a rubber rat in his pocket during the shooting of The Stand miniseries, and he'd whip it out to scare people. Once introduced, King strolled onstage and got a standing ovation (as did the other two authors, later). He looked fit and healthy, and comfortable in front of this huge audience. He promptly sat in the rural country stageset that had been arranged for him, and launched into reading the pie eating contest scene from The Body in his Different Seasons collection.
I thought this was an odd choice. He could have read an excerpt from The Eyes of the Dragon, or one of his less R-rated short stories. The pie eating contest is a child-friendly scene, but it might make some people feel uncomfortable. Well, King read it with great relish and delight, and the audience laughed quite a lot. I think it held everyone's interest. At one gross-out scene, King interrupted himself, saying, "Who writes this stuff?" Pause for audience laugh, and then he said (with glee), "Let's press on, shall we?" And the next sentence was even more disgusting.
Andre Braugher introduced John Irving. In contrast to King's rural Maine stageset, Irving got an Ivy League New Hampshire setup. He sat down in an ornate leather armchair and read the manger casting scene from A Prayer for Owen Meaney. Like King, he was relaxed in front of the crowd and kept everyone interested. He did a funny, squeaky voice when reading Owen's lines.
John Stewart, a fan of all three authors, strolled out to great applause and introduced J.K. Rowling. He acted as if books were threatening the TV industry, a nice touch of ironic sarcasm. Rowling had a wizardish throne setup. She was a little nervous at first, and joked about being classed in the caliber of King and Irving. Of course, she's much younger than those two, and less prolific at this point in her career. She did an excellent reading of a scene from the sixth Harry Potter book, where Harry accompanies a memory of Dumbledore recruiting Tom Riddle to Hogwarts. Afterwards, she remained alone onstage to answer four audience questions. Among other things, she said that Draco would not have murdered Dumbledore, had that scene panned out differently. She wrote the finale of her series before she began it.
The authors answered twelve selected fan questions, out of a thousand. Soledad O'Brien introduced each fan. Among the answers to their questions:
Irving is a compulsive rewriter, and claims that 3/4ths of his career as a writer is spent revising. He enjoys rewriting, but gets nervous about first drafts. He writes by hand or typewriter, without saving files, which I suppose makes rewriting both more necessary and more difficult.
Rowling was surprised by much of the fan fiction devoted to her series, which she found when bored one night and Googling "Harry Potter." She also has a morbid urge to scroll through the Amazon reviews in search of the harsh ones, and does not recommend doing so.
Irving writes the endings of his stories first, feeling them out emotionally, then meticulously planning and building on the mood structure. He saves beginnings for last and finds them the most difficult. King works the opposite way, starting from the beginning and pulling through without a plan, discovering the plot and characters and mood as he writes it.
Rowling got an agent on her second attempt, but collected rejections for two years before the book sold. She knew from the beginning that Harry Potter was an idea she needed to write, and she never felt like giving up on getting his story published. Hypothetically speaking, if she'd gone through every last publisher without selling the book, she would have kept trying. She would have supported herself as a schoolteacher while continuing to pursue her dream.
Irving said that his book The Fourth Hand was inspired by a TV news story about a hand transplant, and a comment his wife made about visiting the transplanted hand of one's donor spouse. Then his wife went to bed, and he was up all night thinking about it.
Someone asked King how he could come up with such ideas without being demented. King answered that there's no good answer to that question. He didn't have much to say to any of his questions: what scares you, what was the most inopportune place you got a story idea ... he's answered these before. I wish they'd chosen different audience questions for him. Mine, for instance. What would you change about the publishing industry, if you could?
You may wonder what I got from seeing these authors live instead of on TV. The answer (aside from the pleasure of hearing them perform their work specifically for fans like me, and experiencing them along with six thousand readers) is seeing their public personas. One can't hide personal mannerisms when live and onstage for a few hours. I expected one of them to come across as a jerk in some way. Instead, all three seemed down to Earth, not arrogant, very confident in themselves and in touch with their fans. That's a wonderful thing to see.
If you'd like to check out some other reviews of the event:
The Slush God
Tom Richmond
Sense of Soot
I just got back from a two week trip, in which I went to Comic Con in San Diego, then flew to New Hampshire to visit my family and friends, then drove to Manhattan to see my film screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and more visiting. I plan to post lots of photos online soon. You'll see me with a bunch of Storm Troopers, some nice views of Lake Winnipesaukee, and a few great shots of Manhattan, if I do say so myself.
Are there any J.K. Rowling fans reading this blog? How about Stephen King or John Irving fans? I admire all three, and consider myself their fans, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see them perform readings at Radio City Music Hall on August 1st. There's a lot to respect about these authors. They've become wildly successful in a waning industry where the odds are stacked high against any writer, and they've actually earned their success (so I believe). Also, unlike many celebrities, they respect their fans, and aim to please them, rather than treating fans as a nuisance. These qualities make them rare among artists of any discipline and any level.
I could talk about the rest of my vacation, but I'll save that for another blog entry, if at all. "An Evening With Harry, Carrie & Garp" was for two nights only, and these are three of the world's most respected living authors. I doubt they'll do another public event together again. I need to share the experience. No cameras or recording devices were allowed in the theatre, so it's all words from here.
Six thousand people bought tickets; the show was sold out. As the seats filled, I noticed lots of families with Harry Potter aged children. Some wore wizard robes and hats. I heard a lot of buzz about Rowling, and I began to worry that 1) these kids would get bored and restless during the readings by the other two authors, and that 2) fans of King and Irving would be a minority, which seemed unfair, considering how many readers they must have.
Whoopi Goldberg, a fan of all three authors, came onstage to give a warm introduction. She mentioned that the King and Irving fans were out there, just not as outspoken as the Harry Potter crowd. I was happy that each author received a huge round of applause; Rowling had not overshadowed the other two.
Each author got a separate introduction by a surprise guest celebrity-fan. Kathy Bates introduced King, relating a story that King used to carry a rubber rat in his pocket during the shooting of The Stand miniseries, and he'd whip it out to scare people. Once introduced, King strolled onstage and got a standing ovation (as did the other two authors, later). He looked fit and healthy, and comfortable in front of this huge audience. He promptly sat in the rural country stageset that had been arranged for him, and launched into reading the pie eating contest scene from The Body in his Different Seasons collection.
I thought this was an odd choice. He could have read an excerpt from The Eyes of the Dragon, or one of his less R-rated short stories. The pie eating contest is a child-friendly scene, but it might make some people feel uncomfortable. Well, King read it with great relish and delight, and the audience laughed quite a lot. I think it held everyone's interest. At one gross-out scene, King interrupted himself, saying, "Who writes this stuff?" Pause for audience laugh, and then he said (with glee), "Let's press on, shall we?" And the next sentence was even more disgusting.
Andre Braugher introduced John Irving. In contrast to King's rural Maine stageset, Irving got an Ivy League New Hampshire setup. He sat down in an ornate leather armchair and read the manger casting scene from A Prayer for Owen Meaney. Like King, he was relaxed in front of the crowd and kept everyone interested. He did a funny, squeaky voice when reading Owen's lines.
John Stewart, a fan of all three authors, strolled out to great applause and introduced J.K. Rowling. He acted as if books were threatening the TV industry, a nice touch of ironic sarcasm. Rowling had a wizardish throne setup. She was a little nervous at first, and joked about being classed in the caliber of King and Irving. Of course, she's much younger than those two, and less prolific at this point in her career. She did an excellent reading of a scene from the sixth Harry Potter book, where Harry accompanies a memory of Dumbledore recruiting Tom Riddle to Hogwarts. Afterwards, she remained alone onstage to answer four audience questions. Among other things, she said that Draco would not have murdered Dumbledore, had that scene panned out differently. She wrote the finale of her series before she began it.
The authors answered twelve selected fan questions, out of a thousand. Soledad O'Brien introduced each fan. Among the answers to their questions:
Irving is a compulsive rewriter, and claims that 3/4ths of his career as a writer is spent revising. He enjoys rewriting, but gets nervous about first drafts. He writes by hand or typewriter, without saving files, which I suppose makes rewriting both more necessary and more difficult.
Rowling was surprised by much of the fan fiction devoted to her series, which she found when bored one night and Googling "Harry Potter." She also has a morbid urge to scroll through the Amazon reviews in search of the harsh ones, and does not recommend doing so.
Irving writes the endings of his stories first, feeling them out emotionally, then meticulously planning and building on the mood structure. He saves beginnings for last and finds them the most difficult. King works the opposite way, starting from the beginning and pulling through without a plan, discovering the plot and characters and mood as he writes it.
Rowling got an agent on her second attempt, but collected rejections for two years before the book sold. She knew from the beginning that Harry Potter was an idea she needed to write, and she never felt like giving up on getting his story published. Hypothetically speaking, if she'd gone through every last publisher without selling the book, she would have kept trying. She would have supported herself as a schoolteacher while continuing to pursue her dream.
Irving said that his book The Fourth Hand was inspired by a TV news story about a hand transplant, and a comment his wife made about visiting the transplanted hand of one's donor spouse. Then his wife went to bed, and he was up all night thinking about it.
Someone asked King how he could come up with such ideas without being demented. King answered that there's no good answer to that question. He didn't have much to say to any of his questions: what scares you, what was the most inopportune place you got a story idea ... he's answered these before. I wish they'd chosen different audience questions for him. Mine, for instance. What would you change about the publishing industry, if you could?
You may wonder what I got from seeing these authors live instead of on TV. The answer (aside from the pleasure of hearing them perform their work specifically for fans like me, and experiencing them along with six thousand readers) is seeing their public personas. One can't hide personal mannerisms when live and onstage for a few hours. I expected one of them to come across as a jerk in some way. Instead, all three seemed down to Earth, not arrogant, very confident in themselves and in touch with their fans. That's a wonderful thing to see.
If you'd like to check out some other reviews of the event:
The Slush God
Tom Richmond
Sense of Soot
Jul 26, 2006
Lost River, NH
NOTE: This should be dated July 26, 2006.
I visit New Hampshire every summer. I live in California, but it's nice for me to remember where I grew up (and why I moved). Anyway, during this trip back east, I went on a day excursion to the White Mountains with my friend Amy. We drove from Manchester for about 2 or 3 hours north, to the White Mountain National Park. This is basically a gigantic forest. It stretches from Eastern Canada all the way to the Southern USA. The northern New Hampshire part of it is extremely unpopulated. You might find a quaint town or two, but mostly, it's trees. Lots of trees. The mountains are furred with pine trees and look like hills or clouds from a distance, because they're round and hump-like, but up close, you can see they're taller than hills. The tallest White Mountains are known as the Presidential Range (named after U.S. Presidents), and they tend to have tundra or bare granite peaks due to the awful weather at the top. In midsummer, the tops of these mountains experience freezing rain and the highest windspeeds on Earth. In winter, it gets worse.
We didn't visit any granite peaks on this trip. Instead, we visited Lost River Gorge.
This is one of several parks in upstate New Hampshire where you can explore granite caves (the most well-known one is the Polar Caves). At Lost River, you follow the trail, which consists of walkways between, over, and under giant boulders in the woods. Every so often, you'll see a crack between boulders with a sign inviting you to enter the cave. If you can contort your body through the crack, you're fine. Some of these caves involve spaces that a child has trouble crawling through. Seriously, you need to be flexible and NOT claustrophobic.
Here's a man emerging from a cave:
Here's a view of the White Mountains. Appalachia at its finest!
So, what does one find in a Lost River cave? Somtimes chilly little underground ponds. Sometimes old-style lanterns. Sometimes ladders made out of sticks that you have to climb in order to get out. Sometimes children (or adults) looking for an easier way out. Not much else!
At least it's a fun hike, and there are plenty of nice views.
I visit New Hampshire every summer. I live in California, but it's nice for me to remember where I grew up (and why I moved). Anyway, during this trip back east, I went on a day excursion to the White Mountains with my friend Amy. We drove from Manchester for about 2 or 3 hours north, to the White Mountain National Park. This is basically a gigantic forest. It stretches from Eastern Canada all the way to the Southern USA. The northern New Hampshire part of it is extremely unpopulated. You might find a quaint town or two, but mostly, it's trees. Lots of trees. The mountains are furred with pine trees and look like hills or clouds from a distance, because they're round and hump-like, but up close, you can see they're taller than hills. The tallest White Mountains are known as the Presidential Range (named after U.S. Presidents), and they tend to have tundra or bare granite peaks due to the awful weather at the top. In midsummer, the tops of these mountains experience freezing rain and the highest windspeeds on Earth. In winter, it gets worse.
We didn't visit any granite peaks on this trip. Instead, we visited Lost River Gorge.
This is one of several parks in upstate New Hampshire where you can explore granite caves (the most well-known one is the Polar Caves). At Lost River, you follow the trail, which consists of walkways between, over, and under giant boulders in the woods. Every so often, you'll see a crack between boulders with a sign inviting you to enter the cave. If you can contort your body through the crack, you're fine. Some of these caves involve spaces that a child has trouble crawling through. Seriously, you need to be flexible and NOT claustrophobic.
Here's a man emerging from a cave:
Here's a view of the White Mountains. Appalachia at its finest!
So, what does one find in a Lost River cave? Somtimes chilly little underground ponds. Sometimes old-style lanterns. Sometimes ladders made out of sticks that you have to climb in order to get out. Sometimes children (or adults) looking for an easier way out. Not much else!
At least it's a fun hike, and there are plenty of nice views.
Jul 21, 2006
ComicCon 2006
So far, I've been to two ComicCons, each more crowded than the last. Nerds take over the entire city of San Diego! Look at them all:
Last year, in 2005, I had the supreme honor of being a guest at a private fan dinner with author Robert Jordan. This year, I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends Brianne and Heather. Here we are in front of the Star of India, a sailing ship near our hotel:
We met a number of pirates, but Captain Jack Sparrow had a certain allure, so we took photos with him.
Part of the joy of being an Attending Professional is avoiding lines. Comic Con attracts over 150,000 people from all over the world. Some of them wait in line for hours just to enter to convention center. Here's a line we skipped:
Last year, I avoided the crowded floor and spent most of the weekend at panels, which were fun and enlightening. This year, I avoided the panels and browsed the floor. The San Diego convention center is so huge, no photograph can convey its size. There are over 5,000 booths in one massive room. There are contests, clothing and jewelry, prints and fine art, comics and toys, celebrities, costumes, novels and author signings. You can spend a day on the floor and not see it all.
Here's a sliver of it:
We met some storm troopers and Jedi:
And Heather met some comic book heroes:
We saw lots of strange costumes, including five women dressed like Wonder Woman, a giant panda on a tricycle, and a naked old man. The thick crowds made it hard to snap shots of individuals. Here's some strange ones:
Finally, we took breaks and explored beautiful downtown San Diego. We went to clubs (full of Comic Con attendees) and restaurants (full of Comic Con attendees). Here's a view of the harbor within walking distance of the convention center:
Will I go again? Surely! But if the convention keeps growing like this, they'll need to rent a larger city.
Last year, in 2005, I had the supreme honor of being a guest at a private fan dinner with author Robert Jordan. This year, I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends Brianne and Heather. Here we are in front of the Star of India, a sailing ship near our hotel:
We met a number of pirates, but Captain Jack Sparrow had a certain allure, so we took photos with him.
Part of the joy of being an Attending Professional is avoiding lines. Comic Con attracts over 150,000 people from all over the world. Some of them wait in line for hours just to enter to convention center. Here's a line we skipped:
Last year, I avoided the crowded floor and spent most of the weekend at panels, which were fun and enlightening. This year, I avoided the panels and browsed the floor. The San Diego convention center is so huge, no photograph can convey its size. There are over 5,000 booths in one massive room. There are contests, clothing and jewelry, prints and fine art, comics and toys, celebrities, costumes, novels and author signings. You can spend a day on the floor and not see it all.
Here's a sliver of it:
We met some storm troopers and Jedi:
And Heather met some comic book heroes:
We saw lots of strange costumes, including five women dressed like Wonder Woman, a giant panda on a tricycle, and a naked old man. The thick crowds made it hard to snap shots of individuals. Here's some strange ones:
Finally, we took breaks and explored beautiful downtown San Diego. We went to clubs (full of Comic Con attendees) and restaurants (full of Comic Con attendees). Here's a view of the harbor within walking distance of the convention center:
Will I go again? Surely! But if the convention keeps growing like this, they'll need to rent a larger city.
May 9, 2006
relieving traffic congestion while improving our standard of living
I am uniquely lucky in one respect: I live in the Los Angeles area, and I almost never face rush hour traffic. This is because a) I live two blocks away from my office building, and b) I'm a night owl who rarely sees the sunny side of the AM hours.
So today, I was required to show up for jury duty at a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. I woke up at 6am (which was painful) and belatedly realized that I was going to get stuck in morning traffic. Yup. I sat amidst cars in the smog-filled morning haze of L.A., and since I wasn't doing much else, I got to thinking about how much it must suck to have to commute every day.
Wouldn't the rush hour traffic be lessened if businesses adopted different schedules? Other night people like me exist; not every employee would voluntarily choose 9am till 5pm. I don't see why other businesses can't shift their schedules in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion. If some of the major corporations were to adopt 11am to 7pm shifts, that would help a lot. And please don't tell me "no one would agree to those hours." That's pure bullshit. If you think that way, then you're one of THEM ... a morning person.
And by the way, I spent my entire civic duty as a potential Juror reading a book. The trial was postponed or something, so they didn't need a jury. I guess that happens a lot! The free time was nice, though; my only complaint was having to wake up at 6am.
So today, I was required to show up for jury duty at a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. I woke up at 6am (which was painful) and belatedly realized that I was going to get stuck in morning traffic. Yup. I sat amidst cars in the smog-filled morning haze of L.A., and since I wasn't doing much else, I got to thinking about how much it must suck to have to commute every day.
Wouldn't the rush hour traffic be lessened if businesses adopted different schedules? Other night people like me exist; not every employee would voluntarily choose 9am till 5pm. I don't see why other businesses can't shift their schedules in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion. If some of the major corporations were to adopt 11am to 7pm shifts, that would help a lot. And please don't tell me "no one would agree to those hours." That's pure bullshit. If you think that way, then you're one of THEM ... a morning person.
And by the way, I spent my entire civic duty as a potential Juror reading a book. The trial was postponed or something, so they didn't need a jury. I guess that happens a lot! The free time was nice, though; my only complaint was having to wake up at 6am.
May 3, 2006
Reading and today's youth
Obviously, if you're reading this, you have enjoyed the act of reading at some time in your life (and maybe you still do). You don't habitually avoid large blocks of text. I'm so involved in the writing industry, I sometimes forget that there are huge portions of the population who don't read. They fall asleep when they pick up a novel. They may be proud of the fact that they prefer videogames to books, or they may be embarrassed and pretend to tout some book knowledge based off of the few novels they read in high school English classes. Either way, these people have probably never had the experience of becoming absorped in a novel. They've never read a story that tugged their emotions in an unforgettable way, experiencing something very different from the sort of emotional impact that a good movie or game can impart.
I suspect the reading attitude is cultivated in high school (or junior high) for most people. I wonder how much reading I'd do if I had never picked up Pet Semetary in 6th grade. What if the first adult book I ever read was, say, Moby Dick? What if I'd never read Stephen King or Anne Rice? What if my only encounters with literature were Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and a handful of V.C. Andrews and Nancy Drew? Well, I'll tell you: I would hate to read. I would chalk it up to an overrated waste of time.
Really, I wonder at the approach high schools take. The classics are important ... but they're not relevant to most teenagers in 2006. To me, emphasizing the Bronte sisters in a 10th grade English class is the equivalent of emphasizing silent films in a class about cinema in general. All of the focus is on one long-ago era, rather than what's innovative and current. Maybe a classic book will have a profound impact on one teenager, somewhere ... maybe. But the way I see it, kids aged 10 through 18 need to experience the joy of reading before they choose to study classic literature. And studying the classics ought to be a choice. I've heard people make a fuss about losing Shakespeare in high school classes, but I think these people are worried about the wrong aspect of the reading problem. Given the choice between losing a few Shakespearian quotes as part of our cultural vocabulary (and that changes every year anyway) and losing millions of readers each year, I choose to lose Shakespeare in high school. This is not the death of Shakespeare. Every reader has a love, many readers love Shakespeare, and they will keep him alive. I'm sure that colleges will continue to devote classes to Shakespeare, and people will continue to study and perform his plays. Meanwhile, high school students would become less familiar with Shakespeare ... which may have the effect of rekindling an interest in his works. Now, if those same high school English classes replaced Shakespeare and the classics with some modern, popular authors, we may actually have more readers entering society.
And one more thing: Most of the bookworms I know, including myself, started out by reading fun, modern authors. We identified with characters who lived in the same society we inhabit. Later on, we read about other worlds and time periods. Now, in our adult lives, some of us read (and enjoy) more classics than any high school would assign. But while we were in high school, we preferred those modern authors, who validated our feelings about the world around us, and showed us characters like our friends and ourselves. That is how we became readers. To me, that is the most important point.
What does society lose from having fewer readers? Let me put it this way: Right now, there are some people who don't know how to navigate the internet or send an email. They've been unable to access computers, or they've purposely avoided them. You're a computer user. What kind of disadvantages do you see those people as having?
I suspect the reading attitude is cultivated in high school (or junior high) for most people. I wonder how much reading I'd do if I had never picked up Pet Semetary in 6th grade. What if the first adult book I ever read was, say, Moby Dick? What if I'd never read Stephen King or Anne Rice? What if my only encounters with literature were Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and a handful of V.C. Andrews and Nancy Drew? Well, I'll tell you: I would hate to read. I would chalk it up to an overrated waste of time.
Really, I wonder at the approach high schools take. The classics are important ... but they're not relevant to most teenagers in 2006. To me, emphasizing the Bronte sisters in a 10th grade English class is the equivalent of emphasizing silent films in a class about cinema in general. All of the focus is on one long-ago era, rather than what's innovative and current. Maybe a classic book will have a profound impact on one teenager, somewhere ... maybe. But the way I see it, kids aged 10 through 18 need to experience the joy of reading before they choose to study classic literature. And studying the classics ought to be a choice. I've heard people make a fuss about losing Shakespeare in high school classes, but I think these people are worried about the wrong aspect of the reading problem. Given the choice between losing a few Shakespearian quotes as part of our cultural vocabulary (and that changes every year anyway) and losing millions of readers each year, I choose to lose Shakespeare in high school. This is not the death of Shakespeare. Every reader has a love, many readers love Shakespeare, and they will keep him alive. I'm sure that colleges will continue to devote classes to Shakespeare, and people will continue to study and perform his plays. Meanwhile, high school students would become less familiar with Shakespeare ... which may have the effect of rekindling an interest in his works. Now, if those same high school English classes replaced Shakespeare and the classics with some modern, popular authors, we may actually have more readers entering society.
And one more thing: Most of the bookworms I know, including myself, started out by reading fun, modern authors. We identified with characters who lived in the same society we inhabit. Later on, we read about other worlds and time periods. Now, in our adult lives, some of us read (and enjoy) more classics than any high school would assign. But while we were in high school, we preferred those modern authors, who validated our feelings about the world around us, and showed us characters like our friends and ourselves. That is how we became readers. To me, that is the most important point.
What does society lose from having fewer readers? Let me put it this way: Right now, there are some people who don't know how to navigate the internet or send an email. They've been unable to access computers, or they've purposely avoided them. You're a computer user. What kind of disadvantages do you see those people as having?
Mar 20, 2006
St. Patrick's Day madness!
Okay, I'm not a bar-hopping type of girl, but for St. Patrick's Day, my friend convinced me to celebrate by going to an Irish pub. I wasn't sure what to expect. I figured we'd get hit on by all the wrong kinds of people and then leave after an hour, but at least I can pass for Irish if anything went wrong.
So we cruised around the O.C. It so happens that in Seal Beach, there are four Irish bars within a block of each other, and they were all full of St. P's Day revelers. About ten seconds after we walked through the door of The Irisher, a drunk woman started pinching my arm. She wanted to know why I wasn't wearing green ... apparently she didn't notice my bright green pants. Anyway, she was hurting me, so we escaped into the crowd.
Long story shortened (not because I can't remember what happened, but because it's censored, thank you very much): We stayed till closing time. I had a good time. I'm not sure what the point of this story is, except to say that I went to a bar as a single woman for the first time, and it's nice to be hit on.
And last night, I went to an art opening at Gallery Nucleus, where my friends have some artwork up. If you come to the Pasadena area, I highly recommend that you visit this art gallery. They have cool "underground" sort of prints, books, and T-shirts, too.
And earlier today, we had lunch at the 60's futuristic LAX restaurant, Encounter. It's worth a visit for the art deco architecture. Their elevator plays 60's scifi music.
I plan to post new photos on my site soon!
So we cruised around the O.C. It so happens that in Seal Beach, there are four Irish bars within a block of each other, and they were all full of St. P's Day revelers. About ten seconds after we walked through the door of The Irisher, a drunk woman started pinching my arm. She wanted to know why I wasn't wearing green ... apparently she didn't notice my bright green pants. Anyway, she was hurting me, so we escaped into the crowd.
Long story shortened (not because I can't remember what happened, but because it's censored, thank you very much): We stayed till closing time. I had a good time. I'm not sure what the point of this story is, except to say that I went to a bar as a single woman for the first time, and it's nice to be hit on.
And last night, I went to an art opening at Gallery Nucleus, where my friends have some artwork up. If you come to the Pasadena area, I highly recommend that you visit this art gallery. They have cool "underground" sort of prints, books, and T-shirts, too.
And earlier today, we had lunch at the 60's futuristic LAX restaurant, Encounter. It's worth a visit for the art deco architecture. Their elevator plays 60's scifi music.
I plan to post new photos on my site soon!
Feb 8, 2006
Email backlog
It has come to my attention that I have more than 200 emails awaiting replies. This is worse than usual. To Everyone: I'm sorry! I would send an auto-response that I'm busy, but I don't have time to figure out how to make one.
Here's my typical schedule: Go to work around 11am, run around totally busy until 7 or 8pm (I'm managing a small animation team), then go home and work on my novel revision until 2 or 3am. On weekends, I catch up with friends, or my sister, or actually go on a date. I don't have kids or pets, so honestly, I can't comprehend how someone with kids or pets ever answers email.
Mini-update on my writing:
I estimate I'll be finished with my novel revision around May 2006. Once I'm satisfied that it's better than the old version (test readers!!!), I'll throw every effort into trying to catch the attention of an agent or publisher. No more rewrites. No more agonizing over making it marketable. If the new version gets poor reactions, then I'll stick with the old version, and I mean stick with it. That is a resolution! Stand by for adventures in publishing . . .
Since I've thrown all my attention towards the novel, I haven't done anything with my short stories. Most of them need revisions. But, happily, I did get a rewrite request from Baen's Universe . . . that's almost a pro sale!
Regarding the monitor problem: Thanks for sending in advice. I gather that it could be a bad monitor cable, a conflict between hardware drivers, or a dying monitor. Since I wrote that blog entry, I haven't had a problem (go figure), but I'm sure it'll come back. I'll try different things and post about whatever works.
Here's my typical schedule: Go to work around 11am, run around totally busy until 7 or 8pm (I'm managing a small animation team), then go home and work on my novel revision until 2 or 3am. On weekends, I catch up with friends, or my sister, or actually go on a date. I don't have kids or pets, so honestly, I can't comprehend how someone with kids or pets ever answers email.
Mini-update on my writing:
I estimate I'll be finished with my novel revision around May 2006. Once I'm satisfied that it's better than the old version (test readers!!!), I'll throw every effort into trying to catch the attention of an agent or publisher. No more rewrites. No more agonizing over making it marketable. If the new version gets poor reactions, then I'll stick with the old version, and I mean stick with it. That is a resolution! Stand by for adventures in publishing . . .
Since I've thrown all my attention towards the novel, I haven't done anything with my short stories. Most of them need revisions. But, happily, I did get a rewrite request from Baen's Universe . . . that's almost a pro sale!
Regarding the monitor problem: Thanks for sending in advice. I gather that it could be a bad monitor cable, a conflict between hardware drivers, or a dying monitor. Since I wrote that blog entry, I haven't had a problem (go figure), but I'm sure it'll come back. I'll try different things and post about whatever works.
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