I am really starting to wonder if its even worth the effort to write short fiction these days. Very few publications pay anything more than 5 cents a word and those that are mainly publishing only established writers.
I can't remember if it was Robert J. Sawyer or Jonathan Sherwood*, both of whom have made a career writing scientific journal articles for a living, who commented that it's frustrating that they can get a minimum of 50 cents a word for professional science writing yet they are forced to sell their labour of love for 5 cents a word or less.
Then I came across "Boy's Life" the Boy Scouts of America magazine that apparently publish both non-fiction and fiction. Their payment for short stories is $750 and up. That's a fat 75 cents a word! Non-fiction runs $400 to $1,500 per article. Sweet Jesus. Only problem is I have to write a query letter first.
Okay I am done thinking about writing for a while. Time to go outside and play with the kids.
*Jonathan Sherwood's blog seems to have vanished since last time I read it. Hmmmm.
Just woke up this morning to get ready from work and was a bit shocked to learn that George Carlin passed away yesterday of a heart attack at age 71.I first discovered Carlin's humour in the early in 1980s as a teen. As famous as he is for the "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" there were a number of other routines that stand out in my mind.
One of my personal favourite was his take on a "place for my stuff" and consumer culture.
And this one about Cats and Dogs, which seems obvious fodder for a comedy routine, but its all in the delivery.
There is a brief obit on WIRED page with a link to the YouTube video of his routine on "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV".
Spanish Fly by Will Ferguson
Set during the summer of 1939 American dust bowl, Spanish Fly, is the coming of age story of a Jack "Wheaties" McGreary. A young man trapped in a dying town of Paradise Flats so realizes that his survival and future depends on his own wits.
As the country begins to get back on its feet after a devastating 10 years of economic depression, the world finds itself on the brink of global conflict. This sets the background tone of the story as Jack gets caught up with a pair of fast-talking con artists, Virgil and Miss Rose, when they blow through town running their scams. Jack joins forces with them and thus begins his education of the world of con-artist. A quick wit and sharp mind, Jack manages to learn and teach the pair a trick or two in their scams across the American Southwest.
As Jack continues to elevate his game, he must decide if this is truly the life for him and whether or not he is the one being set up.
Author Will Ferguson has written a number of best-selling non-fiction and satirical books such as Why I Hate Canadians, How to be a Canadian, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, Hitching Rides with Buddha, and more. http://www.willferguson.ca/
My thoughts
I just finished reading this book and enjoyed it very much. Told in the first person, Jack McGreary is charming, but not too charming, naive, but not too naive. Author Ferguson does a terrific job of transporting his reader to the American dustbowl of the 1930s and into the world of the con-artist. As much as Jack is the narrator of the story, Virgil the con-man is the true voice of the story who gives the reader and Jack insight into countless scams that have been perpetrated over the centuries. On one level the novel is a very slow build to the climax and on one hand you can say it kind of spins its wheels at some point, but it never feels like that. Jack as the narrator always keeps the story moving ahead and Virgil is always onto another scam so there is also some conflict happening.
I thought I could see the ending coming a mile away, but Ferguson artfully misdirects the reader just enough that you fail to see the real ending until it is there. Very satisfying and just right considering the tone of the novel. Good job.
I've been meaning to check out Ferguson's work for sometime now, just never though my first read of his would be a work of fiction. The author's notes at the end of the book give some very interesting insight into his own history and some of the choices he made while writing this book. As a writer I thought it very enlightening.
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przed...I don't if it describes how I dress, but it does kind of describe my inner fashion style.
Your result for The Fashion Style Test...
Glamorous Soul
[Tasteful Original Deliberate Sexy]
You choose your outfits carefully according to many criteria. You don't like looking cheap, dull or random and you go to great lengths to avoid this. You are successful, too. People admire your taste and sex appeal. Many try to imitate you but not many can recreate your unique style. Sometimes, however, they find you too intimidating to approach. If you don't wear retro style yet, perhaps you should consider it. It would become greatly your sexy, mysterious self.
The opposite style from yours is Fashion Enemy [Flamboyant Conventional Random Prissy].
All the categories: Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess)
You choose your outfits carefully according to many criteria. You don't like looking cheap, dull or random and you go to great lengths to avoid this. You are successful, too. People admire your taste and sex appeal. Many try to imitate you but not many can recreate your unique style. Sometimes, however, they find you too intimidating to approach. If you don't wear retro style yet, perhaps you should consider it. It would become greatly your sexy, mysterious self.
The opposite style from yours is Fashion Enemy [Flamboyant Conventional Random Prissy].
All the categories: Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess)
Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile.
You will then explain what they mean and why you are interested in them.
Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
papilleau gave me these seven to explain:bokononism
dr. eldritch
hot hot heat
king cobb steelie
music for mapmakers
terence m. green
the soo
1) Bokononism is a made up religion that is central to the plot of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. Among other concepts of Bokononism is a karass - a group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will. The people can be thought of as fingers in a Cat's Cradle.. There is also a Kurt Vonnegut community on LJ called Bokononism - http://community.livejournal.com/bokono
( The Other 6 Behind the Cut )
Yahoo Inc. is offering free e-mail accounts under two new domains in the hopes of attracting new users and keeping current users who are unsatisfied with their unwieldy e-mail names.
Yahoo said the new designations, "ymail.com" and "rocketmail.com," will become available Thursday afternoon and will allow users to register an e-mail account that more closely resembles their name, rather than having to create an online handle that adds unnecessary characters.
"People can finally say goodbye to CutiePie4Ever80@yahoo.com or mattclark1977@yahoo.com," the company said in announcing the news Thursday.
Web e-mail is a crucial part of Yahoo's business, as it drives traffic to the company's websites, increasing the potential that users will click on revenue-generating advertising.
Yahoo first began offering free e-mail in 1997, after its $80-million US acquisition of Four11 Corp. — which included the original rocketmail.com domain.
Since then it has become the market leader in e-mail with over 266 million users worldwide, just ahead of Microsoft Corp., which has 264 million users, according to the latest data from research firm comScore Inc.
Internet search leader Google Inc. had 101 million people registered to use its Gmail accounts in April, according to comScore, but Google's numbers are rising at a faster pace than Yahoo and Microsoft.
Embattled Yahoo, which is involved in a dispute with shareholders after it spurned an attempted takeover by Microsoft, has been active in recent weeks in its efforts to attract new sources of revenue.
Last week it entered a non-exclusive partnership on search advertising with archrival Google. Under the agreement, Yahoo can run ads supplied by Google alongside its own search results and on some of its websites in the United States and Canada.
The new domain names will become available after 3 p.m. ET Thursday.
I just cracked the novel and thought to myself it's been a few years since Douglas Adams died and we must be coming up on Towel Day soon-ish. (Yet another year gone and a lost opportunity to get a towel embroidered with DON'T PANIC on it before the 25th.)
I read through the front piece and was stunned to see that he died May 11, 2001.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001
Today is May 11th. Weird coincidence?
It's been a long time since I read it. That opening is still brilliant.
( Opening Excerpt Behind the Cut )
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
What kind of post would you like to see from me in the next 24 hrs?
View Answers
Picture Post (My Kids)
10 (71.4%)
Concert Review (Police and Elvis Costello) 9 (64.3%)
Book Review 7 (50.0%)
Random Meme 2 (14.3%)
Something Else (See Below) 6 (42.9%)
Soemthing Else You Would Like Me to Post About?
I observed an unusual spring ritual in these parts the past couple of weeks that had baffled me until now. My neighbours have been shovelling snow OFF their front yards and into their driveways or onto the street. In one case a neighbour directly across from us got his snowblower out and began to blow his front yard clear of snow. I scratched my head trying to figure out what the big deal was since its all going to melt in the next week or so anyhow. My wife thought the neighbours were weird. I was worried we would seem like the weird ones since we weren't participating in the ritual.
Then today I went outside to cutback the knee high snow back at the edge of our lawn. I wanted to spread it out a bit so with the sun and the rain later this week it would melt faster. The minute my snow shovel cut into the snow I realized what I had been missing out on. It was therapeutic. Revenge on winter and putting the last nail in old man winter's coffin. Like a deranged serial killer stabbing his victim over and over again, I flung snow in all directions. Die Winter Die!
My favourite thing about spring (and summer) is SUNSHINE! My mood and my energy levels change drastically when I have a little bit more sunlight. I never feel the depression and fatigue that some people experience with winter, but it definitely impacts my energy levels.
Which brings me to my next topic, writing.
I have decided to revive my first attempt to write a novel. It's a story I began over 4 years ago and has been sitting mostly idle for the past three years. It's been with me in my head constantly all this time and I have never stopped thinking about it or working on it. I sat down this morning to look over my notes and review my first three chapters (7100 words). I've been procrastinating about it for a whole host of reasons, but have decided its time to do something about it. Reading it over this morning I was pleasantly surprised that its in better shape than I recalled.
It's a YA sort of novel with a young female protagonist semi-religious overtones (it's about guardian angels), which is intimidating in itself since I am a) not female, b) not young, c) not religious. Problem is this story won't go away (that's a good thing right?), so I am confronting it head on working it out of my system. Hopefully it finds an audience.
I know its premature, but I'd like to thank all my writerly friends on LJ for encouraging me and showing me by examples of their own determination that the uphill battle that is writing is worth the effort.
Take the classic chair gag - what do we use a chair for sitting on. What would be a good practical joke - pull the chair out from under someone while they are sitting down. Anyone can pull a chair out from under a unsuspecting person.
It takes talent - ask Orson Welles* - to convince a whole bunch of people that the story you are selling is true.
Both the hoax and practical joke are technically "tricking" someone, but one is humourous and playful and the other is curel and hurtful.
Anyhow, the local radio station got me good today on the drive into work. The DJs were going on about our local pothole problem and that it had gotten so bad that the city council passed a resolution last night that they were going to impose a flat fee of $99 on each household to be used to fix the roads. To make matters worse they said they were going to charge residents of my area of town $199. One of the DJs is from my area of town, so I think they were egging him on so he would have something to rant about. So imagine me listening to this getting all worked up as a concerned citizen, and new home owner. I had basically written a letter to the editor in my head before I pulled into work this morning at 6am, when I realized - D'uh April Fools.
There was a good article on line today at the CBC highlighting a number of other HOAXES in the media today and many of them were inventive and funny.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/0
*Technically you can't ask Orson Welles, he's dead
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lj_releases page when you log into your account, unless something is broken or not working right. Well, you may want to take a look at it this week.Seems last Wednesday or Thursday the new owners decided to abolish free accounts as a new sign up option - without telling anyone or making any announcement. The only reason they are mentioning it now in the RELEASE forum is because they've been called on it by an angry mob of vetran LJ Users.
You can still sign up for free, but only with the AD sponsored Basic-Plus or whatever they called it. Now for people like that already have exitsting LJ Basic accounts for communities or what have you are okay, but that's not the point.
The point is that they've just alienated a whole group of people and are cutting off the main source of new users.
Show of hands how many of us were invited here by friends and started with basic accounts then later upgraded to paid accounts. Would you have seriously signed up for an account and paid from day one? Would you have signed up for an AD-driven account just to read a friends-locked journal of a friend who invited you? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Seriously, if you have a half hour or so, read through some of this entry - especially the early posts.
http://news.livejournal.com/106909.h
Or skip over to this journal = http://danahboyd.livejournal.com/1396.h
It seems that LJs own user advisory board was out right ignored on this issue and kept out of the loop.
Doesn't give you a good feeling about the direction of this service or the lack of respect they have for their users.
I think I will be heading over to http://www.ljbook.com and making an archive of my journal sooner than later. I don't intend to allow 5 years of entries (frivoulous and not) go *poof*.
51
It wasn't that I ran out of countries to enter. I just couldn't spell or type that fast.
Be warned when you click the meme starts right away. You don't need to hit enter after each country. If you spell it correctly it will take it and reset the entry box. I may have to retry this one once I have had another coffee.
Not only was I shocked to hear of his passing, but I was also shocked to learn he was only 41!
For those of you who don't recognize the name, Jeff Healey was a Canadian blues-rock and jazz musician who happened to be blind. He hit it fairly big in 1988 with his album See The Light and his ballad Angel Eyes and See the Light was pretty good too. I always assumed he was a half dozen or more years older than me when I saw him in concert back in the late 80s. Little did I know he was less than two years older than me.
You might even know him from his small role in the Patrick Swayze movie Road House (1989) where he played the blind singer Cody and friend of Swayze.
From the movie:
Dalton: So, you play pretty good for a blind white boy.
Cody, Band Singer at Double Deuce: Yeah, and I thought you'd be bigger.
Healey, never stopped touring or working and was experiencing a bit of resurgence in recent years with a new bar Healey's and several critically acclaimed albums.
It's a shame cancer took him. I guess you can't wait to make your mark in this world. You never know how much time you have left.
Some videos in case you are interested...
Angel Eyes Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYz_LHKr
A cover of the Doors Roadhouse Blues from 1989
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZywo3P
See the Light - Live performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBCJ68m
Obit on CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/0
General Jeff Healey Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Heale
http://www.jeffhealey.com/home.htm
http://www.jeffhealeysroadhouse.com/
- Mood:
sad - Music:I can See the Light - Jeff Healey Band
+ Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
+ Post them here for everyone to guess.
+ Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
+ NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.
I'll try not to go too obscure here. Any movie I put on here I am sure at least one person on my flist will have a clue. Bonus points if you know who said the line! (that was huge time suck!)
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - provided by
kelly_fireflyGattaca - provided by
saoilsinnFight Club provided by
ineverBack to the Future - provided by
kelly_fireflyStar Wars supplied by
sanguinity( More behind the cut )
If it wasn't -20C tonight I would probably risk taking my camera outside for shot. The stars are so much brighter when the moon disappears. You can actually see Jupiter tonight near the moon. I am just thankful we got a clear sky tonight.
A funny aside I was just reading Larry Niven's short story INCONSTANT MOON tonight by coincidence. Here's a synopsis courtesy of Wikipedia.org
Stan, the narrator, notices that the moon is glowing much brighter than ever before. The people he meets as the story begins all praise the moon's increased beauty but lack the scientific background to understand its cause. However the narrator surmises that the Sun has gone nova, the day side of the Earth is already destroyed, and this is the last night of his life. He then calls and visits his girlfriend Leslie, presuming her ignorant of the situation, but she realizes it independently when Jupiter brightens with appropriate delay; they then enjoy their last night on the town, before rain and winds start.
Later, he realizes one other possibility. In case he is right, they find appropriate supplies and seek refuge from the coming natural disasters in Leslie's high-rise apartment. The second possibility turns out to be correct: the Earth has merely been struck by an enormous solar flare. The vaporized seawater leads to torrential rains, hurricanes and floods. Most (if not all) people on the Eastern Hemisphere are presumed dead. The story ends at the break of an overcast, gray morning, with the narrator "wonder[ing] if our children would colonize Europe, or Asia, or Africa".
In 1996, the story was made into an episode of the Outer Limits television series with Niven himself writing the script - see Inconstant Moon (The Outer Limits).
Let me know what you think. Be forewarned - this is a LONG review.
( The Road - A Review )
It suddenly dawned on me that two of my favourite American authors - Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick are both of German descent and that their heritage figures prominently in their work. Weird, I had never made that connection before.
Not sure if its significant or just an odd coincidence.
I should finish Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD in the next day or so depending on free time to read. Not sure what to make of that book. I am enjoying it and finding it frustrating at the same time. I will definitely be writing a review of that one, if to only try to wrap my head around how I feel about the novel.
I will have doubled my goal of reading two books this month should I complete The Road by Thursday. Pretty impressive for me all things considered. Now if I could somehow motivate my writing in the same fashion I would be all set.
corrne I hope you are sitting down.Actor Heath Ledger found Dead in his NY Apartment
Such a waste at age 28.
Strangely enough I have two Heath icons. One prompted by
corrne's fascination with him - my Knight's Tale vintage one and this one.lackofendorphin asked for suggestions of a PKD novel to read as introduction to PKD. I was going to respond to his comment in my other post, but after taking 15 minutes to type it up, though maybe I would make a separate post in case anyone else was interested in reading it.For starters I think anyone attempting to read Philip K. Dick should know what they are getting themselves into before they read him so they have reasonable expections. Otherwise it would be kind of like
lackofendorphin recommending someone a H.P. Lovecraft novel without first letting the person what to expect.PKD novels tend to be depressing, sometimes dark, and often humourous in a dark way. Characters are always spouting something sarcastic or inappropriate when you least expect it. His novels can be messy and flawed, but brilliant and insightful at the same time. A lot of his novels were written in the 1960 and early 1970s, much of his "futuristic" settings come off dated and most stories are set in the far flung future of 1992 or 1999. Having said that his novels also contain all kinds of technological and social inventions that were surprsingly close to what has come to transpire (in a round about way). There is always a "dark haired girl" in his novels, someone is always suffering from some form of mental illness/ hyper-mental state, decay is a BIG theme, as is warped precptions of reality. Every Dick novel basically asks the question "What is Real?"
Okay having said that, my favourite three Dick Novels are in no particular order...
( Read more... )
Let me know what you end up reading. I think I need to re-read a few PKD stories this year.
tbone I am not coming to Idaho anytime soon.No, the Idaho Transfer of my subject line refers to the 1973 low budget sci-fi time travel movie directed by Peter Fonda.
I recently rented it through my Zip.ca (think Netflix for Canadians) and was pleasantly surprised by it. Admittedly it's flawed and depending on your expectations could be the worst film you have ever seen if you have high expectations going in. Me on the other hand I am one of those people that go with the flow and don't get too up tight when the plot/narrative don't go where you would expect.
Shot primarly on location in Craters of the Moon National Monument near Arco, Idaho, the basalt lava fields make for some stark and alien landscapes.
( More rambling thoughts on the movie behind the cut )
I am just rattling most of this off my head and hope to put together a more coherent review for my website in the near future. I am planning on revealing the ending there so if you are interested you can check it out later.
I was hoping this film was going to be so bad that I would never want to own a copy. Sigh, now I may have to break down and add it to my collection.