Picoed

Fancy and Lisa were both kind enough to give me the Pico. It's flattering (dangerously flattering, perhaps) to hear one is inspiring. Thank you both.

The hard part for me here is picking only five others. So many of you give me so much. Heck, some of you maybe don't even mean to give it: I'm greedy enough and ruthless enough to take inspiration! :-)

So, at risk of giving duplicate awards:

Fancy, back at you! Your bridge project is cool as hell, and you always put a smile on my face. Amazingly, you do it in a second (or third? Fourth?) language. I can order more beer in maybe ten languages, but I can't do what you do, and you make it look so easy!

Lisa, you get one too. Between watching The Founding Wheel come to life and the way you share as you learn, I learn heaps!

Etain, occasional blogger and damn fine poet. Also in a second language.

Wayne, mighty fine writer and too damn cool for words!

And Riss, multitalented, multinational, reminding me always that the artistic life is a self-defined life. Again, she takes the difficult and makes it look easy!

Special Treats

Yes, I have a great big To Be Read stack. It's full of books I 'should' read, books I look forward to reading and books I know I'll enjoy. It shrinks, it grows, it will never quite go away.

Then there's my treat shelf. There are a very, *very* few books that I set off to one side, precious gems of heart-stopping loveliness. There are a few old favorites and a few unread volumes by my absolute favorite authors.

Sometimes I look at that shelf, knowing I could dive in and lose myself in one great read after another. Sometimes, I look at it and fear that the authors will let me down this time. (Despite my love of Henry Miller's work, Black Spring is one of the worst books I've ever read) These aren't the drop-everything-else-the-day-it-comes-in books; these are books I save and savor. Same as I might save that bottle of Chateau Margaux for a special occasion, I wait until the time is right for each of these little gems.

The pressure is building for Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke, Henry Miller's Rooftops of Clichy and revisiting Double Indemnity by James M. Cain. But last night I dusted off another old friend: I'm sitting down with the complete Travis McGee series.

Pure. Bloody. Heaven.

How about you? What are your literary treats?

No Shorts

Not in this weather, anyway. ;-)









Seriously, though, when I gather with or swap emails with other writers, the talk naturally turns to story markets, especially for short stories. It always makes me feel like a bit of a freak.

I seem to be the only writer I know who doesn't write short stories. Never. aI just don't seem to have it in me. For that matter, I rarely read them. The average short story seems to follow a form that hasn't changed much since Edgar Allen Poe and Oscar Wilde: set a scene, develop it, then turn it on its head with a twist.

That may be my trouble. When I want to explore a scene in the back of my mind, I sit down with paint and canvas and noodle around.

If I like what I see, I develop it further.

A couple of hours later, I've got all the scene and atmosphere I need. There's no character development, but that's okay.






For that, I've got words.

Aaaahhhhhh...

A lone figure wanders the vast and cavernous halls here at Secret Headquarters. A bitter southerly has blown for days now, howling Antarctic winds with needle-sharp teeth. Christchurch shudders under snow, sleet, frost and hail, sometimes in the same day.

In these dark and echoing chambers, a faint smile plays at the lone figure's lips. A faint tuneless sound teases the ear. Could it possibly be... whistling?

Yup, whistling. You see, winter it may be, but in my heart, summer reigns.

The lovely and talented Agent Anne has the latest manuscript. There are no revision notes yet, and no new project has been started. It's even too cold for oil painting. The Full-Throttle Lifestyle is as close as it gets to idle.

My to-be-read stack is dwindling. This...

is gradually becoming this:

With my time undivided, I'm reading whatever I want to, whenever I want to. It's bloody lovely.


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put my feet up by the fire with a small stack of favorites.

I'm hoping a few well-placed matches, a comfy chair and a big mug of hot cocoa should transform this...





into this:

Freedom

Yup, finally slipped my chain. Last night at about 8pm, I finished the first draft of Crossroad Blues.

I pretty much turned all the dials up to 'eleven' and snapped off the lever Tuesday and Wednesday. There were a couple-odd hours of sleep in there, and I may have eaten. Not entirely sure. What I do know is that I wrote a little less than 20,000 words in that period, including two of my favorites: The End.

As always here at Full Throttle Productions, hard work is rewarded. I had a nice glass of champagne, smoked a lovely Cuban cigar (they're legal here but this'll be the only one for me this year), had a *much* needed shower and shave and went to bed for many, many hours.

For their invaluable assistance, I'd like to thank the good folks at iPod.


(That's not photoshopped-- I got free laser engraving by ordering online!)

This poor bugger got quite the workout the last couple days. Four of my current favorites: Steve Earle's Oxycontin Blues, Tori Amos' Crucify, Avril Levigne's Girlfriend and Isaac Hayes's theme to Shaft. I reserve the right to be a man of contrasts...

Tomorrow: Simpsons fun!

Fair Use, Fair Enough

This wee movie had me laughing hard. It makes merry at Disney's expense to discuss copyright and fair use.

In other news, I haven't been posting much because I'm trying to catch up on all those missed blogs, and writing heaps of short sketches. Nothing's quite shouted, "Why yes, I am a full-blown story after all," but I do seem to go through this pipe-clearing activity before I get tucked in to a new one.

I'm catching up, though, so expect more soon!

Back!

Rested, recovered and once again hapily ensconced in Godzone.

Australia was lovely. I didn't get to see an opera in Sydney, or take a 4x4 across the outback, watch the sun rise on Ayer's Rock or dive the Great Barrier Reef. I'd love to do all of those things, but this time time and money were tight (especially since artists don't get holiday pay. If I'm not working, I'm not getting paid).

We did do a lot of this:

And a little of this:

I was dropped from and hurtled over an awful lot of iron in the last week. A lot of fun. Also went on my first water slide. And second, third, and eventually lost count. Sheltered soul that I am, I'd never been to a water park before.

The Tiny Dynamo, being part Selkie, is rather at home in the water. Being more of the Irish Setter model myself, I dog paddle and chase tennis balls, that sort of thing. I'll admit I went to the water parks mainly for the joy of of watching the Dynamo, slick and shiny and running around in her bikini. Turns out I like the slides, too!

And of course, we did get inland a bit for some of these:

Not once did I give in to that scratching at the windows of my soul. But there's this guy, see. He's got bloody knuckles on his left hand and he's taken out of the airport in cuffs, stuffed into the back of a cruiser and driven out into a tiny town in the rural South. The city cops hand the guy off on the cracked blacktop of a dark restaurant.

The sheriff unlocks the guy's cuffs. Explains it was all a misunderstanding. The guy isn't so sure. He's been gone a long time, and everyone's been happy with that arrangement. Now, he just wants to do whatever business brought him back to town and get back in the wind. But having him back, even for a few days, is making an awful lot of people are nervous.

There are secrets all over the place. And this guy, he's got plenty of his own.

And I kinda want to know what they are...

Once More into the Breach

(80,000 words)

I've spent this last week or two getting rid of the stuff that didn't belong. They're scratching weakly at their file right now, their pitiful screams too faint to trouble me.

I'm also writing fresh material for the stuff I skipped over. That first draft, I was sticking to the action, the high points of character development, etc. By the time I was finished, I could see some of the places where I needed to go deeper, or build slower, or just plain give the reader a rest for a minute.

The actual, -sit-down-and-read-it-with-a-blue-pencil first read won't happen for a while yet. I need time enough to come at the work fresh. These new scenes are going in now, before the characters themselves start to see foreign to me. Later, when they do seem like they were written by someone else, I'll have a third persepective about what they need.

Some writers (Tom Robbins and Donna Tartt are two of my favorites) agonize over every word, trying to craft a work a complete and perfect beauty on the first pass. I have to wade right in with both fists flying and see what I've done when the dust settles.

Hoping to have all the new writing done in the next few days or so. We're off to OZ on holiday, and I'd like to actually holiday instead of writing.

For this reason, I'm also VERY much hoping to put off starting the next book until the end of the month. The new story's pulling at me, trying to claw its way out of my skin, polluting my dreams with its foul breath and whispering in my ears in those quiet moments.

Like that dead girl in Stir of Echoes, the stories I gotta write get more and more insistent. All I can say is, "Not yet. Please, not yet."

But it itches so...

After the Loving

(word count now irrelevant)

So what's next?

One problem with running full-throttle is stopping.

I finished last night and sat on my hands for a couple of hours before bed. Fortunately, the Tiny Dynamo thought she saw a mouse, so there was screaming and standing on chairs, etc. to keep me entertained.

It's fall. We live next to acres of fields. It's warm inside. But try telling a fearful Dynamo that. Like getting an amphetamine-fueled leprechaun to do algebra.

I also finished my latest read: The Blue Girl, by Charles DeLint. Good stuff, and I'll be reading more. Next up: Hunting Down Amanda, by Andrew Klavan and Clockers, by Richard Price.

Sometime in the next couple of days I've got a drawing to do for a client, a painting or two I've been thinking about and, apparently, a driving need to mouse-proof my home. Somehow I just know that will involve lots and lots and lots of (shudders, same voice Jerry used to say Newman) cleaning.

I'm trying to give it a day or two before I start back in. Not sure I'll be able to handle the break, but I'll try. Fortunately, I've got a couple of ideas in mind for my next two books, so I won't have to live with that 'will I ever write again' feeling. Just the 'will it be any good' and 'is this one I just did any good' ones. Oh, and 'what if the power has left me'. That's always a fun one, if you listen to it...

Mostly, I'll be a reader and movie watcher (when not -- ugh -- cleaning) for the next short while. I do loves me a good story. And I learn a lot from a bad one, so it's a win either way.

95,500 words

I know.

I seem to be writing two seperate endings to this story. The one I originally anticipated (my 'mental outline', as it were) ties most everything up in a neat bow, but it feels protracted and contrived now that I'm up to the writing of it.

Track Two is fast-paced, exciting and grew completely out of the moment and the decisions the characters really would have made (assuming they, and their universe, were real). It also leaves me with an ungodly amount of loose ends, more than I can wrap up in the denouement.

Writing both of them is starting to piss me off. I suspect the thing to do is write to the end of Track Two and then see what the characters want to do next.

Actually, I *think* I may have an idea....

Meantime, I rang mum and dad for Easter yesterday. They don't know it, but their combined small talk gave me an idea for a creepy-ass thriller set in small town Georgia, where they live. I'll let it marinate, see if it sinks its hooks in deep enough.

Often, I finish a book and feel a little empty. I'm always glad the damn thing's over, but I also miss it. Like a lot of writers, I worry that maybe that one was my last book ever. Foolishness, of course, but those small doubting voices usually are foolish.

It's nice, too, when I'm between books. I catch up on my reading. Doing only one job feels like a vacation. And I quite enjoy the editing process.

But like any addict, I can't wait for my skin to start itching again. I don't want to be coasting on the effects of the last story, I want to be mainlining the next one.

This isn't the post I meant to write at all today...

I'm going to go work on my book again.

Haere ra!