C.B. Calsing's Blog, page 32

Fairhope Revelations

I went to the creative writing teachers' conference in Fairhope, Alabama this weekend. This is always an interesting and sometimes nerve-racking experience. I often leave with a different perspective on what I'm doing with my life and how I'm getting there.



Fairhope is a beautiful town, almost Stepford perfect, which is why it was hilarious when I tripped and skinned my knee and both palms on its Stepford-perfect sidewalks after having a few drinks at the pub down the block. The irony being that I can come home from the corner bar, or all the way from Markey's even, managing the holes, dips, rises, and all the other inconsistencies of a New Orleans sidewalk, but I can't walk on a perfect sidewalk in a perfect town?



I guess that fall -- which was witnessed by a shop owner who told me "I do it all the time" -- is something of a metaphor for my entire weekend. How I can traipse along perfectly well in my own sort of damaged, psuedo-successful publishing world -- small press horror anthologies, ebook short stories, sci fi web zines -- and feel good about everything and like I'm doing fine. And then -- BAM! One hundred thousand dollar advances from Random House that other people are getting hit me in the face like the concrete sidewalk. I'm left bloody, sore, and -- worst of all -- embarrassed.



I was wearing flip-flops after all.



We'll make this something of a six things Saturday.



I have realized if I want to write a novel -- a real novel, not a collection of short stories like I already have, not a novella like the several I've churned out and sit on -- that I need to A. sell a novel to get an advance so I can work on another novel (something of a catch-22, since I can't get the first novel written). B. Win a grant to finish my first novel so I don't have to work while doing it. C. Get a part time job that pays enough so I have time and money to finish my novel. Short of working as an escort or exotic dancer, I don't think that job actually exists, so it's not an option. So instead I sit here, one of those English teachers who has "the great American novel" inside her but just can't find the time. Sheesh. Maybe this summer, right?
I should have spent more nights hobnobbing after workshops when I was in the MFA program. But I always had to get up the next morning at 5:30 to go to work, so it seemed an impossibility at the time. Now I realize I might not still have to be getting up at 5:30 every morning if I'd gone to network back then, so you see my problem. It's hard to make up for lost time when you only see those people once a year.
I hate palmetto bugs. I wish someone would pay me to write a chapbook rant about how much I hate them. I know that's a bit off topic, but I had to get it out there. Heck, I'm going to do it and put it on Smashwords. Maybe I'll work on it tomorrow. Would you pay ninety-nine cents for that? I wouldn't, because I hate palmetto bugs.
In my defense, genre fiction is a perfectly fine way to make enough money to buy groceries and pay car insurance while still working on "the great American novel." Really. It is. Did I hear you say, "But if you spent that time writing the novel, it would get done"? Maybe, or maybe I'd want to write about space pirates instead. I like space pirates. There's nothing wrong with space pirates. Really.
I'm pretty certain I can't actually write a novel. I've blamed it on my attention span, wanting to always move on to the next thing, but I think instead, once I get up to twenty or thirty thousand words, I start to doubt the worth of what I'm doing. I need to get over that.
Finally, I have the best friends, family, and fans. Y'all have given me opportunities and feedback that I am completely and utterly grateful for. I walk solid on broken sidewalks because of you.

Walking

I've been walking the streets of my neighborhood quite a lot lately. Two or more miles each day essentially. I've seen something interesting things, like today in the dumpster behind Studio Inferno was an orange feather boa. I had to wonder how it got there and why someone would throw something so lovely away in the first place.



I also found twenty dollars today which, though not nearly as whimsical, is pretty damn awesome.

Script Frenzy!

April is Script Frenzy month. This is the screen writing equivalent of NaNoWriMo, except each participant only has to write 100 pages of a screenplay instead of 50,000 words.



I've decided to do it this year as an exercise to help me with one of my novels. I've sort of fizzled out -- partially do to lack of information about the details surroundings women in Louisiana prisons in the 1920s -- but also because I had some shaky plot points. I think pounding through all of that in screenplay form, like a glorified outline, might help me see things a different way, so that's my plan.



As always, I try to get other people around me involved. Any takers? No? I didn't think so. Anyway, wish me luck.

New short story posted

Coupon code for free copy: ZB59X (expires 5/31/2011)
I've posted a new short story on my Web site here. If you want to get the Smashwords version advertised there -- and linked to the picture at left -- wait until 23 March. The first version I uploaded had a glitch with the cover image. The new one should be up by tomorrow. If you like it, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page, or rate it on Smashwords.



This story started as an exercise in modeling mystery writing for my eighth grade students during our fiction unit this year. I've been told it was "well written," but it was an odd bit of speculative fiction which was hard to place.



I do see myself writing more Langston Pierpont stories. He's sort of a Kolchak character in my head, so maybe there will be more unexplained or odd cases for him to tackle.

Smashwords

I've been playing around with Smashwords for the last couple of weeks, and hope to have a few decent short stories up there in a bit, stuff that editors said was "well written" but didn't fit in their anthologies. I figure why not? List it for ninety-nine cents, throw a few 100% off coupons around, then compile them all into an anthology. That's my plan anyway. We'll see how it goes. I should have my first submission vetted in a few days.



Despite the guide they offer, it's still sort of difficult to perfect everything so that it works on a computer, an ebook reader, smartphones... It's a lot of work to play with pictures sizes and everything.

Finally...

I sent off the third version of my screenplay today. I think it works as a short feature. As a writer, I feel like their are holes in screenplays that need to be filled, but I know if I put every nuance and interaction in there that I thought it needed, the thing would run for hours. I guess that's why entire pages are pulled by directors, and still film is left on the cutting room floor.



It feels good to have one set of major revisions done, and I'm actually looking forward to getting feedback on this version, knowing that I can make more changes and keep getting it closer and closer to shoot-ready.

Krewe de Vieux

I went to the Krewe de Vieux parade last night. Lots of biting commentary this year, as always. My favorite sight was a sperm on a stick meant to be trumpeter Kermit Ruffins. I guess you'd have to have been there to get what I'm saying.



Yesterday I also made an appointment with a new tattoo artist who works three blocks from my house. I get the sketch this week, and go in next Saturday for the work. If everything goes well, maybe he'll do everything for me from now on. I like to support local business.



Finally on my list of weekend's accomplishments, I sent the (hopefully) final revised synopsis of the screenplay I wrote to the producer. If he okays it, I'll start revisions and finish it by Mardi Gras weekend. Some partying will definitely follow!



And then more writing.

My Racy, Upcoming Weekend

I will be going to my first burlesque show this weekend. I've watched documentaries and Youtube videos about it, but I've never gone to a live one before. I'm definitely a fan of the concept. The art, the athleticism, the humor. I thought once I might try writing jokes for burlesque acts, or creating some kind of monologue act, but, well... This writer gets up at 5:30 every morning, works four jobs, and fitting in another thing that would require rehearsal and late nights just doesn't seem to be part of the plan right now. Same reason I never joined roller derby. I'm probably going to have to supplement my evening with a little caffeine tomorrow night, to make up for the lack of sleep I'm bound to experience.



Saturday night is the Krewe de Vieux parade. This is the only Mardi Gras parade I go to, mainly because I can walk to it and parking is not an issue. Household tradition dictates we carry Irish coffee in a travel mug, and then stop at Markey's on the return trip. Krewe de Vieux is one of the more daring parades, I think, with lots of politically themed floats. I'm sure BP will be a target this year. They also still use mules to pull some of the floats, which I think is outstanding.



So, all in all, I probably won't be getting a lot of writing done this weekend, but I should be having fun!

Hellbore and Rue releases tomorrow!

Hellbore and Rue will finally release tomorrow and hit Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as being available from the publisher here. I just got my copy today, so I can't comment on any of the other stories, but I know "Trouble Arrived" is pretty good because I wrote it.



Having something release sort of makes me want to crawl out from my winter hibernation and put some more stories out there, but the weather... sheesh. My brain is on lockdown or something until we get back into the seventies. Come on, April. I need my brain juice circulation back.

Lovely Dishwashing

I worked two shifts dish-washing, busing tables, and taking to go orders at a restaurant this weekend. I haven't worked in a restaurant since 2004, and then it was only for two nights. Before that, I'd last done it when I was nineteen, way back in the nineties, a surly goth girl coming onto shifts in stained Beatles T-shirts and a leather jacket, smelling of clove cigarettes and complaining about my community college English teacher.



I noticed last night -- it sort of came as an "Oh, yeah, I remember how that works" -- that there is a special "kitchen time" in restaurants. At other jobs, you may get bored, you look at the clock, and time crawls by. The afternoon in a cubicle with nothing to do can seem endless to the unimaginative mind. Or you get a lot of work done, and bam! The day's over. Out for cosmos with the friends.



Kitchen time, though, is wholly different. In kitchen time, you bust your ass washing dishes, clearing tables, answering calls, refilling drinks, and then you look at the clock. You fell absolutely certain that an hour must have gone by since you last checked. How else had you managed to do all those things? But sadly, according the the clock which measures the pace of the world outside the kitchen, only fifteen minutes have gone by. Then you ask yourself how in the world can you survive this for the hours of your shift that still remain.



In those circumstances, you can kind of feel like the Flash, moving so fast that those around you seem to slow down. The world slows down. It's like being a super hero.