Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 46

“A long time ago, we used to be friends….”

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know about the Veronica Mars Movie Project. It was the first feature to hit the $1 million mark on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding website, and went on to rack up $2 million… in under 12 hours. It’s still raising money, and it’s got 29 days to go.

If you’re an artist in the business of creating things—music, movies, books, whatever—this should be exciting news. I know I’m excited, and not just because I was a huge, rabid fan of the show (although I was). It’s not often I get excited about a TV show unless it has Star Trek, Battlestar, or Buffy in the title, but Veronica Mars was smart and interesting and funny, and it was over sooner than was to my liking.

I love that we’ll get a movie continuing the story. What I love even more is that the fans are the ones who have funded this. I think it speaks volumes that people put up money in advance to help make this happen. I’ve seen this happen (and have helped it happen) with a video game launch, a friend’s book, a photo exhibit, and much more. There’s also a really cute-looking movie (co-starring the really cute-looking Nicholas Brendon and the fabulous Ann Walker from Sordid Lives) seeking post-production funding that has eight days to go and is only a few thousand dollars from its goal.

You know, I can see where it might be tempting to say it’s too bad that these vehicles can’t get funding from major production studios or that book can’t land a mainstream publisher… but maybe it’s not a mainstream book and maybe that movie isn’t going to attract the same size audience as something like The Avengers. (Nothing against The Avengers of course, or against anything that stars Chris Hemsworth—except maybe Snow White and the Huntsman, which was atrocious and he didn’t even take his shirt off once.) What I love about these is that people believe enough in the idea of a project to help support it toward its fruition.

And I love that, even in a small way, I get to help.

Random summary post #758

So, what have I been doing, you may ask? Well, even if you haven’t asked, allow me to tell you. This week I finished my taxes—well, my American ones at least. The good news is that I’m getting a big refund. The bad news is I will probably spend all of it on the tail end of this year of grad school. I’m going to be home in St. Louis from May through July, and I’m hoping to find something part time while I’m there. It’ll keep me out of trouble when I’m not working on my thesis, at any rate.

Since my thesis is going to be a speculative fiction novel, I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian fiction lately. I just finished Never Let Me Go, and before that I read The Road. Now I’m reading Oryx and Crake. To say the least, it’s a little depressing.

What’s not depressing is that I’ve been giving The Unwanted another round of edits before I unleash it on my editor, the poor guy. I wrapped that up yesterday evening, and fired it off this morning. I’m still really happy with it, and I am really looking forward to working with the publisher and getting it over the finish line.

In more quotidian matters, I’ve been doing more baking at the college where I’m living. Last week we made an assortment of bread, and this morning fellow resident Keith gave us a tutorial on making bagels. Naturally, pictures were taken:

Click to view slideshow.

Although I miss many things about home—namely Mike and the dogs—I’m lucky to be living in a community of nice people here.

Speaking of home, Mike got Dakota a new toy. He seems to like it:

Call for submissions: Best Gay Romance 2014

Deadline: April 2, 2013.

Editors: Timothy J. Lambert and R.D. Cochrane. Publisher: Cleis Press.

For the anthology BEST GAY ROMANCE 2014, we’re looking for short stories (maximum 6,500 words) about men falling in love, being in love, having loved. The wooing and the winning, the blush of a crush, the details of a date, the rush of romance, as long as the emphasis is on romance.

Original stories, please. Payment $50 to $75 plus two contributor copies. Multiple submissions are okay in .doc or .rtf; include real name, pseudonym (if applicable), address, and a 50-word bio, to bgromance2014@gmail.com

- See more at: http://timothyjlambert.com/?p=2396

Table of contents from previous anthologies from Timothy J. Lambert and R.D. Cochrane:

Fool For Love: New Gay Fiction (Cleis Press 2009)

David Puterbaugh
Mark G. Harris
Shawn Anniston
Brandon M. Long
Felice Picano
Rob Byrnes
Trebor Healey
Joel Derfner
Josh Helmin
Jeffrey Ricker
Paul Lisicky
‘Nathan Burgoine
Rob Williams
Andrew Holleran
Greg Herren
John H. Roush

Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction (Cleis Press, forthcoming)

Tony Calvert
David Puterbaugh
Trebor Healey
Steven Reigns
Erik Orrantia
Paul Lisicky
Jeffrey Ricker
Taylor McGrath
‘Nathan Burgoine
Greg Herren
Timothy Forry
Felice Picano
Mark G. Harris
Craig Cotter
Rob Williams
Timothy J. Lambert
Andrew Holleran

What I listened to while writing “The Unwanted”

I love music, and I love making lists, so making playlists is a huge timewaster pleasure for me. Unfortunately, one of the things I’ve realized with time is that I can’t listen to anything while I’m writing. I need either white noise or no noise. It’s sad, not even instrumental/classical music makes the cut. I get sucked in and can’t do anything except listen to the music. Which does not help productivity, as you might imagine.

Still, music helps shape what I’m writing, or rather, when I’m listening to music while something’s in process, songs will jump out at me and I’ll think, “This reminds me of a scene….” Or maybe a character or an overall feeling for the story or book.

For The Unwanted, I think the first song that jumped out at me came during a run (which I also sometimes make playlists for). I tend to listen to a lot of electronic music when I run; BT and Tiësto are in frequent rotation. When “Heroes,” from Tiësto’s album Parade of the Athletes came up on shuffle, it reminded me of three of my characters in a moment right before a particular scene. After I finished my run, I came home and started a playlist.

In case you’re interested, I’ve put it up on Spotify—it’s embedded below, but if that doesn’t work for you, here’s a link. Not all of the songs I listened to are available in their database; two tracks also on the list are “Bryan Sometimes” by Venus Hum and the audio track from the climax of the “Doomsday” episode of Doctor Who. You know the scene.

Behold the Pulp-O-Mizer

I may already have mentioned that for my graduate school thesis, I’m working on a novel. It’s going to be a spec fic book, flavored with dystopia and a side of global climate change for garnish. So, when I came across this awesome time waster (courtesy of Nathan Bransford, who is a fantastic blogger and you should really check him out if you’re one of the, like, three people who haven’t heard of him), naturally I was doomed to a completely unproductive morning.

How are you?

The story about stories

Short stories have a rich history, of course, and many literary giants — Hemingway, Nabokov, Cheever and Welty, to name a few — have written memorable collections. But they were largely seen as exceptions that prove the rule: publishers and authors tend to be wary of short-story collections because of the risk of being critically overlooked and, worse, lower sales.

I love short stories, so seeing this article from the New York Times was encouraging. Although I’ve written two novels (well, two novels that will see the light of day), most of what I write are short stories. And yet I’m sure that most of my friends who are writers have been told that to be successful, they have to have a novel. That never made sense to me when I think of writers like Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Grace Paley, and George Saunders who were (or, in Saunders’ case, are) known not for their long fiction, but for their short stories. Writers with a name for themselves through novels are getting in on the act; Margaret Atwood’s writing a serialized piece, Positron, for Byliner. Stephen King is selling shorts through Amazon’s Kindle Singles. Saunders, meanwhile, is No. 5 on the Times bestseller list.

Who says people don’t read short stories anymore?

Given how few people read even a single novel in a year, I’d always wondered why short stories weren’t a bigger deal for people who like reading but don’t have time for a novel. Likewise, current technology has made it easier to publish stories one at a time—though I’d be remiss in not pointing out that One Story magazine has been doing this in print for some time now. I think stories need to be appreciated differently from novels, but they can have an even bigger punch than a novel when they’re crafted carefully—and they really do require care. In some ways, I find them harder to writer, or at least write well, than a novel.

(But then I find it hard to write anything well. I blame endless distraction.)

What’s the last good story you read? For me it was “Commcomm,” by George Saunders.

My next book as a Wordle

I’ve never used this little widgety gadgety thing before, but I thought it would be fun to see a graphic representation of the most commonly used words in my next novel, The Unwanted. Kind of cool. (I don’t think it gives anything away. I expected “arrow” and “Amazons” to be bigger, though.)

Want to make your own? Easy! Just go here.

My Next Novel, “The Unwanted,” Coming in 2014

OK, I honestly have no idea why I’ve been sitting on this news for so long. However, enough t’s have been crossed and i’s dotted, so I might as well spill it: my second novel, a YA fantasy called The Unwanted, will be released in 2014 from Bold Strokes Books.

(Please pause while I strike up the Hallelujah Chorus.)

(And yes, the inclusion of Händel in a post about a YA fantasy does strike me as somewhat incongruous. But we’ll go with it.)

Still with me? Good. So what’s it about, you ask? If you’ve read my story “The Trouble with Billy,” which appeared in the Steve Berman-edited anthology Speaking Out, you’ll recognize some of the names. Things take a decidedly unreal turn in the novel though:

Jamie Thomas has enough trouble on his hands trying to get through junior year of high school without being pulverized by Billy Stratton, his bully and tormentor. But then he finds out his mother, who he always believed was dead, is alive—and she’s an Amazon.

Sixteen years after she left him on his father’s doorstep, she’s back… and she needs Jamie’s help. A curse has caused the ancient tribe of warrior women to give birth to nothing but boys, dooming them to extinction—until prophecy reveals that salvation lies with one of the offspring they abandoned. Putting his life on the line, Jamie must find the courage to confront the wrath of an angry god and save the society that rejected him.

(Which god, you ask? Spoilers!)

I’m so excited about this one! (Which isn’t to say that I wasn’t excited about the last one, of course.) I’ll keep you posted on a hard release date and exciting things like cover designs and all those fun moments of sheer panic when I wonder if anyone will like it.

Dear Diary: Keeping A Notebook Just for You

I may be slightly addicted to Brain Pickings lately. The site is like a file cabinet of interesting and helpful things for creative types (which I believe we all can be). Most recently, in addition to lists of writerly advice from people like Vonnegut and Fitzgerald, was this article on a Joan Didion essay about keeping a notebook.

I write in so many different places and I often wonder why I scatter things around like that. I have this blog, I have the other blog—and basically just copy/paste between the two. How this came about I don’t recall, but I get more traffic now at Red Room than I do at WordPress, though I still prefer WordPress’s interface. It’s easier to use (sorry, Red Room), but clearly it seems worthwhile enough to me to keep both of them.

I’m rambling. Where was I? Oh right, notebooks. Anyway, I know one of my goals—don’t call it a resolution—was to write here more often, but I also find I’m writing more in my notebook. As in a real notebook, with pages and lines on the paper and everything.

A really cool cover (at right) also helps and can be inspiring.

I’m using this one to keep notes for my various workshops, as well as bits of stories that I’m working on, and lists of all kinds. I’m also trying to do, more or less, a writing prompt every day. Sarah Selecky has a daily email that goes out with a prompt to get things rolling (“Write for at least ten minutes. Write, by hand, in your notebook.”). That last bit—by hand, in your notebook—seems to be the key for me. I’ve been regressing technologically in my writing, to the point where a pencil seems like the right write thing.

I know, I’ve written about this before. (Last week, in fact.) It’s a subject that I keep coming back to, especially when I try to write new material using a computer. I don’t want to be a luddite on principle, but I seem to be becoming one by accident.

But here’s the thing about keeping a notebook: I don’t write in it because I think my thoughts are particularly noteworthy or profound or special. In fact, sometimes looking back at things I wrote in my notebooks even just a couple years ago is profoundly embarrassing. (“I really thought that? Seriously?”) That bit of humbling is useful, I think. Sometimes it shows me that I’ve made progress in my thinking, or in my life. Other times, it shows me that I haven’t changed at all, or that I’m repeating things I should have already learned by now.

It can be a reminder also not just of things that have happened, but of how they happened. It’s funny (not in the haha way) to look back and see what I wrote about a certain event and realize that I don’t remember it that way at all, even though I’m the one who wrote down that account and I’m the one reading it now and thinking, “Wait, that’s not right. Is it?” A reminder that the memory cheats.

And then there’s the fact that it’s all I this and I that. Always, I, I, I. I hope that I get a lot of it out of my head there, in those pages, so I don’t come off as quite so self-absorbed elsewhere.

Do you keep a notebook? What do you get out of it?

Foolish Hearts, or Here we go again!

After yesterday’s post about the audiobook version of Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction, it seems only appropriate that Becky Cochrane sprang the news about Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction, which she and Timothy Lambert edited as a follow-up to Fool for Love. I’m happy to say that I’m in this one with my story “Tea.”

Even happier, several people from the first anthology—’Nathan Burgoine, Mark G. Harris, David Puterbaugh, Greg Herren, and more—are in this new one as well, along with some names that are new to me. I can’t wait to read it.

Congratulations, Tim and Becky!