Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 47

Submissions Don't Matter

Yeah.  Nope.  One day I will make it past the slushers at that place.  

Submissions Don't Matter

Draftyhouse is on its way.  That's one nation down, six to go.

Can I get Jack White to Give me a Riff? [redux]

The subject line just appeared there when I clicked into the entry box, and, well, yeah.  We'll run with it.

So here is my 7 Nation Army:

Nation #1
Steam Powered 3 - I need a new idea.  Werewolf story is going to be a novella - 16K minimum to do the idea justice.  Irreducible.  Which means I have to put it aside and find something I can do in less than a quarter of that, never having successfully written queer characters in a context where their sexuality is front-and-center to the story (e.g. Shenroos, in my head, likes men a little more than women.  This makes exactly 0 difference to the action of the story and gets no mention in it.  Wen may be attracted to the Maid.  This is nothing more than subtext, though.  Courage! Sooney-Crow is straight as an arrow.  Totally irrelevant to her story... on and on.  I don't usually make sexual attraction or orientation a big part of many stories that aren't Blue Vervain Murder Ballads, but those... well, genre conventions).  Meantime, I have to think about whether or not I will ever actually work on the Werewolf story, since it is clearly a novella, and, if I have time, I will talk about that issue at the end of this list.

Nation #2
Steampunk 3 - I'm sending "Blue Vervain Murder Ballad #2 - Jack of Diamonds" to them.  Here's the problem.  Story is from 2008, and hoo boy have I learned a lot since then.  I figured it was going to need an edit, but reading it, I am embarrassed by the gap between what I thought was good writing then and what I think is good writing now.  Holy crap.

Nation #3
Draftyhouse - It's almost ready.  It probably *is* ready, just a hair under 4K and I am terrified to pull the trigger on this one.  One more pass and then put the gonads on and send. 

Nation #4
King of Pine - I finally looked at it.  Holy shit.  Love-Like-Salt is a load-bearing member.  Not that there cannot be a story without it, but it cannot be the same story.  Also, it loops in and in on itself a little more than I want.  Gah.  Lots of work to do there.

Nation #5
Courage - It makes a little too little sense, according to most of my readers.  "I didn't quite follow, but it was a nice ride so I didn't mind" is cool, but not salable.  Oh yeah, it's just at the sweet spot of 2500 words.  So clarify without explaining any more... Fine.  So be it.  Challenge accepted.

Nation #6
Live Arcade - For once we must try not to shirk the facts.  Mankind is kept alive by bestial a... erm.  The facts we are not shirking is that the story is bad sex.  It builds up to nothing.  Actually, in latest draft it builds up to a very unsatisfying and perfunctory something.  "Holy crap, I'm a boy and been identifying with a female character all this time!" is okay in someone else's hands.  I am sure a writer who is not me could make a good story out of just that.  I, however, need MOAR DAKKA.  Well, dakka in this case being weird shit.  I've got nothing.

Nation #7
MOTHERFUCKING PIRATES - I have my fifth (wo)man for the band introduced following a skip, and I am trying very hard to FINISH THIS DRAFT and not start over, even though I know the next draft will be different structure, different language, more plan, less pants, etc.  Abandoning a draft to start afresh is apparently the way to bring THE CURSE OF FAILURE down on you, and I believe it, though it is very hard for me to do work on things that aren't going anywhere.

Which brings me to whingeing.  I wonder if I should continue writing the werewolf story, bloated up to novella as it is.  Novellas don't sell, and I am having hellish times right now just writing for writing's sake; "Pony" and the Rhysling noms are giving me the pressure to produce.  No, they are an excuse for internal pressures to make me produce.  Sometimes that works and sometimes it just freaks me out and makes me fail.  I feel like I should keep writing the werewolf story.  I want to, but I have so much else to do (also Klaatu and two game designs... I FUCKING LOVE WRITING), simple priorities sets that one way back in the queue, and really, I should always be trying to create something I can sell and selling it.  Always, which means something always in the queue ahead.  #firstworldproblems  My life is so hard.  

Right.  Thanks for listening.  Now to it.

My Teal Deer WILL TEAR YOU APART

I am shaving off word and phrase, word and phrase, knowing, knowing, that at this rate, I am going to have to make at least 3 fucking passes through the story to get it down to 4000 words and selling 4000 words, even really, really excellent words, is only accomplished through the will of the gods.  Why can I not write brilliantly realized stories in 2500 words every time?  Why?

Run Blogging Day 15

I actually feel a little better about this run.  I was able to keep it above 4 mph and get 2.5 in without feeling like I want to die.  That said, starting out was HARD and I ran out of breath fast.  I got it right back without having to slow down too much, but it was annoying.

Hey peoples!

"Ariel" is up at  Strange Horizons.



Also I am up for not one, BUT TWO Rhyslings!  

"The Lend" which appeared in Stone Telling is up for short.
"Desfixion" which appeared in Jabberwocky is up for long.

New Not One of Us!

lesser_celery sez:

The title of this, the latest of our annual Not One of Us special publications, speaks to its dual nature. “Under” is the theme of the art, stories, and poetry. We have blue clay hidden under dead earth, a present not found under a tree, and two people trapped beneath the waves, a wordy monster and a stealthy coyotl, the kouros of Poseidon, a gnome hiding in shadow, and a long lost love. And we have under review two outstanding new collections from Papaveria Press: Patricia Russo’s Shiny Thing and Sonya Taaffe’s A Mayse-Bikhl.Under Review contents:Piscky’s Ascent, by Kate MurrayThe Gnome (poem), by K.S. HardyWordy, by Lake William WhartonCoyotle (poem), by R L RaymondA Long Lost Love (poem), by Kent KruseReview of Patricia Russo’s Shiny Thing, by Francesca ForrestReview of Sonya Taaffe’s A Mayse-Bikhl, by Erik AmundsenTheseid (poem), by Sonya Taaffe Blue Clay, by Patricia RussoThe Present, by Alarice K. BreidertArt: Teresa Tunaley (cover), Allen Koszowski, Kathleen Weldon

Murr Must Always Travel to the Right.

Sat down and wrote a meatspace plot into "Live Arcade" at the net gain of 200 words, so I think it's Miller time!  Except I'm still working, and I don't like Miller.  Newcastle time!  Later!

If'n you're interested in reading this or the recent versions of "Draftyhouse" or "Courage"  - holy crap I have a lot of short stories all of a sudden - let me know.

No Bubble Here, Apparently...

ETA: I tend to post things without comment when really I ought to comment. This quiz has some really unfortunate implications, and is based on this article, which ~ nya ...er.  Okay, let's not mince words it's really, really pasty mcwhiterson white.  Also really moral panicky: 

Though politicians and media eminences are too frightened to say so, nonmarital births are problematic. On just about any measure of development you can think of, children who are born to unmarried women fare worse than the children of divorce and far worse than children raised in intact families. This unwelcome reality persists even after controlling for the income and education of the parents.

My pearls.  It gets worse.  "Industriousness"  "Religiosity" and "Crime" are the next group of headings and ... yeah.  Wanna guess what time frame it was in which everything went to hell?  Guess.  Go on, guess.




I kind of do miss fishing.  It's fun.  Probably not for the fish, but I tend to be very bad at fishing, so what the hell.  I can safely say that no fish were harmed on most of my fishing expeditions.
How Thick Is Your Bubble? GuestScore » 12 out of 20  (60% ) 
Result  























On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16.



In other words, you don't even have a bubble.Quiz SchoolTake this quiz & get your scoreHow Thick Is Your Bubble? » Create Quizzes

[Dork] What is Important

It could be as simple as changing "Refugees got to survive long enough to become heroes and save their people" to "Heroes got to save their people."  I love the idea of regular people becoming heroes, but that one has been eluding me (I shouldn't feel bad, I don't think TSR/WotC got any closer with 36 years into it, either).  So there is that.

What I wanted to actually write down before I dove into some piracy was this:  in games, and this is not new tech, this is just me bashing out some already beaten path, I don't care about the question "Can you [the player's character] do this thing?"  A question that is the hallmark of task-based games.  If that's the question, the story gamers have a good answer for it: yes.  Hell, even D&D in modern editions had that answer, buried under rules and rules and rules.  Can you do this thing?  Yes you can.  This is not worth dice rolling.

These are the questions I want to codify as being worth dice getting rolled:
Can you do this thing despite [$factor against you]?
Can you do this thing such that [$complex situation turns out in your favor]?
Can you do this thing while [$other thing going on]?
Can you do this thing before [$other thing happens]?

Now, technically, all of the 2nd through 4th questions can fall under the umbrella of factors against you - complexity of the situation, divided attention, time limits.  I am wondering, are these meaningful distinctions to you, just on an emotional level, should there be more of them that I missed?