Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 49

We must count what we have done.

Last night, for the first time since we had to watch it twice in 10th grade, I saw Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964); I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I found that I enjoyed the movie, and noticed a significant amount of early 60's eye candy that 15 year old me missed.  Jane Asher as Francesca was especially purty, though her character completely becomes a prop in the third act when the villain (Price's Prospero, rocking it) decides he's done being the antagonist and steals protagonism from her.  For Roger-Rubber-Suit-Rapeasaurus-Corman, it's almost an scandalously competent movie.

[He unmasks the Man in Red to reveal his own bloodstained face] 

Anyway, the pertinence of what I was watching at 2 in the morning is that it was a pretty interesting retrospective, and since those are the order of the day, I ought to weigh in as well.

So, this year, I wrote some stories, and some poems.  These are the ones I can find, in sort of reverse-chronological order:
"A Corpse for a Swan" Jabberwocky
"Pony" Clarkesworld
"The Lend" Stone Telling
"Wolf Peach" Goblin Fruit
"Blue Vervain Murder Ballad #4: The Lily of the West" Not One of Us
"Rise and Run" Jabberwocky


I got three poems accepted (one subsequently rejected after getting paid for it ???) that have not (and in that one case, may not) appear sometime in the future.   It seemed like a far more productive year before I wrote it down.  Oh well.  Next year will be better. I have a bunch of stories all ready to be revised.

NO I AM MISTAKEN

"And Cut Down a Moment Later" did get accepted!  And published, Apex, Issue 28!  I think the rejection must have been some hiccup with their submission system (I had a terrible time, that first time, and my subs got crossed with some other guy's subs...  Sub warfare?).  

Okay, so there was also the stuff I didn't do:
Finish Autumn War
Finish Motherfucking Pirates
Match my November 2010 run, let alone reach 15K.

Here's the stuff I need to do in 2012, list partial:
0) MOTHEFUCKING PIRATES
1) Write "We'rewolf" and "Grape"
2) Revise "Live Arcade," "Draftyhouse," "Comet Lake" and "King of Pine."  Sell them.
3) Note out the Oak Province Story, Cypress Province Story, Cedar Province Story and my EPIC FUCKING FANTASY
4) Revive The Child in his Sword if I can.
5) Rewrite at least one thing in my trunk and see if I can make it work.
6) Run 10K again.
8) 100 desk push ups or 50 from the floor.
7) Begin therapy for depression/anxiety.
8) Lose 7Kg
9) Grow the beard.
10) Be witchier.
11) Sell a dozen poems.
12) Not get in fights with other authors.  I am still really sore and sorry about that whole spider story fiasco.

I accept the fact that 2012 will not be any better than 2011 on its own.  I have no faith that the years will not continue their downward trend in terms of general circumstance on its own, so I will stop it.  I will make 2012 a better year, whatever is required of me to cause that to happen is what I will do.

I am not writing yet/5 Days Darkness

I am clearing the decks.  That's what I am doing.  This is, of course, unearthing ideas I WANT.

So I need to write them down:

1) I realized that all the various cultures and settings I tied to Provinces are things I am not using for Autumn War, which means they are mine to write!  
        a) I've got a notion about Oak Province, the Tannic Sea, their dead in the Kingdom of Reeds, Selkies and eyespots.
        b) In an old comment thread, the Cypress mother, swamp tigers, a treatment of Yojimbo.  I can do that.
2) Notes, I am building up for a story that might be the expansion of Wolves, Macro.  Islands that used to be the Berkshires, linguistic foolery, myths about the Wolves who were terrorists in the old days.  And are you the Werewolf?  WEREWOLF WE'REWOLF.
3) I need to finish Live Arcade, and make something happen to the Kid.
4) I need to redo Draftyhouse and make it make sense.
5) Motherfucking.  Pirates.  I need to get out of hell and introduce Ilex.  

Run Blogging Day 12

2 and a quarter, but there was some walking near the mile.  Ow.

This is not a Browser-Hipster Post, I Swear.

I hear that LJ is being stupid for a lot of people, but it has not been stupid for me.  I've been using Chrome to read it and nothing has changed.  Did I accidentally pick the right browser in which to view LJ, or are any other Chrome users experiencing LJ stupidness that I have escaped for other, unknown reasons?

Run Blogging Day 11

1.75, significantly slower than last time, though I didn't feel like it was.  Weird.  My legs still want none of this.

Solstice 2011

Were I a mouse I would lick the hope from these cobwebs and dust.
I would wait here, between walls, my space, between seconds
between heartbeats, and walk between the raindrops, most of them,
of the five minute storm that rolled above us, one flash of lightning,
thunder in the dark of it, the last gutters of a banked year
baked in sassafras and olive wood, smoky, smelly, hissing and popping.
The three shapes of leaf, the syrup of boiled roots, since identified
as poisonous.  I nibble, dream of raspberries, dream or fiery skinned
newts in the dark cool of black summer soil, a black sun rolling
in the deep heavy pockets of low hanging clouds.  No true cold comes,
not yet, and I worry.  No true speech, just the sound of pots and pans,
the cheap ones of first apartments, strung from winter-bare branches.
I feel a storm.  I put my shoulder to the wheel.  The earth will move
in the strain of my sore muscles.  I will make it so, if no one knows.
A split footed man stamped on the pavement, rusty chains and cracked bells,
draped on him like metal, fasces in hand; he was not the devil,
just a killing joke.  For your sake, I must ignore him.  For our sake,
I must let him pass.  I hear the sound of his revelry, I have to remember,
this battle I must not join.  I must not.  Tonight, maybe, my Lord is born,
tonight, maybe.  A black sun could hatch a doom for you and me, soon
as it would go pink then white.  White, then gold.  Gold, then orange.
Orange, then red.  And even born, he'll live but eleven months,
and even strong, he will leave me, twenty one days in darkness.
He will be there on the underside of the meniscus, as he is now,
the inside of the mirror.  The bells ring an alarm, now, the streets fill,
and all feet are running, blind, beating out the rhythm of panic.
So this I will place, like a babe in a cool oven, not knowing if I or anyone
will find him in time.  Never knowing.  Find him in time.

Run Blogging Day 10

Better pace, but my legs are still a mess. 

Coming Back On Line (I Keep Saying That - One Day, It Will Be True)

So I have a post written and sent off, though, having missed October entirely, I'm not sure I've got a space for it, and won't blame anyone but myself if I don't.  I have a poetry review in the works that I promised a LONG ASS TIME AGO, and a little bit of piracy.  I ALSO HAVE MY FIFTH for Pirates!  I can't wait to meet her.

I am getting a malware alert, though, any time I try to read my friend's page.  Anyone else getting it?

Bicycle

Holy crap, that WIND.  3 and change, and every hill was a killer.  I lost a lot more from September-October than I did from January-February in terms of strength and stamina, or I am setting my benchmarks way too high.  I am not sure which.

Hey peoples!

I have a lot of work to do, which is why I am asking for prompts and inspiration.  For one thing, I am running low, and for another, I am avoidant as all fuck.  I have a half-formed notion about people who fly.  But that's about all I've got.  They are sort of good-guy vampires, in a way, hiding from normal people, with their own politics and such, but not because they have to eat people, but because people will use them up.  Or something.  Not sure.

Also, according to the commenters on Yahoo, atheists are supposed to be immortal.  I'm enjoying pushing that notion around my head.