Jason Arnett's Blog, page 12

@Failure Live at Liberty Hall

It’s not often Lawrence, Kansas, gets things just a little ahead of the rest of the country but on July 2, 2015, at Liberty Hall, we got to see a much beloved band flexing its muscles. Failure played the first show of their 2015 tour here last night to a very respectful crowd of devotees ranging in age from their 20s to 60s, from people who had seen the band before and a majority who hadn’t. The opening act, Kansas City’s Sundiver, primed the crowd with an interesting, sonically challenging set but everyone was there for the headliner.
Starting with ‘Hot Traveler’, the first song off their ‘new masterpiece’ The Heart Is A Monster,the band was a little stiff. They loosened up as the crowd was obviously into it. Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards and Kellii Scott sounded album-perfect despite a snafu with Edwards’ guitar before the second song. When they got into ‘A.M. Amnesia’, they were having fun, moving around the stage and showing off a little for all of us.


Fantastic Planetwas immediately represented when they played ‘Another Space Song’ then ‘Sergeant Politeness’ and Magnifiedwas served with ‘Frogs’. The crowd bounced and banged their heads along with the thundering drums and gut-punching basslines. Edwards and Andrews interchanged playing bass and guitar all night with Edwards managing keyboards and the programming.

They played lots of new material during their ninety minute set including ‘Counterfeit Sky’ and ‘Otherwhere’ but it was ‘Mulholland Drive’ that was the centerpiece. Every song was tight and sounded exactly the way they should have. With the majority of the set coming from Planet and Monster, it felt like Combined with the set’s end of ‘The Nurse Who Loved Me’, Failure proved without equivocation they are as inventive as ever. This tour should serve as notice that Failure is relevant to the current music scene. It may have been eighteen years since they were noticed but now is their time. If they are in your town, or your area, go see the show. It may not be another eighteen years before they come around again, but don’t miss the chance to see them.

IT IS FRIDAY

Wishing those of you who are fathers of children with two legs, four legs, feathers and scales a Happy Father's Day this weekend. And to those of you filling the role of father in any way at all, Happy Father's Day to you, too.

Be good to one another. Look for the positive stuff and hang on to that.

False Expectations

Cats, of course, are indifferent to everything.I don't have any demands.

My goal is to be a writer. I've achieved that. I write all the time. Some of you read my stuff whether here or at the Confabulator Cafe or maybe you bought one of my books at Amazon. I'm a writer.

I've been paid to do some writing. While I don't make a living as a writer, what I've made qualifies me in some small sense as a pro. At conventions I write stories for people based on two or three words they give me. They approach my table, I pitch the idea to them and they give me a prompt. I suppose that qualifies me as a pro.

In some circles, anyway. Even if it's only in my head.

But I don't demand anyone else think of me as a pro writer. I never will. In my mind I will always be trying, always striving to reach that level that makes me feel like I might one day be considered with writers I admire.

Yes, there are famous names on that list. But there are names you may not know too. None of them matter because it's only for me.

I have no expectations. Well, at least they're low expectations.

Really, what I want is for people I don't know to read my stuff and have a response. Good or bad doesn't matter. I don't hope for a bad response but it's happened. The only expectation I have is that my writing will engender someone to fume with rage or frustration or alternately give me some sort of praise.

Then I'll feel like a real pro.

For instance, when I go for my now semi-daily walk, I often encounter strangers walking along the same path as me. I almost always nod and say hello to them. Even if they have earbuds in. I expect nothing in return but I'm always pleased when someone nods back or even acknowledges me with a 'hi'. Something quick, nothing committal at all. Just a word that says, "I see you exist".

That's what I want as a writer.

To know that others, people I don't know, to acknowledge my existence. I don't expect it, but it's a goal.  I don't demand it. I work for it.

As my life settles back down I'll go for daily walks. I have to get this weight off. If I pass you on the sidewalk and say hello, I hope you'll nod back.

That's all I ask for. (Edited to add this:) But if I don't get it, I'll keep walking. And writing.

Soft Reset (An Update of Sorts)

Get to it, already. Last year I submitted several stories around in the hopes of selling one or all of them.

No dice.

Which is okay. I focused on improving what I could and working on other things. I didn't let the rejections get me down. I couldn't. You can't. Part of being a writer is having that thick skin to keep going on in the face of multiple people you don't know saying "No thanks".

So things and stuff happened in the interim and I didn't resend that story anywhere else. I did finish a redraft of the novel. Finally. But the short stories have kind of lain fallow in the interim.

Today I read an issue of one of the magazines I submitted to. As I read I noted a story in the same vein as the one I sent them last year. It's not the same, not at all. The rejection I got from this particular magazine's editor was terribly encouraging and I see why now. There's no illusion that this story beat mine out for publication, don't get that idea. But this shows me just how close I might have been to being accepted.

At least that's my interpretation.

And now I'm prepping that story that got rejected for submission elsewhere. Maybe I am that close to selling a story. Maybe not. Regardless, I'm resetting on that story to get out into the world.

While things and stuff are happening.

I've heard that the secret to success is never giving up. Guess I'd forgotten that.

Positive things on the horizon folks. Even if the story doesn't get picked up. Because it can't get picked up if it's sitting on the hard drive and not out running the streets.

Watch Sense8

I'm lousy at reviewing movies and music and books and stuff. I like what I like. To wit:

My usual MO is to like art that the general populace ignores. It's not by design, just how I'm built. Complicated, reaching, dangerous stuff— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) June 10, 2015

If it so happens my likes dovetail with anyone else's then that's a bonus. Doesn't happen often but sometimes it does. That's a good day.— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) June 10, 2015

I probably should have developed an ability to review, but it just didn't matter that much. Still doesn't, really.

Anyway, last night I finished Sense8, the new Netflix original series created by the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski. Here's the best summary I've found from the show's Wikipedia entry:

The plot revolves around eight strangers from different parts of the world who suddenly become mentally and emotionally linked and it is set to explore subjects that its writers felt science fiction shows, at least ostensibly, tend to ignore[6] or skim through[7] such as politics, identity, sexuality, gender and religion.[7][8]

Which I think will tell you whether or not you're going to like it. There are a lot of characters and the story deals with the things we, as society, tend to ignore or find offensive.

Of course it speaks to me.

Having grown up with Chris Claremont and John Byrne's Uncanny X-Men comics, I had no trouble keeping story lines and characters straight. The show is truly global in a way that reminds me of Warren Ellis' Planetary, too. Once the story lines begin to intersect, the show really takes off. I deliberately did not read anything, no reviews, nothing about the show before I started watching so there was no baggage carried with me. As I watched I began to think about individuality, how the individual functions in different ways in different situations without changing at the core.

There's action and sex and intrigue and romance and lots of long dialogue. If you're open to the ideas, the work is done very well. I've enjoyed a lot of what the Wachowskis are trying to do in film since the first Matrix. They're reaching out to make the audience really think about stuff. Even with Speed Racer. I give them credit for the efforts, especially with Cloud Atlas which was beautiful to look at and packed with design and feeling and meaning.

So if you like globe-hopping stories about people who are real in every single way but have extraordinary powers, I recommend Sense8. Very much so. There's a wonderful payoff at the end of the season that hopefully will lead into a second.

This is amazing, brave, ambitious work. The actors are top notch, the writing is unambiguous and I want more.

Hope you like it.

A Fable About Time

He finished his coffee, set the mug down and left the house.

The front door hissed shut. Outside the weather was beginning of summer warm, humid. He looked up at the azure sky. No clouds. Like in that terribly vivid dream just before he woke.

What he needs is simple but elusive. Where to look first? His neighborhood is quiet as a 1950s suburb. Only one hundred fifty feet away is the parkway, a huge artery for the city. Thousands of cars travel it every day. There's an accident at least once a week within a block of his house.

He is confident though he doesn't know where that confidence comes from. It's sudden and has been hiding from him for months now. A moth to a flame, it draws him down the sidewalk to the edge of the busy street.

To the left is oncoming traffic. Rush hour. Barreling down toward him, their lights blazing. That makes him pause. It's daylight but heading towards evening. The lights are brighter than they should be, and they change colors. This baffled him.

Best not to think too much about it. The more he thought, the more his confidence waned. He closed his eyes.

White noise of rubber on pavement, engines pushing metal and fiberglass faster and faster enveloped him. The sound was punctuated by the occasional thud thud thud of woofers. He felt it in his chest. He moved to the curb, the front of his sandals hung off the edge. The cars passing so fast and so close together buffeted him, caused him to sway in the gale.

A deep breath. Hold it, exhale. Step.

His feet didn't touch the ground. The cars passed harmlessly through him. He tingled all over. He didn't open his eyes. He walked at an easy pace.

A last step up. Solid ground. Grass under his sandals, brushing against the bare skin of his feet. He opened his eyes and smiled.

What he needed was here, in the median. He knew it.

A moment to take in what had happened. Traffic on both sides was bumper to bumper at super speed. All the cars had their lights on. The sun bore down on him from the west. A shadow from a tree bent around him, avoided him.

Everything is surreal. He is unsurprised. A torrent of adrenaline surged through him.

With the sun at his back, he faced the next tree in the median. A poplar, who knew how many years old, probably eight feet tall was unaffected by the rush of air on either side. Its trunk was easily four inches in diameter and it was held straight by plastic chain links and posts on either side. The line of cars extended beyond the horizon. Even though he could see red lights in either direction, the cars did not stop coming. He shrugged.

The bark of the tree was smooth, so maybe it wasn't an elm. Tree identification was not one of his strengths. Maybe he could study the subject when this was over. He could use it in something if he did. It would broaden his knowledge base.

He knelt down, ran his hand over the bark. Now it was rough on his hands and he thought maybe it was an elm. In the end it didn't matter what kind of tree it was.

Cars rushed by, some honking loudly. He didn't pay attention. He never paid attention. His friends would say they'd seen him walking, had honked at him but he never noticed them. It always felt wrong to assume people passing him on the street and honking were trying to get his attention. He always apologized. It was only in the last two years or so that he stopped explaining why he didn't acknowledge them.

He wrapped both hands around the trunk and pulled upward.

Enough rain had fallen over the previous two weeks that it came right out. Like a weed. It shouldn't have, no way should it have come right out. The root ball was two feet in diameter. The man stood with the tree in hand as the plastic chain links stretched and gave way.

Traffic didn't stop. A lot more horns honked, on both sides. Pretty soon all the horns honked as they passed. He watched, bewildered, as they blew by him. More puzzling was the fact that the tree wasn't heavy at all. Not at all.

Reverently, he set the tree down, outside the hole its root ball left behind. The tree slewed over into the median, out of harm's way from the traffic. He patted the root ball.

He saw a triangle of something white at the bottom. He lay down on his belly and reached into the hole. Brushing dirt out of the way, he revealed the entire packet. It was about the size of a 3x5 card and the purest white. Incredibly the dirt left no trace of itself on the packet. He whistled.

The noise of the cars was gone, he noticed. Relief streamed through him the same way the adrenaline had. Gingerly he grabbed one corner of the packet and pulled it up close to his face. The smell of the wet earth comforted him. He was reminded of his childhood, of the days when the he walked around the dirt basement of the house his father built. A worm wriggled to safety on the right.

As an artifact, the packet was plain. Except for the fact that it was pure white and unmarked by the black dirt there was nothing remarkable at all about it. It was about the size of an index card and thin. He set it on the side of the hold and pushed up to sit on his knees.

If he looked up he would have seen the cars and trucks racing on either side of him. Semi tractors pulled their trailers, bumping over the seams in the roadwork. Police cars and fire engines blared their sirens and the blur of passenger vehicles was a steady stream of variable colors. They ignored him as much as he them.

All he saw was the packet. The prize he'd crossed over for.

Inside it was a handful of multi-colored pellets, tiny. Like Chiclets. How many should he take?

One, he decided. Just one.

He picked a green one, held it tenderly between thumb and forefinger. "Here goes nothing," he said and popped it in his mouth.

The cars stopped. No sound, no movement, nothing. Everything around him was a statue. He turned, looking both ways up and down the parkway. It was the same. The dream was true and he'd allowed it to propel him out into the median.

Surreal didn't cover anything any more. An unearthly silence built up, threatening his calm but he stood, chewing the chiclet.

The man stepped in between a Cadillac and a Kia into the parkway. The drivers were both talking on the phone, or would be when they moved again.

Once he'd made it back to his side of the parkway, the man looked back again. Nothing had changed. the tree was still on its side, he held the packet of Chiclets in their improbably white pouch. He spat out the gum.

He was old enough to remember vinyl records and cassette tapes. The sound that came to him was much like a stopped record or a stuck tape running back up to speed. The cars moved again, the drivers gripped the steering wheels.

"What the?" he said out loud. The world turned. Everything resumed as normal.

But it hadn't been normal when he went out. Everything was already sped up. The man shook his head to clear the nagging thoughts.

"Now I'll have the time," he said.

Though it would be limited to what was in the packet. He remembered that much from the dream. Whoever was behind the dream, he knew it was best not to question it. No need to wonder why he was given the vision or the power to act on the dream. It would only drive him mad. He turned and left the parkway, his sidewalk and his driveway to the muggy day.

Inside, he poured another cup of coffee. It was still hot. All the misery of recent months was still fresh and he hadn't done any solid work in that time, either. He was behind.

Now, with the Chiclets, he could get things done. Lots of things. Everything that mattered to him. But where to start?

He wandered into the office.

His laptop was open.

Kidd

Sleeping in a sunbeam, every cat's dream.
Kidd, our little old man, the orange kitty, has passed away. I wanted to write a whole lot about him but decided that those were my memories and I don't feel like sharing them.

I miss him.

I didn't want another pet when he came to us but now I won't know what to do. Kidd, you turned out to be a mighty fine friend.

Rest easy now.
Brothers, tried and true.



Keeping watch.

Slamming the Brakes

Today I want to quit. Throw my hands up in frustration and give in to the nagging voices and lack of or outright negative reviews.

There are times I want to stop being a writer in my spare time and find something else to do. Something I'm better at, something that means a little more to more people. Maybe I should just focus on my day job which I'm a helluva lot better at.

I keep this quote from Harlan Ellison prominently displayed in my office at home:

"You can either seek the approbation of the monkeys or you can continue to produce your art at the level at which you do it best." 

Sometimes it helps me through the bad days. Not always - but sometimes.

What it does is remind me that I have to write for myself first, not what little audience I do have. Do I level up from time to time? I sure as hell hope so. The more practice I get the better I should be.

And though it feels like writing in a vacuum, I know I have a lot of support. I've been with my writer's group for seven years or so and they're a terrific bunch. They keep me honest. I've got friends who've been behind me for fifteen years while I've gone from making mini comics to trying to be a prose writer.

I'd like to think I've grown as a storyteller.

But that gnawing doubt works on me around the edges taking little bites here and there. So much that today I want to quit. Again.

I'm not going to. No way. But I'm staying realistic about this. I'm writing for myself first. If you dig what I write, thank you so much. I'd love to hear from you. If you don't dig it, well, I understand. There are a lot of things I don't get into, too. I'd ask you to give me another shot on something else that intrigues you but if you don't I understand. There's so little time nowadays for things we don't like. So thanks for trying my stuff out. I appreciate it. Very much.

The likelihood of me being a best-selling author is pretty slim. One day I'd be grateful to make enough money to support going to shows to do my live writing. That'd be awesome. Or even enough money to fix the major things around the house that need doing. Here's a favorite, if out of context, quote from The Upside of Anger:

"It's a tall order for a patient motherfucker."

But that's me. I'm a patient motherfucker. I'll get close to what I want if I keep at it. So I'm not giving up, I'm not quitting even though I really want to. The writing will get better. I'm grateful you're along for the ride. I hope someday to write something you really like.

I'll leave you with this from Ursula Le Guin:

More Updates: List 1 Update 4

It may be time for a new list.

Anyway, here's what's going on:

COLD DISTANCE is still in revision. Every time I get to a new stage with it I find things that can and should be improved. The draft is done, I'm almost done with the passive/clarity search and seizure. And then I read the first chapter and see all kinds of ways it can be better. I have to admit the possibility that I'm looking for things to keep it from being set free but I don't think so. I really do want it out there so I can start on the sequel but I want it to be the best it can be.

Sigh. I need a break, I think. Maybe just a week off from agonizing over it.

So that makes book three of the EVOLVER series (you can buy books one and two here and here) jump up top now. It's in Zero Draft, which means a p/c search and seizure (see above) and a read through for logic. Been a while since I've looked at it but it shouldn't really take any time at all to get it in shape to send off.

And right behind that is AZTEC. More on that soon.

Perhaps a short story for the Confabulator Cafe next month. I have an idea, just need to start typing.

Then back to COLD DISTANCE. And hopefully the short stories I've had laying around waiting to be handled.

Meanwhile, notes keep piling up for other things.

So yeah, I guess we're on to list 2 once I get Evolver out the door. How are you doing? Everything all right in your world?

Quit'cher

I decided some time ago to eliminate the word 'bitch' from my every day vocabulary.

It's pejorative, diminutive and ugly. There are other words I can use. In every situation where I've used the word since 7th or 8th grade there are options.

There's no expectation of anyone else to drop it but for me it makes sense. I'm a reader and writer and  have a considerable vocabulary. I can complain and grouse or gripe. I don't need the word to make someone feel small or subordinate.

That doesn't mean it won't show up in some character's dialogue some time. Not all of my characters think or feel the same way I do. But in real life I've worked very hard to let this word go over the last four or five months.

I shared my decision with a couple of friends who convinced me to share it with the world. So, there it is. This seemed like a good time to announce it, to be held accountable for it.

If you feel the need to discuss it, let's be civil.