Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 22

Musical Interlude

Here’s a tasty alternate Badfinger track for your enjoyment, on the occasion of me being super busy with too many spinning plates.

Hope your own week is going well!

Pulp and Sundry

I do like to write quickly and to be able to report vast thousands of words written, but as I think I mentioned, for me at least that may not be the best way to approach drafting. At least not novels. I had SO MANY revision passes and revisits on the last book that I’m just trying to take my time with this new one. I suppose I’ll find out soon from my alpha reader if going slowly means fewer revision passes will be required. I think it might. If not, I may start losing more hair.

My short story outlining project went far better than I expected. I’ve already got outlines or thumbnail outlines for all but the final tale in the proposed new Dabir and Asim collection, and I do have a solid idea for that final one — I just have to write it down. After that I’ll convert all of them into detailed outlines and then, as time permits, I’ll start turning those into short stories.

Over the week I finally finished the last few stories in The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, and Hocking and I have begun the exchanges that will eventually be transformed into an article. I also read an excellent short story collection by Australian writer Peter Corliss, and I’m sure Hocking and I will be talking about him eventually as well.

Finally, I started on a pretty cool “American mercenary in exotic places” novel, one of the paperbacks Hocking sent me, Driscoll’s Diamonds. So far I’m really digging it. He warned me it’s kind of a popcorn read, but sometimes you want some really well made popcorn. Tasty, not too buttery or too salty. I’ll have a full (well, likely thumbnail) review when I’m done.

(And speaking of popcorn, I didn’t get to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 this weekend — when we decided whilst out to try and get in to view it, it was sold out, both at the closest theatre and the two across town! Alas.)

This Sunday I broke open Agricola: Master of Britain. Nice looking map, tactical board, and counters, which have a good solid heft to them, like counters from White Dog Games or the laser printed counters from Victory Point Games.

The rules were easy to digest, and the game play was fantastic… although I had my butt handed to me! There’s a lot of subtlety going on in this game. I lost three times, and it finally started to click that I can’t play it as though I’m just out to conquer by martial forces alone, because that makes the other tribes unfriendly — and I suppose that’s really more realistic. If your tribe heard that the other tribes down south were getting conquered, would they sit around waiting for the Romans to come for them, or would they start getting suspicious and unfriendly? Fortunately, there are other ways to win over the tribes. Really looking forward to playing again next Sunday morning.

It’s a new kind of design for me, very different from others I’ve played, and so far I’m really impressed. I’ll write a proper review on the Black Gate web site after I’ve played it some more. So far — highly recommended.

Word Count Musings & Hardboiled Thoughts

As I’ve only just now finished the final story in The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, I’m moving the official discussion of it out another week so that we’ll be talking about it on Monday, May 15. Given the size of the book, maybe that’s a good thing for those of you who’re interested in hearing what we have to say about it and the even smaller number of you who might be trying to read along.

Writing’s been slow but steady this week, a combination of revision and writing from scratch. I’m not sure how many words per day it officially is and I’m mostly beyond caring. I guess my opinion on word count per day or even week has changed. It’s good to measure yourself against some kind of scale to see how much progress you’re making, but last year I wrote a lot that ended up having to be changed. Now I’m going slower as I revise the new book, hoping that I won’t have to revise each chapter eight times. Instead I’m trying to punch up a chapter until it sounds pretty good, advance into the next one, then come back and punch up that first chapter some more, etc. Hopefully by the time any of the chapters get to my alpha and beta readers they’ll find a lot less to worry about.

Looking forward to seeing my first-born again as he comes home from college today for the summer. Looking forward to some gaming over the weekend. Looking forward to it stopping raining, eventually…

 

Hardboiled Treasures

Look what turned up in the mail the other day! And it wasn’t even Christmas!

The Mighty Hocking had some duplicate hardboiled paperbacks lying about (as well as another Elmore Leonard western) and generously sent them on to me. Feast your eyes upon them.

These things are usually packaged in a tawdry way, often with ludicrous back cover copy that might have sold them in the old days but don’t do much to promote them to a modern audience because you have no idea how good the actual prose inside might be. Here’s an example, from the back of Million Dollar Murder:

A living dead man, tortured beyond recognition. A suitcase crammed with a million dollars in fresh, green currency. An eerie island. A sadistic millionaire. An exotic girl who knew all the answers, but whose lips didn’t look like they had been kissed as often as her manner indicated.

That’s what Sam sailed into. That, and murder: murder and more murder.

Now the odds are that if you’re like me you’ll go “yeah!” and think that might be fun. But if you don’t know how oversold and over the top a lot of this old back cover copy is you’d probably think I’d lost my mind or decide I had bad taste. Although maybe you already suspected that.

This weekend I also conquered Persia and moved on towards India courtesy of Field Commander: Alexander. It only took me a few hours, whereas it took him years. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Hard-Boiled Monday Returns

Sort of an ironic thing to post on a Friday, isn’t it?

I’ve had numerous requests for the return of the ongoing column, and I’ve spoken with Chris Hocking, my Hard Boiled Monday pal, and we’ll be getting back to it in a little while. I’ve given up trying to read stories in the order of the original list, though, and it may not be EVERY Monday. I’ll get a schedule up in a little while.

For now, I wanted to tell anyone who wanted to read along that the first book we’ll be discussing is an exceptionally fine anthology titled The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories. It’s considered a landmark volume and now that I’m most of the way through it I definitely see why. Arr, there be great fiction in here, matey’s! Said the pirate…. Who apparently reads hard boiled detective novels. Who are you to stereotype?!

Anyway, not this coming Monday, but Monday May 8th I hope to start discussing the very best out of this greatest hits anthology. If you like (or at least are curious about) private eye stories, this is an excellent place to go. If you’re looking for a copy, try here for paperbacks, or go to the other usual places. For once, copies seem plentiful, though I have no idea why. I can’t imagine why someone would want to part with this volume, because I definitely plan on reading from it again. It’s a great introduction to the work authors I’ve already started exploring.

Max Latin

I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately. Any of you out there read some Norbert Davis? Particularly the Max Latin collection from Altus Press?

Man, there’s no one like Norbert Davis. Sly, with great elements of humor at the same time he’s delivering a strong mystery and great action.

The only thing I haven’t enjoyed about the collection was John Macdonald’s introduction, which didn’t much discuss the fiction and instead sideswiped the author a little.

You can find the book here.

Field Commander Alexander

I spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning and organizer various things around the house. If you’re a home owner sometimes it feels like the weekend is so busy that the week itself is more relaxing.

I did manage to get in, finally, some playing of Field Commander: Alexander, and tried to launch an expedition into Persia. I won the first time but didn’t quite get the rules right, so I tried again and got trounced, alas. But it turns out I still missed out on some rules intricacies. I’m looking forward to a re-match against those wily Achaemenidians next Sunday morning.

I’m a big fan of Field Commander: Napoleon from the same company, DVG, and I’ve been curious about this earlier game for years.

It comes with four separate campaigns set at different points in Alexander’s short and spectacularly successful life. Each has its own board with its own special rules which amount to having four separate games with similar mechanics. Alexander’s troops and successes (or lack thereof) carry over from board to board if you’re playing the campaign game, or you can set up each board without playing them all in a row.

On the board to the right you can see me set up to start the first campaign, on the board titled “Granicus.” I have my troops massed in the northwest. Below me are some Greeks I have to conquer before I head on over to Persia. Now that I have the rules cleared away I’m really looking forward to continuing my attempts to conquer the ancient world. That will have to wait until NEXT Sunday morning.

The outlining of future short stories continues even faster than originally intended — I’ve now got four thumbnail outlines for unwritten Dabir and Asim adventures, with two more devised. I hope to jot them down this morning. And novel two of the new series is coming along nicely, if more slowly initially. I’m trying to take more care with the revision so that it’s not the first of seven revisions, say — which is maddening and soul draining — and I think it might be working, for the wife was looking over the first three chapters last night and complimented me on the smoothness of the prose. Now, frequently when a writer says something like “but my relative thought it was great!” we all laugh, but for me the wife is a bellwether, because she’s brutally honest with me about my writing, which is always good, I guess, even when it feels like a gut punch…

I continue to treat myself from various short story collections, and when I finally get one of them finished I’ll be able to share my findings.

Right, well, time to start the week. Here’s hoping we all have good ones.

Private Eye

Here at Jones central things have been on the quiet side lately, which is nice. I’m working away on the revision of the second novel of my new series, although revision is a stretch for some portions when a lot of the middle is going to be drafted from scratch.

When not drafting, or still hacking away at the honey-do list, I’ve been reading a lot more, and returned to some of the noir volumes on my shelf. I just polished off Fredric Brown’s The Fabulous Clipjoint and ended up wishing I’d read it a lot sooner, and have been slowly working my way through some great stories in The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, which I’m told by those in the know is a landmark collection. Certainly I’ve enjoyed everything in it, and a lot of it I’ve loved. Finding a lot of new (to me) writers in it I mean to explore.

I’ve also been reading my old friend Joe McCullough’s collection of swashbuckling fantasy fiction, Victory’s Knife,  in preparation for writing a proper review. I hope to have something up about that in a few weeks, and Chris Hocking and I are talking about reviving our Hardboiled Monday series. I want to at least talk about the aforementioned anthology and Wade Miller and some other hardboiled detective writers who need more love.

But for now I need to get back to writing.

Nostalgia

I don’t know how it is for people growing up today, but as a child of the ’70s I ended up growing up with the ’60s all around me. Sure, there were ’70s TV shows, but there were an awful lot of ’60s reruns on the television, and the music from the ’60s was still in the air. When I think of my childhood I remember the jangly guitar of the mid ’60s rather than the disco of the ’70s, and I remember the thrill of watching original Star Trek.

It should come as no surprise then that I’m excited when the lovingly crafted Star Trek Continues releases a new episode (one of a final few, alas). You can find it here.

And I was just as thrilled to discover that one of my favorite modern song writers — someone well acquainted with jangly guitar power-pop (Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne) — oversaw production on a new Monkees album. I couldn’t believe how well Micky Dolenz’ voice has aged. Released last year, I only learned about it yesterday morning. Here’s a track.

This was almost like discovering these things I love again for the first time, and both brought a smile to my face.

Resolution

A few weeks ago I sat down and resolved to examine my life a little. This may sound a bit grimmer than I’ve been feeling, but here it is: I’ve realized that my life is almost certainly more than halfway over. It’s time to prioritize a bit. What do I wish to do with what I have left, assuming I have an ordinary healthy span and don’t lose my mind?

Putting aside the obvious goals of always striving to be a better father, husband, and human being, I looked at the way I spend my time and tried to come up with some ways to get to the things I like or have wished to do and haven’t found time for. 

Writing. I always want to get more writing done, even though it’s always a challenge. It’s so much easier to plan for it than to do it. I devised a list of all the writing projects I’d like to get to — beyond the current series which I’m working on nearly every day — and ordered them by my level of interest.

One project that keeps rising to the top is the creation of two series of short stories. I don’t have time to work on them during the day, most of the time, as I’m writing novels, but I thought I might be able to work on them a little in the evening. I have resolved to outline one short story each week, with the goal of eventually having enough for another e-collection of Dabir and Asim short stories. When I will find time to WRITE said stories is another battle, but I have begun to plot them. One week down, one story plotted. So far so good.

Mound Builders near game end.

Health. Oddly I find myself in better shape than at any time previously in my life. In part that’s because a few years ago I returned to the practice of martial arts after an almost eight year absence and in part because with middle age I finally put enough weight onto my skinny frame to enable the build-up of muscle. Despite being in better shape, I’ve resolved to improve it. As one ages it grow harder and harder to build new muscle and all that, so I thought I’d cement the ground work for having healthier future decades by increasing my calisthenics and building those muscles while I can. It’s not so hard, really, to take a few short breaks during the day to work in some extra leg lifts and the like and then get back to writing. No, I don’t own a weight bench or any of that. I’m pretty low tech about these things; pushups, sit-ups, leg lefts, crunches, etc.

Gaming. Of late I’ve been accumulating solitaire (or solitaire playable) board games and then… shoving them in the closet. It’s gotten to be something of an addiction — I read reviews, chat with other solitaire gamers, and search for bargains, yet I haven’t been playing them. It’s very silly — why own these things if I’m not going to use them? I purchased or traded for each with full intention of playing, but it just hasn’t happened very often.  In the evenings, you see, it seems a bit much to pull out a game and set it up around 8 or 8:30 when I know very well I’ll be going to bed in an hour or an hour in a half.

I decided to find a time to work in gaming. Sunday morning, when the rest of the family sleeps in, seemed the best answer. And by George, it worked. Rather than reading a bunch of news articles affirming what I already think of the world, I taught myself the rules for Mound Builders and got in several good games. And had fun doing it. I look forward to next Sunday morning, where I’ll either play more Mound Builders or lay down some more neural pathways and teach myself a new game.

Used to, I was most worried about dying of a sudden heart attack, as seems to happen to the male members of my family in their ’60s or earlier. But now that I see my mother wrestling with Alzheimer’s its that which I fear more than anything else. Some theorize that increasing your neural pathways is a great way to keep your brain healthy, and learning rules for new games is certainly one way to do that — and to have fun as well.