David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 238

My Recent Writing Success Is Definitely Spoiling Me

All the recent writing success I’ve been having lately is definitely spoiling me. I found myself reflecting that it had been a while since I had gotten an acceptance. However, upon further reflection I realized that I’d gotten my last acceptance less than a month ago.

Less than a month between acceptances is not an amount of time to start feeling like an acceptance has not come in for a while.

After all, I’ve already received five acceptances so far this year. It’s just barely April now. That’s better than one a month. I can’t believe my brain is feeling like things are falling off when they so clearly aren’t.

Stupid brain.

(That being said, any journal to which I’ve submitted that wants to make my brain feel better is certainly welcome to do so. Acceptances are gratefully accepted.)

My Wife Asks The Wrong Question

My wife and I were at the mall the other day, passing by a frozen yogurt place, and she asked me the wrong question. She asked: “Do you want frozen yogurt?”

Really, she was asking if I was willing to get frozen yogurt so she could get such. However, this wasn’t what she said. In response, I laughed. I told her that she probably wanted to rephrase her question.

After all, I have never “wanted” frozen yogurt. At least, not to my recollection. I doubt that I will ever “want” frozen yogurt. I may be willing to get frozen yogurt, but “want” just isn’t the right word to use.

I mean, frozen yogurt can be fine. If it is made to mimic ice cream as much as possible, covered with various toppings such as butterscotch or caramel, then I even can like it. However, that doesn’t mean I “want” it. It meant that I want ice cream and am willing to accept dressed up frozen yogurt as a second best option.

This kind of removes any benefit of frozen yogurt for me. It’s supposed to be healthier, but certainly isn’t once it is dressed up enough as ice cream that I’m willing to accept it. Hot fudge, sprinkles, marshmallow sauce, and all that tends to negate any health benefit frozen yogurt may have over ice cream.

Frankly, I usually just prefer to go for the ice cream and deal with the consequences. Half the time, I don’t add as much stuff on and it’s actually better for me.

My wife saw my point. I think she’s getting kind of torqued off with me, but she saw my point.

(Side note: We didn’t end up stopping for frozen yogurt.)

The Fourth Blurb For “The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes!”

Time to share another blurb for The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes! (Look here, here, and here for the previous three). Publication is getting closer and closer….it’s time to start getting excited!

Ready for the fourth blurb? Here it is:

Reading David Atkinson’s The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes instills the same sort of hunger that got me into literary fiction in the first place. It brings with it humor and honesty while managing to be clever and sickly sweet. That savory combination isn’t found very often. Buy the book and dive in with a short stack drenched in maple syrup.

- Michael J Seidlinger, author of The Laughter of Strangers

It doesn’t get cooler than this.

Why Have I Been Drinking MCD Coffee?

Why have I been drinking McDonald’s coffee? I don’t do it often, and I don’t really do it for the taste. Every once in a while, my wife will be ordering breakfast there so I get a coffee. Turns out, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.

I just saw these stats on caffeine in various products. A 16oz McDonald’s coffee was found to usually have about 145 milligrams of caffeine. Sounds good, right? Well, the same size at Starbucks had 330 milligrams.

What the heck have I been doing?

I drink Starbucks too, and again not for the taste. It’s kind of overburned, but I’m usually drinking mainly to wake up. I need that caffeine…and I don’t have time to drink two or more cups of coffee to come up to the same caffeinated level. That MCD coffee is bullcrap.

CAFFEINE!!!!!

Oh yeah, all you Dunkin’ Donuts coffee fans? Yeah, forget you guys too. 206 milligrams for a 16oz coffee may beat MCD, but it’s nowhere near enough. Even Jolt and Mountain Dew fall way behind. Starbucks may not be my favorite taste, but I can trust them to give me the wake up I need.

Man, they out to have warnings about this. I’m sure they’re trying to scare us with the caffeine levels, but it had the opposite effect on me. I’m going where the caffeine is.

George R.R. Martin Paranoia

I don’t even watch Game of Thrones, and I’ve only read one of the books, but that apparently doesn’t insulate me from George R.R. Martin paranoia. I had an episode just the other day.

It was related to that article about the Belgian teacher who was threating unruly students to reveal details from the book that hadn’t come out yet in the show if they didn’t screw up. That was funny and all, but it got me thinking.

I mean, I’ve heard that one of George R.R. Martin’s key approaches to avoid predictability in the books was to figure out who he couldn’t possibly kill…and then kill them. As such, isn’t there a danger that the HBO series could become a little predictable since it follows books that are already out there? I know it isn’t exact, but it’s pretty close.

That’s when I had my George R.R. Martin paranoid moment.

I wondered if George has been thinking of this all along…and has a special secret clause in his contract. The show will follow the books, follow the books, follow the books, and then BAM! Massive deviation! Perhaps something like The Red Wedding but the total opposite side gets slaughtered instead.

The book readers who’ve been so smug about knowing what is coming next will be totally taken by surprise…just like George’s technique regarding character lives when he was originally writing the book. They’d be totally unprepared…and George loves that kind of thing.

I could totally see him doing something like that. I don’t know if he would, but it’d be funny as hell if he did.

I’ve Never Been So Happy To Delete A Blog Post

I had a post all ready to go, but then some events changed and I ended up deleting the post. There was nothing wrong with the post, but circumstances had changed and it was suddenly irrelevant. Though I’d gone through the trouble of setting up the post already, I was thrilled to delete it.

I should explain.

You see, a very good friend was embroiled in a custody battle. Her ex was trying to get custody of their son, and she needed help with legal fees. She made just enough that she didn’t qualify for legal aid, but nowhere near enough to be able to get the five grand the custody battle was going to cost her. So, she set up a funding page to see if people could help her out. I was going to pass on the word about that, see if I couldn’t bring it before a few more people.

But, then something unexpected happened. Her ex decided to be reasonable about the situation. Instead of an expensive custody battle that could likely end up hurting everyone, he decided they should try to work things out in a more sensible way. Perhaps mediation if it came to that. In any event, trying to find a solution in a way that was going to be better for everyone…especially the child. That’s even better given that these people are going to have to deal with each other for a very long time. Nothing will change that they’re both still parents of this child.

As such, there was no more need to call for help funding the custody battle. It negated the need for my post, but I was happy to delete it. After all, it meant that things had gotten better for my friend and for her son. That’s all anybody really wanted in this.

Why I Resist Kickball

Adult kickball leagues seem to be a big thing these days. I have been approached by people wanting me to get into one on a number of occasions. I’m resisting, though. I don’t really want to play kickball.

This all goes back to elementary school. For K-2, I went to this parochial school. Recess at that school was split into two categories. The younger kids all played on the playground. The older kids, however, when the weather was good, played kickball.

This wasn’t formally organized, but the social hierarchy had pressures in place. As second grade progressed, the information was repeatedly conveyed that only the little kids hung out on the playground. The older kids were supposed to convert to kickball. Second grade was about the time that the transition was particularly ‘encouraged.’

I didn’t really want to play kickball. However, I fed into the idea of transitioning to being one of the bigger kids and gave it a shot. One time at the plate, I kicked the ball and ran to base. I forget exactly what happened next, but things were still in motion so I kept running. Somehow, I got ahead of the runner ahead of me. Things got all bunged up and outs were recorded. I was blamed. People yelled.

Personally, I still think this was somewhat the fault of the person I lapped. Sure, I wasn’t supposed to get ahead of the next runner (though I was never entirely clear on the rules)…but shouldn’t people have been mad at him or her for being slow enough that I could lap them? Wasn’t he or she running at all? Believe me, I wasn’t that fast. I’m still not.

However, I was the one singled out for the yelling. At that point, I went back to the playground. I was done with their crap. Then I switched schools and it didn’t matter anyway.

Screw kickball.

Am I An Outsider Or An Insider On The Writing Scene?

I hear people talk from time to time about whether they are insiders or outsiders to the writing/lit scene. Personally, I’m not sure it makes much difference to me one way or another. However, I started thinking about this more because I can’t figure out whether or not I would classify myself as an insider or an outsider to the scene.

I mean, my original degree was not in writing or literature. It was in computer science. Then I got a law degree. I don’t teach at all, much less writing or literature. I don’t work in publishing. None of that.

However, I did get an English Lit degree and an MFA after my computer science and law degrees. I’ve never lived in New York, but I did visit once. I write what I feel is a fairly good number of book reviews and it seems to me that I’m pretty well engaged in the lit/writing scene in a variety of ways.

So…which is it? Am I an insider or an outsider? Or, perhaps, and inoutsider (or outinsider)?

It doesn’t really matter, but I wonder about it sometimes. Of course, I also sometimes wonder why no one has (to my knowledge) ever made jerky flavored cotton candy, so it might be best not to read too much into this.

Obama To Propose Ending Public Awareness Of NSA’s Phone Call Sweep

The White House has announced that President Obama would like American public to once again be unaware of the National Security Agency’s business of storing sweeping telephone data. Reportedly, the President feels that willful denial of the situation would assuage privacy concerns almost as much as the NSA ceasing to collect such data.

“Honestly,” President Obama supposedly stated, “people have been getting pretty mad about this. I don’t like it when people are mad. We all know the NSA is going to keep doing it regardless what I tell you…or them. Can’t we just go back to all of us pretending that it doesn’t happen? Would you all be good with that?”

The President then turned his attention to the situation in Crimea so that he could be ignored by Russian President Vladimir Putin instead of the NSA.

The Third Blurb For “The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes!”

Remember how I’ve been sharing blurbs for The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes as we get closer and closer to publication? Look here and here if not. I can’t believe some of these people even talk to me, much less look at my work and say something about it. It’s thrilling…there’s just no other way to describe it.

And now, without further ado, here is the third blurb:

Hell is other people and pancakes. Or to be more accurate, purgatory is other people and pancakes–and friendships and heartaches and the dull, deceiving comfort of things staying exactly the same. Be careful what you wish for in David S. Atkinson’s funny, flippant book – you just might get it, along with endless coffee refills and a lifetime of breakfast food.

– Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies

I love this part of the publication process. Absolutely love it.