Harry Connolly's Blog, page 164

Poetry for rugrats

My somewhat precocious 8yo son is in need of some poetry for his reading edification. He'll be reading The Hobbit soon, but I want to give him a chance to read outside the so-called invisible style many kids books are written in today before I set it in his lap.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Funny poetry would be best. Spooky or weird would be good, too. Also, as a kid, if he doesn't like the first taste it'll be hard to get him to try again, so nothing too mature.

Thank you.

The news, it is good

My copy of Spirit of the Century arrived yesterday. Woo-hoo! Now I need to set aside some time to check it out.

In November if I'm lucky, considering.

Randomness for 10/19

1) Ze Frank at TED Talks on connecting with others online. Video. This made me cry a little at the end, the way kindness sometimes does.

2) Author tries to run her career without an agent and loses her career.

3) Things John Scalzi doesn't have to think about. This is a terrific post, and I'm glad he wrote it.

4) A really cool idea: My friend Shawn Granger is holding a contest to see who can make the best video trailer for his comic book series Family Bones. That's the comic you see me reading in the video I posted the other day; it's about some members of Shawn's family in the midwest who turned out to be serial killers. Weird.

5) Arnold Schwarzenegger as Darth Vader. Video. Some NSFW language.

6) Q: Who said this about the separation of church and state: "You're telling me that's in the first amendment?" A. Answer. lol.

7) Wind power without the turbines.

How I do my work

Yeah, that's me in a funny little video I made about the way I write. My son was behind the camera — and in front of the camera for one shot (he really wanted to be in it) and of course I'm in there, too. If you think it won't crack your monitor, give it a watch. If you think it's amusing, please do share it with others.

BTW, I don't really have all those books stacked everywhere.

In other news, I have an interview at Black Gate today, in which I talk about "black" magic, evil and human motivations, among other things. They also posted a "reprint" of the First Sale essay I wrote for Jim Hines. If you didn't read it then, you get another chance.

Plus, at some point later this morning I'll have an expanded essay on vampires and crosses at Bitten by Books. I'll link to it when it goes live.

Now I'm off to do some pages. Have a great day!

NaNoWhaNow?

NaNoWriMo is coming up, and as usual I won't be playing along. I'll explain why at the end. For those who don't know, "NaNoWriMo" stands for National Novel Writing Month, an annual November game where people try to write a 50K word novel in one month.

Odds are that *some* of the people reading this will be taking part, some for the first time. For those of you who write solely because you like to write, maybe share your work online, I think it's awesome. Good luck with your word counts and be interesting.

For those of you who would like to write professionally but haven't reached that goal yet, I think it's awesome (redux). Good luck with your word counts and be interesting. I'll add something else, though: If you're not already writing at this pace, consider this essential practice for how you will work year-round. 50K words in 30 days is only 1,667 (to round up) per day. Call it 1,700 to give yourself a cushion for those days Mad Men is on.

That's not a lot. Many professional novelists would consider that a Meh day, and many others would feel like slackers. If 50,000 words in one month seems like a huge goal, take the NaNoWriMo game as an opportunity to stretch yourself and your conception of what you're capable of.

I'm talking from experience here. I'm a poky writer myself, and 1,700 words a day would be a difficult pace to maintain. You know what? It holds me back, and I'm trying to improve my productivity by limiting distractions and prepping better for each session. Hell, I might even try Write or Die, as suggested by Naomi Novik here.

So have fun and do good work. Also, take the opportunity to challenge the limits you believe you have.

Heading to the gym

I'm going to the gym this morning for the first time in over a year. Yeah, it's going to cut into my writing time and I'll need to steal time from something else to make up for it. But I'm in terrible shape and constant pain. I can't keep living this way and I certainly can't keep up with my writing commitments.

Starting slow with lots of stretching. We'll see how my pain levels do.

While I'm in training all morning, I give you this:

Ten classic sf novels that were originally considered failures. What does it say about my knowledge of the genre that I haven't even heard of some of these books? Also, must remember not to sell a book to a publisher owned by a bookstore. Yeesh.

I'll be in training all morning and taking calls in the afternoon. I expect today to be worse than yesterday. Oh well.

Randomness for 10/15

1) A terrific book trailer for Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. Video

2) Where good ideas come from. Video.

3) 'Damn. Are we that different from people?' I can't think of any way to summarize this profile of Insane Clown Posse except to say that it's really, really interesting. They're evangelical Christians? (Added later: the SNL parody. Video. My reaction to that spoof: SNL is still on the air?)

4) Buy artificial hands to touch your baby. Hey, it's not as creepy as this teddy bear made from a placenta! Hello, horror movie that is the real world.

5) Animator vs. Animation III. Video.

6) McDonald's burgers can TOO grow mold on them, says McDonals.

7) Sir Ken Robinson talks modern education. Video. This is another RSA Animate video, and I love it.

The Bullying Problem

Lots of folks are writing about bullies lately, but as far as I can tell (I won't try to claim I've read every article/blog post on the subject) they're not saying what I want them to, so I'll have to say it myself.

I'm not one to be particularly worked up over what happened to me in school. My school sucked, but it wasn't until I grew up and ventured out into the world that I realized it was not the normal thing. As it turns out, most schools don't have kids who attack other kids with claw hammers in the hall. Most schools don't have kids who carry huge serrated bread knives in paper towel and scotch tape sheaths. Most high schools don't have kids doing bong hits in class while the teacher is lecturing.

And so on. I probably would have been better off if I'd dropped out but whatever. Let's just say that there was a lot of bullying in my schools.

And I perpetrated some of it. Not a lot, because I was pretty freaking low on the social totem pole, but some, because no matter how low I was, it was just unacceptable for me to be lower that that guy.

There was a bit of churn at the bottom of the social ladder, actually. Victims of one kind or another were always searching for someone to be superior to, for someone they could treat with contempt. For someone to be bullied. And while it was one thing to be pushed around or punched by a HS kid who was on the football team and looked like he was twenty-five years old, it was unacceptable to take a punch from another victim, unacceptable to have someone so low on the social ladder get his foot on your neck.

But whatever. Everything back then was bellum omnium contra omnes. My school. My home life (especially). Even my friends–who I loved and will continue to love, who are fantastic people–was a constant sting of insults and put downs. That's pretty much all we ever said to each other.

I'm going to skip the story about my son in kindergarten because this is getting long. I will say this: Victims of bullying need help. There's no doubt about that. But the bullies need help, too.

I'm not just taking about assholes like me, who made sure three out of every four words I said were some kind of supposedly-funny insult, or the kids who were bullies just so they wouldn't be at the absolute bottom. I'm also not just talking about kids with problems that would make good afternoon specials: kids from broken families, or who have abuse or addiction problems at home.

I'm talking about every bully, even the ones who are athletic, good-looking, and smart, the kids from good families with nice clothes. All of them. Because if a kid, any kid, bullies someone, that kid has a problem. The best way to deal with bullying is to protect the victims and care for the bullies. You have to help them get over their shit so they can live like decent human beings.

Because they're just kids.

Slammed at day job

Hating life.