The end of another NECON

Today was the last day of NECON. I'm tired, because I never want to sleep at NECON. If I don't, however, I get massive headaches, and I'm absolutely useless.

It's a wonderful con, and it always is. Foremost in my mind is a conversation with several pros, which ranged from an unusual recipe for sausages to our proposed charity anthology "Naked Came the Hairy Stranger." I have never learned so much while laughing so hard.

The panels were useful as usual, and I exercised a lot of self-restraint by not buying a lot of books (I still haven't read all the ones from last year). I refreshed friendships, met many delightful new people, and generally steeped in the presence of many talented and creative individuals. There are many conventions, but there's only one NECON.

For the first time, I spread my books on the table and shilled. I'm not as bad at it as I was afraid that I was. And congratulations to Kim Paffenroth. He knows why, and I can't tell

Oh, and Nick Kaufmann? I see that you still blame me for the rubber ball incident of two years ago. This has not gone unnoticed.

Ceterum censeo Kaufmann esse delendam.

Punk on Roller Skates

Mood: Not Yet Awake

Let's see: Last week was a good week, but the one before that was not awfully great.

Some good things about last week: Some back and forth with an editor about a story. My ever-vigilant spam filter was catching him, so I didn't know he's actually responded to me in the middle of June. This problem has now been taken care of.

Also, I'm now an affiliate member of the Horror Writers' Association. It's my first professional organization. Yay!

But you don't come to my blog to read this stuff. You want to know what happened when Doc Paffenroth and I went to the opening of the Hudson Valley Horrors' derby season on May 31^st.

I had a good time. I haven't been to a lot of the usual American experiences. I can count the number of live converts I've been to on one hand, and I've never seen any sort of stadium show. And it's been a long time since I've been to a professional sports event. My impression of these things is that they are giant, well-oiled machines for the purpose to extracting money from the customer.


Roller Derby is a bit more punk rock than that. There aren't many perks (although if we'd known the more expensive tickets came with swag bags, we would have gotten them!) or spin-offs or big score boards. It's all spit and baling wire, duct tape and dirt. There's not much glossy about Roller Derby, and there are no TV cameras on it, and that non-slick feeling made it feel more grounded.

Yes, there are rules. The women circle the track, and when a jam is called, the smallest, fastest member of each team (the jammer) tries to lap the other team. She gets points for every opponent she laps. The number is not particularly clear to the novice at the end of the jam, but I expect that would change as the audience member watches more derbies.

To stop her from lapping, the other girls have a limited number of things that can do to stop her. They can't really go to town on their opponents; body-slamming and shoving them, for example, are illegal. Hip-checks are not. However, they can steal momentum by grabbing someone by the hips and pulling, and can shove a teammate into someone. Yes, this happened fairly frequently.

There's is a strategy. The really good jammers (Invader Zoom, Nuf Ced) didn't smash headlong into the other team, but wait for the right opportunity to get by them all, generally on an inside turn when they're all preoccupied with something else, like a five-girl pile-up after a lead skater went down.

All the girls have an assumed name. I don't believe this is because their "lives would be in danger" like los luchadores, but because it gives them a little extra theater. The creativity is a chuckle. Who wouldn't root for Slam I Am, the Killustrator, Lolita LeBruise, Alice Rumbledore, Invader Zoom, or my personal favorite, Minerva Steel?

The crowd was into it. I figure got between two and three hundred people there to watch an hour of derby, and the energy was good. I had enjoyed myself.

Kim did well. He's signed up as the Hudson Valley Horrors' official horror novelist. He's got Hudson Valley Horrors team members lining up to get eaten by zombies in his next novel.

Now I'm trying to think of a way to entice Kelly Laymon to the sport. It seems like a perfect match for her.

A NEW TOY

Mood: Entertained

Found on matociquala's blog, Wordle creates a word-cloud from whatever test you care to enter, emphasizing the most commonly-used words. It's fascinating, and you can adjust the colors and the font. I may start entering chapters of my novel to see what comes out of it.

This is a word-cloud for "The Patriot" the story appearing in Cthulhu Unbound. You can click on it and it will appear much larger.

Notes on the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

From Nick Mamatas:

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:

1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.

* Weapon can be real or fictional; you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.

1. The Traveller-vintage Fusion Gun: Man Portable. Given the situation, there's no kill like an overkill.

2. "Mars: God of War" from Holst's Planet suite. It's reasonably long, so I won't get sick of it in ten minutes flat, while at the same time being unbelievable kickass.

3. Shane, from Shane. I don't think he missed one shot in that entire film.

Indiana Jones and the Pulp Archaeologist Meme Exchange

For a piece with a superior title, head over to the Prince of Cairo's blog for Indiana Jones And The Satisfactory Franchise Installment. Ken Hite is a delightful film analyst.

I was much more interested in being old enough to get a lot of the film-makers' references. There are several points of the film that have been borrowed from the Stephen Sommers Mummy franchise, which I thought was fairly interesting. Between the insta-flensing bugs, and the the loss of a certain character in a very Benny-like fashion (you'll see it coming), it was a fascinating experience. There's even a bit of Tomb Raider as Indy jumps around on big, square boxes. Both of these franchises were heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, and it was a lot of fun to watch the original borrow back.

I've got a couple of criticisms, but I'll concentrate on one: the big fistfight. Indy is a pulp hero. He's an academic who gets into bar brawls, he's not a professional fighter. He uses trickery and Robert Howard-level endurance to win. The other guy pounds Indy until he comes up with a way to win the fight (the propellers of a flying wing come to mind). In the original film, we winced at the big fist-fight, but we knew Indy could take it. He's tough. The paradigm shifts when there's a thirty year-old in his prime pounding on a sixty year-old Indy. Yes. Indy is tougher than a oak stump, and we know he's going to win, but we also know that this stuff hurts more when you're sixty.

But this is minor. The film is a good, enjoyable Indiana Jones romp. There are some brilliantly assembled moments ("Part time."). Harrison Ford gives credibility to anything that comes out his mouth, and the rest of the cast is quite solid.

Hey, a New Experience!

Mood: Figety


Well, for the first time ever, I've gotten a proof of a project I'm in, and I get to scan through my story it and see what errors have been made by the editor and company. This is reassuring because it gives me something to do, and tells me that Cthulhu Unbound is progressing.

The majority of the errors are, however mine. I want to take whole unnecessary phrases out of about half the pages, but that's not what this is about. I caught a few things here and there, a dropped word, an m-dash that should be a hyphen, little stuff. Kind of neat to be doing a part of the process I've heard about, but never done myself.

Stings a Bit...

Mood: Needy


This is my rejection letter for "Tatterdemalion," from, Vince Liaguno at Dark Scribe Press for their gay horror themed anthology Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet. I had sent in my story "Sire," and to my surprise I received a request to revise the story and resubmit. The good people at Dark Scribe sent me two pages of revision suggestions; what they liked, what they thought was weak.


So I spent a lot of January hammering away at the story, revising the weak spots, and changing the ending.


And on February 26^th, I received this rejection letter:

Dear Mr. Goodrich:

Thank you for submitting your short story for our consideration in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology. We gave the revised version of "Tatterdemalion" a thorough read.

Although you successfully incorporated much of our feedback, the ending just doesn't work for us. You quite successfully craft an excellent psychological portrait of a closeted man at war (literally) with himself, but the supernatural ending seems tacked on and doesn't seem to connect with the story that preceded it.

Regrettably, we're going to release "Tatterdemalion" back to you from our consideration at this time with our best wishes that your story finds a suitable home.

Sincerely:

Vince A. Liaguno, Editor-in-Chief
Dark Scribe Magazine
www.DarkScribeMagazine.com
www.DarkScribePress.com

Well that stings a bit. It's a great letter, and many thanks to Vince for going the extra mile and being personal. There are a couple of submissions where I've essentially had to imply that I've been rejected, because nobody has bothered to get back to me.

I need to look at this and realize that I got a call-back where most people simply got a rejection. I was good enough to get a request to revise, but not quite good enough to get into the anthology. And I was not the subject of the "Tips of the month" that listed the common problems with submissions. No psycho trannies or man-hating lesbians in my story, and no one's unmentionables were mutilated.

But let's do this Heinlein's way, by the numbers:

For November:
* Total # of queries = 19
* Total # of greenlighted queries = 19
* Total # of actual new submissions = 18
* Total # of re-submissions from previous month(s) = 1

Disposition of submissions:

* Accepted = 3 (2 new/1 re-submission)
* Rejected = 10
* Held for second reading = 4
* Revisions requested from authors = 2

And in February:

* Accepted = 3
* Rejected = 15
* Held for second reading = 1
* Revisions requested from authors = 1

This was the first pro-pay (5 cents a word) anthology I've ever submitted to. Although it's cold comfort, I came close, and I have to remember that I didn't consider "Sire" to be a particularly good shot in the first place. I really got my hopes up when I was asked to revise, and although I made the piece stronger, it wasn't quite enough. While I'm not in the anthology, I do now have a story that is substantially better than it was in December. And even if it didn't make it into Unspeakable Horror, I think I've got a shot at placing it somewhere else.

Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and take a look at the markets again.

Now That's Being Dominant!

Mood: Not yet awake


Nine years ago, I interviewed San Francisco Bay Area dominatrix Mistress Selina Raven. It was an interesting experience, a little adventure into the world of kink that I didn't understand. That interview has become one of the most consistently-read articles on my website.

Well, Mistress Selina Raven was chosen by the San Francisco Bay Guardian as their Best Dang Dominatrix of 2007. That's pretty big: it's not like she's been awarded "Best Dominatrix in Pownal." There's a lot of kinky stuff in the Bay Area, and to be recognized for it indicates that she's really gotten somewhere in her profession. Her website (Not safe for Work!) is quite interesting, and her writing about what she does is very clear.

If you've consistently looked at dominance and submission in askance, I suggest a visit to her site. She lays out in pretty clear terms what she does and says a few words about the psychological underpinnings of it all.

Mood: Lord of the Bananas

Despite my complaining about it, the writing group really liked the story that I messed up my April to write. While I am pleased, I also hope that it won't take that sort of manic obsessiveness to make a good story every time.

I have subsequently increased my day goal from 1,000 words to 1,500 words. The difference is rather surprising—it has taken me only three days to get past the half-way mark with the story, and I've really only got two more days' work to get the first draft done. That's pretty fast, considering that I've been writing a story a month for the past four months.

The down side is that I'm really going to annoy my writing group, since we meet once every other week.

I appear in Privateer Press's No Quarter #18. My brother decided to take some clever pictures at Templecon, and I was part of the execution.

On Saturday, I also won my first bout against the teacher of my fencing class. I've been trying to do this for nearly four years, so I'm pretty pleased.

And I've just promised to go to a roller derby on May 31^st with the estimable Dr. Paffenroth. It's the first (encounter? game?) of the season, the Hudson Valley Horrors vs the Lehigh Valley Rollergirls. I have virtually no idea how rollerball is played, and the last sports event I went to was during high school, but this looks like it won't be a night of the same-old, same-old.

How Not to Write

Mood: Manic

There are a number of writers who can come up with a couple of characters and bang them together and make a story. Just start on their story with no clue as to how it's going to end, where the story is going to take them, just strike out for unknown territory with one or two people for company.

I am not one of them. This is the first time I have started a story without a clear ending in mind. It was, in process, a disaster. As it stands, the story is some six thousand words. The file is about nine thousand words, which includes two starts to the story that didn't pan out, several wads of research and ideas that make up the background for the story, but did not actually make it into the story itself. That's about three days' worth of work that are not in the story.

This is not a comfortable way for me to write a story, and I'm not sure it's producing good work. Because I obsessed over the story, to the exclusion of virtually everything else. I'm behind on my blog (I've got a month's worth of blog ideas), I'm way behind on my personal correspondence, because I've been afraid to devote energy to something else. And when I get that intensely focussed, I don't turn out my best work because I stop new ideas to the story.

But I got the first draft done last night. First revision today, and it goes to the Roundtable tonight. Then, I think, it'll sit for a few days while I start a new story. One that I'm not going to obsess about so much.