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So, while I'm on pins and needles waiting for January to hurry up and get here, what am I doing?

I've just sent off a query to The Dreadful Cafe, telling them what a fantastic fit 'Stilling the Demons' would be for their Membrane anthology. The last time I tried to sell that story to anyone was back in October, and Tor graciously declined, so it needed some air. Yesterday my lady love and I had lunch with our friends Jen and Jeremy, who own Hot Goblin Press and the Mana Punk gaming system. He's looked over Bittermint Tea and Ironlace Orchids, and he had some suggestions about ways to tweak it. One bit of advice he gave sticks with me. When you're writing an adventure module, if you can get the players to say WTF in the first five minutes, you've got them. Jeremy's been doing this for a while, and I'm pondering ways to follow his hint.

It's bugging me a bit to have In the Dark and The Red Man Burning sitting on the back burner, but I already have one book finished, and I need to work on getting it sold. I saved a copy of it to my Kindle so I can read it during my lunch breaks, and I'm seeing a place or two where it could be stronger. I was rushed to get it ready for the Amazon contest, and I have to admit it's not as good as it could be. I still get to grouse, though. They rejected it on the first past, meaning they never read anything but my pitch.

Oh, I'm also waiting on the contract for Dirty to arrive in the mail. I can not put into words how cool it is to type those words.

Am I still writing? Hell yes.

Books books books

There were a bunch of other things that I wanted to put in the last entry, but none of them really fit on a post that's about a human tragedy. I write horror, but there's a difference between written horror and real life.

Despite having lived here for nearly a decade, I'm not really familiar with downtown Houston. Like most large cities, it has alternating one way streets, whole sections of city blocks that are set at forty-five degree angles to the rest of the area, and spots that have been under construction since Nixon was in the White House. If you don't know where you're going, you better make sure you have plenty of time to get there and you better not mind taking the scenic route.

Because I didn't want to walk in to some judge's courtroom an hour late with no better excuse than, 'Sorry, yer honor. I got lost in traffic,' I made a couple of practice runs on the weekend before I was supposed to show up. With my able wife playing co-pilot, we followed a set of left-right directions from Google maps and discovered that getting there wasn't as hard as it could have been. We did end up driving around a bit, and one of the places we passed was a business called ¼ Price Books. On the weekends, both of us are in the mood to explore bookstores, so we took a look. They've got a really eclectic mix of everything from old and new science fiction, books on politics, and books in foreign languages. The owner was a nice guy with a sense of humor that he doesn’t mind inflicting on passers-by, and the front door was propped open to let in fresh air.

One of the books I picked up was Demon Seed, by Dean Koontz. I get annoyed with Koontz sometimes, mainly because he comes up with fantastic stories, but them populates them with the exact same sensitive tough guys and smart, strong women. I saw the movie ages ago, and loved it, so I figured I may as well see what they changed from the book. Oh boy did they change some things. It's not just that the focus of the book is between the woman and the computer. Except for a few minor characters, the woman and the computer are the only ones we ever see. Also, the woman is a lot more complicated than we see in the movie, and a hell of a lot more so than the ladies Koontz would later write. When I checked the book's listing on Wikipedia, I discovered that Koontz wrote it in 1973, then in 1997 rewrote it and re-released it. From the one-paragraph synopsis, it seems that the one I picked is the original, and that the rewrite pulls out a lot of the really disturbing elements. The computer seems to get neutered in more than one manner.

That's a pity. I may at some point pick up the newer version, but I'm not looking forward to it. Reading Koontz' entry about the book on his website, he says that one of the things he changed was that he added a dry sense of humor to the story, because his readers appreciated his humor in his other books. Note: Item number 85 on my time-traveling checklist is to go back to the early seventies, convince Dean Koontz to write me a dozen novels that contain complex characters and not a damn bit of humor, and then brainwash him to forget all about the books so he can't rewrite them. It's just me personally, but I like that kind of story. I remember the fragile, beautiful creation that the child is revealed to be at the end of the movie, and when I read the description in the book, I got a cold chill. That thing was Lovecraft minus his inhibitions as filtered through silicon.

Speaking of books, I'm recording here my feeling about a book that I'm not quite halfway done with. I picked up 'We need to talk about Kevin' for my Kindle a while back, and I want to get my feelings down now and see how they compare to when I finish.

I really, really want to be done with this thing. Reading it is like slogging through hip deep mud with razorblades mixed into it. It isn't that it's not well-written. The writing is fantastic, but the main character is such a selfish, self-centered twit that I want to reach into the story and smack her. No one else in it is much better, either. A peek at Lionel Shriver's Wikipedia page claims that she prefers to create characters that are 'hard to love.' If this book is an indication, that's a bit of an understatement. The novel is about a mother whose son has gone on a spree-killing, and how she deals with that fact. But her own negative traits are getting in the way of the story, and the boy himself is simply too evil. He's one of those black and white characters that just aren't human enough to connect with, and (in my opinion) we need to connect with everyone in a story, especially the villain. The hero makes the choices that we like to think we would make under stressful circumstances, and the villain makes the one we're afraid we would make and then regret when it's too late. In this book, the protagonist and all the other 'normal people' are simply weak and shallow, and a few of their characteristics seem to be there simply because the plot couldn't advance without them.

That's how I feel now. I'll compare my thoughts when I'm done.

Still reading, still writing.

Deciding what to read next

I finished The Hunger Games on Thursday, and after a few days to let it settle in my head, it's time to start something else. There's a paperback copy of Stephen King's 'Cell' in my overnight bag, along with Terry Pratchett's 'Darwin's Watch.' Of course, it's been a while since I've re-read The Shining, or Salem's Lot. The latter might help me hash through some difficulties with Roja, come to think of it.

About The Hunger Games, it's good. Damn good. Worth every bit of your time and money. That concern that I had about the same type of group dynamic that was used in Battle Royale turned out to be unfounded. My wife and I discussed the book, and as usual we each had our own take on the story, and they were miles apart. Her primary focus was on the government, and how they use the games as both punishment and control. My biggest impression was how much the other people in the book, the regular citizens who would never set foot in the arena, were involved in the game. It's a huge production that seems to touch just about everyone. I hope the next couple of books develop that aspect in more detail.

To me, that's one of the characteristics of good writing. When two or more people can arrive at separate conclusions about a story, and each can pull facts from it to support their views, and the views don't necessarily contradict each other, that's a good story there.

Watched the first episode of SyFy's 'Tin Man' last night. It wasn't what I expected, as I had gotten the impression (and was hoping) that it was a bit darker. Then again, that reminds me that I haven't read the book itself yet.

Still rewriting Roja, and writing 'A room.' The Stephen King bio that I read, Haunted Heart, described how he can churn out a short story 'in a few hours.' My reaction? Envy, disbelief, and more envy. I want to build up where I can do that.