March 2004 Archives

My story Nine Flights, Ninety Five Steps was picked up by Hackwriters. You can view it here.

I forgot to mention "The Chicken Book" in my writing update. Many people have read small pieces of "The Chicken Book" and keep asking about it, so I suppose it deserves an update as well.

The Chicken Book (the working title is Cluck, but that will almost definitely change) is nearly at the end of a complete first draft. When I write, my first drafts are usually complete in terms of plot and basic character structure, but they are usually thin... I will go back in and flesh out scenes, add bits here and there, and draft #2 will typically be about twice as long (or more). This is just how I write. Draft three gets even longer, and then usually draft four is where I start going through and cutting things back down again, and trimming the fat.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that I've nearly completed the first draft. It will contain things like this:

There was something foul at the mouth of Hell.

There was resistance, reluctance. The mouth stood closed, teeth clench. There was the faintest of grins on the Hell-mouthís lips that would have sent chills down anyoneís spine, if anyone had been there to see it.

The mouth remained closed. It wasn't that this thing standing before it was evil... Hell had no problems with evil, after all. It was Hell; home to evil, dementia, lies, decay and pestilence. This was something that didnít neatly fit into the categories of sin, seduction and secular perversion, something that was unwanted and dirty at such a base level that it was almost innocent. That was the paradox; "innocence doesn't belong in here," thought an ancient will.

And the mouth of Hell pursed its lips, a thick and ancient metaphorical tongue sucking at the roof of a rotten maw cloying with the slime of lost souls, and it spat.

The something was confused, certainly. it could barely comprehend life and death, never mind good and evil, or Heaven and Hell. It cocked its deceased head and wondered why it was black with fire, why it was naked and cold despite the pain of burnt flesh. And it was hungry. It was standing in a familiar place, feeling disconnected and alone. It looked down at a bloodied leg, which ended in three distorted toes. It scratched at the Earth expectantly, raising a small wisp of ash but producing nothing else. Over the rambling line of an ancient rooftop, the sun appeared—a thin slice of brilliant power that cut the dawn like... fire. It remembered fire. Not the brimstone of Hell, visible through the gates just moments before, but a more earthly blaze. The new light showed the scene more clearly with each passing moment. There had been a fire, and now there was a splotch of char, and bones, and stink. It was hungry, and the smell awoke that hunger. It smelled like barbecue. It scratched the earth again, and then at the bones, but there was nothing left to eat.

Forgetting its hunger for a brief moment, it succumbed to an instinct that was primal. It became irresistible as the sun emerged fully from over the rooftop and cast the new day across the scene of death, and it pointed its scared and scaly face towards the sky.

In the silence of the morning, the sound carried through the nearby house and woke the people there, as it had many times before. The echoing cock-a-doodle-do sounded somewhat hollow today, thought the farmer and his wife. Inside, life began to stir. Outside, the Rooster wondered what Hell had been, and crowed again—oblivious of its own lifelessness.

See? Full of typos... very rough. But it gets the idea across. It lets me send give my story to early proof-readers so that I can get general feedback on the story and plot. Things like "You need to give some sort of indication back here about that thing that happens in chapter seven." That's why the second draft is always so much larger :-)

Another tidbit:

"[Gosh darn] chickens are really [no good] and I just don't like them!" translated the exorcist's voice. As usual he intended to say something a little more colorful, but his voice was a firm believer in keeping things clean for the kids, and so the words came out censored. He kicked another half-rotten zombie hen out his path as he struggled from room to room.

"Look," he growled. "We don't have to do this the hard way. Just give me what I want and you can stay in here and [poop] and smell until the end of time."

He waved yet another tomato out of his way, and literally trudged through a teeming mass of the walking un-dead. He kicked another and another. He rattled his staff at them, which scared away some, but others filled in the ranks.

"[...]" He tried to say. His voice couldn't think of any way to say that one that wasn't crude, so nothing had come out at all. "I've got to see a doctor about this voice of mine," he thought. And the chickens kept coming. He was getting nowhere trying to reason with them. He could plod against the wave of hens for days, and they weren't going to listen. Great. The hard way it is.

He turned the staff upside down, and held it out like a long broom.

"Shh—Shh—Shh— Shoo!"

And he herded the little ghouls into the corner. Even death can't kill some habits, he thought. And as the room cleared, the door opposite was exposed. He ran.

If anyone wants to sign up to be super-duper-early proof readers, just let me know. Draft one will be ready for consumption and regurgitation in about a month.

Inspired by the good eatin' over at YouWho?, I thought I would share this latest culinary adventure. First, a disclaimer: My wife is a vegetarian*, and I am mostly a vegetarian. Hence, if I post a recipe here it is most likely going to be vegetarian. If you think that recipes with tofu, seitan, tempeh, etc. are gross then you have not ever had these foods properly prepared. Try again. :-)

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's a rather fancy dish that I threw together using some Black Truffle and Olive Tepenade that I picked up over at Etoneca Italiana. I call it "Forest of Oranges", because that is what it looks like, and in a very zen way it represents the Earth, Wind and Trees. Oh crap, I'm starting to sound like some vegan granola crunchy freak-bag. I'll have to step on some small helpless animal later, to balance out my karma. Anyway, the components of the meal were:

1) Marinated Baked Tofu
2) Linguini with oil, mushroom and the truffle tepanade
3) Spears of baby broccoli with olive oil and garlic
4) Roasted kumquats
5) Fresh spinach & mozzarella

Use fresh linguini, and toss with olive oil and a small amount of the tepenade (it goes a long way, as both olives and truffles are pungent). Add some diced fresh mushrooms, and use this as the "sky". Heat an iron roasting pan or skillet to about 500 degrees. Make sure that the pan is as hot as the oven! Take the broccoli and toss it very lightly with some olive oil, garlic, the kumquats, and maybe some diced onion and spinach if you've got it handy. Toss the mixture into the red-hot pan and put it back in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes. Add some fresh italian herbs (I used fresh basil**) near the end. About a minute before the veggies are done, throw the baked tofu on top of them all just to heat them up. This is easy because you can buy the tofu pre-baked in most asian markets, and there's actually a good brand that they carry at Shop & Save. Placing this next to a small pile of fresh spinach, this makes up the Earth, the Trees and the "oranges", making the dinner look like a little bonsai arrangement on your plate.

Of course, for me no dinner is complete with some sort of cheese. For this I chose a small amount of fresh mozzarella.

Voila!

* No, she doesn't eat chicken, and she doesn't eat fish. If she ever found a chicken or a fish that was made out of vegetables, she might try it. I wanted to point this out because everyone always asks, even though these are really stupid questions when you think about it. It like saying to an alcoholic, "but you drink wine right? What about desert wines?"

** Grow your basil during the summer. Grow lots of it. Take all of the extra, strip the leaves from the plants, wash them and put them whole in freezer bags and freeze them. When you need them during the winter, take the frozen leaves and crumble them right into whatever your cooking. It works, and it tastes great.

I've been trying to keep up with my writing, although it's been hard because it has been very busy at work. Still, I've found time to write, edit, re-write, polish up, proof an re-write a few short stories in the past few months. One of them has been submitted for online publication in an e-zine, and one has been submitted to several magazines and a science-fiction writing competition. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Book sales for Out of Place Out of Time have been slow. Dismal, in fact. If any of you readers enjoy sci-fi, and are feeling sorry for me, click through and buy a copy. You will feel good knowing that you have done a good deed.

While sales have been poor, initial reviews are great! The "friends and family" reviews are always good, so I have been unable to judge the market's unbiased reactions. However, several recent independent reviews from real book reviewers have recently come back. They are all very positive. You can check them out here.

I recently wrote a review of Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt on Amazon.com, and in said review I mention a neat trick that you can do with the original paperback cover to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The trick takes innocent cover art and turns it into a bum. Well, there was enough interest in this little parlor trick that I felt I should post about it in more depth here.

Step 1: Buy the Paperback.
Step 2. Turn it Upside down.
Step 3. Stick it in a seat-pocket.

I discovered this when I was nine, on my way to a family vacation in Disney Land, this made me laugh so hard I sprayed my complimentary beverage out of my nose.