snarking_boojum

( Long snippet is long & mentions sex. )

You know I love your comments.

And thus time for...

The Weekly Word Count. /reverb

Last week's word count: 118,444
This week's word count: 120,500
Word count for the week: 2,056

I'll take it, although I'm not actually sure that the latest "kill me please" scene I scribbled last night is actually going to make the Final Cut.

In other news, this week is going to be taken up with outlining the first novel so I actually have an idea of what happened in each chapter, and then I'm going to hammer at the Query Letter of Doom. Because the first one needs to start pulling its weight around here.

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

I'm responsible for creating content and discussion starters at our district's web site.  Here's this week's blog topic.  (this is teacher-centric stuff, if you want to skip it, but I think parents, writers and concerned folks might find something of interest in it).

Part of our work this year in the English department includes a study of Kelly Gallagher's provocative book, Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.  His thesis is that "rather than helping students, many of the reading practices found in today's classrooms are actually contributing to the death of reading.  In an earnest attempt to instill reading, teachers and administrators push practices that kill many students' last chance to develop into lifelong readers."

He attributes some of the decline in reading for pleasure in our students to a variety of factors, many that are driven by high stakes testing.  His thesis, though, isn't particularly new and has been a concern for decades.  When I was taking education classes in the 70s, we discussed a bitterly satirical essay by Jerry Farber entitled, "Teaching Johnny to Walk."  In it he parodied a popular series of articles in education at the time that broke down any skill into a series of distinct teachable and measurable units ("Teaching Johnny to Read," "Teaching Johnny to Swim," etc.).

And the Ft. Hood shooting hits even closer to home. Pvt. Aaron Nemelka, from West Jordan, UT, (which is the city I live in) was one of the first people killed by that UTTER FUCKING ASSHOLE yesterday. Pvt. Nemelka was nineteen.

Hanging is too good for Hasan. I refuse to dignify him by mentioning the rank he no longer merits.

And of course it's a fucking act of terror. He may have acted alone, may not be part of a cell--but no one thinks that the Oklahoma City Bombing is anything less than an act of terrorism, and Timothy McVeigh only acted with one other person. Lone nuts are perfectly capable of terrorism, and we're fucking delusional if we don't think that. If the killing of an abortionist by an idiot fanatic merits the word "terrorism" (and don't you dare tell me it doesn't, because I see that all the time), then this certainly does. The body count is certainly higher.

A tsunami is a tragedy. An earthquake is a tragedy. This was a cowardly act of cold-blooded premeditated mass murder, by a guy who yelled "Allahu Akbar" before he opened fire on his fellow soldiers. Don't tell me I'm jumping to a conclusion. The conclusion leaped out of a dark alley and mugged me.

Apologies for the R-rated language, but I'm beyond furious and maybe Ben's rubbing off on me a little. He wouldn't have any patience for this kind of sugar-coating bullshit either. "Tragedy" my ass.

(metaphorically speaking) in my formerly nictine-stained fingers...

the .pdf proof for Darwin's Evolutions Vol. 2 No. 1. In which my story "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" is appearing.

And it's shiny, y'all. OMG THE ILLUSTRATION. It's by the handsome and talented Karl Nordman, and it's SOOOOOOOOOO PRETTY.

I'd forgotten how much I love this story. I'm so happy it's seeing print.

I hunted high and low for an image that I wanted to make a "sad" icon with, because sometimes I just don't have a suitable icon for whatever depressing thing has happened lately. And then I found an image that I actually already had hiding on my hard drive, and now I've got one. Go, me.



Because sometimes things happen and all we want to do is squish our stuffed lion.

Totally gankable if anyone wants the thing.

( Cut for rambling about process and some (not much) sex talk. )

I'm not a veteran novelist.  In my career as a writer, I've written two complete novels and two significant chunks of novels that I haven't completed yet.  Most of my experience is with short stories, so, while I was writing this morning, I realized how much I'm enjoying the exploratory nature of novel writing.  I feel like (at least in rough draft) I have room to poke my imagination into the corners of my character's lives.  The writing is less pressured in some ways.  In a short story I'm always driven by the idea that every single word has to be bent to the story's ending.  Short stories are about unity of purpose, but the novel doesn't feel that way to me.  Maybe it's because the novel's purpose accretes more gradually than the short story.

In the end, I believe, every word of a novel has to work the same way every word in a short story does.  The words have the same responsibility.  But while I'm composing in the novel, I don't feel the pressure.  I quite enjoy the sensation.

Below the cut you'll find a bit from this morning's writing.  One of my view point characters, Anitchka Paraskevi, a second year teacher at Low High, is talking to a veteran teacher in the building about her classroom.  Comments welcome.
 
**********

( Work in Progress from Low High Sophomores )

picked up from amonitrate: Post a paragraph from every WIP you can find. No explanations allowed, just the excerpt.

Okay, in no particular order...

1. The power drain had killed this one. That was almost to Gabriel's advantage. No one would question finding a dead old man in his office, who looked like he'd succumbed to natural causes. The comatose ones, those were the problem.

2. "This is so going in my report." Baxter annihilated the last dust bunny and backed out, sneezing. "You can be replaced, you know. It's one thing for a couple of dust mice to get by you. But all of them?"

3. Something sandpapery scraped my arm. I opened my eyes and choked on a scream.

4. Mandy frowned at her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Russ didn't like his crew fraternizing, especially when part of that crew was his daughter--but she was a grown-up and made her own choices. "His mom the dragon princess is not going to be happy with that kind of language," she said. "Seriously, Charlie, what are you teaching him?"

5. "Erm. You don't really believe she's a god, do you? Because that'd weird me out, man."

6. "Enough with the 'it.' I'm a 'he,' thanks very much, and it would suit me fine if you remembered that." The voice sounded like a chipmunk would if it inhaled helium and spoke English. "Now, let me go. I have work to do."

7. "A stranger from halfway across the world," Olwyn scoffed. She deepened her drawl just to annoy her mother, whom she knew looked down her nose at the local accent. "What, none of the local dragons were good enough for Daddy?"

8. "At least the neighbors will be quiet," the realtor said, gesturing over the fence to the overgrown old cemetery fifty feet from the back door.

9. "He's one wolf, and not a very big one at that. He'll not be any trouble."

Twelve dead, thirty-one wounded, in Ft. Hood shooting.

My dad was stationed there. I went to high school in Lampasas, just up the road. I doubt I still know anyone there, because it's a mobile community, but it's still just a little too close to home.

I just... yeah.

So, I did the DVD Commentary Meme (still open for playing, if anyone wants to), and ravens_gate requested a DVD commentary of a DVD extra, namely, the scene in which Ben and Janni meet again for the first time five years after they graduate from high school and go their separate ways. She goes off to college and majors in Theater and English, and he toddles off to a couple of tours in Afghanistan, where he is captured by insurgents and torture ensues. And... go.


This came about because of my innate inability to just let things go.  The original scene was about three paragraphs long, and entailed Janni describing for Megan her first meeting with Ben after he came back from Afghanistan.  I decided that was too much telling and not enough showing, and went into flashback mode instead, which turned into more like 1700 words.  And that was a fine and shiny thing--except for my aforementioned inability to let things go.  I love writing the same scene from two different points of view (see: both Iron Man stories I've written), and this one has the added bonus of being in first person, which POV I also love writing in and don't do nearly enough of.

( The rest of it is under here. )

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

Philip McIntosh wrote a very nice article about how I balance writing and teaching at Suite101.

Every once in a while I'll do an interview via e-mail, and then I'll forget about it.  The article is often a nice surprise (since I've never had anyone interview me and then do a hatchet job--knock on wood).

Right now I'm at my desk at school.  It's 6:45.  Lately I've been using a half hour or so of my time before school to push the novel forward, but at the moment I'm so sleepy I can hardly keep my head up.  My Diet Coke caffeine delivery system is failing.  I need a more radical jump start--a jolt of Red Bull or something.  I wonder if that stuff is more effective if it is mainlined?  Maybe I could turn up some Led Zepplin real loud.

Because I like navel-gazing as much as the next person, here, have this:

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from anything I've written, and comment to this post with that selection [Note: Please include the title/fandom & a link wouldn't be bad if it's something older]. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Where you can find my stuff:
Snippets!
Fanfic!
Original fiction!

Hit me, flist. It would fill me with unseemly glee if someone wanted something from here.

Maybe I should do a commentary on that one anyway, because I love it so much...

As I reported earlier today, I handed out the chapbooks with students' poems and short stories in the Write-a-Book-in-a-Year Club at the high school.  The kids were really eager since they had expected the books last week.  We celebrated with donuts, cookies and soft drinks.

The new wrinkle this year is that I told them that it is traditional at a book launch for the author(s) to sign the books.  I taught them the etiquette of signing: If someone asks you to sign a book, you ask if they would like it personalized or not.  We talked about what might go into personalizing a signature, like asking how to spell the fan's name or what to say along with the signature (I often write, "I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I liked writing it"), and then they signed each others' books for fifteen minutes.

Much fun.

"Wow, how did THAT slip by?"

( Cut for spoilers and conservative glee. )

Today we're distributing our first chapbook for the Write-a-Book-in-a-Year-Club, Tales of the Halloween Season. I would have handed it out to them at our meeting last Wednesday, but we had an issue with the cover.

The book contains eleven stories or poems from club members celebrating Halloween or the autumn. We did one of these last year as a way to give the students a taste of publishing, and also so they could do a piece that was short. It would be a break from their longer projects. If there is interest, we'll do one for Christmas/holiday of choice/winter in December.

One of the fun parts of the project for me is that I make up back cover blurbs. Here's this year's batch:

Praise for Tales of the Halloween Season

“These stories and poems sparkle.”
-                Edward Cullen

“I’d go to Elm Street and back to read this collection.”
-                Freddy Krueger

“This is a literary All Spark.”
-                Optimus Prime

“I see dead people reading ‘Tales of the Halloween Season’.”
-                Haley Joel Osment

“I like to read these works with a glass of amontillado.”
-                Edgar Allan Poe

“Rub this book three times and all your wishes will come true.”
-                Aladdin

A month ago I mentioned that I showed Stranger Than Fiction to my A.P. Lit class. What I didn't say was how I created an utterly cool moment in the film, sort of an instant allusion.

Most days I start class with a "poem of the day." I'll take a short poem and put it up on the digital display. We always read it out loud. Sometimes I have them identify lit terms in action (like metaphor or similes, etc.), or we'll talk about possible interpretations. Sometimes we just read them without saying anything at all.

So, it wasn't unusual for them to see the lyrics to "The Whole Wide World" by Wreckless Eric up on the digital display. I didn't play the song, though, and no one recognized it from the movie.  I didn't say anything about it other than to ask them to read it and chat about its major themes. They were eager to watch the film, so discussion was short. Then I turned off the lights and started the DVD.

When Will Ferrell started playing the song a while later, though, a ripple of recognition ran through the room. It was very distinct--almost electric.  One of the kids said, "Oh, Mr. Van Pelt!" They knew what the song was about. They knew it was about searching for one love. If I hadn't done the poem at first, maybe a couple of kids would have listened to the lyrics and realized they paralleled the concerns in the film, but most of them would have missed it. Instead, every one of them knew the song as if it was their favorite piece. It surprised them, but it also deepened the experience in that moment because the literature reached a spot they were familiar with, a place where they already had knowledge and feelings and associations. In other words, they experienced as a group, a full blown allusion that worked.

I was inordinately pleased with myself. 

I included this Youtube clip last month, but if you missed it, here it is again: