I have a ba-billion (which, I believe, is slightly more than a gajillion) things to do, so I’ll make this fast!
Stephanie has a new story up over at Every Day Fiction. It is fun!
My new story, “With the Band,” will be up Friday!
After a minor rewrite, “With the Band” has been accepted by Every Day Fiction! It’s a fun story, I think. There is a band, and someone is with it. More info on publication date when I know it!
In the meantime, enjoy as I brutally devour Stephanie.
I received word over the weekend that “Apotheosis Cake” was chosen for the Every Day Fiction Best of 2009″ Anthology!
Erin is featured as well, with a staggering four stories. I think that might be it for the Writer’s Inkers this time around – we had a fairly light presense on EDF this year compared to last year.
EDIT: Oop, apparently Jens and Stephanie are in as well! Yay! Perhaps we can do that book signing we tried to put together last year?
The full list hasn’t been posted yet, but I expect a lot of familiar names to be featured. It really is a great anthology. If you missed last year’s you can still find it at Amazon or order it directly from the good folks at EDF.
I’m seriously considering making the trip up north this time to make the launch party. I think it would be a blast. I’ll just have to see if I can put the money together for the trip. I’ve never been to the barren tundras of Canada before, though. Do they have cars up there? Should I bring my own food? Or perhaps a weapon with which to hunt for game (and if so, will the natives be frightened of gunpowder)? Someone let me know.
Congrats to Erin, who yesterday rather unexpectedly gave birth to her daughter, Summerlyn. It comes rather early, but both mother and baby are fine.
Tomorrow I’ll be at the Serenity charity screening in Dallas. If you’re in the Dallas area this weekend, you should swing by.
Just wanted to drop a note that editor/writer extraordinaire Jordan Lapp is chronicling some of his experiences (as he has time) at the (in?)famous Clarion West Writer’s Workshop.
Similarly, KC is heading to James Gunn’s SF Writer’s Workshop. It’s that time of year I guess?
I look forward to their accounts of the experience. The closest I have had to that sort of thing is my creative writing classes at UNT, but those weren’t nearly as intense. I’m generally a slow writer, so reading about the first couple days of Clarion terrifies me. Having to churn out stories so quickly to a mixed audience? Scary stuff. To me, anyway.
I wish both of them the best of luck!
I hate it when people use onomonopea in titles. Oh well.
It was a good weekend for librarians here at Meanwhile…not one but two stories accepted. You may or may not recall that some time back I wrote a story about a robot librarian, “The Overdue Protocols.” I’ve received word that it’s been accepted over at The Future Fire. It should be out in their August issue.
It may seem like it was planned, but I actually wrote “The Overdue Protocols” last year sometime. Complete coincidence!
Sadly, neither of my librarians is a hot librarian with the glasses or the pinned-up hair. My apologies. I’ll get on that one next.
Oh, also, a huge huge huge grats to KC, who nabbed third place over at no less prestigious a contest than The Writers of the Motherfucking Future (that’s their new title, just so you know).
I almost missed it, since it went up over the weekend, but Frank has an excellent new story up over at Every Day Fiction – check it out.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine was about as disappointing as expected. They crammed a lot of unnecassary characters in, and to do so they condensed and butchered the portions of Logan’s origin story that are actually interesting.
Part of the problem is the taming of Wolverine for a mass audience, which is strange because the untamed Wolverine has about as mass an audience (in comic book terms) as you can get. The film completely passes over the years he spent feral and savage in the Yukon, living with wolves. His time with the Weapon X program is chopped down to like one mission. They don’t cover any of his time in Japan (though there is a hint at it after the credits). I’m not being fanboyish here – I certainly don’t expect the film to be slavishly devoted to the source material. It’s just frustrating when they ignore so much great material in favor of some 30-second fan wank appearance of Emma Frost or Gambit or other characters who have nothing to do with Wolverine’s origins.
Oddly enough, Wolverine is kind of a Mary Sue. For a character that has had tragedy after tragedy heaped upon his comic book incarnation, nothing bad really happens to him here. He has help at every turn. When he needs more power, someone comes along and gives it to him. When it looks like he meets someone who can defeat him, people who hated his guts five minutes before show up to save the day. This is motherfrakkin’ Wolverine, people. If anyone is custom made to have horror after horror perpetrated on him, just so that he can stand back up on his own and slice the shit out of whoever did it, it’s him.
There are other things to not recommend the movie as well – the last third of the film is fairly predictable and chock full of cliche. The filmmakers also underestimate the audience and feel like they have to explain things that are obvious.
It’s not all bad. There are some fun action scenes. There are some great performances from most of the cast (though I can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to put Will.I.Am in there). If you want to completely shut off your brain and enjoy a fun action flick, you’ll find something there to enjoy.
Just to aim for the most annoying story possible for Jordan over at Every Day Fiction:
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Hospital bills for broken rib: $800
Therapy costs for traumatized child: $300 an hour
Ginsu knife to make sure the bastard never does it again: priceless
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I expect my acceptance notice shortly. 
Edit: oops, just realized I went with “abusive spouse” rather than “cheating spouse.” That, clearly, calls for an entirely different story.
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Magnifying glass to spot the glitter and mysterious blond hairs: $25
Private detective fees to confirm suspicions: $150 an hour
Ginsu knife to make sure the bastard never does it again: priceless
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It seems this sketchbook has been too long without a sketch!
I’ve been planning since the site launch to have art depicting various scenes or characters from my stories. I have received a couple of preliminary sketches from friend Katie and it is pretty exciting!
Check out friend Stephanie’s new flash piece over at EDF. It is delightful! It’s even based on one of the prompts I provided a few months ago.
Update! It seems Steph isn’t the only one. Check out Virginia’s Six Sentence story here.
