Meanwhile…

I think items 12 and 13 are my favorite.

(From my friend over at Forgotten Bookmarks.)

It’s been quiet around here lately, but for good reason! Check this:

April 1, 2010

Fans of dark urban humor fantasy won’t want to miss “This is How You Pronounce Ichor” the new nerdcore-style spoken word album from acclaimed author Alexander Burns.

When the music first begins to creep into you, it’s almost unrecognizable. But something deep and dark lurks within the album.

The first whispers of My Other Best Friend is a Derleth lull a listener into a false sense of calm before hammering at the psyche with noisome chords and abject terrors so palpable that it’s impossible to stop the CD without going insane…and yet one isn’t sure that finishing it will ensure sanity, either.

The album is an emotional journey – the eldritch Internet gibbers of O’R'lyeh may leave you a slobbering mess, but the achingly touching The Rats in the Walls (of Love) will rescue even the most heard-hearted souls. And the poignant rants found in Sorry, I’m More of a Shoggoth Person display remarkable insight into human relationships to which anyone can relate. Favored among these offices is Tentacles Hide the Tears, a wrenching tale of heartbreak and revenge in 19th century Texas.

“It’s an incredible foray into Yog-sothery,” stated actor and writer Wil Wheaton. “I’ll be surprised if the world survives the onslaught. It’s like if Henry Rollins had a love child with the Necronomicon, and then that kid got stood up for a blind date at the Innsmouth Cafe, went home and got drunk.”

Look for Mr. Burns this summer on tour with musician Jonathan Coulton.

So yeah, exciting stuff. Keep an eye out here for more information on tour dates, and the album itself will be available via iTunes and other fine retailers next week. Merchandise is available now!

Since I have been known to occasionally venture into talking about feminism in pop culture and journalism both, I thought I’d bring this up (since not much else has been happening here lately).

You may have heard already, but a couple of weeks ago Mattel announced Barbie’s new careers – computer engineer and television news anchor.

What? She's a mathematician!

Computer engineer, fine. Young women should be encouraged to pursue technical fields. No problem.

[Is there a physicist Barbie? I don't keep track of these things. Perhaps she could come with a Large Hadron Collider playset and miniature black hole, and will be unattractive until she takes her glasses off, at which point she becomes a sexual dynamo. But I digress. (Mattel, call me)]

But I have to take issue with television news anchor. Television news, particularly the 24-hour news networks that have become so huge over the past decade or so, has done nothing but destroy actual journalism. I rarely bother with any of it, but it seems like every time I flip past one of those networks it’s either someone reading Twitter posts on air or some raving lunatic like Glenn Beck.

If I were an editorial cartoonist, I would take a minute away from feverishly updating my resume to draw an image of a man in a Newspaper suit dragging a man labeled “Journalism” into a grave while another guy in a Television hat stood smugly by with a shovel.

Not that Barbie couldn’t be a grave digger if she wanted. I just think she’s a classier gal than that, is all.

Vacation, amIright? I spent the last couple of weeks wrangling in-laws and seeing friends I don’t see nearly enough and playing lots of Rock Band.

Yes, I created Virtuoso Of The Serious Combat on Rock Band, so if you’d like to get into a drum-off with the Iron Acrobat, match guitars with the Secret Earl that Grasps, or sing a duet with the Eighth Unspeakable Warden, this is something we can make happen.

Saw Up in the Air, which was excellent, but didn’t get to see Sherlock Holmes (don’t worry, I will). Drooled over Star Trek on Blu-Ray. Went to a hockey game. Tinkered on the cars a bit.

But last night before bed I felt the writing urge start to hit. Ideas percolated. That part of me that needs to write was letting me know it’s time to get back to work.

Goals for the year:

• Some rejection letters from pro markets. As Erin indicated a few weeks ago, our writing group has decided to focus on producing stories that might be publishable at the pro level. Having just received a loss at the latest Writers of the Future, I feel like I’m a step ahead on this one.
• More writing in general. I don’t feel I was particularly productive this past year, for whatever reason. I need to get back to pumping out lots of writing exercises, as that’s usually where I get my published flash pieces from. I want to keep up my goal of submitting at least one story a month somewhere. Since I set that goal late last year I’ve basically just been meeting the minimum, which really isn’t enough.
• Reading more. I am by no means a slow reader, but damn it takes me forever to get anything read nowadays. I need to make more time for that, because it’s an integral part of being a good writer.
• Finally finish revising several stories I’ve got gathering dust. I have a few stories that I’ve gotten great notes on from the writing group that are just sitting around. I need to finish revising them. In particular I want to finish my rewrite of my Dr. Strange-style urban fantasy, and decide what to do with my feature-length Chuck Chaykin story.

(Though I’m not sure it really left?)

I’m not even sure where to start on the topic of sexism in genre fiction. My purpose essentially is to defend genre fiction, though it’s kind of a damning defense. Really, there’s no winning for anyone on this topic. This post will likely be full of images of the cheesecake variety.

The first item I wanted to address is the idea that it’s a one-way streak. Women aren’t the only ones objectified in fiction. Is Power Girl unrealistic? Maybe, but when’s the last time I met someone that looked like Dick Grayson? And why does Namor go around wearing nothing but his underwear? Next you’re going to tell me David Boreanaz was cast for Buffy based on his acting talent. New Moon just made a babillion dollars because the producers have given up pretending the attraction isn’t all about hot shirtless dudes.

I’m not saying it’s not still lopsided. We’re much more likely to see an ugly male character than an ugly female. And female villains typically are gorgeous, as opposed to the archetype of the hideous male villain. Even Madame Masque, who has a terribly scarred face, hides her mutilation and has a fantastic body (and was beautiful before her injuries). In the current Iron Man cartoon they even remove the damage to her face entirely, and she’s just another cute girl. To be fair, art styles have changed, and even male villains more ugly back in the ’60s and earlier than they are today. Other than a sinister sneer and that terrible haircut, Norman Osbourne isn’t particularly unattractive. Doctor Doom and the Phantom of the Opera were rocking masks long before Whitney Frost.

I would say sword and sorcery fantasy art is even more complicated. Red Sonja is running around in a chain mail bikini, sure, but Conan is often wearing even less. And that princess in distress is awfully shapely for a long line of inbreeding and pretty darn clean for living in an age when people thought bathing was for the birds. Is it better or worse that high fantasy art is often not even telling a story, and just marveling in the beauty of the setting and the human form?

You could say that sexism is particularly bad in the comic book industry, a market in which the vast majority of both creators and audience is male. But I say thee nay! And this is where I bristle a little bit and get to the heart of what bothers me. People talk about science fiction and fantasy as though those are the only places sexist imagery exists. Who do they think they’re kidding?

Why yes, I would like some - wait, this is a trap, isn't it? The redhead is hiding an axe or something.

I took a tour of a Hollywood studio a few years ago. There was a display that featured some of the clothes worn by the “Friends” stars. I’m pretty sure I could have wrapped both hands around Courteney Cox’s waist. Tiny! And this is an actual human being.

Not my first choice to take on Mr. Freeze, is all I'm saying

In some ways, it’s worse. If some comic book artist drew a superhero they way women are portrayed on, say, a fashion runway, I’d probably drop the book. Check out that image of Batgirl’s back I posted up top. Babs has some muscles. There is meat on those bones. She’s a superhero for gods’ sake.

Beyonce can’t sing, but she looks great doing it badly. In her prime, Britney Spears could bounce any number of bright shiny things off her abs, and we could watch her do it all day, but, again, no real talent (though she does got some mad dancing skills). Are those Victoria’s Secret ads aimed at my wife? I don’t think so. And Hollywood’s idea of a high school girl and what I remember from high school are vastly different.

It’s all fiction of some form or another. Fiction exaggerates life for entertainment purposes or to sell things (probably both). Genre fiction takes that exaggeration and adds more to it; when you punch someone, they don’t just get annoyed, they go flying through a wall. Spies have gadgets that allow them to see through walls and can shoot people half a mile away from a moving helicopter. It’s natural that human physiology is going to be exaggerrated as well. But please, critics out there, stop pretending like the exaggeration or the exploitation of the human form, male and female, is unique to our humble genre fiction, or worse. We’re not doing anything that the rest of the world isn’t already.

And since you can’t apparently discuss this topic without her:

I’m a big fan of Power Girl. I think in a lot of ways she’s a better role model for young girls than Wonder Woman. But all people ever see is that boob window. I’m also all for closing up said boob window, primarily for that reason.

I dunno. Am I just a chauvinist trying to excuse cheesecake? Am I looking too much at context instead of simply the images and how some of these characters appear to outsiders? Or simply totally crazy? Or do I simply think the world needs to get off our back and start looking at its own behavior more?

You may or may not be familiar with Castle, ABC’s latest procedural cop show. Castle stars Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, a rock star mystery writer who has been (via some rather stretchy but unimportant plot points) allowed to hang out with unfeasibly sexy Detective Kate Beckett, played by Stana Katic. Together, they solve crimes and pretend like they totally wouldn’t tap that, given sufficient opportunity. It’s a surprisingly fun show, despite the ridiculous premise and sometimes uninspired mysteries. What really carries the show is Fillion. The guy has a natural charm that really shines through the character. He’s a delight to watch, regardless of what he’s doing. He’s awesome in everything I’ve seen him in, from his brief appearance in Saving Private Ryan (a part I remembered well even before I realized who’d played the role) to Firefly and Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog. He exhudes charisma. If he’s in something, odds are I’ll watch it.

In the episode coming up this Monday, Castle will be dressing as Captain Reynolds for Halloween, and namedrops Buffy. Clearly, these people know what they’re doing.

The previews I’ve seen for the new V with Morena Baccarin give me a similar nerd boner.

Or as my wife would say, a regular boner.

What this all makes me think of is how important loyalty is for writers. Not just loyalty to us as writers, but loyalty to our characters. How many terrible James Bond movies have we suffered through, just waiting for the one where someone will come along and get it right? How did the last Indiana Jones movie make so much money despite it being one of the worst movies released last year? Star Wars books sell like crazy because people love the universe so much even if the writing’s not great.

How many crappy issues of X-Men did I buy before I finally gave up on that whole franchise? The internet is full of comic book fanboys complaining about this or that plot in their favorite series, but they are still buying the books. I’m sure this is confusing to publishers, who probably get tons of hate mail but watch their sales numbers go up anyway.

The lesson to learn is that character and reader loyalty frequently trumps quality. It’s a pretty compelling arguement not to skimp on character development when you’re creating those heroes you may want to re-use in the future.

Just be careful, because even the most die-hard fans have breaking points.

[This is where I was about to also upload a picture of Jar Jar Binks, but I couldn't stand to have both him and Morena on the same page at once. You will have to use your imagination!]

Wait, wait, hold up. A month ago I write a silly little exercise about an invasion of the moon, and now NASA is launching all-out assaults on that supposedly peaceful satellite?

Coincidence?

Or conspiracy?

Received two rejections over the past couple of days – one from Austin indie mag Space Squid, and the other my expected Writer’s of the Future rejection. It’s all good. The Space Squid story has already been redirected, with a few tweaks, to Every Day Fiction, along with a requested rewrite of my rock and roll IN SPACE! story. I am feeling productive!

It helps that I had to stay home from work today. We’ve got some home repairs going on.

My WoTF story I will take another look at and likely send spinning in the direction of Space Westerns.com. It seems right up their alley, being a space western and all. Or maybe I should expand it into a novel? Hmm.

Oh, if you are in the Austin, TX area in the next few months, I recommend stopping by the Harry Ransom Center on UT’s campus to check out the Edgar Allan Poe exhibit. It’s quite spiffy. They’ve also got a great exhibit dedicated to the International Year of Astronomy and one of the Gutenberg Bibles.

Just don’t go on a game day. That whole area becomes a mess, and you’ll see more burnt orange shirts than any human being should ever have to suffer.

This amusing little ruckus (which was done as a joke apparently, so you can take your head out of the oven – wait, who am I kidding, there are plenty of reasons to despair for the human race and stick your head in the oven) reminded me of an experience I had with the local library system a while back.

I should preface this with the fact that I love our local libraries. Fort Worth has a pretty extensive network of them, and I don’t think I’ve ever had trouble finding what I need.

So when I discovered that they had a digital audio book library, I was overjoyed. Being able to listen to something, be it a podcast or music or an audio book, makes 9 hours of sitting in a cubicle all day bearable. What did people do before this?

So I investigate. Basically it works exactly like checking out a physical book – there’s an expiration date. No problem, understood. You have to download special software to listen – okay, annoying but I get it. They’re not giving this stuff away, just loaning it. If it were just a regular audio file they would have no control over it.

Unfortunately, just like checking out a physical book, there is only one copy available at a time. Of a digital file. This is something I simply can’t comprehend. It flies in the face of everything that digitizing books (audio or otherwise) is about. There’s a file. It’s sitting on a server which can be accessed by thousands upon thousands of other computers. But for some reason only one of those computers can actually read it at once? Complete and utter fail, Fort Worth libraries. So I haven’t bothered with the entire endeavor. Too much trouble. Luckily there are plenty of podcasts to rescue me.

So I thought I’d ask – is it like this at other libraries? Is there some reason I’m just not thinking of? Some technical limitation that I can’t imagine? Feel free to let me know.

So I just turned a story over to the writing group for crit. This is an old, old story, written for one of my creative writing courses in college. It’s a good ten years old.

Personality-wise, I was in a pretty tumultuos period at the time. I was changing quite a bit, my mind expanding far beyond the confines under which it had labored in small town Texas just a couple of years before. The foundations for who I am today were being laid, brick by brick. The philosophy with which I view the world today saw its early birthing pains in the dank first floor of UNT’s Language building and the couches of the University Union. I was encountering music and writers I’d never heard of before, but which were old hat to everyone else. I was making many friends who didn’t have preconceived notions of me based on the high school years. It was a glorious time, in many respects.

Mostly I watched girls and tried to be moody so they would notice me.

In any event, it is interesting going back and reviewing this story from that time. There is a theme and everything, it’s not just written for fun and entertainment. I don’t know if I’m better or worse in that regard than today. My stories usually still have themes, they just have a tendency to change to fit the events of the story as it unfolds (and sometimes they get dropped altogether). The theme is not especially complex – in fact, I clearly remember making it simple so that I could focus more on the storytelling. I didn’t want to get too hung up on the ideas of the story, I just wanted to get a story down on paper. No one will be blown away by what the story says about humanity. But that wasn’t the point of the exercise.

What strikes me the most is the way its written. There are certainly many of the standard amateur mistakes – too many adverbs and what not. But I’m impressed by how moody and introspective the piece is. The narrator is moody and introspective, and the story matches that, from the language to the plotting. You definitely get the impression that this character is suffering from some serious ennui.

It’s so different from how I write now. I think in the intervening years I’ve become far more influenced by television/film and comic books. I stress action and dialogue now more than anything else. Those are the tools I use to describe my characters and how they think. But back then I was a lot more invested in inner monologues and using the setting to reflect the characters. I’m looking at an entirely different type of writer as I look at these old Word Perfect documents than my current stuff. Alex ’99 was better at setting a tone and establishing a mood, Alex ’09 is better at dialogue and focused story structure.

I feel like I need to figure out how to merge the two. If I can whip together the best ingredients of both, I feel like I’ll become a much better writer.