Happy Autumn, everybody!
News
I recently returned from my first ever overseas trip! We went to the UK, and got quite sick almost immediately. Despite feeling like ass for most of the trip, we have no regrets. Very glad we went. I was a little luckier than my husband in that The Thing lasted longer for me but was, overall, milder. I don’t think the worst of it hit me until after we got home. He was quite miserable at the midpoint of the journey, and didn’t get to experience much of Glasgow. Reason to go back, I suppose.
Books
I took Lynda Barry’s Making Comics with me and am still reading it. I’ll start working through the exercises soon, as well as returning to Alphonso Dunn’s Pen & Ink Drawing. He has a great YouTube channel. It got me to thinking I might blog some highlights from the trip in graphic form, rather than just writing them out.
In terms of fiction, I recently listened to the audio presentations of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Shadow of the Leviathan, The Tainted Cup and Cup of Corruption and they blew me away. The characters bear a loose resemblance to Holmes and Watson (very loose) and the world-building is just astonishing. Such a deep, rich world and so different from anything I’ve ever encountered before. It’s also a seriously genre-bending book. I suppose you’d have to call it secondary world fantasy, but there’s no magic. Or is there? Because, they things the people in the Empire of Khanum call science are impossible. At least, impossible here on Earth, but clearly not in the world of the books. Also, they’re murder mysteries.
Writing
The writing of The Novel That Needs a Better Name has begun. Actually, it began in 2018 as a short story, but I’m now working on the historical storyline. Then I’ll flesh out the modern day storyline of the short story, and then tie them both together (in theory). I’m approaching it as three novelettes, which makes the project far less daunting, as I’ve written novelettes before.
The process so far is …not pretty. The first draft of the historical novelette is largely just me telling the events of the story, which no effort at much dialogue, description, or even a final order of scenes, never mind a writing style appropriate for the 18th century. But, it’s the way it has to be done, because if I continue to worry about those implementation details, as we’d say in my day job, it will never get out of my head. I did write a scene map, but I haven’t been using it. It’ll just slow me down.
Fiction
Now, here’s a weird thing for you. I thought I might start posting some of my more experimental art (like the graphics mentioned above), flash fiction, maybe even some poetry (we’ll see). This was written from a Mur Lafferty prompt.
What Happened After the Dog Buried the Junk Mail
540 words
“No, officer, as I said, I don’t know why the dog decided to bury the junk mail. We didn’t even know he’d grabbed the stack out of the recycling bin.”
“Yes, of course, we keep an open recycling bin. It’s all paper and cardboard. What’s it going to do? Smell?”
“Yes, I suppose we should keep a better eye on him, but look, that has nothing to do with the reason we called you. What are we supposed to do about these ads everywhere? I mean look at that…we can’t even see out our window. It’s plastered in advertising!”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s a great deal from Harry’s Hardware, but we don’t care! We want to be able to look out our windows and walk out our door without being assaulted by voices.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s constant all right. Did you hear the one trying to sell you a digital subscription to Reader’s Digest?”
“I know right? Why do you send somebody physical mail advertising a digital subscription? That’s not even the best one though. The Pine Ridge Lutheran Boys Camp voice whispers outside our bedroom window at night about how much our son will benefit from being with a community of boys raised in Christ. We don’t even have a son.”
“I don’t know how you can help. I was hoping you’d know.”
“Hazardous Waste cleanup? You think the county could help with this? My daughter has started joking about finding an exorcist.”
“…Well, no. I suppose it couldn’t hurt. I just hope we can find a new landscaper. When our yard man tried to pull up the fliers out of the ground the voices screeched so loud at him the poor man bolted back to his truck and called from down the street to say he quit.”
”Oh, yeah, they don’t just come out. I mean, if I could pick them up like they were trash, I’d have done it. No, they’re rooted into the ground. Tougher than catsbrier, and the paper cuts they’ll give you….But that’s not even the worst of it. They’re propagating.”
”I am not kidding. You think kudzu is a problem…You know those fat envelopes that they make so hard to rip…”
”Yeah, those. Usually like credit card or insurance offers. Got a whole patch of them out back where I used to grow tomatoes. Totally took over my vegetable patch.”
”I know. Anyway, let me call this Hazardous Cleanup number. Maybe they’ll have something they can douse the bastards with.”
”Yeah, I hope so too. I just don’t even know what we’d do if the place got declared a hazard zone. There’s got to be someone we can hold responsible, right? Someone who can pay for the damage? Can you bring a reverse class action, one person suing a thousand companies?”
”Did you? A lawyer? Near the bottom of the steps. Okay, well let me walk you out.”
”Oh, okay. Yeah, I hear it. I mean, no I haven’t been injured in an accident, but maybe they can help. I’ll give them a call. See, you did help – Oh, no.”
”Look over there, at my neighbor’s yard. See that splash of red at the base of the hydrangeas? That’s a Target flier sprout. Fuck.”