Happy Birthday to the King of Comics

After a slight rain delay on account of Irene, my brother's and my third annual Jack Kirby tribute, with contributions by Stan Lee, Howard Chaykin, Tim Sale, Matt Fraction, Dan DiDio, and many more, is up and running at kraalo.com this morning.

Friday Cat Blogging

You are getting very sleepy…
When you wake you will bring me nip!



Mousie is mah friend.



Dude! This is the best nip evah!



I swear if you don't stop taking pictures when I'm bathing, I'm a smack you one!

Polish Edition!

My editor sent me a couple of copies of ALMOST TO DIE FOR's Polish edition. Probably the coolest part of foregin language versions is seeing the acknowledgement page translated, because everyone's names stand out. Normally, they don't get translated or changed at all, but in Polish Shawn became "Shawnowi."

Cool.

Wyrdsmiths.com

Hey, everybody! We have a website!

Market News

Weird Tales sold. Ann VanderMeer no longer to edit! Read all about it here.

Say Cheese, Dark Energy!

Space is big. I mean REALLY big. But this camera intends to take a picture of stuff so far away, it's actually back in time (almost back to the big bang.)

Storytelling =/= teaching

You can teach while telling stories, but storytelling isn't teaching. Generally if you have to stop telling the story to educate the reader you've already lost the battle. I am periodically reminded of this at Wyrdsmiths meetings when I put something in a story that goes against the common understanding of how something works.

Sometimes, when I do this, I'm simply wrong. Usually even, and that's actually easier because I can just nod and fix it. Occasionally however, I'm right. For example I have more than once used a word in a traditional fantasy piece that everyone associates with a very modern usage, but which comes originally from the context in which I've chosen to use it in the story.

At that point I have a number of choices. I can ignore the critique, knowing that it will bounce many people out of the story since it doesn't matter that the word is five hundred years old and that it means exactly what I've said it does if my readers don't know that. I can simply rephrase something to avoid the unfortunate word, which makes my inner pedant very cranky. Or, I can try to find some way to explain the etymology of the word that makes since within the context of the story.

It is at precisely these times that it is important to remind myself that storytelling =/= teaching, kick my inner pedant in the noogies and move on.

NASA APOD

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Pictured above is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation much hotter than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is a growing cavity filled with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars. The above image in scientifically re-assigned colors was released in 2005 as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Friday Cat Blogging

You bastards are going on vacation without me, aren't you!



You bastards are going on vacation without me, aren't you!



You bastards are going on vacation without me, aren't you!



You basta—
Have you seen my tail? Wait what was I saying?
Oh, right, I am Meglet, queen of the Jungle!

Quick hit

This what it's like to be a writer post made me chortle. Some of the comments are pretty good too.

Green Zombies

Several months ago as I was returning home from picking up our CSA box, I noticed a curious sign that seemed to proclaim that section of LaFond Avenue in St. Paul a "post-apocalyptic green zone." So, Mason and I decided to go back an pose. Of course, were this a real emergency, no zombies would be allowed inside the zombie apocalypse green zone...

Of course, there was some discussion about the meaning of this sign on Facebook. Could it be that the green part of the apocalypse is that zombies and their rotting parts are bio-degradable and therefor "green," or has this neighborhood been given the designation of "green" to go ahead and defend against such an apocalpyse? I like to think that this is a safe-zone, a zombie-free "green" zone because of its relative nearness to my house. That way my family and I can make our way there quickly during the up-coming zombie apocalypse.

What If?

There's been discussion on the Book View Cafe Blog: what if you had an adequate income from a patron, so money was not a consideration. What would you write? Would you write at all?

One of the comments, which I really liked, came from Nancy Jane Moore. She said she'd love to have the time to write -- and do all the things that nourish writing. Reading, thinking, spending time with music and art.

I wrote:

I like Nancy Jane Moore’s comment. It reminds me of all the things I need to do besides write: concerts, museums, walks, reading, thinking. Something else to structure into my life, now that I have time.

I spent most of my working life working part time or saving money and quitting to write full time, then getting another job when the money ran out. I knew I wanted to write, and I knew writing was financially risky. It seemed smarter to have a day job and write what I wanted, when I wanted. It meant that I never had enough writing time, but it enabled me to walk away from contracts I didn’t like and to take all the time necessary to do a good job.

It’s unsettling to know I may never have another day job. But I am writing more, and I think that’s my priority right now.

Why to I write? Because I always have, since childhood; and I like the attention; and I think making art is an important job, worth doing; and because it helps me deal with a difficult world.

Writing News from the Wrong End of the Rainbow

I got an email last night, one I'd been wouldn't arrive--though I'd suspected it would, eventually. The one short story I've had accepted for publication, "Gaydar," has been released back to me, and once again I get to go back to being straight-up unpublished.

That sounds worse than it is. First, a bit of staging: in late 2006, a call for short stories was put out for a queer superhero anthology entitled Superqueeroes. Lyda mentioned the call for subs to me, and it sounded like a good writing challenge, so I wrote "Gaydar" for the project. I passed it through Wyrdsmiths for critique, revised it, and submitted it at the end of January 2007. The editor accepted it a few months later. I was thrilled--my first print publication! Not much money, but I wasn't worried about that; I was published. I signed the contract and sent it back in. I even bought coffee at our next Wyrdsmiths meeting. I remember it cost more than I was getting from the sale.

Then the complications started. In September 2007, the publisher who had signed the project was sold, and the new house dissolved the line that had accepted the anthology project, leaving the editor with an orphaned project. I went back to being an unpublished author.

The editor went to work shopping the project to other publishing houses, but there weren't a lot of takers--some houses were interested, but their print schedules for the next year or two were already full. A few of the stories got pulled by their respective authors, and the editor reworked the manuscript a couple times and resubmitted it again. Eventually, in October of 2009, a new house expressed interest in accepting the project. In October 2010, new contracts were written up and sent out, and I signed and returned mine. Published again.

I emailed the editor in March 2011 to find out about the status of the project, which was originally set to come out this year, and she said she was waiting for the last two contracts to be returned. Last night's email was the next communication about the anthology, letting us know that the project has been cancelled. Unpublished.

Considering how long it has taken to push this project forward, I'm not at all surprised, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. Considering the rocky path the anthology went though, not to mention the complications the editor has experienced and continues to face in her personal life, I'm not at all surprised that the project has been dropped. It's been a hard four years for her, and I wish her and her family well.

I'm not sure there's a lesson in this, except for one that I already knew: there's no way I should still be going back to "unpublished" four and a half years after my first short story was accepted. There has been plenty of time to find other projects, to write more stories and send them in to the wonderful magazines and anthologies that are currently active. That failure is on me.

Time to fix that.

NASA APOD

What can the present-day terrain in and around large Endeavour crater tell us about ancient Mars? Starting three years ago, NASA sent a coffee-table sized robot named Opportunity on a mission rolling across the red planet's Meridiani Planum to find out. Last week, it finally arrived. Expansive Endeavour crater stretches 22 kilometers from rim to rim, making it the largest crater ever visited by a Mars Exploration Rover (MER). It is hypothesized that the impact that created the crater exposed ancient rock that possibly formed under wet conditions, and if so, this rock may yield unique clues to the watery past of Mars. Pictured above, the west rim of Endeavour looms just ahead of the Opportunity rover. Opportunity may well spend the rest of its operational life exploring Endeavour, taking pictures, spinning its wheels, and boring into intriguing rocks.

Two bits of writing news

1. My short story "What Happened at Blessing Creek" is in this month's issue of InterGalactic Medicine Show. You may need a subscription to get in and read it. I also wrote a "story behind the story" essay for the IGMS blog, which is not yet up. I'll mention it again when it goes live (or maybe I won't, and eventually Lyda will mention it for me...)

"Blessing Creek" is the story I wrote in response to the discussions surrounding mammothfail. It came out of me pondering what an honest story about the frontier from the white perspective might look like. The blog post talks about this in a lot more detail.

2. My short story "Isabella's Garden" is in this month's issue of Realms of Fantasy and I got my copies today. I really love the illustration they gave me. Isabella is based on my older daughter Molly at age two, but the mother is not at all based on me.

Friday Cat Blogging

What makes you think we're interested in your dinner?



Bette Davis Eyes, I've got 'em.



Not plotting. Nope not at all…
How do you spell defenestrate?
Oh, no reason.



Don't make Mr Goat and me kick your ass.



Fly my pretties, fly!

Happy Birthday, Kelly!!

Since Kelly is obviously too busy celebrating his birthday to post Friday Cats, I bring you this LOL cat in his honor!

More Mars!

Discovery News reports that Mars rover "Opportunity" has arrived at Endeavor Crater!

You Say That Like it's a Bad Thing...

The headline says it all: "BBC Talk Radio Show BORES Predatory Foxes into Submission.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

... still shoots a gorgel-blaster!

A while back I posted links to SF Signal's two-part article about the "death of science fiction." Today, I point you to Philip Palmer's thoughtful response "Fantastic Fiction: Science Fiction Rebranded."

Mars!!!

What is causing these dark streaks on Mars? A leading hypothesis is flowing -- but quickly evaporating -- water. The streaks, visible in dark brown near the image center, appear in the Martian spring and summer but fade in the winter months, only to reappear again the next summer. These are not the first markings on Mars that have been interpreted as showing the effects of running water, but they are the first to add the clue of a seasonal dependence. The above picture, taken in May, digitally combines several images from the the HiRISE instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image is color-enhanced and depicts a slope inside Newton crater in a mid-southern region of Mars. The streaks bolster evidence that water exists just below the Martian surface in several locations, and therefore fuels speculation that Mars might harbor some sort of water-dependent life. Future observations with robotic spacecraft orbiting Mars, such as MRO, Mars Express, and Mars Odyssey will continue to monitor the situation and possibly confirm -- or refute -- the exciting flowing water hypothesis.

Friday Cat Blogging

Kitties!



I feel fiiiine. Pour me another drink.



I am a wild jungle cat. Deal.



We're listing to starboard, Cap'n.



I am the saddest cat in the whole world.



Noble cat is noble.



Yes, you may adore me.



Yodelayheehoo!

Super Science

Discover Magazine reviews Captain America in terms of its science. Or, perhaps more accurately, in terms of how it treats science. I had not considered before that it's true the most of the time superheroes get their powers through their own hubris or that of of "mad" scientists (Bruce Banner/Hulk and Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic)), or because of accidents (ala Peter Parker/Spider-Man).

Being on Panels

I've decided to take a break from reading political news, because I find it depressing. But I still want to begin my day by reading on the Internet. So I've read a mixture of stuff, including Michelle Sagara's post on how panels are not about you, the individual, maybe-not-so-famous author.

I did a little cringing, because I was on a panel at Convergence on the short fiction of Eleanor Arnason, and I took the panel over. I don't know what came over me: a brief fit of madness, maybe. Anyway, I talked about current writing and future plans for writing and actually described plots. I don't usually do this, and I wish I had kept quiet and let the other panelists talk about me.

In any case, Michelle Sagara is right: telling the plots of your fiction is a no-no, though I have always done it. But not usually on panels.

But I'm still inclined to think the panels I'm on are about me and my ideas. I don't do panels unless I have something to say about the topic, and then I really want to say it. If I am lucky, the other panelists will be equally interested in the topic and eager to talk.

I should add that I spent years learning how to talk intelligently in front of an audience, and I usually do not walk into panels cold. I have thought about the topic and sometimes have notes.

More on Writing

I finished Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and am still working on Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

There's a lot that I like in the Goldberg book especially. She is absolutely right when she says that you have to read a lot and write a lot, if you want to be a writer.

But both books still seem to argue that anyone can be a writer. I'm not sure. Most people in our society are literate and can put words down on paper. Does that mean they can become good writers? I've known people who worked for years on writing and never became very good. Why not? A refusal to listen to criticism, often. An unwillingness to study their craft closely. A lack of imagination. A lack of feeling for language. Maybe simply a lack of gift, whatever that may mean.

Cameron and Goldberg are both teaching people how to be saner, which is great. But the focus required to be really good at anything may not result in a well-adjusted person. I am very much a fan of sanity. I would never encourage anyone to be less sane and happy. But being good at anything requires a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of focus. It may make you a wee bit unbalanced.

For example, there is this story:

Olivia Gentile’s Life List is the remarkable story of Phoebe Snetsinger, a woman trapped by her life as homemaker, who found liberation in bird watching. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she began traveling the world, not seeking a cure, but in search of rare birds—becoming a kind of ornithologist’s heroine, and living another eighteen years.

What this review (by A.M. Homes) does not mention is that Snetsinger flew the coop, left her family to chase rare birds. She was a very focused lady, whose achievements were remarkable.

She died in 1999 in a car accident in Madagascar. Her last bird, per Wikipedia, was the Red-shouldered vanga, only known to science since 1997.

Women in Comics

A twist on an old chant, "One percent is not enough, recruit, recruit, RECRUIT!" DC Comics vows to hire more women writers!

Uh... Marvel? You listening??? (Also, I could be available.)