Mythos mayhem

About a month ago, I saw an anthology looking for Mythos tales revisiting the classic "At the Mountains of Madness" by Lovecraft.  They were looking for stories set in the past, present and future.  I have always wanted to write exactly such a tale, so it put this idea in my head.

The guidelines gave a limit of 6000 words, which I hope is not firm.  After having the idea in my head for a week or two, I felt it would come out to 7500 words.  In fact, the first draft had an opening scene, then a flashback to an expedition, then back to the main story, and ended at 7200 words.  But every time I thought it was done, especially while trying to sleep, I would think of some other detail to add or remove.  Two characters had to be added to the first expedition to make the final conflict more tragic and crazy.

Of course, I reread the original book, which is one of my favorites of all time, even if it had no proper characters or dialog by modern standards.  It was about atmosphere and mystery.  I hope my tale is a worthy recollection to the setting. 

Then I did a serious round of word refinement, removing "that" and "seems like" and "feels like" and "that".  These are such weak and dead words.  They had to go, along with most of the "-ing" words where verbs pretend to be adjectives, and most of the extra adverbial fluff.

Then I did a round of research, finding old survey maps and scanning Google maps for mountains with the right shapes, so that when I mentioned a place of the coordinates of a place, the reader can go to that real location and explore for themselves.  I knew the basic geography of Antarctica and most of the modern research going on there.  But I didn't want to be caught saying something that wasn't accurate.

Then I did a round of research on exactly the type of ship involved in that first expedition, and what gear was on board and what the conditions would be like living there for months.

What bugged the most about doing so many revisions?  Finding lines in the middle that refer to things that were removed a week ago.  No, that scene never happened, sure can't talk about it later in the story. 

I almost never edit a piece as much as this one.  It's the most complex thing I have written in 20 years, and really felt like practice for a novel.

The last few times I looked at it, I only went back to review the head count (literally) and change a few words in the big finale.  It ended up at 8300 words.  It could easily be 10K if I went back and flooded it with more detail, but I went for a sleek action story.

I sent it to my beta reader.  With luck, there are no more dangling bits to fix.  I want to get it out to the anthology soon ... 

 

May update: New collection

I have poems in Dreams & Nightmares #129 (Jan 2025) and #130 (May 2025).  I enjoy sending poems to David: there are a lot of times that I will finish a piece and his name pops right into my head.  About one out of four times I actually do send it in a batch with some others, and then he always picks the one I didn't think he would like as much.

Also, I heard back from the local Escondido Arts Partnership anthology (Summation 17) that two of the poems I wrote about artworks in the January art exhibit were accepted, so that volume should be coming out in the Fall.

The big news: 

Our upcoming story/poem/art collection is almost here. It will be called "Flights & Shadows" by Scott Virtes & Terrie Leigh Relf.  With the names swapped in various places to be fair.  It was quite a process. We chose our own works, then sending batches to each other and picking from those.  Then getting together at a coffee shop in Ocean Beach to work on revisions and extend each other's pieces.  And we wrote one new once on the fly to wrap it up: it started off as a one line writing prompt from months ago, and turned into a twisting, in-your-face adventures that surprised both of us.  We included a lot of my old doodles, and I convinced T to add some of her own sketches.  Finally, I took a book cover I composed back in 2009 for a project that was never published, tweaked a few of the layers, and now all the pieces are done and in production.

It is not limited to one genre.  It is more of a celebration of just how many different kinds of stories can be conjured.  Although our styles feel different in the pieces we composed separately, I think they blend seamlessly in the ones we worked together on.  

That was the project of the year.  I hope to have some more news soon. 

2024 End of Year update

In early December (12/7) there was an event in downtown Escondido for the unveiling of a new mural.  We like to go to those just to see the arts in action, and we always enjoy murals and outdoor art.

It was a great mural with a hummingbird theme by Brenda Townsend.  I wrote three haiku based on the art and handed it to her as a gift.   I have done that before at art shows, it's a quirk of mine.  I like the challenge.  It's called ekphrastic writing, starting with an image and being inspired to find words.  She later got back to me and was very appreciative.

It turns out that the whole Arts Council was at that event so I got to hear about s lot of other events.

The next weekend there was an art show where pets were specifically invited to write about the art.   We only had about an hour since we were trying to get to an Eve Selis concert directors by 6:30.  But the place was packed,  I wrote six pieces in a tiny notebook,  meet some nice people,  and hit the highway.

I later found the address to submit these pieces to the annual anthology and got 3 submitted.  The others were not about specific artworks on display.

Beyond that, Terrie Leigh Relf and i finished the collection we've been working on since August and got it submitted to the publisher on 12-31.  Hit the deadline that was in my head the whole time.

Poems, Posts and Prostrations

In the last half of November, I did manage to get some writing done.  It comes after my full-time job and two side gigs ... at the end of all that, I do get some time to try to be creative.

I wrote a few pages of poems in a tiny notebook at the E.R. while Anne was passed out from what turned out to b electrolyte issues (??).  

I think I added 8 more entries to my Gaming blog, 4 more to my WordFixx blog, and 8 to my Stamps blog.

Today we went down to Ocean Beach to hang out at the coffee shop with a collaborator and work on our upcoming collections some more.  We swapped a new story in, and I found a photo of the two of us from a poetry reading 18 years ago, which fit just fine.

We started on a new piece, where we start with a sentence and each add a few lines, trying to leave the other writer with a difficult hook to work out.  Those are fun.  The story took some really odd turns.  When I got home, I gave it a tune-up so it sounds like we meant to end up where we did.  And I had to do some research into the actual layouts of morgues and mortuaries, so we could make the setting feel more real than some generic thing we saw on a TV show.

We would like to get that collection done and submitted by the end of the year.  We hit the 30,000 word mark, chock full of fiction, flash fiction and poems, with about 15 of my own weird illustrations.  

I have not had time to send out any submissions in a while.  If it's not one thing, it's another.

This all came out to about 35-40 pages of new material.

I threw "prostrations" in the title, because that word has been coming up as we watch the last season of Stargate SG-1 (where they are fighting the obnoxious Ori), and several times Anne said it sounds like such a strange word.  While it can be a religious expression (giving completely in to a higher power), I can now point out that when she was in the E.R. she was prostrated (rendered helpless with exhaustion or a similar condition).  We have both been exhausted, but every weekend when we try to relax we end up running errands, doing chores, working the side gigs and just not resting.

Posted on DriveThruFiction

I must have purchased over 100 items from DriveThruRPG over the years.  They're one of the largest markets of PDF and print and print-on-demand gaming books.  More and more works have become available from the 80s and 90s from classic game systems.  So I have whole folders of RPG reference material from them, and recently bought a huge bundle that ended up being about 50 PDF books for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition.  Wow.  It's never-ending.

They always seemed like a very active market, with a lot of free preview editions and Pay What You Want items.  I have known for years that they had a sister site for fiction: DriveThruFiction.  I'm just not sure why I never thought to list any of my own items there.

This weekend I set up three of my existing poetry chapbooks.  They were already in PDF format, so there wasn't much work to do.  Their forms were fairly simple.  There was an interesting part where (if your documents is a PDF) you can choose a page range to make an automatic preview document.  So if I wanted to showcase page 6 to 9 as my free preview, just enter 6 and 9.  You could upload a cover and some other graphics, then upload the main document and click "Make Public."  You get a message saying to allow up to 3 days for the submission to be approved.  That's reasonable.  I like that content is approved by someone before appearing on the marketplace.

It turns out, all three were approved by noon the next day, and that was a sunday.  So here they are:

I will be adding more documents, probably newer editions of past books and chapbooks.  My author page is here.

I don't know if this will be worth the time.  For most sites with tons of content, you always feel like just another fish in the ocean.  If a site has a half million items and only 10 of them are yours, you are just a tiny percentage.  And these are just Pay What You Want with recommended $2 each. They are just 27-30 page booklets -- old poetry chaps won't be popular, but I thought their poetry collection could use a little more weird.  ;-).  Still, most of my creative output has been for pizza money, so maybe this can earn a salad somewhere down the line.

I tried doing some research, and you can always find videos and blogs talking about how every attempt to promote work is always a waste of time.  Or similar content saying how wonderful it is, and how this one person makes thousands of $$ a month.  What's real and what isn't?

You never know unless you try, and it's another platform where I am now visible in some form.  I will try to report in future posts about how it works out. 

I realize that most of the content on these sites was submitted by publishers, or at least very small companies.  I can't see going through the trouble of establishing yet another business name.  I'm just an author offering my own works.  All of the rights reverted back to me at some point, and I should be able to use them as I see fit.

The 2024 Novel Writing Tools Bundle

I am a sucker for online bundle deals.  They are such a modern, fun way to get a lot of content at a good price -- some of them are even "pay what you want".  Some of they send a percent to a charity: in this case you have the option to donate to the Neil Peart Brain Cancer Research Fund.  Here is a bundle that I heard about from Kevin J. Anderson, and he would know, since he is the curator.

This is The 2024 Novel Writing Tools Bundle, and you can find it here until Nov 30.  My little screen grab does not show all the book included, but I wanted to highlight the one by KJA called "On Being a Dictator."

I have always admired his ability to be out hiking at some amazing location and dictate chapters of his books into some device.  I have tried it a few times, but hearing my own voice makes me self-conscious around people, or immediately knocks me out of story mode.  Or both.  I just can't get enough separation to make it work, so that's the book I wanted most, and I hope some of the others can help me feel relevant or productive again.

I just wanted to pass this along.  A good little library put together by a good guy for a good cause.  Worth sharing.

Another Sale or Two, new Poems and new Blanks

I sold another poem to Dreams & Nightmares last week and have a flash fiction coming out in Flash Digest (Jan 2025).  I really need to get more submissions out there.

I brought some scrap paper to a winery in Escondido about 3 weeks back, where Astra Kelly was playing.  Look her up.  When there is live music playing, it helps disconnect me from day-to-day worries, and I can fill a few pages with poems and fragments.  So I got some new pieces done, none of them especially "genre", so I don't have any idea where to send them.  I don't know what's up with the vast percent of "literary" zines paying copies only.  I am not expecting a ton of $$, but zero is too low for me.

I have posted plenty of articles on my various blogs, so those are rolling along nicely.

Today we drove up to Ramona and did some thrifting before seeing Astra again at a different winery.  This time, the pages stayed blank.

I have ideas in my head.  Some new story settings.  Some old tales to dredge up and overhaul after 20-30 years of dust.  

I also want to get a few mini-collections into PDFs for DriveThruFiction.com.  I must have gathered over 200 titles from DriveThruRPG over the years, and you would think that the fiction cousin of that site would be a good match for me.  But you know how creative minds sabotage themselves -- I have had works on many sites over decades and failed to get a single actual sale, so when you get onto a site with hundreds of thousands of competing items, you expect to be just a drop in a bucket.  I can see myself spending hours getting this set up, only to get nothing out of it.

But it's still a bug in my ear this week.  Meant to do it, got hung up on other things.

That is the writing news for this week, such as it is...

Astra, Dresden, Big John, Elric and Other Old Friends

We were sick most of the last two weeks, but got back on our feet and went a few places this weekend.  

On Saturday we went to the Mia Marie Winery on Highland Valley Road, only three exits and four miles up the winding road from Anne's place.  Astra Kelly was playing, which was a treat since she had just moved to Arizona and I wasn't expecting to see her in town again.  Then again, I hadn't seen her play since before COVID, you know, before so many things broke down and don't feel as real anymore.

Some things I wanted to point out: she let's you know where she's going to be appearing and brings swag to her shows.  So many creative people have completely forgotten to send out newsletters.  I would get to more shows if to performers would give any kind of advance notice.  Half the time, I only know a show happened when someone posts about it on Facebook it after it's over.  And most musicians have given up on bringing actual items -- CDs, anything you can buy -- to help them out.  Honestly, a tip jar and a blurb about how you can find their stuff somewhere online (sometimes followed by mumbling about how the downloads don't pay shit) doesn't really cut it.  Astra brought her new release on vinyl, several past CDs at a reasonable price, some of her aromatherapy items, and other bits of projects I never knew about.  Apparently she is now the voice of a cat on Instagram.  That is how you do it.

One thing she had that I had never seen before was a "download card".  That was a little plastic card like the ones you get Google Play points on, except it has a URL and a code, and if you enter the code at the URL then poof, you get the download as promised.  As a pleasant bonus, she included both MP3 files and high-fi WAV files.  You can find her here.

(Nov 3 note: we saw her again today, this time in Ramona, and she had her whole shop with her again.  It was nice seeing people walk over and check out her things, and Kim at the wine counter was talking about how "crafty" she was.  If we don't let people know what we do, how will they ever know?)

That was inspiring for whenever I have an upcoming event.  I would rather bring too much than not have anything to show.

Now on Sunday, we went down to Balboa Ave to check out Book-Off, a big jam-packed bookstore where I found the first Dresden Files novel a few weeks back.  I didn't really plan on spending any money, but there was a gorgeous, like-new four volume set of all the Elric stories.  Michael Moorcock had always been inspiring to me, from his writing style and imagination to his works on Blue Oyster Cult albums.  I enjoy when someone can be creative across art forms and genres.  I root for underdogs and far-out creativity. This set was not cheap, but once in a while I see a definitive set of something, and feel like a collector again.  I had to have it.  Throw in a nice trade paperback Game of Thrones for $5.

Meanwhile, I got the new Jeff Vandermeer book "Absolution" from Barnes & Noble, and it dives right back into the crazy creepy Southern Reach world that started with "Annihilation".  I expect to ramble about that in the future.  Jeff and Ann Vandermeer have edited many magazines and projects, and I even submitted a story or two and I was never accepted, and they wouldn't know me from a bump on a log, but I can enjoy being a fan sometimes.  Anyway, I believe today was the official release date, so poof: mentioned.

As for the Dresden Files, I read book one (Storm Front) again, and it's such a quirky world, a real gem.  It is hard to make a supernatural setting that's even 10% different from all the rest, and these books have character to spare.  He does get beaten to a pulp more than he should be able to recover from, but that mix of crime noir and White Council shenanigans is classic.

We watched the whole series, and I have no complaint about it: I thought the cast did a fine job, and don't care that they had to shuffle the episodes or make monsters easier to film.  Paul Blackstone was top notch although blah blah he doesn't fit the exact description in the book.  He gets points for personality and holding together the mix of humanity and madness.  I've read pages and pages of gripes and production issues, but I enjoyed it back then, and just as much this time around.  My only complaint was that it ended after only 12 episodes. 

One of the monsters in the Storm Front episode, loosely built on that first book I had just read, replaced an ugly toad demon with ... big John DeSantis from Master and Commander.  Hey, I knew that guy.

John was an all-around nice guy every time I saw him on or off the set.  After M & C, it was always a treat to see him guest star in my favorite shows, from Supernatural (a golem) to Stargate (Jafaa warrior) to all the other places he showed up, and in 13 Ghosts, OMG he was terrifying.  It must be weird to only get the meanest, most evil roles when he just wanted to kick back and chat -- he definitely knows how to use his looks and voice.  I always wish him the best out there in show biz.

Here is a shot of John DeSantis and I from the Master & Commander wrap party 20-odd years ago.

Memory lane ...

So this has been an indirect tribute to the people we meet in this mad creative life.  They feel like friends when we see them at shows, or at conventions, or on the page or on the screen.  Maybe we never actually sat down over dinner, or went on road trips together, but "acquaintance" never felt sufficient.  As for the fictional characters, they fill niches in my mind in other ways.

BTW, all or most of the Dresden Files books are available as audiobooks read by James Marsters, who has a great voice to these.  I enjoy listening to them with Anne after hours.

I wrote 8 or 10 poems while Astra was singing, and I hope some of these things help to rip more works out of the depths and onto paper.