Improbable Jane arrives

They're finally here, the first box of my new book "Improbable Jane."  It's a 3-in-1 chapbook of sci-fi longpoems.  I added it to my AuthorsDen book list, or you can find out more and read samples here.

Other than that, this year has been a pretty sparse scatter of published works.  Poems here & there.  Over 150 submissions, only 19 accepted/published.  But I've been ill a few random days a week, and rushing to pay bills the rest of the time, so it's hard to find any energy left at the end of the day for doing my "fun stuff", writing.

Strikingly odd combinations

Sometimes there are moments when I find myself doing some odd combination of things I never pictured myself doing.  Like hopping off a bus in Eagle, Colorado and running into Wee Willie Wonka's One Stop Shop in the middle of the night.  Or making bead earrings while watching football.  Or helping my wife sell candles at a Humane Society street fair while gusts of wind are ruining everyone's tables -- I ended up calling that event our blowout sale of the year.

Just now, another odd combination: watching a vice presidential debate while wearing a portable heart monitor.  Just gathering some data overnight.  Comically, after spending three weeks on a waiting list for a "loop monitor" to get a week's worth of data, I got hooked up with this 24-hour "Holter monitor" today, and was home for less than half an hour when the doctor's assistant called and said the loop monitor was available.  Those moments of medical comedy are far between.  Last time I was at the cardiologist's office, sitting in the waiting room with a bunch of much older, much sicker people, someone's cell phone went off, and the ringtone was ... "I Feel Good!" by James Brown.  Nice & loud, too.

Anyway, back to some of my more "normal" combinations.  Like playing monopoly online while mapping Phoenician settlements in Google Earth.  Or cataloging stamps with angry talk radio going in the background.  Maybe I'll listen to an MP3 lecture about Newfoundland geology instead.  They have some of the oldest crust on Earth, ya know ...

Strange world out there, in here.

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2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #27, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

That nightmare with the nails

Every now & then I have a nightmare where I have to get up and walk around the house or watch lame 3am TV for a half hour to clear my head.  This week there was a good one: something about being in an arena surrounded by barbed wire, with shattered glass and bits of once-living things on the ground, only to be tackled by two emotionless zombies who pounded silver nails up under my kneecaps with heavy wooden mallets; I'd wrestle a hand free, twist out a nail with a claw hammer, only to have two more driven into other joints.  No rhyme or reason.  I could see waking up and having a cramp in my knees, maybe, and that would have explained it away -- body signals intruding on dream-space.  But no, it was simply pointless, restless, and mean.  My brain acting up.  Not even a story to enjoy.

Still, night time is the right time for me.  Silent.  Nobody expects anything of me after midnight.  No phone calls.  I can surf the web, draw maps of imaginary places, scribble words in whatever notebook is at the top of a pile, plan out video games I'll probably never actually write.  Normally, after midnight is my time, and I'll take every hour of it I can get.  It's a finite resource, and there's a comedy factor: if I stay up past 4am, an unquenchable hunger sets in.  So I try to hit the sheets before that.  And every night I try to leave some traces behind.

Time fries when not having fun.  What is fun anyway?

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2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #23, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

Hernia & Gaming

Still not feeling well ... the best fit is a hiatal hernia, but doctors would give me anxiety meds instead.  Rather than listening or thinking.  So, new doctor on Friday.  Some barium and a chest x-ray could clear it all up, but this massive system is in place to prevent solutions.  So it seems.

Skip all that.  I've been a role-playing gamer for over 20 years now.  May seem odd, since I may only sit in on a game a few afternoons each year.  But that methodical way of creating places and characters has stuck with me, with the comical side effect that I have pieces and drafts of a bunch of alternate worlds nobody has ever seen.  Just last week I sat down to make a quick fantasy town full of gags and clichees (for Risus), only to find that I had built a whole web of strange people, and I can walk the imaginary streets of the town when I close my eyes.  I will probably dive in and write some of the stories someday.

Finding markets for the actual gaming material is tricky.  Sure, just like for fiction, there are lots of little publishers building collections of short works.  The main issue is choosing a game system, but then if the market rejects the work, the whole piece may have to be rewritten using some other game system, which may lead to more markets that don't want it.  It's like switching languages, a strange process.  And the most popular game systems are so overbearingly complicated, the players must sit around a argue over numbers instead of enjoying a story.  The simpler systems are mostly free, therefore there's no budget there, and I can't spend a lot of hours on something only to give it away.

So many worlds, so little time.  ;-)

2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #22, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

Giant earthworms threatened?

I have to admit a love of stories about new species being developed, as well as being reminded of some of the rare oddities in the world around us. Here's one that's probably endangered, though it's sighted so rarely it's hard to know what's going on ... the Giant Oregon earthworm.

They grow up to 3 feet long and an inch thick, and smell like flowers. And they can dig up to 15 feet deep. They were discovered in 1937 but have rarely been seen since 1985.

LINKS:
Sierra Club article "Digging for Giants"

PacificBio

OregonState.edu (with small photo)

An odd worm fact: Charles Darwin was an avid worm collector and his last book focused on these humble creatures: "In The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms, With Observations on Their Habits" (1881).

Oh, in case you think a 3-foot earthworm is big ... the largest worm currently known is the Gippsland giant earthworm of Australia. Check out these beauties ... they grow up to 13 feet long!

The poop about old poop

Archaeologists studying a cave in Oregon have found fossilized dung (probably human) dating to 14,300 years ago. If the human DNA detected was real, and not a result of contamination, this is evidence for people in North America 1,000 years before current scholarship says they arrived.

LINK: Seattle Times, 3 Apr 2008

Global Wobbling?

As if global warming by greenhouse gases (human or volcanic) isn't enough, throw in some not-quite-periodic ice ages, a slightly variable sun, and now ... global wobbling. You just can't trust the climate anymore.

The Earth doesn't spin with perfect precision. The pole is known to wobble in a variety of ways. Most of these changes are a few meters or less, but we now have the tools to measure them precisely. As for the exact cause, well ...

A Mystery Of Earth's Wobble Solved: It's The Ocean (LINK - ScienceDaily, 18 Jul 2000)

Changes In The Earth's Rotation Are In The Wind (LINK - ScienceDaily, 6 Mar 2003)

To be fair, the first article says it's 2/3 ocean and 1/3 atmosphere, and is talking specifically about the Chandler wobble which has a period of 433 days. The second is not clear which wobble it's talking about. Here's a fascinating piece ... the Chandler wobble and an annual wobble cancel out every 6.4 years, allowing a team to track and even smaller wobble at the centimeter scale:

Tracking Earth's Wobbles Down To The Size Of A Cell Phone (LINK - ScienceDaily, 26 Jun 2006)

Some scientists are seriously studying whether there is a larger wobble on a scale of hundreds of miles (a few degrees), which might affect the global climate.

Study Links Extinction Cycles to Changes in Earth’s Orbit and Tilt (LINK - NYTimes, 12 Oct 2006)

And here's a parody that's good for a grin:

Global Wobbling: An Inconvenient Truth (LINK - ConservativeVoice, 15 Oct 2006)

Progress Report 3/4/08

3/4/08

New blog launched in Feb 2008:
"The Unlikely Times" - news of the improbable but true
URL: http://unlikelytimes.blogspot.com

"Remember the Ancient Mariner" (article) accepted by Illumen (Autumn 08)

"Cougar Village" (longpoem) to appear in Aoife's Kiss (Jun 08)

"fire snakes" (haiku) posted at Mindflights
http://www.mindflights.com/item.php?sub_id=3717

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3/1/08

My story "Lugosi Rock" was just posted at Postcards from Uranus:
http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/2008/03/lugosi-rock.html

I sold two haiku to Scifaikuest

New book cover designs for SamsDot:

- Family Tradition, by Dev Jarrett
- Jane Doe Discovered, by s.c.virtes (Art & Design)
- Tarantula Stampede, by Tom Galusha
- The Poetry Workshop & Beyond, by Terrie Relf
- Little Creatures, by Michael McCarty

Otherwise a quiet two weeks with a few rejections.

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2/10/08

New acceptances & publications:

"tangled up in true" (poem) accepted by Space & Time

Stories (reprints) now available on AnthologyBuilder.com:
"Bricks"
"Last of the Soft Things"
"Tuesday Came Apart"
URL: http://www.anthologybuilder.com/authordetails.php?byline=Scott%20Virtes

Poetry (reprints with art) posted on writersCafe.org:
"the shape of things to come"
"all those toys"
"in the blackout"
URL: http://www.writerscafe.org/writers/scottVee/

New book cover designs done:

- Christina's World, by Marge Simon (SamsDot)
- Tarantula Stampede (SamsDot)

New submissions sent to:
Triangulation: Taking Flight, Abyss & Apex, Star*Line (5 poems), Amaze (6 cinquains).

New rejects from:
Andromeda Spaceways (4 days), Futures/Nature (7 days)

Onwards & outwards

This blog was going in a few directions, and while I still like the title, I have spun off a few more focused projects.

One is The Unlikely Times -- "A journal of the hard-to-believe and the not quite believable."

Another is Dark Windows -- an email newsletter of dark fiction, poetry and odd clips from old factual and fictional sources. Plus some dreams, to completely muddy the line between reality and the imagination.

I'm working on another project, dealing with short clips on the history of words. But, ssh ... it's secret.

This blog, as it goes forward, will focus on unusual science news. Think of it as things that sound like sci-fi but are actually happening. It's not the future, it's the UnFuture.

Enjoy.

Progress Report, 2/3/08

I wrote about 30 new poems this week, mostly haiku and cinquains. Only about 3 of those
were obvious duds. A few longer ones were unexpected surprises.

This week's submissions (mostly short stories) went to:

Clarkesworld, Fantasy, Flash Fiction Online, Futures (Nature), Heliotrope, Odyssey,
Shroud, Weird Tales, Coyote Wild, Andromeda Spaceways, Darwin's Evolution, Dog vs Sandwich,
Sigurd Journal, Lone Star Stories, Scifikuest

Rejects from Noneuclidean Cafe, Lone Star Stories

No new acceptances this week.

Quick News Update 1/29/08

Hot off the press:

- "Old Emmett's Grave" (flash) posted at Postcards from Hell.
URL: http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/2008/01/old-emmetts-grave-pfh.html

Recent works accepted:

- a haiku accepted by Mindflights
- "Lugosi Rock" (flash) accepted by Postcards from Uranus.
- "supernobody" (poem) accepted by Not One of Us

New book cover design:

- Sounds of the Night, Feb 2008 (SamsDot)

Books & stuff:

"Blank Spaces & other dangers". Now available again! The original publisher dropped all projects, and I have posted a second edition myself over at Lulu.com. A collection of 27 of my stories - all kinds of fantastic flights and weirdness. For more info and excerpts:
http://scott.virtes.com/bk_blank.php

Also (I forgot to mention this earlier) ... I have a stack of the July/Aug 2007 Analog with my story, "Jimmy the Box", in it. If you'd like a signed copy, email me at writer.scvs.com - $8 includes postage in the USA. Thanks.

Writing on Anything at hand

I promised some of my postings on writing-related topics. Here's one originally posted on Lulu's "Creative Minds" forum, about whether I write everything at the computer...

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I wrote in notebooks by hand, or at the typewriter, before there were computers. Then I wrote 90% at the computer for many years, though I always have a notebook by the bed for any middle-of-the-night flashes.

Now with eye strain driving me nuts I've been trying to diversify. I've tried using my MP3 gadget for recording, but it's a different sense entirely -- it's most effective for capturing lists of things to do (which is the WORST poetry ever). Though I can sometimes catch a good poem that way, walking around the block.

One benefit of writing in some other medium first is that when I do finally get it into Word, I find myself doing an edit as I type, so it's a step ahead, no real time lost.

I also have Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which after a few weeks does a good job of picking up the words as I speak. So it's nice to close the door, close my eyes and just talk for a while. I find that work best (for me) for articles, or posts like this one. I don't mind fixing the few errors afterwards - it's still less repetitive stress than typing every single letter.

Odd Clips from Dark Windows #10

Pulverized toads were not only employed in medicine with supposed advantage, but were also considered a slow but certain poison. Solander relates, that a Roman woman, deisrous of poisoning her husband gave him this substance; but instead of attaining her criminal desire, it cured him of a dropsy that had long perplexed him. [1]


Affection deprives death of all horrors. We shrink not from the remains of what we cherished. Despite its impiety, there was something refined in that conviction of the ancients, who imagined that in bestowing their farewell kiss they inhaled the souls of those they loved. [2]


The Romans of the regal and of the early republican periods regarded the unappeased souls of the dead as most dangerous to public and private welfare. They were capable of inflicting not only disease upon men, but blight on the crops. Hence the worship of the ancestors became one of the most important functions in the religious life of the people. The central motive in this worship was not love for the departed, but fear. [3]


1. Curiosities of Medical Experience (2nd ed.), by J. G. Millingen (Bentley, London, 1839), p.30

2. same, p.60

3. Disease-Spirits and Divine Cures Among the Greeks and Romans, by Cesidio R. Simboli (Columbia Univ., 1921), p.31

Spam proves poetry is "something"

What kind of freakishy lame world produces messages like this?

Gwynne reaccomodates petite sucker Hereford composes bright underbrush

Lewinsky topples curious periwinkle Freddi poultices faint julep

Rodina smocks obnoxious molding Gwynne books outrageous septuagenarian

Gerek organizes curious learner Hereford backlights few baconer

Gannie rubberstamps fragile nightingale Lewinsky overornaments short gauger

Damn spam. Every technology we create gets abused by criminals and losers. Strange programs trying to trick us into replying, to steal our souls. We try to build tools to get our jobs done, to make our lives better, but instead we're sitting targets, victimized, under constant attack ... in fact, I spent two hours today overhauling someone's online forum which had been maliciously hacked. What if a few years from now we have to spend 8 hours a day doing maintenance and security tasks. When would we find time to do any real work?

On the other hand, these messages (from my archives of ridiculous emails) shows how poetry is more than just a heap of words. It's easy to show what poetry isn't. Much harder to explain what it is. When I write poems, it seems to me that there is a stream of ideas in front of my eyes, almost tangible, and that my task is to pull things out of the stream, capture them, make them permanent. I don't judge the things, just record them. Luckily, all minds share a certain amount of wiring, so the efforts can be understood by some percentage of readers. Transferred. Task completed.

2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #10, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

 

Sad News & Progress Report 1/11/08

Here is my news since last entry ...

NOV:

Unfortunately, my Mom died on 11/13. A few weeks vanished in the mix.

12/1:

The new issue of Hungur magazine is out, with my cover design and my article "Unusual Vampire Lore".

I did two new book cover design projects for SamsDot Publishing, but was otherwise busy trying to stay ahead of bills. a.k.a. my stamp/eBay business. Funny how I can sell over $2000 a month in stamps but barely make scratch with anything I create myself. Or NOT so funny.

12/15:

My poem "The art of fishing" is in Amaze, the Cinquain Journal:
http://www.amaze-cinquain.com/SUMMER-07-issue-13/virtes.html

I created two series of custom postage stamps over on Zazzle.com: one set of zoo animal photos, and a set of fractal graphics.
Link: http://www.zazzle.com/scottzazz/find/pt-172

1/1/08:

I have some new audio poems over at the Sundown Lounge:
http://www.larrywinfield.com/sundownlounge.htm
CPU (Podcast #112)
Live reading 7/1/07 (#113)
Smiling sands (#115)
The hole (#116)
Myths wearing thin (in #117)

For reference, the book covers I designed for SamsDot Publishing since September are:
Hungur 3
Sometimes While Dreaming, by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
Potter's Field 2
Pretty, by Philip S. Meckley
The Phantom World, by Gary Crawford
The Ghost People, by James Steimle
The Green Women, by Laura J. Underwood

My own chapbook ("Jane Doe Discovered") should be coming soon.

"At Ripley's" (poem) (an ode to the Ripley's Museum, of all things) is now online at Helix SF:
http://helixsf.com/poetry/Q2_virtes_atripleys.htm

"Unusual Vampire Lore" (article) now in Hungur magazine, was nominated for a James B. Baker award.

I have a haiku in the Dec 2007 issue of The Shantytown Anomaly.

Oddly, I was asked to write a 30-second Christmas skit to be filmed for a church in the Midwest; I got the thing ready & delivered, but filming was cancelled due to a major ice storm and power outage. Ho ho ho, huh.

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These updates are from my new newsletter called "Dark Windows" - biweekly, giving away about 2,000 words of poetry, writing & odd clips per issue. About to post issue #10 this weekend. More info here ...
http://archives.zinester.com/38141 (2024: the site is long gone)

Stay tuned for a change of direction for this blog...