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...

#

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.

=====

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...