So, it looks like the company that was interested in hiring me decided to go with somebody else.

That’s cool, though.

On to the next!

Boy, I’ve sure been nervous.

Those of you who read this blog know about my ongoing job search. Kicked into high gear lately, it has been fruitful only in the instigation of my anxiety. A couple of nibbles, but the fish ain’t biting.

Today, another nibble. Like the novice fisherman, I get excited at the slightest nip on the bait, only to be sorely disappointed I reel in an empty hook.

Will today bring another empty hook? Only time will tell, and it’s got about two hours left.

I don’t mean to sound so despondent. So far, every week has brought a new chance or a new opportunity. In my raucous zeal of resume-submitting and job-applying, I get some inkling every now and then that what I’m doing is going to work, and that all this effort will eventually pay off.

I used to worry about women. Nearly every day for most of my postpubescence, I ached for a little bit of femanine attention. It would kick my anxiety into a the lethal combat register, inciting all sorts of fight-or-flight biological responses. When those passed, I was left with was this sort of emptiness, a feeling of impending disaster. I translated that into all sorts of insipid declarations of lifelong loneliness that now seem stupidly misguided. Rather than piss and moan, I should have been out there making things happen.

It all ended about a year ago. I won’t bore or sicken you with the details, and I must actually restrain myself from hyperbole, but those worries ended quite suddenly with the addition of a woman who, by all accounts and objective opinions, is perfect for me.

I note this to you only to put these silly anxieties of mine in perspective. I have a history of incessent worry that succeeds only in making me feel worse. Nothing ever comes of it, let alone anything good. Worry breeds more worry, and it’s such a short little step right over to All-Encompassing Depression. Suffering is also in there, too, but that usually starts right with the first worry.

What I’m trying to say is this: my worrying is pointless, my nervousness is pointless and good things are the reward for bold actions. I’ve been bold in my job hunting.

It’s time for the reward.

I’ve finally decided to remove Emma’s weblog from my rightlist. I just can’t justify having it on the list when, every time I read it, I get another little blip on my snob-o-meter. First it was the Equilibrium review, and now she’s criticizing the Einstein exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History for oversimplifying the physics.

Yeah. Right.

I’ve noticed something about people who love William Gibson. They tend to swing wildly into snobbery. I should know, I’m one of them.

You read something like Neuromancer, and it’s like reading the Bible in ancient Greek. It’s so dense and convoluted and filled with words that casual readers don’t recognize that you feel like you’re part of some hacker/cracker elite club.

Ah, whatever. Emma’s off the list.

I’m sure her readership will dwindle.

And so another day comes to a close.

It’s been a rough few days. The rush to employment may finally be paying off, if those bastards call me tomorrow. Actually, since I’ll be in the Multimedia Unlimited office for some or all of the day, I’m going to be calling them.

I’m very tired. I’ve been writing in the evenings for the past week or so, training myself to be creative when time is no issue. The mornings and afternoons will be quite full of data entry for me! Oh, and at least $8 an hour. That ain’t bad.

Anyway, here’s an example of what I started to write tonight:

The Doctor was right, all Cowlhers feared it, and all were unused to its power. And all of this is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

That was the first sentence I wrote. I imagined the last word being sung at raging, full-tilt falsetto by Rob Halford. But what came after was much better, after having rid myself of the cobwebs.

Here’s a sample:

At that moment, a horn sounded off in the trees. It was the President’s militia, whose bugles and trumpet calls were as distinctive as their red-blazed banner. Even the newest pickett, the son of simple woodsmen, knew the tune by heart.

The clash echoed off into the forest, and the bugle calls were suddenly silent.

Ok, so it needs work. Writing fantasy isn’t easy, folks. You have to juggle what came before with what never should have been and hope you don’t take a bite out of the egg instead of the apple.

Or something like that.

Is it wrong for me to see someone on a moped blocking traffic and immediately assume that the person in question is retarded?

Anyway, before I shovel the sidewalk, I’ll give some reflections on my story, and an excerpt.

First, the reflections:

I’m very, very happy with the way the Sutter story is going. I’m developing the character of Sutter in precisely the way I wanted; he’s starting out as a confused hunk of driftwood floating along ‘the river of his life ©.’ As events happen around him, he’s drawn into the politics of Smithsouth mining camp and even of the Presidential Kingdom.

One of the missing pieces in much of my writing (up to this point) is a sense of immediate danger. In writing an adventure/thriller story, it’s obviously quite important to keep the stakes rather high and keep the audience expecting more bad things…things that threaten the lives of the characters. I’ve managed to do this so far with the Krogre (a beast I have yet to describe fully, in my mind or in the story). So far, it’s feared greatly by the populace of Smithsouth, and even by the poor pickets sent to kill it. It can also duplicate bugle calls. This will become quite important later in the story, if I meet my aim.

Excerpt to follow, and some commentary on the other characters in the selection.

Ho hum

Got this in my mail today. My email, mind:

Thank you for your story, “Seeds in Time.” Sorry, we cannot offer you publication for it. Feel free to try us with another. Best wishes.

I don’t know how this makes me feel. Maybe it’s an awful story, maybe they don’t publish that kind of thing, maybe it’s too short, maybe it’s too long, maybe I sent an incomplete copy, maybe I sent the wrong copy, maybe I’m a terrible writer, and maybe I really shouldn’t be trying it in the first place.

Ugh.

This story takes place a few centuries after the Willful Apocalypse. It is this cataclysmic restructuring of the earth that causes all traces of human intervention to be wiped clean. What’s left are small collections of humans who eke out an existence, thanks to their ancestors decision to remain on earth rather than ascend, Childhood’s End style. The bulk of the action I’ve already written on this subject is in The Good Gardener, which takes place a few more centuries after Will Sutter died.

I begin with Sutter. I know what kind of man he’ll become, but this story is more about how he became that way. Here are some notions I’ve already preconceived:

- he’s a kid, probably late teens

- physical description: hairy but not hirsute; tallish (about 6’); broad in the shoulders and obviously muscular; terrible posture, usually slouching; walks a bit stiff-legged, like he has just been released from a lifetime of cramped quarters.

- Speaks quietly with as few words as possible.

- Never a wasted movement, to the point where people often think he’s sleeping when he’s not.

Sutter is a liar, and a very bad one. It’s not that he gives himself away when he tells one (his stoicism belies any hint of emotion), but that he’s terribly inconsistent. And it’s not about everything that he lies, just his past.

Sutter has no clue what he wants to do with himself. He drifts from place to place, with things happening to him. He lives a life of reaction.

But the story will not be about what goes on in his mind. I’m going to use a third person omnipotent perspective for this story, one in which we see Sutter emerging into his own person because he’s finally forced to make decisions about the future.

The Story, an early synopsis:

Sutter finds himself at a silver mining colony on the outskirts of one of the smaller despotisms in the region. He arrives there from the surrounding woods, shaken and disheveled. He tells the Boss that the trade caravan with which he was traveling, and an armed escort provided by the ruling despot, were attacked by a rampaging Krogre. The Boss pities him and, on Sutter’s claim that the despot was a friend of his father’s, gives him a job on the site.

As is true for all stories like this one, things are not at all what they appear. Sutter tells five different people five different stories, accidentally reveals part of his true nature, comes to blows with the soldiers sent by the despot to kill the Krogre, ends up saving a number of lives and even opens contact with a new race of Oddfellows.

Commentary: I’m actually surprised at myself. Only about 10% of the above was actually written in the five or so pages I’ve already written on this story. The rest of it was invented, and actually works toward what I’m going for with this story. The idea of the krogre (a beast I had already written about in parts of Gardener) being pivotal to the story is important. I foresee Sutter disappearing into the woods late in the story, only to have a dead Krogre be discovered by the despot’s pickets the next day. What does this mean?

Stay tuned to find out!

As of today, this blog will be a writer’s journal. Here I shall post my progress, my reflections on what I’ve written, and maybe a paragraph or two of the actual work.

I open the journal with the words of Neil Gaiman, writing on his own journal about the creation of his American Gods journal. It is this journal that he used to write his own thoughts and reflections on his writing and editing of his novel, after it had been finished:

I first suggested we do something like this to my editor, the redoubtable Jennifer Hershey, about a year ago, while the book was still being written (a process that continued until about 3 weeks ago). She preferred to wait until the book was on the conveyor belt to actual publication, thus sparing the reading world lots of entries like “Feb 13th: wrote some stuff. It was crap.” and “Feb 14th: wrote some brilliant stuff. This is going to be such a good novel. Honest it is.” followed by “Feb 15th. no, it’s crap” and so on. It was a bit like wrestling a bear. Some days I was on top. Most days, the bear was on top.

I think every writer (beginning or not) should read either Neil’s regular journal and probably should also look through the archived sections, specifically those on American Gods. Informative, inspirational, and quite often very funny.

I absolutely love that the Tolkien estate is giving this book its blessings.

The article, however, leaves a bit to be desired; after all, to say that Beowulf resembles the Lord of the Rings any more than it resembles Sigfried (or nearly every other teutonic/anglo-saxon/norse mythological cycle) is a gross overstatement.

Sure, Beowulf might mention ents, elves and orcs, but they’re hardly the same thing to its ancient author that they are to our modern day Tolkien-ite enthusiasts.

I’d like to thank Dr. Caplan for writing this article.

Thanks, Dr. Caplan.