writing

Working for the weekend

Well, today the only exciting thing to happen was my lunch: a turkey burger with chipotle hominy, pancetta, and smoked mozzarella on a multigrain bun, again from that new place next door. And I got to use the last of the points I earned when I set up my order-ahead account the other day, so the burger (which was both tasty and filling) was only a couple of bucks. I still think this place is trying to do way too much to turn a profit in a busy midtown area, but if you order ahead and go in at the arranged time, it’s actually a lot better than a lot of the other nearby choices.

It has the McDonald’s across the street beat, but then again, I haven’t been inside McDonald’s in two or three years now.

And that’s about it, as far as today goes. Some good news at work, as far as the photo research goes, since our production department has an account with a stock photo site, and any images I can find there won’t cost us anything. And I started sending copies of the actual manuscript out for review, so I think the project is now well in hand.

Looking forward to the weekend. Nothing planned, not even my regular Sunday writing group, which is kind of hiatus for awhile. I’m again going to try to get caught up on Kaleidotrope slush — issue #10 is available for pre-order, by the way, and can ship in about a week — and do some writing of my own. Maybe watch a movie, get caught up on some TV. What’s that new show? !@#$% My Outsourced Dad’s Generation Says to Hawaii 5-Lonestar? Whatever.

How about you?

The weekend end

Just your typical Sunday, does exactly what it says on the tin. I wrote a little something today, though:

If you’d asked Mutombo what he was digging for, he might have laughed and said a dollar an hour, the camaraderie of the other men, the fresh air and plentiful sun. He would not have mentioned his family, unless perhaps to ask that you not say where you’d found him, and he would not have mentioned the object, which neither he nor the others would have felt comfortable describing in much detail aloud.

They were not by nature a superstitious lot, but still, there were rumors in the camp at night, and there was little doubt that the object itself was dangerous. Mutombo himself had seen three men fall sick and two of them die, strong men whose shovels the day before might have stood right beside his own.

All of them were immigrants; Mutombo could not even say with any certainty which country he was in any longer. The trip here had been long and disorienting, and the excavation work at the camp only added to that feeling of disconnect. It was a feeling that Mutombo would have to admit suited him just fine, free from his father’s scolding looks, his mother’s long disappointed sighs, the threats of another night in the district jail. Here, there was only the work, the digging, and the infectious laughter of the other men.

And, of course, there was the object.

They had no other name for it, neither they nor the white men from the corporation overseeing the dig. It was not a thing to which names easily affixed, even fearful names spoken half in jest, like invader, demon. It defied description.

Mutombo knew only that it had fallen from the sky. And that, if they were not careful, it might continue to kill.

Beyond that? I returned a couple of books to the library. Heady stuff, I know.

Thursday

A pretty quiet day, aside from the storm that rushed through here. Luckily, I got home ahead of the storm and missed all of the excitement in Manhattan, where apparently the Long Island Railroad shut down entirely. Good times.

Other than that… I finished reading Barry Lopez’s short story collection Light Action in the Caribbean. I liked the collection, even if some of the stories (including the title story) were a little strange, and even if none exactly lived up to “The Mappist,” the final story in the book and the one that introduced me to Lopez. (I heard it on Selected Shorts, where actor Joe Spano does a great job with it.)

And I wrote a little more today, making some slow but steady progress on a short story of my own I’ve been working on lately. I’m hoping to spend even more time with it over the weekend.

Oh, and I posted the cover and contents for Kaleidotrope #10 earlier today. I still can’t believe this will be ten issues, that I’ve been publishing the zine since October of 2006. (Just as I have trouble believing I’ve worked in my office since October of 2004.) I really like this issue, and I hope you will too. (You can pre-order copies now if you’re not already a subscriber!)

Thursday various

  • John Scalzi on finding the time to write:

    So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.

  • Janet Potter on the work of Stieg Laarson:

    Which is why, in the end, my problem with the Millennium trilogy is not its genre, or its plot, or its characters. It’s the fact that the bestselling books in the world are poorly written, erotic fan fiction that a man wrote about himself. [via]

  • Roger Ebert on the state of the nation:

    The time is here for responsible Americans to put up or shut up. I refer specifically to those who have credibility among the guileless and credulous citizens who have been infected with notions so carefully nurtured. We cannot afford to allow the next election to proceed under a cloud of falsehood and delusion.

  • Nancy Kress on bad movies:

    When you fall asleep at a movie and begin to snore, that constitutes a review. When no one around you goes “shhhh,” that constitutes another.

  • And finally, the CERN Choir on particle physics [via]: