Third submission of "Totem" and the speech

Stardate 21230.6/The Year of Our Lord 2009, September the ninth

Wednesday

Dear folks,

It was actually two days ago. On Monday. All very exciting.

This afternoon I gave an ad libbed speech on the subject of how the Dalai Lama supports the fact that civilization rests on the curiosity of writers. Giving a speech on that topic off the cuff is kind of exciting, I tell you no lie. I think I totally muffed it. I was able to speak clearly, annunciate all my words, and I managed to hit all my points and in the right order without getting lost. That was good. But it wasn't MOVING--unless it was, and I just couldn't hear it. All I know for certain is that no one laughed at the funny parts, and no one told me afterward what they thought. Now I don't know where I messed up, or if I did. I can't tell where I need improvement.

Still, it was essentially my first speechifying gig, and I actually did it. I feel like I've accomplished something today.

Sincerely,

Bouncy Mind

Random Shit Mix

Here it is, the last forty-one minutes of my birthday. I sit listening to the "Random Shit Mix" Abigail gave to me, gazing through the haze of conflicting stimulants at words made to make sense only through my intention. The uppers are fighting with the downers, and my system is exerting its perplexity-empowered self-drugging to maintain whatever fragile balance I'm meant to have. It's calming and energizing at the same time. I am in power, but I am not in any state to exert myself.

I woke this morning intending to write a judgment of the last year, or a "things I have learned", or a breathtaking tale of how I have changed in this year. The issue being I haven't changed. I maintain the same space, I have the same hair, and the same tastes. I intend the same ends, I believe in the same God. I find that comforting.

Last year, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that a year is an unthinkably long time. I remember thinking more than once over the course of this year that it has been passing with exceptional leisure. It has been taking its sweet time, and events haven't so much unfolded as grown like olive trees. It has been a slow, busy, educational and exceptional year. I also feel at this moment as if the time is over suddenly and without warning. Weird mind.

I think Buster Keaton said it best when he chose not to speak.

Good night, esteemed ideas. Take on clothing and walk like men.

Second rejection of "Totem"

Stardate 21209.8/The Year of Our Lord 2009, August the nineteenth

Wednesday

Dear anachronistic cyber spelunkers,

"Totem" was today rejected for a second time. I've wisely spent the interim not exclusively obsessing about the possibility of its fate. I have been working. It's been a busy summer.

Quote of the day: "Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction aims at truth." John L'Heureux

Sincerely

"Snaps"

The Most Dangerousest Game

Yesterday, the Vikings met for the third time. Last month, in our discussion, somebody started talking about beginning stories with dialog effectively. And, as inevitably happens when talking about what we've written, he mentioned something that he'd read that he thought was a good illustration of his point. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, he said was the story.

A couple days later, this brilliant Viking sent me an e-mail and said, "Hey, look, I found the story I mentioned on the interwebs. What say I lead a discussion on the technique I talked about?"

I was all over that, man. It sounded like a brilliant idea. I e-mailed the link to the other Vikings and said we'd discuss it.

Yesterday at our meeting, therefore, we discussed beginning a story with dialog in lieu of how Richard Connell with "The Most Dangerous Game" seemed to have effectively used dialog to kick-off his story. And we found some interesting stuff. It was excellent educationing.

Here's the story: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/danger.html It's a good bit of fiction.

Second submission of "Totem"

Stardate 18409.6/The Year of Our Lord 2009, July the second

Thursday

Dear persistent pariahs of proud pedigree,

I've just submitted "Totem" a second time. I slightly redrafted the first two paragraphs because the last ones didn't feel good. It's hard writing a first paragraph when I feel like the rest of the story is, more or less, completed. Kind of hard to go back, after reading the whole thing and seeing what it says, and try and encapsulate the message in a paragraph when you've just seen evidence that it took you twenty pages to put your message across. Odd dichotomy. But things gotta starts someplace.

Anyhow, fingers crossed.

Sincerely

Lord Pandaman

First Rejection of "Totem"

Stardate 17809.9/The Year of Our Lord 2009, June the twenty-seventh

Saturday

Dear justly excited and excitable writers of the future,

Today I received my first rejection of the short story "Totem". The form letter appeared quite polite. Spirits high.

It was a quicker than average return, I understand. This pleases me, because now I can send it to a different magazine. I'm going to read back through it and see if there any typoes, though. And I think that the first couple paragraphs need strengthening. Although I'm inclined to just send it back out as is and see what happens.... Dunno. Not going to do anything till Monday anyhow, seeing as how the postal service is a bunch of slackers, with their weekends and regular business hours and things. Humbug, I say.

I actually really like the postal service. I like mailing things.

Anyway, spirits high. Editing of the next story I'm going to begin vetting is going well.

Sincerely

Me

First Submission of "Totem"

Stardate 16609.7/the Year of Our Lord 2009, June the 15th

Monday

Dear Aspiring Writers, Web Lurkers, and Fellow Nerds of the future,

Today is a notable day because this is the day on which I submitted the short story "Totem" to a magazine for the first time. From here we will track its progress. I'll write you all again on the day that it is rejected/accepted, or when I submit it again, or if I ever edit it again, or if it gets picked up by a movie studio, or something. So we'll have scientific evidence to actually see how long this stuff takes. If I forget to do so then feel free to remind me. I am talking to you. Yes, you. Not him. You. Okay, now we've cleared that up, on to the next thing.

This story has taken me a long time to get into the tube. The first draft was something like...what, last November? Been a while. Longer than is justifiable, I believe, with a short story. It's the second story that I've submitted to a magazine, and that one took a long time as well. I decided, however, to take my time with this one, just to allow myself to feel prepared and comfortable. The next one I'll take as drastically less time as I can, maybe try and shock myself, speed the process. That'd be cool.

Good luck, writers of the future.

Sincerely

Me

Graily thingy

Today is pentecost! So if you're planning any quests or epic journeys today is the day to start. You have six minutes. Go.

FOUR--count 'em--degrees between me and The Whedon

Yesterday, the degrees of seperation between Joss Whedon and myself dropped to four...or three...maybe four.

My buddy met David Boreanaz at a party once. So that's me->buddy->Boreanaz->Whedon.

Boo-yah!

I like being excited about entirely pointless things.

AAAAAAAAH!

TEQUILLA! Everything's going all...wobbly.... I could probably walk...minus the whole, like, getting around thing. It's like tunnel vision, without the tunnel. Like being light headed, but with all this weight. Like sleeping, except snakey 'cause my eyes are open. It's like...wearing off.... Okay...

I don't think I can hold my liquor very well. Not enough Irish gene. Bummer.

Happy new year!

Ditto the title!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot!
We're sure to remember something!
Should aul acquaintance be forgot!
Something something something something!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot!
And eggnog something something!
Should ault acquaintance be forgot!
That line is really annoying now! Assume you've gone crazy!

Happy old year!

Cat Personallity

Sometimes I wish writers had personallities more like sheep. Unfortunately, they have cat personalities.

A cat stands aloof, and knows that their own thoughts are far more interesting, inspired, and useful, than all other people's thoughts. As a result, no matter how much an organized activity is inside their best interest, some other schmoe must do all the organizing, because naturally the writer knows that, while they could probably do it better, it--the organizational process--isn't an important part of the whole activity, because it effects the other guys more obviously.

Scientists have sheep personallities. While scientists are disgustingly intelligent, and think they're thoughts are the best, they are entirely in favor of going everywhere and only where they are told. They follow instructions to the letter, and if they find inaccuracies in these instructions they postulate possible improvements to he who organizes them, and thusly the event comes about with utter hitchless dullness.

I respect Henry. He got writer's to do stuff. It's enormously freaking hard.

It's somewhat promising, though, that my writers are clearly the thoughtful, cat personallities. It implies to a degree that they're gifted.

I have a phone call to make...

The Liver

In Shakespearean times, the liver, not the heart, was the place where emotion sprung from. Which strikes me as funny. By that logic, James Bond would be an emotional wreck from too many unstirred martinis.

Yesterday was my birthday. Today I had a party. I chose as my way to celebrate it that I would be serenely cheerful all day long, and all day yesterday, no matter what happened. I wouldn't rise to any baiting, I would dodge all arguments, I would be unavailable for questioning when stressful subjects of conversation arose, and I would just all around keep my blood pressure down and be not annoyed. At all. So when my sister starts saying, "Hey, host guy, the pan cookie/cake that you planned is undercooked." I just said, hey, whatever, I'm not the host nor the cook today.

I don't know how smooth that was on everyone elses' nerves.... Although...none of them are mad at me. Everyone seems pretty happy, pretty groovy. And, what's more, all the important things happened. The meal I decided I wanted got cooked and eaten. All my guests appeared, grinned for a while, gave me presents, and left, as I wanted them to. Got a pretty good haul too. Better than some of the last few years.

Getting presents is an odd sort of thing. One's possessions obviously don't define one. But they are a tangible expression of one's tastes, desires, ideas, their coloration more or less. And gifts are, more or less, a tangible expression of the feelings others have toward one. Or an expression of how they perceive one's tastes, desires, ideas, and, more or less, their color.

But a gift is more than that, because it's a representation of time spent by the presenter thinking about the receiver. So it gets me wondering why some years you might get better gifts than other years. Is it trully the gifts that are better? Or do you just feel better about the stuff sometimes? Are you getting quantifiably better stuff, or have they just caught you on a good day?

This year, I have a feeling that my gifts have reflected a level of comfort and confidence I have in my own opinions of my life and who I am. I sort of had no idea what I wanted, so when people asked me I'd say, "something cool." And everything I got fell into that categorie--lookit, English. But the pretty crazy thing was that only a few of my invitees even asked what I wanted. Yet I got great stuff anyway. Which could possibly be my perspective.

As an example: I got this sheeve--sheef?--big stack of paper. Three holed paper, blank, no lines, not blindingly bleach white but sort of grainy a bit. Just this stack of paper in its original plastic wrapping. It didn't look brand new, and it wasn't in any wrapping paper. It said to me that my aunt was beginning to leave her house, when she realized she had no present for me. So she looked around, said to herself that I might like that, and picked it up.

It was one of my favorite presents, even taking all that into consideration. I just liked it. Nice stack of paper. A novel that just needs to be written down. A big fuck off novel. It'll be a beautiful book. She even gave me a champagne pen which looked as if it'd been sitting around in its original wrapper for five or six years.

I got the first two Bourne movies and Monty Python and the Holy Grail too, and three wicked awesome CDs. And some other stuff, including, but not limited to, tee-shirts with subtle political messages.

So the two days of whateverness are quite completed. I'm pretty frakking tired, feeling fly and swank and a bit older. And I'm thinking on my stress level, and on everyone else's. There was a great deal of trust that went into this operation. I said, "As celebration, I shall invite mine chums over, and we shallt cook mine family victual upon which to sup. Mine family and mine extended family." To give me an excuse to have a party with my chums, and another with the oldsters. And to give my Mom a night off. So right from the beginning, there was everyone trusting that a bunch of spazzy teenagers would be able to make a meal. And no one said that we needed a backup plan for if/when we spazzed out and didn't deliver. No one said that. I did plan for a lot of extra time for the spazzes. Which proved uncapitalized upon and unnecessary.

Then, when I sociably stopped helping in the cooking operation, I trusted the food would get ready. And it did. I trusted my guests would arrive--I was in charge of invites, so it was touch and go from the get and get--and they did. A lot of little things, like the above mention pan cookie/cake. There was no exchange of instructions, no expectations. Just a sort of trust that important things would come to pass.

And I don't know if that's a postulation into the void: why is not the world always like this? Or if it's a hippy/anarchical/commie strain in me that's coming out of the closet just while I'm sleep deprived.

Anyway, good couple days. I didn't tolerate ill humor, and I didn't notice much for more than a few seconds. Got good gifts. Got older. Decided I might begin pretending to be grown up some of the time, so I never get this: "When are you going to grow up?" And chilled with my home folks.

Good night, and oogidy-booker.