Merry Christmas!

Every now and then, a man has to pour a cold glass of vodka, wrap presents, and watch movies like The Santa Clause 2 and White Christmas. When this kind of thing is done, there’s a distinct chance that something maudlin will come of it, but sometimes that’s a risk a man has to take.

‘Course, it’s hard to be a cranky old bastard when one’s 5 year old is singing Christmas songs to himself in bed because he’s too excited to sleep. Another rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Why not?

*calls from bedroom* “Did you hear that, Daddy?”

“Yes, now go to sleep.”

“Wasn’t it pretty?”

*heart cracks into several hundred small pieces* *smiling* “Yes, honey.”

“Okay, I’ll sing you another one now, okay?”

*dies from cuteness overdose*

All this to say, sometimes it’s worthwhile to see Christmas through the eyes of a child. So in that vein, I’ll wish you all a Christmas filled with wonder and delight, friends.

And now I’m going to set the ol’ cynicism aside for a while so I can enjoy my children’s enjoyment of the holiday. I expect loveliness.

See you next year!

In which I grovel…. >.<

It is time now, yes, for me to grovel, it’s true.

And admittedly grovelling’s long overdue,

Since I failed to do something, like, two months ago:

To send out 10 submissions to markets, you know.

So why should I grovel? Well, I blame Mercedes.

(So convenient for me to blame things on the ladies.)

See, way back in September? I think it was, yes.

On the Twitter, a nice group of writers confessed

That they hadn’t submitted to markets in ages,

And that’s just no way to treat fictional pages.

(Mercedes gets blame because she instigated

This stuff. So this jam of mine? Yeah, she created.)

Thus the #10bythen hashtag was born. Off we went

To submit work to journals! The emails were sent.

But what happens if we can’t fulfill these demands

And let manuscripts sit in our hot, sweaty hands?

Well, at that point, the consequence, sadly, must be

That we grovel and snivel obsequiously.

Then the folk who got off of their asses and subbed

Can laugh at us losers whose asses they drubbed.

And so here I go with the grovelling thing

And I hope it’s appropriately snivelling.

Mercedes, you win, like you usually do.

I guess it is my fault for challenging you.

And Cate? Dear, you win. I salute you, good lass,

For submitting ten times, thereby beating my ass.

Then, Kaolin, sir. Did you win? I forget.

Just in case, here’s a grovel. Am I done? Not yet.

I think Kate was in on the madness as well,

So she gets a miserable grovel, by hell!

Now who else was in on this thing? Oh, how sad

That I cannot remember the crew. I am bad.

But I guess with this memory-lapse thing I should

Cut this short, cuz my rhyme scheme’s not looking so good.

And so if I forgot you? Forsooth! Please just yell

In the comments and I shall include you as well.

And now that I’ve rolled Dr. Seuss in his grave,

I’ll desist from this rhyming, return to my cave,

Where I’ll write and submit and get back on the tracks,

So that I don’t end up with more virtual smacks.

So congrats to the #10bythen crew. You all rock!

(Now I hope you get coal in your Festivus sock.)*

This godawful poem brought to you by the #10bythen challenge on Twitter, which I lost about a month and a half ago, but never got round to apologizing for. I left a boatload of people out, but I’m sure a few will remind me of their participation and demand revisions to this thing.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

*I don’t really hope this. It did rhyme nicely, though, didn’t it?

The never-ending to-do list….

Saturday morning. I woke to the sound of small feet pattering toward the precipitous drop down the attic stairs, levered myself out of bed, and, clutching a happily-squeaking toddler, stumbled down to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. As the caffeine trickled into my nervous system, I began to catalog the list of things that could be done today. It looks kind of like this:

• Drive a new electrical ground and hook it to both the new and old panelboards.
• Finish the scroll cuts on the toy refrigerator I’m building for my daughter for her birthday (a couple of weeks after Christmas), and glue the front frame of the fridge together.
• Run to Lowe’s to return an extra piece of HVAC ducting and scout for small hand tools I don’t have yet so I can drop hints regarding stocking stuffers. :)
• Run to Target to return a toy, then to BJs to get credit for the spoiled quart of soymilk we found in the 3-pack.
• Pick up baby wipes somewhere.
• Take apart two wood pallets and build another compost pile enclosure for the back yard.
• Figure out some kind of casserole for dinner.
• Pick up a stocking stuffer or two for my wife.
• Put away my laundry.
• Hang a bit more sheetrock in the upstairs closet.
• Try to prevent the kids from destroying the house with small arms fire and improvised explosive devices.

It’s kind of a lot.

But we’re not done yet, friends. Why? Because I’m a writer. Not only do I have all the usual family and home responsibilities, but I have multiple writing projects in various stages of planning or execution. Let’s see…there’s:

• Two short stories to polish/rewrite for submission to journals.
• Two short stories needing the first draft completed.
• One flash fiction piece needing the first draft completed.
• One novel outline to be completed and more writing on the already-outlined portions.
• Two novels in the brainstorming/pre-planning phase.
• One novella project, recently acquired, in the back-of-the-mind, idea-generation phase.
• One tiny contest deadline coming up just after Christmas.
• Finish reading The Scene Book, since it’s always good to keep developing one’s craft.
• Finish reading As I Lay Dying, since it’s always good to see how literary geniuses played with form and storytelling.

Yeah.

I don’t think I’m alone in this, either. Most writers I know have families or significant others or, at the very least, dayjob responsibilities. Makes carving out writing time hard, doesn’t it? (And, sadly, many of us carve out time at the expense of sleep, which ain’t necessarily the healthiest of choices.)

It’s something they don’t tell you when you sign up for this profession: you will never, ever feel as though you’re done. Complete one book? There’s another one waiting in the wings. Sell one short story? Time to resubmit others. You’re never finished, never quite content with what you’ve accomplished thus far. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

So  how do I plan on getting through my writerly to-do list? Same way I’ll be getting through my regular to-do list. One thing at a time. One written word at a time, writer-friends.

How about you? How’s your task list looking these days? Any time-management strategies you want to pass along? (‘Cause I could sure use ‘em.)

Social Networking Awesomesauce

Friends, bloggers, countrypeople (I’m all about the gender inclusivity here): lend me your eyeballs. This is a random-ish post to sing the praises of this whole social networking thing that all the cool kids writers are doing these days. Yes, perhaps I’m preaching to the choir, but perhaps you’ll indulge me a moment? I’ll be quick.

See, some of you may already know Donna Carrick. She and her husband, Alex Carrick, are about the nicest writer-couple I know. They’re talented, too! Donna’s had three books published already (you can find ‘em on Amazon), and Alex, who specializes in short fiction, garnered an honorable mention in the 2010 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Contest.

So why am I mentioning them? Well, Donna’s novel, The First Excellence: Fa-Ling’s Map, was selected as The Sunday Book Review’s top read of 2010.

So of course, as the top-slot author, Donna was interviewed. And wouldn’t you know, when she was asked about new authors who’d grabbed her interest, she mentioned Jeremy C. Shipp, Gint Aras, and…me! Say what?

Needless to say, I’m unbelievably honored that Donna enjoyed my most recently published short story enough to mention me in her interview. Seriously. Floored.

So how do I know Donna?

Twitter. For the win.

Oh, and one more thing before I go: THANK YOU, DONNA!

Write on, friends.

It's Carrie's Birthday!

And by Carrie I mean Carrie Kei Heim Binas, whose lovely blog you can find right here. So in celebration, she’s encouraged her bloggie friends to post pictures of themselves at age 16. I believe it has something to do with there being an entire person of legal drinking age (in the US) between her and her 16-year-old self. I’m not far behind her, either, so I figured I’d play along.

(On an unrelated note, should a man of my age even be considering writing things likes “totes” and ZOMG in blog posts and on Twitter, even if only ironically? Probably not. Ach, hell, I like to buck convention. Screw it. LOL! ROFL! *cough*)

Funnily enough, one of my friends from high school has been posting pics of the old crew on her Facebook account, which is quite handy, since I don’t have to go digging up printed photographs and scanning and cropping them and such. W00T! So here’s me around age 16.


This makes me look SO much cooler than I actually was....

 I think my favorite part of that pic is the rayon jacket. I mean, Nicole hanging on my back is cute and all, but those jackets are for the win.

Anyone else playing? Do tell, peeps! And even if you’re not playing along, swing on by and wish Carrie a happy birthday, won’t you?

Cheers, all!

Everything I know about collaboration I learned from Stilettos & Shirley Temples....

So Mercedes and I finished up our collaborative web serial last week. It was a helluva lot of fun, and I think both of us learned a few new tricks along the way, so I’m quite happy to classify that project as a success. And, since I learned how to collaborate better, I thought I’d ruminate on that for you, O loyal minions stooges flunkies blog readers.

*cough*

Where was I? Ah, yes. Collaboration.

Stilettos & Shirley Temples hasn’t been my only chance at collaboration, mind you. I had one opportunity fall through, and understandably so. See, the other writer’s methods just didn’t jive with mine, so after a few exploratory conversations, it turned out the collaboration got junked. This is perfectly fine. Not everyone’s cut out for collaborations. Or perhaps it was just this project. Either way, that story’s getting written solely by the other writer, and it’ll be awesome.

(See how coy I’m being? You totally don’t know if the other writer’s a guy or a gal, do you? I’m clever like that.)

And, to be sure, Merc and I weren’t collaborating much for most of the serial. We were competing, mainly, each trying to see if they could write the other into a corner. Neither of us succeeded. Which was awesome.

But the finale? Total collab. See, we divvied up the writing duties on that one as follows:

• Mercedes decided that Craze had a bunker in the desert, and got us out there.
• I got us into the bunker and up to the confrontation with Leo.
• Merc wrote the confrontation with Leo, then handed it back to me.
• I wrote the final shootout and evacuation, and then
• Merc brought it home with the hospital scene.

Working this way accomplished a couple things. First, it allowed Mercedes to set up the main action (she’s exceptionally good at dreaming up plot twists, fyi). And second, it played to one of my strengths, which seems to be writing action sequences. (Incidentally, I had no idea I had a knack for that until we started this project.)  Then we both went through and rewrote the sections the other had written to create a consistent POV in both versions of the finale.

Really, I’m rather pleased with how the whole thing turned out. And the whole shebang was arranged via emails, the occasional Twitter DM, and one brief Google chat. Cross-platform collaboration FTW!

But were we to collaborate in future, say on something we intended to submit for traditional publication, there are a few things we’d have to change. Namely:

1. The project would have to play to both our strengths;
2. Pantsing would be right out. An outline to keep us both on track would be pretty much mandatory;
3. We’d both have to be flexible enough to adapt and change as the project grew, and
4. We’d need to respect each other’s opinion enough to take any critiques needed to make the work stronger.

I’m sure Mercedes and I have items 3 and 4 in the bag. We both managed to roll with whatever the other came up with on a weekly basis, and I sure as hell respect both her writing and her work ethic. Numbers 1 and 2? That’s the tricky bit. What kind of project would play to both our strengths? How would we come up with an outline together, since neither of us has worked that way before?

Those are questions for the future, methinks. We’ll keep you posted!

What about you, dear readers? Ever collaborated on a project? Any lessons for the rest of us? Have you ever thrown a live rattler into a corridor full of gunmen with itchy trigger fingers? Do tell, won’t you?