(From http://xkcd.com/693/)
Monday, January 25, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The year in writing
Weeks have gone by since I have finished a story, or even seriously worked at one. Here it is, I openly admit it, and in writing too: My name is Paolo and I'm a non-writer. True, I have an increasingly demanding day job (currently a night job to be technically accurate). And in addition to that, the last month or so has been pretty much taken by moving to a new house, starting to fix up the new place, and dreaming of what it could be like some day soon. Still, at some level, these feel like lame excuses. Time is fluid, shapeless, I try to hold it and it percolates through my fingers, evaporates when it touches the ground in twirling silver clouds. And the more time evaporates this way, the more one feels something is "broken," the harder is to restart the good writing habits.
So I'll use this space to warm up my fingertips, and reminisce the past for the customary declaration war on the future so many of us seem to post in the month of January. 2009 was not bad. I finished up the first mystery novel in the Two Dead Guys series, and went through a first round of rewriting. However I did not submit it, and honestly I feel that it's not quite ready for submission yet.
I have also written a short, urban fantasy novel, Randagio (also in Italian) for which I see no possible commercial outlet. It was fun to write, though, I kept plugging away at it, revising pieces that didn't work, rewriting and adding to it, finding assonances and links with the weird interconnected universe in my head.
For what concern the English speaking (or should I say reading?) world, a couple of stories have been around on the web, one placed in the first 10 or so in the Anthology Builder Contest, another was recommended in the Spec the Halls annual Christmas story review, and even translated into Italian. I received some interesting critiques to one of the stories and have been lucky enough to win a free story critique from an author I admire. And finally, I started it, the big project, the novel I had been planning and collecting scraps for years and years. That's the project I got stuck on, and in retrospective, for good reason: it's daunting, I have been collecting materials for years (a sure symptom of World Builder Disease). And I'm still not comfortable with the storyline. I am almost wondering if it wouldn't be better to restart from scratch. And I have been wondering that for too long now.
In conclusion, while quantity-wise the work done was not bad, I think I missed the spark, the motivation to go out of my way to produce work to be proud of. Or, sometimes, the will to publish and distribute it. Changing all that should be part of my resolutions for 2010:
I'll try to remember this every single day.
So I'll use this space to warm up my fingertips, and reminisce the past for the customary declaration war on the future so many of us seem to post in the month of January. 2009 was not bad. I finished up the first mystery novel in the Two Dead Guys series, and went through a first round of rewriting. However I did not submit it, and honestly I feel that it's not quite ready for submission yet.I have also written a short, urban fantasy novel, Randagio (also in Italian) for which I see no possible commercial outlet. It was fun to write, though, I kept plugging away at it, revising pieces that didn't work, rewriting and adding to it, finding assonances and links with the weird interconnected universe in my head.
For what concern the English speaking (or should I say reading?) world, a couple of stories have been around on the web, one placed in the first 10 or so in the Anthology Builder Contest, another was recommended in the Spec the Halls annual Christmas story review, and even translated into Italian. I received some interesting critiques to one of the stories and have been lucky enough to win a free story critique from an author I admire. And finally, I started it, the big project, the novel I had been planning and collecting scraps for years and years. That's the project I got stuck on, and in retrospective, for good reason: it's daunting, I have been collecting materials for years (a sure symptom of World Builder Disease). And I'm still not comfortable with the storyline. I am almost wondering if it wouldn't be better to restart from scratch. And I have been wondering that for too long now.
In conclusion, while quantity-wise the work done was not bad, I think I missed the spark, the motivation to go out of my way to produce work to be proud of. Or, sometimes, the will to publish and distribute it. Changing all that should be part of my resolutions for 2010:
- Send my word around the interwebs, submit it to who might like it, publish it, or just read it for fun. Don't let is sit in some virtual drawer.
- Revise and rewrite: there might be a destination for the first Two Dead Guys chapter, if I look hard enough for it and if I have something decent to show for my work.
- Write (at least) one new story I'm proud of, submit it for the free critique I won.
- Seriously think about scraping the Big Project and restarting on something I feel I can tackle.
I'll try to remember this every single day.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Scratching my head with an open-sourced robotic arm
A few things come to mind reading Cory's latest work: optimistic, fascinating, charming, wait am I reading the same novel as last chapter, is he making this up as he goes. Unfortunately makers does not have the tight plot and tension of Little Brother, and if the nerd family saga is fascinating, the novel wanders here and there for a long time before getting somewhere. Still one wonders why some parts of the novel are there at all, or so much attention is given to viewpoint characters that fade then in the background. Cory also needs a new editor, like Little Brother this work is replete with repetitions and even the occasional wrong tense.
And then there's the Sex Scene, or we could perhaps call it the *OMG Nerd Sex Alert* I want to think about this as some sort of in-joke, especially because Usenet is mentioned at some point of the novel. A total break from the tone and vocabulary of the novel which read exactly like those old alt.sex.stories posts. Don't get me wrong, there is lots of good stuff here. Tons of it, in fact. I just wish I got to read the actual novel, and not this first draft that somehow ended up printed.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
I'll take mine blended
Friday, January 1, 2010
My 2009 Reading List
The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, Michael Scott
The Shadow in the North: A Sally Lockhart Mystery, Philip Pullman
The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics, Julian Barbour
Twilight , Stephenie Meyer
Winterkill, C. J. Box
Savage Run, C. J. Box
Open Season, C. J. Box
Ni fleurs, ni couronnes: Sanchez Abuli, Jordi Bernet
The Way Some People Die, Ross Macdonald
The Criminal, Jim Thompson
Budding Prospects: A Pastoral, T.C. Boyle
Savage Night, Jim Thompson
Cristiani di Allah, Massimo Carlotto
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, Otto Penzler, Tony Hillerman, eds.
The Tiger in the Well (Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Book 3), Philip Pullman
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
20th Century Boys, Tome 15, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 14, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 13, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, tome 12, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 11, Naoki Urasawa
Il signor figlio, Alessandro Zaccuri
20th Century Boys, Tome 10, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 9, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 8, Naoki Urasawa
Il bravo figlio, Vittorio Bongiorno
20th Century Boys, tome 6, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 5, Naoki Urasawa
Pinocchio, Winshluss
20th Century Boys, Volume 3, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Volume 2: The Prophet, Naoki Urasawa
La modista. Un romanzo con guardia e ladri, Andrea Vitali,
The Getaway, Jim Thompson
Pop. 1280, Jim Thompson
Sans feu ni lieu, Fred Vargas
Coule la Seine, Fred Vargas
Un lieu incertain, Fred Vargas: Livres
Tex. Uomini in guerra, Sergio Bonelli, Gianluigi Bonelli, Aurelio Galleppini
Zanardi. Ediz. critica, Andrea Pazienza
Versus, Chainas Antoine
Le sale tour, Ballester/Walsh
L'élégance du hérisson, Muriel Barbery
La solitudine dei numeri primi, Paolo Giordano
Out of Range, C. J. Box
Europa molto amore, Giorgio Scerbanenco
The Land of Curiosities (Book 1): Adventures in Yellowstone, 1871-1872 , Deanna Neil
Our Stories Remember: American Indian History, Culture, and Values through Storytelling, Joseph Bruchac
Il giorno prima della felicità, Erri De Luca
Mi fido di te, Francesco Abate, Massimo Carlotto
Belle et Sébastien, Aubry Cécile, Jean Reschofsky
Cycler, Lauren McLaughlin
Ariel, Steven R. Boyett
Alinda of the Loch, Oonagh Jane Pope, Julie Ann Brown
Idi di marzo, Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Free Fire, C. J. Box
New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2), Stephenie Meyer
A Hell of a Woman, Jim Thompson
99 francs, Frederic Beigbeder
Dopo lunga e penosa malattia, Andrea Vitali
Liar , Justine Larbalestier
The Somnambulist:, Jonathan Barnes
The Angel Experiment, James Patterson
Indigo Springs, A.M. Dellamonica
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1), Rick Riordan
Per nessun motivo, Marco Vichi
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
Morte a Firenze. Un'indagine del commissario Bordelli, Marco Vichi
La ragazza che giocava con il fuoco , Stieg Larsson
Blake et Mortimer, tome 10 : L'affaire du collier, Edgar Pierre Jacobs
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