Some of you know of my misadventures in joining a certain writing organization. For those of you who don’t, here’s a brief, non-name-calling overview: I joined under one set of rules, said set of rules changed mid-game, there was much celebrating as me and many others hit the bricks.

All of this fun and excitement happened a year ago, at least. So, why am I now writing about it? Because I have a fun habit of trolling the Internet and finding fun tidbits to read that are the equivalent of taking sharpened bamboo sticks to my fingernail beds. I found a blog of a writer who not only thinks the organization was correct in the handling of this matter, but that he was sorry he missed the ‘fun’ of watching us unworthies shuffled to the door. He imagined with great amusement the gilded halls being cleansed of the class dunces. In his eyes, those of us still in the process of writing novels or getting our short stories out to market weren’t ‘serious’ writers, but parasitic fanboys hanging about hoping Mr. Bestseller would make his spectacular return to their ranks. In this writer’s words, we unpublished were obviously not cut out for the professional writing life simply because we didn’t meet their ridiculous goal of selling one 250 word-count story or (get the relevance in this) a movie review (great job on the legitimacy, guys). Because I had greater sights for my story than a 75,000 word-count and a single viewpoint with zero plot twists, I was nothing. According to him, I guess I still am.

Okay, anger aside — this isn’t about the organization. They’re free to act on whatever spasmodic notion they feel can propel them to the heights enjoyed by other, more respected, organizations. It’s their game, not mine. This goes back to the writers who somehow feel superior because they’ve managed to land a couple of short stories in a magazine. It goes back to those who are supposed to be leaning down from their lofty perches and lending a hand, but are instead gleefully taking their boot heels to the fingers of those who are still struggling to climb. It goes back to the age-old saying:

Why can’t we all just get along?

Oh well. I’ve always said I wasn’t a joiner. I just tend to forget now and again. Things like this only serve to remind me that I do better on my own, anyway.

Can you hear my spurs jangling as I ride off into the sunset?

Fortunately for me, the sunset is also in the direction of the movie theater parking lot, so I can go see Grindhouse.

Blood, guts, and Tarantino. Can’t get a better mood-lift than that.

And, to those who insist on looking down, a message from Bif (kinda dumb video, but the song’s what matters, here):

It all started at dinner at my in-laws. They live forty minutes away from us in a town that makes ours look like New York City. It’s an old waterman community where people are happy to live small lives, spending their days immersed in one another’s business, exhausting themselves to the point that bedtime comes at five-thirty in the evening. My in-laws had moved away from there as teens, but recently decided they missed their siblings and moved back.

While we were having dinner, my mother in-law called her sister who lives down the street and asked her if she and her husband wanted leftovers. An hour later, the husband dropped in to fetch the warming food. He’d just come back from church and was bursting with the news of local vandals who’d tipped over the cemetery’s headstones and disinterred many of the ancient remains, smashing skulls on the rocks and scattering femurs and humeruses, which local dogs picked up and brought home as unwelcome prizes.

Of course, the townsfolk blame the desecration on the residents of the new home for troubled boys, despite the fact those kids are locked down and watched much closer than the longtime street-wandering teens who have zero to do on a weekend night out in the middle of nowhere. No. It couldn’t possibly be Donny’s kid, or Bobby’s. Couldn’t be Ricky’s, or Danny’s kid (yeah, every man’s name does end in a ‘y’). It has to be those out-of-towners. Fortunately, that particular community is devoid of Goths, because they’d be nailed to the nearest wall faster than it would make one’s head spin. No one would listen to the fact that Goths are happy posing for photographs under the looming monoliths (or possibly having sex on the grass above a resting body). It wouldn’t matter to these honest, church-going folk that Goths rarely have zeal enough to go about tipping over headstones, or that destroying the highly regarded denizens of the underground amounts to a mini-sacrilege within the Goth community. It’s always the ones who are obviously different who are to blame — never the one right under their noses.

We were sitting around the living room talking about the headstone tipping and the possible culprits. My in-laws voiced the opinion that it was merely a bunch of bored kids. Then, the bomb dropped. My uncle said something about not understanding why kids would hang out in a graveyard, and my seventy-something, tiny mother-in-law said, “I could tell you something about graveyards.”

It turns out my sweet, loving mother-in-law used to go with a bunch of kids to an ancient, abandoned cemetery and blow up graves. She and her cohorts would find a vault with an ajar lid and dump gasoline down into the chasm below and set a match to it and let the entire mess blow, burning the contents to char.

My mother-in-law.

An ex-amateur arsonist.

I’m still collecting my jaw from the floor.

We meet people and incorporate them into our lives under the title to which we’re introduced. For twelve years she’s acted like my spouse’s mother and for twelve years I’ve viewed her as the woman who gave up many things to raise two really great kids. I let myself be lulled into accepting that relationship as it was presented to me. I let myself forget she had once been young and silly — and apparently a little bit freaky. When the reminder came, it was in the form of a right-hook.

It’s amazing, because I’m painfully aware of the stages of my own life, the evolution of the being that has become the ‘me’ I currently recognize in the mirror. I can point out every part of my existence and understand how that stage affected, and helped form, the next. But, when it comes to other people, I drop the ball. I forget that those in my life haven’t always been what they are now.

One of my mother-in-law’s favorite words is ‘Hellion.’ I think the next time I see her, I’ll ask how she feels her adventures in grave defacing formed who she is today, see if she can recognize that bit of hellion still existing within herself. Because I’m pretty sure I can. Now that I’m done being floored by her confession, I’m really not all that surprised. The woman’s got fire. Spunk. Under that small frame, behind those smiling brown eyes, that hellion is still lurking under the surface, just waiting to spring another one on me.

According to my writing partner, the new, revised ending works much better. I tend to agree, but it was nice to have a little outside validation. I’m setting my sights on the end of April to have the entirety ready for submission to the first round of agents.

I spent the weekend in Philly again. I went to go see Type-O-Negative with S. Not a good show. First, a band called Carfax Abbey opened. I’m a fan of most of Dancing Ferret’s promotions, and I love Dracula’s Ball. But (big, hairy but), I was not in the least impressed with the lead singer of Carfax Abbey. The dude came out with fake blood streaming from his eyes. He proceeded to alternately screech and yell his lyrics while looking like he was so messed up on drugs that he didn’t know where the hell he was. Could’ve been part of the act, but not likely. Those six songs took an eternity. I’ve never before stood at a show and stared at the ceiling for twenty minutes. It was that bad.

Then, another, better band whose name I can’t recall came on. Their same six-song set moved quickly. Then, it was Type O Negative’s turn. For those of you unfamiliar with the band, Peter Steele is the lead singer (see above photo). He has this bass voice that literally shakes your bones. He’s massive — must be seven feet — with long, shaggy hair and deep-set eyes that he historically keeps rolled back in his head while singing. He was at one time known to hang an upright bass around his neck by a chain and play it like a guitar. So, with the knowledge of this Legend in my expectant little mind, I got a little excited when the lights dimmed and the intro began, a recorded track of the Leave it to Beaver song. Funny.

Something, however, wasn’t right. The roadies hadn’t left the stage. The Leave it to Beaver song replayed again. And again. And again. It was on an incessant loop as the roadies swarmed the stage. It was the second night of the tour after a three-year hiatus. There were bound to be some snags. They crossed off songs on the play list, added new ones and then reprogrammed the entire mess. One grizzled veteran of the stage was kind enough to show us his wrinkled butt. People initially shouted, “You suck!” which is the appropriate greeting for Type O Negative. Then, the shouts became more irritated, more ominous. The Leave it to Beaver song was, surprisingly, grating on everyone’s last nerve.

Finally, they got everything set and the show began. Peter came out with a normal bass. I’d heard he’d stopped carting around the upright, so, that was okay. Everyone’s getting old, I guess. He played two songs, and then motioned to a roadie. The roadie brought out a chair, and Peter parked himself behind a music stand, never to be seen again. We were maybe fifteen feet from him, yet couldn’t see anything but the occasional bob of his massive head. He apologized, of course, and said he had a back problem. Having back issues, I have to give him credit for even showing up. Still, it didn’t lessen my disappointment at not seeing the Legend on stage, but just a dude.

The sets went by fast, and they didn’t come out for an encore. It was an anticlimactic ending to a mediocre day. People milled about the floor of the Trocadero as if confused. Some wondered if it was a test to see who the most loyal fans were — those worthy of an encore. But, then the staff told everyone to beat it, and that was that.

It reminded me of the Rob Zombie concert we went to last fall. Rob — who used to have mangled, makeup caked dreads, a fully made-up face and tons of badass costumes — came out with regular rocker-guy clothes and plain, mouse-brown (albeit long) hair. He didn’t hop around the stage like he used to, but did, on occasion, stand on one of the low amps.

That’s one thing I can say about the lead singer of Carfax Abbey, the dork climbed all the way up on one of the big amps. He was right above us and looked as if he wanted to stage dive. S. and I looked at one another, and — in one of those moments that happens with married couples — said simultaneously, “I’m not catching him.”

But, there was no moshing, and I again avoided getting a boot to the head. As I said before, that tilts the odds in favor of it being an overall winning night. I did, however bring back a cold, which I’ll blame on the dude coughing next to me the entire time. I can’t stand being in a public place when someone coughs. Anyone who’s seen the beginning of Outbreak knows why.

So, S. and I messed around Philly for a couple of days and then carted ourselves back to the eastern shore Saturday night. Today, it’s back to work. I’ve got to implement the minor changes suggested by my writing cohort and then finish working my way through the entirety of the text, making a few changes here and there and ensuring my spelling and grammar is as good as it’s going to get. I also have an idea for another short story, so maybe I’ll bang it out by the end of the week.

Before I put fingers to keyboard, I knew this post would be a little unfocused, probably because I am. But, I’ll spare you the reasons why and just move on to the meandering.

I finished the first draft of my potential candidate for the Writer’s Digest competition. I never thought I’d write a vampire story, but I did. I tend to be of the opinion that the vampire angle is generally played out. Whether I put a fresh spin on it or just convinced myself I did is yet to be decided.

My mind kept messing with me today, dredging up childhood memories to put into the story, not letting me let go of the issues dogging my heels. True to my twisted nature, though, I feel those bits made it a more solid story. I’ve discussed this tendency of mine in my other (long out of use) blog on MySpace, and I promised not to repeat content, so, I’ll let that topic slide.

I usually can’t write with music on. I’m one of those people who can do one thing at a time. I can walk and chew gum, but other than that, I’m pretty much useless in the multitasking department. But, today I started playing my I-tunes playlist as I wandered around the house, and couldn’t bring myself to shut it off. So, I wrote with Vast, Sentenced, Poison Black, Tapping the Vein, Depeche Mode and Paradise Lost for company. Yeah, I was in a goth-y mood.

The other thought that’s been plaguing my mind has nothing to do with the above. It has to do with our local news station and their commercial encouraging viewers to snap photos or take video of “news.” They’re actually encouraging idiots to stand in front of someone’s burning house or car accident and take pictures for them! I’ve already expressed my lack of enthusiasm for journalism as a whole, but this goes beyond obnoxious and right into sleazy. I can’t imagine watching my house burn down and see some jackass with a camera phone taking shots of it. And those that would do it? The worst of humanity.

Alright. I’m gonna go have some wine before my pissy mood leaks all over the Internet and causes some sort of massive crash.

Here’s a video for a song that makes me want to break things (more than I already do). It’s Get Your Body Beat, by Combichrist. If you ever get a chance to see them live — DO IT! They’re amazing and the drummers alone will make you feel exhausted just by watching them. I got to see them open for KMFDM at Sonar in Baltimore. That was the night I was almost squashed to death against the barrier (I was stupid enough to be up front) and some fool put his cigarette out on my shoulder. But, a night with no combat boots to the head is always counted as a winner.

I’m a Tarantino fan anyway, but this scene is one of my all-time favorites.

I had a most excellent day today; I finished the re-write of the ending. It’s been a long time coming. How long? I’ve lost track. Please don’t count and tell me because it would harsh my buzz. I’ll just say, “long enough, bordering on too long,” and move on.

As far as moving on goes, the plan is simple; edit and spell check. Repeat. Then, attack agents.

The last time I wrote the ending, I was rushing to get it over with. I was tired of the story and just wanted to head on to phase two. Having some distance from it, I cans see that now. This time, though, I studied the ending and wrote numerous pages of illegible ideas on how to wrap it up. I made index cards and charts. I thought about who had what power and how they could use it. With help from my writing partner, ‘J’ (who is a master of all things fantasy and won’t let me get away with pulling a rabbit — no matter how magical — out of my ass to resolve plot issues), I fine-tuned it even more. And I think I’ve come upon the winning contestant.

My plan is to have the first round of submissions out to agents by the end of May — so I don’t turn another year older without being able to say I’ve finished (and I mean finished) this book (not including the slew of revisions I’ll have to face once I’m accepted. But, that’s a different, distant angst).

I’m now eying the Writer’s Digest short story competition, thinking I might conjure up a little something to give myself a break here and there while editing. Entries are due in mid-May and there’s a $3,000 grand prize along with promised meetings with editors or agents. Not too shabby. And it’s open to genre writers, which is a rarity. The word count is 4,000 words maximum, which equals roughly sixteen pages. That’s a chapter. A sneeze of an effort for a seasoned scribe with a tendency towards wordiness. Minutia, in fact.

You know what would be good? If all of the dark writers out there submitted something. We could saturate their pool with fantasy, horror and paranormal romance and give the vanilla crowd a run for their money.

But, that’s a concern for tomorrow. For the moment, though, I’m going to lean back from my keyboard with the satisfied sigh of one who’s gnawed their way through the eighty-six ounce steak, and enjoy my high.

Excellent.

Age. Why is it such an important issue? Or rather, why is youth?

I don’t feel like I’m getting ‘old’. I don’t really think I look it, but lately the slew of advertisements and movies starring people born in the eighties, and (gasp) even the nineties is striving to prove me wrong. Everywhere I look, teen appeal is pounding into my brain the fact that youth has somehow crept away from me in the night as I slept, and I’m well over the age where hippies of old insisted I could no longer be trusted.

As I blame society and The System for most things, I think I’ll stick to my usual for this as well. Someone, somewhere along the line said, “Youth is where it’s at.” And everyone followed. True, there can be arguments made about evolution and the drive to reproduce with the youngest, and thereby most virile, of the species. Yet, I can’t hold our base nature responsible for the total disregard our society has for those who’ve crested the ripe old age of twenty-five.

Young people are dumb. It’s not their fault. They just have no experience. They run out in the world thinking they know everything, and find out they know nothing. I know; I’ve done it myself. Even though I’m lamenting my fate as an initiate of the wrinkled set, I really don’t know how far back into my youth I would go to reclaim that former idyllic visage. Being young was the hardest thing I had to do. So why am I in such a huff about its demise? And why, when most people recognize this fact, is youth so revered?

I think it’s all about ideal. An unlined face. A supple body. A muscle-to-fat ratio that isn’t tipped crazily in the wrong direction. It doesn’t matter what’s under the hood, as long as the looks are there. Take Anna Nicole Smith (I know, we’re all sick of hearing about her, but she’s a prime example, so bear with me). Anna was dumb as a bag of bricks. But, she was beautiful. She graced the cover of Playboy and became a Guess model (something, I’ve heard, that’s difficult to do). Her beauty outweighed her lack of mental ability. Whatever she did, whatever she may, or may not have injected into her system, she was beauty incarnate — and all was good. Then, age began to creep up. That bright red lipstick only served to coarsen her tanned, slightly weathered face. Her mouth sagged just a bit. Even thin again, she wasn’t the Anna she used to be. She was ‘old’ and her looks no longer buffered her from those who sought to exploit her deficits. She became the media’s clown. That’s my theory, anyway.

Unfortunately, I’m not immune to this societal disease. I’ve made Resonance twenty-three (of course, if I were to make her any older the fact that she still lives with her mother would start to veer away from irritating and dive straight into creepy). Still, I could have made Quinn much older. Instead, he’s twenty-five — shouldering just enough years to appear mature without having him suffer the burden of all those gross wrinkles. The characters in my next book are also young (physically, at least). Why? Why am I feeding into this misconception that those who’ve reached over a quarter of a century are nose-diving into the grave? Maybe because I know what sells, and, in the end, I’m still society’s bitch, whether I want to be or not.

I do admire the fantasy writers who’ve broken free of this chokehold. Kelley Armstrong has Paige, a thirty-something witch with a few extra pounds gracing her frame. A. Lee Martinez’s Duke the Werewolf and Earl the vampire were well into their middle years when made immortal. Even Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake storms through her thirties with way more vigor than I can muster.

Maybe this is all a bout of hypersensitivity because the face I see in the mirror is no longer the one I remember. Up to a point, every year brought positive changes — the chubby cheeks and the diminutive features morphed into a larger head, more defined jaw line and adult-sized bits and pieces. Then, the changes seemed to stop. For a few years it appeared that time had indeed ceased to march on and I would remain in that state forever. I was fooled. Robbed. The first lines began to appear at the edges of my eyes. The creases of my mouth sagged a little more. And I realized that time was nowhere near finished wreaking its havoc on my face.

Even more disheartening is the never-ending parade of youth marching behind me. For a while I could pretend we were the same age — almost. Now, though, there’s no getting around the fact I’m no longer carded in most establishments. Luckily, I’m in a profession where my brain is more important than my appearance. And, when it comes time for that headshot, well, I’ll be happy that some time-reversing prodigies invented filtered lighting and Photoshop.

When I was a kid, everyone smoked. I’m young enough not to recall people smoking in movie theaters or supermarkets, but I do remember the tall canisters at the entrance to every department store — those alluring mini-sandboxes my mom would always utilize, but never let me play in.

Back then, ashtrays were art. The best were glass and had a matching tabletop lighter, so all of ones’ friends could light up in style. The coffee table ashtrays were made for the cigarette to casually rest, perfectly balanced within one of the deep, wide V’s ringing it. The cheap plastic ones (more often seen about my house because of the convenient portability) had those narrow channels my mom would — on the rarest of occasions — be forced to crumple and bend her cigarette into. It would tightly hold the burning remains hostage while she attended some urgent matter (usually involving me, and yelling). More often than not, though, those little depressions remained unmarred. I never saw a party where a cluster of my parents’ friends gathered around the ashtray, propping their individual vices in the slots provided. Instead, they clutched them (in all the various styles that gave a spark of individuality to a common habit), or swung them about as they spoke, or forced them to share space in their hand with a drink.

It seems to me smokers like to be close to their smoke. Never once did I see my grandmother put hers down. Not even for a photo. Throughout our family album, she’s there in her chair, one leg slung over the other, right elbow on the armrest. Her hand is lifted casually to the sky, cigarette nestled between her fingers like a miniature, glowing extension of her very being.

All of this reminiscing brings me back to the main inspiration for this bit of fluff — the Smokeless Ashtray by Ronco. For those who are too young to know of this invention, it was the Yuletide equivalent of the Chia Pet — marketed heavily once Santa made his way along the Macy’s parade route, only to disappear from television ads the minute the Ball fell in Times Square. The Smokeless Ashtray’s intended purpose is clear in its title; a canister positioned over an ashtray that sucked the smoke up into itself, purportedly relieving everyone else in the room from the negative effects. But, unless the smoker stored his cigarette in the ashtray after each puff (which — by my grand, worldwide observations noted above — is doubtful), it couldn’t have possibly done much to stop a roomful of people from suffering from the effects of someone’s smoke.

Obviously, the most smoke escapes when a smoker exhales. The rest of the time, it’s just a tiny little chimney sending curls of smoke straight up into the air. In order for the smokeless ashtray theory to be properly implemented, the smoke would have to be curtailed when it’s being put out at the highest volume. And here is where a brilliant idea is born — The Smoker’s Helmet. An umbrella-like creation affixed to the head of the smoker that would pull up the exhaled smoke, sucking it into the top of the helmet where it would be disposed of via the Smokeless Ashtray method.

If people could be convinced the Smoker’s Helmet was fashionable, the glorious heyday of my youth could be restored. There would be smoking in the malls, in bars and in restaurants. Moviegoers could again enjoy lighting up in a theater (although there would have to be a Smoker’s Helmet section, because sitting behind one would be like sitting behind Darth Vader). The decorative ashtray could return from its exile and once again grace coffee tables everywhere. And I might just get a chance to play in that sandbox, after all.

http://www.ifilm.com/efp

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Many thanks to Squeaks for making me laugh hard enough to want to write about the Smoker’s Helmet.

Can we trick our readers into thinking they’re in a place that we ourselves have never been? Can we fool them enough to make them believe our characters actually dwell where we say they do? How important is it for us to put ourselves wholly into their shoes before setting fingers to the keyboard?

This topic arises after reading about Sidney Sheldon’s passing. I have to say I’ve never read any of his work, and didn’t even know he was the creator of “I Dream of Jeanie.” The article I read mentioned his habit of traveling to the exotic locales in which he placed his characters, and how he liked to immerse himself in that aspect of the world he was recreating on the page. I began to wonder if a reader could tell if a writer has never been to the location he or she is writing about. Could two writers — one who has been to say, Hawaii, and another who has only done extensive library research on the islands — each write a story and then present it to readers and have them guess which one actually traveled there? Could the readers tell the difference? If so, would it matter to them?

Part of my novel involves ancient Sumer. Because ancient Sumer is now Iraq, it’s safe to say I haven’t been there. I researched the buildings, the people, the culture, but the day-to-day sensations cannot be researched. Here, on the eastern shore of Maryland, I know that on a winter day it will be anywhere from chilly to cold. I know that the sun shines most days and when it doesn’t, the usual precipitation is rain, not snow. I know that when the snow does fall, it sticks to the grass, but not usually the road. I know when it does stick, the next day will most likely be warm enough so that by the afternoon the only evidence that remains of the snow is in plow-blackened mounds by the curb. I know that in five months, it will be in the upper eighties. I know that walking to the car will make me breathless from the moisture-thick air and that my hair will start forming weird little kinks. I know the asphalt will blast arid heat up my legs, but my skin will still be tacky. I know this because I live it every day. What I don’t know — and can’t feel from a book or Internet site — is what midday in Iraq feels like.

All of this leads me back to the original question; is an educated guess enough where setting is involved? Or am I cheating the reader of something, no matter how small it may be?

Image borrowed with thanks from Dawnrazor

A recent posting by SQT, subsequent comments by Stewart about the market saturation of zombies, and a coincidental link from my friend “X” all led me to believe this was exactly what this blog needs right now.

Don’t tell me you’re not doing the claw thing at your desk; I know you are.