The Grammarian, redux

Today over at Write Anything, I talk about my novel WIP, "Goodbye Grammarian". Specifically, I address the question, "It's been more than a year, so where the hell is the damned book?". The post is titled, "Hello Grammarian". Go read!

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A story for Valentine's Day

When you think of Eros, the god of love, you probably don't think of him the way I do. Click on over to my story at Escape Into Life, a perfect one for Valentine's Day: "Straight and True, My Arrow, Fly"

And remember: true love only hurts you as much as you hurt it.

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That's no muse!

I have a stock answer for that perennial question, "Where do your story ideas come from?". Some people talk about being visited by a muse, or about looking at things from a different perspective, or allowing inspiration to strike, or finding the core concept and working outward from there.

Today, I'm thinking about this question so I can write a blog post. My stock answer is long and boring and uninformative. It's all about storycraft, plotting, character development, etc., none of which have anything to do with ideas. So, I'm going to give some thought to this, to try to come up with a better answer than, "My ideas don't come to me. I go to them."

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Don't hesitate to be creative

First, a trailer for a science fiction movie coming out later this year:

That's Iron Sky. Now, a few words about creativity.

At some point a few years ago, Johanna Sinisalo came up with the original story. Jarmo Puskala then came up with the concept for the movie based on that story, and Michael Kalesniko wrote the screenplay, mapping out the action, deciding who would say what and in what sequence, in order to bring this story to life on the screen.

All of this lays out a very rational structure, build up over the basic idea:

Nazis. On the moon. With flying saucers.

I can only imagine the conversations that took place within Ms. Sinisalo's circle of colleagues (and perhaps within her own head) when that idea popped up. Or maybe it was brainstormed in one of those California wheatgrass-chianti-and-tofu fueled group writing binges I've heard so much about.

Nazis. On the moon. With flying saucers.

"Sure," someone probably scoffed, "and why not give them some dinosaurs and vampire unicorns, too?"

"Oooh," chimed in someone else, "and have Richard Wagner lead an battalion of of laser-armed ninjas! Riding steampunk tanks! Carrying poisoned sunflowers!"

Now, there's no way of knowing what other surprises this movie might have up its sleeve. What I do know is that this movie has

Nazis. On the moon. With flying saucers.

and that's enough of a creative statement for anybody, isn't it? That's taking the freak flag out past the city limits of Gooneyville and planting it firmly in the weed-grown soil of the unincorporated areas of WhatTheHell? County and saying, "I claim this for my own." This team of writers was able to make this whack, bizarre idea compelling enough to get a studio to sink $XX,000,000 into lots of CGI, B-list actors and what looks like 48,000 gallons of gray paint.

Will this movie be any good? I have no idea. However, if ever there was an argument for just opening the gates of creativity and running through them at full tilt, this is it.

I mean, with the possible exception of this:

Coming soon.


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#fridayflash: Ten Million Robots, One Heart

Ten Million Robots, One Heart

by Tony Noland

The gas regulator's hiss seemed loud, too loud, even though it was the only noise left in the room. Every other device and monitor had been turned off. EKG, respirator, everything that had been beeping, chirping and buzzing around him for so long - all of it was silent.

She leaned in close, put her ear next to his mouth. If anything, the hiss grew louder. The tube that ran under his nose had two small nozzles, each giving a constant flow of oxygen, enhancing the composition of the air, giving him more to work with. Clear tape held the tube to the sides of his head. It puckered his grayish skin into odd, flat wrinkles, pinched and overly pink.

"Bach," he said in a papery whisper. His breath smelled of vinegar and acetone, the parched lips cracked and bleeding as he gasped out each word. "No machines. Anymore." He sucked at the air, the hospital sheet rising and falling with the effort of his breathing. "Too quiet. In here."

His hands were like ice, but she held them. "OK, Dad. Bach it is. How about the Brandenburgs?"

With the barest movement, he shook his head. "Too tired." His tongue pushed out over his lips. Swollen and covered with sores, it did nothing to wet them. She reached for the glass of ginger ale, now mostly melted ice. Again, he shook his head as she brought the bent straw to his lips. When she continued to hold it there, he took a tiny, tiny sip, barely enough to coat the tip of his tongue. "Besides," he said, "Concerto. Too long." Another gasping breath. "Final chords. Best part." Gasp. "Hate. To miss it."

She set the glass back on the tray by the bedside, and took the iPod from the speaker deck. Her fingertip moved across the glass face for a moment.

"The Well Tempered Clavier? Book 1, from the beginning?" she said. He nodded, more a movement of the eyelids than of the head. She replaced it and pressed the PLAY button. Glenn Gould's recording filled the room with the familiar first notes of Prelude No. 1 in C Major. Though it was playing softly, it was as perfectly balanced as the best electronics could render.

Next to the speaker deck was the box of a dozen jelly doughnuts, raspberry filled. Just as he'd asked, she'd bought them that morning, fresh and hot from Fleischmann's Bakery, still in business over in their old neighborhood. The warm, sweet aroma overcame the pine-and-lemon disinfectant smell of the room. He couldn't eat them, of course, but he could smell them, and he'd assured her that they were wonderful.

They sat, listening to the music.

He said, "Do you. Still play?"

"Sometimes," she said. "Not as well as Glenn Gould, though." He started to say something, but she said it for him. "I know, Dad. Nobody plays as well as Glenn Gould." They shared a smile, the kind that only comes when old jokes are told among friends.

The Prelude ended and the Fugue began, and they listened.

"I'm sorry the nanorobots didn't work, Dad," she said. She looked down at the bed, seeing it through fresh tears. "I know it was experimental, a crazy long shot, but I still hoped for... for..."

"A miracle?" He smiled. "Nothing. Works right. First time." He drew a labored breath, gathering strength. "Doctors will. Get my heart. After. Will figure out. Why injection. Didn't work." He gasped again, the exertion of his speech taking a toll. He licked his lips and smiled again. "Besides. Damn things were. Pink. Looked silly."

She laughed and wiped away the tears she couldn't stop. "They were pink because of the synthetic hemoglobin and you know it. It was supposed to help them bind to your heart and let them laser out the damage." With her free hand, she pulled a tissue from the box. "Your problem is that they didn't know you as well as I do. They were trying to match human blood. Instead, they should have made the little things green. It would have suited you better, you old Vulcan."

He smiled, his dry, flaky lips cracking. She felt his fingers spreading into the greeting that he had taught her so many, many years ago, the gesture that was an emblem of their shared kinship and fellowship through adolescence, adulthood and old age.

"Live long," he whispered, "and prosper." Again, he smiled, and she smiled back. His eyes fixed on hers and, his face turning sad, he waved at the gas regulator. "It's time," he said. "Time."

She held the tissue to her eyes, stemming the fresh flood. Unable to breathe, she nodded, rose and went over to the knob on the wall. With a shaking hand, she turned it until the hissing stopped. Bach's music seemed ten, a hundred times as loud as before. She sat again, letting the sobs come and the tears fall.

"That's better," he said. "Now. I can. Really smell. The doughnuts." He reached out and held her hand.

The music played. For the time they had left together, they sat and listened, surrounded by the warm aroma of happy memories.

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Is that a railgun in your pocket?

Science fiction writers, rejoice! Reality is catching up to your imaginations. The U.S. Navy has taken delivery of the first industrial-scale railgun. Conventional projectile weapons, from handguns to shoulder-fired weapons to ship-mounted hardware, use chemical propellants to shove the hunk of metal at the target. Railguns use electromagnetic pulses to do the same job. From the article:

While the muzzle velocity of gunpowder-propelled projectiles is generally limited to around 4,000 ft per second (2,727 mph/4,389 km/h), the U.S. Navy says its railgun will be capable of launching projectiles at velocities of 4,500 to 5,600 mph (7,242 - 9,012 km/h).

Greater muzzle velocity means longer range with the same size round. Also, it means that the ship won't need to carry large supplies of gunpowder or other chemical explosives.

Click to zoom in on that distortion curve

I'd like to draw your attention to the distortion curve on the right side of the banner. That bent curve is light distortion from the compression shock wave in front of the projectile. It's moving fast... very fast.

Also, that Latin at the bottom of the seal, Velocitas Eradico? I believe that translates to "Speed Kills". Nice.

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Wednesday #limerick: control, flesh, razor

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the words from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: control, flesh, razor.

"Zip the razor, quick now, 'cross your wrist;

Part the flesh, 'cause you won't be missed..."

That voice in my head,

It still wants me dead,

Seeks control of me, through venom hissed

~~~ * * * ~~~

Are you kidding? You still haven't bought my collection of limericks? Why don't you love life?

You can read more of my limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday in my e.book, which is cleverly titled:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

Only $0.99 - what a bargain!

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You picked a bad title for your book. Now what?

Today over at Write Anything, I discuss the terrible mistake I made in choosing the title of my flash fiction anthology, "Blood Picnic and other stories".

Why is "Blood Picnic" a bad title? Click on over to the post and find out: "A Bloody Bad Title". Leave a comment, there or here. Commiseration is appreciated, as is schadenfreude, if you can be funny about it.

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What blog statistics tell you

How many people visit this blog? Since I started this as a way to connect with people who might like my writing, how's it going? Is it accomplishing that?

To get a read on how well this blog is doing its job (and therefore how well I'm doing mine), I did a little noodling around in Google Analytics, and here's what I found:

Year	Visitors	Unique Visitors	Page views
2009	3,350	1,628	4,728
2010	13,100	6,737	17,736
2011	12,837	6,550	17,945

There was a viral spike in 2010 associated with my instructive post, "11 Ways You Can Stop Pissing Me Off on Twitter", which skews the data a bit. However, it looks like a decent trend toward growth. People come to see me juggle baby geese, and some of them like it enough to come back for more.

Onward.


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Best rejection letter ever

I found this on the internet, so I have no idea if it's authentic or not. Still damned funny.

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Using Dropbox with Autohotkey to write faster and better

I've talked about AutoHotKey here before, in a blog post about how to write faster. To re-cap, AutoHotKey is a program that will auto-expand small snippets of text into full words. The AutoCorrect function in MS Word does this as well, but once AutoHotKey is up and running, your text expansion works in every program you run: Scrivener, yWriter, web browser comment boxes, MS Word, e.mail programs, spreadsheets, whatever.

So where does Dropbox come in?

I've got two AutoHotKey scripts running on all of the various computers I use. They are in the Dropbox root folder, and I have them both set up to run as part of the Startup for each. One of the scripts has all the me-specific entries: like typing "tg" and having it expand to "the Grammarian", or typing "tnll" and having it expand to "http://www.TonyNoland.com". Saves lots of time for any frequently used word or phrase.

The other script is one I downloaded from the AutoHotKey site. It corrects spelling and capitalization on-the-fly, based on 45,000 commonly misspelled English words. Whatever program I'm using, wherever I'm typing, (like when I just tried to type "whereever"), AutoHotKey is there to make me look good.

Whenever I add a phrase to be expanded, or fine-tune the spelling correction, that change goes into the scripts and propagates across to my other Dropbox-enabled computers.

Writing faster and better was never so easy.

UPDATE: A comment below asked where you can get the AutoCorrect script. It's right here. Once you go to that page, click "Save As..." and it will save as AutoCorrect.ahk, which is the text format for an AutoHotKey script. Load it using AutoHotKey, and you are good to go.

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#FridayFlash: Alone in the Woods

Alone in the Woods

by Tony Noland

Melissa turned again, tape and ballpoint in one hand, notebook in the other.

"Hey, is someone there?" she called, louder this time. No response. "I have the landowner's permission to survey these trees. Hello?"

Silence. The woods were quiet and cool in the deep shade. She listened for a while, trying to figure out what had tipped her off that she was not alone in the woods. With one hand, she tucked some stray hairs behind her ear and cocked her head.

Nothing.

This far into the older growth, there wasn't even the hum of bugs. No deerfly, no blackfly, and few mosquitoes, nothing her industrial strength repellant couldn't handle. She adjusted her stance on the slope and called out again.

"I'm Melissa Hartwick, from the Forestry Department at Lake Superior State." She did not say Dr. Hartwick or Professor Hartwick; the people up here were touchy about snotty downstaters. "I'm doing a survey for the green winged bark borer. Hello? I'm happy to tell you all about it. Hello?"

Her voice resounded in the woods, not an echo, exactly, but more like the forest swallowed her words and spit them back to her.

With a sigh, she turned back to measuring the tree. She'd long since gotten over feeling foolish about calling out to unseen people in the woods. If there was no one there, then there was no one to hear her and it didn't matter. When there was someone, most of the time whoever it was came up to talk after they'd been found out. People weren't nearly as good at moving unnoticed through the woods as they thought they were. Sometimes they just moved away, continuing their hiking or poaching or moonshining, whatever brought them to the deep cover in the first place. It didn't matter to Melissa; she was only there for the trees.

Only once had she encountered someone who looked like he might like to take physical advantage of a woman alone in the forest. She drew his attention to the Smith & Wesson under her field vest and he'd cut the conversation short on his own. The gun was primarily insurance against wolves, black bear, and other critters, but when you're 5'3" and pretty, a handgun's not a bad thing to have just on general principles.

A hundred yards behind her and up the slope, some rocks shifted, thunking down against the rotted bole of a fallen trunk.

"All right, that does it," she said aloud, "whoever you are, you messed with the wrong gal." She made a show of stuffing her tape measure and other gear into her backpack and stomping forward toward where the sound had come from. Bluster and bluff worked with most wild animals, and with most people, too. Expecting her visitor to bolt at her approach, she grew apprehensive as she neared the spot. She snorted loudly and stamped in visible irritation as she circled around wide. At the spot, she saw the rocks, twenty years worth of lichen torn away where they'd banged against each other. But apart from the rocks, the dirt and what was left of the rotting tree... nothing.

She wasn't scared, not exactly. The woods were as much a home to her as anyplace else was. She knew the sounds and scents, the rhythms and behaviors in every kind of forest, from the buzzing heat of the resurgent scrub that came on after a clear cut to the pained solemnity of an isolated patch of old growth pine. The only reason these primordial old trees were here was that the hillside made them unprofitable to cut. She could go on for hours to her students about the microclimate effect of the rockslide soil, the time-eroded contours, the winds off the lake that twisted these trees into knotty, burly fantasies. These trees were worthless as timber, but they were as old as the world, older than the glaciers that had scraped the land clean for a hundred miles in every direction. Only this sheltered horseshoe valley had been spared, a quirk of geography splitting apart a million tons of ice to either side as it marched south and retreated north, again and again. And throughout, forced into dwarfism for ten thousand years by the cold, dry winds, these trees survived.

These ugly, misshapen brutes were strong and proud, ancient and beautiful, and she loved them. She rested her hand against the log and felt for the dead heart of the fallen giant.

Behind her, the bark of a tree split open and a creature leapt out, it's claws spread wide. Its shrieking cry made her turn and scramble backwards. With one powerful swipe, it knocked her into the air. She flew a dozen feet downslope, crashing onto loose soil of the forest floor. Her backpack was slashed through with four long, ragged gashes, and her materials spilled out. Papers, field guides, sample bags, GPS, all of it sent scattering onto the ground. She started to reach across to pull the Smith & Wesson, but her broken forearm sent white-hot jolts of pain upwards into her shoulder.

Scrambling backward, she drew the pistol with her left hand just as the creature gathered itself for another spring. She got off a single shot, but it was enough. The .45 slug tore through its face, blowing its head backward and twisting it in the air. The thing was dead before it hit the ground next to her. It bounced and skidded a few feet, then lay mostly still, limbs quivering with the energy of the dead.

She scooted back away from it. Panting, she clenched her teeth and willed herself not to throw up. After a time, she stood, cradling her broken arm. With the toe of her boot, she turned the thing over. Its face - what was left of it - was all teeth and gaping jaws. Thick, dark sap ran everywhere and the decayed bark in its mouth gave off a stench of fungal wet rot, of good heartwood gone bad. With her good arm, she wiped away the sweat on her forehead, then kicked the body, hard.

"Fucking tree vampires," she said. "I wish they'd never reintroduced these damned things."

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Quiet Thursdays

Every now and then, I wonder if Thursdays feel neglected here at Landless. Specifically, in the long march between my Wednesday limericks and my FridayFlash stories, do Thursday mornings get lonely? Do they worry that I don't love them as much as I love other mornings?

Monday usually gets something fast, because hey, it's Monday, right? I'm lucky to be awake, let alone clever.

Tuesday sometimes gets some really good stuff, because I've had a chance to think about things on Monday, maybe even write them and get them edited and slotted ahead of time. Those are good days.

Wednesday is a limerick, and, if I'm feeling ambitious, sometimes more than that afterwards.

Thursday afternoon will often see the posting of the FridayFlash, but not always. Sometimes, Thursday gets nothing at all, not even until the wee hours.

Friday often gets no specific post, if I've sent out the FridayFlash on Thursday. In bad weeks, though, when I'm swamped, I might not get the story up until Friday afternoon.

Saturday usually gets nothing, or perhaps a quick blurb. Sometimes, though, I post longer, ruminative, coffee-fueled blog posts, introspective and thoughtful pieces that no one reads because (DUH!) it's Saturday! A more organized blogger would just post a funny cat video on those Saturdays and bank the long piece for a Wednesday.

Sunday? Usually nothing, unless I find myself with some time to kill and a story idea that needs to be written up. This past Sunday, it was "The Gospel According To St. Judas", a nature-vs-nurture story that was, to put it mildly, not well received.

A weekly schedule of blogging and writing. Not the best schedule, perhaps, but there it is.

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Wednesday #limerick: detach, jolt, surge

Every Wednesday, I write a limerick inspired by Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: detatch, jolt, surge

From caffeine, I will not detach

Dew, Jolt, Surge... any old batch.

But a triple espresso?

Cardiac arrest-o!

For coffee, no soft drink's a match.

~~~~~~~~~~

Are you kidding? You still haven't bought my collection of limericks? Why don't you love life?

You can read more of my limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday in my e.book, which is cleverly titled:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

Only $0.99 - what a bargain!


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A lot of flash fiction

Generated a report from yWriter for my flash fiction, written and posted here. Some of these have been submitted and sold to publishers, others have appeared in my anthology, "Blood Picnic and other stories". I am ~750 words shy of breaking 100,000 for flash fiction alone. There's a lesson in there somewhere, isn't there? Any suggestions as to what it might be?

Summary of Flash fiction

Does not include any scenes or chapters marked as 'Unused'

Chapter	Viewpoint	Title	Wordcount
Flash fiction 2009	Sc 1 N/A	Nearer Comes the Moon	974 Done
	Sc 2 N/A	Third Shift at McSweeny's	1084 Done
	Sc 3 N/A	The Death of Lee Harvey Oswald	926 Done
	Sc 4 N/A	A Level-Headed Man	1244 Done
	Sc 5 N/A	Five Hundred Francs	532 Done
	Sc 6 N/A	Intervention	770 Done
	Sc 7 N/A	Not My Intention	894 Done
	Sc 8 N/A	Back of the Class	1005 Done
	Sc 9 N/A	The Killing Song	1025 Done
	Sc 10 N/A	Cutting	1031 Done
	Sc 11 N/A	Racist Bastard	1024 Done
	Sc 12 N/A	Comes The Witching Hour	795 Done
	Sc 13 N/A	The Way of All Flesh	699 Done
	Sc 14 N/A	Time's Arrow	1442 Done
	Sc 15 N/A	Phil's Christmas Present	1009 Done
	Sc 16 N/A	I Weep Not for Thee	970 Done
Flash Fiction 2010	Sc 1 N/A	Truly, Deeply, Endlessly	927 Done
	Sc 2 N/A	Pot of Gold	847 Done
	Sc 3 N/A	Philly's in the house	681 Done
	Sc 4 N/A	The Green Fields of Home	530 Done
	Sc 5 N/A	Reonciliation	754 Done
	Sc 6 N/A	Ridi, Pagliaccio	995 Done
	Sc 7 N/A	Nom de Plume	1138 Done
	Sc 8 N/A	Truth Lies Beneath	1097 Done
	Sc 9 N/A	Parole Board	496 Done
	Sc 10 N/A	Another Glass of Chardonnay	557 Done
	Sc 11 N/A	A Bucket of Rocks	586 Done
	Sc 12 N/A	The Endless War	1052 Done
	Sc 13 N/A	4:45	1089 Done
	Sc 14 N/A	Fear and Loathing	1180 Done
	Sc 15 N/A	The Girl at the Window	500 Done
	Sc 16 N/A	Mother's Day	305 Done
	Sc 17 N/A	Grow, garden, grow	1079 Done
	Sc 18 N/A	White paper	1352 Done
	Sc 19 N/A	Warm Hands, Cold Beer	735 Done
	Sc 20 N/A	One percent inspiration	1078 Done
	Sc 21 N/A	Bones Don't Burn	708 Done
	Sc 22 N/A	Friday Flash, Flash, Flash	493 Done
	Sc 23 N/A	Romeo and Juliet are Dead	680 Done
	Sc 24 N/A	Megalo-Man vs. Dr. Tarantula	725 Done
	Sc 25 N/A	The Aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion	1032 Done
	Sc 26 N/A	Grey Ghost Gone	1007 Done
	Sc 27 N/A	Coffee Break	950 Done
	Sc 28 N/A	The Livin' Is Easy	951 Done
	Sc 29 N/A	Lebensturm	166 Done
	Sc 30 N/A	Leeds Darts Champion of 1977	1066 Done
	Sc 31 N/A	Pop	918 Done
	Sc 32 N/A	Long Story	520 Done
	Sc 33 N/A	The Chosen One	604 Done
	Sc 34 N/A	Sunshine Came Softly	949 Done
	Sc 35 N/A	Shirts and skins	806 Done
	Sc 36 N/A	Straight and True, My Arrow, Fly	1105 Done
	Sc 37 N/A	Roll Call	1023 Done
	Sc 38 N/A	A Double Month of Dust in Whiskey Gulch	1278 Done
	Sc 39 N/A	Adventure!	1108 Done
	Sc 40 N/A	Verbosity's Vengeance	1026 Done
	Sc 41 N/A	Spikes High	769 Done
	Sc 42 N/A	Hellfire	1217 Done
	Sc 43 N/A	Three Cold Cokes	1416 Done
	Sc 44 N/A	Ayers Rock, By God	1038 Done
	Sc 45 N/A	NPR Three Minute Fiction: Chestnut Hollow	597 Done
	Sc 46 N/A	Island of Stability	501 Done
	Sc 47 N/A	I'm Telling You Why	960 Done
	Sc 48 N/A	Contest submission - which I screwed up	100 Done
	Sc 49 N/A	Aspirations	417 Done
	Sc 50 N/A	This little light of mine	566 Done
Flash Fiction 2011	Sc 1 N/A	A Fire in the Palm of My Hand	310 Done
	Sc 2 N/A	A Large Slice of Fire	346 Done
	Sc 3 N/A	Old Stones	419 Done
	Sc 4 N/A	Where the hell is Tony's FridayFlash?	744 Done
	Sc 5 N/A	Simple Geometry	673 Done
	Sc 6 N/A	Complex Geometry	1283 Done
	Sc 7 N/A	We Will Be Happy	306 Done
	Sc 8 N/A	Brazilian Whacks	834 Done
	Sc 9 N/A	The Herringbone Meterorite	408 Done
	Sc 10 N/A	The One Thing You Need To Be Happy	875 Done
	Sc 11 N/A	Wish me a wish	1173 Done
	Sc 12 N/A	When the Room Stops Spinning	376 Done
	Sc 13 N/A	King Nosmo the Intrusive	823 Done
	Sc 14 N/A	Looking Down	876 Done
	Sc 15 N/A	Yellow and White	777 Done
	Sc 16 N/A	Death of the Horrible	281 Done
	Sc 17 N/A	Now Hiring: Canine Farming Technician	944 Done
	Sc 18 N/A	Romance… With Lasers	757 Done
	Sc 19 N/A	HI MY NAME IS Candice	1054 Done
	Sc 20 N/A	Candice on the couch	992 Done
	Sc 21 N/A	Again Take Up Thy Sword, Warrior King	961 Done
	Sc 22 N/A	A Common Purpose	954 Done
	Sc 23 N/A	AMWRITING: A Long Visit to Sunny, Scenic Tel Aviv	836 Done
	Sc 24 N/A	Sister Ophelia	1147 Done
	Sc 25 N/A	The Science of Faith	1080 Done
	Sc 26 N/A	The Knife	668 Done
	Sc 27 N/A	In the Right Light	1189 Done
	Sc 28 N/A	Sunlight on the Plaza Below	1009 Done
	Sc 29 N/A	Scaling Cadillac Mountain	396 Done
	Sc 30 N/A	Good Question	626 Done
	Sc 31 N/A	Who sent you?	995 Done
	Sc 32 N/A	God's Holy Fire	756 Done
	Sc 33 N/A	Babbling Brooke	809 Done
	Sc 34 N/A	The test	904 Done
	Sc 35 N/A	So Goes the Turing Test	296 Done
	Sc 36 N/A	Volume 3: The Bites of Love	690 Done
	Sc 37 N/A	Palimpsest	572 Done
	Sc 38 N/A	Cusp	64 Done
	Sc 39 N/A	The Curious Case of the Chronofundibular Emancipation Engine	1145 Done
	Sc 40 N/A	Roofline	611 Done
	Sc 41 N/A	AMWRITING Pumpkin brains, forever	1205 Done
	Sc 42 N/A	Possible Hims for Origin	564 Done
	Sc 43 N/A	Chopin Beneath A Starry Sky	762 Done
	Sc 44 N/A	Truth, Justice and Natural Philosophy	1192 Done
	Sc 45 N/A	The Last Friday Night	1068 Done
	Sc 46 N/A	Is this Tony Noland?	1214 Done
	Sc 47 N/A	Travelling in the Darkness	1066 Done
	Sc 48 N/A	The Diamond Anvil	1024 Done
	Sc 49 N/A	The Unexpected Guests	1421 Done
Flash Fiction 2012	Sc 1 N/A	Albert Einstein Gets a Cavity	1204 Done
	Sc 2 N/A	All That Glistens Is Not Garbage	848 Done
	Sc 3 N/A	The Gift of Love, Eventually	324 Done
	Sc 4 N/A	Just Because	222 Done
	Sc 5 N/A	Gas Phase	45 Outline

Printed: 31-Jan-2012, 11:22
Report generated with yWriter5 © 2012 Spacejock Software

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The 10 Worst Ways To End A Novel

1. Thank God it was all just a dream!

2. Thank God it was all just a dream.... or was it?

3. Who was that masked man?

4. They all lived happily ever after.

5. Yes, we defeated him, but I have a feeling he'll be back.

6. And in the end, nothing matters. Death is the only certainty.

7. ... and that's a lesson we can all take to heart.

8. Hang on... what just happened here?

9. Because, you see, I have been lying to you all along! I killed them! Ha ha!

10. From that day onward, the mystery of the mysterious mist remained unexplained.

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Dizzying anime action

I have no idea what this show is, but I think it gave me epilepsy. Via geekami.



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The Gospel According to St. Judas

And there were in that country shepherds abiding in the fields,
tending their flocks by night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and shone round about them and they were sore afraid. But the angel of
the Lord said, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of great
joy! For unto you is born this day in the city of Bethlethem a savior.
He is called Christ the Lord and he will being peace to all nations.
You will find him in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes."

Sorely troubled, the brother shepherds did leave their flocks and go
the Bethlehem, and there did see all that the angel of the Lord had
foretold them. And thus did the chief among the shepherds speak,
saying, "Did not the angel of the Lord say that this child, the
savior, was born unto us? And born unto us as a child is born unto his
father's house, is not then this child beholden to us as a child is to
his father? For if this child is truly the bringer of peace, will he
not bring honor and glory to the house of his father by the slaying of
all the enemies of Israel?" And the others shepherds agreed, for it is
written that the heads of the enemies of Israel shall be the
foundation of the everlasting peace.

Thus did the shepherds take away the child and his mother, who was
called Mary, and teach the child well the ways of righteous anger and
of his destiny to slay all the enemies of Israel. And when in manhood
the child, who was called Jesus, did use the strength of the Lord to
work many miracles against the enemies of Israel and did thereby slay
them, unto the last woman, child and servant, great honor was brought
to the house of the shepherds.

And the chief among the shepherds was exalted above all men, and
became King Judas, mighty and wise.
--
Sent from my mobile device
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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_______________________________
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#FridayFlash: Just Because

Just Because

by Tony Noland

She died because she refused chemo.

She refused chemo because she saw what it did to her mother.

She saw what it did to her mother because she took care of her mother in her final days.

She took care of her mother because there was no one else to do it.

There was no one else to do it because her father died when she was twelve.

Her father died because he got a raging blood infection.

He got a raging blood infection because a small wound went untreated.

The small wound went untreated because he didn't notice it.

He didn't notice it because he had severe numbness in the backs of his thighs.

His thighs were numb because he had diabetes.

He had diabetes because he was so enormously obese.

He was obese because he ate the wrong foods, and far too much of it.

He ate so much because he was clinically depressed.

He was depressed because he'd been beaten as a child.

He'd been beaten as a child because his mother didn't want him.

She didn't want him because she'd been raped at age 15 by a large man, a very troubled man, who gained entry to her house, claiming to be a school crossing guard who needed to borrow the telephone.

That was, of course, before any of us had cellphones.

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Wednesday #limerick: bubble, lumber, wreck

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick using the prompt over at Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: bubble, lumber, wreck.

On the bubble, the boy was a wreck.

Would his grades keep him out of CalTech?

But Daddy's remission

Greased the skids of admission.

A fortune from lumber: stacked deck. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And don't forget, if you'd like to read more of my limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday, you can buy my e.book, which is cleverly titled:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

Only $0.99 - what a bargain!


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The burden of self-doubt

There are times when I look at my record of accomplishments, factor in
the rate at which I've acheived them, extrapolate outward, and
conclude that I will absolutely, certainly be a successful author.
True, I'll be 168 years old, but statistics don't lie.

What's most interesting about this calculation is that it's entirely
within my power to change. I can:

* write more stuff, faster

* write better stuff

* change my definition of "success"

In thinking about self-doubt, I find that it is nearly always
punctured by understanding that my success as a writer is not a
function of what other people do or think. It derives from my attitude
and my efforts.

Is self-doubt a burden? It is for me, but it's one I can handle. I'm
confident of that.

--
Sent from my mobile device

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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_______________________________
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12 Things Successful Assassins Do Differently

I've always been intrigued by really successful assassins, the sort of killers who can rack up body counts that are ten, twenty, even a hundred times what most people can. In our everyday lives, most of us kill just a few people a month. Compare that to the top assassins, who on any given day will kill a whole minivan's worth of people before noon, and go on to fill a hot tub with bodies in the afternoon. How do those entrepreneurial leaders do it? How does success like that become, not just a habit, but a way of life?

 Over the years, I've made a careful study of their methods. Through wiretaps, high-power light gathering binoculars, and bribed informants, it's become clear to me that the world's most successful killers weren't just born that way. Here are 12 things successful assassins do differently that let them reach their full potential and be truly happy in life.

1. They plan to succeed.

It's not enough to want to kill someone. You have to PLAN how you're going to do it. We all know people who wish they could push a button on someone, but never quite get organized enough to get the ball rolling. Successful killers know who they're going to kill and how they're going to do the hit. They do their homework, study the terrain and have an active timeline for every operation.

2. They get paid up front.

Successful assassins focus on their strengths: killing people. Bill collection is part of the job for any self-employed entrepreneur, but minimizing the extraneous is what lets the top killers excel. The assassins I've spoken with have said that the traditional "50/50" model of half up-front, half after the job is done, just doesn't work in today's connected world. Instead, they take the full payment up-front, in a modern, "100/0" model. The "100/0" model is based on a relationship of mutual trust with their clients: the client can trust that the work will be done to everyone's 100% satisfaction, the assassin can trust that he will end up with 0 fingers if it isn't.

3. They spend their time killing people, not killing time.

"A day without a kill is a day wasted." Top-notch assassins multitask, doing their documentation and preparation for one job while on a stakeout for another. It takes only three minutes out of an hour to wipe out a target and her security detail. Those other 57 minutes should be spent lining up and/or prepping for the next job.

4. They kill with their head, not their hands.

Informed, intelligent decision making lays the groundwork for any assassination to be a walk in the park. Beginning killers think that anger, rage or bloodlust will help to drive them to the point of ending someone's life. The leaders in the assassination field know that, in fact, the opposite is true. Once all the pieces are in place, the actual kill shot is just the next step in the process, no more emotionally fraught than bribing the bodyguards or draining most of the gas from the target's armor-plated Mercedes.

5. They know when to pull the trigger.

When the time comes, when the homework has paid off and the laser dot is on the target's forehead, successful killers pop the cap. They don't even see the target's children standing by his side or the president of the neighboring country whom he's shaking hands with - they just see the target. When it's time to act, they act.

6. They have a S.N.U.F.F. habit.

Successful assassins know that a single kill is a snuff, but a meaningful career of killing takes S.N.U.F.F. What is S.N.U.F.F.? It's a five step process of operational security: Secret, New, Undercover, Fire, Friends. S.N.U.F.F. ensures the ability of top assassins to keep ahead of the competition AND the law so they can keep on killing, for years and years. Let's look at S.N.U.F.F. in more detail:

• Secret - An old maxim of the killing business is that two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. Successful killers don't blab beforehand and they don't brag afterwards. 
• New - For every job, use a new gun. You might think it expensive to dispose of the pistol, rifle or shotgun after just one kill, but successful assassins know the truth: fresh hardware is cheap, dealing with crime scene-matching ballistics in the F.B.I. database is expensive. 
• Undercover - "It's a wise man who can learn from the mistakes of others." Your partner, your gun dealer, your banker in the Cayman Islands, your wife, your girlfriend, your brother... anyone can be an undercover operative for the F.B.I. Even someone who has proved themselves time and again over the years could have been turned in the last two weeks. Trust no one. 
• Fire - If there is any reason to think that something has gone wrong with operational security, successful killers go to ground. The first step in going to ground is to burn down their own houses, offices, equipment storage sheds, and any other building they might be connected with. Nothing slows down a forensics investigation like a good five-alarm fire. 
• Friends - Every successful assassin is part of a team. You'll need accountants, weapons suppliers, informants, contacts. Remember: these people are your business associates, not your friends. Work with them, but do not trust them.

When you develop a S.N.U.F.F. habit, you are motivated to see the holes in any plan and fill them full of lead. You can achieve any kill, anywhere at any time, knowing that you will walk away completely clean. That peace of mind not only gives you the confidence to charge top dollar for your work, it is absolutely critical to maintaining work-life balance (see #12).

7. They see perfection as a process.

Every kill, no matter how smoothly it went, has lessons for the next kill. The most successful killers study their successes and their failures equally. What worked? What didn't? How can the process be improved? As one assassin told me, "I was killing flawlessly, every target taken out right on schedule. It turns out, the schedule was the problem!" Paradoxically, getting better meant allowing himself to get a little bit worse. He stopped trying for 100% perfection on every kill, and instead strove for a faster, more efficient 98% perfection level. He stepped up his game by stepping back. As a result, that killer was able to double his kill rate, and triple his fees. It's one of the most important lessons for any aspiring assassin.

8. They don't get fancy.

Ask any of the top killers-for-hire, they will tell you the same thing: guns work. Remote-controlled car bombs, silent crossbows, poison-tipped condoms, keystroke activated electrocution, ricin slipped into the morning coffee... all of these methods are exotic, flashy and uncertain. When it comes to putting the brakes on someone who needs to be dead, an ounce of lead sent through the skull at 600 fps may be conservative, but there's a reason the pros use "old reliable" when they have a long To Do list: it works. The consensus about "style" among the best of the best? If you must add a flourish, use a triple-tap to the forehead instead of a double-tap. Classy, yet simple.

9. They see their comfort zone as a jumping off point.

Many people make a decent living limiting themselves to political assassinations. Other fields of target specialization have their adherents: cheating spouses, business partners, nosy law enforcement officials. What the top assassins know is that greater flexibility in your targets means greater opportunities in your business. Granted, if you've made a career out of killing politicians in their homes, it will take some time to develop the skills to successfully target a hospital, a preschool or a weapons research laboratory. However, working outside your comfort zone will bring clients to your door in a way you never thought possible.

10. They notch their belts.

Clients want to know that they'll be getting the best for their money. Successful killers keep a mental accounting of every kill they've made, and can recount the details of each kill to help boost their fees and seal the deal. How do they do it? They use a mnemonic device first used by the ancient Greek philosopher Hippo. Using some article of personal import, they mark it and mentally tell themselves the story associated with that mark. This traditional method is most familiar as the notching of a belt. Some assassins get a tattoo to commemorate each kill, but there is only so much skin available! Remember: a notch on a belt is NOT actionable evidence, even after being admitted to a grand jury as "State's Evidence, Exhibit A", whereas notes, journals, and blog entries ARE actionable evidence. Notch your belt to help you track your progress and remember your kill stories, but DON'T write anything down. Ever.

11. They know that murder might be a young man's game, but assassination is for a lifetime.

This was one of the most surprising things I discovered: most of the top killers-for-hire are over 50, and have been killing people for more than 22 years. It turns out that the popular view of assassination is that it's like the movies: an emotion-driven action, interspersed with car chases, fistfights and exotic lovers taken two at a time.

One of my interviewees laughed at that idea. "All that sort of thing might sound like fun, but it's not generating any income. If you want to make killing your business, you have to treat it like a business. While the young hot shots are getting their murderous kicks with zooming around on speedboats and rappelling down the faces of huge dams, I've quietly interrupted my target's Starbucks run with a quick double-tap to the back of the head. Get in, get the shots off, get out. And then go on to the next job. That's the work ethic that got me to where I am today." That's a lesson for all of us, isn't it?

12. They maintain a balance of work and life.

There's no denying that rising to the top takes commitment and sacrifice. Killing people has to be the first priority, but is it the only priority? Consider these two people:

Jane killed 211 people in the last 12 months alone, and had a net income of more than $80M. That's a record to be admired, right? But after having to kill her twin sister for impersonating her and doing freelance assassinations, what Jane found was that she wasn't enjoying the work anymore. The jobs got done, but she came to regard her work as just that: work. She even began to think about retiring, even though she knows that assassins don't retire, they just become difficult-to-kill targets. She's a successful killer, but is she happy?

Bob only killed 11 people (on contract) in the last year. He drifts across the country, hitch-hiking and doing odd jobs for locals. Although he kills mostly for fun - prostitutes, teen runaways, stray dogs - his only contract work has been from small time crystal meth dealers targeting other small time crystal meth dealers. His fees are paid in some cash, but mostly in weed, meth, hookers and McDonald's gift certificates. The freedom of the open road appeals to him, and he is smiling most of the time, but he admits to being worried about where he'll sleep this winter. He's a happy killer, but is he successful?

These are just two examples of an imbalanced life. It's sometimes necessary in the short-term for us to focus all our energies on only one aspect of our lives, whether it's work, family, extradition, or something else. But the best life, the happiest and most productive life, comes when we remember to look at all of the different areas of our lives as priorities deserving of attention and cultivation. Having an effective work-life balance will defuse stress, improve mood, and enhance our overall health and well-being. "You can't pull the trigger if you've got the shakes," said one successful assassin, "no matter how much Zoloft you take."

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Review: Shadow of Israphel

While I'm writing up a really funny, insightful (and very long) blog post, let me introduce you to a machinima adventure using Minecraft. This comes from The Yogscast, a YouTube channel featuring Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane. The videos and podcast cover lots of video games, but the ones about Minecraft have been quite entertaining. Given the very low-res nature of Minecraft, any machinima using it must necessarily forgo a reliance on animation special effects. That this series pulls it off anyway, and does it through a series of game upgrades that fundamentally altered gameplay, is truly impressive.

I offer this to you, not because Minecraft is a cool game (which it is), or because the maps and scenery are amazing (which they are) or because the two hosts are funny (which they certainly are). No, I'm posting this because this particular series, The Shadow of Israphel, has compelling writing, the kind that pulls you in, the kind that any dramatist could learn from.

Seriously.

Yes, there is a fair bit of keyhunting and ingredient shopping list activity, but the scripting and dialogue from the NPCs is quite well done. You laugh at some of them, come to fear and hate others, and mourn when some are killed. The action builds to a crescendo, and then the rug is yanked from under you, leaving you knocked off your pins.

Enjoy.



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You call that sentence structure?

Today over at Write Anything, I bitch, complain and snark about another author's irritating use of em-dashes, asides and infodumps. It was written in a fit of pique.

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#FridayFlash: The Gift of Love, Eventually

The Gift of Love, Eventually

by Tony Noland

I gave you my favorite book, the one that opened my eyes and helped me to see the passions behind the hard metallic surfaces people show the world.

You hated it. You called it trite, simplistic, throwaway fluff.

I gave you my favorite painting, the jewel of a glossy gallery showbook that presented and discussed the genius of his age, the one who used slantings of light and shadings of color to make empty streets full of promise, empty fields full of sunlight, empty rooms full of laughter.

You hated it. You called it cartoonish, vacant, kindergarten crap.

I gave you my favorite movie, the one that made me cry in the theater, the one I bought on VHS, on DVD and again on Blu-Ray, the one that starred me as I might have been, could have been, should have been.

You hated it. You called it plodding, morose, escapist fantasy.

I played you my favorite song, cooked you my favorite meal, took you to my favorite place.

All of these I gave you, and all of these were the same worthless shit in your eyes.

I know now that it's time for me to stop running from the truth.

What is the truth?

The truth is...

The truth has nothing to do with my book, my painting, my movie or anything else that I have taken up and called my own.

Nothing.

The truth is that you weren't reacting to them, seeing them, passing judgement on them.

You were reacting to me. Seeing me. And, as I must now accept, passing judgement on me.

So.

And so, I will stop making this about me and I will give you what you want.

This year, when I give you a three dollar card from the aspirin and magazine aisle at the supermarket and a five dollar "World's Greatest Dad" mug, will you know that I have surrendered? That you have, at last, won?

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Wednesday #limerick: ******, *****, *******

Each Wednesday, I write a limerick based on the words from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are downhill, freak and sliver. Today's limerick is:

Read about SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" here.

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Too late to catch the morning edition

As I'm writing this, it's almost lunchtime. All of the advice about blogging says that morning is the best time - the only time, really - to put new blog posts up, so as to catch the entire day's traffic. Instead of posting something mid-day, it should be saved and slotted for the morning window of another day.

But what if you didn't write a post for this morning, and the mid-day post is all you have?

Don't be silly. SERIOUS bloggers don't have to worry about that, because SERIOUS bloggers always have something written for every day. There will always be plenty of material in the can or written days or weeks ahead of time.

Evergreen pieces on writing, craft, inspiration or encouragement can go up anytime. They should be sprinkled liberally through your blog, like salt spread on an icy driveway, melting through the treacherous layers of slippery confusion to reveal the One True Path that lies beneath, making safe the way for your readers.

Of course, evergreen pieces can always be bumped for late-breaking, topical pieces, or recently secured interviews with industry leaders, or other top-level content.

This, then, is how SERIOUS bloggers make it all happen: organized, focused, following their plan with dedication and professionalism.

I, on the other hand, just spin gold out of straw as the castle is burning down around me, for I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May!

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I Accept Anonymous Comments

To the person who sent comments on a recent blog post by private e.mail (and you know who you are):


I do actually accept anonymous comments. It's one of the options on the drop-down menu on the comments bar. You can make your comment and select "anonymous".

I'm saying this here because some of the comments that I got could have been made directly on the post itself, and would have contributed to the discussion.

In fact, there have been other people who only comment on my posts because they can do so anonymously. The spam and offers to buy Russian Rolexes from Nigerian widows get filtered out, but meaningful comments will stay and go into the mix.

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