"Write Anything" in the Top 100

I'm happy to pass along the news that Write Anything, the collaborative writing blog that I contribute to, has been listed as one of the Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs by www.bestcollegesonline.com.

The "General" category is described this way: These reads cover a broad range of subjects concerning both novice and old-timer authors alike, making them particularly well-rounded starts to exploring the writerly corner of the blogosphere. Write Anything took the #2 slot in this list.

The team of bloggers over at Write Anything is a talented and insightful bunch. It's well worth putting in your regular rotations of blogs or adding to your RSS feed. If you like to read my posts at Write Anything, you can just click here.

Congratulations to Jodi Cleghorn, Paul Anderson and the entire team at eMergent and Write Anything!

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I Answer 5 Random Questions

As I sometimes do when I can't think of a good topic for a blog post, I put out a call on Twitter, offering to answer the next five questions I got. Lame, but potentially amusing. Ready?

Question #1 comes from @daHob:

The obvious response is, "African or European?". This being Landless, however, I will instead note that the airspeed velocity of an unladen sparrow is equivalent to the velocipede aericity of an unswallowed ladle.

Question #2 comes from John Hancock:

It's because people fail to understand that self-actualization is not a tension between the pressures of societal externalities and the innate yearnings of the internally co-created autochthon, but is instead a uncreated moving target. The self we are trying to appease doesn't exist, any more than the self we are trying to destroy. Whatever concept of self we think we understand, these are merely reflections in the mirror, signposts of the past which we have left behind. The self we should be working toward is the one yet to exist. Since it is within our power to create it or destroy it, it is the ultimate expression of our will, and is therefore the source of not only ultimate hope, but of ultimate fear. Fallible beings that we are, most people recoil from either, preferring familiar suffering to unfamiliar ecstasy. Or at least that's what your mom said!

Question #3 comes from Jim Breslin:

Ah, this one's much easier. On July 4, the day of the announcement, I wrote a blog post about the Higgs boson. It was hilarious. I had a nice little bump of visitors to my blog as people read it. So for me, the Higgs boson was worth a 700% uptick in daily visits.

Either they all agreed that it was a funny blog post about one of the great achievements of collaborative Big Science, or it was a national holiday in the U.S. and they had nothing better to do than read my blog.

Question #4 comes from Larry Kollar:

I see what you're doing there, Larry. You're trying to sneak a serious question into this dopey roundup. Well, I'm onto you, pal. You might ask a serious question, but I said I'd be as amusing as possible in my answers. Ha! Take that, smart guy! Why do we write? We write because writers get lots of oral sex and as much pepperoni pizza as they care to eat. We write because taking the time to craft words lets us be as funny, as wise and as attractive as we wish we were, but know we aren't. We write for immortality. We write to shove a pencil in the eye of parents who never loved us the way we needed to be loved. We write for the money. We write because we got tired of reading shitty books and thinking, "Damn, I could write better than this dreck." Finally, we write because we don't want to be left.

Question #5 comes from kaolin fire:

In order: OMNI, Scientific American, Penthouse Letters and the Journal of the American Society of Clinical Psychology.

Thanks for the questions, guys! Let's do it again sometime!

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Writing software

In her post at Write Anything, Jacqui Murray reminded me of this look at writing software for authors:

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When the computer dies

That old laptop, the one that's too clunky and slow for anything else, is perfect for writing. It fit on my standing desk set up wonderfully and did everything I needed a writing machine to do.

But then the keyboard started to fail. And the screen began to fade.

Without spending a lot of money, what did I do? Pop over to my blog post at Write Anything and find out.

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#FridayFlash: A Hero By Any Other Name

Now that I have come to the ultimate end of our journey, I can finally admit to myself that part of me is glad. Yes, glad we were never able to go home.

When it was happening, we wanted nothing else. Of course we did... we were heroes. Though we were thwarted and subverted again and again, we stuck to our noblest ideals and swore we would never stop trying. In our long journey, we supported each other. Like the friends and teammates we were and the family we became, we supported each other. At first, we were furious at how the Cosmic Randomizer had banished us into the infinite sweep of all possible things. We swore we'd use his Infinity Dice to return to our own timeline and set things aright.

But, as we kept searching, searching, searching...

Anger and anguish cooled to frustration and fatigue. We never knew just how much destruction was sown in our wake, how much suffering we failed to prevent back in our own timeline. The weeks turned into months and the months somehow turned into years. It was harder and harder to go on. We told ourselves that it was still possible to save Earth, that the timelines moved at different rates, or had different anchorage points in the timestream.

We told ourselves we hadn't lost.

It wasn't the humiliations we suffered, not at first, anyway. No one can make you feel inferior without your cooperation. We started out as heroes, with an adamantine confidence in ourselves and in each other that wasn't rooted in how powerful we were, but in the strength of our convictions.

Our powers waxed and waned with each different version of reality, but we were always twisted versions of the same team: the Lepton Brothers, Machine Gun McLean, Superior Girl, the Mystic Mistress, and me, the Black Knight with my Eldritch Blade of the Ancients.

I recall how the Leptons, Mu and Tau, always varied together. Instead of their nuclear-powered strength and speed, they shared other powers, complementary or opposite. Fire and ice as the Temperature Twins, light and darkness as Yin and Yang. Even when their powers were trivial, like the hyper-hilarious stand-up comedy routine of Martin and Lewis that only made criminals stop and laugh, they never lost hope. None of us ever lost hope. Or at least, none of us ever admitted to it.

Until we landed here.

After so many years of wandering, I think what finally broke our spirit wasn't the forms our superpowers took in this timeline. Believe it or not, we'd seen far worse. No, I'm convinced it was our guilt over what we could not accomplish. We couldn't know how long we'd been gone, but it must have been at least thirty years by the Mistress' calculations. Earth had to be a cinder by then, its population murdered or sold into intergalactic slavery.

Humanity was gone, and there just didn't seem to be any point in going on. We stopped trying to go home.

But where had our travels brought us? More importantly, what had it told us about ourselves? When you see so many thousands of versions of yourself, it's not that you lose track of who you really are, or at any rate who you were. You come to understand that the reality you started out in has no more or less meaning that any of the ones you pass through, or the one in which you finally come to rest.

Legion of Heroes, Band of Superfriends, UltraTeam, Buncha Cool Guys, The Friday Nighters, MegaPack... is any one of these names for us as a superhero team any more meaningful than another? Should we hold our heads high in one reality, but hang them in shame in another?

No.

I'm glad we were never able to go home. A hero is a hero, no matter the powers possessed. Though long and brutal, our travels through all the realities we saw brought us through only the merest infinitesimal sliver of all the realities that exist. We all came to understand the true nature of the Infinite. Though we could not return to save Earth, we found a new home here, in this timeline, on this world.

Now, we defend our adopted home and all the life-forms it contains.

Here, on this world, we are the heroes known as Lunch Box: Mr. McNugget, Super-Size Salad, Mistress Macaroni and the Ato Brothers, Tom and Pot.

I am their leader: Sir Loin, the Blackened Knight. I wield my Shoulder Blade for justice, truth and honor, now and forever!

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Note: I am indebted to the Hufflepuffian Ms. N for the prompt she gave me for this week's FridayFlash.

Happy Fourth of July, Higgs Boson!

Today, July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN in Switzerland, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought subatomic particle that gives matter the property of mass.

In a wide-ranging press conference, the team explained the historic significance of this finding. "The Higgs boson is the means by which baryonic matter interacts with the Higgs field," said Hoorst Vedeveltignnen, project director of CERN. "That is to say, much as the tau lepton is the mechanism of electric charge, the Higgs boson is the mechanism of gravity. This is very, very exciting. While much work remains to be done, the Standard Model is alive and well."

Professor Peter Higgs, the theoretical physicist for whom the Higgs boson is named, was on hand for the announcement. "I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime. To have such a definitive physical demonstration of theory is what physics is all about."

The Jetsons in a flying car.

Mass is the property that causes matter to be attracted to other matter, what we feel as gravity. Particles like protons, neutrons and electrons, which have the Higgs boson as part of their makeup, have mass and are attracted to each other gravitationally. On the other hand, massless particles like photons, which do not have the Higgs, and are not affected by gravity.

"But what will this discovery mean for the common person on the street?" asked Dr. Vedeveltgnnen. "How will society use the Higgs boson? Simple: flying cars. It's 2012, for God's sake, why don't we have flying cars yet? That's really what this whole thing has been about."

Professor Higgs agreed. "Flying cars? Absolutely. That's why I worked out the equations in the first place. Did you watch The Jetsons? So did I. Now, we're finally going to get stuff like that."

"The Jetsons" was an iconic 1970's television cartoon about a futuristic family that had a robot maid, computerized kitchens and, yes, flying cars.

Although the CERN team noted that significant technical hurdles remain before practical flying cars would be a reality, the discovery of the Higgs boson is the key to making them. But how? Particles can be attracted or repelled by electric charge, another property of matter which is conveyed by a subatomic particle. Having a tau lepton means a negative charge, while having an anti-tau lepton makes a particle positively charged. Particles without tau leptons are electrically neutral.

"To get massless baryonic matter, all we have to do is cook up some anti-Higgs bosons. So, when we expose normal matter with Higgs bosons to the stream of anti-Higgs bosons, we'll get matter that behaves the same way it always has in terms of tensile strength, opacity, electrical conductivity, and so on, but isn't affected by gravity," said Vedeveltignnen. "The theory also says that an overbalance of anti-Higgs will create anti-gravity. Now that we've made the Higgs, making the anti-Higgs will be dead easy. Both Star Trek and The Jetsons are now within our reach."

Professor Peter Higgs.

"Star Trek", the popular 1960's science fiction television show, has been the basis for movies, spinoff sequels and books. More importantly, many scientists and engineers cite "Star Trek" as the inspiration for their scientific achievements.

"Oh, sure, Star Trek was fantastic. Loved that show," affirmed Professor Higgs. "I never thought much of Star Wars, since it was more science fantasy, but Star Trek? That's right up there with The Jetsons."

Iishi Nakamoto, Vice President for R&D director of Toyota Corp., explained it this way: "Toyota broke new ground in the hybrid car market with the Prius, and we're hoping to do the same with the flying car market. We partnered with CERN to do just that. We're thrilled to be a part of this historic day."

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Images:
http://cache.io9.com/assets/images/13242/2010/03/the-jetsons.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02266/Higgs-boson-_2266388b.jpg

p.s. I know nothing about subatomic physics, but I want a flying car.

I Snot The Serif

I'm offline today. Enjoy.

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Another status update

I've now completed the read-through of this draft of "Goodbye Grammarian". After being in the trenches with this book, revising and fixing one scene after another for months, it was instructive to just READ the darned thing and see how it all hangs together.

Overall, it's not as bad as I thought it might be. Given the way I wrote it, I was concerned that the 50,000 foot view would reveal a clunky, patchwork narrative, with badly stitched together chunks. In fact, although there are problems, they aren't too bad. Let me summarize:

There are plenty of typos and odd spelling, but that's a function of my typing - easily fixed.
Repetitions of words and phrases popped up rather a lot. For example, my hero is "blasted backward" perhaps a dozen times. I read the phrase six or seven times in various chapters before it struck me that I didn't vary the description. In the months that separated the writing of one scene vs. another, I'd forgotten exactly how I'd phrased things. Easily fixed, although perhaps not so easily recognized by me. Fresh eyes will help on this.
Repetitions of actions. The Grammarian gets beaten up several times in this book, sometimes sustaining terrible injuries. However, one of his powers is self-editing, so he's able to heal broken bones and torn muscles pretty quickly. As I read the book, I could see that I had him spending a lot of time doing this. I have a way to make this work in the book, but it'll be tricky to make it sound as funny on paper as it does in my head.
A couple of out-of-order scenes stumbled the narrative. I'd moved a couple of scenes around, re-writing them to smooth the transitions. However, the characters possess knowledge in these scenes that they couldn't possibly have yet, or they recommend a course of action that the other actions in the book don't yet justify. Moderately easy to fix. I'll have to add at least one scene earlier on to build up a character, and change a few scene openings to frame the narrative flow to get everything to make sense.
Walk-on characters. I have a few characters who are introduced, are part of a single scene, and are then never heard from again. I'm of two minds about this. I don't think that every character has to have a fully fleshed existence. With apologies to Rosecrans and Guildenstern, some minor characters are there to drive the plot forward, or to allow the reveal of character traits of the major characters. However, I think that some of these guys should get an appearance in a second scene, or more references in later scenes. This will help populate and codify the externalities of the Grammarian's contextual environment, Lexicon City.
Supporting characters. The supporting characters are mostly OK. They get adequate screen time and their motivations are believable. The Grammarian interacts with them and they help to shape the events that propel the plot.
No slow middle. There are a few infodumps here and there, but I can fix those by switching them to dialogue or simply cutting them and leaving the reader to wonder about a few things. The big thing, thought, is that in reading the book, I never got the feeling that the action slowed down and dragged in the middle, lunked up with a bunch of filler and chit-chat. Again, fresh eyes will let me know if I'm right in this perception.
More problems with the last part of the book. I noticed that the read-through of the first 60% that the book seemed to be in good shape. In the last 40%, though, there were more significant things to be fixed. Why? The latter part of the book is where the tension rises, the action comes to a head, motivations are revealed and where loose ends of plot are woven together. It's simply harder to write a good ending that it is to write a good beginning. I've been writing faster lately, working on this book more consistently in the past six months. However, since I've been skipping around the book, filling in scenes based on the notes I made on the first draft, I don't think there's a relationship between the output pace and the quality of the work.
There is one missing scene. I put in a placeholder note to myself in one chapter: "Insert fight scene with XXX. Have XXX reveal YYY in order to set up ZZZ. Big fight. Grammarian victorious, but weakened. XXX gets away." Somehow, I never got around to writing that scene. Oops. The rest of the book proceeded with the Grammarian weakened by the fight and knowing about YYY, with the plot ultimately flowing smoothly into the ZZZ scene. Moderately easy to fix.
The villain's master plan makes sense. In the earlier drafts, and even in this one to an extent, the plot was propelled forward by disjointed actions and unconnected coincidences. All of these are now coherent, logical elements in a slowly unfolding plan. This is probably the best thing to come out of this read-through. The actions of the villain early on lead in a believable way to the next actions, which then have logical consequences, and so on. I need to re-write the ending to reveal this master plan to the reader. I trust that I'll be able to do this without resorting to a parlor-room reveal ala Hercule Poirot.

That's where things stand. It's useful for me to take time to reflect on what I'm doing as I'm doing it. Realizing what's good and what's not is a good way for me to plan how I'll go forward. Reading it from start to finish was fun, and reaffirmed my faith in the book's quality.

All of my above observations, of course, are based on my own reading of the book. My team of beta readers may agree or disagree with any of it. I'm looking forward to getting these revisions done and sending it off to them.

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#FridayFlash: Canon in D

It is a dark and stormy night.

The protagonist takes the punch, rolling with the impact to make the
antagonist overconfident.

The antagonist hits as hard as he can, driving the protagonist to the
ground with a single blow.

The woman cries out, seeing the protagonist felled by the ferocity of
the antagonist's attack.

The protagonist grunts in a convincing display of pain.

The antagonist sneers in a brash display of triumph.

The woman cowers in a simpering display of fear.

The author pushes back his chair, disgusted with the hackneyed cliché
in which he has mired his new book.

The muse stands back, contributing nothing, waiting by the author's side.

The computer hums.

The coffee cools.

The computer hums.

The muse shifts and rests a hand on the author's shoulder.

The author pulls his chair forward and reshapes the world.

The woman snarls, red rage on her face.

The antagonist chokes, dark blood in his mouth.

The protagonist gasps, silver knife in his hand.

The woman howls, her ragged claws buried deep in the antagonist's throat.

The antagonist shudders, the recoil from his AK-47 convulsing him as
he empties a long clip into the woman's chest, to no effect.

The protagonist hesitates, the sucking wound in his side burbling as
he draws back his arm, preparing to strike with the only weapon that
can kill his beloved.

In the clear night sky, the cold moon looks down at the suffering
she's wrought in the world below... and laughs.

--
Sent from my mobile device

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash fiction and poetry anthologies, now available.
Buy your copy today!

_______________________________
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Hamper, pulverize, taunt

My limerick for Three Word Wednesday uses the words: hamper, pulverize, taunt

~~~~~

You'd taunt me and hamper my soul
With an acid tongue that you thought "droll"
My dreams pulverize
As light exercise...
But the victim's no longer my role.

~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash fiction and poetry anthologies, now available.
Buy your copy today!

_______________________________
Buy my books: http://amazon.com/author/tonynoland
Read my blog: http://www.TonyNoland.com/
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TonyNoland
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Fantastic Flying Books

The Fantastic Flying Books

of Mr. Morris Lessmore

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Status update

I'm about 60% done with this markup pass on "Goodbye Grammarian". So far, it's in better shape than I thought it would be. I've been so close to it that I haven't had a chance to just READ the thing from start to finish. Once the copy is marked up with red circles, cross-outs and scribbled notes, I'll go in and start fixing the actual text.

There are fewer little prose bumps to smooth that I feared. Scene transitions are too abrupt in a couple of cases, which means I need to to re-frame the transition or shift things around in time to make them work better.

So far, there has been only one time when something was seriously out of whack. I moved a scene forward in the book to balance out how much time a certain supporting character got. However, this scene is driven by action and information that doesn't happen until later. So, I'm going to move it backwards and use it to improve one of the scene transitions I mentioned above. I'll write a new scene to take its place in the first third of the book, which will probably do a better job of introducing this character anyway.

This is why we edit.

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#FridayFlash: Lord V's Interrupted Tea

Lord V's Interrupted Tea

by Tony Noland

The kitchen smelled of mouse droppings and three-day-old dishes. In the dimness of a cold, gray morning, a pale, thin man seated at the scarred table leaned in close to his newspaper, avidly scanning every line. His tea sat unregarded in front of him, already cold. It was of no consequence; the tea was of the cheap, tasteless American variety, the kind that came two hundred teabags to the box.

He despised tea. He loathed the newspaper he was reading. He was steeped in bile and vitriol, consumed with contempt for the entire world and everything in it. But most especially, he burned white-hot with fury and hatred for one man above all others, a man whom he could not touch in any way. As he did every morning, he searched the paper for bad news about the object of his impotent bloodlust, but found nothing.

His roommate swept into the kitchen, striding like a master of the universe. He picked up the empty tea kettle and shook it. In disgust, he slammed the practically empty kettle back down on the counter. "I see you didn't bother to heat enough water for two cups. Again." His asthmatic voice rasped. The thin man said nothing, just continued glaring at his newspaper. His roommate said, "Any fresh news about Harry Potter? Last I heard, he got a promotion to Chief Auror. Bad luck, Tom. You have my sympathies."

The man at the table grimaced. "No, there's nothing in the paper about him. And you needn't be such a snot about it... Anakin," he replied. The acid emphasis he put on the name was unmistakable, and it got the reaction he'd intended.

Behind his faceplate, his roommate's expression was unreadable, but his body language was unmistakable. The pause as he refilled the tea kettle, the fractional squaring of the shoulders... the morning was off to a bad start.

"Do not use that name. Anakin Skywalker is dead."

"Oh? I'd forgotten. Just like you seem to have forgotten that Tom Riddle is dead."

"You signed the lease as Tom Riddle. Just because you have adopted a stage name for use with your lackeys does not change your true identity."

"And yours isn't fake? How is Darth Vader any more real a name than Voldemort?"

"My name was conferred upon me by the Emperor."

"That's not legally binding. He took power in a coup; he's not even a legitimate head of state!"

"It doesn't matter. He was a Senator before he became Emperor, so I'm covered either way. You, on the other hand, plucked a name out of thin air. Or should I say, you conjured it?"

"Ha ha. At least I chose the name Voldemort for myself. I was captain of my own destiny, not manipulated and turned to evil like a puppet on a string."

"I embraced my destiny!"

"You were led to it like a mindless animal."

"My ambition was to help conquer a galaxy. You only wanted the U.K.!"

"But I wanted to be in charge, to run the show! My plan was to be the one sitting in the big chair - you only wanted to kneel beside your Emperor and do his bidding.'

"Limey small timer!"

"Imperial flunky!"

"No-nose snake charmer!"

"No-face burn victim!"

With blinding speed, Darth Vader drew his light saber and slashed down at Voldemort. His blow was deflected by an eruption of red fire that exploded from Voldemort's wand, already to hand. "Sectum Sempra!" cried Voldemort, his face twisted in rage. Rebounding from the ionized plasma column of the light saber's blade, the spell blasted against the wall of the kitchen.

Voldemort bellowed with rage. "That's coming out of YOUR half of the security deposit! AVADA KEDAVRA!" A bolt of green-whte lightning blasted from the wand; Darth Vader deflected it with the palm of his hand.

"Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side!'''

"You are nothing! The Dark Lord will triumph!"

"Dark Side!"

"Dark Lord!"

"DARK SIDE!"

"DARK LORD!"

Their battle was horrific, an evil hurricane of lightning and flame that whipped around them with energies eldritch and mystic, science and sorcery pitted against each other in a battle to the death, until...

DING DONG!

Both men froze.

DING DONG!

They looked at each other, neither willing to be the first to lower his weapon.

DING DONG! DING DONG!

The doorbell's insistent ringing was joined by a loud knocking on the flat's front door.

"You'd better answer that," said Voldemort.

"I'm not going to answer the door," Darth Vader said, " I'm still in my slippers. YOU answer it."

DING DONG! DING DONG! DING DONG!

Scowling, Voldemort left the kitchen and went down the grimy hall toward the front door. Despite being in slippers, Vader followed. Voldemort looked through the security peephole.

"It's the landlord!" he hissed. Quickly, he put away his wand.

Vader retracted his light saber and stuffed it under his cape. "Do you think he heard us?"

"Of course he heard us! You make a WOO-WOO noise every time you wave that thing!"

"Me? What about you, yelling spells at the top of your voice!"

DING DONG! DING DONG! DING DONG! A voice from the hallway said, "Open the door! I know you're in there!"

Voldemort snarled at his roommate, but composed his face before opening the door. A huge man stood on the doorstep, his iron-shod foot tapping angrily on the mat.

"Ah," said Voldemort, in an oily, persuasive voice, "good morning, Dr. Doom. What can I do for you?"

"You can stop making so much racket, that's what!" Even behind his riveted iron mask, his scowl was evident. "I'm sick to death of both of you, bickering and arguing. If you two can't get along, I suggest you break it up and seek other arrangements."

"And, ah, which of our neighbors complained this time?"

"Don't you go adding names to a revenge list, you Abracadabra little pup. I heard it myself, plain as day. The lease CLEARLY states that no weapons shall be drawn OR discharged within the confines of the apartment. Section 5, clause 2. It'll come out of your security deposit if there's any damage. And you needn't puff out your chest, Mr. Walking I.C.U. I'm talking to both of you. Is that understood! No more noise! I've had my fill of it! Once more and you're out! O - U - T, out!"

Meekly, Voldemort said, "Yes, sir."

Dr. Doom glared at Darth Vader, mask to mask. Finally, the fallen Jedi said, "Yes, sir," and retreated further into the apartment.

"Good! I'd better be rightly understood, or you're both in for it." Still muttering, he turned away, his green cape swirling. Then, one foot on the stair, he turned back and held out a small box, wrapped in brown paper. "Oh, with all the racket and ruckus, I forgot why I came up here in the first place. Someone left a package for this apartment. It's addressed to Lord V, Apartment 4B."

Both roommates reached out a hand. "I'll take it", they said in unison.

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NOTE: I got the idea for this #FridayFlash from the very chic Ms. L. and the very Minecraftian Mr. N. Aside from giving credit where credit is due, I should note that they wanted the story to include a scene of Ginny (Weasley) Potter bitch-slapping Darth Vader for killing her husband, Harry Potter. But that, of course, would have been silly.

Scribble & Scatter: Sunday Snaps: the Stories

I'm happy to say that I have a short story in this. It's one of my better ones, too. Funny and touching, wistful, sad and romantic.

Take a look

Scribble & Scatter: Sunday Snaps: the Stories: Publication Date: August 2012 ISBN: 978-1-908858-01-6 Short Fiction & Poetry Inspired by Photography

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Wednesday poetry: fog, lenient, struggle

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: fog, lenient, struggle (it's more fun if you read it aloud - try it!):

'mid the fog of my overbooked life

this struggle for Art brings me strife;

t'would be more convenient

if my muse were lenient,

I march to my taskmaster's fife.

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Oh, wait... the "romantic scoundrel" thing isn't very good book promotion, is it? How about this:

My book of limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday is FREE to borrow from Amazon:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

"They made me laugh, they made me sad, they made me think and squirm and reflect. ... Tony Noland has a way with words that is nothing short of astonishing" - Jeff Posey, Amazon review

That's right, FREE. Of course, if you're not in Amazon Prime, it still only costs $0.99. That's less than a coffee. And I'm not talking Starbuck's, I'm talking about the burnt mud they sell at the convenience store. It's worth the buck - you'll love it!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" (or any of my other great writing) anywhere you like!

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Who is Mrs. White?

After I did the 7 and 77 thing on Facebook and in a blog post, Simon C. Larter had a question about Mrs. White, the Grammarian's A.I. assistant/housekeeper/technician.

"I... kinda want to read more now. O.O"

That's a good reaction, Simon. I like that reaction.

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The 7 and 77 meme

This is a meme going around. I was originally tagged by Rob Diaz, and re-tagged by Icy Sedgwick.

The "rules" are: Go to page 7 or 77 of your latest work. Read down to the seventh line and then post online the next seven lines or sentences. Then head off and tag seven more writers.

These are seven sentences (more or less) on page 77 of my WIP "Goodbye Grammarian". It's a scene in which Alex Graham (the Grammarian) is reviewing the data on a mysterious new superhero. He's discussing it with Mrs. White, the A.I. that is his administrative assistant:

-----------------------------------------------------
"Mrs. White, why did you call her an attractive woman? I haven't used that term in any of my descriptions."

"Not in so many words, sir, but your tone is unmistakable."

"Hmm. It seems that I'm more transparent in conversation than I realized."

"Only with me, sir."

"Why should I bother to get a girlfriend when I have you, Mrs. White? Your company is always so agreeable."

"That's not surprising, sir. Since you programmed me, conversation with me is comparable to talking to yourself."

He let that hang for a moment, then said, "That's rather pathetic, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

With a sigh, he set down his coffee cup and stood. "Well, I'm going out to dinner with
Dr. Hunter this evening, so you needn't worry about me."

"I only worry about you when you're bleeding, sir."
-----------------

Now for the Great Tagging: Annie Evett, Absolutely-Kate Pilarcik, Adam Byatt, Jim Bronyaur, Susan May James, Tom Gillespie and Author Simon C. Larter

A sneak peek at my book

Here's a sneak peek at my book, "Goodbye Grammarian".

Click to enlarge and see it in all its glory

The process to date:

Wrote a 50K draft, in sequence from beginning to end.
Read and made notes for massive changes, revisions, additions, in sequence from beginning to end.
Added new and re-wrote the old, in sequence from beginning to end, until it reached ~82K.
Re-read and made more notes for major changes, revisions, additions.
Skipping around in the manuscript, added new, re-wrote the old, until it reached 101K.
NOW: re-read, make more notes for minor changes, revisions, continuity, deletions and additions.

I suspect there are some subplots that need to be streamlined and some characters that need to be balanced out.

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Give me money

Have you ever wished that you could give me money? Just send me money because you like me or my writing?

NOW YOU CAN! PayPal and all major credit cards accepted! You can even specify the amount and leave comments with your money!

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C-c-c-coffee's g-g-g-good!

A slight miscalculation based on misremembering: instead of "one level scoop of coffee for every two cups of water", my younger son made this morning's pot using "two heaping scoops of coffee for every one cup of water".

Oops.

After half a cup, my fingers are trembling, my arms ache and my stomach is cramping. The sun appears to have dimmed in the sky and all the sounds around me have an odd, ringing quality.

Also, my teeth itch.

I appreciate having coffee made for me. Truly, I do. It's an expression of love and affection.

But... well.

Happy Father's Day.

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p.s. You might think I'm jumping the gun by saying Happy Father's Day today, instead of tomorrow. However, for me, it is already tomorrow. And next week, since I'm in the middle of a pulsating time dilation

At least, that's how I feel.

#FridayFlash: Broad Horizons

My FridayFlash is featured today over at amwriting.org. It's a science fiction story entitled, "Broad Horizons". I hope you enjoy it!

My thanks to John Hancock (@grokdad) and Larry Kollar (@Farfetched58) for their beta reads - gracias!

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Beta readers: who will save the Grammarian?

Today over on Write Anything, I talk about beta readers for my WIP. I'm almost ready to send it to the betas, so how do I decide who to send it to?

Beta reading is not editing. A beta reader is like a beta tester for software---their task is to take the rough product out for a spin and find the big problems with it. When I get this draft to them, I don't want to kid myself into thinking that it's fine as is, that my beta readers will go over it and find nothing wrong. On the contrary, if a beta comes back with "Great! Loved it! Publish as is!", I would suspect that something had gone wrong in the beta process.

I guess I do a pretty good job of selling the thing when I talk about it. I say this because I'm VERY fortunate in that I've had a number of people offer to beta/crit "Goodbye Grammarian". Rather than having to go out and recruit, it's more a case of drawing on all the help my friends and fellow writers have so generously offered.

What qualities should a beta read have? Read the post to get my take on it.

And, as a special teaser feature, go read "Verbosity's Vengeance", the story that provided the genesis for this WIP. I hope you like it.

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Summer Reading Flowchart

A summer reading flowchart, heavy on the classics:

Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

Heh... and you thought that all they did at the University of Southern California was surf. Shows what YOU know.

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What the semicolon says about me

In a hilarious guest post, Leah Peterson delineates what your favorite punctuation mark says about you. Since my love for the semicolon is well-established, I naturally read that entry:

Semi-colon (;): You’re well-read and urbane. You knew where this was on the keyboard before it became part of the winky emoticon. You’re more easy-going than Colon or Period types, but you’re still put together and usually organized. People are comfortable around you and tend to like you, though they may not be able to say exactly why.

Dead on the money, especially the part about people not knowing why they like me. We semicolonistas are mysterious that way.

Leah's analysis has equally insightful things to say about the . , : {} " [] & ! - / and other punctuation marks. The rest of the post is great fun, so go read it.

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Wednesday #poetry: cling, murmur, taken

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: cling, murmur, taken

Shocked murmur, a dusty old birder;

a corpse 'mid the crows - no one heard her.

With dread poison taken,

She'll never awaken.

Crows cling to her: suicide-murder

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

Oh, wait... the "doomed astronaut" thing isn't very good book promotion, is it? How about this:

My book of limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday is FREE to borrow from Amazon:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

"They made me laugh, they made me sad, they made me think and squirm and reflect. ... Tony Noland has a way with words that is nothing short of astonishing" - Jeff Posey, Amazon review

That's right, FREE. Of course, if you're not in Amazon Prime, it still only costs $0.99. That's less than a coffee. And I'm not talking Starbuck's, I'm talking about the burnt mud they sell at the convenience store. It's worth the buck - you'll love it!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" (or any of my other great writing) anywhere you like!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Kreativ - 10 Things About Me

John Wiswell recently bestowed on me the Kreativ Blogger Award. It's an honor I'm pleased to receive from someone who is so demonstrably kreativ on a daily basis.

The deal is that I will now say ten things about myself. Like John, I'm going to limit this to things about my writing.

1. Aside from high school English classes, I'm self-taught as a writer. I wasn't an English major, I have no MFA, have taken no community college composition courses, had no writing mentors when I started out, did no internships in publishing, etc. I read books and blogs, I think and I practice. Maybe this lack of formal training shows, maybe it doesn't. Hard to tell.

2. I used to have winning major writing awards (at some point) as a driving ambition, but more and more, I've been disillusioned about how works are selected for awards. I'm coming to believe it's less about quality rising to the top and more similar to elections for class president in high school. My blog isn't nearly popular enough for that sort of thing.

3. As a corollary to #2, I've always understood that to be eligible for any major awards, you have to be traditionally published. Self-published books aren't eligible for the Hugo or Nebula, let alone the National Book Award or Pulitzer. If I'm going to write off the awards, why do I want to go with a traditional model again?

4. Given that I haven't yet even finished my WIP, let alone have a novel out for sale, it's hard for me to publicly discuss my ambitions or opinions on awards (#2) and publishing (#3). I feel like there's no reason anyone should listen to me, so until I can say something meaningful, I should just keep my mouth shut.

5. Right up there along with "Nobody asked you for your opinion," the phrase, "Until you can say something meaningful, just keep your mouth shut," is one of those things that was repeatedly drilled into me at a formative age. It's why I didn't start writing fiction (or blogging about it) until I reached the age where many men start to think about hair implants and sporty convertibles. In other words, until I was able to go batshit bonkers.

6. I worry that my writing is mushy, half-baked, autodidactic drivel, like a child's fingerpainting smeared on a sheet of yesterday's newspaper.

7. In connection with #6, I worry that I'm just fooling myself and that I secretly DON'T think my writing is mushy, half-baked, autodidactic drivel and instead think it's actually not half bad, but that I am, in fact, simply incapable of properly evaluating my own work. I know this is what friends and beta readers are for, to backstop and give perspective on the quality of my writing, but like B.B. King sang, "Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be lying, too."

8. It had been several weeks, perhaps months, since I wrote a bloody, murderous FridayFlash. Last week, though, I wrote "The Emperor's New Clothes". One of the comments (by Larry Kollar), was, "Now here is some vintage Tony Noland!" There were other, similar comments, and the piece provoked some strong reactions. I'm pleased with the attention (because I'm a sucker for that sort of thing), but it does make me wonder if my readers approach my blog with bloodlust in their hearts. And if so, should I be catering to it?

9. If overthinking things related to writing were an Olympic event, they wouldn't even bother to hold it. The Olympic Committee would just carve my name and face on a mountain in Greece, hang a giant gold medal on it and retire the event forever.

10. Despite all the sturm ung drang, I enjoy writing. True, it's a struggle sometimes to get going or to keep going. The words fight me sometimes, while other times they tumble out of me in pre-polished perfection. Nevertheless, it lets me give voice to things that I need to say. I'm glad I'm able to write, and to have others read my writing and enjoy it. And if they are lying, and are just pretending to enjoy it, the way someone might fake an orgasm to avoid hurting the feelings of a clumsy lover? Well, at least they care enough to pretend.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

The Best Fundraising Speech Ever

Last Sunday, I had a lot of negative energy to burn off. Naturally, I used Twitter as a place to riff and procrastinate. This is how it all went down (tweets copied from my Twitter feed):

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Making writing a priority

Today over at Write Anything, I discuss the mechanics of making writing a priority: what works, what interferes and how to make it better.

Read and enjoy.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

What do your glasses say about you?

From The Reading Glasses Shopper Blog:

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

The Emperor's New Clothes

by Tony Noland

The day was warm and flawless, with scintillating sunshine streaming from a broad, blue sky. The Emperor's Own Brigade led the parade, the fearsome phalanx known to friend and foe as the Red Dragons. Proud and polished, they filed past in row upon row of majestic military might. They were followed in order by the Imperial Fife and Drum Corps, the Council of Governors and the High Priests of the Great Temple, with all their assorted acolytes and virgins.

In a flourish of gold brocade and purple silk, long bell-horn held high, the Herald of the Emperor paced in measured step, sounding the rhythmic, compelling notes of the Imperial March.

And then came His Imperial Majesty, head high and chest out-thrust, brown hair turned to loosely matted gray on his chest and legs, his pocked pale flesh rippling upwards with every step on the closely set cobblestones. The sunlight gleamed on his crown of gold, on his sapphire-encrusted scepter of office, and on his glistening, sweaty skin.

Whereas the citizens of the capitol had cheered the Emperor's Own, tossed goodnatured comments to the Council and begged blessings from the High Priests, every head bowed with silent reverence as the Emperor passed. With regal calm, he nodded to left and right, acknowledging the obeisance of his people.

It was in this silence that a child could be heard, laughing high and loud.

"He's naked, mama! Look! You can see his dangle!"

The Emperor, perhaps not hearing, perhaps choosing not to notice, continued his stately progression.

Though the child's mother tried to shush him, the little boy again shouted with glee. "But he IS! He's naked as a piggy! Just look at him, mama! He's so fat and funny looking!"

The Emperor stopped. Behind him, the rest of the parade ground to an instant, clashing halt. Ahead of him, the Herald of the Emperor, who kept a close eye on his master so as to be guided by him, also stopped. The musician broke off mid-phrase and tucked his bell-horn under his arm. When the Imperial March fell silent, the head of the parade stopped and turned. The High Priests, the Council, the Fife and Drums Corps and the Red Dragons all stopped and turned to face their absolute ruler. They all stood in silence as the Emperor stared at the little boy.

Squirming in his mother's frantic grasp, the boy shouted, "But can't you see he's naked? There's his bum and his dangle and his big belly. How come I can't go naked, mama?"

With a speed and power born of wartime victories too many to count, the Emperor stepped in close to the boy and yanked him from his mother's grasp. His huge, meaty hand gripped the boy's throat and he swung the child high into the air. The boy had time for a single cry of pain and terror, whined from his crushed windpipe, before the Emperor slammed his little body down onto the stones. Even his mother's scream could not drown out the drywood CRACK of his small back snapping when he hit.

In a single, smooth motion, the Emperor lifted his scepter and swung it down with brutal, battlefield force onto the boy's skull. The child's gurgling stopped, his little body twitching with animal motions, gushing and bleeding on the cobblestones. The only sound was the mother's wailing screams and the hissed voices of those restraining her, muffling her, keeping her back from her child.

The Emperor pulled the scepter free from the wreckage of the child's skull and turned to face the mother. He shoved the bloody instrument of death under her chin, grinding the symbol of his reign into her throat until she choked for breath through her frantic, hysterical tears. Terror spread through the crowd as they waited to learn the extent of the retribution the Emperor would extract for the child's insults.

Finally, after long minutes in the clear, perfect sunshine, the monarch released the woman. She sagged backward. He turned to her neighbors in the crowd, "As it is Our birthday, We choose to show mercy. Take her home."

Everyone who heard the Emperor's words hastened to obey, bowing and scraping, dragging the woman bodily away. The Emperor stood and watched as half the street emptied. Then, head held high, he stepped over the body of the child and stood in the middle of the boulevard, resuming his place in the parade.

He nodded to the Herald, who licked his lips and resumed the Imperial March, the clear, strident notes sounding through the air once again. The parade slowly wound its way through the capitol, and in turn, every head, young and old, trembled and bowed low to His Imperial Majesty.

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Ray Bradbury: the strangest tribute

Over at Geeks Are Sexy, I saw this video as a tribute to the recently departed Grand Master of science fiction, Ray Bradbury.

I include the picture for the curious juxtaposition of the title of the tribute video with the sidebar add. The video itself is geeky and rather silly, although, to my staid and conservative way of thinking, more disrespectful than edgy.

Note that I have never aspired to be like Ray Bradbury, in the same way that hamsters never aspire to be like the strong nuclear force. The contextual comparison between writers like me and the fundamental fabric of the science fiction universe makes such aspirations not merely presumptuous, but nonsensical.

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Wednesday #limerick: bulky, mist, resign

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: bulky, mist, resign

http://hulkpictures.blogspot.com/

I try not to rage or be sulky

'bout my green skin and body so bulky

But it's hard to resist,

My eyes fill with red mist,

Could YOU resign to being Hulky?

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

You can't handle the truth!

Oh, wait... the "arrogant marine" thing isn't very good book promotion, is it? How about this:

My book of limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday is FREE to borrow from Amazon:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

"They made me laugh, they made me sad, they made me think and squirm and reflect. ... Tony Noland has a way with words that is nothing short of astonishing" - Jeff Posey, Amazon review

That's right, FREE. Of course, if you're not in Amazon Prime, it still only costs $0.99. That's less than a coffee. And I'm not talking Starbuck's, I'm talking about the burnt mud they sell at the convenience store. It's worth the buck - you'll love it!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" (or any of my other great writing) anywhere you like!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Star Trek 2 - teaser

No new writing news to report, or deep thoughts to offer. However, I do have a totally fake teaser trailer for Star Trek 2.

I hope the real movie has less lens flare.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Book status update

More to satisfy my need for public benchmarking than to address any
particular interest of yours, here is a status update in my WIP,
"Goodbye Grammarian".

It's at 97K, with another two small scenes to write. These are
bridging scenes to provide some time to pass between a couple of key
events. I could just make this happen by adding a single phrase like,
"Four days later..." but I need to bump up the drama in one if the
subplots anyway.

I need to do a full read-through with fresh eyes before I send it off
to my beta readers. If I were able to read it out loud, that would be
the best approach. However, at a normal reading pace, a book this
length would take about 16 hours to do. I'm not sure I could do it in
even two solid days of vocal work. I wanted to have this sent off to
my betas by June 1; taking an extra week for a vocal run and
associated rewrites might just be doing work that I'd have to re-do
once I get their comments back.

I haven't done a full spellcheck in this yet, either. yWriter has a
rudimentary spellcheck, but it doesn't have much of a correction
system. It's one of the things I dislike, but it won't be fixed
anytime soon. I'll have to export to Word, spellcheck, then re-import
back to yWriter for more edits. Clunky, and prompts Scrivener envy.

I started out with 90K as the goal, but if it runs between 90 and 100,
I'll be OK with it. I expect the betas to want some cut back and
others expanded.

So there you have it.

--
Sent from my mobile device

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash fiction and poetry anthologies, now available.
Buy your copy today!

_______________________________
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