I’ve had better days, no doubt. That’s pretty much all I’m going to write about that. Best to close this day with sweet nite-nite moosik. And speaking of sweet, I discovered this sweet little dream-pop band over the weekend called Still Corners from the U.K. This song “Endless Summer” is the first one I heard by them. Instant fan. Sleep well tonight, kids.
This has come to my attention a little late. Guitarist/vocalist Thurston Moore (he of the legendary Sonic Youth) goes the ‘singer-songwriter’ route on his forthcoming new solo album Demolished Thoughts (produced by Beck and due May 24, 2011). The song below is the album’s acoustic opener called “Benediction” and it’s a beauty. Reminds me of the Sonic Youth acoustic opener song “Winter’s Blues” from the album Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994)…but mellower. And much better. Check it out. Also, it was the song of the day over on NPR.
Yesterday I read a pretty good Q&A interview with Stephen King, or “Uncle Steve” over at The Atlantic. It was conducted by James Parker. It can be found here. A few quotes of note: Stephen King: In the old days, it would seem like ideas were crammed in like people in an elevator. And my head was sometimes a very noisy place to be. The other thing that happens with that is, say you’re working on something and it’s going along pretty well, and two or three ideas occur, and they’re all yelling “You should write this! You should write this!” It’s almost like being married and all of a sudden your life is full of beautiful women. You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on. But it can be uncomfortable. James Parker: So do you keep them in a different file, or …? SK: No. I never write ideas down. Because all you do when you write ideas down is kind of immortalize something that should go away. If they’re bad ideas, they …
I’ve been a bit busy, distracted and frustrated with any number of other things (like writing stories and other stuff, finally downloading and playing with Adobe’s CS5, a bum knee, a bum car in the shop, looking into buying a new car, several writer’s association meetings, and time with the family just goes without saying – perhaps a more detailed updated later), but I’d rather not talk about me and my troubles as I’d much rather talk about Warren Ellis (yeah, him again). You can get all this news from his awesome internet home/blogsite, but since I’m araving fanboy of The Man/Writer/Legend/ Internet Jesus, I’m going to share some Ellis news here because that’s just what I do (for free, even!). It was announced yesterday (April 11, 2011) that Warren Ellis has signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown and Company (via their Mulholland Books Imprint) to publish a crime (and sci-fi?) thriller called Gun Machine (due fall 2012), and another novel to be named later. Ellis wrote a nice little essay about crime and science …
Got word last evening that my short story “Finder Kept” has been accepted for publication in Best Left Buried: A Cursed Anthology, a Static Movement anthology edited by Greg Miller, likely to be published in a few weeks. This is the first submission and acceptance of 2011 for me. In 2010, my “breakout from obscurity year”, I started off a lot stronger than this. Plenty of stories are in the hopper, though, so lets see if I can make up some lost ground in the coming weeks. The Cover (back/front) About the editor Greg Miller: He’s the writer of a little collection of stories called Scaring the Crows: 21 Tales For Noon or Midnight (2009) that I still need to pull off my bookshelf and read this year. He’s also the editor of Something Dark in the Doorway, a ghost-oriented anthology that I wanted to try for, but couldn’t even come close to the deadline. Check’em out @ Amazon And the just released anthology he edited, Shadows Within Shadows Available now for order at the Static Movement affiliate bookstore …
After reading a bit of news from different parts of the world this evening while relaxing after work, I’m feeling a bit misanthropic, sad to say. I know that evil is the natural opposite of love and plays an equalizing role in the balance of the universe. Yet, being fully aware of this fact, and even accepting of it, that does not make evil any more tolerable. Misanthropy goes against my very nature as a person, but, hey, I’m merely human. Isn’t that the same line that excuses the evil persons in the world? I have more writing to do tonight. I’ll be fine. Think fondly of your loved ones tonight. Pull those close to you nearer for a warm embrace. Sleep well and awake even better. I leave you with a little nite-nite music: “Eden” (live) – one of my favorite songs by the Belgian band Hooverphonic. Taken from a 2005 show in Belgium that I recently stumbled upon. Beautiful photography. Beautiful Theatre. Beautiful Geike Arnaert. Beautiful song. Though not as beautiful as the original studio version: Good …
Been writin’. And brainstorming. And discussing things with other independent writers. Planning big plans. Things are afoot…plans for the independent writer to maximize his or her options. A lot of new ideas and thinking a bit outside the box. But none of it will be easy and it will require hard work and great patience. The hard work I’ve got covered. Patience, not so much. But we will see. Lost sleep last night finishing up a story for an anthology. Should know whether it’s accepted or not in a day or so. Not overly confident I wrote it as best as I could since I didn’t keep it (well, the new second half of it) to myself for days/weeks/months. Battle of the bands will return in a day or two as I move toward the big finish. That’s more time consuming than what should be legal. But it’s fun. Good geeky fun. I’ll be back tomorrow.
Pregame: Running a little behind. Since this lil’ tourney is for pure geek fun, sometimes it gets pushed to the back burner in favor of other priorities. But the goal this weekend is to knock out Round 2 for all three remaining regions, and then start the Sweet 16 early next week. So here we go. The Match: #1-The Cure (11) VS #8-Ben Folds Five (4) The Cure sample song: “Want” Ben Folds Five sample song: “Selfless, Cold and Composed” The Winner: The Cure Postgame: Talk about a great band being cut short, Ben Folds Five had a mere 3 albums and 1 compilation in a five year span and then…poof! A year or so later Ben Folds resurfaces solo, but it was never the same. So during that five year span they gave us the the wonderful and spectacular Whatever and Ever, Amen, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, and their self-titled debut, sporting great songs like “Smoke”, “Underground”, “Mess”, “Song for the Dumped”, “The Last Polka”, and “Magic”. Then on the compilation, Naked Baby Photos, they …
This past week I have decided to self-publish a collection of short stories called [CLASSIFIED]. It will be 15 stories, a mix of shorts, flashes and micros. I have amassed a pretty large vault of stories since the mid-90s, many of which I’ve just been hoarding like some possessive little hermit for one reason or another. Most of them are from a time when I was a writer who was much more prolific and not as distracted with family and other commitments. One story is newer, and another is so brand new it’s not even written yet, but it is one I have been mulling for a few weeks now that will be a tribute to Nippon-koku/Nihon-koku/Japan. My intention is to release this collection sometime in July, so I will be polishing those babies up and getting them nice and pretty for their big day. What’s not decided yet is if I will take a stab at Amazon’s new self-publish direct to Kindle platform, or just go with Smashwords. And speaking of Smashwords… Smashwords Progress report: (reads/downloads/samples) – Shard: A Bloody Microfiction = 124 since 3/11/11 – …
