Missed this week’s updates for Echo Effect? Catch up with the links below!


I feel so behind on Echo Effect lately, despite working on it everyday. It's my goal to always be three months ahead, but that's not the case right now. The 36+ strips I usually have on the backburner have since dwindled to 29. I'm trying really hard to catch up, though, so keep your fingers crossed that I'm able to pull this off!

The final episode of the Animorphs Video Game Guide is up, where we look at fan speculations at what a modern Animorphs video game might look like.

One part on Blip:

http://blip.tv/pop-arena/animorphs-a-game-of-speculation-animorphs-video-game-guide-6588418

or two parts on Youtube below the cut:

( Read more...Collapse )

Here’s today's progress on my fin de siecle gothic epistolary about Lizzie Borden fighting Cthulhu with her trusty axe, now with Bonus! ghosts, guilt, arcane science, and an accidental villain who's losing his mind and his humanity in tandem:

Project: Maplecroft
Deadline: October 15, 2013
New words written: 1700
Present total word count: 98,659 words



Things accomplished in fiction: Reassessment of the situation. Change in strategy before it's too late. In case it's not too late.

Next up: A science experiment.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jaunt around the neighborhood with the dog; hosted a mini dog-park party in my yard (w/Jolly and a new adoptee named "Ian"); minimal yardwork (still watering down all the new stuff); exchanged some useful emails with important people; cooked lunch and then supper; crashed because I'm exhausted today.

Other: As previously mentioned - The Button Man and the Murder Tree is live at Tor.com and free for the reading! Click! Read! Get your killer mutant noir on!

Number of fiction words so far this year: 94,521

Today's selection is from the portion of Shakespeare's sonnets known as the Fair Youth sequence. Like most of the first 17 sonnets, this one focuses on the notion that the youth ought to procreate in order to leave the world with a tangible reminder of himself. Most of the poems praise the young man's good looks, and several of them remain appearance-focused, with a take-home message that boils down to "don't deprive the world of your beauty; have a kid, who will likely be beautiful as well, so your beauty (and in some cases, memory) can live on."

Sonnet 5 is a wee bit subtler than some of the other poems because of the seasonal metaphor on which it relies.

Sonnet 5
by William Shakespeare

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where.
Then were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
  But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
  Leese* but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

*leese: lose (for Shakespeare buffs, it's worth noting that this is the one and only time he uses this word in the writings that have been preserved)

Discussion: The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, written using iambic pentameter and using the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

He opens with mention of the passage of time – in hours. The first quatrain states the case that time has made the youth attractive, but it will continue its advance, and eventually make him "unfair" (meaning unattractive). In the next quatrain, he moves from talking of time in hours to time in seasons, where summer is related to the young man's current beauty, and winter to his eventual white hair and baldness (o'er-snowed and bareness) as well as his haggardness (sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone).

In the third quatrain, Shakespeare moves to talk about preserving summer by bottling perfume distilled from its flowers. Otherwise, he says, you'd forget about the beauty of summer, and have nothing to remember it by. The take-home message of this particular metaphor is that the young man had better reproduce, or else he'll die and leave nothing to his memory.

The closing couplet translates to something along the lines of "Flowers distilled into perfume lose their appearance, but their substance lives on." In the same way, I suppose, Shakespeare means that children would keep the memory and "substance" of the young man alive.

What's remarkable to me is how Shakespeare shifts his metaphor in the closing couplet. Throughout the first three quatrains, he's using summer and winter to refer to the youth and his appearance and vitality; in the closing couplet, he shifts from the season (in which perfume is made), to focus on the flowers themselves (from which perfume is made) as being a metaphor for the youth.

If you're so inclined, compare and contrast this poem – you need to reproduce so that you live on – with, say, Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"), which I blogged about one April as part of my "Building a Poetry Collection" series for National Poetry Month, which concludes with these lovely lines:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From Sonnet 18 on, the talk is no longer of children; it's the poet's tribute to the Fair Youth that will keep him alive in future generations.

A couple of weeks ago, jessica_shea noted that I'd really pulled back from social media these days, and asked if I was happier and did I miss it? And recently anywherebeyond posted about her social media hiatus and I left a big old comment there...big enough for a blog post.

The answer to both questions is yes. I am happier. But I do miss it. I'm lonely. I just moved to a rural area in a new state where I work at home. How am I supposed to make friends without social media? But I also find that I'm not as close to ANYONE as I used to be. Is it me? It's partly me. I've been really busy with work at the computer, and when I'm done with that, I don't really want to spend any more time on the computer. But I also got to thinking...is it ALL me? Maybe not.

Then mainemilyhoon just summed up everything I was thinking, even though she had no idea I was thinking it. (The collective unconscious is cranking this week!) I used to spend a lot of time online in meaningful, conversational interaction. Livejournal, mailing lists, message boards, email and chat rooms. Almost all of those forms of interaction have now been replaced by Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Goodreads...basically, websites that encourage either very short, quippy posts or the sharing of images, links, reviews and tips. I am amused and delighted by adorable cats and captions, but I am not really getting to know the person who posted them, and the meaningful stuff gets lost among all of the reposting of funny stuff and petitions and blah di blah.

What really drove this home to me was the other day when I former Livejournal friend posted on Facebook about some kind of family tragedy or illness--I couldn't quite tell what it was. If there was an earlier post about an accident or diagnosis or surgery, I missed it. A lot of people were commenting and making reference to what had happened so I don't think it was any kind of a secret, it seemed more likely that I had just been missing some updates. But I didn't want to ask. I just wished them well. But I felt bad that I no longer knew what was going on in a friend's life, likely because Facebook is too clogged with other junk and shows things selectively or in a weird order.

Today's social media also makes me feel left out...even when I'm not. Even when I was tweeting regularly, Twitter is such that you have to be on it all the time not to miss things. I would see remnants of friends talking to each other about something cool and think, "Damn, wish I'd been on Twitter when that conversation was happening! Now it's too late." Livejournal was something where comments could go on between people for days. You didn't have to be "on" Livejournal constantly to catch good moments. It also seems like a lot of Twitter is about tweeting how awesome your life is in the moment. "Woo! Having a great time at #ALAMidwinter drinking in the hotel bar with (insert 3 mega famous authors here)!" "Our plane just landed in Italy, gelati here I come!" etc etc. Which always makes me feel like everyone is having an awesome jet-setting life but me. It's different when someone blogs about a trip. It's like, if your friend went on vacation, came home and gives you a call to tell you about it vs. your friend calls you from a restaurant, describes her delicious meal and then hangs up, leaving you to stare despondently at your frozen pizza. Am I being neurotic and competitive? Probably. But I just...never USED to feel that way, certainly not to this degree. No doubt, the nature of online interaction HAS changed drastically and obviously the new way does suit a lot of people, but it doesn't suit me.

I have been pondering solutions to this problem, though. More later.

Ladies, gents, and the otherwise affiliated - over at Tor.com you will now find my short story The Button Man and the Murder Tree, a Wild Cards project that I've been keeping under my hat for a few months. Free for the reading!

It's a story about a fellow I introduced in Fort Freak - Raul Esposito ... back when he was a button man for the mob in Chicago, and long before he became a genteel (if somewhat creepy) restaurateur in NYC. Raul's in a race against time, the mafia, and his own body. One of them will betray him before the week is out.

As a bonus, this story is accompanied by some truly kickass art by the inimitable John Picacio, so you should seriously click through just to get a look at THAT. Even if you're not so sure about a joker hit man with an awkward case and a hard-to-hide secret that could get him killed.

SO. Kindly go give it a read! Dip a toe into the Wild Cards universe. I hope you enjoy what you find.

Here’s recent progress on my fin de siecle gothic epistolary about Lizzie Borden fighting Cthulhu with her trusty axe, now with Bonus! ghosts, guilt, arcane science, and an accidental villain who's losing his mind and his humanity in tandem:

Project: Maplecroft
Deadline: October 15, 2013
New words written: 2491 (meh for a multi-day total)
Present total word count: 96,959 words



Things accomplished in fiction: A swim, a swear, and a lungful of air.

Next up: A crash course in talking to homicidal maniacs.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jaunt around the neighborhood with the dog; paid several visits to our neighbors' batch of 5-week-old puppies; did a whole lotta yardwork; made a few shopping trips for various assorted sundries; made a few lunch breaks; took a little downtime, but only a little.

Other: Finally got the go-ahead to announce the ROGUES anthology! I mean, I'm IN it. I'm not the person in charge of it or anything - that's GRRM and Gardner Dozois. And holy crap, you guys - click the link and go check out the table of contents. I am in some magnificent company on this one.

Bonus! other: BBC Radio 4 is very kind to my Clockwork Century books. I am told that the relevant section starts at 12:12 - with me-specific material cropping up around the 18-minute mark. Huzzah!

House other: Because I promised to make note of this here,these are the folks who did our roof rebuild: Sprout Roofing. Again, I'm very happy with the job they did; and I'm planning to use them in the near future, to handle some siding and trim repairs. (As you can see at the link, they do more than just roofs.) Two thumbs up!

Et cetera: Let's see if I can get Maplecroft wrapped up in Draft Zero form before Phoenix Comic Con, in another week and a half. Maybe? I think it's doable, but we'll see. The best laid plans, yada yada yada.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 92,821

If you are anything like me, I pity you you begin nearly any new venture by researching your topic and reading up on it. Which is largely what I did last week, and I am still in the process of synthesizing what I've read and formulating my own plan, which I will undoubtedly foist upon share with you down the road.

About Downsizing

But first, a bit of explanation: As most of you know, I have a most wonderful sweetheart, with whom I am almost sickeningly in love. And we have decided, as many grown-ups do, to move in together in the not-too-distant-but-not-that-soon future (probably 1-2 years from now). After much consideration, we've decided that I will sell my house (same time frame) and move into his. (The third option, finding a new place all our own, was also considered, but discarded for a variety of factors.)

My current house is about 2100 square feet, with three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a living room, dining room, family room, eat-in kitchen, and partially finished basement. It is fully furnished in every area, plus there's an attic, basement, and garage full of "stuff". My sweetheart's house is about 1400 square feet, with three bedrooms, two baths, a living room, dining area, kitchen, and laundry room. It is fully furnished, too, although more sparsely than my house.

It's obvious that what's here (at my house) cannot all fit there (at his), and that some of what's there will be staying there. And some of what's here holds sentimental meaning, in addition to being attractive or otherwise useful. So I spent a while (several months, really) feeling overwhelmed because I had no idea where to start or what to do. I also felt kind of badly that I was feeling sad about the prospect of moving and getting rid of some of my stuff when the move is SUCH a good thing and for SUCH good reasons (relationship, financial, and otherwise).

What I learned from reading

I still don't have final answers, but I have figured out that starting by reading up on the subject was a Really Good Idea.

1. I learned that grief is a normal part of the process, which at least got rid of my guilt at feeling a bit sad about parts of this endeavor.

2. I learned that there are actual steps you can take to plan ahead and make your decisions easier. More on those in future posts.

3. Since there are literally hundreds of decisions to be made, making too many at one go is inadvisable - it's extremely draining, and can feel demoralizing. As a result, you need to allow yourself sufficient time to move through the process.

4. Time and constant progress are your friends: if you have at least a year, it's easier to work your way through your house; if you keep working at it in small segments on a regular basis, the momentum and progress will keep you going.

And I have found a site in particular that I found helpful, and that I thought you might like, too, if you are (a) considering a move or (b) wanting to reduce what you have in your own place, but aren't certain how to start. The site is called Being Organized 101, and it's run by Lisa Patriquin, Director and Founder of Being Organized 101. She is a Trained Professional Organizer and Mindset Release Coach (who knew there was such a thing?), and she approaches her tasks with care. Her motto is "Love your life, not your stuff." And she is kind enough to post a blog with useful tips and, moreover, to offer a free download of an extremely helpful e-book that she's written called I'm Downsizing, Now What?. (You just have to give her your email address in order to get the e-book, and believe me, it was worth it.)

I'm thinking of making these posts a regular Tuesday feature for a bit. Meanwhile, tomorrow it's back to blog business as usual - including a post about Shakespeare, since I do like my "Wednesdays with the Bard".

In January, I decided to go away. To take a deliberate step back from the Internet and all its voices. It’s worked out well in some ways, a little weird in others.

Overall, I feel a lot better going into the release of THE ELEMENTALS and DEFY THE DARK than I have on previous books. They’re going to sell how they sell, and no amount of review-reading is going to change that. Yes, I still see the trade reviews, but there are only a handful of trades. Even when trade reviews aren’t glowing, there’s the (tiny) satisfaction that they noticed the book at all.

So I feel better on that front. And the ideas I’m having, I’m not pre-rejecting them. I have no idea what people are chattering about trend-wise, popularity-wise, fail-wise. I’m free to just wonder about things, and follow an idea where it leads. That’s really nice, because that hadn’t been the case for a long time.

But I do miss chatting with other authors on Twitter. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of books that I would have read, if I’d known about them. I need to make a better effort to keep up on new releases. While I thoroughly enjoy the non-fiction I read, fiction is my first love and I feel like that’s gotten away from me in the last few months.

Overall, I think the going away has been good for me as writer. And I think my family would agree it’s been good for me as a person. They’re a lot happier when I’m not mired in self-doubt and constantly struggling against myself. The job requires a certain amount of selfishness– it feels good to be able to mitigate some of it.

Have you stepped back from social media? Have you considered it? How’s it working out for you?

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.