How To Get Inspiration

One easy way is to read through all the websites and magazines you've been hunting around for to send short stories to and hopefully get paid by. It's sounds dumb t first, but I find it almost easier to get new ideas for stories by finding out how long of a story and what kind of story the places I'm hunting around in are looking for. 3000 words, something about ghosts but no erotica allowed, gotcha. Sci-fi but with a horror angle, I can do it.

Now, of course I'm always writing down one thing or another on napkins and pieces of paper when I get an idea for something. They are always just coming in and out of my mind. But, it's fun to scour through what a certain mag might be looking for at the moment to see what's out there and what they want.

Was reading some letter of Kerouac's this morning and man, was that guy arrogant. I mean, you have to believe in your writing, but he really thought he was something else, at least early on.

Well, Jan Herman Likes Me, Anyway

My interview with Graham Masterton about Burroughs generated some high praise from Jan Herman, which was really nice to hear. As seen here. Pretty cool when people who were doing the work back when it was all happening are handing out praise.

Mind you, I just typed the questions. I didn't answer them.

Anyway, that was nice.

New Haven Case was posted here the other day. Just submitted something to the Australian mag, Adromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Will be interested to see what they say....

Hey, look, I'm still blogging.

Over The Hump

Okay, over my weekly hump and finished up the draft of the zombie thing which turned out better than I thought it would. Gotta add about 1000 words to it, I think, but over all it's just fine. Now, to find someone to pay me money for this thang.

Also, got to work on the sci-fi horror one which I think is coming along well. The key to that one will to not give away the thing until much later in the story. This one I feel like can only really go on about 3000 words, but that's alright. Like most sci-fi, it's just a Power-Point presentation dressed up with imagery around the edges. Would be fund to find a way to do that sort of genre writing better, though.

What am I saying? It's all genre writing anyway. Lit is as much a genre as Romance, these days. Once the genre stuff became the norm, Lit had to play catch up and now anything with heartfelt but still fairly depressing themes is Lit. Or, anything by the guys at McSweeney's, which is too bad. I don't think most of them do anything other than ape the past. Oh well, I'd take a check if they offered me one, so who am I criticize, right?

Latest story to be accepted by a site that don't pay, but that's okay for the present: New Haven Case.

Happy Halloween folks. Even if by folks what I mean is , Happy Halloween Dave, the only guy who reads this and not very often at that....

Due to a lack of ideas, I am uninterested in writing this today. Cold, rainy, and the Fall, so all motivation is leaving my body. Have no desire whatsoever to type, only to click on random links on the internet and waste time. Or, read. And if I'm reading I'm not writing so that's a waste of my time in general.

I suppose I could do some research type reading, but not motivated to do that either.

Currently reading: On the Road, The Western Lands, Tornado Alley, Eve's Rib and A Perfect Spy. Mad rush to the finish line for these books and general waste of time if I spend too long reading them.

A Great Idea

Hopefully this won't turn out to be yet another lousy idea that goes south fast: due to no realistic way to preserve life on long-distance space travel, technology is developed to contain the spirits of the dead crew members on the space craft for journeys that take thousands of years. The ghosts of the crew carry on with the mission, trapped in the cell of the space craft and communicate with the Earth or whoever is funding the mission. Not unlike a computer program, the parameters and the characters never change and there is some consistency to the mission.

I like the idea. Seems fun, if nothing else. How to execute, though, the eternal dreaded question.

Got another 500 words on the zombie story yesterday but I was being less than productive yesterday, so it wasn't working out. God, I hate non-productive days. You tailspin all day and try and think of ways to make it work, but nothing short of slogging through it all gets you anywhere. Horrible experience.

Heard some woman on TV today say that she'd fight the H1N1 virus by eating vitamin C and staying positive. Good plan, leaves more for the rest of us. At least she'll go to her grave with rosy cheeks and orange-flavoured breath.

started re-reading On The Road yesterday and it's more fun now that I know all the stories behind Kerouac's random statements. However, you begin to realize that Kerouac really didn't write so much as he diaried his life. That gets boring because us people is real boring-like most of the time.

Image of Trish Konelsky crying loudly in the street after seeing Ed Norton give a kid a curby in some movie in the dark, shadowy past. Also, a parking garage stands out to me, towering next to us in the ever-freezing Calgary night.

Procrastinatin

Got a good 2000 or so words yesterday on the zombie short story and it's coming out all Robert Aickman-like, which is just fine with me. That's kind of how I planned it, but you just never know what's going to happen. Like they say, some stories just write themselves.

Experimenting with making lamb stew in a crock pot. Just trying to fulfill my house wifely duties here. Looks good, but we'll have to wait and see. I might bee running out for pizza at dinner time if I blow this one.

Apparently creationism is on the rise in Muslim countries.

A link for your pleasures.

A good article here on monsters. I still prefer ghosts and demons and all them characters.