Almost done packing...

The great thing about taking time to really pack out the right way is that you discover things.

I found something that I had assumed was lost forever, which I will now hang onto forever.

When I was first working on Last Dragon, it took me a long time to find the right "voice" to carry the story. I had all these ideas, and I kept starting over, searching for the right vehicle for those ideas.

Then, one day - likely after a marathon session of playing Icewind Dale, whose soundtrack was an important influence on me when I was working on the book - I sat down and "got it".

Boom.

In a flash, I had seventy some-odd pages that didn't suck, and that got it just right. It was still a rough draft, and it still needed a lot of work, but I had the voice.

I did the smartest thing a could have done. I immediately printed it up, and filed it away, in case my computer exploded.

I had assumed it was lost in the mysterious vortex old papers go when they are neither thrown away nor held on to. While cleaning out my old files from the cabinet so as not to take anything I don't need anymore, I discovered the old manila folder, shoved between two useless files.

If you're ever hanging out at my place, ask me nice and I may show it to ya.

थिग्न्स that make me mad, because they are dumb, dumb, dumb... AND CRUEL!

I read this article at CNN, and it ticks me off. I know it was chosen because it will tick off dog lovers everywhere. Still, I want to take a moment on my personal megaphone - my blog - to explain exactly why spay and neuter programs are vastly superior to brutal cullings of this nature.

If you kill a dog, you make the resources that dog would have consumed available to other dogs who were smart enough not to get killed by the guys with shotguns and tainted meat.

So, what's going to happen, is dogs that are fearful of people in extreme will survive, and consume the resources left behind by the dogs that were killed. Those dogs will breed, and raise larger and larger groups of fearful dogs.

Fearful dogs are more likely to attack humans. Fearful dogs are *way* more dangerous than a dog that would run up to take a handout from a friendly-seeming human, while that human is hanging around and watching.
Dogs get real big in about a year and a half. Give this program five or six years, and the dogs will be meaner, scarier, and harder to catch.

That's bad.

Spay and neuter programs work because the dog population, initially, does not stop consuming the resources of the area. Dogs are forced out of hiding, searching for resources where the dog can be caught, spayed and released again, creating a cycle that solves the problem. Three or four years later, the dog population will reduce dramatically on its own as dogs stop breeding, but do not stop consuming the resources that would otherwise be used to create more dogs. In fact, they are more likely to leave human communities in search of food, because the sterile dogs have too strong a hold on the resources of the city.

Running around with a shotgun and blasting the shit out of animals is not only horrifically cruel, it will encourage a system that will lead to an increase in the problem, and an increase in the fear that people will have for dogs.

The best solution is the mobile spay and neuter teams. The resources that dogs survive on don't go away if you kill the dog.

About steroids and professional sports...

It is no surprise to me to hear that the Texas Rangers struggled with steroid abuse. Individual players racked up killer numbers, but the team never came together to achieve a victory.

Baseball is a team sport, and requires working together every day to master drills and practice defensive plays and work together to improve batting and pitching and all the tiny little details that separate pros from everyone else.

Steroids give an individual player a boost in their stats. They hit more home runs. They run faster. They throw harder.

They get a bump in their testosterone levels that makes that individual harder to work with day in, day out.

Team sports don't need individual stars. They need a team that plays to its strengths and compensates for individual weaknesses.

Players juiced themselves to boost stats and improve their income-level. They did this, knowing it would destroy their long-term health for short-term gains.

They did this, and diminished their ability to play as a team of players, instead of individuals chasing stats and paychecks.

Why would you play the game if you aren't trying to win the World Series? How can you not see the 'roid rage tendencies diminishing your ability to get to the World Series?

Jocks can be so dense sometimes.

I want to write a story about symphony orchestra players "juicing" themselves to improve their performance with mind-roids...

SF Signal's Mind Meld Feature...

I got invited to SF Signal's very cool Mind Meld Feature. They ask a bunch of different writers the same question, and get lots of diverse and interesting answers.

Here's the link:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/02/mind-meld-the-most-difficult-part-of-being-a-writer-is/

Check the comments where Mike Resnick gives, perhaps, the best answer.

Important Research

Fun day. Been working, and whenever I get stuck, YouTube helps me with what I'm working on...



Zhug zhug! (Orc for "Now I shall go back to work, master!")

Over at Writertopia...

Apparently, and in thanks in no small part to my constant haranguerizing:

http://www.writertopia.com/profiles/JMMcDermott

Now, I just need a horde of minions at WorldCon to help me defeat my nemesi: Felix Gilman, David Schwarz, David Anthony Durham, and... like all the other folks that wrote awesome books that qualify for the Campbell.

Fly, minions! FLY!

Video game storytelling annoyances

Look, I love video games. I mean it. And, to play good video games is, all too often, to forgive them for their major, gaping plot errors.

Case in point: Fable II.

A fantastic game, that's extremely fun, with lots of wonderful characters to meet, and a high concept that is fantastic and neat and fun to watch extending. The character design, and world-building are excellent. The game has so many good points that the gaping, tractor-trailer-sized, implausible plot holes just... just...

It's just so disappointing.

So, at two points in the game, the major bad guy shoots you in thr face, to kill you. The first time, you are flung out of a very high window, to plummet down to the earth, brain-bouncing off a roof.

You survive, somehow, with the gentle nursing of Darth Traya. Which is a little mind-boggling, but suspension of disbelief isn't lost because it's so early in the game, and you feel, as a player, that it was a horrible, awful, painful thing from which it took years to recover.

Then comes the second bullet to the face. Many, many years have passed. The enemy has gotten better at his nefarious evil. He is determined to make his bullet-to-the-face deadly this time. He's got awesome magic powers, an army of enslaved warriors, and states, deliberately, that he is going to make his bullet-to-the-face work this time, at any cost.

Yet, it doesn't work.

Bullet-to-the-face by madman megalomaniac? Twice, unsuccessful.

Other small pet peeves in plot and story linger in my craw, but I won't go into detail. No spoilers are needed here.

What's most annoying about it, is how easy it would be to fix them all with a line of dialogue, or a line of text, or a design decision one way or the other.

What the game seemed to want to suggest as solutions to many of the plot befuddlements were bungled too much to merit any mention here.

File under: YES!!!!!!!!

A Fanfic so awesome, it had to be a T-Shirt!

http://www.jinx.com/women/shirts/geek/buffy_staked_edward_womens.html?cs=6&csd=1494

Yes! Yes! YES!!!!!!!

(It also sums up my reaction to the whole Twilight thing.)

*cough* May I make अ suggestion...

Go here.

And read the instructions carefully so your vote can count.

Right... Back to work...

Science!

when i was a boy...

when i was a boy, five aliens,
their bodies thin, short, gray
their heads mostly black eyes,
big as clown shoe footprints
entered my room one night

my brother never woke up
everything was frozen
i couldn't move
scream

i was frozen

they shined a light in my face,
my eyes, and it reached into me
into my neurology
my spine arched backwards
i couldn't control anything

the light was in me
i was theirs
i was scanned
maybe i was changed

i don't know

i told no one
i was so scared
whether it was real or only a dream

when i was a boy,
it was real to me
now that i am a man,
it is still real to me.

Somedays writing is...

Somedays writing is like drinking water, and some days its like pulling teeeeeeth.

Today was a tooth day.

And, it's not done, by any means.

Right. Dinner quest complete. New Quest Objective: Quiet, secluded place for the finishing of stuff that should not have taken all day.

Locus keeps attributing my book to "J T McDermott"

I don't know who that J T McDermott person is, but if I ever find him/her, I will punch him/her in the nose. Stealing cred for my book on the very awesome Locus Recommended reading List is enough to merit a knuckle sandwich!

(Seriously, I've dropped more than one e-mail to Locus editors about this in the past, and I've pretty much accepted that it will be a long time before I'm famous enough for everyone to get my initials right...)

(Hey... Maybe I do have impersonators out there, calling themselves "J T"? Is it a clone? Did someone clone me when I wasn't noticing? I know I've been to some skanky hostels in Europe last winter, especially that one in East Berlin, but I never woke up in a bathtub full of ice with a cellphone set to dial an ambulance, so I assumed I was okay. I only ever woke up hungover. I need to be more careful next time.)

Hey, Just so we're ll clear on my schedule...

Howdy folks!

I've gotten a couple e-mails about this from unnamed sources. I thought I'd take a moment to make it all official-like with a full blog post about it.

Yes, I'm moving to Atlanta.(Alpharetta, to be precise).

I will be in attendance at ConDFW.

All other conventions are off the table until I get a solid handle on my new gig, and my new digs.

I will try to make WorldCon, and World Fantasy.

Maybe.

Probably not.

Assume no, unless I actually, physically show up. Even then, it might not be me. It might be a J M Mcdermott impersonator. I've noticed an uptick in fan mail. (Which is awesome!) I'm still anxiously awaiting the level of fan devotion that Cory Doctorow has, wherein there is an officially-sanctioned costume and mode of transportation.

In other news, a re-issue of a frikkin' INCREDIBLE book is coming soon. I'm very happy to see this title coming back into print. I read it via the library, and I've been looking for a copy to add to my permanent collection for future reading enjoyment and study.