about halloween

Costumes are great. I love costumes. However, I believe Trick or Treating is for suckers. When I was a wee lad, I twisted my ankle on a curb and had to go home early from trick or treating. At that time, I discovered that I was sitting next to a giant bowl of candy, and I could control what got given out to others and what ended up in my mouth.

Trick or treating is for suckers.

Now I'm an adult, and I spend Halloween eating candy and watching movies. Movies like "Donnie Darko" and "Alien" and "The Dark Crystal".

Want to come over and hang out with me? Call me. You got my number.

adventure baking!

I love to bake, but I hate following recipes. What does this mean? It means whenever the baking bug bites me, I discover who my true friends are.

"What is it?"

"Just try it. It's good."

"Okay, but what is it?"

"Seriously, just try it!"

"It looks kind of... purple. Is it supposed to be purple?"

"Just try it!"

"What's in it?"

"Flour... Eggs... Grape juice... Curry Powder...Tequila..."

"I'm not putting that in my mouth."

"It's good!"

"Seriously, get that sh** out of my face."

"The frosting was made from powdered sugar and orange juice. It's a very simple little glaze. It really enhances the curry."

"I am going to hit you if you do not get that sh** out of my face right now. I will hit you very hard, in places you might need later."

"Aw. You're no fun. I guess you're not really my friend."

Sometimes I'll follow a recipe until I get bored, then wander off new and exciting pathways in the recipe.

Always, the results are surprising, and sometimes genuinely hideous like the banana+italian seasoning nightmare scenario, but they are always interesting.

Things every adventure baker needs? Flour, pancake mix, baking soda, yeast, eggs, butter, sugar, various herbs and spices, and plenty of tenacious curiosity.

Adventure baking is fun. You never know what you will discover!

Go forth! Create! Eat the evidence (if you can... *hurk* wow, too much curry, not enough cocoa powder)!

Also, you will discover who is your friend enough to at least take a bite of the strange lumps of baked good that emerge from your oven.

Believe it or not, many of them will be quite tasty, despite the fact that no one else will eat them out of foolish fear.

Recipes are boring.

thought फॉर थे डे...

insects have no faces. they have eyes, but no faces.

moths and flies swim through the sky in circles, blind to what's right in front of where their face would be, if they were like us.

that's all for today, party people.

if you can early vote, i highly recommend it. you are running out of time.

Stuff I'm thinking about

You know, there has been some talk ih the wires about medie tie-in novels.

Jeff VanderMeer, of course, just produced his take on Predator v Everyone, and I know I'll get to it, eventually. I admit, I'm far more interested in his latest Ambergris novel. I am very curious to see what he does within the straightjacket of media tie-in.

I know a couple friends that do much media tie-in work. Martha Wells is not only an awesome fantasist of such works as "Death of the Necromancer" and "City of Bones", but she also works in the SeaQuest world (because, as she explains, she oves SeaQuest.)

Samantha Henderson recently wrote a kick-ass media tie-in novel in the Ravenloft world. The first line stays with you: "I am a speaking angel." You'll know what I mean when you read it.

Chris Roberson, a partner in alcohol-related crimes at every sci-fi convention, has written quite a few and continues to do so, on top of running a publishing company with his wife, and raising a daughter. I admit that I have yet to meet his daughter. For all I know, he says he has a daughter, and really just photoshopped a bunch of pictures together that he shows to people, always saying his daughter is at grandma's or at the sitter or somewhere. Seriously, where does he find the time for everything he does?

Regardless, if there was a stigma, I bet it wasn't because of the quality of the books. I bet it was the quality of the contracts. If everyone knew you were cranking out a book under a crappy contract that wouldn't even carry your name, why would they respect that? If people, however, got paid a decent check, and got crossover audience from the shared world into the author's original fiction, and was treated respctfully by the publisher - well, naturally, this is the stuff that respectability is made of.

I've actually been very open to doing work for hire. I've expressed this many times in many ears. No one has hired me. Why would they hire me, when they could hire Jeff Frikkin' Vandermeer, right? Why hire me when you can hire someone at the same price whose fans will follow them into the shared world?

Anyway, I was just thinking about media tie-in novels, and how unsuccessful I've been at getting my challenge-loving hands around one. I'm always up for new adventures and new difficult boxes out of which to work, after all.

I might even write a YA novel next. Who knows?

Having rambled enough for one day, I leave you with this important thought that I am thinking about, watching a stranger walk down the street:

"If you see a stranger, follow him!" - Radical Edward, from Cowboy Bebop Episode "Toys in the Attic"

Gotta go follow that stranger...

what is that smell?...

Right. This apartment needs cleaning.

Anybody want to help me excavate the dishes? Anybody want to take all these empty bottles and cans to the recycling place? Anybody want to vacuum all that cat hair? And, all THAT cat hair? That cat hair over there? The cat hair in the couch? The cat hair in the laundry?

Anybody want to babysit my laundry machine and move my dirty laundry through?

Wow. I seriously let this go last week or two. Hm.

(In related news, I mailed a book to my agent. Fingers crossed they like it. Now, roll up those sleeves and get your scrubbing bubbles ready. This writer cave needs some attention.)

What do you want to promote?

All comments promoting something - anything - will be moved up into the main post before tomorrow.

Tell me what you want to promote, and let's all check it out, together!

Edit: Only one comment this Sunday? I guess you're all watching football, or enjoying the lovely fall weather. Well, anonymouse wished to promote something. It isn't exactly what I had in mind when I made this post, but hey, the readers will get what they want!

[quote] Pure Love - Not romantic love, not true love - The kind of love that gives without expecting anything in return [/quote]

I actually don't quite understand what that is, but I consider it thoroughly promoted, now.

Weird Tales Website Redesign Looks AWESOME!

Also, and this is important enough to merit it's own, brand-spanking new post on the blog:

Weird Tales Website Redesign Looks Awesome.

This is an awesome magazine, with a very well-respected editor at the helm.

Go...Check...It...Out!

I especially recommend the free download of last month's issue.

Don't miss that.

1-Minute Weird Tale Debuts!

I am honored to be the first 1-Minute Weird Tale.

Thanks to Ann for inviting me!

did you early vote today? you did? have a pizza!

I early voted today. Go me! I deserve a pizza!

In line with me at the Benbrook YMCA to early vote was a very nice Muslim woman who moved here to Texas from Detroit. She was real nice. We talked about roller coasters. It made me happy to know that, because I was thinking about Colin Powell's statement how one party has really assaulted the Muslim faith, equating all followers of Allah as the equivalent of terrorists.

Frankly, this is one of the reasons I voted completely against that particular party. I went through the whole ballot, leaving blank all the spots where only a republican was running for a post, and voting for libertarians and/or independents based on that qualification alone.

I most certainly Obama/Biden. Yes, very much so.

That said, I don't care what your political affiliations are. We all have political opinions. We're all supposed to take time to rationally measure out the issues and the policies and the candidates and all that, and leave our arguments and posturings and disagreements at the door of the voting location.

We quietly, respectfully go in to our booth, and make our little statement.

Everything else is just noise and bluster and bloggers/pundits/etc begging for attention.

Go vote for your preferred candidate! Then, go get a pizza, because you deserve it!

(Early voting in Texas began this week, and lasts until October 31. Check with your local and state voting officials for information about how you, too, can vote early. Then, go vote. Then, go get a pizza. Because you deserve it for voting!)

just heard from...

I just heard from Atomjack Magazine, and it seems they have decided to publish "Dave Jones and the Survivor" in their next issue.

This story is based on a real life experience I had flying from Vancouver to Dallas. Two men with the same name ended up assigned to the same seat. In real life, neither man was a danger to anyone, and the older of the two men was given an open seat in first class, instead.

Fortunately, the science fiction version of the story will be a touch more exciting.

you ask me what the secret ingredient is...?

you ask me what the secret ingredient is to the perfect peanut butter and banana sandwich?

Lean in close. It's a secret. I'll tell you, but be sure not to tell anyone else, okay, because this is, like a confidential bit of culinary information I'm about to lay on you.

Lean close.

Closer.

Ready?

*whisper* hot cocoa powder */whisper*

There, and please don't tell anyone else. This is just between you and me, 'kay?

अबंदोनेद prose

I thought I could escape Berlin by train. I started at Zoo Station. Mine wasn’t one of the little city trains filled with bicycles, business suits, and pickpockets, lumbering around the city. My train was a land cruiser, destination distant. We stopped at the Hauptbahnhof long enough to encumber the seats with loud families, young people backpacking between hostels, and men in better business suits playing cards and smoking on their way to important meetings. I thought I could escape with them, on their train.
I watched out the window a long time. I watched the graffiti for signs of life. The Brother’s Kiss was changed everywhere. The Russian had blonde hair, and a beard like me. The German’s skin was smooth and nut brown like an old Turkish woman with short, black hair. The geometrical graffiti had changed, too. All those swoops and whirls had formed an abstract portrait of a room I knew too well. All the letters and words were pieces of a name slowly emerging from the walls. Ampelman was no longer cheerful. He was running away, and the colors of the city reached for him like monsters. Streets got lost in each other.
I saw Berlin everywhere. Everywhere I saw Berlin. I saw Berlin and Berlin and Berlin.
The train passed out of Berlin, into the suburbs that littered the flat, ruined former Soviet countryside all around. I breathed easier outside the city.
I thought I could escape the signs. I thought my train would carry me somewhere new. I could start over, make a fresh begin new work and make new friends. All the mistakes of Berlin would not follow me across the long plain to the mountains at the end of the sky.
I closed my eyes when Berlin fell behind us on the tracks. I tried to wipe Zoe out of my mind. I tried to push her father out of my mind. Where do our memories go when we push them aside? They creep under the edges of the mind’s mattress, like the monsters of our childhood. We see their tremulous forms under the surface of everything.
I drank coffee so I wouldn’t sleep. It didn’t work. Berlin was in my dreams. Berlin was everywhere...

ancient eggrolls

what strange beasts these must have been, rummaging in the kitchens and refridgerators. see how they have fossilized in such a tight, worm-like structure?

they must have stalked their prey - vegetables and perhaps bits of meat - while lying flat and wide open to retain thinness. they inched their way through the gaps of freezers, and through the lid of dumpsters. upon discovering their prey, they fold themselves up, to digest the substances into thin, tiny strips.

so many of them seem to have been choked to death on their own engorgement. so many seem to have been crushed and snapped in twain.

what a strange creature it must have been, these fossilized worm-like, manta-ray like eggroll creatures.

someday, will archaeologists mislabel them as liing things?

probably, says I. eggrolls look like they ought to be alive.

another shining example of why I don't get to have nice things...

This morning, whilst doing my laundry, I discovered my cell phone at the bottom of the washing machine. Thoroughly waterlogged. Thoroughly destroyed.

Thoroughly.

Thusly, will I never pay much scratch for something fancy-schmancy like a blackberry or an iPhone.

I don't even know how many cellphones I've gone through this year.

I'll pick up a Go-Phone this week, soon-like, and a replacement as soon as I can.

In the mean time, if you call me, you can leave a message. I'll get the message eventually.