The Blue Candle Society

Granted, John Carter did sort of act duller than a sack of wet mice at times, but I always envisioned him being a bit more articulate than a sort of male modelly type guy.

Posted in General writing things

From XKCD

Posted in General writing things

Thinking quickly, I used another of my arcane thaumaturgical devices, a smoke bomb hidden in my cuff, and seized Enzo’s collar to haul him away under cover of smoke. He was his typical uncooperative self, however, and the spell I had woven into the little device was not quite as well as I had thought, and much of the smoke had cleared before I had hauled the cursing and struggling man halfway to the door, and the gathered gentlemen were all staring at us with expressions ranging from curiosity to hostility. Fortunately, the curtains at that point caught fire. This was not strictly according to plan, since one of the spells I had used was supposed to suppress the flames brought on by the accelerate in the little device, but it served to create a new distraction, and to spur Enzo toward leaving the car by working on his instinct for self-preservation.

“We have to get that revolver,” I said as we burst onto the platform between cars.

“Messes wherever you go,” Enzo replied, opening the door to the next car. “I can see that I’m going to be cleaning up after you the whole time, before we finally find the Countess.”

“That porter was the last person to have the gun,” I said, ignoring him. “Hopefully he still has it. All we need to do is overpower him, or steal it by subterfuge.”

“We have to find him first,” Enzo replied. He seemed to be warming to the idea of helping me, presumably because it involved mayhem perpetrated on an innocent railroad employee. Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Nightmare Engine of Doom Part 18 – Deadman’s Bend’

Posted in Serials

I got a rejection email the other day, which is hardly unusual – I’ve got enough stories out there that I’m getting quite a few a month, on average.  But this is one of those form rejects that lists the sorts of reasons the magazines usually rejects for, which rubs me the wrong way.  I certainly have no objection to a magazine listing the sorts of things they like and don’t like in their submission guidelines, and actual personalized criticism in a rejection is a wonderful thing.  But listing all the problems that some other story might have had in a rejection seems a bit unnecessarily insulting, I think because it implies that my story failed to have any science fiction elements, or featured no plot other than a serial killer offing people, or whatever.

It is axiomatic that even very good stories will get rejected many times on average before they are published for a variety of reasons that are not the author’s fault.  That’s fine (well, not fine, but something one gets used to), but given that listing reasons that really crummy stories get rejected in every rejection seems just a touch arrogant, as if the editor is saying they they work for one of those magical publications that buys every good story that comes their way.

In more practical terms, are the authors that actually make the sort of glaring errors that are listed in the rejection actually going to benefit from the list?  There always seems to be an entry like “Good fiction requires strong, interesting characters”, which makes me envision an author slapping his forehead and saying “Oh, I guess I shouldn’t send this magazine my stories with the boring, two-dimensional characters – I’ll save those for Asimov!”  If I’m using boring characters or cliched plots, chances are I don’t know it.

I understand why editors do this, because it is also axiomatic that magazines tend to get buried in horrible, unpublishable stories, and if rejections like this actually helped lighten that load I could see sending out something vaguely insulting.  But I suspect it doesn’t, and they might as well stick to “does not meet our needs at this time”, which has the virtue of covering a lot of ground.

Posted in General writing things

I managed to break an axe handle the other day, so I had to go buy a new one, and I have to say, nothing makes one feel like quite as much of a badass as carrying around an axe handle.  An actual axe just feels utilitarian, but the handle alone is different (it would require further experimentation to determine whether a fiberglass handle would work as well as a wooden one, but I suspect not).  I feel like I should write another JT Quinn story just to use this fact somewhere.

Posted in General writing things

Enzo spent the next hour whipping the assembled men in the club car into a killing frenzy over anyone who would do such an ungentlemanly thing as to burst into a ladies’ sleeping compartment, and soon they’d forgotten all about the part about rooting through luggage. He shot me several grins and significant glances as he made his declamations, clearly enjoying himself.

“Now, perhaps we’re being hasty,” I said at one point. “It seems to me that the part where this fellow rooted through the ladies’ luggage is really the crime here. No doubt the incident in the sleeping compartment was a simple misunderstanding.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Enzo snapped. “How could anyone ‘accidentally’ burst into a sleeping compartment waving a gun around. He’d have to be a drooling idiot, barely capable of doing up his own britches to somehow do that by accident.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “One could easily fall into a compartment by accident. When the train lurched, perhaps. The luggage, on the other hand–there is no possibility of accident or innocent misunderstanding there. No, only the most vile of perverts would sink so low, no doubt one who was incapable of maintaining a proper human relationship.” Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Nightmare Engine of Doom Part 17 – A Dangerous Distraction’

Posted in Serials

I was involved with computers before being involved with computers was cool, so I’ve encountered the attitude Johnathan Franzen displays here before (I recall someone saying computers shouldn’t be used in schools, for instance, because they encourage “binary thinking”), but it is a little odd to see it in these modern times.  Beyond the fact that the phrase “serious readers” gives me a pain right between my eyes, Franzen seems a little befuddled about what computers can and can’t do (and more strangely about the power of paper).

I’m sympathetic to Franzen’s preference for paper books, and I share it myself, but I try my best not to dress up my random preferences as philosophy.  Computers don’t, in and of themselves, make things less permanent, or more sloppily crafted, and as it happens it would be kind of hard to publish something these days without having it show up on a screen at some point anyway.  I reckon that these days most people would find the idea that using a computer encourages “binary thinking” (as opposed, to, one presumes “decimal thinking” what with our base-ten number system) fairly silly, and I imagine in a few years the notion that only “unserious” readers use e-readers will seem just as odd (or maybe it already does).

Again, I’m sympathetic with Franzen, but it seems as though we’re being told a great deal about the proper way to do things here, and I like Edison’s feelings on this more than Franzen’s.  According to Franzen, unless writers do as he does and avoid the internet, they are doing it wrong.  Fair enough, I’m used to writers telling me about the One True Path (although most seem to be willing to allow us to get the words on the page however we like).  But sheesh, telling people they are reading wrong?  I hearby extend my permission to anyone who wants to read my scribblings to do it however they like.  You can even do it while eating, if you like.  You’re welcome.  I reserve the right to change my mind if I become as famous as Franzen, though, and insist that my works only be read in leather-bound tomes embossed in gold leaf.  So you might want to hurry up and get to it, before the new rules come down.

Posted in General writing things

The porter’s announcement caused quite a stir in the club car, distracting most of the patrons from the sight of Enzo standing there holding a bottle upside down in his fist while its contents gurgled slowly out. I kept my attention fixed on him, though, watching him wrestle with the decision of whether to smash the bottle and come at me despite the new witnesses.

It was a woman rather unnecessarily and theatrically swooning at the table nearby that decided him, I think, for as she hit the ground he caught the sight of some exposed ankle out of the corner of his eye.

“Stand back!” he shouted, righting the bottle and setting it down before kneeling next to her. “Give her some air! I’ll loosen her corset.” Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Nightmare Engine of Doom Part 16 – Unfortunate Accusations’

Posted in Serials

Amanda C. Davis (whose name I occasionally pretend to be using a pen name when I want to appear respectable) has a nice post up on how to go about publishing short fiction.  I don’t really have anything to add to it, although like one commentator, I do tend to say “Dear Editor” (or Editors) when I don’t know the correct name for sure.

Posted in General writing things

Once again, a recent XKCD

Posted in General writing things