Tesseracts Twelve

...is now out, which means I really should update this blog to reassure people that I am alive.

"The Story of the Woman and Her Dog" is about relationships between men and women, the Arabian Nights, and parades. It's the most ambitious thing I've ever written, as well as the most personal - although it wasn't ambitious because it was personal, if that makes sense. There were things I wanted to communicate and I'm still not entirely sure if I was successful. But I'm grateful to Claude for selecting the story and giving his editorial input. It would not have reached the state that it is in now without his help.

I wish I could confirm that I'll be at the Nov 29 launch at Bakka-Phoenix, but at this moment I'm on a project that regularly takes me out of town and hijacks my weekends. Every time we think things are under control, another shoe drops. And right now things feel like they are under control, so one can only anticipate the worst.

My six-word biography

Forgot how to ride a bicycle.

Dear Elaine...

I haven't made quite all my selections yet, but I can say with great pleasure that I accept "The Story of the Woman and Her Dog" for Tesseracts Twelve, to be published in autumn of this year, in time for World Fantasy Convention in Calgary.

Sweet.

Damn

I had forgotten how excruciatingly everything writing is, like pulling teeth. I had said I had stopped writing because I didn't know what kind of stories to write anymore, but now that I am writing again, I'm really not sure why. What is my motivation? When I was younger, that other lifetime ago, I think I wanted glory. I wanted to matter. Now - I don't know. Sure, obsessive-compulsion plays a part in it, but there are other more immediately rewarding pastimes I could focus on.

Stories, stories, stories. What do we do when they fail us? Hopefully the one I'm writing now will figure it out, because I haven't yet.

It is the new year

...and I am writing again, because I promised someone I would, and that someone is actually not me. And now I remember why I used to blog--to procrastinate, because blogging feels like I'm writing and hence am getting something done. But I'm not.

Fantastic cities

Via BoingBoing one finds Fantastic Toronto, which I won't go into detail about because everyone in the SF community likely knows about it already. I just wanted to say that I am pleased and gratified to be included. Toronto is a very mythic place for me and I really do make the effort to include it as a character in my fiction.

It's been a while since I've re-read my old stories, so it was also bemusing to read quotes from "Fin-de-siecle" and "The Moment of Truth". I wrote that? Huh. I should probably write some more.

---

Am listening to Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country again in preparation for a trip to Australia next year, and have been struck with a sudden interest in travel writing. Lately I've been hooked on travelling, now that I've reconciled with my fear of flying and have become more comfortable roaming a strange city by myself - and most importantly, have a small stable of reliable girlfriends who are also happy to spend most of their disposable income on getaways.

I have no ambition to write a travel book, though. To write a book, I would have to give up my current life - my career path, my friends, my pets, my possessions - and move someplace exotic and romantic. Bonus points if I suffer a personal catastrophe and need to soul-search. I'm not that desperate for a good story. If I want to write a book with a good story, I'll just make it up.

I'm already piecing words together in my head during trips - things I will write on postcards later, or caption photos with on Flickr - so why not put together a narrative and try to sell it to a magazine? I've already learned from my own fiction that cities are characters. Both Ryerson and George Brown have travel writing courses this summer, and I'm mulling over enrolling if they're offered in the fall. My preference is George Brown; Ryerson seems more focused on storytelling craft, and I think I've got a handle on the basics already. It's the real-world marketing insight I need.

Perhaps now I am getting closer to defining the types of stories that I want to tell: stories that don't necessarily have beginnings, middles, or ends, stories that are truthful and insightful, stories that are kind but cruel when they have to be, stories that exist in the now.

So this is why I decided to start writing again:

1. I accepted that I was going to be a harder, colder, leaner, crueler writer, and that it was okay to be hard, cold, lean, and cruel. I might even be savage if the mood strikes me. Peter Watts would be proud.


2. Speaking of Peter, some months ago I noticed an outdated poster for a Blindsight signing at Bakka, and I'd had no idea that Blindsight was out, let alone that he was at Bakka. I realized that I was a crummy human being for someone who considered herself his friend. So I'm writing again to reconnect with people: Sandra Kasturi, Leah Bobet, Derryl Murphy, Holly Phillips, Jena Snyder, and of course, Peter Watts. If any of you are ego-surfing, I'm still alive and apologize for falling off the face of the earth. Please drop me a line. I'd like to hear from you.


3. In the past few months I've noticed dramatic changes in my short-term memory and attention to detail. My doctor thinks it's just a normal circuit overload from job stress. I think that it's the lack of reading and writing that's affecting my cognitive abilites, and I would rather write than do Sudoku to exercise my brain.


4. I started listening to an audiobook of Neil Gaiman reading his short story collection Fragile Things, and it made me want to write again. It was like being woken from a coma, gently, by something totally random that no one had thought of before but should have.


5. Although I don't believe in stories anymore, I still have a few that I want to tell.

I have a new clock-radio that I bought on Boxing Day. I haven't had a new clock-radio for about 15 years, so I'm not sure whether this is a standard that's been around for ages, but it has two alarms that you can set. The first is a buzzer (or your iPod if you have it docked, but that's another story). The second is the radio. The radio, when it goes off at the prescribed time, does not suddenly switch on and you find yourself sitting bolt upright in bed with Andy Barrie shouting in your ear. It begins quietly, so quietly that if you're half asleep you think you've imagined it, and then it slowly increases in volume so that by the time it hits you that the radio has gone off, it has been playing for a good 5-10 minutes and you cannot pinpoint the exact time that you came to full consciousness.

I bring this up because the above list has been that radio alarm: little things that have been slowly growing in volume until, finally, I have woken up.