It happens in the life of any writer, so it had to happen to me eventually: A market to which I sold a poem has died before I got published or paid by them. Aberrant Dreams, who previously published my poem “a 24th-century reflection on emptiness” in 2008, and later that year accepted my poem “The Green Lady,” appear to have become a dead market. No updates have been posted in over a year and duotrope now lists them as a dead market. Since they haven’t responded to my queries in months I have withdrawn my poem from their publication and sent it on to a new, active market. I suppose this ‘first’ could be seen as a rite of passage. Or just a thing.
I just finished a review of The Billy Meier Story: UFO’s and Prophecies From Outer Space. For some reason, it’s also known as The Silent Revolution of Truth in certain markets. It’s almost exactly what you’d expect from the title, but I still managed to go on for 1,000 words about it. I’ll be sending the review to the SF Site later today and I’ll let you know when they publish it. I also know they will be posting a review of the Arse Elektronika 2008 anthology which features my paper on the future of the novel; I’m excited to share that with you when I am able too.
I didn’t include it in my review, but does anyone else think that the venerable RE/Search ought to be either offended or flattered that their logo was ripped off by Reality Entertainment, distributors of The Billy Meier Story?
I just finished a review of Robert J. Sawyer’s novel FlashForward. Since I found the recent TV series of the same name so maddening, I could not help but bring my thoughts on both interpretations of the FlashForward concept together in the review. I’ll send it in to SFSite later tonight after a bit of polish and be sure to let you know when it is available for your enjoyment.
I’ve decided I need artists around me being creative more often and I’d like to help cultivate some of the creative energies of my social circle at the same time. I’m trying to organize a semi-regular artist gathering in my area, where we could paint, write, compose, craft, or otherwise create in the company of others like us. If you live in or visit the Houston area and you’re interested but I haven’t invited you to the Facebook group (or you aren’t on Facebook but want to know more), please let me know.
I just finished the first draft of a new erotic short story:
“Lifting the Veil”
Microsoft Word wordcount: 3,108 words
I’ve sent the short story to a few friends and readers in the hope I get some feedback. After I sleep a bit, I plan to polish it up and send it to an erotic SF anthology, just in time for its January 15th deadline. The writing of this story was made possible by sex, leftovers from !Beba’s/One’s a Meal, and a playlist made up of Juno Reactor, Portishead, Stereolab, and Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV.
This is the first story I have finished in over a year, since my life fell to pieces and had to be rebuilt. It’s a major milestone. At times, it was incredibly tough going but now I’ve finished and the feeling is incredibly good. Regardless of whether I can get it published, or even whether anyone else but me likes it, I’m really thrilled to be back on the horse. Or is the correct term falling off the wagon?
I’ve agreed to review sex toys for sextoy.com. I’ll be posting the reviews here on my blog. I won’t be getting paid but I’ll be getting free sex toys and another excuse to write about sex, which will hopefully encourage me to put more time in on my other pr0ntastic writing. In return, the site gets some publicity about its products and some google juice (I think this is actually their larger goal). It seems a fair trade.
So I am NOT actually doing novel in 90, this round. I had some minor setbacks around when it started, and was actually out of town for the first few days of the session. I can jump in later, and am working on increasing my output in other ways. I’m partway into a work of erotic short fiction, but am also unfortunately just a few days from the deadline of the anthology I wish to submit it too. It will be an experiment in turning work around quickly, and I hope I succeed.
Otherwise my life is quite good right now. A few interesting people have come into my life lately, people I may be enlisting to ‘help’ with my reviews. Although the cold weather has been hard on my fibromyalgia, and I have a lot of work to do get my life where I want it to be, I find myself happier so far in 2010.
On a private mailing list for my writers’ group, Amul Kumar recently asked, “What’s been getting in your way?” And it’s an interesting question to contemplate. One thing he writes: “I’ve created all these discrete spaces, online and at home, which were supposed to help me focus on the different kinds of productivity that I wanted to engage in. These spaces are no longer coherent, and therefore no longer functional” rings true to me as well. In 2008 I built, and then had circumstances destroy, various spaces both mental and physical for creativity. I’m working on how to push myself to create again, but more importantly, since the drive is still there, how to cultivate new spaces for creating. Work is going in fits and starts to revive my writers’ group itself, but also to revive my own writing habit in the habitual way that keeps my muse from gnawing angrily at the insides of my brain. Part of this is making sure I have support from other writers, in spaces that cultivate all of us being creative.
Some tasks I’m working on this week are organizing my online life, starting to maintain a to-do list using Astrid, and slowly beginning to organize my physical workspace into one that is more amenable to, well, working. In the New Year, I hope to revisit an old space which was once helpful — Novel in 90, which starts up again on January 1st (thanks to Stephanie Leary for bringing this to my attention). Even if I can’t keep up with the output (I’ll try!) I think it will be good encouragement, and hopefully a positive writing space for me again. I encourage you to check it out and join if it seems good to you, too.
What’s been getting in my way? I plan to keep examining this question till I can answer, ‘nothing!’
With another buddy of mine, I recently took an advanced lesson from a very engineering-minded friend on better cooking with magic. I’d made special butter before, but she gave me valuable lessons in optimal temperatures and techniques. Later that night the three of us threw together the following recipe, which should therefore be considered a joint effort. You could easily leave out the special ingredient and do this with conventional butter that isn’t a federally scheduled substance; you could probably cut back on the butter then since you weren’t using it as a carrier for mind-altering goodness. I’m not going to include instructions on making cannabutter here, but you can find them in many places on the Intertubes. No, these were not full of plant material as we sifted our butter with cheesecloth.
Ingredients:
- 1 5lb-bag of potatoes
- Chives
- Sour Cream
- Ricotta Cheese
- 2.5 cups of cannabutter
- Kosher salt
- garlic powder (optional)
Bake potatoes in an oven at 350 until done. Cut potatoes in half and carefully remove the insides, leaving thin shells behind. Mash up the potato-guts and mix in the butter and salt. Then add ricotta (we used about a cup, or half one of those larger containers), probably a 1/2 cup of sour cream, and chives. When I do this again I plan to add a little garlic powder, but we didn’t and they tasted delicious. Bake them a second time, just long enough for the cheese to get melty and everything to bind together, probably 10 minutes or less. The goal here is not to brown the potatoes; although cannabis is relatively heat-tolerant there is no sense weakening it by exposing it to more than necessary.
We made these late one night and then served them at a party the next, gently reheated, to rave reviews. With a little alteration, these would also make probably fantastic pierogis.
Well the landlord replaced the stove in my apartment with a shiny newish one and I have been doing more cooking recently. As I cook I often tweet about it, and as a result I’ve been asked to share recipes. I cooked a whole bunch of chickpeas recently and whether you call them garbanzos or chick peas, they are probably my favorite bean.
Any recipes I post here will be short on measurements and feature a lot of ’to taste.’ Sorry, that’s just how I cook.
Garbanzo Bean Wraps
This originally began its life as this recipe. These wraps will keep you safe from Rover if you find yourself trapped in the poorly received 2009 remake of The Prisoner. Though I am always tinkering with it this is my current version and it is often requested by some of my friends.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups cooked or canned garbanzo beans. Rinse canned beans first.
- An onion, chopped
- Frozen or canned corn (about 1/2 cup?)
- Garlic
- a splash of bragg’s Amino Acids (like soy sauce but not)
- Yellow curry powder
- Lemon Juice
- Kosher salt, to appease Alton Brown
- 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- Spicy stuff like Sri Racha or Vulcan’s Fire Salt
- Tortillas & shredded cheddar cheese for garnish
Using a potato masher, mash up the chickpeas a bit so they are chunky but not completely smooshed. In olive oil, cook the onion and garlic until the onions softens. Add chickpeas, corn. Add bragg’s, curry powder, lemon juice, salt and other spices to taste. Pour some water over the whole mess until you cover it. Add tomato paste. Cook over medium-low heat until the water is almost all boiled off, leaving you with just a little sauce in the pan around the chickpeas. Serve on warmed tortillas with shredded cheddar on top.
You might also enjoy two older recipes using garbanzos which I’d posted to my LiveJournal: Creamy Garbanzo Beans with Spinach, and Garbanzo Bean Soup. Soon I will follow up with my recent Spicy Chickpea Marinara Sauce.