1600 words seems to be more or less how much I can do right now without an insurmountable struggle. It’s all clunky and contrived, of course; and I’ve decided to embrace the No Real Research rule and punch it up to eleven. But, to paraphrase what a guy once said in Stephen King’s book It: it may end up being a crappy novel, but hopefully it’ll no longer be an unfinished crappy novel. Everybody should have one of those in his or her files.
Category: Books
Day One of NaNoWriMo: 1600 words.
I know that it’s supposed to be 1633, or something like that? But it’s the first day, and considering that I had to deal with day-after-Halloween sugar crashes, Date Night, and what was almost a child medical emergency, I think that 1,600 words is very credible. Hopefully I’ll be able to get an even better rhythm flowing as I go.
Guess we’ll see.
Moe Lane
PS: Alas, I suspect that other creative work will suffer this month. Sorry about that: I’ll try to glean more stuff from my archives. But, again, I’m actually trying to write a novel, here.
So. NaMoWrimo.
As my wife gently pointed out, if one wishes to be a novelist, one must actually have novels to hand. So we’ll give it a shot. On my terms, though; I’m not planning to make a big deal out of it here, I’m not going to get all misty-eyed mystical on the subject, this is all about buckling down and working.
And I refuse to research a damned thing. If real world people or organizations don’t in fact act in the way that I’ll be writing them, well, they should change that immediately.
Intriguing Swedish adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula novel makes its appearance.
So, background: there’s an Icelandic-language version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (called Powers of Darkness) that’s pretty gonzo (English translation here). We didn’t know about it for a long time, because it was in Icelandic, which meant that anybody who came across it probably just assumed that it was a straight translation. But it’s not: there’s apparently a good bit more sex, action, and Satanic Masonic Conspiracies in the Icelandic text, which made it ideal fodder for Ken Hite’s The Dracula Dossier (you simply must acquire a copy, if you have not yet done so) RPG supplement. Continue reading Intriguing Swedish adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula novel makes its appearance.
Book of the Week: Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters.
Kim Newman’s latest, and it’s an excellent choice for Halloween. Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters is a vampire novel (of impressive pop culture awareness) set in Japan in 1899, which is a fascinating setting in its own right. This book is also a standalone-sequel of sorts to Anno Dracula itself, but if you haven’t read it yet you should do so anyway. It will well reward your time.
And so, adieu to Infinite Stars.
So I decided to spend tonight going through old files.
Geez, there were like six, seven short stories in there that I started and never finished. Which I am in the process of refiling digitally so that I don’t lose them again. I also found something that I did last year here, but never put into PDF form. Don’t ask me why, I think that I was ill, or something. Anyway, I cleaned up a couple of lines here and there and now it scans better.
And now that the kids are really and truly asleep, it’s time for Stranger Things Season 2.
Molly Malone (Innsmouth) – Google Docs
Continue reading So I decided to spend tonight going through old files.
Snippet: “Project SHIVA – Prologue.”
No, really, I’ve been thinking about this one lately.
Project SHIVA – prologue
St Louis, 2006
Even spies get old.
Jack Brinley felt that that was somewhat unfair, actually. When he was smack-dab in the middle of his career, Jack always assumed that it would all end somewhere godforsaken, in an abrupt fashion, and with nobody around to care afterwards. That was fine, though; because the corollary to that would be that at least he’d be going out at the top of his game. You didn’t want to fail at your job, but you don’t want to live long enough to stop getting to do it, either.
But that was what happened. Go out the door almost willingly in ‘96, spend the next ten years pretending to write your memoirs, wait for the clock to run out. Deflect questions about what you did, until you realize that saying nothing and smiling faintly was usually all that people wanted to know. Play grandpa — and wasn’t that an alarming, but ultimately welcome, late-life revelation to have? — and practice your cover as a ‘character.’ It actually wasn’t so bad. Compared to prison, a mental ward, or an unmarked grave in Delaware? It wasn’t bad at all. Continue reading Snippet: “Project SHIVA – Prologue.”
In the Mail: Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters.
I’ve been looking forward to Kim Newman’s latest entry in the Anno Dracula series, but then I always do. Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters is set in 1899 Japan, which presumably means that we’re in for an allusion-heavy look at Asian vampire fiction and folklore*. Which is what I signed up for, so this is a treat. Continue reading In the Mail: Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters.
The Mysterion Patreon.
Mysterion, for those who might or might not remember, was an anthology book of speculative fiction published in 2016 or so that dealt with Christian themes. The publishers (Enigmatic Mirror Press) sent me a copy of it, at unfortunately precisely the wrong possible personal time for me to actually do anything like usefully review it. Which isn’t their fault, and it’s a good book. Pick it up.
Well, now Enigmatic Mirror Press has a Patreon to support their new fanzine (also called Mysterion), which will be a publication “that specializes in Christian-themed speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, and horror) and pays professional rates.” Check it, as they say, out.
Halloween, 2017.
I like doing poems about this time of year.