Blurred Line

1. Boy worships girl from afar for a year or so.
2. After girl becomes single, mutual friend signs them up (among others) for a salsa dancing class.
3. Boy, predatory senses on full alert, sets girl in sights and partners up with her every chance he gets.
4. Despite bad breath and complete lack of coordination (see also: any white guy trying to dance), girl finds boy charming.
5. Nervously, boy asks girl out on date.
6. Nervously, girl accepts.
7. Date includes volleyball and boy covering body in duct tape in order to resemble a spoon (long story).
8. Fast forward four years and here we are, looking better than ever. (Well, except for me - my face looks totally warped in this picture.) Anyhow, happy anniversary to me.

The result of an hour playing around with The Movies. Cavan is a struggling young writer just looking for one great idea. In this emotional opening act, he begins his quest and is about to be plunged into the strange and wild word of the blogosphere. (No music on this one, unfortunately, though there are some groovy sound effects. Still, I'll try to get that fixed up for next time.)

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Well, it's not quite to the halfway mark of the year yet (which would be the logical place to stop and assess where I'm at with my goals), but Jack Slyde was talking about his goals as a writer and that reminded me of all the goals I'd set for myself at the start of the year. Anyhow, here's where I am:

1. Finish Archive.

Current Status: Well, I ditched everything I had on that project and stuck in on the backburner for the time being. It'll get a major rehaul. Anyhow, I probably won't even start writing again in 2006, let alone finish it.

2. Finish Mass Romantic.

Current Status: I'm nearly to the halfway point on this one. I'll admit, I've been more sluggish with this story than I should be, but things are coming together. I'm still confident that I can finish this one off by the end of the year, although I'll really have to get my ass in gear over the summer.

3. Write and publish at least five short stories.

Current Status: So far, I've written two and I've got ideas for another two bouncing around. Still waiting for publication, though.

4. Publish at least one story in a professional market.

Current Status: Again, I'm still waiting. I'm not sure either of these two stories are good enough for a pro market and, for that matter, I'm not sure I'm good enough for a pro market yet, either. Still, I remain hopeful.

5. Publish at least three books with Apodis.

Current Status: Well, Apodis is no longer a subsidy publisher, so if I tried to publish three books this year I'd probably have to sell my body on the street corner to make ends meet. Still, I'm hopeful that Goodbye, Darwin will be ready before too long.

So, at this point, it doesn't really look like I'm on pace to hit any of my goals but anything can happen in six months, right?

Just to let you know what I've been doing with myself lately, as regards writing: First off is the question over what to do at Apodis after Goodbye, Darwin is complete (which won't be for another few months, at least). Anyhow, I'm planning to do at least one more anthology, for this reason: when I got the ISBN for Blurred Line, I also got one for Glistening Edges and Right Angles. Unfortunately, the sequel to BL is no longer going to be called that, but it does me no good to have an ISBN laying around and doing nothing, so my thought is to use GERA as a title for the next Apodis anthology. Also, there are some very tentative plans for a regionally specific anthology, but that wouldn't come into play until late Q4 2006, or sometime in early 2007.

As far as my own writing goes, Mass Romantic is coming along nicely. I've finally nailed down a few plot points and done a lot of work on my outline. The plot is becoming downright Shakespeare (actually, it's paralleling a specific Shakespeare play), although it's more along the lines of a Shakespeare play had it been written by Chuck Palahniuk. And yes, I do mean to insinuate that I am better than both Palahniuk and Shakespeare. Both of them combined, actually. Thanks for asking.

As for short stuff, there's two projects in the works. The first, like Mass Romantic, is another piece inspired by music, this one by the Sam Roberts song "The Gate". It's a literary SF piece, as it has no real plot, just a couple of guys "finding themselves" amidst the technological wasteland of mankind's first terraformed world. Story number two is one for the Myspace generation - it's all about social networking via the net, pop-up ads and usergroups - so, basically, it's my riff on a Cory Doctorow story. Anyhow, it features Zan, who some of you might remember from "Between Eternities".

And, on a largely unrelated tangent, here's a fairly interesting interview with James Patrick Kelly.

I've started reading Martin Amis' Money, which was given to me for Christmas, so I figured it was about time to get started on it. Anyway, I'm only ten pages in (gotta hit the sack since I work early in the mornings), and already Amis, who did such an exquisite job of turning the everyday world into a knot by telling everything in reverse in his amazingly original novel Time's Arrow, has done a very simple thing in such a terrific way that I feel I have to mention it. This is the kind of thing, I think, that can really elevate a writer. Instead of having his character simply take out a cigarette and be done with it, Amis writes the following:

"Yeah," I said, and started smoking another cigarette. Unless I specifically inform you otherwise, I'm always smoking another cigarette.

Great characterization here, in this one simple action. Not only do you get that the guy's a chain-smoker and the great narrative voice, but there's also a little bit of humour there.

Anyway, maybe I'm just getting overexcited about the little things here but, well, writing's all about sweating the small stuff.

Well, looks like some poor soul actually went out and bought themselves a copy of the old edition of Blurred Line. Its Amazon ranking jumped up to about 116,000 today, so that probably translates into one person buying a copy. Too bad it's the PageFree version and I'll never see a cent of the sweet, sweet royalty money. If you want your own copy, there's a ton of discounted copies available or, if you don't mind your books beat up a little, I still have a couple scratch and dent copies around the apartment that I'm willing to give away for free.

In other, more interesting news, we'll all be able to go undercover Harry Potter-style in the future. According to this article, we're only a couple of years away from having invisibility cloaks.

As Voyager 2 leaves the solar system, some stuff about the shape of space, which I've always found fascinating.

And, Honda's developing a "brain-machine interface" for its Asimo robot. Can't you just see hordes of those happy-looking Asimos controlled by some evil supervillain's mind? I mean, this stuff just writes itself.

During my relaxing long weekend, I've been having fun playing around with LibraryThing. If you haven't heard of it, it's essentially a place where you can catalogue the books you've read online. Of course, it has tons of Web 2.0 style goodness and connects you with other users who read similar things, gives you recommendations and, among other things, lets you know how indie you are in your book choices (necessary for all the vintage-jacket wearing bohemian types, of course).

You can also see other users who have a specific books, what ratings they've given it, what they've tagged it with, and what else they own. Basically, it's a huge wealth of information for anyone who's ever wondered what they should read next.

Plus, you can also share your library with other people, even if they aren't members. So, here's mine. If you're a book-lover, you've gotta check this site out.

I've watched the first seven episodes of Firefly and let me just say this - the show rocks. Yet another example of TV executive mismanagement. Anyway, I'd like to suggest that the reason the show works so well is because it's got something that a lot of science fiction over the past decade or so has lacked: fun. Now, it's not all giggles - those nasty Reavers are...ummm....nasty - but when the show does get serious it never ends up taking itself too seriously, which is something that becomes pretty easy to do.

The reason I bring this up is that I think Firefly is just one example of the reemergence of adventure SF or, in a word, "fun" SF. For quite some time, science fiction has been decidedly serious. That's not a bad thing - I'm more inclined to serious SF, myself. Still, the fun element seems to have been misplaced until recently.

Just look at what some of the new breed of SF writers are coming out with. John Scalzi's first novel, nominated for a Best Novel Hugo, is a book that's been described as a "popcorn" book. It's fast, fun military science fiction where good guys fight various nasty aliens. Then there's Chris Roberson's Paragaea, which is a throwback to the science fiction of the early twentieth century - Roberson has readily admitted the influence of the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, as well as anything to do with Flash Gordon. Also hearkening back to those early days of SF is Tobias Buckell's debut novel, Crystal Rain. Buckell's novel is one of the most talked-about releases in the genre this year and all you really have to do to figure out why is look at the cover. It may just be a swing of the pendulum, but after years of science fiction straining to be taken seriously, adventure SF looks like it's back in a big way.

Even though I'm not personally a fan of these kinds of reads, I am happy that the genre is getting back to its roots, and being damned proud of it, too. What's your view? Is the rebirth of Adventure SF good for the genre?

I've just sent out the last of the rejection notices for stories submitted in April and I thought I'd take a few moments to reflect on some of the bad story ideas that keep coming up.

Intelligent Young Scientist: Look! I've just created this amazing new device. Of course, I'll have to test it on myself to make sure it works.
Lab Assistant (generally an attractive woman who hooks up with scientist later on): But it's so dangerous! You could die!
Intelligent Young Scientist: That's a risk I'm willing to take.
[Much turning of knobs and dials. Interesting light shows begin to originate from machine. Scientist bravely risks his life and enters contraption]

My reaction: Oh no, that brave young scientist! He might perish! What will the world do without it's brave young scientists?!?! Oh, wait. This is the very beginning of the story. I don't even know this guy. Therefore, I don't even really care what happens to him.

Narrator: Let me relate the events that took place in a very matter-of-fact tone. Occasionally, I will make snarky comments so that you know that everything that took place was beyond my control.

My reaction: Because telling the story with characters who might have been in a position to have some form of agency would've really gummed up the works. It might've - gasp - even made it somewhat exciting.

Writer: I just completed my story fifteen minutes ago. Hence all the typos and continuity issues. And standard manuscript format? Screw that - I'll just send you this single spaced .txt document where everything's squashed into one paragraph. But that's alright, because my story is so great, you'd accept it even if I wrote it down on used cocktail napkins, scanned them, and emailed them to you as virus-filled attachments.

My reaction: [Expletive deleted].

It's nice to be working on Mass Romantic again. Over the past two days during my lunch hours and breaks at work, I've managed to get down five pages (longhand, you know, so don't be too impressed). That's nice, since it probably represents close to 1000 words and, for me, a thousand words in the space of two hours isn't too shabby.

Plus, I get to write sentences like "A no holds barred strip-off for control of the universe - devil strippers versus angel strippers" and "The mass murderer eventually befriends the alien android" without any irony. Ah yes, strippers from beyond, alien androids and even a samurai sword all within five pages. How can you not like writing that? And, all the while, I can still tell people I'm writing a really serious character study. Well, maybe not that serious. After all, I don't think any devil strippers showed up in, say, James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway novels.

Anyhow, I'm just happy to be working away on something again. I've heard advice from various quarters saying that aspiring writers should make a point of writing something every day. After finishing up my last short story, I don't think I wrote anything at all for a couple of weeks (although I was doing a lot of editing). Personally, a little break between projects always has me returning with zest to writing when I'm ready for it. Of course, at the same time, there's a lot to be said for keeping things on the go. What's your opinion? Is it better to be continually working, or do you prefer to write sporadically?

I've been reading a lot lately, so I apologize to anyone who's getting bored of these book recommendations. Anyway, instead of taking a book to work today, I took by notebook containing Mass Romantic and wrote instead, which I plan to do for the remainder of the summer. Of course, by the time I got home today, though, I couldn't help myself. I had to finish reading Syrup.

After I finished reading Max Barry's Jennifer Government, I mentioned how good I thought it was and how it was exactly the kind of novel I wanted to write. Well, his debut novel, Syrup, was better. It's a hugely funny satire on the marketing industry and corporate policy and is, to make up a word, unputdownable. I lost sleep over it last night and spent all day at work thinking about what was going to happen next.

Anyway, the book follows Scat, a marketing genius, who comes up with the world's next million-dollar idea, a new soft drink for hip, cynical twentysomethings. He pitches it to Coke, where he meets their New Product Manager - the devastatingly attractive 6. Over the course of the novel, you follow along as Scat and 6 try to keep control of his ideas in the ruthless world of the Coca-Cola corporation. This one gets my stamp of approval.

I recently alluded to some news about changes at Apodis, so here it is: Apodis Publishing is no longer a subsidy publishing operation, but is now a traditional publisher utilizing print-on-demand technology. Basically, all that means is that there are no longer any charges involved. Aside from that, everything is mostly the same, although there is one new wrinkle that I'm particularly pleased to announce and, not to mention, interested to see what writers think of it.

All new Apodis titles, as well as being released in print form, will be released as a free electronic download under the Creative Commons license. If you're not sure what that is, it means that the end-user can copy or distribute the works as much as they like, so long as they don't try to pass it off as their own, make money from it, or change what's written. I know some people who are vehemently opposed to giving away their work for free (one person I meant early on in my POD journey wouldn't even give copies to her family - she said that made her look unprofessional), but I think most people are smart enough to realize that the real danger facing writers today is not piracy, but obscurity.

I'll also note that Goodbye, Darwin has passed the 40,000 word threshhold, but I won't be satisfied until it's at least between fifty or sixty, so keep those stories coming.

I had a big, long book review of Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire typed up and then IE bugged out and I lost it all, so now I'm too bitter to write all it up. Anyhow, in summary - a great book that manages to be both a page-turner and character driven and encompasses a lot of the things I like to write about, like corporation-states and virtual prisons. I highly recommend it. (As of right now, there are thirteen copies at BookCloseouts at $3.99 each, so why not?)

I discovered that Blurred Line has been released into the wild over on BookCrossing. If you're not familiar with the site, it works like this: Person A prints out label with serial number from the BookCrossing site and then leaves the book in some public area, Person B finds book with instructions on the label to plug the serial number into BookCrossing, which then shows where the book has travelled. Person B releases the book into the public again and the cycle repeats. Some books have travelled all over the world this way, so it's kind of cool to see BL up there.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it went anywhere. It was released in the ER waiting room at the hospital in Easley, South Carolina in mid-October of last year, but hasn't been seen since then. Who knows, though, maybe it'll turn up somewhere.

I've got a ton of ideas bouncing around in my head these days but, unfortunately, they're all for novels. And, the fact of the matter is that I simply don't want to write any novels these days. Obviously, it's a pretty sizeable commitment and, the more I go over Blurred Line and the false starts to GERA and Archive, the more it becomes clear that I'm just not ready to write a novel at this point in my development as a writer. I have Mass Romantic to work on and the goal of four more short stories to produce for the year, so that's what I'd like to concentrate on.

Still, all the ideas I've come up with lately are ideas for novels. It's a little frustrating, but I hold out hope that I'll think of some decent short story ideas soon.

Unrelated tangent: At some point over the next week there'll be some big news about changes over at Apodis Publishing, so stay tuned.

Bah! Just wrote up this post and lost it, so here I go again. Anyway, I've always been intrigued by this game when I see it on blogs , or any variation of it. So, here are ten things about me. Five of them are true. Which ones? Well, I'll never tell.

1. I once hit a dog with my car. It didn't die, but was having trouble walking. I was too freaked out to go looking for its owner.
2. I once screamed in my teacher's face and then proceeded to have a completely normal conversation with her. The scream was never questioned.
3. I once correctly guessed four out of five lottery numbers. It was smaller lottery, so that would've only translated into a couple grand, but that's still decent. Unfortunately, I was underage and no one bought a ticket based on my picks.
4. I once correctly guessed the number of jelly beans in the jar (at a young age, no less - and it was a big jar).
5. I own a pair of handcuffs for, you know, special purposes.
6. I own a paddle for, you know, special purposes.
7. I once stripped down to my underwear and danced on my balcony.
8. I once stripped down to my underwear and ran around my apartment complex holding streamers.
9. At some point, a ferret has been named after me.
10. After a drunken party during my first year of university, I threw up in someone's mailbox.

I'm a big Ian McEwan fanboy, so I was very pleased when I found Enduring Love in pretty much perfect condition at a local used bookstore. The story follows Joe, who has everything going for him - he's got a great job and the perfect relationship. However, one day he becomes entangled in a hot air balloon accident. He and a number of other men are attempting to rescue those inside when the balloon ascends and leaves the would-be rescuers hanging on by the ropes. One of the other men, Jed Parry, a religious fanatic, forms an obsession with Joe, asserting with great certainty that the two of them are in love with one another. The obsession of Parry takes its toll on Joe in fascinating ways.

If there's any writer out there who has mastered inner conflict, it's McEwan. And, not surprisingly, it's his adeptness at showing the turmoil within Joe that drives this novel. Unlike a lot of literary novels, this one also qualifies as a real page-turner, it has a thriller-ish streak in it that'll drive you to keep on reading. The ending is rather interesting, but McEwan inserts a pair of Appendices in the back of the novel that tie things up. Depending on what kind of reader you are, you'll either love this, or think that the appendices undercut the ending of the story proper. Either way, I really enjoy this one and recommend it.

Also, if you're not much for reading, you can get your hands on a copy of the film adaptation (I haven't seen it, so I can't comment on it), starring none other than the new Mr. Bond, Daniel Craig.

Me:

Ottawa just lost 3-2 in overtime, putting them at the pretty much insurmountable deficit of 3-0 for the series. Cavan go cry now.

It seems that everyone has been recommending my picking up Firefly on DVD. I was hesitant, because I'd never seen the show before and it'd be kind of a stretch to go out and buy the entire series. Well, thank goodness for eBay. I picked up a new copy of the series for relatively cheap since I had some PayPal bucks lying around after I sold my girlfriend's copy of the Beatles Anthology. So, now you know my plans for next month.

I also went on a little day-trip with my girlfriend and one of her friends down to Smith's Falls, home of the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Among the goodies I picked up there was a box of Milk Duds, which I've never seen before in Canada, but recognize from some of my favourite American television programs. Most famous, of course, is Bart Simpson's "Sweet on the outside, poison on the inside" line. Personally, I'm rather fond of them.

File this in the "I hope he lost a bet" category: On my way home from work today I saw a biker in full regalia - leather vest, tattooed arms, long hair and beard, skullcap, and so on. Only, he was riding an electric scooter. My heart went out to the guy. Really.

Off to a BBQ tonight, before I head down to the evening's main attraction - a concert featuring The Strokes and The Most Serene Republic.

Of course, I wouldn't leave without posting something, so allow me to steal a link from Bookslut about the "effing gianormous cross of Effingham".

I'm back from my vacation - had a lot of fun. Somehow, my girlfriend and I landed in the suite with the jacuzzi while everyone else had regular bathrooms. The jets worked out all the kinks in my back, so now I'll be able to hunch in front of the computer indefinitely, pounding out story after story.

Anyhow, I came back to find a bunch of critique s for "Learning Magic From Mint", which I'd put up on OWW before leaving. Generally, there seems to be something of a split. One half like what they're seeing, the other half can't get into it because of the technological choices I've made. Basically, the problem lies in my writing a story about a child android (who's a child both in mind and body). I figured, hey, they did it in A.I. Anyhow, I'm getting a lot of comments about the androids not acting enough like androids and all that jazz.

It's times like these that I wonder if I'll ever have what it takes to be a science fiction writer. This story, like most of what I write, is meant as more of a sociological statement than any real exploratory speculative work. I think my tendency towards that end of the spectrum might have me ending up as an outsider looking in.

However, I've decided to keep the story as is, because the only solutions are putting in all the background, which would make for a story that's half-plot, half-infodump, and I'm not too interested in that. The other option is to extend the length of the work so that the infodump isn't so noticeable, but the plot on this one isn't exactly the meatiest.

In the meantime, I have a few other ideas bouncing around, but nothing that's ready to see the light of day quite yet.

I'm off for a brief vacation until Sunday. My Mom's side of the family (which is pretty big - she had six brothers and sisters, so there are quite a lot of cousins), is doing its yearly family reunion thing, so I'm heading out for that.

Until I get back, you can entertain yourselves with a pair of interesting science factoids and a movie recommendation.

Four more books arrived on my doorstep today, the last of my gift card haul. After pawing the covers and reading all of the blurbs (as is my custom when I get a new book - a weird sort of "Hello, welcome to my collection" thing), I came to the conclusion that whoever was packing these titles at the Chapters depot may have come to the conclusion that I'm a deeply disturbed individual. You, of course, already knew that. But apparently it affects my reading choices, too. So, here to give a little insight into me as a reader, are back cover blurbs from the four books I picked up.

Provo, Utah. Home of sex, violence, and porn - for the whole family! - Rated F, Todd C. Noker

...narrated by two terrorists and occasional lovers, Thivai, a pirate, and Abhor, part robot and part human. Together and apart, the two undertake an odyssey of carnage, a holocaust of the erotic. - Empire of the Senseless, Kathy Acker

Mark Leyner is a leather-blazer-wearing, Piranha 793-driving, narcotic-guzzling monster who has potential rivals eliminated by his bionically enhanced bodyguards, has his internal organs tattooed, and eavesdrops on the erotic fantasies of Victoria's Secret models - which naturally revolve around him. - Et Tu, Babe, Mark Leyner

Welcome to the blood-drenched chaos that is Beerlight, where to kill a man is "less a murder than a mannerism" and crime the "new and only art form." - Slaughtermatic, Steve Aylett

I'm not sure why, but any literature that's even remotely associated with the tag "subversive" is instantly fascinating to me. Personally, I blame Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis, two of the more mainstream "subversive" writers, for writing such damn good books. Or maybe I'm just not a very wholesome character. That's right, people, I'm actually a crazed sociopath.

Pictures of me holding a kitten, see, that's just to throw you off the scent. For all you know, I may have later eaten the kitten (I didn't, but only because it clawed the inside of my mouth).

Geoff Ryman's latest novel has been nominated for just about every award a science fiction novel can be nominated for these days, so I thought it'd be a good read (plus, bonus points to him for being a Canadian). Anyhow, Air centers around life in the village of Kizulduh (circa 2019), the last village to be connected to the Net. What's about to happen, though, is a global test of Air, a new form of the net that people can activate via their own minds and will allow them to keep in constant contact with others, without the need of any sort of machinery. The test, unfortunately, proves disastrous for the village and even more so for the book's main character, Chung Mae, who accidentally has her personality fused with another member of the village. The book chronicles the yearlong efforts of Mae, the only person who truly understands Air, to ready her village for the permanent implementation of the system.

Now, this might sound like a lot of fancy techno-talk, but Ryman's novel would just as at home in a literary fiction collection as it would in a science fiction one. Mae is, without a doubt, one of the strongest and most fully realized characters that I've read in an SF novel in quite some time. Although the problems with Air seem to provide the bulk of the narrative's driving force, the novel seems far more interested in a discussion of transition. At its heart, that's the theme the novel explores, in fascinating ways. Actually, the most interesting part of the novel, for me, was the interactions between the villagers - their social etiquette and structure is done in such a realistic manner that you feel as if Kizulduh is a real place. The pacing, unfortunately, isn't great for most of the first portion of the novel - for the first 250 pages I'd read a chapter and then set it aside for later because I didn't feel that it was really necessary for me to keep going right then. The last 150, however, were riveting.

Be sure to check this one out.

Closer than you think.

Today's Battle of the Bands Radio update brings together two of my favourite 80s revival bands. Chances are you've heard of The Killers, who kicked the genre into high-gear with hits like "Mr. Brightside", "Somebody Told Me" and "All These Things That I've Done". The track I bring you from them is "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine".

The challenger is one of my favourite bands of the moment, The Sounds. A couple of weeks ago I found out they'd released

their second album and I managed to track down a copy. Just like their first, it's incessantly catchy and the track I'm playing here, "Queen of Apology" has a nice punky edge to it.

Have a listen by pressing ZAP on the Radio.Blog box. Press ZAP again to change tracks. When you're done, leave a comment with your vote.

Seeing as how it's summer vacation and all, I have a bit more time on my hands than usual. But, I ask, what's a science fiction writer to do when he doesn't feel like writing or catching up on his Nebula and Hugo reading lists? Clearly, he must geek out to video games.

I'm spending too much time playing Civ 3 (which I picked up off eBay for $9 a few months ago) and am rocking the world with the Egyptians. It's only the 1530s and, well, I have lots of guns (and a stock exchange - because, you know, we're not just about shooting lowly British spearmen).

Anyhow, I'm enjoying my vacation so far and, although I'm putting in a lot of hours at work right now, it's just nice not to have to worry about school.

Other news: Goodbye, Darwin continues to inch forward. I've had another big batch of stories come in lately, and some of them written by relatively accomplished authors. We're still only about halfway to our word count goal, though, so keep those submissions coming.

New blogs: A pair of new SF blogs are listed on my sidebar. The first is Notes From Coode Street, by Jonathan Strahan who works for Locus and edits a lot of Best Of anthologies. The second is VanderWorld, the blog of SF&F writer Jeff VanderMeer.