Blurred Line

I feel like I've been working an admin job for the past week. At every turn there seems to be another form to fill out, another document that carries with it the threat of massive fines if it's not completed in full. And there's no end in sight. Holy crap - is this what being an adult is?

Some important milestones coming up for me:

April 11: Final class of my academic career.
April 16: Due date for the final essay of my academic career.
April 25: Final exam of my academic career.

I am, as you might imagine, massively stoked for April 26. Not only because I'll be free from school (which, after five years, I've come to view as nothing more than an irritating obstacle on the way to getting a real job), but also because I'll actually have some time to write. Finally!

Also, judging from last year, I'm guessing responses from Clarion West should be coming around in two to three weeks time. Starting to feel the tinge of nervous excitement.

Lastly, I've polished off a bunch of novels over the past two months for my Canadian Jewish fiction seminar, but have neglected to mention them here, as I usually do. So, a few very brief notes on my two favourites...

Crackpot - Adele Wiseman. The life of Hoda, a Jewish immigrant to Winnipeg, who grows up to be a prostitute and local legend. If you're a writer: Lots of people try to write books where the POV shifts seamlessly from one character to another. It almost never works. If you want to read a novel where it's pulled off perfectly, read this one.

Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels. The life of Jakob, a child who escapes German soldiers, and is rescued by a Greek man, with whom he spends his life. It then picks up on his adult life in Toronto and Greece, and the life of Ben, the son of Holocaust survivors. If you're a writer: Michaels is a poet, and it shows. The book, unfortunately, is never quite as good as some of the individual passages in which Michaels allows her poetic flair to take over. If you want to read something by a fantastic wordsmith, check this one out.

Got hit with a pretty bad sickness over the past couple of days. I think I'm finally on the mend, as today is the first day I've been able to look at the computer screen without grimacing in pain.

Some news: Rejection for "Learning Magic From Mint" from Dark Energy SF. They sent me a message to say it made it into their final selection round, which is further than 99% of stories make it, but in the end they decided to pass. Oh well. Haven't sent it back out again yet, but I plan to do so when I'm fully conscious again (tomorrow, hopefully).

OK...so, everyone's doing this thing. Allow to plant myself firmly on the bandwagon

Instructions: In the list of books below:
Bold the ones you’ve read
Italicize the ones you want to read
Mark in RED the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole
Put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf
Mark an asterisk (*) beside the ones you’ve never heard of
Seen the movie (#)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. #Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. #The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. #The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. #The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. #Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. #Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. #Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. +Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. #Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. #+The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. #The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. +Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. #Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. #Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. +The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. +The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. +Crime and Punishment(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. #Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. #The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. #Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. +In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. #+Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. #The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. #The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. #White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

The first issue of All Possible Worlds is on its way and let me tell you, it looks pretty fantastic. I'll likely grab myself an issue, since I like to support these new magazines when I can. There's a couple of familiar names on the roster there - Justin Stanchfield, who had a story in Goodbye, Darwin has also got one here and Marlo Dianne, who was in the premier issue of Fusion Fragment has artwork appearing in the issue. Also, they've got a story by Kurt Kirchmeier, a name that's been getting pretty familiar to me in short fiction circles - I've read of his stuff and he's got some real talent. Go pick up a copy if you're interested.

Also, thanks to a bulletin sent out by those guys, I discovered the Indie Writer Challenge. Basically, they put up ten pieces of fiction and the one voted the best by readers wins cash. I'm never fully sold on these operations until they've been going for a while, but it'll definitely be interesting to watch it develop.

It's officially online. It's got sex robots, Shakespearean clones and post-apocalyptic baby snatchers. Honestly, can you really ask for anything more?

Go read it. Now.

So, I just spent about half an hour fiddling with my cell phone and going through the user manual to try to reset the clocks (thanks a lot, early DST). Anyway, it's impossible. Can't do it. Which wouldn't bother me, if I didn't also use the phone as my alarm clock. This is definitely going to result in me being late for work a time or two.

Also, I'm starting to get really excited about Spore. I get massively obsessed with a videogame about once every couple years (the last time it was The Movies, and the time before that Gran Turismo 3), and this one looks like it'll be the best of the bunch. If you haven't heard of it, it's the new game from Will Wright, who brought you SimCity and The Sims and all those games, except that he describes this one as a Sim-Everything. You take life from the single-celled organism phase all the way to galactic dominance. Anyway, it looks incredible.

Lastly, Fusion Fragment #1 goes online tomorrow. Don't miss it.

Because I'd totally pay money to watch this fight. Seriously.

Just a quick note to say that the debut issue of Fusion Fragment will go online March 12. I received a total of 56 submissions for this issue and have hand-picked three interesting, entertaining stories. So, be sure to check in for that. I'll post a reminder.

Also, I've got more than a few copies of Goodbye, Darwin kicking around the house, so if anyone would like a copy, you can have them for the price of a cushy envelope and postage. Within Canada, that'll come to roughly $4 US, to the States it'll be about $7 and overseas about $12. So, just drop me a line if you'd like a copy.


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Thursday, March 29, 2007 - Paperwork I feel like I've been working an admin job for the past week. At every turn there seems to be another form to fill out, another document that carries with it the threat of massive fines if it's not completed in full. And there's no end in sight. Holy crap - is this what being an adult is? Some important milestones coming up for me: April 11: Final class of my academic career. April 16: Due date for the final essay of my academic career. April 25: Final exam of my academic career. I am, as you might imagine, massively stoked for April 26. Not only because I'll be free from school (which, after five years, I've come to view as nothing more than an irritating obstacle on the way to getting a real job), but also because I'll actually have some time to write. Finally! Also, judging from last year, I'm guessing responses from Clarion West should be coming around in two to three weeks time. Starting to feel the tinge of nervous excitement. Lastly, I've polished off a bunch of novels over the past two months for my Canadian Jewish fiction seminar, but have neglected to mention them here, as I usually do. So, a few very brief notes on my two favourites... Crackpot - Adele Wiseman. The life of Hoda, a Jewish immigrant to Winnipeg, who grows up to be a prostitute and local legend. If you're a writer: Lots of people try to write books where the POV shifts seamlessly from one character to another. It almost never works. If you want to read a novel where it's pulled off perfectly, read this one. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels. The life of Jakob, a child who escapes German soldiers, and is rescued by a Greek man, with whom he spends his life. It then picks up on his adult life in Toronto and Greece, and the life of Ben, the son of Holocaust survivors. If you're a writer: Michaels is a poet, and it shows. The book, unfortunately, is never quite as good as some of the individual passages in which Michaels allows her poetic flair to take over. If you want to read something by a fantastic wordsmith, check this one out. Cavan blogged at 12:25 PM \| 0 comments Thursday, March 22, 2007 - Alive...But Just Barely Got hit with a pretty bad sickness over the past couple of days. I think I'm finally on the mend, as today is the first day I've been able to look at the computer screen without grimacing in pain. Some news: Rejection for "Learning Magic From Mint" from Dark Energy SF. They sent me a message to say it made it into their final selection round, which is further than 99% of stories make it, but in the end they decided to pass. Oh well. Haven't sent it back out again yet, but I plan to do so when I'm fully conscious again (tomorrow, hopefully). Cavan blogged at 5:59 PM \| 2 comments Thursday, March 15, 2007 - Another Book Meme OK...so, everyone's doing this thing. Allow to plant myself firmly on the bandwagon Instructions: In the list of books below: Bold the ones you’ve read Italicize the ones you want to read Mark in RED the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole Put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf Mark an asterisk () beside the ones you’ve never heard of Seen the movie (#) 1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) 2. #Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 3. To Kill A Mockingbird* (Harper Lee) 4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) 5. #The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) 6. #The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) 7. #The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) 8. #Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) 9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) 10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) 11. #Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) 12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) 13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) 14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) 15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) 16. #Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling) 17. +Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald) 18. The Stand (Stephen King) 19. #Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) 20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) 21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) 22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) 23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) 25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 26. #+The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) 27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) 28. #The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe* (C. S. Lewis) 29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) 30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) 31. Dune (Frank Herbert) 32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) 33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) 34. +1984 (Orwell) 35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) 36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) 37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) 38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) 39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) 40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) 41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) 42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) 43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) 44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) 45. Bible 46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) 47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) 48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) 49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) 50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) 51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) 52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) 53. +Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) 54. #Great Expectations (Dickens) 55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) 57. #Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) 58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) 59. +The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) 60. +The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) 61. +Crime and Punishment(Fyodor Dostoyevsky) 62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) 63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) 64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) 65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) 66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) 67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) 68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) 69. Les Miserables (Hugo) 70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) 71. #Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) 72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) 73. Shogun (James Clavell) 74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) 75. #The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) 76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay) 77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) 78. The World According To Garp (John Irving) 79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) 80. Charlotte’s Web* (E.B. White) 81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) 82. #Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) 83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) 84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) 85. Emma (Jane Austen) 86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) 87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) 88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) 89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) 90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) 91. +In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) 92. #+Lord of the Flies (Golding) 93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) 94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) 95. #The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) 96. #The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) 97. #White Oleander (Janet Fitch) 98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) 99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) 100. Ulysses (James Joyce) Cavan blogged at 12:10 PM \| 0 comments Tuesday, March 13, 2007 - News on a Couple of Markets The first issue of All Possible Worlds is on its way and let me tell you, it looks pretty fantastic. I'll likely grab myself an issue, since I like to support these new magazines when I can. There's a couple of familiar names on the roster there - Justin Stanchfield, who had a story in Goodbye, Darwin has also got one here and Marlo Dianne, who was in the premier issue of Fusion Fragment has artwork appearing in the issue. Also, they've got a story by Kurt Kirchmeier, a name that's been getting pretty familiar to me in short fiction circles - I've read of his stuff and he's got some real talent. Go pick up a copy if you're interested. Also, thanks to a bulletin sent out by those guys, I discovered the Indie Writer Challenge. Basically, they put up ten pieces of fiction and the one voted the best by readers wins cash. I'm never fully sold on these operations until they've been going for a while, but it'll definitely be interesting to watch it develop. Cavan blogged at 11:15 PM \| 1 comments Monday, March 12, 2007 - Fusion Fragment #1 It's officially online. It's got sex robots, Shakespearean clones and post-apocalyptic baby snatchers. Honestly, can you really ask for anything more? Go read it. Now. Cavan blogged at 4:31 PM \| 0 comments Sunday, March 11, 2007 - DST, Spore, and FF So, I just spent about half an hour fiddling with my cell phone and going through the user manual to try to reset the clocks (thanks a lot, early DST). Anyway, it's impossible. Can't do it. Which wouldn't bother me, if I didn't also use the phone as my alarm clock. This is definitely going to result in me being late for work a time or two. Also, I'm starting to get really excited about Spore. I get massively obsessed with a videogame about once every couple years (the last time it was The Movies, and the time before that Gran Turismo 3), and this one looks like it'll be the best of the bunch. If you haven't heard of it, it's the new game from Will Wright, who brought you SimCity and The Sims and all those games, except that he describes this one as a Sim-Everything. You take life from the single-celled organism phase all the way to galactic dominance. Anyway, it looks incredible. Lastly, Fusion Fragment #1 goes online tomorrow. Don't miss it. Cavan blogged at 11:12 AM \| 4 comments Thursday, March 08, 2007 - I'm a Terrible Person Because I'd totally pay money to watch this fight. Seriously. Cavan blogged at 12:00 AM \| 0 comments Saturday, March 03, 2007 - Fusion Fragment and (Mostly) Free Books Just a quick note to say that the debut issue of Fusion Fragment will go online March 12. I received a total of 56 submissions for this issue and have hand-picked three interesting, entertaining stories. So, be sure to check in for that. I'll post a reminder. Also, I've got more than a few copies of Goodbye, Darwin kicking around the house, so if anyone would like a copy, you can have them for the price of a cushy envelope and postage. Within Canada, that'll come to roughly $4 US, to the States it'll be about $7 and overseas about $12. So, just drop me a line if you'd like a copy. Cavan blogged at 5:39 PM \| 1 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart