Blurred Line

I've been a bad blogger. So bad, in fact, that when I look at the next entry in my posting ideas file (I routinely keep a text file filled up with ideas of things to write posts about), I notice that it references a post by Lynn Viehl over at Paperback Writer that she made over a month ago. I apologize. I'm going to try to pick up the frequency of my posts from now on. Really. Scout's honour, and all that.

Anyhow, her post was about ending lines. Personally, the last line of a story is of massive importance to me because if it hasn't written itself by the time I'm halfway through the project, chances are that the WIP is going to die before it ever reaches that point. I just need to always have the end in sight. I've also noticed that I tend to write either one-sentence endings, or at the very least I rarely exceed two. Then again, I also write in briefer sentences and paragraphs that most people I know, anyway.

I was curious, then, to check out the endings from some of my favourite books - only a few do I know well enough to have memorized them, and I wasn't sure whether this tendency of mine was something subconsciously inherited from the stuff I read. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, most of the books I've read tended to have short endings. A couple (notably Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children) have long and rambling final paragraphs, but they're in the minority.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd share a few of my favourites:

"That's true," I says. "And here's how it happened." - Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water

He never saw Molly again. - William Gibson, Neuromancer (Not because the line's great in and of itself, but because it so perfectly calls to mind the hard-boiled detective novels -- The Big Sleep, in particular -- that cyberpunk drew so heavily upon.)

Mostly, I just don't give a fuck. - Todd C. Noker, Rated F

All short and sweet, as you can see. As are many of the others that I could have placed here. Interestingly, though, one of my favourite overall endings (regardless of what the last paragraph is) of all time (Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake), even though it has a one-liner ending, is decent, but not great. (FYI, it reads "Zero hour, Snowman thinks. Time to go."). Also, my all time favourite final paragraph comes from Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and it's by no means short.

So, what are some of your favourite enders?

Been busy lately with a full social calendar - some of my friends just returned from extended tours of Europe, so there's been a lot of stuff to catch up on. Anyhow, to fill the posting void, I thought I'd link to a lengthy interview with William Gibson on the Bat Segundo Show. I'm pretty excited to read Spook Country (my girlfriend surprised me with a copy the other day, so I'm planning to pick it up as soon as I finish The Corrections).

Thought I'd give a quick sneak peek at the next book due out from Apodis. This, as you can see, is Stumble Down the Mountainside from Ian Donnell Arbuckle. If you got your hands on a copy of Goodbye, Darwin, you might remember Ian's kickass story "Hard Wonder".

The cover blurb for the novel goes a little something like this:

Lithium has just graduated college and wants nothing more than to sleep in late on summer mornings and occasionally hit his younger brother with a stick. One morning, he wakes up to find the rest of humanity gone, destroyed in a man-made apocalypse -- but somehow his family is untouched. Drug-addled Mom; his brothers, suicidal Brat and jelly-spined paranoiac Grant; his Dad the zombie. Lithium begins to feel like the center of a brand new rarity: the dysfunctional family. He is the tormented middle child, but he's the last middle child on Earth. As far as he is concerned, that means he gets the write the rules from here on out.

I'm hoping for a release date within the next couple of months, but I'll be sure to let you all know.

Spent a day without power on Thursday and most of Friday, thanks to the fact that the power company is run by a bunch of (insert choice expletives here). When my new roommate was moving in, it was decided that we'd keep the power in his name, since I didn't have an account and there's a significant charge in setting one up. Anyhow, on the first bill, the significant setup charge shows up anyway. He calls and complains. Bills continue to come, without corrections. Apparently, they're also charging him for the power usage at his old apartment. More calls lead to more frustration. Anyhow, in the midst of getting all these things figured out, our power is shut down due to lack of payment.

Argh! The only reason that we weren't paying is because we were being charged incorrect amounts! You'd think the power company would have some note on our file saying that charges had been disputed and to maybe hold off on this kind of things until everything was properly resolved. No such luck. Anyhow, sick of dealing with this, we agree to pay another significant sum for our power to be hooked up again. We call at 8 AM on Friday and they say that, although they can't give us an exact time when someone will show up, it'll be sooner rather than later since we called so early (and keep in mind that the company's hours end at 4 PM). Of course, someone has to be home and we both work, so I convince my girlfriend to stay for the morning and wait for the power guy. He doesn't show and my girlfriend has to go to work, so I'm forced to leave work at noon, sacrificing a half day's wages (which is significant when you don't have much wiggle room on your budget) and wait for the guy to show up.

All's well now, except for the large amounts of money paid out, but it was frustrating as hell. I'm done ranting now.

A new song in time for the summer holidays. This fun, catchy rocker called "Summer Holiday and Me" comes courtesy of The Jessica Fletchers, who qualify as my favourite band to come out of Norway.

The band's sound is definitely retro and I hear a lot of comparisons to The Kinks (if you listen to this song, you'll understand why) and stuff that's a little more psychadelic. Check out the album here.

One more quick post for today. Maureen McHugh (author of such books as and China Mountain Zhang and Nekropolis) blogs about being unsure over whether something she's written is important and compelling or simply navel-gazing.

More interesting, though, is the graph she's stuck in the post. Click on it to enlarge. Never has anything more accurately described my attitude towards my own writing during the actual writing process.

Here in Ottawa, we're at the tail end of a pretty bad heat wave - though it looks like things'll be pretty bad by next Thursday again. With humidity, temperatures hit 43 yesterday (which is roughly 106 Fahrenheit, I think). At the office, we were forced to work with the lights off and the air conditioners running on their minimum level in hopes that the power wouldn't go out. Today, things had cooled off considerably (it's 34 or 93, depending on which country you live in) and we were back to freezing cold at work, which is always nice. As soon as I get home, though, I'm pretty much obliged to strip down to a pair of shorts since our apartment has no air conditioner and not much in the way of air circulation, either.

When not sitting in front of a fan, rendered comatose by heat, I've spent most of my time over the last couple days reading or on the computer (clearly, I'm a big fan of activities that require little to no physical movement). I was surprised this week when a couple of people I know only through this blog added themselves as my friends on Facebook. Never one to turn down random internet friends, I accepted their requests, of course, and I must admit -- it's kind of cool to have a closer look at the people who read your blog. So, if you're on Facebook and you don't have a problem with friending relative strangers, feel free to add me. Why? Because I want to e-stalk you. And, of course, because you get to e-stalk me as well.

Lastly - two of my favourites have new releases out that I'm massively excited about. Matt Good released a new CD on the 31st titled Hospital Music that I just can't wait to get my hands on. He's been one of my favourite musicians since high school (notably, one of the only musicians I liked in high school that I still like now) and I'll also be attending my first Matt Good concert in October. And, even better, William Gibson's new novel, Spook Country, is out in four days. If you haven't yet, go check out the interview with him at Amazon.


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, August 30, 2007 - Ending Lines I've been a bad blogger. So bad, in fact, that when I look at the next entry in my posting ideas file (I routinely keep a text file filled up with ideas of things to write posts about), I notice that it references a post by Lynn Viehl over at Paperback Writer that she made over a month ago. I apologize. I'm going to try to pick up the frequency of my posts from now on. Really. Scout's honour, and all that. Anyhow, her post was about ending lines. Personally, the last line of a story is of massive importance to me because if it hasn't written itself by the time I'm halfway through the project, chances are that the WIP is going to die before it ever reaches that point. I just need to always have the end in sight. I've also noticed that I tend to write either one-sentence endings, or at the very least I rarely exceed two. Then again, I also write in briefer sentences and paragraphs that most people I know, anyway. I was curious, then, to check out the endings from some of my favourite books - only a few do I know well enough to have memorized them, and I wasn't sure whether this tendency of mine was something subconsciously inherited from the stuff I read. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, most of the books I've read tended to have short endings. A couple (notably Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children) have long and rambling final paragraphs, but they're in the minority. Just for kicks, I thought I'd share a few of my favourites: "That's true," I says. "And here's how it happened." - Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water He never saw Molly again. - William Gibson, Neuromancer (Not because the line's great in and of itself, but because it so perfectly calls to mind the hard-boiled detective novels -- The Big Sleep, in particular -- that cyberpunk drew so heavily upon.) Mostly, I just don't give a fuck. - Todd C. Noker, Rated F All short and sweet, as you can see. As are many of the others that I could have placed here. Interestingly, though, one of my favourite overall endings (regardless of what the last paragraph is) of all time (Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake), even though it has a one-liner ending, is decent, but not great. (FYI, it reads "Zero hour, Snowman thinks. Time to go."). Also, my all time favourite final paragraph comes from Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and it's by no means short. So, what are some of your favourite enders? Cavan blogged at 5:03 PM \| 0 comments Saturday, August 25, 2007 - Gibson Interview Been busy lately with a full social calendar - some of my friends just returned from extended tours of Europe, so there's been a lot of stuff to catch up on. Anyhow, to fill the posting void, I thought I'd link to a lengthy interview with William Gibson on the Bat Segundo Show. I'm pretty excited to read Spook Country (my girlfriend surprised me with a copy the other day, so I'm planning to pick it up as soon as I finish The Corrections). Cavan blogged at 8:03 PM \| 0 comments Friday, August 17, 2007 - Coming Soon From Apodis Thought I'd give a quick sneak peek at the next book due out from Apodis. This, as you can see, is Stumble Down the Mountainside from Ian Donnell Arbuckle. If you got your hands on a copy of Goodbye, Darwin, you might remember Ian's kickass story "Hard Wonder". The cover blurb for the novel goes a little something like this: Lithium has just graduated college and wants nothing more than to sleep in late on summer mornings and occasionally hit his younger brother with a stick. One morning, he wakes up to find the rest of humanity gone, destroyed in a man-made apocalypse -- but somehow his family is untouched. Drug-addled Mom; his brothers, suicidal Brat and jelly-spined paranoiac Grant; his Dad the zombie. Lithium begins to feel like the center of a brand new rarity: the dysfunctional family. He is the tormented middle child, but he's the last middle child on Earth. As far as he is concerned, that means he gets the write the rules from here on out. I'm hoping for a release date within the next couple of months, but I'll be sure to let you all know. Cavan blogged at 2:45 PM \| 1 comments Saturday, August 11, 2007 - Blackout Spent a day without power on Thursday and most of Friday, thanks to the fact that the power company is run by a bunch of (insert choice expletives here). When my new roommate was moving in, it was decided that we'd keep the power in his name, since I didn't have an account and there's a significant charge in setting one up. Anyhow, on the first bill, the significant setup charge shows up anyway. He calls and complains. Bills continue to come, without corrections. Apparently, they're also charging him for the power usage at his old apartment. More calls lead to more frustration. Anyhow, in the midst of getting all these things figured out, our power is shut down due to lack of payment. Argh! The only reason that we weren't paying is because we were being charged incorrect amounts! You'd think the power company would have some note on our file saying that charges had been disputed and to maybe hold off on this kind of things until everything was properly resolved. No such luck. Anyhow, sick of dealing with this, we agree to pay another significant sum for our power to be hooked up again. We call at 8 AM on Friday and they say that, although they can't give us an exact time when someone will show up, it'll be sooner rather than later since we called so early (and keep in mind that the company's hours end at 4 PM). Of course, someone has to be home and we both work, so I convince my girlfriend to stay for the morning and wait for the power guy. He doesn't show and my girlfriend has to go to work, so I'm forced to leave work at noon, sacrificing a half day's wages (which is significant when you don't have much wiggle room on your budget) and wait for the guy to show up. All's well now, except for the large amounts of money paid out, but it was frustrating as hell. I'm done ranting now. Cavan blogged at 4:18 PM \| 2 comments Monday, August 06, 2007 - "Summer Holiday and Me" A new song in time for the summer holidays. This fun, catchy rocker called "Summer Holiday and Me" comes courtesy of The Jessica Fletchers, who qualify as my favourite band to come out of Norway. The band's sound is definitely retro and I hear a lot of comparisons to The Kinks (if you listen to this song, you'll understand why) and stuff that's a little more psychadelic. Check out the album here. Cavan blogged at 11:31 PM \| 2 comments Friday, August 03, 2007 - Most Accurate Graph Ever? One more quick post for today. Maureen McHugh (author of such books as and China Mountain Zhang and Nekropolis) blogs about being unsure over whether something she's written is important and compelling or simply navel-gazing. More interesting, though, is the graph she's stuck in the post. Click on it to enlarge. Never has anything more accurately described my attitude towards my own writing during the actual writing process. Cavan blogged at 8:31 PM \| 0 comments - Heat and Facebook Here in Ottawa, we're at the tail end of a pretty bad heat wave - though it looks like things'll be pretty bad by next Thursday again. With humidity, temperatures hit 43 yesterday (which is roughly 106 Fahrenheit, I think). At the office, we were forced to work with the lights off and the air conditioners running on their minimum level in hopes that the power wouldn't go out. Today, things had cooled off considerably (it's 34 or 93, depending on which country you live in) and we were back to freezing cold at work, which is always nice. As soon as I get home, though, I'm pretty much obliged to strip down to a pair of shorts since our apartment has no air conditioner and not much in the way of air circulation, either. When not sitting in front of a fan, rendered comatose by heat, I've spent most of my time over the last couple days reading or on the computer (clearly, I'm a big fan of activities that require little to no physical movement). I was surprised this week when a couple of people I know only through this blog added themselves as my friends on Facebook. Never one to turn down random internet friends, I accepted their requests, of course, and I must admit -- it's kind of cool to have a closer look at the people who read your blog. So, if you're on Facebook and you don't have a problem with friending relative strangers, feel free to add me. Why? Because I want to e-stalk you. And, of course, because you get to e-stalk me as well. Lastly - two of my favourites have new releases out that I'm massively excited about. Matt Good released a new CD on the 31st titled Hospital Music that I just can't wait to get my hands on. He's been one of my favourite musicians since high school (notably, one of the only musicians I liked in high school that I still like now) and I'll also be attending my first Matt Good concert in October. And, even better, William Gibson's new novel, Spook Country, is out in four days. If you haven't yet, go check out the interview with him at Amazon. Cavan blogged at 7:23 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