Blurred Line

If you want to read a terrific, whimsical, and mature short story collection, look no further than Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons. Lethem's stories about superheroes, magical sprays, deja vu and talking sheep might seem fantastical on the surface, but they all illuminate some portion of the human condition. I could go on and on with praise, but let me simply say this: I loved this book.

Go read it.

#1. Leave your car's lights on during work. Discover that the battery has died.

Steps to dealing with problem: Curse loudly, call job number two to say you won't be in, call tow truck, wait for tow truck, smack self on head when tow truck driver arrives and asks why you didn't just get a boost from someone (answer: you're a complete and utter moron), pay tow truck driver $40 for boost, get to job number two a half hour late.

Agh.

I've been pretty busy this week and haven't had much time for outlining (or anything else for that matter -- I haven't even been doing my regular blogreading and, according to my RSS reader, 239 unread posts are waiting for me). That said, I didn't manage to come up with one idea I'm very excited about -- a far future story, which I've never written before. It's something I'm looking forward to exploring and it might even make for a good novel idea some day.

Anyhow, at this point, with eight story ideas and seven days left to outline, it's not looking like I'll be able to hit my goal of fifteen. So, I'm going to focus on finishing and refining the outlines for the ideas I've got so that when November rolls around I won't have to worry about where each story is going.

Fusion Fragment #3 is now online! This issue, we've got "The Virtual Possible" from RJ Astruc, a fun little retro-cyberpunk number, "Vista" by Pacze Moj, an unsettling and hallucinatory piece of dystopic fiction, and "No Eye Patch For Me" by David Reagan, about which I'll just say three words: pirates in space.

Enjoy!

Up to four completed outlines, but new ideas aren't exactly popping up around every corner. I've still only got seven total, and after the four I've got completed, only one of them has a partial outline. The other two, at this point, feel like they're dead in the water.

I'm reading lots of short stories in the hopes of getting inspired, so hopefully week three will bring some new ideas.

A busy two days ahead of me while I do editor type stuff. The third issue of Fusion Fragment will be coming out at some point this week (I just have to make it all shiny and internet-ready) and the official release date for Stumble Down the Mountainside is tomorrow, which means you'll be able to download 100% free PDF copies of the book for your reading pleasure.

Stay tuned!

I've been playing around a little bit lately with a site called BookMooch. It's a book swapping site with a lot of members, so you're bound to find something that you're interested in reading (I've already found a bunch of books on my to-read list). Essentially, it works like this: you gain points for listing your books as available and when you send books out to people, you then redeem points by having books sent to you. If you don't mind paying for postage, it's a pretty cool way to pick up used books. I've already cleared out some space on my bookshelf (begone nasty Thomas Hardy novels, begone!) and am expecting some nice new books to come my way in the near future (PKD's The Man in the High Castle among them, which is pretty difficult to find in a used bookstore).

Be sure to check them out if you have some used books gathering dust on your shelf.

A day late on my first progress report, but I was busy eating turkey and other tasty Thanksgiving foods, so I had to spend a day lying comatose on the couch, hoping that my gastrointestinal system would recover after packing if full of so much food.

So far, my outlining has been going decently well. I have one full outline, one partial, and two more that I'm just getting starts on. Overall, I've got ideas for a total of seven stories. As per usual, there's a lot of cyberpunk, but there's a few other things, too.

Here's a little bit on each of the ideas I've come up with so far:

A battle between gangs in a dystopic society. It actually fits into the Blurred Line universe, taking place roughly ten or fifteen years before the events of the novel.
A rework of "Spam", which as I've noted takes place during the same day covered in "Between Eternities", but from the point of view of different characters. My premise is good, but I still have to rework most of the plot.
An expansion of "Blood Electric", an entry to one of the Clarity of Night contests.
A story set in a world where people (except for the poor and, well, hippies) live in VR.
Dystopic story after the melting of the polar ice-caps.
Post-apocalyptic story that takes place after all the humans are gone. What's left? Well, robots, of course.
A story set on a beautiful new colony which hides something terrible (I'm not telling what yet...mostly because I've got no freakin' clue).

Or so I'm choosing to call it, in honour of my month long expedition of outlining. Other ideas included NaNo-Brainstorm-Mo (but that abbreviates to either Bra-Mo, which would give people the wrong idea, and Brain-Mo, which is just weird) and NaNo-Holy Crap I Need To Come Up With A Hell Of A Lot Of Ideas To Write 50000 Words And I'll Never Be Able To Do It So Maybe It as Just A Bad Idea Anyway-mo, but, well, I was assured it was something of a mouthful.

Anyhow, as I mentioned I'm an unofficial participant, since I'm going to try to work on some short stories. In my case, a novel churned out in thirty days wouldn't be good for much else than the trashbin, so I figure that this course of action will work best for me.

I've come up with a few ideas over the last two days (my thanks to Walt Whitman - his poetry makes for a kickass springboard for SF concepts, believe it or not), so now I actually have some stuff to start outlining, which is good news.

On a slightly different note, but perhaps useful for some of you, author E.E. Knight blogs about some things not to do when writing SF/F. (via BoingBoing)

Had a very relaxing weekend, which I really needed. Next week I'm scheduled for 48 hours, so hopefully my life will be somewhat less crazy. In the meantime, thought I'd recommend another book I just finished, so here you go.

Alistair MacLeod is one of Canada's most celebrated writers (even though he's only published two short story collections and one novel), so I was happy to finally read No Great Mischief, his novel. The story tells the family history of Alexander MacDonald, from the Scottish roots of his family to his youth on Cape Breton Island. The thing that makes this novel great is that MacLeod is such a natural storyteller -- the novel feels like the kind of story that your grandparents might have imparted to you at some point (for that matter, much of the novel involves grandparents telling stories). Anyhow, it's an absolutely wonderful read, and I'd definitely recommend taking a look.


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	Monday, October 29, 2007 - Men and Cartoons If you want to read a terrific, whimsical, and mature short story collection, look no further than Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons. Lethem's stories about superheroes, magical sprays, deja vu and talking sheep might seem fantastical on the surface, but they all illuminate some portion of the human condition. I could go on and on with praise, but let me simply say this: I loved this book. Go read it. Cavan blogged at 9:33 PM \| 0 comments Thursday, October 25, 2007 - Easy Ways to Potentially Wreck Your Day #1. Leave your car's lights on during work. Discover that the battery has died. Steps to dealing with problem: Curse loudly, call job number two to say you won't be in, call tow truck, wait for tow truck, smack self on head when tow truck driver arrives and asks why you didn't just get a boost from someone (answer: you're a complete and utter moron), pay tow truck driver $40 for boost, get to job number two a half hour late. Agh. Cavan blogged at 10:36 PM \| 2 comments Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - NaNoOutMo: Week 3 I've been pretty busy this week and haven't had much time for outlining (or anything else for that matter -- I haven't even been doing my regular blogreading and, according to my RSS reader, 239 unread posts are waiting for me). That said, I didn't manage to come up with one idea I'm very excited about -- a far future story, which I've never written before. It's something I'm looking forward to exploring and it might even make for a good novel idea some day. Anyhow, at this point, with eight story ideas and seven days left to outline, it's not looking like I'll be able to hit my goal of fifteen. So, I'm going to focus on finishing and refining the outlines for the ideas I've got so that when November rolls around I won't have to worry about where each story is going. Cavan blogged at 6:16 PM \| 0 comments Friday, October 19, 2007 - Fusion Fragment #3 Fusion Fragment #3 is now online! This issue, we've got "The Virtual Possible" from RJ Astruc, a fun little retro-cyberpunk number, "Vista" by Pacze Moj, an unsettling and hallucinatory piece of dystopic fiction, and "No Eye Patch For Me" by David Reagan, about which I'll just say three words: pirates in space. Enjoy! Cavan blogged at 11:09 PM \| 0 comments Wednesday, October 17, 2007 - NaNoOutMo: Week 2 Up to four completed outlines, but new ideas aren't exactly popping up around every corner. I've still only got seven total, and after the four I've got completed, only one of them has a partial outline. The other two, at this point, feel like they're dead in the water. I'm reading lots of short stories in the hopes of getting inspired, so hopefully week three will bring some new ideas. Cavan blogged at 6:48 AM \| 2 comments Sunday, October 14, 2007 - Editor-y Stuff A busy two days ahead of me while I do editor type stuff. The third issue of Fusion Fragment will be coming out at some point this week (I just have to make it all shiny and internet-ready) and the official release date for Stumble Down the Mountainside is tomorrow, which means you'll be able to download 100% free PDF copies of the book for your reading pleasure. Stay tuned! Cavan blogged at 11:44 AM \| 0 comments Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - BookMooch I've been playing around a little bit lately with a site called BookMooch. It's a book swapping site with a lot of members, so you're bound to find something that you're interested in reading (I've already found a bunch of books on my to-read list). Essentially, it works like this: you gain points for listing your books as available and when you send books out to people, you then redeem points by having books sent to you. If you don't mind paying for postage, it's a pretty cool way to pick up used books. I've already cleared out some space on my bookshelf (begone nasty Thomas Hardy novels, begone!) and am expecting some nice new books to come my way in the near future (PKD's The Man in the High Castle among them, which is pretty difficult to find in a used bookstore). Be sure to check them out if you have some used books gathering dust on your shelf. Cavan blogged at 7:17 PM \| 0 comments Tuesday, October 09, 2007 - NaNoOutMo: Week 1 A day late on my first progress report, but I was busy eating turkey and other tasty Thanksgiving foods, so I had to spend a day lying comatose on the couch, hoping that my gastrointestinal system would recover after packing if full of so much food. So far, my outlining has been going decently well. I have one full outline, one partial, and two more that I'm just getting starts on. Overall, I've got ideas for a total of seven stories. As per usual, there's a lot of cyberpunk, but there's a few other things, too. Here's a little bit on each of the ideas I've come up with so far: A battle between gangs in a dystopic society. It actually fits into the Blurred Line universe, taking place roughly ten or fifteen years before the events of the novel. A rework of "Spam", which as I've noted takes place during the same day covered in "Between Eternities", but from the point of view of different characters. My premise is good, but I still have to rework most of the plot. An expansion of "Blood Electric", an entry to one of the Clarity of Night contests. A story set in a world where people (except for the poor and, well, hippies) live in VR. Dystopic story after the melting of the polar ice-caps. Post-apocalyptic story that takes place after all the humans are gone. What's left? Well, robots, of course. A story set on a beautiful new colony which hides something terrible (I'm not telling what yet...mostly because I've got no freakin' clue). Cavan blogged at 12:04 PM \| 0 comments Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - October: NaNoOutMo Or so I'm choosing to call it, in honour of my month long expedition of outlining. Other ideas included NaNo-Brainstorm-Mo (but that abbreviates to either Bra-Mo, which would give people the wrong idea, and Brain-Mo, which is just weird) and NaNo-Holy Crap I Need To Come Up With A Hell Of A Lot Of Ideas To Write 50000 Words And I'll Never Be Able To Do It So Maybe It as Just A Bad Idea Anyway-mo, but, well, I was assured it was something of a mouthful. Anyhow, as I mentioned I'm an unofficial participant, since I'm going to try to work on some short stories. In my case, a novel churned out in thirty days wouldn't be good for much else than the trashbin, so I figure that this course of action will work best for me. I've come up with a few ideas over the last two days (my thanks to Walt Whitman - his poetry makes for a kickass springboard for SF concepts, believe it or not), so now I actually have some stuff to start outlining, which is good news. On a slightly different note, but perhaps useful for some of you, author E.E. Knight blogs about some things not to do when writing SF/F. (via BoingBoing) Cavan blogged at 5:57 PM \| 0 comments Monday, October 01, 2007 - No Great Mischief Had a very relaxing weekend, which I really needed. Next week I'm scheduled for 48 hours, so hopefully my life will be somewhat less crazy. In the meantime, thought I'd recommend another book I just finished, so here you go. Alistair MacLeod is one of Canada's most celebrated writers (even though he's only published two short story collections and one novel), so I was happy to finally read No Great Mischief, his novel. The story tells the family history of Alexander MacDonald, from the Scottish roots of his family to his youth on Cape Breton Island. The thing that makes this novel great is that MacLeod is such a natural storyteller -- the novel feels like the kind of story that your grandparents might have imparted to you at some point (for that matter, much of the novel involves grandparents telling stories). Anyhow, it's an absolutely wonderful read, and I'd definitely recommend taking a look. Cavan blogged at 9:12 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