Edge of the Universe

Heaven's Walker

2006-07-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

I wrote this story in, if I recall properly, late 2001. It wasn’t a bad story, though I never thought enough of it to tidy it up and publish it. Mostly, it sits on my hard drive and in a folder somewhere, and I glance at it now and then and think about doing something with it.

Perhaps you’ll enjoy it.

Heaven’s Walker

Pete Tzinski

     In the highest reaches of the tallest places in the Heavens, amidst clouds and shards of light, glistening pillars of light and knowledge, magnificant prisms of truth and love, there walked the Devil.
     God perceived and called him forth from the darkness, saying, “O, Satan! Why have you left your Hells? Have you no fires to stoke? No brimstone to whiff? No souls who have turned from me?”
     And the Devil, cackling with a mouth full of yellowy pointed teeth, exclaimed back to God, “I have all of them and more, Lord! An yet, something better too…for I have victory!”
     “Victory says the Prince of Lies!” God exclaimed as the host of angels and saints looked on. “No victory shall there be for you! But bandy your words quick, let your forked tongue spill them with haste.”
     Before him and at the base of God’s throne, the Devil conjured up the Earth, flashing images before them with blazing speed. He came down into a small gray office, stuffy and full of miserable looking people, all of them hunched over instinctively because of the low, gray ceiling. Again, the Devil cackled.
     “Look at my wit, my ultimate creation, my finest perversion! Look, your men damn themselves. For I have walked amongst them and I have spoken in the soft voice to the greedy ear, jostled the elbow that was aching to be twitched,and thus have I wrought this! They work toward damnation volumntarily. And behold, they have named it, as Adam did name the animals.”
     And the Devil’s slideshow came to show a sign in plain brown letters on the outside of a dull brown building, and the letters read Department of Motor Vehicles.
     “Behold, they sign away all they can!” The Devil said, “They rush through hoops, struggle with requirements, stress and curse and complain and do not leave! They are imprisoned, though there are no chains, nor locks on the doors! All so they can ultimately drive machiens that thunder and cough and spit out smokelike the Dragons of old! Voluntarily, O Lord!”
     And though Lucifer cackled still further in his victory, stomping cloven hoof and slapping red stomach with crimson hand, God spoke softly but surely and said, “But alas, what have you won? Has anything changed? Have I waxed or waned? Have the fires cool,the world split, the stars collided, the cities crumbled? No. And truly, I say to you, it is my servant Job, fo ryou’ve no sway upon him.”
     “No sway!” the Devil scoffed. “But has he no license?”
     “Nay!” God admonished.
     “But has he no registration?” pressed the Devil.
     “Nay!” returned God promptly.
     “But has he no proof of insurance, which is unto the spear in the side?”
     “Three times, I say thee nay!” exlcaimed God, “He has none, nor visits your Department of Motor Vehicles, nor drives your Dragon-like machinations.”
     “But the world is overrun with them! How can he not?”
     “Behold, Job, my faithful and trusted servant, who alone knows the scent of the roses, for having stopped by them.”
     And then, God showed his own images before His throne, and he depicted Job. Old, wizened, with white hair and a lined face, he was walking hand in hand with his wife. Man, standing beside Woman. She too had white hair and a lined face, but lined as his was with a smile as they walked slowly and leisurely, peacefully.
     “Walking!” scoffed the Devil again, “Rediculous! But victory is not denied me, O Lord. They are old and weak, and soon to depart that world! And then, shall my triumph not be complete?”
     “Look, look close!” God seemed to whisper and shout, all at once.
     And there, running in zig-zagging patterns around the sidewalk, the grassy lawns, the fields of flowers, and even a beach by a lake that they walked past, there darted a trio of little children, galloping about on their own feet.
     “And your triumph,” God said, “is denied.”
     And then, the Voice said no more. Gnashing his teeth fitfully, the Devil cursed the images hanging before him of Jobh and his wife and his grandchildren, unknowingly thwarting the Devil’s schemes by means of their Sunday evening post-supper stroll through town.
     The angels and saints all faded away, no longer watching.
     With nothing elft but images and failures, the Devil also ventured off to stoke his fires, to whiff his brimstone.
     Job, meanwhile, picked a yellow daisy for his wife.

Twittering.

2006-06-28T19:46:00.000-05:00

An anecdote I’ve been meaning to share.

Some time ago, we visited a Blockbuster video rental store nearby and signed up for this dandy deal where I could just take video games out for as long as I pleased, and I had to just bring it back when I wanted another one. It was wonderful. I’d play games that I wouldn’t have otherwise had a chance to play, and then take it back and do it all over again. Games were played, thumbs were cramped, very little writing was done.
One night, a brilliant idea hits me as I walk out with game under my arm.

I says to myself, I says, “Self. What a brilliant idea. What if they did something like this, but with books! You could take books out, read them, and take them back and get more books! This is brilliant! I am wise!”

Of course, my tired and addled brain looked up from its stupor, a bit sozzled and worse for the wear, and pointed out unkindly to me that there was such a thing, which was called a library, and could I be a twit somewhere else?

…So there. That’s just in case you ever find yourself thinking, “Ye Gads, that Pete, he is the stuff of legends, his brain is so big.”

…

The reason I have been less than chatty here of late can be read about here. This will keep me pretty occupied as September 1st approached, after which, I’m sure I’ll be chattering away plenty. I still plan to post, mind you, but it will be sporadic. You know, as opposed to how useful and regular I normally am.

Oh, what the heck. Sometime tonight, or tomorrow afternoon, I will dig up a short story and post it here, exclusively, for your reading enjoyment. I’ve got one in mind, and it’s not terribly long, because I can’t imagine a long story would be terribly comfortable to read on this blog. Consider this my version of flowers and an “I’m sorry.” For being a bit absent. Yes?

Like that nice Churchill boy said, I shall return.

At the bottom of the sea...

2006-06-16T00:10:00.000-05:00

It’s a bit odd, and probably terribly nerdy. I very much like my SLVR L7 phone, and I adore the amount of MP3’s I can put on it. I really like that it has a speaker built into it, and a solid enough one that I can put it in my pocket and listen to music without headphones on.
I like the camera it comes with, the fact that it comes with a video camera, with blue tooth, all that.

…but here’s the nerdy bit. The thing that actually gets me excited about my phone? It’s that I can plug it into my computer, a window pops up, I can drag my “Working Drafts” folder full of stories/novels I’m working on right now onto my phone, and then carry them with me.

(Granted, I usually carry them no farther than the laptop.)

The technology geek in me is overruled by the writer geek. Go figure.

Our Synergenic Mission Statement

2006-06-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

     The funny thing about this blog is, when I originally started it, the point of it was that I would begin maintaining it while still an unpublished, learning author. I would continue to maintain it all the way down the path to fame and glory (because I am, if nothing else, a stubborn optimist).

     It’s a fun thought. I like that you could have people saying “He’s a god! A lord of fiction! The words seem to move on the page, and move in my very soul! It’s like he’s in my room!”

     And you, after the long internal debate about whether you want such people to notice you when you speak, are able to pipe up and say “Yes, all that, but back in 2006, did you know he wrote blog entries in his underwear? Or dropped boiling tea water on himself as he tried to balance a bowl of raman noodles on top of his cup, while opening the door, because he is only human, fiction god though he may be, and it just didn’t work.

     (I know what you’re asking. I can see the raised eyebrows. No to the first line, yes to the second one. And yes, it really did hurt. And yes, those were grown-up words I was using while hopping around in pain.)

     What I quickly realized was that if you maintain a blog around the purpose of “follow author from hack to height!” what you mostly get are blog entries like this.

     June 2, 2006: Wrote 25 words. Hate them. Am drinking heavily.

     June 5, 2006: Erased 26 words. Hate me. Want to die.

     June 7, 2006: I wrote 5,000 words of masterpiece! They’re genius! They have nothing to do with my story, but I don’t care! Happy day!

     (If you’re wondering if any of these are true, only the last one, I assure you, and even that one is fairly exaggerated. Usually, it’s more of a perplexed well, that’s interesting, I guess I can write a short story on the side really quick…than anything.)

     This isn’t really a blog entry about anything, I’m afraid. Just chatter. I haven’t done any productive writing today, because I’m very tired. This really puts a dampener in my plans to write at least 5,000 (preferably 8-10,000 words like I did yesterday) every day until I had hammered out a first draft of my novel.

     They say that writing is a craft, which I happen to agree with. It’s like carpentry. As such, they also say that you should just work at it ‘till it’s done, with no “I don’t feel like it” along the way. This is more or less true, but I bet even if the carpenter worked another full time job and had a family to look after*, he would find himself moving a little slower building that house, some days.

     Oh, I discovered Evil Editor’s blog today. It makes me really happy, and it goes on the list just below Miss Snark and Neil Gaiman. It’s given me much more practical advice than Miss Snark, however (who has more or less shown me the reaction I can expect if I write something stupid and send it to an agent, which has put the fear of God in me). It may find itself bumped up the list.

     I’m sure there’s something productive I could do—

     --There. That decides it. I just reached for my cell phone to answer a message, and in the process, I dropped my glasses, a partial manuscript, and about two dollars in loose pennies, many of which I have just discovered are covered in gum.

     (I know you type, you’re so nosey. All right, I checked. It’s Extra Watermelon flavor gum. All right?)

     * This is a blatant lie. I look after nothing. I cannot get a cup of tea through the doorway on my own. I’m proud of my ability to be fully dressed when I walk out the door. That took years. My wife runs the house like she’s running a battallion, and in gratitude, I do such things as spend an evening watching Must Love Dogs with her. That said, I still will force her to watch the first four episodes of The Flash: Complete Television Series.

Center of the Universe (a safe post to skip)

2006-06-11T16:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I did say that there would be a second post today. This one serves as something of a warming-up before I dive in. I’m trying to write another 4,000 words, because if I can, then I’ve done 10,000 words today, and that makes me very happy.

So, my trail across the internet. I’ve always wanted to talk about it, but generally, I think it’s embarassing to talk about oneself. I figure, if I’m going to have this blog, then I’ll get this out in the open, make myself happy, and then move on.

I cut my teeth writing on the internet. It was just what I did. Some of the very earliest short stories of mine were written specifically for the internet, and I bet if you hunt hard enough, you could find them. You wouldn’t want to, it’s terrible garbage, but you could, you see. It’s interesting.

My first endeavor on the internet was a Star Trek fanfiction series called Starship Khitomer. I’m still very proud of it. I learned a lot writing it, I actually had a pretty good sized fan base, and I feel that I said some important things in there. Not always on purpose, but I did anyway. While I’ve long since stopped working on it, it ran for a solid two-and-a-half years. In 2003, my nostalgia got the best of me, and I tried to keep going on it, but it was a thing of the past, and I couldn’t keep writing it. Such is life. This, however, is the explanation for why the update on the page says 2003. In reality, I believe I stopped writing it sometime into 2001.

Star Trek: Starship Khitomer

After that, I moved on to doing original fiction, which I’d started to do on the side. I think, to this day, that series work is still the form of writing with which I’m happiest. The problem is, the older I get, the more problems I find with doing it (half of them are legal; the other half are time). Still, I enjoyed it immensely. Whenever I get nostalgic now (which is probably what is prompting this post, really) it’s things like this which I go back to:

Beyond Earth was an original universe I built and populated with a lot of stories, not all of which are easy to find. The following link was for the series I wrote for Beyond Earth, called Enforcer, and while you can see it’s by the same guy who did Khitomer in a lot of ways, I was starting to grow, starting to flex my muscles, and starting to learn. I see glimmers of better writing in there. I have a massively heavy folder with all my Beyond Earth stories (which ranged far beyond Enforcer, branching into short stories, mini-series, novels….) in it, and I occasionally happily flip through it.

This was the final incarnation of Beyond Earth: Enforcer

Beyond Earth: Enforcer

Now, the best thing I ever did was run a massive site called Edge of the Universe. It was that site, which ran from 1998, through 2003 actively, that was my pride and joy. It’s what this blogged is titled after. It went from being a small site full of my random stories to a massive, massive thing. By the time it was a massive thing, I was so harried and disorganized (because besides the assistance of a few friends, I was doing virtually all of it myself) that it sort of scattershotted all over the internet. It’s last incarnation featured a huge site full of fiction, poetry, articles, other people’s works, forums, a store, a community site, a monthly newsletter/magazine thing. It was huge. It was a mess, mostly. It was a helluva lot of fun, over the years.

It eventually condensed into a (surprisingly, still managably workable) site which I just found.

EotU

There’s other stuff out there, but for the moment, that’s what I’ve got. Most of the writing on the sites is, to put it nicely, crap. It’s old. It’s very old. It’s also fun. Every now and then, I go back and fiddled through these sites, sigh wistfully, and try to figure out a way where I could do a series once again. Like I said, it’s probably something like that inspiring this post.

My final interesting bit, though, and then I’ll go do some work.

In late 2000, a friend of mine, who was a very, very good CGI designer, was building a customized Star Trek starship. He’d been working on it very hard, and it was a very impressive model. There were a lot of very, very talented CGI designers in the Star Trek fanfiction community. While I was involved with it, the whole Trek fanfiction thing reached its height. Hardly because of me, mind you, but it reached its height nonetheless. It’s faded quite a lot since then, and it’s almost terrifying now.

When he finished the ship, and presented it to the world, he had left a surprise for me. To this day, I think it’s my proudest moment.

The U.S.S. Tzinski

Tzinski-class Starship History and stats

Right. Well, now I’m done waxing nostalgic. This is also the last sort of post like this, because at the end of it, I feel like a horrible braggart. I’m off to write and be a generally crusty menace to society who is, at the moment, having a really good cup of Darjeeling tea.

Wittering Writer

2006-06-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

The thing about writers (and I’m not the first person to observe this) is that the quality of their day depends solely on their writing. For example, today it’s cold and dreary outside, I have to work tomorrow, I have too many bills and a wife who’s slowly getting sick.

…but, I wrote 6,000 words so far in my manuscript, in the space of a couple of hours, and I intend to get more done later this afternoon after I take a bit of a break. I’m thinking I could manage a smooth 10,000 words today, which would be nice. It’s all good stuff, too. I write a pretty tight first draft, and these are so far words worth keeping.

Just like that, I’m having a good day. A euphoric day, so to speak. I’ve had a couple good cups of tea, I played with the rats a bit and the cats a bit (not at the same time, though) and I realized happily that I have two older short stories of mine that I can re-write into things I would be proud of. They go on to the end of the list of things to do after the current manuscript is done.

Once I tidy it up a bit, by the way, I have a scene from my manuscript that I really enjoy, and really want to share, so I’ll probably post it here.

Something I’m very proud of, that I forgot to mention by the way: With a bit of MacGuyver ingenuity, I went out and bought an adapter which you put into the cassette player in an older car, and then hook into a CD discman, thus giving yourself a CD player in your car. They’ve been around forever. My wife had one when I first met her, though I couldn’t find it now.

I hooked it into the big stereo that sits on the top of my desk, in my office, and then I plugged the other end into the headphone slot on my speakers. Thus, my computer sound comes out of my big stereo. I don’t know how many watts it is anymore for sure, but I know it’s 800 or more. It was a point of some pride when I was younger. I have to be careful now, though, because if I’m playing a video game, the bass from the explosions is enough to rattle windows.

The original purpose for it was, I can now set up another stereo like this (we have two; the second one is also powerful, also my wife’s) in the living room, and then through clever use of adapters and converters, I can plug my SLVR L7 phone into it, and let my iTunes playlist blast through the house.

…

Neil Gaiman pointed out, while editing a volume of Sandman short stories written by various authors that he was finding stories that only needed to be 2,000 words which were 6,000 instead. He theorized that this was because people write on computers, and thus, things balloon out of control. It was why he started writing things longhand.

It’s a sound idea, and it’s one that I found to be a bit true. When I write a short story by hand, it’ll come in shorter and tighter than it would have otherwise. Today, however, when I did my 6,000 words, I did it all on the computer, because I was sort of racing myself to see how long it would take. It occurred to me that one valuable reason for writing on a computer is, you get a better rhythm going. Mostly, I was writing a scene between two characters, and the dialogue wouldn’t have flowed so comfortably on paper. It would’ve been shorter, but it wouldn’t have been as interesting, or as colorful.

So I guess they both have their values. I find that when I’m tired, I have an easier time writing on paper, whereas days like today where I’m high-strung and in writerly mode, I can hardly type fast enough to keep up. I was doing about 120 wpm this morning, and even then, my hands were shaking and I was trying to go faster, and faster. I think really, I was trying to write at the speed of a conversation.

(No wonder my arms hurt.)

I’m off for a bit. When I return, for my second post today (I think there will be too) I’m going to talk about the Pete Tzinski trail-across-the-internet. Why, I don’t know, but I’ve wanted to talk about it for ages now, I was just too abashed to do it. You’ll see.

Sloth. Not Manny.

2006-06-10T13:56:00.000-05:00

The thing about not blogging for a while is that I wind up with quite a lot of things which have occurred, and am of two minds about how much of it to post. It could warrant a trilogy of “Recap” posts, which would probably not be terribly exciting. Therefore, I think I’ll just move on and if anything comes up that addresses something which previously occurred, I shall do a beautifully segueing recap into the topic. You will all be amazed.

Today’s thought, which I will share with you before heading off to The Day Job: I am, as it stands, only 23,000 words into my manuscript for From Gray Mists, Returned. I hadn’t checked my word count until recently, and when I saw that it was so low, it alarmed me.

Story wise, this isn’t a problem. Story wise, I’ve got a great deal of story still left to tell, and I’m still expecting about 125,000 words when all is said and done. Probably more, if I do things right. So that’s not the problem. The problem is that I’ve been working on this for quite a while, and I’m not writing nearly as fast as I’d like to be.

While I was sort of gently aware of this, I wasn’t worried until last night, I got up after going to bed, because I had some notes that I had to get out of my head before I could go to sleep. One page of notes was about a short story called The Kiss That Did It* (which is buried somewhere in the Share Your Work section of the Absolute Write forums) and in that page of notes, I fixed the short story. Some people have pointed out that I shouldn’t re-work it, I should just send it out again. I’m of two minds on this subject as well, and now I have a page of notes that would allow me to comfortably turn it into a short story that I would like very much, instead of the current one.

The other page of notes was for an old novel idea that I’ve had bouncing around my head for quite a long time now, which I was just sitting on patiently. I had a solid idea for it, but there was still a spark missing that would ignite the whole thing, and I was willing to wait for it. That page of notes was that spark. Everything fell into place, and now I know exactly what sort of story it is and how to write it. I want to write it. I’m getting exctied about writing it.

Additionally, I have my six-part comic book series Dark which is waiting for me to complete this novel so that I can charge on with it.

You see what worries me, then. I have quite a lot of projects building up, all of which I’m excited about, and I’m starting to realize that if I don’t power my way through the first draft of my novel soon, I’m going to fade out on it, it’s going to rot on the page, I’m going to move, and I won’t be at all happy about it.

What am I doing about this? Well, I don’t know. I think I need someone to nag me. Barring that, I’m thinking about finding a handful of beta readers who are willing to have chunks of the story e-mailed to them every couple of days. I always wrote well for an audience, especially one that provides general feedback now and then. Barring that, I think I need to give my manuscript a hard look, give my life a hard look, and just pick a date (preferably fairly soon) on which I will plan to have reached 100,000 words.

That’s what I’ve got the moment. Now, I have to go figure out what I’ve done with both my shoes, and my tea, either of which normally take a fair amount of effort to find on their own. If you don’t hear back from me, call the police. I will have wandered off and gotten lost.

* Recently, I received a rejection letter for The Kiss That Did It, which I was expecting and wasn’t hugely worried about. I originally intended simply to shelve the story after the rejection letter came in, because I tend to dislike my writing after a few months have passed between us. However, the rejection letter contained a great deal of advice about the story, which is rare and valuable. However. The one thing that bothered me a good deal about it was how very, very strongly the editors disliked the fact that the story had a gay character in it. This bothered me. The character is passively gay, and if you’re not necessarily paying attention, you don’t notice that he’s gay, and your reading of the story isn’t remotely affected by it, I don’t think. That really bothered me.

In which the author returns from outer space

2006-06-07T21:57:00.000-05:00

I really tried to think of something terribly cool to do, to make this a fashionable comeback to my blog. The closest thing I had to an idea was to post an entry on 6/6/06, because that's trendy…but instead, I wound up spending the day doing some good writing. So while that may not be fashionable, it is fairly in keeping with me. It's a good return.

Let's see. Well, my work in progress (which some days has a title, and some days does not) is going well. It's very well laid out in my mind, beginning middle and end. This is a bit of rarity, and certainly it never falls into place the way I'd planned it out. I was therefore delighted to discover yesterday, when I wrote the end of part one, that it ended exactly like I wanted it to. I think that's probably a real gift. You'll never get the story you have in mind down exactly, but if you're lucky, you'll get something close, or something good out of it, at least. I got what I wanted, and it was good, to boot.

Another interesting thing to note (if, that is, you're interested in my writing habits) was that as the action got faster and faster toward the end of part one, I switched from writing on the computer to writing by hand on notebooks, sprawling text across page after page of legal pads, and then typing it in when I was done. And now, as I enter into part two and the action slows back down, I find I've switched back to the computer.

This is a really good idea, and something that the writers out there (of the multitudes reading this) might consider trying. I found that as the action got faster and faster, writing by hand meant I had to slow down and very deliberately consider, rather than just getting swept away in the rush of things. And now that things have slowed down in the story, writing rapidly by computer means I keep up my intertia even though I'm providing it now, not the story. It's a wonderful counterbalance.

I had a wonderful dissertation on something Stephen King said in On Writing, which I was saving for this entry…except now, as I type, I find that I cannot quite remember it. This further contributes to my absent-minded writerly-sort image, and so I guess it's all right. Probably, it will turn up. If it doesn't, I'll re-read the book.

The work beckons, of course, because I'm having too much fun writing it to stop. Assuming I get a good bit done, I'll come back and tell you about my tea adventures. They were adventurous.

Tagged, yo.

2006-01-15T23:38:00.000-06:00

Good evening. This is a very quick post, I’m afraid, because I’m exhausted and sick and busy with all sorts of cool things. I think the problem with blogs is, by the time you have something you’re busy with that’s really cool to talk about…er…you’re too busy doing it to talk about it.

At any rate, I’ve been meme’d. This is as close as I shall ever get to “internet pop culture,” so you should all savor this post. I am in favor of being meme’d (how on earth do you suffix that?) because it does not leave a mark, and it does not smell, so it’s good in my book.

I should mention that I have been “tagged” by Dawno who has, I’m afraid, probably a more interesting blog than this one. If nothing else, it has very pretty colors.

1. First, you must visit your archives.
2. Remove the pin from the holy hand gernade, so that you may blow your enemies to smithereens, in thy mercy.
3. find the 23rd post – In this case, it was 12/24/2005, which is not all that long ago.
4. And then, you post the fifth sentence from it. And it is thus: Is THIS a NEW LEVEL for OUR AUTHOR? (And honestly, if you want to know what it’s about, scroll three posts down. It’s that small of a blog.)4. Post the sentence, likewise the instructions, into your blog. Voila!5. And this is the part where I “tag” other people, yo. Straight up in the hood, dog. In the hizzy, really. Mad caps with my homies and my peeps. All these cats, they think I’m a dog. Honest. Et cetera. (Look, with a phrase like “tag,” what did you expect from me?)So, who shall I pass this thing onto? Whom else shall be forced to make a blog entry when what they really want is a very hot cop of lemon tea with clover honey in it, and then a bath hot enough to boil pasta? Whom shall I inflict on? And how shall I do it in my own unique……………….. (idiom, sir?) Idiom!

(Yes, I did watch Monty Python. Have you noticed?)

AstonWest will, I’m afraid, be forced to post about more than drunken stupors, thanks to me. Hah-hah!

And then, because I shoot for the stars, I hereby meme Neil Gaiman, who does not, I suspect, read my blog. Nevertheless, something vaguely resembling a gauntlet has been thrown down! Except I have no gauntlets, so I’m afraid it’s actually a fountain pen. Er, and I sort of laid it gently down, rather than throwing. But nevertheless!

Remember, every cool person in the world does this. Honest. I mean, look, even I’m doing this, and I’m the “aloof but very cool once you get past the creepiness” cool person. If you send my blog link to 100,000 of your friends, YOU WILL MAKE ONE MILLION DOLLARS LEGALLY!!!!!!!!

I am going back to writing. Good night. Sleep well.

It's just the bare necessities

2006-01-05T02:54:00.000-06:00

Good evening. Well, to be completely precise, good early-morning-silly-hour-to-be-awake. Long lines like that pretty much demonstrate why we’re never completely precise.

At any rate, this is coming to you from a short break in the middle of writing, though I’m not sure if a break spent writing constitutes a break of any sort at all.

Writing! I’m jubilant just at the thought of it. I’m never motionless and I’m never not-working, because the day that I’m either of those things is the day that somenoe should probably check my pulse and call an ambulance. But for the past three weeks or so, I have not written a single word (unless you count hoards of posts over at the Absolute Write Forums, where it is entirely possible to lose yourself with ease.) When id id try to write, it came out unhappily and unpleasant, I did not like it, and I usually exited without saving.

So in the meantime,w hile not writing, I’ve been working with a good friend of mine on the development of an Massive Multiplayer Online game, and we’ve done some amazing stuff with it. The beauty of the game, which I’m hesitant to say much about, is that you can pretty much play it as you like. Got no use for storyline and all that dialogue crap, when it just gets in the way of killing? Fine. Go kill something. Do you want an immersive experience in a rich storyline? Okay, you got it. Do you just want to run a shop selling crops? You can do that. Do you want to play music and try to make a living doing it? Hey, if someone will pay you, go right ahead. It’s very, very deep and very innovative in a lot of ways (I sound like a bleedin’ press release, but please believe that I am entirely sincere) and I’m mindlessly proud of it.

(A brief plea: Are you a 2D artist? Do you know a 2D artist? Are you any sort of artist at all? Please, for Pete’s sake, e-mail me for leave me a comment. It turns out that basic 2D graphics are very wonderful, but very hard to find an artist for. I will name my first born son after the one who helps me. Unless my first born son is a daughter.)

So tonight, and yesterday, I started writing again and it’s all started working. The gears are moving, and though they’re a bit sore and rusty, they’re turning like they’re supposed to. The stuff that’s coming out is mostly good, and I’m happy with it. There’s still the nagging doubt that I’m banging on the keyboard and producing crap, but that’s just a prerequisite of being an author. The trick is not to pay it any attention, because you’re having too much fun doing what you love to notice.
Yesterday, I hunted St. Cloud for somewhere I could buy plain dried tea leaves. The sort which you put in the bottom of a teapot, pour boiling water on, and make yourself a really wonderful cup of tea. I completely failed to find anything of the sort and mostly got myself blankly stared at when I asked people who worked in stores. Sometimes, I get led to coffee aisles followed by the blank stares. It was very exciting.

I was very happy to hear that the miners in West Virginia had been gotten out of the collapsed coal mine alive, up until the point when I heard that they were, in fact, dead all along. This is absolutely horrible, a completely needless loss of human life (though there are so very few needful ways to lose lives). It absolutely broke my heart to read about, and I am horribly sorry for the families who are enduring some of the most gut wrenching moments of their lives.

…I racked my brain for something profound to say on the matter, but being a writer offers no guarantees of profound. Sometimes, the tragedy can be too much. Sometimes, you can simply bow your head, say you’re sorry, and then pray. That’s all I have to do.

(I cannot help but wonder what those men must have thought in those hours spent in the cold and oppressive dark, deep underground. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to know, but I have a relentless mind. It makes me shudder.)

On a more cheerful note, because you fine folk don’t come here to be manically depressed. (“I’m too damned happy, let’s go read Pete’s blog!”) here is a News Story which pretty much explains why you should never, ever, go into the woods and find a bear and try to do the “Bare Necessities” song and dance routine. And I don’t think Simba will allow you to be king of the lions, either.

Back to work. Or bed. Back to something. Good night, fine folk.

In which The Author is fashionably late.

2006-01-02T13:46:00.000-06:00

Well, New Year’s Day has come and pass, and I now get to spend two or three months accidentally writing “2005” on everything that is now, in fact, 2006.

We’re six years into “The Future” at this point, you know. I have yet to see a single jetpack, a single silver mini-skirt and accompanying go-go boots, and not a single computer has been spoken to, or attempted to kick me out the airlock.

I meant to post on New Year’s Eve, honestly. I intended to do it around midnight to maintain what we might refer to as a “theme,” although I completely failed to do it. My excuse: I was working. Mea culpa.

I was also intending to wax poetic about what I had accomplished in 2005, although the more and more I turned the list over and around in my head, the less I realized I had actually accomplished, which leads to me grumbling rather than list-making.

So what did I do? Here’s more or less what I did.

I wrote a number of short stories. Not as many as in previous years, because my output has just generally been down for the past couple of years. More notably:

“Ghost Love Score” (A ghost story I’m very fond of, which I wrote for “All Soul’s Day” which is the day that follows Halloween…except that once more, I got my holiday’s wrong. At any rate, I very much enjoyed it.)

“The Kiss That Did It” (A very silly story in which I popped a bunch of old stories into one happy little story. This was also the story which fell to my knife when I started really trying to learn how to do a better job editing. It came away much stronger for it.

“Trolls Under Bridges Eating Gods” (This is probably the story I would point to as my proudest of the year. It’s my favorite, and it’s the one I always show people when they say “You’re a writer, huh? Well, lemme see if you’re any good.* It’s about a Troll who finds himself in Norse mythology alongside Odin, Loki and the others, just in time for Ragnarok.)

“The Last of the Dandalions” (A short story I wrote about the last survivor of a nuclear assault, alone in his city, with nothing but a dandalion to keep him company. Very short, very sad, and very lacking dialogue. It was the sort of story you write very fast between other projects, and thus forget about it until you stumble across it on your hard drive.)

“A Graveyard Dialogue.” (A magnificant Halloween story, the first one that I wrote based on a picture. I sent it to the artist, who was delighted. It’s a story about a Zombie who gets lonely, gets up, and talks to the terrified fellow that the other Zombie’s are eating. Cheerful stuff.)

Novels, I did rather more work on than short stories, although I failed to accomplish anything I was satisfied with. A common ocurrence.
“The Legend of the Phoenix, book one: Kingdoms & Rebellions” (A book about a world that I painstakingly built in my head, only to switch over into writer mode and watch as my logical mind picked it all to pieces. I still finished the first book, but I grew less and less happy with it over time. Thus, it sits unedited, unread, in first draft. I occasionally think about finding some patient long-suffering soul to read it and tell me what they think, but haven’t yet.)

“The Neon God” (This was probably what took most of my time this year, and was mostly a waste. I struggled through three drafts of short stories. Readers of this blog will remember the point when I discovered that it wasn’t a short story, it was a novel. It suffered through 150 pages of a novel before it fell badly apart, which is where I’m at with it right now. The idea is sound and very wondeful, but it needs some serious work. Frustrated, I put it aside and moved on to work on….

My Current Projects

“Otherworld: From Grey Mists Returned” (This is my current project, which I’m immensely proud of. I couldn’t decide if it was going to be an online series of short stories, or a novel, or a trilogy of novels. I’m still undecided, honestly. Weigh in! What would you rather read by me?)

“Nevermore” (This is what evelopes so much of my time right now. A friend of mine, Jeremy Sto, is a wonderful and thoroughly intelligent man, one of those fine folk you meet who think the way you think and work as hard as you work. Nevermore is a video game, a Massive Multiplayer Online video game, and the way we’re going now, it could very well be one of the deepest ones you have ever played. You know. Some day. When it’s finished.)

…

And honestly? That was my year. I changed jobs, I wrote better than I wrote the year before, I stayed happily married to my wife, whom I love. I acquired a lot more books (at least a couple hundred more, easily) and I acquired some new pets (rats, mice, some new fish, etc.) It was a fairly good year.

Next year? I want to write more. Much, much more. I also want to force myself to actually send things out for publication, which I tend not to do. (Because the time I spend sending something out, I wind up spending writing new stuff. It’s a silly problem, but a problem.) I want to buy some more books, finish Otherworld, revisit Neon God, write some short stories that make people laugh, and cry, and otherwise just pay attention. I’m better at writing than ever before, and a year from now, I hope to be better still.

So there. I can now claim that the reason I was late in posting this is that it’s my trademark style. So Hah. I posted right on time. My time.

Those of you who believe that, please e-mail me. I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’m waiting to sell you.

*If you meet the sort of people who demand to see your work and “decide if you’re any good,” be wary of their opinions. “You’re a good writer,” is okay to listen to. “You’ve got potential, but let me tell you what you’re doing wrong,” is a very lousy thing to hear, and you should run away. There are more harmful opinions in the world than good ones. At the very least, check their credentials first. Are they Stephen King? Harlan Ellison? Then you can listen. Or me. You can always listen to me.

Yes Virginia, Pete can be succinct.

2005-12-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

This is just a quick post to say that, anyone out there who happens to read this blog (bless you) have a Happy, Holly Jolly Holiday-of-your-choice, thingie. I will post before the New Year, and I’m going to try to post a round-up of what I’ve done this year. I’d be interested to see what you folk are most proud of this year, what you intend for the coming year, and what you’ve put in the eggnog.

This is the shortest post ever. Is THIS a NEW LEVEL for OUR AUTHOR? Is he in DANGER of becoming BRIEF? Is he NEARING a POINT?

Probably not. Sooner or later, you’re going to get a book-sized post from me.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. God Bless, and with Love,Your currently sappy and in-holiday-spirits author,
Pete Tzinski

Sleek Black Blog: The Return

2005-12-22T09:27:00.000-06:00

Hola! This is just a quick-middle-of-a-busy-day post to say that yes, the blog is now presented to you in a template blogger format (although it still remains more or less in technicolor) for the time being, because the one consistent comment I get is “Yes, but where in the blankety-blank is the comments button?” So I’ve changed it to make it findable.

If I can find a more interesting one which has sane placement of buttons, I’ll do so. Otherwise, I might just modify this one into being slightly interesting. We need pictures of Alpacas!

Have fun. Merry ____________ (insert Holiday of your choice here) and have a Safe and Joyous _____________ (insert whatever you want to have safe and happy joyous of). Feel free to send me lots of _______________ (presents. Big ones.)

…and to all, a good night.

This post was filmed before a dead studio audience

2005-12-11T23:12:00.000-06:00

Good evening.
We here, at the blog of Pete Tzinski, Edge of the Universe, strive to provide the best and most interesting stories, anecdotes, and general complaining possible to you, our viewing audience.

Recently, however, our viewing demographic has indicated a disappointment in the astonishing lack of promotional and advertising considerations made use of within the course and contents of this, the blog of Pete Tzinski.

We here, at the blog of Pete Tzinski, Edge of the Universe, would like to apologize for this extreme oversight on our part and pledge to you, our viewing audience, that it shall be rectified properly in the future.

Thank you.
Signed,
We Here, At The Blog of Pete Tzinski, Edge of the Universe

…

Hey folks! It’s me. How’s everyone tonight? Good!

I’m having a good night tonight. I’ve gotten a good deal of writing done today, I’ve done some work on my web-site which will host a project that I have Not Yet Talked About, but which I will Talk About Incessantly very soon.

Web-site construction is hard work. Boy-oh-boy. It can give me a headache. But I couldn’t just give up! So I took Extra Strength Bayer which provided me with quick and effective relief of my stress and sinus-pressure migraine. It was great! I mean, granted that I always had a problem taking pills, but these went down smooth and sweet with only a few sips of Dasani Bottled Drinking Water . Just a few sips! Of course, I finished drinking the rest because I, like you, cannot resist that smooth, crisp, clean taste that I get in every bottle of affordably-priced Dasani water.

I was writing along happily in Microsoft Word when I realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. Now as we all know, regular meals are important and I didn’t want lunch to pass me by! So I made myself a delicious bowl of Hormel Chili which was the perfect mouth-watering lunch as I gave my poor writing hand a break and put down my delightful Waterman Fountain Pen for a little bit.

Anyway, eventually I went back to work. After I finished writing, I used the fast, friendly, and oh-so-easy services of Blogger to put this delightful entry online. After this, I’ll probably just do something relaxing. I don’t know. I might Watch A Movie or perhaps I’ll just Play A Video Game

Until next time, my viewing audience! Have fun!

Yakkity Yakkity Yak

2005-12-07T11:58:00.000-06:00

Have I talked at all about my wonderful trip the other day to the Twin Cities? No? Well, I shall do so, then.

It was a present for my sister, which is why you should always influence your younger sibling into liking the very same things you do. That way, you can give a gift that is entirely selfish and still have her enjoy it.

My wife, myself, and my sister all packed into the car and drove down to the Twin Cities, Minneapolis to be specific. We were going to see Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Mirrormask, which I was just about giddy to find playing in the Cities. We were more or less intending to make a day out of it.

So we did. We went to Dreamhaven Books, where all my sensibilities and most of my brain made a squeaking noise and then collapsed into nothingness. If you ever find yourself in the Cities, seek ye’ out this little bookshop. My God. It’s a whole bookshop jam-packed with the sort of books I read. Sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, horror, classics, new works, magazines, indie journals….It can really hurt your brain. It’s just too damned much. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest, honest.

We staggered around there for awhile and spent way too much money (there’s just nothing to be done about that) and then we headed down a couple of blocks to the little independent movie theater that was showing Mirrormask.

I fell in love with this part of Minneapolis, I think. It was more or less the “artistic” district, if it could be called that. People were sitting around reading good books and anime comics, free copies of the Onion were being distributed everywhere. Things like that. A guy was just chilling on a street corner, playing his guitar and singing. The only problem was, he was singing so quietly, you could scarcely here him, which was too bad since he had a fine voice. It looks very run down and trashy, this part of town, but it’s just about bursting with character.

Mirrormask was amazing and wonderful and everything I expected it to be. It had Neil Gaiman’s storytelling combined with everything that Dave McKean does, which is hard to describe and impossible to ignore. Go read the positive reviews of it. Those are the ones that are right.

We went back to Dreamhaven, because it’s a bit like a drug and it’s hard to stay away. We wandered around in shock some more, spent more money, et cetera.

We also began to notice that there was an increasing number of people filling the place, most of them gothic, two of the guys in skirts most notably. Both my sister and my wife investigated and were delighted to note that it was because a gentleman named Brom was scheduled to appear and do a signing. I was interested, because I’m a sucker for signings, but I didn’t know who Brom was, so I wasn’t overly giddy.

My mistake. I have sinced looked into him, and I wish we’d hung around longer. I really honestly regret it, and I intend to track him down again. (My, does that sound creepy.)

Dinner was provided by Famous Dave’s, which was playing loud and really good Jazz and Blues over the radio. One guy at a table over from us was dancing, while his girlfriend very carefully pretended he didn’t exist.

My sister and I dared and heckled each other into trying Famous Dave’s Devil’s Spit dipping which, we gathered from the name, was going to vaporize our tongue and most of our internal organs. We both tried it…and anti-climatically discovered that it was just a tasty barbeque sauce and nothing hotter than that.

And then, we got loaded (er. On caffeine) and we went home. And that was the day. I’ve spoken before about how my wife and my sister are the best company for these outings, and they really are. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I should really be writing? Shouldn’t I? I’ve got a massive project (news to me, too) that I’m working on, that I’m going to tell all about as soon as I’ve got another spare five minutes.

Stay warm, unless you’re in a warm place, and then be cool.

You're Thor? I'm tho thor, I can hardly thit!

2005-11-30T15:28:00.000-06:00

There is an old saying (which I have just this morning made up) which goes “He who giveth advice, cheweth the cud.” Well, I am chewing, although it happens to be a delightful sourdough pretzel, but I will use this as justification for giving advice.

And my advice subject (drum roll) is…..

Writing journals in fiction.

I’ve seen it used as a recap, where you have your character writing a journal entry that details all the gobbledygook you need before you can delve into the story itself. I’ve seen it used to explain conflict with two characters, where you follow a dialogue scene with a journal entry (or Captain’s Log, if you like) explaining what Character A thinks about Character B.

Or even, the whole entire story is a journal entry, letter, last-will-and-testament-whatever. Seen that too. The only one I’ll forgive in this category is Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, and only because it’s a damned amazing book and it doesn’t bang on about how it’s being told.

Look, for one thing, it’s just unrealistic. That’s my biggest problem. Have you ever written a journal entry? A blog? A lengthy post on a forum or a scribbled out page of notes detailing an event which has occurred to you in your life? Very probably you have. I do it all the time, if I think it’s interesting enough to warrant scribbling.

One thing to think about is, when writing out these occurences, we almost never slip into storytelling mode. I mean, if I tell you about a pleasant evening I had with my wife yesterday (it was quite enjoyable, incidentally), then I’m not going to say It all started around four o’ clock when she came in to see me at work. “I’ve got great news,” she said with a smile, shortly after I whacked my head on a metal shelf corner…etc.

(A minor aside: I have a very sore spot atop my head, I distrust metal shelves with corners deeply, and I said a number of bad words. Please send your pity. Also, drinks.)

No. If I’m writing a journal entry about the above, I’m going to say something like, A nice surprise yesterday: It was slow enough at my wife’s job that she didn’t have to go in, and we found ourselves with a night off we didn’t expect. A rare blessing, unlike the force with which I hit my head on an unrelenting bastard of a metal shelf…etc.

Something like that.

It’s a bit jarring when the journal suddenly shifts and turns into a story. It’s like that horrible moment in old movies when the screen goes all swimmy and we’re suddenly looking at our hero, six months earlier before The Man was after him. KnowhutImean?

It’s one thing that makes me very careful when I go into First-Person storytelling. First-Person (“I,” for those of you who are unsure, as opposed to “He.”) is tricky because you’re not just writing from inside a character’s head, recording everything around him…you’ve got to write as if you are him. You’re colored by his experiences, perhaps you get flustered and lose whole events and conversations, maybe you’re only halfway sober throughout the story. I don’t like it when the author seems to have done a general search & replace, changing “he” into “I” and calling it first-person. It’s not.

Likewise, journal entries.

So there.

…

*ahem*

Well, anyway, grumbling aside: The Neon God is in serious poodoo, and may be in danger of falling apart. This would be…what? The eighteenth draft to collapse? I don’t know, but it’s probably more drafts than my feeble brain can count. I’m not making any hasty decisions, I’m instead working on something else.

That something else may turn out to be a really big, really cool internet project that I’m jazzed about. I’ve been going back and forth on it for a little while now. Last night, I agonized about it to my wife (who puts up with so much of this from me, really) who finally just said, “You want to do it, or you wouldn’t be worrying about it. So do it.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” says me.

“It really doesn’t work if you don’t give it a shot,” says her.

So, I trust my wife. She’s smarter than I am, especially when the subject is me. I’m trying it.

(Notice how I’ve just used dialogue in a journal entry? A few lines, a small and self-enclosed conversation, nothing that’s really any more obvious or jarring than using italics for emphasis, for example.

Today’s required reading for you, dear reader, is the Wikipedia entry on Norton the First, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico . Pardon me if you already knew all about this guy…but I was absolutely floored when I read about him. This is one of the most interesting people…ever. I read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman issue which was about Joshua Norton, and it sent me spiraling off to look for more. I am very glad I did. Beyond interesting.

(this is not an uncommon occurrence when I read Neil Gaiman’s stuff; the man and everything that branches out from him, can populate an avid reader’s list for years at a time. Certainly this avid reader’s list.)

Edit: Oh, and a final note. That bad weather I was so happy about, in post-prior? Well, it’s not actually bad. Just sort of unruly. Actually, it’s not even that. It’s a bit obnoxious and little else. Am still waiting for the other five feet and eleven inches of snow, thank you.

A totally self-centered rant.

2005-11-25T20:34:00.000-06:00

So, I’ve started reading the blog of Miss Snark, who is a more-or-less anonymous literary agent in New York, who has more attitude than I could whimper at, and who is by and large both right and smart, which are really tricky things to manage at the same time.

Really interesting blog. You should be not only reading it, but doing so consistently. (I have, in the past, read it sporadically; mea culpa. I am now regular.)

There’s been something I’ve noticed distantly for a few months now, and something which I noticed for pointedly recently, something which reading her blog crystalized into the sort of thought I can talk about here. Which I’m going to.

People will write to her, worried, and ask if they, as writers, should start a blog to “maintain an online presence,” or when going to writer’s conferences, they should hold doors for people, schmooze, be charming, so that they can build a list of networks. Stuff like that. All perfectly legitamite questions, none of which I’m actually attacking here, promise.

What bothers me about it, about these things in particular and just the world in general, is the very concept of doing things with an ulterior motive. I understand it, sure. I guess it’s just a foreign concept to me.

For example, this ‘yere blog you’re reading, I started because I thought it might be entertaining to have a blog into which I would occasionally natter. It didn’t occur to me that I would have a ‘web-presence,’ honestly, until very recently. I realized that’s why some writers have blogs. Admittedly, it puzzles me.

Mostly, though, what sticks in my craw is the thought of being nice to people for your own personal gain. I don’t get it. If I did, my life would probably be a lot more peaceful, but I still don’t get it. I’m a very big fan of nice.

I think probably one of the finest things you can do in the world is to make someone laugh, make them have a better day, teach them something, help them out. I like going to restuarants and grocery stores and when my wife and I go through the line, I’ll just run my mouth off to the cashier/waiter. Just some chatty, polite conversation. Maybe a smile.

I always hold the door. Sometimes, it’s annoying, because you’ll hold the door for the person behind you, and find yourself holding the door for a hold hoarde of people, very few of whom say thank you as you stand there, risking the ire of a saintly-patient wife.

I’m nice and agreeable with the people I work with. Those I like, I consider friends, those I don’t, I am at least polite with. My boss included. I always have been. You may refer to this as brown-nosing, but I would consider myself failing if I get ahead in the daily work-grind (because it takes away from my dear writing, damn it), and so really it’s not.

I’ve had long, awkward, and sometimes very stressful friendships with some really odd (always lonely) people to whom I am the best friend in the world, sometimes for no other reason than because I was the one face in the sea of gray who smiled at them. The reason they’re long is, by and large I’m too polite to say, “You’re scaring me, please go away.”

So I guess, I’m just expressing puzzlement. I can see being very nice to people and having them remember you and be helpful to you later in life. That’s fine. I guess my problem is with the concept of being nice intentionally so they’ll do that. I think you should be very nice, and then if it benefits you later on, fine.

Remember, always hold the door. Be nice. Be polite. Make someone smile. And go read Miss Snark, for Pete’s sake. It’s smart reading. More importantly, it’s fun reading.

There. How was that for the most arbitrary rant of your day, huh?

Gotta story that screams “editme, Iam;gibber ish.” And so I’m going to go edit it. Wish me luck. Give me a sword.

(oh, and it’s snowing. Yay for bad weather!)

Winter Swampland

2005-11-17T10:34:00.000-06:00

Do you know what months we’re in right now? It’s November. That would be, by and large, one of the winter season’s months, and certainly not one of those months that gets passingly confused with July. In Minnesota, you’d think we’d know this better than anyone.

Except that this year, Minnesota seems to be a little turned around. It was November 7, then 12th, and it was more or less warm out. It was raining a great deal, along with thundering and lightning. We were living in a Winter Swampland.

And then, because we’re in Minnesota, the weather changed, just like that. Literally in the space of 12 hours, it became almost dangerously cold, and we got an inch or two of snow on the ground, when it’s not blowing violently in the harsh wind.

Go figure.

I have time for one more amusing anecdote, before I’m off and running for the day.

I am a very big fan of Neil Gaiman, as the eagle-eyed among you will have gleaned from this journal so far. However, you cannot live entirely on reading Neil Gaiman books alone. Certainly, I can’t. So, I hunted through my shelves and I looked for a new book to read.

(I have enough books that I buy in their masses, that I can look at my shelf and discover things the way you might go into a bookstore and find a cool book you didn’t know you wanted. Yesterday, I wondered if I owned anything by Roger Zelazny. I went and looked. I own the complete Chronicles of Amber, in an edition from the fifties.)

So, deciding to go for something totally different, I picked The Magicians’ Guild by Trudi Canavan. This isn’t my usual sort of book, I’ve never read her before, it’s totally at random.

So I get into the book, and really, it’s a good book. I’m enjoying it. It’s not a heavy read, but it doesn’t need to be. As I usually do, I went to her author web-site, because I am very keen on the authors of these works. If I like an author, I tend to read through that author’s library of work and then move on. I read authors, if you see what I mean.

On her web-site is a Convention report. Those are always fun, and when written by the author, they give you a good sense of what the author is like, which is what I was going for. So I click on the report, I start reading, and I get to read all about her time spent with…

…wait for it…

…Neil Gaiman.

This is not the first time this is happened. Once I realized I liked Neil Gaiman, I also realized I’d been reading his stuff for years without associating a name to it. Sure. But now, with Trudi Canavan, it’s turning into Six Degrees of Neil Gaiman.

Off running. Have fun!

In which a topic is not adhered to.

2005-11-07T15:39:00.000-06:00

D’you know what’s wrong with the world?
Me neither. But I do know what’s wrong with my brain, which is that it spent a good deal of the past year (which was a very long year) being inert and letting the rest of me toil away on one or two small projects…and then, all of a sudden, in the past two weeks it has kicked into high gear and dumped not only two massive projects on top of my already big one, but a myriad of little projects as well.

Can we call it bi-polar creativity? I don’t know. I’m going to. It’s bi-polar creativity.

At least it conspired with fate to bring me a pretty blue fountain pen which writes nice and is much more comfortable than my other one, but does not do so well when I get up to speed and start writing fast. It’s better for notes, sketches, poems, and those occasional stories where I have more or less no idea what I’m talking about.

Abyss and Apex has not responded to my Ghost Love Score submission. It has almost practically entirely been a whole week since I sent it in! What can be wrong with them? Perhaps they are so flabbergasted at the astounding genius of the story, they are trying to formulate a reply. Surely, this is it.

(I’m kidding, incidentally; I’m sure they’re slowly going mad trudging through dozens of submissions, day-in, day-out, and may or may not have even seen my story yet. But I figured I should gripe instead of just saying the mundane, “Still no news.”)

The critics hated The Brothers Grimm, Terry Gilliam’s latest film. I read all the terrible reviews, nodded, and then went to see it with a complete lack of interest in any of the reviewer’s opinions. Much as I figured, it was a Terry Gilliam film which, being Terry Gilliam, is pretty much what he makes. It was very well done, and I enjoyed it. Having a soft spot for animals, though, meant there were a couple of scenes I vaguely cringed at. Still, a delightful film.

It proves my theory that sometimes, critics are incredibly intelligent and wise, and sometimes they’re in serious need of a proctologist. This more or less puts them firmly into the category of being “human beings,” so I’ll let it slide. (How magnanomous, no?)

I wrote a poem for Halloween (actually for Halloween, I didn’t get the wrong holiday this time) and I think it’s not half-shabby. I’m not putting it up here yet, because it possibly will have a home, but if it winds up not having anything of the sort, then you shall get to read the poem about the Bone Orchard. It will be somewhere by the end of November, if not sooner. How’s that for informative?

Right. Or rather, ‘write.’ I have half-an-hour, and I have more pages than I could write in forty-eight half-hours, so I’d better get started.

Kltpzyxm!

2005-11-02T01:26:00.000-06:00

Yo, as they say.

So, I edited up “Ghost Love Score” and sent it out to Abyss & Apex Magazine tonight. It’s an online publication, and while I’ve seen a number of them in the past, this one honestly impressed me. The fiction caught me straight off, and when I’m tired and moving fast through the ‘net, that doesn’t always happen.

I wanted to get “Ghost Love Score” out before it rotted. I try to get my stories out quick as possible. The logner they sit around, the more I started to dislike them. They start to rot in my mind, if you will. When I wrote Trolls Under Bridges Eating Gods, it was the greatest thing I had ever turned out. That was awhile ago. Now, I’m less than thrilled at the thought of it. I suspect it’s still a fine story, worth a pride somewhere between the original love and the current dislike…but what can you do? We writers, we’re a nutty bunch.

Also, zombies are nutty too, and I can atest to this because I more or less am one. After working seven days straight, I followed with two overnight shifts, followed with two more days. I got only an hour or two of sleep during the course of the overnight shifts, so you can imagine my state of mind.

You think of lots of things, in the middle of the night when you’re scraping old dirty wax off a floor.

For example, I remembered Mr. Mxyztplk, one of Superman’s stranger enemies who confounded the man of steel time and again and could only be returned to his own dimension by saying his name backward (Klptzyxm!) I didn’t know it was bothering me until I remembered the name. this was at 4:30 am.

http://www.patfullerton.com/superman/pix/supvillains/mxyztplk1944.html

(Here: Now you can sort him out.)

I also did a lot of writing in my head, and in the slow early hours of the morning when we had nothing to do but wait for new wax to dry. Lots of notes, little scenes, ideas and themes for Neon God and my other newest novel, whose name remains elusive.

Let’s see, other random stuff….Serenity, the movie based off Joss Whedon’s Firefly series was absolutely magnificant. My God. If there was still a Star Trek empire to compete with, it would have knocked its socks off.It showed you everything that was once great about sci-fi, it reminded me why I love Babylon 5 so much, and it just made me damned happy. I will see it again. I will buy it on DVD. I will pray to the appropriate gods that Firefly is given life again on the television, or at least another movie.

Tomorrow, I’m going down to the cities to see Mirrormask, the movie by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. It’s still in limited release, but I’ve happily found a theater nearby. Am going with my wife and my sister, which is the finest company one can hope for. It also seems to be my company for Neil Gaiman events. I am not complaining.

Instead, I am nodding. V. tired. Going to bed.

Good night, world. Happy All Souls’ Day (tomorrow!)

In which the author talks instead of writing.

2005-10-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Another amusing writing anecdote (the sort that shall amuse none but myself)

I started writing a story for Halloween, partially with the idea that I would post it here. I had a good idea, I had an hour or two of free time (at three and four in the morning, respectively) and so I wrote it. It’s called Ghost Love Score, a title which I lovingly stole from the Nightwish opus of the same name.

It’s set on All Souls’ Day, which is the day afternoon Halloween. So I thought, hey, wow, after ten years of trying, I’ve actually written a story in time for the holiday I aimed for (my Halloween stories tend to turn up sometime in early spring, and are forgotten by the time All Hallow’s Eve rolls around)

I wrote it, I was very pleased with it….and then it occurred to me that something was amiss. So I went, I rumaged…and realized that at three and four in the morning, I had managed to confuse All Souls Day with All Saints Day. All Saints Day is the day after Halloween. All Souls Day is November 2nd.

Pete=Twit.

It’s still more or less a Halloween story, and a story-for-November 2nd is still infinitely closer to the holiday than most of my stuff usually is.

I’m still toying with all sorts of nifty ideas for things to do with my stories. Building a site just for ‘em is one strong possibilty, but I’m also dancing around the idea of an audio-book, because I like the format a great deal.

Let’s see, what else. Mmm. The New Project is still being written in a notebook, because it seems to be turning out better than it does on the computer. I don’t mind. I like writing on paper, on those occasions when my fountain pen does something surprising and actually writes. Plus, my better projects tend to start out on paper. I write the first draft of the first few dozen pages while my brain is busy putting together the rest of the story. Then, I switch to the computer, take off, never look back.

The nice thing is, as I sit writing it, I can feel myself more and more wanting to dive back into The Neon God and work on it. I’m holding off. Let it build from an I hafta into an I wanna, and then I’ll set loose on it. Plus, some perspective about halfway through a project doesn’t hurt. It means the second half doesn’t spiral out of control, because you’re not busy drowning in the first half of it.

In other news, I have purchased new socks. They are very warm. Now you know.

'Taint no sin, to take off your skin, etc.

2005-10-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

The nice thing about blogging is on those dreary fall days (most of them I love, some of them are just gray and passive) is that it sort of warms you into the writing mode enough to send you off flying on your manuscripts-of-choice.

So, I shall speak of matters which are of vast importance. Like this one, for example:My fountain pen is crap.

Of course, this is a fairly common problem with all modern fountain pens, since the geniuses who made the really wonderful ones a century or two ago are not dead and therefore not saying a great deal to anyone about how they made such loverly pens. So now, we stride, we seek, we fight, and never to yield (Tennyson) and in all that, we fail to make a decent fountain pen.

They tend to dry, clog, scab over, whatever you want to call it. They tend to do this right when you’ve got some really wonderful ideas to scribble down in your notebook, forcing you to go get your computer and put it there instead.

I ran out of steam on writing the Neon God, which is not at all uncommon and generally happens at some point while working on a longer project. It doesn’t bother me, because I usually go off and write a short story or two, sometimes related to the longer work, usually not. So I very calmly set aside the Neon God and started working on the next niggling idea in my head.

…which, is turned out, is apparently going to be another novel. Another fairly decent sized novel, requiring a lot of research, a lot of work, and some very long hours. I am, at the same time, delighted and horrified. But I’ve started writing it nonetheless. I figure, I’ll jump back and forth between the Neon God, and this new one (untitled for the moment, or at least not satisfactorialy titled).

This illustrates a point about how much controla writer has when it comes to writing. To some extent, you’re a slave to the ideas, and to some extent you’re the master. Like a lot of things in life, the trick is knowing when you just follow along, and when to start running and take control. Vaguely like marriage, except that the story has yet to ask me to take out the trash.

The Neil Gaiman signing I attended was wonderful. I think he may have been slightly disappointed by it, and he was extremely tired from the rather impressive U.S. tour he’s already done (with a U.K. tour starting soon; good lord). Still, he did a question&answer session where he answered the interesting and the silly questions with equal care and interest.

And then, he signed. His signing lines move a bit sluggishly, because he takes his time, he doodles in your book, he chats with you, and he listens while you make a sort of ass out of yourself (er. Me.)

It was a magnificant signing. Honestly, I’ve never been much for the whole ‘role-model’ business, but I do indeed look up to Mister Gaiman. If anyone had looked closely at me the rest of the day, they might have observed that I was floating a bit off the ground.

(My wife and my sister were also along; both had books signed, and both spent the day roaming the Mall of America with me. There are no better ways to spend a day, nor better company to do it in.)

If you find me posting sporadically (what? Me?) it’s because I’m making a concentrated effort to juggle work and set up a concrete writing schedule. I don’t get nearly as much done as I should, as I would like to, and I’m trying to do something to fix that.

Hah. Well, now I’m nice and warmed up. Time to go write another short-story-turned-novel.
Happy Halloween. As the old song goes, ‘taint no sin, to take off your skin, and dance ‘round in your bones.

I have a short story that is Halloween ish (called alternatively The Graveyard Dialogue and Night of the Living Dead…Again). I might see if I can post it here.

Guarding Nothing From No One

2005-10-19T16:26:00.000-05:00

Good afternoon. Still have plenty of stuff that I need to talk about here, being a person full of opinions and all. Life is frantic, though, as life usually is, so I’m afraid it’ll have to wait, or come sporadically over the course of several days, in the spare moments when time permits.

A while ago, I was discussing a story title with a friend of mine shortly before I ventured to bed. This was very early in the morning. I lay there, exhausted, on the verge of falling asleep, and I realized that I had a story to write. Wearily (but happily, because writing is love) I got up, I trudged back onto the computer, and I started writing.

This is what resulted. It’s not much. Enjoy. Any comments, please feel free to leave them. As any writer, I am always glad to hear what someone thinks of my work.

Enjoy.

__________________________________________________________

Guarding Nothing From No One

Pete Tzinski

Mike Henall's ears were still ringing by the time he had shoved enough of the brick pieces and mortar dust out of the way so that he could climb up, out of his basement and into the lawn.

As he stood there, bleeding slightly from a wound on the forehead, he realized that he should be crying, or angry, or screaming, or...something. After all, the whole entire city was gone, blasted down into its component pieces, its stones and boards, crumbles of glass and pieces of metal twisted brutally into things that someone might once have called art. He did not cry, though, did not shake his fist at the world or scream a single word. Perhaps the ringing sound merely came out of his soul, perhaps that was the echo of shock and emptiness from within.

Dust hung in the air where the smoke did not and there seemed to be scarcely a breeze to pull it along. It seemed strange, now, to look out over the city. Where once there had been houses tucked in amongst the taller buildings and businesses, there was now nothing but mountain ranges of brick and canyons of steel.

What had happened? What on earth had happened? Mike took a couple of steps forward, an involuntary motion at best, and he tried to take in the sheer destruction around him. Sure, things were tense in the world, but weren't they always? Someone was always screaming war, but there was always someone doing that, just like the person opposite them who was screaming peace.

But to have the destruction here was unimaginable. Wars happened in other cities, didn't they? Other countries, other continents, other worlds. Sure, there had been some people who had been scared about this kind of thing. Mike knew that because he'd seen them on the news, the night before, telling the world exactly what they thought about things. Fears like that were reserved for bigger cities and larger things. (image placeholder)

It was so quiet. So very quiet. In disaster areas, there were always people screaming and rushing around. Here, there didn't seem to be a thing. The only sound was the sound of the denim jeans Mike was wearing rubbing gently together as he walked forward away from the collapsed rubble that he had previously called home, stepping out into a cracked and splintered street. Small pebbles and bits of glass crunched underfoot, loud as gunshots. His heart kept pounding rythym, faster than normal and loud as anything in his own ears.
"Hello?" Mike shouted. He didn't know what else to do. He tried again, loud as he could, "Hello?"

There was no answer. There wasn't even an echo to reply to him. His word was swallowed by the silence and gone without the slightest trace, leaving Mike alone in the rubble and dust.

He felt very, very small and insignificant. He felt like a child who had to go out after dark and pass by the very spot where the most hideous evil in the world waits to reach out with greasy hands and snatch. There was a knot in his stomach and a desperate screaming voice in his mind, begging him to run, to get away, to escape!

He was too upset and confused to rationalize the fears away. The fears were all he had, they were prevelant to the moment and he was broken before them. He took off running, running away from rubble and running toward rubble, because rubble was all there was.

But the running didn't help. He ran to escape the screaming voice of animal terror in the back of his mind, but it only gibbered and howled still louder as he ran, sending him careening down the street faster, and faster, and faster. His lungs burned, his vision spotted, his head spun, his legs throbbed. Still he ran.

He ran until there didn't seem to be any air left in the world to bring into his lungs. Then, he stopped and fell to his knees, his legs too weak to support him any longer. The moment he fell on his knees, he found himself doubled over, throwing up in the street, a horrible burning that ripped the wrong way in his throat. (image placeholder)

He sat there, head tucked, heaving for breath for minutes that could have been hours, for all he knew. When he could finally breathe decently, though not painlessly, he looked up.

He noticed in passing that his vomit contained blood, and he thought this was probably a bad thing. He didn't know specifically what it meant, probably that he was bleeding somewhere inside. Maybe he'd just scratched his throat raw, or something like that. Still, there seemed to be an awful lot of blood for just a scratch.

Aside from trembling legs, he felt fine. Mike pushed himself off the ground and turned away from the vomit, looking around at the world with the tiniest kindling of hope imaginable, praying for someone to be near to talk to, something still standing. Anything.

There was nothing. There were more houses that were collapsed in on themselves, there were businesses that were little more than twisted sheets of metal, as though someone had crumpled them up and tossed them casually away. The streets were cracked worse than streets usually are and there were even chunks that looked like they had been upended, forming little jutting walls in the roads.

The closest vestige to the civilization that Mike could find was the burning husk of a car. Even then, there was little left to behold, just a frame full of fire too hot to approach and the foul smell of burning rubber. Nothing else.

Mike stood and considered, as best as his stunned brain could manage. Obviously, he couldn't just stay here. What if there were enemy soldiers on the way to search the rubble for survivors like him? But then, where could he go? There were other towns, sure, but the closest was almost forty miles away, and if the flaming car was any example, he would have no viable way of getting there other than walking.

Surely someone would come looking for survivors. Someone from his government. The good guys. Wouldn't they notice that one of their cities had been obliterated and come to examine the damage? When they did, they would find Mike, they would take him away, and then he would be all right. (image placeholder)

Put like that,it seemed remarkably cut and dry and completely logical to be willing to just wait in the city for someone to show up and collect him. He didn't know what else to do anyway, and since that seemed a feasible strategy that didn't require much further thought, it was acceptable by Mike's mind.

He started to walk, because he had no idea what else to do in a dusty metropolis of rubble as completely silent as space. He tucked his hands in his pockets, but that seemed too casual and so he took them back out again

He was a block further down when he saw the flower.

It was over on his right, sticking defiantly out of the battered yard of another ruined home. It was yellow, small, round, and it seemed to most amazing thing that Mike had ever seen. How many millions of flowers had he seen in his lifetime? And yet, this one was the single most incredible flower ever to grace the world.

He walked over to it and crouched down beside it, and he was delighted to discover that it was the finest flower in the world, his own personal favorite.

It was a dandalion.

Mike Henall loved dandalions the way some people love a prize-winning rosebush or a fragrant honeysuckle blossom. While others went out and spent money buying all sorts of chemicals to kill the dandalions off, Mike delighted when the end of spring came around and all of the little dandalion sprouts opened up and proudly displayed a conflagaration of yellow to the world. He loved watching them go from a single dandalion in his yard to a countless number of hundreds. They all stood with yellow circle pointed upward, an army of little soldiers for Mike to watch and appreciate.

And he delighted again when they later lost all trace of yellow and turned into small white puffs of seeds, delicate to the slightest breath, needing scarcely any wind at all to sail away to unknown ground where the seed would begin to spread yet again. (image placeholder)

In a world that now seemed so terribly huge, cold, and menacing, Mike smiled down at the little dandalion, and he sat down on the dusty grass next to it. He crossed his legs, folded his hands, hunched his back, and he watched the dandalion.

What else was there to do?

Once, as a boy, he and his brother had run through a field of dandalions, kicking wildly as they ran. Millions upon millions of seeds wafted away from their feet and fluttered off in the air, and still more and more of them rose up to join until the air was choked full of them, until it seemed like a summer snowfall, with the most delicate of snowflakes imaginable. Mike remembered how irate his father had been when, as a boy, he'd brought home a whole bag full of dandalion seeds and had spread them all across the yard. He'd gotten a stiff lecture from his father over it, he'd gotten laughed at by his brother, and then he'd had to go out in the yard and mow it weekly, hacking through dozens upon dozens of dandalions.

He still remembered how unhappy he'd been, when he'd been doing that. He had always remembered the way the dandalions looked when the blades of the lawnmower ripped them to shreds, eviscerated them, and then threw them out on the lawns like the victims of open warfare. They were ripped up, sad things, and Mike did not like doing it at all.

"They aren't flowers, Mikey," his father had said, "They look like it, sure, but they ain't nothing but weeds, an' they take over everything."

Mike had said, "But they're pretty." Which had garnared merciless weeks of teasing from his snickering brother, who was always nearby.

"No, they're weeds," his father had said, "They're annoying."

And that had been that.

When he'd moved away from home and come to the city in whose debris he now sat, he'd gotten a nice house with a nice hard and had watched, when spring arrived, to see if the dandalions would grow. He promised himself that he wouldn't cut a single one down, not until they had gone from yellow to white, then from white to bald, and from bald to dead. (image placeholder)

Much to his disappointment, there were no dandalions. His lawn got nothing but crabgrass. He felt that this was his father, who had passed on, playing a joke on him from beyond the grave.

But here it was! A dandalion! It was yellow, covered in more small petals than Mike could count. The stem was a rich green and thick. It was a tall dandalion, the sort that grew beside freeways and undisturbed areas, where it could grow large and heavy. This dandalion leaned forward under the weight of itself, until it seemed like a funny little periscope peering up from out of the ground and staring at Mike. He grinned at the thought and bopped the flower gently. It wobbled away from him, bounced back, and settled still again.

With the same hand he'd bounced the dandalion with, he covered his mouth against another wretching cough. This one hurt a lot more than the coughs which had led to him throwing up. He spat on the ground beside him whent he coughing had subsided, and he didn't like how dark the blood was that came out. He did not feel well now.

He focused on the dandalion again, and in a flash of inspiration, he knew what he had to do.

Perhaps this was why he'd been spared, why he'd been left alive. Here was the one piece of life left, growing out of the ground, and here was Mike to protect it. Here was the dandalion, and here was its protector.

It would rain, Mike knew, eventually. If it rained hard, it could beat the dandalion down. Or, if someone came to rescue him, they might step on it. Or, the pile of rubble that had once been a house might fall on it and crush it to death. There were so many things that could happen to one little flower that no one cared about, no one save for Mike.

He clampered to his feet and went over to the collapsed house, gathering up what intact bricks he could find from within the splintered pile. It seemed to take ages of relentless hunting to find twelve intact bricks, and it took longer still since he kept running back to check on the dandalion, to make sure that it was still there, still green, still growing, still safe. It always was, but he kept coming to check. (image placeholder)

When he had gathered the bricks, he sat back down by the flower and began to arrange them around the dandalion. He did it delicately, as if hovering on the edge of a flame. He balanced all of the bricks as sturdily as possible, so that none of them would collapse inward and crush the very flower he wanted them to protect. He managed to build a little shelter, consisting of three walls and a small roof over it which covered the flower, leaving him with one open side through which to see it.

Pleased with himself, he sat back and studied it. There were still problems, of course. The bricks were certainly not to be trusted and he would have to keep an eye on them and make sure that they didn't loosen or jar and wind up falling down on his dandalion. Plus, if it were covered by bricks all of the time,it wouldn't be able to get any sunlight and there, again, it would wither and die. He would have to take apart the shelter during the daytime and rebuild it at night.

He could only imagine what his father would've thought of his plan. He could hear his brother snickering in the back of his mind, an echo from the past that neither faded nor dimmed with the passage of time. Still, he didn't care. It was a purpose. It was a task. It was something to make a man big when he felt small and lost in a dead city, a city the victim of things in the world far too big for one man to simply comprehend.

Mike lay down next to the little brick hutch which covered his flower. He law on the grass next to it and looked at the little flower, realizing as he stared that he was beginning to feel very tired. No doubt from the stress of what had been a literally cataclysmic day. His eyes grew heavy, but even as they drooped, they were focused entirely on the dandalion.

Hunchbacked in its brick hutch, the little yellow petals in their circle stared back at him. They stared at him warmly. Kindly. Lovingly. Mike smiled at the dandalion, and he said, "Good night," to it, which sounded very loud and very far away in his own ears, since the city was so silent. (image placeholder)

And then he slept next to his flower.

***

That was where the rescue team found him, the next morning. Mike was lying peacefully on his back, one hand draped casually across his stomach, the other behind his head. He looked as calm and as peaceful as a man who'se dozed off in the hammock, out in the yard.

He was not breathing.

They gathered up Mike's body, just as they gathered up a lot of bodies that day. In the process of it, one of the rescuers kicked the little brick hutch on accident and knocked the peculiar thing over. Since it had been very deliberately built, they took it apart in case the victim had left something in there for them to find.

It was a fruitless search, though. There was nothing within the brick hutch.

Nothing but a weed.

A pulse from the ether.

2005-10-18T15:45:00.000-05:00

Ye’ Gods, look: he lives!

I really do. Sorry I haven’t been around of late. It’s been one of those months where the word “busy” could be used to describe it, but it wouldn’t be a very accurate description. Frantic, anarchtic, chaotic might all work better.

Well, first interesting point, which I’m going to make without getting all fanboyish on you. I’m going to tell you this maturely and concisely and with the dignity and poetry-in-prose that you have come to expect from…

…ImetNeilGaiman…

(emanates high-pitched sound audible only to cats.)

He was a delightful person, although exhausted, and chatted even with guys like me who made lunatic comments about necromancy and pens (what? Yeah, I know. Brain=Off, Mouth=Running)

I have a great many things to natter about, but it will have to wait for later tonight, or tomorrow. I am returning to the whole “anarchy” business.

Oh, a note (and a reminder to myself to tell you later): I think I’ve found a home for Beyond Earth: Enforcer. That’s a good thing.

More later.

Querulous is a neat word.

2005-10-06T13:09:00.000-05:00

Oof. I’m tired. For whatever reason, I haven’t slept fully for the past three or four nights. Nothing’s particularly disturbed me or woken me up, I’ve just gone to bed, dog-tired, and four hours later, been up and going again. Who knows why?

I’ve started digging into my internet-knowledge again as I toy with building some sort of web-site, much like my old Edge of the Universe or Beyond Earth material, where I could psot stories and series online. It was always delightful, and I do miss it. The problem is, I’m older now, I have a headful of writer-stuff that I didn’t have back then, which means I’m more keenly aware of the perils involved with putting your stuff out there on the ‘net. Not only aware, but paranoid about it, too. I have some good ideas, it would run smoothly, sure, but…I do not know. I think I’ll have to roll the whole matter around in my head awhile longer.

I wrote a surprising short story the other night. Actually, it was three o’ clock in the morning, and what was really surprising about it was, I didn’t know I had a short story to write. I had a title that I’d come up with (I mentioned that below, I believe) and after I went to bed, it occurred to me that I had a story to go with it. So I sighed, got up, and wrote the story, primarily so I could go-the-hell-to-bed.

It isn’t very long, but I think it’s fairly interesting nonethless. It may have a use, right at the moment, but if that falls through then I intend to post it here for your perusal.

It is now cold outside. Not just cold, Minnesota cold. You either know the sort, or you can imagine. The old men have started saying, “Is gonna snow anytime now, mind, an’ I feel it in my bones.”

Saying things like that will only lead to anarchy. I am sure.

Sleek Black Blog

2005-10-03T17:08:00.000-05:00

Isn’t this nice? Now, instead of that white and green business, I have a sleek black blog. Do you have any idea how hard it is to say “sleek black blog” over and over again? Very hard. I assure you.

You will be delighted to know that The Neon God has cleared 100 pages, just now, and is still strolling along happily. I’m currently estimating about 250 pages when it’s completed, maybe more, maybe less. Either way, it’s not bad for something that started life (and spent the first bazillion drafts as) a short story.

I stumbled across one of my old web-sites where I hosted a series of stories set in my Beyond Earth universe. Amazingly, the site is still up, still contains some of the stories, and still works. I spent an hour tinkering with it, because I keep hemming and hawing over going back and building a site and maintaining an active online presence as a writer, like I once did. I never quite get around to it, but I always toy with it.

Yesterday, we had some Indian Summer sort of weather. Today, it’s hot, it’s humid, it’s muggy, it’s miserable, and it keeps raining (which makes me happy) but not enough to actually to anything to the miserable hot mugginess (which does not make me happy). Someone should probably contact Minnesota and explain unto it that it is, in fact, October 3rd. I know it is. The blog says it is, right at the top and bottom there. So why does it feel like a still, sweltering day in mid-july.

Renee’s gone. She’s off to visit her family for four days, which leaves me alone in the apartment, trying to remember how the bachelor business works. Have done a bad job at it. Have not killed any of the animals yet (which is a relief), have not eaten much, have not slept much…but have written a ton. Most guys would have a party, get a keg of beer, whatever. Me, I hole up in my office and write. It is a wild life that I lead, no?

Flash! Crash! (repeat)

2005-09-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Really amazing weather today. It started at about 8:00 this morning, growing darker and gloomier and more menacing. I watched from the window as the walls of clouds literally swept across town.

It’s now 9:00 and the world is getting darker as the day goes by. There’s also reports of hail almost an inch in diameter. That’s big hail. I have a feeling we may wind up getting some of that, which case I’ll verify. The clouds are not only getting darker, they’re taking on a greenish/silver tint which is never a good sign.

I love Minnesota weather!

The power is flickering a tad bit now, so I’ll leave this message at this. I have more to chatter about, but I’ll wait until millions of volts of electricity aren’t cascading around the sky and touching down.

Whistle (or blog) While you Work

2005-09-12T01:19:00.000-05:00

So, Blogger’s got this new feature out where I can, using Microsoft Word, make posts to my blog. This is interesting and astoundingly useful, since even on the days when I don’t have the internet open and running, I at least have Word open. I’m not always on the internet, but I’m always pretending I’m writing productively.

Nothing too grand to report right now. Working on the second draft of The Neon God as well as starting my revisions on The Legend of the Phoenix 1: Kingdoms & Rebellions. I also have an amusing little story about Helen of Troy that I’m researching (researching means that I forgot who was where and on what side, so I’m getting my people straight before I write the story and give all the good one-liners to someone who is, in fact, dead…although there could be a story in that too.)

If ever you doubt your writing abilities, you need only read Stephen King’s “On Writing,” or anything you can find with Harlan Ellison. Even if it’s just an interview. Read one, be shocked by how angry and bitter he sounds…then think about it for awhile, go back, read some more with a mind that’s opened a little more…and then realize that he knows exactly what he’s talking about, he’s not that angry, and when he is angry, he’s got a good reason.

More later. Adieu.

Stuff. Also, time permitting, things.

2005-06-18T09:18:00.000-05:00

"I don't know what's wrong with it. I just know that whenever I try to connect to the wireless infrastructure here, I can't get in. I can't even get it to appear."

"I don't see why. You haven't had any problems before."

"I have since I got this new laptop. This new laptop with its pretty wireless card and signal-boosting antenna. I can't get anything here. Watch."

"It says your connected. See?"

"I...it...did not say that last time."

I would complain that the computer gods hate me, but my internet is connected, so I think they've just had mercy on me instead. That's fine.

Am up to about ten pages in Neon God. Wrote a three-page scene (not included in my ten-page count) the other day tentatively entitled "Manowar" for now. It comes much later in the novel, but I had it in my head and figured it wouldn't hurt to write it a little out of order, so long as I can keep it all straight when putting the novel together.

Went to see Batman Begins last night and was absolutely boggled by it. THAT is how you make a Batman movie! It restored my love of the Dark Knight, which has been steadily fading for some time (and not just because some schmuck came along and said "you know, when I think Batman, the best actor that comes to mind is....George Clooney.") Before seeing the movie, I'd been getting myself back into the Batman comic a bit too, and was very impressed with what I've seen. Batman is one comic that attracts people who tell stories. It's not just "Batman vs. THIS WEEK'S VILLIAN" (although, truth be told, I haven't seen things like "Spider-Man vs. the mysteriously menacing mask-man, ELECTRO!!!" in quite a long time.) Batman stories read very much like good novels. Good crime film noir detective novels. That's fine.

The Batman begins game also looks very impressive, but I haven't played it yet. We'll see how that winds up being.

I wrote a story called "Old Friends" just about a year ago. I wrote it over the course of an evening, was very pleased, and went on to do other stuff, saving it on my computer's hard drive and letting it be. Time passed and problems arose with that computer (I'm now two computers removed from that one) and eventually, the power would no longer feed into the computer anymore. This meant that anything I had on the hard drive was totally lost, at least until the day when I have enough money to pay through the nose to get the hard drive dumped. I wasn't too worried about it, though. I had backup disks of my stories and files and general mish-mash. The only thing I really lost were some MP3s. Even then, not many of those.

Then, a week or two ago, I suddenly recalled a couple of short stories I wrote. One called "Mary Pretends" and one called "Old Friends." I e-mailed my dearest mother, curious because I knew I had at least sent her a copy of "Old Friends" but without much hope...and was very much surprised when she came by my apartment yesterday, bearing a copy of "Old Friends." So I read through it last night, was still pleased with what I saw, made some notes for editing, and was just generally happy to have the story back in my possession again. As for finding "Mary Pretends," I think I'll have to wait until I dump the hard drive, because I didn't send it out to anyone. It was very short and I recall the story of it perfectly, so I could just write it down again...but I don't like what I recall, so I may keep the title and write a whole 'nother story 'round it.

I have some vague griping to do about the editing process, by the way...but that's for another day. I'm off to write for the moment.

Neon God mini-excerpt

2005-05-27T21:46:00.000-05:00

They found the Neon God in a dumpster.

They set him up in a basement.

They knelt to him on arthritic knees.

They plugged him into everything.

They gave him the world.

(I did say it was a mini-excerpt, didn't I? Well, I did. This comes at the beginning of the book.)

I would also like to brag happily and explain that I'm writing The Neon God in a really beautiful red-leather-bound journal. It's really pretty and it was intimidating until I finally just got down to it and started writing in it. When I realized that the Neon God would be a novel, I tried to start writing it on the computer, just because that's a more comfortable place to work on a novel. For some weird reason, it wouldn't transcribe properly. So, apparently, whether I like it or not (sometimes, I go either way), I'm writing this novel longhand.

Will now go actually work.

It's a short, er, long story, er, novel...

2005-05-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

So, am bathed and settled in, listening happily to the new Gorillaz CD, Demon Days, which makes me happy. I would love the concept of a non-existent virtual band even if they didn't have really good music, but now I get a cool non-existent virtual band who also has really wonderful songs. Also, I was listening to the audio book version of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, which I think is probably his finest book yet. From beginning to end, it's perfect. It's like a finely tuned instrument.

Speaking of stories...

I wrote the first three lines of The Neon God, which took an hour because they're a bit of a rythmic piece and therefore had to fit each other's tempo. The next three pages flowed fairly easily, and I seemed happily into a short story that is intended for scifi.com's SciFiction section. I realized I hadn't written a purely sci-fi short story in awhile, so this was the answer to it.

Started page four, and the story crashed. I was in an abysmally bad mood for the remainder of the evening because of it. That would make it the eighth or ninth draft of this story that's just fallen apart before page ten, and the frustrating part was, I'd had no reason for it.

So I mulled over it and realized that I could pull it back together as a short story. Worked on it a little more, mulled a bit further, and realized why all the drafts had fallen apart: I wasn't writing what I thought I was writing.

Thanks to my thinking about it, I've figured out what the main character is and what he's doing, I've figured out what the Neon God is and what the problem is, and I've figured out what happens. I didn't have any of this before, but that wasn't what was stopping the story.

What was stopping it was that it's not a short story. It's got too much in it to be a short story. It's actually a novel. Once I realized it was a novel and adjusted my writing cadance to match, it started to churn along nicely. So, I'm apparently writing a novel, which was not something I intended to do so quickly after finishing Kingdoms & Rebellions, my last novel. Renee made snide comments about "listening to my inner muse!" but I suppose, when it comes down to it, that's exactly what I'm doing. I think I may alternate between writing/musing on The Neon God, and actually doing a few short stories that I've been wanting to write. For example, I've got a short-ish sci-fi story called My Kingdom for a Horse that Isaac Asimov would've written, were he still alive. I'll write it for him.

Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith kicked ass and took names. 'Nuff said. Go see it, and then you can just agree and we can move on. Also, the video game is surprisingly better than I was expecting, and that also makes me happy.

Realized this evening that my hair is getting rather long, and I either need a haircut, or a trim so that it grows out without looking fluffy. OR, I need to grow a handlebar mustache and live in a castle with a hunchback named Igor. (No, I cannot be pursuaded to make any jokes about Igor, based on Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, which really you should be reading instead of this).

To the makers of Slim Jim

2005-05-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

Listen. I don't know who you are, I don't know where you are, and I don't know how to find you, but I'm speaking directly to the man/woman/team who created the packaging that the SlimJim's currently come in.

You win. All right? You've beaten me. I'm broken. What more do you want?

I normally just rip these open, but this one's bested me. I mean, I've been gnawing chunks out of the wrapper trying to get at the thing for five minutes now. I've managed to puncture it somehow, and I know this because the smell that's wafting around is now driving me insane. I'm no closer to eating this thing, though.

Damn it.

*ahem*

Written the first piece of The Neon God, which consists of two lines. THe thing preventing the third line is, I can't quite find the right...phrase to complete the trio of lines I need to start off the story. It's really bugging me a bit. It'll come to me though. It's on the tip of my brain. I am vaugely patient with these sort of things.

(so long as they do not come in Slim Jim wrappers)

Am very tired. Was out too late last night, got up too early this morning and thus I am vaguely zombie-like.

Which is why this post ends here.

Windy Whistling Windows

2005-05-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

I really do intend to keep thsi blog decently updated, even if for no other eyes than my own. Honestly. I don't know how some people manage to live the lives they blog about, and then in addition to it, have the time to actually blog about it. It boggles my mind, really.

WOrk is work, and hardly worth talking about here. Life is life, full of animals, some video games, and the occasional Really Interesting Event.

The writing. Ah, the writing is worth speaking of.

I finished The Legend of the Phoenix, book one: Kingdoms and Rebellions the other day, which surprised me a great deal, since I was rather under the impression that I had about another fifty-to-a hundred pages left to go. Still, I tidied up the end chapter and shut down, and then realized abruptly later that night (mid-sentence, which was awkward) that I had, in fact, tied off the major storylines and brought everything to a decent conclusion. That was that.

So then I freaked out, worried that I'd completely botched something, and would it read decently, and was it long enough to be a book, and what the hell had happened...but then I calmed down, went through it, and realized that it had reached its end, was therefore done, and failed to let me know that this event was about to occur. Sometimes, writing is magical, and sometimes it's senscient. It fascinates me when it's the latter, or the former, or sometimes both.

(An aside note on the matter: Many years ago, when writing a long-ish story, I had a very minor character who was intended to live a little while, then die, and then facilitate the main characters' escape. I built this minor character solidly, because I wanted it to be relevant when he died. I was therefore shocked when, rather than dying, he was resourceful enough to steal a horse and get them all away safely. It had to happen that way, because it was logical to the story. I just never expected it. This is the first time I really recall seeing a character do something more or less on its own because of the way they're built. I was too inexperienced at the time to incorporate it properly, so the story fell apart. It makes a nice memory, though.)

I've also started writing a short story which has a really magnificant title, and is a story that is extremely odd and delightful, and also gives me a chance to stretch my writing muscles a little and play with Norse mythology, which makes me happy. More about this story once it's further along.

Brown and Gray is out to a publisher now, but I haven't heard back on whether or not they actually want it yet or not. Probably won't for awhile. Ah well. Sometimes, it makes me happy that a large part of the publishing process with short stories is just waiting to see what happens. I much prefer actually writing then sitting around trying to sell them (which is something I'm honestly bad at).

I've also been working on One Live to Give, which is a story that's set in the same place as my Norse-Mythology story, only many many thousands of years in the future. The way that they're oddly connected is...well...odd. I think it will be in the best interests of the stories if I manage to sell them to the same publisher.

Also working on a sci-fi piece for sci-fi.com's magnificant fiction section (which you should really visit when you have several days with nothing to do but read. Or else print off the archives. They're magnificant.)

The problem with the sci-fi piece is a recently realized problem, but one which I'm firmly sure exists. When I grow or shift as a writer, it's like a car's gears shifting. It builds up, builds up, builds up....but when the moment comes, it does so in one sudden shift. Usually, it leaves me confused on the other end. Toward the end of Kingdoms and Rebellions, I was beginning to have more and more difficulty turning out useable material, which was rare for me. Sci-fi has been my stomping ground for a very long time. I like to think I'm good at it.

Well, I realized that around the same time I started having trouble writing sci-fi, I was also starting to work on short stories that were not at all sci-fi. What they were, I'm not sure, but they weren't sci-fi. I looked at what I was reading, and realized that I was reading non-sci-fi a fair bit too. The most sci-fi thing I've read recently has been Gene Wolfe's magnificant Litany of the Long Sun series. Did I mention it's astonishing? You should really get to reading it.

At any rate, sci-fi isn't what's coming to me right now, which explains the trouble with the novel, and the reason that this short story is failing to come together. So instead of stressing, I'm just floundering mildly and am off happily writing short stories about Gnomes and Trolls and Norse myths and gods, and old houses and older men, and so on and so forth. Blither blither blither.

This has been my lengthy tirade. Please return to your regularly scheduled programme.

(should've mentioned: the reason this post is called windy whistling windows is because, as I write this, the wind is making this incredible howling noise with my office window. When I was outside a little bit ago, in the cold, the wind was dancing through a tree and a balcony, and it made a low, keening, crying sound. Like a little girl moaning, with a voice just a bit too deep.)

This shall be known as "first post."

2005-03-03T12:28:00.000-06:00

Right. Well, hello world. Or at least, whatever small portion happens to be reading this.

introductions, I suppose, cannot hurt. Well, my name is Pete Tzinski, and I'm a writer. I also occasionally work in the real world, but only to pay bills. I'm a writer, through and through. I've been doing this for a little over ten years now, though for quite a long time, it was mostly useless drivel. A lot if it, looking back, was unreadable.

Short stories are my comfortable medium, but they're not the only one in which I work. I touch upon every form thatI can, because I think that's just a good idea when it comes to writing. What good are wings if you don't flex them once in awhile?

Tomorrow, time permitting, I'll explain to those of you who return, what exactly the common misconception is regarding Odin All-Father and Zues. And if that sounds a bit boring, then maybe I'll throw in some babble about life and trying to write around it.

(Or Alpacas. I might speak on Alpacas. You are agog to know what I shall talk about.)