Nice

The Edgar Rice Burroughs celebrations continue with the U.S. Postal Sevice giving the author his very own Forever Stamp in 2012.

ERB's profile is based on a photograph taken by his son in 1934. Who stood model for Tarzan, however, is anyone's guess.

Excitement at the train station

Cutting across the footy field this morning, I was confronted by a small city of movie-making trucks parked behind the sports pavilion. I spotted the racks of costumes, saw knitted vests, hats, old fashioned coats and suitcases, and I thought Aha! The Castlemaine - Maldon steam train.

Sure enough (click photos for a better view):

Ironing out the details

I spent 5 hours on the YA fantasy novel today. My diagnosis is that I've tried to cram two books into what I need to edit down into one, so I spent today rebuilding it from the beginning chapter by chapter.

Otherwise, it was a lovely, peaceful, rainy day, perfect for losing oneself in writing projects. I've just wound up a most productive day by submitting 3 stories, but now I realise that I have to get my ironing done for the Arvo Job work week ahead. Blah.

THE MONKEY MOVIE

For a popcorn flick, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes was surprisingly good. Apart from a few fudge factors, this origin story nicely set up a foundation for the intended reboot of the old film series. And since I was cheering for the chimps and booing at the arrogance and cruelty of modern humans (individually, we're reasonably decent, but oh, as a group, we soooo deserve our fate), the upcoming war between the two species, where humans reap in spades what they have so thoughtlessly sown, should be morally interesting.

Eventually, of course, our apish revolutionaries will go the way of all downtrodden groups that topple one cruel, monolithic power only to become a cruel, monolithic power themselves. Gaining political power is always the ultimate moral makeover, and very few elites are upright enough to resist the joys of tribal bullying. I suspect that once founding father Caesar (well done, Andy Serkis) no longer functions as a moral compass for the monkeys, then the chimps will, excuse the language and the pun, go apeshit.

Ah, the line "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape" just never gets old.

Alphabet Sci-Fi

From 'A is for Anakin, born on Tattooine' to 'Z is for Zed, makes diapers look tough' by Kevin Maher.

To start the weekend with a grin, help yourself to a serve of it here.

(What were those Zardoz costume people thinking? And really, could anyone but our Sean have even remotely gotten away with it?)

The art of ending

I finished St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell yesterday and have such mixed feelings about it. The language is beautiful and the details are impressive, and I was mostly entertained, but after the first few stories, with each tale I found myself worrying whether I was going to get a decent ending as a reward for my efforts. I have nothing against the occasional open ending, but string too many of them together and I feel cheated and get bit narky. I also began to get the uneasy feeling that I was being flimflammed. Most of the stories are milquetoast bizarre - weird fiction for mainstream readers who are feeling a little adventurous but would never pick up an issue of Electric Velocipede or Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. The stories are good, and quirky, but not as gob smackingly amazing as some would have us believe. The thing is, they could have been great. Still, I liked most of them. I particularly enjoyed the title story and from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration, though once again, that "ending"...

Yuck

This, from the NSW Writers' Centre 'Newsbite' email I received this morning, made me grin:

Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.

-Vladimir Nabokov

End of the Month Report: July 2011

Submissions: 7
Rejections: 4
Acceptances: 0
Published: 2 (Information Exchange & Found in Translation)
Stories out in the wild: 9
New stories completed: 1
Mood: 2 stories published this month - say no more.

Submission palooza

So I'm done with editing previously rejected stories with a jaundiced eye (and three of the five I sent off were longer stories - phew!), and searching for suitable markets, and angsting over which publication would be the best bet for each story because once it's submitted it's out of the race for many months, and checking guidelines for editorial preferences, and reformatting the stories that needed special treatment, and writing cover letters and choosing which credits to list, and attaching files and checking the attached files and then checking the spelling and then checking everything again.

Submitting stories is not as easy as some people might think. But today's extravaganza was my own fault. If I'd stuck with sending off 2 stories a week this month as I should have done, then I wouldn't have had to cram today.

Oh, and I've finally found the house I want to buy:

It's on the Island of Elliðaey, near Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. It might be a bit hard to get to the Arvo Job and horse riding though.

Crapola

The downside of having a rogue fowl cutely clucking for her breakfast at the kitchen door every morning is that one then gets little blobs of white poo on the patio. A weekly hosing down is required to keep it from looking like farmyard. Good thing the drought is over. I tell you, if the Chook weren't so personable, she'd be in a chicken pie by now.

Today is gloriously sunny and the birds are singing and the backyard beckons (where was this weather last weekend when my sister and I went horse riding?), but there's a passel of recently rejected stories that need to go out again so I can pump up my meagre July submission count for tonight's End of the Month Report. See, it serves a purpose.

Musical Marvel

So it was Captain America today, so we're up to speed for The Avengers next year (we saw Thor back in April). Seeds are being sown, emotional issues are being raised, characters both good and evil are lining up, and powerful artifacts are being strewn hither and thither. And in the real world, there's Joss Whedon writing and directing, and Mark Ruffalo (*sigh*) still to come as Hulk. Talk about yay!

I liked this movie, the retro future SF look (nice segue from yesterday, eh?), the clean cut Brooklyn boy as a hero who just wants to battle bullies, and you have to admit, the Nazis do make the best movie bad guys. There's no debating their badness - just look at the way they dress. I even liked the USO musical number, which many people seem to be a bit iffy about, but it suited the times and the setting, and set the character up for what was to follow.

And I must say, Hugo Weaving certainly has a all-round kind of life. Last month, we saw him sensitively play a victim of abuse in Oranges and Sunshine, and this month he's stomping about in macho leather having a ball as Red Skull. There's someone who can do both serious, small movies and blockbuster fun without thinking that the one necessarily detracts from the other.

Futures Past

The future used to be much bolder

and much much brighter.

See more retro future SF artwork here.

Yes, we have some rejections

It's one of those weeks.

Smart is as smart does

My Arvo Job, rest-my-eyes-from-computer-screens, lunchtime audio book at the moment is The Return Of Sherlock Holmes read with great vim and verve by Sir Derek Jacobi. The premise, most obviously and clearly given away by the title, is that the great 'consulting detective' is back from the dead after having supposedly gone over the Reichenbach Falls together with his nemesis Moriarty.

However, and I hesitate to mention this since the character is somewhat sacrosanct and I may offend the eccentric one's many fans, as the days pass, I increasingly suspect that Holmes isn't, hmmm, how should I put this, isn't quite as brilliant as he constantly likes to tell everyone he is (sometimes he does go on and on and on about it). There seems to be a hefty dose of authorial flim-flam happening. But, that said, I'm enjoying the book immensely.

Oh, What a Beautiful Mornington

Once a year, my sister and I like to try out a new horse riding place. We love our regular places, but you never know what else might be out there. Besides, it's a good way to see different parts of the state, and possibly meet some fabulous new people and horses.

Today we headed for the Mornington Peninsular. The countryside was beautiful, the place was well-run, the horses were well looked after, the staff were friendly and professional, there was a nice place to have lunch and the food was well-prepared and tasty. After a rather slowish morning ride on somewhat overly bored horses to the beach (we'll stick with Airey's Inlet), they did go out of their way to give us better mounts for the afternoon forest ride, which was for experienced riders only. Even then, however, their idea of a challenging ride was a lot less zippy and wending than what we're used to, especially on our regular Daylesford rides (still the best - thank goodness they're slated for next month's ride.)

So it was a good place, an okay place, a friendly place, but not fabulous. For the money we paid, which was way more than what we usually fork out, we were expecting something more memorable.

When words fail

How do you send your condolences to a whole country?

Stay strong, Norway.

More Barsoom!

Yay! How exciting!

Next year, in time for the 100th anniversary of the publication of A Princess of Mars, the first in the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, not only will there be the previously mentioned John Carter movie to help celebrate the event, but in February 2012 there'll also be an anthology of original stories featuring John Carter of Mars in brand new adventures to carry us back to those youthful reading days of yore.

You can read all about it here.

Of course...

...at times like these, one should caste one's mind back to the days when the "old" people in the house next door continually asked me and my sister to close our windows during our opposite-tastes-in-music showdowns, and to recall one's own youthful incomprehension when the police showed up at the door during parties in response to complaints from the neighbours, and to remember the lady downstairs who, on a weekday night when I had a few friends around for a post sports training get-together, phoned me to angrily enquire whether I thought our building was Dyrehavsbakken .

And so it turns, the squeaky wheel of life.

Art versus Art

Apparently, part of my new noise problem, as told to me with an air of 'whats wrong with you' last night when I went next door at 23.45 and suggested that it was a tad unreasonable to be doof doofing at that time and that they might like to show some consideration and turn down the racket, is that 'the kids are training'.
Mystery solved. Young musicians with amps and double bass guitars burning with a bright desire to be superstars practicing late into the night have turned the house next door into their semi-regular studio. I suspect they've been booted out of their own homes, guitars in hand, and have been offered a creative asylum to nurture their talents and so now they're my problem. Neat. And so in future days, when during interviews they talk about this stage of their career, I'll have a part in their tale as the nameless nutty neighbour who *laugh, laugh* was always knocking on the door and complaining. No-one will realise that the poor sod of a neighbour in question was also trying to get in some 'training' and be creative.

Anyway, the Arts smackdown in on. Youthful, Self-Centered Musicians versus Crusty Old Writer. They've got the numbers and the bass. I write a mean email.

Pause

Today was a wonderfully quiet and peaceful day full of the (for me) good things in life - popping out for coffee/tea and a chat, then lots of writing, reading, sitting in the garden on the Xmas swing with cups of peppermint tea pondering existence and patting any cat that came by for a smooch.

"There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence."
-Meister Eckhart
(who also said "The more we have the less we own.")

P.S. - my 9000 words long SF story ended up as a 5200 words short SF story. Hopefully the editors (or just one will do) will love it now.