Supernatural Stories by HP Lovecraft

For some old book goodness, check out my post about HP over on my other (joint) blog, Booklubbers. It’s not food porn, it’s old book porn.

Pimm’s No. 1 Balls

We’re into autumn now and Pimm’s cups have gone the way of warm summer nights. So what to do with the leftover liqueur? Make Pimm’s No. 1 Balls of course! They’re like rumballs, but… well, you get the idea. Pimm’s can be substituted for any liqueur; this is a great way to use up spirits that are on their way out, as liqueurs don’t have an infinite shelf life.

Unruly Characters

I’m currently doing a 4-month online novel workshop and I thought that during this period I’d blog about the process. As it turns out, I found myself struggling to find the time to cram everything into my day without the blog even entering into my thoughts. I have a brief moment to breathe, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about something that recently came to my attention.

My characters, particularly the ones in this novel, let me know what they’re feeling, even when I’d rather not like to know. The current unruly characters, having thoughts of their own I’d rather they didn’t, are known as Sera and Sam. Now, Sera is dealing with some complicated feelings: her (boy) bff has just died in an accident and the boy she’s crushing after is out of sorts, mentally and physically. Then along comes a new boy at school and in previous drafts I had her hate him instantly because of his cheerfulness and general chipper attitude. In response to this, Sam decided he would go out with Sera’s friend, but it never felt like he wanted to, but rather that he was only doing it to be around Sera.

This time around, I reasoned that Sera didn’t really have a good reason to dislike Sam for long, so she gave him a chance. Now the darn kids are constantly two sentences from making out. That’s what I get for writing horny teenagers. They never do what you want them to.

Now, I’m acting grumpy about this, but very deep down (so deep down that they’ll never know) I’m quite thrilled about it. It shows that these characters are independent, all grown up now and not needing their ambivalent creator (me) to make decisions for them. If they want to start something then fine, but they’ll have to deal with the messy consequences that I’m hatching for them. …On the other hand, rather I like the idea of having an unspoken romantic tension with Sam running as an undercurrent as Sera wrestles with her feelings for crush-boy and dead bbff.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is one that you’ll hear from just about every fiction writer. If your characters are disobeying you, it’s for a reason. They know themselves better than you do. Give them their heads and sit back as they tell you their story.

Sanity Rally in the Rain

Today was the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity, boasting way more attendees than Glenn Beck’s rally. Sacramento, CA had its own sanity-restoring rally and my friends and I joined the 150+ people outside of our capitol building to enjoy poetry and music in the rain. Not being biased in any way, I’d say the best part of the event was the signs.

A Day in the Life of an Intern: Post-Contest

One of the big things literary mags do to promote themselves is to hold contests. They get readers involved and up the circulation. Since all legit contests cost money (to cover celebrity judges, entry processing time, and winner money), entrants usually get a year subscription with their fee (and then they’re HOOKED, if they aren’t already. At least, that’s the idea).

Over at my magazine, we recently finished up with a postcard contest where entrants sent us a postcard and a short-short story to go with it. I had the “pleasure” of reading eighty of these in one afternoon. Some of them were good, most of them were…uh…clearly not written by writers. To put it delicately.

My job, on this particular Friday, was to go through this box of envelopes and pull out the postcards that needed to be returned to their senders.

A Day in the Life of an Intern: Rejection Letters

It’s the job no one wants to do, but at a literary magazine it’s one of those necessary things. On Thursday, the office manager sent me an email letting me know that I’d be running in the office solo, and sent me the task that needed doing: send rejection letters. It’s something I’ve only had to do once before, and once you get over the fact that you’re ruining someone’s day, it’s not so bad. I figured I’d be done in a an hour, two tops, and then I could get some solid, distraction-free writing done in an empty office. So come Friday morning, I loaded my iPod full of the months of Wiretap that I was behind on and headed over.

Farmville and Censorship

Recently, I decided I needed to leave a stronger message on my abandoned Farmville farm. While plowing out the words “I QUIT” (there’s no win state– I mean, really, why play?), I encountered a new scam the creators of Farmville, Zynga, have initiated to get more people to give them their email address— spam the users with more of their in-game scams and charm them into paying real money for “Farm Cash”.

The Creation of Flannel Cat

Back in January, I made a stuffed cat out of flannel scraps for the birthday of my friends’ 1-year-old daughter, and happened to take photos along the way. My pattern isn’t perfect, so I’m not including it. This is more of a tutorial of process, or just an explanation of how I did it, in case you were curious.

A Place to Begin

Considering I’m going to have work published in the upcoming Geist issue 75, and this blog is listed as my website, I figured I should finally get around to putting some content up here.

I’ve been putting it off because, frankly, I don’t think I’m all that interesting. So I’m just going to put up a doodle I did of the characters in the novel I’m working on. Distraction!

"Look out, Gabe, or my ghost cooties might get you!"

This is pretty illustrative of how these two characters interact most of the time. I think most of my doodles from this story are of them. I’m hoping to finish the watercolour of Michael (the incorporeal one on the left) before I go to California next week, so look for that in the coming days.

Of course, I’m also hoping to get down a sketch for a major illustration before I leave, and I’ll probably only have time for one. In any case, I’ll get something up here.

If you’re looking for more, check out the webcomic I did with a friend some time ago: Damp with Murder

I learned a lot from that experience, and I want to start doing my own comic shorts. There are three comics that I did for Damp with Murder over the summer (an attempt to get it going again) that are still unaired. I’ll put them up either here or the comic’s page soon. (I hope).

Gone Fishing

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