Writ Wrote Rote.

I'm going to punt my plan to try to bang something out for the Amazon competition. I just don't want to do that to myself! If I didn't have a full-time job, sure, I'd try it, but I don't have the time to really shoehorn a book into my schedule in the coming month. So, I'll just sling the two finished works I have handiest and hope for the best.

I need to get back in gear on some of my projects. The holidays always throw things off a bit, so I need to get my feet back under me.

Crush: Julie Christie

In her 1960s Swinging London prime, Julie Christie was amazingly hot. She just had this elemental hotness to her. Aries babe. Hmmm. Fucking hot.

Write On.

Okay, so Amazon and Penguin are having their third annual "Breakthrough Novel" competition, and I totally want to submit a thing or two to it. They have two categories: General Fiction and Young Adult. I have books that could go in either category. One of them is perhaps a reach for "General Fiction" but I may submit it, anyway, just because it's very good, and if people actually gave it a fair shake, it could get there. It's good stuff. Another one is a shoe-in for "Young Adult." So, I'd like to submit them both. I have to read the official rules to see if it lets me. They take a total of 10,000 submissions before they close.

I'm also highly tempted to whip up a novel that is squarely within the General Fiction category, just for insurance, should the other two not make it through -- I'd have to bang that baby out quickly, as the deadline for submissions opens on January 25. No time to waste. I know people like to entertain themselves with National Novel-Writing Month -- hell, I've done it a couple of times as a lark, so I know that dance. But this would be a serious effort intended to get into that competition. I don't know if I can make the deadline, but I'm tempted to try, just to push myself. If nothing else, I'll have another book ready to sell.

And, I admit that I'm a little scared, unsure whether I can do it, and I like that. I like that it makes me sweat, makes me wonder if I can swing it. So, that makes me think I need to do it, need to take that risk and swan-dive into this one.

Cocky

What evolutionary advantage is served (if any) by the ability to cock one's eyebrow? I've often wondered that, being able to cock my right eyebrow (but not the left) my whole life. Not everybody can cock their eyebrows. Some can do one, some can do the other, and some can even do both. So, clearly there is a gene or something at work with eyebrow-cocking. And as such, what is the selection process for it? How does it get passed on? Is it a favorable adaptation/mutation in some way? I joked with Leona, my anthropologist friend and former coworker, suggested that the cocked eyebrow was intended to convey bemusement and/or smugness, and perhaps it served some evolutionary advantage in that regard. But we had no conclusions to be derived from it. I don't know if anybody's ever done a study on it. I do, however, wonder about its origins. Who can do it and why they can.

Certainly, you can speak volumes without saying a word with a quizzical cock of the eyebrow, usually conveying irony, smugness, amusement, disbelief, incredulity, bemusement, awe, flirtatiousness, slyness. Anything else I'm missing?

But I'm especially amused that some people are unable to do it at all -- how do those poor souls adapt to the inability to cock their eyebrows? And what about the ones who can do both eyebrows? They manage to look extra-impish when they get them both upraised (conjuring images of Jack Nicholson, here).

Fascinating, one might say.

Magic Number: 6.

Icky

From the RedEye:

Cry babies

Kate Gosselin says her eight children just aren't happy without the near-constant presence of cameras.

"They cried in the van on the way home from school the other day. ... They kept asking: 'Where's the camera crew? Where's the camera crew?' We miss them.' And I said, 'Our show is over,'" Kate tells Barbara Walters on "The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009," airing Wednesday on ABC.

Ick. That whole crew creeped me out when they first appeared; I saw their narrative arc from the outset, and I'm sure the super-exposure inflicted on those kids is going to haunt them for the rest of their days. Nice going, there, parents. They are very creepy, and for Gosselin to be deemed one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009, what the hell is everything coming to? Yeesh.

The Big Board

This may seem so old-school, but I swear I need to get one of those whiteboards, like a status board, for my writing. On one hand, I could use the databases on the old computer, where everything's still kept, but as the old computer is being slowly mothballed, I have yet to impose a new order on the iMac. I don't want to upload everything on there.

Anyway, I'm tempted to whiteboard my various stories to indicate what's where, so I can just look on the board and react accordingly. I feel like I need that kind of a concrete thing, instead of it just being confined to electrons in the old computer. I haven't done it, yet -- I may just get a notebook and have that be the equivalent, but I haven't fully decided, yet.

Another short story idea, rendered through a title...

• Milking Human Kindness

A kind of SF/Horror story, this one is. Just jotting it down, so I don't lose the little chip of paper I write upon. As ever, I'm behind on my output, need to do that, but with Writing Season (e.g., Winter) riding high in the skies, it's a perfect time for me to propel myself forward on my schedule.

Magic Number: 6

Buh?

I had a topic to blog about this morning, but put it off, and now I can't remember. I hate that. Hopefully it'll occur to me later.

Magic Number: 5

Movies: The Matrix -- Bum Watching

Funny how "The Matrix" -- which was so influential for a little while, in terms of style, how, I dunno, dated it is, too. I enjoy it more now than I originally did. I actually found it very disappointing when I saw it on the big screen. Trinity reminded me of Abby Normal, a character I'd made at least a decade before (herself my own kind of take on Molly from "Neuromancer" -- a recurring character William Gibson used in a few tales). At any rate, "The Matrix" blew its wad after the first movie, staggered, stumbled, fell.

One thing that amused me with it, however, something that was never really dealt with in the pseudo-scientific spackle that made up the story was the Matrix itself. One image in particular (and a minor one at that) always stuck with me -- it was near the end, when a bum in the subway sees Trinity and Neo do something extraordinary, and that alerts Agent Smith, who appears in a few moments to attack Neo. Well and good.

But the bum in the subway always amused me -- Smith talks about how suffering and strife appeared to define humanity's existence, and how perfect Matrices led to the loss of "whole crops" (as he termed humanity). So, the concept of struggle was introduced, and the Matrix ideal archetype was set, with late 20th century civilization set up as civilization at its peak.

So, there's the bum in the subway, and I always found myself wondering: who gets to be the bum? Who's the lucky soul who is the Designated Bum in the Matrix world? For much of the movie, you see this very clean corporate world -- lots of movers and shakers, a few working-class types, some shadowy cops, even some rain-slicked streets and derelict buildings.

But who gets to be the bum? How does that work out? In this world, a variety of situations can lead to that, sure -- mental illness, terrible sustained misfortune (?) -- both? It takes something pretty bad for somebody to end up a bum. However, in a created universe, one that is administered as the Matrix is, something (the Architect, I guess?) is deciding who does what. I guess the program decides that X% of the populace gets to be bums, Y% gets to be famous and rich, Z% occupies some middle niche.

In the movie, you see Cipher talk to Smith about what he wants to be, when he gets plugged back in, and so you can see that there, at least in theory, is some process of allocation in the Matrix, at least for those who are aware of it as a construct.

That being said, say you are one of the unlucky sods who ges to be The Bum. Since the system is a program, since your Bum archetype is effectively your programming, is it possible for you to rise above your "station" -- to become more than a bum, more than a derelict? Or is that guy resigned to his condition, drinking rotten booze and laying there in a subway with his newspapers and his filth because he's lacked the willpower to move beyond his programming.

Given the ghetto Nietzschean values that underpin so much of "The Matrix," it's very hard to look at the Bum and not think that this guy is just a complete human waste, and if he only had the Will To Power(tm), he'd be a player like Neo and Morpheus and the other Matrix Kool Kids(tm).

All the same, I find it funny to think of these constructs with their apparent lot in life, just because it's one thing to have a construct of a playboy club kid, or a restauraunteur, or a tycoon, or fashion model or a rock star -- but the bum? How much does that suck? Big-time. So, is that an expression of the inhuman cruelty of the Matrix in action, or does the Bum(tm) serve a purpose within the Matrix itself, as a cattle prod to ensure that the constructs within it are all busy working hard so they don't, themselves, end up as bums? Since nothing in the Matrix is truly accidental (since it is a program, we have to assume this, right?) -- then the Bum exists for a reason.

Still, I can't help but laugh every time I see that hapless bastard in the subway -- it's somehow an extra screw-job to be a bum in a virtual universe. Bad enough to be one in the real world, and somehow an extra kick in the teeth to be one in a virtual world.

Calendar Girl

I loved Calendar Girl from the Batman animated series. She was only in one episode, but she had such a great look, such killer Gotham villain shtick, and put Bats through his paces...



A pity the character was only conceived as a one-off for the show, because she was great.

http://www.batman-superman.com/batman/cmp/cgirl.html

The only flaw with the episode is the chronology of it -- we're to believe she's attacking seasonally, kidnapping these people and holding them for months before finally planning to dispatch them? Crazy enough, sure, but the practical difficulties of that are daunting, since some of the victims would have been kept on ice for like seven months (?)

But otherwise, it's a great episode.

What are words for?

1733 words (for "Old Hickory", which is currently just under 6000 words).

First proper snow of the season last night and this morning. It looks pretty. The writing weather begins in earnest! Love it!

I didn't get enough sleep last night. Have a bit of sleep-debt going. But had to get some words in this morning.

Magic Number: 3

Stegner

I'm going to try for a Stegner Fellowship next year. Their time of eligibility is September 1 through December 1. I'm going to go for it, will craft some fiction for it. They typically get around 1400 applicants for it each year, so those 1:1400 odds feel pretty good to me! We'll see. That's not for awhile, obviously. Plenty of time. They are primarily about Literary(tm) fiction, so I'll do something Literary(tm) for them.

Still working on the revisions for TGO. I'm about two-thirds done with that. It'll probably take another week to iron them out. I still have to sort out the ending for it, get it right. Then I'll whip up a query for that one, see if there are any takers. More irons, more fires.

Unimog

This is a glimpse of my desk. I have this little Matchbox Mercedes-Benz Unimog truck there. I love the Unimog. It's just very cute. I first saw one at a Target, bought it for B2. He played with it awhile, then lost it (I think it was on his stroller, tumbled away at some point). I was saddened by the loss of the Unimog, and bought myself one (pictured, above). I stumbled across two of them at a Target in Northlake last weekend, and bought both, gave them to my boys. There is something very agreeable about the squat shape of the little trucks. And I love the all black tires, instead of the black-and-silver which is a toy car staple. And I love that the little bed in the back can be put to work.

In my case, I put a Flamingo Casino dice in there. Each morning, I roll the dice, and put that number in the bed of the Unimog. No rhyme or reason to it, just chance.

The number today is 2, incidentally. I'll include the number at the bottom of any post henceforth on this blog. It'll be right at the bottom of the post. That's my number of the day. Of course, only 1-6 will be represented, but that's alright, isn't it?

2

Visions: Chris Cunningham

I think the video director, Chris Cunningham, has a real eye for an arresting image. The Horrors' video, "Sheena Is a Parasite," is magnificent! A snapshot horror movie, full of compelling, arresting images...



It makes me think of my story, "Rotgut." Like a "Rotgut" dance party, basically! Good times!

I'm intrigued by his work, his approach, and his vision. Curiously, he directed a few Aphex Twin videos, which amuse me, because an Aphex Twin tune is referenced in one of my books.