Spokesbear

A frustrated Spokesbear is dangerous

PETERMBALL Journal , , ,

I’m drinking my second cup of coffee of the morning, revelling in the fact that I’ve been awake for nearly three hours now and I don’t yet feel the need to take a nap. Huzzah for reaching the end of the medication, although the celebrations are tempered by the fact that I head into the dentist for stage two of my root canal this afternoon. I know nothing about the art of dentistry, but the implication after my last visit was essentially “if the infection’s still there, we’ll have to remove the tooth instead.”

I’m okay with removing the tooth, to be honest, as long as it doesn’t come with another round on medication. Experience says I have a predilection towards sloth that shouldn’t be encouraged and I have phobias about returning to the slacker mindset that dominated my early twenties. Or, to return to my new years resolution: don’t fuck it up, dumb-ass. I’ll take a week of jaw pain over a week of sleeping any day.

My medication-induced narcolepsy would bother me less if the project du jour wasn’t doing the rewrite on Cold Cases, the second Miriam Aster novella. It’s not that I begrudge the fact that it needs rewriting – I dig rewriting – but there’s a certain element of I’d really like this to be done, now, please, when it comes to this book. I’ve lived with it for far too long* and it’s still playing coy, refusing to reveal the right beginning or structure. And it still suffers from its lingering bout of sequelitis, despite my attempts to strip out the signs of infection. Frustration abounds. Especially since I’m only paddling around in the shallow end of the rewrite, grabbing an hour here and there, rather than diving in and immersing myself in the book again.

The Spokesbear, of course, is raring to go. He’s been making notes, re-reading Horn to wrap his head around the narrative voice, and generally preparing for two weeks of total immersion in the manuscript. Impatience makes him testy and unbearable, but what can you do?

Right now, the best I can think of is go eat some porridge.

*well, not with Cold Cases specifically, but much of last year was spent thinking about the book that would follow Horn, and this is the second attempt at it.

Seven Thoughts for a Tuesday

PETERMBALL Journal , ,

1) On the grand list of bad narrative decisions that cause me to dislike things I should have loved the decision to have the first half of Veronica Mars, Season 3, to use extreme feminists as one of the key antagonists is right at the top. The first time I watched the series it was a moment of pure WTF and it seriously hasn’t made any more sense on subsequent viewings.

2) Someone has created inhalable coffee as a consumer product. The jet packs and self-driving cars are surely on their way.

3) Part of my beef with the decision mentioned in number one? The writers of Veronica Mars have a seemingly magical ability to create empathy with the antagonists. *Every single arsehole* in the show – from the self-involved Sheriff Lamb to killer Aaron Eckles to frat-boy Dick Casablancas – has a redeeming moment or two in amidst their grating evil. There was depth to them. The “evil feminist” antagonists aren’t ever given this – even when there’s a reason behind there actions, they’re always contrasted against the protagonists actions and they’re left feeling vaguely weak and unsympathetic due to the fact that they’re primary role is to be not-Veronicas rather than developed characters in their own right. In the narrative morality of the show, they are always “wrong”.

4) And really, in reference to the above, fuck that shit for a bad joke.

5) I finish the first round of antibiotics and painkillers today, which means I’ll be heading back to the dentist tomorrow. I’ll either be getting the second stage of my root canal done, or they’ll decide the infection hasn’t been adequately fought off and remove my tooth. With luck, neither of these options will involve going back to my doctor for another round of medication. I like this staying awake thing. It lets me get work done and leads to far fewer panicked phone calls from my parents demanding to know what’s going on.

6) Also, when you nap for five hours at a time, the difference between napping and sleepingis effectively nil. It also results in a vaguely zombified appearance.

7) The spokesbear demands I get work done today. I will obey the spokesbear.

One of the reasons I like the future

PETERMBALL Adventures in Lifestyle Hacking , ,

Being a single bloke who lives alone, I have a certain blindspot when it comes to shopping. Actually, I have several, but the one I speak of here primarily kicks in when browsing through the area marked “fruit and vegetables.”  I have my staples – there’s usually a spanish onion or two in the house, plus some potato and sweet potato if I’m splashing out- but I generally stick with a few vegetables and rarely touch the fruit at all. If ever there were a guy who steps forth to challenge the statement that “man cannot live on curry and pizza alone,” it’d probably be me.

I’ve mostly arrived at this situation through habit, laziness, and the tendency towards belt-tightening when one lives alone and doesn’t get to share around the general costs of living. I’m also aware that it’s not a good state of affairs, especially since I’m taking the easy route of take-away food far more often than I used too (which, yes, contradicts the belt-tightening logic above, but the other part of living alone is *keeping yourself sane* so it pays not to examine my logic too deeply). So last week I contacted one of those organic famer-direct delivery services the internet has on offer, and this afternoon a nice chap has delivered the first box of randomly-assorted in-season fruit and veg to my door.

It’s a veritable cornacopia of tastiness. I know, because I’ve already devoured the first of the nectarines. This is not the bit where the future is awesome.

No, the bit where the future is awesome came after about thirty minutes of searching for the doobie-do that connects my digital camera to my computer and failing. “Woe,” said I, “for now there will be no visuals to accompany the blog post.”

“Hey dumbarse,” said the spokesbear, “you dear realise that your new computer came with a SDHC drive that’ll fit the data thingy from your camera, right?”

And lo, he was correct, and the future corrected my problem before I even realised such things were possible. Freaking awesome. *This* is why it’s good to be a luddite sometimes.

Also, I finished rebuilding a story that’s been sitting around in parts for the last three months, waiting for me to revise it and fix it and sent it out in the world. Productivity FTW!

Also, I have peaches. They are delicious. The fruit half of that box is so not lasting the weekend.

And since today is Friday, and I’m certain of this because I’ve double-checked this time, I’ll be heading off to celebrate the launch of the Tangled Bank anthology where a bunch of fine authors (including Chris Green and Ben Francisco) have been rocking Darwinian Evolution, SF-Short-Story Style.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 1
Days without chocolate: 9
Today the Spokesbear is: OM-NOM-NOM-NOM.