Twitter Fun

Had fun posting as Sarah Pinborough's liver on twitter. Everyone was good sport. A few people got on as her other parts and got a little weird.

It was a good time, but all good things must come to an end.

Fs for Everyone!

I hate grading
I hate it a lot
Who’er invented it
They should be shot

And hung by their necks
Until they are dead
Or maybe I’ll give them
My grading instead.

Betwixt the Genres

I love to write. The trouble is, I have such trouble figuring out what I want to write. I have several projects going, many of them I think could turn out pretty well. The problem is that I have no idea what would have the best chance of making it into print.

I know, I know: write what I read. Problem is, I read in all the genres I love to write.

I would love to do some steampunky YA, but I really want to do some dark fiction for MG boys. Not to mention, I love horror, scifi, and noir-ish crime.

I love supernatural elements, but don't like them overdone. For example, I like the Dresden novels, but sometimes, they're a little heavy on the magic and the trouble at the end of each chapter trope becomes a bit tiresome. I can almost see the puppetmaster's strings, and I don't like that.

So, how do I combine all these cool genres and stuff and still be identifiable within a genre, because we all know that's how the industry works.

I could do some kind of YA steampunk horror in space, but, man, that seems like overload. I just can't see a fifteen year old who loves tinkering and has a crush on the captain's daughter fighting off a steampunk cyborg that slips in and out of peoples' dreams and murders them while in hypersleep, or something.

Beam me up, Freddy!

So, here I am with a bloody brass cog spinning, trying to weave some kind of yarn that would not only be enjoyable, but also sell.

Back to grinding away the keys. Maybe tonight I'll work on that urban fantasy with fallen angels...

It's been awhile...

I just don't blog like I used to.

But I do tweet, occasionally.

These days, I feel more like an observer.

Urban Fantasy, before it was a Niche...

circa 1980, hence the source of all my inspiration...

Measure Twice, Cut Once

We bought a new bed. The old bed was scarred, beaten, berated, and thirteen years old. It really was time for a new one and we decided to go all out.

We bought a king size bed with a pillow-top. It's soft, it's firm, it's amazing.

And it doesn't fit in our bedroom.

We have a pretty small house, on the whole. We're two rather rotund people (slightly overweight, or as my wife says "obese." We have differing perspectives on the matter.) and we have two children. We have two goldfish (as long as we remember to feed them) and tons and tons of books.

We didn't realize how big a king size bed was going to be, but we thought we'd splurge a bit. Pamper ourselves. So, we purchased a moderately priced bed that works for both of us. We had fun trying out the various beds, seeing what we liked and didn't like. It's our first bed buying experience as a married couple and we're nearly six years in.

But the delivery guys laughed. The bed is as tall as our two year old and you can't open any of the dresser drawers. It's crazy.

Before we bought the bed, I hesitated. I thought for a moment about going home to measure the bedroom and get an idea of what we can fit, but I didn't.

So here we are with a super-large bed that uber-comfortable and a bathroom we have to shimmy between mattress and dresser to enter.

Fantastic! :)

Measure first, then decide. Always good advice.

A Table of Contents to emeraldcite's Fiction and Poetry

Fiction Shorts


Carry that Weight
The Days Alone, Part I
A Disturbance in the Classroom
Fisher of Beasts
The Hit Gone Terribly Right
In Print
Midnight Snack
Untitled


Fiction

"Vampire Earth," Bloodlust-UK (2002 or 2003?) [Man, this is from so long ago. I was a terrible writer then. Hell, I'm a pretty terrible write now :)]



Poetry

Villanelle for the Ages

I write like a girl...

I stole this from the good people at Making Light, who always have fabulous posts and links.


So, apparently, I write like a girl. This site uses complex (and in my opinion, totally invented) algorithms to examine the text of a sample and guess the gender.

Yeah, I plugged in a blog post. It says I'm female. I plugged in fiction. It says I'm a girl.

I'm starting to get insulted at this point, so I plug in some Hemingway. Lo and behold, it says the manliest man of the literary world is also a girl.

Something is definitely wrong with this program.

Give the Gender Genie a try for yourself.