A Quick Note

Just a quick note today. Russell and I are heading up to Flagstaff early tomorrow morning. No update tomorrow night as I will be in a tent. I hope to have some photos for sunday or monday night.

Court of Honor

Russell had his first appearance at a boy scout court of honor this evening. He received his first two merit badges, First Aid and Basketry. He earned them both at Camp Geronimo this past summer. He also officially received his Scout badge, but he has been wearing it since the end of May. We'll try to do some work on Astronomy merit badge while we're up there.

This weekend, the troop is going to Flagstaff for some camping and to visit Lowell Observatory. (Yes, I do indeed realize I was just there last week, but I didn't get to go inside.) I'll have some photos to share in a few days.

Review - I Can Fly

The Fix just reviewed The Written Word volume #13, containing my story I Can Fly.

I Can Fly by Rick Novy is a flash, first person narrative by a child that punches the reader in the gut.
- Carole Ann Moleti, The Fix

I must say, I love when a reviewer gets it, and I love when a story works as intended. That's pretty much the same reaction I get from anybody who reads it and provides feedback.

Chort Shtories

Funny thing about working on a novel is that other ideas come to mind. Some are other novels, some are good ideas for short stories.

While working on this slog-a-thon of a novel, I've already come up with the "cool idea-TM" for one I will tackle no earlier than the one after the next one. In addition, I have the seed for the annual Halloween story contest at Codex Writers Group. The seed can't be revealed until after the contest ends, but I can say that this year, my story seed was provided by Klingon Guy, Lawrence M. Schoen. The concept I must incorporate into my story is something I probably would not have done otherwise.

John Jacob Adams is editing an anthology called Federations. I would very much like to have something appear in that market

Finally, I have a first draft of my latest short story, marked up by SFFW, which is the writers group here in Phoenix that I started with a few others last year. For those who care, SFFW stands for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers. Catchy name, eh? I had to give the group a name on the spot so the Borders where we meet could write it on a piece of paper.

So, it looks like I have three short fiction projects coming up and a good stopping point in the novel also coming up. So, regarding Rigel Kentaurus, I plan to complete this first arm of the Y-shaped story then take a break and work on some short fiction for a few weeks. When I finish those projects, I'll start on the other arm. Maybe that sort of change in scenery is what I need.

More Slog

Ugh. I've been so busy lately that balancing my checkbook fell 4 months behind. It took me three days to get through that mess, with missing transactions and bunched up EFT transactions that take forever to find. You'd think after fifteen years of marriage that I'd be used to it, but I still hate sharing my checkbook.

But, its done. For now. It's one of those activities you just hate to do because it takes a lot of effort to make the statement, the checkbook, and Quicken all match. Blech.

I don't know about you, but it sure seems like I use debit more often than ever. Not having the check numbers makes keeping track of things far more difficult. I guess life just gets more and more complicated.

The Blahs

Ever have one of those days when everything seems to go against you? I'm suffering from the blahs, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I managed to write about 800 words on the novel today, yet I'm more concerned with the short story manuscripts that have been out over two months. I must have a dozen I sent out all on the same day back in June. The law of averages says it's not likely they are all under serious consideration. The novel is a slog, I have a short story in semi-finished state since May, and my job eats all my writing time. On top of that, my bank statement doesn't balance.

Time for bed. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

More with Alan Dean Foster

I managed to get all the photos off my phone and onto my computer so I can share them with you. Prescott wasn't the only place I visited friday. I also went to Flagstaff.

This is what the entrance to Lowell Observatory looks like. Notice the nice juicy monsoon storm clouds forming in the sky. I was with a Flagstaff local who did not know what the symbols on the left are. Do you know? You can click the photo to make it larger.



If you are facing these Lowell Observatory wickets and do a 180, you'll be looking out over Flagstaff and see something like this.



And, as promised, here is Alan at his writing desk. The desk is probably the least interesting of all the flat surfaces in the study. Since Alan posted photos of his study on his web site, I'll let you look over there. I did take a cell phone movie but posting that would be like an invasion of privacy IMHO. I asked Alan if I could post the photos I am putting here.



And this is the best of two attempts to get an image of us together. Let me tell you, it's very difficult to line up a shot when you can't see the screen.



See what I mean?

Finally, I wanted to show you what I did with the strands of mammoth hair that Alan gave me. They spent the ride home in my pocket. Late last night, I found a nice picture of a mammoth by scouring google images. I found the one you see in the photo below.

The frame itself hold the picture recessed from the glass a good half inch or more. You can't see it very well in the photo, but live the hairs loop around in three dimensions. (This picture I shot with a camera, not my phone.)



Remember those monsoon clouds up top in the Lowell shot? Well, I got dumped on while driving east along AZ69 between Prescott and I-17. I saw the coolest rainbow that actually come down out of the sky in front of the mountains. Well, as it turns out, it is also very difficult to get a good cell phone photo while driving in the rain at 65 MPH on a two-lane highway. The picture doesn't nearly do the rainbow justice, but at least I got the rainbow in the shot. So, for all you treasure-hunters, the pot of gold lies inside the triangle formed by AZ69, AZ169, and I17.

A Visit with Alan Dean Foster

This afternoon, I found myself in Prescott, Arizona for a visit with veteran science fiction and fantasy writer Alan Dean Foster. Alan and I had been corresponding on and off over the past couple of years. Despite both of us living in Arizona, until today we never managed to meet in person.

Alan has a reputation as a world traveller, and it certainly is true. He has a fabulous collection of artifacts from around the world to go along with all the his SF and fantasy art and first edition books. We spent about two hours together as he gave me a guided tour of his collection with stories to go with several items. If you go to the May 2008 entry of his news page, you can see several photos of his beautiful study. It's a dream work environment for a writer.

One of the artifacts he owns is a tangle of wooly mammoth hair. He gave me a few strands, and I have plans for them. I will share when it's done. I have a few photos of my own, but they are on my cell phone. They are difficult to get off the phone, so I will post them another time.

Long Hours

Sorry once again for the blog post drought. I'm working long hours again and there just doesn't seem to be time in the day when I finish helping with homework at 10:30PM and have to get up at 5:00PM. I'll make an effort to get something substantial posted soon.

I've Been Tagged, Too

Oh, the things you discover by doing vanity Google searches. Advanced apologies to the five I tag.

The Crotchety Old Fan has tagged me with a meme started by SFSignal.

I'm going to cut and paste the instructions for the benefit of the next players.

# Copy the list below.

# Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book.

# Italicize the movie titles for which you started the book but didn't finish it.

# Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme.

Here is where I show how much cinema I don't watch, or how much cinema I read, for that matter. Still, I'll give it a go.

1 Jurassic Park
2 War of the Worlds
3 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4 I, Robot
5 Contact
6 Congo
7 Cocoon
8 The Stepford Wives
9 The Time Machine
10 Starship Troopers
11 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12 K-PAX
13 2010
14 The Running Man
15 Sphere
16 The Mothman Prophecies
17 Dreamcatcher
18 Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19 Dune
20 The Island of Dr. Moreau
21 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22 The Iron Giant(The Iron Man)
23 Battlefield Earth
24 The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25 Fire in the Sky
26 Altered States
27 Timeline
28 The Postman
29 Freejack(Immortality, Inc.)
30 Solaris
31 Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32 The Thing(Who Goes There?)
33 The Thirteenth Floor
34 Lifeforce(Space Vampires)
35 Deadly Friend
36 The Puppet Masters
37 1984
38 A Scanner Darkly
39 Creator
40 Monkey Shines
41 Solo(Weapon)
42 The Handmaid’s Tale
43 Communion
44 Carnosaur
45 From Beyond
46 Nightflyers
47 Watchers
48 Body Snatchers

As I feared, not many.

My tag list:

1) 2008 Campbell Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal
2) Eric James Stone
3) Jack Mangan
4) James Maxey
5) Matt Rotundo