Spillage Prequel, Rain, Links...

Last summer I sent a story to Darrell Schweitzer at Weird Tales and he responded that I had created a very original mythos and besides a few stylistic dislikes, he thought it was a good story with one small problem: I didn't do enough to explain what was going on, how my universe worked.

He said it was as if I'd written the first vampire story and no one knew what a vampire was. I just had my character acting like a vampire without explaining the hows and whys. So, I thought about this and about the story and planned a revision and then BAM! I was off writing for three months because of wrist surgery and now a year has passed and I'm just getting back to where I was then. Now, I have an idea. A Prequel. I came up with the ultimate backstory to explain the first story, perhaps a better story than the first one, too. So I'm going to work on that, maybe today or tonight and if I'm lucky, I will finish it soon. I've found that when I have an idea that's totally put together in my head, a plot and character that speak to me, I write faster and tend to finish stories in a single sitting. These complete stories also tend to have better cohesion than when I base something on vaguery. Sometimes I'll have a vague idea about something, just more a mental image, and sometimes it's harder to get that image to come alive. The image is powerful but without allowing access to my entire unconscious mind, it's hard to get that power to come out on the written page.

So last night, I dreamed that it rained--I mean it fucking poured gallons out of the sky--and because of the fact that there are 7000 wood ducks in Arkansas and only 3000 ponds, you will have a bunch of wood ducks in your pond after such a monsoon. And what do wood ducks do? In my dream, they eat wood.

It was freaky as fuck, especially when the big ass snake-looking, skeleton thing with a human skull as a head shot up out of my pond after me. I had a little Bersa .380 with me and in my dream, I had the deluxe 10 round magazine and after emptying the mag at this monstrosity, I began to club at the thing with the empty pistol. In my dream, I could still see the slide locked back. And as the skeleton snake descended on me, this black, blood stuff erupted from it's mouth coating me in slime...freaky shit. And my fuzzy house slippers were fucking SOAKED! For some reason, I'd worn them to the pond.

So, I've got a good plot hook for Gainer--a story about weight lifting--and a prequel to Spillage and of course, the rewrite for Spillage itself. If I can fix Cheaper By The Pound and get it out, I will be doing well. That's four good stories in addition to the new one, tentatively called Troll Bridge or Goat's Gruff. Can't decide yet.

So, that's pretty much it for my writing. If you get time, view some webpages.

http://www.mikeoliveri.com/

This guy is fucking funny as hell as well as being smart. He's also a writer. And has the coolest webpage name I've ever seen. The Malice Engine. How can you not like that?


http://hailsaten.blogspot.com/

Brian Keene's Blog. Enough said.

http://p082.ezboard.com/bshocklinesforum

Shocklines forum. If the link doesn't work, you'll have to go to ezboard and look it up in the search feature. Great place to hang out and read, very loose.

A lot of the time, I read on firearms related websites and post there as well. Packing.org and GlockTalk among others and the thing is, they believe in the Second Amendment very strongly but you can't use profanity or argue or anything like that, or go off topic, and I've always kind of thought that was not quite in line with the First Amendment but hey, it has taught me to type without using words like fuck.

Anyway, I'll leave you with these words of wisdom:

"Fuck the police. Fuck the police. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck the police."

Jb