It’s another very wet and grey day in Vancouver. I guess no snow is a good thing but still, I’ve had enough of the rain.

So, what’s being going on. Ah yes, Tuesday was tying-up-loose-ends day. I finished the final drafts of a couple of stories – the horticultural science fiction tale, F Bomb, and a piece of flash fiction that could be a poem instead called On the Finding of the Body. Body as I like to call it, was actually written at some point last year and was inspired by Amanda Palmer’s Who Killed Amanda Palmer album. I think originally I was going to submit it to one of her websites but I never got round to it. Anyway, I tweaked it a little bit and moved it to the glorious Finished folder.

Tuesday was also the day that the critique of The Ghost Smuggler arrived from Jeff VanderMeer. He’s provided lots of great feedback and some very insightful comments and suggestions. Now I just need to work out what to do with it all.

In the evening submitted I four more stories including Body. F Bomb will go out later this week.

Wednesday morning was mostly filled with writing but it was for my day job. I put together a 500(ish) word non-fiction article as part of the pitch for a side project that we’re hoping to release early next year. On Thursday one of the Technical Directors on my team is going to start building the actual prototype. It was fun to write, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everyone likes it so that we can do some more. Then the day turned into one of those “bounce around the apartment not really doing anything” sort of days.

I’m hoping Thursday will be more productive.

As promised, I finished the first draft of F Bomb last night. Two hundred and six minutes to write two thousand and seventy two words and I’m pretty happy with it.

As always it now sits in the unfinished folder for a couple of weeks to let it ‘stew’.

As well as finishing F Bomb, I created a folder for Novel Number 2 which from now on will be known as Uncanny Freaks. I won’t actually be starting on the novel for a couple of weeks yet so it’s largely a ceremonial step but it does give me somewhere to store the notes that I need to start making.

I also moved an unfinished story into my abandoned folder. That makes unlucky thirteen stories in my abandoned. Some of them are just snippets of stories I wrote years ago. Others are almost complete tales that just didn’t work. Some of the ideas are good though, including the one I consigned to oblivion last night so I’ll be returning to it at some point – I’ll just be starting fresh.

As well as the abandoned folder, I have a bunch of unsold stories that I like to read through every now and again. Most of them are unsold for a reason but again, there’s some interesting ideas in some of them and although I don’t submit them any more, one day I’ll probably rewrite one or two.

And last but not least, Matt Nord has posted the table of contents for So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains on his blog.

Last night Ann and I spent a very entertaining evening at a puppet show.

Yes…a puppet show.

I know that doesn’t sound very rock n roll but these are post-apocalyptic puppets so it’s okay.

Ronnie Burket controls and voices all the marionettes in this one man show featuring a blind woman – Penny Plain – and a bizarre mix of  survivalists, a serial killer, a cross-dressing banker, talking dogs and mysterious strangers seeking sanctuary from the apocalypse. The marionettes are incredible, and it’s a wildly entertaining show – funny, strange and sad.

If you get the chance to see it, I highly recommend it. For Vancouverites it’s on at the Cultch for a few more days and you can order tickets here.

I also got the corrections to The Z Word and a new bio off to the editor of So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains.

Today, I want to finish F Bomb.

Definitely.

No excuses.

Honest.

I guess I should know better than to make plans by now.

A friend I hadn’t seen for several years dropped by my office yesterday with some tickets to see the Vancouver Canucks play the Colorado Avalanche. I’m not a huge sports fan but I do enjoy watching ice hockey. Probably because

1) It’s fast – team’s can go from winning to losing, literally in a few seconds of game time

2) It’s the first time where my local sports team has actually stood a chance of winning anything

3) I live in Canada

It was a great game. The Vancouver Canucks won six to nothing and there were smokies, mini donuts and beer.

No work on F Bomb although I did produce an entry for Tuesday Tales 18 – Break. You can find a link to it on the Free Fiction page.

 

Mostly day job and shopping yesterday but I did manage to scrape together a surprisingly productive hour of creativity and add another 727 words to F Bomb. That brings the total word count to 1693 and the end clearly into view. My plan is to finish it tonight and although I do want to go back and fill in a bit more detail in a couple of places, I’m still very happy with the story. That’s unusual for me so we’ll see if that’s still the case when I’ve written the ending.

Weird Fiction Review posted a great story yesterday. Originally published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a wonderfully disturbing tale and it’s well worth a read. Of course, if you like your fiction weird then Weird Fiction Review should already be on the list of sites you visit regularly.

In other news, the proofs for So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains arrived yesterday and it’s looking very good indeed. Matt Nord has put together a monster collection (over 420 pages of Zombie fiction plus the first five chapters of the upcoming Collaboration of the Dead novel).

And I still love the cover.

Cover for So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains
That means tonight I need to read through the proofs and get any changes back to Matt. I’ve already given my story, The Z Word, a quick check and it looks great, he’s made excellent use of italics to help guide the reader through the story and I think it helps a lot. You’ll see what I mean when you buy the book.

You are going to buy it right?