I decided to live the dream and become a starving artist this summer. Yes, that's right. I will crimp my back hunched over the keyboard late into the night, feeling the growl from my stomach and ignoring it for ART. My friend Sara King, who has shot a bear and might soon shoot her ex-husband for trying to claim intellectual property rights on ANYTHING SHE WRITES AGAIN EVER, is also living the dream and we've been swapping stories back and forth.

Unfortunately, I only semi-qualify as a starving artist since I have a nearly-full-time job. Also, I have a wife and child who support me and understand my longing to make it as a writer, which ruins the qualification that "no one understands me." Also, I can't grow a beard. Like a good starving artist, I blame society.

Also, I don't really starve, because I spend too much of my rare money on ice cream.

But other than that...

Last week started as a good week for starving artistry. I woke up with angst, ready to cast myself from society. After reading four or five short stories in one day, a short story just fell out of me between Sunday and Monday. Six thousand words, on the page like poop in a bucket. It was a beautiful thing. Not the poop. The story. Chrissy thinks it's one of my best.

I started work on a novel that I did 7000 words on for a class a while ago and then left for later. I wrote seven thousand more words and then... pbbt. It sucked. I printed it all, deleted everything for the computer and am now retyping carefully to filter it. As you can imagine, this causes annoyance. I don't like writing the same thing over again, even if the story improves.

And when I have trouble with the novel, the Frenchman comes. He comes into my head and says things like this:

"Ze novel does not go well. Ze noveleest walks across ze street to heez favor-eet cafe. He sees patterrns on ze walls in ze bricks. Zey look like cheeldren laughing at heem, mocking ze arteesteec ambeetions. A single tear falls eento heez coffee."

New word.

Spunic: noun; a tunic worn by Spencer.

Spunic.

I ventured forth to the Iron Springs Writers' retreat this weekend, with fabulous folk too many to name. But I will name jaylake , who ran a great critique group. His energy, humor and friendliness were all at top level and pretty amazing given the stuff the guy's dealing with. Also, he's still damn sexy. That hair...

And the other folks in my crit group--kehrli , criada , Sean Forbes, Laura (whose last name has reached escape velocity at the moment), Jack Bell, and our housemate Sarah Avery who, with her lovely husband Dan and cute-as-sin kid Gareth (named after one of the only consistently likeable knights in Le Morte D'Arthur) was a lot of fun to share a house with. They really buttered me up and gave me constructive criticism on a novel beginning that has been moldering aroudn my computer waiting to get kicked into high gear.

I'm afraid I wasn't much of a critiquer myself, though. I tried the best I could. I think that the stress of graduating and finishing what was a massive load of work for my on-campus job at the end of the year, plus the anxiety of trying to make it financially on what will soon be very much less money, made it just difficult for me to really analyze a story. (Also, it's making it difficult to construct a sentence. These are long.)

The best part for me, though, with the inner wannabe teacher, was doing the presentation on query letters and the Care and Feeding of Agents. People brought their queries, including Chelsea Campbell, who went all the way to book sale from a simple little query. Hark! It's a damn good query Chelsea has there, too.

We went way longer and people were way more into it than I thought they would be. Lots of people practiced pitching face-to-face, lots of people and lots of anal sex jokes. I'm still not sure how that came up. But it was quite cool, so much so that I would like to write them all down one of these days. Not the anal sex jokes, but the insights on breaking in that everyone came up with, and the way we analyzed the heck out of query letters and flap copy.

Also, there was a bald eagle.

That scandalous title leads me to tell you that I...

am writing some freelance stuff about comics and Seattle. If I get enough hits, I even get paid. Here's a review of my favorite local comic store, based on the first time I went there:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-13087-Seattle-Comic-Books-Examiner~y2009m6d20-Comic-Store-Reviews-Bellingham-The-Comics-Place

Thanks for all the congrats (and one Yowza!) from everyone. I have a very nice letter on my fridge that says the judges thought my story "was very nice and spooky, like a good Night Gallery episode." Curiously enough, one of the aspects of the story they complimented me on was one that Chrissy came up with when she read the first draft, as an offhand suggestions. I'm a lucky man. All this and creativity, too.

I found a 20$ bill today while I was walking home from school. It was kind of weird. I noticed it, and I probably would have kept walking, but I stopped to point it out to the friend I was walking with.

She convinced me that I had found it through serendipity and I should take advantage of such a thing. But I felt weird. Like I should have reported it. I wonder if it was part of some kind of science experiment in altruism, or foot traffic, or something like that, because it had the number 38 written on it in blue pen.

Now, after having eaten the root beer float I bought with my serendipitous gains, I am worried that perhaps I had some good karma coming my way, and by picking up the 20$, I might have used it up. Like I had almost built up enough for a really good job at a community college, and now it's gone.

I'm sorry, 20$!!!

(PS--Considering how good that root beer float was, I'm not that sorry.)

"Dear Spencer Ellsworth

You won the 2009 PARSEC Short Story Contest.  The check for $200 was
mailed this morning.

please send an electronic copy of your story, The Worm Dieth Not, and
Their Fire is Not Quenched..."

Etc.

Happy happy happy

Joy joy joy

It will be printed in the CONfluence program book in Pittsburgh later this year.

bravado111  was the one who encouraged me to enter, and to enter early. Thanks, John. And as usual, thanks to the really supportive readers and friends out there, especially Chrissy, Dad, Becca and Eric.

This story was a Writers of the Future finalist and got me into Western's Creative Writing program. Also, a very early draft of this story was the first thing that Chrissy read that I wrote. It's cool to see it find a home.

Western totally wants to squeeze every drop of coin they can from my moist, gooshy corpse. Corpse in the sense that I'm graduating.

Apparently to get all stocked up for graduation you have to pay 75$. Aaaaand then... just to actually do your thesis, like, have a copy bound for the library, which is apparently NOT an option, it's 150$.

I was saving money so I could survive AFTER I graduate, dorkheads.

One of the joys of marriage--I got to be right today, when I thought I wouldn't be.

Chrissy wanted to leave the house and take Adia to a little petting-zoo farm out in some podunk place called Ferndale. Can you even say Ferndale without talking like the guy from King of the HIll? No, you can't. "Furndul." See? I told her we should just go for a walk in Bellingham, even though I knew there was no way it would be as cool. Still, Chrissy bore with me and took Adia down Whatcom Creek. And there we saw some Canadian geese with eleven adorable little goslings, one of the typically spectacular blue herons, and a bit old freaking beaver.

Beavers! You don't know how cool this is, unless you were raised in Mojave Asshole, California, and the only water you ever saw was the California Aquaduct, and the only native wildlife rattlesnakes. The first time I read Redwall, I had to go to our encyclopedia (sad world without the internet) and look up what badgers and beavers and otters actually looked like. (This is actually how I was able to give Sän information on wolverines the other night. Wolverines, despite being the size of hound dogs, can take down a moose! Yeah. That's one mustaelid you must-a-not mess with.)

Anyway, it seems that Whatcom Creek is actually as cool as a petting zoo.

My writing group is trying to teach me to write short stuff. In that vein, the Great Beast, the 225k novel I finished in January, is nearing its first rewrite. My goal has been to cut it to 175k. At the moment, I've gone through about five-sevenths of the books' segments and I have 142,275.

The problem is, I have 51, 928 left to go through and cut down by about half. I hold out hope--there was a lot of stuff toward the end I marked for serious surgery. But seriously, I've taken three or four chapters at a time and replaced them with one. I've chopped out entire subplots. And I even, sniff, cut some sex. This thing should be under 175k by the time I'm done. It has to be...

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I really didn't have a lot to post about. Still in school. Still writing.

I just wanted to say that I am in the greatest writing group ever. I will love my writing group in Utah and Fairwoods forever, but I've never been in a writing group before where the people involved were so enthusiastic. Everyone submits like crazy, writes like crazy (especially csinman ) and generally buoys each other up. Plus, they put up with my constant 12,000 word short stories.

Also want to say that Chrissy has been awesome lately, as I stress about rewriting the novel, going to school and holding down two jobs. I couldn't have a more supportive partner who plays Mommy and does design and art on the side.

Since the beginning of 2009, I've been much more satisfied with and excited about my writing than I was in 2008, which was, all in all, a depressing and frustrating year. Chrissy and I went deep into debt that is now slowly vanishing from the help of our tax return and my new job. I switched medications dozens of times and fell into serious depression, while trying to agent and be a student.

This year I've so far met my writing goal of writing a short story every month. I finished The Great Beast, my 225k novel Godskin, and have been successful thus far in cutting it. I'm about halfway through and at around 80k, so if I can keep cutting the rest of the book should get down to 160k, and then it will go to the readers, who will no doubt tell me to cut more. I've also quit snacking, lost a little weight, and been running every day. Things are generally looking up, though my attempts to get a real job are still not going anywhere (turns out I have a real mess of a resume, and I'm cleaning it up).

kenscholesI spent the morning at my new job talking to a guy named Warren who was a generally garrulous raconteur of a fellow. He had grown up in Asshole of Nowhere, Idaho, liked guns, and had a checkered past. I spent the afternoon talking with kenscholes  and jensfire  and making noise on a piano with Ken, who is also a garrulous raconteur who grew up in some other Asshole of Nowhere, probably handled a raaaahhhhhfle once in his life or twice, and whose past is so checkered that it was used as the logo for a ska band.

I can't quite remember who I talked to about what. Ken was mad that the work coffeepot was broken. Warren is the father of the redhead's twins. Or is it the other way around?

Weekend of the Skulls... er, Scholes... has been a lot of fun. Da no-good woithless bums in my MA program didn't show up for Ken's free lunch on-campus, but a couple of NorWesCon folks did. Chris Friday from the history department was an Instant Adia Convert and spent a lot of Ken's speech saying, "Is this mermaid your friend?" We had a lovely time eating dinner and then crawling the pubs.... well, Chrissy took Adia home and I crawled the pubs. Adia isn't allowed in the Bellingham pubs after a famous and destructive incident in a former pub crawl, involving Absolut, diaper projectiles, and a liberal use of the word "fox."

At Bayou on Bay my friend Jamie made up "Naked Mormons" for everyone. I drank Sän's Shirley Temple and he got right pissed off. Who knew he had a problem with saliva? The guy works in a porn store, probably cleaning used dildos. Saliva. People are funny, especially when people are Sän.

We had the Skulls for lunch Friday, made more noise on the piano and guitar yesterday, and then Ken's reading. It was good, for what I saw of it. I gave up and took Adia to the children's section in Village Books halfway through. She wouldn't sit still for Yertle the Turtle. I suspect I may have to disown her.

God bless America, and God bless KenJen Co, soon to expand their franchise.



</lj>

Increasing use of acronyms makes it harder to say things like, "What the F***?" when one's first instinct is to say "Dubbuyew tee eff?" but "Dubbuyew tee eff" is too hard to say, so one is left with "What the F***?"

This problemis dealt with by the addition of "ugga" or "ogga" to acronyms. "Wugga tuh Fugga?" or, instead of the classic OMG, "Ogga muh Gogga!" No need to say "Ell oh ell." Just say "Lugga og lugga!"

"Ugga" will soon become its own slang for "something cool to the ultimate," ex: "Ceiling cat is tuh ugga squared."

BONUS: Math teachers will get smart and start calling their class "Pie." They will blame it on confusion with the greek numeral. Math enrollment rates will soar, same for obesity.

For those still interested in the long-struggling novel, it got more of a break thatn I wanted it to get over the holidays, but I'm now chugging along. Well, not really chugging, but trying to get through some of the last few chapters before the climax without taking too big of an infodump. "Look, it was the one-armed Ssestrucian all along!" In the next week, I swear, since I've got other writing projects bearing down on me at the same time.

In other news, I've been telling people recently about the absolute worst sex I've ever read, which was, naturally, in a Conan book written by Robert Jordan. In this scene, Conan saves a girl from being raped, and then decides that he's going to have sex with her, whether she wants to or not.


"You spoke of a reward." He stepped out of his breechclout. "Since I doubt a word of thanks will ever crack your teeth, I'm collecting my own reward."

"So you're nothing but a ravisher of women after all," she said bitterly.

"That was close to an uncivil word, wench. And no revishment. All you need to do is say 'stop' and you'll leave this place chaste as a virgin for all of me."

He lowered himself onto her, and thoug she beat at his shoulders with her fists and filled the air with vile curses the word 'stop' never once passed her lips, and soon her cries changed their nature, for she was a woman full fledged, and he knew something of women.


So, basically, it's rape, but she liked it. Okay. If you can find worse sex in a novel, I'd really like to see it.

I'm dead serious.

I got a B+ in my graphic novel class. Me. Captain Graphic Novel of the Good Ship Graphic Novel.

Academia. Gotta love... no, wait, I hate it.

Guess I should have talked more about the arthrological deconstruction of the gutter space.

I'm not joking. That last sentence was totally f*cking serious.

In other news, Obama, What the Hell Were You Thinking?

This is the political equivalent of Spider-Man: One More Day. Emphasis on the selling your soul to the devil part.

rrrg. After the fun of sledding with csinman , I got home and this became a slightly frustrating day. The not-frustrating part: Sän is so very 2008 that he had to take a video with his handy camera as he sledded down a massive slope. He ended up falling out of the sled, proving the old adage that those who are constantly filming themselves will inevitably look like asses on their camera. (Or get caught in sexual congress with an underage girl. Hey, I don't make up these adages.)

Also, I met a kid named Riley who decided we would be best friends. Immediately. "Spencer! Go down this slope! This is the best one!" Our friendship ended abruptly when he wiped out after I pushed him down a slope. He wouldn't even say goodbye to me.

(Sledded sounds like it should be an irregular verbe. Slid? Slood? Slud?)




bzzt... hmm... novel bitching mode ON!

Okay. So I made the goal to finish my novel by Monday for the Codex novel contest. Due to a lot of the madness involved around finals, around Friday I realized I wouldn't finish it in time. So I set a new goal. Friday. Tomorrow. This gave me time, I thought, to write some chapters I had originally cut for length. Three thousand words a day would do it, I thought, and I've got few responsibilities other than finishing up some work stuff and thinking about a WotF story. Oh, and showering Chrissy with gifts.

I am not going to finish it tomorrow.

I decided to add back in some stuff I thought I would have to cut, last-minute, for the Codex novel contest. I seem to have forgotten that I had no idea how this stuff was going to end. I have a choice between:

a) cutting it again in order to keep the characters in status quo for the end of the novel

b) totally screwing the characters over like I'd love to, ruining their lives and drenching them in blood without worrying about how to get them back into place for the end

or

c) wrapping it up without asking too many questions, therefore kind if making the whole thing boringer than it should have been.

I like B. Perhaps if I kill, rape and murder, God will find a way. When God closes a door, he opens a window, and when he closes a stomach wound, an axe is more likely to split your skull open.

(novel bitching mode OFF!)
 

My man.

John Pitts has sold a three-book series in a rough economy, thus proving that he has written one HELL of a novel.

It could seriously not happen to a better person. John and his wife Kathy were the first people to feed us and welcome us when we moved to Bellevue. We had Easter dinner with them at one point, were introduce to Munchkin at their house, and they dared a Mormon service to see Adia blessed.

The universe is being good right now.

Bellingham has become Minnesota.

Temperatures are below freezing, there is snow everywhere, and the wind is gushing out of the North with a vengeance, bringing Garrison Keillor on a flying umbrella.

Since it's after finals week, though, I have no reason to leave the house. Which is good, since I'm supposed to finish my novel by tonight to make the Codex contest. It's looking less and less likely as the time goes on--like all things with this novel, things take longer than I thought. Still, it's nice motivation, and I'm hoping to keep this 2-3k per day up until the end of the week, by which time it will hopefully be finished.

No joke, there is a big huge debate going on over the possibility that Obama might use a Zune.

Hilary's sitting up till midnight saying, "Damn it! If only I'd known, I could have DESTROYED him!"

Even more entertaining, there is a flame war going on in the comments based on these two posts (below). The first, I'm fairly certain, is a joke. The second... is just funny.


Comment by Michael Capelli - December 4, 2008 at 2:23 pm "


"Michael Capelli, Comment by Know your Logic! - December 4, 2008 at 3:22 pm"





Last, The Final Word on the subject.

Try reading some of his posts.


WOULD IT KILL THE GUY TO SAY HOW THE NOVEL IS GOING? THE NOVEL HE SAID WAS HALF DONE IN 2005? HUH? WOULD IT KILL HIM?!!!!!

The lesson went pretty well. In retrospect, though, I should have just shown this.