A time reserved
So dutifully earned
Held and savored
In the sweet silent aftermath
Of a baby crying in the night
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The Perfect Blend
Look how nicely the cover matches my blog.
It’s really hard to find the blend I like in fiction: just enough action, just enough sci-fi/fantasy, just enough of a love story. Most of the time, the action is too unrealistic, the science is too hard/fantasy is too campy, or the love story is too mushy and focused on sex.
Song of Scarabaeus is one of the few novels I’ve found with that perfect blend. Toss in a captivating plot, great characterization, realistic dialogue, and several fresh story ideas that I wake up in the morning pondering, and I’m disappointed I can’t erase my memory of this book just so I can read it again. Maybe slower this time, so it can sink in more. It’s been a long time since I’ve carried a book around with me during the day, hoping for a minute in the elevator, a minute in the line at lunchtime, eager to read more more more. It’s been even longer (years?) since I’ve stayed up late to finish a book. Sleep becomes more precious after caring for two babies. Often it’s not worth the sacrifice. For this book, it was.
One of my favorite elements was the masterful male/female interaction. One example–the hero’s trigger finger is a bit eager even though the gunshots seem to do nothing to scare off a threat. The heroine says, “Save the bullets, Finn. There are hundreds of tons of biomass up there. Clearly it doesn’t want to have a hole carved through it.”
The hero reminds me of the hero in my WIP, so of course I have a bias to like him. But the end of Chapter 28? I actually put down the book and said aloud, “Oh my god. Awesome.”
I don’t expect to find this blend again soon. Well done, Sara Creasy. I can’t wait to read the sequel.
Posted in Books, Inspiration, Writing
Tagged action, book, characterization, fiction, novel, romance, Sara Creasy, sci fi, Song of Scarabaeus, writing
4 Comments
Bruise 06 12 12
All you need to see is the cover art to know this album will be beautiful.
Release 06 12 12
Preorder on assemblage23.com 05 01 12
Tom Shear says, “I think the songs are some of the catchiest ones I’ve done with a lot of emphasis on melody.”
I fear for our fragile human bodies. Is it possible music can be too good?
Here is something to hold you until June: one of the most beautiful songs of all time.
Posted in Inspiration, Music
Tagged A23, Assemblage 23, Bruise, EBM, electronica, industrial, inspiration, music, new album, new record, Tom Shear
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How Did You Get in Here?
My contribution to this week’s Inspiration Monday.
* * * * *
I round the fender of the car and power on my scanner. Just a chick fumbling with her keys. Nothing to see here. The car chirps twice, disarmed. I get in and push the ignition button. The dash lights up all around me like a miniature city at night. The engine growls–a surprised grizzly woken early from deep slumber. Easy, boy. And all this in less than ten seconds from the bushes to the driver’s seat. I owe Shayd for his new program. How I’ll pay him? TBD.
Shove into first, and the car squeals out of there. Let them hear. At zero to sixty in three point five seconds, it’s far too late for them anyway. I check the rear view mirror, and that’s when I see it hunkering in the shadows surrounded by tinted glass. A bent form. A shoulder. Human hair. Buzzed short, like a man’s. I have no weapon, not even some lousy pepper spray. Be cool. If he was supposed to be here, he wouldn’t be hiding. If he was going to attack me, he already would’ve.
“How did you get in here?”
Clothes rustle against the seat. His eyes appear in the mirror. “Same way you did.”
“Yet I’m the one driving it away.”
“I thought you were the owner.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
He reaches to the front seat and picks up my scanner. “This doesn’t look like the factory key.”
I snatch it from him. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”
He laughs. “Not so fast. I was here first.” Arms, head, and torso shove between the headrests and into the front passenger seat, then legs, too long for such a maneuver but he does it anyway, all without kicking me in the face. “Seems there’s one thing we both want.”
“No, there’s something I have, and something you want.”
He doesn’t answer right away. He’s waiting for me to look at him. I shouldn’t, but I do.
He raises both eyebrows. Smiles. “Are we still talking about the car?”
Posted in Flash Fiction, Inspiration Monday, Writing
Tagged car theft, car theif, flash fiction, inspiration monday, Kay Camden, writing
14 Comments
Officespeak
People use a strange vocabulary at my day job, one that includes words and phrases that pull me out of the conversation, squinting and distracted.
One of these phrases is so overused I find myself accidentally typing it myself before I come to my senses and backspace it out. These buzzwords and buzzphrases seem to serve no function but to make a person or task sound more important than he/she/it is.
The higher up you go in management, the lower you sink into buzzword hell.
“Ping me back when you find out.”
Ping me back? Am I the host or a client? Is there a possibility of one of us being down? Is it a hardware or software failure? If you’re in IT, you know what a ping is. If you’re not, please don’t use this phrase. Just specify your preferred method of contact: phone, email, or instant message. “Email me back when you find out” is perfectly acceptable. Nobody needs to be pinging anyone. Computers do that.
“Please let me know if you have any questions.”
This sentence is so often tacked on the end of an email message it makes me cringe just writing it. If you send an email message to someone, of course, they will be “letting you know” if they have any questions. Do you really need to say this? Maybe you should always assume they know this, and only alert them if this offer is not available. “I will not be answering any questions on this matter so please keep them to yourself.”
“I need you to reach out to Development about the new web server.”
This is a new one but it’s spreading like pinkeye in preschool. Everyone wants to “reach out” these days. It’s so sweet, isn’t it? As sweet as a Hallmark movie. This one seems to have replaced “touch base”. I can’t decide which one is worse.
“Prepare your wish list and I’ll pass it on to my team.”
And “wish list” sounds better than “requirements”–how?
“Let’s meet to discuss our game plan.”
What is it exactly that promotes a “plan” to a “game plan”? Shouldn’t some kind of game be involved? Would our users be happy to hear that the network outage is a game to us?
Sensitivity to vocabulary usage. Yet another curse of the writer.
Are any buzzwords buzzing your ear canal? Comment away.
Posted in Editing, Musings, True Story, Writing
Tagged buzzword, curse, day job, vocabulary, work, writing
17 Comments
10,000 People Are Going
…to the AWP Annual Conference.
Are you?
Posted in Writing
Tagged AWP, AWP Annual Conference, book conference, book fair, conference, fiction, writer, writer's conference, writing
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