Deadstock

So, in my earlier post about Readercon, I mentioned meeting Jeffrey Thomas, author of Deadstock, and a fellow member of the Solaris writing stable. During the meeting, I was worried he might ask me what I'd thought of his book, since I'd mentioned to him a while back that I'd bought a copy... only, I never got around to reading it, even though I knew I'd be seeing him.

Part of the reason was, I'd read part of the prologue of the book and found it difficult to get into. It's mostly following a character wandering around a futuristic cityscape looking for his girlfriend, but it didn't engage me all that much because the prologue doesn't contain any dialogue, except for one brief line from memory. Also, the prologue just had the feel that it was being written about a throw away character. I knew from what I'd read about the book that the protagonist was a shape-shifting detective named Jeremy Stake, and plainly this character wasn't him. So, I lost interest after the first five or six pages.

Fortunately, on the plane back from Readercon, I had the book in the top of my backpack and pulled it out, figuring I'd give it one more shot. I skipped the prologue and started on Chapter One. WOW! It was like an entirely different book. Suddenly, I understood how he'd gotten a blurb from China Mieville on the cover. Once Stake enters the book and the dialogue starts, the book comes to life. Stake is a great vehicle for conversations--he suffers from "confused flesh," a mutation that causes him to start looking like a person that he's looking at, so, when he talks to people, he slowly starts looking like them, causing a range of reactions from freaked out to fascinated. The other characters reveal hidden parts of themselves as they react to him--it's really quite a masterful device for bringing the supporting cast to life.

The other real strength of the book is the sheer scope of imagination Thomas throws onto each page. Nifty SF gadgets like Ouji phones, marketed to teenage girls... the phones ring when a damned soul comes on line, the the girls tease and taunt them. It's so disturbingly wrong, and yet so precisely right that you buy the idea instantly. At another point, he's walking through a factory where there are these legless, headless cows floating in tanks... nutrients are pumped in through a tube where the neck should be, and waste is sucked from the other end. It's the ultimate in factory farming, and if anyone has ever visited a commericial chicken farm you will recognize the idea as one corporate farmers would embrace in a heartbeat. Thomas makes you keenly aware that any advance in technology that can improve human life is also just as likely to get twisted around and warped into something that perverts human life. It's a fairly bleak vision, but it doesn't come across as depressing, as the sheer weirdness and creepiness of the images he throws out are simply fascinating.

The plot is terrific once it's underway, with a growing sense of inevitable doom. I honestly felt the possibility as I was starting the final chapter that no one--not even Stake--was going to get out of this novel alive. He kills off characters that I was certain he'd never kill.

One minor gripe with the novel is that Stake doesn't have much of a personal tie to the actual plot line. He's only involved with the other characters because he's been hired to be involved... in fact, there's even a line of dialogue near the end where his employer asks Stake why he cares enough to face the danger he's about to face and Stake answers, "Because you're paying me to." Yet, in a way, Stakes lack of personal involvement turns him into an objective camera through which we observe the rest of the story. The coolness saves the novel from slipping into melodrama as some really horrible things start happening to other characters.

All in all, it's a darn fine read.

I feel as if I've done my job

Pat Esden on her live journal has provided one of my favorite quotes about Bitterwood yet, and she hasn't even read the book! She attended my reading at Readercon and writes on her blog: James Maxey read the beginning of his novel “Bitterwood”. It was great and convinced me to move the novel higher up in my stack of summer reading—and gave me a craving for barbequed dragon tongue.

Really, that's pretty much what I consider the key to engaging writing... leaving the readers with cravings. It's been twenty years since I read Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Aiule (I'm sure I just misspelled her name). Yet, I can still recall vividly her descriptions of the food the cave men gathered, all the fresh green sprouts and pungent roots and giant fish. I remember going to a salad bar and loading up on bean sprouts and bamboo shoots and thinking, "a caveman would enjoy this salad." (Though I'm not sure they had ranch dressing.)

I said in my recent Solaris interview that my first goal as a writer was to entertain the reader. I also said I tried to make my writing thought-provoking. I left out my other important goal--make the reader hungry. A useful goal to remind myself of now, since I'm well underway with my next novel for Solaris. I've finished four chapters and am almost 17,000 words into the project. I'm leaving on vacation this week, and hope to get through at least two more chapters, perhaps even a third. I'm guessing there will be a feast in there somewhere.

Readercon 2007

First, some pictures, then some words:

Sunshine, me, and Cavin

Elaine Isaak and me

Me and Nick Mamatas

Me and Jeffrey Thomas

Last weekend I went to Readercon near Boston. I went there with Joy Marchand and she's already posted her report of the con on her blog, complete with photos, so be sure to check out her report here. I'm in some of the photos, and so are many Codexians.

On the side of this page, you'll see a link on the Bitterwood blog that says "Bitterwood Live!" This is an MP3 of my reading from Bitterwood at Readercon. I'm pretty happy with the reading... not too many stutters, and the sound quality isn't bad at all. It's short, only about 6 minutes. I find I get better audience response at readings if I read from multiple short items rather than trying to slog through one long one. I'm still debating whether or not to post my reading of Cherry Red Rocket Ship from the con. It was a good reading, and the audience is laughing at most of the places I want them to be laughing. Alas, the story is unpublished, and I don't want to risk it's future publishability by making the recording available before it sees print. On the other hand, it's short, so selling it isn't going to translate into a great big pile of cash. (Not that long short stories translate into great big piles of cash either.) So, maybe I will post it. If anyone wants to hear it, respond to this post. If even two or three people want it, I'll put it up. If no one's interested, I'll keep it to myself.



The best part of the con, of course, was getting to meet friends and fellow authors. I got to hang out with Jeremy Cavin and Sunshine Ison, old friends of mine from when I lived in Greensboro. A link to Mr. Cavin's blog may be found on the side of this page.



I also got to meet Nick Mamatas, author of the brilliant new novel Under My Roof. Joy bought a copy and I got to read a bit of it and look forward to getting my hands on my own copy. It's the story of a family that builds a nuclear bomb, hides it in a lawn gnome on their front yard, then declares independence from the US. It's only a matter of time before this is a major motion picture.



Joy's blog shows a lot of my fellow codexians at dinner, but one who couldn't make it to the dinner (because she was, like, 11 months pregnant or something) was Elaine Isaak. Elaine is also a fellow Odfellow. She's published two novels and we share space in Prime Codex.



Also at the con was Jeffrey Thomas, who's blog is on the links on the sidebar, and who is author of the critically acclaimed SF novel Deadstock. I started reading it on my plane ride home and it's terrific. The prologue is a bit of a slow start, but once the protagonist hits the page in the first chapter the book really catches fire. The dialogue is sharp and subtle. What really makes this book stand out so far, though, is the way Jeffrey will introduce fantastic SF gadgets, then show instantly how humans will warp and subvert these gadgets. For instance, there's something called ouiji phones. Scientistic researching other dimensions have found a link to the land of ghosts, and have built a technology to allow you to call there and speak to the dead. But the device isn't used to hold reassuring chats with lost loved ones. Instead, the device is popular among teenage school girls who like to get tormented souls on the line and then tease and taunt them about their deadness. Equally horrifying are the dolls the girls carry as status symbols. They are bioengineered creatures bred to be cute and helpless, with only stubs from arms, tiny mouths, big eyes, and feeble minds. The horror element in this book doesn't come from the ghosts and monsters, but from what human children do to ghosts and monsters. Highly recommended.



Finally, over on the Solaris Blog you'll find a photo of me with Solaris editors Christian Dunn and George Mann.

Return to Odyssey, with pictures

My trip back to Odyssey yesterday is something of a blur for me. Sometimes I remember public events I take part in clearly, but other times I'll be hit with an adreneline rush that during the event that leaves me wondering long afterwards what, exactly, I might have said. Fortunately, while I'm foggy on what I said and can't report the details, I do have photos!



Here I am with Joy Marchand, who provided transportation for me yesterday and is also responsible for that silly grin on my face being a more or less permanent feature these days. Joy and I have known each other for years as fellow authors. I first read her work when she won WOTF and have long admired her writing style. We've been anthology mates before, sharing space in last year's Modern Magic anthology. She wrote me back in February after I posted the "Five Things Few People Know About Me" blogs. After that, we started swapping flirty emails, which led to phone calls, and now to full blown dating, despite the fact that she lives in Massachusetts and I live in North Carolina.



Speaking of anthology mates, the guy in the photo above is Eric James Stone, fellow Codexian, fellow Phobos award winner, fellow Boot Camp alumni, and soon to be fellow Odyssey grad. We share space in the anthology he's holding up, Prime Codex, which continues to recieve glowing reviews. Eric is also the person who sent me the "Five Things Few People Know About Me" challenge, so he gets partial credit for Joy and I getting together. What a weirdly interconnected world we live in.

After the discussion, I signed books. Lots and lots of books. Fortunately, I had just purchased a fresh inkpen for the event. Note to IRS: I kept the receipt for the pen. So far this year, I've been really good about keeping receipts.


Finally, here's me signing a book. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the person in the blue jacket. Perhaps she'll read the blog and be kind enough to post her name for me. The woman behind her is Jeanne Cavelos, leader of the workshop. Jeanne is a terrific writing instructor. Many Odfellows have gone on to publish novels, me included. Hopefully you'll one day be reading the novels of this years grads. (And, if you'll pardon a repeat plug, you can already read the words of Eric James Stone, not just in Prime Codex but in many other fine publications. See his blog for a more complete list of his stories.)

Return to Odyssey

I attended the Odyssey Fantasy Writer's Workshop as a student back in 1998. Tomorrow, I'm going back to talk to this year's class as someone who has managed to build at least a modest career out of fiction.

As a result, I find myself in an introspective mood, thinking about what I've learned in the intervening nine years, trying to figure out if I have any useful advice for the current batch of students.

While advice from me may not be as valuable as advice from J. K. Rowling, I do have one nuggets I can share with the class:

The worst book you put onto paper is more valuable than the best book you keep in your head. Twice in my life, I've found myself in positions where I've been asked to show my work on short notice. The first time, Keith Olexa, the editor at Phobos, called me up to tell me I'd won a Phobos Award and asked if I'd written any novels. The year before I'd written "Nobody Gets the Girl." The novel at the time was short, only 55K words long. And, the ending was just dumb, nothing at all like the published ending. Before I sent it to him, I tacked on a new ending that was even worse, in which Rail Blade gets killed when the World Trade Towers fell on 9-11. A few months later, Keith called me back and said they wanted to publish the book, but the ending really needed to change. Knowledge that the book would see print proved a powerful creative force and I was able to arrive at the published ending, which I'm still quite proud of.

The second time, of course, came about when Nadia Cornier went from being an intern with an agency to being a full agent, if she could build a portfolio of clients. When this news reached me via the Codex boards, I was able to send her "Bitterwood," but a much shorter, less developed work than what is seeing print today. Still, while I look back on that version now as being amazingly devoid of setting details and shockingly thin on character development for the supporting cast, it still had the plot, pacing, theme, and energy that the final book has.

Can I write better novels than Bitterwood and Nobody? I think I can. I've got one book in my head that I think may be the book that turns me into a household name. Unfortunately, you can't read this book. I can't show it to an editor, and I've never been able to share more than a brief outline with my agent. It's a book I always feel I need to do just a little more research to write. It's a book I've become intimidated by. And, as a result, my perfect, fantastic book has never been read by anyone, while the good-but-could-be-better books I've published have been (or will be) read by thousands of people.

The jockey lot lives!

My name appeared in the Independent Weekly in an article about the closing of the Jockey Lot. They quoted me toward the end of the article talking about the exotic nature of the place, and how you could take a five minute drive and suddenly find yourself in a South American country. Apparently, even though the buildings are closed, the action is still hot in the tents outside. I seldom went into the sheds anyway. The tents are where the good stuff could be found.

Also, I just posted to my Bitterwood blog an article called "Building a Better Dragon." If you ever worried that playing D&D as a teen will doom you to an adulthood of geekiness, this article should remove all doubt.

Finally, Solaris has just posted an interview with me on their features page. I would like to assure my mother should she read it that I make reference to dirty pictures on the internet purely in jest, and I've never, ever, I promise, used my computer for such a disgusting practice.

Dragon sightings...

Dragons have been sighted here in North Carolina.

First, there's this photo, taken right here in Hillsborough.

This isn't a trick photo. When Joy Marchand visited last month, we were taking some photographs of the water tower in Hillsborough that looks like a UFO (below), and by chance happened to get a snap of this oddly draconian looking creature as well.

Then, of course, there are dragons in my living room and in bookstores. Check out my Bitterwood blog for more.

My goal is to have to buy a new bookshelf

I got my contributors copy of the Prime Codex anthology in the mail today. Last week, I got 4 contributors copies of the UK version of Bitterwood, though I'm still waiting on the US version. My bookshelf is starting to fill up nicely with books that contain my words. Most are anthologies, two are novels. In order of publication, roughly, they are:

Empire of Dreams and Miracles
Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome
Nobody Gets the Girl (novel)
All the Rage This Year
The Urban Bizarre
Modern Magic
Prime Codex
Bitterwood (novel)

Waiting in the wings are the Blood and Devotion anthology, the IGMS anthology, and the Solaris Book of New Fantasy. Not bad, considering my first publication was only 2002.

Jockey Lot no more?

So, apparently the weekend I reported about the Jockey Lot was the last weekend they were open according to a news report I learned of this week. Apparently the buildings were in violation of zoning codes (having been there, I'd say, yeah, probably), so they were shut down by the fire department. But I'm less clear on the fate of the tents and open air vendors. I'll try to journey out this weekend and learn the truth, if I can find time to spare from my work on the Bitterwood sequel.

More reasons to move to Hillsborough

#7, the Jockey Lot. Not technically in Hillsborough, but only a few minutes away, the Jockey Lot is a big flea market on Buckhorn Road just outside of Efland. North Carolina is currently experiencing a major demographic change as an influx of workers from Mexico have flooded in over the last decade or so, working in agriculture, the mills, construction, etc. Take a drive down Highway 70 toward Burlington and you'll find a dozen business that were once empty now occupied by Mexican grocers and restaurants. Spanish language newspapers are easy to find.

The full impact of the Mexican immigration really hits home when you go to the Jockey Lot.

Flea Markets used to be as lilly white a gathering place as you can imagine. Now, walking through the central tent mainstreets of the Jockey Lot has the feel of walking through an open air market in Mexico (or so I imagine, not having actually been to Mexico). Vendors are set up hawking everything from lingerie to bootleg videos to seafood. You can walk past several tents without seeing or hearing a single word of English.

I went there Saturday with Joy Marchand (pictured above), fellow Codexian and culinary artiste. We browsed among stands full of the most amazing fresh vegetables you can imagine. Ripe, juicy tomatoes were fifty cents a pound. Avacados at the perfect peak of ripeness were going for eighty cents each. Limes were ten for a buck. We bought some shrimp that looked like they'd been swimming in the ocean a few hours before, and some fresh cat fish, whiskers and all. Later that day we made salsa and ceviche that rivaled anything I've had in a restaurant, and we chased it down with fresh mangos and watermelon. Yum!

Since the internet has yet developed a way for me to transmit the tastes and smells of the rewards of Jockey Lot shopping, I hope you'll be content with the following photos, snapped by Ms. Marchand, who turns out to be as talented with a camera as she is with a keyboard. Get ready to feel hungry....

Prime Codex is Go!

This weekend sees the debut of Prime Codex! This is an anthology collecting the best published short stories of the Codexwriters group. You can buy a copy at Balticon this weekend, or order from the website linked to above for books that will start shipping on May 30. The title is also live on Amazon. All codexians have published at least one short story at professional rates, or, at a minimum, have graduated from a major workshop like Clarion or Odyssey. You can hardly blink these days without another Codexian selling a novel. Follow this link for a Codex Library.

My story in the anthology is a reprint of my first sale to Asimov's, "To the East, a Bright Star." Of the short stories I've published to date, "Bright Star" is at top of works I'm most proud of, dancing on the head of that pin with "Perhaps the Snail" and "Empire of Dreams and Miracles." It's the story about the choices we make when we are most aware that life is finite--much of the story unfolds in the last fifteen minutes before a comet is going to strike the planet, and our protagonist, a former circus tightrope walker named Tony, is faced with the choice of meeting his destiny the way he's imagined for the last ten years, since learning of the date and hour the comet would strike, or detouring from that dream in order to rescue a damsel in distress. One of the questions I'm faced with most often as an atheist is, why live a "moral" life? In the absence of the reward of heaven or fear of hell, what does it matter if you're kind to your fellow human beings or not? Do the choices you make matter in the absense of hope? This story is my most successful attempt to answer that question.

No reviews yet of the anthology, but you can read a review of my story at Emerald City. My story is the last one reviewed, so if you don't want to read about the entire issue of Asimov's just scroll to the bottom.

Speaking of Codexians, I get to meet one today, Joy Marchand. She doesn't have a story in Prime Codex, but we share a table of contents in Modern Magic and I've read her story in Interfictions, "Pallas at Noon." I can safely report she's insanely talented, writing rich, image-filled prose at a level of talent I can only dream of. If you're interested in Prime Codex and want to qualify for free shipping, throw in a copy of either of the above two anthologies, although if you have to pick one, pick Interfictions, since "Pallas at Noon" is such a strong work. The final scene, and the final line, are amazing (in the context of the story, natch... don't just read the last line and think, "What's so amazing about this?").

Skink in Bed

I came home Monday and found a skink sitting on the end of my bed. Skinks are small, slinky lizards, this one about 6 inches long. They are insanely fast, so, alas, I failed to catch this one.

I feel really let down by my cats. I've been providing them cat food and kitty litter for the better part of a decade now, and, really I don't ask for a whole lot in return. I would say the minimum duty I expect of my cats, though, is to be vigilent in keeping my bedroom free of reptiles.

Now, I'm sleeping a bit lighter than I was, knowing there's a lizard sneaking around somewhere among the dirty socks on the floor. Or, worse, that there's some hole I'm unaware of between the inside of my bedroom and the outside of my house. What's coming in next?

Ungraceful follow up

With my last entry being one about Laura, I've been feeling a little restrained on my next blog posting. I couldn't think of any graceful way to move from a reflection on love and death and memory to a post about current events. So, I've just decided to do it gracelessly.

I am not a republican, and in NC that means I can't vote in the republican primary. Which is a shame, because I finally found someone I could imagine voting for among the major parties--Ron Paul. In the last debate, one of the big news items was how strong Rudy Guiliani came out of it because he had smacked down Ron Paul for daring to suggest that American foriegn policy somehow led to 9-11.

I was barely aware of Ron Paul before the news started reporting what an idiot he was. After the debate, I heard commentators on the radio saying his campaign was probably over now--not that it had ever been alive before. I was vaguely aware he was the only republican running for president who had opposed the war in Iraq from the start, and that he had been the Libertarian candidate for president back in 88. Outside of this, I didn't much care to spend the time to learn his opinions.

I didn't watch the debate, but I've since gone and read transcripts and have to conclude, despite the reaction of the crowd, Guiliani was wrong and Ron Paul was right. Guiliani, Bush, and countless others on the right seem to have the public position that 9-11 was caused purely due to evil. Osama bin Ladin devoted his time and attention to killing American's because he's evil personified, an agent of the devil, utterly without any motivation other than wickedness.

The US, on the otherhand, is incapable of wrongdoing. Sure, we kill a lot of people. Dating back to the first gulf war, we've unquestionably killed tens of thousands of Islamic civilians with bombings, and made life miserable for millions with sanctions and destruction of infrastructure and by funnelling support to dictators in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This has nothing to do with evil though... it's all perfectly rational and virtuous responses to evil.

Here's the thing: I think that most of our reactions are rational. It's not that hard to rationalize supporting the Saudi's when the world's energy supply depends on stability. It's not so hard to rationalize invading Afghanistan when they shelter terrorists who've successfully struck us at home. There's even a certain logic that can be followed into overthrowing Saddam Hussein and plunging a country into chaos and war for a decade or more, causing the death of hundreds of thousands and economic and political turmoil. The invasion has the same logic as chemotherapy--it's going to cause a lot of pain and suffering now, but in the gamble that it will eliminate a larger threat. And, it's possible to rationalize embracing and supporting the only dictatorship absolutely proven to have developed nuclear weapons and illegally transferring the technology to our enemies--Pakistan--since Pakistan publicly supports us, and in diplomacy what you say overrides what you do.

I'm NOT arguing that US foreign policy is evil. I won't proclaim it virtuous, but I will say that I believe it is designed by men who believe themselves to be virtuous and reasonable and acting for the long-term good of mankind. Of course, I also think this is the basic mindset of terrorists as well. They are certain that they are virtuous, rational, and that their actions are the only long-term hope of mankind.

The opinions in that last paragraph are my own, and I have no idea how Ron Paul would feel abot them. I'm pretty certain Giuliani or Bush or McCain would shout them down. If I were writing these ideas in Iraq or Afghanistan, most republicans would probably feel perfectly comfortable with arresting me and putting me in a cell in Cuba with no hope of trial or appeal. (Side note: Right now, per square mile of Cuban soil, who do you think is holding more people in jail with no trials--Castro or Bush? I don't know the answer, but isn't it bothersome that this is even a question at all?)

So, I salute Ron Paul for being thoughtful, honest, and courageous enough to say what he said to an audience he must have known would be hostile. I don't think he'll win the nomination; I don't even know if he'll be invited to future debates. But, if some sort of mysterious plague strikes and he winds up being the last surviving republican candidate... I could vote for him without holding my nose. I haven't felt his way about a major party candidate for twenty years.

One year

Laura died one year ago today. I remember that morning, driving home from the hospital, listening to "The Coroner's Gambit" on my car stereo, watching the morning getting lighter after an all night vigil at the hospital. My emotions that morning weren't so much sorrow as exhaustion. I had a hard time thinking or feeling anything about what had happened that night. I just wanted to get some sleep, then deal with the grief at a later time.

I have grieved over the past year, but the experience wasn't anything like what I imagined during Laura's final months. I expected to be devastated, to have a difficult time getting out of bed, to be, at the very least, depressed for weeks and months.

But, in the immediate aftermath, I discovered that the predominant thing I felt was busy. There were phone calls to be made and arrangements to be decided on and a houseful of people who had needs that would have to be addressed. Then, once all that was gone, I had a whole different rush of stuff. I had a book under contract I needed to rewrite, I had to find a new place to live, then I had to renovate a house, then move in, then more writing, and then it was Valentine's Day and then Laura's Birthday and now the anniversary of her death and I find myself wondering if I somehow did it wrong. I didn't go out and wear black for a year. I made several trips to Laura's grave and placed flowers, but I didn't sit by the grave and have long conversations the way you see in movies.

I visited the grave today, the photos of the flowers are flowers that Simon and Veronica picked for her yesterday. I bought some vases and arranged the flowers and we placed them at the grave as a light rain fell. Then, last night the rain really came down, and I woke up this morning certain that the vases had fallen over. I drove back out this morning and found that my suspicions were correct and I propped the vases back up and fixed the flowers. My hunch is I won't be the only person to visit the grave today, and I wanted it to look nice.

It struck me that even today it wasn't grief that motivated my visit as much as it was an immediate task, doing something that needed to be done.

I think Laura would understand. Laura was the person who had to face the reality that she wasn't going to beat the cancer. Her main mechanism for coping with the darkness in her future was to concentrate on her present. She couldn't let despair pin her to the bed, because she had to get up to drive her kids to school, then do laundry, then go shopping, and she did these things well past the point where she felt comfortable doing them. A large secret to her living with cancer as long as she did was simple momentum. She just stayed too busy to die. But, eventually, her energy began to wane.

The picture below of Laura on the couch with Yoshi is from March 17 of last year. This is a fairly representative picture of Laura during the last few months of her life. She's stretched out on the couch because she didn't really have the energy to do much else. Yoshi, her cat, really bonded with her during this time. And, you can tell from the smile, she was still happy. She wasn't healthy any more, and it hurt her to walk or sit or lie still or breathe, and somehow she was, on the whole, still happy. Even on the last day I spent with her while she was conscious, she was cracking jokes, and happy to see visitors. She enjoyed her life. She lived each day to whatever degree her body allowed.

A few weeks before she died, she was laying on the couch in a pose much like this. It was on the weekend, mid-afternoon, and she was still in her pajamas. I asked her if she wanted to go get something to eat. She didn't. She really had no appetite at all by that point. She was always dealing with a certain amount of pain, and didn't feel like going anywhere or seeing anyone, but she was also tired of being in the house. So, I told her we could just go drive around in the country and enjoy the nice spring weather. I wanted to see her up and active, for her to feel like she was living instead of just surviving.

She changed clothes and we went out to the car. She leaned the car seat back as we drove up 54 and I kept turning down side roads to take us deeper into the country. There are a lot of roads that go off 54 and I'd always wondered where they led to. We passed countless rolling fields of yellow and blue wildflowers and wound up in Saxapahaw and drove over the river there, a nice little scenic gorge. We later wound up at a fruit stand near Mebane where I went in and bought her a Jarito's mineral water, and on the way home we found a Sonic Drive-in and she asked me to stop so she could get some tater tots.

I know it's crazy, but I don't think I've ever had a moment of such clear and wonderful hope as I did watching her eat those tater tots. She was hungry, and she was happy, and the fresh spring air and beautiful scenery seemed to have revived her, at least for the moment. I knew, I knew she was dying, but I believed in the healing power of weekend drives, and fields of wildflowers, and fresh air and sunshine and tater tots, and I thought we would be making these trips for a long, long time.

It's that day I remember, more than the hospital. It's that day I remember, more than the funeral home, or the church, or the cemetary. It's a drive I've taken several times since, or a drive like it, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. I'll just go out for a drive in the country, and I'll see a road, and wonder, where does that go? And I turn the wheel, and follow the new road, and I watch the fields pass by.

How Cool Is This?

If you go to the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me website, you will discover on their May 14 show in the "Not My Job" segment a mention of the book Talk the Talk, written by my friend Luc Ried. Since I mentioned the book here a few months ago, I'll take that as direct confirmation that the producers of the show read my blog and faithfully follow my recommendations. Anyway, that's my version of reality.

Yet more reasons to move to Hillsborough

Back in February, I started a series of blog posts called "top ten reasons to move to Hillsborough," which I stopped at #2 after getting sidetracked with the challenge to post five things that few people knew about me. This shouldn't be taken as a lack of enthusiasm for Hillsborough, just as a statement of how easily distracted I am.

So, here goes some more items on the list:

#3: Occoneechee Mountain. The photo shown here is from the overlook on Occoneechee Mountain. When I first moved to Hillsborough, I was a little dubious of the claim that it had a mountain, given that I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, which has real mountains. Occoneechee Mountain is something like 700 feet tall... a runt when measured against the mountains of my childhood. Still, my friend Cheryl took me on a hiking trail to an overlook this week and I was forced to admit, yeah, okay, when you have to walk up the darn thing, it's a mountain, and the view from the overpass is convincingly mountainish. I now have a great deal of respect and affection for our little mountain.

#4: Occoneechee Speedway. Continuing on the theme of great hikes, there's an abandoned speedway here that was last used for stock car racing back in the sixties. Since then, nature has reclaimed it, leaving a set of ruins that make for a pleasant walk. Walking up the concrete bleachers, all covered with vines, and walking past the remains of cinderblock concession stands with trees growing out of them gives the place a vibe that is somewhere between the Colloseum in Rome and some movie set of a post-apocolyptic Earth. The Eno river runs along the edge of the race track, so there are some wonderful views of its winding waters. And, unlike Occoneechee Mountain, this hike is mostly flat, so it makes a good warm up hike if you've spent most of the winter sitting in front of a computer editing a novel.

#5: The sausage sandwich at Sonny's Sandwiches. I can't tell if Sonny's is a purely local restaurant or a franchise. They certainly have a purely local vibe... only their preprinted menus have a franchise feel to them. But, the best thing to eat there isn't on the menu. They'll have a board with a daily special posted, and if you ever see the andouille sausage sandwich on the board, you're in for a treat. This thing is a grilled sausage served on a sub roll with sour kraut, grilled onions, and spicy mustard. It's essentially a giant spicy hotdog, and I happen to be a fan of giant, spicy hotdogs. Also, this place has a cheese sub that I used to buy for Laura. She had a lot of trouble building up an appetite in the final years of her life, but she could tear into their cheese sub. There's a subway in the shopping center about four doors down from Sonny's... the fact that they've held on in the face of their much more hyped competition says something about how good their food is.

#6: 3 Gatos. I actually just discovered this last night. Hillsborough has a street festival the last Friday night of each month and among the local vendors I discovered the 3 Gatos table. They specialize in hot sauces and hot foods. My heart went pitter-pat as I surveyed their wares. Unfortunately, I only had one dollar in my pocket at the time. http://www.3gatosfireandrice.com/page/page/4336020.htm is their website. They say they are opening a retail store in downtown Hillsborough soon, and will be at the Last Friday celebration next month. Next month, I'll go with money and walk away with a can of wasabi pecans and a bottle of Magma. Man, I can hardly wait!

Frustrations in the life of the young novelist...

I stopped at a bookstore yesterday and left my phone number with the folks at the information desk in the center of the store, hoping to arrange a signing. I came out of work today and checked my cell phone and WOOHOO! I had a message. Alas, it wasn't from the bookstore. It may be that other writers have vastly different experiences, but my experience as a novelist who isn't yet a household name is that people at bookstores routinely ignore your emails and disregard your phone calls if you're interested in discussing possible signings. I suspect the reality is they are probably swamped with dozens of people on any given day looking to arrange signings. There are probably more novelists in America than there are bookstores. I knew of at least a dozen local writers when I lived in Greensboro. Off the top of my head, I can think of three bookstores. So, the competition is probably pretty fierce to catch the attention of the people who arrange signings.

After I leave a message, I feel uncomfortable about calling back. I hate to feel like I'm hassling people. Fortunately, Bitterwood is still a few months away. I'm not in panic mode yet about unreturned phone calls.

Of course, tempering all this is the fact that I'm not sure that booksignings do all that much to boost sales for new writers. If I happened to be in a store when a reading and and signing of a book and an author I'd never heard of was going on, I might wander over and check it out. But, if I saw a poster about it, and didn't know the author, it probably wouldn't register as something I should go to. The signings that catch my eye are signings by authors I already know about, promoting books I've already heard about or read. It seems like a good way of supporting an existing fan base, but as a way of building a readership, I'm slightly dubious of a signing's value.

Does anyone have any different experience? Have you ever bought a book by an author you had never heard of simply because you heard about a reading at a local bookstore?

I just got back from Ravencon. It was a terrific con with nearly 700 attendees and I highly recommend it for any of you con attending types. You can read a more detailed report about the con at my Bitterwood blog.

Abortion Ruling

The reactions to yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the partial-birth abortion ban passed by congress have been interesting. I visit a lot of liberal sites like buzzflash and see a lot of talk about the Supreme Court having outlawed a certain type of abortion. I'd like to point out that the Supreme Court didn't outlaw anything in this ruling... it merely upheld a law passed by congress. And, if democrats are upset by the law, it seems to me the answer is obvious. Now that they control congress and the senate, pass a law legalizing this abortion practice. If the president vetoes it, muster the votes to override the veto. For a congressman or senator to blame the court for upholding a law seems to me to represent a dodge of their own responsibility as lawmakers.

The thing is, I've always thought that Democrats would benefit if Roe v. Wade were overturned. I truly feel like there is a pretty solid majority in this country that supports a right to abortion. Making the issue a court-protected issue instead of a legislative issue meant that Democratic voters could be complacent. It didn't matter if they voted or not, or who controlled congress, because abortion was a constitutional right according to the court. Republicans have gotten very good at hammering out restrictions that have popular support... things like parental notification, waiting periods, and now this partial birth abortion ban. Democrats are scared to vote against these things (though, no doubt some support them because they truly believe in them). But, if I were a Democrat, I'd be introducing pro-abortion legislation that Republicans would have a hard time opposing. A broad-based legislation that states that no woman can every be subject to prosecution for deciding to travel between states to obtain a legal abortion, for instance. (I don't think this is illegal now, but codifying it in law would be a huge symbolic victory.) Or, legislation that guarantees a legal abortion would be made available in cases of rape or incest. Plenty of people would oppose this, but I think it would be easy to brand the opposition as outside the mainstream.

The fact is, it seems like only Republicans have bothered to use the legislature as a political tool to change the law to reflect their wishes. Democrats haven't been introducing pro-abortion legislation that I'm aware of, they've only been opposing anti-abortion legislation. They should pick up some tips from the Republicans and actually pass some laws that support their values instead of always playing defense.

I suspect, if this battle is decided via legislation instead of via court fiat, what we'll wind up with will be laws that make abortion widely available, perhaps even publicly subsidized, but with comprises like waiting periods and parental notification. It wouldn't be a constitutional right... it would be statuatory law that would require constant vigilance to maintian and reflect the will of the public... you know, democracy.

Ismail ax

I read this morning that the phrase "Ismail ax" was a hot phrase for search engines yesterday, for obvious reasons, since the Va Tech gunman had it written on his arm and no one knew what it meant. I also immediately jumped on google to hunt the phrase. Nothing. I also tried to rearrange the letters, anticipating this might have some hidden meaning. Nothing makes sense, though "Islam ax I" should invigorate the handful of folks who want to tie this into Islamic terrorism.