This past weekend brought the privilege of a visit by the estimable Tim Pratt, aka tim_pratt, who came to march down beaches and eat pizza and burgers and large breakfasts and drink barley-hops and watch superhero cartoons and Spencer Tracy movies, among other things. By happenstance, my lovely friend Bobzilla had brought his brood to San Diego for a weekend visit, and he managed to get away for a Saturday night sit-down at an Irish bar overrun with karaokers, which was a great opportunity to see two strong representatives of different friend-o-spheres meet one another. A very lovely weekend.

There's a Thanksgiving ham in the fridge and I believe I deserve some credit for not having yet eated it.

I've got a flash piece up at PodCastle, Change, read by the estimable Dave Thompson. Dave does a very fine reading, and with the improvements his voice and inflections lend the story, I prefer this audio production to the original text version. It's a very short story, with a fairly simple idea: People can get used to anything. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes, not so much.

I have not one but two eye doctor appointments today. One will be akin to harsh interrogation, in which they'll look to see if diabetes is eating my eyes. The other will be a more common test to determine if I still know the alphabet, and it will probably result in new glasses, as I've been wearing my current pair for something like six years and I ain't gettin' any younger. I don't even know what hep glasses are anymore. Are the square plastic frames still cool?

I don't know why I think I have the right to grump about what other people post on their LJ's, especially when all I post any more is writing stuff.

I wiped down all the kitchen counters yesterday, including beneath and behind the microwave. There was a lot of red onionskin down there. That wasn't writing-related.

Last night at the coffee joint there were some super-duper old farts planning some kind of musical event, and they were going on and on about these dusty old songs from their youth, and of course the music they were talking about was stuff from my high school days. And, yeah, okay, I still really do like Dire Straits (the Brothers in Arms tour was one of my first concert experiences), and "Save a Prayer" really is a good Duran Duran song ...

And, actually, I was at the coffee joint to write, so the preceding was technically writing-related.

Anyway, what I actually came here to say is that Kid Vs. Squid has an Amazon listing and a release date now: May 11, 2010.

Here's the product description:

The citizens of Atlantis are stuck selling cotton candy on the boardwalk, and only our hero can help

Thatcher Hill is bored stiff of his summer job dusting the fake mermaids and shrunken heads at his uncle’s seaside Museum of Curiosities. But when a mysterious girl steals an artifact from the museum, Thatcher’s summer becomes an adventure that takes him from the top of the ferris wheel to the depths of the sea. Following the thief, he learns that she is a princess of the lost Atlantis. Her people have been cursed by an evil witch to drift at sea all winter and wash up on shore each summer to an even more terrible fate—working the midway games and food stands on the boardwalk. Can Thatcher help save them before he, too, succumbs to the witch’s curse?

With sharp, witty writing that reads like a middle-grade Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Greg van Eekhout’s first book for young readers is a wild ride packed with as many laughs as it has thrills.

Had a great time in Solana Beach last night with Lisa and colleenky and a bunch of her friends at the Jonathan Coulton show. I've been a Jonathan Coulton fan for all of two weeks and am now pretty sure I'll continue along those lines. And I thought opening act Paul and Storm were at least as entertaining. I even got to throw a pair of panties at them. Apparently it's the thing to do at such gatherings.

Otherwise, writing, things in motion, nothing to report.

From Osteomancer's Son

Some bullet points regarding various things:

• I have a new desk chair, just a $69 jobby from IKEA, but it's a great improvement over what I was sitting on before, which was a $19 dining room chair from IKEA that I had to reassemble every four hours as the simple act of sitting in it loosened the hex screws and the little wooden studs that go into the little wooden holes. My new chair is even an improvement over the desk chair I sat in for about four years, all told, at Arizona State University, which was doing me neural damage, even causing my mouth to go numb.

• My story, "Far As You Can Go", is newly available in audio format via Mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction, a 3-disc audio set including stories by Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, Carol Emshwiller, Molly Gloss, Joe Haldeman, Bruce McAllister, Paul J. McAuley, and Bud Sparhawk.

• I have absolutely zero desire to read prose right now.

• Having been at Worldcon and on the road last week, I caught very little Olympics action, but I've made up for it this weekend by planting myself on the sofa and watching people exert themselves in spectacular fashion while I ate pizza and burritos and ice cream and fried chicken. Not all at once, mind you, but still. I think I'm most impressed by Dara Torres, not just by her athletic achievements, but also her poise and grace and sportsmanship and, yes, maturity. Very inspiring as I prepare to drag my sorry ass back to kung fu and try to convince my stiff muscles and creaky knees to master jumping kicks and the like.

• I'm expecting my editorial letter for Norse Code this week. I haven't even looked at the book in about six months, which is hopefully enough time to get a fresh perspective on it and reconcile my fresh perspective with my insightful editor's perspective.

• Dudes, check out this sweet comic book I picked up at Worldcon! I must have read this thing a buttjillion times when I was a kid, certainly enough times that it disinigegrated like a vampire in the sun. My new copy only cost me eight bucks, and Mordru is still a scary-ass giant evil wizard dude.

Hey, wow, today marks one year since Lisa and I moved from Tempe, Arizona to San Diego, California. There are people and things I miss about Arizona, some of them quite keenly, but not for a second have I regretted making the move. I figured I'd like San Diego okay, but I didn't expect to like it here as much as I do.

San Diego has a reputation for being LA's less interesting little sister. I grew up in LA, lived more than half my life there, and I know LA pretty well, and despite its flaws, I love that messy sprawl, and I'm quickly dismissive of people who quickly dismiss Los Angeles.

Same goes for San Diego. I love the beaches, the seafood, the microbrews, the neighborhoods with their Craftsman bungalows, the old Spanish history, the sight of ghostly islands that belong to another country, the science fiction people, the giant eucalyptus trees, and especially the knowledge that there's so much more to discover and explore.

This year has been the reboot I rather badly needed, and it's been full of momentous events and a thousand pleasant moments. San Diego's been good to me in my first year. Thanks, San Diego!

I've been unaccountably grumpy for the last few days. Today, I largely ignored my responsibilities -- not that I have so many of them -- and played. I mean, I play a lot, but I work too. Really, I do! Kinda. It's complicated.

Anyway.

Now, I feel better.

( A few pics from my day below the cut )

Breakfast burrito on the beach, gym workout, and finished second draft of the middle-grade (or is it YA?) book, now packaged and ready to head out for my agent's assessment. Currently watching NBA draft, and later I'll drag my tired body to kung fu. Then, tomorrow, back to work.

Golly, this week has flown by. Not sure what happened to it. Did manage to hit the gym twice, go to kung fu twice, and I'll be going to kung fu again today, so I feel that my physical conditioning requirements will have been met, at least. Yesterday's class was a lot of fun, too. I learned the rest of the moves for my belt level for long staff sparring counter set, which involves a lot of energetic thwacking, so that was good, sweaty fun.

Also managed to get out to the movies to see The Incredible Hulk. I never read Hulk comics -- just an annual that John Byrne drew -- but I was a huge fan of the TV show when I was a kid, and the movie managed to deliver big cinematic movie action while still capturing the spirit of the show. That's two good Marvel superhero movies in one summer, which is two more than I expected.

I dove head-first into the the revision of the novel I took to Blue Heaven, and am almost half-way through. I'm not trying to make everything perfect. Just trying to fix the biggest, most obvious flaws. Then I figure I'll send it to my agent and see if she thinks it'll fly.

So, more writing today, and kung fu, and housecleaning, because friends are coming to stay for the weekend, and there's the small matter of pride.

It's been a very nice, bum-around sort of weekend. Yesterday morning the weather was too perfect, so we strolled along the bay and out to the beach and had a relaxing breakfast at Seaside Cantina. Great place to watch waves and people.

Returned home after wading in the surf and caught a showing of Iron Man. I don't think I liked it quite as much as some people, but I really enjoyed Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance, and the suit was totally neat. Sometimes superhero movies turn into CGI cartoons in the last half hour, but there were enough shots of Tony Stark's face behind the helmet that I never felt I'd lost contact with the character and shifted into a different movie.

Stopped at the market on the way home from the movie for sandwich fixings, came home and quickly assembled a picnic, and then headed out to sit on the sand by the bay and munch. I even snuck a beer out there, which you're not supposed to do anymore on account of the hundreds of drunken knuckleheads who rioted last Labor Day. I quietly drank my beer and did not riot.

I've already gotten some feedback on the novel from very-first readers, who caught some stupid things I thought I could get away with, some dumb decisions I made with pacing, and various and sundry. Trying to fix some of that today.

Now, however, I am sleepy.

Working from home means I can play all the goddamn Journey I want.

Driving up to Los Angeles in a bit. Most likely we'll be hitting the LA Times Festival of Books on the campus of my alma mater, UCLA. I've never been to the LA Times Festival of Books. I'm hoping to find books there, people engaged in all things books, and parking. I'd hope for fried chicken, because I used to love the fried chicken at the Treehouse, which I would order with the mashed potatoes and gravy and chicken-fried potatoes, and then the cashier would say, "You sure you got enough starch on that tray, sport?" and I'd mumble something grumpy and incoherent as I was wont to do when I was a college student and dig into my chicken while trying to dodge the calcified chicken feathers. But there won't be any fried chicken, because the Treehouse is long gone, alas.

Plans afterward include an outing with friends to an Irish pub and a stage play. Then, tomorrow, we'll drive my parents around so they can buy things like cheese and cat food and whatever else they need. Then, back home and write and write and write.

Or, we might spend the entire weekend in traffic. Heat wave in Southern California might mean everyone flees to beaches and air-conditioned shopping hangers. I need to find the subterranean express road. Then I'd just have to shoot Morlocks.

I just cleaned the bathroom.

We have the worst bathroom in the world. I've been in all of them, and ours is the worst.

It's small and cramped and no matter how many toxic, cute-animal-killing chemicals I throw down the pipes, the tub never drains, and all the surfaces are grimeophiliac.

When we move this summer, a better bathroom will be high on the priority list.

Until then, I will be complaining about our bathroom in at least six journal posts per day.

You're welcome.

DIE YOU FUCKING ANTS EVERY SQUIGGLY ONE OF YOU DIE DIE DIE DIIIIIIIIIIEE!!!!!!!!!

***

Other than that, though, it's been a rather excellent day. One of the best things about moving from Phoenix is now there's a whole entire city to discover. A whole city! With stuff in it! That I don't know what it is or where it's been put! Previous to coming here to live, my experience with San Diego was limited to a few family trips to Sea World or the zoo and a couple of Comic-Cons. But it's turning out to be so much more than Shamu and asphyxiation from too many Doom Patrol fans.

Today we had lunch (me with a pork chile Colorado and a Negra Modelo, Lisa with a lobster enchilada/fish taco combo) in University Heights, yet another nifty neighborhood full of neat coffee joints, restaurants, and cottages. Back in the early 1900's, the area was an ostrich farm, so there's lots of ostrich iconography all about. All the houses are built upon an ancient ostrich burial ground, and so on.



Afterwards we made the short drive to Midtown for snackage and work at Eclipse Chocolat, where I had a latte with super-special caramel made from sugar imported from the Hollow Earth.

I read the last 50 or so pages of my book, and though the last ten or so are rocky (major characters introduced and lots of exposition to get across), I encountered nothing fatal, so I just have to keep on writing.

The last couple of days have been good, too. Had burger and beers and ice cream shakes at Hodad's in Ocean Beach with the visiting Jackie and Chris, and then got to hang with Jackie more at Rebecca's. It's nice to be social. Even with Jackie.

I think I'm going to eat some wings now, washed down with hooligan beer.

Hope your Saturday's been good!

Finally, somebody, somewhere, understands my needs: Possibly the world's biggest coffee cup.

My synopsis still needs some work.

I need to go downstairs to the laundry and see if my pants are dry.

What do you need?

A couple of blocks from the Starbucks I've been going to, down at the end of a little nondescript side street, is a tiny little park. I'm not even sure if it's officially a park. There's no sign, for one thing. It takes up maybe fifty square feet, just enough for a single bench and a paved ledge over the ocean.

Maybe there're places like this in LA, but I never found them. I wanted to. The LA coast has fewer cliffs, and they tend to be occupied by bazillion-dollar beach houses. There are plenty of houses like that here, but if you look, you can find modest little holes and nooks and parks between them.

From the bench at this little nameless park or whatever it is, you can look out across the ocean miles. You can see islands that I think are actually in Mexico. If you stand at the rail, you can see pelicans roosting on Bird Rock (which is where the neighborhood gets its name). You can be by yourself.

I like going down there and leaning over the rail, watching the waves roll over the rocks. I like closing my eyes and listening. It feels like a secret place, and it's one of my favorites.

This morning was eaten by the DMV, where I finally got around to getting my California license and registration. Even though I haven't had a California drivers license since 1993, I was still in the system, and when the clerk saw my old picture (taken when I was 17, I think) she omg-ed and turned her screen around to show me. I looked at that boy's face and laughed. Since then, I've gained seven inches in height and lost my starter mullet.

It'd be so easy to make fun of that boy, but for some reason I'm feeling kindness towards him today. He made a lot of mistakes before and after that pic was taken, but he wasn't such a bad kid, really.

#

Speaking of being a grown-up, those comic books that came with the 45-rpm recording of the narration that we had some discussion about in this post were called PowerRecords, and blogger Rob Kelly has been posting complete scans and MP3s of some of them.

The pages are very media-heavy and take a long time to load, so be warned.

No Star Trek yet, but he does include my fondly remembered Escape From the Planet of the Apes.

This, this, this is what the Internet is for.

#

And speaking of kids, today is the birthday of the brilliant, beautiful, talented, and luminous Heather Shaw! Happy Birthday, Heather! You are just SO awesome!!! :-D

Greetings from the floor. About nine or ten years ago I hurt my lower back helping a pregnant co-worker move large objects that I had no business trying to move. Yesterday morning I was thinking that it had been a long while since I'd seriously re-aggravated the injury. But the universe hates smugness, so of course I re-aggravated the injury, somehow, yesterday afternoon. Looks like today will be heat and ice, pills of some kind, maybe liquor, and inertness. Might as well write since I won't be good for much else. I'm on an airplane tomorrow, so my goal is complete recovery by then. That's a pretty modest goal, I think.

***

How to Survive Writing a Graphic Novel, an illustrated treatise in 13 panels by Grady Klein, all applicable to writing a regular old prose novel as well (via Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog).

We're moving to San Diego at the end of July!

Why?

Perhaps the 3-day forecast will provide some indication.

Tempe:



San Diego:



Also, Lisa landed a really awesome teaching position, and San Diego has an ocean, and we'll be closer to friends and family, and in case I forgot to mention it, San Diego has an ocean!

Lots and lots and lots to do before the start of August: find a place to live (David's been really helpful in telling us where the fun neighborhoods are), figure out my own employment situation (currently a consultant with a dried-up contract), find a new kung fu school (waaaah, I will miss my kung fu school), and pine over the people and places and things I'll miss about Arizona. Because despite my complaining, there are definitely people and places and things that I'll very much miss about this place.

But for the most part? I have been dancing with excitement and renewed verve.

:-D!!!!

I have a black eye!

Only it's almost invisible. It's only slightly black, and I've got dark circles under my eyes anyway. It's from a ridge-hand I took across the face Tuesday night in sparring. I was hoping for a much blacker black eye.

Maybe I'll have more luck next time.

***

I've got a Sunday deadline to finish my novel for the Blue Heaven workshop. About 7k or 8k or so left to go, consisting of Ragnarok and some denouement. I just did the battle between Loki and Heimdall in fewer than 50 words. I don't know if that's good or if it's lame cheating. I'm too tired to tell.

Today I'll be writing in airports and other interstitial places, and also the new Rush album totally kicks ass. I was kind of enh about it on the first two listens, but now it rocks. The bits and bytes must have moved around on my computer over night. It fills me with great rock happiness.

***

My sparring has been shit this week. I say that not because I've been losing rounds (because there aren't really winners and losers in the way we spar at my school, unlike other systems in which points are scored and there are definite winners and losers), but because I've been sluggish and unimaginative in my rounds.

On the other hand, I've gotten Tiger Descends Golden Mountain memorized, and I'm not totally lost yet on Sea Dragon Cane. But the sparring? Suckage. If it keeps up I'll talk to my instructor. He'll probably recommend more Tai Chi and Chi Kung. He may make a believer out of me yet.

***

Go Golden State! (Only not more than Go Suns!)

I'm aiming to make this a productive yet relaxing Sunday. I've already had one work session at the coffee joint, but I still need another 8 or 9 pages to hit my writing goal today. But I also need to give myself time to hang out by the tree and grill burgers and chicken, and there's Suns vs. Lakers (Kobe sucks!), so I'll be keeping my laptop handy while the TV's on.

Right now, I've got cheese puffs and beer for my second breakfast. I am so happy.