broken abbey One writer's thoughts…

Back to work…

Just got back from residency orientation @ Seton Hill.  It's nice to be back, even if it meant driving 4 hours through snow.  I had a great break, had a couple of good reads while I was off.  First was John Scalzi's Old Man's War, a very entertaining science fiction book.  It's not my typical flavor, but it kept me reading, full of good action and interesting characters.

My other read was The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Volume 20, edited by Stephen Jones.  It's filled with some excellent short horror from 2008, and definitely worth the time.  It's late, I'm tired, so I won't do any sort of review of them, but here's a list of the one's that appealed most to me:

• It Runs Beneath the Surface, by Simon Strantzas
• These Things We Have Always Known, by Lynda E. Rucker (my favorite of the lot)
• Through the Cracks, by Gary McMahon
• The Camping Wainwrights, by Ian R. MacLeod
• The Oram County Whoosit, by Steve Duffy (excellent story in the vein of Lovecraft)
• The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates, by Stephen King
• 2:00 pm: The Real Estate Agent Arrives, by Steve Rasnic Tem

That last one verges on poetic.  It's shorter than this post, a mere 3 sentences, but paints a beautifully horrific picture and punches you in the end.  Loved it!

And now, I'm off to see if I can wrap up some stuff before getting into the groove tomorrow.

A Bit of a Break

I've been on break from school since beginning of November, so I took the opportunity to brush up on mechanics.  Specifically, I took a much-needed browse through the old Elements of Style.  Good little book.  But, I wanted more.  So, I found a more contemporary take on style, Sin and Syntax, by Constance Hale.  It's longer than Elements.  There's plenty of praise for the book out in the wild; I'll say I'm glad I took the time to read it as well.  How do I know?  Some of my writing from as recent as a year ago makes me cringe.  [sigh]  Shortly after I finished, I set about some serious revision work on a few older short stories.

I just started reading Old Man's War, by John Scalzi, the reading selection for my January writer's residency.  I've not decided if I'll do any journal posts or not on it, since it's not Horror.  First impressions [2 chapters]: Scalzi makes good use of the CDF contract as a framing device for providing background information to the reader; he does an equally good job of slipping in a space elevator explanation during casual conversation.  Those are just the first two things that came to mind; I am enjoying it as well.

Finally, I've started work on new short story based on the name of a character that I've carried around for a few years.  I didn't mean for it to be a zombie story -- already tried my hand at zombies once -- but... it's a zombie story.

BTW - Beware the Krampus!

Undead Blog

I've revived my blog.  It's been dead for about a year.  Poor blog.

I started a Master of Arts program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University at the end of June.  Kismet - the first day of my first writer's residency was also my birthday.

Anyhow, part of the program involves reading (of course).  And that requires a reading journal.  Perfect use for a blog.

Welcome back, poor little neglected blog.  Welcome back.