Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Traffic and ArmadilloCon, Unrelated



Traffic Jam on I-5 South, Waiting for the President, July 24, 2012

On my way downtown for the Chuck Palahniuk reading at Town Hall last night, I got stuck in traffic--and not just any traffic. All cars were stopped from about 5:50pm until 6:18pm. Thankfully the radio let me know that the President's motorcade had closed down the freeway because of a fundraiser or something, so at least I knew it wasn't the end of the world and there was no reason to jump off the bridge I was on and swim for freedom.

The reading was fantastic, by the way. Worth sitting for a half hour with my engine turned off. In addition to reading a couple of amazing stories, Chuck Palahniuk gave away fifty stuffed tigers and had a contest for making balloon babies. It was an experience.

Tomorrow I get on a plane for my first ArmadilloCon and I'm pretty excited. I'll be at the writer's workshop most of Friday and then on Saturday afternoon I'll get to read for five minutes at the Broad Universive Rapid Fire Reading (I'm a late addition so I won't be in the program). The piece I'm thinking of reading is five minutes exactly, but that doesn't give me much breathing room. (I recorded the story for a future Every Day Fiction podcast, so that's how I know the exact length.)

(I enjoy parantheses.)

I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have while I'm away, so you may or may not be hearing from me for a bit. So I'll mention now that I have a story coming out in the July issue of Short, Fast, and Deadly any day now. The story is called "The Pragmatic Groom" and is around 75 words long.

Happy end of July.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Manual labor, a mountain, and other people's words

We had another round of family visiting, but they're gone as of this morning. It was a productive visit that involved building a fence and replacing a mailbox. And last Friday we took a bus trip out to Mt. Rainier National Park to enjoy the scenery. I, of course, took many photos that are still trapped in the camera. We walked the Trail of Shadows and did a short hike out to the Grove of the Patriarchs to see some old growth trees.

I spent this morning rewriting a flash piece and then sent it out in the afternoon, so my brain is a little fried on words. I have a week before I go to Texas so I need to bank a few more podcasts and submissions now-ish.

I'm also participating in the Shock Totem Flash Contest for July, which means I'm in the middle of 40 peer reviews. This translates to about 40,000 words so I'm not hurting for reading material. It's been an interesting experience and I look forward to seeing how it all ends up.

Aaaand that's what I've been up to.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

My First Interview

This morning, fantasy author, Dale Ivan Smith, interviews me over at his blog: "On writing, publishing and podcasting with author Folly Blaine."

In the interview he asks me thoughtful questions about all sorts of subjects from photography to publishing to podcasting. I met Dale and his wife at last year's World Fantasy in San Diego, and I'm so glad social media has allowed us to stay in touch. He's one of those tireless, focused writers who set the bar high and make the rest of us want to work harder.

I urge you to check out Dale's blog and his fiction.

Monday, July 02, 2012

Visitors, readings, and Prometheus

Our last round of visitors returned home after a fun, exhausting week and now we are ramping up for our next batch. Mostly this involves washing linens and vacuuming.

I have a couple small writing projects I'd like to finish by week's end and tomorrow night I'm going to go see George R.R. Martin read at Town Hall (Seattle.) It'll be my second time seeing him speak at that venue and I look forward to it. You can read about Martin's previous talk here.

Jer and I watched Prometheus last night. I went in with low expectations since most of the reviews I'd read weren't great. And without spoilers I can say there were some interesting things going on--I particularly liked certain actions made by the heroine--but also some odd storytelling choices. I am all for not explaining every detail but I do believe the story world should have some internal consistency or logic, and I felt like there were failures on that account. But I also thought it was beautiful and made me excited about the possibilities of space travel in a way that only movies like "Pitch Black" and "Sunshine" can do. I'm glad I saw it.

And yes, I understood the film takes place on a different planet than the Alien movies. That wasn't my problem.

Vague, enough?

I spent most of my weekend learning about podcasts and posting opportunities--specifically how to create a podcast-only feed using PodPress and WordPress. I've learned so much in the few months I've been volunteering at Every Day Fiction. It's definitely a trial by fire sort of thing, but I really enjoy the challenge.

Speaking of which, check out my newest reading of J. Chris Lawrence's story "Collateral Damage." Post-apocalyptic, for the win!