Passing round the hat

Posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010, at 4:07 pm

EPIC FANTASY! WITH COWBOYS!

I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be writing for National Novel Writing Month this year. I have an idea that I want to write an epic fantasy (with cowboys) this year, which is very different from the sort of thing that I usually write. Last year I wrote Code Monkey: A Love Story with Occasional Monsters, which proved to be a big hit, and which I’ve been revising since December with the intention of actually bringing it to publication.

And last year Jennifer and I attended a great event called the Night of Writing Dangerously, an event where writers from all over the world (literally the world: I met people from Canada and Australia last year) get together in San Francisco for a night of epic writing and socializing. It was tremendous fun, but, more importantly, it raised nearly $50,000 for the Office of Letters and Light and its Young Writers Program. With this money, the Young Writers Program provided materials and inspiration to schoolchildren throughout the world to engage in their own works of creative abandon.

So once again we’re raising money for the Office of Letters and Light and their Young Writers Program. Our goal is $300, so that we can attend the Night of Writing Dangerously again. If you donate to my fund, in any amount, I’ll name a character in my novel after you (or someone else you might like to have honored in this way), and perhaps even incorporate a magical device of your choosing. It’s a fun challenge for me, and a great way to earn yourself a few milliseconds of fame in a web-accessible novel of dubious quality. Plus, I’ll be posting the novel online as I write it, so you can see your scene as it is written (I’ll be sure to drop you a line when it comes up).

But that’s not all!

This year, we’re offering SPECIAL GIFTS for donors! Just like NPR! How cool are we? Here’s what you can get:

• The first six people who donate $25 get a 1/2 pint jar of homemade jam (your choice of strawberry, cinnamon peach, vanilla peach) or apple butter (requires extra time) or spiced plum (also requires some extra time). The apple butter and spiced plum jam take a little extra time because we have to make them.
• The first six people who donate $50 get a pint jar of homemade pickles (your choice of dill spears, dill slices, sweet relish).
• The first person who donates $100 gets a pair of handknit socks (color and size to be coordinated with Jennifer).

These aren’t cumulative. We’re not THAT cool.

So what do you say?

Help us out? And in doing so, help out the Office of Letters and Light and the great work that they do.

To donate, click here, then click on the button that says “Sponsor Us”.

(Reminder: I’m slowly migrating my website over to http://www.underpope.com. To comment on this entry, go there.)

You Write Like a Girl

Posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010, at 2:56 pm
Tags:Writing

Apparently I write like Margaret Atwood. Here’s my proof:

It’s kind of peculiar. Not that I don’t like Margaret Atwood (though of her novels I’ve only read The Handmaid’s Tale), but… Well, it just seems like all of these “what is your writing style” tests, based on my blog entries or on my stories, guess that my writing is by a woman. And there are several tests out there (most of them rather dubious, of course) that purport to guess your gender based on a series of questions that you answer; and almost all of these quizzes guess that I’m a woman. This is weird because I’ve frequently been told that when I try to write from a woman’s point of view, I just don’t succeed.

I wonder if this is something I should explore more, or some weirdness I should just chalk up to the Internet?

(Reminder: I’m switching my domain over to http://www.underpope.com. Comments on this entry are closed. If you want to comment, go to http://underpope.com/bloginomicon/2010/07/you-write-like-a-girl/. Be sure to update your bookmarks and feed readers.)

Various Updates

Posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010, at 3:32 pm

I keep forgetting that I have this blog. Well, no, it’s not that I forget about it; it’s more like, in this world of Twitter and Facebook, it’s much easier to just post 140 characters and forget about it. Blogging seems like so much more work.

So here’s some updates.

First, before I get to the writing updates, here’s an important one: I’m changing domains. I’ve had mossroot.com for over ten years and I’ll feel sad to leave it behind, but underpope.com seems so much more appropriate since I’m “Underpope” everywhere else on the Intertubes. A domain that reflects that just seemed natural. It’s all about growing the brand, you know? So go and change your links, your bookmarks, your feedreaders, etc.

Plus, this clever old-time photograph of the monkey at the typewriter seemed very appropriate for me. After all, it’s a monkey! And it’s typing! How friggin’ cute is that! And since my very own personal slogan is “Code monkey by day, word monkey by night”, the image could not be more fitting.

And now for some writing updates:

Code Monkey! Originally I had planned for this novel to just be a throwaway project for National Novel Writing Month. I had fun writing it, and fun putting it on line, chapter by chapter, for my friends to read. But then enough people (that is, more than one) suggested I actually push forward with it because it apparently has some potential. So I’m in the process of heavily editing it for possible submission to somewhere in the future. And I’m talking some serious edits. I swear, on some pages there is more red ink than black. (This is the reason I took down the original novel online. I could no longer stand the thought of people reading the original crap version.)

Also, My short story, “A Most Heinous Man”, which was published in Issue 33 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, will be published in their second “Best of Horror” anthology. I don’t have a publication date for it yet, but I will be sure to update here once I find out.

My short story “Night of the Frozen Elf” (available in a slightly typo-ridden version here) will be collected in a new anthology, The Undead that Saved Christmas. You can probably guess from the title that it’s a collection of Christmas-themed zombie stories. All proceeds from this anthology will go to support the Hugs Foster Family Agency. It’s a good cause, so when the book becomes available, please go and buy many, many copies.

And, finally, if you’re thinking about contributing to my speculative fiction webzine, Daikaijuzine, we’re now open for submissions again. It’s a great ‘zine, with great content, if I do say so myself. Check it out and spread the word.

For now, that’s about it. In the future, I plan to actually post more actual content. But, then, I always say that, don’t I?

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