Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The willow is too close to the house.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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Authors In Our Midst: WereBear Did NaNoWriMo in 2020

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From WereBear:


Auto Draft 34

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. Officially, NaNoWriMo.org emphasizes the month of November. The essential idea is that a writer sets a goal: 50,000 words in 30 days.

I only got to 12,000, but that is the best I’ve ever done. So I did get my shirt, this year, for the first time. I decided I can wear it in good conscience. Let me tell you why.

First of all: Plague Year. The deluxe version, with Trump in charge. So move that challenge setting all the way to the top. Under such circumstances, getting anything done on my novel, at all, should count extra. The exponential effect of 400% then becomes downright reasonable.

I first tried NaNoWriMo in 2013, when I had a lot of non-fiction under my belt. This helped me feel ready to admit I could never leave that beguiling, fickle, partner known as fiction. I accumulated less than 2,000 words on my various November attempts since then, until this year. What changed?

One important angle I learned is to embark on this 50k/30 days trick at the drafting stage of my novel. I start by throwing ideas into some kind of outlining program. At this point, they can be in any order, and made of paragraph fragments. But when the ideas sprout into actual characters, interacting in scenes, I’m ready to start drafting those pieces into being.

Despite 2.5 completed novels, a top NYC agent, and considerable cleverness and determination, I never made it “over the top” to actual publication. Deeply frustrated and actually angry, I turned to non-fiction blogging. I created a following, honed my craft, and self-published my first book, The Way of Cats. I was ready to get back into the arena.

When I’m outlining, scenes arrive in my brain in any order. That’s how I draft them, too. One of the beauties of our tech age is the abundance of wonderful programs to keep this ball rolling. My absolute favorite word processor is Scrivener. But I don’t, necessarily, draft with it.

Drafting is the first setting of actual prose on paper. Not the scraps of ideas of the outline stage, nor the buffed-up product of the polish stage. Drafts run free and wild. I let them pour out in all kinds of ways.

I have dictated them into my phone in the middle of a forest, or used Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard with my iPad, standing in line at the deli. My current favorite method is a Chromebook and this site: Writer, the Internet Typewriter. I find this the ultimate in cheap portability.

We need to let our brains go anywhere, and that’s why the proper tool combination is so valuable. Because the drafting process isn’t about the fiddly bits. Not about editing and not about stopping.

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To speak in simplified neurological language, drafting is left-brained, while editing is right-brained. For best results, do not cross the streams.

It takes some discipline to simply keep going. Even though we just used a cliche and committed a typo and what an awful name we gave that person who appeared in the scene out of nowhere. Does not matter. That’s what Second/Third/Fourth Draft and the whole Polishing stage is for.

First Draft is the magic time. The quickest way to break the spell is to stand over our creative child like some schoolmaster. This is one of the reasons I use a different device and program for First Drafting than I do for the later stages, when my Mac and Scrivener really shines. Using the correct thinking and tools is how we train our brain to stay in their lane.

This year, my cozy mystery, The Cat’s Pajamas, signaled me it was ready for the First Draft stage in late October. After years of research, and months of throwing ideas into Mindmeister, the planets were aligning.

I planned this book as the first in a series, set in the Roaring Twenties. Such a demanding task, combining multiple book longevity with historical context, doesn’t necessarily require such a long on-ramp. Many a writer found their main character demanded more adventures, or one compelling image was enough to launch into drafting. My own workflow seems to work best when rooted in deep topsoil, at the point where I’ve accumulated enough scenes at the sentence, or paragraph, stage.

When we get ready for any 50,000 words in any 30 days, go for it. This is about Flow, that elusive creative stage discovered and named by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. When we are running on curvy roads in this new muscle car, learning when to shift, how to lean into the turn, and the best way to handle the accelerator, we drive.

We keep driving until we get to the garage. That is when we tune the carb, rotate the tires, and give it a loving wash and polish. Only then.

If we focus on drafting and do not stop, we arrive at 50,000 words, which is enough for the next stage. I’m still drafting. I will draft until I get to the end. I’ll figure out where everything fits, later. Only then will I correct typos and give them better names.

Until then, I put my mental pedal to the imagination metal and drive like a bat out of hell. Window open, grinning big enough to get bugs in my teeth, soaking up the amazing scenery.

That’s how we get a novel.
—

Yes, my cozy mystery has a cat in it. (A theme in my life.) Check out my author page on Amazon. +Follow me to get notified of my novel-in-progress, The Cat’s Pajamas.

Chromebooks come with the Google Suite, which includes the Docs word processor for turning that draft into a polished work. Both Writer and Docs will work offline, too. Because we still shouldn’t be hanging in that coffee shop. Yet.

========================

TaMara here – I’m happy to highlight our authors’ works, just send me an email and we’ll get started.

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Quick Program Note: Me And Carl Down By The School Yard

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Should have put this up earlier, but Carl Zimmer (NYT science columnist and the author of lots, including most recently She Has Her Mother’s Laugh) will be talking TONIGHT about Money for Nothing (virtually) at the MIT Museum.

It starts and 7:30, and details can be found here.

We’ll jabber for half an hour or so, and then the floor will be open. Love to see any and all jackals there.

And for tolerating such relentless self promotion, please enjoy a bonus Tikka-and-Champ pic:

Quick Program Note: Me And Carl Down By The SchoolYard

Open thread: talk books, cats, and everything else.

 

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Recipes, Pets and More!

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potato bread and jam

Let’s just jump in with recipes. I know everyone is all about the sourdough starter these days. I’m not a fan, although I understand the appeal and this video didn’t hurt and it’s a great step-by-step instruction on starter and bread making if you need it.

rolling out tortillas

I have been playing with different bread recipes: homemade tortillas, crusty French bread and hamburger buns.

But the potato bread was a revelation.

Someone suggested to me to use potato bread dough next time I made cinnamon rolls. It sounded like an idea, but it also made me really, really want potato bread. I don’t believe I’ve ever made it before. And since I had no plans to make cinnamon rolls anytime soon, potato bread it had to be.

I have to tell you, it was fairly simple, and made the most amazing bread. Silky, moist, flavorful, and firm enough to cut into very thin slices.

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Mustang Bobby – and A Virtual Reading of His Play on Sunday at 3pm ET

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We all love Mustang Bobby.  We’ve seen his cars and his flowers; we know that he’s a playwright, what a good guy he is, and that he has one of the greatest nyms of all time.  But now we get to see one of his plays being performed, from the comfort of our own homes!

Mustang Bobby has a performance coming up this Sunday afternoon – a virtual reading of his one of his plays – so I asked if he would be willing to share a little more about himself, and about the play.

Before I forget:  This Sunday’s Medium Cool with BGinCHI will be devoted to a discussion of the play!

The performance on Silver Tongued Stages starts at 3pm ET, and of course Medium Cool will start at 5pm ET, as always.

Click below to watch the play!

Take it away, Mustang Bobby!

Hi, I’m Philip Middleton Williams, and I’m a playwright.

It’s a bit ironic, but most playwrights don’t really like to talk about themselves at great depth.  It’s not that we’re painfully shy; it’s because we would rather our works speak for what we want to say.  If you want to get to know me, read my plays.  Most of me is in them in some form or another, but here’s the short version.  I was born in 1952.  I grew up in an upper middle-class suburb of Toledo, and I went to college to get a degree in theatre.  I came out as gay when I was twenty-three, I went on to grad school for more degrees, and spent most of my career as a mid-level administrator in a variety of businesses, including public schools.  I had a partner named Allen for fifteen years.  I’m also a recovering alcoholic, so naturally I became a playwright.  It’s cheaper than therapy and doesn’t damage my liver.

I started writing stories in grade school, but I didn’t write my first full-length play until I was in grad school and getting an MFA in playwriting.  My master’s thesis was a play a called “The Hunter,” which I hope will never be produced again.  That’s when I learned that writing a play is different from a novel or a short story.  Like a musical score, it’s a collaborative effort and requires other peoples’ participation – directors, designers, and actors – before it can be seen by an audience.  But there’s also more instant gratification with a play.  It usually doesn’t take as long to write one – I’ve batted out a ten-minute play in less than an hour – and if you want to hear it, you can gather some friends in your living room – or on Zoom – and get feedback.  You can read a play, but it’s truly not done until you hear the words and see the characters come alive.

I’ve written over thirty plays ranging in length from one minute to two hours.  I’ve taken them to theatre festivals and conferences all over the country, including the breathtaking shores of Prince William Sound in Alaska, and made friends and learned so much from them by listening to them and hanging out before and after readings that we often joke about hosting a theatre conference without reading a single play.  I’ve also had plays produced around the country including one off-off-Broadway production, and even in Australia.  I try to see them when I can – I did make the trip to New York – but more often than not I send them out on their own.  I trust them to do right by themselves.

“A Tree Grows in Longmont” started out as a monologue which is now at the end of the play.  It’s a remembrance of the life I had with Allen, my partner, my lover, and my husband in every way, from our first meeting in 1984 through our life together, our separation in 1999, and his death on June 8, 2018.  It didn’t take very long to write it – it’s 33 pages – but it was both a joy and an agony as I wrote it.  He gave me immeasurable love and deep pain, as any relationship will.  He’s the main character in this play, and he also shows up in a number of my other works.  He told me to move on, and I did, but I’m taking him with me.  I even took a small urn of his ashes with me to Alaska last summer, knowing he’d want to go, and death being just a minor inconvenience.

Mustang Bobby – A Live Reading of His Play on Sunday at 3pm 3
The last time I saw Allen (left) when he was passing through Miami, in January 2013.

Mustang Bobby – A Live Reading of His Play on Sunday at 3pm 1
Me, Allen and Sam when we lived in Petoskey, Michigan in August 1995.

Thank you, WaterGirl for giving me this space, and I hope you all enjoy “A Tree Grows in Longmont”.

We’ll both be there with you.

*****

Note from WaterGirl:

Mustang Bobby – A Live Reading of His Play on Sunday at 3pm 4
This is Allen’s 1982 high school graduation photo, which Philip still carries with him.

Some love lasts forever.  I can’t wait to watch the story unfold at the virtual reading.

This Sunday, May 3, at 3 pm ET, “A Tree Grows in Longmont” will be presented by Silver Tongues Stages of Miami.

This Sunday’s Medium Cool will be devoted to a discussion of the play.

*****

Update on 5/4:  the upload took longer than expected, so the play was late starting, and we missed the window for discussing the on Medium Cool yesterday.  The play will be the topic for Medium Cool, just a week later, on 5/10.

Click below to watch the play on YouTube!

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Calling All Authors In Our Midst: Submissions Please, Round Two

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In October, we put out a call to our Balloon Juice writers, asking if anyone was interested in having their books work included in our list of published authors.  There was quite a bit of interest, and the result is the first draft you will find at the Our Authors link in the footer on the new site.

So much talent here on Balloon Juice!

Dorothy Winsor’s comment about her book in the morning thread reminded me that this is the perfect time to ask for a second round of submissions by our authors.  Past time, actually!  I had planned to have an updated list in place by December 1, in time for gift-buying season, so I am running out of daylight on this one.

For our published authors, we are asking for Balloon Juice people only, not family members.  (The cousin to this list – Our Artists & Artisans – can include spouses and partners.   John was waiting for the new site to put out his call for artists and artisans, so I suspect we may see that soon.)

What you need to know before submitting your information:

  1. Up to 3 publications can be listed on Our Published Authors page.  (fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, plays, poetry…)
  2. They must be written by Balloon Juice people only, not family members.
  3. Please please please submit your information in the format below.
  4. Please copy the contents of the window below into your comment and fill in the blanks.

Balloon Juice Nym:

Author Name:

Do you want your BJ nym displayed with your entry?  (yes or no)

Author URL, if you have one:

Title 1:

Title 1 category/type:

Title 1 URL:

Title 2:

Title 2 category/type:

Title 2 URL:

Title 3:

Title 3 category/type:

Title 3 URL:

We have a better idea of what we are looking for and what the limitations are this time around, so if you supplied information during the first call, please check Our Authors in the footer so we can make any changes or additions to your information.

If you want to make changes or additions to your listing, please use the format above.

Update:  If you do not want us to know that “Little Surfer” is actually Diana VanWriter, then please send email to WaterGirl at the balloon juice address.  You can copy the format into your email message and fill it in there.  I”ll need to know what nym connects with which author, but that will never be published anywhere, so no one else will see it.

Authors Added or Updated 11/30 by 5pm:

Tehanu
Hungry Joe
Laura Koerber
Bud
Munira
La Gata Gris
PhoenixRising
Robmassing
PaulWartenberg
Vicki Delany

Authors Added or Updated 12/1 by noon:

Facebones
Carol Van Natta
btom89
Citizen Alan
WereBear
JoyceH
Lucy Pick
Mark Benbow
mike shupp
Badgetoon
Cliff Wirt
hitchhiker
gwangung
Frankensteinbeck
tokyocali
Alex Olson

Final Update at 8pm on Sunday: I am no longer checking this thread for authors who wish to be added to the Our Authors list.  Thanks to all of our authors!

 

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Calling All Authors In Our Midst: Submissions, Please

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Delphin Enjoiras 1920

Watergirl asked me if I thought it was a good idea to put together a list (much like the blog roll) of our published authors. She would link to their book or author’s page. Of course, I thought it was a great idea.

So what she needs from you is: Name of your book, style of the book (NF, F, YA, etc), author’s name, link to your book or author’s page.

That’s it. Add it to the comments below.

And, please, to help Watergirl out, limit it to those comments so she doesn’t have wade through 150 random comments to find what she needs. Unless you have a question about an entry.

Otherwise, I posted an open thread just below this one. Thanks!

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Authors in Our Midst/Writers Chatting: Chapter 17

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Welcome back!  We have another guest author and book to highlight. Hope this finds you writing away.

Today we will hear from Frankensteinbeck and he details some harrowing publisher experiences. But not to worry, he’s got a new book out. Rag Dolls

What would you do with an enchanted kingdom of living puppets? Would you look for adventures, or enjoy the sights of a stranger than strange land? Would you rest and make friends in this one safe place, or build new wonders for the next child who needs a refuge?

Would you rule?

Would you smash your toys, because the outside world hurts?

Two girls have come to the land of Here and There, and a little doll named Heartfelt was the first to meet them both. Sandy wants to heal and create, but doubts herself. Heartfelt has to help her believe, because Charity has no doubts at all. In the process, maybe she’ll ask the question no one else has—what do dolls want?

Now his story:

This morning, let’s talk about one of the bad sides of the business, because everyone can use the warning.

I had a publisher.  An up and coming small press, who took awhile to figure things out, but eventually did and were solid and heading up.  I was living off my royalties, which is a rare honor and joy.  Then, very slowly, things went bad.  My publisher started being late paying me.  At first, they would say my checks had been sent and they had no idea what happened.  Then they stopped paying by check, and their explanations why did not make sense.

Why am I telling you this?  Because I have found out afterward that this is very, very common.  If you deal with a small press, even one that treats you wonderfully, you have to keep an eye out for the symptoms.  In the case of my publisher, they spent all their money on an insane scheme to replace Amazon with blockchain.  I assure you, it was actually stupider than it sounds.  But way too often something goes wrong with a publisher and they start stealing from the authors to try and recover.  It doesn’t work.  If you see the signs, start looking for a new publisher, fast.  You got one, you can get another.

More symptoms.  People who used to be very responsive and helpful got slower and slower answering emails, and would evade direct answers.  The publisher’s staff, which had been growing, started to shrink.  The cover artist quit.  For awhile, they would miss payments, but eventually make a payment plan and catch up.  When I wouldn’t take bitcoin, they offered PayPal, which I didn’t like but would accept.  A check bounced.  Towards the end, even the payment plan would be missed.

Public symptoms.  Other authors started to complain about paperbacks not coming out on time.  The company stopped doing advertising – temporarily, of course.  Everything was temporary!  A major backup set in publishing new books, because the owner had to do cover art himself.  It took a long, long time for anyone to openly complain we weren’t getting paid, but it turns out to have been common.  We were just too professionally polite to go public about that.

Eventually, they mysteriously failed to add my book release money to my monthly royalties, and I had to pitch a fit to get them back.  So they just didn’t pay the money they admitted they owed me.

With the help of the SFWA, I have gotten some of my money, I am likely to get all of it, and I have my rights back.  I still have not gotten audiobook royalties switched to me.  I have a new publisher, and a new book coming out, A Rag Doll’s Guide To Here And There.  I went through a year and a half of Hell fighting to get my money and watching the career I’d built my life around nosedive.

You need to know this happens, and it happens often.  If you get suspicious, don’t stick around because they used to treat you well.  There is no un-circling that drain.  Get out.  Find someone new.

Don’t be me.

Thanks to Frankensteinbeck for sharing his story. Now on to our chat.  I got terribly behind this month and am trying to get back in the groove with mixed results. What’s going on in your writing world?

Let’s get to chatting…

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