Productive weekend

To my shock and amazement, I did a significant amount of writing over the Memorial Day weekend. More than 3,000 words. That's fantastic, because weekends are normally lost for me as far as writing goes, with way too much family stuff going on to squeeze in any writing time. Anything I get done on the weekends counts as a bonus.

A blurt of laughter cut him off. "Our Gauthier is right now hiding under the bed in his cell, praying that I don't come 'round to visit him once I'm done with you. The only arse Gauthier looks out for is his own."

"Th-that's not true," Jachym said, backing away. "He came for me tonight, when I was hobbled. There were Lidozrout."

"Lidozrout, you say?" Burgh's hand shot out, lighting quick, fingers digging into Jachym's shoulder. "If there really were Lidozrout out there, and they'd gotten you while you were in Gauthier's charge, you know what would've happened?"

Burgh pulled him close, beard scratching against Jachym's face, and whispered into his ear. "Your ten years would've gone to Gauthier. Think he came back outta the goodness of his heart, now?"

Jachym's pretty much hit rock bottom at this point. He's got a whole heck of a lot of challenges awaiting him, and his life is about to get far more interesting than he even has the capacity to imagine, but at least it doesn't get any worse for him. Although I suspect Jachym would take little comfort in that.

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Why I suck at Trivial Pursuit

If you were in Prague and for some reason found yourself in need of a hookah, you'd ask for a "vodní dýmka." Such knowledge, I can assure you, will never, ever be required during a game of Trivial Pursuit.

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Novel progress

Met my writing targets for last night, finished the chapter and moved on to the next. Yay! For someone who is as easily distracted as I am by any excuse not to write, this week has been an amazing success story. Here's a passage from the fruits of my sleepless labor:

"You were close to being freeholden?"

Jachym nodded. "In the s-spring."

"Gads, your parents must be real greedgrubbers," Gauthier said, shaking his head. His expression softened. "What'd you do to make them hate you so?"

"I don't know," Jachym answered. "I worked hard for them. Harder, after the floods. Matka and Otec didn't bond me last year, even when the drought got so bad that the river dried up and you could walk across and not get your feet wet. I never thought my parents would bond me. Our crops died. We had to sell our goats to buy bread. So this year the rains came. And never ended. Tvůrce is a twisted sort of god, if that's the way he answers prayers."

"No younger brother they could've bonded instead?"

"Two sisters. Ama and Dru. They're twelve and ten," Jachym said, tears welling in his eyes again. "Matka says there aren't enough girls in Neu Breclav, so they'll bring a good bride-price in a few years."

Gauthier whistled lowly. "Gads, you never had a chance."

"I wish they were dead. Let Tvůrce deliver that prayer."

I know my production is going to drop off at a certain point, because right now I'm covering ground that I've plowed before, so to speak. I'd love to be cranking out 2,000-plus words a night, but that's not something I'm capable of as a writer. At least, not when I'm having to stay up past 1 in the a.m. to achieve the current production levels. I'm pretty darn bleary in the mornings these days.

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It's Picacio day at the blog!

Now, I'd be hard-pressed to argue that John Picacio doesn't deserve a blog entry devoted to him on the basis of sheer physical beauty alone... so I won't. Nope, no mock-modesty Harrison Bergeron shtick here. Be proud of who you are, John! Be proud!

But that's neither here nor there. I come here today to praise John Picacio, not to taunt him. Because today marks the official release of Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio from MonkeyBrain:



It's chok-full of artwork that is simply beee-you-teeful. If you buy only one artbook this year, make it this one.

But John's also interviewed in this month's issue of Interzone. The only fault I can find with it is that the interview wasn't conducted by me. But then again, I'm not really doing interviews these days, so that might have something to do with it. Steve Badrich does a good job of getting interesting stuff out of Picacio, particularly when it comes to the actual physical process of creation:

Old-school guy that I am, I assume that I'm looking at computer-mediated works, not at oil on canvas, let's say. Is that correct?

Not quite. The truth is that I'm drawing and painting everything you see via traditional methods and means, and then taking those bits to the computer and scanning them in and collaging them together. Drawing and painting are two things I love to do, but I'm not interested in doing either with a computer and a keyboard. So everything you see on my covers starts off as pencils on illustration board and I usually build up a pretty tight underdrawing. The I spot all of my solid black areas in acrylic. From here, I do a full greyscale oil painting study on top of that, using only black, white and grey oil paints, and that's where all the values come from in the final piece. This is not new stuff. This is old Renaissance method. Rembrandt used to do a greyscale oil underpainting and then build up his color values on top.

Great stuff. Read the interview if you can, but by all means, buy that book!

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Good writing

Exceeded my goal for writing 1,000 words last night. Granted, there were some pre-existing passages from earlier drafts that I was able to incorporate into the narrative, so that wasn't 100 percent new copy. Even so, anyone who's ever written knows that the effort involved in making older copy mesh seamlessly with newer can be as challenging as anything. At any rate, I'm encouraged and hope to finish the current chapter tonight.

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Bad times for Jachym

Talk about biting off more than you can chew. I've got a couple of short stories in need of work. There are three reviews I've committed to writing but haven't yet started. The follow-up to Voices of Vision is sitting there, waiting patiently for my attention. And that's not even counting the radio script and viking longboat article I've been monkeying around with for far too long. So it's safe to say that my plate's very full, and my time is very short.

So last night I sat down and wrote. Not on any of the above, worthy tho they may be, but on my long-neglected novel, Wetsilver. I've farted around on this thing for too many years to count, junking the whole thing and starting over from page one at least twice. No longer. World Fantasy Con is coming up in November, and I committed myself back in December to having this novel finished by then. That gives me less than six months to get my ass in gear and meet my deadline. Here's a sampling of what I wrote:

Jachym tried to run. The hobble held firm, and he pitched forward onto the ground, needlefingers gouging his shoulder and cheek. He bit his lip to keep from crying out.

To his left, maybe a stone's throw away, he heard low snuffling.

"Tvůrce, Tvůrce, Tvůrce," he whispered urgently, but no prayer came to him. The Lidozrout would find him, no matter how still he lay. The they would kill him, eat him. And not necessarily in that order.

Slowly, his blood thundering in his ears, Jachym rolled to his side. Then he doubled over, reaching the hobble.

The Lidozrout grunted softly, then rattled off a quick string of barks and coughs more hushed than before. The second one behind Jachym answered softly, and the first replied. Both of them had moved closer. Farther away--to his right?--Jachym thought he heard a squeal. Three of them. Stalking him.

Total production was only about 750 words, which was a little disappointing since I was shooting for 1,000. But that's still 750 words farther along than I was at this time yesterday.

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No repeat in '06

Well, it was a good run while it lasted. The Spurs fell to the Mavs 119-111 in overtime after rallying from a huge deficit early in the game. Tim Duncan had a monster game with 41 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks, but in the end it wasn't enough. The Spurs just couldn't make a basket at the end of regulation to win it, or in OT to keep up with the Mavs.

I have no animosity toward the Mavs. Nowitzki and his teammates are worthy players, and any Spurs fan will tell you that Avery Johnson is one of the good guys and a coach that will cast a huge shadow in the NBA. So I don't begrudge them this victory and shot at reaching the NBA finals for the first time ever. But I do begrudge the fans up in Dallas for booing Michael Finley when he took the court. That was just shitty. They deserve to have the crap beat out of their team for that behavior alone. And Mark Cuban. I could say the man is an utter and total dick, but I don't want to insult the dicks of the world that way. Honestly, when did such boorishness become a badge of honor?

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