Hey everyone. I just wanted to say that Valerie’s anthology is now in kindle and paperback.
Here are the links.
You know how I feel about her work. Remember that the profits are going to the Mercy College scholarship in her name.
Keep her work alive.
Before I start, let me just say that the HIMYM finale last night broke my heart a hundred times. They pushed more buttons than a 9 year old me in my apt building’s elevator.
Now then:
I was born in the Bronx, in a part of the Bronx called Co-op City. I lived there until the 3rd Grade. My New York experience was very different from other peoples’, and I feel weird about that. I didn’t live in a row house and hang out on the stoop. I lived in a massive 33 story apartment building with a courtyard of asphalt and a playground of sand and aging wood. I didn’t have a bodega on the corner. I had an island of shops floating in the middle of the street.
Co-op City is very isolated from the rest of the City. There is no direct subway line (you have to take the bus to the Pelham stop and catch the 6 or just take the bus crosstown). Because I moved out before I was old enough to travel alone, I never got to explore the city. It’s not that big a deal, but it somehow makes me feel unauthentic. It doesn’t help that I speak very slow, with a bit of a drawl. I had severe speech problems as a kid and even today, I can be uncomfortable to listen to.
When I got older, I took regular trips into the city to drink and see shows, but I only went to certain areas. If you asked me how to get somewhere in the West Village, I could probably lead you right there (although it’s been years since I was a regular). Outside of that, I’m fuzzier.
Here’s the issue: I love history, and I am very enamored with the history of New York. I’ve never done the touristy New York things. I’ve never gone to the Empire State Building. I’ve never gone to the statue of liberty (nor would I, it’s a long, hot, trip to the top). But I would like to see Castle Garden. I would like to visit the Lightship Ambrose. I’d like to do the lit walk in Central Park. I want to go inside Trinity Church. I want to experience the city like a tourist.
I don’t like tourists.
I don’t want to walk around with my nose in a tour book. I don’t want to have to carry a map. But the truth is: I am a tourist. I may have once been a New Yorker, but now I’m not. I’m somewhere in between.
I need to just suck it up and go full tourist. There’s a lot of history I want to absorb. I’ll try not to stand in the middle of the sidewalk and block shit up.
Here’s a question for you: Are you more of a New Yorker if you are born there and move away after 10 years, or if you move there as an adult and live there 10 years?
For the past few weeks I have been working hard on Valerie’s anthology. It finally went live on Kindle last week.
This is the most important thing that I have ever done. I’ve never stressed about my own work the way that I have about hers. I guess because it’s permanent. I can always edit my own stuff, but Val is gone. Her stories are in my hands now, and the responsibility of that is overwhelming. It has to be perfect. I won’t settle for anything less than perfect.
That’s not true. I’m sure that there are some problems with it that I haven’t seen. Knowing that they are out there kills me.
Valerie was a much more talented writer than me. She was a professor at Mercy College. When she died, she was entering a PhD program for Writing. I’d estimate that there are only a thousand of so Doctors’ of Writing out there. Literature, there are plenty. Specifically Writing, a scant few.
But telling people that she was a great writer isn’t enough. I feared that her stories would fall into obscurity. She deserved a better fate.
Right now the anthology is available for $1.99 on Amazon. Mercy College set up a merit award in her name, and all of the proceeds are going to it. Her stories deserve to be read. For two dollars, you’re getting something that will change you. She changed me.
Hey there dear readers. I have a story, “If You Leave Me,” in the anthology Twisted Love. If you don’t want to invest the money in buying Song of Simon, or the time in reading “The Watchmage of Old New York,” I’d recommend starting here. It’s completely FREE, and it’s a pretty good story. As one fellow author said, “It’s the only zombie story that gets you right in the feels.”
This was a very difficult story to write. I started it not long after my girlfriend Valerie died. I began having nightmares that she was still alive and trying to dig her way out of the grave. I combined it with my own fear that I would someday move on and find someone else to love (a fear that I still have, but that’s a completely different issue). Writing this helped make the nightmares go away (mostly).
The other stories and poems in the anthology are very good too. You should download it.
For those of you that are ready my serial “The Watchmage of Old New York,” chapter 38 is ready. I also decided to go back to a weekly schedule instead of biweekly. We’re nearing the end, so if you have serial anxiety because you don’t like to wait, you can start now. You won’t reach the end by the time it’s done. Believe me, it’s worth the read.
It’s FREE with registration at Jukepop Serials. If you like history, mystery, fantasy, steampunk, or New York city, you’ll love it.
So it looks like Otto Octavius is ending his vacation inside of Peter Parker’s body and Pete’s gonna be back soon. I haven’t been reading the series (I prefer to wait for trade paperbacks), but I’ve been intrigued by the whole idea. From what I’ve heard from my fellow geekerlings, it’s been a great run.
Superior?
Otto’s always been a complex villain, and the idea of him taking over Spider-Man’s body to prove himself a “superior” hero is great. He doesn’t have the emotional hangups that Peter does (he has a different set of hangups) and in many ways, that makes him better at fighting “evil.”
My friend Marc Buxton does a great analysis here, and if Marc says it (and it’s about comics) it’s probably true.
The thing about Otto is that he is a creature of cold logic, free of encumbering emotions. This allows him to make the hard decisions, stuff that Peter could never do. But in the end, he lacks Peter’s humanity, and that’s the spark that makes a true hero.
If you don’t read The Middle Spaces yet, you should. It’s a great comic resource, and the author, Osvaldo, is one of my best friends. He wrote an article some time back about how Marvel has embraced a gray area of justice, where heroes will do unheroic things, such as use torture villains or exile The Hulk to a far off planet. Even Spider-Man beat a suspect to get information out of him at one point, which is completely out of character for him, and in my opinion makes him less heroic.
I think that establishing the contrast between Peter and Otto will return Pete to his previous state, though that depends on the writer. They could have him go the other way and incorporate some of Otto’s methods, which I think is a terrible idea.
In the forthcoming novelized version of my serial, The Watchmage of Old New York (free with registration, blah blah blah), the main character suffers through a similar crisis of faith. If you have near unlimited power, how do you avoid overusing it to mold the world in your image? How do you punish evil without succumbing to it? The Superman comics have dealt with the same thing over the years, the latest example being the video game Injustice, which I enjoyed very much.
So let me be the first to welcome Peter Parker back into his own body. Otto’s good, but not “superior.”
Also, I got a new phone today and all the fancy shit on it is overwhelming me. I’m not computer illiterate, but I compute on a 4th grade level.
I turned 37 (in a row!? nsfw) on the 13th, but I feel like 50. Medical bills are adding up, and my body is subtracting. It doesn’t seem to matter how much weight I lose (70 pounds since February), my body still rebels against me.
I know that I shouldn’t kvetch, but I’m a Jew and that’s my birthright.
To summarize: my ins is refusing to cover 2 meds that they used to, without which I will die. My endocrine system is fucked. I have a toothache, and I can’t find a dentist that takes my ins. I injured my knee swimming in November and was misdiagnosed. Now I have to go in for an MRI to search for ligament damage. I’m severely bipolar, with anxiety and panic attacks that induce vomiting. I have asthma. I have sleep apnea, but the cpap machine causes panic attacks (having to rip off the mask to throw up is not pleasant. I have the beginnings of Barret’s esophagus (which will eventually cause esophageal cancer, one of the most lethal cancers). My left foot sometimes goes numb, and I have a B12 deficiency.
Many of these things I’ve lived with all my life, and I have come to terms with. I was diagnosed with Bipolar syndrome by age 14. They put me on Lithium, which I think damaged my endocrine system. I always had asthma. Everything else is a brand new fucking experience.
This is why I throw myself into my writing. This is why I aim for a book a year. I want to leave something behind when I die, something that people can enjoy, that will live on beyond me. But one book isn’t enough. Ten might not be enough. I will never be satisfied with what I’ve done, and I feel like I have a short while to do it.
Valerie died when she was 35. She was a brilliant writer, with who knows how many great stories still left inside of her. She was working on her 3rd novel when she died, and it will remain unfinished. I keep putting off publishing her anthology because I am selfish and driven. I keep saying “when I finish this chapter, or this book, or whatever.” One day I am going to die and I hope that it’s not before I get her shit together. Her work means more to me than my own, so why do I keep putting it off?
No matter how much I may want to, I am not ready to join her yet. I have miles to go before I sleep.
Today I went back to my old high school to talk to the kids. Something about “inspiring them to achieve their dreams through hard work, you can be anything you want, blah blah blah.” I think most of that is true, but it feels weird to be on the other side of that speech. I don’t know if the kids really bought it.
Everyone treats the fact I wrote a novel to be some amazing achievement. It’s not. It’s the natural culmination of what I’ve been doing since I was right there in the chairs those kids were sitting in. I wasn’t struck by dumb luck or divine inspiration. I went to college for Creative Writing. I graduated and started writing for magazines. I paid my dues. I did all the Charlie-work. I fine tuned my craft. It’s not like this came out of nowhere.
Maybe that’s the point. You can one day say “I’m gonna write a novel,” and do it, but it will probably suck. Writing is like any other craft. You have to study. You have to practice. You have to work your goddamn ass off to get good.
A lot of people ignore that. They take short cuts. It shows.
But back to the topic. I really don’t feel like I’ve done anything extraordinary, because it’s something that I’ve done all my life. If I was to suddenly star in a movie or fly a plane, that would be extraordinary. A writer writes, that’s what he’s meant to be. Writing is like breathing, and there’s no other way for a writer to live.
So I went back to school. I said a few words, signed a book, took pictures with the staff and kids. All the while I was thinking about what to write next.
I told you, it’s like breathing.
PS: I almost forgot, yesterday was my birthday. Happy happy, blah blah blah
Is this too much?
So yeah, buy my book (Song of Simon, which kicks a lot of ass)
If you want a FREE taste of how awesome my stories are, check out “The Watchmage of Old New York” at JukePop Serials. It just spent another week at #2 in popularity, with well over 3000 endorsements. It’s also included in the new JukePop Anthology of the best of the site.
Have a great weekend, I love you all.
C.A.
Hey there,
I wrote an article for All Things Book-Review about “World Building in Genre Fiction.” It comes with silly youtube links (although the Bob Ross one at the end exactly reinforces what I’m saying) and a good worksheet at the end. Here is the link. I’d like to do several of them, as they come right from my lesson plans, and it’s stuff that aspiring writers need to know.
I used to be a teacher, and I still tutor English and History. As such, I know a little bit (quite a bit) about writing theory and proper structure. Planning ahead is very important if you want to write a good story, that is, if you want to write a good story without scrapping half of it. And this is why I have serious issues with NaNo.
As some of you know, NaNo purposefully ignores structure (their motto is “no plot, no problem), leading to 1) formless nonsense with a weak plot and/or glaring plot holes, forcing the serious writer to throw out most of his work in order to fix it. or 2) a story that can’t be finished because the writer runs out of ideas and/or writes himself into a corner. “No plot” is a serious problem.
Planning saves paper, people.
I like what Natalie Goldberg has to say about outlining. Once you know what’s going to happen in a chapter, or from point to point, it gives your mind free rein to write as it sees fit, to flow in a natural, zen-like manner, the no-mind.
It’s like how a zen practitioner structures his meditation from gong to gong. I’m paraphrasing, but the message is clear.
NaNo claims that it is allowing the writer to write without structure, but instead it does the opposite. The writer has to constantly think about what comes next. It prevents the freedom to write.
It’s like a driver without a map, that has to constantly look for signs to tell them where to go. Instead be the driver with a map that knows exactly where they’re going, free from stress, and wrong turns. The successful NaNo writers I’ve seen have a plot in mind before they start writing. Some even have (gasp) plot points and a chapter outline.
Let’s make September National Preparing for NaNo month (SeNaPreN?). While we’re at it, make December National Revising Your NaNo month (DeNaReYN?)
I’ve written about this before, and each time I am deluged with NaNo devotees that attack me as if I am attacking their religion. I suppose that I am, but I hate to see someone put so much effort into writing something meaningful, only to see it fall apart.
If only they looked before they leaped.
I’m sorry if you think “i’m being a dick,” I don’t “get it,” “it’s the community, man,” or “your writing probably sucks anyway.” Maybe you’re right, but next time try planning ahead before you do NaNo. I guarantee that your story will be much better. Look. Leap. Land on your feet.
Love ya, and Happy writing,
C.A.
casandersdotnet 