Shorts, Work Woes, and Possible Relatives

So, I'm doing five little shorts for a contest on the Young Writers Society. I've already gotten two of them done, and am working on the other three.

Work is going well. One of the managers says that I'm probably going to stick around as long as I need to, which will be sometime in August. Hopefully then I'll get to go see my girlfriend. She lives in New York, so this job is paying for a lot of that.

Work is also taking a lot of time out of my writing/internet time. I've been writing during school, so I've not been out of that too much. But it's been detracting from my activities on the Young Writers Society. Thankfully, next week I'll have more time off, so I'll be able to focus more. But for now, I feel rather useless.

I told my girlfriend that a friend of mine from Young Writers Society shares the same last name as me. She asked, "Well, are you two actually related?" I don't think we are. My dad says he doesn't think we have any family in Oregon, where my friend lives. I do intend to ask my grandma though. She's more knowledgeable about that sort of thing, since she's done the family genealogy twice. It would be interesting. I still don't think we're actually related, but if we were, it would be one of those mind-bending things. Being related to this guy would be fairly awesome, since he's a stellar writer and has better taste than me in many things,

New Work and Flash

So, I have to work today, when I previously did not. I'm really freaking bummed about that. I was looking forward to just going home and goofing off tonight. Not so much now.

I'm working on some shorts for a contest that someone on the Young Writers Society is doing. We need to write five stories influenced by random songs. One of mine is Under the Lighthouse by Big Wreck. That's the only one I've gotten so far. I'll get to the others at some point. :P

Moneyz and Laptop

So, new job's been going well. The manager that hired me is rather hard assed, but she'll be gone for all of this week on vacation, so that's good for me. The job pays 7.25 an hour, so I really can't complain, since I need that kind of money. And I get an employee discount, which is nice too. I'm going to use it to buy Resident Evil 5. I played the demo with my sister, and she really likes it, so I'm going to get the whole game and we'll play it together.

And, I'm currently typing this from my new Macbook. It's a pretty sweet little setup. I'm pumped that I finally have a laptop, and one as awesome as this. :) Perhaps now I can hang out with the family instead of being cooped up in my room all day, haha.

Job

I got hired at Alco. I start work today, right after school. I don't really know what time I'll get home. Since today will probably be training and whatnot, it may be somewhat late, perhaps until closing time. I'll take my iTouch, so that I have something to listen to on the way there and on the way home. :P

This does mean I won't have as much time to write my stories and be on the Young Writers Society in the evenings, though I will make an effort to be on as much as I can. I really need the money. Though Worldcon isn't happening anymore, college still is, and every bit of money will help with that. :P

Movie Scenes, Rejection, and Vignettes

So, I think I have two additions for the list of "Coolest scenes in movies ever." The first one is from the Two Towers, and it's the scene where the Ents, big tree people, march on a wizard's fortress to rip it apart. It's awesome because, not only is it basically a huge forest going to war, but it's the last battle this race will ever fight, since there haven't been any baby Ents for ages. So it's all the Ents period, showing up to kick some serious ass.

The other one is from Return of the King. It's when Frodo and Sam are trying to climb Mt. Doom, to finally get rid of the Ring. They've already come across most of Mordor, and if that isn't bad enough, the Ring is weighing down on Frodo. They make it to the base of the volcano and fall down. Frodo says he can't go on anymore, because the Ring is so heavy on him. Then Sam says "Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." And then he picks up Frodo and carries him on his shoulders all the way up the freaking huge volcano. It's awesome.

Another rejection notice came in for one of my stories. I've still got three or four out there though, so I'm still not terribly worried.

I finally turned in my research paper for English IV, my high school class. I've decided to forgo writing a new essay for my college class and simply turn this one in for that class too. These papers are all too much work for me. I hate nonfiction. Fiction is so much better.

Speaking of fiction, I've decided to put together a bunch of the little monologue vignettes I've been writing into a little chapbook or something. Of course, I'll need a few more before I can do that. I have some ideas though, so we'll see how that goes.

Job Interview and Prom

I'm going to a job interview at Alco today. Hopefully I'll get the job. I need money in order to pay for going to Worldcon in August.

Prom and After-Prom were all right. I had a lot of fun seeing people getting hypnotized and stuff, and I got a 125 dollar gift certificate to Wal-Mart, so it was a win for me.

The Completed Renga

Here is the renga that I did with the folks from the Young Writers Society. We didn't quite follow all of the rules, and we goofed up with the syllables a couple of times, but overall I'm pleased with the result. :)

slow embrace, plunging:
tentacles and flotsam lull --
we collect the shells.
fish tails under broken hulls
fell voices in the currents
coral dances with
the movements of the sea waves;
fishes swim blindly.
tight-mouthed shells, settled, scuttled
on the beach like hulled warships
and we are the deep
beautiful; wild
since the sea was born
we hide treasures that
no man's eyes have ever touched
secluded in peace.
lantern skinned, studded
gills flapping like skirts; we sleep –
boneless, deep folktales
what god can match our splendour,
our revelry in the waters?
secretive meetings
held within the depths of seas
plighting a plot unheard.
friendless silence, plucked eardrums
sockets in the fogged slumber
we will not breathe air
our lungs fill with the cold water
Dark sea shapes we take
shut-mouthed, fastened down
like selfish little lockets,
we hoard our drowned tunes
the choir of transfigured souls
sweet voices among fins and scales
bodies once belonged
to land, now claimed by the sea,
brainwashed, lost and dead.
the sick girls, the yellow boys,
belly-up, they speak nonsense
but the sea takes them
it takes us and remakes us
we are its children
sculpting, remodeling us,
like clay, into something new
made to live our life
by rules foreign to our hearts;
confused, outraged we.
seek the comforts of the water
writhing in our new wonder
pollinate their dreams,
fat and ugly, like rough tongues,
stealing their rhymes, notes
succumbing to the soft touch
of waves and rolling currents
and purge them with oil, black salt –
monacled with sucker wounds
a drawling timepiece,
needled, trolled machinery,
like insect mouthparts
draining them of sanity,
replacing with misery
no longer human
skin changed for scales now
emotions far and gone
dolphins suckle at us
but it does not concern us
we are the new gods
we'll rule in our ignorance,
as if we own the untouched.
nothing holds us back
no man nor deity is our lord
we are beyond them
we are free, to wreck and ruin
who will punish for actions?
apocalypse here
from the depths of the blue sea
we have come to rule
to terrorize, overtake
the sea-lands we inhabit
let the sea rise up
trade in your legs for fish tails
become as we are
indifferent to those who
lived here centuries before
who stole, unrighteous
and died ignorant, with weight
of sins upon their hands.

Renga and Centaurs

Renga group is tomorrow night. I'm totally excited. *nods*

New short story, again. :P This one involves, surprise, surprise, a centaur. Why do I keep coming back to them? I don't see a problem with it, after all, Tolkien kept coming back to elves and Asimov kept coming back to robots. But I am rather interested as to why they hold my attention like that. Oh well, maybe one day I'll go into therapy and figure it out. :P

Pandora, Prom, Mini-Rant, and Respect

So Pandora Internet Radio is pretty much freaking awesome. I've got a Muse station and it's pretty much amazingness.

Prom is this Saturday. I've already got a tux and a date and everything. It's not really a big deal to me. All we'll do is eat some food, watch a hypnotist screw with people, and dance. After-Prom is much better. That's when you have the real fun without your stinking tux and crap. And I also suck at dancing. *nods*

Reading my the book that my girlfriend sent me, Deep Secret. It's pretty good. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, enough to recommend it to other people.

Had an idea for a story yesterday, about an architect describing how he sees cities, flowers, and people in love. :P May try to develop it more fully later. Probably won't get to it tonight, because I probably have to go to church. I don't really mind that, but we always arrive an hour early and stay an hour late because my sister does things with the youth band. The hour early isn't the part I mind,cause my mom and I always go to a coffee shop. It's the hour after, sitting there in the car waiting for her to get out, that really bugs me. It's too dark to read or write, you just sit there and wait. If we went and did stuff I wouldn't mind it near as much. But, oh well.

Looking at some haikus in preparation for Friday night's renga spree. I'm pretty pumped about it. All of us are decent poets, but there's one of us (not me) who's really freaking good with poetry and writing as a whole. I've been wanting to work with him for a while, so this is a welcome opportunity for me.

Rengas and Gift Books

On Friday night, I'll be getting together with some other people from the Young Writers Society to do some renga poems. Rengas are basically long, collaborative versions of haikus. The people I'm getting with are very good at poetry, and I feel somewhat out of place amongst their talent. Hopefully I'll be able to provide some good contributions to the effort.

Finished The Lord of the Rings today. It's just as good as I remember it being. Very few books are able to make my hair stand on end when I read them. But these books, especially The Return of the King, do that to me. Almost every time King Theoden of Rohan speaks is a moment of awesome, no lie. Now I'm starting on this book called Deep Secret, by Diana Wynne Jones. My girlfriend got it for me, because she wanted to get me something and asked me what. So I looked on Amazon and chose this because it has centaurs in it. There's one right on the cover, jumping over a crowd of astonished onlookers. :P

Graduation and Collabs

I can't wait to graduate already. At this point, we're just sitting around not caring, dealing with teachers who really don't care either. All we want are our diplomas so we can freaking leave.

Lord of All Horses is plodding along. It takes forever to get me to sit down and work on it, but once I get started I can really get going.

I started a new collab with someone. It'll be a little short story about a girl with a magic key that opens a door to a world where it's always twilight on a summer's evening. Sounds nice. But, like with all magic, there's a price for it. :P

Collabs are awesome, I've decided. Cause you can bounce ideas off of your partner, and help them help you help them. Basically tag team writing is amazing to me. I find I can do it rather well, due to the fact that I have an insane ability to work on three to four projects at one time. It's awesome.

Finished Fellowship of the Ring, starting on the Two Towers when I can get home and get my copy. I love high fantasy like this, though I need to find some besides Tolkien and *shudders* Paolini. I'm thinking George R.R. Martin next.

Lord of All Horses, and Tolkien

So, I'm working on the story about the son of a god still. This will probably end up being around the same length as Hearts in the Sea, somewhere around 50k words or so. As for a title, I'm thinking "Lord of All Horses", since that's the official godly title that has been given to the main character, Hipperion, son of Urizen. No, it's not the Urizen from William Blake. And don't accuse me of copying him. He's public domain now. :P

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings again. The last time I read it might have been in seventh grade. Course, I've seen the movies in between, but movies still can't compare. Someone told me I ought to read the Harry Potter series, but, truth be told, they've never really interested me. Tolkien has always appealed to me more, because of his overall sense of scope. When he writes, he writes on a grand scale, something that I hope to emulate.

Worldcon, Rejection, and Goo-Balls

I just might be going somewhere during August.

Worldcon.

There are about three other dudes from the Young Writers Society who are planning to go, and I have been told that I can meet up with them there. That's the only reason I'll go, if someone else is going with me. It's going to be fairly awesome, I assure you.

I don't have to worry about that accidental double submission anymore, because the most recent place I submitted it to rejected it. But, the first place is still considering it, so it's really no great loss.

I've been playing World of Goo lately. It's an awesome little game. You have these little balls, called Goo, and you have to use them to build a pathway to these pipes for the rest of their Goo brethren. The whole thing has a rather Seussical feel to it, which I find rather appealing, and some of the puzzles it presents you are genuinely challenging. One kid in my class, Schomber, beat it and declared it the hardest game he had ever played. Granted, he doesn't play anything that challenges his grey matter much, but he's also fairly smart anyway.

Gods, Collab, and Job

So, I bought a new notebook today and started on a new story. It's a continuation of one of the stories I wrote over spring break, the one about the gods who lost their powers. Except this one will be told from the POV of his son, and it will be about how the gods get their powers back.

The collab of awesomeness is going very well. My earlier prediction of getting done by the weekend is very possible. It'll be short and fun, all about the story, no annoying theme to worry about. :)

I'll be starting a job soon, hopefully. I'll be working at Alco. It looks to be a good job, or as good of a job as I would be able to get. I won't complain about it though. I need the money too much. :P

Gift, Paper, and Pure Awesome

Story idea: What if someone's daughter is not their daughter, but all parties have always known this?

Need to think of a gift for my girl. Was going to give her my class ring, but inadvertently told my mother about it and she won't let me. Says it's too important. It isn't, really. After I graduate, I won't wear it again. Oh well. :P

Research paper is dragging by. I need to get my sources and notes back from my teacher so that I can actually start. I don't know if she realizes that I was actually planning on using them, cause she's still grading them. I hope she's done with them tomorrow, or else I'll have a whole weekend without them. And I can't do that, since the rough draft is due on the 13th.

Working on a new collaboration with someone. Will probably be done by the end of the weekend, at the rate it's going now. With any luck, it will be filled with vast amounts of pure awesome.

Fanfiction and Haiku Blurb

Normally, I hate fanfiction. The people who write it, more often than not, screw with characters that I have grown to know and love in horrible ways.

But, I just had an idea for one.

For a while, Marvel has periodically been turning out The End comics. Basically, they take one hero, and explore what is going on at the end of his life. The only exception so far is Spider-Man, but he had Spider-Man:Reign, which was the same thing.

Also on the Marvel front, I have been very disappointed with the treatment of Venom recently. They took the symbiote from Eddie Brock, who was THE Venom, and gave it to some other flunky who cries about how the thing possesses him all the time, rather than taking some initiative and trying to beat it like Brock did. And he's impersonating Spider-Man, so that's also retarded.

Herein comes my fanfiction idea. Venom: The End. For this, we throw out all the new canon with this new Venom. It's back to Brock. Eddie Brock is the Venom here. Perhaps he's still nursing a grudge against Spider-Man, perhaps not. It doesn't matter. Spider-Man is dead. New York City has fallen into lawlessness and decay due to cataclysmic events. And Carnage, Venom's spawn that has remained unseen for a long while in the regular Marvel Universe, is trying to usurp control of the city. And who stands in his way? Venom, with Eddie Brock still kept alive by the symbiote.

I actually want to try and write this. One of my dream ideas is, when I get more published, to write something for Marvel. This would be what I would want to write. Venom is my favorite Marvel character, when he's trying to be a hero, anyway, and that hasn't happened in a while. I may just write this out.

I've been doing some haikus for NaPo, since they're rather short and I can get the 5-7-5 syllable thing down, and still kind of work in a reference to a season. Though, I still have to say that they are very confusing if you are trying to work out what they might mean.

Being Prolific

Sent off some more works to more magazines yesterday. You'd think I would have run out of things to submit by this time, but not at all. In fact, I may go through my stuff again tonight and see if there's anything else. ;)

Started a new short story today, "Why I Hate Antiques." It's about this guy who has a nasty experience with a gold bug broach. If I'm lucky, I'll get it done by Wednesday. I also have a story that takes place right after my NaNo, covering a certain royal wedding. And, if my girlfriend fixes up the first chapter of Canter, I'll get to work on the second. And, I dug up an old collab that fell apart and asked someone else if they want to help me continue it. She's still thinking about it, though she likes the idea.

I just realized how incredibly prolific I am. Other people have told me this before, people from YWS, but I never really realized just how much writing I do. And I do it all at once. Most people usually have to do things one project at a time. Me, I've got several going at one time.

I don't really think that's a bad thing though. I have a talent for writing, and I'm decent most of the time. Why should I just sit back and play Harper Lee when I could keep going? If I can still write words on paper, and I still have ideas floating around in my head, then I'm going to write. Plain as that.

Though the writing is cutting into my school work. When the teacher is giving the lesson, or when we're supposed to be working on a project, I'm writing away in a notebook. I don't see much wrong with it, I still make decent grades. But my parents see something wrong with it, so I try to make them happy, and I end up getting all antsy. I'm not pleasant when I'm like that, and my parents don't like it when I'm like that. I do try. I just try on my writing more.

Death, Centaurs, and the NaNo

Jane Lebak's latest blog post highlights one of my own fears, that I will die before I manage to get everything written down. As it stands, the mythology in my head is very broad, and I have no clue when I will find the time to finish it all. My only hope is that somehow I'll be able to write full time, but that's a big hope.

I'm getting ready to start my part of a collaboration with my girlfriend. We're doing a romantic novel set in a parallel world where centaurs are subservient to those that live in a country called The Affiliation. There is a place to the west, called Mandaroza, where they are free, but our characters never really go there. Rather, the novel, which we are calling Canter at the moment, is about the daughter of one of the Affiliation's Judges, their lawgivers, and her sudden attraction to the centaur, Jake, that she has owned since childhood. We both have rather high hopes for it.

I sent off to three more paying markets last night. One of them was a simultaneous submission, which I didn't fully realize until after the fact. The publication I submitted it to last night didn't care about simultaneous submissions, but I can't see if the first one did or not. It makes me feel even worse, since the first one actually sent me an e-mail to say that they are seriously considering my work. We'll just have to see how that works out, I guess.

TweetDeck on my computer has stopped working properly, adding one more item to the long list of things I would like to set on fire. That really disappoints me. I liked TweetDeck, before it stopped informing me when people I follow Tweet. And, Neil Gaiman uses it, so that made me feel even cooler for using something he uses. Oh well. I might try to reinstall it, but if not, I'll just have to use the web like everyone else.

My NaNo editing is coming along very well. I'm actually adding chapters. For a while I considered just leaving it as one long continuous narrative, or just dividing it up in the middle, and I may still do that. But, for potential publication purposes, I'm putting in chapters. I'm really happy with it. My girlfriend's sister is an editor at a publishing company, so I've been really working with it in the hopes that I can send it off to her. Don't know how well it will do, but it never hurts to try.

Ovid's Metamorphoses

I liked Ovid's Metamorphoses. I bought it on the advice of a friend a few months ago, and have gone back to it several times since. For something so old, it is really very good, and kind of raunchy. :P

I like the part set during the Trojan War, when Nestor tells the story about the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. There's one part in there about two centaurs called Cyrallus and Hylonome. Nestor describes Cyrallus as a handsome centaur, no small praise for an enemy. He says no less about Hylonome, calling her the most beautiful centaur girl. He goes on for a few lines or so telling about how they always spend time together. Then he tells about how, at the battle, Cyrallus is killed. Hylonome, cut off from her love, takes the spear out of his body and shoves it through her own chest.

Now, Nestor praised only these two centaurs. It seems, to me anyway, that the reason he did so was because he saw how Hylonome wanted to die rather than live without Cyrallus. Because he witnessed such a human quality in two supposedly brutish enemies, it compelled him to think of them more highly after the fact. I just thought that the changed point of view I read into that particular section was very interesting and noteworthy.

In other news, I'm doing NaPo because of that wonderful girl I told you all about. She convinced me to do it in exchange for her doing something for me. I relented, but I let her think up what it is she'll do for me. I'm eagerly awaiting whatever it is she cooks up.

A Beginning

Hello, people of the world wide web. My name is Conrad. I'm an aspiring writer from a red dirt oil town in Oklahoma.

Strange, you say, that a writer might come from a place like that. Well, it gets even stranger. You may expect someone from this locale to write about farm life or working in the oil field. Not me. I write fantasy, science fiction, biopunk, magical realism, and something I like to call science fantasy. Anything else just doesn't work.

Though I am a writer, I won't limit myself to just talking about that. There are other facets to my life. I am in a relationship with a wonderful girl. It's tough, since she's in New York and I'm here, but I'm dedicated to making it work. She's worth it.

I will also not be remaining in Oklahoma for much longer. Starting in September, I will be attending college at Hawaii Pacific University, in beautiful downtown Honolulu. I am absolutely thrilled at a chance to get out of the boondocks and into the real world. I'm hoping I can stay on top of my classes and not get distracted by my writing or the wonderful girl. :)

I'm hoping I can remember to update this blog enough so that people will actually be interested in it. I have a rather bad habit of starting things and then forgetting about them. I think I had a LiveJournal that met that fate. Here's hoping this blog will stay above that.