kaolin fire

Help fill odd's sack --

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:37:26 GMT

Please help Odd deliver some smiles this holiday season

My friend is doing a holiday-gifts drive; the stuff is going to low income families in Michigan (specifically the city of Westland). He's working with the Mayor's office, which is working with the Salvation army and several churches.

Toys and clothes only, no money!

Apex Magazine seeks Poetry Editor

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:32:16 GMT

Apex Magazine seeks Poetry Editor: by Jason Sizemore http://bit.ly/3Mbho5

We recently published a poem titled “After, Thoughts–A Pantoum” by John C. Hay that drew some praise that landed in my inbox from fans.

Granted, these emails were from fans of poetry who were happy to see another genre publication printing poetry (but it is a great poem!). Their encouragement has inspired me to start publishing a poem or two per issue of Apex Magazine.

But there’s a catch!

I am no poetry editor. Neither is Deb Taber, Gill Ainsworth, Jennifer Brozek, Maggie Jamison, or Sarah Brandel. Mari Adkins knows poetry, but she’s only interested in the kind that is written while dressed in goth clothing during Samhain.

This means I’m looking for a poetry editor to join our team.

Naturally, this work would be on a voluntary basis. At least, until somebody figures out how to get wealthy publishing an online ‘zine and making it such that we can pay our dedicated minions.

I’ll be accepting applications over the next couple of weeks. What do we want in an applicant? Obviously, somebody who is well-read, particularly in the field of genre poetry. You’ll need to provide proof that you have some degree of experience in the field of poetry. This can come in many forms…past editing, published works, school degrees, etc.

Please send your query letter and submission to jason@apexbookcompany.com.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing who pops up out of the wilds of the internet.

I appear to have mentioned it everywhere but here?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:04:20 GMT

Pay what you want--a discussion, history, thoughts, ... It's a thing. It's been done a lot. Does anyone know a good list of who's down it and how they've done by it?

Of course, Radiohead, famously. And recently World of Goo did very well by it and publicized all their numbers (very cool). Real-world restaurants seem to be running with it, and bars as well! And cab drivers, even. :) Lotus (the band) toured that way. Though Pay what you want online is a music service that charges a minimum of fifty cents a track--that's not very "what you want". A hotel. Here's a one-off font that starts at $15/yr min (I think that misses the point?) And Eidos is offering Championship Manager 2010 for just a penny (plus 2 pound fifty transaction fee--haven't they heard of micropayments???).

Digging deeper, Paste Magazine beat us to the "magazine" punch. Faber did it for an ebook (or more?).

GUD Magazine is trying it as a sale...

It's a crowded market of want, but really, how wrong can you go paying as little as a penny?

The question's not entirely rhetorical, as we haven't had hordes knocking our doors down to get their penny PDFs. Exposure, sure... and we've not sold "nothing" from it in the day or two it's run so far--people almost seem embarrassed to not pay a "fair" amount, but we'd rather they paid less than that and got a copy (or a copy of all five, for that matter).

Update: not hordes knocking down the door, but it's still our best sale by a wide margin. I'm very hopeful it will continue to improve. If you can spread the news, I'd really, really, really appreciated it. :) If you haven't already. ;)

Pay what you want for GUD Magazine

twitfic

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:12:16 GMT

Do you read it? Write it? Even know what it is? ;) twitfic aka twiction aka twisters aka #vss (very short stories) aka, erm... well... I lose track. ;)

Hmm. So twitter-sized fiction is one of the things that hooked me about twitter, back when I was doing my best not to use it. There are a handful of paying markets--of course they don't pay _handsomely_, but consider you're putting together a story that might be 20 words long.

Well, if you're twitfic-curious at all, I started a forum. And we won't talk about the hells I went through snapping that domain up. ;)

I've been keeping track of my twitter-pubs in a separate sidebar on my website. My latest went up on Tweet the Meat today. $1 richer, hey ;)

Right. So. If you're curious. Market info, discussions, and workshopping. :)

a "teaching moment"

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:51:22 GMT

I was just daydreaming earlier about teaching a 5yo about lipid bilayers by way of making a pbj.

Sorry, where was I, you asked? Oh, I was having a "teaching moment".

Thanks to (@jdfreivald for the term).

Cover work -- spare a vote?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:44:15 GMT

The creator of feedbooks had a quick challenge for a cover for Cory Doctorow's latest, "Makers". There were five entries. I'd _really_ appreciate a vote. Not that there's any prize whatsoever beyond my cover being used, but hey. =)

Voting here: twtpoll

Mine's the bit.ly one in the choices {{ the last choice in the poll }} :)

My image below for help convincing: ;)

The other images don't want to be hotlinked, apparently. =/

What GUD Monster are you?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:02:22 GMT

Just in time for the holiday...

"Don't click on yourself!" monster: You're the Sarita virus from The Infinite Monkeys Protocol by Lavie Tidhar from Issue 0. Your creator is a bit of a mystery, but your namesake, Sarita, has looked after you until you were ready to go out into the world and explore places she's never been. You're infecting, mutating, reproducing....

What GUD Monster are you? Find out at GUD Magazine!

why my computer is sometimes slow

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:39:04 GMT

holy crap, chrome. admittedly, I'm on the beta branch. and I blame windows as much as anything. but crap.

Support our 'Zines Day 2009!

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:21:57 GMT

Oct 1st is Support Our 'Zines Day! GUD Magazinecould use your support--you know that, we know that.

But I wanted to take the time to talk from the perspective of a reader about a few other magazines that could use your support. I'll get back to pleading for us at the end ;)

The best thing you can do to support a magazine, outside of buying it (and especially in addition to buying it) is talking it up to your friends. And not just the magazine--specific things. Things that will excite. Things that excited you. (and apologies for the ramble--I'm behind on a project and doing this with a bit of sleep-dep).

So what are some of the things that excited me, outside of GUD's slush pile, recently?

read my mini-reviews of/pimpage for: Shock Totem, Weird Tales, and Bust Down the Door and Eat all the Chickens And share your favorites! Support your 'Zines! =)

A Guide to the Air-Dependent

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:31:26 GMT

I think I'm done playing for the week. So much work to do. But:

http://strangehorizons.com/2009/20090119/fire-p.shtml for the text :)

p.s. http://www.xtranormal.com/ -- VERY COOL!

It's been a while since I did art for art's sake.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:46:58 GMT

It's been a while since I did art for art's sake. I was inspired by a piece on DeviantArt that a friend showed me--I didn't quite like it, but it had an idea going that I wanted to riff off of. Of course, I am _not_ skilled in the manipulation of visual images, my many accidents to the contrary... nor am I really good at _actually_ visualizing. More--feelings, ideas. So what I wound up with has next to no relation to what I wanted, though I do like it, and I can trace the path. ((of all things, I looked up a few tutorials for how to draw clouds, none of which told me anything new, none of which I could actually duplicate--at least, not with my mindset as it was).

Not sure if I can hotlink from deviantart... probably not? Hmm. Looks ok...

took a shower in the lawn last night

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:30:28 GMT

I took a shower in the lawn last night.

I am _not_ Mr. Fix-it, but I try. So every problem is an opportunity, right? I knew nothing about sprinkler heads, but one in the corner was just "burbling" instead of "spraying". The lawn had grown very densely around it, practically locking it in. I dug the lawn out around it, and tested--the head shot up in the air and I had a geyser.

So I ran (drove) down to the hardware store (Lowe's), and with a little help figured out the part that shot out was not all of the thing that I needed to replace (made sense, just hadn't thought to dig for more--but I _had_ figured out it didn't really "go back in" reasonably). Got a new sprinkler head thinger (I've already forgotten the name, hah). Got home, unscrewed the old one, and turns out the old one was a "slim" design. So I needed to dig more dirt out to get the new one in.

This led to a progression of digging dirt out, digging more dirt out, trying to even find where the tube was that I was supposed to screw the new part into. (muddy, rocky morass) Would turn the sprinklers on to clear it some, then dig some more, turn them on, etc. finally got it "mostly" clear but still couldn't keep rocks, silt, etc, from falling back into the tube.

So turned the sprinklers on and screwed the thing in "against the flow".

Wet, wet, cold kaolin. But it worked. :)

new flash game: Memory Shell Game

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:46:55 GMT

For those of you who like memory games, but want a little switch-up. MSG brings the hustle. :)

Play at Kongregate. ~~Two~~ Ten thumbs up from indomitable_one :)

#fridayflash - Ouroboros

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:34:32 GMT

rage against darkness / or revel in its edges / endings come too soon

Earth is not the center of the universe; but it is a center. It is where we come from. And intelligence, which is not ours though we claim it. Like gravity, awareness leaks unseen. Some meta-awareness calls it heaven, imagines we are souls born from this other place. It seeds, patiently, over millennia. Our cancers are aware, fight for control, but our bodies are not ready. Testing, further evolution. They will break through and become us. Live us. And when our universe nears its end, they/we will step through to the next.

More GUD stuff --

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:45:25 GMT

If you're not following me or GUD on Twitter--you're missing out on a twitter contest to win a Kindle. Just so's ya know :)

Details: http://tr.im/xCAt

Tina Connolly's "Hard Choices" - A Choose Your Adventure flash game

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:33:13 GMT

There are struggles inherent in the coming together of two sentient species. Why do we always seem to flub the hard choices? Choose your adventure through Tina Connolly's "Hard Choices".

http://www.gudmagazine.com/games/hard-choices-by-tina-connolly/

It's a very short story; you can't "win", but there's four badges and a scoring system. :)

I read the story at Brain Harvest and had to turn it into a proper "page-turner". I hope you enjoy it. :) Feedback welcome, of course, if not for this one then perhaps "the next" (when I've got a longer story?)

another thought from the shower

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:38:00 GMT

I'd forgotten I had this thought. I really need some sort of waterproof whiteboard.

Was down in a fun rabbit-hole with controlling computers by thought and what would be reasonably doable these days when I started "thinking" keystrokes, seeing how that worked out, letter by letter. Ideally, of course, whole words would be transcribable. But keystrokes... my fingers know the keyboard better than I do. They know what character I want to hit without me thinking "a b c d e". Then I got to "{" and ... curly bracket ... open curly bracket ... open block ... I can type that twenty times in the time it takes to "think" it.

There's certainly an idea I'm having when I know that's the character I want, and that idea is obviously faster than the muscle-time it takes to hit it (something has to instigate those muscles' movement, yes?) .. but I don't seem to be able to make myself aware of what that "idea" is, or at least I can't seem to make it "loud" enough to hear it with my mental ear.

Makes me really, really want a nice "squid" to play around with. See what I can make it learn.

dreaming of frameworks

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:13:03 GMT

Also thinking--human is the optimum shape for general purpose robots because that's what we've built our world for, and that's a de facto standard. But what if there were a smaller standard defined and accepted by a consortium? Then a secondary market builds in providing extensions/skeletons/etc to the smaller form. "Human" just being another suit that this general-purpose robot can control. At some level just re-pluggable brains.

I'd imagine the skeletons might have secondary brains (reflex centers) for their particular skills... (walking, etc).

The future becomes very different very quickly. No?

the never-ending wail of "still not back"--ebook platforms

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:28:10 GMT

Wanted to pick your brains on ebook platforms right quick. Or make a note to myself. Or both.

Wouldn't it be nifty if every ebook platform had a basic dictionary that integrated with its books? And that publishers were required (or incentivized--come on, is there a better word for this that has just been obliterated by marketspeak?) to provide definitions (and pronunciations) for any word that wasn't in the basic dictionary?

Just thinking of how many words I learned "from context" that weren't quite right. And how many words I learned and never looked up proper pronunciation for. But you know, if it had just been "press this word for definition and pronunciation" then...

Are there any platforms that even support per-item dictionaries that are then glommed into a platform-style dictionary?

I think there was something else I wanted to say. No idea what it might have been, though. Have been posting a lot of nonsense to twitter. Have been getting more twit-fiction published (I hate the terms: twisters, hint fiction... ok with twiction, prefer twit-fiction; personal preferences. eh.). Have a zombie poem due out "soon" (need to sign contract for). Life. Stuff.

Gaze into my tired eyes...

Sat, 30 May 2009 02:08:58 GMT

I did a flash collab with a friend ("Piecework Re-Imagining of the Sea" with Deborah Rosenblum), and entered into the Fantasy "10 sentences" micro-contest. We made the editors-selected shortlist, and now it's up to the readers--I'd really appreciate any help you could muster over there voting for me (or against me, I know how you folks can be ;) ). 10 pieces are posted. You can vote for up to three. Top three have the option of being published by Podcastle as well.

Stories are posted here:
http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=3436

Voting here:
http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=3859d271-cc09-4dfe-80de-fe16853ec8ba

And many congratz to southernweirdo who's also in the running (T.J. McIntyre).

yesterday, waking up

Thu, 07 May 2009 18:21:25 GMT

It's been brought to my attention that I've been posting senryu, not haiku. I'd completely forgotten that there was a distinction (in fact, if you'd asked me I would have said a senryu was a tanka and not known what a tanka was; and even now I was confusing a tanka and a renga (corrected), though that can partially be blamed on just waking up (and limited exposure). :)

insomnia lurks
fear that something will be missed
I sit and reload

dreams of basketball
turtle swallows star player
student eats master

{{ the master happened to be a small dragon (or a cricket?); everyone else looked on in horror. I made the turtle puke (with my hands), but there was nothing in there but bile and empty turtle shells (the size of sake glasses). I left the (gated) court looking for somewhere to wash my hands. Woke up not quite wanting to touch my alarm (which apparently I had set for PM instead of AM, so it's a good thing I woke up before it). }}

#rejection from @outshine both thoughtful and thorough. Looking forward to their reopen Jul 6. Someone remind me? #writing #twitfic

some publications and some poetry

Wed, 06 May 2009 08:29:44 GMT

My day? It's been. :)

southernweirdo pointed out that my poem "The Undefeatable Enemy from Mars" went up on Every Day Weirdness (er, a few days ago now).

I also had a spate of poems accepted over at, "The Legendary" ~ April 24, 2009. New Moon. Issue 4—through the eye / vile public secrets / ballerina in the cell / time and clocks (are the poem titles, not a very disjoint poem ;) )

and now for some haiku:

sleep disdains entrance
blossoming consciousness is
sifting sand for gems

spice opens the mind
heightens the mental palette
worms? no--Mexican

inbox to outbox
thoughts flow with alacrity
the slush monster burps

tomorrow will come
and new possibilities
dead rise with the sun

the cause is worthy
rally to me--channel anger
it helps me forget

schizophrenia
new digital affliction
so many accounts!

projects come and go
coffee rings on porcelain
time's marks before me

I fail at today
create lists to accomplish
dreams of tomorrow

Oh! Oh, and--wrote a really crappy haiku, posted it to twitter with a comment about not quite liking it, got a reply of a much better version--that was nifty. :) Is it possible to link to specific tweets? I think maybe not. AHA! I have added the response to my twitter favorites. Much better than my version (which I actually deleted within seconds of posting). Meh: that last link is fail, for me--so if it pulls up not one thing but many, click on "favorites" off in the sidebar

ALSO (for a different touch of emphasis), I've been toying around with twitter-sized fiction. 140 characters or less is TOUGH, but there's a growing number of markets for it ~ for a partial list.

a spate of haiku

Mon, 04 May 2009 04:43:01 GMT

This is actually from the last week or so. I intended to post them in sets, each day, but that didn't happen.

every occasion
deserves poem'd reflection
send just five dollars

half-shuttered window
lets in sunlight and mountains
looses mind to roam

too old for space now
she dreams of presidency
yearning for something

life is chemical
I eat, process, and excrete
make way for flowers

staring at the screen
thousands of people living
staring at their screens

software is process
innovate and iterate
new app launched tonight

poets stop to smell
every whiff of every rose
eau de existence

time is a fluid
stress eases with glacial pace
then snaps like lightning

fear and hate battle
and the only thing to win:
productivity

mistakes breed mistakes
some for now, some for later
life's safer abstract

blind optimism:
not the pills they feed us but
choosing to take them

mourn those left behind
for they alone can suffer
by the things they've lost

humans reject death
even when we embrace it
searching for meaning

a few moments wasted

Mon, 04 May 2009 01:21:55 GMT

new GI Joe movie looks like crap. save your time and re-watch warren ellis' animated version?

new harry potter looks beautiful.

x-men origins: wolverine -- looks over the top, but not nearly as bad as the reviews I've been hearing. I believe the reviews; maybe someone could re-mix it?

terminator salvation looks amazing. I love the stunt work at the beginning (with the motorcycle). I almost want to see the previous terminator movie to catch up on the story. ((but there's always wikipedia for that, right?))

mph.

OH. From earlier so I didn't think to mention:

D-9 looks amazing!!11!!1! Very curious how it's going to be shot (compared to the trailer--which is likely more meta than the movie will be?)

And then from later:

The Limits of Control looks beautiful, and solid, and interesting. (Jim Jarmusch)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen looks somewhere between 'eh' and 'meh', but it's got me curious anyway.

out of order

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:12:39 GMT

Get a piece of GUD Issue 4 free -- http://tr.im/jYM4 -- or get the whole thing -- http://tr.im/jYM8 (please RT)

Er, wait, this isn't twitter? I saw a flash of "Date: out of order" just before the webpage sorted itself out, and I thought that was particularly fitting for where I am just now. Where? Dunno. I should go to sleep soon for there are things I must do in The Early Morning.

But somewhat seriously, I'd love it if I could get a thousand more people signed up on GUD reading their freebies (and even better, posting about the freebie they read as part of some promotional contest thinger...). So if you could, umm, re... ~~tweet...~~ journal... that bit up at the top, it would be much appreciated. ;)

Any thoughts on where/how I could best promote GUD Issue 4? I'd also like to help out a few folks/places like Jin Wicked and Small Beer Press, and a friend doing character sketches, so I'm half thinking a contest of some sort with prizes from them or something.

Oh, and if you do reviews and consider PDFs--hit me up, ummkay? :)

Also also looking into starting some sort of cross-promotion ring re: small press mags.

No, still not handling life well yet--I'm just going to wrap this up instead of running in loops trying to see what I should edit out or in. Blargh. Sorry. :(

More haikus later. Oh. Here's an emo one. ;)

curl into myself
I make an echo chamber
of my lake of tears