Tiny Stories In The Wine

Had a story on Thaumatrope today. The site was revamped a couple of weeks ago and it looks fantastic. Also, each author gets a page now which is incredibly cool. Now I can put all my Thaumatrope stories in the sidebar with one link. Note the dates, as some of them were holiday related.
http://thaumatrope.greententacles.com/contributors/upwithgravity/stories/

Tomorrow, The Eighth Age is set to run on Everyday Weirdness. I'll post a link then.

I'm heading outside in about an hour or so to see the Perseids. Won't you join me?

Can't Think Of A Title! What Kind Of Writer Am I?

Welcome follower #10, pointman74250! Normally I'll say a few words about the new follower, but I have no idea who this guy is! I'm practically a celebrity, having followers I don't know. If I do know you, pointman 74250, wait a couple of days before you tell me. I want to bask in this feeling.

New Thaumatrope story the other day. You can read it here: http://thaumatrope.greententacles.com/tweets/20090612/

The writing break is over, only it doesn't seem like it is because I haven't had any time to write. It's over in my head.

And, just because I haven't posted a vid in a while:



This is supposed to be funny, but you know you could tune into SyFy on any given Saturday night and find a gem of exactly this quality.

And-And, because I imported this blog onto my Facebook page (under my double secret codename Matthew Sanborn Smith) and last time I tried it the blog at Facebook didn't show the vids I'd posted, here's the link for today's vid(eo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXoYK4b_q24

Story Updates

Sorry I've missed a few days, folks. Stories 112 and 113 are out the door. Last Supper and A Body is for Driving, respectively.

My @nanoism story isn't up yet, but you can find my new @thaumatrope story here. Mine is the one by Matthew Sanborn Smith (also known as upwithgravity). And I believe I'll have a story in issue 4 of Blood Blade and Thruster, coming to a screen near you in just a couple of days if all goes well. I'll post the link then.

Twits

Keep two eyes out for upcoming twit-fic from me. I've got a story at @thaumatrope on May 31st and my first ever story at @nanoism on June 1st.

My daughter went to her first nighttime dance tonight. They called it a prom (even though it was eighth grade) and dressed up. Her mother and I had to convince our little anti-social butterfly to go. She ended up having a great time.

Almost done tagging everything. I'll let you know.

You Pay Now!

I forgot about my house payment last week. Is that bad? Well, yes, it is. The mortgage holder was paid, that wasn't the problem. It's an automatic debit, taken out every week, so that I can painlessly make thirteen payments in twelve months. The problem is, you've got to remember that the money is no longer in your account once it's paid. I missed that part. I've been doing fine for the last fifty-three weeks, since taking over bill-paying duties. Last week saw an end to that streak. So, I didn't record the debit and used that money to pay other bills. I was pretty pleased with myself. I was really catching up with the bills. Two days ago Toyota called in my mark and the dominoes started falling. Four overdrawn fees later, I'm out about a hundred bucks. I had to throw some dough in the account today to stop the hemorrhaging, otherwise, I would have seen at least two more fees over the weekend.

Good fun.

I had a couple stories run at Thaumatrope this week. Eastery ones here and here. Turns out the first one was the more original idea. Everyone there was doing egg stories this week. Who would have imagined? On Easter!

The StarShipSofa has been reupholstered! Check out the new look as you download the latest show:

Aural Delights No 79 Karen Joy Fowler

Editorial: The Sofanauts: The New Show… coming soon! by Tony C Smith

Poetry: Galaxy In A Matchbox by G O Clark

Fact: Hyperion II by Fred Himebaugh

Main Fiction: Standing Room Only by Karen Joy Fowler

Fact: The Machine Stops by Amy H Sturgis

New Titles: Madness Of Angles, Escape From Hell, Adamantine Palace, Xenopath

Narrators: Julie Davis, Kate Baker

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at audiblepodcast.com/sofa


I just found this video. It's fun. But honestly, if I was the guy working the drive-thru that day, I'd be thinking to myself, "I wish this assholes would go somewhere else." He's a better man than I .

Shit

Here's the link to the my other Thaumatrope St. Patrick's Day story: http://thaumatrope.greententacles.com/tweets/20090315/

Fellow Sofanaut Ieshido (Or as we know him on the SSS forums, Leshido (Ha!)) pointed me toward this cool Alan Moore interview: http://disinfo.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=438651 A genius and a nice guy. What more could anyone want from a hero. Maybe free candy, that would be nice. Some of those Reese's Easter Eggs with the high peanut butter to chocolate ratio. Mmmm.

What else is going on? Let's see, I think I may have offended some of my fellow employees with a politically incorrect phrase upon closing time a few hours ago. I'll have to seek each of them out and apologize the next time we work together. They may politely accept my apology, but for the the rest of our lives they may look at me and think to themselves, "I know what that jackass really thinks!" Ah, well. Maybe it will teach me to have a little more common sense next time. Don't leave comments asking me what I said. You think I want to offend someone here as well? Just know that I'm a jackass and we're good.

I have to clean out the disgusting things from my refrigerator since today is the garbage pickup. Funny what I'll keep in the refrigerator that I won't keep in the kitchen waste basket. Eat up, everyone!

I had something like four rejections last week. That blows. I'm hoping I'll get that one magic "OK!" from a certain someone. But I always hope something like that. And I wonder how that special person will contact me. Mail, e-mail or phone? I like to fantasize about such things so that when I get the rejection I feel even worse. I think that's it for now. I have to go play in old food and dishwashing and get up four hours from now for the dreaded Monday morning meeting which is always the worst part of my week.

Did this post make anyone else feel bad? Because it sure worked me over.

Writing Stuff

My new Thaumatrope story showed up yesterday. You can read it here. I should have another one up later today. I'll post the link next time around. Today's and yesterday's are both St. Patrick's Day stories.

I'm currently working on a rewrite of my Process Five story, Three Kingdoms. I'm saving the last version in case I fuck up the rewrite. I don't usually save previous versions when I do rewrites, but I will if I'm not sure the rewrite will improve the story. I've used the word rewrite five times in this paragraph.

I am ridiculously behind on Fiction Crawler 6. The only good story I've read so far is going to be on the Sofa as a Nebula nominee, so I don't want to use it. That means I've got no (0) stories to recommend so far. That will make for a mighty brief Fiction Crawler. I know Tony's going to be asking for it at any moment and he'll want it immediately. Gads!

Goodies

Thaumatrope ran another one of my stories yesterday. You can read it here. Next one is up on March 14th. I've got a couple of St. Patrick's Day stories for you.

Fellow Sofanaut Gareth Stack has a new podcast going on: The Invisible Tour Guide. I downloaded the first episode, but I haven't listened yet. Whatever the subject matter, I could listen to him talk all day. Check it out.

I'm guessing if you read this blog, you've already seen this video, because that's the type of person you are, but I want to put it here anyway. And you'll want to watch it again. The Shat with Joe Jackson singing a Pulp song equals asskicking.

Thaumatropin'

My first Thaumatrope story ran today, a Valentine's story. You can read it here. Scroll down to see it once you get there.

Sorry, folks, but I'm a bit tired and don't have anything else to say. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Triumph!

Not the state of victory, not the Roman military procession, but the band. Watch Mike Levine channel Derek Smalls at the beginning:



Now, I'm not one of those guys who is stuck in the eighties. I love lots of new music, but I keep finding these wonderful gems from my misspent youth and now, in my misspent adulthood, I want to share them with all of you. Having said that:


I LOVE THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BAND! WOOOOOO!



And this is me just digging the video in my bedroom. I actually saw the guys on this tour (Sport of Kings) back in 1987, though it was in Worcester, Mass, not Halifax where this video was shot. Best concert ever! They were ten times better live than in the studio.

Here's a funny lighter story. I saw nearly every show I've ever seen in the eighties. I went to see Rush (That other godlike Canadian power trio) with my wife in 1996. Before the show I told her we had to get lighters.
"Why? We don't smoke," she sez.
"No," I sez, "It's for Closer to the Heart (I speak in italics like that sometimes). Everybody holds up their lighters at the beginning of Closer to the Heart."



Besides seeing this on their concert videos, I saw them twice in '87 on the Hold Your Fire Tour. So I knew whereof I spoke. We're at the concert, yay, song, song, song, then Alex starts up with the beginning of Closer to the Heart.
"Quick, get out your lighter!" I told my wife. We hold up our lighters and I look around this crowd of maybe 12,000 people and their are maybe ten lighters lit in the whole goddamned audience.
"Okay, put away your lighter," I said. Sheepishly would be the proper adverb here.

Enough of that crap. I achieved 87 today with Cranberry God. I think Thaumatrope is choking on submissions. My last one is set to run on July 3rd and I read a message after submitting Cranberry God that said, Please wait for a response to this submission before sending another. So that will slow me down. But it was bound to happen.

83 And 84. And Socks

Sold my two Easter stories to Thaumatrope yesterday. That brings my total Thaumatrope sales to 6. The success is quite heady. I may have to lie down. My first rejection from them might be devastating! I sent two more stories last night: Political Flavors (83) and Tomorrow's Love Never Comes (84) These have no particular theme as there's no holiday call.

Outside of that, my writing has been stink city this week. Productivity has been low, low, low. As I said, Sunday was great, but between my funky schedule, errands and Christmas shopping (and screwing around here), I have been seriously slacky. And I had such high hopes on Sunday. Well, the nice thing about not being dead yet, is that you can say, "I'll do better in the future." You may not do better, but you can say it and that feels nice.

Last day of school today before Christmas break. Hooray! Aside from Christmas Day, I may not have to get up at 5 am for a couple of weeks. That's my Christmas present. And socks.

Thought I Had More To Say

Sold my two St. Patrick's Day stories to Thaumatrope and sent two Easter stories: Out of One Basket (81) and Grass Monkey (82). Every day is a holiday at Thaumatrope submissions. It's the happiest place on the net.

I've decided to stick with The One-Thousand (the goal, I mean). If I meet the goal in a way I hadn't expected, then so be it. When it's done, I'll set another goal, that's all.

Man, I was certain I had more to say. Maybe I'll say something else later today.

A Thaumatropic Orgy!

I sold my two stories to Thaumatrope today. Yay! One was a Valentine's Day story. My man Church sold one as well and I think they're giving Grant his own spinoff magazine. As an aside, Church doesn't seem to want to follow me. Is it my bottom? Because if it is, I'm perfectly fine with him following me from the front.

I just wrote and sent in two more stories. They're now calling for St. Patrick's Day stories. Now understand, I don't title the stories in my submissions. Those are precious characters I cannot spare (each of today's stories were precisely one-hundred and forty characters). But for the purpose of The One-Thousand, I have to title them. To tell them apart if for no other reason. I'm not going to call them something like: Untitled (The one about the guy with the thing). Today's stories were: Again With the Green Beer (79) and Unlucky (80).

Michael Swanwick shares a wonderful anecdote about Galileo's Finger. Scroll down a tad. It's there. And Diane turned me onto Nicola Griffith's interesting new project. Check it out, you might want to get involved.

My Life's Goal Has Just Been Turned On Its Head

There's a new magazine in town called Thaumatrope and it publishes on Twitter. That's right, Twitter, the land where no post can exceed one-hundred and forty characters. I just learned about it a couple of days ago on John Scalzi's blog. He did an interview there. My compadre, Grant Stone, has pounced on this and asked me just an hour ago if I'd submitted. I checked into it and I've already submitted two stories.

Here's where it gets stupid.

Given my my rules at the onset of The One-Thousand, these stories count toward my goal. Hell, Thaumatrope is even a paying market! Given all this, I could conceivably meet my goal in a few months time, rather than ten years. By the way, for those of you keeping track: Bright Idea (Number 77) and Sweetheart (Number 78). This isn't exactly what I had in mind, but that was the goal. This changes everything. I'll have to rethink.

How does The Ten-Thousand sound to everyone?