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Again, blanket thanks to everyone who congratulated me on A Book of Tongues’ amazing fate. Considering how much energy I’ve already put into it this year, and how often I’ve wondered if it was nothing but a dead-end self-love project in which the journey (even if completed) would always be considerably more useful than the destination, this sort of response from fellow professionals whose instincts and opinions I trust implicitly just makes me grin from ear to ear. One of the things I respect most about the people involved in ChiZine is that none of them hand you anything…you really have to work for it. Which, in this case, only makes me want to work harder.
So: Back in the ring, to take another swing. Got quite a bit of new framing/plotting stuff this morning, while brainstorming and going over my notes; I’ve been talking for a while now about going back over my outline and trying to bring it up to speed with what’s cahnged in the interim, but…I think doing that may sidetrack me, and besides, it’s pretty much moot at this point.;) So instead, I think I’ll fold the outline’s content back into the main file and start hammering section-breaks/chapter outlines into that, while simultaneously continuing to work on Chapter Eight (now, inevitably, Chapters Eight and Nine). And reading Allan Pinkerton’s Professional Thieves and the Detectives, wonderfully leant to me by green_trilobite, in between, for inspiration—it’s pretty whacky thus far, as advertised: Pure Dime Novel hype and crack-fic, with a side-order of genuine period detail (not to mention how all the chapters have great subtitles, like: “The Wire-Tappers Start Upon Their Expedition”—the crime in this case is “lightning-stealing”, ie fraud via sending bogus telegraph messages—or “Gross Becomes Communicative and is a Victim of Wifely Government”).
In other news, Cal’s life is becoming more and more regimented in some way, though all to the good. We have the Catholic School Board’s Autism team coming in and training Mr Nurse (his EA) to do therapy with him for half an hour each JK session, in a room they’ve set up specifically for that purpose; there’s the Monday night Social Skills course at the Geneva Centre (still going well, especially so because it involves a subway-ride there and back, and he loves the hell out of trains), but there’s also a woman named Renee working with us at home for the next three weeks as part of a Start-Up program, concentrating on toilet training, getting him to initiate speech and developing a bunch of phrases he can hopefully read and remember—he tends to use portmanteau sentences anyhow, ones in which maybe a single word is pertinent and the rest is chaff (ie: “Hi there, little piggies!” instead of “Hi!” , or “Goodbye, arctic fox!” instead of “Goodbye!”). We got an amazing response when she tried to teach him to say: “Turn on!” after we paused his Jungle Book DVD mid-scene…she wrote it on a piece of paper, showed it to him, said: “Cal, read this: Turn on!” and kept saying it over and over, even when he threw things and tried to rip the paper up. Finally—but faster than I’d thought he might—he said: “Turn ON!”, so we did. Not a breakthrough per se, but certainly one more way-station.
Anyhow—perhaps in preparation for another descent into Mictlan-Xibalba, I’ve been listening to a fair amount of global metal. One of my favorite recent tracks is “Wings of Time” by Tyr, a prime example of what really do sound like Vikings with electric guitars; man, I love that you can just find this stuff. Also, I’ve been breaking myself up by reading Cannibal Corpse lyrics online, because I found their interview in the latest issue of Rue Morgue so hilariously open about why they do what they do: “There was a band decision to write gore lyrics. They wanted the songs to be fucked up—zombies and things like that. I think it turned out good.” ‘Cause: “You can never go wrong with zombies! Zombies are awesome. They only have one goal: Blood, flesh, brains—that’s it. That’s a lifetime of subject matter right there.”
Uh…yes. Yes, I’d have to agree.;)
What’s most admirable about Cannibal Corpse is the way that their song titles always perfectly describe the song’s subject matter; no metaphor, no analogy, barely any rhyme-scheme (though lots of rhythm, and the occasional bout of assonance)…just hard, cold reportage.
“So—what’s ‘Sanded Faceless’ about, exactly?”
“It’s about somebody getting their face sanded off.”
“’Scalding Hail’?”
“It’s about what would happen if hail fell, except it was scalding.”
“…I guess I just probably shouldn’t even ask about ‘Submerged in Boiling Flesh’, should I?”
“Nope.”
Okay. Well, time's up. Back to the—oh no!;)
So: Back in the ring, to take another swing. Got quite a bit of new framing/plotting stuff this morning, while brainstorming and going over my notes; I’ve been talking for a while now about going back over my outline and trying to bring it up to speed with what’s cahnged in the interim, but…I think doing that may sidetrack me, and besides, it’s pretty much moot at this point.;) So instead, I think I’ll fold the outline’s content back into the main file and start hammering section-breaks/chapter outlines into that, while simultaneously continuing to work on Chapter Eight (now, inevitably, Chapters Eight and Nine). And reading Allan Pinkerton’s Professional Thieves and the Detectives, wonderfully leant to me by green_trilobite, in between, for inspiration—it’s pretty whacky thus far, as advertised: Pure Dime Novel hype and crack-fic, with a side-order of genuine period detail (not to mention how all the chapters have great subtitles, like: “The Wire-Tappers Start Upon Their Expedition”—the crime in this case is “lightning-stealing”, ie fraud via sending bogus telegraph messages—or “Gross Becomes Communicative and is a Victim of Wifely Government”).
In other news, Cal’s life is becoming more and more regimented in some way, though all to the good. We have the Catholic School Board’s Autism team coming in and training Mr Nurse (his EA) to do therapy with him for half an hour each JK session, in a room they’ve set up specifically for that purpose; there’s the Monday night Social Skills course at the Geneva Centre (still going well, especially so because it involves a subway-ride there and back, and he loves the hell out of trains), but there’s also a woman named Renee working with us at home for the next three weeks as part of a Start-Up program, concentrating on toilet training, getting him to initiate speech and developing a bunch of phrases he can hopefully read and remember—he tends to use portmanteau sentences anyhow, ones in which maybe a single word is pertinent and the rest is chaff (ie: “Hi there, little piggies!” instead of “Hi!” , or “Goodbye, arctic fox!” instead of “Goodbye!”). We got an amazing response when she tried to teach him to say: “Turn on!” after we paused his Jungle Book DVD mid-scene…she wrote it on a piece of paper, showed it to him, said: “Cal, read this: Turn on!” and kept saying it over and over, even when he threw things and tried to rip the paper up. Finally—but faster than I’d thought he might—he said: “Turn ON!”, so we did. Not a breakthrough per se, but certainly one more way-station.
Anyhow—perhaps in preparation for another descent into Mictlan-Xibalba, I’ve been listening to a fair amount of global metal. One of my favorite recent tracks is “Wings of Time” by Tyr, a prime example of what really do sound like Vikings with electric guitars; man, I love that you can just find this stuff. Also, I’ve been breaking myself up by reading Cannibal Corpse lyrics online, because I found their interview in the latest issue of Rue Morgue so hilariously open about why they do what they do: “There was a band decision to write gore lyrics. They wanted the songs to be fucked up—zombies and things like that. I think it turned out good.” ‘Cause: “You can never go wrong with zombies! Zombies are awesome. They only have one goal: Blood, flesh, brains—that’s it. That’s a lifetime of subject matter right there.”
Uh…yes. Yes, I’d have to agree.;)
What’s most admirable about Cannibal Corpse is the way that their song titles always perfectly describe the song’s subject matter; no metaphor, no analogy, barely any rhyme-scheme (though lots of rhythm, and the occasional bout of assonance)…just hard, cold reportage.
“So—what’s ‘Sanded Faceless’ about, exactly?”
“It’s about somebody getting their face sanded off.”
“’Scalding Hail’?”
“It’s about what would happen if hail fell, except it was scalding.”
“…I guess I just probably shouldn’t even ask about ‘Submerged in Boiling Flesh’, should I?”
“Nope.”
Okay. Well, time's up. Back to the—oh no!;)
