ADIS vs. Writers of the Future Results

And the results are . . . a not-win for "A Day in the Sun". That's the price you pay for shortness: ask any man under five feet tall and he'll tell you that it was his shortness as that held him back. I think that may be ADIS' problem too, in this competition. With a max word count of 17,ooo, other entries had as many as 13,000 more words to help them "sell" their story than ADIS, which came in at a short 3,904 words. Next stop for ADIS will be Kurt Vonnegut's Fiction Prize. With a word limit of 7,000, ADIS will be more of a competitor in the Fiction Prize. We shall see, anyways.

In light of my discovery that Writers of the Future winners all seem to be at least 9,000 words (usually more in the 14-16,000 range) I am considering putting a run of stories together under a single title and then calling each story Part 1: Bond of Truth, Part 2: The Wasted Portion, Part 3: To Turn on One's Own, etc. My only concern is that each "part" would read like an individual short story, and I have no desire to change that, meaning that I personally am okay with that. I would enjoy reading it, even if no one else did. Someone must like that kind of stuff or David Drake would still be practicing law instead of carrying on the career brought about by the Hammer's Slammers collection (which, though he did eventually write some Slammers novels, the first books were short story and novella collections).

In other new I have set to editing and revising Tales from the Laughing Grass now that I am on Winter Break. It is going a little slower than I had hoped, but I have been enjoying going back through those stories. It has been very encouraging.

Write On

R.

"Culture of Conflict" Update and Army of Anyone

Not a loser, not a loser, not a loser. Just thought I would let you know that the judges thought so highly of the entries (including CoC) that they only gave out two of three places. So, CoC might have taken 3rd, but they didn't think it deserved it. We'll never know. I should have let them choke on "An Evening with the Quill", but it's all in the past now.

In more positive news, I have been listening to Army of Anyone and enjoying it immensely. It is the amalgamation of the DeLeo brothers from STP and that Patrick guy from Filter (you know, the guys that do "Hey man, Nice Shot" or whatever it's called), along with David Lee Roth's old drummer Loozer, or Luzier, or something like that. You might be thinking "Wow, he must be an old guy if he played with David Lee Roth" but I don't know what era of DLR he played in, and however old he is he really pounds the skins. This is something that I have looked for in drummers ever since playing with that limp-sticked protestant with LH back in the summer of 2001. But the Patrick guy does some decent to excellent, and his lyrics make one-billion times more sense than anything (almost, at least) that Scott Weind (SP?) ever wrote even if he doesn't quite have the voice. The DeLeos are playing as fine as ever, the music structurally reminds me more of Tiny Music than Core or Purple, but it is mixed more thickly and not so many single-coil guitars (like Shangria La Dida). Overall I am enjoying the overall effect. So check it out, if you dare.

I am feeling pretty excited to start revising Tales from the Laughing Grass this break. CoC not winning is just a hiccup in my master plan, so expect to see more and better from the old R. Write On.

R.

To Win, or Not to Win

Just in case you were wondering to yourself, "Self, I wonder how R's story CoC did in that one contest?" and then you had to think about which contest because it seems like R has stuff scattered all over the place right now, I have news, or at least some convincing gossip. A peer of mine found out that he took 2nd Place middle of last week. So either my victory letter ended up at the mailman's house or I got SHOT DOWN like a Cobra attack copter vs. an insurgent with a rocket launcher. I make it sound more traumatic than it really is, I'm sure. It may be that I am the absolute sorest loser any of my friends have had the misfortune of playing Katan, Axis & Allies, MERP, Yahtzee, or any other assorted game with, but my motto today is Not Winning is Different than Losing. That's right. It's the road I'm driving today.

In other news, my Custer paper kicked my professor upside the head like Bruce Lee, or Chuck Norris, or at least like Jackie Chan. Based on the rave reviews the Cather paper received, I don't think I shall post it because we all know Cather is way more interesting than the Battle of Little Big Horn. Or close at least. I can only imagine what html will do to footnotes. It might be worth posting just to find out.

In yet more news, I resolved the romance issue in novel #1 (which I think I will call The Big Smackdown) when I gave my story "To Turn on One's Own" a good looking over. I won't bother you with the details, but I think it will add a nice dynamic tension to the situation. So there you have it.

Don't be afraid to Rock, and Write On.

R.