IPSTPD Story Bone 2

Venus of West Camp 36. A logger, so lonely he rough carved a woman from a discarded log of oak, and then hand sanded her smooth for years, forming the body from memory, eyes closed in the dark, creates a live woman. Could be fairy magic, could be a released dryad, or it could be his own delusion.

IPSTPD Story Bone 1

The house had a coffin smell, fresh turned earth, a close moistness and stiffling pine.

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, It's a Jolly Holiday

Disclaimer, this is not a story bone. Also, I'm posting early, because tomorrow morning will be very busy.

In honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, I am posting an older story of mine, The Dead Are Busy. Although it's older, and I've stopped sending it out, I really like it. I received a lot of personalized rejection letters with this story, and even an invite to resubmit (the market had just closed to submission right after I mailed it).

This is the first story I think was up to level. Of course, I'm still growing as a writer, so the next stories are always better (I think). I leave the critiques to others, lets say I know there's a fatal flaw in the story (no, I'm not telling you what it is 'cause my guess is you might not see it). I love these characters. I'm going to use them again. In fact I have the start of a novel or novellete using them. Jabari and his Ms. Kaliska, the grumpy grandparents, and the mysterious Clive, they are great fun.

I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I had writing it.

If you don't know what International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is or why it's going on, you must have been very busy or aren't writing SF/F/H. Those are just two of the links. There are responses and flames all over the internet, all us of the Pixel-stained have been vocal.

Tomorrow I'll continue my celebration of IPSTD with the inclusion of as many story bones as possible (tomorrow also promises to be a very busy day at work). I hope you enjoy the pixel-stained masses as we celebrate, don't forget to join in the sing alongs!

"Look for that union label..."

All the fraternal best,
Brother in Arms, Steve Buchheit
Member of Graphic Communications Conference, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local M546

Updates

Well, as of last night Mom was in the step-down unit. She's off the ventilator and supposedly sitting in a chair. I didn't get to see her, but I talked with the nurse. My sister-in-law stopped over at lunch to see Mom and said she was doing okay. Her regular doctor finally got the hospital to put notes about her right arm on the chart, so the nurses are watching it now.

Also, we are running into that wonderful modern medical device, "the insurance will only pay for her to be in the hospital for (x) days." Mom's healing slowly. I don't think she's really going to be ready on Sunday to come home. We're trying to get her into onsite physical therapy (where she stays at the hospital). That way she'll have the care she needs for another week. Hopefully she'll be much stronger at the end of that.

And even more sale news... for other people.

Dang it, sometimes I'm a dick on purpose, sometimes I'm just a brainless dick.

I forgot to mention, frequent commentor and all around nice guy Todd Wheeler also made a sale recently. His story "The Unwritten Future of Princess Melodious Squeak" was accepted by Nanobison. Very damn cool. Congrats, dude! And as commented about elsewhere, what a very neat title.

Todd is also still running his Name the Characters Contest. So, here's your chance to see you ideas used by a published author. I mean, most people have to hire a team of lawyers to prove their ideas were used by another author. Here, you go into the proposition knowing that's going to happen. But seriously, you get to help name characters in a story, how cool is that?

Yippie! A sale... for somebody else.

Merrie Haskell, all around nice person, Kletcha gang member, and sometimes commentator, whom I met at Confusion, just sold a story to Asimov's. Go tell her how wonderful that is. It's freaking wonderful Merrie. Big congrats.

Edited 04-19-07 5:45pm D'oh. Got her name wrong, sorry about that Mer.

A Winning Personality

This just seems to be the season for winning. First I win Tobias Buckell's Ragamuffin (it's in the guilt stack, I took it with me yesterday for something to read if I needed it, it's still in the briefcase for today). And now I just found out I won John Scalzi's The Last Colony from Tower Records. Thanks Daniel Reardon of Tower. I second John's thoughts that you know what you're doing. Keep up the good work. I know Tower will be one of those online bookstore I frequent from now on.

Updates

Mom made it through surgery. What was supposed to be four hours turned into six hours. They ended up making it a quadruple bypass. The surgery team had difficulty finding suitable viens and arteries for transplant and eventually had to go to her right arm. Mom had breast cancer and a radical mastectomy almost a decade ago, and her right arm as never been good since, that is it has lymph problems and will swell by looking at it wrong. She's going to be very upset with us for letting the surgeon take material from her right arm (they aren't even supposed to put an IV unit in it). That's what health care power of attorney means. My brother was a little shakey on his decision, but I backed him up saying I would have done the same thing.

So Mom is as good as can be expected as of last night. I'll find out more today. Ain't life fun.

Parents

My Mom is in the hospital. She's going to have bypass surgery tomorrow (Monday). She's fully awake, and her heart attack was a mild one, but it wasn't her first (as came out in the doctors quizing her). They've found the blockage causeing the problems. So on the plus side there's no scaring on the heart muscle, and she has a 99% chance of coming out of surgery okay (although she's had problems with anesthetic) and a 98% chance of surviving 10 years or more. Her surgeon will be the top heart guy at the hospital or his associate. Both are highly ranked. The hospital (where she worked for over twenty-five years) has been doing this for a long time (from back in the 80s).

Fortuantely she knew the signs of a heart-attack. These signs are different in women than in men, BTW (or they display differently, such as men have pain in the right arm and chest mostly, women will experience pain in the jaw or along the bra-line on their backs). And most women don't believe they could be having a heart attack so they delay getting help.

So I should be around, but if I'm not posting for a bit, or I come to your site and blather on about something incoherently off-topic, you'll know why. I do most of my posting while my plate-setter is printing, and I'm not planning for taking another day off this week, so there will be posts.

New Toys!

Well, after nearly a decade of faithful service, it's (long past) time to retire the beige G3 "home" computer. So in comes a new 20" iMac. And a new printer. And a new Airport. New toys for me to play with. Yippie!

It's hard to find ink cartridges for the old printer, and I've been itching to update it with a printer, copier, scaner, stand alone fax device for five years. Now I have an excuse. New printers, though, only have drivers for OS X (yeah, I could have faked it). Also, the old OS9 apps were showing their age, the email, the browsers, just everything was having problems. And there were no more upgrades. So we're onto the new machine!

Well, right after I transfer and update data from OS9 apps. And then get everything working right. And put it all together. And...

On the plus side when I saw that Apple's Universal updater for the iMac was about 352megs I was able to cart the iMac to my secondary broadband access point. So what would have taken 36+ hours (probably double that) of download time was accomplished in about two hours. That time includes downloading the update to Quicken 2007 (which isn't here yet, but once it is I have the updater) and a few other widgets and programs. And carting an iMac is relatively easy.

Add in the design work I need to complete this weekend (when did I get busy with that work?) and there goes all the time. Yeesh.

I should say I do most of my writing on my 17" Powerbook (G4). The old machine handled business suff, and worked for my wife (who really hates that we had to upgrade, she doesn't like change, hence the 10-year old computer).

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Just saw that my dirty little secret has not only new episodes, it's been renewed for another season. Ghost Hunters has been renewed. Yippie!

I don't watch much TV, and I hate much of "reality TV," but for some reason I really like this show.

Got a Clue

Little Bird Blue made a comment that I should continue the "Hands" story bone myself. So I've been thinking about it. I think I know a story for it, probably less than 4000 words, stream of consciousness, first-person POV, heavy prose. It'll be a very difficult feat for me to pull off, but what's life if you don't stretch. It's going to be an intentionally unreliable narrator, and I intend to make it difficult for the reader to know whom the POV is talking to, which will become part of the story (the confusion of whom they're talking to, not whom they're talking to).