Tip of the Quill: A Journal

Category Archives: Voice: Tip of the Quill

Back in Bethesda.

Well, I’m back in the DC suburbs, working like a mad thing to catch up with email, what’s happening in the universe and what to tackle next. There’s work to do! It sounds like everyone in my circle (so far) had great Thanksgivings. And now we hae free rein to go nuts over Christmas. Woo!

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Eventually.

Well, this is me reporting live from my home in Ohio, where I am officially conceding defeat in NaNoWriMo 2002. My grand total for the year (so far) is just over 18,000 words, or fifty pages, but I still consider this whole experiment a fantastic victory. NaNoWriMo got me moving again on a project that […]

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Off to the homeland.

Well, as you might have noticed by now, the Autumn Inkblots is live! We just snuck into Autumn, right at the tail end, but we made it. 😉 Now, the girlfriend and I are about to hit the highway for the homeland. Turkey Day calls, and scuttlebutt has it there’s going to be four inches […]

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One step forward, two steps back.

Driving in the car this morning, I came up with a way to exorcise Caliban from the novel altogether. Which is good, since I was only using him for one scene, and he was faintly ridiculous. And then there were eight. And 700 words just vanished… Darn.

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I am the Godfather of online publishing.

Every time I get out, they keep pulling me back in. In other words, the new issue will be posted as soon as I get done with all the submissions that showed up in my inbox this weekend. Argh. While you’re waiting, swing by the Polyvinyl Records web site and grab the MP3 of “The […]

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Ho, ho, ho, har, har, har.

Check it out: two holiday-themed Switch ads from Apple and Will Farrell. Heh.

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Naming conventions.

The characters in my new novel are as follows: Pi St. John Michael Coldman Jack “NeverJack” Walker Victoria Ravenswood Vincent Ravenswood III Dr. Simon Blacknail Dr. Jonathan Nautonnier Grant Nichols Caliban Davies Yes, I definitely think I read Pynchon too early in my development as a writer.

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And one other thing about the novel.

It’s strange. I’ve got all these notes from previous ideas, and most of them are being chucked out the window as the story unfolds itself. There are still some things that are a little far out, but most of the wildly Pynchonian elements that I’d been considering including are winding up on the cutting room […]

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I am now a card-carrying member of the storytellers’ union.

Well, not exactly card-carrying – I hope they print up cards, though. Today I sent in my dues and registration for the DSA. I can’t wait to see what shows up in the mail. I’m hoping for a decoder ring.

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Chalk up another 5,000 words.

On the NaNoWriMo front, I think I’m going to have to kiss this idea goodbye. I dillied and dallied all weekend on other things, then buckled down today and wrote another 5,000 words, bringing me over the 15,000 word mark. Which means I have to write 35,000 words in five days. It might be doable, […]

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