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30 Years to Publication

It took two months to write, thirty years to get published. And you know what? It was worth the wait.

I am so proud. I wrote The Augmented Man in April of 1990. Now I’m holding copies in my hands.

 
And the delay wasn’t because of slow mail.

I wrote the novel side-by-side with the novella, The Goatmen of Aguirra (to give you an idea of what my mind was working on at the time).

I’d workshopped The Augmented Man and received high praise. I shopped it around, no publisher was interested. I asked AJ Budrys, my mentor and an accomplished author and editor, if he’d be willing to read it and let me know if I was kidding myself, did it just need work, should I give up my dreams of being a published author…?

What you need to know is I was an accomplished trade technical author in the late 1980s through the early 1990s, at the height of the PC Boom (I discuss this in my interview) and my work was in high demand. I knew the publishing industry at that time.

AJ read it and was so blown away he offered to agent it for me. He’d published some of my short fiction in his Tomorrow magazine and he knew my work from workshops hence was familiar with my work, my style, my weaknesses and my strengths. But The Augmented Man caught him by surprise.

I was flattered, honored. I almost fainted when I read his letter offering to represent the novel (1990, remember? We didn’t do lots of emailing back then).

For reasons that had nothing to do with the book, AJ couldn’t land it. We met at a con and he explained the situation to me. Someday, should we meet at a con, ask me and I’ll share the story.

AJ passed and I got another agent. She loved the book. Could I add 30,000 words to it?

Sure, why?

Because it was too short. Thirty-k words longer and she was sure she could land it. I added 30k words, edited, proofed, and sent the rewrite to her in under a month.

Didn’t hear from her. Called and got “Oh, on second thought, no, I don’t think this is a good enough novel. Besides, there’s too much out there already like it.”

Really? Did you read the novel?

Yeah, sure. It’s about a guy lost in a jungle, right?

On to agent #3. Who was a joke. I finally asked point blank, “How many projects have you placed?” and she responded that she couldn’t work with someone who asked such questions. This was after the head of the agency phoned and talked with me for an hour to let me know how impressed he was by my work.

So I put it on the shelf. I went on with life.

Because I’m patient.

And now I’m holding the novel in my hands.

I’m so proud.

Would you like a personally autographed copy?

(and feel free to pass this on to every one)

Tiffany Fenton Interviews Me

I spent some time with a hero

Tiffany Fenton (and if you haven’t read her story, you should) asked me if I’d be her first interview.

When #the_herowithin calls, can you not answer?

Okay, I chose to answer. Tiffany supplied twenty-two questions with the instructions that I didn’t have to answer all of them, I could pick and choose. I answered all of them because 1) hey, somebody wants to interview me? Go for it! 2) I’m an overachiever (not really).

Anyway, it was fun and I hope you all enjoy

You can read the interview on Tiffany’s site, under Joseph Carrabis.

And please do enjoy.

PS) You can find Tiffany’s books in the list on the right (depending on your device). Enjoy them, too.

The Weight

Chance meetings leave us changed in unexpected ways

Creator and above level members can download a PDF of this file to read offline

“You’re a long way from home,” the waitress said. A little shopkeeper’s bell dingled as I closed the door behind me and I looked up it, wondering what kind of place this was.

“We’re more tavern than bar,” she said, answering my thought. She moved out from the shadows behind the bar to where I could see her clearly, her waitress’ apron tied neatly and knotted in front and a towel with blue edging slung over her shoulder. “More a way-station, actually.”

She was pretty in an older kind of way and I wasn’t sure I expected someone in their late thirties to – oh, even late – forties to be tending bar on an old country crossroads at the northern edge of the New York-Mass border. “With a name like The Mythic Center I’m not surprised,” I said.

I wasn’t even sure if it was a bar, but I’d gotten lost, it was nine-o’clock at night and this was the only place with lights on – hell, it was the only place, period – I’d seen since dusk. It was too dark, too late and I was too tired to keep hiking through country I hadn’t explored in thirty-five years.

“Been traveling long?” she asked, making conversation. I was the only other person in the place so I’m sure she didn’t mind the company.

I nodded and smiled back, rubbing my hands against the cold they’d gathered in the day’s walking. I could have sworn I left the city in late summer but Fall seemed to come fast in my wake. I stood by the door and looked around. The place had a look that made me feel comfortable. It wasn’t really a bar. Like she said, more a tavern and out here, I could believe a way-station. And it wasn’t yuppified. The tables and chairs were light maple – all local and hand made, nothing imported and nothing with a machined #7 of 7,000 look. The place had a good, solid, well-worn feel about it. Whatever wasn’t maple – the paneling, the bar and stools, the booths – was oak, ash or thorn. Whoever owned The Mythic Center meant it to last and I chuckled as I realized the oxymoron in that. But everything seemed a little lonely with only the waitress cleaning up to keep the furniture and walls company. There were chess and checker boards on some of the tables, some tables had cribbage boards on them. I could tell serious gamers came here because the gaming tables had green shaded, metal poker lights suspended from the ceilings over them. Between those and the bar and booth lights, the place was well lit without being blinding, what I’d call soothing and never too much light unless you needed it.

One wall contained several racks of books and the opposite wall sported a genuine British competition style dart board, well used. I stared at it and my face must have lit up because the waitress asked, “Do you throw?”

I shook my head, no, although I walked over and lifted a dart from its rack. I ran my fingers over the flight feathers – again, no plastic and the darts were competition weighted. “No, just an admirer of good things built to last.”

She stopped drying down a Monopoly™ gaming table and stood up to look at me, one hand on a hip and twirling the damp towel with the other. “Thanks.”

The light over the table captured her in a spotlight and she let me take a long drink before she reached up for the chain and turned the light off. Salt&pepper hair that made a long, thick braid down her back, cerulean blue eyes that my dad used to call “ice-eyes”, a wide face with lots of freckles but no wrinkles except laugh lines, and no makeup to disturb any of it. When she smiled there was a gap in her front teeth and I caught myself thinking of Chaucer’s The Miller’s Wife, then quickly shook my head.

It showed, I guess. The way she smiled at me, running her tongue over the gap in her teeth absentmindedly, looking down and to the side as she shook her head.

Under a full length apron she wore a blue tanktop matching her eyes. Her jeans were torn at the knees and faded from work, not from some designer’s idea of what work did to good clothing and red hightop sneakers like I use to wear as a kid.

She quoted Bob Seger’s Nightmoves, singing it like a question, “Little too tall? Could’a used a few pounds?”

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This Year’s Kits

She’s such a good mother

I mentioned a while back that Hecate showed signs of being kitted.

 
Do I know my raccoons or what?

This video is four segments shot within a few minutes of each other. Hecate’s five kits (prolific, ain’t she?) didn’t all get into the frame simultaneously. One would race forward, one would dart back. Two would go to the water bucket, two would come to get peanuts.

Oy!

The joys of surrogate fatherhood.

Anyway, more for us to be proud of.

The one kit who always comes forward no matter what is either Clyde or Brutus. He hasn’t decided on his name yet. He’s darker furred than the other kits. And he likes to nibble toes. Mine.

Such is life.

Peter Frampton – The Weight

His songs helped me write my history

Peter Frampton, in case you haven’t heard, is doing a farewell tour.

It seems many of the legends of my youth are doing farewell tours. Elton John comes to mind. The Moody Blues will never appear as The Moody Blues again. Such happens if you live long enough. Susan (wife/partner/Princess) and I are spending this year going to final tour concerts.

Bittersweet, that.

Eariler this week we saw Peter Frampton in concert. This is the third time for Susan, fourth for me. We saw him together when he played in David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour, then long ago when he played at an abandoned drive-in theater in Ogunquit, Maine (the first stop in a comeback. He was testing material. And it was bittersweet then. In the middle of the concert he had to put on glasses to read something. He apologized to us. I remember everybody waving cyalumes, not lighters). He’s still got it. He has neurologic challenges that are making it difficult for him to perform. Couldn’t tell by his performance. And gracious as always…

He opened by letting everybody know they could video and take pix of his first three songs, then he’d prefer if we all simply sat and enjoyed.

We did.

But this post is about the first time I saw Frampton perform. I was already a big fan. I told anybody and everybody that he was underrated, that he had serious chops, pay attention.

And we’re talking the early to mid 1970s.

The first time I saw Frampton perform, I was hiking The Dragon’s Spine and came down to resupply. That meeting stayed with me and became a focal point in my Pushcart nomimated story, The Weight. Here’s the excerpt that deals with my meeting Frampton many years ago (read the full story).
Continue reading “Peter Frampton – The Weight”

Damon Knight’s “Creating Short Fiction”

Not one of the better books for emerging writers

Caveat #1 up front: I studied with Damon Knight a lifetime and a half ago. Caveat #2 I read the original hardcover, not the “The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction Revised Edition” paperback.

This was a fascinating read for me as I could hear Knight speaking throughout. Is it a worthy book?

Not convinced it is. There’s a lot in it and Knight provides plenty of exercises. What is not provided is clear, concise examples of technique. There’s lots of “Some people do it this way, others do it that way, you find your own way, and here are some exercises to help you find that way.”

I’m not an advocate of that “find your own way” school until you’ve learned the basics. In traditional Japanese martial arts, there’s a concept of “cutting” and if there’s anything demonstrating the “10,000 hour rule”, “cutting” has to be it. My point is (and all my teachers might agree), once you’ve got “cutting” down, everything else just happens. I prefer books that help you perfect your cutting then let you find your own way.

The book is strong on theory, weak on practice and application. There’s some good stuff here, simply not enough of it to make it a worthy read.

 

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