The Michael Canfield Channel

NaNoWriMo.

For me, it's done.
 

Writing on the wall (hanging).

I found a bamboo scroll with Chinese characters on it in a thrift store once. I hung it on my wall; it still hangs there. From time to time someone will ask me what it means, but I don't know. One person was particularly obsessed with this, saying "how do you know it's not something bad?" I said "I doubt some company makes decorative curses as home furnishings, but whatever. " The matter did not rest there, you'd think it would, but anyway that person doesn't come over anymore. Now I've thought of a better answer. The next time someone asks, I'll just say, "people fear what they don't understand."

NaNoWriMo

New novelette out.

My one-and-only Sword & Sorcery tale "Citadel Ninety-Nine" has the cover in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #30. It is now available as a free pdf dowload, (and in various other formats, some free and others for a nominal fee). 

"Urban Fantasy"

Probably this is old new to everyone interested in the subject but me, but I just discovered an excellent blog post written last year by Juno Books editor Paula Guran on the evolution of term "urban fantasy" & what it now commonly means to publishers/readers. I don't like this limited definition, for what was once a useful term for a broader range of types of stories in a certain fantasy mode -- but it is what it is. Guran's point that the current examples of the genre owe "more to the American hard-boiled detective genre than most may understand" is especially well-taken.

I have thought it strange that the term got attached to series books that so often use horror tropes, such as vampires, demons and werewolves, but, reflecting on it, maybe it does make sense, because those images have long since ceased to invoke the responses horror strives for, and seem to used in these paranormal detective series' for their erotic or romantic appeal.

The danger is when major publishing houses try to cram works that don't fit this very narrow set of ingredients into packaging that seeks to mislead the fans of the stuff into thinking its more of the same. When it isn't, then the fans are justifiably disappointed.

Clarify creative ideals w/ Venn Diagram

Buried in this B.J. Novak interview from the Onion's A.V. Club is a terrific little nugget about The Office producer/writer Greg Daniels use of a Venn diagram to define his approach to comedy. A simple approach to define what's import to him:

[Novak]: [...] I had met with Greg Daniels, spoke to him for about an hour and a half about his theory of comedy, and I thought it was brilliant and simple and entirely what I believed in, too. [...]
[Interviewer]: What did Greg Daniels say about his philosophy of comedy?

[Novak]: He drew a Venn diagram, and he said, “This is groundbreaking comedy that I really respect.” And he said, “This is what makes people laugh.” And he said, “I am only interested in the shaded part in the middle where they overlap.” And I thought, “Sign me up!” I thought it was humble and honest, but still with the value of quality. I know it’s a simple thing to say, and anyone can say it, but you could also tell that he meant it, and had proven it as he was saying it.

A really good poem by Ben Jonson.

Inviting a Friend to Supper

by Ben Jonson

             Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house and I
             Do equally desire your company;
             Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
             But that your worth will dignify our feast
             With those that come; whose grace may make that seem
             Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
             It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
             The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
             Yet you shall have, to rectify your palate,
             An olive, capers, or some better salad
             Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
             If we can get her, full of eggs, and then
             Lemons, and wine for sauce; to these, a coney
             Is not to be despaired of, for our money;
             And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
             The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
             I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:
             Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some
             May yet be there; and godwit, if we can;
             Knat, rail and ruff, too. Howsoe'er, my man
             Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,
             Livy, or of some better book to us,
             Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat;
             And I'll profess no verses to repeat;
             To this, if aught appear which I not know of,
             That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
             Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be;
             But that which most doth take my muse and me
             Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,
             Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine;
             Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted,
             Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.
             Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring
             Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing.
             Of this we will sup free, but moderately;
             And we will have no Poley or Parrot by;
             Nor shall our cups make any guilty men,
             But at our parting we will be as when
             We innocently met. No simple word
             That shall be uttered at our mirthful board
             Shall make us sad next morning, or affright
             The liberty that we'll enjoy tonight.

"And tens of thousands of lines of time"

 Using WordMonkey I translated Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 into Italian, then the Italian into Greek, the Greek into Chinese (because I got a error message trying to go to Hindi next), then from Chinese to Arabic, Arabic to Albanian, and finally Albanian back to English:

Summer in comparison with the first day
You are more beautiful and soft:
Harsh rocked proud shoots 20 May,
And summer, and rented a very short history:
Sometimes too hot in the light of eyes in the sky,
Often approximate the golden skin,
As well as reasonable and fair reduction in some cases,
By chance, or nature of the changes that have occurred in the course untrimmed:
But the eternal summer fadeless owner
Can not afford to lose thousands of pride,
Or just kill thousands ow'st
In eternal calm wand'rest grow'st
   Man and tens of thousands of lines of time to breathe or eyes can view
   That a long life, which make life for you.

Zombies: Guidelines to Upcoming Anthologies

Here are excerpts from the writer's guidelines of various Zombie-Themed POD anthologies that will be appearing soon:

Our Union Dead:

Genres: Civil War, Alt-History, Horror, Romance, Regency. This is a zombie-themed War Between the States anthology with a difference. I only want to see stories about zombies who are fighting for the North. I WILL look at stories that have some zombies in Confederate gray, but be forewarned, if you choose to submit such a story you will have a very high bar to clear. Payment: 1/16 to 1/8 cent per word. Length: 1500 to 150,000 words. (Works longer than that may be considered only for our online anthology supplement page at the reduced rate of of 1/64 to 1/32 cent per word.) Be bold, be brave, innovate! Why not set your particular tale during, say, a Civil War reenactment? Or even a Civil War computer game -- but a computer game that suddenly gets very very real.)

Above all be historically accurate. I don't want to see any more submissions with zombies carrying Revolutionary War flintlocks, World War II German grease-guns, or stories featuring any variety of horse bridle in only limited use prior to 1864. It's called research, people. Do your job. Besides, at this time, we are overstocked on stories containing anachronistic horse bridles. 

Email subs only, to editoriusemiritus[at]thebloodofourfourfatherspress.com. No reprints. Simultaneous submissions will be deleted at once unread. If you do send a simultaneous submission, and I find out about it, you will be banned from submitting to any Blood of Our Four Fathers theme anthology for a period of one year, or the release of our next sixty theme anthologies, whichever comes first. People, there are consequences to behavior in this business.

ResurErection: New GeniTALEias.

Sure you're dead, but you're not DEAD right?  This anthology is seeking stories, poems, and Penthouse-style true letters exploring the profound effects of the zombapocalypse on sexual organs. Does a zombie penis become erect?  Does a zombie vagina lubricate? Word length: Microfiction: 0 - 200 words. Full-length fiction: 225 -1200 words. Stories between those lengths will be defined as either  microfic or macrofic at the sole discretion of the editor.

Payment: ONE (1) story will be selected for the Travis Q. Zither Award of $25. This award is to honor the work of writer and literarateur Travis Q. Zither for his achievements within the zombie erotica sub-genre, and also to get the anthology listed as a paying market on various websites. Payment for the other chosen stories will be Exposure AND 10% off contributor copies (limit of fifteen per contributor). Reprints, while considered, are strongly discouraged and will not be eligible for the Zither Award. Fair warning: Stories written by women or that feature female characters in any way resembling real human beings are always a tough sell with me. When in doubt, query.

Anticipated print run: 125 copies. Send submissions to travisqzither[at]travisqzither.com

PG-13. No gratuitous profanity. No rape, incest, or pedophilia except when essential to the plot. Have some class, people. Simultaneous submissions will be deleted unread. Estimated response time: 62 to 65 months.

Zombie: Dark Utopias
(UPDATE #15)
Utopias: the places that are not -- or so it is defined in the nomenclatura of Sire Thomas Morehouse of Great Britannia. But what if an utopia could exist -- and then got taken over by zombies!
(For more information in Sire Thomas Morecoke rent the first two seasons of Showtime's "The Tudors." It's called an education, people!)
Be bold, be edgy. We're starting to notice a lot of new zombie books, novels, anthologies, collections, movies, DVD's, and BluRays appearing on the horizonistical landscape, as it were. It is no longer enough to write your Utopian zombie parable as if you were the only writer in the universal pantheon.

THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER'S UTOPIAN ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY, PEOPLE!
Genres: sf/f/ss (both slipstream and sword & sorcery) alt history, alt future history, western, mystery (no cozies -- and-- fair warning-- cat-based whodunits are usually a tough sell with us). Urban fantasy, suburban fantasy, neo-weird, nouveau-weird, weird, and not-weird, all encouraged. No horror. No introspection: send that poop to The New Yorker or someplace, we just want to be entertained, you stupid navel-gazer. And no vampires, they are so played out.

Submissions should be in standard ms. format. Let me explain what this means: submissions should not be in non-standard ms. format. I know a lot of other markets accept submissions in non-standard formats, but you should know that this market and only this market accepts submissions only in the standard format, and you should consider that before you submit a manuscript to us in non-standard format.

Let's talk a little about our submissions process. We employ the industry-normative structure of fourteen rounds of readings. In the first round we will determine whether your manuscript conforms to standard manuscript format. The second round will consist of a different set of readers who will consider whether the first set of readers were correct in their assessment of the manuscript's format. After all, we want to be fair about this.

After the second round, if it is determined a manuscript does NOT meet the requirements of passing the first two rounds, the manuscript will be returned to its author for reformatting. (Or, in the case of a female-sounding byline, discarded.) Once the author has reformatted his manuscript correctly and resubmitted it, the manuscript will go to round three (assuming it can this time pass rounds one and two.)

Round three with determine whether or not your name is Neil Gaiman. If so, your manuscript will skip rounds four through six, AND round twelve. (Note: After the original version of these guidelines appeared, we received several manuscripts with bylines such as: "by Yeah-Like-Neil-Gaiman's-Gonna-Send-A-Story-To-Your-Lame-A**." Look people, we are working with a very tight window here, I don't appreciate what is so obviously NOT Neil Gaiman's real byline appearing in the slush.

Updated response time: I know that we originally estimated our response time as between "Anon and St Alban's Day, 2008" but due to the extraordinary volume of manuscripts we have received (six) none of which have cleared the seventh round of the submission process yet, we are behind. I feel I myself bear some of the responsibility for this, as I have not yet had time to decide what goes on in round seven, or in any of the other rounds not specifically described here. When I do that, I will post updated guidelines. You are potential writers and purchasers of contributor copies -- you deserve to know. And I will defend to the death my right to say that. Current response time is approximately four months from whatever-your-watch-says-right-this-moment to never. Please do not query before that time.

Payment: Advance: $0 against a standard royalty contract: 0.04% on a 75/25 split paid quarterly beginning -- ah, why kid yourself? -- there's no such thing as a royalty.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Director: John Sargent)

Growing up in Nevada I gravitated to a certain kind of gritty, cynical drama: "The French Connection," "The Seven-Ups," "Report to the Commissioner," "Dog Day Afternoon" and in a connect that maybe only makes sense to me, "The Producers." I watched these movies chopped up for content a the make room for commercial breaks every ten minutes at odd hours on my tiny black and white, where no amount of adjusting the rabbit ears would ever do much to eliminate the ghosting of the images. In fact, I was surprised and somewhat dismayed to learn as an adult that "The Producers" was actually shot in color.

Along with these was another never-miss, the gripping and funny "Taking of Pelham One Two Three," which is running now on Hulu.com because of the current remake, which I haven't, and will never bother, to see, unless by accident. Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as the antagonists, along with great actors like Hector Elizando, Martin Balsam, Jerry Stiller, and (taking a break for sidekicking for Woody Allen) Tony Roberts. It's a straightforward story: four men with four machine guns take a subway car hostage demanding $1 Million, in non-consecutive unmarked bills. One hour deadline. No explosions, no secret agenda, no digital effects. Plenty of humor and suspense all from the interactions of the characters: a bunch of jaded, tough, caustic New Yorkers as you'd ever hope to see butt heads. All that and an unforgettable final shot. Recommended.