Swords Against Boredom

I sent another Calthus story, the fourth in chronology, to a publisher in the wee hours yesterday. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping this one has the same good fortune I’ve had with the other Calthus tales.

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On a writer’s board I sometimes participate in, a member asked for advice about writing fight scenes.

It’s a good question, because fight scenes in fantasy can be very difficult to pull off. There is a lot of choreography to do and a lot of scene setting to do. There are things you have to mention to keep it all clear, but you need to keep the fight moving, too. You have to make choices between realism and special-effects wonderment.

It isn’t easy.

In recent years, though, I’ve come to this conclusion: The best fights scenes are written before you get to the fight scene. Read more »

If you’ve read any of my fiction, you’ll note some trends: Big swords, lots of action, large hungry monsters, high levels of testosterone throughout.

It’s possibly a reaction to the estrogen-rich environment I live in. I’m the only male in the house. Wife, daughter, dog, even my little girl’s stuffed animals are all girls. The lone exceptions are the prince doll that came with one of my girl’s Barbies and a couple of plastic horses. Those are the token boys she lets me play with, while she surrounds herself with fairies and Barbies and My Little Ponies and a menagerie of stuffed animals all named “Hella.”

And I love it. It’s fun. She’s a sweet, imaginative kid and loves to play with her daddy. I’m happy, and lucky, to oblige.

But a man can take only so much drenching in inexhaustible cuteness. After an afternoon of talking like Donald Duck, playing with the ponies and swinging the girl around by the arms, this man needs his sword-and-sorcery — stories in which men kill things, and then kill some more things, and sometimes even have to kill them again. Read more »

Guess what might one day be coming to a McDonald’s near you …

TOKYO (AP) — If Morio Sase has his way, hungry teenagers around the world will soon be snacking on something more exotic than McDonald’s hamburgers: takoyaki, or octopus dumplings.

With more than 350 takeout stores in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan already, Sase’s Gindaco chain is one of a barrage of fast-food companies bringing lowbrow Japanese chow to overseas markets. Its first U.S. store is scheduled to open in Los Angeles in 2007, and it hopes to open 20 stores in California by 2010.

“When I was a small boy, it was street food that made me feel good and warm inside,” Sase said at a recent interview at the Tokyo headquarters of HotLand Corp., which runs Gindaco.

Hand-grilled in iron molds by cooks behind a large display window, the octopus dumplings are made from wheat flour paste mixed with fish stock, spring onions and boiled octopus chunks, and drizzled with a sweet sauce, dried bonito flakes and seaweed.

“Foods like takoyaki are closer to Japanese hearts than sushi or sashimi,” Sase said. “They’re delicious, healthy and warm — the perfect snack.”

OK … I have some hard and fast rules about eating sushi. I won’t do it. But this, I’d give a try. I think it was the addition of spring onions that sold me … that and the fact that it gets cooked.

– Steve

I just did a quick check of my files. Aside from stories I know will be published, which are detailed on my author site, I have seven short stories pending decisions from editors. I also have the novel on an editor’s desk in New York. Read more »

The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall, according to then U.S. Census Bureau.

As of midday Sunday, there were 299,061,199 people in the United States, according to the Census Bureau’s population clock. The estimate is based on annual numbers for births, deaths and immigration, averaged throughout the year.
The U.S. adds a person every 11 seconds, according to the clock. A baby is born every eight seconds, someone dies every 13 seconds and someone migrates to the U.S. every 30 seconds.

At that rate, the 300 millionth person in the U.S. will be born — or cross the border — in October, although bureau officials are wary of committing to a particular month because of the subjective nature of the clock.

The U.S. is the third largest country in the world, behind China and India. America’s population is increasing by a little less than 1 percent a year, a pace that will keep it in third place for the foreseeable future, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. The world, with a population of 6.5 billion, is growing a little faster than 1 percent a year.

Here are a few implications the Census Bureau did not report:

1) Of those 300 million people, 299.9 million will manage to irritate the hell out of me sometime within the next year.

2) About 99 percent of the people alive right now were on the Garden State Parkway as I drove our family northward during our recent vacation.

3) About half of those alive now apparently work as telemarketers.

4) More than half of those eligible to vote won’t, and more than half of those who do vote probably shouldn’t.

– Steve

Why does this planet have both the octopus and the squid?

Either animal alone is plenty weird enough. Having both just seems utterly redundant.

I dunno. Life is weird.

– Steve