I'm leaving for San Francisco in a few hours. I have a feeling things are going to be just as rough as Chicago, so don't expect to hear too much from me this week.

In a bit of cool news, my friend Dan invited me to a screening Sunday night of a documenatary called "Fog City Mavericks" about Bay Area filmmakers including Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. I was told they'll be doing a Q&A after the screening. I'm really looking forward to that.

Wish me luck.

In the haze this past week has been, I forgot to mention that my friend Toby Buckell's book "Crystal Rain" is a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel. "Crystal Rain" is set in a unique Caribbean milieu, something not seen much in science fiction or fantasy (unless, of course, you count the black lectroids in "Buckaroo Banzai",) and it's a great read. Toby's second novel, "Ragamuffin," comes out in June, and promises to be just as good.

So congratulations and good luck, Toby!

By the way, isn't his cover art the coolest?!

5AM to 7AM -- Wake Up. Write for 2 hours.
7AM to 8:30AM -- Feed cats. Eat cereal. Read email & news.
8:30AM to 9AM -- Commute to gym.
9AM to 10AM -- 50 min. on crosstrainer. 2o min. abs/arms/leg lifts
10AM to10:45AM -- Shower/change.
10:45AM to 1PM -- Arrive in office (one floor above gym.) Work.
1PM to 1:10PM -- Walk down to Metro, buy salad. (highpoint of day)
1:10PM to 2PM -- Eat lunch at desk.
2PM to 5PM -- Rehearse. Type changes. Yell at people.
5PM to 5:30PM -- Distribute changes. Read cue cards.
5:30PM to 6:30PM -- Watch show. Format next day's scripts.
6:30PM to 7PM -- Make phone calls. Gather things to leave.
7PM to 7:30PM -- Commute downtown.
7:30PM to 8:30PM -- Visit with dad in hospital
8:30Pm to 8:40PM -- Walk home.
8:40PM to 9:15PM -- Eat the dinner Mike made me. (why I love him.)
9:15PM to 9:30PM -- Wash dishes.
9:30PM to 10:30PM -- Watch something off DVR.
10:30PM -- Pass out.

Actually, I'm not writing this to whine, just to explain why you might not have heard from me lately. The cherry on this hot fudge sundae is that I'm leaving for San Francisco on Saturday and will be working without a day off until the 6th.

Jealous?

I just learned this morning from the Writers of the Future Blog that my friend Eugene Myers is a finalist in the 1st quarter of this year's Writers of the Future Contest. Woo hoo, New York is representin'! (Wait, did I actually just say that? Oh man, I think I need a nap or something.)

Seriously, congrats Eugene!

Labels: WOTF

I wouldn't normally participate in any of these let's-all-get-together-and-do-the-same-thing viral meme extravaganzas. I don't like group-think activity and these events smack of chain-letterage to me.

I'm making an exception for this, though.

So here's my contribution: it's the beginning of the novella that, if you know me, you've heard me bitching about for, oh, about 3 years now? No, it's not finished yet, and, no, I don't know when it will be finished. So don't ask.


Passaic Man
by Andrea Kail


NEW JERSEY

That's what Jack liked about her: she didn't do fuck scenes like all the other whores in Hollywood. Not his Gwyneth, oh no. She was a real lady, a class act. From the top of her soft, blond head to the tips of her pink-painted toes, class. No, Gwyneth was different: Gwyneth never fucked, Gwyneth made love.

That's what she called it, anyway: making love. And he must have made love to her, oh, hundreds of times now, almost like they were married, except he wasn't bored with her like he'd gotten with all the other girls, like he knew his father was bored with his mother. Gwyneth never bored him, no matter how plain she looked when he changed her eyes to brown or took her makeup off or added a few pounds to her hips. (Anyone who stuck to default settings was just plain lazy.) And even in the cut scenes, when they wandered off plot and he let Gwyneth just be Gwyneth, she always smiled for him and never argued, and her conversations, when they had them, were always interesting.

He'd even simmed a fight with her once, just once, just to see what it would be like. But Gwyneth, being Gwyneth, always knew the right things to say, and Jack could never get really angry with her. Not really.

No, Jack didn’t think he'd ever get bored with Gwyneth. She even smelled fresh, pure, like magnolias and springtime, and that wasn't any of his optioning or tweaking or even his occasional hack. Gwyneth just came that way: clean, fresh--new.

Of course, ENT programs were supposed to be like that: new and fresh and exciting, especially the immies. A new star every week, a new exotic locale, a great new story. Buy Them All and Adventure The World!

And Jack certainly had: Brittany in Lanarca, Courtney in Karachi, Alexandra in Cairo; he couldn't even remember them all. But then along came Gwyneth, and that, as they say, was that.

Oh, she'd started out the way they all had, of course. A hot, young starlet, she acted while Jack watched from the sidelines. Then he joined in: the male lead (predictable and sooo boring,) the supporting friend (he never made it the whole running time in this role and wondered why he always tried,) the extra at the other end of the table with the one line about cheese (damn, he loved the challenge of getting them to fuck the random guy.) But his favorite part, without any doubt, was playing Director and watching from up on high while all the characters crawled about for his amusement.

But with Gwyneth, things were different. With Gwyneth, he was content to play the leading man: rescuing her, kissing her, making love to her like she was some precious little doll. His little doll. And of course, after a while, she was. His. She pampered him and crooned to him and called him John in that special way she had. John, never Jack, like his parents and everyone else called him. Gwyneth knew he was special; she told him so. Gwyneth knew that deep inside he was a John, not a Jack.

#

"You need to pick a VOC, Jack."

Jack cringed. He hated dinnertime, but mother insisted on it. She spent all her time in the Home and Garden SOCs and had lots of crazy ideas about keeping family close. Like every night, they'd all have to unplug from their hookups, troop into the small, white kitchen and eat what his mother called a "family meal." And it wasn't like she actually cooked or anything. She just zapped the regular ration packs they always ate, and Jack could do that just as well all by himself. But the worst part was being forced to squeeze in around that teeny, tiny table and sit in the uncomfortable, plastic chairs and eat together and blah, blah, blah together, and oh jeez, he knew this particular rant of hers a little too well. Jack hung his head and mouthed the words his mother spoke.

"You've been done with EDUs for almost a year, now, Jack. Don’t you think you ought to be taking on some responsibilities of your own?"

It sounded like a question, but, really, it wasn't.

"Your father and I work hard to afford this home, to give you everything you need, everything you want. Like all those immies you love so much, hmmm? Your father and I have decided it's time you began to contribute. When the Corporation has another opening, I'm submitting your resume, Jack."

Mother wanted him to become an Ellingson Corp marketing researcher like her and dad and get his own apartment in the Complex and plug into work and spend the whole day, everyday in a VOC office like they did and lose the best years of his life to the absolute, fucking boredom of pushing paper. Jack didn’t want that. Why would anyone want that?

"Uh huh," Jack said.

No, Jack wanted to travel, see the world. Not in real life, of course. To travel in RL, he'd have to have as much credit as a Corpexec, and that wasn't ever likely to happen. Nope, travel didn't come cheap. Fortunately, ENT programs did.

But mother just blathered on, oblivious.

"And it's not healthy," she was saying now. "It's not healthy at all being inside those immies all the time like you are."

Well, this was a new one. Jack looked up from shifting his vegetable ration around the white, plastic plate just in time to see her slice a pea in half. Fucking weirdo.

"Mrs. Parker in building nine says there's a Realtime Party in the commons next week. Her daughter Junie's going, and I said you'd go, too."

Jack groaned. Oh no, not the RT parties, not the awkward, over-produced mixers thrown specifically to get plugged-in young Complexers to meet and match. Jack avoided them like a virus. Not that he had anything against parties. He didn't. He'd been to the Complex-sponsored digi-raves a time or two--before Gwyneth, of course. Decent parties where everyone could avatar in their best immiestar perfection. But the idea of actually seeing these people in the flesh--Jack shuddered. Bad enough he had to look at his mother's doughy, white arms and legs with their network of pale, purple veins, but to have to see that on someone his own age, someone he was expected to, like, fuck for the rest of his life? Nuh uh, no way.

"No fucking way," he told his mother.

She rolled her eyes. "You're going, damn it. Even if I have to drag you myself."

Jack appealed to his father, but dad wasn't paying attention. He just ate his ration and stared at the freezer. No help at all. As usual, Jack was on his own.

#

Come be with me, John.

Jack didn’t think he'd ever forget that day. He and Gwyneth had wandered off the plot of "Smuggler's Gold" and laid a blanket down on a soft, grassy hill just above the Indian Ocean. They made love all afternoon, and Gwyneth fed him sweets that he sucked off the tips of her fingers. Then he nestled his head in her lap to watch the sun set.

"Just like a mandarin sundae," Gwyneth said, stroking the hair back from his forehead.

Jack laughed. "Yeah," he said, although he really didn't know what a mandarin sundae was. But the sunset was pretty enough, all orangey-gold layered sky and puffy, pink clouds sinking into deep, blue waters. Jack felt happy, peaceful.

And that's when Gwyneth said it.

"Come be with me, John." She stopped stroking his hair, and Jack was suddenly cold as her shadow fell across him. "Come and spend the rest of your life with me," she said.

Jack arched his neck to look at her, to see if she was serious, but her face was upside down and her normal, happy smile looked like a crazy frown. The setting sun shone through her loose hair, casting daggers of light across her eyes. She did have such beautiful, blue eyes.

"Huh?" he said.

"Please come to me, John. I love you." She tickled her fingers across his cheek.

"You mean, like, come to L.A.? Live with you? Be your, you know, your boyfriend?"

Gwyneth turned her face to the horizon, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she smiled like he'd never seen her smile before.

"Yes," she said.

Jack didn't quite know what to say to that. "But…uh…how?"

Gwyneth's hands drifted across his chest and down his abs to grab his dick. Jack sucked in his breath.

"You'll find a way, John," she said. "I know you will."

The sun collapsed below the water line and all the world went dark.

#

It could happen, Jack reasoned. Rumor'd always had it that stars regularly plugged into their immies to watch the players and hadn't Thatcher Martin himself plugged in to tell Angie Jurnot she won the lottery while she was inside his immie "Bridges to Love?" Jack remembered reading about it in the pushtrades he regularly combed for stills of Gwyneth. (See, he did do things other than play immies.) Yeah, Jack could swear that he'd heard that this sort of thing happened all the time. So why not Gwyneth? Why not him?

He imagined himself out there, in L.A., at one of those fancy Hollywood RL parties that Gwyneth was always having. Jack knew her house as well as he knew his own, from all the pictures of her he'd copied from the trades: her pool, her elegant, spacious living room (she had a living room!,) all her guestrooms. And of course, he knew her bedroom best of all, and, god, if he could make love to Gwyneth in the flesh, in her home, in their home. Jack shivered. Could it really happen?

"Are you really her?" Jack whispered as they cuddled beneath an acacia tree, offplot of "Safari Hunters."

Gwyneth leaned a hand against his chest. Her big, baby blues were all hurt innocence itself. "Of course I am," she said.

Well, that was good enough for Jack.

#

What he needed were maps, but Jack certainly couldn't afford to pay for them. So he burrowed deep into the Read Only stacks, hustled the underground boards, and sure, broke one or two laws, but finally, after two days of permaplugged searching, he emerged, hungry and tired, with four pages of road routes smuggled out to the printer into RL format. A bit of a sweaty-palm operation, if he did say so himself, and not much to look at, really. When all was said and done, what he held in his hand was a solid-paper, scrolled picture of the old, spider webbed Eisenhower Highway System, coast to coast, in standard eight by eleven printouts, pieced together with tape salvaged from old delivery boxes. A map, if a bit makeshift.

And Jack was rather proud of it, in an odd sort of way. He'd never done anything even remotely illegal before, so illicit infogathering was a completely new challenge for him. Course, he could understand why the Corps didn’t want route info or Complex locations getting out to the masses, what with the crazy Cappers running around and all.

Jack wondered, briefly, whether he should worry about that terrorism thing while he was out there on the road. According to the news releases, Cappers frequently tried to blow up the supply systems and poison the reservoirs. He'd even heard of a case where a group of Cappers forced some regular, law-abiding folks to blow up a Complex in Wisconsin. Jack shuddered at the thought. Still, he doubted he'd run into any of them. What would they want with him anyway? As long as he minded his own business, he'd be just fine.

Now all he had to do was to find his way out of the Complex.

But leaving was surprisingly easy, for all he'd never done it before. He packed some rations and a water bottle up in a blanket and slung the bundle over his shoulder, then he took the lift down from his parent's sixty-eighth floor flat, walked past the commons, across the square, through the metal gate, then one, two, three steps…and there he was, farther than he'd ever been from home in all his life. Jack took one long, slow, deep breath.

Behind him, the twenty-five buildings of the Ellingson Corp Complex #5 towered like a shiny fortress, but in front of him lay nothing but open roads. To his left, the sky hovered a deep, purpley blue and to his right, orange, glowing layers spread across the horizon, just like Gwyneth's mandarin sundae. Jack took that as a very good sign, like nature itself was showing him where to go. That way, it said, pointing with a puff-powdery hand.

That way lay west. That way lay Hollywood. That way lay Gwyneth.

#

I'm rarely ever taken with jealousy over another writer's talent. Not that I think I'm so great--far from it--but I think I've just gotten to a point in my life where I know that I do my thing well and they do their thing well and we're all individuals with different skills and talents and, you know, that's what makes the world a wonderful place.

But every once in a while I'll read something--a book, a short story, whatever--that makes me want to toss in the towel, cause, hell, I'm never ever going to be that good, so what's the damn point? I had that experience this afternoon when I read Jeff Ford's contribution to International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. It's called Weiroot and it concerns a character first met in Ford's fantastic short story "Boatman's Holiday. " If you haven't read "Boatman's Holiday," well then, it's your loss.

Bear Naked is health food crack. Seriously, the Peak Protein flavor--Jesus! I can't stop eating it. The Apple Cinnamon is damn good, too.

OK, that's it. That's all the wisdom I have to impart today.

Carry on.

After the creative washout that this week proved to be, I've been in need of a little pick-me-up. I got it today when my Writers of the Future winnings arrived in the mail: a nice fat check for one grand. Shu-weet!

In February, after I found out I'd won, my friend Amy asked me what I was going to do with all that money. Not sure, I told her, because, while I'd made this promise in 2005 that when I sold my first story I was going to treat myself to a Tod's bag, when it actually came down to spending that much money, I balked. I think this reaction can partly be attributed to deeply ingrained tightwadery on my end but also to the current world situation, which makes me feel the pinch of rich, American guilt every time I read the paper or watch the news. It just doesn't seem appropriate these days to spend so much money on something as frivolous as a handbag without making a matching donation to, say, Amnesty International or Oxfam. And since I don't have an extra grand just lying around, I guess Tod's is off the menu.

But, hey, now that I'm flush with cash...No, just kidding. I won't do it. There's nothing I want so much that I'm willing spend double to get it.

And there's always that red patent-leather Furla I saw at Lord and Taylor for considerably less... :)

Labels: charity, handbags, winnings

The show is on hiatus this week. Usually hiatus weeks are when I hunker down and do nothing but write for seven days straight. Unfortunately, I've had some family issues to deal with lately: my father's been ill for a while, now, and he's in the hospital, so I've been seeing him. Mike's not feeling good this week, either, and since he always takes care of me when I'm sick, I, of course, have been doing the same for him. So not a lot of writing going on, and what I have gotten done, I'm not too happy with. This was supposed to be the week I punch up Chapter 3. But this puppy, for some reason, has decided to punch back, and honestly, it's really kicking my ass. I'm consoling myself with the knowledge that these are just rough first drafts, that it doesn't have to be perfect, yadda yadda yadda, and though, intellectually, I know these things are true, emotionally and creatively, I can't help but hate everything I've been putting on the paper for the last few days.

And, of course, this didn't help my mood: yesterday I met my mother and sister to tour a nursing home in our neighborhood for my great aunt Angie. Angie is turning 100 in August. She's frail, she's deaf and she can't walk too well, but she's a pistol, still, and has a great sense of humor. Right now she's living in her own apartment out in Queens with a live-in caretaker, but it's getting to be too much for my mother (who's 77) to go out there and bring her food and take care of her needs every week. Angie can't and won't live with my mother (long story) so one of the options we're looking at is nursing homes. Let me tell ya, if you really want to be depressed, go tour a nursing home. Lots of old people parked in wheelchairs in the hallways, a couple of them slouched in front of a big screen TV staring at a soap opera--and this was a well-respected nursing home, too. Now, I've got good genes, and lots of relatives who've made past 90, if not to 100, so there's a pretty fair chance I could last that long, as well. But if I did, would it be worth it if that's what I had to look forward to? I don't know. I don't think so.

Labels: depression, nursing homes

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. Listening to the report on BBC News this morning, I was pleased to hear him referred to as a science fiction writer.

A friend of mine is a retired actor and a few years ago, on a visit to his house, he showed me his prize possession: a personal letter from Kurt Vonnegut complimenting my friend on his portrayal of a character in Vonnegut's play (I don't remember which one.) The letter was relatively short but was encompassed by a full page Vonnegut self-portrait. Honestly, I've never wanted to steal something more than I did that letter.

RIP, Kurt.

I never make New Years resolutions, 1) because they're generally unkeepable and 2) cause they're just so...I don't know...I guess "stupid" is the word I'm looking for.

But this year I made one, though I didn't call it a resolution, I called it a promise. A promise to get more words on the page and to, in general, work harder writing-wise. And part of that don't-you-dare-call-it-a-resolution promise was to get up early (5AM) every weekday morning and work on my novel for two hours before I went to work. Well, you can guess how well it went. A couple of weeks in, and I gave up, not so much because of the early hour, but because of how damned cold the room with the computer was and how warm and snuggly my bed is.

But this past week, I've finally been to be able to break through the resistance. This week I've managed to get out of bed every morning and crank out at least 2 pages every day. And even though it's not the best stuff I've ever written, and even though I'm only just starting chapter 4, I'm actually beginning to feel like I'm making progress on this monster instead of the horrible running-on-ice sensation I always get whenever I sit down to confront "The Novel."

This morning, in particular, was a great writing experience and really made me wish I had more time to keep working, too. This morning I killed a character. A minor character, yes, but in the two short chapters he was sort of marginally in, his presence was meaningful, which, in turn, made his death meaningful (or at least, that's the theory.) Plus, it was a bloody, painful death and, coincidentally, right in my horrified, spoiled-brat heroine's lap, and boy if that isn't ruining her day. Ha! It's fun to be a writer.

And all before 7 AM. Take that, Army guys!

I discovered yesterday that my good friend David Barr Kirtley made another sale to Realms of Fantasy magazine. This time out, it's his short story "Transformations." Dave did a guerrilla reading of "Transformations" at Lunacon last month, and it was very well received. Dave also recently sold another short story to Realms, "Save Me Plz," which I've read and really loved. With luck, "Save Me Plz" will be in the next issue of Realms and look for "Transformations" before the end of the year.

Congratulations, Dave!

Nicked THIS from Elizabeth Glover who nicked it from Miss Snark. Go ahead, read it...Done? Okay, so anyone else bothered by the obnoxious tone of intellectual and cultural smugness that pervades this piece?

Oooo, unlike the rest of you unsophisticated boors, I know the correct pronounciation of L'Enfant! I can reference obscure, avant-garde films! I can recite the history of Antonio Stradivari! I can talk in-depth about Bach's "Chaconne!" I can quote W.H Davies and Immanuel Kant. I can use words like "koan" and "cupidity" with absolutely no irony! And just to show you that I'm not a total elitist git, I can listen to a song by a British rock band and pronounce it "terrific, actually!"

Wow, what a man of the people this guy is, huh.? I just hope, since he calls himself a humorist, that the attitude he's copped here is meant as a joke.

My friend John asked me a couple of days ago if my blog would just be about writing and personal stuff, or if I was going to talk about work, too. (For anyone who hasn't read the bio, I do scripts at Late Night with Conan O'Brien.) No, I told him, I doubt I'll write too much about work because one of the cardinal rules of remaining gainfully employed is "Don't Shit Where You Eat." This rule is especially true of working in television, since there is always great temptation to gossip about behind the scenes stuff and ample opportunity to say just the wrong thing to just the wrong person at just the wrong time. I've seen it happen, and I don't ever want to get caught up in that car wreck situation, thanks. I like my paycheck.

There is one exception I'll make and that's if there's something I think is harmless enough that on one could object to me talking about it publicly. Well, I've found something. Here's a piece of news that's harmless enough for me to blog about, and, since it was also announced weeks ago, I'm not revealing anything new. The week of April 30th through May 4th, Late Night will be doing 5 shows from the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco. And, though I hate to admit it, travel shows do tend to be really good. The energy of the audience is absolutely overwhelming, the comedy is always great. And, since I'm the first to admit that I'm a big grouch about my job and travel shows in particular, if I'm telling you those shows'll be worth watching, then you should watch them.

Ok, so, why am I a big grouch? Because though viewers might love them and though they might make good TV, for me travel shows are a total nightmare. For one thing, we're in a theater, not a studio. Theaters are a lot bigger, and not really built for what we do, or at least not for what I do. I spend most of my time running--literally running--from the head writer to my computer to the prompter and back again. The day ends up being one big obstacle course. Really, they oughta make theater seat hopping an Olympic sport. I'd have a good shot at medaling.

And also end up working 12 to 13 hour days. No kidding, 12 to 13 hours. When we were in Chicago last year, I would get into the production offices at 9 am, and I wouldn't get back to my hotel room till about 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night. It was brutal. And I didn't even get to see any of Chicago, which sucks since I hadn't been there before. I'm sure things will be the same in San Francisco, which again, totally sucks since San Fran is a great city. Oh well, c'est la vie.

But okay, here's one detail about the San Francisco week that I probably shouldn't talk about, but I'll hint at anyway. They've booked a guest for the Tuesday of that week that, as an SF&F geek, totally got me excited. Now I don't get too excited about guests anymore--I'm really jaded when it comes to celebrities--but this person got me so enthused about going that I've already asked one of the segment producers if I can get an autograph, and that's something I rarely do for myself. (I think the last autograph I asked for myself personally was Scorcese about 6 or 7 years ago. He received an honorary degree and spoke at my commencement the year I graduated from NYU. I brought my commencement program for him to sign. That was a cool get.)

So anyway, watch that week of shows and find out who's turning me into a screaming autograph hound.

I've been a big, big fan of NPR's This American Life for a while now. If you're not familiar with the show, it's a radio program out of Chicago Public Radio that's produced and hosted by Ira Glass. Each episode has a theme (death, food, etc.) and then they tell two to three stories that bare out that theme, presented in a style I can only describe as essay-like cultural reporting a la Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris and David Rakoff, all of whom have been contributors. (Apparently, I'm not the only one who has trouble describing the show. When I went to their website to see how they did it, this is what it said.)

In any case, Showtime is now producing a TV version of the show. I watched the first two episodes this past weekend, and I'm really excited because the TV version is just as gripping as the radio original. So, if any of you are interested in really thought-provoking television, check out This American Life on Showtime.

Or you can just go watch American Idol, which, I hear, is just as culturally significant.

By the way, I've had this huge radio voice crush on Ira Glass for years. I never had any interest in finding out what he looked like, I just loved listening to him talk. Now that I've seen his face, however, my radio-voice crush has blossomed into the real thing. What can I say? I'm into quirky, bespectacled smart guys.

Ira, call me!

Labels: television

The Hugo nominations came out a few days ago, and I was really pleased and excited to see that my friend Bill Shunn's novella "Inclination" made the list. (By the way, it's also up for a Nebula.) I know a lot of people aren't attending Worldcon this year because it's so damned expensive to go to Japan, but if any of you are lucky enough to be going or if you have a supporting membership and you're looking for ways to fill your ballot, voting for Bill Shunn's "Inclination" would be a good way to do that.

Here's the link to Asimov's so you can read it for yourself.

Labels: Hugos