Tales From the Tomato Patch #2

For those who just wandered in, this is the second in a series of stories celebrating the eleventh anniversary of Jason Webley’s first album. This one is 111 words long. For the deal, see the last entry on June 1. There isn’t a “Tales From… #1” , because I didn’t think to name this series of posts until after the first was up.

So as not to be quite as loquacious this time out, we’ll get to the story and I’ll save further commentary for a future post (enjoy!):

"February Relaxing Her Fingers After a Short Winter’s Grip"

Oksana exhaled slowly, watched the tendrils of condensation form, rise and disappear in the air. Her golden hair caught the mid-winter sun and held it haloed around her head.

All about her men, women, children, and animals paused to stare. She paid them no mind as another cloud of breath was fashioned before her, though not quite the same as before. This one was thinner, easier to see through.

The city had all but stopped as Oksana slipped off the ledge of the retaining wall she sat upon, and walked further into its heart. For those who had witnessed her that day, in that moment, hope had touched their hearts.

Story title from Jason Webley’s album Only Just Beginning, 2004


Tales From the Tomato Patch #2: February Relaxing Her Fingers After a Short Winter’s Grip by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

First things last (edit to add: Tales From the Tomato Patch #1)

Welcome to the end of the first day of June, I hope you enjoyed it.

Yesterday I returned from a ten day vacation that had me traveling from New York to North Carolina to Florida and back home again. It was a good trip, but exhausting, so I wound up taking an extra day off from the Day Job to recover (which I have mostly done now, so sadly back to work tomorrow, excuses gone).

Last time I promised to start exploring the things I love here on the manifesto through a series of profiles, and also conduct a separate series of interviews. This post contains neither of those.

Instead, I offer up the first of a series of short short stories inspired by my favorite musician: Jason Webley. I told you here about the awesome concert of his Catherine and I went to last January; this upcoming July 3rd marks the eleventh anniversary of his debut album Viaje.

One of the things I should have done was write a profile of Mr. Webley first, but time is slippy, and, well you know. The profile will now come at the end of this series of stories, and may be the better for it. You’ll learn a bit about him through the story titles, because each is named after a song on one of his many albums.

One thing you will notice about Mr. Webley is he has a thing about the number eleven. It’s the name of his record company, figures into some of his songs, and in general is a good number to have around (he also has a thing for tomatoes, but I still haven’t figured that one out quite yet.). To honor that, all of the stories I write will be either 11, 111, or 1,111 words long, and, of course, there will be eleven of them all together between now and his anniversary concert on July 3rd.

I only have one written, the one below, and a few others sketched out, so this may well end up being a seat-of-the-pants type operation. I hope you’ll excuse that and know this is all in celebration of an artist I admire and am inspired by. Most of the stories will have nothing to do with the songs they are named for, though some might. Some might borrow a few words, others an image or two, but you need not be familiar with the songs to enjoy the stories. I will try and get permission to post the songs in the future (and if I can figure out how), so those who have never heard his music can have some fun at the juxtaposition.

I believe that covers most of what you need to know going in, except that today is also Jason Webley's birthday (a fact which I either didn't know or didn't recall, but works well for this first post anyway). With that, I will leave you with the first of eleven tales (a short bit consisting of eleven words), I hope you enjoy and will see you in a few days with story number two:

“2 AM”

Tired and bone weary. The accordion’s suddenly heavy.
My heart remains.

Edit to add: Story title from Jason Webley's album Against the Night, 1999


Tales From the Tomato Patch #1: 2 AM by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Change of pace

I started the year off wanting to take things slow with this blog. The idea was to remove the pressure of doing it daily like I thought I should, and go monthly relieving myself of the guilt of not making it on schedule. I also wanted to make sure I had something of interest to say.

Most of my New Year thoughts have gone by the wayside (my plan to read more has been stopped in its tracks, and the financial instability of the world right now has caused me to withdraw from the web classes I wanted to take; another time, a better place for those now). On a personal note, I’m at something of a creative crossroads which I will explain more fully at a later date. At this moment, however, I find my mind is full of wonders I want to talk about, pockets of which are near ready to burst.

So I’m going to talk about them. In the coming weeks I plan on launching a series of post exploring things I love. People, places, music, art and more will be presented in the hopes that you get to know me a little better, and those things I love may find new homes with you.

I will also be conducting interviews with the first batch of writers coming out of the Angry Robot imprint (see post below). I hope to be able to do them all, there’s eight now, and maybe even someone from their editorial staff at the end of it. We’ll see.

There’ll be more. But that will suffice for now. I’ve got a vacation coming up at the end of May, perhaps there will be a post or two before then. The real action begins in June, though, so see you then.

I hear the grinding of gears coming closer

So, I have gone and joined the army.

The Angry Robot Army, that is.

You see by the banner to your right that I am now their puppet.

Angry Robot is a new UK based imprint from HarperCollins, which, coincidentally enough, is a UK based publisher. Launching in July 2009, they publish modern adult science fiction, fantasy and other such genre favorites. To find out a little bit more about them, head on over to their website and click around the neighborhood.

I've only read one of their authors, Chris Roberson (linked in the authors section, again to your right and down a bit). If the rest are half as entertaining as I find him, then this venture should be pretty entertaining.

As for what I do now that I have been recruited, not really sure yet. You'll see some Angry Robot related posts, certainly. Maybe I'll do some investigating into the other authors and run a profile (that sounds like fun). But for now, go forth and learn about our new masters. I'm pretty sure they are benevolent.

As long as you buy their books, that is.

Lions and tigers and wookies, oh my!

So, here arrives March like a lion (a wintery one here in the Northeast), and with it another monthly entry.

Late, to be sure, but here.

A lot has happened in the intervening six-ish weeks since I last talked to you, dear people of the internet. Most of it is good news.

First, the biggest news: after a little over a year of waiting, I can now say I have officially signed a contract with comic book publisher Archaia to put out my series Critical Millennium (they put out a little book called Mouse Guard). The series is co-created with my friend and BLAM! Ventures CEO Andrew Gaska and spans seven time periods over a thousand years of humankind’s foray into interstellar travel, their domination of what they find and their eventual downfall.

Critical Millennium is a huge undertaking, and has been in the works for many years. Much more will be written about it in the months to come, but here’s a tease on the first story arc: it’s set during the Dark Frontier period (the second major period we’ll be chronicling) and focuses on the efforts, effects and intrigue intertwined to bring humanity into space. This is a desperate attempt to save a decadent and dying race, many of which do not want to be saved, or indeed see nothing wrong with the world as it is. With art by the fantastic Dan Dussault, we’re extremely excited to launch in November as a part of Archaia’s new publishing line up. So keep an eye on our MySpace page for updates, and to our website for the eventual revamp (which should hopefully happen by the summer).

My other big writing project, which I scribbled about last time but was unable to elaborate on; well, it must remain un-elaborated on. At least until April, which is when we are officially announcing it. The first draft is done and approved by the licensor (big step, yay for making it!), waiting on readers and should go to the next and possibly final draft soon. So, stay tuned for details.

Elsewhere in my world I was also sick, but got better (finally) by mid-February. It was a rather miserable month and a half of coughing and being unable to use my newly acquired C-Pap machine (for my recently diagnosed, but probably not recently acquired sleep apnea). Now I don’t cough and can sleep well (yay again!).

One other recent highlight was receiving the drawing of Chewbacca I commissioned from Colleen Doran. She did an awesome job, and I am pleased that she will be the first in what I hope will be a long line of artists I love doing pictures of one of my favorite characters. I’ve posted the picture below, which I hope is cool as she already posted it on her blog (which, by the way, you should read if you are an aspiring artist, she gives lots of excellent advice. You should also read if you are not an artist, as she also maintains an excellent blog in general and is an extraordinarily talented artist. While I’m at it, you should also buy and read her series, A Distant Soil, seriously - NOTE: I'm not an amazon affiliate, so I make no money from the links I just provided).

My girlfriend Catherine and I are currently in the process of redoing our home office. A couple of weeks ago it was an overcrowded mess, and we had been planning on tackling it toward the end of March, but things were so bad that I was having trouble working. She suggested we do it early, having a window of opportunity where I had completed the first draft of the unnamed novel and the first script for the second Critical Millennium story arc (set during The Gilded Life period, out in 2010! Whoop!). I was reluctant at first, but soon agreed because I couldn’t stand it anymore.

So now we’re freshly painted, with new shelving installed, new recessed lighting in the ceiling and shortly a spanking new work table will be erected across from our desks. We still have some organizing to do, which has dragged a bit longer than necessary, but the vibe is much better, and I think work will flow easier and more evenly after the final touches are done this weekend.

OK, I think I’ve rambled enough; the internet doesn’t need to be bored any further by me (I’ll spare you the sad story of my car not passing inspection). See you in April with a book title in hand and some art from Critical Millennium on display.

Oh, sorry, there weren't any tigers in this post. Maybe next time.

The Under-the-wire Birthday Post

It has been a long, long month. I’ve been sick for the majority of it with a nasty cough that still hasn’t totally gone away (there were two doctors trips and a round of antibiotics, along with codeine laced cough medicine – as prescribed by my doctor, of course). I also missed three days of Day Job due to it. I feel better now, and continue to get better with each day, which I suppose is all I can ask for at this point.

I also spent the past month wrestling with my first novel, as noted in my first post of the year. No, still can’t let the cat out of the bag as to what it is, as my publisher still hasn’t formally announced the property we’ve licensed. But with a few bits on my part to finish up tonight, and a few bits for one of my co-writers to finish up for his part tomorrow, we should be turning in the first draft to our licensor on Tuesday, and I should be able to announce it here by my next monthly posting, if not sooner.

While there is a sense of accomplishment in reaching this hurdle and making it past, it was a hard one to jump (more so than I had anticipated). I had trouble at times finding my way into the story, that door I need to open behind which the words are waiting for me to plunk them down and make sure they are properly ordered. Usually this happens and the whole thing comes freely. For this project it was more a series of doors I had to find, some of which lead to nothing more than the janitor’s closet, if you catch what I mean.

On one level, I think it’s because, while the property we are writing for is spun from a movie I have watched many times and enjoy, it’s not a world which I am uber-passionate about, so I had a more difficult time generating the spark I needed (or finding the key, to continue the metaphor above) than I have with my own stories. It wasn’t that I thought the property not worth doing or that I couldn’t contribute to it, I wouldn’t have agreed to work on it if I thought that (and I have passed on participating in other licensed projects for one or both of those reasons). Indeed, I think there are only a few things I could say I have that kind of passion for where I would be able to slip into the story with any ease.

That was the hard part of the month, and while I await the response back from the licensor and our various readers in the coming weeks, I look forward to round two of the process to work out all the rough spots I know are there, excise the bad, and make the next incarnation as kick ass as it can be.

The best part of January was Catherine and I getting to see Jason Webley perform in New York City on the 6th. He played the Zipper Factory with guests Sxip Shirey and Corn Mo (who has an awesome voice). Jason and Sxip have an album coming out in March, the fifth in a series of eleven collaborations that Mr. Webley is producing with friends over the next few years. It was an awesome show overall, and one of the cooler parts was the fact that they shot a video for the title track, staging a faux New Years Eve celebration on stage before Jason played his set. Catherine and I jumped onstage to join for the filming (something I never do, but I am such a fan I was actually happy to be a part of it – we hung out in the back of the crowd, but you may be able to see my sequined top hat) and danced around, sang along (another thing I don’t really do), and generally had a good, silly time of it.

All right, I’ve got some writing to do, and some sleep to get. Next time on the Manifesto I should have a couple of announcements to make, a few discoveries to share, and hopefully a better month to report on.

Be well.

The Inaugural Sunrise

This was the scene this morning behind my house:

It is indeed a shiny new day.

We now have a new president. Let's hope the sun shines on us every morning, and that each day is better than the last.