writing updates, 12/24/2014

Baen Books has rejected my manuscript. 

...but also very gently.

I got back to my apartment after stepping out to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (overlong and excruciatingly over-acted) and I see this email in my inbox:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for your patience as we considered your novel. While your narrative style was entertaining, unfortunately we will not be able to find a place for this story in our lineup.

Due to the volume of manuscripts we receive and the press of other business it is impossible for us to go into particulars. Please do not take this rejection as necessarily a reflection on your work; we can accept fewer than one percent of the manuscripts submitted to us.

Best of luck in another market. We hope you will consider submitting again, when you have another story you think will fit the Baen line.


Sincerely,

Gray Rinehart
Contributing Editor
Baen Books

While not as detailed as my rejection from Ace & Roc, this is still benign. Benignity is probably par for the course for these things, I realize. People are so hypersensitive these days that one whiff of brusqueness from an editor would invite an expletive-packed tirade from the irate, insecure author. Editors have probably learned to tiptoe quite carefully around a rejection email like this one, hand-picking the most vaguely encouraging euphemisms. 

Even so, Mr. Rinehart didn't have to say that my narrative style was entertaining. That was mighty big of him. I guess that earns me one point in the cosmic scheme of things. Huzzah!

That wasn't all, though. Today I received a rejection email from Daily Science Fiction, letting me know that they weren't interested in my 1500-word short story "Letter from the E.T. Killer."

My own stupid fault, really. Stories about serial killers are a dime a dozen. I should have realized that before I wrote it. Oh well. I can't help what my Muse tells me. 

[sigh]

So that's it. No more lines in the water. The manuscript of my first novel, my baby, my magnum opus, the reason God or Zeus or the Great Green Arkleseizure put me on this planet, the glorious creation I was brought into existence to bring into existence, has been rejected by two major publishers. Every story I've written and/or submitted this year has been hurled back in my face with an F.O. letter attached. 

Bummer, dude.  

But let's recap. Since I began keeping track of my submissions in late 2012, here's where things stand: 

1. Tues, 12/11/12 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Maze," 770 words) - REJECTED

 2. Sun, 12/23/12 - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine ("Incommunicado," 3,440 words) - REJECTED

 3. Fri, 1/4/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 4. Wed, 1/16/13 - Fantastic Frontiers ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 5. Fri, 2/8/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 6. Fri, 4/19/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 7. Thurs, 6/03/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," 1,740 words) - MADE 2ND ROUND OF REVIEW - REJECTED 

 8. Fri, 6/26/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Only One Boot," 980 words) - REJECTED

 9. Wed, 8/14/13 - 3LBE ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 12. Wed, 1/29/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 13. Wed, 1/29/14 - Ace and Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy ("Revival," 112,000 words) - REQUESTED MANUSCRIPT 8/27/14 - REJECTED

 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 15. Wed, 3/12/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Body Politic," 2,600 words) - REJECTED

 16. Tues, 3/18/14 - Analog Science Fiction & Fact ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 17. Mon, 4/21/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("That's Gratitude For You," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 18. Fri, 5/2/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("Boxing Day," 1,080 words) - REJECTED

 19. Mon, 6/30/2014 - Baen Books ("Revival," 114,500 words) - ID No: 10240 - REJECTED

 20. Mon, 10/20/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Emeritus," 1,630 words) - REJECTED

 21. Thurs, 10/30/2014 - Fiction Vortex ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 22. Mon, 11/17/2014 - Clarkesworld ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 23. Mon, 12/8/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Letter from the E.T. Killer," 1,500 words) - REJECTED

Well, looky here. Two measly submissions in 2012. Eight in 2013. Twelve in 2014...getting better. And two (going on four) more novels written since then. 

I guess I must be serious about becoming a writer, huh? 

Twenty-three submissions, twenty-three rejections. I'm going to try to triple that next year. My New Year's resolutions for 2015 are: write every day; submit at least two or three times a month; finish up Novel #4 and Novel #5, and finish Novel #6 (whatever that may be). Do another NaNoWriMo (Novel #7, I guess). And most importantly, find an agent. I've decided to start querying them anyway, even if I don't have a body of published work. I may be shouting into the void, but there may be a faint echo. Who knows? 

Wish me luck. 

writing updates, 10/27/2014

Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy has rejected my manuscript.

...but very gently. 

You remember how I interrupted the tale of my Southeast Asia tour to tell you that A&R liked my query and wanted to see the full manuscript of Revival? 

Well, they sent me this email on October 14:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for submitting Revival to Ace / Roc. I apologize for the continued delayed response—but part of the delay was you were under consideration for longer! I appreciate the opportunity to read your submission, but I’m sorry to say that in the current crowded market, this does not sound to me like a book that we can make into a success.

Your novel shows potential in you; perhaps you should try to find an agent. A literary agent can be a great way to start on the road to publishing, as they can offer writing guidance and help you find the best publishing houses to submit your work to. THE WRITER’S MARKET (www.writersmarket.com) lists literary agents, as does PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE at www.publishersmarketplace.com. SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) has information on finding reputable literary agents (and avoiding scams) at www.sfwa.opg/for-authors/writer-beware .

You can also look to find writer’s groups in your area, who can help you to develop your own writing.

We do wish you the best of luck with other publishers, and thank you again for thinking of us.



Regrets and best wishes,

The Editorial Staff

Ace/Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy 

A rejection, yes. But as kind and encouraging a rejection as any aspiring writer could hope to receive. 

It was also a wake-up call. I'd been mighty puffed up and hadn't realized it. I shouldn't have ignored Moonrat's advice to never submit without an agent. 

It was also a seminal moment. This is the first time that I've ever been rejected and still felt that the work in question was worthwhile—that it wasn't a steamy pile of crap and should be burned to a crisp and scattered to the four winds. I haven't had the urge to go back and gut the story, rewriting and editing for endless hours until it's fit again for human eyes. It seems Ace & Roc just didn't think it was a paying proposition, that's all. That doesn't mean the work itself was irredeemably awful. It has potential. 

Well, I guess you know what this means, folks. It's time for ol' Andy Post to square his shoulders, edit Novel #3, finish Novel #4, commence Novel #5...

...and wait to see what the editor at Baen Books says. 

They've got my manuscript now too, remember? I sent it off to them in late June, when I thought that Ace & Roc would never get back to me. Baen's reporting time is 9-12 months, so I've got to sit on my laurels for a while.

But I won't be idle. I'll be writing short stories (a 1,600-word piece entitled "Emeritus" was sent to Daily Science Fiction last week) and working on the aforementioned novels. I look at my first rejection by a major publisher as a blessing in disguise. Thin disguise, in fact. 

Oh, and in other news...it looks like Stephen King totally ripped off the title of my magnum opus for his next novel! Why, that ham. My idol has stabbed me in the back.

Postie out. 

Bangkok, day two: Chinatown

So much for my promise about walking everywhere today (Friday, July 25, 2014). I was feeling so drained after my grueling trek through riverside Bangkok (and so at peace with the world after my lengthy rest in Wat Suthat) that I hired a tuk-tuk to take me to Chinatown for dinner.

Innovative solution...

Fortunately the food was pretty dang good, and so was the beer, or there would have been trouble. 

Coconut curried crab. Since I was breaking rules today, why not break my no-food-selfie rule, too?

As you can see from the signs, I could have had shark fin or bird's nest soup, but I thought I'd keep things simple. And humane.

I was rather disappointed in the place. It had all the authenticity of a corny Japanese theme park, all the priciness of a Sino-Korean neighborhood, and all the dirt and slime and grunge of a Vietnamese metropolis. I ate quickly at Lek & Rut Seafood, paid 500 baht(!!!), and caught a tuk-tuk back to Hua Lamphong Station.

Here's where things really started to go south. I rode the Skytrain (Line 2) from Hua Lamphong to the transfer station at Sukhumvit/Asok, but the rush-hour crowds there were beyond imagining. I would have had to wait in line for an hour just to get a ticket, let alone actually board the Line 1 train. So I said "Screw it" and decided to hunt up a beer bar I'd heard about, BREW Beers & Ciders. I knew it was on Sukhumvit 55, and I was on Sukhumvit Road anyway, so I strolled about ten or twelve blocks south, from Asok to Thong Lo, and turned left (east) on Sukhumvit 55 as darkness fell. I walked a good kilometer along the gum-pocked sidewalk, dodging scooter drivers and ladyboy hookers and drunken salarymen and horny foreigners looking for a fix and a quick fuck. I finally reached the alley where BREW allegedly was, but I couldn't find it. I walked up and down, past other trendy and upscale bars, coffeehouses, and Thai-Chinese fusion restaurants, but I never located it. I later learned that I had walked right by it. It lay at the mouth of the alley, but it was hidden from me by some stupid outdoor seafood restaurant that took up half a block and hid the bar from my view. 

I was hot, sweaty, footsore, and felt like I'd hiked 80 miles. I hiked back to Thong Lo and caught the Skytrain home. The crowds had thinned out by this time. I showered, checked in with my Kentish cubicle-neighbor Emilia, updated my journals, and hit the sack.

Tomorrow: my package tour of Kanchanaburi, northwest of Bangkok, begins with the floating markets. 

a day in Phnom Penh

Travel Truth #4: If you skimp on research, you will pay for it later. 

My only day in Phnom Penh began with a major letdown. My first priority was to visit Kingdom Breweries, Cambodia's premier craft brewery, founded by Leopard Capital and headed up by a German brewmaster. The legend printed on every bottle will happily inform drinkers that every Kingdom brew "blends Europe's finest ingredients with purified water from Cambodia's largest lake to create a traditional yet unmatched flavor."

Yeah, whatever. I just wanted to be able to say that I'd toured the brewery, chatted with the brewmaster, and had a couple of Cambodia's premier craft beers direct from the source. 

I was foiled in that ambition. The date was Sunday, July 20. The brewery was closed on Sundays. 

Rats. 

So I went to the National Palace instead. 

The Silver Pagoda, so called because its floor is one solid sheet of the stuff. You can't see it, though. The curators covered it up with a carpet, the bastards. Apparently it's so tarnished these days that you can't tell what kind of metal it is anyway. 

And then I went to the Foreign Correspondent's Club on the banks of the Tonlé Sap River for some chicken and beef satay, prawn shooters with sweet chili aioli and salsa, and some Kingdom pilsener. Even if the brewery was closed, a lot of watering holes along the riverfront still served its products. 

Then I saw the National Museum. I had to buy postcards somewhere, you know. 

Selfies with Siddhartha is going to be the title of my autobiography. 

I rode a tuk-tuk back to Amber House, filled out said postcards, rode another tuk-tuk to the post office, mailed 'em, and then managed to scoot my butt back to FCC for some beef lok-lak and a Hemingway Special for dinner before the evening monsoons broke. 

Phnom Penh accomplished. 

fiction vs. science fiction

On Friday I spoke to my mother on the phone for the first time in four months. We're not estranged or anything; far from it. I'm just a horrible son, even when you don't apply the Confucian lens. We talked around Christmastime and...well, the time just slipped away. Life intervened. The trip to Sapporo, the move to Gangnam, and all that jazz. It's hard for me to remember that I have to contact her; she has no way of contacting me (I call my parents via Skype, but they have a land line).

Anyway, Mum said something interesting, as she always does. We were discussing my younger brother, a young actor in Hollywood searching for his big break, and how a big-name studio asked him and his crew to do a short film. You can catch some snippets of it here, if you don't mind strong language. (He's on IMDB, too.) That dark-haired fellow with the Mel Gibson looks and the chip on his shoulder and the what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about expression on his face is who I grew up with, folks. 

Anyway, I finally managed to inform my mum that I've submitted my first novel to Penguin Books, and am awaiting a reply. Among the many pithy observations she made was that my brother and I have both chosen extremely tough and competitive careers, and we are both on the threshold of success (she's great with the encouraging comments). It gave me pause. She was right in more ways than she knew. Not only have I decided to make my name in fiction, but science fiction to boot. The requirements of the genre are a bit more stringent than mainstream fiction. I don't mean to imply that mainstream fiction is a cakewalk or anything like that. Not at all. To be a writer in any genre requires patience, skill, practice, a certain degree of natural talent, patience, confidence, dedication, and hard work (especially the last one). It's not much different from being an actor in that respect. That was my mum's whole point. 

But to be a sci-fi writer you need all that and more, I've realized. First, you have to understand the fundamental ways in which technology, science and progress affect human lives. You have to see the human story behind the inhuman gadgets and gizmos. You must march to the same fife as a mainstream fiction writer by composing a compelling story, a tale of ordinary human (or inhuman) beings in challenging situations, relatable characters with the same age-old problems, seasoning the tale with conflict and drama and triumph and failure and character development, not forgetting correct pacing and florid language and all the other ingredients which fiction is heir to; but that ain't all. Into the fabric of fiction you must weave the scintillating threads of the fantastic. You must wed your human story to the extraordinary technology of the future, the advanced science of impending ages, the limitless world of wonder that lies beyond the borders of imagination. One e-zine I've submitted to won't even consider a manuscript unless it's "a good character-driven story wherein the technology is so vital to the plot that the narrative would be indelibly altered were it absent." 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I consistently fail to do. 

Writing is like herding cats. Staying on top of what every good story needs—plot, pacing, vivid characters, sizzling prose, universal mores—while trying to throw in the novel aspects of science fiction like mind-blowing tech and aliens and starships and whatnot is...challenging. It's rather like trying to cook a four-course dinner. You're boiling the pasta and stirring the sauce and grating the cheese and pounding the breadcrumbs, and just as finish you realize that you've let the mushrooms (which were supposed to be lightly sautéed) burn to ashes in the skillet. Despite your best efforts, the meal leaves a carcinogenic taste in the mouth of anyone who eats it. That, apparently, is what my stories are doing to the editors at Asimov's, Analog, and Daily Science Fiction. I haven't sold a story yet. 

But at least I know what I'm doing wrong. The trick is that happy marriage of the unreal and imaginary to the tried-and-true fictive formula. I haven't had much success combining memorable characters, fantastic settings, incredible technology and a classic plot into one single story, but I'm getting better. Like anything else, all it takes is practice. You have to get a feel for it, and I can feel that I'm getting a feel for it. Enough to realize that some stories need to be aborted before I waste time and energy on them (such as the idea I had while shopping with Miss H last weekend, "Incheon Airport Post-Rapture"—ha!). 

I can write good stories, and I can dream up good sci-fi concepts, but getting the two to merge in my brain and slide all the way down through my arms and fingers to the keyboard is another matter. 

Tomorrow is Wednesday, my day off. I'll see what I can do about it then. Wish me luck. 

Paul Theroux kicks through again

Wow, that post about territoriality sure was pretentious, wasn't it? Well, there's a reason I christened this blog "sententious" from the get-go. I know what I am and I know most people won't have the patience for me—least of all me, when I've grow up and matured a bit.
 
That's partly why I like traveling, you know. It's a growing experience. A revolution. The world gets thrown on its ear, and without even knowing it you've ridden an elevator up through the clouds and can finally see all 'round. Your own little world looks smaller than it was, and everyone else's problems are thrown into sharp relief, and life seems just a little bit better.

But enough of me talking like I know anything. I just got kicked in the head again. And you-know-who was behind it all.

That's right, Paul Theroux has kicked through again.

I was talking to one of my coworkers a few months back. He also happens to be a fan of Theroux, and naturally we discussed his most famous work, The Great Railway Bazaar. Then the talk turned to the book Theroux wrote as a follow-up to that beast of a book: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. My colleague had read it; I hadn't. I came in to work this morning to find the book on my desk, deposited there by my saintly benefactor. Unable to resist temptation, I opened it up and thumbed through the first few pages.

The first thing that greeted my eyes was this:

Most writing about travel takes the form of jumping to conclusions, and so most travel books are superfluous, the thinnest, most transparent monologuing. Little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing, much of it distorted with Munchausen syndrome. 

Well, that was a hell of a thing to crack a book and read. I should have known if I touched anything by Theroux that the old bugger would strike at the heart of the matter and unload a pithy magazine of weaponized wisdom at me. The words were simultaneously enlightening and humiliating. There was no denying that I'd indulged in every one of those cardinal sins in my own travel writing. I realized just how pretentious I've been. Even my mere intention to become a travel writer was the lowest form of conceit. And let's not get started on the prose itself: it dips toward the "mendacious, pointless posturing" end of the spectrum.

After about two minutes of genuine, unfiltered chagrin, I made myself a promise: no more. I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I'm not going to maunder, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to criticize unduly. Heck, you'll say. You're only 27, kid. This is the time to be a stupid young dreamer with a lot of high-flown ideals based on stuff you've heard and seen and not experienced.

Well, yes. But for that same reason (that I'm 27 years old) I'm starting to get the idea that there's more to life than high-flown ideals and attainable perfection and lasting legacies. Case in point: I had an odd feeling the other day. I had the feeling that my life wasn't infinite, and that I wasn't invincible, and that the mark I'd planned to make on the world might not be as grandiose as I'd envisioned. I started to get an idea of just how fleeting and transient a single human existence (mine especially) really is, and the thought was humbling. I felt like I'd had a moment of real wisdom for the first time in my short life. I've known for a while now that all that posturing that I and others had done in high school hadn't been worth a squat, and hanging out with friends in their lower twenties has long been insufferable. But this was the first time I'd come close to feeling...well, old. It wasn't just the inchoate, vague fear of being old that all young people experience. The thing itself.

Crazy.

Anyway, I'm serious about this. As serious as I've ever been about anything. As serious as anybody who pretends to be wise can be. As serious as any former twenty-something who smoked and drank and partied and passed out in unmentionable places can portray himself to be. No more sanctimonious conclusions. No more unjust, inflammatory complaints. Let's just see what happens to my writing when I try to go for pure, unadulterated description. A little experiment, we'll call it.

I'll have lots to write about, trust me. I solved my dilemma: the final results of the V.D.Q. are in.

Remember the V.D.Q.? The Vacation Destination Quandary? It bedeviled me for the longest time. I couldn't figure out where I was going to go during my two months of vacation. I scratched Malaysia, as the only things you can do there, it seems, are eat delicious food and sprawl out on a beach. Not my cup of tea, not during the height of winter. I scratched Mongolia, too, as the only thing you can do there in the winter is freeze your man-marbles off. With much reluctance, I also scratched Australia, since the $1400 round-trip airline ticket was just too much. I waited too long, dang my hide.

So...Hokkaido it is. I'm making the reservations as I type this. And I had an epiphany in the shower this evening. Instead of taking the old Trans-Siberian Express back through Russia when I'm done in Korea, the way every expatriate under the sun, why don't I take the bull by the horns and go back via Central Asia? Go by train through Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, England, Scotland and Ireland? That's, what—26 countries? The Great Railway Bazaar in reverse, almost.

That would make me feel a lot more like a world traveler. 

e-hiatus, day 8

I'm going to have to call the whole thing off. It's just impossible right now. I picked a bad time of year and a bad time in my life to do something like this. The first week was useful, admittedly; and I accomplished much, as I mentioned in my previous post. But the writer's workshop I'm getting involved with announces its meetings on Facebook; I have a meeting on Skype tomorrow with a recruiter; and other things like job applications, research and whatnot all require a machine and an Internet connection. Plus I've discovered several new free games available for my 'Droid and, well...yeah. I caved.

It pains me to admit it—I've caved on a lot of stuff lately—but c'est la vie. I hate to concede that my comrade Bryan was right, but in order to do this hiatus properly, I'd need a canoe, a midshipman, and a week's worth of camping supplies. Someday, I shall do it. Maybe I'll make a regular thing out of it. But for now, the e-hiatus is officially canceled. Wish me better luck next time. Career changes are in the wind (finally!) and I need to focus on those, and the writer's workshop. I think my time will still be spent productively no matter what I'm doing to relax.

Thanks for sticking around...

inside the box: or, how I got my first rejection slip

When asked, "What do you read?", Stephen King replies, "Everything I can get my hands on."

In truth, King does a lot more than that. He buys audio books and listens to them in his car whenever he drives somewhere.
"Come on," he says, "how many times do you need to listen to Deep Purple's 'Highway Star'?"

Good thing I'm not all that fond of Deep Purple. I suppose Led Zeppelin would hardly make an adequate substitute, though.

I suppose it makes good sense for a writer—even a published, internationally famous one—to immerse himself or herself in reading material. Even stuff that isn't strictly related to the author's preferred genre can help. By constantly reading (and writing), King is keeping his skills sharp. He's seeing what's out there. He's getting a feel for his craft. He's learning from his fellow authors and their scribbles. Constant exposure never hurts when you're trying to learn something and/or stay good at it.

Apparently I don't read enough science fiction, then.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Postman has received his first rejection slip.

Well, okay, it wasn't my first. More like the second. Okay, third. Okay, eleventh. (Nah, I'm kidding, it really was only the second slip I've ever received, honest.) But it was the first one I got from a fiction magazine, and that's what counts. Fiction is where I intend to make my mark. And on September 30, 2010, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine sent me a wake-up call. My short story, entitled "Wrong Life-Form, Genius" has officially been rejected.

The editor, good man that he is, wrote me a personal note instead of sending a form letter. He explained that though my story was "a good try" and that F&SF is "always looking for humor," my story was "too obvious."

Okay, I could see that. My story concerns two Earthmen assigned to make contact with the sentient crystalline life-forms of a nearby exoplanet, only to discover, at the end, after spending twenty pages trying to communicate with a chunk of crystal using interpretive dance and impressionist art, that it's actually the sunflowers of this world which are the sentient ones.

Puerile, yes, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

This was a test shot, anyway. I'd read an issue or two of F&SF, and had heard plenty about their submission standards on the Internet, but I wanted to assay the market in person. I thought I'd whip up something short and sweet and submit it before I sent them any of my big honking novelettes. I thought "Wrong Life-Form, Genius" might have a decent chance of being published, so I put the finishing touches on it, packaged it and sent it off.

Well, here's my answer.

It wasn't as though I didn't approach the writing seriously. I was earnestly attempting to construct a character-driven story, with a point, premise, purpose and plot, and all those other P-words which the best sci-fi stories possess. What I've noticed about my favorite sci-fi writers is that they were observant. They perceived the faults and oddities of the civilizations they were a part of, and satirized these societal shortcomings in their stories, using clever and creative metaphors. H.G. Wells lampooned the inherently bestial nature of human beings with The Island of Dr. Moreau; John W. Campbell, Jr. explored trust, survival instincts and collaboration in crisis with his spine-tingling "Who Goes There?"; and Poul Anderson had a great deal to say about identity, freedom, interpersonal relationships and independence in "Call Me Joe."

What I had with "Wrong Life-Form, Genius" was the form of a dramatic, metaphorical, quote-unquote "deep" sci-fi story...but not substance, nor the subtlety to conceal it. I had a story, simple as it was. I had a climax. I had a conclusion. I even had a sort of metaphorical premise, though poor and underrepresented. (The story was intended to show up humanity's abject lack of knowledge about extraterrestrial life, and the futility of attempting to predict the nature of said life...or plan the methods by which we might interact with it.)

But I failed to develop matters fully. I wrote it on the spur of the moment, focusing on the humor and dialogue instead of the story itself. Without planning things out, without taking time to brainstorm the methods I would use to tease the meaningful elements out of the basic tale, I wound up with a substandard bit of drivel. The result, naturally, was "obvious," as F&SF's editor put it. I'd written an anticlimactic and pointless story, with no underlying meaning and a sadly predictable outcome.

I will admit to being...let's see...moderately bummed out by the rejection letter. It was my first (well, second), after all. And I'd honestly thought that "Wrong Life-Form, Genius" had had a shot. It curdled my insides to hear some stranger judging my precious little story. I was embarrassed, discouraged, disconsolate.

I didn't stay that way for long, though. I hadn't been too emotionally invested in the work. (I wrote it on the spur of the moment, remember? In a coffeehouse, sitting across from my best friend to boot. I wrote it basically to make him laugh.) It was just a silly little chunk of humorous fiction, sent off on a whim. That made the rejection easier to take.

And easier to learn from. It wasn't but five minutes before I was analyzing my story, my writing process, examining the manifest of my train of thought, sussing out what I'd done wrong and what I could do better next time. I still had four or five longer stories I was working on, which I did seriously hope to get published. This was no time to be feeling down in the dumps. It was time to start perfecting my other works, based on what I'd learned from this rejection. After all, what are you supposed to when you fall down?

That's right, guys. You get right back up on the, uh, horse.

What do I lack? I asked myself. I sat around and drank alcohol and puzzled until my puzzler was sore. Then I made up my mind. I lack focus. I'm fine with actually writing the story, but I'm getting too hung up on the minor mechanics and ignoring the big picture, the story as a whole, the grand design behind the veil. I'm so blinded by the details that I'm overshooting the inspiration necessary to create a unique and multifaceted masterpiece, and as a result, my stories are turning out to be puerile and obvious. They lack meaning, worth, complexity, subtlety. They don't have the deeper context, the satirical punch, the masterful sophistication of story and plot and character which make better authors' work sizzle.

In short, I need to practice more. I need to write more, and I need to read more, too. Good science fiction will diffuse into my brain through my eyeballs, be analyzed by a crack team of discerning neurons, and then fall down the dusty chute to my fingers, where it will flow back out of my body and onto the blank pages on my laptop screen where it belongs.

No, no, I'm not going to start plagiarizing, smarty-pants. I mean I'm going to get a better feel for my craft, keep abreast of what constitutes "good" and "bad" writing, inspire myself to try for new heights, inundate and imbue my brain with good science fiction, and, like Stephen King, become (and remain) a better writer for it.

By coincidence, I located The Best Science Fiction Stories (Volumes IIA and IIB) in a used bookstore behind the corner gas station a couple of weeks ago.

I also picked up U-Boat Commander, a factual account of a German submariner's service in the Atlantic during World War II; A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess; Winged Pharaoh by Joan Grant; and a couple other miscellaneous novels.

Oh, snap.

Training my inner writer is going to be a blast.

I intend to read through these stories (penned by known and unknown authors) and consider them carefully. And then, employing their best elements and most effective devices, I'll revise my own nascent projects.

Wish me luck.

crime and publishment

Saturday was my twenty-fourth birthday. I had a marvelous time, despite working an eleven-hour shift at the airport café during the airshow. No matter. Somehow I managed to get home, recuperate, and host a grand cocktail party which lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

Having finally subdued the hangover, I now reflect on what I've accomplished in life so far.

It looks as though I've done nearly everything I wanted to do before the age of twenty-five. I've acquired a college degree, lived in a foreign country, gotten drunk on absinthe, published some travel articles, learned how to tend bar, and (as of last Monday) earned a private pilot's certificate.

(Miss H and I are going to Disneyland sometime in October, so that will soon be off the to-do list as well.) 

Only one accomplishment remains. I still need to get published.

I don't need to publish my novel before I'm 25. I'm cool with that. But I would like to land on Planet Fiction before I'm a quarter of a century old. Just to prove to myself that I can do it, you know. Get in there while I'm still young. Make my mark. Publish a short story or three.

So I'm writing sci-fi stories like mad, and have already submitted one to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, as you'll recall. Some of these stories are pretty long: ten thousand words or more, well into novelette range. 

Fortunately, there are still plenty of magazines out there that publish works of that length.

I'm going to pick up the pace over the next few days. I've decided I need to try harder at this, even despite working six days a week and entertaining a lady friend. There's no reason not to. I can easily set aside an hour or so every day for this. The only thing that separates me from all those sci-fi authors I admire so much (Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asmiov, John W. Campbell, Jr., H.G. Wells, and many more) is persistence.

The way I see it, writing is a lot like acting. Most of the work is done before you become famous. You have to lay the groundwork before you attain any kind of notoriety, or even success: writing dozens, hundreds of stories and sending them to every publication and periodical you can find. It's exhausting work, costs a mint in postage, and requires diligence, patience, and determination.

You have to have the determination (and the stamina) to write those hundreds of stories and revise them until they're suitable for publication. If your schedule is busy, then you need to set aside time to write and submit, too, just like you would to exercise or play fetch with the dog. No excuses. I don't care if you have to cut your teatime short by five minutes. Make sure you're writing and submitting at least an hour a day. You can find that much time, no matter who you are or how frenetic your day is. I know a lot of writers who work nine-to-five jobs and come home exhausted every evening. When do they write? On their lunch breaks. It's getting yourself into the proper state of mind, that's all. It's not a matter of whether you can do it. It's a matter of when. 

You have to have the diligence to package your submissions the way the magazine wants you to: typically, Courier font, double spacing, numbered pages and word counts. Trust me, this is worth your time. The worst thing you can do when submitting a story is fail to format your submission correctly, especially when the submission guidelines are often readily available on the publication's web page. The guidelines are there for a reason. They make your submission more professional in appearance, as well as render it easier for an editor to read. This just might help you find out whether you're being published sooner—not to mention give you a better shot at being published, period. No editor's going to have the time or the willpower to try and decipher a single-spaced, thirty-page manuscript written in an undecipherable font in the colors of the rainbow.

Finally, you must have the patience to wait the requisite 4-8 weeks to find out whether your submission is suitable for publication. Many editors are swamped these days, thanks to an ever-growing population of wannabe writers. They're not going to look more charitably upon your work if you badger them all the time querying the status of your story. Working tirelessly on stories (every day, folks, every day: you want to keep your hand in, don't you?) and shotgunning them across the fiction universe (making sure, however, that you follow individual publications' respective submission requirements to the letter) also takes patience. Just remember, you're not going to be an overnight success. Most latter-day critics agree that Herman Melville wrote some of the best stories in the English language, and yet he was highly unappreciated in his time. Most of the stuff he wrote, which today is venerated by literati, was a flash in the pan back in the 19th century. Melville himself worked as a customs inspector most of his life, just to make ends meet. He never made enough to support himself on his writing alone. Chances are, neither will you. There's no harm in trying, though. You have to write a lot, submit a lot, and wait a lot in this game. Write, submit, and wait. Make sure you do a little of all three, every single day. Slacking is a crime punishable by death—or worse, life in obscurity. Slackers never get published (unless they write for IGN).

Remember, if you keep up the fight and don't let your writing slide, and keep up a steady stream of submissions, publishment will be yours. It may take a while, yes. The process may be tedious, yes. The flood of rejection slips will be heartbreaking, yes. But persistence is key. I heard that Sylvia Plath submitted one story to the New Yorker at least 30 times before they finally published it. If she'd quit after 29 tries, would she ever have succeeded?

Like former Vice President Dan Quayle once said, "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

Persist and you will find what you seek. Such is true of every literary hero, no matter what side of the page they're on, no?

And when you do get published...celebrate. Do a happy dance. Eat something unhealthy. Watch a fatuous TV show. Buy 582 Slim Jims. Reward yourself for your persistence. Go ahead and relax. You earned it.

showdown time

There are two runways at Apple Valley. The primary is composed of runways One-Eight and Three-Six: in other words, it's straight north-south. It's the primary runway because the wind usually comes out of the south around here (if the word "usually" can be applied to desert winds).

The primary is 6,000 feet long, 150 feet wide, and a real pleasure to land on. You can see it from miles away. Crosswinds can be a problem, but they are usually negligible. The landing pattern is easy to fly. There are no obstacles or obstructions at either end. The approach is a piece of cake.

The other runway is 08-26, conforming almost precisely to 80 and 260 degrees of the compass, roughly east-west. I'm going to focus my attention on Two-Six, because I haven't trucked much with Zero-Eight, and it's Two-Six that really causes me problems. I hate runway Two-Six. I've hated it ever since I first set eyes on it. I can't stand the damn thing. It's only 4099 feet long and a piddling 60 feet wide. Compared to its perpendicular big brother, it's tiny. It looks no wider than two-lane road from 2,000 feet above ground. Then there are the obstructions at either end of the runway. To the east and west, mountains rise out of the valley floor, 500-700 feet or so. That makes the pattern runs for 26 something of a trick. To land in a speedy airplane like the Mooney, you have to ride quite near the eastern mountains; and you need to make your crosswind turn rather early on takeoff to play it safe with the western bunch.

Two-Six and I have a rather...adversarial relationship. I've had to do a disproportionately high number of go-rounds on it. (Go-rounds are aborted landings, where you don't actually touch down, but rather power up, retract the landing gear, and "go 'round" for another try.) For that reason alone, I came to dislike the runway. It's just so—dang—hard to get it right. The runway's so freakin' narrow that, on top of all the other stuff I'm doing to ensure that the Mooney is actually coming down at an appropriate angle and speed, I have to work extra hard to line the plane up on the skinny little strip of asphalt.

Matters came to a stormy head this morning. I was flying with Spud, and I'd elected to fly the morning mission: takeoff, climb, descent, and return, with Spud just doing the chasing stuff. There was a 15-knot wind coming out of the west-southwest, as well. That would provide a minimal crosswind component on a west-facing runway—less than 10 knots—but it would be a different takeoff than one with no wind at all. We preflighted N214SH and climbed in. I taxied Sierra Hotel to 26, feeling nervous as usual. I never feel like I'm completely in control of that airplane. The rudder pedals are tiny, and I it seems I have to push quite a bit to make any difference. The throttle settings are sensitive, and the throttle lever itself difficult to manage. Furthermore, visibility in Sierra Hotel is the worst of the two Mooneys we fly, and I feel like I'm craning just to see down the taxiway. We reached the end of 26 and did a run-up. Then I called over the radio: "Apple Valley Traffic, Mooney 214 Sierra Hotel is taking Runway Two Six, departure to the west, Apple Valley." This was it. Just another takeoff. I'd done about six or so in the Mooneys already, and nothing eventful had happened. No big deal, right? It was. No sooner did I push the throttle all the way in (smoothly, like I'd been taught) than the Mooney began yawing to the left. We accelerated: 20, 30, 40. I pushed the right rudder pedal in, desperately. No good. The Mooney continued to swerve left, faster and faster. I looked up and saw the edge of the pavement looming near, and the dusty margin beyond, lined with creosote bushes. We were going off the runway. "I've got it," Spud said calmly, taking the controls. We straightened out. The Mooney lifted off. Spud raised the gear and we flew on to Victorville.

That crashing, sinking, virulent, feverish feeling of horrible shame came washing over me like a cloudburst. I was becoming intimately familiar with it, particularly in the cockpit. "Okay," I said, endeavoring to keep my voice level, "what'd I do wrong?" "You didn't apply enough right rudder," Spud said. We went on to have a long and (fortunately for my pride) extremely non-accusatory discussion about P-factor, propellers, throttle settings, crosswinds, and takeoff procedures.

See, propellers are rather heavy. And they spin fast. Unless you're flying a twin with counter-rotating props (spinning in opposite directions), your airplane is going to be affected by the torque coming off of the spinning propeller. Known as P-factor, this force means that, when you're flying at high throttle settings, you have to keep your foot pressed down on the right rudder pedal, just to balance out that left-pulling torque. Nowhere is this more important than during takeoff, when you have a lot of torque and not a lot of airspeed. Apparently, I just didn't add enough rudder. Perhaps I was thrown off by the crosswind from the left, and figured I didn't need as much. 

Whatever the reason, I was red-faced for the rest of the day, even despite Spud laughing it off and telling me that I have a whole career of doing stupid things in an airplane ahead of me. I took his word for it. Wouldn't do to neglect the advice of a former Top Gun instructor, you know. I also hated Two-Six more than ever. Spud noticed my chagrin, and good man that he was, he let me do the afternoon takeoff, too.
"Otherwise," he grinned, "your previous landing would torture you all weekend."
"You know me very well," I said.
"Well, who wouldn't be?" he pointed out.

So it was agreed, and so it was. I found myself sitting at the end of Two-Six, staring down every single one of those 4099 feet, the heatwaves coming up off the ground, the unfettered desert sun blasting down, Sierra Hotel's engine roaring and raring to go. I was literally sweating the takeoff. It was 95 degrees outside, and even hotter in a closed cockpit under a merciless ball of cosmic radiation. The tension screamed through every pore, oozing down my forehead like vitriol. Runway 26 sat there, short and narrow-eyed, laughing at me. It was high noon. Showdown time. Well, actually it was more like 1:30, but who gives a crap?

(Photo courtesy of Picasa. Yes, that's the actual runway.)

I took a deep breath. I throttled up. The engine howled and we started to move. I sat up straight, kept my eyes on the runway. I didn't want to swerve a foot off that dotted center line. We went rolling down the runway, Spud sitting calmly and watching the proceedings. I stuck to my guns. I tenderly pressed the right rudder pedal, then the left, then the right, until I'd gotten the feel of how much rudder I needed. When we got fast enough, I gently pulled back on the yoke. And off we went, thundering into the azure heavens. I kept 'er straight as we lifted off. I nudged the nose down a bit so the propeller wouldn't over-rotate. I raised the gear, jamming the hefty Johnson bar into the lock on the floor. I pulled us right, so we wouldn't scrape Bell Mountain on our way north, and then we were climbing into the blue, free and clear.
"Eat that, Two Six," I muttered as the sweat dried on my forehead.
"You owned it," Spud told me, his trusty grin on his face.

Redemption accomplished.

disappointment

Amazingly, I didn't realize that I was being a bad host until after I rousted Allison out of bed at 7:00 a.m. We were to head for Los Angeles that morning, December 15. I can tell I'm going to have a hard time writing this. Already my mind is wandering. The Gods Themselves is gleaming at me from my nightstand (curse you, Isaac Asimov), my flashcards from bartender's school are tantalizing me from one corner of the bedspread, and the wind is howling outside my window. Plus there's something embarrassing that happens in this story that I have to tell you about, and I don't wanna. But here goes anyway: Yes, I'm a bad host. The one thing I hadn't counted on when planning Alli's visit was how early we'd have to get up every morning to actually make it to the marvelous places we intended to see. Why'd we have to get up so early? I'm glad you asked. It gives me a chance to complain. I live only 60 miles or so from Los Angeles. That's it. That's maybe an hour's drive. Less, seeing as the speed limit's 70 miles per hour on the freeways. There's just one little thing that prevents me (and everybody else) from reaching Los Angeles in an hour. It begins with a "T." Traffic. That's it. Traffic is the thing. There are about 90,000 people living in the Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia areas alone. Odds are, any given day, that some of them are going to want to go "down the hill" (south on Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass). And of course, once you get down the hill, you are in the L.A. Basin, which, as of last year, has nearly twenty million people in it. More than half of them are in Los Angeles alone. And all of them want to go somewhere. Usually right when I want to go somewhere. Dammit. So, in order to get anywhere in Los Angeles on time, you must tack an extra half-hour to an hour (or more) onto your travel time. We had no set time for our arrival at Universal Studios (thank God) but we hit the road about 8:00 nonetheless. Things weren't quite as bad as I'd feared, but still pretty clogged. It was the middle of the week after all. There were only 700,000 people on the roads instead of the usual 20 million. Long story short, we made it. Alli was a champ yet again. I had appointed her my navigator, and she never missed a turn. She also kept me abreast of the route at least two turns in advance, which I appreciated immensely. We pulled up to Universal Studios, parked (our lot was adorned with many blown-up images of Woody Woodpecker), and walked into the outdoor shopping center. Unsurprisingly, there weren't too many people about at 10:00 in the morning. The Hard Rock Café was the quietest I've ever seen it, even with the blaring guitar music. None of the shops caught our eye, festooned as they were with amazing paint jobs, life-size cutouts of King Kong, neon lights, and other assorted foofaraw. So (after a brief stop back at Roger for my camera), we adjourned to the park proper. Down the sidewalk, turn right at the big spinning steel globe and the mist machines, stand in line for 30 minutes while the Eastern European tourists try to haggle about ticket prices, and then go in through the blue gates. (That's how you get into Universal Studios.) The first thing that confronted us as we entered was a large bronze statue of a director, a script girl, and a cameraman, who were busy filming everybody who came in. The director was crouched down in a most ridiculous position, his index fingers making twin L's as he framed the shot. We started meandering through the ever-thickening crowd. If we'd thought that the shopping center outside had been glitzy, we got a real wake-up call inside. The place was off the hook. The most astounding collection of shops, boutiques and souvenir stores lined the crooked alleyways, leaning this way and that, and covered in the most outrageous assortment of protrusions and add-ons. The effect was intensified by the Christmas decorations which had been laid over the structures. Various movie cars were parked here and there, including the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers. You know I couldn't have resisted getting a picture in front of that. After satisfying our curiosity on the streets, we headed for the rides. The first one we took was, logically, the grand Universal Studios tour. That was a piece of wonderfulness. We drove through movie set after movie set, past movie car after movie car, through sensation after cinema-caliber sensation. I won't spoil it, of course, but I will say that we had a close encounter with Norman Bates, from Psycho; rode out a massive earthquake in a subway station; barely dodged a flash flood and some vicious dinosaurs; and even sneaked along Wisteria Lane while they were filming Desperate Housewives (quiet, please!). There weren't too many shows we were interested in. I did notice, however, that they were going to have a 30-minute "stunt show" at the Waterworld stage. I'll be the first to admit that Waterworld (that apocalyptic Kevin Costner movie) is a piece of crap. But it's a fun piece of crap, sort of. So we said, "What the hey!" We didn't regret it, either. There were explosions, and people falling dozens of feet into water, and fireballs, and shootouts, and hand-to-hand, and some of the most judicious use of zip-lines that I've ever seen. Those explosions and fireballs were the real kicker: loud, flashy, and so big that you could feel the wave of heat 50 feet away in the stands. There was even one point where they hurled a complete replica of a seaplane over the wall and into the water, where it skidded across the arena, in flames, and fetched up against the fence, practically in the faces of the people in the front row. That was...neat. The stuntmen (and stuntwomen) were really well-trained. Nobody missed a fall or failed to take a punch realistically enough. Jet-skis figured highly in this show, and some of the stuff they did with them was absolutely incredible. It was hard to believe they were doing it all live, right in front of you. I'm talking jumps, and dives underneath the water, and dodging explosions, and all that cool stuff. It was a good show. Better than the movie, I'll warrant. Better stunts packed into less time. Plus the leading lady was cuter. Eventually, we satisfied our curiosity with the upper lot, and descended to the lower lot via the Starway. This was an extremely long escalator, covered by a glass tile awning. The lower lot is where all the rides are. Including Jurassic Park. Oh heck yeah. We went straight for the dinosaurs. I was giddy with glee. Of all the theme rides in the park, including The Mummy, I was the most anxious to ride this one. I mean, come on! Dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Dinosaurs! It was everything I'd hoped it'd be. I got into the car, and we started off down the jungle river. It was hard to believe I wasn't in the movie (or rather, the book...the literary version of Jurassic Park, which is a million times better than the movie, actually has a river segment that presages the Universal Studios version). The sun was shining through the trees and ferns and fronds overhead, forming golden beams that fell onto the swiftly flowing water below...the effect was cinematic as well as beautiful. I won't spoil the ride, but man, is it ever a gut-wrencher. Allison and I clambered out of the car thrilled, our shoulders soaking wet, our hearts thudding, unable to keep the grins from our faces. We had survived. We had to take pictures to commemorate the event. That was about it. Neither of us were much interested in the other rides, and we'd seen the rest of the park. So we wandered lazily out (stopping for a few minutes to get surveyed), and got back on the highway for the Walk of Fame. We had a nice stroll down Hollywood Boulevard together, even despite the grunge, and the whiskery black blues musician singing at us, and the kinky lingerie shops every hundred yards. We ate lunch at Combo's New York Pizzeria, where the slices were about this size... ...then got back into the car and began heading in the direction of the La Brea Tar Pits. Or, we attempted to. We soon discovered that I was going the wrong way. We need to pull a U-turn, head back down Hollywood to Vine Street, and hang a louie. But where to pull a U-turn? Hollywood Boulevard doesn't generally allow U-turns in turn lanes, and there aren't too many streets leading off, just narrow alleys. Unwisely, I picked one of these alleys to turn around in. This one had a couple of decently tall buildings on either side, one of which was a youth rehabilitation center with several cars parked outside. The other looked like some official building of some sort, with a few men dressed in business casual on the stoop. I pulled into some van parking, began to reverse, and— BAM. The Jeep jerked. There was a sickening sound, a sound I knew all too well: blunt metal meeting blunt metal, hard. I'd backed into somebody. I lost my head. I twisted around in a desultory attempt to see if I'd caused any damage to the other car, and, seeing none, pulled forward and out. As I was driving past the other building, one of the semi-formally-dressed men raised a hand and yelled "HEY! You hit that woman!" My head was still in the clouds. I was scarcely aware of what I was doing. "Bad?" was the only thing that came out of my mouth. "You'd better see," the man said, not aggressively, but not passively either. He pointed back at the other car. My head began to clear. It began to feel like the inside of a dry, dusty Egyptian tomb, in fact. So did my gut. I reversed, made sure I was as out of the way as possible, got out, and took a look at the other car (coincidentally, another white Jeep Cherokee). What I saw made my stomach plummet through the asphalt. There was a misshapen dent the size of a ham in the other Jeep, right where the driver's side door met the front panel. My mortification compounded a hundredfold. It was bad enough that I'd backed into somebody. It was worse that Allison had witnessed it (let alone been in the car when it happened). Worst of all, however, was the fact that I'd almost run for it. The self-recrimination began immediately. I was a cheating, sneaking coward. And now Allison knew it. I wished that all of hell's fire and heaven's fury would come whirling out of the ether and smite me dead. Outwardly, I remained calm. Not even I know how. I waited while the neatly-dressed man sent one of his friends inside the rehabilitation center to fetch the owner of the other Jeep. (He knew her personally, and knew this was her car.) While we waited, the man told me, "I'm just trying to help you, man. We've got cameras all around here." He made a circular motion with his index finger. I looked up. There were indeed traffic cameras pocking the alleyway. It was a fortunate thing the man had stopped me, I realized later. If he hadn't, and I'd driven away, I would've been a whole heap of trouble. Presently, the woman came outside. She was short, middle-aged and blond. She was not angry, but she did express regret that I'd punched in her new panel. (She said that she'd just gotten it redone.) I did not admit fault, as I'd been instructed to avoid doing, but instead made my apologies and willingly supplied the woman with insurance information. I dutifully copied hers down also. Her insurance card was expired, and she got a bit miffed when I asked for further proof of financial responsibility ("You hit me"). But in the end, we completed the transaction. She went back inside, and I folded up my insurance cards and got back into my own (completely undamaged) car. I pulled back onto Hollywood Boulevard wanting nothing more than to melt permanently away into sludge. I couldn't even bear to look at Allison. Throughout the whole thing, she'd sat calmly in the passenger seat of my Jeep, passing me paper and pens like a helpful angel, even cracking a few jokes about the whole thing. She was marvelous. But I still felt awful. I felt bad that I'd subjected her to being involved in such a hassle, and worse that she'd witnessed my attempted escape. And then, as I was thinking these things, Allison placed a hand on my shoulder and said, bracingly, "How ya doin'?" I told you she was wonderful, didn't I? The accident had taken up some of our time, enough that the La Brea Tar Pits were too close to closing to visit. More's the pity. We went to LACMA instead. You know, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After a few missed approaches and go-arounds, we made inside the parking lot, and took the elevator up to street level. The ticket seller told us that, if we waited 15 more minutes (until 5:00) we could "pay whatever we wanted" for admission—that is, make a donation. To kill the time, we toured the museum's current outdoor exhibit, "Urban Light": It's just what it looks like: a bunch of iron streetlamps stuck close together and set alight. Doesn't seem to qualify as "art" to me, but it was beautiful, and I guess that's enough. The ironic thing is that Allison and I had had a rather spirited debate on what should and should not qualify as "art" that morning as we ate breakfast at IHOP. As soon as we came in sight of this particular exhibit, Allison turned to me and said "There, does that qualify as art?" And I said, "Maybe if they turned 'em on." And then, mere seconds after turning away from the ticket booth, the lights came on. I turned to Allison and said, "That's better." There remains little to tell. We toured the museum, discovering some of Picasso's little-known sculpture, and admiring Luis Meléndez's vivid and massive collection of still-life paintings. Finally, we piled back into the car, fought our way out of Los Angeles on I-5, drove to San Diego, spent a few fruitless minutes searching for our hotel (which didn't seem to exist anymore), gave up, found a Howard Johnson, got a couple of rooms, and went to sleep. I lay on my bed in my pajamas, watching Robin Williams opine profanely about politicians, mulling over the disappointments of the day. Both Allison and I were disappointed that there had been so little to do at Universal Studios. I was disappointed that we hadn't seen the La Brea Tar Pits. As for my disappointment in myself for what I'd done that day...well, that was nowhere near subsiding. Allison, too, was likely disappointed in my driving skills...to say nothing of my irresponsible cowardice. I could only hope to to give her less cause the next day.