farewell to Korea...again

It's 7:15 a.m. 

The sky is still pitch-black. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm in Bellona, the nightmarish, eternally overcast city from Samuel R. Delany's novel Dhalgren. 

In one hour, I shall be boarding a China Eastern flight to Shanghai (Pudong). After a five-hour layover, I'll jump another jet plane for San Francisco, where my parents will pick me up and take me back to their new place near Sacramento. After a few days with them, I'll drive down to Las Vegas on the 13th of January to reunite with Miss H after four long months...and have a job interview with a tech start-up the very next day.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I depart Korea for the second time, this latest stint having lasted three years. Was it time wasted? I think not. I made another bucketload of disreputable friends, proposed to the girl of my dreams (in Tokyo, but hey), wrote two-and-a-half novels, began to take my writing career seriously, kicked off the quest to get a book published, and (completely by accident) fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a professor in a foreign land. 

Now it's time to move on to a new set of dreams: marriage, family, a writing career, a commercial pilot's license (and a floatplane rating)...and after that? A steady writing job in Las Vegas, seasonal work with Grand Canyon tour companies, a published novel, a dozen syndicated short stories, two or three troublemaking kids, and a big mongrel dog. Wish me luck.

So long and farewell, Korea. You were awfully good to me and mine. I'll see you again someday. Let's do gimbap. 

I'm doing NaNoWriMo 2014

In the wake of Ace & Roc's rejection of my first novel, Revival, I've done a lot of soul-searching, self-persecution, and agonizing about the precise reasons why. What I finally hit upon was this:

I've lived my entire life under a cloud of puerile delusions—which were pretty typical of my generation, but that doesn't make having them any better. I grew up with two simple goals: (a) to make my mark on the world, and (b) to have fun and never work hard. I realized a couple of days ago that those goals are mutually exclusive. Up to this point I looked at both my journalism career and my writing as mere games—cheat codes to get me out of doing any heavy lifting in life. I should have seen them for what they truly were: real jobs requiring real effort. If I had just treated my career and my writing with a bit of respect and seriousness, taken some initiative, had an ounce of industriousness, put in a drop of effort...maybe I'd actually have a career right now. I'm due to go back to the United States in early January 2015, never to return to Korea, and I'm going back with no prospects, hardly any job experience, and not a whit of marketability. Who knows what I'll wind up doing, or even if I'll find any meaningful work at all? If I'd just tried harder in my youth, perhaps I'd be published already, and working as a respected magazine columnist or radio talk show host, with a first novel printed and another slated for publication, with savings and investments and mortgages and a 401k...instead of, you know, utterly wasting the first thirty years of my life trying to ensure that said life was as fun as possible.

So I've decided that, from now on, I'm going to put more conscientious effort into my work—both my nonexistent career as a journalist and my writing skills. 

To that end, I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. The reasons are fourfold: 

Reason #1: I need to get back in the habit of writing every day. Ace & Roc probably rejected me because my writing was almost good, but not quite. It was sterile and clumsy enough to preclude any chance I had of publication. There was too much fixing that would have had to be done before the thing was fit for the press. I haven't been writing every day, not for a year or so now. NaNoWriMo is a great way to jump-start the habit again. I need to sharpen my skills—reforge the swords, so to speak. And NaNo is the furnace. 

Reason #2: It's a good way for me to stretch some new writing muscles as well as the old ones. The novel I decided to write this November involves a female protagonist. I've never written anything from a female's first-person perspective before. I get the feeling that the lady characters in Revival are pretty sterile and flat and weak-chinned, so I'm gonna use this NaNo to train my brain in the subtle art of writing strong, intelligent, and engaging women. 

Reason #3: I did some clicking around over on Robert J. Sawyer's blog (he's none other than the president of freakin' Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America). I discovered something earth-shattering: Revival, my first novel, the first entry in what I had hoped would be an epic science fiction series...is not science fiction. Nope. It's got some elements of the fantastic and the metaphysical, and what science is involved is rather soft stuff, even pseudoscientific. That puts it firmly in the realm of speculative fiction, perhaps even fantasy. Small wonder Ace & Roc rejected the manuscript! All this time, since the age of 19, I thought I was writing science fiction, and it turns out that I wasn't. That made me question what I knew. Do I really know what sci-fi is? Did I ever? 

Obviously I need to get reacquainted with my chosen genre. When I get back home in January, I'm going to buy up as many Hugo- and Nebula-winning novels as I can, read through 'em, and find out what great science fiction is really all about. I'll shelve the Revival series for a while and focus on writing and publishing short science fiction to build up a solid foundation of writing credentials—enough to attract the attention of a literary agent. After I get that agent, then I shall focus on finding Revival a home. I know it'll have a home somewhere, but probably not with a traditional science fiction publisher like Tor, DAW, Ace, or Baen. 

But for now, for the month of November, I'm writing a science fiction novel. A real one. Hard science fiction, where facts are facts, the science is sound, and there's no fluff or fantasy. I want to see if I can do it—if I actually know what sci-fi is, and if I can write it. The best way to learn is to do, right? I'm using NaNoWriMo to relearn the nuances of my craft so I don't make the same genre-busting mistakes I did with Revival.  

Reason #4: Simply put: writing hasn't been fun lately. That's probably why I haven't been doing it on a daily basis, why I let it slide. It's become a chore. Even before I decided to look at it as a job that required real work, it already felt like a toxic bore. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I felt hemmed in by all the rules and characterizations and plot lines I'd spent years constructing for the Revival series. Maybe that same series was sapping all of my creativity. Maybe I'd gotten so wrapped up in publication fever that I was looking at every writing project as a potentially salable piece, and putting enormous pressure on myself to make it perfect and right and good with the very first draft and psyching myself out. Probably some combination of the three.

I need to pull back, take a breather, and remember why I want to be a writer: because it's fun, dang it. Crafting worlds, playing God, moving pieces around on a chessboard, and all that rot. Oh, and potentially creating something that other people will see and love, and might inspire them to create something themselves. 

And you know what? NaNoWriMo, so far, has been exactly that. FUN. 

It's November 2. Yesterday afternoon, I commenced writing Charlie Ward, Interstellar Soldier-of-Fortune, a space opera. This story has been a blast so far. The thing is practically writing itself. Words are rolling off my fingertips. My brain is a blast furnace. My knuckles are oiled and ready. My mind is teeming with words. On the first day I did 2,500 words in less than an hour. Finished the first chapter. Ka-BOOM!

This is the only image I could find on Wallpaper Abyss that approximated my MC's appearance and demeanor.

So here's to getting back into the daily writing game, sculpting my first female protagonist, reacquainting myself with my one and only literary love (science fiction), and just having a ball with writing again. I'll keep you posted about how it all goes. 

This is the refreshed and rejuvenated Vaunter, signing off. Gotta go do another 2,500 words. 

Fox Broadcasting can go pound sand

It's Blade Runner-slash-every
buddy-cop drama ever!
What's not to like? 

This is not a political rant. I don't give a split fig about Rupert Murdoch or Bill O'Reilly or what all the puffed-up bubble-headed self-important liberal college professors and community organizers refer to as "Faux News."

No, my beef is with the television executives who sit around in board meetings and decide to cancel my favorite TV shows.

It's been recently announced that the science fiction police procedural Almost Human, which aired last fall, won't be picked up for a second season.

This is the same depressing news that I got in 2012 when I heard that Terra Nova had been canceled, and the same monstrous injustice I and the other Firefly fans who came late to the game execrated when we learned that this fantastic show consisted of just 14 episodes.

Thank goodness Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on ABC, and is therefore safe from Fox's meddling, or I might have a complete psychotic breakdown.

Seriously, what gives? This is becoming such a trend that "Screwed by the Network" and "The Firefly Effect" have become official tropes. To quote from that life-stealing wiki, "Incidentally, many of these [canceled] shows (including Trope Namer Firefly) were on Fox — basically because Fox was likely to give the sort of show that gets this effect an initial run, but tended to be too Nielsen-sensitive to be patient."

Let me repeat that for you:

Too Nielsen-sensitive to be patient.

That's gotta be it. The ladder-climbing, insecure little weasels (I'd say "network executives," but that would be redundant) over at the Fox Broadcasting Company are so obsessed with making themselves look competent and keeping their stock high — in more ways than one — that they'll cancel a brilliant show if the Nielsen ratings are anything less than stellar.

Now, I know what you might be thinking, particularly if you're like everybody else on the face of the freaking Earth and think Almost Human and Terra Nova were terrible shows. (If you do, then what are you doing here? You should be pounding sand, too.)

You're thinking, "Where's the injustice in that? Almost Human didn't have good ratings, so it was canceled. QED."

Ratings aren't that simple, buster. Evidence suggests that Almost Human's ratings were out of its control for half its run. Firefly's doom was spelled out when Fox aired its episodes out of order and inexplicably stuck it in the "Friday night death slot." Terra Nova had 10.8 million viewers and a 3.6 rating, but the execs were worried about the price tag, and they also (wrongly) believed that a mid-season addition called Touch would be the next big hit.

It's Lost with dinosaurs! What's not to like??

I'm not a critic. I'm not going to launch into a big long spiel about why these shows are lost treasures. I'm not going to tell you how Terra Nova was "unlike anything else on TV," and that it "found its creative legs late in the season" (the article I linked to previously does that quite eloquently). I won't mention how Almost Human was just what the doctor ordered, a by-the-book police procedural with a lighthearted, humorous undercurrent, with the added zest of its dystopian-but-somehow-still-gorgeous futuristic backdrop. I have no need to declare Joss Whedon's script-writing talents godlike, and that the cinematography, dialogue, acting and story of Firefly are second to none. That's been said before by irate fans and gushing magazine columnists the world over. 

It's cowboys/Civil War veterans IN SPACE! What's not to like???

Almost Human and Terra Nova have their shortcomings, I know. The special effects and the acting aren't perfect. Pacing, characterization and story are sometimes lackluster. Everyone I know at my workplace and on Facebook loves to point out how shoddy, unengaging, static, formulaic, boring, unbelievable or artificial they are, with flat characters, unsatisfying stories and flawed concepts. But as the Guardian's pithy Glaswegian Graeme Virtue points out, the first seasons of these shows are like "the early, rough-and-ready EPs of your favourite band." Yeah, sure, the lyrics are canned and superficial, the garage-band sound is fuzzy and inexpertly mixed, the guitarist's fingers are still bleeding and the drummer hasn't found his rhythm yet, but isn't that the fun of it? Getting in on the ground floor? Liking a band because of that raw, pristine concept, the fundamental sound down deep beneath those shaky riffs and uneasy vocals? Following them while they mature into the next KISS or Zeppelin or Floyd? Watching them find their cadence, their vibe, their niche, and fill it out like a piece of loose clothing they're growing into?

That's been one of the joys of watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah, sure: it was soulless early on. A lot of people tried watching it and quit in disgust. But if they'd had the patience (unlike your average Fox network executive) to stick with it, they'd have discovered a true wonder: a flower blooming, a vine twirling its way around a beanpole, a seaweed-strewn ship emerging from its watery grave where once only the rotting, sun-bleached mastheads were visible. Watching M.A.O.S. get into its stride, establish its characters and its world and then cut loose like a slipshod stallion kicking his way out of a barn has been...well, a real kick. It's probably true that you have to be a fan of the Marvel Universe (or at least Agent Phillip Coulson, or at the very least Clark Gregg) to like the show. And you have to sit through those awkward first few episodes wherein the groundwork is laid. But then the show gets its hooks into you. Firefly and Almost Human did it during their pilot episodes, and Terra Nova managed it in the season finale.

It's just a travesty that these three shows will never have the chance to revel in the worlds they worked so hard and long to build, thanks to the pusillanimous, apple-polishing, money-grubbing swine at Fox.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is called injustice. And it's also the reason that television sucks so hard in this day and age.

Rant over.

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. 

writing updates, 3/7/2014

I haven't touched Novel #3 since mid-February. I was compelled to shelve it during the Big Move to Gangnam. Moreover I don't really like the way it's going. Do you have any idea how tricky it is to write a party of twelve hardy adventurers out of a collapsing subterranean green-quartz temple without using every cliché known to humankind? I thought I had a pretty original idea, but (as has happened to me so many times) I'm getting that nasty, familiar, I'm-such-a-hack-writer feeling. Speculative fiction/alternative reality writers are more susceptible to this feeling than the more mainstream scribblers, I suspect. (Crime writers, too, probably. Jeez, they have a tough row to hoe. I'm glad I'm not one of them. Novel #14 or #15 is slated to have murder-mystery overtones, so I might have to brush up on my skills before then.)

Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk to you about. I came to talk about my short fiction writing. Every resource I turn to tells me that I need to establish myself as an author of short stories and novelettes before I can even start thinking about publishing a novel. But every short story I've submitted has been rejected. Here, take a look, I've kept records. In this digital age, an aspirant writer doesn't get paper rejection slips anymore; we just get e-mails. Or nothing at all. But I've kept electronic track of my submissions and this is the long (er, short) sad litany: 

 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) - SECOND 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 9/11/13

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED 11/15/13

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED 1/29/14 

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

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


 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED 3/4/14

As you can see, I'm still waiting for word on my novel manuscript. I submitted it in late January, and the Ace & Roc website informed me that I can expect to wait five months for a response. In the meantime, I'm shopping for agents. I should really start doing that more energetically, actually...

But getting back to the main point: I haven't written nearly as many stories as I should, much less submitted them anywhere. I just keep sending in the same tired old drivel that seem puerile and stale when I look back on it now. Some of them I've rewritten (that's what the "[R]" means in that last entry), but that doesn't change the fact that they suck—as the continued rejections indicate. Only one of my stories has even made the second round of review. Granted, I haven't submitted that many, but that opens up a whole new can of worms: I'm working a job that gives me four months off every year. Most writers would kill to have a schedule like that. What use am I making of it?

I need to write some new stuff. A lot of it. Short stories, novelettes, even a novella or two, maybe. Good stuff. Fresh stuff. Mature stuff. Stuff that gets me published and makes me into the sci-fi writer I think I am. 

So I've got an idea. One of my other writer-blogger friends posted an exciting article on Facebook the other day. Amtrak is going to start offering free rides to writers. Imagine that: a snug berth, a bottle of wine, a good view out the window, and a laptop (or a notepad and pen, if you're Paul Theroux). Intoxicating idea, no? 

That's far in my future for now, but it did get me thinking about having a "writer's retreat." It's plausible now that Miss H and I are in a three-bedroom apartment. We've elected to have one master bedroom, one guest room and one office-cum-den. I could readily commandeer the office-cum-den for, say, a week of successive evenings and just bang out some good writing. I'm all fired up now that I've read Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Absolutely spectacular hard science fiction never fails to inspire, and Clarke's got me wanting to to follow in his footsteps. 

So I'm going to do it. A "writer's retreat." Instead of spending my evenings plugging defenseless animals on Deer Hunter 2014 or watching Almost Human, I'm going to write. For a week. For as many hours as I can. If I get stuck on one story, I'll start another. That's one thing that, thankfully, I'm never at a loss for: inspiration. Give me a pen and a notepad and in five minutes I'll come up with some killer ideas. It's executing them properly, with fresh angles and unique perspective, that's more difficult. Hell, not all of the stuff I churn out may be science fiction, either. I might try some historical fiction or even straight-up mainstream contemporary fic. Who knows? It'd be good to take the shackles off, remove the filters between my brain and fingers, and just see what flows out from under my fingernails. Worth a try, right? Then I'll have a fresh batch of stories, character-driven and lyrically written, which will perhaps be more along the lines of what DSF or Asimov's are looking for. 

I'll let you know when I begin. 

Wish me luck...

Hokkaido diary: the 65th Sapporo Snow Festival

In one of the many cut-rate sci-fi adventure stories I read as a youth and continue to read to this day (this one was On Earth As It Is In Hell, an officially-licensed Hellboy novel by Brian Hodge), a defeated villain defiantly tells the hero: "Do you know why you'll always lose, in the end? Because what you consider victories are such small things."

Going to the Sapporo Snow Festival reminded me of that quip, for some reason. It just impressed me how something that started so small—a pack of enterprising Hokkaido University students building modest snow sculptures in Odori Park in central Sapporo—blossomed into an annual world-famous festival that attracts over two million foreign tourists per year.

This year I was one of them. Here's my diary entry for that day: 

2/5:

10:32 a.m. Nice long sleep-in. At Kita-12 jo waiting for the train. Hardly anybody here. Is it because I'm used to Seoul, which is always a zoo, or because of the festival? The 65th Sapporo Snow Festival starts today, and I am heading first to Odori Park and then to Susukino to take in two-thirds of it (the other third is up in Tsudome, near Asaba, way up north, but I'm prioritizing). 

It's STILL snowing. Must have snowed all night. Light snow, heavy snow, light snow again. The only time it hasn't snowed was the bright sunny first morning. Wow. Not sure how easy it'll be trying to wrangle an umbrella AND a camera in this weather, but I'll try.

1:07 p.m. What I was praying for happened. At 11 or so, 30 minutes after I arrived at Odori Park, the sky cleared. The snow stopped.

Hokkaido scallop, ¥500. Good deal. 

Crab soup, also five hundred yen. Three kinds of crab!

I got some great pics and then strolled south to Susukino to see the ice sculptures.

 

That there may be no speculation...those are real fish.

Now they're just making me hungry...

Now I'm standing outside of Sushizanmai (which looks packed to the gills) and memorizing the menu. I want the Uruoi Sushimori Special, which has herring roe, boiled prawn, salmon roe, red tuna, white stuff that could be squid or flounder, red snapper, and six other things besides. Great place—the waitresses bustle and flit about in blue blouses, white aprons, black stockings and buckled shoes, while the chefs flay away at the fish, egg, and seaweed with their long, thin knives, shouting hearty hellos, goodbyes and thank-yous to the patrons coming and going. The tea is hot and the atmosphere warm in more ways than one.

You could immediately tell the difference between this and any other cut-rate sushi joint—fresh, tender ginger, moist rice and succulent seaweed. Eating the herring roe was an interesting experience—it had the color and texture of an orange slice. The miso soup with prawn heads was a lovely counterpoint. The sea urchin roe had the consistency of apple butter. There was also sardine, sea eel, and albacore tuna, plus shellfish. One of the red fish—either mackerel or red tuna—simply melted in my mouth. A feast. 

3:00 p.m. Sitting in the Hokkaido University Museum. Made a brief but futile stop at the gift shop for souvenirs. Pole Town (an underground mall between Odori and Susukino Stations) was a bust, too. Speaking of busts, I'm going to go see William Clark's now.
"Boys, be ambitious!" 

3:41 p.m. Just sent off the postcard to my folks at Sapporo's big blocky grey post office, east of the station. I'm lucky everything is so close together in this town. I think I'll hit the station on the way back to the hotel in one last-ditch effort to find souvenirs. 

5:32 p.m. Darkness has fallen. My last day in Sapporo is over. I'm ready to be gone, but I am a bit sad. I found no souvenirs—not in the station, nor Tokyu Department Store, nor anywhere else. All that's left is to get some chicken kebabs (yakitori) and beer for dinner, pack my bags and go to bed early. 

7:28 p.m. ADDENDUM. I had a peek in the yakitori place and discovered it was actually an izakaya—and the prices weren't nice. So I stumped a bit further south and found something that wasn't crowded, noisy, or overpriced—Beer & Coffee Venison. The name isn't poetic license—they serve deer meat. So I went on in. The light was low, coming from a line of glass globes over the wooden bar, every other one of which had the names of various Scotch whiskies written on it in multicolored marker. Lots of dark wood and white stucco-like walls, interspersed with tables and chairs with cross-shaped holes in the back (plus fully-antlered deer skulls on the walls and old coffee grinders and tea tins on the shelves) completed the rustic ambience [sic]. Behind the bar were two men: one elderly and thin, severe in demeanor, wearing a tie and black waistcoat and apron, with a beige wool-knit cap which clung to his bald pate like a yarmulke. The other man was likewise in a dark suit (with a fleece jacket flung over it) but was young, handsome, and energetic. He drummed his fingers on the bar in time to the jazz playing on the stereo (Colin Stranahan and Lloyd Miller), and buzzed about snipping labels or sterilizing glasses. The place had a bewildering collection of empty beer bottles in the window and quite a few in the fridge, Negra Modelo, Old Tom, Stone IPA and Löwenbräu among them. The Scotch selection, though extensive, tended to favor Islay and Highlands single malts, I noted. 

I sat down and ordered some venison sausage and a ¥500 glass of Heartland (a European pale lager made by Kirin, with a fine flavor and a delicious creamy head). I nibbled on Hokkaido potato salad and sliced pickles (and later the sausage and some fresh fruit) while the younger barkeep and I attempted a conversation. His name was Kei, and he loved jazz. It was he who manned the Toshiba laptop above the bar and chose tune after syncopated tune. I sensed rather than knew—for he spoke as little English as I did Japanese—that he was a student at Hokkaido University and that this was his part-time job, and that he longed to escape from pulling pints and pouring whiskey and escape to Tokyo (or perhaps even New York) and found a jazz trio. We talked as much as we were able. I sipped beer. The old proprietor washed up or stared into space. I felt the weight of my impending departure weigh heavily upon me. It was an introspective moment—the old man in his wool cap behind the bar, arms folded, staring at the empty room; Kei drumming his fingers, nodding his head and gazing at the computer screen; and me with a cleaned plate and a sweating beer glass in front of me, eyeing the collection of whiskey bottles in their glass cabinets, thinking about getting up at 4 a.m. tomorrow and feeling simultaneously warm and content yet lonely and restless. 

I got up, paid, snapped some photos of the bar and its stewards, bowed low, and left. I bought a crap-ton of food at the convenience store for tomorrow's 18-hour journey—onigiri, bento, salad, coffee, beer, apples, and even something which looked suspiciously like kimchi. All I have to do now is pack my bags and await the dawn. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 10: memorize "If"

There's a splendid poem, which I pride myself on having been familiar with before I took up this challenge. 

“If”
By: Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

My task for Day 10 was to memorize this 'ere poem. Commit it to memory in its entirety. Which was just as well, as I had a touch of food poisoning today — either raw oysters or expired mayonnaise, I'll warrant — and there was precious little else to do. So I got straight to the memorizin', thank you very much. The website says it's okay if it takes you one or two days to complete this challenge, so I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.

All aboard for Day 11!

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year

...and that's that.

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project.

But sink me if I can think of one.

And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy.

You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party.

Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis?

Yeah. The world's gone nuts.

My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014.

So no NaNo this year.

What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.

But I'll let you be the judge of that.

Reigandō...a failed attempt

I've been hyping the heck out of my pilgrimage to Spirit Rock Cave, the penultimate home for Miyamoto Musashi in his old age, building matters up to a heck of a show for you readers...but the simple truth of the matter is, I didn't make it. Well, I did. Sort of. It's complicated.

Let me explain. I said earlier in my post about Musashizuka Park that I got out the door of my hotel rather late on the morning of August 7th. Well, here's where it came to bite me in the butt. By the time I got around to finding a bus out of Kumamoto Terminal, and managed to make it clear to the ticket agent where I was going (Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was the nearest stop), I bought a ticket and went out to wait at platform 23. Bus No. 6 was the one I was waiting for. It didn't come but once every 40 minutes or so, and it was already late in the afternoon: 4:40 or some-such.

Well, here's the hell of it: I was on the platform when the No. 6 bus came. However, there was another bus at the platform already. Instead of waiting until that bus pulled out and then pulling up behind it, the lazy-ass No. 6 bus driver stopped at Platform 24 for about five seconds, didn't see anyone who looked like they wanted to ride with him, and then took off. All I could do was stand there, open-mouthed and dejected (like Jonathan Winters in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) while my ride cruised off into the sunset without me.

So then it was another interminable wait for the 5:20 bus.

It never came.

It was well after six o'clock when what must have been the last No. 6 bus pulled up to the platform. I leaped on. I was beginning to panic. Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was in the middle of nowhere. Should I take too long in getting out to Reigandō, getting back to the bus stop and catching the last No. 6 bus back to town, I'd be stuck without food, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, or a roof over my head, on a dark one-lane road in rural Kyushu overnight. That was not a prospect I relished.

I did my best to enjoy the spectacular views of the city and Mount Kinpo as the bus gradually left the city limits and climbed into the wild, leafy vastness of the mountains. The lane was sinuous and narrow, and often the bus had to slow down to squeeze past a car or a minivan coming in the opposite direction. Houses were few and far between and rice paddies dominated the hillsides. I had to listen very carefully to the scratchy female voice on the loudspeaker announcing the stops. Even as it was, I very nearly missed my stop. Against my better judgment, I leaped off the bus and found myself on a sunlit road at the foot of Mount Kinpo, with rice paddies all around and the charming village of Iwato Kannon Iriguchi behind.

So I hiked a kilometer uphill, and found myself in a little parking lot with a rather lumpy and crude statue of Musashi overlooking it (the first picture in this post, up above there). A kindly young Japanese woman, impressed that I had climbed the hill on foot, gave me a few pieces of candy. At this point, with the sun getting low and my journey far from over, I considered asking her for a ride back to town, but thought better of it.

After a bit of waffling about which way to go, I went: down a hill (after all that climbing!) and then a hard right turn down a slight slope, with another village (or an extension of Iriguchi) nearby.

And lo and behold! There was the ticket office!

...closed.

Closed.

I was too late.

I'd missed my chance.

All my ambitions about seeing Musashi's final haven went up in smoke, just like that.

This was as close to the cave as I ever got.

For a brief moment, I dithered at the turnstile, considering the leap and the unknowable distance to the cave thereafter. But my worries about missing the bus back to Kumamoto and spending the night by the side of the road, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and deafened by cicadas, won out. As fast as I could I scrambled back up the narrow road, up the forest-clad hill, and down the twisting kilometer driveway back to Iwato Kannon Iriguchi. On the way down, I chatted (again, in pidgin Japanese) with a local who was busily jogging up and down the first few hundred meters of this hilly driveway, who made me think that I'd missed the last bus. I wound up waiting for about 20 minutes before (thank God!) the ol' No. 6 came chugging around the corner. I hopped on and was back at Kumamoto Station before the last rays of the sun had faded from the sky.

Okay, so Reigandō was a bust. Oh well. At least I know the way out there now, and I can budget time appropriately whenever I find my way back to Kyushu. But at the time I felt rather crushed. I was so blue I went and bought a Freshness Burger to console myself:

Then it was back to the APA Hotel for my last night in Japan. I had a celebration of sorts: an assortment of canned beers from the convenience store. I had a jolly night of it and slept pretty well on that rock-hard mattress.

What more is there to tell? Only one thing: the journey by high-speed ferry from Japan to Korea. Tomorrow: THE JR BEETLE TO BUSAN. I didn't know Boeing made boats, did you?