"Silent Drops of Crimson and Gold Rain" is up at The Journal of Unlikely Entomology.  I love the pic they used!  And now, the story behind the story!

First, while this is a deeply personal story for me, I do want to stress that it is fiction.  And while Rebekah is built upon a real person, most of the facts do not resemble Real Life.  The descriptions carry the most truth, as they're laden with images pulled from my memory of the "real" Becky and her home.

Now, for the Bug portion of the story:  An entomologist spoke to our Master Gardener group about well, bugs.  Apparently, entomologists are somewhat like Birders in that they follow bug migrations or mating schedules -- except they get to trap and keep their specimens!  He described a scene (I think it was somewhere in Arizona) at a mini-market, the parking lot full of entomologists, and these big black beetles flying overhead, dropping to the ground, people running and women screaming as bugs fell from the sky.  Well, what writer wouldn't want to incorporate this description into a story?  So that's where the original story began.

Then my longtime childhood friend died.  Eventually I knew I had to write through my grief, snippets came here and there but it was very difficult and the story itself went through many drafts and reincarnations, thanks to the gentle guidance of my fellow Liberty Hall critters.  It can be very difficult to see a story through emotion-laden eyes.  And it was very difficult to let go of the grief.

Becky's father really did built a treehouse high in a eucalyptus tree that used to scare the beejeezus out of me to climb up the ladder.  But he did not outlive her mother and as far as I know, neither one was alcoholic.  The ashes and rose petals from the plane was very real, but not what happened after.

I do want to state that the real Becky did not die alone, but surrounded by family and love.  

"Silent Drops of Crimson and Gold Rain" is live at The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. Check out the ToC:

Table Of Contents:

Ecdysis by Nicole Cipri
Spiders, Centipedes, & Holes by Cat Rambo
The Space Between by Lew Andrada
Silent Drops of Crimson and Gold Rain by Pam L. Wallace
The Lonely Barricade at Dawn by Jesse William Olson
Jeanette's Feast by Michelle Ann King
B. by Nicola Belte

We're talking about Gini Koch's latest Alien novel, Alien in the House, over at the DAW Books blog (dawbooks)! Swing on by and see what all of the fuss is about in this wild, fast-paced, action series.

There are so many bullshit conspiracy theories being tossed about with the internet and Alex Jones that it almost seems crazy to be suspicious of something that could very well be a conspiracy. But the death of Ibragim Todashev really makes no sense. I mean, I don't know the guy, so he could have been pushed into confessing to a triple homicide that linked him and the Boston marathon bomber. He could have outright said that he did it and then made a move on the FBI agents only to get shot in the process. This is all very possible.

But improbable. More probable is the FBI agent getting pissed at the guy and shooting him and then writing an official report that clears a baffling homicide, puts him in a hero position for two major trials and then stabs himself to make it look good.

Makes sense especially since Ibragim Todashev's friends said that he was getting afraid of the questions.

Now I'm not going to say it's one way or the other. I don't know. However, unlike 911 Truth or Obama is a Nigerian or Aaron Burr had Merriwether Lewis killed to stop him from narking on him, this is not an elaborate conspiracy that requires years of planning and thousands of people keeping silent about "the truth" (or at least neglecting to tell Alex Jones that he's really correct in his insanity). It requires one FBI guy and his partners going "Ok, fuck it. This guy is probably guilty and if you don't back me up, how can anyone ever trust you again?" and a case clearance.

Oh hell, Ibragim Todashev could have killed himself and the FBI guys could have just decided to close a case that they were 90% certain that he did anyhow.

Yep, that's the title to one of my plays.

I'd forgotten about it during all of last years rush to other things. Then I was looking for something else and rediscovered it. I then had to hunt down my Dramatists Sourcebook and decide on a theater to send it to. After all, it will never be produced if I don't send it out.

See, back then I actually went through the book page by page and marked specific theaters as especially good prospects for various plays.

Even with all that previous work it still took me all day to get the submission actually sent off.

But, it was a good feeling none the less.

For those of you who consider yourself a new writer - there is ONE trick to becoming published etc. - that secret is simply that publishing is a numbers game. You send off X number of pieces and you get X number of sales. That's it folks. SEND OUT YOUR WRITING. Even when you suck someone will buy it.

The only difference between you and those other authors is that what they are offered is currently MORE, not because their work is better than yours - a lot of the time it isn't better - they are offered more because they are slightly ahead of you as a BRAND or you are BRANDABLE (cute, special) - brands sell more and faster. That's it. Don't be sold on the idea that your writing sucks, unless you know it sucks. Mostly writing is decent to okay to maybe good to slightly better to good to even better to really fucking good.

Mallory

Had to be up bright and early this morning to walk Pip and be back in time for a sales guy from British Gas, who came to give me a quote for a new boiler. £2750, which is only a grand more than I was expecting! My expression must have told him he was wasting his time as he gave me the price, then folded his ;laptop, made his excuses and left. I was grateful he didn't try any hard sell as that would have been adding insult to, well, insult. The quote includes over a £1000 worth of labour. It is a one-day job for one man, so quite how BG justify a thou is beyond me. Mind you, £80 of that is to take away any waste they make. That's big of 'em, isn't it? Oh, and that price includes giving me a £300 trade-in on my old boiler, so the full price should be £3k. Sorry to bang on but...sheesh, they're taking the piss, aren't they.


I love this! It's a near life-sized jobbie made of ceramic or resin, and stands proudly in Trentham Gardens. Pip was bemused by him. She ran at him barking only to veer away with her tail between her legs, until she got far enough away...when she turned and ran at him again, only to veer away, etc etc. Silly pooch.

Completed a game called God Mode with 100% of the Steam achievements unlocked. Would never have done it without some gaming buddies, in this case Oli and Miron.

The Apprentice was good tonight. By far and away my favourite progamme on TV. I love watching supposedly highly-qualified, successfu,l bright young things make total tools of themselves. Does my blue-collar soul proud, it does. 

46. Northanger Abbey graphic novel adapted by Nancy Butler and Janet Lee - I always feel like I'm missing out by being bored with the Jane Austen mania. There are works inspired by Jane Austen that I like. I thought that The Jane Austen Book Club was one of the better romantic comedies I've seen in a long time (primarily because it's about people who read books and talk about subjects that aren't The Plot) and most of the adapted movies I quite like. It's just Jane Austen books themselves that bore me to tears. And being caught in the Orthodox Jewish community where no one dates for fun and everyone dates for marriage (according to the official party line) I should be totally seeing the point of these books. Hell, one friend bored me at a party about how she and her friend came up with a way of ascribing Jane Austen characters to frum girls in the frum community. I imagine that I would have found the conversation a little less odious if the "friend" wasn't most likely my ex-girlfriend.

But I went into Northanger Abbey the comic book thinking that I could get over my innate dislike of most Jane Austen books (actually I think I was relatively entertained by Persuasion) and there is nothing here that a Jane Austen fan can't like. The artwork is amazing. The movement through the story is fast enough. It's just that the source material is crap. It's still all the drinking tea and "oh what family are you from" material.

And maybe there's a personal dislike here. Maybe it's like the Delaney book where current dating mores are bothering me but this time it's the Orthodox Jewish ones which I originally embraced after coming off a 4 year relationship that never advanced beyond the stage where we would have our own apartments but stay over (the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow stage?) and never move in together or get married. So I wanted a relationship that wasn't 2 years of fun and two years of waiting for a replacement. But Orthodox Jewish dating is job interviewing. You have to go on dates and spend most of your time answering questions like "do you have any brothers or sisters?" and "What do your parents do for a living?" and seriously, I don't like to say that I'm a convert because it's a boring story. Ok, it's not a boring story but it's a story that can't be told well in the 5-10 minutes allotted.

But I really think that I just don't like Jane Austen. And I know that some people love her. But I can't really love a book where everything is underhanded and obsessed with marriage. Of course, Northanger Abbey is acknowledged as the terrible first book but even then it has all the Jane Austen tropes that bore me so much in other narratives.

This movie is called The Abba Movie and it does have Abba concert footage with all the songs, but it's also trying to have a plot. I think that their referencing of the Beatles movies shows what they are trying to do here, but the plot is about a creepy reporter who walks around in red bikini bottoms more than anyone should ever walk around in red bikini bottoms and just keeps missing them. He doesn't have his press pass in one scene. In another scene he wakes up late and yells at the front desk at the hotel. Even though he actually has a right to be a jerk in that case (hotels have wake-up service for a reason) he seems like the one in the wrong.

I don't know if we are supposed to sympathize with him when he interviews Abba fans who just say that they are "clean" and not all dirty like most rock stars from the 1970s. Granted, there's a novelty in a rock band that isn't routinely snorting cocaine off of each other's butts but I don't know what that's a selling point. I imagine it would have been a selling point for me when I was a kid and quite enamored with that whole record burning movement. That was the point when I said that I liked "Light Rock" and then when I was a teenager listening to metal I would have hated them for the same reason.

Oh, so there's a happy ending where the reporter runs into them on an elevator and they sing some forgotten song about flying like an eagle (not one of the ones that was pushed in Australian movies) and now I think he has broken his tape deck or something.