by Ravis on August 30, 2010
Come on, seriously. Did we ever call a spaceship a space machine? Did we ever call a death ray a deadly light-emitting machine? It’s dated, it was never cool after H.G. Wells, and it just doesn’t do justice to the obviously realistically impossible but still holy shit how cool would that be concept of time travel. (Also, like, 112 bands have released albums called Time Machine, and most of the ones I’ve heard of are like, you know, Rick Wakeman and Rush … not that they’re not talented, but they’re exactly the sorts of musicians you’d expect to release an album called Time Machine.)
So yeah, let’s retire the phrase “Time Machine.” Lame, lame, lame. It’s like “douche bag,” in that it’s completely run its course, yet people keep using it because nothing cooler has come along. But what should be the new, widely used and more-or-less accepted term for a machine that travels through time? Here are my suggestions:
1. Chronomajig
2. TTD (Temporal Transfer Device)
3. An ABG (Abomination Before God)
4. Hole Traveler (um … er … yeah)
5. The USS Quit Asking About Hitler, We’d Try But We’re Afraid It Would Change Too Many Things
Get ready to suck it, Causality.
by Ravis on August 22, 2010
Becky and I watched The House of The Devil tonight, then she crashed and I watched Syfy‘s Lake Placid 3, because I’m an idiot. Neither of these movies is great, but they’re both eminently watchable, and the miles of difference between them in terms of craft, intent and context really got me thinking about why we watch horror movies, and what we deserve as fans.
[click to continue…]
by Ravis on August 17, 2010
The reviews are … erm, the review is in. I’ve gotten my first reader review of Ghostwriter over at Smashwords. Of course, it’s from my friend Kelli, but she knows her crap, she’s a copy editor and the kind of person I’m probably too young to call “a straight shooter” without it seeming a weird thing for me to say, but it’s true. Thanks, Kelli.
by Ravis on August 17, 2010
A buddy of mine told me a little while back that when he was a kid, his mother told him to watch out for dragonflies, because if they landed on him, they would sew his lips shut. That is just … so disturbingly awesome.
by Ravis on August 16, 2010
1. So I went and read two pieces from Ghostwriter for the Artists & Writers’ group’s Deep Carnivale audition night at St. Pete’s Globe on Thursday. I didn’t get the performance bit I had planned due to stringent time constraints (sorry, JoEllen and @norcross), but it was fun nonetheless, even if I did get schooled by three super-pro poetry-slam performers. Got to hang out with Laura, Scully, Gary Polecat and others. As for Deep Carnivale, I just barely missed the top three, but we’ll see what I can shmooze up between now and then …
2. Saw Micah Schnabel, Branden Barnett and Devon Vlasin at the Emerald Saturday night, what a mellow punky shitkicking good time. MightyR and I were afforded the opportunity to stumble to the mic and gleefully butcher Micah’s closing cover of “American Girl,” and it was good to see some friends from out of town. Apologies to everyone who came back to the house after, I had to crash because …
3. Between Saturday and Sunday/Monday morning I worked about 30 hours on a freelance copywriting gig. Time to get back to some semblance of a real-life work schedule.
by Ravis on August 7, 2010
I’m going to be doing a brief reading this Thursday, August 12 at St. Pete’s wonderful Globe Coffee Lounge. It’s basically an audition; there’s this great Tampa-based artists’ network called the Artists & Writers Group that throws an incredible bash known as Deep Carnivale each fall, and I’ll be vying for a reading slot at this year’s September 11 shindig. It should be interesting, since so many locals know me for stuff other than my fiction writing, and I’m going to have to cook up something entertaining that addresses the crazy rumors about me not being who I think I am …
Anyway, a bunch of talented local artists and writers will read from 7 until 9 p.m., and the Globe’s a great place to grab a beer, a cup of coffee or one of JoEllen’s delicious home-cooked treats, so come on out.
by Ravis on August 2, 2010
“If you’re writing, you’re a fool.” – Joel Rose, Out of the Pan, Into the Fire (2000)
One of the coolest unlikely publishing success stories, Anthony Bourdain, is coming to St. Pete’s Mahaffey Theater on November 19. (Garrison Keillor is the night before!) Should we do something geeky and gross like bringing a monster bowl of mojo pulled pork and trying to get backstage?
by Ravis on July 28, 2010
5. A can of beans, by itself. (Apparently this is “not a meal.”)
4. Anything sold in a cylindrical plastic wrapping from the bodega on the other side of 5th Avenue North. (We call the bodega on the other side of 5th Avenue North “CreepyMart.”)
3. Anything pickled that isn’t a pickle or a green bean.
2. Anything between 4:30 p.m. and dinnertime. (“[irritated sigh].”)
1. Vienna sausages.
by Ravis on July 26, 2010
So Ghostwriter is up and available now in a variety of eyeball-friendly digital formats at Smashwords. The book has also been approved for the site’s Premium Catalog, which means it will be distributed through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders and (hopefully) Apple’s new iBooks storefront in a few weeks as well. Then we’ll fire up the publicity machine and set it to HIGH for the next six months or so.
Smashwords basically did all that for me; all I had to do was pay careful attention to the formatting of the original document and provide some good artwork (which came, once again, courtesy of HeathenLife). And I’d just like to thank them and encourage passionate readers and writers alike to check out the site and community. They provide tools and support for DIY authors at a level of quality I really hadn’t found anywhere else online, and they made creating multiple, well-crafted versions of Ghostwriter … not easy, exactly, but a lot easier than it would’ve been had I elected to try to format everything myself. They also made me pay closer attention to my own work as I went through it with a technical eye, so I caught things that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. So, thanks to everybody behind the site, and please give them a look sometime.
by Ravis on July 23, 2010
Thanks so much to Andrew Norcross for the redesign. The original Ravis site was one of his first, and both he and WordPress have grown immeasurably since then.
Come on, seriously. Did we ever call a spaceship a space machine? Did we ever call a death ray a deadly light-emitting machine? It’s dated, it was never cool after H.G. Wells, and it just doesn’t do justice to the obviously realistically impossible but still holy shit how cool would that be concept of time travel. (Also, like, 112 bands have released albums called Time Machine, and most of the ones I’ve heard of are like, you know, Rick Wakeman and Rush … not that they’re not talented, but they’re exactly the sorts of musicians you’d expect to release an album called Time Machine.)
