Random

I kinda liked when this saying emerged - I think I heard my daughter use it one day - how random is that? Not even sure if it is still in use, but it sure fits a lot of my goings on in a day (and at times, my moods).

Randomness floating through my head currently:

Still thinking about Elmore Leonard's passing - notably when I am writing dialogue for my new novel, Surf City (working title based on all the surf rock I listen to while writing it. No one as of yet has surfed in it.) But yeah, hearing the voice of his characters, Chili Palmer for example, when having my tough guys talk - and even my not so tough guys.

Finishing Phillipp Meyer's The Son. Billed as Blood Meridian meets 100 Years of Solitude - I have to say no, and no. The first two-thirds pulled me along, but now I'm just finishing to finish it. Could have been a couple 100 pages shorter and still worked - though not as well as the aformentioned literary masterpieces.

Lots of short fiction rolling around in my head - other people's mostly. I've been reading entries for the magazine SixFold these last weeks. A cool concept where the writers that submit also judge the submissions. 500 subs, three rounds - and no one knows the results until the end, which is coming up this week. I am very curious to see how my story fared. Steeling myself for not making it past the first round.

But mostly, it has been a great experience. Read 18 stories from different writers, at different skill levels, and you really start to see what makes a great story - at least, I did. There were some that I knew right away were doomed. Others snuck up on me. And then a few - one in particular - that blew the back of my head off. My chest was tight when I finished reading it. I'm really expecting to see it in the top 10, or it better be.

Anyway - I'll let you know how I did.

Randomness out for now.

Going go try to finish that damn book.