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Apparently, they voted first thing this morning to put the proposed Constitutional amendment to the voter. The vote was 61 in favor and 132 opposed. That's enough to take it to the next step, which is to be voted on by the new legislature. (They only needed 50 votes.)

I totally understand the argument that the amendment, having gone through the process to get to the legislature, must be voted on. Is adjourning the Convention before the legislature gets a chance to vote sleazy? I think that depends on how you feel about the pocket veto. This is the one case where an executive branch can kill a bill and the legislature has no recourse (because they are out of session). Sidestepping the vote is not exactly analogous to a pocket veto, but this is a case to terminate something with no chance of recourse. (Yes, I know that the MA SJC said both that they were unable to order the legislature to vote and that they felt it was the legislature's duty to vote.)

What bugs me about the process of getting this amendment on the ballot though is the hypocrisy. You have Mit Romney arguing that the legislature has been extra-Constitutional by not voting on this amendment. But one of his proposed remedies is, itself, blatantly extra-Constitutional. That is, letting it go on the ballot without a vote. I'm tired of people talking about how getting this amendment on the ballot is "democracy in action." This is as much about democracy as the Civil War was really about states' rights. In both cases, they were convenient fig leaves. This is like when Jesse Helms would file bills preventing the federal publication of AIDS information in the name of paperwork reduction.

If this really is about the democratic process and making sure that the public have a say, why do we have a push for a referendum only on this one issue? I find it bizarre that out of all the issues, the one people push is the one which does not affect their lives in any meaningful way. (i.e., people are not pushing to ban their own marriages. They are pushing to ban other people's marriages.) I mean, you could take any issue and make the argument that we ought to have a referendum because it really is about the democratic process and that the people ought to have a say. This is not an argument explains why we should have this specific referendum. I'm not against the referendum process. I just highly doubt that they collected signatures by saying that by virtue of wanting a referendum, in the name of democracy, we ought to have one.

I would never support an amendment banning same sex marriage so my respect is hardly something that an anti-same sex marriage supporter wants. However, I have to ask what does it say about an issue when the supporters of a referendum on an issue have to hide their actual position on the issue? Isn't it a bit bizarre to argue that a movement to disenfranchise MA citizens is part of the process of democracy?

I'm listening NPR right now. Apparently, a motion to reconsider the vote they took is now active. It's no secret that I hope they kill the amendment. The track record on amemdments which ban same-sex marriage and civil unions is pretty bleak. My rebuttal to anyone who starts to blather on about abiding by the public will is based on the one Rick Mercer (then of This Hour Has 22 Minutes) gave to the whole idea of referendum. How would you like it if I pushed for a referendum forcing you to change your name to "Doris Day"? Referendums pushed by people not materially affected by the results are dangerous things.

(D'oh, they've voted to uphold the vote they took earlier today. So now we'll see what happens with the next legislature.)

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I went to the Christmas Revels last night. Whatever the theological or spiritual significance of winter solstice time celebrations, I have to think that they were also (inadvertent?) cures for seasonal affective disorder. There's a lot to be said for people getting together and either celebrating or demanding the return of warmer and longer days. (Are there southern hemisphere cultures which have these sorts of celebrations in June?)

Each year, the Christmas Revels recreates the solstice time celebrations of some culture. This year was predominantly German. However, the Christmas Revels, at heart, regardless of the cultural trappings, is a traditional Christmas concert. That means cute kids singing and audience participation. (I have to say that being in the audience of the Revels was much more fun than the Christmas concert I sang two weeks ago. The over the top arrangement of "Joy to the World" we did was pretty cool though, especially the harmonic changes in the last verse.) The Revels has traditions of its own to uphold. This makes me wonder if they're limited to exploring cultures which have dragon stories and sword dances. This year, since they were doing Germany, obviously, they did Fafnir and Siegfried, complete with Wagnerian leitmotifs.

Anyways, lots of fun. The comedy misfired as much as it fired. I'm general allergic to cute kids singing. But the whole thing was pretty terrific. There was lots of singing on stage as well as by the audience. I've never understood why the song leader waits until intermission to teach the audience the tunes they're supposed to sing. There's audience singing in the first act. The tunes are all in the program, not even remotely difficult, and I sight sing. I wonder what everyone else does. (Actually, I have to think that either these traditional German tunes are really well known or most of the audience sight sings. Either would be too cool for words.)

I did think it was weird that, at the end, the woman sitting next to me told me that she enjoyed my singing. I guess it beats being a distraction that detracted from her enjoyment of the Revels.

On other fronts, the story I mentioned with five characters and interlinked relationships (yes, I'm bad with titles) continues to spiral out of control. I'll get the hang of it... eventually... I hope. I've resorted to outlining, which I never do.

I don't know how to link to it but

matociquala's 12/27/06 3:44pm entry on exposition is dead on. She has described exactly how I feel about exposition. (Well, except for any of the bits that involve actually selling.) I seriously envy Viable Paradise XI students, who will get to work with her for a week. (I, obviously, will not be one of them since I went to Viable Paradise X. It was terrific but I think once was enough.)

We've just passed the 30 day mark on my Analog submission. My rejection should arrive any day now...

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I actually caught a few movies in a movie theater in December. For the most part, I liked all of them.

( History Boys )

( Casino Royale )

( Dreamgirls )

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I should be reworking any of three stories right now, so that I can finally send them out. They are all probably one draft away from being ready. (Oddly, all three are related to VP in some way. They are the VP workshopped story, the "Hats of War" story and the ex-VP Reunion story. The story that has nothing to do with VP is in the Analog slushpile right now waiting to be rejected.) However, what I'm doing instead is writing something completely new. This piece is actually somewhat ambitious for me because it has five characters, each of whom has his or her own path through the story, not to mention a whole bunch of relationships. You novelists can stop laughing now. A typical short story is the relationship between two people and how a third person affects that relationship. So this really is uncharted territory for me.

Anyways, I think I know how to make this something along the lines of what I've written before. In fact, I have a 6000 word first draft which, surprise, surprise, shirks two of the five characters and drops most of the relationships. I'm not happy with it. At the end of the day, I don't think this is a "relationship between two people and how a third person affects that relationship" story. (At least I'm not seeing it that way right now.)

The synchronicity bit is that today John Scalzi asked Are Short Stories Necessary? and

jaylake wrote about Novel-sized ideas. Now, I don't think I have a novel-sized idea. But I do think that perhaps I've been squeezing everything into one short story structure or another because that's what I know how to write.

I'm pretty sure I could polish up the first draft into something decent. But it will be a better story if I just write the story which deals with all five characters with their relationships intact instead. I don't think it's a novel. (For one thing, right now, too little happens in the middle.) For all I know, it may still be a short story by the time I'm done. But it will be something different from what I've done. That's a good thing, I think.

And I will spend the week between Christmas and New Year's reworking the previously mentioned three short stories. I really need to send them out...

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I spent a few days bummed by how few critiques of "Running and Falling" I had gotten from Critters. I mean, I've been doing Critters for about a year now. It's pretty clear that if your story can't manage to get 5-10 critiques over the week it's up at Critters, it may be deeply flawed. (Highly experimental fiction is probably an exception to this. But I'm not sure submitting highly experimental fiction to Critters is a good idea in the first place.) The Critters FAQ says as much (albeit quite nicely and making room for other explanations).

I was really puzzled since none of the few critiques I got pointed to any serious problems. They all pointed out a few sentences which went clunk and a few thing which were unclear, but nothing that required an overhaul.

krylyr, who read a later revision, made a few suggestions but liked it on balance.

vortexae, who read the Critters draft, had much the same reaction. The last straw was that I noticed that my story wasn't one of the (few) stories held over for an extra week due to receiving too few reviews. Something weird was happening.

Thursday, I noticed that my spam folder was unusually full. The e-mail address I use for Critters is one that I give out only to friends and a few select mailing lists. So far, it's gotten remarkably little spam, so I usually forget to check the spam folder. (Unlike my yahoo account, where I weed the spam folder daily.) Of course, most of the critiques I received last week got routed into my spam folder. I received eleven critiques, not four. (Critters posts all critiques received in the week at its website on the following Saturday, I would have also seen them at the website starting yesterday, if I had thought to look.)

(I wonder if a version of Romeo and Juliet where Friar Laurence's message to Romeo that Juliet isn't really dead gets caught by mistake in a spam filter has already been done.)

On balance, the critiques were positive. Reading them was a good exercise in triangulation. For example, the reason why people had problems with the ending wasn't because the ending was bad. It was because the opening, while apparently hooky, was pointlessly confusing. Most of the issues turned out to be things that I had fixed in the version I asked

krylyr to read. (The rest came in a handy list from

vortexae.)

Anyways, I've given the story one final going over. From here, "Running and Falling" goes off to Analog because this is the first thing I've written in a while which is plausibly hard SF. There are enough appropriate pro markets for this story to keep it in circulation for the next year. We'll see what happens.

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"Running and Falling" hit the top of the Critters queue this past Wednesday. So far, it's been a much more pleasant experience than the last time I submitted a story to Critters. The last time, I got lots of crits, most of them from people who either accused me of mental illness or told me that I should quit writing because no one would ever buy SF with gay content. (WTF?)

(I should point out, BTW, that "gay content" makes the story sound much more explicit than the story actually is. Of the story's many problems, that two guys fall in love and *gasp* kiss, is not one of them. This was the story I submitted to the Scalzi-edited "Big Honkin' SF Cliche" issue of Subterranean. John Scalzi correctly rejected it. At some point, I need to re-write it at some point. I like the first 500-1000 words a lot. The other 4000, not so much.)

This time, I've gotten only two crits so far, but no personal attacks, and both crits have been useful, if not necessarily in the way the critiquers had intended. I'm starting to think that submitting a work makes me see all the flaws in the work. The weird result is getting a crit which tells me about the problems I fixed the previous day. This is not a bad thing. It just means that I need the courage of my convictions to realize that I can see what the problems in my own work are and fix them before I submit, not after. (I don't really think I can go, "Um, Mr. Schmidt, can you please ignore my previous draft? This one is much better.")

Also, I've realized that what I need to do is have someone say certain stock phrases to me everytime I think I have finished a story. e.g., "Don't you think the opening is too slow?" "I was confused about where this story takes place." They don't have to be true. Saying them to me makes me figure out whether or not they are, and if they are, how to fix it. (Presumably, this still works if I tell myself. Maybe I can just imagine

tnh saying these things to me?)

One more odd thing which works well for me: the text-to-speech converter. I know I've read this somewhere so I'm not the only person to do this. I have this tendency to drop words when I write. I can pick up that error, and other errors, much more easily when I hear text than when I read text. Using the text-to-speech converter to speak my story to me makes proofreading much easier.

I've tried all of these things with my ex-VP Reunion story. I'm going to give it one more pass, get it into standard document format, then mail it off to the VPX mailbox to see what people think. So if any of you have a free moment, I would appreciate a crit.

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The AP is calling Jim Webb in the VA race for the Senate. He apparently has about a 7000 vote lead. Given there is no paper backup for the votes, it's highly unlikely that Allen will be able to cut into that lead significantly. I'm finding it ironic that this is a case where unverifiable ballotting hurt a Republican candidate. I guess it's a case of reaping what you sow. Paper backup would have been nice to show, unequivocally, that Webb did, in fact, win by about 7000 votes. However, it would be hypocritical for those who insisted that there's nothing wrong with purely electronic voting to argue anything nefarious. Fortunately, none of them seem to be doing this. (However, I haven't checked what the Allen reaction to the AP story is. I don't think he has conceded yet.)

All in all, it was a much better election that I had hoped for. Deval Patrick glided into victory as I had expected. The only way this might be a problem is that the Republicans, unsurprisingly, are already attempting to raise the bar on his performance as governor. This is like how they lowered expectations when W was elected President. The Democrats wrested control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. I hope this will steer the country in a saner direction. The anti-abortion bill in SD went down by a healthy margin. I believe at least one parental notification law also failed. It was also a good election for raising the minimum wage. AZ became the first state to vote down an anti same-sex marriage amendment.

On the other hand, every other bit of anti same-sex legislation passed. Apparently, the notion that I might get married is so dangerous that it needs to be outlawed. Actually, it's more than that. After years of "oh, we don't mind if they have the rights and responsibilities of a committed relationship, we just don't want them to call it a marriage," the proposed amendments invariably go out of their way to deny any sort of civil commitment as well as marriage. Just what is so dangerous here? The rather strange sub-text of the argument in favor of such amendments has always been "we need this staunch disapproval or else everyone would opt for same-sex marriage, then the species would fail to reproduce."

Ok, to be less facetious about this, I think it boils down to a genuine homophobia. They may not be able to place the source of the fear, and I wouldn't presume, but there is clearly a fear there. Otherwise, it's hard to explain the variety of arguments which are, frankly, irrational. By their own standards, some of the marriages which already exist do more to damage the sanctity of marriage than the theoretical (except in MA) same-sex marriage. Having been on the receiving end of people's first contact with an actual Asian-American, I wouldn't be surprised if, for most who voted for such amendments, it's a simple fear of people they think they don't know. The good news is that this is fixable.

So much for the election. I will probably be making that diatribe so long as gay Americans have fewer rights and responsibilities than straight Americans.

To my surprise, I'm managing to write despite all the hours of rehearsal this week. I'm setting aside my ex-VP reunion story for now because I think it may have hit the point where it's ready for me to abandon it to a publisher. Instead, I'm reworking my "Hats of War" story. Its first draft didn't really cohere. I think I now have a throughline for both the characters and plot which makes sense now. I don't think it's going to resemble the first draft much except in scenario. I find this happens to me a lot. I write a draft that I wouldn't be completely ashamed to show someone, except for some problem which causes me to write the story again. (In the case of "Running and Falling," one character made a not credible choice because the plot told him to. The rewrite is much better.)

I can't help but wonder though if working on all of these other stories is some sort of writing avoidance activity so that I don't get to dive in and do the necessary surgery on the story I submitted to VP. BTW, one more election-related thought. I have to say I'm relieved that, with this election, my VP submission now reads more like fiction rather than dire prophecy. I finished the first draft about a year ago, then watched with horror as the country slowly slid in the direction of my story.

I read "Impossible Dreams" by Tim Pratt on the way to choir rehearsal last night. (Yes, I'm behind on reading Asimov's SF.) What a terrific story! I love the way he keeps you hooked in while he's busy developing the real story. Of course, what keeps you hooked in ultimately ties into the resolution of the real story. This is a story I aspire to.

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First off, it's a little late but I want to wish everyone doing NaNoWriMo good luck. I hope everyone gets what they want out of it. It seems like everyone I know who writes has decided to do it this year. I am not, because I'm not writing a novel. I'm in the midst of 5 different short stories though so I'm still writing every day.

Sometimes, you just need someone to tell you that it's possible. Bouyed by the VP instructors and fellow VPX students, I actually managed to write every day so far despite the fact that work has gone insane. I have no kids, so writing while also putting in 11+ hour work days is not impossible. (I even managed to go climbing once!) "Running and Falling", which I started right before VP, is now in good enough shape that I sent it to Critters to see what they think.

I've been rewriting "Finding Home", my former VP Reunion story, all week. My first draft was around 3900. It's now around 3250 and more stuff happens in it. This is why no one, but me, reads my first drafts. I thought I had hit that point where I've run out of things I know to fix last night. However, this morning, I realized that my main character has a cell phone. This actually fixes a few story problems. Then I will take another crack at "Looking Out for the Resistance", my VP submission.

For my next trick, I'm going to see if I can still write everyday when not only has work gone insane, but Back Bay Chorale, the chorus I sing with, has rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights this week to prepare for our concert this Friday. This is what I get for thinking, "When am I ever going to have another chance to sing the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610?"

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I finally finished the first draft of my Viable Paradise Reunion story. Yes, the VP Reunion was a week ago. The story also drifted off topic into something else entirely. I don't think it's appropriate for the Flamethrowers and Fairy Dust anthology any more. If the VP scholarship fund comes to pass, and I manage to sell this story, I will donate the proceeds to the fund. I wouldn't have written this story if it weren't for Flamethrowers and Fairy Dust. Since all the proceeds from it will go to the fund, so will whatever I make, if anything, on this story.

Keep in mind that this is getting way ahead of things. The story is still in the "crappy first draft" stage. There are a few changes I know I need to make. So I will make those then give it a rest so I can look at it with a fresher eye later and make it not crappy. (Also, given I have zero, count 'em, zero sells to my name. The fund shouldn't hold its breath on this one.)

The next thing is to give the story I was working on right before VP one final looking over. I was going to send it off to critters.org for critique several weeks ago. Then I decided that the last thing I wanted was to get critiques from Critters for this story while Viable Parasites were critiquing "Looking Out for the Resistance". Given that I accidentally sent out an old, uncorrected draft the last time I sent anything to Critters, I'm going to make sure that everything is as right as I can make it before sending anything to Critters this time. (And then send out the correct draft.)

I'm still puzzling over whether or not I want to stick with Critters. It's actually really good practice. By critiquing everyone else's stories, I find that I am getting better at critiquing my own. On the other hand, the critiques I get from Critters, like the stories I see on Critters, are highly variable. A few of them are terrific and then the rest are really not. (See Sturgeon's Law.) One of the pleasures of VP is that everything I read was already in pretty good shape and all of the critiques I received were useful.

I still have to collate all the useful reaction and advice everyone at VP gave me on "Looking Out for the Resistance." I remember what everyone said in general, and I think I know where to go with the story. But I need to get all the specifics and decide what I'm going to do with what everyone suggested. This may turn into a complete rewrite by the time I'm done. Given even those who liked the story had issues with overly ambitious sentences, a rewrite is probably the right thing to do.

At some point during its writing, my Hats of War homework assignment turned into a promising short story. So now I have to rewrite that too. I think I know where I'm going there too. However, this I'm going to let percolate for a while, if nothing else because I'm busy copyediting the story I was working on before VP.

Finally, there is the story that got rejected from the John Scalzi edited special issue of Subterranean, the Big Honkin' SF Cliches anthology. I'm not sure what to do with it. The first 500-1000 words are as good as anything I've written. Then it all goes horribly wrong. I think the beginning is salvagable. I just have to mate it to a new middle and end. I have some ideas. We'll see.

One of the great thing about VP is that I've come out of it thinking that there's some hope for my writing. It's always been a given that I would write and I would submit my stories to paying markets until even Hell wouldn't have them. However, the quality of writing at VP X was really high. So high that since they saw fit to include me as part of the group, I think I may actually make a sale someday. (Of course, this requires me to actually submit stories. I'm working on that...)

VP was one very concentrated writing boot camp. I'm still working through everything I've learned, but I'm already seeing improvements my writing. Also, I'm thrilled that in at most 5-10 years, I will be able to name drop shamelessly. I've already started talking up my fellow VPers work to some of my SF reading co-workers. I can't wait for those novels to be finished and published.

I described VP as a numinous experience on Making Light. I think I will stick to that description. Anyone considering getting serious about writing SF/F should consider VP. It is too much fun for words. You learn so much about writing. And, at least in my case, it's an entry into a very friendly and tight-knit community that I had been afraid to introduce myself to. (It's also an extremely forgiving community, BTW. Cory Doctorow dealt with me complaining about how frustrated I was that no one cares when I try to explain to them that DRM is evil and hard it is to get the message through with much more grace than I could have in his place.)

As for other stuff, I think I've finally found my perfect jacket.

ts52 just bought one and it was all I could do to say "Wow!" for several minutes straight when I saw it. It really is quite an impressive bit of fashion engineering.

It solves all of the problems I run into whenever I go to NYC. I used to be able to carry a backpack around with me whenever I went to NYC. Due to our national reaction to threats of terrorism, that's gotten very difficult. For example, it's hard to go to the theater with a backpack. The theaters cite terrorism concerns but what they're probably really afraid of is bootleggers. Either way, it means I don't have a way of actually carrying stuff.

This is problematic because I invariably have an iPod, a cell phone and something to pass the time while I wait. My trips to NYC tend to involve a lot of waiting, usually for friends or the bus. This is not counting any Playbills I may get, if I go to the theater or if I should actually buy something while I'm in NYC. I usually buy a bottle of water while I'm waiting for the bus home from NYC, then find I have no place to keep it. I've been saying that I needed a jacket with lots of pockets for a while now. Well, here it is. Given that I haven't gotten a new jacket in about a decade, I think I can even justify the cost.

I'm so tempted to buy the optional solar panels while I'm at it. But while I can think of lots of situations where they may be handy, none of those situations typically involve me. (The exception is the "I forgot to recharge my iPod and now I'm stuck waiting for the bus without anything to listen to.") Also, this pushes a merely expensive jacket into an incredibly expensive one. I can get the solar panels separately. (I looked at the rest of the web site. I also like the pants, but I don't live the kind of life where one can spend $100 on a pair of pants.)