At long last, I've posted three of my songs on a new MySpace page.
If you'd like to hear what my would-be band, The Pineapple Brigade, sounds like, check it out at www.myspace.com/thepineapplebrigade!
Just remember, I'm primarily a bassist. Not a guitarist. Not a drummer. And CERTAINLY not a singer! ^^; My singing is painfully bad, but it's the best I can do for now. Hopefully, I can someday get a band together, with real guitarists, and a real singer!
Until then, please don't laugh too hard!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Annie and Her Dirt Bike, Japanese Rockers, a Mousy Latina, and Pineapples
Leave it to me to think that finalizing a 900+ page novel and writing for two web sites and being in a blues band and managing the sales and marketing of Solstice isn’t enough to keep myself busy with. No, apparently, I thought it’d be a bright idea to also take on the task of self-recording a pseudo-album.
But there I was, taking the last week of August and the first of September to record eight original songs and two covers using my Mac’s Garageband program, my good friend Brian’s Fender strat, my Fender bass, and some really shoddy drum work (at least until I decided to let the computer’s drum tracks do it for me) to finalize my so-called album. Oh, and some really, really bad singing on my behalf. But hey, I set it out as a goal for 2008: record the songs I’d written last year, before I forgot them or gave up on them. So there I was, doing just that.
The result was a somewhat rough mix of eclectic tunes, some of them straight-out punk rock, others more indie/alternative, and two odd covers (The Bluehearts’ “Linda Linda,” and an old Spanish song entitled “Ni Tu Ni Nadie”). I consider it a first-draft album, mostly because my guitar work is sloppy, and my vocals, well, they’re just plain bad. But at least I came up with a goofy album and band name for it! The band? The Pineapple Brigade. The album title? Pineapple Diplomacy. It makes sense. Really!
Still, my hope is to some day get a band together, and recording this proto-demo was a first step toward that. While I’m in a blues band now, my long-term goal is to form a punk/pop band to play the kind of upbeat, infectious, melodic music that I just love from bands like Dirt Bike Annie, The Snow Fairies, Deerhoof, Polysics, and GO!GO!7188! And I hope to form a band with people who just want to have fun and go nuts onstage. This isn’t about shooting for fame, fortune, or the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle. Certainly not at my age! ^_^ It’s about having fun, and loving the music, and occasionally putting on a crazy, energetic show at the local clubs. Because I really miss playing rock onstage, losing myself in the music, and just thrashing about like it’s no one’s business.
So sometime next week, I’ll finally be updating and setting up my MySpace page (yes, I actually have one), and uploading a few of my original songs, just for the hell of it. I hope, at some point, I can point prospective musicians toward it so they get a sense of what I like playing, and then move on from there. Because it’s so hard to find people out here in Michigan who even know who Dirt Bike Annie and GO!GO!7188! are, and I figure the best way to show them what I mean by ‘upbeat punk/pop music with a Japanese-rock flavor’ is by playing it! ^_^
Anyway, enough babbling about the Pineapple Diplomacy proto-demo.
Still plugging away with the new rewrite of Inventing Vazquez. I’m almost at the half-way point, so I’m confident that I’ll begin an agent search sometime in October or November. Recording the album really did divert a lot of time away from the book, so I’m clamping down and giving Liliana’s story the focused attention it deserves.
Still, it’s an amazingly fun and rewarding process doing this rewrite. They say that a book is always a work in progress, and working on the rewrite, I have to emphatically agree. It’s amazing how many new ideas pop out at you where you least expect them. Ideas for new jokes, quips, or more effective prose in spots you once thought were perfectly fine. I’ve stumbled into new opportunities during this rewrite, finding new spots where Liliana can demonstrate a bit more spunk and snark than her earlier draft incarnations. Although her story follows a sort of mousy-girl-finds-her-spine narrative, her actual narration was always meant to demonstrate she had a lot more brains than her early exploits suggested. Now, I think that’s finally coming out with some carefully-timed quips, sarcastic commentaries, and real-time reactions to the events unfolding before her. I guess time will tell if Liliana and I can pull it off. But I’m absolutely adoring her character, and I hope future readers will too.
Anyway, I’ll be posting my MySpace info soon, in case you want to hear some really rough punk/pop music, and some atrocious singing.
Now, I’m off to build an aircraft carrier or something.
But there I was, taking the last week of August and the first of September to record eight original songs and two covers using my Mac’s Garageband program, my good friend Brian’s Fender strat, my Fender bass, and some really shoddy drum work (at least until I decided to let the computer’s drum tracks do it for me) to finalize my so-called album. Oh, and some really, really bad singing on my behalf. But hey, I set it out as a goal for 2008: record the songs I’d written last year, before I forgot them or gave up on them. So there I was, doing just that.
The result was a somewhat rough mix of eclectic tunes, some of them straight-out punk rock, others more indie/alternative, and two odd covers (The Bluehearts’ “Linda Linda,” and an old Spanish song entitled “Ni Tu Ni Nadie”). I consider it a first-draft album, mostly because my guitar work is sloppy, and my vocals, well, they’re just plain bad. But at least I came up with a goofy album and band name for it! The band? The Pineapple Brigade. The album title? Pineapple Diplomacy. It makes sense. Really!
Still, my hope is to some day get a band together, and recording this proto-demo was a first step toward that. While I’m in a blues band now, my long-term goal is to form a punk/pop band to play the kind of upbeat, infectious, melodic music that I just love from bands like Dirt Bike Annie, The Snow Fairies, Deerhoof, Polysics, and GO!GO!7188! And I hope to form a band with people who just want to have fun and go nuts onstage. This isn’t about shooting for fame, fortune, or the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle. Certainly not at my age! ^_^ It’s about having fun, and loving the music, and occasionally putting on a crazy, energetic show at the local clubs. Because I really miss playing rock onstage, losing myself in the music, and just thrashing about like it’s no one’s business.
So sometime next week, I’ll finally be updating and setting up my MySpace page (yes, I actually have one), and uploading a few of my original songs, just for the hell of it. I hope, at some point, I can point prospective musicians toward it so they get a sense of what I like playing, and then move on from there. Because it’s so hard to find people out here in Michigan who even know who Dirt Bike Annie and GO!GO!7188! are, and I figure the best way to show them what I mean by ‘upbeat punk/pop music with a Japanese-rock flavor’ is by playing it! ^_^
Anyway, enough babbling about the Pineapple Diplomacy proto-demo.
Still plugging away with the new rewrite of Inventing Vazquez. I’m almost at the half-way point, so I’m confident that I’ll begin an agent search sometime in October or November. Recording the album really did divert a lot of time away from the book, so I’m clamping down and giving Liliana’s story the focused attention it deserves.
Still, it’s an amazingly fun and rewarding process doing this rewrite. They say that a book is always a work in progress, and working on the rewrite, I have to emphatically agree. It’s amazing how many new ideas pop out at you where you least expect them. Ideas for new jokes, quips, or more effective prose in spots you once thought were perfectly fine. I’ve stumbled into new opportunities during this rewrite, finding new spots where Liliana can demonstrate a bit more spunk and snark than her earlier draft incarnations. Although her story follows a sort of mousy-girl-finds-her-spine narrative, her actual narration was always meant to demonstrate she had a lot more brains than her early exploits suggested. Now, I think that’s finally coming out with some carefully-timed quips, sarcastic commentaries, and real-time reactions to the events unfolding before her. I guess time will tell if Liliana and I can pull it off. But I’m absolutely adoring her character, and I hope future readers will too.
Anyway, I’ll be posting my MySpace info soon, in case you want to hear some really rough punk/pop music, and some atrocious singing.
Now, I’m off to build an aircraft carrier or something.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
It's official! Solstice is obscure!
Who would have thought? Solstice was voted the Top Obscure Feminist SF Novel at Feminist SF – The Blog!
I wanted to take this chance to thank everyone who voted for my novel. Thank you so much! The surprising success Solstice has managed would never have been possible without the help and support of you, my friends, family, and readers. And a special thanks to the folks over at Feminist SF for holding this vote.
So what’s next? Well, hopefully this will give Solstice some much-needed exposure, now that things have been kind of quiet for it for a while. Regardless, I think making it to this Top 10 list will only help down the road, especially when contacting an agent regarding Inventing Vazquez.
Speaking of which, I’m about 20 percent through the next re-write, and pleased with the progress and results. I’m focusing now on making the writing as tight and descriptive as possible, and am confident I’ll have an agent-ready draft within a couple of months. That’s the hope, anyway.
Unfortunately, I seem to have a real knack for distracting myself with other fun stuff. Aside from now writing for Urban Molecule, I’ve officially joined another band. Well, it’s the same line-up I was in with last year at the blues competition, but this time we’re under a new name and a new direction. And, if that weren’t enough, I’ve finally figured out the wonders of recording music on Garageband on my Mac, and have started recording my own songs. It’s amazing what you can do with a little laptop and a $90 pre-amp… I’m really excited about this, because one of my goals for 2008 was to record my own ‘album’, and I think now I have the motivation and gear to do so. Plus, I relish the challenge of self-recording an album and playing all the instruments myself. Since I’m nowhere near as good a guitarist or drummer as I am a bassist, I’m sure it’ll sound like crap, but I’m not too worried. It’s not like I’m going to make a career out of it ^_^;
Anyway, thank you all again for helping to give Solstice this humble recognition.
I wanted to take this chance to thank everyone who voted for my novel. Thank you so much! The surprising success Solstice has managed would never have been possible without the help and support of you, my friends, family, and readers. And a special thanks to the folks over at Feminist SF for holding this vote.
So what’s next? Well, hopefully this will give Solstice some much-needed exposure, now that things have been kind of quiet for it for a while. Regardless, I think making it to this Top 10 list will only help down the road, especially when contacting an agent regarding Inventing Vazquez.
Speaking of which, I’m about 20 percent through the next re-write, and pleased with the progress and results. I’m focusing now on making the writing as tight and descriptive as possible, and am confident I’ll have an agent-ready draft within a couple of months. That’s the hope, anyway.
Unfortunately, I seem to have a real knack for distracting myself with other fun stuff. Aside from now writing for Urban Molecule, I’ve officially joined another band. Well, it’s the same line-up I was in with last year at the blues competition, but this time we’re under a new name and a new direction. And, if that weren’t enough, I’ve finally figured out the wonders of recording music on Garageband on my Mac, and have started recording my own songs. It’s amazing what you can do with a little laptop and a $90 pre-amp… I’m really excited about this, because one of my goals for 2008 was to record my own ‘album’, and I think now I have the motivation and gear to do so. Plus, I relish the challenge of self-recording an album and playing all the instruments myself. Since I’m nowhere near as good a guitarist or drummer as I am a bassist, I’m sure it’ll sound like crap, but I’m not too worried. It’s not like I’m going to make a career out of it ^_^;
Anyway, thank you all again for helping to give Solstice this humble recognition.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Something new
I mentioned a while back that I would start writing for a new e-zine, Urban Molecule. In case you haven’t checked out the site, you should. It’s a very hip, very edgy publication that aims to give voice to invisible artists and give exposure to art, literature, and issues we normally won’t hear about in mainstream media. The core writers are an intelligent, observant, and culturally savvy group, and all of them come from different walks of life and perspectives to bring a real diversity of thought to the publication. The editor-in-chief, Christopher De La Torre, is an astounding individual who brings his artistic and scientific backgrounds to bear, and who is working tirelessly to nurture his young but wonderful e-zine.
Which leaves me at a loss as to why I was asked to write for it ^_^; Regardless, I consider it a real honor to be able to take part in this endeavor.
Christopher asked me to write a monthly column, Verbatim, and my first piece was published in two parts yesterday and today. It’s not as hip or trendy as the rest of the zine, but it’s snarky and sarcastic and maybe just a bit volatile. I hope you’ll stop by and check them and the web site out.
Which leaves me at a loss as to why I was asked to write for it ^_^; Regardless, I consider it a real honor to be able to take part in this endeavor.
Christopher asked me to write a monthly column, Verbatim, and my first piece was published in two parts yesterday and today. It’s not as hip or trendy as the rest of the zine, but it’s snarky and sarcastic and maybe just a bit volatile. I hope you’ll stop by and check them and the web site out.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Solstice is a Finalist! But we need your help!
The last round of voting is underway over at Feminist SF – The Blog! And Solstice is among the final list of 24 books, from 104 nominated titles. Thanks to everyone to who voted!
But, to get Solstice to the final Top 10 Obscure SF Feminist Novels, we’ll need your help one more time! If you can head over to Feminist SF and vote one more time for Solstice, we might do it! The books are listed in no order, but Solstice is there on the poll. I hope you’ll help out one more time!
Thank you for your votes!
But, to get Solstice to the final Top 10 Obscure SF Feminist Novels, we’ll need your help one more time! If you can head over to Feminist SF and vote one more time for Solstice, we might do it! The books are listed in no order, but Solstice is there on the poll. I hope you’ll help out one more time!
Thank you for your votes!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Pushing yourself
As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, I was starting the next set of revisions for Inventing Vazquez. And I was moving right along, until I got some feedback from my friend, Lisa Alvarado. We had a chance to discuss the first four chapters, and her critique really opened my eyes to something I might have lost sight of along the way: sometimes you really have to push yourself to get better at what you do.
After our chat, I went back, and started noticing all these little things she’d pointed out, and realized, holy crap, this draft really needs work! And so, I restarted my edits from scratch. And I do mean scratch.
One of the things I did was ‘sit down’ with my protagonist, Liliana, and had a nice chat about her past. It’s strange that, after two drafts and 900 pages (1800 if you count the drafts separately), I hadn’t given much thought as to why Liliana is so afraid to talk. I’d attributed her problems to self-consciousness about her mousy voice. And my girlfriend, bless her heart, had been clamoring (in her own unique way) for weeks about how Liliana needed more of a reason for her fear of talking. So Liliana and I performed a bit of historical psychoanalysis. And it turns out, she didn’t have as pleasant a childhood as I initially thought.
I took a couple of days to just map out her life’s trajectory, imagining a personal history for her that involved a three-year trauma named middle school. By the end of it, I was content that Liliana not only had the necessary vulnerabilities to round out her narrative, but that she had a new complexity of character that would benefit other characters as well (especially her obnoxious big sister).
Aside from Liliana’s character, Lisa also encouraged me to improve my descriptive writing, which relied too heavily on adjectives and adverbs. “Paint a picture for the reader,” she advised me. She’s pushing me to push myself, to work harder to make a more vivid, colorful narrative to engage and immerse the reader. And I think that's the best thing about someone taking the time to critique your work: a critique isn't about inflating egos or crushing them. It's about reminding you that there's always room for improvement, and that if you really value what you do, you'll work harder to improve what you do.
I have no doubt that Inventing Vazquez is going to be an infinitely better novel thanks to the input Lisa and my girlfriend have given. Because it’s one thing to have great ideas and transcribe them on paper (or a word processor document). But it’s another thing to have caring people make you realize that you can demand more of yourself, that you can work a little harder and improve the quality of your writing to make sure you’re writing the best book you can.
Moving forward, I’m about 10 percent into the new rewrite, and confident that the next draft will be very strong. And I’m jumping with excitement about starting the sequel, Electing Choi. I haven’t done too much work on that (aside from writing a brief intro), but I know it’ll be a project that will allow me to expand upon the Inventing Vazquez storyline while taking on another issue I think is important.
I’m not sure when I’ll start looking for an agent in earnest, but I guess I should start compiling a list.
Keeping busy on multiple fronts, as usual ^_^ While I’m still trying to be a film reviewer for Quiet Earth, it looks like I’ll also be a columnist for Urban Molecule. My first column should be up soon, and I’m already working on the next one. Having recently decided that my humorous, quasi-facetious, snarky writing is the style I’m most comfortable with, I’m running with it and having lots of fun in the process. Besides, laughter is good. And the world’s a depressing enough place without me writing about ending it, huh? ^^;
And, because I really don’t have enough to do, I’ve also joined a new band with some old friends. I’ll be playing bass again for a blues band here in Detroit, so there goes any prospect of sleeping anytime soon ^___^;
After our chat, I went back, and started noticing all these little things she’d pointed out, and realized, holy crap, this draft really needs work! And so, I restarted my edits from scratch. And I do mean scratch.
One of the things I did was ‘sit down’ with my protagonist, Liliana, and had a nice chat about her past. It’s strange that, after two drafts and 900 pages (1800 if you count the drafts separately), I hadn’t given much thought as to why Liliana is so afraid to talk. I’d attributed her problems to self-consciousness about her mousy voice. And my girlfriend, bless her heart, had been clamoring (in her own unique way) for weeks about how Liliana needed more of a reason for her fear of talking. So Liliana and I performed a bit of historical psychoanalysis. And it turns out, she didn’t have as pleasant a childhood as I initially thought.
I took a couple of days to just map out her life’s trajectory, imagining a personal history for her that involved a three-year trauma named middle school. By the end of it, I was content that Liliana not only had the necessary vulnerabilities to round out her narrative, but that she had a new complexity of character that would benefit other characters as well (especially her obnoxious big sister).
Aside from Liliana’s character, Lisa also encouraged me to improve my descriptive writing, which relied too heavily on adjectives and adverbs. “Paint a picture for the reader,” she advised me. She’s pushing me to push myself, to work harder to make a more vivid, colorful narrative to engage and immerse the reader. And I think that's the best thing about someone taking the time to critique your work: a critique isn't about inflating egos or crushing them. It's about reminding you that there's always room for improvement, and that if you really value what you do, you'll work harder to improve what you do.
I have no doubt that Inventing Vazquez is going to be an infinitely better novel thanks to the input Lisa and my girlfriend have given. Because it’s one thing to have great ideas and transcribe them on paper (or a word processor document). But it’s another thing to have caring people make you realize that you can demand more of yourself, that you can work a little harder and improve the quality of your writing to make sure you’re writing the best book you can.
Moving forward, I’m about 10 percent into the new rewrite, and confident that the next draft will be very strong. And I’m jumping with excitement about starting the sequel, Electing Choi. I haven’t done too much work on that (aside from writing a brief intro), but I know it’ll be a project that will allow me to expand upon the Inventing Vazquez storyline while taking on another issue I think is important.
I’m not sure when I’ll start looking for an agent in earnest, but I guess I should start compiling a list.
Keeping busy on multiple fronts, as usual ^_^ While I’m still trying to be a film reviewer for Quiet Earth, it looks like I’ll also be a columnist for Urban Molecule. My first column should be up soon, and I’m already working on the next one. Having recently decided that my humorous, quasi-facetious, snarky writing is the style I’m most comfortable with, I’m running with it and having lots of fun in the process. Besides, laughter is good. And the world’s a depressing enough place without me writing about ending it, huh? ^^;
And, because I really don’t have enough to do, I’ve also joined a new band with some old friends. I’ll be playing bass again for a blues band here in Detroit, so there goes any prospect of sleeping anytime soon ^___^;
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Vote for Solstice ^_^
Here’s your chance to help my little novel get on a Top 10 list! It turns out Solstice was nominated for Feminist SF’s list of Top 10 Obscure SF Feminist Novels! A poll is now open. And, because I’m encouraged to be a shameless self-promoter by all the publishing books, I’d like to ask you to go over to the Feminist SF blog and vote for Solstice!
You can check out the main contest info page here.
Why is Solstice considered a feminist SF novel? Because the lead character is Io, a Japanese-Mexican woman with a penchant for kicking butt ^_^ And her partner is Yuniko, a Japanese woman who passes her time hacking disreputable companies into the ground. And their boss is Anika, an African-American matriarch who’s as commanding as she is secretive. And the person Io after is a Lao woman named Jai Lin. So yeah, I guess you can say Solstice has its fair share of strong female characters. So much so, someone once asked me if I ever planned on writing anything featuring actual males. ^_^;
Anyway, I hope you’ll vote! I’d be much obliged!
On other fronts, today I’m officially starting the next edit/rewrite of Inventing Vazquez, but what’s got me more excited is this. I’ve decided to just go ahead and start work on its sequel, tentatively titled Electing Choi. Not only do I have a bunch of plot and subplot ideas for the sequel, but yesterday my girlfriend and I hit upon a character twist that will affect both novels. I don’t want to say what it is, but it’s a radical character change that will very positively impact one of the main characters in Inventing Vazquez. And it will create the sort of thematic subplot necessary to drive the main plot of Electing Choi. So yeah, I’m excited about it ^_^
And it that weren’t enough, I’m already contemplating a third book in the series @_@ Strange, I always thought Solstice and the Scribe vs. Editor thing would be my main franchise. Yet here I am, already thinking of a trilogy for Inventing Vazquez…
Anyway, have a great holiday weekend, everyone! Happy Fourth of July! And please remember to vote, if you think Solstice is worthy of consideration as a Top 10 Obscure Feminist SF Novel ^^;
You can check out the main contest info page here.
Why is Solstice considered a feminist SF novel? Because the lead character is Io, a Japanese-Mexican woman with a penchant for kicking butt ^_^ And her partner is Yuniko, a Japanese woman who passes her time hacking disreputable companies into the ground. And their boss is Anika, an African-American matriarch who’s as commanding as she is secretive. And the person Io after is a Lao woman named Jai Lin. So yeah, I guess you can say Solstice has its fair share of strong female characters. So much so, someone once asked me if I ever planned on writing anything featuring actual males. ^_^;
Anyway, I hope you’ll vote! I’d be much obliged!
On other fronts, today I’m officially starting the next edit/rewrite of Inventing Vazquez, but what’s got me more excited is this. I’ve decided to just go ahead and start work on its sequel, tentatively titled Electing Choi. Not only do I have a bunch of plot and subplot ideas for the sequel, but yesterday my girlfriend and I hit upon a character twist that will affect both novels. I don’t want to say what it is, but it’s a radical character change that will very positively impact one of the main characters in Inventing Vazquez. And it will create the sort of thematic subplot necessary to drive the main plot of Electing Choi. So yeah, I’m excited about it ^_^
And it that weren’t enough, I’m already contemplating a third book in the series @_@ Strange, I always thought Solstice and the Scribe vs. Editor thing would be my main franchise. Yet here I am, already thinking of a trilogy for Inventing Vazquez…
Anyway, have a great holiday weekend, everyone! Happy Fourth of July! And please remember to vote, if you think Solstice is worthy of consideration as a Top 10 Obscure Feminist SF Novel ^^;
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