writingdad

On Sunday, after a fun-filled afternoon of go-karting, mini golf, and pizza, we decided to take the kids to see Transformers 2.  They made us sit in about the fifth row so I had to lean back in my seat a bit to see the whole screen.  I must be getting old.

The offspring loved the movie.  Two and a half hours of (mostly) giant robots beating the energon out of each other; what’s not to love?  Well, I’m sure most adults could find something.  Personally, I’ve found it best to go into a movie with few expectations, none if you can manage it.  My expectations were to watch giant robots and explosions.  On that level, it was fun to watch.  In fact, I think my Twitter Review read “No expectations = fun movie”.

The movie certainly had huge problems in story and writing.  Driving home, my wife commented that even the first one had a better story.  I have to admit that’s true.  This one suffered from a lot of “hurry up and get to the explosions” so we didn’t get an awful lot of character or writing, or even acting for that matter.  But that’s not why we were there.  Explosions and giant robots, remember?  Anyone who was there for a good movie probably walked away hugely disappointed.  Anyone who was there for a fun movie had to be satisfied to some degree.

Because when it comes to movies, good and fun are not necessarily the same thing.  They’re not mutually exclusive, either, but I could probably argue that they’re rarely the same thing and do it with examples not leaving the speculative genres.  But I won’t right now.  I will say that the movie industry produces a lot of fun genre movies, but not very many good ones.  For every ten or so Transformers, Star Trek, or I, Robot, you’re lucky to get one 2001, Wall-E, or Appleseed (all of which have action, but none of which are about action).  Unfortunately, you’ll probably also get at least seven or eight Land of the Lost, Star Wars: The Phantom Plot, and X-Phlegm during the same period.

If I’ve just slammed one of your favourite movies, I’m sorry, but all opinions expressed here are my own.

It’s tough to find a movie that falls into both categories.  I have hopes for a couple that I’ve yet to see, but they’re rare.  To come up with something I’ve actually watched, I think I have to go all the way back to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and that was in 2004.  Hollywood is convinced that we all want to see as many explosions as possible in a movie length period of time.  That can be fun, but I prefer when there’s some kind of story to stitch the explosions together.

The real problem is that Hollywood has most of us half way convinced that’s what we prefer.  Sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s not.  As usual, the only way to let them know is by how we spend our money.  So here’s what I think: after you watch your next fun movie, make an effort to rent, buy, or go see a good movie.  Teach Hollywood, and the rest of the film making world, that you don’t just want to be entertained, you want to be entertained.  It’s not just about cool space ships, giant robots, and pretty explosions (or wizards, dragons, and cool CGI magic).  We’ve got brains and using them is nice, too.

But it’s tough to figure out a good movie ahead of time.  I think the place to start is to look for something that’s more about ideas, characters, and story than action.  They’re harder to find, but you’re far less likely to walk out of the theatre and say, “Boy did that suck.”

I’m going to go rent The Fountain and if Moon plays within an hour’s drive, I’ll go see it.  But I’m still taking Paleoboy to G.I. Joe.

Not long after I posted the May writing report, I had a shift of mental gears.  I’ve got a lot of stories hanging around in a completed first or second draft waiting for some additional editing or revisions to move towards submission possibility.  A lot as in 26 with 8 more that I’d like to do some minor work on and start looking for homes.  Once upon a time, the struggle was to finish stories (and I’ve still got 11 shorts I want to consider works in progress, including the one I’m actually working on at the moment.  I’ve more or less overcome that, but I’m often too eager to get into the next story to polish the one I’ve just written.

So June became an editing and submission month.  Of the 12,000 words of new fiction I wrote in June, 9,000 of them were written by the 11^th.  I haven’t spent any less time writing, but I’ve done a lot more editing than usual and plan to continue that for July.

My lung infection is gone and I feel more or less human again, something that took a lot longer than I would have liked.  I’ve never been so sick for so long.  Haven’t got my full lung capacity back yet, but I’m going to have to work for that a bit, I think.  Still, my energy levels are approaching normal which only helps my writing.

Now, since I’m so fond of numbers:

Words of New Fiction:  13185.  This is the lowest full month total since I started keeping track, but I’m not at all unhappy about it.  Like I said, lots and lots of editing.

First Draft Stories Completed:  0.  I did do some new writing this month and had expected to finish one story, but it ballooned from what I thought was going to be a 5 or 6k word story into a 10,000 word novelette I expect to finish in the next couple of days.  I’m not unhappy about that, either.  It’s been a fun story to write.

Submissions Out:  7.  This is the best month since March.  I did miss an anthology deadline because it closed early and I wasn’t paying attention, but I really like the story and hope I can find it a good home.

Rejections Received:  2, both very positive.  One basically read, We quite liked and so would our readers but it doesn’t fit with the rest of what we’re publishing at the moment.  The other is apparently a good, well-written story but not horrific enough for the anthology I submitted it to.

Stories Sold:  0.  This doesn’t hurt my feelings much.  With the two rejections still counted in, I began the month with only seven stories looking for homes.  I've doubled now and I’ve got some pretty good stuff in editors’ in boxes if I say so myself.

Stories gone to print:  0, but one of them will very shortly.  I’ll be very loud about it hopefully before it hits.  The other two won’t be until fall, I think, and I’ll be sure to announce those as much as possible, too.

I’m continuing correction notes on Heroes Inc, but my focus is primarily on short fiction at the moment so progress is slow.  It’s a novel so I don’t expect to finish it all that quickly.  I already have some very specific ideas for revisions here.

I spent a few days in the middle of the month running through a second draft on my Star Trek fan audio drama.  Probably do the same thing in July to get a third draft done and then I’ll be looking outsource the files to a couple of script consultants.  Any TOS Trekkies out there who might be interested in looking it over?

So, June was a great writing month for me and I feel a lot better about how things wound up than I did at the end of May.  Different plans and expectations.  Hopefully July will go as well.

On January 1^st, I began this new blog with a list of ten goals for 2009.  Today is the middle day of the year, so I thought it might be interesting to see where I stand on each of them at the half way mark.

1. Be a better husband and father.  I can’t be the judge on this one.  Only my family can.  But I like to think I’m getting better all the time, and I hope that’s true.  (Suddenly humming a Beatles song.)
2. Write one novel-length story that doesn’t suck.  Abandoned one after 31,000 words.  I’m currently 37,400 words into a new one and while progress is slow at the moment, there is progress and I’m still enjoying the story.  Does it suck?  Can’t decide that yet, but another one is poking me in the back of the brain so hard I’ve had to start plotting.
3. Transcribe the drawer of handwritten notes.  The drawer is less still ¾ full and I’ve just found a handful of file folders stuffed with stuff from my mid-20s.  Have to see if any of that is salvageable, too.  Probably not, but it should make for interesting if painful reading.  This goal doesn’t look good for 100% success.
4. Fifty-two blog entries.  This makes thirty-two so I’m projecting a win on this one.
5. Twenty-four story submissions.  Twenty-eight so far this year and that’s with zero in May.  Checking this one off.
6. Attend my first Convention, probably with at least one of the offspring in tow.  Still possible, if far less likely than it was.  My schedule has gotten a lot weirder since I took the promotion at the end of May even if I didn’t technically start the new job until yesterday due to paperwork and red tape, so the Con I’d hoped to attend in July may not be possible.
7. An online Speculative Fiction magazine or a podcast or both.  I think I’ve settled on the podcast.  I have two that I really want to do but don’t think I can manage the time for both.  One is going to be hard enough, so I have to work things out before taking the next step.  Beyond that still lies a lot of research and work before episode one.
8. Run the Ottawa Marathon in May, and perhaps another in the fall.  Well, the Ottawa Marathon is safely in the past.  Thanks to a couple of minor injuries early in the year and some laziness later, it never happened for me.  A fall marathon is also pretty unlikely.  The May/June flu and lung infection blew my training right out of the water, probably setting me back even further than I think it has.  Taking a miss on this one.
9. Sprint distance triathlon/duathlon in August.  Still possible, if barely, and it would be a lot slower than it might have been.  I have to consider this one carefully.   I’ve done very little running again as yet and no cycling whatsoever since kicking the lung infection.  October might be better if I can find something within a reasonable distance.
10. Shed some weight.  I’d like to be 180 pounds or even less.  Currently tipping the scales at 192, a solid ten pounds lighter than before I got sick and, so far at least, it’s staying off.  Twelve pounds in six months?  Well, maybe.

So, progress?  Absolutely.  I’m not going to hit all ten, but I think things are going pretty well.  I’ll try to do an end of the year update to tell everyone how it all fell out, but I don’t promise it will be on New Year’s Eve since I foresee an excellent chance that I’ll be working.

Older than some, younger than others, my country has its birthday on July 1^st.  It’s an odd country in some ways and certainly has its share of issues and problems, but is probably the best place in the world to live.  Yes, I know.  A lot of people feel that way about their own country, and that’s great.  But a lot of people aren’t writing my blog.  I can happily wish friends south of the border a happy 4^th of July knowing that most of them love their country above all others.  But Canada is my country, and I’d like to know how it became a Canadian trait to be quiet about our own nationalism.  No one else is, so far as I can tell, so why should we be?

Oh, and don’t believe what they say.  Canada has a long and interesting history filled with political unrest, periodic rebellions, the odd assassination attempt, and plenty of other interesting and exciting things.

Happy 142^nd Birthday, Canada!

Farrah Fawcett died this morning about 930 Pacific time, or just about when I was struggling out of bed after not enough sleep Eastern time.  I found out on Twitter with the mainstream media taking long minutes to catch up.  I’ll leave a comment on that for another time, maybe.

Flaky, funny, and definitely blonde, she’s done a lot of stuff in her career, but I was a kid when Charlie’s Angels ran in the 70s, so that’s how I’ll always remember her.  Not that I was a big fan, but it was part of my childhood.

But if I was just a kid and not really a fan of the show, why do I need to remember Farrah?  People die every day and some of them are a lot more famous or have much bigger social or societal impacts.  Why Farrah?  Why not Ed McMahon, Roméo LeBlanc, or David Eddings, who have all died this month?

What a second?  David Eddings is dead?  Yes, on June 2^nd and I wish I’d found that out more recently than yesterday.   For the non-geeks and non-fantasy readers out there, David and Leigh Eddings are a husband and wife writing team publishing best selling and popular high and epic fantasy going back to the early 80s.  I have a large number of Eddings’ titles in my personal library and some of them have been read quite a few times.  I don’t think his later work was nearly as good as what he published in the 80s and early 90s, but it’s sad to know he won’t be producing any more.  He’ll be missed.

Ed McMahon, well, people in my age group are more likely to remember him as the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes guy rather than Johnny Carson’s side kick on the Tonight Show.  As far as my personal experience goes, Jay Leno was the Tonight Show host, now taken over by someone far less funny.

And who was Roméo LeBlanc?  Unless you’re a Canadian politics junkie, you’ll have no idea he was the Governor General in the late 1990s.  Why would you?

And then this afternoon, Michael Jackson.  Wacko Jacko some style him, but I was the right age for Thriller to be a big thing.  Subsequent lifestyle oddities and scandals don’t change the music.  I watched the full Thriller “movie” this afternoon on You Tube.  Still love the dancing zombies.

The point is that different people’s deaths will affect you in different ways, particularly famous people.  Do I have any particular fond memories of Farrah Fawcett?  Not really.  I sort of remember Charlie’s Angels and seeing her in a few movies, but that’s about it.  Will I miss her?  Not exactly, but there are people who will, people close to her and her fans.  Michael Jackson gave me music in my youth, some of which I still enjoy.  Will I miss him?  Again, not exactly, but a lot of people will.  He’s got an awful lot of fans.

Anyone’s death is a loss to someone, and that’s the important thing to remember.

Being sick sucks.

Right now I’m at the tail end of the worst illness of my life so far (unless you count a burst appendix when I was eighteen which could have killed me but didn’t).  During some recent training for my new position at work I started to show some symptoms that I initially attributed to sleep deprivation but eventually turned into something flu-like.  If it had stopped there, I’d have been much happier, but some exciting bacteria set up shop in my lungs and came close to driving me to my knees.  A week after training, after spending my weekend lying in bed or on the couch, I took a sick day to spend the same way.  It helped some.  I went to work the next day feeling a little better, but that was as good as it got.  The description I used on Facebook and Twitter was something to the effect of “I feel like an 80 year old smoker with emphysema in his one remaining lung, only with less energy.”  Funny, if it hadn’t been true.

After a week feeling like that, I went to the doctor to be diagnosed with a lung infection.  She didn’t actually use the word pneumonia, but it probably applies.  Here’s some strong-ish antibiotics.  Take them.  Get better.

Good news when I’d been thinking I’d never felt so bad for so long before.  I would be allowed to get better.

I’m still getting better.  My lungs feel close to normal even if there’s still an occasional cough and I’m still a bit stuffy.  A week ago, I tweeted that it was amazing how good 25% lung power felt after being at 5-10% for so long.  Today I feel like I’m something near normal breathing capacity and think I might be brave enough to attempt a light jog on the treadmill after the kids are in bed tonight.  Just not a very long one.  But a marathon this year is beyond dreaming now.  Next year.

It’s occurred to me that I live at a good time to catch this kind of infection.  A hundred years ago, it probably would have killed me and if it hadn’t, would certainly have shortened my life in a dramatic way by permanently scarring and weakening my lungs.  Living now, a five-day course of small orange pills and I get my life back.  Modern society has a lot of problems and issues, but I’m still glad to be here.

My writing productivity went to hell and June probably won’t be that much better than May in terms of overall production, in spite of my last post, but I’ve made some great progress on a couple of things since I started to get better and expect to have a half dozen submissions out in the next week.  I’ve missed 100 Word Stories for the last several weeks and won’t be submitting tonight either.  My voice isn’t there yet.  Next week, I hope.

More importantly, I can play with my kids again instead of just watching.  There were days I didn’t have the energy to even manage a video game after work, never mind basketball or a bike ride.

The one positive: I lost ten pounds.  Not exactly my first choice for methods of weight reduction, but any time you can take a positive spin from something that sucks you should grab it with both hands.  The real funny thing is, from the size of my remaining stomach, my supposed “ideal weight” doesn’t look as unreasonable as it used to.  Something to think about.

Stay tuned for details on my first story to hit print.  I haven’t got an exact date, but e-mail discussions lead me to believe it will be soon.

Be healthy.

In many ways, I could christen May 2009 as the month of Writing Fail. Yes, some of it was beyond my control, but not all of it. About the middle of the month, the hard drive in my (still new) laptop cooked itself. Fully under warranty, but inconvenient as I lost the use of it for two weeks. Backup, you ask? Of course I had a backup. I backup everything every week. Unfortunately, the error occurred on day 6. My best guess is that I lost about 4,000 words (plus a few hours editing). They offered to retrieve the data for a mere $60. I considered it long enough to do the math. No one would pay me 15 cents per word for what I’d lost, so it would be more fun to recreate.

Just before I got the laptop back, I had four really long days of training for a new position at work. Get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. Average word count for those days? Less than 100, even if you count the sonnet.

And then I got sick. Whatever this virus or bacteria is that’s sucking my energy and breath away for the past week and a half can go away now. I’ve had more than enough.

Now the numbers.

Words of New Fiction: 20,937. While this is actually a pretty good number and solidly hits the 20k per month challenge I set for myself in late 2007, it’s a little on the lean side.

First Draft Stories Completed: 2, which should have been 4, and technically I did finish one story twice so I could almost count this as three.

Submissions Out: 0. The saddest number of the lot. No excuse.

Rejections Received: 3 – 1 good (Reads well, but not horrific enough for this anthology), 1 neutral (We liked it, but felt it was a touch too long and a bit repetitious), and 1 because I stretched the definition of “near future” a little too far.

Stories Sold: 0, which, considering how few I have in someone’s in box at the moment, isn’t really a surprise.
I have started correction notes on Heroes Inc, but only made it through the second scene (of 53), so that’s not really all that impressive, either.

If I’m completely honest with myself, the totals are actually pretty good, they’re just far short of what I originally expected for May in pretty much every way possible. June will be better, although it’s not going to be a 30k month as I do have quite a bit of editing planned. But June will be better for Word Count, 1^st drafts, and submissions out for sure.

Sit back and relax, this is kind of a long one.

Let me start of by saying this: I liked the new Star Trek movie.  If I had to put a number on it, I’d say a solid 7 out of 10.  I know there are a lot of people out there upset with the whole “reboot” concept and messing with “canon” (like continuity has ever been a strong suit for StarTrek), but it’s traditional for me to see Star Trek movies in the theatre and it’s been six years, after all.  Even if it was really, really bad it couldn’t possibly be as bad as “Final Frontier” or “Generations”, could it?

No, it couldn’t.  Star Trek was a fun ride through an almost familiar universe.  The CGI crew managed stuff that previous generations only dreamed of and the score added to the experience.  I thought the opening sequence alone was worth the price of admission.

But Star Trek is mostly about the characters and the characters were pretty good in this one.  Whoever did the casting did a really good job, hiring mostly unknown but fantastic actors.  I did find Scotty a bit over the top (and what’s with the sidekick?), but one of his primary functions was always comic relief so that was easy to overlook.  Chekov was a little too young and Sulu a bit underutilized, but they were both good in the roles.  Uhura, Spock, McCoy, Kirk all impressed the hell out of me.

So why did I feel the need to make sure you knew I liked the movie?  Well, the acting saved this from being the biggest, steamiest pile of SF-like crap ever created.  Yes, you may guess I’m not all that impressed, but what I’m unimpressed by is the writers behind the screenplay.  At the worst, none of the Star Trek series ever managed such painful, lazy writing as you find in this movie.  Pretty much every criticism I might make is leveled at the writing team.

Because Star Trek isn’t just about the characters.  Story is important too.  And this one was so full of holes and stupidity that it’s hard for me to narrow things down to even a handful of problems.  I think things started to fall apart for me 45 or 50 minutes in.  Up until then, the writing was tight, the story seemed to be unfolding well, and things were fun.  Actually, I think the first thing that threw me out of the story was even a little before that.  Here’s my top ten list of problems with the writing, and that first thing is number 10.  No, one of them isn’t “another bloody time travel story”.  Yes, it’s been done to death, but is anyone really surprised?

10 – Comedy is nice, but one would think that the 23^rd century voice recognition software would deal fine with Chekov’s accent since, um, I don’t know, recognizing his voice would be based on his voice, not some idealized conception of it.  Just seems to make sense to me.

9 – A single supernova that threatens to destroy the entire galaxy but due to the sudden and brilliant intervention of the original Spock, only destroys Romulus.  I have to wonder if the writers can even spell astronomy, much less astrophysicist, and I’m certain they didn’t talk to one of those.

8 – Black holes are not time travel devices.  They destroy things by eating them and crushing them down into space so small that physics as we know it breaks down.  Once you go in, you don’t come out.  See number 9, re: astrophysics.

7 – It’s a mining ship.  What’s with the torpedoes?  Really, even if it is a mining ship from the twenty-fourth century Romulan Empire, why does it need torpedoes that can rip through even primitive shielding like tissue?  And no, I won’t by the “to blow up asteroids for processing” argument that someone’s probably got prepared.  Doesn’t work – the pieces go everywhere.  And the ship is huge.  Probably it could swallow a medium-sized asteroid without a burp.

6 – Why should the untimely death of Kirk’s father affect anyone else?  The rest of the original seven should have proceeded in their lives as normal until Kirk came around.  Not that I didn’t enjoy the relationship between Uhura and Spock – that was actually creative and entertaining.  Ah right, I remember, continuity doesn’t matter, so it’s okay for Kirk and Uhura to be more or less the same age, Scotty to be posted to the ass end of the universe, and McCoy having to go through all the same academy training as everyone else even though he’s a doctor.  Wait, am I inferring too much here?  I don’t want to be unfair when I’m calling the writers lazy morons.

5 – How could Spock, the original Spock, see the collapse of Vulcan into the singularity from Delta Vega, wherever that is? (Yes, I actually know where it is according to original canon, but that’s all out the window anyway, remember?)  Nowhere near Vulcan, it seems, but close enough that Vulcan is visible during daylight hours as big as, or bigger than, the Moon is from Earth.  And if there’s a manned Federation outpost there, don’t you think the people stationed at said outpost would have noticed the disappearance of the planet next door?

4 – Spock threw Kirk off the ship in a life pod.  What, the new Enterprise doesn’t have a brig?  Seems like an awfully contrived way to have young Kirk meet old Spock and young Scotty.  Laziest writing in the movie, I think, but not the dumbest.

3 – “Captain Pike made him First Officer.”  Yes, and Captain Spock threw him out the airlock.  How do you reconcile the two?  Oh, I see, let him be Captain number three.  Makes perfect sense.  Really.

2 – Wait a second, promoting a cadet to first officer?  WTF?  When there are real officers standing around with their thumbs up their asses?  “You could be an officer in four years.  You could have your own ship in eight?”  Or maybe three.  Jeez!  Sign me up!  What, are there twelve people in Star Fleet?  I don’t care how good or lucky or heroic you are, you don’t skip from Cadet to First Officer, never mind Captain.  No service of any kind could survive such a ridiculous and arbitrary promotion structure.  The best an about-to-graduate cadet might hope for in such an extreme emergency situation like this is to become Acting Ensign Crusher.  Here, hold this phaser, go sit down, and try not to hurt yourself.  Sheesh, even the Klingon method of promotion makes more sense.

1 – Arrghh!  Don’t let the space ketchup ignite!  It will kill us all!  Really, now.  Let’s just pour a little of that ol’ Heinz singularity sauce on your burger.  “Red Matter?”  You couldn’t come up with some better technobabble?  Look, I’m a Star Trek fan; it doesn’t take all that much to suspend my disbelief, but you’ve got to treat me like I’ve got more than two brain cells to rub together.

Wow.  I feel like I need to take a deep breath.  Fundamentally, what it looks like to me is that the writers spent six months labouring over the first forty or so pages of screenplay, producing some fantastic material, then looked up and said, “Shit!  We need a finished product by 9 a.m. tomorrow!” producing the remaining sixty or seventy in one caffeine-enhanced night.

F/X fantastic.  Music, great.  Acting, spectacular.  I even bought most of the dialogue – oddly, the dialogue was pretty good in the main, even after the movie started to suck – but I think that’s a tribute to the acting as much as the writing, probably more than the writing.

But something approaching two-thirds of the writing, as far as story was concerned, stank, and that’s the most positive word I can use.  The really sad thing is that the same team has been apparently hired to write the screenplay for the sequel.  Of course there’s going to be a sequel.  Probably several.

My message to Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and especially J.J. Abrams: Do better.

Do you remember the mediocre Will Smith animated movie Shark Tale?  There's a short scene at the Whale Wash where Oscar bravely saves another employee, known as Head Phones Guy, from, well, nothing actually.  It's good for a quick laugh, but isn't the point of this post.  The point is that to some degree at my place of employment, I think I'm Head Phones Guy.  I'm plugged in a lot and get asked what I'm listening to at least a couple of times every week because everyone knows it's almost never music.  Yes, I'm a podcast junkie, but I think I've mentioned that before.

So, what am I listening to right now?  I just finished the latest episode of "Weather Child", a podcast novel by the internationally famous (well, she should be, damn it) new Zealand author Philippa Balantine.  To quote from my review (posted in several places a couple of episodes back), Pip "gives us an alternate New Zealand where the children of immigrants can become bonded to strange, magical beings some call Seraphim and others have less flattering names for.  In the days and years after World War I and the Spanish Flu, the Dark Man hunts and enslaves new Zealand's First Children in some twisted quest for power.  Faith and Jack will both walk paths of cold possibility, struggling against the darkness and their own souls.  And the Dark Man walks behind them."

Sound quality and narration are excellent.  Throw in a few guest voices for major characters and some original music, and Pip mixes up a dark, engaging story that I'd classify as historical fantasy if forced to put it in a specific box.  Episode fourteen dropped the day before yesterday, and Pip has said that there should be twenty-three when all is said and done, so it's a good time to start listening.  You might catch up just in time for the finale.  Weatherchild.com or Podiobooks.

The Splornt ship bristled with weapons, all pointed at us.  They'd cut off communications, not liking what we had to say, but we weren't letting them take Planet Bob without a fight.
"Mr. Hansen, set phasers to baconize."  The Captain tried to be clever at these moments.  Hansen was new, young.  He'd ask.
"Um, 'baconize', sir?"
"Baconize, Ensign.  That's what I want the Splornt to look like when we're done: bacon."
The silence seemed long.  "Phasers to, uh, baconize, sir."
"Excellent.  On my mark."
The rest of the bridge crew heaved a collective sigh.  It could have gone far worse.

Not long after I posted yesterday afternoon, I e-mailed my letter to the School Board Trustees, the Director of Education, the Minister of Education, and nearly everyone else.  Below is the entire text of what I sent, with the exception of the names of the Student Trustees (I assume they're under eighteen and it's not my place to reveal their identities, although you can find the names on the school board website, so obviously someone isn't concerned).  But I should first give you the contents of a note on the calendar itself because I reference it several times in the letter. 

“The 2009-2010 calendar provides for 196 possible school days between September 1, 2009 and Jun 30, 2010.  The school year shall include a minimum of 194 school days of which two days must be designated as professional activity days with respect to specific provincial education priorities as outlined in Regulation 304 and up to four extra days may be designated by the board as professional activity days.  The remaining school days shall be instructional days.  The boards may designate up to ten instructional days as examination days.”
Let me know, did I get the mix right between polite and pissed off?

And now, the letter:

Lance Schonberg
290 Bridge St W,
Napanee, ON
K7R 2G1
schonberg_lance@hotmail.com

Brenda L. Hunter, Director of Education
Ann Goodfellow, Chair of the Board
Limestone District School Board
Postal Bag 610,
220 Portsmouth Ave,
Kingston, ON
K7L 4X4

08 May 2009
Dear Ms. Hunter & Ms. Goodfellow;
Recently I received, in the agenda of my youngest child, a letter dated 17 April notifying parents and guardians of the details of the 2009-2010 School Year Calendar.  Having read the letter thoroughly and examined the Calendar in detail, I can reach either of two conclusions:  first, the Calendar was poorly thought out or, second, the Calendar was designed to create maximum inconvenience and irritation for students, parents, and teachers.

While it seems mathematically sound, this move on the part of the Board creates a school year running a full ten months, from the first day of September to the final day of June, merely to gain an extra three instructional days, as there is a “Board Designated Holiday” on the Friday of that early first week of school, prior to Labour Day.  An examination of the information contained in the Calendar would seem to show a great deal of room to work creatively to avoid the extra week.

1. There is an extra “Board Designated Holiday” on the Friday before March Break.  While most parents are eager to have extra time with their children, this “bonus” holiday was not present in the 2008-2009 school year and would seem to be present in 2009-2010 only to balance one of the three extra instructional days from the week of classes added before Labour Day.  A school week shortened by one day creates far more childcare headaches for far more people than an entire week off. 

2. Quoting from the note at the bottom of the Calendar, “up to four extra days may be designated by the board as professional activity days.”  The words “up to” and “may” in this sentence would seem to indicate that such a practice is optional.  In the event that these days are deemed necessary, the Board appears to have the discretion to place them at any point in the school year. 

3. From the same note, “The boards may designate up to ten instructional days as examination days.”  Again, there seems to be the freedom to choose a different number of days here.  But even leaving it at ten, examining the Calendar seems to show wasted instructional days at the end of each semester following the examination days, making the placement of these examination days suspect, particularly noting the instructional days falling after the examination days in June.

Turning to the letter itself, I would like to examine several quotes

“Other school boards across the province,” reads very much like, “everyone else is doing it.”  This is a logic we rarely accept from our children as it’s usually considered an excuse for lazy thinking.  All 31 of the major English language Public School Districts in Ontario have made their 2009-2010 calendars, or at least start dates, available online.  Only 17 are beginning classes prior to Labour Day.  While this seems like a slim majority, those 17 districts account for only 35% of the students in the English public school system in Ontario.  The typical method used by those boards beginning classes on the 8^th of September is to schedule two “Professional Activity” days in the week before Labour Day and not have an extra “Board Designated Holiday” before March Break, neatly eliminating the “need” to have classes begin a week early.

“We hope that having these dates now will help with any future planning.”  The end of April was far too late for such notice and begs the question of when the calendar was actually approved.  Many businesses require vacations to be booked by the end of the calendar year for the following year, four months in advance of the notice delivered from schools.

It is worth noting that while summer vacations are often major undertakings, planned many months in advance, the concrete impacts of this decision are not merely of a scheduling nature.  Shortening the summer can only have a negative impact on the local tourism industry.  High school students frequently take summer jobs and beginning classes a week early would significantly lessen their earning potential for the summer.

Should the Board choose to leave the currently approved calendar as is, it should expect a significant attendance deficit during the new first week of school and a negative impact to the local economy.

In closing, I hope the Board will consider this letter of protest not merely a criticism, but a chance to improve on an unfortunate policy.  Thank you for your time and attention.  I look forward to a response at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Lance Schonberg

CC:
The Honourable Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Education
Dr. Ben Levin, Acting Deputy Minister of Education
Roger Richard, Treasurer – Limestone District School Board, c/o Inquiry e-mail address
George Beavis, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Helen Brown, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Helen Chadwick, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Elaine Crawford, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Laurie French, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
David Jackson, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Barb McLaren, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Paula Murray, Trustee – Limestone District School Board
Peter Mouncey, Principal – Westdale Park Public School
Westdale PPS Parent Council

Please Forward To:
{name omitted}, Student Trustee – Limestone District School Board
{name omitted}, Student Trustee – Limestone District School Board

At the end of April, a letter came home in the agenda of my youngest child presenting the calendar for the 2009-2010 school year.  Hardly unusual by itself.  I think it’s a fairly standard practice for school boards across the province to let us know when March break and all the PA days are going to be.  Advance planning is good. 

The beginning of the second paragraph told me something was up and by the end of it I was alarmed.  The third paragraph made me angry.  My school board is planning to send its students back to school a week earlier than usual, and it’s a short week.  Very short.  They’ll go to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the week before Labour Day, then get a four-day weekend.  And there’s a PA day at the end of September. 

I’m not going to share my initial reaction. 

I let it simmer in the back of my mind for a few days, then sat down and wrote a letter expressing my feelings in a polite, but angry fashion.  I did a little research to back myself up with a couple of facts for one argument.  I left the letter alone for more nearly two weeks before doing a little more research and rewriting to remove most of the potentially inflammatory language but still leaving no uncertainty around just how I felt about it. 

Funny the things that set us off sometimes and move us to action. 

I’ve scanned the letter and posted a copy below (it gets bigger if you click on it).  Tune in tomorrow for the full text of my response to the Board, going into the e-mail as soon as I’ve confirmed the addresses of everyone I’m copying on it.  Toying with the idea of also sending it to local newspapers.

And so the monthly ritual report to keep myself honest to the world, or at least the tiny fraction of it reading my blog.  April was a good month for writing, but not so much for editing of previously finished work.  May will likely be more of the same, but I am going to try to get a few more things into later stages if I can, probably by slowing down on the novel a bit to give myself a little more editing time.  I’ve got several more weeks left in New Zealand Standard Time, so that will help a little in the short term. 

Words of New Fiction: 37,351 which is definitely my most productive month since I started keeping track.  23,099 words of that is work on the novel/trilogy, which I’ve code named Triad for a variety of reasons, and another 4,140 on what I’ve semi-plotted as a short novel.  The remainder, barely more than 10k, was on short stories. 

First Draft Stories Completed: 2.  Okay, not exactly stellar, but 10,000 words isn’t really all that much and I’ve got two more nearly finished.  Yes, I seem to have fallen into the trap of working on multiple things at once again, but that seems to be how my brain works.  If I can do most of the work on one thing, I’m doing well. 

Submissions Out: 2.  Again slim, but I’ve been focusing on getting pieces of the big story out of my head.  May will likely be higher. 

Rejections Received: 1.  That’s got to be the least since I started submitting, but then I’ve currently got only nine stories out looking for homes, so I can’t expect news every day. 

Stories Sold: 2!  This is a big deal.  I’ve blogged both of these acceptances already, but to reiterate, “Searching for the Sea Monster” is going to appear in the Severed Press anthology Dead Bait, and “Mikey” will appear in an upcoming issue of Staffs and Starships, possibly as soon as the end of May but I haven’t received word on actual publication date yet.  “Mikey” is my third sale, but looks like it will be my first in-print appearance. 

As far as editing does, I’m planning to start correction notes for Heroes Inc in the next few days.  As I blogged a few days ago, this might be a salvageable story, but I have to be meaner to my protagonist. 

And I’m rather enjoying the flash fiction audio process for the 100 Word Stories weekly challenge.  Every week is different, but it’s not that hard to find fifteen minutes if I don’t need any voices other than my own. 

Wow.  Three blog entries in less than a week.  I’d better go lie down.

Because the story Paleoboy and I recorded for 100 Word Stories challenge #156 received the most votes (and if you voted for me, thank you very much!), I won the honour of choosing last week’s topic (#158) and it was “Knock, Knock.” When I went to write the story for this challenge, I’d forgotten what I had in mind, so wound up writing three stories.

Here’s the first:

“Wanna hear a joke?”
“Sure, why not.”
“Okay. Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Lettuce!”
“Lettuce who?”
“Lettuce in and you’ll find out!”
“Wow, that’s an old one, dude.”
“What kind of cheese isn’t yours?”
“I don’t know. What kind?”
“Nacho cheese.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Nacho.”
Sigh. “Nacho who?”
“Nacho cheese! Give it back!”
“Really, bud-”
“One more!”
“All right, but just one.”
“What’s green, hairy, and has, um, fourteen legs?”
“I don’t know. What’s green, hairy, and has fourteen legs?”
“I don’t know either, but it’s sneaking up behind you!”
“Very funny. Really. I think I forgot- oowah!”

Yes, with the topic I picked how can you possibly come up with something that isn’t a joke? Attempt number two is as close as I got:

Knock, knock.
Harvey stared at the front door, dreading what might be on the other side. What horror might await the unwary? A salesman? Someone canvassing for charity? For a politician? Could it be the dreaded invitation to a local church? If the creature lurking on the doorstep offered a prize, it must be a thinly disguised salesman seeking weakness.
Knock, knock.
It could be worth your wallet, life, political allegiance or immortal soul to answer the door.
Knock, knock.
Harvey didn’t get up. He didn’t even bother to bark, instead resting his head on the rug and falling asleep.

Neither of these two stories made the leap to recorded audio. Here’s the one that did:

Knock, knock.
“Trick or treat!”
“Well, aren’t you the cutest little fairytale princess. Here you go, darling. Happy Halloween!”
“Thank you!”

Knock, knock.
“Trick or treat! Arrr!”
“Well, shiver me timbers! ‘Tis a fearsome pirate an’ no mistake. Here be yer booty, ye scurvy dog.”
“Arrr. Thankee! An’ a Happy Halloween to ye, me hearty!”

Knock, knock.
“Braaaaaaains.”
“Wow. That is absolutely the best zombie makeup I’ve ever seen. How many hours did you have to sit still to look like that?”
“Braaaaaaains?”
“Sure, I understand. You’ve gotta stay in character.”

The zombie uprising began under the cover of Halloween.

I used the third story because it let me give lines to all three of my kids. Actually, I wrote it with that end in mind. The girls were a bit jealous that only Paleoboy got to do the last one. With this story, Nature Girl and The Pink Princess participated too and I got to test some audio editing skills with an ear towards someday podcasting something.

Rather than trying to get everything right in one take (With three kids? Are you kidding me?), I had them record their lines separately, then did mine, then stitched them all together after they all went to bed. Total production time: just shy of forty minutes, plus maybe ten minutes to write, revise, and edit the story (my 100 Word Story entries seem to start at about 120 words and need to be pared down). Final product length, including my intro and outro: one minute and three seconds. Considering the only sound effect was knocking on a door, which I did myself by thumping the desk and used three times, that’s a pretty serious production ratio.

But it’s not really all that far off from what the people who are good at it manage for full cast podcasts – numbers people quote seem to be in the ten or fifteen to one range, starting with all audio files ready. Having done it on a tiny scale, I’ve got even more respect for the work involved. Of course, I also remember that my first entry to 100 Word Stories, from starting to write through finishing a straight read and exporting to MP3 took less than fifteen minutes. Bit of a difference.

A learning experience and something I might do again soon.

Pop over to 100 Word Stories and vote on this week’s stories, even if it isn’t for mine. Maybe think about giving it a try while you’re at it. Challenge #159 is Telescope.

Oh, and which of the three stories do you think I should have used?

I completely forgot to post this, written on my laptop while not connected to the Internet.  So, 3/4 through the month of April, this is no longer timely, but if anyone is still interested, here's the March Writing Report.  April's will go up early in May, promise.  Can’t call myself Writing Dad without writing, and posting it might help keep me on track, or honest, or something.

Words of New Fiction: 28,530.  That’s fiction only.  I did other writing, some of which I even counted in my overall total in my “obsessed with numbers” tracking spreadsheet, but only count fiction here until and unless I start trying to sell non-fiction, which I won’t rule out.

First Draft Stories Completed: 6, ranging in size from 836 to 6228 words – not all of these were started in March.  The first draft of my 8-episode audio drama falls into this category, too.  I’m going to put it away for a couple of months and see what it looks like with fresh eyes early in the summer.

Submissions Out: 7, 5 of which were to anthologies.  The anthology market is surprisingly big, if you know where to look.  I mostly don’t know where to look, but I’m learning.  (Ralan and Duotrope are good places to start.)

Rejections Received: 4.  Not great, but not bad.  One of them had some positive comments, which is always nice.

Stories Sold: 1!  I made a big deal out of this when I got the acceptance, and it’s still a big deal.  The October edition of Bards and Sages will have my story, “Absence of Garlic” among the other authors represented.  I’m reading the April edition right now and there’s some really good fiction there.  Their target is stories under 1500 words, but there are a couple of serial pieces going, which I like.

As far as short fiction goes, I’m going to slow down a bit for the next few months.  I’ve started a new novel which, if forced, I’d probably class as epic fantasy.  And in a colossally dangerous move on my part, it’s the first book of a trilogy.  Yes, I know I’d be better off working on a stand alone novel if I want to have a better chance at publishing, but I really want to write this story and I think it’s going to take three books to do it.

Even working on the novel, I’ll still be writing short fiction, but probably on the order of one to three short pieces per month, length dependent.  And I’ve still got a lot of editing and revising to do on existing stories.  Completed first drafts on my hard drive waiting for an editing pass: 16.   Four flash pieces, seven short stories, three novelettes, and two novellas.  Total first draft word count:  124,686.  There are also 9 stories that have had one editing pass and four that have had two.

Oh, then there are those three novels I wrote last year to pull out and see if any of them are salvageable at all.  Busy, busy.

Two days in a row last week, I received e-mail notification of a story acceptance.  Nothing could bring me greater joy, writing-wise.  But to balance that a little bit, I received a rejection on the third day, Saturday.  The rejection isn’t such a big deal as I’ve had twenty-one of them before (and it’s expected), but the feedback, which I usually like to get, was a little brutal this time.  1 – the story moved too slowly.  2 – when it was over, the editors weren’t clear on what the point of the plot had been.

Ouch.

My goal for this story was a build up to a fun and slightly creepy conclusion.  Apparently, the build up was too slow.  The conclusion may have been fun and creepy, but I may not have done enough work to lay things out in a logical way while writing the story.  I tend to be an organic writer about half the time (and this was in that half), writing to see where the story will take me.  On those occasions, first pass editing tends to be pretty heavy.  This particular story had three passes and now seems like it could have used a fourth, or maybe the first should have been more dramatic.  I think I’ll need to revisit this one before I can consider sending it somewhere else.

Still nine stories out looking for homes, and now I’ll add this one to the list of “needs to go back out but with rewrite consideration first.”  There are two more of these and still many stories to just get out of my head.