Too long away from the sun

She was gone.  The window was open, and she was gone.  I looked stupidly outside at the tree in bloom and the blue sky behind it.  She was gone.
It wasn’t unexpected, of course.  She had been getting restless for a while.  I wasn’t even sad, particularly, just deeply, humbly, unbelievably, sure.  Final things, you know, [...]

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Complaining with Kay, Episode 22.5, Literary Supplement: Soldier.

In this episode:
Soldier
“I lied about my wedding ring…”
Two-page story
Sax solo
Music:
“Egyptian Song” (Rupert Davies, arr. and performed by Benjamin Mueller-Heaslip
My dorky piano rendition of “Dream a little dream of me”
Link.

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People lie on the Internet, Part 2: I knew it!

Some time ago I speculated (in a post entitled “I suck at chess”) about someone faking a terminal illness in an online community.  And it turns out…I was right!
In all honesty, I can totally see how something like this could get started.  We all like a good ego-stroking, and I suppose if you were [...]

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Complaining with Kay, Episode 18.5: The Literary Supplement

I read some little things I’ve written – some prose poems and one, um, poem poem.
“On one of the streets near where I live…”
First Love
Ground State
“Will you say to yourself…”
Music in this episode:
“Kornblumen” (Richard Strauss, performed by me and Ben – recorded live at Hart House last November)
“Fleurs” (Francis Poulenc, performed by me and Ben [...]

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Two-page story: The Exodus

This is an idea for a short story that I had a while ago, but never actually wrote.  Somewhat NSFW for swearing and blasphemy.
Two-page story: The Exodus
Some people dislike leaving.  I’ve always found it rather a relief, personally; that moment when all the goodbyes are said and you can turn around, sling your bag over [...]

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Two-page story

I just found this in a notebook.  It might be some kind of prose poem or the beginning of a science fiction novel.  Hard to say.  It’s called “Two-Page Story” because the only constraint I set was that it had to fit in exactly two pages of the notebook. I think it’s from this February, [...]

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People lie on the Internet

For one reason or another, I’ve been either participating in or witnessing a variety of flame wars (mostly on Pharyngula or BoingBoing, though I had an awful experience in a thread on circumcision on Science-Based Medicine).  The bizarre behaviour of the common or garden troll – the willful stupidity, the name-calling, the veritable smorgasbord of [...]

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Now I get it…sort of

After posting my fuming ebook post last night, I read this in Mother Jones today:
The Time of the Book
So apparently the publishing industry is imploding, though not as badly as the auto industry, of course.  Then I guess it makes sense that the publishers are charging as much as they possibly can for everything they [...]

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Aha!

I “found” about 2000 words that I hadn’t included in my word count total. Serves me right for writing on two different computers and making each day a separate file. So I’m over 42000 words now. Getting to 50000 by Sunday? Piece of cake.
* Here is a massive installment – yesterday [...]

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Writer’s block? Mahler helps.

So does Shostakovitch. I listened to some symphonies today when I was writing, and it came much more easily than it did yesterday. Weird.
* It’s all coming together now – I will shortly return to my usual aimless blogging style, but bear with me until Sunday*
Interlude: A detective story
It was a cold night, [...]

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