Bev Vincent

The snow is reportedly headed our way. Austin is already getting it, and it’s sticking to the ground and trees there. At best we’ll only get an inch or two, but that’s novel for this part of the world.

I received a nice check in the mail today. It’s from the Canadian Public Lending Right Commission, an organization that distributes annual payments to Canadian authors for the presence of their books in Canadian public libraries. You have to register every year, and they haven’t yet gone electronic for their registration process, but it’s well worth the time and the postage stamp. For just a single book my check was nearly $350.00. They distributed nearly $10 million to over 17,000 authors for 2009. Every five years a book is registered with the PLRC the base rate drops, but it’s still a nice little lagniappe.

Watched part of the Canada/Finland hockey game last night. The Canadian women have scored a goal in every period they’ve played thus far, and have outscored their opponents by a cumulative total of something like 50 to 5.

Men of a Certain Age had a good season finale last night. Joe (Romano) makes me so nervous with his gambling–I hope he gets a handle on it next season. I think the realization that his actions were impacting other people–his employees, his son–is what gave him the swift kick he needed. Owen’s situation with has father was resolved well, and Terry’s mid-life crisis went into full bloom after he got a face full of crap. Literally. I’m not sure he’s cut out to be a car salesman, but it should make for some funny scenes if they stick with it. The best scenes on the show are the ones where the three of them are together, though, because they cut each other absolutely no slack and give each other no end of grief.

Snow? Seriously? In Texas in late February? A cold front is arriving today and it could bring significant snow to within a few dozen miles of here. Two to four inches in some places. Though we may only get cold rain here, if a few snowflakes do happen to materialize it will mark the latest in the winter that Houston has seen snow. We also had the earliest snowfall in a winter in late 2009. It has indeed been a strange, strange winter–I was in shorts doing yard work on Saturday.

I received two bits of good news about The Stephen King Illustrated Companion today. Barnes and Noble has ordered a second printing of the book, only slightly smaller in size than the first print run. This means that bn.com will be restocked sometime this year, making the book available especially to people outside the US, who will be able to order it online with affordable shipping. Also, my editor told me that an Italian publisher has acquired translation rights to the book. They plan to bring out their version (Il Compagno Illustrato dello Stephen King?) later on this year.

No big surprises on The Amazing Race last night. Most people expected the 71-year-old player to drop off soon. The undercover cops aren’t impressing, though. I hope they do a better job of finding clues in real life than they do in following directions in the game. Twice now they’ve come in at the back of the pack and they weren’t that far ahead of grandma. My favorites, Jordan and Jeff, dropped back a bit, but their miscue at the bus station didn’t hurt them as badly as it might have.

Cold Case was very good this week. For one thing, I’m glad to see the Lily Rush side plot wrapped up. Almost all of the cops have something extracurricular going on, and it was getting a little much. Good to see the little dancing man from Twin Peaks, too. At least he wasn’t speaking backwards. And the resolution of the murder case was a genuine surprise.

I didn’t track down the Canada/U.S. hockey game until late in the second period. C’est dommage. The curling teams are playing very well.

I received the contract for my first published poem in today’s mail. The contract is about four or five times longer than the poem itself!

Started a new short story this morning for the first time in a while. I didn’t get that far into it and had to start over again after a rare Word crash (I was multitasking and not paying attention). Still feeling my way around in the story, but I know the protagonist pretty well and I have a rough understanding of how things might play out.

Saw Shutter Island yesterday. There were some very unusual and disorienting switches in camera position during the ferry ride. First it showed the two actors from the left and then from the right, and back and forth a couple of times more. Having read the book, I wondered if this was supposed to be some sort of clue, but I couldn’t work anything out.  I didn’t care for the fast panning shots early on, either. The scene where the guard says “and on the right…” and the camera swivels like a head “and on the left…” ditto.  There were a couple of other instances like that that just pulled me out of the movie and made me overly aware of the camera.

It seemed to settle down after that, or at least I stopped noticing it. The film sagged heavily in the middle, but there were some very nice performances by Patricia Clarkson and Ted Levine. Ben Kingsley steals the film, I think. DiCaprio, not so much, and Ruffalo, it’s like he’s not really there, he leaves so little impression. Michelle Williams is quite good, too, and Max von Sydow has a fun role. It wasn’t a terrible movie, and better than the book, I’d say. I’d give it a B-minus. I loved the scene between Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, also from Monk) and DiCaprio in the jeep. While discussing the inherent violence of man, Levine’s character says something to the effect: “If I were to lean over and bite your eye out, do you think you could stop me?”

Among the trailers: a remake of the British movie Death at a Funeral that seems close to a shot for shot duplicate, with a few exceptions. There’s even one actor who appears in both versions (Peter Dinklage). The original was pretty funny. It was directed by Frank Oz (of Muppets fame) and featured Keeley Hawes from Ashes to Ashes and Alan Tudyk from Firefly.

Iron Man 2 looks like it could be fun, and I’m really looking forward to Ghost Writer, which stars Pierce Brosnan as the British prime minister, directed by Roman Polanski. Finally, I think Wall Street 2 could be a lot of fun, and it features Carey Mulligan, who Dr. Who fans know from the excellent episode Blink and who starred in An Education.

You couldn’t drag me to see Clash of the Titans.

Others have posted the Stoker nominee list, so I’ll just provide a link. The Stephen King Illustrated Companion was nominated for Superior Achievement in Non-fiction. My wife suggested that I take inspiration from the book’s two major award nominations and adopt the pen name Edgar Stoker. I countered with Bram Poe, which sounds a little like Rambo. This is my second Stoker nomination. The awards will be given out at the Stoker banquet, which is being held in conjunction with the World Horror Convention in Brighton, England, in just over a month. I’d already made plans to attend WHC and the Stoker banquet. Now I guess I’ll have to dress up!

This morning, I proofed the final text for “Zombies on a Plane,” my short story in Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology. Found only one glitch that was created during the editing process. I haven’t read the story in a while and I think it holds up very well. I’m currently making a final editing pass on the 5000-word caper prior to shipping it out the door. After that I have a Cemetery Dance column to start preparing (due at the end of the month) and the MWA short story I’ve been cogitating over but haven’t actually started yet.

Last night I watched curling (US and Canadian women both won), part of the Latvia hockey game, and caught up on Burn Notice from Thursday night. Got a big kick out of Sam pretending to be a crime scene investigator and whipping out his sunglasses at the end of each scene, putting them on in David Caruso fashion and uttering a horrible pun based on the current scenario. I’m also thinking about going to see Shutter Island this afternoon. It’s not my favorite of Lehane’s novels by far, and the reviews I’ve seen thus far haven’t been terrific, but I still think it will be worth seeing.

I finished Black Hills by Dan Simmons last night. Next up: The Inheritence by Simon Tolkien. I got the ARC through Amazon’s Vine program and picked it based on the synopsis without realizing the author is JRR Tolkien’s grandson. It’s a courtroom drama and historical thriller and, so far as I can tell, features no talking trees, elves or sorcerors.

Somewhere in Atlanta there’s a guy who was staggering home after an all-night bender. He’s in rough shape, folks. Can barely stay on his feet. His breath smells like a brewery and his clothes reek of cigarette smoke. He lurches around a corner, disoriented. This is the way home, right? Oh, man, my head. Then, what to his wondering eyes should appear? A zebra. Smack dab in the middle of Atlanta. “Holy crap,” he says. “I ain’t never drinking again.”

There’s a book trailer up on the 23 House page for Dead Set, their forthcoming zombie anthology. The release date is April and preorders are being offered at a 10% discount with free shipping. The anthology contains my story “Zombies on a Plane,” as well as new fiction by Lee Thomas, Harry Shannon, Nate Southard, Lisa Mannetti, Steve Wedel and a bunch of others.

The revised version of the poem I mentioned yesterday was accepted for publication — my first ever professionally published poem. The editor hasn’t made any announcements, so I won’t mention the market yet, but it’s a cool one.

Lots of Olympic excitement yesterday. Torah Bright won a gold medal for Australia in the women’s half-pipe snowboarding competition after performing a switch backside 720. Scarecrow Joe is impressed. Canada beat Switzerland in men’s hockey in a tense shoot-out after the Swiss tied the game late. The USA women’s curling team lost again on the final rock of the 10th end.

I came up with a potential market for the 5000-word caper I mentioned yesterday. I have to spruce it up a little, but I should have it ready to submit this weekend.

Boston Rob’s collapse on Survivor wasn’t as bad as it looked, I guess. I wonder who decided that it wasn’t life threatening enough for the camera crew to attempt CPR while awaiting the medical team. He bounced back quickly and took charge during the immunity challenge. Who would have guessed that the Heroes would be the team to fall apart because of feuding and bickering and that the Villains would get along so well, for the most part. I liked James during his first appearance but he must be suffering ‘roid rage or something this year. I suspect his days are numbered if he keeps rocking the boat like he is.

Regarding Private Practice: at last someone had the gumption to tell these adults to act like adults. Kudos to Dell for telling Sam to “try harder” and for Sam to take the message to heart and dress Naomi down for her childish behavior. I was seriously considering abandoning the show to watch Romper Room instead.

I like that people now have the possibility to make their own travel plans.

I hate having to make my own travel plans.

There are so many options these days…you have to visit so many different sites to make sure that you’ve found the best deal…it’s stressful.

I love it when it works out well. I made my travel plans for the Edgar Awards banquet yesterday and managed to book flights for just $250 each into LGA. When I find something that low, I pretty much stop looking. I almost always go to the airline’s website for the final booking, since they sometimes are a few dollars cheaper. I was pleased. I don’t have to second guess. Even if the airfares drop…how low can they possibly go? The flight is cheaper than the hotel!

My experience with becker&mayer! working on The Stephen King Illustrated Companion has been amazing from day one. They very generously offered to purchase banquet tickets for my wife and me. How cool is that? Everything about the project has been a pleasure.

I heard back about the poem I submitted last week. When I saw the e-mail in my INBOX I figured it would be a reject, but it wasn’t. It was a critique and an offer to reread the poem if I cared to make some changes and resubmit. I did — the points the editor made were all valid. No guarantee that it will be accepted, but I’m hopeful.

The curling match between Switzerland and the US was a real nailbiter last night. It went into an extra end and then the game came down to the final stone. The US skip had the chance to win the point and he overthrew the stone just a tiny little bit. Half a foot or so. I think I’m hooked on curling. I wonder if there’s a rink around here somewhere. Ha!

This morning I got caught up on short story submissions. Three stories have been out for more than eight months, so I sent polite queries about them to the editors. Another that I had already queried about back in December has received no response, so I followed up with a withdrawal letter. This is a case of a market that sounded promising but never got off the ground. I also had a few other stories that were returned lately that I researched new markets for. I have one 5000-word caper story that I have no idea what to do with.

My latest Storytellers Unplugged essay is now online: Going for the Gold.

Received some hopeful news yesterday about a possible foreign deal for one of my works. Can’t say more because it is far from a done deal and may not transpire, but I pleased to discover that it was being considered.

I thought this week’s Men of a Certain Age was one of the best yet. A character with a gambling addiction makes for some extremely tense situations–they’re almost painful to watch. I’m not 100% sure that I’m happy that he got away with that huge gamble, but on the other hand I don’t think he got away unscathed, since his girlfriend seems to have cooled toward him. I liked Scott Bakula’s scenes this time, and Andre Braugher’s character’s decision to leave for another dealership will surely shake things up. Only one episode left this season.

I’ve been watching curling at lunchtime. It’s not a game I ever played, but both my brother and brother-in-law were curlers. When I was in junior high and high school we used to ride to town on Friday or Saturday night on a bus my next door neighbor ran to take people curling. We’d get dropped off at the skating rink while they went on to the curling rink. It’s a much more difficult game than it appears on the surface. A lot of strategy. They’re always thinking one, two, three shots ahead and strategizing about things like whether it’s better to get zero points in an end rather than one so you’ll be the hammer next end (the team that gets to throw the last stone). Check out a match — it’s more exciting than televised pool or bowling, I promise!

Last night’s hockey game between Canada and Norway was fun. Scoreless first period and then eight unanswered goals over the next two periods. Not quite the level of a blowout the women have seen in their first two games, but a decent showing nonetheless. At 8:00 I had to switch over to Lost, but I monitored the score during station breaks.

Speaking of Lost — you know the drill.

The numbers, ah, the numbers. I don’t know that we’ll ever receive any more satisfaction about their significance than what we learned this week. However, what is most noteworthy about Jacob’s scrawls is not the numbers associated with the major players–it’s who wasn’t there: Kate. In an earlier season, one of the others complained to another that Kate wasn’t even “on the list” and this was confirmed by her absence last night. Perhaps she isn’t a candidate because Jacob told young Kate not to steal again and she disobeyed?

Fake-Locke disturbs the balance. He picks up the white rock and heaves it out into the ocean. I’m still not convinced that Jacob = good and MiB = bad. I’m open to the possibility that MiB’s incarceration on the island is unjustified and that we’re being played to follow the normal system of black = bad. Maybe not, but I wouldn’t feel cheated if they went that direction.

So, who’s the urchin? At first I thought it was a reincarnation of Jacob, but I’m also open to the possibilty that it is some version of Aaron, even though he was taken off the island. And oh, how Richard Alpert has fallen. At first he was the calm, balanced, mysterious voice of mystic reason and now he’s just a scared puppy. It’s not a sudden change, though. We’ve seen the creators chip away at his mysticism a bit at a time over the past two seasons–like in the scene where Fake-Locke tells Richard what to say to the wounded Real-Locke during the time leaps.

As for real Locke–he’s still toiling away in obscurity, but he’s somewhat happier. His father didn’t steal his kidney and throw him out a window, at least, since he’s on good terms with the man. And he’s getting married to the love of his life. Still in a chair, still under the yoke of a moronic boss, but then Hurley comes along and gives him a new opportunity. And who should one of his new colleagues be? That bomb blast changed some things a lot more than others. Presumably Ben’s father never went to the island. Maybe Ben’s mother lived in this timeline. And the fortune teller from Tricia Tanaka and Rose now both work for Hurley. Fascinating.

I do wish Frank would get more screen time. He’s funny as hell. “This is the weirdest damn funeral I’ve ever been to.”

And Sawyer, still the con, reading his marks, sees right away that Locke ain’t Locke.  That was quite a tumble he took. Not as bad as falling from a helicopter, but still.

I now possess an Emergency First Response card after spending the day yesterday getting certified in CPR and First Aid. The writer side of me relished the instructor’s description of the sound the ribs make when you break when while providing CPR. He is a police officer, a volunteer fireman and a dive master who specializes in marine rescues. He had all manner of neat stories about vicious injuries, like having to hose out his boat three times to get rid of the blood after they rescued someone who had multiple wounds from a boat propeller.

It was nice enough on Sunday to have lunch outside. My wife and I went to an Italian restaurant in Rice Village and sat on the patio. On the drive home we passed through a cold front, about a mile’s worth of heavy rain, and then the winds picked up and all of a sudden it was winter again, with sub-freezing temperatures for the last couple of nights.

I posted my review of Killer Summer by Ridley Pearson last night. I’m about 80% of the way through Black Hills by Dan Simmons (a nearly 500-page book) and also started reading The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle (of A Year in Provence fame) to my wife. The latter is a fun, light caper about an obnoxious wine collector who feels the need to brag about his $3 million collection of Bordeaux wine in an LA Times interview only to have the collection stolen from his cellar shortly thereafter.

This morning I put the finishing touches on my Storytellers Unplugged essay, Going for the Gold, which will appear tomorrow morning. I noticed that another SU participant blogged on the same subject yesterday but I decided to go ahead with mine anyway since it was mostly written and we have a different take on the topic. Speaking of gold: yay Canada for winning their first ever gold medal at an Olympics hosted in the country.

Over the weekend I reviewed the proofs of my section of When the Night Comes Down, the collection from Dark Arts Books that will launch at WHC. It was very clean. I only found one typo (a proofreader found another that I’d missed) and a couple of places where I’d changed something during the editing process that interfered with continuity or transitions from one paragraph to the next. All easily handled. The book goes to the printer tomorrow.

Since just about everything was a rerun last night, I caught up on my Sunday evening recordings. The Amazing Race got off to a rollicking good start. The two undercover cops bragged that they saw themselves winning every segment, only to finish ninth out of eleven on the first leg. I was pleased to see Jordan and Jeff win the first stage. Jordan struck me as a nice person during Big Brother. Naive and unworldly certainly (as demonstrated by her confusion between China and Chile), but she managed to perform a mentally and physically challenging task that stymied big burly guys, so kudos to her. I wouldn’t mind seeing them win. I got a kick out of the grandmother who elected to allow her granddaughter to take the challenge by saying that she had “the balance of a drunken, elderly person on stilts.” Some of the miscues were hilarious, too — especially the team that went inside someone’s house and started painting. Chilean dude didn’t have a clue why these people were there (with a camera crew) doing a bad job of painting his walls!

One of my more obscure short stories, Groundwood, was accepted as a reprint for a forthcoming series of books. I don’t spend much time shopping around reprints and generally only do so when I stumble upon a call for submissions that accepts reprints and matches something I have in the trunk.

I have my weekend’s work cut out for me. I received the page proofs for When the Night Comes Down this morning and I have to have them reviewed before Monday because the book has to go to press in time for it to be ready for World Horror, which is just over a month away. I only have to proof my own section, but that probably amounts to 60 or 70 pages of text.

I would also like to get my next Storytellers Unplugged essay written and maybe get the taxes finished, too.  A tall order.

Though there was talk of flurries in parts of the greater Houston area yesterday and this morning, I didn’t see any. It’s a cold day, not even making it over 40° but we were spared the worst of the winterlike weather that’s hitting points north and east.

I posted my review of The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith last night. 

I thought The Mentalist had one of its best episodes ever last night. Not only did they focus on a character who doesn’t normally get much play, they dispensed with much of the silliness. Jane’s shtick with the coin toss worked well as the episode’s obligatory levity. They still haven’t sold me on Cho being a former gangbanger–he seems too buttoned up or buttoned down for that–but it was a good installment.

It’s hard to know who to root for on the new season of Survivor. Though it’s popular to hate Boston Rob, I happen to think he’s a decent guy and it will be interesting to see how he fares this time ’round, especially given the medical emergency alluded to in the preview for next week. Kudos to him especially for getting a fire going despite all the nay-sayers. I suspect that Russell will get his ass handed to him on a platter fairly early on and Parvati might put together another all-female alliance.  The big difference between this season and most others is that I’m familiar with most of the players right from the get-go. I don’t know Tom or a few others from the early seasons. It is an interesting experiment, to see if one tribe or the other will self-destruct, or if some of them will play the game against type. Hearing that shoulder get put back into its socket qualifies as one of the most grusome moments on the show. I can’t believe she isn’t suffering some repercussions. And Rupert — how much good is he going to be with a broken toe?

Funniest moment of the premiere: Jeff standing on the beach as the helicopters approached, pretending to be guiding them to their landing spots!

I hear they’re getting snow up in Dallas today. Stranger things happen, but that ranks right up there. We’re in the 40s, dropping to the 30s tonight, with persistent rain, which makes it feel even colder.

I saw the preliminary cover art for When the Night Comes Down from Dark Arts Books today. Very nice! When it’s finalized it will be posted first at the Dark Arts website.

My interview from a couple of days ago is now online at Ultimate Woodlands. The accompanying photo shows me in my office at my rolltop desk. Perched atop the monitor is the owl my wife gave me for inspiration. There are some other icons of the trade — a paper skeleton from my daughter and, behind the owl, barely visible, a skull that I use as a paperclip holder. Behind the skull, a Stephen King bobblehead from some event a few years ago. On the filing cabinet there’s a sketch of a windmill that I bought in Dryden in West Texas a few years ago while I was doing research for a novel. On the monitor, the manuscript of the novel in progress, though you can’t make any of it out. I cleaned up the stacks of paper from the floor around the desk before the photographer arrived.

I received my contributor copies of Dead Reckonings #6 today. This issue contains my lengthy review of Sarah Langan’s novel Audrey’s Door — in fact, it’s the lead review…or at least the first one in the magazine. I’m not sure if I’ll have anything in #7 — I’m going to submit a review of Black Hills if I can get it done on time, but there’s no guarantee it will be included.

Also received the January issue of Locus today. Yes, you read that right. For some reason, the issue went missing and I had to request a replacement. The February issue came last week.

I submitted my first poem for publication this week. A shot in the dark, really — the subject matter is a touch obscure, although related to something very familiar. I was inspired by Don Delillo’s latest book, in part. It’s sort of a one-shot deal — if the market rejects it, I can’t think of anything else I’d do with it, though I spent quite a bit of time on it.