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17 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 17: My Shorts” -
Suzanna Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
No worries, Tim, please know that whatever tricks or treats you have to share are welcome whenever they manifest and in whatever form they appear on your blog. There’s certainly no harm in receiving a little tripe now and again.
Another Poke Rafferty book. Music to my ears.
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Larissa Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
ha ha. Now you know how I feel all. the. time. I think it’s why I just spew words-maybe something brilliant will happen along the way.
I think you should force your hand. isn’t that how we all got started down this road anyway? with the Dicken’s Challenge? (Ok, me at least and getting to know this blog and you a bit and all that jazz)…
I’m terrible though-I expect way more out of people who know what they’re doing than I do myself. I’m going to go hide behind that for a while. (c:
Whatever you decide to do for Halloween, I’m sure it’ll be brilliant. (I’m actually all about seeing you as all 7 dwarves..)
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Peg Brantley Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Oh! Here’s my trick . . . candy corn and peanuts. About half and half. Tastes like a Payday candy bar. Probably at least as many calories, but maybe not. And definitely clever, at least I think so. You really did get my attention about how they keep those colors separate.
Your inner Gloria Swanson also got my attention, but I don’t think I want to go there.
Poke Rafferty . . . even though I kind of have an idea what he looks like, until you mention it in a little more detail, I have a completely different picture in my head. And I thoroughly insist on returning to MY concept of Poke as soon as you let me go. Blog post here?
Short stories? I actually came in with an honorable mention with one. Max words allowed were 1000. Taught me I do not want to even try to build a career in flash fiction.
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Beth Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
This is the end of a post left by Lenny Kleinfeld on the Mystery Cafe discussion on Amazon. Lenny was writing about meeting writers at Bouchercon, all of whom have written more books than his one.
The Ina he refers to is his wife.
“The next morning Ina and I were walking over to a dim sum place for breakfast and she started telling me how much she was enjoying Tim Hallinan’s most recent release, QUEEN OF PATPONG. What an incredibly gifted writer Hallinan is. She even quoted some of her favorite lines.
It’s something like his twelfth book.
I am now going to lock myself in the word factory and not come out for a while.”
–Lenny
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EverettK Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
I say force your hand. That’s what your blog-deal is all about, right? To encourage you to write, write and write some more?
And if all else fails and you can’t find a middle or end, then you could turn it into a free-for-all-blog-experiment, a “turn this into a real short story” exercise for the patient students. 
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Suzanna, I can’t possibly offer you tripe. And I also can’t possibly flunk this little pop quiz life has set for me. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Yes, Poke will live again, probably as long as I continue to write. I have to watch Miaow grow up.
Riss — you and Everett — “force your hand.” Have you guys been talking? I suppose that’s what I always do — I mean, writing is primarily a matter of painting myself into a corner and then tiptoeing out of it somehow. Why should my approach to life be any different? The dwarf I like best is actually the eighth, Floppy. Floppy was always behind the door when the Disney animators looked into the cottage, and for good reason. But I’m not certain the world is ready for Floppy.
Peg — Candy corn and peanuts? Brrrrrrr. More calories than Hershey, Pennsylvania. I’ve wondered about the colors, too. And if I weren’t very comfortable with my inner Gloria Swanson, I wouldn’t have flourished her at you. What does Poke look like to you?
Beth, how amazingly sweet of you to share that with me. And how sweet of Lenny to share it online. Of course, neither Lenny nor Ina has read Spirit House.
Everett, maybe we should write a serial novel — everybody writing either a sentence or a paragraph. Talk about a free-for-all.
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fairyhedgehog Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:14 am
A new Poke Rafferty? Squee!
Oops, sorry, ahem.
I have no idea what you should do about Spirit House but I’m enjoying your musings about it. It’s odd, I find that the really short stories are so much easier than longer ones and I’ve yet to write a novel.
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Christopher G. Moore Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Tim,
Your story for the Bangkok Noir is an inspired piece of well-crafted fiction. I know that the many fans of your terrific series set in Thailand will be delighted to read it. They can look for Bangkok Noir February 2011.
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Sylvia Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 1:00 am
WAH!
Your recatcha wipes the comment if the response is wrong?
I was terribly witty and clever, too.
I tried to resubmit (by going “back” in the browser, where my comment lay waiting) but now it says I’m repeating myself. Now even my comments are critique! *sniffle*
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Larissa Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 6:33 am
hehe, yes it seems that Everett and I were on the same page there for a bit. (c:
And Tim, I think the serial novel is a brilliant idea-we did it in my high school AP class actually and it was surprisingly erudite. Or at least it seemed that way 10 years ago…(jeez!)hehe.
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Susan Phend Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Just want you to know that I recently discovered you via Poke Rafferty. What exquisite writing! I feel like I know the characters personally. Next I’ll dig into the Simon Grist series and, by the way, I’m happily addicted to your blog. If you’d like to write perfectly punctuated tripe, bring it on. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy every word.
Susan
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Helen Simonson Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Hey Tim –
Queen of Patpong was as wonderful as I’d hoped and deserves all its great reviews. I also love watching Miaow grow up. Just want to be sure the blog odyssey is not getting in the way of the next Poke book – we need another installment. I’m back to trolling your web site as I try to write. “Breaking rocks” again, as you would put it. Have to keep reminding myself to keep butt in chair and write until it gets better.
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EverettK Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 7:38 am
Tim said, “maybe we should write a serial novel…”
Okay, I’ll start (that’s the easy part ).
The sun through her bedroom window warmed Kat’s blankets. Spring was the best part of the year, the brown-gray world suddenly exploding into brilliant greens and the number of days of sunny, warm weather increasing quickly. The sun and blankets perfectly balanced the coolness of the air in her room, and at 15 there’s not much more you need to stay happy. Then she heard Pud for the first time, a jolting voice that seemed to bounce off the walls of the room.
“Kat, get up!”
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Larissa Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Hm…where are we going to store this Serial Novel?
’cause I could go next.
Kat lingered a moment longer in her haven. Maybe he’ll think I’m still asleep.
“Kat! I know you can hear me! Get up!”
Well, so much for that thought. She extricated herself from the blanket concoction and set her feet on the wintry floor. Noises from the kitchen crept through the walls and she could hear the other kids talking downstairs. She grabbed her hand wraps and gloves. It was going to be another long day with Pud.
I guess this could be a test of Tim’s server’s capacity to store data. (c:
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Okay, all. My, my, my. I must have been a good boy to get all these nice responses.
FHH — Squee??? I like that as much as I like Sylvia’s Wah and Riss’s heh heh. Let’s do a completely nonverbal blog and responses. I wish this software would allow me to construct a rebus. Yes, there is a new Poke on the assembly line, and I think it’ll be killer. It’s got the best villain I ever wrote and a trio of retired spies — guys who would have killed each other on sight in the 70s — who are Poke’s only allies and one of them, Vladimir, is in danger of taking over the book. We shall see.
Chris — thanks for the praise, and now you all know how polite he is. Chris is the author of the Vincent Calvino articles, terrific books without which I never would have written Poke. His newest book, “9 Gold Bullets,” comes out on November 10.
Sylvia, the thing to do with reCaptcha is to block what you wrote and click COPY before you key in the words and hit SUBMIT. That way, if you get minced, you can just put the cursor back in the box and push PASTE, and you’re back in business. By the way, this ONLY happens when you’ve written something brilliant.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Riss, I like the serial novel, too, and also your addition to Everett’s really crackerjack first bit, but I don’t know how to do it. We could devote an ongoing blog to it, but every time I post a new one, which is to say daily, that blog is going to get pushed down one slot. Within 7-8 days, it won’t even be on the second page.
I’m up for it, if we can solve it. Suggestions, anyone? And does he REALLY have to be named Pud?
Thanks, Susan, and welcome. I’m so glad you like Poke — the books are so much fun to write, when they’re not killing me. They’re often killing me. But I love the family and the setting and Arthit, so I guess I’ll write them as long as anyone wants to read them.
Hi, Helen, glad you liked QUEEN. I’m certain you’ll solve whatever problems the new book is throwing at you. Isn’t it interesting that something that’s so hard to do can (sometimes, anyway) come off looking like it wrote itself? “Major Pettigrew” was a blithe book, and it’s very difficult to believe, reading it, that it so stubbornly resisted telling. There will be a new Poke within a year, and this daily writing requirement has actually gotten me writing earlier and longer than before, which is sort of what I’d hoped it would do.
Everett — we need to figure out not how to store it, but how to keep it easily retrievable. See answer to Larissa above.
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Sylvia Says:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:49 am
I’ll be sure to recover my brilliance next time.
Also, I’ve used your name in vain over on my blog – I’m moving forward with revision. *argh*
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