Revelry

'Twas brillig and the slithey toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe

That is the first stanza of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carol. Taken alone it can mean anything, so I am choosing it to describe my day at the Ren Fair. Take it how you will.

In other news, I have another poetry event today. This is the Poetry Out Loud recitation competetion. I will be reciting Jabberwocky and Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams. If you want to read those poems Google them. They are both very popular. If you want to hear me read those poems, then you can either show up at Catalina Magnet High in Tucson, AZ from 3 to 5 this afternoon, or you can wait and hope that I might get around to recording them and posting them here.

It should be fun, and I'm pretty sure I have a decent chance of winning. I'll post about it later today or tomorrow.

Renaissance

*hoping he spelled the title right*

I am going to a Renaissance(I hate spelling that word, its Ren, from now on) fair today. I have never been to one, so I'm not really sure what to expect. I've heard tales of jesters and knights, ladies and lords, frolicking about the grassy fields of Mesa, Arizona. I hear there is chicken legs as big as your head, and bread bowls with a soup deserving of the king. Tonight, or possibly tommorow, you will hear the tales I have to tell. Until then, may your swords and arrows point true, and your heart point truer.

Hmm...

The point is not the points. The point is the poetry.

These are the words of the Chicago construction worker, Marc Smith (SO WHAT?!), the man who invented slam poetry. I do slams once or twice a month, when they have them. Tonight's slam was an interesting one. It was the Valentines Day Slam with three parts Love Me, Do Me, Leave Me. In other words love poems, sex poems and break up poems.

For the first part I did a poem about an internet girlfriend (a fictional one, I promise). My sex poem was about Harry Potter Erotic Fan Fiction. Then I did a break up poem making fun of break up poems.

The internet girlfriend one, always goes over well. But I rocked the second round, in which I got three 10s and some other scores I don't remember. Then the third round I got another ten, but the other scores were average.

There was a winner named for each round and one for the cumulative score. I won the second round with my poem. The prize was somewhat awkward (flavored lube), but it was great.

At this point you are probably wondering about the title of this post. Well I should be estatic, but I'm not. I was happy when I did the poem, and right after. I was happy when I saw my scores. But when I found out I won, my first thought was "what am I supposed to do with flavored lube?"

I realized I have reached a sort of poetic nirvana. The only thing that matters to me is the poetry, not the points. Of course that will all go down the tube when someone gives me a 2, and it hurts.

Close

If I had to be wrong, this would have been the way I would have chosen it. I just checked the movie results for yesterday, or really the day before yesterday as it is now past midnight. Jumper was the number one movie on Valentines Day. I knew Americans were smarter than they looked. A close second was Step Up 2. I think it is merely the popularity of the song that it got it that far. I want to see what the final weekend numbers are before making any final statements

Number three was not "Definitely, Maybe" but Fools Gold. Apparently lots of people waited till VD to see it. However, DM did beat out Spiderwick Chronicles.

That is all. I'm going to bed.

Movies

There are several movies coming out today, and for no reason in particular, I have made several predictions regarding their success.

The four movies coming out today are "Step Up 2", "Definitely, Maybe", "Jumper" and "Spiderwick Chronicles". By the end of today, the ranking of money made by each of these movies will be as follows:

1. Definitely, Maybe: This film will win on Valentines Day, and then essentially disppear. It is a date movie and that will get it viewers on Valentines Day. But after that people will realize it sucks and it will fade into obscurity.

2. Step Up 2: I doubt this film will be particularly good, but it will get solid earnings on the first day, because of the wildly popular Flo Rida song, "Low". The song is in the movie, and most of its money will be made from fans of the song. I predict it will be a close second to "Definitely, Maybe"

3. Jumper: This movie is the best movie on the list, and will probably dominate the box office becuase it combines the superhero appeal, with some horror/suspense. The reason it is number three is that it is essentially an unknown.

4. Spiderwick Chronicles: Kids movie adaptation of moderately popular kids book. The fans of the book and those needing a kids movie to take their child, or younger sibling to will watch this. Then they will all realize it sucks, and it will also fade into obscurity.

Now these predictions are only for today. By Saturday, the only people going to see "Definitely, Not" will be weepy chicks with too much time and money on their hands, seeing it for the tenth time becuase they lost their boyfriend on VD. No one will have heard of "Spiderwack Chronicles" except the hardcore book fans. Step Up 2, will do alright becuase dancing movies are a relatively safe bet.

On Valentines Day, those brave souls who risked their time and money on the awesome unknown, "Jumper" will realize its awesomeness, tell their friends, they will tell their friends, and word of mouth, the best advertising ever, will have this film dominating by Saturday.

So if you are going to the movies with your girl today and you let her choose the movie, keep these things in mind depending on the movie she chooses.

Definitely, Maybe: Deal with it, you might get some
Step Up 2: Cool, you have girl with decent taste
Spiderwick Chronicles: Find a girlfriend who has moved past the training bra.
Jumper: Your conversation should go something like this:
You: What movie do you want to see?
Her: Jumper
You: Will you marry me?

Markets

I mentioned in a previous post that I got "Novel & Short Story Writer's Market" recently and was overwhelmed by the huge number of entries. But its better now. I want to get paid for my writing, so I went through all three big lists of short story markets, literary magazines, small circulation publications, and consumer magazines and put every paying market into an excel document. This was about 150 markets. Then I went through and eliminated the markets that only work with established writers, and the ones that only publish things I will never write, like Christian magazines. This narrowed it down to 85 markets.

At this point I did a "save as" and began yet another round of eliminations. This time I chose a specific story of mine and eliminated all the markets that would never publish it, based on length or genre. Now I am down to 33 markets, two of which are consumer magazines. The next step is to sort the markets into the ones that seem best for this story, and the others that are not an excellent match. This will determine the order in which I send out these stories. Also if a magazine does not accept simultaneous submissions then they will have to have their own round of submissions. I suspect this may be true of the consumer magazines.

But right now I am going to submit my story to my writer's group, so it can be brimming with as much awesomeness as possible before I start sending it out. Wish me luck!

Alas!

I have neglected my duties to my audience that probably does not exist. I have gone more than two days without making a post. My last post was Saturday and it is now Tuesday. I blame Hamlet. Though it really is a great play (yes I'm a lit nerd) I don't like writing essays and I needed to write some Hamlet essays, yesterday, and in fact right now as well. Goodbye!

Publishing

My copy of "2008: Novel & Short Story Writer's Market." just arrived in the mail today. Now I have to sort through the several hundred listings to find short story markets that will accept me and pay me for my glorious work. That way when I attempt to sell the brick I mentioned in my last post I will have some publishing experience to prove my merit. Apparently being the self-proclaimed, Grandmaster of the Universe won't be enough to catch an agents eye.

Brick

This November I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. If you're interested there's a link on the left. But I only wrote the first fifty thousand words of it. Then for the next six weeks I finished it coming in at a whopping 107,000 words. (Which for the record is not terribly long for an average book) So I ran it through spell check which took about a week, cut out the big chunks I knew didn't belong, and then spent a small fortune having it printed. The good news is that if I ever sell this novel I can write that off as an expense.

The bad news is I have a stack of papers nearly four inches high waiting to be edited. I've done the first 19 pages or so, but the whole thing is 610. My english teacher, in her infinite awesomeness has agreed to look at my novel once I edit it. I told her I would have it ready around late March, early April. In order for me to pull that off I need about 14 or 15 pages of editing done every single day. Being a writer is hard.

Irony

Today, is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Last year for Lent I gave up the internet. Ironically, this year for Lent I am committing to more internet.

I have had this blog for a while, but I only post rarely. I've started up others blogs where I make a few posts, then forget about it. But I like the idea of having a blog. The blog culture appeals to me, and overall I think blogs are pretty neat.

So this year for Lent, I am keeping up this blog. My goal is to post at least every other day. So then by Easter I will have finally learned whether a blog really is for me. I know I will do this, because I'm doing it for Lent, but if by Easter keeping the blog is starting to seem like a chore, then I will be satisfied in saying that blogging is not for me. However if I find that I love it, I will get in the habit and I will have an active blog. So all will be well.

Morning

4 o' clock in the morning. My head is stuffed up, and my nose hurts. Except I mean that the other way 'round. See? My brain is messed up too.

I don't know if I'm sick or if allergies are just making me feel sick. I'm hoping for sick, because I really don't want to go to school today, and we're really not doing anything of extreme importance today. Just as I typed that sentence I remembered that I was supposed to perform a scene from Hamlet today. Though if I had to miss anything, that would be it. That gives me and the others in my group more time to study.

The bad news, is I am probably not sick. I know these symptoms, they are simply the symptoms of silly syphilis. No I lied, I just felt like being alliterative. Allergies and dehydration, is what I have. It sucks.

Allergies

Need I say more?

Hail

Today was a rainy, cloudy, generally depressing day. Normally this would put a real damper on my mood, but on my way home it began to hail. At this point you are probably wondering why hail is an improvement. In fact it was not. What improved my mood was the song that played on my ipod, just as it began to hail: "Take Me Out" by Frank Ferdinand. Listen to the song below. You'll see what I mean.