I received official confirmation today from editors Kyle Johnson and Doug Warwick that my story "Say Goodbye to the Little Girl Tree" has been sold to the anthology Up Jumped the Devil! (PS Publishing).

This is a fantastic collection of dark stories inspired by Nick Cave's music and lyrics, and I'm very proud to be a part of it (especially since I'm such a big Nick Cave fan).

Kyle writes:

"We love your story and we're buying it. That was one of our instant no brainer decisions, it's a wonderful yarn. We've got your check and contract all ready to go... Thanks again for the marvelous work."

Woot!!!

Publication should be sometime toward the end of 2010. I'll post links and cover photos as they become available.

Cambodian food tends to be hearty country fare with Thai, Indian and Vietnamese influences. Illegal to smoke, Cannabis is a perfectly legal ingredient in traditional dishes.

Cambodian Milk-Fruit: This strange, Purple-green globe is filled with a soft sweet flesh (almost like lychee) that weeps a milky fluid. It's delicious, but be warned that the milk quickly turns to an efficient glue that will seal shut your purple teeth and adhere your fingers to your lips.

Pumpkin Curry with Pork: Small blue-green pumpkins with rust colored flesh go into making this thick Indian-like curry. The pumpkin and coconut milk are spicy-sweet and the tender slices of pork are savory.

Fried Morning Glories with Beef: Delicate blue flowers and crisp asparagus-like stems stir-fry well with slivers of beef and black mushroom in an oyster sauce. Add lightly toasted morning glory seeds for that dreamy hallucinogenic finish.

Nothing prepares you for this. You have seen pictures, read stories of killing. Auschwitz, Rwanda, Cambodia. You've seen a body before, small and frail, in a casket. The American way of memorial is white-glove salute and polished stone. The American way of death is clean, hidden.

You have studied the history of the genocide that happened here. The text is black on a field of clean, white paper, gathered from books pulled squarely from polished shelves.

Fact: The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot was the revolutionary party of what became known as Democratic Kampuchia. From 1975 to 1979 they enacted a mass program of torture and starvation that wiped out 2.2 million people. Anyone with an education, anyone practicing a religion, anyone born within a city limit, was marked for death. Pol Pot's declared ambition was to liquidate as many as five million people.

Fact: The United States supported Pol Pot's Regime - even beyond the end of his rule. The US was instrumental in funding the Khmer Rouge, providing weapons, ensuring a lasting seat in the United Nations. In 1991 UN Human Rights Subcomission, under the guidance of the US, drafted a provision that no member governments would ever be allowed to "detect, arrest, extradite or bring to trial those who have been responsible for crimes against humanity in Cambodia." The United States government denied that any such genocide took place, even over the voices of American journalists being slaughtered amidst the chaos.

Fact: Choeng Ek, the killing fields south of Pnom Phen, are believed to house the bodies of over seventeen thousand men, women and children. Most of them remain buried in mass graves yet to be uncovered. It is one of many such killing fields spread across the country.

All these dry facts, read safely from a book, weigh on you. They anger you and sadden you. Knowing them does not prepare you at all.


The uniformed guard takes your money and hands you a ticket that flaps against your fingers in the dusty wind. The grass leading up to the memorial is a manicured green, kept alive by a man that seems intent on spraying the hose onto every single blade. It's quiet except for the splash of water, the buzz of insects in the trees. Time is molasses here, slow and golden like the burnt edge of the sky. The dripping hose wanders on, feeding the next blade of grass.

You decide to avoid the memorial Stupa ahead where the stacked bones are kept. You will work up to it last. First the tiny museum with the yellowed photos and racks of murder weapons. Pick-axes. Mauls. A machete gone red with rust. You read about the 8,895 bodies uncovered here. Read of the many more still buried in the earth.

Out past the place where the prison sheds once stood, you walk up to the first open grave. It's a clay pit protected by a sagging, thatched roof. It looks clean. The bottom is filled with that fine clay silt that rims the dusty remains of a mud puddle. Small pebbles scatter the bottom. They cold be rocks, they could be bone, but they look innocent enough in the shade. You move on, walking the worn dirt path that winds through the honeycomb of pits. The air smells bitter here, crimson.

Your companion, Marguerite, is the first to point it out to you as you walk. She's trained in biomedical anthropology to recognize the shape of the skeleton. You cannot miss the look on her face as you slow down, stop, look down.

The path is paved with human bone. So many bones lay beneath your feet that your mind simply took it as anything but. It is not intent that paved the path. This is the effect of hundred of shoes wearing away the dirt of a vast shallow grave. Polishing it until it carves the femurs and ribs themselves into a bizarre tomography.

This is almost too much to take in. You walk slow, halting with your steps. The bones jut from the ground, still wrapped in jeans, in shirts, in the muddy rags of socks. In some places, the loose clothing has arranged itself in drifts. In others spots, only threads of cloth sprout up like tufts of hair. You bend down, recognize the red and white scarf of the people's party sprouting up from a bald patch of earth. These were used to bind the hands of prisoners before a pick-axe slipped its way into the brain.

You back up, find yourself beside the killing tree. This is where they crushed the heads of babies and children by smashing them against the rough trunk, before they dropped the bodies in the pit beneath. The ground is littered with teeth.

This is no sanitized memorial -- no safe, stone monument at which to reflect on the dead. This is a mass grave you are standing in and there is no direction you can turn away from it. No way to pray and depart, thoughts elsewhere. You will walk on the faces of the dead to leave this place and you will not forget what that feels like, ever.

Presidents and generals should walk these fields, you think. Those who raise up a weapon in anger should walk these fields. Anyone who has ever denied a genocide, a holocaust should be forced to crawl on hands and knees through these killing fields until they retch, until they slide weakly into the hollows of the earth.

When you reach the Stuppa that holds the bones of the eight thousand, you light incense for the tower of skulls inside. You feel calm. Aware.

The thousand dark eye holes stare through you to the horizon. The victims who rest here are gone. They cannot remember what happened to them, how they came to be here in these silent green fields.

You will.

Strong Strange Tree is sent to Writers Of The Future just in time for first quarter 2010. It was finished via internet cafe in Cambodia.

The monkey screams in disdain over the darkening ruin of the Kmer empire.

The sun is fading fast, but still you are drawn through these ancient stone corridors flush with roots. You dwell in shadows and shafts of sunset that fall from the crumbling ceilings. It's hard to believe that some venture here at all, the way some teetering walls look ready to give with a single push, the way the spiderwebs seal the darker passages. You push through and keep going.

It is merely amazing to think that such an ancient civilization could have carved such vast and intricate buildings. It is another thing entirely to be confronted with it. To be alone, deep inside it. When this city housed over a million people, London was merely a town. Now you are nearing a population of one as what few tourists there are flee with the setting sun.

This is not a temple - it is a vast city of temples swallowed by the jungle. Angkor Wat itself is the single largest religious building in the world - over one square kilometer. It is dwarfed by the larger walled collection of temples beside it in Angkor Thom, at nine times the size, and this is in turn is but a skipping stone amongst a hundred such ruins that stretch far into the highlands of the empire. Each one you visit became farther from the beaten path. Each, lonelier, dustier, taken by the earth.

You walk until you see no one, and still you push deeper.


* * *

Some of these mountains of stone are so high, and the remnants of stairs so narrow, that it takes climbing skill to ascend the vertical face. Your fingers find holds in the hollows of missing bricks and the toes of gods and demons. From the highest platforms you can look out over the flat spreading jungle and farmland. You can tell that every foot of hight was carted and laid here by man.

* * *

Finally, you ride through the dark like the wind. The bicycle is a rusting beauty plucked from an old Paris post card. It is the cheapest way to get farther into the temples and away from the crowds and the gas-rattle of tuk-tuks. Now, too late, it carries you homeward in the darkening pitch. It's just you and the night monkeys, the clattering birds and the awakening sounds of things you can't name. You fly faster, not entirely sure of the way, but confident in your pace as you outrun the horns of the moon.

Soon the air of the jungle and feilds becomes thick with white gnats coming to feed in the darkness. They blind your light and fall on you like rain, their bodies melting against yours in a river of cool droplets. The cold wetness of their sacrifice is startling. You blink them from your eyes and spit them back into the night as you ride on.

And still you want to push deeper.

Happy holidays to everyone, half a world away.

The best things in life are free, it's 90 degrees, and there are monkeys in the Christmas trees.

You catch a flash of movement through the minibus window and wonder if one of the bags stacked on top of the roof flew off during the driver's veering right turn. You check the passenger side mirror but realize there isn't one -- only a broken stump two desperate black scratches town the side. There is no point distracting the driver. He's already rear-ended a taxi once -- a jolt which was politely ignored by everyone, including the driver he hit.

Welcome to Southeast Asia: Where the drivers weave on the right or left (usually) and the sidewalks (always). It's hot in a way you've rarely felt in your other travels. The air seems to stick to your skin with the scents of spice and honey, sweat and cesspool. Along with the loud smells come louder colors - the brilliant green of the plants and vines, the blood-orange sunset, the heaps of fruit for sale on the roads outside the rattling windows, the color of cool and heat and lust.

You are on your way and you have no idea where it will take you.

Hello again my friends,


If you are reading this, it is because I am about to head off to Southeast Asia on another one of my crazy trips into the cultural underbelly and the jungle undergrowth. You are reading this because you would like to come along in the flesh, or in the only way you can - by travelogue. Many of you are my friends and family back home who have followed my other journeys. Some of you are fellow travelers that I've met all over the earth. All of us share a passion for learning about what the world is like when you get off the beaten path and taste what secrets it has to offer.

This begins a journey of two months through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and probably several other countries, depending on which way the wind takes me. I hope you will join me by reading these posts and feeling the wind blow through your own hair out somewhere across the pacific...

...In a land once known as Siam.


-Christopher Reynaga

I just finished a new story, Strong Strange Tree (working title). I started typing it on my iPhone last night on the way back from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium with the family. It took me about three hours to finish the draft, which was refreshingly fast. My friend, Peter V Brett, typed his entire novel The Warded Man on a blackberry, which sounds more complicated in comparison. Verdict? It's not a bad interface to write on in a pinch. With practice, it could even be the ideal pocket-sized scribe ;)

The work on the new novel (codename Wolf) is going well - which is to say it's an excruciating birth process. My lesson is in realizing this is how it's supposed to feel. Work on the existing novel (codename Wrestling the Dragon) is paused, but I feel another surge of it coming on now that I have had time to mull it over. I would not be surprised if the book I just started makes it to the finish line first.

I have a bunch of stories that are almost ready to hit the mail. They feel like horses kicking at the starting gates. As I strive to write fiction full-time, one of the hardest things to find is that balance point between doing work that feels perfectly polished, and doing work I know is professional. The truth is a professional doesn't have infinite time to spend on a draft. There comes a point where the manuscript needs to go out in order for the check to come in.

Everyone has to decide what this spot is for themselves. I hope to make my living solely writing fiction one day, but I keep my tech-writing day job so that I have the financial room to do my best fiction. Yet there is an inflection point a pro must find when the time spent polishing starts to outweigh the benefits. Finding this sweet spot has been a challenge for me. I've thrown more than a hundred hours each into some of the stories that I have written since Clarion West. Some have had the emotional investment of short novels. Each has needed all the time it took, as these weren't merely stories, but deep explorations of techniques I learned at the workshop.

I'm still reaching for that efficient point where I can turn out the best books and stories I can at a rate that can sustain me in this crazy writing life. I sense that as my skill grows, this magical point will get easier to reach.

I've been looking for a way to track my writing progress that breaks down the time I spend on projects - how long it's taken me to write the first draft of this story or revise that chapter. Most of all, how much writing time am I clocking daily? (I'm ramping back up to full-time fiction writing this quarter). Enter an amazing and totally free little software program for PC, Mac, and Linux:

timeEdition.


Not only does this simple program keep track of whatever projects you are working on, it posts the results in real-time to your Google or outlook calendar, so that you have an easy graphical display of your activities for every day, week, or month. You can also configure timeEdition to beep or stop timing when you spend too much time away from your computer.

It's simple, easy to use, and it has gotten me to work harder at my writing. Yesterday I clocked in 8 hours and 13 minutes of pure writing time. A quick look at my Google calendar tells me how much time I spent on each story, what I did, and when I took my breaks. The programs internal statistics break down how much time I spend on activities like drafts or editing for any project or all my writing.

It's not the fanciest gadget in the world, but it does exactly what I need. ; )

I'm very proud of my writing output today.

1. I did a major chunk of a novella that I've been rewriting for Writers of the Future
2. Started a new story, and
3. Started a new novel that demanded that I break ground now.

This on top of the novel that I'm already amidst should prove to make this an interesting month. =)

My reading of Tim Pratt's wonderful "Incubus" is up at podcastle. Listen
and enjoy!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

This is going to be my first World Fantasy. Being a professional con, I have promised Maggie that I wont kick down (any more) doors, demanding where the party is. ;)

We'll see about that...

I can't wait to see all of you there!

I have to say that I am very proud of my Clarion West class - the legendary class of 2008.  Many of us have had acceptances and publications this year - in no small part to the way that we are still chatting on the class list and by phone, still meeting up, still critting each other's work, and still competing in class contests to see who can get the most stories out the door. It's stirring to see how active we all are, and how close we've kept more than a year out. 

We've got another class contest starting up for the most fiction written and submitted for the fourth quarter of 09 (grand prize - the winner's face on the coffee mug that we'll all drink our morning Joe from). I can feel my pulse quickening. It means a lot that I'm already writing regardless, but it means even more that I'm writing with my class, and pushing myself harder and farther than I may otherwise. Knowing that all my classmates are busy typing with me makes all the difference in the world. We're still together in spirit - and soon we'll all gather downstairs in our unbroken circle for the new day of revelations to begin. 


Update:

For a reasonably complete list of our collective publications so far see my friend carolryles new post   Clarion West 2008 Publications.

As we come to the close of the Clarion West Write-a-thon, I have to say that  I learned much from trying to do so much writing (except this time without the shield from everyday life that the workshop provides). I reassessed my goals and succeeded with most of what I was shooting for.

The one thing I did not complete by write-a-thon's end: The Clarion West Class Notes. These I will continue to work on and post for the benefit of all those wonderful folks that contributed. While I could have just transcribed my notes verbatim, I realized that I was cheating myself (and my readers) in not thinking these lessons through and including commentary on what they are unlocking in me one year later. The pace of things during the write-a-thon did not offer a lot of time for reflection, so the class notes now will be posted at their own pace, and the public unveiling will occur in their own time. 

Thank you so much to everyone who donated. I could not have done it without you. 

      

I'm almost on target with my write-a-thon writing goals. Week 2 story draft is done (Chronophage) and I'm running a bit behind on week 3 (The Company You Keep). The pressure is on. I barely have time to keep up with my daily routines, which is starting to feel more than a little bit like I'm back at the workshop in Seattle. ;)

I SAID I was crazy to do all these story drafts AND post my Clarion West 2008 lecture notes, but I'm hard at work on those too and I'll get the first installment up here very soon.

Thank you so much to the people who have contributed to my Clarion West write-a-thon page this week: Cat Rambo, Christa Cassano, Debbie Notkin, and Rachel Heslin!

I'm lucky to live along the Los Gatos Creek Trail. The windy fire roads and single-track along the lake, combined with the paved section that runs through Los Gatos, means that I can ride my bike to work. The journey from door to door is approximately eight miles each way according to Google maps (the exact distance will soon be conformed once use my new iPhone biking GPS app). This is just within the limits of doable for a beginner and a fast track for a dedicated rider.

This was no easy path to start on. I used to be that dedicated rider that hit the trails constantly, but I'm not in the bike shape I was at 19. The first weekend test ride to work a month ago took me over an hour to get to work and over two to get home (It's a steep elevation climb to get back up into the hills above the Lexington Reservoir). Still I was determined to get hard-bodied again and save the planet in the process. ;)

My progress has been fantastic. I feel suffused with new energy, I'm losing weight, and I look forward to bike days. My speed is increasing quickly. My best time to work was today - at 38 minutes. My best time home was yesterday at 1:12 (and I'll beat it today if I can). I just graduated to commuting by bike three days a week, and in time, it will be every day (except for days I need the car to run errands).

The best part is what I love about mountain biking - The sensation of flying through nature, of floating over the hilltops and rocketing down the slopes in the still dawn. Small rabbits run alongside and flee down the rust-rock trail. Birds surge from the brush and fly out over the lake. You yell and catch air as the sun reaches up to grab the sky.

What better commute than this? 

My reading of "Nine Fingered Maria" by Hillary Moon Murphy is now up on Podcastle. It's a tale of loneliness, magic and severance.

Listen and enjoy...


 

As some of you may know, I am writer for this year’s Clarion West Write-a-Thon. That means yours truly will be pounding the keys like a madman for the next six weeks of Clarion West, trying to raise funds for our great non-profit program.

Clarion West literally changed my life. A year later, I'm still dizzy from the amount of word-smith gold piled into my brain in six short weeks; of the dozens of friendships born there and since with great writers and editors; of all the doors that have been thrown wide open. It is my goal to share this experience with as many emerging writers as possible.

You can find my Write-A-Thon page here at this link, along with a PayPal button. My goal is to relive my CW experience by writing a story for every week of the workshop, just like the students that just started the 2009 session this week. Feel free to send a donation now, or with every story I write as encouragement. Know that every dollar helps send a talented new writer toward an education that's priceless.

I'll do one better. In addition to writing all those stories for the workshop, I'll publish my class notes for all the writing secrets bestowed upon us by our teachers - Chuck Palahniuk, Cory Doctorow, Paul Park, Mary Rosenblum, Sheree R. Thomas- and most of all the fabulous Connie Willis, who is being inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame this week.

ANYONE who contributes to Clarion West (to my page or anyone else’s) will receive instant access to the Writing Secrets of Clarion West 2007 notes (just post a message here that you've donated and I'll filter you in). I'll post the notes weekly for each instructor. At the end of the Write-a-Thon I'll unlock most of them for everyone to read - but for those of you who are truly invested in writing, and the dream of Clarion West - you'll have all of them now.

News! - because of Amazon.com's $25,000 matching grant, whatever you give will be doubled. Of course this amount needs to be first reached in order for Clarion West to receive anything, so contributing this year is doubly important.

Thank you!