Episode 930: Je Dors Trop, Mais Je Travaille Tout De Même

So I didn't make it to morning service, although my alarm did wake me up. It's just that having only fallen asleep at 4 am (again), I was too tired to get up. All's not lost though, as I did get work done today. Read a bunch of submissions, including a very strange 101-page poetry manuscript, accompanied by a comprehensive list of publication credits. I hate it when people do that, as if their credits alone will somehow persuade me to publish them. Also received a biographical note whose length in terms of words exceeded the poem that I was publishing, which again, was a bit weird. Got an acceptance from Bewildering Stories, very thorough editorial process going on there. The editor thinks I may be unnecessarily courting controversy by retaining the colour symbolism in the piece, but I declined to bow to political correctness just because someone might be offended that I appear to employ a black-and-white dualism (it isn't actually that straightforward in my story anyway, which should be clear to anyone who isn't reading with a political axe to grind) that has been in the literary tradition for centuries. Had a rewrite request from LITSNACK as well, which I've taken care of, so hopefully the piece gets accepted now, since the editor made it sound like all that was needed was to add a little more depth to an already interesting story. I also rewrote my most recent PWP poem, 'Dinah'. It's an improvement from yesterday, though still in terza rima just to have something different in the sequence. Have a couple of lines in place for the next one, but I am not making the mistake again of staying up to finish. Incidentally, as much as I dislike Harold Bloom as a critic, the next poem I'm writing actually owes something to his interpretation of Tamar in The Book Of J, translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg.

Episode 929: My Sleep Cycle Is Officially Screwed Up

Finally got around to returning Feed to the local library. Apparently I've had it for so long, the book doesn't even have the new bar codes for the self-return machines! I then took the 68 to the bottom of the Parade and bought myself an early dinner from Vialli's, which was a horrible, horrible mistake because the chicken didn't taste as good as usual, and now I just feel greasy and ill. Am so going to bed early tonight, partly because I'm going to try to wake up for the morning service tomorrow, partly because I think I might have screwed up my sleep cycle because lately I can't seem to fall asleep till 4 am. The good news, however, is that I managed to write a poem yesterday after all. Had to stay up to do it though, which is definitely contributing to the sleep cycle issues. Was going to revise it today, and Chris had some suggestions for that, but I'm putting it off till tomorrow, or possibly Monday. Maybe I should go to the Library after church tomorrow and work until I can get the last U17 from campus? Of course, this will all be completely moot if I oversleep and don't make it to service in the morning. In which case, I'll probably end up not doing any work. Again.

Episode 928: Minor Changes At Eunoia Review...

Had intended to write a poem today, but all I've got is an interesting premise and a couple of lines. The reason? I spent the afternoon catching up on new episodes of Nikita and The Vampire Diaries, which was totally worth it for the amazing multiple plot twists. Gossip Girl will always be my not-so-secret guilty pleasure (as it should be), but these two are definitely the best (newish) shows on The CW right now. Parenthetical caveat because I haven't watched Smallville or Supernatural, both of which have received praise in the past. Then in the evening, I was dealing with submissions for the journal. I thought it would be a good idea to open things up a little, so I'm now taking submissions for creative non-fiction, the definition of which I haven't bothered to spell out because I wouldn't be able to make a strong case for where to draw the line, other than to say that journalistic stuff is definitely out. I also raised the word count for fiction/creative non-fiction to 15 000, which should be fun for me if anyone ever actually sends a novella in (please don't do it just before my examinations), and the number of poems submitters can send is now doubled to 10. So a couple of hours ago, I scheduled our 250th post, which will also be the first creative non-fiction piece on the site! On a personal note, I've also had a piece accepted myself by Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure, a flash fiction from first year that Maureen Freely thought didn't end too well. I kind of disagreed because I thought the ending was appropriately creepy, so I'm glad someone's taken it. No word as yet on when it'll appear, but I'll post a link to the site when it does.

Episode 927: Limitless

Met Annie and Kathy on campus for coffee in Curiositea. Campus is nice when there's less people around! Didn't get much reading done at all before I had to get the bus to the Odeon in Coventry, where we (plus Owen) saw Limitless. Got the W1, which is one of the new bus services introduced by Warwick in partnership with Travel de Courcey, and staff and students travel for free until June. I just found out, incidentally, that the film is based on Alan Glynn's The Dark Fields, which is a book that I remember wanting to read a couple of years ago. Have ordered it now, together with Glynn's second novel, Winterland. Faber and Faber publish him, so the novels should have a certain quality. Anyway, I thought the film was refreshing, especially in terms of its cinematography. It felt like hyperkinetic pop art at times, especially in the way it conveyed the effects of the designer drug on perception. Good use of colour palettes as well. I only have two complaints, and they're both to do with Bradley Cooper. Firstly, did he absolutely have to look like the stereotypical 'artistic' figure at the beginning, with his messy hair and trashed up apartment? It's like they needed visual shorthand for 'This guy is a writer.' Plus in general, Cooper looks way better once he's been tidied up. Secondly, Cooper could get his French and Italian accents right, but he couldn't work on his Mandarin? Maybe they thought they could get away with it because American audiences probably wouldn't catch on as long as he sounded like he was speaking Mandarin properly.

By the way, it was nice seeing Abbie Cornish in a film again, although her role like everyone else's, even Robert De Niro's, felt completely peripheral to Cooper's, as the film generally does resort to stock plotting. I suppose that has more to do with its source material though, which was written as a techno-thriller, and therefore does have to conform to some extent to particular plot structures. The questions the film raises are interesting though. Would you essentially hack your brain if you could? Cooper's character appears to evade the consequences, following the one-year jump late in the film, so why not take the drug? Arguably, he ultimately didn't hurt anyone who didn't somehow deserve it, although we all felt it was problematic that it was never established if he'd actually killed the girl in the hotel room or not. Perhaps more importantly, why didn't he just figure out how to synthesise the drug himself? Surely he could have done that, alongside figuring out the financial markets. Or at least given the drug to the guy he paid to synthesise it for him. That would have worked as well, right? I liked the ending though, I suppose. I would have been really disappointed if they resorted to a finish where justice was served. The moral ambiguity they went with was definitely more interesting.

Episode 926: Should Age Matter?

Just got back from dinner at Krisztina's place. It was nice meeting Astrid and Faithful as well. Can't remember when I last laughed so much chatting with people who were total strangers just hours ago, and boy, did we cover a lot of topics! Anyway, being listed with Duotrope is finally starting to pay off for the journal, now that it's no longer tagged as a 'Fledgling' market and appears on the top 25 lists for response statistics. I wouldn't say there's been a sudden surge in submissions, although it's obvious that some people found the journal because of the editor's interview I completed for Duotrope's Digest. Especially the high school senior who still politely addressed me in his e-mail as Mr. Chung, even after I signed off my acceptance with just Ian. On a related note, I'm also starting to find it harder to decide whether to accept or reject submissions, knowing that some of the pieces are coming from relatively young writers. If I'm judging the pieces on their merits, shouldn't age count for something? In the sense that it seems unrealistic to me to expect a teenager to be writing to the same standard as a middle-aged man. I'm not saying it's impossible, and I'm aware I risk sounding patronising, which I don't intend to at all. It's just that I somehow feel if all I'm doing by editing this online literary journal is providing an avenue for people to show their work to a wider audience, then it should surely be okay not to strictly apply some sort of arbitrary standard across the board and say that's what everyone submission has to hit to get accepted. It's not like I'm handing out prizes or anything, right? I still wouldn't publish anything I regard as drivel, no matter the submitter's age, but if I'm really wavering between yes and no, I think looking at the person's age would sway me.

Episode 925: Never, Never, Never, Never, Never

Finally finished the four-part poem. Haven't e-mailed Michael Hulse yet, as I want to get to at least five new pages before I send over anything for him to look at. Maybe it's because I've been re-reading what I've written so far so many times over the past couple of days, but it's really bugging me how often I repeat certain words like 'never', 'still' and 'yet'. Literally went through 330 lines of poetry, trying to reduce the frequency of their occurrence without drastically altering the sense of the lines. I know it's statistically unlikely given my writing style to get the average below 10, maybe even 15, but it just kind of stuck out like a sore thumb once I noticed it. Especially 'never'. You'd think I could find other ways of sounding emphatic, but apparently not. (Then again, Shakespeare did have that line of perfect trochaic pentameter with Lear's 'Never, never, never, never, never', so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself?) Now that I've hit 11 pages out of 30, I think I kind of deserve a break for at least a day or two. It's back to reading books that are completely unrelated to my coursework! Or I could, well, revise my business French vocabulary.

Episode 924: To Continue Or Not To Continue, That Is The Question

Have written one poem today, and may possibly complete at least half of another. Progress is a lovely thing. I also did manage to get a haircut this afternoon, after returning The Plagiarist. Started reading Justin Cronin's The Passage on the bus journey back. Apparently the first 100 pages or so is really good, and then it goes downhill after that. Given that's only 12.5% of the book's length, I think I might be in for a slog at some point. Might just give up and switch to something else. I did stay up again last night to finish reading, and this time it was Mira Grant's Feed. I'd commented on Saturday that it was going to need to ramp things up to keep me reading (this book and the subsequent ones in the Newsflesh trilogy), and it sure did. I'd peeked ahead to the ending, so I knew who lived and who died (which is also why the Newsflesh trilogy won't get adapted for film even though it basically pushes all the right buttons for the genre), but I was still genuinely moved when I got to the death scenes. I mean, they totally made me feel grateful I wasn't an only child, a sentiment I expressed on Facebook that was promptly mocked by everyone who commented on my status, my own sister included. So much for trying to be nice! Incidentally, the review I did of Unthology No. 1 has caught the attention of its publisher, which is nice, I suppose. It's a good anthology, and the general quality of the writing far outweighs the typographical errors I spotted, and only because I'm finicky when it comes to things like that. I've also learnt from stalking Twitter that the review copy I received was an early galley, and all errors have subsequently been caught and corrected. So I strongly recommend checking Unthank Books out!

Episode 923: Church For £4

Effectively paid £4 to go to church this evening, as I didn't realise the Sunday evening U1 service only operates during term time. Would have waited longer for the next Leamington-bound 12, but I felt bad for having made Krisztina wait an hour for a bus that was never coming in the first place, and since there were also three other people at the bus stop in the same situation, we ended up sharing a cab. Only good thing, I suppose, was that the driver didn't charge us an extortionate amount. I mean, I've had to pay up to £35 to get a taxi from campus to Leamington when I was moving my stuff from my previous house. It also rained while I was waiting for the U17 to get to church. Sigh. Might miss a couple of services here and there over the next few weeks, since there won't be evening services until after Easter and I'm totally not used to getting up that early on Sunday mornings anymore. Anyway, now that I'm back, I'm going to stay up and catch up on Community. Then I'm going to finish reading Feed, so that I can pop by the library tomorrow and return it. Haven't decided if tomorrow is also going to see me getting a haircut, but I am definitely going to try and get another page of PWP done. Maybe even more. I know, crazy times.

Episode 922: Community Has Literally Taken Over My Life

I'm now five episodes into Season 2, so that's 14 more to go before I'm completely caught up. Think I might save them for tomorrow before church, since I actually want to get some reading done tonight. There's just something relentlessly compelling about its brand of metahumour. The last time I was so into a series was when I was watching the already-cancelled Better Off Ted. The continued existence of a show like Community makes me feel like there's actually hope for scripted television in the USA, or to be more precise, from the Big 5 networks. I mean, I want to write for this freaking show. (Not that that says terribly much, since I also badly want to write for Gossip Girl.) Anyway, after turning off my laptop yesterday to stop myself from sacrificing sleep to watch the entirety of Season 1, I did finish reading Geoff Page's Selected Poems, which I enjoyed. Particularly liked the extracts from the 'Smiling In English, Smoking In French' sequence, which was what Michael Hulse pointed to me to in the first place in relation to a poem I'd shown him ('Tongue Geographies'). Now I think I'm going to try and continue reading Mira Grant's Feed, which I'm already halfway through. It's getting a bit tedious though, I'll admit. The initial premise of bloggers-meet-zombies is good, but there's going to need to be some major plot twists to make me actually buy the book and its sequels (because everything worth marketing apparently has to be a trilogy nowadays).

Episode 921: Joel McHale Is My New TV Hero

Have spent a good chunk of the day watching Community, which is so addictive! I blame it on the fact that each episode only lasts around 20 minutes, so it feels like you could always squeeze in just one more. I've got through 13 episodes today, and I'm going to finish Season 1 tomorrow. Best quote I've heard in a TV show for a while now: 'The funny thing about being smart is that you can get through most of life without ever having to do any work.' It is absolutely true, and if I may flatter myself just a little, I think I'm pretty much an embodiment of that. Have read nothing today, although I'm about to start on Geoff Page's Selected Poems that Michael Hulse lent me over the Easter break. Was so bored today (before I started watching Community) that I even went on Wikipedia and updated his article! I did try reading The Plagiarist as well, but I gave up after a couple of pages and that book's now going back to Amazon UK. Guess I just can't deal with anti-novels? (Yes, it was actually advertised as one.) No one answered my question on Facebook, probably because no one recognised any of the titles and therefore nobody cared. I did come across an interesting new author though, Blake Charlton, who writes fantasy and science fiction, but also happens to be a medical student. You can check out his free short story, 'Endosymbiont'. It offers a solution to what I think is the biggest objection we have as a species towards AI, that we can't give them the same brand of morality that we (think we) possess. His answer is elegant, and I think it could really only have arisen from someone with a background in biology. Don't just take my word for it though, read the story.