Category: blog

Mel Gibson and Other Musings

Posted on July 10, 2010July 12, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

So Mel Gibson has been exposed (once again) as an intolerant, sexist, abusive person.Â A recording of a phone conversation with his former girlfriend is now Out There on the internet and one can listen to Mel spill molten verbiage into her earpiece while she calmly refutes his charges.

All I can wonder is,Â So what?

What business is this of ours?Â This is private stuff.Â People lose control.Â Between each other, with strangers, but more often with those closest, people have moments when the mouth ill-advisedly opens and vileness falls out.Â The question is, does this define us?Â Are we, in fact, only to be defined by our worst moments?…

A Few More Memories

Posted on June 27, 2010August 6, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

I thought I’d post a handful of photographs from Clarion ’88.Â Just a few.Â The temptation to try to do humorous captions is great, but I decided to simply be informative.Â Enjoy.

The entrance to Owen Hall, the dorm building

Van Hoosen, where the workshops were conducted

Tim Powers, our first week writer-in-residence, in session

Pizza with Powers

Daryl Gregory, doing his Tim Powers “I Got No Story” Clarion Blues

Kelley Eskridge arrived already injured, with sprained ankle, but as optimistic as the rest of us

One of many outdoor meals held in the courtyard of Van Hoosen.Â Lisa Goldstein, second week instructor, is in the midst of students here

One of the other eateries in East Lansing frequented by Clarionites

Chip Delany, third week instructor

Nicola Griffith

Andy Tisbert, Me (attempting inscrutability), and Kimberly Rufer-Bach during a workshop

Kate Wilhelm, Kim Stanley Robinson (fourth week instructor), and Damon Knight.Â …

Clarion

Posted on June 25, 2010August 6, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

Tomorrow, June 26th, is the 22nd anniversary of my arrival at the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop, on the campus of Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.Â The following piece was written for an anthology about Clarion several years ago, one which firstly did not take the essay and secondly seems not to have appeared at all.Â Be that as it may, I’ve decided to post it here.Â Enjoy.

And to all my fellow Clarionites, Happy Anniversary.

Baked Grass and Surgical Evisceration

The room could double for a steambath late into the night.Â When we arrived—seventeen of us from Maine to California, plus one from England—the weather was the last thing on our minds.Â …

Resume du jour

Posted on June 1, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

It’s June.Â A smidgen over a year ago (May 29th, 2009) Advance Photographics closed its doors and I have been unemployed since.

In that time I have written half of the sequel to my alternate history novel, Orleans, and a complete new novel, a murder mystery calledÂ The Drowned Doll.Â I’ve written blog posts for both here and Dangerous Intersection and occasionally for my MySpace page (which is getting more and more neglected in favor of Facebook, through which I can stream this blog).Â I wrote book reviews for a good chunk of 2009 until two of my review outlets basically dried up and went away.…

Fiction On-Line?

Posted on March 30, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

So the new novel is finished and in the mail.Â My agent has it now.Â From there, who knows?

Anyone who has kept up with me here knows that the last five years have been, well, dismal publishing-wise.Â The situation became even more complicated in 2008 when the global economy fell into the toilet and publishing began to look like a front-line regiment in WWI.Â Everyone in the field watched in horror at the casualty figures as an industry that had seemed to be doing pretty well began hemorrhaging at the pores.

Naturally, I’ve been trying to think of What To Do Next in order to stave off professional oblivion.Â …

End of A Long Week…

Posted on February 26, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

I’m at sixes and sevens, waiting for Donna to read the manuscript and give me her notes.Â I sort of want to work on something else, but I also want to clean my office, but I also want to read about a dozen books, and I can’t settle on any one thing, so I end up doing a great deal of very little. I should be used to this, but I’m not.

Once this book goes out the door it will be the first time in about four years that I will not be working on a novel.Â (Yes, I do still have two novels “in process” and I can go back to work on either one of them, and I will, but I don’t have to.)Â …

Meanwhile!

Posted on February 20, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

Coming down to the last two chapters of the final draft of (drum roll, please)Â The Drowned Doll.

The title may change before it sees print, but that’s what it’s called now.Â It ties into the plot, trust me.Â My first shot at a contemporary murder mystery.Â In describing it to my agent, she termed is “a cozy” which I gather means it’s in the vein of Nero Wolfe or Hercule Poirot rather than Thomas Harris or James Lee Burke.Â Minimum of gore, emphasis on problem solving.Â Except for a smidgin of bad language and the fact that there is, y’know, some sex (none on stage/page), kids could read this.Â …

New Draft and Other Stuff

Posted on January 21, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

This morning I completed the second draft of the new murder mystery, The Drowned Doll.Â The first draft came in at about 70,000 words, this one is just shy of 93,000, which is right about where I wanted it.

I then got dressed and went to the gym.Â January has been abysmally cold, so I haven’t been going.Â I used to be very susceptible to colds at below 25 degrees, and although I’m not so much anymore, I still draw the line at 10 degrees and stay home.Â It’s been push-ups and aerobics for the last few weeks.Â This week the weather broke a bit and it’s been up in the 30s and 40s.Â …

For The New Year

Posted on January 4, 2010 By Mark Tiedemann

Starting off on a positive step, I’ve made a change on the site.Â Not much of a one, but it could lead to something special.

The Art page has been static for some time now.Â Technical issues among other things.Â But I decided to move the art to a site that can give me a little better control and offer the possibility of expanding this part of my creative life.Â Take the plunge, go for it, I say, put your stuff out there where people can see it.

So over the weekend, with a bit of help from my webmaster, I changed the Art link to a hosting site that offers a nicer look and some bells and whistles.Â …

2009…Assessment

Posted on December 31, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Annual reassessments are dicey things.Â If you have a terrific year, they can sound like bragging, which would be nice for a change.Â If you had an absolutely lousy year, they sound like whining, something I do enough of as it is.

On the other hand, they can be autobiographical in instances where the possibility of anyone (including yourself) ever doing an â€œofficialâ€ biography is next to nil.Â In this instance, honesty is called for, the kind most people rarely indulge in public.Â It gives one pause to consider the responsibility latent in such an enterprise.

But, as they say, itâ€™s my blog and Iâ€™ll bloody well write what I want.…