Websnark

October 24, 2007

Eric: Banter Latte: Just Because, dang it!

Right! Some posts for you! Because you deserve something to read, and as it works out I wrote this.

• The October Myth Call: For those who want to add things to the Mythology of the Modern World, this is the place to do it! You've seen myth calls before, but this one is in... October.
• Mythology of the Modern World: Why are there Suburbs?: A pretty well received myth, all told, with some good characterization here, some bittersweetness, and one side of a Dickish duality, really. Also, there is mass transit.
• Justice Wing: Prologue: As it sounds, this is a prologue for the new Justice Wing continuing series. This sets the stage, and it gives us a view of some of the bigger names in the settings -- both 'then' and (sort of) 'now.' Very well received, which gives me a little hope the Leather magic will rub off.
• Justice Wing: Vilify 5 Part One: And now, "Vilify 5," the next Justice Wing serial. Kind of the opposite end of the supervillain spectrum from "Interviewing Leather." I hope folks like it.
• Mythology of the Modern World: Why do people check the time on mobile phones instead of watches?: The second in our Dickish duality. I'm playing a bit with storytelling technique here, and I think it went okay.
• From the Vault: America the Beautiful: A fragment -- half a chapter of a book that won't get written. A dystopia of fairness, and a setup. It seems to have found some favor, though I doubt it will ever go anywhere.
• Justice Wing: Vilify 5 Part Two: Unsurprisingly, it's the second part of "Vilify 5." As with the last, I just hope folks enjoy it.

We also got some joy and a solid boost this week from Home on the Strange. And I can take more than a little pride in the fact that there's a permanent link to Banter Latte and some nice comments from Ferrett sitting right alongside the words "Lead Crotch-Shield." It's always amazing to have a dream come true.

I will do my level best to write something nonfiction over here. In my defense, I'm not very bright.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:29 AM | Comments (2)

October 4, 2007

Eric: State of the Banter Latte address

The following is a repost of a bit from Banter Latte, explaining the new fall schedule and other junk! Before that, as promised, is a quick recap of the few posts since the last recap. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the writings and stuff.

Here's the recap!

Wednesday: From Sinister Bedfellows: Anthology. My story contributed to Sinister Bedfellows: Anthology, inspired and edited by Snarkoleptic Number One-Alpha mckenzee, which you should all go and buy because it's cool.
Thursday: The Home Front: Homecoming Part Three. The third part in this pretty well received story of transitions. Also, there's a bazooka. How can you go wrong with a bazooka.
Tuesday: Interviewing Leather Part Fourteen. The end of the story! Very well received, by many people, some of whom have their own automobiles and personal computers. Seriously, I'm happy with how this story turned out and I hope you like it.
Thursday: Adventures in Writing! The New Fall Schedule: A post that details where the site is going, what's happening next, and -- it's worth noting -- is entirely replicated under this recap. Which honestly makes me wonder why you would click this link instead of just continuing to read, but what the Hell? You're going to make your own decisions in life, and it would be a mistake for me to try and argue you out of them.

There won't be a recap next week, as we're starting fresh on Monday, and in case you haven't noticed we've recapped everything that would come up before then (except for the October Myth Call, which is scheduled for Saturday. But we can cover that the following week, I figure).

Thanks as always. Here's the repost.

***

Right, we're going to call this week, excepting the end of "Interviewing Leather," a vacation week. Which makes a little sense. I've done a lot of writing since June, and between that and the start of school, it's probably at least a little lucky my brain hasn't exploded from the heat.

Next week, we'll launch back into things. Call it the new fall season, hot off the heels of a successful midseason replacement. However, I'm going to tweak things a little bit here and there, and this post will tell you exactly how I'm doing that.

First off, you'll notice that posts now have tags underneath them (though I haven't finished going through the archives and tagging things. I guess that's what I'm doing for the rest of the week). At Wednesday's suggestion, I've upgraded to Wordpress 2.3, and I'm reorganizing the way I'm doing things. See, the category system is good for general things, but when you drill down to actual titles and storylines, you end up with way too many categories.

So, here's how it's going to go. I'll continue to categorize things by general category. I'll also tag them, and be pretty liberal with the tags. For serials and continuing stories, one of the tags will always be the title of the story -- you can click on the tag and get links to all chapters of a given story.

As an example? I give you the Interviewing Leather page, automatically arranged by the eudaemons of network management and database schemae: http://banter-latte.annotations.com/tag/interviewing-leather/. It does about ten posts a page, so make use of the "previous entries" link at the bottom of the page to get the whole story.

At the same time, I'm going to be liberal about tagging -- part of the point of the tags is the ability to make bizarre connections, and unlike Categories they're very freeform. So you'll see some tags like "coffee" show up, where I'd never do a category like that. Mostly I'll try to have fun with it.

Secondly, we have our new Schedule of posts!

Why a new schedule? Because I was getting close to a brain hemorrhage before. The idea was I would do three major posts a week, before. Then, when I wasn't looking, Leather and Chapman exploded.

So, here's the schedule as it now stands:

Mondays will continue to be Myth days, and will return next week. As one of the two most popular things on here, it's not about to go away. Besides, I like writing it.

Wednesdays are now going to be Justice Wing days. Yeah, the limited series did well so now we're picking up a commitment. I have a master plan for it that I'd like to flesh out. There's a number of longer stories I want to do, and some shorter ones, and "this" and "that." My current plan is to take some of the longer stories I have planned in the pipeline -- like The Death of Paragon and Crossing the Rubicon -- and break them up into shorter "chapters" which themselves will then be broken up into weekly chunks about the size of the individual Leather posts. So, we might do a six part chapter of The Death of Paragon, then do a 1-3 part short story, then do a five part chapter of Crossing the Rubicon, then... well, you get the point. It's an experiment. And by the end of it, I should have several books' worth of stories actually more or less done.

As a side note, there are about three different plans being pursued right now for a dead trees version of "Interviewing Leather," involving some nice value-adds. One of which actually involves an interested small press publishing company. Which blows my mind when you figure part one started with me saying "I have no idea where I could publish this."

Fridays are now the Storytelling day. These are going to be short stories and multi-part serials in a variety of genres and fictional universes. For example, Homecoming will finish up on Fridays to begin with (under the Mythic Heroes tag, naturally). While there will be some superheroing, this is mostly going to be where science fiction, fantasy, horror, contemporary fiction, magic realism, surrealism -- you know, stuff goes.

Weekends are going to be the new home for Protected Novel Chapters. It's like a bonus premium you get in your cereal box. I can't swear there will be a chapter every week -- it's actually significantly harder to write a chapter of Theftworld than it is to write a chapter of "Interviewing Leather" -- but the whole point of this exercise was to get me to write a novel chapter a week, and I'm going to at least try to accomplish that.

There will also be the monthly Myth Calls on the first weekend of each month. Just because I enjoy those and people seem to like them.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are getting way scaled back. The idea originally was that these were random and optional, and we're going back to that. No more continuing stories on those days, for example. If I decide to post more bits and pieces of my writing past, this is where it will go. Ditto poetry or vignettes that come to me. I may give Mason Kramer's Kayble form a try one of these Tuesdays or Thursday, for example.

And there may be essays about writing, or about the backstory and/or structure of my other stories. Discussions of the myths or the like. Annotations and notes. Some of those -- like this post -- will be crossposted to Websnark because that's the Nonfiction hangout. Though I'm not entirely sure anyone over there would be that interested in this stuff. Who can tell? Not me, that's for sure.

Finally, I'm beginning to ponder merchandising. Beyond the potential Dead Tree Leather, mind. I've never been overly enamored of the Cafepress tee shirts but some of their other stuff is cool. Their coffee mugs are primo, for example. (I've had some of them for years, now.) If you have any thoughts on what you might want to see on a tchotchke, chime in in the comments if you will.

And finally, thank you for reading. Seriously. It makes all the difference in the world to have someone on the other side of these things.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)

September 24, 2007

Eric: It's the Tuesday Action Banter Latte Roundup Now with Nougat!

So here we are, damnably close to being back on schedule. Only Theftworld was AWOL this past week, and you know, that's something we're sort of used to these days. With luck, it will return this Friday and all will be light.

Of course, since we last spoke, there have been a few updates. Not as many as we'd like, but not as few as there might be. And they finally include a return of Leather to the proceedings, so how bad could it be?

So here we go:

Wednesday: Storytelling: Hephaestus Fallen: One of the earliest Imperial Space stories, and a moderately long read. This one dates back to 1991, and it some of the details don't jibe with some of the later stories... well, things have been refined since then. And if I'm a moderately better storyteller now than I was in 1991, that probably makes some sense.
Wednesday: Administrative Details: We added some links to the sidebar, and now I add them to you. All of you! Mu hu hah hah hah!
Thursday: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Twelve: The longest chapter! The big Blowoff! This is what (at least some) readers have been waiting for since Part Two! And it was pretty well received, so I guess I did okay with it!
Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: Why is there a disconnect between Art and Industry? An interesting myth, in that it takes some of the earlier myth elements and builds on them. Not the happiest of myths I've written, mind.
Tuesday: Serial: Interviewing Leather Part Thirteen: From feast to famine -- it's another Leather. Part one of the denouement, and the penultimate part in this series. One more week, and I need to figure out what's replacing her. Yay. Joy. Regardless, we finally get to know some of the folks on the other side of the equation in this one, so I hope people like it.

Beyond that, I sleep. Night!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

Eric: It's the Two Weeks Tuesday Banter Latte Roundup! Which is also called "September."

Hello everyone! I'm not dead!

As you may recall from years past, it is the Month of September, which to those of us who work in schools means this is the month when everything gets loaded up into a really big cannon, which is also given a fresh coat of paint, and then the whole kit'n'kaboodle is fired straight into a gigantic fan set to high. Needless to say, writing/free time has been minimal, to the point where I didn't even get out a roundup post last week.

Leather has suffered from this, missing two Tuesday engagements (in part because this is a pretty big part coming up, so I don't want to half-ass it), and Theftworld has suffered, missing two chapters. However, we've had content four days out of five each day of the week, so it's not as bad as all that, which means I have a nice thick passel of links to give you guys to read. And Leather's more than halfway finished now so it's looking good for her on Thursday of this week. Just think of this as part of the New Fall Season Shakeup.

• Wednesday: Storytelling: "The Home Front: Diamond in the Rough." Probably as brutal a story as I'm going to put a superhero mask on -- not in explicitness, though this one has a mature warning slapped all over it, but it's pretty depressing. At the same time, it was well received and I think it's pretty good. This was sold to Mythic Heroes magazine back in the day and in fact was assigned the cover art, but publication ceased before it could be produced, so this is... um... special, I guess.
• Thursday: Random: "The Old Ways Chapter Five:" The last chapter of The Old Ways to currently be written, and amusingly enough it's by far the best received chapter. Possibly because it features an old incoherent guy. You can't go far wrong with an old incoherent guy.
• Weekend: Exhaustion: A post where I talk about how freaking tired I am, and how that's going to impact stories. And apologizing for lack of Theftworld. You know, because of the lack of Theftworld and all.
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: The Princess and the Wyverns: A familiar piece to long time Websnark readers, this is the bedtime story that Weds and I crafted, tweaked here and there. Possibly one of the sweetest things either of these sites has seen.
• Tuesday: Random: "The Home Front: Homecoming Part One." To cover for Leather's short hiatus, we present the first part of the only Home Front serial. Where other stories have been about the end of the era of mystery men (displaced by the superhero), this is a story of the All-American Lad, and the transition between the two eras in a more direct sense. Quite well received.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: "The Shal Mari Blues: A Fragment." An In Nomine fan fiction which stands entirely on its own, in my opinion, this is the first chapter of... well, one, telling a story of Hell's greatest city -- the nice part of Hell, which ain't so nice and it ain't so pretty. It's Hell, so, you know. Mature warning.
• Thursday: Poetry: Another Late Night. It's a poem! It's a long poem! About a painting! It's my mid-nineties attempt to write poetry about the mania that sometimes accompanies creativity. I didn't say it succeeded, but I think it's okay.
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: Manannan mac Lir and the Isle of Ninjas. Seriously. If I can't hook you with a title like Manannan mac Lir and the Isle of Ninjas, there may be no hope. A myth of celts, pigeons, ninjas, a fruit poptart reference, goddesses playing electric mandolin and Sir Francis Drake.
• Tuesday: Random: "The Home Front: Homecoming Part Two." With Leather slotted for Thursday of this week, this gives us a chance to present the second part of the "Homecoming" Serial. I hope you like it.

Nine links, eight of which are stories (if you count the poem towards that total). If nothing else, that should provide some decent reading material for the next couple of days. Hopefully, as the school year stabilizes into routine, there can be some nonfiction goodness as well and Websnark can have one of its periodic emergences from torpor. We can only hope.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:49 AM | Comments (0)

September 4, 2007

Eric: The *Tuesday* Banter Latte roundup

It was Labor Day, which is the day we cease our labors. I celebrated by not going to work and finishing a Leather post. Ooo. Ahhh.

I also took that Labor Day off from posting the Banter Latte Roundup. So apparently the roundup now constitutes some form of job responsibility. I have no freaking clue why.

Regardless:

• Tuesday: Serial: "Interviewing Leather Part Ten." Probably the most anticipated -- and best received -- Interviewing Leather post. Also, the post with the most split-kicks and at least one trashcan lid throw.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: "The Home Front: Spycracker and Torpedo." The second happy post examining the Mystery Men and the war where everything changed. Man, how do I end up posting all this depressing stuff. Ah well. Wait until tomorrow when I'll plunge you into total depression.
• Thursday: Random: "The Old Ways Chapter Four." Just as it sounds, we have the fourth chapter of the five that have actually been currently written. More people seem to like it, but then the story's going a little faster. Though as it's a story about the trip rather than about things happening on the trip, I think some people are hoping for a massive Orc attack or something. (Hint -- they will be disappointed).
• Saturday: Protected: Theftworld Chapter Eleven. There was no good way for me to finish this chapter before the end of Friday, but we still managed to get it out. We're very close to the halfway point on the novel. I just hope I manage to survive to the end point. Whereupon we start posting The Recluse and it all starts over again. Ah, writing.
• Weekend: The September Myth Call. Another month is upon us and with it comes the next call for mythology people want answers to. I really love that aspect of all this -- I hope people chime in.
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: "Dog Reincarnation." There is something about those two words that just makes a fellow happy. Dog reincarnation. Say it out loud. Now say it in French. Don't argue. Just do it.
• Tuesday: Serial: "Interviewing Leather Part Eleven." Hey, with this coming out on Tuesday, there's no reason not to pimp today's Leather installment, right? Right?

As of today, not counting comments on the posts, we are at two hundred and fifteen thousand words posted up on Banter Latte. Which, considering we started in June, is pretty freaking awesome. Tell your friends. And please, as always, enjoy reading delicious words.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2007

Eric: This is yet another in a long series of these things. Please do not hurt me.

I should probably just get on with this. I hardly need to go through the hows and whys at this point in my life.

Still, it was a pretty good writing week, though yet again I suffered from illness and gout. Which is to say I'm... hrm. Well, human. We all got something wrong with us, right? Right?

Well, most of us do. Some of us are just frighteningly talented and healthy. We hate people like that.

Here's the roundup.

• Tuesday: Random: "Interviewing Leather Part Nine." Leather seems to have become the breakout star of Banter Latte, which is cool though a bit surprising to me. I mean, Tuesdays are supposed to be the random days, right? Regardless, this was a fun one to write.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: "The Home Front: My White Plume." A story of great sentimental value to me, as it was the first one I ever got paid to write. Which is pretty damn cool any way one looks at it. I was a lot younger so the story's rough in edges I think I'd usually sand smooth, but I like this one and so do some other people.
• Thursday: Random: "The Old Ways Chapter Three." Not my most popular work by far, but The Old Ways has gathered some fans who seem to like it. It helps that it's finally getting some sense of narrative.
• Weekend: Protected: "Theftworld Chapter Ten." Illness and gout pushed this from Friday to the Weekend, but it still got out and that's the important thing, right?
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: "Why does alcohol produce hangovers, and why doesn?t it produce hangovers consistently?" A bit shorter, and moving back to the more traditional myth structure, unlike the folk tale of the Train story or the short horror of the Spam story. I'm curious to see what people think.

And with that, I'm off. Gazebo Man -- away!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:20 AM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2007

Eric: Mondays were made for the sweet taste of Banter Latte roundup with quality.

It's a morning. The start of a new week. And I'm about to drive many hours from Ottawa to New Hampshire. So, you know, this isn't a morning to expect me to 'answer' my 'mail' in a 'timely' fashion (or at 'all.')

But, I still want to give you the weekly roundup. And so, here it is, in all its roundish glory!

• Tuesday: Random: "Interviewing Leather, Part Eight." A well received post. Leather is, officially, the most popular thing going here on Banter Latte. Which almost comes as a surprise to me, and certainly makes me wonder what's going to happen when the serial ends. Regardless, it seems there's a market for New Journalism about cute villains.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: "Planetfall." (EDIT: The link is fixed!) Probably the hardest SF I've posted so far, which is a statement that would have Howard Tayler laughing hysterically at me. But then, he's hardcore. And knows math.
• Thursday: Random: The Old Ways chapter two. Moderately better received than chapter one, this continues to be a departure from my style. I think people are happier with this than they were with the first chapter. Who knows, after I post the fifth chapter -- which is the last -- maybe there'll be a wholly unwarranted clamor for more!
• Friday: Protected: Theftworld Chapter Nine. As always, protected but here. Folks seemed to warm to the shift in point of view right around now, which has me hopeful for Chapters Ten through Twelve. And then we'll deal with Chapter Thirteen, but that, as they say, is another story. Though I'm vaguely thinking I should spin up a different novel for a few weeks, since Chapter Twelve is the halfway point. Or not. I'll think about it.
• Weekend: Navigational! Sound off on navigational elements for multi part stories in the blog format! Look, they can't all be "what is your favorite color?" or other Playboy data sheet questions.
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: Why do we get spam email that?s complete gibberish or random sentences from books strung together? Today's new myth. A slightly different technique than I've used for others, but then that's part of the point, right? I'm curious how people will enjoy it. But that's me. Mister curious.

Right! I need to be driving (I actually finished this on a pit stop just off the Transcanada, so hey -- I'm hardcore.

It's never easy to leave. It's always hard to leave her. Someone convince the government to process paperwork a little faster, okay?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:49 AM | Comments (1)

August 13, 2007

Eric: Round-a-lay up!

It's Monday. And that means... well, yeah.

Enjoy delicious Lattes of Banter.

• Tuesday: Random: "Interviewing Leather Part Seven." There's some mature themes in this one. I was a bit unsure how it would go over, but it seems to have done quite well for itself.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: "Dreamers (A Fragment)." A story I don't remember writing, but I clearly did. I felt it was probably incomplete at the time, but several people think it stands on its own now. I'm not sure. Please, have fun with it.
• Thursday: Random: The Old Ways chapter one. Something of a departure in style for me, with somewhat mixed results. Some people seem to like it. There's only a few chapters of it, for the record. We'll see.
• Friday: Protected: Theftworld Chapter Eight. Yet another protected chapter of this here novel what I be putting out for you to read!
• Weekend: Environment (not about recycling or trees). The return of the open mike! What environment is most conducive to your creative or hobby or productive life?
• Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: The Arrogant Writer and the Beached Mermaid. Why don't writers live forever? Why is so much writing crap? And how did I manage to do a beachfront story and not namecheck "The Old Man and the Sea" once?

I hope these are of enjoyment. Also, over the weekend we learned Scott Kurtz has a crystal cathedral. Which frankly I think is good news.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 6, 2007

Eric: Banter Latte. Because something has to be posted, and this is here for posting.

Mrph.

I don't want all of this to become just me letting you know what happened in Banter Latte. Though part of the point of Banter Latte is to give folks who want to read something from me someplace to go when the Essays do not flow like water.. Needless to say, I'll work on having some Websnarkery this week to be good to one and all.

On the other hand, it was a good Banter Latte week. In particular, the Storytelling entry is up to forty comments, and none of them seem to be "this story sucks," so I have some hope for things. And also stuff.

So. Here's the roundup!

• Tuesday: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Six. We've moved out of the stuff I'd written before, and into stuff I've written to keep up with a schedule. IE -- this has become a full on serial. Which means it's slightly differently paced and the end line is stronger and meant to hook more.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: Automotive Care. An urban fantasy which I have been told is a Horror story, though it wasn't tagged as such. As I said above, it garnered significant comment and I think is considered not to suck.
• Thursday: Random: Protected (request the password): Theftworld Book Two: Invasion (Preface). A happy bonus bit of Theftworld, as we move to the second quarter of the novel.
• Friday: Protected (request the password): Theftworld Chapter Seven: And here? We have the aforementioned second quarter of the novel, or at least the first chapter of it.
• Weekend: The August Myth Call! My second call for Mythology of the Modern World topics. I've done several myths based on the last one, so this is your big chance! For... um... something.
• Monday: Mythology of the Modern World: Why do some people stay on the train past the end of the line? A darn good question. I hope a good answer. A very "story" style myth. Also, there's knitting. But not well described knitting. But it does exist.

Anyway. I hope you like it!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2007

Eric: The Roundup. Yee-haw.

More than anything else, I think I need the ability to divide myself into multiple people. Then at least I could get everything I want to get done done, more or less, anyhow.

Regardless, here is the weekly roundup!

Tuesday: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Five. The shortest installment to date!
Wednesday: Storytelling: Death is a Moving Target. I think this is one of the better stories overall. I'm really pleased with it. Be warned there are references to Actuaries in it.
Thursday: Random: A Judgment of History. Some Nobilis fan-fiction, dark but kind of cool, overall.
Friday: Protected: Theftworld, Chapter Six.The end of the first part of the novel!
Monday: The Mythology of the Modern World: The Songs of Books. A slightly experimental, slightly whimsical take for this series. I hope you like it.

I'm tired today (a whirlwind trip to Ottawa to get some things done and see an excellent movie featuring a critic and a rat who cooks consumed my weekend) so I won't go into detail, but in general I hope you all enjoy. Thanks!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2007

Eric: Mondays. Banter Latte does well on Mondays. Gosh, I wonder why.

I'm both healthier than I was and back in the land of Make Bel-- er, New Hampshire. While the latter is depressing, the former means I should have more output over here than I've had. As should the latter, really, since I don't have a fiancée who insists on being way cool and fun to be with distracting me.

Damn it.

Anyway! It's Monday, and we have a happy block of Banter Latte to point you at. (Much of which comes from the days before I was traveling at all. I like the BL setup quite a lot, I can tell you what. So, if you want some reading and you haven't been there already, then here it is. Enjoy! Or don't. I don't dictate how you live your life.

• Tuesday: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Four. Possibly the most popular thing (though the Mythology of the Modern World is giving it a run for its money) I've got going. I'm vaguely considering re-christening Tuesdays as "Serial day," but I'm not sure that would be good in the long run. Better to leave myself the out of not having to do anything at all if I don't want.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: Shal Mari Après Vie: or this ain?t Bat Country. A reprinting of my In-Nominish remembrance of Hunter S. Thompson. In Hell. Because that's what made the most sense to me. Because I liked him.
• Thursday: Random: Poetry: Pippo Spano. I was sick, and I don't need to do Thursdays at all, but Weds was at work so I figured I might as well toss something up. This was actually the first poem I ever published. So. Um. Hooray for me.
• Friday: Protected (request the password): Theftworld Chapter Five. The latest chapter in the Science Fiction... um... novel. I ran out of things to say.
• Weekend: Influential! An open mike on the folks who influence your creative (or other) life! At least, as far as you can remember right now. Sound off!
• Monday: Mythology of the Modern World: What's the real deal with gasoline prices? Hey, it's fun to create your very own nymphs!

This is what it is. Please enjoy. And do not set fire to anything.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2007

Eric: The Banter Latte shuffle.

It's Monday! And that means a Banter Latte roundup, which is a good thing, what since I'm on the travels and I want to be sure everyone has things with which they can enjoy the act of reading.

I'm a little bleary, you understand.

Anyhow! Let's talk about the last week on Banter L.

• Tuesday: Random: Interviewing Leather, Part Three: We have the next piece of the faux-New Journalism piece. With bonus naughty words!
• Wednesday: Storytelling: Antonio: The Calabite's Song: A full In Nomine based novella. There are some who might think this one somewhat dark.
• Thursday: Random: Mythology of the Modern World Extra: Calliope Jones and the Writer's Cusp: Some of you may possibly have seen this one before. It ties in at least somewhat with last Monday's "Why Can We Walk Past Beautiful Artwork Without Noticing It?"
• Friday: Protected: Theftworld Chapter Four: For those following along, the novel continues.
• Weekend: Sound Off: Travelopedia: What's the favorite place you've traveled to! Chime in and sound off!
• Monday: Mythology of the Modern World: Why is the sky over Los Angeles that particular color of yellowish grey? A new myth, in answer to a question Fade Manley posted on the open thread soliciting new myth topics. I have to admit, I kind of like this one.

I'll try to get some Websnark out over the next day or two, though do bear in mind I am off and away. But I am thinking of all of you and if you're very good, I might buy you a small toy to shut you up on the drive back to New Hampshire.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:48 AM | Comments (4)

July 9, 2007

Eric: The Monday Banter Latte wrapup frappacino

I'm having trouble sleeping, so I might as well get this taken care of now. This is the first roundup of the last week (or so) over on Banter Latte, the fiction home of... well, me. So far, things are working really well. The regularly scheduled days -- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday -- have updated on time and without issue. There's also been stuff on the two optional random days on Tuesday and Thursday. And there was plenty of Websnark goodness too!

And, given that today's Myth post was 7,500 words long, on top of a sizable essay here on Websnark over the weekend, I think we've managed to reestablish a sense of momentum.

Now, on Friday I go (after way way too long away) back to Canada to see the woman what you all knows I'm marrying, so we're going to have to see what happens to this momentum next week. However, there is a plan in place that should lead to some productivity here on 'Snark, and my intention is to continue to fill out backlog on Banter Latte so that things show up automagically without any trouble.

Anyhow, as promised, here's some reading material for those of you who might want to read... well, more stuff, from last week to this week.

• Monday: July 9: Mythology of the Modern World: Why can we walk by beautiful artwork without noticing it?
• Weekend: July 7-8: Open Mike: What myths do you want to hear about?
• Friday: July 6: Protected (click here for password request): Novel Chapter Day: Theftworld Chapter 3
• Thursday: July 5: Random: Two poems from the 90's
• Wednesday: July 4: Vignette: A Tavern in December, in Seventeen Seventy-Six
• Tuesday: July 3: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Two
• Monday: July 2: Mythology of the Modern World: Why does Starbucks drip coffee taste like crotch?

There is also a happy RSS feed that you can use to be updated as stuff is posted, and a Livejournal Feed which you can add to your friends list if you want.

Enjoy! More later, when I'm a little less "man, I should be asleep."

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:25 AM | Comments (0)