Catching Up

[jana_denardo]

I've been wanting to do a weekly catch up post ever since what's up wednesdays closed up. I've not been doing great at that and I don't have a catchy title for it but I'm working on it. Anyhow let me get to the catching up.

1. I was reminded yesterday that my werewolf rescue 'dog' short story that ran in the 2013 Advent Calendar, Peace in the Valley is being translated into Korean. That is so beyond cool. I love the idea of this. I'll be getting an ebook of this. I'm hoping the cover is included in that because I want to see it. I'd love to see John and Anthony as a manhwa. A girl can dream, right?

2. I'm waiting second edits on Soldiers of the Sun and Snowbound. And I'm not sure if there'll be third edits on A Wolf in the Fold. Maybe, maybe not. We're getting close to a publication date on that. It's due in June. Woot!

3.I mentioned winning Campnano and I was working on Blood Red Roulette. This story is making me tear my hair out. Because I had to expand an old short story to get this one, I made an outline. I rarely do that because outlining usually manages to kill my stories dead. Don't ask me why. In this case I apparently made the outline while high or drunk or something. This thing is in a complete disarray. I'm not sure I have all the scenes in the most logical order yet and I just came across a scene that must go. To be fair it was one of the ones I wrote when I first started this story 20 years ago (yes, that's right, it's ancient). It looks like something a much younger self came up with. It's crap and crap need to be flushed.

I'm still working things out. I'm the type who wants to take as little artistic license as I can with real places. I didn't want to just invent places when I could use real ones. My biggest trouble isn't the Strip. That's so easy to research. It's the scuzziest sides of Vegas that I don't know, don't particularly want to know but need for this story. There is a certain amount of truth that the run down areas of most cities bear some resemblance to one another and I used to be an inner city home health doctor. I know the feel of that side of town. What I need to figure out is where in Vegas that is.

I did print out (because I can read and visual better on paper than the screen. Yes, I know that's a little old fashioned) the first nine chapters because that's where I might want to rearrange a few things. Well the first 13 but I'm still working on 10-13. I do plan to get this done this year. I need to. Wish me luck.

And how about some references for Arrigo Giancarlo







I'm using the actor Giulio Berruti as a reference for him. Quite a handsome fellow.

Comments

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Slum areas of Vegas are basically anything in North Las Vegas and/or any street with just a letter or number for a name. Google Earth safari time! South Vegas has a bad rep, too.

Sorry I left so many of your recent posts to languish with no replies. Too much stuff to do--I was so brain-dead by the time I sat down to read my mail I really couldn't think of anything coherent to say. So cool that your work is getting translated into foreign languages. I had no idea the Koreans were so into LGBT (or QUILTBAG if that's the new accepted term).

Our younger selves wrote some embarrassing, naive shit. Looking at the old Cauldron issues reminded me of that :P.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

North Vegas is what I've heard too. I'm waiting til I get home to have Dad show me all the fancy crap you can do with google Earth (it barely loads here so.... I'm not skilled with it) so I can see distances between where the Alibi would be for instance vs Veer Towers.

Don't worry about it. I know you have a lot of crap on your plate right now.

Yes, it's very cool to get translated (into such an unexpected language at that). I didn't either. Honestly while QUILTBAG seems more inclusive most places still use LGBT

Yes, that's true about our younger selves. Honestly 20 years ago Eleni and Arrigo were both morons, just saying.

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

There's a nest of crappy buildings behind the Stratosphere and the "other" end of Fremont (as in not the Fremont Street Experience end) is lined in old, cheap motels like the Safari and Sky Ranch. North Vegas look like acres of cheap tract homes, probably not the level of squalor you're looking for. I haven't found the bars yet. Google Earth is such a data hog, too bad it's the best option around for scoping out locations.

I sent in my last rubric Saturday, and today I found another manuscript in my inbox. Looks like we've hit the rush. At least it's still only the 30-page critiques, not whole novels.

We've both learned a whole lot about character building, plotting, and everything else since the Cauldron days. I'm wondering if the original Arrigo story is in my collection of issues somewhere. You contributed a lot of stories.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the Stratosphere is now where the shit side of town is. That's why I moved Arrigo (and fully plan on putting in a note that says I made a mistake if upon reread I DO have the condo building named in the story that's published) The Sky towers are down there with Circus Circus and it seriously looked like a demilitarized zone two years ago. That's when I decided to move him to the Vdara (god I've been struggling with this stupid thing for a long long time)

Eleni is probably holed up in North Vegas. I need to figure out where the truly destitute live. Though a tract home would work for Luc and family.

Google Earth is great but not for slow internet like mine and it's USELESS for here. Apparently the moonshiners shoot those vans up or something. It's been worthless to even try and find homes for sale and scope it out before driving there.

Good luck with the new stories rolling in.

I might have. It would have been called Nights in the City Care Forgot (because it was in New Orleans then) but I didn't send much original fic outside of what was for Riveroak. Speaking of stories from 20 years ago, I'm reading a novel series by Charlotte MacCleod who i remember liking back in the 80s and mom did too but man were we high? This is SO bad it makes Murder she Wrote look plausible

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I think I do remember seeing your Nights in the City stories in the Cauldron. The title rings a faint little bell in my memory. Boy, that was a long time ago.

New Orleans has faded grandeur. Las Vegas, according to Google Earth, has sun-bleached tackiness. It's going to be really hard to transplant your characters from New Orleans (atmosphere galore) to Vegas (hardly any). Your best bet might be to put the Alibi somewhere in the crap zone around the Fremont Street Experience. At least there's the old-school presence of Binion's and Glitter Gulch to lend a little color. The newer casinos like Mirage and MGM have no soul and no cultural resonance. Arrigo no doubt remembers Vegas in its dubious 1950's heyday, so he might be drawn to something comforting and familiar like Fremont. Is living there his choice, or was he assigned to be there because other creatures of the night gravitate there for the night life?

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

I wrote that after going to New Orleans in 93. I probably ran a version of it in 96-97 when I was in Columbus which is when I did most of my writing for the Cauldron.

That is true about New Orleans vs Vegas. Arrigo is there out of choice. While he probably does remember the good old gangster days, he loves tacky nightlife. The dude has two sides to him. One side classy and formal and the other as tacky, bling-ridden as possible.

He does work for the Chiarscuro there because there isn't enough of them to really cover the whole south west (the main headquarters in the LA region) so Arrigo is often the go-to guy for this. He's mostly there because he loves the energy of the Strip and all the nightlife. He does love the nightlife. He does go to Freemont often, too. That's where I put both the real vampire/other supernatural bar AND the Goth wanna-be vampire bar. (there is at least one real goth bar down that way but I wanted one entirely made up so I can do whatever with it).

The ALibi probably isn't TOO far away from Freemont but definitely not in a place tourists want to be. Taabu's psychic shop is up closer to the strip within easy walking distance of the locals and the tourists

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a very pretty image to look at, Arrigo.

Congrats again at the translation! That's very cool.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Shhh he already know he's too cute - Siobhan

thanks. I think it's really cool!

[0-mother-0.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness... he is GORGEOUS!

and it looks like you need a 'fact finding' mission to vegas. Get a good cabby. They could show you all the points you need. Or... in lieu of going, maybe just call a cab company and ask?

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Isn't he though? My Italian ancestors were never this hot.

Good suggestion. You know who else always knows (they're who I go to when I'd get lost in the days before GPS) pizza hacks.

[seta-suzume.livejournal.com]

Wow, great choice with the actor you picked as reference for Arrigo! XD

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I thought wow, he's just perfect (and handsome. Yum!)