Similar Visions and Post Vegan Feast

A vegan feast with Adam Gottlieb.

I met with Adam yesterday afternoon, for a vegan lunch, and we discussed the timeline and the collection in general.  As a human being, Adam ranks five stars.  He is compassionate and kind and humble.  He is also incredibly creative and has a genetic disposition for thinking outside of the box, which is great for me.  The dude is also very, very smart. 

You see, my collection of short stories is broken up into two parts: serious (realism) and non-serious (magical realism, horror, fantasy, sci-fi).  I thought he was going to not appreciate this categorization because anthologies usually focus on one genre.  In fact, when I took creative writing, all of the classes forbid us from writing anything but serious fiction, which is probably why I teach science fiction now.

However, Adam is very interested in completely fucking with these categories, which suits me just fine.  

Unfortunately, we probably won't be done by December, but I waited two years to finish, after my original deadline, so I'm not devastated.  This anthology is a small stepping stone for me because I have other projects that are past due.  I told him not to worry about copy-editing it either.  I have plenty of colleagues who could lend a hand. 

One thing he did tell me after the words of wisdom I shared from another writer, a.k.a. "Your writer friends and friends won't do shit for you", he told me that when it came to his work, he shared with friends and family in his inner circle.  That's what I have done with colleagues and my sister and even my poor husband. 

I suppose my Ideal Reader is my sister because we share similar tastes in fiction and film.  In fact, she read the whole anthology, an earlier version of it; I mean, she's not a literary critic, but she has great taste and offers great advice and encouragement.

Adam's goal is to get two stories done a week, which is about the right amount of work for me.  He is also a songwriter and busy activist, and I don't want him to jeopardize his own art and organizing work. 

On a total side note, my daughter woke me up at 3a.m.  This whole falling back of the clocks is just awful.

Here's to engines running on the sheer love of writing and lots of coffee.

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