Monday Meanderings

One of the key parts of a good story is the use of detail:  not exhaustive, generic detail, but the right handful of details to shine light on the heart of the story.  Of course, in direct contradiction to that statement, that's not exactly what I want to talk about.

Rather, I think it's interesting what details a writer chooses to include, both to serve the heart of the story and those that buzz in the background.  One writer might include an elaborate description of a tapestry, either to point up the richness of the court or its long history, or perhaps simple for the pleasure of writing it.  Another writer would snort at these tapestry descriptions as fluff, but think nothing of dropping in a huge description of the food served at the banquet.  A third might focus their worldbuilding attention on flora, both borrowed from Earth and invented for the setting.

Personally, I don't often write about musicians, bakers or chefs, but those elements often sneak into my work in other ways.  Taste and smell are integral to my descriptions; I pay more attention to describing music and musical metaphors than I might to other aspects.  I've used various takes of music-as-magic in stories.  And I know that my other biases and interests influence what happens in my work.  For instance, in Scylla and Charybdis, Anaea finds herself fascinated with physical books.  The book-as-paper has almost vanished from society in that world, but its tactile nature and permanence attracts her.

And ... me, too, if I'm honest about it.

Years ago, I read a writing book for SF/F writers (alas, I can't remember the author or book!) that discussed another writer's series.  The series was a portal fantasy, partly set in the real world, partly in a fairy realm.  The guidebook author said that the parts that fascinated about her were not in the invented realm, but in the writer's depiction of the state in which they lived.  (Again, I so wish I could recall!)

Authors can strategize, pick and choose the details that make it to the final draft, but to a certain extent, I don't think authors can decide which details interest them and they end up focusing on.  It's something that sneaks sidelong to the heart of who they are and what love.

Song Styles

This post contains indirect potential spoilers for Unnatural Causes, a book which is still in the editing process and thus some ways from submission, much less publication ... which makes the odds of remembering an unspecified song reference, out of context, years later, vanishingly tiny.

Still ... you have been warned.

I love a "Yes, but" ending in my stories, and my novels are no exception, so most of them are open to a sequel, even if I haven't specifically planned or even intended to write one.  I have some half-formed thoughts for a sequel to Unnatural Causes, and I know that this would be a fitting song to represent the romance storyline:

Near To You - A Fine Frenzy

Monday Meanderings

I've been quiet for a while because, almost three weeks ago now, my desktop crashed with a dramatic bellyflop, leaving me to the tender mercies of my old laptop, (mostly) affectionately know as the Frankenlaptop.  It is called the Frankenlaptop for a number of reasons:

1.  It is fused together from spare parts.
2.  It has died multiple times and been reanimated.
3.  It bears a deep and abiding hatred for its master.
4.  It is capable of beating people up.  (It is quite sturdy and heavy.)

I was working on line edits for Scylla and Charybdis (more to report there soon, I hope!), and I was genuinely surprised that my laptop played nicely enough with Track Changes for me to continue through the marks.

So for a while, my routine shifted.  I've avoided intensive web-browsing, such as video watching, and I don't have the programs to do those nifty little graphics for BookQW (Book Quote Wednesday).  I don't have any games installed on the laptop, either, which let me focus on writing ... and all right, binge-watching Orphan Black.

Did this change help with my writing?  Did it grant some new insight?  Nothing earth-shattering or obvious, but I've greatly enjoyed working on my current short story, "Pieces of Her," and my novel, Surgeburnt, feels as if it's flowing more smoothly ... for now.  This book has been a multi-headed beast, which given its fantastic premise, is appropriate.  But writing ebbs and flows, and there are difficult times and smooth times.  Maybe this is simply one of those.

Loyal Dice is now out!

Leading Edge 70 is out with my story, "Loyal Dice" ... Pazia's first adventure. It's been a long and convoluted journey getting this one to print:

Paperback

Kindle

Song Styles

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, grandmoms, foster-moms, stepmoms, like-a-moms, expectant moms, even fur-moms ... and all the moms I might have forgotten.

Because it's my day for songs, this one seemed appropriate:

Mom - Meghan Trainor

Monday Meanderings

I feel as if there's a constant tension in my creative process between the old and the new.

As a writer, I'm restless:  always moving on to new worlds, new characters, new ideas.  I love short stories in part because it enables me to take a snapshot of a concept - for instance, a flying city populated by people who believe the world below has been destroyed - and play with the thread for a bit before setting it aside and, like a child with crayons, merrily clutching for the next.  When it comes to editing for short fiction, I have a definite (if not always consistent) tipping point between when I'll overhaul a story and when I feel it's effort better spent on a new work.

I do this with harp, too:  I'm always eager to try new tunes, and I would far rather pick up new sheet music than revive a forgotten piece from my older repertoire.  And cooking:  I try new recipes almost every week.  I rarely go back.

On the other hand, I have a certain nostalgia for old concepts, characters and stories.  I'm an incubator at heart, so these tales that have had years to mellow from their writing have a powerful appeal.  I'm also a perfectionist, so looking at my old flaws, from awkward prose to questionable plot twists to cliche worldbuilding, I want to fix that ... and I'm also intrigued by the cascading changes that stem from making those improvements.

So I find myself caught between the two.  Should I try to salvage every story, or is it all right to decide that it's better to take what I've learned and spend the effort on a new work?  Should I go back and rewrite old novels, or is it better to mine newer, fresher ideas?  Is either extreme lazy and undisciplined?  Which one?  How in thunderation do I know?

And please, don't say, "Choose whichever appeals the most to you."  Oh, if I knew that, I wouldn't continuously dither about it.  Sometimes, it comes down to my sense of what might be more marketable, but that's always a best guess.

It's a work in progress.

Song Styles

When I first started writing Scylla and Charybdis, I put together a soundtrack for it:  songs appropriate to the overall plot / theme, specific characters, relationships, and some choices for the gender elements that were just plain bratty (see:  "There Is Nothing Like A Dame" from the musical South Pacific).  But it's been several years since then; oh, the time between first draft and publication.

Recently, playing some of my newer tunes, it occurred to me that this might be a fitting addition:

Fire Under My Feet - Leona Lewis

It certainly speaks to adversity and hope.

Monday Meanderings

When I say I enjoy creating things and being creative, I mean it in two ways.  The first is the standard usage:  I like the invention, putting together something out of nothing or the mental bits and bobs of everything.  The intellectual and inspiration side.

The second is more fundamental and broader:  I like making things from scratch, combining materials into a result you can experience, whether visually or with your tastebuds.  The physical and tactile side (even typing is tactile), which doesn't necessarily have to have a "creative" component by the typical definition.  Then again, even in the most specifically followed recipe, there's some variance, some trusting of instinct, and nuance learned in repetition.

If there's a weakness in this interpretation for me, it's that I have trouble creating unless I have a purpose for the final product.  Food is easy:  that's going in my belly.  (Or someone else's.)  Stories and novels are intended for submission and the hope of publication.  I find that sometimes, it's hard to motivate myself to finish a harp arrangement unless I have a gig on the books where I can play it.  It's why I don't work much with visual art:  I have a fractal deviation, a drawing, a photo ... now what do I *do* with it?  What purpose does it serve?

Homemade ice cream requires no purpose, of course.  Just a bowl and a spoon.

Song Styles

The narrator in Surgeburnt is what is known as a Cityspeaker:  someone who is in subliminal communication with the embodiment of a city.  For her, the relationship is fractious and grudging.  She accepted the abilities from a dear friend, who transferred them on his deathbed ... and although we see Tahir only in flashbacks, they have the kind of friendship unique to two damaged, broken souls.

There's no romantic element between the pair, but this song is quite appropriate for Tahir, I think:

Colors - Halsey

Song Styles

I've spoken before about the difficulties of arranging certain tunes for harp, primarily centered around accidentals and key changes.  What exactly does that mean?

Between the notes of the musical scale lie sharps and flats.  The easiest way to visualize this is with a piano:  the sharps and flats are the black keys, while the white keys are the natural notes.  The key signature (a handful of symbols at the beginning of the music) tells you which black keys to hit.  It's particularly easy on my harp, the traditional lever (Celtic style) harp, because the set the key, you flip up the levers.

So what is an accidental?  An accidental is a sharp or flat that doesn't appear in the key signature, or a natural note where (again, according to the key signature) a sharp/flat should be.

The difficulty of this on a lever harp is that it requires flipping a lever, which means taking one hand away from playing.  Not only that, the string is still vibrating, so if you return the lever to its previous position too soon, you get unwanted bonus sound.  The only exception is if the accidental consistently appears throughout the music.  In that case, you can set the rogue lever and leave it.

From a fiction perspective (since this is, after all, a writer's blog), who cares?  Well, any portable harp will almost certainly be traditional style; the pedal style harps played in the orchestra require a framework of a size that makes casual carting-about prohibitive.  Wire strung harps do not have levers, which means that the key has to be set by tuning the instrument before beginning play.  For historical context, levers are a (relatively) recent invention, so nylon / gut strung harps may have the same limitations.  But the actual technical design of levers isn't that complex, so it's possible for a typical fantasy world to have them.

What it boils down to is there are certain songs that are impossible to play on certain harps.  The big joke at my luthier (yes, harp players and harp makers have geeky in-jokes) is that a cross-strung harp is the only harp on which you can play "Flight of the Bumblebee."

Of course, the biggest harp joke is:  "How long does it take to tune a harp?  Nobody knows."

(Because by the time you finish, it's out again ...)

A pet peeve that I've seen in stories is strings that break from play.  Nope.  The amount of pressure being applied upon each string is far more than the average human's ability to pull.  The most likely time for strings to break is while tuning (we've all done that, believe me) or with a sudden drop in temperature.  Wood shrinks, increasing the continuous tension on the string and ... twang.

Monday Meanderings

Some marketing advice will tell you to build a brand:  a tagline, phrase, description of the type of books you write that will attract readers interested in them ... a way of saying, "If you like this element, you'll find it in all my work."  I may not be describing this well, but that isn't really the subject of this post.

I've tried to distill what my brand might be a few times, and every time, I've ended up stumped ... or with a concept that excludes a significant fraction of what I've written or want to write.  For instance, outside of brand, I've typically said that my wheelhouse is secondary world epic fantasy ... but my two novels accepted by publishers to date, Flow and Scylla and Charybdis, are contemporary fantasy and science fiction, respectively, and my current query project, Who Wants To Be A Hero? is, while in the secondary world and epic buckets, also a comedy send-up of both mythology (primarily Greco-Roman, but it ranges) and reality television.

If I can find any pattern in my choice of writing, it's in the things I don't write, though that's a relatively small list:  hard science fiction, due to comfort level; horror; gore, also due to comfort level; and unrelenting bleakness.  Beyond that, my brain seems to take, "Oh, I don't write about X" as a suggestion ...

More than that, I suppose I have a subconscious fear (perhaps not so subconscious now that I'm writing about it) that applying a brand to myself will prevent me from taking the next tangent.  I have an unruly, hyperactive brain.

Is "unruly and hyperactive" perhaps my brand?

... nah.

Song Styles

I mentioned earlier in the month that there are two romance stories in Surgeburnt, one in the past storyline, one in current events.  It provides me a lot of opportunity as a writer to compare and contrast, though my narrator may be in denial about what's good for her.

Both threads involve some element of push-me-pull-you, mostly from Maren (aforesaid narrator).  But sometimes, when you push, the laws of physics push back, and that's the thought between this song on my Surgeburnt playlist:

The Universe Is You - Sophie Ellis-Bextor

GoodReads Review: Beyond The Woods: Fairy Tales Retold ed. Paula Guran

Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold by Paula Guran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a broad and varied collection of fairy tale retellings and fairy tales inspired - a number of the stories within are not based on a specific narrative, but capture the feel of a certain type of fairy tale. (A lot of these are also among the best stories in the book.) It spans everything from dystopian science fiction to urban fantasy (even historical fiction) to traditional fantasy ... you will probably find a story precisely to your tastes within.

For me, the anthology improved as I progressed within it. There were some stories, particularly in the beginning, that I simply didn't care for - not so much because they seemed to be flawed, but because they were darker than my usual tastes. There are a few others that seem to be paying lip service to the fairy tale, or diverging so far they don't seem to quite fit the theme. There were a few more that I wanted to like, but they just felt hollow or incomplete.

Further into the anthology are the gems: the wonder tales, the stories (like Shveta Thakrar's "Lavanya and Deepika") that fuse fairy tales of one culture with the setting of another, capped off with Tanith Lee's gorgeous scifi piece "Beauty." Ken Liu's "Good Hunting" was a favorite of mine, and a lovely take on technology vs magic.

As mentioned above, this is a huge anthology with a big range. As such, I don't think every story will be a match for every reader, but you will definitely find something to enjoy.

View all my reviews

It's That Time Of Year Again ...

Besides the onslaught of pollen and drowsy thoughts of evil trees, mid-to-late April also means that submissions to the Sword & Sorceress anthology open, and as every year, I've prepared stories for it.  The anthology allows a maximum of two submissions - an initial sub, and if that isn't shortlisted, a second before the end of the submissions period.  I usually manage to get to the shortlist stage, with the second story if not the first, so I always have two in the pocket.

This year, my prepared stories are:

Chains - a shapeshifter on the run encounters a town locked in an astral prison

Speechless - a banished swordswoman returns to the manor of her old adversary; the reasons for her presence are filled by parallel story / flashback

Wish me luck!

Monday Meanderings

A long time ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth ...

All right, not quite that long ago, but for the first few novels my ambitious childhood self wrote, when I started a new draft, I had my printout in my lap ... and I typed, from the beginning, in a brand-new file.  Sometimes, I would transcribe verbatim; other times, I would change, add or omit.  The act of re-typing it forced me to consider everything I was writing.  And it worked well enough - I might go back to it some day - but it was tedious and time consuming.

After that, I moved to editing in-line.  However, I started finding that I wasn't making enough changes:  I was reluctant to remove things because they would be gone forever.  I'd also occasionally have problems with cutting something and later realizing I shouldn't have ... and at that point, I wouldn't have any options for fixing it.

So I started the technique that I use now for novels and certain short stories requiring significant rework:  every time I start a new draft / editing pass, I save a new version of the file.  On a practical level, this allows me to go back if I need to reverse a cut; I can also double-check for consistency between versions.  On a psychological level - probably just as important - I feel more comfortable slashing even large chunks of manuscript.  They still exist:  I haven't destroyed the words forever.

I don't so much kill my darlings as lock them up in a psychiatric ward.

Song Styles

I'm a goal-oriented person, so since I have a Mother's Day performance on the books - a background job at brunch, three hours total - I'm using it as a goal post to finish learning new tunes and revive dusty ones.

Because I love new music and projects, the list a bit lengthy, but here's a piece of it:

Theme from Jurassic Park
The Entertainer (Scott Joplin)
Ancient Mother / The Earth is Becoming Green
The first piece is attributed as "Native American," but since my source is female singing group Libana, I don't have more details.  The latter is a Welsh song.  They sound very strking together.
Wen Ti - Chinese hymn
Scotland The Brave
Doue Lan a Vadeleh - Breton hymn
Somewhere Out There - from American Tail
The Bare Necessities - from The Jungle Book
Ave Maria (Schubert)
Oh, this one is a nightmare.  It's such a pain in the neck (or lower regions) on the harp that even though I want to like it, I just can't do it.  I'm learning it for wedding clients, and I figured this performance was a good excuse to force myself to finish it.
For Good - from Wicked

So a little bit of everything, which is a good description of my repertoire in general.  I certainly have a Celtic focus, but my interests vary widely.  They also stop about fifteen years ago (the last tune), though mainly because I try to avoid tunes that aren't in the public domain unless they are iconic / recognizable.

On a previous Sunday, I discussed tunes I've pondered adding, but they're all vocals, which limits their utility.  Most of what I book are background jobs like this one.

Thoughts welcome, as always.

Monday Meanderings

For me, effective, sustained humor requires the reader to identify with the subject.  I would cite three reasons:  1) it allows you to laugh *with* them; 2) it allows you to anticipate the punchline, which is an important element of comedic timing; 3) it keeps your interest in longer works.  I've read humorous novels that were very funny, but difficult to keep reading because the humor made the characters hard to sympathize with.  I stopped caring about what happened to them partway through, which for me, makes any story - no matter how well written or otherwise entertaining - a tough slog.

I know there are writers who will disagree with this, and I will concur that in short works, humor that doesn't let you engage with the characters and instead mocks them *can* be effective ... but I still much prefer sympathetic humor.

Which brings me to a comment heard at one of the World Fantasy Conventions:  parody only works (or works best; I cannot recall the exact wording) from a place of genuine love for the thing being parodied.  This idea stuck with me, and I really enjoy it.  It makes parody into a sly confederacy with the reader:  here's this thing we both love, but you've got to admit, it's pretty silly, isn't it?

For me, this is why most political humor fails.  Most of the time, those who engage in it make jokes at the expense of the opposite political position ... and in those words, "at the expense," comes the problem.  It doesn't come from an understanding and appreciation of foibles; instead, it points fingers at and mocks the other side.  In that sense, this political humor preaches to the choir; it might get laughter from people with the same alignment, but it turns off the targets.

Honestly, as a personal preference, I don't even like the humor that pokes fun at beliefs opposite mine.  I'm prone to picking apart the semantics ... 

In any event, affection for the target of the parody is why I had so much fun with Who Wants To Be A Hero?  I grew up with Greek myths (which says disturbing things about my childhood) and devoured other mythologies ... and yes, a certain brand of reality television is my guilty pleasure.  I love the skill-based competition shows:  Top Chef, Project Runway, Face-Off, even America's Next Top Model, though the drama gets to be a bit much with the last one.  They provide fertile ground to vent my frustrations ... do it with a wink and a smile.

Song Styles

This week, I'm asking for your input / help!  In previous posts on this subject, I've shared with you that I make car CDs for my drives.  I organize them around themes, since I find that more satisfying than just a random collection of favorites.  I've done themes from "Garden" to "Sum Of Our Parts" (various songs referencing body parts, which sounds odder than it is) to "Colors," and, of course, my word-association collections.  I tried a "Life Story" sequence, but I didn't care for it.

However, lately I've had some trouble coming up with themes that please me; it's too vague, or I might not have enough songs, the topic drifts, or the appropriate songs end up one-note.  That's where you come in ...

I'm looking for suggestions for topics / themes for my car CDs.  A CD fits approximately 20 songs, give or take depending on length.  So - any ideas?

Monday Meanderings

Some of you may already know that I'm a self-professed Comma Queen, and I love other forms of punctuation, too ... probably too much.  I love the flourish of a dash, an ellipsis, or stringing together sentences with semi-colons and colons.

To me, punctuation does more than simply inform the grammatical composition of the sentence; it alters the rhythm and flow.  As a musician, I feel these patterns even if I don't express them consciously.  It's in editing that I might go back and look logically at whether I want the effect in this spot or that, whether this sentence works better as a long, breathless string or short beats.

So think of a sentence, ended with a period, as a phrase in music.  The insertion of a dash is a sharp staccato note followed by a rest - an abrupt cessation of sound.  For a harp player, this is a significant distinction because the harp rarely falls completely silent:  unless muted, notes continue to ring.  To create a quick "burst" of silence requires laying your hands on the strings to stop them.

An ellipsis, on the other hand, is a rest without muted strings or the dot in a tied note:  a small marker that indicates to hold out the end of the thought, to suspend it before continuing to the conclusion.

Semi-colons almost work in reverse; they take two separate phrases and unify them.  In this case, it's compression rather than extension.  Musically, for the harp, I think of fingering.  Part of what makes a phrase unified on the harp is that the hand remains engaged; at any one time, there is at least one finger on the strings.  Coming off at the end of the phrase creates a break to the ear.  But there are times when it's necessary or appropriate to come off mid-phrase, and that ... is your semi-colon.

(It is not lost on me that I am using the punctuation I am rambling about sprinkled throughout the above.)

Another incidental music connection:  if you're familiar with notations for vocal music (and wind instruments as well, I'm told), there is a symbol that indicates where one can take a breath.  And ... what a coincidence ...

It looks like a comma.

Of course, like any other writing tool, phrase, etc, overuse reduces the impact.  I've become more sensitive to my (over)use of these punctuation marks, and I'm starting to take a hard look at when they are truly necessary as I edit.  To all those who have waded through my past pauses, either as reader or editor, I tend my sincere apologies.

Song Styles

My novel-in-editing, Unnatural Causes, is a murder mystery:  the death of a prominent and controversial mage by her apprentice and familiar.  The familiars in this world are extraplanar beings, and their status is uncertain:  indentured servants at best, slaves at worst.  I put two themesongs in my notes to play off their attitudes towards the world around them.  The first is hard, driving and rebellious:

Are We All We Are - P!nk
(Warning:  language)

It also has some relevance to narrator Vil, who personally is defiant and impatient.

The second is more aspirational, a hope for peace:

The War Is Over - Sarah Brightman

But with their future in doubt, their primary advocate murdered, what truly is in store for the familiars?