Thursday Thoughts

Eeep! I forgot my Thursday thoughts!

I've noticed that I've been making a lot of cross-notes through my Journal of the Dead edits - flipping back and forth and forth and back to remind myself to lay groundwork for this or come back to that. This wouldn't have been possible without the outline. I am hoping it will also come in handy when I go to write a synopsis, allowing me to perhaps cut down to the essence of the storyline.

Almost to the departure juncture in Scylla and Charybdis ... way longer than I expected it to take, but I'm on the downhill slope to it. I'm not sure if the scene in the infirmary that I'm writing right now feels forced. I'm still pleased with the emotional timbre I'm striking - I hope that will hold up when I get to the editing phase.

Longer remarks next week. I'm tired!

I've Had Enough

Fourth CD reached, "I've Had Enough" - a collection of songs about people just too frustrated to put up with their other half any further. I suppose this is similar to "Good Riddance," but seeing as that was part of the very first batch of these I burned ... surely I can be forgiven? (And in a couple cases, these songs really wouldn't have fit the other theme.) The title is a line from This Time: "This nightmare is not fair, and I've had enough."

Some shaping here: the first song starts with the question - how far do I have to go? - and ends on a much softer note - "Deceive me, hurt and mislead me, all that I wish you is love."

1. How Far - Martina McBride
2. No Second Chance - Blackmore's Night
3. I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
4. Strong Enough - Cher
5. Hit The Road, Jack - Helen Reddy (version)
6. I Do - Lisa Loeb
7. Big Boy On A Saturday Night - Kirsty MacColl
8. Isobel - Dido
9. Can't Go Back - Sissel
10. Bad - Kirsty MacColl
11. Move - Dreamgirls soundtrack
12. This Time - Celine Dion
13. Bye Bye - Alana Davis
14. Who The Hell Are You - Emma Bunton
15. You're So Vain - Carly Simon
16. Nah! - Shania Twain
17. Wrong - Kimberly Locke
18. Loser - Sahlene
19. Refuse To Dance - Celine Dion
20. Not That Kind of Girl - Paulina Rubio
21. Get Over You - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
22. I Wish You - Gloria Estefan

Kudos for Fatecraft

Courtesy of a fellow writer who seems to be much better with the grapevine than I am, here's a post from bookspotcentral.com about my recent story publication:

http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2009/04/maria%E2%80%99s-ephemeral-finds-fantasy-worlds/

Thursday Thoughts

I was feeling rather bleak and hopeless: another failure at the pro level, and this time on something I was pretty sure would go through.

Then I received an acceptance from Silver Blade for one of my poems: Servant of Winter. This was my very first villanelle, an unrhymed piece that was actually done as a boot camp exercise. I'm very pleased with it. I had a back-and-forth with another editor who wanted the imagery more vivid, but ultimately, the numbness was a crucial factor to the poem for me. I'm glad to find a venue that agrees. Also! Another poem publication. I'm a poet. No, really!

The ups and downs of the last few days have left me in a strange state. I can't quite seem to pull myself out of general malaise, and I feel strange for reacting stoically to successes that would normally have me grinning. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist at heart: the failures matter, the successes don't.

It's Not That Far

CD collection #3 - reached!

This one is collection of songs about the state of the world. The title comes from Walking Down Madison and the line repeats several times, one of which is, "From the sharks in the penthouse to the rats in the basement ... it's not that far ..." This whole song has some really fantastic lyrics, however depressing.

1. Love Is All We Need - Celine Dion
2. Straight To The Point - Carrie Newcomer
3. Close My Eyes - Gloria Estefan
4. One After 909 - Helen Reddy
5. A Little Good News - Anne Murray
6. Building A Mystery - Sarah McLachlan
7. Breathe - Midge Ure
8. Always Tomorrow - Gloria Estefan
9. Something To Believe In - Sarah Brightman
10. Walk This World - Heather Nova
11. What's Forever For - Anne Murray
12. Higher - Gloria Estefan
13. There's Got To Be A Way - Mariah Carey
14. Book of Days - Enya
15. Walking Down Madison - Kirsty MacColl
16. Nobody Home - Amy Grant
17. Is Anybody There? - 1776 soundtrack (Brent Spiner)
18. What About The Love? - Amy Grant
19. Weight Of The World - Chantal Kreviazuk

Small shuffling issue, I suppose, with the two Amy Grant songs so close together, but they're sufficiently different that it's not a huge deal.

Anatomy of an Idea: Fatecraft

This is one of my favorite stories as far as how an idea came together for me.

So I had sent Soul Siblings (see below) to Black Gate - and got an encouraging rejection from the editor. The one comment he did have was that he simply saw too many stories about assassins. So, having heard that the best way to catch an editor's eye is to respond to criticisms within a couple weeks with something that addressed them ... I decided to write a story about characters who had unusual professions.

Now, I already had a daserii or dicemaker character who I happened to enjoy a great deal - I'm still trying to sell her original story. After some thought, I decided that someone who did clockwork would be interesting - but what in the world kind of plot would require those two sets of skills?

Fighting to work this out had me come up with the idea of villains who wanted to make a very powerful set of dice out of fatestone. And to keep the fatestone out of their hands (initially), I put it behind a massively complex clockwork gate. I ran into a number of other problems, including how you could create dice with changeable faces, but once I had the initial idea, I was off and running.

One thing I'm particularly pleased with in this story are the villains. I like to think that in some respects, their motivations (or one of their motivations) are sympathetic, and they have redeeming qualities. They're not just cackling black hats.

I've written a second story with Pazia and Vanchen, and somehow managed to get an equal amount of mileage out of their two skill-sets. Can I make it three? We'll see if another idea strikes.

Fatecraft now available!

It's been a long wait, but worth it! My story Fatecraft is now available at Darwin's Evolutions:

http://darwinsevolutions.com/

Check it out!

Shelter of Daylight

Shelter of Daylight - which I think has to be one of the coolest anthology titles ever - is now available from Sam's Dot Publishing. Includes my story "The Seeds of Profit."

I wish I could remember the exact history of this idea. I just remember watching a pirate special and thinking something along the lines of, what if you focused on cargo that no one bothered to protect? That hatched this story ... and of course, I had to name the herbalist character after a specific flower, Minette (a kind of Alba).

It's definitely one of my tongue in cheek stories. I wrote it as the rash of pirate anthologies was going around, but never did submit it to any of those because it was just a little too short for their wordcounts. (Yes, I know. Me, too short for a wordcount?)

Color Everywhere

Advantage to a long drive to a gig: I've moved on the next collection. I've been trying to do a color collection for ages and never had quite enough songs. I finally crossed it - and the title here is the name of the first song. Where the color isn't obvious from the title, I've inserted it.

Disclaimer about any of these sets: a few of them, I had to cut a song to get it on a single CD and I can't recall which / which song. So figure any list is about ninety-five percent accurate. ;-)

1. Color Everywhere - Dian Diaz
2. Big Yellow Taxi - Amy Grant
3. Greensleeves - Blackmore's Night
4. Blue Black - Heather Nova
5. Out of the Blue - Debbie Gibson
6. Pot of Gold - Dian Diaz
7. White Flag - Dido
8. Carribean Blue - Enya
9. Wrapped - Gloria Estefan (blue)
10. A Boat Like Gideon Brown - Great Big Sea
11. A Question of Honor - Sarah Brightman (black and white)
12. Golden Heart - Kirsty MacColl
13. Who Painted The Moon Black - Hayley Westenra
14. Writing on the Wall - Blackmore's Night (black / rainbow and the phrase "when will your true colors show")
15. Orange Express - Gloria Estefan
16. Blue - Helen Reddy
17. Wearing White - Martina McBride
18. Blue Caravan - Vienna Teng
19. Runaway - Sahlene ("which colors to wear to laugh or cry" - red)
20. A Whiter Shade of Pale - Sarah Brightman
21. One Short Day - Wicked soundtrack (green. LOTS of green.)

I'm surprised how many blue songs I seem to have. Hrm.

I've got to comment briefly on Blackmore's Night rendition of Greensleeves. Now, much as I love it personally, Greensleeves has got to be the ultimate Elizabethan cliche. So really, if you play that genre of music, it's reached the point where you might as well just say, "Pretend we played Greensleeves," and get on with it. However, if you absolutely must do Greensleeves, this is an excellent way to record it. There's a lively beat sequence and an ooh chorus that (for me) evokes some very vivid imagery.

Child Full of Promises

Swapped my car-listening music around again and this time decided that for my CD titles, I was going to use a line from one of the songs that related to the theme. So first off - a collection of songs about (directly or tangentially) children and the next generation. "Child Full of Promises" is a reference to Evacuee, and the line is particularly, "All I am: a child full of promises. All I have are miles full of promises of home ..."

As always, I try to open with a song that feels like it kicks things off and close with something that leads elsewhere.

1. Darling, Let's Have Another Baby - Kirsty MacColl
2. Roots and Wings - Anne Murray
3. Wait For The Healing - Amy Grant
4. Coulda Been - Kimberly Locke
5. Children of the Revolution - Kirsty MacColl
6. Sarah's Song - Sissel
7. Crickets Sing for Anamaria - Emma Bunton
8. Eve - Chantal Kreviazuk
9. Immortality - Celine Dion
10. Wild Child - Enya
11. The Woman in Me - Crystal Gayle
12. Curious Thing - Amy Grant
13. Hijo De La Luna - Sarah Brightman
14. She's Not Just A Pretty Face - Shania Twain
15. How Can We See That Far - Amy Grant
16. This One's For The Girls - Martina McBride
17. Evacuee - Enya
18. Angie Baby - Helen Reddy
19. One Name - Gloria Estefan
20. Older Than My Years - Cherie

I Once Met a Man With a Sense of Adventure ...

He was dressed to thrill wherever he went.
He said, "Let's make love on a mountaintop,
Under the stars on a big hard rock."
I said, "In these shoes? I don't think so ..."

My story entitled "In These Shoes" just sold to Staffs and Starships! The story has nothing whatsoever to do with the Kirsty MacColl song that inspired the title - really. It's about an assassin and involves the shoes she traditionally wears for a kill.

In trying to input this into my website, I realized that my links were a visual mess. I played around with all sorts of ways of reformatting - I even had one of my fractals as a BG. The only thing I knew is I had to get rid of the dark-background-white-text, because it was a pain in the neck to update. After about an hour of fiddling, I finally went with the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and went with a very subtle blue-flecked white BG and dark text.

Check it out if you like.

Thursday Thoughts

Oh, right. It's Thursday.

Journal of the Dead - ran into an amusing error when editing one of the spirit stories. To whit: ... hey, wait, I have pistols in this world ... making notes on back-edits was fairly simple, but I have a feeling it's going to alter a lot of the remaining pages as well. The changes won't be major, they'll just be frequent and annoying.

I hate guns. Seriously.

In full-out panic mode about the length of Scylla and Charybdis. I am very pleased with everything I've done, just not how long it has taken to do it. It does make me aware why a few editors seemed to think the original short story needed to end when they left the station ... there's an incredible amount of meat there.

I have a very messy and confusing muddle in regards to computers and phones. I have an aural link which I was originally just thinking as an intercom, and now I realize with technology several centuries later, it's likely it would be a combo phone / PDA / system link ... and on Themiscyra, that would mean you could effectively access the entire world from a little widget behind your ear. Anyhow, I haven't explained any of this directly (... and I kind of keep changing my mind about what it's supposed to do) so this may be one of those things that gets a major clean-up in editing.

Shiny Stones

Like a raven, I pluck shiny stones ...

So my villanelle - actually, literally the first I wrote that rhymed - by the title of Shiny Stones is now official in Aoife's Kiss March 2009. I'm stoked to see it in print: the magazine is beautiful, very classy-looking. Haven't had a chance to read anything else in it yet.

A bit about the poem - I wrote the opening three lines (if two lines is a couplet, and four lines is a quatrain, what is three? A triolet? I must look that up) and then realized I had picked a really difficult rhyme scheme: owns / stones versus trove. Finding words that wove into the "storyline" made this a very interesting poem to write. The through-line is about a thief who steals from the nobility and what she / he does with the ill-gotten gains.

Thursday Thoughts

I've now reached the journal section of Journal of the Dead, and I do have a few places marked for major revision, add notes about XYZ ... so far, I feel as if I'm in control and making the changes that I wanted far more extensively than if I had chosen a less in-depth editing method.

Looking at my notes before I started writing the novel, I had a few additional named spirits. Now editing, I am glad I removed them. Trying to keep Davius, Parik, Kazhe, Parashi, Ihseye and Astennu distinct in my main character's head is quite enough ... and I'm fairly sure I don't always succeed with Ihseye. (For those who are curious, all female names have an h in them, usually silent: so the middle three are ladies.) If I were up to a sweeping edit, I might remove her - but she's one of the sorcerers and I need her magic. Ahem.

Another idle note about the naming conventions: I had decided at the beginning that female names usually end with an i or an e, and almost never a ... wow, you wouldn't believe how hard that is for a Western brain. Consonant endings are supposed to be almost exclusively male-only, but I do have one break from that later - Atsihl. Anyhow, it definitely provides a flavor to the names.

As for Scylla and Charybdis ... ow. Major ethical dilemma as to what Anaea tells her best friend, who has pleaded with her not to explore the mysteries of the station, but you can't tell her nothing, it's a serious breach of trust (and hypocritical besides) if she lies, it is emotionally damaging if she tells the truth ... at the suggestions of some folks on my writers' board, I decided to make an expansion to handle this, but ...

Now I worry about the pacing of the whole novel. Over 10,000 words, and I'm still on Themiscyra. After that I have eight (!) sections tentatively planned: a brief stop in the male-civ, a brief stop in the female-civ, an interlude in the Sanctum (from whence Gwydion came) before Anaea decides she isn't going to flee madly from hiding only to return there; an arc in the male-civ where she's just trying to live and let live; an arc in the female-civ ditto; a return to the male-civ with more active intentions; a return to the female-civ ditto ... and then a mad rush back to Themiscyra for close. This last bit may change depending on how the intervening goes - heck, the second half may change depending on how the preceding goes.

Anyhow, if each of these comes out long? I have an unwieldy, unsaleable novel.

I've told myself not to worry about it: I can come back and edit out, even reshape the early plot, if I need to, but trying to artificially truncate would do more harm to the beginning than letting it run long would.

Still ... argh.

Reccs ...

I now have thirteen entries on my "Old Reccs" section of my website. (I keep my three newest at the top.) This is somehow ... ominous.

Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley

I simply loved this book.

It's a riveting account based on the premise of dragons as an endangered species in the modern world - everything feels scientific, accurate and real. The story focuses to a micro-level on the story of Jake, who finds an infant dragon next to its dying mother and risks everything to raise her ... when no one knows anything about how dragons grow up.

One of the best tidbits of dragon origins is that "real" dragons are Australian in origin ... and they have pouches like marsurpials, used for similar function. The astonishing bit is this works.

Dragonhaven proves that you can break the rules of writing and get away with it if you're talented enough. The first thirty pages are, fair warning, pure info-dump ... and yet it's so engrossing and fascinating that you don't notice. Similarly, there is a lot of summary throughout the book: there has to be, given the massive amounts of time and the gradual changes that occur during it. Yet this only begins to wear on the reader (or at least, this reader) close to two hundred pages into the book.

It isn't perfect: there are scenes that are I wished had been more illustrated and less summarized. But the narrator's voice is strong and compelling, and the through-line that it's a written account of "real" events works perfectly. Jake's voice is distinct; it also "sounds" like something an (albiet very intelligent) young man would write, rather than the work of a trained author.

The suspension of disbelief is a remarkable component of the book. By the end, I was buying things that would seem ridiculous if presented at the opening ... and it all seemed like a logical progression.

Anyhow - highly recommended.

Thursday Thoughts

Scylla and Charybdis seems to consist of frenetic leaps from one conversation to another. I am entirely off the course of the short story now, but very pleased with the direction. I am slightly dubious that Anaea hasn't stopped to interrogate Gwydion for more details about his society, but that would slow up the story with a dialogue info-dump - so I focus on forward motion until I've gotten a little further.

Not much more to say ... nearing the end of chapter three. They seem to be breaking fairly naturally around 3600 words.

Editing marks for Journal of the Dead - progressing nicely. My hope is that, by working from the printed copy rather than the original draft, I'll be more free to make changes, even drastic ones, as I input ... so I often have notes that don't directly fit with the current text. I am in Chapter Four of the third person section - one more chapter after this, and the narrative swaps to first person as the journal begins.

One thing I have to be very careful about inserting into the text is how in the world Rhiane is keeping this journal on her person - and there are times where she would have had to be carrying it to make an entry - without it being confiscated, and for that matter, how it isn't read by anyone else. I have a reason for this. It feels labored, but once worked into the storyline, it should work. I'm just nose-crinkly about it since it was an afterthought for me - I reached the final portions and went, "Oh, blast."

Onwards!

Thursday Thoughts

Today would be free-write day, but I can't seem to get onto the forums ... and the lack of any messages to the effect of a reminder would suggest that it is down. Either way - I am a lump of allergies, so probably just as well.

Started to move through the manuscript of Journal of the Dead while trying to juggle the printed copy of my outline. Unwieldy thing! I am really concerned about the opening fight scene: it has to go bad and escalate fast enough for Rhiane to accidently stab someone before the rest of the guards get in from outside. As written, it doesn't work. My manuscript copy has a whole bunch of scrawled notes now on how to fix that. Certainly I can get away with Parik being short-tempered and preremptory, but there are limits.

Scylla and Charybdis is moving comfortably and ... going in a direction that was quite unplanned and didn't occur in the original story, though this is more an issue how I'm getting from point B to point C rather than a change in the positioning of the points. It's a summing of little changes I made that seemed to fit better as I got into more detail about the world and how Anaea got in this position.

I've recently been reading a riveting book called Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley (which, unless the last half utterly disappoints, will be going on my recommended reads). Its micro focus on emotions, reactions and coping with the unthinkable has made me think a lot more about these early parts of SaC, when Anaea is wrestling with her version of the impossible. I can't go into the same amount of detail as Dragonhaven - the scope of the story makes that impossible unless I want enough pages to comprise War and Peace. But it has given me some sense of just how much you can get away with ...

Arcane Whispers - Vol 2

So it looks like Arcane Whispers, Volume Two - the Best of Sorcerous Signals for 2008 ... will include not one, but two of my stories!

Luckily, they're very different in tone: Apartment Tour is an urban fantasy flash fiction, written with a bit of tongue in cheek bite. Soul Siblings is a long sword and sorcery-style epic with some heavy material - though there are some moments of humor if I'm recalling right. I'm nearly incapable of writing without it.

I am particularly excited about the latter because Soul Siblings has always been one of my personal favorite stories.

Even more amusing - last I checked, the illustration for Soul Siblings is frontrunner for cover art. I actually didn't vote for it because I liked some of the others (even by the same artist) better, and because it's a little inaccurate: the Geneb third eyes are supposed to be different colors from their normal eyes. There wasn't time to change it before Sibs went to press, so no big deal - it's still a gorgeous picture. I almost hate to bring it up if it does get the nod for cover art ...

Thursday Thoughts

Discovered today that I had used my last Beast of Albion card yesterday, so my boot camp is finished.

... and so is the macro-read of Journal of the Dead! I'm letting it set for a few before I print out the outline and see how much material, how many changes, what kind of issues I'm working with as I go back through the manuscript.

Things are picking up in Scylla and Charybdis. One dynamic I hadn't really explored in the short story was the interaction between Anaea and Orithia - her current friend and ex-lover. At the time, I just threw in the "ex factor" because it served to illustrate an aspect of the station. Now I'm finding that it has more dimensions. I also am enjoying building the contrast between Orithia, who is outwardly rebellious but inwardly conventional, and Anaea, who is outwardly obedient but inwardly daring.

I also introduced Penelope, Orithia's kearl - which is a companion animal somewhere between a cat and a monkey. Now, Anaea wouldn't think of them like this, so I didn't directly describe it as such, I just used descriptors that keyed into the two animals. Hopefully, when Gwydion meets kearl later and I get the opportunity to explain fully, it will simply fit the pieces into place for anyone reading.

(Albion) Boot Camp Week 5

There seemed a lot of sentence material in This Is My Funniest 2, so I waited a few days before swapping over to Stardust.

For whatever reason, the past few days I've been having trouble incorporating the Albion card into my exercise - the sentence sparks a thought, and all of a sudden I realize that I haven't involved the first element.

I've had a few places where I've taken some effort to stop and consciously re-contextualize the sentence - just to make sure I'm not using the same set-up and surroundings as the original implies.

I am pretty sure that I have less than a week of cards left. Overall, a satisfying exercise. I hope to come back and write one of my excerpts, though which one? So many appeal ...

Thursday Thoughts

My progress on my novels was somewhat derailed (happily) due to a request for a rewrite from a prestigious market. The edits to the story then proceeded to eat my head completely for close to twenty-four hours. I re-sent it yesterday morning and today got a notice it would be 3-4 weeks before he could see it. Augh the anticipation!

In any case, I am now in the last few "phases" of the Journal macro edits - time in the world is measured by the date within a moon-phase. I think my spreadsheet is very long - I won't be surprised if it is more than 30 pages. Being able to see what each scene consists of should allow me to go through and note where would be best to insert discussion of element X, element Y ... then I take a micro pass at the manuscript.

Then I rewrite from the manuscript in a clean document. Oh, this will take forever. I'm not even sure if I am over-editing, but I know that one of my weaknesses is that I don't edit enough, so putting myself through such a laborious process is a worthwhile experiment. It may work for me; it may not.

I'm concerned that Scylla and Charybdis is too "talky," but I've tried to keep the tension going. I guess the issue here is that I've never written a story whose purpose is so entirely to explore the setting, so I may not have a good feel for the balance. The worldbuilding seems to fit pretty naturally into the narration, but there's so much of it. I also realize that I need to be more intensive about Themiscyra, as knowing precisely where Anaea comes from is crucial to have a frame of reference for her later journeys.

I am also starting to feel like a bit of an imposter. I always knew there was some serious material with the gender dynamic - but my intentions had been to play that light, less a sociological treatise as an exploration not unakin to a child crawling through one of those Playspaces. Now I'm seeing other serious psychological questions and even a few religious ones, and I really don't feel as if I have any business commenting on these things. I never set out to have a "message" in my fiction, and I'm concerned that I sound like I'm preaching now. It's fiction, it's a story ... and yet I am so worried about what I might be saying, perhaps inadvertently, that I don't know what to do.

All this and I'm still in Chapter Two.

Stardust

I just finished Neil Gaiman's Stardust - stayed up last night to finish reading the epilogue. On balance, I enjoyed it much more than American Gods. It has a beautiful feeling of archetype and fairy tale, yet delivered with a sly humor. Much of this comes from a matter-of-fact tone. In American Gods, this surrealness sometimes worked to the detriment of the story - things were so detached they seemed unrealistic. With Stardust, the tone blends wonderfully into the mood.

One thing did disappoint me, and I'm not sure if it's partly because I saw the movie and I was expecting a big climactic battle: the ending was very flatline. It didn't really "go" anywhere. Even the romantic revelation at the end just sort of happens. I do agree that the flash-bang in the Stardust movie would have been inappropriate here, but to me, it seemed less like a novel climax and more a simple stopping point.

The epilogue, I should add, was lovely, and it made me sniffle. It was a striking final note. (I am counting this as an "after the ending" summary.)

Having now read the book, I'm rather puzzled by the movie adaptation in general. It seemed to spend a lot of time on elements that went by in passing in the book, while excluding others ... and even adding things that don't seem to fit with the Stardust world. Some I understood for adaptation and presentation, and others just due to Hollywoodisms, but the pacing between book and movie leaves me a bit bewildered. I did think the portrayal of the Stormhold ghosts was delightful, however. Nicely done.

Updates!

Space Sirens is now available, including my story "Precious Cargo." This story was written especially to be submitted to this anthology, which is best described as space opera with (swashbuckling?) female protagonists. I already had Kirin and her aunt bouncing around in my head from some exercises I'd done, and they wanted a story. Some day I may go back and write onwards, but I think it would be more of a novel-to-come than a series of shorts.

Anyhow, check it out at flyingpenpress.com! I really like the description Carol Hightshoe (editor) put together for my story.

On more minor news, my story "Remember" has been bumped back to the October Kaleidotrope. My poem in Aoife's Kiss should be out this month, but I'm waiting to receive my print copy to be sure as it's not in the online edition.

(Albion) Boot Camp Week 4

If I'm adding right, this next week will be the last full week.

I almost forgot to change books yesterday, after having finished This Is My Funniest 2 on Friday. So far - given a random pick of two - the book is working better than its predecessor.

I've got a lot of sparkers I'd love to continue. So many stories, so little time ...

This Is My Funniest 2

I just finished reading this anthology, edited by Mike Resnick. I thought it was about on par with the first as far as overall quality: I thought there were fewer wonderful high points, but there were also fewer complete misses (and those weren't, as in This Is My Funniest, placed in the first few slots). I was very puzzled by one story ("The Acid Test" by Kay Kenyon) that I couldn't see as humor at all. While there were a few amusing turns of phrase, that didn't change the fact that the overall story depressed and saddened me.

I also noticed an unusually high percentage of western spoofs, make of that what you will.

One flaw I noticed that occurred in several stories was pacing. Many of the stories had a detailed, involved set-up with plenty of color and humor ... only to wrap up quickly in a couple pages. I suppose this in part because, in comedic stories, there's an urge to explore the weird goings-on at the fringe of the story - but I did find it interesting how frequently this showed up in the anthology.

Overall, though, I love a good humor story and I enjoyed the anthology very much. There are many delightful concepts and turns of phrase throughout, often in the same story. I continue to get the impression that Mike Resnick really knows how to put together an anthology to create a flow. (The aforementioned issue with This Is My Funniest notwithstanding.)

German

... wow, all right. Someone reviewed Sails & Sorcery (in which my story Currents and Clockwork appears) ... in German.

This is rather cool.

Here's the translation:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.literaturschock.de/literaturforum/index.php%3Ftopic%3D16528.0&ei=i6KmSZiEL-CbtwfF59zvDw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=4&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Danielle%2BAckley-McPhail%2522%26start%3D330%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Thursday Thoughts

I'm feeling more comfortable with Journal of the Dead as I progress through the edits. My impression when finishing the first draft was that I had a mass of vaguely connected, over-complex tendrils, elements that were added practically deus-ex-machina to solve the problem of the moment. In the rereading, however, it has an unexpected cohesiveness. Some things need a bit more groundwork, but that's pretty easy to retrofit. There is a lot going on, weaving in and out of my narrator's life ... but all of it fits together. Everything has its place.

I am pleased how much the lives and advice of her spirits truly influence Rhiane. Just having the spirits there as passengers and comic relief would miss the point, to me.

Scylla and Charybdis still trundles along - I have just entered Chapter Two. I've done something I don't usually care for, a "fake-out" cliff-hanger at the end of the chapter, in which an apparently critical problem turns out to resolve in the first half-page or so of the next chapter. I may or may not end up removing it. Possibly this doesn't bother others as much as it does me; certainly I've seen it in plenty of published books. (That doesn't mean it's a good technique, just that it's printable. Ahem.)

I am very pleased with the first real conversation between my main characters. I even got to use an element that wasn't on the radar in the short story: Gwydion makes a reference to evening prayers. I am not so pleased with how Anaea gets into a supposedly restricted area, but I can't really make it much more difficult without making it outright impossible.

(Albion) Boot Camp Week Three

Swapped books - to Best Short Novels of 2006 - and discovered that there is an advantage to a fairly workmanlike prose style (as with my previous selection). I had to reroll several times this week when I got lines that were so specific to their story - even when I took out specific person / place names - that I couldn't pull them out of context to work with.

However, I am enjoying the new lines and possibilities. I'm pondering, at the end of this run-through, selecting one to turn into a story right away ... or near enough.

And I have discovered that this boot camp has a neat, finite end. I had thought that the Beasts of Albion was a pretty sizable deck, about the size of a Tarot deck - somewhere between sixty to seventy cards, anyhow. Instead, I just realized it's only thirty-nine, so I'll be through them in early March.

Not a bad thing. I have so many writing projects afoot that while the boot camp is nice, it's beginning to become a little distracting.

Thursday Thoughts

... and this week, I have a cold. I have felt pretty oppressively miserable all day. Now I just have a stomachache.

I have reached and passed the halfway point with my macro editing pass for Journal of the Dead. One thing I have learned from doing this is that I can't rely on my mental sense of when events occurred in the storyline. I was very surprised to discover what had happened by or at the halfway mark. I'd introduced Atsihl - Rhiane's airheaded society friend - and Razentis - the foreign ambassador - had the first romance dream sequence, and initiated the deal-with-the-Devil (figuratively speaking) that drives the rest of the plot.

I'm beginning to be concerned how I can incorporate the notes I'm making into the edits. Right now, the only solution seems to be to read *all* of my correction notes before I mark up each scene. Tedious, but - hey, it may go faster as I inadvertently start memorizing the whole kit-and-kaboodle. Certainly the whole thing is so unwieldy that just finding what should go where is an undertaking.

Scylla and Charybdis continues to move slowly. I'm concerned it's too slow: I'm about 2500 words in, and the main tension has come from the initial mystery ... but seeing as it questions everything the main character knows about her world and introduces a character who is going to be her traveling companion through most of the book - I think I can justify it.

The short story covered this same period in about half the word count. I think I can account for most of the slower pace, though. I lengthened the dialogue with Gwydion somewhat and described both him and Anaea in more detail. As I looked back at the original story, I don't describe my MC at all, and for a novel-length work, that doesn't sit right with me as a writer. There are more descriptions of the surroundings, which honestly was just a bad omission in the original - but still brief. The backstory is slightly more expansive. Her conversation with Orithia is slightly longer, etc ... it adds up.

... plus, it's a novel, darnit. When I initially considered this idea, I estimated the 6700 word short story would be about the first 20,000 words of the novel. Now I'm thinking that's more likely to be the first 5000 words of the story will be the first 20,000 words of the novel. So I'm actually "ahead of schedule" - which is good, because I think there are more events that need to happen before the novel departs its home base, geographically speaking.

The Art of the Novella

I just finished "Best Short Novels of 2006" edited by Jonathan Strahan. (This is specifically within the speculative genre.) I enjoyed reading novellas - a form I don't encounter a lot - and had some interesting observations, some positive and some disturbing.

Disclaimer: next two paragraphs are specific to fantasy. The anthology was 50 - 50, so this applies about partway.

One thing that I was genuinely surprised (and somewhat disappointed) by was the fact that the majority of the stories were grounded in an Terran environment - contemporary earth, future earth, alternate earth, but still essentially a world playing by most of the rules of our own. To me, one of the hardest parts of short fiction is inscribing a fantasy world in a few brief pages, so I expected novellas to be a place where exotic worldbuilding could shine. The closest there was to a fully-realized secondary world setting was the Library embedded within Kelly Link's "Magic For Beginners." That said, however, many of these novellas took the time for leisurely tidbits of setting that didn't necessarily hinge upon the plot - and that was very enjoyable.

The other thing that made me squint a bit was the paucity of magic in the stories. Gone are sorcerers and systems of magic. Those stories that seemed to deal closest with supernatural tropes either presented them with technological explanations and trappings, hid them in an in-story television show, or clothed them within a child's voice. Maybe it's just an accident of the novellas printed in 2006, but you'd almost say these writers were allergic to it. This says nothing about the overall quality of the stories, of course, but I found it a weird trend.

What the novellas here seemed to do best was give a sense of history. The stories had room to expand and travel through several periods of the characters' lives. Some were less plots as biographies. It was interesting to have the chance to explore events outside a strict plot itinerary ... and still feel, as a reader, that you were going somewhere.

Of these, I would have to say my favorite is Connie Willis' Inside Job. It's an intelligent, crackling, hilarious story - and it does a good job of sprinkling the author's research into the tale without ever being obtrusive. This is also a story for anyone who has ever rolled their eyes at New Age money-making schemes.

I was disappointed by Harry Turtledove's Aubudon in Atlantis. It had a great premise - our historical Aubudon searching for vanishing wildlife to paint in an alternate reality where Atlantis was its own continent - but the story itself was very dry. I knew I should have been invested in the characters and their quest, and I just couldn't get there.

(Albion) Boot Camp Week Two

Still having fun with this - it's really good to have the random sparker each day. I (like to) think it keeps my writing muscles fresh.

I am about to switch books, but I've been so busy it's taken me awhile to finish the current read. It's about time; I was using "Gallows Thief" by Bernard Cornwell, and the picks are starting to wear thin.

The past two days, I experimented with excerpts set in worlds I've used before: the SF setting of my novel, and a much older fantasy setting I just rediscovered. This is a different take on it. I wouldn't push myself deliberately into that mold, but I like meshing old concepts into new thoughts.

Review!

I just noticed this - sort of wish I hadn't. Some positive things, but I did not need the negative right now.

"Hour by Hour" is fairly far down the list.

http://thefix-online.com/reviews/best-of-abyss-apex-1/

Thursday Thoughts

The novel has begun!

The first couple pages are always really rough for me. I'm very conscious of needing to give enough flavor of the setting that a reader isn't confused, describe what I want people to "see" about my main character early enough that a reader hasn't formed another image in their heads, and all the while kicking off the plot without bogging down in info-dumps. Once I've gotten moving, it seems to flow much more naturally.

Right now, this is compounded by the fact that the beginning of the novel follows the events of my original short story very closely, so I keep being tempted to consult it. I've only used a couple small pieces verbatim, and even those are tiny enough that they've been clipped in and inserted other places.

This is what is currently serving as my first paragraph:

Waiting behind the airlock door, Anaea Carlisle tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she might see one of them on the other side – maybe as many as twelve, if they were alive. She clutched her medic’s kit in twitching hands and flicked an anxious glance to Valasca Braun, the harsh, angular woman who led the team. Why the chief doctor insisted on leading every salvage mission was a mystery.

Once I get through my informal mental list of things to get across as soon as possible, I can relax.

Still working on ... err, everything else. I am juggling way too many balls here.

(Albion) Boot Camp Week One

So far, so good. I'm very satisfied with the challenge of melding a more nebulous and overarching concept - the Beast of Albion card - with a more specific and focused insertion - the random sentence - while giving a flavor of character, plot and setting ... all in about two hundred words. I may have to switch books before I finish my current read, but so far, Gallows Thief is holding up. I've found that I prefer to use the sentence as a lead-in rather than a lead-out, but as I expected, the ones where it's a lead-out run longer.

Not going to post examples as a general rule, but here's the one I did today just as an idea of how it turns out. The setting is the same world as Journal of the Dead:

CRANE: Sentry of the Inner World

In (Place), a funnel-shaped thoroughfare that narrowed as it ran from (Name) Street to (Name) Hill, the scaffold was being taken down.

Coran was irritated, not for the first time, that the only window in his quarters faced the scene of his of executions. The spirits of the deceased clamored inside his thoughts, their welcomes to the newcomer – some sarcastic, some sincere – pushing his equilibrium towards a strange mix of amicability and sourness. He closed his eyes, drawing in meditative breaths and focusing on his core, the part of his consciousness that had been born in this body … a thing which shrank every time his jailors forced him to pull the lever another time.

There had been a time he was consumed by guilt for the crime that had brought him here. Now, when every time he served as executioner, the victim’s mind jumped into his – he had paid enough. He had started to forget what he had done, and saw his crime only as one in the wave of others that haunted him.

Coran rubbed his temples. Carefully, he focused on the newest spirit, a sorcerer named Elhizath. Meimn, the magic of time and perception – two things he could have used, but the power had died with her.

*Why are you here?* she asked, voice cool as silk. When she had first leapt to him, she had screamed and flailed, an incoherent mass of thought. He was used to that.

Thursday Thoughts

I am so ill/tired. I literally cannot stay upright. I don't want to knock off my sleep schedule is the only reason I'm awake.

I didn't realize until I started editing how late in the story Rhiane actually finds out what happened to her son. The point is, I believe, almost a third of the way through the manuscript (pg. 48 of 170 in editing copy). This is interesting because I've always considered the story as everything that happens in reaction to that discovery, though in a general sense the entire manuscript is about her trying to reunite with her son. There are certainly elements in the early portion that I want to emphasize more strongly later on.

My notes, they are going to be long.

I am finally ready to start writing on Scylla and Charybdis - again, if I weren't sick. I have a first couple paragraphs bouncing around in my brain. It starts almost identical to the short story, but my setting concepts have changed somewhat - and my writing style certainly has.

New Boot Camp

Decided to combine two random elements: one open for interpretation and more determinant of mood, theme, etc, the other more specific.

Ended up choosing:

1) A card from the Beasts of Albion deck. For those not familiar (which I imagine is most), these are not so much event-divination cards as self-divination cards. As the name suggests, each is an individual animal representing a specific attribute and a number of other qualities.

2) A random sentence from a book. I'll probably use the last one I finished for a bit, just for simplicity. Whether I keep this up or find another method depends on how fast I read. This has been "not very," of late.

Further restrictions set for myself: exercise needs to be around 200 words, at least that much and preferrably not much more. The meaning of the card needs to be used, but I can also use the signifying animal directly. The sentence can be assumed as the beginning or the end of the exercise, but isn't counted in the total. (And not the middle - that's so I can more easily substitute if I decide to write the whole story.)

Exercise also doesn't necessarily have to be at the beginning of the story, though I seem to be notoriously bad at writing random middles and ends. Wasn't always that way ...

Boot Camp Week 4

Words: Vacuous, wanton, yielding, acclaim, bemoan, canine, victuals.

So it's official - this is my last week on this boot camp session. More about the new session later. I decided I had better start it today as Monday tends to be a busy day for me, and I am generally not going to want to post about it then.

This was helpful, I think, and I may even pilfer some of these descriptions for actual stories. But I really did reach the point where I ran out of steam.

Best descs of the week:

With shaggy dark brown hair and a wide, anxious smile, she had a distinctly canine appearance – made stronger by the broad, flared nose. Her complexion was chocolate, roughened by sun, her hands callused; harder to see that the flat palms and long fingers were sculpted for grace. Her body was big but smooth, muscles blended into the sturdy frame and complementing robust curves. Her eyes were as black as a dog’s, and just as intent, flicking with a bright gleam towards any motion.

The kitchen might have been massive, but the low ceiling and the persistent smoke made it feel like a bear’s den – or a dragon’s. Long wooden trestle tables loomed, mountains of industry and loaded down with vegetables for the chopping, dough for the rolling, and gleaming slabs of meat. The ovens roared at the far end, demanding their tribute. Fallen crumbs were kicked under the tables or swept aside by dingy skirts, victuals for the small horde of rodents who lay in wait there.

Thursday Thoughts

It took longer than I thought, but I am done with my worldbuilding and character profiles for Scylla and Charybdis. I figure the profiles are meant to be played fast and loose, and I'm sure I will add characters I haven't jotted down, adapt the ones I have ... I wrote profiles primarily for a diversity check and consistency.

There is a good reason for this: I'm having to do it in reverse for Journal of the Dead. Notating eye color, hair color, physical quirks and making sure this isn't too much overlap. Also have notes to review personality and speech patterns.

I am now twenty-two pages into my one-hundred-seventy page document. I am trying to keep my focus on macro elements: noting what needs to be changed, but not making specific marks about how. That will be for my second pass. I'm into the "journal" portion now, and surprised how messy it is. Thank goodness for editing.

Judge

I mostly keep this to writing business, but I've recently had an exciting bit of harp news: I was invited to judge the Scottish Harp competition at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games - July 11 in Linville, NC. Definitely looking forward to it! I need to brush up on my dance music, as I don't get much opportunity to play it during gigs.

Pieces of Taboo

There are two topics in romantic fiction that I prefer not to tackle - one because I have difficulty portraying it with sympathy, and the other because I don't think it's possible. I've been pondering, when next the opportunity comes up, trying to write a story using one or both in an attempt to put myself in a point of view I don't agree with. Seems like something a writer should try every now and again.

The first is cheating on an SO. To me, this is almost unforgiveable. It is not a tactic I'd normally use in a story. I have trouble understanding how people get there.

The second is being romantically in love with more than one person, equally, at the same time. (Wow, lots of clauses there? But I'm not sure how better to phrase it.) Personally, I am not sure this is something that can actually happen. On some level, I think there must be an inequality, and to force two people to put up with one's dithering ... yeah. Not getting there.

On both counts, I freely admit that this is just my opinion, and a biased one, at that. But - steps outside one's box, always worthwhile.

Boot Camp: Week 3

Words: Obscure, pandiculation, qualitative, rancor, sallow, talisman, unconscionable.

Some better words this week, though I am beginning to feel a bit repetitive. I decided that I'm reaching the functional limit of this exercise - so one more week, and then back to square one with another session.

Best descs for this week:

He gave the impression of a shadow – dark, thin and vague, his movements an anxious flit. He dressed to match, undyed leather and a grey wool shirt beneath. His hair was unkempt, toussled; falling unevenly with more length to the left side. His eyes, however, were his talisman: vivid, brilliant amber – not brown, but a deep liquid color mixed with gold. A single blink of those eyes, showcased with thick, silky lashes, could command immediate attention.

Thick wild grasses swarmed over the few hillocks that interrupted the vast expanse of plain; their waving heads vanished on the horizon. Trampled trails, stripped of some green but rarely bared down to earth, showed evidence of the passage of horses. They glowed muddy gold in the early light as dawn rippled across the horizon, a languid expansion of color like a sleeper’s pandiculation. The plains seemed to drop out of sight into the embrace of the sunrise, flowing over the edge of the world.

Thursday Thoughts

My weekly free write happened before I could write this post, so let's discuss that briefly. The prompt was to write about a poet and an anniversary - not necessarily the poet's anniversary. Myself being perverse, I decided to write about a court poet, a seer and the anniversary of something that hadn't happened yet. All right, so I have a love affair with seers, whether the interpretation of prophecy is loose or very fatalistic.

Anyhow, in planning this, I decided to use an old world, and was stunned by the setting I stumbled across, a world of islands isolated by wild seas and sunken landbridges. How had I never used this before? It just "pops" with possibilities.

Still in the midst of pre-work for Scylla and Charybdis, but much closer to finishing. In working on character profiles, I've found myself reluctant and tetchy - so I'm not pushing it, just writing down enough so I can be consistent and keep the characters distinct.

Just started my macro pass of the Journal of the Dead manuscript. I am pleasantly surprised by the intensity of it and how casually the worldbuilding glides into the story. However, there are other pieces that gave me pause. In particular, the self-defense killing in the first chapter still doesn't escalate believably.

I am still rather worried about the fact that what would normally be the sample portion of the manuscript is entirely in third person, while the bulk is in first: the titular "journal," which the character starts writing in. Besides the POV difference itself, Rhiane's voice is rather different from the narration in the chapters. I don't want to be presenting agents with a "sample" that doesn't represent the whole ...

Boot Camp Week 2

Words: Hapless, iconoclast, jettison, kinetic, laissez-faire, magnanimous, narcolepsy

I continue to be a little underwhelmed by the choices for word of the day. Some of these are also words I would never use, not because there's nothing wrong with them, but "laissez-faire" doesn't fit well in a secondary world fantasy, and narcolepsy is not something with which I concern myself. Ahem.

Again, the best descriptions - in general, not necessarily from the use of the word:

She had a look as if someone had dripped her from a cave ceiling: a pale white stalagmite, slender but bottom-heavy. Her flyaway russet hair was cut just below the nape of her neck, one hapless lock curling down the center of her brow. Her eyes were set just a little too wide and a little too large, giving their blue a waifish and vaguely alien look.

A narrow path – a dirt track at best, a blotch of mud at worst – trailed up the side of the mountain, weaving close to the sheer sides. Piles of scree clumped at every odd bend reminded the travel that the mountain was prepared to jettison its load of rocks at any moment. It was a dark stone, flecked with obsidian, dampened by a perpetual drizzle, and no trees relieved the ascent. The greatest splotch of color was from the pale grey moss which climbed the walls, crawling into fissures.

I seem to best at descriptions that are vaguely depressing and sort of falling apart at the seams. Hrm.

Mismatched Lyrics

We've all had that experience of hearing lyrics and getting them not quite right ... and what we're hearing either doesn't make sense or twists the entire song around. Two of mine:

Actual: "Til a man of low degree stood by her side ..." (Delta Dawn, Helen Reddy)
Heard: "Til a man of loaded grease stood by her side ..." (This is actually fairly similar. It just doesn't make sense.)

Actual: "A dollar says it's true: this town gets hold of you ..." (New York City Lights, Sophie Ellis-Bextor)
Heard: "Our daughter says it's true: this town gets hold of you ..." (Right, okay then.)

Thursday Thoughts

Today I am sick. I don't think it's a flu - could be food poisoning - but I have been wracked and nauseated and dizzy.

In any case, today was a day of administrivia. I picked up my editing copy (first go-through) for Journal of the Dead - which, regardless of how good a novel it is, is definitely my best title ever. My plan:

Read through the manuscript once to a) gather data - make sure I have hair color, eye color, vital stats, positioning of towns, etc, recorded and correct; and b) write a scene-by-scene list with the plot / char-development / subplot / other purpose each serves.

Review these to see if anything needs to be cut or majorly restructured

Read through the manuscript a second time to mark where I want changes.

Use the editing copy to rewrite the manuscript in a clean blank document.

Possibly! print the manuscript again to do one more hard-core editing pass. It depends on how I feel at this point.

Either way, a couple copy-edit passes on the computer copy and then I'll start working on synopses and a query letter.

Projected completion time? Erm ... May - June?

On a smaller note, sent a number of, "I haven't heard from you, did I miss a reply?" notes to markets. Everything is running slow as molasses.

Almost done with my notes for Scylla and Charybdis. Again, I had some surprises with numbers and results when I sat down and thought things through in detail - part of the reason I'm glad I did this.

Finally, added, "Children of the Revolution" by Kirsty MacColl to my soundtrack. I'm ninety percent the song is actually about the Vietnam War, but it very much fits the tone.

Boot Camp Week 1

Words: Zealous, Abstinent, Beleaguer, Candor, Daunt, Eclectic, Fastidious, Gargantuan

I was sort of disappointed that none of the words thus far are unfamiliar to me - ah well.

Been enjoying this boot camp session, though it isn't very intensive: I complete it quickly each day. The other thing that differs from previous exercises is context. In previous boot camps, setting, character and plot have been at least implied and often outlined. In this one, I've stayed fairly generic. I've avoided names and numbers. Most of these descriptions could be plugged into a number of stories, with the exception that references to modern elements aren't going to work in a medieval-style fantasy, and some of the place descs have a vaguely Victorian feel.

Here are the best of each - person and place - from this week. This is best description, not necessarily best use of word ...

(Daunt)
She was wiry, sparse, a collection of attenuated muscles strung taut over thin bone. One part warrior, one part scarecrow, daubed in the colors of decay: leaf-mold brown hair, turned-earth skin, pallid grey eyes. Most of the time, she kept her head down and her voice soft - but the grave-chill she could summon when roused would daunt even the fiercest of challengers.

(Gargantuan)
The ground cover grew more sparse deeper into the forest, shrubs and smaller trees fading away as their cunning neighbors sucked away the descending light. Those who had dwelt here were old enough to have a history surpassing that of nations. Gargantuan trunks swelled upwards like the roots of mountains, their peaks hidden in a fog of green. Leaf-fall crackled underfoot, the whisper of ancient voices. Pebbles kicked from emperors' feet lay as scattered gravel beneath.

Soundtrack

For the sheer, odd fun of it, I decided to put together a loose soundtrack for my novel project. Now, my choice of words notwithstanding, there's no arc between songs - I just put them in an order that was varied and enjoyable to listen to. Each individual song was chosen for reasons ranging from the deep to the bratty. So I have:

1. Us Amazonians - Kirsty MacColl
Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/us-amazonians-lyrics-kirsty-maccoll.html
Reason: I've been referring to my station residents as "Amazons" for a while now (and they all have names from that mythology) - but more than that, this is a bright, upbeat, affirming song.

2. Walk This World - Heather Nova
Lyrics: http://www.mp3lyrics.org/h/heather-nova/walk-this-world/
Reason: The invitation to exploration, the "broken" vibe the entire song gives off - it feels right with what I'm doing. This would fall into my male lead's POV, strictly speaking.

3. Suddenly - LeAnn Rimes
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leannrimes/suddenly.html
Reason: A song about abruptly (... suddenly ...) being out there in the unknown with everything that supported you left behind - yeah, going there, doing that.

4. Defying Gravity - Wicked soundtrack (Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth singing)
Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/defying-gravity-lyrics-wicked.html
Reason: I already rhapsodized about this. Powerful song about not being held down, particularly by authority ... which is really what Anaea ends up doing. Also, gorgeous, powerful - and I could even cast her friend Orithia as 'Glinda' here, though their relationship never becomes adversarial. Definitely the, "I can't go where you're going" vibe fits.

5. Drops of Jupiter - Train
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/t/train/drops+of+jupiter_20140408.html
Reason: I confess I have very few songs by male artists in my collection. In looking for something specifically for Gwydion, this seemed appropriate - and seems much like the way he'd end up viewing Anaea.

6. There Is Nothing Like A Dame - South Pacific soundtrack
Lyrics: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/southpacific/thereisnothinlikeadame.htm
Reason: Because I am a smart aleck. (And for the record, it's not "you know darn well." I'm amused that someone bowdlerized the lyrics.)

7. I Do - Lisa Loeb
Lyrics: http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/L/lisaloeblyrics/lisaloebidolyrics.htm
Reason: Another song on the subject of defiance and asking questions. This is supposed to be an anti-love song, but it works just as well directed at the leaders of the station.

8. Breathe - Midge Ure
Lyrics: http://www.mp3lyrics.org/m/midge-ure/breathe/
Reason: One of those endangered species, a male artist song. Again, though, I think it fits Gwydion very well. In particular, I'm fairly sure this is meant to be a religious metaphor, which fits in the context that I've made him at least slightly devout. (Is that an oxymoron?)

9. Turn This World Around - Amy Grant
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/amy+grant/turn+this+world+around_20007641.html
Reason: A "some day" hope to change a fractured and isolated world - check.

10. I Enjoy Being A Girl - Flower Drum Song soundtrack
Lyrics: http://www.stlyrics.com/flowerdrumsong/ienjoybeingagirl.htm
Reasons: Because I am also a twerp. (Sidebar: this is a song you could not release nowadays. Feminists would have screaming fits. But so much fun.)

11. The Safest Place - LeAnn Rimes
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leannrimes/thesafestplace.html
Reason: The sensation of real strength and support; the desire (again) to change the world ... I have not really decided whether I am going for the "sweeping plot" yet, but I see Anaea as an idealist.

12. It's Raining Men - Geri Halliwell
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/b/bridgetjonesdiarylyrics/itsrainingmenlyrics.html
Reason: Because, thirdly, I am a brat.

13. Free - Sarah Brightman
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sarahbrightman/free.html
Reason: To represent Anaea and Orithia - who were lovers a number of years before the story starts, but became good friends after breaking up. (According to the Harem liner notes, the line is "when the bars of freedom fall" not "when the birds are free to fall." Couldn't find a version printed right on the web.)

14. Poor Little Fool - Helen Reddy
Lyrics: Not available. Bah!
Reason: This one fits into the general theme of escape and breaking rules ... and I admit I just love it. If anyone does find these lyrics, I'd be grateful.

15. Always Tomorrow - Gloria Estefan
Lyrics: http://www.mp3lyrics.org/g/gloria-estefan/always/
Reason: This sense of isolation, of having lived in hibernation, is very much the point where I wanted to start Anaea from. But - as said - there's always tomorrow ...

16. In The Arms of The Milky Way - Laura Powers
Lyrics: Not available.
Reasons: Apart from being a "space song" this has just about nothing to do with my project or its themes, but it is bright, joyous and a satisfying finish.

Thursday Thoughts

Yep, I finally figured out what it should be called.

I just realized that today is the free-write day for a writers' group I'm part of ... so depending on circumstances, may be updates on that as well. Not today, however, as it's not for another five hours or so.

Further world-work: I discovered that my initial concepts of the matriarchs as a small elite fell apart when I tried to "do the numbers" as to how many of them would be required to have the kind of small-focus rule I wanted. Instead, I end up with a population around seven million - still small in a civilization of a few billion, but much larger in the scheme of things.

Also, reading my Buddhism research has made me focus the discipline to psions particularly. Which means I have a psion who isn't a practicioner ... investigating why he feels uncomfortable with it (as I've decided is a good way to go) suggests some interesting things about his character and the dynamic with my main character.

However, I'm also doing a heavy rewrite of an old story. Some years back, I did research for a humorous fantasy story around beauty pageants. However, this research also produced a tongue-in-cheek science fiction story about a galactic pageant - one of my earliest stories that I submitted. It met with some good reactions for editors, but ultimately didn't sell - and just as well, because I wasn't totally happy with it.

Now, the macro elements of the plot still seem solid to me; it's just a matter of changing some details. There are also some good lines I wanted to recapture, while cutting the clunkers (a considerable population thereof) and fixing the dialogue. Wow. I've always thought dialogue was my strong suit, but there are some terrible bits. On the other hand, what they actually say isn't bad: it's the logic behind it. It doesn't make a great deal of sense.

So what I'm doing is starting from scratch with a printed copy of the old story at my elbow. This gives me plenty of freedom to drop things, move them around - and use the gems verbatim. We'll see how it goes.

Boot Camp

As I do periodically, I've decided to take on another boot camp session: daily exercises on a specific and externally-imposed topic. (The general arc is something I design, obviously, but each individual exercise is "out of my hands.") Before, I went through "The 3am Epiphany" (Brian Kiteley); then I did a script-writing boot-camp using randomly-generated elements from a friend's "hat"; then I took on the exercises in "Creating Character Emotions" (Ann Hood).

This time, it's a description workshop. Every day, I'm going to look at the word of the day at dictionary.com and try to write two descriptions using that word: a character and a place. Because I need a stopping point or I'd be doing it forever / until I broke something, I'm going to arbitrarily say my birthday (March 1st).

Word today is zealous ...

The Knights Who Say Ook!

I just found out from a British source (... all right, a fellow writer on a forum) that Terry Pratchett was knighted.

The skinny is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7805143.stm

This makes me giggle. Probably more than it should.

Thought Process Thursdays

As a New Year thing - and hopefully a steady commitment - I thought I'd try to post once a week about developments in whatever I'm working on that day, whether it be worldbuilding, editing or short excerpts.

Since it's Thursday - Thought Process Thursdays? Doesn't have much of a ring to it, but titles were never my thing.

Almost done with my planet and space station profiles for my science fiction project. Next comes the micro-level detail, starting with my "Amazon" civilization and working outwards.

I'm currently puzzled trying to rename my "Amazon" space station. It was initially Amygdara just because I liked the sound of it. Now I'm stumped. It may end up being Haven or Refuge just to go with something obvious ... but I am trying very hard to avoid the "random syllables thrown together because they sound cool" effect.

If I were being a complete twerp, I would just fuss around with "Amazonia" or similar until I got a good anagram.

So far, I've used three mythological references - Solomon, Annwyn and Elysium - some regular words - Independence, Centurion - a reference to physical geography - Twin Fires (in a binary star system) - and two homages - Perica (after the setting of an invented SF cult classic from the 2040s) and Eastwood. (... yes, as in Clint.) I have two more to name, counting the above.

All the star systems, with the exception of Tau Ceti, are designated by a 2 letter + numbers combo. I've had great fun coming up with the ways these would morph into names that roll better off the tongue. CX-118, for instance, tends to be dubbed "Sea of Ecstacy" by the ... sarcastic? Where this differs from just-random-syllables is I'm being very careful that everything has a natural and explicable origin.

Signing off for now.

If These Walls Could Speak

Now available for free reading over at Allegory! Check it out.

(First post of the year! Whoo.)

Buddhism

Some of you might remember that I had considered Buddhism as my other primary religion for my SF project, which got backburnered when my library never delivered the book. (At this point, I can only assume whoever had it checked out simply stole it.) Well, today I went to a Borders on closeout - forty percent off everything - and on a whim, went looking for the Dumbie's Guide. Sure enough, they had it, and at such a discount ... why not?

So research resumes, though worldwork does not cease.

The Good Ol' Days

In a surge of nostalgia, I've been writing up a plot summary for my old Starshine Weyr (a Pern fandom, where you roleplay original characters in that world) storylines. For some idea of the timeline, the first scenes were in 1997 and I think it started petering out in 2001.

There's a lot that's rough around the edges, soap opera quality and sometimes just embarrassing - but I was young. (I also realize that I spent way too much time roleplaying with myself and making other people watch, a tendency which I think I've (mostly) grown out of.) Still, that notwithstanding, the depth, complexity and yeah, insanity of events leaves me boggled.

In some ways, my plots are stronger while playing with others, helped by the kind of extended time and thought this entails. In others ... sometimes I worry I've put on filters that - while they've made my writing more mature - has also taken some of the zing out of it.

In general, I get really gnawy with the worry that I can't come up with things as developed when I'm doing it on my own. Is this true? Is it nonsense? I don't know ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Past Imperfect

Rather than a blow-by-blow account of the stories, just a brief general commentary about the Past Imperfect anthology of time travel stories - a DAW anthology from Greenberg and Segriff.

Ironically, for a time travel anthology, most of these stories had a significant problem with pacing. An intriguing set-up and slow build fizzled out or was short-changed; or there was too much moderately dull information before the pay-off.

Two stories stood out as genuinely enjoyable. The first was from Jody Lynn Nye - Theory of Relativity. Close second was The Gift of a Dream from Dean Wesley Smith.

One of the stories was about a character looping back on himself, and reminded me of a story I wrote - Transient - where the non-POV main character lived each day out of sequence. Really should go back to that and see if I can make it flow through ...

Character Blip

Ignoring the bits that are fairly specific to the "Wicked" story (... and that this is from the POV of the Wicked Witch of the West), and this is a pretty good character-song for Anaea, the MC from my Scylla-and-Charybdis storyline:

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/wicked-defying-gravity-lyrics.html

(To quote:

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap ... )

Game Nostalgia

I am one of those people who plunks shameful amounts of time into computer games. I've been out of the game-buying circuit for 2-3 years due to the age of my computer, but I find that I tend to prefer older games. There's simply more content and frequently, they just seem better constructed. Also, the RPGs tend more towards turn-based, which is a heavy preference of mine. I do not care for real time. False turn-based where you can pause and queue up actions does not count, in my mind.

Despite that, Morrowind is still one of the best new games I've ever played. I ripped through the new Bard's Tale game, Knights of the Old Republic and even Neverwinter Nights in a disappointing amount of time. Contrast with Wizardry 8, which took me months - but that game, though more recent, is a past-blast to the previous seven Wizardries. What have I spent much of my recent time on? Might and Magic ... VI and VII. What do I still consider the best RPG I've ever played? An obscure little game called Betrayal in Antara. Though set in a different locale, its engine is sandwiched between Betrayal in Krondor (which was fun enough, but Antara's storyline takes cake and platter) and Return To Krondor - which was another game that sacrificed graphics for content.

Running close second is the more recent Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. I love games with side-quests that you can totally miss and discover the next time 'round. Also, again, I loved the plot.

Strategy games I've had more luck with because they tend to be more exclusively TB and content lends itself more to each game being different: Civ 4, Galactic Civilizations, etc. (The Movies is a dud.) However, I still have original Colonization (yes, the version that was released a year or two after Civilization NO NUMBERS!), I enjoy playing Zeus, and I recently had a hankering after Castles and ... probably the best older strategy game I can remember playing... Master of Magic. Honestly, pound for pound, MoM blew original-Civilization out of the water for me.

All this came up because someone I know online has been trying to convince me to pick up Fallout and Fallout 2. I have seen a few new games that I would be interested in (my computer can't handle them, so it's moot), but the truth is, I could happily keep myself busy on games released before 2000. Indefinitely.

World-Building

I just finished this book - I ended up skimming a lot of it because it dealt with the kind of exotic environments I know I won't be building. However, it was in parts very helpful, and in parts reminded me how much I know about basic climate effects, volcanism, greenhouse effect, etc from my coursework. I'm not as badly prepared as I think I am!

I am tentatively thinking Tau Ceti's satellite planet will be Solomon; I also want one named after the Welsh underworld, but undecided whether I'll leave it authentic or anglicize it. I am also toying with the idea of using either a double planet or an inhabitable moon. I believe I understand the basics well enough to work it.

But with no Buddhism book in hand, this actually means that - starting tomorrow - I'm going to start putting some of this worldbuilding into print. Fear me.

Judaism

I just tackled "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Understanding Judaism" because I'd been planning on using that background in my story ... not as a major thematic element, but as a component of the world. Having finished the book, I am confirmed in my desire, though I see I'm going to have to do some thinking about the Tau Ceti lunar cycle and how to work into a Jewish calendar without making it too convenient.

I realize I haven't talked much about my characters or the plot - this is largely because most of this was defined in the original "Scylla and Charybdis" short story. I am realizing now that my main male character (who catalyzes the POV character's discovery, plays tour guide, becomes a friend and eventually a romantic interest) is almost certainly going to be fairly devout ... which may involve some further research on my part.

The nice thing about moving a few hundred years in the future is I can deal with theory-versus-reality faith issues as having changed in the intervening centuries ... still nervous, though. May want to get someone with first-hand knowledge to read just those bits that directly relate.

I have one more book that hasn't come in yet - whoever has the Buddhism book is not giving it up - and unless it shows up before I finish my other worldbuilding book, this means I'll finally start working. Whoo.

If These Walls Could Speak ...

... they'd say I just made a short fiction sale! That's also the title of the story, basically a romance about a matchmaking house.

Yeah, it's a cute little story and I had a blast writing it.

Was just accepted by Allegory. I've reached their "hold round" a few times before, so great to finally make it through. Hurrah!

You Just Don't Understand

Despite this book being the bestseller and the previous gender-speak book being - arguably - the knock-off, I am much less impressed with the content and the apparent scientific basis of the information here. I felt as if the book was a combination anecdotal case study and whine-fest with plausible deniability (it's linguistics!). Though I suppose it was educational on the front of showing me some assumptions I don't want to make.

Also, this is my themesong for this project, tongue happily and firmly in cheek: http://www.kirstymaccoll.com/music/lyrics/us_amazonians.htm