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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
- settings
- characters
- alien or phantasmagoric motifs
- events
- poetic forms
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||||
|
jjschwabach |
5:34p | Unexpected Forget-me-nots. Well, I finally decided if I didn't do some mowing, the grass would get so long I'd never be able to cut it. I've been putting it off because so many pieces of house (mostly sections of downspout) are laid along the fence lines and the side of the house. So I mowed what I could. And made a discovery. When I moved in, my mother brought me forget-me-nots from her rather large patch of them. She does this every time a friend or relative moves to somewhere accessible to her. They were duly planted and flourished. This year, not so much, though. But when I got to the back part of the area I mow, I found a big patch where I *hadn't* planted them, just as thick and blue as ever you could want. Current Mood:  happy | ||
|
tinaconnolly |
2:14p | Some books I haven't blogged yet (I'm only up to 29 for the year, which is less than half as far along as ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kblincoln. Not that it's a race. Race!!!)( Franny K Stein, Small Steps, Zoe Lama, Girl at Sea, 13LBE ) *I've been thinking -- do you think books with extremely hooky titles/concepts set your expectations more firmly in one direction or another? And usually, they make you expect something more fluffy? Like with 13LBE, I was expecting more of a silly romp with a very tidy structure. Similarly Sachar's There's A Girl in the Boys' Bathroom -- It's a lovely exploration of bullying; a very strong book. But I hated it when I read it at 10, because I was expecting total fluff. | ||
|
ruralwriter |
5:16p | Haunted Hearths in the Wild My coworker was excited to report that he has received his copy of Haunted Hearths, Sapphic Shades, which contains my story, "Ostraca." I have a cool coworker. | ||
|
ahmedakhan |
2:35p | Podcast You can now listen to the podcast of "Thus Spake Bleerbo" here: http://web.mac.com/normsherman/iWeb/Site/P | ||
|
ladyeuthanasia |
11:23a | Haunted Cubical So, another department is asking to put a new employee in Jeff's old cubical. Our manager gave us writers the option of taking it first rather than putting someone else in it, which I totally appreciated. However, this is creeping me out in much bigger way than I had anticipated. Fortunately, there are all kinds of people in the world and some would not be bothered by this in the slightest. I'm not one of them. I can't even look at the cubical, much less fathom putting myself or someone else in there. Before the funeral, I wondered if Jeff was hanging about, so to speak, and a wave of electricity swept over my arms and up the nape of my neck. What would you say if you started a new job and found out you were sitting in a dead man's cubical? Current Mood:  contemplative | ||
|
ellen_datlow |
1:52p | An amazing "special comment" by Keith Olbermann This is riveting: Olbermann’s Recent ‘Special Comment’ thank you foresthouse | ||
|
nick_kaufmann |
1:30p | Those Activist Judges Are At It Again In a much-anticipated ruling issued Thursday, the California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, sued to overturn state laws allowing only marriages between a man and a woman. With the ruling, California becomes the second state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed. Oooooh, those activist judges make me so crazy! How dare they use their power to push radical political agendas such as equality under the law! All we want to do is treat one group of people as second-class citizens by not allowing consenting adults within that group to get married in a country that tells all its citizens that marriage is the foundation of a healthy society. I mean, what's so quote-unquote unconstitutional about that? The constitution was written by straight people! It was so important to them, they made sure to include the name of what they loved as straight people right in the title. It's the consTITution -- not the consDICKtution! Am I right, people? Obviously, the California Supreme Court is made up of gays who want to make everybody else gay too, even though that would mean everything at Ricky's and Patricia Field would get sold out even faster, and hell, you can't even get into Splash on a Saturday night anymore, believe me, and can you imagine how crowded it'll get once... Oh, ahem. Anyway. (Note to self: call sponsor Larry Craig at Gays Anonymous. Slip-ups still happening. Be sure to mention staying home to watch In the Steam Room with Jack Hammer while family was at church this weekend.) These activist judges need to be replaced immediately by judges who understand that the constitution actually stands for all the conservative principles that didn't exist when the document was written over two hundred years ago! To paraphrase conservative hero George Orwell, everyone is equal, it's just that some of us are more equal than others, and if these activist judges can't see that, if they continue to insist everyone is equal under the law, well, we'll just see what Jack Hammer -- I mean, John McCain has to say about that once he's in office! | ||
|
ladyeuthanasia |
10:26a | Today is Yer Birthday! Happy birthday to The Frenchman! He turns 189 today. Tomorrow night, special birthday dinner. Saturday night, birthday visit to The Lair. Sunday afternoon, birthday celebration with a few close friends. I gave him a super secret gift this morning that hardened his cock faster than one can say, "Oops!" bloodandpudding's birthday is tomorrow. (Happy birthday early, doll!) Coincidence? I think not! Current Mood: mischievous | ||
|
adele_cb |
5:40p | haircuts, laundry and (as usual) writing A busy day! First I updated my weekly blog on the Wirral Globe: http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk. Then Lisa arrived to groom Ygraine’s coat, which was overdue really. I love the way she looks when she’s all fluffy and bedraggled but it’s just not fair to her in this heat. Right now, she’s happily chasing blackbirds away from the toast crusts which I threw out earlier. How good of her to guard them for me. I put the front room curtains through the wash, and then sat down to write the last chapter of Rowan. I’d been wondering how on earth I was going to write this, but an idea popped into my head just as I sat down to the computer – which tends to happen a lot, actually. The word count now stands at 99,500 so by the time the epilogue’s been written I’ll have achieved my intended 100,000 words for the first draft. I managed to fit an hour’s gardening in, too, and made turkey casserole – which is currently bubbling quietly in the kitchen and reminding me I’ve an empty stomach. This is due to it being 5.50pm (we usually eat between 6pm and 7pm) and due to me banning myself from munching another morsel of biscuit or chocolate (or similar) for the foreseeable future. I love chocolate but I want a waist more. And tomorrow, probably 8am-ish, the house will be invaded by builders who are going to remove a pointless door and block the hole up. Here’s hoping it doesn’t make too much mess, as I’ve hardly had time to clean up the dust from having the new fire and surround installed! As can probably be gathered, we’re in the process of renovating our living area. We’re going for a Victorian Gothic look. This will first necessitate having a major clear-out of various vile objects d’art which we’ve acquired over the years. People should be banned from giving ornaments as gifts, they really should Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. - William Morris | ||
|
spec_poetry [ ysabetwordsmith ] |
11:47a | Poetry Fishbowl on My Blog Today Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! I will be checking my blog periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems. Feed the Fish! Now's your chance to participate in the creative process by posting ideas for me to write about. Today's theme is speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror). I am especially looking for: But anything is welcome, really. If you manage to recommend a form that I don't recognize, I will probably pounce on it and ask you for its rules. I do have the first edition of Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms which covers most common and many obscure forms. I'll post at least one of the fishbowl poems on my blog so everyone can enjoy it. Current Mood: busy | ||
|
mrockwell |
9:13a | Writing *Submission, Cat Tales, 5/13 *Submission, Doorways Poetry Contest, 5/15 *Rejection, Strange Horizons, 5/15 (RT: 2 months) On the upside, I did get a "PS - please submit more" from SH, which is a first for me. It's a market I don't expect to ever crack, frankly, but I keep trying. Einstein's definition of insanity and all that, heh. Everything Else YB has had an adverse reaction to his MMR vaccine. 105-degree fever, snot ropes dangling from his nostrils, a smoker's hack, and red vampire eyes. Classic measles symptoms, minus the rash, and beginning right on time -- a week to the day after he received the vaccination. There has got to be a better way to protect people than by injecting them with an "attenuated" (i.e., not dead) virus. This "get you sick with a milder form of the illness to keep you from getting a worse form" is utter BS, especially when that "milder form" is not really very "mild" at all. Current Mood:  Bah! | ||
|
redsox [ tx ] |
12:28p | Top 10 Manny being Manny Current Mood:  amused | ||
|
ericmarin |
11:22a | A Haiku of the Morning fallen cedar trees lie in a fragrant tangle windstorm aftermath (Just to be clear, our house and yard were untouched by the storm. This haiku was inspired by downed trees at my daughter's preschool.) | ||
|
dark_towhead |
11:27a | In Other News... On the writing front: I am in the final stretch of the first draft of my Historical Thriller novel (a not quite Western), and it's coming along pretty well. With the rather aggressive writing schedule I'm adhering to, this draft should be done within the next week or two. Two nights ago, I hit the one-third mark on the rather dark, contemporary fantasy adventure novel I've been working on. This is not as impressive as it sounds, since at this point the novel writing has really only been combining and (majorly) expanding upon several of the pseudonymous stories I've published in the Man's Story 2 cycle of magazines over the last year or so (which had a through line, to be sure; though it did not start out as a novel in parts, it has certainly developed that way). I figure this one will take priority after the first draft/read through of the HT, as it offers a great way to clear my head from that period/storyline. The brain needs a break, after all, so I can come back for revisions/rewrites with a fresh eye. Last night I started the Jot for the major project following the dark, contemporary fantasy adventure. For those who don't know: The Jot is me sitting down and scribbling out Kewl Notes! about interesting story/character bits/scenes. What i ended up with last night was a suggestion for the chapter outline, and some major characters who strike me as a lot of fun to hang out with for a while, and a few interesting/hair-raising situations. A nice start. On the reading/reviewing front: Two reviews are in the hopper for Horror Reader (look for them in the next week or so), another two are in various stages of completion, and I'm currently reading Gary Braunbeck's Coffin County for the next review. On the gaming front: Deadlands is fast approaching the finale. After that, no GMing for me for a while (this writing thing is kind of getting in the way). Playing is another story, all together. :) Current Mood:  takin' care of bidnessCurrent Music: Various Springsteen and Veronica Mars OST | ||
|
ellen_datlow |
10:43a | The Bully Pulpit, a one man show Mary Robinette Kowal took Matt Kressel and me to opening night of the one-man show about Theodore Roosevelt. Matt talks about it below and says everything I would have said...Go see it! Matt Kressel on The Bully Pulpit | ||
|
desayunoencama |
4:25p | Vulture I feel like a vulture. Perhaps a month or six weeks ago, someone I know passed away quite suddenly. And today I wrote to one of the publishers he worked with, to offer myself as a translator in case they needed someone. Now, I had originally passed this work on to him when I left New York. (Back then I wasn't translating very much, so it wasn't worth my time; these days, I translate possibly more than I write, or I'd almost be happy to since it's quicker cash for me, and doesn't exhaust me creatively, so even though the pay hasn't changed in the ten years (!!!) I'd be happy for the work.) But I still feel like something of a vulture. The editor in question hadn't yet heard that he'd passed away, but would be interested in working with me again when they have another project. Am I a bad person for doing this? I don't really think so. And it's not like the first thing I did on hearing that he'd passed away was try and take over his workload; that would indeed have been ghoulish. But the fact is, they're going to need a new translator again... so it works out for everyone, I think. | ||
|
psamphire |
2:37p | Websites for Writers: Planning your website - part 6 Time. Money. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not think about them, having neither in any great excess. But, unfortunately, they're pretty important when you're thinking about your website. So, let's finish up the planning stage of building your website by thinking about each. 6. How much time do you have or are you willing to spend on maintaining your website? Think carefully about this. It doesn't matter if you just have a few minutes a week or a couple of hours a day. But you need to know in advance before you consider how your website will work, what it's going to contain and what you can achieve. Everything takes longer than you expect on a website. Even if you have a really well-designed website, created on a user-friendly content management system (more about this later), it's still going to take longer than you thought. ( Finish reading about planning your website ) | ||
|
ozarque |
8:57a | Linguistics and science fiction; religious language... Thanks to Cindy Brown for alerting me to an article [at http://tinyurl.com/613zdb ] reporting that the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes -- a Jesuit, and the director of the Vatican Observatory -- has said in an interview with LOsservatore Romano that ruling out the existence of extraterrestrial life would be "putting limits" on the creative freedom of God. The interview itself was headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother." I went immediately to Google to try to find a transcript of the interview, and had no luck with that, but did find another article, by Francis X. Rocca, titled "Vatican astronomer suggests aliens do not need salvation," at http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?Ne Rocca writes: "According to Funes, such creatures may never have fallen into sin, and so have no need of salvation through Christianity. 'It is not a given that they have need of redemption,' he said. 'They may have remained in full friendship with their Creator.' Asked about the possibility of redemption for sinful extraterrestrials, Funes said he was 'sure that even they, in some way, would have the possibility of enjoying the mercy of God.' " Wow. One thoroughly astonished writer of science fiction here. And I do understand that "The extraterrestrial is my sibling" would not have had the same ring to it. | ||
|
ravenelectrick |
12:45a | Hubby's Virtual Courseware Project wins MAN-eLA Award My esteemed hubby, Robert A. Desharnais, Ph.D., has just learned that the project he founded and directs, the Virtual Courseware Project, an online curriculum software suite, has won the MAN-eLA Award for Exemplary Open Education Resources Practices. The award is given by the MERLOT Africa Network (MAN) and eLearning Africa. (This being academe, there are more initials involved, but I tried to cut it down to the minimum.) Bob has been a pioneer in this area since he wrote the first version of Flylab on a NeXT computer back in the early 90s. The project has grown with NSF grants and the addition of faculty members, graphic designers, and a software engineer. I'm proud of you, love! | ||
|
elissa_malcohn |
1:38a | Countdown to WisCon  If all goes well, I'll be getting on a plane in a bit over a week to attend my first WisCon. That means rising early on the 22nd and zipping roughly 80 miles down to Tampa for my flight. I'm pumped -- and looking forward to meeting a lot of people. I'll try to ignore for the moment that I haven't flown in five years and change. I'm now registered for airline updates and TSA updates. I've never left my car at an airport before, so that's also new. Thanks to WisCon's blog, I've downloaded and printed out a map of Madison and a list of local eateries, including a grocery store four blocks from the convention site. Here's what I'll be doing the weekend after next: Friday, May 23, 8:45-10:00 p.m. -- Poetry reading with the Science Fiction Poetry Association: "Lilacs, Laundry Lists and Lycanthropy: The Magic of Everyday Life," spearheaded by Sandra Lindow, with Jeannie Bergmann and Alan DeNiro. Sunday, May 25, 10:00-11:15 a.m. -- Panel "Hot Flashes and Power Surges." Description: "In The New Moon's Arms, Nalo Hopkinson gave us a protagonist whose menopausal hot flashes create magic. Carol Emshwiller, Ursula Le Guin, and Terry Pratchett, among others, have also written with force, wit, and creativity about women who have moved into the third stage of their lives. In this panel, crones and those of us currently making the transition discuss the emotional and physical changes of menopause, as well as the ways those around us respond to our changing bodies. Where can we find models for the kind of women we want to be when we grow up? How do we mourn our fertility -- especially those of us who have no children? And how can we be visible, strong, and powerful in a culture where women disappear with the first chin hair?" Moderated by Janice Eisen, with Debbie Smith Daughetee, Karen Moore, and Jamie Feldman. Sunday, 1:00-2:15 p.m. -- Panel "Writing Working Class Characters." Description: "Many SF writers live in an essentially middle-class world. Perhaps as a result, SF features relatively few working-class characters, preferring stories about warriors, merchants, scientists, military officers, and mages to tales of carpenters, assembly line workers, day care providers, blacksmiths, nursing aides, service center reps, and spaceship janitors. Do we assume characters doing this work don't have interesting adventures? That they don't have interesting thoughts? And if we do write about these characters and don't have a working-class background ourselves, how do we get it right?" Moderated by Paula Fleming, with Eleanor Arnason, Joyce Frohn, and Christopher Barzak. Sunday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. -- Panel "Revealing Your World." Description: "Now that you've invented the world, you have to reveal it to your readers. Some authors create poetry or myth or maps, some describe clothes in ardent detail, or throw in an invented vocabulary. Some make sure the reader sees everything, while others make it up and then leave most of it off the page. Panelists discuss their personal style, and what they hope to accomplish." Moderated by Amy Thomson, with Betsy James, Alma Alexander, and Alex Bledsoe. Monday, May 26, 8:30-9:45 a.m. -- Panel "How Much Is Too Much?" Description: "Unless we're reading or writing about a utopia, the societies in our fantasy worlds are going to have problems. In fact, a culture without problems invariably comes off as shallow and unrealistic. Does this mean we need to include things like sexism and racism if we want to tell a believable story? And if so, are we, as authors, guilty of perpetuating whatever-ism in the real world?" Moderated by Sarah Monette, with Catherynne M. Valente (who had a great interview in the latest Locus), Gregory Rihn, and Guest of Honor L. Timmel Duchamp. Monday, 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m. -- Sign-Out book-signing event. I'll also put in time at the Broad Universe dealer table, probably Friday and/or Saturday. Then early Tuesday morning I zip over to the airport for my return flight. On Friday the 30th I drive up to the panhandle for The Wrath of Con. During the two-and-a-fraction days that I am home, I plan to be a zombie, resting up from WisCon. During Wrath of Con I will plant myself behind the Aisling Press dealer table and do my best to look awake. WisCon also marks the release of Electric Velocipede #14, which contains my story "Hermit Crabs." You can see a sneak preview of Lisa Snellings-Clark's terrific cover at EV's blog and order a copy here. I'm traveling light to WisCon -- one checked bag (half of it copies of Covenant), one carry-on, plus laptop. (It also occurred to me that I should try to fit a few books into my carry-on, in case they lose my luggage.) Before I leave for WisCon, I plan to have my extra supplies for Wrath of Con ready to just toss in the car, namely my book poster, standing easel, travel food, TripTik, and iPod speakers for when I lose my classical music signal during the long drive. The only travel food I'm taking on the plane is Power Bars, which weigh in under the Transportation Safety Administration's 3-ounce limit. Now all I have to do is make myself travel-worthy. Thanks to Anna Lovrics, doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, UK, for including my poem "Algebraic Sestina for the Ocean" (originally posted here) in her article, "What is the connection between poetry and maths?" The article appears in the March 2008 issue of STEM Newsletter of the Wolfson Centre for Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Modelling at U. Nottingham. Lovrics reported on the 49th British Applied Mathematics Colloquium, where she first learned about the sestina form in a Dynamical Systems session. I think it's way cool that a math colloquium that included applications in biology and engineering also included poetry -- and a musical performance as well. Anna also included her photograph of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland (similar to this shot from the University of Ulster), whose natural formations tie everything together beautifully.
 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. | ||
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||||
|
marfisk |
10:44p | Shadows of the Sun (Kyrnie) Edit Pass Complete The most unbelievable and amazing thing happened tonight. The Shadows of the Sun edit pass is complete, and one day BEFORE the revised deadline. This has been a crazy year so far. Even with giving myself an additional 15 days, some days it seemed like I'd never reach the last page. All that remains is to do a copyedit pass, one more light crit pass to make sure I haven't broken anything big, and then Shadows will start making the rounds...I hope before December of this year. Guess I better get cracking on that submission package, eh? My fears of a 150k behemoth did not come to pass. I kept an eye out for opportunities to cut, and so even with the added scenes, I increased the count by only 3,000 words. At 135k, it's large for what people are looking for, I know, but I hope the story balances that out. And maybe, if not, it'll balance enough so an editor or agent is willing to help me find the 10k to cull. At this point, I've removed anything that I thought unnecessary and everything that I thought weakened the novel (amazing how many shortcuts I'd taken :p). That leaves only removing something that strengthens Shadows but might not be 100% crucial. Sigh. But that's a decision I don't plan to make unless I have to. While I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a very real sense of relief, and confidence that the story is much stronger than it was before, part of me is sad to reach this step. There's still work to be done, but I'm expecting it to be the fiddling type rather than anything massive. Then a project that has been with me in one form or another since 1988 will be out of my hands and launched onto the world. I don't know if I'll ever revisit Kyrnie's world, but I do know that I'll never forget my sojourn here and just hope that others feel the same way assuming they get the chance to explore. Stats: Edited Today: 2,829 words 50 Chapters complete - 102% of the novel -15 Chapters remain (yes, I SERIOUSLY rechaptered in this pass.) -3,016 Remaining word count 135,209 Current Total 135,209 Predicted Total Current Mood:  pensiveCurrent Music: Kitaro | ||
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||||
|
redsox [ robvansam ] |
12:24a | The Wrong Pitcher Cut? Looks like the Sox designated the wrong pitcher for assignment. How can anyone justify keeping Craig Hansen on the main roster instead of shipping him back to AAA or just trading him altogether? Sorry, but he's not what everyone thought he was. This is his final option year with Boston and I hope to god they don't pick it up. Now Jed Lowrie on the other hand. I think he's going to be a great future addition in the same form as Dustin Pedroia. | ||
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||||
|
ozment |
10:19p | An Interview With Frederic S. Durbin Frederic S. Durbin’s novel Dragonfly was first published by Arkham House. A selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, it was recently released in paperback by Ace Fantasy. A dark fantasy that is a paean to Halloween, it features the adventures of the eleven-year-old titular protagonist in the underground realm of Hallowe’entown, which is populated by werewolves, vampires, and far worse. It is, by turns, the stuff of nightmares and a celebration of all that is wonderful about that time of year when leaves turn, jack-o-lanterns light the front-porch steps, a chill comes into the air, and people cavort as creatures of the night. A native of Taylorville, Illinois, Durbin has taught English conversation and writing at Niigata University in Japan for the past sixteen years. He is also a regular contributor to publications like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Cricket (for children), and Cicada (for young adults). OZMENT’S HOUSE OF TWILIGHT: How did you become a writer? FREDERIC S. DURBIN: From earliest childhood, I was immersed in the world of Story. My parents were both readers. My dad opened our town’s first bookstore, and my mom built libraries at our four elementary schools at a time when they had none. So my parents were book-lovers, committed to books. They read to me, I read to them, and my mom especially was adamant about keeping the TV off when I was awake. I didn’t watch any TV until I was probably six or seven years old—and then very selectively. That’s almost unheard of in our society. Wanting to write is a natural reaction to reading, I think. How can you love the adventure of escaping into Story and not want to be a part of creating it yourself? OHOT: What drew you to speculative and “weird” fiction? FSD: Dad was always writing things, mostly for his own amusement—beginnings of a lot of science-fiction and fantasy novels. I would read those as a kid and draw illustrations for them. He loved Fortean subjects, and I loved to hear him talk about them. I knew names like Roger Patterson, Loch Ness, Roswell, and Tunguska long before I knew who the President was. I’m sure that’s where most of my “weirdness” in fiction came from. I was thrilled at the idea that the world was full of monsters and mysteries. That, plus I got a healthy dose of the good old fairy tales, straight from Andersen and the Grimms, not the cleaned-up versions. Dad was a dreamer, but he never finished or polished his writing. It was Mom who taught me persistence and the business end of writing. She was constantly submitting her stories to children’s publishers. That opened my eyes to the concept that you could write stories and get paid for it. So that’s what I wanted to do, as far back as I can remember. As for speculative fiction, I think it was the book covers that drew me in. Every day after school, I’d be in our bookstore, and I’d see these fascinating covers that invited me into magical lands and seemed to tell stories all by themselves. Gervasio Gallardo—I’ll still buy any book if he did the cover. Naturally, I wanted to pick up those books and see what was inside. OHOT: Your author’s bio notes that the images that would become Dragonfly first began to take shape on the beaches of Japan. Dragonfly, though, is a book firmly rooted in Midwestern America, specifically the rural Illinois where you grew up. How did your experience in Japan inspire you? FSD: That line in the bio is a little misleading. You’re absolutely right that Dragonfly is a rural Midwestern American book, though I didn’t know that until people from other parts of the country started telling me that. It’s like how none of us think we ourselves have any noticeable accent. The bio is referring specifically to the timing. I was in Japan when the ideas for this book took hold of me. In fact, I can point to one specific grove of trees on the campus of Niigata University as the place where I first knew I wanted to write this story. “That’s the birthplace of Dragonfly,” I say. But if Dragonfly sprouted there, its seeds are certainly Illinois seeds. That’s not to say that Japan hasn’t inspired other writing. One of my Cricket stories is set in a long-ago fantasy Japan, and “A Tale of Silences,” which is my first attempt at literary fiction, is set in a mountain village in Japan in 1970. You can’t not be influenced by where you live. When I write fantasy now, it’s colored and informed by the experience of living in a different culture, of learning a foreign language. I can write about Otherworlds and strange beings better now because I’ve been there, I’ve been one. OHOT: How has your rural upbringing influenced your writing? FSD: When you read a book, you can tell what the writer really loves, can’t you? When you read what I write, I think it’s pretty clear that I love trees, green spaces, caverns, ruins, mossy stones, and the way light looks at different times of day and night. There’s a closeness to natural settings in my stories. There are always branches brushing the walls; there’s a sense of soil under the floorboards and ground water gurgling beneath that, and the moon coming up outside. There are lots of animals. One delightful thing about the rural Midwest is that we have the sunny, upper surface of things—big sky, open fields, honest horizons keeping their polite distance. But then we’ve got these secret spaces: old farmhouses with attics and basements, barns, whispery hedgerows, and the creeks cutting across the land, overshadowed by thick, dark timber. Three steps out of the field, and you’re in this hidden world of shadows. The land itself is like a perfect model for a story. And in my fiction, there’s very little technology. I write technology much like a hobbit would. Take the machines in Dragonfly—the balloon, for example. It’s plausible, but it’s sort of pseudo-technology, like something from a Dr. Seuss illustration, with impossible pipes held up by wires, etc. It’s technology that I hope satisfies the child’s mind in us, which to me is more important than the adult mind. The plausibility is for adults, but the essence of things has to satisfy the child. In Dragonfly, the bad guys travel around in a coach with big, zigzag-toothed gears for wheels—for going up and down staircases, the text explains. It’s been pointed out to me that that wouldn’t work, the teeth wouldn’t nicely fit the stairs. But it feels really good to my child-mind. See what I mean? There’s a simplicity to my writing, too. It’s not the sophistication of the seacoasts. It’s a Midwest solidity—probably an innocence. Look at the characters in Dragonfly, at their relationships. These are Midwestern folks. When Dragonfly’s parents are mistaken about the right way to live, where are they? One’s on the East Coast doing business, one’s on the West Coast making movies, both neglecting their family. That’s probably an unintentional revelation of my own values—and prejudices. OHOT: Dragonfly took shape around 1992. It’s been fourteen years since you wrote your first published novel. Are there any others in the works? And can fans of Dragonfly anticipate a return to Hallowe’entown? FSD: In order: Ouch, ouch, yes, and sort of. When I wrote Dragonfly, I loved it myself, but I feared it would be unsellable. It was too dark and densely-written for YA, too warm and happy for horror. So immediately after it was written, and long before it was published, I started writing another novel that I believed in but that I also thought would sell. The present working title is The Fires of the Deep, but that’s likely to change; it’s been pointed out that’s really similar to a Vernor Vinge title. It’s a sprawling heroic fantasy that I’ve been working on for, yes, about fourteen years. In various incarnations, it’s gone out to publishers, agents, and friendly test-readers, and no one is quite satisfied with it yet, including me. But don’t feel too sorry for me—I’ve learned a lot, and I think it’s only a draft away from being ready. I suspect it might be my Big Life Work, the first book in a series. The lesson for aspiring writers is: you know all the horror stories you hear about second novels? They’re true! I thought it would be a lot easier the second time around, but it turned out to be a lot harder, and I don’t think I’d better even get into why—that would take a sizable essay. Harder, I said, but not impossible! Like all writing, it just takes time and persistence. There’s another novel I wrote as a National Novel Writing Month book. It seems everybody and his dog is doing NaNoWriMo these days! I wrote it for adults, but I’m now re-casting it as a YA book, which is what it wanted to be all along. I also have a YA novel currently under consideration at Cricket Books. Finally, what I'm really excited about now is a collaborative project I'm working on with two friends, both of them accomplished fantasy and horror writers. We're writing interrelated stories set in the modern world, often using each others' characters. Our working title is Unsung Heroes. The idea is that the eternal battle between good and evil is going on all around us, but most people can't see spirit entities. Monstrous evil beings, existing partly in another dimension, prey upon humans. The force that defends humanity, unknown, unseen in the night mists, is called the Shadow Guard. Powerful and wise, the Shadow Guard recognizes that there are some humans with gifts--psychic powers or unusual physical or mental abilities. These special ones, because of their gifts, are in a position to be able to fight against the predatory malevolents, but at the same time are vulnerable, highly visible to the evil beings. The Shadow Guard recruits and trains these people to be "shadowbenders"--warriors of various skills in the ongoing conflict. It's fascinating to bring three visions, three storytelling styles to the same book, and I truly think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We’re starting to see some interest from publishers, and we’re all psyched about it, e-mailing one another and trying to get the whole thing fine-tuned. What’s great about it is it’s been a way for us to “play.” We’ve been working off and on with it for about six years, producing new stories when the inspiration strikes. Our big motivation has always been to “wow” each other, to add surprising new dimensions. Then we all started noticing, “Hey! When you’re just having a ball with storytelling, you do some of your best work!” I hope we’ll be able to introduce it to the public soon. [Ed. note: The first Unsung Heroes story will debut in issue 8 of Ozment's House of Twilight] About a sequel to Dragonfly: I’ve always intended to do that. The book’s ending pretty much screams “A sequel is coming!” I didn’t pursue it for a long time because I was engrossed in other projects, but not long ago, a writer friend told me about a dream she had. The minute I heard about this ominous figure in her dream, I knew it was going to be Dragonfly’s next adversary—so I’ve got my villain. I recently talked with April Derleth at Arkham House, and she is open to the idea of a sequel, although Arkham House always has a very full publishing schedule. So it will have to be a good sequel. It won’t be a return to Hallowe’en, though. I’m going to pick on another season of the year. OHOT: Which authors have most influenced you? FSD: A college friend read The Lord of the Rings for her first time just before Peter Jackson’s movies came out, and she remarked that Tolkien’s writing sounded a lot like mine. (Pause for laughter.) Gee, I wonder why. First and foremost is Tolkien. LOTR transported me to this grand other place. When you’re twelve, these places like Middle-earth become as important to you as the world you live in. That’s why I write fantasy: in the hope of offering such Otherplaces for other readers to adventure in. Charlotte’s Web is the first book I can remember that made me cry. It also taught me how a book’s ending can be sad and intensely beautiful at the same time, all accomplished with the power of language and character and Story. Watership Down, when I was in fifth grade, convinced me that I’d just read the greatest book in the world and that my reading life would be all downhill from then on. Thank goodness I went straight from Richard Adams to Tolkien—no one lesser could have redeemed the situation! Lord Dunsany with his lyric beauty, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs—they took me to lost worlds of wonder. Burroughs is what little boys did before there were video games: you could do the same scaling of cliffs, the same last-second dodging from dinosaurs’ jaws—but you did it in your imagination. H.P. Lovecraft was a perennial favorite. I’m sure my love of dark atmosphere and decaying buildings comes from him. One reviewer at a semi-prozine took me to task for naming such an unlikely pair as Tolkien and Lovecraft as my influences, but there is a connection. They both wrote of horrible Things sleeping in the Earth’s deep places that ought not to be disturbed. What is the Watcher in the Water outside Moria if not one of the Great Old Ones? If we’re talking authors that directly influenced Dragonfly: Peter S. Beagle, with his Midnight Carnival in The Last Unicorn; Struwwelpeter, by Heinrich Hoffmann (anyone who was terrorized by that cautionary book as a kid will know where Mr. Snicker in Dragonfly came from); and Ray Bradbury, in Something Wicked This Way Comes. In that book, Mr. Cougar and Mr. Dark’s carnival is a whole lot like my Harvest Moon bunch—and the bad guys even fly around in a balloon! Several people have told me my style reminds them of Ray Bradbury’s. Our “way of moving the camera is the same,” as one friend puts it. I suppose it’s natural, since we’re both Illinois boys from small towns. We seem to think a lot of the same things are numinous. OHOT: You are a regular contributor of fantasy stories and fairy tales to Cricket and Cicada. When you have an idea, how or when do you know if it’s going to work best for a YA audience or an adult readership? Do your fairy tales and your darker works like “The Bone Man” (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Dec. 07) come from “different” parts of your psyche? FSD: I don’t have a clue how the mind works. It amazes me how we can store the tiniest details for years and years without ever once accessing them or consciously remembering them, and then they come back to us, triggered by a scent, a voice, a place, or a glimpsed object from childhood—or in a dream. My gut feeling is that my stories all come from the same place in my psyche. The evidence I’d present is the ones out there and published. When I’m writing YA, I don’t write “for children.” I write stories that grab hold of me, that I’d like to read—period. Look at my Cricket stories: all but one involve murder, monsters, destruction, and/or the threat of death for the main character. Age level affects how much dark detail and violence I actually show, but my core material doesn’t change. When I wrote “The Bone Man,” a friend snickered and said, “I bet this one isn’t going to Cricket!” No—but framed just a little differently, it certainly could be a children’s story. It still appeals to the child-mind in me. That’s precisely why it works at all. When we experience any story viscerally, it’s the child in us experiencing it. So in that sense, I’m always writing for children. About stories fitting different markets, I almost always start out thinking of the magazine I’m aiming for. I wrote “The Gift” for Mooreeffoc. I wrote “The Bone Man” for MFSF. It’s like I hold up a Cricket-shaped basket and catch an idea that’s the right size to fit the basket. That’s why they tell you to study magazines you’re planning to submit to. What happened with “A Tale of Silences” was that I started out writing it for Cricket, and a little way in, I realized it wasn’t the right-sized story for pre-teens. Telling it required too many subtle details about the main character and his life. It spilled over the edges of the basket, but it fit the Cicada-shaped basket I had nearby. But no, I think that all the ideas, all the stories come flowing up from the same enchanted river. And they’re all for “children.” OHOT: That would come as a surprise to some parents reading a story like “The Bone Man.” You say it could be told from a slightly different angle and be fine for a magazine like Cricket, but I suspect many parents would look at this story and think, “Even with the violent ending toned down, this would give my child nightmares.” FSD: I was talking about the core horror element in “The Bone Man,” not the plot. If I were writing it for a children’s market, I wouldn’t make the main character a hit man. He wouldn’t have a gun. The beginning, middle, and ending would all be different. I don’t want to give away the story for those who haven’t read it, but I’d argue that what really makes the tale scary—its central idea—could be used in a children’s story. Because, again, it’s the child in all of us who hungers for that sort of thing. If we weren’t children deep inside, we’d have no use for a story like this. When people truly bury or abandon or forget their child-mind, they turn away from fiction altogether. A story, after all, is a bunch of lies, “no more yielding than a dream.” Children live and play there. That twelve-year-old inside us goes and lives in Middle-earth. OHOT: You mentioned that you grew up reading Grimm’s fairy tales—the real stuff, not the expurgated versions. Do you think a dose of terror is healthy for young imaginations? FSD: We have to be very careful how we define “terror.” It is most definitely not healthy to expose children to the cruelty, gore, and sickness that run so rampant today in the horror genre. A friend of mine says, “It matters what images we put into our minds, because we’ll never, ever get them out.” That’s true for adults, and it’s even truer for minds that are young, impressionable, and in full absorption mode. That having been said, it’s also true that no one can shelter kids from scary ideas. Kids will encounter horror. On the one hand, they have life experiences: pets die, relatives die, people get hurt, and you always hear things. On the other hand, kids seek out horror. There’s a monster in the basement, they know, because they’ve got their ears pressed to the basement door, they’ve opened it a crack, they’ve tiptoed down to the third, squeaky step. Kids will find things to be terrified of. I was so scared of a moss troll doll that my mom had to hide it in a drawer. Every year or so I’d beg her to get it out again, and she’d finally oblige, and I’d be so scared she’d have to hide it again. See? It’s the moth to the flame. Kids passionately want to be scared in a safe environment. That environment is the key. If a child is happy and secure, with parents who behave like parents, he or she has a sense of perspective. There’s a line between real life and the Dark Woods. In that situation, yes, fictional horror can be a delight and, like any good story, can help kids grow. But I make a distinction here between scary stories and the sick, disturbing stories of cruelty—those aren’t good for anyone. And I can only pray God help the children who don’t have a healthy, safe environment. As fantasists, with our stories of dedication, love, and the triumph of goodness, we try to throw those kids a lifeline. OHOT: At first you weren’t sure if there would be a market for a work like Dragonfly, being that it had too much horror for YA and too much warmth and happiness for the horror market. Some reviews of the book I have read express that same ambivalence—while their overall assessment of the book is enthusiastic, they are not sure how to “categorize” it. The protagonist is an eleven-year-old girl, but much of what she experiences is quite horrific, up to and including the threat of murder and the violent death of someone she holds dear. Arkham House, Sci Fi Book Club, and Ace all marketed it as straight horror/dark fantasy. Do you find it appeals more to a certain age or audience in particular? FSD: I have no conclusive evidence, no demographic statistics to go on. I can only tell you what I’ve learned from fan letters, from readers I’ve met, and from what I’ve found when I’ve Googled myself. The book seems to have an audience among young women, from junior high through their twenties. I’m not sure what that means. It could be that more girls than boys write fan letters and discuss what they’re reading on their blogs. These readers tend to find the Arkham House edition in libraries, receive it from relatives, hear about it from friends, or find the Ace paperback in a store. It makes sense, I guess, that the female protagonist would appeal to females. There’s a widespread belief that many boys will shun a girl protagonist. I don’t know if that’s true or not; it never was for me. Anyway, I think these younger readers like the book’s honesty and complexity. Many seem to judge by the cover that it’s going to be too “young” for them, but then it deals with dark themes and doesn’t pull punches. The other audience group I’ve encountered are collectors of Arkham House books, and believe me, they’re the most passionate collectors of anything on Earth! The ones I’ve met have been men, my age or older. They’re reading it, of course, because it’s an Arkham House book. So, I don’t know. I heard from a businessman who read Dragonfly on his commuter train to work; I’ve heard from senior citizens; I’ve heard from a few moms who liked it but are going to put it away until their kids are older (like my troll in the drawer). I think the letter that affected me most deeply was from someone who read Dragonfly at a dark time in her life, and it reminded her that some battles are worth fighting, that there are good reasons to keep walking until you get out of the tunnel. I was stunned, because I never thought of it as an inspirational book. The effect it had on her is simply a testimony to the power of Story. We humans need good stories. Writing books is something that’s very worthwhile. If I’m ever discouraged about my writing, I’ll get out her letter again. OHOT: The title character of Dragonfly is an eleven-year-old girl. You are a single man, no children, in your late twenties when you wrote it. Why the decision to take on a narrator so different from you, and how did you get into her head and make her voice authentic? FSD: People have asked me this question from the minute the book was published, so I had time to consider it right after having written the book; and honestly, I cannot remember ever making a decision to cast the main character as a girl. That’s simply who she was when she showed up. The book really began with two names: Dragonfly and Mothkin. She was who she was, and he was who he was. I didn’t sit around thinking of what they should be like. I can try to guess at subconscious, instinctive factors that may have influenced the selection—or arrival—of a preteen girl as the protagonist. For one thing, it has to be a kid. The book is all about childhood fears, so I needed someone who would be feeling them most keenly—a child. But as you get into the book, you realize that she’s actually telling the story years later, as an adult. That allowed me to filter the sharp, vivid, immediate childhood experiences of the story through the experience and insights of a grown woman. I’m glad I didn’t plan that, or even think about, before I wrote the book, because it’s a pretty ambitious thing to try in a first novel. The book is too wordy and overwritten in places—that can happen before a writer is old enough to learn some restraint. On the other hand, it has a dewiness that I couldn’t reproduce today. Second, there’s the fact that men simply like women. When you write a book, you spend a long, long time with the main character. You can only do it if you enjoy being with that character. It’s fun spending time with the female mind. Finally, though, we come back to the fact that the character is eleven and twelve years old. There’s really not much difference between an imaginative, book-loving eleven-year-old girl and a boy of the same description. I was that boy, so I had no trouble writing the girl. I just put myself into the part and wrote the character as if it were me. She doesn’t do anything in the book that’s uniquely “female.” I mentioned the trouble I’ve had writing the huge, sprawling novel that I started right after I finished Dragonfly. Ironically, the main character in that one is a man close to my age—but I’ve had a lot more trouble getting him to seem real. I think it’s because I’ve been a kid. I’ve had the childhood fears. I haven’t been through a lot of political intrigue and war—so in the second book, I’m trying to write things I know little about. OHOT: Having been a lifelong fan of Lovecraft, how did it feel to have your first novel brought out by Arkham House? FSD: Like an impossible dream come true! When I first finished the book, I sent it out to all the big houses, one by one. After a round of rejections, I put it away and worked on other things for awhile. At the advice of a writing workshop leader, I went to a university library and used Literary Marketplace to locate about fifteen or so publishers who might possibly be interested. Since Arkham House begins with “A,” it was near the top of my list. I took the information down, but I regarded it as this legendary place, a dwelling in “inapproachable light.” I never thought I’d have a ghost of a chance there, so I didn’t send them the book until I’d exhausted just about every other publisher on my list. Finally, I thought “What have I got to lose?” and sent it to them. A blurb I read somewhere said Arkham House didn’t want to see unagented manuscripts; it typically no longer did single-author books except for those of the old masters; and it generally preferred collections of short stories by well-established writers—not novels from unknowns. If I’d read that before sending my novel off, I never would have sent it. I submitted it from Taylorville, using that as my return address, and I went back to Japan to teach. When a letter eventually came from Peter Ruber, my mom saw his name on the envelope and mistook him for one of my college friends; it sat on the kitchen table for a week or so, until Mom had several more letters to forward to me. That letter said they were quite interested and would be making a final decision soon. Now Mom knew what to look for, and when they made that decision, she called me in Japan in the middle of the night. I’ll never forget that feeling—and telling my writing students the next day in class that my first novel had been accepted. That was the first year the university had let me teach creative writing, and the students were thrilled for me! The more I learn about Arkham House, the more honored I am. I’m in such amazing company among writers they’ve published. Part of me still can’t believe that I’m communicating directly with April Derleth, daughter of August Derleth. And I will forever be grateful to Mr. Ruber, who pulled Dragonfly out of the slush pile and went to bat for me. | ||
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ericmarin |
9:37p | A Haiku of the Moment red-orange radar images swirl on tv tornado warning | ||
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steve_vernon |
10:55p | Getting back to mother nature... Tonight I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. We're talking veldt, baby. That grass was deep. All the time I was out there I kept thinking - "Man, I could be writing right now." I mean, why the heck didn't God invent a grass that doesn't grow? Hasn't the old gaffer heard of Astroturf?? I'm heading off tomorrow for a two day trip to Digby to take part in the Alex Bull Memorial Festival, teaching my storytelling/writing workshop to a pack of grade 8 & 9 kids. Should be fun. Then, Saturday night I've got a palm reading gig. Then Monday, down to Yarmouth. Tuesday I rest. Steve | ||
