Living the Fictional Dream

My short story, “The Sorcerer’s Wife,” is live at Residential Aliens today. Go check it out! (If you don’t like spoilers, you should definitely go read it before you read the rest of this entry!)

I’m very partial to this story. It started out life as a flash piece (under 1,000 words), but it didn’t have enough meat on its bones. I revised it several times, fleshing it out to its current length of just over 1K. I think the rejections of the flash version were spot on, because this version is much more developed, especially in terms of setting.

Viola has become one of my favorite short story characters from my own stories. When I began writing TSW, she was the evil temptress, nothing more, an obstacle to be overcome in Brand and Amira’s life. But when she strolled into his bedroom and onto the page of this story, she totally took on a life of her own. She became motivated by things other than generic evil and meddling, and she had this incredible presence.

I actually wrote a couple of stories from Viola’s point of view during my writing groups’ Story Every Day contest last summer. When NaNo is over, I might try to get one or both of those into something publishable, because I’m interested in learning more about other aspects of Viola’s life and the Game. Though, part of me doesn’t want to delve into the Game too much… that might take all of the mystery out of it.

If you read TSW, I’d love to know what you think. Leave me a comment and let me know if you have the chance!

In honor of a lovely Friday where I am home and don’t have to even attempt to work, I thought I would post some links for y’all. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

First of all, Kevin has today’s story of the day at Every Day Fiction. It’s called “Krupper and Jons,” and it’s quite a chuckle. When you get the to end, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this set of posts on author Shanna Swendon’s blog. They’re all about character archetypes. I find character archetypes a fascinating tool for character building. Of course, you can’t cheat and use the archetypes for character. Then your characters turn out flat and boring, predictable and lame. But I find thinking about the archetypes helps me to write characters that are all wildly different, and not based solely on myself. They are a tool to help me broaden and improve my writing. Shanna’s post talks about the archetype constructs based on the hero’s journey.

Tami Cowden, on the other hand, explores different character types based on personality. Each archetype has a male and female equivalent, as well as heroic and villainous incarnations. I’ve read her book, and it’s really interesting. The thumbnail sketches on her website are a great starting place, but to really get the depth out of this idea, you need to read the book. (I’m fairly sure I’ve linked to this before, but how can I not in a discussion of archetypes?)

Now, I’ve never really talked about politics on this blog. I would share my political views with you, if you asked, but this is a writing blog… posting about politics would be way off topic. However, I want to share this post with you, written by my friend, Ms. Eclectic. It’s a really thoughtful post-election post, and I especially thought that it spoke well to people here in Texas. Though, I think anyone who’s dealing with this post-election world might find it interesting.

And, now, for something entirely different, here another friend Kevin’s take on the newest restaurant in downtown Fort Worth, Simply Fondue. I’ve been a fan of this restaurant since it was only in Dallas (now you can eat there in Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth), and I’m thrilled that there is a new location close to home. My husband and I ate at the new location once, and it’s top notch. From Kevin’s article, it sounds like they’ve been improving since we ate there. It’s not cheap, but if it’s a special occasion, it is definitely worth the price of admission.

Here’s something that’s a little related to the last link (it’s about food) and also related to this blog (its about books), there is a new site called TasteBook that I’m very intrigued by. On this site, you can make your own cookbooks, either with recipes from their partners or by inputting your own recipes. I haven’t yet ordered a tastebook of my own, but I’m working on compiling the recipes for one. I don’t know that it’s worth the cost unless I can get at least 50 recipes in there! But, so far, it’s been really fun collecting the recipes and choosing my cover images and everything.

And, finally, still on the food theme, I’ll leave you with the link to a new recipe I found during my TasteBook adventures — cheesy tacos. These were a great hit at my last pot luck dinner party. If you’re doing a low carb diet (like my hubby and I are, under advice from our nutritionist), these taco shells made out of cheese are completely awesome! I’m planning to use the same idea to make us some “chips” for dipping. (It wouldn’t be so great, I suppose, if you’re doing a low fat diet, though.)

However, even the guests who weren’t watching their carbs enjoyed the cheesy taco shells — they were that tasty. Once I got the trick down, they worked out really well, but while frying the first few, I dubbed this the most hilarious recipe I’d ever made, because those first taco shells ended up a little malformed. But after I’d done a few, it was easy. (The counter full of a cobbled together drying rack of wooden spoons and cups was hilarious, too.)

And now, I will leave you to enjoy that random collection of links, and I hope that everyone has an awesome weekend. My husband and I are planning to travel to the cabin (the land of no Internet) this weekend, so it may be Sunday or Monday before you hear from me again. Have a great weekend!

When I was a teen, I really loved the movie Pump up the Volume. My mom actually asked me once what it was I liked about the movie. I don’t remember what I said at the time… nothing noteworthy, apparently! Definitely nothing memorable. I remember struggling to put what I liked about the movie into words, and failing.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s a movie about a boy named Mark (Christian Slater) who starts broadcasting a pirate radio show and uses the show to right wrongs perpetrated by his evil high school principal. And there’s a girl, too (Samatha Mathis… the first thing I saw her in, before the country music movie with River Phoenix).

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I were talking about Christian Slater. I don’t remember why now… maybe we were discussing the weird premise for his new TV show. Anyway, someone in the group made this disparaging remark about Pump up the Volume, and I was a little taken aback because I remembered liking it so well. (Though, to be fair, maybe it was just diss Christian Slater night… Heathers also took some shots.)

Then, tonight, I found myself awake at 2 a.m., and what happened to be playing on HBO? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

It had been a long time since I actually watched Pump up the Volume, so I watched it again. It was different viewing the film through adult eyes. I wasn’t a particularly angsty teen, but having angst is just part and parcel of the whole teen experience. The angst is always going to be there. I count myself lucky that my angst was focused more on fights with friends and that sort of thing, than some of the difficult issues faced by the teens in this movie — teen pregnancy, suicide, hopelessness.

Watching the movie as an adult, I wanted to talk to all those teenagers who didn’t know what to do with all those amped up teenaged emotions and tell them that if they could just get through it, things would work out. The stuff that seems so crazy important when you’re a teenager — things like where to sit in the lunch room, what to do when your friend stabs you in the back, overwhelming homework, parents you feel don’t understand you — it’s not the end of the world. Once you have some perspective (and have gotten through those crazy hormones), you realize that.

Of course, part of being a teen, they probably won’t believe you.

However, though I’m long through with that teen angst phase, I still found myself enjoying the movie, and rooting Mark and Nora on in their battle against the FCC. So, I asked myself why. Why does this particular movie still resonate with me?

And I figured it out.

Mark is a shy kid. He walks through the school day with his head down, unable to break through his own shell and talk to the kids in his new school, or talk to girls, or make friends. But, what he can’t do in person, he does through the radio. When he’s talking to the faceless void out there, Mark just can’t seem to shut up! And while some of the things he broadcasts are stupid fart noises and curse words, he shares part of himself, as well. He talks about his pain, and he does his best to help others through theirs. And he makes the administration face some cold hard facts.

The story of Mark speaks to me on a personal level. I’ve always been shy and introverted. I wasn’t as bad as Mark, but I did my time in high school of walking with my head down. Luckily, I didn’t have to eat lunch alone (not even those two years that my best friend’s band class meant she and I had separate lunch periods).

Mark found his voice through the radio. I found my voice through writing. I’m not as shy as I used to be, but talking, especially in a large group situation or with people I don’t know that well, is a challenge for me. But, when I write, I don’t have that problem. I can talk about anything. My voice gets out there in the world through my stories, my blog, and my writing in general.

There is a power in finding your voice, and I think that’s something that all kids struggle with. It’s another part of that whole growing up/coming of age thing, but it’s also something you continue with your whole life. Every time I write from a new character’s point of view, I’m finding a new way to express myself. And that’s why Mark’s story in Pump up the Volume still resonates with me, fifteen years later.

From a writing perspective, it would be awesome to create a character that resonates with someone else the way Mark (and other characters I’ve met in my reading and viewing life) have done for me. I don’t think I’ve made it there yet, but maybe someday…

Good morning, world!

It’s an especially good morning today, because my flash piece, “A Million Faces,” is the story-of-the-day over at Every Day Fiction. If you haven’t read that story yet this morning, I suggest that you go read it before you read the rest of this blog entry — especially if you don’t like spoilers (and with flash, how much is there to spoil?).

This story was inspired by a single sentence. If you’ve read the story, you’ll understand how crucial this sentence is to the main character’s big problem. How many secret identities does one girl need?

That sentence spoke to me of the story of a girl who could have any face she wants, but who has been living as other people for so many years that she’s lost her true face. It spoke to me of a girl who used her power for what she thought she wanted, and lost so much more in the process. It also spoke to me of a shape-shifter who uses her ability to reel in the criminals.

All those themes ended up in the story; sadly, that actual sentence, did not. Somehow, in the final version, that sentence didn’t actually fit.

That happens more often than not, I think. There’s that phrase, “cut your darlings.” It’s those scenes, exchanges, sentences that you really love that you have to be willing to cut — and it seems you end up cutting them more often than not.

The story ending up going in a slightly different direction than originally conceived. First it was going to be more of an action story, as she used her ability to catch criminals, but the story changed a bit on me. Got more serious, more angsty. The best stories do that.

I won’t spoil the ending of this story here. This story has gotten a lot of comments, from readers and from the EDF acceptance letter, saying that people enjoyed the twist at the end. Since twist endings aren’t always my forte, I don’t want to give it away here. You should read it for yourself. And then vote on the story and, if you really want to, leave a comment there.

Happy reading, all! And once you’ve done that, go out and enjoy this lovely fall morning!

I’ve been noticing lately how the vampires and the werewolves are always pitted against each other in urban fantasy stories. Maybe I’ve been watching too much True Blood and reading too much of the Twilight  series lately, but there you go.

True, they aren’t always bitter hatred/kill them to death rivals, but the two supernatural breeds always seem to be on opposite sides. Look at Jacob and Edward in New Moon and forward (Twilight series) — for the bulk of that series, they were bitter rivals, only brought together by common feelings for Bella. (Spoiler: Though this series did make it all work out in the end between the two groups — Breaking Dawn had the happiest of happily ever afters, somewhat to its detriment.)

Look at Richard and Jean Claude in the Anita Blake series. Now, things could have changed there, as I had to give up the series when the sex became more important than the plot, but there was always rivalry there — in check only because Jean Claude, the vampire, had power over the werewolves, so Richard had to obey, even if he didn’t want to. Again, they compromised sometimes over Anita, but they had that innate rivalry.

The rivalry wasn’t so pronounced in the Whedon ‘verse (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel), possibly because the werewolves in his ‘verse were very bestial with little humanity while in wolf form. But, the vampires didn’t like them and wouldn’t even sully their taste buds to drink from them unless forced. Luckily, at least Angel and Oz managed to get along in souled/human form.

Oh, and don’t forget Underworld. I only saw the movies (not the games), but they took the vampire/werewolf war to the next level!

And now there’s True Blood (the following is spoilerish if you’re not up-to-date on the show). They haven’t actually said that Sam is a weredog yet, so I can’t know for sure, but they are really hinting that way, and his hatred of all things vampiric led him to totally muck up the chance that Sookie gave him when she let him take her out on that date. I haven’t read the books because I don’t want to spoil myself for the TV show, so I don’t know what kind of rivalry they have there.

So, I wonder what it is about these two groups that always leads to rivalry?

I suppose one could say that it’s all about the women — many of the above examples have a werewolf (or animal shape-shifter, but we’ll just go with werewolf for simplicity’s sake) and a vampire fighting over a girl. But, I don’t really think that’s it. In some instances, the woman in the middle serves to bring the opposing sides together in a truce when nothing else would have.

My guess is it’s the difference between the two breeds’ supernatural powers. Vampires are more mental, while werewolves, et al, are all about the body. Vampires are urbane, stylish, and decadent, while werewolves are more sweats and T-shirts (you have to be if you ruin your clothes every time you shift!). Vampires hold back on their emotions, while the animal nature of the werewolves has them embracing emotions full-force. Vamprires have learned to withdraw from the human race, while the werewolves seem to want to be a part of it (and you never want what you can easily have, right?). Vampires are the ice, and werewolves are the flame.

Of course, all of the above are generalities. Every urban fantasy ‘verse has its own take on the matter.

I would be interested to see an urban fantasy in which the werewolves and the vampires were strong allies who respected each other. I’m sure there is one out there somewhere — every story in the world has already been written, right? — but I have yet to stumble across it.

Also, it boggles my mind how often, when the human girl is torn between the werewolf lover and the vampire lover, how often she picks the vampire. The poor, emotional werewolves are always left alone, licking their wounds. Me, I’d take the werewolf (assuming, of course, that it was the kind of werewolf that could control itself in beast form, like those in Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld or the La Push pack in Twilight — I’m not sure I’d make that same call if the werewolf were mega-beasty like Oz in BtVS).

So, thoughts? I’d love any other takes on causes of the vampire/werewolf rivalry. And, just out of curiosity, if you had to choose, which side would you be on?

I guess I have NaNo on the brain right now. Understandably so… My writing group dubbed October “NaNo Prep Month,” so Steph, VA, and I have been trying to come up with exercises that we can do during our lunch meetings that will help the group prepare for the upcoming madness. Not all of us are outliners, so planning for something like NaNo is a stretch.

I won my first year writing by the seat of my pants. And, yet, I never finished the novel. It languishes to this day at about 56K. I put it down after winning NaNo for a “break,” and never felt like going back to it. At this point, I don’t know if I ever will. We all have dead manuscripts like that laying about don’t we?

I won my second year with a brief outline. It was helpful to have something to go back to if I forgot what was to come next. I never write with outlines, so it was a new experience for me. Sadly, I realized halfway in (when it was too late to change for NaNo purposes) that I should have used 1st person POV instead of my preferred 3rd person. To get anything out of that novel requires a full rewrite, which I just haven’t been able to make as much progress on as I should have. I don’t know why… I’ve just been more into short fiction recently, and sometimes I think that revisions suck my creativity right out of me.

Last year, I had a fairly detailed outline, and I totally failed at NaNo. The outlined story had my interest intellectually, but I never really felt the story. I think that’s why it failed. It was too much like work, not enough like that creative spark that carries you away. The characters never took on a life of their own — I was forcing it. So, a few days in, I switched to another idea that I’d been pondering, but had not prepped for. I got a couple of chapters in and realized I’d made a huge mistake in Chapter 1. Sadly, that mistake was the premise for the whole plot thus far. I couldn’t face starting over again, so I gave up on NaNo and wrote short stories for the rest of the month.

I think I’ve decided that during our planning month, I’m going to noodle around with the urban fantasy novel idea. If I get something workable, I’ll go for that. But, if it never comes together, then I’ll focus NaNo on novel revisions. Possibly on the rewrite of my novel from 2006 (mentioned above — the 3rd to 1st person rewrite). I call it my Siren novel, because the main character is, in fact, a Siren.

Or, alternatively, I’ll work on the rewrite of the novel that I wrote in high school. It’s about a young group of sorcerers who have to save the world. I wrote the whole thing in high school, so the style and plotting are not up to snuff. It needs a total rewrite now that I actually have more skills on how to do those things. But I love those characters and their story, so I really want t finish it. This was the novel that first stole my heart and will always be my favorite pet project.

So, the possibilities are out there. I will see where NaNo Prep Month leads me!

And, not related to NaNo, I have to say, if you haven’t read “Outlast the Stars” over at Every Day Fiction today, you should. It’s great!

Main characters aren’t always the brightest bulbs in the shed, but when a character does veer into the stupid zone, it is so much more irritating to me as a reader when the story is told in the first person point of view.

The problem is that for the reader to know something more is going on than what the main character sees (or allows him/herself to see), it has to be there on the page. We’ve got to see all the things that the main character misses, and if we see it, it’s hard to understand sometimes why the main character doesn’t see it. If I, as a reader, see these things, I may want to thwap the main character when they are obtuse.

In third person, there is a bit of distance between the narration and the main character’s point of view. Even in third person limited, there is still a sense of space between the narration and the main character’s mind.

In the first person, however, the narration is completely filtered through the main character’s eyes and mind. If the main character doesn’t see it, know it, or experience it somehow, the reader can’t know it. So, since the reader has to experience it, there are times that it will drive me crazy when they overlook or don’t understand whatever it is.

Of course, sometimes, people misunderstand things. I can forgive that in a character to a certain extent, but it gets to a point where it’s no longer a misunderstanding, but stupidity.

Take, for example, the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I recently read the latest installment, Untamed, and the main character, Zoey, kept observing things, such as the behavior of one of her friends, that was contrary to what Zoey would have liked it to be. And she kept rationalizing it to herself, denying it, in essence. Once or twice, maybe I could have put up with, but over and over again she did it! Her stupidity started to really grate on my nerves. I was right there in her head with her, and she just refused to actually see what was going on! And, the thing is, Zoey is not stupid by nature, but I get the feeling that she had to miss/deny this crucial fact to herself so that the plot could continue to progress unhindered.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still like the HoN series. It’s addicting — Y/A vampire crack would probably be the most appropriate term. I even like the character of Zoey for the most part — she manages a destiny and a significant subset of powers without (so far) falling into that Mary Sue unbelievability that eventually assails other characters (e.g., Anita Blake and Bella Swan).

But sometimes I just want to shake Zoey for not being able to see what is right in front of her face.
If the story were told in the third person, maybe it would be easier to accept that she didn’t understand the implications of what she saw. Or even to believe that she didn’t see it at all. Not noticing something is one thing. Seeing it and not understanding it is stupidity.

So, perhaps, if you’re going to make your main character stupid or obtuse, I think it would be very wise to stay far away from first person narration. Or, alternatively, how about we not make the characters stupid at all — or at least not simply for sake of foreshadowing or the plot. If a character is going to have a stupid moment, make it something that arises from the character, not as a method for moving the plot along!

I want to write a sequel to “The Widow and the Stranger” (Allegory e-zine, May 2008 issue). I love Sarah Kirby, and I want to write about another of her adventures. I like that she’s reserved and old fashioned, but at the same time she’s a liberated feminist.

When my writing group did the Story Every Day contest back in June, I actually wrote a sequel to tWatS, but it was too much of a sequel. It relied heavily on background that someone would only know if they read the first one. One of Jadon’s enemies tried to steal the amulet that he made for Sarah in an attempt to find him.

Sadly, while that might be interesting if I ever wrote a novel about Sarah and her Atlantians, it wasn’t going to work for a short story. Maybe if the same e-zine published it, but you can’t count on that. And even still, in the short story game, each story really needs to stand on its own. The characters can have more adventures, but they shouldn’t have continuing adventures (unless you’re lucky enough to have the chance to publish a short story collection like Mercedes Lackey’s Tarma and Kethry stories or perhaps if you have a market that’s committed to publishing them all).

Recently, I wrote a few paragraphs of the next Sarah Kirby story. The title popped into my head fully formed, and I actually kind of like it — “The Widow and the Lord” — it stands on it’s own, and yet it still harkens back to the predecessor for those “in the know.”

Sadly, that’s as far as it’s gone. I have a good setting and a new character for Sarah to interact with (and bring her common sense business acumen to), but I have no plot! Don’t you hate that? Great concept/idea/character, and no plot. I know that romance is the wrong way to go — Sarah had enough of that last time, and she’s not a woman who opens herself up that easily. So, I need a plot with a speculative twist to involve Sarah in the life of this lord. I want her to somehow save the day this time in a decisive way. But… how? Nothing is coming to mind.

Ah well… I guess I will just have to let “The Widow and the Lord” linger for a while. Perhaps one day, out of the blue, the plot will come to me like the title did. It’s strange, though. Usually I suffer through the title creation process. I never start with a title! Weirdness!

I finished watching The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night (the day after they came out on DVD), and man, this is a really good series! If any of y’all like sci-fi and/or the Terminator movies, you should definitely check this series out!

First of all, the series rocks at continuity. In a world with such complex plotting, it’s amazing how many details they remember. Of course, they made movie 3 obsolete, but no one saw that one anyway, right? And it supposedly sucked (though I actually never saw it, so I can’t say). But, since this is a time travel concept, even rewriting history (or, perhaps future history?) makes sense in the ‘verse.

Second, this series has great characters, and, to me, characters are the most important part of any story. I suppose, on a basic level, the SCC characters are basic sci-fi trope. We have a robot struggling with what it means to be human. There’s an angsty teen who is supposed to grow up to be the “chosen one” (though, not a mystical choosing, like with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter). There’s a lioness mother struggling to protect her cub, a law enforcement agent who is against us right now but might become our friend in the end, and an embittered soldier in mourning for a lost loved one.

But SCC takes these standard characters and gives them all a fresh feel. Sarah kicks butt and takes names, which is awesome, and yet, she doesn’t like to kill. Derek has a grudge against terminators and possibly a death wish, but there’s a surprising soft side. He’s had some great moments with John, and when he teared up watching Cameron dance… great acting! Cameron has more depth than either Data or the Voyager holographic doctor had at the beginning of the series. She is a strange combination of mystery (what is she doing? whose side is she on?), humanity (feeling like making conversation is the thing to do, appreciating ballet), and machine (killing or allowing humans to die). And John, while he has those whiney teenaged moments, he often surpases them, and that future greatness glimmers underneath all the while.

These characters really do make SCC a great show. Anyone can take an element and tell a story about it — the thing is to give those elements their own skins, their own personalities. It’s the trappings that make a story unique, because there are only so many plots out there in the world. It’s a testiment to the series that it’s this good and, really, it has nearly the same plot (at least at a concept level) as the second movie!

And, of course, I love a show where female characters get to be strong fighters. That always rocks! If you haven’t watched this show yet, if you can get your hands on the DVDs, you should definitely give it a try. The first season was only nine episodes thanks to the writers’ strike, so you can even watch it now and be done in time for the 9/9/08 premier of season two!

June was a hotbed of writing goodness for me. Acceptances and published stories all over the place. Since then, things have been pretty slow. Molassas, even. Though, as always, the rejections trickle in.

I’m waiting to hear about another semi-related gig, as well. No details on that right now, but if it pans out, you’ll be sure to hear about it here!

I don’t know where the summer has gone! I can’t believe it’s August already. I swear I just blinked at it was June! Of course, my day job as a technical writer has been overwhelming lately, so that is the reason behind some of that. And it looks like things at work will stay hectic throughout the fall (as fall is our traditional “busy season”).

But, I shall perservere and find time to write. On Monday, I finally wrote that new superhero story that I’d been ruminating on for a while. It’s about a girl with the power to change her appearance (face and body type). It turned into a nice little flash piece, if I do say so myself. We’ll see how it does at the market to which I sent it.

I don’t know that I should call the girl a superhero, specifically — at least not with all the baggage that term implies (Alex wrote a really interesting post about that recently… read it!). It’s more that she happens to have this amazing power — the term superhero seems to suggest that she is all about using her power for the forces of good and justice, and I’m not sure this character has such pure motivations.

Of course, characters who fall into the shades of gray are inherently more interesting than those who are black and white, in my opinion.

All right, that is enough babble from me today. I hope you all have an awesome Thursday!