Expected Aberrations

The Worst Part of Death

2012-03-20T10:42:00.000-06:00

I remember the day my great-grandfather died. It’s not like it was unexpected, after all, the man was 101, but it was because he was 101 that I had thought he wasn’t going to die. He was the oldest person I knew, and I thought that he would beat the Guinness world record and die at about 130. Sometime nice and far away. It made sense; when he turned 100, my mom sent him a birthday card and he wrote her back a letter. He called his walker his Corvette, and the only reason he didn’t have his drivers license was because they had made him give it up when he was in his nineties (“I’ve had it for this long; I’m going to keep it!”).

On his last day, my grandparents -my mom’s parents- went to visit him around 5 in the evening. He was very weak and tired, but his mind was as sharp as ever, and they all enjoyed themselves. After they left, the sun was setting, and he asked the nurse to help him sit in a chair facing the window so that he could watch it. When she came back a few minutes later, he was gone.

When I went to the viewing, I couldn’t go pay my respects. I couldn’t bear to see his body, life gone out of it and sagging with the victorious pull of gravity and time. It would have made me vomit, or want to. My parents gave me odd looks when I said I wouldn’t go up, but they didn’t understand and I didn’t tell them. I didn’t want to weep, there in full view and hearing of all these relatives who I didn’t know and who weren’t making much noise themselves.

On his hundredth birthday, all his descendants except for a handful came to celebrate with him. We filled a hall, hundreds of us wanting to wish our father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather a happy birthday. Someone had made a video recounting his life, and we watched it and my respect for him grew and grew and grew. He grew up in modern-day Ukraine and, when the communists took over, he was married and his wife was pregnant with their first child. One Sunday, not long after the Bolshevik revolution, he felt very strongly that he had to leave the country that day. He told his family, but they told him that he shouldn’t. It was the Lord’s day; he should rest. He would be able to leave the next day. If he had listened to them, I wouldn’t have been born because the next day the borders closed, no-one in or out, and only he and his pregnant wife, of all his and her family, managed to escape. My great-grandfather was a legend, and legends don’t die. But he did.

The funeral was beautiful. My great-grandfather was Mennonite, so there were two sermons: one in English and the other in German, and half of the hymns were in German. I love the sound of that language, especially when sung and, with the words and music in front of me, I was able to sing and take some joy in the singing, and that comforted me, if only a little...

It feels like it had been only days, the two events are so connected in my mind, but it was really about eight months later when the sister of one of my friends died. She had been born with a heart that didn’t work properly and, before she turned ten, ended up being the youngest person in Alberta to receive a heart transplant. Her body tried to reject the new heart, so she had to take anti-rejection medication. One day, she went to the hospital for something entirely unrelated, went to sleep and didn’t wake up. I went to her funeral, too. Her favourite worship band played, but I couldn’t sing. I kept my jaw clenched because, if I opened it, I would weep. At first, I thought it was because of my friend’s sister but, as the songs went on, I realized that all I could see was my great-grandfather’s face. It had taken another death for me to realize he had really died. It felt so odd because I hadn’t known my great-grandpa very well. We lived in two different provinces, and the only time I remember even speaking with him was for less than a minute at his hundredth birthday celebration, and I hadn’t even understood him very well because I was unused to his accent.

I believe very strongly that God did not intend death as a part of the natural order and, when Adam and Eve sinned, they messed up not only themselves, but the whole world. Before all of this, I had believed that as a cerebral thing, intellectualized and sanitized. During the singing at the funeral of my friend’s sister, I felt for the first time that wrongness down to my core. We tell ourselves things like my great-grandpa “going out with the sunset” and that my friend’s sister lived for over a decade after her heart transplant to make ourselves believe that there’s meaning and beauty in the deaths of those we love. We say these things to comfort ourselves, to try to see death as a part of a pattern and ignore what we know when we come face-to-face with it: we were not meant to die. Life has meaning and beauty in it, to be sure, but death is like a blind monster, devouring those nearest and most convenient. So, I stood, surrounded by those who sang, and kept my jaw clenched, telling myself that my great-grandpa and my friend’s sister had gone to heaven. It did not erase the ugliness.

The father of another friend of mine died from a heart attack around Christmas time back while we were in grade twelve. Whenever we were in chapel and the band started “Blessed Be Your Name”, she would weep and weep and weep and no-one could console her. I remember seeing that and not knowing what to do. Her pain was so deep and I couldn’t touch it. I didn’t know how to help heal it. A wall rose up between her and me in those moments, and all I could do was keep standing, sing, and try to think about other things so that I wouldn’t feel so helpless. It tore me to see my friend hurting like that, to see her body so close and her soul so far. I didn’t know how to meet her where she was; I didn’t even know how to try. That’s the difference between then and now. Then, I did not have the experience to do anything but the wrong thing, and now I know that, sometimes, the only thing to do is sit with the one in pain and weep with them.

The worst part of death isn’t when someone dies.

It’s when we grieve alone.

Written in honour of Peter Penner (1908-2009).

I originally wrote this last year in October. It was remarkably emotional for me to do so, to go through all the memories again. Once I finished it, I knew it had to be posted, but I was frightened. The most hateful words we ever hear come from inside our own minds, and mine were terrible.

"No-one wants to read what you've written."
"Stop whining and go do something important."
"Your experiences are worthless even to yourself."
"Why would you ever post something so lame?"
"Who are you to think that anyone would ever like this?"

There were more. There are more. They're still running around in my mind, trying to stop me from pressing the button that will reveal this post to the world.

"I bet you got your chronology totally messed up. Never mind the historical background."
"You wrote this months ago! It's terrible. Everyone's going to hate you for posting something sub-par."
"I can see their eyes rolling now: 'Will Thea ever just let it go?' You do know this happened almost three years ago, right?"

They're remarkably convincing. They convinced me for five months. But I'm tired of those voices butting in every single time I want to do something that's vulnerable. I'm tired of them beating me down, telling me that I'm a loser and winning.

It's my turn to win. This is my blog, and they are not taking this away from me. I refuse to give in and just play it safe.

Dear voices,

I love my great-grandfather. When he died, I was devastated and didn't know how to cope, but I didn't know how to talk to anyone about it, so I remained utterly alone in my grief, and it was hell. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been there. I'm sure I'm not the only one who needed to know how to share what was going on inside of me.

You've taken away years of my life by telling me I can't talk to anyone about my real feelings about the things that are the most important to me. You've taken away countless opportunities where I could have shared my heart with someone and really, truly helped them. It's because of you that I've felt so disconnected for so long. I'm sorry that it took death and the writing about death and the thinking about death for me to realize this about you. And I don't care one bit that I'm hijacking my own post about grief to deal with the reason that that grief was as terrible to work through as it was.

You are idiotic bastards for telling me that I'm worthless and that what I have to say is worthless, and you are hereby fired. Talk at me all you want; I won't listen.

You are nothing to me.

Sincerely,

The person taking charge of her life,

Thea van Diepen

P.S. If I ever find you harassing any other person in my life, I will make sure they know you for the poisonous liars you are and that, the moment they stop believing you, you are utterly and completely powerless. It would be much easier for you if you just popped out of existence right here and right now, but you're much too stubborn to take my advice. Good thing I'm much too stubborn to take yours.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2012-03-02T18:45:00.002-07:00

I'm considering introducing myself to new people as

"Thea, fan of Firefly" for this very reason.

I'm ridiculously interested in a lot of things that make about as much sense together as putting wings on a rock and throwing it off a cliff so that it can fly, except my interests don't generally result in broken windows. With that in mind, I was thinking the other day about everything I've written on here and I decided I would write about something really random that I happen to really enjoy. It comes with just about one of the geekiest confessions I'll ever make (unless someone can find a really fun excuse to use trigonometry, because I have this odd fascination with calculating things that have to do with triangles), and those of you who have not yet met me in real life have never yet heard me talking about this. Wanna try and guess what it is?

Go on.

I've got time.

...

...

...

Okay, I'll tell you. :)

It's genetics. Just the word makes me want to smile and do a happy dance (I didn't dance just now though, because it's kind of hard to in a chair, so I wiggled delightedly instead).

Dear Thea,

For the love of all that is logical, why on earth do you love genetics so darn much?

Worriedly,
Your Sense of Reason

Dear Sense of Reason,

For the love of all that is sane, why on earth would you fight the love of genetics?

Happily,
Thea

I win. :)

Anyways, I fell in love with the subject when we first learned about it in grade nine. Remember Gregor Mendel's peas and those unending Punnett squares? Learning the difference between dominant and recessive alleles? Best part of the whole year.

I remember when we learned about co-dominant alleles (two dominant alleles which, when both are present, result in something that's a mix between the two in the actual organism -palomino horses are an example of this, also some pink flowers). It totally blew my mind. There were Mendel's peas, all nice and straightforward with their dominant and recessive genes, and then something else came in and messed with that whole mathematical system. I almost cheered for the inventiveness of genetics.

Grade twelve biology class pretty much made my life when we had an entire unit on genetics. That's where I learned that alleles always come in pairs, and that different pairs of alleles could work together to make one thing happen (the colour of human skin, for example, is primarily controlled by two pairs of alleles), and we learned about sex-linked genes! And don't get me started on when I first heard about epigenetics last year in one of my psychology classes. Just when I thought my mind could not get any more blown...

But it gets better!

As soon as I first learned the tiniest bit about genetics and how they work, I decided that I wanted to make up a creature and then make up a simple genetic code for it so that I could then breed these creatures on paper and see what I came up with. That first attempt was pretty rough. I basically knew squat about what I was doing, but I don't mind because it was fun, and I've improved on the system since. I think I'm on version 3.0 at the moment, which is the first version where I've built in a way of adding in new genes that I've never used before to the code, and it's also the first that deals with fertility. It's nowhere near as cool as what happens in real life yet, but I'm working on it. *does a happy wiggle* :D

Okay, I can hear some of you going "What the heck? Why, Thea? Why do you love this so much? Why are you so geeky?"

Um. Genetics?

Actually, I'm not joking. My dad makes programs for computers in oil refineries for a living and has the hugest collection of Star Trek books I've ever seen in one place in my life, my younger brother discovered a passion for programming when he was in grade ten -starting with graphing calculators, even- and my sister can probably quote to you verbatim all the most famous lines from all her favourite TV shows. My mom and my older brothers probably have geeky sides, too, they're just much better at hiding it.

And, to be completely honest, I once won a geek contest without even having to mention my insane love of genetics. My insane love of making up languages did that all by itself (I'll probably have a post about that at some point, cuz I can).

Yay for genetics! *wiggles*

*Sense of Reason raises eyebrow*

:)

If you've stayed with me this far, you're either impressively patient, far better at scanning blog posts than I am, or at least slightly interested in genetics and general geekiness. If not, you're an enigma to me, in which case, the psychologist part of me is really very interested in chatting with you at some point to try and solve that enigma, with the solution undoubtedly being a personality that's rather spectacularly cool.

What's my point? If you love something (which I'm sure you do), make it a part of your life. Allow yourself to be passionate about it; talk about it to complete strangers and find out if they love it, too. So what if it doesn't fit with everything else you like? If you're passionate about it, don't just hide it.

There are a lot of things that I haven't been mentioning here because I wasn't sure if it would fit with the way I started the blog. I've been hiding my geekiness because I really wanted everyone on the internet to like me (or something), and that's utterly ridiculous. Besides that, this is my blog. I can do whatever the heck I want with it, no matter how I started out, and to tell myself that I've got to ignore things that I'm interested in just because they're not in the same category as other things I'm interested is just stuff and nonsense.

Heh. I got to use that phrase today! :D

There you go. I love genetics. Someday, I hope to make up a genetic code that's just as nuanced and mind-numbingly amazing as the real thing (only without all the boring things, like fingernails) simply because it would be cool.

But enough about me...

What about you?

What kinds of things do you just love to pieces and could talk about for hours? What do you do with those interests? Do you have a blog/website/vlog/etc about them that I could check out (oh, do say yes! :D)?

Let's bask in our mutual awesomeness.

(Also, if anyone knows who made that ecard at the beginning, could you tell me? I'd really like to credit them for it, and Google has been spectacularly unhelpful. Thanks!)

In Which Thea Rips up a Quiz for the Greater Good

2012-02-12T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Here are the draw results, with a dash of randomness thrown in. :)

Lewinna, if you're seeing this before you get on Twitter, I've DM'd you the pertinent information about your new ebook. If you're seeing this after you've gotten on Twitter, well... this is awkward.

Author Interview: Emily Casey

2012-01-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for:

12 Questions with Thea!(Because 20 questions is just too mainstream)

Our ~~victim~~ interviewee: Emily Casey

Why: Not only is she so awesome that she shares a birthday with Madeleine L'Engle, but her first book is out, and it's fabulous!

Book blurb: "Ivy has always been afraid of mirrors, but she never knew why. Then one of them sucks her into the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast." -from Emily's website.

(This interview is a part of Emily's blog tour. The next stop is tomorrow at: Robert Marion's blog, and it's an interview with Ivy! :D)

1) What gave you the idea for this series? (It's got a really cool premise, btw)

I was pregnant, and I had pregnancy brain, and you don't want to concentrate on anything when you're that pregnant. So I wasn't going to work on my novels, because I just couldn't focus on it.

A friend of mine suggested that I write some short fiction for my blog. I could put it up on my blog, where anybody could read it and maybe reach some readers that way, and I felt that was a good idea. I was also shopping my book around with agents, the one that I had just finished, and the feedback that I kept getting was that my writing was too stiff. It was boring, it was flat, and when I looked back at it I was like, "oh my gosh, it is flat."

Around that time, someone commented on my blog that he loved my writing style, that he loved my writing voice, and that he would read anything that I wrote. I realized that the voice in my blog was completely different than the voice in my books, and I think I could blame school on that.

What I did was I decided to let a fictional character take over my blog once a week, and she would write on the blog, through me, obviously, and so I needed something that I could do in one, two or three posts, and I love fairy tales, so it was kind of a good fit, and Ivy was born. She was just randomly dropped in a fairy tale and she had to just change the story to get back home (the rules are a little different from the novel). I fell in love with Ivy so much in writing these blog posts that I thought she deserved a book, and so I built the story around the initial blog posts.

2) Is Ivy based on anyone you know?

She's kind of the person I wish I could be. I mean, she's a lot like me. I grew up in the military, like she did. Her dad's in the military. She's like the snarkiest, smartest side of me, I guess. She's way smarter than I am sometimes, and then way dumber than I am. I do have a friend, she's fifteen, and she's half-Asian, and she's pretty snarky, too, and so I did think about her a lot while I was writing Ivy's character.

3) There's an awful lot of running in this book. Was this on purpose, or did your love of Doctor Who seep through into the pages?

Hmmm… I do love Doctor Who. Well, I run, so her experience with cross-country and that kind of thing came from my love of running, and then I have two sisters who did cross-country with my school. The running was kind of a later addition. Originally, in the first draft, she didn't run at all and it was really boring. So.

4) Was it hard to get into character when writing, or does being a smart aleck just come naturally to you?

Sometimes, I do have to switch gears, because I've been chasing the kids around and then they finally go down to their nap, and I just plop in front of my computer. Usually, I can get into character by having something bad happen to Ivy, and then I ask myself: "Well, is she going to take that?" Which, of course, the answer's no. Then I ask myself: "Well, what would she do?" And that's how I transition from life to writing.

5) Okay, what inspired the scene with the chamber pot? That was, honestly, one of the most entertaining scenes I've ever read that related to human hygiene.

I realized that she needed to use the bathroom, and I was thinking about the lack of running water and how she, well, she needs a bath after all that running in the forest. But, really, she needed to go to the bathroom. It was either go in the woods, or use the chamber pot, and I think chamber pots are pretty gross, and I think I would be even more grossed out by them. That was a struggle, having to decide about risking her life out in the woods, where Beast is this horrible, horrible wild animal, just to use the bathroom? It doesn't seem worth it. So, I used the chamber pot, and then I cut her a break and made it a flushing chamber pot.

6) You mention at the end of The Fairy Tale Trap that Beauty and the Beast is your favourite fairy tale. What distinguishes it from all the others, in your mind?

I like Beast. I think he's a tragic character that gets a happy ending, which has a feel for me because a lot of the times when you have a tragic character, they get a tragic ending, and I can't stand it.

I like the rose, and how the whole story was facilitated by a single rose. I think that's really cool. And the enchantments, where all the food is laid out in front of Beauty. I think the whole haunted/enchanted castle thing is just really fun.

7) Random question of the day: If you had a pet lizard, what would you name it?

I had a turtle once. I didn't name it, but its name was Nebuchadnezzar. It was given to my by an old Bible teacher, and we were studying Nebuchadnezzar at the time and so the teacher gave me this little turtle.

A lizard? Gosh. Rumpelstiltskin?

8) What's your favourite thing about fairy tales? (Or just fantasy in general)

I'm actually writing a guest post on someone else's blog about how fantasy needs a good story, and how fantasy is like the chocolate part of the chocolate cake. If you have cake, you can have it without chocolate, but why? Why would you want that? The thing, I think, about fairy tales is that they have a fun, magical element to them but, deep down in the heart of it, they're a story that you can relate to.

9) Who are your favourite author(s)? What is it about their books that gets you coming back over and over again?

I like J.K. Rowling. I received the Harry Potter books recently, so they're on my mind.

Gail Carson Levine is the person who inspired me to write. She does a lot of fairy tale books. I just like the way that she -and J.K. does this, too- they take something that you're familiar with and then they make it something new. We've all heard of elves before, but when J.K. Rowling made a house-elf it was something new. I've never seen anything like it before. Gail Carson Levine, in her book Fairest, it's a retelling of Snow White. In that story, the villain is really the mirror.

10) Why do you think that people need stories?

Things can get boring. I think it's a way to share our own creativity with each other. I mean, we can sit around and talk about: "Well, wouldn't it be cool if blah blah blah happened?", but when you tell a story, you kind of see it through, and can share that vision more believably.

11) On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for the Hunger Games movie?

TEN! Actually, I'm going to give it a nine, because the Snow White movies are about to come out, and there's a Beauty and the Beast movie that's about to come out, and the Jack and the Beanstalk movie, that are all coming out next year. Those are probably higher up than Hunger Games.

12) If you could pimp any book right now (aside from your own, seeing as I'm pimping it right now), what book would it be and why?

It would be Jonathan Maberry's book Rot & Ruin. It's a zombie book, and I didn't think I was a zombie person until I read that book. I'm not a blood and gore kind of girl, and I thought zombies were stupid, but I thought I should read outside the genre a little bit, and loved it. It is one of my top ten favourite books, and it's seriously underrated.

Thanks, Emily, for such a fun interview!

Emily Casey can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Google+, and, of course, her highly attractive website. The Fairy Tale Trap is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, or directly from her website.

Look at that. It's so beautiful, I could drool. Wait... ew.

If you don't have any money (or like getting things for free), I have one tantalizing copy of The Fairy Tale Trap that you could win! :D

Just leave a quiff (comment) by midnight on February 10th, and I'll put your name into a hat. On the 11th, I'll do a draw on video and announce the winner! If you want your name in the hat two times, write me a haiku based off of your favourite fairy tale. If I've never heard of the fairy tale, I'll put your name into the hat three times.

Becoming Who I Already Am

2012-01-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

I found some old sketchbooks of mine that I filled up years ago, and decided I'd go through them from the very beginning and see how my drawings have changed. It felt very nostalgic, remembering drawing all those pictures. Then, as I came to the end, I realized something interesting about my writing, including this blog. In order to explain this better, I'm going to talk about horses.

First, the best picture of a horse I've drawn to date (please ignore how dark the signature is; I'll make it better when my computer is more cooperative):

Looks pretty snazzy, doesn't it? It took me a couple hours and lots of looking at reference pictures because I was specifically trying to draw a Clydesdale, and I really wanted to do that beautiful breed justice. I could wax poetic about how pleased I am with that drawing, despite its flaws. I remember drawing it and agonizing over where the legs were going to be because I wanted it to look like it was moving, and I wanted someone who knew horses to look at it and believe that it was moving. The trot was the easiest, so I stuck with it. There's no colour, but I can see it in my mind's eye: black mane and tail, gorgeous rich brown coat, white legs with smatterings of white up along the belly, a blaze down the face, and black-tipped ear. Typical mid-trot bay Clydesdale, but it's mine.

People have seen that picture and said, "Wow, you're so talented!". I guess I am. Drawing is something that makes sense to me, something that I can do with ease and without worrying that my attempt at a bear is going to turn out looking like an elephant without a trunk.

In 2003, I got a sketchbook from my mom, and I immediately started drawing things in it. I'd always liked drawing, and horses were my favourite things to draw (as well as unicorns and dragons), so the first thing I did was draw some horses. I was really into Fjord horses at the time, so mine got stiff, stick-up manes this time around. I'd also figured out a new way of drawing ears, which really excited me because it looked more like an ear that came out of the head, rather than a triangle affixed to the poor animal's skull.

Voila:

It was crap, but it was good crap. Those ears that make me cringe now made me so darn proud then that I took the page out of my sketchbook and stuck it in a place of honour in the pocket of said sketchbook. Also, note the nostrils. Those are some sexy nostrils. I had only months before realized that horse nostrils weren't just these oval holes in the head, but actually had their very own shape. It was just as revolutionary an idea as the ears, and the realization about a year prior that the nostrils were ovals rather than circles.

Seriously, I was on the cutting edge of my understanding of equine anatomy.

Here's another picture done a couple months later (to show off my skillz with the rest of the body):

See the funny little ridge on the unicorn's head? Between the last picture and this, I had finally figured out that horses have bone ridges around their eye sockets (we do, too; they're called our eyebrows and cheekbones).

Note the limbs, their shape and where they start. I'm not sure where I figured this out, but at some point in my horse-drawing career, I discovered how their skeletons worked, and where their limbs actually started on the body. What I was doing here reflected my understanding of that unicorn's internal skeletal structure. I understood that horses had bones, and that those bones affect how the different body parts look. I was starting to go from the idea of a two-dimensional horse to a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional creature.

What do I mean by that? Check out the hooves. That whole foot area. Isn't that nasty? I thought it was acceptable at the time, but that's because I was still thinking of that area as a two-dimensional thing. The hooves in the picture have about the right shape, the whole foot region is going in vaguely the right direction. Saying "I'm going to draw a picture of hooves" and "I'm going to draw hooves" are two very different things. The picture of hooves looks about the right shape, but it's flat. You know that there are hooves there, but they're not alive. That's the difference.

Now. Look back at that first picture I showed you. Look at the ears, how they're still triangle-shaped, but now they look like they've grown from the skull, and those extra-sexy nostrils with their irregular, but vaguely oval shape. And that eye ridge. Definitely present, yet subtle.

Look at the limbs, how they convey the skeleton beneath them without looking like convoluted sticks stuck into a sandbag. See how the horse is alive. How I drew a horse, not a picture of a horse. Feel the hardness of the hooves, the light breeze in the mane, fetlock, tail and feather (the stuff above the hooves). Anticipate that horse's next step, and watch the muscles move as the legs continue into the next beat of a trot. Listen to it breathe.

An art critic might look at it and tell me that it's crap. I would politely reply that it's good crap, and I made it. And, the next time I draw a horse, I would make it better because I wanted it to be better, not because the art critic thought it wasn't good enough.

I have every right to be proud of that horse.

In 2003, when I got that sketchbook from my mom and drew a couple of horses, I had every right to be proud of the good crap I made. It was the best I knew how to do. Not only that, but I had made a leap in my understanding of what I was doing, and I had incorporated that leap. I had allowed myself to do something different. When I drew the unicorn, I had pushed myself to do better, to create better. And I had allowed myself to take risks while I did so. Nine years later, here I am with a horse I drew that takes all those things I learned prior and makes them light-years better than I was capable of before.

When I think of the word "artist", I think of someone who's pretty dang good at whatever art they do. I think of someone who understands how to make their art so that it lives and speaks to people. But an artist is also just someone who does art. 2003-me was already an artist, while at the same time becoming an artist.

I am becoming who I already am.

I'm a writer becoming a writer. The stories I write are on the cutting edge of what I understand about story. My most recent leap in understanding has to do with endings, and how to write endings that work, that stem from the beginning and middle in such a way that the story is one, whole thing that tells itself over time. Let me tell you, my endings are going to look a lot different from here on in because of this, just like the ears, eye ridge and limbs did when I learned more about them.

I'm also a blogger becoming a blogger. At the beginning of this year, I realized that I needed a purpose to make this blog better. Not because some blog critic came and told me that my blog wasn't good enough, but because I want to be the best blogger that I can be.

So, I'm going to make changes from time to time to how I blog, to reflect my new understanding of how blogging works. Sometimes, I'll tell you guys about the changes, but sometimes I won't. It'll just happen, and something will be different, and that's okay. I think I've figured out my purpose for the blog, and it's really just my journey of becoming who I already am.

You know, I think I'm going to enjoy this. :)

Guest Post is Live!

2012-01-06T22:24:00.002-07:00

For those that haven't yet checked it out, my guest post on Sue Santore's blog is online! And it's about monsters. :)

Read it here!

I Have a Confession to Make...

2012-01-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been taking blogging as seriously as I should have. When I started, I thought that the only things that were really necessary were writing as regularly as possible, making the blog look pretty, and writing about things that I thought were cool. While all these are wonderful things that really do help make a blog work, there was just one thing that I was missing:

Purpose.

To be completely honest, I've felt claustrophobic every time I entertained the notion of deciding what this blog was actually about. It frightened me, because I thought that, if I decided on something, I make things too narrow, and I would cut out most of the things that I'm passionate about and that I could talk about for hours on end simply because I think they're just so darn fantastic. All my interests felt mutually exclusive, like choosing one would be denying everything else, and that terrifies the heck out of me.

Let me tell you something I've never told anyone else. Being told I must decide what to do with my life gives me so much fear that I want to high-tail it to the farthest of far corners of the earth, so that the person who mentioned it can never, ever find me. Laugh if you want, but picking a career is the stuff of nightmares. I'm afraid of just thinking about it.

Right now, my entire body is shaking, my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest, and my fight-or-flight response has kicked into high gear. You could tell me I'm going to die tomorrow, and I wouldn't be as utterly frightened as I am right now.

I am in no way kidding about anything I just wrote. This is serious shit.

I'm good at a lot of things. I can write, sing, draw, compose, do math, and learn musical instruments like nobody's business, and that's not even the entire list. If something looks interesting, I'll try it, expecting that it will come easily. If it catches my heart, I'll start working at it so that I can not just reach, but exceed the heights of my potential in that area. If it doesn't catch my heart, but something about it still speaks to me, then I'll dabble from time to time and enjoy playing around with it. About the only things that I've tried (and I really haven't tried much beyond what's been offered to me at school and home) that I have to really work at in order for my efforts to look vaguely presentable are dance and the more rigorous aspects of philosophy and logic. Perhaps I'll lose readers over this; I don't care. Being good at a lot of things doesn't make me any less human, and it certainly doesn't make me a genius. If my cognitive psychology class has taught me anything, it's that I operate well within normal parameters.

As a child, there's nothing wrong with constantly seeking stimulation. There's nothing wrong with always wanting to learn and always wanting to be able to try new things and to develop a variety of skills. Children are encouraged to dream big and dream lots, give themselves a variety of options. But that's all that they are, options. Once you grow up, you're supposed to pick something and forget about all those other avenues, because being an adult means being good at one or two things, and doing those things for the rest of your life. Some people are fine with that. That's okay; I don't expect everyone to be like me. It's when everyone expects me to be like them that I start to freak.

Telling me that I can only pick one career, one future, is like telling me to cut off my limbs and paint with my nostrils. It's like saying "Well, you've had your childhood to try out all your senses, so which one do you want to keep?".

Yes, dear doctor, I would love to keep just my sight. Then I can be deaf, numb, and unable to enjoy food and flowers properly for the rest of my life, but at least I'll be able to give you such a look that you'll know it's all your fault that I'm miserable.

Becoming an adult feels like killing my curiosity, enthusiasm for learning, ability to experiment with everything, love for everything that doesn't fit with my career... good God. It feels like death.

I've told a little of this to others, and they've told me that I'm overreacting. All I have to do is find the thing that incorporates everything that I love, and it'll be okay. Well. That's what most of them have said, and it's good advice; advice that I've taken seriously because it would be freaking awesome if there was a job that incorporated everything that I love, while still leaving room to grow. This advice doesn't hurt me; it makes sense and invariably comes from people who I admire for their confidence and maturity. It's what other have said that hurts.

What they say: "Stop complaining, Thea. I'm only good at one thing; you should be happy that you have so much to pick from."

What I understand them to say: "Thea, quit your whining. You're freaking out because you can't pick what to do? Oh, boo hoo. I can't do anything else. Pick one thing and stop this idiotic showing off."

What I hear them believing: "I have no choice but this one. I'm not good at anything else. I can never be more than anything I already am. I will feel attacked by anyone who thinks otherwise about themselves because, if I can't have anything better than this, then neither should they."

And that is the person I'm terrified of becoming. That is the person I see myself becoming if I deny myself all the things make me me except for the one that I decide to call my career. Cut off the roots, and the fruit becomes bitter. I will flee to the ends of the universe from that person. That person is dead inside, and I am alive, and want to live, live, live.

I am afraid that I will knowingly commit identity suicide just to be accepted by everyone else.

This fear has grown to irrational proportions in my heart. Whenever I get a new notebook, I feel pressured to do something specific with it, so I put it on a shelf and do nothing with it just so I don't have to choose. I let others choose what to do when we hang out whenever possible, because I don't want to have to be the one who narrows my options. I start a blog and, when it begs for a purpose, I write about everything except something that might start to define a purpose.

I can't keep living like this. For crying out loud, I'm writing novels that will someday be published. If I don't get my act together now, I'm going to be writing a lot of insincere crap, and no-one wants to read that. So, over the next month I'll be digging deep and figuring out exactly what I'm going to do with this blog. The guest post is still going up next week (next week! :D) on Sue's blog, and I have a special surprise for you all happening on the 30th, so if I write anything in the middle of the month, it's only going to be one post. And it's going to be about the purpose of this blog.

There you go, guys. After a year of blogging, I've finally started to show you who I am. If you don't like me, then move right along. As my mother once told me: "You're not going to like everybody, and not everyone's going to like you. And that's okay." On the other hand, if I haven't repelled you by all this then, hey! I'd love to get to know you. Don't worry, I won't make you tell me your deepest fears or anything. Just tell me what you're comfortable sharing, and if you don't feel comfortable saying anything, that's okay, too. I don't mind lurkers. ;)

Ahuiztol or Ahuizotl, and Does it Matter?

2011-12-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

When thinking of the next water monster to talk about, some part of my mind dredged up a freaky Mayan creature I had once read about. All I could remember was that it had a hand on its tail and vaguely what it looked like, and I was pretty sure that the book I'd read the information in didn't mention its name. So, I turned to my friend, Taryn, who's working on a book that involves a culture that she styled after the Maya. And because she researches like a boss.

Turned out that she only knew about the creature because of a book her sister has about various Mesoamerican peoples, but she was able to find the name, which she carefully spelled out for me over the phone:

Ahuiztol.

I would try to pronounce it, but I always sound like I'm sneezing.

Anyways, when I finally started researching in earnest, I turned to my handy-dandy Dictionary of Mythology and found... nothing. There is something wrong when a book as massive as that one doesn't have what I'm looking for. Panic was waiting to set in, sitting by the doorway that is my self control, rubbing its little hands together gleefully. (Great, now I've got an image in my head of a malicious-looking imp squatting beside my brain.)

Thankfully, before I had a chance to get overdramatic, I found an entry entitled "Ahuizotl":

"an Aztec water monster

"This monster is said to be half dog, half monkey, with an extra hand on the end of its tail. It was said to pull people into the water with this hand, killing them and eating only their eyes, nails and teeth."

Excuse me, but did that book just say that it's Aztec? It's the right monster, just the wrong culture. But, since it was my best bet, I enlisted the help of Google. Here's what I found:

Most say that the ahuizotl is part dog and part monkey, though some say that it's probably more like a giant otter. While the Dictionary does not mention this, most also attest to this disturbing creature having hands at the end of each foot as well as at the end of the tail. Interestingly enough, while the hand at the end of its tail is described as a human hand, the ones that serve as feet are described as racoon- or monkey-like.

The diet of the ahuizotl is also under slight contention: some agree with the Dictionary, and others say it will eat everything and that the eyes, nails and teeth are its favourites. Most say that, if it hasn't gotten enough to eat recently, it will cry like a baby so that it can nab those who came to help the poor wee babe.

It generally lives in lakes or rivers, where it can drown unsuspecting fishermen, well-meaning citizens or probably even curious children. Moral of the story: don't be a fisherman, concerned about wailing infants, or curious. Or the ahuizotl will get you, my pretties!

*ehem*

Really, compared to the Stromkarlen/Fossegim/Neck/Nøkken/Nix/Thing, the ahuizotl is refreshingly consistent. You can count on it 100% to kill you if you get too close, no matter how nice you are, and you're even fairly confident what your corpse is going to look like when it's through with its meal.

There's so much that could be done with this creature. I could give suggestions, but I feel like it would be somewhat superfluous. Besides, I can practically hear the question on everyone's minds by now:

"Why on earth did you think the ahuizotl was Mayan, Thea?"

Um.

After researching all these wonderful details, I found the book where I'd first read about our monster du jour, and it turns out that I just happened to have had a brain fart of some kind. Not only does the book (The Fantasy Encyclopedia -fantastic for pictures, but lean on info) mention the creature's name, an emperor who used it as his emblem, and it also says very, very clearly that the ahuizotl comes from Aztec stories.

Well, I'm only human!

References:

The Dictionary of Mythology

Monsters and Beasts (this page also has some really neat pictures of the ahuizotl)

Godchecker

Two Possible Cryptids from Precolumbian Mesoamerica

The Fantasy Encyclopedia

And here's a cool-looking book that apparently has a section on the ahuizotl:

Mesoamerican Legendary Creatures

Tests, Tests, Go Away; Come Again Another Day...

2011-12-08T01:10:00.001-07:00

Being a university student, I'm in the middle of finals season right now, which means I won't be able to put up a new post until after the 16th. I do apologize. When I'm done with finals, I promise to put up a real post about Mayan water monsters. In the mean time, please enjoy this gorgeous song covered by my new favourite singer:

If that song left you feeling sad, then I leave you with an absurd video to cheer you up:

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well, unless you're also going through finals, in which case I hope both are going well and that you're getting enough sleep on top of everything. :)

A Forthcoming Guest Blog Post and an Award!

2011-11-05T18:50:00.002-06:00

Sometime in either December or January, a guest post by me will appear on http://suesantore.com/! I don't know the date yet, so keep watching this space for more information:

[The date: January 6th! :D]

Until then, I'd encourage you to click on that link and check out Sue's website. She's got lots of solid writing advice, and there's a guest post every Friday!

Next bit of news!

About a month ago, Angela McGill gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!

She blogs about writing, animals, music, and other lovely things that you'll just have to find out about when you go to her blog! Besides which, she's extremely entertaining and one of the few people I've found that are willing to engage in imagining extended ridiculousness. If you've gotten any unseasonable hurricanes in your areas, that's most likely because we were considering deep frying foods that should never be deep fried. :)

Now, when accepting this award, there are a few rules I have to follow:

1. Thank and link the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass this award on to 15 blogging friends.
4. Contact and congratulate the awarded bloggers.

So, I've fulfilled the first already. Onwards!

Seven random facts about me:

1) I'm just over five feet tall. Not quite 5'1", but not a chance am I going to settle for saying I'm only five feet tall. I have my dignity to think about. ;)

2) Whenever people have asked for random facts about me, I've always mentioned at some point that I love pickles.

3) I love pickles.

4) Sometimes, I'm a smart aleck. (No, wait, I think we've figured that one out by now...)

5) I love puns. They're just so... so... punny.

6) My favourite fairy tale is "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", but I always mess up the ending when I tell it. Gotta go learn it properly someday. :)

7) I can wiggle my ears, but don't ask me how. It just happened one day that I started being able to wiggle them, and I'm quite thankful that the ability hasn't vanished as mysteriously as it came. Now, if I could only figure out a practical use for this...

The winners (in no particular order):

1) Rachael Stephen- Also known as Mythic Flux, Rachael blogs about writing, books, and vegan recipes. Really, I need to try one of those out. Chickpea Fried Rice, for example, sounds fantastic. *salivates* Also, she's got a YouTube channel, and the video "The Heart of Storytelling" is pretty dang fantastic.

2) Lewinna Solwing- Besides having one of the coolest names ever, Lewinna's crazy about dragons, and her beautiful artwork depicting said creatures adorn nearly every page of the writing section of her website (the link in her name is just for her blog). Also, she's a massage therapist, and has a whole section of her site devoted to that as well!

3) Mike Duran- Before I mention his blog: Mike's first ebook is now available on Amazon and Smashwords! I haven't read it yet, but I've been following his blog for a while, and he has really impressed me with his thoughts about horror, Christianity, Christian fiction, writing, etc. Every post has challenged me to think outside the box, and does so with an honesty that I really respect.

4) Stant Litore- When Stant first followed me on Twitter, I checked out his profile and saw that he was working on a series called The Zombie Bible. Unfortunately, my first reaction to any mention of zombies is uncontrollable laughter, but I read the descriptions of the stories, and I was hooked. I finished reading the first book last week, and I very highly recommend it -just like I recommend his blog! If you like zombies, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to check it out.

5) Emily Casey- I love taking the time to see what's new on Emily's blog. Her optimism breathes through her words like a refreshing breeze. She enjoys messing up fairy tales, as will be seen in her first novel The Fairy Tale Trap, coming out next month! If you're curious, she has the first three chapters available on her site, and she's also having a book cover design contest, and the winner gets a $25 Amazon gift card. :D

6) Anne Lyle- Okay, so Anne has this crazy mojo where she finds some of the coolest sounding books to review. She's also got plenty of awesome tech advice, and also has a book coming out next year (March for the US, April for the UK) called The Alchemist of Souls, which sounds rather epic in a Elizabethan fantasy alternate history kind of way.

7) Kat Anthony- If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me put up links to steampunk wonderfulness every once in a while. Well, Kat would be the one I get them all from. If I could base the awesomeness of people on whether or not they like steampunk, Kat gets full marks. :) Aside from that, her blog posts are very well-written, thoughtful, and often quite beautiful. Definitely worth taking a look.

Okay... now pretend that each of these entries represents two people, which means that I've awarded 14 bloggers. *coughs* In all honesty, I don't read very many blogs yet, and the others I would have given the award already have it. This means I can still keep my pretty award, right? *looks adorable*

Well, think of it this way: this is a chance for you to tell me about your favourite bloggers, and let's see if we can't make this list a little longer. :) If you read a blog that you think is utterly sublime, then please leave a quiff on this post with a link, and I will check them out.

Have a lovely week and keep on being fabulous!

Why Writing, of All Things?

2011-10-23T17:28:00.002-06:00

Three days ago was the National Day on Writing. I'm not entirely sure which nation the national bit referred to, but I decided to participate via Twitter by telling everyone in 140 characters or less why I write. The result:

Because stopping is akin to suffocation, and continuation is my truest expression of joy. #whyiwrite

Now, since 140 characters to describe a lifelong obsession (or passion, whichever implied level of sanity you prefer) leaves very little room for elaboration and I do, after all, have this lovely little blog, I thought I'd put this week's post to good use. :D

About a year ago, I received a tip saying that, if I really wanted to write things that mattered to me, I had to know why I was doing this crazy thing called writing. I pondered that, thinking about what it was about the call to create with words that my heart responded to so readily.

About a week later, I witnessed a conversation between a friend and her friend that amounted to little more than a war with words. Everything they said to each other was designed to hurt, to pierce, to destroy. Being a writer, I love language, using it effectively and with style, bringing new meaning and new perspectives to others. When someone uses a phrase unfamiliar to me; it excites me. When someone places words in an order that makes them sing; it thrills me. Words have such a power for good, because they not only create, but invite the audience to create with them. They are healers, encouragers, inspiration and innovation, full of breath and endless possibilities. When I heard the war, I heard a symphony used for genocide. The tools of life bent on murder. Reeling in the aftermath, I tried to focus my thoughts and emotions, tried to say what I wanted to scream, and ended up writing four paragraphs of poetic prose (poetic voice in the form of prose).

Then I realized that what I had written described why it is that I write:

Angry words are steel swords aiming to rip hearts out and leave the whole bloody mess on display, dripping. Watch the war begin... or choose to hold your fury mute when your passions threaten to kill, maim and destroy. The calm mind reasons, the raging mind disembowels. Hurt blossoms at the fingers of a wrathful heart. Pain births its children in the abused and abusers.

Life and death lie as choices on the hands of everyone rearing for expression. Death has showy advertisement, an established track record, an award for the path of least resistance. Its fans and followers hold the megaphone of quick success to their lips, while the jaws of their master tighten unnoticed around their waists. Promises of the distraction of cacophony, the security of chaos and the assurance of everlasting invalidity assault the senses. Is it simpler, then, to drown in the sea of perceptions?

Wait a moment, then watch the winter fall as the volcanic power ebbs. Ash catches in the hair, the mouth, the breath. No healing, like that of the clean snow, is found in the mountain's excrement. A ruined island stands, disconnected from the world, sullen in its cover of failure. Its land may become fertile, but not if the volcano remains active, for the skies will remain blackened with clouds of soot that can neither rain nor dissipate.

'Come to me,' whispers life. 'Come. Bring your sorrows, your detached, bleeding heart, your blackened life and watch. Allow a single drop of rain to fall on your dying skin. Cup the leaves of the one seedling in your hands and whisper songs to it. Calm the force behind your violence. Build the dreams and visions of yourself and the ones around you and strengthen the foundations of the architecture of wonder. You will turn around to see beauty already emerged and flowering. Come. Choose me and your world will burst into green.'

When I write, I choose life. I take what people have used as weapons and offer healing. Instead of telling people that they are detestable, I want to show them how they are wonderful. With these tools, I want to create things that add to the beautiful things in the world, like laughter and adventure. Even if I fail miserably, I want to at least try to show people that, just because darkness exists, it doesn't mean that it overshadows the light. It's probably the most preposterous and presumptuous goal I have, but it's mine, and it's as necessary to me as breathing.

This is why I write.

Nøkken, Stromkarlen, Fossegim, Oh My!

2011-10-10T22:35:00.001-06:00

Five or so years ago, I remember reading about various mythological water monsters and coming across one mentioned in passing called a "Neck". No joke. The name struck me as odd, and the book I was reading had infuriatingly little information on the creature, so it awoke my curiosity. I would like to say that I promptly researched everything on Necks and became and expert, but I hadn't the slightest idea how to search for information on it, not only for the very obvious coincidence of its name, but also because I didn't know where these creatures were from. So, I kept the fact of their existence in my head as a quirky bit of knowledge that I could show off to impress people (or make them go away, depending on the people) and did nothing more with it. When I came up with the idea of this series, my mind nearly immediately turned back to the mysterious Necks and I knew that I had to talk about them first.

Oh dear. I'm giggling every time I write the word "Necks". Please bear with me; I find a better name very soon, I promise.

Between now and that first encounter, I have purchased a really, really big book called The Dictionary of Mythology. Everything I have looked for in it I have found, no matter how obscure. So, when I started researching Necks, I went straight to that book, moseyed on over to the "N" section, held my breath, went a bit too far in both directions, and then finally found my water monster. And I quote:

"Necks (see Stromkarls)"(pg 741)

Thank-you, dear Dictionary, how very helpful of you. *ehem*

"Stromkarl Scandinavian ... In Norway, this being is a spirit of the waterfall and a wonderful musician. In Sweden, it is the spirit of any body of freshwater."(pg 963)

With a name I knew I could easily search for, out came trusty Google, and in came the information.

Stromkarls, also known as Nøkken, Fossegrim, Nixes, and a whole host of other names, are male water spirits that often lure people to be drowned in whatever body of water they inhabit. As Stromkarls and Fossegrim, they do so by playing beautiful music on their fiddles while they sit under a waterfall. They wouldn't always try to drown people, though, as they aren't as malevolent as the Nøkken. Sometimes, if a person gives them a sacrifice, they will teach them how to play the fiddle. Give a sacrifice that's too small, and they'll only teach you how to tune your instrument, but give one that's big enough and they'll teach you how to be master fiddlers.

Those sounded nice, didn't they? Well, let me tell you about the Nøkken. These creatures can play the fiddle as well, and might teach someone else how to play, but they will try to drown their pupils. If you want to be a master fiddler, you have to be very, very careful. They can also shape shift, turning into horses that will take any riders into a watery grave, or beautiful young men who will seduce women and then pull them under, or a raft floating on the water that would sink or float away.

Then there's the German variant, known as the Nix. Nixes don't involve themselves with fiddles, and they tend to look like mermaids and mermen. Unlike the Nøkken, Nixes don't seem to leave the water often, and will try to draw people to them rather than finding people to drown (though I'm not entirely sure how good a Nøkken in the form of a raft is at finding people), relying on their songs to lure people in, like the Stromkarl with his fiddle.

"Hold on, Thea!" I hear you say. "I thought you were going to tell me about one monster. I think we're up to three by now. Why?"

As far as I am concerned, these are all the same creature. Their traits and behaviours overlap too much for me to say that one is separate from the other. The Nixes and the Stromkarls, perhaps, but only if the Nøkken didn't exist to tie them together. I like to think of mythological creatures as having different cultures and ethnic groups. Imagine that there used to be one group of these water spirits, way back when all the Germanic peoples were also one group. As time went on, they settled further areas, following the spread of the Germanic tribes, becoming more and more different the farther they went. Nowadays, the ones farthest from each other are the most different, but the ones next to each other are very similar, making a continuum of Stromkarl/Fossegrim/Neck/Nøkken/Nix cultures, with different customs and preferences. Perhaps people treated the Nøkken poorly over time, causing them to orient more towards harming humans as revenge for past treatment. Perhaps a Stromkarl took up a fiddle one day and liked it so much that he gave one to all his friends. Perhaps the Nixes play a game with their singing, and the number of drowned humans is the score. Even within these different water spirit cultures, there is variance. Some Fossegrim fall in love and live with humans for a time. Some Nøkken limit their victims to women and children. Humans in different places act and think differently, so why not these water spirits?

The possibilities! I'm getting plot bunnies just thinking about them (think dust bunnies, but cuter and made of tantalizing bits of stories).

Now, this is all very well and good, but I'm sure that the next, burning question on everyone's mind is: "What on earth do I do the next time I'm in Norway, Sweden or Germany and a Stromkarl/Fossegrim/Neck/Nøkken/Nix ups and grabs me? Surely there must be some way to defend myself."

Excellent question. Apparently, if you say his name, the Stromkarl/Fossegrim/Neck/Nøkken/Nix will disappear back into the water. Unfortunately, none of my sources included a list of names of the more active of these creatures. The fact that they didn't answer their phones the last time I called is probably a result of this oversight.

Sites and books I used for research! :D

The Dictionary of Mythology
Dante's Heart- Stromkarl
Mythical Creatures and Beasts Wiki- Nøkken
Troll Blog- Fossegrim
Wikipedia- Necks
Folketro og Overtro- Nøkken

Also, here's a short story about a Fossegrim!

What Are These Series You Speak of?

2011-09-25T00:50:00.000-06:00

Before I officially kick off any of the series I mentioned in the last post, I thought I'd make a list of all the series I have going (or will have going in the near future), along with an explanation of what they're about. This post will be updated as new series get added and old ones are completed, and will always be listed first in the Series links in the right-hand column on this page, for easy reference. Without further ado, the series:

Current:
Backstage Passes: Your access to the crazy things going on backstage in my stories. Conversations with troublesome characters, the antics of my muse/subconscious/right brain, inexplicable turn-of-events during the writing of a story, and more!

Best. Authors. Ever.: Of all the many books I've read, a handful have been written by authors that have affected me deeply, teaching me not only about writing, but also about life itself.

News: Want to know what's going on with the site, my books, the blog, or any new things I'm doing online or in public? This series is the place to find out!

Terminal Punctuation Optional?: Ranting with coherency. Craziness with a purpose. An absolute dearth of sentence fragments. I think.

The Life of Thea: Boring? What is this boring? My life is fun and exciting! ;)

WAHOO: Often, this series will overlap with others, especially Backstage Passes, News and The Life of Thea, but that's exactly how it should work. Wonderfulness refuses to be categorized!

Water Monsters that Drown You: No matter where you go, there's always something waiting for you in the water. Good thing I'm not superst... *blub*

Coming Soon:
Free Candy! Wherein I share with you short stories, poems, excerpts from novels, or any other little tidbits of writing for the express purpose of them being free.

The Pointy Stick of Fun-Poking: Sometimes, when you love something, the only thing to do is make fun of it mercilessly.

Advice from a Reader: Since I have a ton more experience as a reader than a writer, it makes more sense to talk about what I like as a reader than try to give advice about writing.

Exciting New Things!!!

2011-09-11T01:26:00.001-06:00

First off, some housekeeping (mostly for my own sanity): for some odd and inexplicable reason, I cannot publish any changes to the other half of my website because my website software cannot login to the ftp server. This is upsetting because I've not only fixed an embarrassing typo, but I've also made a few things look much prettier. I will, however, have to figure out what's going on and fix it before I can change anything over there. Which means that all updates shall come through here.

Excellent.

We are all very excited. *rolls eyes*

I shall now provide antidote through the proclamation of my plans to self-publish. Yes, yes you did hear me correctly. I am going to self-publish, starting with the project I've been working on in secret for the past two months: a series of short story anthologies called Expected Aberrations! (cue applause) Each anthology will be one, complete journey through five or more stories of entirely different genres. Let your imagination expand. Discover new mysteries, unearth familiar secrets, shudder at the intimately terrifying, and explore all the shininess that unknown worlds have to offer. And get warm fuzzies for helping a writer continue to do what she loves. /plug :)

I've already written the first drafts of two of the stories, and I'm working on the third. Release date is still overly vague. My initial idea of the Christmas holiday got quashed due to the beginning of the school year and the intensity of second-year university courses...

But wait, there's more! I'll also be making my official writer site. No more of this two-halves-of-a-website thing which, I'll admit, is ridiculous to navigate effectively and nowhere near as professional as I'd like to have things on the internet. I suppose I could go into detail on how, exactly, I want to make things better, but I do realize that the ultimate sin of writing is to bore the reader. Therefore, all that I will say is that changes are coming within the year, and I will keep you all posted as to when things happen.

My third lovely announcement that is tied into the other two has to do with this very blog! As all of you may have realized, I have a hard time writing on a regular basis. As none of you may have realized, this has to do with my love-hate relationship with series.

What a series of blog posts has going for it: it's darn easy to figure out what to write next. My memory is fantastic at using associations. Once I hear or read about a situation or topic, my mind starts pulling out, rapid-fire, any and all memories that relate. It's great for personal response essays in high school, and for writing a series of blog posts. The only problem is that I love doing new things. If I'm stuck in a series, I can't do new things. Which makes me feel frustrated, which leads to hating the series, which leads to random tangents, which leads to ending the series before I've really finished it (the process is strongly reminiscent of the sneaky hate spiral). How do I solve this? By starting more than one series, and writing a new addition to whichever one I'm the most interested that week! I would say it's foolproof, but I'm pretty sure we'd all be thinking "famous last words!". What I do know is that I get excited just thinking about it, and that's good enough for me.

Well, that's it! Three announcements in rapid-fire, though shot out of my brain instead of a shotgun because you're people and not zombies. That and I have notoriously bad aim, so I'd probably end up hitting everything but myself and the zombies if I did have a shotgun.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend!

Then the Hero Did Something Amazingly Epic

2011-08-31T23:37:00.001-06:00

Once upon a time, there was a writer who was smack-dab in the middle of writing what she felt was her best story yet when everything ran straight into a wall. She smacked her computer a couple of times, succeeded in breaking her favourite pen when it accidentally hit the wall a little too hard on the backswing, spilled black ink on the carpet, made a huge, ugly blotch in her attempt to scrub out the ink, bashed her knuckles against the desk leg in the process, got rug burn on her elbow while she fell over from the shock of bashing her knuckles, lay on her back, looked up without really seeing anything and burst into tears. Her eye liner had just reached her ears when, lo, an angel appeared before her, bright as the sun and pretty gorgeous besides. The writer sat up, tears forgotten, and tried to wipe the streaks of eye liner from her temples.

“FEAR NOT FOR I BRING A WORD FROM THE LORD!” the angel cried. “HE HAS SEEN THY SUFFERING AND HAS COMMANDED ME TO TELL THEE HOW TO END IT!” He paused, arms held out and face to the sky, waiting for a gasp or other, similar sounds of astonishment.

“Excuse me,” the writer said, ears ringing. “Could you please speak a little quieter? I’d like to still have my hearing when I’m fifty.”

The angel glared at the writer down one side of his nose.

“Sorry, I know this is a dramatic moment and all, but I’m a little concerned about my eardrums, that’s all.” The writer shifted to a more comfortable position, folded her hands on her lap and stared attentively at the angel, who rolled his eyes.

“As thou wish’st. I shall indeed lower my voice, but remember well that this great moment has been quashed in part by thy selfishness.”

“Point noted.”

“Now! Attend well to this, thy message from the Most High!” The angel lifted his hands towards the ceiling, which the writer noticed had a large cobweb in the corner where two walls met that she thought she should probably warn the angel of before he hit it. She opened her mouth to speak, but the angel had already not only knocked white bits off the ceiling in his exuberance, but had also immersed his fingers in the sticky stuff. The expression on his face changed to one of profound disgust and he looked up slowly. His eyes widened to the approximate size of ping-pong balls when he saw what engulfed his hand.

“What. Is. That!” The angel curled his lips, every other muscle frozen, reminding the writer of an offended cat.

“A spider web. I’ve been meaning to clean-”

“HOW DARE THOU ALLOW’ST MINE HAND TO FALL UPON SUCH A... SUCH A...” The angel’s other hand windmilled helplessly.

“Gross?” the writer offered, clapping her own hands over her ears.

“SUCH A GROSS SUBSTANCE!”

“It’s not that bad. Spider’s silk is actually quite beautiful when-”

“DOST THOU NOT RESPECT THAT I AM ONE OF THE LORD’S MESSENGERS?” The writer winced.

“It’s not like I could help it. They’re not even visible in certain lights.” The angel turned his gaze back to the writer, his expression of such intense fury that she was positive that tongues of fire had started burning behind his irises. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it again. Then he vanished, taking the cobweb with him.

Writers get blocked sometimes. We’re writing at full speed, loving every minute and then we hit a spot in the story where we realize we haven’t the faintest clue what on earth is going to happen next. We know exactly what’s happening directly after this gaping hole, but we haven’t enough to fill the hole so that we can get to the other side.

The problem is, much as we wish it, there isn’t going to be an angel come to tell you what to write next. Neither will fairies wave their wands and give us new ideas. So, what do we do? Here are a couple of ideas:

1) Move on.

Pretend the hole already got filled, or fill it with something vague like: “they traveled for a while, doing interesting and exciting things” or “events of unknown entertainment caliber occurred” or, if you’re really stuck, “something happened”. Then keep going as if the whole scene (or scenes) has already been written. Barring a revelation partway through a later scene, revision will be the time when the hole can be assessed. It might end up that the story works better without that hole even being mentioned.

2) Go do something that isn’t writing-related.

It’s like talking with a friend and forgetting an important word, only to remember it hours later when in the middle of something completely different (for me, this usually happens when I’m trying to fall asleep). Thinking too hard about the story can impair your ability to write it. So, don’t think about it. Do some housework, feed the pets, play an instrument, take a walk... whatever will give you a break and free your subconscious to formulate awesomeness without being under scrutiny. Take some time to relax, even if it isn’t very long, and it will do wonders.

Even if an angel comes, it’s not likely to be very helpful. But neither is bashing against a brick wall, hoping that *this time* it will fall. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, thinking that we’ll get different results. Let’s try for sanity, shall we?

After a moment of processing the bizarre encounter, the writer got up, made herself a cup of coffee, and then went out to rent a steam cleaner. Hopefully, if she wrestled with the ink stain long enough, something story-related would shake loose.

The Story Equivalent of Dropping Mentos into a Bottle of Coke.

2011-05-28T19:42:00.006-06:00

*Warning* For those of you that are concerned by this, there is an instance of language later in the post. If that kind of thing really, really bugs you, then don’t read this post because the instance of language is kind of important for understanding the rest of it. I have considered cutting it, but what I’m trying to say would suffer greatly from its omission. Thanks for understanding.

Right now, as well as (still) looking for a summer job, I’m taking a writing course. I signed up for it basically as soon as finals were over, which earned me an incredulous look from my mother, but I don’t mind. Why? Aside from the fact that I absolutely love learning things at all times and will actually go and research topics that interest me if I’ve gone too long without learning something new, I knew I needed something to help me out with my writing. Not that it’s unspeakable horrible (unless I have really, really nice friends who are also much better at acting than they let on), but that it hasn’t really been flying. It’s more like slogging through thigh-high mud while wearing shorts and flippers that are at least two sizes too big. No, not mud. Slime. Nasty, green slime like the stuff that floats on the top of a lake or pond that has way too much algae in it. That slime. But now I’m fixating.

While I getting ready to work on one of my lessons, I started thinking about Main Character and that I needed to know more about her because she was really lacking in the motivation department. Remember, in my first post, how she was being snarky with me and wouldn’t cooperate? While that was, um, lovely, she didn’t have enough motivation to keep up with it even as I slapped together a very sloppy version of what she was demanding. Then my thoughts wandered to the assignment for a previous lesson where I made what is basically a map of all the things that are the most important to me, and I wondered if I just needed to look at it and see what applied to her. Then I thought about the map itself.

‘Monsters,’ I said to myself. ‘Monsters are everywhere...’

Mentos in Coke.

As my brain was fizzing out of control, I realized that adding monsters to the story had done wonders. But I’m understating. The story EXPLODED. I’m still understating. There is no word in the English language capable of properly explaining the intensity of expansion the coolness factor of my story underwent. Or the amount of monsters. When I say monsters are now everywhere, I really do mean it. All kinds. All of various nastiness...es.

First, this insane cult leader that I thought was dead came back, leading his army of monsters created by the chaotic power of magical storms. He then proceeded to make much war on all the people in my story. Mystery Character (Villain) grew an antisocial personality disorder and did really evil things in tandem with the crazy cult leader. Insignificant Character grew a spine and is now a wonderful person I am very glad to have included in the story. That fluffy little subplot involving people keeling over is now SO important to the story I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner. The changes were so absolutely mind-blowing that even MSC’s fabulous burrito could not keep him from not only paying attention but also getting up and involved with all the enormously awesome stuff that was going on all around him. It was like fireworks on the scale of H-bombs going off everywhere in my head at once. It was wonderful.

But I was worried. Main Character now needed motivation even more than she needed to be able to breathe. Absolutely every single one of her worst nightmares were not just rearing their heads. They were running full-tilt in her direction, carrying the deadliest weapons they could. If she did not motivation, she would find herself living in her own, personal, devastating hell for the rest of her life. Never mind death, guys. Death would be unicorns and rainbows compared to this. Death would be so far off the radar she wouldn’t even be able to consider it as an escape.

I was scared. Terrified, deep down to the marrow of my bones. This is the best story I have ever worked on. Main Character is like my other half. There was no way I could bear it if she got crushed under the weight. She had come so believably, so wonderfully alive in my mind over this past while that to lose her to her own story would be akin to watching, helpless, while my best friend bleeds to death from a slashed jugular. What was I going to do? It was all up to her. And, as I was frozen with fear, this is what she said to the hordes of every dark thing she had ever feared coming at her to destroy every good thing in her life until even the memories were gone:

“Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here? If you don’t get your asses out of my life, I am going to rain such terror on you that you will wish you had never been born!”

Yeah. I wish others could witness what’s going on in my head sometimes, because I wanted to stand up and yell “That’s MY character!” at the top of my lungs, like parents yell out “That’s MY kid!” when their son or daughter has done something spectacular in public. But I was in my room. Alone. And I was also a little too stunned to really think much.

It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I don’t care that it’s still a long shot before I finish the story. I don’t care that I had to throw my outline right out the window and I have to start over with it. I don’t care that I haven’t the slightest idea how Main Character is going to come out on top. All I know is that my story absolutely freaking rocks and I am ecstatic to keep writing it.

That’s all.

:D

(This was first published at: http://theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog/Blog.html)

How Very Smee Your Cat is!

2011-05-18T14:41:00.002-06:00

As noted in my last post, my website software has issues with italics in the midst of non-italics. All book titles will be, unfortunately, put in quotation marks.

I first discovered L.M. Montgomery through CBC’s adaptation of “Anne of Green Gables”, where Megan Follows did a wonderful job of portraying Anne. Many years later, I read the book for the first time and enjoyed it even more than the mini-series.

When I found out it was the first in a series, I went a little overboard and tried to read the whole thing at once. It’s a long series and, wonderful as she is, one can have too much Anne in a week. I got as far as half-way through “Rilla of Ingleside”. Sometime I will finish it, but I will have to be more strategic in how I read that whole series from the beginning again, because I don’t remember some of the books very well. Although, you have to admit, eight and a half books in a row before glut is a testament to L.M. Montgomery’s writing skill. The (chronologically) first prequel trilogy to “Dune” got there after one and a half books for me.

But, for those of you who have read the Anne books and have no idea what on earth the title refers to, allow me to turn to L.M. Montgomery’s less famous trilogy called “Emily of New Moon”. It is my most favourite trilogy of all time (so is the original “Dune” trilogy, but these two trilogies are mutually exclusive, so I feel fine in giving them the same standing). What endeared me more to the Emily books than to the Anne books was that I identified much more with Emily. She was a writer, and very serious about her work, like me. Anne was an extravert, whereas Emily was an introvert, like me. Her wonderfully complex and imperfect family consisted of individuals that could practically leap off the page, and she reacted to them in ways similar to how I would to people like them. From these books about one of my favourite characters, I learned several things about writing:

1) Characterization can be enhanced by familial similarities. All through the trilogy, references are made to characteristics that are common in certain families, whether faults or virtues. The Murrays have an impressive list of them, being that they are Emily’s closest relatives. But, as much as these traits are applied to groups in general, each individual within the groups manages to be unique. Emily, for example, shares some Murray traits, but also some Starr traits (her father’s side of the family) as well as some traits that are unique to her, which come out very clearly when contrasted with her Murray relatives.

2) Creativity is beautiful. Though we never get to directly read the many poems and stories Emily writes over the course of the trilogy, we do hear her thoughts, peek in on some of her journal entries, and get to know some of her favourite fantasies. From Emily-in-the-glass to the Wind Woman, she infuses bits of her daily life with imaginings and wonder. Even though life happens, and sometimes happens hard, she always manages to return to the things that matter most deeply to her.

3) Writing is hard work, emotionally. Emily is much more diligent than I am about writing. But she still encountered major disappointments, like most of her family wanting her to stop writing because they thought it was silly. Or a close and trusted friend telling her that her story was horrible when it really was wonderful all because he was jealous. Thankfully, she mostly just laughed at the reviews on her first book, what with one reviewer praising a character and another deploring the very same one. But she did have to deal with people being angry at her for making a character too similar to a relative, even though she had never intended so.

4) Real life always happens. Something that L.M. Montgomery had such a good handle on was that her characters lived in a world where actions produced consequences, everyone makes mistakes and sometimes bad things happen out of the blue and people have to deal with it. She grounded her stories in this, giving a sense that you could just walk into the world of the book and not be in the least surprised that the characters really exist. Horrible things happen, but so do embarrassing things, funny things and wonderful things. And they all happen as a result of the characters doing and saying and being the way they are. And changing. Not all the characters change, but some do, so believably and wonderfully that you can’t help but cheer for them as they go through life.

5) The most interesting things in life are, as said in one of the books: “births, deaths, marriages, and scandals”. When something begins or ends (or both), or when something out of the ordinary happens, people are interested. The murder of a king is a death and a scandal. Finding his illegitimate heir on some random farm in the middle of nowhere is a scandal. This same heir defeating the king’s murderer is a death and, if the heir began the story rather ignorant, a scandal. The heir becoming king and marrying the woman of his dreams is, obviously, a marriage. In other words, the basic format for epic fantasy consists of things that interest people-- the basic, cliched format for any genre consists of things that interest people. It’s why people keep writing and reading them. The challenge for the writer is to use interesting things and make them into a work of art.

6) Sometimes, you just have to make up your own word and leave it at that. Emily had a cat named Mike II (named after one of her first cats that she had to give away), and he had a certain air about him, a certain way he acted and looked that she could only describe as smee. Thanks to the latest episode of Doctor Who, I know that the smell of dust after rain is called petrichor. But what do you call the look of dirty concrete? What is the name for the wood shavings that lie on the floor? What do you call the feel or the sound of scratching a hard surface? Much as English has a ridiculous amount of highly specified words (when does one refer to the purlicue, the space between your thumb and extended index finger, anyway?), there are times where each of us feels like we really do need to add just one more. If we do, it’s not that big of a deal. So long as everyone understands what we’re talking about, there’s no need to worry.

All in all, my favourite things about L.M. Montgomery’s books are her characters, and I think that should be the case with every book I come across.

(this was first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

Earthsea, Genderless Humans, and Learning From One Fantastic Author

2011-04-25T16:08:00.007-06:00

(I apologize in advance to all formatting nazis... I haven’t figured out how to get my website-making program to make only some words italic. This means that, sadly, all book titles will be encompassed by punctuation marks. The English geek within me grieves deeply.)

Lately, I found the website of Ursula Le Guin, one of the most distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors of all time, and one of my favourite authors. If you have never read anything by her or have never even heard of her I want you to immediately stop what you’re doing, go to the nearest bookstore, find one of her books and buy it (trust me, there will be at least one there), then read the whole thing. You can come back to this when you’re done.

The first book I read by Ursula was “The Farthest Shore”, which is the third book of her series set in Earthsea, a world that consists mainly of islands (as far as the map shows). Yes, I read the third book first. I didn’t care. It had the coolest dragons I have ever encountered in fantasy, a wizard who treated magic and its effect on the world so seriously that he barely used it, and a voyage to the land of the dead. I then proceeded to read the fourth book second, the second book third and the first book fourth. By then, I discovered the real order to the series, read them all properly and concluded with the fifth book. I have never, before or since, mangled the order of a series so much, but I have never, aside from Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet, loved a series more. You heard me. I like it better than the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Foundation books, the whole Dune series, the Dark is Rising series... what is it with speculative fiction and series, anyways? But I have a point. I will continue towards it.

A few years before finishing reading the Earthsea Cycle, I found among my dad’s collection of books one of her most famous science fiction books: “The Left Hand of Darkness”. It’s about a man named Genly Ai from what is kind of like a league of worlds, who has come to the planet Gethen to ask them to join this league. Want to know what’s so interesting about the inhabitants of this planet? They have no gender. Once a month, they enter what is called kemmer, where they can become either male or female but, otherwise, they are androgynous. And the way in which the planet and the society is presented is so realistic and so well thought out that I am almost convinced that someday we will discover Gethen and the people who live on it in some nearby galaxy, if not our own.

I have since read more of her stories, and have enjoyed them all, so you can imagine how happy I was to find her website, as well as all the articles and interviews on it that included her thoughts on writing! The fact that I had three assignments due that week nearly got pushed out of the way in my excitement (nearly, but not completely. I did get them all done and handed in on time, despite how much I wanted to read all these new things -it was like being a kid in a candy store. Or mostly anyone in a candy store), and I read almost as if my life depended on it. The experience proved very enlightening, and I got to see some of her books in a new light, so I thought I’d share some of the things I learned, not only from her website, but also from her books:

1) Build your world as if it’s real. If you take your writing seriously, it shows. Part of what made reading the Earthsea books and “The Left Hand of Darkness” so immersive for me was how Ursula treated the worlds the stories took place in. They may only exist in our imaginations, but they really exist for the characters who live in them, so to patronize these characters and not to treat the worlds they live in seriously is a crime to them and to the reader. Unless, of course, you’re writing a parody. Then you’re allowed to make fun of whatever you wish.

2) The story structure we learned in school is not the be-all and end-all. The idea of having a beginning, middle and end, or the whole rising action-climax-falling action thing isn’t the only idea of how a story works. It’s just a Western one. In one of the articles on her website, Ursula suggests the idea of a story as a house. You bring the reader through the front door, and then either lead them through or let them wander through, or both. She even makes a reference to “The Yellow Wallpaper”, one of the most deliciously creepy short stories I’ve ever read.

3) The point of writing a story is not to give a message; to preach. The point of writing a story is to write a story. Perhaps our stories grapple with issues that we haven’t yet figured out, or perhaps we just wanted to know what might happen if (fill in the blank). A story can be an exploration of who we are, or a romp through implausibility for the sheer fun of it. Story is not sermon.

4) “Write what you know” includes fantasy. Obviously, Tolkien never went to Middle Earth and C.S. Lewis never visited Narnia, at least, not physically. But they are the experts of those worlds simply because they made them up. It’s part of what impressed me so much with “The Left Hand of Darkness”. Ursula knew exactly what she was talking about. She knows what the culture on Gethen looks like, makes the people there so different. Why? She made it up. We are the experts of the worlds that come out of our own heads. When we write about them, we write about what we know. And if we want to make them more plausible, we can do research on how our planet works and apply those rules to the worlds we have created. Even if what we write is set in our own world, in places we’ve never been or we’ve never experienced, just because we don’t know something now doesn’t mean we are forever barred from that knowledge. I guess some people have taken “write what you know” to mean that they can’t write about what they’ve never experienced. I’ve always taken it to mean: “if you haven’t experienced it, do your research well enough so that you can pretend you’ve experienced it. Made-up worlds need not necessarily apply.”

I don’t like all of Ursula’s books, but I love a lot of them, and I’ve learned from all of them. If you do hop by her website, be sure to read her extremely entertaining blog entry for March 9th, but be warned that it’s not exactly for everyone.

(this was first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

Worldviews

2011-03-30T22:43:00.003-06:00

How we see the world will show up in our writing. It has to, if we want to be honest about what we write. But what happens when our worldview is one that others mock? I’m not talking about when a story becomes so preachy it’s ridiculous. I’m talking about when what someone believes is mocked for no other reason than the person believes it.

Intolerance?

Perhaps.

But when members of your own worldview are considered intolerant, somehow the worldview is now fair game for ridicule. It’s like when someone on the Internet is trolling. Apparently, the rest of us reasonable people can troll them back simply because they’re trolls and have forfeited their rights to being treated decently. So, in a similar fashion, if a worldview has a history of “trolling” other worldviews, then it is somehow okay to go ahead and troll back, even if the person on the other end has and would never commit the atrocities others who profess the same beliefs as them have done in the past.

I, for one, would be terrified to tell anyone my worldview if it meant such treatment. Can you imagine hiding what you believe simply to avoid others lumping you into a category that you know you don’t belong in? And then, imagine the fear of writing anything honestly, because sharing a story is sharing your soul, and what others see of your soul may too easily stop at a label saying “I’m ____, therefore I am a bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, uncaring, intolerant jerk. Feel free to use me as your punching bag. In fact, here’s a reflection of the deepest part of me to tear to shreds. Enjoy.”

Anyone else feeling sick?

I am a Christian.

I believe that God created the world perfectly and with purpose and that Adam and Eve messed it up and tried to do his job for him. I believe that, because of what they did, they cut off the rest of humanity from God, and that our continuation of that alienation means we deserve death, but that God cared for us all too much to let things stay that way. I believe that he sent his son, Jesus, who is also God, to live a perfect life because we couldn’t and die in our place, so that we wouldn’t have to. I believe that Jesus defeated Satan and rose from the dead, breaking the power of death. I believe that Jesus set me free to live the life I was meant to live.

I am a Christian.

I believe that everyone is worthy of dignity and respect.
I believe that, no matter who we are or what we have done or thought or said or imagined, God cared so much for all of us that, when it seemed that we were going to be completely separated from him, he said “Over my dead body” and the least I can do is say the same.
I believe that the things that people have done in the name of God that have caused others to hate him are atrocious.
I believe that when Jesus said to his followers “They shall know you by your love”, he meant it.

I am a Christian.

Beat on me, mock me, mock my God, tell me why I’m such a fool for believing in him, burn my books, scoff at everything I have to say; I don’t care. I’m tired of hiding.

(this was first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part the Final

2011-03-13T21:51:00.003-06:00

Remember when I talked about everything going wrong before Ex-Villain left? It was like the stars were out of alignment or something. You know how, in quite a few fantasy stories, Macbeth included, when the wrong king is on the throne, nature seems to unravel? Well. Allow me to remind you of the enormity of the situation:

“Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story.”

(You see what I did there? Flashback to another post? With the quotations and the copy-pasting and the... okay, stopping now.)

When Ex-Villain left the story, along with the rest of the results of his fantastic organizational skills, all of these things returned to normal. Almost all of them. For some incomprehensible reason, people continued to drop like flies. At first, it seemed reasonable, so I let it go. They were exhausted and overworked. They had just come back from a gruelling experience. They had poor immune systems. A really bad headache.

Then about ten of them fell over simultaneously, and I knew this had to stop. I immediately turned around (figuratively speaking, of course) and faced the story, only to be met by the most adorable Bambi eyes I have ever not seen in my life. The conversation went as follows:

Story (still making the Bambi eyes): “Can I keep it?”

Author: “Erm. Well. Um.”

Story: “I promise I’ll feed it and everything!”

Author: “You... you... I didn’t plan this!”

Story: “I know, but it’s just so cute and cuddly...”

Author: “People are coming very near getting concussions! What’s so cute and cuddly about that?”

Story: “Look at it!” *holds up fluffy little subplot. It whines endearingly and tries to lick Author’s face*

Author: (tries to resist the fluffiness and spectacularly fails) “You’ll take it out for walks?”

Story: “Yes.”

Author: “You’ll give it baths?”

Story: “Yes.”

Author: “You’ll -wait a second! It doesn’t even make sense! What on earth am I supposed to do with it?”

Story: [censored for spoilers]

Author: (grins widely) “You can keep it.”

Here endeth Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part the Final.

(this was first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

A Brief Interlude to the Drama

2011-02-24T22:36:00.004-07:00

Main Secondary Character (MSC) would have wanted me to make up for the merciless teasing I subjected him to in the last blog post. The only problem is that he’s too busy eating a quesadilla to even notice that I’m writing this (if ever one day he becomes lactose intolerant, I’m sure he’ll drop down dead within the week). This means, of course, that I will have to shoulder the responsibility and explain why he is the way he is, and why he’s one of my favourite characters.

In my last blog post, I more or less mocked him for his inability to pay attention to all the important things around him. This was for good reason, but it speaks to a part of his character that I greatly admire.

MSC is all about honour, and he focuses on what is honourable, the temptations to go against his code of honour, how to grow as a person and still keep to what is honourable... you get the picture. He also has a great ability to focus on what he considers to be important. Add these two together and you get a really decent guy with tunnel vision. Vital things tend to fly by his radar simply because they do not fall under the list of things he thinks about. It is his greatest weakness. And his greatest strength.

Because of his deep commitment to his morals (his code of honour), I can trust him to do what he considers right, no matter what. He may make mistakes out of haste, he may allow his judgement to be clouded in the heat of the moment but, given time to think, he will ultimately do what is necessary to rectify the wrong he has done. If that cannot happen, he will do all he can to make sure he never makes the same mistake again.

This isn’t always easy, of course. He has suffered in the past, which makes it hard for him to forgive certain people and certain actions. It also makes it harder for him to step back and take the time to see all the factors in a situation resembling his past hurts. His absolute sense of right and wrong further hinders this process because justice is more familiar to him than mercy.

I’m going to test him, face him with choices he has never faced, show him his worst fears. MSC will not only have to try and overcome his tunnel vision, but also his prejudices. My hope is that he will not only meet my expectations, but exceed them because that’s the kind of person he is.

I bet I know what you’re thinking right now: “If you’re going through all this trouble with a measly secondary character, how much more are you going to mess with your main character?”

You have no idea.

As promised last time, the next post will detail the events surrounding my story getting a pet. Stay tuned!

(first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part 2

2011-01-15T18:28:00.007-07:00

Once upon a time there was this lovely Villain. He was all planned out by Author to be wonderfully vile, have a semi-complicated past, inspire disgust and fascination, tempt not only Main Character but also Major Secondary Character (MSC), have wants and needs, and yet still be able to be relatable in his motivations. Things were progressing so beautifully.

One day, while Main Character was being belligerent to Author, Villain began to think he deserved another story. His (im)perfection existed at a level far beyond the ability of this puny story to portray his true greatness. Villain toyed with this idea, waiting until Author and Main Character had finished their shouting match to bring his proposal forward. Author didn’t really want to deal with Villain right then, being much more concerned with staring off into space whilst attempting to save the story from death by black hole.

Now, Villain was intelligent. As soon as he realized that his conversation with Author would go nowhere (about three words in), he went to confer with other characters. Unfortunately for him, Main Character had sequestered herself in some private place for some private gloating over her power over Author, and the rest of the characters either had lives to attend to or were incurably unobservant when off-duty (*ahem* MSC *ahem*). That is, except for Mystery Character. Mystery Character agreed that Villain should find a new story and, rather enthusiastically, the two of them began to concoct a delicate and subtle plan to convince Author of their position. As soon as they finished their designing, they began to implement it.

Author, meanwhile, decided to ignore Main Character’s demands for a time, being too stunned to imagine anything and feeling more than a little grumpy at the entire situation. She instead worked on plotting out the awe-inspiring climax of the story- the one rather important part that still had a major case of the fuzzies. Eagerly, she delved into the villain’s past and brought up jeweled nuggets of pure awesomeness hitherto unknown to any human. These came together and started to build a masterpiece of art, and as their beauty came virtually visible... weird things began to happen.

Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story. Around the point where Main Character had given up trying to deal with things seriously and was just staring in astonishment and MSC was off-stage, musing on the benefits of Swiss cheese, Author finally realized something was up. She immediately turned to Villain, demanding an explanation. Pleased that he finally had her attention, Villain announced without preamble:

“I am going. Goodbye. I leave [Mystery Character] in my place, having discovered that [that character] has far more evil plans than I, and [Insignificant Character] will take care of everything else I am responsible for. Please take good care of him. He’s a distant cousin of mine who’s been looking for a job for years. This is really the only spot he’ll be good at, and I doubt he’ll ever amount to much, but he’s the best replacement I could think of for all my non-villainous capacities. You can tell him I said so. He won’t really get it, and so won’t be offended. Well, I’m off!” He then shouldered his pack and headed off into the wilds of the Author’s subconscious, searching for characters’ lives to utterly destroy.

One thing I do have to say for Ex-Villain (seeing as he’s no longer the villain) is that he was remarkably organized. I didn’t have to do a thing to clean up after him. Replacements had been neatly found, absurdities had been reversed or changed to fit with the new villain, Mystery Character, and the various threads surrounding them. He even made every other character aware of the altered course of events -except for MSC who insisted to me later through mouthfuls of a cheese sandwich that he hadn’t heard a thing about this and was just as surprised as I was.

Of course, I still hadn’t untangled the problem Main Character was holding over me, and not much time passed until the story demanded a pet. But I think I shall have to make amends to MSC before I go on to that particular event...

(first published at theasworld.doxa-canada.com/Blog)

Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part 1

2011-01-02T22:01:00.003-07:00

As far as it’s going, my current WIP has had the most drama of any of my stories to date. One would expect that this is a bad sign, but many would find it very encouraging, if a little exhausting. Let me explain:

My first sign that something was up, something different, occurred while I was happily working on my outline. I had plotted out a rather lovely and twisted course for the story to follow, and I was figuring out a little more about Main Character’s head space. We were going along merrily, reviewing a scene and her emotional reaction with it, and how she has this big secret that she can’t tell, and how an incident has just brought it to the forefront of her thinking (this secret is vital to the plot and must not be revealed until a certain moment in order to facilitate the proper feeling of the world falling apart). During this scene review, I start to write down how Main Character feels as if she wants to spill this secret to the world, but she doesn’t...

Main Character: “Why not tell them?”

Me: “Why not tell them? Because...” *thinks for a moment, realizes there is no good reason yet forbidding this action* “Because you don’t, dammit! Those are the rules!”

Main Character: “But why? It’s not like my life is ruined or anything. I’ll probably even feel better afterwards.”

Me: “But... but...” *watches entire rest of story begin to spiral down the drain* “You can’t! You’re supposed to do this, and this, and this is supposed to happen, and NONE OF IT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU DON’T KEEP QUIET!”

Main Character: “Name one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

Me: “Well... well,,,” *goes through a thorough list of weak reasons that Main Character easily waves away with little puffs of logic.* “But my story... my beautiful story... how am I going to keep it?”

Main Character: “Think harder.”

Me: “Wait... so you’re going to do what I want you to do?”

Main Character: “No. I’m going to do what I want to do. Right now I want to tell the world. If you want to keep my mouth shut, you had better think of a really good reason that will convince me to do so. And you had better think of it soon.”

I knew this was one of those moments where you are supposed to jump up and down and congratulate yourself because your character has finally come truly and beautifully alive, but I was more seriously considering strangling her. Who was she to order me about in such a fashion? She may be amazing and wonderful words on paper, but I am the Author who writes those words. She’s not even real... but if I said that, then I would be name-calling, and she would never work with me again. With restrained fury and a bruised dignity, I began looking back through her history to find some way to silence her.

Then the villain upped and decided to quit...