Fallen Writer

~*GASP!*~

What is this? An original post? It can’t be!

Well… to some extent, it isn’t. The first part of this post was written a year and a half ago. The quoted text is not how I currently feel, so no prayers or sympathies are needed for depression as I am not presently in a depression (prayers and sympathy for stress, however, will be much appreciated!). The insights I apparently had during that grim time, though, are still relevant to my mind, and as I did not post it back when, I have decided to post it now and tie it in with my present thoughts.

And, uh, Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday-of-your-persuasion! It doesn’t look like I will be doing much Christmas-posting, but I will, again, re-post my carol countdown for any who are interested. :)

I am going through some stuff right now. Nothing is “wrong,” but then my brain chemistry doesn’t really care. It never has.

It’s moods like this that make me want to burn down the world. Luckily for me, and everyone else, global immolation is not in my power. Besides, I would probably remember who and what I love in time to stop me, even if it was.

Depression will pass. It always does. I have learned the hard way that the dimness of the world I see right now is no more real than if I were staring at it through rose glass.

If only knowing were feeling.

Different established aspects of the characters I write become more or less real to me depending on my mood, at least in the abstract.

I have found that I do not need to understand a character for them to reveal themselves in my writing, but the insights I get when I am not writing can help me see the “big picture,” what the characters themselves do not see. You know how we, as people, are often too “close” to our own lives to see ourselves objectively? It seems characters are usually like that, too.

Anyway, I’ve known for a long while that I am dealing with two protagonists who have a (mostly unconscious) deathwish. They have forgotten how to love themselves in the way that allows a person to really love their neighbors. In contrast, I have a protagonist who “loves his life” (John 12:25) so much that he is willing to do nearly anything to survive. Right now I can clearly see the irony of the fact that all three are, despite their differences, self-destructive.

If they change, it will be painful, but then processes that create lasting change are ALWAYS painful. Break the twisted bone so that it can heal straight. Even my dull-dark mood is not enough to hide from me the beauty and joy inherent in redemption.

Cheery stuff, no? Though I do touch on eucatastrophe at the end. It relates, in an acute-angle kind of way to what I will say next.

My stories, all of them, are rife with questions of redemption: what it is, what it means, how it works, if it works, what happens when it doesn’t come into play, etc. Being part of a Fallen race, the question is of deep importance to me.

What I’ve been pondering lately, in a more balanced frame of mind, is how to deal with the concept of Fallen Humanity in-story.

Stories are funny things, aren’t they? So many varieties, and yet so many common notes.

My genre is, I guess, Fantasy Fiction (or speculative fiction, if you want a bigger umbrella). Not particularly High or Low, Heroic or Dark. In fact, running down the list of sub-genres, I’m not sure where it falls. That’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing, by the way. Some of the best (and worst) fantasy fiction out there plays to type.

The reason is that each type has its aim and the formulas work. If you want a peanut-butter milkshake, you use ice-cream, milk, peanut-butter, and maybe some chocolate syrup. You don’t add chicken soup, or gravel.

So, I am not writing dark, cynical fantasy because my aim isn’t deconstruction. But most of the alternatives have heroes that, while flawed, are still… well… heroic. And their villains are villainous. And I look at them and wonder: how much difference is there, really?

In one sense, of course, there is a vast difference. I am not attempting to diminish the importance of choice and freewill. But the Fall cuts through everyone. In a sense, it brings us all close together, even if we’re together in bondage. I may cheat, or lie, and another person may commit mass murder, but without salvation, we’ve both walked through the gates: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”* If we both find salvation, we both find salvation, regardless of what we’ve done. In this sense, at least, there are no levels.

We’re all sinners. But the world, as a whole, rarely seems to agree. There’s a persistent feeling (one that I have to fight in myself) that some things just aren’t forgivable. That some marks, once made, are indelible.

So what does this mean for my writing? I guess it means that I’m walking a fine line. On one hand, I want my reader to like and sympathize with the “good guys,” to be horrified by the destruction wrought by their antagonists, and for the two sides to be quite clear (well, most of the time, anyway). But without ever being able to forget that the degree of separation is not as wide as it seems. I’m not necessarily talking about anti-heroes or anti-villains. I’m not exactly dealing in gray and gray morality.

I guess, maybe, I’m asking how we approach the Fall. How, if we believe in true Good and Evil (as I do,) and know that we’re Not Good (yeah, that too), do we view those whose Not-Goodness horrifies us?

I know that, for a lot of people who share my faith, this may sound stupidly obvious, but I’ve always believed that the obvious needs saying sometimes: I feel like this is Important. Not just on an intellectual level, but on an emotional one.

How do we love our enemies? How do we face mass murder, exploitation, corruption, and cruelty? We must condemn these things because we know them to be evil. To excuse or ignore them in a story, as in real life, would be a sin. But in real life we’re forbidden to judge the perpetrators. Part of that may be because of our human limitations. We can’t really understand our fellows. But maybe it’s also because, when we come right down to it, “we” are not as far from “them” as we would like to think.

To an ant the size of a pin-head, an ant the size of  a bean seems huge. To a human they’re both very small, nearly the same size, even.

The Fall makes us all ants.

And so, dear possible-future-reader, if you ever think it strange that I touch on a monster with sympathy, or deal harshly with a protagonist for a comparatively “small” fault, remember that it isn’t because I’m a relativist.

It’s because I’m not.

 

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*Dante’s Inferno – “Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”

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Raised by Dragons, and Other News

The Mythgard Institute’s Writing Contest, mentioned before, is still going strong. This week, Twitter Fiction! My muse growled at me last week, and it doesn’t seem to like 140 character limit of this week, but we will see if I can goad it into being poetic without losing fingers (or a limb). It has been voracious and unruly. It had me writing snippets from what will probably be book 4 or 5 of my W.I.P. when I’ve yet to complete books 1 and 2, though I should also blame one of the characters involved in that little detour. I’m looking at you, Kee, and shaking my fist. No, you cannot pacify me with cookies!

In the Mythgard contest I am thrilled to say that I won 1st runner up in week 1, and 2nd in week two! (Yeah, so much for keeping my name away from this blog, but hopefully I can bury this post, or at least edit it later). This means I get to be published in their special-edition e-book!  My 2nd entry for week 2 also made an honorable mention, and I will post it below for your reading enjoyment.

Is it weird that, in the face of all of this, my brain is trying to tell me that I can’t write anything worth printing? Because it is. Somehow, I think that brutal voice will follow me all of the days of my life no matter what comes of my scribbling.

Brenton Dickieson has also won the privilege of publication twice! You can read his devastating and humorous tales in the linked pdfs above, as well as the other fantastic winners. Enjoy the honorable mention: Mud, by my good friend, David. Hopefully a wonderful dragon story of his will be published to his blog soon, too. Other honorable mentions are being posted at the Oddest Inkling: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4. I don’t know the author of this one (though after reading this, I want to!) but it is brilliant: There is Not a Unicorn in the Bookstore. If any of y’all post a story for this contest to your blog, let me know because I want to link it here!

And now, for my own honorable mention. Sørina Higgins said that it made her cry, which is an overwhelming encouragement to me! Brandi, and anyone else who reads this who knows a certain dragon-connected wizard from my canon, here’s his origin story. I bet you didn’t know that fudge pie and E. A. Poe played such important roles in his wizardy history.

Raised by Dragons

At eighteen, my world popped like a bubble. I was standing in a cavern where I thought there was an ordinary basement laundry-room. That is what it had been the day before.

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In my hands I held my first grimoire, my birthday present, heavy and bound in old leather and brass filigree. In my ears echoed the revelation: “You have wizard’s blood in you. You have to choose. Leave this world, and follow your blood, or stay and ignore it forever.”

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But what held me rooted was the sight of my foster parents. Until yesterday, they were nothing if not ordinary. A middle-aged husband and wife, counselors for “at-risk youth.”

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“At risk” would be a mild description of me when I came to them. Before that, my life was a succession of strangers, some nice, some cruel, most in between. I ruined every good situation. There was too much anger and far too much fear to control.

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But they were different, strict, but also dauntless. After a while, when nothing I did seemed to rattle them, I settled in.

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Then the blackmail began. I hated reading. Books were boring. “Fairytale” meant “Disney,” and dragons were only tattoo designs.

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He handed me a book of short-stories and pointed one out. “We can discuss it over dessert.”

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What he meant was “if you can’t discuss this with us, there’ll be no dessert.”

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After months of similar extortion, he handed me Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” My foster-father smiled and said “we can discuss it over dessert. I’m thinking hot fudge pie and ice cream.”

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I wanted to punch his smug face, but I wanted that pie more, so I sat down to suffer through another story. I was bored, at first. Archaic language, weird names, references I didn’t get, and this mysterious “armadillo,” but, by the end, I was caught. No spoilers, but the gothic darkness of it all, the tension, the subtext, left me chilled and hungry for more. He had dog-eared several other stories, the beast. I read the next one. And another.

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After that, I looked forward to dessert discussions.

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As I approached eighteen, I feared I would have to make way for the next “at risk” kid.

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The night of my birthday, I came home to find my foster-mother waiting by the door. Without a word, she took my hand and led me to the basement stairs. I figured they had a surprise waiting. I wasn’t wrong.

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And then they stood before me in their true forms. Dragons are like living cathedrals, with wings of stained glass, Byzantine mosaics for flanks, smoking-censer mouths and eyes that glow with soft, prayer-candle light. I knew I could not go back.

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“I’ll follow my blood. Tell me how.”

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My foster-dragon-mother nosed the nearest cavern wall. It opened on a grassy field at night.

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Dragon’s Loyalty Award!

With a glassy rustle, a dragon stretches a great green wing of feather-like translucent scales. It yawns, revealing several rows of sharp teeth and a pair of upward-curving, no-nonsense tusks. Resettling its wings, it pricks a pair of mule-like ears forward and peers out of the blog with emerald eyes.

Right, blog award.

Hello! My author, Jubilare, has asked that I not give my name here. She’s trying to keep her WIP’s mostly private until they are, ah, more prepared for the world, or the world is more prepared for them. I forget which.

But considering the name of this award, she felt that I should be the one to accept it. I don’t see why. I have very little to do with the day-to-day running of the blog, but she insists that she never would have started writing but for me. So here I am.

From the limited information she has given me, (research, dear, always research), the Dragon´s Loyalty Award is “presented to blogs with exceptional content.”

It is a great honor to accept this award. From the name, I assume that, lost somewhere in the shadowy (ahem, un-researched) history of this award is either a dragon who awarded it to a particularly loyal blog, or else it was awarded to a particularly loyal dragon who blogs. Not being a blogger, myself, I can’t really relate.

Jubilare: Um, buddy? can we try to get this in under 1000 words?

Not it you interrupt me we won’t.

Jubilare: Maybe I should’ve asked one of your brothers…

Which one? The one who makes me look laconic? The one you’d have to bribe? Or the one who’d actually make you do hours of research beforehand? Oh, or how about the one that hates you?

Jubilare: …Carry on.

Wings are re-shuffled, and the dragon draws a long breath.

Right. Well, as I was saying, it is an honor to accept this award on behalf of this blog. It, the blog, I mean, was awarded this prize by one Stephencwinter, whose blog my author greatly enjoys. Thank you, Mr. Winter! Visit my home some time. I’ll buy you a drink and show you around.

This award carries with it several requirements. Hold on.

The dragon holds out a scaly hand, complete with talons, and accepts a  poster-board from Jubilare. It looks like a post-it-note in the dragon’s grasp.

First: Display this award on your blog.

Jubilare: Done.

Great. Next we announce our win with a post and thank the Blogger who awarded us. …I’m doing that right now, yes?

Jubilare: yep

Excellent. Now, we present this same award to 15 meritorious bloggers. Fifteen? This thing must multiply faster than rabbits.

Jubilare: I, uh, only have 12.

I see. Well, it looks like we don’t get to accept the award because my author doesn’t know how to follow rules.

Jubilare: Hey! Stephen didn’t do fifteen, either, and he still got to accept it.

The dragon grins toothily and flicks one ear. Oh, all right. If the award police come for me, though, I’m giving you up. I won’t go down for your crimes.

The twelve blogs Jubilare would like to nominate are… flips the poster-board and thrums the fingers of one taloned hand on the ground like a snare-drum-roll

Bekindrewrite – All shall love her, and despair!

Dreaming of Other Realms – an epic storyteller from “Kiwiland”

The Egotist’s Club – A magnificent menagerie of muses.

Grimmella – How can she not be awesome with a blog-name like that?

Lovethebadguy – Delightfully wicked

Pages Unbound – They read books. Lots of books. And tell us about them!

A Pilgrim in Narnia – already has one of these, that should tell you something

Res Studiorum et Ludorum -Profoundly Geeky, and Geekily Profound

Soughing of Pines – This dragon’s particular friend. Writer and Renaissance woman.

Strange Figures – Painfully honest, in a world in desperate need of honesty

Technicolorlilypond – Just as colorful as it says it is

The Warden’s Walk – Should be called “The Warden’s Fabulous Hat”

Now I must link them?

Jubilare: I just did.

And… let them know of their being awarded.

Jubilare: We’ll do that after we finish here.

You mean I will, don’t you.

Jubilare: I’ll help!

Alright. Last item on the list.

The tip of the dragon’s tail swishes.

Write seven things about you. …is that me-you or you-you?

Jubilare: I think it’s supposed to be me, but make one of them about you, just in case.

Hm. Well, Jubilare is obsessive. And I do mean obsessive. When she’s trying to work through a scene, she will sometimes listen to the same song, or handful of songs, for HOURS. IT’S HORRIBLE. And when she’s found something to obsess about, it is very hard to derail her to anything else.

She also loves almonds. She eats them all the time. Perhaps that ties in with the obsession issues.

What else… despite being obsessive, she is also easily distracted. While it is hard to get her off something she is obsessing over, it is equally hard to get her to focus on tasks. Very annoying when one is trying to get her to write.

I also think she is rather sweet, even when she’s glaring at me, like right now.

That’s what, four? Hm. Five would be that she is something of a pyromaniac. Not an arsonist, mind. She’s been well taught not to burn other people’s things without permission, but she loves fire. As a dragon, of course, I approve.

Six. She has a thing for creatures, like dragons, bats, creepy-crawlies and such, that are often reviled. Even as a kid, I was her imaginary friend. Every child should have a dragon, don’t you think?

Seven needs to be about me? Well, I love apple fritters and whiskey, not necessarily together. Please send apple fritters and whiskey by way of my author.

Thank you all. It’s been surprisingly fun.

Are we in under 1000 words?

Jubilare: Shockingly, yes. Thank you, oh dragon-mine. Here’s the list of “requirements,” that are optional, and will break the 1000 word limit, alas!

1. Display Award on your Blog.
2. Announce your win with a post and thank the Blogger who awarded you.
3. Present 15 deserving Bloggers with Award
4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of their being awarded.
5. Write seven interesting things about you.

Double Mind

Sometimes I wonder if the only difference between an author’s mind and someone with multiple personalities is awareness.

Of course, this won’t apply to all authors. There seem to be as many ways of writing as there are people who write, but I know at least a few others who have the same sort of relationship to characters as I do.

Yeah, I said “relationship,” and that really is the best description I can find, for my characters seem to occupy a niche in my mind, something that separates them from me and allows me to mentally engage with them.

For instance, I can enjoy a piece of music, and I am the one who is enjoying it. But sometimes I will sense a reaction to the music that I associate, not with myself, but with one of my characters. They stir, sometimes they even “claim” something, and forever after I will associate that thing with that character.

One example is that I cannot read or watch any form of vampire-related story without the running commentary of one of my particularly reactive characters. He finds Anne Rice humorous, he snarkily calls the Twilight brood “My-Little-Vampires” …which is, I think, rather unfair to the My-Little-Ponies of this world, he says True Blood makes him want to beat his head against a wall for the next fifty years, and he’s rather intrigued by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, though he rolls his eyes at certain excessively Victorian passages. On the whole, he insists that vampires are monsters and is not a fan of humanizing them. Considering what vampires are like in his universe, and the fact that he, himself, is one, I can definitely see his point of view.

And yet, it isn’t really my point of view. I agree with him about some things, and disagree about others. That wouldn’t be so disconcerting if it were objective. If I were able to step back and think “this character would react to this thing in this way.” That would be character-building in the way most non-writers I know think it works (and that may be how it works for some lucky people).  But no. It’s a feeling, a sense that comes unbidden. I don’t think about it, I feel it, and the only thing that separates it from my own feeling is a conviction that it belongs to one of my characters.

No, please! Don’t call the men in white coats. I only do what the voices tell me to do on paper. Er, you know what I mean. I hope.

I think this process makes me a better writer. It certainly makes my life interesting.

Today, one of my character’s “discovered” a poem I’ve known since childhood. I like the poem. It means things to me, has a certain texture and light. But now I see it also through another set of eyes, and evermore I will associate it with her, and her feelings, as well.

She has a different relationship to roads than I do. She is always looking for the road home, a road into the past. Sadly, for her, all roads only lead into the future, and she knows it. But knowing something is impossible does not take the longing for it away.

In other words, to her, this poem carries with it a deeper poignancy, a kind of sadness I, as myself, would never quite find in it. Isn’t that one reason people read? To share experiences that they, as themselves, will never have? Perhaps, too, some of us write in order to walk, for a little while, in another’s boots and see the world through other eyes.

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The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

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Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

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And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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I’m always interested to hear how other writers relate (or don’t relate) to this kind of interaction. So, please! Comment! And if anyone has questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.

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Apart from being generally talkative, sometimes my characters seem a bit authorcidal. More thoughts on influence and inspiration can be found here.

If you’re interested in fiction tidbits, or more thoughts on writing theory, prod the tabs up top. “Fiction” under “Words and Faces” is my stuff. “Writing” and “Writing Theory” have my musings about the craft itself.

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I know I’ve said, before, that I plan on adding new mask-pics to this blog. I promise that I still plan on doing so soon!

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New years, nightsticks, and tropes

New years have never been a big thing for me. Time rolls on, and January 1st isn’t much different from December 31st. There was a funny moment where my housemate, having made other plans, discovered that, instead of spending New Year’s Eve with my family, I would be staying home, as I was sick. She felt bad, at first, saddened by the thought of me ringing in the New Year all alone.

I nearly laughed. Then I proceeded to explain that it was not nearly as sad as she feared. In fact, being sick, I had spent about a week not sleeping well, and I was hopeful that I would be able to get a decent night’s worth. I had a supper of wonderful Korean dumpling soup (forget chicken noodle) and went to bed at 8PM. I slept like a ten-ton boulder. It was wonderful!

I don’t know what it is about New Years Eve that fails to thrill me. I guess I get my fireworks fix on the 4th of July, I’m not much of a drinker, I don’t like champagne… maybe it is because my family never made much of it?

Or maybe it is that I am a cynic when it comes to “fresh starts.” I shouldn’t be, I know that landmarks help some people. But I can make a landmark any time I please. I can say “enough, I am changing this part of my life right now,” and the start of a new year, or the end of an old one, doesn’t seem to make a difference for me.

But something has been building over the Christmas season, for me, and it spilled out on the first day of 2015. It’s still going. That thing is inspiration. My muse has sunken it’s wicked, pointy teeth deep into my arm and shows no sign, at present, of letting go.

Ah, the double-edged sword of inspiration. It is a great feeling, it gets my sluggish work moving. But it also leaves me raw and open to those voices that plague most writers, the whispers of “your work is crap.”

So far, they are just whispers. I shut them out. Eventually, they will be shouts, and I will have to struggle through this, again. But until that time, manuscript-ho!

As sometimes happens, regardless of the state of my muse, I’ve been digging into TVtropes.org in search of answers to questions about the tropes contained within my own work. I like to be aware of such things, and to keep them in mind as I write. In digging, I have discovered something… interesting.

Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate.

If you have spent any time on TVtropes, you know that tropes are ubiquitous. They are all around you, all the time, and not just in fiction. Chances are, you, yourself, embody some tropes, or are at least touched by them. In a round about way, this is why tropes exist in the first place.

Thank Bekindrewrite for this one: http://bekindrewrite.com/2013/05/31/may-wallpaper-fiction-creates-reality/

I keep searching for the “main” tropes for my main characters. You know, their main defining characteristic? Their archetype? I find, instead, tropes that touch them, but constantly miss the mark. Either this means that I have done a good job in creating well-rounded characters, or that I have, instead, created characters that are so off the beaten path that, for most people, they aren’t relateable. …yes, for any non-writers reading, this is the sort of idiocy that keeps writers up at night.

I know there are a lot of characters out there who defy/subvert/invert/play with tropes. I’m not suggesting that I am creating anything ground-breaking, here. I am more interested in figuring out why, even before I had a good understanding of tropes, I created a cast of characters who largely defy them. Does it have to do with my hatred of firm categories? Or my need to defy expectations? Quite probably… but often, those things create tropes of their own. I will continue to ponder.

Also, on a sort of side-note, I recently found an answer to a question that came up two years ago in my writing. One of my characters picked up a nightstick as a favored weapon. He still hasn’t put it down, but I now know where, in the tortuous caverns of my subconscious, he found the thing. I recently re-watched Terminator I and II with my brother. It turns out that in the latter, one Sarah Connor, picks up a nightstick and runs with it. The image of her gripping the side-handle, the weapon tucked, at the ready, against her arm, was like a light-bulb going off in my brain. I don’t know about you other writers out there, but I absolutely love it when I discover these connections.

Enough pointless rambling and crazy linkage. I would love to hear what any of you think about your own writing processes and how you analyze (or if you even analyze) your characters and plot.

May 2015 be a good year, for all of us.

Friends who answered the call

A while back, I tossed out a list of questions, or more accurately, writing-prompts, and asked for input. I find that my writing benefits from fresh ideas and perspectives (as I suspect everyone’s does) and I was in great need of inspiration.

The responses I got were exactly what I needed, and I have permission to gather them together into one post (some via links) so that I can better share them. I offer my sincere thanks to all my friends who responded. Thank you!

If you enjoyed this, or if you think you want to give it a try, please toss out your own set of prompts. Perhaps we can make a thing of it, a periodic shot of inspiration. Until then, enjoy the following:

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Bill:

In response to (6. What is your favorite ghost/folk/scary story (can be humorous or not)

Our local ghost is named Sukey (rhymes with rookie) Short. She’s the only ghost I believe in.

According to the story Sukey was an old black lady who lived alone. All of her neighbors were afraid of her, believing her to be a witch.

One cold winter evening she must have discovered that the coals in her fire had gone out, so she set out to get some from the people who lived around here, to use to restart her fire. But no one would open the door or give her any. They were afraid she would use them to cast a spell on them. She went from house to house, being turned away at each place. Finally she started walking back home. The road here was being built at the time and she stopped to rest, sitting on the stump of a tree that had just been cut down. Someone found her there the next morning, frozen to death.

Since that time her ghost has haunted this community. These days the story seems in the process of being forgotten but when I was a boy many of the old-timers had stories of having seen her and of the things attributed to her over the years. I saw her once when I was a boy (or saw something that I believed must have been her).

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emilykazakh:

1. Make up a constellation and a brief story for it.

2. What is your favorite holiday (excluding Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Easter) and  why?

3. Name an object you would like to see featured in a story

4. make up a name for a spell and tell me what it does

5. Choose a plant and make up a symbolic meaning for it

6. What is your favorite ghost/folk/scary story (can be humorous or not)

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Love The Bad Guy:

1. Make up a constellation and a brief story for it.

Up there, do you see it? That’s Maedia – The Bride. She was stilted at the altar and feared her beloved had been stolen by Death, so she threw herself to the heavens to be reunited with him. Only there could she see the truth – her betrothed, far below her, in the arms of another. That cluster of stars? That’s her heart, shattered into a thousand pieces.

2. What is your favorite holiday (excluding Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Easter) and why?

I’m afraid that Christmas is the only holiday that holds any true value to me. Most of the others that I can think of right now are only good for a day off work…

3. Name an object you would like to see featured in a story.

I like anything with mystery to it – an alien artefact; something ordinary that holds unknown meaning to someone; a puzzle that needs to be solved.

4. Make up a name for a spell and tell me what it does.Fuoco intra – a wicked curse that causes the victims’ bones to burn like fire.

5. Choose a plant and make up a symbolic meaning for it.In days of old, people would plant morte duis at the doors of their enemies. The petals, as dark and silky as pooled blood, were said to be a bad omen that would attract Death himself. To have the flowers at your door was to invite ill will into your home.

6. What is your favourite ghost/folk/scary story (can be humorous or not).

I’m partial to a good video game, so I’m going to veer slightly off course from a scary story to a horror game – namely, the Outlast game. There are two things that I find brilliant about this game: the atmosphere, and the characters. The former is an intense formation of understated music, limited visibility, and an awareness of pervasive threats. The latter consists of a delightful variety of psychopaths, terrifying both in physical appearance and in actions.

Sorry for gushing about something only slightly related to your question, but Outlast leapt so vividly to mind when I saw the word “scary”; I just couldn’t think of anything else!

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palecorbie:

1) The raven, a dark parch on the sky with nothing but the bright point of one corvid eye and a thin shimmer of feathers in the black. Would have been the helper-spirit of the first blacksmith, gifted to the same by the first shaman, but cared more for stealing shinies and prying things apart than helping with the work and eventually fled to the top of the sky-tree to avoid the Smith’s wrath after breaking something important (creating the spray of shiny over the rest of the heavens).

2) American much? Not that we have other officially recognised holidays over here save May Day…

I tell you, your Hallow’s Eve and mine are quite different things, though as for foreign festivals I am charmed by the way Mexicans celebrate All Souls’ (the Day of the Dead). Scandinavian Midsummer festivals are fun, too.

3) [wonders if nonsapient undead – and thus jiang shi and/or vampire watermelons – count as ‘objects’] A genuine trade-grade barbarian tea brick.

An ancient form of quasi-currency traded about by Eurasian nomads back when black tea was super-prestigious (my current obsession is Siberia, thanks partly to Sky Dog). Wikipedia will tell you more.

4) Expellyureathra – causes targets under area of effect to need to pee badly. Can disrupt entire military units, especially if aimed at COs.

Also useful for disrupting powderkeg civil situations, and practical jokes.

5) Gorse – resilience, fighting spirit

Many’s the time I’ve seen the yellow flags of gorse raised over deep snow, spears to the fore…

6) O Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad/The Tale of the Shifty Lad, the Widow’s Son/SKELETON  (Jubilare’s note: The first one is by M.R. James, the second is an old folktale and can be found here, and the third is by Ray Bradbury)

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David:

Constellations, spells, symbolic plants and strange objects: Questions from Jubilare

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And finally, my own answers:

 

An Exercise in Eccentricity

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I keep thinking that I have missed someone. If so, I am sorry! It has been a while since I read most of the responses. Please let me know and I will add you to this post, because I want to be able to come back and find the responses, too.Again, thank you all!

Put it to a vote

I am planning to post a few new mask pictures soon, but I am also wanting to post a creepy story snippet next month.

My problem is that I have more than one to consider.  So I have decided to consult you-all. Both are pieces of larger works, and so are not fully explained or resolved, but hopefully both are entertaining, and I certainly want feedback on both.

Option 1.  A short vampire-tale in a more classic-style and with a more medieval setting than usual. There is no mopey vampire wangst, and no sexy-vampire, just, hopefully, and undercurrent of creepy.

Option 2. A less-classic, more “New-World” based snippet that is also, hopefully, creepy. It is shorter and stranger than option 1, and not a monster-tale or ghost-story, exactly.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. I do not aim to write horror. I don’t like blood and gore, and I don’t like things that leave me feeling frightened. I do, however, like stories that give me a creepy chill, or a feeling of suspense. It’s a fine line, and varies from person to person. Also, it is especially hard, I find, to judge where, in my own writing, the line falls. Finding that line is one of my current goals.

So, vote away! And if you want to vote for something else, I suppose that is fair, too, though I may not listen.

Writer’s Dirge

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To create a thing,

to hold it,

to read it,

to see it,

and never to know it.

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The dread word stands in my way.

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“Impossible.”

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Only if I could forget it, forget myself, forget every pen-stroke, key-stroke, moment of inspiration and frustration; only then could I know this thing as itself.

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I have the misfortune to be inside, looking out; never outside, looking in.

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Perhaps readers envy the intimate knowledge writers have of their own work. When I was younger, I might even have been guilty of such misunderstanding.

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Now I know better.

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I am too close to the canvas to ever see the picture. No amount of earthly time can give me the distance I need because the picture itself is indelibly engraved in me.

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Never  will I walk up to a shelf, see a title or a cover that interests, lift this story up, and judge it as the thing it is.

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Knowing a thing too well can mean not being able to know it at all.

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The implications are overwhelming, ironic, and inescapable. I cannot know my own work save in brief glimpses through the eyes of others.

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That is how it is, and how it must be, and I must accept it and continue.

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The joys of writing and the chance of giving something precious (as many books have been to me) to someone else, are far greater than this little shard of horror. But there will always, I think, be a part of me that is sad that I cannot split myself in two and read, as only a person other than me can, my own work.

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It is not that I think my work great, or that I worry it is bad. I have spoken of that already. It is my simple desire to know it.

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I want to write a book, and read it too. But I have discovered a sad truth of writers.

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The stories we can never read, are our own.

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Voice Week Day 4

Voice Week Day IV! The Empty House Comes for You!

Or not. In all honesty, it probably just sits there. Go read what the others are writing as well. Shoo!

A slip, a trip on leaves and I was down. A bad fall. Panic, freezing me one moment, had me on my feet the next. No stopping!

Skirt, wet, wrapped around my legs. Too slow, no hope. But then I saw a house! I tried to shout, but a sob came. Better shot for a trespasser than hunted in the dark. I ran to the porch, hammered the door.

I would cry! Beg! Let me in! But the door fell open. One deep breath had me inside.

Nobody home, but what did that matter? I turned and barred the door.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 5

Voice Week Day 3

The Empty House rides again! Or somesuch nonsense sequel name. My third installment for Voice Week! If you are enjoying this, you can read more if you click the above link, or even participate in it yourself!

Not even a dog came t’ answer my shout. Takin a chance, I walked on to the porch. Nobody s’much as looked out the winder. My knock weren’t answered, neither, so I made the cust’mary shout, again, then went on to talkin.

“Sir? Ma’m? I been sent up here t’ check on you. Seems you ain’t been to town in a while.”

Nothin. I knocked again, then pushed, and the door ground open. Not good. I raised my lantern. Inside looked for all the world like they’d tidied up after supper, then turned to smoke.  Nothin missin but the folks and a fire in the grate.

~

Day 1

Day 2

Day 4

Day 5