Blog

In connection with the blog tour, you might want to know where I’ll be off to on Saturday while John is here.

Fraser Sherman will be graciously hosting me at his space. Our topic for this week will be “Who I Am and Why I Write.” We’ll see you there.

Catherine

This year, I have the privilege of introducing you to some of my fellow Drollerie authors. I have a novella with Drollerie, Sister Night, Sister Moon. Rest assured, I’ll let you know that’s available. Meanwhile, you might want to check out many of the works by other fine Drollerie authors at the Drollerie website.

This Saturday, John B. Rosenman is coming to Writer Tamago. Like me, John is an English professor, and a very prolific author. His work is inspired by the pulp magazines of the Golden Age of science fiction. I hope you’ll drop by on Saturday and meet John and read about why he writes.

Catherine

Bucking recent trends, I actually managed to get this weeks installment of Blood is Thicker than Water up today. It didn’t hurt that Chip’s scene was a short one.

Catherine

It shaped up to be a very iiinteresting weekend. We moved the in-laws yesterday, and my day took a detour into frighteningly greasy pizza and McDonald’s fries. Then, there was Robert Burns’ birthday, and all Scottish people celebrate that by eating haggis, highly nutritious and heavy Scottish rustic food. Hard cider may or may not have added to any trouble…

We’ve discovered, once and for all after last year’s gall bladder surgery, that I am lipi-betic, and you can bet that I’ll be very cautious about what I eat for a while.

***

As I lay in a tartan induced haze last night, I had a dream. In my dream, I did something I wanted to do, a change as of late. A few months ago, Bryon and I went to our friend Denny’s for a reception for Gregory Frost, one of the University of Iowa’s favorite sons. We were there again, in my dream, and I was explaining to Greg how much I was really enjoying Lord Tophet.

Greg is delightful company. We met at a presentation I was giving at Wiscon on Baba Yaga, and he told me who he was. I had read Fitcher’s Brides, Greg’s re-telling of Bluebeard, which is one of the most horrifying books I’ve ever read. I complimented him on the book, and we’ve both been keeping Iowa literate in our own way ever since.

Well, Lord Tophet. Of course, Shadowbridge is the prequel to Lord Tophet, and you need to read it first. It’s good, and it does much the same thing that Lord Tophet does, except that when you get to Lord Tophet, the second half of the adventure, Greg hits his stride as a story teller. The background to the epic is built, Leodora breaks free of her past, the tales are skillfully weaved into the rich tapestry of the span, and the gods notice what’s going on.

I find myself insensate to what else is going on around me when I read the book. Falling into a story is the highest compliment I can give a book. It’s skillfully rendered and fully realized. Breathtakingly so.

Only 150 more pages to spend in this world, and I regret that. I hope Gregory Frost revisits someday. You? You should be reading this.

Catherine

When I was a teen, I had this *terrible* crush on a boy I went to Upward Bound with. He was from Missouri, and I lived in a border county, so it was not unlikely he would visit from time to time. I did my best to not let him know about the crush (although my adult eyes figure he must have), but I was as pie-eyed as a young calf.

My pining would hit hardest after school. I would race home, cross the railroad tracks (I *did* live on the wrong side of them), and look for his green Duster, a 70s muscle car. You know, boys. Most of the time it wouldn’t be there, and I would sigh meaningfully. When it was there, my heart would do a little flutter, and then I would spend my time shyly avoiding telling the boy about my feelings until the next time.

I recognize the same feeling while I’m waiting to hear back from editors and agents. I keep checking my inbox, and I keep sighing meaningfully, but I hope to eventually have my heart flutter.

Meanwhile, I take solace in Mark Teppo’s advice, quoted from Stephen Gould yesterday: “Don’t worry about what you can’t control.”

Off to mangle some Russian. I have imagined the first scene of the new version of the faerie novel. I’m excited. It’s all action.

Catherine

That was exactly what I needed. Taking this week off from writing, and allowing the other, sewing part of my creative brain to take over has made me relax and feel better. I’ve come up with a way to manage this semester’s work so it doesn’t overwhelm me, and I feel much more centered than I did.

Over in the other journal, I wrote a piece about how I am going to start considering an eleven month year. For a variety of reasons, my winter break is almost always shorter and less relaxing than I imagine, and I often walk away disappointed. I think the goal of winter break will from here on out be to just get through winter break.

Bryon’s excellent advice about only writing what I enjoy is a good one. It doesn’t mean I should walk away from puzzles, but it does mean that I should pay attention to the sweet spots in my stories where it’s working, and feel that. I am in this mostly for enjoyment, after all. That, and escapism.

So…what’s up next? Looks like I’ll be entering the Amazon contest (an author’s life is rejection, so let’s face grandios odds!). There will be a blog tour of Drollerie authors, so I’ll post links, and have a guest at the Tamago.

And I’ll start the next novel. I will begin the faerie novel in a different place. What people have read so far is necessary background, but not necessarily the story you need to buy. G&V readers, I will send you some when I think it’s good enough for you to look at. Could be a while.

Um…as I was getting ready for the next Mindbridge reading group, which will be a slew of short stories, I listened to Mike Resnick’s Travels with My Cats and was touched. If you have a chance, you should read or listen to this beautiful story.

Catherine

Pending dean’s signatures and some photo copies.

One more link in the chain of ifs for Viable Paradise.

Catherine

Are any of you thinking about entering the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest? It’s coming up in February, and I thought some of you, who have unpublished manuscripts laying around, might do so.

I am giving it some thought. Because the odds are better than winning the lottery. 😉

Catherine

The group thought that Christopher Golden had written a spunky YA heroine in Jenna. I put in my vote for the dimensional quality of Golden’s supporting characters. The forensic science seemed accurate and interesting.

Again, some of the group questioned whether Body Bags, a YA thriller, was worth considering by the book group. I thought so, as the science was speculative, but not everyone agreed.

I thought it was the perfect book for young forensic scientist and beginning YA writers, and I hope to read more Golden in the future.

Catherine

For academic track at Wiscon:

Images of Wonder Woman

Comics’ most recognizable female character has been represented in a variety of roles and images since her inception in the late 1930s . Arguably, it is difficult to portray an iconic woman that exists as a high level hero in a predominantly male industry like comic books. This paper makes an attempt to examine the rationale behind varying portrayals of Wonder Woman, examining the artists and writers’ attempts to create a strong woman through a variety of decades. Is Wonder Woman really a portrayal of heroic womanhood, or is she another comic man with the accessory of breasts? A retrospective of Wonder Woman imagery will accompany the presentation.

So, finally, I get to sound off about that…

ETA: Next installment of Blood is Thicker than Water