Blog

You know the problem with being social? Well, even blog entries don’t write themselves, although sometimes they seem to.

So…had a brainstorm over the weekend for a new idea for the blog. Since friends are kind enough to send me manuscripts to critique from time to time, I thought that I would start a new feature called “The Phantom Book Shelf” where I talked about their manuscripts. Sure, it’s kind of a “see what cool thing I’m reading that you don’t get to” kind of thing, but not always. I also hope to ask the author some questions about the work. At any rate, I’ll be having fun. In addition to the Writers and Their Process interviews and the Taos Toolbox collection, at least my interview and reviewing skills should remain in tact.

***

I mentioned waaaayyy back that I wanted to talk more about World Con. I do. I thought I might write up some of the more interesting panels, and talk about what I thought was very effective regarding the con. It is no understatement to suggest that it was one of the best conventions I’ve been to. Your mileage would vary, of course, as would any given World Con, hosted by a wide variety of people.

***

Today’s big project is writing an essay for a scholarship I’ve applying for to accompany some students to VietNam next summer. It’s an apply for thing, so I am in competition with others, including the very competent young man who is the new ELA teacher, but I’m giving it a whirl.

***

Should mention that I am now arthritic. It’s osteoarthristis, which means I did something stupid to both my ankle and my knee in my youth, and now I am paying for it. I was trying to hit the fitness hard, and apparently my right leg does not care much for the stair climbing thing in large amounts. Right now, just not exercising it. I do have a date with some Wii kayaking tonight, because I can use my upper body no problem, and not exercising is getting old and costly.

Celebrex–nice drug. Awful side effects. I’m liking my Advil and my pain, thanks. The moral of this story? EASE into things. You aren’t young any more. You’re not thin either.

***

Have a good day, and more to come soon.

Cath

Setting: La Tavernita in Chicago in full tilt, Friday night. Our heroine is out to dinner with a variety of people from Paper Golem press, Taos Toolbox, and Codex. The din is deafening. The drinks are excellent. In a momentary lull in the conversation, our heroine checks her phone to see that she has missed a call from her husband.

Caveat: Husband swears that the call did not go like this. Heroine cannot hear very well, but what she heard does makes for a better story.

(ring, ring)

Bryon: Hello?
Cath: Hello? I’m sorry I missed your call. I’m out to dinner.
Bryon: That’s okay. I’m with Mark and Michelle. (pause) Um…there’s been a bit of a catastrophe.

***

At this moment, our heroine worries that there has been something terrible, like a house fire, or a car crash. Could something have happened to the hero’s mother? Or one of our cats?

***

Cath: Okay. Let me go some place quieter so I can hear better. (Removes to slightly less noisy but still pretty damn noisy room.) Okay. Go ahead.
Bryon: Well, I got home yesterday after ticket taking, and UPS had been out, trying to deliver the package.
Cath: Right.
Bryon: So after school today, I went over there and picked up the box.
Cath: Good. Right.
Bryon: And I opened it. And Cath, THEY SENT THE WRONG HAUNTED MANSION!

***

Editor’s Note: Bryon saw this beautiful Olzewski Collectible Haunted Mansion while we were at the Disney Parks, and would not buy it then. I persuaded him to buy it later, because I like to spoil him. It’s going to be a while before he gets a Lost in Space robot, after all. 🙂 Anyway, there are two Haunted Mansion collectibles: the Liberty Square version, which is the Disney World version and the New Orleans version, which is the Disneyland version. In order for this story to make any sense, you must know that.

***

Cath: What?
Bryon: It’s the New Orleans Mansion, not the Liberty Square mansion! And they’ve charged us for the Liberty Square Mansion.

***

Our heroine is relieved and amused at what constitutes a catastrophe.

***

Cath: Don’t worry about it. I’ll get home on Tuesday and kick ass and take names. You will get the right mansion.

***

Various other pleasantries ensue.

Disney customer service is great to work with. They called me yesterday and let me know that the right mansion is on its way. It turns out that it was CHEAPER than the New Orleans version (which we think is wrong, but they assure me is right), so we should have it soon.

Otherwise, you will get a sequel entry. 🙂

Nancy Kress, one of my teachers from Taos Toolbox, has graciously taken the time out to answer some questions about the writing process.

Tamago: Do you have a regular drafting process, or does your drafting process vary from book to book. Can you describe it to us generally, or at least for one project?

Nancy: I do have a regular process. For the first draft, I write non-stop, ignoring mistakes and changes of heart and general inconsistencies, just trying to get the story down. The second draft is a major rewrite: moving, eliminating, or adding scenes. Fixing major inconsistencies. Sharpening the foreshadowing, since now that I have an ending, I know what it is I am trying to foreshadow. Draft three is a clean-up, addressing minor inconsistencies and fiddling with word choice. Then I give the ms. to my husband to read. If he has suggestions–and he usually has good ones–my fourth and final draft is to incorporate those. Then the story or novel gets sent off.

Tamago: I remember at Toolbox you suggested that you could see about two scenes ahead when you wrote. What sorts of methods do you use to plot a story?

Nancy: Two main methods. First, I try to become my characters, feeling my way from the inside about what they might do in the situations I’ve put them in. Second, I use two questions to create the incidents that make up a plot: What does my protagonist (and also all the other characters) want now, at this point in the story? What can go wrong now, at this point in the story?

Continue reading “The Writing Process and Nancy Kress”

Books

The Serpent’s Egg by Caroline Stevermer: I am working on another read all the books project, this time Caroline Stevermer. Happily, Caroline was kind enough to send me some books I had a harder time tracking down, and The Serpent’s Egg is one of them.

If this book were written in the 1940s, Caroline would have been able to cash in on that Ivanhoe vibe, and probably would have made a serious chunk of change off of this book! The book is courtly intrigue at its best, with a healthy dose of magic thrown in. No one does historical fantasy like Caroline Stevermer.

So, to say I liked it would be entirely appropriate.

Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews: Like returning to a favorite sweater, I enjoying slipping into a Kate Daniels book. This is the fifth in the series, and it’s interesting to see Kate’s life regularize as the overarching plot thickens. High drama, lots of romance, and solid urban fantasy make this a great romp for people who enjoy women and the beast lords who love them.

Movies and Television

Pirates!: If you missed Ardman’s Pirates earlier this year, do yourself a favor and get the DVD. It’s claymated, and it’s full of quotable humor (“Makes electricity look like a pile of crap!”), plus tons of the absurd. (“What do we like most about being a pirate? Is it the cutlasses? Is it the booty? No, it’s ham night!” I recommend watching it with kids. They’ll get it, and you’ll get it on a while different level, making it an awesome parent-child bonding experience.

***

Tomorrow is a big medical day at the Stump home. I get to have the doctor check out my defective right leg? Why is Cath’s ankle swelling up each night? Oh the drama! And we’ll get Sekhmet’s new lump examined at the vet.

But…interviews tomorrow, and then I’ll be starting in on some World Con things.

I so seldom talk about my own bad behavior. It’s embarrassing to do so, but you’ve got to figure that if my background is as dysfunctional as it is, I must have some crummy dysfunctional traits. And you’d be right. I fight them all the time, but it never fails. There comes a point in almost every relationship I have where people “notice” my biggest flaw, because I fail to be on my guard. And it causes some sort of break down. And I have to step back and declare myself a jerk, and the whole cycle begins of me trying to be a reasonable human being begins again.

And you don’t need to read this, because it’s not upbeat or about writing. I’m just thinking things through.

Continue reading “Heartache, Analytical Style”

In the Japanese print world of ukiyo-e, a picture of reality is made by the artist that is a representation of reality, not necessarily that all art isn’t. But in this case, often those portrayed are part of an unreal, floating world: prostitutes, geisha, samurai. The landscape of Japan figures in the floating world is drawn in such a way that there is no confusing it with more realistic art styles.

This print is an image of Mt. Fuji. It looks like an exaggeration, but if you see Fuji, you can see how the artist managed to gain this image of it. Never mind that it is a distorted, abstract of Fuji. Somewhere in this picture is a kernel of truth about Fuji.

***

Last week I sat down and thought about madness. My family’s dysfunction means that they see the world through a dirty sort of window. The reality of what they see and what the world looks like is abstracted to them, sent through a strange filter that sometimes means that they try to bend the world into a version that fits their hopes and dreams, as well as one that avoids their pain and suffering.

Continue reading “The Floating World”

This is going to sound like a weird thing to say, but I think ParaNorman might be the anti-bullying film that schools are looking for.

Norman is a kid who grows up in a town that is roughly parallel to Salem, Mass. The town tourist trades on a historical witch trial, and it turns out that the witch has cursed her sentencers to walk as living dead.

What you need to know about Norman is he can see the dead. People don’t believe him. If you see the previews, the movie looks like the zombie apocalypse, but it’s not. Norman is perceived by everyone in town, including his family, as trying to draw attention to himself, but truthfully Norman can see the dead. There’s a heartbreaking scene near the beginning where Norman walks down a seemingly empty street talking to ghosts and all the neighbors come out to stare. Then we see the street through Norman’s eyes, full of ghosts. My heart went out to this misunderstood little boy.

Yeah, Norman likes horror films, but Norman would also like to be more accepted. There’s another kid in town, Neil Downe, who is ostracized because he is fat. Neil is solid. He is Norman’s friend even when Norman doesn’t want a friend, and he believes Norman. He stands by Norman when no one else will. He threatens Norman’s crazy uncle with hummus!

Norman does have a crazy uncle. The uncle can also see the dead, and he has sacrificed his life in the service of placating the witch each spell cycle so she will not make the dead walk. Regrettably, the uncle dies, but since his ghost can talk to Norman, Norman tries to keep the dead from walking.

That doesn’t quite work out. Norman has to figure out a way to solve the problem, save the day, and make justice happen about two hundred and fifty years after it should have.

ParaNorman unflinchingly looks at how difference is treated, and how different children react to bullying. Norman and Neil are heroic. In the end, Norman’s family gets behind him.

As a point of interest, Neil’s older brother Mitch comes out of the closet at the end of the film. This is the first gay character I can remember in an animated film outside of Tokyo Godfathers.

See ParaNorman with your kids, and talk about Norman’s journey with them.

Chris East? I can’t say enough positive things about a guy who likes comics and Spy Fy. Oh, he’s also a pretty good writer, and he’s lived in Iowa City. He’s pretty spiffy.

Tamago: Why do you write?

Chris: Ha, the answer to that question is a moving target! I’m pretty sure I started writing because I preferred fiction to reality. It gave me an escape, a chance to visit another world where I could bend reality to my whims. But now I write because I find it a healthy way to confront reality — argue with it, cope with it, put it into perspective. I guess the short answer is: for my mental health. Which is ironic, because writing is inherently crazy. But I’ve tried not writing, and it just doesn’t work for me.

Tamago: What is your favorite genre to write in?

Chris: I’ve always had kind of a “big tent” approach to speculative fiction: SF, fantasy, all the various subgenres. But I think all along, without quite realizing it, I’ve primarily been a writer of spy fiction — even before I truly knew it as a genre. So I guess you could say I’m a writer of speculative spy fiction.

Continue reading “TT Profile #2: Chris East”

Jim Hines again, but this time his post is pre-cognitive, because I’ve been thinking about this one myself. Hunh. Who knew that winning a Hugo made you precognitive?

(Because yes, Jim did win the Hugo for Best Fan Writer. And you heard it first here, back when the nomination was a twinkle in this author’s eye. Not that I’m taking any credit or anything. Even though credit is mine and I AM A KING MAKER!!!

Ahem. Congrats to Jim C. Hines for winning the Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

***

Rather than pointing out stories of people blowing others off inappropriately, let’s study a couple of examples of gallant behavior that we can all model our interactions on.

Scenario the first: Hugh Howey

So there I was, waiting for…something, and I ran into Ann Leckie. Quite frankly, Ann is awesome. We met at a Codex breakfast at Wiscon two years back, and we share similar philosophies on writing. She’s a joy to talk to, and I had the opportunity to talk to her a few times this convention.

Well, we started talking about this and that, and I decided to tell her my Ursula Vernon story. Which is a great story when done with right inflections and exaggerations. The short version is that I love, love, love Digger, and I was very excited about it.

And then this tastefully dressed gentlemen sitting on the couch not far from Ann, who was reviewing what looked like a manuscript or law briefs, very politely said, “Excuse me?”

Ann and I looked up. He said, “I’ve never met a woman my age who was interested in comic books before.”

Continue reading “Inclusion–Yur Doin It Right”

I have 37 minutes to write a post before my day is over here. I spent this morning getting the first 100 pages of Abigail Rath into good shape, kicking out the too early information reveals, and now I must wade through the rest and do the same, with notable expansions and excitement bumps. Then, dear beta readers, it comes to you.

I am determined to be done by the end of December. I want this shippable by the Christmas season. I don’t think I shall have to rush or send out crap to do it.

***

Well. World Con was a slap, a glass of cold water in the face. I had a *great* time, but here are a few things:

1. Brad Aiken is a medical doctor. He puts out a book a year.
2. Jim Hines is a government computer guy. Since I’ve known of and known him (2005), he’s written 5 books.
3. Jay Lake has put out 2 books since I’ve known of him. He has cancer treatments intervening.
4. Seanan McGuire works, and she is a publishing machine.

You know, I *am* busy. I *do* have other things eating my time. So do these guys, in spades. This *isn’t* an exercise in comparing myself to them. This is me asking myself why I can’t do that.

Because I have before. I wrote my thesis as I began working at the college full time. I have undertaken huge projects and been a student at the same time.

This isn’t a paid advertisement for wearing yourself out, or working yourself dogged, but there have been times when I have been as efficient as the above four people. Why not now?

Upon reflection, a couple of things have been holding me back: skills and imposter syndrome. Specifically:

1. I am a pantser. I betcha I would write a lot more efficiently if I planned better and stopped writing myself into a corner. Thanks to Walter Jon Williams, I might have this one actually licked.

2. I STILL let other people’s agendas subsume my own. Hunh. I guess it takes time as well as inclination to write. I don’t want to hermit up, but I need to guard my writing time as sacred.

3. I worry about crap. I should just keep my head down and write my twelve hours a week and move forward.

And here are some things I learned at Worldcon.

1. I should stop wallowing in my inadequacies. I should do what I need to, each day, and not focus on what I haven’t done, or where I think I should be. That kind of mentality gets in the way of your writing.

2. There are people out there waiting for my stuff. In addition to interested readers, editors, agents, and professionals. They seem to think I am a writer and take me seriously in a way I myself do not.

3. Deep down, I still think I am a wannabe, and that’s really, really slowing me up. I am good enough, and I’ve taken a whole lot of steps in the last three years to get better. Goddamn imposter syndrome! I am not only a serious student of writing, but I am good at applying what I know. So, what’s with the image problem?

Everyone else believes I am a writer. They ask me for stuff, and they are willing to take a bet on me. I know that. I need to take myself that seriously.

This summer has been a time of rebuilding my writing, and a celebration of my life. What a great way to spend my summer! But this past year, overall, has been me sputtering at my writing, spending time in education and on the page, but not feeling like I have a lot of direction or umph.

I guess that’s umph, then.

We can only control so much. We can write the books and release them into the wild, and they will sell or not, be in box stores or not, win awards or not. It’s easy to feel at sea, isn’t it?

Well. The other thing I can control? How I perceive myself in this whole game. I am a writer. Not a writer who wants to be published, but a writer who will practice my craft until that inevitably happens.

Even now, I feel foolish saying that. True Midwesterner, me. But you know what? I am a writer. Not a writer who wants to be published, but a writer who will practice my craft until that inevitably happens.

I hereby vow to produce the best work I can each time, and send it out. I want to write a book a year. If other people can do it, I can too. I am gonna do this thing. I am gonna live up to the faith others have in me, until I believe it myself.

And I’m gonna do it in that classy way I do things…without competition. Because that’s the way I role. Pun intended.