Dairhenien's Library, Part 1

Confession: I got bored last night and just went to bed. Am I that old?

Reading:

• "Balto" by T.C. Boyle
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
  

I'm nearly done with the "Cora and the Sea" revisions. If things go as planned, I should be able to whip that out tonight, or even at lunch today, work permitting. I think next, I'm going to work on "The Revenant." It's a good, solid, longer story, and should need cosmetic cleanup more than any substantial additions.

I've kept Cora pretty short so far, unlike my revision to "Dolly Hobbles." I like it as a short short, I think. There's a lot more I could go into, her relationship with Malcolm and Silas, for example. Of course, in the back of my mind during this whole revision is the time limit at my reading on August 11th, and any big additions wouldn't fit in the time allotted. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

It's interesting--one of the comments I continually get goes something like this. "You suck me into your world, but I want to see more. Why is it so short?" The short answer (heh) is that most of these stories were written with a word limit imposed. I can't get away with writing more than a scene or two, and I have to somehow cram an entire story into that short space. I think it's a good exercise, and one that makes me a much tighter and more effective writer. But it can be limiting when there is more potential in a story than the slice I've written. In some cases, I do plan to expand. "Motley" is an example of a story that I would like to expand considerably.

I got up extra early this morning, intending to take a Ramble, but got hooked in by last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. I did come up with some good ideas for the next chapter of Ferian in the shower, though. If in the finished version there is a scene featuring Ferian, dressed only in a burlap sack, chasing a slimy brown creature through an inn in the middle of the night, you can attribute it to 4am on the morning of July 31st, 2008.

But now, onto my chosen subject for the day. Several people have asked me what this whole "Dairhenien" thing is about. It's listed as in development and that's totally true. It's an idea that's been in the back of my mind for years now.

In fact, I can trace the development of it pretty easily. Back when I was in middle school (yes, it's that long of a story), my mother was the Bookstore Lady. On registration day, the bookstore opened for all the parents to do one-stop shopping for school supplies, and I was always drafted to help stock the story and run the cash register.

Being the early bird she is, my mom got me there super early, and we had finished stocking way before registration day started. I managed to escape and go wandering through the deserted corridors of my school. This was in early August of 1990, just before I started 7th grade.

So as I was walking, I was thinking about how cool it would be if you could open up portals to different places. I'm not sure why, but the idea really took hold of me, and for the next six years or so, it stayed in the back of my mind. As I learned more science, the idea grew more complex. In particular, AP Physics did a lot. I learned about reference frames and the Einstein concept of simultaneity, and realized that for the concept to work, the portals would have to be static in a given reference frame, but could be moving in another reference frame. Oh, and if they could create a doorway in space, why not time?

The last idea was the basis for my next notion, which was the Library. It was a place outside of time, but connected to our world through portals. These portals would access time periods throughout history, and as a result, a select few could all meet in the Library for... well, for whatever. I was unclear on that. At this stage, the Library as a concept more than a plot.

But what would happen when the visitors/inhabitants of the Library aged and died? After all, just because the Library is outside of time doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own timeline. Eventually it would be empty, no? And that's when I decided that there had to be some sort of cyclicity to the Library. An individual would enter the Library for the first time, and travel back and forth to it from his or her own era over the course of a lifetime. Eventually, that person would die. And then, to the point of view of another of the Library's inhabitants, that person would return again, young again. But of course from that person's POV, it would be his or her first visit, all over again. And so it would continue.

But wouldn't that suck to develop a relationship with someone over a lifetime, and suddenly find that he or she has forgotten you completely? And that's when the concept really took shape. In instituted Guardians that would confer certain benefits upon those chosen to come to the Library. The greatest of these was memory. A snapshot of a person's mind would be taken at the end of his or her last visit to the Library. When he or she returned as a youth, those memories would be conferred. Effectively, it was immortality.

Of course, after centuries of this, the person he or she became is radically different from the person he or she was as a youth. There would be huge changes in personality, no? And so the conflict first appeared, and with conflict comes plot. Here are the questions I asked myself:

• What if a guy just got him memory snapshot taken, but then immediately afterwards he comes up with a very important idea. He has to leave the Library before he can communicate it to anyone else. Everyone just has to hope that when he returns, he'll come up with it again.
  
• What if something happened to delay that transference of memory, so that this guy learned about the Library and what would happen to him before it was done? Would he still want it? Not to mention, everyone is pressuring him into it because of that idea.
  

There had to be a mystery for the inhabitants of the Library to solve. I kept coming back to a brass plaque containing just two words: "Dairhenien's Library." Who was he? Did he make this place? What is it for?

I'm going to stop there, since that was the state of the story in my head throughout most of college. I also have to go to work. But later on, I'll go into how the story changed from there to its present incarnation.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3

Okay not to like it?

Confession: I waited until the last minute to schedule an appointment with my eye doctor, and now I'm out of contacts. Serves me right

Reading:

• "Balto" by T.C. Boyle
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
  

As of just now, I've submitted another story. This one's to a literary humor journal entitled The American Drivel Review. I just liked the name. I submitted "What Price Stamps?", and let it be known that if it gets accepted, I owe Tom Rottcher a pizza.

All submissions required a cover letter, and for this one, I decided to do things a little differently. I believe it is worth reproducing here.

Dear Editor,

I am writing today to submit my short story, "What Price Stamps?", for your consideration. It comprises 1,318 words, and is the first story to my knowledge which approaches the U.S. Postal Service from a hard-boiled, pseudo-film noir perspective. Also there are bats.

My other credits include a forthcoming story in The Storyteller magazine entitled "Dolly Hobbles." This story was also awarded Honorable Mention in the Winter 2008 Writers Weekly 24 Hour Short Story contest. I have read one of my stories at the Library of Congress, and will be doing another reading this August at the Oceanside Summer Gazebo Reading Series in Oceanside, NY.

Thank you very much for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. And I hope you'll forgive me for lying about the bats.

Best regards,

Ian Conroy

I've also decided this morning that continuing on Ferian Fetlock would be a good use of my time, immediately after finishing the "Cora and the Sea" rewrites. It's gotten a much better reception than I anticipated. I had been living with the story for so long, you see, and I no longer knew if it was funny, or even interesting. I mean, at a basic level, it's about a guy who shoved tabasco sauce up a horse's ass. And he's the hero. That's messed up.

And now that it has gone over well, the question is, can I keep it up? A large part of the story going forward is the interaction between him and Lizaju, whom my readers will meet in the next chapter/section/story. But the same things that were holding me back before, i.e., not knowing Ferian's voice, is hampering me with Lizaju. I think I need to take a long ramble one evening and do some cogitating.

Anyway, on to the analysis. I finished Ann Beattie's "Solid Wood" the other day, and out of the three that I've read, it's the first in Best American Short Stories that I didn't like. It's just so... I don't know. Let's see if my thoughts are clearer in the next paragraph.

I don't care for stories that don't go anywhere. That doesn't mean that there have to be long journeys or gigantic life-changing events. I shy away, though, from stories that are too open-ended. Maybe I'm just a slave to narrative structure, I don't know. But "Solid Wood" struck me as a long trip to Wally World, only to find it closed at the end.

Oh, and if National Lampoon's Vacation had ended there, who would have liked the movie? Dammit, you need John Candy throwing up on the roller coaster to make it good!

The writing was superb, of course. (Now I'm back to "Solid Wood," although the same could be said for Vacation.) But it had a problem that I've often noticed in literary fiction. Every word of dialogue, no matter how trivial, is imbued with Meaning. Note the capital and the italics. Holy shit, if people talked like that in real life, you'd spend half your time trying to figure out all the layers of complexity behind the simplest of utterances.

Here is my philosophy. When people talk, for the love of God, let them talk normally. Dialogue needs to flow! It's like watching hockey, where there's a steady, curving flow from point to point that keeps your attention until suddenly, it breaks off in an unexpected direction. This story made dialogue like football, where you get one little bit, and then a few minutes of setup and analysis. I felt like there should be diagrams, and narration by John Madden.

I guess it all depends what you want to get out of what you read. I'm not really interested in a story that I have to analyze to enjoy. Don't get me wrong--I'm all about analysis. I love to take things apart to see how they work. But that's just it... they have to work when they're together to make them worth taking apart! "Solid Wood" was like an intricate mechanism that didn't do anything. In theoretical terms, it might be interesting to see how it works, but there was nothing about the story that attracted me to look further.

But you know what? I think it's okay not to like it. Every author has his or her own style, and this one was quite simply not one that I like. Ann Beattie might not like my stories, either. Fair play to her if she doesn't.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3
  

Stormgard

Confession: I don't know anything about local politics. I should care, but I just don't.

Reading:

• "Balto" by T.C. Boyle
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008
  

First off, I've submitted yet another story. It's the one that used to be about coffee until I found a magazine about tea so I made it about tea. It's a short short, only 167 words, and I'm unlikely to get paid in more than copies. But hell, if they take it, it's a publication credit, right?

Moreover, I did more research today on magazines and found four or five good new prospects. I need to get off my ass and finish the "Cora and the Sea" rewrite so I can start revising some of the others.

I keep running up against the blank wall in my Untitled Dark Fantasy Project. Let me explain. About five years ago now, I was on a message board with a group of other would-be writers, and we started a collaborative fiction project. Essentially, we would each start writing in a shared universe, and as time went on, those characters would meet, interact, and we could turn the whole thing into a novel, sell it, and go on to make shitpiles of money.

Obviously, that did not happen. After the first few entries, only two of us were still submitting material, and it became readily apparent that we were heading in opposite directions, stylistically if not in terms of plot. So we decided to take our stories in separate directions.

The setting was a place called Stormgard. It was an island in the southern ocean of some world, somewhere. Centuries before, it had been cut off from the rest of the world by a magical storm that surrounded it at all times. No one could come in, no one could leave. The conceit of the story would be that the barrier had begun to weaken, and someone made it through. How the populace reacted, who the invaders or visitors were, and why the barrier had been erected in the first place.... those would be the questions that drove the story.

But, as I said, we never got that far. I had written a little over 2,400 words, the length of a decent short story, and had just reached a good chapter break, when the project died. A few months ago, I rediscovered the piece, and wondered if it could be resurrected into a stand-alone story.

It's about a girl named Bryony, who has just lost everything dear to her. She had a golden childhood, but one by one, her relatives have disappeared, to be found horribly murdered. The townsfolk started off supportive, but gradually came to think of her family as cursed, and rejected her. So did her fiancé, who left her at her own father's funeral. Her favorite sister was left until last, but she too has vanished. Bryony is now alone, and wants to give up.

But she is visited by a velvet-voiced stranger, one who has appeared to her before. He claims to have been the one to have done these things to her for a purpose of his own. He takes her, unresisting, to his lair, where about a dozen other individuals are waiting in a chamber. The walls of this chamber are covered in mirrors of all types. She is drugged and beaten, and because of the drugs she does not pass out from the pain. She is beaten so severely that she is on the brink of death.

Her senses are dulled, but at the same time oddly heightened. She senses a presence, moves toward it. In some way that she does not understand and cannot fully control, she consumes that presence, then falls unconscious.

When she awakens, it is to discover that the other presence was her sister, and that she has now taken on the body of her sister. Apparently she was born with a rare magical gift to assume the bodies of others by consuming them in some way, but only extreme trauma can bring it out. This society has been manipulating her life, both to make her a pliable and willing member, and to bring her to the edge necessary to commit the first act.

And... that's where I abandoned it. You see, the original plan was for her to set out to destroy this group from the inside. She would reject their beliefs, and just go along with them until she was in a position to get her revenge. But as time went on, the need for revenge would begin to dominate and her reasons for wanting to destroy the group would fail. By the time she did kill the man who did this to her and her family, she no longer wanted to destroy the group. She now wanted to rule it, and ta da! The villain of the story, someone the reader thought was a hero, and hopefully had empathized with throughout most of the story.

Here's the thing. I no longer really want to write this story. Seeing it written out like that... it's just too dark. I mean, I'm willing to do some crappy things to my characters, but holy shit, that's cold.

And you know, if the story were just her and no one else, it would be too dark. That type of story needs to be balanced out with a true hero, one who makes the right choices, who can serve as a counterpoint to that darkness.

So what I'm going to do is abandon this project for now. There are elements in it that I think are very evocative, like the mirror filled chamber, and the horror at seeing a beloved face staring from out of one of those mirrors. But I think those are details I'm going to scavenge for other pieces, and leave this story as a footnote.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 4
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 2

Further to Go

Confession: I was in a crappy mood today. I could see my crabbiness objectively, but couldn't seem to shake it.

Reading:

• "Solid Wood" by Ann Beattie
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest
  

I finished reading "Toga Party" today, and it taught me just how much further I have to go as a writer. The structure of the story was concise, and the thematic elements were distinct but non-intrusive. Essentially, it was just a good, well-written story.

The narrator was an old man, in his early seventies, who dreads the humiliation of the end of life. Not death, just the gradual breakdown that is inherent in old age. He is obsessed with it, in a way, a sentiment that his wife understands, but does not entirely share.

The action of the story centers around a toga party. Most famous in the context of college fraternities, there is an immediate contrast between age and youth that carries through the story. Later on, the "raunchy" grape eating and underwear tossing games that go on only heighten the contrast--it would have been kind of sexy, if the participants weren't all in their sixties and up.

Serving as a counterpoint to the narrator and his wife is the character of Sam, presented as a loud, acerbic man who is full of fire, if not life, in the way that the narrator is not. So it's quite a surprise when he attempts suicide towards the end of the story. It was the anniversary of his own wife's death, you see. She had made him promise to go on for a year before trying anything new, and the year was up.

It's even a greater surprise, though, when after the events of the evening, the narrator and his wife decide that they'd rather like to end their lives too, and they suffocate themselves in the garage by closing the door and leaving the car running. It's a mutual decision, one done out of love. In a way, it's a better ending than if they had decided to just turn off the car and go about the slow decline into death.

By choosing the time of their ending, they ensured that neither would survive the other, something they already feared before seeing Sam's plight. Their affairs were already in order. And as the story had made clear surreptitiously, they had nothing to live for because there was nothing new to do.

As I reread what I've read, it sounds like a very depressing story, and in a way it is. But the magic was that it was written so well that I wanted to finish it. In fact, I was nearly late for work because I couldn't put it down. I greatly admire the talent of a writer who can blend together such broad themes so deftly, and can describe with equal clarity and grace a party game or a suicide. But the ability to make someone like me who hates depressing stories enjoy it? That's just a gift.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 3
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 1

Pride of Place

Confession: When I plan an event, and it rains, I feel responsible.

Reading:

• "Toga Party" by John Barth
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest
  

I took a tour of Long Island today with some friends, and as I drove, I found myself pointing out places where I had done my writing. I doubt this was of much interest to anyone but me. Upon reflection, though, I think it's interesting that where I write would me anything to me. Why not just what I wrote? Or why not other things, like what I ate while I was writing, or what I was wearing? In other words, why is the location important?

It may be because of what I've said before, for example, in this post. Huh... that's interesting. I just read it over, and this passage appeared at the end:

With "Ferian Fetlock," I have no such place. Each part has been written in a different location. I think I need to find a place, a new place, and write there until it's done. That's my project for this weekend... to finally put that story to bed and move on to something new.

The funny thing is, when I finally found the right place to write it (D'Latte in Greenport), I finished it in an afternoon, with only minor alterations since.

That raises a question... how much of the place makes its way into what I write? I look, and I can't see those locations really reflected at all, but I may not have the objectivity. But in a way, it explains why I would have such pride in where I've written. Those places are a part of the story, or at least a part of the story of the story, and it's something I feel an urge to share.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 3
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 1

New Contest

Confession: I had an amazing headache this morning. All better now, though. Well, mostly better.

Reading:

• "Toga Party" by John Barth
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll"
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

Check out the topic for this season's 24 Hour Short Story Contest:

The bells on the door were still echoing as she stepped further into the old toy store. The owner winked at her and turned back to his black and white television set. She reached under the rack on the back wall and pulled it out. It was just where she'd left it last week. She approached the counter and put the item down.

He turned to her, grabbed the item with surprise, and said, "This is NOT for sale..."

It's a great topic, but I've had a harder time than usual in turning it into a story. I think the main reason is because the word limit this time is 900 words, which is about one scene's worth of writing. It's hard to tell an entire story in one scene, especially when all these other ideas kept intruding into my thought processes. I could have more easily written a 5,000 word story on this topic, within the time limit, than a 900 word one.

Still, I'm nearly done... it stands at 728 words right now, and I'm about to get to the climax. A little judicious editing and I'll send it in. (Not bad for three hours of work... I got the topic at 1pm, but I didn't actually sit down to write until 3pm, and since then I've also been to the grocery and eaten dinner.)

Okay, it's pretty much done. I'll step away from it and come back later on for a final check, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0

Ending on a question

Confession: I'm hoping that this weekend's contest will jumpstart me back into actively composing, because I'm just not feeling it right now.

Reading:

• "Toga Party" by John Barth
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

I just finished "Pa's Darling." I'm not sure quite what I was expecting after that first incredible paragraph, but what I found was a different kind of story than the one I expected.

It was all exposition, or at least virtually so. The dialogue presented was in snatches of a line or two here and there, and served to make the narrator's recollections come to life more than plain exposition would have.

A couple of passages indicate the conceit of the story, that it was being physically written by the narrator. (She even reminds herself to hide the manuscript from her husband.) On the outside, the story is pure backstory, childhood and first marriage and second marriage, leading up to the death of her father.

But it actually goes deeper than that. The narrator is not a writer, although she is intelligent. she must have had some impetus to write, such as great emotion to deal with. And I believe that is the case. The last "event" in the story is an argument between her and her husband Dicky. That argument took place just before the supposed composition of the story. The argument was about her father. So her purpose for writing was to deal with both the loss of her father and, as the closing passages indicate, the way her father has effectively ruined both of her marriages.

The story ends on a question, which is often considered bad form. I actively dislike stories that end on punctuation other than a period. I once read a halfway decent novel that ending on an ellipsis.... I felt so cheated. But in this story, the question mark works, and it's because of the structure.

You see, although the author, Louis Auchincloss, was writing a short story, the narrator, Kate Phelps, was not. She was writing for herself, and what is more natural than writing a piece for yourself that ends on a question? Unlike an essay, the "thesis statement" of a diary entry is often the last line, and when that line is a question, it usually poses the question which the entire piece was trying to ask all along. It's just that it sometimes takes writing effort to get to a clear statement of that question.

I would now have to go back and reevaluate a lot of what I thought about that first paragraph. The end result is so much richer than I had noticed at first. How much of the way the narrator presented herself was done with a sense of irony? And more importantly, is that something that I could ever learn to do?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0

Genre or Literature?

Confession: Almost forgot tonight.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling" by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

This morning, I read Stephen King's acceptance speech for the "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award" from 2003. Go ahead and click on the link, because it's well worth reading.

Done? Here's the thing. For a genre writer to win a major literary award is almost unheard of. For that genre to be horror is even more surprising. I think it's a testament to King that he would be considered, much less selected.

But my respect goes out to him for having the balls to use that award as a platform to critique the literary establishment, instead of falling all over himself thanking them.

Popularity seems to be the kiss of death among "serious" literature. Well, fuck that. I'd rather be popular. Books become popular because people like to read them, and when people read the things they like to read, they're happy. When people read things they're forced to read, they're unhappy. To me, the choice is clear. Make people happy. Why else would someone want to write?

I can't say it as elegantly as Señor King, but I'd rather write good, solid genre fiction any day.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0

Dated

Confession: Somedays, it's a chore. Today, it's a chore.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling" by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

What does it mean for writing to sound "dated"? Here's an example.

The typical Cockney is often a brash little fellow.... Although the whine may be lacking in some dialect interpretations, there is always a slovenliness to the pronunciation.... Unlike his Russian cousin, Ivan, the Cockney Alf Higgins is nearly always optimistic.... On the whole, the Cockney is a truculent bloke who knows that what he knows is right and who says what he thinks is right.... When the Cockney is good, he is a funny little fellow; when he is bad, he is a rat.

This passage is from a dialect book written in 1943. My edition was printed in 1981, and I'm writing this in 2008. I think it's pretty clear that you would never read most of that in a dialect book written today. Not just because of political correctness, either.

Look at the language. Twice the phrase "little fellow" is used. This book was written by an American for a US audience; nowadays, we would consider the term antiquated, or at least British. Note the disregard for other cultures, with loaded words like "slovenliness" and "truculent," and the nickname of "Ivan" for anyone of Russian origin. And the condescension in the phrase "when the Cockney is good, he is a funny little fellow," as if that's the best such a person could ever aspire to be.

Of course, how do you avoid sounding dated? Most of these opinions were simply widely held stereotypes that were never even considered at the time, and it's impossible to notice every prejudice you have. If you were aware of them, they wouldn't be prejudices, would they?

Another element is the way language changes. A grammatical construction can have a perceived tone, but that's only because that association was made after the fact. "Funny little fellow" sounds arrogant because it has been used over the years by arrogant people. All it really means is "funny man," with a diminutive that is used in many languages to indicate intimacy, approval, fondness, or any number of other senses.

In other words, I'm saying that it's impossible to keep your language from sounding dated. I guess all you can do is to say what you mean to say, and be aware that no one will ever understand your meaning perfectly... those people not yet born least of all. Plus, if someone is reading what you wrote sixty-five years from now, you must have done something right.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0

First Paragraph

Confession: I thought of something really good for my confession this morning, and now I've forgotten it.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling" by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

Holy crap! What a first paragraph! I'm going to quote the first paragraph from "Pa's Darling" for the purposes of discussion:

Pa's death, in the cold winter of 1960, at the age of eighty-seven, was a crucial event in the lives of his two daughters, but particularly for myself, the supposedly most loved, the adored Kate, the eldest. As I sit in my multichambered apartment, the last of my many wasted efforts to impress him, looking out on the strangely white and oddly dreary expanse of Central Park, with the newspaper clippings of his laudatory obituaries in my lap, it seems a timely if unsettling opportunity to review my own life, no longer, I can only hope, in the shadow of his, unless it will be even more so. For people, I know, always think of me not as the widow of the brilliant young attorney Sumner Shepard, gallantly dead in the 1940 fall of France, nor even as the present wiife of Dicky Phelps, senior partner of his distinguished Wall Street law firm, but as the daughter of Lionel Hemenway, the great judge of the New York Court of Appeals, reknowned safe and philosopher, author of provocative books on law and literature, and the witty deity of the Patroons Club. God rest his soul if it be capable of resting.

I'll say it again--holy crap! There's so much in there. First of all, there are only four sentences in that entire passage, three long-ass ones and the kicker at the end. That very structure is what helps draw you into the story. There is a rhythm to those long sentences too, each phrase fairly short in itself, but separated by commas, which keeps the meaning clear, while still maintaining the flow, in a way that gives the sentence power, without making it feel overblown. (See what I did there?)

Those first three sentences set up a pattern, and the last sentence breaks that pattern. It's already in a position of importance, being the last sentence in the first paragraph, but that power is amplified by making it so short. Moreover, it's witty, so it lives up to the importance the structure gives it.

So much for the structure; what about the content? We learn a lot about "Pa" in this first paragraph, and the narrator, Kate. First, the father--he's not a very lovable man, although there were clearly many reasons to praise him upon his death. A well-respected man, then, but that is not the same thing as lovable. He was wealthy, or at least comfortably well off, and probably used his connections to secure at least one, if not two, good, secure marriages for his daughter. But he appears to have viewed his daughter not as an individual in her own right, but as an extension of his own prestige.

Now, onto Kate. She may dislike who her father is, but she does not realize the extent to which she has become like him. This is her own narration, you see. She might hate the way that she is regarded not as her own person, but in terms of her father, but in the very first line, she characterized herself as his favorite. That is an inextricable part of how she sees herself! Not to mention, what alternatives did she give to being thought of as her father's daughter? As her first husband's widow, or as her current husband's wife. Not once did she mention anything about defining herself in terms of herself, and not in terms of a man in her life.

My favorite line of the entire piece: "... it seems a timely if unsettling opportunity to review my own life, no longer... in the shadow of his, unless it will be even more so." How awesome is that?

By the way... I'm sometimes asked why I was never an English major, never really studied creative writing in college (except for that one class) if I like it so much. I certainly enjoy reading and analyzing literature. But they wouldn't let me get away with saying "awesome," "long-ass," or "holy crap" in my papers, now would they?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0

All My Projects

Confession: I have just enough fashion sense to know when I look like crap, but not enough to effectively do anything about it.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling" by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  

I think this is a good exercise to do, and perhaps I'll keep it going. Above I have listed all of my projects, current and ongoing. I think I need to start getting that "Future Projects" list shorter by actually completing drafts of some of those, and need to change a bunch of those "Unsubmitted" tags to "Submitted."

I think I'd like to keep this list going every day, although I'll need to find a way to copy and paste instead of retyping it every time. I might also change the "Writing" and "Revising" categories into "Currently Working On," since in practice I usually work on either the revision or the composition at any given time. If I happen to be working on both, I'll put both under the same heading.

Regardless, this gives me a good way to measure my progress, and to remind myself of exactly what I have waiting for me, especially during those times that I sit down to write and can't think of what to work on.

I was thinking this past weekend about how much finishing some old projects will help me clear my plate, and I think that's true. There's nothing like a game plan to get you going. In fact, as time goes on, I think I'm going to start ordering this list so that I always know what I want to work on next.

I just reread the list, and I think my first step is clear. I need to finish the "Cora and the Sea" revision this week, since the reading is coming up soon, and I want to get some feedback on the new version before I read it aloud in front of a group. Also, I've got that new 24-hour short story to do this Saturday, and it has to be done Saturday afternoon. (Which reminds me... I need to make sure I actually get some sleep Friday night....)

After that, the best thing will be for me to get some of those stories moved over to the "submitted" column. There are a few, like "Black Pudding" and "What Price Stamps?" that are in good enough shape to send out as-is. Maybe "Pictures of the Old Port" too. I can submit "Morning Tea" today. Why not at lunch? All I need to do is to finish the cover letter, then I'll have one more story out.

The next step will be research. I made a promise not to send "Illuminated" out just anywhere, and that means researching a good place for it. The length is a factor that makes that more difficult, though. For a new author, the longer the story, the more difficult it is to sell. I wonder if it would be in my best interests to sit on it for a while, do a revision in a couple of months once I get a bit more objectivity, and try to shop it out again then? Either way, I need to explore a few more markets and see what stories I have that would suit each one. That's going to be the single biggest step in getting the "finished" stories submitted.

Of course, as you can see, I don't have a "finished" category for anything. Until a story is actually published, it's not finished. It's almost like each story is always growing and changing, and each submission is like taking a picture of it at that moment in time. If it gets accepted, then there just must be something about that snapshot that works. (Of course, that doesn't mean I can't keep tinkering, does it?) It's like the story is all grown up and has moved away from home.

Hmmm... perhaps the metaphor is apt. I'd like to send a few more stories off to college, and turn their rooms into a rec room. They're welcome to visit, and I'll be happy to do their laundry, but it's time they got their own place.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0
  

Act Structure

Confession: I think my shyness is only on an average basis. After a day or two of being outgoing, it takes a week of solitude to center myself.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling," by Louis Auchincloss
• Superior Saturday, by Garth Nix

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Movies tend to have clearly defined acts. Some books do, some don't. My question is, should they? And if so, how can it be done well?

By an act, I mean a discrete chunk of a story with its own miniature rising action, climax, and falling action. I think acts are shorthand for the person experiencing a story. After all, you can't keep in your mind simultaneously all of the details of a plot. So you break it up into parts whose import you can remember.

For example, I just watched Hellboy today. (The original, not the recent sequel.) I had a pretty well defined four act structure. In the first, we got Hellboy's origins and a taste of the relationship with his father. (The details of Nazi portal machines and candy bars are unimportant.) In the second, we see the adult character in action, see what he can do.

Both of these acts end with a success, or at least a perceived success. In the third, we get a failure for the first time. Well, it's a success in that the main heroes live to fight on, but they suffer loss. In the fourth, there is an even more major loss, as Hellboy loses his adopted father.

The trend appears to continue into the fifth act until, at the end, the day is improbably saved by a confluence of everything that came before.

I think the early successes are important to a story, because they are what make us root for a character. We learn their capabilities and their weaknesses, and that makes later failures and successes believable.

By the same token, the later failures are very important, because they draw the characters out of the routine and into the exceptional, the sort of exceptionality that can only be found in trying circumstances.

In creating plot, then, it is best to be aware of the act structure without becoming a slave to it. After all, it's the result that's important, not the theory, and surely there are many exceptions to the rule.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Visual Input

Confession: Walked about ten miles today. There was chafing.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling," by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Today I went to the Met, specifically through the Modern art and Oceania sections. (Also I went to the roof where there were giant metal balloon animals. This does not relate at all to this post, but was still fucking awesome.)

In an earlier post, I mentioned my plan to take trips to the Met as a way of getting story inspiration. This was my first opportunity to put that into practice, and I have to say, I was satisfied with the outcome. For archival purposes, here are the notes I jotted down over the course of the afternoon.

• Brother & two younger sisters
• Set in lighthouse?
• Cow skull
• The universe through the portal of a bone. "Bone doors"
• Silent fall
• Woman in white pants, brown shirt, flowing green jacket. Alone. Stark & bare landscape. Once had companions.
• Disapproval - isolated school - children rise up? (Why?) Stark woman wears red, wears self-deprivation like a badge. A little enclave in the wilderness.
• Nic's writing desk. (A sketch of it) - built himself by hand
• D- Colors duller, but shapes & forms stand out. Energy aura - tension & potential, just before a spring. Heat looks angry. Chemical reactions feel like falling off a cliff. Sea-waves pulse with energy.
• Can't directly affect living creatures - resisted by their life force.

So the question is... was that worth the $20 admission? I think so, and here's why. I'm not sure how much sense that makes to anyone else, but here's what I got out of it:

• What sort of dynamic is there between multiple siblings? In particular, I'm imagining a girl of about ten forced through circumstance to take care of her older brother (about twelve) on a journey, while simultaneously caring for her younger sister, who is about six. I'm not sure what got them in trouble or where they're going, but there's a potential for some interesting conflict.
• I saw a painting of a lighthouse. It was beautiful but isolated, and this sounded like a good setting for a story.
• Thanks to Georgia O'Keefe, I saw a number of cow skulls. They have such a distinctive shape... where could I go with that? Dunno, yet.
• "The universe through a portal of bone" is a phrase in a description of another O'Keefe painting called "Pelvis II," which I happened to find just now online. It sounded interesting, made me write the phrase "Bone door." I imagined a story concept in which travel to other places/worlds/times/etc was possible, but required the use of bones in some way, either to construct the door or activate it. Magic, as they say, always demands a sacrifice.
• I saw a picture of someone falling, as if from a cliff, and it struck me that no one else was around to watch him fall. I picture him as not screaming, but silent as he fell, and the world around him just as silent. It was a vivid image.
• The woman in question was a self portrait of an artist whose name I've already forgotten. It wasn't the woman that caught my attention as much as it was her clothing, which seemed both utilitarian and dramatic at the same time. Her expression was odd too. I pictured her as the last person left of a once larger group, who had progressed out of the greener places and times in her life to a place where she was alone. But she was driven. There's still some job that needs to be done.
• In another picture, I saw a story fully formed. There was a stern looking woman, probably not old in retrospect, but in her demeanor. Behind her was a building which in my imagination became a school. I saw it as a place in the wilderness that this woman had turned, through her force of will, into an enclave of civilization. Perhaps it's a British school in India or South Africa, and within its bounds, no one could tell save by the weather that they're not in the English countryside. For whatever reason, this woman has become hardened, and believes that anything good is a luxury which should be rooted out and dispensed with. She's proud of depriving herself. She does the same to the students she cares for. Ironically, she does care for them, and is doing as best she can, as she sees it. I imagine the children rising up against her somehow. But what would start it? Children are going to assume that what they experience is normal unless something happens to disturb that equilibrium. I imagine a stranger coming to the school while they're in their playground, perhaps a native of that foreign country, and he or she is found by the children before their teacher. What transpires? I don't know, but it would have to be major.
• The remaining points have to do with Dairhenien's Library, my perpetually in-progress series of novels. I saw a writing desk that would be a perfect accessory for Nicodemius, an old adventurer-turned-scholar. I can see him making it himself by hand, not using his magic, just to demonstrate that he can.
• One painting I saw, a Picasso, caused me to wonder how perceptions alter for Dairhenien while he's using magic. It's a magic of seeing structures, but since the human body is only capable of perceiving certain sensations, a kind of aphasia takes place in which perception of magic is mapped to the other senses, as well as emotions.
• The final point is a solution to a problem of balance that has been bothering me. Of the two forms of magic in my story, one had long felt far more powerful than the other. By posing a restriction against its use on living creatures, I believe I've evened the playing field.

So that's what I got out of my price of admission. Nothing really concrete, just snatches of character and place that might pop up later, or might not. But they'll be there now, if I need them.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

(Lack of) Direction

Confession: I always sound more sure of myself than I actually am. That's even true when I sound unsure.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling," by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Have you ever noticed that people in stories always seem to know what's going on, what to do next? I never feel like that. I think there's a tendency to let the narrative sweep the characters in a story along, and since the writer knows what's going to happen, the characters often don't worry either. There's never any long periods of time where the characters are wandering around doing nothing. The answers always come at just the right moment to move the story along.

Part of that is because the writer must keep the attention of the reader. After all, no one wants to read people sitting around doing nothing. Is there a way to do both, though?

I think J.K. Rowling managed it in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact, Harry feeling lost and without direction was a major plot point in the first half of the book, yet it was still an enjoyable read. I think that's because things kept happening during that time, even if they did not serve the ends of the characters.

And that's the key, I think. I have to remember that my characters have desires of their own. Sometimes they are in accord with the plot, sometimes not. And the latter case is often the most interesting.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Blood Will Tell?

Confession: I can't turn down free cookies, no matter how hard I try.

Reading:

• The Best American Short Stories 2007, Stephen King, ed.
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

I find myself in an odd position right now, between books. I just finished Someplace to be Flying, and I've got to say, it really took off as the story went on. Sure, the characters were still the same usual De Lint creations, like I explained in an earlier post, but at the same time, they're not bad characters either. By the end, I was really invested in their story, and I was sorry the book had ended.

What I feel most strongly about De Lint's world of Newford is how real the unreality feels. I finish one of his novels, and I'm convinced that I'm going to see the Crow Girls walking around the next corner. In fact, coming down off that high is always a bit of a disappointment.

However, there's a darker side to De Lint's world, and it's the notion of blood. There's a heavy reliance on blood and heredity as a way of passing on magical traits, and this is not exclusive to De Lint by any means. But it seems to go so contrary to the themes of his books. I can't state it well right now, but there's a truth at the center of this thought, and if I worry at it for a few days, I'll get ahold of it.

Anyway, my next reading project will be The Best American Short Stories 2007, as edited by Stephen King. You won't see that title in the summary again, but instead, the individual stories involved in the collect. You can just assume that anything in quotes for the next week or two is from that collection.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Camaraderie

Confession: This was supposed to be the title of yesterday's post, but I got so off-topic, I decide to save it.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

One element that always attracts me in film and literature is the idea of camaraderie. I would define that as the relationship between a group of people who share both friendship and a common purpose. Friendship between two people is rewarding; friendship among six is even more so.

I think back to successful television shows like Friends, in which the entire dynamic of the show was the relationship among six characters who were, well, friends. But that's what's so unusual... they weren't competing with each other, not really. They were helping each other. And if they occasionally ran into conflict with each other, that was the exception, not the rule, and only served to drive the dynamic further.

There's a feeling of acceptance about group membership. It's the feeling of being a small part of something greater, of being an integral part of it. And that's what I would like the reader to experience in Dairhenien's Library. Dairhenien has his journeymates. So does Nicodemius, although some are now gone. It's what Lilith doesn't have and envies, until she finds the library herself, and then discovers that she's part of a fellowship far greater than any other. It's what the Fairy has with her mercenary cronies, whom I should write much more like Star Wars smugglers than evil bandits. Only the bad guys are alone. And that's the point, isn't it?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Tie-in Fiction

Confession: Intimacy frightens me, now.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Several bits of news today. First, my Three-Cover-Letter plan crashed and burned. One of the magazines had a shorter word limit than I expected, and another doesn't accept new submissions until September 1st. For the third, I lacked the submission guidelines, since they were not posted on the site. A quick email to the editor netted me those, however, and I should be able to get the cover letter done tomorrow morning.

I finished the Thrawn trilogy just now. The first book was better than I remember, and the last book was a let down. The middle was simply unmemorable. I can't help but ask myself... have I outgrown tie-in fiction? Probably so. I used to read Star Trek novels non-stop, but now I've sold all but my very favorites, and I don't read those.

I think I started to feel the stagnation. For the most part, main characters don't progress in tie-in fiction. Every Star Trek novel ends where it begins, in terms of the characterization. Any actual character arcs only take place for the guest characters, who in a certain sense, "don't matter" in tie-in fiction. Star Wars has managed to avoid some of those pitfalls by carrying the same characters over from story to story, but even so, the main cast has already gone through their character progression, and have very little room to grow or change.

Unconnected novels, though, aren't bound up by the cross-media restrictions. There's no limit to what can happen. I think I really need that in what I read now.

Finally, you can see that I've chosen a new writing project at last. It doesn't have a title at the moment. The original title no longer applies, since this is no longer going to be a novel. I'm pretty much going to rewrite from the beginning. I'll keep the main character, and her beautiful sister, but I want to develop her foe a lot more. It's too cut and dried. There needs to be some sexual tension in there, some possessiveness, and the main character's dawning realization that she has become what she fears and hates. I'll have to keep the mirrors, of course, and I like the candles.

Once I get past the last currently written scene, she needs to think she's escaped. Let her take the new look out for a spin, start to enjoy it despite herself. Does she have access to all the old forms? That would be a twist. They become collectors, of a sort. Like clothes that can be changed as the occasion warrants. Each one a memorial of murder.

If this doesn't make sense yet, just wait until I announce it's done, and ask me to email it to you.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Finding Markets

Confession: Having a clearn apartment makes me feel better, but I never seem to clean it until someone's about to come over. It's like I value their opinion more than my own comfort.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

This morning I accomplished a lot, as long as you didn't expect me to get any writing done.

Fresh from my weekend surprise, I decided that it would be a good idea to get a few more stories out. In the hour or so I spent working this morning, I found three good potential spots, one for "Illuminated," one for either "Pictures of the Old Port" or "The Revenant," and one for "A Cup of Coffee." Except the last one is for a magazine about tea, so I'll have to change it from coffee to tea.

That's the miracle of writing, right there. The entire point of the original was the coffee. But a couple of judicious edits later, the point of the story is tea. It was almost as simple as a find and replace. That was kind of cool.

What I did, though, was to exhaust the small circulation section of the 2008 Novel and Short Story Writers' Guide. I'd worry, but there are still plenty of wider circulation magazines to try. Plus dozens of the small circulation ones I've have submitted to yet.

My plan for tomorrow is to write cover letters for each of the three stories. I can put on them my brand spanking new publication credit, too. Heh heh heh. Dunno if it'll help, but it looks better than a blank bio.

Then later this week, I'll get them mailed off (I have to buy stamps first), and then I can update my submitted counter to 5. That'll be nice.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Between projects

Confession: I kind of thought getting published would feel different. Maybe it will once I get the magazine in my hands.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

You know, it's odd. Getting "Ferian Fetlock" finished did turn out to be a load off, but it's been out there for so long, that I feel like I'm drifting a little bit. I still haven't settled on a new project yet, although I've promised myself that I will do so by tomorrow morning at the latest.

One thing that getting a story accepted has done is to make me realize that the time I spend writing matters in some way. Before, I had no real goal for my writing. I was doing it for me, for the joy of creating a story, but that never turned out to be enough to keep my motivation level high. Now I know.

I can get published.

I can actually do this. It should be obvious that it's possible--I mean, I'm living in an apartment with more than a thousand books in it. They've done it, and in some cases, I think I can do it better. But it's kind of like looking in a window at a bunch of people... let's say, cooking. I know I can cook. Just let me in and I'll show you!

So... where's the door?

I didn't just find a door. I found a letter that tells me where to look for the sign that explains the multi-step procedure for finding the door. Oh, and by the way--there's actually several thousand doors, many of the locked, some leading to entirely different houses. Good luck!

Anyway, back on topic. For my next project, I'd like to get another of my half-written stories completed. Finishing "Ferian" was a challenge, but it was a good kind of challenge, and one that I learned from. And I know there's a lot more out there to learn.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

A good writing day

Confession: I'm afraid something's going to happen to take this away.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

As you can see, I've taken "Ferian Fetlock" off the list. That's right, the first draft of "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" is finished. It needs work, of course, but that's only to be expected.

The ending surprised me a little. Oh sure, I knew how I wanted to the story to end, and that's how it ended. The events that transpired are the same as I had planned. But I wasn't able to make that ending be an ending with closure. It was an ending with a hook for the next chapter. In other words, Ferian is refusing to shut up and be a short story. He wants to be a book.

As you can see, though, I didn't immediately put the next story, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," as my new writing project. Nor did I put up Dairhenien's Library, although that had been my original plan. You see, in two weeks I'm going to participate once more in the 24 Hour Short Story Contest, and I want to be in the right frame of mind for that.

My next major task is to actually start working on the "Cora and the Sea" revision, since my reading on August 11th is coming up fast. I don't know if that will take two whole weeks or not--hopefully not. So I need to decide on another project to fill in with in the mean time. Dairhenien might be a good bet, if nothing else to organize further the world building notes I've written. Or characters... yes, I should probably start working on characterization a bit more. I know many of the broad strokes, but none of the flavor.

Of course, any time I work on Dairhenien, there won't be an immediate payoff. I need to get "Illuminated" resubmitted, and perhaps another story too. Should I work on "The Revenant" some more? Do some more magazine research too?

It's doubly important to get more stories out because of the other thing that happened today: our girl "Dolly Hobbles" was accepted for publication by The Storyteller magazine. It is slated for the Jan/Feb/March 2009 issue of that publication.

As you can imagine, I'm thrilled. I immediately called my parents and a few others, and emailed everyone who has ever helped me in my writing. Now I'm going to have to put an Accepted counter down here too!

Publication Status:

• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Why I like Vlad Taltos

Confession: Praise is a strong motivation for me, which I why I usually succeed in a support role better than a leadership one.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

As expected, I tore through Jhegaala like a wet paper bag. There's something so satisfying about a Vlad Taltos book. Maybe it's the way that all the intrigue and mystery comes together at the very end, or maybe it's the view of a strange world through the eyes of such an interesting character.

To be honest, Jhegaala wasn't my favorite in the series, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. My favorite aspects of the world of Dragaera is in the mythology. That's why I loved Issola with all its portents about the coming war with the Jenoine and the transformation of Spellbreaker. Anything with Morrollan, Aliera, and Sethra Lavode in a starring role is perfect for me.

Unique among the other books in the series, though, not a single Dragaeran was to be seen in the entire story. One was mentioned obliquely, but he stayed well distant and had surprisingly little impact on the overall story. In fact, the entire world of Dragaeran society was muted. It was a nameless threat, a name on the horizon, looked askance at, but not very important.

In this story, Vlad came to terms with being a Dragaeran. We've known since the beginning that Vlad was the reincarnation of a Dragaeran soul, but he always held himself purposefully apart nonetheless. Now, he has seen his own race and realized that he is apart from them. We now see the events of his return to Dragaera in a different light.

There were no great, earth-shattering revelations in Jhegaala, but the title was well-chosen. This was a book about transformation. It's a book about going home and discovering that home is the place you just left. It's about dealing with grief and loss and weakness.

I think Brust needed to give Vlad this kind of story, following so closely on the heels of Teckla and Phoenix, which I've always thought were the most depressing of the series. (I understand it had to be, but I love the books where Vlad and Cawti are together.) Jhegaala gives an odd kind of closure to that phase of Vlad's life. Like the namesake animal, he has transformed, and he is both the same creature and different from how he was before.

My only real disappointment was that there was no tie-in at all with Brokedown Palace, except in the name of the country in which it was set. That's a pity, because I would have liked to see confirmation of the relationship between that story and Vlad's own.

Rejection Counter: 1

Jhegaala

Confession: An ex-girlfriend started me reading Steven Brust. It's one of the few good things I carried away from that relationship.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• Jhegaala, by Steven Brust

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

There are a few authors for whom I am willing to drop everything to read their new book. Steven Brust is one of them. I adore his Dragaeran novels, both the Khaavren Romances and the Vlad Taltos series.

I've been reading this series for almost ten years now, long enough for elements of it to work their way into my knowledge base. The idea that Elves would consider themselves human, and humans to be something other and lesser, for example. The concept of a fantasy book reading like The Three Musketeers, complete with inflated and overblown prose. I even know the correct way to pronounce Taltos, and for a non-Hungarian, that's pretty damn good.

My favorite part about Vlad's stories are the way he navigates through a world of mystery, magic, and enchantment without reacting like your stereotypical fantasy hero. He's not interested in learning the secrets of the universe. He wants to save his own skin, drink, do well with the ladies, enjoy the love and respect of his grandfather, get married. Oh yeah, and run a crime syndicate, and keep from being killed.

The point is, he's a real person with a real life, and he isn't motivated by some obscure "quest." I would love to be able to write real people like that.

And now, I'm back to reading.

Rejection Counter: 1

Coincidence?

Confession: I think too much. I over analyze. I don't know how to stop.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

First of all, you may notice that I've finished yet another Star Wars book. They're remarkably quick to read. Nothing really deep, just all candy and fluff. So yeah, it's junk food literature, but there's nothing wrong with a little of that now and then.

In reading them, though, I noticed the operation of coincidence over and over. The main characters split up to pursue their own separate plotlines. Through unrelated events, they all reconvene. How the hell does that work?

I mean, in The Empire Strikes Back, we saw the heroes split into two groups. But their reunification was realistic, at least insofar as you accept the deus ex machina of the Force. But in Zahn's books, we have no such tidy explanation. Plot threads are woven into a tapestry. That's true with any story, but in the case of these books, you can see the goddamn weaver!

I like to feel that the past is tied down, but the thread of the future is unbound, whipping out before me, and only set into place when I reach it. But that's how real life feels to me, too. I don't believe in fate, per se.

That may be a bit disingenuous. I do believe in God, and that it is possible to be led in the "right" direction (whatever your definition of "right" is), but I also feel that it is entirely my choice whether I follow that path or not. If the future is predestined, then what point is there in trying?

When writing, I want my characters to feel the same. And through them, I want the reader to know that anything can happen, good or bad. Let the tapestry of the story emerge from what the characters do to it. Let them be their own weavers.

Rejection Counter: 1

Status Updates

Confession: Ordering sushi makes me feel classy.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• Dark Force Rising, by Timothy Zahn

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

I think my momentum with "Ferian" is picking up. I got a goodly bit done this morning, and I expect to accomplish just as much tomorrow. Progress is good.

Once "Ferian" is in draft form, I'm going to switch over to "Cora" and do what I've been promising for weeks--revise it.

I've already mentioned that I want do some Dairhenien next, but that it's going to be more developing than writing. So I should probably add a new "Writing" status up at the top as well. The question is, new story or finishing an old one? I don't want to do more Floorcraft until I've revised the old stories.

I just realized something. "Ferian." "Cora." Dairhenien. "Simon's Story" (from Floorcraft). Everything I've written lately has featured a character's name in the title. The main character. The POV character. Interesting.

Also, I've got one more new status to add to my posts, this time at the bottom:

Rejection Counter: 1

50th Post Extravaganza

Confession: Yeah, I didn't do any writing this morning. Or exercising.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• Dark Force Rising, by Timothy Zahn

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

This is my fiftieth blog post. And you know what? It's working.

Never before have I thought about writing for such a long period together. I've always reached the low point in the sine wave, and abandoned it until I hit the next upswing. That's not to say that I've accomplished a lot over the last few weeks, but at the same time, I haven't been entirely unproductive, either.

I feel like I need to learn more about the craft of devising plots, and to do that, I want to go in-depth into a book with a very intricate plot. Maybe intricate symbolism as well, something that I can really sink my teeth into.

I have a couple of possibilities. The first is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Another is Harry Potter. Both are books for which it is clear that a plan existed from the very beginning, and it was carried through to the end. I think I like the writing style of Strange a little better, although the plot in Harry Potter is more intricate, the characters more varied in a way. Of course, there's nothing to say I can't do both, eventually.

So here's the plan. Instead of blogging about Strange, I'm going to do a wiki of it. It will start with a chapter by chapter analysis, but that will also begin to include information on the characters and personalities of the characters. I want to see how and why I build up a certain image of them in my mind, and how that arcs through the story. There's no better way to do that than a wiki.

Of course, it's a big project. I'll have to work on it gradually, and set a schedule so I keep working on it. But that is a task for another day.

New Schedule

Confession: I'm not sure whether I'm a morning person or a night person. I think I'm motivated more by inertia--when I'm in bed, I want to stay there; when I'm awake, I want to stay there too.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint
• Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising

• "Cora and the Sea"

It's been about six weeks now since I've started trying to get serious about writing. I've learned a lot in that time about what it takes to motivate me. I've also run into difficulty with another project, which is exercising and getting into better shape. To be perfectly frank, I haven't made any progress at all in the latter.

What I need is to do is develop a plan, and here it is:

• 5:00am - Wakeup
• 5:15am - Leave the house on my bike; pedal around for a while
• 5:45am - Return home; shower
• 6:00am - Breakfast
• 6:30am - Leave the house, go to Panera and write
  
• 8:00am - Leave Panera, go to work

That leaves my evenings free for whatever, and accomplishes both of my goals, exercise and writing. I'll want to devise an indoor exercise plan at some point, for rainy days (like tomorrow, honestly), but that can wait until I have the habit firmly established.

Meanwhile, I've taken a break from Someplace to be Flying to read the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. I read the first volume back in the early 90s, but never read the following volumes. I visited the Strand yesterday and found the whole series in hardcover for cheap, and treated myself.

It's good, better than I remember. I've come to think of most in-universe licensed fiction as little more than fan fiction, but Heir to the Empire has been a good read in its own right.