Author's Note

Last night was packing…  Today is counting down until I hit the road. 

I’m headed for ConText 23 in Columbus, Ohio with some of my writing buddies.  We’ve been planning this since last spring.  I’m all atwitter about mixing and mingling with other writers, attending panels and figuring out ways to make my writing better, and oh yeah, promoting the heck out of my new book.  That’s right, my new book.  Thanks to the wonderful support of the folks at Soylent Publications, I’ll be publishing my first collection of short stories, titled Charmed City: 13 Tales of the Dark and Strange in Baltimore,  in May 2011.  So excited….  Is it time to hit the road yet?

Have you ever walked into a room and felt sure there was someone there with you, but you were quite obviously alone?  Or heard something fall in the next room, and this time you can’t blame it on the cat because she’s curled up in your lap?  Congratulations, you may have experienced a ghost. 

Ghosts are popular topics for writers of all stripes, and why not?  A ghost can bring all kinds of goodies into a story – the spark for the story to begin, a way to impart information to your main character, an obstacle for your main character, spooky atmosphere, the list goes on and on. 

But I think ghosts are popular in story for another reason; because we all wonder what’s past the veil.  We’ve discovered the globe.  We’ve discovered the stars.  We’ve even discovered amazing worlds on the microscopic level.  But the one door that remains stubbornly shut is the one that opens onto the afterlife.  Is there a Heaven and Hell?  If so, what determines where you go?  Do we come back for multiple trips on this plane, or is corporeal life a one shot deal?  Does the afterlife exist at all, or do we just wink out when we take our last breaths?

Who better to answer these questions than someone who has been there?  Like Lewis and Clark mapping out the unknown wilderness, a ghost can being back reports of what’s on the other side.  What’s it like?  Are you happy?  Does it hurt? 

But why would a ghost even come back anyway?  The going reasoning is that the ghost must have “unfinished business” to want to hang around.  It’s usually something important, like fingering the person who murdered them or saving that last bit of energy to warn a loved one of danger, but I wonder if some ghosts stick around for more mundane reasons.  Can you imagine being stuck on this plane because you still have some checks in your purse that you meant to deposit, or you meant to clean the bathroom and never got around to it? 

Ghosts do make an appearance in some of my stories, and in both of the stories I have for available with Echelon Press, their unfinished business is very important.  In “Tony Came Home,” a ghost attends a birth, and in “Over the Hogmanay Threshold” a ghost works to save his grandchild. 

Buy them both here. 

Happy Reading!

Water-colored wings and tiny little bodies….  Child height with a jaunty red cap….  Friendly….  Mischievous….  Sometimes malevolent…..  Sometimes called the little folk or our friends (because to speak the name of the fairies was to attract notice and therefore trouble), other times the Sidhe (pronounced Shee), fairies hold a special place in the human psyche, but it’s not always the same place. 

As with the Greek Gods, humans have used fairies to explain the unexplainable from time immemorial.  I’ve got a particular soft spot in my heart for these variable creatures ever since my grandmother told me I was Fae when I was a small child.  To be Fae (yet another name for fairies) as a human means that you’ve been touched by fairies in some way.  I have a small divot by my left ear, which my grandmother told me was caused by a fairy’s touch, and meant that if I listened very closely, I’d be able to hear the fairies.  So far, I haven’t picked up any strange conversations, but I’ve remained curious about the fairy folk into my adulthood. 

On my bookshelves, I have volumes and volumes of fairy lore, folktales, and fairy encyclopedias from countries and cultures around the world.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this research, it’s that there’s a whole lot of variation in the fairy realm.  Some fairies, like leprechauns, are tricksters.  Other fairies, like brownies and hobs, want to help humans and actively serve them.  And still others, like will-o-the-wisps, are dangerous to humans and should be avoided at all costs.  But one thing that all fairies have in common, even the most benevolent ones, you do not want to piss them off. 

Fairies have a wide variety of skills and magical abilities, and woe to the human that crosses them.  And this is what draws me in when I write – the things that go wrong, conflict between the worlds.  What happens when fairies get blood thirsty and join The Wild Hunt, as they do in my short story, “Hounds of Winter“?  Or what happens when their homes are threatened, as it is in my as-yet unpublished short story, “In the Town of Henry’s Fence”?  These otherworldly conflicts get my writer senses tingling and make my fingers itch to hit the keyboard.

It never fails.  Whenever I’m in the same space with another writer for any length of time, we always start to talk shop.  Just this past weekend, I was at a party and there were some other writer friends of mine there, and of course we started talking about writing as we hung out in the pool and dodged sugar-hyped kids.  We talked about our current projects, we talked about upcoming conventions, and we talked about the process of writing – in particular, when/how often do you write? 

The leading wisdom these days is get your butt into the chair every. single. day.  Don’t take a day off, or else you’re a naughty writer.  Bad writer, no cookie (or publishing contract).  Immediately one of my writer friends said, “Ooff, I just can’t do that!”  And this brought nods from our little circle.  I certainly understand her point. 

Like many writers, I’m struggling to balance a day job, trying to keep my creative career going and grow it, being a homeowner and being a wife.  I have to appease my boss at the day job since the creative writing career hasn’t grown enough to cover the bills.  Laundry and dishes won’t wash themselves (stupid, lazy socks and cereal bowls), and really, there’s only so much of the burden I can ask my husband to shoulder.  He signed on to be my mate, not my maid.  And then what about having a life outside of work?  Where do you get the grist for your writing mill if you don’t read, interact with people, experience things, and just get out there and live?

But if you’re not applying butt to seat – then when does the writing get done?  Words won’t type themselves (much like the socks that refuse to haul themselves over to the washer.  bastards). 

If you don’t hold yourself to writing every day, what’s the other plan?  Some writers swear by settling down for a large block of time all at once.  And if you think about it, this can be very effective.  Camping in front of the laptop for 8-10 hours on a Sunday gets you more writing time than putting aside an hour an every day of the week (7 hours) like the every day writing gurus advise.  But can you really do that?  I know I’m not the only writer trying to juggle all the aforementioned tasks.  When was the last time you had 8-10 hours uninterrupted? 

Personally, I don’t think any advice can be applied across the board.  You wouldn’t ask a sprinter to run a marathon or ask a marathoner to run a sprint and expect him/her to perform up to his/her top potential, so why expect all writers to follow the same writing rules and perform at the top of their games? 

Whether a writer is a sprinter (daily writing) or a marathoner (large block), all that really matters is that the work gets done.  Pick your pace, pick your schedule, but make a plan and stick to it.  Words don’t write themselves.

It is the eternal conflict of the writer – one must be sure of one’s talent and skill, but not arrogant.  This came to me last night as I was working on a new anthology submission for Soylent Publications. 

When I get close to the end of the story, it’s common for me to be assailed with self-doubt.  I hope and I pray that I will be so deeply immersed in the story creation that I’ll type “The End” before this happens, but sadly, it’s not often the case.  Instead, I’ll be typing along, following the mental sign posts in my head (turn left for plot twist, emotional dip ahead), when the all important “The End Is Near” sign shows up.  And self-doubt creeps in with ninja-like stealth.  I start to think that maybe this is going in the wrong direction entirely, maybe I need to go back to the beginning, oh here’s some recurring symbols I should have been sprinkling in all along.  Let me go and do that.  Then the siren song of delaying the inevitable begins in the form of laundry/dishes/cat box. 

Self-doubt tells me the story isn’t good enough, so why even finish it in the first place?  Why set myself up for inevitable rejection by finishing the sucker, then starting the rounds of magazine and publisher submissions.  I could be kibitzing on Facebook, you know…

And here is where the writer must find that well of confidence in his/her soul and forge on ahead.  If I did not find that confidence, then my hard drive would be littered with the half-finished remains of stories that never quite finished the birthing process.  Sure, I have a few like that, but the number that I’ve seen it through with outnumbers the ones that have fallen by the wayside, half-finished.  But once that reserve of confidence is breeched, a writer has to be careful not to go too far in the other direction, because an arrogant writer does not believe that there is anything else to learn and that his/her prose is always perfect. 

But no one, not even the greatest luminaries of the literary constellations, is perfect.  It is the dichotomy of the writer – confident enough to send stories out into the world believing someone will want to read them, and full of enough self-doubt to constantly strive to be a better writer.

Is it possible for a story topic to get tapped out, sucked dry?  How can you tell? 

I was set to wondering about this when I got an invitation to fan another author on Facebook.  Rather than indiscriminately hit the accept button, I popped on over to the author’s page to see what all this was about. 

It was about vampires, angsty gothic vampires.  And the snarky commentary started rolling in my head.  I can tell you right now, my inner voice might not have been kind, but it was very funny.  But I will not repeat it here, because I do endeavor to overcome my flaws and be a better person a little every day. 

But it got me to thinking – why did I internally roll my eyes and think, oh here we go again?  I’ll admit to loving Anne Rice in my late teens and early 20s, talk about your angsty vampires.  So was it an age thing?  Now that I’m past 30 I can’t enjoy a guilt-ridden blood sucker?  I don’t think so… 

In the industry parlance, the topic of vampires has been “done to death.”  If you read calls for submissions there are definitely topics that are right out – vampires, werewolves, zombies – unless they are done very well.  And that just might be the key right there. 

You don’t have to be quite as sharp with your storytelling if the topic has not been done or done only infrequently.  Novelty allows the reader to forgive some writerly sins.  But if you’re trying to tap a vein that many others have already tapped before you?  You better bring your A game, buddy.  And your A game better be awesome.

The speculative fiction world is a small one, and its publishers often operate on a razor thin margin.  Realms of Fantasy magazine was pulled back from the brink a year ago by Tir Na Nog Press when Sovreign Media decided to shutter it.  In the year since, they’ve done wonderful work, but now it seems that the economy has hit subscribers a bit hard.  Subscription renewals are down, but newstand sales and advertising are trending up.  If Realms of Fantasy can just hold on a little bit longer, the future looks bright indeed. 

So, give thier website a look.  If you like what you see, and your budget will allow, subscribe.  Let’s not let another SpecFic magazine go under, folks, especially not one this good. 

The magazine website:

http://www.rofmag.com/

I’ve been interviewed by another blog author on the topic of story/book names.  Check it out!

http://book-mark-it.com/

When the last post appeared, our daring heroine was nervously awaiting her first public reading….  Did she chew her fingernails to the nub?  Was she pelted by rotten tomatoes by an angry audience?  Or did get everything go well?  We tune in now to find out the answer….

 I arrived at Balticon in plenty of time to get ready for the reading, but the preparation didn’t make me feel any less nervous.  But even with my nerves, everything went just fine.  To our great relief, the audience members outnumbered us.  They were attentive and applauded nicely after each piece.  Vonnie Winslow Crist read an enchanting tale, and Katie Hartlove read beautifully.  I am so proud of my fellow Writer Goddesses.  I even got comments later in the con about how enjoyable my part of the reading was. 

 Then, in a bonus round, the author who followed us, Leona Wisoker, asked if we wanted to stay and share reading time with her.  Bonus!  I got to hear part of what sounds like a really good novel from Leona, and I got to read my back up story, “Master Pinchpenny’s Heartaches and Cure-alls,” which I think went even better than the first reading. 

 The rest of the con was quite a whirlwind, but it was a good whirlwind.  I went to lots of panels and got some really good ideas for future stories.  I got to spend good times with good friends and pick up a new Tee Morris book I’ve been itching to read.  But best of all, I made some good publishing contacts, and if all goes well, one of the book release parties at next year’s Balticon will involve me.  To say that I’m thrilled is an understatement. 

 P.S. – All authors mentioned in this post – Vonnie Winslow Crist, Katie Hartlove, Leona Wisoker, and Tee Morris – are well worth looking up and spending some of your precious cash and reading time on.  Just sayin’…

I’m nervous.  And excited.  Friday, as in tomorrow, I get to do my very first ever public reading of my work.  I’ve stood before classes of 20-30 students and taught.  I’ve sold my work and it’s been read by more than just sympathetic family and friends – and I’ve gotten compliments on it too.  But still, the thought of standing before strangers and reading my creative work has got my mouth all dry.  Seriously, anyone got a drink of water out there? 

But I’m going to do it.  And I’m going to do my very best to rock the house.  Because I’m really hoping that this will be the first of many. 

If you happen to be at Balticon, which I really encourage since it’s an awesome con, come on by Salon D at 5 pm on Friday, 5/28.  I’ll be reading. 

P.S. – Yes, the Pocket Program says Vonnie Winslow Crist for that timeslot, but she’s my fellow Writer Goddess and she’s very generously sharing her timeslot.  Besides being a wonderful critiquer and giving friend, she’s also a wonderful writer.  So, stop by and give us a listen.