Author's Note

Sometimes I dream of being an artist in the time of patronage.  Having some rich, and artistically savvy, someone pluck me from obscurity and take care of all the bills, keeping me fed, housed, and entertained while I create.  Honestly, I’d be relatively cheap.  I figure one of the Hiltons could support me in a very comfortable lifestyle for a full year on what Paris spends in one week of her tabloid-tastic lifestyle.  But the era of patronage is long gone, and there were problems with it anyway. 

When there is someone else paying all the bills there is a certain amount of kow-towing that goes with it.  If you don’t want to be out on your ear you have to please your patron.  You might get lucky and get an intelligent, well-educated patron with enough sense to let a good artist have his/her head, but you also might get stuck with a pig-headed idiot who thinks you exist only to aggrandize him/her.  In this way the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the middle class was an incredible boon to artists everywhere.  It allowed for artists to not be dependent on a single patron.  The rising middle class now had leisure time and a few extra pennies in their pockets and so could afford and enjoy object d’art, literature, and music more than ever before.  The machines of the Industrial Revolution also allowed an ease of reproduction (particularly useful for things like books, magazines, and sheet music) that made it easy for some types of artistic endeavor to travel where it was not possible before.  Art was no longer the exclusive bailiwick of the rich and noble classes, and the artist was freed of the less savory aspects of patronage. 

But all the artist gained, really, was a new patron, the masses.  If you derive all of your support from one person, as long as that one person “gets” you your financial survival is assured.  But when you depend on smaller contributions from individual members of the masses a lot of people need to “get” you.  Some artists complain that this leads to a dumbing down of art in all its forms, especially since the consumer culture has grown to behemoth proportions in the last century.  The artist becomes trapped in the publicity machine.  You don’t want to destroy your art by pandering to the lowest common denominator, and yet there must be some amount of compromise if you are to fit as a proper cog in the publicity machine and thereby ensure you can buy groceries for the week and keep the lights on.  Some artists even divide their work into distinct boxes in their minds – there is “commercial” work that will keep the bills paid, and there is the “real” art, the stuff that truly follows a personal artistic vision but may not be appreciated by the masses.  One feeds the other.  And just when you think this fractured existence will go on forever, there is another revolution on the horizon. 

The internet has made it much easier for artists to reach audiences.  Where before you might be constrained to where you could travel yourself or where you could send examples of your artwork, now you are much less limited by the shackles of geography.  If you are the type of artist that has difficulty in satisfying the mainstream audience, you now have the chance to pick up your audience in small pockets, or even ones and twos throughout the globe.

So I ply my wares on the web (go to http://www.echelonpress.com/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=96!  Buy my stories now!) and hope to build up enough patrons to keep the bills paid.

It started out as a challenge from one of my fellow writers -

We were meeting to have a critique session and it just happened to fall of Friday the 13th, so she challenged us all to write a unique story on Friday the 13th that didn’t fall into the traps of same-old-same-old.  I took the challenge and for days wracked my brains for something new and interesting to say about an ancient superstition.  I researched, looking for something that would spark a story, sometimes it takes just the littlest thing to get the fires of creativity roaring.  At first I came up dry, but then it struck me.  Even though most of the traditions for Friday the 13th involve ill-luck, not all of them do.  What if that means we’ve got it all wrong?  What if it means that Friday the 13th isn’t really all about bad luck?  And my mind was off to the races….

What if, on Friday the 13th, it’s not that you have bad luck, but rather you have no luck at all?  What if, on Friday the 13th, all the luck in the world flies free and roams around loose?  And what if, on Friday the 13th, there were people with the skills and cunning to be able to catch all this free floating luck? 

That is precisely what my short story, “Gathering Luck,” is all about.  I sold it to Sam’s Dot Publishing and they have released it this month in thier recurring anthology, Cover of Darkness.  If you’d like to see what I’m making such a fuss about, you can check it out here: http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#coverofdarkness1109

The Thanksgiving holiday is nearly upon us.  And if there is one thing every writer must do, besides write of course, it is to give thanks.  Practicing gratitude is one of the most important things a writer can do to foster a productive future. 

First and foremost, a writer must thank her muse.  Without this capricious spirit there would be no story, there would only be lonely hours of staring at a blank screen.  Even with the muse a writer needs to be prepared for a lot of lonely hours in front of the screen, but at least when the muse is involved there are pretty words dancing across the screen and a sense of accomplishment at the end. 

The next person on every writer’s thank you list should be her partner/spouse, or even a roommate will do.  The person who puts up with moody brooding, crying jags (because you just had to kill off your very favorite character), and sudden exits from the dinner table when inspiration strikes certainly deserves a thank you.  Probably a lot more than a thank you actually; flowers, lavish dinners out, and major jewelry is not enough to thank this tireless cheerleader. 

A writer must also thank her fellow writers, for who else would read rough drafts with a kind, yet critical, eye?  Who else can she commiserate with who truly understands the joys and disappointments of spinning out stories on a page?  Only other writers get it on a deep down, visceral level. 

A writer should also thank the people who publish her.  Really.  There are a lot of writers out there, many producing wonderful work, and he chose you.  No matter how good your work is, it always pays to be humble and grateful.  There’s plenty of other eager and talented writers waiting in the wings. 

And of course, a writer should never neglect to thank her readers.  Because without them, quite simply, there would be no story.  The story isn’t finished, the tale is not told, until it plays out on the stage of the reader’s mind. 

So, I would like to say, thank you.  Thank you to my muse, your prolific inspiration is much appreciated, darling.  Thank you to my fiancee, your unwavering support and pep talks are always needed, and very much appreciated.  Thank you to my fellow writer goddesses (it’s what we call our group), I wouldn’t be able to do this without you ladies.  Thank you to the publishers and editors who have believed in me enough to buy my work.  And most especially, thank you to each and every reader who has read my work.  I hope you enjoyed it.  You are the person I am doing this for.

I spent this past weekend at FairieCon, and it was my good fortune to meet, if only for a moment, one of my literary heroes – Charles de Lint.  I have been a fan for many years and when I heard he was going to be at FairieCon, there was no way I could not go.  I’ve had to pass up the chance to see him in the past, but I wasn’t going to let another opportunity slip by. 

Charles did not disappoint.  He was articulate and funny and warm and completely available to his fans.  Like any fan, I had a stack of books I wanted him to sign, and he cheerfully signed each one.  But like a writer who is also a fan, I wanted him to see my work and I mustered the courage to hand him a packet of my stories.  He accepted them graciously and I can only hope that I will hear a kind word from him about them.  Of course, in my wildest dreams he’s thrilled with my work and he helps me meet all the right people to publish with a major house and move up the bestseller list.  Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

“Tony Came Home”
Now available at Echelon Press Shorts

There are times in life, like birth and death, that lie in the borders between what we know what we don’t, and that sometimes lie beyond what we want to know. Neither here nor there, neither this nor that, these spaces between leave room for unexpected visitors. In the stark light of the local hospital, Maxine helps her daughter-in-law Cheryl bring new life into the world, leaving the door open for one of those unexpected visitors and a peculiar kind of homecoming.

“Frankie’s Diner”
Now available at Echelon Press Shorts

In the New York underworld, people are not always who they seem to be, and places you go each day – the office, or even the diner on the corner of your street – can be anything but safe. And as Marcus finds out, even something as simple as a cup of coffee can be more than meets the eye.
In a world where time isn’t measured in minutes, Marcus finds out that sometimes your time is just up.

“The Price You Pay” Available from Allegory eZine

Everyone knows the hoary old saying, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” There’s also no such thing as a heroic act without a price to pay. Elena learns this first hand, the hard way. She must decide how far she will go and what she is willing to sacrifice to save the people she loves. What would you be willing to sacrifice?