Painting Stories #3

What I got:

Washed away from the streets, from the cool, black pavement was the past- those years of heartbreak, miles of empty promises and, for a moment, I was pleased.

Photo courtesy of Nola.com

The People Who Live in My Mind and...Painting Stories #2

A friend of mine said to me today, 'your writing output is crazy lately.' I took that as a compliment. I'll let you in on a not-so-secret-secret: I don't write everyday. I'm not ashamed about that small fact. I don't write everyday because when I do write, I generally produce anywhere from 1000 to 3000 words in a three or four hour period. I can't write at work because the distractions of smacking, gossiping, fussing fellow corporate drones is a bit too much for the muse to ignore.

So I come home, deal with my green, furry and real children, get dinner prepared, catch up on any BDCWB duties I didn't get to during the day and THEN I decompress and finally write. Sometimes, when the muse is in a particularly creative mood, that means all other duties are cast aside. That might mean I'm a bad mama or networker or editor. But I simply can't help it.

Fortuantely, during the past month, the spurts have been wonderful and many. I've revised one short, (nearly there), written an entirely new 4k word short and submitted it in addition to writing three more chapters in my novel. Not bad, I don't think, for a month's work. Bear in mind that on top of all the above, we are renovating on the weekends, visiting family and preparing for the forthcoming week.

I am busy...very busy, but you know what? I still find time for my little spurts. When they come, particularly when they compel me to keep writing, they are, for me, bliss.

My muse puts me into these worlds - these fantastic, grand, eerie, mythical worlds that captivate me...that hold my attention so that all I want is to be there, to live and breathe with these wonderfully flawed people who exist only in my mind.

That's where I am now. My thoughts and attentions are focused completely on my young protagonist and the odd freak that follows her around like a puppy. I am right there with her when she runs from mythical creatures who scare the crap out of her. I'm hunkered down and shivering as she leaves her life behind in a futile search for her mother. My heart skips when she realizes, unexpectedly, that she loves that freakish puppy.

This total immersion doesn't happen with every story I write...God knows I wish it did, but I think it's common with stories we write that have greatest potential. I'm thrilled when that happens, depressed when it doesn't.

So, I guess this post has been pointless, but I just wanted to encourage you to continue...to find the story that compels you. My prayer is that you can be immersed in a world of your own design - living lives that shadow those of your characters, even if that immersion doesn't happen every day, it's still nice to visit.


Painting Stories #2





What I got from this image:

It was then- when the road rose up, clear and present, when the winds had died and the light ahead came from a rainbow and not the blazing glare of a bomb - that she remembered hope. She had long forgotten the sensation, but now it came to her and settled over the loss, the danger and covered her heart.

Painting Stories #1

My writing mentor loved to give our class prompts. She loved 'painting stories' with images...using the most haunting, sometimes disturbing images to awaken our muses. Oftentimes, it worked. Sometimes not, but these small exercises of inspiration never failed to at least get me thinking.

So, I'm going to start a new "feature" as it were, in an effort to help you (and myself) spark the muse. I'll share a picture with you, one that I hope you find inspiring, in an effort to get those creative juices flowing. You're more than welcome to share with me a snippet or even small glimpse of what you come up with and I'll be sure to do the same.

From the below picture I've gotten this so far:

I watched the world end near the gates of Serenity Park.

Photo courtesy of devianart-com.

Ten Things That I Have Learned

1. Every single person wants to be heard. Not one of us finds validation unnecessary. Listen and you will be heard.

2. Nothing worth having comes easy.

3. The only true failure is the person that doesn't try.

4. There is no such thing as luck...luck is nothing more than many, many, many years of trying, failing and refusing to give up.

5. You are never alone. Never.

6. What you get out of life, is what you put into it.

7. Art suppressed or ignored, is the greatest travesty in life.

8. You and you alone are responsible for your life. Excuses are only acceptable in kindergarten.

9. No one is given a dream without also being given the power to make that dream come true.

10. There is no power greater, more exhausting, more important, more worth it than love.

Short Story Month

Did y'all know that May is Short Story month? Really? Well, I swear it is.

In an effort to share my love joy fest of the stories that affected me in the most profound way, I'm recommending a few to you now.

Go forth and read and read more and let me know your opinion of the following once you've done so.

• My first recommendation for you is not a solitary short, but what for me has been my go-to collection by He-That-I-Fangirl. Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things encompasses courses of his finest works. There is humor, there is fear that borders horror and there is, of course, a snippet into the life of his American Gods' protagonist, Shadow Moon. Gaiman has an ability that hints of the 'not-of-this-world' variety. He paints pictures with words that are in the best possible ways abstract unbelievability of psychedelic dreams. His is not a talent than can be ignored and his stories are not those that will be easily forgotten.

• Sometimes you find a writer without ever looking. Sometimes, when this happens, you are pleasantly surprised by the discovery. While purveying several online journals, I came across the work of Cat Rambo. In the three years since stalking her on Twitter (in my never-ending attempt to learn from the pros), there have two of Rambo's stories that have left indelible impressions on me. The first, is the beautifully written story about a brother who attempts the impossible to make his sick sister smile. Magnificent Pigs, first published in Strange Horizons in 2006, breathes life into the importance of sibling companionship and demonstrates the strength of family and how that strength, like faith, can make the impossible real. The steampunker in me fell in love with Rambo's Clockwork Fairies, published by Tor in October of 2010. This story draws an uncharacteristic view of a woman discovering herself, asserting herself and branching out into new worlds while shedding the dead weight of the man who would see her conform. Feminist, fantastic and surreal, Clockwork Fairies will leaving you smiling and possibly, cheering by its end.

• Because I'm an emerging writer and because I know talent when I see it (and this is in no way biased), I'm directing you to Pedestal and my friend Adrienne Crezo's brilliant new short Husband-Shaped. It is all thing literary and heartbreaking. Beautifully written and an expression of what some of you may have experienced = art imitating life in the most profound way.

• Jeremy C. Shipp is the strangest writer I've read in a very long time. Trust me, that's a huge compliment. His brilliant 'zombie' short- which ain't your mama's zombie story- is evocative, thrilling and heartbreaking. Go check out Those Below.

Also, the lovely Yelena Casale bequeathed to me the honor of being on her "Stylish Blogger" list. As such, I return the favor and, per her rules, name my top five bloggers with the request to give seven "unknown" facts about me. Really, I doubt any of you are interested, but I'll obey the rules.

My Top Five Bloggers:
1. The aforementioned Adrienne Crezo. Shinny bess fran and emerging writer extraordinaire.
2. My #writersroad partner in crime Heather McCorkle who breaks down the big industry news for you every week.
3. Christine Rose. Anything you ever wanted to know about marketing and self publishing, this lady will tell you all about it.
4. Tracy Clark. Cute as a button and criminally talented.
5. Elaine Lowe. The hands down most prolific writer of steamy stories I know. :)

Okay...seven things about me?

1. I didn't start university until I was 23. It took me nine years to finish undergrad and grad school because I kept having babies in the process. I've never regretted a second of it.
2. I have what Himself calls 'Hobbit Finger' toes. He's not as funny as he thinks he is.
3. Himself refers to my husband. (okay, not about me, but ya know...close)
4. Nearly all of my very closest friends live in my computer.
5. I have no patience for intolerance. At. All.
6. I don't write everyday, but when I do write, it's generally in massive spurts...2 and 3 thousand words in one sitting.
7. My ultimate writing goals have absolutely nothing to do with monetary success. I just want to write, as a living, and not have to eat Ramen every day.

Shabby Chic Writing

You may not know it, but one of my many obsessions is home decorating. I stalk blogs, I learn and I apply that small bit of knowledge to doing my best to improve our little place. It's addictive.

Very.

Being a good little Southern girl in my, well, thirtysomethings, I've discovered that my tastes and interest have changed. And yes, it's true what they say, we tend to revert back to what we know...gasp we become, in some respects, like our parents. For me, that means planting, pruning, decorating, just like my sweet mama. (The sewing, not so much, since I'm pretty sure I'm ADHD and will never have the patience for that craziness).

Regardless , my interests have changed and though my first love will always be writing, I'm discovering that all my little obsessions are converging.

As with writing, with the collection of experience and experimentation, my decorating hobby has grown, particularly in all things Shabby Chic. I love the process of finding some thrift store goody, painting it up to make it look new and then sanding it down to make it seem old again.

I love the process of breathing life into something that has gone dormant.

Writing can be shabby'd and in that process, can be brilliant. I'm not talking about satirical elements in mashups, though many are brilliant. (I adored 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' but come on, who didn't?)

I'm speaking specifically about taking a constant, literal or historical, and twisting it into something new, fresh, yet something that seems familiar. Shabbying up fiction.

Rice did it with Christ the Lord, Priest did it with Dreadnought, in a sense, and even OM Grey did it with the Tudor dynasty in Avalon Revisited.

I think the draw is that we crave familiarity while paradoxically yearning for something unique and inventive. If we look to the the past, we see reflections of things that are present in our lives today. Political turmoil, wars, the liberation of nations under tyrannical rule...the evolution of industry and the battle between those who shun that industry in favor of faith. I personally tend to sit in the middle of those two.

But it is this desire, I think, for something old-made-new that attracts readers to mashups. We have this curiosity about the past with the hope that we will not repeat the sins of our fathers.

So, I'm curious...of the deep well of past inspiration, what would interest you the most? Would you read something that dwells on the private life of the Virgin Queen or the how Mr. Tesla came to his theories? Would you like to see the last year of Poe's life or would the genesis of Shakespeare's career be more interesting to you?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Review: Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

There are a hundred different reasons why we read.

Some of us like the process of acquiring knowledge on a given subject. Some like the escapism provided by an underdog overcoming insurmountable odds. In any given story, the reader can become an active participant. We see ourselves in the characters we read about, or we can at least sympathize with the hero, with the damsel, with the everyday Joe whose journey we purposefully decide to follow.

We read for enjoyment, for the needed desire to feel joy, terror, passion, heartache because those are the emotions that make us feel alive. I read to don the heroine’s vestige, to see what depths of surrealism can be imagined. And when it’s done well, when the writer becomes much more than a mere Creator God of a wholly new world, I continue to read, as I have with Kim Harrison’s work.

I’ve followed Harrison’s Hollows series through nine action-packed, tear jerking, and imaginatively exhaustive books. I started reading about her protagonist, Rachel Morgan, because I wanted to see what antics the white witch would get up to. I continued to read because Harrison made Rachel real.

During the series, Rachel has discovered the secrets of her childhood, has mourned the loss of a lover, has been betrayed, nearly killed (on multiple occasions), and has emerged from each adventure a bit wiser, a bit more cynical. Still, she maintains the heart of who she is: not just a white witch placed in difficult situations, but also a fighter who never backs down.

In Pale Demon, the ninth book in the Hollows series, Rachel is forced into a road trip with Trent Kalamack, the elf she loves to hate and finds impossible to ignore. Through the series, Kalamack has manipulated his way into Rachel’s life, first as a nemesis then as her unwilling familiar. In Pale Demon, he convinces Rachel he’ll be able to get the shunning she received for performing black magic by the witch’s coven removed if she agrees to get him to the West coast so that he can complete a secretive Elven quest.

Blacklisted from all other manner of travel, Rachel has no choice but to take Trent up on his request. With assassins tailing them, Rachel, Trent and her partners Jenks the pixy and Ivy the “living vampire” make the trek from Cincinnati to San Francisco while fighting their attackers, barely surviving eleven magic and running from a century’s old demon who has formed an obsession with Rachel.

Getting to their destination, as the old cliché goes, isn’t the point. In Pale Demon, it’s the journey that matters; it’s what makes Rachel embrace her heritage and the notion that moving forward doesn’t always mean saying goodbye.

With this chapter in the Hollows series, Rachel isn’t the only character shifting focus and altering realities. Trent, the paradigm of a glossy public figure hiding darker, ulterior motives, changes before our eyes. We, right along with Rachel, find the elf’s layers being stripped away and what is left endears him to us, forces us to see him differently as his agendas are revealed.

But it is the revelations that Rachel discovers about herself that brings surprise and intrigue to the forefront in Pale Demon. She discovers more about herself and her magic, still leaving us at the end with the idea that her new realizations won’t limit her.

Like the other books in the series, Pale Demon’s focus isn’t solely centered on plot, but rather on the family Rachel has constructed for herself. It is these essential relationships that make Rachel fight, that gives her the motivation to move forward and, in a sense, the strength to accept who she truly is.

Harrison imparts authenticity into her books, making the world in which Rachel and her partners live a vivid reality separate from ours only by the absence of magic and the social hierarchies of her many mythical creatures. We don’t see these characters as caricatures of fantasy standards, but rather as people with whom we identify and whose plights we draw into our own sensibilities. We like them. We hate them. We feel like permitted voyeurs into Rachel’s world because Harrison has given us an open invitation to live the adventure right along with her characters.

Pale Demon reflects a journey that Rachel undertakes to discover truths about herself and the people around her. But the road is strewn with more obstacles to overcome, more demons to face. A road that, like Harrison’s readers, I can’t wait to travel further down.