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.

Back to the beginning

Tonight, my sweet friend Bree reminded me of why I started writing.

I didn't begin my journey with dollar signs or Nebula's in my eyes.

I never saw my agenda based upon how many tours I could do or what superstar agent I'd managed to land.

I started writing for the pure joy of it. I started writing because I had to, because there were stories and characters who lived in my mind and demanded to be given breath and life.

But like so many of you, I'm sure, the years of education and experience have shifted my purpose. As of late, I've been writing to fit into a given standard. I've written to fall in line with what others insist is acceptable. In short, I haven't truly written for myself.

I don't blame anyone but myself. You see, I've found that when we begin to focus on the business of writing rather than the art of it, the result is, many times, stories that are only half imagined, that only realize their potential in the vaguest sense.

Now, I don't believe it's a bad thing to understand the way publishing works or what is "publishable." I'm not completely green; I do understand that books need to be sold. But I've become disheartened by the motivation for which I write. It bothers me immensely that I've put aside the joy of writing for the duty of it. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I wrote with raw, unabashed fervor, with the purpose of only writing a story I want to read.

As I told a friend of mine tonight, sometimes the best stories we write are the ones we keep hidden from the world.

So instead of setting word count goals for myself, my intentions have changed. Instead of making myself adhere to some certain genre requirement, I'm going to try to go back to my old love: pure, joyful writing.

#writersroad Blog Post: The Road to Routine

Since the illustrious Heather McCorkle will be off being proactive this week, I'm going to try my hand at hosting Thursday's WritersRoad chat on Twitter, hence the unexpected and not-related-to-TeaserTuesday-post. Sorry, Judy. I'm still editing and actually making process! :)

It was brought to my attention that many times in our chats, our focus tends to drift toward the act of publishing rather than the skill of writing. Don't get me wrong, I adore all of our topics and chats and I find that the process each published writer takes toward publication is fascinating. It can offer invaluable information for anyone just setting out on the publication journey. But I think as Heather's last post and our last chat demonstrated, the foundation of writing should be more important than the 'business' of publishing and/or the business of establishing a writing platform. With that in mind, this week, I'd like to discuss how to build that foundation by exploring our individual writing routines.

Every writer has a different modus operandi when it comes to laying the basis of their work. Some of you may be early risers and prefer be up before the sun sets to knock out the next Great American/Australian/Canadian/Irish/Scottish/Vulcan Novel. Kudos to you all! I find your ability to wake up and write enviable.

Others, like yours truly, need the still quiet of a sleeping home or the soft whirl of a Cappuccino machine to awaken our muses. Do you use a laptop or PC or is freehand the only way you're able to kick the muse in gear? Can you only write at night and on weekends because, like me, you're stuck in the Seventh Circle of Corporate Hell? Do you steal company time and flesh out plot and character development while your boss' door is shut during lunch? (Guilty of that one).

The point of asking all of this is to illustrate a routine; that indelible little method you implement to get your fingers moving and breath inserted into your characters and their world.

I believe that a routine is the spark that ignites a story's foundation. It is the intrinsic necessity that is required of the writer, the method by which we get the ball rolling.

Now, not everyone will agree with me. Many writers view the creative process as 'feast or famine' in that when they're writing it is thousands of words and hundreds of pages at a time. During the famine, not a single word makes it onto the page for months. That, I think, may be the last luxury of the unpublished writer. Once publication happens, those moments of famine seems to disappear. Or so I've been told.

For me, deadlines are key. I love pressure. I love the anxiety of thinking I just might not make my deadline. I love the idea of sitting down and thundering out something while the minutes slip by too quickly. I thrive on it and, oddly enough, it's when my best work is born. Lord knows that's how I survived graduate school.

Ultimately, I think the way your routine functions isn't nearly as important as the organization and commitment you put into it. My advice (which I'm trying to apply to my own routine) is to make certain your process is attempted at least once a day. I believe that writing, for a true writer and not the writing hobbyist, is make writing a part of your daily tasks. (Though I don't think 'task' is quite the right word). It should be as commonplace to you as brushing your teeth and cleaning behind your ears. If you are a writer, if your intention is to express your passion in written art, then it is necessary to make it a part of your everyday life. If you do that, I think the groundwork for your writing foundation can be laid and though it might not be an easy or convenient process, it is one that directs how strong and sound that foundation becomes.

BDCWB Bookclub

In an effort to promote great literature and great discussions among readers, BDCWB proudly introduces our BDCWB Book Club. Now, before you start rolling your eyes, thinking that I'm being all sales pitchy, bear in mind that this ain't your Mama's book club. (Apologies to my fellow English nerds for making you cringe).

BDCWB loves to foster communication by and about writers and with the book club, the intention is to continue that productive energy into discussions about great books. This is an effort to not only support the endeavors of some great writers, but to openly discuss the merits or pitfalls of the books we read on a monthly basis.

According to BDCWB:

Members have the opportunity to chose from five of our genre based book clubs: Literary, African American Fiction, Romance, Young Adult and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. And the best part, is that each book club features all of the same great membership benefits:

• Moderated chats with the author of the selected books
• Q&A sessions with book printers, graphic designers, publishers and agents
• Daily open forums and discussion posts
• Gift card and book giveaways

Monthly membership to the Best Damn Book Club is $5 (or $20 if you want a signed copy of the book shipped to your house).

So if you're looking for a way to have honest, intelligent discussions with fellow readers while supporting the publishers and writers you love to read, do us a favor and join the party.

We have cookies.

Well, we have metaphorical cookies and, um, there's less calories in those.

Ah...resolutions

I know. I KNOW. You want an ending to "Wishing Well."

Judy, I know, trust me.

I can only offer you a lame "it was the holidays and my muse abandoned me" excuse.

It seems she deserts me when the leaves turn. It seems my excuses are plenty and my motivation is null, particularly when bombarded with holiday/end of the year responsibilities.

So I won't insult any of you by saying the story will be completed in x number of days, because, to be honest, I'm not certain when the missing muse will reemerge. However, I can tell you that I've been editing it and that I believe I see the light at the top of that dark, freak-ravaged well.

Pun, intended.

This time of year it's normal to see the majority of posts and tweets and status updates that beg the same silly question: "What's your New Year's resolution?"

Generally, I don't make them because I'm SUCH the procrastinator and likely undiagnosed ADHD sufferer that what I've resolved to accomplish in the beginning of the year is forgotten around Mardi Gras time.

So this year, prompted by the wise words of a dynamic woman in my church, I won't make resolutions. Rather, I'm going to choose a word for the year. One simple word that defines all that I hope to accomplish.

That word, for me, is: organize.

Time management has never been a strong quality of mine. I work best at the final-really-there-is-no-time-deadline. I love the pressure. I thrive on it. (Might be why my cholesterol and blood pressure is so dang high). But with so much on my plate (BDCWB, family, job, #writersroad, writing responsibilities AND starting a tiny side business), the time has come to organize the chaos.

No resolutions for me. Just a word, a simple word that I hope directs my path this year.

So, my sweet friends, what will your word for 2011 be?