New Story Sold!

While editing my latest novel, one of my short stories, 'Skin and Bones' was accepted for the July 2013 issue of The Lorelei Signal as well as for the August 2013 issue of Mystic Signals, their sister publication.


It's always wonderful to have something published, and I have a soft spot for Lorelei because that magazine was my very first sale. Yea!!

Duality

One of my favorite singers of all time is Maddy Prior. What I love most is her range; she can sing a sweet tune, but she often chooses grim and terrifying tales of death and destruction.

As a writer I often contemplate my own duality. In 'real life' I like to think of myself as a cheerful person. People describe me as happy. However, almost of my work has dark elements. Perhaps composing scary prose helps me live a joyful life. Or keeps me from whacking people over the head. :-) In truth, we are all creatures of light and of dark. The writer's lifestyle too is yin and yang; publish and rejection, creation and blockage, loneliness and exhilaration.

Listen to Maddy Prior singing a lovely old carol, and then the song that first drew me to her, The Fabled Hare. The New Year is upon us, cold and dark. But spring is just around the corner.

A Science Fiction Holiday

I’ve haven’t been blogging as much lately because I’m almost done with another book, which has proven to be harder than anything I’ve ever done. Not a bad thing, but it has kept me busy. This one is science fiction, and although I’ve written some sci-fi shorts, it’s my first novel in this genre.


Which has garnered some interesting responses. Those who don’t read fantasy tend to lump it into the children’s book slot, or perhaps link it to some childhood fairytale memory, which makes their comments slightly more positive. With science fiction, non readers can more negative. Sic- fi is weird. It’s for boys. It’s (sigh) not serious literature. I usually just smile and say if you read one my books it would mean so much to me.  :-)

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how no one says Merry Christmas anymore. I don’t make an issue of how I’m greeted holiday-wise…I Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah or Happy Holiday them back, because for me it’s the intent behind the wishes.

In the spirit of the season, I wish you and yours the magic of this special time however you express it, and contented reading whatever you pull up on your Kindle or off your bookshelf.

It’s all good.

Halloween House

This year we made a spaceship made from Rice Krispie treats (yum). The aliens look like spiders because spiders ARE aliens, I'm convinced. No pooping animals this year. They don't make aliens that poop. A marketing opportunity for sure.

Happy Halloween!!!

Goth Susi

I’m not much of a doll person; I don’t hate them or anything, but they’ve always seemed a little creepy, aka Twilight Zone’s I’m Talking Tina and I’m Going To Kill You. Shudder. As a female kid I did have a few and have kept a couple. My favorite was a life sized doll (I know, REALLY creepy) named Susi. Susi has sat in my childhood rocker for as long as I can remembers, clad in a pink fluffy dress.

This next bit many seem unrelated but if you’ve read my blog you know it will tie together in the end. As I’ve said so many times, a writer's lifestyle is difficult for many reasons, one of which is the understanding that income levels rise very slowly. I’m doing better than I was when I started, but I’m not making anywhere near what I did in corporate-ville.

I know that and have accepted it, but sometimes I long for those flush times. So the other day I was drooling over some unneeded item of clothing when I thought of poor Susi, wearing the same stupid dress for the last 40 years. So I did something about it.

I used an old skirt of mine that didn’t stretch enough for dancing as a dress. I gave her a pair of my lace socks, added a red headband, clipped on some earrings, and last but not least, gave her a punky armband…Goth Susi arises!

Dressing her in new garb was so much fun, and it didn’t cost me a dime. The old Kelly would have found a site with doll clothes and ordered her something. The new Kelly realizes that the fun comes from doing it myself. And that’s something the writer’s lifestyle has taught me; I don’t need a lot of money or stuff to make me happy. Would I add back in fancy vacations and lavish gifts to my family if I ever make it big? Yeah. Do I need those things to live a joyous life? Nope.

Hummm…maybe Goth Susi would like to be a fairy next…

We’re Only Human

I’ve heard that expression many times: in conversation, in insurance commercials, in literature. In some ways it has lost all meaning, becoming not just a remark on human imperfection, but an excuse that can cover just about everything. I cheated, well, I’m only human., I crashed into your car, well, I’m only human, as if that resolves responsibility. But perhaps how we come to grips with our darker nature does, in some ways, define us.

Most books, if you think about it, are all exploring what it means to be human; in literature that means conflict, and usually brushing up against the dark side. This is no more evident than in science fiction, where humans often encounter beings from another world. I’ve been thinking about what makes humans human a lot lately, since my current project is science fiction.

Some of the robots I’ve read about lately and seen on TV are so life like they make me shiver. And although they may nod, blink, and smile, no matter how much they may resemble or behave like humans we know they are not. At least right now. I’m still hoping for Azimov’s positronic brain. :-)

Conversely, sometimes “real” humans can act in inhuman ways. Recently I saw the creepiest scene ever in the newest Bourne movie. SPOILER ALERT. Scene build up: scientist works on a government project which is going to be shut down. The government kills all of the scientists except one woman; she doesn’t know she was meant to be killed. So these same government agents, masquerading as psychologists, come to visit the woman to see how she is getting along. While searching her house they discover her gun. One supposed psychologist sits next to the woman, the man holding the gun on the other side, the faux psychologist calmly says “on three.”…they were going to kill the woman and say she killed herself. (She escapes.)

What chilled me to the bone was how matter- of- fact the agent said “on three.” I wondered how many times did it take for her to become so deadened to killing…. at what point did she lose her humanity?

With aliens, of course, they never had humanity to lose. But they must have a semblance of it, in other words, if you can’t recognize yourself in an alien it becomes a monster. Which is fine if that is what you are going for, but I want my aliens to be a definite shade of gray, no pun intended.

A fabulous example of this concept is from Star Trek Next Generation. The ship comes upon a new planet and some of the ship's children are spirited away. The aliens, when confronted, can’t understand why the crew is so upset. You can have more, the alien woman says, we can’t. Even though the kidnapping of children wasn’t tolerated by the captain and wouldn’t be in any real life situation, the viewer can still feel sympathy for the aliens.

Exploring humanity is so interesting…if an alien or robot acts humanely, are they more human than a “real” person who behaves with no sense of right or wrong? That’s what I’m pondering about right now…

We All Get Better

Recently I discovered a collection of short stories by one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy writers. The reason I hadn’t read them before is because these tales were early works of said author. Very early. I devoured them with great zeal and was….rather disappointed. It wasn’t that the stories were bad…a couple were ahhhhh worthy…it was that none of them showed the sparkle I’ve come to expect. I couldn’t put my finger on it; the plots were more or less good, the writing technically great, but that special something just wasn’t there.

After I finished I got out my first story. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t that good either. OK plot, only a few edits I wouldn’t have made today, but it didn’t wow. I can see why it never sold.

Reading the early works of one of my favorite (and famous) writers made me feel a whole lot better about my stuff. We all start out somewhat shy of what will develop into our own personal style, and even after achieving that, we can all strive to get better and better. This experience has also caused me to contemplate just what does make a story sing beyond plot, characters, setting, technical expertise...I know it when I read it, but that's not all that helpful. Hummmm...

In the meantime, I can only hope that my debut story never gets dug out from its worthy grave.