2014 and 2015

Another new year already. Traditionally (by which I mean for the last two years, which seems to qualify as a tradition these days) I start the year by reviewing my writing achievements over the year that's finished and looking ahead to the year to come.

During 2014, my writing has been somewhat disrupted by… well, by writing. Since March, my official day-job has been as a freelance copywriter, and the work I've needed to put into building that up — which seems to be paying off — has severely cut into my creative writing time. Still, among all that, I seem to have got through a fair amount.

I'm not as far as I'd hoped through my current novel (working title The Empire of Nandesh) but I'm more than 50,000 words into it. I'd been hoping to be nearly finished by now, but both the copywriting and other projects have cut into it. I revised the novella The Dweller in the Crack, and wrote three shorter pieces, Finder's Fee, Turning the Tables and Gerda and the Darkness, but the biggest distraction was my very unexpected diversion into children's fantasy.

A few years ago, I wrote a very short piece called The Biggest Dragon in the World, which featured a sorceress called Cariana. I really wrote it for my own amusement, but it turned out as a children's story. During the summer, I attended a workshop of mainly children's authors and took the story along as my one qualifying piece. They loved it and encouraged me to expand it into a series.

I've now written half a dozen other connected stories, but the series took an unexpected turn when, in the second story, I introduced Cariana's nearly-eleven-year-old apprentice Flea, who's taken over as the central character. I'm having huge fun writing about her — in the most recent, she has an encounter with pirates — and the aim is to add perhaps three or four further stories and then, after revision, try to pitch it as a book.

I've begun self-publishing some of my out-of-print work, which has been an interesting process. I have mixed feelings about self-publishing, but it's a valuable option for an author with the experience and willingness to put in the work it needs. So far, I've republished At An Uncertain Hour, the novel previously issued by StoneGarden, and Steal Away, the first story about Karaghr and Failiu, which first appeared in the late, lamented Golden Visions. I'm also hoping to bring out the sequel, Rainy Season, also a Golden Visions story, and perhaps others.

As far as professional publication is concerned, December saw the publication of my second ebook from Musa Publishing, The Lone and Level Sands. A contemporary (or nearly contemporary) fantasy but set in a secondary world, this is archaeological fantasy somewhat in the Indiana Jones tradition. It came out just before Christmas, so I'm gearing up again to restart promotion.

Besides these, I've had stories in The Colored Lens (Damned) and Plasma Frequency (The Lady of the House and The PetrologicEngine, the latter my "flintpunk" story) as well as in three anthologies, two of which I was involved in producing. Light of the Last Day was the somewhat overdue anthology from Fantasy-writers.org, which I co-edited and contributed Lari's People and Dayglow, while the equally long-in-making The Tale Trove is the first production from my live writers' group, the East Herts Fantasy Writers. My contributions are Return Switch, Hanuut's Stand, I See a Voice and three poems. I've also appeared in Unburied Treasure, a follow-up to last year's Trespass, with the custom-written Finder's Fee.

So what of 2015? I'll probably continue to have less time to devote to writing than I did before last year, but I have The Lone and Level Sands to promote, and I hope to reissue Rainy Season this year. On a slightly longer-term basis, I've been considering self-publishing a collection of stories about Eltava. All but two have been published in various markets, and all rights have now reverted to me, so it might be a practical option. But a lot more work than putting out single stories.

I'll continue with both The Empire of Nandesh and the Flea stories, and hopefully I'll finish the draft of the former and have the latter ready for submission during the year. That's assuming I don't get diverted again. We'll see.

I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Interview with Lindsey Duncan

My guest today is fantasy author, poet and musician Lindsey Duncan, whose work has been widely published, including a story in the anthology Unburied Treasure.

Welcome to the blog, Lindsey. Could you tell us something about yourself, and what you do when you're not writing?

Glad to be here!  I’m currently a culinary student – I just finished a diploma in baking and pastry, and am continuing to complete an associates degree in culinary arts – and a professional harp performer living near Cincinnati, Ohio.  I also teach beginning harp. 

Right now, the combination of work, school (and writing, of course!) keeps me hopping:  I think if I did the math, it would come out to roughly two full-time jobs!  When I do have a bit of free time, I enjoy reading, both the expected fantasy and science fiction and historical or cozy mysteries.  Non-fiction, too, though I tend to classify that as research …

That's certainly a lot. How long have you been writing, and how did you start?

I can’t ever remember not writing; I would say that by process of elimination, it would have to have been after learned to read, but then I remember dictating stories about talking multi-colored sheep to my mother.  When I was very young, my family had an old typewriter, and I diligently pecked out tales, bedeviled by typos – the texts would include such gems as “swrod, I mean sword” – before I encountered my first computer.  Apart from required cursive practice, I’ve never looked back. 

 

I know the feeling. My early efforts included words like "parashootist" and "obtikal illooshan".

I never did learn how to type properly, though:  I’ve developed my own typing system that has my left (dominant) hand doing the majority of the typing, with the sequence determined by the neighboring letters.  My parents used to call this the Columbus Method: pick a key and land on it.

It’s always been fantasy, too.  Even when I did a “real world” project, as I did for my cursive practice, I went straight to knights and castles.  And, of course, those talking sheep …

You also play the Celtic harp, which is an instrument I've always loved. Can you tell us about it, and how you got into playing it?

The Celtic harp is the “original” harp – in Ireland, they have found carvings of this style of harp dating back to the seventh century.  Obviously, the modern harp has some further evolutions, in particular the levers: tiny switches above each string that adjust the pitch of the note a half-step.  This allows the harp to get sharps and flats or change keys without retuning the whole instrument.  Ancient harps were strung with gut or wire – wire harps are played with a completely different technique, but that’s a whole other topic.  You’ll still see gut-strung harps nowadays, but most use nylon instead, as mine does.

(I do educational programs now and again, and I love nothing more than to call kids up to touch the strings … and *then* ask them what they think the strings are made of.  This always gets a few good “ewws.”)

I first “met” the harp at the Cincinnati Celtic Festival.  There was an event on the schedule called, “I’ve Always Wanted to Play the Harp.”  It was an informal thing, just a few harpers (harpers play the traditional harp; harpists play the orchestral harp) helping interested parties try out the instruments.  As soon as I got my hands on a harp, that was it:  I was in love.

I always associate harpers with smoke-filled halls where they play and sing ancient heroic lays. So does your writing and music interact at all, or do you keep the two art-forms separate?

I find that music and musical themes sneak into my writing, whether I intend them to or not.  I enjoy writing about musicians and their misadventures.  Thanks to a writing prompt, I even wrote a story loosely inspired by one of my more trying gigs … loosely.

Since starting culinary school, as I’ve pulled out older stories to edit them, I’ve noticed a surprising number that involve pastry, chocolates and cooks.  Life has a tendency to find its way into fiction.

As a harper, I arrange almost all the music I play, and I’ve even written a few sets of lyrics to traditional tunes.  I’ve never had much luck composing my own music, though, and this has always frustrated me.  It feels like a gap I should be able to bridge.

Earlier this year, a local conductor sat down to talk to me at a gig, and we discussed various musical topics.  Somehow, composing came up, and I mentioned my feeling.  He quoted a famous musician:  “God composes.  I arrange.”   (Alas, I can’t for the life of me remember who, nor can I find the quote online.  Pipe up if you happen to know!)  I’m not a religious person, but this idea – that the raw, creative essence is part of the universe, and that what the human creator does is express it – really appeals to me.

Your story in Unburied Treasures, Stone Unturned, is a haunting tale. Can you remember what your inspiration for it was?

Stone Unturned was originally written for a monthly challenge at fantasy-writers.org.  The challenge was to take five elements and write a story where each was an integral part.  In the spirit of making things unnecessarily difficult for myself, I always try to add another layer to the challenge topic.  In this case, I knew I wanted to write about history and myth, so I decided to construct the story so each element appeared both in the present and in the past.

The concept of being able to sense the past of an object by touch is one that has always fascinated me.  I decided to give my main character this ability.  (And the magic used in Stone Unturned has a tangential musical element, too.)  It is this talent that unfolds the story in the past … and gradually reveals its connection to the present.

You've been published all over the place. Can you tell us about some of your publications? What's currently available?

My contemporary fantasy novel, Flow, is available both as an ebook or in print from Double Dragon:  http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-936-9

Flow follows two very different characters:  teenaged Kit, bitter in the wake of the death of her mother and unable to control her budding powers; and Chailyn, a water-witch raised in the underwater Vale and only now sent to the surface for her first mission.  The pair team up to uncover her mother’s killer and find more than they bargained for:  predatory fairies, a rival organization to the water-witches known as the Borderwatch, and secrets buried in both their pasts.  They also meet Hadrian, a bizarre young man with hyper-accelerated perceptions who invites himself along on the journey.

If you just want a taste of this contentious world, check out Xmas Wishes, a short story in the same setting – only a dollar, too!  Also available from Gypsy Shadow is Taming The Weald, which was one of my favorite stories to write and does some blissful blurring of the lines between science fiction and fantasy.  I have to say that “strange children” is another element I’m drawn to a lot in writing.

For freebies, my most recent publication, Polestar, is in the June/July issue of Plasma Frequency.  My first publication there, Mythocraft (all the way back in Issue 2) was nominated for that year’s Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll.

Abyss and Apex has been wonderful to me – they’ve published three of my short stories, with another coming out sometime next year; the first story (HourBy Hour) was in their first Best Of anthology, and I got the chance not only to read from it at the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, but to meet the magazine’s editor, Wendy Delmater.

My most recent story there was Dancing Day, which was another fantasy-writers.org monthly challenge involving five elements – this time five elements that were distinctly Christmas-themed, the challenge being to apply them in a new way.  There’s still a hint in the title, which is derived from one of my favorite period carols to play.

Could you tell us something about what you're writing at the moment, and any future plans?

The novel I’m working on right now is Unnatural Causes, a fantasy-mystery cross.  When a controversial enchanter is murdered, her familiar and her apprentice team up to find out who killed her.  I’ve been deliberately taking the writing of this one slow:  it’s from the first-person perspective of the familiar, and since in this setting, familiars are otherworldly beings, I want to make sure that I consider the way I’m framing her thoughts.  In this world, magic is performed by creating phantasmal thought-machines, visible only to the enchanter and others with the talent. These machines execute the spell.

I haven’t firmly chosen a future project.  Most of the novel-length works I’ve considered are rewrites, reimaginings, or new adventures for previous characters, including the idea of a sequel for Flow.

One shorter (comparatively) work I know I want to write is a – wait for it – zombie novella.  Of course, I know that zombies have been done to my death; my hope is that my take on the origins and themes of reincarnation will get past an editor’s groans.   In fact, the idea would have never come to me if we weren’t saturated in zombie culture.  Here’s how it came about:

I dabble in photography, and the flutist I played with in White Orchid – a much more serious photographer – invited me to a quirky northern Ohio town that was also hosting its annual Zombie Walk.  Wandering around town as the attendees prepared to walk was amazing: we saw costumes from the very simple to the elaborate, from the hilarious to the impressive.  (And the disturbing in a non-zombified context: the teen who, when asked how he had costumed his arm to look like it was broken, demonstrated it wasn’t a costume – he was double-jointed.  Oww.)  The “CDC” walked around in hazmat suits.

In any case, to make a long story short (too late!), I got some great photographs.  Most people were happy to mug for the camera, but I did get some candid shots as well, and that’s where the story comes in.  Among those pictures of people being themselves amongst the pseudo-gore and dishevel were a few images that illustrated a story in an eyeblink.  Some day, I hope you’ll be able to read it.

 

Sounds intriguing, and I hope I do get a chance to read it.

 

Many thanks for telling us all about yourself. You can find out even more about Lindsey on her blog.

Interview with Barbara A. Barnett

My guest today is another contributor to the Unburied Treasures anthology, writer and musician Barbara A. Barnett.

Many thanks for agreeing to appear on my blog. Can you tell us something about yourself? Who is Barbara when she's not writing?

Thanks for having me!

Non-writing Barbara can probably best be summed up thusly: orchestra librarian, singer, theater nerd, mediocre pianist, mediocre clarinet player, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, obsessive organizer, and all-around geek.

Well, that'll do to be going on with. So how long have you been writing, and what kinds of things do you like writing best?

I've been writing since I was a kid. When I was about 8 years old, I wanted my mom to come watch an adventure I had concocted for my stuffed animals to act out, but she was busy and told me to go write it down. So I did. After that, writing down every nutty idea that popped into my head seemed the natural thing to do. But it wasn't until about a decade ago that I got truly serious about it and started writing on a regular basis.

Most of my work falls under the speculative fiction umbrella—fantasy and horror and a smattering of science fiction. The occasional quirky mainstream piece has been known to sneak in there as well. That's what I love about writing short fiction: from piece to piece, I can jump all over the place in regards to genre, tone, topic, and style.

Your mother sounds like a wise woman. I wonder if she knew what she was starting.
Your story in the Unburied Treasures anthology, 7:74 pm, is certainly an example of jumping all over the place: a strange tale, part SF and part surrealism. What inspired you to write it?

"7:74 p.m." grew out of a writing exercise where the prompt was to come up with a story inspired by what seemed to be a rather nonsensical bit of text included in a piece of spam mail:

"The visitor was no longer alone in the bedroom. The second armchair was now occupied by the creature who had materialised in the hall. He was now to be seen quite plainly–feathery moustache, one lens of his pince-nez glittering, the other missing. But worst of all was the third invader because they’re completely incompetent. Pulling the wool over the boss’s eyes, that’s what they’ve been doing!’ ‘Drives around in a free car!’ said the cat slanderously, chewing a mushroom. Then occurred the fourth and last phenomenon at which Stepa collapsed entirely, his weakened hand scraping down the doorpost as he slid to pttsumtspkssusufshrurmrurnnqririss."

After some Googling, I discovered that the spam mail text actually consists of two excerpts from an English translation of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. But when you take two excerpts out-of-context, mash them together mid-sentence, and add a string of random letters at the end ("pttsumtspkssusufshrurmrurnnqririss" is definitely not Bulgakov), the result doesn’t make a heck of a lot sense—and fittingly, neither did my first draft of "7:74 p.m." The challenge in revisions was to create an actual story out of the weirdness the FrankenExcerpt inspired.

An entirely new genre, perhaps — nonsense-spam fiction.

Your stories have appeared in several publications that turn me green with envy. Can you tell us something about your publications and what's coming up?

I have a flash story called "Dream Logic" that will be appearing in Daily Science Fiction sometime in the near future (exact publication date TBA). And last month my story "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen" was published as part of The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Five, which I'm thrilled about since BCS is one of my favorite fantasy mags.

Absolutely. I'm curious about your select writers' group Star-Dusted Sirens is intriguing. How did that come to be, and what's its mission (apart from domination of the universe, of course)?

A friend of mine wanted to start a small critique group, so she asked me and two other Philadelphia-area writer friends, and thus the Star-Dusted Sirens were born. We meet once a month to critique each other’s work, talk shop, offer each other support, and engage in silly shenanigans. And somewhere along the line we decided to start a blog where we could babble about the writing topics that interest us, from diversity in fiction, to the craft of writing, to poop. Because yes, I wrote about poop. I’m classy like that.

Well, I'm sure it was classy poop.

And, speaking of class (not poop), I see from your bio in Unburied Treasures that you've attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop. That must have been awesome. Can you tell us something about it?

Odyssey was intense, amazing, exhausting, intimidating, invigorating, loads of fun, and and one of the best things I could have done for myself as a writer. I applied because I felt like I had hit a peak in my writing and needed some serious dig-to-the-guts feedback in order to up my game. What I learned about the craft and my strengths and weaknesses as a writer was exactly the kind of experience I was after. And as a bonus, I came away with some great friendships and continue to make more as I meet Odyssey graduates from other years of the program.

What are you writing at the moment (besides this blog, obviously)?

Right now I've got a few short story revisions on my plate: a fantasy story inspired by a NOVA special I watched on Iron Age bog bodies found in Ireland and elsewhere, a horror story involving a puppet farm, and a surreal magical realism sort of thing that keeps threatening to break my brain. I also have a major novel rewrite that I keep threatening to get back to. But short story ideas keep distracting me, because they're shiny and pretty and I like to play with them.

I know the feeling. Many thanks for talking about yourself and you work on my blog.

If you want to find out more about Barbara and her writing, you can read all about her on her website, as well as on the aforementioned Star-Dusted Sirens.

Details of where you can buy a copy of Unburied Treasures can be found on this page.

Interview with Erika Wilson

Today I welcome fantasy author and poet Erika Wilson to my blog, editor of the anthology Unburied Treasures.

Hello, Erika, and thanks for agreeing to appear on my blog. Could you tell us something about yourself, and what you do when you're not writing?

As you can see from my picture, I wrestle dinosaurs in my spare time...

 

Actually, of late I don't seem to have much in the way of spare time (to the great relief of the local dinosaurs). I spend a lot of time at my job, though I do try to escape outside most days for lunch, which is when I get a lot of my best writing done. There's a little park nearby with picnic tables where I can sit with my salad and laptop in the shade of a tree, listening to the birds and feeling the breeze on my skin. I find that very conducive to writing. 

When I'm not working or writing, I'm probably reading - books or online news. The news is almost uniformly depressing, but I'm fascinated by the sorts of problems we are faced with, and the vastly different opinions on how they should be addressed. I suspect I'm studying the nature of interpersonal conflict, since I'm so conflict-avoidant, I have trouble putting it into my stories.

I hope to do more traveling soon. Unfortunately I suffer from air-sickness, and airplane seats are fiendish torture devices, but I do love visiting friends and seeing new places. Last year I spent a wonderful week in Oxford - 'the city of dreaming spires' - and this past autumn I helped organize a family trip to Key West, where my nephew and I made friends with one of the descendants of Hemingway's six-toed cat.

I wonder if it had any family anecdotes passed down about Hemingway. How long have you been writing for and what kind of things have you written and had published?

Hmm, it's a bit hard to say when I 'started' writing, it seems like it's been more of a step-wise progression to the point where I can actually say that I write well enough to call myself a writer. I've always been a huge reader - I was one of those kids who would visit the library every week and leave with a stack of books under my chin. In the years before I discovered the Fantasy genre, I wore out my book of Grimm's fairy tales and read through Edith Hamilton's 'Mythology' dozens of times. I thought books were absolutely magical in the way they could create beautiful pictures in my head, and make me laugh and cry, just with words.

I think I've always wanted to try my hand at creating that sort of magic myself. As a college freshman, I submitted a story to F&SF magazine, which was rejected, since it was mostly a series of pretty images with no real plot or characterization. Four years later, I had a story published in our school magazine which had actual character and plot development, so I was learning. After graduating, I spent several years writing fan fiction, which helped me practice constructing stories around existing characters. Nine years ago I signed onto Fantasy-Writers.org and started creating original works.

About five years later I squelched my fear of submitting, and in 2010, I had a few poems and short stories accepted. That felt like a real achievement - to be paid for my work and published where anyone could read it. Since then I haven't submitted much - my story in the Unburied Treasures anthology is the first to be published in quite a while. There is something about having my work 'out there' that made me want to really love the stories I submitted and be proud of them - not just of having written them - but to publish the kinds of stories that instilled my love for reading all those years ago.  

What gave you the idea to edit the anthology Unburied Treasures?

The lovely Lydia deserves all the credit. She e-mailed out of the blue and asked if I wanted to help get the band back together for another anthology - this time fully illustrated by her and Isaia. It sounded like a brilliant idea, but I wasn't at all sure that I was the right person for the job. But really, when Lydia asks you to do something, it's pretty impossible to say no. She makes it sound like a wonderful project and convinces you that you'll have great fun doing it with her - all of which is absolutely true.

Did you find it easier or harder than you expected?

Much easier. Everyone was so pleasant and professional, and submitted such marvelous stories, I hardly felt I had earned my editorial title. I tried to get Lydia to take additional credit, since she did so much more than the beautiful illustrations, but I think she likes to be the secret elf who sneaks in at night to do her magic when everyone is asleep. Which is often the case, since her time-zone is so different than us Northern Hemispherians. 

Your story in Unburied Treasures comes over, to me at least, with a distinctly Buddhist feeling. Was this deliberate, and what were you aiming to convey?

It all started with a snow leopard, so once I had that, I had to have the Himalayas and a Yeti, didn't I? It is tricky, I think, to set a story in a country and culture with which you have no direct experience. It can come off as stereotyped and cliched since we tend to draw on simplistic images that come primarily from pop culture references, rather than taking the time to dig into the deep complexity of original sources. I did worry about that, but I tried to do at least some research into the symbolism of mandalas. Personally, I've always found them beautiful and fascinating - how can you not? My hope is that I may intrigue someone with my light-hearted story, and they will be inspired to look further into the images that I present in order to understand them better.

When you came to London a few years back, your instant target was the British Museum. How important is history to you?

What an amazing trip that was! Thank you for touring the museum with me and showing me so much of the City, Nyki. And reciting poetry while sitting on a bench overlooking the Thames! Wonderful memories. I only wish I hadn't been so tired - I'd been traveling around Europe for three weeks by then, so I was fair exhausted. And you're such a great walker - hard for this soft American to keep up with!

It was great for me, too, to have someone to remind me I hadn't taken advantage of being near all those things for too long. Thanks.

History, yes, I do have something of a passion for it. I don't know if you remember, but I said something about it when we were browsing the Egyptian exhibit - I thought it was like being surrounded by thousands of story fragments, that each little relic or carved hieroglyph was a piece of an unknown story. So much of who we were and how we got here has been lost to time, but museums are full of ghostly whispers hinting at how people once lived and what was vitally important to them. I homed in on the British Museum because there were two things I wanted to see most of all - the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta stone. I'd been deeply affected by what had been written about them, and had an intense desire to see them for myself. And I wasn't disappointed. They're like time machines revealing the pinnacle of ancient art and language, showing us how easily such things can be lost, and how much else of irretrievable value disappears when that happens.  

Can you tell us something about what you're writing at the moment and any future writing (or editing) plans?

At the moment, I'm working mostly on collaborations. I'm 15,000 words into a story set in a world created by a friend, using some of his characters. I've done a few others, one of which he may include in a future collection of his stories, so perhaps this could end up going the same way. Though at this point I'm writing it for the sheer fun of playing in his wonderful sandbox. It's like writing fan fiction, but with the original creator willing to comment and make helpful suggestions.

Editorially, I've been helping another friend with his online comic book. We actually started writing it together more than twenty years ago, but as neither of us could draw well enough, it fell by the wayside. He has since discovered the magic of 3-D computer graphics programs, and has done an outstanding job teaching himself how to put together some truly stunning illustrations. The scope of the project has expanded greatly as well - from the original six-issue series, to a thirty-issue monster. He's got it all planned out, though - I have the color-coded outline. It looks like a schematic for the New York Subway system. It's called The Great Game and the first issue was recently accepted by Comixology. 

For myself, I'd like to start submitting again. My favorite stories end up around novella-length, so I need to investigate some of the on-line markets that have been opening up for less-than-novel-length stories.

The recent one I've been reading certainly needs to be got out there.

Thanks so much for inviting me to be on your blog, Nyki, and getting the word out about our anthology. Your dragon story was wonderful, as well as providing an eye-catching focal point for the cover illustration. 

And thank you for entertaining and informing us, and for editing the anthology.

You can follow Erika's blog, and the links to buy the anthology can be found on this page.