Story Bone - Revenant Going the Final Mile

While a Revenant can seem a worn subject in fiction, even having movies and comics made of the idea (The Crow and Spawn), most of these returned to avenge their own brutal killings. What if, to avenge some other wrong, someone made them self a Revenant? Say, their wife was killed horribly, and the legal system was unable to help them. They don’t have the contacts to track down the perpetrators in normal life. But as a Revenant, they’d have access to supernatural powers to track and punish those responsible. A Revenant spured and formed by agape.

Story Bone - Border Crossings

Listening to a Fresh Air story on NPR when I had an interesting idea. The story was on children illegal aliens trying to reach their mothers in the US. The trials, tribulations, everything they have to go through to get across the border and then the problems that arise after they’re over the border. So I got to thinking, would there be such a border crossing between Heaven and Hell (of the Christian variety)? Would people be able to get over the border? What would they do for or in Heaven (the chores, the same type of jobs that our illegals take)? What would they get from it? Grace? Can you transfer Grace from one person to another, could they bundle Grace back with them across the border?

Many illegals send money back to their families. Many come to take jobs that US citizens don’t really want, or don’t want to pay a lot for. Many are migrant/seasonal passing back and forth across the border every year.

A further complication for the Heaven/Hell scenario is what if people meet those they loved or knew? Would the other person turn them in?

The Muse Sings

Here’s another link I recommend, Tobias Buckell “Getting Past Being Joe Blow Neopro,” as a podcast. I have to admit, I have sinned. I’ve wasted time when I should be writing, I’ve been rude to people at conventions, and I’ve let uncomfortable silences slip into conversations with editors. I hereby apologize for all of them.

So, now, how does one find time. That seems to be a common question. So let me go through my thing. I work a full-time job, I have a one-hour commute, so if I work an 8-hour day, that translates to ten hours. I get no lunch hour (union contractual thing). I have been working 11 to 12 hour days lately. Overtime is shiny, but deadly. Okay, add to that I am an elected official of my village. That means that at least one, more than likely two, nights a week I have meetings. I also have other work that needs to be completed at home. Most recently I spent an afternoon going through a manual for NIMS (National Incident Management System) and taking a test. That’s an afternoon I wont get back. I also do freelance design work. That’s a job that’ll wack out a few hours in the evening and is slightly unpredictable. I also attend a writer’s workshop every other week.

When do I find time to write? Whenever and where ever I can. I have a notebook with me at all times. When there’s a line bothering me I write it down. DO IT NOW, before you forget. Always have something to write with. And if you don’t and a line comes to you, find something, a napkin, the back of a receipt, anything. And then transfer it to your notebook when you can. Then write the story when you find yourself with a spare hour or two. You don’t have to write it all in one sitting, and try not to edit yourself when your writing the first draft, there’ll be time for that later. When you have some time and don’t feel inspired, well, that’s what you’ve been waiting for to do the rewrites.

Kilgore Trout Redux

Whenever I read Mark Twain, I hear Kurt Vonengaut speaking. And when I hear Kurt speaking, I read Twain. So it goes.

Exercise February

Okay, so here's another assignment for my writer's group.
Flesh out this character - Juliana Reade, age 52; she is an extrovert, but gets easily depressed.

And here's my solution:

Jewels stationed herself on the green leather and chrome stool closest to the door. It was her stool, her favorite place. Jackson, the bartender, made her Long Island Ice Tea before coming over to say, “hi,” and then retreated to the darker end of the bar to talk with another regular. Jewels didn’t understand why Jackson didn’t want to talk anymore. She had been his favorite. She liked talking to people.

“Juliana Reade,” her momma would say. “Stop talking and get your ass in this house.”

Her momma was long dead now, smoked herself into an early grave when Jewels was only 38. She raised her glass, “Fourteen years, momma, and I haven’t smoked another one since we buried you.”

Someone came in the bar behind her and Jewels automatically said, “Hiya, sit a spell.” She had become the unofficial greeter of the bar. The shadow that had come in mumbled something back and headed for one of the booths on the other wall. The bar was only a small one, they hadn’t gone far away, but Jewels felt adrift at the end of the bar, cast away by the regulars and the newcomers. She had always felt welcome before, but just like the other familiar places, welcome eventual wears thin. Her positive attitude veneer melted away and her shoulder pads slumped. She felt enormously tired at having to find another place as her home other than home.

Show, don't tell.

Story Bone - Youth's Dreams

"Our youthful dreams burning in the glow of green phosphors."

Story Bone

If God does have a voice it would sound more like Pee Wee Herman’s laugh than James Earl Jones telling us he’s our father and we should forget whatever Obi Wan told us.

Story Bone

"The moon got herself caught in the naked branches of a young maple tree this morning. She was moving across the northern sky, and was only partially full, so she couldn’t see where she was going when the tree stretched up in the night and snared her in his bare branches.

"He was just yawning and waking up from the warm weather when he found the moon caught in his arms. She was coppery and round, warm and brilliant, so he didn’t want to let her go."

Happy New Year

Hope you all had a great Christmas/Holiday Season and that the gift bearing entities were generous. They were to me.

Other than the Craftsman tool cabinet, I also received an iPod 60gig so I now can listen to all those books on tape at the day job. And many, many books. The guilt stack now teeters on the verge of burying me in my sleep. I now have enough Katharine Briggs to feed my research needs into the next decade, including scoring a copy of the Dictionary of Fairies (real title is much longer) at Half-Price for $5. Yes, you may be envious. It’s okay, I’ll understand. If you don’t understand I’ll let you check the used prices on Amazon for it. This was the paperback copy, so it’s a little less.

In other news I received the rejection letter from Asimov’s for my short-story “The Dead Are Busy” yesterday. They must have wanted to avoid the postage increase so just spiked it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I talked with an editor at another magazine at the World Fantasy Convention this past November, they had passed on the story before because of being oversold. He asked me to send it back to them for consideration, so by this weekend it’ll be winging it way there.

Also, I did another walk through of “The Wild Hunt.” I think it’s close to ready. Maybe another full scale re-write will do it (this will make the fourth). Then it’ll be off to the Writer’s of the Future Contest, like it should have been back in December.

The War of the Wren

I’ve been ruminating about this so called “War on Christmas” and how so much of it is a McGuffin to get the proles all riled up and distract them from the real issues. It was while I was thinking about the Older/Traditional/True meaning of Xmas and remembering stories of earlier times when I recalled that in the Middle Ages, at winter’s tide (solstice), it was common for the hunters to go out and kill small birds to crown the local kings with. The wren, in England, was a favorite as the wren was the “king of birds.” So men would tromp through the cold and weather to gather enough wrens and other small birds to create a panoply winged beings to decorate the throne and the king himself. What a great image that is. Cold stone hall, gilded throne and back drop with a crown of birds, and birds hung from string in flight around the throne, the glint of a gilded back drop shining through the smoke haze and candle sputterings.

Oh, and for those of you who object to the “Xmas”, here’s the history lesson. “X”, or “chi” in the Greek, is the letter of the Christ. Xmas is perfectly legitimate shorthand and isn’t disrespectful. In fact, it is truer than the long term Christmas in symbology. While “XR” or “chi rho” is also used, “chi” is the most accepted version.

Story Bone

“The taste of cashews reminds me of Christmas.” When I was growing up we had this candy dish that was ceramic holly leaves formed into a sleigh with runners. Every Christmas it would be filled with cashews by my mother or my grandparents. I remember the look of the dregs of the cashews in the deep green, a fine dust of brown cashew parts and the remnant salt that sloughed off.

Assigment Update

Well, as was pointed out to me, I messed up. For my assignment paragraph I reused the words "to" and "fully." Well, time for a rewrite.

"Late night train whistle swirls snowflakes trapped by its blast. Paul wakes partially from deep sleep, nestled in dark downy comfort. “There is no railway past town,” memory tells. He comes fully awake after a second, closer sounding. Time’s hollow echo rings through another nearer blow. Sleety snow begins plinking windows with rhythmical rat-tick-tapping to come inside as the ghost locomotive thunders on, running down phantom tracks."

I brought up the point in class that this is an excellent exercise on the importance of rewriting. Just try the exercise, you'll have to rewrite that paragraph to make it work. My guess is that you'll have to rewrite it many times. That is the writing process. While some authors may have the blessings of angels that they can write pristine copy the first time, most of us have sinned and fall short of that grace. Rewrite is your friend. Visit your friend often.