Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

So, I got one “No Thank Your” from a market that I am beginning to classify as part of the “Old Guard.”  They don’t seem to allow new people in for all they say they want something different or new writers. But, they’re rejection letter was better this time. Much better. Although, again, this is a story I “finished” over a year ago and have been “revising” ever since.
Then, got one “Maybe Later…”

Okay, how am I supposed to take it when they say, “maybe a critique partner should go over this with you.”  HELLO!  I’ve had I don’t know how many people (critique partners) read over it and offer critique and feedback and I’ve listened and tried to look at it and change it and make it better. At least they invited me to try again. So, I’ll see what I can do and try again.
One of these days I’m going to go over to the dark side and do all self-publishing. If they do it in the music industry, there’s no reason why it can’t work in the publishing world.  This is ridiculous.

Just doing my monthly plug for the Mid-Wilshire writer’s club meeting this Saturday. We’ll be meeting at the Fairfax Library on Gardner between 3rd and Beverly. Come join us in the community from, 3-5 pm. Bring something to share with the group!

Recently a friend of mine went to Pure Speculation III, and whilst there connected and reconnected with friends and comrades in the Canadian speculative fiction field. When she came back she brought back for me a book called The Claus Effect (1997), by David Nickle and Karl Schroeder. Put out by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, a small press Canadian publisher that has begun to expand (recently merging with Tesseract Books and Dragon Moon Press), The Claus Effect is a two part story based on an Aurora-Award winning short story, The Toy Mill (1993), about a young girl who brings down a sociopathic Santa Claus.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I like Christmas. I like traditional Christmas with the creche and I like commercial Christmas with the Santa Claus. I like any festival of light celebrated in the midst of darkness and death. I especially like, however, stories and traditions and things that take Christmas mythology and turn it on its head (as long as it’s done well). Just look on my bookshelf (and on my CD shelf and DVD shelf) and you’ll see collections of Christmas murder mysteries, romances, speculative fiction, and twisted tales. So, if it’s about Christmas, I’m already going to be excited about it. That being said, if it’s done badly, then I’m going to be REALLY disappointed in it.

I wasn’t disappointed in The Claus Effect.

As I stated before, The Claus Effect grew out of a short story, The Toy Mill, about a little girl, Emily, who waits up late one Christmas Eve so that she can ask Santa Claus to make her an elf. She thinks it would be the coolest thing ever to help bring Christmas to the rest of the world. Noble desire, wouldn’t you say? Well, only if the Santa Claus you think exists really does exist. Only he doesn’t. In real life he’s a larger than life sociopath who HATES what he does and HATES children. “Larger than life” means, basically, that’s he’s a huge cigar chomping, rough-talking factory boss who could care less what children want. Fantastic set up! This was an Aurora-Award winning short story, the Canadian equivalent of the Hugo.

What the authors then did was take this story, put a Prologue in front of it, and then follow it up with the novella, The Claus Effect, which goes forward, eight years later, from the events that took place in the Toy Mill. What is important to note about the timing of these tales is that The Toy Mill takes place in 1983, while The Claus Effect takes place in 1991, after the downfall of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. This is a very important plot point. As is the point that Emily is a Canadian girl, and the other protagonist, Neil, is an American boy. Between the two of them, they become involved with MI6, Cossacks, old KGB, CIA, and the most obnoxious elves seen anywhere. Needless to say, it also includes Uzis, AKMs, nuclear warheads, global satellites, and all sorts of James Bond-like double crossing and fire fights. In the meantime, Emily and Neil, of course, develop a friendship, mature, and learn and use very important life skills (such as how to dodge bullets, escape a cell, and survive arctic temperatures). In addition, several tongue-in-cheek jabs are made at the expense of America, but other jabs are made towards Russians, Canadians, Germans and whoever else is mentioned in the story.

The plot twists around like pretzel in a maze, but that really doesn’t matter, cuz you have so much fun just reading the language (there’s some fun word usage and cool metaphor – though one metaphor is repeated more than it should be) that you don’t really care where the ride is taking you, since it’s still a good ride. And while the end has a good resolution, it does leave it open for further development. Not sure Nickle and Schroeder ever did more stories about Emily and Neil, but the possibility was definitely there, and I’d be interested to know what they did and how they did it.

I loved reading The Claus Effect. I really, really enjoyed this story. If you’re feeling cynical about the holiday season then reading this will give you a sense of glee as you’ve never felt before. Seriously. Once I was pulled into the story, I was rarely ever kicked out of it. It was engrossing. There were, however, a few hiccups that gave me pause. But, since I liked the story so much, I was able to shrug them off and move on.

One hiccup was the proofreading. Small presses don’t necessarily have the proofreading or copyediting people who are paid to go through a manuscript extensively to check for missed words, grammar, syntax, doubled words, continuity, etc. Many times authors have to depend on the keen, observant eyes of friends and family. So, sometimes books from small presses have a few foibles. The latter half of the novella (part 2), The Claus Effect, felt like it hadn’t been proofed as many times as the rest of the novella. Words had been left out, or repeated, or phrases transposed. But again, I liked the story enough so that I was able to shrug the rough bits off and move on through the story.

Another hiccup has to do with culture. When this was first written, it was for, primarily, a Canadian audience, not an American audience. But, in one scene, Neil (American) and Emily (Canadian) are sneaking around the old military installation and looking for a place to hide when Neil says in frustration that a place like that has GOT to have washrooms.

Yeah.

Americans don’t say “washroom.” Americans say “bathroom.” If EMILY had been speaking in that scene then “washroom” would have been correct. But Neil was the one speaking in that scene and he would have, realistically, used the term “bathroom.”

That hiccup just made me chuckle a bit, though, more than anything else. Kind of added charm to this obviously Canadian Christmas twisted fairy tale.

On the whole, I truly enjoyed this story. It was a fast read. It was imaginative. It was fun. I highly recommend it. If you decide to order it through Amazon and it says it’s going to be a long while before you receive it, then try ordering it direct from Edge, here. It may cut down on the time it takes to receive it.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned going to Denver. I was actually going to a small town outside of Denver called Evergreen, Colorado. It’s a small town (population about 9000) a little over an hour’s drive outside of Denver, up in the mountains (elevation a little over 7000 ft or so). The trip was fantastic. There were a couple of hiccups, but eventually they turned around to being good things so it’s all good. Don’t want to discuss the experience of the trip too much as one of my friends and I are working on co-authoring something about it. When that’s done, I’ll share it with you. But I thought I would spend a little time sharing pictures and perhaps discussing how cool Evergreen is.

Evergreen reminds me of a cross between Leavenworth, Washington and Fairhaven, Washington. Evergreen has wooden sidewalks, a saloon called the Little Bear with live music going on pretty much all the time, and really nice people. That’s on top of the clean water, clear air and the beautiful surrounding tree-covered mountains with the picturesque stream that runs through.

I didn’t want to come home.

I don’t know how I’d make a living if I ever moved there, but I didn’t want to come home. Some of the things I got to do whilst there:

Drive a hummer (H3)
Watch people try to start a fire and laugh (near them not at them)
Dance barefoot in the snow
Hang out in my own little aery
Get to know cool people
Have really good pizza at Beau Jo’s

Get to know some really cool chicks at the Black Hat Cattle Company who made sure we not only had good drinks (fantastic martinis), but also gave us directions to our rental and custom made us dishes for the resident vegetarians (including a plate of the best cheese covered tater tots EVER). Shout out to them for great service, superb food (for both carnivores and herbivores), and for just being really nice people!

Experience a real, live walk-in humidor at Evergreen Discount Liquors (kind of comparable to California’s Beverages and More, but a little more special – one of my friends called it going to the temple).

So, here are some pictures from the trip (disregard the time stamps – I kept trying to turn that off on my camera, but it kept coming back on):

Elk Bull at Evergreen Lake

Elk Cow at Lake

Cattails and Aspens (Aspens have all one root system) from Lake looking east (I think)

Geese on Lake

O yes, I did! (pic taken by Z)

View from my window on Sunday morning (pic taken by EAK)

Madame Svetlana made an appearance (pic taken by EAK)

Ducks in downtown Evergreen

O little town of Evergreen!

From Aery Sunday morning

From deck on Sunday morning

*will crosspost on Tribe.net and MySpace.com

Soon, hopefully, I won’t feel tired all the time and I’ll blog a bit about my trip to Evergreen, Colorado. I highly recommend a trip there. In the meantime, thought I’d give a writing update.

Most of my usual CPs have been a bit busy, so I have been experimenting with asking for feedback from online friends.  I have gotten some really good feedback using this method as I get a variety of different viewpoints. Lest you think I get too many viewpoints, let me tell you my method. I typically have sent a story (or two) to two separate online friends to get their feedback. For example I sent my paranormal romance and my apocalypse stories to one friend in England and another in Pennsylvania. Both are intelligent, creative, and write well (at least in their online venues). And I got really valuable insight and feedback from both of them that I think greatly improved my stories. 

Because I felt too close to the “maybe” story and the werewolf story I’ve been working on (and said CPs are still down for the count), I decided to try this method again. So, found two separate people for the “maybe” story (one in Ohio, one California), as well as two separate people for the werewolf story (one in Canada, one in Oregon).  They all come from different backgrounds, etc, but they’re all intelligent communicators and readers.  Reader feedback is valuable because I want people to enjoy my stories. Best way to find out if those stories will be enjoyable is find regular readers. And hopefully my readers won’t all be the same kind of person. So I’m hoping this will improve my story telling abilities. 

So far, it’s worked out well.  I’ve gained a lot of insight and I believe it’s really helped improve my stories. Today, in fact, I received comments back on one of my stories that pointed out lots of things I hadn’t noticed, such as when I’d been redundant (after a while your eye just misses things), as well as confirmed for me scenes that weren’t working, and showed me grammar mistakes I’d missed.  So, it’s really helped.

I think one of the reasons this works is that using a writing medium, such as the internet, to interact so heavily, can promote a writing culture, much like the writing of letters in centuries past. It doesn’t have to mean the short-cut texting grammar and spelling that can be so annoying. In order to have real, complex discussions and communicate in an articulate manner online, you have to bypass the e-text and use real grammar and syntax. So, the people that one interacts with who use real grammar and syntax are much more apt to be people who can offer real and meaningful feedback on something.

I was feeling really good about all this.  Got pretty good feedback from this friend, who also said she liked my story.  That’s great! If she likes it, then maybe an editor will like it. Well, I print out the copy of the story with the comments and try to snag them from the printer before anyone else can see them here at work, but one of my coworkers walks by and picks up what’s in there. She used to be an editor. She screams,

“What’s this!?! I hope you didn’t write this! It’s awful!”

“Um, I’m reviewing it for a friend of mine.” Cross my fingers.

“Oh, well then.” 

And she hands me the pages dismissively. 

See, that’s just what I’m afraid of. There are the readers and there are the editors. The readers might really like my stuff, but the editors are going to be cynical and staid like my coworker and just think it’s awful. So, how to get passed the cynical gatekeeper and into the party where everyone is waiting for a new story to be told?

*sigh*

So, that’s what I’m working on.

Well, as of October 13, All Possible Worlds had put out Issue #2. And then five days later announced they would no longer be publishing. Zines do go in and out of business at a drop of a hat. It all depends on getting funding through subscriptions and advertising and whether or not the people involved can float through the times when they can’t. It’s a tough business and I’m glad they tried. I wish they’d decided to keep on going, but that’s the biz.

In other news, soon I will blog about my trip to Evergreen, but I’ve been busy getting back into life. It took me a while to come down off the mountaintop.

Working on the “maybe” story to see if I can rectify some of the things the editor pointed out. I don’t know. I and several of my friends have looked at this story so often and I’ve gotten so many different critiques on it that I’m just not sure if I can do anything at this point. What I decided to do eventually is go back to an early version to see how it compared to this most recent version. There were some things I cut out that I wish I hadn’t and I’d always wanted to begin the story in a particular manner, but was kind of steered away from that. So, I’m going back to the original to see if I can get the original spirit infused into the most recent copy and see if that helps.

Another story got turned down, so need to take another look at it. That’s two stories in as many days. Pull it out of the submitted pile and into the work pile. Work pile is sure building up.

And I have to say, Breaking News sucks! I want my Stargate darn it!

Break out the Champagne and raise a toast or have some toast or SOMETHING! This is BIG NEWS!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, baby!  Not only was Evergreen, Colorado one of the BEST PLACES EVER to go so see, but I also had a couple of poems accepted for publication Electric Velocipede sometime in the future! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now I need to go to bed!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago, Karen blogged about a call for submission for a contest on Dark Recesses.  The deadline is October 31st if you’re interested.

I got all excited about it even though I was in the middle of something else. Dashed something out that I think might work, and just finished getting it all down into the computer (that’s the second draft). So, that’s done. It’s 2000 words over, but that’s why you’re supposed to get these things done early (like I didn’t do with the other thing).  So, now, that’s done and I can sit back and enjoy my trip and just let the story cook and boil and simmer on my computer while I’m out of town like a vat of Polyjuice Potion. And hopefully after I get home I will have a clear head and all sorts of insight into how to edit this werewolf story as well as how to edit the other story (the Maybe story).

Crossing my fingers.

I got a MAYBE! It’s on the same story I got a Maybe on before and I thought I took care of all the crap in it. I’ve been rewriting and reworking that f*cker for a YEAR. Add to that was this comment that I’m not sure how to take. It’s a back handed compliment if I ever heard one: “It’s a very good story, better than I expected, even.” What do they mean better than they expected!??!?!?! GRRRRRR!!!!

I am SO tired of falling asleep in front of this monitor I’m not going to look at that story until after I get back from my trip to Denver.

Yes, I’m going on a trip to Denver. Or more precisely, Evergreen. I’m considering it my own little writer’s retreat as I won’t be near a computer unless someone loans me one. Pen and Paper for me. And lots of gazing at mountains and trees. AND NO PHONES. AND NO STUPID PEOPLE.