Category Archives: Process

Forests and Trees, Redux

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Japanese MaskSometimes it’s hard for me to read. That is, to read as someone who reads strictly for personal pleasure does. I made that connection a long time ago. I know there are writers who can turn their editor brain off and just read for pleasure, and I envy them. I can still do it, but only under two special circumstances: one, the book has to interest me (simple enough, but when combined with–) two, it has to be the sort of book that I would never, ever, be interested in trying to write. Which is why I can read both the Harry Potter series and classic-age science fiction without the writer brain going “Okay, that was a clever transition there. Let me see how they pulled it off… And boom, your reading experience has just been blown out of the water, since now you’re reading for technique, not pleasure, and you’re on the outside of the book looking in, instead of properly immersed in the world the writer created for you. Which is why I do have so much trouble reading for simple enjoyment. I remember doing it–ages ago, it seems now, but I do remember. Which is probably why I am inordinately fond of something like Harry Potter, or Clifford Simak. They give that back to me, at least for a little while.

As I said, I’ve been coming to terms with that for quite some time. So what actually did come as a bit of a surprise was the understanding that the research bug was having the same effect. Now even books I normally could read for pleasure are tripping me up, and I’ll hit something and go “Hmmm. I didn’t know that about Japanese Buddhism as opposed to the versions that came through China. I wonder if it’s accurate….” Boom. Tossed out of the book on my butt once again. Worse, now it’s not just books. I mean, seriously– you know you’re suffering from research overload when you’re watching Kurosawa’s version of MacBeth (“Throne of Blood”) and think, “Ok, all those blades are in tachi mounts, and the secondary sword is a tanto, and only the foot samurai are carrying what appear to be katana…therefore this was set sometime after the Kamakura period, probably into the Muromachi period.”

Dang. There go the movies. No wonder I took up guitar.

Clockwork Phoenix #4

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Not a bad way to start the new year. Almost literally. I got a request from Mike Allen, the editor of the Clockwork Phoenix anthology series, for a small tweak in the story I’d submitted. The request came in just before midnight on the 1st, I approved it, and the confirmation of the sale came in just after midnight, January 2nd. So my slightly surreal, modernist fairy-tale, “Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl,” will be appearing in CP#4.

Pleased as I am about that, it’s not really what I wanted to talk about today, other than to note that “Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl” has something in common with “Three Little Foxes,” an entirely different sort of story that appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #105 last year– those were the only two usable stories I wrote last year. Right. All year. While 2012 was a pretty good year in some ways, so far as writing progress goes, it kind of sucked. While I’m not the most prolific writer I know, I’m usually more productive than that. I generally manage 8-12 stories a year, and usually sell most if not all of them. Those two stories I did write were, in my humble opinion, pretty good ones and I sold them both which makes me happy, but they shouldn’t have been alone. 2012 was a fallow year. Continue reading →

Rose Petals in the Grand Canyon

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WRITING 02I don’t know who said it first, since the saying has been attributed to many people over the years, but it goes something like this: “Publishing a short story is rather like dropping rose petals into the Grand Canyon and listening for the thud.”  As you’ve probably deduced by now, as a general rule there is no thud. If you’re lucky, a few people will care enough to comment on the story–pro or con–when it’s posted, and if you’re really lucky two or more readers will get in an argument about it which will make other people want to read it just so they know what these folks are on about. But mostly you publish a story, whatever the venue, and in a month or so it’s as if you didn’t do anything at all. This is not a complaint, mind you, but for most writers slogging in the short fiction trenches, it’s just the way things are. So when you get some recognition beyond that, say an award nomination or Best of the Year nod, it tends to perk up your day.

All by way of saying that “In the Palace of the Jade Lion” from Beneath Ceaseless Skies #100 was listed in Lois Tilton’s Locus Online year-end review as one of her favorite stories of the year. I’m glad. It was one of my favorites, too.

Happy New Year. May we all have something to celebrate this time around. Heaven Knows we could use it.

Bits of Pieces

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cropped-photo041.jpgWhile finishing up the credits page for that new book, I had to step through my bibliography and pull out my book-length projects in chronological order. Including the two novellas publishes as stand-alone limited editions and all the collections, it came out to thirteen:

The Ogre’s Wife
Hereafter, and After
Worshipping Small Gods
The Long Look
On the Banks of the River of Heaven
The Heavenly Fox
Spirits of Wood and Stone
Black Kath’s Daughter
The Blood Red Scarf
A Warrior of Dreams
Our Lady of 47 Ursae Majoris and Other Stories
Ghost Trouble: The Casefiles of Eli Mothersbaugh
The Ghost War

And soon: Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter

The new book makes it an even fourteen. Twice seven. I like that. Nice round number, that one. May it prove auspicious.

And then the Claws Came Out

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Heian LadyPreviously I’d given the suggested reading list for material on the Heian period, and it reminded me of my second re-read of Lady Murasaki’s Diary (I can remember when I read fast. What the heck happened?) Anyway, there’s a poetic exchange that the translator puzzles over that makes me wonder as well. It was the time of the Chrysanthemum Festival, and one of the customs of the time at Court was to lay out raw silk coverings over the flowers at night to protect them. Chrysanthemums were also associated with longevity, so It was also believed that to wipe the dew from those coverings on oneself the next morning would restore youth. I don’t have the text in front of me to quote the poems, but the first was from the Chancellor (Michinaga?)’s wife to Murasaki, with a gift of one of these cloths and a flower branch, to “restore her youth.” Murasaki was set to reply that she had only wiped a little off her sleeve to to restore a little youth, but was sending the cloth back “so that His Excellency’s wife might get the full benefit.”

As the translator notes, there are two obvious ways to read this:

1) Face value. It was a thoughtful gift, requiring an equally courteous response or…

2) His Excellency’s Wife: “You’re getting old, Dearie.” Murasaki: “Not as old as you,  Dearie.”

The diary notes that the response was never sent, since by that time His Excellency’s Wife had returned to her apartments, and so Murasaki thought there was no point pursuing the matter. Which I want to read as “Eh. You ain’t worth my time.”

Which interpretation is the right one? As the translator admits, there’s just no way to know.

I do, however, know which way I’m betting.