wha-?*#%&(@*hic!--*sob*

Eggplant publications is closing. I got the word this morning. No info on why. Which means Jintsu is closing. Which means End of the Line will not be coming out in February, if ever.

Somehow, I cannot be all that surprised. I guess I should be glad, from a karma point of view, that at least no one died this time. Or did they? I really cannot be sure.

Excuse me while I go beat my head against a wall.

antique scientific equipment

Love the name. "Ars machina." Check out the microscopes.

never doubt your sifu

Sunday I was the first one to class. Sit was already in there, and the first thing he said to me was, not, "Hello," or "Hi-how-you-doing?" but "How's your car?"

I kind of blinked, because the car was no better or worse than it had been, but I had missed Wednesday class because of the snowstorm and I thought perhaps he assumed I had car trouble. I said, "It's fine. It's just old."

He said, "Maybe time to get a new car."

I chuckled, but it stuck with me. He alarms me sometimes, when he gets all pointed and specific. He can be as vague as Cliff Huxtable about things. Tony said, "He's predicted the future before, you know." I did know. I had been told stories, and I can name a half-dozen times that Sit has read my mind or anticipated questions I had. Admittedly he's been teaching a long time and has seen students go through the same blocks again and again, but I've had my own precognitive moments over the years and I was inclined to take the warning seriously, if for no other reason than because the car is 17 years old.

Monday night I was driving home, trying to get home early because Scott needed to borrow my car, and two miles from work the Check Engine light comes on. Now, the thing had been running rough for a while, Scott insisted it was the fuel line, but I suspected an electrical cause. At any rate, I wasn't taking any chances on the interstate. I turned off Metcalf into the Pontiac dealership. Not wild about those guys, but they once changed a flat for me for free, so I figured the least I could get was a diagnostic.

The service tech called me an hour ago. Spark plug wires are shorting, ignition coils are shorting, idle motor is only working sporadically. Of course, being a dealership garage they want to replace everything with OEM parts and charge me three times cost, so I told them just to clean the motor and I'd do the rest of it myself.

But the moral of this story is, when your Sifu tells you it's going to rain, for Pete's sake pack an umbrella.

Horseflesh...

I read "Horseflesh" for the first time tonight, which is to say I read the hardcopy I took to my writer's group last week, instead of dinking around with the computer version which really accomplishes nothing except moving commas around.

It's not as bad as I thought it was. I disliked it because I was forced to rush through the end, and it shows--the dialogue is a bit rushed, transitions are jagged, but the structure is basically solid. I could, if I wished, play up a certain thread--not really a subplot, just a theme--pertaining to Trace's burgeoning precognative abilities and the Big Bad, but the story functions well enough without it. If I do make the change I'll have to rewrite the climax, as well, which would be prudent because that's the part I was most dissatisfied with. I don't think, however, that any of that will happen before Christmas. Too much to do. Measured the heads of my mother-in-law and sis-in-law today. Also picked up some dandy, very cheap brown hound'stooth check wool, which I need like a hole in the head. Now I am waiting for my hat pattern to arrive, although if it doesn't come soon I'll be forced to wing it.

Stay tuned.

begins to add, uh, clarity

As you may know, I work for a trade publisher, and one of our lines is a series of manuals for professional electricians. The guy who writes the text is a professional electrician, but he isn't much of a writer. The classic example of his style, which I have kept all these years, I give you now:

Simply reading these words about an emergency power system that we have not seen or worked with does not sufficiently describe the importance of this type of system; but putting oneself in the position of being in the emergency room of a hospital having a severed artery sewn closed when a tornado destroys the electrical utility overhead pole-type distribution system and the room turns to blackness begins to add clarity.

Indeed it does, friend. Indeed it does.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Following links can be a grand waste of time, particularly if you're randomly jumping from one blog to another. But eavesdropping can learn you all kinds of useful things, like where Victorian Goths shop for perfume. I give you the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Dig the fonts and the illustrations, but the real triumph is the descriptions of the scents, for instance:

GRAND GUIGNOL
In 1897, a new form of entertainment was presented to the people of Montmartre, Paris: the Théâtre du Grand Guignol. During the course of an evening at the theatre, one would watch several small plays, ranging from crime dramas to sexual farces, a violent, throat-ripping, eye-gouging, acid-tossing good time, which always included shock topics such as infanticide, necrophilia, insanity, murder, paranoia, vengeance and death by common household object. Our Grand Guignol perfume is a shot of sweet apricot brandy; just enough to settle your nerves after a ghoulish, gory brush with the macabre.

Now see: that's what I want in a Halloween party.

Among other things, Black Phoenix Alchemy has an entire line called "Mad Tea Party, or, The Dodson Collection"--inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I love it.
Hell, I want one of each.

speaking of genius

I've been having the itch for some time to do some journaling in Sabine's persona. This is partly because I really adore carrying around small fancy overpriced "writing" books like they sell in Barnes & Noble, and I've been looking for an excuse to buy a fountain pen (not really sure what happened to my old ones). Up to this point, however, I haven't known what to say. There hasn't been anything for her to say, except maybe to rehash how Trace keeps giving her a hard time, and that would be just really boring and pointless.

Today on the drive into work, though, I had an idea. I knew eventually I would have to revisit some of Sabine's past, particularly with regard to the Mereck years (months? weeks?). I wasn't sure how I'd work it in, because I didn't want to shift out of Trace's POV. But today it dawned on me, I could have him find her journals of that time. I could write that part of the story in grand old epistolary form, á là Dracula and Frankenstein. How apropos. How frivolous and therefore satisfying. And I have just the useless little leather-bound book for the job.

the age of paleontology

I'd always kind of wondered about the study of paleontology and how it came to be. As with so many other of our modern sciences, I had a vague idea of it rising from the muck of the Industrial Revolution, but I didn't really know how or when. I had a sort of collective image of the late-Victorian Egyptologist grave-robbers and the early fossil-hunters being cut from the same cloth. And perhaps they were; before the turn of the century there still wasn't a lot of differentiation between the sciences or the scientists who studied them--an educated man was supposed to know a little about everything.

Today I found a site that overviews the rise of paleontology in America and Europe and now I'm all excited and discombobulated.

Colonial Americans understood neither the concept of geological time nor the actual process by which fossils were created. Their society was one that still looked largely to scripture for explanations of much of the surrounding natural world. For instance, the fossil fish and seashells found at quarries and construction excavations in the 1700s were widely believed to be residue from the great flood survived by Noah.

In 1841, Dr. Richard Owen, a leading British authority on anatomy, published a report concluding that the individual bones [found up until that time] were from animals that had all been members of a group of large reptiles that had completely died out in some past age. Because of their apparent size, as well as their fangs and claws, Owen called them by a combination of the Greek words for "terrible lizards" -- dino saurs.

The very idea -- that previously unknown species of monstrously large reptiles could have existed outside of the events documented in the Bible -- was a highly controversial one. It also exerted a deliciously exotic pull on the imaginations of nineteenth-century scientists and laymen alike.

I should think it would. And every time I read something like this I'm appalled to realize just how narrow and shaky the platform of science and reasoning is. Barely a hundred years ago we were still living in the dark ages. Most of the world still does. Hell, most of humanity still does. What passes for logic these days is not, by and large, a structured method of thought.

Of course now I'm brainstorming ways of letting Sabine work a lecture about dinosaurs into casual conversation and wondering if Trace will run across any dinosaur bones while he's out in the desert and musing over whether dead monsters buried in the earth could serve as a metaphor for anything else--or at least provide a horror sequence. The temptation with a character like Miss Fairweather is to give her a miraculous insight into all kinds of things we understand now--germ theory, for instance, which was in its infancy--antibiotics, anesthetics, stuff like that. But I must restrain myself, or I'll come off sounding like Clan of the Cave Bear chick, with cavegirl Ayla feeding digitalis to the mongoloid kid with the heart murmur.

At the same time, part of my interest in creating Miss Fairweather was to explore the collision of science and faith, which I have not done much of to this point because the science keeps taking a back seat to the occult overtones. Maybe something useful will come out of this new bit of knowledge.

update on EOTL, submissions in general

There've been several little flighty writing-marketing type things going on in the past week, which while fascinating and head-spinning to me, are not worth reporting in minutia here, and in some cases are quasi-confidential between me and my editor.

But to recap in general, Raechel at Jintsu has been in contact with me a few times about End of the Line. It's scheduled to come out in February, I may have said that already. She's preparing to send out Advanced Reader Copies to various review sites, none of which I had ever heard of--so much for being market-savvy--and asked if I had any author-friends who could contribute quotes for marketing purposes. Thank you, Rob and Joy.

Raechel's new marketing assistant wrote a "back-copy" blurb for EOTL; which was a relief to me, because I hate writing synopses, and the marketing chick got to the heart of the matter quite nicely. I was also asked to choose an excerpt, which I did--it's the same bit that made y'all squeal when I put it up here. It was a good excerpt, I knew it as soon as I wrote it.

The thought of having ARC's send to reviewers, though--that terrifies me. I keep remembering that Anne Rice debacle on Amazon--not that she wasn't asking for it. I said then, I'll have to be sure not to read any reviews of my work. Maybe I'll bribe someone to read them for me and forward the good ones. Worse, though, would be if no one bothered to review it. I can handle being hated, but ignored? That's cold.

=====

In other news, I sent off "Gretel" to an upcoming anthology I happened to hear about, a collection of rehashed and reimagined fairie tales. Got back a nice email from the editor. He said their list was full, alas, and it was a pity because my story was at least as good as the one they'd already accepted. He said they may do a Volume Two, in which case I was "wholeheartedly invited" to submit again. So that was nice.

I have this curious feeling, and it may just be my ego talking, that I am standing alongside a carousel, watching it whirl past, moving in time to the rhythm and gearing myself up to jump for it, catch hold of one of those gilded posts and get whisked away. Of course I'll probably throw up once I'm on board, and some punk will try to sit beside me and make conversation, but from the ground it looks so bright and exhilarating. I'm eager for the ride.

exhibits C, D, E, F and G*

I'm on a continuous scavenger hunt for other examples of western-horror novels. When I find one, which is seldom, I tend to approach it at an angle and with eyes half-shut, like it's going to spray me with acid or bite or something. Truth be told, I haven't found many, outside of the comic book realm. Here's a brief rundown:

Dead Man's Hand: Five Tales of the Weird West, by Nancy A. Collins. Nancy has a bit of a reputation for her Sonja Blue series, which sadly for her takes a back seat to Laurel Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Dead Man's Hand was apparently published by Two Wolf Press originally, but yesterday in Borders I found a trade paperback copy with Tor's imprint on the spine. I flipped through it; don't care for the style myself, and the stories are definitely horror shorts, as opposed to the dark-fantasy epic thing I'm shooting for.

Fevre Dream, by George R.R. Martin. Martin is probably the best-known of the authors whose works I have found in this genre; however I haven't read anything of his beyond A Game of Thrones, and I suspect few of his fans of that series ever heard of Fevre Dreams, which is a very cool title, by the way. It's the name of a paddleboat, rolling up and down the Mississippi in the 1840's, Huckleberry Finn time. The paddleboat captain unwittingly takes on an aristocratic vampire as a business partner. Lord, I am so sick of aristocratic vampires. My impression is, this is more an Anne Rice-style historical dark fantasy thing than a real western. But that's okay.

One of my writer's group informed me that an alumi of our number, William F. Wu, had written a supernatural western, but in reading the description of Hong on the Range I remain skeptical. It's more a pseudo-futuristic cyberpunk western. The reviewers were not kind, and neither is the $0.72 price tag. Bill is great fun to hang around with, but I personally don't go for broad humor and puns in fiction.

Then there are some contributions from the minor leagues:

Over at Yard Dog Press there are a couple of books by a guy named Ken Rand, whose name is vaguely familiar to me. Look at "The Golems of Laramie County" and "Tales of the Lucky Nickel Saloon."

I'm sure there are others--Joe Lansdale I know has a western-zombie thing out there called Dead in the West-- but I'm tired of looking.

For further reading, and a little listening pleasure, some guy named "Ruthven" over at Amazon compiled a handy list. I can't personally recommend any of it. What I find curious, though, is there's a fairly established subgenre of western horror in gaming--both live and video--and in comics. I wonder why not in fiction? Too hard to market, maybe?

*Exhibits A and B, in case you were wondering, were King's Dark Tower series and the comic series Desperadoes.

insomnia back from abroad

Back in June I sent "Insomnia" (that's the story of Seth Ladron losing his mind in Flenning's lab) off to Writers of the Future. Got it back today. Another quarter finalist also-ran. This time I rated a hand-written note letting me know I was in the top "10-15%" Yawn.

Should be getting a rejection from Asimov's any day, too, on Bridgeport. Guess I'll wrap up Insomnia and send it to Scifiction.com. Been meaning to do that for a year, now.

My writer's meeting is Saturday and they'll get the end of Parlor Games. After that I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I still think it's too long and suffering from continuity syndrome to make a viable stand-alone, but I do like the beginning and ending of it. Perhaps I'll try to carve a shorter short out of it and send it off to F&SF. I don't even necessarily want F&SF to publish it anymore, but they have a quick turnaround time, and I have a perverse desire to torture that assistant editor who said EOTL "didn't capture his interest" by forcing him to read every single story as I finish it. He may hate my guts, but I won't let him forget me.

Parlor Games is done

I'm as amazed as you are. It feels a little like one of those Family Circus maps where Billy wanders all over the neighborhood--I got from start to finish okay, but I'm not sure I hit all the points I needed to cover.

Ah well. Hindsight is clearest, and at least my writer's group will have something to crit next week. Now I get to go play with the werewolves.

Oh... by-the-by, when you leave comments now you'll have to do a "word verification" as an extra step---to keep the spammers out.

yummy

From The Prairie Traveler, by Randolph B. Marcy (pub. 1859), the chapter "Stores and Provisions":

The pemmican, which constitutes almost the entire diet of the Fur Company's men in the Northwest, is prepared as follows: The buffalo meat is cut into thin flakes, and hung up to dry in the sun or before a slow fire; it is then pounded between two stones and reduced to a powder; this powder is placed in a bag of the animal's hide, with the hair on the outside; melted grease is then poured into it, and the bag sewn up. It can be eaten raw, and many prefer it so. Mixed with a little flour and boiled, it is a very wholesome and exceedingly nutritious food, and will keep fresh for a long time.

I've seen several "receits" for pemmican, and that has got to be the worst. Although I've been known to eat raw cured bacon fat, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Also of interest: the word "antiscorbutics," i.e. "something to prevent scurvy."

“Hi servi invivi quos quaeris non sunt.”*

At one point in Parlor Games I needed someone to speak an incantation to get rid of an unwelcome guest, and as everyone knows, the appropriate language for issuing either Priestly or Arcane orders is, appropriately, a Dead Language. Unfortunately, my parents persuaded me to take French instead of Latin in high school (I now think we were both mistaken and I should have studied Spanish, instead). Luckily for me, however, one of the lovely women in my writer's group is apparently quite proficient in Latin. I didn't realize to what degree until I asked her to translate this line for me:

Locate the intruder, follow him to his abode. Let not darkness nor mysteries cloud his flight. Show him to me.

Today I got back the most giggle-inducing post. I can't help it; I love linguistics. If I were incurably rich I'd do nothing but study languages all day. When I wasn't writing or practicing tai chi, of course. Below are the most relevant portions of the text Alysen sent me (the comments in italics are mine):

Ave salveque Holly!

A. Nouns

invasor = invader
speculator = spy, scout
emissarius = emissary, spy

Oddly enough, there’s no single Latin word which means, precisely, intruder. There are a couple of awkward two- and three-word phrases which I dismissed, not wanting to open up the grammatical and metrical cans of worms they entailed.

Is the intruder intruding on his own recognizance? Invasor. Or has he been sent as a minion by a nefarious secret master? Emissarius or speculator.

domicilium = abode, dwelling-place
domus = home, house
latibulum = hiding-place, retreat, subterfuge
latebra = hiding-place, den, lair

Domicilium is colorsell and metrically annoying. Domum, in addition to being the generic term for house, home, household, also refers to a specific type of building, an atrium townhouse, and carries a connotation of middle-class comfort--hardly what you had in mind.

Latibulum is okay, but I hope you like latebra, lair, as much as I do. (oh, yes!)

obscuritas = darkness, meanness, obscurity (by an amazing coincidence)
opacittas = darkness, shadiness, opacity (another amazing coincidence)
arcanum = mystery, secret
occultum = hidden thing, secret (adj. used as substantive)
tenebrae = darkness, obscurity, night, mysteries (I thought of you, Joy!)

Why not let tenebrae suffice alone, since it means both darkness and mysteries?

fuga = flight, fleeing, exile
effugium = flight, way of escape

Either is fine, leaving meter the only criterion.

B. Verbs

invenio, invenire = invent, contrive, find, discover, procure
rescisco, resciscere = ascertain, find out, learn
reperio, reperire = find, meet with, find out, descover, invent

I recommend reperio, reperire; it seems closest to your intended meaning. Oddly, again, there seems to be no single Latin word meaning precisely “locate”, “find the location of”.

It would be a clause like “locum invasoris rescisce”, ascertain the place of.

sequor, sequi = follow, go after, attend, pursue
investigo, investigare = track
venor, venari = hunt

Which of these you choose depends on whether the counterintelligence agent being ordered on this spychase is singular or plural. Solo minion or squad? I’ll get to the reason in a moment.

sino, sinere = allow, permit
patior, pati (?) = bear, undergo, suffer, allow
permitto, permittere = let go through, let fly, give up, entrust, allow, permit (am. coinc.)

This one’s complicated by the fact that the negative imperative (your “Let not”) is conveyed by noli / nolite plus the infinitive, literally meaning “Do not will to [verb].” So there are going to be two infinitives in this sentence, potentially confusing but unavoidable.

nubibus velo, velare = envelop, veil, conceal by/within clouds; becloud
caligine velo, velare = ditto by mist
nebula (long A) velo, velare = ditto by fog

I’d recommend caligus, fog, if you insist on atmospheric phenomena; but velo, velare conveys your meaning without assistance.

retego, retegere = uncover, bare, open, reveal
recludo, recludere = open, disclose, reveal
revelo, revelare = unveil, bare, show, discover
patefacio, patefacere = disclose, expose, bring to light

Here again the choice depends on whether you’re sending a single operator or a team on this mission.

C. Esthetics

Any magical incantation ought to have some poesy about it. Lain poetry doesn’t have to rhyme--although it often does, almost inadvertently, due to the inherent structure of the language--but rhyme and rhythm must inevitably improve the potency of any magic spell! ;-)

Aha, you say. Comes the dawn.

Commanding a Single Minion:

Invasorem reperi.
Eum ad latebram [suam] venare.
Tenebras effugium [suum] velare
caligine noli sinere.
Eum mihi retege.

Literally:
Invader discover.
Him to lair [his] hunt.
Darkness/mysteries flight [his] to veil
by mist do not let.
Him to me reveal.

(The suums/suams are metrically annoying and can be deleted, taken as
understood.)

I am confident that either of the above, chanted sonorously, will suffice to send any spook skeddadlin’ with its ectoplasmic tail between its legs.

Vale!

*(These are not the droids you’re looking for.)

Trace No. 2 1/2

I went to my writer's meeting today. Love those guys. I finally feel as if I've started to bond with them, after--what, five years? It ain't their fault, though. I'm hard to get to know, and they are all twenty years older than I am. Hard to find common ground, outside of the writing, and I'm the only one doing that these days--and y'all know how little of that I've been doing of late.

Although, Rob (Chilson) just sold a story to Analog. It's called "Space Farmers" or something like that. We critted it in-house, and there's some interesting material in there--it's very solid speculation about how to raise produce and grains in zero-gee and zero-atmo. Stan Schmidt told him he liked it and wanted it, but they didn't have any money to pay him right now. That's terrifying, in my opinion. I don't know when it will be coming out, but I'll keep you posted.

I was the only one with any material today. I've been feeding them Trace stories in installments--they see rougher versions than I let leak to you guys. I've been writing frantically for the last few days, trying to get some material on paper so they'd have more to read, so they got to see about two-thirds, or 20 pages, of "Parlor Games." They were very approving, which is a relief because I hadn't had a chance to look back over the text I pretty much just regurgitated onto the page. The dialogue was a little rough, especially the German accent of one character, and there were some anachronisms of vocabulary, but that's what I keep them around for. We had a lovely little discussion about language and character development. They all really seem to get it and be on board with it. Jan is always first to laugh at the funny bits. Lynette said she really enjoyed how I've balanced Trace's dilemma: how he may have learned to cope with his curse but he's never really dealt with it.

Alison is a little disatisfied with Trace's reticence and wimpiness. She wants him to suck it up and tell Fairweather off--or at least ask more questions, take steps to control his own destiny. I just smile and tell her not to rush me.

By the way, can anybody provide me with a few nineteenth-century substitutions for "bitch"? And "kraut'? What was the common derogatory term for a German back then? I've found a nifty dictionary of 19th century slang, but it's a bit limited. And my "Cowboy Lingo" book has been sanitized for someone's protection.

Anyway, I will probably have this done, at least in rough form, in another three or four days.

meditation and dim sum

I did pretty much nothing all weekend, and it was lovely. Saturday I lay around and read. I baked an apple crisp for breakfast, and while it was in the oven I meditated for about 15 minutes.

I have been taught to do standing meditation, yes, and Tony pointed out, after reading the "WANT CAKE" entry despite instructions to the contrary, that Sit did offer to teach the deeper meditation, so it's not that Sit is a sexist boor or anything, but I was feeling sorry for myself and resentful for reasons that I don't want to go into here, thus it was easier to imply that the obstructions were external, rather than internal.

More to the point, I have always been slightly scornful of meditation. I respected its use as a mind-cleaning tool, and put prayer in the same category, although my mother would be appalled to hear it. I never felt the need for prayer or meditation, because my writing served the same purpose. But I have not been writing lately, and I have become addicted to the Internet. Furthermore, my husband is one of those people who constantly has to have the TV on when at home--sometimes both of them, on different channels, in different rooms. I can't escape. Because of those factors and other things, plus no quality input, I have been severely frazzled lately. So I'm trying the meditation. There are some other reasons for doing it as well, but they have to do with kung fu training and are too complicated to explain here. If you want to know, go buy Yang Yang's book on Taiji.

Sit had to miss class on Sunday because of work--possibly the second time he's done that in my memory of almost four years--so we had a small class on Sunday. Tony led the kung fu exercises, I led the fan form review, then Mary Ann came at eleven and led the tai chi class. Afterward, we all went out for dim sum. This was the second time I've eaten dim sum. It's best to go with someone who speaks Chinese and knows what to order. I ate some strange things yesterday: beef tendon, shark's-fin dumplings, a sweet pastry roll with "barbeque" pork inside. It was all pretty good but you can't think too much about what you're eating. Tony kept taking things off the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table and putting them on my plate. "Here, try this." "I'm full!" "No no, you just gotta try this." Karen said, "Is he trying to fatten you up?" What's really funny is, Mary's younger son Charlie was there with us, home from college for a visit. And Mary kept doing the same thing--taking stuff off the serving dishes and putting it on Charlie's plate until he snarled at her and we all started laughing. "Gee, Mom, let the kid cut his own meat!"

The meal was good but rather starchy for my palate. I have also been instructed to learn how the "Lazy Susan" got its name. Tony tells me this is my function in the group--to define obscure words, just as Matt's speciality is math (we had a terrible time dividing up the lunch ticket without him) and Tony's is carpentry.

I started feeding Scott green tea this weekend. He likes it; says it cuts the phlegm. I have to agree. Actually what he said was, "Now this is going to make me immortal, thin, cancer-free and make my dick three inches longer, right?" And I say hey, if you believe in it enough, it just may.

enlightenment in the Whole Foods produce aisle

Blueberries. Blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. Blueberries.

Strawberries.

Black and rasp(berries).

Kiwi.

Fish! Spices! Sole with Northwoods Seasoning! Salmon with parsley and lemon!

Vindaloo, for naked chicken legs.

Brown rice, to temper the Vindaloo.

Garlic (granulated).

Greek seasoning. Romaine, iceburg, onion, tomato, Kalamatas, cucumber, feta.

BlueBERries. And sometimes cream.

haiku therapy

Sifu says, "Practice tai chi
with less emotion."
I burst into tears.

Five lanes compressed to two,
with a stoplight.
Sixty-five minutes to work.

My mind clamours with voices,
sensations, emotions.
Where are the words?

how to be beautiful, 1889

I find this to be quite droll, as well as common-sensical. Particularly read the chapter on Corsets, from which comes the following:

This unending war against corsets that has been raging for about two score years and ten is certainly as good an advertisement as the most enterprising manufacturers can wish for. It proves conclusively that the corset wins all of the battles. If, in the fight, it has even wiped off from the face of the earth a few brainless women it is difficult to understand why the corset should be held responsible.

This is the point the femi-nazis are missing. Beauty can be a weapon. You just have to know how to wield it.

I give you expert testimony:

MEN condemn and criticize the very things in their own wives and sisters that they run after and admire in the sisters and wives of other men. One of their great "hobbies" is "common-sense" shoes. They advocate them and insist upon their wives and sisters wearing them, yet were they ever known to say a lady had a pretty foot that was seen in a commonsense shoe? Never! The nearest they get to it is : "What a lovely foot that woman has! if she would only take off that French heel and wear a common-sense shoe! " Poor things, they don't know that only the French shoe can show the outlines of a pretty foot. Men are so peculiar. They talk of their admiration for sensible girls, condemn paint, powder, small waists and French heels, and at the same time their most serious attentions are given to girls de voted to all of the frivolities known to the fair sex. Just as long as men go on--but I digress.

And I rest my case.

realignment

Had my writer's meeting yesterday. I took them the first nine-ish pages of "Parlor Games," an excerpt which ended with a tantalizing revelation about Miss Fairweather.

Choice comments were as follows:

Where is the rest of it? More! I want MORE! (soon.)

*
Very good--I particularly like the pace & the balance between Trace's viewpoint narration & the dialogue
*
Cool! The plot--or the relationship, rather--thickens apace. I thought you were going to tease us with their relationship as shown in the first two stories for a couple more stories yet. I'm happy to see him establishing some turf to stand up on his hind legs on, at last.

Kung fu? Scheduling conflicts? Divided loyalties? Pshaw.

no technology is ever totally obsolete

Horse-and-Plow Farming Making a Comeback

... a farmer with horses can earn triple or more the earnings per acre than one farmed by agribusiness.

Ron VanGrunsven farms about 50 acres with horses near Council, Idaho, and has used horses for years there and in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

"They're more economical," he said. "They raise their own replacements, you can train them yourself and raise their feed."

I find that cool.

for love, no money. yet.

I had a premonition this morning, while in the shower. I sensed something had happened with End of the Line. So I dried my hair, put in my contact lenses, and fired up the 'Net. Yes, our internet service has been restored. No one is saying for certain why it was off; Scott insisted it had nothing to do with being behind on the bills and he made the rep tell me so over the phone.

Anyway. I had an email waiting from Raechel Henderson Moon.

Dear Holly Messinger --

Thank you for submitting "End of the Line" to Jintsu. I loved this
story and would like to publish it as a Jintsu e-book.

(deleted second paragraph full of business/contract stuff)

Sincerely,

Raechel Henderson Moon
Publisher

Still no advance, but the royalties are a generous deal. I'm a bit flattered. Mostly I feel very... unsettled. Don't know the publication date as yet.

still more news

Jeez, busy day. Okay, first I find this Livejournal rant about the declining state of SF magazines. Looks like I'm not the only one who's bored with the post-modernist LeBrea pits.

Secondly, Greg "The Source" Araujo sent me this link. Want one now.

feeding my brain

I bought two books today at lunchtime. There's a Borders three blocks away from my office, which cost me a great deal of paycheck, the first couple years I worked here. It's a great place to pass a lunch hour--especially in the summer, among the cool, quiet stacks that smell of bleached paper and soy-based inks.

I went in there semi-seriously looking for a tome on Catholicism in nineteenth-century America. I know such a work exists: I've seen some on Amazon, but today I just wanted to do some skimming, not buying.

Instead I got sidetracked by the African-American studies. I saw the endcap, with a new compilation of slave narratives, and figured I could pick up some anecdotes. I found a thin bound copy of Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, for the whopping price of $2. I knew who Booker T. was, but I never had heard of this book. Maybe I read an excerpt and forgot about it. We didn't even cover him in Minority Lit, in college. Still, for $2, every kid in America ought to be made to read this. It's not a man with an ax to grind or a scholar trying to build a reputation. He's just a guy telling it like it was.

The other book I got is way more fun: Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in America. It's a hoot. Beautifully bound and printed on glossy paper, with a number of proofreading errors that set my teeth on edge, it's both informative and entertaining. The first half is anecdotal and expository; the back half is an encyclopedia.

Applying vinegar mildly pickled the top layers of the skin. Regardless of the smell, and the desire to bite oneself, vinegar helped relieve sunburn and similar skin irritations. When applied to irritated skin, vinegar makes skin sting before it feels better. That is perhaps why it found little favor in treating minor hemorrhoid flare-ups or burning bottoms caused from improper wipings with pine straw or leaves.

I kid you not. The author also relates how his Grandma doctored everybody with coal tar and veterinary medicines, fried her chicken in lard, ate eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, dipped snuff and still lived to be ninety-four. My kind of woman. I figure with modern advances in medicine--and less chance of contracting parasites--I can make it to a hundred and four.

from a review of Batman Begins

The film works as a commentary on not only Osama Bin Laden's crusade against the West, but also Bush Jr.'s crusade against the Middle East. It's all about fear and loathing, this high profile, big-budget product of a post-millennial United States...

I give up. I absolutely freaking give up.

giving credit where due

Well, Eric Martin at Lone Star Stories rejected EOTL, too (talk about fast turnaround), but he recommended I send it to Jintsu, which publishes novellas as e-books. I dunno, I'm kinda like, if I wanted to go the electronic route, I'd just post it myself. I'm not sure if I'm gaining anything to e-publish something people have to pay for, because I'm of the opinion that they won't. I could be wrong.

Anyhoo, I watched two movies this weekend: Unforgiven, the Eastwood opus of 1992, and White Noise, with Michael Keaton. They were both decent and both flawed in different ways, I think. They did their jobs.

The first half of Unforgiven was... not boring, but rather stiff, in my opinion. I felt the dialogue was awkward and there was inadequate interaction between characters to really get a feel for who they were--especially with regard to Eastwood's retired-gun. Hackman was supposed to be the bad guy, but in my mind he was far more reasonable and sympathetic than anybody else (makes you worry about me, eh?), at least up until he started whupping Morgan Freeman. Freeman was his usual endearing and accessible self, and had some of the best dialogue in the movie. The ending was definitely memorable. Not quite what I had expected. Subtly done. Almost too subtle, really, but very much in keeping with the other "great" westerns I've seen. It occurs to me that the Western gunslinger, with his unexplored past, personal demons, and taciturn attitude, is really the original post-modern hero. Nothing really changed at the end of that story. Couple people died, the hero finished his job and went home a little richer. Our understanding of him was perhaps enhanced, but I'm not sure that was enough to deserve a Best Picture award.

White Noise was more engaging and accessible. The characters were rather shallow but endearing enough to do the job. It was, in my opinion, as sad as it was scary. There were plenty of spooky moments--enough that I kept flashing back to the movie all night--but ultimately the story didn't hold together. I'm a little ambivalent about what could have been changed to make it work--I don't think all the questions should be resolved in a ghost story; that robs it of its power. But several things just seemed inconsistent or random.

While I was searching for markets yesterday I ran across Whispering Spirits Ezine, which might be a good venue for the Trace séance story, if I can keep it under 8000 words. Of general interest, however, was an article in their current issue titled, "Why Ghosts Must Be Scary: A Writer's Lesson." Check it out.

forget our ADD medication today, hmm?

Dear Ms. Messinger,

Thank you for submitting "End of the Line," but I'm going to pass on it. This tale didn't grab my interest, I'm afraid. Good luck to you with this short, and thanks again for sending it our way.

Sincerely,
Assistant /fill-in-your-own-epithet-here/ Editor,
well-known SF magazine.

Record 10 day turnaround time. Freakin sons of motherless goats. Good thing I'm not a 6'6" man, or I'd have broken a few things in my apartment today.

Anybody know another market that will print stories around 20k words?

UPDATE:
I went ahead and sent EOTL to Lone Star Stories on Sunday when I got home from kung fu. Don't expect them to take it, really; they're of a more literary bent, but I have seen a couple of western-themed spec-fic stories there. Some of them are rather good. Check 'em out.

don't you hate it when...?

A week later, it happened again.

Trace was literally shaken out of a sound sleep--came to in a spasm of disorientation, in the dark, not knowing which way was up, whether it was an earthquake or the Second Coming. The iron bedstead was shaking, and there was a dead man at the foot of it, gripping the rails.

“Oh, Lord, not again,” Trace groaned, pulling his pillow over his head.

The shaking came again, insistent, the heavy feet of the bed thumping on the floor like thunder. No living man could have rocked the weight of that bed, with its two straw mattresses and Trace’s considerable bulk on top, but spirits were funny that way; they could be powerful strong when they were determined.

In another minute the whole boardinghouse would be woke. Across the room, Boz was already groggy and grousing. “Dammit, Trace—“

“I can’t help it,” Trace snapped, and threw the pillow aside, sitting up only to come face-to-blackened-face with the dead man.

He had been hanged, that was obvious. His face was swollen and dark, the eyes shiny and bulging. The tail end of a rotted noose dangled around his neck, and his tongue protruded, dripping froth and obscuring his words.

“I didna do it,” he was saying, a frantic mixture of indignation and panic. “Ye gotta tell ‘em, I didna touch that gel—“

“All right, all right, I’ll tell ‘em,” Trace muttered, flinging back the covers. He reached for his pants, hung over the bedpost, got into them and his boots, pulled the suspenders over his undershirt.

“Please, you gotta tell em. They’re gonna put me to the gallows for sure—“

“I’ll tell ‘em,” Trace yawned, taking the top blanket from the bed. Boz had pulled his own pillow over his head; he couldn’t hear the spirit’s pleas, but the bed rattling and Trace’s mumbling and bumbling around the room were disturbance enough. Boz had told him he often talked in his sleep, and thrashed around as if he were fighting someone--and that was on nights without his accustomed round of bad dreams.

“No--you gotta listen to me,” the dead man said.

“I’m listenin.” Trace opened the door to the hall, shuffled through and closed it behind him as gently as he could. On nights like this, the only kind thing to do was go sleep in the stables, let Boz get what rest he could.

“Listen to me!” the hanged man insisted, and suddenly Trace felt his wind cut off, an invisible noose tightening around his own throat. He was jerked back against the door of their boarding-room, clawing at his neck, scrabbling for purchase with his bootheels on the floor. Then sickeningly, the floor was no longer there, he was dangling above it, heels kicking the door, red flowers blooming in his vision, blotting out the faces of the watching crowd--

The door was yanked open behind him. Trace’s feet struck the floor and the rest of him collapsed to it, wheezing, while Boz knelt over him and all down the hall, disheveled heads stuck out to see what the ruckus was.

and now we venture into strange new territory

I have an idea for a story in which Trace has to either pose as or debunk a parlor medium/spiritualist. Not sure how or whether it will play out yet, so don't start second-guessing me, hear? But in preparation for said topic, I've been doing a little reading. The Internet, for all its faults, is the ideal place to read up on stuff like this.

Voila: The International Survivalist Society and their impressive collection of archives. The biographies are of particular interest to me.

In the mere half-hour that I've been surfing, I've already seen several implications--if not outright assertions--that the learned men of the nineteen century were more open-minded than we are today: that most scientists were quick to accept the truth of spiritualism, mesmerism, and other para-sciences.

Riiiiiight.

Anyway, this guy particularly interests me, because of the religious angle. I must also do some reading about Catholicism and the general state of faith in the late 1900's, and I must say I'm not looking forward to exploring either of these topics. Religion and psychic phenomenae fall into the category of things that seem to be discussed only by those with an axe to grind.

You know, on a total aside note: I'm the only writer I know who's so chatty about her ideas. Even among my writing colleagues who are actually producing, I never know a thing about what they're working on until there's a copy in my hands. In fact, I've heard writers say that a story will die on them if they talk about it too much beforehand. Am I just weird, or what? Desperate for approval, in love with the sound of my own voice, thinking aloud? Careless or naive about somebody stealing my ideas? Don't know. Don't care.

silver dinner dress c. 1880

I kept referring to it as the "blue" dress while I was sewing, but as you can see in the pictures, it's really quite silver.

on the cusp, alarmingly

Last November/December, as I was starting on the first Trace story, Scott and I were telling each other that westerns were about due to come into style again. "Deadwood" had already finished its first season, and we guessed there would be more to follow. How right we were.
In the last three hours I've seen three things that totally freaked me out.

1) I went to the mall today. All the new summer stuff is in the stores. Just a sampling:

• Linen skirts with cutwork embroidery around the hem.
• Double-layered, three-tiered gauze "petticoat" skirts.
• Sheer blouses with embroidery and pintucks, looking for all the world like a Victorian shirtwaist.
• Belts with conchos and leather strands.
• Heaps of silver and turqoise.

And a half-dozen other examples of pioneer-flavored looks in women's clothing for the summer. It's less peasant-y than when it came around in 1987, and they're pairing the flowy skirts with stretchy modern tops, or sheery fluttery blouses with slim capris, so the effect is still modern. I like it quite a bit, but I kept looking at all this vintage-inspired stuff and cackling like a nut. For the first time in my life I'm ahead of the curve.

2) TNT is releasing a new 6-part miniseries next month, titled "Into the West." It's the saga of two families, one Native American, one American Pioneer. I already knew this was coming, but not when. Sarah McLachlan covered her song "World on Fire" for it, cleverly changing the lyric, "planes crash" to "blades slash." How very, very, clever. The video is on Netscape Music.

3) On a different, more unsettling note, I keep running into this Cowboy Troy dude. (No, this has nothing to do with the resurgence of westerns, it's just freaky.) He calls his style "hick-hop," and it's exactly what it sounds like--rap set to twangy guitars. Is it different? Yeah, but not in a good way. Frankly, I can't process it. To my ear, he's skillfully amalgamated everything I hate about both types of music. He's apparently been doing it a long time, and won the attention of some heavy-hitters in Nashville, but the sound and the songs themselves strike me as mere gimicry.

I'm not sure why, either. Country music has a tradition of "scatting" and "talking blues," so you'd think there would be some reconciliation between that and what Troy is doing, but I sure can't find it. So what's the difference? The sound, the production, a simple difference in cadence between scat and rap? I don't know. Of course, I'm not a good judge of either style.

A few months ago there was a commercial out for iPod, I believe, that showed several city kids breakdancing in alleys and on streets, accompanied by hoedown music. The result was curiously poetic, and absolutely hilarious. Apparently, however, it wasn't as impossibly juxtaposed as I first thought.

busy weekend

Saturday was my semi-monthly real-life writer's meeting. I took them "End of the Line," and the reviews were rave. "Wonderful" was the word being tossed around. Also "fast," "exciting," "fun, "well-researched," and "stands alone well, but also enriches and builds upon what we already know of the characters."

Got to do a little fact-checking, but I figure I'll send it out by the end of the week. There's a limited market for things of this length, but I know it's good and I'm hoping F&SF will make room for it.

Rob lent me Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. I'd seen this book before and was curious. It's not really germaine to my genre, because SF/F/H novels are pretty much never blockbusters, except of course for King---well, I can't say that any more, since Laurel K. Hamilton and J.K. Rowling have come on the scene. Never mind, I take it back.

At any rate, I don't expect Trace to be a blockbuster. However, the stories and the novel I have in mind meet most, if not all, the qualifications listed by Zuckerman in Chapter Two: High Stakes (risk losing your own soul, or let lots of innocent people die), Larger than life Characters (he's a six-foot-six cowboy who sees dead people--it doesn't get much bigger than that), Exotic Locations (the Old West), and High Concept (Ex-priest Civil War Vet who now works as a trail guide and who happens to be a spiritual medium--much to his dismay--is hired by a wealthy, mysterious benefactress who sends him on increasingly bizarre and supernatural "jobs" which may put his eternal soul in danger--even if he survives.)

I'm beginning to think my husband is justified in his gung-ho starry-eyed belief that this is going to be "Big!"

Sunday I went to kung fu, after having missed the last three classes. Not cool. My neck is still killing me--not because of the kung fu, that just exacerbated it. I turned the mattress and it seems to have helped, but not enough. I must get back into my qi gong routine.

Sunday afternoon, I sewed. Both the underskirt and the overskirt are done, except for hemming the one and trimming the other, both of which are things to be done in the evenings while watching TV. I had a slightly panicked moment on Sunday when I realized I had less than two weeks before ConQuesT. I should have plenty of time, but that's assuming there are no further interruptions, or I don't get sick.

The navy-blue underskirt looks fab. The overskirt I'm not sold on yet; I haven't decided about the draping, but that can be negotiated. But they both are very slim and drape nicely. I'm kind of eager to get to the bodice, truth be told. That silk handles beautifully.

Finally, and I was waffling about whether to share this news yet:

I have received an offer to publish Escaping Ariston, the first Quinn Taylor book. I'm not gonna say who yet, as no contract has been signed or even seen. It's a small but traditional press, they put out trade paperbacks as well as ebooks, and they want to publish Ariston in both formats. If I accept, and the contract goes through, Ariston should be out in print around Thanksgiving of 2006. So here's to small blessings, eh?

Promontory, 1869

Both ends have been joined; the golden spike is driven home. "End of the Line" is complete, at least in its preliminary form. Nineteen thousand, one hundred sixty-eight bleepin' words.

Sleep now.

shinola! at ten thou and counting

So much for making this one a marketable length.

=============

They found the fireman not ten yards from the train, trying to crawl back through the shale and juniper brush. He was sobbing in that broken, wheezy way Trace remembered from Antietam; his shirt was wet and sticky when Trace touched his shoulder.

“Easy, feller, we got you,” Trace said, turning the man onto his back in Boz’s arms. He began to scream immediately, and bat at them with his shredded hands. His face was dark and shiny in the moonlight, black with blood that seemed to be coming from his scalp. The rest of him was shaking and cold, the breath rattling in his throat. “Conductor! We got your man down here!”

There was a skidding and scuffling as the conductor and Willie scrambled down the grade; Willie’s lantern threw shards of light over the ground and the chewed-up fellow between them.

“Tommy!” the conductor said, dropping to one knee. “Tommy, what happened? Where’s Earl?”

The fireman gurgled gibberish, pawing at the conductor’s coat. His sleeves had been torn off, and there was a big chunk of meat missing out of his forearm. With the lamp brought closer, Trace could see a flap of torn scalp dangling over his forehead, and one eye was gone. It looked like a wolf or bear had bitten into his head.

Trace looked into Boz’s eyes, read the question there, and stood up, looking back toward the train.

“What was it, Tommy?” the conductor asked. “Wolves? Did they get Earl?”

Trace squinted. The windows of the passenger cars glowed dimly from the lamps; he could just make out heads and bodies moving inside. He could see two men standing on the colored car, pacing back and forth, keeping watch. One of them had a spark of fire in his hand, which he raised to his lips.

Something dark was slinking up the gravel grade to the tracks. Something blacker than the sky, darker than the shadows. It moved low to the ground, crawling like a frog but much faster, the size of a man. Another one, behind it. Two more--two cars down. Converging on the train.

train wreck pictures

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but you can do almost just the same exact stupid things with a train that you can with an automobile.

Check it out.

yea verily, I am evil

Just got back from writer's meeting. It's a good day when they threaten to vivisection me if I don't write more, and quickly.

Of course, it is rather cruel to to stop a story halfway through with the last line being:

Trace grabbed the conductor and flung him into the lower berth alongside Brother Clark, just as there was an awful, screaming, squalling roar that started at the front of the train and progressed backward, shuddering through the car as if the tracks themselves were shaking off their burden.

Jan wrote underneath, For something like this, a person's eternal soul could be in danger!

Heh heh.

all aboard

Well, we have signs of forward movement. My boys are on the train, I covered the salient points of ghosts/religion/and Miss Fairweather's a bitch, and I stumbled through the flashback of events that got Trace from looking for work to meeting with Miss F. Next up is their actual dialogue. Thank you, AJ for the leaping bats.

I have a feeling this story is going to be shorter than the last, which is no heartache for me; if I can keep it under 8 or 9 thousand I may actually be able to sell it. Not going to make that a priority, though.

There is also emerging an interesting commentary on subservience, and subordination being a state of mind. I love it when things like that happen; makes me think I must be living right.

Got about five pages done. Stylistically it sucks, of course, but the basic structure is sound. Hope to double the page count today. Wednesday and Thursday evenings will be filled up with birthday/family stuff, which is going to curtail my production. Why does everything have to happen at once?

research manna - Railroad Photographic History Museum

Voila: The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum.

What more could a girl want?

don't worry, your children won't even remember it

Here's a fascinating angle for a science fiction writer to ponder: how technology affects our lives in ways we don't even realize--and in tandem, how industry influences government, which changes our lives, etc. etc.

Do you know why, she asked, we have four time zones in America? I confess I never thought much about it. If pressed, I might have said it was because of television broadcasts. But no: it's because of the railroads.

Traditionally people figured noon based on the sun, which it was direct overhead. In large towns, timekeepers would drop a "time-ball" at the top of a high tower. Everyone could see it and sychronize accordingly.

But the railroads crossed a sizeable arc of the Earth's crust, and from New York to San Fransisco there were as many as 100 different official time zones. Pretty scary when you remember there was no means of communication between trains or even between the train and the depot, except for brief whistle-codes. The only way to avoid collisions was to keep to a strict time-table during runs. An engineer running a train full of stock and immigrants had to know when to pull off to a side track, so as not to get mowed down by an express of sight-seeing first-class passengers out for a jaunt.

The railroads adopted our current four-time-zone standard in 1883. Congress made it law in 1918. People hollered and fussed and predicted doom, but these days we don't even think about it. Nobody from my generation even knows this--I asked several of my trivia-hound friends, and not one knew the answer.

Good thing Microsoft got nipped in the bud, eh?

taking shelter during a vampire attack

On Sunday I went into a hobby store and started leafing through the catalogues of model train cars. A friendly shopgeek passed by and asked if I needed help. I said, "I need a picture of an 1870's cattle car because I'm going to have some people take shelter in it during a vampire attack, and I need to know where the access points are for logistical reasons."

I love geeks. He didn't even bat an eyelash. He pulled out another catalogue and helped me look, while we debated the merits of silver vs. wooden stakes and garlic. He said, "It's always nice to help somebody with an interesting project."

I refuse to say anything profound

Every once in a while I think, perhaps I should blog about deeper, more meaningful subjects: politics, religion, the human condition--those weighty subjects over which people wear themselves out and kill each other.

Then I read other people's blogs--and editorial columns, which are, after all, the same product in different mediums--and pretty soon my eyes glaze over and my head starts to ache and I think, Hasn't this all been said before?

My mom lent me this book to read: Rumours of Another World, by Philip Yancey. As some of you may know, my parents got born again about five years ago and they went from being calm, rational, spiritual, loving and generous people who understood the world and its limits to hyper, shrill, religious, intolerent and artificially cheerful people who are racing toward Doomsday as fast as they can and flogging the rest of us to hurry up.

Anyway. I read the first couple chapters of Rumors and there are some pretty deep quotes in there. Yancy borrows heavily from the great artists and writers of the last twenty centuries, so he's bound to have pirated some good material. But I'm reading it and going, Yeah...hasn't this all been said before? In fact, didn't I see this on somebody's blog last week?

I don't think I'm being cynical. I just think we're begging the questions. Love and death and God and Art and yadda yadda freakin' yadda. These things exist. We all know they do. (Well, some people quibble on the God point, but let's keep moving.) Why do we--you--they--spend so much time splitting hairs over definitions?

I had dinner with Crystal last night. Bright girl. Not very well-read, but always open to learning and discussion. She asked me some minor question about religion and I said I didn't like to talk about religion because everyone either wanted to prove a point or wanted me to prove something to them.

Hell, I was eighteen years old when I realized you can't change another person's mind. And all these bloggers do is surround themselves with like-minded folks who will feed into their own little illusion of reality. If that's not close-mindedness I don't know what is.

So I guess I'll just keep reflecting on my little version of reality--yummy food, sumptuous silk, stories to tell and read.

I figure love and death and God and art will come get me when they need me.

competition

The Midwestern Chinese Martial Arts tournament was today. I went. I sat. I competeted. There was much more sitting than competing.

I did the kung fu first form and the fan form. I won two silver medals in the intermediate division. I didn't fight; I've only been doing push-hands for about four months and I'm not near ready to compete in that.

The second-place ranking in empty-hand form was probably warranted. I should have done a more difficult form. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason that kid beat me. It was pretty late in the day by that time, I was bored with the whole thing, and I didn't really watch the other forms, so I don't know if they were good or not. But I do know they were a lot more complicated than what I did, so when the scores are close the judges will go with the more difficult-looking form.

The silver in weapons, now, that's a tragic story. I did quite well at the fan form; not my best perhaps, but rather good considering I had tunnel vision through the whole thing. Stage fright, you see, only seizes me at the inopportune moment when I set foot on stage. Still, I did well. I tied scores with this kid with a broadsword. So they had us perform again. I started into the form quite confidently; I was feeling good now, looser, more settled. Unfortunately I was so loose I dropped the fan.

I have not dropped my fan in probably five years. It defies belief.

The judges' faces actually fell--I saw their expressions drop, which confirms my belief it was going well up to that point. I said, "Shall I finish?" The head judge said, "It's up to you."

So I picked it up and resumed at the point where I'd left off. Did very well. Got the silver tho; no help for it. Many strangers came up to me afterwards and complimented my form. One man asked if I would teach it to his little girls. I said I would, but I'm reconsidering; what I said I'd charge him probably isn't worth the headache.

I'm still incredulous that I dropped the fan, and I rather wonder if it was a subconscious self-sabotage. Dunno. Other than that I have no emotional reaction to any of it, except annoyance that I wasted $50 and a Saturday.

The worst part was that the hard styles and the soft styles were held in two different rooms, and Sit and Mary Ann were judging, and everybody but me was doing soft styles, so I was basically abandoned with no support or cheering section. They did their best to come out and visit between events. I did get to hang with them a bit after my events were done, and watched push-hands. Tony won silver in push-hands. Heather got a bronze in Tai Chi Ruler.

I am not going to class tomorrow. I am going to model for Amber's photography project. I consider that a more worthy exhibition of my abilities than some silly tournament.

gender traps in fiction

Writing from a masculine viewpoint is definitely a departure for me. Trace is not difficult for me to write, as I am well in-touch with my masculine side, as well as spending much of my social time in the company of dogs--er, men. But I had some serious misgivings about writing this story, particularly given the strong possibility of it being my first published work. For a very long time, women writers couldn't get a fair shake in literature, and that trend held on longer in SF and horror than the other genres, I think. Even back in the 70's and 80's, C.J. Cherryh and Andre Norton were writing under gender-ambiguous names in order to sell to a male-dominated market. (At least, that's what I've heard. I may be forwarding a feminazi meme, here.)

Still, one of the reasons I initially refused to read the Harry Potter books were because they were about a boy. I was highly miffed--and on some level I still am--that J.K. Rowling was a woman writing about a boy hero--and doing it under another gender ambiguous nom de plume. I know getting Harry Potter published at all was an uphill climb; I wonder if it would have happened at all, or been such a success, if the protagonist had been a girl. Somehow I doubt it. I know a half-dozen examples of girls-in-witch-school books that are just as good and virtually unknown.

I suspect, with some verification, that I haven't been able to sell the Quinn Taylor stories because she is a woman assassin. Women can be fighters and killers, but only in the name of good and right, i.e. Xena and Sydney Bristow. Even "Elektra," in the movie, had a change of conscience. It's unacceptable, to about 60% of the readers I've polled, for Quinn to be mercenary about her work. My husband is part of that 60 percent, incidentally.

But aside from the external stressors related to my writing male v. female characters, there are the internal pitfalls. I got started thinking about this a few days ago when I stumbled across "Women in Refrigerators," a web page dedicated to the hazards of being a superheroine, or worse: a superhero's girlfriend.

It's a time-honored tradition in hero-stories to use a woman to bring out the hero's soft side, to humanize him, give him something to fight for. Conversely, when you want to torture your hero, what better way than to abduct, abuse, rape or murder the woman he loves?

For Trace's next adventure, I was toying with the idea of putting a missionary woman on the train, give him someone to talk to as well as a victim-of-the-week, as it were. But then I realized I was heading down the same overbeaten path: hero meets nice girl to whom he is attracted, hero begins to think perhaps the world holds love and acceptance for him after all, girl dies tragically, hero avenges her death but will flagellate himself about it forever after.

Frankly, I'm a little leery of the implication that a hero can only be roused to action by a personal loss, rather than genuine altruism--or worse, that heroism is only rewarded with pain and death. Only the good die young and so on.

Of course, I took the exact same path with Quinn Taylor. But since Quinn is a female protagonist, her partner and love interest is a man, and well, let's just say it doesn't look good for our hero.

I guess my main concern isn't gender conventions but more an interest in avoiding the clich&eacutes.

In Trace's case, I didn't want him to have a genuine love interest this early in the game, but I don't want him to be sullen and isolated from the world, either. Since faith and damnation are the subjects predominant in his mind, it makes sense he'd connect with a missionary woman, but I don't believe that's what he needs in life, and I'm sure he's not ready to settle down yet. I have a tentative sketch in my mind of a woman who's right for him, but I don't yet have a story in which she would fit.

But more to the point, if I really wanted to torture Trace I'd do something to Boz. Boz is home to Trace, and his being a black man in the 1880's is just rife with gut-twisting possibilities. They act like a married couple anyway. I'm already picturing the slash fanfic.

So much for gender conventions.

patiently....waiting!!!!

Joy tells me the turnaround time for Writers of the Future is about four months.

I could spontaneously combust in that amount of time.

Not that I might waiting, per se, but I have this dreadful feeling I'm on the cusp of a new trend and I daren't wait. If WOTF doesn't want Sikeston then I want to send him elsewhere, as quickly as possible. Shoulda gone with F&SF first, I guess; they usually get back to me in a fortnight.

So, figuring I'll just write the next story and sent it to F&SF, I'm making tapping gestures in the direction of Trace No. 2, which involves missionaries, vampires, and a cattle-car full of Chinese railway workers. I'm thinking I'll call it "End of the Line."

All together now: "NAAAAAHHHHH."

obsession

I am so hung up on this cowboy thing, so immersed in the 1880's mindset, that I find myself thinking of cattle roundups when I go to the freezer and take out a package of hamburger: dust and bawling and pounding hooves, the smells of hot iron and manure. Lye soap.

I've had the most appalling urges to listen to bluegrass and [gasp] country music lately. This morning I was brutally reminded of why I don't listen to country music: "If heaven was a pie, it'd be cherry/cool and sweet and heavy on the tongue/Just one bite would satisfy your hunger/and there'd always be enough for everyone."

Ahem.

I find myself saying "ain't" in casual conversation. Acquaintances look at me like I'm speaking in tongues. Close friends just smirk.

Yesterday as I was driving home I saw a young black man waiting at the crosswalk and my mind immediately thought "Negro," with the other N-word close behind it. I am terribly afraid I'll slip and say "colored" in conversation.

I think I'm going to host a Victorian tea/ladies salon for my birthday. And of course I must have a new polonaise gown for it. Every morning I have a bizarre and impractical urge to wear my corset to work under my jeans. Fortunately I am not yet that far gone, but when I get my new underbust corset made my better judgment may yet fail.

I am contemplating the logistical access points of both passenger and cattle-carrier train cars, and debating the characteristics of animalistic hive-mentality vampires versus the Bram Stoker/Anne Rice variety of vampires, including methods of killing them.

I love my work.


P.S. I'm sending out "Sikeston" to Writers of the Future today.

advance reviews are in

"Sikeston" has been spectacularly well-received. I was tearing my guts out after the first few reviews, because they were all from careless critters who wanted only to read something fast and get their MPC's in. They weren't negative crits, but they weren't helpful, either, and a lot of them confessed they didn't get it. Based on what's come since, I have to conclude they just weren't reading carefully.

I've had about fourteen Critters crits as of today, as well as five or six from civillians, and they all say the same thing: This rocks.

It's an important distinction from the last three Quinn stories. People said those were fine, very professional, but I didn't hear the same excitement and begging for more. Yes, begging! And a big part of it is the novelty of the genre juxtaposition. No one's ever seen that before.

Peter, one of my Critters friends, wins hands-down for the best crit. I wish I had a computer program that could do what he does. Forget the grammar and spelling: Pete checks internal logic, cultural relevance, triteness, obscure metaphors. He's like a copyeditor in a can. Plus, he just really seems to get it. Listen to this:

The mix of horror archetypes [. . .] and Western archetypes [...] came together in a way that really worked for me. It was nice to see you take some of the familiar elements and put your own spin on them, such as making the "whore with a heart of gold" deranged, periodically childlike (literally) and--well--dead.

I found Trace to be a very likeable, down-to-earth protagonist, in the vein of the "tortured hero" in one sense, but with so many more layers than that. Defrocked priest, traumatised war veteran _and_ he sees dead people? ... he tries so hard to represent himself as just a simple trailhand (even to himself) when there's so much more bubbling away beneath the surface. It gave me a real sense of how desparately Trace _wants_ to be an ordinary guy (even though, deep down, he knows he _isn't_ and never will be).

How can you not be grateful?

I am almost terrified to touch the prose, because everyone agrees it needs very little, but on the other hand one can always clarify and tighten. I have pledged to let Sikeston sit until this weekend, at least, and then do a once-over and send it out. I want to send it to Writers of the Future, first; they have the greatest potential for publicity and payment. After them, I'll try SciFiction.com, and F&SF.

Oh, and I finally sucked it up and registered for the kung-fu tournament. That should give me something else to worry about.

inkblot

I've always said that a critiquer's comments on a story are as much a map of the critter's psyche as of the story's content.

I may have mentioned, I gave copies of "Sikeston" to my kung-fu teacher, Sit, and to a coworker, Susan.

About halfway down the first page is this description:

She was slim, and pale, and very English, with fair hair swept back in a tight knot and china-blue eyes.

Susan's parents are English. They moved to Canada, then to the U.S., before Susan was born. Susan said to me, "What does that mean, she looked English? Do I look English?"

Susan does not look English. She looks like all my Mom's uncles, who are potato-bug Irish, as Trace would say. I explained to Susan that there is a stereotypical ideal of English beauty as blond and pale and blue-eyed--and this stereotype was much stronger in the nineteenth century. No one else has questioned this description.

Sit, on the other hand, is a 50-year-old Chinese native, been living in the U.S. since the 70's, I believe.

In the story, the Englishwoman has a Chinese manservant (The story takes place in St. Louis, 1880.):

“Miss Fairweather will be with you momentarily,” the Chinese said, bowing. His English was excellent, with British enunciation.

Sit told me last night that the servant was unlikely to have good English, because virtually all Chinese in America at that time were poor laborers. Only a rich man's son, he said, would have known good English.

Fair enough, but I know some things about that Chinese man that don't feature in the story, i.e. his employer brought him from China to England and then to the U.S., and he is quite educated.

Again, nobody else has even noticed this detail. I think some of the critters may pick up on it, though.

I just find it amusing, because people have their hot buttons--they notice the things that relate to them, which they find either flattering or potentially insulting. The second Trace story will have several Chinese railroad laborers featured in, as spear carriers and victims, and I'm already squirming at the inherent prejudice I'll have to deal with, for the sake of versimilitude.

Oh yeah, "Sikeston" is up on Critters TODAY, instead of next week--I didn't expect my MPC award to be redeemed so quickly. I'm not mentally prepared for this.

paper and silk

I am suffering through some serious inadequacy issues here. The first round of Trace is done, and I got four crits on it this weekend, two from people I respect and two from people I like (note the distinction). Three of them really, really liked it—their only complaint was not knowing what Sabine wanted with the box. The fourth, whom I probably respect more than any of the others, basically indicated the thing wasn’t done yet.

I consider myself pretty thick-skinned when it comes to criticism. Today I am wondering if I’m so thick-skinned that the criticism doesn’t even reach me. This is not a recipe for growth and improvement. And it's funny; when people say the story doesn't need anything, I think they must be weak-minded fools or cowards. If someone claims the story still needs work, my knee-jerk reaction is to assume they didn't get it. Isn't humility supposed to come with age? Or is it just that I haven't been challenged for so long?

I dunno. The whole weekend was an emotional roller-coaster; Saturday I’m thinking the story’s done except for some minor tweaking, Sunday I’m shredding my heart because I'll have to take it completely apart. Today my attitude falls somewhere in between--I’m thinking in terms of adding highlights and shadows, changing the focus, bringing certain elements to the front and coloring the emotions brighter. And since I’m past the ten thousand mark anyway, I may add another scene or two--in for a penny, in for a pound. But we’ll see.

In other news, I completed ten crits this week, so I can bump Sikeston to next week’s Critters batch. I did six crits in about 18 hrs, and my brain was tapioca this morning. I still have Joy's story to do. Fortunately her prose is easier on the stomach.

Also, Tony’s brick red silk noil arrived via UPS yesterday—I love UPS. They have never failed to get a package to me, which is more than I can say for the U.S. Postal Service. Can you say "privitization," kids? I knew you could.

The silk is dark and handsome. I may tint it a shade browner, but I’ll consult my client first. (Oh, I forgot: Tony was my fifth crit on Sikeston--he loved it, too.) So I’m going to let Sikeston sit for the next ten days or so until the Critters start on it, and in the meantime, I’ll sew.

I’m really looking forward to using that black silk. I know it’s going to ravel like a bitch, but I’m ready for her. My jacket’s not going to be a traditional design; instead I’m thinking of something like this.

may I have your attention please:

As of 1:18 pm this afternoon (give or take a few minutes and/or revisions), Trace story No. 1, "Sikeston," is complete.

As you were.

poised for climax

The climax of the story is in sight. I know now what's going to happen, and should get it hammered out today or tomorrow.

I got in this very cool book, one of three I ordered last week: "The Expansion of Everyday Life 1860-1876." Chapters include: A Soldier's Life; Houses, Homesteads and Hovels; Life at Home; Churches, Charities, and Schools; Shopkeepers and Professionals; and my personal favorite, Daily Woes.

And in other news, Je sais où la boite est caché.

I know where the box is hidden. There may be an ending to this story, after all.

now we're getting somewhere

“You all right?” Trace asked after a while, stirring the chaff on the barn floor with his bootheel.

Boz lifted his head from between his knees. His face was darker than usual, from the blood running to his head, but it was an improvement over the ashy color he had been upon leaving the church. “Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Did you know that old fellow was… was—“

“Dead,” Trace supplied helpfully.

“—not real—when we went in there?”

“Nope,” Trace said. “Sometimes I don’t.”

“And they just do that—pop up and talk to you when they feel like it?”

“On occasion. More often they don’t know where they are or who they’re talkin to. It’s like they don’t know they’re dead. They’re just echoin what they did when they were alive. Ones around here seem to have more of an agenda.”

“What did Miss Lisette want, then?”

“Huh? You mean Miss Fairweather?”

“No. Dead lady. DuPres. Said you saw her, right?”

“Couple times.” Trace frowned. “Thing is, she keeps changin. Sometimes she’s a little girl, sometimes she’s grown woman, and a crazy one at that.”

“Reckon she was a girl sometime,” Boz said. “Remember the preacher said she was actin crazed, last time he saw her. And this Mereck was supposed to be a mezer—messer—”

“Mesmerist. Ain’t you soundin like a true believer.”

Boz snorted. “I ain’t sayin I believe none of this—but if it’s real, if you think it’s real—hell Trace, I rode cross this country with you ten times, I got to trust you by now. So I got to treat it like it makes sense, and the sensible thing I see is you go ask Miss Lisette what happened. She was there, wasn’t she?”

Trace recoiled from the idea, a sour taste like indigestion rising in the back of his throat. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why not? We just sat in there talked to some dead holy-man—“

“I can’t help it if they come to me, but I ain’t goin to start callin up spirits and demons—“

“Who said nothin about demons? Just one poor dead crazy lady.”

“’There shall be none among you who practice witchcraft, or interprets omens, a medium who calls up the dead,’” Trace said savagely. “That’s the laws for the priests—“

“Which you ain’t. Sometimes the world’s a bitch. And that preacher called it a gift—“

“Evil spirits can speak prophecy, too.”

“Christ on a crutch,” Boz hollered. “Don’t it say in your Bible all niggers is cursed? Ain’t you heard the one about Ham’s sons bowin down to white folks cuz Ham’s old man got drunk and left his pecker layin out? Now you tell me you believe that one, I’ll just head back to St. Louis and find myself a new trail-partner.”

“You know I don’t.”

“Damn right. You got the sense God gave you and that’s worth a helluva lot more than what some old smoke-breathers wrote on hides. So quit feelin sorry for yourself and use that gift to find out what the hell we’re doing here.”

Trace looked up slantwise from under his hat. “You’re startin to sound like my old man.”

“Shit. So what would he want you to do?”

“No need to get personal,” Trace muttered. “All right, goddamn it, but you got to come with me.”
“I ain’t holdin your hand.”

“No, but you can hold the goddamn gun, in case McGillicuddy comes around.”

Trace tidbit

He stood before the bowl, unbuttoned his johnnies, and had just let loose a stream of water when a small voice asked, “Who are you?”

Trace flinched. Hot piss pattered the floor, and then the whole flow just dried up. “Damnation,” he breathed, and cautiously turned his head to see the little dead girl standing behind him. The black pits of her eyesockets seemed to look into the back of her skull. She held her doll by the hair and tilted her head curiously at him.

Just ignore it, he told himself. It’ll go away in a minute; they usually do. Although “usual” didn’t strictly apply to this situation. He’d always had a firm if untested suspicion that they wouldn’t bother him while he was answering nature’s call.

But nature was no longer calling. His genitals had retreated into his fly, which was damned uncomfortable on his bladder. No matter how control he imposed over his mind and emotions, being brave was not the same as being not scared, and his body insisted on reminding him how near he stood to stark terror.

“You don’t really work for Mereck, do you?” the little girl asked.

He glanced at her again, from the corner of his eye. She was very solid, not transparent at all, and if it weren’t for the crawling of his skin—and pecker—he might not have known she was dead. “I don’t know any Mereck,” he said. “You run along, now.”

“I don’t have to leave. It’s my house.”

“Who are you, then?” He rebuttoned his johnnies, trying not to think about what he was talking to, figuring he’d go outside and do his business behind the barn.

“I’m Lisette DuPres.”

Trace turned full around, startled, but she was gone.

======

We are making progress, Trace and I.

thinking out loud

Trace is giving me trouble. I wrote about 11 pages of text, or about 6500 words, and got stuck. So I gave it to my husband and let him read. We both agreed I had all the right pieces but they were in the wrong order. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I think it's more like I have the emphahsis on the wrong syllahbles.

Sabine is overtipping her hand. Trace is giving too much away and I, the writer, am simply cramming too much stuff in at once. We don't need to know everything about him up front; only the stuff that's pertinent to this story. That would be: 1) he was in the Civil War, and was nearly killed; 2) as a result, he sees ghosts; 3) he has a young sister in a Catholic boarding school whose board and keep he has to pay for; 4) ergo he has to take some unpleasant jobs sometimes.

I'm getting sick of staying home, by the way. After two weeks of vacation across the holidays, I came down with my husband's cold and we got hit with an ice storm. I couldn't get my car doors open. Today I went and poured a bucket of water down the door to melt the lock.

But about Trace. Sabine tells him she wants him to retrieve an heirloom. He goes to the place she sends him; it turns out to be a whorehouse. A haunted whorehouse. Fun! He becomes understandably suspicious.

Okay, I'm going to go type in a more productive place for a while.

And I'm hungry.

forward movement

Inspiration comes from strange places when you write genre fiction. The more genre-bending I do, the stranger the bedfellows become. To prep for Trace, for instance, I read or watched, in no particular order: two episodes of Firefly, "The Train Job," and "Bushwhacked;" King's The Gunslinger; the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead; Little Town on the Prairie and On the Shores of Silver Lake; Open Range; and perhaps most significantly, Toni Morrison's Beloved. All of this I had read or seen before; I just needed to get the tastes and textures and rhythms back in my mouth.

Here's a sample of what that soup boils down to:

==========

He dreamt of the battlefield.

Artillery rent the air and clawed up the dirt around him, but he lay exposed on the bleeding earth, skin flayed off and nerves exposed to every scream and stab and bullet. Horses pawed the air and groaned, dying, legs broken and lungs collapsing. He soaked it all up as the ground did the blood of the fallen; as his life seeped out of him the souls of others tried to force their way in, and he was powerless to help it. His eyes, fixed on the graying sky, found an opening in the clouds and he tried to get to it, but the way was choked with too many dead, and they dragged at him, his dead and dying comrades, saying they couldn’t make it, they hurt too bad, they were missing limbs and heads and torsos and he had to carry them. They were pulling him down, he was skidding and sliding through loose earth into a mass grave, and he thrashed to break free.

The thrashing woke him to a strange bed—but all beds were strange, these days—and a blazing fire burned in the hearth, which was fortunate because he had not a stitch of clothing on.

Hot, dry, smooth palms landed on his thighs. He started, tried to sit up, but he was just as immobilized as he had been on the battlefield. He could see only a silhouette against the firelight—a bright nimbus of long hair, the long slim line of a shoulder and hip. Soft laughter touched his ears. The hot smooth fingers slid up his thighs to his groin, lingered a moment, and continued upward to the scar, above his hipbone on the left, which a bayonet had started and the doctors had finished.

“Vous-avez la bonne chance, non?” the voice said, husky and sensual, but with a disturbing gutteral quality beneath the laughter.

“Wouldn’t call it luck,” Trace said through his teeth. Sweet and soft and searing, skin against skin—

“Mais vous avez le vision, non? Vous conversez avec les esprits perdu. Vous pouvais decouvrir tout les mysteres de l’universe.” Stroking, stroking, the hot pointed fingers found the seam of his scar and pushed deep into it. He screamed. Scarlet lips peeled back from teeth, grinning while she twisted his guts. “Mais la boîte, c’est la mienne. Sabine n’en avait pas, comprendez-vous?”

Gunshot sounded somewhere, close, and Trace jolted awake, heart thudding in the darkness, boots still on, his scar throbbing as it had not in years.

“Jesus,” he muttered, half-prayer, turning on his side to relieve the crushing sensation on his chest. In the half-dark, he heard Boz scuffling across the floor, toward the window. Other sounds intruded: voices calling and whooping on the street below, heavy boots treading the balcony outside, and the faint strains of the organ from the front of the building.

“Dark out,” Boz reported.

“Lamp,” Trace grunted, and Boz reached to turn up the wick. Trace rubbed his eyes. He had a vicious headache. The box is mine. Sabine will not have it.

“We goin down?” Boz asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, in a minute.” Trace sat up, tugged the scarf from around his neck, and reached to dunk it in the basin. He wrung it out and mopped his brow, the back of his neck.

“So Miz Fairweather says we’re lookin for a book?”

“She thought it might be.” Trace paused. “I think it’s a box. Small, like a woman keeps things in.”

“Lot of women’s rooms to be going through, here.” [they're in a whorehouse--ed.]

Trace was darkly amused. “Guess we shoulda brought that fifty dollars, after all.”

==========


Happy New Year, everybody!