Strangeness More Than Fear

I've had some good sales, and I will never get tired of seeing my stories in print.  I do a little dance every time something drops, every time I get to see my name on a contributor's copy or on the front page of an online publication.  I *love* it.

But I read my stories all the time.  I read them a million times before they get submitted each time, a million times during edits before publication, a million more times once they're up on the website.  So reading them, while awesome, is something that I have gotten somewhat used to.

Today I got a brand-new, totally fantastic sensation: hearing my words spoken by someone else.

My short story "The Best Boy, the Brightest Boy", which was first published by Space Squid, was recently picked up by The Drabblecast, which does a wonderful job of taking short stories and producing them in audio productions.  Today the podcast containing my story went up (#225: Trifecta XIX) and you can listen to it online for free.

(Fun fact: the podcast also contains "David is Six" by Amanda C. Davis, who happens to be my sister.  Family double-team FTW!)

I have to confess: I got a little shiver, listening to my words coming out of my speakers.  The voice actor did an amazing job -- he just has a great voice for a creepy Pied Piper -- and the background music and sound effects were *fantastic*.  I may have giggled once or twice from sheer glee.  It was that exciting.

There is also some amazing cover art by Steve Santiago, and the other two stories by Amanda and by Steve Saus were haunting and very well-written and voiced.  Really, everyone just did a thoroughly awesome job.

(Although I think I may have to look into using a pseudonym, if only because no one ever gets my last name right.  Ah well -- I knew what I was in for when I married my husband, and if that's the worst I got out of the deal, I can handle it.)

It's true.  I'm typing this up while listening to Mama Cass songs on YouTube over and over again.  That seems to be the way this baby thing is going for me.  I have yet to crave an actual food or drink: instead I crave media.  I'll be working around the house and get a sudden craving to watch The Lord of the Rings, or listen to the House of Heroes Suburba album for hours, or dance around to Nina Simone's "Ain't Go No/I Got Life."  I think it's fair to say that this weird media craving is seeping into my reading life, as well.  

( The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag )

( Snuff )

( Red Seas Under Red Skies )

( A Dance With Dragons )

( The Dragon Reborn )

( The Magician's Nephew )

Sometimes I read "grown-up books", thick fantasy books or books about theology or history or whatnot, things that can be found outside of the kids (of whatever age) section at libraries.  And sometimes I go back to my first love -- teen books, middle-grade books, or even younger.  Apparently I was regressing with this latest batch of books.

( The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie )

( Goliath )

( Ingenue )

( Every Thing On It )

( The Misenberg Accelerator )

I just started a writer's group at my church (let me know if you're local and interested!).  It's delightful.  It's what they call an "encounter group", a small group that meets outside of Sunday mornings and is generally focused on a similar interest or activity, like bridge or cornhole, that kind of thing.  At first I was concerned about starting one, because I am not some great writer, and I am also not some awesome group leader.  But people expressed interest, and so I did it, and I'm glad I did.  So far it's been great fun.  We've had maybe three or four meetings and just added our fourth member yesterday -- it's all ladies, and I'm probably the youngest by fifteen to twenty years.  I send out a prompt and we meet every two weeks to share what we've done (and to chat).

I've found, even in such a short time, that this group is good for me in several ways.  It forces me to socialize with other women, which I'm not good at and usually avoid.  But the ladies are sweet and funny and interesting, and encouraging, and it's good for me to be around them.

It's also good because we are very different people and so approach things in different ways.  Much of it is because I am so much younger and in a different stage of life, but also because my interests are usually very different.  I'm not used to spending time with people who see some things so differently.  Normally during the day I interact with my Internet friends, who have similar interests to me and (often) similar thoughts as me.  I email my sister about a hundred times each day, and she is so similar to me that we are often almost the same person.  Then, at night, I hang out with my husband, who is very very similar to me and where he's not he's tolerant of my oddities, haha.  So it's good for me to interact with people who sometimes see things a complete 180 from me, and to be the only one in the group who sees things the way I do.  It's hard, sometimes, but it's good to be around people who present different points of view.

One way in which we're different that is good for me is in the subject matter we choose to write on.  I write science fiction and fantasy -- my mind automatically goes to robots and dragons and twisted fairy tales and sea monsters.  That's what I do, what I like, what I surround myself with.  These ladies are, well, your typical church ladies.  They listen to Christian talk radio, read Christian books (mostly devotionals) and so on.  I know they have interests outside of that, but that seems to be what they talk about mostly.  This means that when we come together to talk about our writing, they all often have a similar theme that is, so far, almost always having to do overtly with God.  And -- I don't.

Now, I'm a Christian.  I've committed my life to Christ and strive to live accordingly.  I have a fair amount of Christian music in my iTunes library.  I read my Bible every day.  But I also don't limit myself to only Christian media, be it music or books or whatever.  (And I hate talk radio of any kind, so I don't have any of that at all.)  Partially this is because a lot of the time there's a lack of quality there, a problem that seriously needs to be rectified, but also partly because I find value in examining "secular" things to find the value in them.  I think it's a mistake, especially in these times, for Christians to wall themselves off from what's out there in the fear that it's inappropriate, or even just because they don't seem to be interested in anything outside of that.  Sure, there's inappropriate stuff out there, but there's some awesome stuff, too, that shouldn't be missed, and are great ways of engaging with the world while still not compromising your faith.

But that's another post for another day.

All that to say:  A) I'm a dedicated Christian B) but I rarely write about overtly Christian things.  The rest of my writing group almost always does.  At first it kind of irked me -- I wanted to be like "Why don't we all try something different next time??" after the third person said the prompt reminded them of Scripture for the second meeting in a row -- but on reflection I think it's good for me, and would be good for me to try to steer my writing, for the purposes of the group, in that direction.

That's not to say that I won't continue to write about robots and dragons.  That's what I do; that's who I am, and I don't feel a need to change that.  But there are ways to fit more overt Christianity in there and it won't hurt me to try and do that.  I write whatever I want the rest of the time -- it could do me good to take the two pieces a month I write for the group and try to tune them more overtly Heavenward.

For yesterday's meeting I had, as usual, a good dozen thoughts about what to write.   I finally settled on the story of a church and demons disguised as fairies and the power and cleverness of church women.  I was pleased with the results: I didn't compromise my style or subject matter, but I was able to write something that the ladies really enjoyed, and could relate to in a way I'm not sure they could with some of my other pieces.

And isn't that the whole point of writing?  I know this is debatable, but for me, one of my goals as a writer is to connect with the audience, whoever that is.  I want them to read my stories and poems and truly enjoy the process of reading it.  I want them to really hook in to the story I'm weaving.  For this group, I think the way to hook them is through our shared faith.

It will certainly be a challenge sometimes, I'm sure, and I'm sure I won't always succeed (because I'm lazy and tend to procrastinate and it's harder to meet challenges when you're pulling something out of your butt) but I think it's a healthy challenge for me to take up.  I think it'll help me grow my writing, I think it'll help me grow my relationships with these women, and I think it'll help me grow my faith.  All these are positive outcomes, so it really seems like a win/win/win situation!

I seem to be swimming (heh) in things related to the ocean these days.

1) Space Squid Issue #10 is out and available for free download.  Included within is my short story "Best Boy, Brightest Boy", which is not about the ocean but hey, you can't win them all.

2) Crossed Genres Issue #34 is out.  The theme of that issue is "Monsters," and my piece -- "Waiting in the Light in the Hungry Months" -- is about sea monsters

3) Dagan Books just released the Table of Contents for their upcoming FISH anthology.  I'm excited for this one, as it not only has an awesome cover, but it will contain my "Anansi and the New Thing" and my sister's "O How the Wet Folk Sing".

So it's been a pretty good week or so.  :)


I have a few other pieces on the burner that need to be shined up and sent out and a handful of things already on the market, so hopefully I'll have some more good news to share soon!  Of course, with this game, you just never can tell.

( Jack of Fables )

 
( The Paradise War )

 
( Moon Over Manifest )

 
( Watership Down )

 
( The Wise Man's Fear )

 
( The Lies of Locke Lamora )

 
( Furies of Calderon )

(Cross-posted to my other journal over here)

We're expecting our first kid in about five and a half months (gulp) and since I'm at a point where moving around and doing things doesn't actually make me exhausted or sick at the moment, I decided to take advantage of it and start going through our bookshelves to purge them.  (I know I have plenty of time until the kid can read but I just don't see myself having the energy/motivation/time in the next couple of years, haha.  I might as well strike now while the iron is hot!)

I'm not a fan of organizational or academic or governmental censorship at all, but I'm a huge believer in parental censorship.  What I mean by that is that I want to have plenty of books on hand, so that if the kid ever wants something to read they can just grab something off the shelf and go to town.  I want to have a wide variety of books, too, so that there will always be something to interest them and so that they can serendipitously find good things to read whenever they want it.  I also want to make sure that there aren't books on the shelf that I would be concerned if they grabbed and started reading.  There are some books we own that really are only appropriate for late teens/adults, and I don't want my eight year old or whatever grabbing it before they're ready.

This is kind of a personal issue for me in some ways.  I read *a ton* when I was younger, but I didn't have a lot of reading guidance that I can recall.  (Well, I do remember in second grade being really irked because the librarian wouldn't let me into the section of the library where the third and fourth graders could go.  I was way beyond Berenstein Bears at that point and had ready every one of them anyway, and I was bored with the "baby" books that were in our section.  I was reading the books my sister brought home by then and she would have been in fifth grade.  So.  Annoying.)

As far as at home, I think my parents really trusted us to know what was good and what wasn't, and figured that more or less whatever we were reading was fine.  And it's true, I wasn't pulling out like adult romances or anything weird like that.  No Lady Chatterly's Lover or anything.  I'm pretty sure Mom had to approve whatever we got out of the library, and that she would have complained if there was anything wildly inappropriate.  But what I did get into was horror, and at a very young age.  I was reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz when I was eight or so, and that was too young for one reason: I have a super active imagination.  I *should not* have been reading terrifying books like that at that age.  Heck, I still can't really handle them at this age, not unless I read them really early in the morning and then watch cartoons or something before bedtime.  (Confession: sometimes I still have nightmares of the clown from It, just watching me.  *shivers*)

Anyway.  That's the kind of thing I want to prevent for my kid.  If they're an advanced reader they'll want to read whatever I have on the shelves, but if they're of a sensitive nature or super overactive imagination there are things that they just shouldn't read even though they'll be able to read them, and possibly want to read them.  (No one forced me to read Pet Cemetery, folks.  That was all me.)  I want to be able to give them reading freedom while guiding their choices: give them a broad category to look through, but narrow that category to things that are appropriate and that they're ready for.  I'm all about letting the kid have challenging books.  I know the benefits of challenging reading -- I know a lot of my vocabulary and random interesting knowledge comes because I've been a voracious reader my whole life, and didn't just stick to the books that were recommended for my age group.  But I also know that a lot of my nightmare fuel, a lot of my sleepless nights throughout my life, have been because I was reading things I just was not ready for.

It's an interesting thing, though, making decisions about the bookshelves before I even know what this kid is like.  There are obvious things to take away -- sorry, baby, but you're not reading V for Vendetta for a loooong time -- and there are obvious things to leave.  But what about stuff like, say, Fat Kid Rules the World, which is a fantastic fantastic book for teens but is wholly inappropriate (language and drug use) for younger ages, in my opinion.  I don't want to have to play revolving bookshelves every five years.  I want there to be two piles - the books in the attic, and the books on the shelves.  So what do I do with Fat Kid?

I'm thinking about sorting out the bookshelves by age level.  Like, the one low-to-the-ground bookshelf will be the picture albums/picture books/grade school lit.  Then maybe another one will be the rest of the grade school lit plus teen lit.  Then maybe the rest will be our non-fiction and "grownup" books like Stephen R. Donaldson, Brandon Sanderson, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, etc.  (For the record, I think a lot of the "grownup" books are totally fine for a kid to pick up.  I wouldn't worry if my kid was ten and reading Mistborn.  Those are awesome books with very little for me to worry about.)  

Sorry about the rambling!  This is something I've been thinking about for awhile and now that I'm finally getting down to working on some of it today, I realize that it is not as easy as I thought it would be!  Expect a few more entries about this while I work around all the interesting issues I'm running into.  (Plus, you know, my husband and I have over 700 books in our collection and we just can't stop buying more, so this is not a one-day project.)

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Am I crazy for doing this?

I haven't had a set of books that I enjoyed reading this much in a long time.  For whatever reason, it just seemed like every time I picked up one of these books I loved it right away, and when I was done I picked up the next book and loved it as well.  It was nice!  I think I'm out of that now -- I picked up the next book on my pile and read a few pages and was like "Eh, this is OK" and haven't actually gone back to it in a few days, alas -- but it was sure awesome while it lasted.  

( The Screwtape Letters )


( A Feast for Crows )

( The Great Hunt )

( The Name of the Wind )

( Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children )

I kind of wanted to be able to review Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs in this entry, because I've heard it's so fantastic. Unfortunately, it's been in transit from the library for over a week (stupid library! Give me my book already!) so hopefully next time.

( Fat Man )


( Man Out of Time )


Apparently a lot of my reading comes from "the next book in this series that I like." I didn't realize just *how much* until typing up this list and realizing that more than half were series books. I guess that makes sense -- I like comfort reading a lot, and usually that comfort reading means "A Terry Pratchett + Something In A Series I Like." I'm going to stop talking about all the Discworld books here because I read the same ones over and over again (until Snuff comes out; you're going to hear about that because it's *NEW*) so I guess we're just left with the other half of that comfort reading.


( Stuff of Legend )


( Rose Red )


( Storm of Swords )


( Undead )