I have been away

I went to Moab, Utah a week and a half ago and have had a hard time getting back into the swing of writing daily. I will pick up keep writing.

Hopefully I will also get the photographs sorted out and post some later.

More to come!

Music Worm in My Head All Day: The Music of John Denver

When I was a little kid, John Denver was a favorite of my aunt. This morning I heard a radio program on National Public Radio about how John Denver did not write "Take Me Home Country Roads." The song was written by another gentleman from Massachusetts who wrote the song intending it for Johnny Cash. John Denver heard the song and was recording a record, liked the song, and suggested that the man and he record it together and put it on his record. It was a hit for John Denver.

I heard a snippet of the song and it has stuck in my brain all day. Along with "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" which has some very wild memories for me that involve two very large people, two others, and myself crammed into a very small car driving down the road to go fishing and rocking the car down the road. But that's a story for another day.

I will warn you-- you may think John Denver is totally not en vogue, cool, or whatever, but his music will stick in your head. So play these YouTube videos at your own risk.

Here is the link for "Take Me Home Country Roads": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oJm8Lekkp4&feature=related

Here is the link to "Thank God I'm a Country Boy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzldLJcorbo

The Stars Are Not Made of Fire

The stars are not made of fire. They are cold fusion reaction. Energy released from the internal stores of the atoms of a giant cloud of gas.

 Observed and catalogued phenomena.

But this lacks poetry.

 Potency. Juice. Like that which runs down your fingers when you you peel a sweet, ripe orange.

Better to think that the stars are brilliant and twinkling against a night sky with scuttling indigo clouds and imagine being far away.

I remember a time when I was a kid. It was during the Perseid meteor showers and I was camping on the white sugar sand dunes of Lake Michigan. I remember standing on the hillside as the night seeped in, obscured the pale rainbow of the horizon, and darkened the sky. The stars began to glimmer into position.



On a dark remote hillside under a wide expanse of sky it feels as though the universe is spread out above you. I am such a small and inconsequential being in the vastness of everything that is, was, or will be, but I am still part. And there is wonder in that.

I remember laying on the dune and watching the stars wheel around the sky. 

I remember wondering if the constellations that I saw were the same ones that the Greeks had seen. Many of the names are/were Greek. I grew up learning Greek mythology. Bulfinch's mythology was my reading primer and I knew the Trojan War before I left Elementary school. I remember fantasizing about Achilles, Ulyses, and Hector.



I remember imagining what alien worlds were beyond our Solar System.

Imagining tall, thin ebony men with elongated necks and necklaces made of jade and bone. Their king holds the ruby scepter and all do as he commands because his will is the mind of the planet and as he thrives so does their world. He is beneficent and it is a great tragedy when the abomination of a dictator is born into the royal lineage.

Imagining silver cylindrical spaceships that propel from deep beneath the oceanic depths of a world covered in water. The life support of the ships is a controlled aquatic one and the mermaids of space collect the songs of the stars in order to lure hapless spacemen to the gravity press of ravenous black holes.

Imagining a gas giant whose atmosphere houses a multitudinous population of methane breathing cephalopods that excrete as waste a substance that halts the degeneration of RNA and holds the key to immortality for human beings. Countless space expeditions have traveled to this world to siphon off bladders of the gas to distill the precious substance, but Methuselah Armstrong is the gatekeeper and a universe with immortal humans troubles him. He has had time to contemplate the impact of so many humans over the span of his fifteen century long life.



I am a very silly and stupid woman who needs poetry. Dances in poetry. Sometimes I need to be able to escape into my imagination and that of others to have respite from this world that forgets the wonder inherent in the universe. Poetry and imagination reveal the wonder. I need ideas to play with and images to turn over and study with fascination. Sometimes I think that it might be better if I was someone with no heart or imagination. Better that I could see the stars as being only cold fusion. But then with the mystery and the romance of it removed could I still see the possibilities and the miracle of all that is, was, and might be?

Electric Spec's List of Five Top Tough Sells

I was reading blogs the other morning and came across a list of the “Five Top Tough Sells” according to one of the editors on ElectricSpec. The original post can be found at: http://electricspec.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-five-tough-sells.html

The Five Top Tough Sells according to this editor were things in the writing that will almost always mean that the story will be rejected. They included the following things:

1. Stories that do not introduce the protagonist quickly.
2. Stories that are almost all dialogue.
3. Stories with too many author created world-specific idioms in the first few sentences.
4. False suspense. An example that was given was..."Everything was fine 
until he came along." 

5. Stories that begin with the protagonist waking up (bad) in bed 
(worse) from a horrible nightmare (worst).


I think the editor from Electric Spec wasn't saying totally don't do any of these. They were saying that they are a harder sell because they aren't always done well or with purpose. I think the way to look at these lists is to look at why stuff ends up on them and then be more thoughtful about how one is using the writing. I think if you have thoroughly examined the list and understand why something is on it then you can avoid the pitfalls of why that particular thing often doesn't work-- then if you still have good reason to use it by all means do so.

It is always easy to find "violations" of these advice lists in good, already published fiction by experienced authors, that to me does not mean that the lists should not be thought through.

For instance I have seen on different advice lists that one should not start with descriptions of setting, but then there is Perdido Street Station. It starts with setting. Not an info dump, but still it starts with describing the setting. The title of the book itself gives great clue that perhaps 
starting with the setting is a good move and that this strengthens the overall integrity of the book.

Another piece of advice that I have seen on lists like this is to not start by describing the weather, but Neuromancer does just that.

The point that I am trying to make here is not to simply throw out every thing that anybody says by way of advice, but to really think 
about the craft of writing and how to achieve writing a great story. I think these "advice lists" are not commandments, I think they are clues. Clues to consider what might make the fiction stronger.

Serial Story Part II

A couple weeks ago I started a story. A serial story in parts. I am now continuing it. Please if you reference this or the other part in any way attribute it to me is all that I ask because I wrote it.

Part II of the serial story...

Evie’s eyes felt dry and scratchy. At the base of her skull her pulse beat a painful rhythm against her brain. She lifted a shaking hand and rubbed it across her forehead. Her throat was parched and the inside of her mouth tasted sour.

Obeng handed her a blue hand blown glass filled with water. “You are a foolish girl. I shouldna have to rescue you. You are mine and shouldna be casting out calling to a demon. A demon who does na even exist. What do you think you be doing? Damn foolish business. Get me in a fight and maybe I not win. Then you be stuck with a real demon who would not treat you so well."

Evie sipped the cool water and swallowed. She looked at Obeng’s snake-slit grey eyes and looked away. He was her husband in that her mother had sold her to him when she was a small child. But the rules governing between the mortal realm and the spiritual realm were complicated in regards to the transaction. Her appeal for an annulment was still pending.

“What you be doing anyway? All those police.” Obeng snorted down in the back of his throat. “Last time you helped the police-- it did no good. They come to you when they cannot figure things out. Small minds that cannot understand and they create evil almost equal to that they combat.”

“Obeng something is killing. Killing the innocent. Young girls,” croaked Evie.

Obeng nodded. “Yes, Evie something is killing the innocence of young girls. Lots o’ things. Their mamas and daddies, boys, what others expect, temptations, desires—I could give an accounting if you wish to travel with me to the other side. We could review the loss of innocence. It never be a pretty sight.”

“No Obeng. That’s not what I mean. Someone or something is taking their lives. The police, Detective Washington…”

“Evie, don’t get me started. I told you that boy was headed to the dark realms. He walks with heavy steps even now. Don’t tell me you cannot see it.” Obeng frowned and shook his head.

Evie stared at Obeng. “Obeng, a monster is killing young children. Girls. When I gazed, I saw their spirits trapped in a spirit box folded in on itself. I have to free them.” She shook her head and continued, “Only a demon could trap innocent souls in such a manner and hide them from the eyes of angels.”

“In case you haven’t been noticing, those you call the angels aren’t watching anymore. What good dwells upon the earth is in the hearts of humans, but evil takes many forms. Why do you think that only a demon could make a spirit box? Who told you such nonsense?”

“It’s not nonsense. Mama Tana told me.” Evie crossed her arms over her chest and scooted up on the worn couch in her parlor.

“Why do you listen to that old shade? She is only right about half the time.”

“Don’t start in on my grandma. She is... was a real wise woman that even your kind held respect for,” Evie glared at him.

“Bah! That old woman wasn’t even that formidable in life. Now she is dead…Bah, I say. You got questions about such, you ask me.” Obeng stared at her.

Evie lifted her chin and glared back at him. He was a demon and she was bound to him, but nothing came without cost and information was dear. Mama Tana was could be summoned to provide answers to specific questions; had made Evie’s amulet that gave her a measure of protection from Obeng’s dominance of her; and perhaps did not know everything. She had been a strong rootworker and she walked between the realms, but she had been human. “What is the cost if you tell me about how a human could make a spirit box?”

Obeng’s eyes seemed to glimmer for a moment. “Oh sweet girl, I claim only that you spend a span of days with me.”

“How many days Obeng? And I claim the right to refuse to do as you wish. You get only my presence in accompaniment.”

Obeng laughed. “Very well Evie. Since you are already mine in most regards and I don’t wish to diminish that claim. Three days. You stay with me for three days and I will tell you how a human can craft such a device to collect the souls of the innocent so that they cannot fly to the heavens.”