{ of fey && fiction }

Alright, this is something a little different. :D Recently, I've become enamored, addicted, and unabashedly smitten with this young adult series called The Iron Fey. I am a huge fan of mixing magic and technology or somehow inserting a fantastic world into a high-tech society, known or unbeknownst to the inhabitants, and these books accomplish this beautifully. The author of the series, Julie Kagawa, also seems like a super-cool person on her own-- she writes really well and plays video games that have been on my list to play (so when I read her updates on Twitter it's like I'm getting fun literature news and next-game-to-buy advice at the same time--win! xD).

What's prompting me to write this is because she's holding a contest on her blog. You write a letter to a character of your choosing from the series and if you're lucky, you get a reply from them as well as a signed copy of one of her books. You can check out the contest right here.

I'm writing to Puck. Yeah, that Puck.

--

Dear Puck,

Wow, you've been through a lot. If you're not stuck in the mortal realm babysitting on Oberon's orders for sixteen years, then you're storming faery-run night clubs, getting banished from the Nevernever, messing up Titania's plans, saving Meghan from all manner of magical creatures, and probably cracking jokes at every turn just before you vanish in a swirl of leaves or raven's feathers. First off, let me say congratulations: for guarding a girl destined to rule the Iron Kingdom, you've had plenty of close calls--some of them closer than others-- and yet you've still managed to come out in one piece. Keep it up! Both the Summer and Iron Courts (and hey, probably Winter too) would be a lot less fun without you.

Probably what makes me like you most is that you're not the kind of character I would usually choose as my favorite. Ironically enough, I tend to be more drawn to guys like Ash, the cold, calculatingly deadly type with a sorrowful past that they mask with seeming indifference. So why are you my favorite? You're unpredictable. Whenever you come into a scene, I immediately get excited because I'm never sure what you'll pull out of your bag of tricks next. I love your showmanship, sarcasm, and, on the rare occasions when it surfaces, your sincerity. It's because you're not serious very much that I pay more attention to you and believe you more when you are, especially when it comes to Meghan. It probably goes with out saying at this point, but I can't help but root for the guy who stuck it out guarding the princess for most of her life and took the time to be her best friend.

Still, sixteen years without going back to Faery is pretty rough. How'd you do it without going crazy? Did you hang around a lot of places with huge supplies of human emotion for glamour, like clubs or artist's' studios, or did you sneak back sometimes? What was your favorite moment in the human world--was is your best prank, happiest time with Meghan, or something else entirely?

But the thing about you that I understand the least, and (naturally) have to use this opportunity to ask is this: why didn't you tell Meghan that you had feelings for her earlier? I know, I know. Yet it seems like whenever the contest between you and Ash gets brought up, whether it's Leanansidhe or Ash himself commenting on it, you're at fault because you hesitated to confess to Meghan. And, much as I want to support you unreservedly, I have to admit that they have a point when they say that you had sixteen years (and then a little time in the Nevernever) to make your move. Why didn't you? Did you have a plan to tell her that never got carried out, or was there another reason?

Even if the odds seem like they're against you, don't give up! After all, eternity's a long time. ;D Team Puck will support you all the way, no matter long is takes. Good luck chasing after Meghan and I'm looking forward to hearing about your exploits!

Alex

P.S. And hey, at least you can make Ash's life ridiculously difficult in the meantime. I'm sure somewhere, someone desperately wants that underwear question answered and you might be their only hope.

{ of cats & celestial bodies }

Yeah, yeah, so the poem-a-day thing's going slow. But I do have something super-cool whipped up for break, I promise. In the meantime, enjoy my ramblings on book titles.

And yeah, to be fair, things that have nice looking covers aren't going to be totally left in the dust, but if someone was asking you if you'd rather read a book called The Mothball-Lover and the Harpoon-Goddess or My Life, well, I know which one I'd go for.

A part of it is just because I'm attracted to oddity. Yeah, I know it's not the best reason to read something, which would probably be the reviews if we're thinking about things fairly. But really and truly, I guess that just liking the title is a good enough cause to read a book. It's probably a good thing that I haven't published all the much because I'm liable to come up with some crazy titles when left alone for too long.

I like that, though. Which is a little weird for me, because today I want to talk about the impact titles make for books and both the objects of my compare and contrast are going to be fairly generic-sounding titles.

But I promise you, I haven't lost my touch. You'll no doubt see much pulling something outrageous out of nowhere, so don't worry about my sense of flamboyance, if I may flatter myself so much.

A title can make or break a book for a potential reader. I might have said, "for me", but being that I read a lot, and if you write, I'm assuming that you'd want some random person to read what you've wrote, I'll divulge my opinion. It's important. I'm saddened when I hear how agents and publishing companies get to choose titles more than authors do; like when I hear about an author getting a publishing deal and ask what the title's going to be, I usually hear "it's up to *insert not-me here*." Which, in my mind, really isn't how it should be. An author has worked on a piece for so long that the title, the crowning glory of it in a way, really should be theirs.

But I digress.

I'm going to do a compare and contrast for you right out of those old elementary school texts with two books from the young adult fiction aisle, Alyson Noel's Night Star and Holly Black's White Cat. Two words per title, fair playing ground.

Right. I'm a fan of Noel's characters in her Immortals series, but I'll try not to let it prejudice my vote on title versus title. Roman's my favorite, but is that just because villains are so cool to write and like, or some other reason? I sense a tangent here, so we'll leave it for later.

There are a lot of ways that you can bring the title into your text. In some cases, it's the key to the entire story, the pivotal idea you're trying to convey, but not a line that you ever say. Think The Importance of Being Earnest. It's always present but never explicitly stated. This is probably my favorite kind of title because I hate repetition with a passion.

Which might seem weird because both books use a lot of repetition with their titles. But this is where my tastes diverge-- it boils down to needing to be done well.

Noel's character Ever tends to state things a lot. It's not a bad thing entirely because Ever's personality is pretty convoluted since she tends to trick herself into believing things that aren't all that true or real and it's the break-through points for her character when she does manage to get over her delusions. On the other hand, Black uses the phrase "white cat" a whole lot more than Noel does "night star." The white cat is one of the most important things in Black's book and gets mentioned, if not every two pages, then at least once per chapter as main character Cassel tries to figure out its meaning and what it really is.

The idea is in the type of repetition. The phrase "white cat" crops up so often that it's more than just a cat that a mob kid finds in a barn; it's its own character and adds a significance to it by its being the title. In contrast, Noel throws the words "night star" around so often when Ever's lost hope that it's like being hit with a blunt object. I know it's difficult to get things through to an audience sometimes, but I really think that it could have been handled more smoothly.

So, the winner of this title vs. title? Holly Black and her White Cat. Both authors had really good books, and I highly recommend both, but as far as introducing and bringing the audience into knowledge of what the title really means and what it does for the story, Holly Black has got this one hands down.

{ of detectives & deities }

It's the syndrome where you read something, realize that you could do it so much better, and then have to try it out for yourself. I'm sure that imitation is some form of flattery, but this is the feeling of being so enamored of an idea that you have to make it your own and play around in it.

That's more or less what's going on with this next piece. My plan is for the Ministry of Lost Things to be a detective-type story or series of tales with a light tone, with themes of friendship, what is materially and immaterial important, what is means to be alive, and dreams.

Yeah, I'm working on Callahan (how can I not be?) and I'll also be trying to get some revisions done on Argent and Crane when I feel like it. I'd also like to try and get more into the short story scene, which I feel I haven't been as into as I might have liked to be. Anyway, news and results posted here. Currently, I just have a lot of stamps ready for submissions.

I'm also going back to my poem-a-day exercises as well to see what I can whip up.

In other news, playing a cleric on a D&D game to great effect.

{ of sleeplessness & waking dreams }

For some reason, I am unable to sleep.

I think it's daylight savings time messing everything up. The extra hour is nice, but apparently it's a little too jarring for my body to adapt to.

Argent is progressing smoothly, perhaps a little more so than I thought it would. I'm still nervous about getting it all done by the end of November, coupled with the fact that people have begun asking me for due dates on letters of recommendation and I'm not exactly sure what to tell them as I haven't yet picked out schools (but we'll see).

The goal initially was to do a chapter a day, and while I haven't quite held to that (it's more like a chapter every two days over here) it's been okay. I haven't created anything utterly ridiculous and it's looking like I'll come out with a pretty decent first draft. Then, revisions are planned for finals week, where I only have one final, so I should be able to come out with something pretty nice by the time I need to go home and get the final product together.

I'm still pretty excited about it. I'm using a lot of body language in this one, which was something I didn't notice before in my writing. Maybe it's just how I see the characters, or maybe I'm letting myself get carried away with all of this and should just rely more on dialogue. We'll see how it plays and if it continues I'll start to tweak it.

In the mean time, buggy. What a week.

{ of saints & souls }

The days at the end of October and kicking off November are some of my favorite holidays. It's because they're so arcane and so off the radar for most people that I like them. They're also off the beaten path as series of days festivals: each day has a clearly-defined and specific purpose: Oct. 31 is All Hallows, Nov. 1 is All Saints, and Nov. 2 is All Souls.

As a writer, I tend to mix all three of these, notably most in Callahan. But, Callahan, being what he is, couldn't really be Callahan without demons to pursue him, saints he's not sure have any right to sainthood, and the souls of the City at sake. I like the touch of magic that otherworldly creatures add, how saints are ethereal and yet permanence personified at the same time, and the idea of souls.

For me, these past few days are perfect times for me to be creative and figure out fun new things to do. It's also, miraculously enough, the start of NaNoWriMo, one of my favorite writerly activities beyond writing itself, doing prompt challenges, and going to or giving readings. I started doing it when I was a sophomore at university and I was tired of the work that I was doing at school. Back then, I was in a major that I liked, but didn't love, and I wasn't taking any creative writing courses because a lot of people I hung out with thought that humanities courses were just boring.

So, now, even though I've mended my straying ways and have changed majors and write and submit to literary magazines regularly, I'm doing it again. The first time was Crane, the second Callahan, and now this year's is being devoted to telling the story of Trypt and Sigel.

As far as pairs go, they're pretty odd. Crane has Sammy Briggs as his co-narrator (and eventual love interest) and Callahan really didn't leave any room for anyone else to have a story but him. Now, I'm back to having a story spread out over two worlds, a magical one and the one we see as reality, with a character rooted in each one. I suppose the reason this didn't happen more with Callahan was because he was already firmed planted in the entirely imaginary world already. But it's weird getting back to it, having to actually have people explain what the tea bags are doing and why they're doing that, as opposed to having Callahan just slide over it in his nice, brash way and explain it like you would, say, a toaster or a skewer of meat.

I'm seeing a lot of things changing from what I originally thought I would be doing: most notably, Trypt. He's intended to be a relatable character, someone who's more than a bit clumsy but also really good and a total fanboy when it comes to technology. When I first started writing him, he was a bit more stuck-up, and now he's just out of sorts. Maybe he's less true to character or realistic now, but I'm just finding it strange how I remember scenes where he was really mean to Sigel about something (granted, Sigel was more than mean to him as well about it--he's a very nasty guy) and now he's toned down a little bit. The only thing I changed was to have the antagonists try to kill him again, and that really altered his perspective.

So, yes, NaNo is incredibly fun and I am enjoying myself mightily. Hopefully this thing won't be too much of a behemoth to edit and have into a nicely packaged copy by Christmas.

{ of status & the letter c }

I should really be sleeping. Or working. Or probably anything else rather than writing this, which is more of an indulgence in quantifying what I class as writerly or not. But it is late and I am making poor decisions.

Recently, I read about curing writer's block. Writer's block is something that I've found that I have to deal with less and less as I go on. Writing is, in many senses, an indulgence itself, a pastime I delve into when everything else is finished (or at least not screaming to be finished) and so when I go into it I have a lot of ideas or emotions that I want to explore that I've been pushing back or cataloging for future use. It's not to say that I always have words at the tip of my tongue--hardly-- but it's more that, when I'm busiest I find that it's least hardest to be inspired.

I think a part of it is that the brain goes into full-battle mode during busy or amazingly stressful times. Everything is running on all cylinders. I take breaks by imagining things: plots, characters, odd stuff about the guys I'm working next to, or the lighting. When I'm at home and relaxing, or just zoning out because I need to be brain dead for a while, it's harder for me to find inspiration, or rather, when I do feel inspired, I know that I have to act on it more quickly.

This is all leading up to how I feel about writers. There are some people who really try to write (and either do or don't) and others who don't really try (and either could or can't). Tons of other people have lambasted those who don't try and can't and have praised those who try and can, so it's really the remaining two groups that interest me: the ones that try really hard but don't come up with anything, and ones that don't really try but maybe could.

It's always difficult to generalize anything. Mathematically, if you do it well enough you get your name on a theorem or an amazingly handy law. Usually, though, if you take stabs at it you look incredibly silly or people poke holes in your argument right away. So, in the interests of making sure I'm talking about the distinct subsets I want to, I'll acknowledge that there are a lot of different kinds of writers, specifically, many varieties that try and fail and many that don't try and are passable.

Even more specifically, I want to talk about writerly snobbery. Some of it I think is a little bit justified, especially when a less honed writer wants to strut their stuff and either does this poorly or also refuses help afterward. Writing poorly is something a lot of people do, myself included. It just happens, usually especially when you're trying hard not to. What sets poor writers apart, though, is their willingness to revise to accept critique. I class as a writer as being worse off (in their own progress and ability to self-edit) if they don't at least acknowledge what their critics are trying to say or recognize certain, perhaps subconscious stylistic things in their work. The kid that starts off using cliches and trite phrases but, on being told that he's doing that, tries new things, is better off in my book than the guy that's convinced that he's writing gold each page and thinks his critics are all jealous lessers.

On the other end of the spectrum, being good at writing doesn't allow being snobbish to people who are still trying (legitimately) to improve or people at the same level. For me, writing is something I respect people for doing: the end product is always going to be indicative of skill and dedication, but the sheer fact that a person is willing to try and put themselves through revising is enough for them to earn my respect in that regard. What I don't like is when good writers put down or refuse to consort with people who either don't write in their style or who don't write as well as they do. Writing is a process for everybody and you close yourself off to a lot of interesting and possibly-waiting-for-the-right-instruction-or-epiphany friends if you discount them for their mediocrity right off the bat. I am constantly being surprised at people's ability to change.

I, however, do not seem to change very much and am often not all that interesting. I like people whose names start with the letter "c": Crane, Callahan, Crawford-Gull, though I also like the letter "s" a lot, too. "B" I can't abide. It just makes everything sound blubbery and misshapen, all out of whack. Too many of them make a bad impression. Ironically enough, more or less all of the people I'm really close to don't have b's in their names. Odd coincidence or second-alphabet-sense? I wonder...

In other news, have been contemplating not doing Callahan and doing Argent instead for NaNo. I do want to get it written and done, and maybe Callahan could benefit from slow and steady revision rather than my throw-it-on the page style. But is NaNo how I want to tell Argent?

Still noveling in November, again having no idea what. But I think that's how I did Crane and that worked out alright.

{ of cranes and casualties }

For some reason I've really wanted to revisit Nicholas Crane, the title character of my first NaNoWriMo novel for a while now.

A part of it might be the leaving college-nostalgia: all the trees are turning yellow (because in this part of Pittsburgh there's more yellow than red or orange) and I'm starting to realize how much I'm going to miss this place. It's like trying to convince yourself that there's going to be a fall again next year-- you know it's got to happen, that it's got to take place because it's happened before and nothing's changed, but it still doesn't quite register. I still feel like I'm seeing the leaves change colors for the last time and that I've got to savor it.

But, on the upside, it's good that I've come to this realization before the best parts of the trees have fallen off. The trusty disposable camera (chimera) and I can be out in full force yet.

Back to Crane: I never realized how suicidal he was, or rather, lingered on being. I wrote him (formally) my second year of college, when I'd broken off from my freshman friends and was trying to find my own way (for the most part on my own). He's immortal (by curse rather than by choice) and he walks an odd balance of trying to connect with an age and its people but at the same time retains a distance, an unwillingness to latch onto anything more ephemeral than he is. Which is, unfortunately, many things. I'd been playing with the idea of why Crane didn't like being immortal-- I mean, really, who wouldn't?

He's set up fairly nicely-- he writes under pseudonyms since he can't publish under his real name, but thanks to a lineage of family connections and a handful of deceptive skills, he manages to hang onto his professorship (after long terms of absence) at a small college and for the most part makes a nice life for himself. He could go on quite nicely being immortal; the only caveat is that he occasionally turns into a swan when he gets too involved in the moving time part of his life.

I suppose that would be enough for him to want to break out of the curse: wanting to make something happen rather than write about it happening to other people and never letting anyone else read it. At the point of the story that we meet him, he should be at a breaking point-- or at least approaching one. He's lived his lifestyle for so long, he wants to break out of it. He's been running off for years-- ever once in a while he'll take an unexpected sabbatical and gallivant off across the country trying to keep the curse off (but this never works). He'll be tired, fed up with where life has taken him or has paused in its taking him, and he'll want an escape, even if it's one that he can only take once. It'll be a cold, wet night, either rainy, snowy or full of slush, and he'll have his hands spaded in his pockets stiffly when he meets the person who'll turn his life upside down.

I like it.

But enough for this year's NaNo? Hmm... I've already done tons of research on Callahan over the summer and recently, and I feel like I'd be disappointing more than a few people if I suddenly switched out. Plus, I do want to tell that story and as it's autobiographic in a lot of senses, I feel like it would be perfect for this year: a wrap-up, the final presentation of what I learned at college before the celebration semester kicks off. (Hopefully) Crane I'll try to rewrite later. I have a feeling that a lot of his brooding could be better handled by a longer stretch of time rather than NaNo's rush. Callahan, on the other hand, could definitely stand to have pressure on it.

And as a last aside: nearly sliced off a finger yesterday. Well, not quite. The verdict's still out on whether or not I'll have a scar, but I'm okay with either option, as long as the scar is cool-looking.

Needing to work on Argent more but facing a busy week. Ugh.