Organic & fair trade cherry almond dark chocolate.

So, I have a problem with chocolate. It’s not that I don’t like the flavor. I mean, it’s candy for fucksake, so of course I like the taste of good chocolate. I’ve even reviewed a few of my favorites here (the Ritter Sport still my favorite despite the ethical dilemma).

The problem is that chocolate, or more specifically the process by which it’s produced, is pretty goddamned evil. It is, sadly, one of those evils we find it convenient to overlook, because to address it would mean uncomfortable choices. The steps in creating chocolate from the pods harvested in the forest to the actual cocoa are many, and that means a lot of people have to get paid along every step of that process. To keep the prices low, it’s just generally accepted that cocoa growers are paid next to nothing if not outright enslaved.

How that chocolate tasting now?

Now, that’s not to say there aren’t options. Fair-trade chocolate, like that used by Seattle’s Theo Chocolates, lets you enjoy your endorphin rush without contributing to the perpetual impoverishment of an entire region. Do I still occasionally get a mainstream chocolate bar from Nestle or Hershey that doesn’t really care that much how they get their cocoa as long as it’s cheap? On rare occasions, yes. I’m not perfect. But try to remain very conscious about who gets my money. And this small, locally-grown chocolate house is Fringe Candy in the best way possible. Not only do they make a superior product with innovative flavors, they do it ethically.

Theo makes a very wide array of chocolates. I have yet to try one I didn’t like, though the bread and chocolate one didn’t move me as much as others. For the purpose of this review, I picked up their Organic Fair Trade Cherry Almond 70% Dark Chocolate bar. By the way, it’s also non-GMO project verified. It’s 3 oz of heaven. Not too sweet, seeded throughout with chewy bits of tart cherry and crunchy kernels of almond in perfect distribution. It’s heaven. I love fruit in my chocolate. I’ll admit it. True, a bar runs just shy of $3 at the store downstairs from my office, but this is not a bar to be eaten by one person in one sitting. Theo bars are for either savoring or sharing. I prefer to share, breaking it into pieces and walking around the office.

How many ingredients does such a bar have, one might ask?

Six.

That’s it.

Hell, if it didn’t have both cherries AND almonds, it wouldn’t even have that many.

When you use good chocolate, you don’t have to use a lot else. And let me tell you…this is GOOD chocolate. Damn if it isn’t GREAT chocolate. A little over a year ago, I shipped five of their coconut curry bars to a Seattle ex-pat living on the other coast because they were needed. You don’t do that for a goddamned Almond Joy.

They make less exotic bars. Straight up chocolate, or mint, or coconut? They got you covered. They also do some amazing, innovative flavors. Pretty much wherever your chocolate desires take you, they will have a bar for you. (Except for bacon, that is. I think they’re one of the few gourmet chocolate houses that resisted that particular craze. But with options like Pili Pili Chili, or Fig, Fennel & Almond, you’re not going to miss the bacon.)

And if you’re in the Seattle area, you can tour the plant, learn about the process, and sample the magic. It’s like Willy Wonka without the creepy guy in the hat, the golden ticket, or enslaving the indigenous Oompa Loompas.

Because, you know, chocolate…

…evil.

Two faces of Buddha.

Religion and spirituality is a driving force of culture. It provided a way to unify people beyond family or clan or race for centuries before such concepts of Nationalism were invented. The extent to which faith impacts a fantasy world says a lot about that world.  This is particularly relevant when working in a genre where the Gods can take a very active role. If you don’t believe me, ask Odysseus.

The religions of the world in which Ravensgate exists are also significant to the story. So, let’s talk creation of a pantheon, and what happens when new Gods replace old ones who are not quite ready to shuffle into the great beyond.

Within the history of the world, the first series of Gods were similar to the Titans which preceded what we know know as the classical Greek Gods. There were five, representing broad states of matter (Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Wood), and because their focus was so large, they were incredibly powerful, but simple. During a period known as the Great Betrayal, a new, and chaotic god of oceans decided to overthrow the old Gods. He seduced Earth’s daughters, Fire and Wood, and turned them against their father. In the conflict Air was lost, Water was thought killed, and Earth was so badly injured that he slumbers eternally, deep within the planet, speaking to his remaining followers in their dreams and directing them towards his body.

The Dwarves of the Caliphate are the only people who still listen to the dreams of Earth, though they call him by his old name, Ben’kono. The humans follow only the newer Gods, with Masewi, God of Oceans at the top of the new pantheon.

Beneath him sit the two tamed forces of Fire and Wood, now known as Taksara, Goddess of Love and Other Hardships, and Caccia, the Greenmother. Beneath them sit the two children Taksara bore Masewi: Domuat the Gray Brother who rules the Ashen Lands, world of the dead, and Kalinde the Law Keeper who represents administration and laws, putting her in charge of the world of the living. Masewi also bred twins with a human woman, and these two Gods of Man are Aleph and Zhed, representing the best of human potential and the worst, respectively. And then there’s Qi, the God of Magic, Knowledge, and Secrets. The humans recognize all eight of these forces, but tend to have their favorites, dictated by station in life and nationality as much as personal preference.

Let’s look at these all in a bit more depth. Of the nine primary characters, five of them have strong ties to one church or another, and it helps inform a great deal of their story arcs.

• Masewi — Oceans — An angry and fickle God, he is widely represented by priests who file their teeth down like those of a shark. He is not openly worshiped so much as appeased, and most coastal towns will have a temple to him, complete with a ocean-fed pool to anoint initiates and, in dark times, to drown sacrifices. Keenly aware that he himself is an usurper, he does not allow armies to travel on his waters. This lends extra importance to overland routes such as the one through Ravensgate.
• Taksara — Love and Other Hardships — Traditionally, the church of Taksara is an all-female order that offers up healing and counselling. Patron of scorned women, her priestesses must imbibe a poison called the Flame of Passion which bonds them to Taksara and makes them infertile. They have a reputation as poisoners, and between this and the brothel-like atmosphere of her tent temples, the Vale Land has outlawed open worship of Taksara, forcing her priestesses to work in secret if at all. They operate openly in the Caliphate, and are headquartered in the City of Flowers deep in the desert where they train initiates.
• Caccia — Fertility and Harvest — Worship of Caccia varies depending on proximity to civilization. She represents not only agriculture, but the byproducts of agriculture (wine, beer, bread), in towns and cities, while rural communities give her dominion over animals in general, making her patron of hunters. The Bloodwood in the Vale Lands is said to have sprung from blood she spilled during the Great Betrayal. It is a wild, forbidding place, and the diminutive Bloodwood tribes who call the deep woods home revere her exclusively.
• Domuat — Death — All people come to the Ashen Lands in the end, unless the cycle is interrupted by necromancy. The church of Domuat see the undead as cheating the inevitability of death. His priests are called Gray Brothers, and handle funerary rites. There is also an order of monks of Domuat who reside in the mountains near Ravensgate. He is seen as impartial, neither good nor evil. Merely patient.
• Kalinde — Cities — Kalinde represents order. She has no priests. Instead, she is served by clerks, administrators, and Justicars who act as travelling judge, jury, and executioners. She holds stronger sway in larger communities, but is respected almost everywhere.
• Aleph/Zhed — Man — The twin Gods of Man are thought to be walking the world mysteriously at all times. Representing the extremes of mankind’s potential, Aleph teaches compassion and peace while Zhed is the patron of thieves and murderers. Aleph has no priesthood, instead maintaining a large network of service monasteries in both the Vale and Caliphate. Zhed tends to only be worshiped privately or in small circles of like-minded individuals.
• Qi — Magic, Knowledge, Secrets — No one knows quite where Qi came from. Some think that the God of a Thousand Faces arrived with the refugees who settled Yerba Kolo, as only those dense jungles were deep enough to hide Qi’s secrets. The largest temple to Qi is located in Yerba Kolo, but most good-sized towns recognize him. His temples offer people the opportunity to share secrets that they cannot share anywhere else, as the priests of Qi are incapable of sharing them with anyone else. He is patron of scholars, mages, and spies, giving him a large footprint in Ravensgate.

And then there’s the Goddess of Water, Del’b Kadah, long thought dead and gone. It is her return to Ravensgate that sets everything else in motion. And with my love of the Cthulhu Mythos, how can I resist an epic fantasy novel that plays with the notion of Old Gods returning?

The question of what is set in motion, who moves to stop it, and who moves to join it, will be discussed in the next post where we take a look at the characters.

Ivan with improvised weapon, Colorado, Spring 1987.

Death doesn’t matter to the dead. No, it falls to us, the living who are left behind to process the loss, make some sense of everything, shoulder the burden then move on.

There were times when I was younger where I was sure that Ivan would die a fiery death, victim of his own misadventure. Most of the time I figured he’d live forever. I never would have considered something as mundane as liver failure. It strains credibility. Like Smaug getting felled by colon cancer.

But none of us are young gods anymore. Maybe we never were. There is gray in our hair now. We have bad backs, scars, and perspective from hard life lessons learned. We take pills for anxiety, or blood pressure, or to help us sleep.

When we were in that magical age between sixteen and twenty-one, we thought we knew everything. We had it all figured out, didn’t we? Our friends back then were going to be our friends for the rest of our lives. We were so smart. A pack of young wolves, ready to make the world ours.

Of course, we were fools.

Ivan slipped away from us the other day. It’s the final “Ta-dah!” of the vanishing act he’s been perfecting for over twenty years. I’ve maintained or rebuilt several of the important friendships from that time. But for reasons I may never understand, Ivan chose the opposite road. I think he liked being enigmatic, a cipher. I have to think he enjoyed it, this wall he build around himself and his life. I have to believe it because nothing else makes sense to me.

Despite not having said more than two sentences to him in over two decades, not a week goes by when I don’t think of Ivan. I have friends who have never met him who can share favorite Ivan stories. I was remembering one over coffee with people not three days ago, where he had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom overnight, spooked by a gurgling toilet in the other bathroom because of Stephen King’s “It.”

Ivan introduced me to the Velvet Underground, and Blind Faith, and Rocky Horror. He deconstructed Roman Candles he deemed “lame,” and repacked them into film canisters packed with toilet paper for some truly impressive fireworks. He wrestled with the family’s black lab in the backyard. He orchestrated the most elaborate practical joke I’ve ever seen in real life, involving a “Blue Thunder” soundtrack on cassette. He’s responsible for my friendship with a woman who remains, after all this time, one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He also is one of only two friends who met the woman who broke my heart so bad it shaped every adult relationship/romance since.

Ivan taught me the value in knowing which fights to fight, and when to just smile and nod. And that skill alone has done me more good than just about anything I was taught in school.

Ivan was the first of that circle of friends to fall. He was my blood brother.

And I can’t express how angry I am over the loss. Not just of Ivan, but of the twenty-plus years where he kept to an ever-narrowing circle. I never knew him as an adult. He’ll always be that punk teenager, laughing at authority, and ready to protect his friends no matter what.

In all reality, Ivan slipped away from us a long time ago. It didn’t have to be that way. I’ll never understand why it happened. But it was his choice. And Ivan was always a puzzle, with sparkle in his eyes and a coyote’s smile.

I think that’s how I’ll always remember him.

In the fingers of trolls…

Upon finding out that I was writing “Epic Fantasy,” earlier in the week, a friend asked me if it would have orcs in it. This is an understandable shorthand. There is a lot of baggage when it comes to epic fantasy. And while the Ravensgate books will not actually have orcs in it, it’s still in many ways that kind of fantasy. But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

How do you describe an epic fantasy without using shorthand? “It’s like Lord of the Rings meets Game of Thrones with a dash of Cthulhu?” See, it says a lot, but doesn’t really tell you anything. Not the least of which, it doesn’t establish whether there are orcs or not. Again, no orcs. But I do have much worse. Like flocks of carnivorous birds and some truly unsettling undead.

I decided the best way to give an peek behind the scenes was to break it all down into three easily digestible pieces. I’ll be doing one a week, looking at various aspects of the Ravensgate novel Death Like Cold Water. Those aspects are place, religion, and people–all of which factor heavily into why I’m excited to be writing this novel.

Today, an overview of the continent of Zel Hazaj and the rival cultures that call it home.

Bisected roughly west-to-east by a massive mountain range, a high plateau, and a menacing jungle valley bordered by cliffs to the north and south and ocean to the east, Zel Hazaj is a place of contrasts.

Fertile green fields and woods of the north comprise the Vale Lands: a largely feudal society of 144 counties ruled by noble families. Each family also selects someone to represent them in the Council of Thorns in Cambria, the administrative capital of the Vale. Beneath the rolling hills, the long-lived fae known as the Doonda Sidhe sleep and plot, waiting to take their lands back from the hands of man.

The south is dominated by deserts, rugged hills, and temperate coastlines. Known as the Caliphate of Dust, it is ruled over by a single bloodline from the power of the Peacock Throne in Ansur su-Kalinde on the western edge of the country. The largest, and oldest, city on Zel Hazaj is Anwat al-Masewi, a sprawling port in the south named after the God of Oceans who destroyed the city originally built there. Chancellors appointed by the Caliph oversee individual cities and regions,

Separating the two countries are three factors. In the east, the valley kingdom of Yerba Kolo, rendered impassible by rivers, dense jungles, lost cities choked with serpent men, fearsome giant lizards, and a warrior queen who guards her secrets, and land, with ferocity. In the center of Zel Hazaj you will find the Khal Plateau, named for the nomadic tribes of warriors who resisted a thousand years of human interference and are the only group hardy enough to live in the wind-scoured heights comfortably. To the west, there is a single pass in the high mountains, at the top of which sits Ravensgate: a border city built on the shores of a giant, dead lake and protected by the undead forces of the necromancers of Ravensgate College.

Ravensgate itself is the focus of the novel, though much of the book happens outside of the city. It has the distinction of being the only real border town between two powerful cultures. Though the Vale and Caliphate have been at a tentative peace for decades, a cold war atmosphere has settled onto Ravensgate, making it a city of cross-culture influence and intrigue, as well as a center of learning, and a cold, claustrophobic necropolis on the fringes of the Vale Lands.

Ravensgate for me feels a bit like Vienna, the crossroads of the world. Add to that the horror element of skeletal soldiers on the walls, the bodies of those who die in the city recycled into components at Bonepicker Hall, and a vast, dead lake. It’s a city that I’ve wanted to work within for quite a while, which is strange in a way because it’s the last place in this world I really developed.

The Caliphate, specifically Anwat al-Masewi came first because I always wanted to see more fantasy in a desert setting. The Khal plateau was part of that section as well, with the Caliphate seeing the grasslands as an unofficial protectorate of the Peacock Throne. I developed Yerba Kolo next just because I wanted a jungle full of dinosaurs and stalwart knights riding flesh-eating lizards, and then the secrets of the nation slowly grew from there. I followed that with the complicated politics and intrigue of the Vale Lands. Ravensgate was a simple attempt to provide a good place for those cultures to meet, interact, and spark.

If the Caliphate was Arabian Nights, and Yerba Kolo was Robert E. Howard, with the Vale taking cues from Kushner’s “Swordspoint” and Martin’s “Game of Thrones,” then Ravensgate was another beast entirely. It was Graham Greene’s “The Third Man” with the undead. And what’s not to love about that?

That is until the return of an ancient, long-forgotten god threatens the balance of power, at which point Ravensgate is thrown into the center of attention.

Ah, but that’s a matter of religion, so we should save that for next week.

In the meantime, here’s some Portishead to set the mood for Ravensgate.

Taksara abides

The best laid plans and whatnot. I can take comfort in the fact that everyone has a different process, and that what works for one person doesn’t work for everyone. I can tell myself that you have to follow the passion and write what you’re driven to write. I can even admit that there are tons of ideas out there, and they’ll turn into stories or they won’t, but they’ll happen in their own time.

This doesn’t really help that much when I set aside a book that I’m about halfway done with. That Americana road “urban” fantasy I had been working on, that I had been EXCITED about only 4 months ago? Haven’t touched it for more than a read-through and light tweaks since early December. It’s fair to say I’ve been spinning my wheels. Yes, I did finish two short stories that I’m super proud of, and they’re out in the world, being considered for a pair of anthologies.

But long-form…that’s another story.  Other than sending a querry for my novel Ink Calls to Ink out to a selection of new potential agents, it’s been hard going.

That said, I firmly believe that if you leave yourself open, the universe will surprise you.

See, I used to love epic fantasy. I’ve even toyed with writing it. And why not, really? I developed a very detailed fantasy world for the purposes of an RPG, intending to publish it as a sourcebook. And a key element of epic fantasy is the world-building, and almost by accident, I did that. With the world of Anwat just sitting around, what stories could I possibly tell there?

With that in mind, I put together the idea for a trilogy (because that’s how these things are done, right?). The first book was completely outlined, and the other two were roughly sketched out so I knew the bulk of what was to happen. I had nine characters and three (and a half) interweaving pieces. (The “half” is the POV of someone who falls in with the enemy, and I expect that part to get larger in later books, if not in a revision of the original outline.)

The tragic thing, at least from my perspective, is that I wrote the outline in December of 2007. The outline for a fantasy novel I REALLY wanted to write had been written over five years ago. Then things got in the way.

I can’t complain, really. I got a lot of other things done in that time. It wasn’t like I devoted my life to watching reality television. I did a lot of writing in that five years. I got kind of good at it. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t try it then.

But looking at it again with fresh eyes, I can feel that initial spark. I can see what I loved in these characters. And I can see how I can do a bit more and make it even better. I realize that even then, I wanted to work with strong female protagonists, and diverse characters. My primary character is Preston the Lesser, a tomboyish academic living in the shadow of her famous necromancer father, Preston the Black. A big part of her journey is learning to trust her intelligence while she forges her own path and identity outside of the university.

In fact, I broke the entire outline down by chapters. Of the thirty-two chapters in the original outline, Preston the Lesser gets thirteen of them. The next closest is Ulls, the disgraced hunters trying to outlive his reputation for cowardice, who only gets eight chapters–and he’s paired with two strong females for most of the book. Of the nine characters, five are female, and there isn’t a weak one in the bunch. That goes double for the one who embraces the evil at the heart of the story. Holy doodle, she’s incredible.

So where does this leave me?

I suspect that epic fantasy might be having a bit of resurgence thanks to a certain HBO series based on an unfinished fantasy epic which shall remain nameless. But who knows if that trend will continue long enough for me to write, rewrite, polish, and shop this?

And really, do I even care?

It’s not like I’ve ever based what I want to write on market forces. For crapsake, I wrote a pulp sci-fi novella called No Escape From Planet Motherfucker which is best described as Tarantino  in space! It’s not like I thought the market was clamoring for that nugget of weirdness!

There’s only one reason I should revisit the first book  in The Ravensgate Chronicles, and that’s if it excites me enough that I can picture knocking out 100,000 words of it and then following up with two more books of similar size. Based on my reread of the outline, I’m feeling it. I need to break it up a bit, add in a few more chapters to space things out more evenly and motivate the story a bit more. I can get that done this weekend easily enough.

It looks like I’m open for an adventure after all.

Rainy Spring in Greenwood

Any town of sufficient size has neighborhoods. Heck, even the dinky-ass tourist town I grew up in had them. When people think of Seattle, they think of the Pike Place Market and the Space Needle. When Seattle locals think of the city, they think of it in terms of Cap Hill, Pioneer Square, Fremont, Magnolia.

See, the thing is, no one lives in “Seattle,” in the same way no one really lives in New York. It’s all about the neighborhoods.

I’ve lived in the Seattle area for about 15 years now. Almost half of that has been spent in Greenwood. It’s my neighborhood. It’s my home.

Maybe it’s because it reminds me of where I grew up. Greenwood Ave, running along a N-S axis is a lot like Main Street, in a way. It’s about the same length, really. The Main drag ran from 5th-10th, while to me the Greenwood drag runs from about 84th-87th, with a side-spur of 2 blocks West along 85th, so area is about the same.

But there are significant differences. Gone are all the tourist shops and redundant art galleries. Sure, Greenwood has a few gallery spaces, but only a few, and they’re tucked away, hosting showings, and not selling poster-sized prints to vacationing Texans. Gone are the shops selling t-shirts and shot-glasses and post cards. Instead, we have a couple of antique shops.

With the exception of a movie theater, Greenwood has pretty much everything I want within a 5-10 minute walk from my front door. In fact, I can see my kitchen and living room windows from the table in the coffeeshop where I’m writing this.

Let’s talk coffeeshops. I have two, yes two, less than a block from me. The Monkey Grind is a nice, intimate space with fun art that rotates through every month. The coffee is brilliant, as are the sandwiches. The two young ladies who own and operate it are super nice and are always playing good music when I go in there. I could shuffle in on a Sunday morning to write in my slippers (as I’ve been known to do) if I wanted to. Or I could go to Ampersand, which is just as close. With a big, airy kitchen kind of feel, amazing Hawaiian coffee, and a “pantry” of cool foods (hot sauces, dried fruits, micro-brew beers, chocolates), and delicious fresh-baked goods, it’s absolutely unique. And there is a table big enough to accommodate an entire Saturday morning writing group that might, on occasion, filter in and out over the course of a few hours.

In easy walking distance, I have great shopping options: a big grocery store, a huge newly revamped Fred Meyer department store, a great game store, a little Mexican grocery to pick up ingredients that Safeway doesn’t have (or overcharges for) , a shipping place, my local comic shop, two antique shops, and a couple of little art galleries.

And then there’s dining options. Within five blocks of me, I have: a brilliant Thai place that serves a fiery Phad Kra Pow Jay (my favorite dish), a family-style diner that makes one of my favorite burgers in town (as well amazing corned beef hash), two great gyro places (the famous Mr. Gyros for quick walk-up/take-away, and the sit and enjoy it delight of Hummus Cafe), brilliant sushi right next to my comic shop, the Naked City Brewery & Taphouse where I might enjoy a game of Monopoly over beers and amazing food, cocktails and street tacos at The Yard, or family-style Mexican food at Gordito’s with burritos the size of a swaddled newborn, the inspired and classy Gainsbourgh when I want a Death in the Afternoon and nibbles, or the raucous Angry Beaver hockey bar for when I want to read my comics on a Saturday afternoon with curried chicken skewers, fries, and a beer.

Whew!

Throw in a few more coffee houses (one of which is also a gourmet chocolate shop), and a total dive Chinese restaurant bar which is also the best karaoke bar north of Downtown (and my second home), and you have one HELL of a great neighborhood. Heck. We even have banks, barber shops, and a pot dispensary or two if that’s your thing.

People sometimes ask why I don’t bother having a car.

I used to. But I got rid of it around the time I moved to Greenwood. Honestly, with this much great stuff in walking distance, located at the nexus of the 5 bus to Downtown, and the 48 bus to the University District and Cap Hill, why do I need one?

Who needs to drive anywhere? I’m already home.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get another cup of coffee and finish out this story. I have a busy day planned in the neighborhood.

Ed. It has been mentioned by a friend and neighbor that I would be remiss if I did not mention the lovely bookstores either in or easy walking distance from the core neighborhood. We also have a handful of tattoo parlors, sports bars and a huge car show every summer. A little something for everyone.

Authorial Essentials

It’s a question that comes up after a certain amount of time in the writing experience. “As an author, how do you handle rejection?”
Drinking.
I suggest tea to calm the mind, or maybe some coffee to fuel the inevitable rewrite. If you prefer a beer and a shot of Wild Turkey while you kick yourself for your failure, that’s your prerogative.
We all talk about it. I think it’s a strong motivation to form writing groups. In many ways, success or failure has less to do with talent than it does with tenacity. Because no matter how polished your prose, how witty your dialogue, how insightful your exposition, you are going to be faced at some point with a letter or email saying “Sorry, but your piece doesn’t fit our needs at this time.” There aren’t a lot of guarantees in this business, kid, but that’s one of them. Your future as a writer hinges in no small part on learning to accept and move through rejections.

A writing group is a great start. Think of it as group counselling. A good writing group is a support system that has few equals, because like all good group counselling, you’re in the company of people who’ve been there. It’s too easy to doubt yourself when you’re isolated. But when you’re sitting across a coffeehouse table from four other people who also just had their genuinely great short story turned away from yet another market, it takes the sting out.

But caffeine abuse with friends won’t get you in the pages of Asimov’s.

The rejection of a story from any market tells you two things in varying degrees. One, that while it might be a good story, it wasn’t a good fit for the editors of that market at that time. And two, maybe your perfect little gem needs another look.

Hurts, doesn’t it?

The truth is, no matter how much work you put into it, no matter how much you love it, there’s a damn good chance that your story isn’t perfect. And you know what? That’s okay. Art is subjective, so no one is going to have that same idea of what perfection means. The danger lies in complacency. You want your story to be good. Like, GOOD! But too often I feel newer authors stop revising at good ENOUGH.

Writing is an acquired skill. It’s something that develops the more we do it. I have stories I wrote six years ago that I loved at the time and I would now be embarrassed to see published. Not that I could get them published in their current state. Yes, they were likely the best representation of my skills as a writer at the time, but I’ve been working at this penmonkey crap for years, and I’m better than I was. Practice does that.

Every time you send a story out, it should be as polished as you can make it.

And if it gets rejected, give it another critical look. Treat the rejection as a chance to revise and really LOOK at it. Read it out loud to yourself. Read it backwards, one paragraph at a time starting from the end. Your changes might be small. Maybe you over-used a word. Maybe there’s a sensory detail that you could stand to add. Maybe you have a long sentence that makes for better pacing as two short sentences. Or maybe you can stand to cut that first thousand words and condense them into a sentence or two later in the story.

If you can’t change a word, then congratulations! You’ve written a perfect story. Or, at least as perfect of a story as you can write at that point in your career. So find another market and send that baby back out into the world.

And if it comes back again?

Look at it again.

Refuse to settle for “good enough.”

*Ok, a bit of a disclaimer here. If you’re under the gun for a submission deadline and you have the choice of sending it in as “good enough” or not submitting at all, there’s some wiggle-room here. If you are happy enough with the story that you can see it being published in its current form, and maybe pointing friends, agents, and editors to it, then pull that trigger. Sometimes “good enough” is just that, and you can sell the story and make the necessary fixes before print. But don’t submit a crap story (or one that doesn’t meet the submission call) just for the sake of submitting. 

The key here is not only to keep revising, but keep submitting. Don’t fall into that trap of reworking and reworking and reworking the same story until it’s flawless as an excuse to not send it out.

Don’t let rejection spook you. Don’t give it that much power over you.

As Wayne Gretzky says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

He should know. He’s the Great One after all.

On that note, I have a novel to fix. Time to put on a pot of coffee.

Taksara abides

This week saw the release of Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror from the most excellent horror publisher Blood Bound Books (Available in both print and ebook format although I’ve only linked to the Kindle). This is not my first publication with them. No, that would be Rock ‘N’ Roll is Dead which I’ve written about previously.

When it came time to send something to them for consideration for the new anthology, I really didn’t know what to send. I had been trying to write something brand new, but it was stuck. Meanwhile, other recent horror stories had all sold to other markets. And that left me with an earlier story simply called “The Lake” which was…unsettling.

One approach for writing horror is to have the hero confront some sort of monster, some evil, some…thing! And since it’s horror and not fantasy, the hero suffers greatly in the process. In some horror, the result is that by confronting the monstrous, the hero themselves becomes a monster, becoming either an extension of the original horror or a different, perhaps greater monster than what they were facing. And for me, that tends to be more terrifying. An excellent example for me is the movie Straw Dogs. (If you haven’t seen it, it’s a masterpiece and a movie that, once seen, I’ll never watch again. Brutal. Just brutal.)

It’s possible this kind of horror is all the more terrifying because we see it all the time in the real world.

I wrote the initial draft of “The Lake” when I was sifting through the crumbling remains of a marriage that had fallen apart. The story showed a couple that chose to try and move on from a personal tragedy rather than throw in the towel. Added to this, I had a powerful nightmare that involved swimming in a lake, and I couldn’t shake it for anything once I woke up. These elements combined to make for a story that was a bit too close to the bone for me. A story of loss, and false hopes, and something ancient and hungry hiding beneath the surface.

When I realized I didn’t have anything else to send, I went back to “The Lake” and tore it apart with the cold dispassion of having moved past the emotions that inspired the story. When I put it back together, it was less personal. It was something leaner. Meaner. And I almost didn’t send it in. The last time I had a story I was reluctant to submit, it was “Fishwives of Sean Brolly,” and there are some fascinating parallels to the story. Both involve a marriage in crisis and a dangerous, submerged temptation.

And, of course, death and horror.

The location for what became “Cold Comfort of Silver Lake” is in many ways inspired by growing up in Colorado’s silver country. With quaint old mining towns like Ouray, Telluride, Silverton, and Creede now turning into expensive and quiet places to retire, they aren’t the kind of locations you would expect to inspire horror. We weren’t all lucky enough to grow up in Maine. I grew up in a town like that, perched on the apron between mountain and high desert. It was a town built around a smelter for the mines higher in the mountains–silver at first, then uranium as the industry changed. When I was in high school, the smelter was demolished, and the giant hill of radioactive tailings next to it–and next to the river–was shipped off and buried somewhere. Somehow, I grew up in a town where a giant radioactive hill cast a shadow over downtown for most of my childhood without thinking about it. That same radioactive dirt had been used as fill for foundations all over town…even under the public swimming pool.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had pets that died of cancer. I don’t know how common that is. Growing up, we lost three pets to it. Maybe it was a fluke. Or maybe there was a hidden darkness in that town…something you just didn’t talk about, hoping that it wouldn’t hear you and pass by for someone further down the line.

That’s horror. The buried darkness. The hidden danger, lurking there, waiting.

Like a little personal tragedy between a married couple that they can’t put behind them but won’t talk about.

Like whatever is waiting in the bottom of Silver Lake.

I encourage you to take a look for yourself. Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror includes 23 deliciously dark stories by Brian Lumley, Joe McKinney, Lisa Morton, Daniel O’Connor, Jeff Strand, John McNee, K. Trap Jones, Maria Alexander, Ed Kurtz, and many others. And it’s available wherever books are sold. (Really! Go special order it from your favorite small bookstore!)

It’s a difficult thing to do. I won’t lie to you. It’s so much easier to listen to what others expect of you and to try and meet those expectations. I get that. I’ve done it.

But it never made me happy.

Because the only person who can decide what it is that makes you happy is you.

You just need the courage to not give a shit for what anyone else thinks. Find your passions. Enjoy the stuff you enjoy and don’t apologize for it. In fact, share it, with as many people as you can–as many people as will listen. Joy is contagious, and let’s be honest, the world needs more of it.

When I started getting serious about writing, I had to find my voice and trust myself to tell the stories I wanted to tell. I didn’t try to write a paranormal romance vampire novel because I don’t like vampires and I don’t read enough romance to be confident writing it. Instead, I write what I write–what I want to read–what brings me joy. And those stories sell, which is lovely. But even if they didn’t, I’d probably still be writing the same weird stuff about deer people and sentient mold colonies and amorphous, timeless lifeforms occupying cold lakes.

I started doing karaoke 12 years ago, but didn’t go that often. I loved it, but I wasn’t going to go out by myself, and most of my friends would only go infrequently, at best. A little less than a year ago, I introduced one of my best friends to karaoke for the first time, and she embraced it with the same enthusiasm I had always felt but been reluctant to show. I had been going once every few months. For most of the past year, it felt strange to go less than once every week or two.

I love singing. I love, for a few minutes at a time, stepping outside of my normal life and getting up on that stage and sharing something that I’m passionate about. Even when I suck. Even when I pick a song a bit out of my range, or where I don’t actually know the bridge, I love it. A bad night at karaoke is better than a boring night doing nothing.

Now, I think I’m pretty decent at it, especially when I stick to my established songs. And my friends agree, but they’re a very supportive group. And again, you should love what you do whether you get external validation or not.

But damned if it isn’t amazing when you get it.

Last night I competed in a karaoke battle at the Cha Cha Lounge on Capital Hill. A friend had band practice next door and showed up for a drink but not long enough to see me sing. So I didn’t have that same support group. A lot of my stronger songs weren’t on the playlist. After getting blown away by some of the singers in the first round, I wrote the night off as a chance to sing in a new place and enjoy a few Pacifico beers.

Then, quite to my surprise, I won the second round by singing “White Wedding” and went on to the finals. And in the finals, the judges/host picked the artist who we would all sing. They chose David Bowie.

Let me digress here for a minute. There are a couple different kinds of karaoke singers. There are the ones who go to goof around on stage with friends and don’t take it too seriously. There are the ones who have a very small list of songs, who finely hone them until they’re perfect, and drop in, knock out their signature tunes, have a drink, then leave. And then there are the ones like me who are constantly trying out new songs, building a long list of material for whatever reason. And I love music, so I’m familiar with a pretty broad range of songs and artists. I’ve got done everything from Jim Reeves to Public Enemy to Coheed and Cambria to Willie Nelson to Stevie Wonder. If I’ve heard the song and like it and can hit the range, there’s a chance I’ll try it at least once.

So, yeah. I know David Bowie. I have done three of his songs at karaoke before. I know enough of his material that I could have probably done most of the songs in the song book last night. But I love “Rock and Roll Suicide,” so I jumped at the chance to do it there.

It won me the gold. But even if it hadn’t, I had that magical 3:02 belting out a song I love in front of a room full of strangers. And life doesn’t get much better than that.

Emphasis on “artificially”…

There are few things like not having money to make a person into a “value shopper.” For example, kids with a limited allowance who depend on every precious nickle to feed their candy addiction. When I was a kid, a whole candy bar was maybe 50 cents, but damned if there aren’t times when a pre-teen candy fiend jonesing for a fix doesn’t have two quarters to rub together.

Thank Wonka for cheap candies, individually wrapped, and sold at the glass counter of the Circle-K out of a plastic tub for a fraction of the price. Most of these aren’t chocolate–the only exceptions that comes to mind are Andes Mints or the somewhat sketchy Ice Cubes (ok, some people like them, but I was never a fan). The figurative monkey on my back was the Banana Laffy Taffy.

Originally created and sold by Beich’s as caramels, they were really just fruit flavored taffy, somewhat bigger than a Starburst, and chewier. They were acquired by Wonka at some point in the seventies, and then Wonka was in turn acquired by Nestle in 1988. There were other flavors: sour apple, grape, fruit punch, and cherry come to mind. There are a total of seven flavors now, adding  watermelon and blue raspberry to the mix as well. But the banana…wow…I don’t know why, exactly, but those were something special.

Part of it might have been mouth-feel. There was something silky about it. And no, it didn’t really taste like banana. Not really. There is something more banana than banana in the experience. After eating a Laffy Taffy, the real deal feels a little bit like a letdown. The fake banana flavor is a point of contention among the candy crowd. A good chemist friend of mine can rattle off the chemical name for that flavor. She knows exactly what’s in those delightful chewy treasures, and she loves them as much as me.

Laffy Taffy has changed over the years, but mostly in how it’s been packaged and proportioned out. The little individual squares have given way to longer pieces, the wax paper wrapping given way to the plasticy wrap that most candy bars favor these days. I don’t think they still have the crappy jokes and puns on the wrapper, but that used to be part of the appeal. It helped justify the name, at least.

Flavor-wise, it’s still pretty much the same as I remember it: sweet, silky, smooth, and unlike pretty much any other taffy I’ve ever had. Everyone has green apple, citrus, cherry, or grape flavors. Watermelon and blue raspberry are also pretty common. And has anyone ever seen a blue raspberry in nature? I call bullshit on that! It takes huevos to try the fake banana. Not a lot of places try it.

They’re no longer three cents or a nickle or however much I used to pay for them. But they’re still a sweet little jolt of nostalgia. And for the uninitiated, it’s a low cost entry point into the mysteries of flavor fakery.

Because delicious as it may be, there’s no denying that Banana Laffy Taffy is as artificial as King Kong.