It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you and I have to say I’m not sure I’ve missed you.  In New York, despite all the things that bloomed in the spring, despite the exhaust and grime, you didn’t come around. In Iceland, there weren’t enough flowering things for me to see you.

But in Portland, in Portland you have a special treat for me and I will spend the next two weeks with the constant reminder of your presence. I will have to relearn the skill of keeping my hands away from my face. I will have to remember to pack tissue when I leave the apartment. I will once again sleep with a damp cloth over my eyes.

No, my dear, dear allergy season, I regret to say that I have not missed you.

Yours,

Mary

The way Sam was playing his Lear, made me aware of the number of times Shakespeare sets up a happy ending and then yanks it away. Lear and Cordelia reconcile; she’s got an army with her. All he would have had to do was to let her win the war. Does he? No. Edgar has all the pieces to restore his father and destroy his lying brother. Does he get to? Almost! And then his father dies.

I think that’s why this is such a successful tragedy, not because of the horrible things that keep happening to Lear, but because Shakespeare keeps teasing the audience with hope.  It’s like that moment in a horror film where you think the protagonist has made it safely through the door, only to realize that she’s locked the demon inside with her.

There’s only so far you can beat someone down before they have nothing to lose. Shakespeare was doubly cruel because he kept promising to restore order to his characters but only so he could cut them down again.

Note to self: Horror and tragedy work better when there’s something at stake and the possibility of surviving.

There are only eight stories in this 80 page collection from Mary Robinette Kowal, but there is not a wasted word here. The stories of Scenting the Dark and Other Stories should delight readers as much as they delighted me. With two novels and more short fiction pending, you’ll want to pay attention to Mary Robinette Kowal.

via Adventures in Reading: Scenting the Dark and Other Stories, by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Launch Pad is a free, NASA-funded workshop for established writers held in beautiful high-altitude Laramie, Wyoming. Launch Pad aims to provide a “crash course” for the attendees in modern astronomy science through guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s professional telescopes.

I highly, highly, highly recommend this. Applications are open through March 31.  Do not hesitate. Just apply. Now.

via Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop – Improving Science Literacy through Words and Media.

When I’m cleaning up my stories, I go through and search for the word “looked” because I frequently use it as shorthand for generic body language.

For example, “The AI looked genuinely unhappy”

Okay… what specific piece of body language does my POV character recognize as looking genuinely unhappy? If I take a moment and picture the scene in my head, I can pick one element and describe that to create a more specific image. For instance, “The droop of the A.I.’s eyes drew a portrait of genuine unhappiness.”

Another example from a different story. “She looked away.”

Uh-huh… what exactly did she look at? “She pressed her face against the mattress and would have counted every fibre in the cotton ticking rather than face him.”

It’s way too easy to let the generic stuff slide because it isn’t actually broken but it also isn’t working as hard as it could.

First, let’s discuss short stories a bit. Short fiction is hard for me to review. Simply put, I don’t care too much for it.

Okay, he really does say that, but then! Then he goes on to say a whole bunch of nice things and wraps up with:

High-five, Mary. You made me like short stories again.

Whew.

So when Jason asked me if I’d be interested in being featured in a single author issue of Apex Online, I said yes without thinking twice. This month, Apex Online features two new stories from me and two stories that Jason sweetly calls “classics.” This makes me giggle.

So if you go over there, what will you get to read?

Novelette: The Bride Replete

When the matriarch announced that she was sending the sixteen members of Pimi’s small-family across the ocean to settle in Repp-Virja, Pimi thought it the end of her life. For though she had seen only seventeen full years, Pimi considered herself ready to fill her crop and begin the social rounds, seeking a mate. Her mother and the matriarch felt otherwise, though how they could expect her to find a mate in a strange, sideways land like the colonies was beyond Pimi’s understanding.

Short story: Beyond the Garden Close

Lena rocked back and forth, feet aching from standing so long, as if the metal floors were harder in the auditorium than anywhere else in the ship. The paper bib she wore rustled as she shifted. The waiting that the high-holy put the prospectives through made Lena nervous. Which was part of the point, of course, and Lena tried not to let her nerves show. There were nine prospectives this quarter, standing in a cluster. Lena knew the other women, but maintained the ship-standard illusion of privacy by ignoring them.

Short story: Scenting the Dark

Lifting the stopper from the vial to his nose, Penn inhaled slowly. Against the neutral backdrop of his ship’s cleanroom, he picked out aromas of quince, elderberry, and bright Martian soil that hinted of blood, with undercurrents of cinnamon and Zeta Epsilon’s fragrantly sweet longgrass. He sighed, blowing the scents out again. The perfume was still out of balance.

Short story:  Horizontal Rain

Maxwell Sanders pressed the phone closer to his ear as if that would somehow bring comprehension. “Did you say trolls?”

While you’re at Apex Online, do check out the other issues because they’ve got some great fiction there.

The biggest reason I hear from people who haven’t is that they just haven’t read much this year. I understand that. But here’s the thing, if you read anything that you really liked this year you should put that on your ballot. Maybe it won’t make the final ballot but maybe your nod will be the one vote needed to push it into the running. And if you’re the only one who votes for it? It will make that author’s day just to have the story listed on the tally.

So, participate. Please?

Online Ballot: http://www.sfwa.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=626

You must cast your nomination ballot by tonight, Feburary 15th, 23:59 PST.

To login, you’ll need Your Name, with spaces, as it appears in the SFWA Directory.

If you need your password you may reset it here:
http://www.sfwa.org/forum/ucp.php?mode=sendpassword

If you have any questions or need additional help please let me know. And if you have already participated, thank you. Now please, guilt one other person into doing it too.

I’m flying to Chattanooga on Saturday to help my folks out for a couple of weeks. I am, I think, going to try to teach my dad to cook.

I know.

But he’s clever and it’s just like mixing emulsion for silk screening, but not poisonous. Usually. We haven’t decided how long I’m going to stay yet, but I wanted to keep you up to date on which time zone I’m in.

Naturally, I said yes.

And then jumped up and down in the hotel room for a bit wishing I had someone to squee with.

Why can’t you pre-order my book on Amazon.com?

Because on Friday, amazon.com stopped carrying all the Macmillan books. My publisher, Tor is an imprint of Macmillan. You can still buy some through third parties on Amazon.com, but no new books, which means you won’t be able to buy Shades of Milk and Honey there.

How did this happen?

According to Macmillan CEO John Sargent:

This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e books under the agency model which will become effective in early March. In addition, I told them they could stay with their old terms of sale, but that this would involve extensive and deep windowing of titles. By the time I arrived back in New York late yesterday afternoon they informed me that they were taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon. The books will continue to be available on Amazon.com through third parties.

Basically, Macmillan wanted to be able to control their pricing of e-books and offer them in a dynamic price range from $14.99 to $5.99. Amazon wants to cap e-book prices at $9.99.

Now, Amazon is perfectly within their rights as a company to decide what they will and won’t stock.

I also have the right to decide where I send my website traffic, so I’m swapping out all the links to books to point at Powell’s Books, which is after all, my local independent book store. Meanwhile, I also changed my author bio on amazon.com to explain why you can’t buy my book there.

For fuller analysis of the situation, I recommend the following links:

Tobias’s Buckell’s “Why My Books Are No Longer Available on Amazon.com”

Charlie Stross’ “Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider’s guide to the fight”

Edited to add: You can pre-order Shades of Milk and Honey from Borders!

The teaser:

A Piece of Valiant Dust

Harloyd walked through Loveman’s department store, swinging his brass thurible from its chain. A fine dust of fern, stream-smoothed stone, willow bark and all the other little things that made up a chilling spell fell from the tiny holes in the cone and drifted to form patterns of cool in the air.

His dark blue uniform, with its double row of shiny brass buttons and neat brimmed cap, marked him as Loveman’s heating and cooling magicker. As he went, the patrons smiled gratefully at him for keeping the venerable building comfortable. Sure, lots of folks bought ready-made cooling powders for their homes, but the temperature always fluctuated as the dust settled out. Only Loveman’s had heating and cooling men working to keep an even temperature, so folks tended to come in to shop more than at other stores.

It had gotten so Harloyd couldn’t walk to catch the streetcar home from downtown Chattanooga without someone tipping their hat to him and saying, “Evening, Mr. Varnell.” Some days he felt like everybody in town knew him. His wife joked that he should go into politics.

His rounds took him onto the ladies’ floor, where gleaming cases of walnut and glass held the latest in jewelry and cosmetics. His wife, Addie, worked in the evening wear section helping the most notable society ladies find the right dress for whatever event they needed. She was with one of her regulars, young Miss Priest. Harloyd just tipped his head at the ladies and kept walking with his thurible. While it made him proud to see Addie working here, there was always that worry that her powder might wear off while she wasn’t paying attention. Loveman’s didn’t let the colored in. Not that Addie had more than a touch of the paintbrush, but there was no telling what they’d do to her. Him either, since mixed marriages were a illegal in Tennessee. For all that, the day she’d come into his life, looking for a spell to help her pass had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.

If your first pro-sale has appeared in print in 2008 or 2009, make sure you contact them to get included on the list of Campbell eligible authors.

One of the things I found interesting was that on “Some Other Day” he said that the first time he read it he focused on the mosquitos and that this time he focused on the love story. The difference? I’m fairly certain I didn’t add a word. But I rearranged them. In the draft Dad read, I started with what is now the second scene in the story. It was really hard to decide to move it because it has one of the best opening lines.

“The summer the mosquitoes died began as the best one in Josie Landon’s childhood.”

I hated losing that opening line, but as my Dad has noticed, it puts all the emphasis on the mosquitoes.  The published opening is “Josie Langdon leaned back from her microscope and rolled her neck to ease the kinks.”

While this opening line isn’t as attention grabbing, it sets the scene, tells you that she’s been at it a while and that she’s some sort of scientist. Two lines later I introduce the boy and this puts the emphasis on the love story by making it the first source of conflict I introduce.  All by flopping the first and second scenes.

This is an example of fixing the ending of a story by changing the beginning and I’d totally forgotten that I’d done that until Dad called today. Pretty cool, huh?

I’ve bolded my favorites. If the story title has a link, you can read the story online.

Short Story

The Conciousness Problem — Asimov’s, August 2009

At the Edge of Dying — Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

Jaiden’s Weaver – Diamonds in the Sky (February, 2009)

Ginger Stuyvesant and the Case of the Haunted Nursery — Talebones #38

Prayer at Dark River — Innsmouth Free Press

Novelette

First Flight — Tor.com

Body Language — Intergalactic Medicine Show #15

Scenting the Dark and Other Stories is notable, compared to other first books I’ve seen, for its brevity — only 8 short stories, some 80 pages. I rather think this is a wise choice — start with something of a taster, a sample. It’s not that she has used up all the good stuff either — for instance, neither of the stories I've reprinted is included here. The book does represent her style and concerns very well. It’s also representative temporally — a couple of her earliest stories are included, and a couple from 2009, including one new to this book. On the evidence of this book (and, I will add, her other work that I’ve seen) Kowal is a writer interested to a great extent in the characters behind her stories.

You can read the rest at The SF Site Featured Review: Scenting the Dark and Other Stories.  Needless to say, I am very, very pleased.

Tu Publishing is one that I’m excited about. Tu Publishing is a small, independent multicultural SFF press for children and YA and they are raising money for startup costs right now. I’ve had the opportunity to correspond with Stacy Whitman in my role as SFWA secretary and she’s sharp, knows the industry and is passionate about YA and SF.

The catch is that the fundraiser only has four more days to go and they only have 40% of their total.

Fantasy and science fiction, mystery and historical fiction–these genres draw in readers like no other. Yet it is in these genres that readers of color might feel most like an outsider, given that such a large percentage features white characters (when they feature human characters). It is the goal of Tu Publishing to publish genre books for children and young adults that fill this gap in the market–and more importantly, this gap in serving our readers. By focusing on multicultural settings and characters in fantastic stories, we also open up worlds to all readers.

Now, given my history with fundraisers, I want to let you know that Kickstarter rocks. It’s a very solid platform. I’ve talked to the developers and experimented with donations on the site. It’s beautifully done.

Please consider donating to get Tu Publishing off the ground.

August 3rd release date, 272 pages. Hardcover.

I went to the bookshelf and pulled down a Tor hardcover (Lamentation by Ken Scholes) and flipped to page 272 just to get a sense of how thick the book would be.  Persuasion, by Miss Austen, for the curious, is 288 with introductions.

Hey Mary–I know that this is primarily a blog about whatever happens to be going on in your life, and not about teaching writing, but could you possibly tell a little bit about what you mean by “emotional throughline”? I googled the phrase, both as three words and as two, and found lots of sites where people talk knowingly about emotional throughlines, but not a real good definition or a how-to.

“Throughline” is really an acting term that was coined by Constantin Stanislavski. The idea is that actors should know what their objective is in any scene as well as the line of thought which led from one objective to the next.

In acting you’ll sometimes hear people say that acting is reacting, meaning that no one ever does anything without a reason, this includes emotions. Even chemically induced paranoia comes with a perception of reasons for the paranoia.

If it were possible to chart a character’s emotions through the course of a story the emotional throughline would be the line that connected all the points. Characters go flat when they jump from one emotion to another without any intervening thoughts or reactions.

I’m not saying that you can’t go from happy to angry in a single scene, but something has to happen to cause that shift. That progression is the emotion throughline which propels a character through the story.

For those of you who don’t know, TAFF sends – in alternating years – a delegate(s) from North America to Europe or from Europe to N. America, to attend a science fiction convention. The point of the auction is to raise funds to make this possible. The folks running for TAFF this year are the team of (1) Anne KG Murphy and her fiance Brian Gray and (2), Frank Wu.

Frank says:

I have posted to eBay several Tuckerization auctions (in which you get to bid on the naming rights of a minor character in a novel or story by a famous author!). The auctions for Tuckerizations from Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross, Nalo Hopkinson, David Brin, Elizabeth Bear, Julie Czerneda and Mary Robinette Kowal are up!

We also have auctions for first editions of Orwell’s “1984″ and John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”.

In addition, Chris Garcia’s fanzine The Drink Tank, issue 231, has been posted with articles by Anne KG Murphy + Brian Gray, and by Frank about our TAFF campaigns. Anne and Brian’s article serves as a good introduction about them to everyone!

And, of course, don’t forget to actually vote for TAFF!

So go on, bid on me.

In America, nothing matches the archetype of “Feast” like the Thanksgiving dinner, which conjures images of tables groaning with food. But all that bounty comes with a price: leftovers. Sure, with that first turkey sandwich you're living the good life. But how long before the dread sets in? More cranberry sauce? Another helping of sweet potatoes? Soon you start to fantasize about all new meals. And what better way to do that than with fantasy, which offers bounties both fantastic and filling. Herewith, my top ten leftover alternatives.

via AMC – Blogs – SciFi Scanner – Ten Fantasy Meals I Would Rather Eat Than Thanksgiving Leftovers.

Orycon starts tomorrow, which I’m very much looking forward to. Here is my schedule and I hope to see some of you there.

What? You don’t think I’m spoiling the surprise that our folks are getting copies do you?  I’d be killed if I didn’t give them one.

The other cool thing is… well, collection includes an introduction by John Scalzi, which I knew, but today is the first time I read it.  Somehow I didn’t realize that it was on the order page for Scenting the Dark, you have to scroll down to see it.  Scalzi makes me weepy and blush all at the same time.  He says some very, very kind things.

My story “Body Language” is now up at OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show with an awesome cover illustration which you must now appreciate in all its glory.

And here’s a teaser of the story.

Saskia leaned into the darkness above the stage, only vaguely aware of the wood rail against her hips as she retied the left headstring on her marionette. On the stage below, the Snow Queen’s head eased into balance. The marionette telegraphed its stance back up the strings to the control in Saskia’s hands. She ran the Snow Queen across the set to check the repair, barely conscious of her own body on the bridge above the stage. It was almost like being immersed in a VR suit.

One of the techies called up. “Hey, Saskia? There’s a detective here for you.”

IGMS does charge $2.50 for access to the full issue, but that gets you a lot of fiction.

One of my classmates, David D. Levine, just sent me an animation of how the Earth would look if it had rings.

In the evening we joined the SF in SF group at Henry’s Hunan for dinner. It was like KGB in reverse in that Chinese food preceded the meal. Seeing Cheryl Morgan, Jeff Vandermeer, Jacob Weisman and the rest of the gang was a lot of fun.

Then I was off to Writers with Drinks in the Mission. Oh, my goodness. What. Fun. Charlie Jane Anders absolutely rocks as a hostess and M.C. I very much enjoyed hearing the other readers. In fact, they were so good that I got nervous about my fiction and offered the audience a choice. 1 story, 2 very short stories, or 1 very short story and a puppetry demo.

They chose option 3, so after I finished reading “Death Comes but Twice,” I pulled off my boot and used it as a puppet to demo the 4 principles of puppetry. So, you may imagine my delight when Chris Hsiang, gave me this dollar bill as I walked off the stage.

Rob and I had a relaxed day in SF and are now in San Jose where I will be teaching for the next couple of days.

I’m in San Fransisco with Rob!

Why? Well, I’m reading at Writers with Drinks tomorrow night.

And our anniversary is on Tuesday, so we’re doing a little vacation here. Whee!

Come to Writers with Drinks and say hello!

Also reading:
Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman TV series)
Kat Richardson (Greywalker)
Naomi Quiñonez (Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry)
S. Bear Bergman (Butch Is A Noun)

All proceeds benefit EL/LA Program Para Trans Latinas.
At The Make-Out Room 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

The system is new and I have to be able to oversee the volunteer team without introducing a conflict of interest.

The teaser:

Beyond the Garden Close

Lena rocked back and forth, feet aching from standing so long, as if the metal floors were harder in the auditorium than anywhere else in the ship. The paper bib she wore rustled as she shifted. The waiting that the high-holy put the prospectives through made Lena nervous. Which was part of the point, of course and Lena tried not to let her nerves show. There were nine prospectives this quarter, standing in a cluster. Lena knew the other women, of course, but maintained the ship-standard illusion of privacy by ignoring them.

She wouldn’t be among the prospective child-bearer if Phoebe hadn’t wanted a babe so much.

All long-limbs and soft curves, Phoebe had the grace of a goddess, but she’d never be granted child-rights. She had the taint of celiac disease as a hand-me-down from some grand or other and that throwback meant her stock had to be culled from the tree. Even if she made it through the trials today, the high holies would never let her bear a child.

But Lena, now. Lena would pass for sure and certain, only problem was she didn’t want a child.

Dear Lord in Heaven, O Merciful Father.

Always I have turned to You in prayer when frightened and my first instinct tonight was to kneel upon these old flagstones and beseech you for guidance. My other choice would be to commune with Professor Webb as we wait to see if his sorcery has had effect. Should I pray the American sorcerer has succeeded, so that Guðrun is safe, or should I pray that he fails?

Read all of Prayer at Dark River.

There are a lot of things that pull folks to science fiction, but probably the biggest draw comes because it makes impossible things seem possible. Who wouldn’t want to travel to distant stars or back in time? Aren’t there times when being invisible would be handy? Given a choice, I’d teleport instead of mucking about with the average commute.

But the interesting thing about some of the best science fiction is that the science in it doesn’t stay fiction for long. Remember Jules Verne and the Nautilus or the communicators on Star Trek? These fictional devices are part of our everyday world because science doesn’t stand still. It makes you wonder which of today’s science fiction tropes are tomorrow’s reality.

You can read the entire article at Asimov’s Thought Experiments.

Confused? He was driving back tonight from California, after driving there yesterday to drop off grapes.  He thought he’d make it back by 12:30ish tonight but also thought he might stop and sleep instead. So, I’m waiting up to see if he calls to tell me he’s pulled over for the night.

Meanwhile, to pass the time, I’ve completed a short story, made a peach and apple cobbler, and made vanilla ice cream.  I believe the first two are successful. The third is a little… crunchy.  If I think of it as snow cream then it’s fine.  Note: lowfat milk doesn’t cut it for icecream.

On the other hand, the cobbler really wanted it and… this will tell you a lot about me. I was too lazy to walk back to the store to buy ice cream.  It’s okay. I see the crazy there.

Did I mention I finished a short story?

Edited to add: 12:45. He is home safely. Night all!

Through the magic of Skype, I spent two days reading the rest of Glamour in Glass to the folks back in the Puppet Kitchen. I’d gotten into the habit of reading stories to them when I was finished and they had been listening to me read the novel as I worked my way through it. This makes me happy that 3000 miles will not keep me from using them as a sounding board for fiction. It makes me feel like I’m still sort of there.

The rest of the week was spent trying to tempt Laurel Amberdine and her husband to move to Portland. Now, other people might regard having houseguests a week after moving in to an apartment as a crazy idea, but having company actually helps me feel more grounded. I think it’s a nesting thing.

That helps significantly since I’ll spend the rest of this week being a wine widow, while Rob is off on another trip to California. Thank heavens I’ve got some short fiction to work on. Might be time to call the Puppet Kitchen again…

Since “Prayer at Dark River” is flash fiction, I’m only going to offer you a small teaser.

Dear Lord in Heaven, O Merciful Father.

Always I have turned to You in prayer when frightened and my first instinct tonight was to kneel upon these old flagstones and beseech you for guidance. My other choice would be to commune with Professor Webb as we wait to see if his sorcery has had effect. Should I pray the American sorcerer has succeeded, so that Guðrun is safe, or should I pray that he fails?

The story will come out the first week of October in the 2nd issue.

Today, I take a look at some common tropes of Science Fantasy films.  These are ideas that filmmakers use when they want to slide a little bit of magic into their films but pretend that they are still science based.

You can read it at AMC’s SciFi Scanner.

At the moment, I am amused because the very first comment was “Malarkey.”  I think someone is sad because I took his ray gun away.

He explains the process as he goes.

In the corner of his vision, the door to his room snicked open. Sly let the wheel spin to a halt, crumpling the latest vase.

In the corner of his visioun, the chamber dore openyde. Sly letteth the axeltre turn to an ende, foldynge the latteste vesselle. (Mary’s vocabulary is strikingly old; that is to say, she uses fewer post-medieval words than most of us do. That said, “spin” as a verb in the 14th century really only applied to spinning wool, “crumpling” is 16th-century word, and “vase” didn’t make it into our language until the 17th.)

And then he recorded it. So, if it weren’t cool enough, you can listen to my story as it might have been if Chaucer had written it. Or at least, if we’d been in the same writing group…

Go listen to “Yvele Metal Ape!” It’s pretty darn cool and one of the best housewarming presents I’ve ever received.

1. This is the first story I wrote after attending OSC’s Literary Boot Camp and was one of the hardest things I’ve written because I was so painfully conscious of process.  Ever word that hit the page marked a deliberate effort to use the new tools I’d been given.
2. This is the first story I wrote to a specific market. I wanted to sell it to IGMS.  You’ll note that I wrote it four years ago.  That’s because it was rejected the first time around, but I was offered a chance to rewrite it and resubmit.  It took years for me to do that.
3. This is the only story I have written where the main character is a puppeteer.

So when Edmund Schubert, the editor, called me to tell me that he wanted to buy it, refraining from shrieking with delight was very difficult.

Here’s a teaser of “Body Language.”

Saskia leaned into the darkness above the stage, only vaguely aware of the wood rail against her hips as she retied the left headstring on her marionette. On the stage below, the Snow Queen’s head eased into balance. The marionette telegraphed its stance back up the strings to the control in Saskia’s hands. She ran the Snow Queen across the set to check the repair, barely conscious of her own body on the bridge above the stage. It was almost like being immersed in a VR suit.

One of the techies called up. “Hey, Saskia? There’s a detective here for you.”

Why is it cool that she looks like my grandmother?  Because she’s based on Grandma, even if the name isn’t the same. My grandmother, is still alive, well, and sharp as anything. She was born in 1905.

I got the story idea because we were sitting around talking about things she had seen and it is staggering.  She remembers World War I, for crying out loud, and the Titanic.  Anyway, when she turned 100, she said, “I figure the Good Lord put everyone on this earth for a reason. I just haven’t done my yet, so I better get busy.”

To celebrate, I’d like to share these recipe cards with you.  I made them for Grandma’s 101st birthday and they are some of my favorite things she makes.

Here’s a teaser of First Flight.

Eleanor Louise Jackson stood inside the plain steel box of the time machine. It was about the size of an outhouse, but without a bench or windows. She clutched her cane with one hand and her handbag with the other. It felt like the scan was taking far too long, but she was fairly certain that was her nerves talking.

Her corset made her ribs creak with every breath. She’d expected to hate wearing the thing, but there was a certain comfort from having something to support her back and give her a shape more like a woman than a sack of potatoes.

A gust of air puffed around her and the steel box was gone. She stood in a patch of tall grass under an October morning sky. The caravan of scientists, technicians and reporters had vanished from the field where they’d set up camp. Louise inhaled with wonder that the time machine had worked. Assuming that this was 1905, of course—the year of her birth and the bottom limit to her time-traveling range. Even with all the preparations for this trip, it baffled her sense of the order of things to be standing there.

So, go on, read about my Grandma.

Okay. Here it is. My first The Other Lands giveaway. There may be more to come, but this one is purely from my own stash. I’m offering one of the three advanced copies of The The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2) that I received from Doubleday, and I’m tossing in a shot at the mass market paperback of the UK edition of Acacia: The War with the Mein. This is them:

You can enter for them separately, and you can enter up to two times. But I’m going to make you work a little bit.

The fun, and also hard part, was to write the explanation of how the glamour worked in such a way as to make it logical within the structure of the world.  I really want the readers to be able to follow way things are done so that the progression of new glamours makes sense.  The tricky thing is that this means that I have to really, really know the deep structure of the whole system.

For instance, it’s an almost entirely illusionary form of magic, but as you’ll see in this first bit of Chapter 6, which is spoiler free, I do allow heating and cooling.

The school that Chastain operated was beyond Jane’s imagining in scale and concept. Seven young men and two young ladies studied with him learning far more than the basic elements of glamour which the young ladies of England were required to know as part of the womanly arts. Aspects of glamour such as the principal of temperature displacement, which Jane had struggled to acquire through books and experimentation, these fortunate few were learning the way another student might learn the catechism, as if it were a simple, solved and knowable problem.

The tricky thing about allowing heating and cooling is that it could open up a can of worms. If it were an easy thing, fire would never have been invented as anything but a natural phenomenon.  Yeah.  That would have changed the entire world.  No fire, means no ready access to charcoal. Means no matches. Means… you get the idea.

I didn’t want to shift the world of the story that far from our world so I needed to put some serious constraints on what the glamour can do.  Heat and cool, yes. But it takes an enormous amount of energy, which means they can only shift temperature a few degrees, and needs to be managed constantly.  This is consistent with both the real world and the magic world.

How?

• It takes less energy to produce light than it does to start a fire, here, so there’s it makes sense that the same would be true with glamour.
• In the real world, a thermostat adjusts a furnace or a.c. to maintain a constant temperature in a room, so it’s reasonable to think that you would need to constantly adjust the folds of glamour to keep the temperature level.
• In the world of glamour I set up that visual glamours become frayed and faded over time.  In the real world, heat is hard on materials, so extrapolating that the folds for heat would degrade faster than visual ones makes sense to me.

But really, all I’m doing is looking at the effect I need and then working backwards to make sure that the foundation under it is supporting that goal.  Most of it is still just smoke and mirrors, like any magic.

I always welcome readers as I’m working, so if you’d like to offer comments as I go along, drop me a line and I’ll give you the password.

From the door of the main house, a woman called, “[Enthusiastic greeting in French. Along the lines of “Hello! I'm so pleased you are here. Bruno do not keep them waiting out in the cold."]”

Le sigh…

Fortunately, Campbell-nominated author Aliette de Bodard, has very kindly agreed to translate those swatches for me. Meanwhile, I’m using Google’s translator to drop phrases in so I get a feel for what it is like to have big chunks of non-English text. The interesting thing about writing in the Regency is that period books would have large stretches of French, but they would expect the audience to be able to read it. Here, I have to expect that my audience won’t have a clue.

If you’d like to read along as I’m writing, contact me and ask for the password. It’s helpful for me to hear how it’s striking people.

Hanging in the bar with Jay Lake, Paul Cornell, Shannon Page and Doselle Young.

The panel on the Campbell Award with Cory Doctorow, Wen Spencer, Elizabeth Bear and John Scalzi, with two of the nominees in the audience (Felix Gilman and Tony Pi.) In which I learned a lot of interesting things about the history of the Campbell.

Participating in Joe Mahoney’s radio adaptation fo “The Cold Equation,” with a great cast, none of whose names I’ve got with me. (Sorry guys!)

I had a manicure/pedicure and massage today, which was lovely. 

I’ve just returned from dropping off the Campbell tiara with the Hugo committee and am getting ready to go to the Hugo ceremony.  I have a pretty, pretty dress.

I ‘ve got several stories up there and they are doing this cool promotional.  All through WorldCon, writers from Anthology Builder will be giving out pins, like this one.  But that’s not the best part.

AnthologyBuilder representatives will be giving out gift certificates and free anthologies to anyone sighted wearing an AnthologyBuilder badge.

How do you get one? Ask me about living on a planet with rings.

I’ve pulled all the test posts off the website, so they aren’t cluttering my site or LJ friend pages.  But, by request, have assembled all of the fiction into a single post.  It does, by the way, stop abruptly.  Sorry about that. I’m planning on finishing it, but after the novel is done.

Untitled Werewolf Story

The bottle of blood lay on its side on the hardwood floor, nearly empty. Two splotches stained the wood next to it in the pattern of human toes. When Kuang-yu knelt to touch it, the blood was still sticky and bright red. This close, she could spot the fine gray hairs trapped in the blood. She nudged the bottle so it rolled to reveal the white label, stained with red fingerprints. “Paramount Stage Blood.”

That would be reassuring, except the blood on the floor was real and still relatively fresh.

Kuang-yu sighed and wiped the blood off on her jeans before she turned to the man hovering in the doorway. “My best guess is werewolf.”

Evan wrinkled his nose, freckles standing out like a spatter of blood. “I don’t smell anything except lilacs.”

“Maybe he’s exceptionally clean, for a werewolf.” She stood, knees popping. “Doesn’t like that doggy scent.”

Evan stuck his tongue out, revealing sharp canines. “That is racist.”

“Can’t be racist if it’s caused a disease.” Kuang-yu checked her nails to be sure they were clear of blood, before tucking a strand of her dyed pink hair behind her ear. “Are you going to track him or not?”

“Her.” Evan leaned back and looked down the hall. “The werewolf is a her. And my dad was a werewolf, and so was his dad.”

“Please don’t tell me she’s at the end of the hall.” Kuang-yu reached for her pepper-spray, which beat holy water to high-hell.

Evan shook his head and walked down the hall to the front door. “We missed some blood on the back of the front door.”

Kuang-yu stuck her head out of the room, unwilling to let go of the pepper-spray just in case Evan was wrong about the werewolf. On the back of the door, in dried blood, was the smudged print of a woman’s shoulder and breast, as if she’d been slammed against the door. That wasn’t what disturbed Kuang-yu, though. The cross drawn in ash above it, that was a problem.

With his back to her, Kuang-you could see the hackles on the back of Evan’s neck standing straight out from his body like orange needles.

“Hey.” Kuang-yu kept her voice low and resisted the urge to touch Evan. “We need to call this in.” The moment they found the blood, it had become more than a missing person case. The ash cross, that spun it into a whole different camp altogether.

Without answering her, Evan pulled out his phone and dialed the number to the local precinct from memory. In terse tones, he described the situation as they had found it and dealt with the hard part of explaining why they were in the apartment in the first place. It didn’t matter that they were authorized — if they weren’t extremely careful, just being Feds could seriously tick police off and that sort of territorial display didn’t do anyone any good, least of all the missing girl they were here to find.

While Evan dealt with the locals, Kuang-yu went back to the blood in the small room off the hall, wondering why the hair in it was gray. Commonly, werewolves’ hair in their human form was the same color as in their wolf form, which meant that they were probably looking for someone with gray hair and hence older.

She was still kneeling by it, drumming her fingers on the floor in thought when Evan got off the phone. “They said they’ll be here in five, which means we have half an hour.”

Looking up at him, she said, “Okay, why did you think the werewolf was female? Hair here is gray and the… body print looks young, which is consistent with the ash cross. So… why a she?”

Evan shrugged. “Lilac. It’s not a scent a guy would wear.”

“Sexist” She stood and backed away from the blood. “Can you get a scent off this?”

Crouching, Evan went to all fours and put his nose almost in the blood, nostrils flaring like a wine connoisseur. Whenever she saw him in human form, but in a canine posture, Kuang-yu always had to surpress a shiver at the uncanny valley people like Evan embodied. Ironic, that the understanding which had led to a cure for the disease, also let people with lycanthropy stand up and claim it as a sub-culture. How different, they asked, was being a werewolf from the community of the hearing-impaired?

“I smell stress.” Evan snorted and inhaled again. “High volume of adrenalin, plus overtones of lactic acid, and definitely estrogen.”

“Same as the door?” Not for the first time, Kuang-yu envied his sense of smell but not enough to accept the side effects that came with it.

“Hard to say, it’s a thinner layer so it’s dried already. Mostly I just got the ash scent down there. Sage. Saw smudging by the windows in the living room, too.” He pushed himself upright.

]]> http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/the-werewolf-test-posts/feed/ 3 http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/learning-to-be-specific-with-culture/ http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/learning-to-be-specific-with-culture/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:31:58 +0000 Mary Robinette Kowal http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/?p=5579 One of the links that I posted as something to consider was A Mist of Vague Cliches by K. Tempest Bradford. Now, Tempest and I were in a writing group together and the generic European setting was one of her pet peeves. So, when I started work on this story “On the Edge of Dying” I set it in fictionalized version of Croatia. Did the research on castles and everything.

To my surprise, it still got the “generic European” complaint. Here’s the first segment of it.

Cojko peeked over the edge of the parapet at their retreating soldiers. The last tattered riders galloped toward the drawbridge showing every signs of panicked retreat in front of the advancing Gennardians.

And the Gennardians, fools that they were, believed what they saw and chased the soldiers toward him.

At the time, I grumbled that it wasn’t generic, it was Croatia, darn it.  Look! They have Croatian based names!

And then I got this rejection note:

It’s fast paced, exciting, and splendidly written. I was also very intrigued by the unusual aspect of your magic system.

However, it’s not as original in character or setting…

After much more grumbling I sat down and really looked at it. Even though I had carefully set it in a fictionalized Croatia, the fact is that the markers weren’t significantly different than if I’d set it in Italy or the south of France. Since so many fantasies are set in Western Europe and borrow liberally from the range of cultures it’s really hard to set a story in Western Europe without it seeming familiar.

So, I took the story apart and moved it to a fictionalized Hawaii. Here’s that opening again.

Kahe peeked over the edge of the earthen trench as his tribe’s retreating warriors broke from the bamboo grove onto the lava field. The tribesmen showed every sign of panicked flight in front of the advancing Ouvallese. Spears and shields dropped to the ground as they tucked in their arms and ran.

And the Ouvallese, arrogant with their exotic horses and metal armor, believed what they saw and chased the warriors toward him.

Different look and feel, yes? But here’s the thing that’s important. If I had just moved it to Hawaii and painted all my Croatians brown, this story would have failed. When you change one thing, everything else changes. I had to go through line by line and change how my characters responded to things because they were looking at things with a different lens than they would have in Europe.

When working in puppetry, we talk about defining parameters and the design of the characters is one of the biggest.  I was trained to think about why a particular character looks a particular way.   Honestly, until this story, I had not applied that thinking process to the casts in my fiction.

How does that casting choice support the story?  It wasn’t enough for me to  just pick the setting because it was more exotic.  I had to think about why. What about moving it to Hawaii would allow me tell the story I wanted to tell.  What about the story meant it had to be there?

Okay. Hawaii is an island nation and it got over-run by colonialists with superior technology,( oh, and disease.)  With that in mind, I made the decision to keep the enemies European-based and put more emphasis on the invasion aspect. This immediately changed the tension in the story, changing it from being one in which there was a generic war, to one that deals with colonialism.

Here’s a scene from the original, followed by the one I sold to Clockwork Phoenix.

Never had Cojko attended a high council meeting without wanting to chew through the table. Today was no exception.

Lord Zinad examined his fingernails. “We are sorry to hear of your wife’s illness, but I fail to see how this changes any of our strategies.”

“It changes everything! Mivaza will be stronger than me in a matter of days, what’s more, she can cast spells at a moment’s notice.” Because she was dying. Cojko pushed that out of his head. “We can take the battle right to Gennard and win back Heja’s City.”

“I’ll admit it’s tempting.” At the head of the table, King Pavaran tipped his chair back on two legs. “But we have troops in place already for the plans that we have. Letting them know about a change at this date is a logistical nightmare.”

Cojko opened his mouth to protest but the king raised a hand to stop him.

“I know. But–and forgive me for asking this–what happens if your wife is wrong about how long she has to live? What happens if we extend ourselves to attack Gennard and are cut off because she…she dies early?”

Cojko did not look away. “She will not. Heja would not change her mind like that. This war could be over in two weeks, if you will just let us ride for the border. We only need a small band, nothing that would divert troops from where they already are.”

“Well,” Lord Zinad shifted some parchment on the table in front of him, “you’ve convinced me that this merits more discussion and research. Shall we table it for the moment until we can talk to our generals?”

Cojko slammed his hand down on the table. “Eighteen days. She has eighteen days. We don’t have time to table it.”

With a crack, Pavaran brought his chair upright. “Cojko. You’ve made your case. This isn’t the only matter we have to discuss.”

Trembling, Cojko pushed his chair back and stood. “By your leave, your majesty. I would like to spend time with my wife. Who is dying.” Would these fools understand nothing?

Pavaran sighed. “Go. I’ll talk to you this evening.”

Cojko went.

And now the same scene from the final version.  What I think you’ll notice is that some of the dialogue remains verbatim, as does the basic structure of the scene, but the character reactions changed almost completely.

King Enahu’s great house, despite the broad windows opening onto a terraced lanai, felt close and stifling with the narrow thoughts of the other kings who had gathered to meet with him. Kahe’s knees ached from kneeling on the floor behind Enahu.

King Waitipi played with the lei of ti leaves around his neck, pulling the leaves through his fat hands in a fragrant rattle. “We are sorry to hear of your wife’s illness, but I fail to see how this changes any of our strategies.”

Kahe bent his head before answering. “With respect, your majesty, it changes everything. Mehahui will be stronger than me in a matter of days. What’s more, she can cast spells at a moment’s notice. We can take the battle right to the Ouvallese ships and handle anything that they cast at us.”

“I’ll admit it’s tempting to retake Hia’au.” The bright yellow feathers of King Enahu’s cloak fluttered in the breeze. Across his knees lay the long spear he used in battle as a reminder of his strength.

King Haleko said, “I, for one, do not want to subject our troops to another massacre like Keonika Valley.”

“I understand your concern, your majesty. But the Ouvallese only have one full sorcerer from their alliance with the South Shore tribe. With Mehahui’s power added to mine, we can best them.”

“Of course I do not doubt your assessment of your wife’s power”  - King Waitipi plucked at a ti leaf, shredding it  - “but it seems to me that the South Shore tribe is making out much the best in this. Should we not reconsider our position?”

So many kings, so few rulers.

King Ehanu scowled. “Reconsider? The Ouvallese offered to let us rule over a portion of our land. A portion. As if they have the right to take whatever they wish. I will not subject my people to rule by outlanders.”

“Nor I.” King Haleko nodded, gray hair swaying around his head. “But this does raise some interesting possibilities.” King Haleko’s words raised hope for a moment. “Would the infirm in our hospices offer more sorcerers?”

“You would find power without knowledge. Hia’s gift only comes to those who study and are willing to make the sacrifice of themselves.”

“But your wife–”

“My wife….” Kahe had to stop to keep from drowning in his longing for her.

In the void, King Enahu spoke, “The lady Mehahui has studied at Kahe’s side all the years they have been in our service.”

Kahe begged his king, “This war could be over in two weeks, if you let us go to the South harbor. It would not divert troops; only a small band need come with us. No more than ten to protect us until we reach the South Harbor where the Ouvallese are moored. We could wipe them out in a matter of minutes.” And then, though he would not say it outloud, he could take Mehahui to the Hia’ua and pray that one of the dying in the goddess’s city would heal her.

King Enahu scowled. “Pikeo’s Hawk! You’re asking me to bet my kingdom that your wife is right about how long she has to live. What happens if we extend ourselves to attack and are cut off because she dies early? Everything is already in place to stop Ouvalle’s incursions into King Waitipi’s land. I need you there, not at the South Shore.”

“Well.” King Waitipi let the lei fall from his hand. “You’ve convinced me this merits more discussion and thought. Let us consider it more at the next meeting.”

Kahe slammed his fists on the floor in front of him, sending a puff of dust into the air. “Eighteen days. She has eighteen days. We don’t have time to wait.”

The men in the great hall tensed. Kings, all of them, and disrespect could mean a death sentence.

Half-turning, Enahu let his hands rest on the spear across his knees. “Kahe. You are here on my sufferance. Do not forget yourself.”

Trembling, Kahe bit his tongue and took a shallow breath. He bowed his head low until it rested on the floor. “Forgive me, your highness.”

King Waitipi giggled like a girl. “You are no doubt distraught because of your wife’s condition. I remind you that she will find grace with Hia no matter the outcome of our meetings.”

Kahe knew that better than any king could.

But to wait until they made up their mind was worse than trusting Mehahui’s life to the hands of Hia’s brother god, Pikeo — luck had never been his friend.

If they did not decide fast enough, he would take Mehahui and go to the goddess’s city without waiting for leave. He tasted the chalky dust as he knelt with his forehead pressed against from the floor. Leaving his king would mean abandoning his tribe in the war.

Surely Hia could not ask for a higher sacrifice. Surely she would spare Mehahui for that.

What I wound up with, I think, is a deeper and richer story that has more power to it than when I picked Croatia.  You know why? Not because Croatia isn’t as interesting as Hawaii but because I only laid that culture on skin deep.  I picked Croatia because, for Europe, it was exotic.  But there was nothing about it that was essential to the story I wanted to tell.  And you can tell that because I could swap all the names to German or English and it wouldn’t break.

Now? If I tried to move this out of the setting, the whole thing would fall apart because I finally got that the culture has to be integral to the story.

In the constant learning process that is writing, I’m now trying to make conscious choices about my characters cultural backgrounds so that those choices support the story I want to tell.  Deciding that I want to add diversity to my casts isn’t enough if that culture doesn’t get reflected in the story and if that choice isn’t there for a reason.

I can understand this choice, because I’ve done it myself and for the same reasons.  But this isn’t as simple as it sounds.

It’s pretty well recognized that in the absence of other information, readers will default to assume a character is white, male and mid-thirties. When I pointed this out to my fellow writer, from my soapbox position of the newly enlightened, he said, “That’s the reader’s problem, not the writers.”

Now, let me ask you… Can you describe any other misinterpretation of a story, due to a missing detail, where that would be a good answer?

I can’t.

There’s two things going on here, 1) by only describing my characters when they aren’t white, or aren’t tall, or aren’t medium-build, I wind up reinforcing the idea that these are  the norm and everyone else is other, 2) because of the way reader perception works, I wind up creating more homogenous casts than I’d like. In other words, I’m being a sloppy writer.

My problem is that I don’t like reading a lot of character descriptions, so I have some serious resistance to recognizing the effects of my choice as a writer to not describe characters.  Granted, in certain short stories, slowing down to provide physical descriptions will mess with the pace, but as with any detail, what I ought to understand the consequences of what I chose to put on the page.  And, as importantly, the details I leave off the page.

I’m still trying to find a balance with this and can offer no answers.  Fortunately, there are people who have been thinking about this and have intelligent things to say.

Recommended reading: On Writing Identity, and the Need Therof

When writing a historical novel there’s a lot of time spent researching the odd bits of details. I tend to write things like, “He declined the opportunity to accompany her saying that he wanted to paint [bridge] and catch the morning light.” Later, I go back, search for the brackets and do spot research to fill in the gaps. In this case, it’s the Battersea Bridge.

Sometimes the detail is a word like “limelight.” If I have doubt, and I did, that the word is in use in 1815, I mark it with brackets rather than stopping the flow of writing. Later, I check the etymology to see if I can use it.

I can’t. Limelights don’t get invented until 1826.

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I’m heading up to Montreal for Anticipation, the 2009 WorldCon. Here is my convention schedule.

Thursday

Twitter, Facebook, My Space: Social Media and Writing
14:00, P-513B
What’s all the buzz about the new social media? Writing short-short-short stories on Twitter??? Good grief! Is this networking or a new way to write? Can tweets and Facebook updates be about more than what you ate?
James Strauss, Jenny Rae Rappaport, Mary Robinette Kowal, Walter Jon Williams, John Picacio

Friday

The Campbell Awards (Not a Hugo, Honest!)
17:00, P-511A
Jay Lake and other previous winners explain why you should read and vote.
Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Wen Spencer

Saturday

SF and the Arts
10:00, P-524A
There is a wide variety of art in the genre that has nothing to do with paper or a computer….
Elaine Isaak, Frank Roger, Leigh Adams, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stephen H. Segal, Jill Eastlake

13:00, D-Vitre
Writing Workshop S
Critique session for previously submitted manuscripts
Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal

15:30, P-513C
Puppetry Demonstration
Beginning with an overview of puppetry, we’ll talk about how it relates to SF. I’m planning on bringing some rehearsal puppets to let people try.

19:00, P-513B
Radio Theater – “The Cold Equations”
Two-time Aurora nominee Joe Mahoney directs a reading of his sf audio adaptation originally broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.”
Joe Mahoney, Mary Robinette Kowal

Sunday

9:00, Outdoors
Stroll With The Stars
A gentle, friendly 1 mile stroll with some of your favorite Authors, Artists & Editors. Leaving daily 9AM, from the Riopelle Fountain outside the Palais (corner of Ave Viger & Rue de Bleury), returning before 10AM.
Farah Mendlesohn, Lou Anders, Mary Robinette Kowal, Paul Cornell, Stu Segal, John Picacio, Felix Gilman

11:00, P-522A
Author Reading
Readings by me, Tony Pi, Daniel Duguay and Frank Roger. I’m planning to read “Evil Robot Monkey” and either something from Shades of Milk and Honey or Scenting the Dark. There are advantages to having a story that’s only 970 words long.

20:00, Location: P-517ABC
Hugo Awards
No description needed. I’ll have a pretty dress.

<h3>Monday</h3>

10:00, P-513C
Characterization Workshop for Costumers
Good costumes are better costumes when they have a character behind them. Use characterization to bring your costuming to the next level. Give your original design a backstory and personality. Our panel will discuss ideas and show you how.
Mary Robinette Kowal, Toni Lay

11:00, P-521A
Kaffeeklatsch
A chance to ask those burning questions.