Letters to an Android Cover Preview!

I finally finished the cover design for my new novel Letters to an Android. I'm so excited. Della Van Hise helped me a TON on this project, and taught me how to do covers, formatting and uploads to CreateSpace, Amazon, etc. It will soon be out from our publishing company, Eye Scry.

A lot of work has gone into this project in its final stages, not to mention the five months it took me to write it in between traveling for my retail business and other interruptions.

After I get my "proof" copy and approve it, the book will be available and I'll announce it here.

My Guest Jenny Blackford Answers Four Writing Questions

I recently became part of a blog tour, answering four writerly questions, as a guest of Kelly Dunn. My friend Christina Pilz was my guest last week and I decided to continue the trend of guesting writers on my blog.

Jenny Blackford is my next guest. It's is really serendipitous that we recently connected, because she had already just participated in a blog-hop tour with a bunch of Australian writers answering the same exact four questions. I offered to post her answers here, and she loved the idea.

I had, earlier this year, read Jenny's wonderful short novel The Priestess and the Slave and kept meaning to review it on Amazon. (My review is now up. I highly recommend this book.)

Then I saw her announcement on the Strange Horizons group that the book had just come out in audio, and it reminded me all over again how much I enjoyed the book and that I needed to do a review. I don't know what made me look for Jenny's blog and website, but when I did I realized I had read her wonderful poetry before, one of which was quite memorable from an issue of Pedestal Magazine, "Their Cold Eyes Pierced My Skin." Click on that title and it will take you straight to the poem!

So now, here are Jenny's answers. Enjoy!

Jenny Blackford

What are you working on at the moment?
As usual, I'm working on a poem – this one based on a trip to the hairdresser last week. More about that later in the post...

I'm also putting the finishing touches on a review of Leigh Kennedy's short story collection Wind Angels, which I've owed to New York Review of Science Fiction for several years now. It's a delightful book, and I'm feeling guilty that the review has taken so long.

I'm helping to organise the Annual General Meeting of the Newcastle Writers Festival; I'm Secretary of the Committee, so it involves me in quite a bit of administration. I'm also thinking about some exciting panel topics for the festival next year – 20-22 March 2015 in sunny Newcastle. Next year's will be the third NWF, and it will be the best one ever!

And I'm excited about the new audiobook of my subversively-feminist historical novella The Priestess and the Slave (HRB, 2009), which (I'm honoured to say) Pamela Sargent called “elegant.” I have a few promo codes for free copies (!) to give away in exchange for an honest review (on Goodreads or elsewhere.) It's expertly narrated by the crisp, delicate voice of Hollie Jackson. Please email me if you're interested – jennyblackford [at] bigpond [dot] com.

How do you think your work differs from that of other writers in your genre?
My work has always been odd, and quirky. I'm interested in too many things. Since I was tiny, I wanted to study Greek and Latin, though I ended up as a computer networking specialist before I gave up my day job in 2001. But I'd happily have become an astronomer, or a marine biologist, or an anthropologist, or a landscape gardener, or a food historian.

The things I find fascinating are pretty wide-spread: stars and comets, the strangeness of the world through mirrors, peculiar byways of the human genome, the Aegean Bronze Age, waste disposal in Periclean Athens, sea anemones, the way the sea sloshes in and out over sand and rock, growing things that flower and fruit (or that just have gorgeous leaves, or excellent gnarled bark), knitting, the motion of light on water, women's clothing (and undies and shoes) over the millennia, caterpillars, things that go gurgle...scrape...creak in the night, wasps, the strange ways of cats, the stranger ways of people, and on and on ...

My writing reflects all those things, not just the Usual Things. Also, no car chases. I couldn't do a car chase to save my life.

Why do you write what you write?
I write what I can't help writing. It would be much easier for me to spend my days out in the garden or having an endless stream of long (gluten-free) lunches by the sea – but then my brain gets itchy with unwritten words. The people start talking in my head, and the words have to get out onto the page. Or else.

What’s your writing process, and how does it work?
The moment an idea (usually starting with a phrase, or a few disparate words) oozes into my brain, I take notes on whatever's available – the iPhone, the back of an envelope, blank pages in my diary, odd pieces of paper left on the dressing table – often in the middle of the night. I've learnt that if I don't write down the inspiration immediately, however obvious and unforgettable it might seem, it will evaporate. Then, as soon as I get a chance, I edit the result to within an inch of its life.

I mostly edit on paper, with a red pen. I also edit on-screen, but it's never the same. I print, red-pen, correct the document on-screen, then print, again and again and again. Then I give a printout to my husband Russell Blackford, who can be relied on for sensible scribbled edits. Then I do another layer of editing, until I'm happy.

I've been primarily drawn to poetry over the last few years, and I always seem to be fiddling with a poem – changing one word, changing it back, changing the line breaks...

The current poem-in-progress is based on stories my hairdressers were telling me last week – one's grandmother keeps huge chunks of family wedding cake, which are apparently never intended to be eaten, the other's mother keeps the dog's ashes in the living room in a stunningly-expensive box. It gets creepier from there! Perfect poem fodder. I dashed out an outline on my iPhone while I was sittting in the hairdresser's chair, and I've been printing it, editing it on paper, and re-editing all week.


PS. If you want, follow me (Jenny) on Twitter!

A Great Writer and Friend Christina Pilz Gives Her Awesome Answers to Four Writing Questions

My friend Christina E. Pilz was my guest for the Four Question blog tour I participated in a couple entries ago. I love her answers, which she posted to her blog 6/30/14 here:

Christina's Answers

I liked her answers so much I'm also posting them here as well, but you get to see all sorts of other pretty pictures if you go to her blog as well.

I read Christina's long novel Fagin's Boy last March and I was very impressed. It's a wonderful sequel to Oliver Twist with an amazing attention to detail and, of course, my favorite thing: characterization. I feel she successfully captured a "Dickensian" tone in such a marvelous way, but you don't need to be a fan of Dickens at all to completely enjoy this book. All you need is a penchant for rooting for the underdog and this book will sweep you up.

Here are Christina's wonderful answers to the blog tour's four questions:

What am I currently working on?

I’m currently working on a sequel to Fagin’s Boy. This is because I feel that Oliver and Jack have more to say to me as well as to each other.

At the end of Fagin’s Boy, Oliver and Jack leave London by going south on Blackfriar’s Bridge, and I was curious as to where they were headed and what they would find when they got there. I wanted more time to figure Oliver out, and more time to hear Jack’s laid back replies to whatever issue Oliver is all fired up about. More time to dig into the muck of the lower classes of the Victorian Era. I also wanted more time to do cruel things to my characters.

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

I write historical fiction with a focus on the early Victorian era.

My first exposure to historical fiction was through children’s books such as Faraway Dream (http://www.amazon.com/Faraway-dream-Jane-Flory/dp/B0006BW4ES) by Jane Flory (http://janeflory.blogspot.com/), The Little Princess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Princess) by Francis Hodgson Burnett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Hodgson_Burnett), and of course the entire of the Little House (http://www.littlehousebooks.com/) series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder). Through them I found a connection to characters whose concerns seemed more basic and essential than my own. Instead of being worried about running to catch the bus, Sarah is worried about slipping in the mud while out on an errand for Mrs. Minchin in the foggy streets of London, or that she might starve before she’s paid off her debt to the school. Maggie is concerned that the neighbor boy Seth will assault her while she’s drawing water from the pump, or that she’ll be thrown into the street for not keeping her mouth shut. Laura is concerned that the grasshoppers will eat all of Pa’s wheat, and whether there will be enough potatoes for everyone at supper.

The issue is survival, and the tools to provide it are almost medieval: a wicker basket and shoes where the leather sole has run down to the thickness of a sheet of paper; old boots that are sturdy but which instantly mark one as an orphan; a sunbonnet that cannot quite shield a young girl from the blazing sun of a grasshopper summer.

In none of these stories is a mystery solved, as can be found in the trendier examples of historical fiction of the Victorian era. In those very popular books, the streets run amuck with the daring do of Sherlock Holmes type heroines, who not only have the book learning and the knowledge to solve a string of bloody murders, they have the grit and fortitude to go out into the streets unescorted or dressed as a boy or whatever allows these stories to be, what seems to me, thinly disguised modern crime novels with a bonnet or a shawl thrown in to add verisimilitude. So when it starts to feel as though the heroine (or hero) could do the exact same actions, have the exact same conversations in the present day, and all without really changing anything (except for some clothes), then I’m actually looking at a modern crime or mystery novel (dressed up in Victorian garb), and my willing suspension of disbelief goes AWOL.

I’m not saying these books are badly written, because they are not. They are clever, and well-crafted and make for good reading if you’re in the mind for a mystery. Which I am, from time to time, but I prefer my characters to be attentive to the smaller details, the day-to-day issues. I want them pumping water from pumps that might be infected with cholera, I want them struggling to make it past Smithfield Market without gagging, I want them avoiding the streets with tanners and dye makers on the southern bank of the Themes because it smells so damn bad. I want them coughing into a handkerchief (a dirty one) because of the acrid coal smoke in the air. I want them worried about thieves and about tiny bits of ribbon that is their only valuable possession. I want them frying bits of bread in leftover fat in the pan that’s sat there unrefrigerated since yesterday and, along with a pint of warm, stale beer, call it supper. 

That’s how my novels differ from others in the genre. I don’t have coming out parties, debutants, no Real Person From History shows up unexpectedly in Chapter Five: At The Big Dance; mine aren’t books of manners, nor do they contain the posturings at an Elizabethan court. In my books, I want real people, living real lives. And if they happen to be one of the downtrodden, an orphan, say, or a bootblack, a scullery maid, or a crossing sweeper, so much the better.

Why do I write what I do?

I write what I do because I’m obsessed with my subject matter.

It started with the 1969 movie musical called Oliver! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver!), but really, it started before that. It started with the Disney-produced LP talking book of The Prince and The Pauper (http://www.gemm.com/store/06/item/DISNEY-WALT-PRINCE-AND-THE-PAUPER-LP/1417261868) by Mark Twain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain).

The basic story is that of two boys who strongly resemble each other. One is a prince, and the other is a pauper, and one day they trade places. The main plot points of the book didn’t interest me much; court intrigue is another well-trodden path in historical fiction that I’ve no wish to follow.

What got me was the image of the pauper; a sweet-faced boy dressed in rags, trying to survive on the rough streets of Elizabethan England. Almost as interesting was the identically faced prince who finds himself in pauper’s rags and tries to make a go of it.

The contrast between the two worlds was enthralling to me, particularly in the way the two lives differed in abundance. The prince had more water to wash with, more clothes to wear, more food to eat, and a nicer bed to sleep in than the pauper. Plus, I always found it amusing when the prince, having willingly traded places, shouts foul when he’s fed up with having to live in squalor. Less amusing to me was the struggles of the pauper, who knows basic Latin, but has no wit to do any verbal parrying with the rest of the prince’s court.

I stared at the cover of that LP cover for a long time. A long time. I was completely absorbed in every detail of the appearance of the pauper: his shaggy hair, the ragged hem of the neckline of his common brown shirt, the line of grit along his jaw. I remember, also, my sister Diane pointing at the prince with insistent stabs of her finger:

“Why are you so obsessed with the Pauper? Look! They’re the same boy, he’s played by the same actor! The Prince is better looking! He’s better dressed! What’s wrong with you?” (She was eleven at the time, and very disposed to marrying a prince herself.)

She could not understand why, when it was the same boy, why I didn’t prefer the better dressed, more well off, more powerful one. Why I preferred the pauper to the prince. But I didn’t.

I still, to this day, don’t know why. Perhaps I related to the pauper more in some subconscious way that I find extremely uncomfortable to examine too closely, I do not know. Except to say that it has always been thus: give me a prince and a pauper, and my eye, my very soul, is unerringly drawn to the pauper every time.

 How does my writing process work?

I’d like to say that I took up the advice of so many smart and experienced writers that I had a regular schedule for writing. That I get up at 5 a.m., rain or shine and pound out 2,000 words a day. Every day. That I produce at least four books a year, like clockwork.

But that would be a lie.

What I do is I get an idea, a sequel to Fagin’s Boy, for example. That’s the easy part because writers are full of ideas! Then I pen extravagant outlines, tweaking it this way and that until the final idea is crisp in my head and needs no adjustment. Then I write it as fast as I can between work and other Real Life Events. I write and write and write until it’s done. There is no balance here; I’m full out writing and the laundry and other chores go to hell, or I’m sitting in a chair with my head tipped back, staring at the play of the shadows from the trees across the ceiling and allowing myself permission to slip into a deep snooze. (I do wish I had better habits!)

And, as always. I do research. Writing historical fiction is a treasure for people who like to do research; research provides the small details that make the story come alive. Besides which, it is the Most Fun Ever. Plus, I get to look up stuff all the time! Stuff like:

Question: What is the name of the coach that goes from London to Exeter?

Answer: Did you know that the coaches in the Great Era of Coaching had names? I didn’t, but I do now! This particular coach is called The Comet.

Question: What time does The Comet depart London for Exeter?

Answer: I’ve researched this till my fingers bleed and my eyes are crusty with lack of sleep. The best I can find is that the mail coach leaves London at 1 am in the morning, but the regular coach, the one intended for people, leaves “in the early morning.” I can find no better record than that. Of course, someone might advise to have my characters leave London on the mail coach, since the details for that is more specific. Which I did think of, but then, my characters are kinda sorta wanted for murder, so getting on a Government Owned/Sponsored coach is probably not a good idea. So I’m postulating that The Comet leaves London at 5 a.m., which means that the boys will pick it up in Staines at around 7 o’clock in the morning. (After a quick breakfast of beer and brown bread and cheese, of course. Those taverns are horrible places for healthy food!)

Question: Does The Comet stop in Lyme Regis?

Answer: No it does not! The hill is too steep and the mail coach doesn’t go down into Lyme!

And here’s the funny story – I wanted my characters to have to get off The Comet in the middle of nowhere, perhaps at the top of some bleak and rainy hill so they’d have to struggle the last mile or so into Lyme, and arrive looking muddy and disreputable. As chance would have it, the hill above Lyme is so steep that not even the mail coaches will descend into the village. There are coaches that follow the lower terrain along the seaside, but no mail coaches, and no passenger coaches go down that hill into Lyme. (Think of the coaches that do go into Lyme along the coastal road as local hop-and-skip transports that hold about 1/3 of a regular bus’s capacity and I don’t think you’d be far wrong.) So what I wanted to have happen actually turned out to have a valid, historical reason! Isn’t serendipity wonderful?

Question: What is the name of the hill that provides such a terrible barrier to mail and passenger coaches descending into Lyme?

Answer: I don’t know! Each map I’ve looked at gives the hill a different name! I’ve found “Preston” and “Rhode Hill” and “Penn Hill” and “Colvey Hill” and “Quarr Hill.” I’m about to give in and contact the local historic for the area, who is surely waiting with baited breath for my minuscule inquiry for the name of the hill that might only be mentioned once or twice in and among 150,000 words.

Question: What type of fish was caught and salted in Lyme? Was it cod?

Answer: No, it was mackerel!

Question: What does mackerel look like?

Answer: I don’t know! Let’s google that Right Now!

So by the time I get to actually writing the sequel to Fagin’s Boy, I will be chockablock with everything I need to know about the local fishing industry in Lyme Regis in the year 1846. And why? Because the sequel (the working title of which is “Oliver and Jack”) is going to take place there. Oliver, the dear boy, will be gutting and packing fish to pay for his and Jack’s keep. As for Jack, he will be lollygagging and mocking Oliver every step of the way.

I thank Christina for her lovely words!

A Couple of New Things

I have a couple of new things to announce.

1. My friend and guest on the blog tour (see my last entry) Christina E. Pilz will be posting her answers to the four questions about writing on her blog some time today here:

http://www.christinaepilz.com/blog/

I enjoyed her answers so much that I have decided to post them here on my blog as well. That will be a new entry for tomorrow. Please remember to return to read her fascinating answers.

2. My poem "Homecoming" has gone live on Pedestal Magazine. Go here to read it:

Homecoming

3. I just finished the "revamp" (I hate the word "rewrite") on the ending of my science fiction novel "Letters to an Android." It got me thinking about the types of stories I like to do. Anything to do with "the underdog" will always grab my attention. But I also like the little stories (that can quickly become big all by themselves) about the human heart. "Letters" is set against a sweeping science fiction backdrop, but it is really only the small story of two people (one natural human, one created human) from two completely different backgrounds who find common ground and bond in a long-distance correspondence.

Thinking about that: I wrote this to a friend in email today:

I have read so much science fiction that I hate (most in my early years when I thought of myself more as a scifi fan.) Still, maybe it's not such a surprise that I'm writing it again lately. I want to grab that wanderlust feeling where the backdrop is science fiction with sweeping vistas and far-traveling ships, but still tell the tale that is close to the heart. For me, the best stories are not about the big, vast battles with lots of FX that go on and on (I'm thinking of movies that favor amazing destruction until you are boggled and overwhelmed and can't feel a thing even though thousands of lives are ending.) So that is what I chose to write. Also, just because something is labeled "science fiction" does not automatically mean "sterile," "military," "indecipherable." And if I put stuff like that into my stories, it's mostly to be tongue in cheek with it. I don't write that much humor, but I do love irony.

And that's it for today!

Blog Tour Entry: Four Questions on Writing

I met Kelly Dunn many years ago at the San Diego Comicon. Since then we reconnected in 2011 when she edited the wonderful anthology Mutation Nation in which she included one of my stories. She invited me to be one of the guests for this blog tour started by Michael Cieslak, a Board Member for the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers and a writer and editor. His latest anthology, Desolation: 21 Tales for Tails, includes tales of loneliness, isolation, and abandonment. A portion of the proceeds goes to benefit Last Day Dog Rescue. To learn more about Michael, please visit him at The Dragon’s Roost. For this blog tour, Kelly posted her wonderful entry answering four questions about writing Monday, June 16, at her blog http://kellysdunn.com/ . Go read it now. It’s great! I thank her for inviting me to do this blog tour.

 

And now, here are my answers to the four questions:

1. Why do you write what you do?

That’s a very easy answer for me. I write what I want to read.

Unfortunately (or maybe not so unfortunate) this puts me all over the place in terms of genre because I like to read many different genres in all types of literature from poetry to novels.

As a pre-teen (and even now) my favorite holiday was always Halloween. Some of my first poetic efforts use that holiday as a theme. As a teen, I loved science fiction and I wrote stories and poems around that theme. Many were published in high school and college journals. Later, while still enjoying science fiction, I branched into horror and dark fantasy. I found the genres of both to be more all-encompassing than one might think at first glance. Horror was not only a genre of chills and frights. Psychological character studies and erotica were also broadly accepted in that genre, while general science fiction was (despite Samuel Delany, Nicola Griffith, Storm Constantine and some others doing ground-breaking, taboo-ish themes) in a dry period frowning at explicit erotica, romance or even too much emotion and characterization.

The horror genre also seemed more open to gender-bending themes, gay or bi characters, and I enjoy that diversity and freedom. And one could write about vampires, werewolves and ghostly things without being frowned at or being told to “get serious.”

I also enjoy romance, erotica and mainstream. I’ve written in all those categories, both with my poetry, short fiction and novels.

So you can see I am all over the place in my body of work. It also makes marketing myself more of a chore!

2. How does your writing process work?

I love this question because it’s fun to talk about.

When I am being creative, my mind does not naturally work in a linear, logical process. Images and phrases and snippets of dialog might pummel me from out of nowhere. This happens when I first get ideas, before I’ve written anything, and it happens in the middle of writing a story or novel as well. It doesn’t stop. It just keeps happening as my story progresses. If I am being smart, I’ll record those lines or scenes in my writing journal. I guess you could call them notes. Often they are poems.

Let me talk about poetry here for a second. When the poetry doors open my mind is richly fed. I love playing with words and sounds of words and beautiful, otherworldly images. I’m not focused at all on form, so my poems are mostly free verse with a side of haiku. My mind gets to soar and play, free and unfettered, when I write poetry. And what poetry taught me over the years is a very valuable lesson: trust your subconscious mind in writing and you will be a better writer. My poems that are planned sound planned. My stories that are planned sound planned. When I just let go and write images and words that I love because I am in love with them and for no other reason, I do my best.

My process for writing poetry involves an empty book or journal, a pen, and the quiet of the night-time. Most of the time I write poetry in my bed before sleep, and always by hand. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m going to write. Often I use ‘prompts’ in the form of words or sentences from my own work, or from something I am currently reading. This gets my mind into the poetry mode. The prompt word or sentence itself often doesn’t even make it into my poem. Sometimes I make up titles from words I find when I open my poetry journals in the middle and begin looking at words at random on the page, not reading them in order, or sometimes reading sentences backwards.

From that poetry exercise, stories and novels can also form. Many of my stories and novels were poems first. I do not use outlines. So instead of writing an outline, I will often write a poem to capture the flavor and atmosphere I want to take wing. Sometimes lines from the poem end up in the story. Despite my crazy process, I still generally write my stories and novels from beginning to end and not out of order.

My most recent novel soon to be released, “Letters to an Android,” is the result of a short-short story I wrote for an online challenge, but it is also definitely the result of a series of one line poems (some of which became chapter titles) and haiku. I even found a way to put haiku into the novel! Writing that novel was such play for me. To help inspire me, the process for that novel also included gazing at a lot of science fiction landscapes on art sites and on googleimages. Looking at art also inspires me to write poems.

When I was younger I was overwhelmed by the concept of a novel. I didn’t think my ideas were deep enough or long enough to sustain a whole book. I would become anxious at the thought of writing one. My first novel was shelved forever. The second was never completed. Then I wrote “Pale Zenith,” a science fiction novel, and while writing it I told myself I was going to simply put everything into it that I love, write characters I could describe poetically and fall in love with, and not look back and not worry about it fitting some trend or trope or classic genre. I did do some research for some of the technology in the novel (and research is my least favorite thing,) but other than that it is purely fantastical from my imagination. When I finally broke free of trying to write a “proper novel” and just allowed myself to have a good time, I found the concept of a novel no longer intimidating.

3. What are you working on now?

Right now I have just finished the edits on “Letters to an Android.” I am also compiling two short story collections, some new and some previously published short stories.

The short story collections are “The Red Fountain, Where Vampires Come to Drink,” and “Risque Science Fiction.” The first collects some of my best vampire stories from a period in my life where I was writing a lot of fiction and poetry for magazines such as “Dreams of Decadence,” “Prisoners of the Night” and a lot of long-gone, little magazines. The second will include some of my science fiction that includes erotica, gay characters and/or taboo themes. One of those stories was published in the hardback anthology “Bending the Landscape,” and another in the long out of print anthology “Air Fish.” I don’t want to lose those stories, and so I am doing the collections.

One of my newest short stories, “I Keep the Dark that is Your Pain,” is in the anthology A Darke Phantastique due out at the end of July 2014.

Sometimes I have dry periods for my poetry, but in the last two and a half months I’ve written a lot of new stuff and continue to do so, and I’ve made new poetry sales to: Pedestal Magazine, Dreams and Nightmares, Horror Writers of America Showcase, and Scifaikuest Magazine. And I have a lot more new poems making the market rounds.

4. How does your work differ from others in the genre?

I find this to be the most difficult question to answer. I write in many genres. So the question is what makes my fiction different from other fiction of its kind?

I often include bisexual or gay characters in my writings. For erotica writing, such as my short story collection, “My House is Full of Whispers,” I’ve done it all: gay, straight, bi. In my romance novels “The Foundling” and “None Can Hold the Dark” my characters are male and gay. In “Letters to an Android” my main characters are unlabeled as to gender preference, but the main relationship is between two men. That book is science fiction, not erotica. In “Pale Zenith” my characters are fairly straight although I make mention of group marriages, and two of my main characters are unusually close twins who fall for one woman.

Another thing I love to do in my fiction is play around with poetic turns of phrase. I hope that makes my writing a little different.

I am a believer that character IS plot, and so I don’t force my characters into too much pre-planned plotting. I give them a bit of background, a setting and a couple of related or unrelated ideas, then I let them lead me into their story. My stories are about the people, not the car chase.

My guest on this blog tour is a fine writer, Christina E. Pilz. She will post her answers to these four questions on her blog Monday, June 30. I will also include her entry in my blog. Her blog address is:

 http://www.christinaepilz.com/blog/

Christina E. Pilz was born in Texas, but has lived in her adopted country of Colorado since 1971. Since then she has taken far too many college courses, switched majors half a dozen times, and has gone to England almost as many times as she's gone to Casa Bonita. In addition to that, she's written her first novel, a sequel to Oliver Twist, called Fagin's Boy. Of her writing she says, "Being a writer is not just what I do, it’s who I am. Even if everything else in the day turns sour, if I have written, then it’s still a pretty good day."

The Submerged Kingdoms of the Mind

I am participating in a blog tour on Monday. This means I will be posting answers to four questions about writing here on my blog on Monday. My friend Kelly Dunn asked me to be her guest for this tour "chain." She already posted her answers last Monday here: http://kellysdunn.com/

My guest will be Christina E. Pilz who wrote a wonderful book I highly recommend called "Fagin's Boy," who will post her answers to the four questions on her blog on June 30. If you want to check out her blog now (and hopefully on June 30) you can do so here: http://www.christinaepilz.com/blog/

I tried to get other guests but they declined. I was hoping to have at least two. Maybe at the last minute I will get more guests for this tour.

I started this blog four years ago, made some posts, then forgot about it. I intend to remedy that from now on. I will be posting once a week (at least) on writing related topics, and any other things that may be occupying my brain in the moment.

Right now I'm focused on making adjustments to the very ending of my new science fiction novel "Letters to an Android." That novel was a blast to write. I wrote it off and on for about five months in between traveling for my business and a lot of stress-related moments. I literally feel like I often had to steal the time to write it. Sometimes I spent hours on it late at night. Sometimes an hour here and there during a busy day. Because I am a fast writer, five months to write a novel is excruciatingly slow for me. When I had downtime from my business, I was able to write big chunks very quickly.

I love the feeling of writing a novel. Hell, I love writing. It's just so damn fun. This is the result of a lot of growth and inner contemplations and wrestling with my art over long periods of time. There was a point in my writing life where writing became very stressful and worrisome to me, where I forgot about telling stories about characters I fall in love with and spent too much time thinking about what I should be writing, about right and proper ways of writing and storytelling, about genre, marketing, subject matter and audience. I would become so overwhelmed with all these factors that I thought I should be concentrating on and applying to my writing (as if they are some sort of magical ingredients) that I was no longer having fun. I was trying to identify as a "writer" instead of just playing with the puzzles of the beauty of words and how they form images and emotions and express my own longings and desires and dreams (the fun part that I love!) I began to live too much in my head, and focused too much on what other writers were doing that I was failing to do. Even as a published author and an experienced one, I became over-sensitive to rejection. Everyone is sensitive to rejection, of course, but I began doing damage with my own poisoned thinking, telling myself I just didn't fit in with any genre or group, that I was doing something wrong, etc. I became so frustrated that I made a very big decision to take a break from writing altogether. Of course this is an extreme reaction to my dilemma, but that's what happened.

I had no plan. I still continued to journal for myself and write poetry. Beyond that, I didn't do much else with my writing. I didn't know if my break would last two months, two years or forever. I did not allow myself to think about it. The relief was great. The pressure went away.

I do not recommend this action to everyone, that's a sure thing! But for me the break lasted nine years, and I don't look back with any regret. Instead, I just look forward now.

When I decided to get back to writing again, I had a long talk with myself. It was not just a cut and dry thing. My talk lasted about two months. In essence, I asked myself if I really wanted to get into that "writer" mode again. I made myself aware that everything I did was a choice, and every label I might use to define myself (such as "writer") is not really an identity, just a descriptive noun. I knew I could write. That was not in question. The question was: why write?

My answer would fail to satisfy me if it pertained to the outside world, if it contained anything about "selling," "making a living," "gaining awards, prestige." In other words, while all of us crave outside validation, my answer needed to exclude that into the "extras" category and not be my reason 'why'.

I told myself I would only begin again if I was having a good time. I told myself that I must write only what I love and not what I think others might want to read. I wanted/needed to write what I wanted to read. That may seem selfish, but what art isn't? And why do it in the first place if it's not something you yourself can love? If you write for audience approval only, aren't you limiting your scope and turn a thing of love into a four-walled, harshly ruled job? Creativity has a hard time flourishing in such circumstances. That isn't to say I wouldn't be tempted by a good monetary offer to write something to specifications, it just means that if I am going to write my thoughts, my dreams, my stories, then they must first and foremost be for me. I'll write what I want to read. And I'll have damn fun doing it. If the fun begins to wane, I'll command it back by diving into the subjects that fill my heart to overflowing.

I promised myself that if I stopped having fun I would stop writing. No fuss. No muss.

My lesson, if there is any lesson to impart, is this: In any art too much thinking "in the head" is toxic. I believe the subconscious mind knows what it wants and should be allowed expression without all the filters and programs and labels that stop it up and create writer's block. This does not mean I don't have an idea or a general story in my head before I begin a story or novel. It means that to allow it to flourish I don't cling, I just let it go. Sometimes stories will download into my brain but in order to get them on the page in an un-forced, natural way (without allowing logic or labels or outside fears to interfere) I need to daydream them onto the page. That means letting go, having fun, playing as I played as a child with my stuffed animals and dolls.

I'm not saying there aren't frustrations that accompany art. I would like to make a living at it, of course. Wouldn't that be grand? But the pressures and disappointments that go with an expectation of that take too much away from me. I can't allow myself to think like that. I can produce volumes, but only if tell myself it's play. It's a neat trick and it took me a long time to learn it!

Exciting New News

It's been a long time since I posted here. I am going to be slowly re-vamping this blog and making it a regular thing.

From now on, this is a blog mostly about writing. I will also be posting things like some of my newest poetry, news of my upcoming/ongoing projects, links to book releases, story publications, and anything else related to the writing world that I feel like talking about.

Right now I have two new writing-related announcements:

I just finished my new science fiction novel "Letters to an Android." And there is haiku in it!

I have recently sold poetry to four magazines: Pedestal Magazine, HWA Showcase, Dreams and Nightmares, Scifaikuest. My poem to Pedestal will go online there around June 21 and I'll provide a link when it's up.

I'm very excited about updating this blog and posting in it often. More later!