Well, ok. Pretty sure Bernard Cooper wasn’t intending this. So let me just get on with it and say…uh, hold on, a monkey minion is trying to tell me something.

(A worker monkey approaches, on fire as it turns out, smoke billows from its back and blazes down its arms and legs. It hands me a paper with writing on it.)

Note: ‘Dude, I’m fucking on fire!’

Well I can see that boss, do you intend to do something about it? (Monkey holds up a finger and begins to scribble on a new note, miraculously, it doesn’t burst into flames.)

Note: ‘Not sure our health plan covers that one…’

True, it doesn’t. Blame Washington for that one bud.

(monkey goes screaming off into the distance, flailing its arms, other monkeys follow thinking that somehow, instead of panic, he has created a new dance.)

Well sorry about that interlude, apparently it sucks trying to find well educated help for the cheap here in the States, so I hired monkeys instead. What cha’ gonna do? So anywho…

Spontaneous Combustion, other than costing me a fine employee, is also the title of a short little essay from Bernard Cooper’s ‘Maps to Anywhere’ which is an essay anthology. This was one of the few that stood out. Why you may ask? let me tell you by telling you a story. (Monkey sitting across from me sighs and rolls its eyes.)

When I was younger, (The monkey growls and gets up and leaves…) I remember vividly having a fire drill at our elementary school where the local Fire Chief showed up and did something similar to our class. I don’t think he necessarily intended to, but then again maybe, but he scared the hell out of us. We were petrified about being trapped in a burning building and needless to say when I got home I was panicked when my Mom started cooking. Well, truth be told I still am just don’t tell her that. A similar event occurred a year later only this time involving a tornado drill and then lengthy but cool explanation of tornado damage. This has instilled in me a life long fascination with dangerous weather and tornadoes in particular, oddly enough this was not squelched by the awful film twister from the 90’s. If you love that film I apologize, I don’t care for it.

Fear of fire is a basic human trait brought upon, usefully, by evolution. I think you can make a good case that the birth of true human civilization was not possible until humans conquered their fear of fire just enough to learn how to harness it. Without being able to control the input and output of energy, society as we know it would simply have been not possible. Unless of course you’re this guy: No offense Mr. Tsoukalos, I actually do watch the show. But since you’re not this guy, then you don’t believe that the story of Prometheus was really about the Annunaki teaching early man how to harness fire. Mr. Cooper isn’t either.

Mr. Cooper, I think, is using his own experiences as a child to showcase the fear and trauma that fire can hold for everyone. Once the fear sets in, it never leaves. The final scene of jumping into cerulean blue is an image of iciness and the calmness of cold that is one of the few things that stills the reptilian hind brains fear of fire. It’s a neat little essay, one I think that he drew from personal experience. It made me remember my own so I suppose it did its job.

First off, a couple of weeks ago I had a scathing blog where I vented, I try not to do such things, my apologies. Times are rough at present, if any understand, thank you. If not, not my problem. You’re free to not do so.

Anywho…oh, thanks monkey minion. Yeah, I’m letting them wear minion costumes today, I suppose that today, November the 20th is a Monkey holiday, something to do with their trickster god and goddess and misfortune coming from on high and wearing costumes to disguise who you are from the trickster deities. I asked what they called this holiday and, oddly enough, they call it ‘politics’. Seems apt, I suppose. Anyway, my friend here, number 243, passed me my talking points. So let me begin.

There was one section that really stuck out at me and poked me in the eye from this piece. The site of a total eclipse and the crazed reactions people had to it standing out on the ridge overlooking the valley. I have no clue as to what the author was intending for the piece, because my mind was so focused on what his/her event from 1979 caused me to think of as I read it.

It made me think of the end of the world. He/she does mention the word cataclysm more than once so this might have prompted my rather dark musings.

As I’ve said before, times are tough as hell for me right now (no I won’t go into it…) so my thoughts, and my writing, tends to mirror my mood. I’m working on something for genuine publication. It’s a dark fantasy, sort of in the veins of George R.R. Martin in the sense that it’s a big, epic, political-military centric story but I am also throwing in an element that isn’t often visited in speculative fiction and that’s religion. I’m not writing with an agenda, not at all.

The overall idea is the encroachment of a type of Christianity (Christian analogue religion) and an Islam analogue religion upon a pagan culture and what that does to the society. Needless to say, seeing as how it’s not really worth writing about unless things go to hell in a hand-basket at some point, it leads to a murder of a King, a war and chaos. Really, bloody, awful bloody chaos. And the war is not single sided. In other words its not one versus one, no its far more complicated than that.

This piece, ‘Total Eclipse’ reminded me of a section I’ve got going. The pagans, pretty much a Norse culture, have launched a crusade of their own of sorts and they are in the process of ransacking a neighboring country. Now this isn’t a raid as in your typical Viking longship fare, no this is a total, hands down, bloody conquest with mal intent to do extreme harm. They’re plundering and torching a major city. One of the characters finds some orphaned children trying to flee with some nuns. Showing compassion he protects them from the predations of his comrades. The dialogue that occurs after the cities destruction shows my character that despite religious differences, that these are good people just trying to survive. Hell, I know it’s cliché, but it is worth mentioning as the cataclysmic scene of the eclipse talked about by the author of ‘Total Eclipse’ didn’t kill the world, they all survived. Life continued. Our whole world can burn down around us, but often times we pick ourselves up and find that life, does indeed move on. No matter our own trials and tribulations there is always life to be lived.

I have no idea if any publisher would be even remotely interested in what I have to offer, probably not, just steeling myself for the worst and I am realizing that I suck at blog writing and so I can’t convey what the writing is really like without showing some which negates it’s usage in bringing it to a publishing company…(deep breath, sigh)

SO there it is. Regardless, my mind is still filled with imagery that is dark and mystifying so I have to go now and work on a 40K story I’m posting on The Bolthole.org, it involved the Crimson Guard Chapter of Astartes, some daemons and a splinter group of Word Bearers, I think this calls for a bit of darkness.

Have fun, enjoy your day, happy reading, blessings to you.

 

I have no clue why this one stuck in my mind, I’m not even much of a naturalist, but for some reason this one stuck with me.

The ability of the authors in these short little pieces to make one feel a little bit of what they were feeling is an easy to see proof of their abilities as a writer. However, I suppose even then this is all subjective as for all the pieces I chose to remember the one about a frakking bird…go figure.

Anyway this piece reminded me of growing up in the country and watching for hawks and eagles and things of such nature. I’ve always loved birds of prey, I find them comforting rather than frightening as most people do. Hunters, whether animals or even higher beings, display a sense of independence, intelligence and ability to adapt to surroundings that lesser creatures cannot. They simply lack the intellect to do so. Reminds me of social gatherings: find the loner, and there’s your hunter. He/She is a loner because the herd (and that’s what large groups are after all, merely herds) has nothing to offer the hunter except fresh prey somewhere down the road. The herd is only as strong as the weakest member while the hunter has the ability to be as strong as they chose to be. Made me think for  awhile about that.

 

There isn’t much to say about the piece I read, late, as I wasn’t able to make it into class due to an unfortunate, recent event. Anyway, I read it and here it is: Goldberg is inviting us, future writers, hopefully, to use our feelings and the inner workings of our emotional/psychological state in order to better express things in our stories. Also, if I read that right and wasn’t overly distracted, he was inviting us to write the mundane. I do believe I touched on that on an unrelated earlier blog, so no need to rehash that. Though beating a dead horse can be, at times of extreme boredom, a great time killer.

THWACK! THWACK! KLOP! ‘Screw you horse! This is what you get for dying!’ THUNK! THWACK! SPLIFF! ‘Ewww…he broke open…’

SO anyway, this week has been a hell of a rough week for me. It’s not really the class load. I am almost done with my undergrad and I am having a severe case of the ‘Idontgiveafuckopillia’ which tends to come over seniors towards the end of their college tenure. No, I’m more bothered by a few things other than my work load. Though it is intense: I am working on an Honor’s Thesis (Operation Barbarossa), writing a novella for (possible, though maybe not) consideration for submission to the Black Library (science fiction/fantasy publisher of fiction related to the Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy universes) as well as working on an independent solo created dark fantasy for publication elsewhere. (Maybe Tor, Pyr Books, Angry Robot, Abaddon, Solaris, I have options. I don’t wanna go down the road of self publishing, I’d actually prefer to make a living as a writer and help publishing companies stay alive to ensure more people get to read cool books. I know the arguments, I know. But I really do want a more guaranteed paycheck. Let’s be honest, my dream is to MAKE A LIVING as an author, not starve as an author. I support you indy guys and gals, really I do. But for me I don’t want to travel down that road.) All of that on top of two science classes as well as this creative writing class where I’m still a little bummed that I haven’t got to spend the whole time working on my own creations…which is why I signed up in the first place, I wanted some input on my own writing honestly. No, no…something else is bothering me.

I am bothered a lot by people and what I see them do. Namely the exclusionary nature of modern Mid-Western American society (this is social commentary on the US, my slice of it, and I can’t say anything about other folks’ areas.) I’m deeply troubled by the extreme cliquish nature of the people around me and how terribly they treat people not in their little group. Since when did we turn into the fucking Soviet Union that everyone has to be part of a goddamned little commune in order to be observed to see that you aren’t pissing on pictures of Uncle Joe? If you can’t get the reference, I weep for you. I happen to love Russian history and you should be ashamed of yourself. In fact, read history, it’s good for you damnit!

If you’re not part of the right religion (being Christian isn’t enough, of course, you have to be the RIGHT kind of Christian, the kind that gets rid of your independence and allows other people to live your lives for you, also you have to hate women, their rights and gays.) Ok, that might be unfair, but this is a venting blog so whatever… anyway, if you’re not part of the right religion you’re ostracised. Since when did Jesus or Muhammed or Moses ever say: ‘And verily I say unto thee: He that not hangeth out with thou, is an asshole and should be treateth with the greatest of scorn and maketh them to feel miserable.’ Book of Butthurt, Chapter of Being a Dick, v.33

Pretty sure that’s not in the Bible, Quran, Torah or Odin’s Holy Writ. If it is, then I quit religion forever because it just turned evil. I’m also sick of the backstabbing that these groups cause: oh so you dared to leave our group huh? How fucking dare you learn to think for yourself you son of a bitch! Now we’re going to spread rumors about you and make you want to commit suicide because you dared to be a (GASP!!) Independent thinker!!!!

Also I am not a fan of the anti-intellectualism that I see every damned day. I was under the impression, obviously false that college was supposed to be a place of learning, not trying to psychologically rape those who enjoy to read, enjoy science, history, engineering, philosophy anything intelligent and intellectual. But, apparently I was wrong. It seems as though if you’re the least bit intelligent you’re not just ostracized you’re basically socially punished and cast out like a damned leper. And then people around here wonder why they can’t retain any smart graduates to stay in the area. Because you drive us out, not to mention if we can’t find someone to be with, which if you’re the least bit different the damned GROUPS will ensure you can’t, then we won’t stay. Period. And not to beat the religious horse again, but when in the hell did it become acceptable to stand atop a table and start condemning people to hell in the cafeteria, student center what have you, and NO ONE DOES ANYTHING about it? I can’t stand you jackasses, you’re human waste. Period.

I won’t say what I experienced, it’s in the past so better left to be learned from on my own without dwelling on it. How does this relate to writing? Easy:

When I write I place my own pain, fears, hurt, passion, anger, love, hatred, loyalties, crusades, you name it into my writing. It makes up my characters, it fills them, informs them, and forces their hands when it comes to making decisions. And I feel a lot of writers do the same.

All for me for now, later.

Zai Jian.

Auf Weidersehen.

Do svidaniya.

     The caveat was the story had to be 500 words or less, sadly I went 76 words over…but it’s damn good as far as I’m concerned. A definite beginning, middle and end.

            “Do you fear death Northman?”

            Hidden behind his circular, wooden shield, his right hand gripped the haft of his axe tighter.

            “No,” he replied, calmly which was odd considering the circumstances. With a snort the smaller, clean shaven Christian in glistening, silver scale armor gave a mirthless laugh.

            “Truly?” the Christian asked, taking a practice swing with his long sword.

            “Truly. If you can kill me,” the Northman placed the emphasis on the qualifier, “Odin will come down and take my soul to Valhalla. And there I will feast and drink with the gods.”

            The armored man hocked a gob of phlegm onto the ground at the Northman’s feet.

            “Your pagan god can take that and use it to wet the crotch of the goddesses.”

            The Northman merely gave a sad sigh.

            “Does that anger you pagan? Does the thought of Odin fucking his goddesses insult you?”

            Taking a step forward the Northman merely shrugged. With a cry the Christian leapt forward, slashing downwards with his sword. Releasing his inhaled breath the Northman raised his shield, catching the sword stroke on its uppermost edge and jabbed forward with his axe. The top of the axe head jammed into the Christian’s stomach and the Northman then spun the axe by its haft on its axis. As the Christian edged backwards, grunting in pain, the Northman slashed upwards. The axe head bit into the Christians neck, blood sprayed violently out of the opening in the Christians torn neck and the Northman stepped to the side to avoid the spray of the man’s life fluids.

            As the Christian dropped to his knees, his eyes wide with pain, and surprise, the fountain of blood gushing down his armored front and painting the fallen, dried autumnal leaves in a crimson bath, the Northman knelt close and whispered in his ear.

            “Despite your irreverence, Odin is considering you.” The Christian tried to speak as he slumped slowly onto his back, but his voice only came out in a blood soaked gurgling.

            The Northman glanced up as a shadow fell across him. An old, long bearded, grey headed man, his head covered by a wide brimmed, black hat looked down at the dying Christian. He wore a long black cloak that covered his body down to his feet, he held a long gnarled staff in his large and liver spotted right hand, a black raven sat perched atop each of the old man’s shoulders.

            The old man, briefly, made eye contact with the Northman. The old man gave him a small smile, and mumbled something that the Northman could not understand. Then the old man, slightly stooped in posture, looked down at the prostrate and now deceased, armored Christian and gave a curt nod.

            Both ravens squawked and alighted to the Christian’s shoulders, as they gripped with their talons, and as they began to climb into the sky, their wings beating the heavily around them, they gripped the shocked, surprised and shimmering soul of the fallen Christian warrior. Together soul and ravens disappeared into the sky.

            “Soon. For you son, soon.” The old man said and then, with a clap of thunder, he was gone.

            The Northman, spattered with blood not his own, knelt by the still warm corpse of the Christian and, gently and almost tenderly, closed the man’s eyes with his large, scarred hand. Then he let out a long sigh, resting his hand on the Christian’s shoulder.

            “Not soon enough.”

This is a short story in a larger collective whole titled, I believe, the Meaning of life is 42…no wait  a minute, that’s Douglas Adams, let me see here (rummages through brain, monkeys assist, accidentally leaving behind a banana peel) ‘gee thanks guys for being stereotypes’ (monkey flashes a thumbs up as it, smacking its lips, trundles away). Ok, here it is: Unexplained Presence.

The story I am commenting on is called Darling. As far as I can tell (mostly because I recognize some of the names) it is a tale of the glory days of Hollywood (30’s to early 50’s) involving racism. That’s really about all I could gather, the writing was very obtuse and was overly attempting to convey a meaning by hiding it as deep as possible. Gotta tell you, this stuff wears thin after a while but moving on…

The story involves people wearing masks, and I think the masks are ‘black faces’ as the story tells it. I think its an allusion to how people viewed and still view African Americans in America for the main. The calling of them as ‘Negroes’ is obviously a racist line (and really means the same thing as the other N word and I don’t mean Netherlands) and conveys the uppity, aristocratic false superiority of the speakers. I liked though the masks tended to fall off towards the end, revealing something different. As far as a deeper meaning, I couldn’t tell you really.

I think, though, this is why I read sci-fi and dark fantasy and sci-fantasy. In these worlds the universes if you will are multi-ethnic. Take my current fave, Warhammer 40K: the Emperor of Man is ancient Anatolian, which would mean that he would look Arab to most Westerners who couldn’t distinguish the types. The White Scars Space Marine Legion is dominantly Asian, specifically Mongolian and Central Asian, the Salamanders are Black, and the traitor Word Bearers and loyalist Blood Angles seemed, possibly either Iranian or Arabic. The Thousand Sons are sort of Egyptian, in the ancient sense however. And the Space Wolves are awesome as they’re Norse/Vikings, and so on and so forth. Lando Calrissian from Star Wars was Black, the royal family in David Weber’s Honor Harrington universe (Manticoran royal family that is) is Black, and Ferro Maljinn from the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is a Black, badass woman. It’s not just that this type of fiction is more of a straight narrative, and thus more entertaining, but also it’s charactered in a rich, ‘real’ world. Peopled by all kinds of people, and it’s partly what drew me in…

This was an incredibly short read, and was dificult to figure out. For one, there was no underlying theme as far as I could tell other than a sense of hopelessness, despair and loss. Well, I think all writers feel that, it’s what leads so many of us to write in the first place. By creating a story where we place characters into emotional situations that mirror our own (or in my case when I put them in mortal danger and force them to fight their way out of it) it’s a form of healing and even self analytical therapy. Trust me, it does work.

This book, ‘Juice’ by I believe Renee Gladman is, still to me, an enigma that I have yet to unravel. However, one section did speak to me: “For twelve of the fourteen years that I know I was on trains, I was wondering about my body. For the last three of the fourteen years, I had vivid dreams of my long lost street.”

I am, by nature, a nomad. I don’t consider Michigan my home, or the United States (though I am a patriot, an intelligent one) nor the town in which I live or even grew up in. I don’t feel that these places are my home as I have no tie to them. That is because I am waiting for the right thing to enter my life in order for me to consider somewhere worthy enough to anchor myself in: marriage. I want a family of my own, when I have that, then I’ll be home. Truly I’m not overly upset or even remotely over being ‘homeless’, it’s no deal to me at all. But I think it is for the author.

If all we do is travel and travel aimlessly without direction or purpose, we’re just riding a train to nowhere. We go so many places, so often, without a purpose that we begin to miss ‘home’ even though home sucked so bad it was what caused us to pick and go in the first place. I think this was what the author was conveying, at least it was to me. And it was the most memorable passage in the book.

In this reading I saw that, once again, we get told to worry about character.

See, this guy, the one standing on your back , is a bit of an ass. No really, he’s not remotely fun to be with at all. You see he’s a cat, his name is Norman and he’s an ass. Wait, I just said that.

Character should be self evident, when we read a story, even if it’s true like history or a biography, we do so largely because we’re drawn to characters. Ok, obviously academic history is mostly baout theory and the profound celebration of why certain people should never, ever where the label of ‘writers’ and why historians should be forced to learn how TO ACTUALLY WRITE TO A REAL HUMAN BEING!! (Sorry, I’m a history major, largely because growing up I read books on World War Two, the US Civil War, Napoleon, stuff like that. Those books were great! I fell in love with authors like David Chandler, Max Hastings, John Keegan, Stephen W. Sears, Wiley Sword, Adrian Goldsworthy; but the stuff I’ve had to read in college has been, almost universally, atrociously awful!)

When you read a book say on World War Two, chances are you want to read about the characters of the average GI or the British Tommy, the Fritz’s of the Wehrmacht, the Ivan’s of the Red Army and other such stereotypical tropes for ethnic soldiery. Or you wanted to read more about Winston Churchill’s amazing story or Patton or Rommel, Stalin, even Hitler. Truth is, if you’ve read history, whether military history or not, you were drawn to by at least some sort of character.

Same, especially, goes for fiction. Take this Guy:

I used to have a black cat named Washburn (after the guitar company) who loved to, well, murder Christmas decorations. I think anything shiny in general could be apt to fall to his black furry wrath. Washburn is memorable to me, not just because his black furry butt was cute, but because he was a character. Cat or not, he was a character and it was his character that I will remember him by.

So in fiction writing, or if you want to write a biography or a historical tome, be aware that, somewhere in your narrative, focus on character. People relate to characters, their triumphs, tragedies, their failures, their successes and even the mundane everyday.

One reason George R.R. Martin’s works changed fantasy so much and still resonate now is because he focused on character and refused to not show the mundane everyday. In truth, the everyday mundane humanizes even great historical figures. Learn about Napoleon’s dining habits, Caesar’s love life (trust me, it’s highly scandalous and a great lurid read), or Alexander’s drinking problem. Cao Cao’s (he of Three Kingdom’s fame) attention to detail and his formula’s for everything, including how to make the perfect cup of tea… all of these things add up to a fleshed out story, or a historical narrative. It gives something for someone to relate to. It makes the past come alive, and why is that a shame?

Let me give you a book to look at that exemplifies, I think the best of this sort of thing:

It’s history, I know. But it’s good history. So is this one:

 

For fiction, try these ones:

Granted, these are mostly my tastes, and I could spend all day showing these off, but this is what I think can help you with realizing that even in huge, epic story’s, it’s, in the end, all about character.

 

The above pretty much expresses what I thought and felt about the second packet of short stories.

I’ll be honest, I am not a huge fan of short fiction. I prefer something with meat, something that is dense, that takes time to get into that forces one to get to know the ins and outs of a character, something rather epic in scale. Taste, however, is of course subjective.

My own thoughts on these here short stories? I don’t have any. Not just because I has the dumb, though I do. It’s because I can’t find anything to talk about when I read only five or six or ten or so pages, there’s nothing to discuss really as far as I am concerned. Then again, see picture above.

Yeah, you heard right. I am, and I ain’t ashamed either.

Of course this means that the creation labs, buried deep underground somewhere inside rural Scotland (the commute back and forth to the States is a bitch quite frankly, but I am a quarter Scot and love it here so, meh.) are now in the hands of recently re-hired monkeys who, graciously I think on my part, were allowed a second chance after rioting  a few weeks back. Though we do need to chat about their diet, their poo was horrendous…

 

So yeah, Walking the Baby to the Liquor Store, part of a short fiction packet I have to review, and the only one that caught me eye. Written by Michael Van Wallenstein unless my eyes do mistake me, and they sometimes do as I can tell you about a truly humorous instance at a Megadeth concert concerning a wonderful trannie named, ironically, Steve who from the back looked nothing like a Steve and was approached by yours truly. Thankfully we became buds, mosh pitted, and parted as friends though it could’ve really gotten awkward. But I won’t tell you that story, it’s embarrassing.

(Monkey hands me a freshly printed paper, I read it, eyes bulging…)

Ok, well looks like I just told you that story. Well then…

Back to the fiction: I’ll be honest, I chose this piece because of the title. I envisioned Stewie Griffin from Family Guy being walked by Brian to the liquor store, sharing some conversation where Stewie try’s to hide the fact that he’s gay and Brian tries not to punch Stewie in the face for being  an annoying little truttle. Funny stuff. The story was, however, nothing of the sort.

The writer, a poet, needs to finish a book of proms as well as translate something from Mongolian (which instantly perked my interest, just mentioning Mongolia brings up images of Genghis Khan, hordes of well armored and armed horsemen, and the White Scars Legion of Adeptus Astartes.) but he needs to take the baby to the liquor store. No, not so the baby can open up a bottle of scotch, tip her head back and imbibe in a truly wondrous, burning brew, but because she really likes to goggle at the shiny bottles. And the writer is a good Dad.

So the story wasn’t particularly funny, but it did make me think. I wish I was a Dad.

No really, I really wish I was a Father. I would love to have kids, girls in particular. Why daughters? Honestly I don’t know. Maybe it stems from the fact that I get along with women better than men (unless the men are older or younger masculine nerds like myself; into military history, philosophy, science, science fiction, dark fantasy and Black Library stuff, usually not but those guys I can hang with) and I’ve always preferred the company of girls/ladies/women to guys. From history I can tell you that alot of guys have this strange psychological quirk, General Robert E. Lee (one of my favorite generals even though I am from the North) shared this personality trait. He always preferred the company of women to men. And who is more masculine than a military leader? Alexander the Great also liked to be around the ladies. Though not always for nice, companionship type reasons though he did treat ladies better than the men he was friends/lovers with. (In case you didn’t know, like many ancient Greeks, Magos Alexandros was bi-sexual) Julius Caesar also liked to be around the girls too…though, admittedly that was mainly just to have lots of sex. He was a womanizer so I guess his example doesn’t really count. But Churchill always enjoyed a good friendly, honest chat with a lady, as did FDR. In other words I don’t feel too alone in preferring to hang out with women. I prefer to think it helps to civilize me. Still, I want to be a Dad and I want to raise little girls. Admittedly they’d turn into little Viking girls as I am a rough sort, daughters of Fenris if you will. My own little army of Shield Maidens, raised from my loins!

(Monkey hands me a sheet of paper, then smacks me in the face before walking off.)

Well, apparently I crossed a boundary there. Fine then, here’s where I’ll end the blog then.