Exactly the Wisdom I Needed Today

"[A]ssholes and obstructionists aren't really obstacles.

They're whetstones."

The wisdom of John Tynes, ladies and gentlemen.

3...2...1... Not It!

And a rejection. "Ultra-Fast Delivery" didn't tickle the editors of Eldritch Chrome in the proper way. It's my first rejection in some time (close to a year?), certainly the first since I got out of school. Still, the line-up for the book looks pretty darn awesome:

Playgrounds of Angolaland - David Conyers
The Blowfly Manifesto - Tim Curran
SymbiOS - William Meikle
Obsolete, Absolute – Robert M. Price
Open Minded Jeffrey Thomas
The Battle of Arkham - Peter Rawlik
The Wurms In the Grid - Nickolas Cook
Of Fractals, Fantomes, Frederic and Filrodj - John Shirley
The Gauntlet - Glynn Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
Indifference - CJ Henderson
Dreams of Death - Lois Gresh
Inlibration - Michael Tice
Immune - Terrie Leigh Relf
Hope Abandoned - Tom Lynch
Sonar City - Sam Stone
The Place that Cannot Be - D.L. Snell
Flesh & Scales - Ran Cartwright
Real Gone – David Dunwoody
CL3ANS3 – Carrie Cuinn

It would have been nice company, but I'll just have to start flogging the story elsewhere. Come to think of it, there's a couple of other stories that need selling, so it's time to get back on the horse.

What a Monster!

I’ve been reading Leonard Wolf’s Annotated Frankenstein, which includes a number of authors, from Brian Aldiss to Robert Bloch to Joyce Carol Oates, discussing their impressions of Frankenstein. Many bring up the inescapable legacy of James Whale and Boris Karloff. Although I’ve seen images from the film, I hadn’t seen it until very recently. My first experience was the book; the 1983 Frankenstein with Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations. And reading Wolf’s text and annotations, I realize how lucky I am. Karloff’s grunting, lurching creature has little of Shelley’s powerful, neglected child so full of questions and desperate to be loved.

When I was eight or so, I got my hands on a couple of issues of the Len Wein-Bernie Wrightson Swamp Thing, and I was just astonished, not just with the stories, but the moody art. Six years later, when I saw that same Bernie Wrightson had illustrated one of the Classic Horror Novels of All Time, how could teenaged me resist?

Wrightson read the story, and without any sort of makeup or special effects budget to hold him back, created a vision of the creature that was true to the book; enormous and hideous, but at the same time, tragic and sympathetic. Shelley’s description of the creature is vague, and in any translation into a visual media, the artist has a great deal of latitude. Wrightson has paid attention to what Shelley did tell us, and builds on what seems like a contradictory set of instructions.

Wrightson does not cherry-pick only the most dramatic illustrations. Although he does point out the moments of high drama, such as Victor’s destruction of his second creation, he also chooses Alpine landscapes, serene moments on a boat, and Victor in his laboratory, reading. In this, he encompasses the book from end to end. It is the masterful execution of the illustrations that makes them important and relevant to the reader, not merely that they are dramatically interesting points in the novel. And that approach takes a lot of confidence in an illustrator. Anyone can be inspired by the creature’s fury or Victor’s pathos when Elizabeth is murdered. But Wrightson is inspired by all the novel, from Walton’s icebound ship to the shores of Ireland.

The original edition of this was published by Marvel in 1983, with an introduction by Stephen King. King and Wrightson had worked together on Creepshow, and also on Cycle of the Werewolf, also published in 1983. Unlike much of King’s other work, I like this introduction. King discusses a few important aspects of the book, how he had to read it because he was going to teach it, and discovered what he’d remembered as a dusty old book was really quite wonderful. The essay is, dare I say it, a sweet love note to a book that waited patiently for him to be able to understand it.

Obviously, copies of Frankenstein, even illustrated ones, are easy to come by. This one, to me, is very special. I hope it’s not just because it’s my childhood Frankenstein, but because Wrightson’s art remains so evocative. This 2008 Dark Horse volume is MSRP $30. And that’s pretty hefty, even including all the production value; it’s a 9x12 clothbound hardcover with a bound-in bookmark, and high-quality paper. It’s heavy, for such a small novella, although it has been padded a bit; the lines are double-spaced, and the reverse of each illustration is not used for print. But the illustrations are enormous, finely-reproduced, and well worth the time to examine them in detail

And now...

I submitted a story today. It's a good story, one I've been working on for two months, and I think should go well with the anthology's theme. It's been nearly two hours since I submitted, and I'm anxiously checking my email to see if the editors liked it. This is silly. They'll take some time, probably a month, since the deadline isn't until the 31st of this month. And so I do what all writers do, move on to the next story (the werewolf one in this case). And try to put the waiting out of my mind. But what I'm really doing? Is waiting.






And waiting

"I don't discuss my process"

I feel like discussing the genesis of a story today. I always think that my stories are easily guessed, the low-hanging-fruit plots that anyone could come up with given ten minutes of thought on a theme. But it doesn't seem to be that way. I've gotten praise for my unusual stories, sometimes from editors, so apparently, my though process is unusual enough that I can sell stories based on it.

I want to be in a werewolf anthology. I don't seek out werewolf stories. There's much more interest in the other parts of the Universal Horror tradition. The werewolf tends to be a serial killer with a big furry coat, a Jeckyl and Hyde persona. An easy metaphor for the rage and anger we all keep bottled up.

How can I make my story different, yet still retain the essential "thing-ness" that makes a werewolf story a werewolf story?

First with the negative. I don't want this to be a 'spot the werewolf' story. We think the unfeeling brute in the story is the werewolf, and OOOH THE SURPRISE it's the meek little person who turns out to have been bullied and gets their unexpected revenge. Nor do I want this to be a story the lionizes the werewolf. While I write stories that involve violence, at the same time, I try not to present it as a way to solve problems. I prefer it to be a symptom of sickness, rather than something cool to do. Oh, and no silver. Silver was introduced in the 20th century, so I'm going to leave it out.

What I do want: a flourish of originality, and something touching on authentic folklore. Europe tends to have the richest werewolf tradition, so I think I'll go with those. And France. I want to set it in France. Probably because I enjoyed Brotherhood of the Wolf, but also because the wolf was wiped out in England in Medieval times, I tend to associate wolves and werewolves with France. I also want wolves, and wolf behavior. And it turns out that there's a strong association of werewolves with cannibalism, so I think that'll go into the plot.

So it's off to Wikipedia. As Wikipedia grows, it has a lot of links to specific instances and references. For example, you can find this entry in the werewolf entry linked to above:

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolatry and superstitious belief.

That reminds me of an Italian society of dreamers I've read about in Ken Hite's Dubious Shards; the Benandanti, a group of Medieval Italian mystics who fought the Devil in their dreams. I also remember something about the winter of 1450, when the Seine froze, and wolves got into the walled city of Paris. They were eventually wiped out on the steps of Notre Dame. That Wikipedia entry also includes a link to Werewolf Witch trials, which happened in Estonia, where many witches were also werewolves. It was a long, very cold winter, with a poor harvest before it, so the winter of 1450 sounds like an excellent time to set a story about starvation.

So to make a small, possibly credible link with the Benandanti, I'll move the story to the Franco-Italian border, which was at the time in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire, a political entity I tend to forget about since it's not modern. With a little work from Wikipedia and Google Maps, I decide I'm going to put it in the Duchy of Savoy, the capital of which is Chambéry, and the Duke around 1450 is Louis. And that kind of research is a lot of fun. Another hour on Google Maps, and I'll have the very village the story takes place in.

In his Finishing the Hat Stephen Sondheim says that one of his guiding principles is that "God is in the details." Well the man writes some beautiful words, so I'm going to take him at his word and be very picky with my details. It gives me a background to hang the story on, allowing me to make casual mention of the Duke Louis, and Fredrick III is the Emperor (elect only, because he wasn't crowned by the Pope until 1452, but this was apparently just a formality). These details create an air of authenticity, even as I pick and choose my regional werewolf legends.

I don't want to make the werewolf sympathetic per se, but I do want to make them (I don't know what sex it's going to be yet) complex. Complex characters are always somewhat sympathetic because we understand them, and respond to the care used to create them. And because I want to use the cannibalism angle; it's difficult to make people like a cannibal, but I'm always up for a challenge.

So I've got this enormous pot of details and wants and not-wants, but you can see how the details are going to shape the story. And things may change. If I write myself into a corner, I may have to alter any or even all of these details to create a successful story, but as I progress as a writer, the need to change the story once I've started it is less.

And there you have it; the initial steps in the creation of the story I'm currently writing. Now to get to the difficult part of writing it.

Have I Told You to Buy My Stuff Lately?

I always feel funny telling people to buy my work. What I prefer is that other people do it for me.

Let's take Rod MacDonald's review of Andromeda Spaceways InFlight Magazine for SFcrowsnest.com. If you're too lazy to click the link, I've copied and pasted the important bit below:

David Conyers and John Goodrich are the joint authors of ‘The Masked Messenger’ which features Harrison Peel in another Cthulhu Mythos story. The agent is in Morocco to investigate strange deaths where people end up being cut into thousands of pieces. Is this a conventional terrorist act or is it an act of a cult belonging to the Masked Messenger? There is a strange book, centuries old, which contains deadly secrets and there is also a portal in the Sahara Desert which leads on to another world completely different from our own. An excellent tale full of suspense and action, it's worth purchasing the magazine for this alone.

Rod seems like an excellent fellow. I think it's entirely worthwhile to follow his advice and purchase a PDF copy. I mean, I wouldn't want to be accused of ignoring Rod's advice.

Inspiring...

I've recently read and reviewed Ross Lockhart's The Book of Cthulhu. It's a really good anthology, and more than that, an inspiring one. There are so many extraordinary, well-crafted stories in it that I wanted to make my next story to be good enough to warrant inclusion. Could I write a story that could follow "The Oram County Whoosit" and not embarrass myself?

I don't know. I don't think so... yet. But I'm revising the story that I've said that about, and I think it's better than anything I've yet written. According to my initial review group, it shares the strengths of the majority of my work; strong characterization, and a good fight scene. I think it has more description and atmosphere that my work up to now.

It's been a long, hard slog. Between classes and work, I've had to assemble the story bit by bit, and that often makes scenes and events inconsistent. And writing style can vary from day to day, depending on mood and the events of the day. The protagonist is also a huge variation from my usual, as well as being set in the near future of a city I've never been to. In early writing classes, they say you should write what you know, but there comes a time when you run out of parts of your life to mine. And I can either continue to dig up my life's shallow grave, or I can strike out and try someone who has very little in common with me. Let's hope this character comes out as strong as I hope she does.

There's also a lack of exposition in this story, which may not be the best approach because it's set in the near future, and there's a lot of technology out there that isn't familiar to the reader. But the characters in the story wouldn't talk about that technology any more than you or I would talk about how our cell phones work. We use them when they work, curse at them when they don't.

I think it's a step up in terms of the quality of my writing. I'll ask what you as readers think if it gets sold and if you read it.

ANTHOCON was awesome!

Yeah. I drove three and a half hours, obeying several speed limits, to get there before Brian Keene's Keynote Speech. Which he posted on his website, and is an excellent read, by the way, so go do it now.

The company was good. The attendees were an enjoyable mix of pro and fan, with the vast majority of the authors from the Epitaphs anthology in attendance. So I did what I love to do when I'm in the company of writers; we spoke. We exchanged ideas, laughed at stuff, and talked. Authors love to talk.

We also spoke of the death of Les Daniels, and I have to say, I learned a great deal about the man. I knew him as the author of some terrific vampire novels, creator of Don Sebastian de Villanueva. Billed as "The vampire horrified by humanity" Don Sebastian consistently went to the most horrible places and times in history, such as Spanish Inquisition, the French Terror, and the lower classes of Victorian England. They're excellent novels. But Dan was much more than that. He was the first person to publish a book on the history of horror, Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media, as well as the first serious look at comics: Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America. Les was, therefore one of the people responsible for raising two art forms that I enjoy out of their "it's pulp and no one should study it" gutters. He did a lot more, and his friends shared a great deal of the other work he'd done. Les was remarkable, no doubt about it. He will be missed.

Anthocon also featured at least a couple of people who were a little bit out of their element. Local author K. D. Mason writes murder mysteries set along New Hampshire's coast. We talked a bit. He was a nice guy. Among the vendors were a pair of college programs with graduate degrees in creative writing, and they looked bored. I got some literature from them.

But the real draws was the authors. Writing can be very lonely, because it's very seldom that collaboration happens in company. But talking with other people who write always makes the hard parts seem less difficult, because we all face the same problems. Editors! Reviews from people who didn't read the book! Finding time to write! But the conversation always circles back into "Have you read this book/story/series and what did you think of it." Because the New England Horror Community is a group of voracious readers, and they've all got informed opinions about what they're reading. Is the protagonist of Hunger Games nothing but a victim through the whole series? There's a couple of opinions, and they're all got a reason for the opinion.

The major lesson learned? Brian Keene can tell when someone is telling a Harlan Ellison story from twenty feet away. If that's not a superpower, I don't know what is.

Excellent con.

After twenty years, I'm going back to Portsmouth!

This weekend, I will be the guest (my first time as the guest of a convention) at Anthocon, hosted by Shroud Press, in Portsmouth, NH.

Portsmouth is a lovely town on the New Hampshire coast... I used to visit there when I was in college. Among other things, it has the USS Nautilus, the US's first nuclear submarineUSS Albacore, formerly the US Navy's fastest submarine (Thanks to Donovan Loucks and Dan Foley for correcting me on that). But it was a nice little touristy place, quite attractive, with some nice shops. And now I'm going back.

Why? Because Shroud Books is publishing Epitaphs, the first anthology of the New England Horror Writers Association. And I'm in it.

I wrote "Not an Ulcer" for the gay-themed Unspeakable Horror anthology. It was one of my bridesmaid stories, and something like the third story I’d seriously written. The anthology asked for a rewrite, which they ultimately rejected. But just being asked for a rewrite was pretty big. But Lee Thomas had a story with a similar concept called “I’m Your Violence.” Do I stack up against Lee Thomas? I think not! But hey, I got asked to do a rewrite! At that time, 2008, I was in the running for several anthologies, and although I was in the second-to-last cut for all of them, I didn’t get into any. I started calling these bridesmaid stories on this blog; always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

The story is based in some way in my job time in California, but no character is based on anyone I knew. I wanted to do a story about someone at war with himself. At first, there were several Rush Limbaugh references, but I’ve cut them out. People read stories to be entertained, not to be preached at.

The story takes a real chance with the main character–the first line makes it quite clear that he’s a bigot, very difficult to sympathize with him. But I'm good with character, and I like a challenge.

I originally send “Nicaragua 1986” for consideration, which was written with the intention of submitting it to Epitaphs. I sent “Not an Ulcer” as an off-chance, since it had been rejected by five different markets but Tracy liked it. I don’t do body horror often, and I did polish it a little after every rejection, so it’s a much stronger story now than when it was submitted to Unspeakable Horror.

Apologies, people. There was a hurricane, and then a class that is eating my brain. It's a good class, but I'm spending some fifteen hours a week on a three-credit course. It's a good coruse, field expereince an all that, but sometimes I wish that it took up less of my time.

I need to update this blog. Since I last posted, two stories have been published: 'The Masked Messenger" by David Conyers and myself, in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #52. It's a good story of terrorism, violence, hatred, arrogance, and horrible things from outside of time and space. Pretty much everything you've come to expect out of a story I'm part of.

Second, on the 12th, which is to say Saturday, I will be at Anthocon because I placed a story in the New England Horror Writers Association's anthology Epitaphs. "Not an Ulcer" has been around the block a few times, and I will provide a little insight into this story later.

I've also sold a story to Undead and Unbound, a Brian Sammons anthology. I''ve been invited to contribute to a couple other anthologies, also. One story is taking shape nicely. So yeah, I've been busy, and not just with playing Fallout: New Vegas.

Although it was a lot of fun.