Jared and Eric have changed the look a bit over at the Gold Wake Press website, and it looks pretty sharp. Additionally, my e-chapbook, Dead Zones, now has a cover image.

I think I know what he’s doing. He’s rippling the surface of the pond.             You think my cat cleaned the ashtrays?        &nbs...

See more of Little Violations by Jeff Jeppesen »

Sometimes, I gotta get messy when I write. Emotions are messy but they are necessary. Messiness makes my characters more human.

Besides, making a mess when I revise is way more fun than cleaning it up for perfection. Nothing I write will ever be perfect.

And just like that, my writing is set free. Free to be me. :)

The final chapter of Fairyland is up.

Chapter XXII: Ravished Means You Cannot Stay

A mother cannot see every little thing, and glad we may be that she could not, as it would have caused a great deal of trouble September would never have been able to explain.

In the following weeks, we will be updating the Museum, filling out the missing audio chapters, and I will be deep in thought planning the sequel. I don't have a release date from Feiwel & Friends yet, but I'm led to believe it will be sooner rather than later.

Thank you to everyone who read and supported this project, who retweeted, posted, boosted the signal. Every member of onaleopard . Who made icons and art. Who loved September and feared for her. Who gave me advice and encouragement. (Particularly alexandraerin , corvaxgirl , and talkstowolves , as well as justbeast , who faithfully created and updated the website all this time.) Who made this particular magic with me. I count us all as Fairyland Family, and make no mistake--what happened between us, in and around Fairyland, was a miracle of no small measure. My gratitude cannot be summed up in a text box. I'll be working on some special treats for you "early adopters" as the print edition nears its birthday.

If you have any questions at this point, any final copyediting notes (I know geek love when I see it), or comments, please feel free to email me. The donation button will stay up and active, as will all chapters, as long as I have a thing to say about it. I'll be posting when we get home (flying out today) about this whole process--many stories to tell.

I would love, now that the story is told, to see some reviews pop up, some discussion of the novel while it still lives only online. It is very hard to get cyberfunded projects reviewed professionally or even by their readers. If you have thoughts, I would love to hear them.

Check out crowdfunding for your next serial addiction. I will continue to post fiction online whenever I can.

Thank you so much. You are all my heroes.

*shrugs on a green smoking jacket, straightens hair, and takes a very small bow*

An observation at 9,000 words into The Amber Son:

In my head, The Bone Queen feels like a tale and The Amber Son is a novel about the effects of tales. This is a world where the magic is driven by story. The Amber Son shows much more of what this can lead to: the worship of story-figures, their involvement in politics, some physical limitations of stories' power*, the possibility of someone not believing in stories' power, how stories of a place can alter that place, how someone can be born with a power. Additionally, The Amber Son includes issues like language barriers (two of the main characters, who soon join forces, can barely communicate until one of them starts trying to learn the other's language) - which the The Bone Queen, not being set in a city full of immigrants, didn't encounter. It all leads to The Amber Son feeling more real, and The Bone Queen is an extended version of a story one of my characters would know.

(Stories and actual history: not mutually exclusive, mind.)

I like this difference, but I wonder at its consequences in context of advice that a second book in a series should be "the same, but different": the same kind of story, without repeating the first book. Probably it's too soon to tell.

Also, The Amber Son needs more action. Time to get on with that.



* One character is said to have eleven heads and a thousand arms. This just isn't possible. When he's using his power, regular people perceive him that way; it's merely illusion, alas.

via LikeItHateIt

...she'll follow you anywhere.

Link.

(crossposted)

The Apex Book of World SF interviews over at SF Signal is still moving along. Last Friday's was with the awesome Kaaron Warren.

On non-personal plugs, everyone should read this nonfiction piece by writer/rockstar Lourd de Veyra about the experience of losing books to the recent typhoons.

After the long, grueling days of cleaning up after September 26, I came up with my own: Books That Are Too Important To Throw Away So You Hold On To Them Even If They Smell Like Shit, Books That You Never Even Thought You Owned, Books You Hail As Masterpieces But Can’t Even Remember A Single Passage, Books That Have Water Lilies Between Pages How The Hell Did They Get There?, Books So Unbelievably Moldy They Should Be Donated To A Bio Lab, and Books So Filthy You Get Sick Just By Looking At Them.

And from the Behance Network:

Interviews

• The Agony Column has a recording of 2009 World Fantasy Convention Panel Podcast with Daniel Paul Olson (moderator), J. Kathleen Cheney, Laura Anne Gilman, Thomas S. Roche, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
• Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs interviews J.C. Hutchins.
• The Creative Penn interviews J.C. Hutchins (podcast).
• Realm Lovejoy interviews agent Diana Fox.
• The Sofanauts episode with Peter Watts and Paul di Filippo (podcast).
• My Favourite Books interviews Lou Anders.
• ActuSF has interviews from video interviews from Utopiales 2009 including Hal Duncan.
• The Dragon Page interviews Cherie Priest (podcast).
• Off the Hook interviews Cory Doctorow (podcast).
• Odyssey Workshop interviews Gregory Frost.
• Missions Unknown interviews Jason Limon.
• Shareable interviews Kim Stanley Robinson. (via Locus Magazine)
• Tor.Com interviews Professor Kelly Joyce (Part 2).
• Storytellers Unplugged Q&A with Sarah Monette.

Advice/Articles

• Politics Daily on Same Old Story: Best-Books Lists Snub Women Writers. Related: Matthew Cheney on Jury, Meet Peers.
• Rich Horton's Summary: Shadow Unit, 2009.
• Hal Duncan on Notes from New Sodom: On Blood, Bad Boys and Bottoms.
• Sean Wallace on Slushreading and Slushreading Systems.
• Kameron Hurley on Surviving the Book Contract that Wasn’t.
• Tobias Buckell on The finances of freelancing: some gritty systems details for the geeky. (via Matt Staggs)
• The New York Times on Field Guides to Fairies.
• Mary Robinette Kowal on The Eight Worst Anachronisms in Fantasy.
• Damien G. Walter on Serious Fantasy.
• Cory Doctorow on Teen Sex.
• Rima Abunasser on A Day in the Life of a Literature Professor, or Why I Do What I Do.
• Jim C. Hines SF/F Humor Roundup: 2009.
• Victoria Strauss on Rights and Copyright.
• T.J. McIntyre on About Writing.
• Jason Sanford on The Interzone Sampler.
• Graham Sleight on Tipping-Point.
• Shawn Speakman on Discovering the Title.
• Editorial Anonymous on Fragile: Contains Dreams. Please Do Not Bend, Fold, or Crush.
• Juno Books on Will Closing Waldenbooks, etc. Really Hurt?
• Juliette Wade on Measures of Intelligence.

News

• Arthur D. Hlavaty offers Personal Scholarship for PoC to Attend ICFA #31.
• Realms of Fantasy February 2010: Cover & TOC.
• Realms of Fantasy Art Department: Latest Artists.
• RIP: Karl Kroeber 1926-2009.
• Warhammer 40,000 Movie Announced.

Plug, plug!

• 20:09 Finished reading RETURNING MY SISTER'S FACE by Eugie Foster, a collection of Asian folktale inspired fantasy tales. #
• 21:28 Top 3 weekly #lastfm artists: Lisa Gerrard - 55. Biosphere - 24. Sylvain Chauveau - 19. bit.ly/1MSGsi #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

So, Leah, what did you do this afternoon?

I'm glad you asked, Little Timmy! I went with cszego to the Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic!

Pics or it didn't happen.

You drive a hard bargain, Imaginary Interlocutor...



It's the warmup skate! We spent this mostly going: "OMG IT'S MARK MESSIER--NO WAIT! OMG! IT'S WENDEL CLARK!"




Some Stanley Cups, hung from the rafters.




Of course, we can't have a hockey post without snapping a nice one of Bill. Hello, m'dear.*

*For those who don't know already, I am the only girl in all creation with a #5 Leafs Heritage jersey.




Carpet Man trains six days a week to roll out that carpet on cue. Here he is, crouched like a tiger in readiness. It's a hard job, but he does it for the privilege of serving his country.



The ceremony where they gave out the blazers to the 2009 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees (Brett Hull, Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, and some team owner dude who is not a hockey player and thus not important to this post) featured things like fireworks and Mounties. Really, this is the perfect confluence of all the things that make my heart happy.

(Note Carpet Man executed his duty duly and well.)



Vague and blurry shot of the Skydiggers playing between the two 30-minute periods. This lacked a crucial ingredient: Gord Downie.

There are no actual pictures of the hockey game. Pfft. You think I'd be taking pictures? I was watching hockey.

But as to the game itself, this was pretty much the world's fanciest casual game of pickup. It was pretty obviously rigged, in a sense that they weren't going to let the Canadian Legends lose no matter what went down (and really, they were winning by three goals anyway) and they didn't call any offsides, penalties, or anything else. The clock maybe stopped once. The linesman was more an emcee than anything else.

It was hella fun though. Wendel Clark played in a little ballcap, and you could practically see him thinking must...not...check...old men! Lanny MacDonald still has a totally fearsome moustache, and his moustache was playing this game before you were born, whippersnapper, so get out of the way! Robitaille and Leetch actually suited up and played a few shifts, and that was cool. Glenn Anderson has that whooshy Pantene hair when he skates; you get the feeling he doesn't wear a helmet not due to any safety thing, but because he's humming shampoo commercials to himself as he skates by. And we will still dork out and holler for Borje Salming even when he's on the wrong team.

In sum?



ME LIKE HOCKEY. ME WATCH HOCKEY. OM NOM NOM.

http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/13372

RaceFail comes to horror as someone (a troll himself, most often) noted that a black person told him that horror seemed like a "white genre."

Some tidbits, as stuff there gets locked/deleted fairly often:

The Horror Drunx are female friendly because all HORROR DRUNX are created equal. I guess what I am trying to say is, things are changing for the better in horror nowadys compared to like ten years ago.


...

I say down with that anime genre too. It's just such an Asian game, an Asian genre.

Also, if that person exists and that conversation really took place, I think you should be ashamed regardless of posing such an ignorant question designed to once again get an argument going here (what was one of your last posts? Oh that's right pedophilia).

...


You claim to love this genre so much, why didn't you defend it when/if he said that? You posted here asking that question as if you yourself were unsure about it, so can you at least tell me if you think one country and one group should qualify to deem the entire genre racist were that true? Did YOU even think it over and how ignorant that statement is and to call him out on it?

That's like saying there aren't a lot of black chefs in Italian restaurants, then Italian food must be gay.

...

Know what's unrealistic about black people in horror?

Them being in horror.

They have the common sense to get the fuck out of there when shit gets weird.

True story: Our barracks was haunted. Badly haunted. One night, during the Christmas season, the shit started again. The noises, the fog in the hallways, condensation on the walls, lights buzzing and flickering, weird noses coming from the ventilation, shit like that.

...

Out of curiousity, what is the racial-equality genre?

...

To be honest, I think your friend is a racist.

I can't see an editor picking up a manuscript and by reading it say this was written by a non white author. As to stories, personally I have had as protagonists; African Bushmen, Wakamba bowmen, Masai, and a New York Zombie master - just to name a few. I think it is not a difficult thing to find other races in our fiction.

It does get a bit tiring to here people are still getting so nitpicky on the subject of our differences.

...

Well, first off, I don't think 10% of the population is gay. I'm gay, so I do have a horse in the race, so to speak. If you ask people to self-identify their sexual orientation, about 2% say they are homosexual. Of course, that is a bit underrepresented, so let's go with 5%. Now, I don't know the sexual orientation of most horror writers, but I do know the following are gay men:

...

With that in mind, I say the following: I find it very hard to believe that a white publisher would read a story from either A) a black writer or B) a story/novel featuring a predominately black cast of characters, and say to themselves, "This shit will never sell. PASS."

...

[BONUS LOL from the guy who wrote about Bushman and zombie masters!]:

Y'know I am reading all this and the question comes to mind, "Do we have to have equal statistics on Everything?" Think about it. There are cultural differences that may or may not affect the partisipation of a group in a particular activity. Because they don't, doesn't mean the activity is Racist; or that we should strive to artificially balance things.

Last night I attended a Belly Dancing event. Surprise! there were no male dancers. More than half the audience was female. Should we invite a troop of cross-dressers to every event to even things up?

PC can hit the point of ridiculous.

...


Regarding some of what Wrath was saying, I've had some publishers who don't want to publish my stuff with gay main characters because they feel it limits their ability to sell to audiences that are uncomfortable with this. I don't consider this homophobic, it is just business.

...

Does it really matter if characters are black white or whatever? You can't *see* them anyway, so they can be whatever friggin' color you want; just adjust the knobs in your head.


...

It's been rather an eventful week. My story in the Guardian Weekly has drawn some jealous responses from people wanting a poster; sorry, but I gave all the big ones to BearCage Productions, the film company making the "A Positive". Yes, I've seen the movie, and yes, it's bloody brilliant. Links and announcements soon!

I took Donna and Matthew in to see the hardware store for themselves, and they stocked up on some smaller posters. The fella behind the counter told us they had a whole room of posters. "Full floor to ceiling," he said. But the only man with the key was in Auckland. He won't be back till I've left the country! Oh, the tragedy of it. I can imagine the treasures slowly mouldering in that room.

One thing I wanted to do before we left Suva was to use the magic words at a certain supermarket. This supermarket, called Uno, sometimes carries French Cheese. Word goes out and it's all gone in a couple of days, so you have to make sure you know the right people. I'd also heard that they had great vegetables, but every time I've gone in there, it was floppy celery and old fennel.
Then I heard about the magic word. It's not enough to say, "Do you have any cheese? How about great vegetables?". You have to say, "Can I see the freezer room please?"

J and I went in last week and used the magic words. The freezer room was opened up to us. Inside; asparagus, corn, mushrooms, bright green broccoli, bean sprouts. Wonderful stuff! Here's a really bodgy photo of the fellas who work there, taken with J's phone:



They are really lovely guys, and all wanted to jump into the picture!

1. I will be heading home for the holidays! Very excited about that -- we'll be in Moscow for two weeks, late December to early January.

2. This month, I'll be in NYC. NYC people, let me know what day would be good/if you want to get together for food.

3. PROJECT RUNWAY!!!! ( PR with photos )

“No Sleep till Wonderland delivers on the tremendous promise of The Little Sleep, simultaneously paying homage to classic noir fiction while creating a damaged and irrevocably lost anti-hero in PI Mark Genevich, who is always on the verge of emotional and physical collapse. This is a novel filled with black humor but an even blacker subtext that makes the reader question the nature of reality and self; heady stuff for a crime novel, for sure, but Paul Tremblay is a fearless writer and No Sleep till Wonderland is positively magnetic fiction.”—Tod Goldberg, author of Other Resort Cities and Simplify

I've been a bit distracted lately, oddly enough by healthcare, or I'd have had more to say about the HCR process in the House. There's lots to say now, much of it complaint. What the hell ever did happen to single payer, given that the Dems negotiated that away all by themselves? Why was the dreadful, pathetic Stupak-Pitts amendment even allowed to enter the process? Is the Senate serious about the six-month waiting period for the Public Option, which protects insurance companies while (sometimes fatally) victimizing voters?

But you know what? A few years ago we were debating whether to privatize Social Security. Now we're complaining that the proposed Public Option is flawed.

Guess which argument I'd rather have. Victory in politics is ever transient, but I think, for now at least, that sanity, goodwill and reason have prevailed. A hell of a change after all those years of Republican governance.

Your Sunday moment of zen.



Jeff VanderMeer, photographed at the Portland Japanese garden. © 2009 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.