E.P. Clark's Blog, page 9

Whose Overcoat Have We Come Out From Under Anyway?

Last week I talked about synesthesia and other sources of inspiration: https://epclarkauthor.net/2018/08/18/...

As part of that I touched on some of the literary, as opposed to personal, sources of inspiration for my novels. This time around I thought I'd delve into that topic a bit more deeply. No doubt there will be more posts on it in the future: I put a lot of literature into my books.

The Midnight Land (myBook.to/tmli), the first book/miniseries (depending on how you want to look at it) in The Zemnian Series, was inspired by an actual name for Russia, which was frequently called the Midnight Land in older manuscripts, with "midnight" meaning North and "midday" meaning South.

So there's a "real world" source for The Midnight Land. But it's also full of literary sources. One that may not be obvious at first glance is Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita,The Master and Margarita which, if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend.

In this comitragic romp through Moscow and Jerusalem, the present-day (meaning the 1930s, when the book was written) scenes in Moscow are full of crazy magic, as Satan and his retinue visit Stalin's USSR and recruit the beautiful and desperate Margarita to be the Queen of Hell for one night. Meanwhile, the scenes in Jerusalem are, while richly described, for the most part magic-free. Yeshua Ha-Nozri, AKA Jesus of Nazareth, has no obvious supernatural abilities, just keen observational gifts and a strong moral code that makes him seem ridiculous to those around him. I deliberately modeled Slava, the heroine of The Midnight Land, on those qualities. She does occasionally do something "magical," but 90% of what she achieves is through her non-magical abilities.

Moving on, The Breathing Sea (myBook.to/tbsi), the next book/miniseries in The Zemnian Series, is the most consciously literary of the three miniseries. I mentioned last time how Dostoevsky and his works, especially The Idiot, were major sources of inspiration. There are several other significant Russian works that serve as recurring motifs in The Breathing Sea, with the most important being Chapter 5 of Eugene Onegin, "In the Ravine" by Chekhov, and the Soviet animation "Hedgehog in the Fog": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThmaG...

Dasha's recurring dream/nightmare of being chased by a monstrous creature and running across a narrow bridge is an allusion to Tatyana's dream in Chapter 5 of Eugene Onegin, while the part of the dream/nightmare where she falls into the river and thinks, "I'm wet through. I'll drown soon" is a reference to "Hedgehog in the Fog." And she contains within her a constant tension between her Lipa-nature and her Aksinya-nature from "In the Ravine," with her repeated encounters with vipers a reminder to her that she can't run away from her Aksinya-nature, no matter how much she might like to try.

If you're intrigued you can grab a free preview of The Breathing Sea, plus lots of other epic fantasy, in the Forgotten Empires Giveaway (https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/Da...), or read the whole thing for free via KU here: myBook.to/tbsi.

And since it's the end of the month it's time to a do a roundup of August giveaways that are about to end. All of these are a lot of fun, so if you are looking to pick up some more female-oriented epic fantasy, check them out!

Daring Damsels and Warrior Women: https://books.bookfunnel.com/daringda...

Women-led fantasy, scifi, and adventure stories.

For Queen and Country: https://books.bookfunnel.com/forqueen...

Queens, Kings, Nobility, political intrigue: For Queen and Country is for Royalty themed books.

Women of Spells and Space: https://books.bookfunnel.com/womensff...

Women-led Scifi/fantasy

Oh, and if you can tell me what the title of this post refers to, I'll send you a free e-book of The Midnight Land I or The Breathing Sea I, whichever you prefer!

Tripping Out: Writing About Altered Perceptions

I’m currently reading Jessica Taylor-Bearman’s A Girl Behind Dark Glasses, A Girl Behind Dark Glasses
about her experience as a teenager with severe ME/CFS.

I’m interested in her story not just because, as someone with a chronic illness, I’m interested in the stories of other people with chronic illnesses, but because, like most people in her situation, she has to try to convey what it’s like to experience everyday life in a far from everyday fashion. Those of us with neurological illnesses end up out of our heads a lot of the time, whether we want to be or not. When a lot of my acquaintances were experimenting with drugs in the days of our heady youth, I always declined, not out any prudish virtue, but because I had enough trouble with altered perception as it was. I thought it was just me. Turns out it was probably the spiral-shaped monster corkscrewing through my central nervous system as well.

Anyway, describing the alteration of perceptions and experiences that most people take for granted is a surprisingly difficult business for a writer. It leaves you facing the unbridgeable (it seems) gap between your experiential reality and that of everyone around you. Words, as usual, can only give you a vague approximation of the true experience.

This problem was one of the things that drew me to researching war literature, which, like illnesses narratives, focuses on trying to explain what it’s like those who weren’t there, man, they just weren’t there, and they can’t ever know. In either case, the quotidian is breached and you end up, figuratively or literally, tripping out.

A couple of good examples of contemporary war literature that deal with these types of altered perceptions, if you’re interested, are Will Mackin’s Bring Out the Dog Bring Out the Dog: Stories, whose surreal psychedelic haze was inspired, the author said in an interview, by the experience seeing everything through night-vision goggles during night raids; and Arkady Babchenko’s One Soldier’s War One Soldier's War In Chechnya in which the narrator describes intense, perception-altering fear-states while under bombardment.

These three authors have three very different styles–Jessica is writing as a naive and imaginative teenage girl (yes, I’m using her first name here on purpose, as she’s deliberately going for a more cuddly, personal style than the other authors), Babchenko is trying to evoke the sensations of being a desperate recruit scared out of his mind, and Mackin’s narrator is a hardened Special Ops officer who floats along in an emotionally detached purple haze–but they all struggle with the same issue of how to describe non-verbal states that the reader has not experienced. If you read the books yourself, you can decide how well they do.

As I reread my own works, I’m struck by how often my characters end up tripping out as well. Clearly this is how I perceive the world. A good example is when Valya, in The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge hears some shocking news, and spends the rest of the day in a state of weirdness:

I had blithely assumed, when the initial shock had passed there in the kitchen, that Kirochka’s revelations would not have any great effect on me, and that I would go about my day with all my accustomed energy, but when we stepped out into the bright sunlight, something seemed wrong with my eyes, and I almost staggered from the wave of dizziness that hit me. After a moment I got hold of myself and we proceeded to the stables without Mirochka noticing anything wrong, but as we walked across the yard and then into the stable and down the rows of stalls, I felt as if I had somehow become separated from my body, or as if I were wading through deep water, so that every step was an effort, and everything was strange and far away. The part of me that could still care about things ground its teeth in annoyance. I had felt the same way for many weeks after, but I had thought I had left all this behind long ago. Obviously not.

If, by the way, you want to grab a free ARC of TDLI, they’re currently available to download in a couple of intriguing-looking giveaways:

Women of Spells and Space Giveaway: https://books.bookfunnel.com/womensff...

For Queen and Country Giveaway: https://books.bookfunnel.com/forqueen...

As Valya’s powers develop, of course, her perceptions become more altered, with her starting to become disconnected from her own hands in The Dreaming Land II: The Journey (available, because I have to do my bit to plug these things and also because I want to make sure you get your chance to get an ARC, in the Summer of Love Giveaway: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/bs...).

Does she ever get cured? I guess we’ll have to read to the end and find out!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I was tripping out while I was writing this. All apologies if the letters don’t actually form words.

What do you call a male ingenue, anyway?

Last week I wrote about how Valya, the heroine of my upcoming release The Dreaming Land, was a “bad girl,” both by the standards of her society and of ours. She’s a bit–well, more than a bit–of a femme fatale, at least in the minds of other people. In fact, I have an ad going right now on Facebook about how she’s a cross between Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings and Melisande from Kushiel’s Legacy.

I hope that sounds as intriguing to you as it does to me.

Anyway, every femme fatale needs an ingenue as a foil. Delightfully enough, Valya’s ingenue is really an ingenu, the innocent young man she’s been assigned by the Empress to seduce into marriage.

Which brings up some interesting questions for an author, such as: how do you write a male ingenue?

Not all my male characters are so naive and innocent. Urho, from “Wolf Island,” which if you haven’t read yet you can find in my collection Winter of the Gods and Other Stories , available along with a bunch of other freebies in the Enchanted Woods Giveaway: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/E7...

is very much a “strong silent type,” your typical male hero, although I hope with a little more depth than some. And both The Midnight Land and The Breathing Sea have your stereotypical older, more experienced, men in them, although the “love” plot is subverted.

But for The Dreaming Land I wanted to have an actual love story, but with the roles reversed/subverted, so a younger, innocent man and an older, femme fatale-like woman. Which, like I said, brought up all kinds of questions. How do you make a male ingenue (ingenu?) who has those characteristics but is still attractive to straight female readers? I mean, I’m okay with him being attractive to other types of readers as well, but this is supposed to be a love story between a “good boy” and a “bad girl” that still resonates (I hope).

The cliche in such situations is to go for a Taming of the Shrew narrative, where the shy man suddenly becomes aggressive and pushy and the previously bossy woman submits with delight to his demands. Was I going to go with that storyline?

HELL NO!

So–spoiler alert!–while Vanya, my ingenu, does become more confident and more assertive (and more experienced) over the course of the trilogy, and does on an important occasion save Valya from her worst impulses, he remains ingenu until the end. I guess it’s up to the readers to decide how they feel about having their gender expectations subverted.

If you don’t have a copy of The Dreaming Land I, in which Vanya is first introduced and the plot to get him married off is revealed, you can snap up a free copy, plus more free books featuring kickass heroines, in the Heroine Chic giveaway: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/kD...

And if you want to pick up a copy of The Dreaming Land II, in which Vanya’s innocence is, shall we say, challenged (but his heroism comes out), you can get one, plus many books featuring men with six-pack abs, in the Summer July Hot Books giveaway: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/yG...

Bad Girls: Writing a Sympathetic Anti-Heroine

When I conceived of Valya, the heroine of The Dreaming Land, The Dreaming Land I: The ChallengeI knew I wanted her to be...bad. You know, like a bad girl. And really bad, not just fake bad. But I also wanted her to be sympathetic, which created a challenge.

You see, while there are plenty of literary tropes and lots of good will for bad boys, it's much harder to create a bad girl that readers are going to sympathize with. Boys will be boys, and girls pick up the pieces. Simply flipping the script, or relying on the cliches about bad girls, is no good. It's not until you try something like that that you realize how much even "literary" fiction relies on standard characterizations and narrative tropes. I once attended a lecture in which the speaker talked about the genius of Nabokov was evident in the fact that he made a rapist likable.

Trust me, that doesn't take genius. We've been trained to find rapists likable from birth.

Anyway, when started writing Valya's story, she absolutely insisted that she be given free rein to be her own bad self, which I sincerely hope makes people uncomfortable.

(By the way, if you want to pick up a free ARC of The Dreaming Land I, plus more books featuring Very Bad Boys and/or Girls, you can do so in the Villains and Minions Giveaway here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/villains...).



Valya is a Bad Girl in her own society, especially at the beginning of the story.  In a culture that is trying, slowly and with lots of setbacks, to become less violent, Valya is a warrior princess who isn't afraid to commit violence when she deems it necessary, as in this excerpt from Book I:

“Blades are made to be used,” I said noncommittally, and turned back to Ivan Marinovich.

“Yes—against the Hordes and people such as that,” said the other woman. Aksinya, I remembered, her name was Aksinya Yevpraksiyevna. Some of those Northern princesses had no taste at all when it came to naming.

“Of course,” I agreed.

“And I suppose you’ve had your fair share of opportunities to use them against those enemies, haven’t you?”

“I have,” I said. “Although it is not really fit talk for the feasting table.” Truth be told, I had only killed three raiders from the Hordes, although those three still loomed large in my memory. In these peaceful times, we strove to capture them alive and send them to the mines instead. They received mercy, and we received the benefit of their labor. I had taken more than two dozen prisoners, and the thought that they were now mining the ore for our swords was comforting.

“But using them against sister Zemnians is taking it too far, if you ask me,” Aksinya Yevpraksiyevna continued, her mouth drawing tighter and tighter and her eyes gaining a more and more triumphant glitter as she spoke. “Tell me, Valeriya Dariyevna: is it true? Did you really behead two of your own people last year?”

The rest of the table, and, I thought, the adjoining table as well, fell silent.

“My mother keeps no headswoman,” I said. “And yet someone must administer justice, and keep the peace. It was no different than killing raiders from the Hordes in battle.” Actually, that was a lie, but the self-righteous glares around me were annoying me, and I had no intention of letting them know how sick with horror I had been afterwards. Better that they should continue to fear me as a killer than pity me as a soft-hearted coward.

“Justice! In Zem’ we do not behead people in the name of justice, Valeriya Dariyevna! That kind of justice was ended in the reign of your great-great grandmother, if I remember aright. No one keeps a headswoman anymore, Valeriya Dariyevna, because there is no need!”

“It was necessary,” I said. “It was the best thing to be done with them.”

“Why? What could they have possibly done that required beheading, Valeriya Dariyevna?”

“Something best not discussed over supper,” I said. “And you do not know the whole story, Aksinya Yevpraksiyevna.”

“Oh, I think I do, Valeriya Dariyevna. Everyone knows you got a taste for violence after…well, and then those excursions against the Hordes,” she nodded at the scar on my arm, causing Ivan Marinovich to glance down at it too and blush yet again, “and so now, when there is nothing better for you to do, you must go bringing violence to your own people. Did you not write in last year to the Princess Council, urging us to mount a force and march East against the Hordes? Thank the gods that yours is not the only voice the Empress heeds. And then beheading two of your own people—not just Zemnians, but people of the steppe, even, well…”

“They were selling our children to the Hordes!” I shouted.

Here's that link to the giveaway again, if that taste has whetted your appetite: https://books.bookfunnel.com/villains...

And Valya is also a Bad Girl by the standards of our society (and many parts of hers as well) in other ways. She sleeps with women. She sleeps with men betrothed to other women. She sets out to seduce a younger man, and engages in a relationship that has a strong element of D/s, with her as the D, with him. 

If your appetite is now even more whetted, you can pick up a copy of The Dreaming Land II,The Dreaming Land II: The Journey where a lot of the really racy action happens, plus many other books featuring Very Bad Girls, in the 9 1/2 weeks Giveaway: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/2K...



And she also has a change of heart. Her big mission throughout the mini-series (which is very long, FYI, just mini in the context of the entire uber-series) is to catch the slave traders who are stealing and selling children. The first time she succeeds, as suggested by the excerpt above, she kills them. But the more she encounters them, the more compassion she feels for them, and the more she recognizes herself in them:

“But…” He looked away, and then looked back, frustration cutting grooves in his face. “How can you be so, so calm about it! You…you were the one who beheaded people for trading slaves? And now you’re going to just let them go! Not only that, you’re going to give them money!”

“The irony is not lost on me.”

He gave me a look of disgust.

“Very well, then: it makes me sick. It makes me sick to let Liza and her people go, and it makes me even sicker to give them money. If you had asked me a year ago, or even a month ago, what I would have done, I would have…I would have told you that like as not I’d kill them where they stood and leave them to rot, and call it justice. I…and I half-thought that was what I was going to do, right up until the moment I didn’t. But you see, when I…when I thought of doing it, it made me…it made me sick, and it made me even sicker to think of Mirochka ever finding out. I can’t let her have a killer for a mother.” I thought for a moment. “Or any more of a killer than I already am. And then…when she looked at me, when Liza looked at me, I knew…I knew that could have been me. She could have been me.”

“You would never do anything like that! You would never be anything like her!”

“No? I’ve killed people, Vanya! You’ve seen me do it!”

“Bad people!”

“And the people she was selling were bad people too! At least at the beginning.”

“They were children!”

“As if children can’t be evil. But you see…I understand why she did what she did, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same, if I had been her. Because she’s right: what else could she or the people she thought she was helping do? It seemed like the best way out for them, and sometimes they were right. You see, Vanya, when I look at these slave traders, I no longer see the enemy. I see myself.”

“You’re…” His face worked. “You’re nothing like them!”

“Yes I am. Or at least parts of me are. So…I can hardly believe it, any more than you can, but I find myself compelled to be merciful to Liza and those like her. Not just because I think it’s the right thing to do and will make things better in the long run, although I do, but because I want to. I look at them and I feel…compassion. Recognition. Even when I hate them, when I want to hurt them, it’s because I hate that part of myself, the part of myself that would do anything, that is willing and able to hurt others in order to get what I want. So I have to do this, Vanya. Not just because it’s the best thing for our mission, but because I need to forgive that part of myself and let it go. Or rather, I need to be able to forgive that part of myself and let it go so that I’m not trapped by it, so that I can do what is best for us and all those we’re trying to help. I can’t be held down by the hatred I feel for people like Liza, people who represent everything I’m terrified of becoming. Anger…anger, rage, all that can give me strength, if I let it, if I channel it properly, but hate…you have to be careful with hate. You have to take it only in very small doses, like essence of poppy. A half a spoonful can help you get through things you wouldn’t be able to get through otherwise, but any more and it will kill you. So I’m letting go of all that, as best I can, and letting go of Liza and everything she stands for. I can’t let her get in the way of saving those who need to be saved, of saving Zem’ itself, maybe.”

Here's that link again: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/2K...

I confess I did it on purpose. I tried to think of what readers would find most horrifying, and ask them to feel compassion for it. People, especially women, who steal children away from their families and sell them into slavery are probably really high up on the list of bad guys for much of modern American society. Too bad we keep doing it. And like Valya says, we probably won't be able to stop doing it until we can find it in our hearts to forgive it.

It's Here! The Dreaming Land III is Here!

Hi All,

It's finally here! The ARC of The Dreaming Land III! The conclusion to the whole epic saga! It is finished!

Well, not really. There's still the paperbacks to format, and then the release, and...you know how it goes. But even so, I do have free ARCs of The Dreaming Land III: The Sacrifice available for download here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/9xf7grfzgm

And if you haven't gotten your free ARCs of The Dreaming Land I & II yet, you can snap them up, plus a lot more free books, in a couple of romantic fantasy giveaways going on right now:

The Summer of Love and Magic Giveaway going on over at Bookfunnel: https://books.bookfunnel.com/summerof...

And the Sweet Poison Paranormal Romance Giveaway on Instafreebie: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/gM...

Happy reading!

Fantasy Giveaways (With or Without Romance)

Hi Again!

So last time I listed several romance giveaways I'm participating in. This time I'll be talking about several fantasy giveaways I'm participating in. So if you haven't picked up either my short story collection Winter of the Gods and Other Stories or the ARCs I'm currently giving out of The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge and/or The Dreaming Land II: The Journey, you can grab those, plus a ton of other free fantasy books, in the following giveaways:

The July Amazing Fantasy Giveaway, which has all full books, is here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/amazingf...

The Daggers and Beasts Giveaway features books, short stories, and prequels with a fantasy element and strong lead protagonists, not to mention a little romance: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/1H...

The Enchanted Woods Giveaway is all stories set in enchanted woodlands: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/E7...

The Summer of Love and Magic Giveaway is all fantasy with a romantic angle: https://books.bookfunnel.com/summerof...

And the June-July Amazing Fantasy Giveaway is still going strong if you want to check it out: https://books.bookfunnel.com/amazingf...

Happy reading!

Romance Giveaways (With or Without Fantasy)

Hi All,

Well, July is here and it's a big month for giveaways! I'm participating in several of them, which I'll be sharing as the month progresses. Today I'm going to start off with some of the romance-focused giveaways I've joined.

I was of two minds over whether or not to join romance-themed giveaways with The Dreaming Land, since it's sort of a romance and sort of a subversion of the romance plot, which...well, we all know how romance readers feel about stuff that messes with the romance plot. But I decided to risk it. So you can get ARCs of The Dreaming Land I The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge and/or The Dreaming Land II The Dreaming Land II: The Journey, plus many more sweet, sexy, exciting, edgy, etc. etc. romance-tinged stories in the following giveaways:

The Summer of Love and Magic Giveaway has books with both a fantasy and a romance angle: https://books.bookfunnel.com/summerof...

July Hot Books--Is The Dreaming Land II hot enough to keep company with these bad boys? I'm a little nervous, but it's there for the taking, along with a lot of other books featuring six-pack abs. Worth a peek for that alone, surely: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/yG...

And last but certainly not least, the 9 1/2 Week Erotic Fiction giveaway. It promises more than just billionaires and BDSM, but it looks like there's plenty of that too: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/2K...

Till next time!

Elena

The Midnight Land I is Free Today, and There's Still the ARC of The Dreaming Land I!

Hi All,

Yep, another week, another giveaway! This time it's The Midnight Land I The Midnight Land: Part One: The Flight which is completely FREE today and tomorrow on Kindle. You can get it here: myBook.to/tmli

And if you're in the US The Midnight Land II The Midnight Land: Part Two: The Gift is only 99c for the next two days! Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0178IC8EW

Meanwhile, if you haven't gotten it yet, you can get a free ARC of The Dreaming Land I The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge, plus many other free books, in the following giveaways. Browse any or all of them, depending on what suits your fancy:

The Amazing Fantasy June-July Giveaway: https://books.bookfunnel.com/amazingf...

This one just started and only has complete books.

The Best New Releases in Fantasy Giveaway:
https://books.bookfunnel.com/bestjune...

This one has--you guessed it--new releases.

And finally, over on Instafreebie, there's the Contemporary Upmarket Fiction giveaway, which has a selection collection of genre-bending, upmarket books (including mine) available till the end of the month: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/Oe...

Until next time!

Elena

Free ARC of The Dreaming Land II, and Giveaways!

Hi All,

It's here! It's finally here! You can snap up (for a limited time) a completely free ARC of "The Dreaming Land II" here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/txdb6j6eni

And Book I is also available for free in the following three great giveaways:

The Summer Magic Fantasy Giveaway, which has over 100 free fantasy books and ends this weekend: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/pG...

The Contemporary Upmarket Fiction Giveaway, which has a select group of upmarket fiction available for free all June: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/Oe...

And the Best New Releases in Fantasy Giveaway, which is for free new fantasy releases: https://books.bookfunnel.com/bestjune...

New Releases in Fantasy and Contemporary Upmarket Fiction Giveaways

Hi All,

Another week, another giveaway! The ARC for my upcoming release "The Dreaming Land" is available in not one but TWO awesome giveaways going on all month:

Best New Releases in Fantasy: https://books.bookfunnel.com/bestjune...

Contemporary Upmarket Fiction: https://claims.instafreebie.com/gg/Oe...

In other news, for those of you who follow what goes on in Eastern Europe, I've been caught up, very distantly, in the complete CRAZINESS surrounding the Arkady Babchenko story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018...

As it happens, an article I co-authored about Babchenko's book just happened to come out the same day he was "resurrected." If you have a yen to find out a little more about Babchenko's book, which whatever you think of recent behavior is a damn good read, you can access the article here: http://ojs.lib.ucl.ac.uk/index.php/Slovo