Richard Dansky's Blog, page 9
April 15, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 13 - "For The Autumn Queen..."
There’s not much too the origin of “For The Autumn Queen”, just an image.
The story was originally posted at Storytellers Unplugged, a group blog of 30 or so horror writers who’d each contribute one essay a month (give or take) on writing. And for a few years there, the tradition was that for Halloween, instead of doing essays we’d do flash fiction, preferably something suitably scary, with a dash of literary. That’s where “Unhaunted House” first showed up, and “Deep End of the Shallow Water”, and of course, “For the Autumn Queen”.
It’s also where I posted my essay about the day I sold soft-core pornography to a bunch of nuns, but that’s a whole other story.
But in any case, “Autumn Queen…” was inspired by seeing the wind blow a bunch of dry leaves across my driveway. They weren’t quite dried out completely, so they tumbled over one another and banged off each other and generally gave the impression of being both together and actively involved in where they were going. Once that conceit was in my head – an army of dried leaves, headed off to war – other questions soon followed. Like, who were they fighting for, and what was their command structure, and how would they fight?
And then, because it was supposed to be a Halloween story and thus as creepily disturbing as possible, I brought a small child, doing the most innocent small child thing possible, into this mess. I mean, we’ve all pressed leaves in kindergarten, right? Found a couple of nice ones, sandwiched them in wax paper, and stuck them into a book (generally one of Mom or Dad’s largest and heaviest, only to completely forget the leaves for years and discovered them later at the least opportune moment possible). It’s cute and it’s harmless and it’s innocent, which is of course why I had to turn it into something with terrible, terrible consequences.
And I wonder why my mother keeps asking when I’m going to write something “nice”.
The story was originally posted at Storytellers Unplugged, a group blog of 30 or so horror writers who’d each contribute one essay a month (give or take) on writing. And for a few years there, the tradition was that for Halloween, instead of doing essays we’d do flash fiction, preferably something suitably scary, with a dash of literary. That’s where “Unhaunted House” first showed up, and “Deep End of the Shallow Water”, and of course, “For the Autumn Queen”.
It’s also where I posted my essay about the day I sold soft-core pornography to a bunch of nuns, but that’s a whole other story.
But in any case, “Autumn Queen…” was inspired by seeing the wind blow a bunch of dry leaves across my driveway. They weren’t quite dried out completely, so they tumbled over one another and banged off each other and generally gave the impression of being both together and actively involved in where they were going. Once that conceit was in my head – an army of dried leaves, headed off to war – other questions soon followed. Like, who were they fighting for, and what was their command structure, and how would they fight?
And then, because it was supposed to be a Halloween story and thus as creepily disturbing as possible, I brought a small child, doing the most innocent small child thing possible, into this mess. I mean, we’ve all pressed leaves in kindergarten, right? Found a couple of nice ones, sandwiched them in wax paper, and stuck them into a book (generally one of Mom or Dad’s largest and heaviest, only to completely forget the leaves for years and discovered them later at the least opportune moment possible). It’s cute and it’s harmless and it’s innocent, which is of course why I had to turn it into something with terrible, terrible consequences.
And I wonder why my mother keeps asking when I’m going to write something “nice”.
Snowbird Gothic Stories 12 - "For The Autumn Queen..."
There’s not much too the origin of “For The Autumn Queen”, just an image.
The story was originally posted at Storytellers Unplugged, a group blog of 30 or so horror writers who’d each contribute one essay a month (give or take) on writing. And for a few years there, the tradition was that for Halloween, instead of doing essays we’d do flash fiction, preferably something suitably scary, with a dash of literary. That’s where “Unhaunted House” first showed up, and “Deep End of the Shallow Water”, and of course, “For the Autumn Queen”.
It’s also where I posted my essay about the day I sold soft-core pornography to a bunch of nuns, but that’s a whole other story.
But in any case, “Autumn Queen…” was inspired by seeing the wind blow a bunch of dry leaves across my driveway. They weren’t quite dried out completely, so they tumbled over one another and banged off each other and generally gave the impression of being both together and actively involved in where they were going. Once that conceit was in my head – an army of dried leaves, headed off to war – other questions soon followed. Like, who were they fighting for, and what was their command structure, and how would they fight?
And then, because it was supposed to be a Halloween story and thus as creepily disturbing as possible, I brought a small child, doing the most innocent small child thing possible, into this mess. I mean, we’ve all pressed leaves in kindergarten, right? Found a couple of nice ones, sandwiched them in wax paper, and stuck them into a book (generally one of Mom or Dad’s largest and heaviest, only to completely forget the leaves for years and discovered them later at the least opportune moment possible). It’s cute and it’s harmless and it’s innocent, which is of course why I had to turn it into something with terrible, terrible consequences.
And I wonder why my mother keeps asking when I’m going to write something “nice”.
The story was originally posted at Storytellers Unplugged, a group blog of 30 or so horror writers who’d each contribute one essay a month (give or take) on writing. And for a few years there, the tradition was that for Halloween, instead of doing essays we’d do flash fiction, preferably something suitably scary, with a dash of literary. That’s where “Unhaunted House” first showed up, and “Deep End of the Shallow Water”, and of course, “For the Autumn Queen”.
It’s also where I posted my essay about the day I sold soft-core pornography to a bunch of nuns, but that’s a whole other story.
But in any case, “Autumn Queen…” was inspired by seeing the wind blow a bunch of dry leaves across my driveway. They weren’t quite dried out completely, so they tumbled over one another and banged off each other and generally gave the impression of being both together and actively involved in where they were going. Once that conceit was in my head – an army of dried leaves, headed off to war – other questions soon followed. Like, who were they fighting for, and what was their command structure, and how would they fight?
And then, because it was supposed to be a Halloween story and thus as creepily disturbing as possible, I brought a small child, doing the most innocent small child thing possible, into this mess. I mean, we’ve all pressed leaves in kindergarten, right? Found a couple of nice ones, sandwiched them in wax paper, and stuck them into a book (generally one of Mom or Dad’s largest and heaviest, only to completely forget the leaves for years and discovered them later at the least opportune moment possible). It’s cute and it’s harmless and it’s innocent, which is of course why I had to turn it into something with terrible, terrible consequences.
And I wonder why my mother keeps asking when I’m going to write something “nice”.
April 7, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 12 - "Unhaunted House"
This is the latest in the continuing series of stories-behind-the-stories for my collection
Snowbird Gothic
, now available in hardcopy as well as ebook. This installment features a shorter piece (with a longer explanation), "Unhaunted House"
###
###
“Unhaunted House” came from painting the kitchen. Well, technically the kitchen and the den, which, like the rest of our house, had been decorated with consummate skill in colors that looked like nothing so much as an explosion in a sherbet factory. Whichever previous owners of the place had done the place up had done it seriously; they’d just done it in a collection of colors like sea foam green and lavender and pink and so forth that Melinda and I vowed to get rid of as soon as humanly possible. The bedroom which became my office was the first target: it went from “lavender with pink trim” to “deep red with dark grey trim” right after we moved in. But other rooms took time, and we still haven’t gotten around to doing something about the dining room with its combination of blue silk wallpaper above the wainscotting and grey/yellow/mauve/azure plaid wallpaper below. That’s partially because we’re afraid of it.
The kitchen, for its part, was done in white wallpaper with green vines with pink flowers running vertically. Around the top of the wall was a border that also was white with different green vines and different pink flowers, and that flowed into the den, which was done up in sea foam green wallpaper the approximate thickness of an Arby’s sandwich. We decided, not unreasonably, that it had to go, and started getting quotes on having those two rooms stripped and repainted professionally. What we learned was that no one was interested in taking our money. The quotes we got for doing two rooms started above $3000 and escalated rapidly, to where it quickly became obvious that no one actually wanted the job. Why no one would exchange goods and services for our money became a bit of a running gag between myself and Melinda, and the best answer that we could come up with was that the hideous wallpaper was actually some kind of mystical ward that imprisoned interdimensional boojums so that they could not wriggle free and wreak havoc on the local HOA.
Then we started stripping wallpaper, at which point Melinda threw me out of the house so I could go to WHC in New York and she could work in peace and quiet. Long story, really, but I’ve since learned that there are good times to call home from a con and bad times to call home from a con, and “while you’re drinking absinthe out of a goblet made from a human skull and your wife is home painting the kitchen” definitely gets filed under “bad time”.
But the idea of mixing unspeakable horror (fictional division) with unspeakable horror (home renovation) stuck with me, and that got me thinking about where that might go in a story. And one of the ideas that came out of it was this: What if it wasn’t the house that was haunted, but the lot the house was on? Or, in shiny happy suburban terms, the lawn.
It is, of course, only a flash piece. Attempts to draw it out just felt like they were diluting the creepy, and I’ve always liked the hard stuff neat. There’s a time and a place for a slow build, and there’s a time and a place to just get to the point. And so this ended up short, if not sweet, but very much to the point.
What happens to the family in the bathroom after the story ends? I’ll let you decide. But the property did get itself relisted.
March 31, 2013
Lingering Effects
No Snowbird Gothic tales today, as I'm back home from the all-devouring maw that is GDC for 24 hours before heading off to Toronto for work. However, I promise later this week there will be an update, with the added caveat of me explaining that I do not now and never have wanted to kill Gary Braunbeck. So there's that.
Also:
I returned home from GDC to find books waiting for me. Lots of books. To wit:
The New Hero
Stoneskin Digest #1
The Lion and the Aardvark
Snowbird Gothic (hardcopies)
So I am feeling very prolific right now. Then again, that may be the lingering effects of the redeye back from San Francisco.
Also:
I returned home from GDC to find books waiting for me. Lots of books. To wit:
The New Hero
Stoneskin Digest #1
The Lion and the Aardvark
Snowbird Gothic (hardcopies)
So I am feeling very prolific right now. Then again, that may be the lingering effects of the redeye back from San Francisco.
March 23, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 11 - "The Road Best Not Taken"
As you might have heard, I’m a big fan of bigfoot. Not in the “I have a religious conviction that there is a large hairy man-like thing hiding in every patch of woods in the continental US large enough to hide a cheese sandwich in” sense, but rather in the “I find it a fascinating mystery”, and both the cultural and scientific aspects of it intrigue me. I mean, sure, I livetweet
Finding Bigfoot
every Sunday because the show’s so damn funny (and the team on it seems categorically determined to engage in behaviors that would chase off any sasquatches within the broadcast area). I have a shelf full of books on cryptozoology, I own a t-shirt with a picture of a bigfoot holding a spatula on it and emblazoned with the word “Chefsquatch”, I’ve made a Finding Bigfoot parody video with wife and friends, and I think the Bigfoot episode of Venture Brothers is one of the funniest things ever broadcast.
And yes, I think it would be fantastic if there really were a new species (or two) of primates out there in the wilds of Oregon, or Australia, or Nepal, or wherever, and yes, I do know people whom I like and respect and trust who say they’ve seen a critter with their own two eyes. But I don’t think every sound in the forest is a bigfoot telegraph system, I don’t think every blob on a thermal view is a sasquatch, and I love me some empirical evidence that we just don’t have yet.
I guess two things really got me into bigfooterie. One was the original In Search Of television series, hosted by Leonard Nimoy as he killed time waiting to guest star on Fringe. That was my first encounter with the Patterson-Gimlin footage, and the casualness of the individual captured – human in a suit or sasquatch – made an impression. It’s the original “I’m Walking Here”, with a side of “and I could rip your arms off if I felt like it.” In a younger, less snarky world, that felt really cool.
The other thing that really made an impression was the Edgar Pangborn story “Longtooth”, which is about a local sasquatch-type critter in a small town. It’s not gory. It’s actually rather moving. And there’s one bit in it that, when I first read it, absolutely froze my blood. If you can find it, I recommend reading it. It may not have the same effect on you that it did on me then, but it’s still an elegant piece of craft, and a thoughtful one.
In any case, the combined impact of those two tumbled me into a lifetime of being at least interest in sasquatches, and one of the things that meant was that eventually, I’d write a bigfoot story. (I’ve also co-authored a bigfoot novel with my friend J.C. Hay, but that’s another story) And the idea came out of reading bigfoot case files on the BFRO site.
Now, if you have not read these, I highly recommend them. Most are pretty straightforward cases of “I heard something in the woods and I think it was a bigfoot”. Some are “I saw something in the woods and I think it was a bigfoot”. And then there’s the stories like the poor guy who went out to a farm in Oklahoma, where a family claimed bigfoots were trying to break into their house to get into their venison lockers, or the one where the guy driving up the west coast had a bigfoot stick its head in his car and yell “BLEARGH!”. And then there was my personal favorite, which is about a guy who accidentally hit a sasquatch with his car.
Now that’s too good to let go. The image stuck with me – what do you do when you hit something that doesn’t exist? Tell your insurance company? They’re going to deny that “hit mythical creature” claim. Back over it to make sure it’s dead? You’re going to need a bigger boat for that. Check to see if it’s all right? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the one asking an eight foot tall primate how it feels after I’ve hit him with a sedan.
So that’s where “The Road Best Not Taken” comes from. In retrospect, the title’s a little wordy for something in that kind of laconic voice, the literary reference maybe a bit much. But the story, I think, goes to some deep places. The fear of being lost and out of our element, the fear that comes from being utterly without context, and that hairsbreadth crack of separation from normality that you’ll feel for the rest of your life, even if you do escape back into the quote-unquote real world.
To my knowledge, the Great Dismal Swamp is not known for sasquatch sightings. What reports there are in North Carolina tend to come from further west, where the animals were called “woolyboogers” or “boojums”, and one particular specimen acquired the nickname “Knobby”. But that’s OK. One of these things might still be out there in the swamps. And one would be enough.
And as always, you can find Snowbird Gothic in hardcopy or ebook at Amazon, and at the Necon EBooks site. If you do read and enjoy it, I would humbly request you leave a review, so that others can be reassured that it's not just a collection of stories about trees.
And yes, I think it would be fantastic if there really were a new species (or two) of primates out there in the wilds of Oregon, or Australia, or Nepal, or wherever, and yes, I do know people whom I like and respect and trust who say they’ve seen a critter with their own two eyes. But I don’t think every sound in the forest is a bigfoot telegraph system, I don’t think every blob on a thermal view is a sasquatch, and I love me some empirical evidence that we just don’t have yet.
I guess two things really got me into bigfooterie. One was the original In Search Of television series, hosted by Leonard Nimoy as he killed time waiting to guest star on Fringe. That was my first encounter with the Patterson-Gimlin footage, and the casualness of the individual captured – human in a suit or sasquatch – made an impression. It’s the original “I’m Walking Here”, with a side of “and I could rip your arms off if I felt like it.” In a younger, less snarky world, that felt really cool.
The other thing that really made an impression was the Edgar Pangborn story “Longtooth”, which is about a local sasquatch-type critter in a small town. It’s not gory. It’s actually rather moving. And there’s one bit in it that, when I first read it, absolutely froze my blood. If you can find it, I recommend reading it. It may not have the same effect on you that it did on me then, but it’s still an elegant piece of craft, and a thoughtful one.
In any case, the combined impact of those two tumbled me into a lifetime of being at least interest in sasquatches, and one of the things that meant was that eventually, I’d write a bigfoot story. (I’ve also co-authored a bigfoot novel with my friend J.C. Hay, but that’s another story) And the idea came out of reading bigfoot case files on the BFRO site.
Now, if you have not read these, I highly recommend them. Most are pretty straightforward cases of “I heard something in the woods and I think it was a bigfoot”. Some are “I saw something in the woods and I think it was a bigfoot”. And then there’s the stories like the poor guy who went out to a farm in Oklahoma, where a family claimed bigfoots were trying to break into their house to get into their venison lockers, or the one where the guy driving up the west coast had a bigfoot stick its head in his car and yell “BLEARGH!”. And then there was my personal favorite, which is about a guy who accidentally hit a sasquatch with his car.
Now that’s too good to let go. The image stuck with me – what do you do when you hit something that doesn’t exist? Tell your insurance company? They’re going to deny that “hit mythical creature” claim. Back over it to make sure it’s dead? You’re going to need a bigger boat for that. Check to see if it’s all right? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the one asking an eight foot tall primate how it feels after I’ve hit him with a sedan.
So that’s where “The Road Best Not Taken” comes from. In retrospect, the title’s a little wordy for something in that kind of laconic voice, the literary reference maybe a bit much. But the story, I think, goes to some deep places. The fear of being lost and out of our element, the fear that comes from being utterly without context, and that hairsbreadth crack of separation from normality that you’ll feel for the rest of your life, even if you do escape back into the quote-unquote real world.
To my knowledge, the Great Dismal Swamp is not known for sasquatch sightings. What reports there are in North Carolina tend to come from further west, where the animals were called “woolyboogers” or “boojums”, and one particular specimen acquired the nickname “Knobby”. But that’s OK. One of these things might still be out there in the swamps. And one would be enough.
And as always, you can find Snowbird Gothic in hardcopy or ebook at Amazon, and at the Necon EBooks site. If you do read and enjoy it, I would humbly request you leave a review, so that others can be reassured that it's not just a collection of stories about trees.
March 17, 2013
Things, Stuff, Events
In book news,
Snowbird Gothic
is now available in paperback! And, if you're reading this, you know about the ongoing series of stories-behind-the-stories which appear in this same space, so I won't bend your ear about them.
We have a release date for Vaporware : May 24th. And there's still time to get in on the contest over at Goodreads, where they're giving away copies of the book.
Friday I'll be speaking at the Oxford Writing Festival , in Oxford, Ohio. It looks like a great lineup of speakers and I'm honored to be a part of it.
Next week starts off with the Game Narrative Summit at GDC, which I'm privileged, along with Mary DeMarle, Lev Chapelsky, Susan O'Connor and Tom Abernathy to be on the advisory board of. We have a spectacular bunch of speakers this year, and I'm very much looking forward to being there. After that is GDC proper, and once again I'll be running my Game Writers' Round Tables.
In April, we have the East Coast Game Conference, and its first-ever Writing Track. I can't tell you who we have lined up yet, but I'm very pleased and humbled by the caliber of folks who've said "Yes".
And in case you missed the news, I've signed on to do some writing for the estimable James Wallis' Alas, Vegas project, which has me literally squeeing with evil, evil glee.
We have a release date for Vaporware : May 24th. And there's still time to get in on the contest over at Goodreads, where they're giving away copies of the book.
Friday I'll be speaking at the Oxford Writing Festival , in Oxford, Ohio. It looks like a great lineup of speakers and I'm honored to be a part of it.
Next week starts off with the Game Narrative Summit at GDC, which I'm privileged, along with Mary DeMarle, Lev Chapelsky, Susan O'Connor and Tom Abernathy to be on the advisory board of. We have a spectacular bunch of speakers this year, and I'm very much looking forward to being there. After that is GDC proper, and once again I'll be running my Game Writers' Round Tables.
In April, we have the East Coast Game Conference, and its first-ever Writing Track. I can't tell you who we have lined up yet, but I'm very pleased and humbled by the caliber of folks who've said "Yes".
And in case you missed the news, I've signed on to do some writing for the estimable James Wallis' Alas, Vegas project, which has me literally squeeing with evil, evil glee.
March 14, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 10 - "Small Cold Things"
Today's story backstory, "Small Cold Things", originally appeared at Angel McCoy's site Wily Writers, where I still occasionally do a turn as guest editor. Stop by this month and you can see my selections for the Cryptofiction issue, though if you want to read the story behind the one cryptofiction piece in
Snowbird Gothic
, you're going to have a wait a while. Sasquatches come to those who wait, after all.
Also, I'm pleased to note that hardcopy versions of Snowbird Gothic are now available from amazon.com. So if you're been waiting to pick it up because you wanted that fresh new book smell, you now have your chance. But I digress...
My wife and I are cat people. For most of our marriage we were a three-cat household - her girls Tika and Storm, and my Giant Evil Cat of Evil, Ember. Ember passed away last year, and we still miss him. He was 17 when he passed away. Tika's now 18, and Storm is a relative spring chicken at 14 or so. Which is a roundabout way of saying that we had 3 elderly cats, set in their ways, living in one house. All three were set in their ways, and there was, shall we say, some friction, which the cats resolved in the way cats usually do: by making the humans clean up after them. Which we did, if not always entirely cheerfully, because love not only is blind, it also frequently holds its nose. (Note: To be fair, our problems of this sort started before Ember moved back in with us from my parents'; neighborhood toms had apparently availed themselves of our cat door and set about claiming our living room in the name of Mars.)
All of which is a nice way of saying that we love our cats dearly, even though under a black light the living room carpet looked like a Santana album cover. (Note: We no longer have carpet in the living room).
Now, I like to think we have understood this is part of the package deal with cats, and have cleaned as necessary with good cheer. You agree to make a pet part of your life, after all, that's a responsibility, not a convenience. And I think that both Melinda and I would agree that we very happy to have had our cats for all these years.
But I can also see how for someone else, this sort of thing might not be accepted as part of the deal, how it could be used by one partner to bludgeon the other in a million different ways. And I can see how, in a world with magic, that could go horribly, horribly wrong.
The ending of this one is something I always had trouble with. I think, ultimately, I like cats too much, and I tried to be a little too nice to my protagonist, vis-a-vis the solution to her "cat problem". Of course, trying to be nice doesn't always work out the way one wants it to.
Also, I'm pleased to note that hardcopy versions of Snowbird Gothic are now available from amazon.com. So if you're been waiting to pick it up because you wanted that fresh new book smell, you now have your chance. But I digress...
My wife and I are cat people. For most of our marriage we were a three-cat household - her girls Tika and Storm, and my Giant Evil Cat of Evil, Ember. Ember passed away last year, and we still miss him. He was 17 when he passed away. Tika's now 18, and Storm is a relative spring chicken at 14 or so. Which is a roundabout way of saying that we had 3 elderly cats, set in their ways, living in one house. All three were set in their ways, and there was, shall we say, some friction, which the cats resolved in the way cats usually do: by making the humans clean up after them. Which we did, if not always entirely cheerfully, because love not only is blind, it also frequently holds its nose. (Note: To be fair, our problems of this sort started before Ember moved back in with us from my parents'; neighborhood toms had apparently availed themselves of our cat door and set about claiming our living room in the name of Mars.)
All of which is a nice way of saying that we love our cats dearly, even though under a black light the living room carpet looked like a Santana album cover. (Note: We no longer have carpet in the living room).
Now, I like to think we have understood this is part of the package deal with cats, and have cleaned as necessary with good cheer. You agree to make a pet part of your life, after all, that's a responsibility, not a convenience. And I think that both Melinda and I would agree that we very happy to have had our cats for all these years.
But I can also see how for someone else, this sort of thing might not be accepted as part of the deal, how it could be used by one partner to bludgeon the other in a million different ways. And I can see how, in a world with magic, that could go horribly, horribly wrong.
The ending of this one is something I always had trouble with. I think, ultimately, I like cats too much, and I tried to be a little too nice to my protagonist, vis-a-vis the solution to her "cat problem". Of course, trying to be nice doesn't always work out the way one wants it to.
Snowbird Tothic Stories 10 - "Small Cold Things"
Today's story backstory, "Small Cold Things", originally appeared at Angel McCoy's site Wily Writers, where I still occasionally do a turn as guest editor. Stop by this month and you can see my selections for the Cryptofiction issue, though if you want to read the story behind the one cryptofiction piece in
Snowbird Gothic
, you're going to have a wait a while. Sasquatches come to those who wait, after all.
My wife and I are cat people. For most of our marriage we were a three-cat household - her girls Tika and Storm, and my Giant Evil Cat of Evil, Ember. Ember passed away last year, and we still miss him. He was 17 when he passed away. Tika's now 18, and Storm is a relative spring chicken at 14 or so. Which is a roundabout way of saying that we had 3 elderly cats, set in their ways, living in one house. All three were set in their ways, and there was, shall we say, some friction, which the cats resolved in the way cats usually do: by making the humans clean up after them. Which we did, if not always entirely cheerfully, because love not only is blind, it also frequently holds its nose. (Note: To be fair, our problems of this sort started before Ember moved back in with us from my parents'; neighborhood toms had apparently availed themselves of our cat door and set about claiming our living room in the name of Mars.)
All of which is a nice way of saying that we love our cats dearly, even though under a black light the living room carpet looked like a Santana album cover. (Note: We no longer have carpet in the living room).
Now, I like to think we have understood this is part of the package deal with cats, and have cleaned as necessary with good cheer. You agree to make a pet part of your life, after all, that's a responsibility, not a convenience. And I think that both Melinda and I would agree that we very happy to have had our cats for all these years.
But I can also see how for someone else, this sort of thing might not be accepted as part of the deal, how it could be used by one partner to bludgeon the other in a million different ways. And I can see how, in a world with magic, that could go horribly, horribly wrong.
The ending of this one is something I always had trouble with. I think, ultimately, I like cats too much, and I tried to be a little too nice to my protagonist, vis-a-vis the solution to her "cat problem". Of course, trying to be nice doesn't always work out the way one wants it to.
My wife and I are cat people. For most of our marriage we were a three-cat household - her girls Tika and Storm, and my Giant Evil Cat of Evil, Ember. Ember passed away last year, and we still miss him. He was 17 when he passed away. Tika's now 18, and Storm is a relative spring chicken at 14 or so. Which is a roundabout way of saying that we had 3 elderly cats, set in their ways, living in one house. All three were set in their ways, and there was, shall we say, some friction, which the cats resolved in the way cats usually do: by making the humans clean up after them. Which we did, if not always entirely cheerfully, because love not only is blind, it also frequently holds its nose. (Note: To be fair, our problems of this sort started before Ember moved back in with us from my parents'; neighborhood toms had apparently availed themselves of our cat door and set about claiming our living room in the name of Mars.)
All of which is a nice way of saying that we love our cats dearly, even though under a black light the living room carpet looked like a Santana album cover. (Note: We no longer have carpet in the living room).
Now, I like to think we have understood this is part of the package deal with cats, and have cleaned as necessary with good cheer. You agree to make a pet part of your life, after all, that's a responsibility, not a convenience. And I think that both Melinda and I would agree that we very happy to have had our cats for all these years.
But I can also see how for someone else, this sort of thing might not be accepted as part of the deal, how it could be used by one partner to bludgeon the other in a million different ways. And I can see how, in a world with magic, that could go horribly, horribly wrong.
The ending of this one is something I always had trouble with. I think, ultimately, I like cats too much, and I tried to be a little too nice to my protagonist, vis-a-vis the solution to her "cat problem". Of course, trying to be nice doesn't always work out the way one wants it to.
March 10, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 9 - Fat Man On An Airplane
Today's piece is "Fat Man On An Airplane", originally published in Sinisteria: Horror for the Hellbound. This is the latest in the series of stories-behind-the-stories in my collection Snowbird Gothic. I'm on the road now for work, so this particular tale seemed reasonably appropriate.
As always, if you enjoyed the collection please take a moment to leave a good review at amazon or goodreads. Thank you!
***
Airplanes are, at best, temporary communities. The people on the plane are united by precisely one thing – the desire to get to the place on the other end of the flight. Sure, sometimes people travel with friends or loved ones or teammates or whatever, but odds are good that any given air passenger is flying solo, wrapped in a personalized cocoon of of oh-God-just-get-me-on-the-ground-before-the-guy-in-front-of-me-shoves-his-seat-back-again. We have no reason to get to know our fellow travelers. We have no reason to want to get to know our fellow travelers, and there is almost no chance that we will ever see any of our fellow travelers again. We are not flying together, we are just coincidentally flying next to each other.
Except, of course, for the guy who’s sitting next to you and wants to chat. We all know this guy; we on occasion may have been this guy. Occasionally, he’s interesting or funny or amusing, or thoughtful. More often, hes annoying and omnipresent, and there’s no way to detach yourself from the conversation short of a thinly painted “Could you please just shut up?”, because you’re on a plane, and darting for cover in another corner of the room ain’t an option. And at that point, the ride devolves into one long, endless loop of pleaseshutuppleaseshutuppleaseshutupwpleaseshutup.
But there’s one other thing – these conversations never carry off the plane. You touch down, you shake hands and say “nice talking to you”, you maybe exchange business cards, and then that’s that. They’re out of your life forever, you’re out of theirs. It’s like it never happened.
I spend a lot of time on airplanes. I’ve had a lot of these conversations. Some of them – the time I taught the drummer for a British rock star how to play Carcassone on the iPad, the three hours spent chatting with a former air traffic controller – have been fascinating. Many more…have not. But always, once the flight ends, the conversation ends. No consequence, no followup, no meaning.
Which is where this story came from. What if one of those conversations really did have meaning? What if it had power? What sort of change could it make?
I don’t know what’s after the guy on the ground. I don’t think he’ll ever know, either. I don’t think the people chatting on the plane will ever understand what they did. Then again, that’s our world – distant effects of small things, consequences for strangers, keeping your life at a safe distance from those you affect intentionally or otherwise.
I fly home from Toronto on Friday. I’m hoping no one’s sitting next to me.
As always, if you enjoyed the collection please take a moment to leave a good review at amazon or goodreads. Thank you!
***
Airplanes are, at best, temporary communities. The people on the plane are united by precisely one thing – the desire to get to the place on the other end of the flight. Sure, sometimes people travel with friends or loved ones or teammates or whatever, but odds are good that any given air passenger is flying solo, wrapped in a personalized cocoon of of oh-God-just-get-me-on-the-ground-before-the-guy-in-front-of-me-shoves-his-seat-back-again. We have no reason to get to know our fellow travelers. We have no reason to want to get to know our fellow travelers, and there is almost no chance that we will ever see any of our fellow travelers again. We are not flying together, we are just coincidentally flying next to each other.
Except, of course, for the guy who’s sitting next to you and wants to chat. We all know this guy; we on occasion may have been this guy. Occasionally, he’s interesting or funny or amusing, or thoughtful. More often, hes annoying and omnipresent, and there’s no way to detach yourself from the conversation short of a thinly painted “Could you please just shut up?”, because you’re on a plane, and darting for cover in another corner of the room ain’t an option. And at that point, the ride devolves into one long, endless loop of pleaseshutuppleaseshutuppleaseshutupwpleaseshutup.
But there’s one other thing – these conversations never carry off the plane. You touch down, you shake hands and say “nice talking to you”, you maybe exchange business cards, and then that’s that. They’re out of your life forever, you’re out of theirs. It’s like it never happened.
I spend a lot of time on airplanes. I’ve had a lot of these conversations. Some of them – the time I taught the drummer for a British rock star how to play Carcassone on the iPad, the three hours spent chatting with a former air traffic controller – have been fascinating. Many more…have not. But always, once the flight ends, the conversation ends. No consequence, no followup, no meaning.
Which is where this story came from. What if one of those conversations really did have meaning? What if it had power? What sort of change could it make?
I don’t know what’s after the guy on the ground. I don’t think he’ll ever know, either. I don’t think the people chatting on the plane will ever understand what they did. Then again, that’s our world – distant effects of small things, consequences for strangers, keeping your life at a safe distance from those you affect intentionally or otherwise.
I fly home from Toronto on Friday. I’m hoping no one’s sitting next to me.
March 6, 2013
Snowbird Gothic Stories 8 - Jeremy's Castle
“Jeremy’s Castle” was originally written for a Yard Dog Press anthology called Flush Fiction, a smorgasbord of flash fiction pieces from the various folks in the Yard Dog stable. Yard Dog, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a regional Spec Fic press run out of Arkansas by the marvelous duo of Selina Rosen and Lynn Stranathan. YDP published my first non-tie-in fiction (about which you’ll read more later) and I have been told with some seriousness that I am, and I quote here, YDP’s “token Yankee”.
I, of course, resent this, and prefer to think of myself as their token carpetbagger.
“Jeremy’s Castle” is also, surprisingly, my mother’s favorite story of all the ones I’ve written. My mother, who stands 4’11” and used to teach English in the New York public school system, has spent years asking me when I was going to write “something nice”. As you might have noticed by now, I generally don’t do “nice”. Not for lack of trying, mind you, but the sum and total of my stories that are not either slapstick or with an attached body count of some sort or another is two: One a fairy tale I wrote for a friend’s daughter, later published in Worlds of Their Own , and the fairy tale that opens Changeling: The Dreaming 2nd Edition , with gorgeous illustration by Rebecca Guay.
My mom, for the record, loved that story.
But she loves this one, too, and I don’t know why.
Oh, it’s not that I don’t like it. I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever done. I don’t know what deal Jeremy made, but I know that thinking about it gives me chills. I touched enough of that kid’s mind when I was writing him, just those few hundred words, to be very afraid of what would happen if I gave him a few thousand. And yes, this is one of those stories that emerged fully formed, inspired by nothing I could see but determined to crawl onto the page in one fell swoop.
I think I was wise to let it out. And not just because Mom likes it.
But that helps.
***
And as always, if this piques your imagination you can find Snowbird Gothic for sale at amazon or at NECON E-Books' site.
I, of course, resent this, and prefer to think of myself as their token carpetbagger.
“Jeremy’s Castle” is also, surprisingly, my mother’s favorite story of all the ones I’ve written. My mother, who stands 4’11” and used to teach English in the New York public school system, has spent years asking me when I was going to write “something nice”. As you might have noticed by now, I generally don’t do “nice”. Not for lack of trying, mind you, but the sum and total of my stories that are not either slapstick or with an attached body count of some sort or another is two: One a fairy tale I wrote for a friend’s daughter, later published in Worlds of Their Own , and the fairy tale that opens Changeling: The Dreaming 2nd Edition , with gorgeous illustration by Rebecca Guay.
My mom, for the record, loved that story.
But she loves this one, too, and I don’t know why.
Oh, it’s not that I don’t like it. I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever done. I don’t know what deal Jeremy made, but I know that thinking about it gives me chills. I touched enough of that kid’s mind when I was writing him, just those few hundred words, to be very afraid of what would happen if I gave him a few thousand. And yes, this is one of those stories that emerged fully formed, inspired by nothing I could see but determined to crawl onto the page in one fell swoop.
I think I was wise to let it out. And not just because Mom likes it.
But that helps.
***
And as always, if this piques your imagination you can find Snowbird Gothic for sale at amazon or at NECON E-Books' site.
