Theodora Goss's Blog, page 47

Two Nice Things

This is going to be a short post because I'm very, very tired. I still haven't caught up on the sleep I lost traveling to and from the World Fantasy Convention. But I wanted to mention two nice things I found when I got home.

The first is the October issue of Realms of Fantasy, with my Folkroots column "The Myth and Magic of Narnia."

The second is a reminder that a story of mine, "Christopher Raven," will be available in Fantasy Magazine on November 14th.

I feel as though, in the last couple of months, I've been through a sort of trial by fire, and the question is, what do I do now? What projects do I go on to? Or to I take some time, watch episodes of Being Human? Just sit? Of course I still have a great deal to do, stories I owe people, a poetry collection to put together, publicity for The Thorn and the Blossom. So I can't really just sit. But I do need some time to rest, consider where I'm going next.

I do worry, sometimes when I'm so tired, that the world holds no more magic in it. That what lies ahead is just work and more work. But that can't be true. I refuse to believe that.

So, I'm going to speak to the Powers that Be directly.

Dear Powers that Be:

I know from of old that you're very, very good at making wonderful things happen. That even when things have seemed all wrong, you have been steering me in the right direction. So I'm asking you now, because I'm so tired – take me to the place I'm supposed to be, all right? And if it's someplace wonderful, all the better. (I trust you: I think it's going to be someplace wonderful.)

That's all for now. Hope all is well in Asgard or Olympus or whatever.

Over and out,

Dora

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Goodbye, San Diego

Somehow, I had forgotten that I'd bought a banquet ticket, so I didn't bring a dress for the banquet. Luckily, I always travel with an LBD (Little Black Dress), so I did in fact have a black dress to wear with black ballet flats. I imagine Audrey Hepburn might have worn something like it.

On Sunday morning I checked out, then went to the art show and bought something I'd been thinking about buying all weekend: an engraving of a sort of wood fairy figure by Ruth Sanderson. I like buying things from artists that are unusual: not their usual stuff, the most finished, the most expensive. But strange, small things like limited edition engravings, which is what this is. I don't see it anywhere on her website, or I would point it out to you. At the moment, it's sitting on my dresser, safe and sound. I always worry about how to get art back from conventions without bending it.

And then I walked around for a while, talking to whoever else was walking around the dealer's room. Here is the dealer's room, by the way:

I was especially pleased to be able to meet Damien Walter and Nancy Holder, both of whom I knew of, but had not met in person. And I was also pleased to run into the lovely Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Karen Bovenmyer. The only time I felt underdressed for the banquet was when Myke Cole stopped by and said hello, elegantly in uniform.

Then it was time for the banquet. I was lucky to be at a table with Kit Reed and her husband, Charles Tan, Paula Guran, Maria Dahvana Headley, and Ben Loory. I had to leave early, but I took this picture as I snuck out the door. It's Neil Gaiman giving his Guest of Honor speech.

My mother lives in Los Angeles in a house by the ocean, and I had promised her that we would spend some time walking on the beach, eating Mexican food, and shopping. So that's exactly what we did. She came down in her truck (bought because she's making extensive renovations to the beach house, before starting extensive renovations to the mountain house, since she always seems to be renovating something), and we drove first to the beach so I could say hello to the Pacific, and then to Old Town, where we walked around the shops until dark and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Then, I had to catch my flight, so it was back to the hotel to change, and onto the plane. Once again I was extravagant: I upgraded myself to one of the seats with more space – an aisle seat in an empty row. So I had three seats to lie down on. I was able to sleep for about four hours, I think. And then it was morning and landing in Boston, where once again I was extravagant and took a cab to the university, so I could prepare to teach and meet with students. I don't recommend socializing a full day in San Diego, flying across the country at night, and working a full day in Boston. Tonight, I'm completely exhausted. But it was worth it. I met so many people there that I won't see again until the next convention, whichever one that is. (Readercon, for most of them.) I miss them all, my writing community, although I'm discovering that I can see many of them on Google Plus. (Which I've just joined, although I don't quite understand it yet. But here is my profile.)

I returned to the remains of an early snowstorm: trees fallen, power lines down, although luckily I have heat and electricity. But I do miss the palm trees and blue sky of San Diego. So here is my final photograph, me in the San Diego sunlight, by one of the hotel fountains. As relaxed as I remember being in a long time.

And although I missed the World Fantasy Awards, I just want to say a particular congratulations to my Clarion classmate Nnedi Okorafor, whose novel Who Fears Death won the World Fantasy Award in the novel category. Even at Clarion, it was obvious that Nnedi was going to be a wonderful and important writer. And so she is.

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Writers in the Sun

It's sunny in San Diego.

Yesterday, I spent the morning writing, and then had a wonderful lunch with Juliette Wade and Charles Tan. I attended an afternoon panel on the year in fantasy with panelists including Ellen Datlow and Jonathan Strahan. But mostly I sat in the sun, talking to people, including Elizabeth Bear, whom I hadn't talked to for a long time. I learn so much from coming to conventions like this one, just by listening to what's going on.

And then I had dinner with Robert Redick at a Mexican restaurant in the old town. Robert and I were in college together at the University of Virginia, both in the English Department. We had a great time talking about writing and our careers. I talked about where I'm going next, now that I've finished my Ph.D. Because you know, I don't quite know. In a way, I want to sit quietly somewhere and just wait for what comes to me. Wait for a sense of where I'm supposed to go next. But my life doesn't allow for a lot of quiet sitting or contemplation. At least not right now.

Then we went to an especially good panel on fairy tales with Holly Black, Patrick Rothfuss, and Delia Sherman. And then, I was so tired that I went to bed. There is something exhausting about socializing so much. When I write it out like this, it doesn't seem as though my day was particularly full. But it involved a lot of walking around, a lot of randomly meeting people, sitting down with them, talking for a while, so that I don't remember now exactly whom I talked to. Jeffrey Ford at one point, and Rose Lemberg from Stone Telling, and Jessica Wick from Goblin Fruit, and many other writers and editors.

Honestly, I would be doing more if I weren't so tired. There are events I'm missing, people I'd like to see that I may not run into. But there's still time today, at the banquet. I'm too tired this year to be as active as I'd like to be. But that's all right. This is my world, and it will be here for me when I recover from this very difficult year of finishing my dissertation.

Tonight I fly home, and tomorrow morning I head straight from the airport to the university, where I have a full day of teaching ahead of me. It's going to be exhausting. But it was definitely worth it, coming to San Diego. When I get around other writers, I learn about what they're doing, how they're living. They give me a sense of my own possibilities, how I could live my life. Now I just need to rest for a while, recover some. And thing about those possibilities for myself.

Here are some pictures from yesterday morning.

Charles, Juliette, and I sat out in the sunlight.

Unfortunately, the picture of me is refusing to load right now. But look: roses!

Hello, San Diego

I'm sitting in my hotel room in San Diego.  Breakfast just came on a tray: an enormous pile of fruit, with yogurt and a bran muffin.  Orange juice, coffee.  Yesterday, I ate terribly: mostly cereal bars and trail mix.  I think that at some point during the day I ate an apple.  And some cheese.

Now that the dissertation is done, I'm thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. And I think that life is going to involve a lot of travel. So I have to figure out how to incorporate travel into my life in a way that is healthy. Yesterday, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. after sleeping for only about three hours. I finished packing, went to the airport (car to subway to airport), caught my flight, and then spent a very comfortable six hours in the air. (The night before, in a fit of extravagance, I had spend extra money switching to a seat by the emergency exit. It had so much leg room, and there was no one in the middle seat, so I could sit cross-legged for most of the flight, reading my magazine, watching decorating shows, making notes for things I need to work on.) I arrived and ran into Nick Mamatas at the airport. We took the shuttle to the hotel, which is charmingly retro. Outside my door there is a balcony with all sorts of greenery growing on it, and there are fountains and pools everywhere. And restaurants, of course.

Yesterday I had my only programming item (at World Fantasy you only get one, unless you're a guest of honor), a panel on mermaids. It went well, I think. And then I spent some time with the wonderful Charles Tan, who had taken a series of planes from the Philippines. His fifteen hours in the air made my six seem like nothing! And we had a chance to sit down and have some actual food (too much and too late for me, but at least it was food) with Mary Robinette Kowal and Liz Gorinsky.

Today I have a light schedule: a telephone call at 11:00 a.m. with the wonderful publicity department at Quirk Books, which is publishing The Thorn and the Blossom, and then an interview at 1:00 p.m. for an online magazine. The thing about the writing life is that it's always different: I'm always going to be working on different projects, flying to different cities. It's an exciting, but sometimes exhausting, life. I'll have to find ways to manage the exhaustion. Today it's by eating fresh fruit and taking it easy. (Confession: I'm typing this in my pajamas. That's how easy I'm taking it today.)

So, I'm going to finish breakfast. And then I'm going to get some work done, and also walk around and talk to people. That's the wonderful thing about going to conventions: all the people you run into (and I couldn't list them all, there are too many – writers, editors, publishers, former students).

Maybe I'll carry my camera around and try to post some pictures tomorrow!

Writing the Book

I promised that I would talk a little about writing The Thorn and the Blossom.

I remember when Stephen first asked me if I would like to work on the project. I was standing outside the Lexington library when my cell phone rang. I sat on one of the walls, talking to him about it. I think we talked for about half an hour. The idea was to write two stories, about 7500 words each, that would fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Both stories had to work as stories, but together they had to form a larger story, a more complete picture. There are two kinds of stories that can work like that: a mystery, and a love story. I chose to write a love story.

It took a while to iron out the logistics. Stephen and I had talked about the project in the fall, and I did not start writing until the winter. By that time I was also trying to revise the chapters of my dissertation. So my schedule went something like this: revise a chapter, write one story, revise another chapter, write the other story. I think each story took me about a month to write.

The first story was relatively easy, although I had to anticipate the second story while I was writing it. But when I got to the second story, well – it had to be fit around the first story. I had to make sure the pieces fit. So I put the first story in the stand by my computer, and I literally wrote the second story while reading the first story, matching them paragraph by paragraph. Of course, you will get different information in each story. Each is, after all, an individual account, from the point of view of a different person, who knows different things and even perceives the sames things differently. And you won't get the entire story unless you read both versions.

Writing it was a feat of literary engineering.

But you know, even though the story was a technical challenge, I don't think it reads like one. It reads like a story: easily, naturally. The characters sound like themselves. At least, they do to me. To me, they come alive, and I hope they will for readers as well. And I got something else into the story: my way of looking at the world. I have a sort of intuition, which I've had since I was a child, that the world is filled with pattern and order and beauty, although we often can't see it. But that's our fault, not the world's fault. Our human ignorance hides it from us, our mechanical modern lives often obscure it. Most of us can no longer see the incredible beauty of the world. Which means we can't understand rightly. Disease and death happen of course, but they're part of it: they do not negate the underlying meaning.

If we look closely, as an artist or a scientist looks, we can begin to see it. For example, these are monarch butterflies:

Did you know that every fall, they fly 2000 miles south to Mexico, using the sun as a guide? But because the sun changes position throughout the day, they must have something, some sort of mechanism that adjusts for the movement of the sun. And it turns out they do, as scientists have discovered. They have a sort of internal clock – located in their antennae. Isn't that magnificent? If you look closely enough at a butterfly, an ordinary butterfly fluttering from flower to flower in your garden on a summer day, you'll see that it's more wonderful than you could possibly have imagined.

That's my philosophy, my way of looking at the world, and I think it got into the book. I think it gets into my best work. Indeed, I don't think I write well unless there's something of my philosophy in the story, the poem. It's part of what makes for good writing.

It won't interfere with the story, I promise.

After I had finished both stories, Stephen and I began the editing process. The second story was close to done, but the first story needed a few rounds of editing. I added, altered. I made motivations clearer. The character became both more sympathetic and more troubled. When I was finished, we had two stories of about 10,000 words each. One is slightly shorter than the other, but I think that discrepancy works, it fits thematically.

So that's it, that's how I wrote it. I've been showing it off today, and I will have a copy at the World Fantasy Convention, so if you want to see it, come find me. I'm looking forward to seeing what people think about it . . .

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On Enchantment

Yesterday, I watched the first episode of Once Upon a Time. And you know what? I liked it. Here is the trailer:

It was cheesy, in the way television fantasy usually is, but what I particularly liked about it were the fairy tale aesthetics. I think my aesthetic sense was formed by reading illustrated fairy tales. My idea of the perfect house is a castle (just a small one). My perfect dress swishes around the ankles. My perfect garden has a yew maze and a fountain. I always wanted enchantment.

I think we need more enchantment in our lives. It's not unrealistic. Terri Windling and Rima Staines have Dartmoor and its environs to help them, but I think all of us can live in ways that are more magical. It just takes choosing the beautiful and the real. Surrounding ourselves with things we genuinely love.

If you do that, bread and cheese can be enchanted. (Right now I'm eating a harvest bread, filled with nuts and fruit, and blue cheese.) A pottery bowl filled with pinecones can be enchanted. A scarf that you knit from the purest, softest wool can be enchanted. If you can enchant the small things, you can enchant your whole life.

(Of course, writing is a kind of enchantment. With black squiggles on a white sheet of paper, I create worlds. I like the idea of being an enchantress.)

I found some pictures of enchanted places. I thought I would post them here. I'm not sure who took these pictures, so I can't give proper credit where it's due. But here they are:

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What do you think of my enchanted places? Once, when I mentioned that I'd like to live in a castle, a friend of mine said that he thought it would be uncomfortable. But I would rather have enchantment than comfort. (If I had to choose one of these houses, I would choose the first one, although I would want the roof thatched in the ordinary way. The house is a bit too cute for me, as is – too self-consciously cottagey. It needs some mussing up. I think I would be afraid to live in the stone house  at the bottom. Afraid of giants.)

I've been thinking about what my goal should be, now that my dissertation is done. And I think that's it: make my life enchanted.

To start, I'm going to write more poetry, dance more. And create magical spaces around me. We don't live in fairy tales: we live in a reality that often seems dull and ordinary, like the small town in which the fairy tale characters are imprisoned in Once Upon a Time. But even in that small town, they are dramatic, romantic. They look as though they should be in fairy tales. (Have you ever seen people like that? People who, in a cardigan, jeans, and Wellingtons, nevertheless look as though they had escaped from fairyland? I have.) Even in our ordinary reality, we can be more than ordinary. We can be, and make, magic.

I'm going to put that on my to-do list . . .

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The Book Itself

Guess what I got in the mail on Friday!  Two copies of the book itself. Here is what it looks like (propped on my mission-style futon chair, against the William Morris pillow).

At least, that's the slipcase. If you turn it around, this is what the back looks like. The sticker can be removed. Under it, I've been told, is an image of a Green Man, but I don't want to remove the sticker. The book looks so pristine that I barely want to touch it.

Here's what it looks like when you pull the actual book out of the slipcase.

The first side you will see is Evelyn's story, but of course you can read either story first. At the beginning and end of each story are beautiful illustrations by Scott McKowan, who also illustrated the slipcase and the two covers.

Even though the book is arranged as an accordion, it's very easy to read. I pulled it apart here to show you how it works, but when you hold it in your hands, the pages turn as though it were an ordinary book.

And here is the other side, Brendan's story.  The editor, Stephen Segal, and I have a disagreement about which story you should read first, Brendan's or Evelyn's. I think you should read Evelyn's first. Stephen thinks you should read Brendan's. But of course, you will have to decide for yourself.

I love this illustration.  But I'm not going to tell you what it's an illustration of.  That would give the story away.

And here it is in Quirk's spring catalog: a two-page spread!  I can't wait for it to come out.  I just hope people love the story, as much as I loved writing it.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how I wrote it, because before it was a beautiful book, it was a feat of story engineering. Definitely the most challenging writing project I've ever undertaken, and I hope I've done a good job. But this book presented unique challenges. I'll tell you more about how I dealt with them, soon.

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Publicity

I've been thinking about publicity, for the obvious reason that it's time to start publicizing The Thorn and the Blossom.

I noticed two things today. The first thing I noticed is that Salman Rushdie is on Twitter. That struck me as strange enough that I wondered if it was, you know, the real Salman Rushdie tweeting. On the other hand, who else would tweet things like this:

"Congratulations to #JulianBarnes on winning the #Booker. Long overdue, my friend. Bravo."

"I'm happy to be going to support the beautiful, terror-stricken, and now reborn #TajHotel in Bombay at its NYC book launch tonight."

"All valuable literary methods are ways of revealing, amplifying, intensifying reality, not escaping from it."

That sounds like Salman Rushdie, doesn't it? What strikes me, though, is that he's the last writer in the world who needs publicity. I mean, doesn't everyone know who he is? After the fatwa that was issued against him, after he had to go into hiding for so long, I don't think he needs an introduction, exactly. And yet he has a beautiful website.  And he tweets. It's clear that he cares about publicity.

The second thing I noticed is that Metaphorest has posted a YouTube video to introduce her debut album, which is available for pre-order.

One of the best known writers in the world and a brand new singer/songwriter. They both believe in the importance of publicity.

I do too, although the truth is that I'm an introvert, and sometimes it's difficult for me to do the sort of publicity I ought to. And sometimes I'm overwhelmed with work, as I am now. So it's difficult. But I'm going to try to do my best to publicize the book. And you know, if you'd like to help me, there will be opportunities. Since I posted about it, the book trailer is up to almost 200 views, and I'm sure we can do better than that! Let's start in November, after I come back from the World Fantasy Convention. And let's see how I do, how well I can publicize the book. I'm certainly going to try. (If Salman Rushdie can do publicity, well, I can certainly do it too, right?)

By the way, if you're going to be at the World Fantasy Convention, I'll have a copy with me. So if you'd like to look at it, come find me! I'll show it off to you. It really is gorgeous.

The Book Trailer

It's funny how things never really seem to stop happening.

On Friday I defended my dissertation, and I thought I would have some time to rest. But things keep appearing in my inbox, or popping up in places where I least expect. Like YouTube.

Would you like to see what I mean? Take a look at this:

You know what that is, don't you? It's the book trailer! For The Thorn and the Blossom!  Which, in case you don't remember, looks like this:

The book looks gorgeous in the trailer, but I can tell you, having seen a copy, that it looks considerably more gorgeous in your hand. It's the sort of book you give your mother on her birthday, your girlfriend on Valentine's day. It's a romance and a mystery, and it's unlike anything else Quirk has done. I hope it finds a readership, because I really am proud of it.

Would you be interested in hearing more about how I wrote it? After all, it was almost a feat of engineering, writing two stories that fit together like puzzle pieces. I'll have to ask the publisher if I can talk about it, and when. But I think it would be interesting, for other writers and creative people in general, to hear about.

You know, nowadays we talk so much about changes in the publishing industry, and ebooks and building an author platform and all that business stuff. But what really matters, at least to me, is doing the projects that interest me, and that I think will be meaningful to readers. Because if I can't do that, nothing else really matters, you know?

I hope you like the trailer, and I hope you like the idea – and I hope that eventually, when it comes out in January, you will like the book.

Another thing that's popped up recently is that in April, I'll be at a literary festival in Arkansas. I'll give you details when I have them. So, Boskone in February, International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts in March, the Arkansas literary festival in April, Wiscon in May. This is going to be a busy spring!

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The Gray Sectional

I sat down at the computer today, having no idea what I wanted to write about. My mind was almost completely blank. I'm still recovering from the dissertation, and it's been a long day. A long, gray, wet day. But I have some guilty pleasures, and one of them is looking at decorating websites. On one, Apartment Therapy, I found a post asking for advice. The poster wanted to find a gray sectional (that's a type of sofa) for around $2000. And my inner voice immediately said, are you joking? You're going to spend $2000 on a sofa?

I think when I was younger, I would have considered it all right to spend that sort of money on a sofa. At least, I wouldn't have questioned it. Society valued certain sofas at that price, and some people were willing to pay.

But now, I can't help it, I think there is something deeply distasteful about spending that sort of money. On a sofa. I think what happened, in part, was that my relationship with material goods changed. As I grew older (and I'm not, you know, all that old), it seemed increasingly silly to accumulate stuff. Or to decorate in the way everyone was supposed to decorate – a way that involved sectionals. (Which is an ugly word, isn't it?)

The older I get, the more what we do to follow social conventions seems silly. The more conventions themselves seem silly. (For example, the conventional way we decorate rooms.)

But there are two other reasons why it's a problem to spend $2000 on a sofa. First, if you spend that amount of money, what are you going to do to that sofa? Nothing, that's what. You're going to sit on it very carefully. You're not going to reupholster it. You're probably not even going to make pillows for it. You will instead buy pillows from some other expensive store. There will be nothing of you in that sofa except your money. And buying everything is a boring way to live. Second, there are so many things you could do with $2000. If I had that much money to spend on anything, I would probably publish a book, or create a video, or make something. Anything. But make, create. Go and commit art. (Or, if I couldn't think of anything else to do with it, donate it to a shelter for rescued cats.)

This has turned into a rant, hasn't it?

At this point, I may as well show you the offending beast:

Perhaps I wouldn't be so rant-y if it weren't monstrously sprawled in a rather pretty space. Like a whale in a drawing room. (Except that whales are considerably more attractive.)

I suppose over time I've developed an idea of how to live, which I would describe in these words: Live Small, Think Large.

If you live a fairly modest life, if you're thrifty, you can use your resources to create magnificent things, to make magnificent things happen. And you don't need to give up aesthetic pleasure. I'm not sure why, but in our culture, the most beautiful things are often also the cheapest. A chair in an antiques store. A peach from a farm stand.

There are things, material things, that are worth $2000. They are worth that amount of money because they are great works of art. Even certain sofas are worth that much. Just not this one.

Rather than buying a sofa like that, I would scatter pillows on the floor. And sit on them with friends, eating bread and cheese, drinking wine. Talking about the books we want to write . . .

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