Allison Hurd's Blog, page 12

I’ve Solved All Of Science, You Can Go Home Now

I can teleport.

It looks just like this, except without the lights, uniforms, alien races or occasional space babes.

I don’t often tell this to people, because it is uncomfortable for me, and it’s not terribly useful. I am no soldier, trained to reorient myself immediately upon shifting reality. It just means I get to be dazed and bewildered in a slightly different location than I’d previously inhabited.

It’s really not that hard, I’m not sure why scientists are having such a difficult time figuring this out. Science is always freaking out about teleportation, saying “it’s impossible” and “even if it weren’t impossible, it would require the complete destruction of the original each time.”

Let me tell you, this is utter bollocks.

IT’S ACTUALLY MAGIC!!

All you have to do is make sure people see spiders (or I guess other things that make them literally jump out of their skin, but I don’t have experience with that). If they possess the ability, that should trigger it.

Someone just has to say, “oh, what a huge spider that is,” and BAM! suddenly I’m twenty feet away and four feet off the ground (unless it’s attacking from the ceiling, then you’ll likely find me covered in a blanket. Where did the blanket come from, you ask? Excellent question. I imagine I pick it up when I’m in the In Between Place that allows me to teleport so effectively without destroying my original self in the process).

Now, there are substantial risks associated with this ability, so don’t try it off the cuff. It includes a rapid increase in heart rate, a surge of cortisol, low blood pressure, and sometimes an uncontrollable urge to gibber and/or weep. Please see a doctor before trying instant relocation.

If you are from NASA and wish to discuss my findings, you can contact me at my various social media sites, located to the right. I would be happy to share with you my research for the small fee of one trip to the Space Station and a space pen.

We Weren’t Kissing. Have A Book.

Happy Halloweekend! I hope your season of frights is going well! I’ve sung Halloween songs, gotten sick on candy, screamed in terror, heard some truly impressive cackling, and been hit on by Bellatrix Lestrange, so I’m doing pretty well for myself, I think.

I just can’t keep witches off me.

This is just a quick post today, first to thank my contributors for sending me art for Inktober collaborations. I really had a great time doing that, and I hope you all did, too. I am constantly amazed by the talented people I know. Next, I am not done asking things of you. Halloween is of course a BFD (big fucking deal) to banishers, and I hope you’ll share those with me, too! Who’s got a costume, pumpkin or display they’re really proud of? Share please! I will offer commentary. I will also offer a sale on Sacrifice! It being an anniversary of the events of that book (how time flies!) get it for $2.99 through November the first.*

I’m sure they’ll be right as rain, what with all this modern medicine.

Also, the second I set myself a word goal, my laptop broke. So yes, you nosy posy, I am behind but not terribly so. Currently neither sister is doing well, so things are going according to plan. I wish them a speedy recovery.

Be safe this Halloween, and however you celebrate, may you light no black flame candles, meet any murderers, axe or otherwise, and if you absolutely must run into your ex, may you be having a much better time than they are.

 

 

 

 

 

*It may take a minute, Amazon sometimes lies about the price it’s telling me things are and the price it shows you. But I assure you, that is the price you should expect to pay for a couple of days!

Don’t Be a Witch

I think I’m a wizard, Harry.

There really aren’t many other supportable options. I’m a firm believer that nothing happens by coincidence, and I seem to have symptoms that much wiser minds than mine have more or less universally decided herald the passing of some sort of sorcerer.

No electronics may withstand me. Lights in my home burn faster than lights in other homes. Speakers tell me to run, which is particularly upsetting when you’re alone, they’re supposedly off, and it’s two in the morning. Alexa has no freaking clue what’s going on. Laptops meet untimely deaths.

And I guess I would say I’d figure out how to do magic around it, but if I have superpowers of any kind, they’re extremely boring. “Able to finish exams 5 minutes faster than 99% of all classmates” or “never gets lipstick on her teeth” seem like poor abilities at the cost of literally thousands of dollars of equipment.

You may be asking yourself now if I’m exaggerating. I do that, I admit it. I am not. As we speak, only one bulb in the office is still working, and I keep forgetting to go get new ones, because I just got new ones, and now they’re dead. The light over the chair I’ve been favoring lately, also out, while its brother mocks me from across the room.

I’ve purchased three laptops since 2015. All dead. Not like “doesn’t load YouTube as fast as I’d like,” kind of dead. Dead like “the buttons scream in agony when you push them and the screen remains blank.” Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. I am not sure if they’re in agony, but since some of them still contain my pictures I sure as hell am.

Now you must be thinking what sort of torture I subject them to. I assure you I am as gentle with them as can reasonably be expected. Sometimes I forget to shut them down at the end of a day. And maybe once they’d have slid from the couch to the floor when a cat moves the blanket it was on. That’s as bad as it gets though, I swear. And, before you get all righteous on me, they’re laptops. They are absolutely meant to be picked up, transported, and worked on at various times, in various circumstances without breaking. I feel that turning on, moving, and possibly moving with gravity once or twice are conditions that should be anticipated in the creation of a portable computer.

Since reasonable electronic lifespans are not in my purview, and since so many people ascribe this to magical ability (see: Dresden Files, Harry Potter…others…) it is only logical to assume I’m an enchantress.

Left: Right after waking up. Right: After coffee, on a really good hair day. (Disney)

I will continue to attempt unlocking my inner witch, and in the meantime, expect less of my more plebeian talents, such as typing words on computers, which I am appalled to say is necessary for most of the writing I do.

The Shocking Secret of Millenials and Women

I need you to sit down and listen.

Are you sitting? Good.

Summer and Lia are women. And…

Millenials.

I feel better getting that off my chest. I hope you’re not too shocked.

Because there does seem to be a lot of shock going around, doesn’t there?

A man in power used his position to hurt people! A man who accused an entire country of being dirty rapists doesn’t want to help people who look like them! A man who bought an average of three guns a month wanted to use them to kill humans!

So shocking. Here y’all, have some Static Guard.

Keeps your pants from clinging! And your mind from being blown!

I am not shocked. My characters are not shocked. How could we be shocked? These stories are as old as time. They are whispered among us.

“We learned to whisper almost without sound.”

They are shouted out in interviews. They’re splashed on the cover of every news rag.

They’re small scenes in urban fantasy series, where competent women are expected to be beautiful, open for conversation, docile, even if it makes them feel like a little murder is in order.

 

But they don’t actually murder anyone, and that is what should shock you, honestly. All these people who gear up for psychic battle just to go out for some coffee or to see about getting a job, and so rarely do any of them actually pull out any of the weapons we leep at the ready, like the personal fun-sized cans of mace in our bags.

Speaking of murder, apparently that’s what millenials do best. We’ve killed the motorcycle, housing, and cable network industries. We’re gunning for casual dining, golf, and who knows what else? We haven’t had our latest meeting yet, there was a conflict with some yoga classes.

But here’s what else millenials have murdered: shock at how horrible people can be.

I know people like to consider the young adult generation selfish, entitled, and weak, but when I was a kid, we still had smoking sections and landlines! Since then we got internet, eBay, Amazon, crippling debt due to education necessary for jobs that don’t exist, a housing crisis that means none of us, even those with the unicorn of a good paying, stable job with benefits can’t qualify for loans, and an earth that is ready to get rid of us.

But we’re not shocked by that, either. Frustrated, perhaps, but after awhile, you stop whining about how different things are and start figuring out the rules that have changed in this game. It’s like Jumangi out there, or like the staircases at Hogwarts. Complacency isn’t an option. Surprise takes more energy than we have left. We don’t want anything different from what all people want, but we’re much more aware of the fact that we’ve been using restrictive definitions to determine who counts as “people” and we’re sick of it. More than sick of it, we know it’s killing us, and as warriors (social justice or otherwise) we refuse to go down quietly.

So my characters are not surprised, and they will not be quiet. Urban fantasy is an exploration of the monsters living in the heart of modern progress. This is something about which we’ve always spoken in code: vampires for the horror of lust, werewolves for the fear of unbridled aggression and familial ties. Imps for the small things that go wrong. Witches for the women who could not be controlled. In reality there were never these things, of course. We have always been the monsters we hunt. If this is still shocking, I need you to turn on the light and look around. Maybe find a millenial to help you kill the horror you feel when the creatures terrorizing the darkness are not demons, but men with fancy cars, big bank accounts, and friends who help make sure you won’t look into their faces.

 

October is for (Art) Lovers

October is a busy month, everyone. We should probably pull a Caesar and add a thirteenth month just so that October can catch a break.

Suddenly everyone’s done with strawberries and watermelons and now it’s all about gourds and dead grass things. People want to rock flannel like they just descended from the Rockies with this winter’s supply of logs for the fire and go on hikes in that ephemeral window between “it’s so hot I want to die,” and “why do we live where the air hurts my face.”

Apparently these things are called cornstalks, hay bales, and pumpkins. I’m not a farmer, okay?

And that’s just the beginning! Then there’s the holiday currently vacillating between Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day, and we reignite a discussion that will plague some Facebook pages for a whole twelve hours, and others it will plague for their lifetime.

Halloween you know all about. Monsters come out of every crack and cranny. The Bogeyman walks among us. Hellfire and chaos. Oh, and I guess everyone dresses up and gets treats.

On top of all that, it’s Inktober/Drawtober/Artober/Drawlloween! While I do intend to don flannel, mull cider, learn more about the Taino and give candy to kids dressed like characters from movies I’m officially too old to know exist, I am celebrating the visual arts this month, too!

Inktober is a challenge for artists to draw 31 ink drawings throughout the month. It’s been expanded over time to include other styles, but the concept is the same. It is the NaNoWriMo of art, and it’s glorious. My feed is a sea of works by people empowered to share what they have, even if it’s not perfect or is a work in progress. It’s a time when they get to see they’re the only ones who see the flaws, while the rest of us see skill and expression we could only dream about. So kudos to all participants! I am thrilled to be able to enjoy your creations!

As part of my appreciation, I am writing small fiction (microfiction, poetry, mini stories) about art shared with me! Let’s collaborate and let me boast about you! Here are two collaborations with two fantastic artists (and people!) Check out their work!

 

 

 

They call me savage.
They shriek when I come
And say that I’m wrong.
What do they know, these who have never abandoned their homes?
What’s savage is my love.What shrieks is my heart
As it sings its broken song. Art by MP O’Sullivan

 

 

Summer Isn’t Dead Yet

Taking a quick break. Summer’s in the hospital right now. Again.

Don’t worry, she’ll be fine, I’m sure.

Ye of little faith.

Seriously, though, she really ought to be more careful. She’s just mortal you know? Someone should have a talk with that girl. OH WAIT, I think they will!

I just hit one hundred typed pages written on Blood and Bone and am pretty excited at how it’s shaping up! One of the critiques I heard about Sacrifice was that it was nice and all, but followed the overall plot progression of Feeding Frenzy.

Yes, it did, on purpose! I’ve got an eight-book arc to tell, and it needs proper foundation. And now in book three, we start to see it crumble. So be prepared for a lot of action, a lot of heartache and more jokes from the irascible sisters.

Now that it’s fall (holy shit, how did it become fall?) and all trips look to be over for the year, I am hoping to settle in and bang this bad boy out. I’m really excited for you to meet the characters I’m introducing, and for you to explore my old stomping grounds through the monstrous lens of two banishers. New England gets a lot of horror stories for a reason. It’s the prettiest place on earth for the supernatural to wreak havoc.

Little known fact: Demons love foliage.

And hey! Welcome new followers! I think if we get to 100 people on Facebook, I’m going to do a book giveaway! Who wants a signed copy of one of the first two books? Perhaps with a personal description in it? That sound interesting? Then tell your friends, and make sure you like the page!

Kill Your Darlings

How much discussion about violence and beating people up can you have before it becomes weird? Asking for a friend.

I am not sure what writers who are not me and people who will talk to me converse about, but I always seem to have questions about, or field questions about how best to hurt stuff. Either this is an accepted practice, or people think I know a lot about this but not in a way that feels dangerous to them. Neither suggestion makes me feel terribly confident in our collective stability.

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Just a photo of your friendly neighborhood weirdo in a 2 person elevator with a devilishly handsome man.

I am careening towards the 50,000 word mark, which means things are in full swing, and injuries are flying left and right. Poor darling sisters, I am like a toddler crashing toy cars, and you are my Hot Wheels. Here is a synopsis of my conversations lately:

Me: “What readily available things can I steal to stop a dinosaur?”

Them: “Steel netting. How should I conduct financial warfare?”

Me: “Good question. I would personally go about it like [this]. What bones can you break and not get them set? And while we’re on the subject, how dark can I get before it’s not fun anymore?”

Them: “Just make sure there’s snark and dive in. Here is a list of internal trauma you can take and still walk.”

Me: “THIS IS SO HELPFUL THANK YOU. Good luck bankrupting the world!”

I hope this is normal. If not, I hope you’re a psychologist. Send me a line, let’s talk! I have a lot of things like this to discuss, and your input would be valuable in how I write about these topics. Maybe also my own health, but who cares about that, really? I’m not fighting any dinosaurs. Focus, please, on the important matters.

The Hawk Guard and the Fairy Wizard

I walked into the library after seventeen days traveling for work. My local library is very small. It has two parking spaces and is mostly geared towards the kids who live in the neighborhood. It’s just a small branch of the bigger town library, which is connected to most of southeastern Pennsylvania’s book collection and therefore able to get me almost anything I want. There are two librarians there today, one of the ones I am familiar with, with silver hair and a presence that always feels to me like one of the fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty. The other is new to me, a little gruffer. She perches on a stool as I come up to the desk and request the books being held for me.

Here’s a rendering of one of my librarians.

“Oh, wow! I thought for sure this would have gone to the next person on the hold list by now,” I say, gesturing to a copy of The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin.

“We try to give people a little extra time to pick up books, especially if they have multiple,” the fairy librarian says.

“Awesome. I am actually surprised that people weren’t shouting for it though! This is a new release of the next book in a series that’s won a Hugo award for each of the preceding books.”

The public faces of these two guardians of our stories slide off coolly. The one perching has a gleam in her eye now, and a sardonic smile. The poker face of an expert trying to seem professional as their enthusiasm for the subject at hand is piqued.

“What genre?” she asks, her nonchalance a front for the intensity of her gaze.

“Like science fantasy, I guess.”

She twitches involuntarily. “That’s a great genre.”

The face she made.

My silver-haired friend has stopped scanning my books, her hands gravitating inevitably towards the cover of the book in question. She flips back the cover. “Is The Obelisk Gate  the first one?” she asks, pointing to the praise for previous works.

“No, it starts with The Fifth Season,” I clarify. She turns automatically back to the computer.

“Well, I’ll have to reserve it for my husband.”

The hawk-eyed one turns to her sharply.

“It’s a pretty dark series,” I warn, not wanting to find out that any husbands of fairies are made uncomfortable by my preferences.

Hawk librarian stands up. “Even better,” she says, crossing to crowd behind the computer. “Reserve it for me, too.”

They scan my card and focus on the magic box that will bring them new stories, wishing me a good day but in abstraction. I am a messenger this time, not a patron, and my tidings are news that must be dealt with immediately.

“No, put me in first, I read faster than him,” I hear as I leave with my prizes.

I hope they settled things without magic. I’m sure the books would be fine, but the other patrons might have been a little surprised to see a fairy battle.

And can I just say that I freaking love book people. How great, that we all dive into worlds previously unknown to us, and resurface to recommend them to other travelers? How marvelous that so many of us will never visit the same worlds as each other, and yet we still feel an affinity for those who go diving heart first into new territory? How wonderful, that there are storytellers, who give us homes when we wander. What a marvel, to have librarians who guard and guide and explore the worlds we love best.

Is That A Ghost In Your Pocket?

Don’t you love the end of summer? Kids going back to school, pumpkin spice replacing strawberry everything, ghosts no longer invading your laundry…truly it’s a wonderful time.

What’s that? You don’t think ghosts are invading your laundry? Oh, you poor, poor innocent.

In Taiwan, and indeed in much of the world, the seventh month of the lunar calendar is 鬼月, Ghost Month. This is the time when spirits are given a summer holiday from the afterlife, and may return to Earth to visit, sight-see, and generally behave like Americans on Spring Break.

 

Now, what is it all twenty-somethings in Cancun want? A good time, more money, and things in their mouths.

Of course this is what I meant. Why do you ask?

Ghosts are no different, and if you’re tired of being haunted around August, it’s probably because the local ghosts think you’re cheap and standoff-ish. Maybe work on that. Try to be a good host by burning ghost money, or setting out some flowers.

Not to victim blame, but you might also not be considering how tempting it might be to haunt you. Did you leave laundry outside to dry overnight? Pockets are like phantom hostels. Did you whistle after sundown? Way to let everyone know where you are, you anti-ninja. Did you move? Ghosts, like cockroaches, enjoy crawling into warm things, and that’s how you end up with them in your new house. Get married? Oh, buddy. Just enroll now in counseling.

A bonfire from the Hungry Ghost Festival

Ghost Month ends in the Ghost Festival, a time to celebrate those who have gone before, and prepare for the harvest. It was last week, so anything you do now is because you just naturally attract Poltergeists. May we recommend a nice sage shampoo? That should clear everything right up. If you want to be sure you have no hungry ghosts, a bonfire of ghost money, incense, and small tokens plus a small feast (minimum 10 courses!) is always advisable. Invite me, too, I freakin’ love bonfires. Even if we’re not sure if that’s a ghost in your pocket.

I hope all is well with your ghouls and schools, stay safe in all this horrible weather!

 

Content Warning: Trauma in Text

Thank you all for participating in my biggest book giveaway yet! 937 people signed up for a copy of Feeding Frenzy and I’m very excited to get these 5 winners their books soonest. I hope you enjoy it, winners!

Today I’d finally like to discuss the topic that was too serious for the real world things happening. The world isn’t actually better, but it’s time. My heart aches for those impacted by Harvey and facing Irma, those who watch their leaders treat them with violence and contempt, and those who struggle to do good, like we’ve tried so hard to do all our lives, who live to see their goodness spurned. I weep and I rage and I work harder for you all.  If you don’t want to join me in a serious discussion, I understand. Come back next week for something lighter!

This isn’t always possible, so no hard feelings if you take the choice today!

One of the ways I’ve been coping with the state of the world is with a lot more reading. Books, you see, would never try to sell me things as improbable as what I’m seeing on the news. It’d be too unbelievable. And yet in my books, there are so many awful things. Not in a cathartic way, or really even an honest way, by and large. For example, 5 of the 10 books I’ve read most recently involved rape in some context, and yet maybe one needed it for a personal story. The rest were making points about the world, which is just not a great way to discuss sensitive, pervasive, personal topics like sexual assault.

Rape can be really important in stories. It can define a character’s path, or be an author’s way of processing personal trauma. These stories are important. And it is also important that rape survivors in stories be allowed to deal with it as they see fit, even if it seems counter-intuitive. It isn’t uncommon, to use an example, for rape survivors to become more promiscuous after their trauma, for various reasons, and in specific circumstances. We need these stories as much as we need ones about people who detach.

But I don’t actually think most stories need rape in them. Often, some other trauma would do the same work without running up hard against experiences that all told roughly 30-40% of our population have experienced or escaped.

I don’t know any women who have not been traumatized. I don’t know many men who have not had to fend off attacks on themselves. This is a very real issue, and should not be a throwaway to make it clear that the protagonist has been hurt, or is very strong, or that the bad guy is in fact bad. Not tipping waitstaff or opening doors for people with strollers can convey evil. It really isn’t that hard to hate someone. Consider Draco Malfoy in the earlier books. Consider how little touching of other people without consent he did, and yet how synonymous his name is with evil.

The fear with bringing up rape when it is unnecessary is that it sometimes makes it seem that rape is no big deal, or is unavoidable.

These are lies.

It is a huge deal. It is entirely avoidable. And it’s often a crushing source of guilt and shame, without thinking that people expect you to “learn” something from your experience. While many people who experience trauma are in fact incredibly strong people, their attacker didn’t do that. They were not gifted with strength by the horrible thing that happened. They had to choose how life was to be continued, if it was to be continued, and this was their solution. It has nothing to do with the things done to them, and everything to do with the person they always were, and the support they were able to pull from.

So I strongly urge people creating stories to consider what the trauma they’re considering does for the story, and avoid rape if it’s not essential. I assure you, most of the audience will read in sexual violence from the subtext. Any time a creator mentions walking alone at night or a character being drunk around a persuasive stranger, or describes an army marching to a village empty but for women and children, it is likely your reader hears the threat. Making it explicit is both unnecessary and itself often problematic.

Now, if the story does require sexual violence, creators, prepare to walk down very dark roads with us. Many authors who are themselves coping may of course use their art as part of their healing. But for those who do not have personal experience, we really need to do a lot of research. We need to read first hand accounts. Listen to them. Look at the photographs. Think, every second of the time during and after what this would do to the character(s) because I assure you, even on the good days when trust and human contact and everything else seems manageable, there is a small voice that reminds you of the times you were hurt. You do not always have to feel like a victim, but you will never forget that you were victimized. It just becomes a part of who you are and how you interact with the world. We as creators must be willing to carry that burden, if we’re asking our audience to imagine it with us.

Interactive storytelling articles are really great for all creators. It’s common in performance art, like acting or roleplaying games to understand that all stories are both what the artists say and do, and what the audience reads into the performance. It’s the same with writing. One of my favorite methods of handling this was distilled by a woman discussing how she conducted a roleplaying game for people. She would explain that the players could at any time declare something too intense or ugly, but if they did not, and wanted to explore something intense or ugly, she would follow them into the darkness. (I’ll try to update with a citation once I find it again!)

It’s our job to be there for our characters and our audience.

I love this. This is the difference between exploitative writing and honest writing. In exploitation, the creator wants the audience to feel something, and so they rely on the likelihood that we’ve felt that hurt.  They hold that mirror up so that we see ourselves in the character, and then they move onto the next thing in the story, without consideration of what we might be experiencing, or how a real person would react to that hurt. In honest writing, there is no mirror. You come with the amount of light and shadow you want, and the author stumbles after us, trying to make sense of the twists and turns and leading us, carefully, considerately, to the natural conclusion, wherever that may be.

I therefore beseech you, do not leave us. If you want to see what ugly things live under the rocks you kick over, stand there and experience the horror with us. Otherwise, pick some other form of evil. Watch the news. There really are so many different forms of hurt to pick from. I trust in your creative powers.