L. Jagi Lamplighter's Blog, page 44
December 9, 2013
Caption This Winner for Two Weeks Ago
Due to problems with Live Journal, this never posted properly. Two winners this week:
Best General comment:
Climbing a stairway to heaven… from there you need to call a cab.
Best Doctor Who-related comment:
It takes many people, each of them a step, to create a work of art that can ascend to greatness, and be remembered fondly across generations. Even if it's all about a madman with a box.
December 8, 2013
Mab’s Hand Guide to Surviving the Supernatural
Mab here, Prospero Inc. company gumshoe.
As part of my campaign to protect you woefully-uninformed humans from your own folly—in hopes of saving even one of you from an elf-induced death, or worse—here is some of my gathered wisdom concerning the supernatural world.
Read. Pay attention. And maybe you’ll live.
For those of you who are just coming in, we’ve started with Tsukumogami, Japanese household objects that wake up after their 100th birthday and become animate.
Name: Bakezori
Description: Japanese straw sandal that runs through houses where footwear is abused and chants: "kararin, kororin, kankororin!" ( Three eyes, three eyes, two teeth—which only makes sense if you think of the holes in a sandal as eyes and the straps as teeth. Weird.)
Where To Find It: Japanese households
Frequency: More common than you’d expect
Danger Level: Worse for your ears than anything else, but stay away!
Mab’s Eye View: These suckers are tricky. Cousin of mine put one on once, thinking it was a normal sandal. In addition to the horror of having his foot licked, he was dragged across the ground by the runaway footwear. It was a long time before he stopped flinching, if anyone chanted: "kararin, kororin, kankororin!"
Mab here, Prospero Inc. company gumshoe.
As part of my c...
Mab here, Prospero Inc. company gumshoe.
As part of my campaign to protect you woefully-uninformed humans from your own folly—in hopes of saving even one of you from an elf-induced death, or worse—here is some of my gathered wisdom concerning the supernatural world.
Read. Pay attention. And maybe you’ll live.
For those of you who are just coming in, we’ve started with Tsukumogami, Japanese household objects that wake up after their 100th birthday and become animate.
Name: Bakezori
Description: Japanese straw sandal that runs through houses where foodwear is abused and chants: "kararin, kororin, kankororin!" ( Three eyes, three eyes, two teeth—which only makes sense if you think of the holes in a sandal as eyes and the straps as teeth. Weird.)
Where To Find It: Japanese households
Frequency: More common than you’d expect
Danger Level: Worse for your ears than anything else, but stay away!
Mab’s Eye View: These suckers are tricky. Cousin of mine put one on once, thinking it was a normal sandal. In addition to the horror of having his foot licked, he was dragged across the ground by the runaway footwear. It was a long time before he stopped flinching, if anyone chanted: "kararin, kororin, kankororin!"
Mab’s Handy Guide to Surviving the Supernatural!
Mab here, Prospero Inc. company gumshoe.
As part of my campaign to protect you woefully-uninformed humans from your own folly—in hopes of saving even one of you from an elf-induced death, or worse—here is some of my gathered wisdom concerning the supernatural world.
Read. Pay attention. And maybe you’ll live.
For those of you who are just coming in, we’ve started with Tsukumogami, Japanese household objects that wake up after their 100th birthday and become animate.
December 4, 2013
An Guest Blog appearance and a review!
Essay in Bull Spec Magazine…
On The Hardest Part! (of writing)
When I was twelve, I started my first novel. My father distributed movies to television stations, and I occasionally worked for him, stuffing Gumby dolls into envelopes and other odd tasks that the children of film distributors are called upon to do. Because of his work, though, I was very familiar with copyright laws and the fact that it was not legal to write about other people's characters.
Armed with this information, I very carefully put in hours of work to invent my own stuff, rather than write in the worlds of favorite authors, as friends occasionally did.
I was tremendously conscientious about it.
You would think that I would be the last person in the world who would find myself, almost forty years later, having to 'file off serial numbers' in order to write a story. But no, here I am, writing more than one series that-at first anyway look-dangerously skirts the line of being called fan fiction.
So, you might ask: how did I come to this sad state of affairs?
Review by author Jonathan Moeller:
Last year I wrote that the PROSPERO’S DAUGHTER trilogy, by L. Jagi Lamplighter, was one of the best books I read in 2012 (the other being WOOL by Hugh Howey), and so when she offered me the chance to read her new young adult novel, THE UNEXPECTED ENLIGHTENMENT OF RACHEL GRIFFIN, before it was published, I jumped at the chance.
THE UNEXPECTED ENLIGHTENMENT OF RACHEL GRIFFIN is a young adult novel targeted primarily at girls. The protagonist, one Rachel Griffin, is a twelve-year-old girl sent for her first term at a school for young wizards, run under the auspices of the Parliament of the Wise (what the wizards, rather immodestly, call themselves). Rachel has the good fortune of an eidetic memory and a constant thirst for secrets, which is both an advantage and a liability in a society of wizards. Rachel quickly discovers that all is not well in the world of the Wise, and soon finds herself dealing with a secret society of evil wizards called the Velterdammerung along with the normal concerns of a child.
http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?p=3519
December Fourth Is Rachel Griffin Day!
Hey Folks,
Today is the day!
I need your help!
As some of you know, we are making a huge push today to try and get The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin up in the Amazon ranks. Here are a few simple things you can do that would be a huge help!
1) If you think you might enjoy the story, or if you would like a copy for the Harry Potter fan on your list, today is a: great day to buy!
2) Click HERE to visit the Amazon page!
Just visiting the page helps with Amazon ranking!
3) Put The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin on you Wish List.
This helps, too!
Follow the link above and click Wish List on the right hand side.
(You can always take it off later, if you really don't want it there.)
4) LIKE my Amazon Author Page HERE.
This helps with ranking, too.
The LIKE button is in the top right corner.
5) Signal Boost!
Whatever you can do to help me pread the word is extremely appreciated!
On Facebook? You can find my posts HERE if you want to share them.
On Google+? You can find and share my posts HERE.
On Twitter? You can check out @lampwright4 and retweet.
Or you can take the info from here:
Brooms, sorcery and exploding skunks!
Rachel Griffin wants to know everything. As a freshman at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, she has been granted to opportunity to study both mundane and magical subjects. But even her perfect recollection of every book she has ever read does not help her when she finds a strange statue in the forest-a statue of a woman with wings. Nowhere-neither in the arcane tomes of the Wise, nor in the dictionary and encyclopedia of the non-magic-using Unwary-can she find mention of such a creature. What could it be? And why are the statue's wings missing when she returns? When someone tries to kill a fellow student, Rachel soon realizes that, in the same way her World of the Wise hides from mundane folk, there is another, more secret world hiding from everyone-which her perfect recall allows her to remember. Her desire to know everything drives her to investigate. Rushing forward where others fear to tread, Rachel finds herself beset by wraiths, magical pranks, homework, a Raven said to bring the doom of worlds, love's first blush, and at least one fire-breathing teacher.
Curiosity might kill a cat, but nothing stops Rachel Griffin!
December 3, 2013
$5 Award!
Here is a post in which I am being interviewed. The intrepid blog owner is offering a $5 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky person who leaves a comment:
All About The Magic, Or the Gosling of the Golden Creek Vs. The Unicorn Pooper-Scoopers
Reposting this now that LiveJournal is up:
This post appears at Magical Words, a website on the art of writing maintained by a number of fantasy writers, including: David B. Coe (D.B. Jackson), Misty Massey, and Faith Hunter
If you are a fan of the magic of wonder–that qualities that makes some of us love Doctor Who so much — you may enjoy this article:
Beside the road leading to my street, there is a small pond. This pond is the favorite nesting place of a flock of Canadian geese who like to walk out in the street. The other day, I found myself sitting and waiting for the geese to depart, so I could drive home without running over them. As I watched the birds waddle by, I thought of people I knew who had expressed hatred for these creatures that stop traffic and leave goose droppings all over the sidewalk and golf courses. Their hatred added to my impatience.
After all, I wanted to get home. I had things to do, man! But then I remembered something. As a child, I had loved these birds. Why? Because at the gateway to the local county park was a river. Canadian geese used to nest on the river bank. If one was lucky, if one came at just the right time, one might catch a glimpse the tiny goslings paddling behind their august parents. These adorable creatures were the only baby wild animals visible to us as children. Seeing these little beige and yellow bundles of fluff lit our hearts. It was as wondrous as magic!
When had I lost the magic?
Wright’s Writing Corner: Guest Post at ScifiChick.com on trying to keep ahead of the wave of progress.
How to Avoid Being Flattened By the Steamroller of Progress
A guest post by me over at ScifiChick.com on the tough job of the science fiction writer.
Recently, a friend sent me an ad for virtual keyboards. If you haven’t seen one, it’s a rather nifty device. You put it on your desk, and it casts a red light image of a keyboard on your desk. Then you type on it, as if it were a keyboard, and letters appear on your screen.
Rather cool.
Only, to my friend, the existence of this device was a bit of an embarrassment. He’s a science fiction writer, and five or ten years ago, he wrote a book where he predicted virtual keyboards. He made them up.
Back then. They were science fiction.
Today, they are fact.
Where does that leave him?
How, he wondered, do science fiction writers stay ahead of science fact?
Wright’s Writing Corner: Guest Post by me on Magic in Shakespeare’s Plays
The Magic of Shakespeare–an article on me about the status of fantasy then and now, with some interesting factoids about Shakespeare's time and plays.
From the Ghetto to Literary Old Town: The Magic of Shakespeare
Before we examine this question, let us examine a few others first: Fantasies are fun! Why doesn’t everybody read them? What is mainstream? Why is a story about ordinary life considered mainstream, while an equally charming fantasy is relegated to the back of the bookstore?
I had a bit of insight into this many years ago, when I first became a writer. Through a mutual friend, I connected with a fellow writer who was hard at work on a mystery. I was writing a fantasy with a great deal of mystery elements, so this sounded like a great meeting of minds. We exchanged manuscripts and then met for coffee.
How could a staff be magical? It caused a person to teleport? How does that work? The reader isn’t going to be able to follow this without an explanation.
I pointed out a few inconsistencies in her otherwise well-appointed story. She thanked me. Then, frowning over her drink, she pointed to my manuscript and said, “In this scene here, your character uses a ‘magic staff?’ You don’t explain what a ‘magic staff’ is. How could a staff be magical? It caused a person to teleport? How does that work? The reader isn’t going to be able to follow this without an explanation.”
In that moment, I learned a tremendous amount about writing and human nature.
