Angela Slatter's Blog, page 16

What to Do When You Don’t Have a Book Coming Out

Or

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting

Being a writer may well mean writing all the time (in which case, you’re fortunate), or writing in as much of the day or night as you can steal from the world and your family and your day job. The point is that it’s difficult, a lot of effort goes in before anything ever sees the light of day. You’re unlikely to be constantly bringing out a new novel, or even a series of short stories. It can be a long time between drinks – some of which I’ve covered in this post right here.

This post today is about the stuff to do in between times: the useful busywork that will help you keep going. It will help lay the foundations for your next steps. Now, please keep in mind that the usefulness of this advice will vary depending on the point you’re at in your career, your degree of self-pity/self-righteousness, and your willingness to drag your butt out of the traditional writerly “nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go eat worms” impostor syndrome pit.

There’s a myth that says once you’ve got your first book deal, you’re set. You’ll always have a book deal. That your first publisher will be your forever publisher and you’ll be faithful to one another until death do you part. Even then, your literary estate will live on and all those bits of dross you never wanted out in the world will somehow appear in published form as your ghost howls into the void. Wait, where was I going with this?

Oh yes. Your first publisher won’t always be your last publisher. You won’t necessarily have a novel out every year for the rest of your life. And you know what? This will probably bother you and make you feel bad at some point – or all points, but don’t reach for the whisk(e)y and revolver quite yet. There’s a good chance (unless you’re very well-adjusted – but hey, we’re talking about writers here) you will become convinced everyone is going to forget who you are; that you’re sliding to the bottom of the snake in life’s game of Snakes and Ladders.

You’re in between contracts: your publisher has decided they don’t want any more books from you and it’s hard not to take that personally. Your books haven’t sold as well as they’d wished; your editor has moved on and now you’re an orphan; the publishing house is changing direction; their marketing plan of “throwing shit against a wall and seeing what sticks” simply hasn’t worked to the surprise of no one but the marketing department.  Not to mention that your agent has decided they shall slip away into the night leaving neither a forwarding address nor even a fiver on the dresser.

It’s easy to feel that your career is over.

It’s probably not.

There are things you can do:

Keep writing

Just keep writing. A writer writes, folks. Keep writing. Just coz you’re in a slump doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Get off the fainting couch and write. Or, if you insist on staying on the fainting couch, then at least grab a notebook and pen and/or the laptop and keep writing. Because this is the equivalent of stocking up your pantry, so that when someone comes asking for what you’ve got in your bottom drawer, lo and behold you will have perhaps 72 manuscripts ready and waiting. Write the next novel because that’s your job.

Reprints

Find second and third homes for your previously published short stories. Put in some time researching markets for reprint anthologies, and podcasts that are willing to turn wordery reprints into speakery. And don’t forget translation markets that are happy to have reprints for first time translations. See where other people are getting their work reprinted, podcasted and/or translated and see if you can find your way into those venues.

The bonus is that you’ll get paid again for something you’ve already been paid for – huzzah! The rate probably won’t be as high, but it’s still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And this can help keep your work circulating during the publishing droughts.

Short stories

If you’ve been writing novels, you could try something different and school yourself in the art of the short story – just like a novel only shorter, with fewer characters and probably a more ambiguous ending. Or something like that. That doesn’t mean it’s easy – it’s not, trust me – but it is a way of extending your writing skills and possibly finding new markets and new readership. And even if they don’t find a home, you’re building up the table of contents for a short story collection somewhere down the track.

Community

One of my personal bugbears are writers who disappear when they haven’t got a novel coming out: they only turn up in your feed when there’s a book on the way. This is short-sighted and looks very much like you simply can’t be bothered interacting unless you’ve got something to shill. That might not be your intention, however …

There’s a community out there of readers and fans who like your work. There’s also a community of fellow writers out there who probably understand a lot of what you’re going through: talk to them. There are new writers coming up through the ranks who look to those ahead of them for how to act: lead by example. (Hint: don’t be an asshole.)

Stay present in the community. I’m not suggesting that you spend all your time on the socials – coz you should be writing and you might be amazed at how a novel fails to materialise when you’re on Facebook – but spend a bit of time interacting with the people you want to read and support and promote your work when it’s coming out. Don’t just be that relative who only turns up on the doorstep wanting a handout at Christmas, or because your kid’s got Girl Guide cookies to sell (although those are admittedly delicious cookies).

Network

Go to conventions and festivals even if you’re not on panels and don’t have a book to promote. Meet people – yes, I know, we really only like people as an abstract concept on our computers where we can block or mute them, but sometimes you need to go out amongst the humans. You might make new friends, have interesting conversations, and form new networks that could be helpful later on to you or someone else in your circle. Or, you know, just enjoy being there and not being “on show”.

Go to other people’s launches, buy their books, be supportive. Do not, I repeat do NOT advertise on your website that you’ll be there. It’s not your event! It’s not about you. You’re not a special guest star unless you’re launching the book, and even then you’re just the MC.

If you’re in a position to mentor a new writer, then do so. You don’t have to give up your time for free (nor should you unless it’s your choice), but you can help and you can influence. You can help shape the future of literature and if that doesn’t appeal to your god complex, I don’t know what will. You can offer the benefit of your own experience.

Join a writers’ group – one that suits your needs and the amount of time you’re prepared to commit. It can be a safe space to talk out frustrations – writing might be a solitary pursuit, but writers still need some human contact. And your cat, whilst adorable, is probably an asshole (harsh critic), and your dog, also adorable, probably thinks you can do no wrong (rabid fan) – so they are not the best givers of feedback. Also, they can’t actually talk. Sorry.

And you know what? These sorts of interactions also give you the chance to learn. There’s no point in your career at which you will know everything. Really. I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: you can always learn something from someone, even if it’s that said person is a total butthead. But you learned that, right? Now you have the basis for a new character in a story.

Write Blog Posts

By which I don’t mean write anything that could be termed a “manifesto” (and therefore used at your trial), but rather useful posts that can help yourself and others with common experiences and reference points. If you’ve had an epiphany about your writing process, then write about that – someone else might find that info useful. So might you, at a later date, when you come back to it and think “Hey! That insurmountable problem I’m not surmounting now? I surmounted it before! That’s how I did it! Thanks, Past Me.”

Don’t Sulk

Ultimately, don’t skulk. Stay present.

I know it can sometimes feel difficult – and our natural urge towards imposter syndrome is just waiting for the moment to flare up like a nasty rash. The inner critic gets louder and louder.

“I’m irrelevant.”

“I have nothing to promote.”

“I have nothing coming out.”

But those thoughts lose sight of the fact that (a) you probably have had things published and you have already contributed to the literature of the world, and (b) you will probably do so again, if you’re not a self-pitying idiot and you continue writing and producing.

How do you keep doing that?

Simple: you do the things above – it’s part of the business of writing – and you write for yourself. First and foremost, you are your first audience. If you try to write a first draft of something with the weight of “this must be a bestseller” or “this must win awards”, then you are setting yourself up to fail. Write the story you want to write – in order to entertain yourself in the first instance, in order to get the words out of your head. In order to have fun. (OMG look at all those repetitions of “first”.)

Your career is unlikely to be a constant stream of hits, accolades, festival circuits – and that’s kind of good because if you’re constantly on-the-road, it’s hard to write and create. Some people do it, sure. Some people can do it from talent, habit, sheer bloody-minded discipline. I am mostly not one of those people – I’m not good at creating when I’m doing festival-y stuff, when I’m promoting things, because I need a break between tasks that use different parts of my brain. Make the most of the quiet times, because when success hits it doesn’t leave much quiet time. Not a complaint, merely an observation.

Don’t waste time envying another person’s achievements. What they’ve

Art by Kathleen Jennings

got, they worked hard for and their career is just on a different timeline to yours. The only thing you can control is how you react to things. You can either do stuff that is positive and affirming and will help set you up for the next stage (manuscripts in the bottom drawer), or you can throw yourself onto the fainting couch and howl ad infinitum and still be there when things are looking up (dust bunnies in the bottom drawer).

So, make a list – what are you going to do first?

On the Importance of Being Edited

Art by Kathleen Jennings

Approximately 142 years ago, I wrote this as a guest post over at the web-place of Mr Mark Barnes. It appears here now as it’s wandered home, somewhat drunk, and can’t really remember where it lives anymore. Any typos you might find are intentional … or are they?

On the Importance of Being Edited (and Editing)

There’s a particular kind of arrogance that can trip up a new writer (and sometimes even an experienced one) and it goes something like this, “I just wrote The End, so it’s all done.”

No.

The End, to paraphrase The Mummy’s Imhotep, is just the beginning.

Your first draft is just that: a draft. It needs tender loving care as well as brutal pruning to shape it into a piece that’s not only something someone wants to read, but also something that someone (i.e. an editor/publisher) wants to (a) put into print and (b) pay you for.

Editing is a form of auditing and before an experienced editor/publisher will look at your work you need to make sure what you’re sending to them is the best you can produce. You must go over your own work to make sure that you have actually written what you think you’ve written: are spelling and grammar all present and correct? Does the ending match the beginning? Is the story’s internal logic flawless? Do characters act in a manner consistent with their motivation and characterisation? Are those characters believable and engaging or merely cookie-cutter stereotypes that interest no one? Does the pacing work as it should or does the story have a flabby middle that needs tightening? Are your descriptions apposite and sharp, rather than simply a bruised purple mess? My expertise is in short stories, but most of what follows can ? and should ? be applied to longer works as well. I can’t cover everything here, but I’ll do my best.

The task of self-editing always seems huge, but just like eating an elephant it should be done one bite at a time. I always start with the small stuff because it’s relatively quick and easy and it gives me a sense of achievement that buoys me up to tackle the bigger issues – yes, being a writer is a constant system of sticks and carrots. The basics are always spelling, grammar and punctuation. When you’re reading over a draft, put on your critical thought hat: have you used the right word? Have you written ‘enervated’ when you mean ‘energised’ because they sound a bit alike? I have marked more student pieces with this kind of assured idiocy in them than I care to remember ? some crackers I cannot burn from my memory include: “She spent the day begatting a meal for her husband”, “This gave the movement the inertia it needed to move forward”, and my personal favourite, “She danced around on the stage with a feather Boer around her neck.”

Have you used the correct version of words that have different meanings and spellings but sound the same? Your, You’re, Yore? Their, They’re, There? Where, We’re, Wear, Were (as in the Old English version meaning ‘man’)? Flaw, Floor, Flore (Latin for flowers)? A good idea is to keep a list above your desk of words that you know are a problem for you; every time you’re reading a draft, check against the list, make sure you’ve got it right. With any luck, the repeated reminders will help embed the correct meanings in your brain. It’s easy to make a mistake in the first draft – that’s what the first draft is for, making mistakes, throwing the brain-vomit onto the page. What’s not forgivable is to leave those mistakes in there after the second or third draft.

Grammatical mistakes, such as disagreement between your plurals and singulars, most definitely need to be fixed. If you know grammar is not your strong point, then find a writing friend who is good at it and learn from them. Punctuation is also very important: the old saw about “Let’s eat grandma” versus “Let’s eat, Grandma” is a perfect illustration as to why punctuation matters. Also collect – and read! – books such as Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style or Mark Tredinnick’s The Little Green Grammar Book or Lynne Truss’s most excellent Eats, Shoots & Leaves. These reference books should sit beside your dictionary and thesaurus.

And for the love of all that’s holy or otherwise, learn how to use apostrophes. Here’s The Oatmeal to tell you how http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe.

Another problem to look out for is that of unintentional repetitions: you’ve described something as ‘dark’ eighteen times in the space of a page, or seven times in two paragraphs, not because you’re going for a considered repetition to build a rhythm or a motif, but because it was the only word you could think of in your rushed first draft. Remember: the thesaurus is your friend. A lot of unintentional repetition occurs in descriptions or actions, so look for them there first. Replace those repeated ‘darks’ with ‘ebony’, ‘cinereal’, ‘shadowy’, ‘murky’, ‘gunmetal’, ‘charcoal’ … carefully consider the subtle sense you want the word to convey. There’s whole range of alternatives that will add texture to your writing – but don’t go overboard and make a simple sentence read like either an anatomical text or a bad romance novel: “Her heart beat strongly” never, ever needs to be “Her blood-pumping organ palpitated indomitably.” Also to note: don’t just do a global replace of the offending word with a new one.

You also need to develop an awareness of your crutch words – those you fall back on automatically and don’t even think about. Are you a repeat offender with ‘seems’, ‘that’, ‘suddenly’, ‘slightly’, ‘appears’, ‘maybe’? Do they pepper your manuscript like buckshot?  Once again, a reminder list above the desk can do wonders to keep these words from cluttering up your work.

Another thing to consider during the self-edit is the length of your sentences, especially if you’re a new writer with less experience in crafting prose. Here’s the thing about long sentences: the more words you jam in there, the more likely your reader will get to the end of the sentence and go “Huh? What was the start of that? I’ve been reading for about fifteen minutes and I forget what the point was.” The more words you put between your reader and the story, the more chance your tale has of failing, of losing the reader. There are some writers who are simply masters of the long sentence: Jeff VanderMeer is one of them, Angela Carter is another. They also know this secret: a long sentence set amongst a bunch of shorter, sharper ones will stand out. It will stand out like a jewel; it will make the reader pause, catch their breath, marvel at the craft displayed. Shorter sentences are great for simply transmitting information and action, as well as keeping the pace cracking along.  Longer sentences can be where you make your reader think more deeply – but you do need to frame them carefully to best advantage.

This brings me to Five Dollar Words. Is your narrative crammed with multisyllabic words as a matter of course? Does your sentence look as though it ate a thesaurus? Is said sentence verging on purple, with the prose so ornate and extravagant that it draws attention in the way a lime green mankini does? For the record, that is Bad Attention. The Five Dollar Word is best deployed, like long sentences, in a garden of Five Cent Words. That way it will have more impact.

The idea of minimising purple prose leads to another important characteristic of the short story: brevity. There is an art to making short fiction short and making it work. Henry David Thoreau said “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” This may seem self-evident and you’re thinking, “Well, d’uh”, but I’ve critiqued and edited a LOT of work in which there were too many words for the amount of story contained therein. You don’t have the same luxury you’ve got with a novel, that of great long wandering descriptions: as with life, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so do it right the first time. Your descriptions must be powerful but precise: if you’re describing a character, give us their outstanding feature/s, the thing/s the reader will remember (or needs to know in order to comprehend the tale). If you’re describing a setting, again, tell us what we need to know in order to understand the story, although brevity doesn’t mean a white room, i.e. no setting given. It means, as my old friend and mentor Jack Dann says, “What does the camera see?” So, if a television camera were to pan through your scene what would/should it pick up?

What must the reader see when they enter that scene? A shotgun on the mantlepiece? Show us – carefully and casually scattered amongst a few other red herring items – what is going to be essential to the story’s resolution. So, if the shotgun is going to be fired by the end of the story, then show it in the first act, remind us about it (subtly) in the second act, then fire that shotgun in the third. My point? When you’re editing/auditing ask yourself “Does my tale do this/work in this way?”

Another important thing to keep in mind is structure. I like a three act structure because it gives you a good guide for where to put which plot points. It’s especially useful for new writers to train them in the rhythms of a short story, so they become second nature. When you’re editing/auditing your work, ask: do all of the parts make up the whole in the way they need to? Is there too much/not enough set up/foreshadowing in Act One? Is there to much exposition/marking time in Act Two? Is Act Three simply too short or too long? Has the climax of the story occurred in a fashion that leaves the reader saying “Huh?” because the writer hasn’t given enough foreshadowing/hints/ breadcrumbs in the previous acts? So, once again, you need to read your draft with a critical gaze: forget that it’s your baby and you love it to distraction; actively look for its faults.

Consistency is also critical, not simply in the spelling of particular words, but in the meaning you give to them and the way you use them. For example, if in your story you’ve allocated a specific meaning of “magical and dangerous” to “weird” and that is a recurring meaning, then keep that word specifically for use in that context. Don’t suddenly use it for “a bit off”. Similarly, make sure a character’s appearance remains consistent – don’t change eye or hair colour unless you’ve also given a very good reason. A one-armed woman should not suddenly be shown using a tool or weapon that requires her to have grown back her other arm, because that says the writer forgot who their character is and the limits within which they must operate. In addition, you must show consistency in a character’s motivation and action – don’t suddenly have your protagonist acting against their grain unless you’ve given them (and shown the reader) why they are doing so.

Finally, when you’ve done all of the above, is it over? Can you send it out into the wide world for publication?

No.

You do another draft, a second, a third, a fourth until you can no longer see any problems.

Then can you send it off for publication?

No.

You give it to your writers group or your trusted beta readers and let them find problems with it.

Why? Because, let’s face it, we’re all certain we know what we’ve written, and the mind will trick us into seeing words that aren’t actually there. You’re likely to see the ghost words because you know the story so well, you’re used to it, it’s like a long-term partner: you’ve stopped looking properly at their face, you’re relying on your memory and you’ve become too lazy to look for something new. Your beta reader, however, as a person who did not write this thing that means so much to you, is not invested in it – they will see omissions and highlight them. This is an essential part of the critique process, for which you must thicken your skin. You must not be so in love with your story that anyone pointing out its faults causes you to burst into tears/flames/defensive protestations about what you really meant/how no one understands your genius. The whole point of editing is to make your story the best it can be. Isn’t it better for a beta reader to find these problems rather than the editor/publisher to whom you’re hoping to sell it?

The other side of the critiquing coin is that being a beta reader for other writers will help you become a better self-editor/auditor. The more you’re exposed to the process, the more you’ll learn, the more able you’ll be to spot issues, and the more all these techniques will become second nature to you. As a matter of courtesy to your beta readers, always do a self-edit before you pass your work on because, quite frankly, if all you’re doing is writing a really rotten first draft then sending it off for someone else to do the hard work then you’re a bad person. No, really, you are.

Now, you’re wondering: is it all over? You’ve self-edited, you’ve let beta readers gnaw on the entrails of your story-child, you’ve patched it up, and you’ve sent this new, beautiful Frankenstein of a thing out into the world. If you’re lucky, someone else will love it too, so surely the editing is over. Surely.

No.

Sorry.

An editor/publisher worth their salt will see what’s wonderful about your tale, but they’ll also see what’s been missed. They might have suggestions that will make it even better (sometimes they will have terrible suggestions, too, but that’s a subject for another post), and you will find your story is being slashed and stitched yet again.

But that is okay, because you’re a professional. You’re tough, your skin is thick, and you’re wearing your Big Person Pants so you can deal with anything. You are okay with the editing because you want your story to be something that takes a reader’s breath away, that stays with them as they go about their day long after they’ve read the last line. You are okay with the editing because it’s all part of the profession. You are okay with the editing because the whole point of editing is to make your story the best it can be.

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The Heart Is A Mirror for Sinners has landed!

Or at least one copy has landed in Oz: this one belongs to a friend!

So hopefully others will be arriving soon – including mine!

Very excited to get this glorious thing with Daniele Serra’s artwork!

#theheartisamirrorforsinners

#pspublishing

#angelaslatter

Into the Ashes: Lee Murray

1. What do new readers need to know about Lee Murray?

I’m a New Zealand writer and editor of speculative fiction for children and adults. I also write the occasional essay, review, and blogpost. Newsletters: almost never. If I write a shopping list, I’ll probably forget to bring it to the store. As an editor, I tend to do my best editing after I press send. Also, whereas the human body typically comprises 60% water, I am 60% cheese.

2. What was the inspiration for Into the Ashes?

Well, to start with, I needed to finish the series! Not only did I have a contract to fulfil, people, myself included, were hanging out to see what would happen between Taine and Jules, and whether Temera would regain his gift for seeing. However, the inspiration for this particular story came entirely from the New Zealand landscape. I was on a road trip with my son and husband, passing through the central plateau on a spectacularly clear day, and I remember thinking the region would make the perfect backdrop for the last book in the series. There were the mountains, the lakes, the army training grounds, and all the wonderful local legends and mythology associated with the area. Add to that, there’s the Taup? supervolcano, and our fear of ‘the big one’: a massive volcanic-earthquake event (New Zealand is sometimes referred to as ‘the shaky isles’ since we’re located on the Pacific Ring of Fire). So, in general, New Zealand’s geography is a wonderful source of story, and New Zealand storytellers have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. I think if we imbue our stories with our history and culture, throw in the call of the k?kako and the whims of our gods, then there is a point of difference, something unique that doesn’t appear in other literature. As a New Zealand writer, I feel there is a responsibility for us to tell our stories, to offer our perspectives in this moment, and our landscape is essential to that viewpoint. Then, on that same road trip, my son said, “Mum, you should call your book Into the Ashes.” And that’s how the book came about.

3. And as a broader question, what was the inspiration for the series (Into the Mist and Into the Sounds)?

The idea for the first book, Into the Mist, came to me while I was out running in the New Zealand bush. Before sustaining an injury, I used to run marathons—completing 25 marathons and a couple of ultramarathons—which meant a lot of time running on trails. While the terrain can be dangerous, and the weather conditions can change rapidly, running in the New Zealand bush doesn’t offer up a lot of beasties. There are no mountain lions, no snakes and no grumpy bears. Probably, the worst thing a runner is likely to come across down here is a w?t? or two, or maybe a swarm of wasps. Out on the road, you might meet a stray pig dog, or a herd of cows on the way to milking, but I’ve never encountered anything on a bush trail. I was discussing this with some girlfriends while out on a trail for a long run once, and it occurred to me ‘what if there was something?’ and ‘what might that be?’ and the idea evolved from there. I went home and immediately opened a file which I optimistically called “Global Blockbuster” and that was how the series came about.

4. What draws you to the darker side of fiction?

I’ve always enjoyed reading dark fiction, but it was a real-life horror that called me to write it. My third book is a not-very-well-known YA novel called Misplaced, which is based on the disappearance of my dear friend, Florence, an artist and mother of three who went missing in France seventeen years ago and who has never been found. I wanted to address how a family might cope with that terrifying, paralysing reality. It is perhaps my most horrific work to date, and yet the only blood in it is a grazed knee. This is because horror operates on our basest fears, not just our universal instinct to avoid disembowelling by rampaging prehistoric monsters, but also those everyday anxieties, the little things that make us uncomfortable, the things that leave us with a “lingering disquiet”, to borrow Ramsey Campbell’s words. With Misplaced, I’d hoped to push back my runaway fears about what might have happened to my lovely friend; I’d hoped for a closure of sorts. As YA writer Alexander Gordon Smith says, “Something weird happens when you write about your worst fears, even if you’re writing fiction. They stop being these unfathomably, impossibly huge things that hide in the shadowy corners of your mind. They become words, they become concrete—or, at least, paper. They lose some of their power, because when they’re laid down like that then you have the control.”

5. You’ve been co-writing with Dan Rabarts for a while now – how did you guys find each other?

Oh, I’d noted Dan lurking in shadowy dark fiction corners of the interweb for a while, and when he put a call out for a writing exercise group, I joined up. The exercise in question involved writing a flash fiction piece based on a reddit thread about the creepy things kids say. Around thirty writers undertook to complete the task, some emerging and some established, who then swapped the stories between them for critique. And then someone said, “Hey, we should publish these.” Someone else suggested a children’s charity. And since I had some experience editing, Dan and I joined forces to co-edit Baby Teeth: Bite-Sized Tales of Terror. The book won us the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work and the Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Work, as well as a whole heap of wonderful writer colleagues who make up the backbone of our New Zealand speculative community. By then, Dan and I had established a great working relationship, so when readers and friends started clamouring for another anthology, maybe with a mix of Aussie and Kiwi authors, we jumped in again to curate and co-edit At the Edge, which of course, includes a lovely foreword by you. Since then Dan and I have co-authored, co-presented, co-judged, and co-convened various literary projects. We also share joint custody of a couple of writing awards.

6. What’s your process for co-writing?

It varies depending on my co-writer. Most of my collaborative experience has been writing the Path of Ra, a Kiwi supernatural crime-noir series, with my Wellington co-author Dan Rabarts. Here’s a little excerpt from Teeth of the Wolf, the second book in the series, which features brother and sister protagonists, Matiu and Penny Yee. This excerpt sums up our collaborative process:

“What happened to my kitchen?”

“I had another toastie.”

“So I see.”

“Don’t start, Pen. It’s only a bit messy.”

“Well, clean it up, then.”

“Can’t. It’s a Friday. You know very well it’s not my dishes night.”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Don’t give me that. That roster was defunct years ago.”

“Can you do it? Please?” He pulls the puppy-dog face he used to make when he was trying to get out of the dishes back when they were kids.

Penny snorts. “Why should I?”

“Because I’m trying to work out where Touching the Sun have hidden Charlotte,” he says, immediately making her feel like shit.

Our writing collaboration is exactly like this bickering-yet-affectionate banter that goes on between the sibling characters in our books. When we embarked on our first collaborative novella-that-got-out-of-hand, we decided to use elements from our own lives to inform the narrative. I called on my science background and Chinese heritage to create stickler-for-rules science-consult Penny Yee; and Dan delved into his M?ori background, his job in security and his drama degree to conjure Penny’s adopted brother, Matiu, a matakite (seer) who walks with one foot in the shadowy underworld. We also made use of the quasi-brother-sister relationship that we’d previously established as editor-curators on the anthology projects I mentioned. I have two little brothers, so one more wasn’t a problem, and Dan has two older sisters. The result is a he-said she-said narrative where the two protagonists have to put aside their opposing ideologies and combined family baggage to solve a dark mystery. Just as Penny and Matiu discuss potential leads, sift through them, and follow the most promising among them, Dan and I sift and discard story threads, elaborating on those which best serve the story. However, Matiu and Dan have a dire tendency to lead the narrative down dark alleys, on desperate car chases, or into unexpectedly explosive situations, and it will be up to Penny and Lee to write those pesky little brothers back into line. The final book in the series Blood of the Sun will be released later this year.

7. You were recently awarded the Mentor of the Year Award by the Horror Writers’ Association. How do you approach the mentor-mentee relationship?

Thank you. It’s a huge honour to be recognised by the HWA for my work with emerging authors. In terms of an approach, since everyone’s process and pace are different, I usually let my mentees guide how we proceed. A lot of the success of any mentor-mentee relationship depends on developing an initial rapport, and in this regard the mentorship convenor has a lot of influence, pairing up people and projects on a best-fit basis. And that means understanding the relative skills and preferences of mentors and matching those to the mentees and their specific projects. It’s a tricky task. Once a mentee has been allocated to me, there’s the usual email introductions and exchange of contact details. Then I’ll start by reading an excerpt of the material, the synopsis, and any concerns / niggles the writer might have about the work in question—usually the reason the writer has requested the mentorship in the first place. I like to write a report (around 8-10 pages) based on that cold-read, and I might also mark up the manuscript with comments and suggestions, so the writer has something to refer to as they revise their work. After that, I’ll schedule an online meeting or phone call with the writer and we’ll get to know each other, discuss the work in hand, and determine a plan to progress the work which fits in with the writer’s own process. In general, I find mentees are willing to work especially hard to make the most of the opportunity; it’s an absolute pleasure and a privilege to be party to the author’s excitement when they see their work progress.

8. Who’s your favourite villain in fiction?

Hmm. Nurse Ratchet. Lady Macbeth. Austen’s Emma. Mr Rochester. Prince Charming. (Not from fiction but does anyone remember that Witchy-Poo from HR Puff ‘n’ Stuff used to scare me to nightmares as a kid.)

9. Who are your main literary influences?

Growing up, I believe mine was a very traditional GenX reading list for lovers of speculative fiction: Barrie, Tolkien, Lewis, Butler, Wyndham, Le Guin, Camus. I also loved Harper Lee, Rene Barjavel, Bernard Werber. However, as a writer, I’m not trying to copy anyone’s style, but rather to write the stories that resonate for me, hopefully with believable characters using authentic voices. On the other hand, there are definitely some writers I do try to emulate for their kindness and generosity and for their service to the writing community: people like Linda Addison, Jonathan Maberry, Rena Mason, Kaaron Warren…

10. What’s next for Lee Murray?

Thank you for asking! As well as the latest book in the Path of Ra series, Blood of the Sun, which I mentioned earlier and which will be released by our US publisher Raw Dog Screaming Press later this year, I also have a number of other publications slated for release in the coming months. The first of these is Grotesque: Monster Stories, my debut collection, coming in July 2020. I’m not particularly well known as a short story writer, so I’m hugely excited about sharing this book with everyone. Here is the blurb:

Three-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee Lee Murray delivers her debut collection, and it is monstrous. Inspired by the mythology of Europe, China, and her beloved Aotearoa-New Zealand, Murray twists and subverts ancient themes, stitching new creatures from blood and bone, hiding them in soft forest mists and dark subterranean prisons. In this volume, construction workers uncover a hidden tunnel, soldiers wander, lost after a skirmish, and a dead girl yearns for company. Featuring eleven uncanny tales of automatons, zombies, golems, and dragons, and including the Taine McKenna adventure Into the Clouded Sky, Grotesque: Monster Stories breathes new life into the monster genre.

I’m also curating an anthology of scary flash fiction and poetry by New Zealand secondary school students, coming in June. Called Scary Tales, the anthology is an annual project run by Young New Zealand Writers aimed at developing a love of speculative fiction and writing among New Zealand youth. What is especially scary is just how much talent is coming through the ranks—I’m going to have to get my game on. And finally, I’m thrilled to be co-editing an anthology of dark fiction tales by Asian women writing in English along with Australian editor Geneve Flynn. Black Cranes will be published by Omnium Gatherum in late 2020. Contributors include Nadia Bulkin, Grace Chan, Rin Chupeco, Gabriela Lee, Rena Mason, Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng; and Alma Katsu, author of The Deep, will write the foreword. I feel strongly that this book is long overdue and especially important in the current climate. The cover blurb reads:

Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife. Quiet, submissive, demure. In Black Cranes, Asian women of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of dim sum stories which dissect their experiences of ‘otherness’, be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world. Black Cranes is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider.

Bio:

Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows) and a three-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee. Her works include the Taine McKenna military thrillers, and supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra, co-written with Dan Rabarts, as well as several books for children. She is proud to have edited thirteen speculative works, including award-winning titles Baby Teeth: Bite Sized Tales of Terror and At the Edge (with Dan Rabarts), Te K?rero Ahi K? (with Grace Bridges and Aaron Compton) and Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror. She is the co-founder of Young New Zealand Writers, an organisation providing development and publishing opportunities for New Zealand school students, co-founder of the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, and HWA Mentor of the Year for 2019. In February 2020, Lee was made an Honorary Literary Fellow in the New Zealand Society of Authors Waitangi Day Honours. Lee lives over the hill from Hobbiton in New Zealand’s sunny Bay of Plenty where she dreams up stories from her office overlooking a cow paddock. Read more at www.leemurray.info. She tweets @leemurraywriter

Links:

https://www.leemurray.info/

https://www.facebook.com/lee.murray.393

Tweets by leemurraywriter

The Bone Lantern

So a couple of years ago, artist Lorena Carrington and I met at the Bendigo Writers’ Festival. We got on well, I sent her some books and she sent me some glorious art. One of those pieces of art was called “The Bone Lantern” … and I’ve carried that title around in my head ever since, thinking it must be a story in my Sourdough world.

I finished writing The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales a couple of weeks ago. I had been planning to put “The Bone Lantern” in there, but it wasn’t interested. It wants to be a tale all on its own. So, I said “Fine. You’ll be a novella. Wait your turn.”

Art by Kathleen Jennings

It will deal with Selke, who’s featured in other stories of mine. Artwork to the right by Kathleen Jennings – Selke’s wanted poster from the novella Of Sorrow and Such.

But then Juliet Marillier posted this wonderful article this morning by Sarbina Orah Mark “Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over” – go and read it, it’s magnificent.

And there’s a wonderful line in there about a fairytale girl being given ashes with which to make a rope … and that sparked a story to go within the larger story of “The  Bone Lantern”. So, that’s below, and I’ve started scribbling notes …

“The  Bone Lantern”

by Angela Slatter

Once upon a time, there was girl who was traded to a mage by her parents. They didn’t consider themselves bad parents – who ever does? – and they six other mouths to feed and the price of the oldest girl would keep the family afloat for a good year. After that, surely their fortunes would have turned around – and if not, there were always more children.

But back to the once-upon-a-time girl.

The mage, who was awful and knew himself to be so – they say monsters don’t know they’re monsters but that is, quite frankly, bullshit – put the girl in a room. The room was at the top of a tower and there was nothing in it except ash. Not really piles, because ash doesn’t lie that way, it’s too light and fragile, it builds in tentative layers, and flies at the slightest breeze. As there was an open window, there was plenty of opportunity for the ash to take wing and the air of the room was filled with grey-black shards of things-that-no-longer-were. The mage told the once-upon-a-time girl that if she could make a rope of the ash, then she could escape the tower.

And then he left, safe in the knowledge that she was a stupid village girl and she’d still be there in the morning.

But the girl was different.

She’d learned things from the old wood wife who lived out in the forest. Whenever the girl was sent to gather sticks and twigs for the fire, berries and mushrooms for the table, she would visit the tumbledown cottage and talk. She learned things that her mother did not know – but let’s be honest, the lessons our mothers teach us never really sink in until year later, when we’re older and find her pain growing in the very soil of our being – and so, she knew what to do.

She pulled three dark hairs from her head and curled them onto the windowsill. Then she gathered a small, shivering covey of ashes and balanced them on top of the hair. Next, she cut her palm with the little knife she always carried deep in the pockets of her skirt, and sprinkled the droplets over the top.

She whispered to it, secret words that made the ashes and hair and blood dance and twist and twine together. Soon enough she had a length of dark red rope.  The once-upon-a-time girl tied it tightly to the hook in the wall by the window, hitched her skirts up between her legs and tucked them into her belt, then clambered over the sill.

But before she went, she cut off a piece and coaxed it into a noose, which she hung from the wooden beam above. She whispered to it a wish that the mage would find it irrestiable.

The Rampant: Julie C. Day

1. What do new readers need to know about Julie C. Day?

*Need* to know? Probably not a whole hell of a lot. Meeting me in person doesn’t naturally translate into expectations met when you read my fiction! Actually, it definitely doesn’t. I tend to smile and have been told by those who only know me in my everyday life that I have a warm and sunny disposition. Ha! My fiction is surreal, dark, unexpected in how it unfolds, and often utilizes scientific facts as metaphor. Which is–in my estimation–the ingredients for a whole helluva lot of fun. I think what people mistake for a positive nature is actually an understanding that everyone has a tough time of it and that not ‘being in the shit’ makes it a good day. Note: You can’t see it through this computer screen, but I’m grinning right now. My sense of humor is…absurd.

On a more pragmatic note my first collection, Uncommon Miracles, came out 2 years ago. My first novella, The Rampant, came out last year and is currently a 2020 Lambda Literary award finalist. I’m always writing and always failing to finish and have at least two dozen projects slowly cooking on the hob. Right now–aside from Pandemic Living–a great name for a magazine, btw–I’m Editor-in-Chief of the charity anthology the Weird Dream Society. It comes out later this month with a slew of amazing short fiction writers all pitching in to create what I’m going to describe as a humdinger of a Table of Contents. You can pre-order it now. Yeah, I went there. All proceeds are going to RAICES, a nonprofit legal organization that’s working to help immigrants and asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, a population of people who desperately need our help now, during this pandemic.

2. What was the inspiration for The Rampant?

The Rampant, like all my fiction, is a stew pot of ingredients. Emotionally, one of the biggest touchstones was my time as a child in Southern Indiana–the above-ground earthly location for the first act of the story. And then there’s the bits about caterpillars and how to raise them in underground skin fields along with bioluminescent microbes and mushrooms. I got to investigate and play with so many bits of the natural world when I created the various lands of the dead. And then there are my feelings about love and gender roles, along with my thoughts on religion and the self-awareness of nonhuman creatures.

It’s both a coming of age story and a quest story set in 3 different locations: Indiana, the underworld Plains (basically a brutal form of purgatory), and the Netherworld. As a short fiction writer, I wanted a story that guided me to stay within my lane. I have too many longer projects that I’ve been unable to corral. Basically, I am too easily distracted by new ideas that lead to one complication after another…

3. Who are your literary influences?

My influences are all over the map. We all read books for more than one reason. For me, comfort books are just as important as those that shake my brain. Jane Eyre was my 13-year-old obsession, though I hated Wuthering Heights. Brave New World was fascinating at twelve. Ray Bradbury lingered from ten through fifteen years of age. I read all of Isaac Asimov as a tween, including his incredibly self-indulgent multi-volume autobiography. I read the entire teen biography section of our library, as well as the Harlequin Romances my best friend and I found squirreled away in her basement, and then there was the erotica found tossed aside in the woods. Tanith Lee, mainly her science fiction and vampire fiction, caught my interest and Harlan Ellison’s short fiction hit me so hard, I’ve been afraid to return to it in case I ended up in a rage over unnoticed misogyny. Russell Hobern’s Riddley Walker, blew. my. mind. I’m not sure I loved it as much as couldn’t put it down. Unfettered writerly wildness-the use of language, the dialect. In my early twenties I discovered Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier and reveled in the structure of that novel and the way each of the four sections of the novel seemed to tell the whole story, and yet didn’t. I’ve reread it often. And then there was Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, a retelling of Jane Eyre from the ‘mad’ wife’s perspective. Mrs. Dalloway made me throw her across the room, but I found my way eventually and stretched a bit more. And, of course, the list goes on: Anaïs Nin, Douglas Adams, Kizuo Ishiguro, Anne McCaffrey, Harry Harrison, and so many others.

If you can’t already tell, I was not a discerning reader and I didn’t stick with any particular canon. But I read a lot starting at about the age of eight, and something about that magpie approach to fiction formed who I am today. It continues to do so. Because I continue to be influenced by every damn writer I read. That list of authors I admire and take into my heart is a living, breathing list. It is ever evolving.

4. When did you first realise you were going to be a writer?

It’s more a matter of when I finally allowed myself to be a writer. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, a marine biologist, and a writer. Something about my creative endeavors seemed illegitimate. I was good at science. I loved academic classes. Being creative just didn’t fit with the person I was supposed to be. It didn’t help that my approach to writing is not a generally seen as standard. A moment or a feeling come first, worldbuilding follows, along with attempts to figure out the characters. Eventually, at the very end, plot arrives. It looks messy to anyone watching my progress from the outside. It was easy to judge myself as a daydreamer without any particular ability or ability to get better. I wrote for years without finishing anything except some poetry and a few short stories. And then around the age of 31 I decided I really could do more. I went to my first workshop, the Banff Writers’ Conference and I negotiated reducing my dayjob schedule to 4 days a week. Then came children–a long and difficult pause or perhaps a slide–and eventually an inability to not write anymore.

I still have trouble with the idea that I am a legitimate writer rather than a writer aspiring toward professional status. I honestly don’t know if that will ever not be with me.

5. What’s next for Julie C. Day?

Well, I have two starts to longer works that kept nudging me from the corner. One is Mesotherms a story about humans with gorgon attributes, climate chaos, desperation, snake-based class divides, and the ways in which humanity can change–beyond snakes. Another is a novella that is about 2/3 done. Every Thought a Sin which again addresses climate chaos, but this time with human modification via microbe infused murals. I have a few short stories waiting for my attention, as well. “No Whole Bodies Are Left Behind” is the one closest to completion. I’m hoping my Pandemic Induced Creative Lethargy shift soon. I keep trying, which is all any of us can do.

Oh, and I have a new story in the anthology The Way of the Laser: Future Crime Stories. The book is available for pre-order. While I often write science fictional stories, in my own strange Julie way (Every Thought a Sin is one such story), I’ve realized most of my publications are closer to fantasy. This one is not. And I sort of adore what I did with it. There is nothing I enjoy as a writer more than twisting those writerly rules and trying new things. It’s what my creative brain craves. I hope you get to read it, actually. I’d love to hear your thoughts

You can find out more about Julie C. Day here.

The Dark, May 2020

Or, as I like to think of it, The Creepy Clown issue!

The May 2020 issue of The Dark is out! With stories by myself, Clara Madrigano, Kristi deMeester and Ray Cluley.

“Sleeping in Metal and Bone” by Kristi DeMeester

“The Whalers Song” by Ray Cluley (reprint)

“Driving with Ghosts” by Clara Madrigano

“Honor Thy Mother” by Angela Slatter (reprint)

Locus Reviews: The Heart is A Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories

The wonderful Paula Guran has very kindly reviewed The Heart is A Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories for the May 2020 issue of Locus. This is my birthday month, so it’s wonderful to find words such as these in the Year of the Plague:

“British and World Fantasy Award recipient Angela Slatter’s writing is elegant, eloquent, evocative, and exquisitely disturbing; polished to the rich patina found only on the finest quality antique silver, it casts a spell on the reader. Luckily, the Australian author is nearly as prolific as she is talented. The Heart is A Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories is her eighth collection (two of the seven previous ones were co-written with Lisa L. Hannett). This latest compilation offers a wide range of stories: mythic/folkloric, gothic, dark humor, Lovecraftian (both serious and not), even forays into science fiction and hard-nosed detective fiction. The women in Slatter’s stories tend to be cut from the same fabric: they may make mistakes, but they gain the strength to claim life or gain revenge or do whatever must be done. They are shrewd, brave, and usually triumph – not that they are always on the side of good or light.”

There’s more, much more, but you’ll need to get Locus for that. A huge thanks to PS Publishing for producing such a gorgeous edition, with Daniele Serra‘s magnificent cover art.

The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales

An extract from the Afterword:

This book has taken a long time to write.

I began it at the end of 2013, after The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings had been sent off to Tartarus Press. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Writer’s Fellowship by the Queensland Literary Awards to help me develop it. I’ve been writing and re-writing it ever since – wonderfully patient folk at the Literary Awards, let me tell you. Almost as patient at Rosalie and Raymond at Tartarus, frankly.

The first three stories have been published. The Tallow-Wife”, “What

“Bearskin”, art by Kathleen Jennings

Shines Brightest Burns Most Fiercely” and “Bearskin” all in A Feast of Sorrows (Prime Books, thanks, Sean Wallace and Paula Guran). The titular novella was released as a limited edition by Fablecroft in 2017 for Conflux – we only did fifty of those, so if you’ve got one, congrats! It’s rare as hen’s teeth. I’d thought (way back in 2013), that this would be my last foray into the world of Sourdough and Bitterwood. Thought I’d exhausted the seam – as I said, this book took a long time to write. And now, I’m penning the “Afterword” in the Time of Plague, the Covid-19 pandemic; it feels very Decameron, although with fewer rats and buboes. It feels very strange.

Don’t get me wrong: I was writing. I was writing a lot. Then I was rewriting, amending and deleting, hacking and slashing, polishing then setting everything on fire and tossing it in the bin. Casting spells, sacrificing chickens, making promises to dark gods. Sulking, then starting again.

But at last it is done. I just need to give it a final edit and Kathleen Jennings is finishing up the artwork, then it will be off to those lovely folk at Tartarus.

The Table of Contents is:

Introduction by Helen Marshall

The Promise of Saints

The Tallow-Wife

What Shines Brightest Burns Most Fiercely

“Of Ghosts and Glory”, art by Kathleen Jennings

Embers and Ash

Bearskin

The Nightingale and the Rose

Of Ghosts and Glory

A Stitch in Time

Sleeping Like Snow

Crossroads

And A Young Husband to Bury Me

By Such Paths

Afterword

“Embers and Ash”, art by Kathleen Jennings

“Embers and Ash”, art by Kathleen Jennings

Into Bones Like Oil: Kaaron Warren

1. What do new readers need to know about Kaaron Warren?

I’m afraid of the dark, large crowds, mold spores, confined spaces, violence, unpredictability, loss, viciousness, a lack of kindness. I’m afraid of the world my children will have to live with.

Some people say to write about the dark side of life you need to be immune to it.

I say the opposite. It’s only by being deeply affected by the world around me that I can write stories that have any value.

2. What was the inspiration for your novella Into Bones Like Oil?

This is one of those stories that cooked for a long time. It wasn’t until I finished writing it that I realised quite how long.

There are two major inspirations for the novella. One is Safe Houses programme, the other is a boarding house I stayed in very briefly 25 years ago.

I recently found a newspaper clipping I saved from 1995, talking about Safe Houses and some inadequate checks that went on. A Safe House carried a sign out the front, and children could run there, in theory, and find a safe place if they felt they were in danger.

The thing was, I had a boyfriend in the early 80s, who had fallen on hard times and was living in a caravan in his sister’s backyard. Her house had one of those Safe Houses signs. But she lived in an abusive relationship, and my boyfriend lived with his ‘uncle’, a very, very seedy man I didn’t trust for a second. Safe House, my arse.

Another boyfriend and I (not fallen on hard times, and now my husband) stayed in a Boarding House in Melbourne when we were there for a wedding 25 years ago. I was profoundly influenced by this place; by the people who lived there permanently, and those who were just staying over, by the couple who ran the place, by the smells, the sounds, the whole thing. I realised as I wrote “Into Bones Like Oil” that I had been collecting inhabitants for my own Boarding House ever since.

3. What draws you to horror?

So many things. I like the honesty of horror. I like the surprise endings, the unpredictable developments, the truth of it all. I’m often disappointed by a happy ending because they can have a sense of compromise about them, of giving in to ‘good feeling’ rather than staying true to the story. Horror rarely has a happy ending.

4. Which books are you looking forward to reading this year?

Cut to Care Aaron Dries’ first short story collection, from Poltergeist Press.

The Attic Tragedy, a novelette by J. Ashley Smith from Meerkat Press. I’ve had a sneak peek at this this and it is bloody good.

Cat Sparks has a collection coming out from Newcon Press. Called Dark Harvest, I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Robert Wexler had a collection coming out, his first book for ages. That’s from PS Publishing.

5. What’s next for Kaaron Warren?

I’ve signed with IFWG Publishing to bring out four books. The first will be a small chapbook, inspired by a collaboration between myself and Ellen Datlow on Facebook. Ellen’s amazing photos of her odd tool collection, my flash fiction in response. It’s going to be fabulous.

IFWG will also bring out a backlist of three of my novels. I recently got the rights back for Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification. Walking the Tree will come out in illustrated form, with an additional novella written from the point of view of a child . Slights and Mistification will both have new bits as well.

I have two novellas coming out from Cemetery Dance. One is Bitter, a novella about a giant iron man and what comes out of his toe. The other is a reprint of The Grinding House.

There’s also this anthology, Gods and Globes 2. It looks so cool, and has a story of mine I had a ball writing, inspired by a trip in the bus from Chicago to Grand Rapids for Stokercon, and also my time in Rotorua during the NZ Natcon.