Marian Allen's Blog, page 460

Monkey God Festival! Par-TEE! Par-TEE!

Today is the Monkey God Festival and, since I am all about Sun Wukong, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, The Great Sage Equal To Heaven, I am SO into today!

I couldn't find anything about traditional foods for this festival, so I have to make up some of my own.

Peaches, of course. Monkey ate the Peaches of Immortality — the ones he was supposed to be guarding, so peaches are a must.

Monkey says that there's no hope of immortality unless you eat a vegetarian diet, so we'll have our usual vegetarian fare. I made a really good miso soup the other day, so we may have that.

If I still had a copy of Ruth Krauss' Monkey Day, I'd read it, but it belongs to #4 Daughter and I think she has it. Monkey Day is about a little girl who is given a monkey. She gives the monkey another monkey and the monkeys get married and have millions of little monkeys. It's the most wonderful, happy, joyous, delirious celebration of celebration–and of monkeys–ever written. I'll be singing the Monkey Day songs and dancing whenever I think nobody can see or hear me.

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I just bought Anthony Yu's abridgement of Journey to the West for Kindle. It's called The Monkey and the Monk, and it has the Best. Cover. Ever. Click the link to The Monkey and the Monk and then click on the cover picture there to get a really good gander at it. AWESOMESAUCE! So I'll be reading some of that today.

And, because you can't get too much Monkey, I'll be attempting to watch an episode. Happy!

And so I leave you with these words, paraphrased from Monkey Day: Hope you happy peaches! / Hope you happy wishes! / Hope you happy Monkey Magic! / Hope you love and kisses!

WRITING PROMPT: What is your main character's favorite animal (other than dogs and cats) and why?

MA

Guest Post by Floyd Hyatt – The Action Ramp

The Action Ramp – Bane of new writers

Adventure, Sci Fi, Fantasy, all feature one plot device that literary works can sometimes skip: the need to progressively increase the action levels throughout the work.

The ability to properly build tension and excitement over the course of a tale makes or breaks more new writers' efforts than almost any other story feature in fiction.  To succeed, the main character of a fiction work needs to face increasingly more difficult challenges within the tale. Stories must progress from the initial whispers of suspicion to involvement in full blown conflict, to resolution of some kind. From minor emotional upsets to head-to-head crisis, from subtle indications of a problem to dealing with awing disaster. From skirmishes to wars. There are many analogies of this process, many reasons why this feature is so attractive to readers, but for the writer, the important thing is how to achieve mastery of this common device.

One answer is, as with many story progression issues, to pre-plot your story. Short stories and flash fiction can often get by without an outline, relying on a good hook , a cunning twist, executed with style, color, and good characterization. Not so novella- or novel-length efforts. No twist will sustain a reader's interest over the hours invested. No amount of unique characterization will raise the pulse, if it only details a mundane trip to the supermarket.

Whether you outline your story, use scene cards, goal statements, lists of chapter headings, or whatever, it is wise to revisit these notes and decide where along the line increasingly peak events are going to occur, to whom, and the outcomes. Not every clash need be a win for the lead character, or even involve the lead. Often best it not, in fact. But the conflicts should increase in intensity, build towards the climax event of the story, and, if possible, precurse it. With a guide before you, you will better be able to write so as to carry forward not only the storyline, but all those elements that build the suspense, drama, and the foreshadowing intensity that mark a successful and satisfying read.

Characters wandering off "on their own" is an obvious consequence of not doing this. Characters exist as we create them, line by line. Wandering characters are therefore caused by the wandering mind of the author. While this is a creative process itself, it can also throw a wrench into your plot and action ramp. Usually it happens because the author has not prepared enough of a guide to keep his writing on point, and can cause more problems than it solves.

Maintaining one's writing in a show, not tell, style, remembering colorful description, keeping the actors in character, offering interesting dialog and ideas along the way, detailing the different kinds of action to the right levels, researching and using the knowledge basis upon which the story draws, (period, culture, mechanical, and technical aspects) is in essence, the juggling act a good writer gets proficient doing. These are the tools used simultaneously in writing out prose. You do not need the additional stress of not knowing exactly where each scene is going, what kind of outcome is being written to, or how to get there. Pre-plotting allows the writer to split away these tasks and do them somewhat separately. It may be the one technique that allows stories of any length to be written all.

With your tool before you, it becomes easy to spot lacks that need to be addressed in the story as a construct.

If you find yourself having to narrate yourself out of a corner, "see the reason this happened was…", pulling rabbits out of hats… "Then, just at the last minute, er, a giant space-gun appeared, blowing the bad monster away…", have weak or non-existent endings, "and then, eh, the sun went down – the end", you suffer from lack of plotting enough.

More importantly, if you see these things crop up anyway, you have the road map to amend, and can make the overall changes that vanish them.

None of the above means your writing is going to win out over several thousand other equally proficient authors in the running for publication, but it will keep you a contender, and allow your skills to grow. Also, as with any other tool, the more you employ it, the better you get with it.

F.A.Hyatt

Thanks for another wonderful post!

WRITING PROMPT: Watch an action show on television. Outline the action, including breaks for titles and commercials.

MA

Dark

Veterans' Day Speech in Remembrance of 9/11/2001.

My Swag and the Monkey King

It isn't even my birthday yet, and I have so much great stuff!

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Well, these two, I got at fiction conventions, both from Oh So Fine, Inc. I don't know why this dragon keeps coming out looking bronze–it's as silver as silver can be. I had to get it because, well, look at it! It's a Chinese dragon, like the one in my under-construction fantasy trilogy, SAGE, and it's articulated! When I'm not wearing it, I can totally play with it. Do puppet shows with it. It's a bracelet! It's a toy! Wait–you're both right–it's both!

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This one is impossible to show properly. It's so SAGE! It has a holy mountain in the center with a pearl like the sun above it. On one side is a phoenix, with its tail flowing behind it. On the other side is a Chinese dragon with its long body flowing behind it. There's a bronze bracelet in SAGE that's very like it, and I may very well rewrite that bracelet to match this one.

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And this is a lanyard T. Lee Harris made for me as an unbirthday present. T can do anything. She's a wonderful writer, an artist, a cook, a mechanic, a cat mommy, a book producer, a seamstress of period clothing and now a master beader. And I'm sure I've left a lot of stuff out. I wear this as a necklace, of course, but the stated purpose is to give me something to which to clip name badges at conventions. Works quite nifty for that, too. It's all over turtles, which is also very SAGE. Turtle is one of the characters, Turtle being one of the Divine Animals of Chinese mythology. Thanks, T! I love it!

Click image to enlarge.

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Oh, and I bought this next piece for myself, too, at Colokial in Corydon (they have a New Albany location, too). This ring is HUGE, but it's light. It's made from a faceted slab of moss agate. The setting is adjustable. If you look at it from a distance, it looks brown. If you look at it close-up, it's cloudy and has purple veins all through it. Kind of makes me hope they legalize marijuana in my lifetime, because I could spend hours with this piece.

Click image to enlarge.

Okay. I met my friend Jane for lunch yesterday and she gave me birthday presents. She says she got this bracelet at a second-hand store. Man oh man oh man, would you LOOK at it? Obviously hand-made, very one-of-a-kindish. The stone is carnelian, the metals are bronze, copper and something silver-ish. Isn't that a knockout?

And now for the capper. This is also a present from Jane. Are you ready? Are you braced? She gave me a statue of Wu'Kong–MONKEY!

 

I told my mother this last night, and it turns out she thought I was talking about The Handsome Monkey King all over the place here because I had made him up. So here is a link I found today about the Monkey King Festival, which I didn't know there was. Amazingly, I'm not too late to celebrate it, because it's SEPTEMBER 13 this year! HOORAY!

In my Monkey King display, the Goddess Kwan-Yin in the form of a mother and child is keeping an eye on him, and Tara, the essence of Kwan-Yin's compassion, stands over him. To learn more about Kwan-Yin, here is possibly more than you want to know, but at least look at the pictures. I'm particularly taken with the last one, of Kwan-Yin with a mustache. I identify with that one, somehow….

My question to you, my Sweet Little Baby Angels, is this: What should I do on my blog for Monkey King Festival?

WRITING PROMPT: Have your main character talk to you about his/her most memorable birthday present and why it meant so much.

MA

Interviewed by Elves! !!

Long, long ago, at a convention far, far away … Okay, so it was a couple of weeks ago at Context in Columbus, Ohio. Anyway, T. Lee Harris, Samantha Lopez and I met Babs Mountjoy (a.k.a. Lyndi Alexander). She emailed us later with some interview questions, we answered, and the interview appeared yesterday at her blog, Clan Elves of the Bitterroot.

Her Elves series sounds way cool, and I love this cover. CREEPY! It reminds me of the elves and fairies in a book I had when I was a child. Elves and fairies weren't anything you wanted to attract. They would steal your baby! They would suck your cow dry! Folks didn't used to leave milk out for them because elves and fairies were li'l cute and fuzzy like ooo-so-pweshius 'i'l' beebee kittehs squeeeeee! Folks left milk out for them because they wanted to bribe them to move along these aren't the droids you're looking for.

Do NOT want! Picture ganked from filmsRruss

So, in honor of that thought, I need to recommend filmsRruss, a blog I just found while looking for pictures of scary elves. This particular post is a double review of the two Hellboy films. I saw and ADORED the first one, and now I totally have to see the second. Steampunk AND evil elves! And Hellboy!

I don't want to leave you shivering in terror from the evil evil elves, so I'm recommending Dear Janit, Some letters I wrote to my cat. The one asking her not to lick his eyeballs ever again is one I think most cat owners can read with sympathy. Wonderful illustrations, too.

See you tomorrow with some kinda nonsense, and Sunday with a Sunday Sample.

WRITING PROMPT: Cats v. evil elves.

MA

I'm Not Really Here He-he-he!

I'm in Seymour, Indiana at a luncheon given by the Center For Congregations. See? I told you I was churchy. Mlehhhh! It's A Practical Guide to Congregational Planning. What that means, I don't know, but I guess I'll find out.

Meanwhile, I leave you with this thought:

Haiku for Southern Indiana Weather

Last week, it was hot.

This week, it's freaking freezing.

What up wit' dat, yo?

WRITING PROMPT: Send a character to a church/religious informational meeting. Make it funny.

MA

A Small Rant on Puns

First, I love 'em. Most people groan and at least profess contempt when they hear one. I laugh. So it threatens to trigger my depressive tendencies when I see the new Red Lobster commercials which end with someone involved in the restaurant saying, "I sea food differently," with no apparent attempt at humor implied. This is what depresses me: In these days of haow dair u tel mi haw 2 spel, I fear they don't try to make a joke out of the visual pun because they don't think we'll recognize it as one.

Okay, small rant over.

Since it's food day at the blog, and in honor of my sea food rant (so Davey Jones [the Pirates of the Caribbean guy, not the Monkeys guy], would say, "I sea dead people"? [pun intended duh])–I lost my place. Oh, yeah, in honor of my sea food rant and my previous eBook (still $2.99 and cheap at the price) EEL'S REVERENCE (not about eels), I offer you this column I did for World Wide Recipes during September back in the year 2006:

Once upon a time, I was a member of The Society for Creative Anachronism, and retain a great love for many things medieval. More than a few of my entries will probably come from books left over from that other life, when I was the lady poet, Maude McEwen.

Animals appear often in heraldry but, although we're familiar with lions, serpents and birds, the humble fish also has its place: salmon, herring, cod, eels, whelks, scallops, crabs and crayfish. They're usually represented alive, sometimes obviously swimming and sometimes in formation like members of an underwater chorus line. The poor lobster, alas, is usually represented only by his claw. The cod is sometimes shown prepared for winter storage: headless and open and apparently salted. Eels are sometimes shown peeking, in a row, over the edge of a cooking pot.

WRITING PROMPT: Does your main character commit many careless spelling errors, overlook them in others, or carry a permanent market to correct them on signs?

MA

Busy Day With Picture

Busy as a beaver today. Here are all the logs I cut. Yeah, right. The only logs I saw are metaphorical when I snore.

WRITING PROMPT: What would your main character look for in a woodpile? What would he or she find instead?

MA

Guest – John Desjarlais – VIPER

Knows too much about women's shoes.

I first met John Desjarlais at Magna cum Murder a couple of years ago. I was fascinated with his protagonist and with all the research he had done. He said, for instance, that he knew way more about women's shoes than he ought to. It was he, in fact, who sparked my own interest in the mad variety of shoes, although I could carry all the shoes I own in the pockets of my coat. And my coat has two pockets.

Anyway, here's something about VIPER:

Haunted by the loss of her brother to drugs and a botched raid that ended her career with the DEA, insurance agent Selena De La Cruz hoped to start afresh in rural Illinois. But her gung-ho former boss needs her back to hunt "The Snake," a dealer she helped arrest who is out of prison and systematically killing anyone who ever crossed him. His 'hit list', appended to a Catholic Church's All Souls Day 'Book of the Deceased,' shows Selena's name last. Working against time, prejudice and the suspicions of her own Latino community, Selena races to find The Snake before he reaches her name while a girl visionary claims a "Blue Lady" announces each killing in turn. Is it Our Lady of Guadalupe as many in the Mexican community believe, or is it, as others believe, the Aztec goddess of Death?

Now take it away, John:

Marian, you asked me to say something about the interplay of Mexican Catholicism and Aztec myth in my latest mystery VIPER, and add a word about my Latina character's interest in shoes. They are all related.

The premise of VIPER concerns the Catholic practice on All Souls' Day of placing a ledger in church called 'The Book of the Dead' where families record the names of relatives who have died that year so they can be remembered. But nine names have been entered into Selena De La Cruz's parish church's ledger of people who are not dead – until they start getting murdered one by one in the order listed – and the last name is Selena De La Cruz.

This is concurrent with the Mexican holiday called "The Day of the Dead," making VIPER very much immersed in Mexican-American culture. A secondary premise concerned the mysterious appearance of a "Blue Lady" to a local girl visionary, announcing each killing just before it happens. Is it Our Lady of Guadalupe, as many in the Mexican community believe (as She is the patroness of Mexico), or the Aztec goddess of Death, claiming another soul?

Part of my research, then, concerned Marian apparitions in general. There are MANY alleged apparitions of The Blessed Mother but the Catholic Church does not recognize all of them. Most are dismissed as invalid and the imagining of an enthusiastic or ill seer. Some are categorized as 'private' revelations that, while meaningful to the visionary, are not incumbent upon all believers. So the Church allows that such an experience may be meaningful to the individual visionary, but it remains an open issue for everyone else – even if there are thousands who profess a deep faith in the apparitions. Medjugore falls into that category. On the other hand, there are 'approved' apparitions that the Church – after a rigorous investigation – has concluded are genuine. Fatima, Lourdes, and Guadalupe, among others (I forget how many, forgive me, but it's not many), fall into this category.

Nearly all of these 'approved' events involve young girls like Jacinta in my story – pre-teen, uneducated, and not particularly devout. So she is the 'typical' visionary. It was necessary for her to be Mexican so that the mysterious "Blue Lady" who appears to her (and only to her; no one else can see her – also typical) could possibly be Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of Mexico. The original apparition was in December 1531 to a peasant whose cape was impressed with her image, a cape still on display in the shrine to her in Mexico City. Devotion to her is central to Mexican identity and the Mexican ideal of femininity: chaste and demure. So she is part of my exploration of Selena's struggle with her bi-cultural identity.

But the apparition might also be the Aztec goddess of death or Aztec goddess-princess of fertility and death, Xochiquetzal, who also is pictured with a blue mantle covered in stars. Among Mexicans, there is still some acknowledgment of the ancient deities, and there is a movement to recover devotion to them as a way of re-affirming the native Mexican cultural heritage. This includes devotion to the many snake-deities (like The Feathered Serpent) or to those who are pictured with snakes, such as Coatlicue, the 'mother of gods,' who gave birth to the sun god and who wears a skirt of rattlers and skulls. The interesting connection to Our Lady of Guadalupe (besides the fact that she is the 'Mother of God' who gives birth to the Son of God) is that her name in the native tongue means 'she who crushes the snake.' This can refer to two things. First, turning to the Catholic faith through Our Lady ended the bloody human sacrifices of the Aztecs, slaughtering tens upon tens of thousands of men, women and children per year. In addition, 'she who crushes the snake' can refer to the passage in Genesis 3:15 where Eve is told that enmity will be exist always between a woman and a snake: "He will strike at her heels, but she will crush his head.' This has always been taken to refer typologically to Mary, the New Eve, crushing the Evil One – The Serpent – by bringing Christ the Saviour into the world.

Speaking of heels: Latinas dig the zappatos and they are very much a part of a Latina's femininity and power as a woman. A girl receives her first pair of high heels from her father at her 'Quiceañera," a lavish prom-like coming-of-age event at age 15. One of my Latina readers of the work-in-progress made some suggestions for the footwear but I made most of the choices by browsing zappos.com. I knew I was getting all this cultural stuff right when she wrote to me saying, "I am SO into Selena!" What a relief.

Amazon links – USA paper, Kindle, and UK paper, Kindle:

VIPER, print

BLEEDER, print

BLEEDER, Kindle

BLEEDER, UK, print

BLEEDER, UK, Kindle

RELICS, print

THE THRONE OF TARA, print

Thanks, John! For more information on him and on his work, visit his website. You'll be glad you did!

WRITING PROMPT: If your main character saw a spiritual vision, what would it be?

MA

Sample Sunday – Dragonfly

Dragonfly

by Marian Allen

I'm enjoying my brief holiday. I sit on the creek bank watching the fairy-winged insects Gramma called "snake doctors" and think about Hank.

He used to like it when I talked to people we didn't know. He called me "gregarious" and said it was what first attracted him to me. The longer we were together, though, the less he liked it. And "gregarious" isn't what he called it this morning when all I did was wave at some guy driving past the creek.

I sure didn't like what he called me, and I didn't like his jerking me around and slapping me, either.

When the guy came back past, I told him to call the cops. They'll be here, soon, and my holiday will be all over. Meanwhile, I'll sit here with my bare feet in the water, enjoying the sunshine and listening to the buzz of the flies and watching the snake doctors land on Hank and fly away, shaking their heads because they were too late to save him.

WRITING PROMPT: Write 500 words or fewer using the words doctor, gregarious and holiday.

MA