Elise Stephens's Blog, page 5

Gratitude and SuperStars

“Honey, is there anything else I can do for you?”

My miserable six-year-old looked at me with tears in his
eyes. “Snuggle me.”

The morning had begun with an announcement from my kiddo that his tummy didn’t feel good. For the next five hours, we attempted a semblance of our regular morning schedule, punctuated about ten times with rushing-to-the-bathroom episodes. This may be the sickest my son has ever been since infancy. He shed big tears and wailed and verbalized his need for affection and comfort. Snuggle me.

I love this kiddo

This kid senses innately the bond between patient and caregiver. Not just that the caregiver loves the little person who needs their help, but that the little person also looks up and feels deep gratitude for the help being given to their body. My son is a grateful boy – and in an age where entitlement feels so profoundly rampant everywhere I go, I am humbled and delighted to see this growing in him.

Our holiday weekend finished with a quiet day at home – very close to the bathroom, washer, and dryer. But, as I write this, the sun has taken its victory of the sparkling blue sky. I look at my pruned rose bushes and anticipate their spring growth, just around the corner. The kiddos are riding their bikes in the cul-de-sac – I get to be a mom whose kids grow up on a cul-de-sac with other kids. The tingle of that blessing hasn’t yet worn off.

Now for some pics from my time at SuperStars in Colorado Springs.

Me and James Artimus Owen. Me and Jim ButcherMe and Kevin J. AndersonMe and Jonathan Maberry

I came back home from the SuperStars Writing Seminar feeling very warmed and excited, (and of course tired!). I learned a much more effective way to pitch Grayhawk Rising. Hint: don’t memorize three paragraph chunks and then recite them. The real thing that changed for me was remembering that I’m talking to a living-breathing person who wants to get to know me. So I started talking like this…

Her son is missing and he could destroy the world. 35-year-old Maglin Grayhawk works as a mediator by day, stopping folks from shooting each other during her job, and then at home is a single mom to a fifteen-year-old adopted son Lio whose psychic powers and resentment for hiding them are growing stronger by the day. When Lio disappears, Mag is plagued by terrors as to who will find him first. The government with which he isn’t registered? The psychic terrorists who might seduce her son into joining their cause? The superstitious citizens who’ve been killing psychically gifted people just like him, driven by blind fear? This is a story about parents protecting their children and parents realizing when they have to step back and let their children live their own lives. It’s about discovering who we are when we no longer exist to shelter another person. It’s about the price of peace. In a wild desert Dune-like world, we meet strong, networked characters in the style of Robin Hobb, this is Grayhawk Rising.

The above is not meant to be the sexy, polished print version, but it’s what I used to describe the book during a pitch practice session at SuperStars. Author Jonathan Maberry liked it enough to recommend two agents he thought might like it, and told me to mention his name. That hit me as a delightful surprise.

I shared the first page of Grayhawk Rising at the seminar, as well. The critics were excited, impressed, and very encouraging. I really need those boosts, you guys, because I’m so excited about the editors who are willing to look at it that I’m terrified of the prospect of sufficiently revising this draft!

Also, have you heard of filking? (Wikipedia definition here!) There was a get-together of people singing nerdy songs – like the “Ballad of Jayne” from Firefly, or nerdy lyrics put to songs we all know, like “Hey there, Cthulhu” to the tune of “Hey there, Delilah.” It was pretty wonderful and funny and fun. One of my friends, Wulf Moon, was an organizer and he let me go up and sing a few songs with him. I had a blast.

Train of Thoughts

What do you fear? Fear drives me more than I would like to
admit. I don’t consider myself paranoid, per se, just extremely…uhm…careful.
(Sounds like I have a problem and I’m in denial, doesn’t it?)

Recently my pastor asked us to write down something we
feared on a piece of paper. We could choose to bring the paper forward and
leave it in a pile at the front of the church at the base of a wooden cross to
symbolize giving that fear to Jesus. I wrote: I’m afraid I’ll be so busy with life and goal and work that I’ll miss
being present with James and the kids.

I had a sweet, frank conversation with the teenage daughter
of an accomplished artist and about my worries surrounding being a good mom and
she pointed out that simply because I was worried about it and working through
my concern, it proved that I was a good mom. Worry is a strange thing. Some of
it is good, but not the obsessive kind, I guess.

I wrote the following from a seat on the 507 Amtrak Cascades, headed south for Portland City, OR. For my birthday present, my husband bought me a train ticket for a weekend to visit some dear friends—All. By. Myself. My husband, the saint, is taking the kiddos for the weekend. During the drop-off at the station, my daughter mercifully made no threat of how she should “get another Mommy,” when she had done during an incident earlier this week in which I stepped away to have lunch with friends for a couple of hours.

Being mother to a three-year-old is tough (to put it lightly). My son’s journey through that stage dragged me right into the pit of despair—the hopelessness that I wasn’t a good enough parent to rose to meet the challenge. And so I enter the foray again, praying for the strength and grace to be loving, firm, patient, consistent and somehow remember to have fun instead of just sinking into an exhausted heap at the end of the day, searching only for a pleasant distraction.

News: The draft of Grayhawk Rising--a continuation to my story “Untrained Luck”– has been sent to some close readers and while I wait to hear back, I’m doing various small projects in the meantime, including making a Press Page for my website. I, heh, built it myself. If something about it isn’t pretty, I request that you tell me about it in a kind, comforting manner.

I’m headed to Colorado Springs in two weeks—did I tell you? I was honored to be chosen as a scholarship recipient for the SuperStars Writing Seminar. I’ll get to learn more about the professional world of publishers, agents, editors, marketing, Amazon, the writing lifestyle…basically avoiding pitfalls to make things a smoother road for me. And you guys…after this conference and World Fantasy in November, I might need some serious introvert time. Until I get excited about another con…

I’ve been fighting some winter illness and a long wrestle with the darkness and its impact on my moods. (Oh man, was I happy when we passed onto the bright side of the Longest Night on Winter Solstice!,) so this season presently feels like a dip down, rather than an upward slope. That also makes it the best time to rest before I let myself get sucked into my next massive project.

One thing I learned pretty clearly when writing this last novel—I don’t do well when I work both weekend days—not even in cases of “literary emergency.” That day of rest (yes, it’s mentioned a few times in the Bible) has true impact on the mind, soul, and sanity. So I’ll have to plan a different work style when next I embark to write a novel draft in sprinting fashion.

I think I’ve told you all of this before, but starting in April 2018, I felt something “begin.” It was the night I went Seattle’s University Bookstore to hear a Writers of the Future reading. Later, in Los Angeles the following year for my own WOTF awards event and then meeting editors at World Fantasy Con and then learning I’d been given a scholarship for Superstars, I feel like the momentum hasn’t slackened and I want to say again that I’m so grateful to all of you who’ve believed in me. Especially before I had any real external recognition. There is so much for me still to learn (and so much that I think I already know but that I actually don’t).

Saying thank you and asking nicely for help are things I am teaching my six- and three-year-old. And they’re still things I work on doing now, as an adult, in various and different contexts.

The train is ambling past a trestle in foggy evening light,
the glowing lights of the Emerald Queen Casino in shining blue, red, and
magenta on one bright screen. I’ll be seeing my next sunrise in another city in
the company of dear souls. Quite possibly I’ll be practicing my thank yous and
asking for help in a thousand small ways, components that make up those
conversations between friends who care about each other.

Good night, Seattle. Portland, here I come.

Writing Mama

If you have known me for a few years, you’ll have heard me talk about how staying home with my kids and finding creative ways to continue writing and finishing my stories has been an immense challenge. But the kids haven’t been mere obstacles to my professional goals. They’ve changed me as a person–and for the better in many ways! Through changes to my heart and my thoughts, my stories have shifted, too.

I wrote an article for the Writers of the Future blog on the subject of being a mother and a writer, and I wanted to share it with you here!

In that article is also a link to my second podcast interview on the Writers of the Future podcast. I have to say, I was feeling pretty optimistically happy during this second interview and you’ll hear me laugh several times (I think I sounded extremely serious on my first WOTF podcast interview, comparatively). Here is the link to my newest podcast interview. I also talk about figuring out space for my writing in the early years of motherhood (which may be helpful to other mama writers out there!).

Kiddos and me at my WOTF book signing last April

Hope you enjoy these! Oh! And in case you missed it, it’s awards eligibility season and I’m sharing the stories I wrote this year that are eligible to be nominated.

Being a parent with creative ambitions is tough stuff. If you’re struggling with a particular question or endeavor as you create your art in the same life-season that you are also wrangling your kids, I’d love to hear about it! I haven’t surmounted everything, but I’d like to think I’ve overcome a few things in the past six years since my entry into the craziness of parenthood and I’m willing to share my notes!

My Awards Eligible Stories for 2019

I have never done this before. I have never been eligible before this year!

These two short stories of mine were professionally published, and thus are eligible during this season of writing award nominations. Here’s where you can find them:

UNTRAINED LUCK – In Writers of the Future Volume 35, buy it from Galaxy Press here / buy it from Amazon here.

INHERITANCE – in Escape Pod #702, listen to or read it here.

Notes from my First World Fantasy Con

You’ll find yourself among “our kind of people,” my friend
told me as he described what it would be like to attend World Fantasy Con. Just
the presence of “world” in the title was enough to intimidate me.

I’ve been to a handful of conferences before, and I usually
feel small and overwhelmed by both the crowds and the amount of information
being poured across my brain receptors.

But I wanted to see Tim Powers, who I’d met through the Writers of the Future writing workshop in April of this year, and he promised to introduce me to some editors.

Me and Tim!

All I was supposed to do at these introductions was stand there and look embarrassed as he said kind, flattering things about the novel I’d shown him. (Yes, this the novel about Mag and Lio from my short story “Untrained Luck”!). So I booked a flight and bought my WFC membership and wrote like crazy so that I could say I’d finished the draft of the novel manuscript. And then, when Halloween arrived and I was on my flight to Los Angeles!

Let me just say—the accelerated writing process for this novel left me with far less confidence than usual in my finished piece. I’ve been in the habit of writing much more slowly, with less planning and less deadlines, and then showing off bits and pieces to people after polishing them over several times until I’m sure they’re beautiful. Which, as I hear, is a luxury that professional writers cannot keep. Yes, we want to create good work, and no that doesn’t mean sending out sloppy stuff, but there is a dangerous trap in endlessly fixing stuff and making it look “better.”

In fact, during my time in the Writers of the Future writing workshop, I heard the cautioning observation that those extra hours of polishing near the end rarely make the story much better. Yikes.

Emily Goodwin, Me, Kary English

So I wrote this manuscript, sent about three-quarters of it to Tim and to my brother (even my mom and my husband have yet to read it), and was fairly surprised to hear my readers give incredibly encouraging feedback. Stuff they didn’t have to say. In short, if you all want to find out whether this novel that I’m presently writing is any good, don’t ask me to give you my opinion of it. Ha! Ask my readers. My quality barometer is presently confused and exhausted and very grateful for perspectives that have more distance from it than I possess.

When I arrived at World Fantasy Con, I found it was better than I expected! It was like a big social gathering of people as excited about writing as I was, who had dedicated large parts of their life to it. I met the podcast editor who worked with me on my short story “Inheritance,” Tim introduced me to two editors with large publishing houses who took his recommendation of my novel seriously and agreed to look at my manuscript, I met a woman writing a retelling of Beauty and the Beast—my favorite fairy tale—and now we are friends!

Me and my new friend Laural

I met a man who sold his house in Seattle and moved to a
more affordable neighborhood in Washington in order to be able to write
full-time, I listened to fascinating panels on how to write good combat scenes
and what is important in writing fantasy stories that are non-Euro-centric. I
watched a magician do magic card tricks (I’m telling you, there were some
serious shenanigans going on that just made me keep wondering if telepathy were
involved!)

I met a pastor from Winnipeg and we got to talk about C. S. Lewis and writing stories of hope and healing. We had the chance to pray together, which was a wonderful encouragement to me. I met up with John and Emily Goodwin from Galaxy Press, publishers of Writers of the Future Vol 35 and we did another podcast interview talking about where I am now, how asking for help has been a large part of my creative and writing life, and how my family affects me as a writer.

Recording my podcast with John

It was a busy weekend, full of new social connections and the beginnings of friendships that I hope will continue to blossom and deepen as time goes on. I feel honored and grateful to have attended, and I can honestly say that this conference exceeded my expectations.

Bar Con at WFC 2019 with (left to right) Kat Clay, Evan Buntrock, Ian Vogel and me

A big thank you to the grandparents who helped watch my
kiddos during the week and to my husband who flew down solo on the airplane
with the two munchkins so meet me at the end of the conference!

We did our first family trip to Disneyland as a sweet aftermath and I am happy to report that the carousel met with my daughter’s approval and I’m astonished that my six-year-old son has an appetite for all the fast roller coasters. Wasn’t prepared for that!

The Spinning Teacups were a highlight

From here, I’m looking forward to getting the novel
manuscript ready to send to those editors who have given me their permission,
and then revisions and attention back on some short stories that have been
waiting on the sidelines.

If you have any questions about specifics regarding the
conference, such as what to expect or how to navigate one of these, I’m happy
to answer based on my experience!

Elise Stephens is Creating Science Fiction & Fantasy

Today’s post is short! Because the link I’m going to share will take you to my recently launched Patreon page and there you can listen to the short video I recorded on my Elise Stephens Patreon Page.

Basically, I’m creating a way for friends and fans to support the writing I’m doing. I’ve encountered many lovely people who want to help support my writing, but aren’t sure how they might do that. Patreon is one way of letting people support and encourage me while letting me keep connected to my patrons in an on-going and personal way.

If you are interested, or just want to watch a video clip in which I attempt to be candid and professional about the costs behind my writing life (you can hear my kiddos squawking in the background), feel free to pop on over.

It doesn’t always look like success

It was a summer evening on Whidbey Island a couple of years ago. We were on a relaxing family beach vacation, and I was breaking down in tears.

My sister had just shown us a video of an amazing scarf
acrobatics dance routine that she had choreographed to the song Thunder by Imagine Dragons. It was
stunning and beautiful and powerful and after watching it, I was a wreck.

I found a private place to cry and I wept. I was in the
throes of raising my two young kids, obsessed mainly with the prospect of
naptime when I would be only responsible for myself and no one else. I hadn’t
seen much recognition of late in my writing and I was always tired and there
was a lot of work and more work and nothing to show for it. My brother had just
received an award for excellence at work, if my memory serves me right. Envy rarely
fails me on those points. And they don’t hand out parenting awards, in case
anyone was under any delusions. Ahem.

Seeing my sister accomplish something beautiful and artistic
at that moment in my summer was enough to make me feel like a wad of dirty
paper towel, soggy with self-pity. I was writing, sure, but was any of that
going anywhere or being recognized?

I’m a 4 on the
Enneagram personality test (a 4w3 if
you want to get technical), which has not surprised my friends who are familiar
with the test. I call the personality type The
Moody Self-Absorbed Image-Obsessed Artist which is definitely not the
official title. It’s possibly more accurate, though, at least in my case. The
way people view me matters to me. A lot. And I assume they see me the way I see
myself, which is tough when I’m wearing my Harsh Critic hat.

But you know what? Having kids softens some places that were
hard before (and no I’m not referring to my abs…).

For example, my son has loved books ever since he could
snuggle on my lap and listen to them. He still cries out with the joy of
finding buried treasure every time I bring home a new batch of library books. I
started working with him on beginning literacy at age three because he was
showing interest at the time, not because I wanted to push him early. And
then…it got hard. He fidgeted, he jumped around, he dragged his feet as much as
he could. He’s six now, he can read some basics, but we haven’t spread our
wings yet.

Is this within the
realm of normal? Yes, I’m just disappointed. I just wanted it to be sooner.

Did you fail him as a
teacher?  No, he’s just not an early
reader.

Does he hate the idea
books and reading now? No, he still adores books.

So, basically, you
still have room to grow when it comes to patience. Yes.

Despite my yearning for my kid to embark on his own reading adventure with the skills to chart his own course, I am slowly learning (and re-learning, for myself) to view his journey with compassion. I can see his heart is in the right place and his love for learning is anything but quenched. It’s just not his time for reading yet.

Success, whether it’s recognition on a public platform for
an achievement, or it’s the joy of breaking into a new dimension of knowledge,
or it’s finishing a long and arduous project, always comes as a short blip at
the end of the dry, painful, discouraging, or just plain monotonous road. And
I’ll go ahead and say it’s okay to cry and drop your bags and sit there for a
while blubbering how it’s not worth going on. Just make sure to call someone
who won’t let you stay there.

Compassion seems to me to be the saving grace in those
places when we’re just not getting anywhere near our goal. The key isn’t just
diligence and sticking to my guns. I’ve done that and I’ve felt my soul shrivel
because I’ve done it with the merciless grit toward my own finite energies,
ignoring my subconscious emotions.

I don’t believe my heart is stupid or irrational anymore. It
holds deep secrets and dreams and if I’m gentle with it I can turn over the
earth to find dormant bulbs underneath, sleeping life that’s ready to crack
open. Life that needed the dark, dreary, wet and cold to mature its readiness
to bloom. Compassion here is the patience of decaying bark and frost to wait
for the first green leaves to push through the colorless soil.

Escape Pod will be turning
my short story “Inheritance” into a narrated podcast. It’s the tale of a woman
who receives an unexpected gift from her deceased grandmother, while walking
through the grief of repeated miscarriages. It’s about family, memory, and
healing. It’s deeply personal and much of the content came from the darkest
chapters of my life. Now it’s being turned into something beautiful.

I think what I want to say is it—and “it” is whatever we’re
dealing with today—really doesn’t need to look like success. Whatever it is
that we’re doing or struggling with or wishing would hurry up and change, let’s
look hard and see if we can find compassion for that person who isn’t doing
what we wish they’d do, and see if we can extend the tenderness even a tiny bit
toward ourselves. We can be faithful and also be brokenhearted. We can wait in
the dark and still emerge into the light. We can inhale hope, even when the
smoke of despair is choking us.

It doesn’t have to look like success. Maybe it will someday, but if that’s not today, think of a young, bright intelligent little six-year-old boy who loves books but hasn’t yet figured out how to read, and feel that glow of pride in your chest knowing that one day it will click for him, and the best way he’ll reach that breakthrough, is through patient, diligent love to guide him.

Perspective

Lake Kachess, WA

Pebbles grind beneath my shoes on a rocky beach overlooking the blue-green waters of Lake Kachess. The clouds are clean white and bunched, like someone pushed them together to bulk up their size, then puffed them up using a straw. One cloud strongly resembles a charging elephant—how long has it been since I looked for shapes in the clouds, and for only my benefit, not just so I could amuse my children?

I’ve left my kids with my in-laws at the campsite. My son is listening to an educational kids podcast, I think this one is about a bag of worms on the velocity of poop. I heard him giggling several times before I left. My daughter has commandeered her grandparents’ Airstream trailer for her beauty rest, along with tailor-made Velcro straps that cover the windows to create the proper level of darkness for sleep.

I thought I’d use more of a “learn to deal with it” parenting philosophy with my children, but I make plenty of accommodations for my kids. I guess it just goes to show that we human parents only have so much resolved available to us. I have to save some for myself. Like resolving the finish this knowledge by the end of October. Yep.

These kids, man, they make life so much harder and so much better. Just… All of it. A father of three told me that having kids makes your life more of everything. More frustrating, more exciting, more exhausting, more rewarding. More. And yet? I am confident that my kids positively impact my thinking, writing, my outlook on life, my plans for the future and that they undeniably enrich the stories that I write now.

Friends

As some of you know, the second half of my two Lebanese grandparents passed away late last year. Hikmat and Sally Saba were loving, abundantly generous, affectionate and, in many ways, volatile personalities. I knew them for over three decades, which meant they changed a lot during that time, probably as much as I did. I miss my Teita Sally when my son mentions a memory of eating pesto pasta on her couch while she crowed over him with joy. I miss Jiddo Hikmat when I see a fresh vegetable garden that’s been lovingly tended. I wish the grandmother who taught me the art of arranging flowers could witness the summer blooms in my own garden in the house of mine she never lived to see. Sally and Hikmat also exposed me to their politics and values, as seen from those who grew up on the shores of the Lebanese Mediterranean. I inherited passions and compassions, angers and lamentations that otherwise might never have known, if not for their story.

In this podcast (see below), I talk about my kids’ effect on my writing as well as how Middle Eastern conflicts helped inspire “Untrained Luck,” my Writers of the Future story. My voice sounds quite low on the recording, so I must’ve been channeling my inner jazz singer. (I’d sing “It’s All Right with Me” in case you want to know if I had a jazz song ready.) I also share some recommendations for aspiring writers. Below is the podcast link in Stitcher. You can get it through Apple podcasts.

I’ve made plans to attend World Fantasy Con in Los Angeles this fall. I’m really looking forward to/anxious about the socializing process, and I’m learning, bit by bit, to stand and speak more confidently about myself and my writing. I love writing. I’ve written some things that people have marked noteworthy. I am professionally published. I’m committed to staying in this game for the long haul.

The quietness of this beach is affecting me. Usually, perspective comes clear for me only once the object of focus has passed. For instance, I see my Lebanese grandparents more fully as human beings with stories I’m interested in retelling, but I could not see this in the midst of their health challenges and the emotional drama that entangled my entire family, for better and for worse.

I’ve only just realized that I’m finally shedding the inpatient “Oh, grow up already!” mindset that I’ve felt for a long time toward my own kids. They still exhaust me on a regular basis, but I’m not despondently drowning anymore.

Beach selfie. It was cold…

It hits me–my kids are rapidly losing their baby talk and learning real ways to help me around the house (no one is scrubbing the toilet yet, but my son can empty the whole top-loading washing machine if he has kitchen tongs to reach the socks on the bottom), and I am sure I don’t want them to rush off to college. I want to delight in who they are and what they do, right here and now.

This feels like a rare perspective. It didn’t wait to grab me until my son learned to drive or my daughter got her first job. When the perspective comes before it’s all in hindsight, that’s a gift. And for some odd and wonderful reason, I’m holding that gift in my lap right now, as I sit in the sunlight on this beach at Lake Kachess.

Cascadia Residency: One Year Later

I stood in an old schoolhouse that had been converted into an art library, then temporarily converted into a studio for a writer (me) and a visual artist (my friend Jason).  I hefted a book in my hands, as I narrated my part of the studio tour, sharing that my next literary goal was to be published in this sci-fi and fantasy anthology.

One year later, I’ve met that goal (honestly, it *still* feels surreal), and I’m squinting into the bright sunlight on the future horizon before me, trying to get my bearings and set my next goals.

Seeing my WOTF illustration for the first time. (I didn’t know Tim Powers was right next to me).

That studio tour and time to work creatively was the culmination of my time in the Cascadia Residency. A little over a month ago, I wrote a reflection on how the residency had impacted me. I also chose to talk about the intersections of my faith and my writing career.

It took years (in my case, I’d say it took decades) to form ideas about why I write, which ultimately impacts how and what I write. I believe these are vital and essential questions to ask.

For most of us writers, I dare say it begins with “I write because I love, because a deep part of me feels joy when I do it.” But I think it should become more than that. The answer to “Why do you write?” should morph from an impetus into a destination.

These two help me remember the purpose to my storytelling.

We are writing for a purpose. At least, I think the stories that paint deeply resonant truths for humanity are the ones that are written with a purpose.

My opinion of what kinds of stories are worth telling is definitely going to show through. I’m biased. But for what it’s worth, these biases are also the flavor of story I can offer to the world.

If you’re interested you can read my article for Cascadia Brehm here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Writers of the Future: My Week in Hollywood

Wow…you guys. I’ve returned safely from Los Angeles with a full head and swelling heart. My time was chock-full of learning, making connections, learning the craft and business of writing, and (the best part!) making friends.

My week got off to an awesome start when I discovered I’d been assigned the talented and wonderful Carrie Callahan (fellow writer winner) as my roommate. My exclamation of “YES” in the fancy hotel lobby caused an echo which gave me a brief moment of embarrassment. But it was worth it.

Carrie and me standing in front books by former WOTF winners. We’ll be in there someday!

Carrie and I had been in touch via facebook messages for a few months. She’d graciously pointed me in several helpful directions for my website redesign. (You can see Carrie’s lovely author website here.) I had a good feeling about her. It turned out to be exactly correct. Not only is she smart, she’s also kind and in possession of a great sense of humor. And she lent me a pair of pajamas after I forgot to pack mine. True story. She is honestly one of my highlights of my Writers of the Future week.

Meeting the other writer winners was a huge joy for me. We tried our best to live it up: getting meals together, taking walks, writing our 24-hour story assignment side-by-side at Starbucks, socializing after-hours (honestly, I have gone to bars more frequently in the last 7 days than I’ve probably frequented in the last 7 months, but this was BUSINESS, people! No judgment!