Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 71
October 5, 2018
FF: A Time and a Place
Kel Knows Not to Look Too Closerly at Medusa’s Web
Beginning some re-reading this week… There’s a time and a place for that, too!
For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.
The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Recently Completed:
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. Audiobook. Non-fiction. Very good. Author’s contentions strongly supported by primary source material. McCullough himself reads this one, which is a plus or minus, depending on your tastes.
Medusa’s Web by Tim Powers. Very much enjoyed.
And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer. Set in the universe of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Mostly harmless.
In Progress:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Audiobook. While waiting for other books to arrive, delving into an old favorite.
Last Call by Tim Powers. Decided I was long over-due for a read of this particular favorite of mine.
Also:
The beginning of the month has brought numerous magazines to our door. I’m sampling a few, fiction and non-fiction.
October 3, 2018
The Pleasure of Process
Go For It!
This past weekend, I finished my first kumihimo beaded bracelet and started a new one.
You can see the finished bracelet in the picture above. What you can’t see is how close that bracelet came to never existing. When I wrote about beading last week, that beaded piece was about three inches long (the finished coil is seven inches) and I knew it had flaws. By the time I was done, there were a few more errors. And the bracelet was too long because an unclear element in the instructions led me to use too many beads. I have fairly small wrists, so after I attached the findings (fasteners), the bracelet slide right over my hand.
So I thought “Why not just cut it up, salvage the parts, and start over? You’ve learned a lot about doing kumihimo from this. Now you can make one that’s the right length has fewer errors.”
And another part of me said, “This is the first time you’ve done one of these. It’s not as if you plan to sell it or enter it in a competition. No one but you is probably ever going to notice the errors. As for the length, you can work with that. Get rid of the findings that came with the kit, and see if you have any smaller ones.”
That’s what I did. One advantage of having done beading for so many years is I have an extensive kit of findings. I also know what options are available. The faster I eventually used was a magnetic clasp scavenged from a different bracelet that I’d meant to repair for years. That bracelet was a little snug (which is why it had broken), so I put a new set of findings on it.
Tah-dah! Now, not only do I have my very first kumihimo project to wear and enjoy – flaws and all – I finally fixed the other bracelet.
While I was sorting through my kit, I found myself thinking about how easy it is when focusing on what you hope to achieve to forget the pleasure of the process. Another project I’m involved with right now is a brand new SF/F magazine called DreamForge. Will it be a success? I certainly hope so. I certainly believe it should be. However, whatever the future brings, nothing will ever take away the pleasure that Scot and Jane Noel, me, art director Mike Zingarelli, and a few others have had in the process.
Please take a moment to look at DreamForge’s first Table of Contents. When Scot writes about each of the pieces he selected, you can hear how thrilled he is.
My Jim makes arrowheads. (Yep. That’s one of his in the picture.) His favorite material is obsidian, which is fragile, fussy, and often has hidden flaws. But even when an arrowhead doesn’t come out just as he wanted, he keeps making new ones, not because he’s trying for perfection, but because he enjoys the process.
When following my friend Tori Hansen on Twitter, I learned about something called “Inktober,” which is basically a hashtag that encourages artists to draw one picture a day. I’ve very much enjoyed looking at various people’s offerings. To me, the focus of Inktober is on process, not perfection. Draw a picture. Post it. Leave it. Go do another. This is the opposite – at least to me – of events like NaNoWriMo, which focus so hard on the end goal (write 50,000 words in a month) that the pleasure of the process is lost. Writing becomes a race, not an art, not a craft.
My writing this last week went out of control. I wrote over twice my self-assigned length. Immersed in the process, I had a wonderful time. Will I write that much again this week? Probably not, but I’m starting this week with a strong reminder to myself that even with the writing that is my job, I can take pleasure in the process.
Oh… The new bracelet I’m working on? It’s an experiment in which I’m deliberately using slightly off-sized beads in different shades of blue in attempt to get both visual and tactile texture. So far, so good, and if it doesn’t work out, so what? I will have enjoyed giving it a try.
September 28, 2018
FF: Powering Through
Insouciant Ogapoge
A couple new titles this week. I’ve wanted to read the book on the Wright Brothers ever since I heard David McCullough talk about it in 2015 when we were both guests at the National Book Festival. Now the time has come…
For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.
The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Recently Completed:
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey. Audiobook. Not my favorite in the series, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some excellent moments!
Alternate Routes by Tim Powers. Hit’s several of Power’s themes but in new and different ways. Fully realized story but with room for a sequel.
In Progress:
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. Audiobook. Non-fiction. Just starting.
Medusa’s Web by Tim Powers. I’ve just learned there’s a sub-genre called “Philadelphia Gothic. So far, this is shaping into what seems to be California Gothic. Very good so far. Somehow I missed this when it was first released in 2015. A great surprise since Tim Powers is on my very short list of “must read” novelists.
And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer. Set in the universe of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” So far, mostly harmless.
Also:
Having deciphered how to do basic kumihimo with beads, I’m dipping into a couple issues of Beadwork magazine, just because.
September 26, 2018
Tactile Sparkle, Mental Spark
Kumihimo: Cords and Beaded Work in Progress
So… This past week I re-immersed myself in writing on the new Firekeeper story. I’d taken some time away from prose to double-check details and suchlike, but last week I dove back into writing. The story is developing nicely, although I still am doing a lot of meditating, both pen in hand and while most of my brain is busy doing other things.
As part of that meditation, I’m teaching myself a new craft technique. It’s an expansion of Japanese kumihimo – a sort of fancy way of braiding cords. I’ve done sixteen strand round cords before, but this variation involves adding beads. Beading – as many of you know – has been a weakness of mine since my mom taught me to sew beads and sequins on felt when I was quite young.
During my college years (in which I’ll include grad school), I taught myself both loom weaving and brick stitch. Somewhere along the line, I learned how to do counted cross stitch with beads. I have fond memories of sitting on the sofa while Roger Zelazny read to me and I made little counted cross stitch beaded thingies, including some silver roses. These eventually became either gifts or Christmas ornaments. It’s funny, but while I never really got into embroidery, add beads and I became addicted.
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Beaded Dolls: Storm and Rainbow
I moved from counted cross stitch to peyote stitch (both odd and even count). Later, I taught myself how to sew beads onto figures. Jim set two of my figures in a lovely mirrored shadowbox so it’s possible to see them in the round. I also beaded the toes of a pair of moccasins… Beading on leather is tough!
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Peyote Stitch Bracelets
I’ve also done a variety of stringing projects, although I will admit that working with crimp beads (which you need to do to attach most findings to wire) continues to be something I find really difficult. One of the reasons I enjoy working in polymer clay is that I can make my own beads…
Now I’m off to write down some of what I’ve been thinking about. Then maybe I’ll pick up the kumihimo disk and add a few beads onto the cord while my backbrain adds elements to the story.
September 21, 2018
FF: Shifting Priorities
Ogapoge Considers Alternate Routes
We’re definitely shifting to autumn, here. Since no one is advertising “Autumn Reads,” I guess I need to figure out what works on my own.
For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.
The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Do you have any reads that go well with pumpkin spice?
Recently Completed:
The Bone Reader by Mab Morris. A murder mystery combined with court intrigue, featuring a fortune teller who doesn’t believe her own prophesies. I enjoyed but, honest assessment, the writing is not as strong as in the other books by this author I’ve read. Still, I’d give it a thumbs up for people who like this type of story.
In Progress:
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey. Audiobook. I’ll be honest. I miss the elements of alien intelligences and artifacts. That’s part of what made this series special to me. If I want to read about war and the moral and ethical elements that arise, I’ll read history. Not bad. Just not the stretch of the mind that I read SF for. However, I’m not done and don’t plan to quit.
Alternate Routes by Tim Powers. Baen Books edition of a novel that apparently had a small press release first from Charnel House. Three cheers to Baen for making this more widely available. I’m just getting into it and it has the usual Powers weirdness.
Also:
I’ve been deciphering the instructions for a new craft project that was one of my recent birthday gifts. Feels as if it’s exercising my brain in all the right ways to make me a better writer. Weird how that works!
September 19, 2018
Emotional Continuity
Elephants Remember
News Flash! Editor Deborah J. Ross interviewed me about writing, my story in the forthcoming issue of Sword and Sorceress and other things.
In it, I touch on how negative influences have had a strong impact on my writing. Here’s an example.
Last week, I took a week off writing to immerse myself in various aspects of the Firekeeper universe before moving into the next part of the story. One of the complications about writing the seventh novel in a series is how easily it is to gloss over small details. Add to this that I haven’t written a Firekeeper novel in over a decade and the complexity grows.
By coincidence, my pleasure reading included a series I am enjoying very much – especially for the evolving relationships of the central suite of characters. I’m not going to go into details, but something I read made me think about an often neglected element of continuity – emotional continuity.
When something traumatic happens to a character, something that is key to a great deal of the action of that particular book, and then in the next book, something similar (but not identical) happens, I expect the characters to comment, to remember. When they don’t, my sense that the characters are “real” suffers.
I’m not saying that the author must provide a full recap of past events, not at all. However, real people remember what happened to them and those memories influence how they act in the future. Indeed, one could argue that our core self consists of an accumulated suite of experiences. Whenever something new happens, we seek to understand it by relating it to what we have experienced before. When something recurs, the most common reaction is “Here we go again!” Even new experiences are often understood by how they relate to past ones: “I’ve had milk chocolate with fruit and nuts, but never with chile pepper flakes!”
The importance of emotional or experiencial continuity is one reason that senility is such a horrible thing, not only for the sufferers, but for those who love them. The person you once knew is vanishing, in part because he or she cannot make those little connections to past events that are the heart of identity. PTSD is another side of emotional continuity. In this case, rather than remembering too little, the person is subjected to remembering too much – even to having traumatic experiences “flashback,” contaminating what in reality is a pristine or unconnected situation.
When I’m writing stories featuring continuing characters, what’s most important to me is to establish the sense that the characters have emotional continuity. To me that’s more important than dates or order of events. After all, humans do forget such details. We’ve all had those discussions as to whether it was two or three summers ago that Uncle Joe got that horrible sunburn. The sequence of events is less important than what those events did to us, and how our future actions are influenced by them.
Another element that goes into writing believable emotional continuity is making sure everyone doesn’t react the same way. Let’s go back to Uncle Joe’s sunburn. Uncle Joe is going to remember the pain, and maybe how dumb he felt for forgetting to renew his sunblock or for falling asleep out on the beach. Aunt Reba is going to remember not only her concern for Uncle Joe, but the fact that their long-planned anniversary outing ended up cancelled. Cousin Buck is going to remember how annoyed he was because Dad getting sick meant he had to call off the date he had with the pretty lifeguard. And so on…
When I read a book in a series where the characters seem to remember events perfectly well, but not react to current events in light of past experiences (especially when those experiences were traumatic), my sense that they are real begins to ebb. When they start reacting in light of events from decades before, but seem to forget what traumatized them two years ago, then I feel the fingers of a plot-driven author stirring the pot, rather than feeling the characters actually exist.
Does this ruin the read for me? Not necessarily, but it definitely makes me acutely aware of how I don’t want to do that to my characters – or to my readers. In thinking about what bothers me as a reader, I strive to become a stronger writer.
Now… Off to write!
September 14, 2018
FF: In the Midst
Give A Cat A Bone (Reader)
This week I’m in a more normal pattern. I’ve also been reading magazine stories here and there.
For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.
The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Recently Completed:
Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey. Audiobook. I ended up being really interested in this one. I’m learning that the opening chapters – which tend to be very gloom and doom – could chase me away if I didn’t already like the series. I realize that goes back to the very first novel in the series, Leviathan Wakes.
In Progress:
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey. Audiobook. Once again, things are pretty gloomy and stressful and everyone is cranky…
The Bone Reader by Mab Morris. A murder mystery combined with court intrigue, featuring a fortune teller who doesn’t believe her own prophesies. So far, so good.
Also:
Still doing continuity reading from the latter Firekeeper novels as I move into a new plot arc.
September 12, 2018
Absurd, Hopefully Not Impossible
The Front Page of My Bullet Journal
Last week, after I announced the publication of a new e-book edition of Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, a fan e-mailed me and politely asked for an update on the forthcoming Firekeeper novel. Her e-mail expressed concern that the fact that I was doing other projects meant that I’d lost interest in or was stuck on the Firekeeper novel.
I’m here to reassure you that this is not the case. It’s actually the opposite. Simply put, the project has grown beyond my earlier expectations.
Initially, my intention was to write a short Firekeeper novel. Well, I both am and am not doing that. The story turned out to be a lot more complicated than I anticipated. Is anyone other than me surprised about this? So definitely more Firekeeper is on the way. Stay tuned for details as I have them.
In the meantime, please try some of my other works. My newest is the somewhat surreal Fantasy, Asphodel. I’ve also produced new e-book editions of all six of the original Firekeeper novels, as well as my older novels When the Gods Are Silent, Smoke and Mirrors, Changer, and Changer’s Daughter. Some of these are also available in print via my website bookstore.
Prefer short fiction? My collection Curiosities is available in both print and e-book. Looking for advice on writing? Try my Wanderings on Writing.
As you can see, “Jane Lindskold” is more than a one-flavor author. I hope that no matter what your favorite of my flavors is, you’ll try another. You might be surprised by how much you like it.
So, although I’m laughing at the absurdity that my “simple” project has turned out to be a lot more complex, I’m also here to reassure you that it’s not impossible – just that the timetable has changed a smidge.
PS — The Absurd Tiger is by Rhari, whose Sandshadow portrait I featured a couple FF ago.
September 7, 2018
FF: Finishing Line
Kwahe’e Really Wants a Bowl of the Matzo Ball Soup
Once again, I’m finishing up my current print read as I’m writing this. I haven’t decided what I’ll be reading next. I’m considering a few magazines that I picked up at recent conventions.
For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.
The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Recently Completed:
Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill by Steven Brust. I read this one soon after its initial release, but all I remembered was the basic premise. It’s been on my mind since a FF reader mentioned he’d read it a while back. A good story, darker and more complex than the cheerful cover would make you imagine.
In Progress:
Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey. Audiobook. This is turning into a “breaking things to pieces” story, which is not usually my thing. Let’s see how I feel about it by the end.
Also:
Pulling continuity details from various Firekeeper novels as I prepare to move into part two of the book I’m writing!
September 5, 2018
Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls: New E-book Now Available!
New Cover: Art By Patrick Arrasmith
If you’re on my mailing list, you may have already heard about this, but never fear: This Wednesday Wanderings contains fresh material!
I’ve just completed a fresh e-book edition of my first published novel, Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls. The cover art is by Patrick Arrasmith. I loved his stark black and white cover for the Tor/Orb edition, but I must admit, I love this color version even more.
The new edition includes the essay, “Pride of Place.” This essay includes details never before revealed about the writing of Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls.
The new ebook is available for purchase as a mobi file for Kindle. You can also get it as an epub file at Nook, Kobo, i-Tunes, and Google Play. Still prefer print books? I have copies of the Tor trade paperback available for sale at my website bookstore. If you order a trade paperback and want to read the new essay, let me know and I’ll print you a copy and send it with the novel at no additional cost.
Here’s the cover blurb:
Sarah talks to her rubber dragon. She also talks to walls, paintings, and other inanimate objects. She has incredible difficulty talking to humans. That makes her crazy, right?
What most people don’t bother to discover is that when Sarah talks to inanimate objects, they answer.
Tossed out onto the streets from the mental institution where she has lived most of her adult life, Sarah is adopted by Abalone, a hacker whose home is the weird and wild industrial Jungle ruled over by Head Wolf. But Sarah’s idyll with her new Pack can’t last. Someone is searching for her – and not even the Pack can protect her from those who know her secret and plan to use her gift for their own dark ends.
Of all my novels, Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls seems to appeal to the largest crossover audience drawn from my readers – no matter whether you first encountered my work through the Firekeeper Saga or through the athanor books or perhaps through my collaborations with Roger Zelazny or David Weber.
Here are snippets from a couple of reviews from when the book was first released over twenty years ago:
“…a quest which grows increasingly dark, sophisticated, and intellectually challenging even as it reveals deep roots in the mysteries of family and identity. …Even hardbitten SF fans with an allergy to dragons and magics of all sorts should set doubt aside long enough to give this excellent book a try. It’s a strikingly original work from a worthy new heir to Mary Shelley.” Locus
“Lindskold has invented a remarkably original science-fiction idea – a literal version of the philosophy of animism… a well told novel possessing depth of characterization, textured language, a captivating setting and themes vital to contemporary society.” Telluride Times-Journal
Tantalized? Nostalgic? I hope that whether Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls is already an old favorite or is a book you have yet to discover, you’ll think about giving it a read or, at the very least, sharing the news
Thanks!
