DeAnna Knippling's Blog, page 86

My best books read in 2011.

A few days left…if I read anything else stellar this year, I'll add it to the list…

Five stars, in reverse order of reading:

The Non-Designers Design Book, by Robin P. Williams.  In a discipline that values intuition over clear explanation (seems like), a refreshingly blunt books on what's actually going on.
The Best of Joe R. Lansdale.  Short story collection (very dark), featuring "Bubba Ho-Tep."  I could only read a few pages of this at a time, because it was so dark–and it's me saying that.
"Young Guns," by Ian T. Healy.  Short story.  A super father who hides his talents has to learn to cope with his daughter who won't.
Fullmetal Alchemist series.  Manga.  I'm awaiting the last (!) volume.  This is great storytelling.  Just great.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Cat Valente.  Middle-grade.  Started out a bit twee, then talked you into all kinds of ideas.  Deceptively subtle
Chew, by John Layman.  A cibomancer, or someone who can tell the history of a thing by eating it, in a world where chicken has been outlawed.  Dark and funny.
"How to Cook Husbands, A Creepy Story," by Rebecca Senese.   Not what you were expecting…or is it?
Three-Lobed Burning Eye Annual V, Ed. by Andrew S. Fuller.  I'm in this, but I feel like I'm the least of the stories contained.  Surreal, horrific, and wonderful.  Limited run.  Sor-ry!
Heston Blumenthal:  In Search of Perfection. If by "perfection," you mean starting things on fire, this is your book.  Foodie treasure.
Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for the End. Got a review copy.  This is perfect, if sadly shorter than I wanted, and insults everybody.
Generation Loss, by Elizabeth Hand.  Art, music, isolation, and madness.  A hidden gem of a serial killer book.
A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin.  I was putting this off until the series was done, but then the TV series came out.  Still haven't see the TV series.
The Fat Duck Cookbook, by Heston Blumenthal, illus. by Dave McKean.  Suh-weet.  Essays on food, then the recipes, then the science.  We loves the science.
In the Night Garden and Cities of Coin and Spice (the Orphan's Tales), Cat Valente.  Arabian Nights for cross-mythic stories, so entertwined as to put the originals to shame.
The Soul Mirror (Collegia Magica Series), by Carol Berg.  High fantasy intrigue in a world where magic is dying.  A rogue sorcerer and the ordinary girl who pursues revenge against him.
The Escapement and Evil for Evil (The Engineer Series), by K.J. Parker.  (First book is Devices and Desires.)  Painfully good series about, oh, treating people like clockwork.  A tour de force of intrigue and horror.
Drood, by Dan Simmons.  One of the few perfect books…the story of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and the ultimate mind@#$%.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, illus by Eric Shanower.  This graphic novel really captures the spirit of the midwest, making shades of brown into a rainbow.  And Dorothy is as cute as a button.
Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits & Other Curious Things, by Cate Gardner.   Short stories of surreal wonder, with laugh-out-loud absurd twists.
The Freelancer's Survival Guide, by Kris Rusch.  I need to reread this about once a year.
Thoughtless Acts? Observations on Intuitive Design, by Jane Fulton Suri.  How do we use things, and how to design heterodyne with that?
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor.  Magic in post-apocalyptic Africa, a chosen-one story that's almost too painful and beautiful to bear.
Writing Down the Bones:  Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg.  Bringing meditation into your writing practice, or bringing writing practice to bear on a search for peace, or integrating your life and writing…
Yotsuba! series.  Manga about a little girl who enjoys everything.  Reminds me of Ray, ages 4-6 or so.
Being Wrong:  Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz.   How our brains trick us into thinking we're right, even when we're not…survival at its fittest.
Handling the Undead, by John Ajvide Lindqvist.  The dead come back, and this time we actually have to deal with them instead of just blowing them up.

According to Goodreads, I've read 139 books on 2011, or about one every 2.6 days.  Time to up that average…

The 2012 TBR Pile Challenge

I happened to hear about the Best Book Reading Challenge Ever: the TBR pile challenge.  The rules: pick 12 books (or 14, so you can ditch 2 books that you don't like) that have been on your To Be Read (TBR) pile for over 12 months, and read one a month throughout 2012.  If you enter the official contest, you can win a $50 gift card to Amazon or the Book Depository, but really, the benefit is getting those books off your list.

Here are my choices:

Virconium, by M. John Harrison
The Wallet of Kai Lung, by Ernest Bramah
The Eternal Mercenary, by Barry Sadler
Tales of Neveryon, by Samuel R. Delaney
The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
The Dead Man's Brother, by Roger Zelazny
Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
Tomoe Gozen, by Jessica Salmonson
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach
The Loving Dead, by Amelia Beamer
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees
Ash, by Melinda Lo
The King in Yellow and Other Stories, by Robert W. Chambers
A Morbid Taste for Bones, Ellis Peters

 

 

Bakers vs. Cooks

In the world of making food, there are two main divisions: bakers vs. cooks (not that it's a battle, although that would make a fun fight sequence).  Now, there are some people who are both, but mostly people will tend toward one or the other.

I'm a cook.

I don't really like to make cakes or cookies or things like that.  When I make sweet things, they are usually:

Cheesecake
Pot de creme
Creme brulee
Ice cream
Creme anglaise
Candied orange peels
Candied nuts
Rice krispy bars*

See a pattern there?  A lot of custards.  Why?  Because, at root, custard is a sauce. Hollandaise sauce?  A heck of a lot like custard.  I don't bake so much as practice sauce management in the oven.  I'll make muffins and scones and bread from time to time, but only because I really, really want homemade stuff to the point where it overcomes my reluctance.

Candying things = simmering things on the stove.  I also make a pretty mean caramel sauce, no corn syrup required.  I get making sauces.  Not a professional at them by any means, but I can conceptualize what I'm doing and wing it as necessary.  A roux is no stranger to me.

I was walking around in a movie store the other day (with Lee) and saw a DVD for Ace of Cakes. I was like, "A baking show?  Who watches a freaking baking show?!?"  This, from a girl who adores Heston Blumenthal's Heston's Feasts show with a passion.

But, for some reason, I hadn't realized that bakers approach things the same way, more or less, making non-dessert food that involves…baking techniques.  Approaching cooking from a baker's perspective.  I know, it's obvious, but obvious things aren't obvious if you don't see them, not if you can't.

I went to one cake, two cake to look at a recipe and scrolled through a bunch of them…and noticed a pattern.  Hamburger bun recipe…but not hamburgers.  Savory bread pudding for breakfast…not scrambled eggs.  I looked at the list of recipes to confirm it: breakfast dishes–all baking stuff; vegetables (2 recipes)–one involved baking the veg; two soups–not baking; two seafood recipes–not baking.  The rest?  All baking.

It's a beautiful site, by the way, and if you like baking it will probably be fascinating; I certainly wanted to eat all of it.  But I don't really feel a passion to make any of it.  If it doesn't start with garlic hitting olive oil in a pan or carefully thickening some combination of eggs and cream, I have to work at my enthusiasm for a recipe.  But, truly, that's just me.

*Okay, thought.  Rice krispy gingerbread house.  Or even igloo.  We're going to try it later today.

Tad Williams Short Story: The Sugarplum Favor

Tad Williams is one of my favorite authors…he and his wife, Deborah Beale (they write the Ordinary Farm kids' books together) have independently put up an ebook collection (A Stark and Wormy Knight) of short stories and novellas, of which this is one.  Subterranean Press will put out the print edition next summer.  The collection is going for $4.99 for a month and will go up in price later, so get it now.

And follow them on Twitter, by the way: @MrsTad and @TadWilliams.

As for the following story…a boy with a sweet tooth, a bully, and an altogether clever Christmas revenge wish…

 

THE SUGARPLUM FAVOR

(A Christmas Story)

Tad Williams

 

Danny Mendoza counted his change three times in while the teacher talked about what they were all supposed to bring for the class winter holiday party tomorrow.  It was really a Christmas party, at least in Danny's class, because that's what all the kids' families' celebrated.  Danny had his party contribution covered.  He had volunteered to bring napkins and paper plates and cups because his family had some left over from his little brother's birthday party with characters from Gabba Gabba Hey on them.  He'd get teased about that, he knew, but he didn't want to ask his mother to make something because she was so busy with his little brothers and the baby, and now that Danny's stepfather Luis had lost his job they had a Money Situation.  Danny could live with a little teasing.

Danny was going to buy a candy bar for his mother, one of those big ones.  That was going to be his Christmas present to her and Danny knew how much she'd like it — he hadn't just inherited his small size and nimble fingers from her, he'd got her sweet tooth, too.  And she had just been talking about the Christmas a few years ago when Luis had a good job with the Sanitation Department and he'd brought her a whole box of See's chocolates.  Danny knew he couldn't match that, but the last of the money he'd saved up from raking leaves in the neighborhood and walking old Mrs. Rosales' wheezy little dog should be enough to buy a big old Hershey bar that would make Mama smile.  No, what to get wasn't a problem.  The thing that had him thinking so hard as he went down the street at a hurried walk, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, was whether he dared to get it now or should wait another day.

In Danny's San Jose neighborhood the Mercado Estrella was like an African water hole, not only a crucial source of nurture but also the haunt of the most fearsome predator in his 3rd grade world.  Any stop at the little market meant he risked running into Hector Villaba, the big, mean fifth-grade kid who haunted Danny's days and often his nights as well.  Danny couldn't even begin to guess how much candy and other goodies Hector had stolen from him and the other kids over the years, but it was a lot — Hector was the elementary school's Public Enemy Number One.  About half the time his victims got shoved around, too, or even hit, and none of the grown-ups ever did anything about it except to tell their humiliated sons they should learn how to fight back.  That was probably because Hector Villaba's father was a violent, drunken brute who didn't care what Hector did and everyone in the neighborhood was as scared of him as the kids at school were scared of his son.  The last time someone in the neighborhood had called the police on Hector's dad, all their windows had been broken while they were at church and their car scratched from one end to another.

Danny was still trying to make up his mind whether to risk stopping at the market today or wait for better odds tomorrow (when class ended early because of the holiday) when he saw Mrs. Rosales walking Pinto, her little spotted dog.  He almost crossed the street because he knew she'd want to talk to him and he'd spent a lot of time doing that already last week when went to her house to get Pinto nearly every day.  He was too close, though, she'd seen him, and Jesus hated being rude to old people almost as much as he hated it when kids lied, or at least that was what his mama always told him.  Danny wasn't expecting much from Santa anyway, but if Jesus got upset things would probably be even worse.  He sighed and continued toward her.

"Look who's here!" Mrs. Rosales said when she saw him.  "Look, Pinto mi querida, it's your friend Danny!"  But when he waved and would have passed by she told him, "Hold on a moment, young man, I want to talk to you."

He stopped, but he was really worried that Hector and his friends might catch up if he stood around too long.  "Yes, Mrs. Rosales?"

"I short-changed you the other day."  She took out a little coin purse.  It took her a long time to get it open with her knobby old fingers.  "I owe you a dollar."

"Really?"  Danny was astonished.

She pulled out a piece of paper that looked like it had been folded and unfolded a hundred times and handed it to him.  "I know boys need money this time of year!"

He thanked her, petted Pinto (who growled despite all their time together, because Pinto was a spoiled brat) and hurried toward the market.  Another dollar!  It was like one of those Christmas miracles on a television show – like the Grinch's heart growing so much it made the x-ray machine go sproing! This changed everything.  He could not only buy his mom's present, he could buy something for himself, too.  He briefly considered blowing the whole dollar on a Butterfinger, his very favorite, but he knew hard candies would be a better investment — he could share them with his younger brothers, and it was Christmas-time, after all.  But whatever he got, he didn't want to wait for tomorrow, not now that he had something to spend on himself.  Danny Mendoza had been candy-starved for days.  Nothing sweeter than the baby's butterscotch pudding had passed his lips that week, and the pudding hadn't been by his own choice.  (His baby sister had discovered that if she waved her spoon things flew and splattered, and she liked that new trick a lot.)  If he hurried to the market he should still get there long before Hector and his friends, who had many children to harass and humiliate on their way home.  It was a risk, of course, but with an unexpected dollar in his pocket Danny felt strangely confident.  There had to be such a thing as Christmas luck, didn't there?  After all, it was a whole holiday about Jesus getting born, and Jesus was kind to everybody.  Although it sure hadn't seemed like a lucky Christmas when Luis, Danny's stepfather, had lost his job in the first week of December.  But maybe things were going to get better now — maybe, as his mama sometimes said, the Mendoza family's luck was going to change.

He was even more willing to believe in miracles when he saw no sign of Hector  and his friends at the market.  As he walked in Christmas music was playing loudly on the radio, that "Joy to the World" song sung by some smooth television star.  Tia Marisol, the little old lady who ran the place on her own since her husband died, was trying to hang some lights above the cigarettes behind the cash register.  She wasn't his real aunt, of course.  Everybody in the neighbohood just called her "Tia."

"Oye, little man," she called when she turned around and saw him.  "How's your mama?"

"Fine, Tia Marisol.  I'm getting her a present."  He made his way past the postres to the long candy rack.  So many colors, so many kinds!  It almost seemed to glow, like in one of those cartoons where children found a treasure-cave.  When Danny was little, it was what he had imagined when the minister at the church talked about Heaven.  The only better thing he had ever seen in his whole life was the huge piñata at one of his school friends' birthday party, years and years ago.  When the birthday boy knocked the piñata open and candy came showering out and all the kids could jump in and take what they want – that had been amazing. Like winning a game show on television.  Danny still dreamed about it sometimes.

Danny realized that he was staring like a dummy at the rack of candy when every second the danger that Hector and his friends would arrive kept growing.  He quickly examined the big Hershey bars until he found one with a perfect wrapper, a massive candy bar that looked as if it had been made special for a commercial.  He would have loved to spend more time browsing — how often did he have a whole dollar to spend just on candy? — but he knew time was short, so he grabbed a good-sized handful of hard, sour candies for sucking, took several different colors of candy ropes; then, as worry grew inside him, as uncomfortable as needing to pee, he finally snatched up a handful of bubble gum and ran to the front counter.

"What's your hurry, m'hijo?" Tia Marisol asked.

"Mom needs me," he said, which he hoped was not enough of a lie to ruin Jesus' upcoming celebration.  After all, Mom didalways need his help, especially by this time in the day when she'd been on her own with the baby and the littlest brother since morning, and had just walked the other brother home from preschool.  He pulled the three dollars worth of much-counted change out of one pocket and mounded it in front of Tia Marisol, then put the Hershey bar and his own handful of candy down beside it before digging out the crumpled dollar Mrs. Rosales had given him.  She slid her glasses a little way down her nose while she looked at it all.

"Where'd you get so much money, Danny?"

"Raking lawns.  Taking Mrs. Rosales dog for walks."

Tia Marisol smiled, handed him back twenty-three cents, and put everything into a paper bag.  "You're a good boy.  You and your family have a happy Christmas.  Tell your mama I said hello, would you?"

"Sure."  He was already halfway through the door, heart beating.

The Christmas miracle continued outside: other than a couple of young mothers with strollers and bundled-up babies, and the old men who sat on the bus bench across the street drinking from bottles in paper bags, the area around the store was still clear.  Danny began to walk toward home as fast as he could without running, because he had the bag under his coat now and he didn't want to melt Mama's candy bar.  Still, he was almost skipping, he was so happy.  Joy to the world, the Lord is come…!

"Hey, Mendoza," someone shouted in a hoarse voice.  "What's in the bag, maricon?"

Danny stopped, frozen for a moment like a cornered animal, but then he began to walk again, faster and faster until he was running.  There was no question whose voice that was.  Pretty much every kid in his school knew it and feared it.

"Hold up, Mendoza, or I'll kick your ass good!"  The voice was getting closer.  He could hear the whir of bike tires on the sidewalk coming up behind him fast.  He looked back and saw that Hector Villaba and his big, stupid friends Rojo and Chuy were bearing down on him on their bikes, and in another second or two would ride him down.  He lunged to the side just as Hector stuck out his foot and shoved him, sending Danny crashing into the low wire fence of the house he was passing.  He bounced off and tumbled painfully to the sidewalk as Hector and his gang stopped just a few yards ahead, now blocking the sidewalk that led Danny home.  The hard candies had fallen out of his bag and were scattered across the sidewalk.  He got down on his knees, hurrying to pick them up, doing everything he could to avoid eye contact with Hector and the others, but when he reached for the last one Hector's big, stupid basketball-shoe was on top of it.  The older boy leaned over and picked it up.  "Jolly Rancher, huh?  Not bad. Not great, but not bad."  He waved it in Danny's face, making him look up from all fours like a dog at its master.  "I asked you what's in the bag, Mendoza?"

"Nothing!  It's for my mama."

"For your mama?  Oh, iddn't dat sweet?"  Hector's fingers hooked under Danny's chin and lifted.  Danny didn't fight — he knew it wasn't going to help — but he still flinched when he saw Hector's round, sweaty face so close, the angry, pale yellow-brown eyes.  Hector Villaba even had the beginnings of a real mustache, a hairy smudge on his upper lip.  It was one of the things that made him so scary, one of the reasons why even bigger twelve year olds like Chuy and Rojo let him lead them — a fifth-grader with a mustache!

"C'mon, open it up," Hector told him.  "Let's see what you got for your mama."  When Danny still didn't offer up the bag, Hector's friend Chuy put a foot on Danny's back and pushed down so hard that Danny had to brace himself to keep from being shoved against the sidewalk.  "I said show me, maricon," said Hector.  "Chuy gonna break your spine.  He knows karate."

Danny handed Hector the bag, biting his lip, determined not to cry.  Hector pulled out the big Hershey Bar.  "Hijole!" he said.  "Look at that!  Something for your mama, shit — you were going to eat that all by yourself.  Not even share none with us. That's cold, man."

"It is for my mother!  It is!"  Danny pushed up against Chuy's heavy hiking boot trying to reach the candy bar, which didn't look anywhere near so huge clamped in Hector Villaba's plump, dirty fingers.  Chuy took his weight off for a moment, then kicked Danny in the ribs hard enough to make him drop to the concrete and hug himself in pain.

"If you try any more shit, we'll hurt you good," said Hector, laughing as he unwrapped the candy bar.  He tossed a piece to Chuy, then another to Rojo, who grabbed it out of the air and shoved it in his mouth like a starving dog, then licked his fingers. Hector leaned down and gave Danny another shove, hard enough to crash him against the fence again.  "Don't you ever try to hide anything from me.  I know where you live, dude.  I'll come over and slap the bitch out of you and your mama both."  He pointed to the hard candies still clutched in Danny's hands.  "Get that other shit, too, yo," Hector told Rojo, and the big, freckled kid bent Danny's fingers back until he surrendered it all.

The Christmas chocolate bar, looking sad and naked with half its foil peeled away, was still clutched in Hector's hand as he and his friends rode away laughing, sharing the hard candy out of the bag.

For a while Danny just sat on the cold sidewalk and wished he had a knife or even a gun and he could kill Hector Villaba, even if it made Jesus unhappy for weeks.  At that moment Danny almost felt like he could do it.  The rotten, mean bastard had taken his mom's present!

At last Danny wiped his eyes and continued home.  It was starting to get dark and the wind was suddenly cold, which made his scratched-up hands ache.  When he reached the apartment he let himself in, dropped his book bag by the door, then called a greeting to his mama feeding Danny's baby sister in the kitchen as he hurried on to the bathroom so he could clean up his scratches and tear-stained face and do his best to hide the damage to the knees of his pants before she saw him up close.  It wouldn't do any good to tell her what had happened – she couldn't do anything and it would make her very sad.  Danny was used to keeping quiet about what went on between home and school, school and home.

After a while he went out and sat at the table and watched as his mother fed green goop to the baby.  Even her smile for Danny looked tired.  Mama worked so hard to keep them all fed and dressed, hardly ever yelled, and even sang old songs from Mexico for Danny and his brothers when she wasn't too tired…

And now that cabron Hector had stolen her present, and he didn't have any money left to get her something else.

 

*

Later that night, when the house was quiet and everyone was asleep, Danny found himself crying again.  It was so unfair! What had happened to the Christmas luck?  Or did that kind of thing only happen to other kids, other families?

"Please, Jesus," he prayed quietly.  "I just have to get Mama something for Christmas – something Hector can't take.  If that's a miracle, okay – I mean, I know you can't do them all the time, but if you got one…an extra one…"

 

*

Something woke him up – a strange noise in the living room.  For a moment he lay in bed wondering if Santa Claus might have come, but then he remembered it was still three days until Christmas.  Still, he could definitely hear something moving, a kind of quiet fluttery sound.   His brothers were both sprawled in boneless, little-boy sleep across the mattress they shared, so he climbed carefully over them and made his way out to the living room.  At first he saw nothing more unusual than the small Christmas tree on top of the coffee table, but as he stared, his eyes trying to get used to the dark, he saw the tree was…moving?  Yes, moving, the top of the pine wagging like a dog's tail.

Danny had never heard of a Christmas tree coming to life, not even in a TV movie, and it scared him.  He picked up the tennis racket with the missing strings Luis kept promising to fix, then crawled toward the scraggly tree with its ornaments of foil and cut paper.

As he got closer he could see that something small was caught in the tree's topmost branch, trying to fly away but not succeeding.  He could hear its wings beating so fast they almost buzzed.  A bird, trapped in the apartment?  A really big moth?

Danny looked for one of the baby's bowls to trap it, then had a better idea and crept to the kitchen cabinet where his mom kept the washed jars.  He picked a big one that had held sandwich spread and slithered commando-style back to the living room. Whatever the thing was, it was really stuck, tugging and thrashing as it tried to free itself from the pine needles.  He dropped the jar over it and pulled carefully on the branch until the thing could finally get free, then Danny clapped the lid on the jar to keep it from escaping.

The thing inside the jar went crazy now, flying against the glass, the wings going so fast that it made it hard for him to see for certain what it was.  The strange thing was, it actually looked like a person — a tiny, tiny little person no bigger than a sparrow. That was crazy.  Danny knew it was crazy.  He knew he had to be dreaming.

"What are you doing?" the thing said in a tiny, rasping voice.  It didn't sound happy at all.  "Let me go!"

Danny was so startled to hear it talk that he nearly dropped the jar.  He held it up to the light coming in from the street lamp to get a better look.  The prisoner in the jar was a little lady — a lady with wings!  A real, honest-to-goodness Christmas miracle!  "Are you…an angel?" he asked.

"Let me out, young man, and we'll talk about it."  She didn't sound much like an angel.  Actually, she sounded a lot like that scratchy-voiced nanny on that TV show his mama watched sometimes.  Her hair was yellow and kind of wild and sticky-uppy, and she wore a funny little dancing dress.  She was also carrying a bag over her shoulder like Santa did, except that hers wasn't much bigger than Danny's thumb .

"P-Promise you won't fly away?" he asked this strange small person.  "If I let you out?"

She had her tiny hands pressed up against the inside of the jar.  She shook her head so hard her little sparkly crown almost fell off.  "Promise.  But hurry up — I don't like enclosed places.  Honest, it makes me want to scream.  Let me out, please."

"Okay.  But no cheating."  He unscrewed the lid on the jar and slowly turned it over.   The tiny lady rose up, fluttering into the light that streamed through the living room window.

"Oh, that's so much better," she said.  "I got stuck in a panoramic Easter egg once, wedged between a frosting bunny and a cardboard flower pot.  Thought I was going to lose my mind."

"Wow," he said.  "Who are you?  What are you?"

She carefully landed on the floor near his knee.  "I'm a sugarplum fairy," she said.  "Like in that ballet."

"Huh?"

"Never mind.  Look, thanks for getting me loose from that tree."  She turned herself around trying to look down at herself. "Rats!  Ripped my skirt.  I hate conifers."  She turned back to Danny.  "I didn't mean to scare you, I was just passing through the neighborhood when I felt somebody thinking candy thoughts — real serious candy thoughts.  I mean, it was like someone shouting. Anyway, that's what we do, us sugarplum fairies — we handle the candy action, especially at Christmas time.  So I thought I should come and check it out.  Was it you?  Because if it was, you've got the fever bad, kid."  She reached into her bag and produced a lollypop bigger than she was, something that couldn't possibly have fit in there.  "Here, have one on me.  You look like you need it."

"Wow.  Wow!"  He suddenly realized he was talking out loud and dropped his voice, worried that he would wake up his mama and Luis.  He reached out for the lollypop.  "You're really a fairy.  Do you know Jesus?"

She shrugged.  "I think he's in another department.  What's your name?  It's Danny, isn't it?"

He nodded.  "Yeah."  It suddenly struck him.  "You know my name…?"

"I've got it all written down somewhere."  She started riffling through her bag again, then pulled out something that looked like a tiny phone book.  She took out an equally small pair of glasses, opened the book and began reading.  "For some reason you fell off the list here, Danny.  No wonder you're so desperate — you haven't had a sugarplum delivery in quite a while!  Well, that at least I can do something about."  She frowned as she took a pen out of the apparently bottomless bag and made a correction.  "Of course, they may not process the new order until early next year, and I'm not scheduled back in this area until Valentines Day."  She frowned. "Doesn't seem fair…"  A moment later her tiny face brightened.  "Hey, since you saved me from that tree branch I think I'm allowed to give you a wish.  Would you like that?"

"Really?  A wish?"

"Yes.  I can do that."

"You'll give me a wish?  Like magic?  A wish?"

She frowned again.  "Come on, kid, I know you've been shorted on candy the last couple of years but is your blood sugar really that low?  I just very clearly said I will give you a wish.  We're allowed to when someone helps us out."

He was so excited he could barely sit still.  It was a Christmas miracle after all, a real one!  "Could I wish for, like, a million dollars?"  Then even if Luis didn't find another job for a while, the family would be okay.  More than okay.

She shook her head.  "Sorry, kid, no.  I only do candy-related wishes.  You want one of those extra big gummy bears?  I hear those are popular this year.  I could bend some rules and get it to you by Christmas."

He was tempted — he'd seen an ad on television — but now it was his turn to shake his head.  "Could I just get a big Hershey bar?  One of those extra-big ones?  For my mother?"

The little woman tilted her head up so she could see him better from where she stood down on the ground.  "Truly?  Is that all you want?  Gee, kid, I could feel the desperation coming off this house like weird off an elf.  You sure you don't want something a little more…substantial?  A pile of candy, maybe?  A year's supply of gumdrops or something?  As long as it's candy-related, I can probably get it done for you, but you better decide quick."  She pulled quite a large pocket watch on a chain out of her bag, then put on her glasses again.  "After midnight, and I've still got half my rounds to go."  She looked up at him.  "You seem like a nice kid, Danny, and it doesn't look like you guys are exactly swimming in presents and stuff.  How about a nice pile of candy, assorted types?  Or if you'd rather just concentrate on — what did you say, Hershey Bars? — I could probably arrange a shopping bag of those or something…"

For a moment his head swam at the prospect of a grocery bag full of giant chocolate bars, more than Hector the Butt-head Villaba could ever dream of having now matter how much he stole…but then another idea came floating up from deep down in Danny's thoughts – a strange, dark idea.

"Can you do all kinds of wishes?  Really all kinds?"

"Yeah, but just one.  And it definitely has to be candy-related.  I'm not a miracle worker or anything."

"Okay.  Then  I'll tell you what I want."  Danny could suddenly see it all in his imagination, and it was very, very good.

 

*

The school holiday party was nice.  Danny and his classmates played games and sang songs and had a snack of fruit and cheese and crackers.  Nobody brought Chips Ahoy cookies, but one of the mothers did indeed bring cupcakes, delicious chocolate ones with silver, green and red sprinkles for Christmas.  There were even enough left over that although Danny had finished his long ago despite making it last as long as possible, he was allowed to take home the last two for his little brothers.  He suspected that the teacher knew his family didn't have much money, but for this one day it didn't embarrass him at all.

After the bell rang Danny followed the other third-graders toward the school gate, holding one cupcake carefully in each hand, his book bag draped over his shoulder.  He was watching his feet so carefully that he didn't see what made the other children suddenly scatter to either side, but as soon as he heard the voice he knew the reason.

"Look at that, it's Maricon Mendoza, yo," said Hector Villaba.  "What'd you bring us for Christmas, kid?"  Danny looked up. The mustached monster was sitting astride his bike just a few yards down the sidewalk, flanked by Rojo and Chuy.  "Oh, yeah, dude — cupcakes!" said Hector.  "You remembered our Christmas presents."  He scooted his bike forward until he stood directly over Danny, then reached out for the cupcakes.  Danny couldn't help it — he jerked back when Hector tried to take them, even though he knew it would probably earn him another bruising.

"Punch the little chulo's face in," Rojo suggested.

Hector dropped his bike with a clatter.  The other kids from school who had stopped to stare in horrified fascination jumped out of his way as he strode forward and grabbed the cupcakes out of Danny's hands.  He peeled the paper off one and shoved the whole cupcake in his mouth, then tossed the other to Chuy.  "You two split that," he said through a mouthful of devil's food, then turned his attention back to Danny, who was so scared and excited that he felt like electricity was running through him.  "Next time, you better remember to bring one for each of us, Mendoza.  You only bring two, that's going to get your ass kicked."

Danny backed away.  It was hard to look into those yellow-brown eyes and not run crying, let alone keep thinking clearly, but Danny did his best.  He dropped his book bag to the ground and out fell the stringless tennis racket that he had brought from home.  Hector hooted with angry laughter as Danny snatched it up and held it before him as if it was a cross and Hector was a vampire.

"Que?  You going to try to hit me, little boy?"  Hector laughed again, but he didn't sound happy.  He didn't like it when people stood up to him.  "I'll take that away from you and beat your ass black and blue, Mendoza."  The bully took a step nearer and held out his hand.  "Give it to me or I'll break your fingers."

"No."  Danny wasn't going to step back any farther.  He lifted the racket, waved it around like a baseball bat.  It was old and flimsy, but he had come to school determined today.  "You can't have it…you fat asshole."

Behind Hector, Rojo let out a surprised chortle, but Hector Villaba didn't think it was funny at all.

"That's it," he said, curling his hands into fists.  "After I kick your ass, I'm gonna rub your face in dog shit.  Then I'm gonna kick your ass again.  You're gonna spend Christmas in the hospital."  Without warning, he charged toward Danny.

Danny stepped to the side and swung the racket as hard as he could, hitting Hector right in the stomach.  With a whoop of surprise and pain Hector bent double, but when he looked up he didn't look hurt, just really, really mad, his eyes staring like a crazy dog's eyes.

"That's…it. I'm…going…to…get…you…Mendoza…" he said, then sucked in air and stood up straight, but even as he did so a funny expression crossed his face and he looked down at where he was holding his belly.  Hector's hands were suddenly full of crackling, cellophane-wrapped hard candies, so many of them that they cascaded over his fingers and onto the ground.  He lifted his hands in disbelief to look and dozens more of the candies slid out of the front of his open jacket — candy bars, too, fun-size and even regular ones, Snickers bars, Mounds, Tootsie Rolls, lollipops, candy canes, even spicy tamarindos.  The other children from the school stared in horrified fascination, guessing that Danny had broken a bag that Hector had been carrying under his coat.  They were so scared of Hector that they didn't move an inch toward any of the candy that was still slithering out of the big boy's coat and pooling on the ground at his feet.

"Oh, man," one of the other third graders said in a hoarse whisper, "Mendoza's going to get beat up so bad…!"

But even more candy was pouring out of Hector's belly now, as if someone had turned on a candy-faucet, a great river of sweets running out of the place where Danny had knocked him open with his old tennis racket.

"What the…?"  Then Hector Villaba looked down at himself and began to scream in terror.  Candy was showering out of him faster and faster onto the sidewalk, already piled as high as the cuffs of his pants and still coming.

"Hijole, dude!"  said Rojo.  "You're a piñata!"

Hector looked at him, eyes rolling with fear, then he turned sprinted away down the street squealing like a kindergartner, a flood of candy still pouring from him, Crunch Bars, M&Ms,  (plain and peanut) as well as boxes of gumdrops and wax-wrapped pieces of taffy, all raining onto the street around the bully's legs and feet, bouncing and rolling.

Rojo and Chuy watched Hector run for a moment, then turned to stare at Danny with a mixture of apprehension and confusion.  Then turned from him to look at each other, came to some kind of agreement, and threw themselves down on their knees to start scooping up the candy that had fallen out of Hector Villaba.  Within a few seconds the other school kids were all scrambling across the ground beside them, everybody shoveling candy into their pockets as fast as they could.

Danny waited until he wasn't breathing so hard, then started for home, following the clear trail of candy that had gushed from Hector Villaba as he ran.  He didn't bother to pick up everything, since for once in his life he could afford to be selective.  He stuffed one pocket of his jacket with candy for his brothers, then filled the other just with Butterfinger Bars, at least six or seven, but kept walking with his head down until he spotted a nice, big Hershey Bar in good condition which he zipped in his book bag so it would stay safe for his mother.  The rest of the way home he picked up whatever looked interesting and threw it into the book bag too, until by the time he reached home he was staggering with its weight up the apartment building walkway.  For once, Hector Villaba had been the one who had run home crying.

He didn't feel sorry for Hector, either, not at all.  Scared as the fifth-grader was now, he would be all right when he reached home.  Danny had made that a part of the wish and the fairy had said she thought it was a good idea.  Jesus didn't want even mean kids to die from having their guts really fall out, Danny felt pretty sure, so he had done his best not to spoil the Lord's birthday.  Of course Hector Villaba probably wouldn't have a very merry Christmas, but Danny had decided that Jesus could probably live with that.

 

Zombies vs. Aliens

I'm going to pick on two types of fictional invaders: zombies and aliens.  Zombies seem a lot more popular these days than aliens do, and I have a couple of guesses as to why.

Zombies are people who become unpeople. They go from rational, emotional creatures who do not consume your resources to unthinking, unfeeling monsters who will take away everything you have–your life, your loved ones; they'll even make money obsolete.  Worse, they have the power to make anyone, no matter what they thought or how they felt before, agree with them.

My thought is that a culture where the different points of view are unable to communicate to each other will find zombies and zombielike creatures a suitable myth.  Anyone who disagrees with you is irrational and insane and is out for your brains, obviously–why not make up stories about that?

When people ask you what you'd do if zombies attack–here's the problem: zombies cannot, will not ever attack.  There are no unpeople.  In situations where you would expect people to act unhumanely, such as in a tragedy or a plague outbreak, you instead see an intense range of human emotions: fear, generosity, looking out for #1, denial.  You do not see people, no matter how numb or twisted they are, murdering people and eating them.  In times of crisis, we act more like humans, not less.  Even Dahmer didn't eat people indiscriminately.

The general message of zombie tales is: it's okay to act unhumanely towards unpeople.  The collary is: Unpeople includes anyone who you fundamentally disagree with or dislike.

Too much traffic?  Fantasize about them being zombies and you getting to kill all of them with a tire iron…it's okay!  They're unpeople!  Someone stressing you out at work in your cube farm?  Dream of them getting their throat ripped out…it's okay!  Everyone (except you) who works at a cube farm is a zombie anyway!  Disagree with another political party?  Dream of them causing a zombie apocalypse by their corrupt ways, then getting what they deserve…it's okay!  They're unpeople!  Too bad if your loved ones are caught up in all that…they should have been more careful not to get around those unpeople.  Blam!

Personally, I think that our brains can only contain so many individual people inside our "these are people" mental box.  The rest of the humans on the planet are…"the rest of the humans on the planet."  Or, in other words, you can only care about so many things (or people), and we're becoming increasingly aware that people that we don't know–and thus don't care about, not really–have a huge affect on our lives.  Our lives are being changed by people we don't know. What right do they have to do that?  It's monstrous!  Maybe, just maybe, if there were a terrible apocalypse, there would be fewer people, and our lives would go back to be affected only by people we know.  They might be crappy people, but at least we could know all of the ones that affected us, or feel like we do.

So what did we do before zombies?  Because the infectious kind haven't been around all that long–the 20th century is it.

Aliens.  People would speculate on the existence of extraterrestrial life over the centuries, but it really started to pick up in the 1500s, during the Renaissance.  We looked out into the stars and said, "What's out there?  Surely more than dots of light."

The best aliens start out as unpeople but must be dealt with as though they were people. They don't have the same motivations that we do.  We cannot truly understand them.  If they try to explain what they want, we cannot accept that they mean what they say, because it's unthinkable.  I'm not a huge Arthur C. Clarke fan, but I think his aliens are among the purest examples of this:  the incomprehensible invasion.

When aliens invade, we must deal with it as a society, or even as a species.  Alien invasions often force people to work together in a way they wouldn't, with zombies: often the worst monsters in a zombie tale are the other survivors.  In alien invasion stories, you'll have the one person who's persuaded by financial gain to betray other humans, but they usually bite it in the early-last half of the story.  There's no point in selling out to the zombies.

Sometimes we reach an accommodation with the aliens.  Sometimes, some of us learn how to see the aliens (unpeople) as a kind of people, and mediate peace.  Sometimes the aliens show an unexpected (human? mortal?) weakness (e.g., the aliens in The War of the Worlds).  Sometimes we steal whatever makes them superior (because aliens are, in some way, superior–that's part of the deal), which often has negative consequences (the Aliens movies).  Sometimes we take a place in a galactic organization, in which some aliens are our allies, and some are our enemies–thus, to a certain extent, people.

Don't get me wrong.  I like zombies. Given, say, a short story collection about zombies and a short story collection about aliens, I'll take the zombie one, because I'm pretty sure I'll find something that I like in the zombie collection.  One of the things that zombie stories do is mock culture, and I love iconoclasty.  But there's a fine line between breaking someone's idols and gunning them down in cold blood, and I think it's dangerous to get in a habit of making the "them" in "us vs. them" be unpeople.

So here's what I want for aliens, for counterbalance: Stop treating alien invaders like zombies in outer-space clothing (Independence Day)–or even like humans in outer-space clothing.  Aliens should start out as unpeople, with whom humanity must cope.  Less idealism and more complexity: more intrigue.  Learning how to cope with what we don't understand should never be a quick and painless process.  Alien technology should be superior–well, I suppose you could make it inferior, but then the humans would be the aliens, really–and we should understand it no better than we do the aliens themselves.

Clear "victories," where we wipe out a race or a planet, should be paid for, because, you know, in a galactic civilization, everybody has friends.

And stop telling yourself that science fiction should be "realistic" when it comes to aliens, because "realistically," there are none.  Aliens are a myth, that is, a story that we tell ourselves in order to make sense of things.  Just because there might really be aliens doesn't mean that they aren't a myth–so a little fun is allowed.

There's a reason that Star Trek and Star Wars (note–playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend) have endured for so long, and why Men in Black is having another movie come out, and Independence Day, despite all the money they made, isn't.  Moral complexity when dealing with other isn't just an ideal–it's good storytelling.  "We have met the other, and we killed it" is satisfying…once in a while.  It scratches an itch.  But so does "Humanity outgrew itself and reached the stars"–and, played right, it's better for repeat business.

The LOOKIT Factor

I was restless all last week, not knowing what it was I was restless for, which happens to me sometimes.

Now, when I get depressed, then I need to change something.  But when I get restless…I need something new.  Why it's taken me so long to figure this out, I don't know.

What did I need last week?  Something new.  Anything new.  I ended up going to a new restaurant, putting holds on some forensics books, and reading How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom.  I was also planning to go to the Fine Arts Center, but by the time I got done at the restaurant, I was good.  Twitchy for a week, and that's all I needed.  A new restaurant and some nonfiction to balance all the novels I've been reading.

One of the cool things that came out of the book by Bloom was that people spend a lot of time in imagination-based activities.  I think he said it was like four waking hours a day, but it may have been half–there was a study where the researchers gave the participants buzzers and had them write down what they were doing whenever the buzzer went off (randomly), and half the time, they were doing something using their imagination, from daydreaming to looking at porn.

I disagreed with quite a few things he said in the book–saying that there was no evolutionary reason for people to like bitter or spicy foods, for example, when we're finding out more and more that bitter compounds include a lot of antioxidants–but it was a spur to imagination, a lookit book.

I think the phrase "just look at it" first came up, as a meme, on BoingBoing, but I could be wrong.  Certainly, they've been mocked for using it, then turned around and done it on purpose.  At any rate, I picked up the phrase and turned it into "lookit," because that's what little kids say (or "lookit dat" or just "dat").

Besides spending a good deal of my day in imagination-based activities (being a writer), I spend a good deal of my day in lookit-based activities.  I use social media to lookit other people's lives.  I use websites to lookit curious things.  I read books for lookit; I eat strange foods for lookit; I go to new places for lookit; I break my routine on a day-by-day basis for no reason other than lookit.  Some days are just lookit days: I get done what I must, then just…lookit.

Some days I only need a little lookit.  Other days, I need a lot of shallow-level lookit.  Last week, I needed some in-depth lookit.

Freakonomics had lookit.

Malcolm Gladwell books have lookit.

Stephen Hawking books have it.

Most novels don't have lookit, but Neal Stephenson's do.

The ocean always has lookit.

A new skill or even a new game has lookit.

Where is your lookit?

New interview up at RolePages…

Remember Joseph Gambit from RolePages?  I put up an interview with him last week…and now he has an interview with me up.  One of the job perks of being a writer–talking to awesome people.

 

Fiction: The Exotics Book 1: The Floating Menagerie

Adventure.  Spies.  Magic.

New chapter book/middle-grade fantasy series inspired by…my daughter.  Bored with reading the chapter books available and with a mother who wasn't going to take it anymore, she's read the first three books in the series with relish, jumping up and down, and yelling about what was and wasn't fair.

The main character is eight in book 1 and gets older as the series progresses (thus, the chapter book/middle-grade definition).

Purchase at Smashwords, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble–other online bookstores coming soon.  Amazon and B&N are set up to be able to give ebooks as gifts; contact me personally if you want to send an gift book via Smashwords.

Nobody knows what really happened when second-grader Rachael Baptiste's mom disappeared a week ago–not her dad, not the police, and not even the members of her hobby group, the Animal Lovers' Club. So when Rachael's classmate Raul tries to break into her mom's computer only to be chased away by giant talking dogs, she follows him into the night and discovers that he–and everyone in the ALC, including her mom–have caught a magical sickness that lets them turn into animals. The ALC is a group of spies that works to defend these people, or Exotics, and Rachael's mom helps lead them in her secret identity as the Queen Bee. As for Raul, Rachael discovers that he can turn into a wolf as they try to escape a rival group of Exotics, the Shadow Dogs. However, the Shadow Dogs capture them and kidnap them to a mysterious ship, The Floating Menagerie, where a group of Exotic kids waits to be sold into slavery…or do they?

The Exotics Series follows Rachael's adventures with the Exotics from second to fourth grade as she tries to protect the people she loves in the face of hate, betrayal, and overwhelming magic.

Chapter 1

Rachael, who had just brushed her teeth and changed into green spotted pajamas and fuzzy pink slippers, was almost ready to kill the final wave of zombies on her video game when the doorbell rang.

From the kitchen where he was washing dishes after supper, her dad yelled, "Rachael! Will you check the door?"

"I'm on the last wave, dad!" she yelled back.

"Just push the pause button."

"Please?"

"It's your turn!"

That was true. Rachael pushed pause on the game, annoyed because it was never the same when you had to push pause all the time. Meanwhile, the person at the front door had started pushing the doorbell button over and over again and pounding on the door.

Rachael peeked out of the glass beside the door. Even though it was dark out and he should have been getting ready for bed, Raul was outside their door. He looked mad and scared at the same time.

"Open the door!" he yelled.

Rachael liked Raul, but he wouldn't talk to her at school. They were both in Mrs. Sorensen's second-grade class. Sometimes they played tag at recess, and she'd let him catch her. He was part of a club, the Animal Lovers' Club, that met with Rachael's mom at their house once a week (Tuesdays). Sometimes he would talk to her after the meeting, but mostly not.

Rachael unlocked the door. Raul rushed in, slammed the door behind him, and locked it.

"Your mom—" he said, too out of breath to say anything else.

"Nobody's found her yet," Rachael said. Rachael's mom had disappeared a week ago, but Rachael was an ordinary girl who couldn't do anything about it. So she tried not to think about it too much.

"Your mom's computer. Hurry."

Rachael said, "Why?"

"Just come on." Raul led her upstairs to her mom's office.

"What's the matter?"

Raul still had his uniform on from school, and it was dirty, with bits of leaves stuck to his back. "Nothing," he said.

Somebody banged into the front door like they had run right into it. Raul said a bad word and ran up the stairs really fast, leaving Rachael behind.

"Rachael," her dad called. "Would you get that? Please?"

"Don't open the door," Raul said. He went inside the office.

The front door thudded again, and Rachael heard a cracking sound as the wood started to break.

"Rachael," her dad whined.

She ignored her dad and followed Raul into her mom's office; she really didn't want to open the door.

Raul was sitting at the computer desk, jiggling the mouse and saying more bad words. Rachael knew her mom's password (she'd looked over her shoulder), but she wasn't sure that she should give it to Raul.

Then the front door broke open and slammed against the wall. Rachael started to scream, but clapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself.

Raul jumped out of the chair. "I have to get out of here."

"I'm coming, too," Rachael said.

Raul almost growled at her. "Stay here. Hide in the closet, and they'll leave you alone."

"I said I'm coming too."

Something barked loudly from downstairs like a really, really big dog.

Rachael's dad said, "What is going on, Rachael? Are you messing around again?" Then he said, "Who broke the door? What are these dogs doing in here? Out! Out!"

Rachael opened the window into the back yard, where their gigantic dog, Ox, was barking and growling. "Go down the trellis," she said. "Dad made it really strong in case of storms. Then jump onto the shed. There's a big trash can on the other side."

Rachael pulled out the window screen, and Raul slid out the window. She started to follow him.

"Go back," he yelled.

Rachael stuck her slippers in the trellis, reached up, and slid the window shut the rest of the way, as quietly as she could. "Shh," she said. "They'll hear you."

Indie Editing: Typesetting and reset

Okay.  I have had to rethink my series on how to edit your ebooks.  One, I was getting down in the weeds with how to do grammar, rather than sticking to the grammar-related checklists I had originally envisioned.  Two, I've come to think of there being three real areas of formatting for indies:  POD, HTML conversion, and .doc (Smashwords-type) conversion, plus how they interrelate.

I do use these posts to do more research in areas that interest me (as well as to be helpful), and because I really have no interest in teaching people how to use commas, I drifted off from the series.  But formatting just floats my boat, so I will be shifting gears soon.

Typesetting

What is typesetting?  There are lots of different technical definitions, but for our purpose, it's "dealing with letters as letters."  I'm going to separate out choosing the font as a concern of typesetting, although it really is–but I want to write about it separately.

Here's what I'm (currently) doing for typesetting as I take an edited ms. and turning it into a POD/ebook.  I'm assuming all grammar, punctuation, and italics are correct.  Also, unless an item is marked as POD, I do the step for both PODs and ebooks.

I have a lot to learn about typesetting, so this is just my initial list.

Remove all double spaces.  Unless specified for submission to a particular market, kiss them goodbye.  This battle has been lost (or won, depending on how you feel about it).
Ensure all double quotes are curly quotes and all single quotes/apostrophes are curly, except for units of measurement, which take straight quotes (primes).
Change all "–" or " – " to m-dashes.  I am not in favor of n-dashes with spaces being used in place of m-dashes.  It may be pretty, but it is illogical and fries my brain.  I may change my mind, but…m-dashes were made for a reason [insert woman standing bravely at edge of cliff here].  I don't usually see n-dashes, but I keep an eye out for them.
Change all "…" to actual ellipses.  A) Pretty.  B) No breaky.
Add all required special characters, like accent marks and umlauts.
Insert any symbols, like the copyright symbol.
Ensure no leading spaces before paragraphs ( "What?" he said).  For some reason, this crops up ALL OVER THE DAMNED PLACE.
Check that all symbols are super/subscripted properly.
Making sure rows of numbers are aligned (tabular).
Making sure any hyphenation isn't annoying or misleading (POD).
Adding non-breaking spaces as necessary to avoid confusion (POD but may start with ebooks, too, after I find out how to do it, note to self).
Thin spaces between ' and " in a '" or "' pair ("He said, 'Dammit!' ").
I haven't decided whether to remove the space between people's initials, but I probably will (W.H. Auden vs. W. H. Auden).
I may do ligatures in the future, but I'm not there now.
I don't do kerning yet, and I'm convinced that yes, true small caps are pretty, but I'm still learning when to use them and HOW to get them to work in Word, if at all.  I'll get InDesign eventually if I continue on this path.  I don't have it now.

Want to see a real typesetter's checklist?  Try this.  A lot of stuff I hadn't even thought about–but looks extremely fun.

Please note, I don't bother with this stuff for blog posts.

Interview with RolePages creator Joseph Gambit

I was recently invited to exchange blogs with the creator of RolePages, Joseph Gambit.  RolePages is a…I don't know that there's a word for it.  Maybe there is.  An in-character place to game without the bother of rules, but with an overarching story arc.  It's like stepping into a little multiverse, a text-based MMORPG.  A MUSH without code.  On the site, it says it's an experimental role-playing site.  Well.  I had to know more, so I begged for an interview…

First, give us a summary of what RolePages is all about and why you made the decision to set up the site.

RolePages is a community website that is part social network, part writing group, and part roleplaying game. The mechanics are very similar to Facebook, except instead of signing up as yourself, you sign up as a fictional character that you create. You then tell the story of that character's life by interacting with other characters across the site.

I've always been a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, and I have experimented with a number of different websites in this genre. A few years back I started getting interested in Alternate Reality Games and the way that they could take a fictional experience, such as watching the popular TV series Lost, and make it even more real by bringing elements of that story into the world around you.

These are games that featured characters that had real Twitter accounts, with videos posting on YouTube, phone numbers that you could call or text for clues, and even in some cases real-life meet ups or clues left in physical locations. The idea was to take the gaming experience and make it as "immersive" and realistic as possible.

At the same time I saw the explosion of networks such as Myspace and then Facebook, which were essentially social games and personal storytelling devices. When I started RolePages, my idea was to take those same basic tools and use them to allow groups of people to tell stories about fictional characters, worlds, and situations that they created.

What's your background in gaming? That is, what made you start gaming, what kind of games do you play, and–I gotta know–did you MUSH, back in the day? If so, what/where did you play?

I assume by gaming you aren't talking about me playing Candyland as a toddler.

But seriously, my experience with gaming started about 15 years ago. The internet was relatively new to consumer households at the time, and I, like many others back then, discovered and fell in love with chat rooms. Being able to talk to and interact with people socially without having to be face to face was really important for a shy, awkward teenager like me.

I was on the Prodigy ISP when I stumbled across a small group of rooms that were labeled as roleplaying chat spaces. When I entered, I found something that was truly amazing.

Rather than chatting with one another about the latest music video, these people were playing a game that was made up entirely of written words. They were all acting like these crazy characters and were interacting with one another in a writing style that was very much like reading a novel, except that this was a novel that I could jump into and help write whenever I wanted.

And because it was entirely word-based, your character could be absolutely anyone, and they could do anything that you could imagine.

I spent several years there "gaming" with an amazing group of people before Prodigy failed and the rooms were closed down. After that I tried a number of different interactive games, MUDs, MMORPGs, and even spent some time on Furcadia, one of the first graphic-based interactive RPGs back when it was still a new concept. I also dabbled in D&D and White Wolf with friends locally.

However I was never as taken with any of these games as I was with those original chat rooms because I always felt restricted. They were usually based largely on numbers, stats, and points, which often made the game feel like math homework. I was also dissatisfied with the AIs, which seemed to get in the way of the kind of storytelling that could happen between two or more people. Even now, with all of the advances in programming, graphics, and AIs, I still find things like World of Warcraft to be a little restrictive.

How do you feel RolePages comes out of your gaming background?

Over the years I've played numerous MUDs, MMORPGs, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), graphical adventures, and social RPGs, as well as a variety of chat and forum games.

RolePages is my attempt to take what I consider the best parts of those experiences–the creativity, the interactive storytelling, the art, and the beauty of the narrative–and bring those elements together in a way that facilitates the creation of fictional tales.

What is the itch that RolePages scratches, that no other gaming system/site does?

For one thing RolePages offers a fairly unprecedented level of freedom to be creative. With an AI or graphic-based game, there are going to be some inherent restrictions. Even if you have a millions choices as to how your character looks or where they are going to go, you are still relying on the creativity of the game designer for the final feel and function of the experience.

On RolePages, the entire experience is supplied by the players. The adventures, quests, and events are not operated by AIs and do not rely on a certain set of graphics or programs. Rather, these are player generated situations, which are designed to tell the best stories possible through the unbridled creativity afforded by words, pictures, and on occasion videos.

There is also an artistic element to RolePages which isn't present in many other games. When you go raiding for hours, you get virtual gold and experience points. When you spend the same amount of time telling stories about a character that you have created, you end up with blog posts, artwork, and written interactions that detail narrative elements of a work of fiction that you are creating.

Where's the best place for new players or interested guests to start?

I would suggest that new players check out the instructions to get a brief overview of how the site works.

We also have a community newspaper that is crowd written, detailing the overall story arc that is created by the many threads of story that are woven into the tapestry of the site.

Finally, I'd suggest people take a look at the role-playing chat. It acts as a sort of center stage for the site, with live improvised stories being written by a variety of author-actors all the time.

Where do you see the site going in the future? And have there been any extensions/coincidences into RL?

The future of RolePages will involve refining the mechanics of the social game. We have planned events several nights a week which involve the creation of fictional narrative stories in interactive ways using chat rooms and shared documents. There are also at least two independent group efforts being made to crowdsource RolePages novels.

As far as extensions into real life, we just had our first official community meet up at DragonCon 2011 where we marched in costume in the parade. Small unofficial groups also meet all the time and a number of important friendships, romantic relationships, and even a couple of weddings have come from people meeting across the community.

What's the most inspiring work by your members to come out of the site?

We sometimes refer to the entire site as a living novel, because all of the different stories being told by all of the different characters are woven into a larger, over-arcing storyline that provides a rough backdrop for the entire experience. This is a story that is changing, expanding, and deepening every second of the day.

We started weaving these disparate tales into a single broad narrative when the site opened in 2009, and over the course of two years we were able to tell a single, cogent, logical story arc, with a beginning, middle, and even a climactic end. This was a story with thousands of characters and hundreds of plot lines that stretched in every direction imaginable, and yet was able to be contained within the backdrop of the overall narrative that we provided.

The climax of the story occurred just this past August, and since then we've toned down the scale of the overall narrative somewhat. However, I will always be proud of the infinitely subtle and complex story we told over those two years. You can read about that in the community newspaper that we kept detailing the events.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

I think I've babbled on the other questions quite enough. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I hope I wasn't too verbose, but I am passionate about this site, so when you get me started it's often difficult to stop.