Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 24
February 26, 2014
Zombies and Unicorns
If you know someone who might be eligible, more details can be found here: https://www.loft.org/classes/detail/?loft_product_id=62116
February 25, 2014
Q&A: Lyda Morehouse (and Tate, Too)
Lyda Morehouse writes about what gets most people in trouble: religion and politics. Her latest science fiction novel is Resurrection Code (Mad Norwegian Press, 2011), a sequel/prequel to her award-winning AngeLINK series. Writing as Tate Hallaway, she is most recently the author of the paranormal mystery Precinct 13 (Berkley Trade, August 2012), as well as three books in the Vampire Princess series and five in the highly addictive Garnet Lacey series.
You’re well known to readers as a novelist (collectively Lyda and Tate have fourteen novels to their names), but you’ve also written a ton of short stories, a number of them on biblical themes with a twist. What’s your latest, and what kind of demented fun are you having the Good Book now?
My short story “God Box” recently appeared in King David and the Spiders from Mars, a biblical horror anthology from Dybbuk Press (2013).
“God Box” is a science-fictional retelling of a story from Judges in which the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant. This is sometimes called the “golden hemorrhoids” story because among the plagues that God afflicts Israel’s enemies with is a bad case of the piles, and God demands golden tributes of all the plagues along with a return of the Ark. It’s a story that’s easily made light, because, come on, hemorrhoids, but I’ve dug a little deeper and made it very dark by, for one, telling it from the point of view of the “Philistines,” the bad guys, who, in this case, are us—a future Earth that’s become a kind of hegemony.
Looking at the year ahead, what else is new and forthcoming from Lyda Morehouse?
For sure, e-book versions of Apocalypse Array and Resurrection Code. The rest is finger-crossing.
It's been fantastic to see your AngeLINK novels, originally published between 2001 and 2004, released as e-books by Wizard's Tower Press. How would you describe the series to new readers? What was your inspiration for the setting and story?
Archangel Protocol, the first book in the series, is a cyberpunk-romance-detective novel—with angels.
The short answer is that I was inspired to write the first book because I was watching The X-Files and I was annoyed that when the devil showed up in a small town as a substitute teacher, no one mentioned the idea that, you know, if there’s a devil, then God must exist. It just so happened that at the same time I’d just read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman run that’s collected in Season of Mists, and he had a wonderful moment in which Morningstar (his Satan, and, yes, my inspiration,) decides to give up the keys to hell.
A perfect storm of inspiration hit me, and suddenly I was several chapters into a book in which real angels come to clear their names because someone is impersonating them on the future Web, which is called the LINK.
Resurrection Code, your sequel/prequel to the four original AngeLINK novels, was recently published as a trade paperback by Mad Norwegian Press. Do you think you’ll ever revisit the world of the LINK again? What does the future hold for the series?
I don’t know. Probably a lot of nothing. A problem with the AngeLINK universe that I discovered when I was writing the foreword to the new e-book edition of Archangel Protocol is that the future is now—and a lot of what I wrote in 1999, which was innovative and cutting edge at the time, now seems very dated.
However, I may be returning to science fiction. The upside of not having a contract at the moment is that no one can tell me what to write.
What are you working on now? Do you have a seekrit project?
Currently I’m working on two things. One is sort of seekrit, but I’ll tell you about it anyway. I’m writing a sequel to Precinct 13. The seekrit part is that I’m considering posting chapters of it on AO3 (Archive of Our Own) under my fannish pseudonym.
The other is a fantasy novel about a genderqueer teen who discovers that their dreaming life is leaking into reality, which unfortunately means that samurai, oni, and fox demons suddenly start popping up in a small Mississippi town.
And what’s your alter ego, Tate Hallaway, up to these days?
I guess, technically, she’s the one busily writing a sequel to Precinct 13. I believe her agent is also shopping a trunk novel of ours around, so, with any luck, she’ll see print again soon (knocking on wood).
Your writing notebooks are full of wonderful pencil and pen sketches and drawings. Is there a relationship between your drawing and writing? Does the artwork feed the fiction, or vice versa?
I was a visual artist first, so I’ve always been a very visual writer. I often picture the scenes I’m writing in my head in great detail. For me, writing is like sketching, really—a way to paint pictures with words.
Do you have a Tumblr?
I do. junko222.tumblr.com. But I would caution anyone who finds me there: this is my fan space. There’s a lot of squee there for Attack on Titan (a.k.a. SnK), Free! , Samurai Champloo, Pokémon, Bleach, and a dozen other anime and manga.
What are you reading these days besides manga? What's the best book you've read so far this year?
I finally read Terry Pratchett. A friend recommended Equal Rites, and I enjoyed that, as one does. I recently started working in a library, and I’ve started a book by Haruki Murakami called 1Q84, which I’m sort of enjoying, though I find it very … trippy.
Are you a blogger? What do you blog about, and where?
I blog about my stupid life on, of all places, LiveJournal. Currently I’ve been writing about my fish tanks, so, you know, riveting stuff.
Besides your published work as Lyda and Tate, rumor has it that you also write fan fic. Is fan fic—both reading and writing—just a guilty pleasure, or does it have a deeper connection to writing professionally in the field of genre fiction?
I came to writing via fan fic. I didn’t know it was called that then, and, well, it was so long ago that the Internet literally didn’t exist yet. But I got very into the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and the Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz; I had what the kids these days would call “feels.” I wanted “moar,” so I wrote it for myself. It was practice writing that filled notebook after notebook after notebook from sixth grade to college.
Archangel Protocol started out in my head as X-Files fan fic, but then it quickly became something entirely different.
Now I seem to have returned to my roots. Bleach gave me “feels” like nothing I’ve felt in ages, and it was an overwhelming feeling to write something for fun. I can’t even tell you how awesome it is to feel fifteen in my writing heart again. Fan fic has given me back a joy that got a bit stomped on by the ups and downs of the publishing industry. And 700,000 words and counting later, I’m still having a blast.
February 20, 2014
Wyrdsmiths + Facebook
Not much is happening there yet, but in time it should grow into another good way to keep abreast of our members' publications, appearances and events, musings about the craft and business of genre fiction—and not to forget the cute cat pictures.
Please stop by and Like the new page to get it into your News Feed!
February 1, 2014
Anthology News
Feel free to check it out at: http://www.amazon.com/King-David-Spiders-Sonya-Taaffe/dp/0976654687/
Calling All Garnet Lacy Fans
December 16, 2013
A New E-book!
http://www.wizardstowerbooks.com/products/messiah-node-lyda-morehouse
Here's a little bit about it:
The sign.When a meteorite falls from the sky, the destruction left in its wake lights a political fuse that could bring on Armageddon.The prophet.Just when the world could use a savior, the prophet Elijah appears. His search for a messiah leads him to the daughter of the archangel Michael.The savior.Meanwhile other messiah hopefuls spring up around the world -- including Page, an AI already tangled in webs of religion and deception. Yet as false shepherds lead the lambs to their doom, it may be up to Page's creator, the criminal mastermind known as Mouse, to save them all....Reviews"Messiah Node's cool, ethereal fusion of cyberpunk and mythology fits perfectly with with action-adventure storytelling and a piercing examination of religious extremism."-- Alyx Dellamonica, Locus
"I'll give Lyda Morehouse a big thumbs-up for this book; Messiah Node is full of great characters, a great plot, and lots of action. The book has all the ingredients that exemplifies good modern science fiction; a blend of genres that will appeal to the wider public, and Morehouse is a writer that stands out in the crowd. This is a terrific blend of fresh ideas and an intriguing futuristic vision." -- Vegar Holmen, The Alien Online"Morehouse knows how to pace her story, weaving strands of plot and drawing the reader ever deeper into its fascinating but unnerving world. Although the third book in a tetralogy, this one includes enough backstory to stand solidly on its own. The final volume ought to be riveting, for apocalypse is on the horizon" -- Regina Schroeder, Booklist"... an excellent read. I was up half the night finishing it." -- Cheryl Morgan, Emerald City
December 12, 2013
Anthology News
"The God Box" is the story of the golden hemorrhoids from... Judges, I think, except recast as a science fiction story set on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. I'm actually kind of proud of this story, so you know, if the rest of the book sounds at all cool to you, please consider pre-ordering a copy
December 8, 2013
LeGuin Interview
The current issue of The Paris Review has an interview with Ursula K. LeGuin. LeGuin is always interesting, though I did not feel she was much engaged with this interview. The interviewer knows too little about SF. I don't know if this matters to LeGuin, but it matters to me. He talks about 1960s as hard SF, full of physics. I remember the 1960s as New Wave. Before that was the Boucher and Gold era of the 1950s -- writers such as William Tenn, Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick and so on. Yes, there was hard SF, but there was a lot more, and the most exciting SF -- to me -- was not hard SF. He talks about SF as stylistically plain. Well, yes, Delany has written about this. But when Bester was describing telepathy in The Demolished Man or teleporting and synesthsia in The Stars My Destination, he did quirky things with style. He had to. He was describing quirky events.
Delany published his first novel in 1962, and rapidly became an important writer, who challenged SF ideas about style, content, gender and sexuality. "Aye, and Gomorrah" was published in 1967. I'm picking only one story. I could pull out my edition of Driftglass and name many more.
The interviewer refers to the 1960s as the SF "Golden Age." NO. The "Golden Age" was the Campbell era of the 1940s. And he seems to think LeGuin tranformed SF single handed. The feminist wave of the late 1960s and 1970s had many people besides LeGuin. Russ, Charnas, Tiptree, Sargent come immediately to mind. And if I pulled out Sargent's and Salmonson's anthologies, I'd come up with many, many more names. I hate this process of tranforming history into a handful of towering figures with the rest of us like ants around their feet.
Post script:
I checked Wikipedia. The feminist wave in SF appears to have started in the early 1970s, rather than in the late 1960s. This means I am part of it. I thought I came slightly after. A Wizard of Earthsea was published in 1968 and Left Hand of Darkness in 1969, so LeGuin was a bit ahead of the rest of us. I still think it was a group effort.
Star Trek brought a flood of women into SF fandom, and at the same time -- in the late 1960s -- the second wave of feminism was emerging in the general culture. As far as I can tell, these two events -- Star Trek and second wave feminism -- led to the feminist SF of the 1970s. Women had always been present in SF, but they became far more numerous, obvious and feisty; and they were good writers. As Theodore Sturgeon famously said, "All the good new science fiction writers of the 1970s are women, except for James Tiptree Jr."
November 20, 2013
On Writing
I'm thinking, thanks to a conversation on facebook, about how I write. I done very little teaching of writing, and -- as far as I can remember -- I have taken no fiction writing classes. No. That isn't right. I began a YA novel class at The Loft and quit after three weeks. The teacher kept using examples from her own work, which was not good.
In any case, I have learned very little about the theory of writing. Instead, I've read a lot.
People in the facebook conversation talked about the important of plot and motivation. Being contrary, I argued that you can write good fiction without a plot or motivation. The example I gave for good fiction without a plot was Calvino's Invisible Cities. Borges is another example. It's possible to write fiction without characters and therefore without motivation. Some of my favorite fiction is made up of descriptions of imaginary cities, anthropology, history. Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial, Ursula LeGuin's Changing Planes and Always Going Home. Part of AGH has characters and a plot, but I really like the rest: the history and anthropology, folklore, recipes... One of my favorite recipes is from AGH. Maybe I'll make it tonight...
You can write about characters without describing their motivations. Maybe their motivations, if any, remain unknown...
Then I began to think about my writing, since it's the writing I know. I am more aware of plot than I used to be. I used to start stories with the first line. I'd write it down and then see if any more more lines followed. If they did, were they interesting and evocative? I still do a fair amount of this -- feeling my way through the story. When I was younger, many of the stories died. The opening lines went nowhere. Later, I was able to figure out ways to continue. I often write characters from the outside in. I describe what they are doing. Then my writing group says they don't understand the character, so I put in motivation.
Because I write SF, which has a pulp origin, I am aware of the need for action and motivation and plot. So while I am wandering through my story, I periodically have something happen. A monster jumps out of the underbrush. There is a fight. Then the characters go back to what they are doing, often having a conversation. In many ways, my longer fiction is a G. B. Shaw play with monsters.
I don't think I've ever written anything without plot or motivation. But it's often stuck in to make my writing group and editors and readers happy. So what interests me in writing? Language, images, ideas.
I may well decide that all of this is bushwah, and my writing is actually about something different. It depends on the day and my mood. But I spent ten years in my early adulthood writing poetry, and -- in a lot of ways -- my short fiction, when I began to write it, was like lyric poetry. My early novels were all picaresque. Set the characters in motion in an interesting landscape and see what happens.
I haven't gone through my life with motivation. I have some fairly strong interests and dislikes. Given these, everything else just happened. No ruling passion. No driving ambition or emotion. Just bumbling through life.
Looking back (I am old enough to look back), I can see continuities, impose structure and meaning on my life, but mostly it's just a life.
My fiction is like my life. Though I create more interesting settings, and I do throw in a monster now and then, and I talk about ideas...
Post script: I notice that this post is in direct contradiction with my previous post, in which I said I like motivations. Well, I do, especially in a superhero action movie. In a movie full of smash, bang, crash, thud, you need large, strong, simple motivations. Otherwise, they will be lost in the noise. There is nothing wrong with plot, character, motivation. But they are not always necessary. And I don't like rules for writing.
October 31, 2013
A Couple of New Things...
Check it out: http://entertheunseen.com/bonus-halloween-podcast/
Also, I did a blog post that provides some links to things we talked about in our language conversation: http://entertheunseen.com/notes-halloween-travels/
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