Olga Godim's Blog, page 13

Happy Mother’s Day

I designed this card for all the mothers among my online friends. And  if you don’t have children of your own, you definitely know someone who does.

[image error]

The cartoon of the charming young mother is by Fanette on Pixabay.

Free fiction – does it work?

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple weeks ago, TOR publisher offered its readers/subscribers a delightful treat – 4 free Martha Wells’ sci-fi novellas about Murderbot. The promotional offer signified a marketing campaign for the publication of a new Murderbot full-length novel, out this month.

Of course, the offer was limited: each novella was only available for download for one day, so the readers had to login to the TOR site for 4 consecutive days to get all 4 novellas. Still, it was an amazing gift to the readers. And it started me thinking about the writers who offer their writing for free and the ones who don’t.

Writers, with rare exceptions, are not rich. Should we offer our writing for free? Sometimes? Never? Does offering free reads actually work to increase our sales?

In my experience, it works for the writers who are already popular. The team Ilona Andrews, for example, posted all their Innkeeper novellas on their website for free as serials: a chapter every few days. Once a story was completed, it stayed on their website for some time, until the authors edited the texts and published the novella for sale on all the book-selling sites, simultaneously removing it from their bunch of free offerings.

I read all the novellas for free on their site, but later, I bought the paper versions of the first three novellas. I’m sure many of their fans did the same, so yes, it worked towards their sales: an advertising gimmick at its best.

[image error]On the other hand, I’m not sure it works equally well for a relatively unknown writer, although I encountered many instances when a writer made her first book of a series available for free in hopes to attract the readers to the next books of that same series. Does it serve? I don’t know.

Some writers offer free reads occasionally, like short stories on their websites, as a thank you to their readers and fans. So do some publishers: TOR and Baen among others.

I also encountered the opposite approach. A well-known speculative writer Wen Spencer (one of my favorite writers) not only never offers her fiction for free but also built her blog on Patreon, so you can’t even read her posts unless you pay. Truth to tell, it makes me upset with her. I own all her books, love them, bought them all as soon as they were published, and I expected some sort of recognition, maybe a willingness to communicate with her readers, in return. I understand a writer’s need to earn a living, but I think a blog on Patreon is an overkill and shows the author’s disrespect for her readers. How does it affect her sales, I wonder?

What is your stance on the issue? Do you offer your writing for free? Does it help your bottom line?

Porterville Library burnt

Charles Whisnand/The Porterville Recorder via AP

I just learned about the horrific fire at the Porterville Public Library in California on Feb 18, 2020. All the books were lost. Two local firefighters, Raymond Figueroa, 35, and Patrick Jones, 25, lost their lives making sure no innocents were trapped inside the burning building.

Author Anna Lee Huber has started an online campaign on her website to rebuild the library. She is asking for book donations. You can find the details here. 

I would like to spread the word. Let’s help Porterville restock their library.

WEP April 2020 – Antique Vase

This is another story about Monette, a paper mage, in Vancouver, Canada, in the 21st century. Monette’s adventures started with the Feb 2020 challenge and continues in this story, inspired by the WEP April 2020 challenge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monette gazed with admiration at her laptop screen. The words Small Magics glittered in the header of her new business website. She just opened her independent magic agency a few days ago, and she still couldn’t suppress her excitement.

Her phone rang, interrupting her gleeful fantasies of satisfied customers and high-bracket income. Still grinning she pressed the Talk button.

“You do small magics, right?” A breathy female voice on the other end of the phone sounded desperate, interspaced with loud bursts of childish wailing. “Could you come to my home now? Please!”

“Of course,” Monette said, projecting reassurance.

Beside the phone, Spellingra, her talking grimoire, smugly rustled its pages, as if the book was responsible for this client call. Grinning, Monette skimmed her fingers over the open pages, a caress she knew Spellingra liked.

“Could you tell me what’s wrong?” Monette asked the phone.

“Just come!” the woman yelled. Then she audibly swallowed and brought her voice down. “Sorry. Here is my address. Please, hurry.” She recited her address in an affluent neighborhood, while the kid in the background kept up his incoherent bawling.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Monette promised. As soon as she disconnected, her smile fled. The woman on the phone sounded distraught. The problem might be bigger than Monette’s modest paper magic could handle, but she would do her best.

Fortunately, the traffic was light. She made it in half an hour and parked in front of a pretty two-storey house with a stained-glass door. She could hear the kid’s ear-splitting shrieks even before she left the car.

The young Chinese woman who opened the door had frantic eyes.

“I’m Monette, from Small Magics,” Monette said. “You called?” She winced at the especially loud screech from deeper in the house.

“Yes, please, come in. I don’t know what to do. I called several other agencies, but they all need booking in advance.”

“What is the problem?” Monette stepped inside. The decor resembled an exhibition of priceless Chinese art. Painted screens, carved red lacquer bowls, jade urns, and clay horse sculptures were almost overwhelming, stuffed as they were along all walls. Monette gawked as she followed her hostess into the living room.

There, she could finally see the source of the unending screams. A huge gorgeous porcelain vase lay on its side. A head of a child and one hand protruded from the vase’s mouth. The child, about eighteen months old, was obviously trying to crawl out of the vase, but just as obviously couldn’t. It howled like a banshee, its face red and teary.

[image error]“I can’t get him out,” the woman said tonelessly. “I’ve been trying all morning.” She hurried to the child, dropped on her stomach in front of the vase, and gripped her son’s tiny hand. She began talking rapidly in Chinese, but the boy kept sobbing, until his mother gave him a bottle. Then, still hiccupping and sniffling in outrage, he started drinking.

Monette circled the vase and gazed at its entrance in puzzlement. It was certainly large enough to allow the kid in or out. Why couldn’t he get out? Perhaps something trapped him inside.

“Have you tried to break the vase?” Monette asked.

“No. My husband would be very unhappy,” the woman said quietly, her hand caressing the child’s short spiky black hair, matted with sweat and snot. “It is an antique. Ming Dynasty. Lance should be able to crawl out. I don’t know why he can’t. Maybe your magic could help.”

“Maybe,” Monette said. She couldn’t feel any traces of magic, even though she stood one step away from the vase. She should probe deeper. She crouched at the back of the vase, out of sight from its mouth, where the child was trapped, and cautiously put her hand on the painted side. Simultaneously, she opened her magical senses as wide as they would go.

And snatched her hand right away real fast. “Yes, definitely magic, and well camouflaged too. You wouldn’t be able to break this vase even if you tried,” she said. “There is an imp living inside. It’s bound to the vase and it doesn’t want your kid to escape.”

The woman jerked her head to stare at Monette. “An imp?” she whispered; her eyes wide with dismay. “Xiao? Can you do anything?”

Monette wracked her brain, trying to remember what she knew about the magical Chinese creatures. What would this xiao like well enough to give up the child? Maybe something shiny? Gems? Glittering bugs?

Yes, that was it. She pulled out her painting supplies and started drawing. When she was finished, she coaxed her creations off the page with magic, and they crowded into her hand, a half-dozen bugs with a strange number of legs and carapaces gleaming with all colors of the rainbow. She sprinkled more magic at them. “Don’t get caught,” she whispered and tipped her palm into the vase.

They scuttled inside. The kid squealed in surprise and tried to catch one. He even abandoned his bottle. The mother kept silent. The vase started rocking. Yes, the imp definitely liked her sparkling insects.

“Try to pull him out, gently,” Monette murmured.

“Yes!” the woman breathed, tightened her hands on her son, and still on her stomach, wriggled back away from the oscillating vase. The kid’s shoulders emerged, then his legs, and then he slipped free.

He stunk like nine hells; his diaper apparently too full to hold the stink anymore. The mother gave one heart-felt sob, scrambled to her feet, and whisked her son away. His yowls reverberated in Monette’s ears. He would be fine, she thought, judging from the excellent condition of his lungs.

Monette sighed happily, gathered her painting stuff, pulled out her Kindle, and settled on a sofa to read and wait for the mother to come back. She needed to collect her pay.

She didn’t worry about her painted beetles: they would disintegrate as soon as the magic she had invested in them was exhausted. As for a permanent solution to the imp infestation, she was glad it wasn’t her problem. She was only Small Magics after all.

About deus ex machina

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently I read a novel by one of my favorite fantasy writers. I’ve already read several of her books and loved them. I loved this one too. The characters were multidimensional, and the plot compelling. But it was also oddly disappointing. You know why? Because the heroes, after all their struggling and suffering, failed to solve their problems. By the end of the story, they were still floundering, neck-deep in shit, when some minor character popped on the scene, solved their problems for them, and disappeared again like a well-behaved fairy godmother.

Granted, the problems the heroes faced were not of their choosing; they just got accidentally caught up in a nasty power game between a couple of foreign princes. Still, I felt cheated.

In the best stories, a hero must always deal with his predicament himself. It’s much more satisfying to a reader, when a hero finds his own way out of his jam than when someone else waves a magic wand, and PUFF! – all the storm clouds vanish, and the sun shines again.

As far as I know, such a literary trick is frowned upon by the modern writing theory. Of course, ancient Greeks used this device a lot. When a god stepped down from Olympus and cut through all the hero’s complications to reward him for good behavior, it was called deus ex machina. But it was two millennia ago.

Sometimes, the heroes can’t fix their conundrums, and the story becomes a tragedy. It happens. Think Romeo and Juliet. But if Shakespeare brought the kind Friar Laurence to the crypt a few minutes before Romeo killed himself, instead of a few minutes after Juliet followed her lover into death, I don’t think this story would’ve enjoyed such an immense popularity through the centuries. It would’ve been a farce.

Do we still use deus ex machina in today’s fiction? As a reader, I can attest that I didn’t like it in a story. As I writer, I go to great depths, so my heroes could deal with their messes themselves. And if they can’t, then I’m not doing my job as a writer properly. Maybe the problems are unsolvable, and if I don’t want a tragedy, I need to fix that. To nudge the story in the direction I want it to go.

Do you accept deus ex machina as a reader? Do you employ it in your own writing? Are there special conditions that warrant its implementation for you?

Library closed – alas

[image error]I’m in mourning. Due to this horrible virus, the Vancouver Public Library closed all its branches for unspecified time. I know I should be concerned about sick people around the world, the ones at risk, the ones dying, about my own health, but all I can think about: how will I survive without new books to read? For a month? For two months?

Of course, I have some books I bought and haven’t read yet at home and many old favorites I own, but for how long would they last? Maybe a month: I read pretty fast. My average is 2 days per a novel. My local library has been my guilty pleasure for years. I reserve new books all the time. And old books I haven’t read yet. I get books there from all the branches of the Vancouver library and from all the provincial libraries too through the inter-library loans. So many books came my way from the library. So much joy. And now, it’s been denied me because of the damned virus. I’m in mourning.

 

What color is your hero

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Racial diversity in fiction – I wrote about this controversial topic before. Unfortunately, it raises its head again and again, in different guises. Sometimes, it is a book reviewer demanding more colored non-European heroes. Sometimes, it is a colored writer condemning her fellow white writer for ‘cultural appropriation and stereotyping,’ when the aforementioned white writer dared to write about a colored character in the ‘wrong’ way. No matter where you turn, someone is unhappy.

I think, the only guiding principle for any writer should be their imagination. Whether they see their characters as white or brown or green with wings, they should write their story the way their muse demands. Inspiration can’t be forced. Nobody should judge a writer for her fiction’s diversity level or the way she perceives her characters. The story belongs to her. The only issue under discussion should be the quality of writing, not the peculiarity of the author’s vision. (Of course, I’m not talking about outright racism, just the characters’ appearance.)

But while a writer writes what is close to her heart, a reader could enrich the story by his own interpretation. After all, reading a book is like staging a show inside your head, with one spectator and one casting director – you, the reader. You could cast anyone for any role. The choice of the hero’s skin color is yours.

Take J.R.R. Tolkien, for example. If Aragorn had dark skin or Asian eyes, would his actions change? No. Tolkien wrote Aragorn as heroic and compassionate. The color of his skin was irrelevant to the story. I don’t remember exactly how much space Aragorn’s description takes in the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings, but I’m sure it’s no more than a few lines in about fifteen hundred pages. Couldn’t the readers disregard those lines and assign Aragorn any color they wished? If they can’t or don’t want to, if they prefer to see him white, like Viggo Mortensen from the movie, it’s not the writer’s fault.

Classical ballet has the right approach to this concept. When Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty were first choreographed in the end of the 19th century, the choreographers envisioned the heroes white. Nobody specified the performers’ skin color, but at the time, there were no other ballet dancers but white.

Now the situation changed, and the ballets changed with it. Chinese ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan danced Odette from Swan Lake, and everybody was delighted. Carlos Acosta, a Cuban-born, brown-skinned ballet superstar, performed the assorted classical ballet princes, who were originally assumed white, and the public loved him. The ballet roles are cast according to the skill levels. Skin color has nothing to do with it.

It’s up to you, the reader, how you see the heroes of the stories you read. Don’t you agree?

WEP February 2020 – Café Terrace

I’m continuing my personal WEP tradition to write interconnected stories for the year’s WEP challenges, which I started in 2017.  This year, I decided to write a series of stories happening now, in Vancouver, Canada, … BUT with magic woven into the fabric of everyday life. All stories will feature the same magician, Monette, a young paper mage. Here is the first of the stories, my answer to the WEP February challenge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monette opened Spellingra, the ancient talking grimoire she had inherited from her great aunt, and reverently caressed the yellowed pages. Then she poured her woes into the book. “I knew it wasn’t the first time he cheated on me,” she concluded half an hour later. It still hurt to say the words, even two weeks after the debacle with her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. The pain should’ve dulled by now, but it hadn’t. “I yelled, and he yelled, and we exchanged ugly insults, and then I packed up and left. And slammed the door. I had to leave Toronto.”

Spellingra riffled its pages, radiating faint magic and strong disapproval. “Good.” The voice, more like a hiss, emerged from the center of the binding, where sparkles danced. “Don’t expect pity from me,” the book grumbled. “You haven’t opened me for a year. I always knew your paramour was a rat, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Monette sighed. “You were right. I’m sorry.” She should’ve trusted the book. Spellingra had never betrayed her, unlike her cheating rat of an ex. “I’ll keep you open from now on,” she promised. “I even bought a special stand for you. I’ll need your help. I’m going to start my own magic agency here, in Vancouver.”

Of course, unlike that of her ex, a spectacularly powerful magician, her magic was small – she was merely a paper mage – but she was going to call her agency Small Magics and charge low fees. And hope for the best.

“Will you help?” she asked.

In reply, one of the fluttering pages, the only empty one in the entire book, sprang upright.

“Thank you, darling.” Monette positioned one of her fingers at the top of the standing page and slid it quickly along the sharp edge. She winced at the sting of the paper cut and smeared her welling blood on the page. The blood sizzled and disappeared, leaving the page as pristine as before. Friendship reestablished.

Two days later, Monette got her first client, Susan, the owner of the coffee shop Van Gogh Muffins. With the mural of Van Gogh’s famous painting Café Terrace adorning the back wall, the little café looked smart and cozy. The muffins smelled delicious, and patrons crowded the small space, but Susan was clearly distraught.

“Someone is stealing my food,” she complained. “I tried the police, but they can’t find any evidence. The door is never forced, but the food disappears all the same. Every time I buy supplies – flour, butter, coffee, milk, you name it – about a quarter vanishes a few days later. No schedule, no pattern. I didn’t even notice at first, just realized my spending hiked. I’ll lose my business, if this doesn’t stop soon. I think some nasty magic is at work, but I can’t afford a big magic agency. Maybe you can do something, Monette?”

“I’ll try, Susan,” Monette said. “How long has this been going on?”

“Several months. I think.”

“Are you sure none of your employees is the culprit?”

“No,” Susan said firmly. “I only have two, and they’re not thieves.”

“Okay. Let’s see if I can spot any magical traces.”

Monette stalked through the spotless kitchen, touched the bins and the jugs, but no magical particles wafted around, no magical echo reverberated.

“When do you next buy supplies?” she asked.

“I got some yesterday. Sugar. Milk. Cinnamon.”

“Point me to the containers.” Monette settled at the desk in Susan’s office and pulled out a sheet of sticky paper and her set of acrylic paints. She painted a dozen tiny eyes, no bigger than a nail on her pinkie, cut them out, and blew her magic at them. She felt Spellingra in the back of her mind, adding strength to her magic, and her lips curved with satisfaction. “Watch for intruders who don’t belong,” she murmured to the eyes. “Follow them. Stick to their doors.” Then she attached the eyes to the bins of newly bought groceries and to the fridge handle.

[image error]“That’s it?” Susan asked doubtfully.

“Yes. When you notice some of the food gone, call me.”

Susan phoned three days later. “At night, damn it. Always at night,” she fretted.

“We’ll find them,” Monette said. “My little eye spies will lead us to the thieves.”

But when she came into the shop, all her ensorcelled eyes were still there, only they migrated. Now they all clustered around one corner of the kitchen ceiling. Monette stared.

“Who lives upstairs?” she asked finally.

Susan’s eyes followed Monette’s to peer at the corner of her kitchen ceiling. “My ex,” she said in a soft voice, devoid of expression. “When we parted last year, the bugger wanted to keep the apartment. I wanted the café. And now he steals from me?” Her eyes turned steely.

“I don’t see any trap doors,” Monette said. “And no magic but my own. How does he get in or out?”

“There is a hidden trap door there. I forgot about it,” Susan said in the same silky voice. She switched her attention back to Monette. “I hope you’re licensed, and your testimony will stand in the court of law.”

“Of course,” Monette said. “I have a diploma from the New York School of Magic and a North American license.”

“I’ll destroy the cad!” Susan vowed, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Write your report, Monette. Thank you. You saved my life.”

Monette wrote her report. She should’ve employed a bevy of her magic eyes on her own ex, she thought wryly. Then, she might’ve known about his perfidy beforehand. Maybe… Thinking of her lying ex ignited a new idea.

“Do you want some needles, Susan, to swarm your ex, if he attempts to come again? I can paint long needles and stick them around the trap door,” she volunteered.

“Yes! Rusty nails!” Susan said vengefully. “The swine!”

“Rusty nails it is.” Monette laughed and pulled out her paints and paper again.

About an enchanted elephant

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OPTIONAL QUESTION: Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?

MY ANSWER: I don’t often reply to the optional questions, but this month I want to, because my answer is Yes and because the painting in question is rather amusing. It’s Alfred Stevens’ painting below.

A girl is sitting in front of a table or a chest, covered by an oriental rug. She is a European-looking girl, dressed in 19th century clothing, and she is studying an elephant figurine. Admiring it? Maybe. Or maybe she is marveling at the elephant’s trunk. Or doubting the creator’s veracity, if she never saw an elephant or a picture of one before. The figurine obviously came from an exotic locale.

[image error]As I looked at the painting, a story appeared in my head – a fantasy, of course, about the elephant being magical, an enchanted toy, able to miniaturize its young mistress to fit into its howdah and then smuggle her anywhere in the world from wherever she is now, possibly some place mundane and unwelcome. Somewhere she doesn’t want to be. I called that short story Resize and Go.

I wrote it years ago, although it was never published. I have to confess: I didn’t try hard to find a magazine to publish it. It was too quirky, so I submitted it a couple of times and stopped after it got rejected. Maybe I should’ve tried harder. I really liked that story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

News from Wattpad

[image error]Wattpad Urban group included my fan fiction novella Magic Senegalese, based on Wen Spencer’s Elfhome universe, in two of its reading lists – Urban Fantasy and Hot Picks. They even sent me their badge to put on the cover.

I got a message from them a few days ago, and the funny thing is: I never applied to be included. Didn’t even know about that group. But that unexpected message made me happy. Someone liked my story. Hooray!

You can read Magic Senegalese here.

The story is currently rated #166 in the Novella category, out of 2.5K of other novellas.

The sequel to Magic Senegalese, the novelette, Dancing Truth & Lies, is also available on wattpad, if anyone is interested. You can read it here.

Series recap in romance

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lately, many genre writers took to writing series, three, four, five books, sometimes up to twenty or more. Some authors write series that follow the same protagonists throughout, while others, especially in the romance genre, concentrate on large families or groups of friends and produce one book per person.

Often, when you read any but the first book of the romance series, the author would go into a recap mode in the beginning. She might start a novel with some sort of a gathering, with all the previous protagonists of all the previous books in attendance, plus their growing families, and would recount what happened in all the previous stories, enumerate all the husbands and wives and children that have sprouted since book number one, even describe their clothing and eye colors.

When you get to a book number five or six, such backstory might take one quarter of the novel or even longer before the real story of the current book even starts. And the true kick is that none of those summarizations are even remotely relevant for the tale about to unfold. All the previous characters in the current story are placeholders and interchangeable.

This phenomenon – sort of The House That Jack Built in the form of a novel – is mostly present in romance series, and I wonder why and when did it become a fad. Those pages of the series synopses take away the word count from the story. They are boring for the readers familiar with the prior books and absolutely unneeded for anyone else. Why do the writers, even good writers, keep doing it?

What do you think?