Guilie Castillo-Oriard's Blog, page 16

Not dead, just...

Well... working, I guess. Yes, there's that new job--which I love--*love*--to bits (more on that below). But also the end of the Pure Slush 2014 Year In Stories project. I finally delivered my December story earlier this month--story which, by the way, was due at the end of May. Yep. Two months late. And I wasn't even the last writer to wrap up the cycle.

It's official: Matt Potter, Pure Slush editor, is a saint.

It was hard, wrapping up. I didn't expect it to be that hard. Saying goodbye to characters is always sad; "The End" is a production achievement, sure, but it's also The End--of a creativity moment, of a period of our lives, of our shared story with these characters.

Perhaps if I wrote happy--happier--endings I'd have more feel-good afterwards. From a creative production standpoint I'm pleased when I achieve the perfect ending for a story. In terms of craft it gives me a boost of satisfaction to wrap things up, to bring the story to its crescendo, to let the notes crash and bang and make their statement, and then fade.

But it's still an ending. The story ends. The characters I created are henceforth to go on with their lives without me--unless I've killed them, which I rarely do. Death is much too final.

(Do we begin to see the pattern of attachment issues here?)

In any case, the 2014 Year In Stories project is finished. Well, my part in it is. There are still three volumes to come out; October will probably be published any day now, and there's the looking forward to reading all the other 30 stories--the continuations, the other writers' crescendoes, the aftertaste I'll stay with at the end of these beautiful, heartwrenching stories.


And then there's work. I've published 10 articles so far in the Amigoe Express, and I have assignments to keep me busy for the next few weeks. As a writer of fiction--long, usually--I'm hardly efficient as a journalist; the sections of the paper I write for have a maximum word count of 650 (sometimes 500), and my first drafts usually exceed 2,000 words.

I don't need to pontificate on the amazing craft-honing skills this exercise is helping me develop.

As if that wasn't enough benefit, I also get to talk to people I never would've otherwise. The power of the press: I get to ask questions that I never would've dared to--and get answers. People open up, share their thoughts in informal ways that let me see more of them, their characters, their fears, their feelings of satisfaction and achievement. And that's fantastic fodder for the kind of fiction I write.

So it's a win-win. My new journalism job isn't stealing time from my fiction writing; it's enriching it. It's helping me build characters, create complications, analyze motivations and reactions. And it's paying some of the bills.

Like I said. Win-win.

Did I mention I have a job?

My first article for the Amigoe Express (a Curaçao newspaper) was published today. Centerfold and everything. It's only available in print, but if you want to read it online, here's a link to the PDF.

YAY!!!

The Same Old Tired Emotions?

The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.~ Mark Twain
For your born writer, nothing is as healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.
~ Catherine Drinker Bowen

Fill your pages with details. Work hard to get the right word.~ Robert Littell


How important is the right word to you? How much time do you spend trying to find it? Is there anything--plot, characters, tension, etc.--that trumps that right word for you in terms of value to your writing?
Go on, share. I'm curious.

A whole month off...

Where did May go?
(Image credit)May flew by and--not a single post. Oops.

Yes, the A-to-Z took a lot out of me this year. Never again with more than one blog, never again in the middle of another project...

'S a matter of fact, maybe never again. Or maybe just not next year. It would be nice to just spectate for once. Get to visit blogs instead of stressing over my own posts or about not keeping up with the lovely comments y'all leave here. Which I love, and which I'll miss...

Well. We'll see. I love being a part of the A-to-Z, but I feel I miss out a lot. Yes, pre-writing is the key. (Why the hell is it so hard to follow one's own advice?) If I'm able to get at least half the post prewritten by January, when the sign-up list opens, maybe--maybe--I'll consider having another go. Right now I'm simply too exhausted to consider it.

What's been happening here over the last 30 days? Well, my laptop broke down mid-March. (The fact I did the A-to-Z on a borrowed computer might've contributed to the aforementioned exhaustion.) No, it's not fixed yet. It's a 2007 MacBook, and one of the fans is shot--but Apple doesn't manufacture it anymore, which means the pseudo Apple store here can't order it. They told me it's available on eBay or similars, but they've failed to give me (in spite of numerous calls to remind them) the specifications on what, exactly, I need to order.

Perhaps a new laptop is the solution. Sadly, seeing as I'm a starving artist (ahem) with a copious family of dogs who cannot starve, that solution isn't much of a solution at all.

Then the washing machine broke down. And then my car broke down.

This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

I'm done whining, though. I have this awesome borrowed laptop (borrowed from an even awesomer person--thank you, Cor!) to keep me connected to the world and--most importantly--to keep writing. The washing machine couldn't be fixed, so said Awesomer Person bought a new, supersonic and super quiet, one (thank you, Cor!)--and, as an added brushstroke of the Universe's goodwill, the delivery guys even took the old one away. And my car has been fixed. It was expensive, and it's not perfect (yet), but it drives. (Thank you again, Cor!)

It's possible the dogs might've missed the car more than I did. Which is saying a lot.

Awkword Paper CutAnother marvelous thing that happened in May: I was featured all month on Awkword Paper Cut, in the Writers on Writing section, along with two other (pretty fantastic) writers to talk about Mexico and why we writers must (sometimes) leave our countries to find our writing. Awkword Paper Cut is a beautiful literary journal, and the Writers on Writing pieces provide powerful inspiration--as well as much-needed diversification--every month. Bookmark them, visit often, and enjoy.

2014 A Year In Stories
A 12-vol anthology
published by Pure Slush BooksAnd then there's the Pure Slush 2014 A Year In Stories project. Yesterday was the deadline to deliver all 12 stories in our cycles. I've delivered 9, have #10 in an almost-workable draft.

(Today, by the way, my June story is happening. Want to read it? You can, for free. It's part of the Amazon preview for the book. Just click on the Look Inside link and... enjoy. If you do like it, please remember I'm the ugly duckling among these swans of writers. Their stories are so worth your time. And money.)

As of last count, there's 315 stories (out of 365) delivered and approved for print. The July volume is now out, too, and volumes January through May have a 20% discount on Lulu.com.

Aaaaaaand... The fantastic Susan Tepper, another of the magnificent 2014 authors, has snagged a reading date for the project at the KGB Bar in New York's East Village. Talk about illustrious venues! We'll be there on Wednesday November 5th--so if you're in the NYC area, it would be a super treat if you stopped by.


All right. You're all caught up. Now it's my turn to catch up with you.

#atozchallenge: Zoology

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books
I want to end on a light note. Some of the posts in this series got a little ponderous, a tad heavy on the wank--which is ironic, since Pure Slush's slogan is Flash... Without the Wank.

The 2014 project is a landmark happening, and all of us participating are honored to be a part of it, but that doesn't give us--me, at least--the right to take myself so seriously.

Writing is meant to be fun. Yes, it's hard work--especially if one wants to get good enough to play in the big leagues--but I hope life will always find ways to lighten me up.

And this is why I give you the Find your Inner Animal quiz!
Worldwildlife.org

Thank you, Hans Pleij
and CURious2Dive,  for the photo--
and for the amazing dives!Some of the 2014 authors who were in the mood to play along with me and my--sophomoric-ness? sophomoricity?--took the test for themselves or their 2014 characters--or both.

Gay Degani , whose work you read in several of this series' posts, and who's not just part of the 2014 project but also editor at Every Day Fiction, and just had a novel published, is an octopus. 
(Somehow I'm not surprised.)
Mandy Nicol , who's participated extensively in the A-to-Z series for the 2014 project, and who's a fellow animal lover with whom I hope I'm establishing the foundations for a good friendship (even though we live continents apart), is a Moose.

Mandy was also the only brave author to volunteer her 2014 protag for the test. Nadia--the seamstress that lives with her mom and gets badgered by her sister, and who'd have no problem at all with a one-night stand (if it happened out of town; otherwise there'd be talk)--is a Great White Shark.

(I wonder if she herself knows about her potential to, uh, bite.)
(Image credit) Stephen V. Ramey , the other author who contributed more material and insight to this A-to-Z series than I could've ever asked for, who's given the project a huge boost by reviewing the day's story every day, and whose 2014 series has a suspiciously eponymous protagonist (although the author insists it's not, at least not completely, autobiographical), is a Lynx.
(Hmmmm...)
I 'm trying hard not to take my own result personally. You'd be sensitive about it, too, if you'd been born in a country where the average height was three inches shorter than yours. I never learned to walk in high heels--in ballet slippers I was already taller than everyone around me (except my dad, who, we therefore assume, is to blame for the whole issue to begin with). The test says I'm... Not funny.
(Image credit)a Giraffe.


Luis Villalobos, my character from the 2014 project--the superstar tax attorney, soon-to-be Managing Director at a prime firm, who perceives himself as the prototype of an A personality, the lion of the herd, the Alpha male (and doesn't the fact he's sleeping with his boss--that's right, the MD he's going to replace next year--prove that?)--poor, delusional Luis came out as a Big Horn Sheep.

(The "big horn" part doesn't come even close to mitigating the shame of the "sheep" bit. Poor Luis. One wonders if he'll keep fighting to be a lion, or if he'll embrace his nature--and, perhaps, come to be happier. You can read Luis's progress stories for free in the Amazon previews of the January, February, March, April, and May books. The May one is happening tomorrow!)

I'm a lion in sheep's clothing. Hear me BAAAAAAAA!
(Image credit)
And you? If you have a minute to play, go take the test. Are you the animal you expected? Did the result reveal something surprising about yourself?

Most importantly, will you not-so-solemnly swear to do something every day to remind yourself that life shouldn't be taken so seriously?


~ * ~
Thank you for the company on this A-to-Z journey. I apologize for the late posts, the misposts, the long-windedness. I hope you enjoyed discovering these authors as much as I've enjoyed telling you about them, and if you do get a chance to read the books (all or some) in the 2014 series, please do come back and tell me what you think. 
Looking forward to returning all your blogger love during May!

#atozchallenge: The YOWL of a writer

There was Whitman's YAWP. And Ginsberg's HOWL. I give you now my very own

writer's YOWL
Whitman sounded his "barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" in joy, in celebration of himself and of the life he contained. Ginsberg's Howl is the euology of a generation--a lament and a call to arms all in one.

My yowl is neither. It's not meek, but its assertiveness is born of desperation rather than celebration or indignation.

Is this challenge over yet?

~ * ~
thankyouforvisitingcan'ttellyouhowgratefuliam....

#atozchallenge: Xipe Totec, (my) God of Literature

You probably know the pre-hispanic cultures of America weren't shy about extensive pantheons: it must take an army, after all, to keep the universe going in all its complexity, all its diversity. These multiple gods--sometimes even, because it wasn't already complicated enough, multi-faceted gods--have one universal quality in common:

Goriness.

To make the sun rise? And you'll be wanting this every day? Right, then. A few bloody, still-beating hearts should do it, old chap. 
The Mexica (Meh-SHEE-kah, though you probably know them as the Aztec) are most famous for goriness. But like the Romans, they absorbed the religious practices of the peoples they conquered; most of the grisly rituals they shocked the Spanish with were in use long before the Mexica ever rose into the horizon of Mesoamerican power. Xipe Totec, for instance, has his origins in the Olmec civilization, the oldest one in México; so old, in fact, that by the time of Christ it had been gone for centuries.

Xipe Totec (SHEEP-eh TOH-tek). The god of Spring. Renewal. Seeding. The elemental force of rebirth. The shedding of the husk that frees life.

Xipe Totec himself. (Note the "extra" skin on his face and arms.
The "extra" hands.
Yep, they actually did this.Also called "Our Lord the Flayed One." And always depicted as a man wearing the skin of another man. During the celebrations dedicated to him, prisoners--men, women, and children--were flayed, and others would wear their skins. Their "husks."

(Trust the Mesoamericans to goryfy the Easter bunny.)

I like to think that, among the diversity of blood in me, a bit of pre-hispanic DNA might have survived. (My great-grandmother was a Purépecha indian--I have hope.)

Perhaps this is why I find so fascinating this idea of Shedding The Husk. 

Transformation. 

Becoming.

Emerging.

The 2014: A Year In Stories project embodies this in a very literal sense: a year in the lives of. Think of your own year: on January 1st, where were you? Who were you? It's the end of April; where are you now? Who are you now? Where will you be by December? What marvelous things might have happened in your life? What wonderful people will you have met? How much will you have changed, what will you have learned?

Who will you be?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books
Good literature is about this Shedding of The Husk. 

So is a good life.

~ * ~
Thank you for the visit, and for your patience with the delay in posting. Y and Z coming soon.Happy last day of A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: What Came Before (by @GayDegani)

"A literary suspense novel sparked by racial tensions and family history: Fed up with being tied down by twenty-five years of domestic bliss and everyone's expectations, Abbie Palmer is struggling to assert some independence from her husband Craig and find her creative self. When he tells her, "No man is an island," she flings back, "That's exactly what I want to be, an island. I'm sick of being a whole continent." But breaking away from her mainland isn't so easy, what with cops, Molotov cocktails and Hollywood starlets, lost memories--and maybe an unknown half-sister..."

There is a certain hallucinogenic quality to the writing that shuffles back and forth between Abbie’s adult reality, and the muffled memories and snapshots of a past she still carries. Author Gay Degani has taken this family saga a step further, into the realm of mystery, while managing to maintain a literary quality to the style and presentation of What Came Before. Racial tension, an unexplained sibling, a fire, and plenty more action make this a page-turner. For this particular reader, the heart of the story centered around Abbie’s intense desire for inner peace. Peace that she was robbed of at the tender age of four.  

– Susan Tepper, author of The Merrill Diaries and From the Umberplatzen

What Came Before is being serialized at Every Day Novels  (or you can buy a beautiful hard-cover edition at Amazon). I challenge you to read this teaser and not keep going.

Gay is one of the 2014 authors who's contributed substantially to my Year In Stories A-to-Z series. She's a fantastic writer, no stranger to publishing success, and this new novel is a brilliant addition to her credits. Find her at her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

All the best for Gay and What Came Before!

~ * ~
Thanks for the visit, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Voice

"Voice is the je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. It separates brochures and brilliance, memo and memoir, a ship's log and The Old Man and the Sea."
~ Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax

Voice. The je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. I love that. (This book, by the way, is the core of a writer's joie de vivre. If you haven't read it, get it now. Nothing will ever be the same.)
But what is voice? What is that je ne sais quoi? Is it just language and syntax, how a writer chooses to put sentences together? Does it have to do with subject matter? With characters? With the writer's vision of the world?
All of it? None of it?
Undefinable as it is, voice is the most visible quality in writing. And nowhere is that more apparent than in an anthology of short fiction.
2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

He thinks it's time now to find a cab or a hotel but the crush of bodies around him becomes greater, another throng of people swept up in religious fervor. This is what he wants: ecstasy and spectacle, animal sacrifice and widow-burning and fire-walking. This is why he has come to India, after all. Isn't it? 

~ Azure, by John Wentworth Chapin (2014 March Vol. 3)

BTW I was thinking, maybe you might want some assistance, just to speed the editing up a little, because it's taking a little longer than it would normally, probably because summer has hit you early and that red pen can get a little slippy and slidey all over the page.

~ Schöne Grüße aus Tirol, Sally-Anne Macomber (2014 March Vol. 3)

Jump out of bed. Shower. Blow-dry hair. Apply makeup. Put on mom costume. Walk down hall to kids' rooms. Wake them for school. Same thing, Monday through Friday, August through May. Rinse and repeat. This is your life on motherhood.  

~ Rinse and Repeat, by h. l. nelson (2014 March Vol. 3)

As Stevie reaches into his backpack he weighs what he dislikes about Rick, starting with the fact that he knows it was Rick--Rickie back then--who stole his Star Wars lunchbox in the seventh grade. It was not from the new series either; it was vintage, from the original ancient series from his parents' wonder years.

~ No. 2 Pencil, by Michelle Elvy (2014 April Vol. 4)

It isn't baseball weather. Grey and forbidding, with a misting rain falling out of low, angry clouds, it's soup and blanket weather for most, but just another early season day in another city for us. Nobody wants to play--not the sparse group of diehard fans huddled under cover; not the umpires, huddled inside until the last possible moment; not the ground crew warming their hands over the hot dog steam; and certainly not the players, conscious of the fragile bodies they are compensated so well for using. 

~ Fourth Inning, by Michael Webb (2014 April Vol. 4)

Do you have a favorite author? Could you recognize their work among others'? What do you think makes a writer's voice unique? Is it only writers who have it? What constitutes style? Is it something we're born with, like blue eyes or brown? Or is it something we can cultivate?

~ * ~ 
Yes, I realize V day was yesterday for the rest of the A-to-Z world. Seeing as I haven't behaved this week, I'm giving up my day off tomorrow and posting W then. Sorry :(

Thanks for the visit!

Ooops... Something went wrong

That DRAFT post was, indeed, a draft and wasn't meant to be published. So very, very sorry. W will be back later today.