M.K. Wiseman's Blog, page 2

The Spy History Hidden Within ‘Magical Intelligence’ book 1

Per some old emailed “notes to self” I’ve unearthed, I see that I had already begun to scour library catalogs for research materials on the history of espionage way back in September 2016. In spring of 2017, one hundred forty-one pictures and a half-of-a-carry-on of books from the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. came home with me from a business trip. Fall of 2017 was, I believe, the first time I said, aloud, at an author presentation the premise for Magical Intelligence…

Volume One releases in just under two weeks.

The launch has caught me off guard, what with all the things going on in the world with Covid-19. Every physical release event has been sidelined and my own household has gone topsy-turvy. There’s been a priority shift, you know?

But I realized that, as usual, I have ever so much to say about the how and the why of this particular story. And even if M.I. just quietly slips out into the reading world sans-fanfare and some big launch party, I would like to share a little bit of the inner workings of the book and my process in bringing it to folks.

Magical Intelligence is, like Bookminder before it, a historical fantasy. Every location in London? Absolutely findable on a map. (Granted, places associated with magical espionage tend to be… shall we say… inaccessible to us ‘ords’ and don’t always look like the type of establishments geared towards spy work. But then, I suppose, that’s the point. Also there’s the little matter of a hundred+ years having passed since the events of M.I., volume 1.) I’ve sheaves of papers and folders of pdfs detailing the different systems of laylines which cross the earth.

And then there’s those books and pictures from the Spy Museum. At the risk of giving away any spoilers (mild, and generally inconsequential, I assure you) I’m calling out a few fun ones below; things I actually put to use in book 1.

 

Other fascinating items include:

 

(…some of which will most likely make appearance in future volumes, my having already worked out some plot points around these. Tobacco pipe pistol? How cool is that!)

In any event, I guess I just wanted to throw together a few fun things that I learned along the long journey of conception to publication for this next book/series.

Happy reading!

 

(P.S. While not something I learned at the Spy Museum, in my research I did come across whispers and rumors of an invention obliquely referred to in M.I. by Mr. Julius Griggs: a chain-mail parasol. Queen Victoria faced several attempts on her life–another grouping of factual details appearing within the plot of M.I.–and said parasol was reportedly conceived to help shield her in the event of an attack.

P.P.S. As Mr. Julius Griggs is not available to develop one of those fascinating devices for me, I am open to considerations by other clever makers.

“Be Back in a Minute”

‘Wrote a note, said “Be back in a minute”

Bought a boat and I sailed off in it…’

– “Knee Deep” by Zac Brown Band feat. Jimmy Buffett

 

A couple years back I bought into the beta release of a sailing simulator.  Turns out that SailAway does help scratch the itch that I can’t quite reach any more, having moved away from Madison and the Hoofer Sailing Club.

So we’re going on a journey, you and I.  I’ve charted my course and set sail from Liberty Island as of yesterday evening.  Destination?  ‘Round the world.

I’ll admit, I’ve tried this before and failed.  (Through the simulator, you can set whether or not the boat keeps to course when you are not logged in and manually sailing your vessel.  I, unfortunately, had not set my previous voyage up correctly and ended up aground and bee-lining back to where I had started due to missing a check point on my map.)  So there is a very good chance that, without proper planning ahead and keeping in touch with my boat, the Margaritavich, I might mess this up again.  Guess we’ll find out together.

And, no, I’m not necessarily turning this blog into a fake-sailing log.  But there will be a fair bit of it since it’s 1. something in which I have a keen interest and 2. a fun challenge.  Then again, provided I keep my pages dry, maybe I can get a bit of writing done while I sail.

3, 2, 1. Let’s jam!

Been in the mood for a full Cowboy Bebop rewatch lately and so I though, ‘hey, I’ll share that journey on social media.’ Popped onto Twitter with the hashtags #CowboyBebop #Rewatch and Tweet reacted as I watched Session #1, Asteroid Blues. Am parsing out my full reaction here.

First impressions: Wow. I mean WOW. I forgot how gorgeously animated this series is. Little things– like how the ‘seams’ between the computer and traditional effects, while not flawless, are not particularly visible. Effort was taken to not pull the viewer out of the moment with differences in animation technique. Camera-work. Anime, in general, is very very good at emulating (or surpassing) the range of some of the best live action out there but this one rises above so many others and that’s probably also due to the 

Pacing. The pacing is just so tight. The show manages to be tense, funny, bleak . . . all at once. There’s information dropped in every second but it never strays into an info dump.

Foreshadowing. I’ve seen this one multiple times. I know what’s coming. (Yeah, the series will be spoilt for you if you read along to my rewatch reactions. Show is 20 years old. I consider my conscience clear here.) Even knowing where it all goes, the foreshadowing is not heavy handed. It’s beautiful and tonal.

This whole show is one big Mood and already I am swept away.

Specific episode thoughts:

Our trio of comic relief. Antonio, Carlos and Jobim. (I had to look them up and invite you to as well.) Darn, I love these guys! Man, they are so surprisingly well travelled! hahaha Gee, have they got the worst luck in the universe, eh? And that’s saying something considering how things tend to trend aboard the Bebop. But, seriously, they really have perfect timing when it comes to episode pacing. Plus I’ve a soft spot for a good running joke.

Fight sequences. Every so often the camera seems to wander a touch or the characters float a smidge but, by and large, the fights (of which there are plenty) are nice, grounded action. Decidedly over the top? (So SO many bullet casings!!!!) Over the top, sure, but as a story telling choice, I think it’s a good one. It’s a hyper-violence that somehow doesn’t come across as hyper-violence for me. (If that makes any sense.) Also, bonus points for pithy exchanges.

Body language. Raise your hand if you love Spike Spiegel’s slouch-shouldered walk.

Double bonus points: Lighting variations. Camera looking down into the Bebop’s main living quarters through the fan blades. So Much SPACE depicted. And juuuust enough low gravity Bebop to sell the scene.

 

See you Space Cowboy.

The Annual Poinsettia Debate

It’s January and there is snow on the ground (at long last!) here in wintry Wisconsin.

Which makes it plant season . . . for me, at least.

One, there is the debate to which I have alluded in this post’s title. Do I keep my poinsettia plants, trim off the red, stick ’em in a dark closet, and hope for a reprise come next year? Usually the answer is ‘yes’ followed by about 6-8 weeks of moving them around the kitchen to get them out of my way and then, eventually, giving up on them as leaves drop off and they start to look scraggly. (Perspective: My two plants this year together cost less than $5 – a.k.a. they’re little and not meant to really last. Case in point, I had purchased a trio in late November and that third one didn’t even last the week.)

I have settled for watering them and now have run away from this question to write this blog post.

Two, one of my favorite smells in all the world is that moist green-growing odor of soil and flora. And in the frozen world of a Wisconsin winter, during my undergraduate years I used to seek haven within the University Greenhouses at UW-Madison.

I’ve a number of sketch books that were moisture ruined in the D. C. Smith Greenhouse due to carelessness upon my part (read: not readying myself to leave quickly in the event that the watering system came on). But that, too, was part of the charm. My favorite time to go was when it reached -5°F or below outside. Then the glass of windows and ceiling would frost over, rendering the tropical haven into something of a private wonderland. I often was not the only student to come and spend upwards of half an hour just breathing in the vitality of the place.

(Pictured above- two pencil sketches, circa 2004, from the D. C. Smith Greenhouse.)

My other campus haven was the Botany Greenhouse which, while infinitely closer to my dorm and classes (we’re talking a 1-2 minute walk which, on that campus is quite a thing), had significantly more limited hours of accessibility.

Nowadays I am greenhouse-less. My world is one of coffee shops and biking paths, frozen-over creeks and libraries. A great world, yes. But lacking in that deeply concentrated misty wetness which seems to lend Life to they who breathe it in. I find that I miss it.

And so I guess I’ll keep my little struggling poinsettia plants a little longer this year. Again.

Don’t Read This Blog Entry

Don’t read this blog entry, please.

I’m serious.

I’d rather you go watch the skies. Or bake a cake. Or read a book (of course.)

Feed the birds, perhaps. Write a poem. Walk your dog. Put on some tunes and dance in the living room.

Because if you’re reading this blog post, you are more than likely peering at it on your phone (statistically speaking).

Maybe you’re filling in a little bit of down time while you’re in a waiting room. Perhaps the elevator is being slow and you would rather not engage with the person standing next to you.

I am not addicted to my electronic devices by any means. (And I’ve got the screen time data to back up that claim, actually.) Whenever possible, I keep my writing and my research to the analog (so as to save my tired eyes the long hours.) Do I hang out on social media and have a grand time doing so? Sure. The internet is a modern miracle having so many lovely applications.

But . . .

I love my down time. I live for the moments that I step away from the constant connectivity, the incessant stimulation to live in the non-digital world. I make time for it and only reluctantly come crawling back to my laptop some days.

Perhaps I am merely an example of ‘people my age’. Perhaps I am just me being me and shouldn’t make this recommendation to others as though it’s a one-size-fits-all or as if I’m some expert in how one ought to go about their daily business. As I said above, technology has given us so many wonderful things. It gives voice, agency, access, knowledge, entertainment, and connection. I am not a Luddite.

But I do love my very real world. I love how it smells, feels, and tastes. I worry about the pacing of my own life as dictated by the demands of online interactions, progress, and availability. A feeling which, again, may be altogether personal.

But let me be personable for a moment and, should you have read this far after my having warned you off from the first, let me again make this plea:

Go.

Experiment with what happens when you disconnect digitally during a set time, or a set situation. What might you experience, even in the three minutes it takes to wait for a bus, or in those moments before you sleep at night?

 

 

“It’s an Albuquerque morning.”

What are we, exactly? Us humans.

Are we thought? Mood? Something baser and more concrete? A series of complex chemical reactions? Are we merely memories that breathe air, bump into each other and get into arguments? Perhaps we are someone else’s dream.

Are we skin-wrapped souls? Are we the sum of our experiences? Are we beautiful? Horrible? Violent and compassionate? Aimless and dedicated?

What are we?

This post is a distillation of several hours of conversation recently had at my house. A reaction. Possibly, even, a chemically complex one; my thoughts; my mood.

As I write this, I am drinking an exceptionally fine white tea, listening to sounds upon a windy moor (pumped through my little office speaker so as to help drown out the quiet moan of a window frame that’s shifting creakily in the fitful morning breeze.) I want to light a piñon incense, quite frankly, but I won’t as it would alarm the sleeper in the other room to wake to the smell of unexpected burning.

It’s an Albuquerque morning.

The phrase is a packed one. So much meaning in four little words. In many ways, it does a fantastic job at answering my questions above. (The Who am I? What am I? Why am I? of it all.) It is, in fact, the tack I took during the aforementioned philosophical conversation at my house.

For I am someone who lived in New Mexico in the formative and most impressionable years of my childhood. I returned to Wisconsin and embraced the heritage of the maternal side of the family. I drink tea. Decaf. I am selectively ambidextrous. Big dogs make me smile, almost unconsciously, but little ones scare me. I love to walk out on a frozen lake in the middle of winter, playing the game of how far from shore I dare go before I lose sight of safety and warmth. I am a member of the Roman Catholic church. I love sad stories with happy endings.

And it’s an Albuquerque morning. A reminder from the world of who I am and where I stand within it. Of where I’ve been and where I am going. A depth sounding of memories kept inside my soul.

For me, an Albuquerque morning is one that somehow carries the light and essence of my time spent in that city between the ages of 4 and 8: Not a cloud to be seen, the sky is the brightest, fairest blue. The air is crisp–borderline cold–but warming fast. The humidity is low, adding to said crispness in the air. Pent potential hums but does not rouse the late-sleeper. A lazy energy, it can be whatever you want it to be, will give you all that you ask of it.

More than that, it’s a feeling. Not quite a longing or reminiscence, but something in that vein.

My dad said the phrase a lot.

I always figured I knew what he meant by it.

 

“A Fable”

Hummingbird woke with a crick in her neck.

Waking . . . a sign that she had slept at long last, was, itself, a wondrous surprise. She stretched her wings, ending the motion in an eager flutter as she looked around and spotted the source of her discomfort.

A pile of gold. It gleamed dully in the early morning light and Hummingbird scrambled to put distance between herself and the mountainous accumulation. She wanted to think “Oh, no, not again.” But even that impulse dimmed and faded–quickly as had the memory of her previous three days.

Herself again. With her sleek lustrous wings, the incandescent patch of fuchsia feathers on the underside of her chin, Hummingbird had lost her scales, her dark and gleaming eyes. And a fair bit of size.

Chuckling at the last, restored to good humor by the bright sunshine and utter relief of having been returned to herself once more, Hummingbird whizzed about the shattered remnants of her home, putting things to rights and waiting, hoping . . . dreading, the first well-wishers who would inevitably stop by before the sun had travelled much across the sky.

The gold? It was not gold. Not really. Treasure, sure enough. Piled into some crazed resemblance of a nest, Hummingbird’s comforts and cures were returned to their shelves and cupboards. She opened a window, savoring the fresh breeze and marveling at the memory of wanting to set it afire. All of it.

While she looked out at the world, Hummingbird saw that Robin was up and about. And Squirrel. And Sparrow. None looked her way.

Guilt quivered in Hummingbird’s breast and she averted her gaze. In her mind’s eye she saw the beast that she had been, threatening and screaming rage at the world. She wondered if this time, the relationships she had hurt were beyond repair.

Sniffling, Hummingbird refused to be beaten down. She was back. She was her. And she had but three weeks before the curse again took her. There was work to do.

By afternoon, Badger had come by for tea. By week’s end, Hummingbird’s house was fully set to rights once more and Sparrow and Robin had come ’round. They made plans for a day trip the following week. And Squirrel? Hummingbird wasn’t even sure Squirrel had noticed what had happened, for he never acknowledged the change.

But at length Hummingbird’s agitation grew beyond the normal hummingbird flittering. Hurried and harried, she did what she might while the sun still shone brightly. She smiled wider, laughed louder, and looked to her calendar and worried.

It was Robin that she first snapped at. Sparks of flame guided Hummingbird’s words and, ashamed, she retreated to her home. She dashed about, shuttering windows, lighting candles and hoarding what comforts she might. There in that darkened place, Hummingbird saw her shadow upon the wall: large, looming, and black.

The curse. It had found her again. One lone tear rolled down her face, trailing past long snout, wending its way amongst dark, shimmering scales, to fall with a quiet hiss on a taloned foot.

Miserable in spite of knowing in her heart of hearts that this soon would pass, Dragon curled into a tight ball atop her pile of gold and dreamed she was a Hummingbird.

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April is PMDD Awareness Month. PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) is a disorder effecting an estimated 1 in 20 people who menstruate. Essentially, for people who have this, their body’s reaction to the normal rise and fall of hormones causes serious emotional trauma (often in addition to the assortment of physical symptoms that PMS typically provides on the roughly-monthly basis). Studies have shown that 30% of women/AFAB individuals with PMDD will attempt suicide at some point in their life. At present, treatment is as varied as the individuals who experience this disorder. There is no easy answer. Add to that the still problematic stigma surrounding talking about women’s reproductive health, sadly, even sometimes on a patient/doctor level, and one must consider how many suffer in silence, ruining job prospects, relationships, and lives . . . utterly unaware that this Monthly Monstrous Thing has a name, that you are not alone, and it is not your fault. For more information, a great place to start would be the International Association For Premenstrual Disorders website.

#PMDDAwarenessMonth #shinealightonPMDD

Lacing on the tennis shoes once again

And so I’ve engaged in another writing marathon.

Vacay’s over, M. K. Time to get back to it.

And so I am reminded (why, oh why, does this always always come out and surprise me, haha!) that writing a book is a LOT of work!! Exciting? Fun? Enchanting and addicting, frustrating and tear-wringing? Sure. But mostly it’s slog punctuated by lightning flashes of ‘ooh!’ and ‘ahh!’

And those are my thoughts on that.

Idemo na Casa del Cueva de Oro!

(It was only after I typed in the above that I realized I’m mixing languages. Apparently I haven’t moved on from the other project yet. Whoops. Time to light some piñon.)

The Dreaded Book Hangover; or, Why I Hate My Latest Draft

I don’t hate my latest draft.

I, in fact, love it. (Gosh, considering the last post I put here, there seems to be a lot of love going around in my little writing world. Maybe I should fix that? *sly side eye sends my characters diving for safety)

But I digress . . .

I finished the draft of book 3. Sorry hang on:

I FINISHED MY DRAFT!!!!!

(Note, the above was my silly, obnoxious way of being over-excited and ‘yell-y’ online. The text blinks/ought to blink. An HTML no-no. Yep. Again, my apologies.)

But I’m excited. And . . .

. . . strangely heartbroken.

I finished this draft 12 days ago and am only mentioning it here now because I couldn’t figure out how I really felt about it. On my local library’s radio program I believe I called it ‘a death’. (Wow. That’s pretty bleak, M. K.!) But, really, this is It for these characters, my first loves in my wacky writing adventure, imaginary friends who I dreamed up, gave names and faces and personalities to, gave breath and life to, spent 15 years with . . . and now I put in my equivalent of “The End” and have only another series of “endings” before me. Sure, the book will release. I’ll spend endless energy editing it, gushing over cover art, getting the audio book up, doing a launch party, put all three books together on a shelf and blush happily over the set . . . and every single one of those actions will be a little ‘goodbye’ to all this love I’ve grown to rely upon in my waking and working hours.

Have I written my next thing? Sure. Do I love this new cast, this new adventure? Absolutely! I can’t wait for you to meet them. But . . . to get to that, I have to say goodbye to Dvigrad, to my wonky argumentative wizards, to the folks who are tied to this particular project whom I may not have a chance to work with in the future. It’s . . . a mixed bag of various sads.

And that’s not even considering the natural letdown of putting down the pen after all that work.

So that’s why I hate my draft. Why I don’t want to look at it and have avoided opening it for giving it the necessary once-over and tweaking before I send it onward. I fear it, dread it, mourn it. Even now. Already.

Anyhow, that’s a part of the writing process I never ever considered when I started on this journey. (Sorry for the bleak post. Had to just be honest on this one, folks. Maybe, in the vacuum that follows this, I’ll just write some ridiculous fan-fic . . . for just myself, hahaha. I do have a never-used Wattpad account just waiting on me.)

Onward!(?)

Writing, I love you.

Well, this is awkward.

On a day that the trailer dropped for Frozen II (and I vowed to watch it a bazillion times. I suggest you do so, dear reader. It’s awesome.), I find that myself being fickle. My heart. It’s cheating.

Animation, I will always have fond thoughts of you but it is writing that I love.

Huh.

Color me surprised. I guess I hadn’t expected this. I thought I’d go on loving animation until I got old and crunchy and eventually turned into dust and soul-light. But here I am, having a passionate affair with words.

I’ve defended my switch to writing in the past. “Storytelling is storytelling. I just changed mediums,” I would say, and then sigh over the latest film with ill-repressed longing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved books, too. With scarcely matched furor. But . . . animation, my first love. Oh, how I pined for you.

But back to books. My books, notably. They’ve tugged at corners of my heart that had long lain unclaimed–or unused since my change of intended career.

And I hadn’t intended authorship! I hadn’t! A happy accident, that. No, series of happy accidents. And all leading to this new realization:

I love writing. I love my characters. My stories. My magic(k) systems. My writer’s block. My late night editing sessions. The rush and roar. The dull as dull in-betweens. The slogs and the unexpected, enthusiastic fans. All of it. I love writing, warts and all. And am realizing it only now, 5 published- and nearly 15 ‘dabbling’- years in.

 

So, dear reader, Happy Saint Valentine’s Day. I hope you have love.