Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 34

Influences: A Snapshot & Variety

Unless you are an artist suffering from a hefty dose of denial, you cannot honestly say that you have no influences. None of us can.

As walking, talking, listening human beings, our brains are essentially super-fancy sieves. We ingest the physical and metaphysical and express it in everything we do –everything.

The idea of influences has been on my mind quite a lot lately, so I decided I wanted to give myself a bit of an analysis. I can’t simply write down a list of writers I admire because I’m influenced by so much more than that. Media is all around us and it bombards our senses on a regular basis. I’m not going to go too in-depth because I know my list is going to get long.

I can’t believe how hard it is to share this list, not merely create it. I feel like I’m letting people into a part of me I like to keep to myself. So I do ask that if you strongly dislike a person on my list, please feel free to say so, but don’t discount what their work has done for me personally. I fully acknowledge that there are some less than stellar human beings on my list. No one is perfect. I may not agree with many of the following people’s philosophies, but their work has done a lot for me.

Margaret Atwood, because how could I not list her when I talk about her all the time? She’s my proof positive that I can write a feminist manifesto body of work and still stay true to my speculative nature –and be relevant to a widespread culture.

Marshall Mathers, (yes, Eminem), because he’s shown me that I can express my personal rage and still have an audience, that I won’t be fated to yell into the void without listeners.

Beyoncé, because if Eminem is proof that I can be mad, Beyoncé reassures me that I can be a mad woman and not be written off as just a shrill bitch.

Chuck Palahniuk, because there are ugly things in life that need to be written about, but they can be done so artistically, beautifully, absurdly, humorously, and compellingly.

All the romance and “genre” writers I adore, (JR Ward, Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter, Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, Larissa Ione, and all the others I’m forgetting), because they consistently show the world that regardless of subject matter, characters, world, premise –you can talk about important things and positively impact the lives of readers.

Prince, because an artist should always stay true to themselves and the essence of their artistic expression.

Oscar Wilde, because it’s important to challenge people’s perceptions of everything.

Shakespeare, because language is damn beautiful and intricate and we should celebrate that.

Jane Austen and the three Brönte sisters, because early on they highlighted for the world the fact that womens’ stories matter to everyone.

Donald P. Bellisario, Dick Wolf, and Anthony E. Zuiker, the creators of the three major cop shoes I’ve devoured since I started watching TV, because through their shows I’ve learned that real and fictional heroes are rarely black and white, because even the best guys and gals are still imperfect humans. And humour is an acceptable response to horror if that’s how you cope. I really wish a woman was part of this list though!

Bewitched and I Dream of Genie, because they will always be my first hints of magic in the real world away from the touch of Disney.

Kelley Armstrong and Lyndsey Sands, because they showed me that I can write horror and paranormal romances stories set in Canada and people will read them!

I’m missing a lot of important entities but I think I made my point. You don’t have to read the “best” books by the “best” writers to learn and grow. Influences are everywhere, and I think some of the best are the ones that pique our interest because we don’t wholeheartedly agree.

What are some of your favourite influences?

P.S.: Today marks Canada Day! If ever there was a better example of a country with a foundation oozing with a multitude of influences, I don’t know if my lovely homeland can be beat!

*Featured image: sieving by Brian Evans via Flickr

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3 Things Needed to Finish Your Short Story

I have been working on a short story anthology with a bunch of people from Sirens Conference. This anthology is completely grassroots where all time is donated and all proceeds go to Sirens Conference itself–because we all love the conference that much.

Creating this anthology is challenging. One reason? The timeline is so tight–we want this thing out and ready by this years conference. And when I sat down to make up the timeline, I did my best to work around the editor’s schedule who donated her services as well as formatting timelines, etc.

I did not consider that my life was going to be absolutely insane in May and June. Work exploded with events. My wife and I announced our impending baby. The Crash and Burn Comic is a finalist for the Prix Aurora Awards (voting is open now, for all your Canadians out there! So many great things to read and vote on).

Given all that awesome stuff happened, I want to take some time to point out the three things I needed to finish my short story on time–hopefully they will help you finish your short story too

Twitter: Short-Form Storytelling

I am historically slow on the social media uptake. I resisted Facebook for years – wouldn’t create an account until finally admitting I needed  away to keep in touch with my friends after college when I am atrocious at keeping in touch. Twitter? Could not wrap my brain around it. Until I started using it.

Now I have people recommending Pinterest, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Probably at least in part because I don’t want to understand it. The two social media accounts I have are more than I can keep up with.

My favorite thing lately is seeing Twitter used as short form storytelling.

Really, that’s what most of us are doing in 140 characters, whether we realize it or not: telling a story. Sometimes that story is about breakfast, sometimes about a terrible or wonderful thing that happened.

And sometimes the stories won’t be confined to the character limit, and that’s ok because you can string them all together. But even just as a writing exercise, tweets are an excellent tool.

Then there are the accounts that exist solely to tell stories.

@MicroSFF is the one I’ve followed the longest, and I love the stories that come across my feed.

We found the chosen, prophesied one. Brave, kind, just; perfect. Almost.

“I accept,” she said.

“Good. Only, can you dress as a boy?”

“No.”

— Micro SF/F Fiction (@MicroSFF) June 21, 2016

Then there are the parody accounts that get it brilliantly right. Like @DystopianYA:

I know I shouldn’t sacrifice everything I’ve ever known for a boy I just met… But his eyes are so green!

— Dystopian YA Novel (@DystopianYA) June 2, 2016

Then there’s my current favorite – that may not have intended to tell stories, but does so brilliantly – @FakeThemePark.

Do you like singing along to “Let It Go”? You’ll love Princess Rainbow’s new song, “Trenchant Sagacity Enervates the Anomie of Aesthetics”!

— Fake Theme Park (@FakeThemePark) June 21, 2016

Do you have any favorite accounts like these? Please share in the comments so we can check them out!

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2016 Goals: Second Check-In, the 50% mark!

I cannot believe that it’s already the end of June and we’re heading into the steamy days of July in Alberta. I’d like to say that the past 6 months have been productive, but they haven’t. However, I have new allergy medication that is actually doing wonders for me, I’m back in the swing of my workout schedule now that I have my health back, and I have recovered some of my discipline on the blog front. Now I just need to get back to the fiction writing front!

I’ll get into my goal breakdown ASAP since I don’t have anything to change about my goals this time around since I’ve basically ignored them these last three months. Not a good policy!

Write close to 3 000 words per week, half that for blog weeks –I will do this in July. So help me!
Shop “Brew Disaster” around –I’ve written in my agenda to look for markets to submit to!
Shop my literary stories around –see the comment above.
Read a minimum of 68 books over the year –one tome cut into my stats, but it was well worth it. And I’ve been on a good roll since finishing it!
Introduce something new to Anxiety Ink –big discussions were had!
Write a new short story –this one is back-burnered till I finish RA2.
Learn how to meditate –the daily reminder is in my phone.
Keep up the exercise to boost energy –I quite literally just got back into the swing of this.
Run 5 km without stopping –I hit a huge HUGE bump with this, but I’m back at it. I’m just a bit shy of where I was at in my last check-in.
Cook more often –I am the BBQ Queen of my house and the nice weather has me in front of the grill quite often.
Try something new –working up to this –still.
Be POSITIVE –I need to up my game with this one, still.
Participate in NaNoWriM0 2016 and exceed 2015’s word count.
Finish writing RA2 –I am SO close! And am so neglectful!
Turn RA1 into a readable manuscript –RA2 needs to be done first.
Read a Shakespearean play –A play is going on the reading-next pile right now.
Be greener –lifestyle changes are hard so this is a constant work in progress.
Set goals for myself at the day job and hit them –I find summer to be a difficult season to push yourself at work since you don’t really want to be at work, but my performance scorecard is pretty stellar right now!
Edit and complete my crow story –my poor writing.
Draw more –I had to draw a dragon face tattoo for my mom recently, so I’m kind of working on this?

Balance and accountability are the focus of my comments. Those are the two things I struggle with concerning self-directed goals on a daily basis. It’s too easy putting things off when you’re the only one who is affected. But things are written down, I have reminders, and I still have time over this year to up my game!

How is everyone else doing?

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Writing Goals for 2016 – Halfway already?!

How on earth is it already halfway through 2016 already?! This recap seemed to sneak up on me but it comes at a really good time. A lot of plans have been shifting and changing and I have to review and revise my writing goals for 2016.

Writing + Publishing Goals:

Comic – Chapter three is done, despite a very difficult May-June at the day job. The individual comics now have a new schedule:

Chapter 1 – March 1, 2016 – Crash and Burn Chapter 1 Published March 8th!
Chapter 2 – Before July 20, 2016
Chapter 3 – December 1, 2016


Tame the POD monster – Still planned! But this will coincide with the Sirens Anthology I am working on, not the comic.
Keep Anxiety Ink going – We had a great meeting recently and it gave me a huge boost to get to work on making this blog awesome

Second Check-In: 2016 Goals

Now that the year is half-gone (how did that happen, already?), and for the first time since we started sharing our goals and progress throughout the year, I may have to revise the goals I set at the start of this year.

This is mostly due to to life getting in the way. 2016 has been a crapshoot of death. This has done nothing to help the always-precarious balancing act that results from doing the things I love, seeing the people I love, and still being able to eat.

The last few months have been tough. Worse than usual. Apparently, I’m better at respecting other people’s limits than my own, and I still repeatedly fail at being kind to myself.

Theatre: I’d planned to audition for professional theatre, so the rest of my year’s plans hinged on that. That fell through due to a combination of burning out, chickening out, and dealing with the aforementioned death toll of this year. I can’t even do the summer show with the troupe I normally work with because my work schedule has become inexplicably less flexible.

So far this year, I have been in one show and hope to be in another this fall. For new goals, I want to audition twice more this year and participate again in the 24-hour playwriting festival in the fall.

Travel: we made it to Florida and had a lovely visit with my husband’s grandmother. We’re hoping to turn this into an annual thing. We’d prefer more frequently, but I just don’t have that much vacation time, and there are so many places I want to go!

My travel plans for the rest of the year are definite now – ReaderCon in July, then up to Canada (sadly, not Calgary) in September for the wedding of two of my husband’s university friends.

Home things: get some sort of protective sealant on our deck and get at least one room painted. May not seem like much, but getting things done – things that take time, and energy, and advanced planning – are incredibly difficult for me to manage around a full-time work schedule.

Sewing projects/lessons will begin in July. Maybe just one a month, but something. Which is more than has happened so far this year.

Social: I’ve been better about my personal blog, so that’s a yay. Continue this trend. Also, hanging out with awesome people. It’s harder to do outside of a rehearsal schedule.

Reading: read as much as I can of whatever I want. The end. I’ve really, really missed reading. And reading is something I need to be a better writer.

Writing: finish the revision of the damn novel. See if any of the local school systems will let me run a writing workshop under adult ed in the fall.

I need to be kind to myself and take what time I need, whether for writing, theatre, or any other aspect of my life. I want to do better about prioritizing those things that are most important to me – which is difficult when those same things have to take a backseat to the day job

But that balancing game is something we’re all struggling to figure out. I’ll let you know where the rest of this year takes me.

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Why Choosing to Read Women Writers is Important

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I’m a third wave feminist, which means there are a few things about the first two waves –really things those waves fought for and won for women– that I occasionally take for granted. Like my right to vote, my right to as intense an education as I desire, my right to voice my opinion, my right to write, and my right to read –especially having the ability to choose to read works by people like me (women).

And believe me, I read a lot of work by women. I don’t make a conscious effort to read books by women, for the most part, it just seems that women writers are creating/have created more works that I want to read. However, I must admit that I do have moments where I will refuse to read a book by a male writer that involves certain topics.

I want to read women’s stories written by women. Period. I think it’s extremely important to do so. I don’t discount what men have to say, but after millennia of listening to the female experience man-splained, I’ve have enough. Women need to know that others want to hear them tell their stories because the truth is they are more than capable of telling them.

I have to return once again to Negotiating with the Dead (note the underlining is my emphasis):

All this time I had been writing, compulsively, badly, hopefully, I wrote in almost every form I have since written…I laboriously typed these pieces out, using all four of the fingers I have continued to employ until this day. In the college reading room I was able to obsess over the few thin literary magazines…then published in the country in English, and wonder why the poems in them might be judged by some white-bearded, Godlike editor to be better than mine.

After a while I began publishing in the campus literary magazines, and then…in one of the thin, desirable five. (I used my initials instead of a first name – I didn’t want anyone important to know I was a girl. … Writers are fond of saying that writers are androgynous as to their capabilities and that is no doubt true, though it is telling that most of those who make this claim are women. But they are not gender-neutral in their interests. Most importantly, they are treated differently, especially by reviewers, however that difference in treatment may manifest itself; and sooner or later that will affect them.)

When I received my first literary-magazine acceptance letter, I walked around in a daze for a week. It was a shock, really. All that effort directed toward what even I had, in my heart of hearts, considered to be an unreal goal, and now it was not unreal after all. (Atwood, Margaret. Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. “Who do you think you are?” O.W. Toad Limited, 2002. 21-22.)

The fact that such a strong writer, such a feminist icon, had such humble beginnings is important not only for writers, but for women. That single moment of validation, the realization Atwood had that someone out there wanted to read her stories, hear her voice, live her experiences launched what we all know was an inimitable career.

Atwood may have sent out that first-accepted piece with her initials on it, but having read as much Atwood as I have (not enough, I readily admit), I have no doubt that women were front and centre. That gatekeeper that day made the conscious effort to validate such stories.

No, it’s not likely any of us are going to launch the career of the next Margaret Atwood, but don’t for a second think that by choosing to read female writers for whatever reason is unimportant. All big waves start as little pulses that grow in magnitude.

read on the wall by Mario Mancuso via Flickr

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Living Queer – An Orlando Shooting Response

I am in a lot of emotional pain this week. The Orlando shootings have been extremely difficult for my mind to comprehend.

Most tragedies of this proportion are difficult to understand, this is true. But this one, there are many communities affected. There are many people, cultures, groups, communities facing grief.

I would like to make a statement, in lieu of writing a post about my creative writing. Because, in truth, I cannot act, right now, like I am okay, able to blog as usual about my personal writing struggles when they pale in the face of this worldly one where my pain is shared by so many.

Living queer in this world is a position of difficulty. We must constantly work in order to survive in a world that does not fully accept us. We must constantly measure our safety before we call out bigotry, are constantly on guard when we seek to educate potential allies. Constantly, we let things slide in lieu of fighting, to save our strength, because we are uncertain about the threat we face.

Against cement dam that history has built up, our words are our only tools to erode it. Sometimes, we have the ability to reach those who have tools and reach that might be able to put a scratch into wall–because it is far too often that those who can speak loudest and be heard the most are not part of our community but sympathetic to us–to noticeably mark it with our resistance.

Being queer is hard. Being an ally, constantly listening and learning to help those who are queer reach further with more safety, is hard.

For those who are strong, who have no choice but to be strong, to constantly work and exercise vigilance, thank you. You matter. You give me the ability to hope.

For those who disregard our personal strength and our allies’ strengths, those who do not listen, you are weak. Your privilege manifests itself in your safety to speak without thought. I challenge you to listen, to grow stronger–to understand a fraction of our ongoing persecution. To understand our need for safe spaces. To understand the emotionalism we show is not weakness, but our greatest strength and proof of our battle scars.

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Worldbuilding Resource

I tend to write stories that ease into the fantastical elements. Any urban or rural fantasy starts in the world as you and I know it – more or less – but that doesn’t lessen the need for worldbuilding.

In those cases, the worldbuilding is more subtle than, say, a sword-and-sorcery-type fantasy. However, in all situations, it’s important to create a multi-dimensional world that is consistent and true to its own created logic. A flat world is not believable and readers will poke holes in it, while inconsistencies will jolt readers out of the story – perhaps enough so that they won’t want to go back in.

My mother-in-law tends to equate it to a math class she had where the students changed a single rule and then did proofs to see the cascading effect on other rules and formulas.

That might have been a math class I actually enjoyed.

The point is: change one thing and pay attention to the butterfly effect. Maybe dragons fought in the Napoleonic wars, like Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books. Even small, seemingly insignificant details can have a ripple effect.

Sometimes in creating a just-sideways-from-here world, we don’t have the knowledge or perspective to follow those changes as far as we want to or should. I recently stumbled across this wonderful site that allows you to ask questions – often hypothetical – and have an entire community answer.

I haven’t yet used it myself, but I hope it’s as useful a worldbuilding tool as it could be. If any of you use it, please let us know how it works out!

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Characters and Likability: I Don’t Have to Like You, But…

A number of interconnected items have popped up on my radar the past little while. This one here, an article by Kameron Hurley called “In Defense of Unlikeable Women,” has hit the nail on the head for me.

I won’t get into the frustrating double standard about women who are not likeable being unrelatable versus unlikeable men being misunderstood Everymen. Hurley gets to the heart of that in her article far better than I could hope to, so I will leave it to her.

However, I want to poke at the idea from a reader’s perspective, and a writer’s. Like I said to all the unlikeable characters out there in my title, I don’t have to like you, but I have to find you compelling. I have to find some part of you to identify with that will make me come back to your story instead of tossing you and your unlikableness aside. I have to find some sort of redeeming quality in you that makes me see (if somewhat grudgingly) past your flaws –especially if you’re sporting some pretty nasty flaws.

All of that said, what human being out there, fictional and nonfictional alike, is completely likeable? Completely pleasant and flawless? I certainly am not. Depending on the day, I can be humiliatingly gauche, rude, snide, snotty, sweet, outgoing, affable…you get the idea. I have moments where I’ve stopped and wondered what the hell I just said or did a millisecond ago wishing I could take it back. I’ve had moments where I’ve said or done something perfect at just the right time. I think we’ve all been there.

Perhaps I derailed there, but everyone isn’t liked by everyone all the time. I’ve met people I’ve hated instantly that those I adore just love. Something about them rubs me the wrong way and I can’t get over it. The same thing happens for fictional characters too. I remember reading The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowell for a detective fiction class and not being able to stand the book at all, whereas a friend of mine liked it a lot. My main issue was with the incessant whining and self-pitying of the main character concerning his health problems. My friend found those aspects endearing because they reminded her of her dad.

People are subjective –and yes I know I made myself sound like a really awesome human being right there! My likability be damned! Moving on.

As a writer, I have to keep all of my reader ideas in focus, but I also have to be true to my own sense of my character. After reading this article, I realized that I have a tendency to write unlikeable female characters. I like them, I actually really admire them, but from the point of view Hurley analyzes, they are not your “traditional” lead women. They can be rude, selfish, self-centred, controlling, mean, cruel –but they can also be incredibly brave, loyal, loving. I think those last aspects are the ones that my readers will have to grudgingly accept about my characters, and hopefully what keeps them coming back to my stories.

I don’t write “soft” women who don’t like to stir things up because I myself am not soft. I have jagged edges. I suppose that is a good way to put it, so that’s what I write. And as I write this, I see that I too am guilty of attributing traditionally masculine characteristics to women hoping those traits will be forgiven. That’s just messed up. And something to ponder.

I had the best meme come up on my Facebook timeline a while ago that explains this perfectly and I can’t find it! I’m so mad. Basically, it was a shout out to all the female survivors out there who aren’t forgiving (yes, this is in the wake of the infamous Stanford rapist trial sentencing that I really don’t want to think about). I really wish I had screenshotted it because it really spoke to me; it absolved all of the women who have been victimized out there who refuse to forgive their perpetrators or the status quo, who refuse to let go of their grudges, who refuse to be thankful for whatever reason, it commends the ones who are angry and don’t want to stop being angry, because that’s how they survive.

People, especially a lot of women, have the right –and damn reason!– to be angry. I know I have a deep well of anger about a lot of things in our world. And you know what, I write that into my work, even though it might not make things very tidy or nice. Who wants to read tidy or nice?

As a writer, I’m going to keep writing “unlikeable” characters because I like them, especially the women. I like to write about flawed people who are just doing their best to get through life the only way they know how and who will hopefully come out the other side a little better, stronger, and happier. As a reader, I will always gravitate to these characters because even when I hate them, I can respect them and route for them.

And isn’t that what matters?

By the way, this is my 150th post for Anxiety Ink! Yay me!

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