Gemma Files's Blog, page 6
May 14, 2012
Music in A Tree Of Bones: The Longest Post EVAR
One day
to Release, and I finally make it to the Inevitable Music
Post...longer and crazier, as befits the longest, craziest book I've
written thus far. It also breaks down into thematic sections, so here
we go:
My
go-to list of Get Off Your Ass And Start Writing tracks, ie the songs
I was listening to while cobbling together Book One of A
Tree of Bones,
which is called "Rain-Of-Fire
to Release, and I finally make it to the Inevitable Music
Post...longer and crazier, as befits the longest, craziest book I've
written thus far. It also breaks down into thematic sections, so here
we go:
My
go-to list of Get Off Your Ass And Start Writing tracks, ie the songs
I was listening to while cobbling together Book One of A
Tree of Bones,
which is called "Rain-Of-Fire
May 11, 2012
Fanfiction And (Not Vs.) The Hexslinger Series
Four
days to go! So here's a new essay on a complex topic, one which
hopefully won't draw too many trolls. I guess we'll see.
A new
piece from Alyssa Rosenberg, here
(http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/...),
got me thinking about the role of fanfiction in the Hexslinger
Series' development. Or actually, more accurately, it was the
days to go! So here's a new essay on a complex topic, one which
hopefully won't draw too many trolls. I guess we'll see.
A new
piece from Alyssa Rosenberg, here
(http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/...),
got me thinking about the role of fanfiction in the Hexslinger
Series' development. Or actually, more accurately, it was the
May 6, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Conclusion
Damn you, Avengers! You were so good, you totally made me forget to post this.;)
Part Fourteen, And Last:
Y is for—Yu Ming-ch'in
Aka, the hex formerly known as
Songbird, who I frankly made up as a bit of a human plot twist, the
way you do—she appears early on in A Book of Tongues to
basically perform three functions: Confirm the parasitical nature of
most hex-on-hex interaction,
Part Fourteen, And Last:
Y is for—Yu Ming-ch'in
Aka, the hex formerly known as
Songbird, who I frankly made up as a bit of a human plot twist, the
way you do—she appears early on in A Book of Tongues to
basically perform three functions: Confirm the parasitical nature of
most hex-on-hex interaction,
May 3, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 12
W is for—War
I'm no Harry Turtledove, so the minute
I realized that pretty much the entirety of A Tree of Bones
was going to take place during all full-on clash between Hex City and
the forces surrounding it (hexacious, as well as non-), I knew I was
at least partially boned. So I opted for both a flash-forward which
would skip a fair amount of build-up and establishment—a bit of an
HBO's
I'm no Harry Turtledove, so the minute
I realized that pretty much the entirety of A Tree of Bones
was going to take place during all full-on clash between Hex City and
the forces surrounding it (hexacious, as well as non-), I knew I was
at least partially boned. So I opted for both a flash-forward which
would skip a fair amount of build-up and establishment—a bit of an
HBO's
May 2, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 11
U is for—Underworld(s)
Given how A Rope of Thorns
finished up, it's no kind of spoiler at all to say that at least one
subplot of A Tree of Bones takes place almost entirely in the
Underworld. Not quite Mictlan-Xibalba, so much, as a larger, linked
constellation of Afterlives, a Hell-spectrum whose individual parts
mirror each other. Parts seem a bit more like Limbo, while other
parts seem
Given how A Rope of Thorns
finished up, it's no kind of spoiler at all to say that at least one
subplot of A Tree of Bones takes place almost entirely in the
Underworld. Not quite Mictlan-Xibalba, so much, as a larger, linked
constellation of Afterlives, a Hell-spectrum whose individual parts
mirror each other. Parts seem a bit more like Limbo, while other
parts seem
May 1, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 10
S is for—Seven Dials
As the Five Points
was to Gangs of New York-era Gotham, so Seven Dials was to
1800s London—the centre of the rat's maze, a place where the city's
criminal underclass had congregated and bred since long before
Transportation to Australia was enacted into the Criminal Code. It
was, in other words, a truly superlative slum which gave rise to a
culture and language of its
As the Five Points
was to Gangs of New York-era Gotham, so Seven Dials was to
1800s London—the centre of the rat's maze, a place where the city's
criminal underclass had congregated and bred since long before
Transportation to Australia was enacted into the Criminal Code. It
was, in other words, a truly superlative slum which gave rise to a
culture and language of its
April 30, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 9
Q is for—Queerness
As I've stated, my motivation for
writing a trilogy in which the main character is gay was two-fold: A)
I was writing A Book of Tongues “for me”, and as a
slasher, that's my bag, baby, but B) around the same time I began, I
also ran across some of Hal Duncan (Vellum, Ink)'s writing
about QUILTBAG representation in popular media, and though “yes, I
can do that—complicated,
As I've stated, my motivation for
writing a trilogy in which the main character is gay was two-fold: A)
I was writing A Book of Tongues “for me”, and as a
slasher, that's my bag, baby, but B) around the same time I began, I
also ran across some of Hal Duncan (Vellum, Ink)'s writing
about QUILTBAG representation in popular media, and though “yes, I
can do that—complicated,
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 8
O is for—Opera
There's a reason I keep on calling the
Hexslinger series my “blood-soaked black magic gay porno horse
opera” (or various recombinations thereof), aside from the fact
that it obviously amuses the crap out of me. And essentially, that
reason goes right back to my formative years, when I would tell
people I liked horror and people would wrinkle their noses and ask:
“Uh...why?”
There's a reason I keep on calling the
Hexslinger series my “blood-soaked black magic gay porno horse
opera” (or various recombinations thereof), aside from the fact
that it obviously amuses the crap out of me. And essentially, that
reason goes right back to my formative years, when I would tell
people I liked horror and people would wrinkle their noses and ask:
“Uh...why?”
April 29, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 7
M is for—Mommy Issues
Though not exactly otherwise
describable in any way, shape or form as a typical Mama's boy, our
frilly Mister Pargeter is nevertheless doomed from his first
appearance in A Book of Tongues—when a drunken San Francisco
idjit tries valiantly to insult him by explicitly comparing him to
his drug-addicted (literal) whore of a mother, “English” Oona—to
always be thinking
Though not exactly otherwise
describable in any way, shape or form as a typical Mama's boy, our
frilly Mister Pargeter is nevertheless doomed from his first
appearance in A Book of Tongues—when a drunken San Francisco
idjit tries valiantly to insult him by explicitly comparing him to
his drug-addicted (literal) whore of a mother, “English” Oona—to
always be thinking
April 28, 2012
A Meme of Alphabet, Part 6
K is for—Kill Your Darlings
The great part about making a horror
movie, director Bernard Rose (Candyman, Paperhouse) used to
say, is that you can kill off your entire cast, if you want/need to.
To that observation I would add a paraphrasing of Stephen King's
explanation of The Ghost Trick, as used in the supernatural soap Dark
Shadows: Yes, but the problem is—especially when you're dealing
The great part about making a horror
movie, director Bernard Rose (Candyman, Paperhouse) used to
say, is that you can kill off your entire cast, if you want/need to.
To that observation I would add a paraphrasing of Stephen King's
explanation of The Ghost Trick, as used in the supernatural soap Dark
Shadows: Yes, but the problem is—especially when you're dealing
