Josef Matulich's Blog, page 2

Cheap Date at Camp Arcanum

I am nearly done with the first draft of “The Silk Empress”, my first foray into steampunk misadventure. She says its my best book so far, though “Camp Arcanum” is still her favorite. That is no surprise since the whole trilogy is something of a love letter to her dressed up in a horror/comedy with undead skinless bunnies.

I generally suck at theme. Lois McMaster Bujold read the first few chapters and told me she thought the theme was about guilt and its corrosive power. I hadn’t seen it. Ex-Catholics write about guilt the way fish write about water. One thing I did explore intentionally was the concept of intimacy so intense it doubles as telepathy, and what happens in a relationship when that goes away, even temporarily. Anyone who has ever witnessed an empath or a witch going through pregnancy knows of what I speak.

I’ve been lucky that the Arcanum Faire books continue to sell after the rights reverted and I put on pretty new covers. I am engaging an Amazon promotion this Monday: the “Camp Arcanum” e-book will be only 99 cents from Monday through Friday. You can pick it up in the Northern Hemisphere while waiting for the world to thaw. Southern folks can read while waiting to see if they catch fire again. Either way, if you think you might be interested in a tale love, magick, & power tools, now is your chance for a cheap date.

Weirdmaste

Imbolc

Today is the Celtic festival of Imbolc, known to some as Candlemas, or St. Brigid’s Day. Large North American rodents also figure in celebrations of the day. It is a day for renewal in darkness and prophecy. Being the first to draw water from a well or start the fire on the hearth was reputed to give a young girl a vision of the man she was to marry.

As my gift to you, here is an excerpt from “The Ren Faire at the End of the World” which shows an Imbolc meeting in a graveyard.

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Marc followed the trail through the slush left by yellow-suited crime scene technicians. In one of the older quarters of the Arcanum cemetery, yellow police tape was strung from yew tree to yew tree to cordon off the ruins of the Stone family mausoleum. Photographers and deputies slipped under the tape going back and forth.

Brenwyn stood at the outskirts of the activity, wrapped in a gray woolen cloak. She was poised as if listening carefully to something no one else could hear. As Marc came up beside her, he could see that her eyes were closed.

“I should have known that we’d wind up in a graveyard at some point,” he said.

“We all do,” she replied, her eyes still closed.

“Cheery.” He sighed. A graveyard is a tough room for comedy. “Picking up anything on your radar? Besides the police calls, that is?”

Brenwyn opened her eyes. They were a flat grey today that nearly matched her cloak. The three vertical scars on her cheek seemed even darker against her olive skin for some reason. She drew closer to Marc.

“There is something behind this, something that goes back before Jeremiah’s death,” the young witch said. “It is vast and dark and hidden.”

“Isn’t that pretty much what ‘Arcanum’ means?”

He at least got a lopsided smile out of her for his efforts.

“Do you know what today is?” she asked.

Marc did some quick calculations in his head.

“Our three-and-a-half-month anniversary?”

“Possibly.” She acknowledged that with a nod. “It is also Imbolc today.”

“And that is?”

“One of the eight Great Sabbats, it is a time of renewal after Midwinter,” she said. “You would know it as Groundhog’s Day.”

“So, there’s a chance that we’ll go through this morning over and over again?”

“Not likely. But Jeremiah did say something about the groundhog seeing his shadow this year.”

Marc knew that the last message from Brenwyn’s ex was just a trick of modern phone technology, recorded as he stood with the noose around his neck and left on her answering machine two weeks later, but the thought of that little Goth weasel coming back from the dead still made his skin crawl. There was only one rational response:

“Rat’s ass.”

“Rat’s ass, indeed.”

Important Things

I unfollowed & unfriended another writer early this morning. From all her proclamations, she is a white, cis-het, conservative thinker pretty much identical to people that raised me and did my brain the most damage. She had a habit of starting a thread on Facebook with a question that sounded like a push poll from a McCain opposition survey. (You know the one: “Would you think any differently of John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”)

I too often leaped on board to debate with her, to correct her. Of course, that was a waste of energy which only stimulated my adrenaline and exposed me to more responses from her allies. These exchanges are just as addicting as humiliating, so I did myself a favor and cut off my access to her. It was not censoring an opposing viewpoint. It was removing a temptation to waste time. I went on to write a few dozen words on an important scene in my WIP which I had imagined while first outlining it.

I have a done a few important things in my life. That’s hard to remember after a two-year stretch of cancer and Covid-19 that had as its greatest achievement “not dying”. I even thought to make a list here, but eventually realized it would come off as both vain and revealing of too many secrets. Too many sentences in this short essay have begun with “I”.

In this crazy time, Warriors of Every Stripe, do the important things. Take care of yourselves. Take care of those others who can’t. Forgive their non-lethal trespasses. Avoid the plague, like the plague. When you have the time and inclination, create something, whether it’s an epic novel or a TikTok video or a new breed of sourdough. All that will leave a more lasting mark than an argument on Facebook.

Weirdmaste.

Thanksgiving Reprise

Here’s a little bit of the pagan vegan Thanksgiving seen in “Power Tools in the Sacred Grove” After the kind of year we’ve all had, Warriors of Every Stripe, we should all be thankful for all we’ve got, and those parts that haven’t been removed yet.

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Brenwyn glided in with the last two trays of vegetables and set them in front of Eleazar. As she returned to the kitchen, he squeezed a black olive from the tray onto his pinkie. He waved that at Michael like a finger puppet and then sucked it off his finger with a pop. Michael looked to the heavens for guidance.

With the two ‘children’ seated to his left, it felt like a real family to Marc, with all its bad and good. Brenwyn had gone all out, decorating the table and the dining room with wheat, corn, pomegranates, and apples. Stars and Brigid’s crosses made of the wheat straw took the place of the construction paper turkeys he grew up with.

“Prepare yourselves for the guest of honor,” Brenwyn called from the kitchen.

She returned with the vegan turkey breast on a garnished tray. Six drumsticks, also synthetic, stuck out of the turkey-like object. Brenwyn set the tray down to polite applause and seated herself at Marc’s right.

“Wow, six legs,” Michael said. “You don’t get that with a farm-raised turkey.”

“Maybe a Chernobyl chicken,” Eleazar quipped.

Brenwyn pointed to the large fork and carving knife set beside Marc’s place at the table.

“Would you care to do the honors?” she asked.

“Certainly.” Marc stood to perform his Thanksgiving duties. “Dark tofu or light?”

The others started passing around serving platters and filling their plates as Marc carved.

“I hope you all like this,” Brenwyn said. “It is my own concoction. The commercial turkey replacements all taste too—artificial.”

“I’m sure it will all be most appetizing,” said Eleazar. “Pass the simulated gravy, please.”

Michael looked awkwardly around the table.

“Excuse me,” he said. “This may sound really uncool, but isn’t somebody going to say grace?”

Eleazar looked as uncomfortable as Marc felt. Brenwyn smiled, looking just the slightest bit amused.

“I don’t think I’m—” Marc started to say.

“Well, I’m not either,” Eleazar blurted.

“Well, it just seems wrong not to give thanks,” Michael said. “At least, for this terrific meal. And I’m agnostic.”

“Thank you,” Brenwyn said with a nod. “I could say a few words. If you could endure a Wiccan blessing over a vegan turkey?”

“Sounds just about right to me,” Marc said.

“Let me think for a moment.” Brenwyn put a finger to her lips in silent thought. “How about this?

‘We thank you Goddess for your world’s gifts:

the beasts, the plants, the sea.

For all dear friends and all we are

and the strength to be what we must be.’”

“You made that up just now?” Michael was openly impressed.

“Not my best work,” she said with a self-effacing shrug. “But poetry and casting spells, they are the same thing: stringing together words to get the desired effect.”

“Cooking. Poetry,” Michael said. “I never realized you had so many hidden talents.”

Marc started carving the main course rather than attend to another man’s unbridled founts of love for Brenwyn.

“You’d better keep an eye on her, milord,” Eleazar said with a wink and a verbal nudge, “or I might try to steal her away from you.”

Marc’s hand tightened unconsciously on the knife handle. He slipped the blade under a slice of faux turkey and flipped the tofu and sprout amalgam across the table to land on Eleazar’s plate.

“Here, eat up,” Marc grumbled, “so you can compliment her cooking, too.”

Marc lofted another slice farther down the table to land on Michael’s plate. Brenwyn held up her plate to discourage any more aerobatics. Marc placed the six drumsticks on a platter and offered it to her. Brenwyn nodded her approval.

“You’ve got to try the cranberries,” Eleazar said through half a mouth full. “They’re most delectable, milord.”

Eleazar quickly brought a hand up to catch the food falling from his mouth.

“No more sincere compliment than that, I guess,” Marc said.

“Is everything all right, Marc?” Michael asked after a long sideways glance at Marc. “You seem tense.”

“No,” Marc grunted. “No, I’m fine.”

“You were about to splinter that knife handle,” Eleazar pointed out. “That’s either tension, milord, or lockjaw’s setting in.”

“It’s just the holidays,” Marc replied. “Don’t worry about me.”

Brenwyn looked knowingly at Marc.

“Marc comes from a family,” Brenwyn explained, “whose every gathering starts with petty bickering and escalates to a drunken row over the pumpkin pie.”

“We must be related. I have the same family.” Michael visibly twitched, probably thinking about his own last family Thanksgiving dinner.

“Mine, too.” Eleazar seemed paler, too.

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Weirdmaste

There’s a million of us, and we’re all so cute.

Last week, my indie author buddy Sheldon Gleisser and I finally got around to “Jennifer’s Body”. There is a scene (spoilers) where Adam Brody, who seems to be making a career of deal-with-the-devil guys, explains to Megan Fox why they’re about sacrifice her to Satan.

“Do you know how hard it is to be a indie band nowadays?” he says. “There’s a million of us and we’re all so cute.”

Then he gets all stabby.

As I watched this scene, I pencilled out the word “band” and plugged in “author”. The line scanned as equally disheartening, and just as likely to inspire tragic hijinks.

I have no idea how many authors are out there; an accurate count would require setting some hard and fast criteria that might only cause hard feelings. It is safe to say that there are millions.

There used to be a dream publishing industry scenario where you finish your manuscript, submit it to a publisher who gives you the standard “rich & famous” contract, and you go on a world book tour to have adventures. It was a time when the novelist would be the last guest on Johnny Carson and get to sit at the end of the couch with the celebrities. The latest best-seller would be touted in commercials on radio & TV.

That was a one in a million shot at the best of times. These ain’t the best of times.

Every author, Big Six Publisher or not, is expected to do their own publicity. Reviews are clawed out of the living rock of social media with bloody hands, one or two at a time. Sales at best are sporadic except for what seems to be the top one per cent.

As the Big Six pull back the number of releases, the number of aspiring authors increases. People of all descriptions, their hearts filled with hope if not structure & grammar, choose to find an alternate route to Rich & Famous.

This is where the true horror of this scenario reveals itself. As indie authors’ numbers increase, their predators follow suit. A small proportion pretend to help them become published: vanity presses, editing services, book covers for $25. A bigger chunk of the exploiters go after the writer once the book is done: promotion groups, publicists, reviews for sale, book websites.

On the web you are promised to have your book put in front of 25,000 pairs of eyes, though no-one states how many of those belong to other desperate & destitute authors that might trade their mothers for a sale and a review on Goodreads.

As of yet, there are no mother-trade sites on the web, but that says nothing for the future. In a cynical paraphrase of Ratatouille’s Gusteau “anyone can be an author, if you put cash on the barrel head”. Indie author services have replaced the lottery as the primary form of taxation of hopeful people that can’t do math.

I have no solution, just a warning. You can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket, but you can’t eat if you buy ten-thousand.

Weirdmaste.

Does Death Change a Person?

Today is Halloween, or to the Celts Samhain, the winding down of the year. The veil between the worlds of the spirit and the material is thinnest now. The spirits of the dead can come calling, if they’re invited in.

What if the deceased was a rat’s ass bastard? Do their experiences of life shape their soul forever? Or is this Play of Masks in the physical world just a way for small bits of the Eternal to learn the lessons of Time and Space and Need?

I believe that when we shed our skins and return to the realm of the Spirit, we lose that hole in our hearts that drives us. We no longer need affection, possessions, achievements, or dominance to fill in that lost connection to the universe we forfeit to have experiences as separate beings. When we die, the egos and memories are hung up on the walls as lessons for others.

On All Souls’ Night, when these spirits return for a visit, is it the same person? Do they come back with all the anger and hurt piled up on them, or are they refreshed and new? Do they slip on their old personnas the way we might don hip waders and raincoats to go out in foul weather, just so we will recognize them? Do love and connection endure while pain and hate are washed away?

Interesting point… No one asks THOSE questions at a seance.

If the souls of your loved ones and your despised ones drop in tonight, say hello for me. Ask them how Eternity is treating them.

Weirdmaste.

“Ding Dong”

I most likely won’t be giving out candy this Halloween; even without the looming threat of Pandemic few children come to our apartment block unless we have a massive display on the lawn.

The least I can portion out from the blue pumpkin for all my followers is this little bit of flash fiction apropos of the season. It’s short & it’s sweet, & you won’t have to burn off the calories afterwards. A bonus for me, the character is named for my troublesome baby brother. There are some rewards to being an unknown author.

Ding Dong

Josef Matulich

Matthew tensed in his recliner as he heard the sound of the doorbell.  His ongoing feud with the neighborhood kids had started with doorbells, the old “ring and dash”.  Things escalated to toilet paper, eggs and finally a picture of a penis etched into his lawn with bleach.  He wouldn’t think the little monsters would go back to small potatoes now.

He extricated himself from his chair, grabbed his cane and made it to the front door as swiftly as his knees would allow.  He had a hopeful thought that it might be the cops with the kids held up by the scruff of the neck on his front porch.

No such luck.

Matthew opened the front door to find a burning brown paper bag on his welcome mat. 

He sighed.  This trick had been old when Truman had been President: the flaming bag of dog poop.  The victim was supposed to panic and stomp out the fire, splattering hot dog excrement all over their shoes and front step. 

This wasn’t Matthew’s first rodeo.

He set the cane against the doorframe and bent over to grab both ends of the mat.  Holding it in a gentle curve to contain the flaming package, he gently lobbed it onto the front sidewalk where it could burn down harmlessly.  In the morning, he could hose off the walk without having to deal with any of the crap these kids had given him.

Matthew was feeling pretty satisfied about how this latest engagement had turned out until he noticed the black tripwire dangling from the underside and the metal ring from a grenade at its end.

Funny/Scary Proposition

You all need something to cheer you up while giving you the tiniest chill of terror. Something besides the news, that is.

I need new readers. An author without readers is like a dog without a bone, an actor out alone… Anyway, you get my point without further copyright infringement.

Starting October 15th, all three of my Arcanum Faire ebooks (Camp Arcanum, Power Tools in the Sacred Grove, & The Ren Faire at the End of the World) will be on sale for 99 cents each. In proper Amazon Countdown fashion, they will go up to $1.99 in a few days and return to full price on the 22nd.

I hope this will in some small way entertain the world at least as much as my experiments with the radio control fly during the Vice Presidential debate.

Weirdmaste.

Today’s meme:

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We were boys. We had cows…

I caught some grief from my baby brother a decade ago about my hat.

“What’s with the cowboy hat?” he asked. He went on to imply that men from Columbus Ohio looked like idiots in cowboy hats, in the rudest terms.

I could have given him my standard explanation: that the hat was actually a gambler style, a slouch hat, an author’s hat, but he was hardly worth the effort. I simply replied:

“We were boys. We had cows…”

Matthew is my youngest brother, the only one of us to inherit all of my father’s worst personality traits without making an effort to ameliorate. Decorum prevents me from sharing why we haven’t spoken since then.

Anyway, back to cows…

Growing up on a farm taught several important life lessons: hard work and responsibility; empathy in action; problem-solving with heavy equipment; what food looks like before it’s put in little styrofoam trays.

The lessons garnered from cows are particularly helpful for the current social environment. On average, they are ten times your mass and one quarter of your IQ. They are sensitive and may react radically at any moment. Sort of like your average FB thread.

There was one incident that I always look back upon with pride. I was helping out my sister in harness-breaking her show calf. At five-hundred pounds, the bovine still had the advantage. I was walking the calf on a long lead up and down our recently expanded pasture when she decided she wanted to live wild and free.

Suddenly, I was sprinting along at the end of my rope while trying to avoid holes in the ground and the stout wooden poles from the fence just brought down between the two fields. I could have let go, but I was responsible for this cow. It is not pretty to see what happens to an animal that hits a wire mesh fence at full speed.

I couldn’t dig in my heels and stop her or even slow her down, but I could vector off to one side and slowly adjust her path. I moved to my left and picked up my speed so I was running nearly parallel with her. The next wooden post from the old fence line was coming up fast between us.

I ran up to the post and looped the rope around it once. I tied a quick hitch knot and stepped back, wanting to keep all my fingers. I let the animal’s temperament and the laws of physics take over.

Good news, she didn’t break her neck.

The calf’s head did stop suddenly when the rope attached to her harness went taut. Her beefy hindquarters, subject to Newton’s Laws of Motion, continued in their original path. She achieved a moment of stillness where she hung backwards and upside down in mid-air until she crashed to the grass.

She slowly got to her feet and shook herself back up to the level of what a cow calls consciousness. I untied her lead and we continued our walk up and down the pasture until our time was up.

This lesson in cow jitsu taught me to use an opponent’s strength and speed against them. I could tell you how I applied the concept to my previous problems with producers, agents, and publishers, but I’ve signed a paper…