Kyell Gold's Blog, page 7

New Book: The Time He Desires

FurPlanet already has it up on their site, but here’s the announcement for the new Cupcake: https://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?...

The Time He Desires is a story about a Muslim cheetah in his mid-to-late forties faced with changes in his life: His neighborhood is being sold to developers and his marriage is fading amid tensions over whether he and his wife should sell their store, on top of older, buried issues. The catalyst that stirs him to action is a videotape, pawned in his shop by a cougar whose marriage is also in trouble. Aziz seeks solace from his own life in attempting to help this same-sex couple, and in the process finds more than he’d bargained for.

I wrote this book in part as a response to the wave of Islamophobia in this country, never dreaming at the time that it would crest as it has now. I imagine that most of my readers are sympathetic to a persecuted minority population, but if there are any who are unsure about it, I hope that Aziz will be relatable as a person who happens to be of the Muslim faith, and that through that relation you may feel more comfortable in the similarities we all share.

Interview With Jay Maxwell

Since the Black Angel audiobook is out, I thought I’d sit down with the narrator who’s done such a fine job with all three of the Dangerous Spirits books and ask him a few questions…

How did you get into audiobook narration?

I was working as a voice actor for animation and was told by a director that my voice was suited for young adult audiobook narration. I’ve been specializing in young adult fiction ever since.

 

What attracted you to audition for Green Fairy?

The title. I knew the Green Fairy to be another word for absinthe; I had tried it several times when in Prague and had become enamoured, not with the liquor itself, but with the tradition and the ceremony behind drinking it. I hoped the book would be about that, and to my delight, it was! In some part at least.  

 

What character or scene was the most challenging in this series?

I would say Alexei was the most difficult. His character, especially in Red Devil, is easy to play as a bit brooding and dark. It’s easy to play him as one note and stereotyped. But really, the character is far more complex so I really had to find those places where different sides of his personality could come out through my voice, not just the writing.

 

Which character was the most fun to voice?

Meg. She’s sassy and I loved it!

 

You perform characters with a number of different accents in this series. How do you decide on a particular accent or voice?

As I read through the book the first time, they voices just start to come alive in my head as I read. Some of it comes from the text itself – their location, their age, their attitude – but then sometimes it becomes a matter of practicality. There are several characters with very similar accents and voices, which is fine, but if they ever have a scene together then that can become confusing, so they need to have some different vocal qualities. The hardest part is keeping in mind which character has which voice, especially from book to book. Sometimes I’m definitely more successful at consistency than other times.

 

Walk us through a recording session. What’s your process?

I usually plan out how much I think I can read at any given time. Sometimes it’s a restraint of how long until my voice gets tired, but more often, it’s more of a simple time restraint. Once I’ve decided how many chapters I think I can get through in one sitting, I grab some water, close my booth, and start reading. Even after having read the book, often things come up as a surprise and I have to record a sentence or passage over again. Then there are those times that a word or phrase just doesn’t roll off the tongue too easily and I have to record it five or six times before I get it right. All in all, an hour of recording usually produces about forty minutes of finished material.

 

Outside of the Dangerous Spirits books, what project you’ve worked on has been your favorite?

I was fortunate enough to record a history book on the Regency age in England. It was a very dry text book, but as an Anglophile and student of history, it was a treat. The only problem was, my voice really wasn’t right for the book and half way through, I ended up giving the project to a fellow voice actor who did far more with it than I could. But I still enjoyed recording as much as I did.

 

When you’re not recording or at work, what hobbies do you have?

I’ve recently become and avid baker. I spend hours each weekend baking different breads and pastry while watching old episodes of The Great British Bake Off.

I also go to see a lot of movies. Typically I try to see two a week, but around the holidays, I can get in five or six.

 

 Baking! What’s the most challenging bread or pastry you’ve baked?

Definitely a traditional 19th century style Figgy Pudding. It takes 4 weeks to make from scratch!

 

After the release of Black Angel, what do you have coming out next?

At the moment, I am in between projects. I’ve been fortunate enough to make enough money through other work that I only choose books that I’d like to read even if I wasn’t recording it. As of yet, that book has not come along.

Want a Signed Book From Me This Year?

You’ve got two choices:

Come to Gaylaxicon or Midwest Furfest and find me at the Sofawolf/FurPlanet table.
Order from Sofawolf before October 9th! If you want it dedicated, put the dedication in the notes (something like “please make it out to Stormwind Darkwolf,” substituting your name, of course). Please see the Sofawolf post for full details.

A couple notes:

The new book for MFF, “The Time He Desires,” is a FurPlanet Cupcake and won’t be available from Sofawolf, so I’ll be splitting time between the two tables.

I’ll also be at a bunch of panels for MFF. I generally don’t sign books right after panels because we have to clear the room for the next panel, but if you follow me back to the dealer’s room after a panel I’ll sign the books then.

RAWR Write-A-Thon

Hey all of you! RAWR, the first residential furry writing workshop, is trying to raise money for its 2017 session to do cool things like offer financial aid to students, pay for a better venue, and compensate instructors, and so they’re holding a write-a-thon. Basically a few people are going to set writing goals for September, and they’ll ask for your contributions as they head toward their goals, kind of like a walk-a-thin. It’s a really good cause and there’s an FAQ to answer all your questions about it (and contact Sparf if your question isn’t listed).

I will try to join in–check that page–but I’m going to set a couple goals for you guys to help us hit. If we get to $2,000 total, I will write a new Dev and Lee short story. And if we get to a way far stretch goal of $4,000, I will write a new Kory and Samaki story.

If you can’t donate, that’s fine, but spread the word. And if you’ve been thinking about trying to get to a workshop to improve your writing, consider applying to RAWR. It’s free to apply!

Flash Fiction: The Clockwork Dog

This was written from a prompt by Mary Lowd for a story to include a king, a robot dog swimming downward, and a whale. It’s just under 350 words and I haven’t really edited it but it was fun enough to post.

“Is that all it does?”

The slight white-haired man adjusted his glasses and put a hand to his mouth to hide a nervous cough. “Er, yes, Your Majesty, for the moment. It is a prototype, but…did you not request a swimming contrivance?”

He followed the King’s gaze to the clear blue water, where the brass gears of the mechanical dog turned and clunked, attempting to push the dog’s nose into the stone at the bottom of the pool. “If it can swim down, why not up?” the king asked.

“Oh, well.” The inventor straightened. “Buoyancy, you see, and power conveyed from the refractory engine…er, the guidance mechanism could be altered, I suppose, but…surely down is the important direction? Er, in this mission?”

“And once it has borne our surgeons to the fin and they have made the repair,” the king said, “will this artificial dog bear them to the bottom of the ocean?”

“Oh,” the inventor said. “Ah. Yes. Yes, I see.”

The King spoke across the pool to a liveried guard standing at attention. “Remove the failure,” he said.

“Now, er.” Here the white-haired man straightened and attempted to puff his chest out. “Now, Your Majesty only commissioned a contrivance to bear a person down, which this dog will do. It is unfair to characterize it as a failure. It has—oh—oh, I see.” He took a step back as the guard, who had ignored the still-swimming dog entirely, came over and grasped him by the arm.

As they left the gardens, the inventor summoned the courage to call back, “So, Your Majesty, I will commence work immediately on this new mission? Yes?”

The King made no answer. Once the guard and his charge had passed through the gate, the King shook his head at the futilely thrashing machine, its gears clanking together. Then he walked to the edge of the garden and looked down the tower, down to the edge of his kingdom, down across the broad back of the whale bearing them through the ocean around and around in a large circle.

Fall Convention Schedule: Hi, Upper Midwest!

If you’re living in the Midwest (northern version) and you would like to see me at a convention, this is your lucky fall! I am going to be at Furry Migration in Minneapolis (second weekend of September), Gaylaxicon in Minneapolis (second weekend of October), and Midwest Furfest in Chicago (first weekend of December)!

I’ll be doing panels and signings at all of them. More info to come along as I get specific times and whatnot. It looks like this fox’s travel year is not over yet…

(That is all for 2016 conventions, btw. I’ll be at FC 2017 and probably TFF 2017 but nothing else is set yet.)

WorldCon: The Good, The Bad, and the Future

WorldCon was held in Kansas City this year under the name MidAmericon 2 (WorldCon, if you don’t know, rotates to a different city every year and the con committee of the winning city names their convention for its site, so this was the second WorldCon to be held in Kansas City, forty years after the first). Most of it, the vast majority, was good, and I’m going to talk about the city, the panels, the people, and the Hugos in that context.

Downtown Kansas City retains a lot of the feel of the 1920s, the last great heyday of the city. The architecture and naming of a lot of buildings and businesses there call back to that era. Just a couple blocks from the convention center is the Power and Light district, a new development of restaurants and bars aimed at keeping people downtown after five. It includes a great restaurant called BRGR, which I highly recommend if you’re in the area and like burgers, macaroni and cheese, and/or sweet potato tots. They also make a pretty good Arnold Palmer. There’s a new streetcar, too, which will take you from the City Market through the Power and Light district down to Union Station and back for free. So we never lacked for places to go or eat when not at the convention.

The panels were by and large good, at least the ones I went to. There was one about representation of non-binary sexualities and gender identification that was crowded despite being at 9 pm on Thursday; there was a Nifty Narrative Tricks one that was informative and entertaining; there was a Fursuit demonstration that was excellent, if poorly attended.

(This last was the only panel with furry content as far as I can tell; we had to create our own furry writing panel on Saturday. It was just about as well attended.)

The best part of any WorldCon for me is always the people. I got to see many of my friends there, too many to mention, but you all know who you are. I got to hang out with Watts Martin and Chandra Alkani and it was fun to experience WorldCon with them. There’s the friends you see at cons and then the friends you’re with at cons, and I enjoy the cons a lot better when I have someone to be with.

So all that was good, and we went to the Hugo awards together, getting there a little late. It was a fun ceremony and as last year, the voters celebrated diversity. It was especially nice to see a friend of mine, Naomi Kritzer, win one for her short story, “Cat Pictures Please,” and to see Uncanny Magazine, who solicited that furry fandom essay from me back in December, win for Best Semiprozine. N.K. Jemisin also won for the excellent novel, “The Fifth Season,” which was pretty cool.

There weren’t a lot of diverse panels, and this convention felt very old. LonCon 3, and to a certain extent Sasquan, felt as though they were drawing in a younger crowd. But the aging of SF fandom has been a noted problem for years now, and MidAmericon 2 did little to help with it.

And it was an older fan who heard us writing down the impromptu furry writing panel, and at the word “furry,” cautioned us about people coming who might get “overexcited” or “over involved” or something like that. “If you know what I mean,” he added. We looked back at him and said we didn’t know what he meant, and he said, “Oh, I just heard the word ‘furry,’ you know…” I think it occurred to him at that point that we were probably furries, and that we weren’t down with the whole implication that any furry gathering has out-of-control people who don’t know how to behave in public. He started backpedaling, “Oh, I know it’s just the media…some of my friends are into…I mean…” And we walked away. It was a minor thing but it left a bad taste in our mouths.

Everyone else during the con was excellent toward furries. There were at least three fursuits walking around and whenever I was near one I heard only positive things.

And now, the future. The bid for the 2018 WorldCon went to San Jose by vote of the 2016 WorldCon members, so WorldCon will be back here in the Bay! The San Jose bid people came to Further Confusion twice to gather support for their bid, and are friends with several furries, so we have a chance to see furry better represented at a WorldCon this year. The way to do that? Volunteer. If you live in the Bay Area and would like to help put this WorldCon together, they would love to have your help. If you don’t have convention planning skills or time, then as the con approaches, you can volunteer for less time-intensive work.

We’ve seen this happen before on a smaller scale. In Minneapolis, several furries got involved in the North Country Gaylaxians and have managed to get a good amount of furry content into the local Gaylaxicon. We can get more furry programming on the docket here and show off the best of our culture to the WorldCon. The San Jose crew reached out to the furry fandom; let’s reach back and help.

Four Things I Learned From A Fursuit Dance Contest

I was asked to step in and judge the Fursuit Dance Contest at RMFC when the GOHs were unavailable, and I was glad to help out. I love watching the dance contests whenever I get a chance.

This contest did not disappoint. Whether veteran or novice, the twenty-some contestants brought their best and put on a terrific show. I was reflecting on the contest afterwards and thought about a few things that might be helpful not just to future competitors, but to anyone showcasing their work in public.

First: If you’ve made it to this contest, that’s already amazing. I know it might not feel like it, but the dancers have to work on their craft, work on their routines, try out, and go out in front of hundreds of people. It was terrifyingly hard to judge the variety of styles and talent on display; I think that the spread between first and third place was around one point out of thirty for the veteran category. When you get to this level, be proud of that achievement.

Second: Don’t get rattled. There were two or three performances where a contestant had a wardrobe malfunction (one lost their head entirely!), others where there was a glitch in the music. In some of the cases, the dancer let the mistake get to them more than others. From the judge’s and audience’s perspective, the mistake isn’t as important as what they did with it. If they took it in stride and kept going, the performance still came off good. If they kept trying to fix things or let it get to them, the performance suffered. Mistakes happen; we all know that. Take it in stride and roll on.

Third: Be creative. About half the acts we saw followed the same formula of a segment of lower-key fluid dancing followed by a segue into higher-energy music and dance. Some of them were technically more proficient than others, but at this level, there wasn’t really one that stood out. The acts that stood out to us were the ones doing something really different, really creative. The winner in the veteran category incorporated attitude and playfulness with energy and dance; the second place finisher showed off a variety of styles. The winner in the novice category (couldn’t find video) spun poi, changing up the light patterns and incorporating messages to the crowd and the con that added another dimension to his technical proficiency. It’s not bad to start out doing what everyone else is doing–that’s how you learn. But inject your own personality into it as much as you can. That’s what makes you special; that’s what will make you stand out.

Fourth: Be supportive of the competition. This is an area the furry community in general excels at. I know that the writing community is good that way, and my artist friends always seem to get along well too, but I still get a warm fuzzy from watching the dancers who didn’t win grab and hug the winner after the contest. I know that no community is perfect; there are hurt feelings and rivalries, but in the moment, there on the dance floor, everyone appears genuinely happy for the winner. And that’s important. Save the hurt feelings for later; it’s obvious how much these prizes mean to the winner. Keep at it and it’ll be your turn someday, and then you’ll want everyone to be as happy for you as they are for the winner now. And it’s way more fun to be happy than miserable.

 

 

 

Eleven Days, Six Airports, Two Conventions

Just thought I’d share my travel plans because the itinerary amused me. Three flights, three layovers all in different airports.

I fly out Thursday from SFO to Denver via Phoenix (ugh, in the middle of the day, too; I will be staying inside the whole time, thank Fox). Following RMFC and a few days to chill in Denver, I’ll be flying to Kansas City via DFW (ah wish I could quit you, actually no I don’t, DFW is one of my favorite airports which is good because I’m there a LOT). I’m attending MidAmericon II (WorldCon) there in KC, and then flying back to SFO via LAX (probably not enough time to grab lunch at The Encounter, sadly).

(Also, if you’re trying to get in touch with me from the 11th to the 21st, my responses may be slightly delayed due to travel, conventions, etc.)

RMFC Schedule

Hey guys! I’m delighted to be going back to RMFC this year. I won’t have a table of my own (nor will Sofawolf) but you can probably find me lurking around the FurPlanet table when I’m not at panels. At the very least I will arrange some definite signing times with those guys and I’ll tweet them once we have them.

Here are the panels I’m doing:

Write Now! — This is my popular short story panel wherein I talk about building the core of a short story and then give you half an hour to come up with/start writing yours! We’ll also generate a prompt if you don’t want to write your own, and if we have time we might let people read what they wrote. (Friday, 4-5:30 pm, Breckinridge Ballroom)

Adult Furry Writing — Rob Baird and I (and maybe some other surprise guests!) will do one of our favorite panels, wherein we talk about the lusty, sexy side of furry writing. We will of course be taking your questions. (Friday, 7-8:30  pm, Durango (presumably a room of that name and not the actual town but that is what’s listed on my schedule))

Writing With Technology — Rob and I will be doing this one as well, a look into the tools available to make our writing easier today, or more complicated if that’s what you want. We’ll talk about word processing programs and mobile apps and tablets and maybe even smart pens. (Saturday, 11:30 am-12:30 pm, Crested Butte Meeting Room (that one sounds like it really would have been better for the Adult Writing panel, no?))

Kyell Gold Reading — I’ve got a Cupcake in the works and three novels in process. I’ll read from one of those (probably) and will take your questions about anything else. This is your chance to hear a bit of a story before anyone else! (Saturday, 3-4pm, Telluride Meeting Room)

So it looks like Friday and Sunday I’m pretty free during the day and will definitely have some time at the FurPlanet table then. They will (hopefully!) have stock of Black Angel and Over Time as well as all my other books.

Looking forward to seeing all you lovely people amid the great snowy (or not) mountains of Denver!