Kyell Gold's Blog, page 8

Black Angel Audiobook On Sale!

We’ve got Jay Maxwell’s lovely reading of “Black Angel” available now on Audible, and coming soon on iTunes and Amazon. Here’s a link!

http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Bla...

The blog here has been languishing, and if you have been reading my newsletter, you know what I’ve been busy with. What? You haven’t? Here you go: http://bit.ly/kyellmail .

I’ve got some ideas for posts that will be hopefully coming soon, and of course I’ll be at RMFC so I’ll be posting my panel schedule soon!

Things Dogs Remind Us Of

It’s so easy to make a dog happy with just a pat and a “Good boy” or “Good girl.” People are (generally) more complicated, but it’s also easy to make people happy with a kind word.

“Love your hair!”

Just a little reminder to do this sometime today. Find something nice to say about someone and say it! You might not get the immediate gratification of a tail wagging, but it’s still a nice thing to do.

Audiobook Question

Hey, you listeners of audiobooks. Question for y’all. I’m thinking of doing an audiobook version of “Twelve Sides,” and I’ve never done a collection of stories before. One idea would be to have a narrator just read all of them. Another idea I had is that for the stories linked to certain existing books, have the narrator of those books read the stories. So Savrin would read the OOP-connected stories, Jay Maxwell would read the Dangerous Spirits story, and if I could get Rob back, he’d read the Waterways story (there is no Bridges story but I would likely read one or two of the others), and it’d be a chance for one or two narrators to come in for a shorter project than a full novel.

What do you guys think? Would switching narrators around be too jarring? Or would you rather hear the same people in the same worlds?

Furry Fandom and Thinking of Others

I’m reading this book called Improv Wisdom for a class Kit and I are taking, and it’s about applying the rules of improv to your life. One of the chapters is “take care of each other,” and talks about how improvisers always have to know what everyone else in the troupe is doing; not only that, they work best when they set up other people for success.

In my recent article for Uncanny Magazine, I compared furry fandom to a “massively multiplayer shared world in which all the players are continuously adding to that world.” Shared worlds are places which work best when the participants help each other succeed rather than just focusing on their own goals–it makes the world richer when you take into account what everyone else is doing, and the most successful shared worlds have had that element of cooperation around them.

Furry fandom places so much emphasis on creativity that I think we’re all predisposed to look outward at others. When you meet someone in the fandom, what are the first things you ask? “What’s your species? What’s your character?” And after that, “What makes you unique? What makes you YOU?” This might be something like, “I’m a carnivorous zebra,” or “I’m an artist and here’s what I draw.” But the focus is on telling each other about ourselves.

I’ve met exceptions to this, but the nature of the fandom as a fan-driven world leads us to find out more about each other and be interested in each other. That attitude carries over into other areas; you can see it in the charity donations from conventions, or the way furries reach out to help others in need (whether monetarily online or as costumed performers). Not that other groups don’t do that, of course, but in other fandoms I see them mostly reach out to others in the fandom, less often to people outside.

Anyway. Just a random Sunday thought as I’m enjoying yet another furry convention. And another thought: Why not take a moment to look outside yourself today and see if you can do something to help someone else be successful? Mom would be the obvious choice, but it could be anyone at all, friend or no, furry or no. Give it a shot and if you feel like reporting back, leave a comment.

Las Vegas and Chicago: Upcoming Travel

Hey folks! I’ll be at Elliot’s Spring Gathering in Las Vegas this weekend. Not doing anything official, but if you see me, feel free to come say hi. I’ll have my pens, so if things are quiet I can sign books.

Stories On Sale (and Soon To Be)

Monday is not so bad when it starts with a story sale.

— Kyell Gold (@KyellGold) May 2, 2016

So I got the news this morning that my submission to the upcoming anthology “Gods With Fur” was accepted. You’ll be able to get that anthology at AC this year (though I will not be there to sign it, sadly).

And Black Angel (third book in the Dangerous Spirits series) and Twelve Sides (collection of my Patreon side stories) will be up on the major e-book retailers in a day or two, barring another month-long argument about images. To that point, I’ve removed most of the explicit images from Twelve Sides because there were a lot of them. You can get all the images in the versions for sale at the furry-run stores Bad Dog Books, Rabbit Valley, and Jaffa Books, but the bigger stores have been more fussy about explicit images lately (if you don’t like that, you can complain to them).

Thanks again guys for all the support, and enjoy the new books (and the story when it comes out).

If You’d Told Me…

There are so many things in my life now that I never would have believed if someone had told me years ago. They range from the life-changing (“you’re making a living with your writing”) to the silly (“sometimes you give people money to draw you as an anthropomorphic fox having sex, and this is a thing a lot of people do, actually”), and, depending on how far back you go, to the fundamental (“you’re gay”).

I guess the lesson is that if you’re looking ahead to the future and thinking “I’ll never be able to do X,” or if someone offers you a chance to do something, but you think “that’s not really me” before you’ve even tried it…don’t shut yourself off from possibilities. It may not be true, strictly speaking, that anything can happen. But a lot more can happen in your life than you can imagine now.

Hm. Someone should write a song about that…

(This was a little too long for a tweet, so…you get a blog post.)

Best Disney/Pixar Movie?

You can guess which movie partly inspired this post, but the other part of the inspiration came from two of my favorite reviews: a commentary on the social message, and a review from a very smart author and film critic. You’ll notice a common type of comment in both of them:

“And though Zootopia doesn’t have the emotional heft of the finest of [Disney films], it has a gutsiness that’s impressive, awkward beats and all.”

“Zootopia isn’t quite as brilliant a movie as Inside Out or even Wreck-It Ralph, but it has twists are [sic] are just as clever as the ones in those movies.”

Otherwise, the reviews are fairly glowing. It’s almost as if the reviewers felt the need to correct for recency bias by saying, “Okay, I know I’ve been raving about it, but these other movies are better.” Another friend of mine said after seeing it, “I wouldn’t put it in the top three Pixar movies or even top three Disney movies.”

I haven’t really gone back and checked thoroughly, but I skimmed a few old reviews of Frozen and Tangled. Didn’t find comments like this. I found comments about how Tangled harkens back to the golden age of Disney with updated characters; I found comments about how Frozen‘s plot and characters weren’t great but Olaf was terrific. I decided to check and see what people thought the best Disney and Pixar movies were, and let me tell you, that is a rabbit hole.

There are as many lists of Pixar’s sixteen full-length movies as there are people who have seen them. The same ones generally gravitate to the top (Toy Story movies, Up, WALL-E). Disney lists vary even more. I found one list clearly by someone who grew up in the early 90s that put five of the Little Mermaid – Hunchback run of films (leaving out The Rescuers Down Under and Pocahontas) as the top five. Of all time.

Beauty and the Beast tends to find its way to the top of lots of Disney lists, of course; The Little Mermaid and The Lion King also get high regard. Some people love the old films that Disney himself helmed; some people like the recent run under Lasseter.

The point of all this is that there are so many ways to judge films that making any kind of list is at some point going to be subjective. You can say broadly that Up is a better movie than Cars, that Beauty and the Beast is better than Home on the Range. But when you get to the top stratum of Really Good Movies, you’re pretty much left relying on subjective measurements. “Doesn’t have the emotional heft” means “it didn’t affect me as much.” As I said in a previous post, Disney’s The Fox and the Hound affected me more than Beauty and the Beast–me personally. I doubt you would find a lot of people who feel the same. “Isn’t as brilliant as” means “I wasn’t as impressed with its vision.” Now, me personally, I thought Inside Out was a neat concept, but I wasn’t as impressed with the concept of that movie as maybe some other people were (maybe too many flashbacks to Herman’s Head, or maybe just not enough experience writing psychological stories, or maybe not enough experience around teen girls).

What I think these comments are also saying is that while it’s too soon to place Zootopia in the hierarchy of Disney and Pixar*, it is firmly in the conversation with the best films of those studios. You wouldn’t need a disclaimer separating it from the ones that were your favorites otherwise. But I look forward in the coming years to seeing reviews say of the new Disney/Pixar releases: “It doesn’t have the ambition/sharp writing/worldbuilding of, say, Zootopia, but…”

(* I saw one review that said “it’s the best movie Disney’s made in the last twenty years,” a clear reference to Beauty and the Beast/The Lion King, and another that said, “people saying it’s the best movie in the last twenty years need to calm down.”)

Personally, my top five Pixar movies are The Incredibles, Up, Ratatouille, Toy Story, and Toy Story 2, in some order. My favorite Disney movies of their first fifty-four are probably The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Bolt, The Fox and the Hound, and The Emperor’s New Groove, again in some order (and I don’t fool myself that four of those five are probably not making anyone else’s top ten even).

Where will Zootopia fit on that list? Well, the last film I saw in theaters more than twice was (I think) The Lion King. The last film I saw more than four times? Let’s just say there were lightsabers and a guy in a black mask involved (no, it was not Spaceballs). I’ve gone to see Zootopia so far every weekend it’s been out. Sure, a lot of this is subjective, and the fact that I’ve spent the last twenty-five or so years imagining worlds full of talking animals (most frequently foxes) has something to do with it. But so what? Every list of someone’s favorite Disney or Pixar movies is to some extent subjective. As I said, once you get up into the Really Good Movies stratum, you can make arguments for a whole bunch of the movies. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you already know a bunch of the arguments I’ve been making for the Really Good Movie Zootopia. So I’m pretty sure that the next time I make a list like the ones above, you’ll see this one on it.

Friendship vs. Romance (yes, Zootopia again)

[MINOR SPOILERS BUT COME ON, SERIOUSLY, NOT REALLY]

So the big question after Zootopia ends–well, one of the big questions–is “what kind of ‘partners’ are Nick and Judy now?” People will point to the fox’s “you know you love me” and Judy’s response and say, “They love each other! Totally romantic!” Thing is, in English anyway*, “love” is also cool between good friends who have been through a lot together. And Nick is just the kind of guy who would say, “You know you love me” in that non-romantic way.

(*I’ve been told that some translations have chosen a more romantic form of “love” for that sentence in other languages. From my friends who work in translation, I know that translators often aren’t given specific direction and have to make their own guesses from the context of the work–which, as we will see here, could go either way. So while the translations could have been directed by the studio, they could also have been just the best guess of one person who wasn’t otherwise involved in the story.)

You might think, given my penchant for writing romantic stories, that I would argue for the romantic partner sense. Or, given my penchant for writing gay foxes, that I would argue for friendship because Nick is totally gay. Before I go on from here, I want to say that whatever your headcanon is, that’s cool. I’m just going to explain mine, and how I got there, with reference to the story and the meta-story and my own preferences in storytelling.

This movie actually made me think about friendship vs. romance in animated movies. Disney has leaned heavily toward the romance side (Beauty and the Beast being the classic example). Pixar, on the other hand, has been much more friendship-based (and then there are films like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, which like Disney’s The Lion King are family-based to the extent that relationships are important to those movies). What I mean by “romance-based” and “friendship-based” is movies in which the lead characters’ relationship is a central focus of the movie.

Me, personally, I relate more strongly to friendship-based movies. Disney’s The Fox and the Hound hits me harder than any of their romances. Likewise Toy Story and its sequels, Up and Ratatouille, etc. And I was wondering why that was. I think there are two reasons.

First of all, a typical romance–a really affecting one–is not really suited to an animated movie. It focuses on the two leads learning about each other, learning how they fit into each other’s lives, finding out their secrets, and realizing that they are each more important to the other than anything else, that they would be willing to sacrifice any other part of their lives for that relationship. That doesn’t play too well with kids (Beauty and the Beast is a truer romance, and even in that one the “getting to know you” part is montaged; Lady and the Tramp might be the other best example of a successful Disney romance). Frankly, if you’re not someone already disposed to want a romantic story, it doesn’t play that well with adults either. Romances these days most often take the form of romantic comedies, where people bumble about and laugh at themselves and overcome some silly misunderstanding to realize that the person they laid their eyes on in act 1 is the one they’re supposed to spend the rest of their lives with. Even in Groundhog Day, one of the more successful romances I’ve seen many times, there’s no real moment where Phil sees something in Rita that makes him want to go out with her. She’s just the woman he knows best, and he decides to make himself a better person so she’ll fall in love with him. But why is he in love with her? Because…she’s there.

So it’s really hard to do a romance well, especially in an animated movie where you need to have an action scene or a song every ten minutes so the kids don’t get bored. That’s reason one**.

(**I should also add that I may be biased against romances because so many of them are straight. I don’t think that’s the case; I’ve seen bad gay romances that left me cold as well. But it bears mentioning.)

Friendship-based movies have a lot of those same elements, minus the lifetime commitment part. And here Hollywood is on firmer ground. The story of two mismatched people learning to be friends is one we’ve all seen and loved some variation of. Midnight Run. 48 Hours (possibly one of the truest precursors to Zootopia). Heck, one of the major subplots of Star Wars is the friendship between Luke and Han–tell me you don’t get a little emotional when Han swoops in to save Luke during the Death Star run. Even in this century: The Avengers is all about friendships and trust. Mad Max: Fury Road likewise.

So reason two, and I think the stronger reason for me, is that movies that teach us how to reach out and be friends are more broadly applicable to our lives. I mean, you might have three or four serious romantic relationships in your life, on average (web searches turn up wildly varying results, but this seems to be the most common one). But you can find a good friend anywhere, at any time, and that includes your romantic partner as well. The sacrifices friends make for each other aren’t motivated by sex or family or any obligation other than the trust they’ve put in each other, and a friend can be literally anyone.

That bond between two friends is all the more special because they have no other reason to be together. They’re not the prince and princess; they’re not the only two foxes in Sherwood Forest; they’re just a couple people who learned they can trust and rely on each other. That’s pretty cool in my book. I’d also like to see more examples of friendships between men and women (or male foxes and female rabbits) that don’t veer into romance, if only to provide examples in pop culture for those kind of friendships. EVERY TIME A MALE AND FEMALE CHARACTER GET CLOSE, THEY DON’T HAVE TO KISS.

The story of Zootopia feels more like “the beginning of a beautiful friendship” to me. There’s no room for the kind of sharing that a romance would require, and any romance wouldn’t be earned by the story. That’s not to say that you can’t imagine them getting closer after the movie ends, maybe dating, maybe getting married (one of my friends said “I’d like to see them try dating and have it not work out, but they remain friends”). For me, though, I like the idea that the friendship is enough for both of them, that they don’t need romance from each other too.

Plus, I want to see a story where each of them has problems with the person the other one is dating***.

(*** This is not to say that I’m not interested in how Zootopia views interspecies romance. It appears to be okay for same-sex couples (the Oryx-Antlersons, and yes, they are different species with the same hyphenated last name; married is about 100x more likely than any convoluted permutation of “step-brothers who for some reason kept their parents’ hyphenated last names and also for some reason live together as adults”), probably because they aren’t expected to have kids/cubs/kits/fawns anyway. But Nick and Judy have already handled species prejudice. They don’t have to tackle every problem in Zootopia. Besides, if Judy’s going to date a fox, Finnick is more her size...)

Over Time Hits 1K

At Fuzzwolf’s request, I did a few calculations with his numbers, the e-book ones I have, and numbers Brer helpfully supplied from Sofawolf, and figured out that Over Time has sold about 470 print copies and over 530 e-book copies, meaning that in just two months (about; three if you want to count pre-orders going to the beginning of January), it’s sold a thousand copies.

That’s, um. Remarkable. Thank you guys, everyone who picked up one (or more). I’m always so pleased when a book reaches fans, but it’s also nice to have these countable milestones come up earlier and earlier. I want to hug you all but a thousand hugs would take a long time and I have more books to write.

Oh, and I guess now I have to get to work on a bonus story. So take some virtual hugs instead: *hugs!*