P.J. Fox's Blog, page 25

Hot and Sweaty with PJ

…in the kitchen!

We’re having some friends over for dinner tonight, so I decided to cook something nice.  Specifically, one guest couldn’t decide whether he wanted pumpkin spice cake or Nutella-frosted vanilla cake, so I made both.  And then, of course, to go with actual dinner, a person needs bread.  Or they don’t; I just so happen to love bread.  Normally, I bake my own from scratch.  I don’t like mixes and I don’t like bread machines.  But as longtime readers know, we buy our food storage from Thrive and one of the reasons we do is that we actually wish to use our food storage.  Hence, it’s worth spending the extra dollar here or there to get something your family wants to eat.  So that the phrase “food storage” doesn’t conjure up images of MRE’s.

And worse.

The time-honored maxim when it comes to food storage is, “store what you eat, eat what you store.”  You rotate your food storage–last in, last out, first in, first out, and all that jazz–by using it.  By making it part of your daily life.  Which, believe me, comes in handy when a blizzard hits and you’re snowed in.  Thrive has unveiled a few new products recently, which are aimed precisely at this “daily life” aspect of food storage.  Never one to go half measures, I decided to try out the Honey Whole Wheat Dough Mix by ordering a case of it.  But I trust my consultant, Andrea Anderson, and she said it was good.  Moreover, she made the excellent point that these mixes are versatile: you can use them to make everything from a more robust multi-grain bread to scones.  Moreover, since each batch makes exactly one sandwich loaf, you never have to worry about wasted dough–a problem that, if you bake your own bread at home with any frequency, you’ve encountered.  Most recipes make between two and six loaves, which can be tough in terms of judging how much bread your family will want to eat that week.

So, the case arrived.

I decided to try it out.

And then I decided to write about it here.

My one criticism of this product is the directions: they could be clearer.  They’re geared, fairly obviously, at people with baking experience.  That being said, the actual mix is very easy to use.  You need three things: mix, water, and dry active yeast.  Yeast has a shelf life; I keep mine in the freezer, to extend that shelf life.

The easiest way to mix bread dough is to use a 40 cup food storage container.  There are fancier ways but those are mainly for noobs.  Run the water until it gets warm, measure out the water you need (the specific amounts are on the can), and pour it in.  Then add your yeast.  Slop the container back and forth until the yeast begins to bloom and dissolve.  Then, dump in your mix.  I measure each cup individually, scooping and then sweeping the surface of the cup measure flat with a knife.  I recommend that you do the same.

Before you start doing anything, though, preheat your oven to 350 F.

Then use a spoon to mix the ingredients together.  After about a minute, your dough will look like the above: little pellet-like pieces.  That’s when it’s time to knead.  Kneading is a crucial step in making bread, because it activates the gluten.

After a minute or two, your bread dough will look like the above.  The best kneading method I know of is to push the dough down and across the length of the container with the palm of your hand.  Then form it into a ball and do the same thing over again.  As you push, work the bits of errant flour, etc into the main dough ball.

Eventually, your dough will start to get sticky, and develop much more plasticity.  This is the sign that your gluten is doing what it’s supposed to.  Once you’ve kneaded the bread sufficiently (about five minutes should do it), form it into a ball and leave it alone to rise, about 40 minutes.  Place the lid over the container but do not shut it.  You want air to still be circulating.

Now, ignoring the dough, I moved on to other things (pictures will follow).  But, through the magic of the internet, we can skip ahead to the next step.  Your dough is ready to be formed into a loaf when it’s about doubled in size.

Then you form it into a loaf, handling it as little as possible, and place it into a (well greased) 9 x 5 loaf pan.  Mine is Le Creuset.  I recommend it highly.  High quality bakeware does make a difference.  Not necessarily expensive; most of the bells and whistles on offer don’t really do anything or, at least, not anything good.

Now wait approximately one hour, until your dough has risen to the point where its cresting the top of the pan.

Then, pop that sucker in the oven for 30 minutes if you have an electric oven, 40 if you have a gas oven.

And that, ladies and gents, is what comes out.

It’s very good.  Far superior to other bread mixes I’ve tried, which are quite bad.  Is it as good as making from-scratch bread?  For my money, no.  But then again, I’m a baking purist.  This is certainly a thousand times better than any store bought sandwich loaf you’ll ever see.  The ingredients are much higher quality and, of course, you’re going to notice a taste difference from the lack of chemical leaveners.  My family can be picky, and they love it.  My own opinion is that the convenience factor alone makes this a must-have in your kitchen.

Final score: 9.5 out of 10.

Would we buy this again?  Yes.

PS: I also baked…

Mail Bag #4: On The Origins of Characters, and Just Where’s Morven, Anyway?

More questions from fans!  I love questions, about me and especially about my characters.  Everyone loves questions, don’t they?  So if there’s something you want to know…please ask!  Either via email (pjfoxwrites@gmail.com, I accept both fan mail and hate mail), or in the comments on this post.

Are Naomi and Rowena based on real people?

One might conclude, from my books–particularly from The House of Light and Shadow series–that I have a very strange relationship with my siblings.  And maybe I do; we’re kind of a strange family.  But in truth, we get along great.  I know a lot about the trials of having a younger sister, especially one who feels competitive with you; but in my case, my sister is my best friend.  Which doesn’t mean we always get along but does mean that, even when we don’t, nothing really changes.  Unlike Rowena and Isla, my sister and I are able to keep things in perspective!

What transitioned me from writing part time to writing full time was the onset of a serious illness; I wrote The Price of Desire while bedridden.  Then I wrote A Dictionary of Fools and then, after finishing DOF, I began The Demon of Darkling Reach.  During that time, I discovered a few things about human nature that, at the time, I didn’t want to.  But by the time I’d started TDODR, I think I’d gained some perspective and, thus, a slightly more philosophical approach.  I discovered, you see, that when you hit that proverbial “bump in the road,” you really do find out who your friends are.  And a surprising number of people don’t want to be friends with someone who’s down and out–in any respect.

I lost most of my then-friends, including a couple of people who, to be honest, I really thought were real friends.  People I’d supported through their own tough times.  Naomi, the character I created first, reflects in her actions much of the small-mindedness I experienced at the hands of a certain person.  A person who was jealous of the attention (she perceived) I was receiving because I was sick.  Because, really, nothing says “attention whore” like being confined to a hospital bed for a few months.  And while some of those same feelings worked themselves into the creation of Rowena, by then I’d begun to reflect on my experiences as past experiences rather than ongoing ones.  And I’ll say, with both characters, that they are–like all of us–evolving!

At some point (and I talk about this in I Look Like This Because…) characters take on a life of their own.  They become real.  Regardless of who they’re based on, whether it’s one person or a whole host of different people, or maybe just the germ of an idea in your head or an experience you’ve had, they individuate from that inspiration and become–simply–them.  They, like us, are more than the sum of their parts and transcend such simple explanations as origin.  Perhaps an analog would be nature versus nurture; whatever a character’s “DNA,” their origins don’t decide their fate.

So, you see, it’s really never a one to one comparison.  And sometimes, as an author, you truthfully don’t know where your characters come from!  You might imagine a certain person, in something that character does or says, but only in the beginning.  After awhile, they’re just…them.

Where is Morven?

Morven is a name that appears, both as a given and a place name, in Scottish, Celtic, and Gaelic mythologies.  It means “by the sea.”  Although, depending on who one asks, there are alternate meanings as well.  The Morven of The Black Prince Trilogy is based on England.  Or, rather, England as it existed during the high middle ages.  Which…wasn’t a great deal like the place people tend to picture in their minds.

The English language as we know it today is a modern language; before Alfred of Wessex, England was a patchwork of different kingdoms, many of which shared nothing in terms of either language or culture.  Someone from Cornwall wouldn’t necessarily understand someone from Devon, or even his neighbor in the next village if he spoke Breton and his neighbor spoke Cumbric or Gallo.  And even in the high middle ages, post-Conquest, three distinct languages were still spoken: Middle English, Anglo-Norman (or, as its sometimes, known, Medieval French), and Latin.  There were still regional variations, though, and words were–as they are today–co-opted from different languages.  Often local dialects.  So the question of, what did people in the high middle ages sound like is a difficult one.

Much of what seems like “modern” slang, i.e. when Hart tells his companions to go fuck themselves, is actually taken straight from the Latin.  Hart is a soldier, and he swears like one.  I got my inspiration for many of his more colorful phrases from rubbings I did on graffiti carved into various public buildings in Rome.

People didn’t actually nonce around going “thee” and “thou.”  What, to our modern ears sounds like stilted and “old fashioned” phrasing is actually a heritage of much later, reflecting the birth of modern English rather than anything spoken in the middle ages–and is, too, a heritage of the language’s Germanic ancestry.  “Thou doth go” is the equivalent of “you’re going,” but the progressive tense hadn’t yet been introduced.

It’s important to remember, too, that people sounded as modern to themselves, then, as we do to our own ears.

In picking the name Morven, I wanted to choose a name that reflected this mixed heritage.  Part of what makes England’s history so fascinating is its numerous cultures and, over time, how those cultures interacted–sometimes coalescing and sometimes splitting apart.  The capital of Morven is based fairly directly on London, especially when it comes to the sanitation!  Now, as to the rest of Morven’s geography…

Isla is really meant to be in the middle of nowhere and Ewesdale, keeping in mind that I’ve taken certain liberties because this is fantasy, is meant to be in Shropshire.  Shropshire was a fairly unlucky place where nothing happened for most of the middle ages, except it was frequently overrun by Danes.  The Danish tribes contributed a great deal to my imagining of the frightening–and mysterious–people of the north.  The Northern religion takes much, too, from Danish practices of the time (and earlier).

There’s a tendency to think of the places in our past as homogenous when, really, they weren’t.  To the medieval mind, too, there was civilization and then there was the sticks.  Isla’s lack of experience with the issues plaguing the capital reflects the fact that she grew up in a place where overpopulation hadn’t yet led to the explosion of public works-related concerns with which cities–then and now–coped.

Some people were drilling artesian wells while others saw them solving equations and made the sign against evil.

Tristan is from–the closest analog would be Northumbria.  I’ve changed the geography of the region somewhat, separating the border between Morven and “beyond” with a massive inland lake.  That is, of course, not a feature of the real Northumbria.  The so-called “Northern Tribes”–the homogeneity assigned to them by the Southron contingent reflecting their ignorance–are based primarily on the tribes of Frisia, Anglia and Jutland.  Many of whom did migrate to the British Isles.  Some with more success than others.

Northumbria has a long and storied history as a kingdom within a kingdom, which for much of that history was more involved with Denmark than England.  Created from the unification of two separate kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira, by King Aethelfrith of Bernicia in 654, it soon became a force to be reckoned with.  Edwin, who ultimately succeeded the line, was widely regarded as the most powerful king in England (which, recall, was not yet a unified country) by 627.  Much later, William the Conqueror recognized Northumbrian independence in exchange for Northumbria’s pledge to protect the rest of England from the dread threat in the north–the Scots.

Although Darkling Reach is entirely my own creation, I was inspired by this history in creating it; as I’m sure other authors have been.  Tristan, however, is a much stronger ruler than the later Northumbrian kings, and far more willing to seek peace with the South.  Tristan’s desire to see Morven unified reflects a struggle that has, to one extent or another, dominated England’s history.  His brother, Piers, is inspired by another monarch of whom you might have heard: King Stephen, whose decades-long war against the Empress Maud came to be known as The Anarchy.  “God,” as one cleric noted in his journal at the time, “has deserted us.”

The succession crisis and the complete and utter breakdown of law and order that followed had always fascinated me; when I was first conceiving the larger world in which I’d place Isla’s story I asked myself, what must that have been like?  What else could have happened next?  The Demon of Darkling Reach begins at that jumping off point, as the country is reinventing itself.

“I liked you calling the Black Prince Trilogy a romance novel for somebody who’d rather have an affair with Dracula than Edward Cullen!”

Thank you!

No, I’m Not From Scarborough

…And now that I’ve answered your question, why write a post on it?

People, interestingly, tend to make one of two assumptions: that I’m from the places I write about, or that I’ve never visited them.  That, to the extent that my conception of the place differs from theirs, I’m ignorant.  Which may very well be true.  I’d add, however, that when it comes to many of the overseas locations I’ve used, I’m constrained by perspective.  In other words, by being an American and a young American.  There are things I only “remember” from books.  I was alive when the USSR was still a thing, but was more interested in Care Bears.  I don’t really remember life without internet, and I’ve always typed my homework assignments.  In a way, it’s easier for me to relate to medieval history than it is to modern history.  So much has changed in such a short amount of time–and it’s not exactly a suave topic to address with people.  “Hey, you’re old enough to remember this, tell me about it” comes across as an attack.  “Hey, you’re old!  I’m not old!”

Which, of course, I think most millennials are actually pretty acutely aware of their limitations in this regard and would like to remedy them…if anyone wanted to talk!  But when it comes to intergenerational changes, the divide is in some ways more acutely felt because we’re all here now.  If someone were, say, magicked here from the middle ages, there would be no doubt: the grouping of concepts you understand to, collectively, mean “the world” is foreign.

I never knew a time when I wasn’t distracted, to some degree, by cat videos.  I often feel like Boomers want me to apologize for that.  As though it were something within my control.  To lecture me about how I “lack perspective” without actually sharing theirs.  The joke of my generation is that we were born before the internet–or, at least, before the internet went mainstream.  Technology has changed so much in our lifetimes that we don’t really see change as a watershed event.  Change is simply a fact of life.  Maybe we, collectively, as millennials are more willing to poke fun of ourselves as dinosaurs mucking around in the tar pits because change, to us, doesn’t make us feel old.  Whereas to many older people, “you’ve survived change” feels like an accusation.

I’m not from Scarborough, although I have spent time there.  And not on the internet.  There’s another, often quite outspoken, assumption that “kids these days” only “visit” places online and think Wikipedia substitutes for real research.  That because many of us think that schools devoting a third of their yearly curriculum to teaching cursive is a waste of time, we don’t appreciate the value of education.  Whereas, honestly, to me, emphasizing cursive as the key to unlocking a successful future is equivalent in use to classes on the four humors and finding the philosopher’s stone.

Yes, I pored over firsthand accounts of life at Andersonville to write The Prisoner and no, I didn’t use the Dewey decimal system to find them.  I used my library’s computer system.  Does that make my research any less valid?

If you equate “valuing the Dewey decimal system over Google” with “appreciating knowledge,” I guess so.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to set my stories elsewhere.  Because then there’s more focus on the story and less focus on the age, and overall perspective of the person writing it.  Belle, the protagonist of The Prince’s Slave, is a few years younger than I am but she–of necessity–sees the world through my eyes.

It’s easier when you’re writing medieval history.  Not everyone might be into cheese-making, but at least no one feels insulted by the description making them feel old.  And I did spend a great deal of time in actual castles, when I was studying for my degree.  I don’t think anything replaces climbing a spiral staircase, for getting a feel for what it was like.  Because, as I’ve pointed out before in my posts on research, you can’t know what you don’t know–until you study everything.  And one thing you can’t really imagine, unless and until you experience it, is the vast difference in scale.  Yes, some things were larger; but most were so much smaller.

I’m from the American Southwest, and thus have spent a fair amount of time there.  But I’ve spent more of my life traveling: across America and to other countries.  First because I was the Great Unwanted and then, second, because I was in school and excited to explore–this time, on my own terms.  I’m still only an American, one with no particular aptitude for languages.  I’m proud of being an American, and while I’m certainly aware of my limited perspective I’m also not apologetic about it.  As educated as any of us become, we all hopefully retain our own point of view.  This is mine.

Will I write a book set out west?  Maybe some day.  Although people have their own expectations of what that’s supposed to be like and I’d probably only disappoint them.

On Buffoonery

There’s a reason I’m filing this under “marketing.”

Read on.

So apparently it’s a thing to troll popular Mormon-themed hashtags, in order to find people to preach to about the supposed evils of the church.  Just like it’s a thing to troll the #YesAllWomen hashtag in order to explain the (again, supposed) evils of feminism.  Ironically, while there are legitimate criticisms of each, neither are actually tackled in these “discussions.”  Random people, who never bother to a) introduce themselves, b) ask who you are, or c) ask any questions about what you might already believe, choose to d) spam you with the information they deem relevant.  Which is almost always a semi-literate spiel about why they’re huge victims.

Which, also ironically, is often what people do to (attempt to) sell books.

But we’ll get to that.

When you’re a missionary, you spend more time listening than you do talking.  Which is a good program for getting converts but it’s also just a good program, in general.  Because the goal really actually isn’t to “get converts,” willy-nilly, but to match people, as people, with what they actually need.  Respecting the fact that we’re all individuals, and have different needs.  People come to the same conclusion–whether it’s that they want to fall in love, or read a certain book, or indeed join a specific church–for a variety of different reasons, having traveled down a variety of different paths.  Abandoning the “selling” mentality, to get anywhere with someone, you need to actually want to get to know them.  Not in order to sell them something, or to convince them of the rightness of your particular point of view, but because you care about them.  If knowing them isn’t sufficient reward, in and of itself…what?  You think people can’t tell?

I can certainly tell, when people are only communicating with me in furtherance of some agenda.  Usually an entirely self-focused one.  “Agree with me.  Look to me as a leader.  Believe my claims.  Give me your money.”

And that’s where the buffoonery comes in.  “This person showed such little recognition of me as an individual, and such a complete lack of interest in my individual point of view, that I just had to agree with them” said no one, ever.  If you’re not interested enough in me to even spend ten seconds getting to know me–or 140 characters on Twitter, then what’s in it for me to listen to you?  How have you proved yourself to me, exactly?

The fact that you think I’m wrong is only going to work on me if I have cripplingly low self esteem.  In which case you’re a predator, trying to cull the herd, and I should be even less interested.  People who have worth to contribute to the world, regardless of their religious leanings, build other people up.  They don’t prey on their weaknesses; they don’t pull them down.  Anyone who does that, in the interests of “educating” others about their supposed wrongs, is especially to be avoided.

As survivors of abuse can attest, “educating” the victim about how horrible she (or he) is…old hat doesn’t begin to cover it.

Unsurprisingly, I’m likely to conclude that someone who treats others this way is a “victim” only of his own karma.

There are a great many reasons that people leave the Mormon Church.  I’m not attempting to speak for every former member, here.  My experiences with ex-Mormons haven’t been entirely positive, mainly because they tend to want to tell me what’s wrong with everything I believe and me for believing it and then accuse me of being intolerant when I (politely) express reservations.  I’m not looking to tell them–or anybody–how to live their lives.  There’s more than one path to righteousness, and calling yourself one thing or another is no guarantee of anything.  Conduct matters more than labels.  But nor does setting boundaries, and expecting others to respect those boundaries, make me intolerant.  We’re all entitled to boundaries.

Generally, I’m a big fan of the golden rule.  Many people, in coming up to me and telling me, without so much as a “how do you do,” how much I suck or my religion sucks are horrified that I don’t instantly agree with them.  But imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and I were approaching strangers to tell them how horrible they were?  Asking other people to treat you with the same dignity that they demand for themselves isn’t close-mindedness, and it isn’t intolerance.

I’m happy to discuss with anyone, their issues with, or concerns about, the church.  But nor do I hold myself out as a punching bag.  No one should be made a focus for someone else’s rage, disappointment, or unmet expectations.  That’s no different, really, than having been hurt in love and so using that experience as a justification for hurting the next person in your life.  That isn’t karma.  You can’t “pay it forward” like that.  Your second lover isn’t responsible for the flaws–real or imagined–of your first, and flexing your anger muscles at them doesn’t “prove” anything about what you suffered except that you refused to learn anything positive from it and, instead, let it turn you into a jerk.

If you want me to respect you, and listen to your opinion, regardless of your point of view, then prove to me that you’re someone I should listen to: by proving, through word and deed, that you’re a decent human being.

The best way to market yourself is to not need marketing in the first place.  Be someone whom other people naturally want to be around, no spin required.  You shouldn’t have to tell people what to think of you–and it doesn’t work, anyway.  They’ll decide for themselves, based on how you treat them, how they observe you treating others, and on how you treat yourself.

Which is why telling people “buy my book” doesn’t work.  “I don’t know you, I don’t care who you are, but give me money” isn’t a great marketing tactic.  Any decent marketing strategy revolves around answering that all-important question: what’s in it for the other guy?  Which is part of why having a good website is so important.  Half-assing your actual writing, whether in your book or on your website, is the book marketing equivalent of yelling at someone about tapirs without bothering to ask their name first.

Get to know your audience.  First, so you know who they are and second, so you can give them what they want.  If you have a true artistic vision and you treat that vision with integrity then yes, you’re going to write what you want.  Whatever’s in your heart to write.  But if you want to make money doing that, and I personally think getting people to pay you for doing something you’d be doing anyway is the best thing ever, then you have to actually sell your books.  And selling your books means connecting them to the people who actually want to buy them.  Who were already out scouring the shelves for a book exactly like yours in the first place.

Phrases like “un-putdownable” apply equally well to cookbooks, true crime books, and romance novels.  If you like those sorts of things.  What’s “un-putdownable” to one person might not be to the next.  A far better means of advertising your book is simply to explain what it’s about.  For example, I’ve told people, The Demon of Darkling Reach is a romance for people who’d rather have an affair with Dracula than Edward Cullen.  So that either floats your boat, or it doesn’t.  But for people who want less gore and more existential angst, this book is most certainly not “un-putdownable.”

In closing: you need to offer people more than desperate (or even vaguely threatening) pleas of “you need me,” in order to succeed with them.

At anything.

The New Golden Age of Books

pjfoxwrites:

I agree; this IS the golden age!

Originally posted on Evil Toad Press:

At a panel called “Will Amazon Lead Us to the Golden Age of Books?”, Amazon supporter and self-publishing icon, concluded his talk by declaring a new age for the publishing world:

“Right now is a golden age,” he said. “Publishing has never been better.”

The panel was an attempt to discuss, in a public setting, the impact of Amazon on the publishing industry, and featured speakers from legacy publishing, a reporter/self-publisher, and an independent bookstore owner in addition to Mr. Howey.

The bookseller predictably expressed criticism of Amazon, but also noted that chains like Barnes & Noble were causing independent bookstores to close long before Amazon came along.

While there seemed to be general agreement on the fact that Amazon’s size, online platform, and consequent ability to underprice their products makes them a threat to brick and mortar stores, Mr. Howey pointed out that, perhaps counter-intuitively, it’s the large…

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Your Questions About The Prince’s Slave

You can find teasers, of varying raciness, here as well as a few “what’s this about anyway?”-type posts.

The Prince’s Slave is an erotic retelling of Beauty and the Beast that also has a few real world points to make.  It’s not another paean to oversized, pulsing wallets but if you’re into that, then you’ll like this, too.  There’s intrigue, romance, plenty of sex and, for those who are wondering, it’s quite a bit more fast-paced than my other books.  It’s also set in the present day.  No more lectures on medieval history!  My plan is to get that out of my system with The Black Prince and after that, perhaps write one or two more books set in the middle ages.  But not for awhile; I have other projects in mind.

Indeed, I have my next seven or so books planned out.  No clue how long all that is going to take me–and yes, I will finish The Black Prince Trilogy before moving on to something else.  I actually started what would become The Prince’s Slave after finishing The Demon of Darkling Reach and writing, oh, about the first twenty or so thousand words of The White Queen.  At which point I realized that I profoundly needed a break, and to work on something else.  So I wrote about sixty or seventy thousand words of The Prince’s Slave, after which point I wrote I Look Like This Because I’m A Writer, before returning to The White Queen.  I’d already completely finished the manuscript for A Dictionary of Fools before I even started The Demon of Darkling Reach, although that’s not being published until next month.

As a writer, you make certain decisions about what’s most important to publish, and in what order.  Which is an entirely separate process from what to write.  The first is a business decision; the second, a creative one.  Yes, one does need to pay attention to one’s fans; but, at the same time, one of the reasons I’m able to keep up the writing volume I am is that I make sure to always work on something that inspires me.

As I (finally) begin to turn my writing attention toward The Black Prince, which I anticipate beginning in the weeks between now and Thanksgiving, I’m beginning to think that there’s so much going on in the last book that it may be divided into two parts…

But don’t worry: both of them will be released at the same time!

Teaser For The Prince’s Slave

I’m incredibly happy to report that, this afternoon, I finished writing The Prince’s Slave.  All three parts!  Which will, some time in the near future, be released simultaneously.  This story represents a departure for me, in some respects, and I have to admit that so far I’m very, very pleased with how it’s coming out.  I really think current fans will like it, as well as new.  Below, please find the first chapter.  Let me know what you think!

ONE

What saved her from being birdlike was the sense about her, an almost ineffable aura that clung to even her smallest movements: grounded, almost ponderous as she sat in her chair and surveyed the room. She didn’t slouch, but she was relaxed; she’d rested her back against the uncomfortable wood and her arm along the back of the chair next to her. In front of her was a cheap green folder filled with articles she’d printed at the library.

Incongruous, in a nightclub.

Belle had been named for the selfsame character in Beauty and the Beast. Not even the fairy tale; the Disney classic that had been a classic for some time when she was born. The film had been a brainchild of her mother’s era, and Donna Wainwright had been determined to pass along the sense of adventure and sheer fantasy—escapism—that the heroine’s journey had given her. She wanted, she’d told her highly serious child, for Belle to have an exciting life. And Belle had excelled at school, and in ballet, but so far Belle had not had an exciting life. Unless excitement could be measured in grades and scores. Belle had, at twenty years of age, done little except study.

She’d approached ballet as she approached everything else: with intent. And she was as graceful as the wind bending the willows. Talented enough for Juilliard. Or so her teachers—and her mother—told her. Belle didn’t accept compliments easily, and tended to reject their veracity simply because they were directed at her. They embarrassed her, a girl who preferred to be invisible. Her innate desire to recede into the walls might have eventually conflicted with her chosen career path but at seventeen she’d suffered an injury that made further dance impossible. And so, always a gifted student, she’d turned to academics with the same fervor with which she’d once approached ballet.

She’d succeeded. Again. Although she’d hardly seen either success as success; ballet, because she’d been cursed with a weak knee, and academics, because they weren’t her passion. But Belle was also keenly aware that she had to make a living for herself. The best education possible—or at least the best grades possible—from the best university possible opened doors. Or so she lectured herself in the wee hours, when the papers swam on the desk before her and she was dangerously close to propping her eyes open with toothpicks because coffee had long ago lost its efficacy.

Which was how she’d come to be sitting in a nightclub in Prague.

Belle had left her prestigious Boston-area university for a study abroad program in Dresden. She was a month into a semester-long program and had so far managed to make one friend. The friend who’d brought her here, to this smoke-filled hellhole. She glanced down at her folder and then up, and out at the crowd—mostly below her, from where she sat on the balcony—without really seeing anything. Dresden had been a good choice because, as the woman had explained when she’d stopped into the study abroad office, there was no competition.

Because Dresden was part of East Germany until Germany reunified in 1990, five years before Belle was born and twenty-three years before she’d enrolled in college, Dresden hadn’t had time to build up the kind of study abroad cachet that attracted students to programs in places like London. Better students, in her mind. People who, with scarcely two decades under their belts, had more confidence than those twice their age. Belle sat in class with future presidents and present revolutionaries, people who already spent their weekends volunteering in free legal clinics and saving the whales. They lectured her confidently on how they planned to change the world; they had the answers.

Belle, herself, had no answers; only a vague sense that she was doing something wrong. She rolled out of bed and dragged herself to class in her pajamas and sat next to girls who’d somehow managed to affect perfect hair and makeup at eight in the morning. She solved differential equations and debated the causes of the French Revolution and each separate activity was interesting enough but when viewed on a longer timeline…for her, they led nowhere. It wasn’t that she saw no purpose in education for its own sake. Unlike her mother, she’d never eschewed learning about the French Revolution because what are you going to do with that. Her mother had suggested becoming a dental assistant.

Belle had had some trouble locating the university’s study abroad programs office, a surprisingly dusty corner of the campus that advertised adventure with a yellowed sign in the window. She’d picked Dresden almost at random. Nobody else wants this? Good. And some weeks later she’d been surprised, even so, when she’d gotten an email telling her that her that she’d been accepted. Starting the next semester, Belle would to be a proud student of Technische Universität Dresden. Charmingly known to all who attended as TUD. There are humanities courses, one of her professors had told her. In a tone that was meant to be encouraging. And, Belle supposed, there was running water as well.

The city described in brochures as “charming” and “off the beaten track” was an unappealing mix of buildings that looked like left-over sets from The Illusionist and the sort of concrete cubicles that had defined life under communist rule. There were also a few halfhearted attempts at modern architecture, although with no real viewpoint as far as style. She hated going to movies at the so-called Modern Cinema Building, a name that belonged in Dresden’s communist past if ever there was one, because she felt like it was going to tip over. If she never saw another oversized horror of plate glass and poured concrete, it would be too soon. She’d remarked on this fact to her rather intellectually moribund roommate, who’d just stared at her. Cubism, Belle had said patiently.

What?

And so that had been the end of that.

Belle had no particular interest in international relations, which was what she was studying, but at least she was out. Of Cambridge and Boston across the river and the bad vegetarian food and the yelling and the smells and the sense that the walls were closing in on her. Boston smelled like concrete and fumes from a thousand different outlets and even the trees in the city’s famous common didn’t seem all that green. Once, Belle had taken her lunch to a shaded spot under a tree and a squirrel had stolen her chicken nugget. It ran right up her leg, wrenched the tiny breaded patty from her fingertips and chattered at her indignantly as if to scold her for being so stupid in the first place as to eat in public.

She had, in the intervening time between that first week in Massachusetts and her eventual escape, discovered that the squirrel had been right. She’d had her food stolen from her by other squirrels, geese, small children and homeless people. She missed home, which was Scarborough, Maine.

She hadn’t wanted to go back there—the University of Maine was entirely full of people who wanted to get good jobs being dental assistants—and she’d needed to escape. So she’d picked the program most likely to accept her, and signed her name on the dotted line. Her scholarship covered it; and, indeed, she’d been one of only two other applicants from the whole school. Her advisor had offered that getting to other cities from Dresden is quite easy.

The thing was, though, that when you didn’t know what you wanted all places looked pretty much the same. There was food and there were things to do and there was a place to curl up and read a book. And there were people, and there were lines, and there were a thousand and one petty annoyances: the kind of thing you ignored when you were happy but found exceptionally grating when you were not. Belle found herself standing in line, fuming at the fact that some underpaid sales clerk had printed up a sign that said day old “bread” because whatever cut-rate high school he’d gone to had taught him that quotation marks were merely pretty little decorations that could sometimes be used for emphasis. And the fact that milk was five cents more expensive here than at the other market but when she went to the other market she had to take the scary bus with the man who barked like a dog and the prostitutes who were mean to her.

The side of Cambridge that the tourists didn’t know existed, and that her mother refused to believe existed.

The articles she’d printed out were all on ancient Sumeria. Her assignment was to write a paper either supporting or refuting the theory—championed by two men named Barry Buzan and Richard Little, who were now dead—that the interaction between various ancient Sumerian city-states in fact functioned as the first “fully fledged system of international relations.” Alternatively, she could argue that the modern concept of international relations dated to the Peace of Westphalia. She should have, she realized now, printed out something detailing policy changes in the Holy Roman Empire—which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire—between the Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of Utrecht so she’d have had something to read on the way home.

She was, rather optimistically, planning on finishing the contents of her folder at this very table.

Even though she hadn’t started yet.

She had, instead, been woolgathering. She tapped her fingers against the tabletop, which was sticky. Dresden offered a full-year program; perhaps she should inquire about staying on. Her German was improving rapidly; she might be able to transfer out of the English language program for the next semester. Then she could avoid Easter and Honey Baked Ham and her mother’s probing questions about what exactly she was going to do with a degree in international relations. She’d tried to explain that Ivy League schools didn’t offer degrees in things like Information Technology. And, even less successfully, that she wasn’t even sure she was majoring in international relations.

And she hated ham.

She sighed. The water in her glass tasted like aluminum and the lone ice cube it’d come with had melted. She opened her folder, pulled out the first of the articles, and laid it carefully down on top. Then, rooting around in her purse, she produced a highlighter and a pen.

She tried to concentrate. She really did. But the club was so loud.

It reminded her, vaguely, of a coffee house she’d frequented in Harvard Square: a place called Café Algiers. Café Algiers was part of a building that looked alright on the outside but appeared to be falling apart at the seams inside. The space that the café occupied was tall and thin, with a mezzanine level that could be accessed by a canted spiral staircase. There were decorations replete with the sort of inlay that could be found at bazaars all over the world and at Disney World. And at places that advertised things like authentic Egyptian handicrafts. Above the sandalwood and mother of pearl, most of which was imitation and produced in India, hung pressed glass lanterns in various garish colors. But the coffee was good and there was a bathroom that hardly anyone ever threw up in.

The balcony, she decided, was what reminded her of her old haunt. Nothing else looked the same. But at Café Algiers, like here, she could sit in the shadows, ignored for the most part, and peer out at the rest of the world. Nobody ever used the balcony, or so it seemed, at either place. When Belle studied at Café Algiers, she did so alone and before the oncoming rush of the nighttime crowd. She could sit and read for hours and be the only customer, a situation which suited her just fine.

Here, she’d been abandoned shortly after her friends—who couldn’t believe that she’d brought homework with her—found the table. Well, friend. Charlotte, who went to another Boston-area school and who was in a sorority and who had opinions on such issues as whether the coveted thigh gap was a tool of feminine oppression.

Belle, who still ate like a ballet dancer, had never considered the issue. She was no athlete, not now, but she ran five mornings a week and did calisthenics to strengthen her knee. Which, annoyingly, still gave out on her at the most inopportune times. She’d fallen down a flight of stairs on her way to a midterm last semester. Sometimes she had flashing images of herself as a hamster, flinging herself forward against her exercise wheel, not realizing that she wasn’t going anywhere.

She put down her highlighter. She’d read the same paragraph over five times and still had no idea what it was about. Her eyes reflected the glow of the club lights, even as she sat in shadow. It was so dark on the mezzanine level that she could barely read; the other tables were mostly empty, in stark contrast to the undulating press of bodies down below. Belle’s eyes were large for her face, a mass of planes and angles just on the edge of being beautiful. She had blue eyes, like her mother, eyes that flashed gray in some lights and almost black in others. Her shoulders and ribcage, like her face, were thin. Her wrists were thin, too, as thin as twigs and looked like they might snap just as easily but her fingers were long and graceful. And strong, from years of sculpting.

The activity that, were Belle to allow herself to admit it, was her true passion.

The activity that had been discouraged from day one by her mother and virtually everyone else as a nice hobby, but a waste of time. Michelangelo was dead, and he was the only sculptor who had ever mattered. Surely nothing she produced, a product herself of a shallow era where people fell in love with Justin Bieber and obsessed over thigh gaps, could have any value. And, as Belle had sadly noted, the sizes of most people’s dreams were measured in money. Maybe, she told herself as she sketched designs inside of flyleaves and on the backs of napkins, after she found a job. Learned to feed herself. Earned enough stability where she could pursue her dreams without shame.

If such a time ever came, whispered a voice.

Belle ignored that voice. By putting her nose to the proverbial grindstone, she’d found that she could allay fears over her future. Most of the time. She hadn’t gotten to the point of decision yet; she was doing what she was supposed to be doing right at this point in her life. Going with the flow. She was a junior in college; she still had another year and after that, there was always graduate school. Surely by then she’d have found a career that gripped her. Or, at least, one that she could bear the idea of pursuing.

Mostly, when Belle contemplated her future, she saw a black hole. Which was why she tried very hard not to do it, only letting her anxiety break through at times when there were no distractions. Like standing in line at the ill-stocked market near her home. Or now.

Gradually, she realized that her anxiety wasn’t solely due to the overwhelming feeling of quo vadis; she’d also, in the back of her mind, developed the distinct sense of being watched.

Picture Time!

My Amazon author page (finally) includes a picture.

So for those who’ve wondered about my age, or who couldn’t tell whether I was a man or a woman, this may or may not answer your questions.

Spam

Oh SPAM! Oh SPAM! Gourmet delight!

My food by day, my dreams by night.

To carve, to slice, to dice you up–

No, wait, the other kind of spam.  That poem comes to us courtesy of John Strong, by the way.  Who ends this delightful couplet with “pureed in a blender and sipped from a cup.”  Which…no thanks on that.

No, my post today reflects on others’, equally sad attempts to make (the other) spam palatable.  I reliably get between 400 and 500 new comments in my spam folder every day; this morning I woke up to 446.  Oh, how I wish they were real comments!  At least some of them, anyway.  Of the several hundred of you who visit my site everyday, most of you don’t comment.  Perhaps that’s because you are spambots.

In any case, spammers do their best to be interesting.  Occasionally I scan them; I’m always meaning to save the best ones but I never do.  This morning, the top comment in the queue (and thus the only one I really read) informed me that “you actually get a B- for hard work.”  More often than you might think, I get quite philosophical remarks: like the one (which I get quite frequently) telling me that everything is ashes in this person’s mouth and the world is going to end.  Which, considering the weather we’ve gotten this fall, I can well believe.

Part of me wants to write back and tell them about how my cat plays dead when he (feels that he hasn’t) gotten enough attention.  He’s also a Maine coon and weighs roughly the same as my toddler.  Who isn’t a small individual, either.  Lately he’s been refusing to wear pants and I wonder, is this because Donald Duck doesn’t wear pants?

Happy Halloween, everyone.  I hope it’s a good one.  Remember to answer the door in pants.

Why Isn’t The Prisoner Set in Andersonville?

My novella, The Prisoner, is one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written and in many respects represents my best writing.  It’s taken from the larger cycle of House of Light and Shadow novels, the second of which should be released in late November.  That series is set in an alternate universe, which doesn’t really answer the question: why?  Why, if the events in The Prisoner are based on real life events, would I set them in a made-up world?

The House of Light and Shadow is alternate history.  The backbone of that cycle is the politics of the British Raj, and of colonial expansion in general, as told from the Indian perspective.  More or less.  In my version, the Great Uprising turned out very differently.  As did a number of things.  But, like most alternate histories, this is about more than textbooks.  It’s my take on what could have happened.  What might still happen.

And it’s also more.  It’s the story of a distinct culture, and of distinct people within that culture.  Much of the bare bones are borrowed from elsewhere but the story is, at heart, my own.

Those who are familiar with Andersonville, and with the American Civil War in general, will recognize much in The Prisoner.  I based Kisten’s experiences as a prisoner of war on the journals kept by a number of actual prisoners of war, and on the transcribed testimony given during subsequent war crimes tribunals.  Researching this particular story was years in coming; I’m something of a Civil War buff, myself, and have in fact hiked every campaign trail as well as visited every battle site.  I’ve spent a not insignificant portion of time in various camps, depots, and forts, taking photographs and notes and getting a general sense of what it must have been like to live there.

But a more compelling reason for leaving the politics out of it than simply the fact of my world being derived from a different history altogether is the fact that the politics obscure the very real suffering that occurred in Andersonville.  The Civil War in particular has been the subject of a great deal of revisionist history, with both sides trying to come out the hero.  Too many books on the subject attempt to either validate or demonize those in charge while completely ignoring the plight of the prisoners, themselves–a plight that existed, irrespective of political difference.  Human suffering knows no politics.

In short, I wanted people to concentrate on the story.

The research that went into producing it was about getting the human angle right.  Not the political one.  Looking at an individual’s torture through the lens of whether his government was “right” isn’t the kind of right I was–am–aiming for.  In any of my books.  And the evil here, too, is an entirely human evil: not of flags, or dispositions but of an Adversary far greater than either.  No side is immune.