ARCs for The Skybound Sea have been produced!

We will be running a contest for them, soon!  Do you like writing?  Do you like drawing?  Can you make a funny face?  These are the skills that I will be testing people for to determine their worthiness for these coveted pieces of construction.

Are you a blogger or reviewer that would like an ARC of The Skybound Sea for review?

Shoot me an email and I’ll see what I can do!  I can probably only swing US reviewers right now, though, but my British bros will get their benevolence, I swear.

Phoenix Comicon 2012 is coming and I will be attending!

If you don’t come and visit me, I will kill this kitten.

My birthday is this Friday, May 11th!

If you don’t give me birthday wishes, I will kill this puppy.

I am going to play Diablo 3 soon!

If it’s not good, I will kill this manatee.

Protip: I will probably kill the manatee, anyway.

The manatee is a bullshit animal and I hate them.

Dear Mr. Sykes,

I am a rookie Fantasy author from Arizona and am just about to complete my first novel in my planned series.

Considering that not to long ago you to were an unpublished fantasy author who lived in Arizona i was wondering if you would care to explain how you ended up getting ”Tome of the Undergates” published and any other advice you might like to give.

I would greatly appreciate any help you could give me. Becoming a writer has been a dream of mine for a long time and now i’m ready to put my stories out there.

I’d be delighted to give you advice, my friend!  And truthfully, I’d answer these kind of questions more often if it weren’t so darned hard to do so.  See, asking “how do you write,” “how did you get published,” “how do you make it big in this crazy world of publishing” is a little like asking “how should I go through puberty?”  It’s a very strange question to hear and one is never quite certain how to answer it, because, like puberty, getting one’s written word published is a different experience for everyone and to most of us, it’s a whirlwind blur of memories great and terrible that we can’t really recollect but we’re sure we got lucky at least once during.

But, that we may both be more helpful and put this terrible analogy to rest, I’d like to provide some actual answers that you can probably use.  These are the base answers, the ones that you should always return to, for they are the only ones that are provably correct and common to all published authors.

1. Write.

In fact, that’s basically the only way to get published.  At a glance, that might seem just as unhelpful as my previous allegory, but I think it’s probably the last thing on anybody’s mind when it comes to getting published.  I suspect there are a myriad of theories flying around out there as to how it happens: connections, inside bribes, pacts with Satan, what have you (connections are nice, bribes are rare and pacts with Satan are done purely for one’s own pleasure, but they’re not necessary to getting published).  But it’s always going to come down to that.

The best way to get published is to write a story that you love.  If you can write a story that you love that other people also love, that’s fantastic, but it’s also out of your control.  If you can write a story that you love that is also excellent, that’s much better, but that comes with time and practice.  Popularity is something that will come to you, in time.  Craft is something that you will learn with practice (and sometimes many rejections).  Joy cannot be learned.  Joy cannot be trained. But joy is essential to every book and when it’s lacking, it’s obvious to everyone.  Reader, publisher, writer; to anyone, there is no such thing as a good book that is joyless.

By “joy,” I don’t necessarily mean that you need to have buttercups and primroses and leprechauns making out on a stump (if you do, you might enrage some political groups and that would be good publicity; keep it in mind).  But you do have to love what you’re writing, even if you’re writing a bunch of bastards figuring out the best way to hawk a stolen kidney.  When a writer has no love for what he’s doing, when it’s obvious he’s just going through the motions, it’s obvious.  And it’s depressing.  And nobody wants to read it or publish it.

Don’t go through the motions at all, if you can help it.  And certainly don’t go through it before you have to.  Don’t worry about who will love your book, if you’re cornering the 16-year-old unwed Hawaiian mother demographic, if your book provides enough appeal for your average subway worker.  Write what you love and the audience will love it, too.

2. Every Problem You Have Will be Solved by Writing.

Writer’s blocks are overcome by writing.  Writing forces the muse to return to you.  Persistence begets improvement, inevitably.  Every wall can be broken down, given enough headbutts.

When you are rejected by publishers, you should immediately get back to considering what you can do better and then writing it.  When you are rejected by critics, you should immediately weigh their criticism and then go back to writing.  If you are rejected by readers, you should swallow back shame and start again on the next story.

Your first, last, immediate and only response to troubles about writing should be to go back and write some more.  You can’t help but get better at it as you go and you can’t get better if you don’t keep doing it.

Sometimes, it will most definitely feel like trying to climb Everest with a stepladder.  Sometimes, it will feel like fighting a group of kindergarteners.  The response is always the same.

3. Writing is Work.

Work is hard.  Sometimes you don’t want to do it.  You do it, anyway.

These are the only rules there are to getting published.  Anything else is equal parts circumstance and opportunity.  Basically, the best way to get published is to write something that people would want to publish.  Which means writing something.  Which means writing something that you love.  Which means writing something that you love, all the time, even if you don’t feel like it and it’s exhausting and stressful.

This may seem useless to you, of course.  This may seem like saying the best way to be recruited into the Major Leagues of Baseball (do they have leagues?  Or is back to regiments?) is to be good at baseball.  Well, yeah.  How do you get good at baseball?  You do it a lot.

The only bad news I have for you is this.  If this post struck you as helpful, as eye-opening, as inspiring, as earth-shattering, that’s not the best place to be.  That is, if you’re just now realizing that you need to write to be a writer, that’s…well, get to it, anyway.

The good news is that if you found this post to be unhelpful, that if you already knew all of this, that if you’re glaring angrily at your computer screen and saying “well, duh!”  Congratulations!  You’re well on your way!

How will it go for you from there?  I have no clue.  You just keep going and get a little better at it each day until you finally get to a point where you’re happy enough to try.

Like puberty.

If I was, I’d probably have a name like Melinda.  A powerful name from parents who knew that I would know hardship in my time and wanted to give me a name that could withstand it.  I would play soccer in high school and later on weekends.  I would pursue an archaeological degree before realizing that I yearned for the structure and rigidity of accountancy.  My wedding would be the moment that changed my life forever, for I would stand at the altar on the happiest day of my life, look back on the time my parents brought home strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla and realize that was the happiest day of my life and this, the day of my wedding, was a mediocre affair that would eventually culminate in the moment I found my spouse dead on the floor twenty years of joylessness later and my first thought would be: “Oh dear.  And I was supposed to play soccer today.”

If I were a woman.

But I am not.

And I cannot speak for women.

Or for men.

But I can speak to women.  And to men.  And fellas, stuff like this has got to stop.

Before I go further, I’ll cop to a few things: I didn’t read the whole thread and I don’t really have a lot of intention of doing so.  As such, I don’t plan on really quoting people or throwing out examples or going word by word.  Really, the title alone is something I want to focus on, because it’s the title alone that says something that I feel we should address.

I get a few emails every month or so from people asking advice for writing.  I’m happy to offer it, though I find that the tips I give out seem so pedestrian: write frequently, write often, write all the time.  These are usually enough to cover all the basics.  But now, I feel like we should probably go over a piece of advice that should be like those aforementioned tidbits: so basic that it’s unsatisfying to say it, because it should be common knowledge.

And that piece of advice is this.

Women are people.  Not unicorns.

If you take any interest in publishing at all, you probably know that the majority of readers are women.  This is a statistic.  By itself, it doesn’t mean too much beyond what it says.  Yet somehow, this has been translated in some sects into mystical, cryptic riddles that you find carved in the walls of ancient tombs of lich lords.

Who are these “wo-men?”  Where did they come from?  When did they start reading stuff that didn’t involve vampires?  And, most important of all, how do we, as writers, corner and tame this all-powerful “female demographic” from which they all emerge into the night?

As I said, I’m not a woman.  It’s possible that women do vote in one overwhelming voice.  It’s possible that a lot of them do like reading novels featuring vampires (as it’s possible that a lot of dudes like reading books featuring dark elf rebels with swords).  It’s also possible that I’m totally wrong when I say this, but it’s been my experience that seizing the attention of female readers is a lot like seizing the attention of male readers, in that it’s best done by writing a good story.

I could be wrong about that.  I’m not a woman.

But I am a man.  And I’m also a nerd.  And I’ve seen this sort of strange half-reverential, half-terrified attitude towards girls since high school.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t know a lot about girls at that age, either.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that there was a time when I, too, thought that there were certain ways you could catch a woman’s interest beyond just being yourself and seeing if she liked you.  When you’re young and alone, you sometimes really want to believe that there is a manual for how to get a girlfriend.  Sometimes you act like there is.  And sometimes you just don’t let go and that’s where we get notions like “friendzoning” and “girls only like guys who treat them like crap” and “why don’t they like nice guys like me?”

We ain’t gonna get too much into those notions.  They aren’t true, of course, but that’s something every guy needs to find out for himself.

What we are going to get into is the fact that they aren’t true for publishing, either.  You can probably point to something like the sales of Laurell K. Hamilton’s books and say: “See?  It’s obvious that women like sex!”  But rather than concluding that a lot of people like sex, some people somehow conclude that these are specifically written to target some foreign part of the brain that is specific to females to subconsciously force them to buy Laurell K. Hamilton’s books.  Not being Ms. Hamilton, I won’t speculate on why she writes the way she writes, but I’m assuming that she probably enjoys writing it.

That, there, is how you get yourself a reader, male or female.  Not coincidentally, that’s also how you write a book.  Enjoy what you do.  Enjoy what you write.  Love the craft as you love your characters as you love your story and your readers will come.

I didn’t really write Kataria with a specific woman in mind.  Hell, even the fact that she is a woman doesn’t play too much into her motivations.  She likes a man, of course (many women do), she also likes hunting, meat and breaking wind.  She’s the favorite of some of my women readers.  And some of my men readers, too.  Some dudes also like Denaos.  Some girls also like Dreadaeleon.  I have no idea why and I don’t really ask (normally because, when people tell me this, I get a really warm, squishy feeling from someone telling me that they have a favorite character of mine that renders me incapable of making a sound more intelligible than “squonk”).

Look, it’s true that a majority of readers are women.  And it’s certainly true that a lot of women read fantasy.  If you’re published at all, then by default, most of your readership is probably women.  You don’t get that by sitting back, folding your hands over your stomach, looking up at the ceiling and asking: “through what mixture of literature and chemical does one induce the female to read?”

You get that by writing a book you love.  Because if you love it, so will they.  They’ll love the relationships, they’ll love the violence, they’ll love the characters, they’ll love it all.  Be they man, woman, child or sentient dogs under two feet tall.

Because everyone knows sentient dogs over two feet tall only read Clive Cussler.

Duh.

Ugly unicorn drawing by Bart Cusik’s blog.

Supernormal Step by Michael Lee Lunsford follows the story of Fiona, a sort of John Carter-type character thrust into a parallel dimension where magic took evolution over technology.  It’s a fun strip with a number of really strong things going for it including really vivid characterization, very cool aesthetic and a pretty interesting take on urban high fantasy.  Now, while Michael’s always been a friend to this site, as a glimpse through The Lost Pages will show, I wanted to put him up here because he’s continually improving as an artist and writer.  You can spot some kinks here and there in the archives and see him address them throughout the evolution of the series.  Comparing his start to his latest is pretty phenomenal.

I know a number of readers have inquired after his art since the beginning of the Lost Pages and I feel I should mention that Michael is actually doing a run of print books for his comic.  So, if you flip through his stuff and find that you like it, you might consider supporting a fellow starving artist and picking up a copy from him.

Unsounded by Ashley Cope is another favorite of mine.  I contained a lot of my praise to my interview of her some time ago, but just for emphasis: this comic is insanely good.  With characters and an imagination as rich as she has, praising the pacing seems almost pointless, but she’s one of those writers that really knows how to handle a scene.  While I absolutely adore her comic, she’s also been one of the contributors to this site’s art and we thank her frequently for it.

Rounding out the category of “artists I know personally,” The Meek by Der-Shing Helmer is one of those rare comics when a giant spirit of vengeance as personified by an evil tiger ghost is not necessarily the most interesting thing going on.  The Meek is a comic that really exercises a thorough knowledge of character.  The chapters are focused, tight and in-depth and firmly locked into the characters they represent.  People hoping for an in-depth knowledge of how to make characters appeal to readers should read this comic.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff is one of my more recently-discovered webcomics that I’ve really come to enjoy.  It has all the things I love in a book with tense action, strong characters and a lot of real fun.  But what I really want to praise it for are the things I shouldn’t.  It has a very powerful female lead and a very genuine character from a Muslim society.  The reason I shouldn’t be praising it is because it’s obvious Mr. Cliff didn’t go out of his way to make them a strong female lead and a genuine Muslim: he just wrote excellent, interesting characters who happened to be those things.  It’s one of the few comics I actually got enraged at for ending.

I’ve mentioned Derelict by Ben Fleuter before, but I feel it’s worth mentioning again.  Because frankly, I don’t like a lot of post-apocalypse stories (because, frankly, not a lot of interesting stuff is done with post-apocalypse stories) but Derelict really hits the mark for me.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Fleuter can be so expressive with only a few words said.  Maybe it’s the fact that he really knows how to draw out the mystery of the apocalypse.  Maybe it’s because his hero is unique and his setting is very creepy.  Maybe you should just read it and tell me for yourself.

WARNING: THE NEXT LINK IS QUITE FREQUENTLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK AND NOT APPROPRIATE FOR PEOPLE UNDER 18.

Oglaf by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy is…man, you kind of just have to read it yourself (NSFW!).  It’s a fantasy comic with a lot of modern tastes (NSFW!). It’s a gag comic that actually manages to be funny (NSFW!).  It’s hysterical, witty and will make you far more attached to characters who get their tongues attached to snow queens, are forcibly married to bundles of sticks and frequently excrete ink from tender places (NSFW!).

Oh, also, there’s a lot of nudity and sex in it.  Bam.

Cheap Thrills by Skurvy is a comic that I didn’t expect to enjoy at all.  I don’t usually spring for anthropomorphic animals or drama that takes place primarily in high school and Cheap Thrills has both of those.  And yet, somehow, it manages to captivate.  It deals with a lot of issues and manages to be serious about them while also pushing forward character development.  It really captures the spirit of living a life where everything is a crisis, the world is spinning the wrong way, no one understands you and manages to make it very entrancing.

Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks has, technically, ended.  It was, and still is, a great coming of age story with a supernatural twist and a very charming story.  I admit, I mostly put this one in on the off-chance that the artist would see it and tell me that she’s going to work on more stuff in the future and perhaps drop a line to let me know!  Still, you should really be reading this to see the story of family tension and growing up through the eyes of a young, socially awkward girl.

And those are the ones I really wanted to show you.

You might be wondering where the heavy hitters like Penny Arcade and Hark!  A Vagrant! and Order of the Stick are.  The truth is, I love those as much as you.  They’re excellent comics, too, but they’re so well-known I don’t really feel like I can introduce them to anyone.  I kind of wanted to show off some lesser known comics for artists who maybe haven’t been as successful.

Remember that a lot of these guys don’t make a lot of money off of their art.  And while they don’t really occupy the same space as we authors do (they sit over at the cool kids’ table where everyone talks about cigarettes and smoking drugs), I like to hope there’s a lot of camaraderie between us and I like to hope that, by showing them off here, I get a few more people to read their stuff.

Got a webcomic you’d like me to know about and show off?  Please, don’t hesitate to let me know!  Hell, tell me even if you don’t want me to show it off.  I need more stuff to read, guys.  I need it!

I’d been following a thread about fantasy book recommendations for awhile, noting who was recommended, nodding along.  A lot of the same names kept cropping up: Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, and the like.  All good choices, all books I’ve adored, all authors I’m pleased to call friends.  But as they kept popping up, I became aware of another recurring theme: the general idea of sifting diamonds from shit.  The idea being that these names were the ideal diamonds was something I could agree with readily, but it was the idea that fantasy books, by and large, had a default status of “shit.”

It’s not an idea I hadn’t heard before.  Occasionally, while at a party, conference or festival where one or more breeds of authors meet, I’ll hear it: the creaking of aged leather as a smile turns to a frown, the throaty rumble of a hesitant groan and those words.

“Oh…you write…fantasy?”

Always its own sentence in the statement, spoken with the same kind of severity and sympathy one usually saves for condolences over dire illnesses.  Certainly, they like some fantasy: George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, any other name that happens to be big enough for them to have caught and used as a buzzword.  But generally, and they’re only rarely hesitant to tell me thus, the common viewpoint is that fantasy, by and large, is a churning cauldron of feces that occasionally produces a rare diamond that people happen to like enough to command attention.

This opinion (coming from them) does not bother me.  If they don’t like fantasy, that’s fine.  If they don’t get fantasy, that’s fine.  If they don’t respect fantasy as writing, that’s fine.  One writes for no one but oneself if one hopes to write anything true, after all.

But I’d be lying if I said the opinion didn’t bother me at all.  Because there are certain circumstances in which it proves discouraging and it was that circumstance that was made evident when I was reading the thread.

When fantasy fans feel that fantasy’s default status is shit, that bothers me.

It’s not something I’ve bothered denying.  It’s not something I’ve never thought myself.  But the fact that it’s there troubled me enough to turn the question to readers.  Specifically, my readers (since I didn’t have ready access to anyone else’s).  I sent out on twitter: “People who are jaded toward fantasy: what is it about it that irritates you?”  Admittedly, the question wasn’t phrased the best, since if they’re my readers, they likely aren’t jaded toward fantasy to the extent that troubles me.

But useful answers came back, which I really wish I had saved.  There were a variety of answers with most at least dipping a toe into the same issue: fantasy feels too reminiscent of itself.  Authors tended to echo each other in theme and language and style.  Publishers tended to publish the same thing with different covers over and over.  With the vast, limitless possibility of the human imagination and a genre whose name is carte blanche to use it, too many authors restricted themselves to the familiar.

#*!*#

See that series of nonsensical punctuation marks right there?  I just made that up.  I’m calling it a gronktrois.  It is used to indicate when the speaker is aware he is about to say something that might irritate a lot of people.

But it has to be said: a lot of fantasy is inherently terrified.

Terrified of change, terrified of coming out and doing their own thing, terrified of going beyond the rules as laid down by tradition, terrified of alienating the readers, whatever.  Point being, a lot of fantasy tends to be unwilling to explore, invent, frighten or do something that might fail.  This overall terror, I think, manifests itself on three different levels: author, publisher and reader.  And we’ll discuss them all.

#*!*#

Dang it.

Readers of my blog will probably not be surprised or amused to see me take an anti-establishment bent again and say we, as authors, tend to be crippled by tradition.  There’s this supremely weird idea that you don’t just write fantasy for yourself, but for a long line of the authors that came before you (perhaps echoing herd behavior of tightening against perceived danger, such as the opinion of other authors) ultimately ending in Tolkien.  Or maybe Howard, if you’re nasty.  I get the idea of wanting to acknowledge authors who have influenced you, I even get the appeal of putting that in your book, but sometimes it feels as though it’s an unspoken rule that you must pay homage to Tolkien in lyricism, prose poetry, feast scenes, a fetish for short dudes, whatever.

Credit where it’s due, it’s not always about paying homage to Tolkien.  Sometimes it’s about paying anti-homage (egomah?) or setting up the “traditions” specifically to be subverted and thus acknowledging tribute in that way.  And sometimes it’s about paying homage to other authors.

Let me be frank and say that I love Scott Lynch.  To death (investigation pending).  I knew his literature long before I knew him and I’ll say now as I said then that The Lies of Locke Lamora is probably my favorite fantasy book of all.  And in that time, there have been a lot of books about thieves, assassins, ne’er do wells who…all seem to do the exact same thing that Lies did.  It’s not fair of me to say that people specifically set out to ape Lynch, as it would be totally unfair of me to say that Scott set expectations.  An author’s work is always their own, regardless of what it may remind us of and an author owes no obligation, explanation or condensation to anyone but themselves.  And yet, the expectations are there.

And they can be reinforced by publishers–

#*!*#

NO!  No, this is not what you’re thinking.  This is not a rant against publishers.  This is not about railing against the man who has taken power from the authors.  I love the man.  The woman, too (since a few of my editors are).  This nebulous, literary being has paid me money that I use to further my knowledge of Taiwanese sensual arts.  I understand this creature, as it understands me, and we both understand that the publishing world has changed enough that a sure thing is a very, very appealing asset.

Now, granted, there’s no way to actually publish a sure thing.  But you can do everything you can to try and make a sure thing.  And that’s where we get things like “reminiscent of Lynch,” “avant Abercrombie,” and “the second head of Brent Weeks, begun as a tumor and given terrible sentience through dark ritual and sanguine powers” (that’s the blurb for my Whey of Shadows book, coming out this fall).  With the publishing world forever changing, the idea of having something that taps into an idea or theme that’s already proven to have appeal can be rather sirenesque (that’s a word now!) in its ability to get publishers into it.

And yet, publishers are readers, just as writers are readers, and they all share the same lament: with the endless amount of tools at our disposal, we still tell the same story over and over.

#*!*#

#*!*#

This is not to say that we should feel all that guilty about enjoying certain things, as readers.  This is not to say that enjoying one story about lovable, foul-mouthed thieves means we can no longer enjoy any other story about lovable, foul-mouthed thieves.  But at the same time, we sort of have fallen into a position of comfort, haven’t we?  We praise that which we already know we like, then wonder why publishers don’t publish different stuff and why writers aren’t writing new and exciting things.

It’s about here where it should be easy to launch into a frothy condemnation of how we’re not being challenged, terrified or otherwise having our jimmies rustled by literature.  Not by coincidence, this is also where I start to contradict myself because, in a lot of ways, I don’t want that.  I certainly want the challenge, I certainly want to be made to feel something by what I read, but I don’t want the author to set out to do that as a response to condemnation.  I want the author to write for themselves and to be taken along with their vision.  I want to share in their story because it resonates with me, not because it was designed specifically to incite an emotion (be it nostalgia or fear).  I want to be a part of that story by choice, not by design.

And this is why I say I don’t want to think that my genre is shit by default, with each diamond being restructured, redesigned and losing a little more luster each time it’s reproduced.  This is why I hope we someday reach the point where a story is taken on its own merits, rather than by what memories it evokes in us.

Or maybe that’s just me being pretentious.

What do you think?

You might be reading the title of this blog post and thinking that I’m starting up my amateur porn company again.  Well, sadly, until I can either liberate my actors from North Korea or Nebraska changes its filming and tax laws, Upon Thy Lady’s Face is still in pre-production.

No, instead, this blog post is about the totally original, never-been-discussed-before, completely-not-beaten-to-death topic of grittiness in fantasy.  Or nihilism in fantasy.  Or grimdark darkgrim fantasy.  Whatever.  We’re talking about fantasy that uses bad language and slaps bare bottoms just like the big kids do.

It’s a trend (note, I’m not saying “disturbing” or anything else like that) that’s become more and more prevalent that could be attributed to a number of things: George R.R. Martin’s success, the general maturity of the fantasy crowd growing, a tiredness with traditional fantasy, whatever.  Regardless, we’re seeing a lot of books that are portrayed in stark, gritty settings with cruel, selfish bastards and vicious, gory violence for a number of reasons.  Some of them good.  Some of them not so much.

Whether they succeed or not and for what reasons they do succeed isn’t important.  What is important is that I’m seeing a lot of it and I’m bored and because the whole world revolves around me and my big important opinions, that’s a bad thing.

For a while, I sat around thinking how I could phrase this objectively.  I was wondering what I could really offer up to prove, once and for all, that the whole grimdark fantasy was harmful to the genre, to define just what it was about this trend that could apply to everyone else and that no one could contradict.  I wasn’t going to sit around and say it was morally harmful, since I’ve made my notions on moral objectivity pretty clear, I think.  Nor was I going to make some lame-ass Appeal to Tolkien, since my views on traditionalism aren’t much more advanced.  I took a lot of time sitting carefully and thinking even more carefullylier about how to phrase this objectively.

And I realized I couldn’t.  I’m just bored with it.  Here’s why.

1. It’s everywhere.

It’s not entirely surprising that, once the fantasy genre becomes saturated with grim and gritty fantasy, the same thing happens to a fantasy genre that’s saturated with morally black and white fantasy.  The stories become echoes of one another and the setting and tone begin to forego the story.  When we read the story and realize that this is a grim, gritty story, we can usually begin to draw conclusions based on it: the heroes will probably not be heroic, not all of them will make it probably, someone will probably find a creative use for the word “fuck.”  And at that point, we likely have reason to believe we know how the story will end: the bigger bastard will probably die, the person who is least unlikable will probably survive and we’ll all wonder what the point is.

This is the problem with oversaturation, beyond the obvious: it conditions people.  You might write a fantasy with a grim and gritty setting.  It might not end like the other guy who writes grim and gritty.  It might be amazing.  And it might be totally passed over because people will read it and draw the same conclusions.  Worse, they’ll become enraged because it’s not like the other guy’s grim and gritty fantasy.  Either way, you’re not doing too well.

2. It doesn’t know when to stop.

I’ve mentioned it in a few posts, podcasts and conversations with hobos, but I’ve recently become enamored with the notion of restraint.  The idea that you can hold back your most vivid descriptions, your most wild gore, your most violent emotional explosions and unleash them at a key point to guarantee maximum emotional investment and subsequent shock from the audience.  It’s a problem that beginning writers face that they feel the need to unleash this constantly and I think it’s a problem for this particular style of fantasy, as well.  Along the same lines of conditioning, desensitizing can also be a problem.

A man who swears once is shocking, a man who swears constantly is tiresome.  A guy who blows up in a rage rarely is terrifying, a man who gets into fights at the drop of a hat is a joke.  There’s absolutely no point in putting your finger in someone’s butt if you’re just going to do it every time they bend over.  They’ll come to expect it.  It loses its impact and because this is a grim, gritty fantasy, people seem to think they can’t defy expectations by not putting their fingers in peoples’ butts.  Which leads me to my biggest grievance with this trend…

3. It’s disingenuous.

I think the whole idea of flawed heroes who weren’t ultimately selfless, conflicts that didn’t always end cleanly, villains who weren’t necessarily the completely irredeemable world-ending horrors of Tolkien’s day started as a response to the fantasy that personified just that: a parade of supermen who always bowed when ladies entered the room and always played fair to justifiably murder the villain who was always a bastard.  Beyond the very obviously troubling moral quandaries of this set-up, the mind eventually rejected it because people just don’t work that way.  Good guys don’t always do the best thing, bad guys don’t always do the worst thing.

And it works both ways.  People sometimes do selfless things like spare their enemies and fall in love.  People sometimes do just get along.  People sometimes do good, even if it doesn’t always work out.  And it’s that last part that interests us as readers: what happens when it doesn’t work out, what happens when it does.  We need to not only wonder what happens if the good guys lose, but what happens if they win?  What does society lose by the death of the villain is as important as what it gains?  When the answer is foregone, be it “the bastards win” or “the not-bastards win,” the conflict is simplified.  It’s too easy.  The mind will reject it, eventually.

And this is the culmination of it all, the conditioning and the desensitization: the reader will know what the conflict is and how it will end, so the reader will lose hope.  The reader can’t lose hope.  Not for any shitty moral duty we have as writers to uphold the paragons of society, nor for any shitty reason to wank off the reader/ourselves, but for the reason that it’s shitty storytelling and it’s not true.

Like any good argumentative jerk, I have left the possibility of addressing my own hypocrisy for the very last moment and will do so in an amazingly snide and superior way.

But Sam, you might say, nitpicky little troll you are, you yourself have been hailed as splatterfest gory and emotionally diabetic.  Isn’t it a little silly to condemn others?  

I try my damnedest never to label myself as one thing or another, be it swords and sorcery over epic fantasy or grim and gritty over morally ambiguous.  Mostly because I hate it when people can hold me accountable to my own words, but also because one definition rarely remains applicable over a writer’s career because the story will always be changing.

It’s true, I do go nuts with violence and emotional meltdowns.  I like doing those.  Sometimes I do them, sometimes I don’t.  I’ll likely do them in the future and in some instances, I won’t.  I’d tell you that this is for reasons that I can recognize when to pace myself and when to deny myself, but anyone who has seen me at an Indian buffet/petting zoo will tell you I lack self-control in many things.  What makes it different is that I (try to) do those things when I want to and when it suits the story, not the atmosphere.  Sometimes I fail.  It’s a subtle difference.

That sounds like a total bullshit reasoning.

I SAID IT WAS SUBTLE.

Whatever.  Anyway, why are you even bringing this up?

Because we were discussing it briefly over on twitter and my friend James Long brought up this in response.

Completely agree. I think a gradual shift back towards what is now considered ‘traditional’ fantasy is on the cards…

And this is roughly the point I started screaming.  Because there was a bee in my room.  After I shooed it out, I sat down and began to type a reasonable response to why this is, overall, a bad idea.

We can’t just keep trading saturations.  We can’t keep swinging between hopelessly and unrealistically grim and hopelessly and unrealistically cheery.  There doesn’t necessarily need to be a balance, but there does need to be a reason to keep reading.  And that reason is the story itself: the conflict and its price, the characters and their struggle, how high the small stakes are and how trivial the big stakes are.

We don’t read to be told the world is a bottomless shithole and that people will always stab you in the back, we read to see what happens to two people who fall in love in a shithole.  We don’t read to be told that good will always prevail and that evil will always be punished, we read to see what happens to the people who happened to be on the wrong side when “evil” fell.

And this is what I think a lot of people fail to grasp when they try to emulate the success of someone like George R.R. Martin.  ”Shades of gray” is a thing that’s said, it’s not a mathematical formula in which you combine 6 parts white and 12 parts black.  The story doesn’t come from the desire to be a huge bastard.  The huge bastard happens to be a part of the story.

Serve the story.  Not the mood.

Starting today, FYI. Excited. Gearing up to want to stab you all over again.

This was in regards to the finished manuscript I had sent him of The Skybound Sea, the third book in The Aeons’ Gate Trilogy.  The last book of this trilogy and a work I’m especially proud of.

And it was when I got this email that I was stricken by a few things.  First and foremost being how very special a friend must be that, even when you are threatened with mutilation daily from all manner of contacts (personal and professional), it still means something when someone says they want to stab you and they mean it.  Thank you, Lou.

Second and segundomost, how very brief the emails are now from the “hello, how are you, I’m very excited to be working with you, isn’t this a treat, aren’t we so fresh and fancy” emails I got when I was first starting.  Not that I miss those, really.  Lou knows stories about adventures involving me vomiting that even my closer drinking buddies don’t know and Simon Spanton has seen me tell stories involving masturbation to audiences of up to two hundred.  It’s a little hard to keep things stiff after that (har har har) and I’m much more comfortable with this sort of rapport.

But third and most importantly, I had finished it.  My third book was done.  At age 27, roughly ten years after I started seriously writing, seven years after I had given up seriously writing, five years after I had picked it back up, two years after I first got published.

I’ve never really given a crap about my age (there have always been more than enough people to do it for me) and I only remark upon it now as a footnote.  I’ve published a trilogy.  That’s kind of a deal.  Maybe big.  Maybe not so very big.  But it’s deal enough that it kind of makes me want to stop and think about what I’ve been doing right, what I’ve been doing wrong, what I’ll be doing from here on in, you know?

Tome of the Undergates is one of those books I think I’ll always be spitefully proud of.  Sort of in the way you’re proud of a huge scar that came from that time you did something kind of stupid-in-a-badass way like start an airplane propeller with your teeth.  Or in the way you’re proud of a dog that can roll on its back, have a seizure and start quoting scripture on command in Latin on command (in that some people will be freaked out, but fuck if any other dog can do it).  Basically, I’ll never remember it as my best work, nor even as a work that doesn’t have some very heavy flaws.  But because it’s my first, and probably because it’s got some heavy flaws, I’m always going to love it.

What flaws, specifically?

To be generally specific, I have a feeling that every beginning author has a need to explode in their writing, be it in prose, character, action or all three or all three and more.  And I think I’m guilty of more than a few of them.  I don’t think I gave the audience enough breathing room in my first book, which was a disease that spawned several symptoms: too much time spent in one overarching, ebbing and flowing tide of battle on one ship with characters whose motivations and attitudes weren’t exactly clear.  Basically, instead of taking the audience’s hand and asking them to dive right in with me, I put the audience in a headlock, screamed “I’M TAKING YOU WITH ME” and hurled us headlong over a cliff into raging rapids where we were tossed about as plankton with the audience desperately begging me to stop and me laughing maniacally until, at one point, we both threw up a couple times.

…that might have been overly specific.

I’ve mentioned before that I started writing Tome when I was about 17.  In a lot of ways, I felt too afraid to deviate from that iteration of the book.  I felt too pleased with my story, too easy with how things were, too convinced that this story had to be told exactly this way and I wasn’t willing to challenge myself enough to really hack at it until it resembled something tastier.  It’s another thing that I think a lot of authors fall prey to, and I think the realization that stories are mutable, ever-changing things isn’t something an author ever stops learning.  In some cases, you just learn it a little too late.

And then sometimes you just don’t learn.  If I have one tremendous regret about this story, it’s how I handled Quillian.  I have no regrets about introducing a gay character, nor any about how her orientation was handled, nor any about that fact at all.  It’s the same as writing a female character, she’s a character first and all my regrets come from failing to use her as an interesting character.  She had enough interesting stuff going on that I wound up doing nothing with.  Someday, I’ll figure that part out.

And at that point, gratuitous gore, purple prose, overexcited analogies and exaggerated character reactions just seem barely worth mentioning.  But there you go.

This isn’t to say that I regret what Tome turned out to be, of course.  It is the way it is for a reason and the way it is was good enough for nine countries and counting to pick it up.  So naturally, there are some things I did that even I think went right.  Most of these revolve around the characters and their conflicts.  I’ve heard some male authors say that they wish they had done their female characters better.  I’ve never really been stricken with that though (which means I either did them well or did them very terribly), but then again, I’ve never really thought about a female character as different from another character based solely on their gender.  I mean, an opportunistic, self-doubting degenerate is an opportunistic, self-doubting degenerate whether girl or boy, right?

But maybe I’m wrong about that.

Black Halo, I think, I wasn’t quite free of the need to erupt just yet.  And I’ll tell you this much: when you’re stricken with your first reviews, your first crises of careers, your first panics over whether you can write for a living or if you’re doomed to die in a sea shack talking to crabs who listen to you patiently as they wait for you to die…it affects your writing.  The conflicts were clearer, the companions’ needs were clearer, but the prose was sometimes just a bit too much as I waddled through melancholic self-doubt.

And yet, Black Halo had some astonishingly strange reactions.  People who absolutely loathed Tome came back to say that Halo won them over (there were some who had the opposite reaction, but not nearly so pronounced).  There was a greater clarity there, a greater sense of self developing.  But at the same time, there wasn’t enough happening.  Poetically, it was solid.  Structurally, it was just a tad too laggy.  It felt as though I were showing off too much, pondering too much, making the audience watch me muse dramatically.  It felt as though I were taking too much time stroking them gently and maybe things got a little weird, like I started purring into their ears and calling them weird names that I thought sounded sexy like “cookie crisp.”

But I had two pieces.  I could put an audience in a headlock.  I could cup an audience’s left butt cheek.  I simply needed a way to occasionally put my arm around their shoulder and give them a good, hard spank once in a while.

And so, I wrote The Skybound Sea.

I won’t lie, fellas.  I’m pretty pleased with this book.  It may be the first time I’ve been able to step back and say: “Yeah.  Yeah, that’s a real nice piece of work I did there.”  I’m pleased with the prose.  I’m pleased with the conflict.  I’m pleased all around.  It wraps up everything quite nicely.

It answers what happens to Kataria and Lenk.  It answers what Denaos did and what Asper is going to do.  It tells us whether Dreadaeleon will die and just if it is possible for Gariath to beat a man to death with a shark.  It’s satisfying.  It’s aggressive.  It’s tragic.  It’s bloody.  It’s 100% Sam Sykes.

Maybe that pleasure is a sign that I’ve messed up horribly somewhere along the way.  Maybe I’m deluding myself terribly and it’s actually all awful.

But for the first time in my life, I really don’t think so.  I can’t really feel that pang of crippling doubt (the doubt’s still there, as it should be, it’s just not something that will ruin me).  I can’t really conceive of a world in which I am a terrible writer (maybe not the best writer, as I should never stop trying to be, but I know my stuff).  For the first time since I started this, I feel like I’m really doing the right thing.

And if I’m not, I’ll just have to do better with my next trilogy.

Shit, did I forget to mention that I was doing another one?

“And here we go, the bottom of the barrel or the cream of the crop, depending on which cliche you prefer.”

“Kind of hoping someone sent something edible with this batch.  That’s a thing, isn’t it?  Getting food in the mail?  If it isn’t, it should be.”

Paul

I’ve been married to the same wonderful woman for almost 14 years. But I am at a loss as to what to get her for Valentine’s Day, and I’m on a budget. What can I get her that says, ”Thanks for still having sex with me!” that won’t break my bank?

“Being the only man to have read cover-to-cover Saang Makh-Mei, The Gentlemen’s Guide to Carnal Aptitude in Mediums Physical, Textual and Spiritual and subsequently completing the trial of the Seven Palms of Silken Prowess, I’ll field this one.”

“Uh…what?”

“Your motives move me, Paul.  I imagine many men quiver in envy at your spiritual endowment.  In fact, if I was possessed of such a wealth of goodness, I suspect a good many of my problems would be solved.

“And thus, I would find myself bereft of any kind of quality that makes me who I am: enigmatic, mysterious, timidly erotic.”

“Timidly…what the hell are you—“

“And thus, I would have no sex, either, and I’d have the same problem.  Do you see where I’m going with this, Paul?”

“No one can or should see anything you’re talking about.”

“No one was asking you.  See, Paul, while the men who possess the discipline to turn the act of carnal intimacy into an art form, women are capable of summarizing this sort of power on a day-by-day basis.  While we are amused by fleeting stories, tales told in the glances of a bare bosom and the shudder of a breath drawn between soft lips, women require stories of substance.  Plot.  Dare I say…intrigue?”

“I dare you not to.”

“Too late for that!  Now, Paul, to really capture your wife’s gratitude, you must involve her in such a plot.  Consider faking your own kidnapping and leaving elaborate clues from a sadistic pseudonym (may I suggest something classically villainous, like ‘Professor Erstwhile’) as to your location.  Disappear for a few months, driving her increasingly more mad with grief.  Occasionally send her a disembodied toe (it doesn’t have to be yours) to prove that you are quite serious about this.

“When she, weary from sleepless nights and terrorized by visions of your bloodied corpse lying in the bottom of a place most cold and dank, discovers that you are actually alive and possessed of all your toes (though if you decided to use your own, I am impressed with the depth of your commitment), she will be relieved both to find you alive and by your investment in her gift!

“And that, my friend, is the key to a proper gift.  Did you have anything to add, Kataria?”

“…flowers?”

Lor

so, here goes; my best friend of five years recently brought up the subject of whether we would work as a couple at 3am when we were both half-asleep from packing (he was moving house the next day). Half-asleep, I never really gave him a definite answer, and in the confusion next morning we never had time to discuss it.
Thing is, I like him, I really, really like him, and I’d love it to work, but he’s no good at talking about feelings, and I don’t know how to bring it up. It’s driving me nuts.

At the same time, just to make things more awkward, one of my workmates, a good 18 years my senior I might add, has recently divulged that he has had a thing for me since we started working together 5 years ago, and is now bombarding me with texts, and constantly at me on nights out. I want to let him down gently, and I’ve tried hinting about the situation with my best friend, but nothing’s working.

I guess in short my question is; which do I pick, and after that, what the hell do I do?

Your reading this is much appreciated,

Lor

“Well, if it were me—“

“This one can’t be solved by toes.  I’ll take it.

“What you are dealing with is two men: one unused to suffering, one used to.  The former is a man who does not bleed, who does not pine, who does not sit and contemplate the meaning of a brook running over stones.  He enjoys the taste of flesh, but not the taste of the chase, so he does not pursue.

“The latter, likewise, obsesses over his cuts, counts time as a round-ear counts coin.  The chase is nearly everything and he pours everything into the frenzy of it.  The problem being, with everything going into the hunt, there’s nothing left for the kill.”

“How is this any less vile than mine?”

“YOU HAD YOUR TURN.

“The solution to both is the same way: there’s an arrow in your leg and it has to come out.  You need to do so firmly, but quickly.  Let the former know of your feelings, and do it honestly, but don’t throw it down like a challenge.  Let the latter know that you’re not interested, and do it gently, but make sure he understands what you’re setting down.

“Everyone acts like feelings are supposed to be the simplest things, so everyone adds such ritual to it to make it unbearably complex.  The truth, of course, is that feelings are about as simple as an arrow in the leg: it’s there and that’s fact, but getting it out isn’t always easy.

“But come out it must.”

“That was…almost beautiful.  Like a poem spit from a frothing mouth.”

Navi

I’d prefer a cantaloupe over flowers… is there something wrong with me?

“Nah.  You can do something with a cantaloupe, at least.  But if someone gives you either of those over, say, a good knife or something with practical application, you’d do well to think real hard about just how much they means to you.”

Robert

Dear Kataria, I know how you feel about humans, so let me start by saying that I suspect I might just be in an inter-species relationship. The object of my affection is definitely female–take my word–but her psychic makeup is a strange labyrinth. I could ask any number of questions about her, but I’ll come to the heart of the matter (even if it exposes me as shallow). Sensual arousal for my beautiful friend always requires at least one (but preferably two or three) of the following: nutmeg, saffron, plum wine, the tolling of a brass bell, a mesquite campfire, the croaking of tree frogs, or rumours of an earthquake or other natural disaster. CAN YOU PLEASE ! tell me the common thread, and how I can spark a flame in her without recourse to such props? Desperately yours–Robert R.

“Huh.  I’ve seen this before.  Do me a favor, Robert, the next time you’re…intimate with her, check behind her ears.  Are there any gills there?  Take her fingers gently in yours and search the digits gently, see if there’s any extra knucklebones there.  You might also search for the vestiges of a tail or something similar.

“See, I can get the whole ‘ritualized sex’ thing, but you’re basically describing a woman who requires a number of bizarre components and an element of human suffering to become aroused.  My experience with demons is a little limited, so she might just be something else entirely weirder.  In which case, maybe that’s her…culture or something?

“I don’t know.  If not, I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a woman who enjoys elaborate sexual ritual.  It’s like food, you know?  You get it all the time, it all starts to taste the same.  But if you’re starving, you chase it down yourself, you build the fire, you wear its skin as a hat…well, that meal tastes pretty good at the end, doesn’t it?”

Deniz

Dear Denaos,

Some months ago a woman of my – unfortunate, but distant – acquaintance got in trouble. I was blamed for her state, though I had had nothing to do with any part of the incident. Following her insistent, disturbing requests for aid, my father – the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire – ordered that she be disposed of.

Gossip being what it is, the rumours circulated that *I* was the one involved in this affair. And my betrothed is convinced of the validity of these lies.

How can I get her to believe the truth and restore my honour in her eyes?

Awaiting your advice, I remain

Yr. obdt. servant,

Devran

“What is it with you people and elaborate political set-ups and lost cities?  Don’t you have regular problems, like not knowing what kind of flowers to buy?  Not that I can’t help, of course, but it’s getting a little suspicious.

“Now, if anyone can appreciate a good frame job, I’m sure I fit.  And indeed, the fine art of shifting blame has its place in love as it does in life.  In fact, the act of marriage is composed mostly of trying your damnedest to avoid scrutiny and getting others to suffer for your mistakes.

“But I’m getting philosophical.  What you see as a crisis is actually good practice for your impending (congratulations, by the way, assuming you don’t get beheaded) wedding.  What you need to do here is to shift the blame entirely onto someone else.  First, find someone between your life and hers, a maid that was just too friendly, a servant that knew too much.  If they don’t exist, invent them: make up some evidence and plant it on them.

“If you really want to be dramatic, you could always just pin it on your betrothed.  I mean, sure, he might get executed, but if he’s acting all high and mighty for thinking you’re adulterous, framing him for murder would make him mighty humble.”

Stephanie

Dear Denaos, I hope it’s not too late for this question but it occurred to me during a conversation I had today.

Why can’t men just say what they want? I don’t mean like “Hey, I want Sex!” but more like “I’m interested in you, do you want to go on a date with me?”. There is this special guy I met at work. He’s a customer and today (Valentine’s Day is nearly done now, in Europe) he asked me about my plans for the evening and when I asked back he told me he hadn’t anything planned, either, and no girlfriend. Then he fell quiet. Was it my turn to ask him out? I don’t want to be the one to ask. I’m the girl. So was he just trying to be polite and not flirting? If so, why can’t he just talk about something different than Valentine’s Day?

I do not understand the males. But you’re a man and though you seem more like an outgoing type who would say what is in his mind, I believe you could tell me what he is thinking. Any piece of advice for me?

Don’t let anyone rip your head off.

“Well, Stephanie, I can’t exactly testify as to whether you are a particularly scary lady or not, we’ll go ahead and discount the idea that your queries were laced with the baring of teeth, the flaring of nostrils and a deep-throated, chest-borne sound that signifies desire in most hoofed quadrupeds and some women…”

“Oh, ONE time that happened.”

“Suffice to say, I feel you’re looking at this the wrong way.  You’re putting far too much emphasis on what he wants, what he does, what he is capable of.  What about your wants, hm?  What about your needs?  Do you possess two hands?  Do you have a heart?  Do you not quake with the need to express yourself?

“Then why wait for him?  Why put his needs for comfort above yours for companionship?  Why not take the initiative, be forthright and honest?  After all, if you don’t understand something, the usual path suggested is to learn about it, isn’t it?  Consider it a hands-on experiment in which you discover the male psyche and, perhaps, learn more about this special guy in the process.

“But don’t actually put your whole hands on him.  He might actually be a little afraid of you and think you’re trying to strangle him and soil himself in fear.  Then no one will look good in that situation.”

Kathryn

Dear Quillian,
I don’t know you, you don’t know me, you get the idea.

I’ll cut to the chase – if you went on a date with myself, how would you like me to dress? Formal, casual, school girl, formal school girl, casual school girl, cheerleader or barbecue sauce?

But that leads to my other question – why do people even bother to dress up for dates? Chances are you’ll go home with your spirit crushed or you’ll go back to her house and rip her clothes off regardless of whether it’s a simple dress or fourteen skirts and a corset. Why not just turn up naked and fuck during dinner?

Yours faithfully,
A certain perpetual virgin with a strange interest in BBQ sauce.

“It took me some time to track her down, and then a little more time convince her I didn’t want to fight her, and then a little MORE time when she decided she wanted to fight me, but I finally got this into Squiggy’s hands.  Her reply is as follows.  Just imagine it in a real throaty voice and frown so that the corners of your mouth point to the floor and you’ll get a good idea as to how this sounded.

“’If you are a student, then it would be inappropriate to see you in any setting.  But garbing yourself appropriately is considered to be, by many, a signifier of demonstrating one’s worth, valor and statements.  I have seen very little point in it, to be honest.’”

It’s worth mentioning that she only ever wears the one thing, so she’s probably not the best person to ask.  Anyway, she added this…

“’Ideally, the goal of such ritual is to slowly alter one’s garments, piece by piece, until your physical appearance mirrors your desires.  Thus, the point is not to be dressy, but to reach the stage where you can comfortably wear anything from a dress to filthy leather breeches and be happy with yourself and your fellow.  Or, you could just be like some scandalous shict and wear half a shirt all the time and never even wash it, despite everyone telling you how awful it smells.’

“I’m not quite sure why I told you that last part.  I think she was talking about me.”

“And there you have it!  Another week of ritualized obligation has come and gone.  Best of luck to you people who had the poor fortune not to be born me.  We hope to see you again next year.”

“Hope is too strong a word.  So are ‘next’ and ‘year.’  If I’m still alive in a decade, we’ll see how I feel about this.”

Thanks for writing in!

“All right, all right.  Let’s get this over with.  Though I think if people can’t mate on their own, they’re clearly asking the wrong people.”

“Do me the honor of speaking plainly for yourself.  Those of us possessed of some amount of tact might learn something about the fine art of love and vengeance.  First letter, if you please.”

From M.R.E.

Dear Kataria,

Do you have any past experiences concerning inter-racial relationships? Because I know this she-elf I’m trying to approach but my feeble human mind can’t come up with a way to bypass her inate hatred for mankind(she’s that kind of elf), so I’m turning to a higher power(you)for help and I hope that I can get some solid advice.

If not then could you possibly help me break this curse that she put on me a while ago(the elf version of a restraining order);these weird seizures and severe bouts of diarrhea are a really pain in the ass.

Thanks

“These are already off to a bad start.  If it’s not curses and interracial relationships, it’s diarrhea.  What exactly makes you think I’m qualified to comment on these?

“Don’t answer that.

“You may be out of luck here, friend.  I don’t claim to understand human psychology and their whole ‘playing hard to get’ thing.  I mean, if you want something, you’re supposed to go out and take it, right?  I can appreciate social mores like subtlety and bathing, but there’s no reason to go smiling shyly, batting eyelashes and penning sonnets under the pseudonym ‘thy own true lourve’ or whatever when you can just grab a handful of genitalia and scream: ‘THIS.  THIS IS MINE.’

“That said, I do claim to understand bodily functions.  And if a girl’s presence gives you diarrhea, that’s one of those social mores you’re just not supposed to go against.  My advice is to find a nice girl who inspires a lesser bodily function, like belching, and settle down and raise a mess of gassy children together.”

From Carl

Dear Denaos,

This Valentines Day I will find myself alone without a significant other to celebrate the miracle of love having recently separated from my girlfriend. I will not be getting any unless I get drunk stick Call of Duty into the X-Box and start yelling, ”COME GET SOME. COME GET SOME!!!!” into the headset whereupon a sniper will give me some right between the eyes.

It’s not that I want to buy ridiculous gifts or do anything that people would consider romantic. I never have, and hesitate to believe that any many brave enough to be honest with himself does. ”Perhaps”, I said to myself, ”This is the problem.” So here is my question. Do you think that a man’s conception of love and valentines day is jilted because of all the pressure to make HER day so special?

Your Denaos-ciple, CW

“Carl, your questions are not without merit.  Which is why this has been a topic that has consumed most philosophers since the day mankind invented undergarments and subsequently started paying people to take them off.

“We could sit here and open up to each other and talk about how love, true love, is a thing that exists on its own, bereft of gifts or holidays.  We could sit here and discuss how, when the love is true, your perception of it doesn’t really matter because it is, and always has been, the most objective force in the universe and, regardless of appearance, sex or income, will always speak louder than any logic, cynicism or jadedness.  We could declare, through hugs and tears, that what we think love is is irrelevant, because love simply is and when we feel it, everything else will not matter.

“But we both know that’s ridiculous.

“So my advice to you is to simply prey upon peoples’ perceptions of love and use it to your own advantage.  First, capture their interest by batting your eyelashes softly, tittering (you know how to titter, don’t you, Carl?  It’s the sound you make when you hate the person you’re with and you need to pay the rent) at their jokes and conveniently bending over to show a little tightness in the rear end (be careful with this, though, it can go really wrong, really fast).

“Then, when you’ve got them lured in, pump them for gifts and leave them in alley somewhere.”

From Laura Bears

 Dear Kataria, My husband and I have been together for a while now and have sort of fallen into a routine slump. In an effort to spice things up, I have tried to introduce a little violence into the bedroom. This appeals to my more adventurous and slightly masochistic side. Unfortunately, he is completely turned off. Being an expert in violence and what not, do you have any suggestions or recommendations to help make our relationship a bit more interesting for me yet still keep him in the mood?

“Ah, see, your problem there is that you’re just getting too excited.  Think of it like hunting.  When you see an elk come into the clearing, do you jump out of the bushes smeared in your filth and strangle it to death right there?  No.  Because you’ll scare the elk and then you’ll be hungry and smell bad.  The real way to catch an elk is to be patient, wait for it to come to you, tantalize it with a rare mushroom, and then pounce.

“So, if we continue along this line of thinking, then we need to adjust our strategy.  You can’t just start choking your husband at random.  He’ll be confused, scared and probably go hide in the closet.  You’ll be frustrated, lonely and now you can’t even get into the closet to put on some pants so you can go out and buy some food while he’s busy crying.

“No, instead, you need to be calm and act as though nothing is going to happen.  You need to let the elk know that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that his world is all right.  Put him at ease with positive emotions, like taking him out to dinner or drinking something expensive together.  Remember, you always need to move slowly when approaching an elk, so make sure you’re doing all this together.  It will put his mind at ease and make you feel less weird for doing it.

“When the time comes to be violent, the same rules apply.  You move slowly, pinning his hands beneath your own, running your tongue along his jaw before nipping gently at his neck.  These are vulnerable areas, so he’ll be tense, but you don’t make any sudden moves.  Then, you can ease into it slowly, while he’s comfortable, and then move onto more violence when he’s ready.

“And then you can smear yourself in your own filth.”

From Joao

Dear Kataria,

My name is Joao. I am the heir to a noble family from a city that exists beneath the sea. I’ve been going to university in a nearby dryland city, and I’ve met a girl.

Actually, I saved her life, but that’s a long story. Needless to say, I’m smitten with her.

The problem is, the girl is from a faraway land, is not of noble birth, and her land is covered in desert.

Can this relationship possibly work?

Yours Truly,
Joao, Heir to the Duchy of Galitzin
City of Rebma

“Huh.  You know, I’ve heard humans view material wealth as an allure, same as shicts view body counts.  But I’ve got to say, I’ve never heard of someone trying to appeal to someone else with material wealth that doesn’t exist.

“You might be onto something here, though.  Since you can’t very well prove that you come from beneath the sea, I’d just go along with that and start making all manner of outrageous claims.  Start claiming you ride giant birds, except they fly under the sea.  Tell her you use shells as money and your grandfather was a colossal hermit crab, so you’re exceptionally loaded.

“See, you tell her a small lie and she might believe it.  Being from the sea might be true, but she won’t believe it.  That’s too big a lie.  But you tell her a bunch of big lies and she’ll eventually start believing in the small one.  So, by the time you’re telling her that you can actually shoot a concentrated pheromone out your left nostril that will drive other women wild so she better start believing in Joao before some other girl gets to live in your crabfather’s giant, rotting carcass, she’ll be ready to believe you live under the sea.

“…unless she already believes you.  Oh, wait, is this one of those ‘I’m too rich to be seen with a dirty girl’ things?  Damn, wait, I know this.  Uh, true love conquers all…or some stuff like that?  I don’t know.

“Try covering yourself with your own filth.  Ladies love that.”

From Hilary (part 1)

Dear Denaos
Sex is disgusting, messy, undignified, sweaty, exhausting and time consuming, well if you’re really lucky it is. That is what makes the shared pleasure of it so amazingly beautiful. So why do many men think they can bypass the above and see how quickly they can achieve their own/partners pleasure.

“Hilary, I’m about to do something I never thought I would.  Like all men, I swore the oath when I was of age.  By the time I first found hair on my body, my father took me aside and told me that I, like every other male, would be told the tales and must swear to uphold the lessons we learned.

“It could very well be that I’m compromising my very life by telling you this.  But the need is urgent.  The secret is great.  You need to know and I need to tell you.

“You see, for centuries, man has been in competition with man.  It’s our natural desire to try and compete, instilled in us since food was short and we had to prove we were worthy to take it.  This sense was sharpened every time resources ran low: be it food, wine or cheap undergarments.  We, as men, had to compete with one another to ensure our share.

“And why?  For mates.  We had to collect enough food to prove that we could provide for mates.  We had to collect enough wine to prove that we could provide more fun for mates.  We had to collect enough cheap undergarments to prove that, even if our mates happened to have some real bad curry, we could be relied upon.  Always, men have put pains through each other for the sake of women.

“That is, until things weren’t scarce anymore.  When food and wine are plentiful, so is mating.  And because mating is plentiful, there’s no need to compete anymore.  But our instincts are too sharp to be discarded so easily.  Our primordial drive to compete can’t be shut off now.

“So, mating itself has become a competition.  At first it started just by seeing who could mate more.  But for those of us who can boast about having regular intimacies, our competition has become more refined.  I belong to that small sect, a group of comely men who participate in trying to outdo each other through sheer speed.

“Sex Racing is not always a clean sport.  And it’s certainly not a pretty one, but it has to be done.  The rules are quite simple: whoever finishes first is the fastest Sex Racer, and thus is the best at mating, a man who could theoretically hump his way across the continent before the rest of us have even dropped our trousers.

“Such a man will be the future, Hilary.  Try to think of that the next time you’re lying in bed, reading a book and trying to ignore the sweaty man snoring beside you.  Better yet, start timing him.  And scream: ‘THIS IS THE FUTURE.  THIS IS HOW IT ALL BEGINS.’  Constantly.

“Men love that.”

From Hilary (part 2)

Dear Kataria
What do you do with his porn stash when you find it and what should be his punishment for not sharing it?

“I’m not sure I’m reading this right.  Is this a problem?  I mean, I guess it’s a little offensive that he has something to do without you, but I don’t think you’re looking at it the right way.  While he spends his time doing…something, you have all this free time to do something else!

“You could pick up a new hobby!  Like snare-making!  Or skinning!  You could learn the finer points of cutting a throat so that your prey bleeds out in seconds, instead of minutes.  Everyone goes acting like it’s something just anyone can do, like it’s something that doesn’t require practice.  Well, when they’re lying on the ground screaming at you for slashing their throat, you remember that it’s a damn art form.

“Where was I?

“Anyway, the only thing that should really concern you is when he starts doing his stuff in places that are unacceptable, like the kitchen counter or your herb garden.  If you catch him naked there, just spritz him with a little water and shove him outside.”

Part 2 on Friday!

1. I have the flu.  It was fun for awhile, but now I’m bored with it.  Do you want it?

2. Valentine’s Day is coming!  Would you care to participate in this contest here?  I’d really like just a few more questions.  That would make me happy as many clams.

3. I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books in March!  If you’re thinking of coming and on the fence about, please realize that I am extraordinarily attractive in person.  Cherie Priest will attest, since she is there, too.

4. Here, look at the French cover art for Black Halo.

Ordinarily, I try to avoid cover art discussions, but fuck if I haven’t been completely spazzing out about this cover since I got it yesterday.  Beyond just being well-done, this is the kind of fantasy art I used to see in books when I was a kid.  It really evokes that feel of…what’s the word?  Epic?  Dark?  Otherworldly horror?  I’m not sure.

But I do love this cover.  I love it so much.

It’s done by the supremely talented Marc Simonetti and if you peruse his Deviant Art page there, you’ll see some really amazing art.  Good on, Fleuvre Noir.  Good on, Marc.

Jesus, I want to cry, it’s so cool.