Featured

I just got this email in my inbox a few days ago from one of my editors, Lou Anders:

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!

A writer has one responsibility: to tell her or his story.

I want you to keep that in mind as you read the rest of this post, because it’s going to be important to the rest of what I’m going to say.  I want you to keep that mind open, however, as you read this: an editorial on Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing as written by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, author of The Worker Prince.  And once that’s read, I want you to keep in mind the following: I’ve always been a very big supporter of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing and Bryan is a pretty good friend of mine.

But this article is really, really bad.

It didn’t really resonate with me from the beginning, since it felt an awful lot like heroes of unapproachable morality and absolute black and whites were more of Bryan’s preference and he was recommending that this should just be followed suit without actually explaining why beyond his personal opinions.  It wasn’t until I reached this particular part that the argument began to grate on me slightly:

In a world where nihilism seems to rule the day, where people question a government’s motives for going to war or whether war is moral, where people complain about people judging others, about inqualities, etc., how can it be wrong to write stories which show a clearer sense of morality? What kind of future are we positing for our children? What kind of heroes are we offering them as role models? Don’t we have a responsibility to do better?

It wasn’t enough to make me mad enough to spray piss, mind you (that’s usually reserved for when I watch old episodes of The Shield), but for reasons I’ll explain below, this notion that we, as writers, have a responsibility to do “better” is pretty much the summated flaw of Bryan’s argument.

That being…what is “better”?  Who gets to decide that?

If you ask people this question, you can very rarely do so without Tolkien’s name coming up as an appeal to traditionalism.  The idea that because Tolkien is as vast and as sweeping as he is means he was somehow more in the right when he wrote the book is fallacious, as is the idea that morality doesn’t evolve and become even more faceted throughout time.  It suggests that we, as a genre, as writers and as readers, still hold the same mindset that Tolkien did and have a moral obligation not to move past it (hence the problem with moral absolutism: people who argue in favor of it tend to think they are the ones possessed of the “right” morality).

It’s absolutely fine to appreciate what Tolkien did.  It’s great to still look to him for inspiration.  But it’s not okay to tell his story, his morals, his values.  Because that’s not your story and you are not fulfilling your sole obligation as a writer.  And this is where I start having real problems with the idea of moral absolutism.  By agreeing to the idea that there are certain morals that are “true,” we are agreeing that there is only one “true” story and all others are false.  Fantasy.

Such a notion is treason to both humanity and to literature.

By suggesting we have only one set of morals, we deny ourselves the ability to see anything else.  And when you combine the idea of a “true” set of morals with the appeal to tradition, you end up having a rather ominous notion that the only true tales are those told from the perspective of the same person (usually a white heterosexual male).  I don’t at all think that Bryan is suggesting that the experiences of the white heterosexual male is the true experience, mind, but I do think the combination lends itself a little too easily to the idea.

Bryan brings up the topic of sex, specifically the idea of us being “bombarded” by it as an impurity.  There is no topic more complex approached with more frustrating simplicity than sex.  A colossal part of our life that shapes us all.  I suspect (and only suspect) that people who claim it as a moral impurity tend to believe that not so much emphasis on it should be placed.  How do we approach it, then, when we put the emphasis on it ourselves?  What do we call a man who wants to keep his daughters safe from boys by placing strict curfews on them?  What do we call a woman who has multiple partners?  What do we call a teenage boy who, pressured by his friends, wants to get laid at any cost?

The answers:

A protective, judicial father with a stern, unwavering devotion to his family.

A sexually promiscuous woman who is obsessed with the carnal act.

The makings of a pretty hilarious high school movie.

Or:

A guy who catches his daughter kissing a boy and beats her senseless for doing so.

A woman who is trying to find someone she can spend the rest of her life with, physically and emotionally.

A date rapist in the making.

And what of the other people?  What of the daughter who rebels against her abusive father to protect her other sisters?  What of the guy who loved that girl who didn’t want that?  What of the teenage boy’s companions?  What do they say when we ask them the question?  What does that daughter’s sister say?  What does that rejected guy’s best friend say?  What does that teenage boy’s father say?

It’s not that we choose to embrace moral complexity, it’s that humanity just isn’t that simple.

Our responsibility isn’t to “do better,” and even if it was, you can’t do that just by saying “think of the children.”  One person’s story is going to mean a lot more to that girl or that father or that boy based not on a checklist, but whether that story resonates with them.  Their experiences are different, their conflicts are different, their troubles are different and we just can’t touch them if we’re all abiding by the same definition of morality.

But our responsibility isn’t to “do better,” as I said.  Writers are social pioneers, writers are inciters of change, writers are raisers of awareness, writers are powerful.  But very few ever choose to be.  Most writers choose to use their talent with words to express their own views.  Most writers choose to tell their stories.  Most writers choose, instead, to write.  That’s how we touch people.  That’s how we do better.

We can’t abide by moral checklists.  We can’t keep looking to tradition.  We can’t not be human.  You can say that you can have moral absolutism without cardboard characters, but that won’t matter.  Because if you can break down humanity to aspects of black and white, no matter how lively they are, they’ll still be living in a cardboard world.

Lest I be thought of as picking on Bryan, I agree that there’s danger of sliding into a point where we do just use nihilism and appalling acts as a means of shocking people in the name of moral ambiguity.  And, to be honest, there are authors who practice it quite frequently and with great skill and I still find it a bit wearing.  I like heroes, too.  I write about them.  I also happen to realize that heroes are human, too.  It’s not that I don’t want to be surprised when I see who wins, it’s that I want to know what happened to them to make them heroes.

I want to know about the man who rose from rags to challenge authority and the moral checklist of his day to become the greatest hero of the people and led society to kindness and compassion for all.

Or I want to know how the man who rose from rags out of a need to survive never wanted to challenge authority and did it all for someone else he loved and ultimately sacrificed the war and utopia for someone else.

Or I want to know how he rose from rags to challenge authority and murdered, killed and destroyed in the name of his utopia.

I want to know that story.

Any of them.

So long as it’s your story, not someone else’s.

I was browsing the Something Awful forums this morning and happened to see something that connects pretty well (if indirectly) to what I was discussing in my last post.  I can only give credit via their name, but forums user Treguna Mekoides said this of being a writer:

It’s sad, because someone misled, either through too much praise or too little oversight, Ms. X and Mr. Y, and they aren’t writing for the right reasons. That’s sad, because I feel like Mr. Y would get more out of being a shock stand-up comedian or Ms. X would get more out of being a “professional cosplayer” or a Renn Faire wench, instead of both toiling at their desks alone for however long they bother with editing before wanting to hit the “I Get Attention Now” button. For one thing, if you’re a bad comedian or a bad wench, at least you get instant, tangible feedback you can’t ignore. For another, you can skip all the “hard work” of writing that try-hard schlock and get right to the attention.

Writing has never been “cool.” It’s sitting alone editing and reediting a scene about hobbits or white elephants or yellow wallpaper while other people you know are having sex or eating good food in happy places. I honestly believe we writers (or copious forum posters) are just a strange group–we have better things to do, but we don’t do them, you know? If Ms. X (or any other amateur writer) feels exhausted from one day of editing her own work, if she feels it’s a horrible burden and tough and not fun or not even a benefit beyond being able to post online about how she was TOTALLY EDITING HER NOVEL, GUISE then she really needs to find another hobby, because writing will only produce frustration for her, because editing IS writing.

I honestly don’t understand where the idea of the “rockstar author” came from. Writers are writers because they’re weird. I’d be lying if I didn’t cop to the fact that, instead of being a precocious little prodigy with something worth saying, I actually started writing as a kid because of obsessive-compulsive behavior and because leg braces made it very hard to socialize normally so I made shit up and wrote it down. I’d say I matured into a rather normal adult with a weird writing habit, but I certainly didn’t take to WRITING IN MY ROOM ALONE ABOUT PEOPLE WHO AREN’T REAL because I had a lot of friends or was happy. It’s not normal behavior. 

Whatever marketing agent discovered that if you sell the IDEA of writing and selling boatloads of IP to people who actually kinda-sorta liked Language Arts as a teenager was a genius, because the self-help amateur author industry (via “how to publish” and “how to write” books) is BOOMING.

Pretty interesting and pretty accurate, really.  It’s worth considering what and who you’re doing it for.

“Yourself” is the best answer.  “Because I have a story to tell” is a good one, too.  “Because I don’t want to do anything else” is also very good.  “Because I want the money” is not great.  “Because I want the fame” is pretty bad.  “Because I want the ladies/fellas” is probably a strange one.

Happy 2012!

Sometimes, I wish I had been rejected more.

It was a peculiar thought process that led me to this peculiar thought.

See, I’ve been busting pieces of my various anatomy to finish The Skybound Sea.  It’s been going quite well, considering the size and scope of the endeavor (not to say that The Skybound Sea is going to be huger than anything else I’ve written, but more that I really want to make sure it’s the best I’ve written).  But still, before I can perfect it, I have to finish it.  Thus, persistence has been taking a front seat in my psyche while the flowery, elegant element of my persona who is responsible for the musing, the humming and the delightful prose (I’ve since named him Pietrov) goes to quietly nurse a bottle of splieux (a wine I have invented made out of fermented fertilizer; very artsy, it’ll make you go blind) in the back.

Thus, I spent three days slogging through a chapter culminating in the end of Denaos’ and Asper’s arcs.  Three days of feelings explored through conflict, bloodshed and a demon wrapped in a statue (because this is a Sam Sykes book).  After some time, I began to realize that the chapter wasn’t everything I wanted it to be.  This was Pietrov stumbling drunkenly into the forefront of my mind as he searched for the bathroom (splieux goes right through him) and I found it easy to push him back and finish the chapter.

But it wasn’t so easy to push him out entirely.

And so three days stretched into five, one of which was spent in quiet contemplation that turned to quiet desperation that turned to quiet fear…and then that turned to wine.  And that’s about the time it hit me.  I hated the chapter.  I hated the way Asper cowered in it.  I hated the way she let Denaos solve everything.  I hated the way she trembled before Xhai.  And that’s when I realized that the chapter was actually all about her, what she was doing, why she couldn’t cower, why Denaos couldn’t solve this problem.

Five days, in a moment in which I felt largely like an imbecile for not seeing before, were largely wasted.

And I was ecstatic.

Because things were moving in a direction I wanted.  Because what I wanted was to do better than each previous iteration.  Because I wanted to be great at what I did.  And when I realized that five days were wasted, it only occurred to me that five days was what it took.  We can talk about persistence and deadlines and how it’s a business first and an art second, but that can’t be true.  The art always finds a way to shine through.  The art is always first, especially when it’s inconvenient.  The art is what counts.  Everything else is secondary.

And sometimes, I think if I hadn’t been in a mad rush to get published, I might have come upon this idea a little sooner.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t at all feel I’m undeserving of where I am, I feel nothing but pride at what I’ve done, I don’t think I’m anything but good.  But am I good enough?  Will I ever reach that point?  Would I have been better if I had been rejected more, if I had taken the time to hone my craft, if I had been tempered by failure before I took a flying leap into whatever I hoped was beyond?

Maybe.

But I don’t regret things, so I can only wish in fading moments.  And only sometimes.

2012 is coming up and if it doesn’t destroy us all (and if Hollywood is to be believed, 2012 will be so awful we will yearn for the days when M. Night Shyamalan was still relevant), we’ll be crafting New Year’s resolutions.  They don’t tend to sit well with me, really, because I can’t help but think we view resolutions as regrets we choose to acknowledge and, hopefully, improve upon.  The fact that we do it in hindsight is what gets me.  We look at last year and said: “Well, that sucked, but this time, I’ll get it.”

Maybe you, as an aspiring author, are thinking the same thing.  Maybe your resolution is to get published (because your regret is that you aren’t).  Maybe your resolution is to be a bestseller (because your regret is that you once said to yourself “this’ll never sell”).  Maybe your resolution is to handle rejection better (because your regret is that you saw too much of it).

Maybe.

But let me propose to you a new resolution: don’t make one.  Don’t look at something as a regret that you should fix.  Don’t look at it as wasted time.  Don’t even look at it, if you can help it.  Look at what’s there in front of you.  When you get rejected, look at what it means to you at that moment.  When something doesn’t work, look at it so you can figure out how it does.  When someone else does well and you don’t, look at it for what it is: something that doesn’t affect you.

Because I’m almost certain we’ve all been in the same position as I was: the desire to get published burning inside you, linking your progress to the size of your contracts, thirsting after the idea of fame and fortune and if you happen to have written something good along the way then that’s good, too.  If you do that, you may reach it.  But you may reach it in a way that causes you to look back on it with regret.

Apologize for nothing.

Feel no shame.

Acknowledge that there is no success without failure.

Figure out what it is that you want and then get it in a way that you won’t ever have to look back and say: “I wish.”

Happy New Year.