Nightmare: A Soundtrack

Every book, story and project somehow ends up with a playlist. Usually, it’s pretty random, and often just what I’m interested in at the moment. However, some are constructed to follow a mood.

The first paragraphs of Nightmare were written to Angelspit, and the mood was set.

So, what do we have?

Angelspit
Bella Morte
Project Pitchfork
Ego Likeness
Rammstein (lots of Rammstein!)
Eisbrecher (every single song I have.)
Oomph!
Megaherz
Tumor
Porcelain and the Tramps
Marilyn Manson
Cruxshadows
Steinkind
Wumpscut (Horror Industrial=AWESOME)
Cattletruck (local Southern Gothic Rock/Blues)
Front 242
IAMX
Miss Kittin and the Hacker
Oaeeene-89 (Seriously, Internet Archives for Eastern European Industrial win!)
Ministry
Drowning Pool
Kaizer’s Orchestra
Deathstars
Das Ich
Corrosion of Conformity
Collide
Blutengel
Asp
Arritmic
The 69 Eyes

And individual songs by many, many others. The main genres are Punk, Gothic and Industrial, with a strong leaning towards European bands. So, fairly typical.

The mood is perfect. I’m going to start shifting my schedule to leave time to write at night, since that’s when I do the gory, visceral scenes.

Mmmm, yummy.

The Psychology of Purity

Yesterday, someone posted a link on Twitter about the similarity between sociopaths and heroes. Addicted to Being Good? The Psychopathology of Heroism was a fascinating read, and perfectly timed for Nightmare’s writing.

In the past, one of my writing issues has been villains. Not that I can’t write villains, I write villains better than heroes, but that I always fall in love with my villains and this skews the story. Part of the reason I have this issue is that I want to dig too deeply into my characters and figure out what REALLY makes them tick.

I blame this on my grandmother. She was getting her Master’s in psychology when I was a small child, and so I often went with her to her classes. Now that I think about it, I’m shocked that I was allowed into the classes, but apparently, Chapman University believes in training up the young. I spent many, many hours reading or drawing in the corner while the profs taught.

My grandmother took me to play therapy, where I shocked the therapist by staging bloody, systematic wars at the age of five. Between the classes and the courtrooms, I got experience and training that most people never get. Some of my favorite people from my childhood are the insane, the cops, the people of the judicial system and the people who study criminals and the unbalanced.

I also spent time in the county mental health clinic where my grandmother worked for a while. It’s funny, because I’d forgotten all about those memories until I started writing this, but now they are coming back to me. The people there loved me, the little blond girl who was more than happy to listen to their stories. Because the first few years of my life were spent around an aunt with profound psychological issues, I suppose the imbalance has always been more understandable to me than the supposedly sane people.

It taught me some unusual lessons though. I’ve learned to recognize imbalance and emotional issues, to connect to a person who isn’t all there with more ease than the normal people around me. It also taught me just how normal a profoundly troubled person can appear, and how they can rationalize their thoughts and actions. These observations led to my belief that there is always good in a person, that there is always a causation, but not always a reason, for an action. Some people really cannot be saved.

Doesn’t stop me from trying. I have an exceptionally high mortality rate for villains. Not in real death, but in making them more anti-hero than monster. Red Sun was horrible to write. Playfair and Taranis both started out as villains. Playfair became a hero and Taranis became one of those characters that’s becoming my signature: a beautiful, mad, sympathetic, honorable monster. Just like Aleshan and Sviera and Amarog and Kasiris and Mortathes and…well, all of my immortals and many of my main mortals too.

All mad in some way or other. All with reasons and motivations. And I love each and every one of them. Which may or may not say good things about my mental state.

This article is an interesting study of another facet of the villain.

To me, nothing is as scary as someone who ‘does what they believe is right, no matter what.’ I have too much experience with people who think that they are right.

In plain words, the classic hero is no better than a suicide bomber, a vigilante, a woman who murders her children so they don’t have to grow up in this world. Too many religions follow this belief. “I’m right. The rest of the world is wrong, and must be punished/saved/shown the error of their ways.” The Crusades, the Jihad, the Holocaust.

Hitler genuinely believed he was doing the right thing. And that’s why the hero scares me so damned much.

In Nightmare, the villain is the Goddess-Queen. The absolute ruler, the deity, the mother. She genuinely believes that people must be holy. If they sin, they and all those who aided in their sin must be saved. Unfortunately, she makes the choices for them. And therein lies the crux of the hero-problem.

Who gets to decide what is ‘the right thing to do’? Who gets to decide what is holy? Who the true god is?

The psychopath is dangerous: selfish, violent. Ultimately, predictable. But he only chooses for himself.

The hero is deadly: unselfish, usually violent/suicidal. Unpredicable. And he chooses the fate of everyone around him.

Which would you rather face off against?

Guest Post: Wastelands: Making Your World-Part 3

ENTRY 10: Making Your World: Part-3

Forgive the delay in guest blogs, but now I am finally back. Now, let’s get to business.

A world that has sentient beings is sure to have some form of society. It might be just starting, or could be in place and have been in place for centuries, but regardless of what it is, the chances of it being the only one in the world is slim to nill! Even if it is a lone faction, then there are going to be people in the faction who probably do not agree with the others. You can see it in US politics even if you’re looking for a real example! You have two sides of a nation and they don’t get along!

I digress from that though, because I have no intention to turn this into a rant about politics. So, let’s talk creating a faction. In all honesty, I think this is one of the easiest parts of the worldbuilding. Especially for anyone who has had a civics class where one of the things you had to do was make your own nation. It’s not going to be as easy as that, but you can clearly decide some of the history, and the terrain and area the faction calls home will influence some of the issues. A desert society will most likely have some different values then one that is founded in a mountainous area. I will admit some of the qualities will be the same, but an environment can have an impact on the population and their concerns.

The faction in question will face many trials with the environment that you’ve put it in, and in a fantasy context, this can come from something as simple as a dragon terrorizing the countryside. In more modern settings, you probably won’t have worries like that, but can still have things otherworldly and weird if you want, or you can have more mundane problems, like society not getting along with one another, conflict with another faction, it all really depends on what you think is best to create an interesting world.

Part of this that I think is also VERY important is to not force it all to come out how you visualize it. In my experience, most of the time it’s best to let the setting just go the way it wants to go. There is something to be said for moving it a long a little, mostly when just getting it started, but it’s like characters. You want them to be them. Not someone else, not someone who could be considered an author avatar, or *shudder-shudder* a Mary Sue.

And that’s really it. Your players will create characters to get involved in the events you come up with and it can grow from there! There’s a lot more, but you prolly don’t need my help with it. So, this ends the Worldbuilding section. Next time, expect a little history for Wastelands just to help break it all up!

-Havoc

Monsters: Blurrymen

In lieu of an excerpt, I’ll give a monster-teaser!

Haven has hundreds of monsters. They are there to show the wages of sin, to remind the people how lucky they are, do the unsavory work that no human should have to do, etc etc etc.

Problem is, most of them were human at some point or other. The Goddess-Queen kind of forgot to tell her people about the shamans and sorcerers she’s brought from the north, and so there are all kinds of things no one tells you tourists about the monsters of Haven.

Of these secrets, the Blurrymen are the best-kept. While the Watchers keep an overt eye on everything and act as confessionals and wardens, the Blurrymen are the ones who really make sure no one sins.

Their origins are a little obscure, but ‘modern’ creation involved literally removing the soul from the body. The body is discarded, the soul is given a kind of ‘housing’, its matter formed into huge eyes and a long tongue mostly, and once it is solid enough to stay, it’s stuck back into a body–not always its original one–and tucked into an unsuspecting village.

Typically, Blurrymen are just like any other human–on the outside. They look and talk and act like humans, but a witch or seer can see through the skin. Mask can see the Blurrymen, because they mask themselves. In their unbodied form, she’s blind to them.

Blurrymen are nasty little things. They like to eat eyes. The best way to tell if you have a Blurryman around is if there’s no rat problem, but no cats either. The other sign is finding a pile of eyeless rat bodies, although most Blurrymen are good at hiding or destroying the bodies.

The worst aspect of the Blurrymen is their ability to fracture and divide a community. When anyone could be a Blurryman, there’s no trust. It’s usually men, although the occasional woman has been used. Women are in special danger as Blurrymen though, because they can’t conceive. Barren women are usually singled out and forced into a sin that will get them killed or broken, just to be safe.

Male Blurrymen are fine, because their bodies are usually capable of breeding still. If not, Breeders will do the task for them.

Nasty little buggers. Make sure you don’t invite them to the Christmas party, or you might not only lose your cat, but be reported for kissing your wife without permission.

Reading List: November

I ran out of interesting new books about two months ago. Oddly, I still HAVE books I haven’t read, but lacked the interest to get into them. I still have a Piers Anthony, two Rawn, a couple of Eddings, and two Huff books to read. The Eddings books need the rest of the series before I’ll read them, the Anthony and Huff books just failed to grab my attention, and I’m reading Rawn’s first book in the car while waiting for mom’s bus to show up in the evenings.

I needed new books. After re-reading Neil Asher’s Gridlinked–which I still enjoy, even after two readings!–and a Pratchett book, bits and pieces of half-a-dozen other things and plenty of research books, the three-week-long wait for my order from Powell’s was nearly unbearable!

Yes, I squeed when the box arrived. Here’s why:

Scar Night, by Alan Campbell. I started here when my new books came, and holy hell, that might have been a mistake. I’m not sure even favorite authors can follow this!

I will temper the glow with a comment that I’ve got a soft-spot for Poe, and stay away if you don’t like very dark, rich description and prose. But I swear, you can see, hear and taste the surroundings. I dream of being able to write like this.

The Riddle of the Wren, by Charles de Lint. I have yet to read anything by de Lint that I don’t love. Strong hopes for this book too.

Misspelled, an anthology edited by Julie Czerneda. I try to get at least one anthology with every book order. It’s a great way to find new authors.

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett. A great man, an amazing writer. Again, I’ve never read one of his books that I didn’t love. Most of them haven’t been read just once, either.

The House of Gaian, by Anne Bishop. A friend gave me the e-books of the Dark Jewels series a while back, and hooked me forever on an author I already liked. The first two books of this series were my introduction to Bishop, I’m hoping the third is as good.

Street Magic, by Caitlin Kittredge. One of the two new authors I’m sampling in this order. I attended a couple of panels that Kittredge was on at Dragon*Con, and liked what I heard.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. If I had a penny for every time I’ve been told I should read this book…

I’ll write reviews on all of them, hopefully. In the meantime… READING!

Nightmare Excerpt, 11/10

It was Witches Dance when the Runners were brought to the edge of the village. The time when Restless Hearts crept out to stare longingly at freedom, or lay in their beds and cried for hope.

“They’ll never come to us,” said Oak. The massive warrior crouched among the runners, his bolstered body heavy and stout as the tree that gave him its name, his hide cracked and gnarled, his legs bent and lightning fast. No Runner could carry him, but he could run with them.

Silk smiled and dismounted, stripping naked and tying his clothes to his Runner. “They will come,” he said, a thin reed flute in his hands.

“Let them come,” he whispered, and put the flute to his mouth as the spirit of the land rose and straddled his shoulders. She plunged one hand into his ear, another into his mouth until he choked on it. She sang through him as the men watched in shock. Music as wild as Dream’s sang through the streets, writhed into the houses and settled in the laps of the Restless Hearts. It grabbed their hands, kissing them and tugging, begging, pleading, urging them to come, to run, to follow. For the Restless, it was irresistible, but others woke and a few came too.

Six came to stand before Silk, their eyes glazed with beauty and hope. The song sighed away, the land pulled herself out of Silk and prodded him out of his reverie.

“We are Free,” said Horizon, “will you be Free with us?”

Six heads nodded.

There were three extra horses with them, so the two grown men and the heavy-set woman were put on them. The children clambered up behind Silent and Horizon and Mischief.

Prayers, Wishes, Vibes

I would like to ask for all of those for my cousin. He’s a brilliantly smart, thoughtful, active 4yo who is currently in excruciating pain and confined to a walker. He has no strength in one leg, and it hurts him badly. MRI says there’s a blocked nerve. My aunt and uncle are waiting for Shriner’s to get back to them to see if he can be taken in for therapy, surgery, or anything that might solve this.

This boy has been a terror since he learned to crawl. He’s truly my uncle’s son, climbing and falling and moving constantly, so this is pretty hard for him. But he’s been communicating with the doctors and his parents, telling them where it hurts, using his walker faithfully, and has said ‘it’s no use to complain, so I’m not going to.’

Just try and tell me that’s not the most awesome kid!

My aunt and uncle also need the love. My aunt adopted her cousin–a little boy with hydrocephalus, autism and other issues–several years before she met my uncle, and raised him as a single parent. My uncle happily adopted the boy as his own. They’ve been taking him to therapy ever since, and he’s a gentle, happy child who signs, loves music, and is in love with the world. But two kids with special needs and a toddler are hard for them to keep up with, and they don’t have an unlimited budget.

Any prayers, well wishing, or good vibes you can spare for them are greatly appreciated.

An Outer Alliance Article

A while back, I pitched the idea to one of Fantasy Magazine’s editors that, as a magazine that actively seeks minority points of view and fair representation in fiction, we should run an article on Outer Alliance.

For those of you who haven’t checked it out, it’s a group started by Natania Barron and Brandon Bell. Focusing on advocating LGBTQ issues in literature, it is a steadily-growing group of F/SF authors and fans who believe that gay rights and acceptance reach into more than marriage and the mundane world.

2009 has not only been a tumultuous year for anyone in the LGBTQ community, but in the genre community as well. There have been several debates over the prejudice towards white male authors, flaming attacks on rights from well-known authors, and even prejudice against advertisements. This is perfect timing for an organization to bring some focus on an issue that hasn’t had so much attention paid to it recently.

However, I want to show, in my article, why we need something like Outer Alliance in the first place. As such, I’ve put out an invitation on Twitter for anyone who would like to help me out.

Here’s the deal: If you have had experience with some form of prejudice, whether or not you were the party involved, regarding genre fiction and LGBTQ issues, I’d like to hear stories.

If you have links to examples of good OR bad responses to prejudice, queer fiction or queer authors/fans, send ‘em away.

What I’m not looking for is ‘we need to do this’, slander, flaming or soapboxes. This is a feature on an organization that is trying to root out prejudice, not an article lambasting or villainizing a group of people.

I also can’t promise that I’ll use everything you send me. But if it is thought-provoking, relevant or really unique, I may want to quote you!

Thanks everyone. This is a project I’m really, really looking forward to!

Chatter and Excerpt: Nightmare

Alright, so I don’t have a title for this yet. So, for the moment, the working title is Nightmare.

Also, I’m keeping a fairly simple naming structure for the story, at least for now. I think that the story isn’t ‘big’ enough to need fancy names. So we have the following:

Mask
Penchant
Dream
Chance
Death

Since I’m using a simpler terminology for the monsters and such too, it just seems right. We’ll see, and feel free to leave feedback.

So far, the monsters I have include:

Haven

Behemoths
Breeders
Skinwalkers
Blurrymen

As-Yet-Unnamed-Outside-Country-Financing-Rebellion

Bloodybones
Greenteeth
Soulskins

I started Nightmare on November 3, and am, as of November 7, at 5500 words. My goal is to hit 60,000 words by January 1. No, I’m not doing NaNo. I don’t have time, energy, nor the desire to produce such crap as such a schedule would have me produce. I USED to write 5000 a day, and burned out. 1500 a day is do-able.

That leaves me two months to edit to 80,000 words, a month to polish, and then start the submissions as soon as I have an address in Oregon.

Sooo…there’s the gist of the project. Now for the part you actually wanted to see! It is a very rough draft, so read for content, not quality, please?? Pretty please?

Mask and her brother stared at the house. “We’re supposed to live here?” Mask asked.
“You’ll live where the Queen tells ya,” the Guard snapped. “Now get in there wench.”
Mask shook her head, confused and disoriented by the sudden change. Three days ago, she had had her womanhood ceremony, along with about a dozen other girls. Then the soldiers had come, and chosen five women and five men. Three days later, they were standing in a ghost village, looking down a perfectly-kept street.
Cows still grazed on the town common. Ducks waddled past, quacking. Flowers bloomed in the windowboxes. But no one was around.
She opened the door, noted the slight squeak, and froze on the doorstep.
“This was someone’s house,” she said, her voice quivering.
“Well, it’s your house now,” said the Guard, and walked away, taking her brother with him.
“Wait!” she cried, reaching for Penchant. “Doesn’t he get to stay here?”
“Not unless you want to be breeding with him,” said the Guard, leering.
Shocked, she could only watch as her brother was led to another house.
“Mommy?” said a quivering little voice. “Mommy?”
A little boy, no more than two years old, stood in the doorway, his hand held firmly by an older woman. Mask stared at him.
“This is your mommy now,” said the older woman, her eyes wide.
“What’s going on?” asked Mask, as the little boy yelled “Not my mommy!”
“Hush!” snapped the woman, and thrust him against Mask. “He’s yours now child, best you keep him silent and obedient, or you’ll both end up on the commons, eating grass.”
“Wha–?”
“No questions!” said the woman, and shooed the rest of the children down the road. Mask could see two other women doing the same thing. Maybe ten children, all under the age of three.
“What’s your name honey?” she asked, dropping to her knees by the boy.
He shrugged, sullen. “Want mommy.”
“Mommy’s gonna come back, but let’s go have lunch while we wait, yes?”
He looked up, his face changing, and she thought he really was a handsome enough boy, all shaggy brown curls and smudges of dirt.
“Food,” he said, and ran into the house.
Mask followed slowly, her head spinning.
Three days after her womanhood ceremony, and she had a two-year-old son, someone else’s house, and a mystery.
She’d have liked all of them, but something told her the mommy wasn’t coming back, and she wouldn’t like the mystery.

Third Time’s a Charm?

I know, I know. I’ve said about ten other projects I was getting started on. But I’ve been in a funk, and none of them clicked.

So, after a fruitless day with absolutely no writing done, I turned on the Industrial music and sat down late at night.

Within 40 minutes, I had 1500 words of the nastiest story I’ve ever written. Human monsters based on folklore monsters. Sin and purity.

My goal is a completed rough draft by Jan. 1. Since this is horror, I think I can keep it shorter. So the target is a 60,000 rough draft, which I can reach by hitting 1400 words a day. Which means sticking to my goals.

I’m obsessed with this story. Don’t let me slack off!