Bestiary: Blurryman

Mask saw the Blurryman the second day of her relocation. An ugly little creature in the skin of a human, hunch-backed, eyes the size of watermelons, clawed little hands. He sat on the common and munched on skinned grapes, popping them between his teeth.
Mask crept by, doing her best to be invisible.
The Blurryman’s head turned to watch her, watermelon eyes in his chest peering through human skin, while he raised his human-skin hand to cautiously wave at her. Mask choked and forced herself to wave back. Blurrymen were a secret, the Goddess-Queen’s secret eyes.
To see one was the sign of a witch…and witches were killed by the Blurryman.
She did, however, wonder where he’d gotten so many fresh grapes.

Job, Not Reward: Links

Manuscript formatting for both long and short stories.

Janet Reid’s blog, always fun, informative, and blunt.

Also by Janet, Query Shark, a must-read for anyone writing queries.

The sheer amount of information in Nathan Bransford’s blog is astounding.

Colleen Lindsay has experience in many areas of publishing, spanning quite a few years. Lots of tasty morsels here.

Rachelle Gardner posts tons of helpful columns for writers at every stage of publication.

Timothy Hallinan has a lovely long series of articles on how to succeed as a writer. Go. Read it.

A great collection of resource links.

There are a ton of other places to find info. But these should get you started. Enjoy!

It’s a Job, Not a Reward

Well then, that was special. The happy-happy about where I live is that some moron decided to put the cable box right at the entrance to our subdivision. Right at the side of a very busy road. A very busy road that has many, many accidents right at the entrance to our subdivision.

Seeing the pattern here? Yeah. There was an accident this afternoon apparently, so I’ve been without internet for four hours.

Of course, I did all the non-internet stuff early this morning…when I still had internet. And since half of what I needed to do today was ONLINE…it hasn’t been quite as productive a day as I was hoping.

Oh well.

I guess this means (since at the time of writing, I STILL don’t have internet…) that I might as well write a nice long post.

About…hmm. Nothing springs to mind.

Ooo, I know, a rant. Yes, a rant.

See, I’ve seen a lot of questions basically saying ‘how do I get published?’ ‘how do I write a query letter?’ etc etc etc. Those are all good questions, right?

Well, kinda. But the problem is, a lot of the time, it’s pretty obvious that they want the easy answer. Most of these questions are easily answered by a quick Google search.

And you know what? That’s how I found out all my answers. Every time I answer someone’s questions about something related to writing or publishing, I swear they say ‘wow, you know so much!’.

Behold the power of Google. There are literally hundreds of blogs, ‘ask the agent’ and Q&A sites. Agents and publishers have Twitter too, where they talk about the daily problems associated with publishing and give lots and lots of hints and tips. And, to top off the deal, there are writer’s forums, where you can go read, ask and learn.

“But there’s so much! How do I know what’s real?”

This is actually a really valid question. There must be a dozen ‘how to write a query letter’ sites out there…at least. I stumbled all over those for a while before I figured it out. It can be hard sometimes, to figure out what is valid and up-to-date.

That’s where reading the articles on agency sites, and SFWA can be so useful. They tend to keep up pretty well with what you need to send.

Reading the blogs of newly-published authors is useful too. A lot of the time, these people are going to be talking about what it’s like, how they did it, what they have to do. This is not only good, but priceless.

What you don’t want to do is go around asking ‘how do I get published? How do I write a cover letter?’
Every successful author, agent, editor and publisher has gone through years of research, experience, study and confusion. Do you really expect to bypass all that? That’s what classes and seminars are for. Agent and writers get paid to do those. It’s part of how they make money. Shelling out advice for free is nice and some people will do it, but they get dozens of those questions every day, and the best you’ll probably get is a ‘go research’.

If you do get that answer, don’t get pissed. That’s virtual suicide. The publishing world is a small, tightly-knit one. Everyone has lunch with everyone else. So if you do go off about how unhelpful someone is, chances are, you won’t be all that welcome any more. It’s not rudeness. It’s you have your job, they have their job.

And that’s really what it boils down to. You have your job. Consider the research to be schoolwork. Read, study, do your homework. Writing is a job. No one’s going to do it for you.

So next time you have a question, Google it. There’s a lot of stuff out there to find.

Tomorrow I’ll post some of those resources. After all, it is always nice to get a bit of a headstart from someone!

*edit* Apparently, it’s just me that got lucky. No internet at all, and something seems to be broken. So I’m offline until at least tomorrow night. Gotta love it.

Oh Dear

Hey, I can walk this morning! That’s a lovely thing. See, when you’ve gone a month without doing horse-training, it’s not smart to go wrestle with a big, playful, bored stallion. I don’t know what it is about training, but horses manage to find muscles nothing else knows about.

However, I’m having a mild panic attack. I can’t seem to write at the moment, at least not with any skill or focus. Which means I don’t have anything to distract me from what’s coming up.

Apparently, I’m on everyone’s invitation list this year. Kind of odd, since I have a reputation for saying ‘no’ to almost everything. But it seems like I’m going out almost every week right now, and sometimes, multiple times a week. No, it’s not a wild social life…unless you are like me and usually are whining if there’s more than one social event a month.

And in October alone, I think I went to ten or eleven different things. Now I have Thanksgiving in California coming up. We’re heading out on Wednesday–a Wednesday where I will probably be up at 4am, work, and then catch a flight to get to CA late at night–and coming back Sunday night/Monday morning. Yes. A red-eye. I know, right? And then Tuesday, there’s a charity event. Because I worked as the newsletter editor for MAP (Metrolina AIDS Project), I’m on the guest-list for anything like this.

It’s a cocktail party. Do I actually own anything cocktail-party worthy? Um, no…So the vintage pieces will be dragged out. I don’t get to be gothy for this. How sad.

Fortunately, we scrapped plans to go anywhere for Christmas. Wisdom finally prevailed and convinced us that DC is just too cold, and flying into Denver in January is simply idiocy.

However, in the meantime, I’m realizing how close the end of the year is. And how much I have to do. And how soon I’m supposed to be moving. And how much I have to do before I move.

Anyone got some Xanax?

Fortunately, I’ve discovered new music to help me survive. It never fails. Summer is the time of lighter, playful music and classical. The first cool day, and I’m back to Eisbrecher, Rammstein, grunge, industrial, etc. Now I’ve got more Bella Morte, Faith and the Muse, Angelspit, Ego Likeness, Miss Kittin and the Hacker… Lots of goodness.

It might be a truly disturbing measure of sanity however, when listening to Angelspit is relaxing enough to put me to sleep.

Sugar-Addled 6-Year-Old Boys

Some people recently moved out of my coworker’s neighborhood. They took the couch, the bed, the dishes, and presumably, the food.

However, they forgot something. The dog. A big, sweet, 4 year-old German Shepherd. And, if abandoning him wasn’t enough, they left him chained up in their back yard.

What the fucking hell is wrong with people?

Anyways, a neighborhood couple took him in, but can’t keep him. Since I’ve had Shepherds, we’re going to look at taking him in, at least foster him. I don’t know if we’ll keep him at this point, but he’ll at least be safe and happy for now.

Ok. On to other things.

The Big Blind Man. It’s been a month or so since I went out to help M. Last time I was there, it was hot and muggy. Now, it’s cool, brisk and the season is changing. Oh yay.

Yeah…that’s about as still as he stood all evening. See, there’s this thing with autumn weather: it makes horses all prancy. Take the calmest horse out on a wintry morning, and chances are, it’s going to be a workout. And when that horse is a 6 year-old stallion who has lots of energy to begin with… We were trying to figure out whether her very energetic son or the horse had more energy tonight. Came out as…a draw.

It didn’t help that I can only make it out there about an hour before dark, and, with the recent rain, we were slogging a bit. However, even with his current attention deficit disorder, he stood tied nicely to the trailer…flipping his hope, smacking his head against the trailer, swinging side-to-side. But hey, remember my first post about him? When he wouldn’t even go near the trailer? Heh.

Our sum total of progress for the day: took him out of the pasture. Ran him in circles until we were both so dizzy we had to switch out so we didn’t fall over. Tied him to the trailer. Fed him apples. Ran him in more circles. Brushed a bit of dirt out. Waved a blanket at him. And watched the handsome boy pose for the camera.

Yeah, the big, bad, gentle stallion got the full-moon jitters today.

We still love him.

Halloween 2009

I’ve never actually done anything for Halloween. Nada. Not even dressed up in costume. Perils of growing up uber-Christian.

However, this being the third Halloween since I move out of CA, and the fourth since I moved away from my grandparents (It’s only been 4 years since I moved out of that life. Wow. Suddenly I feel pretty good about myself.), this year was gonna be different, dammit!

Carve a pumpkin: check. Good lord, people do this EVERY YEAR? More than one? This may be my only pumpkin. It’s just…why? Ok, so it was fun. But still.

Get dressed up and scare little kids: check. I walked into work (yes, I worked on Halloween), and scared a kid right off the bat. And I was getting pointed at all evening, which made me feel like a museum piece. The real icing? Walking out to the parking lot to grab the rest of my costume before I headed up to the club. Four kids (teenagers!) were getting out of their car. I heard “holy crap, what is that?!” and they all went diving back into their car, slammed the doors, and sat watching me walk past. Um, ok. Yes, it’s after dark, but that was just too funny!

Go to a party: kinda check. Dammit Janet billed itself as a huge thing. The party of the year. I actually decided about five hours before it started that I would go, so I met a friend up there.

Yeah. If you bill something as the party of the year, please make it so. Sure, it was Goth. The music was actually great. Most clubs are ear-splitting, this was loud enough to be felt through the floor, but not flay my ears. And it was lovely techno. But it was very underwhelming otherwise. There was a noticeable lack of energy and excitement. It was a chance for kids to show off how ‘goth’ they are. Plus, we were both tired. So, we didn’t stay long. But it was still fun. However, I’m looking forward to getting back to either Atlanta or the West Coast and digging into the clubs there a bit.

Not checked off: Trick-or-treating. I’ve never done that. So I’m kind of sad. Overall, it was a good day. None of the weird crap that seems to traditional to my Halloweens happened yesterday, it was actually a little boring. I wasn’t suffering from a mass amount of emotional trauma over something-er-other. So this gets chalked up as the best Halloween yet.

A funny moment…

I have a habit of picking up nicknames, right? I’ve got more than I remember. (Oddly, ‘bitch’ figures into a lot of those…hey, I’m just bein’ honest!)

Most of my friends also pick up nicknames pretty easily. So I’m used to the oddities.

That being said, it’s mildly disturbing to realize that ‘Morrigan’ (me) is talking to ‘Ares’ (my friend) about ‘Athena’ (her friend). Some things just don’t mix, and that many war-gods on Samhain eve?

Well now, if the world suddenly suffers a plague of Carebears and My Little Pony in the next few weeks, it isn’t entirely my fault.

October Music Roundup

Have to admit, I’ve been pretty stuck on Faith and the Muse, Bella Morte and soundtracks this month. The first two are great for driving to work. The soundtracks fit right in with my subconscious attempt to go back to being a night-dwelling being, because I always used to write at night while listening to LOTR, Pirates and X-Men.

So, today is Soundtracks of Note.

Pirates of the Caribbean: No matter what you think of the movies themselves, the music is awesome writing music. Hey, it combines two of my favorite modern composers: Badelt and Zimmer. While we may never reach the genius of classical music, there’s a lot to be offered by some of the Hollywood score writers.

Sad, but true.

Kill Bill is a collection of composers. Lonely Shepherd is stunning.

Chronicles of Narnia is a nice blend of softer music and good cinematic theme music.

The Matrix. C’mon. Again, regardless of what you thought of the movies, the music rocks. I’ve been listening to In My head for at least 5 years, and never gotten tired of it. Don Davis, Juno Reactor, James Newton Howard, Enya, Rob Dougan, there’s a great mix in here!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has one of those songs that I NEVER heard it…heard it and fell in love…and now I hear it at least once a week. This happened with Killing Moon from Donnie Darko too. But the theme for this is great. Cheerful, bouncy and quirky!

A Clockwork Orange is mostly remixed classical music. The score is every bit as wacky as the movie.

Lord of the Rings: Howard Shore. Enough said, yes? The man is a genius. I have been listening to this music since I was 14, and listened to it three days this week while writing.

Blackhawk Down is another Hans Zimmer. I put him right up there with Shore, Badelt and Howard.

Pink Panther is just insane. Great for a not-serious scene.

Southland Tales has some nice instrumental music.

The Piano: the score is absolutely beautiful and gentle.

The Watchmen: yes yes, it’s 80’s remixes. But it’s FUN 80’s remixes.

Natural-Born Killers is Nine Inch Nails, Cohen, Cowboy Junkies and others that I love. This is where I started listening to Cohen.

Anything Bollywood. Bollywood is usually a love-or-hate thing. But if you want some prime examples of good Bollywood writing music, email me. I’ll send you Kabhi, Fanaa and Dil Chahta Hai.

Donnie Darko is dark, quiet and quirky. Perfection.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of a Thousand Daggers.

Last of the Mohicans is one of those that I tend to forget about. But I Will Find You by Enya is a great song, and it’s surrounded by equally strong offerings.

There’s a great song, Cells, by The Servant. I can’t find the music online to listen to, so I don’t know if the rest of the band is so good, but I love love LOVE this one song. It’s a bit techno, a bit cinematic. If anyone has heard other music by the Servant, please let me know!

So there you go. Some new things to listen to, hopefully.

Also, if anyone knows of other good soundtracks, please comment and let me know!

Samhain: Myth and Tradition

There’s a Western tradition of taking pagan holidays and sanitizing them, making them cute and child-friendly. Hell, it’s the same thing we did with fairy tales. For a culture that is now obsessed with horror, the supernatural and the twisted macabre, we have a strong tradition of white-washing the scary and handing out candy in some strange parody of observance.

I don’t think any holiday has been so affected as Samhain/Halloween. The sacred, dangerous memorial of the dead has become a kiddie-fest, a laughter at a tradition we would do well to respect.

Myth and Tradition

Growing up, with grandparents that avidly listened to Rush Limbaugh and believed that the Freemasons were working with the Catholic Church to make the world worship Satan, Samhain was presented as a particularly gruesome holiday. I will never forget the Chick tracts–a particularly weird and noxious idealogy–that graphically depicted* Druids dragging virgins from houses to rape and sacrifice them, or modern-day ‘Satanists’ drugging and abducting children to kill in honor of the devil.

Fortunately, even as a kid with a somewhat warped concept of other religions, this appeared mildly sensationalized. But, how many people actually believe that? Too many.

When I was researching folklore for vampires, I stumbled across some interesting correlations. In many beliefs, someone born** over the Samhain/Day of the Dead holidays (whatever time of year that culture celebrates it) is fated to be a Vampire, or unusually clairvoyant.

It is also interesting to note that this was the ‘New Year’s’ day for the Celts. It was a time to remember the dead, to put the grief and memories to rest and move on into a new year. Farmers figured out which animals to slaughter for meat for the year, and the winter began.

Yes, this is also believed to be the day where the veils are thinnest between the spirits and mortals. Spirits of the dead are more likely to talk, things go bump in the night, etc. It can be scary. Maybe it’s the scariest thing for a nation, a culture that doesn’t want to believe in the supernatural, in the reality of things other than steel and concrete.

*I have always had the sneaking suspicion that Chick tracts were horror-porn given morals so that a certain brand of people wouldn’t feel guilty indulging in interests that make even me cringe. Seriously, go look at those things sometime, but take a bucket of bleach to clean your eyes, hands and brain. It’s all the more disturbing because this is supposed to be ‘holy’. I’m sorry, but I’ve read horror that isn’t as perverted and disgusting as Chick’s stuff.

**Yes, I was born on Samhain/Day of the Dead, which lends unusual irony to my early nicknames of ‘witch’ and ‘vampire’. My ‘New Year’ seems to naturally fall on my birthday anyways, so this festival always takes on special meaning. Also, it SUCKS as a kid in a conservative family, because not only do you not get to go have fun, you can’t have sleep-overs for your birthday, because everyone else is out having fun without you! Yes, this is a very, very long-standing grudge. To this day, I have NEVER been trick-or-treating.

Excerpt: Untitled 10/30

There’s a saying that, if you walk up the side of Harmony Mountain, you will hear the angels sing.
If that’s what Heaven sounds like, then something’s gone wrong with this world. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe my head’s so fucked up, maybe my ears are so twisted and my heart so black that even Heaven sounds like Hell.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
After all, I’ve been to Hell. Doesn’t really scare me, y’know? It’s like going to a haunted house. You know there’s got to be ghosts and shit there, so it’s just a trick of the mind, a primal weakness when you scream because some guy in a crappy costume jumps out at you.
You should come to my haunted house sometime. Just sayin’. I’ll show you some crap that will turn you inside out.
Horror ain’t all in Hell. It ain’t all what you see. Sometimes it’s what you are.