Long, Long Ago – and Terribly Far Away

The summer I was thirteen, there were five seeds planted in my mind that have influenced my writing to this day:

1. A short story anthology that included The Whimper of Whipped Dogsby Harlan Ellison.
2. Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned, which I read out of order in what was then a trilogy.
3. A terrible horror movie that was based on Clive Barker’s Rawhead Rex short story.
4. A role playing game in which I first heard about H.P. Lovecraft. I distinctly remember hearing the term “Necronomicon” for the first time. A few years later, I was introduced to Sam Raimi’s Evil Deadseries.
5. Stephen King’s Carrie and short story collection The Graveyard Shift.

So there you have it. In the last two years, I’ve found myself still reading Ellison, Barker, Lovecraft, and King.
I lost some interest after The Vampire Armand and haven’t read anything of hers since.

Progress Makes Progress

Doesn’t it seem that whenever you finally break a procrastination streak (for some reason that made me think of the Cure song Fascination Street) that you actually find it difficult to stop writing? In fact, when I begin writing and see how far I progress, I wonder why I ever had a problem getting started in the first place.

Progressing–even the tiniest iota–feeds on itself, growing much larger than I anticipate. That is to say, when I promise myself a small writing goal every time I sit down, I end up doing quite a lot more than I planned to do. Progress Makes Progress.

So here’s where my progress stands in more concrete terms:

My first collection will be six stories, named after arcane seasons. Six is the number, mostly because one story was practically a novella and since it’s already finished, I really would like to include it in this collection. It fits and–even post-editing and inevitable rewrites and cutting–it’s long for a “short.”

Two stories have finished rough drafts, ready for editing.

Another I just began Saturday is about 3,000 words down. Looking at the ploutline (plot outline), I’m thinking it will top out at about 6,000-7,000 words. So, it’s about halfway there. Then off to the editor for that one as well.

The fourth will take more research, including a read of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, although I had to admit that I’ve seen and read enough on it already to start outlining. Characters are already fleshed out, so to speak, so I will probably just write them on the fly and see how they react to their situation.

Fifth one is at about 1,000 words. It’s still questionable, but I might write this one sans ploutline and edit the holy hell out of it.

The last tale is one I began to write three years ago and I’ve since retitled it. This one is heavily influenced by Harlan Ellison, as I’ve been reading Essential Ellison, the 50-year retrospective anthology of his short stories. Only this one will have a feminine touch, mainly because I am a female…I think.

But I’m giving it a quick break tonight to a) hopefully finally finish Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, in which I’m down to the last 100 pages; b) watch the Onion News Network on the DVR; and c) eat a Chicago deep dish that my husband is baking (mmmmm…)!

A Song Gets A Story Gets A Song

I didn’t mean to do it, and some people might find it exploitative or silly, but I took the title of my album and made it into a story.

Why did I do this?

Well, I really have only one reason: I like the title. I wanted to use it again. It made sense to flesh out the conceptual tale that ended up coming from–and stemming back into–the album the star & the seed. And after a while, it was tale that I wanted to commit to print–for safekeeping–like the memories I held inside that were showing up in pieces inside of it.

You see, many people that listen to the star & the seed might know that the first song is entitled etoile filante and while I don’t want to give too much of the story away (the “falling star” is just a part of the story, anyway), it was based upon my seeing a comet fall into the woods behind my parent’s house. I was probably eleven or twelve, but the memories have grown a little fuzzy and the aforementioned star a little less bright in my mind since then, and I have trouble remembering my exact age. I was kid, that’s all that matters. And that kid grew up. Now the kid is trying her hand at writing, like she did all those years ago. No unicorns in this one, though, and no Transformers or She-Ra or sparkly headbands. (If you do like Star Wars lunchboxes, though, I suggest that you check out Julica, located at the top of your page…yeah, right up there.) I know, I know…some of you might be disappointed because of that. I have to admit that I am as well, but it’s just not where the muse is going lately.

There are other elements thrown in from my childhood, too, but those are more private, so allow me to be a bit vague. The character of storyteller Rudy Becker takes a little bit after my grandfathers and Dad, Peter Falk’s character in The Princess Bride, or even Kris Kringle and his various incarnations. Marli I always through was a cute name, and I knew many Marli’s in my life around the same time that I saw the falling star: little girls that had no control over some very dangerous and destructive situations at home. But not to worry, most of them are grown now and doing well with kids of their own. We all make it out somehow, no matter how bad things get. At least that’s what I like to believe and wish my hardest that those situations would never happen again at all to any child, anywhere.

Then there’s little Dorathea “Dora,” named after my grandmother, who reminds me a lot of myself and my friends and brothers growing up who always wanted an outdoor adventure, the freeing moments when we stood at the precipice, or at a small hole in the trees behind our house where we could step in and lose the outside world for a few hours. I’m sure that my parents weren’t thrilled, but they probably understood our need to be away from the world for a while, too. I’m sure that they would’ve wanted to join us, had they known. Luckily, we never ran into anything more dangerous than mud- and leaf-slides that made our clothes filthy (I actually wore white pants during one of our excursions and I don’t think that I was ever allowed to wear them again.) and rusted appliances (strange what people throw into the woods) that we never managed to get tetanus from, no matter how our parents worried.

And for the other characters, well, I suppose that you’ll just have to get to know them yourselves, and make of them what you will…

Representation

The True Meaning of Pictures Documentary

I watched this program when it aired a week to a few weeks ago. (I had DVR’d it, so I don’t remember when the original air date was.) It is about the work of photographer Shelby Lee Adams, who chooses to document the lives of people living in rural Appalachia. More importantly, it’s about the debate over how a photographer chooses to represent the subjects he or she photographs to the viewers of those photographs. There is a lot of controversy over how Adams portrays the families he photographs, because he chooses to photograph people are considered eccentric or undesirable to society. He also chooses to photograph some of the poorest people in America today, whose lives have remained somewhat unchanged from those of their ancestors of the 19th to mid-20th century.

What is heartwarming–and heartbreaking–about this documentary is the very real human emotions. Adams and the families in each “holler” (small groupings of homes along a single road up in the Appalachian hills) have a long-standing affinity and respect for one another. One of the family members who had worked her way out of the poverty was very angry that Adams portrayed her family home as a dirty, rundown shack, when she said that although they were poor, her mother worked diligently to keep their home respectable and clean, and her children well cared for above all. Also, some of the subjects and their respective photographs are very haunting and even disturbing in some ways. What I found, though, was that even the more “shocking” of the photographs had a beauty to it that I felt transcended–but didn’t attempt to escape from–its subject matter. Therein lies the art part of the piece. Adams describes a passion for the people and his photos that calls into question his supposed exploitation.

I’m torn a bit on this argument and after watching the documentary and doing a little research, I’m still not sure which side I favor, if I even favor any of them. The bottom line for me is that these photographs were taken, that I saw them, and that I found a humble, haunting beauty in each one. But part of me still wonders why he doesn’t seem to photograph anyone or any scene but those who look through a glass darkly in some way. The verdict is still out, I suppose, but I’m glad I’m aware of his work now.

Heading over into my own work, I need to have more awareness of how I’m portraying my subjects. I’d like to think that I imbue each with a heart and soul; but with characterizations, you have to work to avoid them drifting into caricature (or worse, stereotype or prejudice). Our own perceptions, experience, and a bit of ourselves are things that guide us when we create characters in our novels, which is why we grow so attached to them. I care about people and I put some of them into stories, because it’s sort of a way for me to remember them. I do care for each character on its own terms (as I do people) and it’s something for which I continue to strive as a writer and as a human being.

As Ash Said / Good Reads Profile

Ash in Army of Darkness as said Army rushes to the fortress walls: “Yeaaahhh, babbbaayyyy!!!!”

I said this same thing when I discovered GoodReads or Good Reads or however it is put together as a noun.
I now also have a regular-person-profile on it. I can’t have a writer-person-profile on it yet, because I’m not published.
I’m working on amending that, but I have about four stories to finish first. No problem.

So, also in the immortal words of Ash: “Gimme some sugar, baby.” Some goodreads sugar, that is.

Kate’s GoodReads Profile

Harvey & Julica Stories

Hi there my small, devoted, lovely clan of readers (I hope, anyway),

The first two stories I’ve finished for my upcoming collection are now posted on their respective pages; warts and all, so to speak. They are in PDF format, which is the most secure way in which I can post them. (It’s a very thin veil of security, as even the Security options informed me through their dialogue boxes as I confirmed the measures chosen that some people–with the proper software and determination–could still break down the Adobe walls and make off with anything at all they so desired.)

Now I’m looking at three more options. Each provides a long, winding road on which I can get lost for a few hours every evening, as my bastard brother cats meow for attention at the typing figure in the office and my husband laughs in the other room at the TV. And I am present for all of that, yet far away as well…

Perhaps in a makeshift hut of fallen branches with a young mother at the edge of the woods in 16th century Germany…the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 chasing a serial killer who may hold my best friend captive in his house of horrors…or meeting a far more mythological Devil who happens to be a professor of comparative mythology and much, much more…

Or perhaps I am still here for a while, wondering which one of those roads to attempt next…