Further Notes from the Hinterland

All right, I confess. My NaNo novel has vampires.

No, no, no -- nothing Twilight or Moonlight or Forever Knight or Angel or romantic about 'em.

Think more Dracula, but less with the hairy palms and sleeping in boxes of Transylvanian dirt.

There are swords involved -- of course, there are swords involved! -- as well as an old truck, a vendetta, a spyglass, and a biker gang.

I can't say more, because
1) I don't want to lose my creative momentum,
2) I don't want to give away the story (and if I start talkin', who knows where I'll shut up--yep, I said where, because I can wander all over the conversational landscape),
and
3) I honestly don't think anyone's ever written anything quite like this before, and I want to keep it to myself. Until it's published, of course.

31,000 words down -- 19,000 to go.

Notes from the Hinterland

I'm one of "those" writers participating in National Novel Writing Month (see post below), and thus have been absent from the blogosphere.

But I can't blame all my absence on writing. It seems that four days away from the office can put me eight days behind at work.

So this post is me coming up for air. Or, more aptly, sending a postcard from the wilderness, letting folks know I have encountered monsters and survived.

I'm not quite to the halfway point with the NaNoWriMo novel, so I hope to get there and beyond this weekend. Once I do, I might reward myself with a walk to the post office, or a little yardwork, or almost anything that gets me away from this computer.

Note: For a fun bit of literary trivia, check out the recent entry at the blog of one of my favorite authors, Will Thomas, and read about a couple of my other favorite authors, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Fun stuff!

NaNo Update

National Novel Writing Month -- NaNoWriMo, or just plain NaNo to us geeks -- is open for business, and only the insane need apply.

At the start of the second week of my attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, I am ahead of the daily goal: by this date, the manuscript should be between 13,000-15,000 words, and I'm a few thousand beyond that. However, if I don't stop doing other things, like chores or photography or watching my television shows online because I missed them all week, I'll be slipping into a deficit.

Now, there are others of the writing ilk who despise November -- not because they dread trying to cram all those words into so short a span of time, but because they don't see the point. Or they don't like the pressure. Or they are editing their manuscripts for publication. Or they're about to head out on the road for a book-signing tour.

Or they have real jobs.

Or they'd rather sit around watching television shows online. (Note to self: Hulu is not your friend.)

I used to sit out, too, until I was so frustrated with all the writer's block that I decided to just break down that wall and do something totally crazy. Something that didn't require me to examine every word or idea, but to simply slap words on paper and tell myself a story I enjoyed.

That I did. Didn't get anywhere near 50,000 words, though.

Nor the next year.

Maybe this year.

As usual, the story is bizarre and unrealistic, and other projects lay abandoned -- but only temporarily -- while the excitement for the sheer act of telling a story is coming back.

Gotta work myself up to it, though.

Let me just settle in on the couch, bring up the Internet, and catch a television show or two while I think about what to write next.

Home From Texas

I returned home last night from Texas, where I stayed in a hotel just down the road from Fort Hood. My original post on this topic was short, written and posted just as news reports were being broadcast about the shootings, and is included below.

I won't comment on the shooter or delve into my own thoughts or emotions, except to say that most of the flags I saw were flying at half-mast, as Governor Perry ordered they be through Sunday. However, there were still some flying top-of-the-pole, and that angered me.

Even across the border in Oklahoma, flags were lowered in honor of the dead.

Respect, people. Respect.

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The original post (from Thursday, November 5, 2009) and it's one edit:

I'm in Killeen, Texas, for job-related training, and am currently watching the news regarding a deadly shooting on Fort Hood: at least 2 shooters -- 1 in custody, 1 still at large -- and 7 dead, with 20 or more injured.

I work for a Boys & Girls Club, and many of the other folks here at the session work at Clubs on-base or near base. Not only do they work with kids whose parents are injured or killed overseas, now they have this tragedy.

More later.

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The latest facts: (as of 4:30 pm, CST)
12 dead, 31 injured
2 suspects in custody
1 gunman dead
Fort Hood still locked down

As might be expected, despite the fact that the afternoon classes were still in session, most peoples' attention was glued to televisions, and to Internet feeds on cell phones and laptops.

National Novel Writing Month

I'm off the starting line with a solid word count on the first day of NaNoWriMo, and I hope to run a steady race this year.

Tuesday, I and three coworkers head to Texas for job-related training. The plan is for me to do as little driving as possible so I can write. We'll see how that one plays.

At the hotel and the conference site, I shall seek out nooks and corners to hide in so that my relentless typing and occasional maniacal laughter does not disturb the wildlife, ahem, the people around me.

Instead of tackling fantasy or science fiction, as I'd planned a month ago, I'm working on a thriller/horror idea that's been haunting me for two or three years. As a submissions reader for a horror magazine, I need to hone a few scary skills of my own.

Real Life Disrupts - and Tells a Story

I work with kids -- that's no secret -- but some of them need more attention than others, either because of learning issues, Asperger's, or high intelligence with little creative outlet. Still others have mental or emotional needs that can disrupt everyone's calm, especially if medication has been switched or forgotten, or if their wills are thwarted. Thursday was such a day, and "Donny" was such a child.

When I am brought to the library (shown in the photo to the right, during a storytelling activity back in the spring), I see that he has crawled under the row of computers in the library, is curled up in the corner, and refuses to come out.

At this point, it's not about the fact that he mocked a six-year-old kid and made him cry; it's about his refusal to admit his wrong and own his actions, and about his refusal to follow staff instructions.

I say, "Fine. When he comes out from under there and does what he is asked, he can have his snacks. Otherwise, if I come back to the room and he hasn't done as instructed, I have no problem crawling under there."

Staff person nods and goes about her tasks with the other children.

I return a few minutes later to prepare for the next activity. Donny is still under the computers.

I crouch beside him. "Did you not believe what I said earlier?"

He crawls out. "But I'm not gonna 'pologize, 'cause I didn't do nothin' wrong."

"Actually, you are. Come with me."

"I don't want snacks."

"Nobody said you did."

We track down the boy he made fun of -- who, by the way, is new to the Club, is a shy kid with a great imagination (he's in the novel-writing club), and isn't too eager to get anywhere near Donny, who is twice his size and possesses a quick temper.

The boy backs up against me, and I take him by the shoulders to reassure him. He looks up at Donny.

Donny looks over our heads and refuses to shake hands.

I send the little boy away and conduct Donny into my office, where he shouts and calls me names -- I am, among other things, a blathering, stupid, freakin' loser. He starts flailing, and I grip his upper arms to hold him steady. No one's hurt at this point.

Then he hauls back and delivers a good kick to my knee.

"All right, then." (I confess: I really want to kick him back.) "I'll let you go when you calm down and talk to me."

More name calling. More attempts to kick me. More irrational craziness i.e. all girls are liars, everyone in the room was lying about him, he accuses me of choking him, his dad's gonna sue me, and there's no way he's ever going to apologize to some stupid freakin' loser.

"If that's the way you want it, we'll just stand here until your dad arrives."

"I'm gonna tell him what you did."

"Excellent! I would love the opportunity to describe for him exactly what happened. I'll show him the precise way I held you so you wouldn't flail around and hit me. I'll tell him how you kicked me, and called people names. I'll tell him about your refusing to follow staff instructions, and your disrespect of a fellow Club member--"

"Tattletale!"

Now, that's an argument for ya.

"So, will all this kicking and flailing and name-calling get you what you want?"

"I don't wanna be here anyway!"

"Will it get you what you want? Will it put you in charge, and let you have your way?"

"I don't care!"

"Sure, you do. What will this get you?"

No answer. I don't let him go, and he never gets away. He just stands there and cries. And calls me names.

Finally, when the wailing becomes more of a whimper, I ask him again if he will talk to me.

"Fine."

"Was that a yes?"

He nods.

"All right. Look me in the eye."

He does, and we talk for about five minutes. He's exhausted.

"I have to go to the other room" -- it's been forty-five minutes since I was supposed to be leading a different activity in the library -- "but you can sit in that chair until I get back."

He sinks into the small student desk, folds his arms, and lays his head down, still sniffling.

I check in on the staff member who stepped into the breach for me. She's doing okay with the group, so I return to my office and stuff a couple Kleenexes up under Donny's arm. One hand scrabbles out and snags the tissues.

The father arrives. His shoulders sag as soon as he sees his son in my office; I'm like the vice principal at school -- the one stuck with most of the disciplinary measures. "What'd he do now?"

Truth to tell, though I know much of Donny's background (which I will not describe here), this is the first time I or any of the other Club workers have experienced one of his meltdowns. He's usually an involved, pleasant, well-behaved kid, and I tell his father as much. After some conversation among the three of us, his father sends Donny out of the office and reveals that Donny has recently performed a far worse -- and public -- demonstration directed toward his dad (again, I will not describe the details here).

Turns out, there are upheavals in the boy's routine: medication changes, and the threat of being returned to a "normal" school, but also several family issues, the most disturbing of which is the fact that, when he asked to go stay with her last week, Donny's mother told him she doesn't want him.

That explains the "all girls are liars" statement.

I am true to my word: I tell his father everything. Dad doesn't know what to do about Donny's situation. He can't, after all, make the mother's cruelty go away, and all he can ask from us is our patience and understanding. His own is being tested.

So the story ends. Sort of.

There is no rainbow here, no riding off into the sunset. Sure, father and son leave the office in a more subdued state than when either of them entered, but there is no peace. Just an uneasy calm. The heavy silence right before the storm breaks.

But there's hope. Father loves son. And son, though he refuses to admit it, knows it is true.

"For God so loved the world..." You know the rest.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly - The Interview, Part 3

And so we conclude this interview with Dave Farney and Adrian Simmons, the editors of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, with a final round of questions and some interesting answers:

6) What's the greatest thing about wielding ultimate power — ahem — editing and producing Heroic Fantasy Quarterly?

Adrian: As pedestrian as it sounds, I really enjoy finding great S&S stories and putting them out for people to read.

David: Before we started HFQ, we used to joke about the editorial gig being our path to Supreme Being-ness. (You’ll have to supply your own sinister laugh.) But in the end, editing and producing HFQ is everything I thought it would be: a ton of work. As Adrian said, discovering great new stories is easily the best thing about being the guys behind the curtain.

7) How has being an editor changed you as a writer? (Do you view it or approach it differently now? How do you apply what you've learned as an editor?)

Adrian: The value of those first few paragraphs can’t be emphasized enough. But that has to be balanced out by the cold hard fact that there is a lot more that goes into getting a “yes” than a good story well-told submitted to the right market. The longer I’m at this, the more I see luck being the lion’s share of the ingredients to success.

David: I’m not approaching my own writing any differently. In fact, I’m a little surprised that the stories we tend to like kind of contradict the things I’ve learned about submitting — you know, where one’s manuscript should be grammatically correct, perfectly formatted and all that. For the most part, the stories having that sort of shiny curb appeal tend to be the most boring ones we receive.

8) For the benefit of the civilized masses — as opposed to the barbarians who believe every good story should involve swords and a good fight or three — what's the appeal of heroic fantasy?

Adrian: The appeal is that it is fun to read. If done right, it is reading that you can experience, you can really feel it. And, like all good writing of any genre, if done really-really right, it sticks with you.

David: For me, it’s that heroic fantasy tends to be fast-paced with lots of outward focused characters. For some reason I think fantasy — and adventure fantasy in particular — works better when there’s not a lot of handwringing or personal inventory taking place. I don’t know what my disconnect is here, because I do enjoy those traits in contemporary or mainstream literature.

9) Is there a well-known piece of literature or a famous film that folks might not realize falls into the realm of heroic fantasy / sword-and-sorcery? (And, if they did know it, might elevate their opinion of the genre?)

Adrian: Most of the heroic fantasy/sword-and-sorcery fiction and movies are pretty distinctive because of the magic elements, so there really isn't anything I can think of that people won't realize falls into that category.

To come out swinging on the subject, though, I've got to say that in my experience, most people who don't like a great S&S movie like Conan the Barbarian don't understand it — it goes over their heads. Or maybe I should say that, since they don't expect it to be anything other than mindless action, they miss the forest for the trees.

However, what many people don't realize is that heroic fantasy is just a kind of sub-category of heroic fiction, and a lot of great, socially acceptable, examples of that abound. I just watched The Maltese Falcon, and it (and a lot of film noir) could be considered heroic fiction. Road To Perdition, too. If you took out the Italians and the Tommy guns, and replace them with Danes and broadswords, that story is straight out of dark-age Ireland.

Three O’Clock High, which is a great, underrated, late-80s movie about an average high-school kid who has to fight a bully, is also cut from that same cloth. It is one of those movies that is a black comedy with an almost Nordic patina to it — the kid is just fated to do this. And, if you don't like all the noir then let me throw out something with a little more color: The Warriors.

David: Yeah — if the book or movie has swords and fantastical elements like magic, and if the characters are larger than life or a bit over-the-top with dialogue, action, and bloodshed, then I agree most people will recognize the work as S&S or HF. Certainly all genre readers will.

While I agree with Adrian that heroic qualities are found in all kinds of disparate works, I still say there are traits distinctive to the adventure fantasy characters we like: an outward focus, a certain emotional coldness or callousness, big talk or grandiosity, and perhaps separatism. Movies examples are easy — think of Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies. If you take away the guns and skyscrapers and replace them with swords and ramparts, then you’ve got a perfect heroic fantasy character and story.

Same goes for most westerns. Just about any of the Akira Kurosawa samurai movies could be heroic fantasy if there were sorcery involved.

Stealth heroic books are harder to name, but I might suggest Cold Mountain (let me stress book, not movie — the latter of which was a sappy mess) or Don Quixote or No Country For Old Men. If you enjoyed the main characters and narratives of any of these, you might enjoy reading sword-and-sorcery. And vice versa.

10) Lastly, a two-edged sword of a question: a) What single piece of advice would you give any writer wishing to submit something to HFQ, and b) What advice would you give to any writer in general?

Adrian:

a) Our guidelines are specific and pretty blunt, so read through them. We put all our cards on the table right there.

b) Although it is better to be lucky than good, you have to good enough to attract some luck.

David:

a) I don’t really have anything to add. Just read our guidelines and then a story or two on the HFQ site before submitting.

b) I suggest that writers find a way to get feedback on their writing. Everybody needs an editor!

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And that, my friends, is the end. Check out the adventure at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and tell the guys what you think by posting a reply on any of the three interview segments here on the blog.

Happy Reading!

Glossary of Abbreviated Terms
HF -- heroic fantasy
HFQ -- Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
S&S -- sword and sorcery, a fantasy subgenre