After a long hiatus, the blog is back. My deepest apologies for the lack of… well, anything. I don’t have a good excuse, but I’ll just say that it’s hard to predict the way things go sometimes.
That said, we are back and I, for one, am ready to blog.
So the first order of business: Submit! Yes, we are still looking for submissions for our fourth zine. Unfortunately, we don’t have a solid cut off date for when submissions will be closed, but I would urge everyone to make sure they had submitted before the end of January. Which gives you about 10 days.
What are we looking for in submissions? Well, we’re actually very open. Prose, poetry, prosetry, whatever. We’ll accept genre fiction, mainstream, slipstream, blood and gore, profanity, sex, whatever. But it must be written well. Writing a horror story about a serial killer who kills his victims with their own intestines after… “violating” them, for instance, is probably not going to earn our approval, unless it is very, very well written. Why? Because you’ve made the blood, sex, and gore the entire point of the story and that is not good writing. Good writing necessarily follows a plot arc or a character going through their own plot arc and makes that the main point. Of course, there is more to good writing than just that. For instance, it can and should have secondary points - such as philosophical themes, frightening the reader, etc - but they are secondary.
But if you’ve looked at any zine’s submission guidelines (including our own), they’ve probably told you the same thing. This is nothing new. And if you already know all this, then you should be ready to start writing! So why aren’t you writing?
A couple weeks ago I received an email informing me about a writer’s discussion group here at the University of Edinburgh that was being formed by the writer-in-residence. “Awesome!” I thought. So I made note of the date and time, then continued about my day.
The day eventually rolled around and, armed with a few print-outs of some of my work, I wandered over to the group. I had expected it to be a sort of cozy group, maybe 10 or 12 people. What I discovered, though, was that about four times as many people had had the same idea. The writer-in-residence was also rather flabbergasted. Apparently the previous year had only had four or five people in the group. Quite the difference. And worse, it meant I wouldn’t really be able to read out what I had brought; there were just too many people for that sort of equal opportunity.
So instead the writer-in-residence gave us a bit of an assignment to do right there. She talked for a couple minutes about her name and how she felt about it. And when she finished, she talked a bit more about the magic of language, and names in particular. Then she told us to do the same thing that she did, but with our own names. I thought it was kinda cool. My own name has a complicated and tumultuous history, so I was only too glad to write about it. So we all did that, then some of us who felt like it read out what we had written, then she gave us an optional assignment for the next week and we dispersed.
Before I knew it, the next week had rolled around and I hadn’t managed the assignment. Feeling slightly sheepish, I walked on in to the discussion group anyway. Maybe I’d be able to practice my critiquing skills, I figured. This time, when I got there, the writer-in-residence split up our group into post-graduate students and undergraduate students. Suddenly, the group was much more manageable. And some people hadn’t bothered to show up the second time anyway, so we had a group of about fifteen people this time. We got to listen to a few things that some people had written, then discussed them. It felt like a proper discussion group. The next week went much the same and so on up to the present.
I was a bit nervous going into the group, as I think anyone would be. You don’t know how strict they’re going to be, or how good of a writer everyone in the group is. You don’t know if you’ll feel like you fit, or if it will even help you at all. But just like anything else, you do get into a groove eventually and the nervousness goes away. I actually feel quite comfortable with this group of people now.
I must admit that the critiques are not quite as strong as I thought they might be, and I often have to hold back on the slew of critiques I want to spew out, but that’s okay. After all, I still have Locution’s critique forum, which tends to be quite thorough (and more open to my own thorough critiques). The writer’s group is much more personal, and you get to see people’s initial reactions more than you would on the internet, which is definitely a plus. The story I brought to the session last week, for example, seemed to be a hit. People like it quite a bit and had to actually get past that in order to give me a couple critiques. That’s comforting. Plus, it tells me that the underlying story is actually alright, which gives me a bit of an idea as to where I am in terms of my progress as a story teller.
At any rate, I quite like this little discussion group. I will keep going. And I suggest that anyone reading this takes a look around their community to see if there is a writer’s group that they can join. I bet you’ll like it.
There are people who claim that writing is a vent for them. Many of them, in fact. They seem to say that when they’re about to burst from sadness, rage, or pure happiness, then they have no choice but to write a poem, or a piece of prose, or something that reflects what they’re feeling.
I am not one of them. In fact, I find it rather difficult to understand what it’s like to even be one of them. I can understand wanting to get your rage down on paper. (Or your sadness or happiness or whatever.) What I can’t understand is actually doing it.
I have tried before to write when in the midst of a storm of emotion. It never works. Perhaps I’m really pissed off and I want to write to get it out of my system. If I try to do something creative with it, chances are that all I’ll notice is how shitty my first draft is, which will lead to being more pissed off. If I try to do something non-creative with it, then I get pissed off that I’m not able to do something creative with it. And it seems to work that way for all the other emotions, as well.
The one way I can make use of emotions is to write about them while I’m on the downfall, the dénouement, if you will. The memory of it is still fresh enough to influence what I’m writing, but the sheer ferocity of it has died down enough that it doesn’t stop me mid-sentence and cast me into a mental furor that destroys everything I’ve written. In other words, I’ve found that writing requires a sort of calmness. If I can’t think clearly while writing, I can’t write.
I had intended at first to write about what I had been doing in my writing workshop groups, but this seemed to be a far more important topic. People don’t stop feeling, and that is, in many cases, the entire reason that some people write. I thought that, perhaps, you readers who can write while in the midst of a storm of emotion might inform me as to how you do it. What’s it like? Does it actually take some of the edge off what you’re feeling? Or perhaps you find it, like me, to be an impossible task? No matter what the case, I would genuinely like to hear what you think.
Hey, Locution. It’s been a while. I told you before, but I’ve been sent away. For bad behaviour. (I was caught clubbing seals.)
I kid, of course. In actuality I’m on an exchange program between my university and the University of Edinburgh for a year. I would like to say that I am by now well settled into Scotland, but in reality it has only been about two and a half weeks. I certainly am aware of my immediate surroundings; I know many of the nearby sandwich shops, how to get to class, where the nearest supermarket is, etc. But I am certainly not yet integrated into the city. In truth, I suspect I won’t ever be fully integrated into the city. For one thing, my accent clearly sets me apart.
This is a good and a bad thing. Obviously, it’s a bad thing because then I have to constantly fend off assumptions that are made about North Americans (which I say because Canadians and Americans are really very similar at the end of the day). It means that I’m often missing out on inside jokes and not getting pop-culture references. It means that when I make a joke or a pop-culture reference, people don’t get it.
On the good side, though, I constantly see the city from an outsider’s perspective. I see the architecture and think how amazing it is. I see how the sky slides over the city, so low that one might think it was the second floor of the world. These are not normal things to me, though they are to long-time residents of the city. They look at the sky and see how gray and depressing it is. I look at the sky and marvel at how much it is like a blanket, tucking me in tight and making me wonder what lies in and beyond it.
I haven’t talked to any residents about this, but very few people seem to be as taken with the beauty of the city as I am. In addition, back in Canada I can’t really see the beauty of the place. People talk about the vastness of it and how amazing it is; how the sky is so incredibly high, how the plains extend forever, how the forests are as large as your imagination. I, however, am not struck with wonder at any of these things. They just seem normal and unexciting to me. I would be very surprised if most of the residents of Edinburgh (and Scotland on the whole) didn’t feel the same way.
At any rate, I used to wonder how authors could be inspired by places. Places themselves just weren’t very interesting to me. It was always more about the different people that one encountered when they went to a new place. And how, even in a very familiar setting, you can still encounter unfamiliar and interesting people. But having come to Edinburgh, I can begin to see how a place, a city, a sky, a setting could send a person’s imagination on an amazing journey. All you have to do is take the time to sit down and really look around.
This past week I “discovered” interactive fiction. Following internet links with no destination in mind, I stumbled across the works of Emily Short. My previous experiences with IF involved much frustration and countless deaths by grue, so I was rather surprised at what I found.
The first game I played at length was “Bronze,” a retelling of the fairytale “Beauty and the Beast” in which you play Belle returning to the castle after a trip to see her family. It’s a puzzle game, and you explore the castle in an attempt to locate the Beast, collecting items as you go.
The puzzles themselves are interesting, but what struck me the most was the prose. This is truly interactive fiction—the prose is as engaging as any novel, and as you progress through the rooms you learn about the Beast, the history of the castle, and Belle herself. Examining items brings back memories from her time in the castle; descriptions of the setting create an eerie atmosphere as you navigate the empty rooms.
“Galatea,” the second game I played, is an entirely different genre—it consists not of exploration or puzzle-solving, but simply a conversation with a marble statue who has come alive. You play an art critic, asking her questions or talking to her about certain subjects, and she responds.
What is amazing, at least to me, is the way Galatea reacts depending on her mood and what you’ve already discussed; if she warms to you she slowly turns to face you, but if you upset her she remains with her back to you and apologies do nothing to console her. Touching her hand in one conversation resulted in the critic feeling her muscles and tendons shift beneath her skin, but in another where I’d told her about her artist’s suicide she drew her hand away in anger. As a result, the ending you reach depends on what you ask and say, and the few endings I have reached left me breathless.
In both games, I found myself deeply involved with the story and characters, and it got me thinking about how it might relate to writing regular fiction. Unless you’re writing in the style of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, readers won’t be able to change the direction of the story or interact with characters, but most of the time you still want readers to identify with the protagonist.
This blog was meant to end discussing that, but as I wrote I realized that the only difference between IF and regular fiction is the interactive part. (A bit obvious, but bear with me.) The same things I wrote about above—compelling dialogue, descriptions that set the mood as well as the place, and characters you come to care about through backstory—work to make both types of fiction engaging experiences.
I’m not sure what that tells me about fiction, but I know it makes me want to write some. ^_^
This issue happens to be a staff issue, so all the work that appears in this issue is from people that are intimately involved in the zine creation process. (Myself included. See “West” on page 9.) This is not to say that we cut ourselves any slack. In fact, we held ourselves to the same standards that we would hold anyone else to. I can confidently say that this is the best issue we have put out yet. Also the prettiest (for which you can thank Jeffrey Jang).
Our next issue is NOT a staff issue, though. So please, if you have a poem or story (or article) that you are particularly proud of, please submit it to us. We are always looking for submissions. The more unique voices we can get, the better. Even if you think it’s not that great, maybe we do.
Also, I printed 20 copies of the zine a couple days ago. As of today, I have five left. You know why? ‘Cause it’s an awesome zine.
In other news, I’m heading off to study in Edinburgh, Scotland for a year tomorrow. This has been in the process for longer than Locution Issue #3. I am, to quote a good friend of mine, “fucking psyched out of my skull.” I can’t wait to get there.
So yea, progress is in the air. It’s pretty awesome.
I don’t know if I’ll have internet to post on Tuesday (I waited until now this week so that I could make this post), but I’ll definitely try to get a post up next week. So ’til then. And don’t forget to read Issue #3 and to show it to everyone you know. If you do, I’ll give you a hug. And really, who doesn’t want that?
Hello. I know, I said that the third Locution zine would be out by now, but it’s not far away. It’s so damn close I can taste it.
In other news, I recently had some surgery done on my nose. Nothing too crazy, but nothing purely cosmetic, either. It was about trying to make me breathe better. At any rate, I thought I’d talk about that a bit since I don’t have much else to talk about.
When I was sitting on the bed before being taken into the OR, I had a few thoughts pass through my head. One was how trivial my surgery was. I felt almost like it was a vanity thing, so did my minor, trivial problems really warrant surgery? After all, I could breathe after a fashion. And I had a mouth to breathe through, too. Compared to the number of people with life-threatening illnesses and such things, I felt almost like I didn’t belong there. So I was feeling a bit squirmy and half wanted to just leave and cancel the whole thing. But I had committed myself to getting it done and indulging my selfish streak, so I didn’t leave.
Another thought that passed through my head was how much damage I was doing to myself just to be able to breathe a bit better. I hate the idea of things wriggling beneath my skin. I mean, I really, really hate it. And it took them 4 tries to get an IV into me. But then I again remembered all the people who are in a far, far worse condition that I was and went through such things all the time. So I just gritted my teeth and tried not to watch or listen to what the doctors were saying around me.
By the time they tried to get the second IV in me, though, I had pretty much stopped thinking clearly. I was chuckling lightly about how I couldn’t feel a damn thing even though I knew there were metal rods sticking into me (thank you, Novocain). Of course, the pain was not what drove me insane (as I said, I couldn’t feel a thing). It was the knowledge of the aforementioned wriggling metal rods. Talk about crawling in my skin… I thought there really were things crawling in my skin. And they kept sticking them in again and again…
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that I was more or less nuts by the time I got to the OR. It was probably the third IV attempt that did it to me. They thought they found the vein, then proceeded to fiddle with things for a few minutes before deciding that it wasn’t working. I was definitely mentally freaking out at that point, no matter what I did to try to stop it. I had reached the point of no return. By the time they settled into the fourth IV attempt (my hand) I remember thinking “Oh yeah, of course that hurts. That’s normal. Bring it onnn!”
I don’t remember much of the trip to the OR, which happened pretty quickly after that. They flowed some stuff into me to prep me for the general anesthesia, which got me “loosey goosey.” My words. Then, once I had been wheeled into the OR, they asked me if I could move myself onto the operating table. I replied “Of course!” and wriggled onto the operating table. I say “wriggled” because I expect that is what really happened and that they helped to push me. At the time, though, I seem to remember basically just hopping from one table to the next, like some sort of super-human. But then, I also have the feeling that I was rather high at the time on whatever they were giving me.
Then came the general anesthesia and I was out cold and dreaming before I could reach “four-one-thousand.” I wish I could remember my dream. It seemed really interesting at the time.
At any rate, that’s basically what I remember of the experience. The IV was the worst part of it all by far. Mostly because I can’t stand the thought of an IV and I seriously hope I don’t have to have another one for a very, very long time.
And that’s my blog entry for today. I’m sorry if it is at all unclear – I was basically just typing as I could remember it. I don’t mean to turn this into a livejournal-esque entry, either, but this is all I basically have to talk about at the moment. I’ll probably get back onto more writerly topics next week. Also, I’ll post as soon as Locution Zine 3 comes out.
I have news! Well, sort of. I have a teaser. Remember how I was talking about deadlines for the next zine? Welllll… we’re almost done. I have seen the line-up this round and I must say, it looks pretty damn good. I know, I would say that normally just to get you to read it, but I really mean it. In fact, we had so many good entries that we weren’t sure we’d be able to fit them all. (Then we remembered that this is a primarily internet based zine, so we could fit them all just fine.)
So look out, it’s coming. I expect that in about a week it will be done.
I don’t really have much else to say today. Mostly I’ve been dealing with bureaucrats who can’t think for themselves and going to work. Life moves, and so do I.
You know what I haven’t done yet in this blog? A book review. Earlier I asked myself why not and I couldn’t come up with an answer. So, I went down to the bookstore today and picked up something to read. I could have picked something off my shelf, or chosen a book I was already partway through, but I happened to be near a bookstore anyway today. Which is always dangerous for my wallet. Alas.
The book I picked out was actually a graphic novel. Now, I don’t have the same kind of informed, well-researched opinion that some do when it comes to graphic novels, and that’s just because I haven’t read too many of them. As a kid I loved comics, but I never had a lot. I would read and reread the few I had, but that’s about it. When I’m in a bookstore, I’ll browse the graphic novels and comic books that are available, but I usually don’t buy them. I have, of course, read the Watchmen. And I have read a bit of the Sandman books. I also have a few Wolverine books and some other random things, but I have nowhere near close to the collection that many self-professed comic-book readers have. So there’s my disclaimer.
Now with that said, let me introduce the book. It’s called the Necromancer, a comic book/graphic novel thing that is printed by Top Cow. Necromancer follows the story of a teenage girl named Abigail van Alstine (hmm… I wonder what horror hero that name references?) as she discovers that she has some pretty awesome powers. Not to give too much away, but let’s just say that they way she finds out about her powers in probably not the best way for her state of mind, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
The story is, well, a bit clichéd. The idea isn’t too original and most of the characters are stock characters. They are not, however, flat characters (for the most part). They do have a good side, a dark side, understandable motivations, and a general fullness of being. Of course, that’s what you get from clichéd stock characters and that’s generally why they became part of the stock. The main character, for instance, is straight out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is a former blonde cheerleader, perky, bitchy, and bulimic. Then she discovers her powers and her “dark side” (seriously, that’s what she calls it). All of a sudden she transforms and becomes the dark loner, the quiet hero(ine?). She is, admittedly, pretty badass, though. Her power is incredible and she doesn’t hesitate to use it. She has few moral qualms and doesn’t just knock people out when she uses her power, she actually kills them. The only problem is that we’ve seen it all before.
Along the same lines, the story isn’t exactly new. As it says in the introduction to the book, “it’s a story we all know so well, from Harry Potter and elsewhere: a young wizard comes into his (or in this case her) power and ultimately – after triumphing over some serious obstacles – takes her place in a community of magic-users who will teach her the full extent of her gifts and the unsuspected sorcerous tradition in which she now, amazingly, has a place.” However, as they point out in a later paragraph, the story does have one saving grace: it’s lack of PCness. The tale may be the same type as Harry Potter, but the execution differs. Make no mistake, this is an adult’s comic (or a late, mature teen’s). There is blood, gore, realistic bitchiness, and the slaughtering of innocents. The introduction compares the story to Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea Quartet, which is not exactly an accurate comparison, in my opinion, but it does accurately suggest that the Necromancer is not a child’s comic.
Let me just say, though, that this peters out as you get closer to the end. Things start to get happy-happy-joy-joy, the darkness that was hinted at earlier recedes and never gets fully explored, and everything comes to a happy conclusion. Blech. It offends my post-modern sensibilities. I found the ending unsatisfying, specifically because things were wrapped up too nicely. Also because, as I just mentioned, a lot of the darker stuff that is hinted at in the first half is left alone and unexplored. That’s the interesting stuff! Give me more!
Finally, let me say something about the artwork, because it abso-fuckin-lutely deserves a mention. Francis Manapul was the spectacular artist of this book. You might recognize him as the artist from the Witchblade series. At any rate, every panel is spectacular. The demons in particular are rendered with a stunningly grotesque gorgeousness. Many times the art in a graphic novel or comic book is confusing or just plain sloppy, so it was nice to see one with such great attention to detail. I personally find that when the art is not up to par, it can drag down even a straight-up legendary plot.
On the whole, I did enjoy the book. The art was beautiful, the story was predictable but not terrible, and the characters were clichéd (and, again, predictable), but rounded and thus slightly interesting. Plus, it’s kinda fun to watch them go through these fucked up situations and wonder if they actually are going to die. That was one great thing about the book: no punches were pulled, and everyone was mortal and vulnerable. So, if for no other reason than to glance at the excellent art in the Necromancer’s pages, I recommend a trip to your local bookstore/comic store and checking this book out.
I love deadlines. It’s not the wooshing sound they make as they go by, but more the way a good deadline will growl menacingly if you try to step around it. I think it must have to do with consequences—“if you don’t turn in this essay on Monday, you will get a failing grade.” Or, “if you don’t write this blog entry by Saturday, there will be no blog entry and people will be sad.”* Consequences, and thus deadlines, are powerful motivators.
If it weren’t for deadlines, I wouldn’t get much writing done. The first short story I ever finished was for a school writing contest, and most of what I’ve completed since then has been under the watchful eye of a deadline. Take this blog entry; I’ve had an author account for a while, and with not a single post to its name I expect it felt neglected and unloved. It wasn’t until I was given two days to write something that I actually sat down, logged on, and started typing.
Deadlines make me write, simple as that. The external motivation, that faint twinge of worry about making it on time, forces me to ignore my perfectionism and my doubts. Who cares if it’s good? I just need it to be done. I’ll worry about the quality later, if I have time.
Of course, it’s never quite that simple. I still dither about ideas before getting down to business, and when I stop and let myself think I have a tendency to run away with self-criticism. Still, it all boils down to time. A project without a deadline can go on as long as you see fit to procrastinate, but ones with them on the other hand… well, we’re back to those consequences again.
Unfortunately, this means deadlines and I have a relationship that verges on unhealthy. Without a deadline I am bereft, at a loss, which I guess makes me the needy side of the dysfunctional equation. Recently I’ve started thinking of ways to move beyond my dependency; I’ve come to the conclusion that it will necessitate a stronger will, so if you know of anyone selling a fairly cheap one, please let me know.
~eladnarra
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*If the thought of no blog entry doesn’t make you sad, then shame on you.