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Monstrous Post on Monsters: First Sequence

Monstrous Post on Monsters: First Sequence

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Were I a monster good and proper, I wouldn’t bother with these words shimmering on your computer screen. I’d rather reach through the transparent pane and pluck your eyes right out of your gobsmacked head, and none too neatly either, and as I contentedly burst your eyeballs between my teeth I’d either savor your screams with equal relish, or simply ignore them.

J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic Balrog.

But alas, such an act is (for now) beyond my capacity, and so in lieu of a more hands-on experience I offer you a blog entry about monsters. Perhaps the first of several, depending on the whims of my Lady Cooney, Supreme Sorceress of the Black Gate.

Maybe it’s time for introductions. I’m Mike Allen, and you’ve heard about me here before, in entries on modern Cthulhu Mythos stories, Heavy Metal in Fantasy, the fantasy poetry journal Goblin Fruit, and Arab/Muslim fantasy fiction. Yup, these chaps are all the same Mike Allen. I’m grateful to John R. Fultz, Amal El-Mohtar and of course Miss Cooney for all this foreshadowing.

I have some experience with monsters, which I presume is why Miss Cooney asked me to write about this topic.

At the most recent World Fantasy Convention, aside from hanging out with the Black Gate crew, I participated in a panel called Beyond Modern Horror, that in a nutshell boiled down to what creators of horror do to scare and disturb the readers of today. And as you can imagine, monsters came up in the discussion.

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“And It Goes On From There…” An Interview with Gene Wolfe

“And It Goes On From There…” An Interview with Gene Wolfe

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Gene Wolfe at Top Shelf Books
Gene Wolfe at Top Shelf Books

As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon, a quarter to five, and there is some serious gloaming and wuthering going on outside my window.

Gloaming and wuthering accurately describe the state of my stomach as well. I’ve just gotten home from a long lunch with Gene and Rosemary Wolfe at The Claim Jumper, where the appetizers are colossal, the entrees epic, and each dessert the size of a football field.

I have the touchdown in my fridge right now, all festooned in gobs of made-fresh-daily whipped cream. It’s the sort of dessert you’d wish on your worst enemy, in the interest of stopping her heart at a distance when she sees it waddling toward her.

A few weeks ago, I wheedled Gene into letting me interview him. He said sure, “Provided it is face-to-face and entirely hand-to-hand,” which made the whole thing sound like armed combat. I didn’t know then I’d be wrestling with an insurmountable mound of mashed potatoes and a heap of bellicose mushrooms, but things are always a bit surreal when you’re lunching with Wolfes.

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Novel Writing: The Hard Part

Novel Writing: The Hard Part

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The Sword in the StoneAs I write this, I’m closing in on the 50,000 word mark of my NaNoWriMo novel. I’m aiming for 100,000 words, which means I’m well behind my ideal pace, but if I can keep going for 6,000 words a day over the next week and a half, I should get there. So it’s still very possible. (You can read some thoughts on National Novel Writing Month here, some talk about the Arthurian legends that inspired my plot here, and a more detailed discussion of my plans over here.)

An outside observer might wonder what the point is. The book I write isn’t going to be very good; it’s a first draft, written in haste. Why not take it slower, and produce something better? But whatever I’d write would have to be reworked; that’s the way of things. Still, even assuming that this particular way of working is conducive to eventually producing something worthwhile … well, what is it that’s worthwhile, exactly? What, in short, is the point of writing this novel?

I don’t know if there’s really an answer to that. But why ask the question at all?

Only because that’s where I’m at with the novel.

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Rogue Blades Entertainment Announces Winners of Challenge! Discovery 2010 Contest

Rogue Blades Entertainment Announces Winners of Challenge! Discovery 2010 Contest

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discoveryBack in May Rogue Blades Entertainment, publishers of  Rage of the Behemoth, Demons, Return of the Sword and other excellent fantasy anthologies, announced the first annual Challenge! writing contest. Open to fiction in a wide variety of genres (“Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Soul & Sandal, Western, Mystery, Dark Fantasy” and others), the Challenge! Discovery contest invited authors to submit works directly inspired by a single piece of art by V Shane, pictured at right.

The winners of the  Challenge! Discovery 2010 writinng contest are (in no particular order):

“A Fire in Shandria” ~ Frederic S. Durbin
“In the Ruins of the Panther People” ~ Daniel R. Robichaud
“The Serpent’s Root” ~ David J. West
“Fire Eye Gem” ~ Richard Berrigan Jr.
2nd PLACE: “Cat’s in the Cradle” ~ Nicholas Ozment
“Some Place Cool and Dark” ~ Frederic S. Durbin
“The Ash-Wood of Celestial Flame” ~ Gabe Dybing
“Witch with Bronze Teeth” ~ Keith J. Taylor
“Inner Nature” ~ John Kilian
1st PLACE: “Attabeira” ~ Henrik Ramsager

Honorable mentions go to Eric Magliozzi for “Songs of the Dead,” and Michael Navarro for “The Golden Maiden.”

The winning entries will be collected in the Challenge! Discovery anthology, to be published by Rogue Blades Entertainment around Christmas this year. More information on the contest results and the upcoming book is here.

Congratulations to all the winners!  I’m looking forward to reading the stories.

Fantasy, The Middle-East, and a Conversation with Saladin Ahmed

Fantasy, The Middle-East, and a Conversation with Saladin Ahmed

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blackgateamal1Hi! My name’s Amal! We’ve never met. Well, unless we have. But most likely we haven’t, because I’ve never blogged here before, even though Ms. Claire Rides-the-Lightning Cooney has mentioned me in my capacity as one of the Editors of Goblin Fruit in her ever-so-mighty three-part article extravaganza about mine humble ‘zine.

Anyway, towards summer’s end, Claire Too-Sexy-For-Trousers Cooney told me about a conversation our very own scurrilous blarneyful dear John O’Neill had with some friends, in which they were trying to think of Muslim SF writers, and coming up blank. Then someone thought of me! My vanity, it was flattered!

Except, I am not Muslim.

I am, however, a first-generation Lebanese-Canadian, and that may as well be the same thing.

Over the last nine years, I’ve had occasion to be startled, and then to cease to be startled, by the extent to which my Middle-Eastern-ness gets conflated with Muslim-ness as a matter of course, as well as the extent to which people feel entitled to learning my religion along with my name. This is not the space in which I want to think about why precisely that is – I have a blog too, after all – but it is the space which Ms. Awesomesauce Cooney offered me to talk about the ways in which we might see the Middle-East positively represented in fantasy, as well as showcase a writer of fantasy literature who does in fact happen to be Muslim.

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The “Saw-the-Story-in-Half” Trick

The “Saw-the-Story-in-Half” Trick

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stratton_robberbride1(I passed the 50,000-word mark in National Novel Writing Month yesterday, at Day 14. Last year I achieved this at Day 13—I must be getting slow.)

I have started to view Frederick Faust as something of my writing mentor. He wasn’t a public figure, instead disguised behind “Max Brand” and his many other pseudonyms, but his excellent storytelling skill is a good teacher all on its own. However, in his letters he left behind some excellent advice about how he developed his ideas. Considering his productivity, which shames about every author in history through its sheer volume, he must have got his ideas fast.

It is easy to call Frederick Faust and other writers with enormous bibliographies to their credit (Andre Norton comes to mind immediately within speculative fiction) as “natural storytellers.” But I wonder how much that takes away from their efforts. Faust’s own notes about his writing indicate a man always on the search for “story,” and not simply plunking down in front of the typewriter and trusting to luck. Early in his career, Faust was constantly worried that each idea he had would be the last one he would ever find—and I think most writers would admit to a similar fear. But Faust discovered, “You spot stories in the air, flying out of conversations, out of books.”

Here’s a remarkable piece of advice I discovered in one of Faust’s letters, which offers an interesting writing exercise: “When you read a story, pause halfway through; finish the story in detail in your imagination; write it down in brief notes. Then read the story through to the end. Often you find that you have a totally new final half of a story. Fit in a new beginning and there you are.”

That so simple it’s beautiful. I’ve tried it a number of times, usually on modern works, and always come up with a sketch of something completely new. So far, I’ve never used one of these outlines to complete a full story, but a few other ideas have come out of this brainstorming.

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Novel Writing: Extrapolations

Novel Writing: Extrapolations

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Ford's MordredNaNoWriMo continues. I’m adding to my word count, generating text and ideas. Last week, I talked about Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which I’m using as a source text for my novel, and I mentioned that it can act as a spur to creativity.

This week, I’d like to give an example of what I meant, and go over some of the ways I’m rewriting Malory, and some of the ways I’ve interpreted him in ways that serve the purpose of my own tale. This will therefore be an unavoidably self-indulgent post.

My plan is for the story I’m writing to weave in and out around the events of Malory’s book, presenting bits of Le Morte d’Arthur from a new angle. I’m still going with the basic idea I outlined in my first post on NaNoWriMo; the Arthur story from Modred’s point of view, but a Modred who is half-elven and as deeply enmeshed in the politics of the elven world as of Camelot. Modred as a bitter moralist, struggling against fate; as I said, Modred as Elric.

So how do I get from there to a 50,000 word (or 100,000 word) novel?

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You Know What’s Cool? Strange Horizons Is Cool

You Know What’s Cool? Strange Horizons Is Cool

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"After the Fall" by Malcolm McClinton
"After the Fall" by Malcolm McClinton

As an upstart n00bie writer in the fantasy field, I tend to be very fond of those editors who actively seek out and nurture upstart n00bie writers in the fantasy field.

I know, right? Shocker!

That’s one of the many reasons I adore Black Gate Magazine with radiant rip-tides of affection. The time and attention these editors bestow on their writers is mind-boggling. You think you’ve written something pretty okay, and then the editors get their scalpels and flensing knives and broadswords right into the meat of it, and your story suddenly becomes EPIC LIKE BEOWULF!

And that’s an experience I had recently with Strange Horizons‘ editor Karen Meisner.

Back in late July, Strange Horizons accepted my story “Household Spirits,” which went live online today.

In the interim between acceptance and publication, there was the Editing Process.

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Writing: Mistakes Are Future Tips

Writing: Mistakes Are Future Tips

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1793-notebook1Several weeks ago I waxed on about how useful I find my Paperblanks writing notebook. I fill one up about once a year, and recently found myself copying over some of the information I always jot down in the first few pages. One of the most important things I keep there is a list of reminders intended to help me be a better writer. On the whole, although I call these writing tips, most of them are mistakes I’ve made. I try to glance over them every few days.

Every writer’s going to have his or her own favorite mistakes; I’m listing the ones I’m most aware of in my own writing in the hope you’ll find some of them instructional. Maybe this list can even help you avoid them.

  • Don’t be too quick to reveal the villain’s plan

In my rough drafts the villains usually are way too obvious. Sometimes it’s good if the readers know exactly what the plan is because that creates tension, but I have a habit of just laying it all out as I’m figuring out the bad guy’s motives and as a result, crush suspense.

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Novel Writing: Le Morte d’Arthur

Novel Writing: Le Morte d’Arthur

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Idylls of the KingNational Novel Writing Month is well underway for me. I’ve gotten a start on my novel, at the same time as I’m still getting the structure figured out. I’ll have some thoughts on my process, and what I’m learning, a bit later in this post; first, I want to write a bit about the subject I’m wrestling with, the Matter of Britain.

I’m writing an Arthurian fantasy. Like, I’d imagine, most people, I’ve been vaguely familiar with the stories of Arthur and his knights since I was very young. At different times in my life I’ve been more or less intensely interested in different aspects of the Arthurian tales and the way they developed over time; writing a story using that material, though, forces a new perspective on me.

I’ve had to think a lot about what precisely interests me about these stories. And which stories, in particular, have grabbed me? Why do they matter? Why do I want to write about them?

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