Ad of the week

Dear Dr. Fleischman

For your viewing pleasure, a story (music video) that tells a tale of obsessive fandom. The fabulous, and slightly creepy, "Dear Dr. Fleischman" by Meira Marom. And yes, that's Dr. Fleischman as in the 90s TV show Northern Exposure.

Why I'm going to live forever

Study shows that coffee drinkers are 10-15% less likely to die than non-coffee drinkers. Oh, and by "coffee drinker" we don't mean those who imbibe a measly cup a day. Oh, no. To reach maximum coffee anti-death effect you need to come on up to my level of consumption, what the study refers to as "six cups of coffee or more every day."

Yep, science has proven it: by the power of coffee, I'm going to live forever.

Ad of the Week (it returns!)

Newcastle: No Bollocks

It's just another bollocky commercial until then end. And then it's Ad of the Week worthy.

Immortals

For the 2012 blogging from A to Z challenge, I'm writing to the theme of book series that I love. Mostly science fiction and fantasy, with a few others thrown in.

Oh hell yes, that's right. The A to Z challenge is back. I know it was a month of April challenge, but I didn't finish it and I had an entire freaking alphabet of series novels planned to discuss. So I'm going to finish it by golly.

And if you make me say "by golly" then I'm going to do it because seriously, how often do I fling around phrases that old?

The Immortals was the second series out of the realm of Tortall by Tamora Pierce. I completely and totally fell in love with Alanna in the Song of the Lioness Quartet when I was a preteen and so I gobbled up the Immortals when they arrived on the shelves even thought Alanna was way cooler. I've recently discovered that in the intervening decades, during which time moved on to not-so-YA reading, Tamora Pierce has put out several other Tortall-based series the most recent of which I understand is a prequel some many, many years before the Alanna books.

Where I loved the fact that Alanna cross-dressed as a boy to get what she wanted in a man's world and then eventually became the most successful "man" while completely in control of her gender identity as a woman (whoa, I think I just outlined a conference paper thesis), Daine of the Immortals series deals with gender roles and socio-economic roles in a different way.

While Daine never cross-dresses, she's often mistaken for a boy, both because of her appearance and her rough skills as someone who can live among the wild lands and has an uncanny way with horses. More than that, Daine can talk to most animals. It's wild magic passed to her by the Immortals of realms beyond their own, not the safe, human magic most people of Tortall are used to. Daine deals with the prejudice of small town life until her (unwed) mother dies and then strikes off on her own and discovers a whole host of more worldly, more educated, more privileged, and more understanding people. (And I think I just outlined a second conference paper thesis.)

The series teams up her and the horse handler Onua and the magician Numair. Alanna also makes appearances throughout the series as well as characters from her quartet of books now in their more "grown up" roles.

The cover art above absolutely does not appeal to me. But it appears the books have been through several editions/rebrandings. I remember a series with gorgeous illustrations like these at right. And I remember oh, so well, after all these years a line from the fourth installment of the Immortals: Love's fair wondrous. Where's the harm?

What can I say? I'm drawn to those moments of pivotal emotion brought on by a great awareness of emotion throughout the entire novel/series.

I'm more of a fan of the Song of the Lioness Quartet than the Immortals series, but sadly this will be the only Tamora Pierce mention in my A to Z of fantasy and sci-fi series so I've got to get in my read the song of the lioness! plug now. It's also THE BOOK to give to your 11-14 year-old niece.

Creating the lie

I love this writing concept!  Outlined in this article, "creating the lie" is all about that thing that your character believes at the start of the story which isn't true. And, in essence, the entire story is about them going through whatever it is they need to go through so that they no longer believe the lie by the end of the story.

Why do I love this concept? Because it's a great way of tying together the action aspects of the story with the psychological aspects of the story. I often find myself writing critiques to other writers about how their climaxes have become all action and no emotion. Now it's true that I've come to agree to disagree about the amount of description that should be on the page concerning emotional reaction / character feelings / character's internal reaction to stimuli.(I'm a big fan of more! so long as it's engaging, because I want to feel as they feel, agonize as they agonize, pump my fist in the air as they rejoice.) But thinking of your character as "caught in a lie they must overcome" forces you to not let the climax be about action alone.

Yes, the climax is tense. Yes, the climax is action filled.  Yes, you're speeding up the pacing by trimming down exposition. But trimming exposition doesn't mean  you have to trim emotion. Actually, Monica Wood's book on writing called Description has absolutely awesome discussion and examples of just this, so let me say it again: amping up the pacing and cutting exposition does not mean you have to cut character emotion -- it just means delivering it in short bursts relative to the pacing of the action surrounding it.

Maurice Sendak

Earlier this week, Marice Sendak, creator of Where the Wild Things Are and renowned illustrator, passed away at the age of 83. Every time I hear an interview he did, or listen to someone else talk about him, I fall in love with the man's spirit and wit a little bit more.

There's a great All Things Considered piece on Sendak from this week where they talk about how his books arrived right with the cultural revolution of the 60s, and they were part of it. They weren't safe. They weren't nice and sanitized. They had the sort of brutality that encompasses what it means to actually have a child-like understanding of the world, not the idealized notion of "child-like" which grown ups like to nostologize and protect.

But this image below has my all-time favorite Sendak moment:

How's that for appreciating one's fans?

May the fourth be with you

Today is Star Wars Day I'm told.

There has to be a name for this kind of thing, that is, a situation where the speaker says one word and you hear another word. And I don't mean "mishearing." I mean intentionally choosing a like word that layers meaning. Like in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You when the character hedges her way around admitting that she flashed someone she says, "I dazzled him with my wits."

Is it simply a pun?

I feel like linguists likely have some more technical term.

Anyway, it's May the fourth, and may the force be with you.

Amusing tidbit: I have just enough religious call and response drilled into me that whenever I hear may the force be with you I have to stop myself from automatically spouting off and also with you. I can't be the only person with this problem.

Markets, contests, things of note

Let's run this post from short to long -- fiction that is.

The blog Good to Begin Well, Better to End Well is having a Thor-sandwich. Actually it's more of a Thor/sandwich contest and giveaway type thing but saying "Thor-sandwich" just sounds so much more fun. THOR trading card prizes (I hear he's flexing in a pretty hunky manner); lasts through Tuesday, May 8. From the site:

YOUR CHALLENGE, if you choose to accept this throwing down of the gauntlet, is to engage in one of two activities to the glory of Thor in all his states of undress:

1) Find or make a fabulous sandwich, take a picture of said fabulous sandwich (and I am talking Dagwood levels of awesome, the taller the better), and leave me a link to this photography in the comments. (Then feel free to eat said sandwich. In fact, photos with a bite already taken out of the sandwich can sometimes be artistically interesting! Bonus points if you happen to include some kind of Thor anything in the picture! But not bonus entries, because I do not mess around with that nonsense.)

2) Write a short story (1000 words or less) which involves a sandwich, or sandwiching. Your character could be out to lunch, and the sandwich might be spilled in their laps, causing an uproar or a meeting of the eyes! Or maybe your characters are making sandwiches and fighting over who gets the last piece of lemon-pepper chicken! (Guys, Lemon-Pepper Chicken is AMAZING.) I do not care, really, what the situation is, as long as a sandwich is present in a crucial way. Maybe Thor is experiencing the excellence that is Jimmy Johns for the first time. Whatever! 

Urban Green Man anthology. Mainly fantasy fiction. Up to 5,000 words. Open through November 30. Paying Market. See their website and history/mythology of the Green Man for details and suggestions. Stories should:

Involve the mythology of the Green Man in any form (which includes the Green Woman).

Underwords announces Futuredaze, an anthology of YA sci-fi. Submissions open May 1 until filled. Up to 6,000 words. Paying market. From their website:

Fiction and poetry that sparks the imagination, twists the heart, and makes us yearn for the possibilities of a world yet to come. At a time when every other YA book features vampires, werewolves or other fantastical creatures (which we love!), Futuredaze will be an anthology for the next generation of science fiction readers. We’re looking for hard science fiction, soft science fiction, and everything in between. Think Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, George Orwell or Ray Bradbury with a YA focus.

World Weaver Press open submission period started May 1. Fantasy and science fiction. Open through the summer. Seeking queries for novellas, novels, short fiction collections, and some nonfiction. Royalty paying market. Seeking:

Quality fantasy and science fiction that engages our minds and ensnares our story-loving souls.