Tytan’s Origin Story–a Work in Progress

He’s sexy and you know it.

Tytan’s origin story here! For those who have read the Bazaar, I’m sure you remember Tytan. How could you not? He’s one of my favorite characters, to be sure, and one of my main character’s biggest–and sexiest–headaches. I thought it would be fun to share my work in progress about Ty’s parents. But first, let me give you a little background.

Wherein the writer beings to pontificate about her writing process …

As a writer, I’m one who just starts writing and sees where the story carries me. Whenever I get a wild hair to plot out a tale, I invariably lose interest. The journey, it seems, is better for me than worrying about my destination. As such, I didn’t really know anything about Ty until he revealed himself to me as I wrote

The Bazaar started as a dream about a handsome man selling sugar, an eerie bazaar full of chained humans and magical objects, and a desperate witch who deposited a heart into my (as the dreamer) pocket and fled. The story became one I had to write when a monster broke down the witch’s door and revealed itself to be a spider peeling a human open from the inside out, emerging to kill the witch and take the heart.

I’m telling you this because, once more, I’ve had a dream that had all the makings of an epic story. I didn’t know where that story would fit or who it would be about until I got halfway through my third book in the Devany Miller series. (Of which The Bazaar is book one and Slip Song is book two.) A new character made Herself known in a big way and I had an EPIPHANY. (It’s in all caps because it was an awesome epiphany, at least to me.)

To make a long story short, I realized I’d dreamt Tytan’s origin story, or to be more specific, the tale of how his mother and father met. Yes, it surprised me too that he had a mother and father. He wasn’t supposed to have either. (By the way, the dream totally starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Um, yum!) To tell more would be to reveal too much about book three. But I wanted to share with you my work in progress, which is the first part of his parents’ tale. I’m sharing because it makes me happy and I hope that it makes you happy too.

Tytan’s Origin story–Chapter One

Sparks danced in the sky above the fire as the men played the drums. The dull thump of bare feet on hard-packed clay filled the spaces between beats. Dancers twirled about the fire, the hollowed, dried reeds sewn to their clothes clacking as they moved. Sage, thyme, and the sharp, sweet tang of Vision Root wafted upward with the smoke, taking those present into the shifting place between the Real and the Dream.

Sephony danced with the warriors, her eyes half-shut, her brown hair swaying with the beat that had settled deep inside her belly, where a babe would perhaps nestle one day, the cradle of creation the First Clan elders claimed.

A woman’s voice, warbly and pitched high, sung out the charm of safe passing and the wild magic danced across Sephony’s skin, prickling, itching. A flute joined the singer, adding its haunting melody to the mix, stirring the spell higher. Still Sephony danced, her feet moving automatically in the steps of one going off to war. “Why this dance?” she’d asked her father earlier that day. It was supposed to be a peace party and yet here they were, weaving the fabric of battle and blood.

“They are witches,” he’d said, as if that held all the answers and she supposed for him it had. Witches were bad, the People were good, and there was no in between.

“What your father is trying to say,” her mother had offered, braiding her hair for the ceremony, “is that the witch king is untried, newly crowned, and therefore not worthy of our trust.”

Sephony moved her hands in the gestures of her People, guiding the power around her into her muscles, fashioning protection from its strands of yellow and red that she could see out of the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t something most of her kind could do, see magics. Odder still that she could see the colors when side vision always showed black, white, and greys.

Around her, she felt the warriors create their own protections, each unique, sparking colors in every shade under the sun. The scent of Vision Root grew stronger and Sephony’s mind swirled in her skull. Surely it was too much. She didn’t want to pass out from the fumes; she only wanted to be open and receptive to the visions, should they come. The ceremony wasn’t to cause Dreaming, it was to bond the band of warriors together, to protect them, to ensure safe battles and true strikes of sword, knife, and arrow.

“Treachery!”

The word rang out in harsh notes, cutting through the haze created by the herbs cast into the fire. The beat faltered then stopped. The notes of the Song Weaver trailed off, the wild magic slithering into Sephonys’s skin with a slimy, unfinished feel, though the flute played on. In the broken silence and without the drums, it sounded eerie and prophetic.

The circle around the dancers parted, revealing a rotund woman with hollowed cheeks and frizzed white hair. She wore the thick, black claws of a shifter around her neck and a dirty red gown decorated with the purple-black shells from the coast. “Traitor.” Her eyes, as dark as the shells and the claws, looked over the warriors, arrested around the fire. “One of you will betray the daughter of the First Clan.”

Voices erupted into protests, both angry and worried. Sweat trickled down Sephony’s chest and belly, a different tickle from the magic. She glanced over at her shield brothers and sisters, who looked both puzzled and pissed at the interruption. Her mother came forward, the small blue berries around her neck bouncing in time with her steps. “Dream Mother, we are honored that you visit us from your seclusion.”

The old woman inclined her head.

The flute still played. The sound of it set Sephony on edge, though she wasn’t sure why. To her left, the fire crackled and spat sparks. Further out in the darkness, a big cat screamed—it might have been one of their People, trapped in his or her animal form—or it might have been an animal True. The Wilds were a tricksy place to dwell.

“May we offer you succor?” Her mother’s words were formal and gentle, no hint of impatience at the older woman’s timing showing in them.

“I did not come for banalities, of this you may be sure. I came because the Dreams compelled me. I came to warn you. Do you go to treat with the witch king,” and these words she spat as Sephony’s father often did, “then one of these fine warriors will turn against our daughter and sell our independence to our enemies.”

Sephony slid a look at Markhelm beside her, his big, burly body covered in tattoos similar to her own, though she didn’t have as many as he had. He didn’t look guilty or shifty-eyed the way she imagined a traitor might. As she expanded her observation, her shield brothers and sisters had pulled closer together, protecting each other as they should. Their band was one of four in the First Clan, and the newest. They’d only been sworn to each other for a half-year’s turn but they’d spent every waking hour with each other and moved like a single entity.

“This treat has been blessed by Olebia herself.” Her father, his booming voice carrying over the murmuring crowd, over the fire, over the flute that continued to play its maddening notes. He had been in sweat, his burnished brown skin shimmering in the moon and fire light. “We do not need nor want the ravings of a banished Dream Mother.”

A small gasp of horror from her mother, quickly stifled. Markhelm leaned in close to Sephony and whispered, “Your father has a sack the size of a dew melon.”

Sephony jabbed him in his solid stomach with her elbow, not that it did any good. He didn’t even huff out a breath and she told herself to be grateful that she had such a tough brother.

“Your impertinence does not harm me but does your reputation a great disservice. I came from afar to bring this news, unwelcome though it may be. I see that First Clan is ruled by a blind man and our fate has already been sealed.” She turned to the assembled warriors, her eyes picking out each in turn.

Sephony felt the force of her gaze like a punch to the gut. A Dream in a glance, she thought. Then the eyes went on to pin Markhelm, then Roselle, then Ragnar. When the old woman had marked each of them, she turned with the slow dignity of an elder and left the ceremonial circle without another word.

The flute played on.

Sephony saw the muscles in her mother’s jaw jump and bunch and knew her father would be in for a tongue lashing, if not a blood challenge. Her mother was a warrior and a good one, her beast one of the great snakes that lived in the fleshcrawler swamps. Her father was a hyena and vicious, but Walya had more raw power than her husband and they both knew it.

A drum started up again, the sound coaxing. Sephony’s body moved of its own accord, swaying as the beat was taken up by more drummers until the night air was filled with the heartbeat of their People. She didn’t continue the dance, however, until Markhelm took her arm and spun her away from the sight of her parents staring hard at one another.

Though the wild magic built again, the spell had been warped from true and Sephony hoped that their war party in dance did not become war party for real. She didn’t want to lose the people she’d grown so fond of in the last months, those who had sworn to give their lives for her and to whom she’d sworn her everlasting loyalty.

They danced late into the night, until the fire returned to the darkness and banked embers glowed fitfully in the dawn light.

Markhelm stamped once then yawned, his mouth cracking open wide as he stretched toward the light on the horizon. Sephony’s eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with sand. She slipped her arm around Danicha, lifting the petite woman from the ground near the drummers where she’d fallen, exhausted about an hour ago. “To sweat,” she told her and Danicha groaned.

It was the last of the several days of ritual cleansing and ceremonies. One last sweat, to give their minds and bodies to each other and the Dreams, then they would sleep. In two days time, the band would set off for their parlay with the witch king.

“Betrayal!” The word echoed in Sephony’s tired mind as she and Danicha made their way to the lodge where her father had kept vigil all night—but for the old woman’s interruption. It had to be a mistake. None of her brothers or sisters would commit such an atrocity. She couldn’t imagine it.

There were twelve of them in all, each bound and sworn by blood to the other. Each wearing a mark depicting the shift-animals of every member of their party. Those markings decorated Sephony’s arms, giving her skin a glow in direct sun that she found beautiful. As daughter of First Clan’s leaders, she’d had to use gold, though most of the others had gone for the blue of iron. Danicha had chosen red. “I’m so small, Seph,” she’d said, as the elder tapped a design into her flesh, “I need all the advantage I can get. If this makes me look scarier, covered in what looks like blood, I’ll take it.”

Sephony helped Danicha to the falls, a small spill of water off the far Western side of the Dream Caves. They washed off the smoke and sweat from the dance, stripping to their skin before crawling into the lodge that sat in the ground. The top was covered with reeds bound together with lengths of braided grasses, warded to keep off the rain and make the grasses last longer. The interior was dark and close, muggy with steam and filled with the tart smell of citrus. Sephony could make out the bright pink peelings in the fire and was glad there would be no more Dreaming.

She was honored to be allowed to walk in the world beyond the Real but it always gave her a headache and made her feel like she was slipping from her skin. She couldn’t imagine being an elder or worse, the Dream Mother, to walk in Dreams at least once a day. The clay floor was smooth against her naked flesh and familiar. Warriors sweated together at the end of every week. Her father said it helped remove from their bodies the small and petty things that would keep them from living, breathing, thinking, and feeling as one. Though she wasn’t a warrior, she’d trained with them from the first day.

Her brothers and sister had gone through the same with their shield brothers and sisters, each child given a group to protect them. They were valuable, able to anchor the People during their first change or whenever stress, injury, or duress caused the wild magic to warp them from True. Anchors held the clan together and kept insanity at bay. Though many of the People could anchor a little, it was Sephony’s family who had the power to ground the entire village. It kept First Clan strong and held back the wild magic that ever beat at the wards around their town.

Her father sat across from her, his eyes shut, shadows dancing over his face. He wasn’t a large man, not really, though she knew surprise every time she saw him dwarfed by Markhelm’s bulk. He was a big man in her mind, as Walya, her mother was intelligent and powerful. She hoped to have one tenth the abilities of her parents and often feared she would let them both down.

The sweat lasted half the day. By then, Sephony was almost faint with hunger. She and Danicha held each other up as they made their way back to their barracks, to eat with drooping lids before falling into their beds, exhausted. Before she slid into oblivion, Sephony caught herself remembering the old woman’s eyes as they had stared. What had she seen when she looked into Sephony’s own?

“Traitor!” The ring of the banished Dream Mother’s voice rode her into sleep.

Clowns: Are They Oogy Monsters or Not?

I already know what my boys would say. I don’t even have to ask them. “Clowns are EVIL.” They would site this excellent art as evidence. See it here.

When I was a kid, clowns were great. I’d go to the circus specifically to see the clowns. They rocked. Funny. Goofy. Oddball. They did tricks and capered about, their ONLY JOB to make me laugh and they did! Even now I love me some clown action. It’s delightful.

Behold the horror!

Stephen King did a lot to change people’s perceptions about clowns with his book It and his inimical character Pennywise. Of course, many people who fear Pennywise, fear Tim Curry’s version from the movie. It’s only when you’ve read the book that you learn it’s not the clown you should be worried about, it’s Derry. Or more specifically, the alien awful that lies beneath Derry. One could argue that Derry, in all its malignant glory, rose from the alien thing that fell to Earth millions of years before even humans existed. So anyway, Pennywise isn’t a clown, it’s a projection of It. A puppet, if you will, or a disguise. Interesting, isn’t it, that the clown, which is a disguise in and of itself, is itself a disguise for a monster.

Phew. Too complicated.

The real face of horror: parasitic wasps. Eek!

Perhaps it’s my horror loving self that doesn’t get why clowns are scary. Even with Pennywise I don’t get it. Pennywise wasn’t a real clown. Real clowns spread joy and laughter wherever they go. Come on, surely they aren’t that bad? Horror is spiders emerging from the top of a human’s head. Horror is the taut, white-hot chain of suspense as the victim waits to be brutally murdered by the monster. Horror is the milky, vacant gaze of a zombie as it lurches toward you.

Horror is not a cute white face, round, red nose, and puffy hair. It’s just not. IT’S NOT! 🙂

Terror lurks under white paint and red nose:

Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns. There is an actual, specific word for being scared of these wonderful entertainers. I don’t understand! I mean, arachnophobia makes sense. Spiders can be deadly, after all.  And if you’re both coulrophobic and arachnophobic, have I got a picture for you. Go see the horror!

Did you survive? Good on you.

Banking on the public’s fear of clowns:

Insane Clown Posse plays with the fear people have of clowns. When I see them, I think, “Boy, I wonder when they are going to honk each other’s noses and climb out of a tiny car?” Their alleged creepiness goes over my head. It’s hard to take grown men in face paint seriously. See? Whoops. Wrong grown men in face paint. Here, try this link. Heh. (For the record, I loved KISS when I was a kid. I insisted on being Gene Simmons for Halloween when I was four. I wore a dyed black sheet, chains, and I remember sticking my tongue out a lot. You know, I was in character!)

A messed up reason to fear clowns:

Did you know John Wayne Gacy was also known as the Killer Clown? Why? Did he kill people whilst wearing a clown suit? No. He did a lot of charitable work at fundraising events, dressing as Pogo the Clown. He didn’t kill people in his clown suit but coulrophobics latched on tight to that association and the Killer Clown was created in the hearts and minds of the masses.

Are clowns oogy monsters or just much-maligned childhood friends?

Back to the question at hand. Are clowns oogy monsters or maligned childhood friends? My vote is they are monsters and I’ll tell you why: from the point of view of a horror writer, built in fear is gold. We’ve whittled away the terror around vampires and werewolves now, haven’t we, by making them sex objects and emo brooders. Zombies have gone from drooling, mindless, (irony?) brain eaters to sexy leads in not-too shabby movies. Had you asked me ten years ago if I thought zombies would be sexy heroes I would have had you committed. Now? All righty then. But if you ask me now if I think that someday clowns will be sexy heroes I will laugh and laugh and laugh and then die from laughing because I will run out of breath. And if they never become sexy heroes, they will never leave those dark spaces of the mind where terrors dwell and that is delicious indeed.

“She’s not very feminine.” Uh, what?

What does it mean to be feminine?

Google says: having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with women, especially delicacy and prettiness.

Sigh.

I write stories about kick ass women and oogy monsters. Says so, right here on my blog. You can check out my Kick Ass Woman’s Manifesto if you want to know how I define kick ass women. As you can see, I don’t mention anything about femininity, womanhood, or any other gender-conforming language because to me, a kick ass woman is all about attitude, feelings, and beliefs. She’s not about stereotypes. She’s not about rigid gender roles. She’s not about touting one standard of womanhood over another. I hope that the characters in my books reflect that.

If you hadn’t guessed yet, someone remarked that one of my characters  “wasn’t very feminine,” and I take exception to that. Let me tell you why.

1. Why do female main characters need to be “delicate and pretty”? My main character, Taye Pocrejac, is strong and determined. She may be pretty to those who love her and she’s certainly pretty to Lucifer, but the story isn’t about her looks or how pretty she is (or isn’t) so why would it matter at all that she “wasn’t very feminine”?

2. What exactly does it mean to be feminine? Do women, even when they are in battles for their lives, need to be delicate and pretty to be sympathetic characters? Is that the only standard to which we hold them? Doesn’t it matter that they were injured, victorious, deadly, brutal, or cowardly or does it only matter that they were pretty while doing any of those things?

3. If a character is feminine, does that mean that all her other actions are subordinate to this particular characteristic? Does this mean that a raging sociopath who is feminine automatically ranks higher than an average, unfeminine female hero? Does a feminine hero become a laughingstock if she defeats the Big Bad because there isn’t any way a “delicate and pretty” character could also be victorious over evil?

4. When we look out over this vast, green Earth, with its billions of people and its stunning and magnificent diversity, who do we see? Who is valuable? I would argue that everyone is valuable, but according to our media, our movies, our TV shows, the valuable people are the pretty, the thin, the gender-conforming, hetero, white people. Our entertainment rarely allows for the diversity we see everywhere else. We need characters who are different. There’s nothing worse than incestuous, inbreed fiction with genetic defects and too-thin bones on which plot hangs loose and wrinkled.

5. Femininity is held up as an achievement, as a social necessity if you want to fit in, if you want to be popular, if you want to get the guy and the house and the dream life. It’s okay for women to be feminine if they want to be. It’s not okay for women to be told they have to be feminine because otherwise no one will love them. It’s not okay for women to be told they can’t be feminine because they are promoting stereotypes and “shame on them.” It’s not okay for people to put their ideas of “the Ideal Woman” on anyone, especially if it’s to “put them back into their place.”

6. “She’s not very feminine,” implies that something is wrong with my character, that she has a defect because she is not conforming to this notion of the delicate female. It’s an accusation, a finger-pointing moment. “YOU HAVE DONE IT WRONG!” As if a woman being her true self is wrong.

7. It’s not okay to make such statements because it locks out so many possibilities. What happens, for instance, if a transgender woman doesn’t act feminine? Is she denigrated for not acting like a woman? Why do other people get to define how she acts in the first place? Why can’t a transgender woman live her life the way she wants? Why does she have to wear makeup and paint her fingernails and wear high-heeled shoes? I don’t and I’m a woman. Why do we have these ridiculous “rules” in our heads when it comes to the way we think other people should act?

8. It’s not okay to dismiss a character because they don’t conform to society’s gender rules. A male character who’s emotional isn’t automatically gay or a pussy. Male characters, too, suffer from expectations of hyper-masculinity and are derided if they don’t blow shit up and screw the dame, (the dame a perfect picture of femininity, of course.)

In conclusion, femininity isn’t bad. What’s bad is the way my character was dismissed because she didn’t conform to the rules inside the person’s head who accused her of not being very feminine. Now, my character isn’t real. She doesn’t exist … but there are many women like her who do exist and they deserve to be able to define womanhood how they want to define it. They deserve to be taken seriously whether or not they are delicate or pretty or match society’s idea of what a woman should look like/act like/be like.

In short, they should be allowed to be themselves, even when they wear leather pants, steel-toed boots, and a demon-eating grin.

Set Those Writing Goals High!

Before I screwed up my website and blog, I was posting regularly about my Epic Writing Schedule. Basically, I sat down one day and wrote out all my writing plans and plotted them out on a two-year calendar. Yep. Two years.

It was an ambitious schedule. It was exciting. And, damn it, it was motivating. It was also a bit over-ambitious to be honest. Was it really feasible for me to write 3000 words at night, every night, in the two hours I had free after my kids went to bed? Was it feasible to write 7000 words on the weekend?

Perhaps, if I didn’t let silly things like family obligations or family time get in the way.

The weird thing about my epic schedule was that, even though I wasn’t reaching my goals, I was writing way more than I’d ever done before. See my post on writing over a million words in less than a year, why don’t you? It hasn’t been a year since I created my Epic Writing Schedule, but I’d argue that it’s been an extremely productive few months since I first plotted my takeover of the writing world. (Okay, not really.)

What’s your bull’s-eye goal?

I know that experts say you need to create SMART goals, goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. My goals probably weren’t realistic. However, they were very motivational and inspiring. So I’d like to propose a different type of goal-setting for your writing.

1. Dream big. We writers are an imaginative sort, right? Here’s your creative side’s moment. Make a vision board of where you’d like to be in 5 years if nothing stood in your way. Bestseller lists? Good Morning America? On your book’s movie set? Screw goals that are realistic, at least at this stage. Roll around in the fun that is your daydreaming imagination and think BIG.

2. Set a word count goal to reach in a year. Sit down and figure out how many words you normally do a day and add 100 or 1000 more to it. Vow to stick with that word count for a year no matter what.

3. How many books do you want to write in your lifetime? My BIG goal right now is 100 published books in 15 years. When I’m 55, I want to have a back-list that will make lesser mortals tremble. In my lifetime? I’m going with 300. Why shoot for the moon when you can shoot for the stars?

4. Write out all the books you’re working on now and the books you have ideas for. Give them titles or temporary placeholder names. Write them all out. You’ll be impressed at the size of the list. Now, figure out how many words in total all that writing will be. For me, that’s probably about a million words, give or take a few hundred thousand. Now, I know from using the Magic Spreadsheet, that I can knock out a million words in about a  year. So I could, conceivably, finish all the half-done projects and new ideas in a year. (That’s scary to think about, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t say that.)

5. Now sit down and plot out how you are going to finish all the books in progress and new ideas in a couple of years. You can do one year but two is more fun. It starts giving you the long-vision on your creativity, which is a valuable thing to have. It will help you see how projects can go together, how you can publicize your work to its best advantage and more. Plus, you’ll be amazed at how excited it gets you, seeing your projects come to completion in a future that doesn’t seem so far away any more.

6. Refer to your calendar and goals frequently. Excitement wanes. Life intervenes. The only way to keep experiencing that excitement is to remind yourself what it was that got you excited in the first place. And when you stop being excited, it’s time to revamp, re-haul, redo your Epic Writing Schedule so that it excites you again.

Writing is fun. Dreaming is fun. Combine the two and give your writing productivity a well-needed shot in the arm.

Share your word count goals and published works goals with me. Let’s start a revolution of excitement and wonder.

Rape Culture and Writing

You may have guessed from my tagline: Writer of kick ass women and oogy monsters, that I like strong female characters. I’ve read a lot of books in my lifetime and there have been many that have had weak, unimportant, or even non-existent female characters. When I read I want to put myself into that book and I don’t want to be a whiny, inept fool or the sex object who doesn’t have a brain in her head.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy stories about men, I do. I just don’t enjoy books that negate or subjugate women–often for no apparent reason. I’m not insisting all books need tough, independent female characters, but I am asking that women get more than bit parts or demeaning roles and are acknowledged as human beings.

This act of removing female characters’ humanity is similar to the way advertising dehumanizes the women featured in magazines, on billboards, in print ads, and on TV. Females are reduced to objects, to sexual things that need to be owned or used, to weak, simple or inferior people. There are hundreds of examples, unfortunately. When I talk to classrooms about rape culture, I show these pictures. They are met with disbelief, shock, disgust, and sometimes laughter, because how ridiculous is it that we treat people in our society like this and think it will sell products.

Gang rape to sell jeans?

Using rape to sell liquor, because rape is funny?

Glamorization of sex and death to sell clothes.

Apparently it does.

This idea that women are commodities to be used, sold, or bartered is a troubling one. We can see this belief in stories, in our ads, on TV, in our music but censoring the images won’t cure the disease. These ads, these lyrics, these videos are symptoms of a culture steeped in an ideology that says it’s okay to depict an entire group of people in our society as lesser beings.

What’s the cure? Spreading information about consent. Challenging songs like Blurred Lines, Pop That, Say Aah, Backseat, Baby It’s Cold Outside, Summer Nights, and many more. Not censoring, but pointing out how that song contributes to rape culture. Stopping jokes that contribute to the dehumanization of women. Speaking up when there’s harassment going on. Stepping in when something questionable is going on. Making videos that challenge notions of what it means to be a woman, like this one from Maddie and Tae called Girl in a Country Song:

As writers, we can work to confront rape culture by not propagating harmful stereotypes, by not spreading disinformation about female sexuality, by not adding gratuitous violence aimed at women, by not reinforcing or romanticizing rape in our stories, or using rape as character development. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t write about rape. If it’s important to you to write about these issues, please do. Just keep in mind that your words are shaping future thoughts and be aware of what message you’re promulgating.

As writers, we are in a unique position to change people’s worldviews. Each time we sit down at our keyboard, we make choices about what the character wears, how they speak, what they do. We compile back story, character traits, and ponder endlessly over word choices. We are aware of what we are writing, in other words. Which means we can, with intention, address rape culture in our stories.

“But I’m writing a cozy mystery about an old woman and her cat who solve mysteries! I don’t want anything heavy in my story.” That’s fine. I’m not saying every story needs to be a 500 page treatise on why rape is bad. If there’s an opportunity for your character to confront a sexist, have her do so. Maybe she kindly informs a young man that her granddaughter isn’t a piece of meat and he should keep his perverted comments to himself. There are opportunities if you want to take them.

“I’m writing an epic fantasy set back in the day, when there weren’t women’s rights. Or human rights, for that matter.” It’s one thing to have a story that’s set in a time where there weren’t human rights. It’s another to think that frees you from the responsibility you have as a writer to tell the truth. There are always consequences and reactions to acts of cruelty and violence. If you leave out the emotional impact of those acts, then you aren’t being honest about what’s happening in your writing and in the world of your story. Once again, there are moments where you can edify and enlighten.

Rape culture promotes the dehumanization of women. As writers, we can promote the humanization of women. Easy as that.

Who are some of your favorite female characters?

One of my favorites is Pippi Longstocking. She’s tough, fearless, and independent. I love her.  Another would be Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time. Strong, caring, awkward, yes, but cool. Jane Yellowrock, of course. Mercy Thompson. Wonder Woman. And many more.

Oogy Monsters: Penanggalan

The name itself should cause shivers to roll down your spine. (How many G’s are in it? N’s? My god, where do they all go?)

The penanggalan is a type of vampire/witch mixture from Malaysia. She’s a witch who is able to separate her head from the rest of her body so that she can go flying around in the night, trailing her intestines behind her. What? Oh yeah, you read that right. Trailing her intestines behind her. 

Sweet!

Now why does she do this floaty-aroundy-thing? Why, so she can feed on pregnant and birthing mothers. Duh. She’s often said to be a midwife who either defied local taboos about eating meat at a certain time or a woman who used black magic to make herself beautiful. Because, as we all know, beauty is a curse.

Far less often, the penanggalan is created due to a curse being placed on a woman. Apparently it’s much more likely that a woman would use black magic than have it worked on her.

The penanggalan can be spied out when walking around as a regular human because they smell like vinegar. After a hard night’s flying around as a head and intestines, one has to soak one’s innards in vinegar in order to shrink them enough to get them back into the lower half of the body. If you smell someone who reeks of the tart stuff, watch out! She’s probably a penanggalan.

Locals have different ways of protecting themselves against this flying sorceress, who has fangs and will drink the blood of young mothers and their babies. Scattering around the thorny leaves of a local plant can snag up the soft and jiggly intestines, thus catching them up long enough to machete them to death. Also, planting pineapples under one’s house can catch them up the same way. I’ll betcha won’t look at a can of pineapple quite the same way again, will you? I mean, there’s garlic in a can right there. Or the sweet, sweet fruit of the same.

According to the Malaysian mythology surrounding the penanggalan, they can only be women. Until now:

He has attitude and he ain’t afraid to use it.

This is Nex. He kicks ass, even without feet.

Meet Nex. He once was a fleshcrawler king, ruling in the Swamps of Midia until Devany Miller came along to kill him. Of course, she didn’t want to hack his head off but she also didn’t want to get drained by Nex’s queen. Luckily for them all, they were able to make a deal … and Devany ended up with his head anyway.

According to the mythology in my story, once a fleshcrawler’s head is removed from his body, it becomes a penyang, a floating magic 8 ball, basically. Yes, he has his intestines trailing behind but he has a certain majesty about him that cannot be denied. His queen took his body to regenerate it into another fleshcrawler king–but that’s going to take a while.

Until then, Nex becomes something more than just a strange creature that insults Devany to keep her mind on business and her mind off the nauseating smell of the Swamp.

There you have it, folks. The penanggalan and my own creation, the penyang.

What do you think? Would you want one as a companion? Do you think you’d ever become one and under what circumstances?

Have spooky dreams.

Skunkblog

Thanks for visiting! Just for you, here’s a sneak peek at my upcoming book, The Bug Queen:

Things only get weirder from here.

Vedalia Kirkaldy studied the directions on the insecticide, understanding in the deepest part of her she was only putting off the inevitable. Four trips to the grocery store for supplies. A break for lunch. A chat with her sister that led to another trip to the store for white cheese popcorn because her sister couldn’t stop talking about it. All that and not once had she worked up the nerve to go into the house.

Okay, she’d gone in once, made it a whole foot inside the door before she got a face full of cobweb and a bug crawling up the back of her leg. Thankfully no one saw her scream like a child and run into the yard, stomping and brushing until she hyperventilated.

She hated bugs. And spiders. And any living creature with antennae. Even butterflies were kind of creepy, “like little sociopaths in evening wear, hoping you’ll be fooled by their elegance so you won’t notice them eating your soul.” Her sister had laughed at her for that one and then flicked a ladybug on her. Vedalia had screamed herself hoarse.

“Damn it.” Why couldn’t Uncle Joe have had the place fumigated before he died? If only people had a month’s warning of their approaching deaths. As it was, he had passed on before Vedalia could get there.

The sharp bite of grief had her staring hard at the weed-strewn lawn, fighting back her tears. She’d cried enough and she knew Joe would’ve chided her for it. She still remembered asking him what happened to people when they died, after Gramma Jean passed away. “It’s different for everyone. Me? I’m gunna hear Porky Pig stutter, ‘Th-th-that’s all folks. Then lights out.’ He’d ruffled her hair, which she hated, then given her one of his bear hugs, which she loved.

Focus on the house, and she forced herself to look at it. Really look.

It had a wrap-around porch and a porch swing. She could almost imaging sitting there on a balmy summer night, a glass of lemonade sweating on the table beside her.

A beautiful oak grew in the front yard along with some raggedy elms. The lilacs were in bloom and the sweet scent beckoned. The iris in front were overcrowded and long overdue for thinning, but the velvety purples made her want to stick her nose deep inside the petals and inhale.

She made herself walk toward the house. Put her foot on the porch. Walk toward the open door. Oh yeah. She hadn’t even bothered pulling it shut when she raced out of the nightmare.

In the sepulchral gloom of the dark interior she could hear the insects. It made her skin crawl knowing that there had to be millions of them for her to be able to hear them skittering around. She pulled her cell from her pocket and swiped open the flashlight app. The bright beam cut through the shadows and she saw that the few pieces of furniture left behind had been covered with sheets that may have been white once upon a time.

An inch long bug crawled into sight, pausing as if to taunt her. She held out the can, intending to blast the creepy thing but it skittered away before she could depress the trigger.

The insecticide was a joke, anyway. She’d need a gallon drum of the stuff before she could even start to feel okay about being there. She turned, chucked it out the door, and then told herself, “Get in, get out.”

The voice of the lawyer droned in her head. He’d kept referring to her uncle as ‘the deceased’ as if Joe had never lived, breathed, told dirty jokes, and made the best fudge in the universe. ‘The deceased also notes that you will find something of value in the upper room of the home he’s bequeathed to you.’ The lawyer had looked over the paperwork at her, his bushy brows fascinating in their unkempt, furry glory. ‘Because Mister Thomas’ estate is valued at over one hundred thousand dollars, you are obligated to include any valuables in the inventory for the IRS.’

As if, fluffy face. She did a little bounce test on the floor boards and they didn’t so much as creak under her weight. She supposed she should have had an inspector come over to assess the place for safety, but she’d been impatient to find out what the ‘something of value’ was and hoped it was something cool like Uncle Joe’s diaries.

That was a long shot, since she’d never seen him writing in a journal or anything, but a girl could dream.

The staircase looked sturdy and she stuck close to the wall and she climbed, testing each riser before putting trusting her weight to it. Halfway up a bug dropped into her hair. She made breathless, panicked noises as she tried to get the damned thing out without squishing it, because ohmygod she so didn’t want squished bug in her hair.

Hand shaking, she freed it, flinging it over the carved wooden balustrade into the gloom below. “Screw being careful. Get in, get out,” she told herself again and took the rest of the stairs two at a time.

Chest heaving she gazed down the hall to either side of her. Great. Just great. She’d have to search each room, not knowing what she was looking for while being bombarded by suicidal bugs.

“If this is a joke, Uncle Joe,” she muttered.

She opened the first door to her left and let out a tiny, relieved sigh. It was empty. So was the room beside it and those across. Right then. She didn’t find anything until the fourth room. A master suite with double doors—also carved wood and heavy—that opened into the room.

An old four poster stood against the back wall, in the middle of two bay windows covered with heavy fabric. Under normal circumstances she might have oohed and ahhed over the room but her eyes went to the mattress and stayed there.

Was that a body?

Surely not.

Her phone’s light was aimed at the far right corner, illuminating an old wardrobe with scuffed sides, and a rusted hanger on the floor, half under the furniture. It shined away the shadows in the corner and juddered because her hands were shaking, wasn’t the thing on the bed moving?

Her previous, terror-filled bolt must have been an anomaly in her flight or fight behavior—she couldn’t even make herself move in either direction: toward the bed or better yet, down the stairs and out the door.

Uncle Joe wouldn’t have sent you someplace dangerous, her mind told her in her mother’s voice.

But he hadn’t been here in a long time.

Whatever it was on the bed moved again. She moved her phone, inch by excruciating inch until the edge of the light touched the bed. Another inch.

Something writhed there. Not a person. Except.

She dropped her phone then jerked down to pick it back up when the room plunged into darkness. “Shit.” And shit again. Her imagination had the writhing thing sliding off the bed toward her, its maw opening like a snake’s mouth, jaws unhinging, making room …

Light speared the shadows once again.

The thing was gone.

It its place, or perhaps uncovered when it disappeared—

Slithered

—away, was a lacquered black box with a rounded decoration of some sort on its top.

It took Vedalia a ridiculously long time to work up the courage to stiff-leg it over to the bed. And actually, she dropped to her knees first to shine her light under it to make sure nothing was lurking there, waiting to grab her ankles.

She was pretty sure she’d pee her shorts if something grabbed her but the bed was boogieman free. The dust bunnies had been multiplying but she could handle those.

“Get in, get out.” She grabbed the box and clutched it to her chest as she scooted from the room, only getting the barest glimpse of the object on its lid.

Some sort of multi-colored beetle.

Yeah, a bug. Figured.

She didn’t breath easy until she was sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and the doors locked, despite the heat.

The box sat on the seat next to her and she refused to look at it as she breathed away the panic and willed her heart to calm. She’d almost gotten out of stroke range when someone rapped sharply on her window.

Staying True: A Writer’s Guide

Writing is a crazy thing. It’s exhilarating and at the same time spectacularly good at jabbing fingers into the open wounds of your inadequacy. Why can’t I write like that? Sell books like that? Have people weep over my words like that?

Why indeed?

Let’s say you’ve written something that even friends say is crap. Do you give up? Go learn how to play the flute? Pick up a gun and head out to the landfill to shoot rats? (I know, that was a weird one. Blame the horror writer in me.) If you love to write, then yeah, you might do all those things but you also go back to the crap and fix it. You tinker, you toy. You tease out the shiny strands of gorgeousness and brush away the snarls.

Let’s say you like writing about hair dressers and the things you have to say about hair dressers are funny, silly, and maybe a little wild and crazy. Then a long comes another writer who writes about hair dressers in a way that makes the critics praise them up one side and down the other for the depth they brought to those women and men of the Order of Scissors. And you sit staring at your own story, wondering how you missed the Deep Meaning behind hair styling.

Does this mean that your story has no value, because it made no one cry?

There’s this insidious idea that only certain works of fiction are worthy of notice. That those books written to entertain are not important, that they are forgettable. That they do not make people think deep, philosophical thoughts therefore they are trashy.

I’d like to posit a radical theory: that whatever resonates with you is great literature.

Not everyone is moved by the Grapes of Wrath or A Good Man is Hard To Find. Yes, they transport some people to heights of giddiness and that’s awesome. That’s what writing should do. It should transport, entertain, enlighten, and move people. Why, though, do we think only “literature” can do that for us? Or that it’s the only type of story that should?

We have this disease in our society, that we must denigrate and humiliate those who think differently than we do. That to feel smarter, we must point to someone else and laugh that they aren’t in the same spot. We do this deliberately as well as unconsciously with how we reference our own experiences and compare them with others that we feel are inferior.

The exciting thing about fiction is that we can connect with another person on a personal level. Even when it’s a story full of prat falls and silliness, we are getting a look inside another human’s head. Since we aren’t telepathic, we revel in the chance to roll around in another person’s thoughts. We are all alone in our heads otherwise. Reading gives us an open door into someone else’s head for a while. It’s a blessed relief. And touching that other mind changes us in small ways. We form opinions of that other person’s thoughts and reject or accept them into ourselves.

Literature isn’t the only form of writing that does this. Romance does it too. So does horror. Thrillers. Mystery. Suspense. Erotica. Yeah. All of it. To varying degrees, the books we read change us. Who are you to say your formula romance won’t affect me in a way The Old Man and the Sea never would?

My mom read Louis L’Amour all her life. She loved him and would get pissed off if someone suggested that he was a hack or that his stories weren’t important. She took his stories into herself and they resonated within her. When a snotty professor said, “That type of writing is junk food for the mind,” he was telling my mom that her experiences were wrong, that her feelings were wrong, that the connection that author had made with her was wrong.

There will always be people who don’t like what you write, who say it’s shallow or silly or unworthy of the paper (or electronic storage space) it’s taking up. Please know, that for everyone of them, there will also be someone for whom your writing sings. Writing doesn’t have to be deep to be resonate. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be exactly what someone needs at that moment.

People will always hold up certain fiction as better and you might agree. But it’s also okay to like what you like and if that’s cozy mysterious with feline main characters then that’s okay. Let Hemingway write outwardly about Hills Like White Elephants while whispering about abortion. That was his thing, his reality. You write what you need to write about, what you enjoy, what moves you.

We aren’t all deep thinkers or metaphorical thinkers or philosophical thinkers. Some of us like sex scenes and physical comedy and fart jokes!

Stay true to who you are, to the writer you are–not the writer you think you should be. Be the Fart Joke writer if that’s who you are and honor that about yourself. Be the Funny Romance writer if that’s what makes you happy. You can try to be someone you aren’t but I can guarantee it won’t ever feel as good as being yourself.

Louis L’Amour wrote about the West because that’s what moved him and he found a large audience who thanked him for being true to himself.

Write from your heart. Stay true to who you are and you’ll touch someone’s life.

Amy: A Kick Ass Woman and Hero

By Elle Boca, author of the Miami urban fantasy Weeia Series

Amy McKnight, new superhuman, is just right for the job of superhero. She doesn’t want it. Someone who wants it might be tempted to do bad things with so much power.
It’s been a dangerous and scary journey during which she has been discovering who she is in fits and starts, and often with little or no guidance. She could be angry and bitter at her parents. Instead, she’s forgiving and strives to understand the choices they made for her. While most of her fellow Weeia superhumans would give anything to have her rare abilities, Amy is reticent to use them except in extreme cases and to help others.
Since she first discovered she was superhuman, she has gone out of her way to protect and rescue others. She’s brave and has a big heart. In the first book of the Weeia Series, Unelmoija: The Dreamshifter, she becomes self reliant and establishes her personal boundaries. She takes action to save her mother despite the risks.
In Unelmoija: The Mindshifter, instead of playing it safe, she convinces others to support her and throws caution to the wind to rescue her college friend who has been kidnapped by slavers.
Now, in Unelmoija: The Spiritshifter, a third ability causes tension between Amy and Duncan, her boyfriend, who is convinced she’s the most powerful Weeia ever. He wants Amy to solve the puzzle of why young Weeia are not developing abilities any more. As if that wasn’t enough, she and her friends agree to find their friend’s killer. The problem is it could cost her life.
Amy knows who she is and can take care of herself. She prefers to be out of the limelight, living the everyday life of a college student. Amy has come to term with the knowledge that her abilities draw trouble and attempts on her life. When her unique skills become essential, she pushes aside her discomfort and safety for the benefit others. She gives the project her all because she believes it’s the right thing to do.
In the middle of everything, she has an exciting long distance relationship with Duncan, a cute guy who makes her vibrate (in the true sense of the word) with pleasure, appreciates and supports her one hundred and ten percent. She keeps her cool even in trying times; cares about her mother and sister and tries to mend fences with her estranged father. In the midst of danger and threats she finds time to enjoy life. When Duncan visits her in Miami, they explore the city and all it offers together. They eat out, go to beautiful parks, the beach, concerts and have a kick ass time.

http://elleboca.poyeen.com

Best,
Elle

Five Ways to Ruin Your Novel

Writers are always trying to make their novels better. BORING! Why make it better when you can make something so bad it’s good? Stop spending all those hours mulling over word choice, stop reading how-to books, stop sending your work to beta readers and editors and all that time-wasting bull crap. Don’t work harder, work smarter!

What about those first five pages?

There are people out there that would have you believe that you need to rock those first five pages. Sometimes it’s ten. Hell, one book claimed the first fifty pages are integral to your book’s success! Balderdash. There is no way the first pages are important. Everyone knows readers always skip to the end to find out what happens. THAT’S where you need to concentrate your writing prowess. Last five paragraphs. Kick ass there and everything else will be golden. See? Already there’s less work for you. Five pages, five paragraphs. Which one would you prefer to focus your powers of concentration on?

Exactly.

Grammar and spelling? Who needs them?

Seriously, if you don’t have a grasp on grammar or spelling, it doesn’t matter. Think about it. If you don’t know how to conjugate verbs, it’s a good bet your readers won’t either. Can’t spell definitely? Who can? No one is going to notice a few misspelled words or grammar mistakes in your novel. A lot of novels have over 100,000 words! That’s like finding a misspelled word in a haystack full of them.

Bah. Besides. That’s what spell check is for. To catch what you don’t.

Your characters don’t need to be consistent, likable, or even alive.

Think about it. How sucky would a novel be with a dead person as the main character? And I’m not talking some literary, artsy-fartsy novel about a ghost floating around trying to get revenge for their murder. I’m talking about an actual dead person who just lays there. You know, being dead. Don’t try to make your characters likable either. Just write ‘em out. If someone cares for them, great but don’t sweat it. Remember, the reader wants to know what happens and will skip to those fantastic last five paragraphs anyway, so it doesn’t matter what your character does for those other billion or so paragraphs. This means you can pretty much do what you want with the character: change his gender, change her hair, change his/her name, age, birth place, etc …

Coincidence is a part of real life and should be part of your novel too.

I totally ran into coincidence on Wednesday. The past two times I’ve visited McDonalds, One is the Loneliest Number has been playing. Now, if my life were a novel, some bossy, over-achieving writer would be making that a SIGNIFICANT PLOT MOMENT. In real life, what does it mean? It means I go to McDonalds too much. It means McDonalds is playing the same songs over and over again.

You can be miles ahead of other authors. You can make your novel REAL by adding coincidences all over the place. Lead your readers down merry paths of dead ends and red herrings and broken plot strands. They will think you are wickedly smart and praise you above all others.

Trust me.

If things get boring, make your characters fight. 

You don’t want to bore the readers who do read your book all the way through, do you? There are strange people out there who read from page one to the end, who don’t know how to properly peruse a novel. For those wacky kooks who think a novel should be read front to back will expect you to entertain them. I know, that sounds like hard work but don’t forget, you’ve created a masterpiece of misdirection, plot holes, and inconsistent characters–the reader will already be on her or his toes. Even with all the drama of not knowing what the hell is going on, some lame readers will want excitement too. Give them excitement by stirring up arguments between characters.

Over in a writer’s group I frequent, we were discussing arguments. The writers who waste their time working hard on their stories agree that conflict for conflict’s sake is wrong. Right there is your indication that it must be a good thing to do. Think of the possibilities! Your characters can fight over who gets to be dead in the book, who gets to wander aimlessly around following red herrings, who gets to mangle their participial phrases, and more.

DING! Into the ring with them.

In conclusion,

Don’t be afraid to be lazy. This writing thing is hard work and you don’t want to spend all your time indoors, hunched over a keyboard, sweating about gerunds. If you must do something wonderful, remember those last five paragraphs need to be kick ass. Other than that, throw out those how-to books, throw out your dictionary and thesaurus and ruin your novel. It will be good for you!