Madge's Weblog

Teleported There, Fireballed That, Bought the Enchanted Scroll

I've compiled a personal list of the Top 5 most over-used words in Fantasy titles.  I had to laugh once I finished this list, because I've used #1 myself.  I'm not sure its possible to write fantasy and not, at some point, use the "D-word" in a title.

1. Dragon
2. Dark
3. Sword
4. Fantasy 'Job titles'-- Hero, Sorcerer, Sorceress, Wizard
5. Magic

Now who's up for reading The Magic Dark Dragon Sword of the Wizard ;-)

Thanksgiving Giving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I've just found out that many food banks in the San Francisco Bay Area are very short on donations, both monetary and food.  When you're doing that last minute shopping tonight please remember to drop a few canned items in the food bank barrel that sits in pretty much every grocery store across the country right now.

You could also donate money to one of your local food banks by typing in your zipcode on this website.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Have a wonderful, safe and joyous holiday season.

Don't Call It 'Frisco

My short story, Don't Call It 'Frisco, is up on the Whispering Spirits webzine.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Overall the story was pretty challenging for me.  Its written in first person and from a guy's point of view, neither of which I'd ever done before.  Its good to stretch your writing muscles now and then, just remember to relax and let loose in your writing every once in awhile.  Speaking of letting loose every once in awhile, I'm getting very mixed critiques from Critters of my latest story, Blood and Gods.  I've had a few people not understand that story at all, those are the critiques that I take with a grain of salt and don't use much from, others have loved the whole plotline but feel the characters need more development.  The good thing is that no one thinks that it is TOO bloody, which is what I was a bit worried about.  I've even had one person say I need more blood in the beginning :-)

Fantastic Truth

The wonderful thing about fantasy is that you can mix and match events and locations in a way that makes the story truly unique.  In my opinion, there is so much more freedom to create and let your imagination run wild in fantasy.  The trick is to keep your feet on the ground.  For instance, all of my fantasy writing contains elements of 'truth'. 

Here's an exercise to get you started.  Click on the picture and then use the setting to brainstorm ideas for your own fantasy story.  You could use these questions to get started or come up with your own. 

• How does a river of ice exist in a place that has green tropical plants? 
• What sort of people or animals live here? 
• How do the inhabitants view this ice river.. is it a source of fear? 
• What's up beyond the mountains?

Whatever you write, however you write it, make sure you're having fun!

The Story Gremlin

People who don’t write are always a bit mystified by writers.  The biggest question they have is usually about ideas.  Where do you get all those crazy ideas?  Well here's the deal--the story gremlin brings them.  He sits under a big tree in the park and wraps up ideas for all the writers in San Francisco.  Then, when he gets around to it—he has a very busy social life what with the feral cats that live in the park and all—he delivers them.  Sometimes he delivers a whole raft of ideas at once, and sometimes he doesn’t show up for months.

Ideas aren’t really the hard part of writing.  I just came up with a whole story idea right there, just thinking about the process of idea generation.  The hard part is sitting down and getting those ideas on paper just right.  In fact several writers can take the same idea and come up with completely different stories.  For example, one of the flash fiction stories I've written, called Hibernation, is from a writing exercise where you take the first sentence of someone else’s story and then build your own story from that point.

Looking Outside Yourself

I'm not planning on posting a bunch of political rants, but I read an article today that made me pretty sad.  It's called Confessions of a Cultural Elitist from Ted Rall of the Universal Press Syndicate.  In it he talks about the ongoing 'Brain Drain' from the mid-west to the coasts.

I was raised in a small bedroom community in Missouri called Grain Valley and went to high school in the town next door-Oak Grove, MO.   I feel Ted Rall's frustration when he says "My suburb was racially insular, culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big city and stayed there. "

My graduating class was 105 and completely WASP.  In fact the school was so WASP that we had prayer during school assemblies, btw this isn't some private school or public school back in the good bad old days.. this was a small town public school that I graduated from in 1994.  Don't get me wrong it wasn't all bad, but there was definately a lot of suburban insulation that had to be stripped away when I left for the big bad city.

Looking back at the changes in my point of view I realize that the creation of suburbs has caused more problems than just over use of cars and loss of open space.  The suburbs, especially in the mid-west, have become a way of insulating from the real issues our country is facing.  If you don't have to see homeless on the street every day; if you don't have to live where your neighbors are all different creeds, nationalities, religions; if you don't have to constantly examine your ideals because of interactions with people of different beliefs or different economic states... there is a huge risk of becoming too isolated, too insular, and too extreme.

Burn the suburbs!  Move to the city!  Seriously though, I think suburban living is a serious handicap to anyone's ability to be empathetic and understand issues that exist outside your personal experience.  This applies to Liberal surburban enclaves as well as Conservative.

Enough with the preaching and onto the real point of my rambling.  Being able to empathize and identify with issues and problems from a variety of viewpoints is essential in being a good writer.  You have to be open minded enough to put yourself in someone else's shoes or your stories won't be believable.  How many movies have you seen or books have you read where you were bored out of your mind by one-dimensional characters.  They were all either REALLY good guys or REALLY bad guys.  One of the things that causes this is an inability to project a variety of motivations, intentions, and reactions into your characters.  You have to step into their shoes and think how they think.

Enjoy Your Writing

Every writing book I've ever read says that just putting your butt in a chair and words on paper is the key to being a writer, but what they don't say is that you need to enjoy what you're writing.  Your emotions and enthusiasm bleed through into your work.

Recently I've been working on several stories, a couple of which I've completed, where its been a big effort just to put a single sentence down.  When I took a look at what I was writing I realized that in an effort to stretch my writing muscles I was working on stories which were all character development and no plot.  Being a fast paced plot kinda girl this was sucking the life out of my writing.  When I set aside the character development story and went back to my favorite element, plot, the words just flowed.  Granted the first story I finished was rather more bloody and gory than usual, but I think that's just because my macabre imagination was pent up for so long.

I've submitted the story, currently called Blood and Gods, to my online critiquing group, critters for comment as I think it might be a little too fast paced and gory.  The next story, which I've just begun working on, doesn't have quite so much violence and death so I'm back in the right rhythm now.

A Story Sale!

I'm so excited.  My short story Don't Call it Frisco has just been accepted for publication on the Whispering Spirits webzine.  This is my first paying market for a short story, granted its only $10 but a payment is a payment.  I've published short stories and personal essays in the past but not in a market that paid me.  Recently I had a non-fiction article on Incan Quipus that I wrote in college published in  book form to generate donations for a Peruvian children's charity.  I've also had an essay published in a teen paperback series out in the UK.  There are also a few misc. technical papers and countless press releases from my job in public relations, but those don't really count.

Don't Call it Frisco is scheduled to be on the site starting November 20th so keep an eye out for it and tell me what you think.

Of Grass Skirts and Dragons

I've been working on a couple of short stories lately based around Polynesian legends and history.  I never quite realized how bloodthirsty some of the tribes were.  Typically when I think of places like Hawaii and Tahiti I think of happy people, sunshine and tropical fruit rather than constant wars and cannibalism.  There was a euphemism they used for human sacrifices "long fish" that I'm planning to use in a story I'm building around facts and information from early Polynesian history.  One of the most eerie facts I've found is that the plant life that grew around the village centers on the islands was typically incredibly lush and green.  Apparently lots of human blood makes good fertilizer.  It's a pretty icky fact, but a great visual. This brings up an interesting question.  How do you use information like this in fantasy stories, or any story for that matter, without being culturally insensitive?