Why Does Love Do This To Me

For a variety of reasons, I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. Partly it's connected to my birthday, which was yesterday; as you might have gathered from the entry yesterday, I spent most of the day wishing I was dead. Valentine's doesn't tend to help this feeling at all. Still, on Sunday I went to Isengard, as you can see above, and that cheered me up even before I went into the deep dark hell of birthday!depression. Mostly because I went by horse. I like riding horses. I also got to see the tree that Bean!Boromir died most dramatically under, as Sean Bean is wont to do. WILL THAT MAN EVER LIVE THROUGH ANYTHING, I ASK YOU.

At any rate, I had a terrible morning and was only cheered up when I got home and discovered that the three Valentine's commissions I'd ordered at the start of the month were waiting for me over at deviantart. I had sworn at the time I'd write some drabbles to go with them, so I've spent the last couple of hours writing them. I have three couples, and because I'm all for the Equal Opportunity Pairing, we have the pairings today in three flavours -- one male/female, one male/male, and one female/female. Although the male in the m/f pairing is admittedly bisexual leaning towards gay, not to mention one of the girls in the f/f pairing is probably by default straight, but is totally IT'S OKAY IF IT'S YOU for her partner. D'aw. (Actually, one of the males in the m/m pairing probably qualifies as something dangerously close to a Depraved Bisexual, while the other is actually functionally asexual. I never claimed this was a simple fluffy Valentine's thing, did I...?)

Now, all these pictures were done by the awesomely talented Kayla, who goes by the handle ThePlanPony at deviantart. Go and tell her how awesome she is, would you? BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY IS. Besides, she's still taking on more couple commissions for Valentine's this month. I'm tempted to get another few myself, so...if you have any characters of mine you'd like to see in a fluffy picture and drabble, gimme your suggestions. In the meantime, here's the story so far:

Ever Afters

Aleksandr still felt guilt for a lot of things. Key amongst them were the way he’d left his sister, and then he was constantly troubled by the way he couldn’t be sure he’d ever be able to love the paladin the way he knew the other man loved him. But as he stood in the window of their latest inn, his thoughts drifted to another, to a woman he so very rarely allowed himself to remember.

The silver moon was probably the reason why, he thought with dim melancholy. Its pale orb reminded him of her pallid colouring, of the way she had always seemed a shimmering silhouette against the dull reality of the world she’d been forced to live within. Though he’d not known of her true form for so long, he’d realised from the beginning that she was something different. Something more. A dream, perhaps. And all dreams by their very nature were fleeting.

His hand rose, the tips of his fingers pressing to his lips. For all he tried not to think of her often, he could so easily conjure up the memory of her kiss. Those pale lips had tasted of saltwater; had it been the remnants of her lost ocean home, or simply her tears? Aleksandr had never quite decided. And he’d never been given the opportunity to find out again. In the end he’d never even been able to hold her, not properly, not the way people did in stories. Though they’d been of a height, even with the effects of his own illness upon his body he’d known she’d have been light in his arms. She would have floated there, silent and perfect and real.

Aleksandr closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against the cool glass. It was perhaps better to remember her as she had been at the beginning, not at the end. The first night they’d met she had descended the stairs in the darkness, and then stepped out into the rain. Freshwater had dripped all over him from where it beaded upon her hair like pearls, and her long fingers had been so light as they’d traced the blue veins just below the surface of his skin.

He is dying, she had whispered, but now she was dead and he was alive, and he opened his eyes. The sword of the water-god hung limply in his hand. As he looked down at its iridescent weight his lips twisted into a grim smile. What kind of a hero could he ever claim to be, when he had left the maiden fair to die?

If he closed his eyes again, he could imagine instead the difference of their lives, if it had ended like the stories he’d loved as a child. In those legends the prince always saved the princess – and so often at the last minute, just as things seemed their most hopeless. He wouldn’t have just saved her life, either. In the prince’s house Alyria had been little more than a wraith, a lost lingering shadow. But if Aleksandr had been a true hero, he’d have found her scales, he’d have given them back to her. Then those pale eyes would have danced with the knowing mischief of a siren, and her lips would have pursed with promise and pleasure. She’d have been happy, the sea-song upon her lips spilling forth from deep within a heart that beat with the rhythm of the waves.

“We’d have been happy,” he whispered, and imagined his arms around her shoulders, her pale hair spiralling about his fingers. “I’d have saved you, and we would have been happy.”

His hand tightened about the sword, unknowing; with a sigh, he opened his eyes. The silver blade glinted in the moonlight, cool and smooth. It reminded him of the ice that had broken all across the lake the night she had died. The night her water-god had taken her home, and all because he hadn’t been enough of a prince to save her.

Turning from the window he slid the blade back into its invisible sheath, both winking from view. His paladin would be waiting for him below, and for all night had fallen Aleksandr knew the time for dreaming this evening was over.

He cast one look back to the lake, found it shimmering and silver and silent. Then, he nodded, and walked towards the door. That sad little story had finished, and there was another one yet to be written. He could but hope he’d learned enough to find this story the happy ending it deserved.

In Media Res

It might have been a difficult prospect, to find him – the reticent seneschal had been unable to tell Ryennkar anything more than “the youngest son is somewhere on the back of the estate.” Said estate comprised several hundred acres of both forested and open land. Yet as he exited the back gardens via one of the heavy gates in the high stone walls, he caught a flash of red up on the ridge and smiled.

While not an unobservant person by nature, Arosek had become so involved in his work that once he’d climbed the hill, Ryennkar found it all too easy to sneak up on him. Childish games were not generally his favoured indulgence, but with scarcely a second thought he went to his knees behind his oldest friend and placed his hands over his eyes.

Arosek stiffened, charcoal stopping dead halfway through the arc of one rich curve. Then, his hand relaxed; Ryennkar could feel a smile pressing his cheeks upward. “Ryenn?”

He raised an eyebrow, though he’d effectively blinded the other man. “How did you know it was me?” Pressing closer, his next words were a scarce whisper dropped into one ear. “I could have been anyone.”

Arosek gave a half-snort, far more amused than it was exasperated. “You’re not just anyone.”

Only just suppressing the flash of pleasure this proclamation brought with it, Ryennkar leaned over Arosek’s shoulder and gave his work a curious look. “I thought you’d stopped painting.”

“I’m not painting. I’m drawing.”

With a chuckle, Ryennkar arched deeper into the natural curvature of his friend’s spine. It had been too long, since the last time he’d allowed this. “Drawing so often leads to painting,” he murmured, and he felt Arosek’s smile dim, just a little.

“Not always.” He paused, and when he spoke again Ryennkar could remember the sadness he’d last seen in those dark eyes, all those months ago. “Just…sometimes. Maybe.”

The silence that fell between them was broken only by birdsong, by the soft rustle of the wind through the leaves of the Aekar Forest below. But they were up on the ridge, the forest and the house and entire world held at a distance. Pressed against Arosek’s back, Ryennkar’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with the other man’s shallow breathing. He still did not remove his hands from his eyes. “You didn’t even know I was coming,” he said, soft, and Arosek nodded.

“No.” Something like a smile felt to be returning to his wide mouth. “I’m glad to see you.”

“But you can’t see a thing.”

“I see enough.” Gently he pulled back, angling his body around. Ryennkar let him go, but before he could drop his right arm Arosek leaned back upon it. One hand rose to rest upon his chest, just over Ryennkar’s heart.

“I see you now,” Arosek whispered, sketchbook and charcoal slipping from his lap to vanish into the long fronds of the scented grass.

“So do I,” he murmured, and leaned forward to capture his lips. Sometimes a kiss was only always that. But as Ryennkar steadied himself, palm gathering charcoal dust while his fingertips brushed the sun-warmed grass, he thought that kissing could become something more. He’d always been good at talking Arosek into taking up his brush even after he’d laid it aside with the admonition that this was the very last time.

Best-Laid Plans

“I don’t see why we have to stay in a place like this.” Nan surveyed their surroundings with a critical eye, her brightly-coloured lips pressed into a plump and inviting frown. “Can’t we just stay in a little alehouse or something?”

Alara had to smother an entirely unlady-like grin. The other woman might insist her liking for the smaller and more intimate lodgings to be just because she enjoyed the easy camaraderie she could strike up with the owners, but Alara knew it was more that Nan had never felt the slightest bit comfortable with the trappings of the so-called higher classes. While she was content enough to watch Alara dress up – and had proved rather adept at getting Alara both in and out of even the most complicated high society gowns – she’d never accompanied her to any of those types of events without a great deal of cajoling. Occasionally it had even degenerated into outright bribery, though Alara had to ruefully admit she’d enjoyed those moments just as much as Nan herself clearly did.

“I wanted something a bit more relaxing, tonight,” she said instead, quite mild. “So I felt that these…charming…surroundings were entirely in order.”

Nan screwed up her small nose as she peered around the opulent room, noting the rich sofas and the ottoman set before the great picture window that faced the west. “I thought you had a dinner party, you said?” she asked, and crossed her arms; Alara had to regret the obstacle this presented to an otherwise quite lovely view. “Look, if it’s all the same to you, I might just go take a room in that little inn we saw back near the city walls. You can swing by and pick me up in the morning, yeah?”

After allowing the woman to get as far as the door, she spoke just one word. “Nan.”

“What?”

Ignoring Nan’s half-suspicious question, Alara crossed the room with an elegant stride, halting only when stood before the great red upholstered couch. Dropping her riding cloak, letting it pool upon the floor in a lazy fashion she rarely indulged in, she turned to take her seat. Beneath the cloak she still wore her preferred riding outfit. When she stood, the panels of the dress hung in demure lines from the wide belt, giving the illusion of a proper skirt. But when she reclined back in this way, crossing one long leg over the other, it split up both sides. Nan’s eyes widened, then focused upon the expanse of skin revealed between the mid-thigh height of her boots and her hip. Alara smiled, propped one hand behind her head; Nan’s eyes immediately leapt to her chest. Though her mouth opened, no sound came out. Alara chuckled, soft and knowing, and Nan gave her an accusing look.

“I…you said you had a very important dinner tonight.”

“Be a dear and lock the door, would you, Nan?” she asked, and licked her lips. “I do believe that dinner? Is already served.”

*****

So, that's me for the day. I suppose I should go and get some sleep before work in the morning. Joy! And I have to admit with some shame that these days, whenever I think of Nan and Alara? All I get in my head is this. Oh, dear...

"I think it's going to be a very Merry Christmas!"

I can't remember if I first ran across it in-novel via one of his many author-avatar characters or if it was in On Writing, but at some point in my reading life Stephen King described "The Zone" and I totally clicked onto this concept. I'm a haphazard writer by nature, but also a very prolific one. My "official" NaNo total came to around 155k, but that doesn't account for the two 3k stories, the 7k other not-finished short story, the 3k not-finished short story, another 3k of assorted dribbles that haven't got official story status yet, and the monster 30k "short" story I wrote over the last three days in between writing all this other stuff.

Er.

I haven't done all that much today, to be honest, it being the first of December. But I have to go back to New Zealand on Sunday and I have a list of stories I want to finish before I do. One of them is done. I'm going to make myself a shopping list just to make a point to myself, actually.

What I Must Become - creepy short story about horrible creepy things.
No Good Deed - projected 10k worth of angst and sweetcakes.
Expressions of Etiquette - entirely screwed up short story about coming "home" for the holidays.
The Blacksmith's Daughter - unnecessarily horrific story about smallfolk and the whims of the gods.
Dream About Flying - bizarre misaimed Aesop about jerkass genies and falling in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with.

They're all in...varying states. The first is finished and stands at just over 6k. The second has about 7.5k to its name and I figure I could finish it tonight. The third is complicated as I haven't written much of it -- maybe 800 words -- and I need to have it finished by next Friday. The fourth is all plotted out at just under 3k and just needs to be filled in; I should finish it tonight over the second, actually, because it needs to be less than 6k anyway and I need to do something with it before the 15th. The last is...maybe 2.5k written and is for a friend for Christmas and therefore can wait until everything else is done, so...maybe if I can get Daughter finished tonight and Deed mostly done, I can spend tomorrow finishing Deed and then working on Expressions. And then I won't feel like a failure for maybe two minutes.

I'm having an odd time of it, you see. I was told yesterday via email that I didn't make the cut of the master's programme, so I'm at a loose end as to what to do next year. There are benefits, of course; I can now go to Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam for my birthday in February without crippling worry about funding a move to Wellington, and without the university schedule holding me to the country I can go meet up with friends in Seattle for a weekend in August and then pop over for SARAP! in Edmonton with friends met in Turkey. I just...I'd wanted this programme, you see, to help me learn something about my writing and also make contacts. I guess I just need to spend January editing and querying Greywater and hope something comes of it. I just...don't really know.

But I have been reminded that I love writing. Whenever I get rejected I tend to think "FINE I SUCK I'LL JUST QUIT." But I know that I won't. Because I can't. The infamous 30k in three days thing is proof of that. It just...poured out of my heart and through my fingertips and onto the computer screen and it made me laugh and cry and laugh some more and I just...I don't know. Maybe my writing will never mean anything to anyone but me. Maybe I'm just stuck in the Zone all on my own.

But I'm going home in the weekend and I know the DVD pictured above will be waiting, as I tossed it back from London before I left the UK. It's my Christmas movie. And it's December now. Time for joy, they say...and that was one reason why I wrote that 30k story. It's...kind of a Christmas present, though I'm not sure I'll have the nerve to send it to the person it was written for. But I probably will. Christmas is an awkward time in my family; there are terrible memories for us associated with the season, but then there are so many brilliant ones too. And that was what the 30k was about. The beginning after the end.

And I already knew that carpets can fly, anyway.

Rule of Three Blog Fest: Part Two

 
I have to apologise upfront because I have so far been absolutely terrible at participating in the Rule of Three Blog Fest. ;_; Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the last entry I made; this week I really need to get myself together and do some more wandering and commenting on other people entries, because honestly there's some fantastic stuff coming out of all of this!

My next entry also manages to be a bit of a rush job; last week I had just come back from Egypt, and this week I have just come back from a couple of days Oop North in York. Hilariously it's going to be evne stupider next week as I am going to Western Australia via Singapore on Wednesday; I've really managed to pick all the worst days for this, because travelling is cheaper during the week. Never mind, I am going to play better the next few days (although I'm spending the weekend in Suffolk, probably...).

In the end I did manage an entry for this week, although I am pushing the timing thing (it's seven in the evening on Thursday in London here, though I suspect my journal is still on New Zealand time anyway). I've got a few details to go with it after the continuation of the story. So...let's head back to Renaissance, shall we...?

SALVAGE

Part One: Flotsam
Part Two: Jetsam

She hits the ground hard, and for a moment she sees stars – but it is bright daylight, and the sun blinds her when she looks upward. There is no night sky here, save for that which has just fallen over her heart.

“Don’t even try to get up.” His voice is all that remains of him, the rest wreathed in shadow. “This is where you belong.”

“No, I—”

“It’s done. It’s over. I am through with you.”

“No, please—”

The slam of the carriage door steals the last of him away. The horses rear, and the wheels turn – then, they are gone.

The pain follows fast. Curling around her abdomen, she wants to weep for her loss. But she can feel the heat of the sun and knows it will be pointless; in the hours to come, she will scarcely have moisture enough to sustain herself, let alone the burden he has gifted her with.

She should hate it, she knows. But it is not its fault. It asked for life no more than she asked for this death, and she supposes they are in this together and must muddle along the best they can. That is what allows her to push aside her fear and sit up.

She knows where they are, for all it is a place she knows only from vague stories. The fallen mining town had never had enough glamour even for ghost stories, and she herself had never thought to come here. It had been so far outside the sphere of her existence as to be in another universe. It had been nothing more than a place from his past.

It is most likely the reason why he put her there, too.

“Us,” she corrects, voice sudden in the silence. “Us.”

One palm lies flat on the ground, the other over her stomach as she pushes up. She grimaces; the fall had not been far, but it has jarred her. When she looks to the distance, she finds the carriage long gone. The dust settles, golden and dancing in the late afternoon light; it is much closer to the earth than stardust, for all its glittering colour.

She is not given to despair. But as she looks about, she realises suddenly that despite its name, she is the only new thing in Renaissance. The age of the town weighs it into insignificance, and it is a place of forgotten things.

“My name is Leidi,” she says, as if she is afraid she will soon not remember. And her fingers move into her palm.

“…but what shall I call you?”

There is no answer, at least not from the tiny spark of life deep in her belly. But even if there had been, she likely never would have heard it any more than she did the actual answer that did come.

“Hello.”

Leidi’s head has fallen forward, her thoughts adrift as a comet with no trajectory. But then the voice comes closer, and a cool hand anchors her again to the earth.

“Hello,” the voice says again, and Leidi looks up, like she’s heard the wind whispering her name. “I think I’ve been waiting for you.”

Prompt: Someone is killed, or almost killed/a relationship becomes complicated.
Word Count: 532
Main character: Leidi (supported by the as-yet unnamed man and woman from the first part).

Rule of Three Blog Fest: Part One

This is a bit of a rush job, I must admit, if only because I've just arrived back from Egypt this afternoon...and although I'd already written the first part of the story for this very post, once I got in my sister texted me and I ended up toddling back out into the wildlands of London to have dinner at one of my sister's beloved Michelin restaurants. Ha. Combined with the fact I haven't slept more than four hours a night save for one in the last nine, well...I apologise in advance for any dodginess in the story. And hopefully next week we'll get a more coherent entry out of me, too! ^_~

Salvage:

Part One

Flotsam

True love is not supposed to end like this, she thinks, and lays a hand upon the bore-riddled wood. It holds no answer for her. Nothing in this place does.

Yet I am here.

Rough gravel loosens her steps as she crosses what had been the main street, the midday sun as harsh upon her skin here as it would be far out into the Schiavona desert. When she tries to look up the light cuts through her hand yet stops at her eyes, blinding her; she is forced away with her head down.

When dawn had first broken, waking her from sleep, she had thought this perhaps a quiet kind of hell. It seemed only right, that the town where her passion had first flared would die, too, with the passing of her beloved. His presence had animated so much of the fading town, bringing hope to linger long in places where it had been thought to be lost forever.

There had been hope for her, too. Her father had come from beyond Assart to seek his fortune in a town nearly bled dry, but Renaissance had not been kind to him. She remembered well the day she had buried him. The sun had shone then. It always shone in Renaissance, even now, even when there was no-one left to see it.

I’m here. Then her eyes catch another fluttering broadsheet, the date half-erased by dust and sand, and she shakes her head.

I’m no-where.

Making another circle of the main street does not take long. Renaissance had never flourished, not even at the height of its mining glory. That glory had seemed a long time ago, even when she had first arrived; it is even longer now, if the grainy dates hold true. Which they do. She can pretend all she likes that they are too faded to read, but her daddy had always ensured his little girl learned her numbers and letters.

For all the good it did me. But she cannot resent him. He hadn’t meant to die, leaving her alone. He hadn’t meant for the magistrate’s son to fall in love with her. Above all, he hadn’t wanted the mine to fail and for Ferdinand to leave her here.

“Alone.” She forms the word, the first she has spoken aloud, with care. It carries no weight nor sound. If only she could have said the same for her own body when she had cast herself into the hollow womb of the closed-down mine.

It is unfair. She had thought it would end there. But she is here, again. The town has collapsed. There should be a sense of relief, revenge. It had ended her life, but in the end its own life had gone out too.

But it is still here. And so is she.

And something has changed.

She begins another circuit of the main street, adrift and alone. In this state she can do nothing but watch. And wait.

She does not think she need wait long.

*****

This entry is part of the Rule of Three Blog Fest; please see this page for details and to read the entries of the other talented authors taking part!

Goals, Tries and Having Something To Score

 

At the start of the year I’m sure I made some sort of goal post in this blog, but I really have the memory of a goldfish. I’m not sure that it matters, anyway, but I was thinking that I should sit down and work out what I need to achieve over the next few months. I turn thirty in February, and aside from having a fit about where I want to spend my birthday – I’m leaning towards Peru, although I was having thoughts of camping in South Africa – I want to be seriously dedicated to my writing to a point I can see it as a viable part of my career. I don’t think I have the necessary talent or ability or pure dumb luck to make a living off writing, but I’d like to be able to go back to being a pharmacist but kick back my hours a bit. Four days a week instead of five, or something. But I’ll get to that part in a minute.

I am the queen of unfinished novels. But I do have two that are finished. I’m not really up for submitting either to an agent, however. The first, an urban fantasy romance, has a very solid and interesting first half and completely turns to lumpy scorched custard by the second chapter of the second half. Bollocks. I can rewrite it, and I know that at some point I will. I just don’t think it’s where I want to start my publishing career. The other novel was intended as a children’s book, then a young adult novella, and now…it’s still about thirteen year old kids, but it’s a kid’s book the way Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is a kid’s series. Kids could read it, sure. I know I’d have read it. But then I was reading bodice rippers and Stephen King at the age of ten, so I don’t think I’m the best judge of reading material suited to age, here. So, I’ve set that aside for the meantime even though I am on and off working on its direct sequel.

This leaves me with four options for my first punt on an agent, none of which are fully complete. The first is Greywater, and this really is the best option save for the fact it’s straight-up fantasy. I think I’m going to have to go waaaaay outside the New Zealand channels here, though I am aware thanks to SpecFicNZ that I’m by no means alone here. It just depends on how hard I want to hit. I’m fairly certain I can get somewhere with this, but we’ll see. The current manuscript is at 112k and is maybe twenty or thirty thousand words off a first draft, after which I can tidy.

The other three options are more complicated. People In Looking-Glass Houses is easily the most marketable idea I’ve got – it’s also an urban fantasy romance – but while I wrote a good deal of it back in 2002/2003, the characters have changed a lot to suit the canon of the world it edges up against, and I’ve decided most of what was written ought to be scrapped or reappropriated. Writing it would take a lot of time over the next few months. I may have that time, but I’m not sure. I will write this story at some point, I’m just not sure how soon is now, or something to that effect. Ha.

Hibernaculum is a tricky one. I love these characters, and I love their story – two of the centrals are my first true OTP, and the novel is nearly finished. Maybe twenty thousand words out, too; I drag my heels with it because it’s a complex ending and I’m a moron. But not only is it also fantasy, it involves one of the other central characters getting into a very complicated relationship with another man and therefore might be hard to market. I’m not sure on that front; it would depend on the publisher. And I suppose I oughtn’t to care considering a) I won a competition last month with a short story with clear elements of homoeroticism and b) my first print publication was with a light erotica story, het or no, and…er. Yeah.

My other novel-in-progress is never going to be a publisher’s choice, mind you. But how much I want to finish it! ^_~ The Juniper Bones is my baby. And of everything I write and share, it’s the one that’s generated the most interest. But not only is it ungodly long in its current form, it just involves so many difficult things that I suspect a publisher would rather just shove me off into Charybdis with that barge pole rather than use it as a debut novel. Ha. Yet every time I open one of the associated files or look at some of the commissions I’ve had done, I end in hysterics. I love those characters, and I love that story. So hard. And I want to share it in its fullness with people, and not just because Morgan will one day give me that partial lobotomy she’s been promising if I don’t.

On the short story front, I want to keep poking away at various markets. Wily Writers has a call for submission for a young adult post-apocalyptic short story that I have a solid idea for; its due date is the end of October, so I can swing it. Yesterday I also ran across this blog fest that sounds fascinating, and I’m fairly certain I will be signing up later today because the fact the first submission sits so well with the dates of my trip to Egypt next week…it seems a sign, to me. So we’ll run with it. Besides, I’ve really got to get back to networking and sharing with other writers. One thing I regret about leaving New Zealand is the loss of my writing groups, and I’ve been really slack about spending time on the wonderful and wondrous CompuServe Readers and Writers forum. So, writing and reading stories for a joint Blog Fest universe sounds like a hell of a way to meet new writers…

Speaking of blogs, I have a few links that I got from CompuServe the other day, relevant to our interests. They’re about writing a query and then a synopsis, and even though I am not at that stage yet they’re actually very useful links for someone like me. Because I have problems with focus and structure. But I was so happy to see that Greywater fit very well into the basic synopsis template, and after writing a test query for the novel I feel that writing a synopsis in that format actually might help me a lot with finishing the novel. So, we’ll see? I would do it today, but I want to go to the Museum of London, and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be in town…

Which brings me to my next thought – I have an opportunity. It occurred to me last Friday as I was sitting in St. James Park that I could go back to Western Australia and just…write. I’m not Australian – GOD, I’m not Australian! – but my father is on a project near Perth and my parents live in a lovely seaview apartment with three bedrooms, one of which doubles as an office. I’ve been to see them twice there over the last year, and it’s a lovely place (which I’m not saying just because Margaret River has the best goddamned nougat IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, nuh-uh). I remember thinking the second time in particular how nice it would be, to marry an engineer and live a life where I could get up at six in the morning, have breakfast, do Zumba, go for a walk for an hour around the mangroves then return home for a day of writing. It struck me at the park that I could actually do this, if only for three or four weeks. I floated the idea to my mother, asking if I could stay in order to write if I contributed to the bills, and she green-lighted it. So…I’m not sure. I came to the UK with the intent of living and working here for a bit, but it’s not really as I’d thought it would be. I do love London; I had no real feelings towards the city the first time I saw it in 2006, but it’s grown on me. I’m just not sure I want to live here – or in the UK – after all. It feels like a step back, to the life that I both loved and hated four years ago. And I want to move forward as a writer, not go back to the world pharmacy. I can do my job, and do it well, but I need something more than that to keep me going. I have to be honest with myself about that, otherwise it's just not fair to any of us.

So, that’s my decision. It’s a bloody difficult one. I keep reminding myself that not every writer gets this sort of opportunity, and considering I have no real ties to anywhere, I should take it. And once I’ve had that sabbatical, I can return to New Zealand (maybe via Cambodia, ha) and move back to Wellington. There, I can get a full-time pharmacist position with my finished novel(s) tucked safely under my arm. Maybe then I can go back to the nine-to-five knowing I have a way of altering my own destiny, so to speak.

I’m scared as hell. I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles. But when I was looking something up about The Juniper Bones the other day I found a little file I’d made last year during NaNoWriMo in which I’d kept some of the feedback I’d received from the fantastic individuals at the CompuServe forum, and things like this just brought and still bring tears to my eyes:

When I read your writing, it makes me want more. I don't want to stop. And then I get to the end, and my brain is like a little puppy, all kind of like, where's the rest? What comes next? Huh? Huh? You have an absolutely stunning talent, you know. Your characters are beautifully put together, your story is compelling and mysterious- there's no question at all I'll be buying this off the shelf at a bookstore within a couple of years, and I'll just have to twitch impatiently and hang out for snippets until then.

I need to remind myself that I can write, and that I must write, if only for my own sanity. My sister keeps watching Dragon’s Den, and last night they were talking about how pitches need passion, because no company is going to succeed unless the person wants it enough to spend so much time with it. I could say the same of my writing. I love doing it. I want to do it. I just need to believe. And I was giddy yesterday to finally have run across a review of Red Velvet and Absinthe that mentioned me by name; while I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback about the collection as a whole, I’ve been craving something personal whether good or bad. And this…yes.

Tea For Two is a heart wrenching story that had this reader on the verge of tears. The poignancy of this love story and the loss that the two main characters suffer is so tenderly written, making the whole scenario come alive before your very eyes. Congratulations Ms. Buckingham for a truly tremendous and well thought out short story.

I can do this. I can, I can! So…here we go. Although as I said, it’s half-nine in the morning here in ol’ London Town and I might go out. I need to make the most of the city while I’m here, because I suspect I may have to leave her soon. We’ll see.

First Ink

Life does tend to be stranger than fiction at the best of times, but even I think it’s deeply ironic that the week SpecFicNZ has a blogging week, I receive in the post the comp copies of my very first ever official publication.

This happened yesterday, when I finally managed to gather my stuff together in order to go for a walk first to Hammersmith, and then to South Kensington as I’d decided I really needed another trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The last time I was in the UK I never went to this particular museum, even though I’d made the effort to go to the Natural History Museum which is more or less right next door. And I seem to remember going to a Modest Mouse concert at the Royal Albert Hall. With that said, London is a very large city that seems to change its face every day, so there you go. Still, I mention it because the first time I went to the V&A shortly after arriving in London last month, I was very taken by a statue there. And it really makes me think of my story, Tea For Two. Observe:

Lovely, isn’t it? And very, very sad. I like to think that’s what the reader would ultimately take away from my story: the sense of sadness, and of loss. But I would hope they would also find a lingering beauty there, too. I mean, I’m fairly certain that this story was chosen for the collection because of the atmosphere I tried to generate. Love, and loss – the lust was something of a side-story. With that said, it’s probably all rather hilarious as the ultimate influence for the piece was Lovecraftian in nature. And if you’re unsure as to who that man is, well, this might serve as an explanation:

 

The story’s not horror, not exactly – it’s paranormal erotica, but with that said I went for a quiet creeping horror underlain with a very fierce love. And I do hope that I succeeded. I’m still not sure that I did, but whatever happens I’ve now picked up a book and seen my name and my words in print. And that’s an amazing feeling. I am planning to do a proper entry on the book itself, but I haven’t yet had a proper chance to read it through (I’ve been distracted today by my sister, whose house I am staying at, requiring dinner and baking from me not to mention I am having a fit over plans for Egypt next week and The Song of Achilles is as much a distraction as writing my own novel). Still, I have read two stories and one of them basically punched through my chest and stole my heart clean away: Janine Ashbless’s Cover Him With Darkness is absolutely superb, and if you’re at all curious you can see an extract from the story here. I recommend reading it. Oh, boy, I recommend reading it.

In the meantime, I’ll post an extract of my own piece for posterity. Hilariously this all coincides with the fact that I managed to finally finish the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent yesterday. It’s relevant in that this game is very Lovecraftian in nature but unlike my short story is terrifying as hell. I think I lost twenty years off my lifespan playing the damn thing. But thanks to some terrible .gifs, whenever I think of my story in relation to the atmosphere and plot of Amnesia the words what is love? pop up in my head. And then, unfortunately and inevitably, this comes with it.

And yet, I am still terrified. Now that’s atmosphere. I can but hope I’m capable of achieving even a little of that in my own writing. Maybe I really ought to go back to my childhood love of fullblown horror after all. Hmm…

She left the room and its whispering, wailing memories to descend again to the ground floor. She would go outside, she decided. She would look at the trees and the flowers, then the weeds and the waste, and plan how she would make the garden bloom again. She could not grow proper tea here. But there was always jasmine, mint, other herbs. Perhaps with them her tea would be better, when she had drunk the promised elixir of her husband’s labours.

Yet as she looked at the dead and dying garden, she wondered at his promise, at the unspoken cost. The early days of her pregnancy had also cost her; from the beginning Anastasia had suffered for the gift, the second life within her own taking so much from the first. So much of her time had been spent on the daybed in the morning room, or on the seat upon the porch, unmoving as the seasons changed all about her. But she had not begrudged the child its needs, and neither had Gregory – then.

She laid her hands over her abdomen to find it flat, empty of life. Just another memory, half-faded in the web in which it had become entangled. A strange desire to see the skin welled up within her. Lifting the dress, the slip, she found only white skin beneath. Unmarred by scars, ignorant of all memory, it was as if those days had never been. She pressed her palm hard against it. Had any classical sculptor ever brought to life the form of a mother and child, while the infant still slumbered within? Or would that be too much life in something with none?

Standing In The Ashes At The End of the World

Sometimes I think life likes to mess around with me, just a little. I say this mainly because I spent most of the earlier part of this year going through a series of nervous breakdowns, mostly due to work and a sense of not knowing who I really was. I don’t actually know why I chose the past tense there because I still have no bloody clue, but there it is.

So, with that in mind, I ended up finally biting the bullet, quitting my job, and traipsing halfway around the world with only my trusty backpack for company. It’s been a bit touch and go so far, what with Hurricane Irene and then an interesting journey home from Turkey, not to mention my next plan appears to be a trip down the Nile, but here I am. I do need to either get a job or make more serious travel plans as not to be a burden on my poor sister, on whose couch I am currently crashing, but I still just don’t know what I really want to do.

As I weigh up my options, I am beginning to realise my power as a writer. That’s a very hard thing for me to say, I have to point out, in that I am a born and bred New Zealander and if you happen to read a book called The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Kiwis you will come across the entry that points out that we are not very good with singing our own praises. It’s considered crass (sometimes I think this can be why Southlanders and other Kiwis south of the Bombay Hills can be so dismissive of Aucklanders; they’re much quicker to say how much they rule the roost). So, my actually exploring how my writing is improving…makes me uncomfortable, to say the least. But I’ve always written stories, a habit I picked up not long after beginning to read them, and I think now…it’s like being a magician, I suppose. It’s an apt analogy as I am prone to fantasy in my own work. But think of it this way: I am an adept, someone who has always held the power somewhere within her. Throughout my life it’s been largely unfocused and uncontrolled, and while occasionally things have worked out, I’ve always been very rough and ready (and probably very self-serving) in everything I’ve written. This year, I’ve started to look for that control. And it appears to be working.

While I was in Turkey earlier this month, two things happened: my first short story publication came out (something I will update on later, when I actually receive my comp copies and get to see the book as a whole; from the reviews I’ve read I’m dead excited about seeing the other contributors’ works!), and right before I left New Zealand I discovered that not only had I placed in the Dan Davin competition, I had actually won first place. I obviously don’t have access to the local paper from here, as such, but it came out the day I was in Turkey and I only got a look at it last night thanks to my proud daddy and his kindly provision of his library card number. So, I trawled through some online archives and took a look. And laughed. I had a two-page spread in The Southland Times publishing my story on the third of September, just days before my first book publication, and it was that same-self paper that first published my writing at the age of ten. I was in Mr. Ovens’ class and it was a ghost story called Mr. Nobody. And I suppose I haven’t really changed my tune, as Tea For Two is primarily a ghost story, and The Journey of the Magi is certainly headed that way.

It’s The Journey of the Magi I principally want to talk about in this entry, of course. (If you want to read it before this entry, just send me a comment or an email or something and I can send you a copy.) When the paper came out, I was highly amused by what few facebook comments I caught via my sister’s smartphone in Istanbul and beyond regarding the story and how people reacted to it. My mother, who was clearly quite excited to finally see me doing something with my writing, announced on facebook: “Even though I may not have quite understood the story I do appreciate how beautifully written it was - very jeaslous [sic] of your writing ability!!” Which is why I decided to explore a little my reasons for writing the story and what I meant by it – bear in mind, though, that analysing your own work is a touch and go process. I love literary analysis, and I am not afraid to say I’m very talented at it. When it comes to my own work, though…well. It’s a director’s commentary at best, I suppose? ^_~

The principal reason I wrote this story at this time was to enter a competition. I have to say that first up, because it is the truth. I needed a story, and this one came to mind. But as you can possibly guess from my wording there, I chose a story that had been in embryonic form in my mind for a long time anyway. This is what I usually do when I need to write “to order;” I dig up one of my previous “what ifs?” and run with it.

Though this story ended up with multiple influences, the one that set it off was a song. The band She Wants Revenge has a song called Pretend the World Has Ended, and I first heard it probably a year or so back on the recommendation of a fellow fan of Ashes to Ashes and Life On Mars. The lyrics immediately struck me, in particular this bit here:

We can run away tonight,
Pretend the world has ended.
No matter what they say we'll work out fine,
‘Cause you and I know this is heaven

That was the original seed: I liked the idea of exploring the idea of two people shutting out the world around them to indulge in one another. But then, I thought, what happened if it wasn’t a pretence any longer? What if the world really had ended?

I chose the characters I did for any number of reasons, but they are two men principally because it was the easiest way for me to present in a short space a “taboo” relationship. Not that I find it particularly taboo myself, I’ve dealt in the slash genre for a very long time. But that’s the way of the world around us, and so I used the ingrained knee-jerk reaction of our society for an easy fix. Which I suppose is a trick all writers use, in varying shapes and forms. I had a bit of fun in name-changing, though; I always choose my characters’ names for their meaning, and I went through any number of choices before I settled on these. And it was to do with another emerging influence on the story: T.S. Eliot.

Anyone familiar with this poet’s work would immediately have picked up on his shadow over my words by the title alone. It’s not my favourite poem of his by any stretch – I am a Prufrock girl, first and foremost – but the idea of the magi came to me as I was creating the story behind the POV character’s current situation. He is a docent because he is a “wise man” of a sort, but he both teaches and learns himself. The magi themselves, of course, are the three wise men who came to seek Jesus. In a way this is what Thomas Kandahar is doing: in a world on the edge of apocalypse, he stumbles in the dark, looking for the shining star that will lead them all to their salvation.

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."

But people are bastards, according to tvtropes.org (by the way, if you follow that link and get stuck there all day, it is totally not my fault). Which is why the fate of creatures of Matsya Kalkirn’s type is to be taken as a tool and then discarded when their use is over. This is something relevant to the world today anyway, as we all tend to wonder what makes us human – but it’s been there always, this idea of those who are “better” or more deserving of the world than others. This comes back around to the name selection; Matsya was purposely given a less Western name, but then Thomas’s surname is also non-Western in origin, implying the mixture of society at this undefined point in time upon this world that parallels ours.

Thomas was given that Christian (!) name simply for the association with the Doubting Thomas well-known to any of us raised in a Christian society. Thomas doubts -- both himself, and the world around him. That is his principal function. His place is to be wise, but he knows nothing. Which brings to mind another Eliot poem, actually; here’s a bit of The Waste Land:

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, 

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not 

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither 

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,  40

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

This is what Thomas is – he is full of misgivings, and therefore in a liminal state. This story deals in parallel worlds, which I’ll get to in a minute, but Thomas has created his own world, unwittingly upon the ashes of another, because he does not have the strength to rise above his doubts. Saint Thomas had a wound he could place his hand into – my docent, however, has only Matsya. And how much help he is…well.

The origin of Thomas’s surname confounds me a bit – I am having trouble recalling why I chose it, but I believe it was because of its linguistic relation to Gandhara, a former ancient kingdom now in Afghanistan. I think I liked the idea of a name within two worlds – one closer to Matsya’s, and then one beyond it, in a different culture. Gandhara is also a very rich name, with a lot of world history behind it from before Alexander the Great to today, so…I think I liked that aspect. Thomas is our world from our viewpoint, as we want to “save” this world and all that comes with it, but there’s a price to be paid and at the time of the story, Thomas doubts he can personally afford it.

Matsya’s name was built on several things. Partially I liked his first name because I was reminded of two characters from a long-standing favourite Japanese anime of mine, Shoujo Kakumei Utena. I won’t go into details, as they are spoilers and it’s a wonderful story, but the pathos of that arc came through here for me in this story. But Matsya is the first of the avatars of Vishnu; to quote Wikipedia, Vishnu is “…the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past, present and future, one who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within. Vishnu governs the aspect of preservation and sustenance of the universe, so he is called 'Preserver of the universe'.” We’re getting an echo here, yes? Matsya is the first, as I said, the avatar who saved humanity. Kalki is the tenth and last, the so-called “destroyer of time” who is expected to appear at the end of our current time. With that said, it’s fairly easy to see why I chose his names, I guess? ^_~ Matsya is a beginning and an ending, salvation and destruction in the same package – but because of his nature as a Defiant he’s something otherworldly, too. Hence my borrowing from the Hindu canon, there.

As for the story itself, it came about from several influences – I mentioned the tragic story of Souji Mikage from Shoujo Kakumei Utena, but I was also thinking of a wonderful fanfic I read years ago for the series Gargoyles that dealt in characters stuck in a parallel timeline to the proper one, and I also recall being fascinated by a similar concept in Doctor Who a few years back. And naturally I must give a tip o’ the hat to the Master himself, one H.P. Lovecraft, because the Others in this story are certainly close personal friends of Cthulhu Himself. So, that’s where my sense of the apocalypse came from – and then I wondered, if your world has ended, what do you do? If your whole universe collapses, where do you go?

This is Matsya’s question, and he goes to answer it. And that’s where the story got scary for me, I think. Thomas is a doubter, but for all he was named after a canonised saint, Thomas is still human. Matsya…is something else. Was Thomas right to indulge him? One would think not, given the result. But then did Thomas have the right to chose whether to indulge him or not? Ah, there’s the rub, there. But as someone who has personally been haunted her whole life by the meaning of déjà vu, I enjoyed writing this story. My problem with déjà vu, you see, is that it makes me wonder if a future self has brought me back to this point to make a decision over. And I always fear I am doing it wrong. But in this story, Matsya sees the opportunity to make his choices over and over again, as much as he likes. And the tragedy of it all is that it was having those choices taken from him by his own world that led him to destroy it to get what he wanted.

I know I said Eliot’s dear friend Prufrock didn’t directly inspire this story, but as I come to the end of this little digression…he likely did. So, I’ll end it with one of my favourite quotes from The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, because I can hear echoes of Thomas in these words. And really, all the words we speak today are just echoes of those already spoken, and those as yet unspoken in tongues poised on the moment of speech.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—        40

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare        45

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I also have to note that Morag, a dear friend of mine who is part of my beloved writing group back in Invercargill, mentioned to me that apparently I was the first Southlander to win the open Dan Davin Award; Davin was himself a Southlander, of course, but I believe he spent a lot of time in Oxford. I suppose I could go over to Oxford today and look for inspiration, but I lived in Abingdon for six months and I'm kind of done with Oxfordshire. ^_~ Tim Jones, the judge of the competition, also said much the same thing about my being the first Southlander to do this, so there you go. But before I stop warbling about this competition, I need to make one last link: the winner of the high school competition was a girl named Pooja Pillay, and it sounds like we've lost a wonderful writer in her. I recommend you go and read her story and enjoy it as much as I did. The imagery is haunting, almost horrifying, and at all times I am helpless in its wake. And again, I am reminded of Prufrock, and on his words we can end this.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown	130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.