Archive | February 2015

The Mom Test and “Tell me About Your Story.” (A blog post)

Feb13

I’m working on two stories right now – one for Mobbing Midnight, an anthology of Crow stories, and one for Queers Destroy Sci-Fi. Both are in draft form, and I’m flailing a bit about both, as is normal.

And then I got on the phone with my mom. I was telling her about Crow Cage, my story for Mobbing Midnight… and I started to find places, just reviewing the story in my mind, where my Mom would say “I don’t get it.”

And going from there, I was able to feel the points where the story needed to improve, and feel excited about it again. So: The Mom Test. Will someone mostly unfamiliar with my writing and the way I think be able to “get” this story, and, if not, how can I improve it?

And then I was talking to cluudle about Scaling the Ivory Tower, my submission for QDSF. She said “tell me about your story.”

I thought about it. I hemmed and hawed. And then I laid out an outline of what I WANTED the story to be. Again: clarification, brightening, new energy. I knew what I was missing, and I knew how it could get better.

Do you have a similar trick when you’re stuck? Have you ever tried talking the story out with a friend – or a stranger – to get past the “what do I do now?” stage?

Mobbing Midnight’s Kickstarter is almost to 10%!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/898413.html. You can comment here or there.

Ideas for post-apoc crews/people wandering around in my brain

Feb13

Outside Help – a crew that bounces from population base to population base, providing jack-of-all-trades outside help (they got their name from a challenge back in school where they provided, as you might guess, outside help).

Historian – a single woman (and perhaps a bodyguard Kept, later), moves a similar circuit, writing down people’s memories of history and, a la Foxfire, everything they can remember about their profession pre-apoc.

Square Miles – a crew decides to rehab a portion of the US in square mile portions, laid out with a grid of walls, one square mile a year (the goal being a 10×10 mile grid when they’re done).

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/898228.html. You can comment here or there.

Domain Name Costs MET! Thank you!

Feb12

The Domain Name Fundraiser reached $40 – covering my costs for domain names.

That’s also FOUR stories.

So tell me, what do you want to know about the worlds of Edally Academy and/or Inner Circle?

Suggestions:
(Rix)
For Edally, could we have something from the older students’ point of view about the first years?
For Inner Circle, something about their Change?
(dialecticdreamer)
Prelude

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/898046.html. You can comment here or there.

On “Relating to” characters in stories.

Feb12

I recently started following http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/ on tumblr, and there is discussion about how white people often have trouble “relating” to characters of color in fiction.

And it got me thinking.

‘Cause okay, I – probably no surprise here – grew up reading a lot.

And Trixie Belden & Nancy Drew lived in worlds as foreign to me as Smash Ogre and Tansy. The Sweet Valley Twins and the Babysitter’s Club were as strange to me as Bilbo. Kids written in 50’s romance books (I really did read everything) lived in a place as hard to related to as did Shea Ohmsford.. Little House on the Prairie? Oversoul Seven?

I’m a 3rd-generation-German-immigrant/Daughter of The American Revolution child of hippies* who were themselves the 1st/second generation off the farm; I grew up in a log cabin on my grandparents’ 100 acres of farmland, an only child, a child of an alcoholic honor’s kid with social anxiety & depression. I have a hard time relating to anyone.

…but Herald Talia made me feel at home. Dude, for me, fiction has never been about reading about myself; it’s been about taking me somewhere else.

And this would be a lovely piece on its own, but I feel compelled to point out, also – I have a very hard time visualizing people. It really doesn’t happen. So when I’m reading, it’s very first-person-shooter for me; I’m not picturing the protagonist, I’m in their skin.

* And hippies. Okay. When you read me saying “hippies” in relation to personal experience, you have to get stereotypes like this guy out of your head. My mom was for civil rights and against the war, for vegetarianism & growing your own food and, ah, growing your own marijuana. But, despite living in New York State, my parents didn’t go to Woodstock, and the media depictions of hippies have never matched my childhood.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/897359.html. You can comment here or there.

Lost Collar, a ficlet of fae apoc

Feb11

Content warning: violence.

The muggers had taken almost everything off of Westcott – his phone, all his cash, the one credit card he carried, his rings, his diamond earrings, his coat, even his shoes. They’d left him for dead, or at least for hypothermia, beaten half into unconsciousness in a back alley.

He wouldn’t have fought them over the earring, or even the shoes or the phone. but they’d taken his collar, the collar his Lady had locked around his neck. They’d taken bolt cutters to it, laughing the whole time.

Westcott thought about dying. Then he remembered he had orders against that. He thought about staying in the alley until it wasn’t a choice, and remembered he needed to be home by midnight. He thought about tracking the muggers down and killing them… and had no orders against that, but no way to do it, either.

In the end, Westcott found his feet and began to limp home. His neck felt naked, more bare than his feet did. He felt incomplete; he felt wrong.

The hooker accosted him when he was halfway to the bus stop. “Hey, kid. Spare a light?”

He shouldn’t, but the energy for the Kwxe Working was easy, and he cupped his hands to hide the lack of lighter. “It’s going to get colder. You should be inside.”

“You offering, kiddo?”

“I don’t even have bus fare.” It hit him them. “Shit, I don’t even have bus fare.”

“You look like you got it bad.” She probably wasn’t older than Westcott; she probably wasn’t even older than the face he was wearing. But she looked worn thin already. “Here, buck fifty, right?” She dug change out of the pocket of her miniskirt. “Next time you’re around, remember me, all right?”

His collar was still missing, his neck was still bare. But Westcott managed a smile. “I can do that. Thanks.” There would be another collar. And, if he was lucky, his Lady would help him find the fiends who had taken it. “Thanks a lot.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/896875.html. You can comment here or there.

On Crows and Crow Cages

Feb11

Crows, the email from April said. Just crows. An anthology of crows.

Ideas started flitting through my head. The Crow (the movies(s), the comics…). No. Crow Change. Neat… but not a story. Crow Therian. Snow White with crows instead of bluebirds. The corvids in the field outside my house. Crows.

Crows, it said, and I started thinking. I knew I didn’t want to do another Fae apoc, not yet. I was pretty sure I wanted to use an urban fantasy setting I’d been bouncing around in my head, one set on a university campus much like the one where I spent most of my twenties (I had a protracted early-adulthood, okay?) And, obvious, it needed to involve crows.

And then my husband, brainstorming over croissant french toast stuffed with strawberries (we have the best diner) mentioned demons.

And Crow Cage was born.

I’ve worked with April before – on What Follows, where my Fae Apoc story Monster Godmother is published. I’m excited to be working with her again on Mobbing Midnight, and I’m excited to be working again with such a wonderful selection of writers.

Go check it out! Every little bit gets us closer to our goal. Annnd… if you you haven’t bought What Follows yet, check out the $20 and higher levels – you can kill two birds with one stone!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/896722.html. You can comment here or there.

Climbing imaginary hills whilst writing imaginary worlds (blog post)

Feb11

I’ve been watching HaikuJaguar‘s talk of her walking desk with quite a bit of interest. I have a desk job, a desk second-job (writing), and, in the winter especially, sedentary hobbies (reading, TV).

Space & money constraints mean such a thing isn’t in the cards for me right now. But I have this lovely tablet I bought for myself for Black Friday (Samsung Galaxy 4.0 Nook) and this lovely keyboard for said table my parents bought me for Christmas….

…and it works. I wouldn’t want to try balancing anything bigger on the treadmill’s magazine rack, and it only works on two treadmills at my gym (one of which is out of order perpetually), but I got on the right treadmill yesterday and wrote 569 words in 30 minutes. Not my top rate, surely, on either writing or calorie burning. But fun!

It’s a case where multi-tasking actually does good. I like it. 🙂

Now if only I could write while I drove…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/896343.html. You can comment here or there.

Busy Day In the Alder

Feb10

Jumping Rings Chapter 16 is up!

Mobbing Midnight: an Anthology of Crows – the kickstarter is live and already at $170.

My Domain Name Fundraiser raised $15, opening up a free answer-fic, once a question is asked.

And

I updated my Patreon Page. It’s $1 from the new, saner incentive level.

And now I go back to the writing mines!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/895917.html. You can comment here or there.

Jumping Rings: A Story of the Circled Plain Chapter Sixteen

Feb10

Valran – Here


“Here.” Keldra Dre stood up and strode away from Valran. He swallowed until his throat no longer felt too dry to speak again.

“Here, ma’am?”

“Stay there.” She called it over her shoulder; if Valran hadn’t been so confused, if his legs hadn’t been falling asleep, he would have been grateful. As it was, he held still and hoped it was the right thing to do.

read on…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/895652.html. You can comment here or there.