On Art and Writing

Painting and writing feel like they should go together well, but they really don't.

I really enjoy both. But they come from different impulses. The writing plays off my obsessive daydreaming, while the art comes from my love of shutting off my brain. Sometimes when I paint it's as refreshing as sleeping. (And that is an important consideration, with my current level of exhaustion.)

Art and writing take my free time and tear it into pieces between them in a catastrophic tug of war. And then my free time just ends up ripped in half with shreds missing, and either art nor writing is happy with the situation.

It's tough. I will need to begin much more aggressive time scheduling in the near future.

Accountability is also important. For the coming year I'm going to post a new piece of art a day to my blog. They don't necessarily have to be painted that day, but they often will be.

I also downloaded WriteOrDie in an effort to build accountability for fiction. I think it might work better for short stories than anything else. Maybe blog posts, too. (I do also like http://writtenkitten.net/ to get me through tough articles.)

Accountability, speed, and quantity will be my goals for 2012. Right now there is too much thinking, and not enough doing. Maybe I'll start wearing warpaint to face the blank piece of paper.

The Slow Death of the Desk Drawer

Weekly Wordcount: Negligable. Done a little editing. 26,000 total.
This Week's Reads: Beloved. In progress: Embassytown, Assassins
To read: Villains by Necessity (It just arrived, and it is in super nice condition. I am excited.)

Desk Drawer Projects

Once upon a time, two summers ago, I wrote a novel for a school thing. This was an inherently bad idea, because I set upon the project from the lens of wondering what the school like to see - not what would I like to write. 

This story was not a fun romp. It was a turgid, pretentious piece of work, an uneasy mix of college lore, depression, and the ways in which people are pathetic. All is tainted with modernism. The biggest influences were Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey into Night, and the memory of a hurricane that left my house powerless for a week.

I have long wondered what to do with the thing. It sits there, in that metaphorical desk drawer (it's on my computer, in a folder somewhere). I take it out once in a while and see if enough time has passed, and has revealed to me how to fix the story. Every six months or so I think I am ready to renew the project, to finalize it once and for all, and turn it into an ebook. But I can't, because it doesn't quite work. 

Why not?

It lacks tension, stakes. The characters are bitchy. And what is the conflict? The characters are their own worst enemies. Who cares about hurricanes and fires? There is no connection between internal and external conflicts. Everyone fights themselves and mopes about the state of things around them. 

It's a day, a tense day. It might help the thing to deal with the consequences. My current pet theory is to interlace another day, or series of days, three weeks in the future.

And then everything is reveled to be zombies. Zombies are the cure for modernism. 

Banned Books: A Study in Shame on my old school district

Last month the Albemarle County school district, which sits all around Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, made international news for banning a book. What could have been a bit of local headshaking (though I missed any local coverage) was picked up in news articles from DC to LA to the UK. Everyone was bewildered and offended on behalf of the beloved series.

What salacious novel did they strike down?

Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Yes. Sherlock Holmes.


This lurid tale of murder, mystery, and machinations is no longer suitable for 6th graders.

Why was it banned? It presents Mormons in a negative light, and provides an incomplete view of their religion. I wonder if school districts could ban all books that present topics with a negative bias. I wonder what would be left to read.

Disclaimer that I found in the comments of the UK article: poster claims the tale of the book's banning has been blown slightly out of proportion, as it was not banned exactly, just stricken from the reading list due to an offended/concerned parent. Students can still find this book, as well as other Holmes tales in the library. So there's some hope for the avid reader.

The Vanished Villains by Necessity

So once upon a time, I scheduled this blog to be posted, and blogspot said nope. Or maybe lulz, you think I'm in your timezone?


Wednesday-Wednesday Weekly Wordcount: 5,500 added to Gloaming, of 26,000 total.
This Week's Reads: Marathon Man, some Embassytown.

Happy Banned Book week! I have an embarrassing banned book story that I'll tell you Friday. But today I'm going to cry about a book that was not banned. 

But it is gone. 

And its untimely absence leaves me sobbing into my pillow on dark lonely nights. 

I wish I had gotten a copy of Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward, when I had the chance.

Out of print on Amazon, vanished from my library, new copies running at over a hundred bucks a pop--it's out of reach. And it isn't on Kindle or Nook, which is pretty criminal if you ask me.

Back in middle school, this was my favorite book ever. It was new, it was different, it was a revelation that not all sf&f was confined to the transposed plots of The Black Cauldron and Lord of the Rings remixed a little and thrown on the page. It was a revelation that there could be fantasy outside of the hundred farmboys prophesied to save the world, the weak females, and the sickeningly lawful knights.

No, this was a tale of the villains, and they were much more fun. It combined humor and darkness. It quite possibly began my obsession with assassin-characters. It subverted cliches, without giving way to the chasm of postmodernism. It was filled with action and adventure. It did not regurgitate the narrow range of morals and divine right of kings everything else pushed.

It was, along with Vlad Taltos, the strongest influence on Shadowing.

It was the best book.

Of all time.


...or at least that's how I remember it, and that's how it'll stay in my mind, because it is quite firmly out of print. And it doesn't seem any amount of clicking Amazon's "I'd like to read this book on Kindle" has changed that.

Top Three Things I Miss About Video Games

Let's be real.
What I miss most is chocobos.

I used to play video games like an addict, and I think that may have shaped some of my literary tastes towards fast paced and full of action. Nonetheless I decided, a few years ago, to go cold turkey on games and get things done in life. Instead of gaining hours of free time, I gained an internet addiction. On the whole I am not sure it's an equal trade. The loading times are as bad or worse (especially with my internet tower dissolving). And there are some things that I really miss from video games that just don't translate well into written work: 

• 1. Exaggerated physical abilities. 

Especially as demonstrated by double jumping. In Devil May Cry, an excellent game, you have to unlock the skill, but once you do, you can jump, and then jump again in midair. In videogame land I jump everywhere.

(Perhaps I was a rabbit in a past life?) I do get genuinely annoyed if I encounter a videogame that does not allow me to jump with abandon. When they let me jump only as a special and relevant action button, it's the worst. I feel so controlled.

• 2. Even more exaggerated weapons. 

Disregard the crap-art.
Notice the impressive sword.

The size of swords in Final Fantasy games is one of the best things. Be the sword six feet long or one foot wide, IRL the characters' greatest threats would be their arms falling off.

(I assume this is what happens when you lift heavy things - I try to avoid testing the theory.) And yet these weapons are carried cheerily across the worldmap. Not to mention that the characters seem to have invisible packmules. Note: I think VII was the best soap opera, full of nonsense and betrayal and amnesia and tragedy.

• 3. Voice acting.

The voice acting was always. So. Good. 

It really added another layer to the plot developments and character appreciation. And none could ever come close to the excellent voice acting in the Devil May Cry series. That game should have been, and was, the one to fill my dark soul with light.

• But in writing...

These are things I miss. And yet they are high on the ridiculous spectrum as it is, and would be worse in writing. I like badass characters, but you gotta reign them in a little. They need weaknesses and emotions. Don't tell me they can doublejump off the air, or I can't take their life problems seriously. They can't have invisible pack mules - you need to think about what your characters could actually carry on their adventures. (Problems are tripled if your character is a shapeshifter.) And if the character's sword is bigger than he is, you need to provide a reason. 

Most importantly, any character monologuing should not bring tears of laughter to your readers' eyes. Because they probably won't be laughing with you.

New and Improved Cover!

Seriously? A second post on your cover, Kat?

Well, I like the look and feel of the new background, so I would like to take the time to announce that the new and subtly improved cover is now a go!

With a texture like that, it has to be good.

Now, as you can see, I have added a very cute rock-texture in the background. You may wonder why I bothered poking at the drawing (note the previous post on full evolution). I was happy with the center, you see, but the dull boredom of the prior flat gray background always made me sad. I wanted a nifty texture, but I resisted using anything stock.

Because I do not approve of using stock textures, my previous solution was to whine about it. But the other day something extraordinary happened; I walked outside. I tore myself away from my computer long enough to realize that there were some very big flat stones outside with some very nice moss/mold/lichen/growing things/texture. And thus this texture was easily added. 

Also on the bright side, it should look decent on the grayscale of a Kindle. My first cover was pretty much black, so you could only see Shadowing and my name and kind of a face.  

Anywho, this is a very cute fantasy story (who doesn't love antiheroes and violent elves?) Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. Most people buy Amazon. You can find reviews there.

Cupcake Fiction

Henchmuffin.

Cupcakes are in fashion right now in the world of food and deliciousness. They are bitesized and fun and different and glittery and delicious. I like to think that short novels are the cupcakes of the internet.

In honor of this epiphany, the henchmuffin above is an interpretive artwork of what Shadowing would look like as a cupcake. Unfortunately it became strikingly reminiscent of a cupcake version of Vincent Valentine, although it has been topped with with some cute little frostwings.

Full recipe:
1 1/2 cups pack mentality and telepathy
1 1/4 cups all-purpose cloak/wings
2 sticks or daggers. Substitute: claws/fangs.
4 large life-changing events, room temperature.
1 cup blood of Shadows
1 teaspoon softheartedness.

Top with a whipped icing, flavored with the essence of wistful wyvern. 

Recipe source: Food Network.


Moved from http://fictician.blogspot.com/.