Myth, the Universe, and Everything

Way back in 2006, one of the first places where Into the Reach was reviewed was over on Flames Rising, which was the start of a long relationship I've had with the site as an occasional contributor -- and the start of my relationship with DriveThruFiction and the other DriveThru incarnations. Matt McElroy who runs the site has been awesome to work with, and it's through Matt and the Flames Rising team that I got to work on the anthology Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror.

So it's with great pleasure that I've now come full circle with Flames Rising: Matt posted the chapter one excerpt of the revised edition of Into the Reach at the site today. Thanks to all the people who posted the news on Twitter! I saw it from you first!



In other news, I am working on Choice of Pirate for Choice of Games, and the folks over at Facebook have been helping me come up with pirate shanties to listen to while I'm writing. Matt Ledder of Renaissance Festival Podcast had perfect timing with his Pirate Show Special, which he posted on the 24th. The stars must have aligned just right for that to come together just when I needed it. Thanks, Matt!

Several of my friends from the Michigan Renaissance Festival helped me remember the name of a group I'd always tried to catch back between sets when I was singing with the Arbor Consort -- the Corsairs, who sadly disbanded in 2008. Luckily, The Jolly Rogers are still performing and selling CDs, so there's pirate music to spare!

What pirate music and sea shanties do you recommend? If you'd like to recommend the pirate movies in your top ten, come join the discussion on Facebook.

In good news for folks who prefer reading paper, Haunted is now available in print through DriveThru. If you live in Madison, WI area, there's also going to be a reading, featuring Alex Bledsoe, Bill Bodden, Georgia Beaverson, and Jason Blair at A Room of One's Own on November 15.

We also got a nice review on Goodreads, so if you're a goodreader, check it out.

Meaningful posts will resume once marketing efforts have ceased... :)

Last May, Alma Alexander visited us here at Myth, the Universe, and Everything to discuss myth and fairytales. Since then, I had the tremendous delight of reviewing her most recent novel, Midnight at Spanish Gardens, over at Flames Rising and for Mythprint. The premise of the book is that a group of friends, on the night of a reunion, individually have the opportunities to live a completely different life. For the duration of that experience, they will not remember their original paths; at one moment, however, they will remember both lives and have to choose between the one they had first and the one they've just experienced. The book is utterly captivating, and it's available as an ebook at both amazon and Smashwords. Alma agreed to come back here to MtU&E to chat about the novel -- so without further ado, the interview!




MtU&E: The Spanish Gardens cafe is an incredibly vivid setting; you write about how it and other familiar places have some sort of magic about them. Do you have your own Spanish Gardens?

Alma: Well, yes [grin] it's called Spanish Gardens... This place, the place in the book, it is real. Was real, at least, since I am told that it doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for some time. But it really was magic, it held true magic, and it's always tragic how often you don't actually realise the truth of that until it's too late and the magic (and the place which held it) are gone. But this is one place that
will always be as real to me as though it were surrounding me right now -- it's that strong in my memory. I hope those who read Midnight at Spanish Gardens get a sense of that when they dive into the book -- and, more, that they might be moved to remember their own version of what this place means to me.

MtU&E: In the novel, your characters have to choose between two different lives. Thankfully, you never make them choose between two sets of children, which would have been almost unbearable for me to imagine! When you decided on the different lives, how did the alternate version of the characters come about? Were there specific life contrasts you wanted to wrestle with?

Alma: Tough one. No, I had no real idea what the alternate lives were going to be until I basically started writing them. Some of the issues surprised me -- for instance, John's true parentage was a bit of a
shock, to be honest, and that goes for both of his lifestream choices (only his responses, reactions, to this truth were different). But what I ended up with, in this book, is a story steeped in magic which is somehow the most real thing I have ever written -- and whether in this life or the other, all of my characters are wrestling with a huge monster known as The Truth. Sometimes they win. Sometimes the monster eats them alive. Partly I wanted to convey that every so often you will make the right decision by accident or serendipity, or you will spend a long time agonising over something that is in the end fairly
simple (and can still manage, no matter how much time you spend on the decision, to make the wrong one...) I think... it's like looking in the mirror... and the person you see is still recognisably YOU. It's just that you might find that on the inside something important shifts, and a decision cog goes this way or that way according to the way your mind is working. I guess one of my themes here was simply, know thyself -- and if you don't yet (which isn't necessarily a sin) then at least make an effort to start to. Because the way to be happy is to understand what makes you so. This is not always easy -- and yet, sometimes, it's bewilderingly simple once you strip away all the things that do not.


MtU&E: One of the characters changes gender in her alternate life, and sees a very different career path. Why did you choose to showcase two different careers instead of having the male version of the character in a similar profession?

Alma: As I said -- I had no real idea where they were going to go until they went there. I'm one of the most organic writers out there -- the way I've explained it to people before is that I get a story seed in my hand and I stick it into the soil in a flower pot -- and I have no more idea what is going to grow there, if it is going to be a cabbage or a redwood tree, until it sprouts and I see the shape of its leaves
opening up to the sun. Showcasing two different careers was not deliberate, or a stunt, or a message. That was the set of choices that the character happened to take, and that was the road that they led
him or her down. I hear some people tell that their characters do what they told and go where the author wants them to go when said author cracks the whip of authority. Sometimes I envy that -- my characters go where they please and do what they will, and my role in it all is to see the bigger story in which they are involved and tell it. But I don't control it, I never have. This is why people in the industry cringe when they ask me (as they have to sometimes) what my next book will be about, wanting and needing a more or less detailed outline thereof. The short answer is, I don't know, I never know, I won't know until I write it. And it might surprise me by featuring an entirely different career than the one I had planned [grin]. The basic bedrock of everything I write is that I write the story that needs or wants to be told, and comes up to me and takes me by the throat and doesn't let go until I tell it. Other than being a good listener and a competent amanuensis, I have learned not to interfere with that process. My story knows, and I will respect that.

MtU&E: The premise of the story is that the characters are meeting for a reunion at the end of the world in 2012 (all of them assuming that life will, indeed, go on the next day). What about the 2012 end-date appealed to you?

Alma: There's just something about a good Apocalypse, isn't there? Perhaps that's why that poor pastor keeps on predicting the Rapture, over and over and over again, and when it clearly hasn't happened (well, clearly, else he wouldn't still be here, right...?) he just "recalculates" the date and tries again. Seriously, though – the concept of ending is a very potent one in the human psyche, and in some ways we are willing to go to the wall to ensure that some things end, or others do not. The idea of having a deadline to do these things by (as in, the world ends at midnight on December 20 2012) gives you... a certain kind of impetus, a certain urgency. You only have this much time to do everything you have left to do and after that... after that you don't know what happens so you can't plan for it. It's the very idea of looking down into that abyss that intrigues me -- because of the varying reactions of the people who do so. Some will not look at all because they are paralysed with fear; some will look, and see a bottomless pit; others will see great spires of rock waiting to tear them apart or deep water ready to drown them, or the very flames shooting out from the Gates of Hell themselves. And then there are people like me, who see... everything, and nothing. A whole new world, maybe. Why not? Things are often circular. Ends may be simply beginnings of something new. It's that trembling uncertainty, the curiosity, the vivid joy of discovery of things I've never known before, that appeals to me. And the idea that all of this lies just over a year away at the end of 2012... it's practically irresistible.

MtU&E: One of your characters is woven into all of the alternate lives in the book, yet this character chooses a different life. How do those two things -- the character being so important to the others and yet being able to completely absent herself from their lives when the choice is hers --
correlate?

Alma: Olivia is the pivot point. I am not sure how that works, exactly, but in all the flux that goes on around us certain times, certain places, certain people are the fixed points, the things around which everything revolves. In this story, it's Olivia, Spanish Gardens, a certain midnight in December of 2012. These are the fixed things in a changing universe. You might say that Olivia forces a change, in that she does not remain in her "fixed" position -- but everything else still orbits around her. Her "fixed" quality is now that she is so comprehensively absent from the lives of those friends in whose timelines -- particularly their alternate timelines -- she was so fundamentally important. But in some ways this entire book is Olivia's story, she is the sun, and everybody else simply revolves around her and reflecting back her fire like planets of a solar system. She is a Schroedinger's Cat -- a creature who is at once so ordinary that she finds a place in every single life she touches because she is to ubiquitous and necessary and a part of the weave of the world and at the same time something different, something greater, something transcendental, something that Ariel (the Messenger) recognises immediately as being not so much woven into the world's fabric as... being a weaver of that fabric. It all sounds rather metaphysical and confusing when you ask that question and I try to answer it within the space of a paragraph. I think a better answer would be, read the book, and find out...

Monica Valentinelli, a fellow contributor to Flames Rising, posted a contest on her blog asking people to post about their passions, and I immediately thought of the first time I'd really tried to pin mine down. When I attended the Denver Publishing Institute back in 2000, jeff_duntemann was one of our guest faculty members. He talked about a number of issues in publishing (things he's still discussing over at ContraPositive), but the thing I remember the most wasn't really about publishing at all. Jeff talked to us about finding your passion and living it. As a young college grad, I remember writing to him afterwards about not being able to narrow down my passion any further than stories -- I wasn't completely enamored of any one type of publishing, necessarily, and not being passionate about a very narrow field made me nervous. But the idea of being passionate about stories made sense, and it's something that remains true for me.

Fast forward eleven years later and the same thing is, roughly, true. I have my fingers dipped in various types of publishing -- and while they're not all story related, most of them are. Writing obituaries ends up being about telling the story of someone's life, capturing all the bits that will be important to readers. Writing about history for "The Town with Five Main Streets" has a whole range of types of stories -- all of them that somehow impact the current landscape of the town where I live. Writing for Dragon ties in with helping other people tell stories. Heck, even teaching Mom-Baby Fitness has an element of sharing stories and experiences with other moms.

Monica's contest runs through midnight tonight, so write about your own passions and go over to her blog and leave a comment!

I keep having to turn the pages of my calendar. Time stops for no writer, it seems. Unless you have one of those really nacky time-stopping devices, but those are, admittedly, tough to come by, especially in this economy.

As a short update, I thought I'd share the message I sent out to my mailing list (and a couple of plugs for other writers at the end--give it a look!)

--

It's been a long time between updates, largely because I've been busy with review assignments and reference book work, which aren't so exciting to tell you about. I did recently begin writing a column for Branford Patch, called "The Town with Five Main Streets." It's a weekly column about the history of Branford, Connecticut, and starting next week, it's taking on a question and answer format. So, if you have a question about Branford's history, or just want to give me some new material to research, I hope you'll go check out the column and post either in the comments or in the Q&A area of Branford Patch.

If you're more interested in my fiction, and maybe you haven't gotten the chance to read Into the Reach and Departure, as they became hard to track down in print, I'm pleased to announce that they're available as e-books through DriveThruRPG! The rights have been released from the publisher back to me, and I'm delighted to be working with Matt McElroy, who is my review editor at Flames Rising, to make them available again as e-books. The really good news is that I'll have the chance to release Regaining Home, the third book in the trilogy, in the same format! The manuscript has been completed for a long time, but the editorial process stalled out before we could release it. I don't have a date yet for when I'm likely to make it available, but you can rest assured that instead of "maybe it will be released eventually," it will definitely be coming into e-print. The speed with which I'm able to get the edits done and the files ready for e-book may depend on how sales of the first two books progress -- meaning, I can take time away from other paying work more easily if I know I have an audience waiting.

I made a quick link to my DriveThru store here: http://tinyurl.com/aja-ebooks, but you can also go to DriveThruRPG.com and search for Alana Abbott (which brings up several other books I've contributed to) or Virgil and Beatrice, which is the store name for everything I list on DriveThru.

Thanks to everyone here for your continued interest in my writing, and your support of my career!

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Speaking of books that are out...

Mark Henry/mdhenry's Road Trip of the Living Dead is out in mass market! If you didn't buy it as a trade, it's now nicely pocket sized. (It's also available as an e-book at a reduced price.)

Anton Strout/antonstrout has the fourth book of his Simon Canderous series, Dead Waters, releasing at the end of the month. Join the facebook party!

Looking to the beginning of March, watch out for Accidentally Catty, the latest Accidental book by Dakota Cassidy.

It's quite a line up! Whatever you're doing with your February, get out there and read something fun!

Two quick thoughts of the day.

1) I really like working with Platinum's Dan Forcey. His editorial e-mails are full of fun, and they make me giggle. (He also offers excellent feedback, of course!)

2) For folks who read my article at Flames Rising and wonder what I came up with for my spin on being a shepherd, it dawned on me that I could be a Shepherd from the Firefly verse, so that's what I did.



That's me with my flock of one (as she's trying to eat my prayer book). :)

Edit: Also, devonmonk is posting over at Bitten by Books today. You guys know I am a huge fan of Devon, not only for her fiction writing, but for her blogging and general good advice in the writing life. So, buzz on over and say hi, and tell her Happy Book Birthday for Magic at the Gate.

I've been building up links to share in my e-mail (I always e-mail them to myself until I have enough for a post). I was thinking about reviewing Breaking Waves, which I've just finished, but that may wait until tomorrow. Short version: really worthwhile anthology with a wide variety of stories.

But here are your links for digestion:

• Apparently, the Man Booker Prize committee has a thing against books in the present tense, according to an article in Salon. I tend to prefer books in the past tense, myself, but every so often there's a present tense story that proves me wrong. (As I explained to a friend, if it's written in present tense, the narrator can't die -- or the book would just stop. Which, I suppose, would be an interesting conclusion to a first person present tense story.)


• Josh Jasper at Genreville, among others, has blogged about Sir Terry Pratchett's sword made of star metal. That he forged himself. No, really. I salute you, Sir!


• I'm, of course, posting behind the ball on this, but Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is under attack. It looks like yet another case where the person trying to censor the book didn't even bother to read it.


• An impressive statistic: one in ten Americans uses an e-reader.


• PW did an excellent long article about Top Cow's new book, Artifacts, which I reviewed at Flames Rising.


• Comics and lit crit intersect with American Vampire, by Scott Snyder, who teaches courses like "The Monster Under Your Story." Sounds like fun, no?

Just a couple of links today.

First: Bitten by Books is having an awesome contest for the Linger release: a book club kit! The prize is ten copies of both Linger and Shiver, plus a $100 Visa card to host a party with. Definitely check it out!

Second: DriveThruRPG and DriveThruComics are having a huge Christmas in July sale, and the Flames Rising store is one of the participants. There's plenty of RPG material to look through (and, perhaps, add to your collection).

Yesterday was the two week check in for Kaz's Summer Camp, but it's been busy at the Abbott household, with family visiting and writing actually getting done! Here's where I stand so far:

Reasonable goal:
* With my cowriter, finish the draft of our serial novel. (We're at chapter 10 of 20 -- halfway there!)
lyster has submitted chapter 11, so we're moving right along. It's my turn, and I hope to have that back to him before the next goal check in.

* Complete typesetting on four essays written by other authors (this is contracted, so it's kinda cheating to count it).
Done! All of the typeset essays got turned in to my editor last Friday. There are a couple of paperwork issues to finish up, but otherwise, it's all taken care of.

* Write one short story.
No progress yet on this one.

* Write multiple book reviews (not contracted, but already arranged with the venues in which they'll appear).
One SLJ review got turned in, and I'm working on the mythsoc reading list before diving back into some other reviews.

The only extended goal worth mentioning is:
* Blog at least three times a week.
I obviously haven't gotten on track with this! I'm counting each week as a new week, though, so this will be a weekly goal rather than a summer-long goal.

I'm also adding a new goal:
* Write a joint interview article for Flames Rising.
My questions have already been sent out to various awesome writers, and I'm getting some great responses back (many of them hilarious). Once the article goes over to Flames Rising, I'll talk a little bit more about it here.

Some of you may have caught the two columns I wrote for Flames Rising (with the intention of writing several more) about the differences in the types of paranormal romances and urban fantasies that make up the scale of books inside the boundaries of the genre (or expanding them). After a conversation with my library boss, I decided to start putting together a big ol' list and synopsis of sub groupings for her, since it's what I read, and I recommend a lot of titles to our patrons. Just because someone digs vampires in Sookie and Anita Blake doesn't necessarily mean it's the vampires they're after -- in fact, the last person I was giving recommendations to started out from those two series and ended with, "Actually I'd like to have something a little more light hearted and funny," and so I sent her in the direction of shanna_s's Enchanted Inc. So in my list, I'm trying to suss out the qualities that might attract someone to a novel -- maybe they are vampire crazy, but maybe they're looking for something snarky with a Sex and the City vibe (in which case they need Happy Hour of the Damned by mdhenry). Maybe what they loved about Jim Butcher's Dresden Files was actually the private investigator angle, in which case you could go with devonmonk's Allie Beckstrom books, the Connor Grey series by Marc del Franco, of blackaire's Nocturne City series. (There are actually scads of PIs in urban fantasy -- I've just named a few.) Do they want an urban fantasy series with a con artist? Try the WVMP novels by Jeri Smith-Ready. And from there, if they love the radio angle, try Carrie Vaughn's Kitty the Werewolf books or stacia_kane's Megan Chase series. Maybe they totally dug the government agency aspect of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. in the comics, in which case, they should be reading antonstrout's Simon Canderous series. I could keep on this thread for some time -- the point is, while some people are vampire nuts, a lot of UF and Paranormal Romance readers might get a kick out of different aspects of the novels than just vampires vs. werewolves -- which is sort of a non-UF reader way to boil it down.

So, I thought it was hilarious today when Jackie Kessler posted a parody song about urban fantasy (using the tune for "Popular" from the musical Wicked). Did I make sure to include everyone on that list in my list? Who of those famed urban fantasists have I yet to read?

(Of course, I disagree with his looking down on Paranormal Romance, but that could be a whole other entry.)