Short Story Based On the Poxy Boggards

This was painted entirely with Infinite Painter on my tablet

This is one of the last suggested songs, and I've been sitting on it for a while. "She's A Whore" by the Poxy Boggards is a rousing sea-chanty like song of well...good old dockside ladies of the even'in. Since I didn't want to write about any real kind of sexual prostitution (I'm not squeamish, it just didn't click for me), I decided to settle on another type of selling.

The selling of childhood memories.

While writing this, I mostly listened to a folksy singer-songwriter I came across: Laura Gibson. Give her a listen. Seriously.

For the Price of a Memory

I'd started out busking in the loud echoing halls of the subway, letting the strains of my guitar reverberate over the graffiti-lined tiles and pitching my voice to sing over the bustle and clickity-clack of commuters. That much I remembered. But the longer I busked, the more I noticed averted gazes, as if I'd become some unmentionable invisible person, no matter what I wound up singing about. If I sang about love, the scrabble of bored tourists only seemed to fly by me quicker. Some kids jumped pylons even as they tried to dip from the money in my guitar case. If I dared to sing about hopelessness and death, it at least garnered a few scowls. Whenever I nodded to a donor, they always looked away as if afraid they'd get caught being generous.

But when busking wasn't enough, I'd had to think of other ways for money. When that wasn't enough, I had begged, but the scorn in people's gazes had made me think of pawning my guitar instead. But I couldn't. Not the guitar my dad had given me. The one with the wonky tuning pin that groaned every time I tuned the high E string and the bridge that felt like it would fly off the body at any moment to slap me clean in the forehead. The red enamel had long flaked off of the outside leaving it a sort of faded woody blonde with smatters of fingernail polish-like red. But it was mine. It was all I had.

Turning to hooking at the time had seemed like worse than begging. My memory now was so fuzzy in places, that I was certain I'd Sold bits of my memory of how I'd turned to the life.

Funny Rejected Book Cover Art: Dune

While combing through the vast catacombs of all the publishing house's Secret Room of Book Covers, I've finally found many, many rejected ones. This one for Dune seems to have been nixed because it gives away a main plot point: The Spice Must Flow.

Albums That Tell A Story

A while ago I had a conversation about concept albums, and I insisted that a friend of mine listen to my favorite album: The Wall by Pink Floyd (and also by Roger Water's Raging Ego, aka "Apologies for Spiting In Your Face, Audience").

The conversation migrated to his lament that concept albums, or at least albums with an overarching theme or good story telling seemed to have gone the wayside since the 70's, with a smattering here and there in the 90's. At first I was stymied, because all of the albums that instantly prang to mind happened to be 90's and prior. Like oh crap, what about Nine Inch Nails? Er, or like the Moody Blues. And uh, crap. Like more Pink Floyd? And...Bowie...ah shit.

But then I started scrolling through my massive iPod collection of music, and realized that there are some great thematic albums that are post 90's.

Here are my favorites:

6. Pretty much anything by The Decemberists: The Decemberists are clever story tellers, and 90% of their songs involve actual events from history, centuries old tales, or faintly melancholic tales of life lived before modernity. I heart The Decemberists for their rock folksy vibe, Colin Meloy's strong yet warbly voice, and eclectic lyrics.

Some favsie songs to check out are:

"O Valencia!" A Romeo and Juliet styled song of love and feuding families.

 "The Rake's Song" is a dark tale of a Rake who decides to rid himself of his own children in order to become a playa' again.

"Leslie Ann Levine" A child's ghost haunts the hills where she was birthed prematurely.

5. Muse – The Resistance: I am an unabashed Muse fan, and going to see them in concert was a mind-bending experience of just how ridiculously talented musically they are. While The Resistance is not my favorite Muse album, still it blew me away. With strains of Orwellian uber-goverments taking control of the masses, the songs fight with all the power of a sonic boom. With the lead singer Bellamy's soaring rock opera shit-kick-you-in-the-ear-drums falsetto, and symphonic strings and classical piano mixed in with bass thumping anthems, this thematic album will have you fist pumping for an uprising.

4. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible: Or you know, pretty much every Arcade Fire album. And yet, Neon Bible is my favorite. Though I feel their theme is a little cynical and heavy handed, Neon Bible chronicles stories of television's mind-control of the masses, including religious/ridiculous televangelists, the widening gaps of the rich and poor, and all of the problems of middle America. While I find the theme completely cynical for a Canadian indie rock band, the songs soar with wild accompaniments, including a large church organ (you must absolutely listen to "Intervention" for the organ alone), choirs, strings and good old acoustic guitars.    

3. The Killers – Sam's Town: I've purchased every Killers album when it comes out, and they remain one of my very few exclusive instant buys. Sam's Town is still my favorite, because it has that sort of instant nostalgia as the album winds its way through a childhood growing up in good old town America, spending the afternoons being reckless and young. Where Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is cynical, Sam's Town is an unabashed ode to growing up in Middle America and going back home.

2. Bloc Party – Weekend in the City: This is my favorite Bloc Party album, and I've honestly written more than a few stories to its tracks. The powerhouse behind the theme is Kele Okereke, who ruminates on living in the bustling hubbub of a modern city, with all of its pains and promises, from "Where Is Home?" which questions the concept of race and hatred, to "I Still Remember" which floats with crisp chimes about a simpler time of adolescence and learning to love. As usual, many of the tracks are imbued with a break neck ferocity of energy.  

1. Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over the Sea: This one is a tiny bit of a cheat, in that it actually came out in 1998, but I didn't stumble across it until the early 2000s. So there. NMH is one of those strange entities that people either absolutely love and admire, or judiciously despise as the hipstery dregs of indie, lo-fi nonsense noise. Arrangements are spare, and Jeff Mangum's voice is raw, emotional, unflinchingly honest, and often off from the notes his voice struggles to reach. Mangum admitted in a couple of interviews that he wrote In the Aeroplane Over the Sea after reading The Diary of Anne Frank. The lyrics of any NHM song are so full of surreal imagery that it almost feels like reading a description of a series of circus freak-like photographs.

The first time I listened to In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, it took me a day or two to fully digest it. It wasn't like anything else I'd heard before.

If you listen to one song at all from this, I'd suggest "Two-Headed Boy." Ack, what am I saying? Listen to it all.

Listen. To. It. Now.

Any of you out there have any favorite story/concept albums?  

Friday's Flash (AHHH! AHHH!) Fiction: Computers

Carrie could never get into computers, and she couldn't use them for her spells either. Books had always held the power of words, and words were used in spells. Every bookish wizardess from damn near the beginning of time and speech had known that. Pictograms were stories on cave walls. Chants and songs were stories with spoken power. But down on parchment they held the strength of ages. One with the Power could glean and feed on a hundred spells, from poetry to fiction.

But with computers...

Carrie prowled about the public library and fussed with a new stack of incoming donated books, as only a librarian wizardess could.

Damn computer wizards. Jobs had been a glutton. That FaceNovel or FacePaper or whatever guy was obviously a data wizard out of control. How many millions could he feed on now?

Damned computers.

One of the computers in the library—her library damnit—was on the fritz. One of those SpamBot spells no doubt, phishing for power in people's personal information. The middle aged woman at the computer blinked at the screen and tapped it. Mrs. Eldon was one of the library's regulars and was clueless about technology.

I have be pleased to give to you the sum of my inheritance as I be a young prince of Nigeria.

PENIS PILLS MAKE HER SCREAM

24 yo Russian lady bride

"Miss Warner," Mrs. Eldon said, poking the screen. "Can you fix this?"

Carrie had to fix this the only way possible. SpamBots were named by data wizards for a reason. Quickly, she dipped behind her desk and took out the can she had tucked behind the shelf. Holding her breath, she opened up the can of spam. Then with a wicked curse she hurled the contents at the computer.

The spam fizzled as the SpamBot's emails disappeared from the screen.

Mrs. Eldon stared at Carrie in astonishment and wiped a sticky bit of spam from her cheek.

Carrie cleared her throat in embarrassment.

Mrs. Eldon said, "Do you have anything to fix all those chain emails?"

Carrie nodded.

This time she warned Mrs. Eldon when she swung the chains at the computer.

346 words

_________________

Obviously, I was annoyed at all the freakin' spam I've had to go through lately...

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Apparently, though I had no idea until I saw it mentioned in passing, that today is "Poem in Your Pocket Day." I didn't have a ready poem hanging out in my jeans all day being precariously close to my naughty bits, which I feel was a lost opportunity to get asked "is that a poem in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? That's. What. She. Said."

Poetry and I have a wonky relationship with one another. I insist that my high school and college poetry experiences left me feeling it was all lame, pretentious, and all non-story like, and Poetry is always all like: "Really? That's what you think? Well, fuck you. BOOM, Ima' drop some muthalovin' sexy-time Whitman on you son, and after that Ima' Def Poetry Van Damme Slam yo' ass."

So, I wracked my brain for a poem worthy enough to stick in my pocket along with that stupid green-fuzzy penny, the inevitable creep of dog hair caught up in lint, and a cap o' plain chapstick.

So, what about all that Dickinson what with her funerals in the brain, and the lack of stopping for Death? I'll admit I have a soft spot for old Emily.

Sometimes I forget that poetry is meant to be heard, and read, and performed. Def Poetry Jams was really the only way I'd ever been able to feel anything other than drooling boredom with poetry before. When I used to come home at 1:30am from work at Wal-Mart as a youngin' and I couldn't sleep, I'd watch Def Poetry Jams. And I'd watch this before my brain melted into a puddle of post-hellishly-annoying-customer haze.

So stick this poem in your pocket:

The Evil Dead Re-Make: Blood, Blood, Blood!

I make no bones about the fact that I am an Evil Dead fan. I grew up watching and quoting Army of Darkness, and every time that I actually used to shop smart at S-Mart I would run around the store, flailing my arms and scream, "Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!" After being escorted out of several local S-Marts and with the people in housewares generally giving me a wide berth, I decided I'd just go watch the remake of the first movie.

Things that were awesome about the re-make:

1. The ultra violence: This was as violent, and gut-wrenchingly gory as the original, but with a bigger, better budget. The original Evil Dead was one of the few horror films that actually had me writhing uncomfortably at the sheer amount of grotesquery. And this one did an excellent job of doing just that. From dead cats suspended in barbed wire to slashed-in-half-tongue forced make-out scenes...that was some of the milder fare. I have to say that the sheer blood-and-guts factor stayed true to the original, and it is now one of the bloodiest movies I've ever seen.

2. The characters have more of a backstory: Or you know, a backstory at all. The original has little to no character story arcs, or anything that made them interesting (we'll ignore Bruce Campbell's awesomeness factor and ultimate chin-power). At least in the new re-make, there is a little something there. Mia is a heroine-addict whose close group of childhood friends have taken her to the cabin to detox her. Her brother, David (the semi-Ash like character) had skipped out on their mom's final delirious moments in a mental institution and blames himself for his little sister's downfall. All of this connects us to the bro-and-sis duo before the shit hits the fan...or the arterial spray fountains against a wall. Or gushes from a severed limb. Or rains from the sky. For real.

3. The Necromicon-Ex-Mortis: The Book of the Dead got a new look on the inside, with many more tantalizing and creepy clues that spelled out the oncoming horror (spell, you get it? See what I did there?). I have to admit though, that I missed the creepy fleshy face on the outside of the book.    

4. Did I mention the ultra-violence? And gore?  

So, Deadities. Go see this. And try hard not to compare and contrast it too much to the low budget schlocky awesomeness of the original. There are plenty of nods to the original that will leave any fan amused. But I think that the remake can stand on its own as a testimony to gore and its uncomfortable squickiness. 

Writing Routines: 1, 2, 3, 4, Paradiddle, Paradiddle

I'm a creature of hobbit...er, I mean habit (though I also occasionally like to eat six large meals a day too). I'm the type of person who parks in the same spot, sits in a classroom in the same back row, and busts out with a Jets and Sharks style dance-fight rumble if someone steals my seat in the breakroom at the Day Job.

Obviously, I'm a person who's a big fan of routine.

But I'm also...really friggin' lazy. As in: strap me to an old recliner while I hang out in my Forever Lazy eating Cheetos as I watch endless re-runs of Star Trek: TNG. Or at least all the ones about Data.

Which is why routine is a good thing for us lazy types.

Routine is something that honestly was beaten into my skull when I started playing music as a wee one. One to two hours of my day, every day was devoted to practicing. I started with the basics, which were sometimes frustrating in their outward simplicity. Single stroke rolls. Double stroke rolls. Paradiddles. Basic 4/4 rock beat. Scales. Chords. Tuning. Do it so often that your mind can be focused on other sounds and your body and soul still knows what it's doing by feel and intuition alone. But no matter what put aside one to two hours for all this. Even if I wound up throwing down the metronome, putting on my headphones, and wildly playing to "Manic Depression." Even if I sucked at it. Especially 'cause I sucked at it. The drum line is crazy awesome.

You need a routine in order to practice. You practice in order to get better. Unless you're some genius wunderkind who just sucks up knowledge via osmosis.

Funny that it took me years, nay decades to stick the idea of a practice routine to writing. When I first started this writing dealio, I did it whenever I felt like it. Usually that meant when that bitchy, finicky Muse decided to show up and slap me o'er the back of the head. Most of the time She was just on vacay, getting plotzed on the beach while I was at home scratching my head in front of a blank page.

Then I started to take this shiz seriously. Like for real.

I started to stick to a regimented writing routine in the midst of the chaos of college. I wrote around finals, wrote in the middle of reading textbooks, around deconstructing the literary cannon of Old Dead White Dudes, and writing a bazillion essays per week. It started pretty simply as: write 500 words per day, five days a week. In the beginning, those 500 words became my basics, my scales, my double-stroke rolls. Those 500 words were also frustrating in their seeming simplicity. Yet, it was damned hard.

Eventually, I upped the ante on the word count goals. I tried NaNo for the first time and didn't make it anywhere close to the 50K mark. But above all else, I stuck to the write five days a week thing. When I got a real job in the real world, I became fanatical about my writing regiment. Every break I would write, or edit, or outline. Every lunch period I would do the same. It became less about word counts, and more about treating it like unpaid Job #2.

But I eventually only put time and effort into "serious" projects like an endless, obsessive Black Swan-esque rehearsal. Paradiddle, paradiddle, paradiddle...(oh, look there's a shard of glass where?) I monogamously stuck to novel projects, even when my brain seemed willing to explore other writerly avenues, I told it to back off and FOCUS on one thing at a time. Knowing how easily distracted I am, and how likely I am to drop things in the middle, I insisted on focusing on one thing, and only one thing. FOCUS DAMNIT, I told myself. And I crafted a routine around that.

Eventually I got to the point where I threw up my hands at my regiment, threw the pages down, and did the writer's equivalent of wildly playing to Jimi Hendrix. I realized that my regiment was too strict. Not just in where and when I wrote, but how I was writing. Strict enough goals and routines that I felt like a complete failure if I didn't meet them. Strict enough that I was losing opportunities to expand my craft and knowledge of short stories, blogging, and different genres. I took a break from "serious" overly focused novel projects, and decided to fart around with the ones just for shits and giggles.

Eventually, I expanded my routine to work on multiple things at one time, even if it meant a lack of focus. To bust out the Hendrix and just jam on it.

So far, it hasn't meant a complete collapse of my writer's life. It hasn't meant that I'm wasting time on not-so serious projects (no writing time is wasted!). It hasn't meant quitting in the middle of everything I write, though there were a few half-finished half-assed short stories that didn't quite make it.

Anyone else have regiments that were too rigid?

This topic was brought to you by the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. Hang out with other writers and see their take on the topic of the month. Chill with some cool cats, from noobs to published authors. Up next is the always invincible: Gilroy Cullen at Swords vs. Pens.  

Flash (Ahhhh! Ahhh!) Fiction Friday: Language

So, I'm giving this Flash (AHHH! AHHH!) Fiction thing a go. Writing short, brief, and concise is obviously not my friggin' strongpoint. Anyhoozles, this popped in my head because of a serious communication error and language barrier issue at the Day Job, because my Spanish usually consists of "mas cervazas" or "¿Porque? Yo soy el ninja."

Language with No Barrier

Saah-na-Asha flicked her disc-shaped fingertips in the direction of the human's hapless aura. It was obvious the poor human had been practicing aura-song. The human Ambassador Preston, had a look concentration on his handsome face. They had been speaking awkwardly via vid-coms for almost a stan year, but aura-speech truly only worked in person.

He said:

          *(soothing waves lapping on sands)*

                   **(pleasant warming sensation)**

          *Pleased to see you*

                   **Your appearance is**

          ***(longing)***

                   *appreciated*

         

Asha blinked closed her violet-colored nictitating membrane. She had read humans had a difficult time keeping their volatile emotions closed off when speaking. She reached out a hand graciously to the Ambassador and said:

          *(staring into the endless black sky)*

                   **(feeling of wonder for the infinite abyss)**

          *Seek peace that is inside*

                   **(the roar of water cascading over a cliff)**

          *Speak again, faraway-friend*

Preston's lips firmed in determination. A curious gesture.

          *(a struggle to find the image of natural peace)*

                   *(frustration, denial and hiding)*

          ***(inner hunger)***

                   *Faraway-friend, I welcome*

          *You into (my bed, feel of sweat streaking, cool sheets)*

                   **our gracious world**

She should be offended as any mature female would be at such wanton speech. But a musical trill came from her mouth in amusement. She had always enjoyed his direct manner of address via vid-com, and had often thought of him even when not speaking from a distance.

She would simplify her speech, so as not to embarrass him.

          *honest welcome is like home*

                    *thanks-be-to-you, faraway-friend*

                   **(feeling of warm breezes)**

          ***(green and blue planet as seen from above)***

                   **(sensation of belonging)**

Preston flashed his teeth in a gesture she'd learned meant happiness.

          ***(acceptance of invitation to)***

                   *****(she is beautiful, ethereal features, wondrous elegance)*****

                   **(skin like silk?)**

          *tidings and good health to your clan*

                   *you are weary from travel?*

                             ***(frustration of difficulty in focusing)***

         

Again, Asha blinked at his aura-speech. She was so shocked her fourth nictitating membrane drew closed over her pupils. He thought her elegant? Among her people she was far from it.

He continued:

          *(stranger is afraid? worried?)*

                   *(how am I doing?)*

          **(extreme nervousness, stomach rolling)**

                   **Admire you, Saah-na-Asha**

"Perhapsss," Asha said in the human's strange sounds of speech, "talking to you in language of yours?"

He bowed his head, and let out a breath. "Thank you, Ambassador Saah-na. I am proud to say that I have waited for this moment of initial contact between our worlds for a long time." He looked away, in a gesture she learned meant nervousness. "And to meet you, of course."

She took a moment to think about how to speak correctly. "Time of togetherness eager in always forever. Eager to see-smell-hear-know of your place of bedding."

Preston blinked. And then he flashed his teeth again. "My aura-speech was too revealing?"

Asha took his hand in her larger, more slender one. She said:

          *(my low, throbbing heat)*

                   *(flash of a handsome smile)*

**(excitement and a trilling of sound)**

          *Reveal all you wish, faraway-friend*

As he smiled, Asha knew that they would speak to one another without words.

500 words

Books I'm Totally Stoked About Reading

I know there are people out there who don't care for the same books as moi. But every time I pass along one of the book series that I'm crushing on hardcore, I feel a little like I'm giving out the most awesomest birfday present evar. Only sometimes the giftee looks at the present and asks, "Did you mean to give this to me? 'Cause it's not made of booze."

So, I usually gift books to myself. For a job well done. Or something.

Here are several books I'm completely stoked about picking up:

Trickster by Jeff Somers: 

Somers apparently got drunk once or twice and then wrote the Avery Cates novels, staring (you guessed it) Avery Cates—a badass assassin in a fucked up dystopian future where everyone is trying really hard to make him dead. All I can say is God Bless Writers on Whiskey. Now, it looks like Somers is turning his sights to urban fantasy, and I'm totally excited to see a UF that isn't full of wispy vampires and stiletto-clad, tramp stamp havin' shmexy fantasy tropes.

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger: 

Carriger apparently got crunk* on Earl Grey tea, and then wrote the Parasol Protectorate novels, staring Miss Alexia Tarabotti: a preternatural (read soulless) in a Victorian steampunky world filled with brash (and sexy and Scottish) werewolves and vampires with a fondness for pink. Etiquette and Espionage is a Young Adult spin-off of the Parasol Protectorate.

The Havoc Machine by Steven Harper: 

This is a follow up in-universe sequel of sorts to his Clockwork Empire series, but with different characters. In the Clockwork Empire world, a virus has spread throughout the Victorian world creating plague zombies out of some people and clockworker inventor geniuses in others. I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of The Doomsday Vault, The Impossible Cube, and The Dragon Men.

Slashback by Rob Thurman: 

Speaking of fangirl squee...I've read everything under the sun Rob Thurman related, and I absolutely adore Cal and Niko Leandros in a holy-shit-these-brothers-are-batshit-crazy-but-love-each-other kind of way. Now we get to see a little more of the Leandros brother's past and present...

Her Ladyship's Curse by Lynn Viehl: 

This is a steampunk book from one of my favsies authors (as S.L. Viehl). Apparently we Yanks lost the Revolutionary War and are still drinking tea we didn't dump into Boston Harbor, and also…magic. Though the book is slated to come out in August 2013, I'm still excited like a little squeeing fangirl.

*my lawyer insists that I put a disclaimer stating that I don't know what the word crunk means, and I that I don't have actual, physical proof that any writer is crunk on anything, least of all Captain Picard's favorite drink. 

Short Story Based on "Never Gonna' Give You Up"

'Ello my cheeky monkeys, and here we are again. And you're about to get...

RICK ROLL'D SUCKAS!

Ahem. This story is based on a suggestion of "Never Gonna' Give You Up" by the internet meme gremlin Rick Astley. After watching the ridiculous video and laughing at a) the 80's hair and b) the 80's awkward white boy dancin', I decided I had no idea what to write for this one.

Then the other day whilst browsing for books, photo frames n' stuff at my local Goodwill store, I came across a photo frame with an actual photo in it. Not those wispy, fake grayscale families that are normally in new frames. A picture of an 80's hair sportin' woman in a poofy wedding dress, dancing with a man I could only assume was her father. Or hell, maybe she'd married an old dude.

Voila. Story.

The Dance of the Bride

Cassandra twirled in her ragged white dress across the floor of the raised platform, the song drifting out, deep and resonant. Her family played the drums, beating out a time that sounded like the steady crash of waves on shore, the percussive hiss and sputter of the vast ocean. Every one of her cousins was deep in meditation as their calloused hands touched on the taught drumskins, having taken miniscule drops of boiled toxins, made with extreme care by the ancient herbwives. If their concentration faltered, and their fear overtook them, Cassandra and their town would be lost.

Grandmother clapped her ancient, scarred hands in time to the beat, the loose skin about her arms flapping with each clap. Those black eyes watched Cassandra with intensity, as if the old woman could give the Bride one last warning before the Dance began.

Cassandra gathered her senses into herself, no longer noting the tense expectation hovering in the air, closing herself off to the static-like charge of nervous hope sitting like a heavy miasma before an oncoming storm.

This was her wedding day. And soon she would meet her Groom.

And then she would try to survive.