9/11 Thoughts

This is a thing I wrote about 9/11 in 2011 over in the journal world in which I live. Seemed worth updating and posting over here.

Monday Morning Music

As I was driving into work this morning, I was listening to Ani’s To The Teeth. It hasn’t been one of my favorites of hers, but for some reason it’s hitting all the right buttons the last few days it’s been playing in the car. One song in particular, reminds me of the main character in my new story (which is this close to being done and submitted). The song is “Wish I May.” Sadly, I can’t find a video of it to share with you. The lyrics are here, though. Yep, that’s Candace.

Monday Morning Music – Pete Seeger RIP

Pete Seeger was a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t mean to say I ever met the man. Unfortunately, I never got that chance. But he was a fellow traveler on this planet since long before I was born, and, I kind of assumed, he would be there long after I was gone. He seemed immortal to me, a force for good that would always be.

Monday Morning Music

So, I had a run-in with sexism and misogyny in SFF this weekend, and I’m in an Ani mood this morning. Here she is in 2011 with one of my favorite songs of hers, “Fuel.” There’s so much to it. Hope you like it, too.

The Next Big Thing – Novel in Progress

As I mentioned Sunday, the fabulous Kay Holt tagged me, along with the other authors from our upcoming Crossed Genres anthology Winter Well (coming out May 24), for the Next Big Thing Blog Hop. Today it’s my turn to answer some questions about my novel in progress. Remember the Winter of the Novel? Well, that’s the book I’m going to talk about.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

The Travelers.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea(s) come from a lot of places: movies (names of which I won’t mention because that would give away too much), music (Shooter Jennings’ Black Ribbons, among others (Ani, Joy Kills Sorrow, Leadbelly, Amy Ray, to name a few), has been played a lot and is responsible for my pirate radio dj, Erasmus Teller, existing), as well as the state of the world today. I wondered what would happen if I took the direst predictions of climate change scientists to their extreme, along with “free market” corporatism run amuck, and what that world, and the people in it, would look like fifty years out. That idea unleashed a lot of voices in my head wanting to tell their stories. So many that I’ve spun a group of them off into their own book (working title: The Tribe & the City). The characters that remain in The Travelers make up a group on the run (Erasmus and his daughter Bud, a rebel soldier and her physician lover (Tina Wheatley and Semira Sangare), and a man with many secrets (John Teague)) as well as the folks who are chasing them as they try to get to safer ground. Teague’s secrets are valuable, you see.

Along with a second novel, one of those “spun-off” characters also demanded her own novella (Seriously, she got in my face about it. “You know this community you’re writing about that I’m only an ancillary character in? I built it. Tell that story.”) and now appears as her younger self in “To The Edges,” my tale in Winter Well.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Speculative fiction, future dystopia.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m awful at coming up with actors to play my characters, partly because I suck at remembering actors’ names, unless the film’s fifty years old or more and black and white. That said, Freddy Rodriguez would work as John Teague, especially with the longer hair he wore in Bottle Shock. Erasmus Teller looks a lot like older Stephen King without the glasses. Beyond that, it’s all kinds of fuzzy.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

One sentence, huh? How about this one? In a corporate-controlled dystopian world, why is one man so important?

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I doubt I’ll self-publish; I don’t have that kind of chutzpah. Also, I love working with good editors. They make the stories better.

7. How long did/will it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Still in progress and has been for three years now. (I’m easily distracted by shiny anthologies looking for short stories.) I would love to have a finished first draft by the end of this year.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Coming up with book titles is something else I suck at. The Travelers is an action-adventure tale taking place in a degraded future world that also looks back through history a little bit with the stories that Teague and Teller share. It’s a dark tale with a snarky sense of humor.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I have to blame fan fiction, actually. As I mentioned in this post last year, I started writing this book after a few months of writing Whedonfic kicked open the door to the writing part of my brain that had been asleep for a long time. With three accepted stories in the last three years, I’m calling that a win.

10.What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Um, let’s see. Pirate radio, car chases, explosions, lesbian romance, sartorial excess, and a good dose of alternate history/mythmaking are part of the mix. I hope that’s interest-piqueing.

Tag other writers…

Natania Barron was kind of enough to let me tag her to carry on the Next Big Thing blog hop. She’s the author of the Candlemark & Gleam novel Pilgrim of the Sky, as well as several works of shorter fiction that have appeared in many cool places. Can’t wait to learn more about what she’s working on.

Monday Morning Music

Well, the second part of Women Learn To Be Women is still in process. Soon, my dear readers, soon, it’ll be up for your perusal. In the mean time I’m going with Ani again for Monday Morning Music. Her album Evolve came up in conversation this past weekend and this video of a live performance of “Phase” caught my ear and eye. DiFranco and Sickafoose are magic together. I hope you’ll like it, too.

Monday Morning Music

Where’d the sun go? It was so pretty this weekend, but this morning, we’re back to grey wintry mix. At least it’s warmer and looks to be so the rest of the week. I’ll take the trade.

This morning’s video kind of fell into my lap, thanks to a discussion I was having with a friend. An Ani mix tape was in process and this song came up as a possibility. Maybe a little edgy for the Ani newb the mix is for? Ms. DiFranco can be a challenge that way. You never know if she’s going to make people feel uncomfortable. I learned the hard way that “Letter to a John” and “Outta Me, Onto You” aren’t necessarily the best introductions to her stuff for some people. Yeah, I know; it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This song, though. How can you not like this song and its message? And the video is so cute and silly. A little sunshine for this grey day.

Monday Morning Music

Portrait of Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her sons Daniel and Henry, 1848. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Good morning! I hope everyone had a good weekend. Today’s music video is a bit of a history lesson. November 12, among other things, is the day that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born back in 1815. She is a foremother of mine, a founder of the First Wave of feminism in the U.S. Along with Lucretia Mott and Mott’s sister, Martha Coffin Wright, she organized the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, the first U.S. convention to discuss women’s rights and their role in society. This was the beginning of the long struggle to finally achieve women’s suffrage in 1920 and further women’s rights later on.

Stanton was a brilliant woman who worked with Susan B. Anthony and many other women and men (including Frederick Douglass) to change the country’s laws with regard to women’s rights. She was also more radical than many of her colleagues, demanding more than just the right to vote (she felt that divorce rights, employment rights, and property rights for women needed to be addressed, as well) and questioning Christianity and the inherent sexism she saw therein.

She wasn’t perfect. Her race and class affected her philosophy in ways that feel cringeworthy in our current age. But she remains one of my heroes, and I want to celebrate her birthday today. But what video would work best?

Monday Morning Music

Running a little late this morning. A long weekend will do that.

This morning’s music video comes from a comment left by Stephanie at Visible and Real last week. She linked to what I think is a great video of Ani DiFranco and Melissa Ferrick performing the Woody Guthrie classic, “Do Re Mi.” I got to see these two perform last fall, and they put on a great show. (Well, Ms. DiFranco always puts on a great show.) And hey, it’s Woody Guthrie’s centennial this year! Enjoy!

If you have a fun music video to share in the comments, please do. I’d love to see and listen to it.

My Favorite Metaphor for the Day

is this one: your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse

That’s all I have to say, really. It’s from an Ani DiFranco piece called “Parameters.” The whole piece is beautiful and chilling and definitely worth a listen, but the image of that dim flashlight is sticking with me. You can listen to whole thing here (she chats a bit at the beginning and the crowd’s kind of rowdy, but they settle down):

Art as healing. Metaphors that work. Simply, yes.