OxyJen

Reading List - 2012

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

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Books I Read in 2012

(Ratings out of 10 - consider 6 to be the minimum of what I expect a published book to be.)

Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
Finished book on: Jan 22, 2012
Quality of writing: 6.5
Quality of story: 7.5
Enjoyability: 8

On Stranger Tides
by Tim Powers
Finished book on: Jan 22, 2012
Quality of writing: 7.5
Quality of story: 7.5
Enjoyability: 7.5

From The Query Goblin: "My Protector: The Calling" by Hope Roberson

2011-11-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

Hope Roberson has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for My Protector: The Calling. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #38: My Protector: The Calling by Hope Roberson

From The Query Goblin: "The River" by Anonymous (literary fiction)

2011-10-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The River. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #37: The River by Anonymous

Don't Second-Guess Your Gut

2011-09-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

Anyone who follows me on Twitter probably witnessed my abject geek-spasm at the possibility of seeing (as Sarah Laurenson phrased it) a flaming schoolbus cross the sky, i.e. the UARS satellite as it flamed out in the atmosphere. Y'see, it was gonna be passing right over me at the time it was estimated to be due to bite the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, UARS proved to be a ninja satellite. No one saw it sneak in. That tricksy metal minx.

But that's okay; I found something of equal geeky worth to tell you about tonight!

Wired posted this article about making hard decisions, which led me to this article about intuitive thinking

The second article mentions some interesting experiments, and the one I found most intriguing was where they noted that if you ask people to answer the following:

Are these sentences literally true?
-- Some jobs are snakes.
-- Some jobs are jails.
-- Some roads are snakes.

...their response times slow down measurably on the second and third sentences.

In fact, you probably noticed that effect yourself when you were reading the three sentences. The knowledge that the second and third may be metaphorically be true interrupted your determination of whether they were literally true.

That's because your "Type 1" (or "intuitive") thinking is very fast and often provides more information than is actually available. It's the type of thinking that makes associations, that provides leaps of logic, that fills in the blank spots.

Type 2 thinking requires more effort, but it gives you answers based on the evidence that is really there. To quote the article:

Type 1 is automatic, effortless, often unconscious, and associatively coherent ... Type 2 is controlled, effortful, usually conscious, tends to be logically coherent, rule-governed.

And this is why your brain slowed down reading the second two sentences. The parts of your brain responsible for Type 2 thinking were doing their thing, slowly and rationally, and then the parts of your brain responsible for Type 1 thinking got to an associative answer faster and blurted it out, so to speak.

Then, after that interruption, your Type 1 thinking resumed and got to the correct answer.

Now, that's not to say you shouldn't trust your Type 1 thinking. In fact, that's the point the first article makes: when it comes to making a decision based on very complex information, your intuitive, Type 1 thinking can often do a better job than your rational, Type 2 thinking.

[R]esearchers have demonstrated that the emotional system (aka Type 1 thinking) might excel at complex decisions, or those involving lots of variables. If true, this would suggest that the unconscious is better suited for difficult cognitive tasks than the conscious brain, that the very thought process we’ve long disregarded as irrational and impulsive might actually be “smarter” than reasoned deliberation. This is largely because the unconscious is able to handle a surfeit of information, digesting the facts without getting overwhelmed. (Human reason, in contrast, has a very strict bottleneck and can only process about four bits of data at any given moment.) When confused in the toothpaste aisle, bewildered by all the different options, we should go with the product that feels the best.

The article describes an experiment that showed this. The researcher gave a group of subjects information about a set of 4 cars. Each car was rated according to 4 criteria, for a total of 16 pieces of information.

The subjects who were given a chance to think rationally about the information chose the best car about 50% of the time, and those who were distracted with an alternate task, then prompted to make a snap judgement about the cars, faired worse.

But that was the "easy" decision. The researcher then repeated the test with a different group of subjects but he instead gave them 12 pieces of information about each car, for a total of 48 peices of information.

The subjects who were give a chance to think rationally about the information in this case did very poorly. They chose the best car less than 25% of the time, i.e. they performed worse than random chance.

The subjects who were distracted, then asked to make a snap decision, however, chose the best car 60% of the time.

When faced with too much information, your rational mind becomes overwhelmed, but the intuitive mind--your "gut" instinct--performs better.

Interestingly, a group of researchers who reproduced these results found you could also undo your correct "gut instinct" choice if you tried to think rationally about the decision later. Your Type 2 thinking would get muddled by the complexity and cancel out the sureness you had felt when your Type 1 thinking produced the correct result.

Remember when you were in school and took a multiple choice test? Didn't it always seem like, if you changed an answer, it always turned out later that the first one had been correct? That may have been because your intuitive mind provided an answer your conscious, rational mind couldn't figure out, but then your conscious mind second-guessed that insight.

I find it fascinating (and beautiful) that science can actually address things that seem so magical as flashes of intuition and gut instinct. Pretty nifty stuff, and I hope it will help me listen to my instincts better when I'm feeling confused by complexity!

Ooh, and just to tie it all back to writing, in this "Show, Don't Tell" blog post, I noted that you can trust the reader's brain to fill in details, provided you give it enough to base its predictions on.

Now I can back that up with science! What is happening is that if you give the reader's brain enough information to trigger their Type 1, or intuitive thinking, they will come up with a more complete picture than would be possible if they were assembling their understanding based only on the information you provide.

The principle of "Show, Don't Tell" is about triggering the intuitive mind.

From The Query Goblin: "Hard Nox" by Anonymous

2011-09-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Hard Nox, a YA Paranormal. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #36: Hard Nox by Anonymous

Callous Seducer of Good Books

2011-09-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

I'm currently more than half-way through two great novels right now, which is odd because I'm usually monogamous about reading.

You see, I was going out of town for the weekend (to be fed to the point of rupture by my absolutely lovely mother-in-law), and I had neither enough of the first book left to guarantee not running out of reading material nor enough space in my luggage to take two books with me.

Thus, that first book--a solid and dependably-enjoyable sweetheart of seven-hundred pages whom I have been commited to for over a week, now--is unaware of the flashy hussy I picked up at the library and had a weekend fling with.

And that hussy? Well. Let's just say you can tell that novel has been read a lot.

Still, I know my first book will take me back and everything will be just as good as it once was--although I can't foresee being with the poor dear for much longer.

And my relationship with the hussy will also soon run its course. I mean, you don't exactly settle down with a fast little number like that.

Always more books in the stacks, my friends. Always more books in the stacks.

~~~~~~~

Thank goodness for Twitter buddies! My friend Dale McGladdery caught something I might well have missed while I was away--my flash fiction piece Wetware Woes finally came up on Escape Pod.

This is a piece that started life as a winning entry for one of Janet Reid's contests. It's great to see it finally out! (And both weird and edifying to hear someone read what I wrote--Editor Mur Lafferty did a great job, but I'm not so in love with some of my odd-ball sentence constructions now, I tell ya!)

From The Query Goblin: "The Privileged" by Anonymous

2011-09-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

An anonymous writer has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Privileged. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #35: The Privileged by Anonymous

Useful Information for Non-US, Self-Published Writers

2011-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

Roz Morris has assembled a very clear guide for how to apply for an ITIN number from the United States IRS if you are a self-published author who is not a US citizen.

Having an ITIN number allows you to then ask Smashwords and Amazon to withhold less of your earnings for taxation, provided you live in a country that has a taxation treaty with the US (as many of them do.)

Please note the IRS is damned cryptic about how to do this sort of thing, so please pass this link along to anyone you know who self-publishes but is not a US citizen. It's very useful information!

How I Got My ITIN Number

From The Query Goblin: "The Light of Emet" by Freya Morris

2011-08-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

Freya Morris has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Light of Emet. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #34: The Light of Emet by Freya Morris

The E-Avalanche | Conan No Give Up! | Fear or Hate | GoodReads

2011-08-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

A slightly scatter-brained collection of odd thoughts today:

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The E-Avalanche
~~~~~~~

It used to be literary agents insisted on getting query letters, partials, and full manuscripts in hard-copy. Paper was considered easier on the eyes.

Obviously that's changing, because when I was assembling my list of dream agents recently, I noted that of my top 25, only 5 still want paper queries. The rest either accept, or say they strongly prefer, email queries.

In fact, I noted one agency said they started accepting e-queries not because they wanted to, but because they had realized writers will query the agents who accept email first. So by not accepting e-queries, the agency was knocking itself down everyone's "desirable" list.

And as we all know, there's nothing to make an agent froth and fret more than the threat of losing something good to a competitor!

~~~~~~~
Conan No Give Up!
~~~~~~~

Sean Hood, a professional screenwriter, had some somber-but-wise words in the following article about the disappointing performance of Conan the Barbarian, which he worked on. It's worth a read because of what he has to say about perseverance at the end:

What's It Like To Have Your Film Flop At the Box Office?
Trumpet positions in major orchestras only become available once every few years. Hundreds of world class players will fly in to try out for these positions from all over the world. I remember my dad coming home from this competition, one that he desperately wanted to win, one that he desperately needed to win because work was so hard to come by. Out of hundreds of candidates and days of auditions and callbacks, my father came in....second.

It was devastating for him. He looked completely numb. To come that close and lose tore out his heart. But the next morning, at 6:00 AM, the same way he had done every morning since the age of 12, he did his mouthpiece drills. He did his warm ups. He practiced his usual routines, the same ones he tells his students they need to play every single day. He didn't take the morning off. He just went on. He was and is a trumpet player and that's what trumpet players do, come success or failure.

~~~~~~~
Fear or Hate
~~~~~~~

It always struck me as odd that homophobia gets the suffix -phobia, which means fear. To me, the behaviour described by that term seems more like hatred.

It makes more sense when you understand it derives from the idea that fear of the 'other' leads to a reflexive hatred.

Sexism is understood to be a form of hatred too, and a lot of YA books these days are aimed squarely at girls, with publishers justifying that fact with the statement, "Boys don't read."

Which is sexist. Of course boys read, but they won't read books that don't appeal to them, and if that's all that's on the shelves, then no. Boys don't read.

Why do the publishers believe this? I'm sure not many of the individuals in these companies are sexist, but the last two YA titles that turned into utter blockbusters--Twilight and The Hunger Games--appealed strongly to girls, and in trying to reproduce those successes, the publishers give in to fiscal paranoia. They make generalizations that are sexist and thus do a low-level, but pervasive, harm to society.

Likewise, a while back, there was a lot of anger in the YA reading community over the white-washing of book covers, i.e. publishers putting a white face on the cover of a book featuring a non-white protagonist.

Again, I doubt the liberal-heavy New York publishing industry consists of many very-racist individuals, but I'm certain it contains a lot of people quite leery of doing anything that differs much from that which proved successful in the past.

And putting a person of colour on the front of the book meant for the mainstream would be different. Thus, out of fear of losing money from (presumed-racist?) book buyers, the publishers will white-wash the cover. And again, by responding to their fears, they've generated something indistinguishable from hate.

~~~~~~~
GoodReads
~~~~~~~

I'm on GoodReads now! Um, but I'm really unsure how to get the most of it...? If anyone wants to explain the concept, I'd much appreciate it. :-)

Also, feel free to tell me what name you go under there, and I'll (try to; I'm a bit incompetent still) add you as a friend!

Wait--WHAT Time Is It?

2011-08-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, I had this fabulous nap tonight? One of those ambush naps.

And now it's more officially bedtime and I have no blog post written or thought up, but I do feel fabulously refreshed. Hence, I abandon responsibility for the content of the blog! It's all in your hands this week.

Ask me a question! It can be about pretty much anything that's not overly personal. Physics? Writing? Orchids? Rock climbing? Chess? Cheese? Full-body contact tree yoga? (Warning: I may not an expert on that.)

If you can't think of a question, ask me to draw you a picture! Those will take me a bit of time to put up, but I'll try to add them to this post as promptly as possible.

I look forward to being your blog-slave!

PS: For anyone interested in how my query letter is progressing, I've posted a new version in the comments of this post. Feel free to critique anew! As always, your comments are very much appreciated.

IMAGE REQUEST FOR SARF:

Sarf requested I draw him a picture, but I'm cheating a bit. His prompt was for the most impressive place I've been, and I had to finish the image in 30 minutes.

I chose the royal palace in Bangkok, Thailand, and that's the sort of place that demands a colour image, and I SUCK at colour. The result was not turning out as well as I'd hoped and wouldn't be fixed within the time limit, so I flagrantly reinterpreted my answer to the more general "Thailand" and did another picture.

This is the golden Buddha, also in Bangkok, which is a 7 ton, solid gold Buddha that was discovered inside a concrete Buddha. How was it discovered? They tried to move the statue and broke their crane.

My apologies, but I really do suck at colour. I like the way the face turned out, but the body doesn't really look metallic the way it should.

IMAGE REQUEST FOR FAIRYHEDGEHOG:

I asked her what she wanted a picture of. She said, "A cat? A robot?" So naturally, I drew both:

Baby Got Book

2011-08-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hands on Ghost Story, by Jim Butcher, then promptly slurped it down.

The book sold out everywhere in my city on release day, so after much frothing and flailing, I broke down and ordered it online (then, when it arrived, boogied around my apartment in smug possessiveness, much to El Husbando's amusement.)

I'm astonished that the major bookstore conglomerate in Canada didn't realize this title would be kinda-sorta-like-whoa-maybe-just-a-tad? in demand. But I've no reason to complain on that score. Last month was my personal geek nirvana, what with A Dance With Dragons, Ghost Story and the final Harry Potter movie all coming out in a very short time frame.

Also, China Mieville has no reason to complain about the book not being in stock either, because in my frustration over not getting Ghost Story, I walked out of the store with Kraken instead. Impulse buy, for the win!

Or to put it another way: I like big books, and I cannot lie. You other readers cannot deny, when a book is fat, you wanna get with that and...

Yeah, white girl can't rap, and it wasn't my idea anyway:

Super-segue! Actually, no segue at all, I'm just changing topics with whiplash disregard for your attention span's personal safety.

Thank you for everyone's suggestions last week regarding my opening scene. If you're interested in reading (and critiquing anew? Hey, I'd love it!) my changes, please click the following:
The Blooddrinker and the War Angel.

I'm also currently letting the denizens of the Query Goblin site chew on my book's blurb. If you'd like to join the fun, please click here:
In Soviet Russia, YOU bite Query Goblin.
ETA: New version of the query now posted in the comments section of above link!

(And thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who already have commented! I'm getting fantastic feedback over there.)

Ooh, guess who's got Baby Got Back stuck in her head now...

From The Query Goblin: "Enoch's Device" by Anonymous

2011-08-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Enoch's Device. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #33: Enoch's Device by Anonymous

From The Query Goblin: "Guardian" by Anonymous

2011-08-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Guardian. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #32: Guardian by Anonymous

Two Favours Done | One Favour Asked

2011-07-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

This past week, Tracey Wood demonstrated to me how powerful word-of-mouth can really be.

The Query Goblin had been suffering a very empty maw for several weeks when Tracey put a single endorsement for it on Query Tracker, and BOOM! The Goblin's tummy was abruptly full-to-bursting with delicious queries!

So thank you, Tracey, for doing me such a good turn; I truly appreciate it.
(Psst; everyone! Go visit Tracey's blog--it's brand new!)

~~~~~~~

And if that weren't enough, Melodie Wright recently asked if she could interview my green alter ego on her blog, Forever Re-Wrighting. Please click through below to read the result:

Thus Spake ~~Zarathustra~~ Goblin

Thank you, Melodie! It was an honour.

~~~~~~~

In other news, I'm in that stage of writing wherein I wonder if I'm delusional.

In other words, I'm editing what is inching toward becoming a final draft, and I'm liking it! And then I'm second-guessing myself!

Because the problem with having birthed anything is you're kinda prone to adoring it unconditionally. I really don't know if I'm being objective about the merits of this manuscript, so I intend to put it away for a month, write other things, then come back to do a hopefully-more-objective final pass.

Erm, but in the meanwhile, would anyone be willing to critique the first scene of my science fiction novel titled The Blooddrinker and the War Angel?

You can get to it via the link below, but you'll have to come back to this post to leave your critique. Anonymous comments are on, however, so let fly! I really do want to hear what you think, good or bad. :)

First scene of The Blooddrinker and the War Angel

Thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to leave a comment--I very much appreciate your donation of time and thoughtfulness!

From The Query Goblin: "The Zero Line" by Anonymous

2011-07-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Zero Line. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #31: The Zero Line by Anonymous

From The Query Goblin: "Honor" by Mary_J_59

2011-07-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

Mary_J_59 has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Honor. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #30: Honor by Mary_J_59

From The Query Goblin: "The Black Desert" by Greta Garbo

2011-07-28T06:23:00.000-07:00

Greta Garbo (no relation, I'm sure) has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Black Desert. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #29: The Black Desert by Greta Garbo

From The Query Goblin: "Future's Prophet" by Anonymous

2011-07-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Future's Prophet. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #28: Future's Prophet by Anonymous

From The Query Goblin: "A Special Someone" by Robbin L.

2011-07-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Robbin L. has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for A Special Someone. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #27: A Special Someone by Robbin L.

From The Query Goblin: "Power's Pawn" by Anonymous

2011-07-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Power's Pawn. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #26: Power's Pawn by Anonymous

From The Query Goblin: "Redemption for Liars", by Anonymous

2011-07-26T16:09:00.001-07:00

Another anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for the novel Redemption for Liars. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #25: "Redemption for Liars", by Anonymous

The Power of Words...and Science!

2011-07-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Would you believe science can show that words have power--that even tiny changes of wording affect people in measurable ways?

The following article discusses just that:

The Power of Nouns

A researcher wondered to what degree words can influence actions. He sent a questionnaire to voters on the day before an election asking them a question worded in one of two different ways.

The first way was: "How important is it to you to vote in the upcoming election?"

The next day, 82% of the people who answered that question actually went out and voted.

The second version of the questionnaire instead said: "How important is it to you to be a voter in the upcoming election?"

96% of those people voted.

The researcher did three versions of this study, and the results were robust: Yes, wording matters. By using a noun instead of a verb, the questionnaire was able to encourage people to identify more strongly with the idea of being someone who votes.

The article is worth reading because it outlines why the researcher thinks this works--what the psychology behind the effect is--and that may give you ideas for how to reveal character in your writing. The rule of thumb is that when someone says, "I am a [noun]", they care more deeply than someone who says, "I [verb]."

~~~~~~~

And since I'm discussing the power of words, here's an interesting article on the predictive power of words. It may be possible, by analyzing the wording used by journalists talking about the economy, to predict some of the behaviour of the stock market:

Fewer Verbs, Nouns in Financial Reporting Could Predict Stock Market Bubble

Query #24: Title unknown, by Anonymous

2011-07-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

An anonymous author has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for their book, which sounds like a middle grade novel. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #24: Title unknown, by Anonymous

The Mirror

2011-07-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

There's controversy over whether addiction should be called a disease. Some people think about how they define the word "disease" and decide that addiction doesn't count.

For this post, I won't call addiction a disease, and this is not to imply it is or isn't, but only to keep that word from being a distraction from what I'm trying to say.

When a person becomes addicted to a substance, it's no longer a matter of willpower or choice. It's a matter of biology and chemistry.

Addiction means the person's body has re-calibrated itself and now considers the drug crucial to its survival. The person's mind--what they want, how they'd like to live their life--has become mostly irrelevant. Addicts truly do lose control of their actions.

I want to explain the science of what happens when a person becomes addicted to heroin, because I think heroin provides an analogy that makes it a bit easier--for a person who has never been addicted to anything--to understand how hard it is to kick a drug habit.

There are things in your bloodstream called sugar receptors that help you digest sugar. Heroin is chemically similar to a sugar your body metabolizes naturally--so much so, that heroin can latch onto your sugar receptors even though it doesn't quite fit them.

But heroin is chemically active. It alters your sugar receptor to make it effectively a heroin receptor. If enough receptors become altered, not only is your ability to process sugar impaired, but your body now considers heroin an essential nutrient--something it will die without.

Would you have enough willpower to starve yourself to death if you knew where to find food?

That's how much willpower a heroin addict needs to kick their habit. When they quit the drug, their body is convinced it's dying for lack of an essential nutrient. It uses every evolved response it has, every trick in its arsenal, to coerce the addict into getting more heroin.

So again--could you starve yourself to death? In the presence of food? Think how desperate you would feel, because that's the desperation a junkie feels; their body is using that same response on them, trying to drive them to take the drug.

If your answer is no, you couldn't voluntarily starve to death (or couldn't do it easily), then have empathy for addicts, because when you look at them, you're looking in a mirror. That person is you, if you'd had the bad luck, poor judgement, or youthful naivete to wind up addicted to a drug. Their body is designed the same way yours is; it could have been you.

And I'm not even done telling you about heroin.

Suppose a heroin addict kicks their habit, fixes their life, and goes on to live a clean and meaningful existence. Remember those altered sugar receptors? Those hang around in the body for years.

When a person kicks a heroin habit, their cravings decrease sharply in the first few weeks, and more slowly over the next few months, but they never go away. A person who has been sufficiently addicted to heroin will crave the drug for the rest of their life.

Also, because heroin is similar to a natural sugar, sweet foods can trigger withdrawal symptoms even years later. Imagine having successfully kicked a heroin habit at 20 years of age, then eating a candy bar at 40 years of age and going into withdrawal symptoms again. (And, by the way, heroin withdrawal is nasty.)

How abjectly unfair--and there's only biology and chemistry to blame for it. Same as for the original addiction.

Now, is addiction a disease?

A disease is something physically wrong with your body. Addiction is something physically wrong with your body.

Note I'm not talking about drug abuse, here. Drug abuse often leads to addiction, but addiction is a separate issue--addiction is the state of one's body physically craving a drug, regardless of what one's mind desires. Abuse, in the absence of addiction, is still a person's choice.

Addiction is certainly different than a disease like appendicitis, because appendicitis happens to people who have done nothing to increase their risk of getting it. Addiction requires conscious action, at least to begin with.

However, appendicitis doesn't make you feel worse when you're getting better. Addiction makes you feel horrible when you try to get better.

And appendicitis doesn't feel good when you're actively aggravating it. When an addict uses, they get a moment's relief--even though they're digging themselves in deeper. It's a heartbreaking Catch-22.

I'm not going to make a call on whether addiction should be called a disease because I have no expertise on this matter. I've never been addicted; no one I cherish has ever struggled with addiction (that I know of.)

But in general, if you want to know what something is like, you ask an expert, and in this case, that means an addict or a recovering addict.

And if they say addiction is a disease, then that's probably the truth, isn't it? They would know better than we who sit by the sidelines of dangerous living and wonder what it's like.

What makes us all human (and, in some cases, what makes us writers) is an ability to empathize and a willingness to understand someone else's struggle. Humanity has many strengths--intelligence, courage, artistry, athletic prowess--but the one attribute we have that the world always needs more of is kindness.

So please, always remember, when you see someone made pathetic, grotesque or even dangerous by their addiction, they're responding to it roughly the way you would if you had been unlucky or unwise enough to get yourself into that state. You're looking in a mirror to an alternate universe--one that shows you, if things had gone wrong.

Amy Winehouse was a beautiful woman who apparently felt ugly, a talented woman who thought she was worthless, an addict. Her body yearned for substances that eventually tore away everything her heart and mind had yearned for. Have empathy for her; what a terrible thing.

May she have peace now, and may her example give other addicts the will and courage to fight their way free. Amen.

From The Query Goblin: "Saving Andromeda" by Rewrighter

2011-07-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Rewrighter has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Saving Andromeda. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #23: Saving Andromeda by Rewrighter

Thy Olde-Time Grammar...Thou Just Made Thyself Look Like a Moron, Thou Didst

2011-07-18T11:15:00.001-07:00

Here's a fantastic post from writer-buddy Angela Perry. It's the most clear and understandable outline I've ever come across of how to use thee/thou/thine and ye. Great resource for fantasy writers!

Have At Thee

Outlining My Pants and Pantsing My Outline

2011-07-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hurrah! I finished my first draft for my WIP this week! Sha-boogaloos and happy dances for everyone!

I'm pretty pleased with what's there, too. Fingers crossed, and touch wood for good measure, but I'm hoping the edits will be fairly painless.

The following quotation by E. L. Doctorow sums up what the experience of writing this book has been like:

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Word. With this novel, it seemed like I was never very sure what was going to happen next. I had a vague idea of what the ending was going to be and what the characters were going to experience--and that was it. I brainstormed every new scene as I came to it.

And it's not that I didn't try to outline the novel in advance--it's just I finally realized I might as well be struggling to write the book instead of struggling to write the outline.

I'm not really a seat-of-the-pants writer. I do need to know what the scene I'm going to write contains before I start typing it up. However, I'm obviously not quite a plotter either. And although I find it anxiety-inducing to not know where a story is going, maybe this isn't such a bad way to do things.

When I write scene by scene, I'm always focused on this moment. I have to concentrate on making the scene pop to life and feel immediate because--Gandalf and Yoda preserve me--it's all I've got. I cannot skip ahead. There is no "ahead". Not yet. Big ol' black hole waiting to eat me, right there.

I think most writers fall somewhere between the extremes of "Seat Of Ma Pants, OMG" and "Full Metal Outline". Where do you fall, and how do you split things up? When do you sit down and brainstorm, and at what point do you just dive in and write? Do you always do things one way, or does it change from project to project? I'd love to hear about your technique.

P.S. - I just finished A Dance With Dragons, and George R. R. Martin is an evil, evil, black-hearted man. Oh, how I love him and his wonderful books!

Italy Pic-spam!

2011-07-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

So part of the reason I haven't been online much the past few weeks is I took an utterly lovely trip to Italy. El Husbando speaks Italian, so we didn't book any tours but just got a room in Florence, took a day trip to Pisa while we were there (including a visit to the towns of Sienna and San Gimignano), then had a room in Venice for the rest of the trip.

Since we didn't do an official tour, I don't have a lot of information on the stuff we saw, so here's a pic-spam post showing you some of the highlights. It might be more fun this way!

This is the Arno river on the night we arrived in Florence

In Italy, the insides of churches are like classical art galleries.

The front of El Duomo, the cathedral in Florence

More of El Duomo in Florence

Pretty building in Florence

Rooftops in Florence

A pretty building in Florence

I believe this is a courtyard that is part of the Uffizi Gallery; it's certainly right beside to the building where the gallery is housed, but I'm unsure whether they're officially part of the same complex.

Across the Arno river, the city gets a bit more rural (and less touristy; it's nice!)

Another scene while we were across the Arno river (there is city there too, but green spaces like this one also.)

A parade in Florence. These fellows were tossing their flags high in the air as they walked.

The start of our day trip to Pisa: This is in the main square of the town of Sienna, which was rich enough at one point that they tried to rival Rome. Then the black plague came along and left everybody either dead or broke--usually dead.

This is the fountain in the main square of Sienna.

This is the bell tower for Sienna's cathedral, which we were going to see. (Note the swallows and the moon!)

This is the front of Sienna's cathedral

The bell-tower of Sienna's cathedral

The inside of Sienna's cathedral

A painted roof inside the library in Sienna's cathedral

A view of wine country as we're driving toward San Gimignano

San Gimignano is a medieval city that is preserved but still has people living in it. Very quaint and cute place!

The cathedral at Pisa with the leaning tower in the background. And here, you see why El Husbando froths about my tendency to take crooked shots. Yes, the tower is supposed to be leaning--but the cathedral is not!

The leaning tower of Pisa--leaning slightly more than usual due to my incompetence with a camera.

The inside of Pisa's cathedral

The inside of Pisa's cathedral

A door at Pisa, possibly on the cathedral

Okay, we're back in Florence! El Duomo is the main cathedral in Florence, and we walked right up to the top of the dome. That's a bit less than 600 steps, and most of them are in these tiny, claustrophobic spiral staircases or along steps where you have to crouch because the dome is curving right over your shoulder. It was cool! Well--sweaty and a lot of work, to be accurate--but you know what I mean!

This image is of the paintings on the inside of the dome, which you get to see right up close when you do the walk-up to the top of the dome. The daylight you see at the top is the level where we ended up.

View of El Duomo's bell-tower from the top of the cathedral's dome

View of Santa Croce from the top of El Duomo

Here's what half the stairwells looked like when you climbed to the top of El Duomo in Florence

Now we're in Venice! It was the height of tourist season, so some of the canals looked like conveyor belts of gondolas at certain times of the day. No, we did not take a gondola ride--it works out to being about $150 (100 Euro) for a 40 minute ride. We knew we would enjoy it, but that much...?

San Marco in Venice; there seemed to be a lot of work being done (cleaning? restoration?), so unfortunately quite a few of the landmarks in this piazza had plastic sheeting up over them.

A detail on the cathedral of San Marco in Venice

The Doge's palazzo (Duke's palace) in Venice

A view from inside the Doge's palazzo (where you're not actually supposed to take photos--shh!)

The gold-and-glass mosaic tiles of the ceiling inside San Marco's cathedral--where, um, you're also not supposed to take photos.

The ceiling in one of the museums that rings San Marco piazza, where...look, as far as criminal behaviour in foreign countries is concerned, taking photos when you're not supposed to ain't that bad, okay?

View along the grand canal in Venice (where you are allowed to take photos!)

View across the grand canal in Venice

The inside of one of the cathedrals in Venice. They have SO. MANY. CHURCHES.

Inside a completely different church in Venice

A Venetian mask in a store window. You can also see some glass beads; Venice is famous for its blown glass.

This is a public sculpture on nearby Murano Island, which is famous for being where all of Venice's famous blown glass comes from.

The view coming back to Venice from Murano Island on the vaporetto (ferry.)

And finally--I don't usually post photos of myself on the internet--but here's me eating a meringue cookie that's nearly as big as my head!

Never Fry Gnocchi

2011-07-08T18:49:00.001-07:00

You know how it's great sometimes just to listen to somebody laugh whole-heartedly?

Yeah. Watch this video:

Link via (In)Decorous Taste

From The Query Goblin: "Whisper Pale" by Candace Rose

2011-07-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Candace Rose has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Whisper Pale. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #22: Whisper Pale by Candace Rose

Tyr-clown-asaurus Rex

2011-07-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hi! I'm back! Back from a trip to Italy, that is, as well as my grandmother's 100th birthday party (which was not in Italy.)

I'll have some photos from the Italy part of the trip up this weekend. In the meanwhile, here's the most epic balloon animal evah:

Image via Win! on the Failblog

Summer Slacker is Slacking Some

2011-06-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say I will be offline for about the next three weeks. I'm thisclose to being done the first draft of my WIP, and my non-writing life is busy too--my family has a major celebration coming up (my grandmother is turning 100!) that I'm really looking forward to.

Talk to you all soon!

Ah-CHOO!

2011-06-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, the sun sneezed:

It's kinda neat how you can see gravity pulling a lot of the material back toward the sun's surface afterward.

And since I'm being geeky, here's an amazing image of the sun where you can see the Space Shuttle Endeavour (with open bay doors) and the International Space Station in silhouette:

Images via Discover Magazine's Bad Astromony blog

And the Humility to Listen

2011-06-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

I like having my pre-conceived notions (not to mention my biases and bigotries) challenged; I get a charge out of being surprised and then realizing it was my own hidden assumptions that are screwy, not the world.

This week, thanks to Beth Vogt, I stumbled across this interesting post about marketing as seen from a very Christian perspective:

Marketing as Good Stewardship

The thing that stood out to me is how familiar the post felt.

You see, I'm only vaguely Christian, and I feel quite justified in being in that state. I've thought about the difference between faith and religion, and I think there's merit--at least for me--in behaving like a moral atheist regardless of what I believe to be true, spiritually. Doing things because you believe they're right has more moral weight than doing them because you're told they're right (or because you're frightened.)

And that is a long-winded way of saying I get a little twitchy around someone evangelizing at me. I want to disagree, but I also loathe the necessity of a confrontation. As a result, I tend to steer clear of things that are spoken from a state of deep religious faith, and frankly, that's bigotry. I shouldn't do that. Wisdom can come at you from every direction, and you've got to have your mind open wide (and your critical thinking skills fully engaged) to catch it.

So it was really enjoyable for me to read the above post and feel the shock of the familiar--to see how similar humans beings can be even when we're operating with completely different mind-sets. The post's author notes that many religious writers disdain marketing, feeling it's not their calling, or it's un-spiritual. And oh! hey! Secular writers get snooty about marketing too, don't they? But we justify that attitude using different words.

It was neat to hear that familiar reluctance expressed using religious justifications. It really emphasized to me that this is a common human foible--we like writing, but we don't like marketing. By any means possible, we want to give ourselves permission not to do the latter.

I also enjoyed how the post's writer decided to think about the task of marketing: As he sees it, his ability to write is his gift, but his ability to do something of merit with that gift is his responsibility--part of his duty of "stewardship".

I can totally relate to that, except I'd phrase it more as Spiderman's proverb: With great power comes great responsibility. Yes, you've got talent, but if you want to do something with it, you've got a whole spaghetti-mess of duty to face, too. That includes marketing, but also the willpower to finish what you start, the courage to expose yourself to rejection, and the humility to serve the story's needs.

I think there's merit, when you're listening to someone whose mindset feels a bit alien, to try to see the ways in which you're similar, not the different, to them. At the very least, empathy is an important skill for a writer to develop simply because it allows you build a wider range of believable characters.

Sunday Fluff: An Optical Illusion

2011-06-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, wow! The green and blue spirals? Are THE SAME COLOUR. Click the image to be taken to Discover Magazine's Bad Astronomy blog where there's a close-up that proves it. What an amazing optical illusion!

Found via Discover Magazine

I'm Sorry to See You Go, Great Bird.

2011-05-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

A stunning photo of the space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station above unknown Earth cities.

It's hard to see on this image, but the stars are completely bright and clear, and they have no trails. Therefore, the streaking you see on the city lights is due to a combination of the motion of the shuttle's orbit and the rotation of the Earth.

Image from Nasa, link via Discovery Magazine.

The Quasi-Science of Not Distracting Yourself

2011-05-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

I had a productive day of writing today, and that fact got me thinking, because the truth is I've had quite a few non-productive days in the past month.

When I get started on a piece of writing, it's hard to stop. It's also a genuine rush; if I got a solid bit of writing done that morning, I inevitably bounce off to work feeling great (despite the fact I'm then running late.)

The problem is in the starting. I often feel psychological resistance to opening the story up and beginning to work. It'd be understandable if I were stuck on a scene, but this happens even when I left an exciting paragraph in mid-sentence last time.

So in today's post, I've compiled some useful information about how to fight procrastination. (Because those who can't do, teach, right? ;-) )

Fortitude

We have limited amounts of self-control, and there's actually science to back this claim up.

If you take two groups, and ask one group to exercise self-control (say, by not eating the Oreo cookies sitting in front of them), then put both groups into a situation where they have to (in one case, again) practice self-control, the group who has already spent time denying themselves a treat will crack first.

So, if you've spent the day forcing yourself to do one thing, it genuinely makes it harder to force yourself to do something else that evening.

Thus, if you've got a tendency to procrastinate, schedule your writing time for first thing in the day. That's when your willpower is at its most effective.

Inertia and Momentum

Brenda Carre once told me that when she doesn't feel like writing, she makes herself sit down for just five minutes. If, at the end of the five minutes, she still doesn't want to write, she will allow herself to walk away. Usually, however, this doesn't happen; she finds she keeps going.

Likewise, I once read about a runner who, when she didn't feel like going out for her jog, would just put on her exercise clothes and running shoes. Once garbed up, she usually could find the willpower to then get herself out the door.

This technique works partly because we're giving our self-control a seemingly smaller task to accomplish--one that feels manageable in a way that the entirety of the task doesn't. By breaking up a big, daunting project into small pieces, we can side-step our mental resistance to the thought of how much work the whole thing is going to be.

But there's more to it than that: A psychologist once conducted a study where she gave a group of people a task to complete, then interrupted them before they could finish and told them the study was over. The majority of the people kept working on the task; it bugged them to leave it incomplete.

Once you've started something, it's harder to stop. We all have a tendency to not let go of something when we're in the middle of it. So again, forcing yourself to tackle a little piece of a big project really does encourage you to complete the whole thing (if piece-meal), because once started, you gain psychological momentum and can't stop.

Making and Breaking

It takes about 20 days of consistent action to form a habit. That probably means it takes about 20 days of steadfast avoidance to break a habit, too.

So if you're trying to keep to a writing schedule, then don't despair at how hard it feels. You only need to force yourself to do this for about 20 days before it starts to feel easy.

Likewise, if you're trying to break a habit of (oh, for completely-random example) mooching about the internet instead of writing, then you only need to deprive yourself of ~~that lovely, lovely crack~~ your vice for about 20 days and the cravings will go away.

What I'm saying is: it's do-able. Don't give up. Forming a new habit is a manageable goal.

Bad Dog; No Cookie

Finally--and this is something I learned from that last video I posted--your limbic system is the part of your brain that distracts you (with the urge to go get a tea, or snag a cookie, or check your email.)

And the limbic system is more prone to responding to something it has just been reminded of.

Thus, if you want to at least minimize your own tendency to get distracted, then put away all reminders of things that distract you. Hide your tea mug; put the bag of cookies in a cupboard; turn off the 'ping' on your email program.

And if something does distract you, then just remember your limbic system has no attention span. If you tough it out, and don't respond to the urge, it will go away.

~~~~~~~

Have you any other hints for avoiding procrastination and being productive? I'd love to hear them! And I would also love to learn about any other research you've read on this subject.

Your Limbic System and You: "Have Another Cookie."

2011-05-25T08:38:00.001-07:00

Here's an entertaining--and informative! and practical!--video on managing procrastination.

Thanks to Maybe Genius for the link!

A New Way To Keep You Close: Now You're Thinking With Portals!

2011-05-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

Only a few of you might understand the reference, but ooh! Ooh! I want these!

(It's just Shrinky-Dink plastic, right? Hey, I could totally make a pair of these...)

Image via If Style Could Kill

Introducing "Goblin's Humiliator"

2011-05-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Click here to get the Humiliator!
Okay! I have been dying to tell you guys about this for the past three weeks, but, um, I'm not a very talented programmer and I couldn't get it to work. Ahem.

But now it works! What works, you ask? Well, if you're reading this post via an RSS feed, then before I can tell you, I need you to first click through to my blog.

Everybody here, now? Excellent! Now look over to the right at my sidebar. See that new icon labelled "Goblin's Humiliator"?

This is my brand-new, fully-automated HUMILIATION MOTIVATOR. Mwoo-hahaha!

(Um; if you don't see anything, you probably need to enable Javascript on your web browser. Heh.)

It was, of course, inspired by McKoala's original Public Humiliation Challenge, but while The Koala lovingly delivers a more personal (and painful) incentive to write, my automated Humiliator will tirelessly goad you into meeting a daily writing quota.

The way it works is you have to write at least 100 words a day (and update your word-count online) or that icon changes to a slightly more embarrassing image. How embarrassing will it get? See for yourselves:

If you've been writing consistently:	If you've missed one day of writing:	If you've missed two days of writing:
If you've missed three days of writing:	If you've missed four days of writing:	If you've missed five days of writing:
If you've missed six days of writing:	If you've missed seven days of writing:	If you're on Vacation:

Eek! Just imagine how awful it would be to have Day 7's image showing on your blog or website. And what writer couldn't use incentive like that? Ah, the clammy hand of fear on the back of your neck--you need it!

And fortunately, THE HUMILIATOR CAN BE YOURS! To sign up (it's free!), please go to the home page of Goblin's Humiliator and click the right-hand button to create an account and generate the code you'll need. Please sign up! (And, if anything behaves oddly, please let me know, because this is a beta version; herp-derp.)

Click here to get Goblin's Humiliator
for your website or blog!

This is FUNNY...

2011-05-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Never has "OMG!" been such an appropriate response:

Two churches located across the street from each other.

From The Query Goblin: "Left of Unsaid" by Perri

2011-05-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

Perri has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Left of Unsaid. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #21: Left of Unsaid by Perri

Don't Sign Dumb Contracts, and other good advice

2011-05-07T10:03:00.001-07:00

This is a rather interesting blog on the business of writing I just heard about via Deanna Knippling.

The writer of The Passive Voice describes himself as "a recovering lawyer" and although his blog skews in favour of self-publishing, I don't see the kind of evangelizing some self-publishing proponents do. This fellow has some smart things to say:

The Passive Voice

I particularly liked his entry called "Don't Sign Dumb Contracts".

From the Query Goblin: "Daze and Knights" by Melanie Stanford

2011-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Melanie Stanford has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Daze and Knights. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #20: Daze and Knights by Melanie Stanford

Slow Wonder

2011-05-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

The serendipity of today was I kept stumbling across really beautiful time-lapse videos. Here are the three that blew me away. They're well worth watching full-screen.

Sky in motion from Chris Kotsiopoulos

The Eyjafjallajökull Volcano by Sjorsenzo

El Cielo de Canarias / Canary sky - Tenerife from Daniel López

I May Just Burst From Awesome

2011-04-30T11:38:00.001-07:00

It's like one of those exploding joke cans, except IT EXPLODES WITH CUTE. (I believe these creatures are called sugar gliders, by the way.)

Also, is...is this some sort of photoshop wizardry? I mean, I know octopuses are smart and talented and amazing, but this borders on terrifying.

Images from Senor Gif.

Why the Dark Matters

2011-04-28T12:47:00.001-07:00

More geek-squee stuff to see on the internet today! Here's a clear and complete cartoon primer (aimed at adults) that details what we know about dark matter. (PS - If you can't get the video to work, click the link, and you should be able to watch it on the Vimeo site instead.)

Dark Matters

Found via Discover Magazine.

Like Google Earth for the Milky Way

2011-04-28T12:08:00.001-07:00

Here's a massive scan-and-zoom image of the Milky Way galaxy for you to play with. The individual photographs (13,447 of them!) were all taken by one man, Nick Risinger.

Click Here to Tour Our Galaxy

From Discover Magazine and Skysurvey.org.

Truth In Advertising

2011-04-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

It's good to know who your target customer is.

Via Epic Win FTW.

Practice Falling Until You Fly

2011-04-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

(Psst. I can blame this late posting on chocolate-bunny overdose, right? Sure, I can.)

This article about "The Chaos Monkey" is just awesome. It talks about dealing with failure and details how Netflix created a program that randomly kills processes within their computer system.

That's kind of mind-melting, isn't it? The company purposefully created a daemon that sabotages their business. And why would they do that? Because they knew it would force them to build a system that could survive genuine equipment failures.

To quote the article writer, Jeff Atwood, "[T]he best way to avoid failure is to fail constantly." In other words, to really learn how to deal with disaster, you have to incorporate it into your life--expect it, plan for it, and get some practical experience at sweeping up the rubble.

Trail runners--those crazy people who jog up and down mountains for fun--are supposed to practice falling. It's not enough to know how to do it safely; you must practice the skill. This is because your body's natural instinct to splay its hands to stop a tumble could get you killed when you're sprinting down a 45 degree hillside. Instead, you need to tuck into a ball, roll over your shoulder and back up onto your feet, then keep on running. And to be truly ready for the real crisis--for that hideous moment when a tree root mugs your ankle--you must fail on purpose so you learn how to survive such failures. You have to practice crash-landing.

When was the last time you wrote something experimental that you knew you couldn't pull off? Do you ever force yourself to submit to magazines and literary agents you realistically have no hope with? How about pitching a non-fiction idea when you've got no platform?

The great thing about practising failure is that at some point, it will turn into success. Even better, you're never going to be scared to fail because you will already know you can handle it.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam.

2011-04-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

I admit it: I'm feeling uninspired about what to write for a blog post this week, and in my ennui, I began to traipse through some of the visual detritus that has accumulated on my hard drive. Lo! I abruptly realized this made very entertaining filler, and perhaps there was merit in sharing it with all of you.

But don't worry; I'll be back to verbal communication next week. In the meanwhile, please enjoy the following image-spam:

Just a lighthouse covered in icicles...or Cthulhu?

Awwww...!

Errr...?

Just cool-looking.

Ditto:

I made this animation myself.

This thing seriously freaks me out.

Seal of approval!

May I suggest a support garment might be in order?

Ooh, purdy...

Some things need no explanation.

Prince reacts to the previous image.

You don't mess with ma family, you hear?

Pengies in sweaters!

High five, dude.

Here, the judges deliberate over which contestant's chili was best. Suffice it to say, this year there was a clear winner.

Aaaawwww...!

Ooooh!

AAAAAIGHHHH!!

Oh hai u gaiz; this iz teh last 1.

~~~~~~~

So--have you guys got any awesome images/animations/lolcats to add to my collection? Please post them (or a link to them) in the comments section!

Pretty Ribbons on the Sun

2011-04-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Link via io9

Cross-Pollination

2011-04-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

Image from ROFLrazzi

Ghostbusters and literary agents have been known to say, "Whatever you do, don't cross the streams."

What the latter group means is if your book doesn't have a well-defined pigeon-hole in Ye Olde Bigge Box Bookstore, then that novel will be harder to sell to publishers because the publishers know it will, in turn, be harder to sell to the people who decide which books Ye Olde Bigge Box is going to stock.

But like much advice given to writers, in some cases, this isn't actually good advice. Just look how successful hybrids like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are. Think how fresh-seeming were the Temeraire books, which are basically The Dragonriders of Pern versus Napoleon.

A new twist on an old idea is good. The problems only arise when the tweak is a large one and the resulting novel becomes hard to market. Sub-genres have receptive, well-defined audiences, and publishers want to be able to appeal to those audiences in a straightforward manner. Being able to say, "This is that thing you love, except with zombies," is a hook. Having to say, "This is kind of like that thing you love," is a liability.

There's also the other side of the coin--if the writer does nothing unusual, their book won't be easy to sell either because it's interchangeable with its competition. To lurch over to an election analogy, that book has no chance to become a frontrunner; it can only split the vote.

In the end, I think the safest thing is to never think about what's safe--never try to pander to the market. Write the story that resonates with you, the tale that seems interesting to you, and then hope like hell there proves to be an audience for it.

You might be wrong, but that's a danger when you write a "safe" book too. At least if you're writing the books you want to write, you'll be genuinely doing what you love.

From The Query Goblin: "Alannian and the Sword of Azallyan" by authorAlannian

2011-04-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

authorAlannian has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Alannian and the Sword of Azallyan. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #19: Alannian and the Sword of Azallyan by authorAlannian

I WANT ONE.

2011-04-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

Guess who was addicted to old school Dr. Who back when she was a wee mite?

Link via If Style Could Kill
Also, click the image to go to Forbidden Planet's sales page.)

From the Query Goblin: "Emerald Bearer" by Grant Hadley K

2011-04-05T17:48:00.000-07:00

Grant Hadley K has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Emerald Bearer. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #18: Emerald Bearer by Grant Hadley K

From The Query Goblin: "Flute Music" by Earth

2011-04-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Earth has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Flute Music. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #17: Flute Music by Earth

From The Query Goblin: "Osland" by J. A. Beard

2011-03-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

J. A. Beard has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Osland. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #16: Osland by J. A. Beard

From The Query Goblin: "The Puppet Mistress" by All-Stars

2011-03-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

All-Stars has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Puppet Mistress. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #15: The Puppet Mistress by All-Stars

Rise of the (Novel-Writing) Machines

2011-03-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article, by Alain Miles on Writers Without Borders, which enthuses about where novels may be headed now that eReaders are becoming more and more common.

The article is great, although I disagree with the idea that more interactivity will make books better. I can see illustrations you can "play" with being a great addition to children's books, but to me, having to interact with the book itself, in any significant way, is just a distraction from the story.

To me, a book should slurp you into its world, not yank your attention away from it. I find flipping the page an invisible-enough activity, but if there are moving pictures on the screen? If I am prompted to pause my reading in order to play a video? Good Google, I find typos annoying--interactive content would drive me mental.

What I want from a novel is to get sucked in so powerfully that I miss my bus stop, that I don't hear the phone ring, that I find myself unable to put the book down even though I have to be up for work in 4 hours and my eyeballs feel like matzo ball vindaloo.

That said, if a story is gripping enough, I'm sure the interactive content would become as invisible as my bus stop does. Regardless, to me, it's not a desirable feature to add things that I plan to ignore anyway.

However, one thing the article mentions did zap by brain with thrill-juice. It notes Stefano Boscutti has a project to try to create "stories that can change in reaction to a reader’s physiological responses".

Now that could be awesome. Imagine an all-purpose book that turns into a romance novel, a horror novel, or an adventure novel, all based on which sentences make your palms sweat. The whole concept may be science fiction at this point, but it's the right idea: a device that measures my unconscious responses could potentially add value to my novel-reading experience without distracting me.

However, an infinitely-changeable, all-purpose book would also ensure people couldn't discuss their books with each other. The novel's plot would become personalized and irreproducible--non-portable, to put it in computer terms. It would exist only in your head, and the novel you read and adore wouldn't be the same novel your friend reads and adores.

And that brings up the issue of copyright. Who really wrote the book, if your body's responses helped dictate its text?

Also, as a writer, I recognize creating an all-purpose book would be daunting. You would either have to write a multitude of books, each branching in separate directions like a choose-your-own-plot novel, or the book would have to be written by a cloud of writers, each handling their own separate sub-plots.

Or--even more frighteningly--you would have to devise a computer program that seamlessly branches the story into uncountable directions. Sure, human writers would be needed to set up such a program, but once it's completed, would the computer then make human writers obsolete?

My brain is buzzing with the possibilities. None of this will happen soon, based on our current level of technology, but what if it does someday? Do you think an all-purpose book would be a fantastic creation, or the end of artists? (Or the beginning of machine-artists? Which is also a cool/alarming idea.)

Wow! This would make awesome science fiction. I may have just given myself a plot bunny.

Or a death sentence.

From The Query Goblin: "The Anasazi Conspiracy" by Newmancht

2011-03-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

Newmancht has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Anasazi Conspiracy. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #14: The Anasazi Conspiracy by Newmancht

Deadly By the Dozen --Now Available!

2011-03-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Oh! Oh! I didn't even realized this had happened--more blogging buddies in another anthology!

Deadly By the Dozen features stories by Merry Monteleone, Travis Erwin, and (the alter ego of) Sex Scenes at Starbucks! (Did I miss anyone? I may have missed someone.)

You can pick it up an e-copy at Barnes & Noble and Amazon US. Please take a look!

Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever -- Now Available!

2011-03-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Sullivan has just e-released an anthology of short stories that contains contributions from not one, but two, of my blogging buddies, Peter Dudley and (the benign alter ego of) McKoala.

The anthology revolves around a seriously cool writing prompt, too--"Extinct doesn't mean forever". Please consider checking it out!

You can win a free e-copy of the anthology by entering the contest on the anthology's blog:, Extinct Anthology, or you can buy it directly from Barnes and Noble, Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Because I Think It's Funny:

2011-03-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hardcore History
Via the Failblog.

India Trip Report (Part 3 of 3)

2011-03-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

I travelled to India recently, and for the benefit of family members, I'm posting my trip report here on the blog. Because the report is looooong, I'll split it up over three postings.

Last Monday's installment covers days 1 - 3 of the trip, last Wednesday's post covers days 4 - 7, and today's post will cover days 8 - 15.

My husband does not like his name appearing on my blog, so I've referred to him as "El Husbando" here. My family members can mentally swap in his real name :-)

Passage to India; February-March, 2011

Day 8 - Feb. 26, 2011 - Driving to Jaisalmer, No Tours

Random Moments of Wow:

Acacia trees are sacred, so no one cuts them down, but you do see them pruned back. Apparently, people cut all the branches off twice a year and then dry them. The leaves are used as food for livestock and the branches are burned as firewood.
It turns out the Indians call goat meat "mutton" and sheep meat "lamb". This means JJ ate goat by accident! (But it was quite tasty and tender, and not too different than sheep mutton.)
We saw a huge crow! It was the size of seagulls in Stanley Park, i.e. almost as big as your head.
In a rest stop, we saw a wall that had broken glass glued to the top of it. El Husbando says people often do that as a cheap form of barbed wire. It's actually quite pretty in the sunshine.
On the road, we passed a location where, once per year, there's a pilgrimage. About 100,000 people gather 10 km from a Hindu temple, take their shoes off, and walk barefoot to the temple. They leave the shoes behind as a mark that they were there, and so when you drive past, you see the ditches full of shoes. (Someone must gather most of them up and remove them, because we didn't see 100,000 pairs of shoes there, but there's still plenty of sandals lying about.)
Where we stopped for lunch was very close to the Indian (underground) nuclear test site. Yusef didn't tell us that until afterward!
At different points, we had to slow down for a herd of camels, a herd of sheep, and a herd of goats.
This stretch of road was within 35 km of the Pakistan border. We passed a convoy carrying over a dozen tanks.
We also passed a wind farm (with those huge, white modern windmills) and a date palm plantation that still only had very young plants.

What we learned:

Jaisalmer became a ghost town after sea routes replaced the camel caravan routes. In 1971, its strategic significance increased due to conflicts with Pakistan and the town was repopulated.
Jaisalmer Fort, which is an impressive structure built on the top of a mesa, has about 2,000 people living in it. The town is located below the fort.

There was no tour this evening, as we would spend the entire next day in Jaisalmer.

Day 9 - Feb. 27, 2011 - Tour of Jaisalmer Fort, Camel Rides

First, we stopped at an artificial lake that was built by a wealthy dancer/prostitute. People didn't approve of her second profession and so kept destroying the lake's walls to let the water out. To counter that, she built temples all around the edges of the lake so no one would dare damage the structure anymore. It was a very pretty area with a few temple structures built right out in the water itself.

The fort is dramatic, sitting up on the cliffs, and while you walk in along utilitarian roads, the palaces of course gets very ornate and impressive. We got a great view of the city from up on the fort's walls, and the group as a whole indulged in some retail therapy in the city. It was a nice change from touring palaces and monuments, as we could just walk through the streets and enjoy both pretty and ordinary buildings, as well as see people simply living their lives. We saw some kids playing cricket on a tiny little porch, which confirms Yusef's claim that anywhere there's a bit of open space in India, you will find people playing cricket.

That evening, we went on camel rides! These were great in that we actually got to stay on the camels for about half an hour. There are vendors who follow you, and when we got to the sand dunes, there were kids dressed up in the clothes and makeup of dancers, hoping to get tips in exchange for photographs. The sand was very silky, and JJ had to pour quite an amazing volume of it out of her shoes later.

We discovered that evening that the tour company often doesn't pay for the guide or the driver to stay at the same luxury accommodations that the guests do. We felt so bad for Yusef, going off to a cheaper hotel without us that evening, but we felt even worse for Ram, the driver, who had to sleep on the bus!

Day 10 - Feb. 28, 2011 - Driving to Jodhpur, Tour in Jodhpur

Random Moments of Wow:

The 1,000 rupee note (the largest monetary bill India has) was only introduced in 2007. 1,000 rupees is about $20 Cdn.
We stopped at the side of the road and Ram paid a woman some money for feed, which he then fed to the woman's cows. This is supposed to bring luck.
40% of India's chartered accountants come from Jodhpur. Yusef described it as an accountant factory.
On the way to the fort in Jodhpur, we drove (far away from, but) past the palace where the actress Liz Hurley was married. The king who built that palace originally wanted to give money to the poor people in the region, but when they refused, saying they weren't beggars, he employed them instead to build the palace.
The fort we visited has cannon damage, and when you're entering, you can see the holes in the walls and the gate from it.
On the way to the fort, we had to slow down considerably to get through a wedding party, and it was hilarious because the kids--who were already excited about the wedding--got super-excited to have us as their captive audience. They started waving and bouncing up and down, and they were thrilled when we took their photos, then turned the cameras around to show them the image on the LCD.
Jodhpur is a very pretty, well-maintained city with lots of flowers. An important minister comes from there, so much money has funnelled into the city in recent years.

What we learned:

Construction on the fort was started in 1459, but they had trouble with the walls falling down. When they learned that a Sufi saint had been buried in the region, they went looking for his grave and eventually discovered they had been trying to build a wall right over top of it. They rebuilt the wall with a space left over the saint's grave, and the wall never fell down again.
Near the gate, there's a plaque with red hands carved on it. Each handprint was placed there by one of the wives of the king and later carved into a relief, but there's a sinister significance to this plaque.

At the time, when a man died, his wife would take opium and climb onto his funeral pyre to burn with him. This was called sati, and it was usually voluntary. The handprints were left by the queens who burned with their dead king.
The Indian government has taken steps to stamp this practice out. The women who performed sati were considered goddesses, and temples were erected to them. The government has closed all these temples so no one can pray in them anymore.
Also, the last case of sati took place in a remote village in 1992. The government arrested the entire village and put them in jail! The logic was that something like this is cultural, and so everyone in the village was culpable for not stopping the woman.

This fort is called Mehrangarh, where "mehran" means "saint" or "guru", and "garh" means "fort". I'm afraid all my descriptions must be sounding the same by now, but again, it was utterly beautiful. The fort is built on top of cliffs, but it's much more ornate than Jaisalmer Fort was, and has building after building with complex carved stone screen as the walls. The royal family still owns the site and uses it for ceremonies. (And whoo boy, the crown prince is cute. No longer single, though.)

There were some museum-like displays there, such as a hookah pipe and the bags that were used to filter water over opium. There were also grass curtains that water trickled through, providing extra cooling to the room. Probably the most interesting object, however, was a small, functional pistol that could be worn as a bracelet!

Looking out over the city, there was a large cluster of houses with blue-painted roofs. Only Brahmins are permitted to do that, and it makes for a very pretty view.

Day 11 - Mar. 1, 2011 - Driving to Ranakpur, Tour of Jain Temple

Random Moments of Wow:

In this region, the men wear great big turbans, almost ball-shaped, on their heads. It's for protection against the sun, since the hot fabric isn't resting directly against your scalp.
We passed a shrine to a man who had been killed on the highway on his motorcycle. He died far from home, his body was transported back, and then his motorcycle showed up also and no one knew how it got there. This was interpreted to be a miracle, and so the shrine was constructed and the motorcycle stands just behind it.
The big trucks in India always have a string of black pompoms attached to outer rear-view mirrors. The colour black is supposed to ward off all evil. A few of the ladies in our group bought themselves strings of pompoms off a boy selling them by the side of the road and attached them to our bus.
We passed an area full of eucalyptus gum trees from Australia. They're very nice (and smell great!), but are considered too thirsty a plant for India.
A banyan tree is a type of ficus tree, so it's related to fig trees. It's also called the "tree of life" in India because it never really dies; it just keeps putting up new shoots.
MONKEYS!! And by that, I mean a lot of monkeys. At the Jain temple in Ranakpur, there was both a group of Langur monkeys, which have whitish bodies and black faces, and some smaller, golden Rhesus monkeys. You had to watch out for the latter type, as they will snatch things and run away, or bite if you try to scare them off. We saw some of them climb into a jeep, grab something with beads and satin ribbons on it, and then run under a (stationary) tour bus to attempt to eat whatever it was.

When we got to Ranakpur, we toured a Jain temple that is 500 years old. The temple was situated in Ranakpur, which is small, isolated, and serenely lush in vegetation, to aid meditation. The temple is simple on the outside and decorated on the inside to represent how one should strive for inner beauty first. This also helps discourage the interest of thieves.

The inside of the temple is white marble and contains 1044 carved pillars, every one of which is unique. The temple has many spots where it is open to the sky, so it's quite bright within. It was really an amazing place, and there was plenty to take photos of, but we weren't allowed to take photos of the niches where the statues of the gods were located. This is too bad because the niches were dark, with black statues that had gold on the whites of their eyes. This meant that when you looked in, you saw two seemingly-glowing eyes staring back at you from the darkness.

That evening, we opened the hotel window and just listened to the birdsong pouring in.

Day 12 - Mar. 2, 2011 - Driving to Udaipur

Random Moments of Wow:

Driving through the mountains, we took a tiny winding road and saw some wonderful small villages. There were:

Ox-powered wells ("Persian wells")
Mango trees and chickpea fields
Little, elegant white cranes walking around green wheat fields
A tree full of sleeping flying fox bats
Fences on the sides of the road that held back the frequent rockslides

When we got onto the main highway closer to Udaipur, we saw three cows complacently lying in the middle of a lane.
We also saw a lot of factories near Udaipur with huge (car-sized) blocks of marble sitting in their yards. The area is famous for its green marble.
Udaipur is called the lake city because there are many lakes in the area (in among mountains.) On an island in the middle of one of these lakes, we saw an observatory.
The lobby of our hotel had all these brilliant coloured-glass mosaics set into the white plaster of the walls. They were beautiful!
At the top of one of the mountains, you can see the "monsoon palace" of a former king. He would go up there during the monsoons and pretty much live in a cloud for the whole season.
In the centre of Pichola lake, near where our hotel was located, is the famous Lake Hotel, which is situated on its own island. The James Bond movie Octopussy was shot there.

That evening, we took a stroll into the old city to a gate where we could look at the Lake Hotel. Udaipur has a lot of backpackers because you can get a room in someone's house for 500 rupees ($10 Cdn) a night, and foreigners are no big deal to the locals there.

Day 13 - Mar 3, 2011 - Tours of Udaipur

What we learned from Yusef:

The City Palace is owned by the world's longest living dynasty. This royal family dates back to 734 A.D. (which is roughly 1,300 years.)
The dynasty has had some rough times because they refused to accept the Moghul emperors and were thus uprooted from their original capital. In ~1550 A.D., Udai Singh asked a Hindu saint what he could do, and the saint said if he made a palace in the location where Udaipur is now, he would get his kingdom back.

Udai did this, although he had to make peace with the Moghuls to do so.
His son Protap Singh never accepted this, and fought the Moghuls, first with traditional warfare and then with guerrilla tactics. He died in battle and is considered a great hero.
A third revered king of Udaipur was Bupal Singh, who was paralysed but still considered one of the best and most progressive rulers in the city's history. After Independence, he was the first king to choose to become part of the new India.

The City Palace was a little more run-down than some of the places we visited, but it had some amazing decorations. The glass mosaics we saw at the hotel weren't anything compared to the intricacy of the ones at the palace. There was a king's bedroom whose walls and ceiling were decorated all in mirrored glass, and the floor was mirrored too. This was said to be so no one could sneak up on him, but perhaps he was just vain! We saw a lot of blue-painted white tiles too, and some very impressive peacock mosaics.

Mirrored king's bedroom

There was also a large gold image of the sun (with a moustachioed face) at one side of a courtyard, and a mirrored shrine at the other. The king was supposed to fast until he could pray to the sun every day, so on cloudy days, he would face the shrine and pray to the reflected fake sun in the mirror.

At the upper level of the palace, there is a fountain in a courtyard that is surrounded by mature trees. This was possible because the palace is built on a hill, and the courtyard--even though it's on the highest floor--is located at the very tip of the hill. From that height, we were able to look down at the enclosure where they used to hold elephant fights.

The palace has many tiny corridors and low doors. This isn't because people were smaller back then, but to force invading soldiers to move in single file through the palace and to bow their heads when they entered a room, which made them easier to decapitate.

We saw a display of a horse wearing a fake elephant's trunk on its nose. The kings in Udaipur didn't have as many elephants as their adversaries did, and apparently by attaching a false trunk to their horses, they could fool the enemy's elephants into thinking the horses were baby elephants, and thus keep them from attacking the horses.

After the City Palace, we went on a boat ride around the Lake Hotel and then to a second island with a nice complex where you could be served tea. We skipped the tea, strolled around, then headed back because the boat ride was actually the most enjoyable part. Swallows flew right through the open sides of the boat twice while we were out on the water.

That evening was the last night of the tour, so we walked through the old city again to a really good restaurant on the lakeside where we could see the City Palace and the Lake Hotel. It was lovely, but we were sad to say goodbye to everyone--especially Yusef, who had been so great!

Day 14 - Mar. 4, 2011 - Flying to Mumbai

Mumbai is very humid compared to the Rajastan area, but that's hardly surprising. On the way in from the airport, our transport guide called the hotel and learned our room wasn't ready yet, so he took us to see a laundry farm that took up several city blocks, Victoria Station (for municipal trains), which is huge and very British-looking, and some government buildings, which were likewise very British-y.

Our hotel's location proved to be ideal! We were just down the street from the famous Gateway to India arch and the Taj Hotel (which again oozes with British-ness.) We walked down to the Gateway, which is 26 m (85 ft.) high, and El Husbando indulged in a treat he's only gotten in India: a green coconut's juice drunk straight from the shell. The vendors machete the ‘nut open in front of you, stick in a straw, and away you go. Since the coconuts only cost 25 rupees each (50 cents Cdn), El Husbando slurped away at least five of these during the 2.5 days we were in Mumbai. JJ, on the other hand, decided she didn't like the drink very much.

That evening, we saw bats as big as crows sailing around. The big ones really do sail, rather than fluttering like the smaller ones.

Day 15 - Mar. 5, 2011 - Elephanta Island

We walked back to the Gateway that morning and bought tickets for the boat to Elephanta Island. The ride takes about an hour, and it's really lovely out on the water, although the humidity haze blurs out most of the view. Close to the island, we passed another island that had a very long railroad stretching across the sea to the big container ships anchored in deep water.

Elephanta itself was a bit of a disappointment in that there wasn't much to see. What was there was very cool, however. You walk into a series of caves, and the walls have all been carved into large statues of Buddha or Hindu gods. The caves closest to the dock are the most impressive, and we saw about six caves in total. There are other things to see on the island, but they involved a lot of walking, and the heat and humidity sapped our enthusiasm. El Husbando did buy some really good guavas from a vendor on the way back to the dock, however.

Day 15 - Mar. 6, 2011 - Prince of Wales Museum

We needed to make sure we had enough cash to pay our hotel bill, since it's sometimes difficult in India to get the hotels to accept traveller's cheques or even a credit card. We thus found ourselves waiting for a bank to open at 10 AM. Only one person is allowed at the ATM at a time, so the bank has chairs outside for those waiting to sit upon. Because we were there early, the fellows who pick up the night deposits were also there, and El Husbando spent about ten minutes sitting beside a fellow with a shotgun propped up in front of him!

After getting our wad of rupees, we walked to the Prince of Wales Museum, which doesn't look quite as British-y as its name implies. It has several Islamic-style domes on it, for example, and beautifully carved pillars in the foyer.

This museum's emphasis is more on history than art, so there was a natural history section with stuffed animals as well as various rooms containing statuary, paintings, glassware, and ornate household goods such as make-up or jewellery chests carved from wood or ivory. There were two large rooms on the top floor with art collections donated by members of the Tata family. This won't be obvious to a lot of Canadians, but the Tata corporations are a HUGELY successful set of businesses. There are 114 Tata companies in all, and two of them are Fortune 500 companies.

And that was our trip! We had the room in Mumbai for another night, but we were flying out at 3 AM and so left just before midnight. It was sad to leave India, but great to be home again. You never realize how handy it is to drink straight out of the tap until you can't do it anymore!

Arr, Matey--Hand Over that Sedan

2011-03-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Here's an article I think is just 'sploding with the potential to be hijacked (no pun intended) for a story:

Engineers Can Now Wirelessly Hack Your Car

The experimenters were able to control the car's door locks, dashboard displays, and brakes using this technique.

And how did the hackers gain access to the car's systems? By hiding a Trojan Horse virus in the data file of a song burned onto a CD.

That's right, folks--be careful what music you pirate, or the pirates may come for you! (and the sweet, sweet booty of your Honda Civic.)

~~~~~~~
Just as an aside, has anyone else found that Blogger is now behaving weirdly whenever you edit? When I try to highlight and change part of a word, it erases the whole word, and sometimes words to the right or left of the one I wanted to change, too! Quite irritating.

India Trip Report (Part 2 of 3)

2011-03-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

I travelled to India recently, and for the benefit of family members, I'm posting my trip report here on the blog. Because the report is looooong, I'll split it up over three postings.

Last Monday's installment covers days 1 - 3 of the trip, today's post covers days 4 - 7, and next Monday's post will cover days 8 - 15.

My husband does not like his name appearing on my blog, so I've referred to him as "El Husbando" here. My family members can mentally swap in his real name :-)

Passage to India; February-March, 2011

Day 4 - Feb. 22, 2011 - Tours of Agra, then Driving to Jaipur

Random Moments of Wow:

We saw monkeys on the roofs of Agra Fort.
In a lot of tourist sites, if you look down at the ground, you see sequins and small beads caught between the pavement stones. This is because of all the women passing through wearing their traditional Indian suits with beads and sequins inevitably lose a small fraction of the sparkly stuff.
On the drive to Jaipur, in one of the towns, we had to wait as a herd of water buffalo was moved across the road.
We also saw a herd of hefty deer-like animals on the drive.
In those areas, they were growing wheat, mustard, and chickpeas in the fields. Rice farming is saved for the monsoon season.
We saw a kingfisher bird sitting on the railing of a pool in the city of Sikri.
Like people who own trucks, the people who own camels decorate them! We saw many camels with words painted on their necks, or with patterns shaved into the fur of their flanks, and often the camel's saddle is decorated with pom-poms and fancy fabrics.
JJ saw this old, small, red sandstone mosque that has apparently fallen into disuse because it has bushes growing out of its cracked, white-painted dome. It was very quaint and lovely.
We saw a brick factory out in the middle of nowhere on the way to Jaipur. It had about six very tall, angular kiln chimneys poking up from a flat plain, with stacks and stacks of bricks in the area between their bases. The fired bricks were stacked closely, like walls, while the raw bricks were stacked with spaces in between them, like brick lattices, to aid in the mud drying.
PEACOCKS!! Ahem. Which is to say we saw wild peacocks and peahens on the walls of Jaipur as we drove in to the city.

Agra Fort is another of those forts that really should be called a palace, although it has impressive military fortifications too. There is a land moat, which was stocked with tigers, and a water moat, which was stocked with crocodiles. The main gate is actually a series of three gates, and they were arranged at right angles to one another. The reason why was so that if an elephant with a battering ram was being used to knock down the gates, it would have to turn 90 degrees to get at the second gate, and then it wouldn't be able to take a run at that gate because the elephant would now have the moat wall right behind it.

Inside the first courtyard of the fort, there is a grave for a British soldier. He died in the fort during a time of unrest, and they didn't want to risk taking him out to bury him, so he was buried inside the walls like a king.

We next entered a courtyard of white pillars, but they are white paint over sandstone because the 5th Moghul emperor loved white marble but didn't dare tear down the walls his grandfather had built to replace the sandstone pillars.

The garden of the white courtyard is subdivided into small scalloped parcels of land. The emperors were fond of wine and opium, and apparently one of the royal wives decided to grow grapes. The divisions were to keep her root stocks pure.

The fort contains one of the finest mosques in India, the "Pearl Mosque", but it was closed to the public while we were there. The palace did burn at one point, so the carpets and furniture are missing, but you can still see the semi-precious stone inlays in the marble, the ornate carvings on the walls, balconies, and windows, and the intricate designs of the ceilings. There was also what looked like a bathtub with a scalloped edge set slightly-below flush with the floor in one courtyard, but this was actually a waterfall fountain. The water poured in from the sides, then rushed down to the bottom of the well. It was dry, so JJ hopped in; it was about five feet deep.

This is the emperor's apartment; I've belatedly realized the text on either side of this photo would lead you to believe you're looking at something else. Sorry; it's just a random pretty picture. Fun/Gross Fact: The lump and puddle you see behind this fountain is proof that monkeys do not respect the memory of dead emperors.

On our way out, we passed a bathtub the 4th Moghul emperor gave to one of his wives, a princess from Jaipur, as a wedding gift. It's said he filled the tub with diamonds, rubies and emeralds when he gave it to her. And folks? That tub was about two metres across and a metre and a half deep. She would have had jewels up to her chin.

Things we learned from Yusef in Agra fort:

Although Muslim men are allowed to take up to four wives, a man who wanted to take a second wife back then would need to ask his first wife's permission, and he would have to have a good reason for wanting to do so, such as his first wife not being able to have children, or the second woman being widowed and in need of a husband.

After the fort, we visited a marble factory where they create tables and smaller items with semi-precious stone inlays in white, green and black marble. The craftsmen start by colouring the marble with henna, scratching the design onto it, then carving out the depth of the inlay. They shape the inlay pieces by hand, then glue them in and do a final polish with zinc oxide. Some of the patterns are extremely intricate and fine. The families that run this particular factory claim their forefathers decorated the Taj Mahal. Note that the work is so fine that retirement age from doing inlay work is about 45 years. After that, most people's fingers and eyesight are no longer up to the task, and the workers move into support roles by, for example, making the grinding wheels the inlayers use.

The white marble in Agra is some of the densest, hardest, and most non-porous in the world. They showed us how you could pour Coca Cola, which is usually hideously destructive to marble's finish, onto their white marble and do no damage.

After this, we drove to Jaipur, with a stop at the abandoned city of Sikri, and again Yusef taught us some interesting facts:

Things we learned:

At independence, India's literacy rate was only 9%. Today, it's 72%, with most of the shortfall in the older generations. Primary school is compulsory, and the government gives families financial benefits when they send their daughters to school. This has helped reverse the trend that existed ten years ago where people didn't educate their girls. Now, girls and boys go to school in equal numbers.
School is always taught in the local language, but English as a second language is taught beginning at the 6th year.
Teaching is considered a very noble profession in India. Lots of women do it, it is a well-paid profession, and students--even years later--will greet their former teachers by touching the teacher's feet as a sign of respect.

The city of Sikri was a surprise! It's a city that was used as the capital for only 15 years before being abandoned, but the palace complex is beautiful and airy, and the buildings are still in perfect condition. I hadn't expected a city that was abandoned to be so lovely and pristine.

The history of the place is interesting too. The 3rd Moghul emperor was illiterate because he ascended the throne at age 13, but he became one of the most tolerant and forward-thinking rulers. He had no male offspring, and went to visit a Sufi saint (guru) who lived in the area where Sikri would eventually be built. That saint prophesied the king would have more than one son. The king married a Hindu woman, which was shocking for the time given he was Muslim, and she gave him three sons. In gratitude, the king moved his capital to the area the Sufi saint lived in, named his eldest son after the saint, and named the city Sikri, which comes from the Arabic word "shukraan", meaning "thank you".

The king never asked his Hindu wife to convert, and he built a Hindu temple for her in the palace at Sikri. He also built a Christian chapel for a Portuguese missionary he was friends with, and later took a Portuguese, Christian wife. The king also removed the taxes on Hindus travelling on pilgrimages, so he was definitely committed to religious tolerance.

Sikri was built in six years, which is astonishing given how ornate and complex the palace is. The problem with the location is there was no river nearby. The floors of the plazas all slope into drains to help collect rain, but the shortage of water was an enduring problem for the new city. Fifteen years after it was built, uprisings in Pakistan required the king to leave for Lahore, and the people moved back to Agra because why stay there when the king isn't there?

The palace features many courtyards and Buddhist-style pagodas and terraces. The Hindu wife who gave the emperor sons had the largest palace complex with a summer wing, a winter wing, and her temple all bordering a courtyard with basil planted in the centre (basil is associated with the god Shiva.) The winter palace is decorated with blue tiles from China.

The Christian wife also had her own palace, and in the centre of another courtyard, there was a pool with a platform in the middle of it. This was so musicians and dancers could perform in the middle of the pool while the king and his court enjoyed the performances from the balconies of the buildings around the courtyard. One building in that area had many pillars in it; the story is the king used to play hide-and-seek with his concubines in there.

After Sikri, we went to lunch in a little village. It was a lovely, clean, and picturesque place, the food was wonderful, the atmosphere was relaxing, and the little kids in the village were adorable. They would all greet you with hello, and some would ask if you had a pen you could give them. Apparently, it's a bit of a status symbol to go to school with a pen that came from a foreign land, given to you by the hand of a foreigner. We really enjoyed the visit there, and our tour company (On The Go Tours) collects donations to help buy supplies for the village's schoolhouse.

On the remainder of the drive to Jaipur, we again learned some facts from Yusef, including the amusing story of how he ended up married:

What we learned:

80% of all marriages are in India are arranged marriages. The parents look for a spouse for their child within their own caste, and apparently it's quite entertaining to read the weekly matrimonials section in the newspaper to see what people are looking for.
In India, love is something that starts at marriage, rather than culminating in marriage.
Married ladies wear a silver ring on the second toe of one foot. In Hindu marriage ceremonies, the husband will dab a red bindi (the mark of colour between the eyebrows) on his new bride. Thereafter, she will reapply it every morning.
Yusef's own wedding story is pretty entertaining--although it wouldn't have been if it hadn't come to a happy ending.

Yusef had a new job in the United States, and just before he was going to leave, his brother came to him with a photograph and said the family had chosen this girl for him, and they wanted him married before he left.
Yusef balked, saying he wasn't ready for this and it wasn't fair for them to spring it on him. He tore up the photo. The discussion that evening grew heated. He finally grabbed his passport and took off to stay with a friend in another city. And then the friend finked him out, because apparently it's not okay to refuse to marry the girl your parents chose for you.
Yusef's brother came and said Yusef's actions had affected their mother badly, and that if she died because this strife, Yusef would be "without caste" to his family (this is another way of saying they would consider him an untouchable; it's a pretty raw bit of emotional manipulation.) So Yusef came back and got married under duress.
That night, his family locked him in a room with the girl. Nothing happened; Yusef sat in one corner, and the girl sat in the opposite corner. She tried to talk to him a bit, but he wouldn't have any of it.
Three days later, the girl was crying a lot and Yusef was leaving for his job. He told his family to do what they wanted with his wife; he was never coming back to India.
A year later, his brother called to say their mother was very ill and that if Yusef wanted to see her again, he had to return. Yusef visited, and he noted his wife was taking very good care of his sick mother, but he still wasn't interested in knowing her. Yusef returned to the States.
When his holidays came around the next year, Yusef visited again, and when he left, it began to prey on his mind that he was being quite cruel to his wife. She had accepted him as her husband, and although it's easy to get a divorce in India, those who do it are shunned and disdained. So during the next year, Yusef began calling and talking his wife about once a month. It was always an awkward conversation.
When his holidays came around again (three years after he married), Yusef flew his wife over to the United States to visit. Finally, something began to click between them, and they now have two children and are happy enough together. Yusef admits, however, that if they hadn't "clicked", they both would have faced a lifetime of compromises and accommodations.
He says the best part of the story is that his mother is still alive and quite healthy.

Enough about marriage! Our hotel in Jaipur was a small palace used by sub-kings when they came to visit the maharajah of Jaipur. As you can imagine, it was a lovely old building. The kings of Jaipur made treaties with the Moghul emperors, so they were allowed to keep ruling their own territories. As a result, Jaipur has never seen wartimes, and its rulers going to fight on behalf of the emperors helped make the city rich.
Jaipur also made friendly alliances with the British. It's called the pink city because in 1876, the ruler asked the people to paint their houses and businesses pink to welcome the Prince of Wales. Pink is considered the colour of welcome and hospitality.

Day 5 - Feb. 23, 2011 - Tours of Jaipur

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Jaipur, as El Husbando and JJ succumbed to the dreaded "Delhi belly" at this point.

Actually, it was food poisoning, and ten out of the fourteen people on our tour group came down with it over the next two days. Yusef said that was unprecedented; he's been doing these tours for about twenty years and says out of a group of twenty people, he might have two or three become ill, but it's usually something minor that can be dealt with using Imodium. El Husbando backs that up, saying that while he was at the institutes, he was eating ice cream and chai tea bought off street vendors, and he never had any stomach problems at all.

Thankfully, everyone in the tour group kept their senses of humour and didn't let the illness spoil their trip. Also, we were able to establish this highly, highly scientific index of stomach durability versus nationality:

Macho-Robustness of Stomach (+)
New Zealanders
French
Australians
Icelanders
Malaysians
Canadians
Sicky-Wimpiness of Stomach (-)

Day 6 - Feb. 24, 2011 - Driving to Shekawati

Random Moments of Wow:

On the road, we were slowed down by this huge herd of cattle being moved. Some of the animals had outlandishly fat, large horns compared to the size of their bodies.
One of the cowherds ran over grinning and had the New Zealander lady take his picture just so he could take see it on her LCD screen afterward.
We saw a long line of women and donkeys in some sort of procession.

We arrived at the hotel in Shekawati, and it was this wonderful house with two courtyards and all the interior walls painted very beautifully. We had it to ourselves that night, so Yusef referred to it as "our palace".

The only tour we did this evening was to stroll into the village and look at an old house, still owned by a wealthy family, that has fallen into disuse. It was obviously once very grand and beautiful, with an Islamic style of construction, but plants are taking over the courtyards and the walls are growing stained from the rain.

There are quite a few of these sorts of houses in the city. The families can't really sell them for prestige reasons--people would assume they're going bankrupt if they sell their ancestral properties--but at the same time, the younger generations aren't interested in living there anymore.

That night, a wedding took place beside the hotel, and some of our tour group snuck in to see the celebrations, which are always pretty grand. El Husbando and JJ were still recovering, and went to bed early instead, but the fireworks from the wedding were very loud and kept us awake for a while. The next morning, we walked into the hotel's lobby to find a heavy dusting of ceiling plaster and debris on the furniture due to the force of all the explosions.

Day 7 - Feb. 25, 2011 - Driving to Bikaner, Tour of Bikaner Fort

Random Moments of Wow:

You see a lot of swastikas here, as it was originally a Hindu symbol. The arms rotate clockwise, not counter-clockwise like the Nazis' did, and there's often a dot in the inner corner of each arm. The words "swasi tika" mean "a good symbol".
The trees along the sides of the road have all been painted with a pattern of white stripe/red stripe/white stripe. This is to act as a reflector, since most rural areas don't have streetlights.

This was the point when half our tour group split off, so we had to say some farewells to some very nice people. We carried on in a group of seven along with Yusef and a new driver, Ram. The remaining group was all Australians except for us and one New Zealander who lives in Australia.

The drive to Bikaner was not far, but still took 5 hours due to the cracked, bumpy road. Most of the highways in India are excellent, and this stretch was one of the very few exceptions we encountered.

Bikaner Fort is another fort that should be called a palace. The founder, Bika, was a son whose father saw him chatting with someone at court, and asked if Bika was plotting against him. This so offended Bika that he told his father he would never take anything from him, left court, and then carved out his own nation. The construction of Bikaner Fort began in 1589.

The coronation throne is located in a courtyard in the middle of a small pool, and the upper balconies of the courtyard are covered with carved sandstone screens so ladies could watch the ceremony in privacy. There's also a coronation room that is mind-blowing; it's huge, with great arches of red sandstone, and all the walls and ceiling are ornately carved with polished flower and vine patterns.

Many of the rooms in the fort are extremely ornate; there is one area that has 17 kg of gold painted onto the ceiling. Because Bikaner is in the Tahr desert, there is also a room with clouds painted on all the walls and a shrine so one can pray for rain there.

The fort is used as a museum now, and we saw some pretty amazing objects. Moustaches were popular at the time, so there's a soup spoon that has a moustache guard built onto it. We also saw palanquins for carrying men and women around (the women's always have screens), a mechanical swing for a statue of Krishna, all these beautifully decorated weapons--including a spring-loaded dagger designed to let you disembowel a person with one stab--and a war plane that one of the later kings bought and had shipped in and reassembled.

Specific Moment of Wow:

OUR HOTEL!! Ahem. Which is to say, our hotel was a palace, and a freaking impressive one too. If Yusef had said we were taking a tour of the place, and had to buy tickets to get in the door, I would have believed him. The building was a large, imperial-looking structure of carved sandstone with a huge courtyard garden in the middle. We saw peacocks wandering around near the tennis court.

From The Query Goblin: "White Blood" by Angela

2011-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Angela has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for White Blood. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #13: White Blood by Angela

India Trip Report (Part 1 of 3)

2011-03-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I travelled to India recently, and for the benefit of family members, I'm posting my trip report here on the blog. Because the report is looooong, I'll split it up over three postings.

Today's installment covers days 1 - 3 of the trip (hey, they were busy days!), next Wednesday's post will cover days 4 - 7, and next Monday's post will cover days 8 - 15.

My husband does not like his name appearing on my blog, so I've referred to him as "El Husbando" here. My family members can mentally swap in his real name :-)

Passage to India; February-March, 2011

This trip featured a lot of moments that could be described as culture "shock", although they were mostly just exciting. Regardless, because they weren't hugely noteworthy, I'll list these "Random Moments of Wow" as a bullet list on the appropriate days.

Day 1 - Feb. 19, 2011 - Arriving in Delhi, First Impressions

This was really the day JJ arrived in India; El Husbando had already been there for three weeks meeting with colleagues at institutes in Pune and Chennai.

From the air, Delhi has strings of bright street lights interspersed with large areas of softer light. Presumably, that's from home fires, as the whole city was scented with wood smoke when JJ arrived. The taxis at the airport look like they dropped out of a 1940s movie, and the trucks on the road were all decorated with paintings, strings of pompoms, and welded-on ornaments. They were thoroughly charming.

Delhi has a shortage of hotels, so our travel agency warned us our room would be clean but rudimentary. This turned out to be both accurate and inaccurate. We had a three-room suite with a nice bed and marble walls and floor, but the bathroom had a jury-rigged feel to it. The toilet did not have a tank but was instead attached, via a hose, to a faucet on the wall. The sink was completely modern, but when you looked under it, a hose dangled from it into drain on the floor. The shower was as you'd expect, but if you wanted hot water, you had to go down to the lobby and ask them to turn on the boiler. El Husbando said none of this was surprising based on what he'd seen so far at the institutes. Overall, we rather liked the room; it was functional, pretty, and quirky.

After getting some sleep and then breakfast, we took a cab to the National Museum. And everything we saw on the streets was just SO India! There were zillions of people, and although you saw some young women wearing jeans and t-shirts, most of them wore lovely traditional garb with jewel-bright colours, glittering sequins, and flowing chunnis (scarves worn over the head or around the shoulders and trailing down the back.) It was hard to believe that was their every-day wear.

The traffic was very free-form and flowing, with pedestrians, cars, and motorcycles weaving in and around each other liberally. Yes--you do see cows standing in the middle of the road and people just drive around them, but same goes for dogs and goats too. Drivers used their horns often, and later in the tour, our tour guide Yusef explained why.

Yusef said that when driving in India, there's so much going on in front of your car, it's not a good idea to take your eyes off the road to check your rear-view mirror too often. Thus, you use your eyes to keep track of what's going on in front of you, and your ears to keep track of what's going on behind you. The other drivers tap their horn to let you know they're there, and thus you don't need to shoulder-check very often.

In general, Indians display the common-sense courage that our (I'm speaking as a Canadian here) culture used to have back in the 50s. People ride motorcycles without helmets; they drive without seat belts; their kids go out alone to play with their friends beside busy streets. The over-protectiveness our culture has developed in the past half-century just isn't there--and why should it be when no one is behaving recklessly? We frequently saw families of four all riding on one motorcycle, or cars packed with eight or nine people, but we never saw anyone speeding or driving aggressively. It's generally quite safe.

The city itself showed that this was a developing nation, as everything you looked at either needed some repair or seemed unfinished. El Husbando said Delhi was extremely clean compared to the places he had seen so far. Later, JJ also saw some litter-clogged areas, but she noticed a correlation, too: the villages and towns that had livestock roaming around tended to be nicer places than those that only had people. The more rural a spot, the more pleasant it was. The larger cities, however, were an exception in that they also looked attractive and liveable.

The roads were almost always excellent. When we got out in the desert, we drove on some sketchy stuff, but India generally takes great care of its road system. The people, too, always seemed to be well dressed--even those who were obviously very poor. El Husbando saw more hardship while he was at the institute cities, but at least while on tour, we saw looooots of people and virtually no one looked scruffy.

Oh--the museum. I got a little side-tracked there, didn't I? The museum featured mostly artwork in the form of carved statues, cast statues, intricate "miniature" paintings (comparable in size to a sheet of paper, rather than something that covers a big swathe of wall), and decorative textiles. One thing we noticed for the first time there was that Indians will pay perhaps 20 rupees (40 cents Cdn) to get into a tourist attraction, whereas foreigners will pay perhaps 200 rupees ($4 Cdn). This makes sense, in that even Indians who are poor can enjoy their country's culture, and yet it's still a very cheap as far as the foreigners are concerned to do the same thing.

After the museum, we took an auto-rickshaw back to the hotel. Those beasties must be amazing on gas, because it only cost 100 rupees (about $2 Cdn) for a half-hour drive. In shape, the auto-rickshaws look a bit like a VW van from the 1960s, but they're smaller than a compact car, have open sides and only three wheels. JJ loved it; El Husbando was disappointed because he had ridden in much faster auto-rickshaws already.

Day 2 - Feb. 20, 2011 - Tours of Delhi

Random Moments of Wow:

We saw a laundry farm--a city block dedicated to washing and drying (on clotheslines) hotel linens.
On a bridge, a wool dyer had draped all his washed bundles of raw wool on the railings to dry.
We drove by the world's largest market for 2nd hand books. It's 7 km long.
We also drove by what has been knick-named the "Thieves Market" because it deals in all kinds of second-hand goods.
We saw a weasel! Neither of us had seen one in the wild before.
A golf course we passed not only had walls around, but also had razor wire lining the tops of those walls.

Our tour group started out with 14 people, although half of them split off a week later to go on separate tours. It was a good group, with a French family, an Icelandic couple, a Malaysian couple, one New Zealander, and a whole mess o' Australians. We were the only people from the Americas.

Our guide Yusef proved to be amazing. He could answer pretty much any question you asked, from culture to sports to industry to history. When the tour began, he struck me as quite reserved, but when the group got smaller, and it was clear that everyone was good-tempered and getting along well, he loosened up quite a bit and seemed to genuinely enjoy our company.

Our tours that day were to the Red Fort in Old Delhi, to the "Friday Mosque" near the fort, then to the cremation site of Ghandi, and then to lunch at a restaurant reputed to serve the best butter chicken in Delhi. After lunch, we went to a tomb reputed to be the architectural inspiration for the Taj Mahal, and the Qutab Minar, which is the world's largest minaret.

Things we learned from Yusef that day:

At any given moment, there are 5 million vehicles on the road in Delhi. However, commercial vehicles like taxis and buses run on compressed natural gas, which has helped reduce the pollution. Delhi has the world record for the most cars that run on this fuel.
When a city's name ends in "-bahd" or "-bad" (such as Hyderabad), that means it was founded by a Muslim ruler. When it ends in "-pur", that means it was founded by a Hindu ruler. Both words mean the same thing: "place". Thus, Udaipur roughly translates as "Udai's place", where Udai was the city's (Hindu) founder.
Recent excavations reveal that Delhi dates back to the 3rd century B.C.
Delhi officially has 18 million people, but is probably closer to 20 million. It's India's largest city by area, but Mumbai is larger by population.
Up until 1192, Delhi was ruled by Hindu leaders. Then it was invaded by Muslims, and the "Moghul" dynasty--which would last through 650 years, 17 rulers, and become one of India's most important dynasties--was established. The Moghuls were direct descendants of Genghis Khan through the female line and of Turks through the male line.
The first six Moghul rulers were the most important. The first four of them ruled in the city of Agra, but the 5th ruler moved the capital to Delhi because Agra reminded him too much of his deceased wife--who is best remembered as the woman the Taj Mahal was built as a tomb for. Yes, that fellow mourned hard.
The British moved the capital to Calcutta, then transferred it back to New Delhi. King George and Queen Mary came to lay down a foundation stone in Delhi, but it was laid in an inappropriate location. After they left, some locals quietly moved the stone closer to the river.

At the Red Fort, or Lal Quil'ah, we learned that when Indians call something a "fort", we should not be expecting a Spartan military structure--we should expect a palace! Construction began on the Red Fort in 1648, and the British added a few buildings to it while they were in power. The fort encloses a large garden full of fountains, two pavilions for the king to hold audiences in, and several smaller palace complexes.

The first pavilion we saw is called the "place of the common peoples" because the king would have audiences with the commoners there. The pavilion was carved sandstone with intricate stone screens behind the throne so royal ladies could watch the proceedings without being seen. These types of screens for the royal ladies were a common feature in all the palaces we saw.

The next pavilion was built to receive important guests and was all white marble with flower decorations inlaid directly into it in semi-precious stones. The colours of the inlays were amazing!

The pavilion once housed the famous "Peacock Throne", which was made with 250 kg (no, I did not mis-type that unit) of precious stones--including the famous Koh-i-noor diamond now owned by the British monarchy--and 1250 kg of gold. The throne, however, was said to be cursed as only two rulers sat upon it. The second was actually a Persian invader, and although most of the throne was dismantled and spirited away when he was deposed, some portions of the Peacock Throne still exist in the museum in Tehran, Iran.

It was at the Red Fort that we got our first taste of something that seemed pretty odd at first. The tourist sites are, of course, mostly full of Indians seeing their own country's history. Many of them haven't seen many foreigners except on television or in magazines. Thus, at these sites, the locals would often come up and ask members of our tour group if they could take a photo of themselves standing next to us. It was usually younger people, and they were always very polite and friendly, but it was startling the first time it happened! It's so strange to be thinking that you're in an exotic locale and then suddenly be reminded that no, you're the thing that's exotic here, not the locale!

El Husbando and JJ got their share of "photo ops", but the French family, who had light hair, and these two pretty Australian women, one of whom had very pale blue eyes, were the most popular. Our guide eventually started joking they should charge 10 rupees a photo like the men who walk around with tamed monkeys do.

Our next stop was at the so-called "Friday Mosque". At this point, we got to see how very tolerant of different religions India has always been. Just outside the Red Fort, there is a Jain temple (Jainism is an offshoot of Hinduism), followed by a Hindu temple, followed by a church, followed by a Sikh temple, and then the mosque we visited is just off to the side of them all.

We took a bicycle rickshaw through a market to get to the mosque, and that was pretty neat. The small, winding streets and general packed-to-the-gills state of the place certainly reminded us of the medina in Fez, from our last trip.

About 20,000 people come to pray at the mosque on any given day, and about 25,000 show up on Fridays. Thankfully, when we were there, it was just tourists and the plaza was thus empty enough to walk through. The mosque was the last building built by the 5th Moghul emperor, i.e. the one who built the Taj Mahal, before he was imprisoned by his son.

After the mosque, we went to the cremation site of Ghandi, which is a black marble slab in the middle of a lovely open garden. It was kept intentionally simple because that's how Ghandi lived his life.

After the cremation site, we drove to the Humayum Tomb, but on the way we got to see some of the more impressive government buildings and a large stone arch that commemorates the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died fighting for the British in WWI. Our guide Yusef also pointed out a field full of cricketers and noted that anywhere you see a bit of open space, you'll see people playing cricket. He jokingly referred to the sport as "India's national religion".

The Humayum Tomb was built by the widow of the 2nd Moghul emperor for her husband. He had an interesting life story, in that he lost his kingdom to an Afgan noble, went to the Shah of Iran for support, won his lands back in 1555, and then died in 1556 when he slipped on the stairs while hurrying to prayer one evening.

The tomb is thought to have been the architectural inspiration for the Taj Mahal, although it does not have the four minarets the Taj does. The building is also smaller (about 40 m, while the Taj is 74 m) and is made of sandstone with white marble trim, unlike the Taj, which is all white marble. There are about 100 graves at the site, all for close relatives of the king.

Decorating the front of the tomb is what looks like a few Stars of David, but these are actually a Hindu symbol depicting the joining of male and female energy. The male Hindu gods can create matter but not energy or life; the female gods do that. Thus, the joining of the two creates something special.

After the tomb, we visited the Qutab Minar, which was mind-blowing. It's the world's largest minaret, and it only gets more impressive as you get closer to it, because you begin to realize how detailed the decorations are. Some of them are huge, carved calligraphy. Also, there's a madrassa (school) behind the minaret that is equally beautiful, albeit in ruins.

The minaret is 800 years old, 732 m high, and was built in stages. The original 4th story was destroyed by lightning and replaced by two more stories, bringing it to its current height. There are 384 steps to the top, but tourists aren't allowed in it anymore after some deaths. Close to the minaret, a later king had begun constructing a minaret intended to be twice as big as the existing one. He died when it was only a few metres in height, and the project was abandoned.

The tower was never intended to be a working minaret (who would hear the imam singing from the top of something that high?) but as a show of power. It marked the eastern boundary of the territory they ruled when it was built. The mosque attached to it was also never a working mosque because some of its pillars were taken from a disused Hindu temple and thus depict gods and animals. Islam forbids the depiction of humans or animals.

Near the minaret is an iron pillar that is 1000 years old. It's a single piece of metal, no machines were used to construct it, and it still hasn't rusted! We scuttled out of the area just as a rainstorm started, so you know it isn't the dry climate that preserves that pillar.

After the tours, we visited a rug emporium and got a little demonstration of how they weave carpets, as well as a nice green tea with saffron and cardamom.

Day 3 - Feb. 21, 2011 - Driving to Agra, Tour of Taj Mahal

Random Moments of Wow:

We saw sweepers with twig-brooms cleaning off the sidewalks first thing in the morning.
There was a truck carrying women to work, and it was neat to see all their elegant, brightly-coloured head scarves bobbing around in the back of this battered old truck.
Everywhere we go, whether rural or urban, has a thick haze in the air. We've decided it must be water vapour. (Later in the desert, the air got clearer, but not completely clear.)
MONKEYS!!! Ahem. That is to say, we saw monkeys for the first time this day. They were sitting in the shade under the trees by the side of the highway.
We also saw those very sculpted-looking cows with high mounds on their shoulders, dangling neck-wattles, and very shiny, swoopy hipbones. (The locals must think tourists are insane, the way we go nuts over things like a cow.)
People mix cowpats with straw and dry the mixture to make a fuel for the rainy season. You see cowpats lined up like ceiling tiles all across people's roofs, particularly in rural areas. Apparently the ‘pats burn blue and without any smell.

This day was spent bussing to Agra with the intention of seeing the Taj Mahal at sunset. On the way, Yusef taught us some things:

What we learned:

Indian civilization starts at least as far back as 3,000 B.C. The British discovered red bricks that date back to then. Not much is known about those people, but they had sophisticated water storage and sewage systems.
By 1500 B.C., there was a caste system, but it wasn't as harmful as the one that developed. There were four castes, and people could move between them. (Teachers/Priests = Brahmins, Warriors = Shadriyas, Merchants = Vishiyas, and Farmers/Menial Workers = Shubras.) In 1000 B.C., the castes became rigid, and those without caste became the untouchables. The Brahmins became the supreme caste because they were literate, and they made the rules and began to exploit others.
Buddism and Jainism both rose in reaction to this exploitation, and in both cases, a member of the warrior caste started this new religion.
Buddha lived in the 6th century, and in his lifetime, Buddhism didn't catch on. In fact, because Buddhism challenged the supremacy of the Brahmins (anyone can attain the state of the Buddha), Buddhists were persecuted in the 7th century and the religion spread east. By the 9th century, Buddhism was wiped out in its birthplace of India. In the 12th century, a warrior had a crisis of faith in the wake of a war and converted to Buddhism. He sent out teachers, and Buddhism was re-established in India.
Jainism developed at roughly the same time as Buddhism, in the 6th century. Jainism is an extreme religion, but thankfully what they're extreme about is non-violence.

They are vegetarian, cover their mouth and nose when they go out to prevent inhaling an insect, and won't work as farmers for fear of killing insects as they till the soil.
This led them into gold-smithing, and so Jains, as a group, are very wealthy--they control about 90% of India's jewellery trade. However, they are not allowed to store wealth, i.e. to have savings. What they do not use, they must give to charity, and so there are many hospitals and services that have been built by Jains.
They do have some disturbing practices when it comes to death, however. They revere a fire god, so bodies are not cremated. Instead, they are put on high towers for birds of carrion to eat. However, pesticide use has damaged India's vulture population, and sometimes the consumption of the body doesn't proceed quickly enough, creating a smell that is a nuisance. Thus, electric cremations are catching on.
It's very rare nowadays, but some Jains, when they decide they are old enough and have done all they want to in life, will take a vow to refuse food and thus slowly starve to death. While still living, they are treated as gods. Suicide is illegal in India, and the government has asked Jains not to do this.

Sikhism is a young religion, and they've had a pretty robust start already.

Because the religion requires men to carry a dagger or knife, they've made useful warriors in a variety of situations.
A Moghul emperor killed a Sikh guru, so the Sikhs resisted the Moghuls.
In the 1970s and -80s, they were agitating for a separate Sikh homeland, but given that Punjab is the breadbasket of India, India wasn't willing to let them secede. When Indira Ghandi ordered police into the Sikh's (most holy) Golden Temple--and please note the police in India are forbidden to go into any temple--in order to confiscate the Sikh's weapons, a Sikh assassinated her.
Nowadays, Sikhism has been mainstreamed and India's government is having fewer problems with them.

The government is working hard to alleviate the oppression of the formerly-known-as-untouchables people. First, it's illegal to call someone an untouchable, and second, half of all jobs are reserved for the lowest castes. Also, education and medical help is free everyone, but books, school uniforms, and medicines are not--except for the poorest people.
In India, there are men who walk around with monkeys on leashes, and there are snake charmers, and there are people who sell peacock feather fans. However, Yusef advised us to not give any of them money because all of those practices involve animal cruelty. The monkeys are subdued with beatings, the charmers pull out the cobras' fangs and venom glands despite the snakes needing their venom to help digest food, and people poison the peacocks to get their feathers.
8 of India's 10 prime ministers have come from Agra (the city we drove to on this day.)

We got to the Taj Mahal well before sunset and stayed long enough to see the sun go down. The entrance gate takes you into a garden, and then you turn right in order to pass through another gateway into the Taj Mahal's main garden. That gateway of course features the famous view of the Taj above its own reflection in the pool. No matter how stridently the tour guides instruct their groups to move to the side, everyone jars to a halt at that point, squeals incoherently, and then starts snapping a zillion pictures. It took our group about 10 (very excited) minutes to finally get to the meeting point Yusef specified.

The Taj's dome actually rests on a second dome, which is unusual but effective for bearing the weight of the upper structure. At the top of the upper dome is a carving of an inverted lotus blossom, and the gold spire above this represents a pot of ambrosia. The entire building is symmetric when viewed from the four directions. There is a mosque to the Taj's right, and an identical building to its left (which was used as a guesthouse because it faced the wrong direction to be a mosque too.) The fountains all spritz water to the same height, which was quite tricky to manage given the technology of the time.

The inner tomb is decorated with inlays of 27 different types of semi-precious stones in the shape of flowers and vines. The orange stone is carnelian, which is translucent, so Yusef pressed a flashlight up to it and showed us how the orange flowers could be made to light up like neon in the dark.

It is not true that the emperor cut off the architect's hands when the Taj Mahal was finished; he didn't want any negative associations with his wife's tomb. Instead, everyone was paid fairly according to their contribution, and the emperor even bought the land the Taj sits on from a sub-king in Jaipur despite the fact the emperor could have annexed it. He even gave that sub-king twice as much land in Agra to make up for the land the Taj sits on.

The building rests on a foundation of wells filled with bamboo and gravel. It's estimated the building could withstand an 8.0 Richter scale earthquake. The building's four minarets lean very slightly outward from the structure so that, if an earthquake knocks them over, they will fall away from the domes.

The Taj was built as a tomb for the 5th Moghul emperor's third wife, who was adored by the people as well as her husband, and who was given real power in her lifetime despite being a woman. When she married, her name was changed to Mumtaz Mahel, which means "chosen crown of the palace". She and the emperor were married for 17 years and she died giving birth to their 14th child.

It took the emperor 22 years to build the Taj, and he originally planned to build an identical, second Taj in black marble on the opposite side of the river, then join the two Tajs with a bridge. The foundations were laid for this, and you can still see them, but before any more work was completed, the emperor's third son killed his two older brothers, plus an accomplice younger brother, and then imprisoned his father and seized the empire.

The emperor spent his remaining 8 years of life in Agra Fort, where he was able to see Taj but not visit it. He was imprisoned with his remaining wives and concubines, but it's said he never touched another woman after Mumtaz Mahel passed away. After his death, he was entombed beside his wife, and the placement of his body is the only asymmetry that exists in the Taj Mahal.

The gardens of the Taj are large and serene, and when you get up to the building itself, you can take your shoes off (or put on little booties over them) and walk up to and into the Taj Mahal. It's a zoo in there; approximately 45,000 people visit the Taj every day.

After viewing the Taj, JJ took a quick look through the guest-house building on the Taj's left, and then she and El Husbando enjoyed the garden as the sunset changed the colour of the dome.

From The Query Goblin: "Thrice-Born" by Sara Jane Wade

2011-03-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

Sara Jane Wade has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Thrice-Born. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #12: Thrice-Born by Sara Jane Wade

A Science Junkie Trawls the Internet

2011-03-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a great article from Andrea Kuszewski in Scientific American:

You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential

It's Scientific American! The chances of it being hucksterism are very low!

If you want to skip the explanations and get to specific advice on how to increase your IQ, scroll down to the second half of the article. The basic principles Ms. (Dr?) Kuszewski outlines are:

1. Seek Novelty
2. Challenge Yourself
3. Think Creatively
4. Do Things The Hard Way
5. Network

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

I've often idly wondered if, by digging things up and putting them in our museums, we're inadvertently destroying the historical record of our planet for whoever inhabits it thousands of years from now. That is to say, what will archaeologists of the future have left to dig up after we've unearthed (and allowed to decay) everything that was down there originally?

The answer? Lost shipping containers! Anything that gets shipped can potentially be lost, and a lot of shipping containers do fall off their boats and sink. Just think what Easter-egg-like prizes are waiting for future archaeologists on the ocean floor right now--tractor engines! Microwaves! Ikea lamps! Enough Lego to build a life-sized rocket out of!

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

How does fire behave in zero gravity?

The short answer? Like this:

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

And finally, this is an insightful article about what it takes to create and foster a healthy online community.

The takeaway point for me is the assertion that when you have an invasion of trolls, or a flame war, or simply a toxic, tiresome environment in your comments section, that's not simply the nature of the internet--it's a filter failure.

And me reading this today is serendipitous timing, because I had been thinking about the commenting system on Gawker and its related sites after reading this article in Persephone Magazine.

I like the Gawker sites, and in general I think their filter system works. New users have to earn a "star" from the moderators by leaving comments that are intelligent contributions to the discussion. Until you have your star, your comments are only visible to those who click a link specifically to see the contributions of un-starred commenters.

In this way, the site filters out trolls and weak commenters, and the discussion section is usually pretty entertaining, with fewer people in it who break your brain.

The problem is the Gawker site Jezebel, which is supposed to be a sassy, feminist site for women. In addition to its strong articles, the site has a lot of awesome, eloquent commenters, but it has also accreted a subset of angry, unforgiving people who make reading the comment section so unpleasant that I've simply stopped doing it. I mean, I am a feminist, but I'm also a nice person, and I don't find it fun to see someone buried under a dogpile of vitriol for not toeing a very narrow party line. (I also don't want to dispute the treatment and risk being the person at the bottom of the dogpile. It's just the internet; it ain't worth the heart-ache.)

So how did Jezebel's filter fail? Well, based on this exchange, probably because its filter relies on a set of moderators, and a subset of them were angry, unforgiving people too. The site got the commenters it(s moderators) deserved.

Is it possible to fix the comment section for a site? Probably, but I doubt it's easy. Once a culture has been established in a place (whether that's a local pub or an internet forum), it tends to attract people who like that culture and repel those who don't. Plus, the ones who do like what they've found will self-police to maintain that status quo. We all like having a place to fit in.

Which brings me to say something I should say more often: I'm very thankful for all of you, because I really like the kind of commenters I get on this blog. You're all intelligent, funny, and very kind to one another. Thank you all, very much, for being awesome. :-)

Free-Soloing a 5.12

2011-03-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

As a former rock climber, I gotta say: WIN, kitty; epic WIN.

Image via the Failblog.

From The Query Goblin: "A Rocket to the Moon" by Lisa

2011-03-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

Lisa has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for A Rocket to the Moon. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #11: A Rocket to the Moon by Lisa

Screeches in sideways, trailing smoke

2011-03-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so you know that real life busyness I mentioned as the reason for me not blogging too regularly these past few weeks? Well, I'll now admit that the busyness was more specifically that I was in India!

El Husbando and I toured the Rajastan area for two and a half weeks, then finished it off with a few days in Mumbai. In the next few weeks, I'll probably post a trip report with a few photos here on the blog. That's mainly for the benefit of my family, but obviously I'm happy with anyone reading it.

You'll see me around the internet again soon, but I'd better sign off for now before the jet-lag makes me say anything too loopy to you all. :-)

Next Morning's Edit: Five loads of laundry for two people, y'all. Holy crap.

From The Query Goblin: "World Book" by Faraci

2011-03-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

Faraci has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for World Book. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #10: World Book by Faraci

Cross-posted from The Query Goblin: Query-Craft, Part 2

2011-02-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm dealing with some real life hustle and bustle right now, so I'm cross-posting this query-writing tutorial from The Query Goblin. I hope you enjoy it!

Last week, I suggested that when you sit down to draft a query, you want to start by answering the following questions:

- Who is the protagonist?
- What is her situation?
- What kind of world is the novel set in?

The Inciting Incident:

- What is the story's inciting incident? I.e. What sudden change convinces the protagonist she must act?
------- What does the protagonist want?
------- What are the stakes if she fails?
------- What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?
------- What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Escalation:

- What goes wrong with that plan?
- How does that increase the stakes?

- What is her next plan?

- What goes wrong with her next plan?
- How does that increase the stakes again?

- What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?

This week, I'll discuss how to craft your query from the answers to the above questions. But first, let me rant and rave and froth about brevity.

You only have about 250 words to spend in your query, so it's critical that you streamline the plot ruthlessly. Yes, your book is full of complex subtleties and lively minor characters, but you must leave all that sparkling awesomeness as a pleasant surprise for the agent/editor who requests pages. It must NOT go in the query.

Why? Because too much detail confuses the reader (badly) and it takes up too much space on the page, regardless.

Here are some tips for keeping your query simple:

- Only discuss the main plot of the novel. All subplots must be omitted.
------- Also, you may need to gloss over the subtleties of your plot, or even mildly misrepresent it, in order to make it sound logical in the query. This is painful, but it's more important for your query to be easy-to-understand than accurate.

- The only descriptions you should include are those the reader needs to know in order to understand the plot. Thus, don't mention that your protagonist is a sexy, thirty-year-old redhead, but if she's going to be forced at gunpoint to perform surgery on the villain, go ahead and describe her as a doctor.

- Keep proper nouns to a minimum. That means names and placenames.
------- Your protagonist should be referred to by name. The love interest and the villain can be named also. Everyone else should be referred to by their function within the story, not their name. For example, say "the priest" rather than "Father Ramchandra".
------- Likewise, omit placenames. However, in fantasy, science fiction, and historical novels, including a placename can help establish what type of novel you've written and what sort of world the protagonist lives in. It's a judgment call; do whatever you think makes the query easiest to understand.

Alright; now, let's get to the business of writing the query!

I've heard it suggested that the query letter should focus on the inciting incident only. This has merit, because the inciting incident is the hook that leads the reader into the story, so it may also be the hook that most efficiently grabs the agent/editor's interest.

That said, I prefer to include more detail about the book than just the inciting incident, and I do so by the method outlined below.

First Paragraph:

I start by isolating what the essential conflict in the book's inciting incident is. Then, I try to cram that conflict into the first paragraph. In a sense, I'm using the book's inciting incident as a logline to hook the reader's interest right away.

Remember that the promise of conflict is fiction's most effective lure. It's what keeps people compulsively turning the pages, and so it will also hook an agent/editor into a query.

Now, look back over your answers to these questions:

1) Who is the protagonist?
2) What is her situation?
3) What kind of world is the novel set in?
4) What is the story's inciting incident?
-------4(a) What does the protagonist want?
-------4(b) What are the stakes if she fails?
-------4(c) What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?
-------4(d) What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Answering all of this is our target for the first paragraph, and we only have a few sentences to do it in. The first sentence should answer questions (1) and (4) immediately, and should hopefully establish the conflict between 4(a) and 4(c). If it doesn't, then the second sentence should. Yes, we have to move that fast.

The next sentence should then address 4(b).

So what about (2) and (3)? If possible, they should be implied as we go along, rather than stated outright.

For example, if your first sentence starts with, "When a wizard flattens Zenestral's pub and threatens to kill her unicorn foal...", that makes it obvious what kind of world the novel is set in and what kind of person Zenestral is. (2) and (3) are now answered (in addition to (1) and (4)) and we were able to focus on the yummy conflict, not the boring background details.

4(d) we can leave for the next paragraph. If you've covered (1)-4(c), you should have a solid and intriguing first paragraph.

After the First Paragraph:

In the next paragraphs--and you can have one or several, as you see fit--you're going to focus on the escalation of the story. Recall these questions:

4(d) What's her plan?

5) What goes wrong with/complicates the first plan?
6) How does that increase the stakes?

7) What is the protagonist's next plan?

8) What goes wrong with/complicates it?
9) How does that increase the stakes again?

10) What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?

At this stage you should be thinking about the big picture, not the incremental small steps that lead the protagonist onward from the inciting incident. You should get the antagonist (human or otherwise) introduced and explain how his plans are the obstacles/complications for the protagonist.

You also want to be focusing on escalation and the promise that a huge confrontation is coming. The reader should clearly see that life is getting riskier and more difficult for the protagonist.

I find it's a good tactic, in this part of the query letter, to state what the protagonist needs (goal), then immediately mention what gets in her way (obstacle/complication), and then mention the stakes.

So, for example:

"Zenestral knows it's time to flee to yet another new town,[PLAN] but this time she has a son,[COMPLICATION] and if they leave now, the local earth spirit will curse him and doom the boy to the same unlucky life Zenestral has suffered.[STAKES]"

I keep repeating this triplet of goal/obstacle/stakes to flesh out the rest of the plot's escalation, always making sure the stakes continue to rise. As soon as the reader understands the full danger and difficulty of the book's main conflict, then the query ends without giving them any resolution or release of tension. I wrap it up in a final paragraph with the genre and word count, any credentials, and I thank the agent/editor for their consideration.

In other word, the conflict of question (10) is your cliffhanger. You end with the reader wondering what happens next, forcing them to request pages to satisfy their curiosity.

Cross-posted from The Query Goblin: Query-Craft, Part 1

2011-02-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm dealing with some real life hustle and bustle right now, so I'm cross-posting this query-writing tutorial from The Query Goblin. I hope you enjoy it!

This week, I'll concentrate on how to begin writing a query--what information you need and what story elements you should focus on.

The first thing to understand is that your job in a query letter is not to summarize a 300-word novel in 250 words--your job is to make whoever reads that query desperate to get their hands on the book itself.

So how do you do that? The same way you compel someone who is reading the first chapter of your book to compulsively plough through to The End--with the promise of conflict.

People become desperately curious to learn what happens next when they can smell a major confrontation on the horizon. This is why an escalating argument is so hard to ignore--you feel you need to find out how bad the fight is going to get and who will win.

Thus, in your query letter, you want to make the reader believe that all hell is about to break loose--and then leave them dangling, with no idea of how it ends. This should effectively make them frantic to read the book itself.

(Note that when I say "all hell is about to break loose", that can also mean a quiet, internalized hell. Introspective novels also focus on escalating conflicts, but the conflict can take place inside the protagonist's head or heart.)

So how do you convince the reader of the query that your book has a juicy, riveting confrontation lurking at the end of it?

I'm actually going to save that discussion until the Feb. 27th, 2011, blog post, but today I will explain how to identify which the story elements you'll use as building blocks to assemble that enticing query with.

One thing to note is if you've written a good book, then you have all the raw material you need to write a good query letter too. You might not know how to yet, but the content you need already exists in the form of Building Blocks 1 and 2, listed below.

Building Block 1; The Inciting Incident

The story's inciting incident is the moment when the protagonist's world changes--usually unpleasantly--and forces them to take action to improve the situation.

The inciting incident usually sets up a dilemma for the protagonist, too. If they don't act, there will be a penalty (the "stakes"), and if they do act, there will be hardships to overcome (the obstacles).

Note the inciting incident does not have to turn out to be an important part of the story. For example, the inciting incident of the Harry Potter books is when Harry gets a letter inviting him to attend wizard school. However, Harry's destiny turns out to be destroying the evil wizard Voldemort, so in hindsight, that exciting letter he got wasn't such a big deal.

Building Block 2; The Escalation: Goal, Obstacle/Complication, Stakes

Once your protagonist has been forced to act, he has to choose a plan. As soon as he tries to implement that plan, things go awry in the form of obstacles and complications. The obstacles/complications force the protagonist to come up with a new plan, and they also increase the stakes (i.e. the penalties for failure.)

For example:

Inciting incident: Luke Skywalker discovers a hologram of Princess Leia in his droid. He is so entranced by her image that he cannot ignore her plea.

Stakes: A stranger will be hurt if he does nothing, and Luke's too good-hearted to allow that.

Goal: Visit Ben Kenobi and ask if he knows who this "Obi-wan Kenobi" Leia is trying to contact is.

Obstacle/Complication: The droid goes missing.

New Stakes: Not only can Luke not help the pretty lady, but his uncle is gonna kill him for losing the new droid.

New Goal: Go find that droid.

New Obstacle/Complication: Luke finds both Ben and the droid, but learns he's more personally connected to Leia's fight than he knew. Ben says Luke's father was killed by Darth Vader, the same person Leia is fighting, and Ben wants Luke to leave the planet to help fight Vader.

New Stakes: Luke is asked to sacrifice his entire way of life for Leia and Ben's fight.

New Goal: Say no and go home. This is too big.

New Obstacle/Complication: Storm Troopers, looking for the droid, have killed Luke's family.

New Stakes: Luke's life is in danger, and he now has a potent personal desire to fight Vader.

New Goal: Go with Ben Kenobi and stop Darth Vader.

Et cetera. The thing to note here is that every time Luke tries to do something to get to his immediate goal, the situation changes to both increase the stakes and force him to form a new plan to reach a new goal.

Now, how to turn this into a query letter? That discussion I'll defer to Feb. 27th, 2011, but here is a list of things you want to think about before you begin to assemble your query:

Questions to Answer Before Drafting Your Query:

- Who is the protagonist? What is her situation, and what kind of world is the novel set in?

The Inciting Incident:

- What is the story's inciting incident? I.e. What sudden change convinces the protagonist she must act?

- For the story's inciting incident, answer the following questions:

------- What does the protagonist want?

------- What are the stakes if she fails?

------- What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?

------- What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Escalation:

- What goes wrong with that plan?
- How does that increase the stakes?

- What is her next plan?
------- At this point, you want to start thinking big. The inciting incident is small; the main plot of the book is big. Think BIG.

- What goes wrong with the next plan?
- How does that increase the stakes again?

- What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?
------- Note this should outline the book's major conflict, i.e. the event that constitutes your big climax.

On Feb. 27th, 2011, I'll explain how to begin crafting the answers to these questions into a query letter.

Attack of the Clones

2011-02-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm starting to have a problem with urban fantasy books.

No, no--not with their content--with the fact that I can't tell them apart anymore. The covers all seem to feature the same image: a svelte, beautiful Caucasian brunette is standing in the dark wearing revealing black clothing and carrying guns and/or knives.

I guess it's good marketing (or to be more precise, "positioning"), because at a single glance, I can say, "Yep. That's an urban fantasy novel."

Good luck getting me to recognize a particular series based on the cover, however. Books are not widgets, and one novel is not interchangeable with another, but the images slapped on their fronts certainly are. Once, I even bought a book that I'd already read because its cover was so generic I didn't recognize it as something I'd seen before.

It's a little like those romance novels from the 80s that always featured a flowing-locked woman in the arms of a flowing-locked, shirt-impaired man. You knew right away that was a romance novel.

(Actually, the women were shirt-impaired too, but only above the nipple-line. However, I digress.)

I guess this is what happens when a genre or sub-genre becomes extremely popular. If the customers are snapping up those books like candy, then the publishing industry might as well establish some branding, not just for single authors, but for the whole genre.

The logic is, if you put a something in a candy bar wrapper, the public will assume it is a candy bar and consider buying it whenever they're in the mood for a candy bar--even if it's a confection they've never tried before. Thus, if you put an urban fantasy book in an urban fantasy wrapper, you can be assured of a few sales to people who haven't heard of that author but who love urban fantasy.

However, this tactic flummoxes people like me, who like a leeeettle bit of urban fantasy every now and again. When I go to buy that leeeettle bit, I'm faced with a brick wall of covers that all look alike and there's no easy way to find that one series I tried a while back and sorta liked. (Especially if I don't actually remember the author or title, heh.)

The situation wasn't always like this. When C. E. Murphy started out, her urban fantasies featured some lovely, light-toned covers:

And now? Um.

Not that this isn't a beautiful cover, because it really is, but it isn't distinctive beyond being very, very obviously an urban fantasy novel.

And, of course, the authors have no say in this. Their publisher chooses the cover, and the publishers are appealing mainly to the voracious urban-fantasy-gourmands out there--not to people like me, who just want some urban fantasy tapas.

Do any of you have this issue, or am I just getting senile? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

(Well...if you think I'm senile, maybe I don't want to hear it. But at least I won't be mad at you for long! Wait--what were we talking about again?)

From The Query Goblin: "Spirits of the Unknown" by Orlando

2011-02-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

Orlando has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Spirits of the Unknown. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #9: Spirits of the Unknown by Orlando

Cats in Zero Gravity...

2011-02-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

...are much less deadly than I would have expected.

Okay, this video is interesting, but a little distressing because the kitties do get freaked out. If you're sensitive about animals, please don't watch this.

That said, it's really intriguing to see how the animals try to "always land on their feet" when the direction "down" no longer exists.

Of course, I was predicting they would become ballistic, living shurikens and eviscerate all the humans involved--probably while yodelling out those horrible gobbling noises cats make when they want you to know shit just got real.

Thankfully, these particular feline overlords were--in the name of science--very gracious about not killing everything in sight.

Link via io9.

Reading, 'Riting and Ripping 'Em Off

2011-01-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

I read a discussion of online piracy a while back that noted that merely saying to someone that DRM (digital rights management) doesn't stop piracy isn't actually a persuasive argument.

Why? Because the people trying to stop online piracy would like to know what will work. Until you've got a better suggestion than DRM, they're not going to dismantle what little protection they've got.

Then, while I was still thinking about what can be done to stop piracy, I read the following eye-popping article by Tobias Buckell:

Writing on the High Seas

His take on fighting piracy is definitely the approach most likely to maintain your sanity. He essentially says just don't worry about it.

The article is really worth reading, but here's a summary of Mr. Buckell's main points:

It isn't fair to say a pirated book is a lost sale because the people who pirate your book never intended to buy it. They were never going to be your customer, therefore you haven't lost any money.

If you made it impossible for them to steal your book, they would not choose to purchase it instead. For whatever reason, they don't believe your book is worth the money.

Yes, you're angry that someone read your book and refused to pay for it. However, when it comes to business decisions, it's better to get your emotions out of the equation and consider whether you are actually being done financial harm.

The best data on whether piracy harms authors currently implies that piracy neither hurts nor helps sales.

Thus, the people claiming their sale numbers are being gutted by piracy are wrong, and the people claiming that giving away work for free is the key to boosting one's sales are also wrong.

Book piracy plays a role similar to second-hand book sales. The author gets another reader, but no extra money. If you can stomach the existence of second-hand book stores, you should be able to stomach piracy.

The central point here is that the vast majority of people who want your book are willing buy it legally. Thus, wisdom dictates you worry about the things you can actually control.

You cannot control piracy.

You can, however, write such great books that you turn a few pirates into fans and thereby convince them they should maybe shell out for your next novel.

In other words: don't worry, be happy.

~~~~~~~

What do you think of both Mr. Buckell's article and this mindset? Of course theft is wrong--but is it worth worrying about when you're not being financially harmed?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

From The Query Goblin: "The Family Grim" by Taylor

2011-01-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

Taylor has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Family Grim. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #8: The Family Grim by Taylor

Linky-Love!

2011-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm a geek and anything with hard, cold data involved makes me squee with delight, so it'll come as no surprise I thought the following post by Deanna Knippling was brilliant:

From How to Fail, Part 3: Talent vrs. Work
by Deanna Knippling

"They told half the kids that they were really intelligent; they told the other half of the kids that they had really worked hard on the test.

...

The psychologists came to the conclusion that you should praise children for the things they can control–like hard work.

[A]s writers, can we take from that? A few things:
If you think (or have been told) you’re talented, you’re more likely to fail after your first setback.

If you think you’re talented, you’re less likely to try something challenging or new.

If you think you’re a hard worker, you’re more likely to succeed after your first setback than you are when you first start out.

If you think you’re a hard worker, you’re more likely to try something challenging or new.
People who think of themselves as hard workers succeed more, doing harder things. People who think they have some kind of magical inherent talent fail more, doing easier things."

From The Query Goblin: "Orion: The Reunion" by Kay

2011-01-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

Kay has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Orion: The Reunion. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #7: Orion: The Reunion by Kay

down teh rabbit hole

2011-01-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

omg so i hav 2 tell you what happned to me this 1 tiem. it was liek falling down the rabbit hole; craziest story evah

it was the day after halloween an i woke up real early. it was sunny an nice but real windy and i decided i would go for a morning run on teh seawall.

so i got out there and it was sooooo pretty with big whietcaps on the ocean an surf pounding up against the wall and the trees were hissing and i was having a good run,really feeling in tune with nature,u know? and liek out of nowhere,this WALL of water jumps up from bhind the seawall and pounces me an it was SO COLD. i mean it was Nov 1 and WINDY out,omg

so i come running out of teh splash zone and some random guy's walking toward me. and he's tryin not to laugh and you can tell he's bursting his spleen or something,poor guy but he doesn't laugh which was nice so i keep running because i'm COLD and what can i do?at least it will warm me up

DON"T GET BORED BCAUS THIS STORY"S GOING TO GET SO INTERESTING IN A SECONG,OK?

so i keep going and my nippls are like pencil erasers and my skin is all speedbumps, an i'm just started 2 gett dry and warmed up when it happens AGAIN.

omg i wanted to cry

but no1 saw me that time,haha so at least i won't be sued for busting another guys spleen,right? LOL. and other than being FREEZING i was having a good run so i kept going but i stayed on teh far side of the path bside the trees instead of the water.

yah so it's Nov 1? and there r autumm leaves on teh path? and i'm running trough them? an yeah,so my ankle finds this hole in teh pavement that my eyes didn't see bcaus of all the STOOPID leaves and BLAMMO.

and oh crap i'm flat on my face and now i've got this nice couple helping 2 spatula me up off teh pavement an i'm bleeding everywhere and mostly just embarrassed so i decide its time to WALK home. no more running,JUST WALK.

and it's still a preety day and i'm mostly concentrating on all my ouchies so i don't notice i'm walkign by the water side of the seawall again

an then there's a third wave. ,only this tiem i feel it grab me and i'm not kidding i feel these cold fingers on my arms

an suddenly i'm loosing my balance,and this thing in the waves-or maybe it's made of teh waves,i don't know-is pulling me into the ocean and its STRONG. and,liek,the fear shocks through me like a lightningbolt that's coldr than teh water because HELLO. HANDS. waves r not supposed to have HANDS,right

and i kind of try to scrunch down so i'mnot as tippy,u know? i'm tryin to get my balance. but it dusn't work and this thing,it pulls me off the wall. i land in teh water and its so cold my chest kind of cramps an i don't think i could have breathed evn if my head was out. an this thing is pulling me DOWN,and i think,whut. i just start kicking. i'm scratching at the water liek i can hurt it,but i can't,and i don't know what way is up nemore.

and its weird,but my fingers snag on this piece of wood floating in tere with me and i,liek,feel this BLAST of relief-like i'm saved now or something

BUT THAT"S NOT TEH CREEPY THING THE CREEPY THING IS I TOTALLY WAS!!!

liek,as soon as i touch that wood,the cold hands let me go as if i burned them. so now i'm just swirling and thinking i can't breathe down here,and then the wood starts to bob in one direction an i realize that's UP and i start kickin like crap

so i get my head up from the water,and i'm bobbing at the bottom of the seawall and i want OUT bcaus i'm thinking that thing won't stay gone long,and the wind is nuts and the trees are all roaring,and it's way to high for me to climb out-or so i THOUGHT bcaus right then i feel something TOUCH me in teh water HOH SHIT and NOW I'M CLIMBING LIKE A FREAKING MONKEY.

but i keep the stick of wood,,and i stop and stab it at the water a bit-and then i sortof think,this is stupid. if i wait much longer tehn i won't be able to climb out at all bcaus the adrenilin will wear off so i boogie up the wall and i get out.

and omg. u remember i said it was windy? and teh trees were roaring? well they're roaring WORDS. an i cant understand but they sound all evil,like YOU OWE US or something,and i think,WHUT,and 2 hell with this,yes i am going to RUN now. HOH CRAP I AM GOING TO RUN.

an it was so weird bcaus there were other people on the seawall,like,it was broad daylight,not spooky or nething. i dont know why this happened to me,halloween was the night BEFORE and its not like nature could get the dates wrong,right?

neway,i am only going to jog on the road from now on.***

***The weirdness of Rabbit Hole Day aside, some parts of this story are true.

Disappointingly, they were the bits about getting drenched, freezing my t*ts off, and then doing a face-plant.

From The Query Goblin: "The Time Weaver" by Xetheriel

2011-01-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

Xetheriel has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for The Time Weaver. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #6: The Time Weaver by Xetheriel

My Aversion is Your Boon

2011-01-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

I once heard a literary agent say that if your book doesn't offend anyone, it probably isn't moving anyone either. Today's post explores that idea.

The dating website OkCupid has a blog, OkTrends, where they analyse their data and often pull out surprising insights into human relations and human beings.

In their post The Mathematics of Beauty, they note an interesting phenomenon. When they graphed how many (heterosexual) men contacted a (heterosexual) woman as a function of that woman's perceived attractiveness, there was a big spread in the data.

That is to say, one pleasant-seeming woman who was rated as "cute" might get twice as much mail as another pleasant-seeming woman who also rated as "cute"--and why was that, if they were equally attractive?

What the data-crunchers found is that it wasn't a woman's average rating that mattered, but rather the amount by which she polarized opinion.

A classically pretty woman would have a bell-shaped attractiveness rating, with most people considering her "cute" and smaller numbers of people rating her either prettier or less-pretty than that.

However, a pretty woman with unconventional features, or atypical makeup, or facial piercings and visible tattoos, would often have an inverted bell in her attractiveness rating, with the majority of people considering her one of the extremes--either "hot" or "ugly". Her overall rating might average out to "cute", but she really evoked much stronger reactions from people than that.

The data-crunchers found that the latter sort of woman--the polarizing figures--were the ones who overwhelmingly got more interest from would-be mates. It was far better to have a few people consider you ugly than to have the majority of people consider you (merely) cute.

So how does this relate to writing? You can probably guess. Think of all the times you've read about/heard a literary agent saying, "I have to fall in love with the book to offer representation." They don't get excited if they think your novel is merely "cute"; they have to think it's "omg-hawt".

Have you ever heard of the book Lolita? How about American Psycho? Or Fight Club? I don't even read the genres these books fall into and yet I've heard of every one of them because they were polarizing novels. They horrified some people and electrified others. In dating terms, they were the woman with the dreadlocks and the tongue stud.

This implies that when it comes to writing (and maybe life) you should put your quirkiness very firmly on display. Courage is attractive, and playing it safe might not get you anywhere at all.

There is a nice corollary to this principle, too. If you ever have the misfortune to have someone blow up at you because of your writing--to get emotional and tell you the work stinks, that it's offensive, that it will nevereverEVER be published--that may be a very good sign indeed.

Because what one person hates is often what another person adores. If you're provoking emotion, then potentially you're doing something very, very right.

~~~~~~~

What do you think? When is it prudent to be safe, and when should you wave your freak flag high? Do you think books that are good-yet-weird really do better than books that are good-like-the-other-good-stuff? Can being different help you break into publishing, or will it get in the way?

Or is it, like so many things, a matter of degree? Where's the line between "fresh" and "inaccessible"? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Awww...Ooza Iddy Biddy Monstrous Killer?

2011-01-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

I lived in the arctic as a kid. Polar bears are freakin' dangerous animals.

So I never, ever, ever thought I'd find one this darned cute. Squee!

UPDATE: It's a liiiiiiiie!! Yeah, I guess this boopable sweetums was just too small to be real. This is apparently a toy someone found on Etsy. (Damned cute toy, though.)

Image via The Daily Squee

The First Week | The First Paragraph

2011-01-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

The first week of The Query Goblin site has been much more successful than I thought it would be! Thank you everyone who checked it out or mentioned it elsewhere on the internet. I do appreciate that.

Erm, please forgive me if I keep talking about it? Heh.

I've already learned something--about myself, as opposed to Great Over-Arching Wisdom™ about query letters in general--and I'd like to talk about it here.

On the new site, I'm roughly following the advice of two literary agents with regard to structuring a query: (1) Kristen Nelson, who suggests outlining the inciting incident that kick-starts your plot, and (2) Janet Reid, who says you need to get across who the protagonist is, what they want, what gets in their way, and what's going to happen if they don't achieve their goal.

Both of these tactics make sense, and a good query probably uses both. Let me explain why I like them.

Kristin Nelson's method:
When it comes to writing queries, one of the things writers tear their hair out over is the problem of packing three hundred pages' worth of plot into two hundred and fifty words.

The fact is, you shouldn't try to.

The query letter's purpose is to entice the editor or literary agent into requesting the manuscript. All the query has to do is pique their interest.

Now think about what hooks any reader into a story: It's the promise that things are about to get interesting.

Harry Potter gets a letter saying he's been accepted to wizard school! Lucy Pevensie discovers a wardrobe that leads into a snowy forest! Ilsa walks into Rick's bar in Casablanca!

In other words, it's the tension implicit in your story's inciting incident that makes your reader curious enough about how it all resolves that they're willing to plough through another three hundred pages to find out what happens.

This means the book's inciting incident is one thing that will very economically--in terms of the number of words you use--convince an agent/editor that they want to see more.

Janet Reid's method:
This method forces you to communicate the essence of what your story's main conflict is. It tells the reader who the protagonist is, what they need, what's keeping them from getting it, and why it'll be a disaster if they don't get it.

Giving all this information also provides the reader with a promise that things are going to get interesting, but it does so in a way that encapsulates a lot more of the book's plot.

You see, the main conflict of a novel may or may not include the story's inciting incident. For example, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the inciting incident is indeed Harry getting a letter saying he's been accepted to wizard school--but the main conflict is Harry trying to keep the Philosopher's Stone from being stolen by Lord Voldemort.

A query letter could equally-well concentrate on the "Ooh, cool!" idea of a young boy unexpectedly finding out he's a wizard, or on the "Oh no!" idea of a young boy unexpectedly having to defeat a very scary, very powerful enemy. Both could be gripping.

The second method tells the agent/editor more about the whole book than the first does, which might be a factor in you choosing one over the other, but even Janet Reid recently loved a query that focused exclusively and very successfully on a story's inciting incident. You can read it here.

What the two methods have in common is they provide focus. They tell you what to include in your query letter in order to, very economically, hook a reader's interest.

My method:
Oh--I said I'd learned something about myself, didn't I? Yeah, maybe I should get around to telling y'all that.

The thing I've noticed myself doing in every one of the edited queries on The Query Goblin is I try to figure out what the essential conflict in the inciting incident is, and then I try to cram it into the first paragraph.

In Query #1, the inciting incident's tension comes from the fact that Hagai just got a birthday present from the mother he thought was dead.

In Query #2, the inciting incident's tension is due to Anaiiya thinking she's human, only to fly into a supernatural killing frenzy when her family is attacked.

Query #3 is a little different in that the conflict I outline isn't the story's inciting incident, but it is what prompts the character Bane into taking steps to get what he needs. It's the inciting situation.

In Query #4, Ehlana saves someone from assassination only to wind up in political hot water over it. The tension comes from a good person being punished for a good deed.

But wait! Before we move on, I want defend myself a bit. You might have noticed in the edited version of Query #4 that I added something that is not necessarily in the book! Now why the hell would I do that?

Because it added tension. In the rewritten version, I mention Ehlana's magical gift prematurely and implied she is beginning to regret having it. In the book, that may not be true, but in the query, it makes the mention of her gift later seem less abrupt, and it also adds a layer of internal tension to the inciting incident.

More tension = a stronger promise to the reader that this book is going to get interesting.

In Query #5, the tension in the inciting incident is completely internal. Jack feels like he should be happy to be at a new school, but he isn't. That fact is expanded on in the second paragraph, but I made damn' sure it was obvious to the reader even in the first.

Which brings me to my point: What is a hook?

A hook is also a promise that things are going to get interesting. A hook is a conflict that the reader can immediately see won't resolve easily.

When it comes to queries, I work on the assumption that agents and editors read the slush pile with bloodshot eyes and a two-micron fuse. If the first paragraph of the query letter doesn't make them perk up a little, then they're going to skim it all and slap it out of the room with a form rejection. I believe you've got to break them out of their funk right away.

Thus, the first paragraph is where I put the inciting incident's conflict. It's the lure that makes the reader want to continue through rest of the query letter, which--hopefully--will make them want to read the entire book.

Now, after all those words explaining why I write this kind of opening paragraph, I think I'd better refrain from talking about what I think should go in the rest of the query letter for another time!

~~~~~~~

What do you think? Is this a good way to start a query letter, or do you think the first paragraph should be used for other things, like establishing the main character or the world of the novel?

Do you think I'm wrong about needing to "wake up" the agent/editor with a fast shot of conflict right at the beginning of the letter?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this!

The Query Goblin presents: "From the Neighborhood" by Merry Monteleone

2011-01-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Long-time blog buddy Merry Monteleone has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for From the Neighborhood. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #5: From the Neighborhood
by Merry Monteleone

Saturday Silliness

2011-01-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

I use Google Reader, and I have a folder of "silly" blogs, which I find is a nice antidote to my folder of "news" blogs.

I don't know if I'm over-tired or what, but I enjoyed the heck out of that folder tonight. Here are some of the images that made me either laugh like an idjit or squeal like Justin Beiber fan:

~~~~~~~

BATS ARE CUTE! NO ONE BELIEVES ME! HERE! I'LL PROVE IT!

Via The Daily Squee

Go here to see more pictures of the baby fruitbats. They're adorable!

~~~~~~~

THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE A PETTY-MINDED BOSS

Via The Daily Squee

~~~~~~~

YOU CANNOT SHAME ME, CORPORATE SLAVES

Via The Fail Blog

Question!

2011-01-15T12:47:00.001-08:00

Hello, all--just a quick question: Do you want me to keep cross-posting Query Goblin announcements here, or would you rather I omit them from OxyJen?

While the Query Goblin site is young, it makes sense for me to cross-post things in order to get the word out, but I also understand this practice could become annoying to those who want to manage for themselves which blogs they read.

Please let me know in the comments what you would prefer--and feel free to post anonymously if that would make you more comfortable stating what you think!

Thank you for your attention.

From The Query Goblin: "Hang the Thief" by Vivian

2011-01-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

Vivian has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Hang the Thief. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #4: Hang the Thief by Vivian

From The Query Goblin: "Redemption" by Amy

2011-01-15T00:28:00.000-08:00

Amy has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage the query for Redemption. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #3: Redemption by Amy

New on The Query Goblin: "Eyes of Stone" by Beckahrah

2011-01-12T21:45:00.001-08:00

Beckahrah has graciously allowed Goblin to massage the query for Eyes of Stone. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #2: Eyes of Stone by Beckahrah

The Query Goblin's first client!

2011-01-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Adam Heine has graciously allowed the Goblin to massage his query for Air Pirates. Please pop by and see/say what you think!

Query #1: Air Pirates by Adam Heine

Oh. My. Goodness.

2011-01-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this for the benefit of my parents, who visited Australia recently, and my cousin and his wife, who live there.

This is some utterly jaw-dropping footage of flooding in Queensland. Behold how Mother Nature empties a parking lot:

Link found via Gawker

Introducing the Query Goblin

2011-01-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

So.... I really enjoy giving critiques. I love the act of analysing what works, articulating what doesn't, and trying to come up with better solutions. I love to feel like I'm teaching--like I'm helping.

I haven't done much critiquing lately because I tend to go overboard and I worry that I'm overbearing because of that. Also, because I go overboard, I get burnt out if I critique anything longer than a few pages.

A few days ago, blog-buddy Adam Heine asked for a query letter critique on Twitter, and I took him up on it.

And oh, it was fun. It was everything you want when you give a critique: the query was already well-written, I felt I gave some useful and concrete advice on how to make it better, and Adam was very generous and complimentary in his thanks.

And now I've got the itch again, darn it.

I've been thinking for a few years I'd like to start my own critique blog, but of course there are already a lot of very good ones out there. Also, I don't want to either burn out or be overbearing, and I do want to create a site that focuses on improvements, rather than simply pointing out all the things that a person did wrong.

Well. Here's my attempt to do this:

The Query Goblin

I don't know how successful The Query Goblin blog will be, but at least it is very different from other sites, and I think I'll enjoy running it.

If you have a query you'd like to toss into the Goblin's maw to get things started--or you know somebody who does--please point them my way! And thank you very much for checking out the site.

What Works: Furs and Ice by Josh R. Vogt

2011-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today's excerpt for the "What Works" blog series is not an excerpt at all, but an entire story--specifically a piece of flash fiction written by blog-buddy Josh R. Vogt for the Clarity of Night competition.

Furs and Ice
By Josh R. Vogt

All futures hide in the clouds, Father told him. Trap the sky beneath your feet, and walk what must come.

As Omen trudges onto the frozen lake, he scratches at the wolf pelts cloaking him. Oracles always wear stinking furs.

Such is our way, Father said.

Omen hates stinking furs. He smells the rancid unguent Father drank each morning, trying to ward off the bleeding cough. Its stench tainted the old oracle's breath, his bowels, the hide walls of their hut. Now it follows like Father's ghost, come to see the son's first foretelling.

He reaches the middle of the lake and stands amidst the gray reflections of cloud and twig and crag. Omen stomps. Ice shrieks. Its polish shatters into a maze of cracks. The reflections within no longer move, trapped for his scrutiny. Trapped, just as he is. Forever an oracle, wearing the stinking furs of a babbler.

Omen's feet are numbing. Skin sticks to the ice as he steps towards shore. He hunches, looking for signs to convey.

There, branches knot in a telling of early summer. Beside this, a rounded cliff predicts many births within the tribe. A step further--

Omen stops. Stares at the next frozen vision. A bird's spread wings reveal a chance for freedom, offered to those with the strength to grasp it.

The future within the ice groans for release.

He raises his foot for another stomp. It will be a bitter swim to shore, but faster once he sheds the furs.

I love this piece as an example of what to aim for in your writing because it's so short, and yet it demonstrates so perfectly how to structure a story.

As I've mentioned before, stories are about change. They start when the protagonist's life is knocked out of balance and they end when that life is brought back into a new, different form of balance.

Also, every scene in a story should revolve around a turning point--a moment of irrevocable change, one where the characters involved cannot step back from or undo what has happened. In a flash fiction piece, you only have time for a single turning point. In fact, the turning point is the entirety of the story; everything else in the work is there to support the turning point.

The first sentence of Furs and Ice begins to establish the world that the protagonist, Omen, lives in; foretelling is a real profession, and the protagonist's father taught Omen to give himself over to his fate.

The second sentence immediately establishes a tension between this lesson and the protagonist's own beliefs. Omen trudges, which implies a lack of enthusiasm, and he thinks the furs he has to wear smell terrible. This is not a portrait of person who is happy to accept his fate.

The third sentence underscores the internal tension by fleshing out what Omen's father taught his son, while the next paragraph firmly establishes Omen's distaste for the role he is supposed to step into. The line "... [the stench] follows like Father's ghost, come to see the son's first foretelling" makes it clear Omen feels trapped by tradition and familial obligation.

In just a few sentences, the author has set up a strong and relatable tension between what Omen wants and what his father wanted for him. This tension whets our curiosity; Omen's life is out of balance, and we know something is going to break. We keep reading to find out what.

The next three paragraphs show Omen seemingly acquiescing to his fate; he does the job he's supposed to do. He reads the fortunes of the tribe, and although his internal situation is unstable, externally, he gives the impression of accepting the status quo.

But then, the foretelling shows Omen a way out, and he doesn't even hesitate. The story ends right at its lone turning point--Omen's moment of irrevocable change. He chooses to stomp on and break the ice, abandon his tribe and his fate, fling off the hated furs, and swim to a new life.

A story, to feel complete, needs to take an unbalanced situation and restore it to balance, but in such a way that the protagonist's final state is different than his initial state.

At the end of this story, Omen has restored his internal balance and is mentally in a new place. His external life is very much in chaos, but given the author highlighted the internal conflict, not any external ones, this feels like a satisfying resolution to the story.

Now let's look at the work in another way.

A story's turning points are often called reversals. The protagonist's life is either in a good or a bad state, and the turning point changes it to the opposite status.

Right before the final, largest reversal, it's common for the storyteller to try to make the audience think this is the protagonist's final state. It's often called the "black moment" because this is usually a state worthy of despair--one seemingly without hope.

And, usually, the hero makes one last, valiant effort immediately after the black moment and saves the day after all.

In Furs and Ice, when Omen is foretelling for his tribe, this is effectively his black moment. He has apparently chosen to accept his fate even though that fate makes him very unhappy. But then the reversal occurs: Omen makes one last, valiant effort and gets what he wants after all.

In Summary:

What works about this piece is that it is about change, as all stories must be. Omen wants a different life and finds a way to get it. Despite the story being very short, it nevertheless bases itself around a compelling and satisfying turning point in the protagonist's life.

The work also establishes tension, a promise that in this situation things must change, which is what keeps readers engaged in the story.

This piece has a satisfying ending because it gives the protagonist what he needed, albeit at a price. The author builds up tension, then releases it via a solution to the protagonist's problem, and this release is what creates a feeling of satisfaction in the reader.

Of Interest:

Josh is a newly-agented writer with a book out on submission to publishers--wish him luck! He also just launched a new blog called Write Strong, which features technical discussions on the subject of becoming a better writer. I encourage you all to check it out!