A Moment with Hannah Adcock

When and why did you decide to pursue writing as more than a hobby?

I always wanted to write, or at least to make stories, since I was about six. Maybe even five. I was obsessed with rewriting fairy tales, and my own versions of them were, looking back, quite grisly. For example, Goldilocks would find Baby Bear lost in the woods and then raise him…only to have him turn around and eat her once he was big enough!

My first audience (who were my nan and mum) would read these stories and be going, “Why so gory? What did she do to deserve that?” - and laughing - and I’d say, “’Cause it’s funny.”

The urge to write came to light around the same time I got the urge to make people laugh. It was only when I started to read the Roald Dahl books, and the Beatrix Potter books, and then a little later the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, that I began to get the idea you could actually do this for a living. It was like, “Hey - wait a minute. These people are adults…and they get paid to scribble down whatever they’re daydreaming about?…I want to do that!”

I wasn’t sure how. I still wrote, though. My first novel, aged seven, was a farcical story about a family of rabbits who constantly fell out and beat each other up. From then on I was known, by close relatives, as ‘Potty Beatrix’ until I abandoned that particular book. (If you can call all of fifteen pages a book.)

I didn’t try to write a proper book again until I was just finishing my GCSEs. I have to confess, whatever opportunity I had, I’d whip out my notebook and start scrawling when I should have been revising…not in ALL my lessons, of course…how the teacher never noticed I’ll never know. But the fact is, I wanted to write more than anything else, and this was because it was about the only thing I could do well, (apart from wonky comic strips which haven’t seen the light of day). It was like swimming, or flying. Brilliant.

So, I typed up the novel, which was going to be a fantasy novel for older children - dead chuffed, had it all set up in my head - and, aged sixteen, I posted it to a publisher. And I had no idea what I was doing. No idea of how the publishing side of things worked. I was flying, yes - but by the seat of my pants.

They were very nice about it. I got a long letter back giving me words of encouragement and some suggestions about what I should try first before actually spitting out a book. Still kept the letter. I have it lurking somewhere in a frightening corner of my drawers. (Chest of drawers, in case you were wondering.)

After that I left it again for another couple of years. Did my A-levels, reasonably well, but by that time I’d decided I didn’t want Higher Education. I wanted to get off the treadmill and just get on with work. I thought I’d be a pre-school teacher and went on a childcare course for all of six months, and thought, “These people are all right, but I don’t belong here. This isn’t for me.”

So, I set out to learn a bit more - finally. I did a short course in creative writing with the Open University, read An Author’s Guide To Publishing by Michael Legat (written in the days when they still used typewriters, but still interesting), got the Writers and Artists’ Yearbook, and it was like, “Oh!” (slaps forehead) “That’s how it works! You send shorter stuff to magazines!”

I’ve been doing just that (as well as poetry) for almost a year now, and I’m overjoyed to say it’s working.

Hannah Adcock is a writer of fantasy, sci-fi and poetry (often with a humorous bent)living in a strange corner of Lincolnshire, England. Her work has appeared in Poetic Diversity, Clockwise Cat and Penumbra. She posts poetry, artwork and other oddments over at inspirationandlaughs.wordpress.com.

Learn more about Hannah Adcock her Facebook author page.

Roger Rabbit at Comic-Con 2013!

Comic-Con 2013 took place this past weekend in San Diego, and included a panel on the making of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. The beloved animated movie based on the work of author Gary K. Wolf is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and the panel was led by a world class group of animators including producer Don Hahn, animation masters Andreas Deja and James Baxter, writer Tom Sito, special effects guru Dave Bossert, and a special appearance by the voice of Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleisher!

There is an audible buzz of excitement throughout the audience for the entirety of the panel, and served to be a great opportunity for fans wanting to discover the ins, outs, trials, tribulations and accomplishments of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, both during its making and afterwards.

The panel begins by paying homage to Gary K. Wolf, who of course without his novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, there would be no script for the movie. The panelists then discuss how Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was one of the first movies to be a hybrid, which combines live action with animated character. At the time (1986), digital technology hadn’t progressed to the point of being even half as fast as it is now, so the movie shines as a “hand painted” work, where every facet of the animation is pure hand creation.

Charles Fleisher, the voice of Roger (as well as Benny The Cab, Greasy, and Psycho), seems very Roger-esque to this day. He hops around on the panel—alternating between sitting, standing, and cracking jokes. He also performs his Roger Rabbit voice after an audience member requests it at the drop of a hat, and it is still flawless, twenty-five years later!

Jessica Rabbit. You knew we were headed there, right? The panelists discuss how Rita Hayworth and various supermodels were inspiration for her. In fact, the animators would have supermodels come into the studio to walk and pose in order to capture an essence of Jessica on paper. Her main animator, Russell Hall, was very quiet and shy according to the panelists, and had a very hard time with her character at first. That is to say, he couldn’t quite bring her to life until he ultimately “exaggerated certain parts of the anatomy” (panelists words!). His routine was to smoke incessantly, get up and move about rather sensually around his office, then get back to his drawing board, never breaking focus. And for this quiet, chain-smoking man who danced solo around his office, we thank you for Jessica Rabbit!

The panel concludes with questions asked by audience members (one woman dressed in impeccable Jessica garb!). The best answer comes from Charles Fleisher, who when asked “How would Roger Rabbit react with current video game characters like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, or Optimus Prime?” responds with “He would destroy them all by making them laugh, and then stealing their batteries.”

Well said.

To watch the You Tube video of the Who Framed Roger Rabbit 25th Anniversary at San Diego Comic Con please click HERE.

Remember to be on the lookout for Gary K. Wolf’s new novel in the Roger Rabbit series, Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? available for pre-order by Musa Publishing on October 22nd, and for release on November 22nd! And be sure to check back here for any Roger related news!

A Moment with J.M. Scott

When did you first become interested in writing?

I became interested in writing fiction when I was at San Francisco State University. Between classes, I had a lot of down time, so reading more than just my text books became a standard practice. I’d spend many foggy afternoons enjoying the works of authors like Peter Benchley, Michael Chrichton, and occasionally, Stephen King. I respected their creativity, but at that point in my life, never thought that I would try to write my own stories.

During my senior year, I took an advanced screenwriting course. It was very educational but extremely labor intensive. The instructor wanted a completed script by the end of the term. Needless to say, I spent countless hours penning my screenplay. When it was time to turn in the assignment, only a few students had completed the work. The sheer volume of the project had disenchanted many of my fellow writers. It was then that I thought I might have the qualifying skills to merit publication. I wrote a couple science fiction pieces and eventually sold one to an online magazine. That same summer, I was hired as an English teacher at a local high school. I was very enthusiastic about my new job, so I went back to earn a master’s degree in Education. Unfortunately, because of the demands of my fledgling career I had to place writing on hold.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to read and teach many incredible works of literature, but I always felt that there was something missing. Most English teachers appreciate and critique the written word often, but few make an attempt to publish work for other people to read. It became important to me to show my students that I could demonstrate the skills that I was teaching them, so one fateful day I started typing.

I made every mistake in the book, but after two years of believing in myself and listening closely to editors and other trained authors, I started to find some success. I finished my first novel, Tarus Falls, and was able to write several short stories that are either out for consideration, or have been published.

I enjoy the craft immensely and still get excited when I take a course or purchase a new book on writing. Optimistically, I’ll continue to learn with each word that I press onto the page, and with a little luck, build a readership that will enjoy my work for years to come.

J.M. Scott is a writer from Fremont, California. When he is not working on his next story, he enjoys an active life of scuba diving, Aikido, and amateur marksmanship.

The Creative Domino Effect

by Martin Rose

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Ace Hotel while amused film director, producer and screenwriter Stephen Soucy of Modernist Enterprises attempts to pry space between my overflow of words so he can speak. We cradle coffees in the half-lit atmosphere, overlorded by the stuffed heads of antlered mammals. We're caffeinated and entering a hazy hinterland where magic floats in on hotel lobby dust and the bowed heads of professionals tapping away at open laptops. Anything seems possible with enough caffeine.

Soucy was discussing an array of projects and the string of events that can pull a man from the ordinary work-a-day life into matters of myth and fiction. Having done his time with the corporate world, a story brought him to New York. A story brought us together for an instant at the Ace, and more stories would send us forth into places yet unimagined.

While he discusses the ins and outs of what it's like to produce the film Paperdreams, the man is on fire with future ideas – namely, Soucy's taut screenplay based on John Morgan Wilson's short story "Edward on the Edge," coming to life as a short film called Tightwire.

"You're a story teller," is what I blurt out.

Many writers I know, particularly those in the speculative fiction field, share a similar complaint; in gatherings of friends or family, their assertion that they are artists, writers, filmmakers, all meets with the same stubborn silence or general derision – as though such an occupation were only fit for reprobates or amoeba with no other options.

"Sensible" – or perhaps, "secure" – occupations are desirable, but should you be toiling in the midst of a sea of cubicles and wake up to discover you are a story teller, woe is you. (It is just such an awakening that led to the creation of "Company Man," in Penumbra's August issue.) Misled and bamboozled, you'll find a way out – and I know some have elected for homelessness rather than return to the long snooze of "comfort" and "security." No occupation, no matter how plentiful and promising, guarantees you success – unless you yourself have something genuine to offer. If you plan on bare-knuckling it through that upper tier of professional story tellers, you must pursue what resonates within you, or run out of steam before you even begin.

The moment I realize that Stephen Soucy is a natural born story teller is the moment I understand that nothing from here on in is going to the be same. A story gets inside you and must find release; something authentic and unbeholden to anything surges within and will heed nothing without the chance to be heard. Stephen Soucy is infected with the spirit of the story teller and I smile and sip my coffee because this is the future – story tellers are the future.

It takes a special kind of creature to become a story teller. In any of these artistic endeavors you study the nuts and bolts of what moves and evokes people. The mechanics of seducing an audience of one or an audience of a thousand. Many mistakenly believe that artistic endeavors must surely be easy because so many of the greatest make it appear so – but this couldn't be further from the truth. To evoke visceral response in a reader, a viewer, requires a touch as practiced as that of a heart surgeon. We cull emotion instead of blood and vessels. And like surgery, we must put you to sleep first so we may provide the fertile ground to ferment dreams – and wake you up gasping, crying, screaming.

Hardly an endeavor for the weak of heart. Not all will make it.

Artists of every stripe have long shaped the dreams and the culture of nations. Dante was exiled for it. Caravaggio was hunted for the audacity of introducing realism into his art. Dostoyevsky was sent to Siberia for years of hard labor. Salman Rushdie. Female artists who took on other guises: Charlotte Bronte as Currer Bell, Amantine Dupin as George Sand. And the list goes on, and on. Art is no joking matter when how you choose to express yourself can cost you your life, and yet, so many come to me with the same disappointment – why am I doing this anymore? Why is this so hard? What's the point? Why does no one approve?

Get used to it. No one ever approves. It's never easy.

We forget that words, notably stories, have power. A gun may only fire one bullet at a time but with the increasing velocity of communication, we can break the hearts of millions with a keystroke. This is nuclear fission on a human scale. It's easy to forget, given the barrage of words and images we must wade through on a daily basis to ferret out the meaningful, the genuine, the authentic.

While Soucy and I depart to carry on with the business of life, it is the stories that remain – ideas that grow and take shape into lives of their own. I doubt John Morgan Wilson, a winner of both Edgar Allen Poe and Lambda Literary Awards and an accomplished author, realized at the time his story would gain momentum through Soucy's efforts – a creative domino effect. I await Tightwire with anticipation; and when a writer laments their creative condition, keep in mind what magic you wield when you put pen to paper: Name yourself a storyteller, and make no apologies.

Martin Rose writes a range of fiction from the fantastic to the macabre. He holds a degree in graphic design, and resides in New Jersey. Look for his zombie detective novel, Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell, forthcoming from Skyhorse Publishing. Learn more about Martin Rose on his blog.

Sure Fire Ways to Procrastinate

by Kendra Leigh Speedling

Writers write every day, they say. It makes sense; the thing that separates writers from People Who Have Ideas is actually writing, and it's easier to keep at it when it's part of a routine. Writing every day not only helps you improve the writing itself, but means that you finish things. It's the advice that comes up in every book, blog, or interview about writing. Write every day.

I would like to extol the virtues of writing every day, but since the most I've done this week is open a Word document before launching myself away from my computer with a wail akin to that of an injured baby manatee,* that would make me a hypocrite.

The usual excuses apply—day job, other obligations, frustration with everything I'm attempting to work on at the moment—but writers work past these things, I've been told. Writers power through scenes even when they feel like they'd get a better result letting the cat walk over the keyboard.

In this particular climate, write every day starts to feel less like advice and more like a rebuke. Where's your discipline? the malicious brain imps will whisper. Don't you know that real writers write every day? The subsequent spiral of guilt and recriminations generally culminates in a realization that I've spent the last three hours alphabetizing my bookshelves so I don't have to acknowledge the fact that I have a manuscript I haven't touched in two weeks.** It eventually evens out again, but I could do without the 3-4 day period where I feel like I'm the laziest person in the entire universe. I used to keep a spreadsheet to enter my word count for each day, but had to stop when each 0 started feeling like a reflection of my worth as a person.

So absolutely, make time for your writing. Try to write every day, or as often as you can. Enjoy those days when it's easy; sit down to write even when it feels your plotline and your life are having a contest to see who can collapse into a gooey mess first. If you really, really can't bear to look at your manuscript on a particular day, write something else: something short, something silly, something about your world, something you don't intend to ever see print. But if you, like me, find yourself sacrificing your sanity for the sake of a word count, don't beat yourself up if a few days pass without anything resembling productivity. You've had a break, and now you can get back to writing.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you write 2000 words a day or 100, write every day, every other, on weekends, in the mornings or evenings or under the light of a full moon. What matters is that you write, and keep writing, and remember why you wanted to write things in the first place.

*I don't actually know if manatees wail, so this may be horridly inaccurate. If you have identified it as such, you clearly know far more about zoology than I do, and can feel free to imagine the animal of your choice.

**The fact that there is an entire website dedicated to the concept of cat vacuuming assures me that I'm not entirely alone in this regard.

Kendra Leigh Speedling's short story "They Shall Know Us At the End" appears in the July issue of Penumbra. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a major in English and a minor in Asian Languages and Literatures. She is a 2011 Dell Awards finalist, and will someday master the art of productivity.

A Moment with Jenny Blackford

How long did it take you to get your first publication, and what were some of the obstacles you had to overcome?

That's a surprisingly complicated question! I'll have to tackle it in layers.

If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have said that my first publication was "Dave's Diary" back in 2002. It's a creepy sf short story for kids, in which aliens are stealthily taking over Dave's suburb. Dave realizes something is wrong when his hippie mother and heavily-tattooed older sister start going all Stepford Wives, but it's not long before Dave himself is taken over. I wrote it for a set of two-story paperbacks for kids that was edited by Meredith Costain and Paul Collins, who to my great joy accepted it.

So what obstacles had I faced? For a start, Meredith and Paul are by no means pushovers, even for old friends, and my story had to be at least as good as the stories submitted by real published authors. They'd kindly but firmly rejected a story I'd submitted for a previous project. But the main obstacle to the publication of this, my first published story, was that I had needed time and space to let my brain work creatively, so that I could actually write it. A lot of time and space. Basically, I needed to leave my job of twenty years.

I know that many people can work at high-pressure jobs and still manage to write two thousand words at the kitchen table before breakfast or after midnight, or a thousand words every weekend, or whatever works for them. Some even manage to sneak in a few hundred words while they're in the office. But none of those strategies ever worked for me.

I spent twenty years as a computer network specialist, at first with IBM then running my own consultancy, and during that time I didn't manage to write any creative words, though I was heavily involved with books and writing. I was a partner (with my husband Russell Blackford) in small press Ebony Books, which published lovely things including Damien Broderick's novel Transmitters; I was one of the founding members of the collective that produced Australian Science Fiction Review: Second Series; and I wrote many reviews for the New York Review of Science Fiction and the Age newspaper – but I simply couldn't produce creative words during those twenty years. I could stare at a piece of paper, or a computer screen, for hours or days, but nothing happened. My brain was set purely to produce analytic thought, not for creativity. Even when I tapered down to working two days a week, the creative juices still refused to do their bit.

I gave up my day job totally in mid-2001, and spent a lot of time gardening, walking and generally decompressing. I almost despaired that it would ever happen, but eventually the creative words started to flow, and kept on flowing. So you could say that "Dave's Diary" took twenty-one years from when I started at IBM, or one year from when I gave up computer networking, or even longer, if you count in the absence of any creative writing during my four-year Classics (Greek and Latin) degree plus two years of my long-unfinished Ph.D in comparative ancient religion.

But I had in fact been published decades before that story came out. I had almost forgotten, because I'd almost forgotten about writing poetry until I started doing it seriously again, this last few years.

Back when I was fifteen or sixteen years old, my English class in a (fairly rough) high school near Newcastle, north of Sydney (in sunny Australia) was set the task of writing poems to enter into the Hunter Valley Research Foundation Poetry Prize. Mine won, which pleased my English teacher immensely, and emboldened me to submit the poem to my favorite magazine, Dolly – which published it and sent a gratifying check. (That was before the cult of celebrity took over the world, and even a magazine aimed at teenage girls included serious content.) I had no idea at the time how unlikely this publication was, so fear of rejection wasn't an issue!

So what were the obstacles to that publication? (Deep breath.) It was really, truly, seriously difficult, to be a poet in a rough high school in a working class town. It wasn't easy being anything much, at my school, unless you were one of the rough kids, and, preferably, a surfer. My life was rejection, scorn and mockery from everyone except a handful of like-minded close friends. In retrospect, though, it's hard to know whether the others mocked and scorned me any more for being a poet as well as a "brain", or whether being conspicuously clever was a sufficient crime – so maybe it wasn't as big an obstacle as it may have seemed at the time.

But even that long-ago glossy-magazine publication wasn't my first. There's one more layer in this onion. Back when I was a tween, I spent a lot of my spare time sending poetry and (very bad) artwork in to the kids' page of the Sunday newspaper. Most of the time I got cards denoting points; when the points mounted up, they could be exchanged for cash. At least once, though, one of my poems was actually published.

While I was looking for something completely different last year, I found a newspaper clipping of what I'm fairly sure was my first paid publication, a poem, "Viking", which even notes my age as twelve, and shows that I was paid $1.50 for it. (Once more, the major obstacle was increased opprobrium at school.)

My immensely helpful husband read the newspaper clipping with delight, when I showed it to him. I'd thought it embarrassing juvenilia, but he told me that the new-found poem was perfectly all right, and that I should send it to the School Magazine – our equivalent of the US Cricket. I did, with a note about its rediscovery – and it's going to be reprinted in the August issue of that marvelous institution of a literary magazine for kids.

Viking
Slender, clad in white,
with her golden plaits
over her shoulders, and
wearing a torque
of twisted silver,
she looks at the stars
and thinks of a Viking
in his longship,
tall and strong,
the light of sunrise
glinting on his helmet
and his sword.

– Jenny Blackford

Jenny Blackford's stories and poems have appeared in places as diverse as Random House's 30 Australian Ghost Stories for Children and The Pedestal Magazine. Pamela Sargent described Jenny's historical novella set in classical Athens and Delphi, The Priestess and the Slave, as "elegant." Jenny's current major project is writing the violent, sexy life of Bronze Age princess Medea.

Learn more about Jenny Blackford on her website and blog.

Speculative Poetry and the Writings of Jennifer Clement

by Wilda Morris

Speculative poetry is a fairly broad category. There is no universally accepted definition, even among journals for which it is a specialty. Alan Deniro has even argued that “All poetry is speculative in this sense: there is a chasm after every line break, and a deep unknowing of the next line until it is reached.” This statement would not provide a very helpful guideline for an editor selecting poems for a journal or anthology of speculative poetry.

It is generally more helpful to think of speculative literature as creating a world which differs in some ways from the world as we “know” it, from the perspective of Western rational realism. Magical realism, fantasy, science fiction, myth, folklore, fairy tales, and surrealism, the mainstays of speculative poetry, create their own worlds.

A few important prizes are offered for speculative poetry, evidence that the genre is being taken seriously by at least some critics. In 1978, the Science Fiction Poetry Association initiated the Rhysling Award. Each year the association picks one long and one short speculative poem from among poems nominated by members of the association. The nominated poems are published in an anthology. More recently, the Association announced the creation of the Elgin Award for a chapbook of speculative poetry. The Rannu Fund, founded in 2008, offers one prize in speculative fiction and one in speculative poetry.

Jennifer Clement, co-founder and director of The San Miguel Poetry Week in Mexico first got me interested in trying my hand at speculative poetry. In a writing workshop, she challenged participants to try writing something surreal. She suggested that we find some way to persuade the reader to suspend disbelief. My poem began with the assumption that someone had dropped something into my cola.

Clement is an accomplished (and award-winning) writer of speculative fiction and poetry. You can read more about her on her website.

Clement’s work makes use of magical realism, surrealism, myth, science, science fiction, psychological suspense, history—and peculiar people and incidents about which she reads. In both her fiction and her poetry she makes use of all the senses. Taste and smell often play an important role. Her fiction and poetry are rife with myth and metaphor.

Clement’s broad-ranging interest show up in her work—anthropology, science, strange and unusual stories. Her poem series, “The Lady of the Broom” (for which Jan Gilbert composed “Eleven Song Setting”) is based on a character mentioned briefly in James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. Another set of poems is composed of “Seven Letters Written by Marie Curie to Pierre Curie After His Death.” The astronomer Caroline Herschel shows up in her poetry, as does Einstein. It is often said that science fiction that depicts a coming era actually says more about the present than the future. These poems depicting the past are also speculative, saying as much or more about the present (and the poet’s interests and thoughts) as about the past. They are, in a sense, science fiction projected backward instead of forward in time.

I am intrigued by her poems “The Ocean House” and “The Night House,” both of which are in the “New Poems” section of her New and Selected Poems (Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2008), pp. 21-23). In these poems, Clement imagines new worlds. In “The Night House,” she says, “there is no shelf for my shadow.” Here is a line on which I could muse for quite a long time!

The Ocean House
He built a house for me on the ocean floor
and planted a pine tree and azaleas.
He even built a chimney in the water –
a chimney I can swim up and down inside.
When I live in our ocean house,
I am not interested in rivers
and streams or even drinking water.

On the ocean floor,
when he says kneel, I obey.
The sun is obedient to the shadow.
The clouds are obedient to the wind.
My breath is obedient to my heart.
So when he asks
I kneel down on the sand
and rest my head against his knees.

In our ocean house the bricks sink
and the wooden beams float away.
Our clothes (and this is the truth)
are devoured by sharks
and a barracuda has eaten all his hats.
But he does not mind.
and I do not mind
because, underwater,
we move so, so slowly
one dance can last for days.

~ Jennifer Clement

These two poems of Clement’s inspired me to invent a new world, a shadow world. Here is my poem:

Our Shadow House
after Jennifer Clement

Before entering,
we slide out of skin
and skeleton.

Even sun
cannot create silhouettes
of our abandoned bodies.

We eat the shadows
of apples and pears, sip
water from our phantom well.

When moon glows above,
you wrap an illusory arm
around me,

run fingers
along the penumbra
of my vertebrae.

The shadows of my toes curl.

~ Wilda

Speculative writing frees the poet to use his or her imagination. Although these poems are not “realistic,” they have their own logic. The reader can just enjoy these strange worlds or, with careful attention, may siphon truths hiding under the details and speculate about possible meanings. And maybe reading these poems will inspire you to write a poem in which you invent a new world.

Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair for Poets & Patrons of Chicago, and a past president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, is widely published in print and on the Internet. Her book, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant, was published by RWG Press. Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge provides a poetry contest for other poets each month. In addition to poetry, she writes an occasional nature blog (“Walking with Nature”) for the Bolingbrook Patch, an on-line newspaper.

Write What You Love

by Shannon Fay

The one piece of advice I would give new writers is to not just to write what you know but to write what you love. Maybe you love astronomy and have a head full of constellations, or you have a gift for languages, or you’re an expert in some field or hobby. These things that interest you, that take up your idle time, use these things in your stories. Your knowledge on the subject will give your story more credibility and your passion will give it life.

And the things you love don’t always have to be so specific. Maybe you love unconventional narratives and finding new ways to tell a story. Maybe you love rousing adventures that make the reader forget their troubles here on the ground. Or maybe you think often about how men and women relate to one another, or how parents and children relate to each other, or how people in general relate to each other. Figure out what interests you and cultivate it.

There have been times when I’ve grown stuck while writing, working myself deeper and deeper into a rut the like a wheel spinning in the mud. The most frustrating thing was that there was nothing technically wrong with the stories I was working on: the plotting was sound, the words at the very least in the right order, but there was something missing. I didn’t care. And why didn’t I care? Because I just didn’t care. There was nothing I loved in the story. Usually this happens because I’m so focused on writing something technically good that I stop writing about things I care about. Instead of following my passions I end up following trends, tapping into the popular consciousness rather than my own. And that’s when I get stuck.

There are stories only you can write. They might end up being very weird and/or personal stories, and they’ll probably be rejected a lot. But that just means that when they do connect with someone, the connection is all the stronger.

Write what you love sounds like obvious advice, and it is. In fact, new writers usually have a better handle on it than writers further along the path (in which case maybe this post should be about advice I’d give to ‘old writers’ instead of advice I’d give to new writers, not that I feel overly qualified giving advice to anyone). But it’s something that’s easy to lose sight of. So, even after you’ve written thousands upon ten thousands of words, remember what you love.

Shannon Fay is a freelance writer/assistant bookstore manager living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has recently won the James White Award and has had several short stories published in a variety of genres.

Learn more about Shannon Fay on her website.

Bolts of Lightning

by Chris Pavesic

Speculative fiction has been a favorite genre of mine for years. I like the ideas in the fiction; I like the short story length. It gives a writer a chance to work on his/her craft; in essence, it gives a writer a chance to be a wordsmith.

Writing comes down to creating connections—making that momentary bridge between the writer and the readers—and those connections are made through words. In its basic sense, writing is a means of transmitting the thoughts and images that reside in a writer’s brain to a reader in the most effective and accurate fashion. In a letter to George Bainton in 1888, one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, described the desire for this accuracy in the following way: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

This is what I look for in speculative fiction—words or phrases that can make that connection between the reader and the writer with the force of a bolt of lightning. This is what I search for as a reader and this is what I strive for as a writer—the amount of impact that will make a story memorable.

Recently I had that “lightning bolt” reaction when reading Ken Liu’s speculative fiction story, “The Paper Menagerie.” A friend of mine had a similar reaction when reading Brian Grigg’s “Wendell, Custodian of the Galaxy,” published in the March, 2013 issue of Penumbra (a story that I really enjoyed as well!). What causes that “lightning bolt” reaction with a reader? I know when it happens to me as a reader, but it is something I continue to work on each time I put a metaphoric pen to paper.

Many of my short stories start out a great deal longer than their finished versions. I pare them down, looking for those essential words or phrases that will connote as much meaning to a reader as an entire paragraph. This is not an easy task; changing one paragraph can alter the entire meaning of the story. This is where multiple drafts come in, and why I am grateful for the technology we have today. I can save one version of a story, make changes, and go back to the first version if I prefer it with a mere click of a mouse button. (I almost cannot imagine writing and revising with pen and paper the way that Twain did!)

If all this goes well, I will create a connection to my readers with my words. They will interiorize the thoughts and images from my writing. They will see the characters, experience the emotions, and wander in the storyscape I create. We will have that momentary bridge of understanding, complete with a lightning bolt or two.

Chris Pavesic lives in the Midwestern United States and loves Kona coffee, fairy tales, and all types of speculative fiction. Her story, “Going Home,” is the featured story in the June, 2013 issue of Penumbra. Between writing projects, Chris can most often be found reading, gaming, gardening, working on an endless list of DIY household projects, or hanging out with friends.

Stay in touch with Chris on her blog.

On Writing Advice

by Michael Hodges

Writing advice all tends to blend into wallpaper. And soon it becomes like that old peeling stuff in your kitchen you pretend isn’t there as you glance back down at your coffee cup. I could write about using too many “ly” adverbs, or not to use “and” too often in one sentence (Mr. McCarthy would disagree), or even suggest copies of On Writing or The Elements of Style. I could say “find your voice”…something I think is more about writing a lot and consuming stimulants than performing Jedi mind tricks. These are all fine things. But you probably know them.

Discussing one aspect of writing will almost certainly segue to others. There’s an ecosystem here, an unavoidable connection. We void these connections at our own peril.

In our daily paths, we try to make that separation. We are closer to the plump raccoon that sneaks onto our porch at night than we like to think. There are things out there—living, breathing things that share our space in this world. The raccoons, the bats, the geese, the frogs, this frenetic symphony amongst the soggy parks and brown rivers that we pass on our way to Costco or whatever the next big box store is. If we are holding coffee, perhaps we can avert our gaze once more.

We are slaves to the sun. We are forced to wake and sleep, wake and sleep in the rhythms that have brushed this planet for billions of years. But today, and maybe just today, you are free. The world is more than credit and bills and our paths amongst the strip malls.

What is real? What is important?

Writing is one of them. You know this or you wouldn’t be here. And I guess this leads me to pluck a single focal point for this piece:

Awareness.

It’s the writer’s best friend. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, in their classic song “Do You Realize” asked, Do you realize, we’re floating in space?

No shit. We’re floating in space. Once you are aware of this truism, you are already ahead of the game. The writer, at his or her desk is at that moment, floating in space. Your mind is the sun, your hands the rain, your writing software the caked plains of Northern Africa.

What is important? What moves you? Can you feel all of this about you? The violence and the love and the dying and birthing? There are few things we have control over. Writing is one of them.

So go. Create your own universes within universes. Today, you are the creator, and the characters in your stories will wake and rest to the sun of your mind.

Michael Hodges resides in Chicagoland, but often dreams of the Northern Rockies. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is represented by FinePrint literary, and hard at work on a new novel. You can find out more on his website.

Is Truth Stranger than Fiction?

by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall

It's been said often enough to become cliché: truth is stranger than fiction. But when we write about aliens and magic and strange creatures from beyond the abyss, it's sometimes easy to doubt that. Of course, fiction has to follow an internal story-logic in a way real life doesn't, but surely the real world – this boring, everyday world where we go to school and pay our bills and trudge along the same streets day in and day out – doesn't have a patch on what we can come up with in our flights of imagination.

The human imagination is a wonderful, expansive, glorious thing. I mean no insult to it at all when I say that I respectfully disagree with the notion that we can come up with things stranger than the universe already has. What is imagination, after all, but another way to look at the world around us? A way to reshape the world, to draw one thing out of focus so we can get a different, better view on something else? And that world is full of bizarre marvels.

When I'm looking for ideas for a story, one of the first things I do is look to nature. It's probably obvious that I did that for my story "Convergent Motion," which takes place among sea slugs at the bottom of the sea. (And all the weirdest bits, except the starting conceit of bodiless spirits, come straight from fact.) But a story doesn't have to be set among hydrothermal vents to draw on the strangeness of the world. Speculative fiction explores the corners of the universe, and the what-ifs that might live there. That can mean the edges of the galaxy, or your own backyard; it can mean the crushing depths of the sea, or the overlooked cracks in the sidewalk. Writers and artists are among the people who stop, and look closer, and look again. We study, and we dream, and then we transform what we've studied into what we've dreamed about.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the job of speculative fiction (or any fiction) is simply to talk about the strange bits of the world exactly as they are. That wouldn't be much speculation, for one thing, but more importantly it wouldn't be much fiction. One of the important jobs of fiction, in my opinion, is to take something outside the reader – whether it's the bottom of the sea or the thoughts in their next-door neighbor's head – and make that something seem close and comprehensible and important. Speculative fiction tries to look to farther shores and wider vistas, but the principle is the same.

Truth is stranger than fiction? All right, sure. But that's the beauty of it. Because fiction arises from truth, and opens a window onto it; that's the whole point of speculation.

Challenge Yourself

by Rie Sheridan Rose

There are plenty of answers I could give to the question “What is the most important piece of advice you can give an aspiring author and why?” Do your research. Read in your field. Write every day.

But above all of these, I would put “challenge yourself.” This is my new mantra, and it is what I would put at the top of the list.

It’s easy to say, but what does it mean?

When it comes down to it, any one with the will to do so can write a book—look at all the self-published authors on Amazon if you don’t believe me. It may not be a good book, but it can be a complete novel, just like you’ve always wanted. And, however good you are when you start out, with practice, you can get better. These things are given.

But just writing a novel or short fiction and staying in your comfort zone (writing what you know, for example) isn’t nearly as much fun as going outside that familiar world. Give yourself a stretch goal. Something that you never in your wildest dreams expected to do.

Are you a short story writer? Challenge yourself to write a novel.

Are you a novelist? Challenge yourself to write a collection of poetry.

Do you submit to the same markets over and over? Send a piece to the biggest publication or press you can think of. For example, I sent a poem to The New Yorker this year. It was rejected, but that doesn’t negate the challenge.

I’ve just set myself a new challenge. I have started Book Two in a series for the first time. This provides its own exciting roadblocks to surmount.


Exciting roadblocks?
Yes.

Any job can get dull and routine if it doesn’t include challenges. The more you stretch yourself, the stronger your “writing muscles” will become.


Challenge yourself to write something requiring research if you haven’t ever written anything but contemporary fiction.

Challenge yourself to write a science fiction story if you only write romance.

Challenge yourself to write Steampunk, or Urban Fantasy, or a Young Adult.

The broader your abilities, the more likely you are to find your niche, your audience, and your “bliss” as a writer.

Once you have found what suits you best then you can specialize, but if you don’t challenge yourself to try new things, you may miss out on the one thing that makes you happy and successful.

I invite you to join me in a challenge that I have been set. My husband—wanting to jump start my career to the next phase—has challenged me to get three hundred rejections this year. That isn’t submit three hundred pieces, that is submit as many as it takes to get that many rejections despite acceptances. So far, I am standing at about thirty rejections to ten acceptances. That’s more acceptances than I even had submittals last year, I think.

Now, it is already May, so I wouldn’t expect someone starting now to get that many rejections, but I challenge you to shoot for one hundred. If you are a new or aspiring author and start with that goal in mind, just think what you can do!

Never stop challenging yourself.

Rie Sheridan Rose has pursued the dream of being a professional writer for the last ten years. She has had five novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and several stand-alone pieces published by over a dozen small presses in that decade.

Learn more about Rie Sheridan Rose on her website and blog. Stay connected with Facebook and Twitter.

Living in the Moment

by Laura Hardgrave

I don’t care what anyone says—writing awesome, short speculative fiction stories is hard. Writing short fiction is a challenge in itself, but when you add in that lonesome planet out in the middle of nowhere, that new tech that needs thorough descriptions, or that cool fantasy race that popped into your dreams one night that’s when the real fun begins. Every word in a short story must be carefully crafted and have a purpose. If there’s no purpose for a line of dialog or that interesting description, both are best left on the chopping block. That’s tough when you’re describing things no one’s ever read about.

That’s also one of the reasons why science fiction and fantasy short stories are so fun to write (and read!). That challenge kind of calls to us and chants an eerie tune, daring us to fully flesh out new worlds, characters, plots, conflicts, emotions, and deeper, resonating meanings that shine in as little words as possible. We have to be extremely delicate when choosing what we say and how we say it. It’s all in the details. When readers are able to read a paragraph and get a true sense of where the main character is, what he/she is feeling, and where the risks of the story lie, that’s more than just great storytelling—that’s magic.

I think that’s why I tend to write my short fiction in what I call moments. We all have our own methods, of course, but I like to guide my short fiction using character snapshots that are made of emotions. One scene may be driven by my main character’s intense curiosity. I’ll allow that character to have a moment with his/her sense of curiosity, then I’ll take the emotion one step further and move the plot forward while keeping my character’s frame of mind as the driving force. If a word, description, or line of dialog doesn’t make sense for that emotional snapshot, it will generally get omitted or saved for another moment.

Once the plot’s moved forward enough to force a change in the emotional snapshot, I’ll shift gears and form a new moment in my mind. These moments usually surface as full-scale images that will also provide the details of what imagery and scenery I describe. Since speculative fiction short story descriptions need to especially be tight, I find this method also helps keep my tendency to go overboard with descriptions down (what can I say—I like the shinies).

I may want to describe how gorgeous that duo-moon sunrise looks, but my main character? Oh, no. She’s far too busy running from a herd of police droids. She may notice the way a single ray of sun reflects off her shuttle in the distance, but that’s about it. And that’ll be the line of description that gets mentioned. If I’m ever in doubt of what to say, I stare into the eyes of my character’s emotional moment and instantly find my answer. It works well. When my characters cooperate, that is. Some characters are prone to harebrained ideas more than others. Gotta keep an eye on those!

Laura Hardgrave is an MMORPG video game journalist by day and a LGBT speculative fiction author by night. She kind of frantically dives back and forth between writing short stories and novel-length fiction. She’s currently working on a series of fantasy novels with a huge host of characters and a bit of inter-dimensional travel.

Learn more about Laura on her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Here's a Secret

by Lane Robbins

I may like writing about people more than I like writing about science fiction and fantasy.

Don't get me wrong; magic is magical, science is super, and the real world is often too damn dull to be borne.

But the thing that gets me to the keyboard, the thing that takes an airy imagining into something that must be explored is a character interacting with another character.

I'm fascinated by people. Why not? We're a fascinating subject! Shakespeare says so, "What a piece of work is a man!"* Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett have their say: "And just when you'd think they [people] were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved."**

I've written a handful of books, a handful of stories, and no matter how excited I am about my SF/F premise, the very first scene I write is a people-oriented one. A story just isn't real to me until the people pop onto the page. Let me start with lovers' reunions, personal betrayals, an argument at work, strangers meeting, a bad man being kind, a good woman committing a wrong, anything and everything. Often my starting point isn't even overtly related to the SF/F elements. Tangentially, sure, but overtly? Nope. Every fantasy piece I write starts with the people doing people-type things.

Creating a character is so much more fun than creating magic; writing about people is biology and psychology and criminology and anthropology and archaeology and faith and mythology and everything delightful. Every person is a collection of puzzle pieces that ends up a different picture.

You put a dozen people in the same situation, and you get a dozen different results. Even the people who make the same choices might do so out of different motives. Any mystery reader can tell you that there are a dozen reasons or more to commit murder, good, bad, or indifferent.

People who are reluctant witnesses to a bank robbery might feel fear, rage, envy, despair, or excitement. They might fight back, faint, cry, or take advantage of the situation in some bizarre way—the clerk in the back who takes the time to burgle her co-worker's purse before she hides; the manager who starts dreaming of the raise she'll get for this if no one gets shot. Pretty much anything you can imagine, someone can conceivably do. People are amazing and awful in endless combinations. And that realization is more exciting than almost any magic trick. It's a form of magic all its own--people's ability to be surprising and affecting and just plain fascinating.

So I write SF & Fantasy—life is so much more interesting with magic after all--but primarily it's all a way to explore the amazing things people think and the amazing ways people behave.

Humans, can you believe it? Aren't we amazing?

*Hamlet. Act II, scene ii.

**Good Omens. p 26

Lane Robins was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of two scientists, and grew up as the first human member of their menagerie. As Lyn Benedict, she writes the urban fantasy Shadows Inquiries series: Sins & Shadows, Ghosts & Echoes, Gods & Monsters, and Lies & Omens.

Learn more about Lane on her website.

A Moment with Beth Cato

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

Find your tribe.

Writing is a lonely art, and one that's often discouraging. There are endless revisions, plot dead ends that you can't figure out how to fix, and rejections. Always rejections. Even if you have a supportive family, unless they are writers, they can't completely get it.

Writers understand.

See, when I started out writing, I was so afraid of being judged that I tried to muck through on my own. The result was a torrent of rejections that I couldn't quite process. I was terrified that I was a bad writer. I had to realize it wasn't about being a good writer NOW. It was about the determination to become a better writer, constantly. Every story and poem is different. I have to strive to be better every time.

To do this, I learned to make myself vulnerable. I joined a critique group. The feedback hurt, but I balanced that by providing painful feedback to others. It taught me tact, and that other people had just as many faults and foibles in their writing as I did. That actually surprised me. I had this stupid idea in my head that really good writers didn't have to revise. They wrote. It was good. The end. Instead, I discovered that people I respect immensely could write stories that were riveting yet at the same time deeply flawed. This made me feel better--normal!

Beyond the critique cycle, writers need other writers for information and support. We need to know about the wait times for markets, and which editors are awesome or awful, and which places are open for submissions. Also, we need other writers to commiserate with on those days when five rejections flood in at once, and to cheer us on when we get a long-sought acceptance.

Never underestimate the power of a group hug, even if it's typed over the internet!

Beth Cato's stories can be found in Nature, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and many other publications. She's originally from Hanford, California, but now resides in Arizona with her husband and son.

Learn more about Beth’s fiction, poetry, and tasty cookie recipes on her website.

A Moment with Lindsey Duncan

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

The one piece of advice I would give an aspiring writer is to know yourself. Books on craft and fellow writers have a lot of theories about the best way to write whether insisting it is crucial you write first thing in the morning every day, requiring an outline, decrying outlines as stifling to creativity, telling you that humor or elaborate prose or stories about garden gnomes don't sell and it doesn't get any clearer with editors. More than once, I've had a story rejected by one venue where the editor cited a specific element of the story as their reason for rejection and the next place I submitted it, their editor loved the very same element.

To decide which advice to take and which to ignore, you need to know who you are as a writer and how you work. Do you need the discipline of daily sessions? Are you a night-owl and likely to get your best work done after midnight? After years of trying to push through writer’s block, I finally realized that usually, when I block, it’s my subconscious telling me I’m coming up on a plot hole I haven’t worked through yet – so now, rather than trying to force it or giving up, I stop and consciously analyze what’s going on in the work. Part of knowing your process, though, is not taking the easy route. If you know you need breaks to recharge and incubate ideas, take breaks – but don’t let the break itself become a habit.

The same applies to the style of your writing. Do you enjoy vivid descriptions and unusual metaphors, or do you prefer to write streamlined and to the point? As long as you’re not grinding the story to a halt to immortalize a patch of moss or conversely, not giving enough information to picture a scene, it’s almost a guarantee there are readers for whom your prose is just right. Knowing which you are can help you identify problem spots in your fiction. You’ll know to scan for places to cut or hunt for long stretches of barely interrupted dialogue to fix the dreaded talking-head syndrome.

Don’t worry about fads and should-nots. I’m reminded in reading an intro for Robert Asprin’s Myth series that he was told humor didn’t sell. His series took off – long before Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels dominated the public consciousness. Conversely, with the speed of publishing, by the time you latch onto a trend, it’s likely to have passed.

You might need a detailed outline before you begin, or you might need nothing more than a name and a core concept. If you’re the latter type – a pantser, as in “by the seat of your” – go into the process knowing the final draft will probably need more revision and rewriting. I’ve discovered I don’t need any kind of outline for novels, but what I do need is near-exhaustive world and character-building. With the backdrop and cast fully fleshed out, I can write as a pantser and still create a (relatively) smooth plot in the first draft.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is invaluable in analyzing critiques or editor comments – deciding what to keep and what to change. While it’s always important to pay serious attention to amassed evidence of a problem – when every reader / editor is saying the same thing – this self-knowledge helps you decide what to do with conflicting opinions or outliers. Otherwise, you’d drive yourself mad trying to edit to everyone’s liking.

Finally, the most unique part of any writer’s work comes from the individual. I’m not saying that you have to bare your soul in print or write solely based in personal experiences – disagreeing with both these concepts is part of my identity as a writer – but rather that no one else has your precise combination of opinions, beliefs, personal style … and a hundred other things, besides. I’ve always agreed with those who flip the old “write what you know” adage on its head and say that the real goal is to “know what you write” – and the most important subject for a writer to know about is themselves.

Lindsey Duncan is a life-long writer and professional Celtic harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous speculative fiction publications. Her contemporary fantasy novel, Flow, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. She feels that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives, performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Learn more about Lindsey on her website.

One Writer's Reading

by Helen Jackson

I'm just back from Eastercon, the UK's annual National Science Fiction Convention. It reminded me that there's often no clear line between writer and reader, particularly in speculative fiction. John Scalzi's explanation for this is: "people start writing science fiction ... roughly ten seconds after they set down The Star Beast or Ender’s Game or Snow Crash because they get done with the book and think, holy crap, I want to do that."

What better way to figure out how to start doing that than by reading more books and considering what other writers do?

The second thing I rediscovered at Eastercon: speculative fiction fans are incredibly well read. As a group, we know our stuff. As a writer, I need to remember that readers come to my work familiar with the tropes, precedents and latest developments in the genre.

It's important for me keep up to date. All speculative fiction fans grew up reading the same classic writers (Le Guin and Heinlein were the two I discovered first, gateway drugs into other worlds). But, it's not enough to read the classics and stop there. Society has changed; writing styles have changed; things that were fresh and new half-way through the twentieth century may be tired old clichés now.

My top ways of adding to my "to read" bookshelf are:

* Recommendations. My friends and I swap books incessantly, and I love BookCrossing and Goodreads. I kept a list of suggestions from people I met at Eastercon, including tips from a panel discussing the top books of 2012 chaired by Chris Hill. (See Eastercon newsletter 6 for the panel's recommendations.)

* Proper old-fashioned bookshops. I advise making friends with your local independent bookseller -- I get great personalized recommendations from Mike Calder at Edinburgh's brilliant Transreal Fiction.

* Awards shortlists. Speculative fiction is particularly interesting because some awards are judged by a panel (e.g. the Clarke awards) and some are judged by readers (e.g. the Hugos). The critics and the fans often don't agree.

It's good for me to read what I'm writing -- not just the genre, but the form. My story in Penumbra's May issue is a piece of flash fiction; if I stuck to novels I'd have no grasp of what's possible in a thousand words. Fortunately, speculative flash arrives in my inbox every morning -- free! -- thanks to Daily Science Fiction. For short stories, I read magazines such as Penumbra, Interzone, F&SF and Asimov's, or I read online at Strange Horizons or Clarkesworld.

As a writer, reading is research and inspiration, occasionally a source of extreme envy (some writers are so good it hurts), and -- more than anything -- fun. When I put down a book I've loved I can't help thinking "holy crap, I want to do that."

Helen Jackson likes making stuff up and eating cake. She's lucky enough to live in Edinburgh, her favorite city. Her stories have recently been published in Interzone and Daily Science Fiction, and in the anthology Rocket Science.

Learn more about Helen on her website or find her on Goodreads.

Consider Iain

by B. Morris Allen

Penumbra asked me to write a blog post on the same day I heard that Iain Banks had only a few months to live. So, in honor of Mr. Banks, I've taken him as the seed for this post.

I've been reading Banks (mostly Iain M. Banks, but I expect both of him are leaving us) since Consider Phlebas, back in the 80s. Happily, a lot of others have too, and he prospered.

Banks is good at a lot of things, but he's an expert at space opera. It's true that Banks' Culture and Smith's Lensmen are parsecs apart, but they both deal with grand themes, vast distances, and big decisions. Both succeed by personalizing those larger than life issues, and bringing them down to a human (or alien) scale.

That's what speculative fiction is all about. Sometimes (Asimov's The Gods Themselves) it's nominally about exploring some new dimension of science. Sometimes (Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas or Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country) it's doing the same with social constructs. But even when it's just Tumithak wandering the corridors, or Durzo Blint training a new apprentice, it's all about people. How do they react to the kind of situations that only speculative fiction can put them in? What do they do, and when they do it, what kind of people do they become?

Of course, not all speculative fiction is quite so contemplative, and I originally came to science fiction and fantasy for Barsoom-type adventure, as I suspect many do. If you'd talked to me about people and character all those years ago, I would have waved it off. Sure, yes, all fiction is really about people. Blah, blah, blah. It wasn't until I read Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth that I realized SF heroes did not have to be John Carter hero types, no mean swordsman on any number of worlds. But even John Carter had Dejah Thoris to bring out a meaningful human side. But I want excitement and imagination too. Speculative fiction's strength is that it takes regular people (plus some steel-thewed heroes and beautiful geniuses), and puts them in situations that make you think.

The good thing about writing speculative fiction is that you can start from either end. In my case, I sometimes have what I think is a neat idea. For example, my novella The Speed of Winter started from the chance conjugation of an idea (what would it be like to be the last child on an arkship gone wrong?) and a line from the UN Human Development Report for Mongolia ("the speed of winter"). I took the scenario that suggested, and imagined what people would do (and what it would do to people). The answer I came up with was grim (that's artistic license at work, not innate pessimism). Just as often, though, I start with characters and see where they take me. I know a little about them when we start, and I get to know them better as we go. As authors have been saying since they first told stories, sometimes the characters surprise me. That's true even when I writing about myself (in my one semi-autobiographical story, "Spring and the Arachnodactylist").

I don't know Iain Banks, and clearly now I never will. But I know his books. He's a master of the technical, both hardware and sociocultural. But his strength is that he never neglects his characters; I know them too. They're complex and finicky, and sometimes they surprise me. Here's hoping they keep doing that in re-read after re-read for many decades to come.

B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that traveled the world, and was initially a fan of Gogol and Dickens. Then, one cool night, he saw the light of Barsoom...

B. Morris has been a biochemist, an activist, and a lawyer. He pauses from time to time on the Oregon coast to recharge, but now he's back on the move, and the books are multiplying like mad. When he can, he works on his own contributions to speculative fiction.

What’s in a Name?

by Rie Sheridan Rose

“Tyrone, Tyrone…wherefore art thou, Tyrone?”

Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Of course, in the 1560’s in England, Tyrone wouldn’t have been a very likely name any way, but suppose Shakespeare had gone with something more recognizable to his audience—like William, or Henry, or Robert. These names still wouldn’t have conveyed the sense of place and status that naming his hero “Romeo” presented.

When creating your characters, their names are going to be the easiest, most convenient way for the reader to remember them. This is your chance to give your audience a cheat code, as it were, to have an instant recognition of who that person is and their place in the story.

Therefore, it is vital that you make sure your choice conveys the information you want to make sure is given. While it may be fine to give the characters in a short story the first name that comes to mind—after all, the reader won’t be spending too much time with them—when it comes to a longer work, like a novel or series, there needs to be something about that name that will help the reader remember who it belongs to.

For example, in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo (short for Josephine) is the tomboy. Her name is mannish by her own choice. She is a writer, who wants to succeed in a world where her sex is a limitation, and she does what she can to negate it by the nickname. Meg (short for Margaret) is practical, conforming, not a risk-taker. Her name reflects the practical, sensible side of her nature. Beth (short for Elizabeth) is the dreamy, musical child with a heart two sizes too big and a desire to help those in need. Her name reflects the softness of her character. Amy is the baby, the pretty one, the snob. She wants to be a painter, so she is also artistic, and her name is the most reflective of this, sounding almost exotic compared to the other girls.

Perhaps Louisa May didn’t put this much analysis into her name choices—but I wouldn’t bet on that.

In fact, when naming the characters for my new Steampunk series debuting in July, I downright stole Jo(sephine) as the name for my heroine because she shares characteristics with Jo March. The same reasoning went into her best friend Winifred, who goes by Fred because she wants to fit into a man’s world as a scientist.

There are certain other aspects to bear in mind when choosing a name that fits your character:

1) What is their location? Country of origin? (The characters in Romeo and Juliet were Italian, despite their English playwright, and needed Italian names.)

2) What is their profession? Many last names reflect the profession of the bearer or his ancestor.

3) What is their genre? Names like Stan and Pete may not adequately reflect your fantasy setting. Perhaps Bertram or Florescue are more appropriate.

4) Are they pronounceable? If you want to name your character Eeonathor, for example, provide an alternative, like Ravenwing, that he goes by so that the reader won’t just skip over it in their head…

These are some basic things to bear in mind as you write. Remember, however, that nothing about our profession is carved in stone. If they don’t work for you, feel free to ignore them. But you might find that “A rose by any other name” doesn’t smell as sweet.

Rie Sheridan Rose has pursued the dream of being a professional writer for the last ten years. She has had five novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and several stand-alone pieces published by over a dozen small presses in that decade.

Learn more about Rie Sheridan Rose on her website and blog. Stay connected with Facebook and Twitter.

A Moment with Brian Griggs

If you could go back and redo any one thing in your life, what would it be?

Trust me: time travel is tricky. Go too far in any one direction and you could end up with a Tyrannosaur and a Terminator at a tea party. While the potential for awesomeness is great, it will more times than not end in a loss of life and/or fine china. So even though there are words of mine that I wish were unsaid, fights not picked, one-pound cheeseburgers left uneaten, I realize that we are all part of a bigger story and the best character change can only come through conflict.

Professionally, there are works and submissions that I have sent off too quickly that I wish I could do over. I have revised and revised and yet forgotten to read the thing aloud - a task that I have made years of students do - before sending it off as a finished product. Physician, heal thyself! My own impatience has been my worst nemesis as I watch those ships of opportunity set sail with me still on the shore. And yet these lessons, too, are an integral part of character growth.

In my experience I have found that there are always more opportunities; I need to keep my eyes open no matter how many times failure tempts me to tuck in my head and curl up in a ball. Opportunity will show up again, but probably wearing different clothes.

This is true except in the case of old people.

I have missed a big chunk of the story by not talking with my grandparents when I had the chance. I was always too busy with basketball or band or anything that didn't involve sitting around listening to an old person talk about their life. Now that they're gone, those are opportunities that will never show up again.

When my last grandparent died, I remember driving up to my parents' house after the funeral and hallucinating that my grandma's van was parked in its usual spot for family gatherings. The van had been at her house the last time that she was alive. Had she driven it over after her funeral? I had one more chance to listen to her, to hear about what she had learned in eight decades of life, to tell her that I love her. But the van wasn't there and neither was my chance.

So, what do I do now? Could I redo those missed opportunities with my grandparents? Much like time-traveling Tyrannosaurs, messing with the fabric of life and death itself comes with its own inherent complications. Instead, I grieve and in that grief I am shaped as a character. I grieve and then I tell stories, stories to my daughters about the grandparents who took me camping or taught me how to repair furniture or would generously cook me fifteen pancakes every summer morning despite how crazy that is. As you read about Wendell, Custodian of the Galaxy, in the March issue of Penumbra, know that he is partly inspired by stories of my lovable grandparents - and, you know, a giant intergalactic war with killer robots, but let's not get bogged down with technicalities.

At 6' 9" Brian Griggs is unofficially the world's tallest librarian (the claim was submitted to Guinness in November and is currently being processed). He has also taught English at both the junior high and high school levels.

Brian would love to chat with you about intergalactic wars with killer robots and can be reached on Twitter or on his website.