Science and the Supernatural

The last one.

All my life I've had a love/hate relationship with science.

In school I loved literature for its parables of the human soul, for its magic and mystery of myth and legend -- and excelled in math and physics.

So, regarding the supernatural, I am a skeptic who yearns to believe.

While tossing files last week I came across a newspaper clipping from 7 July, 1999 ( Nicholas D. Kristof, The National Post) discussing a disorder called sleep paralysis.

The article goes a long way toward destroying the anecdotal evidence used to support various claims of alien abductions, flying broomsticks (the primitive tech version,) demon attacks, perhaps even near-death experiences and visitations from the dead.

According to Kristof, sleep paralysis has been reported in many cultures from antiquity.

In China, the condition is described as gui ya - ghost pressure. The Japanese call it kanashibari. In the West Indies: kokma; in Newfoundland: old hag.

The symptoms remain remarkably similar, only the interpretations of the hallucinations vary.

Researchers explain these illusions (of transportation/panic /suffocation /malignant presence) occur when the body is still in REM sleep but the mind had disconnected from dream and is half-awake.

Seems logical. Ah well.

And then I think that science has merely provided an explanation for the conditions of the event. Moreover, at basis, the research remains anecdotal.

Bugger.

And while I don't really believe my dead father walked into my bedroom and spoke to me early one morning, still...

Skepticism goes both ways.

Three Homos Walked into a Bar

More S'quick art.

(I'll stop soon, I promise.)

My friend also sends me selected samples of viral internet jokes (which circle the world endlessly, I imagine) like the one about the question why -- when brain transplants become available -- will women's brains be cheaper than men's brains?

Have found myself tsk-tsking a lot lately over the abuse of homonyms like reigns and reins, altar and alter, pour and pore, pair, pear and pare.

And I've wondered if our more aural society -- cell phones, channel TV availability, audio books, iPods and stuff -- if these are responsible for what strikes me as a looser grasp of language. If our vocabulary is influenced more by what we hear than by what we see. After all, there is no audible difference between it's and its, until one translates the sound into writing.

Purists discriminate between homonyms, homophones and homographs. I'm not grammatically finicky -- in spite of my stay at Miss Bustlewhistle's Academy for Proper Young Ladies -- so I don't. I'm just irritated to see homonyms abused in general.

And the Brain Transplant question? Market economy -- women's brains are cheaper because they are used.

No Other Love

Obiit February 3, 2009.

As he was when I first met him, long years ago.

In three weeks we were engaged, married in three months.

This year I have filled out endless documents, shredded files, sent his things to charity, given away his favourite music -- Louis Armstrong, The Four Aces -- music I could not bear to keep.

And still...

The tape of time spins back and forth over those years without sequence, switched on by almost every object that I touch -- until it freezes on the quiet horror of that morning.

I beg your pardon for inflicting on you such a personal post.

This is not a good day.

We're All Gonna Die!

More s'quick art from my friend...by popular demand...

Remember the Millenium Madness?

While purging more files this weekend, I found a number of old news clippings about calendar compulsives -- the World-Enders certain that yet-another-Doomsday would arrive, all neat and tidy and ship-shape ( pardon me for that) at the last reverberating stroke of 12....12:30 in Newfoundland.

Now the Mayan date of 2012 looms out of the Cthulhuian depths of some collective psyches and their persistent desire to see the lot of us offed in flood, fire, brimstone and wormwood.

When these prophets and death-apostles run out of cultures to appropriate, I suppose they will just re-cycle the old ones. Fu Manchu will replace Machu Picchu - in a disambiguation sort of style.

Saw a git-the-wimmen-and-childrun ad on TV recently by one group or another warning us of our approaching cataclysmic END.

I wonder in my languid way if publishers who never got the memo are quietly acquiring another set of apocalypse novels to be released around that time to take advantage of the inevitable hype.

While in sort-and-shred mode, also found a list someone had forwarded from one of those newspaper fun-with-foreign phrases contests from 10 years ago.

Still good for winter blahs:

Respondez s'il vous plaid: Honk if you're Scottish.

Posh mortem: Death styles of the rich and famous.

Pro bozo publico: Support your local clown.

Visa la France: Don't leave your chateau without it.

Quip pro quo: A fast retort.

S'QUICK ART

A friend sent me this.

Under the heading: What To Do When You Are Really, Really Bored.

With directions:

1. Kill a few house flies.

2. Put them in the sun to dry for an hour or so.

3. When dry, find pencil and paper...

More examples of domestic gross-art followed.

My reaction switched back and forth between a kind of eeeuuu distaste and fits of semi-perverted fascination at the idea of musca domestica as a creative art-form-antidote to ennui.

I couldn't help imagining other possible illustrations. I just couldn't.

My friend is twisted.

I am twisted. Swat me.

My daughter just sent me a copy edit of a WIP. She caught about 25 typos all told -- articles evaded, plurals absent, punctuation (such as commas , periods and close quotes) missing. I realized that most of these occurred when cut-and-pasting. Something to watch for.

Weirdly, Volume III

Released yesterday from Wild Child Publishing.

Weirdly, Volume III, A Collection of Strange Stories.

e-book,

$5.95.

Several strange and weird events occurred during the compilation of this anthology -- but I am pleased to report that this book contains my urban fantasy short story: another Lillie St. Claire adventure, titled Ding, Dong, Dell.

Yes, the title and the frame of the story comes from the nursery rhyme which begins:

Ding, dong, dell,

Pussy's in the well,

Who put her in?...

Other Lillie St. Claire adventures with the paranormal -- Stone Child and Corpse Candles -- appeared in Weirdly I and Weirdly II: Eldritch.

A funny thing. I've always been a bit anxious about the ending of Corpse Candles -- the bad guys get creamed by a transport truck. I worried that their retribution might appear too neat, tidy and ex machina -- until I watched a recent episode of Criminal Minds ( the TV series involving a team of FBI Behaviorial Analysis investigators) where the bad guy gets creamed by a transport truck.

If the big dogs think that solution realistic, so can I!

Walk-Ons and Exits, Pursued By a Bear

A colour illustration by Clarence F. Underwood for the novel Beau Brocade by The Baroness Orczy.

I came upon a brief but interesting discussion at Fangs, Fur and Fey about tertiary characters.

Please note that, by and large, the following quotes or paraphrases a number of the points raised.

One writer neatly summarized the role of tertiary characters as (1) those who help -- or obstruct -- the protagonist, (2) those that symbolize some element of conflict or conundrum, and (3) those that provide a useful revelation about the protagonist's character/actions/motivations.

One could be finicky and mention that there is really a fourth type of character with which we populate our novels, those sometimes rendered en masse (crowds, mobs, hordes, throngs, packs, hosts, troops and such), sometimes as a singular and equally anonymous wandering walk-on -- those types whose main purpose is to provide local colour, texture, and background to a scene, lest the stage seem unrealistically empty and bare.

Even so, one writer suggested these nameless backgrounders can provide added value beyond just stage dressing, not only to trigger a reminder, an observation or a conclusion from the main character, but also to insert some necessary prop in the story line.

Double duty - always our job.

Brought to You by the Letter D

Passing Parade

Doris Lee (1905-1983)

oil on canvas.

Delight and Divination:

In spite of miles of shelving and many bookcases, in my house books tend to collect together in shifting, polyamorous piles -- on the stairs, beside the recliner, on the bed, the dining room table...

While waiting impatiently yesterday for the kettle to boil for another desperately needed infusion of caffine, I flipped open the top book from the kitchen pile to a page at random.

Eurekaeurekaeureka!

All day I had fiddled and fumed over a passage in my MS in a futile attempt to clarify my protagonist's peculiar visual acuity regarding specters and spirits.

And there it was. Da-shealladh.

Not the fore-telling second sight of future events as most translations of the Gaelic apply the phrase, but, literally, two-sighted, the double vision of one who perceives the real world and the paranormal world at the same time.

Different and Diverse:

Lynn Viehl's post (Wednesday, January 2oth) at Paperback Writer discussed the condition known as Blog Block and suggests cures for it.

I have earned a lot about writing and publishing just tooling through Lynn's witty and informative archives.

Danger and Disturbance:

It just got harder to find an agent.

In a couple of posts this week agent Rachelle Gardner discusses potential changes in agenting agreements as a result of the lower advances offered by publishers and the inevitable impact on agent's commissions and agent's aquisition of new clients.

There's Diverting and Then There's Diverticulosis:

Discovered Gordon Jerome's blog. It's...interesting.

He avers, among other things, that polite bloggers are butt-kissers and agent bloggers are assholes.

O Tempora! O Mores!

A picture I cut from a magazine years ago and so lost any attribution.

I have no idea who painted this picture or when, but I believe the artist is American who flourished sometime in the last century.

The setting and the small boat make me think New England.

Similar flat-bottomed boats were common among farmers with fields and barns on both sides of a river in my grandparent's day, though they preferred paddles rather than oars for propulsion.

I assume the artist intended a subtle pastoral depiction of the Three Graces, New World style, but I am fond of this charming picture because the young women in their dainty Edwardian dresses bear a remarkable resemblance to my three daughters.

And so might they have idled away some late summer afternoon gathering wild flowers had they lived a hundred years ago.

In this time-line, however, the one in white is a VP's strong right arm and secret weapon.The brunette in blue teaches at university and has a non-fiction book coming out later this year. The little one in the boat with flowers in her hair is a major in the CF.

Such coincidental resemblances form a familiar literary trope of the gothic type -- but it's one I cannot dismiss as merely creative imagination.

Have you ever felt that instant of shock when a face you know intimately leaps out at you from some portrait painted hundreds of years ago?

Dogged

Dog Rattling Pheasant,

George Armfield Smith (1836-1875),

oil.

A fit of sneezing seized Calvin the Corgi as he bounced down the front stairs this morning. Imagine a slinky shaped like a dog.

My dog indentification continues.

Having flushed game, I'm yipping and yapping in vain pursuit, i.e. am hock-deep in revisions, dog hair and dirty dishes.

Could have said crotch-deep - but I don't write erotica.

Moot -- because I can't. But am glad I don't.

Recently read a review of a novel which made it obvious the writer had decended into pure porn, having decided that an endless sequence of sex scenes are a perfectly adequate substitute for a plot. Made me wonder if the elastic sides of that particular box had been stretched as far as they can go and are likely to snap back on on the genre.

Revision is something like running through an endless swamp. One teeters from one tussock to another, unsure what is solid and what is not. All the time terrified that a single mis-step will dump you into quicksand and rejection will close over your staring eyes and twitching head with impersonal finality. To be truthful -- which isn't publically wise, I know -- I'm betting on the quicksand.

All the news isn't horrible. Saw last week that after snow storms swept the country, bobbies in England used their riot shield as sleds.

Old Dogs and New Tricks

By an unknown artist of the English School.

oil, circa 1840.

Over time, every occupation (and each niche within it) develops its own casual dictionary, its own vocabulary and vernacular, its peculiar set of acronym and slang.

I remember puzzling over such basic but new-to-me terms as man titty, TSTL and Mary Sue.

So when I was told recently that I maintained "good continuity" in my writing, rather than barking triumphantly like a dog who discovers a skunk under the front porch, I circled and sniffed around the phrase suspiciously before retreating to my cushion. I sat there, cuffing at my ear, wondering if I should whine or wag my tail.

Because of the perennial presence of various intent young women trotting about with clipboards during my brief career as a fifth-rate actress, I was dimly aware of the meaning of continuity in film terms. I told myself that didn't mean squat. Interpretations do not necessarily transfer from venue to venue and the plain meaning of a term is always subject to industrial nuance.

This time, however, it seems that it does. Close enough, anyway. Seems continuity is the formal term applied to the degree of internal consistency in a work. In fact, I knew its necessity, I just didn't know the name for it.

More than brown eyes turning blue, or an only child who suddenly acquires siblings , continuity means the natural what ifs/yeah, buts/hey,wait a minute -- those questions which might be raised in a reader's mind -- are pre-empted and satisfied within the parameters of the stated reality.The if this, then this makes sense.

Shit-eating grin. I have "good continuity."

Minor Key

Woman Reading,

Eastman Johnson,

c.1874.

In preparation, some writers outline their main characters in almost excessive detail -- down to their favourite colour, song and food, and whether or not they clean the tub after a bath. If nothing else, this premeditation saves one (in the middle of chapter five) from staring at the screen for forty minutes while one tries to decide on a suddenly significant/useful mannerism or minor fact.

But sometimes, one receives the impression that writers are so entranced with providing a full-frontal of their major character(s) that they neglect the minor ones.

While they seldom require equivalent depth, secondary characters should not appear as cut-out dolls or mechanical pieces. Certainly their prime use is to provide information to advance the plot, motivation for the protagonist, or revelations about the lead character, but they are most effective in these respective roles when they live.

Of course, one has to guard against over-development of minor characters, else they may disclose an alarming tendency to run away with the story.

Both Angie and Written obligingly produce links on occasion to various markets.

Jason's Clarity of Night flash fiction contest closes tonight at 11 pm.Wildly popular. Last I looked he's received 200 entries. Fascinating reading and tremendous variety. Counters winter blahs and seasonal ennui.

Doggery and Floggery

Spring Blossom,

Adolphe Castex-Degrange (1840-1918),

oil.

Yes, I know. A decidedly unseasonal picture.

But since every single morning for the past week and more the sky has dropped about two inches of dandruff over everything and did I say every single morning and left me muttering about atmospheric Head 'n Shoulders as the piles of snow get higher and higher and even when it's barely warm enough to walk the dogs I have to load myself down with forty pounds of arctic fleece and encase the canines in those affected little doggie coats with the velcro fasteners and worry if the little one lifts his leg he'll freeze to the fire hydrant up the street like the bulldog in the Batman movie and...

Thank Dog (TM Miss Snark) Jason's Clarity of Night contest is still running with new entries to read or I'd be blub-blub-blubbing my bottom lip.

Congratulations, albeit belated, to Betsy (aka Sex Scenes at Starbucks). Her novel, QUENCHER, was released about January 1 from Whiskey Creek/ Torrid. A nice interview can be found in a January 8 post on Erica Orloff's site. Sounds as if the novel contributes substantially to global warming. Which we need.

The Best Contest Around (con't)

Yup, I'm still pimping Jason Evan's Clarity of Night contest.

Even if you don't choose to enter, please go read the extravaganza of sheer talent, the exhilarating variations on a theme. You'll find entries which are chilling and thrilling, brilliant and brave, funny and sad -- in every possible style and approach.

Jason deserves a world of credit for his generous encouragement by instituting these contests.

Here is my somewhat mediocre entry (and that is not false modesty but a fair assessment.)

The Tower

All night I have stood by this narrow window and stared down at the Thames. No torch-lit barges, no revelry of lute and mandolin and song disturbed its course. The river runs dark as my damask gown, as cold as stone.

All night only moonlight troubled the waters like a sword...

A sword, not the axe. He will allow me that and no more. Such kingly courtesy...

Now dawn has stirred the ravens that strut and swoop about this fortress. I think they must feed on the silent curses of the condemned -- for they are fat and black...

A thousand days. A thousand days to dance and glitter like sunlight on a blade. A thousand days which end this May morning. I finger my necklace, the one he clasped about my neck with his own hands...

A bustle at the door. Footsteps ring slow across the floor. I turn as the Constable approaches. An uncouth man, but kind in his fashion. He jerks a bow and avoids my eyes. I notice his ruff and doublet are splatter-stained with red wine.

I clasp my hands at my waist and wait.

"Majesty," he says. He coughs and looks away.

"M'lady...Mistress Boleyn....'Tis time."

The Best Contest Around

I love this photograph.

It's the prompt for Jason Evan's The Clarity of Night Contest which opens today.

Complete and clear directions on how to enter may be found on his blog, linked above.

Even if you do not feel compelled to enter, please stop by to read the entries as they are posted each day for the duration of the contest. They will be many and varied and vital.

Did I say I love this photograph?

Images cascade: The folk rhyme: One crow, sorrow. Two crows, joy; Odin's ravens: Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory), omens, sorceries, scavengers, avatars, Thunderbirds, Tricksters, black wings, broken wings, winged gods, nervermores...

They are right you know,

Fear is like black wings,

swooping and soft,

That hover like a raven

Outside your window.

And sometimes the feathers

Flicker against the panes.

A True Confession

Central Park, New York, Winter, The Skating Pond,

Bridgeman Art Library.

I am functionally illiterate.

S'truth.

I eshew, abjure and even actively avoid those writers who hit the New York Times "best seller" lists.

Some might call this habit a form of reverse snobbery, but when everyone else is shouting whoa and damn and f**king awesome, I get stubborn.

It's my contrary streak. (Where I grew up, streak was the word used to describe an ingrained personality trait. My mother often wrung her hands over this tendency of mine. Poor Mum.)

My juvenile habit toward rebellion has not diminished over the years, it seems, and I continue to resist the automatic and monetary worship of such public gods as Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi (Whatever. I do like his blog) and Neil Gaiman.

It's not that I don't buy new novels or that I never read such writers. I remember the names. Sometimes I will pick up their books second-hand or encounter them in the family book exchange. Because allied with my obstinance is a timid and protective caution. I fear being disappointed. My private enjoyment does not always aligne with public taste (James Patterson being only one case in point.) And I dislike paying top dollar for that disappointment.

However, to make a long story even longer, I recently came across -- by my usual means -- Gaiman's Coraline.

Coraline was described in the New York Times Book Review as "one of the most frightening books ever written." Or so says the blurb on the front.

Bullshit.

I read it. It's a lovely story in the vein that children need to know that monsters can be killed. Has a certain Edward Gorey/John Bellairs flavour. I'd recommend it for my grandchildren when they are past the cuddly bunny stage.

Magic Realism

A 1994 Tom Doherty reprint of Charles de Lint's (1984/Ace Fantasy) mythic classic, Moonheart.

Cover art by David Bergen.

Though de Lint has expressed a preference for the term magic realism, there is no doubt he is one of the chief animators of what is now commonly called urban fantasy.

Since urban fantasy is often perceived as the province of vamps and weres ( somewhat humanized from their predatory roles in the horror genre), the expansive term contemporary fantasy has gained some credence.

What the genre boils down to is myth and magic in a contemporary setting. Particularly an urban setting. Previously, the country was the historic home of folk lore and legend.

In de Lint's world, magic exists but is secret and unrecognized except by those people who are attuned to the mythic or places which form a nexis with the Otherworld. The "normal" world continues oblivious.

In urban fantasy, paranormal powers and people are often recognized, real and nearly mundane, if sometimes restricted to exclusive communities. In a sense, ordinary superheroes. The secret is out and accepted to varying degrees.

An interesting progression of "what if?" in the evolution of genres and societal reaction.

Feast and Fondle Week

Some eighteenth century silver -- and no, not my dining room table.

Some years I have gone all out formal, with candelabra and chargers, brocade and linen, ruby glass and glitter - but not this one. The pack are dispersed and could not all congregate.

So we just shoved the piles of papers and laundry to one end of the table and ate at the other.

Still, I am so stuffed with bird and wine, with Belgian chocolate and exotic cheeses, that I should be on a plaque on the wall.

And, ignoring my Luddite timidity, my daughter gave me a digital camera. I fondle it, fearfully. I hope it has directions for dummies. She assured me it did, but I am dubious.

There are those, like Scott, Gabrielle, and Frank, who capture scenes of sheer magic, pictures that linger in the memory, many-worded photographs that send my imagination soaring. I do not have their skill, but it will be fun to try.

The world revolves from night to day.

Waes hael to the New Year!

How Lovely Are Thy Branches

A loving Xmas card from my 87 year old aunt.

The tree in the foreground is silver but my scanner would not comply.

This is the darkest day -- when the world hestitates in its headlong plunge into darkness, when the earth trembles on its folcrum before yearning back toward the light. A day when I understand the pagan urge for blazing bonfires and a ring of flaming torches in high places. A day of defiance against the dark. A day of hope and faith in excelsis gloria to come.

Since I am unsure if I will blog the rest of this week, I want to wish each and everyone of you dear, dear people a blessed Christmastide.

May you each experience that instant of stillness and wonder that comes with an indrawn breath just before a burst of delight and joy.

May you join revels and drink spiced wine and gorge on sugar plums. And may nothing disturb and dismay you.

God rest ye. Be merry.

Committing Minor Sacrilege.

The Night Before Christmas,

unknown illustrator,

published, M.A Donohue, 192?

When the children attained a certain age, after choir and hot chocolate and before a reading from Luke, they were regaled each Christmas Eve by corrupt and seditious parodies of A Night Before Christmas. Included were such lines as: the stockings were hung by the chimney with care/they smelled very bad and they needed the air, and laying a finger inside of his nose...

The kids loved it. It became a family tradition.

I am fond of fantasy and some SF. I hunt down the backlists of my favourites, like Moon and Modesitt, Jr. I re-read Jordan and Eddings. I trade boxes of books with my son-in-law.

A recent rotation included Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy. Having read at one time part or all of her Farseer series, I envisioned quiet evenings of pleasure cuddled under a comforter with the dogs at my feet and a drink by my side. Several evenings, because the volumes run around 700 pages each.

Ah well.

I reached page 300 and so of The Golden Fool when I committed an act of minor sacrilege and tossed the book back in the box.

Perhaps my tastes have changed. Let me make it plain that I still consider Robin Hobbs a witty and brilliant writer who builds characters which are exquisitely human.

But.

Our hero, the former royal assassin, climbed up secret stairs, he climbed down secret stairs, he conferred with people, occasionally he rode out of the castle or walked into town. Three hundred pages of suggestions of danger to come. Of slow set-up. Nothing of substance truly happened. Irresolute interpersonal conflict, yes. Action, no. Eventually, I found it tedious.

Which makes me consider if -- for some or many Fantasy and SF fans -- the lure lies, not in the plot, but in the created and detailed society, world or universe, not in the story but the setting itself. That might explain the profusion of fanlit.

Blogeist

A Visit from St. Nicholas,

wood engraving signed R. Roberts,

New York Mirror, 1841.

Carnegie Mellon University.

Is it just my imagination or is blogging on the decline?

Going through my favourite's list, I am appalled at the number of people who have deleted their blogs -- their words gone like the ghosts of Xmas past. And the many (like myself) who post less frequently.

I hope it is a seasonal thing -- holidays demand much of one's time and effort. A troubled economy and a troubled world also suck time from contemplation and creation.

And as the light dies toward the solstice and darkness pads closer to our windows, there may be more who huddle scentless by their hearths and who, like me, fear another Winter of the Wolves.

Perhaps Twitter - which reminds me of nothing so much as those old contests demanding an entry of "twenty-five words or less" -- is a significant factor. I can see its facile attraction, though I have not (as yet) succumbed. One can slide on superficiality as on ice, only suggesting depths beneath.

As a light in the darkness, Jason as announced another Clarity of Night contest in January, with his usual evocative and stunning photo prompt.

May your mind soar like the image.

Home Fires Burning - An Envirorant

A Winter Evening,

Currier & Ives,

Bridgerman Art Gallery.

The fireplace guys installed my cast iron wood stove on Friday -- which is why I wasn't here. An all-day job, including the insertion of about 40 feet of a silver anaconda/chimney liner and a slate heat pad over the original hearth.

Now, if the bitter winds of winter take down the power lines I won't have to flee my brick igloo. If need be I can cook on it.

An alternate source of heat is especially important here to prevent freezing pipes because I have those elegant, old-fashioned radiators/hot water heat in addition to the usual domestic water pipes.

It's a sweet little stove with glass doors and a catalytic function. I beam at it.

I have also, beyond the garden, a wood-burning bbq. Not propane, not charcoal. And made, incidentally, out of re-cycled concrete blocks and re-cycled racks. I have mature trees which need, on occasion, pruning or removal. The ashes go on my garden for those plants and shubs that like it.

Now for my rant.

Rigid enviromentalists are apt to exclaim about the evil of carbon emissions/ air pollution from wood burning items such as mine.

They fail to factor the carbon emissions produced should my tree cuttings and other untreated and burnable wood be put at the curb to be hauled off to landfill by a lumbering/gas burning garbage truck. Or the emissions produced to supply electricity for my electric stove and microwave should they be used in lieu of firing up the bbq.

I think the carbon credit is in my favour.

Flakes and Fakes

The Road --Winter

Currier & Ives,

Bridgeman Art Library.

I awake to find my small world under a snow globe this morning. The steady gentle fall turns the light from my Lantern Waste street lamp into a soft golden haze. Beyond is the encircling, silent dark.

Apparently, a good half of the continent is under a Storm Watch. The driving blizzard winds will come later and the speeding rumble of plows; but for now, my world is surrounded by tranquility.

Did you believe that sometime the acceptance of a manuscript depended on the toss of a coin? Think again. The Canadian Medical Association Journal reveals in a Yahoo report that "coin tosses can be rigged."

The CMAJ's annual report on quaint studies also indicate that "quarantine and cure would only delay the inevitable spread of a zombie outbreak."

(Another good reason to keep road salt by my front stoop.) And they have a mathematical model to prove it.

And last night I received a call informing me I had been selected by Ma Bell to receive a free cell phone, a hundred free minutes, etc., etc. -- if I would only provide -- for verification purposes only, you understand -- my SIN number or, failing that, my credit card number. Riiiight.

The zombies haven't gotten my brains yet. I didn't even have to toss a coin.

BAD ICE

Bad Ice,

Sandra Cormier,

romantic suspense,

Champagne Books.

I had to steal the cover shot from Chumplet's blog.

Bad Ice is another book I intended to review last fall -- during that time which remains, in a peculiar co-existant way, both near and distant.

All this week I hunted for the novel to re-read, both for my own pleasure and for this belated review, but the book seems to have disappeared. I suspect one of my daughters has walked off with it.

So my apologies for a book review from memory.

Basically, Bad Ice is a competent romantic suspense about a hockey hero, a psychotic girl friend, and a single mother. The hockey milieu is well done and realistically portrayed.

What raised the book above just an average well-crafted/ nice story/ good read for me, however, was its psychological accuracy -- a certain chilling veracity in the character portrayal of the psychopathic girl friend. Moreover, the actions and reactions of the hero and heroine to her stalker machinations are, from my own experience, entirely authentic. Normal people do not, as a rule, recognize or even understand how truly twisted other minds can become.

And Sandra/Chumplet nailed it.

She is also the author of The Space Between ( Wild Rose Press) and The Toast Bitches (Ravenous Romance.)

When I first began blogging, e-pubs were frequently viewed -- and often dismissed -- as a bottoms-up escapade in dubious taste.

Times have changed.

J.A Konrath's Dec 1 post: 2010 EBook Predictions and Booksquares Nov 30 post: Trendwatching 2010 make the shift clear.

I don't think e-books have to use the back door much longer. What do you think?

Maneki Neko: The Beckoning Cat

A maneki neko,

early Meiji period (1868-1912),

28 cm.

( with the kind permission of

Alan Scott Pape, Antique Japanese Dolls)

Other exquisite images of Beckoning Cats and graceful, intelligent text about them may be found here.

Warning: You may experience distracting moments of covetous lust.

Mr. Pape tells me that the Mingei Museum in San Diego will be staging a maneki neko exhibition next year.

~yearning, yearning~

I have been researching ghost cats for another Lillie St. Claire adventure (maybe for a short story like Stone Child and Corpse Candles, maybe for a sequal to A Malignity of Ghosts)

As you may remember, A Malignity of Ghosts is an urban fantasy featuring exorcist/paranormal investigator Lillie St. Claire.

The city fathers have reacted to a pandemic of ghostly visitations by deciding that the ensuing problems are simply a more exotic violation of municipal standards -- an extension of by-law control issues, like parking meters, barking dogs and garbage -- and hire Lillie as ghost-buster to eliminate any intrusive spirits and specters found disturbing the peace and privacy of its citizens.

Of course, Malignity becomes more complicated and dangerous than a series of fritzzz -- ghost begone episodes of the casual exorcism of ...er... merely mundane entities...

This established municipal context led me to consider the story potential of a cat lady/cat hoarder who collects cat ghosts. That idea led me to Wikipedia and bake-nekos, neko-matas, considerable folk and fake lore -- and the intriguing, contradictory legends of the Beckoning Cat.

Goodies:

My Demon is running a contest on her blog, Obfuscation of Reality. The prize is a signed copy of Faith Hunter's urban fantasy Skinwalker. If you link to the contest you gain two entries. Heh. Go here for details.

Wind and Water, Fume and Spume

The Lock,

Theodore Robinson (1852-1896)

oil on canvas.

In an effort to coax the creativity creature out of its tiny closet in a corner of my mind, I hauled up a couple of last year's files, added and exorcized, and sent them out to market like little pigs.

I hoped that the process -- the pattern of guidelines, query, synopsis and sample -- in itself would do something.

It didn't work.

All I could think of was that rejections would arrive in due course -- just in time to mark the anniversary of my husband's death and the quiet horror of that morning.

Then I began reading the archives of this blog -- and spun in a whirlpool of ideas, a mist of partial scenes, fragments of dialogue blown hither and yon, a stream of dim characters, all crying for release or capture.

And I hope I may have found, finally, an arc to link those pieces called The Minor Annals.

For an example of really good storytelling, read Scott's November 24 post, Crossing Smokey.

And for photos that send the imagination soaring, Gabriele's posts on her trip to Oban, particularly the one dated 21.11.09.

Personal Demons

The damned-near perfect cover of Stacia Kane's

mmp Personal Demons.

Am really not sure just whom to credit

because the back cover says "cover art

by Dmiti Koksharov" and the frontis page,

"Timothy Lantz(http://www.stygiandarkness.com/)"

From Juno Books, a Pocket Books imprint of Simon and Schuster.

I intended ( but I don't think I did) to review Personal Demons last Fall, back in the time of Before -- not only because Stacia and I go back a long way in blogtime (we met on the blessed Miss Snark's blog when Stacia published under the name December Quinn) and also because Personal Demons is such a delicious read.

I read it again this weekend and it's still a delicious read. I can't really improve on the blurb for a plot teaser. The following both quotes and amends the back cover:

Megan Chase promises listeners to her new radio call-in show that she'll slay "their personal demons," and they believe her. (She's an accredited psychologist after all.) But: So do the demons. Delicious twist #1.

The demons realize she will be a valuable weapon for any demon "family" that gains her allegiance, because their internecine heirarchy includes a dangerous soul-sucker called the Accuser and Megan has certain skills. Megan acquires - without wailing - a handsome demon lover from the demon mafia ( Delicious twist # 2,) and a trio of demon bodyguards: Malleus, Maleficarum - and Spud. Delicious twist # 3.

A thoroughly enjoyable urban fantasy, plot driven, with a nice dry wit and just enough situational comedy. Megan isn't exactly kick-ass but she is no wilting wimp and stands up for herself. Though he "doesn't want to be a hero", her demon lover is also engaging and unusual. And you gotta love Malleus, Maleficarum and Spud.

I am glad I didn't review the book last year after all.

Now I can also report that Demon Inside and Demon Possessed (Megan Chase books # 2 and 3) are or will be available from Juno Books.

And that Unholy Ghosts will be published by Del Rey in 2010.

And I get to name drop. Stacia Kane. I knew her back when!

November Witches

Tugboat Fred B. Dal Zell,

Antonio Jacobsen,

oil on canvas, 1892.

The November Witches is the name given to a series of violent, unpredictable gales that shriek across the Lakes in gray November to describe a seasonal shipping hazard.

Of course, the title is merely a metaphor, an anthropomorphism of sorts; but I find it an eldritch name, one suggesting an intersection with the numinous.

I don't shiver and get goose bumps - except when I'm cold.

Instead, when I encounter something such as this, I experience an instant's stillness on an indrawn breath, a listening for otherness.

Such as the time I found a frog sitting like a little green prince on the stone walk beside my fountain.

And did you know, by Etttrick water, near Selkirk in the Borderland, there exists a place called Weirdlaw Hill?

Sir Walter Scott mentions it in a poem circa 1818:

The Dreary Change

The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill,

In Ettrick's vale, is sinking sweet;

The westland wind is hush and still,

The lake lies sleeping at my feet.

Yet not the landscape to mine eye

Bears those bright hues that once it bore;

Though evening, with her richest dye,

Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore.

With listless look along the plain

I see Tweed's silver current glide,

And coldly mark the holy fane

Of Melrose rise in ruin'd pride.

The quiet lake, the balmy air,

The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,

- Are they still such as once they were,

Or is it the dreary change in me?

(Ah well, I know how he felt, but that's beside the point.)

Weirdlaw. The name sends my mind down curious channels.

And the word represents, perhaps, the essence of urban fantasy.

The Lordly Detective

An illustration by Clarence F. Underwood

for a 1907 edition of Beau Brocade

by the Baroness Orczy.

Of course, the prolific Baroness is most famous for her novel featuring the inane public fop and clever secret agent and adventurer, Sir Percy Blakeney, aka The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I'm not sure that Orczy began the tradition of the lordly detective; but certainly, Allingham's Albert Campion and Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey follow it in fine and socially nuanced style.

These idle connections made me wonder if there are current mystery novels out there with a modern aristrocrat or prince of the blood with a clandestine interest in solving murders and such.

Prince Charles's public personna would make a fine foil for this kind of furtive hobby, don't you think? (Of course, by mentioning him at all - considering certain public attitudes -- I risk derailing any discussion into comments about his character, Diana, etc.!)

However, there are enough other lords and ladies out there not so closely contained by the paparazzi to give credence to the basic plot. Unfortunately, class-levelling has removed much of the deliciously voyeuristic charm of this sort of novel and made the writer's job much more difficult because they can't as easily depend on the reader's perception of attitudes and motivations based on class structure. Pity.

I want to thank Vesper (http://chickwithaquill.blogspot.com/) for her encouragement to get back at it.

While my wellspring of creativity is still dry, I did haul up a short story from my files and managed to edit and expand the story to a length that might make it acceptable to some unsuspecting and uncritical publisher.

As you must know, one of my writing faults is brevity. I am too curt with my characters and too terse with my inferences.

Landscaping

Pontoise,

Emilio SanchePerrier ( 1855-1907),

oil on panel.

Some comments on Monday's post, by Moonmouse, Sandra, and Written, in particular, made me think on how I view November.

It seems that after the garden furniture is stored away (aka heaved in a tottering, avalanch-prone heap in the garage), after the leaves - with joyful help from the dogs - are raked and either composted or bagged, the roses mulched, the peonies and such cut back, and the fountain is drained and secured from ice, that I withdraw from boundaries of my property.

I release my mental pickets from their vigil and position them instead as sentries within the walls of my old house. My mind retreats to a fortified redoubt to await attack from the armies of winter.

A curious thing -- this contraction of awareness -- to give up seisin for a season.

And it led me to consider, in my convoluted fashion, the ways which writers approach landcapes. Much like painters, perhaps. Some surreal, some impressionist, some precisely realistic. Most novels, I think, benefit if the writer can imply some symbolism in their landscapes. At least, to attach an understated metaphor to their descriptions of mundane streets and houses, fields and forests, cities and countries.

One of the most memorable stories I've read using this painterly method is an old post-war mystery by Marjorie Allingham called Tiger in the Smoke. A murderer loose. A London fog. A miasma of confusion among twisted streets.

"The sky was yellow as a duster and the rest was granular black, over printed in grey and lightenedby occasional slivers of bright fish colour as a policeman turned in his wet cape... Already the traffic was at an inevitable crawl. By dusk it would be stationary. To the west the Park dripped wretchedly and to the north the great railway terminus slammed and banged and exploded hollowly about its affairs. Between lay winding miles of butter-coloured stucco in every conceivable state of repair.

The fog had crept into the taxi where it crouched panting in a traffic jam. It oozed in ungenially, to smear sooty fingers over the two elegant young people who sat inside."

Light and Shadows

Morning Light,

William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941),

oil on canvas.

Sometime around the ides of August the light changes. From sharp, delineating clarity it softens to golden during the long, lazy afternoons. The first warning of the inexorable turn toward the last light of the sun's year. An ancient writer of romances named Essie Summers described it best. "The light is tender in August."

While sorting through my accumulated g-mails, I came across a sad message from a friend of Erik Ivan James. You may remember Erik -- both for his explicit sex scenes and for his unfailing encouragement and appreciation of other's writings. He died in September.

Another e-mail, in July from http://www.invesp.com/blog-rank/Romance_Novels informed me, to my complete, blinking astonishment, that this blog ranked - at the time and, I assume, temporarily - 9th among romance blogs. One of Miss Snark's expressive acronyms is appropriate, but I was flattered, nevertheless.

Wild Child Publishing requested another short story for Weirdly 3, but I have no information on a pub date.

I am still surrounded by the decisions and detritis of death. Still, even after all these months. But I hope to resume my daily round of your blogs soon.