Five Minutes with Cat Hellisen

Many of you will know Cat Hellisen as the author of the fantasy novel When the Sea is Rising Red. If you haven't read that book yet, then shame on you. Add it to your TBR pile NOW. But she's also got a story in the Something Wicked anthology volume #2, and is here today to trade a little banter about her craft. Welcome, Cat!

Tell us a little about your short story for Something Wicked volume 2.

Jack of Spades, Reversed is a weird little thing that happened. I was
originally writing a novel that was Edward Lear meets Lovecraft, but naturally it became its own monster with Cat-like tendencies. Two of the main characters are transmogrifying into animal-human hybrids because of the spore from alien invaders from another dimension, and everyone has gone mad. The two MCs are being used by scientists to pilot a ship into the other dimension to attack the invaders. But everyone has their own agenda. I guess it's mostly about finding salvation in insanity. Mostly.

Maybe.

And about learning what makes us human, which is a pretty huge theme in just about everything I write.


What gets you writing? Tell us a little bit more about your approach.

Dreams and images, play-acting stories in my head. Newspaper reports, books, lyrics, artworks. Everything feeds into my work. Generally I start with a visual of a character in some odd situation, and take it from there. The visual for Jack of Spades. Reversed was of Louise spitting out her teeth as her head reshapes itself.

Carrying on and finishing anything is my big problem. I can start with
all the enthusiasm in the world, but the grind of the middle of stories can get me down. Just have to tell myself to grit my teeth and keep going. And that I can fix all the crap in revisions.

What do you think are particular challenges associated with short stories as a form? As for longer works, do you have anything planned?

Short stories are hard. It might seem like they're going to be easier but short /= easy. I find them a particularly difficult medium and I tend to avoid them. Longer works give me more room to play, to stretch out character and plot and world-building (which I love.)

I'm always working on novels. I currently have one on sub, two in revision, and I'm first-drafting a fourth. They vary in their levels of odd. Some are more straightforward fantasy - like House of Sand and Secrets which is mostly a sequel to my book When the Sea is Rising Red - others are closer to the weirdness of Jack of Spades, Reversed.

What's the one short story or novel you keep going back to (we all have them), and what makes it stand out above all the rest?

Oh man, Clive Barker's Imajica. A beautiful, unfurling bomb of a book.
It's just one of those stories that hits my every kink - godhood, gender-queering, murder, and magic; strange and ugly and fantastical in equal measure. I also have a huge crush on Tanith Lee's Secret Books of Paradys which fuelled my teen-goth sense of drama. I should probably not admit I am reading them again. AGAIN.

My favourite of my own books is the one that's currently on sub. It's about falling in love after you're dead. So it might be a hard sell.

What scares you?

A world without cheese. I love cheese. But mostly I'm scared of being skinned alive and then put in a freezer. Or dying in a car crash (Thanks, J.G. Ballard...)

Links...
I am a social monster. I'm on tumblr, twitter, facebook, and my own blog (how weird).

Music to Write By, or, An Ode to Beethoven by John A Karr

Author John A Karr takes over my blog today, and he discusses two of my favourite topics: music and writing. Thanks for stopping by, John.

* * * *

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

 — Ludwig van Beethoven

It’s impossible to sum up Beethoven in a single sentence, but the above quote from the man himself comes as close as any.

That character string (pardon the day job semantics) alone invokes inspiration, but it’s Beethoven’s music that facilitates entry into alternative worlds for this particular writer. More than merely beautiful or interesting, such “tones” rise and flow throughout the writing zone, summoning the muse along with them.

Particularly with the genius of Beethoven, each note has its own purpose. Each feels right.

At least that’s the impression of one writer after years of listening to classical music. Granted, one who does not read music, plays no instrument, and prefers rock and reggae when driving, exercising, doing the chores, etc. But he does know what music aids his own creativity and what does not. Songs, for instance, are a hindrance. Discernable lyrics disrupt the production of sentences from the imagination.

Beethoven.      Picture: Wiki Commons

That Beethoven often agonized over the order of his musical notes is not evident as we experience their seemingly predestined flow. They begin working their magic of loosening the grip of the often mundane world around us. They do not break the hold completely, for doing so could invite insanity, but our psyche is no longer restrained by reality. Passageways to creativity appear. Boundaries are relaxed or removed. The imagination expands beyond daily life.

Now it is free to roam or wreak havoc.

Yes, havoc.

Like conflict in a story, imaginative mayhem is required. But we’re not talking Metallica here ... just how does a genre often branded as ‘boring’ do this?

The casual listener might regard classical music as simply a collection of peaceful sounds meant for high-brow affairs or relaxation. They’d be wrong of course, and should avail themselves of Beethoven or several other powerful composers like Grieg, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Holst, and some Mozart.

“Some Mozart?” the incredulous cry. “Amadeus was also a genius, and on par with Beethoven!”

Mozart’s Requiem is among the darkest and most compelling music ever encountered, and his Symphonies 40 and 41 are also masterpieces, but much of his other work is too light-hearted.

Placid, tranquil sounds are not welcome during this writer’s sessions. There must be a certain moodiness and power to facilitate the writing effort. Perhaps there’s a market for beautifully crafted prose without some sort form of conflict, but this writer has no intent of engaging such a venue.

So why Beethoven? Why not Bach, Brahms, Chopin and a host of others?

Personal preference. The same reason Vincent van Gogh’s works are preferred above all others in the art world. His works click. So much so the writer created a novel featuring van Gogh in modern times.

Beethoven’s works almost always have depth, and they are voluminous. There is much more to experience than the famed nine symphonies. As a piano aficionado  the preference is for the sonatas and concertos. There is something about the versatility of sound created when small hammers strike tight metal strings that makes the piano the ultimate instrument to aid creativity.

For the past few writing sessions, Cello Sonatas & Variations has been this writer’s companion. The richness of the cello is punctuated, even driven, by the piano. Indeed, it seems more a piano piece than a string piece, but then, the bias for the ebony and ivory keyboard has just been admitted. Weariness beset the writer tonight, and the temptation to skip the evening writing session was a strong one ... until the wizardry of the cello and piano came through the modest speaker. The muse was summoned, pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

This particular disk features the über-talented musicianship of Jacqueline du Pré on cello and Daniel Barenboim on piano. Giants in the classical music genre, with a tragic back story. The  two were lovers, and du Pré ultimately fell ill and passed away. Perhaps one can hear more than musical notes in her playing, and in his piano interactions with her.

Like so many of LVB’s works, these variations are not placid and peaceful.  

Revealing of its creator, Beethoven’s music is often dark and brooding and prone to bursts of violence. All three are found in the famous “Moonlight” piano sonata.

Even his least complicated compositions engage the mind on a level that is immediate and flowing. Surely if hooked to electrodes in a lab and the impulses relayed to a monitor, the brain stimulation center for sound would flash in neon.      

One may not have read the books on Beethoven or his music, or seen the movies, and yet experiencing that quote at the opening this piece speaks to the motivation that drove the man’s spirit.

Tones sounded, roared and stormed for him. And for much of his life, Beethoven was deaf. Deaf! Curse and genius battle ...! His imagination and drive and love of music could not be stopped by an affliction that would have ended the careers of lesser individuals. Who would not be inspired by the music created by such a composer?

And yet, one doesn’t need to know any of that.

His works showcase his brilliance.

And the writing is unleashed as the music plays.

But though this writer returns so often to Beethoven, the world of music and sound is vast and should be explored. Ambient space music has fed the laptop’s CD player of late while working on a Mars / Earth tale. It is an instant mood provider. It takes one there, to outer space ... fantastic, mind-expanding, but eventually, a bit too subtle.

Holst’s Mars symphony, on the other hand, is powerful enough to raise the dead warriors whose bones have long since turned to dust on the red planet.

The writer’s wife and kids used to play piano on an old upright. A piano tuner once came to the house and said, after tightening or loosening a variety of hammer strings: “The thing about an instrument is that you can’t worry about the world out there while playing music.”

The same holds true of writing, and music is a trusted companion as we journey into the unknown.

# # #

Author's bio: John A Karr believes fiction writing each day helps keep the demons at bay. His latest novel is paranormal mystery Ghostly Summons, from Dark Continents Publishing. He is also the author of a handful of other novels: Death Clause, Hippocrates Shattered (soon to be re-released as Shattered by World Castle Publishing), Rhone, and Van Gogh, Encore. Dark Continents also recently published his Weird West novella, Ujahwek. His short stories have appeared on webzines Allegory, The Absent Willow Review, and Danse Macabre. More works are in progress and in the marketing queue.

Karr is an ardent believer in the quote by Carl Van Doren (1885-1950), U.S. man of letters:

Yes, it's hard to write, but it's harder not to.

www.johnakarr.com

   @johnakarr

When history won’t play ball

Today I welcome Daisy Banks, author of Your Heart My Soul, who's going to be in charge for a bit. Welcome, Daisy!

* * * *

Hi Nerine, it’s great to be here and thanks for the offer of a blog spot with you.

Today, the historical romance, one of my favorite genres, is driving me to share some ideas. Primarily, I’d like to talk about the problems I’ve found with a work in progress in the historical genre, and what I think can happen when ‘history won’t play ball’.

What I mean by ‘play ball’ is the problem when attitudes and activities from a certain period in time are at odds with modern perceptions of humanity, love and relationships. As a historian, I firmly believe I shouldn’t judge the past with my 21st century morality. However, as a romance author, should I sanitize history? Is it right for me to make the era I’ve chosen to set my story in the kind of world some readers believe they know from Hollywood epics? On the other hand, should I follow my instinct and let the ripe gutter fragrance rise a little from the page to tell its truth? I have struggled with this question.
I know Nerine has a passion for Egyptian history; I too am interested in that great civilization. I also find the divergence of different cultures in the Roman period in the UK, with its clash of attitudes to women and family, changes to religion and the introduction of city dwelling, all fascinating. My other main interest is the early Georgian era and the development of industrialization. I am fascinated by the machines invented in this era, and by the minds of those who designed them. One of my favorite places to visit to enjoy a sense of this era is Soho House in Birmingham, England. This link will take you to a page where you can see the home of Matthew Boulton, a very fascinating character who made a huge impact in this era.  http://www.bmag.org.uk/soho-house

One of my books published with Lyrical Press, A Matter of Some Scandal, is set in the Georgian era, a robust time full of change and discovery on many levels. My main concern with that story was the legal system in England in the 18th century and I used the records of proceedings at the Old Bailey in London to try to gain the depth and accuracy I felt the story needed. As I am so interested in the period the level of research necessary wasn’t too trying, and it gave me the added bonus of discovering the reality of the author’s voice. As the characters in the story spend much of their time alone together, the impact on them from the attitudes of society in the era only came at the end of the story. However, some historical stories like my work in progress are more problematic, and I think the element of realism could influence the reception a story might get from both a publisher and readers.

There are some key areas where I’ve found ‘history won’t play ball’ with modern sensibilities or the lists of acceptable content in a romance.

The age of the heroine is an issue. If I want to be factually accurate in a romance set in the past it is unlikely an aristocratic girl will fit within modern age constraints. Research into the lives of wealthy women in the past generally proves they married young, sometimes very young. Arranged marriages where land and finance counted as more important than the bride’s happiness were also a common feature and could lead to both emotional and physical abuse if a woman tried to refuse. For an example of this, investigate the Paston Letters, of the 15th century. Those letters are fascinating social history but the information they offer is not something that fits neatly with most publication guidelines for romance.

The next problem is to give my heroine an occupation in life. For many periods in the past, work opportunities for women appear to be very limited, or none existent for women in the upper classes. Therefore, to have a heroine who has an occupation I either need to massage history, or I must look among the working women of the lower classes.

These women, the alewives or fishwives, the servant or seamstress, laundress or midwife, governess or nursery maid, and those who worked with their family in all manner of activities give an insight into lives lived without a woman toiling over an embroidery frame. There is also an added bonus, these girls, if they married, they didn’t marry so young. From the late Medieval through to the early Georgian era, the typical age at marriage of women from the lower classes was approximately twenty-four, as a couple needed to save for their life together. The women I’ve discovered in records of these periods offer courage, skill, wisdom, and even the nebulous quality so often described as ‘feisty’. Fantastic!

However, back to my historical story and the next problem I need to solve. How to make the world my heroine lives and loves in palatable too?

My current historical work in progress has offered me many dilemmas. The tale is set in the Georgian era, and is based on research of real events. I want to make both hero and heroine realistic characters from their time and still have readers like them. The level of characterization of lead characters in a historical story has to be very strong. The author must persuade the reader to suspend belief, and in addition, to like the kind of person who might attend a public hanging and purchase a pie to eat during the event. Heartless? Not according to the descriptions from the time, it seems pie sellers did a roaring trade at executions; they are prominent figures in some sketches from the eighteenth century.

I love the genre of the historical, and I firmly hope it never dies out, but I also know from my work on historical stories, it is a very demanding and unforgiving genre. The search to find a heroine who is true to her time but loveable to modern readers is a challenge in an extreme form.

In checking through this, I chose to read it a friend, who said in response, “But you write fiction. So, your characters don’t have to follow the accepted behaviors of their era.”

I have to say I sighed in frustration.

This thought, is, I think, why so many portrayals of historical stories especially in film and on television are so unbelievable to anyone with some knowledge of history. Our female ancestors weren’t all proud beauties taught to sword-fight by kind brothers or indulgent fathers, that doesn’t make them less brave or interesting than they were. Many women fought day-to-day battles against poverty, ignorance, brutality and fear. To me their stories are far more interesting than some events shown on screen, and I’d like to incorporate those real stories, at least in part, into the ones I write. To do that I have to allow truth to speak out from the era I chose to write in.

My recently published story Your Heart My Soul with Liquid Silver Books is a combination of the paranormal, historical and contemporary. In this tale of a love to last the ages, I tried to offer readers a brief look at the early19th using the characters of the ghosts of Will and Sally. Here is a link if you wish to find out more and I’ve included a small excerpt below to tempt you. I hope you enjoy it.

Many thanks again, Nerine, for time on your blog.

Best wishes to you and the readers.
Daisy Banks

Excerpt from Your Heart My Soul by Daisy Banks, published by Liquid Silver Books.

A prickle rose on the back of his neck, the fine hairs stood like a hound’s ruff to warn of storms to come and his certainty grew. T’was said only those who’d made it ’round the horn got the sense of predicting stormy winds. Well, he’d made it ’round the horn and home twice—and tonight, in the twilight shadows, proof of it raced icy down his back.

The fat blue-and-white painted vase. It had moved!

The thing always stood on the starboard side of the counter, had been there for so long he couldn’t recall.
He shook his head.

Tonight, the thick-bottomed vase sat on the frayed rush mat. Unknown hands had moved the vase from its usual spot and left it on the floor, where any bad-tempered little brat in hobnailed boots might kick it.
Careless.

The pawnshop didn’t change. Why, it was only yesterday evening he’d been here and things had been the same as they’d been for—well, he couldn’t give a number on the days. Wherever else he wandered along the wharf each starlit night, he always began his evening journey here, in the shop, hoping. Before dawn he returned, dragging the tatters of his dreams, for one last glimpse before the bright light came. The first streaks of dawn and he’d leave with the prayer the next night would bring a different outcome. The sun on the water, always he saw the light sparkling on the waves, until it dimmed and the next night and his hopes came again.
He stifled the confusion in his thoughts, the ache and longing inside, rose from the chaise and picked his way through the jumble of objects in the corner. Once beyond the brass umbrella stand and the dark wood whatnot with the broken shelf, he eased by the table and made sure he didn’t brush against the cluster of china flat-back ornaments on the long open bookcase.

Surprise stilled his steps. Unblinking, like when he watched a shooting star, he stared as if he’d frozen in the bitter cold of the deepest southern ocean. He gawped in wonder at the arch of a smear mark traced by three slim fingertips scraped along the mahogany counter.

Not his darlin’ Sal’s sweet touch, though. He knew it immediately, for she’d truly tiny fingers—slender like little petals, and how he wished…

One day she’d weave her small, pale fingertips through his hair again, or she might even whack him on the chin and giggle. Didn’t he know her for a lovin’ saucy wench?

By his heart and soul, she was a beauty. On three continents, he’d never met her like. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes to recall the perfection of her violet-scented mouth, coral-tinted lips made for kisses, her cheeky, inviting little smile, and the sparkle in brilliant green eyes that could smolder in passion like oriental gems or blaze like a wildfire lived inside them. And her laugh.

Ah, when his darlin’ laughed, the sound danced about a room, skipped like dawn light on the waves, glimmered like ice crystals in a winter night.

Beautiful.

Everything about his sweet, dainty Sal was beautiful, and he only lingered here awaiting the chance to haul fast beside her once again. This time when he did, he’d take her in his arms, caress her until she made those soft, welcoming little sighs and, God help him, he’d know then he’d come home.

He clenched his hand. “Christ alive, my wench, where in the wide world are ye? My girl, ye gave me yer heart, took mine in return, and ye promised we’d wed. Yer swore we would.”

Five minutes with RWW Greene

A big welcome today to RWW Greene, who's one of the contributing authors to the Something Wicked volume #2 anthology. 

RWW Greene and wife Brenda Noiseux

So, tell us a little about your short story...

The idea hit me in wake of an argument about Joss Whedon’s Firefly. The opposition claimed there was no reason for latter-day humans to develop American cowboy-like speech patterns, and I set out to write something that, as a side note, proved him wrong.  Throw in some characters inspired by my students, add my worries about climate change, and -- BAM! -- story. There was much revising.

What gets you writing? Tell us a little bit more about your approach.

I keep little notebooks everywhere, and any idea I have goes in whichever one is closest. When I have time, I write the ideas into three-act outlines, and, when I have even more time, I turn them into stories. An idea can come from a name, an article, a long-wait for fried chicken, riffing, something I overhear in the coffee shop line … It all goes into the hopper, gets mashed up with all the other stuff, and sometimes the results make sense.

What do you think are particular challenges associated with short stories as a form? As for longer works, do you have anything planned? 

The shorter you try to make a complicated narrative the harder it gets. There’s plenty of time to play and wander in a novel, less in a novella, far less in short story. By the time you are squeezing a narrative down to a poem or a piece of flash, you’re really having to work. Short fiction relies so much on evocation and white space. You have to carve it right down to what is important.

I turned It Pays to Read the Safety Cards, the story in Something Wicked, Volume Two, into a 93 000-word novel called Leaving Home, and now I’m looking for someone to represent it. I’m also working on an alternative-history novella wherein the Vietnam War never happened because would-be conquerors from the planet Mercury set their sights on Earth.

What's the one short story or novel you keep going back to (we all have them), and what makes it stand out above all the rest?

I can’t pick. There are so many books and stories that I’ve read repeatedly. Probably the first book of that kind, though, was The Prince of Central Park by Evan H Rhodes.  It’s about a kid who runs away from his abusive foster mother, quits school, and goes to live in a tree. I think my takeaways from it are: You don’t have sit there and take it, and you don’t need much in the way of material things to have a good life.

What scares you?

I’m afraid that humanity will never get its act together, and we’ll waste all of our potential.

Links...

I blog about writing, teaching, and the 21st century at RWWGreene.com and live Tweet various award shows and political debates at @rwwgreene

Anna Dressed in Bloody by Kendare Blake #review

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author: Kendare Blake
Publisher: Tor Teen, 2011

If glittery vampires and wangsty, lovestruck angels have caused you to all but give up on young adult paranormal reads, then Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake is a shot in the arm for the genre. Granted, this ghostly tale still features many of the  tropes: the lone-wolf ghost hunter and his team comprising a slightly ditzy witchy mother, complete with black cat; the nerdy psychic sidekick; the popular girl, who happens to have a brain and a heart to go with her looks; and the jock who grudgingly goes along for the ride.

Cas has inherited not only his ghost hunter father’s magical athame (a knife) but he’s trying to fill his dad’s shoes by travelling from town to town to put murderous ghosts to rest. His vocation is dangerous and he needs all his wits about him. Although he has outsider status, he keeps his cool when he starts at a new school. He has all the qualities of a hero: a mission,  courage and enough sass to give as good as he gets when the jocks start behaving as jocks are wont.

But he meets his match when he receives a tip to hunt the notorious Anna Dressed in Blood, a blood-thirsty ghost that haunts a house in Thunder Bay, Canada. She is far stronger than any Cas has encountered, and this is a job he won’t be able to complete on his own. Even though he doesn’t want to endanger others, he learns to rely on his small team of friends. Things aren’t helped when his emotions get in the way of doing the deed, and ghosts from his past return to complicate matters.

While this novel isn’t going to win prizes for originality – it plays on popular horror themes and offers quite a nod toward the TV series Supernatural – it’s nevertheless a solidly writteAnna Dressed in Blood lends itself to being adapted for film, and rumour has it that this is in the works, with Stephanie Meyer as producer. Blake, however, balances gore with horror in the first of a series that promises to give the Twilight universe a run
n tale and takes more than a few unexpected twists to challenge its likeable cast of characters.
for its money.

Five Minutes with Clint Smith

Today I welcome Clint Smith to my spot. He's one of the contributing authors published in the Something Wicked Volume 2 anthology. Tell us a little about your short story.

The story Double Back was a workshop piece I drafted for a university creative writing class in the winter of 2009. During the first few days of that course, I was sizing up my peers, trying to gauge who was going to write what that semester.  I admired (and still admire) the methodic short story writers—Tobias Wolff, Dan Chaon, Cheever, James Lasdun, Lauren Groff, Marlin Barton, to name a scant few.  But I identified more with the scholarly work of ST Joshi and the craft of scribblers like Dan Simmons, Joe Hill, Norman Partridge, Joe Lansdale, and William Browning Spencer.

After a few workshops, it took little time to register that I might end up being the only horror writer in class.  And I was.  I won’t say the pieces I produced for that class were unpopular; but I think they were a bit too strange for both the academes and my fellow campus comrades.  To put another way, it was clear I was a writer for the "pulps," not the "slicks," and that suited me just fine.

Regardless, I submitted my modest tale to a magazine in South Africa in June, 2009. Then I moved on to drafting different material, and the story faded from my radar. That’s until I got an e-mail from Joe Vaz announcing that my story Double Back would make an appearance in the new incarnation of his publication, Something Wicked, Volume 2.

Double Back is a love letter to the spirit-of-Christmas-past portions of A Christmas Carol paired with a reverent nod to Dostoevsky’s The Double, and his illustration of Ivan Karamazov’s encounter with the devil in book four of The Brothers Karamazov.

What gets you writing? Tell us a little bit more about your approach.

In part what gets me writing is the compulsion of exploration and challenge—exploration in the sense that, when I isolate an image or idea, and a challenge in assembling a premise or story “shape” that I’ve never constructed before.

The stories I’ve produced in these past few years have had a strong auto-biographic bend to them. Not unusual for many writers. But I’ve really tried to make an effort to dismantle to those composites I’ve known and those characters I’ve been. The most instinctive thing for me to do is isolate a trait that unsettles me from my past and place it on a collision course with an issue that I dwell on now—the responsibility (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of  fatherhood, substance abuse, war, fidelity, infidelity, the fragility and stamina of family. These are not special or novel notions to discuss; but more than anything, I do the best I can to create centrifugal cores my material to give it some gravity, and often that process elicits writing that is inexorably adorned with elements quiet horror. I’d like to utilize the medium and traditions of horror to not only repair the past but fortify the future.

Short stories seem to be your thing. What do you think are particular challenges associated with the form? As for longer works, do you have anything planned? 

In a word:  backstory.

Lately I’ve really tried to examine how to better weave background elements into the wider fabric of a short story.

Last year, in a column for Poets & Writers Magazine, Benjamin Percy discussed the A-B-D-C-E method for structuring stories: Action, Background, Development, Conflict, and Ending. And just like many horror films contain a “monster problem” (see Jason Zinoman’s wonderful book Shock Value for more on this), many short stories have a background problem, or at least a background placement problem.  I really admire Téa Obreht’s chilling short story The Laugh—that’s a really impressive example of well-crafted distribution of backstory.

As for longer works, I’m currently drafting a longer work that may very well emerge as a novel (if I can refrain from prematurely steering my characters toward the safe harbor of a short story’s conclusion). But a different sort of longer work is scheduled for 2014. I received word last winter that my short story collection, Ghouljaw ahd other Stories, will be released through Hippocampus Press sometime next year.

What's the one short story you keep going back to (we all have them), and what makes it stand out above all the rest? 

Funny you should ask.  I just finished the final draft of a story I first penned about four years ago. Corbin's Gore is the title I settled on, although there’d been dozens between interceding drafts. I kept returning to this one because I never felt that I’d provided enough thematic insulation to send it out. There were elements and set pieces that (to give a wink to Nabokov) I didn’t want to lose to the darlings of oblivion, but I also knew it’d take some interaction with these characters and circumstances I’d neglected.

I’m not sure that Corbin's Gore stands out from the rest of my work, but there was a I needed to take the story more seriously because of the potential that I had a lot to lose—that the characters had a lot to lose.

What scares you?

Henry James said that a writer is someone on whom nothing is lost.

And what scares me most is something bad—bad—happening to my kids.  I think what scares me more than anything is not providing a safe enough world for my kids. Clearly, there’s no defanging the world (nor should there be), but my fears habitually return to the self-conscious compulsion that I’ll miss something, that I’ll neglect my fatherly vigilance and something will be lost. I don’t want to miss an opportunity to assist my kids (or any kids for that matter) in coping with the chimera of life, and by writing about what I’ve experienced, I’d like to think that the craft provides some resistance and guidance for when the “bad” moments inevitably emerge.

When you write, that reflective radar is constantly rotating over the illuminated grid of your life. Hopefully, nothing is lost.

Links:
Clint Smith Fiction:  clintsmithfiction.com
Clint Smith’s Amazon.com Author’s Page

Mummies in Newcastle upon Tyne

Icy Sedgwick is one of my favourite people. Not only do we share a love for the written word, but we agree that ancient Egyptians, and mummies in particular, make fascinating people with whom to have tea. Of course Icy gets more time to visit with our old friends than I do, so today I'm handing over my blog to her so she can chat about her most recent expedition.

* * * *

Newcastle upon Tyne, in the cold north east of England, is perhaps one of the more unlikely places to find a mummy, but here at the Great North Museum (formerly the Hancock Museum), we have not one mummy, but two. The Egyptian Gallery in the newly refurbished museum houses a plethora of artefacts, including jewellery, scrolls, funerary ephemera, and a large statue of Sekhmet.

Our younger mummy is Irtyru; she dates to between 664-525 BC, and she was found at Qurneh on the west bank of the Nile near Thebes. Scientists believe she was between 30 and 35 when she died. She was sold at auction in 1825 and then donated to the Literary and Philosophical Society. Unfortunately, the Victorians didn't have access to modern scientific methods of investigation, and she was unwrapped in 1830. She was varnished to preserve her, which explains her skin colour, and her original wrappings and organs are long since lost. I can't help feeling sorry for her, missing as she is her internal organs and those amulets lodged within her wrappings, but she does has a habit of firing the imaginations of those youngsters who come to visit.

Our other mummy is Bakt en Hor, known as 'The Lady'. She lived between 1070 and 713 BC in Gourneh, Thebes, and CT scanning tells us she was between 21 and 35 when she died. She also had a full set of teeth, and her bones show no signs of bone disease. She was bought in Egypt in 1820, and donated to the Literary and Philosophical Society. However, Bakt en Hor was the subject of a mystery until recently. All of her documentation cited her name as being Bakt hor Nekht, translated as meaning 'Servant of Horus the Strong', even as recently as 2008 while she was temporarily on display at Segedenum, our Roman fort at the end of Hadrian’s Wall. A team of specialists decided to investigate further, although the investigation was operating under the caveat that her coffin was not to be opened, and physical samples were not to be taken. Luckily technology has moved on sufficiently that CT scans can tell researchers so much without mummies needing to be examined.

As part of her research, Egyptologist Gill Scott paid a visit to the Literary and Philosophical Society, a somewhat impressive library located near Newcastle's Central Station, and by chance discovered a volume entitled 'The Reports, Papers and Catalogues of the Literary and Philosophical Society, 1820-1821'. The handwritten volume contained newspaper articles and other items, one of which was a scrap of the original wrappings from none other than Bakt en Hor. Archaeological chemist Dr Stephen Buckley subjected the scrap to chemical analysis, and discovered that extreme heat and cheap materials had been used during the embalming process, implying a hurried or incompetent job. A CT scan allowed them to recreate her head, and the high levels of decomposition to her face confirmed this theory.

Further investigation revealed a mistake in naming her. Hieroglyphs expert Alan Fildes noticed a hurried water sign near the bottom of her cartonnage, which had been mistranslated, giving her the name of Bakt hor Nekht. Translated correctly, the name should read Bakt en Hor, and her true name has finally been restored after two hundred years of error. No one knows if her name was written so badly as part of the rush job surrounding her embalming and burial, but I'm quite glad that she's now known by her real name, rather than the wrong one. Before the museum's refurbishment, the old Egyptian gallery also featured a video in which visitors could watch as the CT scan of her skull was used to recreate her face, and the resulting image was one of a beautiful and strong woman. Sadly this video, or image, is no longer in the museum, replaced instead by the History Channel's short video about the investigation into her name.

As fascinating as the Egyptian gallery is, the mummies always take centre stage, and I’m glad that these women now have their real names as they reside in this cold city that lies over 2,600 miles from their homeland.

* * * *

Icy Sedgwick is a writer and film academic who lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom. She’s been fascinated by ancient Egypt since she was eight, and her next book is a retelling of The Sorceror’s Apprentice, substituting brooms for mummies. She often features mummies in her Friday flash fiction, including No Flash and Sand and Snow.