Ever Have A Dream That Stayed? What’s In You Is Far More Compelling

28 01 2016

Occult and Outsider Imagery – have a look.

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Ever have a dream that made you wake up in a cold sweat? I did once when I was seven. The dream was a melange of Hanna-Barbara cartoons, featuring a waist-up shot of a middle-aged hillbilly woman who had begun to fade to leave the generic wooden shack background. She laughed a deep, cartoony laugh and was joined by other stereotypical rustics laughing unseen. The graphic came up: “Ghoul Gals”. I sat up in bed for the only time in my life, my skin chilled and wet.

A spot of potato? More of the gravy than the grave? Even if dyspepsia inspired the discomfort that made the dream, why that dream? More to the point, what in that dream could be conveyed to others?

You are a consciousness in a body within a society extended by technology. So is everyone else. The fonts and images in your mind will connect with others. Expertise polishes your message until it shines through preconceptions and shows your true, intended meaning. Sometimes, that means seeing your own preconceptions.

Why villains? Why vampires or werewolves? Aliens? Ghosts? Why not rustic Ghoul Gals living in a cartoon?

Okay, to make money, sure. I’ll write those things if I have a neat idea that’ll sell. Or for you, maybe those ideas have a more resounding effect than for most people. What is it that resounds? What does it feel like? What behavior went uncanny?

Have you had a dream that stayed with you?

 





Regarding the World Fantasy Award Trophy

21 01 2016

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I’ve just worked up the nerve to express something that’s been boiling.

I believed the trophy needed to be changed decades ago. Why?

Four reasons.
1. My reaction on seeing it as a teenager: “This is the goddamn ugliest award.” It is as hideous a piece of ’70’s kitsch that ever graced a flea market discount bin. How stoned was the awards committee when they approved it? Don’t care that Gahan Wilson was the designer. It looks like strangulation sprayed with chrome paint.
2. No one person should be identified with an abstract. “J.C. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of Fantasy”? Sure, that’s specific. No problem. The World Fantasy Award is supposed to reflect All Of Fantasy in the Entire World. What face could possibly mean that to even a majority of people? Tolkien? Even if we put J.R.R. Tolkien’s head on the award, it makes the award too European for the “Entire World” award. The Stoker Award is a spooky tomb-house. The Nebula is a beautiful lucite nebula. The Hugo is a plastic bullet-shaped rocket. Make WFA award a big dragon or sword.
3. Lovecraft had only a marginal effect on fantasy, because he was a horror writer.
4. Look at it. It is the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen, much less wanted to win.

Some want to replace Lovecraft with Octavia Butler’s head. Do not do this! How badly will that sculpture be botched? What conversation will will be huffing over fifty years from now due to either Butler’s shortcomings or the change in values?





Who Else Has This Problem Creating Things? Do You?

16 12 2015

I am very excited about the novel I’m working on.

Except that the protag’s life is an unceasing grind of being pursued by unknowable paranormal forces. Who have killed off his family and kill off his friends. And made him an itinerant, depressive alcoholic. In a near-future US struggling to recover from multiple disasters and reshaped laws of physics. And a city about to be overwhelmed a la “Salem’s Lot”. Which will kill all the other supporting characters. During which he discovers proof-positive of something akin to God, which has been watching all this time and doing nothing.

Have you worked on anything that was like claws across your heart? What was it?





A Best Friend Is Releasing A Novel From Tor Books

1 12 2015

Lawrence M. Schoen is one of the most innovative and surprising authors in science fantasy. He has brought heartfelt personal symbolism together with golden age space opera traditions in his new novel “Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard” from Tor Books. He has impressed the luminary Walter Jon Williams and I have little doubt Lawrence will cast a broad light to expand visions of sci-fantasy. Have a look, get acquainted, and please pre-order!

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I Have To Kill A Character! How Do I Tell The Kids?

10 06 2015

I’ve mentioned Unreality Mag before. Here is an older article I came across with advice on giving your characters to a nice farm family where they have lots of room to run and have other characters to play with.

Can you imagine if Martin did that on Game of Thrones? “Joffrey’s got his own yard by a lake where he can chase rabbits and geese and romp with other Grimdark psychopath royalty.”








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