Unabashed

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve had dreams before that have ended up being incorporated into various stories I’ve written. For instance, one morning I woke up with a clear line in my head, which may not make any sense to you (it didn’t to my wife), but nevertheless I liked it and I thought it was funny so I adapted it. The line was this:

“Being the first ith, he was Irmth. His name was Irmth the Eleventh.”

As it happened I was embroiled in the writing of a scifi comedy about a space-traveling zydeco accordion player named Joe Remeleaux Redmill. Irmth became the bad guy for that story, and it’s one of those humorous SciFic pieces I told you I’d really like to find a home for.

The way it finally worked out was: Irmth belonged to a race that was the result of a genome abnormality in an entirely other race, the name of which is inconsequential at this point. Irmth and his kind were called “Shifts” by those they were spun off from, and were shunned despite their evident superior evolutionary state. Irmth was the eleventh Shift to have evolved, though there are many thousands in the universe now. Shifts were art-loving Methuselahs who lived millions of years. They were born with duplex personalities and referred to themselves using 1st person plural pronouns (we, us, our). They speak with two voices and, in the bulbous, gelatinous, transparent midriff of their bodies, which is usually tinted green or blue or brown and inside of which can be seen their organs and various floating detritus, had a second face, though their physiology was otherwise more or less human in appearance. They were usually phenomenally rich, intelligent, and deviant (though not sexually, not having the necessary equipment). Irmth himself was the first Shift of a separate branch called Ith. The only difference between a normal Shift and an Ith was that an Ith was much taller. Irmth specifically enjoys cocktails, sometimes delivered intravenously, technology and information, and music. He has organized numerous events throughout the Universe, some of which were so successful that they never stopped. Irmth scours the Galaxy, looking for musical talent to feature at his events, and is currently organizing and promoting an event in the Hypersholean system called “Music Horizon,” which promises to be a never-ending event and boasts five generation seven Posi-Tek SubSpaceWoofter Platforms, release 5ZR11.32.99, AKA the GalactiBlaster, which essentially turns a moon or planet into a speaker. When Irmth hears music he likes, he usually leaves his card, which is the model of simplicity:

Being the first ith, he was Irmth.
His name was Irmth the Eleventh.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: galactiblaster, ideas, irmth, ith, science fiction, scifi, scific, shift, stories, story, writing

Queries suck. At least writing them does. The entire novel-writing process has never made me feel so futile as penning these two vexing paragraphs. I could fill this page with links to query-writing suggestions and formats and information I’ve read from various outlets all over the web, all of it very helpful in its own context, but essentially worthless in applying to my own book. Why am I re-confronting my greatest fear? Because la Gringa wants to know where all the adult fiction subs are. And I have one. And I want to send it to her. I fear her rejection, yes, but this is more than some short story that I’ve labored over for a week and a half. This manuscript represents five years of my collective creative output. It represents potential success in publishing. It represents the hopes and dreams of a writer who wants to be. It represents potential for disposable income. I’ve been well aware of la Gringa’s advent into the agenting business, and I’ve had my manuscript ready for a good while now, I just don’t have the query letter right yet. If my book represents five years of creative output, this query letter represents another six months at least. No, it’s not all I’ve been working on, but I return to it regularly, and I suffer for its potential. I tweak it, and then I scrap it and start over, and then I agonize for a little while before I toil some more. But to dedicate so much time to something that can be the realization of all the dreams of a lifetime of writing is so daunting to me that I convince myself that the query must be better than the story itself, that my story depends on this little 100-word document to be successful, that if the story doesn’t get published it will be because I didn’t write the query letter well enough. And the worst of it is that great bit of advice I keep pinned to the wall by my desk:

…the writer never gets any better than the writing you see in the pitch letter.

Ack! Such pressure! To prove I’m worthy, that my story doesn’t suck, that I’m…well, you know how it is, don’t you, Mr. Query Letter. And I’ll bet you’re the most successful and wonderful story pitch there ever was–You. Sick. Bastard. You’re enjoying my pain, aren’t you? You see this blog and you look at me and think, “Heh, he’s in the gutter now!” Well, I’m done eating your scraps, Mr. Query. I’m jumping off this bus and catching a…a train. Or a hang glider.

Or a noose.

Oh, well. On to ver. 15.9…

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: author, book, Fiction, query, story, synopsis, writer, writing

I am really loving io9. If you don’t read it, get on over there because they are consistently putting out great content. Today, for instance, they’ve posted a little space porn, some comics industry opinion, and this bit of writing advice, on “how to bring the weird” in your near-future SciFi stories. This is another one of those posts I want to print and paste to the wall by my desk, one of those I wish I’d written. Apologies for posting this word for word, but it is really all excellent and I want it filed away in my little internet brain for future reference:

Extrapolate from current trends…

Certain things happening now will probably carry on, and even accelerate, over the next two decades. The icecaps will keep melting, natural disasters will probably come more often, and droughts may affect more regions. Rich countries will become fortresses of the elderly, with fewer young people who aren’t immigrants. Corporations will probably keep becoming more powerful and diversified, unless the next economic meltdown actually weakens their power somehow. There will be less oil, and more fighting over oil. Food prices will keep going up for third-world countries. China and India will be economically resurgent, unless they fuck up. Some forms of social deviance will be marginally more accepted, within wealthy societies at least.

…but don’t be their bitch.

Don’t assume that every current trend will continue in a straight line — it’s never worked that way in the past, and it’s unlikely to start now. New technologies will help stem some of the negative trends we’re dealing with right now. And unimaginable disasters will spark new cycles of misery that will sweep us all down. Nobody in 1988 could have predicted 9/11 or the girl who hanged herself because her MySpace friends turned out to be mean grownups. (How would you even explain the “MySpace hoax” to someone in 1988?)

The technologies of tomorrow already exist.

Nanotechnology is already turning up in socks and medical devices, and everyone’s predicting it’ll replace basic circuitry and lead to miracle cures within a few years. People are already chuffed about home robotics, and robots are already helping us fight our wars. There’s a lot of talk about amazing replacement limbs that will use nanotech, and even be able to interpret signals from your brain. And there’s a lot of reason to be optimistic about gene therapy.

Don’t just pick one technology to update.

One of my pet peeves is the near-ish future story where everything’s more or less the same, except that there’s one miraculous new technology that is transforming the world. It’s way more likely that there’ll be half a dozen semi-miraculous technologies that will be nudging the world in different directions. (And we can’t discount the possibility that things will go to shit so badly that none of those amazing new technologies will come to fruition.)

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Fiction, Future, sci-fi, scifi, writing

You know, sometimes I begin writing a post and it just unfolds like a bolt of cloth at Hancock Fabrics, and I think, “I’m not trying to write a book here.” But directions lead to other directions and before you know it my egg’s turned into an omelette. It’s like that with fiction sometimes, too. I want to write a story about a subject I’m interested in, and in the beginning it seems like a really simple idea. And then it goes omelette on me.

Sometimes I just want to fry an egg.

By the way, isn’t “omelette” a really odd word?

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: consternation, egg, omelette, writing

Kevin Kelly is a long-time internet mainstay, one of the original founders of Wired Magazine, and a week or so ago he posted this bit concerning his “1000 True Fans” theory (P.S.–if you haven’t read The Technium, I highly recommend it):

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

This based on the presumption that the creator in question can produce quality material over a long period of time, and that the True Fan will shell out around $100 a year for those creative works. Voilà: $100,000 per year makes for a decent living. It sounds good, yes; but I’m not so sure this model will work for writers the way it can for creators in other mediums. At least not unless the person doing the writing is already notable for something other than writing. Reason being: In every other medium creators’ works can have an immediate impact on a potential fan (call it the Wham! factor). Whether it’s a song, a painting, a photograph, or even a shirt–when it’s good, and you like it, you’ll know it almost immediately. You might not know why, other than Wham!–you just love it as soon as you lay eyes on it, or listen to the first ten seconds of the opening riff. But with a writer it doesn’t work that way.

Musicians can build a fan base using this principle and do very well for themselves. Rappers do it every day. I think even artists, who can paint their pictures and sell them at trade fairs and such can use this theory. But for writers I don’t think it will work. I’m jealous sometimes of musicians and the power their music can hold over an audience. I can listen to a song from the ’80s (when I was a teenager) now and all at once the power of the music can pull me back in time almost, remind me of sensations and feelings that I hadn’t even thought of since I’d last heard that song. That’s an awesome power to wield, and, as I say, I’m a little jealous of those who wield it. If I’m curled up reading a good book or even a short story, I can fall in love with the characters and I can connect with the story at different levels, but fiction can’t own you like music can. It can’t reel you in and make you its slave. (Or maybe it does for others; maybe it’s just me who can’t connect to it on that level.)

It might take a hundred pages of a novel before someone finds out if they like it or not. I recently picked up a copy of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station and, after the first page, utterly hated it. I pressed on though, and found the rest of the book fantastic. But if I’d based my opinion of China as a writer on the first page or two of his book, which took me maybe ten minutes to read, I’d never have read another story by him (the passage in question can be read here. Just start at the beginning and read down about eight or ten paragraphs. To me, this is an awful way to start a book, with the first three or four paragraphs dedicated to the (boring) arc of a basket flying through the air. But the rest of the book is grand). Most books that I like I’ll know within the first chapter or two, but rarely earlier, because in a book the writer must establish things: character, setting, all those good bits that add depth to the story, that pull the reader in.

So what about short stories? Sure, shorts are great, but very few writers are going to cultivate a fan base using shorts alone. Let’s face it: short stories are primarily the entry-level gig most writers hire on for just to get their foot in the door of the big company. Writers want to write books; they don’t generally tend to set out wanting to write their fantastic stories in 3,000 words or less. They want the story to tell itself, and most stories–in my experience–want to be in excess of 25k words. They’re stubborn that way. And a reader has to invest something to know whether they’ll like it or not. That’s not the case with most other creative mediums in which someone can hear a song in passing (Wham!) and immediately fall in love with it. Movies…maybe. But movies still require no effort. They may take a little more investment of time than other mediums, but there’s still no effort required. You just stare blankly and determine if you want to stare blankly some more. With reading, people must invest time and effort.

So how does a writer overcome this obstacle? Well, blogging for one. I know I just posted an article about blog fiction, commenting that I don’t believe people want to read fiction on blogs, but I’m not talking about posting fiction. I’m talking about building an audience with your writing using slice-of-life vignettes, informational stubs, a few essays and some news. Developing that audience with as near to Wham! factor as a writer can produce, and then, once you’re published somewhere, hoping they’ll cross over from your blog to your fiction. It goes back to what I said earlier in this article–being notable for something else first. John Scalzi has a great article about creating a blogging niche:

I think it’s far less useful to put your fiction online than it is to spend some time creating an interesting blog and cultivating an audience for it. This is not an “either/or” situation, of course, as I have done both. But I will say that one of these you should do first, and that’s to work on your blog. 

It would be great if writers could use this “1000 True Fans” concept, go to Fundable and score a few thousand dollars for their next opus, but the medium is just too demanding of its fans for that–at least initially, until they’ve built their fan base beforehand. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d actually like to think that I am.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: artist, blog, creator, fan, fan base, Fiction, journal, writing

In maintaining this journal through the years, along with its many and varied predecessors, I’ve made one small observation about what people want from writers and their blogs. On a blog people generally don’t want fiction. They do want things that are interesting, but for fiction they read books, not blogs. On occasion I think people will read fiction if it comes in a dedicated package built just for carrying the fiction–such as Down in the Cellar, or Southern Fried Weirdness (two sites that just happen to host stories written by yours truly), websites that are built just to entertain people with their fiction. But for blogs, readers seem to want slice-of-life vignettes, informational stubs, a few essays and some news.

One reason I say this is because through the years I’ve posted numerous stories on my blogs, but for some reason, while people will read my work on another site or in a book, they don’t want to read it here. It’s not necessarily that they don’t like it, they never even give it a try. It makes me wonder if building a site just for fiction alone would be worthwhile, if people want it that way.

If you are posting fiction on your blog, I’m not telling you to stop, I’m just saying that in my opinion, that’s not where people want to read it. Maybe I’m wrong; what do you think?

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: blog, blogosphere, Fiction, story, writing

There are a couple of posts I’ve read lately about the writing of queries that I think are just brilliant. First, from Kameron Hurley:

If you’re working on writing up queries or synposes, I’ve found it sorta fun and helpful to write up one of those “back cover” blurbs that you see on the back of books as practice.

This is actually a tactic I’ve been straining to employ myself. The big pitch, you know, that reels in readers who, once they’ve read it, have no choice but to read on. Sounds good on paper, don’t it? The best-case scenario would be to write such a great pitch that they actually do use it on the dust jacket.

And then from Colleen Lindsay, literary agent-at-large of the FinePrint Literary Management Agency:

A well-respected agent I know who has been in the business for more than twenty years recently said to me “Colleen, remember this: the writer never gets any better than the writing you see in the pitch letter.”

This statement should be framed in gold and hung on a wall beside every writer’s favorite place to write. When I read this, it made perfect sense to me and kind of terrified me at the same moment. It also occurred to me that a really good pitch writer might sell a crappy book a long time before a poor pitch writer might sell a really good one.

And finally, this bit:

I’m also impressed by the number of really excellent query letters I’m seeing! Short, succinct and compelling. Particularly from those folks who identify as former Clarion and/or Odyssey students.

Some of the worst query letters I’m seeing are, surprisingly, from MFAs. They’re long and tedious and a little wind-baggy, telling me more about the writer’s background and education than they do about the book they’re hoping to get me to read. I wonder: do most MFA programs only focus on the craft and not the business of writing? Anyone?

Now I’m not biased against MFAs. I’m sure there are a lot of really great folks who also happen to have their MFA. But I’m quite certain a good portion of them are biased against me and writers of my ilk, kind of in the same way that actors are biased against reality TV stars. So forgive me this moment of unabashed mirth as I nyah you MFAs a little bit. I know you are all extremely edumacated, and that I’m just a lil ol’ genre-fiction nerd, but every now and then it’s good to hear that the little guys are doing well.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: clarion, Fiction, genre, MFA, odyssey, query, synopsis, writing

I’ve been very busy at work the past few days. I’m thinking of giving up Warcraft altogether. I just don’t have time for it as I thought I would. It’s a fun game, but I can’t understand some of the fascination; every time I bring it up with acquaintances I hear stories of people losing their jobs or getting divorced because of the game. It’s kind of put a stigma on the whole experience for me. I generally don’t get so caught up in things as that, but at the same time I don’t want to. I found out yesterday that WoW has gone over ten million subscribers. At fifteen bucks a pop per month, that’s $150 million per month. Holy crap. I might keep it if not for the subscription fee, but I’m not ready to pay monthly for something I’m only playing a little bit, so.

I have found a chance to do a little writing in the past week. I’ve been working on the second rewrite of a story tentatively titled “The Adventures of Trader Gahn and Redbeard.” As you can imagine by the title, a bit of an adventure. Modern-day pirates with a dose of fantasy thrown in to keep me honest and in genre. And because that’s who I am, and what I write. The previous title was Relics, based on a number of magical items someone’s stockpiling, but I’ve whittled some of the excess storyline out (from 60k words down to about 40 so far, and am fleshing out the characters, changing a little here and a little there). I’m not one of those writers who’ll try to get a 100k word book written, I’ll just write until I feel it’s done and let it be. So. It’s a fun thing to write.

I’ve also been working a bit on the first book I ever wrote… more of a novella, now that I look at it again, but when I wrote it and finished it it felt like I’d finished a magnum opus. Now that I go back, it really wasn’t so good at all. The story is good, I think, it’s just that I didn’t tell it very well. It’s a children’s story, tentatively titled “Way of the Wolf” with talking animals (think Lion King, but with wolves). Anyway, I hope to flesh out its characters some more now, too, especially now that I’ve got children growing up. I’d like to give them a copy of it when they can read it for themselves.

Lots of writing to do, not enough hands or heads to do it all. It’s a good problem to have, as someone who likes to write. At least I’ve never suffered writer’s block… at this rate I never will.

G’night.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Azeroth, time, Warcraft, World, WOW, writing

Whatever happened to the novella as a form of prose? Many of the greatest stories of all time were written in the 20k - 50k word range. Stories like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and A River Runs Through It. There are countless others, but it seems the publishing world in general is intent on not publishing any novelettes or novellas. And this is particularly frustrating to me because all of my best work seems to be in novella word-count range.

I know: there’s no money in novellas for the publishing houses. If they can’t get 90k words or more they don’t want it. And short fiction had best not be written any longer than 5k if you want any decent shot at getting it out there. But there’s something about a thin book that I can carry comfortably in my back pocket and read in a couple of days that’s immensely appealing to me. But then the whole publishing industry seems to have veered starkly away from the middle class: there are the haves, of course, and the have nots, but there are rarely any have a littles or comfortably just getting bys. And of course this goes right back to the root of the publishing problem today: fewer and fewer people read any more. More and more it seems the only folks who read are those who are also either writers or who want to be. It seems to me a grand idea to put a wire rack back in the quick stop and stock it with pulp novellas, but then, I guess those would just sit there until the one or two of us who actually like to read them would buy them. Same goes for comic books. More and more, if you want a book, you have to visit Amazon or one of the huge booksellers, because the little bookstores are out of business now, and the selection at the drugstores and grocers are simply awful if you’re into anything other than romance.

I wish the novella format would make a return; just put them out there in pulp paperbacks and see if people won’t give them a try. I would, and that’s not just because I write them. Some of the best reads I’ve ever had were in novella format.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Fiction, novella, novellette, stories, writers, writing

Suspension of disbelief is a useful tool for writers, especially to writers of speculative fiction. But how much artistic license are readers willing to allow a writer? Like most authors, I read quite a bit about the craft of writing, and I read an article sometime last year concerning the suspension of disbelief. I don’t remember where the article was from, one of the writer’s magazines, I’m sure, but in it the author stated specifically that it would be ludicrous to imagine people accepting a piece of fiction that involved humans and dinosaurs cohabitating the planet. Now, the novel I was writing at that time, Modern-Day Mythica, does not take place in the past, but some of the principles that are described in the book, things that make the amazing part feasible, depend a little bit upon the reader’s willingness to accept that humans and dinosaurs might have cohabitated the planet. So it should come as no surprise that since I read that article I’ve basically worried myself sick over it. Will the reader be able to forgive me this transgression? Ah, but there is a caveat, one which I hope will explain the how in a way that will be completely believable.

One thing to keep in mind here is the difference between fantasy and science fiction. For fantasy, especially when written in the Real World, the one in which we live, there’s usually a doorway into Another World, and that doorway is magical, it doesn’t require any exposition as to how it works, it simply is what it is, whether it just appeared, or it was created by a magician, whatever. The difference (to me) is that in SciFi, we want to know how the door works, explained as scientifically as possible.

For Mythica, as with most of my writing, my writing borrows from both genres: I like the fantasy to be explained by science, that’s why I prefer the tag “Speculative” when referring to my work. Also: when I’m writing something I want it to ring true, or possible, much as SciFi might read. For that reason I like to use modern-day (or near future) Earth for most of my settings. There are some more successful authors than me of fantasy who use modern-day settings. Authors like Stephen King, who, along with Peter Straub, wrote The Talisman, a story about a boy who travels to the “Territories,” a reality connected with ours somehow, but separate enough to be invisible unless you are among the duly initiated. But the vast majority of fantasy fiction writers write more like Tolkien, who shucked it all and created his own world to set his fantastic epic in. Nothing wrong with that, I’m just saying. Of course, those are just two examples from the many, but they are two of the most notable works of fantasy in the world. Either method, obviously, works well enough to sell piles of books. But at what point is the suspension of disbelief overpowered by the impossibility of an idea? And is it harder to write fantasy fiction based in the real world than in a fictional world? Well, uh, yeah, probably, that is, if you want it to ring true or even possible.

In my story Mythica I utilize a similar concept as King/Straub used for the Territories in The Talisman. But in Mythica, the reason for the alternate reality–the science of it–is explained. But it’s the exposition of that theme that’s got me concerned.

As science has given, modern humanity evolved into its current state about 200k years ago and didn’t populate North America until about 10k to 20k years ago. Dinosaurs, of course, were long gone by millions of years by then (unless you count the turtle and the alligator and the shark and the many other holdovers who lived through the supposed meteor strike that spelled doom for dino-nation). But me, I grew up a fan of Conan of Cimmeria and Hyboria and one of the elements I loved most was that, if you looked at the map of Hyboria that Robert E. Howard drew up for the character’s homeland, it bears a striking resemblance to our own world before the continents drifted apart, when the world’s oceans framed a single super continent we now call Pangaea:

“between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas” ~Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (2003)

That little map made the stories ring true for me, even though science tells me it was impossible, that humans didn’t arrive for millions of years after Pangaea split into separate land masses. It made me see possibility that civilization was older than we believe, and filled with magic and monsters and even swords and steel.

One of my challenges while writing Mythica was to make its unbelievable part somewhat believable, much the same as Howard did with Hyboria. I wanted you to be able to read it and believe that it might have been possible, and I believe I have, except for that one small point: dinosaurs. People can’t live alongside something that died out 65 million years ago. Can they? Can intelligent people–and people who read speculative fiction are, generally–suspend their disbelief long enough to accept that it’s possible?

My only defense for this is to say that, in my story, real-world science is inexact because of a number influential events that science doesn’t account for. For instance, the storyline in Mythica involves a once and second moon orbiting Earth. The second moon is smaller than the first moon, but it’s half as distant, so it appears to be larger in the sky. This single entity justifies so many things in the story:

1. There is no scientific proof that the moon ever existed, since it disappeared over 200,000 years ago.
2. While the second moon was in orbit, Earth was not a very happy place to live. Two satellites tugging at the Earth’s surface would have caused Earth’s plates to shift much faster than is currently believed. Mountains would have formed much more quickly, continental drift would have happened much more quickly. Volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, tidal waves, etc, would have ravaged the planet’s surface. Not to mention the fact that the planet might have been slower in its own orbit; days might have been longer, years, longer.

It is conceivable, in my mind, to believe that the second moon could have accounted for a sort of speeding up of time, even though its orbit was slower. If a geologist looks at the rate of continental drift today, she might say that it took millions of years for Pangaea to split apart. But if there was a second moon, it could have happened in thousands. Hundreds? I’m no geologist, but in my very basic understanding of geology, a second moon would have had a monumental impact on Earth’s surface. So, if our history involves an unaccounted-for outside influence, isn’t it conceivable that the dates we’ve assigned to certain events are erroneous? That billions of years of history, based on one single missing moon, could now be thought of as millions instead? It might not affect how we view the 15 billion-year history of the universe, but it might change the history of planet Earth considerably.

Furthermore, by allowing for this shortening of time (periods, epochs, eras), it would mean that that the age of dinosaurs and the age of man were a lot closer than we now believe. And it would allow that those ages might even overlap. We have no proof that a giant meteor struck the Earth to end the age of dinosaurs, all we have are theories and hypotheses. And I (of course) have no proof that a second moon ever orbited Earth. But, in theory, is that any less possible? As for the disappearance of the dinosaurs, my hypothesis on this is forthcoming…

So what happened to the second moon? Well, for my story, which is a work of fantasy, a magician banished the moon because he believed it to be the source of a specific scourge upon the planet. But there are other, scientific, explanations that we could consider. Perhaps the would-be meteor that supposedly hit the Earth struck the second moon instead and sent it hurtling out of orbit. There are other theories of a second moon, one with a distant, 770-year orbit, perhaps this moon was once in a much closer orbit. But while science has accepted the possibility, if not the probability or downright fact, of the presence of a second moon, as far as I can tell no one has investigated any possible ramifications it.

So, for my story, the ramifications (and the science world can feel free to adopt this theory :-) of the disappearance of the second moon is this: Time sped up. Yes, time, real time. Without two moons dragging it down, Earth’s orbit sped up allowing it to encircle the sun in the 24-hour timeframe we’re used to. At the same time, Earth’s tectonic plates slowed their constant grinding, causing the planet’s surface to change much more slowly. While the moon was in orbit it’s possible that a person could watch the formation of a mountain range in their lifetime.

1. Time sped up.
2. Planetary changes slowed down.

With those two factors in mind, it is conceivable that our comprehension of the passing of ages prior to the disappearance of the second moon might be very, very wrong, and that the ages of dinosaurs and people may have overlapped.

Now, have the history books been rewritten yet? Can you suspend your disbelief long enough to swallow that load of garbage? I’d be interested to know.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Earth, Fiction, moon, second, Slate, story, suspension of disbelief, writing

My book is written. Well, it’s actually my third book, but the first one is not good and neither is the second, although with the second I believe its a good story, it just needs major rewrites. So, anyway, the book is done. It’s called Modern-Day Mythica, it’s around 120k words, and the premise is this:

200,000 years ago, Earth’s second moon disappeared. The rest of the story is about the effects of that missing satellite on one Joe Copeland, modern-day regular guy. Oh, and the moon that disappeared was an enormous, black, magical energy-generating rock that was inhabited by dragons.

Once every blue moon (heh, it was actually a black moon) dragons could travel to Earth (the details on how they did this are worked out, but I won’t get into here right now) and basically terrorize everything that lived–including humans. But then this really old guy shows up and makes the black moon disappear. Of course, since the black moon was the magic generator and this old guy had been using magic to keep himself alive far beyond a normal life span, he died. And the dragons, who depended on magic for flight, fire-breathing, communication–basically everything that separated them from big, crawling lizards–were all killed off. At least the ones on Earth were. The ones still on the moon–now banished to a different reality altogether–were mighty pissed, and began working on a way to get the moon back into orbit.

They never figured it out, but they did find a way to open a portal, a rift, between the realities, and they sent one dragon back to see if they could figure out a way to get the moon back into orbit from here. Joe, of course, is the guy who’s supposed to stop this from happening.

The story, which I’ve tentatively entitled Modern-Day Mythica, incorporates a good deal more than just dragons in its mythos: there are werewolves, ghosts, magicians, an alligator that turns into a motorcycle, etc.

Now, as you may know, I’ve been populating a wiki over at Wetpaint.com with details of the mythos involved. It’s not complete yet, but there is a lot of detail already there. Whether this book ever sees the light of day or not I have no idea, but I’m hoping that if this blog can build a little following, gain a few more readers (this is Unabashed honesty for ya, folks–yes, I’m using you, but I sincerely love you, too), that, coupled with the already-built companion wiki might make an editor give me at least a second glance before he/she shoves me into the trash can and sends me the dreadful form letter rejection.

Here’s an excerpt, if you’re interested (disclaimer: This is gory).

Edgar Billies had owned the Duck ‘n’ Dolphin for twelve years when the stranger came through the door. The fellow looked ordinary enough, about six two, brownish blond hair, dark green eyes. He was dressed kind of funny, his clothes didn’t seem to fit, and he was barefoot, wet, and dirty. He was wearing a fag bag that actually said “FAG BAG” on the front of it. That didn’t speak well for folks in Ed’s mind. But then Ed thought the guy might be homeless. He almost threw him out on the spot but decided against it if the guy didn’t have any money, then he’d throw him out. But the guy just didn’t seem like a homeless person; he carried himself upright and proud, like a damn king or something. And he was smiling, like he was just coming in to shake everyone’s hand and get a vote. The rest of the guys, Dan, Bull, Todd, and Legs, all turned to look at him, but they didn’t pay him any mind. Edgar poured up a beer for Legs and asked the stranger what he could get for him.

“How about some whiskey,” the guy said, sitting down at one of the front tables.

The guy kicked his dirty feet up on the table. Before Edgar took him the whiskey he hollered, “Fellah, you wanna get your feet off the table?”

The men at the bar looked at the stranger, and the stranger complied with a wink. He was still smiling.

Edgar set the drink on the table and said, “That’ll be six fifty.” He’d jacked the price up special for this joker.

The stranger reached out to take the drink and Edgar, in his classic way, grabbed at the stranger’s wrist to tell him to pay up first. Only the stranger caught Edgar’s wrist instead, and the next thing Edgar knew his arm was twisted up behind his back painfully and the stranger downed the shot. The four men at the bar hopped to their feet.

The stranger threw the shot glass and hit Bull in the forehead, which just served to piss Bull off, and all four of them were an inch away from charging straight in and kicking the shit out of the monkey that was holding Ed’s arm. They backed off a step when they heard Ed’s arm crack, though. Then, through his grin that never wavered, the stranger jerked Ed’s arm straight up over his head, then kicked him toward the others. The arm was broken and out of socket and it flopped around like an empty shirt sleeve when he fell forward and cracked his head on the bar. Todd tried to catch him, but Edgar was too fat and went into the bar anyway, then he hit the floor like a rotten log.

Dan and Bull charged with a loud, human growl coming from each of them. But the stranger picked up the chair he’d been sitting on and right before their eyes it changed into a two-handed ax. The handle and head were both deep, dark green, metal or stone, they couldn’t tell, the color and texture were otherworldly, precious, like a rare, gigantic gem, something you’d actually want your head cut off with if it came to that, like something an archeologist would pull from a horde of treasure in a tomb in China that was as old as mankind itself. The head of the ax was inlaid with delicate lines of engraving, as fine as spider’s silk, which curled and swept like waves back from the sharpened edge. Near that edge, the head of the ax, the color of dark, luxurious jade, became paler and paler until it was almost white at the sharpened edge. It looked like it would be hot to the touch. Amazed though they were, they were already committed, and men like Dan and Bull commit to things only as a final option. The final option had been crossed when this faggot had come in here and broke Ed’s arm, as far as they were concerned. But the stranger brought the ax back with both hands and swung it hard and full, right through Bull’s left knee and into Dan’s right shin. Both big men fell in opposite directions, screaming. The stranger never stopped smiling, though; he drew up the ax like he was splitting wood and began making kindling out of Bull’s left arm. Then he turned on Dan, who was trying to get to his feet, and planted that ax right on his collar, between his neck and his shoulder. It sheered clean through the collarbone and into his breast, and Dan looked down at it with wonder as a stream of crimson blood shot up into his nostrils from his own chest wound.

Todd ran around to the other side of the bar and ran along the bar bent over, trying to find Ed’s shotgun. When he saw it he laid his hands on it, but then he felt an odd pain in his lower back and from that moment on, all he knew was that he was on his back, conscious, but unable to move anything but his eyes. He couldn’t talk, lick his lips, wiggle his toes or anything. He figured that when he bent over to get the shotgun the stranger whacked him with that ax right at the base of his spine and he was right. Gregg had sheared his lower spinal column cleanly in two, and then he left Todd to lay and think about what was coming next, as he set about chopping Dead Ed into edible-sized bites.

Todd heard every plunge of the ax; he heard Ed moan when the ax went into him, sounding like a softball hitting a catcher’s mitt in fast-pitch, or like a sack of flour when dropped onto a wooden floor. Todd heard every blow, and with mounting terror, knew his time was soon to come. Maybe he’ll forget about me, he thought, or maybe he’ll just not worry about me any more, seeing as how I’m incapacitated any way. He began to wonder if doctors could reattach a severed spine, or if he would have to spend the rest of his life unable to move, flinch or even blink his eyes. But then the stranger looked over the bar and Todd knew that he wasn’t going to be left alive. Tears began to flow from his eyes.

The stranger’s head was covered with bright red gore. Thick droplets were spattering down onto the bar Todd could see them almost as if in slow motion. The stranger spit and bloody spittle spattered the wall beside Todd. He walked slowly down to the end of the bar and then walked up to Todd, the ax up on his shoulder. He was standing over Todd’s feet, a bloody, gory mess from head to toe. And he was smiling; grinning like a maniac. He set the ax head on the floor and spit in both his hands, rubbed them together, and then hoisted the ax with both hands, bringing it back over his shoulder big smile still in place and then he brought it down in a swift, singing arc. Todd heard his thigh crunch and the ax struck the hardwood floor beneath it, pinning the leg down. The stranger had to pry the ax free, shifting the handle up and down to wrench it out of the wood floor and Todd’s leg. There was a sucking sound as the ax head finally came free of the leg. Todd’s eyes were running with tears he wasn’t feeling the pain of the blows, not exactly; he could feel each blow like a thud like when a dentist pulls a tooth when the jaw is full of novacane but there was no sharp pain as there should have been, only the bone-jarring thud that caused his vision to blur for a second and his head to rock from side to side slightly. All the worse, because without the pain to tell his mind to shut down he had to endure every swing of that ax, every sucking sound as it pulled free of every wound it inflicted, and he had to watch every time the stranger wrenched the ax free of the floor, with each thunderous blow. When the stranger cut off his left arm at the shoulder, Todd could hear the ax whistle by his ear, and he began to grow cold. When the stranger cut off his right arm at the elbow, and his stump flew up in front of his eyes, spattering blood across his face, his hearing went out and he could no longer hear the meaty thwacks of his dismemberment. When the stranger finally struck him in the belly, Todd saw a jet of blood spray up into the stranger’s face, right before his eyesight faded slowly to gray, and then he was blind. All he had left at that point was the feeling of each blow rocking his body, as if he was underwater and someone was swatting the surface above his head with a boat paddle. He could feel the reverberations, he could feel the thud, and in his mind he could hear the dull thump, but it was distant, echoing, and then he was gone.

As Gregg walked out of the Duck ‘n’ Dolphin Saloon, there was a chair extending from the chest cavity of the owner, Edgar Billies, as if it had just sprouted and grown there.

End exerpt.

So what do ya think? Do you like it (and are you willing to spread the good word about Unabashed so I can gain fame and fortune :-)? Or do you hate it and think my plan will fail and I’ll suffer the pain of self-publishing?

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: book, excerpt, Fiction, Matt Mitchell, sample, story, writing