Archives (page 379 of 467)

October 3, 2012 / 79 Comments

Line Up For Your Penmonkey Self-Evaluations

PREPARE TO GET PROBED.

Ha ha ha, no, no, silly, not like that.

I mean, “Prepare to get probed rectally.”

*checks notes*

Wait, I mean, “not rectally.”

Sorry! Sorry. Always get that one wrong.

So, from time to time it’s a good idea to shove your own penmonkey dreams under the lens of the microscope, see how things are going for you. As such, it’s time for a report card if you’re willing.

The questions — and you can answer as many or as few of these as you care to — are:

How’s it going, writing-wise?

How goes progress on any current projects? Whatcha working on?

Any problems with said projects? Issues you’re having?

Anything I or the lovely community of terribleminds can help with?

(This is also a good time to ask for beta readers if you need ’em.)

Beyond individual projects, how’s the bigger picture looking?

What are your strengths as a writer and storyteller?

More importantly: what and where are your weaknesses?

So: there you go.

A few self-eval questions to get you talking.

I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.

CARRIER LOST

October 2, 2012 / 57 Comments

25 Ways To Get Your Creative Groove Back As A Writer

Sometimes, writers get out of the groove. They lose their voodoo. This isn’t just writer’s block — hell, you might even still be writing. But it feels hollow, unrewarding, like it’s not just giving back what you put in.

You need your creative mojo back.

Which means, another list of 25, comin’ right up.

(Some of these, I figure, also work toward writer’s block, if that’s a thing you believe in.)

1. Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

By “comfort zone,” I mean that room inside your head where it’s all pillows and chocolates and footy pajamas, with gamboling puppies and a vending machine that dispenses only liquor and cupcakes. On the wall of our comfort zone is a shelf of books and these are the books representative of the many categories we already prefer to digest: “I read: presidential autobiographies, graphic novels about talking animals, and the genre of ‘paranormal bromance.'” Comfort, however erm comfortable it may be, is not a great thing for creativity — so, escape this mind-realm of plush luxury and go read books you’d never ever read. Wouldn’t ever pick up a book of travel essays, or one about food culture, or a young adult novel? New books mean new input — and that means new inspiration. By the way, dibs on ‘paranormal bromance.’ HANDS OFF.

2. Re-Read A Book You Love Utterly

Fuck it. Instead of escaping your comfort zone, let’s nest deep within its pillowy folds. Grab a beloved book off your shelf and re-read it. Re-discover why a book like this made you want to be a writer in the first goddamn place. Let it fill you with its power (worst pick-up line ever) as it did many years before. Let it bring you back to center. Books you love are like a flashlight in dark times.

3. Read Something Utterly Shitty That Somehow Got Published

I read a script recently. It was a script that had been optioned (though never made), meaning, it was a script that someone out on the Leftmost Coast paid good money for. Like, probably more money than I’ve ever made in a year. Or ten years. OR MY WHOLE SAD INK-FINGERED LIFE SHUT UP. Anyway, point is: it was not very good. I mean, I won’t go so far as to call it genuinely shit-tacular, but it was… well, you know how fast food is often wildly mediocre? Yeah, that. Its mediocrity enlivened me. It told me, “I write better than this. I will write better than this.” It was a horse-kick to my motivational centers.

4. Achieve Narrative Conclusion, Gleefully Shellacking Your Brain-Pants

Take a teeny tiny project — a poem, a short story, a flash fiction challenge, a series of tales told in ten tweets, whatever — and finish it. I’m going to make up some science now, so, put on your Reality-Defying Goggles. Ready? Finishing any creative project releases a chemical in your brain called Hopamine (pronounced “hope-a-meen”), aka “Triumph Squeezin’s” or “Victory Fluid.” By stimulating the gland that releases this creative hormone, you further stimulate the rest of your brain to want to seek that feeling again and again, like a drug addict chasing a high. Meaning: the more projects you complete, the more projects you complete.

5. The “Just For You” Project

That sounds like a really weird euphemism for masturbation. “Hey, what are you gonna do now?” “Gonna go upstairs, initiate a just-for-me project.” *grabs a box of Kleenex and a soup can filled with ballistics gel* Anyway. Sometimes creative lockjaw happens when you’re too busy doing work for everybody else and you’ve saved nothing for yourself. Pick a project, small, large, whatever, that’s something you want to do. Doesn’t matter if anybody else thinks it’s a good idea. Fuck the naysayers. Completing work that’s satisfying to you will tickle your creative muscles. And hey, there’s another masturbation euphemism if you want it.

6. Write Outside Your Comfort Zone

Remember your “comfort zone?” Cuddly unicorns and that Carly Rae Jepsen poster on the wall? Let’s just set fire to the whole place. Ignore the unicorn screams. (And shit, do they ever scream.) Earlier I advocated reading outside your comfort zone, so now it’s time to write outside of it. Pick something you’d never write, and try it. Don’t worry about finishing it — this is an exercise, not a job. Write romance, or hard sci-fi, or a film script or the marketing materials for a new drug called “pink meth.” Whatever. Sometimes you have to come at creative logjam from a whole different angle to break it apart.

7. Public Lewdness, I Mean, “Public Creativity”

Put your work out there for all to see — probably online, but somewhere, somehow in the public space. Which is to say, get a blog or whatever, and start writing so that the world can see. It’s a stunt, of sorts, and normally I don’t advocate this as a way to exist normally, but here’s what this does: writers are used to performing behind the curtain. We sit in our offices, completely nude. We drink a can of Red Bull, kill a goat, powder up with some Gold Bond, then we write. Nobody’s watching. But you start writing in public, it’s the equivalent of getting on stage. People are watching what you do more closely. It feels like walking across a tightrope without a net. While high on really weird drugs. Anything to drop-kick creative ennui.

8. Stop, Collaborate And Listen

Writers are traditionally loners. Like Pee-Wee Herman, and serial killers. (Actually, would it have surprised anyone if the character of Pee-Wee turned out to be a serial killer? That talking Playhouse Chair probably eats the fucking bodies.) A writer is used to operating in a lawless, non-reactive land. Change that. Collaborate with someone. On a story, script, comic, whatever. Engage in an act of creative agitation. The give-and-take of collaboration constantly forces you to bat back new ideas and reactions — it’s not always easy, but it’s frequently productive. Even if just to retrain your brain to be all arty and stuff.

9. Gun Down Your Creative Routine In The Streets

You do things a certain way, right? Wake up. Eat a bowl of Yummy Mummy cereal. Get dressed in jammy-pants and a FUCK YOU t-shirt, then go to Starbucks with your laptop and pretend to write as you stare hatefully at all who enter. Then: lemon meringue pie, and finally, bed. Your status quo needs to change. This is emblematic of how narrative works (a story is often born from the disruption of status quo), and so it is emblematic of how the writer sometimes must work, too. Change it up. Write somewhere different. Write in a new way (on a new word processor, with pen and notebook, in your own fluids). Do something different. Shake lose the barnacles you’ve gathered while floating inert in the murky harbor of your undoing.

10. Have A New Experience

Spontaneous generation does not exist. Fruit flies are not born out of thin air, nor is our creativity. We need fuel. We need stimulus. Like Johnny-5, we need input, motherfucker. Part of what fuels our creative expression is the life we live and the experiences we have, so there comes a time when you need to have some new experiences. Moroccan food, ziplines, mountainous ascent, bar fight with strange people, sex with strange people, Mezcal bender, civet-shit coffee, BDSM, ride a deer, kick a robot, something, anything. Have new experiences. Adventures both big and tiny. It’s all paint for the palette, man.

11. Get Out Of The Goddamn House, You Mumbling Shut-In

“Locked-in syndrome” is where your body can’t move but you can see and experience everything going on around you, and metaphorically, writers are like that. We get locked in to our offices, our homes, our lives. (Don’t tell me you haven’t thought at least once about trying adult diapers. Because you are a liar-faced lie-bot from a future made of liars.) Sometimes, to build off the last entry, you just need to get out of the fucking house. Like, with some regularity. Though one supposes an entry featuring the word “diaper” should not also feature the word “regularity” in a different context, but whatever. I’m a rebel, Dottie.

12. Get Some Class, You Surly Miscreant

Wait, no, sorry, I mean, “take a class.” As in, go learn a new skill. Doesn’t have to be related to writing — in fact, better if it’s not. Learn Photoshop. Or wood-working. Or robot-taming. Imagine if you will that we are characters in a role-playing game and we have an unlockable “skill tree” where new new avenues of experience open up by completing sometimes unforeseen challenges. This is like that. You learn something new, it opens up new pathways into your creative life you did not expect.

13. Exercise Your Indolent Sloth Carcass Of A Body, You Indolent Sloth Carcass

While you’re out, maybe move your body around. Jiggle your sludgy flesh in a way that simulates “not dying from sheer torpidity.” Sometimes our mental shutdowns are related to physical concerns. Maybe you just need some fucking exercise. Walk. Run. Bike. Swim. Lift something heavier than your iPad. Fight a mountain lion. Hunt your fellow man. Whatever. Just move that ass.

14. Also: Stop Eating Like A Drunken Goat

I’ve advocated this before and I will do it again, right here, right now: stop eating assily. Not a word, “assily,” but I said it because I’m allowed to make up new words because I have my Pennsylvania Writer’s License. To repeat: sometimes mental shutdowns are related to physical concerns. And physical concerns can come from diet. Maybe you’re eating too many carbs and not burning them off (contributing to “brain fog”). Maybe you’re allergic to something and yet you still keep eating it (OH GOD I LOVE EATING DONUTS DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE MILK AND SNAKE VENOM WHY ARE MY LEGS NUMB). Change that diet.

15. Address Mental Health Concerns

To get serious for a moment, a lot of writers suffer from various mental maladies. This is entirely common and writers suffering under such afflictions are in no way alone. Problem is, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees in just such a state and it’s harder to differentiate what’s a problem with, say, a story and what’s a problem with, say, your own psychic and psychological landscape. Trying to fix creative problems when you have larger concerns is like trying to fix a plumbing problem by headbutting a toilet. It will be painful and frustrating so always address your own mental health first. This is easier said than done, but that doesn’t change the fact that it needs to happen before anything else falls in line.

16. Create Story Maps

Pick a book you love off the shelves — or, if you’ve got a wild hair (wild hare?) up your ass, grab one you hate. Whatever. Read it. But read it critically. (“Critically” does not mean, “Look for the bad stuff.” It means, read beyond entertainment. Apply critical thinking skills to your book-absorbing process. The Internet has separated us into FUCKITY-SUCKS or SHITSTORM OF AWESOME camps, and that is not critical thinking, that is base level Neanderthal tribe-making. Er, rant over.) Map the story. Outline it. Figure out what’s happening inside the tale. Track character arcs. Look at the narrative from a sky-high height. Get a measure of the mechanics. Sometimes just seeing how a story comprises all these interlocking pieces helps stimulate your own grasp of the task at hand. Also, wait, do you have a rabbit up your ass? Can we address that?

17. Bucket Of Book Titles

Go the Ray Bradbury route: just start writing out awesome-as-fuck book titles. One after the other. Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. This bizarre-o menu of non-existent books will almost assuredly start filling your head with stories connected to them.

18. Cavalcade Of Characters

Sometimes stories are too big. We just can’t get our minds around them and we fritz out, sparking and hissing like a broken Roomba clogged with Chinese food containers and jizz tissues. Breaking stories into pieces and playing with the pieces first has the fun of, say, playing with action figures. So: just create some characters, almost like in a roleplaying game. Don’t worry about larger stories, just start making names and some personalities to go with them. Some will stay supporting characters, others will emerge as bigger personas. And soon, stories will emerge from the pile: order out of chaos.

19. Open Defiance! The Flames Of Anarchy!

Middle finger extended — now point that gesture-of-anarchic-defiance toward All The Rules You’re Supposed To Follow. Write something that exists as a contrarian’s rebellion against What You’re Supposed To Do. Like, if you write a romance novel, there’s all these rules and tropes, right? So: break ’em all. Or, you’re not supposed to write in Second-Person-POV, or no Epistolic Novels, or, Don’t Break The Fourth Wall, or, or, or. Gather up as many rules as you care and execute them in the town square. It feels good to break the rules. “Should Not, But Fucking Did It Anyway” is a powerful creative aphrodisiac.

20. Art Harder In A Whole Other Direction

Sometimes we unlock creative potential by performing other creative tasks. Photography or music or macrame or crayon drawings or amateur porn movies or whatever it is that makes your grapefruit squirt. For me, photography kickstarts my visual and metaphorical centers, which helps my writing.

21. Write Your Life

Take time, dig deep, and write about things that actually happened to you. Trust your gut — the stories and events and characters that rise up first are the ones you should go with. This isn’t for anyone else. This is for you. This is like creative mining, just digging down into the loamy 8-bit soil of your Minecraft Mind, not sure if you’ll find iron or diamonds or empty out into a vast and unexpected cavern of possibility. Our creative lives come from somewhere, a culmination of who we are and what we love, and this is exploring the former part. This is opening up the who we are portion of the experience. Sometimes you need to tease it out. Sometimes you blow open the mountain with suicide-bomber bighorn sheep. Open the way, even if pain lurks there. Hell, especially if pain lurks there. Pain is our bread and butter.

22. Tell A Story In Images

Take images. From online. From in magazines. From advertisements. FROM INSIDE YOUR OWN DISEASED SKULL. Wherever. Cut ’em out and collect ’em and, one day, gather them up and try to use them to tell a story. String them together. Find a narrative. Finding narrative in unlike places — those unanticipated narrative connections — is a meaningful exercise in terms of getting back on the creative horse. And a “creative horse” is, of course, a pegasus.

23. Fail

Failure feels like an ending, but it’s not. I will continue to assert that fail is profound. It is both deconstructive and instructive at the same time. If you look at failure just the right way, failure is no longer a wall, but a door. Actually, hell with that metaphor: failure is a bottle rocket gooey with Icy Hot shoved deep into your no-no-hole and lit on fire with a signal flare. Failure can create in you the drive to do better, to go bigger, stronger, crazier — and the simple act of failure can realign your creative stars.

24. Quit For A Little While

Walk away from the creative life. For a week. Maybe a month. However long you need. I don’t advocate giving up easily — so, let’s just call this a vacation. We put upon ourselves undue pressure and sometimes the best way to vent that pressure is to pop the lid, let the steam out, and go do something else for a little while. The creative tapeworm will one day start coiling and roiling within, taking little nibbles here and there to let you know it’s time to get back to it.

25. Quit Moaning And Mount Up, Motherfucker

At the end of the day, here’s the best way to get your groove back, creatively speaking: work your tailbone to a rounded nub. Shovel story upon story, smash words into other words. Quit worrying, cut the bitching, and do what needs to be done. We sometimes feel like our authorial voodoo is flagging — but work begets work, and effort (even when it feels like you’re pushing a fold-out couch up a craggy mountain pass) will beget creativity. Work is in many ways like the act of planting a seed: tilling the hard earth is no easy task and the time it takes may seem like it’s wasted, thrown into an earthen hole, but one day that little motherfucker starts to sprout, and then the hard work gives way to the natural processes that are blessedly inevitable.

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING: $0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY: $4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

October 1, 2012 / 55 Comments

It’s Fall, So I’m Hankering For Games

I don’t know why I get geeky for games come fall.

Maybe it’s because a lot of big tentpole game releases release come autumn.

Maybe it’s because the weather gets colder and that means come night it’s time to hunker down under a blanket with a bottle of liquor, no pants, and an Xbox controller.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been preprogrammed by our alien overlords to feel this way.

Whatever.

Point is, I’m kinda hankering for games.

So. Make some recommendations.

Consider:

I have an Xbox 360.

I have a Mac.

I have iPhone / iPad.

Bonus points if you throw in the consideration of:

I do not have a metric buttload of time. Between the baby, the puppy, and, oh yeah, this whole writing thing, I always have less time than I expect when it comes to committing to games. So, any game recommendation is good, but games that require a reduced time commitment are even awesomer.

Also: feel free to recommend stuff coming out that I am not yet aware of.

Let the rec’s begin.

September 28, 2012 / 101 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Epic Game Of Aspects Redux

I’ve gotten a lot of people telling me how much they loved the previous Game of Aspects challenges, so —

WE SHALL DO IT AGAIN.

And we’ll do it even bigger this time.

But! Before we do, I need your help.

Or, someone’s help.

I want to do this game of aspects thing as a website. Like, imagine that there’s a website that every time you click it, it gives you a new combination of flash fiction story seeds based off these types of lists. Maybe there’s a front page that lets you customize some aspect — maybe no front-page. I dunno. Anyone out there savvy enough to talk me through this? You can hit me up in the comments or at my terribleminds-at-gmail-dot-com email address. My thanks in advance, you wonderful humans.

Now, onto the game.

This time, again you can either go do the Random Number Generator at Random.org, or you can instead use a d20. Not a d10 this time, word-whippers. A MOTHERFUCKING d20.

So, let’s get on with it. You know the drill — you’ve got three categories below

You’ve got Subgenre / Conflict / Element to Include.

Pick one from each category either randomly or by your own hand (though randomly is the most fun), then write a flash fiction short story no longer than 1000 words. Post at your online space, link back to it in the comments here, and voila. Easy-peasy, George-and-Weezy.

Oh, EDIT: Due by Friday, October 5th, noon EST. I won’t pick favorites until after that weekend is over, as I’ll be in Loverly Georgia (state, not country), at the Crossroads Writing Conference.

Once again, as I’m having so much fun with this, I’ll send my favorite story a prize.

No idea what the prize is. We’ll just call it a MYSTERY BOX.

On with the lists!

Subgenre

1. Men’s Adventure

2. Dieselpunk

3. Post-Apocalyptic

4. Southern Gothic

5. Comic Fantasy

6. Superhero

7. Hardboiled

8. Wuxia

9. Weird West

10. Wild West

11. Yuri

12. Whodunit

13. Science-Fantasy

14. Magic Realism

15. Spy Thriller

16. Black Comedy

17. Alien Invasion

18. Time Travel

19. Twisted Fairy Tale

20. Fanfiction

Conflict / Problem

1. Lover’s Quarrel!

2. Civil War!

3. Heist Gone Wrong!

4. Assassin!

5. Abduction!

6. Exiled!

7. Haunted By The Past!

8. Sins Of The Father!

9. Betrayed!

10. A Changed World!

11. Trapped!

12. A Quest For Something!

13. A Quest For Someone!

14. Revenge!

15. Enemies At The Gate!

16. Family Thrown Apart!

17. Disease!

18. Lost!

19. Get The Band Back Together!

20. Sanctioned Competition!

Element to Include

1. Unicorn

2. Sentient Supercomputer

3. Sea Monster

4. Plane (or Spaceship) Crash

5. A Dead Body

6. A Summoning Ritual

7. A Hallucination

8. Flying Monkeys

9. A Hologram

10. The Devil

11. A Dirty Magazine

12. An Ancient Sword

13. The Restless Dead

14. A Gourmet Meal

15. A Severed Hand

16. Poisonous Snakes

17. A Black Hole

18. Some Manner Of Werecreature/Shapeshifter

19. A Talking Tree

20. Heaven

September 27, 2012 / 19 Comments

Susan Spann: The Terribleminds Interview

When it comes time to ask if you can have an interview up at this blog, there’s a few surefire ways to get in, but one of them I didn’t expect: apparently, all you have to do is say the phrase “ninja detective,” and I’m all in. As such, please to meet Susan Spann, author of Claws of the Cat: a Shinobi Mystery, coming in June. Find her at susanspann.com or @SusanSpann!

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

A year ago, I was ambushed by ninjas while standing in my bathroom. Well, maybe it was just one ninja. An imaginary ninja. Who solves murders instead of committing them. Then he disappeared, leaving me holding an eyeliner pen and the basis for an awesome mystery series.

Ninjas are sneaky that way.

Why do you tell stories?

To silence the voices in my head. Sometimes it works.

When it doesn’t, I murder my imaginary friends.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

“Never give up, never surrender.”

Writing is a long game, not a sprint, and only the dedicated prevail.

Since I’m an attorney, and therefore genetically incapable of giving a short answer to any question, I’ll add that it’s impossible to stay in the game without keeping your butt in the chair and your fingers on the keys. Writers write. We make the time, we steal the time. We puts the words on the page, precious.

What’s the worst piece of writing/storytelling advice you’ve ever received?

For almost a decade, I told myself “don’t worry, you’re busy with law practice, family and (insert excuse du jour), you’ll find time to write when things ease up.”

FAIL.

Things never ease up. Writing time does not appear like a sparkling wish-fairy riding a rainbow unicorn. Writers are born of stolen minutes, pigheaded determination and a katana-wielding conscience that orders us to put down the remote and turn off TOP CHEF until we put words on the page or fix the dog’s breakfast we made of the manuscript yesterday.

Everyone is always too busy to write. The difference is that writers do it anyway.

What goes into writing a strong character? Bonus round: give an example of a strong character.

For me, character building flows from world building. It’s much easier to write strong characters when I’m inserting them into a three-dimensional, fully developed environment. Knowing the layout of a character’s bedroom, house, and neighborhood makes it easier to understand what kind of person would inhabit that space.

Once the world is built, I write an outline for the novel itself and then journal entries in the voice of each character in the story – including the corpse. Letting the character speak – about anything that character deems important – is a great way to get a handle on voice and character quirks. Sometimes the information gets into the novel, sometimes not, but knowing what the character thinks is important helps me develop a layered personality (and backstory) that makes each character feel much more real when I let them all loose together.

That’s when they start killing each other.

As far as examples go, I’ll offer Ender Wiggin (from Ender’s Game). Orson Scott Card developed a fully-realized world with history, backstory and details, and then told us only the portions necessary to the tale. The reader has a sense that Ender really lived six years in that world before the novel begins, and that he’s a fully-developed person rather than an automaton who behaves as he does merely because Card “needed him to” for plot purposes. I don’t know whether Card goes in for journal entries, but he certainly understands character development.

World-building before character-building. Oooh. Tell me more: how long do you spend world-building? How do you know enough is enough and it’s time for the character to occupy that space?

I’ll tell you a secret about my world building process: I cheat by using history when I can.

The Shinobi series is set in Kyoto in 1565, just before the assassination of the Shogun. At that time, the Japanese capitol was a stunning, dangerous city filled with samurai and real-life ninjas and weapons and geishas and sake bars. I wanted the reader to walk the muddy streets, see the buildings, and smell the blood and hydrangeas at the teahouse where the samurai victim died. I studied medieval Japan in college (many years ago) and spent six full months in additional research to build the version of 16th century Kyoto that serves as a backdrop for the Shinobi novels.

But the truth is, I’ve never finished the process and probably never will. Each novel involves a different aspect of Japanese culture, a different victim, a different setting – and all of that requires additional world-building.

In terms of “enough is enough” – for me, the process has two stages. The first stage ends when I know enough about the physical “sets” for the characters to move around without knocking over the scenery (unless it’s called for). I create an architectural layout for every location the characters visit, place it on a map of medieval Kyoto and fill in details to make the location “real.” (This often involves writing backstory, most of which will never appear in the novels.) Then I develop characters to inhabit those spaces.

Phase 2 is the other half of the chicken-and-egg problem: final world building can only take place once I know about the characters themselves. This includes the characters’ individual histories (again, almost all for offstage use) and fine details – things like “what type of flowers would be displayed in a Kyoto teahouse in May of 1565?”

So: Phase 1 is macro level: historical, physical, architectural. Phase 2 is micro-scale: all the fine details.

Sometimes a plot point or major edit requires taking the phases out of order, but for the most part that’s how it works in my writing world.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

My all-time favorite comic book was Star Wars #1 (The original, from the ‘70s, and I’ll date myself by saying I bought it new. Sadly, I don’t have it any more.)

When it comes to film, I’m a fan of explosions and special effects. My favorites range from LORD OF THE RINGS to STAR WARS (Episodes 4/5/6), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the original DIE HARD.

If we’re talking video games, it’s World of Warcraft. I raid as a level 85 holy priest & boomkin, Feathermoon server. (Your MMO-geek readers are smiling…and everyone else is now thoroughly confused.)

And since we’re talking story, the novel of choice is ENDER’S GAME (big surprise). After that one, my favorites will have to resolve it by author-on-author death match.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Favorite word? No question: DEFENESTRATE.

Favorite curse word: “Bother.” I’m familiar with plenty of others (including the ones most people actually consider “real” cursing), but “bother” raises the most eyebrows when I use it in public.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

The last time I drank alcohol, I ended up singing show tunes under the table. (True story…and one that makes me glad for the days before YouTube.)

Favorite beverage: coffee, in copious quantities. Hot or iced. No sugar, but lots of cream. Lots. In fact, just leave the cow.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable war against the robots?

I raise seahorses and rare corals, so I’m thinking we can use my tank to distract the robots long enough to make a getaway. If we can keep them watching long enough they’ll corrode and we can turn them into giant coffee makers.

Mmmm…. Coffee.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I recently signed a three-book contract with St.Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne books for the Shinobi mystery series. The first novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT, is scheduled for release in Spring 2013, and I’m currently editing the second installment, outlining the third, and developing ideas for additional books. The series could run substantially more than three novels if readers like ninja detectives as much as I do.

I’m kicking around a few other ideas, both long-form and short-form – one of which involves pirates. Because pirates versus ninjas is the ultimate dilemma.

Okay, you just said “ninja detective.” Please tell us about this ninja detective right now before we all explode from urgency.

The Shinobi Mysteries feature the ongoing adventures of Hiro Hattori, ninja assassin-turned-bodyguard-turned-16th century detective. In Claws of the Cat, a samurai is brutally murdered in a Kyoto teahouse and Hiro has three days to find the killer in order to save the beautiful geisha accused of the crime and prevent the dead man’s vengeful son from executing the Portuguese Jesuit Hiro is sworn to protect.

It’s a book about ninjas, bloody crime scenes, teahouses and geishas and swords, with a Portuguese priest, a weapons dealer, a female samurai and an unruly kitten thrown in for good measure.

Because every ninja book needs a kitten.

Hiro is everything I love in a detective – he’s smart, sardonic, and generally uncooperative. Best of all – he’s a ninja – and that’s central to the way he solves each crime. His worldview doesn’t always mesh well with that of his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, but they make a surprisingly good investigative team.

Why ninjas? (Or is the plural of ninja just “ninja?”)

Actually, I think the plural of “ninja” is “awesome.”

I’ve had a fascination with ninjas since college, where I majored in Asian studies. Medieval Japan was brutal and dangerous but also intriguing and beautiful.

Ninjas moved in the mainstream but didn’t follow normal social rules. They were highly trained spies and strategists as well as assassins. A ninja’s understanding of anatomy, weapons and poisons made him essentially a medieval forensics expert. I couldn’t think of a better detective. Plus … ninjas. Is there a better writing gig?

You wrote a mystery series: what’s the trick to writing a good mystery? What do some authors get wrong?

The key to mystery writing is the detective. The murder is important (and the gorier the better) but all the poisonings and exsanguinations in the world won’t save a novel if the detective is as boring as watching paint dry. It’s not our love of the corpse that keeps us reading – that guy was dead on page 1 and nobody cares about fictitious corpses. We read because the detective is fun, or cool (or sometimes even annoying) and we want to be there with him when he finally solves the crime. (Note: I use the all-inclusive “he” because it’s easy but I use it without prejudice – I’ve read some smashing female detective stories too.)

So, like everything else, mystery comes down to compelling characters and good writing. Neither is negotiable.

If you could be a ninja, what would your ninja-weapon-of-choice be?

I have enough experience with shuriken (throwing stars) to know that (a) I love throwing them, and (b) if my ninja-life depended on my aim I wouldn’t survive very long. Since I’m female, they’d probably want me to specialize in neko-te (cat’s claws), and though that weapon does appear in the novel my personal weapon of choice (and experience) is a sword.

In the immortal words of Solo-san: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good katana at your side.

September 26, 2012 / 14 Comments

Emma Newman’s Split Worlds: “Simple Proof”

Hello, humans of Terribleminds. I’d like to introduce you to Emma Newman, a lovely and wonderful new talent I met at Worldcon. She asked if I’d host one of her Split Worlds stories here, and further said that she’d even use this past week’s flash fiction challenge — “The Novice Revenges the Rhythm” — as inspiration. Below, you’ll find the story. You can find Emma at her website, and on Twitter (@emapocalyptic). She is the author of Between Two Thorns, upcoming from Angry Robot Books. Now: onto Emma!

This is the thirtieth tale in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would like me to read it to you instead, you can listen here. This story is part of the build-up to the release of the first Split Worlds novel “Between Two Thorns” in March 2013. Every week a new story is released. You can find links to all the other stories, and the new ones as they are released here.where you can also sign up to receive each story free in your inbox every week (starting at the very first one).

Simple Proof

Kay was expecting a stern glare when she arrived at her tutorial ten minutes late, not a smile and a note handed to her as soon as she walked in. The excuses she’d lined up – some of which were actually true – proved unnecessary.

The note read; ‘Please send Kay Hyde to Convocation House A.S.A.P. Regards, Rupert’.

“He’s a close friend of the Chancellor apparently,” the don said.

“But what about the tutorial?”

“We’ll reschedule. Go!”

After a brisk five minute walk across central Oxford she knocked on the huge wooden door of Convocation House, shivering in the fog that had been clinging to the city for the last two days. The door was opened by a man wearing scruffy jeans and a hoodie, not the member of university staff she was expecting.

“Kay Hyde?”

“Yes, I was told to-”

“I thought you’d be a bloke.”

“Well… I’m not.”

He ushered her in and slammed the door shut. It wasn’t much warmer inside. “Forgot how bloody cold this place gets in November.” He held out a hand. “I’m Rupert.”

They shook hands as he pulled his hood down. He was barely older than most of her friends, a DPhil student at a push. She expected a friend of the Chancellor of Oxford University to be a jowly man in his fifties, not someone who looked like he was on his way to the kebab van.

“You wanted to see me?”

He beckoned her further in and she looked up at the vaulted ceiling. It really was a beautiful space. “A little bird told me you’re the best person at cryptic crosswords in the whole university,” he led her past the little sign which read ‘No Entry Beyond This Point’ and sat down on one of the wooden benches. He patted a space next to him.

She sat. “The best? I don’t know about that. I like doing them.”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “What do you make of this?”

She looked at him before reading it. “Is it true you’re a friend of the Chancellor?”

He grinned. “Oh yeah. Really, we’re best mates. We go way back. Speaking of which, your surname, Hyde…”

She braced herself for the inevitable bad joke.

“Are you a descendant of Edward Hyde by any chance?”

Kay nodded, now a little creeped out. “Yeah.”

“He was an amazing bloke. By all accounts. But you’re studying English Lit, not law.”

“Who are you?”

Rupert waved a hand at her question. “Just a history nerd. Read the clue. I’m stumped, I really am.”

“A novice revenges the rhythm,” Kay read out loud. “I don’t remember that one, which paper was the crossword in?”

“You remember all the crosswords you do?”

She nodded. “Most useless superpower ever.” She read the clue a couple of times. “How many letters does it have?”

“No idea.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “This isn’t a crossword clue, is it?”

“It’s more a riddle,” he said, spreading his hands. “Yeah, that’s a better way to put it. Sorry. I gave the wrong impression. But your leet skills should still come in useful.”

“I should be in a tutorial you know.”

“Trust me, this is far, far more important.”

“For me or for you?”

He laughed and it echoed around the freezing chamber. “So go on, what do you think the answer is?”

Kay shook her head. “It’s written a bit like a crossword clue but there’s usually more of a hint about how to solve it, and I’m just not seeing that here. It’s more like something Google Translate would come up with, or someone pissing about with a random sentence generator. Hang on, did someone send this to you?”

He pressed his lips tight together for a moment. “Maybe. Yes.”

“Ah, then we’re missing something. What else did they say?”

Rupert scrunched up his lips for a few moments, then shrugged. “It can’t hurt,” he muttered and fished something out of his back pocket.

At first Kay thought it was a piece of paper, but it was too heavy. She unrolled it, feeling its texture with her thumb. “Is this vellum?”

Rupert nodded.

The ink looked fresh. “Your friend must be a real eccentric.”

“Only half of that statement is true.”

“Ah, okay, now we’ve got something to work with,” Kay said. “Your friend wrote; ‘First and foremost, I am the most intelligent of all of us. Here is a simple proof.’ He sounds like a bit of a tosser. No offense.”

“None taken, never was a truer word spoken.”

Kay got her pen and notebook from her bag and wrote the clue out, one word to a line. “Okay… let’s see…”

She tried a variety of ideas, but the third one felt right. “I think I have it. I think ‘first and foremost’ is telling you to use the 1^st and 4^th letters of each word. Ignoring ‘A’ and ‘the’ because they don’t have enough letters, we get Ni, Re and Rh which could be-”

“Nickel, Rhodium and Rhenium! Elements from the periodic table!” Rupert leapt up and punched the air. “Yes! Get in! That’s it. Ekstrand is going to be so-” he stopped, as if remembering that she was still there. “That’s why he said a simple proof. Another word for elementary. Right?”

Kay nodded. “He might be a tosser but I like the way he makes riddles. So… is that all you needed?”

Rupert clasped her hand with both of his and shook it enthusiastically. “I really do appreciate your help. Listen, every month I like to get people together, students, researchers… people from the university. We chat and have a drink… it’s secret though. Exclusive. I want you to come.”

Kay stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. “So Oxford really does have a proper secret society?”

“Oh dozens,” Rupert smiled. “But mine’s the best one.”