I do post regularly at LiveJournal http://thunderpigeon.livejournal.com/

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And sometimes Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1643477.David_Sklar

Hello, all, and welcome to another installment of the Drollerie Press blog tour. I’ve sat out the last couple of months, because real life has been a lot of work, but I’m back in again this month because I just couldn’t resist the topic: dangerous writing. You can find my post at E.G. Diehl’s blog.

E.G. Diehl is a phenomenal writer whose poem “The Roadseller’s Trade” will appear in the Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic anthology (for anyone thinking of submitting, there are still 15 days left to the deadline, but we’ve received some stories–and so far only one poem–so good that we knew they were making it in no matter what else came). Her novel Kinlea Keeper is available from Drollerie Press now.

And I have the honor of hosting  , aka Angela Korra’ti. Anna organized this blog tour in the first place, and an earlier edition of the blog tour includes a hypothetical encounter between Tamneth Ellheuin, from my Shadow of the Antlered Bird, and Christopher MacSimidh from Anna’s phenomenal debut novel Faerie Blood. I’ve been seeing a remarkable amount of buzz around Anna and her writing, and if you haven’t heard of her already, then you probably will hear of her again. So, without further ado, here is Anna the Piper, writing about dangerous writing:

Dangerous writing, you say?

I guess that depends on your point of view. Personally, I don’t feel that most of what I write is dangerous, or even terribly controversial. Certainly compared to a lot of what shows up in fantasy novels these days–and in popular media in general, really–I’m arguably quite vanilla. I don’t do over-the-top violence or gore. I don’t do explicit sex scenes, nor am I explicit in describing on-camera romantic connections. The fact that I have a gay male couple as secondary characters in my first published novel isn’t even very unusual anymore, given how male-male pairings are becoming more common in speculative fiction these days.

Still there are certainly those in the world–like oh, say, the sort who would ban Harry Potter books from school libraries–who’d take issue with the fact that I write about magic. Or about inhuman beings and creatures. Or four people of diverse religious backgrounds, Christian and pagan and agnostic, taking a meal together and none of their religions being a big deal. Or, yeah, well, queer people. Especially queer people in an established, healthy relationship every bit as strong as the straight relationship between my heroine and hero.

By those standards, then, probably the most dangerous thing I’ve written to date is “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”. The core idea for this came into my head as I grew aware that several folks in my social circle both online and offline were transgendered. As part of processing this into my own view of the world, I came up with the idea of a story about a princess who woke up one morning to find herself transformed into a man, and who had a young (female) servitor in love with her real self. This princess would have to make the call about whether to stay in her male shape, which would arguably get her more social freedom and power and even a shot at marrying the young servitor–or being true to herself and to her servitor and finding a way to turn back into a girl.

I never actually wrote this story, though, until a friend of mine invited me into an anthology he wanted to do, one that involved a) queer themes, and b) magic spells. Now, up until this point I hadn’t even seriously considered writing short pieces. I prefer writing novels. But Cerridwen’s story, at this point little more than a core concept and a title, seemed like it would fit into this anthology very well.

The anthology never materialized. But I still have the story, and with it, the strong suspicion that Cerridwen and Damhnait have a greater part to play in the history of their world than even the brief glimpse I’ve already given them. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, you can find it here. Thanks for reading!

* * *

Angela Korra’ti is the author of the Drollerie Press novel Faerie Blood and the short story “The Blood of the Land” in the anthology Defiance. This is the last stop on this month’s Drollerie Blog Tour! But if you’d like to head back around to the beginning, you can visit John Rosenman’s post hosted by Sarah Avery over here.

If you can’t wait until January to get your fix, I’ll be in Artocratic on December 18th, with two previously published poems. “My Last Seattle Poem (the Beginning of Landscape)” placed 2nd in The Willamette Week’s annual poetry competition in 1992, and “The Decline of the Beat Poets by Nigel Turtleneck” first appeared in Paterson Literary Review in 2005.

In addition, my story “Wood” will appear in Like a Sacred Desire: Tales of Sex Magic from Circlet Press. This is for adult readers only–my first venture into writing erotica. I might not have written it, except that asked me to submit a story. But I am nevertheless proud of the work I did there. I made a commitment to myself from the outset that I wouldn’t write it unless I could tell a story that worked as a story–and not a story with erotic elements tacked on but one in which the erotic elements are integral to the telling of a meaningful story. I think I succeeded. And, based on a conversation with the editor about the other stories she chose, I think that most if not all of the book may fall into a similar mold.

Also includes stories by Authors Adrienne J. Odasso, Jennifer Moore, Batya Deene, Fraser Sherman, Angela Rega, Imogen Howson, Jo Thomas, Joselle Vanderhooft, Jessica Tudor, Greg O. Weatherford, Hilary J. Nowack, Genevieve Valentine, Skadi meic Beorh, H. Anne Stoj,  Lee Pletzers, and Teresa Wymore. And truly wonderful illustrations as well.

My final schedule for Pi-Con is now up on the Appearances page of this Web site, as well as some vague sketching out of appearances for next year.  The newest news there is about Pen Wars, a competitive collaborative writing contest in front of a live audience at a bar in Bloomfield, NJ.  There will be more details forthcoming later.

On the one hand, it’s very comforting, because it reminds you that rejection isn’t personal and that editors have to go through so many manuscripts.  On the other hand, it’s kind of disheartening, because when she lists the various reasons for rejecting manuscripts, the conclusion seems to be that if you can build a coherent story you’re really competing with only 5% to 10% of any given publisher’s submissions.  And if that’s the case, then it means, at least speaking for myself, that my acceptance ratio is a lot more disappointing than I had previously believed.

My favorite part:

What these guys have failed to understand about rejection is that it isn’t personal. If you’re a writer, you’re more or less constitutionally incapable of understanding that last sentence, if you think there’s any chance that it applies to you and your book; so please just imagine that I’m talking about rejections that happen to all those other writers who aren’t you.

One reader took issue to this claim (took it personally, I daresay), but for myelf I say guilty as charged.  Though I like to think I’ve learned to hide it well.

It would be an interesting experiment to write a story with the title “Slush” and see how editors respond.  Unfortunately, I usually title my stories after I’ve written them, not the other way around.  Oddly, though, I seem to have already written that poem and gotten it published under a different title, years ago.

I get kind of self-indulgent and talk about how this compares to my own acceptances and rejections after the break. . .

In terms of my own submissions, I’ve been either doing well this year or horribly, depending how you break it down.  I’ve sent 11 manuscripts out and, of the seven that have been returned so far, I’ve gotten 1 acceptance, 2 flat-out rejections, and 4 rejections with positive comments.  One magazine where I made a concerted effort sent a form rejection for the first submission, something more positive for the second, and by the third wrote:

Your writing is elegant and you pay real attention to rhythm, which I like.  You also have a subtle tongue-in-cheekness that pleases me greatly. . . You’ve obviously got talent; send us something else with a little more to hold onto.

I’m going to have to send them something else, even if I have to write it to order.

Counting acceptances alone, that’s 1 out of 7, or a batting average of .143.  But if you count positive response vs form letters, I’ve done well with 71% of submissions (or 80% of journals, if you treat the journal to which I submitted three times as only one).

Cross-posted at LiveJournal.

Tam: Did she send you?

(The question hits Christopher out of nowhere–and it instantly raises his hackles. The suspicion that he needs to move again, to lose himself in the anonymity of a new city, has been nagging at him for weeks. Someone’s been watching him; he’s seen the same ragged old woman on Seattle’s streets five times now in as many weeks, studying him with knowing eyes, but he hasn’t been brave enough to confront her. And now? Here’s another stranger, one he’s sure has also been watching him, at least today. And this stranger seems much more hostile.)
Christopher: You got a problem there then? Do I know you?

(Tam steps back from Christopher, who stands at least a head taller than him, and raises one hand as if to protect himself.)
Tam: Did she send you?

(Wait. Confusion briefly strikes the young Newfoundlander before he realizes that this stranger looks as nervous as he himself feels. Hard on the heels of that a second realization strikes him: this one, whoever he is, isn’t human. Not entirely, anyway. Questions flood him then, but he forces them down; it’s none of his business, not if he’s leaving Seattle soon. That nervousness, though… it gives him pause. He backs up a step. The strap of his bouzouki’s gig bag slips a bit on his right shoulder, and he grabs at it to keep it in place, but keeps his other hand out, palm up.)
Christopher: Swear t’ Jesus, man, nobody sent me. Just lookin’ for somewhere to busk tonight, is all.

Tam (relaxing a bit): So you’re a musician?

(Christopher grins crookedly, his hand clutching the strap on his shoulder a bit more tightly; the bouzouki’s weight at his back is a comfort. His guard’s not down, not yet. But of all the words that could describe him, ‘musician’ is perhaps the truest… and the safest. At least until he learns the measure of this stranger.)
Christopher: Yeah… well, I knock around on the zouk a bit, anyway. When I can. (He nods ahead towards the nearest bus stop on the block, and then casts a glance behind him.) And there’s an old lady wit’ a whistle two blocks back. I… ah… thought I’d jump the 43 and try downtown.

(Tam looks puzzled at the instrument case.)
Tam: “Zook?”

(This begins to bring down the Newfoundlander’s guard; maybe he read this stranger wrong? All at once he’s weary, tired of scanning every face around him for any signs of a threat. Maybe this other man is simply nothing more than what he is–a wanderer, ill-fitting his current surroundings, though truth be told he knows he stands out more himself, with a brogue that flags him as Not From Around Here with the first word out of his mouth. Jesus, he could be Warder-blood for all I know, he thought. Not that he can ask, not right out here on the street in earshot of who knows how many passing grungy college kids passing them along the sidewalk of the Ave. And so he opts for the safe topic at hand, swinging the instrument bag forward just enough to reach its zipper so he can undo it and show just enough of the neck of the instrument inside to give the stranger a look.)
Christopher: Bouzouki. The Irish kind. Kind o’ a big mandolin.

(The dark-haired stranger smiles, surprised, and quietly reads the engraving on the instrument’s neck
Tam: Airson mo mhac Crìsdean.
(His accent on the Gaelic words is peculiar and slightly off, about as different as Spanish from Portuguese, but his voice is softly resonant, and the sunlight drifts across the inscription as he reads it, as though reflected off the window of a passing car.)

(Christopher goes still, staring, stunned that the other man gets the pronunciation almost correct. For a moment, memory flares: another voice murmuring those same words. For my son Christopher. His reluctant grin fades, skewing, though his face is no less earnest as he zips the instrument bag closed to protect its cargo from the drizzle in the air. Turning his th’s to d’s, his accent thickens, while he casts one more glance back over his shoulder.)
Christopher: That’s my zouk. (He pauses, then, in a sudden burst of sympathy, he adds…) Listen, man, you want t’ come along, there’s a pub in Ballard lets me play, sometimes. Nothin’ else, we could get a pint.

Tam: Sounds good to me. (Holds out hand) I’m Tam, by the way. Sorry to pick up your name by stealth, Crisdean–it was not my intent.

(The sound of the Gaelic form of his name is enough to ease Christopher considerably, all by itself. It’s not wise, perhaps. But memory still lurks behind the tall Newfoundlander’s eyes, and now the sound of a pint sounds appealing indeed, along with the idea of company, for once. He takes the offered hand and shakes it; his own’s sturdy, a working man’s hand, though with enough calluses on his fingertips to suggest he plays that instrument of his sometimes without a pick. At the bus stop ten feet away, a Metro bus pulls up.)
Christopher: It’s okay. C’mon with you then–that’s the bus that’ll get us to that pint.
(The bus isn’t terribly crowded, not at this hour. But there are enough riders on it to keep Christopher on the alert, and he can’t quite hide his relief that the old woman he’d seen, the woman in the fedora with a whistle in her hands, is nowhere in sight. He doesn’t say much, not while the bus wends its way from the U-district to Ballard, nor once he and his companion are off again and heading on foot towards Molly Maguires. There’s music already there; it’s open mic night and the stage is occupied by a black-haired girl with a bodhran and a grizzled old fellow pulling away on a squeezebox. But Christopher, after tossing off a wave to the tender at the bar, aims for a booth towards the back–where he, and his companion for that matter, can keep an eye on the door. Somehow, for reasons he’s not quite ready to put a finger on, it seems apt.)

Tam: So the writing on your, um, Zook–was that… (He trails off, does not complete the question.)

(One of the young waitstaff of the pub comes over to take both men’s orders; absently, Christopher asks for a Pyramid ale. He waits politely until his companion’s placed his own order, and waits again until the server’s gone on his way, safely out of earshot, before he replies.)
Christopher: Gaelic. Scots Gaelic. My… (A beat.) My mum spoke it. (Another beat.) You say it differently.

Tam: She cares a lot about keeping you safe.

(Present tense. Not past, which is the truth of it. Christopher hasn’t missed that, but he doesn’t bother to correct it, not even with a bottle of local beer to blunt the reminder of memories he’d rather not consider. He’s changed the subject, and Christopher knows it; his hazel gaze swings back to Tam, shadowed now, more than a trifle wary. But he’s promised an amiable pint, and that’s what he’s going to give–even though he’s sure once again that he’s dealing with someone not entirely human. The server comes back again with his bottle of Pyramid, and he thanks the youth by rote, barely aware of his passing. Except to mark when he’s gone… and when, therefore, it’s safe for him to speak beneath the music from the stage.)
Christopher: Y’get that then, from one glimpse of my instrument?

Tam: And from your being so far from home.

(One corner of his mouth quirks up in a grin, though, as he takes a pull off that beer. ‘Far from home’–oh, yeah, quite an easier guess when a man has but to open his mouth and talk. How much he can guess off this Tam, though, is another question entirely. There’s nothing so blatant a clue as an accent, or anything the other man is carrying marked in an obvious other tongue… but still, Christopher has his suspicions.)

Christopher: That I’d be, yeah. I’m thinkin’ you’d know somethin’ o’ that yourself, too.

(Tam smiles and raises his bottle.)
Tam: I hope it’s far enough.

(Habit makes Christopher cast a glance around the place, but most everyone in the pub is focused on the duo of musicians on stage. In the booth he’s claimed with Tam, there’s the relative safety of anonymity. Now there’s the acknowledgement, given and received, that he’s got at least something in common with this other man. He’s dying to know now what more there is–and if this Tam is shirking from crossing paths with the old woman, just as he. Christopher MacSimidh has no talent for dissembling, and so he opts for as direct an approach as he can take without risking sounding daft. He leans forward where he sits, the better to keep his voice pitched low.)
Christopher: I hear that, yeah. Look now… I don’t know who your she is, but if it’s the old woman I saw, the one wit’ the whistle… I’m duckin’ her too.

(Tam cocks an eyebrow.)
Tam: Old woman with a whistle?

(Christopher blows out a breath, ill at ease all over again for having to muster words to come close to what’s been gnawing away at him for weeks in this rain-washed northern city, and never mind saying it outright. The beer helps, but only so much, and only because it gives him something to do with his hands when breaking out the bouzouki isn’t yet an option.)
Christopher: Yeah. I’ve seen ‘er, downtown sometimes, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne… (He frowns and waves a hand towards the door by way of punctuation.) Here, sometimes, but not tonight. If she’s what I think she is, she’s… (How in God’s name can he put this?) She’s someone I’m better off avoidin’.

(Tam stops drinking and sets his bottle down. He examines Christopher carefully for a moment, with a serious look on his face.)

Christopher: Does the word ‘Warder’ mean anythin’ to you?

(A pause. Tam shakes his head.)

(He’s in it now. Christopher braces himself, and it plays out on his face, for a tightening of his jaw betrays his tension. Tam’s not of the line, then, not hiding like he is. Which means he’s something else. There’s a tang of Sidhe about him–but not enough for the Newfoundlander to be certain. Not with his own Warder blood no more than latent, able only to whisper guesses, and sometimes warnings. That he feels no warning now is all that makes him brave enough to answer.)
Christopher: She’s one. The old woman. Means she’ll have a way o’ knowin’ things about this city, who’s in it… and who shouldn’t be.

Tam (Concerned, thinking this through): And she’s after you. Is warder a. . . a euphemism, like “fair folk” or “kindly ones”?

(Christopher almost laughs. Tam’s answer is enough to tell him his instincts were sound–this man does know at least something of the very world he’s avoiding. The relief of that knowledge is strong; at least he won’t be written off as a madman. He glances to the door again by reflex, smiling without any particular humor, eyes distant.)
Christopher: Nah. (His gaze comes back.) But a Warder knows the meanin’ behind those words.

Tam: That’s good to know. The energy coming off you is. . . out of place. I mean, it’s yours, but there’s something about it, like it needs to come to rest. If that’s what she’s after, then you have to get it tucked away, or it’ll be way too easy to peel it off of you.

(All color drains out of Christopher’s face and he slumps back in the booth, tilting his head back a moment, clamping his eyes shut. He does laugh, now, and it’d be a good laugh if it had any pleasure in it; as it stands, it sounds more like fear. )
Christopher: You… you can tell?

(Tam utters a mild profanity in a language similar to, but not the same as Gaelic, the same language he seemed to speak when he read the words on the bouzouki. He slowly, carefully, looks around the room before speaking again.)
Tam: Yeah. I can tell. I shouldn’t have said.

(And now, with a pause in the music as the duo on the little stage gives way to an older woman with a guitar, those not-Gaelic words are clearer to Christopher’s ear. He looks again at his companion, then waves off those last words and plucks up the bottle before him again to drain it dry.)
Christopher: I thought you would. It’s okay. (He sighs.) Well then, Tam, I can say this. If she’s good at the Wardin’ she’ll know you’re here. If you’re after keepin’ your head down, and if you’re passin’ through, she’ll not care. (When his bottle is empty, he sets it back down before him and stares at it, his voice gone very low.) If trouble finds you on Seattle ground, though… that she’ll care for.

Tam: I see. (Pause.) If that’s the case, then why is she after you?

Once you’ve read Cindy’s post, be sure to check out my entry on Fraser Sherman’s blog, and to read the posts of other authors in the tour.  Thanks to Angela Korra’ti for organizing the tour.  And now, without further ado, Heeeeeeeeere’s Cindy!

_____

I’ve been writing since I was in my early teens, but I never felt like a real author until I took a class in college called “Publishing the Magazine.” It was exactly that – a class that took its staff of students (a mix of volunteers and people taking the class…) through every aspect of publishing a magazine. We had to get ads, write a story, sit without twitching while someone edited the story, everything. It was even listed in the Writer’s Market, and there was an actual slush pile.

I remember sitting at the round table, presenting my ideas to the gathered…mostly the professor, Dr. Alan Natali, and the student editor. I kept presenting ideas, and Alan kept rejecting them. “There has to be something interesting…something that only you can write about.”

At which point, shyly, I put forward the fact that my father was a blacksmith and that we used to go to craft shows. This was the first time in my life that a) I felt like maybe I was an interesting individual, and b) that yes, people would think the fact that my father was a blacksmith was really COOL.

It was an amazing experience. I learned that editors are your friends. That I have a voice, and it’s a good one. That non-fiction can actually be a lot of fun to write. And I got to experience that feeling, that pride one can feel, the relief and joy and “OMG ieeee flail!” at seeing one’s words in print.

And I stayed part of the magazine (called Flipside) for the rest of my college years. All my really good memories start from that story. It also taught me a ton of things that I use in my everyday life – how to do design and layout, how to copyedit, and how to get rid of passive voice. So, while it’s not the first real publishing experience, or a story about finishing my first work, I think that it’s the first, honest step I took to where I am now.

In other news, however, Shadow of the Antlered Bird has picked up a five-star review at the new site Poddy Book Reviews.  It’s a new site, so I’m not sure how high the standards are or how many people read it, but the reviewer compares my book to “how Leonard Cohen grabs you by the brain and forces you to ponder the meaning of his poems, or the lyrical quality of his songs.”

The bad news, for those who haven’t been following the full story on my blog, Rachel hasn’t.  She checked into St. Joseph’s on Tuesday night and is in the hospital with a nasty abscess under her surgical scar.  Which has its own good news (it hasn’t invaded the bloodstream and isn’t likely to get worse) and bad news (it will be painful, unpleasant, and undignified until it drains out).

So, anyone sending healing energy to Sarah, you may now want to direct it to Rachel instead.  Other than that, all’s well with the world.