Pencil Pusher

Let Us All Gather to Discusse the Plague

Wed, 06 May 2009 20:43:47 GMT

Hello everyone! I have a satire online this week, in the e-zine "The Big Jewel." It's called "Let Us All Gather to Discusse the Plague." (The misspellings are on purpose, I swear). Here's the link:

http://www.thebigjewel.com/

Other than that, I've been working hard on two first drafts, really having fun with them. One has murderous siblings and manor houses and the other has lots of robots and Martian parties. What's not to love?

It looks like everyone's doing well, based on your livejournal entries anyway.

Talk to you all later,

CosiMod :)

P.S.: I have a couple book recommendations. A lot of people have already recommended this one, but I also really liked "The Adoration of Jenna Fox." Right now, I'm reading and loving John Scalzi's "Zoe's Tale." Zoe is a witty 15-year-old girl living in a new colony on another planet. Who wouldn't love a book that has dodgeball in space, werewolf-like creatures living in the forest and a planet that smells like puke?

Puppy Pictures

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:21:27 GMT

Hi everybody! I haven't posted for awhile, so I decided to break my silence with some pictures of Daisy. She's about nine months old now, and almost full-grown. She finally stopped chewing on everything about a month ago.*

*Except me. She still chews on me. And she'd chew on Phoebe the cat, if I let her.

Here she is. The only way I could take her picture without it being completely blurry was to wait until she was stalking Phoebe:

Right after I took the pictures, Daisy jumped up and tried to herd Phoebe like a sheep. Poor kitty. But she's okay:

Nothing much is happening with my writing at the moment. I haven't sent any queries lately. But I am about 20,000 words into a very terrible first draft, and I have articles in the Jan/Feb and March/April editions of "Fun for Kidz." That's something, at least.

Indiana is a gray, snowy, rainy, chilly mess right now, so I can't wait for spring. In the spring, Indiana is a somewhat-gray, somewhat-snowy, rainy, chilly mess. It'll be a nice change of pace. Plus, there are tornadoes!

Goodbye for now,

Cosimod :)

I'm on Opium...

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 04:43:12 GMT

...Opium Magazine, that is. What did you think I meant? It's a short comedy involving vampires:

http://www.opiummagazine.com/

I hope you're all doing well, and not freezing too much. Phoebe says "hello." She doesn't actually say "hello," because she's a cat. But she's sending the "hello" vibe to me telepathically. Daisy the puppy, on the other hand, is too busy chewing on the rug to say "hello." But she means well.

See ya later,

-CosiMod :)

I have to post again....

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:23:46 GMT

I have to post again because I forgot to include my NaNoWriMo name: Virginia Bartolus

(It had something to do with a past WIP and made sense at the time). If anyone wants another buddy, add me and I'll eventually add you back!

CosiMod

Why, Hello There

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:35:13 GMT

Hi everybody! It's been about a month and a half since I stopped blogging, and with a little goading from arya_darcy / aryadarcy , I thought I'd stop in and update-- even though nothing exciting is happening in my mind-numbingly dull life. Sorry Arya!

So, let's see... what do I know?

1. I got a puppy. She's a Border Collie, her name is Daisy (aka Bitey Mouth) and she's a four-month-old monster. She rips things to shreds, growls while she's biting my pant legs, pees on the rugs, chews on chair legs, chases Phoebe, digs holes, climbs through the fence and eats anything she can fit in her mouth-- including but not limited to sticks, small rocks, clumps of dirt, chicken sh*t and houseplants. But I love her for some strange reason! Here she is:

Here she is again, biting a stick:

2. I still don't have an agent. So if you know anyone who might want a young-adult horror-comedy full of monsters or an odd metafictional farce/satire, let me know-- so I can tell you I've already tried them! Oddly enough, the metafictional manuscript has gotten more requests than anything I've written-- but no one will take it, and one agent said plainly that she had no idea how to pitch it. :(
I feel like a circus freak in the publishing world. Maybe I'll start a new company and call it Sideshow Publishing. The Salon des Refuses. (The company will last two weeks before it goes bankrupt).

3. I'M READY FOR NANO! Who else is ready? Writing is the only way to take your mind off writing.

4. Sarah Palin caused my cat to claw me. This one takes some explanation: Palin was at a rally on my block, at the amphitheatre (I put out my Obama sign for the occasion). There were helicopters flying over constantly, going in circles, and one of my barn cats, Mr. Benny, scares easily. So I picked him up to lock him in the barn. At that exact moment, Palin came on stage. I know, because the crowd went crazy. All the applause made my cat dig his back claws into my arm. She made me bleed my own blood! Can I sue her?

5. I entered this Halloween story contest:

http://www.swimmingkangaroo.com/halloween.html

Sponsor a starving writer today; please vote for my entry! Okay... vote for whatever entry you want, but you have to pity me because they spelled my name Marriane instead of Marianne. You can tell my entry was partially inspired by the new puppy. Plus, I wrote it while she was chewing off my shoe, so it might not be that great. Wait, why am I saying this? Of course it's great! It's right up there with Tolstoy! ~~I want to win because I need writing credits~~ I want to win for the sheer joy.

That's all I know, honestly. If anything, I've forgotten things since I last posted. I think I've managed to keep up with the posts of everyone on my friends' list, though. I stopped in now and then and scrolled through. Maybe after NaNo or the holidays, I'll come back and be more dedicated. Or maybe I'll be chewed to pieces by then.

CosiMod :)

I'm Giving This Up for Now

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:25:45 GMT

I've had this account for about a year now. I kept it for three reasons:

1. I liked reading about all your struggles as writers, what it's like to get an agent and a book deal.
2. I liked venting about my own struggles or celebrating publications; I liked being goofy and trying to entertain.
3. All the writers' sites say that you need a blog as a writer-- it makes you part of the Writing World.

I still like reading your blogs, which is why I'm keeping the account for now. But I no longer feel as strongly about the second reason. I don't vent anymore. Believe me, I've had many horribe days where I opened this blog and started typing, only to erase everything and close it again. Instead, I started putting all that into a personal diary, or just not writing it down at all. I'm not very good at entertaining either, since I'd rather save the ideas for short stories and try to publish them.

As for the last reason, I'm tired of being told what I need as a writer. I've tried to be everything the publishing industry wants, and it hasn't gotten me anywhere. What I need is time to write.

In short, I need to get away from all this. I just need to write and query and not pay too much attention to the queries. If I don't get published, I don't. That's fine. It's not that big of a deal to me anymore. The writing is a big deal. All I can do is make it my best. I can't control whether an agent thinks giant ants are so yesterday, or quilting bees are the new hot thing. I can't control whether one likes my voice and hates my plot and the other likes my plot and hates my voice. So there's no use talking about it. I'll write their rejections on my little chart and forget it.

This blog was fun to write for a while. I'll definitely keep the account and stop in to read your journals now and then. If I hear any Big News, I'll let you all know. I'm also keeping my other livejournal account, the one where I post all my publication news (on those rare occasions):

marianne_hess

You all kick ass. Someday, I'd like to meet you all in person-- although, I think you'll be surprised to discover that I'm not really a human at all; I'm actually a toaster Cylon. LiveJournal's test didn't work after all:

http://cosimod.livejournal.com/2007/09/30/

Goodbye for now, arya_darcy aryadarcy brian_ohio christine444 dreamy_bee elysiadawnielle inkstaind_stars las loompawrangler m_stiefvater onegrapeshy quenbolyn ravelda reneesweet and tlcadence

CosiMod :)

Fake Memoir Part 3: Childhood

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:24:43 GMT

FAKE MEMOIR PART THREE: CHILDHOOD (AS A BONUS, IT'S TOLD IN JAMES FREY'S STYLE!!!!)

I am seven years old. I am a genius. A prodigy. I am a genius in everything. A prodigy. Oh. I already said that. Shit. No time to edit. Let's just pretend I said it twice to make a point.
One day, I am standing by the Playground behind the overbearing shadow of the stony elementary school. I am standing there downing one Pixie Stix stick after another. It is my latest addiction. Last year, it was Twizzlers. The year before, Skittles. Like the school shadow, my powerful sugar dependency forces a Cloud over my life and eats into my soul-- not to mention my teeth.
The Teacher, a rusty whistle at his bulky neck, stops to talk to me. He talks.
You okay, kid?
I don't know.
I said, you okay?
I don't know.
Speak up, kid.
I don't know.
You foreign or something?
I look him in the eye. His eyes are empty, like eye sockets without eyes. I take a few steps away. I wobble. My feet are unsteady. I reach in my pocket and pull out a blue Pixie Stix stick, followed by a red and an orange. I down them one by one and breathe a sigh of relief and stumble to the Playground, hoping to grasp the Monkey bars. If only the Monkey would come to life and grasp me, and shake me and tell me, "You have a problem, kid." If only the Monkey would place me behind his metaphorical bars and imprison me until every ounce of sugar left my bloodstream. Maybe then I could kick the habit. Until that happens, the powdery sweetness controls me. I would kill for it. Last Halloween, I did.
I scream and leap onto the bars. The other children run in fear. I am not like the other children. I am a genius. A prodigy. Shit, I repeated myself again.
Everything goes black, blacker than my Soul. When I wake, I am sitting in the nurse's office, mumbling something about my past life, the innocent life I lived as a baby, the life on the Prairie with my wolf-mama and quintuplet Siblings. The carefree life I lived before I wandered off to the orphanage, got adopted by a creepy recluse who lived in a cabin, came in last in all those child Beauty pageants, took on the role of Ominous Girl with Empty Expression in various horror films, developed a deadly addiction to sugar and started writing long run-on sentences full of random Capitalization and the repetition, repetition, repetition of words, all followed by short, choppy sentences that seem redundant. Go figure. Who knew? Crazy.

The nurse is swabbing my face. It's full of holes. There's a hole in my cheek, my chin, my forehead. My nose is broken in three places. It's so broken, it's now sitting in the place of my left ear, and my left ear is where my right ear used to be. I run my tongue over my teeth, except I have no teeth. Only wooden replacements. I look at the nurse with my one good eye.
What's happening?
You fell.
I fell?
You fell.
How, fell?
Fell.
Yes, fell. How?
How fell, yes.
It turns out she's foreign. She doesn't understand.
The next day, in the Hospital, I learn what happened. I fell off the monkey Bars and a baseball player stepped on my face while wearing cleats. I have got to get off the Sugar. It is ruining my life. When I get out, I go to the Candy shoppe on the corner. I buy a bag of Pixie Stix. I sit on the curb, staring at them. A homeless man approaches.
You gonna eat those, kid? He's hungry. His stomach rumbles.
No.
Why'd ya buy 'em, then?
Not to eat them.
Can I have 'em? I'm awful starved.
No.
Why not?
I don't know.
You're a real jerk, ya know?
Yes. I smile. I am a real jerk. I toss the Pixie Stix into the gutter and walk away. I am free of my addiction, and more of a jerk than ever. I see one of my classmates on the next corner. I kick her and walk on. It feels good to be human again.

The End

Jeez, what a horrible child I was. Next installment: the teenage years. After I overcame my Pixie Stix addiction, a lot of crazy things happened. It should be fun!

CosiMod :)

A Break from the Fake Memoir

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:56:10 GMT

I know you ~~never want to read another fake memoir again~~ can't wait for the next installment in the fake memoir, but my mind isn't working today because I'm trying to get queries sent and citiques finished. Besides, I plan on writing the next installment in James Frey style, so I have to study A Million Little Pieces first.

If you look carefully at the last two sentences, you'll notice something slipped into the middle: "get queries sent." That's right, I'm trying again. I'm going to send out about ten for starters. And of course, I won't need to send any more than that, because ~~some agent with a concussion who's temporarily confused~~ some brilliant agent will call me right up and offer representation. Then ~~an editor who's lost her marbles~~ an editor who recognizes the marketability of my gorgeous prose will provide me with ~~mere pocket change~~ a six-figure deal and insist I write fifteen sequels and just as many prequels and even some alternate versions of previously-written books, told from the perspective of a flea on the main character's ankle.

I can't wait! I'm so excited! ...I guess I'd better go wade through agent listings, then.

CosiMod :)

Fake Memoir Part Two: Baby Adventures!

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:37:30 GMT

FAKE MEMOIR PART TWO: BABY ADVENTURES!

I was born in the wagon of a travelin' show. Actually, that's not true. My dear, dear friend and half-sister, Cher, was born in the wagon of a travelin' show. I was born in the wagon of the Donner Party. My poor mother didn't last much longer, with only a head and abdomen. Fortunately, before Mr. Reed opted to take a shortcut, my four siblings and I fell off the wagon and landed on the back of a buffalo. It walked around the prairie awhile, before finally dropping us off outside a den of wolves. The wolf-mama took us in and raised us up.

I loved our den. Wolf-mama fed us a steady diet of milk and prairie dogs. She taught us how to walk on all fours and groom ourselves with our tongues. I was a very unusual baby. I started speaking at the age of four weeks. My first word was "bark-bark."
Wolf-mama also taught us how to write in Chinese. Apparently, all wolves write in Chinese. I had no idea. I immediately began penning my memoir, but soon realized how difficult it was to make things up. I decided fiction writing might better suit my factual mind.
While my siblings learned to hunt, I stayed in the den, rolling around, drooling and crying, writing novels in my head. One day, wolf-mama looked at me with her frightening yellow eyes and said, "Barkbark? Bark, bark, bark." I knew what she meant immediately. She thought I was a lazy little baby. If I didn't get out there and learn to wrestle prairie dogs to the ground, she was going to grab me by the scruff of my neck and abandon me somewhere.
I was so heartbroken, I crawled out of the den one night (after giving Moonbeam a nice, swift kick for the fun of it) and set out on my own. I needed to find someone who appreciated me, who would love me no matter how much I spit up my food and dirtied my diaper. Surely, there was someone like that out there. But I didn't find them, because I was crawling around the prairie like an idiot.
Luckily, a bunch of backpackers were out there camping, telling ghost stories around a fire. One of them was right in the middle of a story about a girl raised by wolves who crawled around on all fours and only knew how to bark. I thought that was the perfect moment to crawl up to them, barking. The ones who didn't have instant heart attacks took me in and dropped me off at an orphanage the next day.

And that's where this installment ends. Next time: the tragedy of my childhood.

CosiMod :)

Fake Memoir Part One: In Utero

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:28:30 GMT

FAKE MEMOIR PART ONE: IN UTERO

My life started before I was born. I spent nine months floating around with my quintuplet siblings: Jojo, Earl, Moonbeam and Mr. Bubbles. Mr. Bubbles was named after our mother's favorite monkey. Unfortunately, the monkey had rabies and he bit our mother while she was pregnant with us. While she was stumbling away from him, she fell into a shark tank at the zoo and got her legs chewed off. Then, while she was still learning to use her wheelchair, she thought it would be fun to stick her fingers in a lion cage.
By the time we were born, ol' Ma was nothing but a head and an abdomen. But we didn't know that. We had a wonderful time together, floating there. It was the best time of my life.

It was also the most confusing time of my life. Every day, I wondered, "Where am I? Why can't I see anything? Why do I look like a freakish alien with a giant head and huge eyes?" Soon, cabin fever set in. I started kicking the walls. I started kicking Moonbeam, too, since she was the closest. In truth, I envied her spot in the uterus; she had a great view of the spleen. I never got over my envy. Later in life, I would seek to outdo Moonbeam by surrounding myself in store-bought cow spleens. Nothing worked.
As those nine months drug on, I developed severe claustrophobia. I started to feel like I was suffocating. It didn't help that Earl's ass had grown right against my face. Jojo was so annoying, too. Every time I tried to fall asleep, he slugged me in the back of the head. (I got even when we were born; I slugged him in the back of the head every time he had a mouthful of mashed carrots).
My carefree early existence gave way to the inevitable inadequacies of being a near-infant. I fell into the melancholy of the Third-Trimester Crisis. Why did Moonbeam's eyes look closer together than mine? Why did her toes wiggle more? I wanted wiggling toes! Jeez, I was so ugly and incompetent. I started feeling guilty about sitting around. I hadn't accomplished anything with my life, and more than thirty-two weeks of it were already over.
I shouldn't have spent so much time just sitting here growing, I thought. I could've learned to play the violin by now, or at least to count on my new fingers.
When it came time to be born, my melancholy gave way to optimism. A new world awaited! Unfortunately, the first thing I saw in that new world was my mother-- what was left of her. I started screaming. Moonbeam started screaming even louder. When the doctor set us side by side, I wrapped my tiny fingers around her throat. She deserved it, that show off.

But I have to stop now, because the next part will be all about my baby adventures!

CosiMod :)

A Million Little Pieces of Hilarity!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:46:48 GMT

I was in Goodwill today, looking for something to wear to my cousin's wedding ($2 is all I'm willing to spend on a dress, because I never wear them). Instead, I wandered over to the book section and found James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. It had the Oprah's Book Club sticker still on it, and it looked well-read. The owner had also stuck a 10-cent sticker on the cover. I tried to imagine how the whole thing went down: the woman who owned the book ran out and bought it because she idolized Oprah. She read it cover to cover, possibly with her book club. She loved it, because Oprah loved it. Then she found out that Mr. Frey had lied to Oprah (NO!). So she slapped that 10-cent sticker on there and tried to sell the book in her yard sale, but nobody bought it. Instead, it ended up at Goodwill.
And that's where I bought it for 70 cents, because I couldn't resist. Face it, Frey's book is the most hilarious book ever written. I haven't actually read it or anything, but the back blurb had me laughing all the way home:

At the age of 23, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth knocked out, his nose broken, and a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed nor any recollection of the past two weeks. An alcoholic for ten years (since he was 13?!) and a crack addict for three, he checked into a treatment facility shortly after landing. There he was told he could either stop using or die before he reached age 24. This is Frey's acclaimed account of his six weeks of rehab.

Now that's some crazy fiction!

I love the praise it receives:

"An intimate, vivid and heartfelt memoir. Can Frey be the greatest writer of his generation? Maybe." -New York Press (Oh my God! He comes from a whole generation of liars!)

"...The strength of the book comes from the truth of the experience." -The Oregonian (So what you're saying is... this is the weakest book ever written?)

"...A fierce and honorable book that refuses to glamorize [the] author's addiction.... A book that makes other recovery memoirs look, well, a little pussy-ass." -Salon (Yeah, he didn't glamorize it or anything. All this stuff REALLY happened. And as for those other recovery memoirs? They suck because they're true)

This is my favorite, because whoever wrote it was trying to make up a little fiction of her own:

"We finish A Million Little Pieces like miners lifted out of a collapsed shaft: exhausted, blackened, oxygen-starved, but alive, thrillingly, amazingly alive." -Minneapolis Star-Tribune (Somebody give this reviewer the Pulitzer; this prose is beautiful)

I'm so inspired by James Frey, I've decided to write my own fake memoir. And since this blog is suffering from dullness, I've decided to write the fake memoir on here! For you all to see! I'm so excited, I have to type more exclamation points: !!!!!!!!!!!!

So the next time I post, I'll start the fake memoir. This'll be fun.

CosiMod :)

I SURVIVED THE REVISION!!!!!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:12:56 GMT

Last night, I reached the final page of my revision. Now I just have to go back and fix a few things and do some editing, and then I might be able to ~~have a life again~~ write some short comedy and research the market.

This calls for a piece of leftover birthday cake!

The final word count: 59,000
My favorite character: Leticia (she's mean, she's selfish, she's my main character's best friend)
My most frustrating character: Mort (he was keeping a secret and wouldn't tell me what it was)
Most gruesome scene: Um... all of them
Best act of violence: the one involving a carjack
Most surprisingly heartwarming moment: when Leticia says she's tired of picking spitballs out of her hair weave
The words I used too often in the first draft: again, just, shit, glanced
Some odd things I had to research: the High School Musical soundtrack, how to ride a Segway, blood storage procedures, King George II.
Number of headaches caused by staring at the screen: too many to count
Whether I think it was all worthwhile: of course; I'm ready to start another story... after I get some exercise; that birthday cake is making me feel guilty

CosiMod :)

Another Year, Another Birthday

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:12:09 GMT

It happened again: I aged today. Another year older. One step closer to looking like my userpic (yikes!). The good news? A very generous person bought me a TV. One of those fancy-schmancy digital TVs that won't turn to static next February when the analog signals die. It has a working remote and everything! Now I can stare at it from afar while I flip through all five channels before turning it off. But if I get a DVD player, I can watch movies on something other than my laptop, and that'll be nice.
My brother (the kind one) came over. His newest hobby is golf. We shot some golf balls around, and I wasn't half bad, except for the times when I completely missed the ball. It reminded me of when we were kids. We were hitting golf balls one time when I was about ten and I shot one into a tree. It struck a poor bird on its nest and feathers flew everywhere.
What a wonderful thing on a birthday-- to feel like a kid again. Luckily, I didn't hit any birds this time.

CosiMod :)

Funny Stuff

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:59:36 GMT

I might be feeling bland right now, but I stumbled upon this book and couldn't stop laughing:

The Nasty Little Writing Book by Madelyne Simone Rovenhauer

It's a satirical writing advice book published in 2000. It's worth reading just for the fake query letter in it, but it covers everything from how to deal with literary agents to how to hook your reader with your very first line.

A couple examples from the book of "good" hook sentences and what questions they leave the reader asking:

There is but one answer for it, contemplated Lady Avenshugh as she trod forlornly the hoary cobbles of Kensington Church Street late one November morn, I have quite lost my marbles.
Question: Where are they?

Sylvester spurred in his steed at the precipice of the steep knob and surveyed the valley below, eyes brimming, breath wheezing, lungs tight within his chest.
Question: To what is Sylvester allergic?

It's great if you need a laugh.

CosiMod :)

Revising, Revising

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:27:14 GMT

I'm so bogged down in revision, it's all I can think about. I decided a few chapters in to switch from third person to first. I'm glad I made the decision relatively fast. Overall, I'm happy with how the whole thing is working out. There's only one section that isn't quite working.

Progress this time around:

35000 / 60000

I'm not feeling very funny lately, so I might not post for awhile. I don't want to bore you all with my blandness.

Your temporarily bland LJ friend,

CosiMod :)

Lore and Fiction

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:03:31 GMT

According to my Merriam-Webster dictionary, lore is defined as this:

Knowledge gained through study or experience; traditional knowledge or belief; the space between the eye and bill in a bird or the corresponding region in a reptile or fish.

I think I like that bird part best. My critique group just had a chat about lore, and I'm conflicted as usual. You see, I majored in Anthropology in college. I spent a lot of time trying to be objective. I spent so much time trying to be objective, when I started this blog, using the word "I" felt very wrong. Letting my characters live without stopping to explain how their worldviews (due to their enculturation in such-and-such society) caused them to read a certain meaning into the vase on the table also felt very wrong.

Fiction is subjective. We let ourselves inside our characters' minds. We look at them psychologically as much as socially. They're more than objects to study from afar.

Now there I was in the chat, faced with the question of lore. I froze. I watched the chat and didn't participate. I didn't know what to say.

I guess I'll try to work through it now:

Lore consists of traditional knowledge or belief. Okay, then lore is an aspect of culture. But what is culture? Shared values, worldviews, symbols and beliefs.

For example, trees are natural. But seasons are cultural. We created seasons, and gave them specific dates on our calendars. Even if it's snowing on July 15th, in America we still call it "summer." These seasonal dates have passed through the generations.

Plants are natural; weeds are cultural. Male and female are natural; man and woman are cultural. All language is cultural. The voice box is natural.

Lore-- as traditional knowledge/ belief-- falls into the cultural category. But what I worry about, in fiction, is too narrow a definition of culture. It's not stagnant. Whether you're digging up a myth that originated in medieval France or a myth revolving around something Paris Hilton did, it's all cultural. It all has the potential to become lore, as long as it stays alive in a society. As long as it's shared.

So, since culture is always changing by definition, why-- for example-- do people think old zombie lore is more "correct" than new zombie lore? You can trace the zombie roots back to Africa, where certain drugs might have caused people to appear dead. But you can trace it all the way up to the current cinema (and in literature too, but movie zombies get more cultural attention), where zombies behave in all kinds of ways and come about from equally varied methods: viruses, strange fogs, curses, bites from creepy monkeys. Sometimes they only eat brains. Sometimes they eat everything. Sometimes they stumble around. Sometimes they run very fast.

A snob might say that the only true writer would trace the origin through Haitian voodoo and back to the nzambi of the Congo. A snob might say that this lore is the only true zombie lore. And that's funny. Because in America, I'd say that George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is part of our lore. In fact, I'd say it's more a part of our lore than the Congo zombie. More people are familiar with Romero's version; that makes it more culturally alive.

So my verdict: culture is fluid; lore is fluid. The same zombie myth can vary from place to place at the same time, and through time. The Haitians might have a different recipe for undead production than the people in Africa, or the people in Hollywood.

In fiction, story comes first. Relating to your audience, and entertaining your audience, comes first. If that means borrowing from past lore or using more current examples, so be it. The danger in using old lore is lack of understanding for the reader; the danger in using new (potential) lore is that we don't know how long current hot topics will last in our culture.

But ultimately, if it came to being "right" or writing the story I wanted to write, I would sacrifice all for the story. Even if it meant my zombies had to tap dance or make gourd art when they weren't out eating brains. I'd let them, I suppose. Although, I don't really care for gourd art.

CosiMod :)

My Novel is (Not) a Farce

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:23:50 GMT

My revision is temporarily at a stand-still because the resolution is farcical and the rest of the story is deadpan. I wrote the resolution before I knew the story was going to be deadpan. Now the tone is all wrong. That means I have to find a better way to end, and then weave in the clues for the new ending and un-weave the clues for the current one.

But I haven't found a better ending-- yet. I'm thinking, freewriting, making lists, picking blackberries, getting bitten by a bunch of teenage chickens who act like those tiny dinosaurs in The Lost World. But the lightbulb hasn't gone off (uh... maybe I should try flicking the switch?). So I'm stuck for now.

But that's okay. It's a beautiful Friday evening, and I'm going to go out before the Olympics start.

CosiMod :)

Present Tense

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:40:01 GMT

I admit it, I don't usually like present tense in novels. Yes, despite the irony that I'm writing in present tense right now, I still don't like it. If I love a story, I can overlook it. (And I've read some present-tense books where I didn't realize it was present tense until partway through). But nine out of ten times, it feels self-conscious. And I think I've figured out why:

It all goes back to some PE class I took, where the teacher made us lie down on yoga mats and listen to inspirational tapes. The tapes started with hokey music, followed by this woman's airy, high-pitched voice saying things like, "You walk through the meadow. You find a path. It leads you to a stream. You bend down and look into the water. What do you see in the water? There are minnows. You watch the minnows." Blah, blah, blah.
It was early in the morning, and the girl next to me always started snoring. I made up sarcastic alternatives in my head: "You bend down and look into the water. What do you see in the water? A giant crocodile, its mouth wide open, its pointy teeth cracking down on your skull."
But that was the problem. Nothing ever happened in the lousy stories that woman told. You walked and walked. You saw things. None of them ate you.
Now I'm stuck associating present-tense with her humdrum voice. I'm scarred for life because of her stupid meadows and streams. She brainwashed me!

You track down the woman from those tapes. You find her sitting on a log at the edge of a stream, staring at minnows. You dunk her head into the water. She tries to scream. Bubbles pop on the water's surface. You watch the bubbles. Pretty bubbles! You wait and wait. Here it comes. The crocodile. It eats her alive, and you're free of her horrible voice forever.

Ha, ha!

CosiMod :)

Why is This Happening?!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:38:47 GMT

I got home and discovered yet another battery had exploded and leaked acid all over the place. I swear, I'm not mishandling these batteries in any way. I simply removed it from my camera a few days ago and set it on a table, thinking I'd use it again. What makes a regular AA battery suddenly pop? This is the third time that's happened in the last couple months. All in the same room. I'm wondering if they were all the same brand, and they're faulty or something. I'm just glad I took it out of the camera first. What a mess that would've been.

CosiMod

I'm Fashionable, I'm Living with Sixteen Teenagers, and I'm Looking for Friends

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:11:06 GMT

Revision #1 of the comedy-horror just reached its midpoint. It would be farther along, if I hadn't spent my writing time yesterday watching that old Peter Jackson zombie movie, Dead Alive (aka Braindead). Who knew you could sever so many festering limbs with a single lawn mower? Fascinating.

I keep coming across more and more people who're writing comedy-horror. Technically, I've been writing comedy-horror my whole life, so ha! The first story I got published was comedy-horror, back in the sixth grade. I won a Halloween story contest with a short story about a girl who invited over her friends, killed them all and dumped their bodies in the attic. She was such a sweet girl. I won a free pumpkin!

But it's strange to see other people writing what I'm writing. Am I actually doing something at the same time as everyone else? How did that happen? I'm supposed to be twenty years out of style as usual. When you think of the circular nature of all this genre faddism, you'll discover that "twenty years out of style" really means "five years ahead of time." In other words: I'm falling behind, thus catching up. Mind-boggling.

If all these revisions take too long, I'll end up twenty-five years behind. Said another way: I'll be a quarter of a century ahead of everyone. Said the most appropriate way: I'll be hopelessly unpublished. So I'd better get moving! Or... I'd better slow down. I'm confused, frankly.

To switch to a completely unrelated topic, I'm living with sixteen teenagers. They all have bad attitudes and lots of energy. And they're all chickens. That's right: sixteen teenage chickens. They think they're so cool, what with their new feathers and changing voices. They're in that rebellious phase where they bite me every time I feed them. Lousy teenagers.

To switch to yet another topic, I'd like to add a few more friends here on LJ. I know, I know, I said I didn't need more friends. But a few couldn't hurt. I think my slow dial-up could handle that. So if any of you know any writers who might want friends (maybe people you don't like that much; why else would you inflict them with my friendship?), let me know. I'm going to search on my own, but it takes forever for individual blogs to load. I might look like my userpic by then.

CosiMod :)

I've Probably Said This Before....

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:58:27 GMT

...but working on this WIP is incredibly fun. It isn't always pretty. It's far from complete. Some of the lines make me think I could've written better in first grade. Hell, whole chapters make me think that. It's terrible. It's full of odd dialogue tags. Adverbs. Characters who confuse me. A plot that changes every day. But I love it.

This one will get published. I just know that.

-CosiMod (who either feels very confident or very naive today)

The Answer Is....

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:26:16 GMT

I haven't posted for awhile. Or maybe I posted yesterday. I can't remember. It's this infernal heat! And the helicopters flying over with lights flashing. And the campers everywhere setting off fireworks. And the cops' sirens wailing on the corners. And the heavy traffic on my narrow country road. And the fact that one singer after another keeps belting out horrible tunes at the amphitheatre next door. All those things are messing with my head.

The revision remains stuck at chapter three. I'll probably skip it and come back later.

I checked to see if I could get better Internet access. Nope. I'm still living on the only small stretch of road left around here with no dial-up alternatives. There's a giant mall/ business center one road over! And a subdivision on this road! And those people have high-speed Internet! Why am I using so many exclamation points?! Maybe the fact that I exclaim everything is scaring away the Internet providers!!!!!!

Jeez, my mind is all mush in the summertime. Well... mushier. Speaking of mushy minds, I turned on my broken TV this evening and caught a glimpse of a local show called The Brain Game. It pits high schools against each other. Two high schools face off each week, with four students on each team. They answer Jeopardy!-type questions. Anyway, it's sad how little the students know about books. They always get the math/science/history questions correct, but they miss most of the art/music/literature ones. Today's shocking responses:

Question: Who wrote Gulliver's Travels?
Answer: Um... Ed Sullivan?

Question: Who wrote The Catcher in the Rye?
Answer: None. Dead silence from both teams.

Is that depressing or what? Then again, Ed Sullivan was such a great writer. It's easy to confuse him with Jonathan Swift.

CosiMod :)

Eerie Writer Moments

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:12:31 GMT

First, here's the update on the horror-comedy revision:

http://picometer.writertopia.com/words=12431&target=65000

(if that chart doesn't show up, I'm at 12431 / 65000)

It has a title too. Well... two titles. Or three. I actually like fixing it up. I love describing the bloody details. (There's something wrong with me).

Now, the main subject of this post: eerie writer moments. This is the strangest thing that's ever happened to me, as a writer:

Back when I was fourteen, I went to an outdoor art fair. It was crowded and hot, and I was doing all I could to avoid my parents. I was walking along browsing when I suddenly felt like I was being watched. I looked around. I was being watched. Some guy was staring at me. I don't really remember what he looked like, but he wasn't just watching me as part of the crowd. His eyes were all wide. As I walked on, he followed me.

I thought that was creepy, of course. I kept walking. I wound around people. He wound around people. Finally, I ran into my dad and the guy stopped beside us.
He looked me in the eye and said, "Do you write?"
My dad said, "Yeah. How did you know that? She writes all the time."
The guy said, "Write all this down. Remember everything. It'll be valuable to you in the future."
Then he disappeared into the crowd.

Eerie, huh?

Have you all had any eerie writer moments? Also, what do you think:

Was the guy...

A. Psychic
B. From the future
C. Just a high school English teacher trying to encourage teenagers to write
D. Off his medication

(I like to think A or B. But I like to think farfetched things).

Cosimod :)

Mice and Bagworms and Monsters, Oh My!

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:25:57 GMT

I'm busy battling mice and bagworms. I think all the mice are coming in from the cornfields. The bagworms are thriving on the cypress trees. Everything is also infested with Japanese beetles, and I can't go outside without a hat because deer flies want to suck my blood. The neighbors have cows, so the deer flies probably originate there. I hate them! They're much bolder than mosquitoes. They'll crash right into your head, and their bites throb and swell up.

As you can tell, I love summertime.

Other than that, I'm busy critiquing and fixing up my monstrous horror-comedy manuscript. It's been weeks since I sent a query for the metafictional book. Most agents aren't responding anyway, so there's nothing new to say. I got one of those rejections that listed all positive things and then said, "I just didn't connect with it as a whole." I have a feeling that book doesn't really belong anywhere. I might still send the queries, once I revise the blurb again. Why not?

Revising the horror-comedy book is actually... fun. I might be turning into one of those writers who likes writing. That reminds me: I'm on the Internet to do research. What am I doing here? For that matter, what are you doing here? You don't know either, do you?

Marianne :)

Shh! I'm Sleeping!

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:57:51 GMT

I'm not really on-line typing this. I'm asleep, in a delirious feverish haze. So if I don't post for awhile, you'll know why. It's because I'm busy drinking tons of liquids and hallucinating scenes from novels I've never read or written. Crazy, magical scenes that belong in a Beatles movie (what's in that Nyquil, anyway?).

Back to delirium....

CosiMod