Tales from the Same Place

Today, you can read all about Tigerflies. I wrote a story about them which is called Tigerflies or The City of the Night (it appeared in Mithila Review), and it's a bit weird, but that's okay.

If you like this story I have something interesting to tell you, Reader, something you may have sensed or suspected but could never be quite sure about.

My Tigerflies story is set in the same universe as a few other pieces you may have seen or might want to go read. There are no characters that move from one tale to the next, nor is the time period the same for all these tales, it's just that the stories all come from the same world, a place that has manticores and chimaerae and sometimes even magic.

Look, I made a list for you to explore:

• The Marriage of Ocean and Dust, Postscripts to Darkness Issue 6: Alchemy, a golem, love...and death
• "A is for...," Alphabet Series: C is for Chimera: A tale about two sisters
• The Master of Hourglasses, Lackington's #16: Masks, dreams, a city of lakes
• The Castle of Ashes, Red Penny Papers (site defunct, but I put it up on my blog for you to read!): Creatures that travel in mist, the story of a girl and a tiger

There. I hope you'll find the reading of these tales enjoyable; not exactly enjoyable perhaps, but maybe entertaining? After all, these stories are a little weird, but I told you from the start that weird

was okay...

Half-Time: Publications from January to June 2018

The first half of 2018 is over. This seems a good time to look back at those first six months and take stock.

The day job kept me very busy, but still I had some things see the light of publication. In March there was Pomegranates, a poem near and dear to my heart. It was picked up by Megan Arkenberg for Mirror Dance, which is a place full of wonders. Let me give you a few lines from Pomegranates here:

"He has darkness in him, he smells
like butterflies pinned under glass."

"You will see light like you never saw it before;
there will be shadows
and they will be like living things,
like breathing souls cut from brittle glass"

The House Beneath, another poem, also came out in March. It appeared in Not One of Use #59. I'll share a little morsel from that with you:

"My house has seven doors.

I would invite you in.

But there are seven doors here

through which you must pass."

This month, there's a taste of the divine in The New Prometheus which appeared at Eternal Haunted Summer:

"Some mornings when I wake up I think that I might devour the sky, one piece of azure at a time"

 Polu Texni picked up my poem Owl Women. It also appeared in June:

"the owl women need no fear, no darkness
is the shade of dark
that could haunt an owl woman;"

Speaking of Polu Texni, my poem The Witch Woman appeared there last year and received a Rhysling nomination, which means it was reprinted in this year's Rhysling anthology, so I'll count it as publication.


ETA: Well, this just went live, so I'll have to add it. Mirror Dance picked up another one of my poems. This Shift contains some shape-changing. Here's an excerpt:

"there is no more magic in a cast off skin
just like there is no more magic left in last night's dreams."

For the first half of 2018, I can count one published short story, N is for..., which appeared in the Alphabet Series: E is for Evil. This anthology series is edited by Rhonda Parrish, and I am quite happy to have a story in A through D and another one forthcoming in F is for Fairy. Here is a snipped from N is for...:

"I read a lot. I read oh so much. I am a librarian. No, that's a lie, I work in my uncle's book shop. Wrong again, he never had a book shop, and I never had an uncle, just strange aunts. But I do work in a coffee shop. It's close enough. For a long time I thought that I was falling in love with him and he with me and that things from there on out would be perfect."

Fins out what N is for, and read the whole story.

I'm looking forward two the second half! ;)

~~~

From the Vaults: The Star Reader's Almanac

The Star Reader's Almanac

By Alexandra Seidel

The night is open like a book begging to be read

there is, in its starry letters, catabasis to be had

and the dream of falling up and under

the spell of sky

I bind my firmament to the night sky

and the night sky binds to all other things

above and beyond, links

fates together like soft wool to thread

Inscribed book of firmaments and fates,

rocks pages like cradles just beyond that strip

of horizon, trips black holes in words,

grudges in their own dark,

and longing in the distance between stars

~

This poem actually began with the first line, which just happened to plant itself in my brain during a bout of creativity. The rest just fell into place around it like any constellation would.

~~~

(Images from commons.wikimedia.org)

This poem was first published in Ideomancer. If you enjoyed reading it, do leave me a comment or click on the woman in white to your right. She'll lead you straight to the Tip Jar. Thanks!

 

From the Vaults: A Metamorphosis of Dream

A Metamorphosis of Dream

By Alexandra Seidel

He collects tigers in wells, panthers and snow leopards

at the bottom of dead lakes, in the hearts of glaciers;

insects and bugs, spiders with eight lives and even caterpillars

he hides in all and every kind of nut, hazelnut, walnut, macadamia and chestnut…

those things, shelled and frozen, he keeps safely hanging from his trees

grown from a forest floor of sand, wider than the eye can see.

He sometimes goes by Morpheus and when he does, the story goes

that he blends squashed snakeskin and bat's cry into a canvas

and hands you a brush and lets you do your thing;

he offers you colors that he himself prepared. Something

garish then escapes, something Bosch might have painted,

wide awake, sand caked under his fingernails.

He sometimes calls himself Oneiros; Oneiros

keeps painted masks tucked in among the feathers of his wings,

masks with eyes and tongues, with red mouths and teeth, masks

with words and songs, masks with screams and confessions;

he might dare you to pick one and wear it or he might drop one before you

along with a scattering of feathers as he leaves you standing, feet buried in sand.

You might also call him Morphine, he who breaks the shells of nuts

and takes all the eight lives of spiders in his mouth, melts glaciers and drains lakes

and drinks dry all the deepest wells;

in a house of ivory built on a sandy shore you will find him waiting,

rearranging mirrors in honor of your coming and scattering his wings for you to walk on;

sharded masks cut your soles and the sand stings them deeply

as you walk, and with the certainty of butterflies, you do no longer want to remain

a caterpillar feasting on his un-real trees and so

you call him Dream and give him even stranger shapes

that are as real as bullets are, as real as words that have been spoken;

yes, he smiles. But do not forget that Dream has masks, slick as oil,

dark as blood, sharp as promises and manifold as deserts of sand in distant lands.

~

'A Metamorphosis of Dream' began with the first stanza, the cats in bodies of water as a representation of the wild and primal forces our dreams can confront us with. The piece is inspired--at least in part--by Morpheus of course, the Greek god of dreams.

~~~

(Images from commons.wikimedia.org)

This poem was first published in Ideomancer. If you enjoyed reading it, do leave me a comment or click on the woman in white to your right. She'll lead you straight to the Tip Jar. Thanks!

Giftmas Blog Tour 2017 - Shining a Light

In case you hadn't noticed, the holiday season is upon us! Again! It's this time of the year when you exchange gifts with the people near and dear to you have too much food, are warm and happy, while outside, the cold of winter tries to creep in.

But not everyone is quite this lucky; some people in this day and age know what it means to be hungry. This is why Rhonda Parrish gathered a group of writers and friends around her to raise money for the Edmonton Food bank. Let me be clear, one dollar buys three meals for hungry people. The people that give can also hope to win fantastic prizes, signed copies, Tuckerizations, and more, go here to find out more. There is no excuse not to give, because every dollar counts!

For the Giftmas Blog Tour, I'm giving a warm welcome to Doug Blakeslee (@simms_doug). Enjoy his post.

~~~

Being a Light

By Doug Blakeslee

2017 has been a rough year for a lot of folks, especially in the realm of personal health. I have two friends that have had major issues that have severely affected their lives. In one case, the person was close to having a cardiac incident and thanks to some very observant nurses, the person survived. With their current regimen of medication, they’re thriving and look better than they have in months. Not to say there aren’t rough patches, but there’s hope and that’s nice to know. It’s good to hang out with him and being able to engage in activities.

Another had cancer surgery and spent the better part of two months down for the count between recovery and radiation treatment. In both cases, they had a big support network so even at their lowest, they both had places to turn. Their life got turned upside down and they’re not out of the woods yet, but again, a great deal of determination and support. They’re been very transparent about their illness, the side effects, and even the low point of the recovery. Some might have given up. Hell, I’d have not blamed them for doing so, even if it meant future health issues. But they plowed through it and is on the mend.

I got to spend time with the person at a recent con and found that while they’ve taken a pounding, the spirit is still there. I figure it was the first they’d really been out in public and being social since the surgery. While fatigued, they powered along and made it through four days without much of a break. At one point, we were at dinner and while there’s difficultly talking due to the surgery, we carried on a conversation for over an hour. Afterwards, they mentioned their jaw hurting but worth it for connecting again.

It didn’t seem like much, but the boost to their spirit for such a small thing left me with a good feeling. I didn’t think about it at the time, but as I thought on their words, it struck me that its quite often the small things that mean the most. Being there. Saying hi. Asking how their day went. Listening. Being interested and invested in the person. That can do so much more than anything else.

Find someone. Talk with them. Reconnect. You never know how much you can influence someone’s life until you reach out.

 ~

The author lives in the Pacific Northwest and spends his time writing, cooking, gaming, and watching hockey. His interest in books and reading started early thanks to his parent. From time to time he blogs about writing and other related topics at The Simms Project at http://thesimmsproject.blogspot.com/. He's been published in such anthologies as: “Someone Wicked”, “Stomping Grounds”, “Fossil Lake”, “A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court” and others.  His current project is an urban fantasy novel about a war between the Fae. He can be reached on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/doug.blakeslee] or simms.doug@gmail.com.

~~~

As this is a blog tour, I'd like to invite you to go here and read my guest post. I'm wondering whether we need the holidays, or a version of the holidays. Enjoy!

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up Post

This year, I finally decided to do NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month for those who are unaware.) The goal of NaNoWriMo is to produce 50,000 words of the first draft of your novel. However, I knew that that was just not gonna work for me, it just felt too constricting, both the word count and the fact that you are supposed to work on one ms at a time.

So I changed the goal somewhat, primarily my focus was to Get Stuff Done. I roped in my alter, Ms. Piper, to help out, and the results were pretty good. Let's have a look:

• One novella completed (21k)
• One novelette completed (7.9k)
• Another novelette completed (14k)
• One flash story completed (600)
• One short story completed (1.5k)
• Two blog posts completed (2k)
• One novel rewrite almost complete (about 50k)
• One novella about one third complete (about 12k, this might eventually become a novel)

This looks good. I'm very pleased with myself!

Another achievement I am very proud of is the regularity with which I managed to pursue daily designated writing time, especially because this month was so very busy at the day job. Because of that, I didn't manage to write every singe day, sheer exhaustion just didn't allow that sometimes, but those wordless days were just a handful, and for the most part, the habit of daily writing stuck.

This is something I cannot recommend highly enough by the way, it's a huge sacrifice, particularly if you have a day job, but the output was really worth it, at least for me. It's not a habit I want to let go anytime soon.

That being said, every month is a good writing month, December just started, and I got words to put on the page!

~~~

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yume1004.jpg

From the Vaults: Turns, Twists; Lost Things

Turns, Twists; Lost Things

By Alexandra Seidel

Around the first corner--left--

you find the sylph that governs the western winds

hair and limbs spelling out abandon

the sylph--neither man nor woman--

tells you a story

and half of that is lost on the breeze

another left

and a stone found lying on the ground

plain as onyx or jade

too heavy for your pocket

but warm in your hand

--some stones hold breath or life--

Your third turn is a right

and almost finds you tumbling down a well

set like a grave into the ground

the echo haunts you as you retreat

already lost. You take

another right (which might be left)

and find a beggar, open-handed

squatting there, eyes staring empty

you part with the warm stone

and you go right again

there is a dark cup

brimming with wine

thirst makes you drink (thirst? really?)

Back again and left

scattered peacock feathers on the floor,

and the shed scales of a snake, a leopard's skin

you take the skin and take a right

warm cake awaits

fresh from the oven that you cannot see

baked by no-one, filled; you lick

warm berry juice from your fingers (berry juice? really?)

and then again you turn--right or left, no matter--

and find a bed or a bench or a throne; a hat

or a crown; more warm things

filling your stomach

and the leopard's spots on your skin

and all the walls around you softly closing in

~~~ 

This poem was first published in 2010 by Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine which is unfortunately a dead market now. If you enjoyed the poem, do click on the woman in white to the right, she'll lead you straight to the Tip Jar. Thanks!