It's All In The Execution

or: Finding Your Sparkle

Let's play a little game, shall we? It's called Fill-In-The-Blanks. Here is a simple yet accurate synopsis of a novel. I'll give you a hint (SPOILERS!) its epic fantasy. Shhh... don't tell.

___ ______ follows the journey of the title character _____ ______, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost _____ Kingdom of ______, which was long ago conquered by the dragon _____. Approached out the blue by the wizard _______ ___ ____, _____ finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior ______ ___________. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with _______ and ____, deadly _____ and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Ooo, that was fun. Shall we play again? Okay!

_____, a young farm boy, finds a marvelous blue stone in a mystical mountain place. Before he can trade it for food to get his family through the hard winter, it hatches a beautiful sapphire-blue dragon, a race thought to be extinct. ______ bonds with the dragon, and when his family is killed by the marauding _____, he discovers that he is the last of the ______ ______, fated to play a decisive part in the coming war between the human but hidden ______, dwarves, elves, the diabolical ______ and their neanderthal _______, all pitted against and allied with each other and the evil King __________. ______ and his dragon _______ set out to find their role, growing in magic power and understanding of the complex political situation as they endure perilous travels and sudden battles, dire wounds, capture and escape.

Do you see a pattern? Dwarves... dragons... unexpected journeys and unavoidable battles... Let's try one more from the fantasy realm. It's an easy one.

_____ ______ and the ____________ _____ is the first novel in the _____ ______ series written by __ _______ and featuring _____ ______, a young wizard. It describes how _____ discovers he is a wizard, makes close friends and a few enemies at the ________ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and with the help of his friends thwarts an attempted comeback by the evil wizard Lord _________, who killed _____'s parents when _____ was one year old.

Okay, so I left a big give-away in that one, as if it wasn't obvious enough. Mainly, I grew sick of typing blanks and "School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" is a lot of ____ing blanks. I'm sure you scored an A+ on my little test, crafty readers. In case not, what you read were descriptions of The Hobbit, Eragon, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a few fantasy books that found minor success in the last century...

So what are you trying to say, Geoff? That fantasy is dead? That's its all the same derivative crap it has been since Tolkien stuck a robe on a bearded old dude and called him a wizard? I've been saying that for years. That's why I don't read it.

Well, A: If you don't read fantasy, why are at my blog? I mean, thanks for stopping by and all, but fantastic realms are kind of my lifeblood. And B: It's not just fantasy. You could take any genre and play this game. Try it! It's especially fun with paranormal romance. That falls generally along the lines of "Misunderstood Blank meets mysterious and brooding Blank who turns out to be a Blank and Blank can't really tell if Blank wants to hump Blank or eat Blank." That is not meant to be disparaging to the genre. Certainly it's not my thing, but fantasy is, and I can point out its tried and true tropes with complete acceptance of their oft-maligned place in literature as a whole. The Hero Quest. The Whatever of Prophecy. The Chosen One. The Dark Lord. The Wise Interloper. The Gruff Hero With The Shady Past. The Grand Battle. The Lost or Stolen Object. Most of these things - in some form or another - find their way into my own fantasy writing. Its sort of part of the territory. For better or worse, the tropes have become part of the cannon; what has come before has set the bar for what comes after.

So does this mean, as authors, that we stop writing? Certainly not. It is true that there are only so many tales to tell, only so many elements that build a successful story of any genre. But there are infinite ways to tell a story, and every author has within them a voice that was hand-selected to tell the story in that way.

Have you ever heard a comedian tell a really great joke and then you try to repeat it to your friends and it falls flat? It's not the joke. It's you. Your voice didn't write that joke; the Muse didn't give that riff to you. It belongs to someone else. Could anyone have put those words together? Sure. Most of us can string letters into words and sentences and speak them aloud with our tongues and teeth (or hands.) But just because you're saying the same joke doesn't mean that its the same joke. See my point? The comedian told it, in their specific way, and that's why it worked.

So, friends, if you find that you have a great story but it looks tragically like the descriptions above - it lies flat on the page - then you haven't found your voice. You haven't found that thing that makes your book sparkle (Twilight pun intended;) that makes your words and sentences stand out from the crowd. After four years of plugging away at this writing thing, focused on one large story - with little vacations into other worlds and tropes and genres - I think I can safely say that I've found my sparkle. But it took a lot of practice, a lot of knowing what's been done before, and a lot of thinking about staying true to what people know while (hopefully) giving them something they never see coming.

As my music theory teacher used to say, you have to learn the rules of music in order to break them, making the song your own. I'd say that applies here, especially with genre writing where the roads can too often seem weathered. Just respect the shoulders of the giants that you stand on and don't be afraid to tread a few new paths.

Harry Potter: A History

I honestly couldn't tell you, without looking it up, when the first Harry Potter ("The Sorcerer's Stone") was released as a novel. I also couldn't tell you when Warner Brothers got the rights and released it as a movie. The most I knew about the Harry Potter books was that they were banned from Zeeland Public Schools because of it's “witch crafty” influences. My only interactions with Harry Potter was that I once attended a friend of mine's sisters birthday party, in which she had a rather strange box of Jelly Bellys. After tasting an unfortunate ear wax flavored “Jelly Belly,” I was later told that they were a replica of Harry Potter's “Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.” Delicious. I also attended another party a few years later where everyone wanted to watch the first film of Harry Potter, and I wanted nothing to do with it. That was sometime in high school. My family and best friend thought I was crazy for not even wanting to give Potter a chance, due to my love of fantasy/adventure books and films. I am just one of those people who HATE following whatever is popular, and at the time it was the Harry Potter series.

It wasn't until the Fall of 2005 that I finally caved in and was “forced” into watching the first film with my sister and best friend. Thank God for that day, and thank God for my sister for not only bringing along the first film, but two and three as well. So in one day we watched, “The Sorcerer's Stone,” “The Chamber of Secrets,” and “The Prisoner of Azkaban.” I was also fortunate enough for the 4th installment of Harry Potter to be in the theater around the same time. My mom took me to see “The Goblet of Fire,” my first Potter experience in the theater.

After that night I made a decision that has given me more grief than anyone will ever know. I decided to see all the movies before reading the next book. So, having seen movies 1- 4, I borrowed books 1- 4 from my mom although she had 5 and 6 at the time as well. Then I waited for the 5th movie to be released (“The Order Of The Phoenix”), watched it and immediately read the book. I waited for the 6th movie to be released (“The Half Blood Prince”), watched it and immediately read the book. And finally, the epic conclusion “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part I” was released in November of 2010. I was so upset to hear that the book was being split into two movies! I reminded myself that Book 7 had been released since July of 2007, that I could wait a while longer. I have waited on tenterhooks for 4 years to know what was to happen to Harry Potter and all of his beloved companions, I could wait 7 more months for the REAL conclusion. And finally, on July 15, 2011 I found out Part II of “The Deathly Hallows” was going to be released. I wasn't able to get to the midnight showing, but two days later on July 17, I was able to see what would happen to my dear Mr. Potter.

I don't think I have been more exhausted after watching a movie in my life.

I couldn't tell you when I started crying or when I stopped crying. All I know is that I composed myself enough before the lights came on all the way, and held it together until I got home. Then, I let it all out. I have seriously never cried so hard over a movie in my life.

Why I did cry, you may ask? For “spoiler purposes” I will not reveal anything to those you have not seen it or may be interested in seeing it. However, I will say this. I cried not just for the tragedy that takes place, but for the shear fact that it is over. Never again will a Harry Potter movie be made. This is it.

However, this wasn't just a movie to me. This was a story. A story about bravery, friendship, magic, miracles, love, adventure, laughter, fun, mischief, etc, etc. I grew up with Harry Potter, with Hermonie Granger, with Ron Weasley. I was there through everything. When they were hurt, when they were in trouble... I felt like Bastian in “The Never Ending Story,” like I was really there. I felt like that not only when I read the books, but when I watched the movies as well. I was a part of this story. However I wasn't just a part of the story in my mind, but a part of it in the wordly sense as well. All of the stories I have ever loved, I grew up with. To name a few: “Willow,” “Star Wars,” “Legend,” “The Goonies,” “The Lord of The Rings,” “The Princess Bride,” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.” But these epic stories were all before my time. But Potter. This, this was something almost tangible. Here and now, in my time. Something that I was physically a part of.

I am a dreamer. Therefore, stories about fantasy will always have the dearest, most special place in my heart. I wish with all of me that magic existed, that Narnia existed. My idea of heaven is where our dreams become reality. My favorite quote from Harry Potter was one just spoken in this last film. Albus says to Harry in response to his question (Harry) “Is this happening in my head?” (Albus) “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it's not real?” That is exactly how I feel. When I read Potter, it all seems so real. And the truth is … I want to ride a Unicorn and a dragon. I want to fence, learn archery and use it for a purpose. I want to be a Jedi and learn the ways of the force. My goal is to one day design and build my own house. One that is filled with secret passageways, with book shelf's that reveal a room behind it. I want a moat, with a drawbridge. I am serious here folks.

I guess the thing that saddens me the most in life is that all of these wonderful things that we can create in our heads, make into compelling novels and into mind boggling movies are not real. None of it.

However, if we had all of those things, we would never know what we are missing.

Going back to Harry Potter...

I truly feel that J.K. Rowling is the best writer of our generation. She has inspired more people than anyone I personally know. She's been the “C.S. Lewis” or “J.R.R. Tolkien” of our generation. And I love her for it.

So, thank you J.K. Rowling for allowing us to be a part of a world that we will never forget. We will love it, share it, and cherish it. It will live on for all time.

Sing It Loud Saturdays: Alkaline Trio [acoustic edition]

Sing It Loud Saturdays is a "weekly" feature here at Creating Life that will introduce you to bands, songs, albums, and artists who I really dig. Some of them you may have heard of, many you will not have.

This week's featured group is: Alkaline Trio

Click here to check out an acoustic version of their song "Every Thug Needs a Lady," originally heard on the band's 2003 release Good Mourning.

And don't forget to check out last time's featured artist, Butch Walker and The Black Widows

Book Review: Aaron Polson's The House Eaters

The House Eaters by Aaron Polson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading (and loving) Polson's March 2011 offering, We Are The Monsters, I knew I had to find something else by this author to read.

The House Eaters did not disappoint. Though, for me, not as chilling and atmospheric as We Are The Monsters, The House Eaters showcases well Polson's gift for capturing a teen voice and for brisk and entertaining YA horror fiction that also happens to be tasteful and well-written.

The House Eaters is set in Broughton's Hollow, a blip-on-a-map nowhere Kansas town. Nick Gillingham and his family move to the Hollow after Nick's mother loses her job and his father takes a position at Springdale High. (One of Polson's popular stomping grounds, the school is featured in three of his books I've read thus far.)

What transpires after that is a classic ghost story, a tale filled with wonderful characters we want to root for. With a few mysteries thrown in for good measure - most of which involve Nick's own family even more so, it would seem, than the creepy old neighborhood home where our haunter resides, The House Eaters is a satisfying read.

What I enjoyed a lot about the tail was the pacing. The curtain over Nick's troubled family is slowly pulled back as the story progresses, revealing a younger sister, Tabby, whose stay in a mental hospital a year prior may have been the first sign that there's more power in her than it seems; a mother who drinks a little more each day; a father who stays out later and later each night. The ghostly action is spaced well, leaving room for solid and natural character and relationship development. Nick's new ghost-hunting posse - Gage, Saul, and Sarah - make lovable comrades, and his struggles with the quintessentially popular "blood-sucker" Cat and her meat-head boyfriend Dane are believable and interesting.

All in all The House Eaters is very well done and I would highly recommend it. After reading We Are The Monsters, I found myself intrigued with this fresh literary voice. Now another book down in Polson's impressive catalog, I can officially call myself a fan.

4 out of 5 stars

View all my reviews

My Concise Thoughts on "Literary" vs. "Genre"

A post on author Roni Loren's blog entitled The Beauty of Books: Why The Literary vs. Genre Deabte Isn't Necessary sparked this comment from me:

The fact of the matter is that what's well-written enough to be considered literary and what is popular fluff will be decided by generations after ours. "Literary" shouldn't be used to categorize and compartmentalize what we do as authors. Writers cut from any cloth should strive to be as literary as they can in their writing because they are, after all, writing books. It's like describing a genre of music simply with "pop" or " indie." These terms don't really mean anything to music as an art form, just like issues of whose literary and whose genre shouldn't mean anything to a writer. Write what you love. Read a lot of different stuff. Learn all the rules (because there are a few) and then learn how to bend them to your will. It won't matter if you write about zombies or you write about war or you write about the incoherent mental ramblings of a man on death row if what you are writing is pleasing LITERATURE. Keep in mind that the Lord of The Rings is considered to be one of the most gorgeous and well thought-out prose of this century even though its about elves and hobbits, and that when F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940, most people hadn't even heard of The Great Gatsby, his own obituary in The New York Times mentioning Gatsby only as evidence that Fitzgerald "had great potential that he never reached." So again, we do not decide HOW our book will be received or cataloged or stacked on the shelves of history. We can only control how well it is WRITTEN. And we should always want to write well no matter what we're writing.

Notice that nowhere do I say that writing what is popular is bad, nor that we as authors should run out and start writing tried-and-true trash that sells. This new breed of indie authors, especially, has to revive the standards of writing well if we are ever going to be taken seriously. We should ALL want to write as correctly and as entertainingly as possible. One of the comments on Roni's post posed this sentiment: "I can write the most genius literary piece of fiction, but if no one reads it, then it is nothing more than a glorified diary. "

I would urge us to think of the opposite. If all that's selling is shite we've shilled out to make a buck, than what good is it really doing the world anyway? If you can write the most genius literary piece of fiction, than for the love of God do it! And leave it in a diary for someone to find later, if for some reason you can't find an audience. It WILL be appreciated. Great words are always appreciated, somewhere down the line, even if their creators never see the spoils.

Just ask Edgar Allen Poe.

Sing It Loud Saturdays: Butch Walker

Sing It Loud Saturdays is a new weekly feature here at Creating Life that will introduce you to bands, songs, albums, and artists who I really dig. Some of them you may have heard of, many you will not have.

This week's featured group is: Butch Walker and The Black Widows

Click here to check out "Summer of '89" of their forthcoming record, The Spade (available Aug 30!)

And don't forget to check out last week's (technically two weeks ago) featured artist, Four Year Strong.

Currently Reading:

Evening, readers!

So I'm on vacation again this weekend and I thought that while I have a free moment tonight, I'd share with you some of what I've been reading as of late. All the links of the book's titles will take you to their Goodreads page where you can read more about them. (FYI, Goodreads is slowly becoming one of my favorite sites on the web. You can find me on there, so friend away!)

The Strange Case of Finley Jane by Kady Cross

Kindle Edition

Published May 1st 2011 by Harlequin Teen

Got this for free on a total whim. It is a novella prequel to a book called The Girl In The Steel Corset, which came out May 24th. Its a quick little read that introduces us to the titular "Girl" Finley Jane and her special abilities. I'm about halfway through it and really have no idea how this prequel ties into the events of Steel Corset, an apparent part one in a planned series called the Steampunk Chronicles. It has my attention so far, though, and has done what it was most likely intended to do: pique my interest in the series. And despite Steampunk Chronicles #1 suffering from one of my least favorite title tropes ("The Girl With The/The Girl In The/The Girl Who ... ") I believe I would enjoy reading subsequent tales about Finley Jane, after finishing this tasty little prequel.

Find the author, Kady Cross, on Twitter @KadyCross

Purchase The Strange Case of Finley Jane on Amazon - and guess what, it's still FREE!

I Wish... by Wren Emerson

Kindle Edition

Published May 14th 2011 by Lakehouse Press

I'm only about a chapter into this story of a young girl who must embrace her destiny as a witch, but so far it's enjoyable. Wren Emerson (aka Author With The Coolest Name Ever) gives Thistle Nettlebottom, the young witch in question, a natural, breezy voice and a biting, somewhat self-depreciating humor. And that works for me. If I'm going to read a story told in a first-person perspective - of which I'm usually not a fan - I'd like my female lead to be more Katniss Everdeen and less Bella Swan (no offense to my Twilight-obsessed wife...) Thistle and Emerson are an entertaining match and I look forward to reading more.

Find the author, Wren Emerson, on Twitter @wrenem

Purchase I Wish... on Amazon

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Published May 26th 2009 by Books on Tape, Inc. (first published 2000)

Yep, this is my current audio book selection. I picked this one up after falling head-over-heels in love with Kraken, Mieville's 2010 offering that took the buzz-genre "urban fantasy" and showed all the chumps how it could be done. Holy crap I love Kraken. All kinds of love. Anyways, Perdido has not grabbed me quite how Kraken did. There's a reason for that. Though Kraken's plot is twisty and its cast a bit larger, it had a rather straight-forward narrative flow. Perdido Street Station is a whirlwind of imagery, much of it dedicated to the setting - New Cronbuzon, home of the titular Station - and a bit less of it spent on the emotional make-up of characters and their motivations, of what drives them. At least that's what I've felt so far. I'm not as connected yet to the characters of Perdido as I am connected straight into Mieville's amazingly creative mind. And that's enough for me, for now. One of the things I love most about, well, the writers I love the most (Gaiman, Doctorow, Poe, Tolkien, Lewis, Mieville) is their vast creativity - the worlds they can shape with their words; the music they make with their rhythm and phrase and vocabulary. I look forward to listening to this book more (I'm about 12 chapters in.) And props to the narrator, John Lee. He also read Kraken and is phenomenal.

Find the author, China Mieville, on Goodreads.

Purchase Perdido Street Station from Amazon.

The Gathering Dead by Stephen Knight

Kindle Edition

Published March 19th 2011

And so we go from girls in corsets to Special Ops soldiers slaughtering the walking dead. That about sums up the scope of what I could be reading at any given time! This is the most recent book I've finished and it was also the subject of my first Goodreads review. So here it is!

***minor spoilers***

Stephen Knight's The Gathering Dead is an exciting tale about a group of special forces members trapped in a zombie-ridden New York City. Their chopper goes down while trying to extract a VIP, Dr. Wolf Safire, who has valuable knowledge of the zombie virus and may be able to produce a cure. They are forced to hole up in an office building while they try to figure out another plan to get Dr. Safire and his daughter, Regina, out of the crumbling city.

For the most part, I found the book very entertaining, fast-paced, with well-rounded characters and tensions between them. Even those more "stock" characters one often finds in a-team-of-military-men fiction each had some trait that made you root for them and made them stick out in your mind. However, the book could have greatly benefited from a solid editor. There are quite a few grammatical errors, some repetitive phrasing, and even one or two inconsistencies in continuity (at one point a soldier trades guns with another, then his old one is described in his hand a sentence later, then its back to the new one he just acquired.) But these, for me, did not distract from the page-turning enjoyment of this book. It may bother other readers, but I'm not distracted by the occasional typo. If it bothers you, this book could be irksome.

The detail in the story's technical aspects is what I enjoyed a lot. All the military weapons and gear is well identified and used properly, the tactics of the soldiers seem well thought out and realistic (not being a soldier myself, though, I can't speak to their accuracy; it just made sense to me as a reader,) and the layout of New York was solid and lent itself to an easy visual of the setting. There are also some really original scenarios presented. The scene when the team must descend 26 stories down an elevator shaft I found riveting, as well as the ensuing battle out in the streets. One presented idea about soldiers who have been reanimating retaining some of their training was a nice twist, something explored a bit in the film Day of The Dead. Still, the idea of the intelligent zombie hasn't been fleshed out much, and I think Knight handled it was a pretty solid plausibility.

All in all I enjoyed this book, and it was action-packed enough that I could easily picture it as a solid zombie movie. I recommend The Gathering Dead for the casual reader and fan of zombie and survival fiction.

Find the author, Stephen Knight, on Goodreads.

Purchase The Gathering Dead from Amazon.

So there's a look at what I'm reading. What books are you currently enjoying?

A Call For Beta Readers - Zombie Fiction

People of the internet!

I am looking to lock down the first issue of Dead Living by the end of the month and I'm seeking out some beta readers to give it a look and offer some feedback! It's a really quick read - a novella coming in at about 13,500 words - and is pretty action packed. Not a lot to it! Just point out some obvious grammar crap and let me know if you connect to the format and characters. Its a series of multiple POV accounts detailing the first moments of the zombie invasion. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you hate. Tell me anything at all! No one has read this beast yet (its sort of my "pet" project) so I'm really looking forward to bouncing it off some skilled and interested eyes.

If you're intrigued, leave a comment here or shoot an e-mail to bookofmatchesmedia@gmail.com and I will send you a copy of the most recent draft by the end of the month/early June.

For more info on the project, click here.

Thanks!

G