Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel

My short story Happy Valley has made a few waves around here (more on that later), and now I am working on my next story, Snow. This will be the first story I plan on submitting to a publisher since they are asking for submissions on an Asian theme. You can view the submission guidelines for Fantasist Enterprises here and maybe submit something of your own. Wish me luck.

The deadline is December 15th 2007, so I hope to write a few more stories before sending in the best two. And I hope they get Stephanie Pui-Mun Law to do the artwork again. She did it for one of the publishers other anthologies and her artwork is amazing. Check it out.

In the meantime, IFWA and the rest of the crew are preparing for Con-Version 23 and we have a Star Trek Filk to rehearse (the fools - I told them I can't sing, but would they listen? Muwah hah hah ;-) )

The World of Saramyr Appears on Bookshelves

I just picked up this omnibus of the Braided Path trilogy by Chris Wooding. He is a British author that is making waves with his world of Saramyr, an Asian-inspired world written for adults (there are now a few kids books including Jeff Stone's "The Five Ancestors" Series and the Dragonkeeper series by Carole Wilkinson [see series link to the left]).

Between this and works by such authors as Lian Hearn, looks like Asian-inspired worlds are slowly rising in popularity.

Check out Chris Wooding's site. This link is connected to a description of the first book in the series, The Weavers of Saramyr. Book Two is the Skein of Lament and the last book in the series is entitled The Ascendancy Veil.

That's Me in the Fuzzy Red Suit...

... and Darth represents the stranglehold that writing has had on my life this past month. Normally, I would be jumping for joy. I've done so much this past month that I've had no time for blogging. The truth is quite a bit farther afileld.

It's not that I have had a lack of writing work to do. I've had critiques, assignments for a small splitter group within my writing group, and a writing contest to prepare for. So, why haven't I accomplished anything? Why has my writing life been holding an anvil over my head?

And it's not as if I have not done anything. I have done the crits. I have started a story for the splitter group. The problem is, the story is not done. It was also going to be my writing contest entry. Well, with the deadline this weekend, I doubt anything will be done for that. The only consolation I have is I have not seen anything from the splitter group either.

Last week, with deadlines looming, I found myself complaining aloud about how little time I had to actually write. I looked at the promises I made to myself and then I added up the amount of time I spent writing. I felt depressed and disappointed with myself. Then I wondered if I was actually cut out for the writing life or whether I would end up just being another wanna-be writer.

Then I picked up Page After Page by Heather Sellers and my writing life began to transform. This was the book I needed. It doesn't discuss writing theory. It doesn't tell you the intricacies of plot, character and theme. It's about the writing life and how to get to it.

Ever since, writing has stopped having a strangehold on me. It is not torturing me or calling me nasty names. Now, it is co-operating. I am writing a little bit each day and even keeping a journal. It's baby steps, I know, but as life has shown me recently, babies quickly learn to run very fast.

Golden Pigs Can Fly

Happy Chinese New Year!

On February 18th, we enter the 4075th year on the Chinese Calendar, also known as the Year of the Fire Pig, or if you follow legend, the Year of the Golden Pig.

The Year of the Golden Fire Pig comes only once every 600 years and rumor has it, 2007 is this special year. It is Golden because the combination of elemental Fire, the sign Pig, and Yin/Yang components bring this year once every six centuries! It is said that children born under this sign will live in comfort as wealth and luck are always near. The Fire Pig is known to have traits of wealth, prosperity, luck and fertility.

So what are you waiting for...go out and celebrate.

Snakes ... Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

This book is a great example of lateral fiction thinking. Snake Agent is an eclectic blend of science fiction, Chinese mythology, fantasy, and hard-boiled detective stories. Detective Inspector Chen is a Police Detective in the futuristic city of Singapore Three with a penchant towards solving supernatural cases. When asked to find out what happened to the ghost of a rich industrialist's daughter, his superiors partner him with a Demon from the wrong side of Hell.

So does it work? Liz Williams does a great job of immersing the reader in a world that is completely alien to the average person. Not only does she have to introduce Singapore Three as a futuristic city with new types of technology (including roll out desktop computers), but also introduce the reader to a very complex Chinese-style mythology.

In spite of this daunting task, Liz Williams weaves what starts out as a supernatural detective story, which morphs into an apocalyptic thriller involving a possible war between the forces of Heaven and Hell. It is a good, solid narrative, but loses its focus about half way through the book.

Snake Agent is the first in a series of novels involving Detective Inspector Chen. The next one up is The Demon and the City and is already in hardcover.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Writing is hard. Very hard. Harder than I ever thought possible. Just looking back at what I have written this past year, most of it (as the adage goes) has been crap. I recently reviewed my last story, Little Meme, written for the "Freedom to Read Week" stories. Crap. That's the long review. It is still salvageable, but I'd have to put a lot of work into it. I am looking forward to a few critiques.

In the meantime, I am working on a new story within the theme "On the Clock". It is due at the next IFWA meeting and I am frantically working on it now (writing about being "on the clock" is very much like really being "on the clock." Go figure).

It has the working title of Happy Valley, but it's not really about happiness (if you couldn't already guess). I'll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, I am thinking about a new writing topic for IFWA members to write about (we just finished the theme of Censorship - that's where Little Meme came from). This one should be for Conversion 2007 in August. I am thinking of The Day of the Dead. Should be fun.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Imagine Me and You ...

I seem to be having luck finding these book sites these days (thank you CBC).

This nifty little site is entitled Meet the Author. It contains 90 second video clips of authors old and new introducing their books. There does not seem to be many Science Fiction or Fantasy authors yet, but there are a few YA authors listed. The clips are not made by marketing departments or publishers.

So far, it is limited to U.S. and British authors, but it is only a matter of time before it comes to Canada. Then, we'll all have lots of Margaret Atwood clips to watch.

My Favorite Books Aren't In There ... Yet

Update

I made a new friend today, and its name is Library Thing.

Library Thing allows you to enter your entire library and share what you read with the world. I have been told it's like flickr for books. You can also hook up with other people who have similar book collections or libraries as you do. You can rate your books, write reviews and read reviews of books others own. I especially like the UnSuggestor ("if you like Book X, you will NOT like Book Y.").

It looks absolutely amazing. Here's the link to Library Thing so you can check it out for yourself. Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to my cataloguing.

Update: If you look to the sidebar, you will notice a new section entitled "Books in My Library." You can find out information about these books if you wish, or click on the highlighted "My Library" to see what I have in my Library.

Read Different, Read Vertical

Vertical Books is a relatively new player on the book publishing scene. They translate contemporary Japanese books, graphic novels and nonfiction books into English and market them in North America. So far, I have read much of what they have to offer and can make recommendations if anyone asks.

You can find the link to Vertical Books in the column to your right.

You Can't Fix Stupid

I just returned from a noon hour seminar on humour in the workplace. Humour, as the speaker defined it, is "looking at something in a different way". She used pictures such as this one to illustrate her point. Every situation, just like this picture, can be seen in more than one way. If we can look at a situation differently, we might see the humour in it and thereby decrease our stress level as we attempt to deal with it. After all, we can only change how we react, we can't change other people.

Of course, I also liked her suggestion of imagining other people giving you grief, as vegetables - it takes all the power they have over you away.

Writing Contract

One of the reasons I joined Calgary's IFWA (Imaginative Fiction Writing Association) was to associate with a group of writers who may help me improve my writing and encourage me to write. I think I joined at the right time. IFWA has re-dedicated itself as a Writer's Group and as a part of that re-dedication, each member voluntarily wrote a Writing Contract - a contract you made with yourself. This is mine.

Why I want to be Published:

I want to be published so I can try and earn a living at writing and feel a sense of self worth doing something I enjoy.

Why I Write:

I write because I have always enjoyed telling stories that up until now, have been told primarily through pen and paper role-playing games.

What is Preventing Me from Reaching My Writing Goals:

1. Conflicting priorities
2. Daunting research in my chosen field of writing
3. Procrastination and time management problems

What Can I do to overcome these obstacles:

Set up a time and place to write. Write something every day. My goal is to write for a minimum of a half hour per day. Write even if all I get is a half a page.

New Year, New Blog

"A Writer writes ... always."

This quote comes from my favorite movie about writers block - Throw Momma From the Train starring Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito.

It also acts as my mantra pushing me forward as I begin my adventures in imaginative fiction that should have begun a lifetime ago.

So, what do I plan to write? Well, the short answer to this is: Asian Fiction - fiction with Asian protagonists, settings and themes.

Why Asian fiction? Well, it's the niche I am interested in and don't see much on bookstore shelves. Really. Especially in Sci-Fi and Fantasy. It's out there, but it is pretty hard to find. Look at some of the links for some of the authors I have read. Most of them are mysteries and a few are horror. Only a couple of them are fantasy. Some authors not even listed aren't even being published any more.

I noticed this trend in the 1980's when Dungeon's and Dragons was my Role Playing Game (RPG) of choice (you can throw the geek references at me here). Back then, there weren't many Asian themed RPG's and the majority were about Japan. And, I think it goes without saying, all of them were written by non-Asians. So when the Oriental Adventures supplement came out I lapped up each page as if I was learning long lost truths about my heritage. What opened my eyes was discovering how many inaccuracies, untruths and clichés riddled its complex text.

Then, I began noticing that there were next to zero fiction books with Asian themes on the bookshelves of major bookstores either. I suddenly had a need to find out about my own culture and I had very few resources to utilize to start looking.

You should know that I am half Chinese, half Japanese and all Canadian, so I know what growing up Asian-Canadian is all about. I still remember those Asian influences in my childhood. I remember going to my uncle's place in High Park and hearing kabuki music lilting from his record player. I remember eating sushi at an early age (and wondering what all the fuss was about when it became popular in the 1980's - after all I had been consuming it since the 1960's). I remember devouring my Uncle Jack's authentic Chinese meals which included fresh steamed fish with ginger, green onions and soy sauce. He cooked the fish in a wok and would pour hot oil over top of the fish to crisp the skin sending aromatic smells wafting throughout the house. I also remember ancestral shrines, Buddhist funerals and the odd red envelope filled with money on Chinese New Year.

But I hadn't learned much about Asian history. I knew a little. I knew about the Japanese internment in World War II, but my parents didn't discuss this much. And what about Chinese and Japanese history? The school curriculum didn't add much to my knowledge either. Everything I have learned about history I've learned on my own.

So I began my cultural exploration by seeking out books and RPG's with Asian characters, settings or themes. RPG's began changing as tastes changed. Things really took off when Asian cinema began to cross the Pacific and gain a foothold in mainstream movie theatres. Games such as Feng Shui and Legend of the Five Rings were published and became cult hits. Sure, they were still mostly inaccurate and cliché versions of Asia as seen through western-coloured glasses, but they were more accessible and a starting point to introduce people to Asian culture and history. So, I narrowed my focus in RPG's and began specializing in only running RPG's with an Asian focus.

As for books, slowly Asian fiction and even some Asian authors began appearing on bookstore shelves. As these books became more available, the internet and internet book sellers such as Amazon made finding the more obscure ones easier and less expensive and I was able to enjoy many excellent authors that may forever remain as niche writers.

By 2000, I had begun dabbling in writing, and what I wanted to write was what I had been seeking and reading about for over 15 years, Asian fiction.

So what can a Canadian-born descendent of Chinese/Japanese parents contribute? The area of Imaginative Genre Fiction such as Fantasy and Science Fiction remains relatively untapped and it is there I plan to stake my writing claim. Asian-style fiction can be just as fantastic as contemporary western fantasy. It has shape shifting foxes, horrendous demons, faceless apparitions, majestic dragons and spirit-talking shamans not to mention the odd talking monkey on a quest for enlightenment.

But as a Canadian-born descendent of Chinese/Japanese parents, I have a very different voice than those who might have been born, raised or lived in Asia. I have been raised in an Asian environment, tempered and formed by western ideas and sensibilities. Even my travel’s to these lands is limited. My voice, although my own, can only be an echo of an Asia that lives in my imagination. In those worlds, I have visited at length and never truly left.