The Writer and The White Cat

Confusion in 2010

2009-12-31T06:39:00.000-08:00

Wait- Shouldn't I be at the

Elder Signs Press

Book Release Party to Celebrate

The Release of William Jones's New Novel

"Pallid Light-The Walking Dead"?

*****

If you want to have a Happy New Year- and who doesn't- you have to plan for some serious fun. 2010 doesn't have to be another year of listening to the mindless prattlings of zombie-like politicians from both side of the aisle or having to deal with zombie-like terrorists trying to blow up planes with their pants. If you're tired of unemployment statistics that make the country seem like the home of the walking dead or health care debates that make us yearn for voodoo cures- cheer up!!

Let's go straight to the zombie source so we can actually enjoy zombies for a change. How do we do that? Glad you asked. First you click on the picture below to order a copy of William Jones's new book Pallid Light:

I haven't read it yet, but William Jones writes so well that you just know it will be great. He is rapidly becoming a brand unto himself. In fact, if you'd like to get a signed copy, just click on the book cover above. I'll be doing it the moment I'm done writing this.

Some of you don't like zombies or read genre fiction yet, but let me give you a heads up- Dr. Jones's stories transcend genre. They are rich in character and theme, and

leave you with the satisfied feeling that you have spent your time well by reading them.

And if there's any chance you'll be in Detroit in January (not exactly Hawaii in June, but come on, show some spine), be sure to attend the Elder Signs Press Book Release party for Pallid Light. It's going to be at the uber-cool Confusion Science Fiction Convention put on at the Troy, Michigan Marriot Hotel January 22nd through 24th in 2010. I have it on good authority that the actual party begins at 3 p.m. on the 23rd. Dr. Jones will be there himself, signing copies, and doing readings and looking remarkably sophisticated. Some day he'll be as famous as Poe, Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury, so why don't you just get his autograph now so you don't have to kick yourself later?

If you're lucky, you might also catch a glimpse of Stewart Sternberg. Stewart also has an exciting new zombie book coming out this year called "The Ravening," and might be doing a preview reading.

So show up to have some fun and support the good guys!

A Short Mystery- Part One of Three

2009-12-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Only Way In

My eyes popped open liked I'd been poked. The overhead fan spun round and round, cutting through the ceiling shadows like a hypnotist's wheel. The house was a quiet as the pause in between breaths, and across the room red digitals read 2 a.m. Time to go. No more putting it off. Only this time, I was taking my ex-wife's Smith and Wesson.

I dressed in the dark. In and out of the bathroom in less than three minutes. Lights off, keeping quiet, moving toward the back door so I could get out while the dream was still fresh. I fumbled through the tool closet before I found the long, rough handle of the shovel, then withdrew it as quietly as I could and slipped past the screen door like a spy leaving Berlin.

Time to dig up the past. Time to get rid of the evidence.

The night was soaked with lost dreams. A faint moon stared down disapprovingly, like it knew where I was going and wasn't happy about it. I ignored it and headed straight for the garage. Couple of minutes later I was sluicing water, windshield wipers going like an impatient foot. Keeping to the speed limit so I wouldn't attract attention.

The splint on my left arm was taped into place, but hidden beneath the sleeve of my black turtle neck. One of the puckered stitches on my left shoulder must have come loose. I could fee the liquid warmth of leaking blood. I wasn't in the best shape to be doing this, but some things you just have to do, and most of them in my life need to get done at night. He'd been dead a long time. His ghost needed to move on, too.

Edge of town came up quick. I was driving out where the streetlamps were few and far between. Past the rock quarry where that kid fell in and broke his neck, past the farmouse that had been abandoned as long as I could remember, and finally I slowed down as the weeds grew tall and wild near the creek and the cat-o-ninetails lined up like up like fence-boards to hide the old driveway.

Some memories are more part of your body than what you see, so I followed my instinct and when it felt right I turned off the road into an onslaught of leaves and stems. The odor of mowed grass poured in through the vents. Wet weeds and soppy cattails slapped my car and it sounded like I going through an out of control car wash. The impact jolted my teeth when the front passenger tire hit a rock so hard I thought I was going to have to walk home.

I rolled the car to a stop a few feet later, then wiped the blood from my lower lip and turned off the engine. Rain hit the windshield harder. For a while I just sat there in the dark looking out through the bleary windshield at a despondent, brooding woods that Hansel and Gretal would have stayed away from. I grabbed my raincoat from the backseat, slid the pistol into one of the pockets, slipped on my rubber boots, then opened the door and stepped out into the downpour.

I looked up to see if them moon was still with me, and saw she'd chickened out. I was half a mile from the nearest house and only had three bullets. If he was waiting for me, one of us was going to be dead before I finished digging.

Living Down Your Past or Using It

2009-12-22T19:08:00.000-08:00

At Last, the Truth

*****

So let's say you've a few skeletons in your closet. Like maybe you worked for the Weekly World News. Wait. That would be really a gold star if you like writing incredibly camp nonsense. And if you decided you wanted to write comedy, well, you'd be off to a good start. Hard to say a lot of those stories aren't funny. But if you later wanted to write serious, literary fiction? Wouldn't your past be just a little embarassing?

What if you've behaved scandously in the past? Disreputably? Would that effect your chances of getting published, or perhaps if you billed it right, increase them?

Peter Drucker, the noted management theorist, is famous for having opined that American corporations hired too many "safe" people as managers. Managers with no mistakes on their records. He thought that just possibly with no recorded mistakes in their past that many management candidates lacked imagination and boldness. Looking at out economy today, it's hard to disagree with him.

But what about writers? I confess to having lived a scandalous life, to having done wild, disreputable and dangerous things. In 1995, the US Customs Special Agents busted a company I was consulting for, accusing the owner (conveniently absent in St. Kitts) of smuggling in $350 million dollars worth of stable isotopes and selling them to US research firms. My name was mentioned on television; my career was over. Bad associations make for bad future business prospects. Now, I use memories of those days in my writing, trying to make a bit of lemonade out of overly bitter lemons.

I'm hoping you've been more prudent than I was. A lot more prudent. Now I'm much quieter and write fiction in between working, chasing Bigfoot, investigating the paranormal, and trying to blend in with the normals. Which gives me a lot more experience to write about.

Of course, as the lovely Vesper says, we can create our fiction exclusively in our heads without living the adventure. Still, a little scandal never hurt a writer. Remember what Rhett Butler said, "With enough courage, you don't need a reputation."

*****

Writer's Little Helpers

2009-12-20T11:18:00.000-08:00

Mr. Little- The Writer's Friend

*****

For those of you who are in the know, you need no introduction to Mr. Little- the Writer's Companion. That's my prized Mary Shelley coffee cup he's standing next to. Mr. Little is the companion of the writer who lives next door to me, but she allows him to come over when my white cat gets tired of encouraging me to write. When I'm feeling intellectually lazy, Mr. Little tells me to quit dogging it.

For those of you writers who are not yet privy to the secret knowledge, Mr. Little and his horde of faithful friends are as important to us as a good laptop, high quality paper, and a new printer cartridge. Their is something about dog and cat companions that bring out the best in writers. I'll save evidence on the feline side of the ledger for a later post, but today I'm just going to lay it for you that writers with dogs write better than they would without their company.

Don't believe me? Check this out:

We all recognize Mr. King, but how many of us can identify Marlowe, the true secret behind the writer? Who do you think inspires the author of so many hit novels that we don't have fingers enough to count them? You think that laid back guy pretending to write could pull that off by himself? Think again.

Maybe you think animal companions only assist genre writers? Not at all. How many of you would have suspected that Amy Tan of all people would be only a front person for Bubba Zo? It's true. By herself, she can barely write a complete sentence. But when paired with Bubba Zo, suddenly she's the real deal.

I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Time to confess. How many of you have animal companions to support your writing career? Isn't time to give them some credit?

And just for you K. Lawsen Gilbert, it was our beloved Walt Whitman who said, "There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face."

Writers and Depression

2009-12-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

Depression

*****

Consider this: "...Kay Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her study showed that 38% of a group of eminent British writers and artists had been treated for a mood disorder of one kind or another; of these, 75% had had antidepressants or lithium prescribed, or had been hospitalised. Of playwrights, 63% had been treated for depression."

*****

Every now and then, the discussion as to whether depression and the writing life (and any other creative vocation) are inextricably linked. The statistics are compelling, but consider the massive uncertainties and pressures involved in being a writer.

If we had to make a living off of our writing, most of us would starve. The number of rejections we face are staggering, and, not to misuse the word, kind of depressing.

There are those writers and teachers and commentators that love to dwell on the "suffering creative person," but I've never really liked the light in their eyes when they talk about it.

I have quite a few clinically depressed friends, and I always hope for the best for them but never quite know how to help. Some writers claim that depression is the source of their creativity, but I'm not sure that's a complete rendition of what's going on with them.

But here's my question, looking at this issue from the positive side- do any of you think that writing can help control or alleviate depression? In other words, can writing be therapeutic? I've never suffered this affliction, but I have known one or two writers who seem to write their way out of it.

And may I recommend you read Pattinase's blog at http://pattinase.blogspot.com/ ? She has not only a marvelous eye for photography, but some interesting thoughts on the topic as well.

Final Dragon, Final Dragon Post

2009-12-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

The Rose Dragon

*****

I removed the nail from the first victim with the claw end of a hammer, and it must have been nailed into a stud, because either the wood or the clown doll shrieked as the nail came out.

There were tears painted onto the doll’s ceramic face. They were red and made me think of blood. I saw one drop of red at the corner of its lips I wasn’t sure was there before I had pulled out the nail. I tried not to look at it while I did the reverse-stake thing.

“Hurry,” she said. “Put it in the chair before it wakes up. It takes them a while to start moving because they’re still in shock.”

After I wired the first one in, I stepped back, took one of a few amber bottles from my pocket, and shook out a med. I wasn’t sure if I was following the schedule, but I was feeling stressed. As Melly squeezed a little water onto the clown from a washcloth, I swallowed the pill dry. I thought that it was the one to keep me calm, but the label had fallen off the plastic bottles and I wasn’t sure which one was which anymore. With what was going on, I wasn’t sure if it made a difference what type of drug that I took.

Melly said something in Latin or some other language with her eyes closed and then threw the switch. The sparks must have bounced the clown up in the chair before it started to smoke, because it jumped enough that if it wasn’t the sparks, it was the clown arching its back. I didn’t want to think about that.

“It’s going to burn,” I said.

“In Hell,” she replied.

“This is crazy, Melly,” I said.

“Next clown,” she said back at me.
excerpted from "Electrocuting the Clowns," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

By Clown number five, we had to put a fan in front of her bedroom window to blow the smoke out. Each clown she juiced puffed a gray-purple cloud. It wasn’t that there was so much of the smoke; it was just that when she threw the switch, there was an awful smell that came from them; the puff clouds had the kind of nasty odor that you’d expect if you lit a skunk on fire. But the fan cleared the smoke out enough to breathe without gagging.

Outside, it was a day as bright and clear as freshly cleaned glass, but inside we were killing inanimate objects.

The lights would dim for a sec when she threw the switch, like they do in the Death Row movies; there would be the snap, crackle, and pop when the electricity fried their fifty percent cotton, fifty percent rayon hearts, and always the fan sucked the air from the room and blew it outside. We were running a clown death camp on the second floor of a suburban bi-level.

People have asked me if they were alive, and whether or not I thought what Melly and I did was killing living things. I say I was just following orders. I learned that from the history channel. If they keep picking at me, I remind them I’m not right in the head.

But when I pried the nails from their chest with the claw hammer, as I held them against the wall and yanked on the hammer’s handle, I know that I felt them squirm. I mean it.

And I couldn't take my eyes away from the black tape that blindfolded them. I wondered if they were opened or closed.

Little clowns with little clown hats and two teenagers who were electrocuting them one at a time.

I hoped that Melly was right.

I hoped they couldn’t hurt me.

excerpted from "Electrocuting the Clowns," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

We're finally finished, except for tying up a few loose ends.

When I started this, I didn't realize just how interesting this exploration would be for me personally, and how much I would come to appreciate the opinions and feedback from all of you who stopped by. Truth is, I have very much liked hearing from all of you; journeys are so much more pleasant when taken with friends.

Writing, like any other art, is open to interpretation. That includes ways to look at the art, ways to approach it, and ways to experience it. The Dragons of Creative Writing series is obviously just one way, and there are certainly many others.

To wrap things up, I'll now explain the significance of "The Chessmaster's Problem," and it is this: words are the medium we work in, but the majority of our readers re-interpret those words into images, and those images are the true languages of the stories we help create in their minds. Therefore, if we want to make a significant, powerful change in our writing, I believe that we can do so by investing a great deal of time and thought into not only which images we choose, but where we to choose to place them in our stories. As "The Chessmaster's Problem" showed, images formed early on in even a very short story can move the reader far away from the intention of that tale, or bring the reader even deeper into our created world.

Whether this thinking is of benefit to you, of course, is up to you to discover, as it is with all matters of writing. We can listen to ideas, but in the end, our work is our own responsibility.

But, from the standpoint of the Seventh Dragon, who she is and she means to us as writers, for now I will only say that relevelant to Alchemical Dragons, our stories are a way to release the literary equivalent of the "Ultima Materia" of our souls. These stories can provide the Elixir of healing for us and our readers. The full explanation I'll include in the book.

Although Stewart and I speak a different language in these matters, and look to different techniques as being more or less important, we both see writing as a means of finding hope.

So it is my hope that these postings have benefited you all in some small way, even if only to make you take another look at our beloved art of storytelling.

Eventually, I will bring this all together in a book, but for now I'm working on still another compendium called "The Writer's Tarot," which I hope to have finished by next year. I'll post a few sections of this work on The Writer and the White Cat if you'd like. It's a complete system for aiding a writer in the creation of vivid, vibrant stories using a Writer's Tarot. The minor arcana, of course are character types, and, well, I'll fill you in on the rest when I started posting about this new work.

Thanks to all of you for participating in this project. I believe your comments taught me more than I shared with you in my posts!

The Final Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Five of Six, The Limbic Picture Show

2009-12-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

Archetypal Images

and

the Writer

www.archetypediscoveriesworldwide.com/

*****

The forklift driver spun his wheel and drove off madly. He kept looking over his shoulder as he tried to steer between the crates. But because his eyes were locked on the mad disaster behind him, he crashed the extended metal blades straight into an electrical control panel. A shower of sparks erupted upon impact, and the warehouse was plunged into darkness. Seconds later, the emergency backup came to life, and the darkness was penetrated by twirling red strobes of light.

Gennady dropped his knife and reached inside his coat to pull out his pistol. But when he looked up at the open jaws of the eight foot tall wolf-beast illuminated by angry red bursts, he turned and ran toward the shipping office. Other men scattered, running in whatever direction their legs took them.

One little man scrambled up the side of stacked wooden container loads big enough to hold two cars each. He fell back once, sliding down until his chin impaled on an upward slanted hook. Fingers dug in reflexively to hold his weight in place. He tried to scream, but his jaws would not work. Pain clashed so loudly through his mind that he did not feel the splinters shaft beneath his nails. He began to whimper and he tried to wedge his toes in between an opening in the boards as the hook in his chin ground against his jawbone. Warm liquid poured down the front of his throat and spread out across the front of his shirt; he hung suspended like a fish on a hook in the scarlet glow of the strobes.

There was a momentary lull in the shots and he thought that it was over. In the silence, he still heard the wounded grinding of the warehouse door pulley system. Then, a thud as the door bottomed out and he realized that he was now trapped inside with the monster. His sweaty feet began to slide out of his shoes. The hook ground deeper into his jawbone. Blind with pain, he clung frantically to the splintered wood and his hands began to feel as though they were on fire.

Then, the stack of containers began to creak and groan and move and he realized that something was pushing over the entire mountain of wooden crates to get at him.
excerpted from "Tainted Blood," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Before we start, I'd like you to read this advertising promo from the Archetype Discoveries Worldwide:

"Archetype Discoveries Worldwide has been successfully guiding its clients' interests in marketing, advertising, research and development, and personnel since 1976. The reputation earned as the premier firm in breaking the code of the Cultural Archetype has come as a direct result of our commitment to customer satisfaction in implementing this unique process.

Archetype Discoveries Worldwide was founded by Dr. G. C. Rapaille to provide answers to the question: Why do people do what they do? Our goal is to provide you and your organization with the process and expertise necessary to discover the Archetype related to your product or service.

We will continue to help implement this new found knowledge as necessary.

At the conclusion of the discovery, the client retains ownership of the discovery, and has a detailed Action Plan based on the discovery.

Archetype Discoveries Worldwide is committed to increasing the client's competitive edge by providing you with a unique process, and by improving the skill and productivity of your staff people; they will perceive their customers in a completely new way.

Archetype Discoveries Worldwide is a discovery and an education process. The Archetype Team and Archetype Manager become experts on the Archetype. They will gain in-depth knowledge of the Logic of Emotions that have been discovered.At the end of the process, the importance of the discovery will be self-evident. We spend most of our time helping the members of the Archetype Team put the knowledge of the Archetype into practical application.

Archetype Discoveries Worldwide is committed to your satisfaction. We remain available as long as you need us to implement the Archetype Action Plan.Once we have, together, discovered an Archetype, it is YOURS.

Archetype Discoveries Worldwide will not duplicate your discovery in the same culture, and will always give you priority to explore it in another culture."

*****

Mining cultural archetypes for profit. Now there's an idea. Brilliantly done, by the way. But isn't this something that writers have been doing for a long time? We select them or create them, and, well, we profit from them.

Dominant images, be they archetypal or reflective, are keenly identifiable by the reader. They are so emotional that experiencing them when reading can be called "primary." There are secondary processes such as economy which are both valid and important, but still secondary to the creation of successful imagery. Riveting imagery that not only holds the reader's attention, but engages them emotionally. And their successful placement throughout a story has been not well studies, as it has been pushed behind social commentary mechanisms such as theme, housecleaning details such as economy, and boilerplate character arcs that are so overused that every kid who watches television, movies, or plays video games generally can identify their integration before the writer finishes presenting them in their stories. Yet, I suggest that the placement of dominant, primary images is critical to a story's success.

This is a much accepted idea when applied to plot tension. To see how well incorporated into the theory of writing the idea of controlling the level of plot tension according to a plan in a story, look at the following graph, if you will:

Typical Genre Graph

courtesy of McGraw Hill's

Literature Study Group

www.glencoe.com

So what I'm asking you now is to consider how many powerful images are embedded throughout your story, and where they are placed. Have you ever plotted their placement? Beginning of a chapter, middle, etc? How would it compare to a tension graph?

Here's something to consider- the placement and power of your images, whether presented through dialogue or exposition, determines your reader's attention span for your story.

Remember the aspects of the brain? It is that aspect that uses the languages of imagery and emotion as primary processes that we are trying to address. We want to communicate with that aspect of the reader's brain that will experience the story, not the aspect that will analyze it.

"Let's see how economical this story is," is an example of engaging the analytical, soon to be guilty of didactic speech portion of the brain. That's not the aspect of our reader's brain we need to reach. It's the emotional, image driven portion of the brain that we can most profitably engage.

The poetry of K. Lawson Gilbert, Vesper, and Nevine are marvelous examples of how to engage our reader through emotionally charged imagery. Give them a visit if you want to see what I mean.

The Final Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Four of Six, The Chessmaster's Problem, Basis for Discussion

2009-12-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

Getting Both Sides of the Brain Involved in Our Story

*****

Before we summarize the lessons of "The Chessmaster's Problem," let's consider a few excerpts from Michael S. Gazzaniga's fascinatinig article, "The Split Brain Revisited." Michael is professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College. He received his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, where he, Roger W. Sperry and Joseph E. Bogen initiated split-brain studies. Since then, he ahs published in many areas and is credited with launching the field of cognitive neuroscience in the early 1980s.

The idea we're exploring is that the one side of the brain is the "story inventive" side of the brain, and that to successfully engage the reader, we must find the word-picture approach that puts this side of the brain to work for us. All the standard dictums taught to writers are really one side of the brain strategies that appeal to the a certain percentage of readers, such as theme, economy, etc. What we're going to look for is how to reach the other side of the brain, the side that the reader uses to create the story we're telling them in their head. Oddly, Michael reverses the sides from the way other researchers present the results, but that's no so relevant as exploring the idea that writers and readers are not so obviously potentially using the side of the brain for their respective functions. The key point of discussion is whether readers take our written material and then "write" the story in their head. In this case, we would essentially have "two writers." Something to think about.

So, read the excerpts, and start thinking, if you will, of the differences and tools necessary to activate both side of the brain.

*****

"False memories originate in the left hemisphere. As this MRI image(s) indicate, a region in both the right and left hemispheres is active when a false memory is recalled (yellow); only the right is active during a true memory (red). My colleagues and I studied this phenomenon by testing the narrative ability of the left hemisphere. Each hemisphere was shown four small pictures, one of which related to a larger picture also presented to that hemisphere. The patient had to choose the most appropriate small picture.

"As seen below (in an image you can't see here), the right hemisphere - that is, the left hand - correctly picked the shovel for the snowstorm; the right hand, controlled by the left hemisphere, correctly picked the chicken to go with the bird’s foot. Then we asked the patient why the left hand - or right hemisphere - was pointing to the shovel. Because only the left hemisphere retains the ability to talk, it answered. But because it could not know why the right hemisphere was doing what it was doing, it made up a story about what it could see - namely, the chicken. It said the right hemisphere chose the shovel to clean out a chicken shed....

"George L. Wolford of Dartmouth has lent even more support to this view of the left hemisphere. In a simple test that requires a person to guess whether a light is going to appear on the top or bottom of a computer screen, humans perform inventively. The experimenter manipulates the stimulus so that the light appears on the top 80 percent of the time but in a random sequence. While it quickly becomes evident that the top button is being illuminated more often, people invariably try to figure out the entire pattern or sequence - and they deeply believe they can. Yet by adopting this strategy, they are correct only 68 percent of the time. If they always pressed the top button, they would be correct 80 percent of the time.

"Rats and other animals, on the other hand, are more likely to "learn to maximize" and to press only the top button. It turns out the right hemisphere behaves in the same way: it does not try to interpret its experience and find deeper meaning. It continues to live only in the thin moment of the present - and to be correct 80 percent of the time. But the left, when asked to explain why it is attempting to figure the whole sequence, always comes up with a theory, no matter how outlandish....

"Realizing the strengths and weaknesses of each hemisphere prompted us to think about the basis of mind, about this overarching organization. After many years of fascinating research on the split brain, it appears that the inventive and interpreting left hemisphere has a conscious experience very different from that of the truthful, literal right brain. Although both hemispheres can be viewed as conscious, the left brain’s consciousness far surpasses that of the right."

The Final Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Three of Six, The Chessmaster's Problem, From a Different Angle

2009-11-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

Try it Again, Sam-

Same Story, Different Images

*****

If you read this story I introduced in the last post one more time for me, this time positioned by these different images, you'll be ready to see what the Chessmaster's Problem really is in our next post late Wednesday night, along with its solution. So stay with me on this and read the story through, the exact same story as last time and see if it is suddenly different. Gender considerations have little to do with what you're about to experience.

If you have trouble catching it, reading some of the comments to date may help. But contained within this exercise is the single most important learning point of the Dragon series.

*****

"You going to win tonight?" I asked.

"Maybe," she said.

"Up late studying last night?"

Her hair was pink, her eyes where blue and I remembered the artist Monet railing against his critics, calling them the "enemies of pink and blue." Looking at her I wondered who could ever be an enemy of either pink or blue.

"You don't care if you win, do you?"

"What's the difference if you write? Same thing."

"Not the same thing. I have to write. You don't have to play chess."

"Why? Why do you have to write?"

She pursed her lips when she asked the question. I didn't wonder if it was on purpose or not; beautiful women do everything for a reason.

"I got a debt to pay."

"What debt?"

"To the last person I ate breakfast with here before you."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Really. Ten years ago. We're sitting in almost the same booth as me and the guy I mean. For real. I think it was that one over there."

"So?"

"So he killed himself same day as we ate here."

She grinned and said, "Hope they fired the cook."

With a lovely long finger she flipped open a book called "New Ideas in the Nimzo-Indian Defense" with a bunch of chess diagrams I couldn't figure out and a lot of variations that gave me a headache to look at, even upside down.

"I'm serious. Gets me is I couldn't tell he was going to do it. He seemed normal. No stress. I guess that was it. Usually he was always stressed, always doing, always going a mile a second. Day I had breakfast with him he was smooth. Calm. I should have known. Everything was good, he said. I hate that phrase now- that everything is good bullshit. He used to say it all the time."

"How'd he do it?" she asked.

A waitress two tables behind us moved a curtain and the sun hit the chessmaster's hair. It lit up like strawberry cotton candy and I noticed for the first time her cheeks were sprinkled with pale freckles.

"Put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Pulled it twice, really like fast or maybe he was still able to pull it after the first shot, but someohow he did it twice. Maybe one of those reflex things. Two bullets to the head. Can't stand to think of pulling the trigger even once on myself. Thought gives me a headache. Anyway, it was just like now, four days before Christmas and counting and he left behind a five year old girl and a really nice woman."

She just sat there for a while, staring at her coffee. "So what?" she finally asked. "I mean what's this got to do with you writing?"

"It's what he said. He asked how my writing was going. I said I was having a hard time and I worried all the time if I was any good. He said he couldn't read fiction. He said fiction was just made up and what good was it? He said he never started a book he couldn't put down. He drove away in a red Cadillac convertible and he had a white scarf trailing behind his neck like Isadora Duncan. Nice image to remember a guy by. Later I tried to find out what time he shot himself, but it wasn't in the papers and the cops wouldn't talk to me."

"I don't get this. He's dead and you're writing stories for him?"

I laughed and said, "No. That's why you're a chessmaster and not an editor. It's too late to write for him. He's already dead. I'm writing for his daughter."

"You still see the family?"

"Too painful. Daughter wouldn't understand. Wife's a special person and still hurting."

"So what's the point?"

I started folding my napkin, making some really bad origami. "You know why he shot himself?" I asked.

"Tell me," she said. She wasn't playing with her chess book anymore.

"Because I think when things got too dark for him, he didn't have a story strong enough to keep him alive. That's what I think."

"And that's why you're writing for his daughter?"

"I want to write books that she won't be able to put down. Maybe they'll keep her going when she might quit. People need a reason to keep going."

"That's nice."

"No it's not. I'm not a nice man. I just got things to do, that's all. Got a debt to pay."

"Because you didn't catch on he was suicidal and you didn't stop him?"

The thing with chessmasters is that they're thinkers. Goes with the game. She took a sip of her coffee. When she put the cup down I could see the pink lipstick imprint on the plain white cup. She was batting her eyes when I looked up; she knew what I was thinking. Or what I should have been thinking.

What I was really wondering was if she'd figured out who fired the second shot.

*****

The Final Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Two of Six, The Chessmaster's Problem

2009-11-21T05:09:00.000-08:00

The Following Story is Not About Jennifer Shahade,

But She Inspired It

*****

We were having breakfast, the chessmaster and I. She was sat coiled over in her side of the booth, her legs tucked to one side, three chess books stacked to the right of her coffee and twirling a pink-blonde ringlet of hair as she looked out the restaurant window. The men scattered around the place tried not to look at her, tried not to let their girlfriends or wives catch them looking at her.

"You going to win tonight?" I asked.

"Maybe," she said.

"Up late studying last night?"

Her hair was pink, her eyes where blue and I remembered the artist Monet railing against his critics, calling them the "enemies of pink and blue." Looking at her I wondered who could ever be an enemy of either pink or blue.

"You don't care if you win, do you?"

"What's the difference if you write? Same thing."

"Not the same thing. I have to write. You don't have to play chess."

"Why? Why do you have to write?"

She pursed her lips when she asked the question. I didn't wonder if it was on purpose or not; beautiful women do everything for a reason.

"I got a debt to pay."

"What debt?"

"To the last person I ate breakfast with here before you."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Ten years ago. We're sitting in almost the same booth as me and the guy I mean. For real. I think it was that one over there."

"So?"

"So he killed himself same day as we ate here."

She grinned and said, "Hope they fired the cook."

With a lovely long finger she flipped open a book called "New Ideas in the Nimzo-Indian Defense" with a bunch of chess diagrams I couldn't figure out and a lot of variations that gave me a headache to look at, even upside down.

"I'm serious. Gets me is I couldn't tell he was going to do it. He seemed normal. No stress. I guess that was it. Usually he was always stressed, always doing, always going a mile a second. Day I had breakfast with him he was smooth. Calm. I should have known. Everything was good, he said. I hate that phrase now- that everything is good bullshit. He used to say it all the time."

"How'd he do it?" she asked.

A waitress two tables behind us moved a curtain and the sun hit the chessmaster's hair. It lit up like strawberry cotton candy and I noticed for the first time her cheeks were sprinkled with pale freckles.

"Put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Pulled it twice, really like fast or maybe he was still able to pull it after the first shot, but someohow he did it twice. Maybe one of those reflex things. Two bullets to the head. Can't stand to think of pulling the trigger even once on myself. Thought gives me a headache. Anyway, it was just like now, four days before Christmas and counting and he left behind a five year old girl and a really nice woman."

She just sat there for a while, staring at her coffee.

"So what?" she asked. "I mean what's this got to do with you writing?"

"It's what he said. He asked how my writing was going. I said I was having a hard time and that I worried all the time if I was any good. He said he couldn't read fiction. He said fiction was just made up and what good was it? He said he never started a book he couldn't put down. He drove away in a red Cadillac convertible and he had a white scarf trailing behind his neck like Isadora Duncan. Nice image to remember a guy by. Later I tried to find out what time he shot himself, but it wasn't in the papers and the cops wouldn't talk to me."

"I don't get this. He's dead and you're writing stories for him?"

I laughed and said, "No. That's why you're a chessmaster and not an editor. It's too late to write for him. He's already dead. I'm writing for his daughter."

"You still see the family?"

"Nope. Too painful. Daughter wouldn't understand. Wife's a special person and still hurting."

"So what's the point?"

I started folding my napkin, making some really bad origami.

"You know why he shot himself?" I asked.

"Tell me," she said. She wasn't playing with her chess book anymore.

"Because when things got too dark and hopeless for him, he didn't have a story in his heart strong enough to keep him alive. That's what I think."

"And that's why you're writing for his daughter?"

"I want to write books that she won't be able to put down. Maybe they'll keep her going when she might quit. People need a reason to keep going."

"That's nice."

"No it's not. I'm not a nice man. I just got things to do, that's all. Got a debt to pay."

"Because you didn't catch on he was suicidal and you didn't stop him?"

The thing with chessmasters is that they're thinkers. Goes with the game. She took a sip of her coffee. When she put the cup down I could see the pink lipstick imprint on the plain white cup. She was batting her eyes when I looked up; she knew what I was thinking. Or what I should have been thinking. What I was really wondering was if she'd figured out who fired the second shot.

Where I Get My Ideas

2009-11-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

The Idea Factory

*****

Pacing the roof of an abandoned apartment building, Drogol roared his fury to the night. From the building’s edge, he watched his home burn the darkness away, filling the streets with angry, twisting flames and his heart with a raging desire for blood. A high wind blew across the rooftops and lashed his face. He turned into it, stretching wide his arms and snarling with frustration.

Now he saw flashing red and white lights speeding toward the blaze, stoking his anger to new heights. He leaned over the edge as though about to leap from his four story perch, but instead peered intently at the city below.

Occasional headlights burrowed through vacant neighborhoods, and beyond them the skyline of Detroit towered above the ruins that ringed it. I-75 was lit by street lamps; its overpasses caged with steel fencing and barbed wire to keep street thugs from throwing trash and bricks into the path of oncoming traffic. Fluorescent flashing pinks and blues lit the casinos, and at the rivers edge towered the three cylinders of the General Motors building

But Drogol cared for none of this. His eyes were filled with the catastrophe of fire, sirens, blaring horns and flashing lights.

His mind was filled with the sound of his enemy’s name.

His heart was torn by hunger.

His nostrils filled with the woman's smell.

With a single step, he was on the building’s parapet. He crouched, looked down, and then hurtled off the edge toward the cement sidewalk below.

excerpted from "Tainted Blood," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

William Jones has a tremendously interesting post at his blog titled "Words, Words, Words." In this posting he deals with where he gets his ideas with this modest beginning: "I am often asked from whence my ideas come. (Sorry) I don't know, is the honest answer." And you know, he's got me thinking. Like William, I can't say for sure what inspires my ideas. So instead, I'm going to talk a little about what I'm doing when I get my ideas. This may not be standard fare for other writers, but it works for me and I hope it gets you thinking. I'd also love to know what you're usually doing when your ideas come to you, and, perhaps, where you're at when they come to you.

Those of you who know me understand that I am a bit of a night wanderer. I love to drive city and country streets alone in the late hours to feel the separation of things that too close during the day. As I drive, ideas begin to come to me about who to write about and what to write about them. I'm not sure how this all started, but it works so very well for me.

Movement is important to me. Doing interesting things is important to my idea-generating process, though, as Vesper says, this can perhaps be accomplished just as well within the imagination. But for me, being in motion and doing interesting things seems to get the process going. I enjoy challenging physical activities that I am not good at, because engaging in them seems to stir my imagination. For example, once years ago I was taught the art of lockpicking by an expert in the field. He told me that I was his worse student, and I believed him. However, his expectations of me, I believe, and the physical activity itself shifted my imagination into overdrive. Later, I found myself writing story after story that had nothing to do with picking locks, but everything to do with a re-vitalized imagination.

Here's another activity that stimulates my imagination: hunting Sasquatch and conducting paranormal investigations. My goal in these outings is mainly to interview Bigfoot hunters and paranormal investigators. I have my own opinions about what is real in these arenas, but working with the people and learning about their beliefs, again, kicks my imagination into gear. Most of the people that I interview in these fields are professional people, and their lives are interesting as hell to learn about. If I were staying home and watching televsion, I think my imaginative capacity would begin to atrophy.

Doing things with people generates tremendously interesting potential.

I take my journal to only to only two types of restaurants- very expensive restaurants and low end restaurants. But the most interesting characters populate truckstops. The stories I hear there are for more interesting than those I find in most books. Just being around them stimulates all sorts of ideas. The stereotypes I thought I'd find in truck stops were mostly in my mind.

And for some reason, expensive restaurants and well-dressed people has exactly the same effect on me. I feel, again, like a privileged outsider getting an inside look at a different world.

For a man such as myself, there is also no substitute for the company of women when it comes to driving my desire to write. Especially interesting, competitive, demure, entrancing and intellectual women. When I am in the company of such women, I find that I must write. My compulsion to create escalates.

The root word of emotions is that for "motion," and I believe doing and seeing things, interacting with a variety of interesting people drives me to think, to feel, to imagine. I may not write about what I see and hear just then, but the fact of those activities puts my imagination to work when it might otherwise slack off.

May I ask how it is for you? What are you doing or where are you at when your imagination kicks into gear?

Disputin' Rasputin

2009-11-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

(He's Pretty Serious)

*****

“Evgeny, side of the house. Something from the window.”

“Tracking.”

It was big, bigger than a man and on the ground with a crouching movement, like a big cat hitting the ground. Even though they were several blocks away, Hauck had to fight the urge to draw his gun. It was up and moving so fast toward the back of the house that it left one screen and shot onto the other as quick as Hauck could turn his head.

“Shestapolov,” shouted Hauck. “To your right.”

Shestapolov and Rodin turned simultaneously, pivoting on their heels and bringing their pistols around. A fury of bright movement was on them before they could fire and Hauck heard a vicious, triumphant snarl that flooded him with fear. Light swirls smeared with something dark spiraled across the screens. A cry from Rodin that sounded like “mother,” but must have been something else.

“Evgeny?” called Hauck.

Above the snarls and snapping and howls, he thought he heard the slap of bullets and Shestapolov's terrified cursing. Either Shestapolov or Rodin was down and the other tried to sprint across the yard, but it was on him and dragging him toward the fence line faster than Hauck could believe.

“Evgeny,” he called again.

"On the move."

A fat finger jutted into view before the monitor. One of the back windows of the house was glowing. Smears of furious light bled into the night. A quick, sharp blast rocked the speakers and Hauck stepped back against the immovable figure of his watcher. The man snorted and pushed him away, but bent over suddenly as he did so as though in pain. Hauck ignored him and stared at the monitor. Flames and sparks shot out the windows as though the house were a fireworks display. excerpted from "Tainted Blood," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

There are some people who make you a little uneasy. You're not sure if you should add them to your guest list without doubling up on your home owner's insurance policy. Rasputin falls into that category. A charismatic wild man steeped in scandal and secret plots- yep, a perfect character for the novel I'm writing.

Born January 22, 1869 in Siberia, he rose from a simple peasant upbringing to the level of advisor to Tsar Nicolas II and his Tsarista Alexandra. He was such a bad influence on them, that many historians consider him a major contributing factor to the fall of the Romanov empire.

He was sexually promiscuous, mesmeric and charismatic and lived for plots and counterplots. His influence of the Tsarista Alexandra was so complete that many suspected them of being lovers enslaved by passion.

Yet, he was a great comfort to the family, as only he seemed to have the power to dismiss the incredible pain suffered by their hemophiliac son. Physicians seemed to do nothing much at all compared to this mysterious man.

The church fathers considered him steeped in sin because of his alleged involvement in the khylsty sect, whose services reportedly resulted in physical exhaustion and orgies. The ritual known to the khylsties as "rejoicing" involved group sex which, the khylsty leaders felt encouraged members to turn towards God after yielding to temptation. If people did not first sin, they thought, why would they ever turn their eyes heavenward for forgiveness?

And, he was reputed to be the hardest man ever to kill. He enemies (notably Prince Yusupov), fed him enough cyanide to kill several men, then shot him in the back, came back and stabbed him and shot him again when he was still up and getting really upset, then reportedly castrated him and threw into an ice cold river. An autopsy report showed that he took water into his lungs before finally dying- which meant that he was still alive when thrown into the water!

Later, his body was stolen and burned, but observers were horrified that while burning, Rasputin's body sat bolt upright in the flames. I started my werewolf novel over from scratch when I started thinking that the reason Rasputin was so hard to kill was that he was actually a werewolf. So I began researching the topic, started from scratch again, and, 10,000 words later, I'm hard at it again. Sometimes you just have to find the antagonist.

The Final Dragon of Creative Writing- Part One of Six

2009-11-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

The Dragon of Passionate Writing

*****

“I don't like holding his casket,” said Murdo.

“It’s not a casket,” said Jennings. “It’s just a box they put his ashes in.”

“He’s dead, ain’t he?”

“Why don’t you just put it over there on the table so I can pay you?”

“I can do that.”

He was glad to be rid of it. The tiny black box was so polished that when he looked at it, he saw his own face looking back at him.

“That’s good, right there,” said Murdo.

Jennings nodded.

“Now what?”

“You got the water?”

“Yep. From the fifth faucet in that little park over in Heber Springs. Took it at midnight, just like you said.”

“You got the stone?”

Jennings let out a breath that came out like a slow tire leak.

“What’s wrong?”

“She didn’t want to give it to me.”

“But she did?”

“Yessir.”

“You didn’t have to whack her, did you?”
excerpted from "The Madstone and the Water," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Live Passionately, Write Passionately

Thirty eight postings later, we have finally arrived at the conclusion of this series. Unlike most writings about the craft of writing, we have spent very little time on matters of technique, and almost all of our time on you and I.

The reason for this approach is simple- we write the books. Therefore, we are the single most important element in the writing process.

If we cannot change ourselves, we can hardly expect to change our stories. This is the core lesson of the Dragon series.

Before meeting the Seventh Dragon of Creative Writing, we should summarize the basic lessons of each Dragon. Although there is more contained in each segment, these points are important to keep in mind:

From the First Dragon, we learn that we must realize first that we are less important to our readers than our stories.

The lesson of the Second Dragon is that a story told before the heart moves is a broken promise.

From the Third Dragon, we learn that the Dragons of Creativity are jealous guardians, and if we do not nurture and grow our stories as if they were precious- if we think instead of success and admiration- then the Dragons of Creativity will take our stories away. We also learn that if we concentrate on assemblies of technique such as economy, theme, etc. more than creating a story from our hearts, that we are in danger of building a structure not worth entering.

The essence of what the Fourth Dragon shows is why we must learn that the birth of a story occurs when a writer acts on the desire to become someone else.

The Fifth Dragon shows us that we must know beyond a doubt who we write for- what Stephen King calls our "first reader." As Orsch Neibisch says, "Know who you are writing for. Stories written for no one will be read by no one."

From the Sixth Dragon we learn that we must tell our stories as though they are meant to transform the world. This is because a tepid writer can produce nothing of value. If there is no fire in our hearts, there will be no fire in our work. Both the first and sixth dragons teach this lesson in their own way. We must, as Charles Allen Gramlich wisely says, "Write with Fire."

The Sixth Dragon also teaches us that "There is one place above all where the saying 'show, don't tell applies,' and that is to teachers of writers." Therefore, rather than slavishly focusing on the lecture notes of teachers who dissect writing to learn structure as a substitute for joy and awe, we might be wise to spend more time in the company of children and relearn which is the more important to creating intrinsically powerful stories.

The lesson of the Seventh and final dragon concerns what is known as "The Chessmaster's Problem," and, if you are willing to apply it, I believe that it will transform your writing forever.

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Nine of Nine

2009-10-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Filled with Fire

*****

Before getting started, have you ever gotten hit by a blast of nervous energy while editing someone else's manuscript because you can't wait to get back to writing your own stuff? It just happened to me while editing the non-fiction book on female assassins. I couldn't get back to writing my novel! Has that ever happened to anyone else?

*****

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Jen.

“Sure. I mean, absolutely not.”

It didn’t matter how he took it, he thought. She was going to dump him on his head before he even asked her for a date.

“It was nice of you to help me write my paper and all,” she continued as she twirled a stray curl of her platinum blond hair and looked over his shoulder as though waiting for someone important.

“Edit,” said Ashton. “You wrote it. Most of it. The main part. I just edited. And added just a couple of little things.”

“Whatever. But Professer Dreygis loved it. I mean he just gushed.”

“That’s great,” said Ashton. He wondered if this was what it felt like to have a laser dot on your forehead.

Jen shook her head, pursed her delicate lips and actually looked at him for a moment with her pale blue eyes.

“I mean he really loved it. He thinks I have important ideas. Can you believe that?”

She smoothed her black t-shirt against her flat stomach, and then cocked her hip to one side as though it were a natural pose. Ashton felt his chest tighten. He struggled to breathe.

"It's him," she whispered suddenly, urgently and waved enthusiastically.

The warning bells in his head started clanging because at that moment he just knew that she was going to be the train that ran him down and flattened his ego like the dimes he used to leave on train tracks when he was a kid.

excerpted from "Romantic Genius," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

"Soon you will leave to meet the seventh and last Dragon of Creativity, but you have one last lesson to learn from the Sixth Dragon," you tell me.

We are walking through a strange woods together, you and I, and I am uneasy. I am quite lost, but you always have known where we are. Rather, it is the sky that makes me uneasy this day. It is a peculiar patchwork of green-black clouds and there is a stillness in the air as though the birds and forest creatures are in hiding. Suddenly, an army of leaves springs up and races away in a blast of wind. Your dark hair puffs and straightens as though blown about by a bellows. The wind passes and your hair floats back down like a cape.

"What was that?" I ask.

"It is the coming of the Seventh Dragon," you whisper.

My mouth goes dry. I have heard that the final dragon reveals the meaning of fear.

"It's too early. It was only two days ago that the Sixth Dragon flew away. I need more time."

"To do what?"

"To... prepare, to..."

"Are you ready?" you ask.

You don't actually sneer, but still...

"Of course I'm ready. It's not that."

But I look away as I speak the words so that you cannot see my face.

"You are not ready at all," you say, "because you haven't yet saved the Salt Dragon. If you don't save the Salt Dragon, then the Seventh Dragon will burn you and eat you the moment that it sees you."

"Eat me?" I say. "I have met and lived through Six Dragons and not been eaten. Perhaps it is only a myth that Dragons eat people. Besides, I do not understand why I would need to save a Salt Dragon. There are only Seven Dragons of Creativity, not eight."

I contemplate being devoured by yet another angry dragon. The wind is now quiet. The leaves no longer chase about the ground. It is as though the world has stopped for this moment so that I can consider my fate. I have neither seen nor heard a bird for what seems like a very long time. You do not seem disturbed at all, it is as though, as ever it has been, you know something that I do not.

"Do you not remember the legends? How can you become a great storyteller if you do not remember the Dragon legends?"

"Well," I say, "there are more than one. There are a lot, in fact. Actually, sometimes I think that there are so many that I am lucky if I remember even one."

My foot tangles in briers and I fall face forward and hit the ground with an ungraceful thud. My breath expels in whoosh the instant I strike the hard earth and, for just a moment, my mind goes to sleep. When you shake my shoulders and begin pulling me to my feet, though, it is clear to me that I am more embarrassed than hurt.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I say, brushing away the annoying twigs and picker-balls that cling to me as though I were their mother. "I was thinking so intensely that I didn't notice it when I stepped off the path. Wait, that's it, isn't? The last lesson of the Sixth Dragon. I must keep my eyes on the path even when I'm thinking. Now the Seventh Dragon will not eat me!"

"No," you say and gently slap the side of my head. "That is not a dragon lesson at all."

"Are you sure? I have a little experience learning from dragons myself."

"Perhaps you will stop walking so that we do not run into the Salt Dragon."

I was about to laugh when a deep rumble shook the air. As I raised my head to look toward the sky, all I could see was white. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and looked again.

"I think I've gone blind," I say.

You say nothing.

I step back a few paces. You follow, looking at me as I look up and about at the sparkling pure whiteness that has formed before us. In all my travels, in all my startling experiences I have seen many strange and wonderful things, but I have never seen anything as strange and wonderful as this. It is as though the air before me is diamond dust, formed and wrapped into the shape of a dragon tall as a castle spire with wings outstretched in frozen motion.

As I step back further along the path, I see the tips of its mighty outstretched wings. Its sharp, plated tail extends out behind it along the edge of a cliff .

"Look at its magnificent chest," I shout. "How long have you known this was here? This is the most beautiful statue in the world. You are wicked to keep such a secret from me. This is beautiful, terrifying, and magnificent. Who carved this must surely be the greatest sculptor who ever lived."

I run forward and caress a dragon's talon. It is so perfectly carved that if there were enough paint in the world to paint this single claw and then the entire dragon to the tip of its fearsome face, it would frighten away any who caught sight of it.

"You truly do not remember the legend, do you?"

"No. But how can you think of such things in the presence of this magnificent creation?"

I step back again, and wave my hands at the statue. It is shimmering marble coated with the dust of eldritch diamonds. In the red-green glow of he quietly menacing sky, for just a moment its eyes flash green as though it were alive.

"Listen to me," you say. "After the Sixth Dragon imparts all its lessons to you save one, it leaves and perches high on the edge of this very cliff. If it feels that you did not listen well enough, then it cries."

"Why would a Dragon cry?" I ask. "Whoever has ever heard of such a thing?"

"The Sixth Dragon cries when it has confronted a Storyteller who is not committed to the craft. It cries because it knows that the Seventh Dragon will destroy forever the soul of such a Storyteller. The Sixth Dragon cries for this Storyteller, for that Storyteller then goes to their death. The Seventh Dragon will burn them to a crisp and then eat them."

"Maybe we should go back?" I suggest.

"You cannot go back. Once started down the Dragon Path, all Dragons must be faced. If you do not go to them, they will chase after you."

"No one told me that before I started," I say. "I hate this quest. I never know what's going to happen until it's too late to back away."

"And the Seventh Dragon begins winging her way toward you the instant that the Sixth Dragon screams in triumph or is moved to tears. When a Dragon cries, her tears flow so that she is soon covered in them and eventually, when they dry, the Dragon is imprisoned in salt. There is only one thing powerful enough to free the Sixth Dragon, and only a true Storyteller can do this."

"But I am a Storyteller," I shout. The wind has kicked up again like a frightened stallion, and I have to yell to be heard. "Have I not learned all the Dragon lessons til now?"

The air is filled with the sound of hissing steam surging up from angry hot coals. Darkness spreads across the forest like a pall hushing a crowd. Suddenly, I begin to tremble.

"What can I do?" I cry.

I see a rock near the edge of the path. Seized by an idea, I pick it up and through it at the Salt Dragon. It bounces of as though it were thrown by a child. I run toward the Dragon's front claw and begin striking at the salt surface, but Dragon Salt is much harder than my blade. The impotent clings and clangs as it strikes the white crystal are lost in the blasts of pulsating are whooshing out from beneath the wings of the approaching Seventh Dragon.

You lay a hand on my shoulder to calm me, although it is much too late for that. "Do you wish to make children laugh with delight?" you say. "Do you wish to make young women and men blush, and their parents cry and become young again?"

"I wish not to be eaten," I shout and point my finger upward at the descending blackness.

"Each story that you tell becomes part of life," you say, "and what is part of life changes life, do you understand that?"

I place my hands on your shoulders and bring my face close to you, "Just tell me what to do to stop the Seventh Dragon from eating me."

"Tell a story, then," you say, "that will make the heavens themselves cry. That is all that you must do."

"You want me to make it rain? You're crazy. I'm not a magician."

The next blast of Dragon's wings knocks us both to the ground and sends us rolling toward a thick tree. I hit it first and you crash into me. My shoulder feels as though it has been clubbed with a mace.

"Are you hurt?" I gasp.

You answer by pulling up close to my ear and saying, "Writers tell stories to readers and hope for change. Storytellers can change the hearts of men and women. But that will not save you. You must tell your stories to the divine as well as to those that you can see. Reach out for the spirits of all in your stories, and you can charm the heavens themselves. Stories change the world- choose carefully what stories you tell. Tell stories to make the heavens themselves cry."

That day, for the first time in my life, I told a story not to a person, but to the dark turbulence about us. Beyond the edges of its shadows I had seen that rain fell in the surrounding woods. The Seventh Dragon hovered over the Salt Dragon, drawing in a deep breath before expelling its fire. I saw it's talon glint like polished silver and I could smell the sulphurous fumes that exuded from between its armored chest plates with each breath.

So I told the Dragon above us a story of urgency and love, of how a Dragon could become pure by rising high enough to let a writer come out its shadow long enough to see the world just one last time. I told my story with desperation and passion. I told this story as if my life depended upon it because it truly did. I wove golden strands of beauty above us and, as Dragons love true stories, it began to rise higher and higher for me to see the world one last time before my death.

And when it rose high enough, the Salt Dragon below was no longer shielded and heaven's rain washed down on it. I watched as so slowly the rain thinned the salt to translucency and almost clapped when I saw the Dragon's eye blink beneath the now thin layer of salt.

The Seventh Dragon reached its zenith in the sky, and began its descent. I closed my eyes and held you close. But a heard a sound like breaking ice, and opened my eyes again to sea the Salt Dragon fling its salt shell apart and scream its freedom to the night. Overhead, the Seventh Dragon pulled up, flew higher, and began to circle around us.

The Salt Dragon was again the Dragon of Distilled Fire, and I closed my eyes fatigue when it rose and began to wing its way into the night.

Female Spies & Assassins- The Kunoichi Ninja

2009-10-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

The First Book-

The New Book about Female Assassins is Coming Up Next

*****

Officer Mendik’s growing fatigue showed in the pouches of loose skin that hung indecorously beneath her eyes. Her mouth stayed slightly open even after she had finished speaking because her jaw muscles were tired from alternately clenching with rage, then releasing with pity. Three hours ago her posture had been straight as a taught wire and her diction had been both precisely enunciated and briskly delivered. Her grooming nanobots had styled her hair so that, while displaying reserved authority via artificially colored gray flecks, they had also highlighted her sturdy worldview in every flat plane of her boxy cut. Proximity to the throwback thrown forward in time by the Ministry’s experiments was, however, wearing down her mental reserves as surely if she had leaned her brain against a jet of high pressure sand particles.

“Reading,” sighed Officer Mendik, “is a generally a cumulative poison. In my combined role of mental health professional and enforcement officer, I have spent a great deal of time studying crimes against the cerebral cortex. Reading gradually affects the mind, although there are recorded instances of individuals whose mental health profiles changed radically after reading a single book. It is analogous to the ancient classification of “chronic” versus “acute” in the archives of psychiatry. You see the danger, of course.”

“The ability to change an opinion. How life threatening,” sniffed Jarvis.

“Mr. Jarvis, I appreciate the fact that you were brought forward in time by a Dimensionality Mathematics experiment. It was not, I agree, fair for those scientists responsible for that exercise to displace you from your own chronology and insert you into ours. However, done is done and you have only a short time before court is to open session.”

Officer Mendik looked at the Context Grid in the corner of her eyes to check the time, and wondered again that for so many years Homo sapiens had fought against the integration of nanotechnology into the human organism. To determine the time, Mr. Jarvis had to consult an external mechanism of a type no longer produced, and of which few specimens had survived. It had been called a watch, she supposed, since one had to stare at it to see what it had determined to be the hour. Although her team had confiscated it from him, he was now looking down at his wrist, which, according to him, was where the device was normally strapped. Or perhaps he had been about to raise his arm, and then remembered his Control Cuffs and thought better of it. 30,000 volts made a person pause.

“Mr. Jarvis?” she prompted.

“What? Oh, I was thinking.”

“Of course.”

“Officer Mendik,” said Mr. Jarvis, “I still would like to defend myself. No one in this time period really understand reading well enough to defend me.”

Her neck muscles tightened. Mr. Elbert Jarvis was an irritating little man. He was seven point four three centimeters shorter than her, which made him one hundred and sixty eight centimeters tall. He was slightly balding— except for the crown of his head, which was as devoid of hair as a yttrium oxide crystal was of inverse consonance. From historical archives, scientists had created a collection of clothing to provide the little man with visual and physical touchstones to his own era. The theory was that this would guard against a premature disintegration of his personality. The substance known as polyester had been, according to one technician, mere child’s play to synthesize, but, unfortunately, even after repeated attempts the laboratory had only been able to produce yellowish-brown polyester fibers. Mr. Jarvis’ pants and shirt— indeed his entire wardrobe— was therefore restricted to the color of melted sulfur.
excerpted from "Wire in the Brain," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Still sitting in this hotel room editing this manuscript trying to finish in time to head out for some quiet time in the wilderness. But, if I end up editing this new book in this Motel 6 the whole time instead of breathing in fresh, outdoor air, I'll just have to learn to type faster!

Dr. Farivar (picture to the left) is the author and yours truly is the editor as I was for his first book. We've been working on this new book (which is all about female Ninja assassins) for over a year and a half and both Dr. Farivar and myself would like to see it finished before Christmas. When our mutual ninjutsu grandmaster steps down, Dr. Farivar will take over the responsibility for our lineage of this ancient art.

It's a complicated work and the biggest task has been organizing the material into a coherent structure. Dr. Farivar has assembled a great deal of independent research, which, when combined with the information and direction provided by our Grandmaster makes for a book that will be both fascinating and compeling. Dr. Farivar (a marvelous artsist) has done all of the drawings that will be in the book. As a practicing psychiatrist, he not only provides fascinating insights into the patriarchal social structure of Japan, but into the evolution of the kunoichi as the world's first elite female spies.

Grandmaster Law, the current grandmaster of this lineage, is a living treasure of Ninja lore and practice, and his training and teachings are only now being revealed in these works.

"Following is a list of some (but not all) of the arts the Grandmaster teaches to the public as Grandmaster to the Geijin Ryu, Yoshin-Miji Ryu:

* Nin-Po Taijutsu (Ninja Hand to Hand Combat)
*Taihenjutsu (Art of Body Movement)
*Dakentaijutsu (Art of Body Striking)
* Jutaijutsu (Art of Grappling and Ground fighting)
* Bojutsu (Art of the Full Staff)
* Hanbojutsu (Art of the Half-Staff)
* Ninja Ken-Po (Art of Swordsmanship)
*Kenjutsu (Art of Sword fighting)
v Tantojutsu (Art of the Tanto (Knife))
v Shurikenjutsu (Art of Using and Throwing Shuriken)
v Kusarijutsu (Art of the Chain and Rope)
v Kyoketsu Shoge (Art of the Kyoketsu Shoge)
v Kusarigama (Art of the Kusarigama)
v Te’ppo (Art of Guns)
v Ninki (Art of Ninja Tools and Small Weapons)
v Fukiya (Art of the Blowgun)
v Heiho (Art of Martial Principles)
v Gotonpo (Art of Escape)
v Nin-Po Nikkyo (Art of Spiritual Development)
v Yarijutsu (Art of the Spear (also Sojutsu))
v Naginatajutsu (Art of the Naginata)
v Bajutsu (Art of Horsemanship)
v Sui-ren (Art of Water Combat)
v Shinobi-iri (Art of Penetrating Structures)
v Hensojutsu (Art of Disguise and Impersonation)
v Cho-ho (Art of Espionage)
v Bo-ryaku (Art of Strategy)
v Intonjutsu (Art of Concealment and Camouflage)
Hojojutsu (Art of Rope Tying, Knots and Binding)"

The Grandmaster felt that it was finally appropriate to discuss what he feels was a major shift in gender paradigms. Women are finally being recognized as legitamite equals to their male counterparts, but this has been a major struggle over the centuries in the martial arts. He hopes that by revealing the true history of the Kunoichi Ninja, the world will see that in his art, this equality was recognized and acted upon long ago.

Ghost & Monster Hunting Again!

2009-10-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm Going Out Looking for Bigfoot Again

*****

Eddie’s eyes darted about the room looking for someplace to hide. The right corner of his mouth spasmed like it was touched by a hot wire and he waved his hands at the inside front door as though to slam it shut against whatever evil spirits he heard coming our way. His scar pulsed with fear, and I remembered the day I cut him for locking me in the root cellar so I wouldn’t tell Grandma why his pants were torn.

“Calm down, Eddie,” I said. “You’re whigging out on me here. Let’s get logical. I don’t believe in haints and whisperings. Just get a grip.”

He jerked his head in my direction and slapped his hands over his ears. The corner of his mouth still jerked and his eyes were wide with fear.

“You been gone too long,” he said. “You ain’t rememberin’.”

A faint smell moved through the front screen door and I remembered my Grandma gutting and cleaning a possum in the white porcelain sink near the back window.

“I gotta hide,” said Eddie.

I noticed for the first time a dark patch on the left front side of his shirt, where a scarlet-black stain had spread from a tiny rip and dried in the shape of a dark bird with its wings spread wide.

“You okay, Eddie?” I asked.

He took his hands away from his head and leaned in toward me.

“Cain’t you hear them?” He whispered near my ear.

Maybe I did. I looked through the screen door and could barely make out the shape of a compact mass of darkness moving toward us through cloud-filtered moonlight.

Eddie hissed, “I’m goin’ out back. I’ll hide in the trees. Don’t you listen to nothin’ they say, Skeeter. Hear me? Nothin’. They lie like Satan himself. Hear me? I’ll be back when they’s gone. You don’t listen to them or do what they say and they cain’t hurt you.”

And he slipped out the back door like a possum slithering out from under a porch.

excerpted from "Haints," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Halloween is coming at us like torch lights moving through the woods toward our back door. What a great time of year!

So what am I going to do to celebrate? I'm joining one of my best friends to go Bigfoot and ghost hunting. I'll squeeze a little writing and manuscript editing, of course, to make it great birthday present. Did I mention it was my birthday?

My friend and teacher Dr. Michel Farivar and I are writing a historical and sociological perspective about female ninjas. So in between the Bigfoot hunting and paranormal investigating we'll be working on the book. It's one of the most fascinating books I've ever edited. Michel is a ninjutsu grandmaster, artist, psychiatrist, fossil hunter, writer and great friend. So in between the Sasquatch hunting and paranormal investigating, we'll be able to get a lot of writing done.

And I'll also be working on my werewolf novel every spare moment that I get. It's been a while since I've done novel work, and I'm really enjoying it.

So we'll be roaming the woods after midnight looking for a ten foot primate and searching for spirits into haunted houses and writing in between. What more could I ask for?

And how about you? What will you be doing for Halloween?

See you when I return!

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Eight of Nine

2009-10-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Who Says Dragons Can't Write?

*****

Just a quick mention that "Ricci's Last Night" will be coming out in the November 2009 "Cover of Darkness" anthology. "Little Friends," will be coming out in the May 2010 "Cover of Darkness." This will mark the fourth time in a row I have been in this bi-annual horror anthology, which, according to its editor Tyree Campell, makes me an official fixture.

"Haints" was my first story published in "Cover of Darkness" in the fall of 2008 edition. My second story published in "Cover of Darkness" was in the spring of 2009 called "Counter Creatures." Tyree's Sam's Dot Publishing empire offers a wide variety of opportunity to aspiring dark fiction, sci fi and fantasy writers.

*****

“Dr. Harlen?”

“Not now. I’m busy.”

Lara Armiak shook her finger at the young man who slouched down in his chair so far behind his monitor that only the top of his head was visible. Crumpled candy wrappers were strewn about the desk and a collection of half-empty coffee cups topped with varying degrees of mold looked more like biological sample beakers than Starbucks treasures.

“You said to let you know the minute I found something.”

“What?”

“Not what— who,” she chided.

“Come back later,” said the young man.

“Martin Rand.”

A head popped up from behind the monitor and Lara stared into eyes that blinked like those of an owl behind a pair of amber-framed reading glasses.

“You found him?”

“Of course.”

“In the middle of the Amazon jungle?”

“Certainly.”

“Lara, you are a genius.”

“You’re the genius Dr. Harlen. I’m just magic.”

Dr. Harlen, known to friends as “Jimmy,” broke out in a wide grin.

“Lara,” he said, “I love you.”

Lara flushed and looked away.

“No, seriously- how in God’s name did you track him down in the middle of the Amazon? Did you call in favors with the CIA?”

“Magic,” Lara said, hoping that she would never have to reveal to Dr. Jimmy that she had simply called Martin's home phone number and been transferred to his satellite phone that worked damn near anywhere.

excerpted from "The White Death," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

In my dream the heavens flash red and set the clouds themselves on fire. Winds shriek and spit as they roll through the trees like entangled cats. The air smells of sulfur and smoke and my skin feels singed. I feel an ululating pressure descend on me in waves, pressing me down, lifting my whole body into the air then pressing against my chest until I hit the ground like a sack dropped from a ledge.

My eyes pop wide and I stare up at glistening interlocked scales the size of ponies. Leathery, veined magnificence spread wide and blot out the sky. Trickling flames of fury arch out with each flap of her wings as though fanned by bellows.

The ground shudders as the Dragon of Distilled Fire's face comes to rest directly over me. Somewhere further down I both feel the tremors and hear its claws tear through hard ground as though clutching at prey.

Were it not for the wisps of fire as it breathes and the golden glow of its eyes, I would think I woke up in a cave. The bulk of its body stretches down beyond my feet like a fallen storm cloud.

High above me, on a sinuous neck that coils and twists like an angry snake, I see the Dragon's head. Rows of teeth that shine like spear tips, and a pointed tongue that snaps about like a whip. I hear it's crack and I know that I have made the Dragon angry.

"What have I done?" I cry.

The Dragon of Distilled Fire slaps the ground and the ground itself quakes in fear.
"Please, only tell me what I have done to anger you and I will undo it."

It is my last hope that the Dragon will gift me with an answer. No man can stand against an angry Dragon.

I see its luminous eyes staring down at me as though to evaluate my heart's intentions. Even beneath the Dragon’s dark underbelly, I see a clawed forehand coming down to pin me to the ground.

Realizing that the next few seconds might be last, I clench my eyes closed and pray for mercy. When a sharp tip the size of my sternum presses down on me, I begin to cry.

The night is deathly still around me as the Dragon considers my fate. The sharpness presses down against my abdomen. I have given myself to the grave when I hear this voice in mind.

“Live your stories or do not tell them.”

“I will,” I promise with my eyes still closed. “I will live adventurously or I will not write adventures. I will live with passion or never write of love.”

The pressure was gone in a whirlwind of spinning leaves and branches but I did not open my eyes for a long time. For the first time, I realized that if I did not write like a true storyteller, then the Dragon of Distilled Fire would take away my ability to write.

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Seven of Nine

2009-10-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

Children Never Pick Zombies

*****

It was raining hard from a haunted purple sky and we were fifteen minutes south of Detroit cruising down I-75. She had the stereo cranked to a song called "Kill Their Eardrums Now," and my head was pounding with every beat. The world zipped by down a road haloed with oncoming headlights and watersprays that rose up like tidal waves whenever a truck passed. Colors blurred and blended over the highway like a raging psychedelic flood coming straight at us. I steered more like a near-sighted boat captain than a working stiff in a ten year old Chevy.

“You think you could turn that thing down a little?” I shouted. “I can’t hear the rain.”

“Turn up the rain,” she yelled.

I swore absently and laid my hand on her thigh. I kept it there until she snaked my ear and twisted it so hard I shot off the seat and hit the roof.

“Are you nuts?”

“Keep your hand off of my leg.”

“Since when?”

“Since I said so,” she said.

She was jamming my head up against the car roof with her right hand while she grabbed the wheel with her left to keep us from spinning out. The car twisted and turned and we clipped an orange barrel that flipped up in a wooshing spray of rain and bounced over the concrete median like a drunken stuntman.

“Watch the road,” she yelled and yanked the wheel so hard we nearly crashed into a passing truck.

“Are you on dope?” I screamed.

She twisted harder and I thought my ear was going to rip right off my head, but when I slammed my fist down into the crook of her arm she let go and yelped like a puppy. The car was hydroplaning like a toy boat shooting the rapids.

“Bastard,” she screamed.

“You started it.”

The car spun once and straightened out like it never happened. I took my foot off the gas pedal and started tapping the brakes. As we slid over to the shoulder, I cupped my right hand over my ear and felt for blood. My hand came back slick with blood, and my lungs were billowing in and out so hard I thought my ribs would crack. When the car finally came to a complete stop on the side of the freeway, I slid the shift-gear into park. My ear throbbed like a second heart.

"You ever think of taking PMS pills before you PMS?" I asked without looking over at her.

I didn’t see her fist coming but I sure felt the impact.

excerpted from "Supermodel Zombies," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

The Sixth Dragon is the Dragon of Distilled Fire, and its secret is that of fusing passion with sensory-rich imagery. This is a powerful gift, and it is a gift that most adults, with their jaded cynicism, their anger and their greed, would misuse. Therefore, the Dragon of Distilled Fire entrusted its secrets to children.

Children laugh and love and share and dream and scream and throw fits and live every moment like it is the only moment, as indeed it really is. They don't need to read books about the power of now- they live it. So must our we when we step into our roles as storytellers.

Hemingway and Steinbeck and Austen and Rowling are marvelous mentors, but children are much better. Their visions are rife with detailed awareness and immediacy and they do not need to be instructed in theme and economy and character arc because they actually have a gift that is much better- they live in their stories and love being there. Their joy in creating and telling and living in stories is self-evident to the rest of us. They spin wonderful tales out of something as simple as a discarded box. We must learn from them if we are to re-awaken the Dragon of Distilled Fire with us.

Does mean that there is no need for technique? No. Certainly not. Is economy good? Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Is theme good? When it does not overpower the story like a vacuum salesperson desperate for commission, then yes. When it does, send it packing.

My point is that if we do not love our stories and love to tell them and, indeed, to live in them, then imagery, our passion, and our sharing of that story is inevitably too heavy. That story will move as listlessly as a diner after a much too large meal.

We cannot create powerful, delightful, meaningful stories if we do not first create a world in our mind that is rich with detailed, moving imagery. If we cannot excite our own emotions with our imagery, how can we hope to capture and retain our reader's attention?

How much time do you spend in creating the images that will comprise your story before you write it? Are you one of those slackers who hopes desperately that all will come to them as they type? Or do you first develop your world and live in it long enough to imbue it with your passions before you attempt to write it down for others to read.

Images must be detailed before they can convey passion. They must be detailed in our minds- even though we may not share all that detail with the reader. We may, like Hemingway, tell our stories with economy. But we cannot call it economy if we do not do the work of building our imagery and our ideas first. Simply saying very little to a reader without having much more in our minds is not economy. It is lazy.

Hemingway explained his approach to writing as his "iceberg" theory. But a chunk of ice floating in the ocean is not an iceberg if their is nothing more below the surface. Hemingway was successful with this approach simply because he created and examined his imagery in great detail before he decided what to prune and what to keep.

But Hemingway had to work very hard at his storytelling. Little children do not.

Have you never wondered why?

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Six of Nine

2009-10-07T20:36:00.001-07:00

The Dragon of Distilled Fire at Work

*****

Just a short note before the posting to let you all know that I'll be at Conclave 34 this weekend at the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza in Romulus, Michigan. I'm on some very interesting panels, including some with William Jones, Chuck Zaglanis, Stewart Sternberg and a host of other folks. The panels feature topics such as "The Death of the Male Superhero," "Werewolves as Symbols of Sexual Repression" (or something like that), "How to Make Money Technical Writing" (I'm all alone on that one so come on in because I'll need the company!), "The Fundamentals of Fiction," and if you want the whole list go to the Conclave 34 Website to check out the action! And now... to the Dragons.

*****

Evgeny was the watcher, posted with a sniper rifle somewhere in the vicinity to cover them in an emergency. They never knew where Hauck positioned him on any given mission. He was always watching over them, as invisible as Hauck himself.

Yuri was their eyes and ears. He was posted on Fort Street in a white delivery van jammed full of electronics; his face would be moving from monitor to monitor like a hunter scanning the woods. Sveta knew that in the pale glow of monitor-radiance, his eyes would gleam like liquid mercury. Tonight, their silvery brightness would shine with images of Detroit that looked like Warsaw after the bombings.

“Hooker giving head in the doorway where that Mexican restaurant was,” said Yuri. “Couple of black trash bags blowing down the sidewalk like twentieth century tumbleweeds.”

“Any traffic?” snapped Hauck.

excerpted from "Intruder Alert," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

I can see the distant lights of my village from where I sit, but I am not yet willing go home. I am different than when I left.

As a storyteller, I now believe that I carry my home with me wherever I go. Now, standing at the bright edge of darkness spilling over the sequestered valley where my friends and remaining family live, I stare out across the treetops at the distant fires lit for October’s burnings and wonder who among them is warmed by their crackling, smoking heat.

Over the last few months I have slept on hard ground and soft, shivered and sweated, and closed my eyes beneath trees both barren and thickly clothes with leaves. The edge of this dying autumn twilight is a riotous blend of earthy colors brushed red and gold onto the fearful landscape of a world as unwilling to leave summer as a child is to leave home and work the fields.

Tonight I have chosen not to build a fire, so that I can feel fear and despair and the need to be with others so that we can stand against wolves. There are few wolves in the woods near my village, but there could be, and that is sometimes more important to me than what is. I am high upon the pumpkin-shaped hill that looks over the place where I was born. All Hallows Eve approaches, and I people the loam-scented night with strange, gnarled creatures that smell like mushrooms and move like bloated bears.

Nervous tree shadows gather round me as the last light of day is suffocated by night clouds. The sun struggles and tries to rise again from certain death, but the billowing blackness piles over it, choking it, killing it so that it can live again tomorrow.

I close my eyes and look at the boiling cauldron within, feel the heat, and cast my inner eye far beyond my village and there I see, stark against a night sky, the Dragon of Distilled Fire rising high above a castle ravaged by burning pitch and angry children.

For I am the Storyteller, and what I say is so.

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Five of Nine

2009-10-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Write With Fire Dragon

*****

“Hauck’s coming?” Crue blurted out in a voice twisted with pain. Blood pooled beneath his legs where the wolves had gouged him.

“It’s what he said.”

"Shoot the old man," said Crue. His words slipped over each other as his head lolled forward.

Sveta hesitated.

“You are a bad soldier if you do not follow orders," said the old man

"Shut up."

Sveta flipped off her mike and nano-cams.

“Why are you in this cage? Who locked you in?”

“Why haven’t you killed me?”

“Where is the gold?”

His laughter was an unexpected slap. There was something desperately wrong here. She somehow knew that making the right choices in the next few minutes would determine if she left the house alive.

“Is that what he told you? Gold? He told you I have gold? I have nothing, not a penny to my name. I have spent whatever I had, whatever I could beg, borrow or steal looking for the cure.”

Two words formed like a night terror in Sveta’s mind— biological warfare.

"Kill him," whispered Crue. He tilted to one side as though about to fall over.

Crue was usually right.

excerpted from "Intruder Alert," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Charles Gramlich has written an entire book on the topic "Write With Fire." It is a road map that aspiring writers would do well to follow. But, if you will allow, I'll add a few words of my own.

If you have made a thorough study of your writing mentors, or, at the very least studied their works in great detail, you will have no doubt come across one of the great secrets of their power- their ability to visualize themselves so thoroughly into their stories that they are able to create authoritative fiction. Writers are wizards, and the source of their magic is their ability to passionately visualize. The fire, of course, is their passion. The magic is the act of visualization.

Much of the instruction that we who would be writers receive from books on writing is about mechanics. Economy, theme, character arcs, etc. If we approach our writing in this manner we will produce works that are very.... efficient. And although efficiency has its place in fiction, there are many efficient writers who produce mechanically satisfying works that nonetheless do not deliver the emotional satisfaction of a writer who concentrates more on the love of their story than on whether they have worded their sentences in the most efficient manner.

Do the events in a work advance the plot? If yes, well that is good, of course, but whether or not it is enough to allow a reader to more fully enter the fictional world of the story is open to debate. The movie Amadeus lays out the dilemma.

In the story, Salieri is the epitome of an efficient, structured writer. He produces well structured, economical scores. He slavishly follows the musical rules of his time, but he does not love the music he creates. Mozart is a musical musician, a prodigy, if you will, who creates passionate music that seems to mimic more the music of the spheres than the flat works of Salieri. Salieri's music seems instead to portend the coming industrial age more than the ideal of beauty ultimately embodied in Mozart's compositions. Salieri is economical. Mozart is magical.

We are not prodigies, of course. But a study of their works can lead us to understand the ideals that should guide us. Prodigies produce their works without apparent effort. But, as writers, should we aspire towards the ideals of great, imaginative writing, or the mechanical perfection sought by the Salieri's of the writing world.

There are two things that we must embody before our works can be elevated, and these are passion and visualization. Only the power of passion can provide the energy and inspiration to lift our imaginative abilities. Only the exercised power of visualization can allow us to express the results of such visualization.

Not surprisingly, passion and visualization are the hallmarks of a lover. Lovers desire and dream. So should writers.

Gun in my Face Last Night

2009-09-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Another Night in Lincoln Park

They were gathering like autistic wolves, milling around the rusty pickup truck across the street like they had business to do, territory to defend. I had the living room light turned out and was sitting at the chess table with my shirt off looking at the scattered pieces. A knight lay on its side, it's glossy black eye lit with lonely moonlight. The window to the street was open to the dark, and Minx was perched on the sill, her head cocked to one side, searching the night for the wispy snap of bat wings. A next door neighbor pulled up in her driveway, threw her car into park and rushed her thirteen year old daughter into the front door of their house while the wolves looked on and licked their lips. Minx's tail began to flick back and forth, back and forth and I got up to pace.

I stepped on a piece of paper, bent down to pick it up in irritation, and saw that it was a $50 check I hadn't cashed from a publisher. So I shoved my feet into my loafers, threw a shirt over my shoulders, waved good-bye to the cat and headed out the door to deposit it in the bank ATM only five or ten minutes from my house.

One of my front porch lights was busted- scattered shards of glass on the porch reminded me of bird bones left behind by a cat. I looked at the gang of kids hanging near the streets pushing trash along with the toes of their sneakers, kicking at the concrete edging, and flapping their shirts to get some air movement going in a night as humid and clingy as an unwanted girlfriend.
It was a hot night for late September and my face felt flush.

I backed the car out of the driveway a little too quickly and almost clipped a kid who looked to weigh about as much as my kitchen stove. His bulgy legs jacked backward as it flashed through my mind that it would take a crane to pick him up if he fell. Couple of blocks later I wondered if other kids made fun of him because of his weight. A bug squashed into my windshield. I hit the wipers and watched its guts smear across my line of vision. By the time I got to the bank I didn't care if the fat kid had any friends.

My bank is at the corner of Southfield and Dix, and it sits right next to a low rent Sears from an Apocalypse movie. So as I pulled into the bank I passed a white Suburban-type car in the shopping center parking lot. Another night, another abandoned car. Red flashed from the rear end as somebody accidentally hit the brake pedal. Sex for pay or sex for free in the Sears lot. In a bad economy, nobody wants to pay for a room.

I deposited the check, keeping a roving eye out for gang-bangers, but everything was quiet as I yanked the receipt out of the machine, retrieved my card, and pulled past the rusted white sex-mobile and onto Allen Road again. When I got to the stoplight, a car pulled up next to me, rumbling like a bad stomach.

A bad feeling started biting at me for attention, and I turned to see the driver of the vehicle staring at me. That doesn't happen a lot where I'm from- staring leads to attitudes, and that goes bad quickly.

In my passenger-side mirror, I saw a rough-looking white guy come out from around the back of the car. He was moving fast and was crouched over like a commando and jerking up a black shotgun into play. It was pistol gripped and the black barrel was coming up too quickly toward my head. With one hand reaching for my car's passenger side door in a slick move, the shotgun notched into the crook of his shoulder, he was ready to pop the door and make his move. I saw death in a dark circle of metal looking straight at me. Must have been from the angle of my head, but he knew I was looking at him in the mirror and I knew he knew it right then.

His face- I could see it as I jammed the gas pedal down and cranked right in front of an oncoming car- was raked with acne scars and a sharp shadow cut across his eye from the bill of his dark ball cap. His eyes were dark and scrunched down like someone had put his head in a vice and made it short.

The guy I cut out in front of was pissed as he skidded sideways and blasted his horn like it was a national emergency. I checked the southbound Southfield and cut in between a few more cars so I could keep cranking down Allen with a couple lanes of cars between me and the guy with the shotgun.

In my rearview, I saw the rusty white suburban spin onto Northbound Southfield and gun it to get clear of the area in case I was calling the police on my cell phone.

But I kept driving. I didn't call anyone. Not the police, not my friends or family. I thought I'd tell you first.

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Four of Nine

2009-09-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

A Dream Dragon

*****

Mrs. Billy woke at six o’clock a.m. as she had every day since she could remember. The sun had just broken the horizon, and her room was filled with its irritatingly bright announcement of the coming day. She lay in bed, flat on her back, staring at the gauzy cream color of the ceiling- which was all she could see until she put on her glasses.

Just before I fall to sleep, she thought, and the moment I wake are the closest I’ll ever be to peace until the day I die.

Absently, she folded her age spotted hands across her breasts and lay still, relaxed beyond words. Suddenly she pulled her hands back in horror and sat up quickly.

Like lying in a coffin, she thought as a shiver passed through her body. I'm lying here the way I will someday be lying in my coffin. God help me, I’m practicing to be dead.
excerpted from "Tesla's Resurrection," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

"I also love to read published author's diaries. My favorite is LM Montgomery's. I have read all of her work and have seen how she lived day by day from her diary entries. She had her struggles and that humanizes her." JJ Loch

*****

JJ is on to something here. Reading writer's diaries is a wonderful way to get an insight as to who they were, what they thought, who influenced them, what their aspirations were, and where their dreams were leading them. To know them as we know our friends and family, that is our goal.

In the end, the quality of our writing may well boil down to the quality of our mentors, as is pointed out in Sybervision's "The Neurospychology of Self-Discipline."

R. Andrew Wilson, PhD. titles his first chapter of "How to Write Like Hemingway," the "Education of Hemingway." This is a significant concept the author has broached. To identify with a writer whom we wish to apprentice to, we can profit immensely by studying which authors and life events form the underpinnings of their successes. Although there a some authors for whom their diaries are not available, there are sometimes collections of their correspondence that can serve us quite well.

JJ studies the diaries of her favorite author LM Montgomery. I study the collected correspondence of John Steinbeck and Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was not a writer for publication, but his collected correspondence with his brother Theo reveals to me a man who, if he chose to, could have been a great and powerful author. His powers of empathy and description are simply marvelous.

Another author whom I greatly respect and admire is Walt Whitman. Although I have yet to come across a diary for him, or a collection of his correspondence, his ever evolving "Leaves of Grass" serves the purpose very well. I have never read another poet that reveals himself so clearly in his work as Walt Whitman.

Stewart has a few recent posts on his blog that deal with "Literary Influences," and of course these matters allow us to follow the evolution of an author's style. In "Write Like Hemingway," we see that his time at the Kansas City Star was a powerful influence on Hemingway. Later, R. Andrew Wilson chronicles for us the influences of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Fitzgerald on Hemingway. These are valuable things to consider. When striving to identify with our mentor, we can improve the quality of our identification by imagining their friends as our own. We can put ourselves in the place of our mentor and question just how this influence felt to him or her. This controlled flight of imagination can be a wonderful exercise.

But, as JJ has intimated, their daily lives afford us an opportunity to see them as human beings. I am both fascinated and enlightened by Steinbeck's day to day travails as relates not only to his writing, but to his suffering and triumphs in family and practical matters.

In my own writing room, I have pictures on the wall of Steinbeck, Ayn Rand, Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, James Lee Burke, and Hemingway, too. I greet them each day in recognition of what they have given me as mentors.

The Sixth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part Three of Nine

2009-09-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

"Woman Writing at Table"

by the incomparable Valerie Harding

of Williamsburg, VA

The Magic of Mentors

*****

Matt screwed the flashlight back together and flicked the switch. From beneath the glass at the end of the tube shone a light bright enough to bring a smile to Matt’s face. He waved it around the room, probing the gathering dusk that flowed in from the window and filled the room like nicotine clouds filling a bowling alley. When the light flashed onto his grandfather’s face, however, Matt snapped the flashlight back to his body and clutched it to his chest until it hurt. Grandpa Dale’s eyes were filled with blood.

“Grandpa?” Matt asked, and his voice shook as much as the flashlight.

“Getting’ dark, isn’t it?” said the old man, and, after rubbing his fingertip across his blue jeans, he withdrew a box of matches from his pocket and lit a tall, white candle that stood on top of Matt’s dresser.

The candle sputtered and flared, and in its yellow light Matt could see clearly the white bristles that sprouted from his grandfather’s cheeks like tiny albino weeds.

“Grandpa?” Matt asked again, his stomach moving as though something large was pushing to get out, “your eyes look kind of weird.”

Grandpa Dale's eyes seemed to flare as he aimed them at Matt; his blinked rapidly, as though burned into action. Open close, open close, and again, fanning the orange-red pupils into firepits.

“It’s an allergy is all. Come on over here and let me give you a hug. Don’t be scared.”

The old man extended his fat-worm fingers toward Matt, his elbows straightening and his arms lengthening with the sound of popping plastic bubble sheets.

Matt fell back against his desk, aiming the flashlight beam before him like a sword. An eight ounce glass wobbled on the edge from the impact of his body and tumbled over towards the floor, smashing itself into hundreds of jagged little foot-cutters, and exploding outward in an arc toward Grandpa Dale.

“Whoa, there, Matty, don’t be afraid. It’s me. It's Grandpa Dale."

Matt scootched his butt backwards until his entire body was beneath his desk.
excerpted from "An Evening with Grandpa Dale," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

"The quality of a person's achievements may well be a direct function of the quality of their mentors." (Sybervision's The Neuropsychology of Self-Discipline)

The Sixth Dragon is the Dragon of Distillation. The lesson of this Dragon is that in order to further progress beyond where we are, we must distill our behaviors to remove undesirable habits and actions, and develop the best writing thoughts and practices. This is a lifelong practice, and one that requires tremendous commitment. But how can we know what to distill away and what to keep?

We need a measure, a yardstick, or perhaps an image of what we wish to be so that we will know if we are succeeding.

One way of accomplishing this is to select a successful mentor (living or dead) to compare our behaviors and efforts against. It is not a perfect measure, of course, and can never be because we are attempting to improve our writing to the highest level that we can given our own talents and efforts. We are not attempting to become carbon copies of our mentors, but to use them as a way to investigate what behaviors of theirs were successful.

We can learn from their failures as well as their successes, of course. From their failures we learn what to avoid. From their successes we learn what positioned them to improve their writing.

As an example of this, I point you to book titled, "Write Like Hemingway," by R. Andrew Wilson, PhD. It is captioned, "Writing Lessons You Can Learn from the Master." I wish that there were books like this written about Jane Austen, Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Lee Harper, Bram Stoker, Margaret Mitchell and a great many authors. Hemingway is not everyone's cup of tea, but neither is any one author. The point is that a detailed study not only of a writer's work, but their history, their influences, their personal relationships and the times that they live in is what turns that author from someone you like to read into your own person mentor.

You see, it's doubtful that any of us will ever be directly apprenticed to Charlene Harris, Janet Evanovich, Stephen King, James Leek Burke, or any other successful author. We may see them at a workshop- they may be quite small way up there at the podium when we are looking at them from the back row. And they may autograph a book for us or nod when we ask them what the "secret" of writing is, but I doubt they will remember us an hour later.

But we can claim an author as our mentor by studying everything about them, concentrating specifically on the fiction that they have produced. Most writer's are familiar with the extremes that this can be taken to, such as Hunter Thompson spending night after night copying down Charles Dickens' stories word for word so that he could get the "feel of them." A well known author who asked me not to use her name would read from the works of her favorite author (Agatha Christie) for hours and hours on end for years to catch the rhythm of her mentor's plot twists and turns. She memorized the name of every published story Dame Christie wrote and could quote from the extensively. She knew where the famous author lived and wrote and learned every detail about her life that she could and particularly her extraordinary 11-day disappearance in 1926.

But I'll be more specific about the working approach used by Dr. Wilson to capture Hemingway as a mentor in my next posting so that we can use it to claim our own mentors. Meantime I'll leave you with this Hemingway quote on creating characters:

"When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature...People in a novel, not skillfully constructed characters, must be projected from the writer's assimilated experience, from his knowledge, from his head, from his heart and from all there is of him. If he ever has luck as well as seriousness and gets them out entire they will have more than one dimension and they will last a long time."

Back from DragonCon!

2009-09-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Over the years we at Dragon*Con have done everything in our power to entertain you to the best of our ability. We bring in the best guests, bombard you with great programming, shower you with cool art, and serenade you with first-rate music. This year we are pushing the envelope and trying to bring you something new and different. This year you, the Dragon*Con fan, have an opportunity to make history. This year, you can help break a world record! That’s right, I said a world record!!

On Sunday, September 6th, at 7pm we will attempt to join the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking the world record for the number of dancers simultaneously dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller! But we can’t do this without the participation of our Dragon*Con family. To make this a success we need EVERYone! We need stormtroopers, fairies, vampires, pirates, klingons, superheroes, and most certainly zombies!"

*****

Okay, so I missed out on the DragonThriller portion of the event because I needed to drive back to Detroit, but I'm sure everyone who participated had a great time. And I'm sure they didn't miss my dancing. But before leaving I did get to be present at a Buffy the Vampire role-playing game, meet Charlene Harris (writer of the Sookie Stackhouse series that spawned "True Blood," and procure a signed copy of the infamous "Fantasy Freaks and Gaming," by Ethan Gilsdorf.

Estimates are that 50,000- 60,000 people showed up for the celebration, and that 104% of them had a fantastic time. Rivers of fans flowed past booths and exhibits, half-naked women warriors and stormtroopers paraded along the upper railings at each of the three hotels where DragonCon was held (yes, it took the Hyatt, the Marriott, and the Hilton comgined to stage this event), and I wandered around like Dorothy in her first visit to Oz.

My daughter was able to juggle her one year old while participating in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer role playing game, and he, in fact was a child star for a short time by getting a walk on part in the action! Her husband runs a LARP (live action role playing game), and his group is actually discussed in Ethan's book (Fantasy Freaks and Gaming). They are regulars at DragonCon, so I had the best tour guides a person could ask for!

I'll cover more of the writing tracks from the convention later this week, but for now I'll tell you that meeting Charlene Harris and listening to her panel presentation of How to Write a Bestseller was the highlight of the entire weekend. She seems to be a genuinely nice person gifted with a sense of enjoyment in her craft. Getting paid for doing what she loves wears well on her. The rest of us can learn some lessons from her, and I'll get to them in my next posting. For now, it's just wonderful to be home. Missed you guys.

Off to Join the Dragons!

2009-09-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

On My Way to DragonCon 2009

*****

I'm leaving now for DragonCon in Atlanta, GA with my daughter and her family. Of course, if you had to pick a convention I'd likely attend, DragonCon would be it! I'll be back Monday to fill you in on the experience. Wish me luck and a great time! What is DragonCon? "DragonCon is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US."

Although it is jam-packed with fantasy and science fiction events- parades, dealers rooms, contests, role playing games, etc., you might be wonder what is in for writers. Take a look at this:

DragonCon 2009 Writer’s Hourly Workshop Info

New York Times Bestselling authors Aaron Allston and Michael A. Stackpole combine their talents to provide a dozen hour-long seminars on writing which will help you turn your dreams of being published into reality. With over fifty years of publishing experience between them, and hundreds of publications from bestselling novels to short stories, graphic novels and gaming material, Stackpole and Allston have build long careers through strong storytelling techniques and secrets they will share with you. The seminars cover everything from the very basics and writing in a franchise universe, up through plotting and characterization, and even cover presenting your manuscript and strategies for success in the age of digital publishing. Why hope for success when you can learn from working writers and guarantee it?

-The cost for the Hourly Workshop is $8 per seminar (in advance) or $80 for all 12 seminars (in advance). Contact the Dragon*Con Office if you wish to pay in advance: (770) 909-0115.

-The cost at the door is $10 per seminar or $100 for all 12.

Writing Seminar Program for Michael A. Stackpole:
Seminar 1: Before You Write a Single Word. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole walks you through the basics of setting yourself up for success. From developing good core habits, working past simple, career killing mistakes and setting up writer's critiquing groups, to acquiring the physical tools needed to start writing; Mike covers it all. You're about to start on the most difficult and exhilarating journey of your life, and this seminar will show you what to pack and what skills you'll need to develop to get to the end.

Seminar 2: Genres, Licensed Universes, and FanFic New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston talks about the challenges of writing for genre markets, including determining whether you’re suited to a market, dealing with license holders, re-inventing wheels, and meeting fan expectations.

Seminar 3: The Rules of Writing. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole presents the Rules of Writing. These are the insider tips and tricks that you'd pick up in the first five years of your writing career, all presented here in an hour. Gleaned from personal experience and the experience of writers dating back to the 1930s, these tricks will cut three years out of your development as a writer.

Seminar 4: Providing the Experience New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston discusses three closely-related elements of fiction: Point of View (the “camera” of your story), Emotion (how the story makes the characters and readers feel), and Description (how the author’s descriptive techniques define the reader’s experience).

Seminar 5: Characterization. Characters are king in literature and New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole brings you a toolbox full of techniques to create compelling and memorable characters. Readers read for and remember characters, and after this course, yours will be unforgettable, which will keep them coming back for more.

Seminar 6: Style and Mood New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston talks about establishing and sustaining the tone of a novel – how to switch from technique to technique, like a pitcher switching from a curve ball to a fastball, in order to make the readers experience exactly what you want them to.

Seminar 7: Plotting. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole unravels the mysteries of creating compelling plots. A novel is a huge undertaking, written over weeks or months, and the plot has to hold it all together. From creating an outline to maintaining flexibility, this seminar gives you the insider knowledge that will separate you from all of your peers.

Seminar 8: Plot Analysis. New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston adds to your writers’ toolkit with methods to analyze, strengthen, and repair plots. He describes the four basic components of a plot (scenes, themes, points, and arcs), the types of functions that scenes perform (and how to detect when a scene is doing nothing for your story), and methods to break down a story to discover whether all its plot components are sound.

Seminar 9: 21 Days to a Novel. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole presents his three week program for preparing yourself to write a novel. This set of 21 exercises is broken down to give you everything from character creation to world building, practical plotting devices, dialogue development and character voice creation tools. This program is a practical, kick-in-the-pants place to start your career.

Seminar 10: Edit to perfection. So, you've got your pile of 100,000 words. What now? New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole guides you through the intricacies of actually editing your novel. He'll cover those tough questions, like what needs to be trimmed, where do things need to be tightened, and what to do when characters are present, but just not engaged in the story. He'll even provide that key bit of advice so you know when your book is done, and ready to send in to an editor.

Seminar 11: Showing Off Your Manuscript New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston discusses ways to put your fiction before the eyes of others, including advance readers, workshoppers, editors, and agents. We’ll also talk about the hazards of showing off your manuscript, including submission mistakes, hurtful reviews, and loss of creative energy.

Seminar 12: Writing Careers in the Post-Paper Era. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole—the first author to offer fiction on the iPhone/iPod Touch through Apple's Appstore—gives you an up to date look at the digital revolution and explains how you can profit and develop your career. Mike's watched his Internet income from writing double every year for the past three years, with the trend accelerating in 2009. If you intend to have a career in writing, this scouting report and practical action plan for the future is a must."

Not a bad agenda, eh?