Behind the Writing: PART 1: Characters or Situations?

The following is the first in a three-part series about the craft of writing, specifically characters and situations, why we write stories, and how to refill the creative well. These conversations took place in early October 2015 with author Mark Boss and myself.

Mark Boss at PC Creative Con 2K15

Mark: We were talking the other day about characters. You read Stephen King’s “On Writing,” and he says he always starts with a situation; I started thinking, how predominant is that? How many authors start with a situation versus starting with a character? When you told me about your Alabama trip, it seemed like the seed of it, the germ was the character first. What triggered that idea, and then did you build the situation around that character?

Tony: I think that story came out of inundating — immersing myself in a bunch of unrelated ideas. I’m in Birmingham, and there’s a lot of stuff about the Confederacy, it’s an iron town — that whole blacksmithy, iron works, steam era feel to it. And I’m reading a lot of steampunk. All of those things fed into the mulcher, and then, driving home, seeing those old Southern city names —

Mark: Specifically, Jemison and Thorsby. Were they in that order?

Tony: Yes.

Mark: Because you might not have thought of it (if they were in the reverse order).

Tony: Right. That came from character first, from a mixture of the names and a time period I had floating around in my head. So in a way, the situation was kind of already there. I was primed to find a story that was steeped in the Old South.

Mark: Which is quite a departure, because I’d say most steampunk, maybe 90 percent of it, is Victorian England. At best, they cross the Channel to France. So Steampunk-USA is a departure.

Tony: With my Caliban stories, it definitely came out of character first. I was 14 years old and wanted to write Doctor Strange. Before I knew it, I wasn’t writing about the wizard, I was writing about the kid he trained and the development of his potential as a magic-user. Over the years, both of those characters kind of developed in the back of my head. — So, how about you, Mark? Character or situation?

Mark:  Looking at the last few books, I realize I’m going more ‘situation.’ My thing was a “what-if.” What if all these bad things happened at the same time? I love zombie things, and zombies were very big at the time. And yet I thought, okay, what if we ramped it up? Because one apocalypse is not enough for me. That’s just too slow. I want to see us get devastated. So you throw in aliens — the classic thing of alien invasion — and then you throw in a robot uprising, and then we’re starting to get it boiling. We’ve brought it up to temperature. Then I started thinking, everyone is going to be caught in this, but we don’t want to follow the people who just sit in their basement and wait for it to stop. We want to follow people out there actually doing things. The books jump around a fair amount to different characters. Even so, I tried to focus on the excitement: Let’s go look for the most important things happening or the most fun things happening. That was more a situation thing, but I had never thought hard about it until recently.

In the next post, we’ll address the question: Why do we make up stories?

Check out Mark's blog "Chimp With Pencil"<<
Mark's website<<
and his Amazon author page<<

Launching 'The Caliban Cycle'

I have made a Facebook page live today for getting out the word on my new series, THE CALIBAN CYCLE.

On this page, you will get regular updates on the series, which will be serialized on Kindle before being gathered into print editions. You'll find photographs of locations in the real world that inspired portions of the story, as well as media inspirations and more. You'll see artwork based on various iterations of the story (I've been rewriting it since I was 14). You'll see promotional artwork by the talented JOHN RUSSO, who is designing the covers, and others who contribute. You'll be invited to book launch events and readings, as well as given exclusive access to special content.

Book One of The Caliban Cycle is called GIANTS IN THE EARTH and details the circumstances of the birth and childhood of Thomas Michael Caliban, possessing the power of a modern-day Merlyn, and destined to become either a force for light or darkness in the world. The novel was a quarter-finalist in last year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Some of the reviews included:

"Beautiful writing, really terrific. Love the description of the car crash and its immediate aftermath.
Sweet character-building for Arthur Magus. ... Super beginning to what promises to be a great story. Really looking forward to reading it."

"The writing is great, it really shines. ... I'm stumped. I can't find anything weak about it. ... This is a very well written piece. As long as the rest of the book is as strong as this excerpt, it could go to print right now and I'd want to read it. From the use of italics to the unhurried pacing and switching of story back and forth between characters, the whole thing is quite a treat."

Part One: THE CHANGELING, will be published to Kindle on July 1, and an exclusive print edition of The Changeling will be available Aug. 1 at Panama City CreativeCon to mark that day's e-publication of Part Two: THE CHILD.

>>Read more about the series in these blog entries<<

Writing Caliban: New ideas come from creative research

(I've decided to do a regular bit here in which I'll give you a look at my writing process. We start with a chapter in the second Caliban Cycle novel, which I'm currently working on. Don't panic: You didn't miss the first Caliban Cycle novel. It hasn't been published yet.)

I had in mind a scene that would take place in a vampire bar in London, as one of my characters seeks a "ground level" informant that might have a lead for him. I thought I might call the bar The London Underground.

So before I started writing the scene, I hit up Google for some info on the actual London "Tube" system, learning about its age and some of the travails of its construction — and it struck me that it would have been almost infinitely easier in the 1860s to build an elevated railway over existing roads and between low-rise buildings than to tunnel underneath those roads and buildings. Workers had to remove tons of earth (without causing sinkholes, cave-ins and the collapse of structures above), shore up walls of clay, pump out ground water, pump in fresh air, electricity and heat, build platforms and so forth — most of which would not be necessary if building an El train.

Conclusion: Subways were invented by vampires for the express purpose of allowing them to travel anywhere in the city without exposing themselves to the sun. Who but a vampire would think underground travel is preferable to open air travel? That led me to the next idea...

If subways are actually for the benefit of vampires living in the cities, then their bars and hangouts would be accessible through these same tunnels. That meant I could place my vampire bar along the Underground route; but now I didn't want to call the bar by the same name.

Ramses 2 and Tekhit

What emblem or name would be appropriate for a vamp nightclub? I wanted to avoid ones I'd seen or heard in movies or books or comics. I didn't want something obvious or cliche. It occurred to me that beer was at least as old as one of the characters in this story — the Egyptians fed it to their slaves to keep them mollified — so I looked for a heiroglyph that represented beer or partying. I found Tekhit.

Tekhit, according to this source, is the Egyptian goddess of beer. Her name translates as both "drunkeness" and "slaughter" — and what creature would equate slaughter with drunkeness more than a blood-drinker?

So bar would be called Tekhit, and her heiroglyph would be its emblem. More so, I decided there's a Tekhit club in every major city; it's a franchise; it's the Hard Rock Cafe of vampire clubs. Thus, my characters would be meeting at Tekhit London, sampling vintage 1972 harvested from a willing donor.

Also, what good is a bar scene without a fight? They'd do that too.
...And so it goes.

Rebel, rebel: The artist as agent of chaos

PANAMA CITY — I spent some time last Friday drawing on a wall at Floriopolis, the Beck Avenue gallery operated by artist Heather Parker. I had her permission — in fact, she invited me to do so — but something about applying a pen to the white wall (even though it was inside an art gallery) seemed like an act of rebellion.

Maybe that says something about my comfort level as a rebel.

The day prior, I interviewed Olga Guy, an artist based at CityArts Cooperative, who told me a story about painting her bedroom walls and doors as a teenager, much to her mother’s chagrin. (See this story to learn how that worked out for her.)

Drawing on Heather’s wall didn’t feel like graffiti. I didn’t have a statement to make. And while convention was being flouted, authority was not. Still, I think that’s what art is, at least the way my mind interprets it: A fundamental act of rebellion.

Against the mundane, the routine. Against the merciless march of time. Sometimes afflicting the comfortable, sometimes comforting the afflicted.

Follow me, here, because art can be a lot of things. An attempt to express divinity. To faithfully capture and reproduce a moment. To reveal emotion or provoke social change. To find patterns and draw order out of chaos, or to express chaos. It can even be as simple as a “pretty picture.”

And yet, all of this is rebellious. The act of creation presupposes that transitory creatures like us — who live and die in such a short span — have something of lasting meaning to contribute. That we defy the universe and the mortal constrictions it places on us.

We leave a message — a thought, a sound, an image, a performance — to be read, or listened to, or viewed by a stranger in another place and time, interpreted and remembered. We break the laws of physics every time we make something — or maybe we prove the theories of quantum entanglement by having an impact across space and time.

It’s a conundrum.

Art can be the product of experimentation, the result of inspiration (and, in turn, it can be inspiring to others). It is forward thinking — I will not be here tomorrow, but this is what I had to offer today — and thus it becomes disruptive, transformative for the creator as well as the viewer.

It’s also like the definition of sound: Unless someone sees it, reads it, hears it, then it’s not really communication. For artists, who most often labor in private, the patron’s eye (or ear) keeps them from feeling like a tree falling in a forest when no one’s around.

In coming weeks, you’ll meet a parade of local artists — painters, jewelers, dancers, musicians, writers and more — on these pages and at PanamaCity.com, as we begin an ongoing series we’re calling “Artist’s Touch.” I hope you’ll join me us we get to know the area’s creative spirits, examine the forms their work takes, and celebrate the rebels in our midst.

Peace.

Cocktail Hour shares blog

When Bill Roorbach was in town for BooksAlive recently, he read and enjoyed a column of mine about the mad creative process I enjoyed on a long ride home from Birmingham. I told him it was a version of a blog entry, greatly simplified for the paper, and he asked permission to reprint it on his blog. I sent him a silly photo and an amalgamated version of the blog and column.

He posted it today.

Thanks, Bill!

Inspiration and the Universe Conspire (to help me create a new story)

We were out of town this weekend, spending as much time as possible with my wife's sister, who is undergoing a bone marrow transplant and more chemo in Birmingham. She slept quite a lot, off and on, and I caught up on some Kindle reading, as well as browsing more than I usually do. I started reading a steampunk novel sample (not too good, so I'm not naming it), and decided to check out a sample of a writing guide for people interested in steampunk (also not so good, but whatever, by this time, my brain was engaged).

On the drive home today, we passed a sign pointing to the exit for two nearby towns, Jemison and Thorsby, and I said, "That's a great character name. Jemison Thorsby, a reporter for the Confederate Statesmen paper out of Atlanta in 1870, two years after the Civil War ended in an uneasy truce."

Soon, we passed a sign for two more towns. "Clanton Montgomery," I said. "Former colonel in the Alabama militia. Hero of the Battle of Birmingham. Now a soldier of fortune operating out of the Republic of Texas."

We passed a sign for two more towns. "Coosada Wetumpka," I thought (as by this time my wife was trying to nap). "A Creek Indian. Father was a Red Stick warrior. He works for Montgomery, and is on the train from the free port of New Orleans to Port Arthur when he meets Thorsby."

I began to think about Thorsby more. He's a reporter, dispatched to get the story on Montgomery, who has been making expeditions into the Plains Nations, where the tribes are armed with electrostatic weapons, dirigibles, and steam-powered cannon-carriages to keep the interlopers off their lands. They have a mysterious benefactor that is designing these breakthroughs, and the U.S. government is secretly bankrolling Montgomery's excursions.

On the train, Thorsby sees a beautiful black woman in the company of two white men. She is clearly rich, clearly a free woman, but one of the men is threatening her. The woman glances at Thorsby on several occasions. Later, in the dining car, Thorsby sees the man slap the woman, and he goes to their table to warn the man not to strike a lady. She speaks to him in a lyrical French accent, "I do not require your assistance, little man." I could hear her voice in my imagination.

Only then does he recognize her. But what is her name?

A moment later, I passed a sign for a place called Legrande. That's certainly French-ish. So her name is LeGrande, but that's only a stage name. What's her first name? What's her real name? I pass a sign for a place called Cleo. Her stage name is Cleopatra LeGrande, she's a famous chanteuse, the toast of Paris, but he knew her when they were children. She was a house servant at the same estate where his father was a stable hand. Her name was...

I passed a sign for a place called Ada. He knew her by that name in their childhood, and he would often offer to help Ada with her chores, but she would always say, "I don't need your help, Little Man."

So what happens when they reach Port Arthur? And then onward to Beaumont, and all across to Amarillo? What happens when they cross the border into "Injun Country," as Wetumpka sneeringly calls it, and they face the dirigible fleet of the United Tribes under the command of Touch the Clouds (a character who I had in mind, but not by name until I happened to do a search for "native American leaders" and found this list)?

What otherworldly monstrosity waits in Roswell? What is "the Breach" and why must it be "Repaired"?

(I wondered that when I passed a sign on a country church that declared they were "Repairers of the Breach." (Don't look that up, because it will depress you.))

The sunset was fiery red as we passed through a string of small Alabama towns. Signs and portents in the sky. The iPod began playing a song about a woman traveling back in time, and I knew I had my answers...

...And that is how a story begins to take shape in my head.

Peace.

The Story behind 'Dragon Rising'

Cover by Jayson Kretzer

I have a new book available through Kindle and soon in print via Amazon's CreateSpace. "Dragon Rising" is the first of a projected series about The Shadow War, and like many of my recent works, it has been incubating for decades. I wrote the initial outline for the story in the early 1990s, when it seemed like there would never be new additions to the Star Wars trilogy, and I wanted a space opera-type story.

The first real work on it came in the latter 1990s, as Phantom Menace hyperbole began to take over the geek world in anticipation of the first prequel to Star Wars. I wrote it with my children in mind, who were at the time not yet in their teens; I made the protagonist, Kit Tanner, a 15-year-old from a backwater world and set him in dangerous situations that he had to think his way out of, and be brave, and be true.

A few years ago, I set about updating the novella I wrote for them and tried submitting it to various publishers. I even rewrote it to appeal to the Christian market at one point, pumping up the philosophical aspects and religious questions, as well as Kit's faith. Still no nibbles. In this most recent rewrite, I believe I kept the best of both versions. You be the judge (please, I'd love to read your reviews at Amazon.com!).

A funny thing happened on the way to publication, however. I asked my friend, Jayson Kretzer (creator of the Wannabe Heroes comic) to do a cover for the book. When he sent me the early version, uncolored, I had to ask him who one of the characters was. He identified the female as "Oracle," a robot or "mech" in the story. I replied that Oracle was never described as female, and in fact was referred to as "it" throughout the narrative; he said when he read the character's dialogue he "heard" a woman's voice. He offered to change the art, but his response made me rethink some of the passages in the story. It became clear to me that Oracle was in many ways a maternal care-giving and peacemaking figure that was missing from the story at that point, and I wondered how Kit was react to Oracle differently if "it" had the outer aspect and voice of a "she." So, another rewrite took place, one that is still having ripple effects on the subsequent storyline. We retained his interpretation, which informed (and in ways, transformed) the story.

That's what happens when you collaborate.

Dragon Rising will be followed later this year by Dragon Rampant, as the Shadow War breaks out in earnest. I also have in mind to do a sort of Federal Encyclopedia, with technical and historical info about the universe in which Kit Tanner lives. After Dragon Rampant, if there's clamor for further adventures, I anticipate a third tale, and more to follow.

I hope you'll read Dragon Rising, or read it to your kids, or buy it for some youngster you know. Let me know what worked for you, what you want more of, or less of. I'm working on the first sequel now, and your feedback would be invaluable. Collaborate in the Shadow War, if you dare to challenge the Dragon.

Peace.

In defense of zombies

Me, Zombified

Zombies scare me.

I don't know why, exactly. Maybe it's the idea that they are us, just with our morals switched off and our hunger turned to 11.

Maybe it's the idea that they can't be reasoned with (insert your favorite political joke here), or that they never tire, they never stop, and it seems like they come out of nowhere by the multitudes.

Maybe it's the overwhelming dread of a worldwide plague turning the planet into a dead zone where the slightest noise or a change in the direction the breeze blows can mean death.

I seldom have nightmares about zombies. I generally recall my dreams in detail, and my really bad dreams are usually about demons. (Don't even get me started.)

Then one night I dreamed that I was a zombie. I "woke up" in the middle of a feeding frenzy, at first frightened and confused by the walking corpses all around me and the prey they were devouring, and suddenly a weird calm came over me.

My new e-book of short stories

I realized what I was and why the horde wasn't trying to attack me. I was just like them. And I realized that was okay with me (in this dream, at least) — knowing what I was, I could deal with that. (I've tried to decipher the psychological implications of this dream. In fact, I'm writing a book to deal with them.)

But see:  There was a sense of personal freedom that set in once I realized that my continued existence had been made so simple. There were no worries, because the worst had already happened. All I had to do was feed myself, and the rest of the world could go to hell.

Like I said, I'm working this out: That's where the opening scene of my new novel takes place — as an undead man "awakens" (becomes self-aware) in the middle of an afternoon snack he's sharing with another undead man. (You can read this opening scene in my new ebook, "Tales of the Awakening Dead," only 99 cents on Kindle!)

I spent last year's NaNoWriMo exploring what happens next — a simple thing, as the man recognizes that the food stocks are being depleted while the number of predators rises. That won't do, of course, so he has to find a way to reduce the feeders and fatten the prey and ensure a steady supply of "This Mortal Flesh."

The trailer video for Tales of the Awakening Dead

As I wrote in the introduction to 'Tales of the Awakening Dead,' there's some cultural backlash already rising that indicates people think the zombie apocalypse is played out as a source for storytelling. That's being floated out there at a time when "The Walking Dead" is a hit comic book and a super-hit TV series. (It returns for its fourth season Sunday, and AMC is now developing a spin-off series to fill the seasonal hiatus next summer.)

The Walking Dead Season Four Trailer

So obviously, there are still plenty of stories to tell.

Myself, I write about zombies for a variety of reasons beyond my own desire to understand my dreamstates. One, they make excellent metaphors for just about any massive, mindless groupthink you want to apply. Two, you can set up different rules for how the creatures multiply and how they operate (can they speak? do they run or shamble? does only a bite spread infection?). Three, exploring how your human characters relate to one another and the zombies in such an environment reveals so many things about the human condition.

But an added bonus, and probably most importantly: You can tell any story in this framework. When it comes to human relationships, action/adventure, or even buddy cop stories, zombies are like bacon — they can make any story better.

Don't believe me? Next time you're writing and you hit a wall, and you don't know what happens next, have a zombie come through the window. Instant writer's block solvent.

----

Thoughts? Refutations? Please comment!

It is Finished. (... And So It Begins ...)

My Plan for the Foreseeable Future

Wednesday, I took a vacation day from my job. It was my 49th birthday. It was also a personal deadline.

Several months ago, inspired by a prompt Mark Boss gave at a writers' conference, I was finally able to get back to my lifelong writing project, collectively referred to as "Caliban."

>>(I wrote about the origins of the project here.)

With the help of a group of local writers (Mark, Ruth Corley, Rich Kevan, Carole Lapensohn, Marty Sirmons and Milinda Stephenson, otherwise known as "The Cheshires") I have taken my 1994-era version of the tale and brought it into 2013.

Wednesday, I wrote somewhere around 3,500 words, finishing the last segment of the story that remained.

I've been in a daze ever since. (Mark told me at lunch on Thursday that I had that "1,000-yard stare.")

I'm now working my way through the book using the Cheshire's notes on early chapters to weave together dangling threads, enhance descriptions and motivations, explain the inexplicable, and otherwise polish this thing to a glowing sheen.

I'm calling it "Giants in the Earth: Book One of the Caliban Chronicles."

When I complete this part of the final edit, I will be sending it to a friend who is considering representing me as a literary agent. And I will write a novella (or maybe just a long short-story) about one of the supporting characters in this story (Working title: "The Case of the Invisible Vampires")

And post a collection of my zombie short stories to Amazon just in time for Halloween and the return of The Walking Dead on TV.

And begin work on the direct sequel to this story. (Working title: "The Moon Made Blood")

With more to follow.

I was floating in the neighborhood pool yesterday as the sun set, and I had the most pleasant positive mental state wash over me.  I felt like I had crossed a threshold of some kind.  Reached a personal plateau that revealed a clear path to even higher elevations.

It was a trick of the mind, of course, but I'll take it.

Hope is a good thing to have, especially when you doubt yourself as much as I do.  And finally having a sense that you've accomplished something worthwhile -- and that more good things are ahead -- is such a wonderful new experience that I can't even quite grasp the enormity of it.

I'm just gonna go with it while it lasts.

Two Writers: A Video

Thanks to Lou Columbus for shooting and editing this chat between me and Michael Lister. It's a bit long, but if you have the time, we both read from our work in the second half; Michael reads from his newly released novel, The Big Beyond, and I read from a work-in-progress, Giants in the Earth.




Thanks again, Lou!

Flashback Friday: The Ladybird of the Galaxy

(The following is a segment from a memoir writing project I'm playing with. Hope you like it. Share your own recollections of 1970s Sci-Fi TV shows in the comments. — And yes, I know Trek was a 1960s era show, but Roddenberry did quite a few 1970s TV pilots, all of which Majel appeared in.)

From Wikipedia.org

My work with The News Herald in Panama City, Florida, has allowed me opportunities to speak with many of the actors that brought sci-fi TV to life over the years.  In February 1994, and appropo of our subject, I interviewed an interplanetary dignitary when Majel Barrett-Roddenberry — actress and wife of the late Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek — beamed into town for a small sci-fi convention.

Barrett was perhaps best known to fans of the Trek television and movie series.  Not only was she married to Gene (called by his fans "The Great Bird of the Galaxy"), but she was personally involved with every incarnation of the show as an actress and she appeared in each of his subsequent attempts to launch TV series.

She told me that, even though they had hoped (with Trek) to create something new and different for television, “We never dreamed it would be such a cult.  You don’t just get up in the morning and say, ‘Today I’m going to make a legend.’  We just had a job, and we hoped people would like what we were doing.”

From Wikipedia.org

Barrett was cast as the starship Enterprise’s female first officer, “Number One” in the original pilot, which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Capt. Christopher Pike.  The role was written for her, and she was the first actor cast, she said.  Unfortunately, the network thought the pilot was “too cerebral for those slobs in TV-Land,” she said.  (It was a curse that would haunt all of Roddenberry’s future TV pilots.)

“They liked the idea and wanted to see another pilot, but they wanted some changes.  First, they wanted Gene to get rid of the woman second in command, because they said no one would believe a woman in that position.  And second, get rid of the pointy-eared Spock character because he was too devilish and would upset women viewers,” she said.

“As much as he knew it was going to break my heart, Gene desperately wanted to keep the Spock character.  He thought he could keep some things he wanted if he gave in to some of their requests,” she said.  “So he decided to marry the woman and keep Spock on the show.  Besides, Leonard (Nimoy, who played Spock) wouldn’t have had it the other way around.”

NBC also deflated Gene’s concept of gender equality, Barrett said.  He had originally wanted the crew complement to be half male and half female.  Instead, the female complement was reduced to about 10 percent.   “But that was okay, because Gene figured 30 good women could handle a crew of 300,” she said.

With a bleached-blond hairstyle, the naturally brunette Barrett rejoined the cast as Nurse Christine Chapel during the entire run of the series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk.

“I really wanted to be a part of Star Trek, and when this one script (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” which introduced the Chapel character) came in, I knew it was my opportunity,” she said.

She cut her hair and bleached it blonde, then waited in Gene’s office for him to come in.  He passed by her twice, even spoke to her once, before finally recognizing her.  She told him, “If I can fool you, I can fool the network.”

Barrett’s voice was also used for the voice of the ship’s computer.  She later contributed her voice to the animated Trek series which ran on Saturday mornings in the early 1970s.  She appeared as Chapel in two of the Trek films, including her favorite of the series, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

In the 1980s, after Gene launched the syndicated television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Barrett took on the character Llwaxana Troi, the hyper-sensual mother of one of the command staff.  She also continued to provide the voice of the ship’s computer, and she played Lwaxana again in the third Trek series, Deep Space Nine, in the 1990s.

“Gene came in one day and said, ‘I have a great part for you. You won’t have to act.’  He described Llwaxana as ‘the Auntie Mame of the Galaxy,’” she said.  “The way the first script was written, she was very shallow, but by the third and fourth appearance, she started to blossom.  I’ve been very fortunate that the writing has been superb.”

Barrett died Dec. 18, 2008, as a result of leukemia. (Her birthday was Feb. 23, a date that has some importance to me. It happened in the year 1932.) Her cremains are expected to be launched into space in 2014 alongside her husband's.

Live with an expectation of inspiration

PANAMA CITY — Remember those 3D puzzle posters that were so popular in the 1990s? Life can be like that, especially for an artist.

A flower never is just a flower. A sunset is more than celestial mathematics. A poem is greater than the sum of its rhymes.

Beneath the surface, there always is a hidden meaning. Behind the noise, there’s a pure tone, a carrier wave of truth.

The artist seeks the mystery, the writer poses the question, the musician unleashes emotions — though in each case, the answer will be different for each viewer, reader or listener.

I got the opportunity to reflect on these concepts in public last Sunday, as I made myself available at the Bay County Public Library, where I joined local mystery author Michael Lister for a discussion, reading and book launch. Michael was debuting his latest 1940s noir novel, “The Big Beyond,” and invited me for an open-ended talk about writing, creativity and life.



I read from my current project, which I'm calling "Giants in the Earth."

Michael referred to the moment when everything comes together as a “lightning bolt.” He wasn’t referencing some “eureka” instant of inspiration, but rather the experience when all the pieces you have gathered — all the myriad of facts, feelings and ideas you have explored — suddenly fit into a greater whole.

It doesn’t happen by accident. You must prepare the way by steadily working, and open yourself to the moment. The secret is to look deeper, to listen closer — not just being aware, but also making yourself available for the universe.

And as you seek, feed the furnace of your brain, exercise your creative muscles, tilt at windmills — so that when the connections begin to reveal themselves and that elusive lightning bolt is looking for a place to manifest, you are prepared.

The day following our talk, I interviewed artist and longtime friend John Russo, who also mentioned how inspiration is something one has to pursue. If you wait for it, you could find yourself waiting all your life, he said.

The lightning can find you, sure, even huddled indoors. But if you want to improve your chances, you have to chase the storm, and then stand on the hill and hold a metal rod toward the heavens. Sometimes it helps if you challenge the wind, rage against the night.

You have to court it. You have to, at the very least, live in a state of availability to the muse. To seek.

(And you must acknowledge that the lightning, when it comes, could destroy you. Don’t be fooled: We live in a constant state of being and becoming, one heartbeat shy of nothingness. It’s the same in life as in art.)

The burst of inspiration can be a dangerous thing. It can change our lives, especially when we actively fall into synch with the universe.

Peace.

(This was my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald this week.)

Beyond the Big Beyond

I'm going to be sharing a book event with Michael Lister on Sunday, 2-4 p.m. at the Bay County Public Library. We'll be discussing our latest projects and doing some reading, and there will be books to sign and sell if you're interested in that sort of thing. Here's a column I did about Michael's new novel:

Soldier reups for second noir adventure

PANAMA CITY — Private eye Jimmy “Soldier” Riley seems dead set on discovering what lies beyond that final farewell in local author Michael Lister’s latest novel.

“The Big Beyond” is a sequel to Lister’s “The Big Goodbye,” which introduced Riley, a hardnosed detective living and working in 1940s Panama City. Rich in historical details, the story is gritty and tragic, as good noir tends to be.

“Beyond” picks up immediately after the events of “Goodbye,” with Riley recovering from injuries both physical and emotional. It hits the ground running, too, as Riley is almost immediately kidnapped and horribly tortured. It seems the trouble he stirred up in his previous outing had much deeper roots than he suspected.

Riley hovers near death, but can’t let go while he still has a score to settle and more than a few injustices to square — all while searching wartime Panama City for a dangerous serial killer who combines art and murder.

“I love Panama City, and I’ve enjoyed writing about the way it was in the 1940s far more than I ever would’ve imagined,” Lister said. “So much was going on here at the time, and it’s just such an interesting and cool era. And this time I got to explore what was happening to Japanese-Americans and what was going on in the art scene at the time. I foresee coming back to Soldier and his friends over and over again.”

A Wewahitchka native, Lister has had 12 novels, three short-story collections and three nonfiction books published. The John Jordan mysteries, also known as Lister’s “Blood Series,” are the author’s most popular and most acclaimed works, with kudos from “Publisher’s Weekly” and “Ellery Queen Magazine,” among others.

“The Big Beyond” will be followed by a third Soldier Riley adventure to complete an initial trilogy; Lister said Riley has other stories still to tell. He’s currently offering a Soldier short story prequel in ebook format and is hard at work on the third book in the series.

“I’ve always loved both film noir and the classic hardboiled detective genre,” Lister said. “ ‘The Big Beyond’ has given me another opportunity to explore and pay homage to them both.”

CityArts Cooperative will step back in time for a ’40s Night release party celebrating the era and the release of the new novel at 6 p.m. today. The public is invited to come in costume or as you are, and enjoy live 1940s music, a costume contest, book signing and reading, film noir, dancing and much more.

Then, from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Lister will discuss “The Big Beyond,” writing, North Florida and many other topics with this writer in a dual interview format: We will interview each other about recent and upcoming projects, read from our latest work and sign books.


’40s NIGHT PARTY

    When: 6-10 p.m. Friday, April 5
    Where: CityArts Cooperative, 318 Luverne Ave., Panama City
    What: Step back in time and experience Panama City in the 1940s with friends and fans of Jimmy “Soldier” Riley, the private eye protagonist of the new novel from Michael Lister, “The Big Beyond.” Come in costume or as you are. Featuring live ’40s music, games, prizes, book signing and reading, and film noir.


BEYOND ‘THE BIG BEYOND’

    When: 2-4 p.m., Sunday, April 7
    Where: Bay County Public Library, 898 W. 11th St., Panama City
    What: Presentation by Michael Lister with Tony Simmons, discussing writing approaches and more; with books available for signing and purchase


Hope to see you there.
Peace.

Looking Back at 'Logan's Run' (1977-78)

(The following is a segment from a memoir writing project I'm playing with. Hope you like it. Share your own recollections of 1970s Sci-Fi TV shows in the comments.)

Logan 5, Jessica 6 and Rem (Wikipedia)

A spin-off of the 1976 movie that starred Michael York and Jenny Agutter, the Logan’s Run TV series suffered from the common practice of dumbing down scifi to try to appeal to mass audiences and to make the show more “kid friendly.”  The series starred Gregory Harrison and Heather Menzies in softer, less sexualized versions of the characters played by York and Agutter, Logan 5 and Jessica 6, with supporting actors Donald Moffat as the android Rem and Randy Powell as Francis 7, Logan’s former best friend, fellow Sandman, and now relentless pursuer.

>>Check out video of the intro titles and theme music here<<

Carousel (Ebay image)

In the post-nuclear holocaust world of the 23rd Century, Logan is a Sandman; Sandmen are a sort of police force that patrols the City of Domes, where the last humans known to be alive chose to live a hedonistic existence in what looks like an upscale shopping mall, and then give up their lives at age 30 (age 21 in the original novel).  The populace believes they will be reincarnated via the “Carousel” ceremony, but they are simply killed to make room for new test-tube babies.  Sandmen track and kill any citizens who try to escape rebirth by running, i.e., “runners.”

(The series recycled many of the movie’s special effects, including the Carousel sequence, but exchanged the spectacular image of exploding bodies used in the film for a freeze-frame and a “crystallizing” effect.  Probably to keep little kids from trying to blow up their friends at home, which seemed to be the prevailing thought process at TV studios.)

In the film, Logan is placed undercover by the ruling computer to infiltrate a subversive group that is seeking to escape the city for some mythical “Sanctuary” where they can live out their lives in peace.  He gets Jessica to help him, and the two make it through a series of adventures to the ruins of Washington, D.C.  There, they meet an old man and Logan realizes there’s no reason to continue supporting the old ways of the City of Domes. He decides to return there, overthrow the computer ruler, and set the people free from Carousel.

The series wanders from the film’s plot, however, almost as soon as it begins.  Logan is already questioning the rite of rebirth, and he runs with Jessica.  Francis is taken before a secret council of old men and told he can join their number if he successfully brings Logan back for re-education.  It is never really made clear why Francis — not to mention all the other Sandmen dispatched into the outside world — would want to prop up the City of Domes when it’s obvious that there are many other survivors and civilizations in the outside world, which appears to be fully recovered from the war, and they no longer have a reason to die young.

So we once again have the familiar “Fugitive” structure for our episodes:  Innocent of any crime, our hero is on the run from relentless pursuit, meeting new people each week that need help, and then being forced to move on just one step ahead of the long arm of the law.  But rather than a search for proof of innocence, we have innocents searching for a place they can belong and experiencing true freedom — not the false freedom of consumerism and hedonism in exchange for giving up their personal power to a faceless authority — for the first time in their lives.

Logan and Jessica in the film (Screened.com)

I didn’t see the movie in theaters (I was 12 when it was in theaters), catching it only after it had been “Edited for Television” in advance of the series premiere.  And somehow, I rarely caught an episode of this series all the way through in its original run, and never at my own home.  The night of the premiere (Sept. 16, 1977) I was at Grandma and Pawpaw Massey’s house.  The grownups were playing canasta in the dining room, and about the time the pilot got to its secondary story, they took a break to come into the family room to talk; they started making jokes about the show, and I came to realize it was not as good as I was willing to believe.  It was like the Penguin running for Mayor, all over again — though it didn’t stop me from drawing pictures of Logan’s Sandman gun and trying to make a wooden version in my shop class.

Screen capture from 'Captured' (ShareTV.org)

I was at my friend Troy Gandy’s home for the third episode (“Capture,” broadcast Sept. 30, 1977), in which our heroes (and Francis) are hunted by the guy who was the young hot-head gunslinger wannabe from the original Magnificent Seven feature, (Horst Buchholz, bringing some presence to the screen).  Troy was eight months older than me, born in December 1963.  His brother, Robert, was a couple of years older than the both of us.  Troy and Robert fought constantly, either mouthing off at each other, or literally fist-fighting, which was a family dynamic I was not familiar with.  The night of this episode, Robert had picked at Troy until he lost his temper and lunged at his older brother.  They threw each other around the living room, overturning tables and chairs, scattering snacks on the floor.  I just stayed out of the way.

Looking back, I wonder how much of that activity was play-acting, like a TV wrestling match.  I couldn’t tell.  I also wonder how much of it was prompted by sheer boredom after the brothers discovered this was what I wanted to watch on TV.  When we all saw headlights on the driveway, a sudden calm hit the room.  The boys separated, a whirlwind of cleaning occurred, and by the time their mother came in the door, the place was back in the shape it had been in before the fight.  The three of us, sitting on the couch together, eating potato chips and watching Logan’s Run.

I thought about this and other times at the Gandy home a few years ago, when I learned that Troy had taken his own life.

And I realized that Troy and Robert, in their sibling conflict, had mirrored the dynamic of Logan and Francis in that very episode:  One former friend — a brother in almost every way — hunting and fighting the other until a common enemy appeared to force them to work together, at least until their next opportunity to struggle for dominance.  In the theater of my memory, I would have to cast Troy as Logan, as he was only trying to maintain his freedom and his sense of self that night.

I guess that makes me either Rem or Jessica in that scenario; I’ll go with the dispassionate and pacifistic Rem, if it’s all the same to you.  I don’t look that good in short skirts.

On Halloween of that year, I was again at the Gandy house for the only boy-girl party I was ever invited to during my middle- and high school years.  A game of spin-the-bottle was happening on the back porch, and the girl I liked (one of Troy’s cousins) didn’t want to participate.  Moreover, when the bottle pointed at me early in the game, the girl who should have kissed me begged off, lying to the crowd that we were cousins and it wouldn’t be right; I didn’t dispute her.

Screen grab from 'Half Life' (SnowCrest.net)

Instead I went inside to get some snacks, and discovered the TV was on in the living room.  No one was watching it.  Logan’s Run was playing (“Half Life” written by Shimon Wincelberg, broadcast Oct. 31, 1977).  I just stood there, watching Jessica 6 being duplicated, which is a familiar enough idea in sci-fi TV.  Except her personality was being split between the two bodies, so that one Jessica was good and the other evil.  Anyone who had seen Star Trek (specifically “The Enemy Within” episode) knew that we need both expressions of our personality to make us whole, and that people can’t go on as half-people.  (This episode also features a very young Kim Cattrall.)

I heard laughter outside and somewhat reluctantly left Jessica to seek out the party again.  This might have been when I began to recognize that real people didn’t hold as much allure to me as the ones on TV, or maybe I just told myself that because no one wanted to play spin the bottle with me.  Strangely, my situation again mirrored the very episode that was broadcast that night, except that I was the outcast whose personality didn’t conform to the accepted group, and no amount of video effects would make me right for them.

Screen grab of 'The Crypt' (OVGuide.com)

A week later, I saw the next episode from start to finish at my friend Chuck’s house.  Chuck and I had known each other since before we were born.  That is, our fathers and mothers had been in school together and were close friends; our mothers were pregnant within a couple months of each other, and we had playdates from a very early age.  The only real fist fight I ever had in middle school was against Chuck, and we both ended up getting paddled by the principal.  (I remember sitting in the office and Chuck telling me, "You were punching and crying at the same time. That scared the crap out of me.")  Probably one of the first times I ever slept over at a friend’s house, it was at Chuck’s.  He never had quite the same fascination with scifi that I did, though, so it wasn’t surprising that I sat and watched “The Crypt” episode (Nov. 7, 1977) more or less on my own.

Taken from a story by Harlan Ellison, who would later be one of my favorite authors, “The Crypt” concerned a group of people in suspended animation, endangered by earthquakes and stalked by one of their own.  I watched it while sitting on the wood floor in the living room.  Chuck was off somewhere else.  His mother, Elizabeth, was sitting on a chair drawing; later, she showed me the sketch she had done of me as I concentrated on the show.  It embarrassed me to know she had been watching me, but also made me feel special.  She was an English and Literature teacher, and as I grew up and started trying to write fiction, she would be one of my first readers and encouragers.

DVD box set (TheWickedLocal.com)

Recently, I purchased the box set of Logan’s Run from the Warner Archive Collection (WBshop.com) and enjoyed seeing the 14 episode series from the beginning.  Watching the fourth outing, “The Innocent,” I turned to my wife and muttered, “This show did not deserve to live.”  However, there were many bright moments:  “The Crypt” holds up, as does “Man Out of Time,” written by scifi author David Gerrold (most famous in the genre for writing the Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”), who was unhappy with changes to the script and used a pseudonym, “Noah Ward” (as in “no award”) in the credits.  The latter concerned a time traveler who is trying to forestall a nuclear war, but learns that his success at jaunting into the future precipitated the first strike; Logan and his friends have to decide if the traveler should be allowed to return to his own time, even if his success means that their world — and by extension, each of them — might be wiped from history.

I appreciated, even in ’77,  the bravery and earnestness of Logan, the optimism and innocence (girl-next-door and yet Farrah Fawcett-like hotness) of Jessica.  And the lead actors (particularly Donald Moffat) are always fun to watch; you can see they recognized the limitations they were faced with each week and were determined to rise above.

The show was often preempted by the network (only 11 episodes were ever shown on the West Coast during the initial broadcast, according to Internet sources), and it ended its run on Feb. 6, 1978, with “Stargate,” a story written by comic book legend Dennis O’Neil, that failed to bring a conclusion to Logan’s search for Sanctuary.

Thirty-odd years later, I have a daughter named Jessica Heather (and it wasn’t until I began writing this segment that I realized she shares names with the character and the actress); our family lives in a gated community called Sanctuary Beach, where I have taken issue with the runners (at least the ones who trespass into the neighborhood and let their dogs run off-leash).

I have become a Sandman, but I still don’t have a working pistol.

What's What Lately

It has been a busy time in the life of the Simmons family. A new home still being moved into/fixed up/maintained, a new job for Debra, school for Jess and work/band responsibilities for Nathan, trying to fit a new church home into that, and still trying to make room for creative endeavors and friends and maybe meeting my obligations with a group of local writers (i.e., reading and commenting on their work as conscientiously as they are on mine).

I've taken to having lunch at least once a week at St. Andrews Coffee House, often with friends like Lou Columbus, Mark Boss, and/or Jayson Kretzer. Yesterday, shared a table and sandwiches with Lou and Michael Lister, and we talked about Michael's new novel, "The Big Beyond," which has one of the best first sentences I've seen; I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Meanwhile, I also have several books, magazines, and/or comics I'm reading at the same time. Right now, besides trying to make my subscription to WIRED worthwhile by actually reading some of it, I'm partway through these: "The Long Man" by Steve Englehart (sequel to his excellent "The Point Man"), "Bicycle Diaries" by David Byrne (essays on the personality of cities observed from bike seats), "Warp" (a comic series from the 80s that I found all the issues to in a discount bin), and "Cthulu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors" by Robert E. Howard.

Also, writing proceeds on my long-gestating "Caliban" series, with a focus on a rewrite of Book 1, now titled "Giants in the Earth." I have written my way to the end with a leap over the "muddle" chapters in the middle. Now, I'm back in the difficult part of making the beginning line up with the ending.

And in my free time (hyuk-yuk) I've begun serious writing alongside that of a memoir that explores the impact and weird parallels with my life of 1970s TV scifi. Yep, chew on that one a while. You would not believe the craziness my brain gets up to when I'm not paying attention (which seems to happen a lot), and then it demands that I do something about it.

Listening to: "The Next Day" by David Bowie.

Peace.

Teasers

I've been teasing Facebook folks with sentences from my current project. I'm trying (somewhat desperately, if the truth be told) to rid myself of a character who has followed me around (in my brainspace) since I was a teenager. >>I wrote more at length about him here.<<

So, on Facebook, I have released the following teasers:

Opening line of Chapter 1:
"My mother’s black hair was long then, before the accident that changed everything, and it shimmered like silk in the light of day."

Closing line of chapter 1: "There you are. I am such a meddlesome bastard."

Second line of Chapter 2: "Junction lay nestled in a wide hollow between rolling hills covered in tall stands of pine and oak, cuddled by the soft curves of the earth, and embraced by the fast-moving, tannin waters of Big Escambia Creek."

Second to last line of Chapt. 2: "And by the time his enemies had linked him to this place, he would have killed again."

Third line of Chapter 3: "The steering wheel bucked in his grip like a tiller in hard earth, but God heard his prayers and kept him firmly on course."

Third from last line of Chapt. 3: " 'I would hesitate to throw that word out where the press might get hold of it,' Street said."

Fourth line of Chapter 4: "She felt as if she was suffocating in the humidity, and her nightgown stuck unevenly to her body like a skin in the process of being shed."

Fourth from last line of Chapt. 4: "She looked up at him, expecting a kiss or something, so he kissed her once, gently, on the lips."

What's fun about this is that none of these lines refer to the same character. Tthe "meddlesome bastard" is not the guy talking about his mother's hair, for instance. The "she" suffocating in the humidity at the beginning of Chapter 4 is not the same "she" getting kissed at the end of the chapter.

Also, if you're familiar with my previous novel, "The Book of Gabriel," the last name "Street" in Chapter 3 may be familiar. It is there for a reason, though it is not the same main character you met in the previous book. Some version of "Street" existed in infinite parallel worlds. This is one of them.

Anyway, I'm glad to be (re)writing this. Maybe I'll take it all the way to print this time. (Of that, you can rest assured.) 

A New Old Story Comes Back to Haunt the Living

When I was 14, I started writing a story, like many back then, that was little more than a bald reworking of comicbook ideas. The main character was named Magus, and he was my version of Doctor Strange, the mighty Marvel Comics master of the mystic arts.

The work evolved over time. I became less interested in writing about Magus and more interested in writing about a young man (Tom Caliban) who worked at a hospital in the small town of Junction, Ala., and whose life got mixed up in horror from beyond this realm. I was 16 or 17 by now, and I was working as an orderly at Century Memorial Hospital.  But no doubt about it, this time I was also under the influence of a horror film called The Manitou, which takes place in a hospital.


Awesome, right? I saw this edited for TV and thought, "I can do that."

But that didn't quite work, either. By the time I was 18, it was time to try again. I was really into H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard at the time, and I was attending Pensacola Junior College and hanging out, when I could, at used book stores, searching the stacks for treasures. I was also into Native American history (which resulted in my first serialized fiction appearing in the PJC paper). I began to incorporate the old book store ideas and ancient grimoires of magic, like the Necronomicon, into the storyline, along with Indian legends, serial killings, and an old wizard called Magus.Various iterations of that held on for several years, as I moved from school to school, eventually married and started jobs, had kids, and entered a career.

In 1992-93, I got serious about the story again and wrote a complete novel. I asked a few people to read it, including Lynn Wallace and Carole Lapensohn, both of whom I was at the time participating with in a novel writing workshop. While they had some positive things to say, I kind of got the feeling it wasn't their cup of bubbling potion. An editor at my day-job asked to see the book, read it and liked it (although he also said it made him see me in a different light), and forwarded it to a friend of his that was starting a literary agency. The guy didn't like it. At all. Said it was too mixed up (the narrative was non-linear as characters became immersed in each other's memories).

I did a rewrite that brought it into a more linear configuration, but the guy wasn't interested in reading it again. I put it away.

Over the years, I have revisited the characters in the book. I wrote a novella about Magus that tells of one of his early adventures and how he met his wife. I wrote most of a sequel featuring an old Caliban faced with destroying his world in order to save other worlds. I wrote most of another sequel I pitched to an agent at a writers conference as "Constantine meets Payback set in the Big Easy." (I really liked this one, but couldn't make it stand alone without first telling — i.e., publishing — the earlier stories.) I wrote part of another story about one of Caliban's distant cousins set in the Civil War, and part of yet another story that brought the two together to fight the progenitor of all vampires (this would have been the second in the Caliban series, as he comes under the tutelage of Magus).

And I put them all away and chased other rabbits for a while. I wrote most of a zombie novel. I wrote and published two very different novels, two short story collections, many short stories in anthologies here and there, made some videos, wrote lots of things that few (or none) have ever read, painted some pictures. Lived a life like I never expected. Laughed some and cried some. Kept writing into the night and kept getting up in the mornings. Breathing.

And this month, I have returned to revisit Tom and Magus, and the changeling and the soul eater. I have set myself a goal of finishing a rewrite on this book for once and all, and sending it into the world while I follow up with Tom's further adventures as if they too might have some kind of future in print.

I know his stories, as he's told them all to me as each of us have grown up. He's been through some shit over the years, let me tell you.

I hope you will — let me tell you, that is.

Peace.

Break on Through

Had one tonight. Cracked this story I started last night. It incorporates elements from ideas I first churned at the Rosemary conference, as I think I mentioned already. But it's a new thing, and I think it works. I'm pretty pleased right now, but then, I'm not working on the details of it yet. That will be tomorrow, when I begin to force the parts into a shape.
But this is a cool place to be in right this moment. To paraphrase Hannibal Smith, I love it when a plot comes together.

Peace.

Tonight

Macro image of deep ocean worm
Taken from Telegram.co.uk

This is what I'm working on tonight:
A horror short story. An original creature (not a vampire, werewolf or zombie). At least three deaths. Taking place in Century.
And I'm stealing all of my own ideas from the recent writers conference prompts to get there.
Wish me luck.
Peace.

A couple of things

First, my column for this week, which is about the passing of Ray Bradbury and incorporates some thoughts from my earlier blog about the man.

Second, I'm now at the 45,000-word point in my current novel project, which includes a chapter I wrote last night titled "Schrodinger's Girlfriend." If you know anything about the physics reference, maybe you'll understand why the guy keeps his girlfriend locked in a closet.

Peace.