Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #129: Elves are Nasty Creatures: “Straight on Till Morning.”

My last two blogs talked about stories I have written that were odd, strange, weird, bizarre. The one I will talk about today is a little more tame—well, sort of. It was a fantasy story with a paranormal, supernatural element, but at least it followed the usual format and satisfied the standard expectations such a story raises. “Straight on Till Morning” is the story of a woman who is abducted by elves and about her husband, who journeys to elven territory in order to find her and bring her back. 

In Celtic lore, elves are not diminutive creatures with pointed ears who sit around on toadstools and are cute and lovable. They are just the opposite. They are rapacious, nasty, and dangerous—and, they possess magical powers to facilitate their being rapacious, nasty and dangerous. The idea for this story partially came from one of the best horror/supernatural stories I have read, Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale, a novel that presents elves as they are traditionally understood by the ancient peoples of the British isles. They are dangerous. They abduct and enslave humans. To free someone they have abducted you have to be as tricky and ruthless and they are. 

Anisa

Chauncy’s girlfriend, Anisa, a rising star who performs Celtic music, disappears. Shortly after that, he hears a musician he himself has done music with, Sossity Chandler, state her belief in the supernatural. They talk and she suggests Anisa has been abducted by the “fairy folk”—elves. They search the area where she disappeared and find evidence for this. She suggests he sleep in the fairy ring they find (a fairy ring is a ring of grass that can serve as a portal to the world of elves). He does, bringing a guitar and supplies and, when he wakes up, finds himself that world. He immediately sees Anisa. 

She has sensed him (living in eleven land she has already accrued small magical powers) and chides him for coming and tells him the elf who abducted her and now claims to own her and will also sense Chauncey is there. Sure enough, the elven man who abducted he--Sutton--shows up. He and Chauncy argue. He says he will murder Chancey, who calls him a coward to harm an unarmed man. The elf challenges him to a dual. 

O'Carolan

The other elves welcome Chauncey and arrange the duel. While he is there he learns more about the elven culture and meets someone he venerates, Turlough O'Carolan. O’Carolan was an Irish harper from the late fifteenth century whose music has survived and is widely performed today. (I am a musician and have performed many of the tunes he wrote.) Chauncey hears him play and learns he was abducted just before his death and brought to eleven land. He tells O’Carolan about his upcoming duel with Sutton and his plan to win it. The harper is amazed at his plan but tells him it just might succeed; and, he says, when he plays for the Council tomorrow morning, he will put in a good word for Chauncy.

The eleven Council meets to set up the terms of the dual. Chauncey is given choice of weapons. 

The following exchange takes place. As Chauncey is the challenged party, choice of weapon is his. 
            “What weapon do you chose?”

“Guitar,” he said.

The Leader of the Council and everyone else in the room, including Anisa, gaped. The Leader leaned forward.

“I’m not certain I understand you, young man.”

“Guitar is a musical instrument. I am challenging Sutton to a duel of music, not conventional weaponry.”

The Leader’s face showed a mixture of caution, puzzlement, and censure. “This is most unusual,” she said.

“Music is the weapon I chose.”

“This has no precedent, but I am intrigued,” a Council member who wore a funny-looked Renaissance hat said. Chauncey remembered Carolan’s promise to speak to the Council. Perhaps this man was one of Sutton’s enemies. “I can’t recall that such weaponry is forbidden.”

The Leader made to speak, but another Council member—another woman—beat her to the punch.

“Our laws say the weapon be ‘a thing in the use of which a noble is trained.’ All our nobility must learn music of some sort.”

The Council withdraws, debates the lawfulness of music as a weapon but decides Chauncey’s request is valid.

Chauncey is confident of victory, but Anisa tells him not to be too self-assured. The elven nobles, she says, are trained in music from childhood. And the people of the Council like the kind of music Sutton will most likely do.

When the duel begins, Sutton sings and his performance is well-received. Chauncey plays guitar, performing songs by O’Carolan. The judges are stunned by the beauty of his music and declares him winner of the duel.

Sutton is now at his mercy. At the Council’s behest, the demands all of his opponent’s land and money. He also calls upon an elven woman he has come to know in his short stay there that she promised to grant him a “boon.” She says she did and he can have anything he wants. He asks for her slave girl Kelly, who had helped him on different occasions. The woman willingly grants his request. He gives Kelly all of Sutton’s money and then gives her as a bride to Raymond, a human who was kidnapped by the elves and has decided to stay in their land. Sutton, he is told, will be punished for his illegal abduction of Anisa. They depart elven land and find themselves in a theater in New York City where Sossity Chandler is performing. She greets them and promises to arrange for their return to Ireland.

“Straight on Till Morning” appeared in Fiction on the Web. Read it here.

For more good fantasy and paranormal, check out my novella, The Court of the Sovereign King.

Happy Reading.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #116. Love and Silence: "The Space Between."

Ongoing characters find their way into literature now and then. Mark Twain created Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both characters appeared in the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Not many people know that he wrote two novels, Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective. Ian Fleming wrote fifteen novels about the now-icon figure of James Bond. W. Somerset Maugham wrote several short stories and a couple of novels featuring his ongoing character, William Ashenden. One of my ongoing characters, Sossity Chandler, has thirty-six published stories to her credit. An ongoing character about whom I wrote less, Martin Rollins, is the main character of the story for this blog, "The Space Between." 

Martin did not get as much space as Sossity. He appeared, though, in my first published story, "The Girl Who Knew Nick Drake," and in my first published novella, The Gallery; he is the main character in a few other stories, and in the "The Space Between."  Martin is a musician, a guitarist, not spectacularly famous, but with a solid fan base, a good reputation, and loyal fans. He easily makes a living as a musician.  In "The Space Between," he meets an old flame from high school, Talia Metzger, while he out on tour.

He and Talia had been intimate. The relationship was unusual to Martin because Talia was deaf. He and she are assigned a lab partners in a high school chemistry class. They become friends. He is amazed at the way she communicates. At first, she uses notes and an iPad to talk to him; and she can speak to some degree, even though she cannot hear what she is saying. Eventually, though, Martin learns to communicate with her through gestures, expressions, and through silences. She is beautiful and athletic. They are together two years. Things are going well. Then something splits them up. That is Martin's budding career as a musician. 

Talia cannot hear his music. He knows that those who have no hearing can comprehend music, but someone Tania's inability to hear drives a wedge between them and they split up. Martin makes a name for himself as a musician; he sees articles now and then on Talia, who has married, had children, manages a chain of charter schools, and is an advocate for the deaf. He is sitting in a coffee house, angry over a bad review of a performance when he gets a text message from her. She wants to see him.

Wealthy Street Bakery, in Grand Rapids, MI

She comes to the coffee house. Once, more the flame rekindles. He knows she wants him to make love to her. They arrange a meeting. After consummation, he surveys how things have changed and have not changed. What has not changed is his love for her; nor has her love for him. What has changed is that he has built a career; she has built a life. One more thing has changed:  she apparently now can understand and comprehend his music. 

He remembers a remark he once read (he thinks it was by Isaac Stern): In music is not the black notes on the page that mattes; it is the white space between them. This quote is usually understood to mean that in music timing is everything. But his love for Talia suggests to him that in music the silences are more importance than the sounds. Silence is a way of communicating. His relationship with her has taught him as much. She silently lets him know she wants to begin their relationship again. It will be an affair. She does not want to break up the life she has built. But he learns her husband could not reach one spot in her heart. It sat like an empty room, sending tiny impulses of discord into her soul. Only he could fill that empty space. Only the love he offered to her could complete and make her spirit whole. She told him this. She told him with her body. They part understanding they will see each other from time to time when Martin tours. Talia is organized and can arrange it. The story ends with Martin and Talia lying in bed together arms around each other, speaking with silence, their words more sure than any he had known before. The story, which I classify as one the ten or twelve best I have written, appeared in August 2013 in the journal Scholars and Rogues. Read it here.

To read more stories about Martin Rollins, read "The Girl Who Knew Nick Drake."

A novella featuring Martin is (a very good one, I'll add) is The Gallery.

New novellas coming soon. Stay tuned. 

I would love to hear your comments.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #57: "At Your Desire"

Erato, Muse of Poetry and Writing

Song titles and love of songs always get my imagination going. Mix this together with love of literature, and you have  the creative source for my stories. Perhaps this is the way one writes. For all the elaborate stories, the memes, the jokes and cartoons about writer's block, I've never had it. There have been days when I could not get any good ideas for new stories and days when I followed a lot of false trails for stories that never came to much and had to be finally discarded. But I've never experienced the numbing paralysis that many people say disables them from writing. I have poor days, yes; days when it just seems like my writing doesn't amount to anything; but the inability to write—never. Perhaps part of the matter of creative endeavor, having creative ideas to work with, lies in the intersection of things you love in your head. Music, sex, love, literature all swirl around to give me ideas. The idea for "At Your Desire" came from a similar admixture.

Shocking Blue

The song was done by a group called "Shocking Blue." They were a Dutch group and a one-hit wonder group that did music from 1967-1974. There biggest hit was "Venus," which rose to number in the United States and England. I liked the way the various elements of the song fit together, of course, and the music was done well. But what always intrigued me was mention of the goddess Venus and the line, "I'm your Venus, I'm your fire—at your desire." I thought it was cool because rather than saying "At your service," she says "At your desire," which is what I would expect the goddess of love and sex to say to someone. I saw it as clever and well-done bit of lyric writing.

This is a story about Sossity Chandler, and at this stage in her career she is traveling from town to town doing gigs in bars and at fairs and churches, barely getting by, trying to kickstart a career, often feeling she isn't getting very far. She plays in a bar in a small Southern town called Corinth (not Corinth, Mississippi). The pay is fairly good and she has got good tips. The only disappointment is that a guy she has set her eyes on doesn't seem to be interested in her. Sossity cannot enter a committed relationship because she travels so much and, periodically, she gets it on with someone she meets during her musical performances. This guy, Justin, does not seem to want to do anything with her, which arouses her annoyance. She does not see any other men in the bar she might want to consider as a one-night stand.

As she despairs, a couple walks into the bar. The woman is one of the most beautiful and dazzling she has ever seen. The man is handsome, well-built, and has a cold, evaluating look in his eyes. People move aside when he walks through the bar. The town tough, she thinks. Still unable to get any encouragement from Justin, she goes to the women's room. As she is going out, she meets the woman she thought so beautiful.

Her name is Affie Erycina. "Lots of Greeks live in this town, so we have some odd last names," she tells Sossity. She also expresses her wish that Justin could get out of his self-imposed asceticism and find a girlfriend. "Do you have a love charm to use on him?" Sossity quips. "Maybe I do," the woman replies. Sossity turns to dry her hands. When she looks back, the woman has vanished. Before going out on stage again, she walks outside for a breath of fresh night air. She sees that looks like a Corinthian column with scooped-out basin on top. In it are coins and one or two pieces of jewelry. She realizes it's a shrine of some kind. Superstition operated here, she saw, as it did in many small towns she had visited. She smiles and tosses a quarter in; thinks better of it, takes out the quarters, and throws in a dollar coin. She goes back inside for the second half of her show.

Something happens to Justin during the second half of the show. He sits up and takes notice of Sossity. He can't seem to stop gazing at her. He seems to be suddenly taken with her. She, too, feels edgy, sexy, brash, and dangerous and puts all of those emotions into her show. At the end of the show, Justin leaves another tip and a note apologizing for being so reticent. He asks if they can talk. She tells him she is a little drunk and wonders if he could give her a ride to her motel room. They can talk about it there.

Mars and Venus in conjunction below the moon.

The last sentence of the story reads, On the way out, they passed the frowning, stern-face man and his girlfriend, Affie. She gave Sossity a knowing smile as she and Justin walked out the door and into the cool night and the moonlit, star-strewn sky. Two of the planets they see are obviously the planet Mars and the planet Venus, two worlds that always occupy the sky at night; and who, possibly, deign to live among mortals on earth from time to time.

The story appeared in Widow Moon and was reprinted in The Fickle Muse, both of which are no longer printed.

My newest novella, Sinfonia: First Notes on the Lute is now available. Get a copy here. The Vampire Nelleke Reitsma does not sparkle and is not in high school, but you'll find her intriguing, fascinating, and see how deadly she can be. First in what will be an ongoing series.

For additional titles see my Writer's Page.

I would love to hear your comments.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #40: Horror Once More: "City Limits"

 

I have a love/hate relationship with horror. I'm drawn to the genre. As a pointed out in an earlier blog, my first story to appear in a print journal was a horror story. I've tried to write them and, sometimes, succeeded in getting such stories published. But my record is spotty. I don't like "dark horror." To me, the dark side isn't more powerful than the side where the light shines. I don't like to write about horrific things happening to innocent people. So I write "soft" horror. Usually the good guys (and girls) win out in the end. Evil, the twisting of good, does not have an ultimate ontology—which is to say, it is derived from good, and does not have an existence in and of itself.

Umberto Eco

 But I wanted to get a little more horrific and came up with the idea for the story "City Limits." Like all stories, it is derivative. I hear people say how William Shakespeare "stole" all his story lines. One writer said C. S. Lewis "stole" the idea of the kingdom of "Numinor," which he mentions That Hideous Strength, from Tolkien. But the idea of "stealing" is not exactly right. Story lines are public property. Italian novelist and critic Umberto Eco wrote, "Books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told." This story had some ideas from other authors.

One I got from Deep Rising, a horror film which involves an attack from creatures who live six miles down in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean. At one point, someone asks if these creatures eat humans. Someone replies, "They don't eat you, they drink you"—meaning, they swallow you whole and then digest you by sucking out your body fluids—blood, lymph, everything. Not a nice way to die. This tied in with the idea in C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters that demons in hell drink and eat people—not physically, but spiritually. A quote from the story explains:  If … you can finally secure his soul, he will then be yours forever—a brimful living chalice of despair and horror and astonishment which you can raise to your lips as often as you please. Sounds pretty gruesome. But the idea of being drained—of your "precious bodily fluids" or of your spirit—came to be the center of this story.

My ongoing character, Sossity Chandler, accepts an invitation to play for an old college friend, Melinda, who now lives in a small town. She remembers how Melinda and how she got messed up with drugs and occultism in school and ended up dropping out. They are reunited, but Sossity is trouble that she is constantly followed by a creepy-looking guy who is friendly and cordial and identifies himself as a friend of Melissa's but always seems to keep Sossity in in sight as if he is guarding Melissa from her.

Later, she goes to her old friend's apartment. A pale-skinned woman joins them and Melissa murders her. Sossity is horrified, but Melissa cuts the girl's arm to reveal how a milky fluid runs in her veins instead of blood. She—Melissa—is a prisoner to a group of the undead who live in the town and feed off the people they have captured by enchantment. Melissa says she only occasionally is drained of her soul, but when the undead find out she has destroyed one of their number she says, “They’ll absorb me. I’ll live inside one of them. They’ll transfer me from time to time and leech the life out of me slowly. The way things are now, I at least live my own life most of the time. If they absorb me, I’ll never see the light of day. I’ll live until I die inside their gross, stinking bodies.” Melissa mentions that this has already happened to another girl named Caitlin.

Sossity comes up with a plan and the two of them manage to escape—and to rescue Caitlin. Once they are out of the city limits of the town, the undead cannot use their magic and they are free. But Sossity wonders if there are others, if the undead have a network, and if they will eventually track down Melissa, Caitlin, or even her. The turmoil of good and evil, of freedom and bondage, of parasitical life and genuine life, are themes in the story. It is horrific for us to think of being devoured or absorbed and of being helpless as this is done—which is why stories about giant spiders that trap someone in a web and then suck out their life is so disturbing to us. In my story, the women get away and are not absorbed. But will the story end there?

"City Limits" appeared in a book called Anthology of Ichor II put out by Unearthed Press, available through Amazon. It is one of my more horrific horror stories and the anthology is a good read.

 I would love to hear your comments on horror. What is your favorite horror novel or story? Do you like hard or soft horror? Do you write horror? Leave a comment!

 

For some horror right of the New Testament, read The Prophetess. 

The girl mentioned as a demoniac fortune teller in the Book of Acts has a backstory. 

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As A Writer, #37: Relationships and Hero-Worship

After a spate with werewolves and vampires, I began to once again focus on my ongoing character of Sossity Chandler. I had written two stories about her in the last eighteen written and published, so my inclination bent back her way. Ian Fleming had James Bond and W. Somerset Maugham Ashtendon; Laura Ingles Wilder had her Laura, a character based on her own self. There is something attractive about exploring a character through several stories or books. And there is something attractive about the character that makes us want to write about them more than once. With Sossity it was her career as a musician and the things she encounters in her travels and concertizing. Soon the story "Come Together" began to form. Based on a song by John Lennon, it had the refrain "Come together right now over me." This title and that line opened up something that had been a philosophical concern of mine for some time.

That concern was what we might be call hero-worship, though that is not exactly the right phrase to express what I have often wondered about. It is not merely heroes—sports heroes or war heroes—that I see people following, emulating, praising, and venerating. It is also philosophers, writers, critics, religious leaders. And people do not always simply "worship" these people because, as with my original two examples, the person they cherish hit a lot of home runs, three-point shots, or  displayed valor on the battlefield. In the case of religious leaders, they sometime have so many followers who consider them venerable that they become cult leaders like Jim Jones. But there are lot of way one might become infatuated. "Come Together" explores those directions.

Pamela Revard is an old friend of Sossity's. They knew each other in high school and ran track together. Sossity remembers, with amusement, that Pamela always sang the lyrics of songs incorrectly. But she also knew Pamela as a cynic. She always made sarcastic remarks and maintained a rather nihilistic view on life. To quote from the story, to this woman " …everything was absurd, good did not exist, hypocrites governed in every sphere, and everything claiming moral or ethical value amounted to a false hope that only naive, gullible people believed. In Pamela’s view, all ethics were a sham. She maintained, like Nietzsche, that claims of truth were in fact plays to gain power. The world was a jungle, she often remarked, and she was merely one dog intent on eating the others dogs before they effectively devoured her."  Her view is so unrelentingly negative and cynical that Sossity avoids her.

She sees Pamela again and is surprised that she has jettisoned a lot of her cynicism. This is because she has become a follower of the philosopher Wendell Berry.

Wendell Berry is not so much a philosopher as a social critic (and also a poet and novelist) who emphases localism, the idea of that people should not be so nomadic but rather rooted to a given place, that our society should not be such a "throw-away" society, that people should be close to nature, the land, and a locale. These are good ideas, but I've noticed that the followers of Berry (I know a few) do not follow him. They practically worship him. They adore him and his ideas. They never critique his ideas, which, brilliant as they are, have some major flaws, and they generally don't like anyone pointing out his flaws. They venerate him. Their veneration often borders on worship.

Sossity notices that Pamela's cynicism seems to have disappeared, but she also notices that she has become a rather fanatical follower of Berry. When Sossity critiques some of the statements he has made, she gets angry. Sossity has also found out she is having an affair that threatens to break up a family and confronts her about this and about her cynicism. They depart angrily. Soon after, Pamela overdoses and ends up in the hospital. She realizes the truth of what Sossity told her and the two of them are reconciled. Sossity says she will help Pamela to get her life back on track and they reaffirm their friendship.

Sir Jaques, Cynic from As You Like It

I've found that cynics--those of who see life as absurd, or nihilists, who think there are no real values--will venerate someone—one figure they think is a true, genuine soul in a world of hypocrisy. Thus they all but worship this person and will tolerate no criticism of the figure they venerate. Such quasi-religion, however, is a dead-end street, as Pamela finds out. People are flawed. At best, one ends up disappointed at a philosophy; at worst, as in the case with someone like Jim Jones, people end up dead. A healthy skepticism (not the same as cynicism) is necessary to navigate a world where charlatans and hucksters—or well-meaning people who are just wrong—abound.

The story appeared in a now-defunct journal called The Smoking Poet. It does not have an archive, so you can't read the story. This is another one I may have to look for a journal that takes reprints.

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.

For a fascinating story and a great read, get a copy of Mother Hulda, a science fiction tale based on a story by the Brothers Grimm. Lakshmi Parvati is fleeing her powerful, domineering mother, who has wrecked her life and favors her younger sister. When she arrives on Planet Hulda, things begin to drastically change.