Write A Random Story With Cheryl!

Posted on February 14, 2014
by Catherine Brennan

When we were at Capricon, Cheryl and I went to a panel called The Short Story As Art Form, with Donald J. Bingle, Clifford Royal Johns, Kelly Swails, and Joy Ward. Afterwards, Cheryl said she might be interested in trying her hand at short stories, but it would be easier if she were writing them to order. That is, if her friends assigned her stories to write within certain parameters, she’d find it easier to get started.

No problem. I love telling other people what to do. I could have gone to the internet for ideas. There are plenty o’ writing prompt generators out there, like Language is a Virus and Adam Maxwell’s. However, I created this story randomizer for her, just because it’s fun to come up with lists and categories.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Cheryl!

Here are the rules:

Pick at least 2 (and up to 5) of the following categories:

Genre
Character
Attribute
Problem
Setting

Once you’ve decided how many categories you want constraining you, pull out your gaming dice, if you have them. If you don’t have many-sided dice, you can use an online random number generator, like this one. Roll whichever kind of dice the category calls for, and note the result.

Genre (roll a 10-sided dice)

western
traditional fantasy
urban fantasy
magic realism
science fiction
steam punk
mystery
thriller
paranormal
romance

Character (roll a 20-sided dice)

orphan
wizard
soldier
peasant
king or queen
prince or princess
charlatan
rogue
priest
teacher
lawyer
accountant
witch
vampire
giant
engineer
sociopath
doctor
artist
crime boss

Attribute (roll a 20-sided dice)

beautiful
brave
cowardly
blind
deaf
mute
wise
selfish
intelligent
stupid
greedy
generous
meek
arrogant
vain
humble
officious
helpful
curious
blasé

Problem (roll a 10-sided dice)

theft
natural disaster (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, flood)
killing
unrequited love
a lie
betrayal
illness
old age
separation from (a) loved one(s)
the apocalypse

Setting (roll a 20-sided dice)

city or village
forest or jungle
farm or ranch
temple or church
battlefield
hospital
office
coffee shop
mountain
shore
space station
abandoned ruins
haunted house
locked room
laboratory
cemetery
ship
polar wilderness
castle
school

I’d hate for Cheryl to get bored, so I rolled for every last freaking category. My results were 9, 15, 17, 2, and 9, in that order.

So: I am suggesting she write a paranormal story about an officious giant who’s dealing with a natural disaster on a mountain.

Here’s what I’d do if I were Cheryl: I’d ask me who I thought I was kidding. However, I might roll my own results and see if I could live with the story the dice suggested. Or…I might just look at the lists and pick my favorite answer for each category, or otherwise come up with a combination I found interesting. If I ever find out what Cheryl did with this little exercise, I’ll let you know.

Rejection

Posted on January 30, 2014
by Catherine Brennan

Bummer, dude

I heard back from C.C. Finlay, who’s guest editing an issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (or F&SF, for short). Regular readers of this blog may remember when I posted about submitting a story for this issue. Charlie doesn’t plan to use my story this July/August. He liked it, but he didn’t love it. Actually, here’s his email, verbatim:

Thanks for submitting “Gathering for the Feast.” I enjoyed reading it — I like the setting, the history, the magic, and characters. But in the end it didn’t quite win me over — part of that was it felt just a bit too long to me for the amount of story in it. So I’m afraid I’m going to pass on it. Best of luck with finding another home for it, and thanks again for giving me a chance to read it. If I do this again I hope to see another story from you.

A friend of mine also submitted a story, and received a rejection. In the interests of ferreting out exactly how personal my rejection letter was, and how much it was form letter, I can report that both our rejections began and ended pretty much the same way. “Thank you for submitting [title].” appeared in both letters. So did the ending part: “Best of luck to you placing this one elsewhere, and thanks again for giving me a chance to read it. If I do this again I hope to see more stories from you.“

The part where I know he actually read my story, and my friend’s—or at least, he got decent evaluations of them from a careful reader—comes in between the form sections. My friend’s center section was different from mine. Not exactly a form letter, right? Anyway, I’ve decided to take it as encouragement. Why? Because I can!

So now I need to decide what to do next. There are two options I can see. The first would be to go back in and see if I can figure out where and how the story is too long. The second would be to just go ahead and submit it elsewhere.

Here’s the thing: if I didn’t have any other projects vying for my attention, I would probably go back in there. I might find something to improve, something that’s escaped me up to this point. However, I have at least two other works in need of revision. Also there’s the whole, “what if while I’m trying to fix it, I just make it worse?” question. You know how, when you’re having the beginnings of a bad hair day, and you keep futzing around with your hair, and by the time you’re done, it looks even worse than when you started? That’s my dilemma.

Here’s the way I’m leaning: decide in a day or two.

My plan for today is to revise a different short story. I marked it up yesterday. I want to get it in shape to put up on Critique Circle. Once they’ve had a go at it, I was going to run it by my other critique group. Then I was going to push the little darling out the door.

In the meantime, I have a hot mess of a novel which requires surgery and other doctoring. I plan to get back to work on that tomorrow.

Next week is Capricon. I can see doing a first draft of something, or even marking up a draft, while also attending a con. But to do revisions I really need to spread out. Unvisited marked-up pages go on the left, finished pages go on the right, my computer is in the middle, and my pulled-out hair is in the wastebasket. I’d rather deal with all that at home, thank you. So I won’t bring my novel along. I might take my rejected F&SF short story with me for markup, if I decide to have another look at it before sending it out again.

Anyone out there on the interwebs have an opinion? Do I just submit the story elsewhere, or do I try to fix it? I’d love to see your comments below. If it’s easier for you to respond using Twitter, Google+ or Facebook, feel free to comment that way instead.

Updated Scoreboard:
Year: 2014
Submissions: 2 Acceptances: 0 Rejections: 1

The Three-legged Stool of Creativity – Part Deux

Posted on January 24, 2014
by Catherine Brennan

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano:
Part Two of a three-part series on helping creativity flow

Adding the second leg

I’m sure I heard the phrase “Mens Sana in Corpore Sano” long before I had any notion what it meant. Then I started reading the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters. Amelia is fond of using that phrase, from the poem by Juvenal whenever extolling the value of exercise.

Elizabeth Peters – photo from website

I would like to say that after reading the first Amelia book, I started exercising. I cannot say it with a straight face. I’ve only paid attention to fitness and nutrition sporadically. However, around 2005 my doctor diagnosed me as prediabetic. Since I was already having trouble with my blood pressure, and sometimes with cholesterol and triglyceride levels, it was clear something had to change. When you have this combination, doctors may also refer to your condition as metabolic syndrome, and warn you you’re at risk for all kinds of horrible health issues.

Honestly, I wasn’t as afraid of having a stroke or heart attack as I was about becoming demented. There’s a lot of dementia on my father’s side of the family. We all figured it was Alzheimer’s Disease, but after my dad was thoroughly evaluated, it turned out that his dementia was most likely due to metabolic causes – the combination of diabetes, high BMI, high blood pressure, and unsatisfactory cholesterol and triglyceride numbers. Having seen more than enough dementia in the family, I had a come-to-Jesus moment and determined that I’d get my BMI into the normal range.

Maintaining a healthy weight continues to be a struggle, but I’ve managed to keep about ninety pounds of the excess off for a couple of years now. I still have blood pressure issues, but my glucose, cholesterol and triglyceride numbers are good.

I also still have food issues. However – and this is something you don’t think about too much when you’re lying around on the couch in front of the TV with an enormous ice cream sundae – exercise can actually be fun. It can be an adventure, the way it is when:

Cookie & I go for a long bike ride

-or-

I take a hike at Starved Rock

-or-

it just feels good. e.g., belly dancing

Day to day, I just exercise enough to make sure I’m ready for the good stuff. A hike is a lot more fun if you’ve got the wind and the strength for it, so I do something cardiovascular three to five days a week (maybe six when the weather is good), and do strength training two to three days a week. I could stand to do some more mind-body work, like yoga, tai chi or meditation, but I fit that in sometimes.

So that’s the second leg on my stool of creativity – taking care of my body. There’s all kinds of evidence that your mind functions better if your body is in good shape. Well… I’m still pretty flaky. However, regular exercise has given me more energy to do all kinds of things, and that includes writing.