satyapriya | Entries tagged with short stories

52/100 copies of THE COMMUNICANT AND OTHER STORIES have arrived, after a Create Space snafu at their end. Books posted off. 2 boxes containing 48 books each returned to warehouse. 4 books in a packet arrive in Vermont South.
PizzaBoy was onto it, as soon as I, somewhat hysterically, said: "Where's the other 96?"
Embarrassed CreateSpace lass located the two boxes and expedited shipping.
One box here. Another box presumably coming soon.
Whew!
How awkward would it have been to stand up at the May 27 launch and say: 'Hey all, I only have 4 copies here, so fight it out amongst yourselves....No, no, please don't all leave!'

This is the first of my books that feels real. I think because I've had some much to do with the production. The others were handled by either P.S. Publishing, or by SnakyPoet as project overseer, and LovePoet and LovePoet's Wife as publishers.

The 'Giant Eye' book is in the world: in my hot little hands, on Amazon, and floating in space as ebook.
Okay, it's not my long-held dream of Tor Books, Harper and Collins, Bloomsbury, or any other big name publishers. But, it's a start, and it's mine, and I love it.

What a frazzled old thing I feel this morning. So much going on: book launch, getting ready to travel in June-July, plus this, plus that, plus the other things. My resolve to empty my email inbox before I travel. Instead of starting the week before, I thought I'd avoid the rush and start working on it now. A bunch of emails deleted, one responded to. This afternoon, maybe read a few more.

Oh yes, and what's really getting to me is that I have no fucking ideas for the next module of the SFFT course I'm doing. Spider Woman and the Cosmic Web. All tales to do with Spider Woman in various cultures, retelling of those tales, and the science of the theory of the cosmic web. I wrote one piece but it turned into memoir, and I'm sure no one needs the vital information of a small black spider who lived in my mum's laundry, and me sitting on the toilet staring at it.
Spider Woman, Spider-Man, She-lob, Aragog, Charlotte, Arachne, Athena, spiders on roller skates. Nuffin'.
Story is due to be posted tomorrow evening. So no pressure at all
Come on, brain, do your thing!!! Now would be good.
Rant over, I'm going for a walk before I head to yoga.

Current Mood: frustrated

Hey, all you thousands of readers, I'm having a book launch.

THE COMMUNICANT AND OTHER STORIES is my first collection of my previously published science fiction and fantasy short stories.
They were published in various literary and genre journals from 1984-2004.
They're now collected together for the first time, and re-edited by the ever-amazing SnakyPoet, and myself.
Unicorns, time travel, extreme feminism, obsession, vampires, aliens, magic, witches, humour, and deadly seriousness.
Keith Stevenson wrote the preface, and the book is being launched by Michael Pryor.

May 27, 2-4pm.
Knox Library, part of Knox Shopping Centre, Burwood Highway, Wantirna South, Victoria.
Nibbles, and drink are served.
I will be doing a reading, and a short speech.
Books will be on sale on the day.

I have put the event on eventbrite, and tickets are free, but a ticketing system is in place so I know how many people to cater for.
I hope you can come. Thanks.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/book-launch-of-the-communicant-and-other-stories-by-helen-patrice-tickets-44974354505?utm_term=eventname_text

Well, that's a bit sad. Early last week, a sick (twisted, not 'fully sick, man') idea came to me for a new short story. So I popped down a few hundred words, and I thought it sang, but I had no idea how to progress the story beyond the bare bones of the idea. A Jane Austen pastiche of the weirdest sort, I had my scene, and my characters ready made.
This morning, as part of my 'write first thing' regime, I woke, staggered to the computer, and armed only with lemon water, and Angel sitting near me, enjoying the early morning light, I dove in.
All to find that my writing joints have seized, the story now flops like a corpse, and I suspect it's dead in the water.
Oh, I'll continue to play with the corpse, because I don't have any other ideas bubbling, and I'm trying to keep faith with my Muse, and mind. Alas, I suspect that because I didn't develop the story, the Muse took the idea to visit upon some other writer. So, look out sueicorn, capt_lychee, snakypoet, or someone else. You may have an Austen pastiche of the creepiest sort sneak upon you very soon.
This is what comes of sporadic practice, and the firm belief that I can no longer write fiction.
Poor floppy story, and PizzaBoy did so like your beginning.
I think longingly of 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies', even though I think it's a one-trick pony that could have been a short story. I think of 'Pride and Platypus'. All the other Austen pastiches and parodies in the world.
Okay, face it, my story's died. It can join the compost pile in the back of the writing files, and let's move along.
I tried, Muse, I did. But I admit to letting fear, laziness, and life get in the way. But I'm here now, sitting at my little low table, on my peanut cushion, in the semi-cool breeze of 7.30am. Angel to the left of me, Tilly TinyPony sprawled to the right.
Muse, have at me. I'm sorry. Please come back.

Every single darned time I decide that the following morning is the morning to Change Up My Bad Facebook Habit and Do The Things Instead, I find that by mid-afternoon, I have fallen into the fb quagmire.
I did wake at 6.30am, and do my morning pages first thing before I succumbed to a brief fb thing, and I did get a sizeable walk in by 9am. Did the length and back of Bellbird Dell, so a couple of km I guess. Met a pug who, on the slightest whim, wriggles down, belly to the ground. His owner calls it Splat Dog. She has to wait until he gets up again of his own accord. Which can be some time.
I got back in time to bring a pertinent email to PizzaBoy's attention, and then it was off to Coburg for my annual Capricorn lunch with MotorCycleMan, with added PizzaBoy this year. All three of us Capricorns: 4th, 9th, and 11th January.
Halfway home in the car, and I was ready for a big long sleep.
I settled onto the couch at home, read a little, and then napped on and off. I blame the hot humid weather. Also, not feeling 100%.
Awake 4.30pm, and I started stuffing around on facebook. I knew that I wanted to get in a bit of writing today - actual writing, not just morning pages, or rambling on here. Would I open up my computer and do it? No, I would not. I found myself flipping between the collection of short stories on my kindle app, fb, and - get this - googling for writing motivation podcasts.
It took me until 6.30pm to crack open this computer, and write 548 words of a new short story, one that's been noodling around in my skull for the past week. I was waiting for the perfect opening line, and realising it wasn't going to happen, I decided to just start anyway. So, set up done, and yes, it's as predictable as all get out. You know right from the start where it's going. I'm hoping the fun to be had in the meantime will be worth it for readers. After all, a reader only has to see the words 'her hand was strangely cold' to think 'vampire' these days. It's never just anemia or poor circulation.
I'm not writing vampires. But a close cousin in terms of genre.
Showed the results to PB.
"You know where it's going?" I asked.
"Oh yes," he said, happily.
Even if he is paid the big money to like everything I write, I am heartened enough to keep going, just not tonight.
I do want to do a bit more on CD GENIE, too, but have no idea where the story goes next, apart from the gnome/dwarf/brownie being very cross indeed. But, not tonight. This humidity is addling me, and I can feel pleased that I've done 500 words.
Tomorrow morning, TwentiesPerson and I have an 8am date to go swimming, so that will be my exercise for the day done, before I head off for a Magnificent Women Networking luncheon in Templestowe.
I wish I wasn't gluten intolerant (thanks, Peru, and your awful parasites). I could totally go a delicious white bread sandwich tonight. Fresh, soft white bread, softened butter, maybe egg and lettuce. Oh gods, yes!

Current Mood: curious

This early morning wake up is driving me nuts. 3.30am is remarkably late for me these days. 1am, 2am are more likely, with a 5am fall back to sleep.
This morning, I just gave up. Lay there for a while, scrolled through facebook, brief visit to twitter, then reading.
It's 6.30am now. Sun's up, but the birds have been awake for ages. Some damned fool magpie warbled briefly at 4.30 or thereabouts, making me think it was later than it was. "Oh well, if it's dawn, may as well give up, get up." I did. It wasn't dawn. Stupid maggie.
This has been happening since mid-November. Did my daughter's wedding really throw me for that much of a loop?
I think it's more that the wedding set off an anxiety spiral that didn't let up until...well, I'm not sure. If I'm honest, I have other things to fret about now.
I am trying, truly trying, to be more positive about my life, and my writing. I'm trying not to let lethargy, anxiety, and defeatism win.
Okay, those two reader critiques of IN AND OUT OF THE CAULDRON really threw me. I'm still questioning whether or not I have what it takes to produce a long-form book. I thought...okay, I'll say it... I thought I was a better writer than the two opinions indicated. I thought I'd dug deep enough. I thought there'd only be some fleshing out to be done.
I feel defeated. I don't know that I have it in me to go back and find the real story, the real depths of my spiritual journey. I feel tired just thinking about it.
I gave myself time off after finishing the first draft of CAULDRON. I needed it.
Recently, I've been playing with flash fictions. But they're not true flash fictions, in that they're not full stories. They are little half-formed things, notes for a story maybe, the way one reader said my 50,000 word draft of CAULDRON was notes for a memoir.
Maybe PhD-Man was right all those years ago, that I just don't have it.
I don't know any more.
In the last few years, so much has fallen away. Friends, groups, practices, tarot, palmistry, my magical practice, any sense of me being of use.
I have considered that maybe writing wants to fall away too. It's scary. Who am I if not writer?
I don't know how to put a story together any more. The way my mind used to work, back in the 80's and 90's, fastening on to an idea, and trying it all different ways in my head until the plot came falling into place...just isn't there. I get ideas, but have no idea how to hang a plot on them.
"Man believes his wife to be a snake." Um, okay.
So I write about 800 words of a man coming to believe his wife is a snake, the little hints that give it away. And then, there's no development. It just stops.
My mind looks like a limestone cave - stalactites and stalagmites all over the place, nothing fully formed, nothing complete, shards everywhere. Lovely and glittering to look at, but...
I finished a short story/flash fiction the other day. About 1200 words, if that. A man and woman meet in cyberspace, on dating networks. They correspond. And that's about it.
Help! How do I find the story teller inside again?

Current Mood: distressed

Inspired by MasteryGirl's latest book launch yesterday afternoon, yesterday morning I took myself to Le Wholefood Merchants café, to do some writing planning for 2018. This, of course necessitated, a new notebook, and new pens. Every new project needs new stuff like that. Which is why I have about 20 notebooks with 10 pages filled out.
All my new textas were pink and purple, because I was in that sort of mood. I even bought the Barbie-pink texta.
My new notebook is dusky pink with a gold pineapple on the front. It's very stylish, in a girly way.

So, I have three rewriting projects for 2018.
1. The spiritual memoir, which was dubbed, at the end of 2016, both 'witchy memoir' and 'how to be a new age wanker'. I thought they were separate projects They aren't. Last week I got chatting to a lass on facebook, in the Melbourne NaNo group, and she does book covers as a hobby. She offered to come up with a few for me, so I had to think up a title, lickety split. The working title is now 'In and Out of the Cauldron'. I'm not sure about that, but it's better than 'confessions of a witch'. I aim to have to offering to pro publishers stage by the end of 2018.
2. Children's books. A friend reminded me that I have 3 children's books I wrote circa 2002, when TwentiesGirl was in primary school, around Grade 3-4. Her friends enjoyed the books, and I thought little more about them. Prompted by this friend, and the interest of MothraBabe, I'm now looking these short books out. Rewriting, spiffing up, and out into the world they will go.
3. The short story collection, which now has the working title of 'The Communicant, and Other Stories'. That's in process with CDX Design. Launch aim date approx. March-April 2018.

Then there's new writing. To keep going to memoir group, I need to have memoir things written. I need to start something new, as I'm still not ready to tackle the rewrite of the TwentiesPerson memoir. I have the choice of writing stuff that is so hard, and so secret that it will never be a publishable thing, and a lighter(so I suppose) account of what I know of my mother's life, which is already titled 'What Lila Said'.
I want to participate in NaPoWriMo in April, too.

Writing all this down like this, I feel my stomach knot, and my mind whirl, and the panic set in. Too much, too much. Yet, if I take it slowly, and ask for help, I might just come through 2018 with at least 2 new books in the world, and a third with publishers. Plus new poems, and a memoir project done.
And retain my sanity.
It would make me feel really good to have done all this, and not copped fibromyalgia flare-ups, anxiety, or sleeplessness from the stress of what I'm going to attempt.
So, help I shall need. This means you, PizzaBoy, MotorCycleMan, MasteryGirl, OopsIHadABaby, SnakyPoet, and many others whose handles I can't remember off-hand(somewhere on my computer is a list of all your handles).
Please, please, help me get safely in and out of my shell.

Current Mood: intimidated

Wholefood Merchants in Ferntree Gully has a café attached to the 'supermarket', and serves quite nice food, even if the menu changes on a whim, and every single thing I've ever liked there eventually gets supplanted by something containing wheat, quinoa, eggplant, or something I simply loathe.
I like to go there for brunch, to read, to shop, to browse, and sometimes to write. For that, I go in the non-rush times from 9.30-11.30am, and 1.30-4pm.
The café has a large water feature that's treated as a wishing well. It's a low, square pool of water, with a metal sculpture acting as waterfall.
Today, I gave a two year old three ten cent pieces to throw into the 'wish' for me, as she'd already emptied her mother's purse of all silver, and one gold coin ("Go all out, and make it a big wish!").
Whatever the poppet wished for, shortly afterwards, I finished the short story I've been mucking about with, and decided to have another crack at the idea of a water spirit living in the water feature. Two aborted short stories, and this time, a poem.
Well, that came tumbling out of me, and I thought I'd never find an end to it. I returned, yet again, to the idea of a female discovering she has a link to the water spirits.
So, thanks little girl, whatever your wish was. I feared that poetry had left me.
I'm so unsure of myself re poetry that I'll need to give a couple of people a look, and then I'll be brave and send it somewhere.
I have grave doubts about this. Every time I access Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, I find 80% of the poems inaccessible. I just don't get them. And the remaining 20% are so sophisticated that I quail before their cleverness.
This poem I've just first drafted is very simple, and just says it. No obscurity, no high-falutin'. Both concepts are my enemy. Can't be doing with high-falutin' poems.
Anyway, maybe there's a home for it somewhere, once it's been tidied up. It would be nice to have one publication to my belt this year.
As for the short story, I'll also run that by a couple of likely suspects. And then see if the competition I aimed for is still open. I had an uneasy conversation with my muse on this story.
Satya: Here's the criteria: X, Y, two Z's, and a K.
Muse: Hmmm.... While you're in the bath tonight, riff on it to PizzaBoy.
Satya: But that's just silly riffing.
Muse: It's called brainstorming.
Satya: Oh.

Satya riffs to PB. PB gently eggs her on. Satya, as usual, takes it to weird places. Much giggling, and self-entertainment. Satya feels sparkly.

Satya: Um, Muse, how about that story....
Muse: You have the idea. The riff?
Satya: But that can't be the story, surely. It's...simplistic, silly. There's no logic.
Muse: Take it or leave it. That's what it is.
Satya: But Margaret Atwood is a judge. We've just finished watching 'The Handmaid's Tale'.... This isn't going to fly with her.
Muse: Want me to take it back?
Satya: No, no. It's just that....I thought our idea would be more....important.
Muse: You don't do straight importance. You go the Pratchett, Adams, and Asprin route. You use humour.
Satya: People don't take it seriously. They think there's no skill to it.
Muse: Must I remind you that those 'writer people' you're thinking of write shitbox clunky humour, and you don't. Now, here's a nice new notebook, and your favourite turquoise Lamy fountain pen. Get on with it.

Tomorrow, I start trying to transcribe my handwriting. Not as easy as it used to be. My handwriting is even worse, and my eyesight...well, I can see I'm in for a 'squint at the page, then type a few words, then squint at the page' session or two.

But that's tomorrow. Right now, I can tell you that all this chipperness is a smoke screen for The Sad, and The Exhaustion. I didn't sleep well last night, so fibro symptoms are rolling through me, namely joint and muscle pain. The Sad is nagging to consider images of hanging and being shot in the head. The Exhaustion wants me to lie down and die.
Yeah, well, not tonight, thanks. Now that I've realised that I'm on to my second World War II book, and I've been listening to another WWII book in the car, I've ceased 2/3, and am applying 'The Utterly Ultimate My Word Collection' by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. That should make me laugh, and I can forget about Nazis.
Full Moon in Aquarius, plus a partial lunar eclipse. No wonder my brain is messed up.

Current Music: the meowing of Tilly TinyPony

StoryADay Day 17, straight onto the page here.

The bloody fairies have been at it again. They must sit peering around books on shelves, and behind photo frames as I lumber about the house, wondering where the hell I've stored my belly dance veils, and my small selection of hip scarves.
I'm a retired belly dance teacher, and tomorrow, someone is coming to buy the last few things from me. I never sold everything, thinking that one day I'd go back, but now I know I won't.
I kept some favourites. But, where? Apparently, not where I used to store my costumes, wigs, and the hardware involved with belly dance - finger cymbals, sword, cane, veils, shamadan, dancing flags, Isis wings.
The fairies move things around in this house. Or the spirits. Or the ghost of Little Egypt, turning in her grave at the sight of red-haired, white, round little me in a two piece cabaret costume.
So, I've had enough. I'm getting out the big guns. I borrowed a book on fairy witchcraft from the library. "Fairies, Magic, and You At Home". I'm going to get my stuff back from wherever they've stashed it.
The book says to cast circle by strewing fairy dust. What the-? Who has that lying around? I don't even have packets of sequins any more. Skip that, then, because I have no idea what they're talking about. Who's the author? Lady Morgaine Le Star. Never heard of her.
Next, call in the elements. This book isn't very detailed. I don't think it's for beginners. Well okay. I feel like a nutter, but I don't know what else to do.
I'm in the middle of my lounge room. I can smell the washing drying in front of the space heater.
"Elements, come to me!" I say, with my arms raised, because that seems like the right thing to do. "Hydrogen, helium, lithium....um....nitrogen, aluminium..." Do I really have to name them all? There's a lot, and high school chemistry was a long time ago. "Ah...lead, zinc, and sodium. Hello, greetings, um, yeah."
The book says to invoke the fairies, and ask for their help.
"Oh, fairies, come to me." How do you invoke things you've never seen? I suppose it's like praying to God. "Dear Fairies who move things around, hallowed be your names. Your kingdom is nearby I guess, and you're certainly imposing your wills on me. Please fairies, return to me that which you have moved, or taken, and hidden. Please. I need them for a charity gig tomorrow. Please."
I pause to take a peek at the book. It says to make an offering to the fairies of milk and honey, and little bread, as the fairies 'keep no herds, no hives, and do not farm'.
Soy milk, stevia, and no bread at all. I'm a health nut. I don't do grains. I cut up an apple, and put it in a bowl with the soy milk, and sprinkle it all with stevia powder.
My loungeroom is unchanged, and there's no feeling of magic in the air. But...the book is missing. It was right there on my coffee table, and now it's gone.
"All right, you wise guys. Put it back. Put everything back the way you found it. I'm sick of this. Put. It. All. Back. The. Way. You. Found. It." My voice is strong, and I have my hands on my hips. The old performance adrenaline is running through me. The stuff that kept me addicted to dance well past the time I should have retired, for my health. I kept teaching and dancing, despite the loss of balance, the confusion, the shaking.
Parkinson's is a bitch of a thing.
I sit down before I'm tempted to try a few dance moves, before I start thinking beyond my body's limits, and wanting a life I can't have any more.
Nothing happens. The room is as quiet and still as ever. I flop back against the couch, and soon, I'm dozing. It's easy to sleep time away.

I wake and I'm...not in my lounge. I'm on the couch of my parents old house. The house that has been torn down, and transformed into three townhouses, with ugly straight lines. There's the smell of Mum's vegetable soup cooking, and I'm small again.
I'm...a child. A tiny one, maybe four, I guess. I'm inside this body that doesn't shake, or hurt, isn't weak.
I'm the age....when I saw fairies around the roots of the apricot tree. I remember now. I saw them. I did.
They've put everything back the way they found it. The way they found me.
And then, the memories start to fade. Gone are my fifties, my forties. I'm going back and back in time, losing my adult self. Back through my twenties, and my teens.
I'm four, and Mummy has soup, and I like that. Mummy calls me to dinner, and I run. I like Mummy's soup, and after dinner, she said we could play dancing. We can dance together like big girls.

****

I had no idea where that was going to go when I started it. I'm a bit pleased. I had to go back and alter a couple of things when the true situation of the woman came out, but all the rest is fresh onto the page.
StoryADay done. Writing done for today. Weird itchy feeling released.

Current Mood: pleased

Achievement unlocked, or whatever the phrase is.
I got the computer, and sat up in bed this morning, and dragged out 600 words. It had a beginning, an end, and truly, does read like a summary of a 'concentration camp survivor' novel. But, I am telling myself to let go of expectation, and just have a go at this.
Writing practice, story practice, putting words down.
And allowing the old gears to grind.
It's based on a dream from early this morning, and even now, I can only grasp at threads of it. A train, prisoners of war, pregnancy, people communicating through looks rather than words, guards. That's what I remember.
The story I wrote does nothing new with the material.
Shrug.
I still feel my blood singing from story telling.
And now, on with my day. Yoga, a bit of gardening perhaps, phone calls to make come 9am, a walk, and somewhere along the way, 30 minutes of memoir writing. It's time to write about the Ex Bastard years, in terms of my spiritual development.