Interview with Perpetual Motion author, Bruce Hesselbach

{If you missed yesterday's post, be sure to scroll down and read the book review of Bruce's book, Perpetual Motion.}

MRP:  Welcome to the Writer’s Lair, Bruce! Since the steampunk genre is still fairly new, why don’t you start off by telling us a little about how you came to be interested in it? What made you want to write in this genre?

BH:  I enjoy science fiction and I enjoy history.  Steampunk is an intriguing marriage of these two subjects.  Most of my prior stories were either fantasy or science fiction, set in a fictional world I created.  I had a story that I wrote with a scene in a place similar to Bath, England, and reading about the spas and watering places of Europe made me think that the time immediately prior to World War I would be a great setting for a story.

MRP:  As far as the steampunk genre is concerned, you chose a very unique setting for your story. How did you decide on that location and premise?

BH:  I wanted to get away from using a fantasy world and set my story in the real world.  Most steampunk is set in London during the Victorian age.  I had not heard of a steampunk novel set in Germany and I decided I would write one.   This gave me the opportunity to portray German opinions through Fritz von Lassberg, and thereby give the reader a fresh perspective.

MRP:  I did find it very interesting to see Fritz’s opinions and thought processes through Sybil’s eyes, since we don’t often get to look at those specific ideas through a lens that lacks post-war “twenty-twenty hindsight,” as it were.

Interweaving fictional plots with historical facts can be extremely challenging for a writer, and your story is tied to some pretty significant historical events. What did you find most challenging about it, and how did you handle those challenges?

BH:  This was actually much more fun than work.  Once I picked out a time and place, I could read about many things that I had not heard of before.  One of the points of Dante’s Paradiso is that heaven is a place where you learn things.  I couldn’t agree more.  I learned about the apparition at Knock, Ireland; the history of Meersburg Castle; the battle of Bagamoyo; what Lord Tennyson wore when he went walking on the Downs; what performances Richard Wagner put on when he opened Bayreuth.   It was great fun.  The more I studied about the time and place, the more ideas I had for my story. 

MRP:  I was very appreciative of the attitude that your heroine, Sybil, had towards traditional clothing. Even though I have no problem with a girl wearing pants (provided it is with the permission of her husband or father) I get very tired of reading about heroines’ longings to “rebel” or “buck the system” to wear pants, and their complaining about dresses being so impractical. And yet Sybil has no problem doing anything—even hiking or mountain climbing—in a dress, which I found very refreshing. Tell us a little bit about your thought processes behind that.

BH:   A great example of a Victorian woman not in the least held back by the encumbrance of her dress would be Mary Kingsley, who climbed Mount Cameroon in 1895 while wearing extensive skirts.   This is a 13,760 foot mountain that had only been climbed a couple times before.  She was the first woman to ascend it, and she did it by a new route.  She went in the company of a crew of strong natives.  It poured rain the entire time.  The natives all became exhausted and dropped out.  She finished the ascent alone, an absolutely amazing feat by a fearless woman.  Another time her skirts and petticoats saved her from death, when she fell into a trap set for leopards.  It was a large pit with sharpened ebony spikes at the bottom.  But, due to her Victorian excess of clothing, she escaped what would have been certain death.  Even in our modern times, Sandra Weber wrote a book about Mount Marcy, the highest mountain in the Adirondacks, indicating that she likes to climb it in a long skirt down to her ankles, just as the Victorians did.  My hat is off to her.  Most people have a hard enough time hiking in shorts.  Women used to be called the weaker sex, but I don’t think Mary Kingsley was weaker than anybody.

MRP:  I shouldn’t say so!

Perpetual Motion isn’t like most stories, that simply say “Here’s how it is and this is what happened”. It truly invites the reader into the thought processes of the characters and puts him or her into a position where they have to try to figure it out on their own. The questions raised and the scenarios laid out are such that we really have to think about them—just reading the story isn’t enough. What inspired you to write the story this way, and how did you go about making it work without bogging down the plot?

BH:  One aspect of writing in the first person is that the story is framed by what the character sees and hears.  Just as the narrator has to try to make sense of competing claims and explanations, the reader also has to puzzle things out along with her.  It is a shared journey. 

      I am more a reader of travel and exploration than of fiction.  One thing that I don’t like about fiction is that many writers go on and on about what the character is thinking.  This goes against my grain.  Wouldn’t it be more creative to let you infer what the character is thinking by what she says and how she acts?  In the case of Sybil Hardenbergh, I conceive of her as being far too modest to spend pages and pages telling you what she thinks.  It would go against her character and how she looks at life.  Instead, I tried to imagine how she would tell her story to a close friend.  She would feel free to confide about some things, but still she would maintain a large degree of modesty and reticence.   This becomes especially tricky when she falls in love.  Of course she has obsessive thoughts about her beloved, but she is too shy to spend pages and pages telling you about this.  You mostly have to infer it from what she says and what she does.

MRP:  You explore a lot of hypothetical moral and ethical dilemmas in Perpetual Motion, especially when it comes to issues related to time travel and historical events connected to Christianity. What can you tell us about that?

BH:  I’m very glad you asked that question.  The moral and ethical dilemmas drive the story.  It is not just theoretical; it is a matter of who dies and who lives.  War is a very grim and dark presence.  I present these dilemmas, but I don’t actually resolve any of them.  It is up to the reader to decide what is right and what is moral.  Let me give an example.   In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James wrote a ghost story.  He intended it to be a ghost story and he himself believed in the literary existence of ghosts.  However, a skeptic could read the story and believe that the ghosts where just a delusion of the crazy narrator.  That would be a perfectly coherent reading and the skeptic would still enjoy the story just the same as a believer in ghosts would.  When I became an Episcopalian in 1983, I wrote a poem about an alchemist in which I used alchemy as a symbol for the spiritual world.  I wanted the reader to decide for himself if alchemy were true or bogus.  In Perpetual Motion, I presented a number of perspectives from the devout Protestant Hardenbergh family to the young aristocratic scientist Fritz to the iconoclastic mad genius Erasmus Gegenwart.  I could totally empathize with the strong religious faith that Antoinette Hardenbergh has and this helped me draw her as a character.  On the other hand, I wanted the reader to enjoy the book regardless of whether or not he shares the beliefs of one character or another.   Yes, there are a number of very serious religious and ethical issues raised, but they are all subservient to the story and I am not trying to dictate how the reader may react to these conflicts.

  

MRP:  There were several aspects of the story that were never really “nailed down,” leaving the readers to draw their own conclusions. Is there a sequel in the works?

BH:  Since this is a coming of age story, I ended it when Sybil showed by her words and actions that she has actually matured from a very impressionable and bewildered youngster into a decisive and brave young woman.  For me, that was the end of this cycle.  In order to provide a more complete picture, I could have carried this story through new adventures and even as far as Sybil’s death.  After all, it is not just Sybil’s story, it is the saga of her family.   I think a sequel would be very much in order and I have had some people urge me to write one.  What writer could resist that?  Even apart from a sequel, I think it would be fun to write a story about Sybil’s father Otto, how he met Antoinette and how he decided to travel 2000 years into the past.  But first I want to finish a different story I am working on, a piece of literary fiction.  When I started going to a writer’s group in my home town of Newfane, I told them that I would keep writing stories until one of them got published.  Now that that has happened, I think I will keep writing stories as long as readers tell me they enjoy them.  

MRP:  Well, in that case, allow me to join the ranks of those readers! There is precious little originality in the literary world these days, but what I’ve seen of your work is most definitely new and intriguing. Keep it up!

Also, thanks so much for taking the time to share with us about your work and your ideas as a writer. It’s always great to get a peek inside the mind of a fellow author.

You can check out Bruce's book, Perpetual Motion, for yourself here:

http://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-Motion-ebook/dp/B00C0Z5S3M/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382647812&sr=1-1&keywords=perpetual+motion+bruce+hesselbach

Book Review: Perpetual Motion

Author: Bruce Hesselbach
Genre: Steampunk

When it comes to writing book reviews, I sometimes feel like a broken vinyl record... or King Solomon. It seems that every review I write contains something to the effect of "This story wasn't very original," or "This story was just so cliche."
"There is nothing new under the sun!"
Once in a while, though, I'm fortunate enough to come across something that steps out of line and dares to be different... and this was one of those books.
Perpetual Motion is a story with all the classic elements you expect of steampunk fiction--gears and gadgets and intriguing inventions and gorgeous architecture, to name a few--but it shakes them up, gives them a twist, and with a generous splash of sci-fi and time travel thrown in you get a highly original, thoroughly engrossing novel that is unlike anything you've ever read before.
The author starts off with a setting that, as far as I know, is completely unique to the steampunk genre thus far in its short history: Germany, shortly before the dawn of WWI. From there he keeps the originality coming non-stop, but I don't want to say too much lest I give something away. ; )
This is a coming-of-age story, an adventure story, a family story, a love story. But more importantly, it is a story of ideas and worldviews. The author does a brilliant job portraying the progression of what start out simply as different points of view, as they grow in different directions and become much more serious--matters of morality, of destiny, opinions that could change the face and history of an entire planet.
The most fascinating aspect of this is when you, the reader, realize that you're seeing what is probably a very accurate picture of how and what people thought of real issues and events at that time, before they led into what we now know as WWI. With our modern, 20-20 hindsight, it's easy for us to decide what was right and what was wrong in the days before the Great War. But for the people actually living there, it might not have been so easy to tell, and this book offers a stunning hypothetical look into that struggle.
Another interesting aspect of Perpetual Motion was the way in which the author presents the viewpoints of the various characters. As I said, this is a coming-of-age story, and it is written from the first-person perspective of a teenaged girl who has found herself involved in a very complex world filled with many opposing ideas. Everyone she talks to presents their ideas and worldviews as truth, and the author offers no comment on who may or may not be lying or misguided. It is left to the viewpoint character (and, thereby, the reader) to try and determine what really is the truth and what is not.
Needless to say, this isn't a book you can just lightly skim over and still have a good grasp on the story. This is a book that needs careful attention and demands a lot of thought. That isn't to say that it doesn't tell a good story--on the contrary, it tells a fantastic story sure to delight steampunk fans--but it's a story completely saturated with meaning and thought-provoking ideas. I gladly give it a high recommendation--plus bonus points for being unique. ; )

Be sure to stop by tomorrow--I'll be interviewing Perpetual Motion's author, Bruce Hesselbach. He has been gracious enough to share some of his thoughts on steampunk, the historical research behind Perpetual Motion, some interesting facts about the real people who inspired the development of his main character, and more. Don't miss it!

I received a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my review, but a favorable review was not required. My opinions are my own.

Ready for NaNoWriMo?

It's hard to believe that NaNoWriMo starts in just two weeks! That being said, I'm very excited for NaNo2013 to get here. I've been planning this year's project since August, so I can't wait to get started on it. I've put way more advance planning into this one than into any of my other NaNo projects - I even went so far as to write an actual outline for part of it! I'm treating it as a sort of experiment; my other NaNo endeavors have turned out fairly well (with the ghastly exception of The Queen's Flower, my 2011 project) without any kind of outline and very little advance planning, so with this one I want to see if having an outline from the get-go makes the result better or worse. I know, I know, NaNo is supposed to be an exercise in wordcount productivity, not prose quality, but hey - if you can get a good novel out of the deal, why not?

We are the Rising

 Desperate to discover the fate of his family, an enslaved warrior hopes to escape the life of a gladiator and return home by forging the only alliance he can--with the dragon he's supposed to fight to the death. 

 

My original intent was for this novel to be classic high fantasy, but the more I plan for it, the more it turns into some kind of historical fantasy. Think Celts vs. Romans... with dragons.

Oh well. It's NaNoWriMo. We'll just have to see what happens.

Are any of you planning on entering this year? Anyone who wants to be my Writing Buddy can do so by clicking Here.

In the meantime, tell us about what you're planning for NaNo this year! Feel free to share your logline or sneak peeks in the comments box.

Book Review: Finding the Core of Your Story

"How to strengthen and sell your story in one essential sentence."
 
Author: Jordan Smith

I’ve been studying the world of fiction publishing and marketing for long enough to have heard plenty about the importance of a good logline—or elevator pitch, or whatever you want to call it. But recognizing your need for one and actually writing one are two very different ballgames.

Until Jordan Smith contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to review his book for him, I’d never seen or even heard of a book dedicated solely to the construction of a good logline. But that’s exactly what Finding the Core of Your Story is: a step-by-step, how-to guide to writing a logline sure to catch the interest of potential publishers, agents, and readers.

Even if you’re new to the writing and publishing thing and you’re not even sure what a logline is, that’s okay. The author starts out with a straightforward explanation of the concept and purpose. From there he builds on with basic logline templates, then expands even further with concept ideas for using tools like irony, intersecting plot threads, conflict, and even a chapter dedicated to giving characters individual loglines. Even if you’re like me and your story has 14+ plot threads tangled together, don’t worry. Read the chapter “Untangling the Threads of Your Story.” Frustrated with trying to convey the uniqueness of your characters and/or story world in just one concise sentence? Read the chapters “Tickle Me with Your Adjective Feather” and “In a World Where…”

Even if you’re not to the point of needing to pitch your book to editors/agents/publishers yet, a logline is still a great tool to have on hand. Just this week I wrote a logline for the project I’m tackling in NaNoWriMo this year. Doing so has helped me figure out the characters and their motivations, as well as give me a core idea to focus on.

I could go on, but I’m sure you’re starting to get the idea.

The thing that really made this book super helpful and the logline writing process make so much sense were the examples the author used. Rather than just telling you to “find what makes the situation the most ironic and capture that in your logline,” he actually shows you how by writing loglines from real movies and books. For someone like me, who learns best by example, it was a huge help.

And if you’re writing one of those exceptional stories—you know, the ones that defy all the models and break all the rules—he’s got you covered there, too, not only with formats for handling those unique situations, but with great guidelines for highlighting just exactly what it is that makes your story so unique.

The author has a fun, conversational voice and a humorous approach—complete with generous doses of hilarious writers-only humor—that made this a delightful read.

Those of you who’ve been hanging around here at the Lair for awhile will have read enough of my reviews to know that I don’t just rave over any old book. But this is one of those special times when I am totally comfortable raving. : P

I whole-heartedly endorse this resource. Every writer—whether experienced or aspiring—should own a copy. Mine has become one of the two most-used books in my writing resource library, no joke.

Click Here to order Finding the Core of Your Story from Amazon!

I received a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my review, but was under no obligation to review it favorably. My opinions are my own.

 

The Case for Good Taste in Children's Books

This post is a reprint from the July/August 2013 issue of Imprimis, a speech digest publication of Hillsdale College. The article was adapted from a speech delivered on March 12, 2013, by Meghan Cox Gurdon, Children’s book reviewer for The Wall Street Journal. I don’t usually do reprints as blog posts, but this was just so stellar that I couldn’t resist. In my opinion, every writer should read this. It’s that good.

**Warning** This article does contain some very mature content related to very dark and, in some cases, graphic and obscene subject matter, which I have reprinted uncut. I assure you, I would not do so if I didn’t believe the point it makes is worth it. Any of my readers under eighteen may want to let their parents preview the post. You won’t hurt my feelings if you choose to skip this one, I promise.

~Mary

…

“The Case for Good Taste in Children’s Books”

By Meghan Cox Gurdon

On June 4, 2011, the number one trending topic on Twitter was the Anthony Weiner scandal. I happen to remember that, because the number two topic on Twitter that day—almost as frenzied, though a lot less humorous—had to do with an outrageous, intolerable attack on Young Adult literature… by me. Entitled “Darkness Too Visible,” my article discussed the increasingly dark current that runs through books classified as YA, for Young Adults—books aimed at readers between 12 and 18 years of age—a subset that has, in the four decades since Young Adult became a distinct category in fiction, become increasingly more lurid, grotesque, profane, sexual, and ugly.

Books show us the world, and in that sense, too many books for adolescents act like funhouse mirrors, reflecting hideously distorted portrayals of life. Those of us who have grown up understand that the teen years can be fraught and turbulent—and for some kids, very unhappy—but at the same time we know that in the arc of human life, these years are brief. Today, too many novels for teenagers are long on the turbulence and short on a sense of perspective. Nor does it help that the narrative style that dominates Young Adult books is the first person tense—“I, I, I,” and “now, now, now.” Writers use this device to create a feeling of urgency, to show solidarity with the reader and to make the reader feel that he or she is occupying the persona of the narrator. The trouble is that the first person present tense also erects a kind of verbal presin, keeping young readers in the turmoil of the moment just as their hormones tend to do. This narrative style reinforces the blinkers teenagers often seem to be wearing, rather than drawing them out and into the open. The late critic Hilton Kramer was seated once at a dinner next to film director Woody Allen. Allen asked him if he felt embarrassed when he met people socially whom he’d savaged in print. “No,” Kramer said, “they’re the ones who made the bad art. I just described it.” As the story goes, Allen fell gloomily silent, having once made a film that had received the Kramer treatment.

I don’t presume to have a nose as sensitive as Hilton Kramer’s—but I do know that criticism is pointless if it’s only boosterism. To evaluate anything, including children’s books, is to engage in the faculty of judgment, which requires that great bugbear of the politically correct “discrimination.” Thus, in responding to my article, YA book writers Judy Blume and Libba Bray charged that I was giving comfort to book-banners, and Publisher’s Weekly warned of a “danger” that my arguments “encourage a culture of fear around YA literature.” But I do not, in fact, with to ban any books or frighten any authors. What I do wish is that people in the book business would exercise better taste; that adult authors would not simply validate every spasm of the teen experience; and that our culture was not marching toward ever-greater explicitness in depictions of sex and violence.

Books for children and teenagers are written, packaged, and sold by adults. It follows from this that the emotional depictions they contain come to young people with a kind of adult imprimatur. As a school librarian in Idaho wrote to her colleagues in my defense: “You are naïve if you think young people can read a dark and violent book that sits on the library shelves and not believe that that behavior must be condoned by the adults in their school lives.”

What kind of books are we talking about? Let me give you three examples—but with a warning that some of what you’re about to hear is not appropriate for younger listeners.

A teenaged boy is kidnapped, drugged, and nearly raped by a male captor. After escaping, he comes across a pair of weird glasses that transport him to a world of almost impossible cruelty. Moments later, he finds himself facing a wall of horrors, “covered with impaled heads and other dripping, black-rot body parts: hands, heart, feet, penises. Where the f— was this?”

That’s from Andrew Smith’s 2010 Young Adult novel, The Marbury Lens.

A girl struggles with self-hatred and self-injury. She cuts herself with razors secretly, but her secret gets out when she’s the victim of a sadistic sexual prank. Kids at school jeer at her, calling her “cutterslut.” In response, “she had sliced her arms to ribbons, but the badness remained, staining her insides like cancer. She had gouged her belly until it was a mess of meat and blood, but she still couldn’t breathe.”

That’s from Jackie Morse Kessler’s 2011 Young Adult novel, Rage.

I won’t read you the most offensive excerpts from my third example, which consist of explicit and obscene descriptions by a 17-year-old female narrator of sexual petting, of oral sex, and of rushing to a bathroom to defecate following a breakup. Yet School Library Journal praised Daria Sandowsky’s 2008 Young Adult novel, Anatomy of a Boyfriend, for dealing “in modern terms with the real issues of discovering sex for the first time.” And Random House, its publisher, gushed about the narrator’s “heartbreakingly honest voice” as she recounts the “exquisite ups and dramatic downs of teenage love and heartbreak.”

The book industry, broadly speaking, says: Kids have a right to read whatever they want. And if you follow the argument through it becomes: Adults should not discriminate between good and bad books or stand as gatekeepers, deciding what young people should read. In other words, the faculty of judgment and taste that we apply in every other area of life involving children should somehow vaporize when it comes in contact with the printed word.

I appeared on National Public Radio to discuss these issues with the Young Adult book author Lauren Myracle, who has been hailed as a person “on the front lines in the fight for freedom of expression”—as if any controversy over whether a book is appropriate for children turns on the question of the author’s freedom to express herself. Myracle made clear that she doesn’t believe there should be any line between adult literature and literature for young people. In saying this, she was echoing the view that prevails in many progressive circles—that young people should encounter material that jolts them out of their comfort zone; that the world is a tough place; and that there’s no point shielding children from reality. I took the less progressive, less secular view that parents should take a more interventionist approach, steering their children away from books about sex and horror and degradation, and towards books that make aesthetic and moral claims.

Now, although it may seem that our culture is split between Left and Right on the question of permissiveness regarding our children’s reading material, in fact there is not so much division on the core issue as might appear. Secular progressives, despite their reaction to my article, have their own list of books they think young people shouldn’t read—for instance, books they claim are tinged with racism or jingoism or that depict traditional gender roles. Regarding the latter, you would not believe the extent to which children’s picture books today go out f the way to show father in an apron and mother tinkering with machinery. It’s pretty funny. But my larger point here is that the self-proclaimed anti-book-banners on the Left agree that books influence children and prefer some books to others.

Indeed, in the early years of the Cold War, many left-wing creative people in America gravitated toward children’s literature. Philip Nel, a professor at Kansas State University, has written that Red-hunters, “seeing children’s books as a field dominated by women… deemed it less important and so did not watch it closely.” Among the authors I am referring to are Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Ruth Krauss, author of the 1952 classic A Hole is to Dig, illustrated by a young Maurice Sendak. Krauss was quite open in her belief that children’s literature was an excellent means of putting left-wing ideas into young minds. Or so she hoped.

When I was a little girl I read The Cat in the Hat, and I took from it an understanding of the sanctity of private property—it outraged me when the Cat and Thing One and Thing Two rampaged through the children’s house while their mother was away. Dr. Seuss was probably not intending to inculcate capitalist ideas—quite the contrary. But it happened in my case, and the point is instructive.

A recent study conducted at Virginia Tech found that college women who read “chick lit”—light novels that deal with the angst of being a modern woman—reported feeling more insecure about themselves and their bodies after reading novels in which the heroines feel insecure about themselves and their bodies. Similarly, federal researchers were puzzled for years be a seeming paradox when it came to educating children about the dangers of drugs and tobacco. There seemed to be a correlation between anti-drug and anti-tobacco programs in elementary and middle schools and subsequent drug and tobacco use at those schools. It turned out that at the same time children were learning that drugs and tobacco were bad, they were taking in the meta-message that adults expected them to use drugs and tobacco.

Which is why good taste matters so much when it comes to books for children and young adults. Books tell children what to expect, what life is, what culture is, how we are expected to behave—what the spectrum is. Books don’t just cater to tastes. They form tastes. They create norms—and as the examples above show, the norms young people take away are not necessarily the norms adults intend. This is why I am skeptical of the social utility of so-called “problem novels”—books that have a troubled main character, such as a girl with a father who started raping her when she was a toddler and anonymously provides her with knives when she is a teenager hoping that she will cut herself to death. (This scenario is from Cheryl Rainfield’s 2010 Yong Adult novel, Scars, which School Library Journal hailed as “one heck of a good book.”)

The argument in favor of such books is that they validate the real and terrible experiences of teenagers who have been abused, addicted, or raped—among other things. The problem is that the very act of detailing these pathologies, not just in one book but in many, normalizes them. And teenagers are all about identifying norms and adhering to them.

In journalist Emily Bazelon’s recent book about bullying, she describes how schools are using a method called “social norming” to discourage drinking and driving. “The idea,” she writes, “is that students often overestimate how much other kids drink and drive, and when they find out that it’s less prevalent than they think—outlier behavior rather than the norm—they’re less likely to do it themselves.” The same goes for bullying: “When kids understand that cruelty isn’t the norm,” Bazelon says, “they’re less likely to be cruel themselves.”

Now isn’t that interesting?

Ok, you say, but books for kids have always been dark. What about Hansel and Gretel? What about the scene in Beowulf where the monster sneaks into the Danish camp and starts eating people?

Beowulf is admittedly gruesome in parts—and fairy tales are often scary. Yet we approach them at a kind of arm’s length, almost as allegory. In the case of Beowulf, furthermore, children reading it—or having it read to them—are absorbing the rhythms of one of mankind’s great heroic epics, one that explicitly reminds us that our talents come from God and that we act under God’s eye and guidance. Even with the gore, Beowulf won’t make a child callous. It will help to civilize them.

English philosopher Roger Scruton has written at length about what he calls the modern “flight from beauty,” which he sees in every aspect of our contemporary culture. “It is not merely,” he writes, “that artists, directors, musicians, and others connected with the arts”—here we might include authors of Young Adult literature—“are in a flight from beauty…There is a desire to spoil beauty…For beauty makes a claim on us; it is a call to renounce our narcissism and look with reverence on the world.”

We can go to the Palazzo Borghese in Rome and stand before Caravaggio’s painting of David with the head of Goliath, and though we are looking at horror we are not seeing ugliness. The light that plays across David’s face and chest, and that slants across Goliath’s half-open eyes and mouth, transforms the scene into something beautiful. The problem with the darker offerings in Young Adult literature is that they lack this transforming and uplifting quality. They take difficult subjects and wallow in them in a gluttonous way; they show an orgiastic lack of restrain that is the mark of bad taste.

Young Adult book author Sherman Alexie wrote a rebuttal to my article entitled, “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood.” In it, he asks how I could honestly believe that a sexually explicit Young Adult novel might traumatize a teenaged mother. “Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape? Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?”

Well of course I don’t. But I also don’t believe that the vast majority of 12-to-18-year-olds are living in hell. And as for those who are, does it really serve them to give them more torment and sulfur in the stories they read?

The body of children’s literature is a little like the Library of Babel in the Jorge Luis Borges story—shelf after shelf of books, many almost gibberish, but a rare few filled with wisdom and beauty and answers to important questions. These are the books that have lasted because generation after generation has seen in them something transcendent, and has passed them on. Maria Tatar, who teaches children’s literature at Harvard, describes books like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wind in the Willows, The Jungle Books, and Pinocchio as “setting minds into motion, renewing sense, and almost rewiring brains.”

Or as William Wordsworth wrote: “What we have loved/others will love, and we will teach them how.”

The good news is that just like the lousy books of the past, the lousy books of the present will blow away like chaff. The bad news is that they will leave their mark. As in so many aspects of culture, the damage they do can’t easily be measured. It is more a thing to be felt—a coarseness, an emptiness, a sorrow.

“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as if it does not matter.” That’s Roger Scruton again. But he doesn’t want us to despair. He also writes:

It is one mark of rational beings that they do not live only—or even at all—in the present. They have the freedom to despise the world that surround them and live in another way. The art, literature, and music of our civilization remind them of this, and also point to the path that lies always before them: the path out of desecration towards the sacred and the sacrificial.

Let me close with Saint Paul the Apostle in Philippians 4:8:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

And let us think about these words when we go shopping for books for our children.

***

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

Summer is Over...

... or at least, very nearly. It's been an amazing summer, I don't mind telling you. Great weather, plenty of rain (the Ozarks are a rainforest right now, compared to this time last year), exciting events - no complaints!
I won't bore you with the details of my entire summer, but I will take a few moments to talk about Realm Makers, which was definitely the highlighting event!
If you didn't hear about it beforehand, Realm Makers was the first-ever writers conference specifically designed for Christian writers of speculative fiction. And it. Was. Awesome. I met some amazing people, had the privilege of shaking the hands of people I'd previously only met online, and had a great time enjoying the company of a whole troop of people just as crazy and creative and nerdy as me!

We were able to get all three of the Lost Scribes together, which is a rare treat these days. Elyn (far right) rode up to St. Louis with me (second from left) and my friend Michaela (second from right), and Heather (far left) came all the way down from Michigan. In this picture we're hanging out at the Friday night costume dinner with Becky Minor, the reason we even had such a thing as a Realm Makers conference. So a huge thank-you to her for an awesome weekend!

You may have noticed in the first picture a bit of a steampunk theme - at least on the part of Michaela, Elyn, and myself. That wasn't entirely intentional, but it ended up being pretty cool. Pictured here is the pile of weaponry and other steampunk accoutrements we brought along. Michaela made the ray gun herself - yeah, she's cool that way. And for the record: you should have seen the looks she got when she waltzed through Steak & Shake on Saturday still wearing the sabre, ray gun, and bowie knives - with Elyn and me tagging along, acting like this is perfectly normal. We laughed about it for most of the trip home.

Oh, the people we met! In this picture with me is none other than Kathy Tyers! I was so excited to meet her Friday night at the costume dinner/awards banquet (yes, I was there when they announced this year's winner of the Parable Award and the Clive Staples Award, which was awesome), but the coolest part was on Saturday, when I walked down to the lobby to find the Kathy Tyers sitting at a table talking to my mother. Seriously - can it get any cooler than that? (Mom was our chauffeur for the weekend, in case you're wondering why she was there. She said she wasn't going to turn us loose in St. Louis, so apparently she either doesn't trust us, was worried we would be so overloaded with excitement that we couldn't find our way home, or suspected we might just choose not to come back.) So Saturday I got to enjoy a long lunch break with my mom, two of my best friends, and one of my favorite authors.
Among other personages with whom I made acquaintance over the weekend were L.B. Graham, author of The Binding of the Blade series; Brian Davis, author of the Dragons of Starlight series (and with whom I sat down and had a lovely chat about my novel The Sword Masters of St. George's Academy); Jeff Gerke, commander-in-chief of Marcher Lord Press; and of course Becky Minor, author of the Windrider Saga.
Best of all, I got to see Grace Bridges, leading lady of Splashdown Books, again - this time officially as "my publisher"! Yep, she made the trek all the way from New Zealand to be at Realm Makers. I also got to meet a lot of the other Splashdown and Avenir Eclectia authors too - Deborah Cullins-Smith, Kat Heckenbach, Travis Perry, and Robbyn Tolbert. I'll admit, I was a little intimidated about meeting Robbyn. She's the one currently working on Song of the Wren-Falcon, helping me get it ready for publication, and for some reason that just really, really freaked me out. But with the help of my friend Heather ("Help" in this instance indicating Heather dragging Robbyn over to me by the hand, shoving me towards her, and saying "Now talk to each other!"), we broke the ice and started getting to know one another.
Let me just say that, having met and talked to Robbyn, I feel totally at peace entrusting her and all the rest of the Splashdown crew with my manuscript. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't have submitted my novel to Splashdown at all if I was worried they might mess it up - but still, it's my baby, you know?
Now though, I have every confidence in the world that by the time it's done, Song of the Wren-Falcon is going to be absolutely the best novel that it can possibly be. And it's going to be good for me as a writer, as well as for the novel itself. I'm not going to be allowed to get away with any cheap tricks or short cuts (which, I confess, I did use here and there in SotS - yes, I know it's not SotS anymore but that's way simpler an abbreviation than SotW-F).
But more on that in another post. For now, back to Realm Makers.

So, we three Lost Scribes (say - someone should write a song about that!) were milling around at the costume banquet, and all of a sudden who should we spot but a man with a cybernetic left arm?! Naturally, we had to tell him about our character Skylar, and get a picture with him.

Here we are, being epic - because it's Realm Makers and we can do that. ; ) Later, as the three of us were geeking out about the fact that we'd found Skylar, we realized that Ben Wolf (the cyborg gentleman who graced us with his presence in these pictures) doesn't look at all like Skylar in the face... but he does look a lot like our character Hezekiah in the face. And, were Hez a decent human being in any basic capacity, we decided that we could easily imagine his personality being similar to Mr. Wolf's. So we got to met two of the characters from our shared novel, rolled into one master of writing conference ceremonies/magazine editor.
Which brings me to another highlight of the weekend! On Friday, Ben Wolf and Andrew Winch, the executive and senior editors of Splickety Magazine, respectively, gave a talk on what flash fiction is, and how to write it. (Flash fiction is what Splickety Magazine publishes.)
At the end of the talk, they announced a contest: write a story of 500 or fewer words and turn it in to them by noon on Saturday. The winner would get published in the first edition of Havok, a new imprint of Splickety coming in January.
So, instead of sleeping like we should have done Friday night, Elyn, Michaela, and I all stayed up most of the night, woke up abominably early Saturday morning, and spent most of the time during the morning lectures scribbling stories instead of taking notes. We all got them turned in, and settled down to wait eagerly for the announcement of the winner, set to take place at 5:00 pm.
It finally rolled around, and they started announcing the runners-up. Elyn made the finals, with her story Wolf Myth!
I didn't make the finals, but I was just glad that I would be able to say I entered the flash fiction contest at the first-ever Realm Makers conference.
But then they announced the winner... and it was me!!! I literally almost fell over. I had no expectation whatsoever of winning, so hearing my name blindsided me completely. Which turned out to be a problem, since they then asked me to read my story aloud to the entire assembly of conference attendees. Elyn says I read it a little too fast. I imagine that to mean something along the lines of Twitchy from Hoodwinked. But oh well.
So, that means that if you subscribe to Havok, you can expect to see my story, The Mermaid's Pocketwatch, in the inaugural issue!
It was a great way to wrap up an utterly fantastic weekend. I'm so glad I got to enjoy it with so many of my closest friends, authors I've loved for years, my publisher and new colleagues, and new friends made.
Come to think of it, it made a pretty nice finale to the summer. Here's to next time!

If you've actually made it to this point in the post, you're amazing. I know, it was insanely long. I should have done a three-part series or something.
I still don't have internet at home (another one of those ridiculous details about my summer that I won't bore you with), but I've got things arranged so that I should be able to get to wi-fi at least a couple of time a week now. Most of the posts this fall will probably be scheduled as a result, but I'll try to still reply to comments and post at least every week or so.

I hope everyone's summer was wonderful, and I'm looking forward to this fall. God's doing some cool things, and I'm excited to watch them unfold.

How was your summer?

Life and Writing Updates

No, I haven't died suddenly, or been stranded off-world due to a DHD malfunction, or kidnapped by goblins, or incarcerated by the FBI, CIA, DHS, IRS, ICE, KGB, or any other organization with the capability of making someone vanish for an extended period of time.
Well then, you may ask, where exactly have I been?
Well, for the entire second and third week of May, I was flat on my back with a massive respiratory infection. Not exactly how I wanted to get my spring started off. The last time I was sick for that long at once was when I was six years old and had pneumonia. Thankfully I'm well now. Unfortunately, I passed the joy on to my family, who have been passing it around ever since. (When your family is the size of mine, it takes a while for sicknesses to go through everyone.) We're down to the last two of us, though, so hopefully we're almost done! ; )
And then there was the internet...
We live in what many people refer to as "the sticks", so internet service is difficult to get, but we've been quite happy with the provider we were using. Unfortunately, during my convalescence, the company whose tower our provider used de-programmed our bandwidth, leaving us with no internet whatsoever. We've talked to other providers, but most of them want to chop down trees or dig trenches or charge a king's ransom just to get it out to us, let alone the monthly fees. We've found another wireless provider who can get service to us without any such drastic measures, but they're still building the tower that will be serving our area, and it won't be finished for another few weeks.

So in a nutshell, that's where I've been for the last month. (I know, only a Pursselley would have an explanation that complicated, but it's the truth.)
Then, of course, there were the wiener dogs, and the snow storm, and the tornadoes... yeah, it's been a circus.

If you're interested in an update on my writing, here's the scoop:
Son of the Shield is in the editing phase as we speak! Splashdown Books has a really unique editing system that consists of all the writers in the "family" working together on different projects. Right now, one of the other authors who writes the same genre is going over my manuscript, making corrections and suggestions. Once she's finished the ball will be in my court for a while. I'll be sure to keep you all updated when that happens!
We've already made a few changes right off the bat:

I was thoroughly embarrassed to realize that every time I thought I was using the noun "Prophecy", I was actually using the verb "Prophesy". And in Son of the Shield, that's a word that gets used pretty frequently, so there were a lot of instances of that mistake. *head-desk, head-desk*

We also added in a scene or two with Ryker Verone, one of the secondary characters, to flesh out his subplot a little bit. I certainly didn't mind that! Captain Verone is a fantastic character who I love working with, so any chance to do more with his story is A-okay with me!

We've also added a little bit of shading and layering with the main character so far, but I am not at liberty to disclose the details of that at this time. (Mwa-ha-ha-ha!) Just let me assure you that it's going to make the story even better.

The biggest change we've made so far, though, is to change the story's title. (*pauses to wait for collective gasps to die down*) Yes, I know, you've all been hearing about Son of the Shield this and Son of the Shield that for a long time - some of you for years. Trust me, it's hard for me to get used to, too. But believe me when I say it's for the best.
The truth is, I was about two years into the writing/rewriting/editing process when I realized that the title Son of the Shield didn't really fit closely with the story anymore. It was, after all, the title I had chosen literally on Day 1, the day I first had the idea for the story, and long before I really knew what the story was about. The more it grew, and the more I learned about it, the less SotS really fit. But by that time, the story was two years old and SotS was what I was used to calling it. Plus, the title could work, albeit loosely. So I just left it alone. Honestly, when I first sent it off to Splashdown for consideration, I suspected they might ask me to change the title.
And, sure enough, it was one of the first things Grace suggested after she accepted it. Unfortunately, by that time I had been living with the story for six years, so asking me to change the title was something like asking a mother to re-name her six-year-old child. I had absolutely no idea where to start. So, armed with some suggestions from Grace, I sent a query to all of my friends who have already read the book, asking them for suggestions.
They sent me quite a few, but even staring at a list I drew nothing but blanks. The story simply was SotS in my mind, and I couldn't get past that. In desperation, I sent the list off to Grace, and she made the choice. Ready to hear it?

SotS's new title is:

Song of the Wren-Falcon

Different, I know. Trust me, it doesn't sound weirder to any of you than it does to me. But I'm getting used to it. In fact, I'm even starting to really like it.

Now, that doesn't mean that I don't still draw a blank when someone hears that I'm getting a novel published and asks me what the title is. (My best friend has had to jump into multiple conversations to remember it for me, while I'm standing there blinking, saying "Um...") Really professional, I know. But I'll have the hang of it eventually... I hope.

 

So there's what's happening in my life these days. I don't often have the chance to use public Wi-fi, so I'll probably be pretty quiet for a little bit longer, until I get my internet back at home. But in the meantime, I hope everyone's spring is turning out to be as beautiful and exciting as mine is!

P.S. I'd love to hear what you all think of SotS's new title, so be sure and leave a comment to let me know!

Book Review - An Unholy Communion

Author: Donna Fletcher Crow
Genre: Suspense/Clerical Mystery
Series: The Monastery Murders
Publisher: Lion Fiction
Pages: 381

Lately I've been trying to branch out a little more in my reading - as in, get a feel for genres of Christian fiction that fall outside my normal preferences. I figure I should at least have some knowledge of them, even if they aren't what I enjoy. So far I've found a pretty good mix - things I loved that I wasn't expecting to, and things that made me think "Oh - that's why I don't read that genre."
I'd never even heard of the genre "Clerical Mystery" before I started reading this book, but since the author is stated by critics to have "found her own niche" within the genre, I suppose it must be pretty popular. Unfortunately, in my opinion the author's particular "niche" isn't a very exciting place to be.
I honestly have to say that this was the slowest book I've read in years - maybe ever. The plot felt aimless, meandering around the Welsh countryside with no particularly pressing goal. Part of that was no doubt due to the extra weight of descriptive details bogging it down, and part was probably due to a general lack of tightening and streamlining on the parts of the author and editors. But I think most of it was really due to the slowness of the characters themselves. I'm sorry, but these modern pilgrims simply weren't too bright.
"Let's see, we're definitely being followed on our little pilgrimage by some kind of demonic force that, so far, has managed to make a disaster out of everything we attempt, and has put all of us at risk at one point or another. But I'm pretty sure it would be okay for these two teenaged members of our group to go up the mountain and explore that cave by themselves."
Really?
And I understand the whole beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder thing, but the readers should at least be able to see some of what characters see in one another. While Antony is fawning over Felicity's "quick mind", I'm sitting here thinking "Girl, did you just figure that out?" And while he gushes over her courage and grit, I'm trying not to yell "Seriously, cowgirl up, sissy girl!" The same could be said about Antony - while Felicity is melting over him, I'm left thinking "Seriously, no real man is going to be worried about tearing his clothes while climbing around looking for a hidden treasure, just as no real man is going to even think about the wooden box he's smuggling out under his shirt 'chafing his skin'."
All of which made their romance seem very mushy and sappy, even though it wasn't written in a style that normally creates that effect to that extent.
There were two home-schooled characters in the book, which you don't see very often, but I was rather put off by the fact that they were also the only two Goth-dressing, Twilight-reading, death-obsessed, pagan characters. This being the only thing I've read by this author, I don't want to get too stirred up about it - it may or may not be intended as a slight against homeschoolers - but it was still enough to get my hackles up.
Then, of course, there was the religion issue. At first, most of the evidence made me assume the characters were Catholics, but there were things that didn't quite add up if that was the case. So I showed it to a close friend who is a Catholic, and she didn't think it added up either. There were a couple of references that suggested the characters were Methodists, but I have Methodist friends too and they don't practice the rituals and so forth that were so prevalent in this story. So I really have no idea what religion these characters are supposed to be.
There were also some editorial issues - incorrectly used words or incorrect forms of words used, and a scene in which Felicity borrows a dress from one girl and then returns it to a different girl - which always bother me.
There were some good points about it - lots and lots of gorgeous descriptions of the settings, countryside, and local food, for instance. And, personally having a Welsh surname that confuses everyone with its double letters, I had a lot of fun looking at all the Welsh names in the book - double letters everywhere! : D
But on the whole, my first experience in the "Clerical Mystery" genre was less than a hit.

I received this book free of charge in exchange for my review.

Realm Makers - the moment we've all been waiting for!

Christian writers, get ready for a history-making event:

The first-ever Christian Speculative Fiction Conference!

On August 2-3, 2013, writers, editors, and publishers from around the world will be gathered at the University of Missouri, St Louis, for the first-ever Realm Makers conference - a writers conference for lovers of the question "what if?", whose faith is the top priority.

Click Here to visit their homepage and get all the information you need.

~*~

I am so excited about this, I don't know how I'm going to keep it together until August. Grace Bridges, leading lady of Splashdown Books, is going to be there, as are spec-fic pioneer Jeff Gerke of Marcher Lord Press; Chila Woychick, editor of Port Yonder Press; L.B. Graham, author of the Binding of the Blade series; Kathy Tyers, author of the Firebird trilogy; and more! (And of course, for those who may care, you can meet me too! ; )

There's also going to be a costume ball on the first night of the conference, which promises to be absolutely fabulous!

If you register before June 1st, you can take advantage of an early bird discount. Registration costs go up after that, so no dilly-dallying!