recovering from a writers con

I belong to an awesome writers group Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I strongly recommend writers groups. Only other writers really understand what you're going through. RMFW has an annual conference, which I also strongly recommend. Frankly, it's a lot like the Seton Hill University MFA residencies: tons of workshops, panels, signings and fun and drinking. I taught a workshop Stealing From the Best: A Sample of Different Writing Methods to Find the Best Method for You with Author Rebecca Bates. It seemed well-received.

Our Guest Author of the Year, Rob Thurman, seemed to have a good time. Check out her blog entry: Writers Cons Vs. Fan Cons.
Will I be seeing you there next year? :)
Are there any writers cons you really like?

didacticism

I read "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor recently. It's a classic and it's available several places on the web, here, for example. In a very brief nutshell: a woman, Mrs. Hopewell, runs a farm in rural Georgia with the help of her 2 tenants. Her one-legged Ph.D. daughter, Joy/Hulga, lives with her as well. A traveling bible salesman comes to the woman's house and ...adventures ensue. I don't want to ruin it for you if you haven't read it.

After reading a story I often step back and consider what was the point of this? Mrs. Hopewell is not happy with her Ph.D. atheist daughter and in the course of the story poor Joy/Hulga has a bad experience/rude awakening as a result of her paradigm. I can only conclude at least part of O'Connor's goal was to show intellectualism and atheism are basically wrong/bad/stupid/insert-your-favorite-nagative-word-here. Can the reader infer a greater meaning? Such as: even 'good country person' and devout Catholic Mrs. Hopewell should examine her preconceptions? Sure. O'Connor may have meant to convey this as well.
Overall, I'm getting a very didactic tone from this story.

Ms. O'Connor didn't really get the recognition she deserved for her writing. I think this is because she was a woman and especially because she wrote about poor southerners.
Or, maybe it was because she was so didactic.

What do you think?

styles change

I recently reread "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. You can read it for free here, among other places. Wow! Writing styles have really changed since 1839! Check out the beginning:
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
If one of my critique partners started a story with a lot of telling setting description, I'd recommend otherwise. I'd say, this is a cliche.

Of course, you can't say that about "Usher" because it was written before all those other stories. When you're one of the first, you can't be a cliche. :)
"Usher" is the quintessential gothic horror story, the story that influenced all others that came after. What exactly is gothic fiction? Some say it's the mode of literature that combines elements of romance and horror. The name gothic supposedly refers to the medieval or pseudo-medieval buildings in which the stories take place. What is horror fiction? This one is harder to pin down. The Horror Writers Association says horror is fiction that elicits fear and/or dread in the reader. Thus, horror can be about or include anything as long as it elicits the desired emotional reaction(s).

Are you a horror reader? A horror writer? What do you like best about it?

Read on!

Huzzah! The awesome August 31, 2013 issue of Electric Spec is live!

As the letter from the editors says,
...of the stories in this issue: you're gonna love 'em. Get this--zombies hungry for artificial babies in "Little Miss Saigon" by Malon Edwards. In C.R. Hodge's "Queen Meabh," a Scottish spirit kick's some archeologist ass. And if you wanna go totally post-apocalypse, step down into the fall out shelter in "For Want of Stars" by Beth Ceto. Speaking of a post-disaster world, what to you do when indescribable death machines kill everyone else but ignore you? Find out in "Amelia Amongst Machines" by David Brookes. Finally, look how complicated your love life can get when it gets too "spirited" in David W. Landrum's "Someone."

Read on, brothers and sisters!

Thank you very much behind-the-scenes folks, including our authors (Yay!), our artist (Yay!), our tech guys, and our associate editors (Yay!). We couldn't have done it without you.

Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think of the issue. What's your favorite story?

Sharing

A friend from work loaned me an interesting novel this summer: The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood. I really enjoyed this! I think it's because the writing is beaut ifully lyrical, the protagonist is very likeable, and the topics of sanity/insan ity and the power of music are fascinating.Wood uses a great writerly trick: we start out at a crime scene and then go back in time to observe the relationships of the people involved. Thus, the reader has a sense of dread throughout, wondering: Who will die? Who commits the crimes? and most of all, Why? Great tension!

I recommend this book.

As I said above, I did not purchase this novel. Authors do deserve to be paid for their work. But, since I've probably already spent a few hundred dollars on books this year, I don't feel guilty about it. In fact, I highly recommend sharing your favorite books with your friends.
What's your favorite novel lately? Who do you know who might like it?

your brain on fiction

Annie Murphy Paul wrote a fascinating article "Your Brain on Fiction" published in 2011 in The New York Times. The gist of it is: The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Wow! Isn't that cool?

What does this mean for authors? It means we really need to show, not tell. Words with odor associations activate the smelling portion of our brain. Words with motion associations activate the parts of our brain associated with moving. Words associated with textures or other tactile sensations activate the parts of our brain associated with touch. Let's use all the amazing words and mental associations at our disposal. :)

What's your favorite sensory word? Use it!

wish fulfillment

I read Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich recently. It has a humorous and intriguing title and, of course, Stephanie Evanovich comes from a famous writing family, so I had high hopes. ;) In a nutshell, this is the story of a thirty-two-year-old widow with weight issues who meets a handsome single personal trainer... It's a romance, so you know what's going to happen. Evanovich does a nice job; this is well-written.

To me, this read like a wish fulfillment fantasy for overweight women. The overweight woman meets the perfect man and he helps her discover the healthy woman inside and they fall in love along the way. I'm reminded of another famous author, Stephenie Meyer. IMHO, Twilight was a wish fulfillment fantasy for teen-aged girls. Basically, you can be an average girl and hot exceptional guys will fight over the opportunity to love you.

In my unscientific survey, I deduced a lot of novels involve wish fulfillment fantasies. And a lot of them sell very, very well.

What do you think? Do you like reading wish fulfillments? Writing wish fulfillments? If so, you're not alone. ;)