Musings on my muse: The care and feeding of my inner control freak

If you met me, you would probably think I'm perfectly normal.  But inside, I do have a quirk that makes me a tad different from most folks: on one level, I'm a control freak. This might surprise a lot of people who see me as reasonably laid back (except when I'm worried about my kids, and then I freak out).  

But I'm a different person when I write books. It's not just being a writer that makes me different. Technology has made it much easier to write and to publish, which has revealed that gazillions of folks have that ambition. Some of them write hoping to make money, some write hoping for recognition or fame, and some write because they enjoy it. I write because I want people to read what I have written. Let me stress that—what I have written. What appeals to me writing stories is that by writing them as science fiction or fantasy, I control not only the characters but the setting. I can create my own worlds, each with its own appearance, environment, inhabitants, and cultures. And I can populate those worlds with whatever characters I think would make for an interesting story.  

In the Wakanreo trilogy (Alien Bonds, Alien Vows, and Alien Skies), I created a world where  an alien people mate because of biological reaction that cannot be controlled. I wanted to create a society in which sex was completely divorced from morality, and where nudity was not linked to a desire to provoke a sexual reaction. I also foresaw greater equality between the sexes and among socioeconomic groups; because there was no such thing as marriage, either arranged or from affection, and divorce did not exist, class structures were too difficult to enforce. Also, since pairing off was purely pheromone-driven, looks didn't matter. Add to this the question of love; just because you paired off with someone doesn't mean you have to love him or her.

In Tribes, I wanted my readers to inhabit a world where there was one overriding loyalty, at least in a legal sense. Belonging to a tribe was a a life-long and immutable thing. One's tribe provided security, a safety net against disaster, and also determined what was legal for an individual. On the other hand, if someone had no tribe, his life was doomed to slavery, drudgery, and degradation. Interjecting a slave into such a setting provided a way to see how the other characters behave toward him.

But setting a story on another world or in the future isn't the only way to control all the facets of my story. In Hidden Magic, I gave some characters magical abilities, but plunked them down in a society that feared and suppressed magic. I made them brother and sister, and then, because I enjoy a romance, I had each of them find someone they loved.  

I don't only read science fiction and fantasy. I enjoy mysteries, historical fiction and historical romance, and even sometimes young adult novels. But I don't think I would ever write in those genres because I would be stuck with the rules imposed by reality. 

Taking Inventory

I'm doing final corrections on Alien Vows, getting it ready for launch, but I stopped to take stock of my "stack" of manuscripts.  I put the word in quotes because the stack is digital; the books exist only as files on my hard drive.

I have been writing seriously since 1992, but I didn't start self-publishing until 2011. Since then I have published nine (soon to be ten) novels and one novella.

The unpublished novels list looks like this:

Fantasy
Bag of Tricks
The Return of Magic

Science Fiction
This Nameless World
Child of the Sand (very rough draft)

Science Fiction Romance
Alien Skies (Book 3 of the Wakanreo series)
Worlds Apart
Ice and Fire

YA Science Fiction
Nomads (or possibly Nomads of Menkar 7)
Playing with Fire -- partial m.s.  

The next one in line to publish will undoubtedly be Alien Skies because I want to finish the Wakanreo series. After that I need to decide which direction I want to go. I might alternate, and do a fantasy next and then a science fiction romance, and then repeat. This Nameless World will probably go to the bottom of the list because it's currently at 240,000 words, the longest book I ever wrote.  That's about twice as long as most of my novels, but I don't think I can split it into two books because there's no resolution point in the middle of the book.

In contrast, I have also written six short stories. It's not that I was trying to write mostly novels;it's that the stories that started in my head were mostly novels. Go figure!

Review: The Golem and the Jinni

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is a wonderful debut novel! It's nice to find a fantasy in such an original setting, and with such a cool mix of fantastic creatures. If you are as tired of werewolves, vampires, and zombies as I am, this is a good book to try.

For those who aren't familiar with golems, they are creatures of Jewish mythology, created from clay and endowed with a semblance of life by arcane spells known only to learned rabbis. In a way, a golem is the thinking man's Frankenstein's Monster.

Jinnis (aka genies) are familiar from the genie in a bottle tale, and indeed this jinni is not only trapped in a bottle, he is trapped in human form. In spite of that, he has some superhuman abilities. His fingers can generate fire, because his true form is actually fire-based.

The huge influx of immigrants from both Europe and Asia bring the two supernatural creatures to New York city in the early part of the 20th century. The golem ends up in a Jewish neighborhood and the jinni in Little Syria. Eventually, their paths cross (neither of them sleeps, so they are both awake all night) and they know each other at once.

In addition to the eponymous main characters, this novel employs many secondary characters to narrate the story. I had no feeling of “head hopping” because each of them has a distinctive voice and clear motivations. Most of the story is set in the East Side of Manhattan but there are scenes in Poland, the Middle East, and on an ocean liner. Everyone's part in the story is like a piece of yarn that the author knits into the story to create a cohesive whole. The nonhuman characters are just that: not human. They have their own natures and they stay true to them.

There is some resolution at the end, but clearly, a sequel could easily happen, so don't say I didn't warn you. I also want to commend the publisher for an extremely clean Kindle copy of this book. Kudos for no formatting errors!

All in all, an excellent read! The only thing I didn't like was the cover, which I thought found neither appealing nor helpful in determining what the story was about.




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Get your free short story here!

I added a page to the blog called Free Story! And if you click on that page, it will (no surprise ) tell you how to get a free story.  This particular story is a fantasy I wrote, a sort of riff on Sleeping Beauty but instead of sleeping, my beauty is weaving— on a loom, not weaving through traffic or falling down drunk or anything like that.

This is an actual short story, not a novella like Where Magic Rules, so instead of selling it, I'm offering to send the story for free to anyone who asks for it.

Click the Free Story tab for the details.

The dragon in Where Magic Rules has taken flight!

My fantasy novella Where Magic Rules is now available in the Smashwords ebookstore as well as in the Kindle store. It will take a while to load to all the affiliated retailers.  I'll post when it shows up. And because it's a novella, it's only 99¢.

Where Magic Rules is on the copyeditor's desk

My fantasy novelette (it's 25,000 words as of now) is being copyedited! Where Magic Rules is a departure for me, a pure fantasy set in another version of earth. The hero is from our world, but he finds himself trapped in an alternate reality where there are mages and dragons and magic rules science.

The hero is named Joe and the heroine is named Phillip. It's an interesting situation. Joe is certainly surprised by it.But while Joe is an outsider, Phillip is very much a product of her own world. Equal parts of buddy movie, road movie, and romantic comedy combine as the two of them go on a quest in the service of the Great Mage, a quest that leads them to a dragon's lair.