Category Archives: Spiritwalker

Long Update & Linkage: January 2011

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Work proceeds on Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3) which will, indeed, complete the Spiritwalker Trilogy. It’s going slowly because it is complex, but I’m pleased with my progress even though I wish it were writing more quickly. However, my chief goal is to write the best book I can, rather than the speediest book I can.

Strangely, google’s search engine is currently blocking my web page (and therefore also my wordpress site, which is on my web page) from all searches, but it is still there at (if you’re reading this on Live Journal) at www.kateelliott.com

Other search engines like Bing and Yahoo do still find the web site and wordpress blog. We are looking into it but have yet to get a satisfactory response from google.

Meanwhile, I expect to be online less than usual until I complete a draft of Cold Steel. I’m seriously considering a couple of pieces of short fiction in the Spiritwalker world as well to go with the Rory short story, one featuring Rory and one featuring Bee (the tale promised at the end of Cold Fire, in fact).

I do intend to write a series of posts on World Building but I really can’t work on them concertedly until I have a complete draft of Cold Steel in hand.

In the meantime, I don’t intend to post on my blog much until 1) said draft is complete and 2) the google search engine issue is resolved.

However, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. (although honestly I’m not there as often as I have been either due to, you know, needing to write)

Do please feel free to ask me anything, here or on Tumblr or the other social media (although I realize not everyone is on the various social media — no reason anyone should be on any of them). Answering a direct question is generally a little easier than coming up with “dedicated” posts. Also, I’m answering email at kate.elliott at sff.net

I’ll finish with four links to reviews, just because (there are other reviews I would love to link to but I’ll limit myself). Be aware that any or all of these reviews may contain spoilers for those who don’t care for that type of thing.

Beyond Victoriana: A Multicultural Perspective on Steampunk: “Characters with white, brown, and black complexions and curly tight hair, coarse braided hair, and thin hair swept up in lime-washed spikes bring racial diversity to the story.” [I was so very pleased to be reviewed on this blog.]

A one star review of Cold Fire at Fangs for the Fantasy: “The problem is that Elliot never uses 1 or 2 words where she can insert 10.”  [I have to say this is probably the single most consistently seen criticism of my writing throughout my career. I want to note that this is a very thoughtful review by a careful reader, thus proving the adage that just about any review that engages thoughtfully with the material is a “good review” regardless of whether the reviewer ultimately liked or disliked the book.]

Fantasy Book Cafe gives Cold Fire a super positive review so click through at your own risk if you don’t want to feel the love. “Also, Cat can be quite funny (especially when drunk).” [A scene I very much enjoyed writing.]

Finally, this review of Cold Magic/Fire on tumblr has what may be the best “single sentence description of the Spiritwalker books that we can’t quote on the book” ever. It reads best in context.

There’s a part of me that feels it is wrong for me to link to positive mentions of my work like the ones above, as if I am thereby somehow self aggrandizing or bragging or trying to act like I’m better than others or something. This is some of the baggage I carry from growing up as a girl in the 60s and 70s. I’m not quite sure from whence it stems, and I can certainly only speak to my own experience. Partly, it seemed to me that girls were meant to do well but never excel more than boys and certainly if they did excel weren’t ever to say anything of it because it was unseemly and boastful and something one ought to be ashamed of. In fact, there is a little piece of my psyche that feels ashamed (yes: ashamed!) when I read a review like the really fabulous one from Fantasy Book Cafe. This little bit of my psyche rubs alongside the part that is gratified and thrilled by reading a review that gets the things I have been hoping readers will get, as well as the part of the psyche that secretly feels I did a good job and deserve to see some good reviews, as well as the part that is always saying “but I need to do better next time because I can see all the things I did wrong!” We contain multitudes, as the poet said. So me and my multitudes are headed back to work.

My thanks to all of you readers. I mean that quite seriously.

I leave you with this excerpt from Cold Steel:

     When one of Kofi’s brothers appeared escorting Rory and Aunty’s granddaughter Lucretia, I sighed with relief that Rory had made it here safely. Then I saw that he was holding Luce’s hand in a most inappropriately intimate manner, their fingers intertwined like those of a courting couple. I rose, feeling a towering rage coming on that diverted me from my other looming problems.
Rory released Luce’s hand. He sauntered right past me to greet the older women, his smile as bright as the lanterns. With his lithe young man’s body well clad in one of Vai’s fashionable dash jackets and his long black hair pulled back in a braid, he surely delighted the eye. The men watched in astonishment but I knew what was coming. He offered chastely generous kisses to the women’s cheeks and tender pats to their work-worn hands.
“My apologies. I mean no offense by charging in to your territory without an invitation. But I must obey my sister. You understand how it is with a sister who speaks a bit sharply to one even though she is the younger and ought, I should suppose, look up to her older brother. Please, let me thank you. Your hospitality honors and humbles me. The food smells so good. I’m sure I’ve never smelled better. ” He had routed two already and turned to the remaining skeptic. “That fabric is beautifully dyed, and looks very well with your complexion, Aunty.”
A cavalry charge at close quarters could not have demolished their resistance more devastatingly. He turned his charm on the old men, drawing them out with irresistable questions about their proud and memorable youth.

Ways of Struggling with Gender

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YA writer Mette Ivie Harrison writes an excellent post on Gender Masquerades (mostly focusing on the tv show The Mentalist but with wider applicability):

As it is now, any romance between them I think is simply too uncomfortable for a modern American audience which, for all our talk about equality between men and women, still clings to very stereotypical views of what is feminine and what is masculine. I wish that I believed that we would come to accept that labeling certain behaviors as “masculine” or “feminine” is just silly and ultimately confining to both men and women in the real world. We should not choose our behavior based on what is allowable to our gender, but on what is authentic to our feelings and to the person we want others to see us as. All gender, in my view, is in the end, a masquerade.

Her thoughts have a lot of resonance with me and my experience (as does a story she tells from her own childhood) for a number of reasons.

I’ll just mention one, reflecting the current series I’m working on, Spiritwalker (Cold Magic and Cold Fire, with Cold Steel still a-writing). [If you are extremely sensitive about spoilers, the following may be construed to have them in the most general sense.]

One of the elements I’m struggling with in Cold Steel is, as always, the baggage of my youth sliding in unannounced and unheralded to warp what I think I’m trying to do (what I’m actually doing is probably beyond my ability to parse).

I’m a feminist. I’m an athlete. As a child I was what was then called a “tomboy,” which to me means merely that the things I was told were “boy” things, like playing outdoors, climbing trees, being active, and wanting to have adventures, were the things I did and wanted to do.

I try very hard to write stories in which there are as many female characters as male characters, with as much agency and importance in the plot. Yet I often have consciously to go back through later drafts to make sure that my female leads aren’t being more passive than I actually want them to be, aren’t letting others make decisions for them or devise all the cunning plans (unless there is a specific reason because of experience, competencies, or social roles), are showing leadership, and are present as confident individuals with a strong sense of themselves (as long as that is within character).

Yes, even with Cat, who is one of the most forthright characters I have ever written.

Curiously, I had less of this problem with the character Mai, in the Crossroads Trilogy, who is certainly my most stereotyped-gender “feminine” protagonist. In an odd way, this suggests to me that I may have been to some extent unthinkingly “comfortable” with the limitations she and others saw in her role, enough so I was always able to write her as a strong-minded character who grows into her full potential without any unconscious backsliding on my part. One way to describe it is that she fit a role I never did, although I was told often enough by the society around me that it was a role girls ought to want to fit. Obviously Mai’s journey has its own unique path, but regardless, I find that the more I dig down, the more baggage I find.

With Spiritwalker one of the interesting struggles I’ve had is with the American ideal (and I want to be specific here by citing American culture) of the male warrior hero. I’ve written warrior heroes before (Sanglant from Crown of Stars is an example of this type). Andevai is not a warrior hero. He can in some ways be described as essentially a geek. I grant you that he is an extremely competitive young man who takes any assault on his status so personally that he will go out of his way to make sure you know that he is better than you at whatever it was you challenged him at . . . albeit mostly within the context of his expertise, which is cold magic, and almost exclusively in the context of other young men.

Cat is the one with the killer instinct (which I mean literally). When Andevai says, “That is what I want. No killing.” in Cold Fire, does that make him less manly, by these standards? She’s the effective fighter who thinks on her feet. He’s the methodical thinker who prefers to plan everything out. They’re both very physical, by which I mean they both live very much in and think about their bodies, but his physicality is mostly described in the context of his manual labor, his fixation on his appearance, and the mentions of his love of dancing (which culturally for him is a masculine activity) while hers is mostly described in athletic terms, like punching sharks, out-racing soldiers, and playing batey. Her capacity for violence is much higher than his. I keep slamming up against my own knee-jerk reaction that I have to make him more violent lest readers think he is not “masculine” enough while at the same time I deliberately riff on “beauty and the beast” variations to flip these expectations.

I go on about this because I’m trying to understand how these underlying message creep into my ways of struggling with gender in my fiction. I don’t have an answer, nor do I think there really is one except for the constant need to be alert, to be present, to try to keep one’s eyes open and learn and do better. It’s a constant, changing process, just as living is.

Do you struggle with gender issues in your work? Do you struggle with gender issues in work you read? To go back to what Harrison said, where do you find your authenticity?

 

ETA: I want to flag Cora Buhlert’s really excellent post responding to Mette’s post as well as (to a lesser extent) my own.

Hmm, looking at all this I wonder whether the rather rigid gender role pattern in the US (which is a lot more rigid than in Germany) is gradually breaking up.

Rory gets his own story, plus a giveaway

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For months now I have been promising a short story about Rory, Cat’s half brother who is a sabertooth cat.

It is now finished, and you can find it right here on this website by clicking through onto the Extras page. Or by clicking here.

Also, until Dec 17 there is a giveaway on this guest post now up on the excellent book blogging site, BookSmugglers.

I also mention three 2011 books that were among my favorites of the year as part of Book Smugglers’ Smugglivus celebration.

An interview, alternate history, reading, & Anne McCaffrey

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Over at The Ranting Dragon site & forum, an interview with me just went up.

Among other things, I talk about some aspects of the world building of the Spiritwalker books;

Additionally, the legal system in the world is not the same as in ours. There is no English common law here; law is based on a rough amalgamation of Roman civil law, what we know of Celtic law, and some very basic elements drawn from reconstructions of the famous Mali charter called the Kurukan Fuga. I also made an attempt to show family structures as they might have evolved out of different culture traditions. In book two, I try very imperfectly to portray a conception of rights that is more community-based rather than individually-based because of the differing nature of community and relationship in West African and indigenous Native American societies.

I also answer the questions if I prefer to read female writers (over male writers) and why I value diversity in genre fiction. And more! Much more!

I have struggled to think of what I might say about Anne McCaffrey’s work. I read the first Dragonflight trilogy, the Dragonsinger trilogy, the first Crystal Singer book, Restoree, and The Ship Who Sang. If I read other of her books or stories I don’t recall, as the ones I list are the ones that stayed with me. I’ve not re-read them.

It’s really difficult for me to quantify what the books meant to me, harder than I thought it would be because her death has forced me to consider the part her novels played in my development as a writer. I never met Anne McCaffrey, and I never wrote to her. But she is one of the women who made my career possible because she helped forge that path.

These were the books in which girls got to have sfnal adventures. I think it’s easy to ignore how revolutionary they were — but they were.

Inspiration for a novel can come from the strangest places (Spiritwalker)

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Last Friday my sister told me that one of the reasons she liked the Spiritwalker books so much was that the banter reminded her of 30s screwball comedies.

I have to say that this was not a comparison that would have leaped to my mind, nor is it one that had ever occurred to me.

She went on to explain that what she loved about the banter in 30s screwball comedies (and their related cousins, 30s musicals of the kind in which we might see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) is that the banter between the romantic couple highlights the the equality of the pair both in intelligence and strength of will. That sort of banter only works if it is going both ways, and if both characters engage in it in equal measure.

Before Spiritwalker, I would have told you that I could not write fiction that was funny. There may be occasional amusing bits in my other books (some more than others) but mostly my epic fantasy is Big Ticket Serious (and emotional and exciting, one hopes, but nevertheless serious). I can’t pun or write jokes. And I have never possessed the right form of cleverness to write witty fantasy-of-manners type repartee, in which the characters are exceedingly clever and droll.

But I watched a lot of 30s screwball comedy when I was in my 20s because it appealed to me so much, I think because of that sense of equality between the lead couple my sister discussed. Hepburn and Grant, Fred and Ginger: It works because the scripts treat them as equals.

I guess the lesson here is twofold.

One, you never know and cannot predict what readers are going to see in your books.

Two, you never know what is filtering down through the layers of the mind and how or when things will emerge or in what transmuted form.

Will we ever be able to fathom the mystery of how the mind turns experience into story?

Outtake Monday: from Cold Magic

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As an occasional series, I’m going to post outtakes from my novels. These will be paragraphs and snippets that did not make it into the final volume. I will try not to include major spoilers.

Here are some reasons I cut scenes and paragraphs:

1) The world building needed to be trimmed to allow the narrative to focus on character and plot

2) I changed my mind about the direction the scene was taking

3) It is excess verbiage not germane to the forward push of the narrative (see also #1 above)

4) A change elsewhere in the text made the exchange, scene, or description obsolete

5) I just didn’t want it there any more

 

This outtake is from Cold Magic.

Andevai and Cat are bickering by the campfire of the djelimuso Lucia Kante, in the spirit world. I cut this exchange because I decided it wasn’t necessary to move the plot forward, although I like what it reveals about Andevai’s knowledge of the spirit world.

 

    “I could sit right here until winter solstice, and the mansa could not reach me.”

He laughed sharply.  “Could you?  So let me ask you.  How will you know when enough days and weeks have passed that you may safely cross back over?  And while you linger here, how will you eat and drink?”

Those difficulties had not, in fact, occurred to me.  “There’s water in the well.”

“Will you go hunting, and with what instruments?  Eat the carrion these cats pull down, and hope they do not forget themselves and eat you, while they are hungry and blooded?  Will you gather fruits and roots, and hope those you try are not poisonous, as such things are in the spirit world?  That which is beautiful may be deadly, and that which is ugly may be your friend.  How can you tell the difference?  Born and bred in the city as you so obviously are, do you even know how to find food except at the market?  If so, at what markets may you shop?  With what payment will you purchase that which you need to live?  You know nothing about the spirit world.”

“You have made your point.”

NaNoWriMo. Plus signed copies of Spiritwalker books

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I’m going to participate on a parallel track in NaNoWriMo (more on that later) and also try to post something about writing every day in this blog, answering questions I haven’t gotten to yet, discussing world building, or just a short snippet of something I’ve been thinking about regarding the art and craft of writing.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them here, now, or later, or on Twitter or Facebook or via email.

 

FYI: While at World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, I signed copies of both Cold Magic and Cold Fire as well as rare copies of a printed pamphlet version of Bonus Chapter 31.5 (there aren’t many of these). So if you want, contact Mysterious Galaxy Books, Borderlands Books, or Larry Smith Bookseller.

WFC, a signing & meetup in San Diego, Cold Steel

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I’m going to be in San Diego next week for World Fantasy Convention (Oct 27 – 30).

#1  If you’re in the area, I will be at the Open House at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego on Wed 26 Oct from 630 – 830 pm.

This open house is not a WFC convention event. Anyone can attend, & bring books to be signed (do check the policy for how many books you can bring into the store since there will be a number of authors attending and they need to expedite the process). As always, it helps independent bookstores to survive in a difficult economy if you buy a book there as well, but it is not required.

I will have copies of the paper pamphlet version of the Bonus Chapter from COLD FIRE to sign and give away. (Also at the WFC autographing session, mentioned below, and the meetup.)

#2  I am also scheduling a meetup at 3:30 pm on Friday 28 October. Meet outside the Sunshine Deli on the grounds of the WFC hotel, the Town and Country. This is an informal meetup for whomever shows up, and I don’t expect there to be more than a couple people, so it’s really a chance to visit (as compared to the open house at Mysterious Galaxy, which will be crowded). I’ll answer questions, maybe read a snippet from Cold Steel, and we’ll talk writing and books (I’ll sign books if you bring them). This is not a convention event; if you’re in the area and want to come by, just do so (no badge necessary).

#3 My WFC Schedule:

I have one panel: 1 pm Friday 28 October: The Crystal Ceiling: Women in Fantasy, with Charlaine Harris, Malinda Lo, Nancy Kilpatrick, & Jane Kindred. I’m not scheduled for a reading.

Like all authors, I’ll be attending the autographing on Friday night from 8 – 10 pm.

 

#4  As many if not all of you already know, Cold Fire was released last month in trade paperback and ebook (together with the bonus chapter), and Cold Magic is now available in mass market paperback and somewhat less expensive ebook.

A generous reader (from Spain!) has sent me a downloadable mobi version of the Bonus Chapter (done by her spouse) which I will make available soon, but it won’t be until next month just because of my schedule.

I haven’t forgotten about the Rory short story. It’s about 3/4rds done and will be announced here and on Twitter and Facebook when it’s complete.

I’m still at work on Cold Steel, and I will update about progress here when I have more to tell.

Also, a general thank you to my readers for your kind comments here, in email, and on Twitter & Facebook. I genuinely love hearing from you all. Writing is an oddly isolated and isolating activity, and I think it can seem at times that one is writing into a huge silence. Social media has begun to change that: There are good and bad sides to this: Online provides a terrible distraction when one is procrastinating or discouraged, but against that it is possible to interact more widely and all the way around the world. I think that is the coolest thing of all.

News & Appearances (San Diego)

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First, a question: How many of you subscribe to author (email or online) newsletters? Do you like them? Think they’re useful? Have other thoughts on them? If you’re a writer who has one, how is it working for you?

News

1) The bonus chapter for COLD FIRE is available on the Extras page on this site (on my WordPress site, for those reading this on livejournal).

2) I will be attending World Fantasy Convention in San Diego October 27 – 30 this year.

Additionally, I will be part of the Open House (signing) at Mysterious Galaxy Books (San Diego) on Wednesday 26 October from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. You do not have to be a member of the convention to attend. I will have paper-pamphlet copies of the bonus chapter at that event AND at WFC, which I am more than willing to sign and hand over to you.

IF you don’t live in the area or can’t attend, AND you want a signed copy of COLD FIRE (with the bonus chapter included) OR any of my other books, for that matter, I believe you can preorder such a thing through Mysterious Galaxy and they’ll have me sign it there.

Because I’ll be at WFC, I can sign books in the dealers’ room there as well, so you could theoretically contact Borderlands Books or Larry Smith, Bookseller with the same request. They both do mail order.

3) I am working on COLD STEEL. It’s been an extremely difficult book to write, but I am pressing forward in my stubborn way although not without a fair degree of whining to certain of my compatriots who are patient enough to listen.

4) I’m actually fairly close to being done with the Rory short story. Keep bugging me about it. That helps. Or at least it makes me feel even more guilty than I usually do. If I get a reading slot at WFC, I will consider debuting the story there.

Extras in the Spiritwalker world of Cold Fire

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In the USA/North American region, September 26 is the official release day for COLD FIRE, Spiritwalker 2. The print version has been available for about twelve days, but the ebook versions are just being released now as the clock ticks over in the various time zones. (The UK/Aus/NZ version has been out in both print and ebook form since 1 September.)

I have written a bonus chapter for COLD FIRE which takes place during the course of the book but which is not in the published version because the chapter is not written from Cat’s point of view (she otherwise narrates the entire story) and because it contains explicit sexual content. In fact, I believe I have never written any sex scene as explicit as this one is. One might go so far as to call it smut in some circles. And I totally own that.

I wrote it for no other reason than that it wanted to be written. Because it belongs in this story and no where else (it is not a standalone short story nor will it have any emotional resonance for a reader who is not familiar with the narrative and characters), I offer it online for those who are interested.

For those who choose to read it: Enjoy!

Updated to add: I do have pamphlet style paper copies of the chapter, some of which I signed and gave to people who bought copies of the book at the Powells signing on Sept 20 (and who preordered the book from Powells before the signing). I still have a number of the paper pamphlets, and I will be signing them in person for people — my next signing will be at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on Wednesday 26 October during their pre-World Fantasy Convention Open House at the store (open to all!) from 6:30 – 8:30pm. I will also sign some copies for booksellers in the WFC dealers room, and I will post afterward which dealers may have copies of COLD FIRE signed and with the bonus pamphlet.