Shay D.

Some news:

1 - Reminder that my story "Baggage Check" is elibigle for various best short story awards this year.

If you like it, please consider giving it a spot on your ballot.

2 - Fierce Family is now available, and contains my story "Come Away to the Water."

15 exhilarating stories of QUILTBAG families experiencing adventure, disaster, and triumph make up Fierce Family. They are families of any constellation: all sizes and configurations, families of choice as well as families by birth. They are caring and connected – when outside conflict arises, they come together to defend and aid one another. Fiercely, and without hesitation.

3 - I'm going to attempt updating my WordPress blog, such as it is. You can find it over here: Life's An Open Book.

Sabrina Vourvoulias tagged me for this "The Next Big Thing - Work in Progress" chain-blog thing, so here it is. Of course, I'm also breaking the chain, so the wrath of the WIP gods (who do not exist) may rain down upon me. So be it.

Before I start rambling, I will say, do go and read Sabrina's blog post, and her novel Ink. It is one of the best books I've read in the past year.

Without further ado, my answers to 10 questions about a future book or a book that I'm currently working on.


1. What is the working title of your next book?

The short version is just Carnival. The long version is The Carnival That Straddles Worlds.

It was supposed to be a short story. Then it was supposed to be a novella. Now it's more than 38k, and the ending will probably take more than 2k, so I guess it's busting out into short novel range. At least until a serious round of edits pull it back.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

It was prompted by the Cool Bits Story Generator.

The prompt was: Your narrative is a supernatural thriller. It begins in other worlds. There is sex against a wall and a carny who meets an androgynous girl. It ends with candy.

A friend added the following commentary: This is a gritty, weird thriller about a carnival that straddles the worlds.

And the idea crawled into my hind-brain and wouldn't go away.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Fantasy is probably closest, with elements of horror. It's not exactly a thriller, despite the original idea.

(There likely won't be sex against a wall, either. At least not in the 'on-screen' version. I have a feeling it'll get pegged as YA and that just won't fly.)

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I'm not familiar enough with any child actors to cast Tif and Nate. And despite having a couple of weeks to think about it, I have failed to come up with actors for The Lady and the Owner. Hmm. Check back later?

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

To borrow part of my friend's phrasing:

This is a gritty, weird thriller about a carnival that straddles worlds, the people who inhabit it, and the children who become lost in it.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Don't know for sure yet, but probably neither of those. If I can convince it to be a novella, there are some magazines and/or small presses that might consider it.

7. How long did/will it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

The sad truth is that I started it in 2007, and it's still not quite done. I really want to finish the first full draft by the end of this year.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don't really know what to compare it to. I worry that people might compare it to The Night Circus, even though it's not even remotely similar in my mind.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The prompt was the initial inspiration, and then the encouragement of my friends/alpha-readers on LJ/DW kept the words going (albeit slowly...).

10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

It's an adventure story for gender-queer kids, and for those adults who wish they could have been more out than they were while growing up.

[A note about my panel notes - I jot down the things I find interesting, not necessarily with the connecting thoughts or any concern for flow. Sometimes things are quoted verbatim; sometimes paraphrased - I'm not good at noting the difference.]

Magic in the Big City
With its banality and cynicism, what does it take to make magic become a reality in a modern city? The challenges to writing about the supernatural in a metropolis are many, but they are not insurmountable. In fact, there are many reasons a city is the ideal setting for magical happenings. Join our panelists and learn how they take magic to the streets.
Jim Butcher, Lesley Livingston (m), Kelley Armstrong

( Read more... )

[A note about my panel notes - I jot down the things I find interesting, not necessarily with the connecting thoughts or any concern for flow. Sometimes things are quoted verbatim; sometimes paraphrased - I'm not good at noting the difference.]

Alternate Canadian Histories
What if the Vikings had successfully settled Atlantic Canada? What if Louis XV had kept Quebec in the Treaty of Paris in 1763? What if the war of 1812 had a different outcome? Or if the Red River Rebellion had resulted in an independent republic of Assiniboia? What would our country look like today? This panel examines the options.
Eric Choi, Matthew Johnson, Neil Jamison-Williams (m)

( Read more... )

I'll be at Ad Astra this weekend (Sat-Sun). Work has been so insane that I haven't done more than a first pass look over the schedule. I don't know where I'll be when. But I'll be there (weather and TTC willing).

I also found some notes from Arisia in the notebook that got soaked by a leaky water bottle, so I should see about typing those up sometime.

Panels and What Not

Thursday
5pm - The Fantasy of the Wilderness
8pm - Music Hath Charms (And Terrors)
9pm - Our Monsters, Our Selves

Friday
9am - Gothic: We Can't Define It, But We Know It When We See It
10-1030am - YA UF
1030-11am - Reading: Jude-Marie Green (MENIAL author) + Sandra Odell
11am - Defining Urban Fantasy
12noon - They Call Me the Wanderer

3pm - Bibliofantasies
5pm - New Twists on Accepted Myths

9pm-? Room parties

Saturday
12noon - The Real World in Fantastic Fiction
1pm - The Changeling
2-4pm - FISH party

dinner, Pacific Mall

9pm - Reading: Barbara Krasnoff (not there)
- room parties

Sunday
10am - Maps in Fantasy Literature
11am - Reality Made Fantastic, or Fantasy Made Real

Well, it's official: my micro fic did not make the cut for AE Micro 3.

Disappointed, of course, but since I like my story, I am forced to do that writerly thing that I have not yet attempted: re-submit it elsewhere.

On the other hand, very happy to see AE's other news: they're now an SFWA qualifying market.

Ad Astra is this weekend. I stopped in today during their open house hours (11am - 1pm free admission), to catch up with some folks. One friend couldn't make it at all due to crazy life business, but I did chat with Adam Israel and Beverly Bambury.

I also sat in on the Criticism and Critique in the 21st Century panel, which has inspired me to at least round up the long (for me) list of things I've read since acquiring my Kobo Touch.

( To the list, with commentary, even! )

Back around the beginning of December, a poster with detachable tabs appeared in the kitchen at work. You know the kind: they get stuck on lamp posts and mailboxes outdoors, advertising everything from dog-walking services to bootie boot camp. Tear off the tab with the phone number, and hope you remember what it's for.

Well. These tabs had lightsabers on them. Unfortunately, I didn't snap a pic of the poster, because I figured it was a one-off. But I did snag a lightsaber.

At some point, that poster disappeared, and was replaced by this one: ( It's dangerous to go alone... )

So of course I had to grab one of those, too.

Then came this one: ( Here. You'll need this. )

... for some reason, I forgot to grab a towel. I know, I know! What was I thinking?

But I figured it was okay when ( Morpheus turned up... )

The red pill was more my style, I consoled myself. You didn't need a towel in the matrix.

Finally, the week before Christmas, ( this appeared: )

At first I snerked. Then I debated the implications and pondered the intent. Finally, I took my lightsaber, LoZ sword, and red pill,



wrote my name on the back, and dropped them in the pouch.

Vacation. During which many things happened, including an 8h visit to the emergency vet on Christmas Day. (Everybody's fine.)

Yesterday, I worked from home. Today, I came in to the office to water the plants, and discovered ( this on my desk: )

I love this job. I really do. :)

(Consider this an intro to a series of posts that won't get written (because I'm not a blogger): Needs a Fucking Plaque!)


Last weekend, while walking to #SFContario, I counted historical plaques. There were five that I could see from the street: two English and one French in front of Jarvis Collegiate, one on the pillar of Blake House, and another on St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church at the corner of Jarvis and Carlton. (I always expect there to be one at the National Ballet School, but I haven't spotted it yet.)

Ten minute walk; five historical plaques.

And they were all rather boring.

But this is the problem with historical plaques, right? They commemorate something in the briefest of notes, and thus lose all the really meaty interesting bits.

Toronto is not a boring city, as the Toronto Dreams Project Historical Ephemera Blog and Torontoist's Historicist posts prove, but these are the stories that are not the ones you find even in plaque-size bites.

Take, for instance, this story about bears (er, the animals, that is, not the kind you find over at Church & Welly): it reveals that Bay Street was originally called Bear Street, and:

A little bit west of Bay Street, a bear found its way into a horse pasture. The two badass horses inside, Bonaparte and Jefferson, killed it with their bare hooves.

Those horse? Need a fucking plaque. Seriously. Just think about it - you're strolling around the financial district and you happen to spot a plaque that tells you how two badass horses killed a bear on this very site. Wouldn't you tell your friends? I'm betting you would, because it's that kind of quirky, easy to remember story.

Or how about this one, about the Circus Riot in 1855 (excerpt from a larger post):

A few weeks later came the Circus Riot—the most ridiculous riot in the history of the city. It was the firefighters, again, who started the trouble when they—get this—burned down a visiting circus after some clowns cut in line at a King Street brothel. The police watched it all happen, did nothing, and again found their memories to be mysteriously unreliable when the time came to testify in court.

Needs a fucking plaque, right?

I could go on, but I would mostly just be cribbing the cool bits from the Toronto Dreams Project blog, so you might as well just go over there and read through the archives.

(Posters, with QR codes on them, would be the perfect way to do citizen-commemoration of events that need a fucking plaque, I think. But I don't think I'm likely to make it happen.)

So. What's happened in your city that needs a fucking plaque?