“The wastepaper basket is the writer’s best friend.”

~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1902 – 1991

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Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish born, American author of novels, short stories, and essays. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.

I do know what he means about the wastepaper basket. One must be willing to write and throw away until one downloads, or distills, the ‘true and right’ story, in which the right words are all in their right order…

Writing Happening: Shutters Closed

…I’ve got the writing shutters up and am beavering to get Malian clear of that endgame setup and into the denouement.

Things *are* getting there, but it’s been a rocky road although I think the overall result will repay having to repair the axle and change a few wheels en route.

Watch this space for a shoutout when we get across that setup/denouement proper line!

And “just in case” you havena already discovered it on the blog, & by way of a “no post mitigation”, here’s a link to a short story, The Brother King, that I have featured on my website:

The Brother King

USA

The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphabetical order, by name, of course!

Currently, we’re in “L”, a most excellent letter in the Haarth world. 😀

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UK/AU/NZ

Liannar:  second-in-command of the Patrol, in the Haarth realm known as the River.

“I’d prefer to assess the situation on the Wall in person, in any case.” Raven was matter-of-fact. “Liannar will continue to command on the River in my absence.”

~ from © Daughter Of Blood: The Wall of Night Book Three, Chapter 38 — Dawn Wind

Yep, it’s definitely that time: 1 August rocked around yesterday and that means I posted Instalment 8 — yes, eight! in the Magic In Fantasy series on Supernatural Underground.

Once again, I’m honing in on books that have really lit a spark with me because of their magic — very often for other reasons, too, but it’s the magic that’s the raison d’etre for this series. 😉

Following last month’s approach, I’m looking at three authors, and also aiming to feature a range of Fantasy subgenres and time periods. That’s so the post and the series is not all about either just “the new” or “only older” works.

Magic in the mix…
Art Credit: PJ Fitzpatrick

This month’s authors are Ursula Le Guin, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and NZ’s own Anna Smaill. To check out why they’ve rocked my Magic in Fantasy world, please do rock on over and check out da post. 😀

More Magic In Fantasy — Lighting The Spark

Recently, I refeatured a 2011 interview with Daniel Abraham, author of The Dagger and Coin fantasy series, and co-author of the science fiction series (both book and television), The Expanse.

In the original interview, Daniel Abraham remarked that “writers are thieves” and I posted a response the very next day. For symmetry, I thought you might be interested in rereading the response and its springboard into influences on my own writing again — so here it is!

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“Writers Are Thieves”—aka Influences on Story: from October 20, 2011

Yesterday, in our interview here, Daniel Abraham said that: “More than [being] readers, writers are thieves.”

Fellow author and friend, Mary Victoria, commented: ” … yes, yes, yes. We use a bit of this and a bit of that. We borrow from each other, from the common store of history and myth. We even raid our own memories … nothing is sacred!”

Of course I had to respond that I preferred the word “magpies” to “thieves” ( 😉 ) but the principle is the same. There was a synergy for me in this discussion, because only the day before I had been at Christchurch’s South library, talking about—amongst other things—influences on my work. Or in other words, about all the treasure trove of ideas, artefacts, and experiences over the years that had caused my magpie self to think: “Shiny!” Or “Bright! Or “Gleamy, and Sheeny, and Glittery!” (I was going to say “sparkly”, but you know, those vampires—just can’t go there.) And then purloin them for my writer’s melting pot—long before I consciously decided to be a writer.

Influences on my own work

I’ve talked about influences on story before and you can check out the collected posts here. The thievery Daniel Abraham referred to yesterday was of those elements of literature that delight you a reader—and promptly want in your own stories. And as I said in my Influences of Story post on February 3rd, other writing is undoubtedly an influence on any writer’s development. Diving into the vast sargasso sea of literature always sparks ideas and ‘what ifs’, and on February 3 I showed how this process might work using the example of Hilaire Belloc’s poem, Tarantella.

Other sources for magpie gleaning that I mentioned in my library talk included:

• Fairytales, folk stories, myths and legends. By way of example I discussed Thornspell as a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale from the perspective of the prince, and also how I drew on the Parsifal cycle to inform the backdrop of the story. I also spoke of the way in which The Heir of Night was influenced by the classic stories of Greek and Norse myth.

• History—has always informed my work, as in the Renaissance era, Holy Roman Empire influence on the world building in Thornspell, or the way in which Heir draws on history’s social, cultural, and economic conflicts, both within societies as well as between nations.

• The space programme, astronomy, and the environment—all influenced my love of science fiction.

• Narrative Poetry—you just can’t beat it: from those great classics The Iliad and The Odyssey, and the medieval Morte d’Arthur, but also the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the late Middle Ages, and Spenser’s Faerie Queene or Milton’s Paradise Lost from the early modern period.

• Sense of Place—another influence that I have discussed in two recent posts, here and here, and also last year, here. And of course sense of place also ties into awareness of environment again.

• And then there’s music, dance, opening up the newspaper … And as Mary so rightly pointed out, our own life experiences to be mined if so desired.

Life, the universe and everything, it seems, are a dragon’s hoard, and writers the thieves turning over this gem and that jewel, searching for the elusive Arkenstone …

Dragon’s hoards

So how about you? Are there particular writing elements that spin your wheels as a reader? Or that strongly influence you as a writer? Where do you draw your inspiration?

& songbirds as harbingers…

Two weeks ago, I posted on some of the reasons I enjoy reading older and downright old books. The reason I don’t often pass by firsthand, nonfiction accounts of war and wartime experience, bears on Reason 3 of that post (historical perspective) — but may also count as its own reason. In short, because I’m currently writing heroic fantasy, with war at the heart of its subject matter, I am always interested to read the real, lived experience of soldiers, operatives and spies, and civilians.

If I have gleaned one consistent theme from such reading it’s that, by and large, war is not heroic. It’s brutal, banal, messy, muddled, and chaotic, but very rarely heroic. When heroism does occur, it’s very often understated and/or so matter-of-fact that it’s easy to miss.

All of which is consistent with my reading of Maquis. In terms of context, the author, George Millar (1910 – 2005) was a British soldier who escaped from a German POW camp and made it back to the UK, then parachuted into France with the SOE in 1944 to operate behind enemy lines. He was highly decorated, receiving the DSO, the Military Cross, the Légion d’Honneur, and the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes.

Maquis is Millar’s firsthand account of his experience organising and working with the French Resistance, known as the Maquis. The work Millar undertook was helping organize local resistance cells, training the resistance volunteers in sabotage (which the Germans apparently called terrorism), particularly explosives, and organising and leading sabotage missions. Although first published in 1945 and successful then, the edition I read was from 1956 and not so highly redacted in terms of wartime sensitivities and secrets.

The book is very readable and insightful, but not at all heroic. If anything, it’s the opposite. Although the brutality, banality, mess, muddle, and not infrequent chaos are present, I would not call it a bleak or “grimdark” read. If anything, the accounts are matter-of-fact and one of the aspects that leap out is the degree of mistakes, carelessness, and outright folly that both resistance and operatives get away with. Except when they don’t, of course—and another element that is quite clear, albeit as subtext, is that of luck in eluding capture and death.

Beyond being a firsthand account, the character portraits of those George Millar meets and works with, either directly or indirectly, are part of what makes Maquis an interesting read. As regards Millar himself, while at the heart of the narrative he doesn’t indulge in boasting or bravado. He is clearly coolheaded and also something of a maverick, but not so much so that he can’t work with others or take orders when required.

Another, reasonably strong impression that comes through is that he wasn’t driven by emotion, particularly retribution (in fact he seems to perceive it as often – but not always – counterproductive) and so can express respect for the Germans, despite being the enemy, where their conduct merits it, as well as for his maquisard allies.

If firsthand accounts of war experience are of interest, then I believe Maquis will prove a worthwhile read. Similar narratives include The White Mouse by Nancy Wake, Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean, and Popski’s Private Army by Vladimir Peniakoff.

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Previous “Reading Older Books” Posts:

• Reading Older Books
• Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
• Amazons II Anthology
• Reasons For Reading Old & Older Books

News from the Wall…     Credit: PJ Fitzpatrick

I’m really pleased to let you know that as of as of last Friday I reached what is effectively the cusp between the endgame setup and the denouement of the WALL series!

I am pretty sure that I’m currently still writing the last of the endgame set up, rather than the beginning of the final denouement – but being on the cusp means that the two are rather blurring into each other at this point. 😉

As part of that process, I’m also having to rejig some earlier material to fit. Before I forget what adjustments are required, as forgetting always means a great deal of head scratching, if not outright cursing, later on: O-o!

Anyway, that’s the news and it’s tracking in the right direction: huzza!

Meanwhile…

I shall continue writing, writing, of course and closing the gap on “the end.” And with the “Inside the Writing Life” posts between updates.

Remember, too, that if you are looking for updates, the places to check are:

“About My Books” & “About What I’m Doing” (under Categories in the far-right-hand sidebar)

The “Inside the Writing Life” posts may also feature under “About Writing”, as well as “About What I’m Doing.”

And thank you, as always, for checking in. 🙂

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic began my thoughts have often turned to WALL series readers, wherever you may be in the world—a concern that has increased, pretty much matching the extent to which the Delta variant has taken, and/or is taking, hold

A 2020 lockdown walk — & no one else there…

In some cases, I know a little of your personal circumstances because you’ve shared something of them with me via social. In others, I know where you live (in a ‘country’ sense, that is—because no, I don’t stalk readers on the internet!) and that in several cases those countries are being hard hit by Covid. In the great majority of cases, though, I will never know anything of WALL series readers or their/your lives—and that is not only completely fine 😉 but under more normal circumstances none of the above would be especially comment worthy.

Putting up the shutters on public contact — but still writing.

With Covid-19, though, we are not living through “normal times.” I know, too, that Covid has probably already affected all of you in innumerable ways. Although I can imagine and empathise based on news reports, as well as my own circumstances (while remaining keenly aware of my very privileged position here in NZ), I can never completely understand others’ lived experience of the pandemic or know the full extent of what you may be enduring.

Reporting from inside that naturally self-isolating writing life

Nonetheless, I wanted to say “out loud” that although this is a book blog and I am (clearly!) not an epidemiologist or public health practitioner, just because I stick, largely, to my bookish “knitting”, does not mean that I am not concerned for your wellbeing or the global situation. I am concerned, very much so, and actively endeavour to stay abreast of what’s happening globally, and consequently for you all personally.

The writing life in less isolated times

Some of the circumstances I’m familiar with include readers of all ages with underlying health conditions that render them particularly vulnerable to Covid 19; those in high contact / high risk occupations whose partners or immediate family members have equally high risk conditions; once healthy individuals who have been hit hard by the debilitating effects of Long Covid; and people resident in NZ who have lost both family members and friends to Covid in their countries-of-origin.

Far or near, you’re on my mind

I am sure there are many other stories as challenging and potentially devastating, and also that there is no catchphrase or bromide that I can “trot out” by way of a palliative. The reason I stick to the “bookish knitting” is not indifference, but because it is something I can do – definitely not at the epidemiological or public health end of the spectrum, but in the hopes of offering a positive (albeit very small – perhaps even infinitesimally small!) respite from everyday realities.

Hoping for light ahead, for all of us.

If it helps in any way to share your situation here, then please know that you are always very welcome to do so. Otherwise, to borrow an adage, please “be careful out there”* – and if possible, let’s keep trying to take care for others, as well as ourselves.

* “Allegedly”, the original adage is Amish: “Be careful out there, among the English” – or words to like effect, as reproduced in the (classic!) 1985 film, Witness. 😀

~*~

In the spirit of small positives—or what I hope will prove positive, however infinitesimally so—just a headsup that I’ll have a The Chaos Gate, The Wall Of Night work-in-progress update for you on Thursday. 🙂

Onward, onward!

In my 1 July, Magic Systems In Fantasy post on the Supernatural Underground, I discussed three works of Fantasy fiction, across the sweep of the genre, that impressed me in terms of their magic system. One of those works was A Shadow In Summer and the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham.

Daniel Abraham is possibly better known now as one half of  James S.A. Corey (the other half of the duo is Ty Franck), writer of The Expanse science fiction series that generated The Expanse TV series.

Nonetheless he is also a Fantasy author and awa’ back in 2011 I interviewed him about his then new The Dagger and Coin series, and the first book, The Dragon’s Path.

So in keeping with my May 31 promise, on the 11^th anniversary of the blog, to revisit posts from the backlist on a semiregular (and at least monthly) basis, today I’m refeaturing that interview with Daniel Abraham.

Enjoy. 🙂

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An Interview with Daniel Abraham, Author of “The Dragon’s Path” — from 19 October, 2011

Last year I was alerted to US author Daniel Abraham and The Long Price Quartet by the review site Risingshadow.net. I found the series intriguing, but also realized that I was late to the party: the series had been completed in 2009, but never distributed in New Zealand. So I was delighted to learn that Daniel Abraham had a new Fantasy series, The Dagger and The Coin, being published this year and that it would be released here. The first novel in the new series, The Dragon’s Path, is recently out in the bookshops and I seized the opportunity to talk with Daniel Abraham about it.

Helen: The Dragon’s Path is the first in a new series, titled The Dagger and The Coin—can you give readers an idea of what its about?

Daniel: It’s an epic fantasy series that borrows as much from Dorothy Dunnett as it does from Tolkien. It’s about war and banking, love and truth and murder and dragons.

Helen: In what way “Dorothy Dunnet”?

Daniel: Dorothy Dunnett is one of the underappreciated masters of historical fiction and, frankly, fantasy. She and Tim Parks were the people who convinced me that medieval banking was a powerfully cool thing. Plus which, I’ve read her House of Niccolo books through more times than almost anything else I own.

Helen: Do you agree that it’s fair to describe The Dagger’s Path as classic epic fantasy, with elements such as a medieval world, the legacy of a long ago past reawakening, a journey—the title reference to dragons even! What drew you to this very traditional, storytelling form?

Daniel: The first epic fantasy series I wrote – The Long Price Quartet – was built to be unlike anything else I’d seen in the genre. A different setting, an unfamiliar structure, and a story that wasn’t the usual at all. I’m very pleased with how those books came out. And having been there, I wanted to come back to the things that are the core strengths of epic fantasy and see how the lessons I learned out there on the borders of the genre could apply to those issues and concerns. That sounds a little pretentious now that I say it out loud. I was drawn to it because it’s what made me fall in love with the genre as a reader, and I wanted to come home to that.

Helen: Is there any sense in which you feel the story you are telling subverts the formula, either subtly or openly?

Daniel: Probably there is. I’ve taken out the traditional farm boy chosen of prophecy and put in a girl raised by a medieval bank, which is hardly the standard. And I’ve certainly taken a different perspective on the traditional dark lord. But subverting? I don’t know.

I’m sceptical of subversion for subversion’s sake. I think that there’s a real pressure to subvert the genre out of a sense of almost shame. It can be like a pre-emptive apology. I’ve done things that are different, but I’ve done them in an effort to reach the same places and effects, so I don’t think of it as subversive.

Helen: Could you expand a little more on how you feel that you’ve taken a different perspective on the traditional dark lord?

Daniel: A few years back, I was at a convention with Tim Powers. He was on a panel, and I was listening. He said that he didn’t just want his villains defeated. He wanted them humiliated and destroyed. I don’t. I want my villains understood and, if possible, forgiven. The Dagger and the Coin has its dark lord, and his rise to power and the things that come from that are central to the book. But he isn’t the kind of faceless “I’m evil because that’s what it says in the script” inhuman force that you have in Sauron. He’s sympathetic. You like him. You see the joy he takes in things, and the fear that drives him, and the pettiness. I think most evil isn’t pure, any more than most good.

Helen: Writers are also readers—so what are the elements that “spin your wheels” when reading fantasy? How do you approach incorporating them into your own writing?

Daniel: More than readers, writers are thieves. I was very careful planning this series to take all the things about fantasy that spun my wheels and put them in there. Epic fantasy is, I think, a genre about war and – in the best ones – an ambivalence about war. There are plenty of fantasies that are triumphalist, but the ones that really last are frankly melancholy. The Lord of the Rings was a massive epic fantasy about disarmament and the cost war has on the individual. A Song of Ice and Fire is among other things an essay on the futility of war. The aspect that I’ve taken in The Dagger and the Coin is the way that the story of a war, be it propaganda or history, outstrips the war itself. That’s at the large scale. The thing that I find myself going back to in books that I love are the characters. So I’ve peopled these books with characters I like spending time with. But I suppose that’s true in any genre.

Helen: So which are the characters in The Dragon’s Path that you most enjoy spending time with? And why?

Daniel: I like them all. I’d better. But for different reasons. I like Marcus Wester because he has so many of the good lines. I like Cithrin because she gets to think about economics and power and how you set prices and sell dresses and things that I actually find really involving. I like Dawson because he is so utterly opposed to everything I personally believe and he’s so much in love with his wife that I like him anyway. I like Geder Palliako because he’s a kind of character that I find wholly challenging. And there’s Clara. I’ve written a whole book since Dragon’s Path, so I’ve been able to spend a great deal of time with her, and she’s probably my favorite. For the moment at least.

Helen: One thing that impressed me in your earlier series, The Long Price Quartet, was how well you wrote women characters. Amat Kyaan and Idaan Machi particularly stand out for me but there are many more. So I couldn’t help noticing that in terms of major characters there is really only one, Cithrin, in The Dagger’s Path. It sounds as though Clara’s going to come into it more, but in this book she’s still very much a bit part. Was this approach a conscious decision on your part, or in some way driven by the plot?

Daniel: Clara Kalliam is one of those main characters who actually has a relatively small role in the first book, which is always tricky with these long, multi-volume stories. She is a tremendously important and central character, too, but you won’t see her as much until King’s Blood. Then from there on out, there are about as many primary women characters as there are men. That was intentional.

For secondary characters, I actually didn’t want Cithrin surrounded by very many women. I hadn’t thought about this until you asked, but part of what makes her story interesting to me is the sense of vulnerability and isolation growing into strength and community. We’re still in the first part of the series, so the vulnerability and isolation are more in the mix here.

One thing that’s interesting about these books that I didn’t consciously plan was the number of dead mothers. Two of the major characters – the two major characters really – lost their mothers very young, and in both cases I see that loss forming who they are.

Helen: In what way, “the loss forming who they are” with the two main characters—can you expand on that more?

Daniel: Cithrin is the girl at the center of the bank, and the thing that makes her individual and fascinating is the way she analyzes everything in economic terms. Where other people grew up with parents, she had a merchant and a manipulator. And what he gave her wasn’t love, it was an understanding of negotiation, gamesmanship, and trade. I think if she’d had a mother to take as a model, she’d have been an utterly different person.

Geder Palliako had a father growing up, but not one who was particularly nurturing. I see him as someone who, if he’d been loved a little more, might have developed more of a soul. Geder and Cithrin suffered the same kind of absences when they were kids, and I think it deformed them in similar ways.

Helen: So far, The Dagger and The Coin series is quite different in ‘feel’ to The Long Price Quartet. Do you see yourself trying something different again once this series is complete or would you like to continue with epic fantasy?

Daniel: It feels like every book I write is there to help build the tools for the book after it. What I’d really like to do after The Dagger and the Coin books are done is take what they teach me about accessibility and pacing and the strength at the core of epic fantasy and combine them with the unfamiliarity and strangeness of The Long Price books to make a single-volume story. I’ve told one story in four books. This one will be in five. I would love to use the things I’ve learned from them to write something that’s almost distilled. I don’t know what that book is yet, and I won’t for a few years, but I’m a little excited about it already.

Helen: Daniel, having read both the Long Price books and now The Dragon’s Path, I am very much looking forward to it, too—although with three books yet to write in The Dagger and The Coin series, I suspect I may have to “bide a wee” yet! In the meantime, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview—it’s been fun and I am sure readers will enjoy the insight into your book and series as much as I have.

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About the Author:

Daniel Abraham is the author of the critically acclaimed Long Price Quartet. He has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, and won the International Horror Guild Award. He also writes as MLN Hanover and (with Ty Franck) as James S. A. Corey. He lives in New Mexico.

Currently I’m doing a post series where I report back on books on the “older to old” spectrum that I’ve read recently. Note: There are no really old (pre 19th century) or really, really old (think Xenophon’s Anabasis) books in the mix, so essentially they’re all “modern” works.

Yes, by implication I am calling 19th century works, e.g. Austen, Dickens, Eliot et al) “modern”, my argument being that they fit the criterion in terms of the “novel” format and their “sensibility”, which is still very accessible to modern readers.

Anyway, not to get sidetracked into categorizing books by age, the books I’ve been reading lately are all published from 1945 onward. So not that old in terms of the history of literature but certainly not on the new or recent publications shelves of either book shops or libraries.

So far I’ve only posted on two books from my eclectic (aka no rhyme, reason, or method to the reading process beyond interest and availability) list, but I thought I’d share some of the reasons why I read older books, especially when there are so many new books out there.

Reason the First: There are some great reads out there that may not have made the “classics” list but are still enjoyable reads, so I would be depriving myself from experiencing their goodness if I restricted myself to reading and posting on new books only.

Reason the Second: As with all the arts (and pretty much everything people do, for that matter) writing has its seasons and its fashions. Reading older books is a great way of gaining perspective on the ways writers have rocked readers’ worlds in the past, as well as what maybe didn’t work so well, or might not in today’s world. All of which is grist for the writer’s mill. 😉

Reason the Third: As a history geek (pretty much) I am always interested in where we’ve come from and what we’ve thought and done before as ‘uman beings, cultures, and societies. Reading books from earlier eras offers a window into how people thought and what concerned them, and their own take/takes on the events of their era. I value that insight, which sometimes (but not always) offers perspective on contemporary concerns and events.

Reason the Fourth: While non fiction  may offer more rigorous insights in terms of Reason the Third, sometimes fiction can be equally if not more fascinating. Last year, for example, I discussed Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions and how aspects of the book were eerily prescient of current concerns (over two posts, hence the two links — probably best read sequentially.)

Yet even lighter reading can offer considerable insight from a socio-cultural perspective. An example I often cite in this respect is Mary Stewart’s Wildfire at Midnight (1956), which was set in 1953, with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascent of Mt Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary as the backdrop that frames the story. The story is a romantic thriller set in a remote fishing lodge on the Island of Skye, so reasonably light fare but well written and well told, as Mary Stewart’s books always are.

Reading it, several social history aspects really leapt out at me. Firstly, absolutely everybody smokes as  a matter of course. Also, it’s illegal to fish on a Sunday, which I believe many contemporary readers would struggle to get their heads around. And it was clearly not at all respectable to be a paperback writer, although the said individual in this case was a surprisingly reasonable person given his socially below-par occupation… 😀 (Note: I should clarify, this is the narrator’s summation of his occupation and character, not mine.)

Anyway, these are just a few of the reasons I read older books, other than just to enjoy a greater variety of stories and storytelling techniques.

The next book I’m likely to feature will be Maquis, a nonfiction work first published in 1945.