Yep, as I acknowledged on the Supernatural underground on December 1 it’s that time of year again — you know, when we look back on the year-that-(almost)-was, reflect on what we did/did not achieve, and make lists: best book, best movie, top experience… I could go on but I’m sure you all know the drill. 😉

So, on the Supernatural Underground I reflected on five highlights from my writing year. If you’re keen to know what they are, then just head on over by clicking on:

5 Highlights Of My 2016

However, this is very much a books, reading, and genre blog as well as a “writer’s blog” so I aim to get into the seasonal spirit by reprising my “avid reader” guest post series from last year in the run up to Christmas and January 31.

Paul Weimer

Two of last year’s three guests will be returning with their “Top 5 Reads” of 2016, starting with Paul Weimer on this Thursday, 8 December. If you want to read Paul’s Top 5 post from last year, click on:

An Avid Reader Special: Paul Weimer’s Top 5 Reads Of 2015

Karen McMillan

Karen McMillan will also be returning with her Top 5 books for this year — and her last year’s post is here:

An Avid Reader Special: Karen McMillan’s Top 5 Reads Of 2015

Rebecca Fisher

I’m sure regular readers all remember Rebecca Fisher of Big Worlds On Small Screens fame. Although Rebecca has been taking a sabbatical from Big Worlds On Small Screens, she will return (huzza!) with a guest spot on her Top 5 viewing experiences for the year.

All fun stuff and I will keep you posted with  further fun alerts as events arise. 🙂

Meanwhile, be careful out there in the season, not only of lists but of end of year events.

—

NB: The brief is that the featured books or shows have to have been read or viewed in 2016, not necessarily created this year.

Introduction:

Deborah Sheldon is a professional writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in well-respected magazines such as Quadrant, Island, Aurealis, Midnight Echo, SQ Mag, and Tincture Journal. Her work is also found in various anthologies. Upcoming titles include the crime-noir novellas, Dark Waters and Ronnie and Rita, the horror collection, Perfect Little Stitches and other stories, and the contemporary crime novel, Garland Cove Heist. Other writing credits include television scripts such as Neighbours, stage plays, magazine articles, award-winning medical writing, and non-fiction books for Reed Books and Random House Australia.

Deborah also has a new-out Horror novel, Devil Dragon,  from Severed Press and I’m very please to be able to host her here today, sharing some of the worldbuilding aspects of the story.

Welcome, Deborah.

—

Worldbuilding In Devil Dragon

by Deborah Sheldon

My novel, Devil Dragon, is built around its setting, the Australian bush. The story is about Dr Erin Harris, a scientist who has an unscientific obsession: to find a living Varanus priscus. This giant Australian reptile, which cryptozoologists call the Devil dragon, became extinct some 12,000 years ago but, like Bigfoot or Nessie, there are occasional sightings. Spurred by a credible witness, Erin cobbles together an expedition party consisting of herself, the witness, and his deer-hunting neighbours. They travel into the unexplored heart of a national park. Erin, believing the Devil dragon to be a larger version of the Komodo, is confident she can outwit a specimen. However, the monster that lumbers out of the bush is a savage and unpredictable predator the size of a campervan. To escape, Erin must transform herself from genteel university lecturer to die-hard survivalist.

Devil Dragon required the most intensive world-building of any fiction I’ve written so far. The plotting and research tended to occur side by side, with each one informing the other. For example, I discovered that Australia’s state and national parks teem with feral animals, which led me to include an action sequence that I would otherwise not have imagined. The characters use a range of firearms. Since I’m not a shooter myself, this took me on another in-depth research bender, which then prompted new plot points and fresh character conflicts.

By late 2014, I had decided that the bulk of the novel would take place on an escarpment. There, Erin and the members of her expedition party try to lure a Devil dragon with baits. However, Google Images can only take an author so far; I needed to stand atop an actual escarpment to feed my imagination. That Christmas, my family and I took a holiday to north-eastern Victoria so I could ‘location scout’ for Devil Dragon. We drove to the very top of Mt Buller, a mountain in the Victorian alps of the Great Dividing Range. With one glimpse at the view, my fictitious escarpment came alive in my mind’s eye, and I could ‘see’ the expedition party’s campsite.

Imagery from the peak of Mt Buller infuses my novel:

“Cautiously, she approached the edge.

She had expected a sheer drop in a straight line to the ground. The cartoon cliché of a cliff, she realised, chiding herself. Instead, there was a long, gentle gradient comprised of granite boulders. The boulders were colossal, the size of houses, and stacked together higgledy-piggledy as if a careless giant had thrown them by the handful. Jammed into every fissure and crevice along that wide and deep gradient were plants: eucalypts, shrubs, grasses, even lichen wedged within the tiniest of cracks. At the sweeping hem of the escarpment lay a sea of trees. Beyond that, hazy and blue on the horizon, sat a long line of hills that resembled ocean waves caught in freeze-frame.”

I had the most fun creating the Devil dragon itself. Palaeontologists don’t know much about the actual Varanus priscus, but believe it was related to the modern-day Komodo dragon. I was free to conjure up my own terrifying version… a thrilling prospect, although I had to make this reptile seem genuine.

I used a variety of world-building techniques. Firstly, I embedded the animal within a vividly described and ordinary world, spending weeks researching the flora, fauna and geology of south-eastern Australian bushland. Secondly, to keep my monster realistic and credible, I immersed myself in Komodo dragon biology and behaviour, and consulted with various herpetologists. This allowed me to develop consistent ‘rules’: how does the dragon look, move, sound, smell, act, hunt, eat? Lastly, on a family trip to Darwin in 2015, I spent time observing live crocodiles, both in zoos and during river cruises. And I touched every piece of tanned crocodile skin I could find. These first-hand experiences fuelled my imagination and helped me to dream up the gruesome, ferocious details I needed to complete my monstrous creation.

—

To find out more abut Deborah and her writing, you can find her on:

https://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/Deborah-Sheldon-936388749723500/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3312459.Deborah_Sheldon

I know that I promised a week (or two!) of book reports and we’re already into week three (!!!) with two books left to go (on which I have yet to share my terribly important thoughts. 😉 )

However, writing feedback on books read is hard work, I find, especially when “the new, the new” has already arrived on the TBR table. In this case, the book is quite special because it has come from my own lead editor—the wonderful, the amazing—Kate Nintzel who  wrote:

“I really loved [this book]…Katherine’s agent sent me this galley and I’m sending it to you because I think you’ll love it too!”

Well, what can a reader, let alone a writer, do? Put the book on the top of the TBR pile and post a Just Arrived on the blog, that’s what—and why the heck not!

From looking at the back cover, The Bear And The Nightingale appears to be a retelling of Russian fairytales (which already tells me that I must draw this book to the attention of Rebecca Fisher—of Big Worlds and Small Screens—as well, since she loves fairytale retellings.) Here’s what the blurb says:

“In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift – a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.“

The Bear And The Nightingale is author Katherine Arden’s debut novel, which will be published on 17 January, 2017 — so you see, I’m getting in ahead of the curve. 🙂

Driftwood

Rime of salt on hair and jacket, hands cold

as mist along the water’s edge, hazing

the boundary between sea and land to smoke

smudged shadow, pampas fronds dipping

low over ocean-darkened sand, and castaway

wood rolled up onto this solitary shore,

only to be dragged home as arcane sculpture,

a giant stick insect on the lawn, or cut up

for logs that burn with a silvery flare,

ghost memory of days spent in the half-world

between sea and strand, all lost now

in a fiery shower of sparks — ascending.
.

(c) Helen Lowe

Published in Yellow Moon 18, Summer 2005

—

Yesterday was #GivingTuesday so I had to defer the usual poem until today — when I’m back on track with another poem focused around the recent theme of “the sea.”

Driftwood is one of my older poems, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
.

Prior ‘Sea’ Poems include:

“The Sea” by Tim Jones

“Dover Beach” (Excerpt) by Matthew Arnold

“Breathing You In” by David Gregory

“We are more than half water” by Helen Rickerby

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“The Seafarer” Excerpt from the Anglo Saxon poem (Anonymous)

Two Short Poems by Bernadette Hall

“The woman who swims with jellyfish” by Janice Freegard

“the rough sea” — a haiku by Matsuo Bashō

“beachcombing” — a haiku by Helen Lowe

Burnside High School’s (pre-European settlement) Cabbage trees

I know, I know, I’ve been banging on about Christchurch’s Heritage & Notable Trees and my support for the Give A Little, that’s supported the team, that’s supported the trees, for the best part of a year — on and off, anyway!

But the long and the short of it is that Give A Little (as supported by the Spark Foundation) are having a Giving Tuesday — so I thought I should put out the word one more time for the trees, for the team, and for the Give A  Little.

Lime Avenue, planted ca. 1932

Mainly because although Team Trees have hung in there and done sterling work for the trees and the landscape character of the Garden City (aka Christchurch) there’s still a wee way to go on the Give A Little.

So it would be wonderful if “..on Anything, Really” readers could “get in behind” and support the cause:

• with a #GivingTuesday donation to the Save Christchurch’s Heritage Trees campaign if you have not given already;

and if you have by

• 

  Pohutakawa, Sumner

  spreading the word via your own website or social media platform

Here’s a suggested message:

I support #GivingTuesday & the Give-A-Little for Christchurch’s Heritage trees https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/saveheritagetrees If you can, please give a little, too

The photos included in this are all of Christchurch’s heritage and notable trees — please feel free to use them to accompany your #GivingTuesday message.

Awesome, high five!* 🙂

—

Northern Rata

Stanmore (Hadfield’s) Elm

Variegated Elm

Copper Beech, Christchurch Arts Centre

.
.
* My favourite quote from Fredrik Brounéous’s  The Prince of Soul & The Lighthouse 
(Steam Press, 2012)

PS I'll have something poetic for you tomorrow: promise! ;-)

On Friday of this week (Friday 2nd, December — gulp!) I am delighted to host Australian SFF writer Deborah Sheldon to the blog.

Deborah will guest post on the inspiration behind her newly released novel, Devil Dragon (Severed Press), with  a particular focus on worldbuilding — something fun for the “…on Anything, Really” SFF crowd. 🙂

In the meantime, here’s  a little bit about Deborah herself, by way of an early introduction:

Deborah Sheldon is a professional writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in well-respected magazines such as Quadrant, Island, Aurealis, Midnight Echo, SQ Mag, and Tincture Journal. Her work is also found in various anthologies. Upcoming titles include the crime-noir novellas, Dark Waters and Ronnie and Rita, the horror collection, Perfect Little Stitches and other stories, and the contemporary crime novel, Garland Cove Heist. Other writing credits include television scripts such as Neighbours, stage plays, magazine articles, award-winning medical writing, and non-fiction books for Reed Books and Random House Australia.

You can find out more about Deborah by visiting her sites:

https://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/Deborah-Sheldon-936388749723500/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3312459.Deborah_Sheldon

Otherwise, see y’all back here on Friday. 😉

It’s that season…

Thanksgiving is not a festival we celebrate in New Zealand; it is after all, a celebration that is uniquely…well, I was going to say American, but I understand Canadians celebrate it, too, so perhaps I should say North American—while recognising that Mexico is also part of North America and Thanksgiving is not a Mexican festival (as far as I know.)

Gosh, it gets complicated doesn’t it!! 😉

However, to get back on track, I have been thinking about Thanksgiving and everything I’ve read about it over the years and see on social (media) now. In many ways it seems to be (or have become ?– those more familiar with it may know) a mirror-image festival for Christmas, with the same or very similar focus on togetherness with family and friends.

Or perhaps it’s that Christmas has become more like Thanksgiving? Family, friends, and community do seem like the core of any festival of giving thanks, after all. Especially right now in NZ—following the recent 7.8 earthquake which again did so much damage in towns like Kaikoura, Waiau, Seddon, and to a lesser extent Hanmer and Wellington—I am very mindful that family, friends, and community are at the core of our personal and social wellbeing.

So I can see why even people outside of the US and Canada appreciate the Thanksgiving idea in that respect. Things like a roof over one’s head and food on the table are also very much part of the mix.

Going beyond that and taking general stock, there are other things I would write on my own personal Thanksgiving black–or white–board.

The gift of writing stories…

One of these, and definitely something that’s well up the list, is the gift of storytelling: that the stories and characters are there with me all the time, that I have the ability to write them down, and that other people out there enjoy reading them, too — all of which adds up to a considerable privilege, really.

Taking “time out” to remind myself of the love of storytelling and writing, as well as the privilege of having readers, is important, too, in order to consciously reconnect with the good in what I do—which like any other aspect of life can have its ups and downs.

All of which makes me think there may just be something in this whole Thanksgiving festival malarkey… 😉

It feels weird to say this when it still feels very much like 2016, but the Ockham NZ Book Awards’ longlist for 2017 has just come out.

When I saw the list I did a wee Snoopy dance because my friend Frankie McMillan’s My Mother and The Hungarians is on it!

Frankie and HUNGARIANS are in the hunt for the Ockham Award for fiction; they’re in pretty fine company, too, including Love As A Stranger by Owen Marshall (who was my mentor in the NZ Society of Authors Mentorship Programme in 2005. )

One interesting thing about My Mother and The Hungarians is that it’s a collection of flash fiction (I think that’s 500 words or less — very short stories indeed, at any rate) so it will be interesting to see how it fares against the novel-length works.

Personally, I think it has a very good chance of making the short list so now I shall just have to wait and see whether the judges agree, a wait I suspect will be far less nerve-wracking for me than for all the longlisted authors!

I featured an excerpt from My Mother and the Hungarians here on August 23. To read it, click on:

The house on Holloway Street

A friend loaned me The Outcast from her bookshelf because I said I felt like  a break from SFF (Which I do read a lot if, it being my genre, so to speak.)

She thought I might enjoy it and she was right, I did. The Outcast is about 1950s, middle class, semi-rural England. In particular, it’s about a boy, Lewis, whose mother drowns in a tragic accident which only he witnesses. The Outcast explores the consequences of this traumatic event for ten-year-old Lewis, consequences that are exacerbated because his father is emotionally withdrawn (perhaps as a result of serving in WW2, but perhaps not — this aspect is not really explored in the book) and also jealous of his son’s closeness to his mother.

The second major character in the book is Kit, the daughter of a neighbouring family who carries a torch for Lewis from a very young age. She is also on the receiving end of her father’s physical violence, a violence that the family conceals from the rest of their small community.

Although promoted as a novel that explores the stultifying social and family mores of the 1950s, I thought the The Outcast was more a character study of the profound and enduring effect tragedy has on Lewis, shaping his transition from child to young man. His story is juxtaposed against a society that, although narrow, is still recognizable in terms of the tendency to judge on scanty information and happily speculate where no sound information is available.

I also particularly liked Kit’s character. Although the victim of domestic violence she nonetheless actively resists giving in to victimhood, chiefly through strength of personality and a fierce intellect.

The Outcast is not a plotless story, but its strength and focus is the indepth exploration of its characters and their motivations. In the sense that they remain true to character throughout, I am not sure they can be said to develop in a literary sense — but they do feel very real.

The Outcast was Sadie Jones’ debut novel. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, it won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008.

Additional Information:

As mentioned, I read my friend’s copy of The Outcast, which was the mass market edition published by Vintage in 2008.

beachcombing
along the boulder bank
sandshoe, bottles, watering can

© Helen Lowe

—

Recently, I’ve been focusing on poetry themed around the sea, including haiku. This is one of mine, from 2014, when I spent several months in a remote coastal location, finishing Daughter of Blood.

Prior ‘Sea’ Poems include:

“The Sea” by Tim Jones

“Dover Beach” (Excerpt) by Matthew Arnold

“Breathing You In” by David Gregory

“We are more than half water” by Helen Rickerby

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“The Seafarer” Excerpt from the Anglo Saxon poem (Anonymous)

Two Short Poems by Bernadette Hall

“The woman who swims with jellyfish” by Janice Freegard

“the rough sea” — a haiku by Matsuo Bashō