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When Worlds Collide: Diversity in Fiction vs Drumpf

March 4, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

I see two major conversation streams in my world converging here: Diversity in fiction, and our current political circus.

Diversity in fiction is about many things, but one of those is that it allows us to experience lives unlike our own, and through that experience gain a deeper understanding of people who are different from ourselves, and the ability to empathize with other experiences. This applies across all media.

Perhaps if we had more popular media that shared an honest view of the Mexican immigrant experience, for example, we might not have a demagogue winning votes by promising to build a giant wall and kick people out of the country, or playing on other racial and religious fears.

Not saying diversity in fiction is THE solution to any problem, but this is just one example of why I feel diversity in media is actually important not just for any specific group who see themselves continuously ignored or badly stereotyped in media, not just for those who are marginalized or persecuted in society, but for everyone. Because we are all in this together — at least until we find a way to teleport to our own planet where we can mess it up however we want without affecting others.

Category: diversity, politics, writing / Tags: personal, politics, writing

Finn Fancy Love Time: Ticking Clock Edition

February 15, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free comes out February 16th. This is a really critical and exciting time for the series! I hope you’ll join in the fun.

“So, this is your apartment? Nice. Where can I slip into something more comfortable?”

“Right over there, in the door past that copy of Finn Fancy Necromancy. Oh my gosh, have you read it? It’s REALLY exciting and funny an — uh, like you. I’ll get the wine.”

Why do I give this fine example of Finn Fancy love? Well, if you think it might be cool for the series to continue past book 3, continue reading.

This IS the book you’re looking for!

The Finn Fancy series is not in trouble, but it has reached its first critical test. Whether or not Tor wants to publish more Finn Fancy books will likely be based on sales of book 1 and pre-sales/ sales of book 2 (Bigfootloose) over the next couple of weeks. Just because that’s how the industry works.

What this is: Me asking you to take a few minutes to support Finn Fancy if you’ve read and enjoyed it, OR if dark and quirky contemporary fantasy is something that interests you and you MIGHT read it someday. Or if you are just feeling generous toward me and want to support my dream, I suppose.

So if you DO want to help guarantee more Finn Fancy books, here’s what you can do, in rough order from most impact to least. I’ve tried to make it easy:

Category: Books and Ebooks, Finn Fancy, writing / Tags: books, Finn Fancy, writing

On “City on Fire” and Mocking Bad Writing

January 22, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

In my social media feed, a lot of people were sharing this post about City on Fire, a book with sentences so bad they are funny (much like entries into the Bulwer-Lytton “Dark and Stormy Night” contest but not intentionally so).

I laughed. Then I learned about the author, and the history of the book.

I think we can learn a lot from this example, but not just about bad sentences.

City on Fire

WHEN I FIRST READ THE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SENTENCES:

First, yes, these sentences are pretty bad. As in, this is a master class in bad sentences. I think an annotated version of this list that breaks down just why each is so bad would be very helpful for writers.

The examples range from pretty common writer errors like:

“But that was where the drawing ended. Below was just white space.” The problem here is stating something so redundant and obvious that it becomes ridiculous. So we can take this, and learn from it to make sure, for example, you don’t write something like “His heart beat in his chest,” because if you are human, where else would it be beating?

To a wide range of other issues as in these examples:

“Just then, a horripilating Scaramouche appeared at her elbow.”

“Breasts like bronzed mangoes.”

In fact, there appears to be a lot of bad breast descriptions in the book.

HOWEVER:

Category: Personal, writing / Tags: personal, writing

The Benefits of a Con Where Few People Came

January 17, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

Rustycon 2016 lights out

When the lights went out in the room due to the lack of bodies, we had to laugh.

I was a panelist at Rustycon this weekend, a lovely small local con run by very dedicated and passionate volunteers. Unfortunately, several factors led to smaller than expected turnout — horrible Friday weather and traffic, every other person in the State apparently having the flu, and a Seahawks game on Sunday among them. As a result, my panels all had two to five attendees. The Guest of Honor’s had maybe fifteen. I was lucky enough to have a handful of people at my reading, but several writers had nobody show.

I’m glad I went.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been crazy busy of late, essentially three-full-time-jobs level busy. So there are those who might question whether a con where only a handful of people attended my panels might be seen as a “waste of time.”

But here’s why I don’t feel it was:

Category: Conventions, Personal, writing / Tags: conventions, personal, writing

The Fate of Grimdark the Grimdarian and the Rise of Shiny Fantasy

January 13, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

Like most people I think, I read by both taste and mood. Sort of like how I eat. Or make lo — uh, make the food I eat.

While I enjoy dark fantasy and so-called “grimdark” (official term and sponsor of the 2000’s Stuff Nobody Agrees What the Official Term Should Be For-athon), it feels like heavy lifting to me, as it is often filled with a sense of hopelessness, of fear, of pain, etc. that, even when cut with the occasional moment of joy, can still feel draining to read (at least for me). I have to take my dark in small doses, like absinthe, or Carrot Top, or the awareness of my inevitable death.

Swallow My Darkness!!!

Don’t get me wrong. I think that Shakespeare guy has a real future with those crazy dark tragedies of his. And when done well, “grimdark” can be satisfying reading in the sense that you feel these complex and sometimes uncomfortable emotions evoked by the work, and feel rewarded for that heavy lifting. It also is able to explore deep and difficult themes and subjects in a more focused way than other fantasy, topics such as the darker side of human nature, moral ambiguity, torture, the origins of cruelty, etc.

In the words of that wise bard Trent Reznor, “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.”

Category: fantasy, writing / Tags: fantasy, Finn Fancy, writing

Con Jobs January Edition

January 5, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

I’ll be teaching a 90 minute workshop at Radcon in February, and before that on a number of panels at Rustycon at the end of January! Come hang out with me and exchange thoughts on the joys and challenges of writing. There are limited seats for the workshop, but both the workshop and of course the panels are free if you’re registered for the relevant convention.

goonies

The Goonies look on in amazement as Randy reads from his novel

FOOLSCAP WRITING WORKSHOP – LEVEL UP AS A WRITER

Friday, February 5, 2016, 1:30 pm

This “kitchen sink” presentation will cover everything from beginning writer mistakes to advanced plotting techniques, and the common evolutionary stages many writers go through from aspiring writer to published pro. Whatever stage you are at, you will hopefully learn something to help you level up as a writer. With handouts! And exercises! But not the sweaty kind of exercises.

Note that this is just one part of an all day writing workshop with additional classes by Cory Skerry (Writing In and About a Diverse World) and Jennifer Brozek (Planning a Book Series).

To Register: http://www.foolscap.org/workshops/

RUSTYCON PANELS – JAN 15-17, 2016

What I Would Have Liked to Know? (Fri Jan 15 4:00 PM)

Tips from pros. What we really would have liked to know when we started out. Things that we would have liked to have someone tell us 30 years that would have made a world of difference to where we are now.

Elizabeth Guizzetti Jeremy Zimmerman Kelli Stasi, Randy Henderson

Category: Conventions, writing / Tags: conventions, readings, writing

Setting Your Goals for 2016

January 2, 2016 / Randy Henderson / One comment

Happy New Year!

Rather than simply share events from my past year, I thought I’d again offer a bit of encouragement and advice to help with the coming year. While this is aimed primarily at my fellow writers, the same advice can also, I think, be applied to most any goal or creative pursuit, and to life in general.

This weekend, I encourage you to sit down and do three things:

1) Create a calendar/schedule for your goals and tasks.

2) Create, or update, your list of goals and tasks.

3) BELIEVE, and do what makes you happy.

Category: Personal, writing / Tags: personal, writing

Fun Little AMA on /r/Fantasy

August 26, 2015 / Randy Henderson / No comments

While at Sasquan, I sat at the /r/Fantasy table for a bit and participated in a live AMA (Ask Me Anything). It was short, but I had a lot of fun with it, as is obvious from my answers 🙂

Here’s the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/3hwhal/sasquan_ama_melting_your_face_off_randy_henderson/

Category: humor, writing / Tags: humor, writing

WHY I MIGHT NOT BUY YOUR BOOK BUT I LOVE THAT YOU WROTE IT!

August 13, 2015 / Randy Henderson / 5 comments

My social media feeds are chock-a-block full of posts from writers promoting the books they’ve written and published or had published.

I just want to pause a minute and point out why this is actually frakking AWESOME! And say how AWESOME all of you writers and artists and creators are. And what an awesome and wonderful time we live in! And no, I’m not (just) high on caffeine and sugar right now!

And now, I’m going to get deep for a sec to explain why I think you’re all awesome.

Category: Personal, writing / Tags: personal, writing

Write-a-Thon and Sammy Story Excerpt

July 26, 2015 / Randy Henderson / No comments

All, I have been shamefully neglectful in asking for donation to the Clarion West write-a-thon. Please, go to the website and donate a little something. It supports the creation of a wonderful diversity of amazing future authors. And I’m offering a prize. And now, a snippet from a Finn Fancy-related short story I’ve been writing during the write-a-thon, featuring Finn’s sister Sammy and set in 2003:

Sammy paced the small waiting room between the small sofa and the wall-mounted television, less than eager to confront Bishop Freedom. A unicorn posing as a televangelist. What a frakked up world she lived in.

Of course they had the TV going full volume, the power cord inaccessible and the control panel apparently super-glued shut. Sammy watched Freedom strutting about on stage with his white hair helmet and perfectly even smile.

“… again, what is the greater sin?” Bishop Freedom demanded. “To allow a condom, or to allow easily preventable disease and death? What is the greater sin, to …”

It annoyed Sammy to the point of pissed-offedness that Bishop Freedom used arguments she actually agreed with, given that his true motives were hardly noble.
Sammy pulled out her Palm Pilot, slid an infrared beamer into the SD slot, programmed the PDA as a remote and shut the damn TV off.

It wasn’t that she disagreed with his message, but rather his motives. Unicorns, witches and several other feybloods were well known for feeding somehow on virgins, but less known was that women who’d simply never gotten preggers served them nearly as well. Something about conception, not to mention STDs, changed whatever energy in a woman such creatures fed upon. And two things that had been proven to cause a hell of a lot of pregnancy and disease were bans on contraception, and telling a bunch of horny teenagers to “just say no”. So of course Bishop Freedom condemned the religions and politics that promoted such frakked up policies, but he didn’t do so because they were morally wrong or bass-ackwards in their thinking, and certainly not out of concern for the women; he did so because they screwed with his food source.

Category: Clarion West, Finn Fancy, writing / Tags: clarion west, Finn Fancy, writing

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