How Millie’s cover art came to be…
© Millie Ho
Over on Millie Ho‘s site she shares a few insights into the process of creating the cover illustration for The Everywhen Angels. Please do visit and show your appreciation.
Marie Marshall
Author. Poet. Editor.
Category: fantasy
December 10, 2013
‘The Everywhen Angels’ is now published!
My second novel, The Everywhen Angels, is now published!
Image © Millie Ho
It has taken some time for me to realise this particular ambition, but at last my second novel – my first specifically written for younger readers – is now published. It’s available in eBook format direct from the publisher at present, but as soon as it becomes available elsewhere I’ll let you all know. The timing is pretty good, as you can buy it to top up someone’s electronic stocking this Christmas.
A few years ago I was having a lively discussion with a bunch of on-line friends who were all devoted fans of a certain Scottish author and her growing series of books about a boy-wizard. I have to confess that I was being less than charitable, and the argument was getting circular (They’re not well-written – That’s because they’re for kids – But you’re reading them and you’re adults – That’s because they’re great! – But they’re not well-written…). Eventually they told me that as I styled myself an author, I should either write a fantasy set in a school and make it at least as good as one of my compatriot’s novels, or I should shut up. Well you know me, I don’t shut up that easily, so I buckled down and wrote the book. It was tried out on the thirteen-year-old daughter of a friend; the deal was that the daughter would do her homework and tidy her room, and the mum would read one chapter aloud to her every evening. Well, never has homework been so assiduously completed and never has a room been tidier. I realised I had a hit on my hands. The next task would be to convince a publisher.
The manuscript did the rounds. Head of Zeus showed interest in it but eventually declined it, at which point it was snapped up by P’kaboo, who had already published my first novel Lupa. Although P’kaboo is a comparatively small publisher, the feeling one gets from having a novel published commercially – twice! – is very pleasant. I’m not knocking successful self-publishing – that’s now an established thing with its own degree of satisfaction – but to be taken on by a publisher because they have faith in your writing does feel very special indeed. As regular readers here will know, the cover illustration was provided by Millie Ho. I’m hoping that this will mark the first of several collaborations with Millie, who is very gifted at putting ideas into images.
So what next for The Everywhen Angels? Well, of course we – P’kaboo and I – are hoping for sales. And of course I’m looking forward to reviews and to readers’ comments, from which I will quote here.
Some more publication news came my way today. The Milk of Female Kindness is subtitled ‘An Anthology of Honest Motherhood’. Edited and published by Kasia James, it is a collection of prose and poetry on the subject of motherhood. The title is a quotation from Woolf’s Orlando. I’m pleased to say that I provided three poems for the anthology and also contributed a little ‘editorial consultancy’ work towards it. I have therefore had the opportunity to read through it already, and I have to say it is an exceptional collection. Some of the writers are known to me, most are not, and all have views on motherhood which do not necessarily reflect the image at first conjured up by the word. It is available on Createspace and I recommend it highly.
Also today I was paying a visit to the excellent blog of San Snoek-Brown, and I found his list of recommended books for the coming holiday season. Sam has amassed a big haul of books by writers he knows, one way or another, and whose work he seems only too happy to draw to readers’ attention. My poetry collection from earlier this year, I am not a fish, is included in his list. Thank you, Sam!
It is no heavy obligation for me to reciprocate. As regular readers here will know, I’ve been raving about Sam’s fiction ever since I first came across it. So please accept my recommendation of his chapbook of short fiction Boxcutters, available from Sunnyoutside.
November 5, 2013
The Vampires are coming! The Vampires are coming!
I have finished the first rough draft of my teen vampire novella. It’s a trashy blast of steam-goth that ricochets from action-episode to action-episode. it’s unashamedly derivative, paying intertextual teeth-service to the whole vampire genre. Basically, there are only two plots in teen-vamp fiction: plot one is the vampire-as-misunderstood-teenager going steady with the girl from school (think Stephenie Meyer); plot two is the fearless, teenage vampire-killer (think Joss Whedon’s Buffy). Mine is plot two, with a little of the misunderstood teenager thrown in for good luck. I don’t pretend it’s going to be great literature (OMG, I’m channeling JKR!), but I do hope it’s going to be fun. I think its greatest asset is its total implausibility. I wrote it more quickly than I have ever written anything of comparable size.
The next stage is some preliminary proof-reading, and for that I will be roping in a friend or two. After that, it’s going to be sent to the publisher who asked me if I could write a teen vamp story.
I wonder if I will want to get back to serious fiction. I still have notes for at least one novel, along with some trial chapters. It had been giving me a great deal of trouble, and so I was really glad of the light relief of charging head on at this trashy novella. Let’s see if I’m back in the proverbial groove. If not, never mind – faithful readers will be glad to know that my second novel, The Everywhen Angels, is due for publication before Christmas, and hopefully will be available for your stocking via Amazon. Stay tuned.
October 1, 2013
100 free ebook copies of ‘Lupa’!
That’s an offer you can’t refuse. For a limited time, and in a limited amount, my novel Lupa will be available as a free ebook, along with Lyz Russo’s futuristic adventure The Mystery of the Solar Wind, Douglas Pearce’s weirdly witty Almost Dead in Suburbia, and Leslie Hyla Winton Noble’s Tabika for younger readers. There are no strings, but you are invited to take part in round two of the P’kaboo Facebook Share Contest. Step one of round two is reading the book of your choice (all four, if you wish!) and writing a review. Read all about this on Lyz Russo’s blog, or just go direct to P’kaboo’s online bookshop and download any of the books from there.
September 16, 2013
Demons and Angels
A few days ago I asked you this question: What well-known character in children’s fiction is known in Chinese as Fú Dìmó? I had many interesting answers either as comments or tweets, some of which are contained in the montage below – including the correct character, which nobody guessed. Have a look at the montage, and see if you can spot the correct character. I’ll reveal the answer below.
I’m guessing that you had no trouble identifying each of the characters in the montage. Each answer was imaginative, even if Fu Manchu and the cast of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stretched the idea of ‘children’s fiction’ a little far. Whoever guessed Harry Potter probably got the closest, but still ‘no cigar’.
The correct answer is… Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter canon. You could have spotted the phonetic similarity between ‘Voldemort’ and ‘Fú Dìmó’. It might have been easier to spot if the translators had gone with their first idea, and had used a character ‘Fo’ instead of ‘Fu’. However ‘Fo’ can have associations with Buddha, and that might not have seemed appropriate for such a villainous character as Voldemort. It has been pointed out that the etymology of the name ‘Voldemort’ suggests ‘wish of death’. This fact reminds me of the difficulty of translating literary texts (I have done a little translating, mainly between French and English, and I briefly worked with the late Vera Rich, proof-reading an unfinished translation from Belarusian to English). JKR’s translators went for a phonetic rendering with an appropriately sinister meaning, rather than taking a meaning from the etymology of the original.
Anyhow, thank you to everyone who played the game with me.
That takes care of today’s demon. Now what about tomorrow’s angels? Just a quick update on The Everywhen Angels, my soon-to-be-published novel. We have completed the major editing stage and are now looking at the first full draft, with our eyes open for any missed typos and new glitches. I received this comment from the publisher’s editor, himself no mean novelist: “… the book is something special. The characterisation is convincing. The narrative is entertaining and gripping, but at the same time shows a wealth of knowledge and research and introduces challenging food for thought on abstract matters…” That is quite something for a YA book. We’re still waiting for cover art, but hopefully the book will be out well before Christmas and in time for the publisher’s schools promotion.
More news as I get it.
August 29, 2013
Corner of Bourbon and Dumaine
The corner of Bourbon and Dumaine in New Orleans is where you’ll find the famous Clover Grill. I’ve never been there, but then I’ve never been to Baku, Uppsala, Rome, or Harlem, and that hasn’t stopped me writing about those places, either realistically or as fantasy versions of themselves. ‘Plain Jane $3.99’ is one of my handful of New Orleans poems. It appeared in my first book of poetry, Naked in the Sea, which you can still buy. Just a couple of days ago a friend and fan, resident of New Orleans (and, I have to say, the person most responsible for making me write about her city) decided it would be cool to record herself and others reading my poetry aloud, and in particular the New Orleans poems. The first step was a recording of ‘Plain Jane 3.99’, which you can hear by clicking on either the street sign above, or the book cover to the left, or by following this link. There’s a smattering of adult language – you’ll have heard far worse – but if you like this recording, pass on the link, particularly if you’re in N’awlins or know someone who is. If and when any other poems become available I’ll let you know.
Meanwhile, I know you’re all wanting to know how the teen-vamp novel is coming. Patience. You’re also going to have to be patient about my second novel The Everywhen Angels, which is due out soon, and about The Phoenix rising from the Ashes (the anthology of sonnets for which I am Deputy Editor). I’ll let you know as soon as something happens. Meanwhile, how would you like the chance to get a free e-book copy of my first novel Lupa? The first step would be to enter the P’kaboo Facebook Share Contest and hopefully, having followed the instructions, to ‘Like’ my novel on Facebook. Go for it.
August 22, 2013
“Can you write a teen-vampire novel for us?”
If you scroll down through this blog section of my web site, clicking on the older posts as you go (a worthwhile exercise, by the way, as there is some interesting reading there), you’ll come across occasional news updates of whatever my ‘latest project’ happens to be. So what happens to them? Where are the finished products? In most cases they simply aren’t. Finished, I mean. Many of them are little better than ‘good ideas’. Other things get in the way – editorial work, judging a competition, work, food, sleep, and so on. Mainly they run out of steam, or I run out of commitment, and I know that is a personal flaw – ‘successful authors’ don’t have this flaw, if you believe their soundbites. But I feel every project was worth starting, just to see if it would work, just to see if it would carry me along.
Anyhow, now that my second novel, The Everywhen Angels, is about to be published, I have been wondering why it has been so hard to complete a third. And then I was asked “Can you write a teen-vampire novel for us?” That’s as near as damn-it a commission! My instant answer was “Yes. No. Maybe.”
To tackle this I would need to re-think my daily schedule. I have been lazy when it comes to writing. I don’t do what good writers are ‘supposed’ to do, which is to spend a fixed time each day writing. I would have to re-commit to that. I would have to shelve the two novels-in-progress that I have. That wouldn’t be shelving much, I have to confess, because they are in the doldrums anyway; but as I shelved one to write the other and now would be shelving both, well that wouldn’t do much for my confidence in finishing the third. I would have to start turning down requests for my editorial expertise; I wouldn’t be able to start any other projects, I would simply have to focus on this. Then the teen-vampire genre has been flogged as near to death as the undead can be, and is lying there waiting for a stake to be driven through its heart. Stephenie Meyer has seen to that. Is there anything left to say? Is there an unused plot? Is there an unexplored twist, an unusual angle? You can see why I said “Yes. No. Maybe.”
However, it just so happens that I have a pottle of notes, fragments, poems, and short stories about a vampire hunter. Could something be reconstructed from these shards? Let’s see if I can bang a stake in without hitting my thumb, or anyone else’s…
August 17, 2013
‘My life as a coble’, and other things
Poetry Life & Times has published a poem of mine, ‘My life as a coble’. You can read it here. A coble, by the way, is a clinker-built boat common to the east coast of the UK, particularly Yorkshire; its construction is thought to come down directly from the techniques used to build Viking longships.
Meanwhile, P’kaboo Publishers have taken on my second novel, The Everywhen Angels. More news later, including some possible promotional events.
May 22, 2013
Before Fifty Shades: ‘The Dying Slave’.
It almost seems strange to be saying this, but there was life, and lifestyle, before Fifty Shades of Grey, and it made its way into literature. Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs was published over 140 years ago. For some time before I became a ‘legit’ (what does that even mean?) author and poet I wrote about love, sex, domination, and the areas where they did and did not overlap. I wrote the vignette below in a deliberately-mannered and sentimental style, to reflect the formality that often exists within Dominant/submissive relationships; the era in which it is set is not mentioned, but it could belong to any time…
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“I have made her as comfortable as I can.” These had been the doctor’s parting words to Greta. Now Greta sat by Leonora’s bedside as the late afternoon sun struck aslant at the covers, through half-closed curtains. The room was almost silent. Outside, absurdly cheerful birds were twittering, oblivious to the sadness inside, where the only sound was the quiet rasping of Leonora’s breath.
“I do not have long,” said Leonora, very quietly. “I know this, Mistress.”
Greta reached out and took her hand, surprised by the strength of the grip she felt. Looking at Leonora’s face, her eyes met the dying woman’s, and held, and locked. She was surprised how bright they were, how much love and happiness they seemed to contain at this time. Leonora was smiling. Greta forced herself to smile in return, though she felt her heart was breaking.
“You will be fine, darling. Very soon you will be well and strong, and you will leave that bed. We’ll take our walks together again, and do all the things we love doing. And just call me Greta for now – there is no need for formality.” To herself she thought, “Why do we always say these absurd things to those whom we love, while life is slipping away? We know they are dying, they know they are dying, and yet we toss bright phrases about as if they are suffering from nothing worse than a slight migraine. Can we not bear the truth, even though we all know it?” She refocused on the sweet, submissive woman in the bed – the loving one who was slipping away from her – and fought hard to keep her composure. It did not break.
At the admonishment to drop her Mistress’s formal title, Leonora shook her head weakly, but with some vehemence. “Please, Mistress, I beg you not to deprive me of that – not now, please. I could not bear it, Mistress.”
There was something bold, almost forward in this petition. Greta’s thoughts rolled back through the decades to the time that Leonora had first come to her. By mutual consent Greta had offered her protection and command, and Leonora had offered herself. Her enthusiasm for being a submissive woman to Greta’s need to dominate had been tempered with a little hesitancy at first, but often the enthusiasm had got the better of her, and she had blundered into many a transgression, for which Greta had not been slow to chastise her pet. Now Greta sat, looking down at Leonora, wondering if she had been domineering rather than dominating, cruel rather than magnificent. But all she could see in Leonora’s eyes was love and devotion. If her slave had ever felt hard-done-by, she did not show it now. She showed only the faithful adoration that Greta had become so used to over the years. Leonora’s willingness to be led down any path of experience had surprised Greta, but to Leonora it had simply been a duty she had been resigned to – no, not resigned, one to which she had come singing with joy. Step by step her Mistress’s will had become second nature to her, as vital as food and drink, and as air, and she had learned to obey almost unbidden, knowing and anticipating Greta’s wishes, reading her needs, and submitting herself to them.
Now it was to end. That perfection of love was to wink out in an instant, a bare moment which seemed to be racing upon the two women as they faced each other now. Greta struggled to find the words she needed to say. In her mind, after all this time, were doubts about the life they had chosen. She asked herself, “What great things might Leonora have done, if she had been free?” And in an unspoken, inner dialogue she seemed to hear Leonora talking back to her, telling her how she had blossomed as a singer, as and artist, as a whole person, in Greta’s service, and how wonderful it had all been.
“Dear Leonora,” said Greta finally. “If I have never succeeded in telling you how grateful I am for your lifelong gift of yourself, please let the action I am about to take be an explanation. Darling, all those years ago you gave yourself to me unreservedly. Today, all debts are cancelled, all pledges redeemed. I give you the only gift I can – yourself. You are free.”
As Greta spoke, Leonora tugged urgently at her hand, in a way that she would hitherto not have dared.
“…And my parting gift is to return yours to you. I wish to die belonging to you, Mistress. It is all I have ever wanted – to serve you all the days of my life, right until my death. I am your slave for life, for my whole life.”
The grip on Greta’s hand was a little weaker now. The tugging seemed to have sapped Leonora of much of her strength.
“Very well, little one,” said Greta, using a term of endearment she had not used to Leonora in a long time. “It is my pleasure to grant your wish. I remain your Mistress to the end, and you my slave. But know this…”
Greta bent low, kissed her slave on the forehead, and the lips, feeling as she did so the barely-perceptible breath on her cheek.
“…in Paradise there is no slavery. In Paradise you will stand by my side as my eternal wife, and only as that. Even you cannot go against a law made in heaven. Be peaceful, my darling little one, be peaceful…” Greta’s commanding voice fell away, and she simply sat, holding Leonora’s hand, looking at the silent devotion and love in her eyes.
She sat and looked into those eyes until all the devotion and love had finally faded away, along with all other light and lustre, and all that was left was the eyes. Leonora’s breath had stilled to nothing, she was free, and her hand lay gently in that of her earthly Mistress.
That was the moment – when she was finally alone – that Greta surrendered her life-long dignity. She bowed her frame over her dead love and, as the birds sang with incessant merriness outside, she wept.
December 23, 2012
Review – ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 2012, dir. Peter Jackson, New Line / Wingnut / MGM.
Reviewed by Marie Marshall
Film poster presumed (c) MGM, reproduced under ‘fair use’.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – or, as I have been calling it lately, Lord of the Rings: The Phantom Menace. Those of you familiar with prequels will appreciate what I’m driving at. There are problems with making prequels, and this film suffers from them all. Let me say straight away that it is nonetheless watchable. There are some good reasons for going to see it.
Good reason No.1 – you have a crush on Cate Blanchett or Hugo Weaver (and who could possibly blame you!).
Good reason No.2 – you are a Tolkie (Tolkeenie?) and a Middle-Earth completist, and I mean the kind of person who has even downloaded a hooky copy of the Air New Zealand in-flight safety video. In which case how could you miss this film!
Good reason No.3 – you are a fan of British and British-based actors in general, in which case this film is an absolute feast for you. You will sit there saying things like, “Hey – isn’t that Mitchell out of Being Human? Isn’t that the bloke who played Rebus?” Although if you can actually spot Benedict Cumberbatch and Barry Humphries you deserve a prize.
And that’s about it. On that last point, it does fare better than the Harry Potter canon in which the cream of British acting hammed their way to the bank, and who could blame them*. The acting quality is much better. Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins almost exactly as he played Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes, but he is believable as a young Ian Holm**. Sylvester McCoy is a thoroughly eccentric Radagast, and again fans will recall his equally eccentric tour of duty as the eponymous Dr Who, so it’s lovely to see him at his craft again.
However, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does suffer all the ills of a prequel. There is no surprise, no delight in discovering the Shire, Rivendell, and the rest of Middle Earth. We are already familiar with it in the wonderful, broad sweep of the LOTR trilogy, with the musical tropes, and so they appear tired rather than fresh. There is no shock in seeing an orc or a troll for the first time, and in fact there is something tame about the trolls, which takes me on to the next problem.
The Hobbit, the novel on which this film is based, is very different in tone, in target readership, in almost every way from Lord of the Rings. It is very brief, shorter than any one of the three parts of Lord of the Rings, and written with young readers in mind. The three trolls that Bilbo encounters in the book are much less like the hulking, mindless monsters in the film trilogy, more bucolic, calling each other Tom, Bill, and Bert. The new film tries to bridge that gap, and damn near fails. The task is like binding two metal strips together, each of which expands with heat at a different rate, and holding them over a flame. This shows up very clearly in the scene with the trolls round their camp fire. They look sufficiently like the mindless trolls from the trilogy, but smaller, more like a trio of obese skinheads. This is a symptom of trying to marry very different books into a single experience – it doesn’t quite work.
The brevity of the book suggests to me that it could easily have been made into a single film, maybe even a stand-alone film. Stretching it out into two feature-length films is a mistake. As a result, and to provide extra action and spectacle, the film-makers have added elements which were not in the book. Unfortunately that complicates and obscures the plot. There is, for example, a back-story and sub-plot concerning Thorin and a one-handed, albino orc-warrior. It’s padding. Galadriel, Radagast, and Saruman do not appear in the book, but they do make appearances in the film. Sylvester McCoy’s cameo is, as I have said, eccentric, charmingly silly. Christopher Lee, on the other hand, plays Saruman entirely seated; he seems, as he is, much older than he did playing the same part supposedly many years into the future. The book glosses over the conflict between the shadowy ‘Necromancer’ (‘Sauron’ in Lord of the Rings) and implies that Gandalf’s order of wizards, including Radagast and Saruman we must assume, fought as one against this menace. However, the film-makers couldn’t resist giving us a disingenuously proleptic glimpse of ‘Saruman the Bad’. Again, padding, and I’m afraid the stuffing is falling out of it.
Another cameo appearance that simply doesn’t work: Elijah Wood, in real life, looks a good ten years older than he did when he first appeared as Frodo. Then he was cute, now no amount of soft focus can hide the fact that his face has matured. The result is that we are treated to seeing Frodo supposedly several years younger but obviously not. No, doesn’t work, bad padding again.
Maybe it is because I am more used to seeing Lord of the Rings in home DVD format, but I also felt that there was something lacking in the film quality, some lack of definition or clarity. It seems murkier than the trilogy. The film ends at a half-way point in the novel, leaving room for the next film to bridge the gap to Lord of the Rings. I do not know what elements of the story will be left out of No.2 (maybe the part played by Beorn the Skin-changer) nor what will be grafted in (presumably the conflict with the Necromancer and a resolution of Thorin’s feud with the pale orc), but I have my worries.
There are a few good moments of comedy in the film, however, mainly surrounding Thorin’s band of dwarves, who draw as much from Terry Pratchett as they do from Tolkien. I won’t spoil it for you, but watch out for the line, “That could have been worse.” Also it is available in 3D at the cinema, which is still a sufficiently new technology to be enjoyable, so it is worth seeing before you become jaded with the effect.
Overall I think it’s worth paying for a cinema ticket nevertheless (go for a cheap matinee), and worth buying the DVD after it has been out for a few months and the price has come down a little. You could iron to it. If I were to give the Lord of the Rings trilogy five stars, I would award this three. Not bad, Mr Jackson, but you could do much better.
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*There were some golden moments in the Harry Potter films too, though if you haven’t seen any of them, take my advice and only see the ones in which Jason Isaacs appears – he is the only cast member who doesn’t ham it up, and as a result he is utterly, chillingly convincing – and the one in which Hermione decks Draco Malfoy with a right hook. Shout ‘Expelliarmus’ all you like, that was the most magical moment in all that series of films.
**Except maybe to those of us old enough to remember the young Ian Holm.
Marie Marshall 