Thrilled that John Chu, one of our Clarion students in 2010, has a story published by the Boston Review. It’s a favorite of ours–a unique and wonderful and somewhat poignant time travel story. Go read it!

Evil Monkey:
“There will be blood“, Jeff. There will be blood.

Jeff:
There will be blood, Evil Monkey. There will be blood.

Evil Monkey:
It might not be your blood. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. It might be yesterday. But there will be blood.

Jeff:
I’m pretty sure it will be your blood—and it will be today.

Evil Monkey:
I’d much prefer it be your blood. Much, much more than my blood. But: there will be blood!

Jeff:
Blood there will be.

Evil Monkey:
Will be blood, there.

Jeff:
There. Blood. Be will.

Evil Monkey:
Blood. There.

Jeff:
Blood will.

Evil Monkey:
Do you have a will?

Jeff:
No. I have blood.

Evil Monkey:
You should have a will.

Jeff:
Why?

Evil Monkey:
There will be blood!

Jeff:
But it will be your blood.

Evil Monkey:
My blood isn’t your blood type so if there is blood and it is your blood, I will not be able to save you with my blood.

Jeff:
If it is your blood and I have a chance to save you with my blood, I will save my blood for a time when there will be blood and it will be my blood.

Evil Monkey:
Keep your blood, knave. Keep your goddamn effing blood.

Jeff:
I will, sir. I will keep my goddamn effing blood. Do you know why?

Evil Monkey:
Because it is your blood and not mine and it may be that there will be blood one day…and it will be yours?

Jeff:
No. Because in 40 years there will be no electricity, we will be sharpening sticks for swords, and any electronic book will have disappeared magically…like magic.

Evil Monkey:
Signed “the curmudgeon”…in blood.

Jeff:
Your blood.

Books have been flowing into the house as usual. Here’s a selection of recent titles that I’ve found particularly interesting…

(more…)

I am taking on some critique work on a limited basis, for those who are interested. If you have a novel or short story you’d like critiqued, just email me at vanderworld at hotmail.com for my rates. Since I’m working on a creative writing book for Abrams Image, you’ll get the bonus of some free sneak peeks. This is a limited time offer. When you email, please give me some sense of the subject matter and length of the story or novel and what you hope to get out of a critique. My critiques are intended to help you not just with the piece of fiction you give me but more generally, across all of your writing.

Those mis-matched twins (one tall, one shor–…I mean, not as tall) Eric Schaller and Matthew Cheney have re-launched the famed Revelator Magazine, the first time it’s been published via the intertubes. Go check it out—this is the real deal. All kinds of interesting fiction, nonfiction, art, comics. Go support the resurrection of an institution.

I have a deadline to turn in a chapter of the creative writing book I’m working on, working title Wonderbook, by early next week, which has me a little behind on blogging. Above you’ll see one of the rough sketches I’ve done for the book. It’s meaningless without the context, but in a nutshell it’s a visual dramatization of a creative writing concept. The book will have over 150 full-color images, and in writing it I’ll also be working with designer John Coulthart to come up with an effective visual language for teaching creative writing.

I’ll post more on the Mormeck serial next week as well—the next scene is one of those pivot points I really need to work hard on to get right so I’m not spending a lot of time revising later. After that, I should be posting more regularly on Mormeck.

In other news, Cheeky Frawg is getting ready to release both Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month in e-book format and the anthology ODD?—the latter features a short film by Gregory Bossert with music by Danny Fontaine from lyrics I wrote and then Danny revised. Still image below.

Although I’m going to be busy the next few days, I will stop by here a bit. So…if you have any questions about creative writing, ask and I will attempt to answer. Since I’m immersed in writing about the subject at the moment anyway….

Note: Been reading this serialized long story/novella? Please support a full-time writer. Paypal to vanderworld at hotmail.com—much appreciated! Donations above $21 will entitle you to a free copy of initial anthology or stand-alone book appearance.

Living on a far-distant planet, Doctor Mormeck works for strange beings that might or might not be angels by conducting surveillance across a hundred thousand alt-Earths. Complicating things are a transdimensional race of intelligent komodos wreaking chaos throughout the worlds. When an avatar of Mormeck is sent to a war-torn winter city to investigate a mysterious Presence, the doctor will become embroiled an ever-widening conflict.

Archive is here, Journals of Mormeck, and first entry is here. The full-on 34,000 words before this entry is compiled in one place, here.

Warily, I returned to Pavlov’s House—the fortified building controlled by Sergeant Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov of the Trotsky-Soviet army. I was much different, of course, even though the avatar that manifested after I ghosted my way stealthily through the defenses, through a door, and then scuttled tiny along the walls of corridors to his office was the same Pavlov had always seen. More of Mormeck Mountain had been flensed away. Less of the giant komodo I came to him as was komodo-ish. And I had a speck of an alien civilization hidden in my body.

As I had avoided pitched battles between German and Soviet tanks in already blasted streets, buildings gutted, smoldering hulks, I had had—in the crisp, cold air, with the blue of the sky a kind of bright smile commenting on the limits of human absurdity—a sort-of epiphany: that I was finally becoming myself, and that I did not yet know what that might mean. I still had my mission, which was now to find my way back to Mormeck Mountain, but at the frontiers of my mind, I could sense outliers of doubt, of lack of purpose, and nothing to replace it.

But whatever it meant, I knew I had to get out of the city, and while I could do that blind, and could flee to any corner of the world, disregarding the intel from the Speck of the Remnant in my body, I preferred to travel to the Far East. A vastness of time and landscape awaited me before my self-rescue, but somehow I needed that. A century was more than enough time to find myself.

Pavlov didn’t seem surprised to see me even though several months had passed, but, then, I had never seen him express surprise over anything. He had perfected the art of receiving information with a stoicism that, while learned, gave him the upper hand in most situations.

But I was surprised to see that standing beside him were Uri and Aleksei, the two soldiers I had saved from the threat of the Remnant outside of their strange domed building. Both of them looked astonished to see their reptilian benefactor again, and not in a good way. They reached for their weapons, but Pavlov barked an order form them to stand down. They did so almost with relief, as if their action had been reflexive and they had no real stomach for the task.

“Body guards?” I asked.

“I am their body guards,” Pavlov said, “after what they saw.”

“The impossible is real?”

“And maybe that, too,” Pavlov said. His face seemed more worn but less wrinkled, as if he had been worn smooth like a stone by the extremity of his situation. His hands showed evidence of thwarted frostbite. He had lost some hair and some had turned gray. From under the table he sat at, I could see his boots were in tatters, bound in cloth. I knew from the history I had seen that the past two months had been the worst of the war for Pavlov’s unit. He could have used a huge, invisible komodo during those dark days. But I had not been there. Though I owed him nothing, really, an odd guilt twisted inside of me.

“It’s good to see you.” And it was. A familiar face, someone I instinctually trusted even though I shouldn’t have trusted anyone.

“It’s an unexpected pleasure,” Pavlov said, with what might have been irony. Uri and Aleksei had unfrozen from their positions against the far wall and Pavlov motioned to them. “Go get tea.” Neither of them moved.

“Tea?”

Pavlov gave a weary smile. “All my vodka goes to the men, along with the local rotgut they make and put in used milk bottles. Now!” And in the strain in his voice ordering his men I saw further evidence of his fatigue.

Neither soldier seemed happy to have to edge by me and out the door, but they did it rather than face Pavlov. I could hear them running down the hall.

“Are they bringing more soldiers?” I asked.

Pavlov grinned. “No. Just tea,” he said with disappointment, either feigned or real. “Only tea. But I am inappropriately curious: what happened to you?”

I thought about answering him. It was a simple question, but one with a complicated answer. What would be gained by giving Pavlov more of a glimpse into the truth of other worlds? Would it assuage his curiosity or simply enflame it? Would it leave him with the nagging sense he had missed something, for as long as he lived?

“I ran into…complications. I almost died. But nothing that happened has any bearing on your situation.”

Pavlov nodded, but said, “Except that you are here again.” His head held at an angle, as if spurring me on: “Complications, and…?”

“As a result, I need to leave the city. I need to head to the Far East. I need to find sanctuary there for a long, long time.”

Uri and Aleksei came back nervously with the tea then, although they seemed to have regained some semblance of control. They shut the door quickly behind them, and Pavlov took over the ritual of preparing the tea, setting out the cups on the table cloth. His hands shook a little bit. I knew he survived this war, I knew he lived a long life after, but it still bothered me to see that.

“I know some people in the Far East,” Pavlov said after a pause. “My family isn’t from there, but friends of the family are. More specifically, I know of a place that you can stay and no one should bother you…so long as you…” He looked me up and down. “You are rather distinctive.”

“I won’t travel in this form.”

“Of course you won’t.” But it was clear from the unexpected scintilla of surprise in his voice that it had not occurred to him that I might manifest as anything as other than a small or large komodo.

He wrote an address on a piece of paper. “The owner of this cottage is missing, presumed dead…It is a lawless place. The Chinese and the Japanese do not respect the border. You may find yourself in another war zone.” Then he stopped writing, looked up at me, scribbled more words. “And this is a postal box where you can reach me now…or after the war.”

I could see it in his eyes: Pavlov wouldn’t risk giving me his home address, couldn’t know I already had it from the files—wife, three children, Moscow—but he was willing to risk further contact.

“Thank you, Pavlov.”

I’m not sure I can explain how that gesture made me feel. It meant something to me, something that took me yet further away from Mormeck Mountain. I had a sudden image of a graying, elderly komodo—monstrous—clothed in a sweater sitting in a rocking chair in a far-distant cottage and penning a letter to his old comrade from the war. Maybe one day coming to visit, catching up their separate lives.

Absurd. Impossible. Or was it?

As I took the piece of paper as gently as I could from Pavlov, my massive claws clicking together, I felt a welling up of affection I had not expected, mixed with an utterly devastating sadness. In this forsaken place, sent here by demons disguised as angels.

Pavlov was the closest thing I had ever had to a friend. And I was leaving him now. For his own safety as for mine.

“In return, there is one thing I would like you to do for me on your…on your way out of town,” Pavlov said.

“Anything, Pavlov,” I said.

I could hear the Scrap inside me vibrating minutely with laughter, and that struck me as sinister…

for hm

This one is just for fun…and to show readers just how many bullets they may have dodged…

What’s the stupidest story idea you ever came up with? Or the stupidest story you wrote, possibly without at first realizing it was stupid? (And if so, how did you find out it was stupid? Did someone have to tell you?)

My stupidest story is probably one in which FBI agents afraid of wiretaps communicate via a secret language composed of farts…I also once wrote a poem that was an ode to my beard. In my defense…I was fairly young.

Now it’s your turn…

The writer of this Atlantic.com article interviewed me about books and soundtracks, since all three of my Ambergris novels come with soundtracks: Robert Devereux’s Fungicide (for City of Saints), The Church’s Shriek: An Afterword, and Murder by Death’s Finch. (I have copies of the MBD soundtrack for sale.)

The reporter couldn’t use everything I gave her, of course, especially as the article is mostly about Booktracks, a company that provides “book scores” for your listening pleasure—something I’m a little dubious about. So I’ve taken my full answers and posted them below.

(more…)