Glorious, glorious cheese!

Hello, fellow cheese connoisseurs! This is Alice, your lovely hostess!

What is cheese, besides that most blessed child of the bounteous udders? In writing terms, cheese is a fuzzy concept. It’s either something garish, corny, stupid, and weak or something funny, campy, high-flying and cool in a silly way.

So if someone calls your writing cheesy, they’re either saying, “Stop now and never write again,” or, “Haha, you rock girl, more dis please!”

But, which one? Well, I’ve got a short guide for you right here!

Basically, there are two types of cheese:

1. The cheese I like, e.g. Brie.
2. The cheese I don’t like, e.g. Emmental.

And don’t let any bloody Besserwisser tell you which is which! You’re the master of your cheese, and that’s okay!

That’s the trick. First, there are always gonna be haters, no matter how good you get. (And often, the better you get, the more hate you get.) Honey, jus’ sweep the haters off the table like a bunch of cookie crumbs.

Second, never ever lie to yourself.

Cheese is glorious. But not all cheese. (See the short guide, #2.) And you have to admit to yourself that sometimes your writing heads towards stinky Emmental category. (Or whatever brand your hated cheese is.) Those of us who claim they never write stinky cheese are, in fact, lying to themselves.

You gotta listen to your gut. As that lovely cheese of your writing is melting on your tongue, your gut is gonna talk to you. And I don’t mean farts. They come later. No, I’m saying your gut is gonna tell you whether it likes the cheese or not.

And the tragedy is, too many of us suck at listening to our gut. I know I do.

Guts are wise. They know the distinction between good cheese and bad cheese. Trust your gut.

All glory to cheese! Peace out, folks.

Alice’s Idea Giveaway Sunday, vol. 3

Hello! This is Alice! Sunday rolls over us like a thunderhead, so come huddle under my blanket, where the potluck of shared ideas simmers!

The deal today is the same as last Sunday: Alice will give away all her best ideas, for absolutely no charge, to use or abuse, to mutate, substitute, or modulate! Take whatever you want, be inspired, or share your own ideas in the comments!

Without further ado, let’s dump today’s haul on the deck:

The Knight of the Horned Goddess

For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why Boar was a knight in addition to a travelling whore. I just wanted her to be! But, then I had an idea: Boar is a devotee of the love goddess, Areina Plaige, and she fulfils this role as a temple protector – an armed priestess, so to speak! Also, because Areina Plaige’s temples hold the sacred trees of procreation, Boar is also a knight of the trees.

Also, I had the idea that Boar carries in her belongings a lacquered wooden dildo. Since she associates a lot with soldiers, she jokingly calls it her “practice sword” with which to fight “little combats”. And of course, in these combats there is no risk of real death – only la petite mort.

(Yes, this one is gonna be chock-full of cockey sword talk.)

The Maiden of Ulalla and Urxu

Dimna was trained in magic at Castle Yrkraaq. As hardly more than a child, she was sent off on a heroic mission. Now, in her adulthood, she tries to find her way back to Yrkraaq, which is both her childhood home and the dwelling place of her teachers, the toucan knights Caärdry and Myndafarr.

However, I had the idea that for some strange reason, Dimna cannot find the way back to Yrkraaq any more. Also, her magical training remains incomplete. This is one of the central tragedies in Dimna’s life: she is estranged both from her lovely home, the frost-touched Yrkraaq, and the safety of her teachers, who are pan-wise in magic. (Or so she imagines.)

This leads her to certain risky behaviours. Though she is normally careful when travelling the dangerous realms of Urxu and Ulalla, if she catches rumours of her childhood teachers, she is prone to chucking reason out of the window and rushing into danger headlong.

Asmela of the Night Wind

You know how in various mythologies there are generations of gods, with the younger surpassing the older? The Olympians usurped the Titans, the Danaans drove out the Fir Bolg, and so on. Now, I wanted to use this idea, too.

In Asmela’s story, the eldest god is Sul, the Creatress, who ruled when the world was still steaming fresh off the anvil. Sul in turn gave birth to seven angels of the high heaven, who acted as her stewards during the long dark eras of divine illness. Following Sul’s death, the modern gods arrive, and Sul’s children, the seven angels, withdraw to their fortresses beyond the edge of the sky.

Each successive generation is, alas, weaker and pettier than its predecessor. Thus, the modern gods are lazy, gluttonous, small-minded, and vengeful – yet they are endowed with sparks of the same power once wielded by the Creatress. This is an evil combination, and the modern gods enslave entire populations with their power, leading to the central conflict in Asmela’s life: she gradually wakes up to find herself an unwitting assassin to supercilious divinities who are not above robbing her entire memory and supplanting it with gross fairy-tales.

 

That’s it for today, my pretty butterflies! What are some of your best ideas? Give them to me!

Don’t explain the joke!

Hey, what up you jokesters? This is Alice. Her life and affairs are a sad joke, but this post isn’t about that – this is about jokes, writing, and never ever in a million years explaining your puns.

Let’s get to the point right away! What’s the best pleasure in hearing a joke? Getting it.

What’s the worst? Having some dorky know-it-all put on his cheeky glasses and telling to you what was so funny about it. And why’s that the worst? Because they’re hijacking your electric, sizzling, God-given right to get it.

We’re writers. We’re impatient, right? I know I am. When I crack a joke, I want the audience to burst into laughter right away, dammit! Or when I insert a clever palindrome into my carefully crafted sentence, I want a stranger across the room to wink at me knowingly. I want them to get it (because that’s the best pleasure) and I want to know they got it!

However, the thing is, my wanting doesn’t make a damn difference. And when the chips are down, I can’t know. Not for sure.

I mean, no matter how hard someone laughs, they might just be doing it out of politeness. Or because my joke made them think about another joke, and they were laughing about that.

That’s why I’m tempted to explain. “You got it, right? Right? The frog said that because…”

NO. STOP IT.

It doesn’t matter. Coach yourself in that, honey. It doesn’t matter. If they get it, fine. If they don’t get it, also fine.

Overexplaining destroys things. In Alice’s opinion, it’s far worse than underexplaining.

Also, we don’t all work at ADHD speeds. Some of us take time in working out what was so clever about it in the first place. I’ve personally taken upwards of five years to get a joke. Let us slow-pokes have our time.

Thinking more broadly, lots of stuff falls under this: jokes, quips, puns, clever things you said to your mum, parting shots of all kinds, conundrums, puzzles, pop culture references, intertextuality, etc. In this vein, I wince every time someone says, “See what I did there?” Or, “Pardon the pun.” Same principle.

Okay, I ran out of things to say. Peeps, don’t stand on your jokes. No joke is strong enough to stand the weight of even the skinniest of us.

Alice’s Idea Giveaway Sunday, vol. 2

Good morning, all! This is Alice. Another bloody Sunday, eh? But, to tide you over this ghastly day, Alice wants to share her best ideas with you!

The deal is the same as before: take, borrow, steal, alter, do variations, be inspired! Everything is free, names included! Alice’s every idea is running rampant on the range, and it’s all gratis!

At the same time, I wanna encourage you all to write down your own ideas in the comments. There’s strange magic to it. During the very act of writing an idea down, you suddenly have more ideas. Ideas generate ideas, like magnetic filings attracting each other.

Do it! And be amazed: this works even if you write down an idea you’ve written down before. It can be repeated endlessly, because ideas are protean, changing like the sea.

Here are mine. Go ahead, grab what you like!

The Marchise and the Knight of Madness

The sadistic Marchise is the villain of this story, but my idea was to explore her motives a bit beyond the “evil vampire torments innocent victims”. Just as the hero of the story, Orabelle, belongs to the ancient vampire-hunting Clairmont family, so does the Marchise belong to a lineage of vampiric dwellers of the night.

From the Marchise’s point of view, humans breed uncontrollably across her territory, and she feels compelled to protect herself against them – to the Marchise, humans are paradoxically both food and dangerous predators who threaten her existence. And the most terrifying among these predators are the mysterious Clairmonts, who are rumoured to possess powers that even vampires are unable to resist!

Thus, the Marchise terrorises humans to keep them from invading her nest. And nothing gives her more pleasure than enslaving Orabelle, because doing so convinces the Marchise that she is above even this most deadly of hunters. However, because of her twisted and perverse nature, the Marchise does not outright kill Orabelle, but keeps her on a leash to torment her. And this leads to the Marchise’s downfall…

The Maiden of Ulalla and Urxu

Dimna, the titular maiden, was trained in magic in Castle Yrkraaq, but that training remains incomplete. Now, as she travels the world, she fears she will die, and that her magic will disappear. To combat this, she takes on a student to whom she will pass her knowledge.

I had the idea that this story would be a different take on the fantasy trope of the wizard mentor. Dimna is the mentor, but her knowledge is imperfect, so she is by no means the mysterious, all-wise and all-patient mentor encountered in fantasy. Instead, she grapples with her own problems and estranges her student, who goes on to learn magic by themselves.

In the end, this student develops magic unknown to Dimna, and the roles are reversed: Dimna comes to study under her ex-student. In a way, Dimna’s own training is completed as she learns from the one she herself taught.

Professor Goodnight and the Wright Sisters

I had an idea about the villainous Professor Goodnight, who has awakened ten ancient robot masters to enslave the world. They sleep beneath Karakoram and arise to trample the feeble cities of humanity! Fighting against these invincible opponents are Professor Goodnight’s former students, Hilda and Norma Wright, and their little sister Emma.

This is set on alternate Earth in 1930s. The Wrights frantically develop crazy superweapons to battle the robot masters, and their militant little sister leads squadrons of experimental fighter planes at the front lines. They are joined by the gemstone warriors of Mars, and the thousand-year-old Norman knight, Troismort, awakened from eternal slumber!

 

That’s it for today, fellow writers! What are some of your best ideas? Give them to me!

 

 

Buckwheat and being boring

Y’all boring? Alice is boring as a turd.

Today, pretty much nothing happened. I ate nachos and scratched under my bra. Also, I haven’t written half a word for the whole week. Yesterday I bought a carton of milk, because I was planning to cook some buckwheat, which I didn’t do. Instead, I lay flat on the couch and stared at the ceiling: my most stellar achievement of the day.

Today, I don’t give a fuck about fame, happiness, being successful, being a productive citizen, getting trophies, earning money, having babies and fixing the future, comparing well to the average, matching standards, or being decent.

All I’ve managed is being boring. Also, I didn’t poop my pants, which is a kind of achievement, maybe?

If y’all haven’t been boring in a while, try it out sometime. After all, most of us don’t lead shining lives of success. Most of us just scrape by.

And, despite whatever lies they tell you in The Picture of Dorian Gray, don’t flatter yourself that you’re more exciting in your writing, or whatever. We are not in our writing. Style and authorhood are lies.

Rodin tore down his masterwork because he thought he was in it, and he was bloody wrong. They rebuilt it, anyway.

We writers are rather like the sphincter. Most days, shit comes through us. Some rare days, there’s a bit of gold lodged there in our turds. But the gold isn’t of the sphincter.

Nothing is of the sphincter, really. Not the shit, either. The sphincter is just the gate. We are just the gate.

Embrace your sphincterness, fellow writers. Embrace boring.

 

Also, anybody got a good recipe for buckwheat porridge? The kind you make overnight in an oven.

Monday reminder

Hey peeps! Monday dragging you down? Your writing getting all drab and serious? Your reboot or sequel not quite working?

Well, kids, remember this: originally Yoda was a crazy old goblin who hated seagulls! So, never miss a bit of humour in your writing – especially your serious writing!

Alice’s Idea Giveaway Sunday

Hello all, what’s up? This is Alice. The world is full of shit, but she loves it anyway! And, as a way of blowing kisses at y’all, she wants to share some of her best writing ideas!

Yes, I spoke about this in a previous post. The deal is, this Sunday I will again give you all my ideas freely. Take whatever catches your fancy! Everything is free to use wherever you please, names and all!

(The caveat is, of course, that at the same time, I’m not going to stop using these ideas. So think of it as kind of a CC license.)

The Knight of the Horned Goddess

I had the idea that people in Sarpathia (a country on a faraway star) breed in a curious fashion: they swallow seeds from certain sacred trees that produce them annually, and each seed has a chance of making you pregnant (provided you’re fertile). The trees are a leftover from the times of meddlesome Earthlings.

This idea has me stumped at another front, however! I had the idea that Boar, the eponymous knight, earns a living as a whore… but would this be feasible, if sex and reproduction are thus disconnected in Sarpathia? I mean, sex still carries the potential for disease, but you couldn’t get accidentally pregnant by humping in the bushes. So, would this mean that whores are out of work? What do you guys think?

The Maiden of Ulalla and Urxu

I had the idea that Dimna could travel to two alternate dimensions, Ulalla and Urxu, where the flow of time is different relative to the mundane world. Dimna was trained in magic at Yrkraaq. Now I had the idea that Dimna’s magic was based on two principles: First, she is able to travel to other worlds, like the deadly Urxu. Second, she is trained in multiple “magical” languages, which allow her communication with, for example, Urxuans. This in turns allows her to make deals with the denizens of otherworlds, and procure their aid, thus creating phenomena in the mundane world that are interpreted as magic by ignorant laypersons!

Also, Dimna could feasibly be conversant in the language of certain birds, or rodents, or snakes. However, she is quick to point out that these languages are of limited use, because birds, rodents, and snakes think much differently from humans, and have little concern for human affairs! As in, she couldn’t make birds carry messages easily, because most birds can’t tell humans apart.

The Marchise and the Knight of Madness

I wanted to delve more into the history of the vampire-hunting Clairmont family. I had the idea about writing a story about Orabelle Clairmont, a Carolingian knight who was bound in the service of a frightful demon called the Marchise, who terrorises Boulogne. Orabelle’s powerful blood prevents her from being magically controlled by the Marchise, so she has captured Orabelle’s sister Clarefil, and keeps her hostage to ensure Orabelle’s cooperation.

(Actually, the Marchise just takes perverse pleasure in enslaving a mighty Clairmont knight, but we’ll go into that later!)

Orabelle is almost completely powerless against the terrible Marchise. However! Clarefil, having trace magical abilities herself, is able to communicate with her sister in dreams. She guides Orabelle in her struggle against the Marchise. Near the finale, Orabelle goes mad (thus the title) and rushes to rescue her sister, only to find the Marchise has slaughtered poor Clarefil!

Orabelle is plunged into debilitating despair, and the Marchise finally moves to dispose of her! But – at the last moment – Orabelle hears Clarefil’s voice in her mind, softly whispering a lullaby of their homeland. Orabelle’s strength is restored, and, using the sword Sarsiel, whose destiny is to battle demons, she destroys the Marchise!

Yes, it’s cheesy. But the flavour of the cheese is just right for me. (Never dis cheese. It’s a great source of protein life-affirming joy!)

 

Anyway, that’s it for today, dear embattled friends! What are some of your best ideas? Give them to me!

Why I don’t do TBR piles

Hey peeps, this is Alice! Everybody pretty much agrees that writers ought to read a lot to stay in shape, right? I even had a wonderful quote to do with that, but I forget what it was. It somehow referenced that saying about the fear of the Lord. Oh well!

Anyway, a lot of folks keep what they call TBRs, to stay on track of what they’re gonna read in the future. (It stands for “to-be-read”… maybe? It could also stand for “tuberculosis”, but somehow I doubt that. Or “tha booty rocket”, but I find that more doubtful still.) Like to-do lists, TBRs are great!

And… Alice doesn’t really do them. (She doesn’t do to-do lists either. Coincidence?)

Why? Well, a number of reasons. Imma share them with you, in case you ever felt the pressure of keeping up a TBR and hated it. I’m saying it’s okay not to keep track of the books you should read.

First, Alice doesn’t really believe there are books you should read. I mean, you should totally read books, but there’s no particular book you gotta read. You could, uh, only read paranormal romance, if you were into that, but I think it’s better to branch out and read widely.

However, there’s no single book you gotta read. Occasionally someone gets in your face, saying, “If you only ever read one book in your life, read THIS!” And folks, they’re lying. I mean, they don’t think they’re lying, they prob think it’s a great book and all that. But you don’t have to read it. Might be a good book, sure, but if you don’t read it, you’ll live.

Global literacy rate is still about 90%, right? That’s one in ten who can’t read. And they’re no worse than the rest of us. (They’re likely worse off, but as people, they’re bound to be all right.)

Second, I feel pretty cosy about not having a TBR. I trust my memory, see!

Granted, it’s a pretty leaky memory. I really forget most of the books recommended to me. But sis, that’s okay too! It’s okay to forget. I mean, your mum will yell at you for forgetting her birthday, but hey, that’s life. It’s okay to forget books that you should read, too.

Forgetting is a great litmus test, actually. If, despite having a memory like a sieve, I still remember that there’s this book I need to read, then hey, it’s prob worth checking out!

Also, not having a TBR mountainously shadow my days is pretty relaxing. Less is more: totally my motto! As in, less commitments. Not less sex. More sex. Less TBR.

 

Okay peeps, that’s it for today! Have you read anything great recently? I’m eager to hear recommendations, even if they’re likely to slip my mind!

Birds aren’t free

We humans have the ignorant notion that birds are free. Well, have I got news for you: they ain’t!

Birds can’t fly as far as they want without eating and resting. They are at the mercy of predators, the elements, or both. Many are forced to undertake gruelling migratory flights. Most, if not all, have invaders ravaging their homelands.

And guess what, peeps? In just the same way, imagination isn’t free either.

Honestly, our imaginations are pretty caged. They’re limited by what we know and have experienced. Mostly, when we do something imaginative, what we really do is copy one another. The idea that we could be “completely original” is both repulsive and false.

Yes, repulsive. It suggests that we are indebted to no one – that we are totally our own masters, creating wonders from emptiness, fuelled only by our heart’s genius!

Yup, bullshit. We all owe our creativity to creators who have preceded us. Could Rhys have written without Brontë? Susanna Clarke without Dickens? Wolfe without Vance? Like them, we’re all of us up to our ears in debt.

Let us not feel bad, though. That debt is how things should be. Humans don’t work alone, even when they want to. In fact, all of our work is based on the work of our foremothers. And that’s all right, because they worked hard to get us here.

So yeah, how do we writers work? We read. We find ideas that catch our fancy. Then we pour our fancies onto paper. We don’t really have a thought of our own – I know I don’t. I’m just copying others. And how could I not? Countless of artists have gone before me, and they’ve thought all the thoughts worth thinking already.

So, I’m a copier. But I’m not going to feel bad about it.

Conversely, I’m not going to feel bad if someone else takes my hard work and rides to glory on it.

Why should I? It’s what humanity has done for millennia. I cast my bread upon the waters, for I trawl those very waters for my own bread.

Ideas are cheap

Hello, fellow writers. This is Alice. Where do you get your ideas?

I get mine cheaply from the thrift store. That’s right, they’re hand-me-downs, and I get them by the armload at a time. If one idea doesn’t roll when I shake it, I just throw it in the bin and grab another.

Yeah, I’m not too particular about ideas. I think they’re just about the least important part of writing.

They’re not needed to start a story. (The thumb exercise proves that.) They’re not needed to keep going. (You can always bring in the stranger with the gun, or write lorem ipsum.) In fact, I don’t think of ideas as fuel for the story at all – they’re more like the byproduct. Ideas happen after you write.

Now, that may be exaggerating the point a little, but the bottom line is, I don’t believe that people should get fixated on ideas.

One of my teachers, the inimitable Niina Repo, wisely pointed out to us tadpoles once that even if you share your idea with someone, only you can write the story. Someone else may take your idea, and write it into a story, but it will be different from yours, by definition. They have taken your idea, but it’s impossible for them to take your story.

As such, I don’t believe very strongly in the idea that ideas could be stolen.

And even if they could be, what matter? Like I said, I get mine from the thrift store. Why get worked up if someone steals something of little value, that was second-hand to begin with?

In fact, I’m gonna share some of my ideas with you guys. You can take them if you like, grab them whole, or salvage for parts. It’s all free. Names included.

The Knight of the Horned Goddess

This is a story about a wanderer called Boar and her mule Ellistrata (noble in spirit though low in breeding). Boar travels the immense land of Sarpathia and earns her living as a whore. However, Boar has a secret! She is a devotee of the love goddess, Areina Plaige, who has chosen her as her sacred knight. As such, Boar is a formidable opponent in close combat (the closer the better). She travels the battlefields of Sarpathia, servicing the soldiers of all sides with love or the sword – though she prefers to keep the latter hidden.

You know, horned, horny, ha ha… Yeah, I thought I was gonna make this into erotic swords & sorcery. What can I say, I like sex.

The Maiden of Ulalla and Urxu

Less developed, but I wanted to write a story about a girl, Dimna, who was trained by the toucan knights of faraway fortress Yrkraaq. Because of her training, Dimna can travel freely from the mundane world to two otherworlds that are invisible but overlap the mundane world. In Ulalla (taken from the phrase “olla ulalla”) time moves so sluggishly it seems to have stopped, whereas in Urxu the opposite is true: the flow of time is frighteningly rapid compared to the mundane world.

I like knights also. Can you tell?

Asmela of the Night Wind

I had the idea about an invisible sword-fighter, who had an invisible sword. This would be the titular Asmela. She believes herself to be the queen of the jungle, secure in her golden palace and surrounded by a thousand slaves, but in truth she is a slave herself, belonging to strange, unseen gods. They employ her as an assassin (where the invisibility comes in handy, see) to keep in check the rebellious giants of the Dhaal Underworld, who work as masons to build the gods’ immense mausoleums.

The gods have robbed Asmela’s memory and supplanted it with falseness, so that Asmela doesn’t remember she once led a rebellion herself against the gods. Also, she’s naked a lot of the time because she doesn’t own invisible clothes, and yeah, there’s gonna be sex. But not as much as with Boar, I think.

 

There you go, friends and friendlikes! What are some of your best ideas? Give them to me!