Ages when I "discovered" my favorite authors

Andre Norton 

Age 10-11 "Warlock of the Witchworld"

My oldest big brother brought home a coverless used paperback copy. My introduction to adult Fantasy. Magic as personal, unique, familial legacy, and frightening. The rest is history... 

Lois Duncan

Age 12 "A Gift of Magic"

I lost a lot of Summertime as a kid because I was always stuck in Summer School(which is also a favorite 80s movie of mine. My first film showing a pregnant teen and the storyline NOT punishing her for that). I found this book on the school library spinner rack(found so many favorites over the years on the spinner rack). The cover was a touched-up photograph of an eerie-looking pre-teen white girl. Her eyes aglow while she sat crouched in an easy chair, her fingers digging into its arms while she stared at the viewer. Behind her was another photo of a younger girl seemingly floating in shades of blue. The story was as surreal and real as a story could get about a regular girl inheriting her matriarchal line's ability to telepathy, telekinesis, and prescience.

Anne McCaffrey 

Age 20 "The Rowan"

Now in the realm of far-future SF with a psychic woman protagonist(thanks to A Gift of Magic) I started to relish reading about. This title was the first in a family drama/space opera series. The protagonist is in blue clothing and seat on a seat likened to a throne, appearing as regal as any queen. An orphan, she is considered one of the most powerful psychics in human-inhabited space. She sits straight with her ankles crossed, her arms straight with her fingertips on her seat's arms. She is flanked by a smallish(serval-size?) snow leopard-like domesticated cat. More psychic abilities and alien-implied invasions of the galaxy. The first story where the protagonist and her intended get together, she gets pregnant, and they don't immediately marry(they marry in the second book when she's pregnant with their third child). That blew my mind and I appreciated this subplot point. 

Ursula K. le Guin

Age 23(?) "Catwings Returns"

I know I read this story late in my local library, not even realizing it was a series. It had cats with bird wings born to a regular black cat mama. The cats flying through a city felt very real to me and delighted me that another writer could make a story about a cat character that could fly. Disclaimer: My first character I made up as a kid was a brown and white cat with bat wings I called Cat the Bat.😊😄 I worked as a substitute teacher at the time.

Another Facebook post

Saw this in my coffee table book "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fantasy" many years ago (right-hand picture).

At Miami Book Fair International in 2006, while at the CLMP's booth (Council of Literary Magazines and Presses), I found the short story collection (left-hand picture) by a press called Manic D. Press.

Bought @ Miami Book Fair Int'l 2006

I suddenly took to reading these short-short stories (some were as little as four-pages while others were up to the average 15-20 page short stories) and became mesmerized by this visual feast of words and creative imagery. The only time I read such beautiful stories - both grammatically and visually was when reading "The Arabian Nights".  

Ever since I began to read Lord Dunsany did research start to mention the countless authors both past and present owed to this man. What I learned was that the modern fantasy genre we credit to men such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis could not have happened without Dunsany. He preceded both men and had even the great poet Yeats as a contemporary write highly of him.

There can never explain so much of speculative fiction's debt to him. There wasn't any of the fantasy or science fiction tropes we now expect and take for granted. Lord Dunsany created the language that did not exist. He created the tropes no one had. I spoke that Dunsany was the science fiction/fantasy writer's Shakespeare. Perhaps I speak too hastily. Perhaps there are Dunsany scholars out there that could analyze better what I speak so effusively as a fan. And yet, many of the authors I mention have been quoted that Lord Dunsany influenced them, inspired their writings, made them into the literary powerhouses we now look back with admiration.

However, there is no doubt in me that without Lord Dunsany, there would be no C.S. Lewis, no Tolkien, no H.P. Lovecraft, no Fritz Leiber, no Garth Nix, no Katherine Kerr, no Diane Wynne Jones, no Charles de Lint, no Rowling, pretty much modern fantasy may not have developed into the genre it is without Lord Dunsany...



*If you have the Aldiko e-book app, most of his short story collections are FREE. Lord Dunsany's works are also available through public domain. 

Inspiration in strange places

A B-movie fantasy watched in 1980s.
A first and second title from an author that becomes one's favorite.
An early obsession with Greek myth.
An early obsession with Sword and Sorcery ephemera.
A fantasy novel read in junior high.
Another epic fantasy series that blew the mind in high school.
These are just what is remembered that served for inspiration to the series worked on now.

The Author of the First Novel

I want to  take the time to give a shoutout to Lady Murasaki, a lady of the Imperial Court during the Heian Period, and who penned what many say is the World's First Novel "The Tale of Genji". This point is indeed historically significant. However, what makes the first novel crucial is the fact that Japanese women, during  this era, were barred from learning to write and read the 'high form' Nihongi(Japanese Language) that only men could read and write.
All women, even the noble-born such as Murasaki, had to develop their own script! A female-written 'language'!
Can you imagine us modern writers not only struggling to pen our works, but the necessity to develop the language for said creative works!
And we wordsmiths complain about not finding the right words!

Short vs. Long - What will it be?

When speaking with other writers, one of the first things they ask me "Have you published?" and "Where?"

I have the stacks of useless drafts, first, second, third and infinite attempts in file cabinets, desk drawers, and shelves.

For the cat stories alone, for each short story published, I must have had over 40 drafts that were unpublishable, or, at best, could be used as notes for a newer idea.

But what's amazing is when the writers who are still struggling with their longer writing projects ask me how did I do it.

There isn't a secret formula.

I racked up the rejections, often in form letters flatly stating in cold terms that my idea was a failure.
I did the research, scoped through directories for viable markets to submit to, READ the submission guidelines - you won't believe how every so often - peers were not willing to search and read through. 'Too much work'.

Eventually, I realized if I didn't re-think a different strategy, the possibility of publication would grow slimmer than usual.
So I put aside all the longer works-in-progress, and decided to try my hand at short fiction. I had ideas that didn't seem to work in forty pages or more.

I re-read my favorite short stories, reread anthologies I read back in junior high and high school.

I trimmed down some longer works, and found that a few became stronger because of it.

Especially the cat stories, the ideas definitely grew better when I stopped trying for novel-length.

I found more markets for shorter fiction. My ideas could be expanded ironically in the tighter frame.

So that was the long and short of it.

Early influences..Part 2

I've wanted to read "The Secret of NiMH" since I watched the Don Bluth animated feature back in 1985.

When I lived in Jamaica for a couple of years with relatives, the film had captured most of my schoolmates' imagination as well as their parents' pocketbooks - at the time, a graphic novel based on the animation sold like hot cakes on the island. When I borrowed a classmate's, I was a little disappointed by the illustrations, even noting that characters were often disproportionate to their portrayal on film.

Mind you, 8-year-old me didn't think this, it just seemed off, but then age and experience made me realize what I just told you.

I feel blessed that often, many of the animated features I watched as a child, I later read the book.
For example, "The Last Unicorn", "Watership Down", "The Return of the King", and "The Hobbit".

Right now, in my 30s, I made it a point to read "The Secret of NiMH" which is actually "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NiMH" (the original title!).

And get this: Author Robert C. O' Brien, who wrote the original book, his daughter, Author Jane Leslie Conly, ended up creating two books based on the first!
So I ended up reading her "Racso and the Rats of NiMH" and "R.T., Margaret and the Rats of NiMH" before reading the original story!

This story helped to perceive animal stories as true literature, and not simply as 'kiddie fiction', though there is nothing wrong with that as long as the story is written with the best of intentions.

MY OFFICIAL 1ST POST

I know this is still NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so good luck and happy plugging away at those novels! I would love to participate but time constraints prevent me.