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Sunday, December 27, 2020

Velocirapture

 Sometimes my stories come from places of great inspiration. But more often than not, I just think of a title that makes me giggle.

Hence, Velocirapture. Like the rapture. But with more velociraptors. Also, apparently late one night I texted myself the phrase "the afterlife finds a way," which I think I stole from an episode of The Cryptid Keeper podcast?

It's available to listen to or read on Cast Of Wonders!

Velocirapture is also, at least in my heart, known as Armageddon… But With Dinosaurs. Yes, the Bruce Willis movie. Yes, my dinosaurs are trying to kill the asteroid that causes their extinction.

They are also gay and the love interest is trans, and the father character is kind of John Lithgow from Footloose. If he was a dinosaur who wanted dinosaurs to go extinct. Because this is a teenage rebellion story.

Look y’all. You knew what you were getting into when you saw my name on this story. Dinosaurs, Jurassic Park references, plot points borrowed from totally unrelated movies…


Things I would like to note about this story:

* no, technically they are not velociraptors. I am well aware that I'm taking a Jurassic Park approach to labeling things velociraptors. But they evolved from them, and that is what they call themselves.

* do I reference Ian Malcolm‘s "god creates dinosaurs, god kills dinosaurs…" speech from Jurassic Park? Yes I do. In the same paragraph I reference "life finds a way."

* and then I mention chaos.

* I just really like Ian Malcolm, okay?

* my velociraptors have feathers. And my transgirl raptor has more vibrant plumage.

* there is basically dinosaur prom because in my mind, this is an 80s movie and the main character is Molly Ringwald if she was a talking lesbian velociraptor

* did they spare any expense on dinosaur prom? No they did not. They spared NO expense.

* I may have paraphrased two different speeches from Armageddon when she is fighting with her father


So… Yeah. Do you like gay dinosaurs fighting for love and survival at dinosaur prom? Boy, do I have a story for you… https://www.castofwonders.org/2020/12/cast-of-wonders-440-velocirapture/

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Free Christmas Reprint: Another Unnecessary Reimagining Of A Christmas Carol (Except This One's Queer)

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Honda days (my dad was a used car salesman), and a very happy end of December to everyone.

Today I am giving you this free story, originally published last year in Gay Apparel, an anthology edited by Rachel Sharp. This anthology is not available for purchase on any website. Rather, each author chose a charity, and if you give us proof of a donation of any amount to our charity of choice, we give you the e-book.

I'm giving my story out for free this year because I think it's cute and I want people to read it. But I also hope it will leave a few of you wanting more LGBTQIA holiday stories.

My charity of choice is The Autistic Self Advocacy Network: https://autisticadvocacy.org/

Officially, I am not autistic. But officially, testing is biased against people, especially people raised as girls, who cannot "prove" they were autistic as children. My school didn't test me, they didn't keep records. I strongly believe I am autistic, so do a lot of people who know me, including mental health professionals. And a lot of autistic charities aren't actually trying to help us, they are trying to make us "normal," so we don't bother people by existing.

ASAN is actually run by autistic people, and they want us to thrive as we are, not just fit in and be "normal."

So if you want to read the rest of the book, donate to my charity and send me a screenshot, or find one of the other authors and do the same for their charity (some of them can be found on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49151840-gay-apparel).


I hope you enjoy my queer little Christmas story.

(content warnings: homophobia and transphobia mentioned)


 Another Unnecessary Reimagining of A Christmas Carol (Except This One‘s Queer)

Jennifer Lee Rossman


Try as I might, I can’t get my boss to make me work on Christmas. Says the holidays are for family. Tradition.

Tradition. Right. Snow-dusted garlands of greenery, red bows, gas lamps and gas lighting and horse-drawn carriages and my great aunt asking if I’m still a lesbian (yes).

So on Christmas Eve, I’m one of 37 billion people storming the mall for that last cable knit sweater, that hot new toy that will be collecting dust in a month. I try to avoid the incessant bell ringers with the red kettles, but people look down on you when you don’t give to the poor. Even if their charity discriminates.

Societal pressure forces my spare change into that kettle. Every clank echoes in my mind.

When I get home, I collapse into bed. 

Look, I’m going to spare you the explanation of the three time-traveling ghosts. This story has been told so many times, by Muppets and Flintstones and Doctor Who (but not the pretty girl one). You know the deal.


***


The first ghost… Not gonna lie, he looks like Freddie Mercury. He takes me to my childhood, back when “gay apparel“ meant velvet dresses and uncomfortable shoes, not denim and flannel.

Dad stressing about the turkey being dry, mom stressing that the angel isn’t straight enough (she was straighter than me, mom). Everything must be perfect. The house must look like a Thomas Kincaid painting. If anything is remotely wrong, everything is ruined.

And this is the Christmas my sister ruined it all. Of course, we were still calling her my brother back then.

Some of my family still does (yay, tradition).


***


Ghost number two. The present. Sort of looks like a Cher drag queen. Gotta love my imagination.

My childhood home. The turkey is still dry, but dad isn’t around to care so everyone else has to worry about it for him. The angel still isn’t straight (she’ll never be straight, mom). Grandma and my great aunt Lydia take down my sister‘s stocking and put up the one from when we were kids. The one with her deadname on it.

Because tradition. I guess.


***


And finally, the future. The third ghost should be wearing a mysterious cloak, but she looks like Wanda Sykes, because screw tradition.

I’m hosting my first Christmas in my new house. My wife―mom still calls her my roommate, but she didn’t come to our wedding, so maybe she didn’t realize were married―is in charge of stressing about the dry turkey. I’m the one trying to straighten out the angel (conversion therapy didn’t work on me, but I guess it’s worth a shot) because everything has to be perfect.

Traditional.

I would have put my sister‘s new stocking up, the one with her real name on it, but she doesn’t come around anymore. It was something my mom said years back that I didn’t call her out on, because I didn’t want to shake the snow globe and have glitter fall on our attempt at a perfect Christmas, as described by Charles Dickens (more like Charles Dickhead).

Why are we letting some dead white guy tell us what a perfect Christmas looks like, anyway?


***


Christmas morning. For real this time.

I get out of bed, throw on my gayest apparel. I’m talking Chuck Taylors, cuffed jeans, and a flannel jacket over a shirt that says “ho ho homo.”

I hop in my Subaru, drive down to the nearest LGBT youth center, and give them everything I can spare. Then I go to the deli, get some turkey sandwiches (nice and juicy). I don’t know where to get a gay angel on such short notice, so I go to Kinko’s and print out a picture of Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. It might not be perfect, but it’s going to be good enough.

Then I head to my sister’s to make some new traditions.

Episode 51: Earth

In 2016, I wrote a story. I submitted it three times in late 2016, and three times it was rejected. And I gave up on it because, even though this was my first year of trying to be a successful author person and I still clung to some very bad stories that really should have been rewritten or abandoned, I realized it was just… not good.

It was called Creatures Of Earth, and it was about alien documentary filmmakers who came to earth and gently made fun of a human they abducted. There was no real story. There was an attempt, with the human being angry at her fiancé right before the wedding, but it had nothing to do with the rest of the story. It was not as funny as I thought it was.

So it was rightfully abandoned. Then along comes 2020, and an anthology call about humans and aliens, and about how humans are the weird ones in the galaxy.

Instantly, I remembered Creatures Of Earth. It couldn't possibly be as bad as I thought. Maybe I could tweak it a little bit… except no. It was not fixable. But the idea had merit. So I rewrote it, four years after I wrote it the first time.

It is still about alien filmmakers Dominic and Frank, coming to earth to film the wildlife. And it is still about angry, drunk human Teagan, feuding with her fiancée right before her wedding. But it's more now.

Now it's about two species finding common ground. Two individuals from across the galaxy with nothing in common except the fact that they just pissed off the person they love most in the universe, sharing a moment of connection and understanding.

It's also about gay aliens, the importance of having an omniscient narrator, and the difficulties one faces when trying to hire necromancers on the weekend. But… but mostly the other things.

I love the story because, aside from being a nice story, it shows how far I've come personally in the last four years.








Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Mari Lwyd — Free Story Reprint

 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and you know what that means… (Say it with me, folks)

Terrifying ghostly Welsh horse skull!

…You didn't say it with me.

Anyway. The Mari Lwyd is a Welsh tradition in which a ghostly horse skull knocks on your door and if you can beat it in a singing competition, it goes away. Otherwise, you need to feed it.

Yes really. This is a thing they do. It is weird and I love it.

So naturally, I wrote a horror story about it. It was originally published in 2018 as part of Neon Druid anthology, and I'm offering it here to you for free as an early Christmas present.

So enjoy, but quietly, lest the ghost horse hear you…


Mari Lwyd

By Jennifer Lee Rossman

We hear the bells first. Merry little jingles not unlike those on the merchants' carts, so far off and so faint that on any other night I would almost dare to mistake them for ringing in my ears.

But the stockings have been emptied, the turkey dinner reduced to soup bones, and we've all gone to Mass and filled our souls with holy superstition in preparation for tonight. It can only be the horse.

Dim light still fights its way through the heavy curtains. It's come early this year.

My sisters and I, frozen in place by the sound, share a look of horror, each of them no doubt sharing my hope that we'd imagined it all. That it was just some game our parents played along with, like Father Christmas. Then, in unison, we launch into action, our childhood duties surging back like muscle memory.

I race to snuff out the candles and douse the fireplace, running water over rags to dampen the smoke. Ffion goes to secure the doors and windows; a table scrapes against the floor as she blocks the kitchen door that never did latch quite right. And Alys is in the pantry grabbing the food and drink, along with Daddy's shotgun. It won't do her any good against something that isn't alive, but you try telling her that. The thing's been her security blanket since he taught her to shoot when she was seven.

We move with the practiced precision of a drill team, no footstep or second wasted, and it's only once we're locked inside in the near-darkness that I meet the children's eyes.

They look up at us from the floor where they were playing a board game. My little girl Serena, Ffiion's son Luca, and Alys's boyfriend Harry. He might not be a child, but he's young and clueless and scared, so he's as much a liability as the kids are tonight.

Oh, Lord. I don't want Serena to grow up with this terror. Subconsciously, I think it's why I never brought her to see where I'd grown up until both my parents diedso they wouldn't goad the neighbors into playing Mari Lwyd again and scaring the living daylights out of her. But maybe they weren't playing.

I kneel on the floor beside the kids and hold my finger to my lips.

The bells grow louder, closer.

"Do you hear that?" I whisper, remembering the way Mum used to tell the stories. Like they were scripture, something to be awed and revered as much as feared. "That's the Mari Lwyd, and it's coming."

Luca looks to Ffion uncertainly as she goes to tape the curtains closed. "Mom?"

"Stay with your Auntie Caron," Ffion hisses.

Harry does the same with Alys as she drags a chair over to the front door and sits, gun at the ready. "Honey? What the hell's going on?"

Alys reminds me of Daddy when she grunts, "It's Christmas."

"The Mari Lwyd," I continue, taking Sarena in my arms as her inexpressible confusion turns to tears in that unique toddler way, "comes calling every Christmas. If it hears you, if it even hears your heartbeat, it sings at you, and you have to sing back. You have to sing better, cleverer songs, or it'll get angry and come in."

Luca's eyes are wide as the baubles on the tree. "What happens when it comes in?"

Alys checks the food beside her. It looks like everything from the pantry, but I know in my heart it won't be enough of an offering.

I look to Ffion to continue the story. She's the oldest, the only one who was born the last time the Mari Lwyd came in. When we were kids, she told us she remembered it, but how much of it was real and how much was invented memories is anyone's guess. I'm not so sure she even knows.

A long moment passes before Ffion says, "I wasn't always the eldest Bowen sister."

This sets off a flurry of questions and hushed shouts.

"Shut up; it'll hear!" The volume of my command startles even me, and I hold my breath in the abrupt silence that follows, my ears pounding as I strain to listen.

Footsteps. Not hoofbeats, but hard-soled shoes clomping softly on the cobblestones. Its gait is that of a human, the better to lull you into a false sense of security.

There's no way to tell how far away it is. The steps sound like they're right outside, but the bells still sound a ways off. I remember Mum telling us it's a trickster, that it throws its sound to throw us off.

Ffion comes to sit with me and the kids, treading lightly and avoiding the floorboards that squeak. She pulls her son onto her lap and holds him tight like Mum used to hold us on Christmas. I don't remember Mum ever looking so afraid.

This isn't right. We're the adults now. We're the ones putting presents in their stocking and drinking the milk they leave out. We're supposed to be the ones jingling the bells tonight, too.

We were supposed to inherit the mantle of Mari Lwyd just we became Father Christmas. I never thought we'd still be cowering in the dark, afraid to breathe like we did when we were small.

A shadow encroaches on the curtain, the sharp silhouette of a horse's head. I turn Serena away, but my eyes are locked onto it.

The stories say it's not the entire head, just a bleached skull. They say it has unblinking, glass eyes that see into your soul. I don't know if they're right; I've been lucky enough to only see the shadow, but Ffion tenses beside me, remembering.

The bells are louder now, so loud I can't hear myself think, and underneath them is the sound of footsteps and rattling bones. I slide my hand up to cover Serena's mouth, praying she won't cry out.

I don't remember when I started holding my breath. My lungs ache, begging for oxygen, but I don't dare give in.

The Mari Lwyd has passed the door now, its silhouette patiently marching by the second window. Almost gone. Almost to the next house. Almost

"This is so cool."

The bells stop mid-chime at Harry's whisper, plunging us into a silence so absolute it hurts, and the horse freezes in place.

No. I reach out and grab Harry's arm, digging my nails into his skin as a warning. Maybe it'll go away.

He jerks out of my grasp. "What the hell"

"Shh!" Even the kids shush him. They know this isn't something to fool around with.

The Mari Lwyd turns, stares straight through the curtains. If it had the flesh to do it, its ears would be up and alert, searching for any noise.

Harry looks at us like we're being irrational, and goes to stand up. Alys swivels in her seat and aims Daddy's shotgun at him.

She won't shoot, won't even risk the sound of pulling back the hammer, but her eyes are dark and steady. She's not about to let her family get taken by a skeletal horse, and if that means she has to threaten to murder her boyfriend, so be it. I don't blame her.

For a second, it looks like the Mari Lwyd is moving on. Then the tapping starts, slow and steady, back and forth across the front of the house though the horse head remains stationary. Something like a broom scrapes against the door in long strokes. Ffion and I huddle closer; Alys cocks the shotgun.

That, more than anything else, fills me with a sense of doom. There's no use keeping quiet anymore. It knows we're here.

Still I don't dare move, don't dare let myself cry. Mum never cried, so I can't, either. I have to stay strong for my family.

A low warbling comes from just outside the door, a song without words, without voice. The mournful whinny of the Mari Lwyd permeates the house, surrounding us until I can't discern its origin. It may be coming from the inside of my head, for all I know.

"This is ridiculous," Harry mutters, and that's the last straw.

I cling to the hope that we may still have a chance. It might not be singing at us. It might be singing at someone else's house, and will leave us alone if we can just stay quiet a little longer.

But I can't do that. I can't sit here and listen to someone tell me this isn't happening, that my childhood terrors are unfounded. I won't listen to him say smoke and mirrors are the reason I never met my big sister Efa.

"Stop it," I tell Harry, my voice shaking with the effort not to scream. "You stop right this second."

The Mari Lwyd delights in hearing us. Its bells ring louder, its song grows more insistent. The tapping at the door becomes a steady pounding, like the rattle of an epic windstorm.

It wants in.

"We need to sing at it," Alys says as the children start to cry.

We look to Ffion, whose horror I can see even in the dark. "It didn't work," she whispers. "Last time. We sang every song we knew. All the hymns, even Efa's silly skipping rhymes. It had heard them all before."

"You're going to sing at it?" Harry has to raise his voice to be heard over the chaos of the Mari Lwyd. "You think there's a demon horse out there, and your answer is to sing"

The end of his sentence is cut off when the door slams open.

The Mari Lwyd stands there on its two legs, everything from its shoes to its toothy, grinning skull shrouded in a sheet that flaps and billows in the wind. Its eyes shimmer, glassy and unblinking, as it looks over the offerings at Alys's feet.

Alys trembles, Daddy's shotgun forgotten in her hands, and I pull her away from the door. Harry reaches out to comfort her, and something inside me snaps.

I give Serena to Ffion and stand, forcefully dragging Harry along as I march up to the horse.

Its breath is hot and smells like sulfur, but I don't flinch. That's what it wants: the fear. It thrives on it, on our desperation to satisfy its demands.

Well, I'm not playing along anymore. This ends here, tonight. My children will be the last generation to cower on what should be a holy night, and I only regret that I didn't do something about it when I was their age.

"I will not sing for you." I don't know if it can hear me over the bells and screaming, but I don't raise my voice. "No one in this house will sing for you ever again, nor will we feed you."

The Mari Lwyd lowers its head, glaring at me.

"If you want a sacrifice, take this one." I gesture at Harry, who yelps. I'm not actually planning to give him to it, but I won't cry if it calls my bluff. "We're done with you terrorizing us."

With that, I grab at the sheet covering it, and yank. The Mari Lwyd gives an awful shriek, throwing its head back and letting off a burst of heat that instantly melts the snow on the front walk.

The skull drops to the ground with a clatter, coming to rest beside its shoes, and a grateful silence overtakes the town once again.

The neighbors cautiously emerge from their houses. Someone grabs the skull and hangs it on a stick, and parades it down the street. I shut the door, taking care to lock it though I hope this is the last we'll see of the Mari Lwyd, and go to hug my family. We'll be back next year for the safe Christmas we always dreamed of, and we'll have a new story to tell about the Mari Lwyd.

Monday, December 7, 2020

Loaners

 Early this year, I got my first library card. My own, not my mother's, from the big fancy Broome County Library. Don't get me wrong, I love the library I grew up in, Huntington Memorial back home in Oneonta, but this one was just… it was a museum of books.

I couldn't wait to go and explore every few weeks.

And then the pandemic hit and I haven't been back.

The pandemic is scary and the world is scary and I don't want to write about it. But the same time, I kept thinking about that library, about the books. About how lonely they must have been with no one to read them, having no idea what was happening or if people were ever coming back.

Loaners does not directly mention the pandemic, and it could be about any large scale crisis at any point in time. There's no mention of the misery and chaos the pandemic has caused, except in the apocalyptic speculation of some of the books that fear humanity has gone extinct. But still, I offer a content warning: though this story is one of hope and perseverance and survival, it is very much about the worldwide pandemic I hoped would be over before this story found publication.

My stories are weird and dark sometimes, but almost always hopeful. When I wrote this, I was also weird and dark but hopeful. I had hoped this story wouldn't be relevant by the time it was published. And in a way, it isn't. The world is opening up again. The library books aren't lonely anymore. But it isn't over, not even close. 

Loaners is available in Sunshine Superhighway in paperback and digital.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Will-o-the-Walmart

(I wrote this blog post months ago and totally forgot to publish it. Good job, past Jen.)

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone?

Yes, I'm quoting Big Yellow Taxi for a reason. It's because my story Will-o-the-Walmart has been published in Triangulation: Extinction.

My story takes place in a world without nature, although it isn't about that. And it features a sad little nature spirit alone in the world, although… it isn’t really about that, either.

It's about two queer girls trying desperately to fall back in love.

It's a metaphor. And like any good metaphor*, the narrator explicitly points out to you it is a metaphor.

*At least if you're me.

Fun facts about this story!

* it refers to Thomas Edison as He Who Must Not Be Named, and I totally forgot to edit that out when I submitted it but they liked it anyway

* because it is based on Big Yellow Taxi, I listened to that song for like three days in a row. And then my friend, who I joke about having a psychic connection with, told me he had had the song stuck in his head for days

* This is my second story in a Triangulation anthology. Seven Sisters is available in Dark Skies.

So come on. Follow that little light into the darkness, let it lead you on an adventure between the pages of Extinction.



Saturday, October 17, 2020

There's No Special Ed At Hogwarts

Oh yes, I write essays sometimes.

Sometimes, they're even good.


There's No Special Ed At Hogwarts, available free online at Breath & Shadow, is a very personal nonfiction piece about confronting systemic and internalized ableism.

It's also, indirectly and unconsciously, about recognizing and dealing with the realization that the things you love do not always love you back.

I love Harry Potter. I was obsessed with it during a very hard part of my life and it still gives me warm nostalgia feelings of comfort when I think about that world.

But that world is not accessible to disabled people, and young me didn't realize that wasn't okay. The world wasn't accessible, but that was just the way it was. It was my fault for needing it to be different. So why should fiction be any different?

Because it can. Because it should. Because it needs to.

If our fiction, if our worlds full of dragons and magic, can't be open to people regardless of who or what they are, what the hell kind of chance does our real world have?


I wrote this a couple years ago. I knew the author was problematic, but I wasn't really… part of the discourse so I wasn't aware of the extent.

If I was writing this now, I’d add something about trans people not being welcome at Hogwarts either, since JK Rowling has continuously revealed that she is anti-trans and I am…

Well, to be honest. I don't super really know what I am. I’m not cisgender, which is the word for people who are comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth. I'm definitely not a man. But not totally a woman either.

I've been using the word non-binary. I don't know if it's accurate, I don't really care what you call it. But I like the flag.

I just know that J. K. Rowling has another reason to hate me, but that doesn't mean I have another reason to hate myself.


Friday, October 16, 2020

The Unwelcome Destiny Of Virginia Monahan

I have TWO publications out today, both free to read at Breath And Shadow, an online magazine dedicated to the writings of disabled people. So I'm going to do two posts, one for my story and one for my essay.

First, my story, The Unwelcome Destiny Of Virginia Monahan, available here: https://www.abilitymaine.org/bs2020fall/%22the-unwelcome-destiny-of-virginia-monahan%22

(If you want to read my essay, as well, There's No Special Ed At Hogwarts, here is the link: https://www.abilitymaine.org/bs2020fall/%22there%E2%80%99s-no-special-ed-at-hogwarts%22)



"Gin had always seen the ripples."

That is the first line of The Unwelcome Destiny Of Virginia Monahan, and it is also the first line I wrote after escaping my abusive home.

I was in a nursing home, where I spent a month waiting to go to a group home. Typing was difficult, I was miserable, and there was just so much going on that I could barely think let alone write.

I got my first ever cell phone, and dictating made writing possible. Still not easy–it would be a while before I could effortlessly translate my thoughts into spoken word–but possible. And having a phone also made it possible for me to discover my own taste in music.

I've always listened to what my mom listens to. Mostly 80s and oldies. And I do love that music, but I was rebelling. I moved out on my own, started my life over. I was gonna listen to what I wanted to listen to.

… and it turns out my taste in music largely resembles that of my mom. But at least I tried to rebel, right?

My mom generally does not like music made past the 80s, but there is one modern band that we both love. Train. You know, the Drops of Jupiter people. I actually think that song was the first song I added to my Spotify playlist.

When I wasn't hanging out with my group of friends at the nursing home, I wandered the halls and played music. My mother’s music. My music. Because, no matter how much I tried to pretend otherwise, I am my mother's daughter.

But I could still rebel. I could sing.

My mother never told me I couldn't, but I never felt comfortable trying it until then. So I would go down the hallway, sunlight from the snowy courtyard streaming in through the giant windows, and I would sing Meet Virginia. And it felt good, it felt right. It felt like I was telling destiny that I might be my mother's daughter, but only I get to decide what that means.

The Unwelcome Destiny of Virginia Monahan is based on Meet Virginia, about a girl with magic intuition and tragic confidence. A girl who sees the future and doesn't like what she sees. A girl who drinks coffee at midnight while pulling her hair back as she screams because she doesn't want to be queen of the fairies.

"Gin had always seen the ripples" was written right before I went to sleep one night at the nursing home. I didn't know what the story would be about any more than I knew how my life would turn out, because unlike Virginia Monahan I can't see the future. But I did know one thing: I'm the only one in charge of my destiny.

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Of Dragon Genes And Pretty Girls

 So all of humanity is on a spaceship and there's no dragons, right? No, this is nothing like Chen D’Angelo and the Chinese-Italian Dragon, published in Dragon Bike. This is a totally different story about a generation ship and needing to find a Chinese dragon.

Swear.

This is a story about genetics and destiny and the ultimate quest to find a cute nickname for your girlfriend.

A long, long time ago, 12 animals ran a race and the order that they placed determined the order of the Chinese zodiac, which some people believe determines everything from your personality to who you should marry.

But when you're in space for a long time, the calendar can get kind of… wonky. So humanity has decided to run a new race when they get to their new planet. But there's only one problem.

They don't exactly have a dragon.

So in order to hold the race (and maybe, possibly, influence the results so she and her girlfriend will be compatible?), the descendent of a long line of dragon riders will have to get creative if she's going to find a dragon…

Of Dragon Genes And Pretty Girls is available in paperback and e-book along with 15 other stories in Hear Me Roar!

I am extra excited about this book because The Other Jen, Jennifer Donohue, is in it! We both lived in my old hometown at the same time, and we have been in the same books multiple times.

Friday, September 18, 2020

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Article

So… the short version of this blog post? I have had a wild few days and the result is this article I wrote for Den of Geek about the new Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Netflix series:

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/how-camp-cretaceous-connects-to-the-jurassic-world-canon/

Yes, really. I did that.


The long version?

 You ever think about what you would say if you could go back in time and talk to yourself as a child?

Assume there's a team of time travelers working with you to make sure you don't actually ruin the timeline or change anything. The only thing that will change is that Child You will go through life with one little piece of information about their future. Won't affect anything except they we will have the reassurance that [insert thing here] will happen.

I could tell little Jen that she escapes the abuse. That she's safe now. But I wouldn't want her to realize it was abuse any sooner than she has to because I want her to live in obliviousness as long as she can. Those months of knowing it was bad but not being able to fix it, she doesn't need a lifetime of that.

I could tell her that she becomes a published author and people actually buy her stories. But she was impatient. I think it would frustrate her more, knowing she had to wait 15 more years to find success.

And I could tell her about all the friends she has in the future. That one day, she will have people she considers family, who she trusts with her life and with her heart. But she didn't really want friends, and some of my best friends now are guys and she would think that's weird.

I don't know when I will be able to announce this, but I am writing this blog post on September 15, 2020. And it's today. Today is the day I would tell her about.

It is not the best day of my life. Not even close. Not even the best day of my writing career. But it is the day that would mean most to her.

Young Jen Rossman was obsessed with Jurassic Park. Obsessed. She would watch it from beginning to end, rewind it and watch it again. Every day. Multiple times a day. She had a crush on Dr. Malcolm before she properly understood what a crush was. She briefly insisted on being called Lex, after John Hammond's granddaughter. She became a writer because she couldn't physically be a paleontologist.

And if I could go back in time and tell her one thing to give her peace of mind that her future would be okay, it is this:

"When you're 30, you're going to know an editor who is going to put you in contact with someone from a magazine that gets 10 million readers a month. And they are going to ask you to write an article about a new Jurassic Park tie-in show. And you're going to get to watch it before it officially comes out. You might not be a paleontologist, you might not be a world famous author like everyone tells you you're going to be. But you are going to be a good enough writer, and you are going to be passionate enough about dinosaurs, that you are going to see a piece of Jurassic Park media before most of the world has a chance."


It is now September 17, 2020. Little after 7 PM. I just finished watching the show. The rest of the world doesn't get to see it until tomorrow. And I want to cry again because my name is going to be on one of the first articles about this show on a website millions of people visit every month.

I'm a part of this. A very small part, which I am sharing with I don't know how many other people who have been asked to write about it for I don't know how many media outlets.

 But a new piece of Jurassic Park media is coming out tomorrow, and I am one of the people who got to see it early. I am one of the people who gets to tell the world "Welcome to Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous."

I am probably sharing this honor with hundreds or thousands of people, and my imposter syndrome is telling me that means it's not a big deal. But it is. Professionally and personally.

I probably sound so overdramatic, but no matter what else happens in my life, I will be able to remember what it felt like to send my dad a screenshot of me being on a page on the Netflix website directing members of the media to login below, and telling him "Your daughter is a member of the media."

I will be able to remember telling my friend Corey that the show is good, him saying he would check it out, and the look on his face when he realized what I meant when I said "Well, you'll have to wait till Friday." (He literally stopped what he was doing and stared at me and said "Wait, YOU GET TO SEE IT EARLY?")

I will be able to remember the magic of sharing a secret with the most important franchise in my life. Of having a little part of it that was just for me, just for a little while.

I have notes about the show. In a few minutes, when I get my emotional shit together, those notes will become an article explaining how Camp Cretaceous fits into the timeline and universe of the other movies. Tomorrow I will submit my article, and tomorrow the show releases to the rest of the world.

But right now, before I remember I have to be professional and actually write this thing so I can get paid, right now I am not allowed to share this show or any details about it. Right now, I am letting myself sit here in the dark with my eyes closed, laughcrying because experience was all mine. I didn't have to share it with anyone.


It is now September 18, 2020. My article went up a little while ago. I think it's good. I think I want to write more things like this.

I can't even think right now to put it into words how bizarre the last few days of my life I've been. I am exhausted. I don't ever watch TV shows just for fun; I am a writer, and I analyze stuff. But for this one I have pages upon pages of notes. I did research. I stayed up until 11 PM last night finishing and submitting my article.

 I’m getting paid to watch TV and write about my favorite franchise in the entire world. How wild is that.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Bury Your Tropes

 Good evening, blog people. Here is the video of the Bury Your Tropes panel I was on as part of the Renaissance Virtual Con.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRERk_O4-Idi6W5zO6wX6-g

And stay tuned, because I am part of a very exciting project that I'm going to officially announce as soon as we confirm the submission guidelines.

What's that? Do you think just because it has submission guidelines it must be an anthology or something? *Innocent whistling* i'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. You'll just have to wait and see.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Lord's Dome by EDE Bell


Greetings! Today I am honored to welcome author and editor EDE Bell to talk about her new book Lord's Dome, available now through Atthis Arts! (I've worked with her and her publisher several times – and she is one of our Space Opera Libretti author – and have nothing but good things to say.)



 Can you describe Lord’s Dome in one or two sentences?

 

Lord’s Dome is a short novel about a girl who decides to question what she’s been told and an older woman who must decide whether to help her. It’s a fantasy, but with a different style of world building and elements of many other genres, so I’m hoping it will appeal to non-fantasy readers as well.

 

What made you want to write this book? What made you want to self-publish it?

 

I wrote this book in 2018. As I discuss in the Preface, it was an experiment of mine during an editing break, to see if I could write a short novel. I don’t think I said this part in the Preface, but I wanted to see if I could write something a little more poppy. A shorter story with high excitement and flow. With all that’s happened this year, some of my memories are floating around in a bowl of water right now, but as I recall, I was thinking about power at the time. However 2020 has gone, 2018 held trials too. I actually had some interesting inspiration, but that gets into spoilers. Anyway: Power. Resistance. Truth. Things on my mind at the time.

 

Additionally, I now realize everything I’ve written to date has been heavily influenced by my own mental issues. This would be a long discussion, but in this case, there are definitely some psychological things going on in this book.

 

All of that said, the book flowed out quickly. First, a fairly simple outline, then a full story. I surprised myself how quickly it came together. Then I put it aside, as a project for another day. And look, it is another day!

 

As for self-publishing, I’ve self-published all of my books because I own the small press. I know there is a big price for this, but I just can’t imagine not having final creative say over the product. (And I’m extraordinary lucky having a life and business partner who can help do the rest. I know how fortunate I am for that.) However, this one is particularly so because we did all the edits and design on a short timeline and no budget. (More about that in your next question.) So it does absolutely have big self-pub energy. Huge.

 

2020 has been a rough year for a lot of us, myself included. What has it been like, trying to release books this year? How is it different than past years?

 

There is so much to this. First, I’ve been open about having some serious mental health issues, ones beyond the common 2020 issues, and also discoveries about my disabilities this year, after a near-total collapseThis involved periods of mental stateas well as medication that were difficult to work through. On top of that, because of the pandemic, a lot of our releases slipped—then all happened at once, and me seeing that those authors needing the joy of seeing their products released, and were relying on us to do that without further delay, so I wanted to make it all work. We’ve released or will be releasing an anthology, a fantasy novel, two graphic novels, and a novella fairy tale this year. On top of that, I was in the middle of my own fantasy serial with a three-month release schedule that I was determined to keep on track. (Diamondsong Part 10releases in October, and the entire print bundle is available now at edebell.com/diamondsong)

 

All of this involved edits, proofreading, sensitivity changes—it was a lot to work through, some during some rather intense personal issues. There was a lot going on, and it took all that I had (which was limited) to keep it all going. But I realized I needed to create as well, and so, I started working world building for my next big series. For me, world building is slow and careful work, and while it got me through some really hard days and was probably all I could have done at the time, it didn’t have the lift of a near-term goal. In the meantime, one of my friends had just read this manuscript, which as I’ve said, Id written in 2018. She really liked it, and encouraged me to try and release it as soon as possible. I thought, can I do that? Like, right now? But something about her enthusiasm, and then the enthusiasm of the others who beta read it really made me feel like I was going to make it through this. It gave me a reason to try and focus better, a reason to feel excitement; it even allowed me to change some of my medications in ways that made it easier for me to work the edits. I don’t know if I was ready yet to write a novel, but I found myself feeling ready to bring a short one to life, and it was a totally cyclical process, where the book gave me the energy I needed to have more energy for the book. While still taking care of myself, this time.

 

As for releasing all of these books this year, yeah, it’s been hard, even beyond the personal issues. Hard because it’s difficult to sell and get attention online. Sales have been…I’ll censor myself here and say the sales have not been where we needed them to be, even for books we felt sure would do better. But we are doing our best trying to make ads work, trying to find ways to be seen, and just hoping something breaks through.

 

As for releasing this book, I simply can’t pretend it wasn’t a 2020 thing and I don’t even want to. People are like: don’t tell people you did this on no dollars, and I’m like whoop I put it in the Preface! : D But to me, this is a total triumph. This book is made out of friendship and hope and we-exist and who-we-are-is-good and we-are-going-to-make-it more even than paper and words. Friends encouraged me to do it, friends went through extra efforts to beta and read and help review. We made our NO DOLLARS COVER on our computer, and we put this book out there with every tiny drop of 2020 “I did this and I like it just how it is” that I had in me.

 

I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of this question. 2020 is so much. Like, there’s so much more I could say.

 

On that note, if people do like this story, please let other readersknow. Reviews, ratings, recommendations - any success of this book will depend entirely on that.

 

Being way too honest (a thing I do), we need to get to a point where Chris and I can take a break. A real break. But for now,surviving and books with all the heart and hope of our beings pressed into their pages is what I’ve got.

 

And to everyone out there also having a hard time of any type, I’m sending love. Let’s feel it together, and feel that power.

 

What can you tell me about your writing style for this book? Are most of your stories written with a Great Lakes dialect, or is this one different?

 

In general, I have learned not to stifle my voice in my writing. Early on, an editor told me that even if I was from Michigan, my characters and readers weren’t, and strongly encouraged me to phrase things in more “standard" ways, which at the time I did. Yet this really started to bother me. First, if I were writing representations of different backgrounds on Earth, that might be a more relevant discussion. Next, the more I learned about how writers of regional and cultural backgrounds are commonly demanded to write to other people’s speech patterns, it really made me passionate in general about honoring our authentic voices, whenever and however we choose to express them. Next, it’s fiction. It’s art! As I’ve said many times, strict standards may be necessary for the Mars Landing Manual, but they are not necessary for a slipstream fantasy novel about people in a magic mine.

 

As for this story, because it was an experiment when I wrote it, I decided to be even more colloquial. I just let the words flow, and the characters speak, and had such a wonderful time writing this back in 2018. When I revisited it in 2020, with all the 2020 emotion, I was set and determined not to write those qualitiesout of it. So even for me, this book has an informal, rules-annoy-me tone, and given a whole bunch of things about this story (characters, world building, the world itself, plot flow, plot, themes…), I really think it worked.

 

Who’s your favorite character?

 

I couldn’t pick between the two main characters. The story is told equally between a young teenager and an older mentor / supervisor. As I’ve learned that a lot of my own difficulties go back to my youth, again, I am now certain this comes from a very personal and psychological place. (Other themes in my writing have become apparent!) So let’s leave Gu Non and Vo Jie alone, as I truly love both of these characters. They are earnest, flawed, and I hope vibrant on the page.

 

So I’m going to pick our kindly old priest, Ny Auv. He is sweet, he is passionate, and in a very difficult life, he has used his relative privilege for his own best quiet resistance, without ever knowing what it might do. I hope this is one resonance of the story: the power of doing something, even when more feels out of reach. To remember that the power of hope often comes from our believing in it.

 

Pretend your favorite character lives in our modern world. What kind of music is on their playlist?

 

This is a strangely hard question for me to answer, just for this story. For other stories, I could tell you what specific songs a character would totally rock. But again, the worldbuilding of this story leaves a lot on the periphery, so a lot of the details are quite open for interpretation.

 

First a side note: One thing that I noticed when I was editing the book was there was a specific lack of music in the story. For me, fantasy is music, so I always include at least one gratuitous fantasy song, more if I can—it’s my tribute to classic fantasy (along with mentioning embroidery when I can). But I realized this year while editing that there was no singing, no music, no dancing. Now, people in hardship often turn to music, but part of this worldbuilding style is that you only see what you see.Because of that, also my desire to preserve the 2018 story, which was written with a lot of natural flow, I didn’t try to edit any in.The reader can provide the music.

 

So let’s talk about our priest, Ny Auv. I imagine he’s been even more stifled on music, probably only Temple-permitted music, I mean, let’s hope he had that. He comes across to me as someone who might enjoy 70s music: some folk with guitar influence, and some soul and R&B. Yet part of me thinks I am totally stereotyping him, and if he made it here, he’d quietly become a huge Metal fan. I’m going with that.