Fanfic and the Face of Glory

My friends, I have passed a strange milestone in my writing career. It is not one that I expected to pass quite this early, if ever, and certainly not before I published at least a book-length work.

I have inspired fanfic.

See, a while ago, a certain pink-haired goddess named Mrs. Cookie Mick got in touch with me about the story I published in One Buck Horror, "The Last Nephew." She had a bit of an objection to the open-endedness of that story and proposed a solution:

Dear @elizabethtwist, what is your take on Fanfiction. Or of having a fanfiction written based on one of your works?
— Mrs.Cookie Mick (@I_Really_Bite) January 14, 2012

I paused for a moment or two. What do I think about fanfiction? I've never written any, but I've read a bit here and there. (Dear K/S slashers, you are perverted and you are still my favourites.)

What did I think about having a fanfiction written based on my story? I thought "woohoo!" Seriously, how fun is that?

Mrs. Cookie wrote me soon after with the banner art she (and her co-author, I think) had designed:

Yes, that's Haley Joel Osment in the upper righthand corner.

And a little while ago they posted their first chapter at The Writer's Coffee Shop Library. (You have to register to read it.) It's taking the narrative in a whole new direction and building a mythology of magic around it. I have to say it's really, really cool to see how something I wrote inspired someone else. Seriously, super cool.

On to the researchy goodness portion of the program:


The Face of Glory

Also known as Kīrttimukha, the face of a lion-headed monster which embodied the destructive power of the universal god. It was the only part which survived his self-consumption. The Face of Glory has become a symbol of protective wrath, but does not inspire fear in the Hindau devotee.

More info on Kīrttimukha 

The face of a lion-headed monster, created by Shiva when he was challenged by Jalamdhara It embodies the powers of the universal god. The ravenous monster intended to devour Rāhu but when he was deprived of his prey, Shiva suggested he feed on his own flesh. He started with his hands and feet, then his arms and legs, belly, chest, and neck until finally only the head remained. Shiva declared that the head would be known as Kīrttimukha, the Face of Glory, and object of worship. It was placed on the lintels of Shiva's temple and as guardian of thresholds.

From Encyclopedia Mythica

Jyostna Kamat of Kamat's Potpourri compares the Face of Glory to the green man motif in English church architecture. She also notes,

Every Hindu temple has the face of lion at the apex entrance carved artistically. This lion-face appears at the top of the door, niche, and windows as well. The countenances of man and lion are fused and it is also know as Simhamuka or Simhalalata. It is supposed to lead worshippers to Supreme Reality.

A common view of the Face is that it has a warding effect, like an anti evil eye.

Source

This Way to the Egress

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.

From The Lost Museum

In many ways, P.T. Barnum's American Museum (1841-1865) was the epitome of our modern era in which the media manages to both manipulate and disappoint on a consistent basis - and yet we still flock to the movies and gather round the television in massive numbers.

Barnum's genius was in combining gimmicks and fakes with genuine information and the popular moralizing of his day. He was the king of false advertising. According to The Lost Museum, he used the above image of three fishy hotties to lure people to the museum, and delivered the "Fejee Mermaid," which looked like this:

From The Lost Museum
If it looks like a monkey sewn onto a fish, it probably is.

The American Museum was insanely popular, hosting by some estimates up to 15,000 visitors a day. (That is, until it burned down in 1865.)

My favourite part of Barnum's flair for crowd control was the egress. Noticing that people were lingering a little too long at the exhibits and cutting into profits, Barnum put up a sign that said, "This Way to the Egress." Counting on people to not know that "egress" is another word for "exit," he deftly deposited them back onto the street.

Hail Khepera in Thy Boat

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.


I admit I'm getting tired of titling my posts according to the letter of the alphabet. This is an A to Z post; it's just that "D" - today's letter - is encoded.

Photo by Rocker_44

"[T]he god Khepera...represents matter containing a living germ which is about to pass from a state of inertness into one of active life."

Source

"As he was a living germ in the abyss of Nu, and made himself to emerge therefrom in the form of the rising sun, so the germ of the living soul, which existed in the dead body of man, and was to burst into a new life in a new world by means of the prayers recited during the performance of appropriate ceremonies, emerged from its old body in a new form either in the realm of Osiris or in the boat of Ra."

Source

"This doctrine was symbolized by the germs of life rolled up in the egg-ball of the beetle, and the power which made those to become living creatures was that which made man's spiritual body to come into being, and was personified in the god Khepera."

Source

"Thus Khepera symbolized the resurrection of the body, and it was this idea which was at the root of the Egyptian custom of wearing figures of the beetle, and of placing them in the tombs and on the bodies of the dead."

Text from page 357 of The Gods of the Egyptians (Vol. 1) by E.A. Wallis Budge (Methuen & Co.,1904).

(D is for dung beetle. I promise at some point I'll get off this animal / insect / poop / Egypt theme. This one was for FWG.)

Civet Coffee, a Pre-Digested Delight

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.


I love a cup of coffee - one might say I am a devotee or even a coffee snob. I love the ritual of grinding beans, the scent of coffee, and, as a writer who delights in burning the midnight oil, I rely on a good solid daily caffeine kick to focus my mind.

There is one type of coffee I've never tried: the infamous kopi luwak. I understand this was on Oprah a while back? You might have heard of it.

Kopi luwak is coffee that has passed through the intestinal tract of this little guy, the luwak, or palm civet, who has a wonderful latin name: paradoxurus hermaphroditus. Isn't he cute?

 Source

The luwak eats the red fruit of the coffee tree ("coffee cherries"). It digests the outer fruit part, and poops out the seeds / beans, which have fermented due to their exposure to the luwak's digestive enzymes. Fermentation is one type of normal coffee processing in order to separate the fruit from the desirable bean, but usually this is done in water.

Richard Karno of The Novel Café in Santa Monica describes kopi luwak as "the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. It’s really good, heavy with a caramel taste, heavy body. It smells musty and junglelike green, but it roasts up real nice."

On a sad note, while kopi luwak is typically foraged in its naturally occurring Sumatran environment, the nutso craze for it has created a factory farming scenario for palm civets, which is just about the grossest and most excessive manifestation of supply-and-demand sickness I've encountered. There is apparently a cruelty-free option based on synthetic enzymes that mimic the luwak's digestive traits. (If you decide you just try this coffee, please buy it responsibly.)

On a more story-promptish note, this whole deal has me thinking about rare culinary delights; about foods that depend on a rare creature for their processing; about geese who lay golden eggs; about fountains of youth. Could be a good story in here.

"Hot Defensive Bee Ball"

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.

When I'm looking for a model for an alien species, I find insects especially useful. I'm currently working on a story that models an alien planet's biology after certain creatures direct from the world of nightmare parasitic insects. Lately I've been thinking about bees.

Source

There has been some fuss (will not pun on "buzz") about the global decline of honey bee populations lately. Recent research suggests that certain pesticides interfere with the bees' ability to navigate back to the hive, and that the increase in disease in bee populations might also be due to pesticide use. This is bad because, as Albert Einstein famously noted, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!"

I was going to write about that, but then I came across this little gem, and I couldn't resist, because OMG BEES ARE TERRIFYING!

From the Telegraph's attention-grabbing article: "Japanese Honeybees Cook Enemy in 'Hot Defensive Bee Ball.'"

"When the hornet, the Japanese honeybee's natural enemy, enters a colony, the bees quickly form a 'hot defensive bee ball,' trapping the hornet inside and heating it up to 46 degrees C (115F) with their collective body heat," said Atsushi Ugajin, a University of Tokyo graduate student. 

He said that while the high temperature phase lasts about 20 minutes, it often takes up to an hour before the hornet dies inside the ball.

Now there's a sci fi / fantasy creature defense mechanism I can work with.

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The Apis Bull

Greetings, my fellow A-Zers! I can't wait to meet you in droves. I'm a fiction writer. This blog is mostly made up of personal revelations, thoughts on craft, and various other things related to writing and reading and anything that helps me meet my writing goals. (Which are lofty. My performance is fair to middling.) This April, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.

Source

According to the British Museum, the Apis Bull was unusual in ancient Egypt, in that it wasn't a type of sacred animal, like the ibis or the cat, but rather an animal incarnation of a god. According to researcher Andrew Gough, the Apis Bull was similar to the Dalai Lama: there was only one at a time, and when the Bull died, his priests undertook a search for his new incarnation.

The Apis Bull was identifiable because of his particular markings. Herodotus wrote in his Histories of the bull:

The Apis is the calf of a cow which is never afterwards able to have another. The Egyptian belief is that a flash of light descends upon the cow from heaven, and this causes her to conceive Apis. The Apis-calf has distinctive marks: it is black, with a white square on its forehead, the image of an eagle on its back, the hair on its tail double, and a scarab under its tongue.

While Greek writers associated the Bull with the god Osiris, modern research argues that during his life, the Bull was the incarnation of Ptah, the creator. The Bull was venerated and well cared for during his lifetime. Priests watched it carefully, since its every movement was a potential message from the god. During the Festival of the Apis Bull, the Bull's keepers paraded him through the streets. If a child smelled his breath, he or she would receive the gift of fortelling the future.

Andrew Gough links the Bull's white blaze to the blazing star Aldebaran in the forehead of the constellation Taurus. The centre of the forehead is the location of the seventh chakra or "third eye," associated with intuition and spiritual insight.

Source

A Month in Reading: February 2012

I pledged to read a book a week and a short story a day in 2012. I've just completed my March challenge. These are the highlights of February's readings.

Books
I read three works of non-fiction and one short story anthology in February (Dark Faith, which I posted about in my January reading report.)

Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin (HarperOne 1992) took me several months to read because I could not read it in bed at night. This slowed down my progress considerably because I do much of my reading at bedtime. This book is so cuckoonuts terrifying that I had to reserve my reading sessions for broad daylight. Malachi Martin was a Catholic priest and theologian who participated in hundreds of exorcisms during his lifetime. Hostage follows five case studies of people suffering from demonic possession and the priests who exorcised them.

Okay, okay, let's say you have a skeptical mind and don't believe in demons. Even so, there is something creepy about the concept of malevolent forces whose only recourse is to both hate and feed off us. It is a classic horror trope: maybe the classic horror trope. Fabulous storytelling here.

David Mamet's Three Uses of the Knife is his essay on the purpose of drama, broken down into the key problems and issues at play in each of the three acts. Although the focus is on stage and (sort of) screen, this is useful stuff for any writer of fiction. My favourite bit, on reaching the third act and the all-too-common montage / unnecessary pause for self-reflection that happens there (from page 76):

It has been said that a poem is never completed; it is only abandoned. Like a poem, a drama is difficult to structure. In my experience the dramatist gets tired at precisely the same point as the protagonist: facing the third act. The act is outlined, the task is plain, if difficult, and the very clarity of the task is dispiriting. 

Once the third act is planned, for better or worse, the play is done. Dramatists complete the act with whatever gifts of dialogue and invention they have been given, but the die is cast. The potter has fired the piece. Still, the act has to be written (the pot still has to be glazed), and the dramatist thinks, again, "Oh, come on - it's in my head. Must I go on? Are you really going to make me write it down?" 

I read that and I thought, amen, brother. I've been there on every story I've written. I like the idea of the unnecessary pause in the narrative (the fireside chat before the battle, the backstory about the detective's pet turtle) arising as a result of the writer being all tuckered out. (I guess that means we should be editing these out, right?)

The final book I read ("read") in February was Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind, which is a lecture and an interview cobbled together, but substantial enough that I counted it as a book. Candace Pert is a pharmacologist who has researched and written about the interconnection between the molecules our cells use to communicate and our physical, emotional, and spiritual states. Most interesting facts from Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind: neurotransmitters are found everywhere in the body, not just in the brain. Cell receptors - the little "keyholes" into which neurotransmitters plug - are not steady state. They change configuration from moment to moment, determining to some degree which precise versions of neurotransmitters can "unlock" them. Neurotransmitters seem to work at a physical distance from the cells they trigger. The brain makes insulin.

Shorts
I read my way through the last bit of the Dark Faith anthology. In particular I loved "Ring Road" by Mary Robinette Kowal and Lucien Soulban's "The Choir." Catherynne M. Valente's zombie tale, "The Days of Flaming Motorcycles," was everything zombie fiction should be and more.

I started in on Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman's story collection. There is something about reading single-author story collections that is extra instructive. You pick up a subtle thread that runs through all the stories, even in a collection as eclectic as this one. If you want a sample, "A Study in Emerald," a Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes story, is available online. Worth it for the fun typeset. Because I used to be an academic I enjoyed "Bitter Grounds" also.

With all this collection and anthology reading I didn't focus as much on online stories in February. I did pick up a copy of  Stupefying Stories (issue 1.3), because it's a new-ish magazine and I hadn't had the chance to look at it yet. I read and liked "Oogie Tucker's Mission" by Gary Cuba. Because I hang out in some woowoo social circles who are all "2012! The end is nigh!" the final image of this story stuck with me for a while. More on Stupefying in my post on my March readings.

My final recommendation for the month is "Killing Merwin Remis" by Jason Helmandollar, a gem that I found in my Pseudopod feed, originally posted in September 2011. If you have ever had a neighbour you hated, this is for you. Big Anklevich's narration is absolutely delicious.