Instead of waiting to do a review of Louisville’s Imaginarium 2018 until after it’s over, I’m going to do you a favor and explain, in advance, why you should come if it’s even remotely possible. This is the 5th anniversary of Imaginarium, a writer’s workshop with a gaming track, film festival, kids’ programming, burlesque show, magic show, cosplay contest, FREE book fair and expo hall, and pretty much anything else you can think of that any reader, writer, artist, costumer, gamer, or fan could ask for in one space. I have gone every year, and so have 90% of the people who came to the first Imaginarium. It’s hands-down my favorite event of the year, my favorite weekend of the year, every single year. The panels are engaging, the staff is fantastic, the organizers treat everyone like royalty, and those of us who keep coming back each year are like family. It is truly, in this rather bleak world modern homo sapiens have found ourselves in, a community. I would like to point out that I do not get paid to say these things. Haha!

I am particularly excited this year because I have two short stories up for the Imadjinn Awards, nominations for which were featured in Locus Magazine on September 10th. Whether I win or not, I’m proud to be in the same league as the other authors listed in these nominations! Also, I’m particularly excited about the very fancy dress I got to wear to the Imadjinn Awards Banquet, since my work uniform this time of year is muddy work boots and sweaty t-shirts and grubby-sleeved hoodies. (It’s nice to be a girly girl when it’s not every day!) And I’m also stoked about the panels I’m speaking on: Crossing Genres on Friday (my favorite writing topic); Releasing Steam (Steampunk), Occult in Fiction, and Marvel vs. DC on Saturday; and Gothic Fiction and Noir in Fiction on Sunday.

But if you’re new to Imaginarium and you don’t already have friends you’re looking forward to seeing there, or you don’t wear fancy dresses or you don’t write or you aren’t a spec fic nerd, is there a reason for you to show up? YES. There is literally something for everyone. If you just want to shop for local or indie authors, fine – it’s free to come to the vendor’s hall! There’s also jewelry, art, all-natural products, and other cool stuff to buy. If you write, read, game, like indie films, like science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, history, comic books, poetry, or anything else to read, there will be writers there talking about your favorite reading material. For writers, Imaginarium is a *bargain*. It’s literally 1/3 the price of a lot of workshops, with 3X the programming (and more fun activities included!) Every year, I come away from Imaginarium exhausted and bedazzled with ideas, inspired and scribbling frantically into notebooks and on napkins for weeks afterward. And every year, I come away missing my fellow Imaginators, eager for next year’s event so we can catch up in person.

I’m an introvert, and every time I go somewhere with more than about 3 people, I wonder, “Will this really be worth it?” If *I’m* telling you this event is something you should be excited about, take me at my word. 😉

I said two weeks ago I was going to talk about what I’d been reading lately, but I got distracted and posted about other things last week. (Welcome to conversations with me.) So here are some of the last few things I’ve read: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, The Alienist by Caleb Carr, and The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. All three are historical fiction, and all mystery/thriller in some way or another. I adored the first 2/3 of The Luminaries, the way the story was told, the style and atmosphere, and the setting. I adored the first 2/3 of The Alienist for its plot and pacing, characters (including Theodore Roosevelt), and attention to detail. Unfortunately, in the case of both these books, I can only describe the last third of each of them in terms of Johnny Rotten:

I almost stopped reading Catton’s book (which I never do once I’m past the first 100 pages), though strangely I forgot how disappointed I was in the last section of it afterward. Which does speak volumes about Catton’s writing skills, since her style, characters, and world completely overshadowed a black hole in the plot. Props for that! As for The Alienist, I was willing to go for it up until the very end. And then the chapter that needed to be there…wasn’t. It’s like if a Sherlock Holmes book stopped before the part where Holmes explains to Watson how he figured out the mystery. Sure, we know who the killer is, but what we’re interested in at that point is what was going on in the detective’s mind when he was working on the solution–or in this case, the Alienist’s mind.

The Last Days of Night, I’m happy to say, was consistently good all the way through. A legal thriller set during Thomas Edison’s lawsuit against Westinghouse (with Nikola Tesla sort of caught in the crossfire), it’s very well-written and clearly well-researched. In fact, everything I thought was a bit far-fetched in the story turned out to be true, according to Moore’s detailed afterword.

The part of a book I struggle with the most is after the set-up and before the first major shift happens, rather than the ending. That said, endings do require a lot of decisions. How far after the climax do you go on? How do you give readers enough extra without dragging on too much? What’s the most emotionally satisfying point to end on? Do you show an action, a scene of dialogue, or narrative reflection to wrap up? Oh, and of course, is there going to be a sequel? Personally, I’d say a good ending should have the following properties:

1. Resolves the main conflict in a way that makes logical sense within the rules of the story world.
2. Resolves or shows the promise of resolution for secondary conflicts.
3. Shows or reflects on how the events in the book affected the world of the story.
4. Shows or reflects on how the events in the book affected the main character(s).
5. Reflects at least one significant change in the main character(s).

Because you don’t want your reader to leave feeling like this:

One of the most delightful parts of writing–and reading, and watching a well-done movie or TV series–is character dynamics. Playing characters off of one another, testing them against each other, seeing how their differences clash or compliment (or how their similarities clash or compliment) is just fun. It’s probably the same thing that makes a good party entertaining for people who enjoy parties (Personal Fact: I enjoy parties until I get home and think about all the ways I might have looked stupid). An ensemble of characters is great in its own right, but for now, I’m going to talk about dynamic duos.

Let’s face it, the original Star Trek would not have been nearly as good without Spock and Bones perpetually digging at each other, or without their obvious friendship in spite of that. Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing wouldn’t have been the least bit fun without Beatrice and Benedick aggravating the hell out of each other and falling in love (either outcome of their interaction, by itself,  would have been pretty vanilla, but both made it both spicy and hysterically funny). Even better is Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship simultaneously makes each character redeemable and monstrous.

The pitfall for a writer, particularly with duos and particularly particularly with opposite-sex or romantic duos, comes when one character is too strong for the other. One way to go wrong with this is to tone down a great character to prop up another. The first example that comes to mind, for me, is the Golden Compass series. We had a strong female lead in the first book, and in the second book she is completely different in her behavior and responses to things. She goes from being courageous and active in the first book to being passive, submissive, and unsure of herself once a male character becomes the lead in the second. To me, this does not come across as, “Oh, this guy must be really something, if a strong girl like her looks to him for answers.” It comes across as, “Well, someone doesn’t know how to balance two strong characters.” This irritated me to no end. And it can certainly go both ways, when it comes to gender. Some writers of strong female characters think that toning down men boosts their women.

As someone who is in the process of writing a novel with a strong female character with a husband, I have to say that my approach is not to tone either wife (Erica) or husband (Dom) down to up the other’s game. Like ANY good dynamic duo, the key for me is to show the ways, both quirky and vital, that each plays off the other. It’s par for the course in writing to match the antagonist’s strength to the protagonist’s. Why should it be any different for a pair of protagonists? If it takes a strong person to fight a strong person, why wouldn’t it follow that it takes a strong person to love a strong person–whether that love is romantic, platonic, or love-hate? The fun part is digging around in the realms of whose strengths compliment whose–who’s too focused on this to pick up on that, who picks up the pieces when the other goes too far–and how each of them sees their own strengths and weaknesses compared to the other? This is far from applying only to romantic couples, or even to duos. Any system of human interaction depends on members contributing something or other, and good storytelling brings together individual contributions to the whole of a satisfying story. Even the bad guys, because they did their part to make the story good, too. We’re social animals, when it comes down to it. Write like a social animal.

Happy Sunday! Now I’ll have another glass of amontillado in honor of you, dear readers. Next week, I think I’ll write about what I’ve been reading lately!

I’ve been a good little writer this week, getting at least a little bit done every day and (gasp!) actually doing some outlining. Well, for a given definition of “outline”. I’m not a plotter by nature, but with a complex story sometimes ya gotta take a step back and organize. Sometimes, it’s even inspiring, and leads to connections between parts of the story you didn’t see when you were face-down weeping into the keyboard over the details.

I have to say, as someone who spends a lot of both work time and spare time researching and writing, fiction is by far the hardest type of writing I do. Harder than academic writing, harder than technical writing for archaeology reports, and way harder than journalism-style articles. There are times, of course, when fiction rolls off one’s fingertips like you’ve been possessed by your muse and she’s the one doing all the work. But then there are the times when you’re like, “Hello? Muse? Where the %$#@ did you go now that I’m a third of the way through this book?” Crickets chirp. “MUSE? My brain is dying. Help!” Silence. “MUSE!!! I HATE EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY YOUR DUMB FACE!” Definitely silence, except for the sound of author’s tears splashing into a glass of room-temperature stout*. (*The ONLY proper temperature for dark beer, thanks.)

This is not the same with non-fiction writing of any kind, for me. The problems with non-fiction are usually deadlines, word count limits, and the like. Although trying to find correlations in masses of data that can be compared for about 10,000,000,000 factors can break your brains in half, I count that as a research difficulty. Once I know my material and I have my correlations, non-fiction is easy because it’s just a matter of expressing something I know in whatever language is appropriate for the situation. And it’s quirky enough as it is. You would think this would mean that, if I know what I’m going to write about in a fictional story or novel (i.e., if I outlined everything to begin with), it would be easy for me. You would also think I would prefer writing non-fiction to writing fiction.

Neither of these things is true, however. If I outline a story too well, I don’t feel any urge to write it anymore because I already know what’s going to happen! I already told myself the story, see? Selfish, I know. I’m supposed to write for my readers. Bad author! No biscuit. And as much as I do like non-fiction writing (as long as it’s about things I’m interested in, anyway), I would always rather be working on my book(s), which I love to do as long as I’m not stuck. Although lately, I’m feeling more and more like stealing weird things from history (that’s not plagiarism, it’s research!) and putting them into stories.

Anyway, two things I’ve posted lately on the Clio history website that I particularly enjoyed writing are these:

Whistler House Museum – I had no idea how versatile or prolific the artist Whistler was until I researched this article! Or that he matched wits with Oscar Wilde at parties and held his own, which takes some serious doing.

Look at this freaking gorgeous room Whistler designed!! I want one in my house, and it will be my library. And there will be a wet bar in there somewhere. Yes. And a hidden mini-fridge.

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site – I had NO idea that you could still see a standing building from the first Iron Works on the continent of North America until I researched this article. I also really enjoyed reading about all the different groups of people involved in working the business…in fact, I ended up having a dream that I was an indentured Scotsman while I was working on it, which is not something I would normally come up with.

Why do I never update my blog, you ask–or do you? Since I don’t update like I should, you likely don’t expect it of me, especially if you’ve subscribed in the last year or two. Because I NEVER update. I don’t update like I should because I don’t write as much as I should, which, if you’re a writer, means you’re not living like you should. But I’m working on that.

Here’s the thing. Life will get you out of the habit of writing quicker than a jackrabbit on a date. Whether it’s focusing on school or a career or a family crisis or your health or moving or politics or even nice things (those do happen, I’m told) like a new puppy or winning the lottery, life will endeavor to take priority over writing. Screw that. As I find myself getting crankier, I realize that maintaining my sanity via spending the time it takes to write 250 words a day requires far less effort and/or actual hours of the day than it would take to improve my habits, veg out after work, go to therapy, find healthier recipes to cook, shop online, or anything else I’m supposed to do to make myself feel better.

A few months ago, maybe four or five now, my partner and I had finally clicked into this groove. We’re both creative, and we’ve both been lured away from our efforts over the (now) 8 years we’ve been together by efforts toward our respective careers and, you know, adulting. And after all this time, we both got into the habit of being creative at the same time, in the same space, and were excited to come together in the evenings and talk about it. It’s one thing when you’re single and this kind of inspiration hits–but for two people to have it at the same time? Well, that’s GOLD. Then life happened, and we both felt the good new groove slip away. And ever since, we’ve both been striving to bring that little mini-era of mutual creativity back. I’ll only speak for my end, because his end is his own business, and he’ll have to write his own blog about it if he wants to.

But for my own part, I choose to re-prioritize my writing at this point. I love my day job, and my side job, and they both afford me opportunities to research and write in their own vein…and I don’t have a ton of income, that I can just casually decide to push extra income opportunities aside. Trust me on this, I have a BA in Anthropology…I’m lucky to have a job at all. But as I’ve always told aspiring writers, I’ll tell myself now: You can write 250 words a day. Every day. Yes, even on a really busy day. And a lot more, once your’e in the habit. Once you decide to write daily and stick to it, it’s so ridiculously easy to write a page a day that you feel silly doing so little.

So I advise you, as I’m advising myself: Consider creativity part of self-care. When you think over your day or how stressed you are or everything that’s wrong with the world, yeah, sure, you could do the housework or take a bath or play a video game or drink a beer. You could also write or paint or compose music–or whatever your creative outlet is–with part of that time. And drink beer. At the same time. Which is what I’m doing as I write this. As you can probably tell.