The A to Z Fantastic: Exploring Life After Death

One of the great things about fantasy is that it allows us to explore things that are impossible or at least impossible to know in this real world. One of my favorite impossible things to explore is Death and Life after it.

Currently my favorite example of this is the anime series Bleach.

 

Bleach is about Ichigo Kurosaki who has always been able to see dead souls. Then one fateful night he meets Rukia Kuchiki, a Shinigami (lit. death god) whose job is to help those wandering souls enter the after life. Ichigo is drawn into the world of the Soul Society where dead souls go to reside and where the Shinigami protect the balance of life and death. Not all souls go peacefully to Soul Society, he learns. Some become monstrous Hollows and when Hollows linger in the living world to eat human souls it is the Shinigami's duty to end their existence (with super awesome sword powers).

What I like particularly about Bleach's version of the after life is that it doesn't at all seem like an afterlife. Soul Society is a real, fleshed out world where souls live like normal people. While souls do not need to consume food unless they have high spiritual power (and those who do tend to join the Shinigami), water is still necessary for existence. Thus life after death continues to be a struggle for survival.

Over the course of the series you meet members of rich and powerful families residing in Soul Society whose sons and daughters almost always join the 13 Court Guard Squads of the Shinigami. You also meet those that came from the poor and the destitute sections of Soul Society where people scrape by a living, and where those with unusual spiritual power often suffer more than most, being lucky if they can one day join the privileged Shinigami. 

The interaction between the living world and the Soul Society is the crux of the show, Ichigo being a sort of  fulcrum between the two. It's a fascinating world. And it could only be explored through fantasy.

Courageous Authors of Fantasy

This post is both for the A to Z and for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

Today I want to talk about Courage. But instead of talking about courage within Fantasy stories, I'm going to focus on the courage it takes to write Fantasy stories.

Fantasy has been a much maligned genre since its emergence in the 1800s. (Note: when I talk about Fantasy as a genre I mean modern fantasy beginning with such writers as George MacDonald and William Morris.) Often considered only good for children or as escapist fare for pathetic losers, everyone who doesn't enjoy it seems to look down on fantasy, even the people who publish it. In addition, "experts" were declaring traditional and epic fantasy dead not long ago. Tell someone you were working on a fantasy novel and you were likely to pitied more than praised.

In the face of all this, the last hundred years has been full of courageous writers defying the odds and proving the naysayers wrong with spectacular works of fantasy literature that expand reader horizons and add much beauty to the world. I'd like to take a moment to recognize some of the authors who I think have been particularly bright stars in the universe of fantasy fiction and salute their courage as artists and creators.

Robert E. Howard is remembered as the father of Sword and Sorcery due to his creation of the iconic Conan the Cimmerian character. Conan was the consummate adventurer and a perfect example of the courageous fantasy spirit.

Lord Dunsany (or Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) was, I believe, the first great world builder. His stories were filled with exotic and wondrous locales with memorable names and fantastic atmosphere. He was also probably the first modern mythopoet, crafting a world of gods and their mythologies unlike anything before him.

It goes without saying that J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis belong on this list. For without their brilliant creations of Middle-earth and Narnia fantasy might never have gained the widespread popularity it achieved in the middle of the last century. Their works resonated with readers like none other before them gaining lasting status as classic that will surely be remembered for centuries to come.

One of the finest fantasy series I've ever read is the Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny. It's the perfect example of fantasy that transcends subgenres, brilliantly utilizing tropes from ever kind of fantasy fiction without ever being subject to them, it never feels cliche.

Lastly, I want to mention an author who is not a favorite of mine (though he is a favorite of my husband) but whose work and artistry I have profound respect for. Gene Wolfe is an author of all kinds of speculative fiction, not one of his stories being like any other. The depth, subtlety and originality of his work is sadly underrated by readers while being widely praised by authors of all kinds. Or, as my husband has said, "All Gene Wolfe and no Gene Wolfe makes Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe." (Don't ask me what that means.)

These shining stars of fantasy (and science fiction) paved the way for writers like me (and you!) with their courageous refusal to write anything but the best and their determination to see their work make its way to readers. They made it possible for the genre to grow and thrive, gathering new writers and new readers constantly, by digging deep and producing amazing works of art that no one else could. Looking to their example, we can do the same. We can persevere against all odds in the name of getting our own unique stories to readers and perhaps one day be remembered as they are. Artists and creators who add beauty and wonder to the world.

The A to Z Fantastic: Beauty

"Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron." ~C. S. Lewis on The Lord of the Rings

I believe that the purpose of every art form is to create Beauty from within ourselves and add it to the world. Writing stories is one way of doing that. Writing Fantasy is, in my opinion, one of the best ways.

Now when I say "Beauty" I don't mean superficial prettiness. I don't mean that a story should necessarily be pleasant to read. As C. S. Lewis said, beauty can hurt.

"There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar." ~John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Art creates Beauty and Beauty points to Truth and Truth is that which, as Steinbeck puts it, teaches us, cures us and lets our hearts soar.

The reason that I think Fantasy serves so well in creating Beauty is that it allows us to take a step back from reality, which can so easily cloud our eyes. It allows our imagination freedom of movement to see things from angles we've never seen before and in lights we've never known before. It allows us to examine humanity and the world and our place in it in ways no other art form can. Properly employed, it can leads us to truths no other genre can. And I think that is its true purpose.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty." ~ John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn

The A to Z Fantastic: Anthing Goes

Last year, the first time I attempted this theme before dropping out after 6 posts, I talked about how I believe fantasy is the best genre for Adventure.

This year I want to talk about how in fantasy Anything Goes. (Who has the song in their heads now? And who thought of the version from the Monty Python sketch?)

Anyway!

The more fantasy novels and stories I read the more I realize how utterly limitless the genre is. Most genres seem to have limited subject matter and often come with guidelines about how that subject matter should be explored. (Example: Romance needs to be about the romantic relationship between two people and generally needs to have a happy ending.) But fantasy can be about anything and in fantasy anything can happen. Sure, maybe some things are predictable. Good always triumphs over evil. But there are infinite ways it can happen and the joy of the genre is that sense that you never know what's going to occur on the next page.

As a writer, I love the freedom that fantasy grants me. Literally anything I can imagine I can write about. There's no idea so crazy or so outlandish that fantasy can't accommodate it. There's no idea so mundane that fantasy can't spice it up.

And just for kicks, here's Anything Goes (the song) Indiana Jones style:

New Baby, A to Z and Turning 31, Oh My!

I'm starting this post at 3 am because there's a hungry newborn baby in my arms. Severian Wolfe, born March 20th, continues mine and my husband's insane tradition of naming our kids after literary characters. Our first two are named after Elves from Tolkien's Middle-earth. The two after that are named after a prince and princess from Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. Severian, number 5, is named after the main character from Gene Wolfe's (you see what we did there) The Book of the New Sun series. (Wolfe is also a reference to the lupine character from The 10th Kingdom movie.)

Who's the precious? You are!

Needless to say, this had made daily life rather busy lately. Hence my relative silence. And yet here I am signed up for the A to Z on Monday. I've been trying to come up with a good theme for the past month or so. I've tried several out and sat down to work out what to use for each letter and hit upon about 5 or 6 dead letters each time. Anyone who thinks blogging by the alphabet is easy should be shot. So in the end I've decided to fall back on the theme I picked for last year. The year when I signed up for the A to Z, put out 6 posts and then abruptly failed to do anything for the rest of the month. I guess this will be my opportunity to finish what I started since I had a lot of positive feedback on A through F. (Of course, I'll be using different words for those letters this year.)

The A to Z Fantastic will examine 26 qualities of fantasy literature that I think make it unique and wonderful. And I promise I'll finish it this time.

If all this weren't enough, today is my 31st birthday. Which means that I've been 30 for a whole year. I can remember when the thought of being 30 was horrifying, but the truth is it's been a surprisingly good experience. I've learned a lot more about myself in the last year than I have in a long time. I've noticed many changes from my younger days and I think that it's fair to say they were universally good changes. It's almost shocking, but I'm enjoying getting older. I feel like a better person than I've ever been before.

So all in all I am looking forward to April. I've always loved the Spring with its feeling of growth and potential permeating the air. This year I feel particularly hopeful about the coming months. I feel like I'm in a good place to really accomplish some things this year. Now how do you keep the evil spirit of procrastination away?

Blogfest! My Favorite Movies

Today I signed up to post for Alex Cavanaugh's Top 10 Movie Countdown blogfest. And the truth is, I've been trying to figure out what my favorite movies are for the past week with little success. Oh some choices are obvious.

All three of the original Indiana Jones films were huge influences on me in my childhood. It was Raiders of the Lost Ark that sparked my love of ancient history and made me want to be an archaeologist for several years. Of course, when I became older and wiser I learned that what Indy does is not archaeology, but I never lost my fascination for ancient cultures that these movies inspired.

The Last Crusade is my favorite of the three. You simply can't go wrong when you pair Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. I'm also probably one of the few people who thought the new movie was fun and decent. Harrison Ford was still Indy and that's enough for me.




Jumping ahead, in the last few years I've discovered the films of Hayao Miyazaki and fallen completely head over heals in love.

Japanese animation is a great storytelling medium and Miyazaki is its King. I cannot overestimate his genius, every single one of his films is a work of wonder and delight and incredible imagination. ALL Miyazaki films are better than at least 95% of the other fare out there. I've blogged about Spirited Away before, but brilliant as that one is, it's not one of my favorites of his.

For me, his first epic masterpiece, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, is still the best. It's a story set in a post apocalyptic world where humanity is fighting for survival against a poisonous environment only to discover that their ancestors were responsible for the devastation that threatens to wipe out human life. The land its self has set up a system of purification, but can humanity survive long enough to see the remade earth? Nausicaa believes that only learning to live in harmony with the earth again can save them, but not everyone agrees and war sweeps across the kingdoms that remain while Nausicaa fights for life. The world of Nausicaa is vividly imagined and the conflict is both awesomely epic and deeply personal. The score is also one of my favorites. Joe Hisaishi, who does all of Miyazaki's scores, is as unparalleled a musical genius as Miyazaki is a storytelling genius.

Then there's Princess Mononoke. Everything about this film is beautiful. The magical forest environment where most of the action takes place, the nuanced characters, the amazing musical score. This is a story which never takes the easy way out. It asks tough questions about how humans should treat their environment, it pits several different characters with differing viewpoints against each other and yet there is no "bad guy" and no one faction wins in the end. The message is clear: life is sacred and hatred can do nothing but destroy.

Other awesome Miyazaki films that everyone should definitely see include: Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, and Ponyo. Though like I said, every single one he does is great.

Dune. Not the cheesy 80s movie. The visually spectacular, and much more faithful, mini series adaptation. (Do mini series count for this? They'll have to.) The book Dune is my favorite though its cerebral nature makes it a hard read. Somehow, the makers of this mini series managed to take a book that should be nearly impossible to film effectively and create an amazing visual interpretation that enhanced rather than detracted from my enjoyment of the book. (Which is saying something. I am a book to movie purist all the way.) The actors deserve major kudos for their portrayals of some of the most nuanced and real characters ever to grace genre fiction. If you like the Dune books and you've never seen this adaptation then you're really missing out.




I'll finish this not-a-Top-10-Countdown list with a couple of my favorite fantasy movies.

 

I admit it. I'm a sucker for David Bowie as the Goblin King. Dance Magic Dance. Also, Labyrinths are just cool.

"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."

What more could you ask for? That quote is actually from the book, by the way, which, yes, is still better than the movie. Though not by much.

All right, I cheated and didn't actually list 10 movies. I'm not good at categorizing my favorites. (Don't ask me why I signed up to do just that.) These are some of my favorite movies. They are movies that have had an influence on me as a person and as a storyteller.

Truth be told, I've always been more of a book person. ;)

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Learning to say "It is good"

Take an insecurity and ratchet it all the way up and what do you get? An anxiety.

I've probably obliquely mentioned that I have anxiety issues before. But I'm one of those people who likes to (needs to, really) maintain a veneer of being calm and collected no matter how I feel on the inside. So while I'm projecting this...

There's a very real chance that on the inside I look more like this...

And the problem with the anxiety that I suffer is that it's general, meaning that at any given point in time I'm feeling strong anxiety about nothing in particular that manifests its self by making everything I want to do difficult. My anxiety isn't based on anything real or anything rational for the most part. And let me tell you, that drives me insane. Because I am a very rational and logical person. So I can sit back and examine my symptoms of anxiety and KNOW that there's nothing to be anxious about, no reason to argue about the possible consequences of every little thing, no basis to most of my fears. And yet, that knowledge has absolutely no affect on my symptoms. I simply can't control the physical effects of my fear. I can't stop the breathing difficulty or the rapidly beating heart or the muscular paralysis or anything else that I experience every time I need to make an important phone call. (That's right, I get severe anxiety from making phone calls. It's stupid and really, really inconvenient and I've been struggling against it for years with no results.)

Quite honestly, anxiety is something that people who have never suffered from it can't understand most of the time.

And I'm talking about this today because in addition to phone calls, trying new tastes, needles and other various things I suffer from anxiety of putting my own words out there for other people to read. I know that this is what's been holding me back for a long time as a writer. It was easier, once upon a time, when I didn't really consider publication as the goal of my writing. I just wrote because I couldn't help it and the only person I ever showed any of it to was my husband. Now that every word I write has the potential to be seen by the public...

Well, let's just say I even have a hard time hitting the publish button on blog posts. There's a part of me always second guessing myself, whispering "You could have said that much better with a bit more time". But down that road lies madness. If you start telling yourself that with a bit more work it could be so much better (even though it's true) then you'll never get around to publishing anything because it could ALWAYS get better. None of us are sitting down to the computer and typing up perfection on the first draft or even the 50th.

For me, this particular madness is preemptive. Before I even get a first draft down the voices are whispering to me, "Why bother? You'll never get it right. It will always fall short of what you want it to be." And that's probably true as well. It's probably been true of all the masterpieces of literature that were ever published. In one way or another, they fell short of the author's vision. And yet we have those masterpieces because at some point the writer looked at his or her creation and said "It is good." Not "It is perfect and could never get better" but simply "It is good."

I haven't managed to reach this point yet, but I'm working on it. I suspect simple discipline is necessary and I am admittedly not a very disciplined person in my habits. That's something I plan to work on this year.

So how about you? Do you struggle with this anxiety? Have you found ways of combating it? I could use all the tips and tricks I can get.