The Writing Life: The Perils of God Mode

Being a god involves a surprising amount of paperwork.

            

I won’t pretend that we writers aren’t attracted to the craft, at least in part, because of raging control issues. In real life, most of us only have a limited number of things we have any real authority over, and most of those fall under the category of what to eat for dinner.

            

Writers, however, have absolute power within the boundaries of our particular world. If we want the sky to be green, all we have to do is say so. If someone annoys us, we can kill them off in as grisly a fashion as our heart desires. We can fill a thousand different conversations with the things we wish we’d said in life.

            

It takes a little time to realize that having all the power means more than just being able to do what you want. You have to do *everything,* from keeping track of each and every character to making sure that they have everything they need to give you the ending you want.

            

One character may keep a gun in a drawer next to his bedside, but if you don’t make certain he stops by his house to grab it before the final battle then he’s going to go in unarmed. You also need to make sure he has some skill at actually shooting the gun, and come up with a reason for him to have that training that makes sense. Making note of all these little things, and assuring that they’re both in place and believable, is the literary equivalent of a police officer filling out paperwork after a case.

            

The more complicated a story, the more paperwork you have to do. My Sleeping Beauty, Elena, is a sorceress, which means I’ve had to hear far more about magic than I ever wanted to. More specifically, I have to study magic, figuring out why a particular spell works and what will happen when I introduce this outside element to another spell. Because Elena would know, and has a tendency to explain such matters in a far more technical language than I use in describing anything, ever. Since she knows, I have to as well.

            

Most of the time, I adore dealing with even the finickiest of details. It’s like building an enormous, world-spanning dollhouse, and it takes someone who finds equal delight in making sure the walls are structurally sound and writing tiny little headlines on the fake newspaper on the coffee table. You have the power to send a bedset plummeting off the third story, and it can be fun to watch it smash on the rocks below. But you also have to be the one to sweep it up, and make sure that the upstairs bedroom gets a replacement bedset at some point.

            

Of course, you could simply blow the house up and solve all your problems. But then you’d have to figure out what kind of device would cause the right amount of damage, smuggle it into the house without anyone noticing, and decide whether or not you want there to be any survivors.  Depending on the answer to that question, you’re left with a whole new set of problems.

If being a god was easy, anyone could do it. 

My little dragon problem

I have a little dragon problem.

Normally, I'm fairly discreet about it. I no longer doodle dragons all over everything - mostly because the work I do is entirely on the computer now - and my dragon t-shirts are now only a small part of my massive collection of geeky t-shirts. But there's one area where my love of dragons is impossible to ignore - the Magic on the Sidewalk chalk festival, which is held every May in Bountiful (where the newspaper I work for is based). Amazingly talented artists line the street to transform squares of concrete into art, and yet somehow I ended up with a long-standing slot of my own. I enjoy taking part, but the only thing I can reliably draw is dragons.

This is not my first dragon, but it's definitely the first I feel comfortable
showing the public at large.

Normally, I prefer traditional Western dragons to wyverns - I feel
like life must be instinctively harder without hands of some kind. This was my
attempt at bonding to the species. 

Not my best work (the actual dragon is very tiny), but rain gave me less
time to work than usual. I'm afraid I either got a bit lazy or experimental,
which can occasionally amount to the same thing.

I imagine the rest of him is hidden beneath the walkway.

I was out of town in 2012, which means the friendly soul above is my most recent dragon up to this point. I'm currently working on this year's creation, and I'll unveil it in a post tomorrow once I'm finished. 

Fairy Godmothers, Inc. flash fiction: Snookums

Snookums
By Jenniffer Wardell

Once the dress was finished, Minerva lifted her skirt and twirled. “See?” she announced, stopping just long enough to strike a pose. “Gorgeous.” Knowing their cue, a nearby servant stopped weeding the flower bed and applauded appropriately.

Finally giving up, Kate gave her client the same smile she always used on Bubbles. The girl had insisted on enough ruffles to make her look like an enormous, particularly fattening cake. She’d also insisted it be lemon yellow, which was turning her skin tone into a very similar color. “It’s great.”

“Of course it is.” Minerva posed again, a haughty expression on her face. “And now I insist you do one for my Snookums.”

The sudden announcement threw Kate, though she was careful not to let it show on her face. “Snookums?” she asked carefully, once again cursing whoever had put the assignment file together. There’d been no mention of anyone that could reasonably be referred to as ‘Snookums,’ and if the client was hallucinating this could be as bad as that assignment with that Thumbelina girl. It was extremely hard to reason with someone who insisted they were only six inches tall. “I’m sorry, but the contract your grandfather purchased only covers one transformation.”

“Oh, nonsense. Grampy knows I don’t go anywhere without my Snookums.” She whistled shrilly. “Come out here!”

At the sudden whooshing noise above her head, Kate immediately ducked. She looked up just in time to see the elephant swoop down and land in a nearby tree, nearly bending it in half under its weight. It was wearing an enormous pink silk jacket, with a matching bow just behind its ears.

Kate stared in horror. “I take it that’s Snookums.”

“Of course. I’ll start a new fashion trend.” Minerva gestured to the servant to throw the elephant a treat. “Make her a dress just like mine. Then we’ll go into the ball together.”

Now that was an image designed to give a person nightmares. “I’ve been to the castle. Snookums won’t fit through the door.”

Minerva pouted, then brightened. “She can wait for me outside. Big romantic moments are always supposed to happen outside, anyway.”

Kate sighed. Clearly, she was going to have to figure out how to hide a flying elephant. 

Getting to know you: Kate, from "Fairy Godmothers, Inc."

As annoying as getting-to-know you questions can be, they do have the useful side effect of actually helping people get to know you. So I made Kate, Fairy Godmother extraordinaire and lead character from my upcoming novel, “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.,” answer a few questions for you. In later weeks, I’ll pass the list around to other characters and maybe attack them with fresh ones.

What three adjectives best describe you?

Responsible, quick-thinking, secretly sarcastic

Who is the most influential person in your life?

Are we talking about a positive or negative influence? Either way, I can’t answer this without my mother never speaking to me again. While I fantasize about that, sometimes, it wouldn’t be a good idea in the long run.

Have you ever killed anyone?

Have you had anyone who actually answered this question with a yes? The key to committing a successful homicide is never letting anyone know you did it.

What nicknames would be most fitting for you?

Kate. Just Kate. But if you’ve hired me for an assignment, I’m contractually obligated not to smack you for calling me Katie.

How fast can you run a mile?

It depends on what’s chasing me. I’m not athletic, but I have a very strong sense of self-preservation.

Can you dance?

Just well enough to make sure clients don’t accidentally injure the prince/princess with their shoes. When I’m not at work, I generally grab an extra drink and find a chair somewhere.

What is your religion?

My mother is a practicing Naturalist, which means she believes in the spirits of flowers and trees. She doesn’t actually like it, but since all proper fairies are Naturalists she’s going to be one if it kills her.

As for me, I’m a Naturalist any time I’m talking to my mother. Beyond that, I’m willing to think kindly about any entity willing to think the same way about me.

What’s your favorite band?

Heavy Metals. It’s a group of dwarves, fronted by a very angry-sounding elf, who play (naturally) heavy metal music. Listening to them helps me resist the urge to slap people.

Thanks to http://www.amschultz.com/2/post/2012/10/how-well-do-you-know-your-characters-50-rapid-questions.html for the questions! Go check the rest of the list out!

A gateway to anywhere

I truly love airports, despite the fact that admitting this generally makes people question my sanity. True, the security lines are clearly secret government experiments on how extreme stress affects the human mind, but there’s still nowhere better than an airport for that sheer, concentrated sense of potential.

If you’re the one getting on the plane, being in an airport usually means you’re traveling someplace far enough away from home that it automatically qualifies as an adventure. Vacations, naturally are the best – either to someplace new or a beloved spot you haven’t seen in too long – but even business trips can give you the taste of a new city. Afterward, being in an airport means you’re heading home again to a familiar bed and people who at least like you quite a bit.

If you’re not leaving or coming back, odds are you’re welcoming someone you love. Either it’s a family member coming home after experiencing their own adventure, or it’s distant loved ones who you don’t get to see often enough because there are so many miles between you.  No matter how annoying they can be, heading to an airport generally means that something significant is about to happen. It’s a controlled surprise.

In my own life, I’m generally the one leaving and coming back, since there’s too much I still want to see and none of my beloved beaches anywhere in my home state (the ocean is a terrible thing for a desert-dweller to love). In college I had one of my two best friends on each side of every plane ride, and now I have the whole wide world on one side and people I love on the other (and generally in the seat next to me). To keep that opportunity in my life, I’ll take disapproving TSA agents and terrifyingly small airplane bathrooms any day of the week.