{"id":794,"date":"2014-12-19T10:34:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T17:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/?p=794"},"modified":"2015-04-29T10:49:12","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T17:49:12","slug":"story-out-in-debut-issue-of-straeon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/?p=794","title":{"rendered":"Story Out in Debut Issue of Straeon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Straeon<\/a><\/em>I’m\u00a0excited to report that the first issue of the anthology, Straeon<\/em>, edited by M. David Blake, has finally been released.\u00a0 It includes my novelette, “Rains of Craifa, Figure 1 – Girl with Shavlas”.\u00a0 (<\/em>Just in case you\u2019re wondering, a novelette is a long short story between 7,500 and 17,500 words.\u00a0 Another FYI — while the following discussion relates what inspired the story and discusses several facets of the theme, it doesn\u2019t include any spoilers.\u00a0;))<\/p>\n

This is a story\u00a0I wrote a number of years\u00a0ago (like many of my writing projects), and it was originally entitled “Rainy Season”.\u00a0 The title was changed because — not surprisingly — that\u00a0one\u00a0has already been used numerous times.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a positive change since I like how the new one adds a little\u00a0extra to the story by providing a hint about what happens afterwards.\u00a0 Also, although some of my own titles are\u00a0simple, I actually have a fondness for\u00a0long, elaborate titles, both because they are\u00a0<\/em>so distinctive and because they may\u00a0be quite poetic as well. (A couple of memorable examples\u00a0I often think of are Delany’s “Time Considered as a Helix of\u00a0Semi-Precious Stones” and “Stars in My Pocket\u00a0Like Grains\u00a0of Sand”; Harlan Ellison has also had quite a few very long and very unique titles that are pretty tough to forget.)<\/p>\n

Naturally one of the advantages to pulling out a story after having not looked at it for some time is that it helps you view it objectively. (As I get older I seem to find it easier to do that even if the manuscript in question has only sat for a couple of months . . .\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s a good thing or not! \u00a0;)) Being objective also helps make one more aware of things like symbolism. When my sister was studying Literary Criticism for her MA in English and showed me\u00a0some of her assignments, I confess we\u00a0laughed over how the serious critics often dissect a story in such depth that the resulting analysis seems absurdly elaborate (and sometimes rather far-fetched).\u00a0 The \u2018lit crit\u2019 folks would probably have a field day with this particular story, as there are many layers of symbolism and many ways in which all the elements tie together.<\/p>\n

As I noted in a previous blog post, I find it fascinating that a lot of symbolism comes from the writer\u2019s unconscious mind, rather than being deliberately included during the process of writing. \u00a0Certainly I was aware of the basic elements of the theme I was exploring in \u201cRains of Craifa\u201d involving\u00a0the transience of life and beauty, like the lyrics of Nino Rota\u2019s \u201cWhat is a Youth?\u201d from Zeffirelli\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/em>.\u00a0 But many of the additional layers and details that feed into that theme came as a surprise to me, since I only realized they were there while wrapping up the final edits.<\/p>\n

When I was inspired to write \u201cRains of Craifa\u201d I\u2019d been thinking about Bradbury\u2019s \u201cAll Summer in a Day\u201d — specifically, the idea of a place where something only happens briefly and very infrequently, so that if one misses it they may have lost their only chance to experience it. \u00a0Clearly that concept can be seen as a metaphor for life itself, and how important it is to \u2018seize the day\u2019. (Although in Bradbury\u2019s tale I see that as a secondary theme, while the main subject, IMO, is how children can unintentionally be very cruel.)<\/p>\n

The other inspiration that fueled \u201cRains of Craifa\u201d was a scene in a nature program that showed a frog that spends the dry season looking like a knot of wood on a branch.\u00a0 Only when the monsoon rains arrive does\u00a0it transform back into a living, hopping frog, as if magically freed from a spell by the kiss of rain. \u00a0And I started thinking about how it might feel to live that way, which in turn led to speculating what it would be like if there were people with a similar life cycle.\u00a0 So again the \u2018carpe diem\u2019 theme and the notion of a brief window of opportunity came into play.<\/p>\n

From the first draft one of the things I liked about \u201cRains\u201d is that I believe it truly captures what travel feels like.\u00a0 Part of that is the curious sense of obligation — almost guilt — that most travelers feel about seeing and doing the things they\u2019re supposed to do when visiting a certain place.\u00a0 I.e., when you visit Paris you have to see the Eiffel Tower, when you come to Arizona, you have to go to the Grand Canyon, when you\u2019re in Venice you have to ride in a gondola.\u00a0 While writing this story I certainly thought about how the fresh perspective provided by traveling can shake someone who\u2019s depressed out of a rut and help give them \u2018a new lease on life\u2019.\u00a0 However, I hadn\u2019t considered how that feeling of being obligated to do certain things when you\u2019re only in a place for a certain period of time is also parallel to completing a bucket list during one\u2019s life journey.<\/p>\n

And again, while the issue of becoming depressed and withdrawing from life was always part of the overall theme in \u201cRains\u201d, that element wasn\u2019t fully developed until my final edits came together shortly before I submitted it.\u00a0 Then I could see how the story succeeds in conveying how a state of depression can feel like being alive without experiencing life.\u00a0 But that, of course, is also like spending your existence in a dreamless sleep, as one might do if one truly estivated like a frog through a very long dry season.<\/p>\n

While I was partly conscious of the extra symbolism involved in seeing a politician without a face in the opening scene (since their face, i.e. their image and the need to be identified as someone well-known, is a crucial part of their very existence as a political figure), there are other more appealing details that I\u2019m certain I didn\u2019t make a conscious choice about.\u00a0 One of those is the pervasiveness of autumn colors in the story.\u00a0 Only recently did it occur to me how much those colors add another nuance of meaning, since the falling leaves of autumn are also a blatant symbol of mortality.<\/p>\n

The passage that I\u2019ve always been most proud of in this story (and the one that gives me the \u2018Wow — did I write that?\u2019 feeling) is the dream sequence near the end that\u2019s featured in the excerpt I posted on my Short Stories<\/a>\u00a0page.\u00a0 So it\u2019s neat to look at it now and start seeing numerous details that any academic-style critic\u00a0might easily harvest out of that scene.\u00a0 For instance, the brown river, being brown like the earth and flowing like the passage of time, is also a metaphor for mortality.\u00a0 When the river is carrying Valco away on the boat and the girl is left behind, it\u2019s because she seems suspended in time.\u00a0 But the brown cloth wrapped around her is the same as the river, for she, too, is mortal, and caught in the inevitable flow.\u00a0 And in the dream the colors of autumn are all around them.<\/p>\n

White birds invariably represent something transcendent — something outside of the mundane world.\u00a0 It\u2019s no surprise that in many cultures white birds are associated with the heavens, peace, purity — concepts that seem above and beyond the earth, since not only can birds fly into the sky, but the stark contrast of their white plumage against the colors of the ground, the plants, and most other living creatures makes them seem untouched by all those earth-bound things.\u00a0 So with that transcendent quality, here they also represent that moment when you step outside of the inescapable flow of mortality by existing fully in the present as you experience joy and beauty.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure others can find plenty of additional symbolism that I haven\u2019t seen myself, but finding those elements in that scene was particularly fun.\u00a0 Incidentally, the most difficult thing about working with this story was that I was always pleased with the last few pages (the dream scene and most of what followed it), but each time I\u2019d reread it and then flip back to the beginning, the opening seemed to lack something in comparison. \u00a0To be honest, the ending is still my favorite part.\u00a0 But in doing the final edits and having the benefit of the input of a skillful editor (thank you, Mr. Blake!), the pieces came together well enough to make me feel confident that it\u2019s a successful story overall.<\/p>\n

Though the hypothetical \u2018perfect\u2019 story — in which not a word could be altered or replaced without losing something, and each and every sentence reads like an exquisite line of lyric poetry — must be the elusive grail to strive toward, there\u2019s\u00a0always a special\u00a0satisfaction that comes at the moment\u00a0when you can see that in\u00a0weaving together a collection of words you’ve\u00a0built something\u00a0whole\u00a0that feels like an entity in itself.\u00a0\u00a0(And to me, no story is finished until it\u2019s published, because until that point it\u2019s fair game when it comes to revising and editing.)\u00a0 But what really gives a completed story meaning is having the opportunity to share it and know that what you\u2019ve made may give others a memorable experience, however briefly. \u00a0So I hope many readers (even if they\u2019re not inclined to go digging for symbolism in every line!) will find something\u00a0in this story that speaks to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m\u00a0excited to report that the first issue of the anthology, Straeon, edited by M. David Blake, has finally been released.\u00a0 It includes my novelette, “Rains of Craifa, Figure 1 – Girl with Shavlas”.\u00a0 (Just in case you\u2019re wondering, a novelette … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction-fantasy","category-thoughts-on-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lcmcgehee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}