"Oil Fire" is a nice example of how ideas mutate over time. After reading Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories I was inspired to write something old school sword and sorcery, something similarly buddy-flick (dare I say bromance?) but with two women roaming the world and getting in and out of trouble. It would be nice to write something light and fun, I thought, pulpy but smart. But first I needed back stories...
This was intended to be the origin story for one of my two women, but things began to change in the writing. First of all, she refused to be the POV character, shifting that job to her close friend instead. More than that, the story itself kept taking turns I wasn't expecting but were so much the right ones I had to go with it. I think it's easier to buy two itinerant men wandering the world, but I feel a woman in this time period wandering the world would need a really compelling reason. The one I found for Enanatuma turned out to be quite dark. I've since written her companion Prithvi's origin story, and her reason for being out on her own is if anything darker still.
So my goal of being light and fun got lost along the way (I'm hoping it still reads as pulpy but smart). But I have since had a third character begin whispering her own tale to me, something that plays well off the other two. There's hope yet.
On the Importance of Naming: I actually don't know the meanings of the names in this story. They are all Sumerian, mostly names of kings and queens. I try to avoid using deity names since they come with a lot of baggage (when Prithvi's story gets published you'll hear me gripe about how that wasn't possible in her case - stay tuned).
On Desperate Seas
Published in A Fly in Amber e-zine.
This was a story I had originally intended to submit to Fantasist Enterprises for their Sails and Sorcery anthology. Sadly I missed the deadline (by a couple of months, no less), but that is the reason for the nautical setting. I've always been interested in Arctic and Antarctic explorations, I had just finished Tao of Troth and wasn't done writing about the Inuit, and I had a hankering to try something that invoked a little Poe. Hence the title, although I was specifically thinking of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket; the careful reader will spot what I borrowed in most respectful homage (or, if you will, outright stole). I had a kernel of an idea that involved a sailor's wife with half a heart, but the story didn't really pull together until a random clicking through Wikipedia turned up this little phrase: "Eventually, more ships and men were lost looking for Franklin than in the expedition itself." and it all pulled together. In an almost unsellable way; this was liked by a lot of places where it just didn't quite fit.
This story is also famous for giving me nightmares while writing it. Some months after I had finished it I saw the NOVA special about the Franklin Expedition; it didn't come close to matching the horror that was going on when I "lived" through it.
On the Importance of Naming: Edgar should be obvious, Penelope is a simple mythological reference, and Jane's name is meant to be the most unassuming name possible, and yet a strong-sounding one. Teddy's Inuit name Tetqataq means "flying before the wind", a lovely name for an Inuit sailor, but also the name of one of the men who came across some of the last of the Franklin men pulling a boat across the ice, trying to walk south to the Back River.
And the title, of course, is a line from Poe's "To Helen". Which in my head will always be read by Tom Hanks.
Gardens of Wind
Published in Warrior Wisewoman 2, available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or at an indie bookstore near you.
This is a story I wrote because I wanted to explore a laconic character. I've also always wanted to write something with airships in it. This story is one of my few oners; at this point it doesn't share a world with any of my other stories, but I might revisit it someday. Because airships are cool.
On The Importance of Naming: Akeli is the Hindi word for alone, Jason and Karishma were just names I've always liked. The names of the airships I took from Hindu scriptures: Parjanya is a god of rain in the Rig-Veda, and Matarisvan is associated with Agni, the god of fire.
Trifle
Published in Beyond Centauri issue #20, available for order here.
This is a story originally written for a contest at Backspace. The beginning and ending sentences were specified by the contest parameters, the challenge was to fill in all that came between.
On The Importance of Naming: The main character's name, Enid, comes from one of my favorite Barenaked Ladies songs, and her son's name Alden is meant to have a similarity to my son Aidan's name.
Seagull and Raven
Published In Allegory e-zine 2/29, available from the Allegory archives here.
This is a story I wrote before I started my novel Tao of Troth. I was playing with the idea of using Inuit as well as Norse Greenlanders as characters. I liked this piece well enough to incorporate it as part of my back story to ToT. The character of Tulugaq even makes an appearance.
On the Importance of Naming: In Tao of Troth I largely chose Inuit names that referenced astronomical things, like falling stars. For this story I went for more earthly sources. The brother and sister's names, Tulugaq and Nauja, respectively mean Raven and Seagull (which is clear from the story), and Nauja's husband's name, Taliriktug, means "strong arm", which suits him (and is also fun to say, Taliriktug).
