Welcome
In our last newsletter we began publishing bestselling author David Farland’s newsletter called “Daily Kick in the Pants.” We did this with Mr. Farland’s blessings because his newsletter is tailored to and for writers, and we believe in helping writers at Liquid Imagination Online. It’s our opinion that Farland’s professional writing advice can revitalize writers who are open and ready for change. Those individuals with enough wisdom and insight to participate in Farland’s newsletter and learn from it will grow into even stronger storytellers.
So why stop with publishing David Farland’s newsletters for writers? Why not put our money where our mouth is?
That’s exactly what we’re doing! We’re holding a contest based on David Farland’s writing advice. To win the $50.00 first place prize, use his advice from one of his recent (2011) newsletters. Even if you don’t win a prize, you STILL win, because you will be learning and practicing invaluable advice from a New York Times Bestselling Author. The advice that David Farland discusses ranges from story structure and plot to dissecting characters and locale.
If you’d like to improve as a writer and take a chance at writing the winning story, go here: http://www.liquid-imagination.com/farland/contest.html
Besides the contest and Farland’s wonderful writing advice, we are adding book reviews by Jezzy Wolf and Stephen W. Roberts. Both Jezzy and Stephen have received fine publishing credits, and Stephen has published books. Both love fiction and will be sharing their favorites with you.
Stephen W. Roberts will also run our official blog-radio program called “Liquid Imagination Radio.” Stephen managed a blog-radio program before, and he brings the excitement and past experience necessary to make “Liquid Imagination Radio” fun and successful. Our blog-talk radio program will include pre-recorded sections and live shows, skits and interviews. We hope to promote the contributors of Liquid Imagination Online as well as David Farland’s “Daily Kick in the Pants.”
The future is wide open.
I’d like to close with a few questions. Have you shared YOUR liquid imagination with someone today? I’m not talking about Liquid Imagination Online; I’m talking about YOUR liquid imagination. Have you written anything, have you created anything recently? If so, you owe it to your creative process (what we call liquid imagination) the chance to infect others with your pure creativity. I’m asking you to post your stories; workshop and edit them into fine-working form, and submit your work to us or to other fine publishing markets. Beyond that, I’m asking you to read David Farland’s writing advice contained in “Daily Kick in the Pants” and practice it, because I’m sure that you won’t be disappointed.
But most of all, I’m asking you to dare to dream… and to keep on writing, to keep on drawing, to keep on creating, and to keep on blurring the boundaries between technology and pure creativity. Because that is what we stand for at Liquid Imagination Online. You can read our mission statement on the homepage of our online magazine here: http://www.liquid-imagination.com/
John “JAM” Authur Miller
Liquid Imagination: Where reality and fantasy blurs.
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Issue 9
If you haven’t noticed already, Liquid Imagination Issue 9 is now LIVE! This is one magazine you’ll want to read and savor from “cover to cover.” We have science fiction, horror and fantasy stories and microfiction, as well as literary stories and superb poetry. We have art and animation. And don’t miss our articles, interviews and book reviews, too. Below is a list of our great contributors – and I want to thank all of them for their excellent work that we are so honored to included in this issue:
Stories
Dreams and Nightmares by Aaron French
Flowers in Her Hair by AJ Brown
Paradiso (translated by Edward Gauvin) by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud
The Doll by Carol Hornak
Lifeboat by Cynthia Larsen
The One Ton Woman and the Amazonian Half Man by Ally Malinenko
The Emperor’s Nose by Paul Malone
True Blue by Jonathan Parks
Lit Fic
The Lion’s Noose by Dawn Lloyd
A Small Room at a Hot Time of the Morning by Dan Davis
The Side of the Rainbow by Mark DeMoss
Grandpa’s Bluetooth by Milo James Fowler
Animated Fiction
Crayons by G. K. Adams
Low Down by Stan Long
Poems
The Bride Price by Sari Krosinsky
At The Outset by Jay MacLeod
Taking Flight by Mangesh Naik
Let Down by WC Roberts
Stardust by Chrissa Sandlin
A Cappella by Melissa Studdard
Microfiction
Interior Redesign by Sue Ann Connaughton
No More Than a Battered Tennis Ball by Liz Haigh
The Plates by Sylvia Heartz
PTSD by Jay MacLeod
A Haunting Feeling by Joshua Stephenson
Forever by George Wilhite
Articles
Book Review by Jezzie Wolf: Sara Saint John’s Black Hearts and Red Blood Dreams by Sara Saint John
Keep It Simple, Stupid by AJ Brown
Book Review by Stephen W. Roberts: Jonathan Moon’s Heinous by Jonathan Moon
What Do Camera’s Look Like in Heaven? by Dare Kent
Book Review by Stephen W. Roberts: Michael H. Hanson’s Sha’Daa: Last Call by Michael H. Hanson
Conversation with Bob Thurber by Brandon Rucker
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Three Questions with Felino A. Soriano
Felino A. Soriano appeared in issue No. 7 of Liquid Imagination Online with his magnificent “Approbations 666.” He followed that poem up with “Approbations 667.” Each poem is influenced by pianist Jason Moran’s music, an accomplished jazz musician, teacher and 2010 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant”.
Three Questions with Felino A. Soriano!
1. Felino, what is your modus operandi concerning poetry? Do you favor concrete poetry over more traditional forms? What of rhyme and meter?
Poetry is a sacred manifestation of my love of authentic language. This rarity of expression consists of devotion to creating the concrete from an abstract or unfamiliar encounter with one’s environment, allowing release from imprisonment of another’s definitional creation into a perspective of devout methodological counterexamples. My dear friend and mentor, poet Duane Locke speaks often of a “language of lies” that permeates in form of deception of self and finds ideological sameness among the herded, the culture of profound cecity. In my poems I attempt to uncover through metaphysical vantages—the necessity of bareness that is created and unclothed within the fissures of hidden paradoxes of plain sight.
Two foundational principles in my writing are my study of philosophy, specifically metaphysics, and my attachment to various idioms of jazz music. Philosophy has created a self of skepticism, of cardinal doubt and hatred for classified truths. I feel fundamental to my existence as poet is responsibility: to madden and allow language to create complexity of chaos (outside or outcast from the scope of au courant descriptions), to determine, too a collocation of immanent and intense images that become functioning attributes of reflectional collaborations with visible/invisible environment(s). The chaos (only briefly and upon burgeoning of concept) arrives in form of my angular and often asymmetrical approach to creating an image; white space is often cornerstone in the creation, for this employment of absence is imperative to the spatial rhythm I become aware of within mode of interpretation.
Jazz music allows interpretation of conversational happenstance. A favorite quote is by pianist Bill Evans, “It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.” I listen to jazz when writing nearly all of my poems, a practice in use for the past several years. The intense mode of studying a recording is deliberate; what isn’t intentional is the revelation and aspectual reality of understanding emotional content and context of each musician’s contribution to the dialogical occurrence.
My writings have been described as “abstract”, “difficult”, experimental”, and other models of dyslogistic (upon use of the adverb too, preluding)distinctions by readers and editors not understanding my brand of language or interpretation of environment. My poems are never preconceived or deliberate in directional patterns; I cannot sit to write and observe beforehand a conceptual sonnet or delve into adherence to metric veneration. The function of the poem does not develop in this manner, for an image or spatial announcement is a naturalized realization of inspired improvisation.
2. Who is Jason Moran to you, and do you play music?
I do not play music, but am fascinated by the ability of tonic posits to recreate atmospheric elements upon thought and pensive deliberations. For several years, Jason Moran has been a favorite jazz musician; I frequently listen to his works for elements of nuanced heterodoxy. Frankly, he plays beautifully, as evident on Pas de deux – Lines Ballet from his latest album “Ten”. Also, his innovative use, for example, of a recorded phone conversation (in the Turkish language) Ringing My Phone (Straight Outta Istanbul), from his album “The Bandwagon [Live]” where he rhythmically and tonally matches the speaker’s intonation with his piano is an occupying listen.
In 2010, I interpreted my favorite album of Moran’s entitled “Artist in Residence”, consisting of a 10-poem suite, finishing at 16 pages. Calliope Nerve Media kindly published the work with an accompanying interview.
3. Does poetry and music walk hand-in-hand? What are their similarities and differences?
I believe veritable poetry is musical. The authenticity of the musical relation is indeed with musical devices, e.g. prosodic and alliterative modes of focal value in creating rhythm within a poem. Several editors and readers have told me that my poems “read like jazz” or that the spatial identity of my ekphrastic work (I dedicated 2010 to writing a series called “Approbations”, with each poem interpreting separate jazz recordings) and created images mirror a specific mood of a recording. These compliments are among the highest I have received, as I inundate my cognizant and intuitive faculty of writing with this music on a daily basis.
Excellent readers of poetry enunciate musical renditions of text. Rhythm is imperative within the protocol for great poetry and music, yet, much poetry appears limp on the page, unexcited by ability to create a juxtaposed rendition of image and sound. The poets whose work I most enjoy reading use music as a foundation for their writings and textual speech, an attribute I apply into my effort when creating an art I am devoted to.
Felino A. Soriano is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities. His poetry was chosen for the Gertrude Stein “rose” prize from Wilderness House Literary Review. For information regarding his 44 collections of poetry, over 2,700 published poems, and more, please visit his website: www.felinoasoriano.info.
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If you are a contributor to Liquid Imagination, contact us at liquidimaginationlit@gmail.com if you’d like to be interviewed. Be sure to include the subject line “Three Questions Interview” so your email doesn’t disappear into a cyber black hole.
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Three Questions with Brandon Rucker
1) You landed an editing job with a publication that was once associated with Zoetrope Virtual Studios and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope: All-Story, and you did this while still new to the game. What qualities did you have to make them take notice?
Wow. You’re taking me way back so I will have to grab a dust mop to clear away the dense cobwebs in this cluttered mind of mine. If you will, allow me a moment to recall the history and some details about Zoetrope: All-Story Extra. Better yet, I can just provide the official description (edited in past-tense):
- All-Story Extra was an on-line supplement to Francis Coppola’s fiction magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. Each month, All-Story Extra featured two new stories submitted by writers via Zoetrope’s on-line submissions site. The stories were chosen and edited by guest editors—also members of Zoetrope’s on-line submissions site—with assistance from the New York editorial staff of Zoetrope: All-Story. All-Story Extra was created by Francis Coppola and five members of Zoetrope’s on-line submissions site, who comprised the Peer Advisory Board (PAB). The PAB selected the guest editors and nominated the stories that the guest editors considered for All-Story Extra. Guest editors could also consider stories featured in “The Top Three” stories and/or any others that they think worthy of publication.
Aside from that, I don’t know any finer details in regards to ASE’s founding or its inner workings. I do know that old school workshop members Mare Freed and Jim Nichols were part of that Peer Advisory Board, and were also the original Editorial Coordinators (i.e. liaison). The Editorial Coordinator during my time, Barbara Garrett, was a good friend and a joy to work with during my stint.
Here’s a fun fact: the founding editors had also had work published in ASE as well. The reason their stories were eligible to be published through ASE is because the identity of the authors were anonymous so that the Guest Editor could have a more unbiased selection process, if I remember correctly. Finicky reader and maverick that I am, I went outside of the Top 3 as well as the other nominated stories suggested by the PAB because I was not overly impressed with what had been considered the ‘best stories’ by the voting membership. I cared even less for popularity contests or politics.
Now, to get back to your question more directly, in my opinion, the condition for Guest Editor, like any voluntary activity, requires that you have drive and passion, along with a selfless desire to help your peers achieve the goal of publishing. Naturally it helps to have some kind of editorial mindset, too. That might be an understatement.
Months earlier I was one of the founding editors of the fledgling (and now long defunct) webzine called Z End Zine which was founded and published by Kieran Galvin, who had corralled a handful of us upstart Zoetrope members to branch out into online publishing using his server. This was also a volunteering position, so the above ‘qualities’ applied. Naturally some of the workshop luminaries landed bylines in our small handful of issues. A few months later, I suppose I still had the editor’s itch because I found myself doing a two-month stint as Guest Editor for Zoetrope: All-Story Extra..
Another fun fact: I was the only guest editor to A.) Work without another guest editor, B.) Serve on two consecutive issues of Zoetrope: All-Story Extra..
2) Now you’re editing micro-fiction at Liquid Imagination. Is the editing different between micro-fiction and short stories (don’t laugh).
Other than having a smaller word count to read and scrutinize, I would have to say no, not really. I think in editing you bring a lot of the same core fundamentals to all forms of writing. The focus may change in some ways with a given form, but I still approach the writing with a sharp eye on the story details, the craft and basic mechanics of the writing, as well as a what I like to term as the ‘organics’ of the writing. That said, I think many editors approach another writer’s work as if it were their own, and that’s not something I like to do because the writing is not mine. However, with my name endorsing the writing, I do take the same amount of care and quality assurances as I would with my own writing, but I believe that my job as an editor is to support the author’s vision and, if I can, somehow enhance that vision to its utmost clarity.
3) Music and writing. As an accomplished musician who also interpreted every piece of poetry in one of our past issues, I can truthfully say that you know music, perhaps as well as you know writing. How does music and writing relate to each other? How do they differ? The reason I’m asking is because it takes an act of creativity to write a song, and songs often tell stories that are accompanied by music. And something else I want to know (so make this 4 questions with Brandon Rucker): Does inspiration used to write a song come from the same place from which you conjure up the inspiration to write a story?
Great, tough questions, which respectfully deserve to be answered after careful consideration. I think this is one of those things that multi-media-dwelling artists undoubtedly know internally, but rarely ever articulate into words for a general audience, so I will try my best to articulate this well.
The easy answer of how music and writing relate to each other is that, for me, their origins likely trace back to the same well. Yet I think motivations and goals can differ greatly and even sometimes be mutually exclusive at the same time. This isn’t double-speak, mind you. I just think that the variables are innumerable in the grand scheme of art. You know me. I should probably leave you with the easy answer on that part, otherwise we’ll be here a while. I always say, though, that most if not all art is ‘performance art’ because it is almost always created for an expected audience. Rarely is art created in a vacuum.
The obvious difference is in the sensory perception: one is auditory, the other visual. Another particular way writing music and writing words differs is that a musician is afforded the luxury of impressing upon the listeners the array of emotions he wants his audience to experience almost immediately. Sure, it’s not quite as immediate as, say, a visual artist who can get your reaction to their painting or sculpture within several seconds of viewing, but the gratification you get from listening to a piece of music is certainly a swifter experience than with reading a piece of fiction that’s more than a thousand words long. On the other hand, reading the words of a fiction writer is a little more interactive because the reader can then engage their (liquid) imagination , transport themselves into the story and become a part of it.
I think, for me, inspiration to write music definitely comes from a different place than the inspiration used to thrust me into writing a story. First, you have to understand that I’m far more into the actual music than say the words or even the vocals (though vocal melodies are a big part of what makes or breaks music with words . I’m an instrumentalist first, a vocalist dead last, LOL. So when I sit down with the guitar, or keyboard, or even the drum machine, my inspiration as well as my goal is far different than when I sit down to transform the story in my head into words on a page. For me, music comes from deep within my soul, and it may be cliché to say that it is innate, but for me that is certainly true. On the other hand, writing words is more cerebral. It is much more of a heady experience for me compared to music. Don’t get me wrong, composing and performing music can be a heady experience as well. Writing stories, even when inspired by true emotions, is still a more mentally challenging exercise because all of the filtering that we have to do as we channel the stories, the fictionalized lives of people and the world.
(Brandon, I know we did this before, but I think we need to do this again. And thank you!)
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New York Times Bestselling Author David Farland’s “Daily Kick in the Pants”
(reprinted with permission)
Change
Last night I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. My sons both loved it, so it seemed to be a hit with the kids. It was tougher for me, in many ways. The novel was based in part upon the book ON STRANGER TIDES by Tim Powers, and it has been a book that I’ve loved for more than 25 years.
After reading it, I had a strange reaction, which was mirrored by Algis Budrys, who was then the literary critic for the Chicago Sun Times. While sitting in a hotel room, just jawing one evening, he said, “You know, that book gave me nightmares for three months after I read it.” He was right. It gave me nightmares, too. Somehow the book touched me on a subconscious level, giving me wondrously creepy nightmares that lasted for months. No other book has quite done that to me.
So I found the movie to be a lot flimsier than the book. While I love the character of Jack Sparrow, I felt that he got in the way of what was a really fine story. You see, Sparrow as a character doesn’t seem to be someone who changes. He’s a bit slippery and untrustworthy. If you’re talking about him as an archetype, he’s what we call “the coyote,” the trickster, the Loki character. I always find that trying to focus on a coyote doesn’t work.
Why? Because you can never trust that such a person will change. The whole point of examining such a character is to point out that in life there are some people that you just can’t trust. Hence, Sparrow’s love for Penelope Cruz rang hollow, and when he leaves her, it is expected.
Much more interesting to me was the side story of the priest and the mermaid, both of whom have to change their natures in order to make their love work. I would really have liked to have seen that more. I even know how I would have written it.
I’ve recently been adapting my novel THE RUNELORDS into a screenplay, and I found something interesting. I’ve watched several other screenwriters try to tackle this book, and while some of the writers did a fine job on different levels, ultimately they all failed. I tried their tactic of narrowing the cast. I tried pulling out some of the minor characters and focusing the story on the major POV characters. It didn’t work. The tales of the minor characters (Chemoise, Myrrima, and King Sylvarresta) defined the world. Their stories created resonance with what the major characters all faced. They were such an integral part of the tale that I had to scrap the opening and the ending of the screenplay and put their stories all back in. That was an eye-opening experience for me, to see how completely integrated the story can become when you write it naturally. The world and the society had all become so bound together, so well defined by the tales of the minor characters, I you couldn’t remove one thread without having the whole tale unravel.
So, this week I’ve been noticing something that I learned long ago: the most powerful stories are about change. I’m fascinated by a priest who sacrifices everything—his world, his society, his vows—for the woman he loves. There’s the center to a great story in there.
I sometimes like to take a character and define wildly different “definitions” for them in order to map out a story. For example, I might say, “My story here is about a BOY who goes to war and becomes a MADMAN and then realizes in time that in order for him to save the world, he needs to be killed and become a MARTYR, so he becomes a SUICIDE.” (That’s the basic plot to Apocalypse Now and a number of other stories.) So my movement is from boy, to madman, to martyr, to suicide.
But you can look at other radical changes—SINNER, to SAINT, to HUSBAND, and map your story points along those tracks.
A person doesn’t have to change in order to have a great story. Remember the book/movie Remains of the Day? Here we had a character, played by Anthony Hopkins, who was unable to make the changes that he needed in order to find love. It was a heartbreaking tale. Why? Because the person we cared about couldn’t make the changes necessary to fulfill not only his own life, but that of the woman we all came to love.
Do you see that “a story” is really about the changes your character can and should go through? We create characters that we care about, give them the opportunity to change for the better, along with obstacles that prevent them, and watch them struggle.
If your character is lazy and just unwilling to change, your story will ultimately be boring. If the audience doesn’t believe that the character can change, we’ll abandon the tale. If we don’t see how the change will enrich the lives of others in your world, the change becomes purposeless. If there aren’t sufficient obstacles to the change, the story will lack power.
So look to your tales. Who are your characters now? What changes are your characters going through? What are your characters’ end goals? How can you amplify the power of your tale?
If you figure this out, the “story” creates itself.
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