The first couple of reviews are in for The Red Kimono. I’m excited. So far, so good. I’m used to writing horror, mystery and Twilight Zone type stories. This is my first foray into the Sci-fi world. I feel as though I’m pretty capable of writing just about anything, with the possible exception of Health/Diet, Romance, or Sports (though I do love watching a good game). It is probably a matter of lack of interest in these categories. Having said that about my capabilities, when it comes down to it, the fact is, one never knows. So anyway, I decided to try my hand at Sci-fi, just to see. I wanted to play around a bit, experiment. The worst that could happen is that the stories would be so bad that I simply wouldn’t publish them. No one would ever see them except me, and no one would be any the wiser (except perhaps me–as in Don’t ever try that again. LOL). I’m pretty satisfied that the stories turned out okay. I did have one day where I glanced at them and thought, my God, this might be crap. But, I might have just been having a flash of self doubt. It happens. Well, not usually with my regular stuff. I have a pretty good handle on that. One sort of knows, after a few years of writing and the stories pile up; you kind of come to know, or at least have a good feel for how to tell a good story from a bad one. That’s not to say that everyone is going to love every story. I had a story that I thought was pretty damn good, and (to my mind at least) fit right in with Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s style of stories. The story was called “The Kakiemon Tiger,” and I wanted to put it in the book that became Esmirana’s Trunk. I didn’t put it in the book because I was waiting on EQ to get back to me. They ended up rejecting it. So like I said, one never knows. However, I still think it is a great story for those who like that type of story (the type you read in EQ). I’ll write a few more to go with it and then publish it in a book.
So, the Sci-fi stories, while writing them I found my mind opening up. I thought, WOW, I can go anywhere, Write anything! Really, there are no limits in Sci-fi. Of course, part of my thinking here might have been influenced by the fact that I read (or reread, as I had read it years ago) Harlan Ellison’s book, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream, while I was writing this book. I’ll get into Harlan Ellison and this book in another post. I’ll also get into the fact that you sometimes have to be careful about what you are reading while you write, because it often seeps into your work. H. E. definitely and most noticeably seeped into the story, “All Possible worlds,” that I wrote for Red Kimono. Again, I’ll cover that in another post, no matter how tempting it is for me to do it here.
Probably the strangest story, to me at least, that came out was, “October 1962.” I honestly don’t know where that one came from. And I can’t blame it on Ellison. It was all me. In any case, the whole story, “All Possible Worlds,” wasn’t due to H. E., just some of the phrases I used; I felt as though my writing style jumped up a notch or two, at least for a short period. But with “Octorber 1962” I couldn’t help but think, Is this way too weird? And I almost didn’t put it in the book. Of course, that’s the beauty of it all, playing around, experimenting, going where no one has gone before. I don’t have the phraseology correct here, but the lead-in line for Star Trek sort of flashed through my mind just now.
I suddenly have the thought that I am trying to cover way too much in this one post, so I’ll have to continue with the Twilight Zone and Peering Behind Curtains part of it in the next post.
And if you’re interested in what I meant about Harlan Ellison seeping into the story, and don’t want to wait on me to post it, you can head on over to Good Reads and read my review of I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream. Such a great title. Anyway, I did actually talk about the influence it had and wrote about it in the review; even writing the exact wording that I used in my story that I felt I wouldn’t normally have used. “All Possible Worlds” is probably a good bit darker because of the influence, though I tend to lean on the dark side anyway, so maybe I’m just kidding myself. As you will find in the review of Ellison’s book, the story “Pretty Maggie Money Eyes” is probably my favorite. There is another one, but I can’t think of the title just now–Oh, wait, “Lonelyache.” That’s it. Unfortunately, the main title story didn’t quite live up to the great book title. Others might beg to differ, of course. But one thing is certain, people either love or hate H. E., and there seems to be no middle ground. Or maybe there is and I’m the only one standing on/in it.
Okay, back to reviews for The Red Kimono. I’m quite happy with them so far. Of course, there are only two, but they both have 5 star ratings. Hope I’m not jinxing anything by posting about them. I might as well go out on a limb and say, “Look out NYT and USA Today bestseller lists, Here I come!” Okay, I’m dreaming . . . but who knows?
Well, duh, die-hard Sci-fi fans, of course, and they are a hard core bunch from what I understand. So we’ll see. But then again, they can’t even seem to agree on the defining, or dividing line between Sci-fi and Fantasy. Not faulting them for it–I certainly don’t have a clue on that one!
Anyway, here is the screen shot of the reviews for The Red Kimono, and I’ll continue in the next post. See you there!
