Crazy Idea: "A Miss Werewolf to see you"

Remember my last crazy idea? Well I've been brewing another one for some time. Slightly more fantastical, and just as obscure. It came from watching several movies and absorbing other media related to werewolves. Have you ever noticed that while female vampires are plentiful, female werewolves are anything but. You'd think that werewolf kind was some kind of male-only realm like the Garrick Club. So I thought to myself; what about a female werewolf?

Before anyone says anything, I know female werewolves have been seen. Once. In the final scenes of The Howling. But that hardly counts. And they are present in fiction such as Housman's The Were-wolf, just not mainstream stuff and not often in the sympathetic light shone on female vampires such as Carmilla. In popular culture, the figure of the werewolf is still very masculine, as has been noted in this article on Artsy.net.

So there's the vision I had. Not only is this werewolf female, but it's not the atypical ravening beast so many have come to expect. Imagine this.

You walk through a forest in the dead of night. The moon is full above you, the air is cold and damp from a clinging mist, there are no lights within range aside from the single lamp swinging in your hand. Then you see a form reclining on the bow of a tree up ahead. A humanoid lupine figure with a long tail swinging absently below it. It turns its head, and its eyes reflect the lamp light's gleam. It shuffles and jumps down, standing a head taller than you, digitigrade legs propelling it forward with stately grace. You are frozen to the spot in fear. It speaks.
'A late night to be out. Where are you heading? I'll be your escort, if you wish.'
A woman's voice; deepened and with a subtle growl in the throat, but a woman's voice nonetheless. You nod automatically, too dazed to think clearly. And that night, your escort is a female werewolf. She talks in a candid way about her travels during the night of the full moon, wandering the forest. She talks of flowers, or badgers, of loneliness, of the difficulty telling people she "just wants time to herself each month". You reach the bridge across to the town where you are staying for the night. After a cordial farewell, the werewolf vanishes into the night.
Little do you think that the following full moon, your servant will come in and say,
"A Miss Werewolf to see you. Are you in?"
And even less do you think that the following night would be one of cordial and interesting conversation with a dark-haired lady. Or rather, a lady with dark hair all over her. 

This werewolf isn't a voracious monster, but is still a wild thing. She is able to comfortably wander through a land that terrifies and bamboozles normal people, as any woodland animal would. But she hasn't lost either her humanity or her key female elements by becoming a towering humanoid wolf creature. Bear in mind, this is a prototype for a "crazy idea", and needs both time and polish before it becomes anything substantial.

But aside from that, what do you think? What female werewolves do you know about? Please share and comment. Until next time!

Shared Post: "Writers Are from Venus, Agents Are from Mars" by Erica Verrillo

During my long and hard road to try and get published - and more importantly get sales for my work and begin making a living - one blog has been my constant ally and bulwark. "Publishing...And Other Forms of Insanity", a blog run by children's book author Erica Verrillo. I've shared her work on my own blog before, and it's that time again. This time, it's a post of hers from December 2012,

As the title suggest, it highlights the differences between authors and agents, which are very different from authors. While authors are creatives, agents are salespeople and want both a saleable product and a face to act as a promotional tool. To quote...

Writers, especially fiction writers, focus on crafting our work. After a long and difficult labor, we give birth to novels. The last thing we need while in the throes of contractions (no pun intended) is for the midwife to ask, “What kind of diapers would you like? Cloth or disposable?” As far as we are concerned, our job is finished when we push out the last line.

This is simply not how the publishing world works. Before contacting an agent, you must not only have a finished work (edited, proof-read, and ready for the printer), you must understand the industry. That means knowing what is going on in the publishing world, knowing what is going on in the book selling world, and knowing what is going on inside your agent's head. In order to do that you must go to your local library and pore through issues of Publisher's Weekly, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. You must read blogs kept by agents and editors in order to familiarize yourself with the lingo of the trade: proposal-to-publish forms, subsidiary rights, and promotion potential. You must become vertically integrated.

I had my own introductions to the publishing world, but soft and hard. Now I'm ready for what may come. Any aspiring author needs to face this at some point. But don't let that stop you. It's these kinds of challenges that make getting yourself established as a writer earning a living worth the effort.

A Song of Ice and....Ribos?

Basic setting. A world which has extreme summer and winter seasons, with the story set during one of its prolonged winters. The world is home to a Medieval civilisation that has yet to discover many of the higher sciences modern humanity takes for granted, and whose people are influenced by prophetic shamans and believe in icy monsters that take unsuspecting intruders. During one particular winter, one of the northern capitals is the setting for political machinations, a little slight of hand, and great tragedy as people begin to die according to the shaman's foretelling.

Now you may think I've just described a very basic version of the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of books by George R. R. Martin which began their creation in 1993. But you'd be wrong. What I just described is the basic scenario of The Ribos Operation, a serial from the 1978-79 series of Doctor Who written by Robert Holmes, starring Tom Baker as the titular alien time traveller and Mary Tamm as his new Time Lord companion Romana. When I first saw The Ribos Operation on DVD, I had heard nothing of A Song of Ice and Fire, and thought it was a nice and fairly novel setting for a somewhat bland narrative It wasn't until many years after I'd heard of both that the similarities struck me.

Of course one could look and see any amount of minor details that don't match up, the largest being the world itself and its context. The explanation of Ribos's status is given in some detail due to outsiders appearing from off world; its seasons are caused by the planet's highly elliptical orbit, and is classed by outsiders as a Grade 3 planet with a protected low-technology society that could not reach the more advanced Grade 2 - and consequently be open to alien contact - for "many thousands of years". The main narrative for The Ribos Operation revolves around the character of Graff Vynda-K, an exile alien tyrant whose goal is to reclaim his lost provinces. This makes him easy prey for a pair of human con artists to sell him a fictional mine of a powerful space age fuel. In the middle of all this, the Doctor and Romana are trying to find one sixth of an important cosmic artefact, and naturally can't help getting tangled up in the schemes of both the Graff and the con artists.

There are far too many plots to count in the current run of A Song of Ice and Fire, but the basic gist revolves around dynastic and international politics between multiple nations spread across several large and small landmasses. It's also incredibly violent in places, with main characters dropping like flies when compared to similar fantasy sagas.

In many ways, the two are as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, but the similar setting and tone suddenly clicked. It just goes to prove, nothing's new when it comes to fiction.

Flash! 2018 Progress Report.

Hi! I haven't had the time or the energy to write anything like my usual posts, so I thought I'd do something different. As I continue to push forward with my dream, and fight of submission-based or just plain anxiety (more on that here and here) attacks that come in monthly cycles, I'd like to give those who actually read this blog a little update on what I've managed to do this year.

One book self-published, with its sequel to follow later this year!

Getting on for or perhaps over 30 submissions sent out between February and June of this year, for multiple projects that I felt had the potential to be accepted.

Between 4 and 6 short stories written.

One sample of flash fiction written.

And alongside all this...

Helping my family cope with a sudden and very personal upheaval which I won't describe here for obvious reasons.

Continuing to do occasional battle with my self-esteem issues.

And that's it! Today I feel great, and if you too feel great, then please browse through my (approaching) two years' worth of posts. Who knows, you may find something you like. Have a great Sunday!