The Struggle Commences

So this winter I tried a crazy experiment -- I didn't give myself shit about my winter depression. The people closest to me have been patient and supportive, and overall, the experiment was a great success. I accomplished more and suffered less than any winter in close memory. This is supported by the evidence of the blog. (One of the great benefits of the blog has been its function as a history of my mental state -- being able to go back and compare one year to another has been enlightening.)

I'm sick of it. I have a million things to do, and a million debts to discharge, and sitting here, stunned and helpless, has grown tiresome. It chafes.

I have to work on Swill. This one hangs heavy -- I've got that, "Do I remember how to do any of this shit?" panic bubbling around. It's the kind of thing where I'm all, "I can't make a move until I get the cover finished, so I need to get some photographs of decent ground cover which means I have to get the table inside so I have to get all those musical instruments and bottles (moderate social drinking, kids -- the beer was brought here by Warren and the hon. Richard Talleywhacker) and piles of books off the floor which means I have to go through the shelves and pull out some books to get rid of so I can shelve all the fucking books at the same time. Wait a minute, I can't be pulling books off the shelf! I need to work on Swill! I can't make a fucking move until I get the cover done, though, and it's looking awfully bald. I need some good ground cover, maybe photograph a pot of midget sunflowers from half-a-dozen different angles and make them look like a fucking jungle. Yeah, that's it, and maybe scan some dead pitcher-plants. Shit. I have to get that table in here..."

Always remember.

When in trouble, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.

I did manage to get something off to Salon, but I kind of hate myself for it. I think I might have been able to place it in a market a friend recently opened up. Maybe next time... but I have a shit-ton of material I've been sitting on.

The novel being foremost, I suppose. For the record? It needs one last round of line-edits, no rewriting, and I was halfway through the edits when the depression slammed shut. I've heard back from five readers, and the responses were, briefly --

"You've finally done what Elmore Leonard said -- you got rid of all the boring parts."

"This ends like a movie. I mean that in a good way!"

"This isn't stream-of-consciousness, this is a word explosion."

"This reads like Kerouac. Now, when I teach Kerouac..."

And, spoken in a tone of deliberate sincerity, "You do understand what you've got here, don't you?"

I've got some idea of what it is, all right. Fifty-three thousand words is short for a novel but it's fucking long for a poem. I'm just afraid nobody but writers and editors will like it.

I have to give some serious consideration to a friend's prose, and unfortunately my inclination is to guide him in the direction of the guy who wrote those great stories about Roy Orbison in plastic wrap and a bitchy, judgmental turtle.

Another friend is dropping off a novel for me to edit. That might help me get kickstarted -- give me a stack of paper, and some dim node in my pre-electronic brain is stimulated. All this digital internet crap just feels like fog, I need to get my hands on something, damnit.

I have to mail out a book on opium cultivation to one friend, and a copy of Future Lovecraft to a stranger who lives in the neighborhood.

And so on, and so forth. But now I need to go make lunch and clean the kitchen.

And then get some pictures of some kind of ground cover for Swill. Which means I'll have to get that table inside the studio... Shit. I'll have to figure out what to do with all those fucking musical instruments.

And those books. Why am I fucking with the bookshelf when I need to make lunch?

I need my tripod. Where is...

(The missus cries, faint from distance and hunger, "Lunch! Lunch!"

I go.)

A Worrywart's Rosary

"This is a serious medical condition," the missus said.

"I know."

"Your mother didn't pay attention to her parasympathetic nervous system, and look what happened to her!"

And there we go. Recently, a wonderful trip was marred by a recurrence of my stress-related nausea, compounded by blood loss from my ulcer. I'm tempted to use this as a source of humor, but it's gradually dawning on me that not everyone in my life finds the subject of my health amusing.

When I did a post-game analysis of the situation, I saw any number of things that I could have done to ameliorate the situation. In the end, stress management comes down to details. The problem is, is that one of my reactions to stress is an inability to monitor my stress. This is one of the things that brings me into crazy person territory from time to time.

(I am in the process of working up a nice handy flyer on Oaf Wrangling 101, but I want to run it by my near and dear for practicality and accuracy before releasing it into the public. If I am going to insist on making my socialization a blood-sport, it only seems fair to clarify the rules.)

But that's the thing. I have a lifelong pattern of psychosomatic reactions to stress. These typically present as a medical crisis -- my skin is peeling off like scabby sheets of typing paper! The doctor thinks I have colon polyps! only to reveal themselves as stress reactions.

Nausea, primarily manifesting as lack of appetite, is one of the big, long-running themes. My mother suffered from this quite badly; it's a little creepy to find myself following in her shoes. I've been hospitalized due to uncontrollable nausea three times.

Honestly, the ulcer and blood loss? That is actually helping me deal with things -- it mandates stricter behavior. It may seem to be a big issue, but if managed properly, it heals and doesn't give me trouble.

But not eating, and then using alcohol as an appetite stimulant seems to be an unreliable but effective means of opening up the wound so I bleed internally, and when that happens I get the chills and sweats. These are worse than the nausea, and at this point I'm basically hallucinating. Drug fans? Imagine really, really, really bad acid, or some exceptionally nasty herbal shit like datura or morning glory seeds. Eight to twelve hours of visions of hell interrupted by vomiting blood, bile, and what I honestly believe to be shit.

Hell, I've paid for worse experiences than that, but still. It gives one pause. But here's the thing -- it means I have to take care of myself. And being involved in a larger and larger social sphere places a correspondingly larger and larger responsibility in terms of self-care. My well-being has never been my private concern, and now it is taking on the feeling of being a sort of public trust.

So managing stress is an issue. But that is only one of the things I'm dealing with right now.

I am easily confused, and find it difficult to sustain coherent thought for the extended periods of time necessary to perform serious intellectual tasks. I am irritable. I have little energy, and that expends rapidly. Interestingly, I have been sleeping more rather than less, and have even found myself taking long afternoon naps, from which I rise wan and crabby. I have extremely vivid memories, bordering on hallucinations, of bad moments from my early years. I am prone to sudden panics and anxieties. And from time to time the profound conviction of a universal negativity and hopelessness grips me, as though existence is a set of jaws.

Then I think, "You're getting press and you're getting smooches and the refrigerator is full and there seem to be a ton of people who like you. Quit bitching."

And I do, and it helps, but come on. This is physically mandated misery, and all I can do is get through it with as much grace as I can muster. But hey, my spring season is due to start any time now, and then I'll be full of all kinds of good crazy energy.

Right now I have any number of things I need to do. All of them are significant in my creative career -- what I've been telling people is that I've been turning the handle on a sausage grinder for the last nine or ten years, and the sausage is just starting to come out. And that 'career' is a thing at this point. Regardless of my degree of success, I'm a real, acknowledged writer, artist, and performer. Don't care if anyone's buying, I know I've got the goods.

So I really should make myself work. But when I do, the results are not good. They reflect the disarray and emotional neediness I'm experiencing right now.

And if I push myself, I stress out. And as has been pointed out to me, that actually represents a real health hazard. That wouldn't bug me so much, but now that I'm seeing myself in the big picture, it does. It causes trouble for other people when I'm not functioning at my best.

But if I can avoid obsessing over my stress levels, my seasonal depression probably won't spike on me.

See, yesterday's post and today's post? These are the kinds of posts I haven't been making for the past couple of weeks because the vague tone of self-pity kind of nauseates me, and that's a source of stress.

Sometimes the word 'blog' seems onomatopoeic. Blog! Blog! Bluh. Bluhuh. Bluooooahhhhg.

Now I have to floss.

Surviving the Land of Do-As-You-Please

Let's lay it right out; when my internet activity diminishes or goes away during the time between mid-January and the end of March, it's due to seasonal depression.

That said, I haven't been unhappy. Right now, my life is better than it ever has been, and the continual sense of being just at the start of something is a big part of that. The difficulties I face aren't of the, "Will I have a place to sleep?" variety. They are of the, "What kind of sheets do I like?" variety. I don't want to seem like I'm bitching.

I have been working every day, but I haven't been producing work that I care to share. In previous years, I would have said that I was completely frozen, when in fact I usually do put in the time. It's just that I don't like what I do.

At this time of year, I'm critical of myself and my work to a degree that is distinctly pathological. The missus recently gave me a copy of a well-reviewed book on the application of neuroscience to decision-making. I got a third of the way through it before my grousing became audible.

"This isn't any better than the crap I've been throwing away!" I said, and then it hit me that yeah, this probably wasn't any better than the crap I've been throwing away, which probably wasn't crap and which I probably shouldn't have thrown away.

This is the kind of thing that's hard to deal with. There is a symptom of mental illness called, 'grandiosity.' I've got it. My sense of self it both grossly inflated and distinctly insufficient, and the fact that I have very real and extraordinary gifts and deficits makes it fucking difficult for me to get a bead on myself.

I could look at a number of different areas in my life and say, "Yes, that is stressing me out. Yes, that is stressing me out." But unless this condition persists into April, there's no reason to assume that I'm dealing with anything other than seasonal depression. And while the symptoms are not fun, they are not threatening me, and my overall quality-of-life is wonderful.

Let me put it this way.

You'll hear me making rude noises about The Lord of the Rings from time to time, but I am by no means resistant to the charms of Tolkien. There is a lovely story he wrote called Leaf by Niggle. In it, near the climax, the protagonist, Niggle, has worn himself completely out in his struggles to be a good and productive member of his community. He's laying in bed, listening to his case being discussed by a number of rather intimidating voices. Then one of them makes a suggestion.

"Perhaps we should try the gentle treatment."

I feel as if the world has decided to see what happens if I get what I want for a change. It is not just one area of my life; there are basic parts of me that I have assumed were broken or missing that are now undergoing radical healing. The great fears in my life are diminishing, and while my future is problematic, it is far from hopeless.

Here is the thing about being a late bloomer. You really get a chance to appreciate it.

And thusly, I finish an unsatisfactory, somewhat insipid and pointless post. But I'm here! I'm alive! And one day soon, I'll write something sensible and of interest, I promise.

Leap

Right now I'm facing a combination of deadlines and depression. If you'll pardon me, I have come to a distressing conclusion that I'd like to air.

The virtue I value most highly is kindness.

I like being nice. I work hard at it because I want to live in a world where people like each other and look out for one another's interests.

Yet there is a person who I am responsible for, and I have treated them in a fashion that would, in a just world, land me in prison.

I have beaten this individual. I have broken their bones. I have cut them -- the scars are quite visible. I have burned them, pierced them with needles. In moments of stress, I will bite them until they bleed, wrench at their mouth as if to tear it wider. More than once I have worked them to the point of injury. I have starved them, denied them water, limited their opportunities whenever possible.

And all the while I have insulted them and abused their person to such a degree that they have accepted my abuse as simple justice. I have made them feel unworthy to such a degree that they fear that they might simply cease to exist as a result of sheer inadequacy.

Whatever I did to their body, what I did to their soul was worse.

Now that I see what I've done, I am lost.

What recompense can I offer this person? What can I give them to make up for what I have taken?

What's worse is the thought of being forgiven. It is unimaginable and unbearable. And I will be forgiven.

The person I hurt is very kind.

Glory and Majesty

There's a long way to go, but Swill 6 is off and running.

So it's been an interesting week. First came the news that writer Ferrett Steinmetz has a story up for a Nebula. Here it is -- Sauerkraut Station. This was good news to me, because I've worked with Ferrett a few times before, and feel a particular affinity for his work. He's different than most genre writers in that every story I've seen by him was centered on a deeply felt emotional question, and that's the kind of thing that gets my attention. If you look to your right and scroll down, you'll find a list of the most popular posts on this blog; the fourth is called Notes To A Fellow Writer. The fellow writer was Ferrett. This makes it a particular pleasure to bask in his glory. It's nice to know my advice won't actually hinder a person so badly they can't recover from it.

I had a taste of glory my own self. Check it out -- I was interviewed on Scientific American's Symbiartic blog. Scientific American, motherfuckers. (My photo was taken by my pal Deborah Kuchar, by the way.)

My grandmother got me a subscription to this every year when I was a kid, back when it was an appalling terminological pissing contest decorated with Mathematical Games and The Amateur Scientist. I could struggle through life sciences or geological stuff, but most of it went way over my head at the time... Still, there's a real sentimental attachment to the institution. This is like getting into The New Yorker.

It feels weird. My interview is kind of puffed-up and starchy, and there's a humiliatingly obvious boy/girl division between me and the other artist, but still, I don't think it comes across as some kind of mistake, or gross breach of propriety that I and my work are there. Hell, the work looks eerily convincing. It feels weird.

I still don't really believe it.

Problems With Paleo Art

When I started doing paleontological illustrations, I was unquestionably inspired by Gregory Paul. I'd track down a diagram or photograph of a skeleton, and draw or trace the individual bones in a new pose.

And then I'd flesh them out. At this point, what I was doing wasn't so much art as a grunting, primitive attempt at getting some kind of visceral contact with extinct life. But this technique was so restrictive -- the silhouettes do not deliver as much of a sense of a living animal as I'd like, and I always had a shabby feeling about relying on reference materials. It's not like any of this was commercial work.


In order to vary things, sometimes I'd take a photograph of a skeleton, manipulate it a bit, and use it as the basis for a piece. I'm not sure where the original photograph for this came from -- I just figured I'd changed it enough not to worry. Again, personal work, not commercial.
But it was frustrating. I wasn't able to render as well as I'd have liked, my draftsmanship was weak... I was struggling for a comic book look, and then being unsatisfied with the results.

And I knew I needed to get closer to the original material. So I tried contacting some working paleontologists. The experience was kind of a drag -- at first, I was received with open arms, and told that after the next Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists convention, I'd have a nice sit-down with a very prominent paleontologist, who would go through my portfolio and see if we might have some mutual interests. Sweet!

But then I got an email that suggested rather strongly that my man had been exposed to some bad, wrong people. He said something about too many paleo-groupies, and called off our meeting. Probably just as well, given the caliber of my work at the time.


Flash forward a couple of years. I was asked to produce work for an art show. Let's not go into the details, but after I put a good bit of work into it, things fell through. But I did make some advances. These aren't digital pieces. They were done using a mix of graphite pencils and sticks, ink, and black and white Prismacolor pencils. I found that the ink and Prismacolors were necessary to get deep grays and blacks without developing an unattractive sheen, and the white Prismacolor allowed me to add touches of light to inked areas, making them congruous with the pencil work.

In this piece, I worked from a reproduction of a Velociraptor skull I probably shouldn't have bought. Oh, well. It classes up the joint. But I think it proves my point about needing to be closer to the fossils to produce good work.



The frustrating thing about working from photographs is that you're never sure if they're really orthogonal, you don't get a sense of the actual shape of the bones -- they're reduced to graphics rather than representations of solid objects. I can feel myself losing valuable information as I work. It drives me nuts. And I never quite get the poses the way I want them. They seem too posed.


But when I get that feeling of life, it's worth it to me, even given the various awkwardnesses I generate in the process.


This image is probably the most popular thing I've done, at least among my friends. For this one, I didn't use an initial skeleton, but rather sketched it out freehand. Why I felt obliged to stick to a strict side-view I cannot say...


This was the heartbreaker of the project. It was a life-sized Ceratosaurus head. It took me over a month to draw the neck, shading every scale, and my back gave out twice. I had to give up in the end, having rendered the neck, unable to physically execute work at that scale. I have to be able to work from my recliner. Oh, well. Live and learn.

So let's see. So far, I've gotten some social disrespect, some physical pain, and some artistic dissatisfaction.

I did have a number of pieces published in Mike Fredrick's Prehistoric Times magazine, which was quite pleasant. It also gave me an excuse to ditch dinosaurs from time to time.


A pal of mine told me this Hyeanodon Horridus looked like Benji gone bad, which dated the man fairly savagely. Still, this has a not-quite-there feeling to it. Look at how disjointed that skeleton looks. Good hobbyist, eh illustrator, bad artist.

Science humor -- it's pretty much a blot on the earth, but sometimes I can't help myself. This was one that got me involved in the on-line pale0-art scene when Brian Switek posted it on his Laelaps site. This led to my eventual involvement with the Art Evolved website.

And this is pretty clearly a cartoon, not scientific illustration. I'd decided at that time that since I wasn't going to get access to fossils, then I may as well just fake it.


See, this does and does not work. Still hobbyist stuff. The sleeping Allosaur looks dead, the ground is simply lacking, the shadows are weak, etc. But it's got a bit of a thing, where if it was like this but only good... He sighed.


Japanese brocade prints are one of my most important influences, and I've tried to incorporate this into my paleo art. Part of this is due to the distance many of these artists had from their subjects, and how inaccurately they portrayed them.

When I saw photographs of famous waterfalls in Japan compared to their print renderings as drawn by Hiroshige, I realized that the stylization and inaccuracy of these representations made them perfect models for my paleo art.

And there are other graphic traditions to draw on. With these two pieces, I felt as if I'd gotten some real art in -- but this one was based on a print by Max Ernst, and the next was drawn from a photograph I took of a skeletal mount at UC Berkeley. If given access to fossils, I would dearly love to do a full series of prints in this style.

But why do I do them? It's purely out of nostalgia for the prehuman.


It's been a long time since I've done a paleo art piece. This was the last one I did, my first attempt at the kind of fully-rendered 'realistic' art that's standard in the field.


Honestly? I'm not sure where to go next. I want to know more about prehistoric plants, I wish I was a better draftsman in general, but in particular of landscapes, etc, etc, etc. Here's the thing. I'd love to work with paleontologists, but until I do? This is art, not science. I wish it were otherwise, I struggle as hard as I can for accuracy, but I am not a scientist.

So until then, I'm doing this for personal creative satisfaction -- and I'm honestly not sure which direction I should take next. Grrrr... all I know is that dissatisfaction means I need to work harder.

Catherine Schaff-Stump: The Final Viable Paradise XIII Interview

If you are unfamiliar with Catherine Schaff-Stump, that’s because you didn’t attend the thirteenth session of the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop. She’s a writer, teacher, and academic who’s released the novel Hulk Hercules, Professional Wrestler, and a number of short stories. After Viable Paradise XIII, she took it upon herself to interview every other student. You want to see a fascinating cross-section of fresh writers who are starting to make some waves? Check it out.

So I figured it was about time someone asked her some questions.

To begin with, please, tell us about your current projects and immediate plans and anything else you think we should know that might otherwise go unmentioned.

Right now there are three long term things that I’m working on.

Front and center at the moment is a book called Abigail Rath Versus Blood-Sucking Fiends. The Abby Rath books are YA books about monster hunting kids. Abby keeps trying to be a tough monster hunter, but she keeps running into supernatural critters at school, at the mall, at the roller skating rink, and some of them are nice, so her career path is taking an unexpected turn. The books use a lot of folklore and horror monster knowledge, and is sort of a homage to my husband’s love of cheesy Hammer horror.

Next is the Klarion series, which is about 4 generations of a family of demon binders. The story spans 90 years, from the 1830s to the 1920s. I’m reaching for a Gothic feel. I’ll be working on this for a long time.

Finally, I’m playing with a series that involves Norwegian folklore, mostly trolls. It’s contemporary YA and begins in Decorah, Iowa, which has a reputation of being the Norway of Iowa. There are also disillusioned frost elves, Old Nick, and ice giants, in no particular order.

I have other projects in various stages of writing or development, including a story about wild dogs in the Southern Iowa I grew up in, and a magical retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo.

What led you to attend Viable Paradise? How did you hear about it? How would you compare it to your other educational experiences?

In 2007 I decided I would make time for my writing. It didn’t take me long to realize I needed to ramp up my game, and as a PhD, I realize the intrinsic value of going to school. So, I went looking for a way to educate myself, and the Internet was full of valuable information! Clarion and Odyssey were there, but I have a pretty demanding career that would miss me for six weeks, so I decided against those. Then there was Viable Paradise.

One of my fellow Cats Curious Writers, Christopher Kastensmidt (VP XI), had great things to say about it. So I looked into it, asked the college for a little funding, and off I went. It was a fantastic, intensive experience. Like grad school, it was great to be around people who were as geeky about something, in this case, speculative fiction, as I was. Unlike grad school, the intensive nature of VP resulted in some close bonding. We all worked hard together and survived a week of sleepless critiquing. And we saw glow-in-the-dark jellyfish. Bonds like that stay forged.

I’m fascinated by the connections you’ve established between your vocation and your aspirations as a writer. Was this intentional on your part, or just a matter of following your interests? And are these two streams in your life as mutually supportive as they seem from the outside?

That’s a good question. I wish I’d asked that question when I’d interviewed all of you.

In many ways, although I don’t think I knew it all the time, my life has been one big attempt to get a job that’s flexible enough to allow me to accomplish many of my life goals. I love to travel, and I travel to really interesting places for work. I love to research folklore, so even though my area at Kirkwood Community College is English Language Acquisition, because I work at a community college, the administration encourages us to diversify. And yes, I do like teaching and administrating ELA too.

Kirkwood also supports my creative writing. I have received professional development grants to go to writing workshops, and they even gave me some release time to work on Hulk Hercules. I think that the college expects me to get rich and set up an endowed chair and a couple of scholarships when I retire, though, so I’d best get cracking and gain some wild success soon. Honestly, though, I’m very lucky to work in such a supportive environment, and I appreciate that I can bring all these things together in one spot. It really makes it easy to go to work in the morning, and then come home at night to write.

I’m both gratified and impressed by the job you’ve done on interviewing all of the other people in our session of Viable Paradise. What struck you about your own experience after you’d heard from everyone else? Is there anything you’d like to say Viable Paradise that you think may have been missed?

One of the reasons I wanted to talk to all of the VP attendees is because one week is such a short time to spend with so many interesting people. I could see that there was a lot of talent in that group, and I wanted to know more about its members. One of the things that I felt as I reflect upon the experience was that I felt validated as a writer. Many people dream of being a writer. While I have a long way to go, I felt like I’d leveled up. It was heady that others saw the potential in your work.

I guess the only thing that I want to say that I think has been missed is that not only are the VP faculty great, but Viable Paradise has a great support staff. All of the former VP members who cook, who give you Kleenex when you cry, who talk you down from an anxiety attack before your first pro meeting, these people are the unsung heroes of VP, and I hope they know how many of us appreciate their good work.

(This is true. Everybody wave.)

It seems as if everyone in our circle is comics-literate and familiar with role-playing games, and that this is standard in the fantasy/SF field. Do you think this has had any influence on what’s being written these days?

Yup. In some ways good and in some ways bad. While genre has certain beats and riffs that are essentials, it’s also easy for an author to go on autopilot and write something very similar to what has gone before. I think that the trick is to find that alchemical mix between genre and originality that makes your writing stand out. That’s what the best comics and the most original role playing games do. Come to think of it, that’s what the best film and fiction do too.

What’s your take on the idea that popular fiction is living mythology? To what degree should we regard what we do as representative of forces other than our own creativity and taste?

Wow. That’s a question that could really be answered in a thesis. But I’ll keep this brief.

Could I just talk for a minute about Superman? Because you know Superman was created in 1932. Back then he could leap. Flight didn’t come until later. Superman has been re-imagined by each subsequent decade he has existed. He has been all-American. He has been square. He has been an orphan. He has had hip mid-Western parents. His secret ID Clarke Kent has been a wimp. His secret ID Clark Kent has been a really interesting reporter. Regrettably, he’s now younger than me, which is a good trick for a guy who came on the scene in 1932.

Most people in the First World know who Superman is. They know where Krypton is (was?). They know that Superman came from Kansas. The other things come from our generational preferences and re-envisionment of a hero that we admire and wish to remake in our own image.

Another place to look as we consider this question? Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (many thanks to fellow VP XIIIer George Galuschak for this one). In this book, Booker lays out the stories we keep telling over and over and speculates why we do this. He suggests we tell stories because we want to understand our world and re-create it in our own image, and that stories are ways in which we interpret our life experiences. At a certain level, this ceases to be an individual pursuit, and becomes a cultural one.

Speaking of which, your book Hulk Hercules was a good-natured middle-school romp, and it seemed as if you put a lot of playful thought into publicity and marketing as well as the writing for that one. No need to go into the entire process – unless, of course, you want to – but can you say something about the feeling of seeing something through all the way from concept to product, and the difference in the way you regard a work before it’s finished and later on when you’re deciding on the design for a promotional medallion?

Cats Curious asked me to do a re-telling of the 12 Labors of Hercules. The requirement was that the book be in a modern setting, but otherwise I could do what I wanted with the story. My goal was to make the story accessible to young modern readers, and create a bit of a mystery around the original story. If readers became interested in tracking down the original myths, so much the better. At first, the story was more about Nona’s retelling of the labors, but of course Tony and Bianca took center stage as the book progressed, both as part of the framing device, and because of their own story. Tony, Bianca and Hannah reinforce the idea that knowing about mythology is cool, and their knowledge gives them power when they encounter mythology.

As to the coin, well, you have to know I am blessed with crafty, artistic friends. Sculptor Gerald Dagel designed the medallion, which is actually a replica Morty Moose token. (Morty Moose is the pizza place/arcade that Tony and his friends frequent.) When there were plans to have more than one book, each book was going to get a Morty Moose token. They’re made more meaningful when you’ve read the encounter with Chiron.

While I take my writing seriously, honestly, part of what I am doing is playing. It’s not hard for that to translate across. When we conceived of the medallion, we wanted to bring a piece of the book into the real world, which I think helps the reader hold onto the experience longer. Perhaps that’s one of the philosophies behind merchandising? By the way, Morty Moose tokens are free, especially for kids who buy the book.

And finally, would you care to say a few words about ambition? You’ve written extensively on your blog about your approach to the problem of advancing as a writer. If there were no one around to accuse you of hubris or attempt to hold you responsible for pipe-dreams, what sort of vaulting castles in the sky would you build, with which demi-deities would you rub elbows?

I am an ambitious writer, but in an intrinsic sense. Right now at work, I’m learning a new interview process for a criterion-referenced test to help our ELA students place in their courses. This interview judges the students in relation only to themselves. Their future interviews are examined in light of their past performance. This is me with my writing.

Alas, what I am learning is that the more you know, the more fault you find. I strive toward artistic perfection, but in reality, steps forward are made in a groping, intuitive type of way, which is how learning occurs. There are breakthroughs and setbacks. But the point is that I have a point I’d like to reach and I strive to reach it, in reference to where I have been and where I am going.

However, what would my pinnacle of achievement be? Honestly, what I would like the most is to write a character so memorable and convincing that the character is remembered. Not me so much. I would enjoy having my work read after I’m gone. There’s some hubris for you! And while I don’t expect to support myself with my writing, I guess the bottom line is that I write to the best of my ability and I strive to get better as I work toward my voice and my memorable characters.

So that raises the question: Would you rather write an immensely popular, mediocre book, or a critically acclaimed respected book? The latter, although if I could pull off a critically acclaimed respected best seller, that would be a bit of all right.