Gargoyles and Locked Rooms: Gigi's Short Stories

by Gigi

This week, my short story "The Shadow of the River" was published in Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology.

"The Shadow of the River" is the first short story I've had published, and the second short story I've written. Though it sounds counterintuitive, I used to think that writing a short story would be more difficult than writing a novel.

Whenever I began to write a story, the idea would get away from me and grow into a plot that needed to become a whole novel. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I understood the idea that a short story needed to be grounded in a twist, but I wasn't able to put that idea into practice -- until I realized that my favorite short stories are locked room mysteries.

Locked room mysteries are those puzzles involving seemingly impossible crimes -- a dead body in a room locked from the inside with no way for the murderer to have escaped. Edgar Allan Poe's "Murder in the Rue Morgue" is an early example of the genre. John Dickson Carr, one of my favorite authors, wrote dozens of locked room mysteries.

The resolution of these mysteries is when the detective shows how the seemingly-impossible crime was carried out. That revelation of making the impossible possible is the twist. If it's a good story, it'll leave you slapping your forehead saying "Of course! Why didn't I see that!?".

Once I decided to write a locked room mystery, the short story finally clicked for me. I wrote an entire locked room mystery story in one afternoon. I started with a gargoyle on the first line, and ended 3,500 words later with what I hope will make people smack their foreheads that they should have guessed the puzzle but didn't. (Since that story features a gargoyle, I haven't yet figured out a venue in which to place it. Any ideas? It's a fair-play mystery even though it has a tinge of the paranormal.)

When the Fish Tales anthology was open to submissions, I sat down to write my second locked room mystery -- this time, without a gargoyle.

I began with Jaya Jones, the historian protagonist of my mystery series. I put her back in time in graduate school to solve the locked room murder of one of the professors in her department. The story became "The Shadow of the River" and was accepted into the anthology.

The Fish Tales anthology is a project of the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime. Since we're "guppies," the broad theme of the anthology is bodies of water. And since Jaya is a historian, the body of water in my story is a historic map of rivers that converge in India. How does this ancient map lead to a locked room murder? Jaya Jones solves the baffling crime.

I'll leave you with a teaser from the jacket of the anthology:

22 tales of murder and mayhem by the rising stars of mystery.

Fish Tales, The Guppy Anthology, casts a wide net across the mystery genre, delivering thrills, chills, and gills. This water-themed collection features locked room puzzles, police procedurals, cozy characters and hardboiled detectives... Come on in, the water’s fine. But be careful or you might find yourself sleeping with the fishes! 

It's fun to see it in print! 

Martha's Pet Peeve Probe

I've mentioned in a prior post that I have nothing interesting to say about our weekly topic of Pets, but reinterpret this topic to Pet Peeves and you can't shut me up (which may be your pet peeve.)

My pet peeve was nameless until 1985 when an American cartoonist made it a phenomenon now dubbed The Bechdel Test, which a movie fails unless it contains two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man.

I began to wonder. Can my life pass the Bechdel test?

Wary of Heisenberg, my favorite, if wimpiest, of the quantum mechanics principles, I knew instead of analyzing data going forward I would need to look back.

I gathered my past 24 hours of conversation from 7am on Monday March 28th to 6:59am on Tuesday, March 29th. (Yes, I realize this gives away that I half-ass my posts the day before they are due.)

Every validity test needs a set of guidelines. Here are mine:

1. Conversations about men will count against the Bechdel test if the context is personal or romantic. For example, conversations about a project including a male coworker's role are work. Conversations about nephews are family. I'll detail them out so you can decide if you disagree.

2. I will include all forms of communication including verbal, social media (twitter, facebook), email, text message, and IM. Social media posts will not count unless they are directly to me. For example, if I follow someone who generally posts about her boyfriend to the world at large, this is not a conversation unless I respond to it. However, my posts to the world at large will count.

Caveat: for the same of privacy, I am deliberately vague about certain discussions, but will not omit any topics. In instances of conversations, I note the starting time.

Here we go. Failures of Bechdel are italicized.

8:24am - verbal discussion with A re: our weekends, particularly enjoyment of and disappointment being back at work and what mood our boss might be in.

8:34am - email with B re: Bologna Book Fair

8:53am - tweet to C re: her May autographing in San Francisco

8:54am - email from D re: status of the work in progress and google stalking of editors

8:55am - tweet to general re: the movie Limitless

9:30am - tweet to general re: friend's brilliant and enviable Wondercon costume as Henry Cavill's wife

9:40am - verbal conversation with A and E re: NERT training, emergency preparedness, cultural differences of emergency response, and digression into our own personal survival strategies i.e. would we kill someone to survive (unequivocally yes, fyi)

9:55am - email and follow up tweet with F and G re: logistics for dinner event in which I am a total diva pain in the ass

10:20am - text with H and I re: meeting up for lunch and omg is it lunch yet and whaddya mean you're working from home and can't join us I?

11:00am - IM chat with J re: lap dancing, pole dancing, my addiction to online auctions, and whether I could handle being live hunted (with all due respect to myself, no.)

11:10am - IM chat with K re: audio books

11:22am - IM chat with B re: submission

11:28am - email with L re: her mom's general state of awesomeness

11:30am - verbal conversation with A re: defining key collaborators in grants

11:33am - email with M re: sugo recipe failure and correlation to patience

11:36am - tweets with N and L re: vampire wimps with breakout into love for Ian Somerhalder and Timothy Olyphant (I can make anything relate to Timothy Olyphant)

11:37am - email with O re: stress over upcoming parental visit

12:30pm - verbal conversation with H re: having run into woman I thought I knew in the bathroom because she looked so familiar but really she was Pam from the Real World San Francisco season, the deliciousness of pho, our friend's happy hour over the weekend which she missed, the movie Limitless, gym memberships, and Wondercon, specifically, what fandom line do we need to not cross to still respect ourselves in the morning.

12:36pm - email from P (with many respondents) re: her anthology short story (woohoo)

1:05pm - email with Q re: bachelorette party planning (details omitted but rest assured any bachelorette party I'm planning doesn't culminate in a sweaty, half-naked acrobatic guy)

1:08pm - text from I re: Timothy Olyphant's npr appearance

1:39pm - email from R re: Timothy Olyphant's npr appearance

1:44pm - text from S re: her return to town

2:15pm - verbal conversation with I re: new job posting and updating her resume

2:17pm - emails with H and I re: resume review

3:02pm - tweet to F re: washing her car of pet dander so I can survive being inside it

5:15pm - tweets with T and L re: Cheetos

5:30pm - verbal conversation with G re: car accidents, raising children, divorce, the Jaqueline Howett situation, and book reviews

6:30pm - verbal conversation with G, U, F, V, and W re: celebrating our friend's book release, cakes, electronic versus print publishing, family and divorce, pay inequities, our personal publishing related news, the industry at large and various and other sundry topics of titillating score.

7:23pm - email with X re: baby shower invitations

7:39pm - email with B re: submissions

8:19pm - tweet to S re: her return to town

9:45pm - verbal conversation with F re: book brainstorming

10:56pm - email with Y re: her dog getting into a fight

11:07pm - email with Z, AA and BB re: baby shower logistics

11:08pm - email with CC re: delicious pop-up delis

11:29pm - tweet to G and F re: thanking for hospitality and ride home

11:36pm - email with DD re: sister's birthday gift ideas

I also "liked" several people's facebook status related to: EE's upcoming trip to Peru, I's brother-in-law's return from military service, and FF's hotel offering makeup remover (what? that's nice of them.)

There you have it. Twenty four hours with yours truly in conversation with thirty two of her female friends, coworkers, family, and acquaintances.

Three conversations about Ian Somerhalder and/or Timothy Olyphant. (If you want to get picky and count the Henry Cavill one, go ahead, but that was really about the costume and not him.)

Two conversations about a friend's divorce.

One conversations about publishing and pay inquities which included discussions of two specific men's business decisions (as well as many women's business decisions) so I would only say 20% of this counts.

Now to the question: is this a typical day for me? Well, actually, no.

I normally don't spend this much time in conversation with F and G who can be credited with the latter three incidences of Bechdel test failure. This day also completely lacked four other friends who I usually speak to every day and see weekly because of this deviation from social norms.

As to those four friends, I took a look at a week's worth of correspondence and thought back to our in-person time and concluded nearly all our conversations passed the Bechdel test with topic contendors orbiting around (1) food, (2) being Asian and (3) whatever it is we're *doing* when we're together which, ahem, isn't a guy. If we do happen to talk about a guy, it's rarely about one guy and instead about "guys in general" as in "Why are guys so low functioning when it comes to planning a date?" (Don't get all defensive, guys, it's just an example.)

Not to pat myself on the back, but I'd say my friends and I pass with flying colors. Good to know I don't have to be pet peeved with myself.

The Healing Power of Pets

So I'm going to cheat today and give you all this link to the Wall Street Journal photos. These are pictures of people in earthquake- and tsunami- ravaged Japan with their pets.

http://on.wsj.com/gfA2rI

There is something so absolutely comforting about holding your pet when you're having a bad moment. For these people, their life going forward is going to be filled with bad moments for a long time to come.

If you have a few dollars to spare, please consider donating to the Red Cross. www.redcross.org

And take a moment right now to count your blessings, because chances are that whatever bad is happening with you is nothing compared to what these people face right now.

Lisa

ps. A picture of Blackjack, my cat, as a kitten. :)

Adrienne Rambles About Animals

I’m contractually obligated not to have any pets. No really. It’s in my lease in big, bold typeface. No Freakin’ Animals! or we kick your butt out. And they mean it.

This a sign posted at the entrance of our complex, so don’t even think about sneaking me in a kitty. Violators will be prosecuted, mind you. 

Not that I mind. I’m not a real animal lover. I’ve had pets that I’ve loved, and they were great, but the truth is that most animals make me a little nervous. Especially wild animals (ok, I know this is supposed to be about pets, but it turns out that’s about all I’ve got in me about the domesticated critters).

Of course, there are the ones that I’m downright afraid of. The usual cast of characters 

snakes

eels

face eating spiders (probably an urban legend, but whoever let facts get in the way of good irrational fear)

geese

Ok, I’m aware the geese don’t make anybody else’s scary animal list, but let me tell you those beaky little devils are terrifying. 

So with this general distrust of the animal kingdom in mind, I went to animalinyou.com to find out what my animal personality was. Why them, you ask. Well, everyone knows that on top of being “the most accurate personality test on the web” and having been featured on both CNN and Dr. Phil, they are also the first result to pop up on Google. And, hell, that’s good enough for me.

After answering a few rather personal questions, their super computers went to work and came up with...Walrus.

Great...I’m a walrus.

I have no idea how they came up with that.

Black Cat Fever

By Juliet

I've always been a dog person. I love their loyalty, their generosity of spirit. Cats, on the other hand, seemed aloof and demanding...and I really don't do aloof and demanding.

But once my dog passed away, the neighbor's black cat set about seducing me with his feline wiles. Coincidentally, this all happened around the time I was starting to write my witchcraft mystery series, so it seemed rather appropriate to have a decidedly un-aloof, but demanding, black cat named Oscar hanging out with me while I wrote.

So this got me thinking...what's with the black cat and witches stereotype?

In Europe, witches were believed to have animal familiars, who functioned not only as companion animals but also as magical helpers. Cats were the most commonly mentioned witch's familiar, but not the only one. Witches were also associated with dogs, rats, snakes and toads...even pigs.

Who ever heard of a piggy familiar?
Three witches riding a pig (The Witches of Northamptonshire 1612)

In Greek mythology, the witch-like Circe lived on the island of Aeaea and was known for her knowledge of botanical potions. She was fond of transforming her enemies, or those who had offended her, into animals. Notably, she turned Odysseus’ men into swine.

In the New World, witches and curanderas, or folk healers, are often associated with naguales. The nagual is like an alter ego, an animal familiar that lives a parallel life to your own. In Rodolfo Anaya’s beautiful novel Bless Me, Ultima, the elderly curandera (a folk-healer) has an owl as her guardian spirit. It was born at the same time as Ultima, and will die when she herself passes over.

As in Europe, the nagual is often a creature of the night: an owl, a toad, a coyote. Some believe that when one dreams, it means one’s nagual is traipsing about on adventures.

Nagualism is linked with ancient pre-Columbian shamanistic practices through depictions of humans with animal features, found in the surviving art and books of the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec peoples.

At left: Emergencia del Nagual (the nagual coming out). Códice Nutall

So am I saying that Oscar-the-black-cat is my spiritual counterpart, some sort of shape-shifting totem?

Nah. But it sure is fun to think about what trouble my familiar might get into, traipsing about at night while I dream.

WE ARE OUTNUMBERED

Pets. I never meant to have this many. Really.

Three dogs, four cats. Anyone will tell you (and they're right): that's too damn many. Not that I want to lose any, because I don't. But holy helen, it's a lot. I know that.

It happened like this:

I had Digit, the cat of my heart. He was born a jackass, and remains a jackass. No one likes him but me, and he returns the favor. He is NOT a nice cat. To temper him, I got him a girl cat, back in 1998 or so. Adah. She's completely neurotic, and is a slave to anything or anyone touching her head. She sits and drools and will self-pet, if given a sleeping hand to rub against. She's exhausting, and she and Digit never made friends.

Along came Lala. She had a dog (Harriet, the dog of her heart, the best dog I ever knew) and an almost-dog, Miss Idaho (a chihuahua who meows).

Happy family. Two dogs, two cats. Couldn't ask for anything more, right? Right.

I wanted my OWN dog. Along comes Clara, the border collie. Then Digit disappeared, and we all mourned his death. In the throes of grief, three months after his disappearance, I went to the animal shelter to adopt a boy cat in his memory, and accidentally came home with two boy kittens I couldn't bear separating. Waylon and Willie made three cats, for those keeping score.

Then, four months after his disappearance, Digit returned from the dead. (Really. He'd probably jumped into a truck or car and been transported away, and per the vet, he'd been walking for FOUR MONTHS to get home. The pads and claws of his feet were worn to nothing. Most of his rear end was lost to a feral bite and resulting infection. The vet couldn't find a heartbeat and said I had a zombie-cat. He was hours from death when he showed up at our back porch, swaying, almost unable to cry. *I* was not so hampered and can still well up just thinking about it.)

Total: 3 dogs, 4 cats. SO MANY. Then Harriet died (really died, sadly), and we were very, very sad. Months later, Lala needed a dog to hug and found Clementine, the most ridiculous pit bull/beagle mix anyone's ever met. She wants ONLY to hug, to lean, to spoon, to cuddle. She doesn't care about food, air, or water, as long as a human is loving her.

Total: Still 3 dogs, 4 cats. We are completely outnumbered, and today, when Lala was sick and I took a nap in the bed with her, we were covered with animals. I can hear Martha wheezing from here when I say that we woke up and looked around (the animals don't usually sleep with us) to find we were infested with animals. There was one on each limb and some left over. It was crazy.

But it was joyful, too. It's utterly impossible to ever be lonely in the Hehu House. We are loved, as are they, and we all of us know it.