Chris Howard's Writing Blog

Olivia, a Naiad from Saltwater Witch

Olivia's an old character of mine, the youngest of five sisters--all Naiads.  She has sharp teeth, a matching temper, and...let's just say that her idea of fun in the water isn't going to be yours.

"Come on in.  The water's great!"  (I wouldn't if I were you)

I spent around 2 hours painting.  Here's the full piece, which I'm still tweaking. 

Click the pics for the full views

Here's a detail crop of Olivia:

Getting graphical

Here's a page from one my many attempts to put some of my writing into something more visual.  The first scene of Saltwater Witch, with Kassandra falling into Red Bear Lake in Nebraska.  She was pushed.  I saw the whole thing.  Click for a larger view--or click over to my deviantArt page to get even more.  (http://the0phrastus.deviantart.com/art/Getting-graphical-89733965).

Seaborn cover--the latest

Seaborn Notes

I have a character in Seaborn, Michael Henderson, who's a minor character with a background in science, and I've sort of left it up to him to try to explain how people can live and breathe under the sea.  He has the "curse" himself, all the abilities the Seaborn have.  He writes pages of notes, sketches the things he sees in the deep, imagines why things work the way they do with the Seaborn--all with a scientific mind.

I've written and drawn a bunch of stuff in the character of Michael Henderson, which started out as part of the worldbuilding exercises, and just kept going.  I wrote the chapter headings in Seaborn from Henderson's perspective, taken from his notes, his journal, his "conversations" with various notable characters. 

Here are some samples from my journal:

Seaborn Notes
Michael Henderson

I have been to the deep ocean, the Very Deep, and I have set my feet down in billion year old sand.  I have kicked through the dark with blind animals that change shape with their moods, with fish ten meters long that glide through the deep sea without fear--and only eat microscopic food, with arthropods made of glass, and creatures that defy classification, I have touched the bioluminescent lures of fanged ambush predators in the abyss, and I still have all of my fingers.   I have done all of this without equipment, without SCUBA, without feeling the pressure, or need for air.  I am no longer a surface human--or as the Seaborn, say--a surfacer, a Thinling.  I have become one of them.

I have experienced, l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs, Jacques Cousteau's "rapture of the deep," but not as the nitrogen narcosis that Cousteau described in Silent World.  Say, rather, that I have experienced the rapture of the unexpectedly normal in the most unexpected place on earth: the deep sea.

The Seaborn do not suffer from any of the affects of breathing compressed gases, for example the squeeze of barotrauma on descent, because presumably, these do not exist in effective amounts in their bodies.

SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.  This is a device enabling surface-living humans to recreate, as near as possible, and within well-defined limits, everything the human respiratory system needs above the ocean surface, in the air.  While in the water, it appears that the Seaborn do not--or even need to--breathe in the same manner, possessing a different, possibly more advanced system for taking in the same gases and nutrients directly from seawater.  Out of the water, the lungs of a Seaborn human appear to function the same way as the lungs of any surface human. 

Lungs:  Alveoli are the small grape-bunch like structures that line the lungs and take up oxygen, CO2, Nitrogen--gases the human body needs to survive, with oxygen fueling so many of the processes.  The Alveoli are highly susceptible to damage from heavy substances like seawater, which really shouldn't be in the lungs.  Damage then leads to low blood oxygen levels (hypoxemia) , low tissue oxygen levels (hypoxia), and then death.  The alveolar-capillary membrane is a delicate, one cell thick membrane through which the gases we breathe are exchanged.  It appears to be the case that the Seaborn possess a more rigid surfactact--a sort of stiffening coat for the alveoli to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of heavier substances like water in the lungs.

Syren Tears

Or, how do mermaids cry and sweat, and what it looks like in the water.  This is the second in a set of posts for those speculative fiction authors out there who have already--or are planning to--dive into a stories with humans/half-humans that live and breathe underwater.  (See the first, How do mermaids hear? on underwater acoustics).

Right off, I'll say if you're a mermaid and someone's trying to sell you the "never let them see you sweat" line, keep your money.

Let's start with an experiment.  Take a glass of fresh water, a glass of saltwater (mix in a few tablespoons of salt into 4oz/118ml of water), and with a teaspoon, pour the saltwater into the fresh a few drops at a time. What do you see?  The mixing of fluids of differing salinity affect the refraction, the way light comes through the fluid.  Where the two mix, there's a blurry swirl in the water.

I've tried to capture it here in these images.  The one on the left is the glass of freshwater, the right has some saltwater mixing in.  This also works in reverse.  Pour the freshwater water into the saltwater, and you get the same swirls and blurriness.

Close-ups of this:

What's happening here?  It's all about salinity, or the measure of total dissolved salts in water.  (Salts come in many flavors and compound varieties, but we don't need to go into that here).

The salinity of human tears, sweat, blood plasma, amniotic fluid are around 9PPT (parts per thousand) and seawater is around 35PPT  (These numbers vary, for example seawater sampled in the north Atlantic is less saline than water sampled from the Red Sea). 

What it comes down to is that even though we have much the same properties as seawater, we are, well, less salty.  When a mermaid cries, her tears take some time to blend into the saltier water around her eyes. She may have trouble seeing through a good fit of sobbing.

The lacrimation system, primarily used for cleaning and lubricating the eyes, includes the gland, reservoir, and canals that manage tear production in most land mammals.  Tears are salty, but they don't sting because our eyes are already accustomed to the salt content in the fluid that protects them.  This protective fluid for the eyes is actually a set of three different substances that make up the tear film, each layered on top of the other, the outermost lipid layer, aqueous layer, and a mucous layer. (For the different kinds of tears, basal, reflex, and weeping, see the Wikipedia article on this).

No sweat.

There are around 650 sweat glands in an average square inch of your skin, and although the mineral composition of sweat changes with the individual and the source of sweating, the blurring effect of mixing two fluids of differing salinity still applies.  In other words, you would be able to see a mermaid sweat, a thin blurry layer of water over her skin.

All of this assumes that your mermaids, mermen, selkies, nereids, people of the sea, have typical human skin and tear functions.

http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/mermaidshear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears
The concentration of sodium in thermal sweat, M. G. Bulmer and G. D. Forwell
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1363543

http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0phrastus/2008/03/the-sea---water.html

Think organic

Not in what you eat but what you write.  (Think Dr. Seuss).  So, I'm wondering about the world that fills the pages of what I'm writing right now, and I'm looking back at my last three Seaborn novels--and then I'm studying the Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom painting by Repin, and one of the thoughts that strikes me--rather sharply--is that many of us writers of fantasy fall into the worldbuilding groove of basing the fantastic on something very real, familiar…solid fortress walls of stone, cities made of towers.  Even when we take a few steps over the edge, and say, make our characters live in the trees, we tend to think of houses in the branches, flat level floors, rectangular windows, gabled rooflines--the familiar bolted on to the fantastic.

Is it because it's the simpler path?  Is it because we need to stick with something readers can reference--I mean we're already asking them to accept magic, faeries, things that live off human blood?  Could we lose our readers with a blind rush over the imaginative edge--into the absurd--readers scratching their heads a third of the way into your book, thinking, why can't the protag live in an ordinary house--you know, stucco, Spanish tile, etc.  Why does the author insist on dragging me through the character's "house"--some amorphous, self-propelled, windowless, floorless, jelly candy the size of a gymnasium with shifting walls the consistency of yogurt?   

Here's Repin's masterpiece, Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876).  Click to view the larger version.

Back to Repin:  What I noticed right off is that here's this fantastic underwater world, and everybody's dressed like they've stepped out of a fête in Victorian England--with a few nice eastern touches to add an exotic element.  Where's the weird natural ocean feel?  Where are the spines, fins, bold coloring, bioluminescence, organic branching coralline growth of the world under the sea?

I did some doodling for this post.  Wouldn't a city under the sea look like this?

What do you think?  An author needs to hook readers with something of the familiar?  Or should an author sprint for the edge, not look back, readers be damned? Somewhere in the middle?

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Apollo

Apollo (Aπόλλων), the son of Zeus and Leto, brother of the huntress Artemis (they're paternal twins).  (I took this in the museum at Delphi).  Click the pic for the large view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo

Finfolkaheem

Sylvia Kelso just sent me info on Orkney Island seafolk myths.  I had never heard of these, but they're perfect.

For countless generations, Orcadian storytellers waxed lyrical about this fantastic undersea kingdom...

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/finfolk/heem.htm

New portfolio

Check it out:

http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/photos/portfolio/index.html

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King Eupheron when he was young

Click the pic to see it larger. I painted Eupheron this morning, one of the kings inside Kassandra's head.  Actually, I'm not sure if this is Eupheron or Kassander, Kassandra's namesake--both were total badass sorcerers.  I started last night with some sketching and ideas for an overhead--almost back--light.  (These are characters from my novel, Seaborn --Juno Books, 2008). 

http://illustrationfriday.com/

Did I mention that Seaborn's already listed at Amazon.com?  There, I mentioned it.  Now please go pre-order it. http://www.amazon.com/Seaborn-Chris-Howard/dp/0809572818

WFC 2007

We're off to Saratoga Springs, NY in a couple days for World Fantasy Convention 2007.  Where will you be this weekend?

Take a look at the amazing list of people attending.  I just went through and grabbed some names: Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold, Chloe Howard, David Louis Edelman, Holly Black, Kelly Link, Scott Lynch, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfeld, Lou Anders, Christopher Barzak, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Datlow, Hal Duncan, Craig Shaw Gardner, Christopher Golden, Sharyn November.

So many more.  Check it out:

http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/membership.php

Chloe--my daughter--is on the list.  She and I will be attending Friday-Sunday with varying agendas, while Christopher and Alice explore upstate New York.  Chloe's agenda involves seeking out Scott Westerfeld, Garth Nix, Holly Black, and more of her favorite authors.

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Fall Magick

"Fall Magick," a single crow atop a pumpkin, perfect for IF: Trick or Treat.  See more of my art here: http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0phrastus/art/index.html

Click the pic to see it a bit larger.

The Gatherer

Here's my very first attempt at page 1 of a graphic version of my short story, "The Gatherer." I'm actually in the process of doing some quick sketches of various scenes throughout the story, but I assembled a couple here, a whale's tail and whale's eye closeup along with the first scene text from the story.  My intent is to post the text of the story and a graphic version when Seaborn comes out next summer.

I don't think this is how it will end up, just storyboarding, rough sketching, and gathering experience for now, and thought I'd share what I'm up to.  (Also posted this over on deviantArt). 

Click the pic to view full sized.

Writing and Research

It's not just for genre writers, establishing new worlds, unearthly conflicts, alien flora and fauna--even hissing fauna (I'm an Of Montreal fan).  I have seen Jodi Picoult speak twice, once in Exeter for her launch of Nineteen Minutes, and once in New York at a writer's conference, and although she did a reading for the launch, her primary focus was on the research she had to do for her books.  (She's a great speaker).

I love the research part of writing, the creation of worlds, magic systems, political structures.  But what about the form these take?  Do you write notes, just stating the facts?  Have you tried other methods, like writing fictional accounts, diaries, newspaper articles?  As a writer, one obvious path to take is to write about the world from the viewpoint of an author in that world, an observer, and these fictional out-of-story helpers can become characters in themselves, characters that will help you write your story.  It just occurred to me that one interesting way to explore the world would be through the diary of someone young or very old, through their eyes.  Same world, different perspectives--always keeping in mind that the purpose of world building and all this research is not to dump it on the reader, but to make you the writer so comfortable in your world that it becomes second nature to tell stories about what goes on inside it.  (That's rule number 1 of world building, BTW.  It's for you, not the reader).

For Nanowhere--an old novel of mine I gave away under a CC license, I wrote several drafts of a scientific article establishing the theory that self-awareness in humans is the result of two separate conscious faculties in hierarchical order, one outward facing and one that was inward facing (conscious of, or managing the first conscious faculty).  I posted the papers and collateral material here if you're interested.  (I wrote them.  The authors listed on the papers are characters from the story).

I sort of stumbled into this post idea this morning when I was looking for Visio on my notebook and found an old family tree I did of Aristotle (The Philosopher) for a novel I will get back to when I'm done with my current WIP, The New Sirens. 

That's the other cool side of research, is that we writers do so much of it that it piles up after a while, and we forget about some of the crazy and cool things we did to dig into some particular world in the first place.

Here's my Aristotelian family tree with notes and even a dashed line back to Zeus, which was popular in those days (click the pic to see it larger).  If you're interested in the Visio format or SVG, let me know (email at bottom of right column).

Happy researching!

Links:
http://www.jodipicoult.com/nineteen-minutes.html
http://www.lykeionbooks.com/nanowhere/
http://creativecommons.org/

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WORLD FANTASY 2007

We'll be off to Saratoga Springs, New York on November 1st for World Fantasy.  Alice booked us rooms somewhere in the vicinity (I'm a bit late signing up).  The MC is Guy Gavriel Kay, and look at the list of attendees here.   Some of the Juno Books authors will be there including Matt Cook (Blood Magic), and editor, Paula Guran.

Are you going, Skott?

Hope to see you there.  More info:

http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/index.html
WORLD FANTASY 2007
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK
November 1 – 4, 2007

Links:
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/membership.php
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/index.html

Phaidra's Love

Here's a detail crop of a commission piece I'm working on for a friend of mine--title: Phaidra's Love.  Not sure if this is the final or what changes I'll make, but this is where it stands tonight.  This is Phaidra, Kassandra's aunt, a soldier of Rexenor.  She will one day rule House Rexenor.  (These are characters from my novel Seaborn).

Click the pic to see it larger.

Review of Blood Magic by Matthew Cook

Blood Magic 
by Matthew Cook

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Juno Books
ISBN-10: 0809572001
ISBN-13: 978-0809572007

Running from the remorseless Mor, from the doomed battle at Gamth's Pass, Kirin draws on her forbidden powers to protect her love, Jazen Tor--but too late to save him, too late to retract her "sweetlings," the things she has "birthed" of the spirits of the dead. 

The story of Kirin, blood magician, scout, mother, bear-killer, "abomination," starts at a relentless pace and never lets up through skirmishes, political turmoil, prejudice, deadly encounters with the Mor, and the challenges of controlling powers she doesn't understand.   In alternate chapters, Cook skillfully guides the reader through Kirin's past, growing up in the shadow of her demanding twin sister, haunted by a marriage gone bad and her sister's brutal murder, but empowered by the teachings and the hidden books of wise old Edena.   

When Kirin is saved by the beautiful Lia Cho and suspicious Brother Ato, her life takes on a new set of difficulties and hard lessons to learn, mourning her old love, fostering the possibility of something new.  Lia, a runaway student with the extraordinary power to summon lightning, is taken with the mysterious Kirin, in defiance of the priest of Shanira who openly declares Kirin an abomination--damned, someone who manipulates the dead, and draws her power from the blood of the living.

Matthew Cook's Blood Magic is a dark feast of loss and blood and love, a fast paced fantasy in a world reminiscent of Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion, compelling characters with the ability to draw on otherworldly powers, who push the boundaries of life and death.  I look forward to reading the sequel next year, exploring Cook's world further, and discovering where Kirin's tale takes us.

Links:
http://www.juno-books.com/bloodmagic.html
http://bloodmagicbooks.blogspot.com

Get Blood Magic here:  BookSense | Amazon | Direct

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IF: wedding

UPDATE:  I made some adjustments to the groom's arms, fingers, and now I have the painting flipped 90 degrees to the left.  This all comes from your great comments below and analog feedback. I welcome more!

This is a scene I will almost certainly never write, but the topic for this week's Illustration Friday is "wedding."  I probably wouldn't have painted this scene either--without the prod from Illustration Friday.  This is Zypheria and Michael Henderson, two of my characters who fall in love, but off the page, on the sidelines, in Seaborn.  They're both minor characters, but the assumption is that they will marry at some point.  Both from different worlds.  I figured a wedding at the bottom of the sea wouldn't be something to miss.  This is a detail crop.  Click any of the pics to see it larger.

Wait a minute...maybe it goes this way (See pic below)...although I might have to change the title from "Seaborn Wedding" to "It's Raining Guys."  See...they're just dropping out of the sky:

Here's the full work:

http://illustrationfriday.com/

See more of my art here.

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It's that time of year again...

I'm talking about Halloween, which isn't that far off.  (Thanks to Cynthia from Withywindle Books for the reminder).  I got up early and started sketching ideas for creepy things.  Here's a crow in flight I drew in pencil, white pastel and a couple blue colored pencils, and all on the really nice pad Chloe gave to me for my birthday, with pencils Christopher picked out.  So, this is a pretty special crow.  Just so you know, I love working in pencil and then blending with a white pastel.  I love the creamy depth it gives to the grays. 

Click the pic to see it larger.

Character study...again

Here's a painting of Jill I started a few days ago, and finished up tonight.  I'm still tweaking, but it's pretty much there.  She's the third sister from my novel Seaborn (Juno Books, July 2008), last in the water, the one who would rather not go under the sea.  She's the really neat one, if there's a hair out of place it's on purpose.  She's showing off some of her powers here, the surface world with the sun in her right hand, the sea and abyss in her left.  (She's pushing that one down).  The question is which one is she going to choose--or was her choice made for her?  And then there's all the trouble--you know, death, assassins, small armies, monsters from the deep--gathering momentum against her sisters and her family, which may influence her decision.

Find my prior post with the second sister, Nicole, here.

More of my art here.

Click the pic to see it larger.

Character Studies

Alice and the kids gave me a pile of art supplies yesterday for my birthday, and although I did some pencil sketching in one of the drawing tablets, I also hit the Wacom tablet with two characters, a new one, Bachoris, the surfer guy below, and Nicole Garcia, an old character of mine.  Nicole appears in my novel Seaborn (Juno Books) and Saltwater Witch, and Bachoris debuts in my current novel in progress as a love interest of Kassandra's.  I always have a pretty good idea what my characters look like, but this is the first time I've put pen to paper (so to speak) for Nicole. 

Although not necessary, I find drawing my characters--even quick unclear pencil sketches--helps bring them into my mind clearer.  Maybe that's obvious, but drawings also act as a sort of booster when you need help with the story.  I don't like going back and re-reading my work.  A writer can only do that so much before those early chapters lose their freshness, but I can always pick up the drawings and use them to imagine the next scene.

I'm also less likely to go overboard on character description.  I know what Nicole Garcia looks like.  I don't need to describe her in great detail in the book.  With a clear pic of who she is, her character will come out in the process of writing her in action--not in a paragraph of description.  Drawings work, I'm telling you.  Justine Larbalestier has a terrific post on what makes a character real and believable that I meant to comment on but was too busy (or too lazy).  Check it out.

Love to hear what you think.  Click the pics to see them larger.

The New Kassandra

Here's a sketch of Kassandra as she appears in the sequel to Seaborn.  Started this one Friday night and I'm still tweaking.  She's in her twenties, a serious badass, a stronger, tougher, less girlie Kassandra--and with a lot more responsibilities.  Alice remarked that she's a bit too boyish.  I don't think so.  What do you think?  Click the pic to see some detail.

Holly Black Live at Readergirlz

The readergirlz will host a live chat with Holly Black author of Tithe, Valiant, Ironside, the Spiderwick Chronicles.  Cool cool stuff.  I've read Tithe and Valiant, and ashamed to say I haven't picked up Ironside yet. Here's the time:

Thursday, August 23rd at 7 PM Pacific / 10 PM Eastern

IF: Captain

Here's a quick sketch I did this afternoon of a mermaid guiding a sea captain through the storm.  Did this for Illustration Friday topic: captain.  It's a bit rough, but here you go.  Click the pic to see the detail/much larger version.

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More painting what I write

This is actually the same character, Nikasia, I painted here, and when she plays music or sings it's usually not for pleasure.  Something must be going on.  Something that requires fixing, someone who needs to be hurt, most of the time she's called when the king has an emergency.   (Watercolor and watercolor pencil on 140# hot-pressed)

Click the pic to see it larger.

Fictional maps revisited

Okay, get yourself one of those nice vegetable trays at the grocery store. Whatever's local, whatever they serve in the deli section for small parties, but it has to come on a roughly 12 inch/30 cm plastic plate with a lip.  Now, eat all of it.  You need your strength for fictional cartography. 

The purpose is to clear the plate of food (carrots, celery, sushi, little tiny sandwiches, whatever you bought at the store).  Now clean it in the kitchen sink.  The dish is now our paint dish, a big flat surface that can hold a layer of water and paint.

Now, get a sponge.  My preference is for big chunky sea sponges with lots of natural texture and holes.  You can probably even use wadded up paper towels, dish sponges, your hands.

I started with a nice brownish green and worked the map with reds and blues and browns to give it texture.  Push the sponge in your plate of paint and press it into a nice sheet of watercolor paper.  Outline the edges of the land, create mountain ranges, forests, seacoasts, swamps, all the fun stuff that your characters are to wade, slog, hop and run through. 

Now scan your creation, bring it into your paint program of choice, Photoshop, PSP, Paint, Xara, Gimp, etc.  Now you can draw in rivers.  I used a white brush to cut through the land areas with squiggly lines, pooling here and there for lakes and ponds.  Have fun, play with filters, textures, layering, and other effects.

You can draw in place names before you scan or you can print out the completed topo map and write them in afterwards.  Of course, you can always do the lettering in your paint program.

I love maps.  So, if you make any and scan and post them, I'd love to hear about it.

Happy mapping!

Click the pics to see them larger.

Links:

http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/maps-workshop.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_world

IF: your paradise

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "your paradise."  Here you go.  Mine is at the bottom of the Atlantic.  (Click the pic to see the full-sized version). 

More of my art: http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0phrastus/sketching/index.html

http://illustrationfriday.com/

The Ocean Inside Her

Here's a subject I've been contemplating for a week or so, idea-sketching, but hadn't had time to paint until last night.  Spent several hours on the water and foam, and finished this afternoon, the cold ocean twisting out of her navel.  Earth is an ocean world, and, well it all sort of starts in her navel.  (Click to see more of my work). I'm still tweaking, so I may have an update or two this weekend.

Click to see the larger images, details below.

I'm suing a god

I'm going after the god Helios, the Sun, for infringing on my Greek Key design copyright.  It looks exactly like this one except it's not scrawled across my own ceiling in sunlight reflected off the barbecue on the back deck.  I think he's mocking me.  Time for treble damages!  Wait a minute, Mithra's a sun god also.  No astral deity is safe!  Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

The Ocean in her eyes

Today's Illustration Friday topic is "I Spy..."  Click here for more of my art.  This is one of my Kassandra paintings.  See this post for my inspiration.

Poseidon's Crown

Today's Illustration Friday topic is "Total."  Click here for more of my art.   This is a wreath of fishes, schooling in a circle under the sun.  Click the pic for the larger version.

Maybe it's a property of liquids...

...that it doesn't matter if it's rock of seawater (real or rendered with a brush).  Play with the hue, a little colorization, some touching up, and it doesn't take much to go from Pele (Ka wahine `ai honua--the woman who devours the land) to…Aquagirl!  (She can kick Aquaman's butt from here to the GBR).