Victoria Griesdoorn's Blog

Last Monday saw the release of the first edition of the of Altered States anthology series and my fellow contributors and I are celebrating by sending a series of guest posts out into the world.

Similar to the Round Robin I did for the release of The City of Hell Chronicles anthology, we have gathered up a few willing volunteers and put to them questions about change.

To learn more about of Altered States and its contributors, visit the group's website and the individual contributor's links below.

Here is part two of the Round Robin of Change;

Wales. On top of Mount Snowdon in the blistering sun. A pint in the summit cafe later, torrential rain. I broke my leg. The Welsh laughed. I'm still scarred by it.

I remember snowdrifts and blizzards and skidding down hills on planks of wood. Now winter is cold rain trickling down your neck as you wait for the bus. Mediterranean climate, my arse. Britain's an island. Global warming will just allow more of the water that surrounds us to get up in the sky and piss on us. Bloody muppet skeptics with their screwed up priorities. I used to like snow.

When the forecaster said, "There'll be snow in the north east this weekend," I hadn't believed him. But now, standing at the foot of the stairs, there's a snow drift in the hallway. The front door must have blown open in the night. It's June in Scotland for heaven's sake.

My bedroom window shows the weather coming; tubes of golden sunshine, barreling clouds, horizontal stair rods of rain. Generally it comes from the west; right to left. When it shifts and drives from the south the wind billows the curtains and our windows leak.

And even as he braces for the impact he's thinking that it was dry out when he started. Not a cloud in the sky mother. Help me. She stood at the door and waved me goodbye and the sun glanced off the windows like the flash of a lover's eye at the dancehall as our song begins. He takes her hand.

I really had to get used to changes of weather when I lived in New Orleans, U.S.A. Normally it has a subtropical climate, supplied by the Gulf of Mexico, but every once in a while the wind would change to come down across the plains of Canada and the Midwest. Especially in winter this dropped the temperature significantly within a matter of hours.

The first winter got to us.  The first time it snowed and the temperature dropped to negative numbers and the cars all looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.  That got to us.

That was it.  We were never leaving Southern California.

I used to be optimistic. I used to have faith in the human race. These days, I expect nothing and have faith in nothing. Life is but a dream was never truer. It's all whirling, confusing conundrum.

I had a life once, but I lost it in a cloud of smoke and my true love's arms. She wanted me to become an engineer, I wanted to become a writer. The fact I can only count up to 21 when naked didn't help my cause at university. But that's okay, 'twas an amicable break-up. She loved me and I loved her, but we were better off loving from a distance.

The moment the plane's wheels left the ground we high-fived. "This is it," my husband said, squeezing my hand. "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid." Just eight hours across the Atlantic separated us from our new life on the tropical island of Antigua in the Caribbean.

Freezing cold one minute, sweat pouring down my back the next. Duvet on, duvet off. Memory like a sieve – within the space of five seconds it's gone, whatever 'it' was. Extra-round tummy. Finding the grace to accept the change; step into the shift with my eyes open.

To lead her on the floor. His last memory before the lorry hits him, I imagine though I know nothing about him except what they told me at the hospital: the accident, his age. Sad to die so young, but at least he's giving someone the gift of life, said the tender hearted nurse as she painted yellow on my shaved and vulnerable chest.

I think the most profound change of life was going from final year of primary school to being the new kids in secondary school. When I nowadays walk into a room of strangers I am again reminded of that feeling of dread and insignificance that I had seeing all those older kids. Change of life for sure.

It happened in the middle of the night, it had to.  We didn't let the son-of-a-bitch in the house.  We wouldn't have allowed that demon to take our son.  We would have locked it out.

But it got in anyway, turning our loveable boy into a brooding, miserable jangle of emotional wreckage.

Our life hasn't been the same since we were visited by that Hormone Fairy.

—

To read the other installments of the Robin Robin of Change, follow this schedule;

January 10: of Altered States – change of heart; direction

January 12: Victoria  Griesdoorn– change of weather; life

January 14: Cath Murphy – change of scenery; name

January 17: Stephen Godden – change of habit; shoes

January 19: William D. Webb, Jr. – change of use; for the worse

January 21: Colin F. Barnes – change of car; home

January 24: Julie Erwin– change of … (confetti post)

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

[image error]Happy The City of Hell Chronicles Vol. I release day!

Today is the day I am officially a published author and I am going to celebrate by giving away two copies of this special book.

If you don't know, The City of Hell Chronicles Vol. I is a horror short story anthology that chronicles the rise of The Great Maurr and all its horrific consequences;

The Ant-Headed Old One 'The Great Maurr' has risen and brought hell to earth. The land is scorched and the human race decimated, eaten or tortured. Only three cities remain, a crumbled, dying version of their former selves: London, Moscow and Hong Kong. The Great Maurr's own City of Hell dominates most of North America. Its diabolical influence has turned ordinary citizens into torturers, debased slaves, lunatics and zealots.

The book is getting some good reviews;

The Eloquent Page

Horrornews.net

Tony's Thoughts

Fantasy Opinion

Goodreads Reviews

and you can judge their accurateness by winning your own copy.

Reviewer pablocheesecake over at the Eloquent Page sums up my story as; 'Inès has learned to scrape by in the ruins of Moscow. Orphaned by the Apocalypse, she survives by running errands that help keep the fragile barter economy afloat. While out on one such errand she gets the opportunity for revenge against a man who ruined her life.' And what does Inès barter with? Blood.

To win a copy of The City of Hell Chronicles Vol. I write me a flash (non-)fiction piece that involves blood in some way, max. 300 words. This competition closes December 11th, 2011, 11.59pm GMT. The two winners will be picked the next day.

If you are not the commenting type but would still like to read the anthology, the buy links are below.

Lulu (paperback)

Lulu (ePub)

Amazon UK (Kindle edition)

Amazon US (Kindle edition)

Happy reading & keep writing!

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

The City of Hell Chronicles anthology is almost upon us.

But the Great Maurr hath no mercy and put to us the Interview From Hell. Will my fellow contributors and I make it out alive?

Colin Barnes:

All my pets have been great. But in the theme of the question I did once have a dog called Satan. He was a rescue dog from an abusive owner. When we first had him he would try and bite us, but eventually he turned into the cutest, loveable beast you could imagine.

Victoria Griesdoorn:

I was visiting a friend once who had ferrets. They were lovely looking creatures but absolutely evil! They roamed the house free and had a habit of pouncing on your hands when you weren't looking, and not gently without using teeth either!

Ren Warom:

None. I've had awesome pets. But I used to keep snail farms when I was a snotty nosed, knock-kneed, geeky little pre-teen. Yeah… snail farms. Yum.

Kendall Grey:

We had three ferrets, Puck, Pan, and Joy. They were the coolest pets ever, but Pan had a bit of a foot fetish. Our roommate was once the unfortunate victim of Pan's obsession. She lifted her foot, and he held on by this badass carnivorous canines, dangling like the furriest toe bling you ever laid eyes on. After that, we called him Shark Boy.

Anne Michaud:

I had a hamster, he liked to bite but I didn't find out until I put it under my sister's shirt as a prank. Yep, she didn't like that at all.

Belinda Frisch:

I am an animal lover. We have two Shetland Sheepdogs and two sugar gliders (marsupials.) Now, a glider is only weighs a few ounces. They're sweet and tiny and normally not an issue unless it's after 9 p.m. at which point they become a flight risk and impossible to catch. I'm going to have to segue here because I'm small. 5 ft tall and I wear size 5 shoes. Women's shoes do not come in size 5 almost ever. Seriously, try to find a nice pair of heels in that size. I ordered a great pair of patent leather Steve Madden's to wear with dress clothes. This is where the pets come in. My family and I took a trip to Virginia, but on the way home, hit some hellacious Washington DC traffic. I was starving for a snack and my husband buried the 'travel food' under a pile of other things. My son rummaged for snacks and inadvertently opened my shoe box. By the time we got back to NY, the tiny little few ounce critters had EATEN the shoes. Now, they didn't devour them, but I did have to throw them out and only got to wear them a handful of times. I still miss them.

Amy Overley:

One of my ex-boyfriends owned the Dog-From-Hell. Her name was Zuki, and she was a pug. He would pull her onto his lap and talk to her in baby talk as she snorted dog snot all over him in adulation. Because of her smashed nose, she breathed like Darth Vader. The dog could do no wrong in the eyes of my ex, even when she dragged my underwear out of my suitcase and chewed it to pieces under the bed at night. Have you ever tried getting in the mood with a furry goblin lurking under the bed, plotting to snag your intimates at the first available opportunity? She was a pint-sized manipulator in a dog suit. She would do the most awful things when he wasn't looking, then give him giant puppy eyes in feigned innocence. And he fell for it! Our relationship was over the day he accused me of shredding his favorite tie in an attempt to frame the dog.

Colin Barnes:

I've had many of these, the worst being a crappy Rover 200 sport. I had it for just two days and the head gasket blew on Xmas eve while I was doing 80 in the outside lane of a motorway. Luckily I paid by cheque. I phoned the bank and cancelled the cheque and let the dealer go pick it up from the roadside. If it was busier that day I could have been in a serious accident. My current car isn't much better and seems to cost a fortune every other month for parts and repairs. I hate it.

Victoria Griesdoorn:

My dad works in vehicle salvage. Guess what happens when a truck breaks down? An even bigger truck shows up to tow it! I once got to sit in that truck tow truck (say that 10 times fast) and paled when my dad told me how many gears it has. 32! It's a multi-layer gearbox and the first 8 are used just to get it to pull up.

Ren Warom:

I've only had the one. Ron Burgundy. He's falling apart and I love him too much to say he's the car from hell. But when his front number plate recently fell off I did turn to my eldest and say 'well, at least it wasn't the doors, or the engine' in one of those cheerful voices you get when you're about to go all Jason Vorhees.

Kendall Grey:

My first car. I was sixteen. My parents paid $200 for it. Some Pontiac piece of shite. White with red interior. It broke down every other week. Transmission, overheating, tires—you name it. This was before cell phones too, which totally sucked because I had to knock on strangers' doors and beg to use their phone so my dad could rescue me. Hated that busted-ass vehicle.

Anne Michaud:

It started with this unhealthy love for my old Volvo until the shock-absorbers died and with every pothole (and Satan knows how many we have up here in Canadaland), I felt like I was in a rap video as the car went up and down, up and down. Word.

Belinda Frisch:

The car from hell wasn't mine, it belonged to my high school boyfriend. It was a Renault Alliance, blue with hideous interior "custom decorated" by his friends who burned their names into the backs of the seats with cigarettes. The floor was rotting out of it and it didn't have reverse. Literally, it did not go backward. I had to borrow this gem one day while my own was completely out of commission (as kid cars will be) and got stuck because I couldn't find a pull-through parking spot. Needless to say, reverse consisted of putting the car in neutral, opening the driver's door and pushing off with your feet. I've mentioned I'm short, so this was QUITE a spectacle. Said ex-boyfriend crashed this car into a utility pole some years after we split up. Oddly enough, THEN reverse came back.

Amy Overley:

When I was a teenager our family car was a minivan. My mother loved it. I hated it. Being hauled around in a minivan the color of mud did serious damage to my credibility as a cool teen. It was even equipped with a car phone, the latest model that was as big as your head. One night as I was driving home from my summer waitressing job, I was hit by an oncoming Cadillac. I was fine, but the minivan was totaled. My mother still claims that I did it on purpose.

Check out the rest of the City of Hell crew's Interview from Hell:

November 14: Colin Barnes – Ride from Hell; Boss/Coworker from Hell

November 16: Ren Warom – Day from Hell; Illness from Hell

November 17: Kendall Grey – Vacation from Hell; Family Member from Hell

November 18: Anne Michaud – Kid from Hell; Friend from Hell

November 21: Belinda Frisch – Binge from Hell; Book from Hell

November 22: Amy Overley – Meal from Hell; Bug Bite from Hell

Find out more about the City of Hell and its inhabitants here, or like us on Facebook!

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

Today is National Show Your Journal Day! Didn't you know?

I'm participating in the Scribbles Blog Hop. Do you have a journal? Do you write in a journal? Do you write in someone else's journal? Or do you just have a secret journal fetish? You've come to the right place.

When the lovely Anne Michaud asked me to show the world my writing journal, I responded; 'I don't have one.' That was until I realised that my entire career has been penned down in them.

I work in science. Since the dawn of this noble profession, research and results have been noted down in journals. Or lab books as we call them now. All famous scientists and inventors kept them and some are even accessible online, like Leonardo Da Vinci's, Thomas Edison's and Albert Einstein's.

My research is more mundane, but fills many volumes.

[image error]

I've just reached the final year of my PhD candidature project in cancer biology. The two years worth of reserach I have done here is about to fill my 6th lab book. In it I record the experiments I've done and their various permutations. With every experiment I note down the pages that contain the raw data results that go with them. This way I will always have a complete record.

Nowadays it's accepted to keep a digital record of experiments, but I was taught to use lab books and haven't managed the switch yet. Yeah, I know, I'm clinging to the old ways, but I have this irrational fear of losing all my digital experimental records. As if I don't have to haul all my lab books, every time the fire alarm goes off. At least with digital records, I would have a backup.

But I love my lab books and they will leave a lasting tangible mark on this lab when I leave here. My scribbles and scrawls will be forever recorded, or at least until my supervisors retire. I don't know, one day they might end up in the university's library; the notebooks are university property after all.

Tell me; do you keep a journal?

—

Continue your Scribbles Blog Hop by checking out these wonderful people and learn about their journal habits.

Danielle La Paglia

Anne Michaud

Marianne Su

Ren Warom

J.A. Campbell

Tammy Crosby

Maria Kelly

Chrissey Harrison

Natalie Westgate

Tony Noland

Larry Kollar

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

Last Saturday, the 15th of October, 2011, I participated in a 'Novel In A Day' project.

The idea is simple; a group of writers get together (mostly virtually) over the course of 24 hours and write a book. We were each given a writing brief at a set time and had to deliver our chapter within 24 hours. The participating writers were situated all over the globe and were also largely unaware of the plot of the wider story, as each only received a chapter brief.

All of this was organised on the Scrivener writer's application forum where the result was described as;

'reading of an event from many parallel universes; each one slightly (or way) different and you can only ever see one piece of time in each framework, with only hints of what the past and future might have been like, based on the other pieces.'

If you'd like to judge the result for yourself, you can get your free Creative Commons-licensed copy here;

The Dark – PDF Format

The Dark – ePub Format

The Dark – Kindle Format

(Also, if you use Scrivener and are interested in how this project was formatted and compiled, read this post.)

It was a lot of fun to do. Enjoy!

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

For once I give writing advice from experience.

Most of the time the content here is reposted articles written by others that I find around the internet. Blog posts that I like. Blog posts that I think have some value and could be of use to the people who read my website. A highly personalised and biased news aggregator, you could say.

But today… today I write from my own experience.

See, I'm a beginning writer. I have three projects on the go now and I should be published in short form by the end of the year, but I don't actually have much experience writing yet. So that's why I'm hesitant to give you any advice on it.

Yesterday was different. I did something I've never done before. I wrote a haiku.

The Secret Lair (a wonderful blog populated by wonderful people. Go read it) is hosting the Angry Robot Haiku contest. I've been Angry Robot obsessed lately, so I was all over the haiku idea. Have you met Angry Robot? Have you met their authors, Chuck Wendig and Adam Chistopher? More importantly, have you heard about the Empire State Worldbuilder project Angry Robot are launching in January? Anyway, The Secret Lair Angry Robot Haiku contest. The challenge is to write the best haiku about an angry robot. Simple, right?

Before yesterday I had been pondering a good haiku. I pondered for a few days off and on. And what happened? Nothing. Then I decided, let me sit down and write one. First I read the Wikipedia entry on haiku, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. Then I thought of a few topics. Nothing special. Then I took one of these topics and tried to write a haiku with it. I didn't finish it; it sucked balls. Then I took another idea off my topic list and wrote another haiku. A shitty one. It didn't suck balls, but it was still shitty. Then I took the last topic and wrote another haiku. A passable one. Then I ran out of topics.

So what did I do? Give up? Convince myself I can't write haiku and why did I ever think I could? No. I read a few tweets in my feed, while mostly thinking about my angry robot. Then out of nowhere the new idea drops into my head. Five minutes later the haiku was written. The best I'd done. One I thought was pretty good for someone who's never written a haiku before in her life. Well, apart for the three preceding failures. So three minutes later the haiku was submitted.

Is it the best haiku in the world? No. But that's not the point. The point is you can't go walking around and wait for inspiration to hit you. Sometimes it does and it's awesome. Sometimes it does and it's not so awesome because you have no way of writing your inspiration down and by the time you can you've forgotten what you were going to do. It happens to us all. But mostly, inspiration is work. It means starting off with a few ideas that don't work out. It means owning up to sucking balls. But keeping at it means you'll get better and your idea will get better. Your work won't be as shitty anymore. Inspiration is work.

Okay, now, this story is a microexample and my haiku won't win any prizes, but that's okay. Because I wanted to do it and I did it and I'm happy with the result. Giving up: 0–Victoria: 1

What did you write this week?

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

Janice Hardy has a post about work-in-progress editing over at The Other Side of the Story. From the post;

At some point during your first draft, you're bound to ask yourself if you should keep going or start editing. (…) Chances are this urge to edit will be prompted by reading a good article or finding some great writing advice, or even getting a super idea for the story. A light bulb might go off and you'll understand something you didn't before and want to go back and put that into practice.

But should you?

Janet has very valid points. Her advice basically comes down to; have you realised your story has structural problems and it isn't working at all, or it has the wrong protagonist–Yes, go back and edit. Or start over. But if you want to go back because you've learnt a new writing skill that you want to apply but the story you've written is good so far–No, don't go back to edit. Write to the end and then in the first revision you can add your new skill.

She has some great examples and explanation to go with it. Go check it out!

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

In this instalment of the Bookshelf Porn series;

All Rights Reserved Fishbol Atelier

Why I like this photo; It's one of those great examples of design that is intended for space economy, but ends up just looking really cool. Not sure whether the seat will be very comfortable, but, no well… Can't have everything!

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

In this edition of the Bookshelf Porn series;

All Rights Reserved unknown. I'm in the process of getting the copyright holder info from the repost source yeah you're right.

Why I like this photo;

Not Karl Lagerfeld necessarily, although he doesn't diminish the composition. I like the stylised look of the bookshelves. I like the arrangement of the volumes and the industrial look of the environment. I can see this fitting in a very high-ceilinged building with an industrial interior design.

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.

Do you need some temporary but believable amnesia for your fiction? In this post, the Writer's Forensics Blog hosts Dr. Strobl on the topic of Transient Global Amnesia.

Transient Global Amnesia is a condition of full amnesia that leaves the patient often confused and unable to perform certain tasks while the brain does not make any memories.

The post describes two cases Dr. Strobl encountered and adds;

'Transient Global Amnesia or TGA is a condition I diagnose in patients 2-4 times per year. There are many causes, but often none is found. Almost all patients have a full recovery, but in a few, the condition will recur. (…) [C]auses of TGA may include a large number of factors including migraines and various chemical abnormalities, as well as stroke-like problems. There are other patients who simply have psychiatric problems or feign the condition after perpetrating certain criminal acts or hoping to get an edge in legal cases.'

Definitely a condition worth investigating.

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.