Den Valdron

DEATH AND THE ARTIST

I think that most Artists and Writers think a lot about three things: Sex, Death and God. Personally, God can take care of themself, and I’m not getting any sex. So let’s talk about Death, specifically, Death and the Artist… or Writer in my case.

Once in a while, quite erratically, someone says something, and it triggers some random synapses in my brain, and for no discernible reason, I say something sensible. It’s always disturbing when it happens, and often quite frightening for anyone nearby. It’s like discovering that a Bengal Tiger has hacked your GPS and passwords. But anyway, since I had one of those moments, I thought I’d share, for people in the arts field.

Suppose you’re a writer or an artist, someone in the creative field. A poet, a playwright, a short story writer or a novelist, a composer, a lyricist, a film maker, etc. Maybe you are, in which case my sympathies.

Maybe you aren’t, in which case, just pretend.

Now, suppose you’re going to die.

Well, there’s no supposing that is there? You’re going to die, in relative terms sooner than later, and in geological terms, any minute now.

But never mind that – as an artist or a writer, what happens when you die?

THE POST MORTEM LIFE

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Shameless Self Promotion – The Mermaid’s Tale Youtube Review

Someone passed this on to me.  My book The Mermaid’s Tale, got a review on youtube.

I had no idea.  I thought this might have been a person I met at CanCon.  As it was, it turned out to be a complete stranger.

Spoiler Alert – She liked it!

The Mermaid’s Tale by DG Valdron (non spoiler) – utterly unique and underrated dark fantasy – YouTube

I went and thanked her for the review, a week or so ago.  She seemed thrilled.

Anyway, feel free to look it up.

And if you like the review, hit ‘like and subscribe’ – she seems like an interesting thoughtful person and she’s got lots of other interesting things to say about writers, culture and life.

In Defense of Kathleen Kennedy

If you listen to youtube, you’ll discover that Kathleen Kennedy is the worst person who ever lived.

Seriously, it’s between her and Hitler, and Hitler is old news.

She’s the woman who ruined Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, and Willow maybe, and possibly all of Disney including, the Marvel universe, Pixar, Bob Iger. She may well have single handedly destroyed Hollywood with WOKENESS and may be on the verge of taking down all of Western Civilization and turning us all into race swapping, transgender, feminist, gay, disabled communists.

Probably not, but the way people have been ranting for years on end, you have to wonder.

Well, let me step up and take a run at this hysteria. I give you: The Defense of Kathleen Kennedy.

The story is that Kennedy was an assistant to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas who treacherously flattered her way into power at Disney. George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney and he arranged for Kenney to run things, confident that she’d carry out his vision.

Then she stabbed him in the back, stuck women in everything, made them gay and lame. For no good reason, she raped all your childhoods in her quest to bring Wokeness and Feminism to an innocent world. And totally destroyed … Everything, everywhere, and all at once.

Give me a break,

This whole ‘anti-woke’ stuff is getting tiresome, and it’s been a long time since it’s been useful.

Look, she’s not a monster. She’s not Hitler, she’s not Harvey Weinstein. She’s just a person.
So let’s take another look.

Kathleen Kennedy has actually been around for an incredibly long time. You look at IMDB, and she’s got a lot of credits, and a lot of very good movie credits. Well over a hundred producer credits, going back 40 years – Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Schindlers List, Bridges of Madison County, Back to the Future. You name it. Protégé of Lucas and Spielberg.

Good movies – if you’ve seen a movie in the last half century probably it was one of hers.

So what went wrong?

I’m going to commit sacrilege – when she took over Lucasfilm, she inherited a dog.

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2023 Writing Wrap Up

Writing Accomplishments and Non Accomplishments

Well, here’s the year end writer’s status report. There’s nothing much to say, really. You don’t have to read this. Every year, around New Years, out of some masochistic impulse, I do a review of my writing activities and accomplishments for the year, and my plans for the next year. Sometimes I’ll go back after writing one of these things, and measure myself against previous years activities and plans. So in the spirit of talking to my future self, here’s the roundup for 2023.

Early in February, I re-released the Mermaid’s Tale. This novel was originally published in 2017 through Five Rivers out in Ontario. They did print, ebook and audiobook editions. Five Rivers closed down in 2020, and rights reverted back to me.

I sat on it for a few years. I had hopes of finding another publisher, or an agent for it. No luck. So, basically, I decided that if I couldn’t take it anywhere, I might as well get it back into the world, so I re-released it under my own banner.

Apart from that, very little of my work got out in the world. I did do a lot of writing as always. I think probably a couple of hundred thousand words worth.

* Two Novellas, 27,000 and 40,000 words;

* Several short stories and a script, probably collectively another 50,000 words;

* Some work in progress stuff for upcoming collections, 40,000 words;

* Alt-History fanfic stuff (don’t judge me) maybe 60,000 to 70,000;

* A lot of short essays, mostly posted on medium or facebook or on my blog, no clear idea – anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000.

A lot of writing, and almost nothing to show for it. Rather disappointing.

There were actually a lot of books that I was going to complete and release this year that just didn’t get off the ground:

* An adult/erotic novel;

* A couple of erotic short story collections (it was going to be one, but I had enough material for two);

* A vampire novel;

* A slasher collection/novel;

* A nonfiction book about Starlost;

* A Cthulhu/Atlantis style spec essay book;

And I was hoping At Bay Press would be releasing Twilight of Echelon this year.

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Conventions Update

THE WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION in Kansas City is coming up. Kansas City is actually in Missouri, a fact which provides me with no end of bemusement. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been to several World Fantasy Conventions over the years, but too irregularly to do much good. I’m trying to make it a steady thing.  This should be a good Conference, good people, and maybe I’ll make a mark. I’m actually part of the programming, I have three items:

* Mythology & Fantasy of the Fox; 4PM Friday – with Alyc Helms, Kij Johnson, Rena Mason and Gillian Pollack. Hopefully this has nothing to do with what the Fox says. The Fox in literature and myth is one of the classic tricksters – a powerless, marginalized underdog who manages to triumph and overcome, not through power or strength or even courage, but through sheer cleverness. For the powers that be, for the establishment and social order, the Fox is a subversive, a deceiver, a persecutor and a thief. For the marginalized and underdogs, the fox is a hero. Everyone admits the fox is a clever beast, anti-social, revolutionary, and damned sexy. In my writing, many of my characters are ‘foxes’ – tricksters who survive by being smart.  I’m really looking forward to this panel, and a discussion about ‘trickster’ characters in folklore, modern culture and writing. Oh, and I’ll give away a book to an audience member as part of the panel.

* Reading; 5PM Saturday – I have half an hour to do a reading. I’m going to regale the audience with tales from Twilight of Echelon, short stories and vignettes based on the retro hallucinogenic works of artist Robert Pastern. Echelon is a world, or perhaps a reality, or perhaps something completely different, right next to our own, where everything familiar is recast and distorted as surreal and mysterious, and where the lost members of a human colony struggle to maintain their identity, unsure if the Earth they remember still exists, or if it ever existed.  Again, I’ll give away a book.

* Autographs – I’m also doing the Autograph session, along with everyone else. Honestly, in terms of fame, I’m a Z-list kind of guy, but I’m always startled to discover someone out there has heard of me and actually brings a book to sign. Typically, what I do, is just set up a display of a dozen of my books, relax and chat with anyone who stops by. If someone wants to buy something, I’ll sell it to them. If I like them, it’s free. I usually bring up a handful of books and make sure they find good homes before the convention starts.

This is actually my fourth major Writers Conference/Convention this year, and honestly, I’m glad I’m coming to the end.  I’m starting to get worn out.  For the record, this is what I’ve been up to.

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The Return of the Mermaid’s Tale

This year, Fossil Cove Press re-released The Mermaid’s Tale, a hard core, grim dark fantasy about Orcs, serial killers and redemption. It’s been out of print since Five Rivers Publications had closed down and rights reverted back to me.

The Mermaid’s Tale is a gritty, film noir chronicle of a nameless female Orc who is summoned to find the killer of a sacred being, a mermaid. The murder was so heinous that only a savage creature could have done it, so her people have summoned a monster to hunt a monster. The Orc’s a rough and brutal character, the product of a cruel life as an outcast, but smarter than she lets on.  Her quest takes her across a multi-racial city where she encounters different races, and finds herself on the trail of something her world has never seen before – the first serial killer. As she hunts, something peculiar happens, she develops empathy and insight, her interactions with strange races trigger empathy, and she becomes obsessed with stopping the killer. While all of this is going on, the City itself is spiraling into civil war. Can she stop the killer before it all goes to pieces?

I wrote this years ago, back in the days when I was in a writer’s group that included Steve Erickson (Malazan Book of the Fallen), David Keck (Tales of Durand), Ian Ross (CBC’s Joe from Winnipeg/Governor General Award Winner), Scott Ellis (Benny the Antichrist and Crawling to the Moon) and Mireille Theriault (Prairie Witch).  Am I name dropping? Hell yes!!

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Why Would Aliens Come Here?

This is not going to be a rant about how tosh humanity is, although we are pretty tosh.

This is going to be a relatively thoughtful meditation on the universe, how big and vast it is, and the easiest ways to achieve a goal, which often doesn’t involve a journey of a thousand miles.

Everyone knows what the Drake Equation is, and everyone’s heard of the Fermi Paradox. If you haven’t, go look it up, I’ll wait here.

Boiled down to the basics, the Equation suggests that the Universe should be brimming with intelligent life. The Fermi Paradox asks the question, if that’s the case, where is it?

There may well be life elsewhere in the Universe, possibly in great profusion. There may well be intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, lots of it. We don’t know for sure. So far, we’ve got a sample size of one, in both categories. But the sheer profusion of stars with planets suggests that regardless of whether it’s likely or not, it’s not impossible.

I think though, that we overlook the vastness. Sure, there are a hundred billion stars, give or take, in this galaxy alone, and there are millions and billions of galaxies. Count those numbers up and you can go a little crazy.

So why haven’t we been visited? Where are they? The UFO folks will say that they’re here. The Ancient Astronaut folks will say that they came and went.

But most likely, no. They aren’t here, they weren’t here, and odds are they’re not going to be showing up, for the simple reason that they don’t actually need to make the trip.

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Home Invasion Blues

I had an interesting experience yesterday. A friend of mine called, her neighbor and reported her brother in her yard and she was afraid to go home.

Her brother is kind of rough. Basically, drug addict, indigent. He’d been married, had a job, a kid. Lost it all. Beat and gaslit his wife, abused his family, he found something he liked better and his life spiraled down.

My friend, his sister had tried to help him, had tried to maintain a relationship with him. But as he went on, he got more and more unstable and potentially violent. The last time he showed up at her place, he told a story of ripping off his drug dealer’s cash, and in turn his drug dealer beating him up and stealing his phone and ID, and she’d spent half the night driving him around. It wasn’t getting better.

So, I judged she was right to be worried. I told her to pick me up when she came in from work, and I’d go with her to her house.

I figured that even as potentially violent and unbalanced as he was, having a full-grown male there, even one as inoffensive and docile as me would deter any potential violence and keep things even. And if there was violence, I’d probably handle it directed at me better than she would.

I suspected that I was going to be stuck in a great deal of someone else’s drama. That wasn’t really appealing. But you look out for the people you care about.

So, she picked me up, off we went to her house.

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Ron vs the Cover Monsters!

ADVENTURES WITH RON, Part IV

Ron and I had his four books ready to go, except for … everything.

A book isn’t just a manuscript. You need an ISBN registration, you need a cover, you need a back cover blurb and material, an author’s bio, an author’s photo, copyright information. We needed this stuff called Metadata – a long description, a short description, a one line description, something called BISAC, something else called SOE (search engine optimization).

Basically, after the big monolith of the manuscript itself, we also needed to build all the little tiny pieces of text that would go into the book and its online prooofiles.

Ron’s Toltec books were a trilogy, so we thought it would be a good idea to include adverts in each book of the trilogy for the other trilogy books. That turned into adverts for all of his books. And the idea of adverts suggested that we should include blurbs and art for the adverts. And the Adverts section needed to be slightly different for each of the four books. So a lot of work to keep track of.

If all this strikes you as bearing a passing resemblance to this thing called work? Yeah.

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