Today I delighted to introduce to you a most witty fellow indeed, and a clever author. His name is Graeme Smith, and he is not only going to talk about his new release, A Comedy of Terrors, he is going to answer my infamous Rick Reed questions. While he and I enjoy a libation at a local place he told me of, I'll let him start with the questions. Oh, and later on, pay attention, there'll be a contest!
The
Questions
1)
You’re marooned on a small island with one person and one item of your
choice—who is that person and what item do you have?
Hmmm. Can
I have a solar powered computer with a satellite Internet connection? Then I
might actually get a chance to _write_! In which case, the ‘other person’
becomes moot :-). Setting aside satellite links (and Star Trek transporters – I
might _like_ my island!), I’ll not trouble my wife – she’s safer in
civilisation. I’ll leave behind Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, and I’ll have
Sandy (from ‘A comedy of Terrors’). Why? Well, who wouldn’t want a talking
dragon? And the item? An umbrella. One of those where the material has all torn
away, and only the spines remain. It won’t keep off the rain, nor the sun. So
it’s probably a good metaphor for life. Now. Where’s that solar powered,
satellite linked computer? :-).
2)
Which musical would you say best exemplifies your life – and which character in
that musical are you?
Well, my
step-father plays the trombone in a jazz band – and I’m really easy to push
around. Or pull… But I don’t think it’s the trombone. I could be a keyboard –
but too many people know my buttons already :-P. And when you write, ‘keyboard’
can get confusing. I’d love to be a saxophone, because I think it has one of
the best emotional ranges of any instrument. So if I may, I’ll be a saxophone.
And at this point, I’ll realise you said ‘musical’ and I read ‘instrument – so
I’ll start over (blushes). For a musical? I’ll take ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. I’ve
moved around a lot, sometimes by choice, sometimes sent like an errant ball on
a pool table. And, if I may, I’ll be, not Tevye, but the character seen in the
opening (or closing – I forget) credits. The anonymous fiddler, sawing his
strings, and dancing on the roof. Feet set to a footing that may fail any
moment, but set in that moment, and the bow’s dance.
3)
Take these three words and give me a 100 word or less scenario using
them: feminist, latest, guard
I
grinned. “So this is your latest, huh? You’re a feminist now?”
She
scowled. Seventeen year olds are good at that. “So what if I am? Men are the
reason things are the way they are.”
I grinned
at the photograph of her mother on the mantle. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.”
“Daddy! I
didn’t mean… ewwwww!”
“So this
feminist thing. Can anyone join?”
She knew
me too well. I could almost feel her guard rising. “What do you mean?”
I
shrugged. “Because if I have to be on anyone’s side, I want to be on yours.”
4)
You’ve just been let loose in the world of fiction, with permission to do
anyone you want. Who do you fuck first and why?
Me. I’ve
spent most of my life fucking me up, and I don’t see why I should stop now :-).
Besides, someone has to do it, and I’m better than anyone else! If I don’t
count – then that’s nothing new either :-). If it can’t be me – then I’d
go for Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour. Not the historical
one, for all her merits, but the one portrayed in Stephen Moffat’s Doctor Who
episode ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’. And not so much for the act, but for the
conversation we would have all night afterwards, as neither of us drifted off
to sleep.
5)
What is your idea of how to spend romantic time with your significant other?
So many
:-). Making her breakfast before she gets up. Waking up in the middle of the
night and not sleeping for the next who-knows-how-long just because I want to
watch her lie there breathing. Making her laugh. Remembering something she said
she’d like, waiting weeks, and bringing it home ‘just because’. Shopping for
things we’ll never buy, but pretending we might. Scratching her back for her
before she knows it’s itching. Oh – and being the place her cold feet stop
being cold :-).
6)
When you start a new story, do you begin with a character, or a plot?
Not
really either. Mostly, it starts with an image. Or an event. ‘A Comedy of
Terrors’ started with a line in a letter I sent the Query Shark, trying to get
her to look at a very, very, _very_ bad Query (well, it was my first :-P). ‘Let
me introduce myself. I’m an Idiot.’ Lady Shark loved the intro letter – and
quite rightly tore the Query to shreds. But the Idiot was born there… so maybe
that’s character. ‘Road like a River’ started while I was chopping onions for
dinner. I started thinking about a truck driving down a dark road, the black
lily swinging from the dash. What if…. But that’s another story. Coming from
Museitup in December, if that’s not too much advertising :-). ‘Night and Day’ –
a more classic type fantasy I play with from time to time – came from a mental
image of a hill with a big old oak tree, and a shadowed figure under it,
listening to the screams from a cottage below the hill. Does the shadowed
figure run to save the woman screaming? No. You can’t save anyone from
childbirth. No – he kills himself. And the oak tree – waits.
Plot? I’m
a panster. Plotting is for clever people, not me. Characters? Sometimes. But
Mostly, it’s a starting image, a concept. The rest – well, the rest will become
history. As soon as I’ve written it… :-).
7)
If they were to make the story of your life into a movie, who should play you?
Charles
Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin :-). Eternally hopeful, eternally travelling.
8)
Who’s your favorite horror villain and why?
Hannibal
Lecter. Not for his diet – more for his apparent normality, under which lurks
what, to him, is entirely normal. I think some of the most horrible things in
history have been done by people who, to themselves, were being normal.
9)
Do you have an historical crush and if so, who is it?
Not so
much historical – more hysterical. All the girls I asked out when I was about
seventeen :-). OK - _both_ the girls I asked out when I was seventeen. My
mother told me ‘if you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything’.
Trust me – it isn’t true :-). To be fair, they admired my approach. Just
preferred to examine my departure… :-P. If we have to stay with ‘historical’
history – I’d say no crush as such. Though any woman who made her way and did
it her way (with apologies to the ghost of Lord Sinatra) would go along way to
getting my attention. Yes, I’m looking at you, George Sands. Among others… :-).
10)
Is there a story that you’d like to tell but you think the world isn’t ready to
receive it?
The easy
answer is – ‘probably’. I just haven't thought of it yet :-). Some elements of
‘Road like a River’ could fall into that category. Not so much the story, but
more the, um, style. I call it my ‘Commitments’ moment (blushes). But since
Muse have taken it on, that one doesn’t count. There’s the Trilogy of which, so
far ‘Thunder and Lightning – Storm rise, Storm Waking’ is the only written
part. That one, for many, has been found too ‘thusly’. I think the story there
is worth telling. But the real one the world isn’t ready to receive? Maybe the
next one I’m going to write – or the one after. But I’ll just keep talking
until they give in… :-P.
I love your answers, Graeme! Up for another drink?
Ah, much better, now tell us about a Comedy of Terrors, please.
Tagline:
To
Segorian, women are an open book. The problem is, he never learned to read.
Blurb:
Segorian
Anderson’s an Idiot. But that’s fine with him. It’s a well paying job with no
heavy lifting.
Nobody ever remembers Segorian. It isn’t magic - he just has the sort of face
his own mother could forget, and she’s been trying to for years. But being
forgettable is a job requirement for an Idiot.
No, he's not the Court Jester. He doesn’t wear motley (whatever motley may be).
That's a different union. He’s the Idiot. In a Queen’s castle, wine spilt down
the wrong dress can lead to war. So someone unimportant has to be blamed for
it. That’s the Idiot’s job. He’s the Idiot that did it, for any value of ‘it’.
Of course, as soon as he’s exiled-for-life out of the castle gate, he uses his
back-door key and sneaks back in.
But that's not all. Someday, something really bad will happen. Really, really
bad. Badder than a bad thing on a very bad day. With extra badness. When the
world’s about to end (or the washing up won’t get done – whichever comes
first), who you gonna call? No, not them. They haven’t been invented yet. You
call the Idiot. Someone nobody will miss if things don’t work out. And now
Peladon has a case of dragon.
But the dragon may be the easy part. Segorian has woman trouble, and he’s the
only person in the castle who doesn’t know it. Because to Segorian, women are
an open book. The problem is, he never learned to read.
Mini
excerpt:
Everybody
needs an Idiot. Not only to blame things on. It’s in the small print when you
take the job. Some day—and perhaps that day will never come—there will be
something. Some manner of thing that must be done for the good of the Realm.
Something only an Idiot would take on.
No. Not
Her Majesty's Most Secret Agent. Not a highly trained assassin. Not a seemingly
ordinary yet really mysterious master of magic. Not even someone with one
single strange spell stuck in their head they can never actually use. Those
have all been tried. And they didn’t work. So someday, someday everybody hopes
will never come (especially the Idiot), there’s only one thing left. One last
chance to roll the dice against near-impossible odds and wager something nobody
will miss if you lose. An Idiot in this case, an Idiot with a big sharp pointy
stick thing, wearing unfamiliar armour and sitting (well, mostly sitting—I have
an advanced degree in falling off) on a horse he can barely ride.
I'm the
Idiot.
Like I
said. It's a well-paying job and no heavy lifting. Well, not much. But don't
tell my mother. She'd be rooting for the dragon.
Full
excerpt:
A bush at
the side of the road hissed at me. “Psst!”
I tried
to examine the bush with the eye of a highly trained botanist. Unfortunately, I
didn’t have one. I was fairly confident it was a bush. And green. Deciding for
once to do what any sensible person would do, I ignored the bush and started to
walk towards the postern gate.
Whatever
type of bush sprouts short legs and runs after people, this was clearly that
type of bush.
“Pssst!”
Idiots
are well trained to handle nearly any type of situation. Well, any type of
situation which might involve being exiled-for-life. Lots of crazy people do
things that end up with other people knocking at my door with a fresh costume.
Crazy I can do. So I stopped and walked over to the bush. “You—er—hissed?”
The bush
shook. The charitably inclined might call it a nod. I stepped a little closer,
the better to examine the bush. I thought I could hear a stifled gasping.
“Fire in
the...er...out of the hole!" the bush shouted.
Splooosh!
This
wasn’t just the type of bush that sprouted little legs and ran after people.
Not even the type of bush that talked as well. It was also the type of bush
that appeared to be able to produce a bucket of water from nowhere reasonable.
Produce it, and deposit it on an Idiot. And it wasn't even June yet! I made a
mental note my bath had come early this year.
“No need
to thank me. No, no need at all. Worry not. Ye be safe now." The bush was
determined, logic and reason aside, it was going to carry on talking.
“You...you…you
drowned me!" I ran my hands through the bush, looking for the bucket.
“Oy! Bad
touching!" It occurred to me I was talking to a talking bush. Searching
the bush for the bucket it had emptied on me, my hands found something very
not-bushy. Or at least, not leaf-and-spiky-twig bushy. I tried to work out what
it was.
“Let. Go.
Of. The Beard." The bush began to shed parts of its self. Leaves and twigs
fell to the ground. Fall was falling early this year. Like baths.
A dwarf
with twigs stuck in his…in her…in…Dwarves are hard. Both kinds have beards. I
watched a dwarf with twigs stuck in ‘its’ hat and jerkin stop being a bush. My
hands had hold of the dwarf's beard. I think that meant we were married. Or
that we ought to be...then I felt a lump in my throat. It was the head of a
large hammer the dwarf had produced from somewhere impossible.
I let go
of the beard.
I tried
again. “You drowned me!”
“Drowned
you? Gods below! You try to save an idiot ‘too-tall’, and what happens? They complain!”
‘Too-tall’
is what dwarves call anybody who isn’t a dwarf. Because they’re, um, too-tall.
It’s not very polite, but dwarves don’t think anybody else notices. It would be
like the English, if we’d invented them yet. “That’s Idiot, thank-you. Not idiot.
My employer is a stickler for protocol. And I wasn’t aware I needed saving.”
“Look.
I’m a dwarf. And I know fire-gas when I smell it. And when a dwarf smells
fire-gas, it’s bucket time!”
Smelled?
I sniffed. Only once. Once was all it took. After my stomach had finished, I
decided I hadn’t liked my breakfast much anyway. “That’s not your fire-gas!
That’s—that’s eggs! I’ve been egg-siled, you see?”
“Egg-siled?
Oh, right. You’re the Idiot. Exiled. Got it. No, laddie. Eggs it might be to
you. But to a dwarf, it’s fire-gas. There’s caves we used to have, we don’t
have now, to prove it. They egg-splod…Bugger! You’ve got me doing it now! They
exploded! Boom! So you’re lucky I was here! Fire-gas. Water. No boom today!”
“I see.”
I didn’t, but saying so might make the dwarf egg-spla…dammit!...explain more.
And the headache I didn’t have yet would change its mind and come visit. I
hesitated. I was probably going to regret this. “So what brings your bucket
here, Mr…Miss…so what brings your bucket here?”
Of
course, I was right. Without the probably.
“If
you’re going to be an Idiot, laddie, then I’m going to have to be First Pick.
First Pick Gunder.”
It
sounded a very dwarf-y title. Dwarves are miners. Which doesn’t mean they’re
all too young to do things they won’t be interested in doing when they’re old
enough to do them. It means things like picks are really, really important.
“First Pick? Is that like Queen Sonea?”
“Queen?
Oh, yes. The too-tall…lady? Man? You too-talls are hard. Not enough of you have
beards. The one who tells you what to do?”
“Yes.”
“And you
do it?”
“Yes.
Well, mostly. Or it’s exile. With an axe.”
“Huh.
Then no. Of course, I can tell dwarves to do things. Dwarves
like a good laugh. But nobody has to do them, the things I mean. No. I’m the
Sorter.
See, when
dwarves have something that needs sorting out, the Lowest and his (well, or
her, but that’s dwarf business, laddie) Low Council put everybody who doesn’t
want to do it in a big cave. The Lowest asks for a Volunteer, and everybody who
doesn’t want to do it (which means everybody, because dwarves aren’t stupid)
tries to run away. As soon as they start running, the Lowest grabs the first
one. First Pick, see? The First Pick gets to sort it out. Somebody tripped me.”
“And if
you don’t sort it out?”
“I get to
pick the axe.”
Like I’ve
said before. Everybody needs an Idiot. I raised one eyebrow. Unfortunately the
other one followed it so it didn’t feel lonely. First Pick Gunder didn't seem
impressed.
“I heard
you know about dragons.”
I could
almost hear mother laughing.
Bio:
This is
me. Graeme Smith. Fantasy writer. Mostly comic fantasy (which is fantasy
intended to make you laugh, not fantasy in comics).
When I'm
not writing (well, or editing my writing. Or re-writing. Or editing my
re-writing. Or... Quite. You get the picture), I'm doing other things. Things
like wishing I could play keyboards. And not playing them, not even very badly.
Things like online gaming (If you know Bard Elcano, you know me. If you know a
grumpy old dragon called Sephiranoth, you know me. If you know a tall, dark,
handsome but brooding vampire, charming witty and brilliant - we never met.
That's someone else.) And strange midnight practices involving mushrooms. And
garlic. And knitting needles. But the less said of my cooking, the better.
So there
you are. This is me. Graeme Smith. Short, fat, bald and ugly (fortunately my
wife has lousy taste in men). Time was, I worked on a psychiatric ward. Now I
write about people who believe in magic and dragons, and who live where the crazy
folk are the ones who don’t.
Haha, I think your wife has wonderful taste in men! Another drink, sir?
Do you have any questions for Graeme before we toddle off? What's that? You want to know about the contest? Oh yes, dearie me, how could I forget? Graeme, please tell us about the contest!
"The Idiot's job is to be
blamed for things that might otherwise embarrass or cause difficulty for the
Queen. Of course, once the Idiot has been exiled-for-life as punishment, they
sneak back into the castle through the Idiot's gate. To wait for the next time.
Because there's always a next time - and everybody needs an Idiot.
So. How brave are you feeling? If
the answer's 'lots—and I love free stuff!'—then here it is. A challenge. What
is the most memorable time (embarrassing or otherwise :-P) you have taken the
blame for someone else, and what happened to you as a result? And what was the
most memorable time someone did it for you, and what happened to them?
A winner will be selected from
those who choose to answer, and a free copy of 'A Comedy of Terrors' provided,
behind which they may hide their blushes :-)."
You have until midnight Sunday, June 17th, to enter. Don't forget to leave your email address, or you won't be able to win!
It was fabulous visiting with your, Graeme, we should do this more often!
Until next time, take care!
♥ Julie
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