Thinking Outside The Box (THT again)

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Go to "Now For Something Completely Different" for an extract from "The Last Battle"

(Tree House Tales fantasy novelette)

Thinking Outside The Box About Something Outside The Box

I knew I needed to write a book description and an author bio for my Tree House Tales antho but I avoided both chores until the last minute. Have you noticed how obligations appear more difficult the longer you procrastinate? The last minute for these chores arrived when the publishing process refused to complete its routine until I turned in my overdue homework.

I tried to write something suitable several times, loathed every effort and erased them all. In the old days, especially in old comedy films, crumpled paper would have been scattered all around my full trash can--or maybe knee deep around my chair. 

So here I was, owner of a blog about "Imagination, Inspiration and Creativity" who was defeated when she tried to describe her own work. It wasn't like I was writing a description of "Ulysses".

Why was this so hard? Simple. I was approaching the fearsome Book Description the way I imagined I dreaded writing high school book reports, specifically imagining writing a book report late at night after just skimming the last third of the book.

I didn't skim or rather scribble a rough draft of my Tree House Tales entries. Some entries were written nearly 30 years ago. I reworked and revised the already revised twenty short stories and the thirteen anecdotes or "whatevers" for nearly a year. I spent much longer than I'd expected choosing art and deciding which "Narenta Tumults" extracts to use with my "How I Write" afterword. 

I knew THT maybe better than I wanted to by the time it was ready for publication so I wasn't in the best frame of mind when required to describe the project.

There was a solution for that and it didn't involve Swiffer mops. Once upon a time, I was inspired to create everything in THT. Now it was time for all those odd little entries to do their share. Time for them to start 'thinking outside the box' of their individual stories, to inspire each other to create a book description that fit them all.

I was about to tell them this when they told me. They pointed out that all they lacked were hands--more specifically fingers--to key in their account. Since I was handy, they h/i/r/e/d/  d/r/a/f/t/e/d/ threatened me to do it.

Seriously. Threatened. "Write this up in the third person, or we'll chase away your Muse. Again."

So, with trembling fingers (and toes) I offer t/h/e their Tree House Tales Book Description.

"TREE HOUSE TALES is a fantasy collection of short fiction & non-fiction written between 1983 & 2014. THT was never a planned literary work nor was it a proto-collection awaiting critical mass. It—or rather /w/e/ they—were files saved in a common folder, once manila & now digital. Short stories, anecdotes, art, poetry and "beats-mes" kept company for as much as 30 years—all that time left to /o/u/r/ their own devices.

I theorize that works which originally had little in common—besides being file neighbors—began communicating in ways humans cannot begin to understand. I think they found they had commonalities they never guessed and not just that "We have the same author" thing.

Fantasy, folk tradition & mythic stories about the Fae discovered they had more in common than some author.

Horror & humor agreed to disagree. Maybe even work together. Deities and Demons, not so much.

Short stories written by and about Aliens compared notes with Tales by and about the Fae, i.e. elves, faeries, brownies or maybe clever mice.

Stoahs, dragons, cats and seabirds debated the existence of humans beyond their presence in fiction.

Wishbones & bear-eating fish learned about “reality” (whatever that is) at the feet of both humorous & scary non-fiction. (feet?)

Since none of their fellow literary prisoners were alike, the short works suspected that readers might vary in their tastes. There might be 100s or 1000s of people yearning to read about vengeful trout, queens of the Fae, unlikely aliens kept safe by Witness Protection, what hit men do on their day off, and why tech can be scary & hurricanes terrifying but sorcerers are much worse!

Critical mass just sort of happened. Short stories, anecdotes, artwork, poems, extracts & “beats-mes” discovered that they felt homeless & unread because they were homeless and unread.

Every anecdote & each tale from the Faerie Realm began dreaming about living where Ursa Major, Narenta & a Mother Goose pumpkin patch shared the same saunas.

Or finding their true home on the bookshelf of a compulsive reader. Or lurking inside a Kindle waiting to scare their reader inside out!

It was time to take their futures into their own … titles, join together & become a book! Not just any book but a COLLECTION!!!

Together they vowed never to rest until they had been read not once but many times!

Or until their author became a blithering idiot! Or both! Yes, both!

“Unread is unknown!

“Unknown is unread!"

~~~~~

TREE HOUSE TALES ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS

TREE HOUSE TALES is a collection of short stories, fantasy, humor, suspense, SF, horror & beats me; fantasy art, anecdotes, poems & novel extracts.

Here's the annotated table of contents.

  ~~~~~  

Fantasy Mostly

  ~~~~~

I Need a Horse;
A Sailor's Tale (mythic tale);
Sisyphus (interlinked horror story); 

Circles (aliens & daydreams);
Garden Mosaic (poems);
Daisy & the Paper-Mice (2 sides of a paper trail); 

The Windowed Door (prose poem);
Luckiest Hunter Ever (story outline, story-telling suggestions);
The Dragon's Tail Tale (tall tale fantasy); 

No Substitutions (Parental love & Fantasy adoptions);
Winter's Season (a what if);
Smashed Fairy Song Cycle (humor); 

Dream, With Joey (strange luck w/ a side of paranoia);
A Dream with Bowling (Confidential informant in hitman land. With bowling); 

The Queen of the Tor Sidhe (poem);
Shadow Harper (new take on an old tradition); 

The Pumpkin Smasher (Mother Goose vs the FBI. With trolls);
Gajit's Research Expedition (SF, undergrad research papers, culture shock);
Dingle (finish the story challenge); 

The Last Battle (novelette: faerie tales, horror & war) -- 

  ~~~~~  

Reality, Whatever That Is

  ~~~~~  

Preteens, Horses & Aliens;
Baffled by the Green Door;
Fandom 101;
How I Learned to Hate Phones; 

A Fannish Internet Sub-Creation of a Hyper-Dimensional Pocket Universe; 

Sherry's Cake is Major Hit at Coffee Hour Film at 11; 

EgoBoogling or what artists, authors, actors & musicians do when they ditch work; 

Catzis#1 by the human,
Catzis#2 by Khiva & Vartha;
Rainstorm Coming (scattered drops of poetry); 

Hurricane Hazel (an 8-year-old's memories);
Between Worlds (poem re Ocean City NJ)

END OF REALITY (that's a relief!) 

  ~~~~~  

How I Write

  ~~~~~  

Extracts from 5 Narenta novels: 

Seabird, Earthbow, Marooned,

The Gryphon & the Basilisk; Da Boid,Da Tree-rat 'n' Da Loser

A Smidge of Plot, A Glob of Character:

Khiva the Stoah (Earthbow and G&B);

Bert-and-Marsha-from-Hoboken (Marooned).

 ILLUSTRATIONS

~~~~~

TREE HOUSE TALES; A Collection of Short Stories, Non-Fiction Shorts, Art, and Extracts From Five Narenta Tumults Novels

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692348441/

Tree House Tales at Goodreads