January 2020 Dispatch
Kyell Gold
December Recap
Titles came out! I have already heard from several people who’ve enjoyed it, so thank you for writing in. MFF in general went great! My panels were all well attended and Titles sold very well. I enjoyed meeting everyone at the table and had some time to hang out with friends in the evenings.
Also, FANG 10 and Patterns in Frost both came out and also did well! I’m glad to have worked on both those anthologies and am really proud of how they turned out. Thanks to all the authors who contributed to both.
Unfinished Business, my Patreon story, is done! I’ll be working on getting a print version out this year. I’ve posted the introduction to a new Argaea story that I’ll be starting this week, and that is free for everyone to read so they can decide if they want to join. On my other Patreon, I’ll be serializing the fourth Calatians book, The Revolution and the Fox, starting in January. This goes directly to support me so if you enjoy those stories and have a few bucks to spare, I’ll greatly appreciate your support!
After MFF, I spent a lot of December doing holiday stuff. As a pleasant surprise, I got the audiobook of the first Love Match, so I’ve been listening to that and hope to see it on sale soon. I’ve also been working on the third book, and have handed that off to the writing group. Tentatively we’re targeting BLFC for that, pending artist commitments etc.
January will see me working on finishing the last Calatians book, working on Dude, Where’s My Pack, and getting going on that new Argaea story. I’m excited for all these projects and I hope you guys will be too!
I hope that wherever you are, your new year starts great and gets better!
Release dates
Audiobooks: If you don’t have an Audible account yet, check out my new Soundcloud page (https://soundcloud.com/user-710305036-429996600), which has samples and links to all my audiobooks. Those links help me get extra money especially if you use them to sign up for a new account. Savrin is working hard on new audiobooks, and once Love Match 1 is up, we hope to get Titles and Ty Game out shortly following!
Here’s my best guess at the 2020 release schedule: Love Match 3 is targeted for BLFC (paws crossed). The fourth and final Calatians book, The Revolution and the Fox, is slated for Anthrocon 2020, and I hope to get the “Dude” sequel out next year as well. I’ll be a guest of honor at Megaplex 2020, so maybe it’ll be then!
Appearances in 2020
My full list of upcoming appearances is at http://www.kyellgold.com/contact.html, recently updated (or soon to be updated).
I will be at Further Confusion and Texas Furry Fiesta, and of course Megaplex in August. Also planning on BLFC and I am in discussions to maybe go to ConFuror in Guadalajara, Mexico, this October, which would be really exciting!
Spotlight: I’m repeating the spotlights from last month. Both are anthologies that came out at MFF, both of which I worked on, both of which are now available for sale online.
· FANG 10 is the latest installment in FurPlanet’s M/M adult anthology. Ashe, who had edited 5-9, stepped aside, and I offered to guest edit alongside his successor, Sparf, to ease the transition. Along those lines, we chose a theme of Transitions for this volume, and we got a bunch of great stories. Sparf was a wonderful co-editor; FANG is in very good paws from this year forward.
https://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1076 if you’re not going to MFF.
· Patterns In Frost is the first New Tibet book in over a decade. I worked with Dark End and we each wrote a story and picked four more excellent works to further round out the shared world of New Tibet. If you were a fan of the earlier anthologies, you won’t be disappointed with this one, and if you’re new to the world, you’ll find this an excellent introduction to it. I can’t wait to see this one in print and for people to read all the great work in this universe.
https://sofawolf.com/products/patterns-in-frost?sku=PIF if you’re not going to MFF (will be on sale after the con).
Excerpt: Here is the beginning of my New Tibet story from Patterns in Frost. It is an interesting New Tibet story in that none of it actually takes place on New Tibet.
Dearest Adam,
We land tomorrow and I’m so excited. I keep watching the videos over and over, but my sister, my moms, my uncle all look the same. After fifteen years—no, wait, nearly twenty for them—it’s going to be so wonderful to see them again. I keep wondering how I can repay them for helping me get this ticket.
Sorry, I know I keep repeating myself. But things on the ship don’t change much. Everyone’s still in excellent spirits, though we think often about our friends left behind. Once I land, of course, I’ll have interviews for jobs, but I’ve been assured that those will be pretty easy. And my family’s arranged a place for me to live. Once I start earning money, I can save to bring you and some of the others back.
My best friend on the ship has turned out to be Chuff, the arctic fox I told you about. We talk about wine, culture, and which of the four hundred holos in the ship’s entertainment repository is the best. I watched one with him that I think you’d like, an adventure about a pair of fennec foxes who’ve built suits that give them powers like flying and super-vision. They take on the corporate raiders who have destroyed their home and in the end defeat them.
Perhaps you wouldn’t have liked it, as I think about it. I didn’t at first, to be honest, and neither did Chuff. But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that the ideas in the holo are valuable. It’s not that the audience has hope that they can personally rise up and push a criminal out of a tall building; it’s that they have hope that someone can, that there’s some escape possible. And we agreed that anything that provides hope must be worthy in some way.
I tried watching the sport matches again, because there is a league in Nepotamia and Uncle Jordan mentioned it in his video. I still don’t understand the rules, but I appreciate the athleticism of the players a bit more. They feel unreal to me, part of this well-fed world full of people who can fill a stadium to watch a game.
I’ll send separate messages to Malinda, Leatio, and Prata, but please give them all my love. My next message will be from Nepotamia City, where the current outdoor temperature is 19C!
Love,
Reese
*
Reese found Chuff surveying the otherwise-empty lounge from a chair in the slightly raised section, one drink in his paw like a king toasting his abandoned kingdom. He padded over to the arctic fox’s table. “Perhaps we could be lonely together,” he said, which was a line from The Quiet Deep, a holo they’d both liked.
“That would be lovely,” Chuff said, which was the proper response.
So the tall snow leopard took a seat beside the fox, looking out over the lounge while he situated his elbow so his old injury wouldn’t hurt when he put weight on it. The bartender left the bar to walk over and take his order, but Reese made eye contact and shook his head. Rather than shout instructions over the light background music, the red-vested armadillo pointed at his own wrist to tell the snow leopard to use his feed if he wanted to order something.
“Too nervous to drink?” Chuff sipped his concoction, something blue he’d likely invented himself. Apart from Reese, the bartender was the person Chuff talked to most.
“Don’t feel like it.” Reese sighed, his long tail twitching, and stared out the window at a scene from one of the floating islands of Nepotamia City. Nothing could be transmitted to or from the ship while it was in SparkSpace™, and the recording looped every twelve hours, so by this point in the journey Reese was well familiar with the greenish-blue sky that looked fake after a decade under the grey clouds of New Tibet, the gleaming buildings rising against a yellowish sun, and the bright flyers zipping about flashing reflections at the watcher. They sped from glittering building to verdant park, from park to residential buildings that looked like glaciers and waterfalls, and from those to sandy red blocky structures painted with swirling murals. A red two-person flyer appeared to be coming right at the camera, then dipped in its flight. Reese knew that a shimmering opal one would appear next, and watched as it bobbed up behind the red one.
The fox tracked the flight of the opal flyer along with Reese. “Haven’t you just been writing to Adam?”
“Of course,” Reese said.
Chuff’s kindly amber eyes met his. “Been telling him what to expect?”
The snow leopard exhaled and shifted, and then his elbow hurt so he shifted back. “I wish I could. But you know what it’s like. What if I tell him a year and then it’s two? What if I tell him it’s two and, Circle forfend, it’s three? I can’t give him false hope.”
“Also,” Chuff said, “you shouldn’t tell him about this ship anyway. I could argue that it is somewhat worse than New Tibet.”
Reese pulled his attention from the window. “You mean the twenty-degree pleasant weather or the plentiful drinks and food?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. On New Tibet, we had work, we had goals, we had friends. You’ve spent a good portion of the last two months writing letters to your friends. I’ve spent a good portion of them getting soused and stumbling back to my cabin. What have you seen the other passengers do?”
“The first week there were some nice parties.”
“Reaction to a change. Once the change settled in, once we were all sure the ship wasn’t going to take us back to New Tibet…”
“Are we sure?”
“Ha ha!” Chuff barked a laugh that startled Reese’s ears up. “Perhaps you’ve hit on something. But really, since that last party in the lounge, what then?”
“Fishing for a new family.” Reese rubbed a paw down the front of his simple cotton shirt, still stained from where he’d stumbled against a drill press two years ago. He’d forgotten about the stain until that female snow leopard had commented on it. He pressed in with his fingers; the curves of his ribs had softened in two months as he’d eaten more food probably than he had in half a year on New Tibet. “Watching holos in their cabins. Eating meals in silence.”
“Sometimes taking food back to their cabins.” Chuff shook his head. “Of all the wonders on this flight, I will miss those ritualized failures of socialization the least. Give me nothing but frozen fish again for the rest of my life over fresh fowl and vegetables served in that tomb.”
Reese thought “tomb” was a strong word to describe the aggressively cheery dining hall, but certainly the advertised “mealtime social activities” in the welcome message on his feed had never even threatened to happen, and the one time he’d sought out the Passenger Services Director, he’d found a morose mule deer hunched in an office next to a stack of boxes with phrases like “PARTY GAMES” and “DINNER STUFF” scrawled in harsh black letters on them. “Personally, I’ll take the fresh food,” he said. “Not everyone needs the conversation.”
“Wrong.” Chuff leveled a claw at him. “The question is, where will we find it out there?” The claw swiveled toward the window.
“Some people live their lives in isolation, perfectly happy.” Reese followed the claw and watched the elegant elephant couple emerge from the large green flyer. “There were people like that on New Tibet too. Maybe not you and me, but we’ll make friends, we’ll have our family.”
“Family, yes.” Chuff’s ears lowered and he stared down at his drink. “To whom we both owe our presence on this ship.”
“In part.” Reese exhaled and called up his feed, found the lounge’s menu, and ordered a Yellow Stinger, a sweet-sharp drink he’d enjoyed in the past. His ticket had come with twenty free drinks for the two-month trip, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to use them until the last two weeks or so—what if a time came when he really needed them?—and he still had six left. “After years of letters.”
“The problem isn’t them.” The fox paused. “It isn’t just them.” He straightened and turned his claw around to point at his own head. “They should have counselors on this ship rather than activities.”
This was one of Chuff’s favorite subjects. Reese knew most of the salient points, and it was better than discussing their families, which neither of them wanted to do. So he let the fox go on about it, nodding at the appropriate times, while his eyes tracked the motion in the window recording.
One of the buildings, a round disc of polished grey metal with blue glass windows, felt to Reese like it matched the blue and grey rosettes of his fur, and he’d decided that that’s where his family were likely to live. Intellectually, he knew they probably didn’t; they might not even live on this particular floating island. But he had been drawn to it, and there was no harm in imagining.
“There are only three counselors in Nepotamia City,” Chuff wrapped up, “with experience in New Tibet survivors specifically, though I suppose anyone qualified to treat post-critical depression might do.”
“But the difference is that now we have hope,” Reese said without taking his eyes from the screen.
“Hope for what?” Chuff challenged.
This gave Reese a moment’s pause. “We can live in one of those places out there. We can change jobs if we want, and we can agitate for better working conditions. They can’t freeze us out.”
Chuff acknowledged the wordplay with a slight grin. “You’re thinking of So Dear to Me, of course.”
“That one, plus Galliway. Galliway is more about the family dynamics, but it’s set against a backdrop of workplace crimes, and ultimately the hero’s family betrays him to save their relationship with the employer.”
“Ah! I haven’t watched that one, but I’ll make a point to.”
“I watched it my first week, and I liked it, but I’m not sure the writing holds up based on what I’ve been watching since. So Dear to Me is a better holo for sure. Much better cast and writing.”
“Still.” Chuff wagged his tail, with a small hitch in the wag. Like Reese’s elbow, Chuff had injured his tail; though the injury wasn’t visible on the outside, the chronic pain would probably always be with him. “I’ve run through the award-winners and it’s so hard to find good choices among the rest. I’ve tried seven different demographic groups’ recommendations and none of them have matched up. Yours are the only ones that consistently deliver.”
Reese smiled. “There has to be a New Tibet Survivor group. Thousands of us across the universe. What’s the cutoff for a demo group?”
“One million, I believe.” Chuff’s claws skimmed across his datapad. “It’s hard to find because there’s four companies that manage them, and for obvious reasons none of them is forthcoming about their methods.”
“In any case,” Reese said, “why did we leave if we didn’t believe we were going to a better place?”
The fox looked up from his display. “It’s not a question of being in a better place or not. That’s indisputable. The concern is that we won’t be able to adapt to that better place.” He waved a paw around. “Look at how little most of us on this ship have changed in what is essentially a two-month vacation. Statistically the odds aren’t good.”
Reese nodded. “But you’re not a statistic. You can’t just give up. You can’t just say that New Tibet ruined you for anywhere else. Because…” On the screen, a fleet of black flyers painted with star fields wheeled in unison. “Because that means there’s no point in getting Adam out. That means…we should just turn around and go right back.”
Chuff took another sip of his drink and turned toward the window with Reese. The light changed gradually as the sun set, and then the shadows flipped as the display looped around to the beginning and started over again.
Questions From YOU
If you’ve got a question about my books or my writing—or anything else you want me to talk about—shoot me an email and I’ll answer it here. But this month—no questions!
QUESTION from @RaskirRaccoon: “What are your tips for describing and painting a mental image of the main p.o.v. character when writing a furry story? In novel writing it's generally discouraged, but it's pretty necessary for furry fiction.”
In general, not just in furry stories, character and setting are best revealed through action and interaction. So to describe your main character without resorting to the cringey kind of “Joey was a five-foot six raccoon whose wardrobe was mainly concert t-shirts and patched jeans and whose tail was always dusty” (I have talked before about the danger of overusing “was,” and one of the reasons is that it talks merely about a thing existing, not acting) that we have all done in our early stories, try to figure out how your character’s species and personal characteristics interact with the setting and other characters.
For example, rather than state his height, try something like: “Joey hated having to ask his roommate to get something off the top shelf in the kitchen cupboard, so he’d often climb on the counter to reach the wine glasses that he was sure his roommate had put there so Joey would have to ask for his help getting them.” This tells you that Joey is shorter than his roommate, and probably short to average height if he needs help getting to the top cabinet of a cupboard. It also tells you something about Joey’s pride (he hates asking for help) and his relationship with his roommate.
For the furry aspects, there can be interactions with the setting like “there were enough wolves to have wolf-only schools, but raccoons had to take classes with possums, foxes, and squirrels. Joey didn’t mind; he liked the diversity. His elementary school class had been just raccoons and he’d hated it.” (This gives you setting information as well as character.) Or just emphasize the details of the character: “Joey pulled his ringed tail out of the way of the door as his boss let it go, seemingly forgetting Joey was there.” (You can also just say, “forgetting the raccoon was there,” as far as I’m concerned, though I know some people don’t like calling characters by their species.)
The general rule is: whenever possible, have your character doing something. Don’t tell us that they’re sulky; show them sulking about something, and make that something relevant to the story. Don’t tell us they grew up on a farm; figure out something they’re good at (or bad at) because of that and show us that situation. Stories stall when the narrator slows down to describe something, or when characters stop to tell each other things about the story. Keep things moving, drop clues but also leave some things hidden. The reader wants to know what happens next, but they can also be engaged by a curious detail about a character that’ll be explained later (“Joey grabbed a t-shirt to wear and then saw that it was his Metallica shirt. He pushed it back in the drawer and grabbed another one, thrusting his arms through the sleeves without even checking to see which band he’d be repping.”—why doesn’t he want to wear the Metallica shirt? This little teaser can be engaging, but don’t forget to pay it off later.)
In sum, you don’t have to give the reader a full image of your character all at once. Chances are they’ll forget most of it except the essential details anyway. So use those essential details and build up the image of your character as they make their way through your story.