Our Stars, Our Memories (Or, a YA Reminder)

“So, why do you write YA fiction?” is a question I get often.  “What is it about YA that inspires you to write in that genre?”

I suppose the question is natural enough.  After all, The Eye-Dancers is a YA sci-fi/fantasy novel, and its sequel, The Singularity Wheel, due out late this summer, is as well.  But the truth is, I’m not a YA writer–at least, not exclusively.  Prior to The Eye-Dancers, in fact, I had rarely ventured into the YA waters.  For years, I wrote short stories–dozens of them.  And nearly all of them are mainstream/literary.

 

Even at that time, though, there was an occasional appeal to write about younger protagonists.  One story in particular, called “Marbles,” about a teenage boy who has a moment of epiphany causing him to realize and fully embrace that he’s no longer a child, and that he must look forward and prepare for his life as an adult, stayed with me.  It wasn’t long after writing “Marbles” that I began working on The Eye-Dancers.

 

It’s odd on the surface.  I am a long way from being a teenager myself.  The days of junior high and high school, for me, reside in a previous century, back when smartphones were unheard of and the personal computer was only just becoming mainstream.  When I was in junior high, Larry Bird was the three-time reigning NBA MVP, postage stamps cost 25 cents, and Tiffany was topping the pop charts with “Could’ve Been.”

 

It was a long time ago.

And yet . . . are we ever truly beyond our formative years?  Do we ever “outgrow” our first date, our first rejection, our first triumph?  Experiences from our past do not disappear like smoke upon an autumn breeze.  They linger.  Sometimes they hide in the shadows, buried beneath the layers of intervening years.  Other times they rise to the fore, reminders of an experience decades gone, remarkably vivid, as sharp and vibrant in our mind’s eye as the day they happened.

 

But still.  Why revisit the old haunts of adolescence on purpose?  Why write an entire novel (or two!) about teenage protagonists up to their chins in angst and insecurities?  Why walk the perilous path down memory lane that retouches old wounds and scabs?  It’s something many writers, as well as readers, do.  In fact, a 2012 survey concluded that 55 percent of YA readers are adults.  Again, the question of why resurfaces.

 

I can’t speak for others, only myself, and for me, writing The Eye-Dancers–and now, finishing up The Singularity Wheel–has been a labor of love.  The characters of Mitchell Brant, Joe Marma, Marc Kuslanski, and Ryan Swinton were all inspired by neighborhood friends from my childhood, and then merged together with sprinklings from my own life.  When, for instance, I describe Mitchell’s enjoyment of his favorite comic book in chapter 1 of The Singularity Wheel, I am, in essence, remembering my own discovery of that same issue when I was a teenager . . .

 

“He refocused on Fantastic Four number 51.  It was a remarkable issue—the first appearance of The Negative Zone, an alternate universe composed of negative, rather than positive, matter.  In the story, Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, has just made the discovery and resolves to explore this new and dangerous place.  He journeys through the void, bridges the gap between dimensions.

“Just like I did once, he thought.  Like we all did.  Five years ago.”

Of course, I’ve never traveled across time and space, as Mitchell has, but the appreciation he and I share for old comic books is real–and a reminder for me of what it was like when I was Mitchell’s age.

 

Not all of my adolescent memories are positive. Some of my most humiliating experiences happened in school.  Like so many others, I was at times the butt of jokes, the object of derision.  In high school, I struggled with acne and was overweight.  Believe me, I was made aware of both on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis.

 

But I was lucky.  Even on the worst days, I understood that.  I had a strong, stable family life–my parents never moved.  Many of our neighbors remained the same through the years.  Friendships in the old neighborhood ran deep.  The real-life inspirations for Mitchell, Joe, Marc, and Ryan would all get together with me–especially in summer.  We’d hang out on the driveway, shooting baskets; we’d invent games and spend entire afternoons arguing about the ever-evolving rules, having a blast the whole time; when we grew a little older, became teenagers, we’d talk about the things adolescent boys talk about, and we’d compete in sports and play strategic board games that lasted for hours.

 

Through it all, there was a camaraderie that was resilient, strong, enduring.  We still keep in touch today–not that often, not like we used to.  But whenever we get together, special things happen.  The years peel away, and the memories merge with the present day, creating a synchronicity in the space-time continuum that can only be described as magic.  And I am taken back to a simpler time, a time when forty was still decades hence, when, despite setbacks and doubts and insecurities, opportunities still seemed endless and all things were possible.

 

Maybe that’s why we write, and read, YA fiction, even as we get older.  Maybe as we take on the burdens and responsibilities of adulthood, as we perhaps feel trapped in a career we don’t love, a situation we can’t extricate ourselves from, a diagnosis we can’t pretend away, we need a reminder.  We need to remember what it was like when we were young.

 

As I look back through the lens of memory, I remember those summer evenings, lingering in the driveway, leaning against the car, talking with my friends as we swatted at the mosquitoes in seek of our blood and watched the fireflies dance and glow in the dark.  We’d talk about nothing, and everything.  We weren’t in a hurry.  Just being there was enough.

 

And we’d look up at the night sky, feel a sense of awe, and wonder.  I hope that sense of awe, that desire to probe and question and discover, that willingness to wonder and to believe in the so-called “impossible,” remains always.  I hope it never grows old.

 

“The stars are yours,” Ray Bradbury once wrote, “if you have the head, the hands, and the heart for them.”

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

“One for the Angels” (Or, Win a Gift Card, Any Gift Card!)

In an early Season One episode of The Twilight Zone titled “One for the Angels,” sidewalk salesman Lou Bookman is confronted by Mr. Death.  Death tells the personable, well-liked pitchman that his time has come–he will die at midnight.  Bookman pleads with Death, asking him to postpone his demise until he makes his one last great pitch–“one for the angels,” he calls it.  While he’s made sales all his life, Bookman tells Death he’s never made that big splash, that monumental transaction.   He yearns for the opportunity.

 

Death grants him his request, but then Bookman tries to outsmart him.  He retires from the sales trade; therefore, the deal with Death is null and void.  If he’s no longer a pitchman, he can’t make that exciting sale he just waxed poetic about.  He will live on indefinitely.  Death has been defeated!

Not so fast.  It turns out that Death needs to take someone–if not Bookman, then someone else.  Mr. Death selects a little girl–a girl Bookman adores.  She lives in the same apartment building as he does, and the two have become friends.  That’s not unusual for Lou Bookman–children always seem to take a liking to him, and he to them.

 

The girl is hit by a truck, and Bookman feels responsible.  He seeks out Mr. Death, pleads to make a deal with him to spare the girl’s life.  She is in a bed, lying comatose, barely holding on.  He asks to be taken in her place.  But Death refuses.  They had an arrangement.  Bookman broke it, and a new deal was struck.  Death will need to be in the girl’s room at the stroke of midnight to take her with him.

 

As midnight approaches, Bookman finds Mr. Death on the street and attempts to distract him, knowing that if  Death fails to show up in the girl’s room at midnight, she will live.  Bookman flies into a sales pitch, frantic, determined to succeed.  He shows Death everything he has to sell, and captivates him.  Mr. Death, overwhelmed, finally says, “Give me all you have!”    Midnight comes and goes.  Death has missed his appointed round.  The girl will live.

 

Lou Bookman has done it–he has made his last great sales pitch–“one for the angels,” indeed.  Now Death will need to take him, as per the original agreement.  In saving the girl’s life, Bookman has sacrificed his own.

**********************************

The promotional pitch I am offering here cannot compare with the one made by Lou Bookman in The Twilight Zone fifty-four summers ago.  But I hope it will top a similar Eye-Dancers promo I ran back in April.

 

The concept is the same–during the promotional period, anyone who purchases The Eye-Dancers will have an opportunity to win a gift card.

But the specifics are different.  This promo, for one thing, will last longer–allowing for a possibly much higher gift-card amount to the winner.  Also, the current promo will not be strictly an Amazon affair, as the last one was . . .

Between today (July 11) and August 22, if you buy The Eye-Dancers, wherever it is sold, please notify me–either with a comment on this website, or via email at michaelf424@gmail.com.  I will keep track of  each person who buys the book during this time frame and then, on August 23, the day after the promotion ends, I will randomly select one winner.  The selected person will be awarded a gift card–to anywhere!  If you’d like an Amazon gift card, by all means . . .  Or B & N.  Or even something non-book-related.  Pizza Hut, perhaps?  Your favorite department store?  The choice will be yours!

 

The amount of the gift card will be based on the number of overall purchases of The Eye-Dancers during the promotional time period.  For each purchase, $2.00 will be earmarked toward the gift card.  So, for example, if there are thirty purchases during the promotion, the gift card would be for $60 (30 purchases x $2.00 per purchase).  The gift card amount, in other words, will be determined by you!  The more purchases, the higher the amount on the gift card.

I’ll draw the winner’s name on Thursday, August 23, and will immediately send an email notifying them of the good news.  And please just remember that if you do purchase The Eye-Dancers during the designated period to make sure and contact me so I can enter your name into the gift-card contest.

The Eye-Dancers is available for purchase at the following online retail locations . . .

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Eye-Dancers-ebook/dp/B00A8TUS8M

B & N:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-eye-dancers-michael-s-fedison/1113839272?ean=2940015770261

Smashwords:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/255348

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/books/The-Eye-Dancers/nKFZETbWWkyzV2QkaJWOjg

This promo may not quite be “one for the angels,” but I hope you’ll take part!

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

A Simple (and Complex) Question, A Complex (and Simple) Answer

It was just one of those questions that sometimes pop up during the course of a conversation–unplanned, spur-of-the-moment.

“Why do you write?”

I was having lunch with a friend, an accountant who had just confessed to me that he’d never so much as attempted to write a short story in his entire life, let alone a novel.  What motivated me to create fiction, to invent stories and situations and then share them with others, he wanted to know.

I opened my mouth, then closed it.  It was such a straightforward question.  And yet–no one had ever actually asked it of me so plainly, so baldly.  Why did I write?  On the surface, it seemed, I should have had an answer ready.  After all, writing was my passion, and always had been.  I could remember writing stories as far back as the second grade.

 

But I wasn’t sure how to respond.  Did I write because it was fun?  Sometimes.  When a story flowed, when the words spilled out of me so fast I couldn’t type quickly enough, when characters spoke lines that seemingly came directly from them, supposed figments of my imagination, and not from me at all, it was a rapturous experience, a high like no other.  But other times, it was brutal, as I dissected, edited, and picked apart my work.  Was it rewarding?  Yes, of course.  But that, in and of itself, didn’t capture the essence of why I write.

My friend’s straightforward question suddenly seemed more complex.

Drawing a blank, not certain how I could adequately answer it, all I could think to say was, “You know, I’m not sure.  It’s just something in me, that’s all.  Writing is  something I have to do.”

My friend had a thoughtful look on his face, and I expected he’d follow up with more questions.  But then he just nodded, and changed the topic of conversation.

That night, I lie awake, thinking about it, and the exchange bothered me.  My answer seemed too pat, too simple.  My need to write, and to share my writing with others, went deeper than that.  I just wasn’t sure how to express it.  It was like trying to lasso a passing summer cloud, high overhead, force it down to ground level, and then jump inside, hoping it would float away again, taking me along for the ride.  How was I supposed to put something like that into words?

That conversation happened twelve years ago. . . .

**********

The question of why I write is not unrelated to another question I get often:  “Where do your story ideas come from?”  On the surface, the two questions are different–but in actuality they are linked, two sides of the proverbial coin.  Ideas, I have found, cannot be “forced.”  I cannot wake up one morning and state, boldly, “Today I will think of a new short story and write it.”  It doesn’t work that way–at least not for me.

In my experience, ideas come when I least expect them–while I’m out mowing the lawn, running an errand at the store, taking a walk along a quiet country road.  Sometimes ideas come when I’m at a large gathering, even while in the midst of a conversation.

And sometimes they come in my dreams.

The genesis for The Eye-Dancers came to me over twenty years ago when I dreamed of the same “ghost girl” Mitchell Brant dreams of in the first chapter of the novel.  But when I woke up, I didn’t know what to do with this strange, haunting girl.  I knew I wanted to write about her–but I had no story in which to place her.

It took two decades until I did, when, once again, I dreamed of her.  But this time, upon waking, I had the basic concept of the story in place.  And despite the fact that it all began with the ghost girl, the story would really be about four boys who ultimately go on a dimension-busting journey, where they not only have to overcome the otherworldly dangers they are confronted with, but also the insecurities and hang-ups that plague them.  I knew right away, as soon as I woke up that morning–this was a story I had to write.

It was an exhilarating feeling–it always is when an idea strikes, takes hold of me and won’t let go–not until it forms into a living thing, with flesh and bones and cartilage, heart and mind and soul, right there on the page.  Whenever it happens, I am reminded of a quote from Ray Bradbury:

“Write only what you love, and love what you write.  The key word is love.  You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”

 

For me, there is no other way.  I can have–and have had–grand ideas, rich concepts, fantastic plotlines that never will see the light of day.  The reason?  I don’t care deeply enough about them.  The idea, in and of itself, might be interesting, but it doesn’t grab me by the throat and demand a life and vitality of its own.  It just sits there, like a Victorian gentleman sipping his afternoon tea, pondering the benefits of a nap.  If I tried to write about it, it would come out dull and drab–and it would, indeed, inspire a nap!

With a novel, in particular, you have to love your characters, love what you’re trying to create.  It is too long, too formidable of a project to accomplish otherwise.  There were days while writing The Eye-Dancers that I honestly didn’t know if I could continue.  The task seemed too large, too hard, too daunting.  But then, when apathy threatened to take over, I would think of the themes the story delves into–themes I care deeply about:  the essence of childhood, the art of discovery, the struggles and joys of growing up, the curiosity to wonder, the daring to believe in magic, the exploration of the universe, and of what we term “reality” itself.  And perhaps most important of all, I would think of Mitchell Brant, Joe Marma, Ryan Swinton, and Marc Kuslanski–four characters inspired by friends I knew growing up.  The Eye-Dancers is their story, and I wanted, needed, to tell it.

 

And maybe that’s the best way I know to explain why it is I write fiction, and why I desire others to read what I have to say.  I write to explore and further awaken pieces of me, and I want nothing more than to share those pieces, those memories and truths, those fears and loves, with you.  It is my hope that The Eye-Dancers accomplishes all of that, and more.

When it’s all said and done, I look back at this and smile.  Because maybe, just maybe, the answer I gave my friend all those years ago is, ultimately, the best answer of all.

Why do we do what we do?  Why do we follow our passions?  What makes us driven to write and sing and dance and act and garden and play and cook and paint and love, and do those things we were put on this earth to do?

Why do I write?

It’s just something in me, that’s all.  It’s something I have to do.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

Eye-Dancers Amazon Gift Card Opportunity, a Twitter Announcement, and . . . Mannequins?

In the first-season Twilight Zone episode “The After Hours,” Marsha White, a customer at a large department store, asks where she can find the store’s selection of gold thimbles.

 

She is told the ninth floor, and she is escorted there by the elevator man.  Once dropped off, a saleswoman approaches her–an odd person who makes Marsha uncomfortable.

 

Stranger still, there is only one item for sale on the entire ninth floor–the exact gold thimble Marsha is shopping for.  She purchases the item, unaware that this transaction is not the end, but rather the beginning of a spooky, unnerving, and ultimately self-revealing adventure.

 

By episode’s end, Marsha realizes she is a mannequin–one of the many on display throughout the store.  Each month, a new mannequin is “awakened,” and able to experience life as a person.  But at the end of the thirty days, they must return and let the next mannequin in line have their chance.  Marsha, drunk on life, as it were, had suppressed the knowledge that she was a mannequin.  The peculiar dealings in the department store serve as a reminder, and eventually show her that her time is up.  She must return to her inanimate existence.

 

Now, what does all this have to do with The Eye-Dancers Amazon gift-card promotion that begins today?  I’m not sure!  Except to say, this promotion is very straightforward, and I promise, no one will be turned into a mannequin upon its completion.

For anyone who is thinking of purchasing The Eye-Dancers, the next three weeks offer an intriguing opportunity.  Beginning today, April 2, and ending Sunday, April 21, anyone who purchases The Eye-Dancers on Amazon will be eligible to win an Amazon gift card.  Here is how it works . . .

Between April 2 and April 21, if you buy The Eye-Dancers on Amazon, please notify me–either with a comment on this website, or via email at michaelf424@gmail.com.  I will write down the name of  each person who buys the book during this time frame on a small slip of paper, fold the paper, and place it in a jar.  Then, on April 22, the day after the promotion ends, I will randomly select one of the names from the jar.  The selected person will be awarded the Amazon gift card.

The amount of the gift card will be based on the number of Amazon purchases of The Eye-Dancers during the promotional time period.  For each purchase, $1.50 will be earmarked toward the gift card.  So, for example, if there are twenty purchases during the promotion, the gift card would be $30 (20 purchases x $1.50 per purchase).  The gift card amount, in other words, will be determined by you!  The more purchases, the higher the amount on the gift card.

I’ll draw the winner’s name on Monday, April 22, and will email the good news to the winner, and immediately award them the gift card.

Hopefully you’ll take part!  Please remember, this only applies to Amazon purchases.  And if you do buy The Eye-Dancers during the designated period, please make sure to contact me so I can enter your name into the gift-card contest.

The link to The Eye-Dancers on Amazon is:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Eye-Dancers-ebook/dp/B00A8TUS8M

Hopefully, also, the details of this promotion are not as confusing, tricky, or scary as the shopping experience Marsha White endured in “The After Hours”!

A final note:  I have joined the Twitter world!  Please follow me at https://twitter.com/msfedison27.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

Square Dance

One of my favorite television shows of all time is The Wonder Years.  Few shows have the ability to make you laugh out loud one minute and cry the next.  The Wonder Years is one of them.  And one of the very best episodes is a Season Two gem called “Square Dance.”

The opening scene shows a pair of hands flipping through the pages  of a twenty-year-old junior-high-school yearbook.  The hands belong to the show’s narrator, the adult version of main character Kevin Arnold.  And we hear him say in a voice-over:

“Some people pass through your life, and you never think about them again.  Some you think about and wonder–what ever happened to them?  And then there are those you wish you never had to think about again.

“But you do.”

Now the scene shifts back two decades and we see the twelve-year-old Kevin, in seventh grade.

In gym class, it’s the first day of square dance.  The teacher is pairing up boys and girls to be dance partners for the week.  Kevin hopes for a popular girl.  But when he’s paired up, it’s with Margaret Farquhar, the class outcast.  Everyone thinks of her as the strangest student in the class.  Kevin groans, and wishes he could escape.  But he’s stuck.  He needs to dance with the seventh-grade pariah for the entire week.

Maybe some viewers rush to judgment here.  Why should he be so concerned about what others think?  About how his classmates view him, and what they’ll say about him dancing with Margaret Farquhar?  But of course this is junior high.  Image, as Andre Agassi once said in a commercial, is everything.

Certainly, in The Eye-Dancers, this is something both Mitchell Brant and Ryan Swinton can relate to.  Mitchell continually puffs himself up with exaggerated tall tales and even cheats on tests sometimes to get better grades.  When he’s being honest with himself, he acknowledges that he’s jealous of the popular boys in his class.  He can tell all the stories about himself he wants.  He’ll never be popular like them.  And it hurts.

Ryan, on the other hand, desperately wants to be liked, and he pursues this desire by playing the role of the class clown.  He feels a tremendous amount of pressure to make people laugh, to always have jokes and punch lines on demand.  When he tells a joke and no one laughs, it’s the worst feeling in the world.

So when Kevin Arnold, in “Square Dance,” feels nauseated by his partnership with Margaret Farquhar, I’m sure Mitchell and Ryan would get it.  “We hear you, Kevin,” they’d say to him if they could at the start of The Eye-Dancers.  “We’d feel the same way.”

The thing is–throughout the week of square dancing, Margaret takes a liking to Kevin, and at one point she even comes over his house.  She shows him her pet bat.  She tells him she also has a pet tarantula and a pet lizard.  Kevin’s opinion of her is solidified.  She’s weird.  But, to his surprise, he kind of likes her company.  The adult Kevin, in his role as voice-over narrator, looking back on the scene from the chasm of twenty years, says, “The thing was, she was interesting.  In a weird way, of course.  But interesting . . .”

Nevertheless, he is still appalled at the prospect of dancing with or even talking to her at school.  So when, the next day, she approaches him in the hall, all smiles, happy to see him, he tells her they can’t talk anymore.  At least not in front of anyone.  “Maybe we can be . . . secret friends,” he tells her.

At this, she finally gets the message.  All week long, he had been sending her signals that he couldn’t be seen with her, didn’t really want to dance with her.  But she hadn’t taken the hint.  Now she at last sees the situation as it really is.

“Secret friends?” she says, on the verge of tears.  “How can we be friends if you don’t want to talk to me?  What’s so bad about talking?”

This causes a scene.  Other students gather around, mock her, pick at her, as they always do.  Meanwhile, Kevin just stands there.

“I wanted to say something,” the adult Kevin says in a voice-over as we watch the scene unfold.  “But I didn’t.”

It was Margaret who did the talking.

“I thought you were different,” she says, and then walks away.

The closing sequence of the episode takes us back to the present day, twenty years later, as the adult Kevin looks at Margaret Farquhar’s picture in his old junior high yearbook.

“Maybe if I’d been a little braver,” he says, “I could’ve been her friend.  But the truth is, in seventh grade, who you are is what other seventh graders say you are.”

“The funny thing is,” he concludes,  “it’s hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress.  But you don’t forget someone like Margaret Farquhar.  Professor of biology.  Mother of six.  Friend to bats.”

And here the episode ends . . .

This is something both Mitchell Brant and Ryan Swinton must face and wrestle with over the course of The Eye-Dancers.  True, the novel is a sci-fi adventure about parallel worlds and dreams and the interconnectedness of all things.  Hopefully it takes readers on a wild and imaginative ride.  But at its heart The Eye-Dancers is a story about growing up, about adolescence and confronting the struggles that accompany it.

And I’d like to think that, by novel’s end, if either Mitchell or Ryan saw Margaret Farquhar standing across the room, they would go up to her and ask, “May I have this dance?”

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

When Comic Books Were Controversial

It’s an issue that still rages from time to time.  What is “acceptable” content for entertainment geared toward a young adult or teenaged audience?  Even in the 21st century, it’s debated how graphic the violence, sexuality, and language should be.  Where is the cut-off?  Is anything and everything okay?  Or should there be stricter guidelines for YA fiction, for instance, than for fiction targeted for a more general audience?  Whatever side of the fence you stand on, this is an argument that can get heated.  And it’s not new.  Within the comic book industry, it goes all the way back to the early 1950s.

In The Eye-Dancers, Mitchell Brant is a comic book collector.  Even Joe Marma has a few older Spider-Man issues.  Neither of them, though, has what we now call “pre-Code” issues.  Pre-Code issues refer to comic books published prior to March/April 1955.  The Code stamp, back then, was a large eyesore on the upper right of every comic cover.

In subsequent decades, the Code stamp slowly decreased in size, as it became less and less of a concern.  But in the mid-1950s, it was all the rage.  In the mid-1950s, in fact, comic books, as an industry, nearly went out of business.

It’s funny to think of old comics as anything but corny.  Certainly post-Code, from the mid-50s on, they were.  But in the early 1950s, there was no industry standard dictating what could and could not be used in a story or on a cover.  And the writers and publishers in the comics industry pushed the envelope as hard as they could.

In the 1940s, especially during World War II, superheroes were the name of the game.  Captain America, The Sub-Mariner, The (Original) Human Torch fought alongside America’s soldiers.  Even Batman and Superman got into the act.  After the war, many of these heroes had nothing left to fight.  We think of Captain America as always having been around.  The truth is–Captain America Comics number 1 debuted in 1941, and Cap then went defunct in the early ’50s.  It was only in 1964 that he was “reborn.”  Apart from Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, the post-War years were lean ones for superheroes.  ‘

So what did the comics publish in their place?  Crime stories.  Suspense stories.  And horror stories.  Lots and lots of horror stories.  And they weren’t corny.  They weren’t cute.  They were graphic.  They were much more graphic than any movie out at the time.  In fact, the HBO series Tales from the Crypt was based on the horror stories that EC Comics published in the early ’50s.  From 1950–1954, 1,650 issues of horror comic books made it to the newsstands.  That translates to approximately 25 every month.  And with each passing month, the issues became edgier, the covers more graphic, more daring.  Here is a sample of what you’d have found at your local drugstore back in the early ’50s . . .

For the most part, until 1954, any controversy about these comics was scattered, not well organized, and in no way a threat to the industry.  But then a book called Seduction of the Innocent, by Dr. Fredric Wertham, was published in 1954, and the death knell on horror in comic books had arrived.  Wertham was a respected child psychologist.  His words held merit to parents.  And parents, for the first time in many cases, were now alerted to what their kids were reading.  And it sure wasn’t Superman.

Parents all across America united.  Entire cities boycotted comic books.  A firestorm anti-comics movement raged.  Even the United States government got involved.  The Senate Judiciary on Juvenile Delinquency basically handed the comic book industry an ultimatum:  Clean it up, or pack it in.  The comic book controversy reached the pages of Time magazine, Newsweek, and the front page of the New York Times.

The end result was the industry self-censoring itself, stripping away much of the “pre-Code” feel of comic books.  Nearly every horror comic magazine went out of business virtually overnight.  They could not continue to publish the kinds of stories they wanted under the new, strict guidelines of the Code.  The industry was on the brink of collapse.  It needed something entirely new–and it would get it.  But that’s a story for another day.

Back in the mid-1950s, when the comic book debate raged, the term “young adult” was hardly used.  “Juvenile” was the preferred term then.  And Wertham, in his book Seduction of the Innocent, made sweeping assertions that the comics industry was contributing heavily to juvenile delinquency.  Many parents agreed with him.

Terms change.  Society moves on and evolves.  But certain points of debate still persist.  They likely always will.

The Eye-Dancers is not a young adult book that would be considered to contain any “objectionable” material.  Hopefully it contains a lot of thought-provoking and imaginative material, though!  But for all the YA books that do indeed delve into or close to the “objectionable”–you’re not alone.  Decades ago, the comic book industry was right there alongside you.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

Facebook Feedback

These are exciting days in The Eye-Dancers universe (or, considering the locales in the story, maybe I should say multiverse)!

The Eye-Dancers has been available for purchase for a couple of months, and a sequel is now in the works.  I plan to begin writing it within the next week or two, and am looking forward to delving back in to the characters’ worlds, and starting a new adventure.

A couple of months ago, I created the Eye-Dancers Facebook page.  But, quite honestly, other than writing a few announcement-style posts early on, that site has remained mostly dormant.  I’d like that to change, and would love to hear your thoughts.

What kinds of things do you like to see on a Facebook fan page?  My aim is for the Eye-Dancer Facebook page to be its own unique place–a fun and interactive site, worthy to be “Liked”!  Thanks to everyone who has visited and Liked the page so far!  And thanks for your patience over these past few weeks while the site has just kind of sat there, without being updated with fresh content.  It’s time to change that.  And your feedback would be most appreciated.

It’s interesting to think of the “old days” before the Internet and the ability to interact so readily with so many people.  Back then, as an author, you could receive postal mail and hear from readers that way (assuming you even had a wide enough audience for this to happen).  But by and large, you existed in something of a bubble.  You wrote what you wrote, hoped people would enjoy it, but rarely received very much feedback from readers, and then you moved on to your next project.  Whereas in 2013, we can all exchange ideas, give each other feedback, and carry on engaging conversations.  It’s a new world, really, and an exciting one.

I’m grateful to be a part of it, and as always I thank you so much for reading!

–Mike

Many Years Before The Hunger Games . . .

Mitchell Brant (like me) is a big fan of The Fantastic Four.  It’s his favorite comic book, and he tries his best to collect as many of the old original copies as he can.  In chapter one of The Eye-Dancers, we see him pull out a copy of Fantastic Four number 99.  I’d like to think he also owns four remarkable issues from 1969–numbers 90–93.  These four issues together form one story arc, a continuing saga that, in many ways, foreshadows Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games four decades later.

Did Suzanne Collins ever read Fantastic Four # 90–93?  Chances are very high she did not.  But the premise behind both stories is similar.  Amazingly so.

In Fantastic Four number 90 (September 1969), The Thing is captured by a Skrull slave hunter.

In the Marvel Comics universe, the Skrulls are an alien race with shape-shifting abilities  from the Andromeda galaxy.  They first appeared way back in Fantastic Four number 2 (January 1962), so by ’69, readers were very familiar with them.  In number 90, this particular Skrull fools The Thing into believing he’s Mr. Fantastic, the FF’s leader, and then renders him unconscious with a nerve ray.  He plans to make The Thing a slave and transport him to the Skrull galaxy to battle in something called The Great Games.

What are The Great Games?  They take place on the Skrull world of Kral.  There, each year, participants  are captured and brought in from worlds throughout the galaxies and forced to battle to the death in The Great Games.  Once captured by the Skrulls, they relinquish all rights and are known only as  “slaves.”

There are odds, bets, favorites and underdogs.  The Games are the biggest entertainment spectacle of the year, televised and watched by nearly everyone.  Two “slaves” are hand-picked before each contest and then forced to enter the arena, before a sellout crowd.  They must battle to the death–only the death of one ensures victory for the other.  Weapons are provided, tossed onto the arena floor, between the combatants, who then scratch and claw and fight for their use.

If a “slave” chooses not to fight, not to kill, the Skrulls have a device called the Sonic Disrupter, which they then direct at the resister’s home planet.  The Disrupter fires a ray, forcing the planet out of its orbit, destined to fall into the sun.  In this way, the combatants are forced to kill their opponent.  It’s either kill in the arena, or have their own home world destroyed. 

Of course, eventually, the rest of The Fantastic Four realize what’s happened, and through the often corny magic of 1960s-era comic books, they come to The Thing’s rescue.  They even help to dismantle the Sonic Disrupter and put an end to the Great Games.

Obviously, in The Hunger Games, the tributes were children, not super-powered natives of other planets captured by a Skrull slave hunter.  But the similarities are striking.  The televised/entertainment spectacle of a society watching and relishing combatants fighting to the death, forced into the act by an oppressive, powerful government.  The preparations beforehand, building the Games up to be the event of the year.  The contest itself, with the fighters provided weapons to help them finish the job.

The differences between Fantastic Four # 90-93 and The Hunger Games are many and profound.  The Hunger Games, being a novel and featuring rich and multi-layered characters, is a far more in-depth work.  But the basic themes from these Fantastic Four issues resonate and penetrate through the veil of forty years.  The basic concept is clearly a winner, and it captivates audiences.

Comic books are often trivialized and thought of as disposable entertainment, and many of them are.  But there is a richness of ideas, concepts, fantasy, and wonder to be found in the pages of the classic FFs from the 1960s.  Before Panem and Katniss, Peeta and Rue and District 12, there was The Thing, battling in The Great Games of the Skrull world of Kral.

Just ask Mitchell Brant.  He’ll be sure to tell you all about it.

Thanks so much, as always, for reading!

–Mike

The Hardest Words . . .

In The Eye-Dancers, each of the main characters has his issues, his hang-ups that he needs to get a handle on.  For Joe Marma, his number-one hang-up is his temper.  He is quick to throw a punch, reluctant to stop and think, and reconsider.  But at one point in the story, his impetuous nature nearly ruins everything.  It takes his friend Ryan Swinton to intervene–a very unlikely occurrence, since Joe has always been the leader, and Ryan the follower.  It’s an epiphany moment for Ryan.  He finally realizes he can make the hard decisions, confront a difficult and tense situation head-on.

But it’s also an epiphany moment for Joe.  He at last comes to see that sometimes it’s better to walk away from a fight.  He’s no angel–he never will be.  But a lesson is learned, and he realizes he’s been wrong before.  He’s lost his head.  Gotten into trouble.  He finally admits it, and resolves to do something about it.

Admitting you’re wrong isn’t easy.  “I’m sorry, I was wrong,” may be the most difficult words to say in our or any language!  They often curl up and die before ever leaving the lips.  But wouldn’t things often be better for all of us if we did say these words?  I know I have regrets. . . .

One of them occurred over twenty years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school.  Looking at the details of the situation, it may not seem that important–it may seem trivial, in fact.  But it meant a lot.  It was a big deal to me.  And it changed the dynamic of an old friendship.  Besides, aren’t the “small” things, the “little” things, often the triggers that set off a conflict?  Maybe we have unspoken frustrations we’re feeling toward someone else.  We bury our hurts.  And then . . . something small, something that should be insignificant (a misplaced item, an errand forgotten due to a busy and stressful day . . .) sets us off, and we spew out our pent-up anger.

Joe Marma learned this difficult lesson, just in time.  I wish I could have.

What follows is a personal essay I wrote recently.  I guess I wrote it for myself.  But I’d like to share it.   And, Tony, if you ever come across this post–I hope you read it, old friend . . .

“I’m Sorry, Tony”

Copyright 2012 by Michael S. Fedison

**************

Tony eyed the just-thrown card, shook his head.  “You don’t want to play that,” he said.  “Pick it up.”

Ken looked at him, puzzled.  I was, too.  What was this about?

“What do you mean?” Ken asked.  All around us, the sounds of the cafeteria buzzed—students carrying their lunch trays back to their tables, girls laughing and talking, varsity lettermen bragging about their conquests on the ball field.

“Just pick it up,” Tony said.  “Throw something lower.”

As soon as Tony said that, I knew what he must be up to.  If Ken threw a lower card, Tony might be able to nail me with the Queen of Spades, hitting me with thirteen points.  But why did he want to resort to such extreme measures?  I was the one who had taught these guys how to play Hearts a few weeks ago.  Each day, during lunch, Tony, Ken, Joe, and I played.  And now he wanted to cheat, just to dump the Queen on me?

Ken picked up his card, threw a lower one, just as Tony had said.  I guess that was to be expected.  Tony had a way about him.  It wasn’t only that he was the most muscular tenth grader in the school.  People just responded to him.  If he said to do something, usually you did it.  But this was crossing the line.  I felt the blood rush to my face.

Tony smiled at me.  Well, smirked was probably more like it.  “There you go,” he said, and laid the Queen of Spades atop the small pile of cards, face-up, on the tabletop.

I swallowed.  “No way,” I said.  How did he think he could get away with this?  And why did he do it in the first place?  We’d been friends since the third grade—he was my oldest friend in school.  I thought we liked and respected each other.  I wondered if I had been wrong about that.

Ken and Joe both sat there, probably not too worried about any of this.  Surely, Tony and I could resolve it.

“I’m not taking the thirteen points,” I said.  From the table behind us, someone told a joke, and his friends moaned at the punch line.  “I mean, c’mon, you cheated!  You told him to throw another card.  You can’t do that.  Let’s just replay the hand.”

Tony smirked again.  “We don’t need to replay any hand,” he said.  “That Queen is yours.  You’re the one who got stuck with it.”

Brilliant.  Just brilliant.  My heart rate accelerated.  It was getting more difficult to think clearly.  He couldn’t just expect me to go along with this nonsense.

I told him again I wouldn’t take the points.  It wasn’t fair.  But he would hear none of it.  When I realized he wasn’t going to budge, I decided I’d make a deal with him.

“Okay,” I said, “listen.  Why don’t you take seven points, and I take six?  I mean, you told Ken to pick up his card.  Why don’t we just split the points, then?”

Tony shook his head, and actually appeared offended at the suggestion.  “I’m not taking any points,” he said.  “That’s your Queen laying there.”  He muttered under his breath, as if to say, Stop being such a stupid jerk.

I couldn’t believe it.  How could he be getting mad at me?  He gathered up the loose cards, placed them onto the deck, then put the deck away.  We were finished, at least for today.  I noticed that Joe and Ken now looked a little troubled.  I’m sure neither of them had expected this situation to escalate.  I hadn’t, either, but why was Tony being so unreasonable?  Couldn’t he just admit that he cheated and put an end to this?

Apparently, he couldn’t.  I don’t remember the rest of that lunch period very well.  All I remember is feeling betrayed and disgusted that my friend would act this way.  Tony didn’t say anything more to me the rest of the afternoon.

♣

The incident stuck with me, didn’t let go.  That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about what to do in the morning.  Should I go up to Tony and tell him to forget about it?  That we should just drop the matter?  No!  The more I turned it over in my mind, the angrier I became.  He had some nerve acting upset with me for telling him to split the points between us.  I had been trying to do him a favor with that idea!  And I still didn’t understand why he’d cheated in the first place.  What was his angle?  Whatever it was, he was the one who had done something wrong, not me.

♣

Tony avoided me the next morning.  Normally, he walked down to my home room and struck up a conversation with me for a few minutes to start each day.  But he was nowhere to be seen.  Later, in class, neither of us regarded the other.  The same rage I had felt the day before rose up in me again, only this time it was even stronger.  I hadn’t expected him to act like this.  I had really thought he would apologize, or at least admit he’d cheated.  But he didn’t do anything.  He acted as though I were the one who should come clean.

By the time I sat down at lunch, next to Joe and across from Ken and Tony, my nerves were as taught as coiled springs.  I hoped Tony knew better than to break out the cards.  I didn’t want anything to do with Hearts.  Not now, not ever.  At least, not with him.  Not until he admitted that he’d cheated.

Sure enough, after we had eaten and still had a good half hour left before we had to go back to class, Tony reached into his pocket and took out the box of cards.  Then he opened it, removed the deck, and prepared to deal.

“Wanna play?”  He made it seem like he was asking everyone, but I knew he was asking me.  There was no apology, no “I was wrong.”  Apparently, there never would be.  He wanted to pretend he had never told Ken to pick up his card and throw another in its place.  He wanted yesterday’s game to count.

I knew this was the key moment.  If I said, “Okay, let’s play,” everything would be forgotten.  Except . . . that wasn’t true.  I wouldn’t forget.  And I couldn’t let him get away with this.

“No,” I said.  “Never again.”

It’s funny.  As soon as I said those words, I felt both justified and terrible.  Mine was a righteous stance.  I would no longer play cards with a cheater.  If Tony wouldn’t come right out and say he had cheated, if he wouldn’t agree to disregard yesterday’s game, why should I ever play with him again?  But at the same time, I knew I was making a mistake.  It seemed like a small thing—just a card game at lunchtime.  But it had sprouted bristles and fangs and long, sinuous veins, and turned into something much larger.  Even back then, even in the heat of the moment, I understood that.

Tony’s features hardened.  His face turned red.  I could tell he hadn’t expected me to say that.  He acted as though I had slapped him, or embarrassed him.  Maybe I had.  Any opportunity we might have had then to talk the problem out, to come to some kind of agreement, passed in an instant.  He picked up the cards, put them in the box, then back in his pocket.  I just sat there, silent, wondering what I had done, and questioning whether or not it had been worth the price.

♣

Tony and I didn’t speak after that.  We’d pass each other in the halls without even a glance.  Oh, we still sat together at lunch with Ken and Joe, but we never talked to each other.  I would talk to Ken and Joe, and so would Tony, but I wouldn’t say a word to Tony.  Ken and Joe must have hated it.  They were caught in the middle . . . though I didn’t take that into consideration too much at the time.

After a while, I hoped Tony and I might patch things up.  But I expected him to make the first move.  Besides, this new silent treatment had begun to define our relationship.  It’s strange how something like that can seep into your bones and steel your heart.  I hated it, but felt powerless to do anything about it.

The worst moment came a few weeks later, in English class.  The teacher wanted us to pair up, and Tony sat in front of me.  He was supposed to turn around and work with me.  But he didn’t.  Everyone waited.  All the other students were paired up, but Tony remained seated, face forward, back to me.

Finally the teacher said, “Tony, what’s up?  Why aren’t you working with Mike?”

There was a pause.  Then Tony said, “Because I don’t like him.”

I wanted to fall through the floor, into the basement amidst the boilers and rusty metal pipes.  I hadn’t wanted to work with Tony, either, under the circumstances, but I was shocked he would publicize his new attitude toward me in front of the whole class.  And was it really true?  Did he actually despise me now?  It was all so weird.  We had been friends for years!  How could one card game completely overpower everything else?

But it had.

♣

The remainder of tenth grade was trying.  I continued to eat lunch with Ken, Joe, and Tony, even after the English class fiasco.  I just wanted summer vacation to arrive so I could get out of school.  I breathed a sigh of relief when it finally did.

But the fall came too quickly, and before I knew it, it was time for my junior year to start.  I hadn’t thought about Tony much throughout the summer, but as September neared, I resolved that something had to be done.  We couldn’t just avoid each other.  And yet . . . I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go up to him and try to set things right.  I’m not sure if it was pride, fear of rejection, uncertainty about his response . . . maybe it was all three.  Maybe I was just stubborn.

♣

Before home room, the first day of school, Tony walked up to me.  I tensed.  But then he just started talking, acting as if the last semester of our sophomore year had never happened.  Acting as if we had never argued over a stupid card game.  He didn’t come right out and apologize, and I didn’t, either.  We just picked up where we had left off before our quarrel.  Or so it seemed.

It was a great relief to have Tony back as my friend.  But it wasn’t the same.  Sure, we got along fine, but there was something unspoken between us, something that flowed beneath the surface like a toxic river.  We had buried the hatchet, it was true.  But we hadn’t dealt with the issue.  Why had he cheated?  Why had he gotten so mad when I called him out on it?  Why did I make such a big deal out of it?  We never addressed any of these questions.  And I don’t think our friendship was ever quite the same again.

I haven’t seen Tony or talked with him since we graduated from high school.

♣

Now, more than twenty years later, I still look back on that card game with regret.  I wish I could go back in time, shake myself, and say, “Don’t take it so seriously!  It’s not worth the cost.”  Or I wish I could whisper in the ear of my sixteen-year-old self and say, “Did you ever wonder why he cheated?  Maybe you did something to get under his skin without realizing it.”  That is certainly possible.  I never thought of Tony as a cheater.  He was a good kid.  And I did sometimes mouth off back then, get a bit too full of myself.  Maybe I had made him feel stupid when I was teaching him how to play Hearts.  Maybe I had said something condescending about the way he played a hand once.  I don’t know.  I don’t remember.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if the root of the trouble began with something just like that.

More than anything, I regret my smallness, my pettiness.  I cringe when I think back to that moment when Tony had pulled out the cards and said, “Wanna play?”  In his own way, he was trying to move on, I think, to put the argument behind us.  I could have said, “Okay, but don’t tell anyone what card to throw anymore,” and I’m sure he would have responded well.

And I feel bad that, on the first day of eleventh grade, he had walked up to me.  He had made the first move.  I wish I had.

All I can do now is say, “Tony, you did cheat, and that did make me mad.  But you must have had a reason, I guess.”

And I can say, also, two decades after the fact, but better late than never, “I shouldn’t have overreacted the way I did.  I should have been able to let it go.

“I’m sorry, Tony.  I was wrong.”

*******************

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

The Next Big Thing

One of the really nice things about starting The Eye-Dancers blog has been the interaction I’ve had with fellow bloggers.  As a part of that, I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in The Next Big Thing.  Many thanks to Maddie Cochere for her invitation.  Please take a look at Maddie’s website–she is doing great things!

The Next Big Thing is a lot of fun and it offers writers a chance to pass the baton, as it were, from week to week.  It’s a wonderful opportunity, and again, I am thrilled to be a part of it.  There are a series of questions to be answered–the same for everyone who takes part in The Next Big Thing.

1. What is the working title of your book?

The Eye-Dancers

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

On the surface, this is a simple question, but really, “where did you get your idea” questions are never altogether straightforward–at least not for me!  I am of the belief that writers don’t “get” ideas so much as ideas come to them.  This particular idea came to me first a long time ago–when I was a teenager (longer ago than I care to admit)!  I had a dream.  In the dream, I was looking out through the front window, into the street.  And there, beneath the street light, was a little girl, seven, maybe eight years old.  She was partially transparent–like a ghost, a spirit, not of this earth.  She had the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and she gestured for me to come outside with her.  (To anyone who has read Chapter One of The Eye-Dancers, this scene will be strikingly familiar!)  I woke up from that dream, and for years couldn’t figure out what to do with it.  The image of the “ghost girl” remained locked away, in an “ideas-vault,” and I wondered if it would ever be opened.  Then, just a few years ago, I had the same dream!  But this time, upon waking up, the basic idea of The Eye-Dancers took shape.  That’s how ideas so often happen. They come to you, unasked for, unplanned.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

 I would call it young adult sci-fi/fantasy–though it is not hard-core sci-fi, nor is it high fantasy.  It’s a young adult story with sci-fi and fantasy elements, and, it’s my hope, an imaginative plot that will take readers on a wild ride.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Is it okay to skip a question?  I have such clear, distinct images of the characters in The Eye-Dancers, I honestly cannot think of any actors to play the parts.  Of course, if the day ever came when a decision on such matters had to be made, I’d consider that a wonderful “problem” to have!

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

A one-sentence synopsis is very hard to come up with!  But if I had to, it would go something like this . . .

Four seventh-graders are transported to a strange world, and the only one who can help them find their way back home is the mysterious little girl with the swirling, hypnotic blue eyes.

6. What is the longer synopsis of your book?

 I will go ahead and use the blurb I have up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble . . .

Seventh-grader Mitchell Brant and three of his classmates inexplicably wake up at the back edge of a softball field to the sounds of a game, the cheering of the crowd. None of them remembers coming here. And as they soon learn, “here” is like no place they’ve ever seen. Cars resemble antiques from the 1950s. There are no cell phones, no PCs. Even the spelling of words is slightly off.

A compulsive liar, constantly telling fantastic stories to garner attention and approval, Mitchell can only wish this were just one more of his tall tales. But it isn’t. It’s all too real. Together, as they confront unexpected and life-threatening dangers, Mitchell and his friends must overcome their bickering and insecurities to learn what happened, where they are, and how to get back home.

The answers can be found only in the mysterious little girl with the blue, hypnotic eyes. The one they had each dreamed of three nights in a row before arriving here. She is their only hope. And, as they eventually discover, they are her only hope.

And time is running out.

7. Is your book self-published or represented by an agency?

 It is an indie e-book (self-published).

8. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

 The first draft took about two and a half years. 

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

 Another question that, on the surface, seems simple, but which is really quite complex.  First and foremost, my experiences growing up in Rochester, New York, the friends I shared, the adventures we had, the ideas and speculations we discussed–just kids having fun and wondering.  Imagining.  Those experiences are still very much alive in me, and they were the primary motivating factor when I wrote The Eye-Dancers. 

But also, I have always been the kind of person to ask, “What is the meaning of it all?  What, in its essence, is the ‘reality’ we all speak of?  Are things perhaps not quite what they seem?  Are they more layered?  Are there other realities, other truths, which we know no part of?”  The Eye-Dancers is a composite of all those questions and (hopefully) more.  It is the story of young friendship, overcoming obstacles, learning to believe in yourself, and keeping the faith.

In the end, it’s the characters in The Eye-Dancers who kept me dialed in, who kept me focused even on the days when the writing was hard and the creative process an uphill climb.  In a nutshell, the book was inspired by the child in all of us, the part of us that wonders why things are as they are, and that is eager to discover new and exciting frontiers.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I think (hope!) that there are various elements to The Eye-Dancers, enough disparate qualities to attract readers from across the spectrum.  If you enjoy character-driven fiction, I hope you give The Eye-Dancers a look, because it is the characters–their problems, their overcoming of adversity, their self-discovery and need to confront their own insecurities–who lie at the heart of the story.  If you enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, there are “ghost girls” and dreams and parallel universes, quantum physics and world-building and possibilities of time travel.  If you like mainstream fiction, there are many subplots and character-driven moments that, with hope, will cause you to care about and root for the boys in their quest to get back home.

And, it’s my earnest hope . . . if you simply like an interesting, imaginative story, then you will you enjoy The Eye-Dancers.

Once again, I am very grateful for this wonderful opportunity to participate in The Next Big Thing.  It was a lot of fun answering these questions.  And it’s also a privilege to pass the baton on to two other remarkable authors.

Jennifer Paetsch at her site, JenniferPaetsch.com, and Sheri Bessi at her site, The Other Side of Ugly, will answer these same questions next week!  Please join them for the next installment of The Next Big Thing . . .

–Mike