Jennifer Brozek | October 2020

Tell Me - Loren Rhoads

Loren Rhoads is a friend of mine and she’s in one of my critique groups. I love her research stories. If you haven’t read any of her stuff—fiction or non-fiction alike, you have a treat waiting for you. Today, she’s got one hell of a research story to tell you.

One of the stories in Unsafe Words, my new collection, features Alondra DeCourval, a witch who travels the world to protect people from supernatural monsters and vice versa. I’ve written a series of stories about her over the years.

While I haven’t yet finished a novel about Alondra, I know a lot about her life. Many of the stories I’ve written take place in the year after her teacher suffers a catastrophic heart attack. Alondra panics, unable to face living in the world without Victor’s protection. She goes to more and more extreme lengths to save his life. Although “Valentine” — the story in Unsafe Words — was written early in the cycle, it actually takes place toward the end of Victor’s life.

Of all the Alondra stories, “Valentine” had the most hands-on research. I was lucky enough to have a friend whose brother taught at a small university in Northern California. When I wished someone would teach a human anatomy class for writers, Tom invited me to visit his gross anatomy lab. For two days, he gave me private lessons, using his teaching cadavers.

It had been eighteen years since I dissected a fetal pig in ninth-grade Biology. Just stepping into a science classroom after so many years was strange. The room full of rows of black countertops, tall stools pulled alongside, felt like a dream from childhood.          

The bodies weren’t kept in refrigeration units. Instead, they waited in the front of the classroom, lying in a long stainless steel bin with a hinged two-piece top. One of the memories still clear from ninth-grade dissection was the headache-inducing smell of formaldehyde. Thank goodness preservative technology improved.

When Tom folded open the stainless steel lid, a length of muslin floated atop the brownish red liquid inside. I recoiled but couldn’t look away. Too thin for blood, the liquid reminded me of beef broth. Pools of oil slicked its surface.

Tom moved to the far end of the tank. “See that handle there? You can help me by turning it.”

There should have been scary music as we cranked the cadavers out of the fluid. The bodies rose slowly until the muslin took on their outlines. Two corpses lay head to feet. Through their shrouds, I saw bared teeth and the flensed musculature of jaw.

If Tom had made them twitch, I would have leapt out of my own skin.

He pulled on some heavy turquoise rubber gloves, then folded back the muslin so it shrouded both faces and one entire body. The other woman lay naked and revealed. Her skin had been stripped away. The muscle fibers of her chest were very directional and clear, the raw color of a New York strip steak. Some of the muscles on her arms had been removed to display the bones and tendons beneath. Her fingertips still had skin and nails. Her flesh was the color of dried blood.          

Over the next two days, Tom patiently led me through a semester’s worth of anatomy. Toward the end, he lectured me about cardiac structures. Without warning, he reached out to put a human heart in my hand.

The heart was smaller than I expected, about the size of my fist. I turned it over in my gloves, peering into every opening. I felt like Hamlet with Yorick’s skull. I knew instantly that I was gazing at my own death. My father will die of heart disease, like his father before him. I don’t see how I can escape destiny.

That moment — holding a stranger’s heart in my hand — led directly to writing “Valentine.”

---

Loren Rhoads is the author of a space opera trilogy, a duology about a succubus who falls in love with an angel, and a collection of short stories called Unsafe Words. You can find out more about her work at https://lorenrhoads.com/

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

There are some simple joys in life that you forget about until you unexpectedly experience them again. The one that I recently got to experience is the simple joy of coming home after a trip.

The Husband and I sequestered ourselves in a cabin in the woods by a lake with very little internet (those who know, know) for five days for his birthday. We took every precaution we could: not stopping on the way there, masks, sanitizer, social distancing, etc… We kept it up on our hikes. There was only one person we did not see at least carrying a mask on the hike.

The week away was needed. We spent time in the woods, listened to Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, watched pre-downloaded videos and I watched the Husband play a LOT of HADES—which is spectacular. The writing is amazing, the lore is parceled out, the story opens like an onion, not only do you never have to fight Cerberus, you can pet the puppy, and I am so here for a Thanatos/Zagreus pair up. The replay value on the game is super high, especially for what is basically a looping rogue-lite dungeon crawler.

However, five days away was enough. We both enjoyed the break but we were ready to come home. It was a good feeling after seven months in the house with brief grocery runs to break it up.

On the way home, I felt the blossoming of joy and reveled in the moment. It was me and the Husband driving up the last long leg of the trip. Homebound within the hour. I thought, “Heaven is us driving home, being together, anticipating the joy of our cats, our familiar comforts, and our own territory.”

I hadn’t felt that feeling in over a year.

I’d missed it.

Now I appreciate everything I have all the more.

Bubble & Squeek for 2 Oct 2020

As I'm going to be taking next week as a social media break, here's a bubble and squeek for you.

Call for Submissions: 99 Tiny Terrors. This is my 19th anthology and is the first open call in a long time. I like creepy and atmospheric. All guidelines are here. Call closes EOD, Oct 31.

Cool Distraction: Window Swap FTW. Sometimes you just have to stare out someone else's window. If you need an interesting distraction, this is the website for you.

Workshop: Writing for Franchises, Oct 24, 1-3pm. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to write fiction for your favorite RPG, movie, TV series, videogame, or comic book? The Writing for Franchises workshop can give you an idea of what it is like to write in a universe you do not own—the benefits, the pitfalls, and some of the details you should be aware of. This workshop is focused around writing short stories, novellas, and novels for popular franchises such as Shadowrun, V-Wars, Predator, Master of Orion, and Valdemar.

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.