Spinning a Yarn, Weaving a Tale by Dana Cameron

Jenn McKinlay: I am absolutely thrilled to have long time Jungle Red Writers' friend Dana Cameron with us today and not just because she is talking about a craft I have been wanting to take up for years -- weaving -- but also because she's an amazing author. Still, how cool is that? Serendipity, no? Take it away, Dana...

Dana Cameron: 

I’m a big fan of having something that you love to do, while giving 

yourself permission to be absolutely awful at it. Right now, it’s 

weaving and spinning. I’ve been weaving for almost three years now, 

and I’m improving. Three months ago, when a dear friend was looking 

to rehome her grandmother’s spinning wheel, she kindly thought of 

me. I’m still learning how to spin a consistent yarn. But! Going 

through these imperfect processes is invaluable when I’m working on 

writing too.

       Part of the reason was that I learned to sew at a young age and I love textiles. Part of it was curiosity about the historical side of things, and how women (especially) spent part of their working days. Spinning can take you as far back as 40-50,000 years ago, and weaving, almost that far back into Neanderthal technology. I also was curious about the places in which spinning and weaving show up in many cultural traditions: Athene’s contest with Arachne; Penelope weaving her stole to keep her home-invading suitors at bay; Spider Woman, who gave the Navajo people textile crafts and agriculture; the Nornir, who ordained everyone’s fate by spinning, weaving, then severing the threads of a life at the foot of Yggdrasil.

       So, good stuff for an archaeologist. And good stuff for a writer, too: after a day spent spinning one's wheels in the writing mines, sitting at the loom or spinning wheel can produce something solid. It’s incredibly soothing to have moved along in one project, if not another, and it gives you perspective. 

       For example, when I began weaving, my goal was to make some napkins. I’d fume over incorrect warping, skipped threads, or the wrong color change, but learned to ask: is it still something I could use to wipe spaghetti sauce off my face? If so, cool! I’ve made a thing and I can either fix it now or do better next time. If I’m left with a tangled pile of threads, I can ask myself: Do I need to learn more, can I improve—will this give into study and practice? Or: Is this really what I want to be doing with these threads—would I be better using them for macrame? 

       It also reminds me that if I have a pile of words that refuse to form a story, I need to ask myself: Am I taking this project in the right direction? Or maybe it’s a mess, but some of the words are still calling me: Does this need to be a poem? Does it indicate something that needs more research, first? Do I want to write, or am I trying to create but need another medium? Am I writing with passion but about the wrong thing? 

       Getting into a rhythm of weaving or spinning is a good distraction at the end of the day, an opportunity for random ideas to bob to the surface, while you’re focusing on something else. And if it’s not so calming—say, you’ve got your warping sheds all wrong, or you can’t get the right speed in your treadling and the spinning wheel’s orifice keeps swallowing your broken yarn—well, you feel that much better about writing afterwards. Learning something new can remind you how far you’ve come in your other skills. Doing research into the history and folklore of these crafts has provided inspiration for my Fangborn novels and stories: in Hellbender, Zoe Miller perceives time and space as intersecting warp and weft threads. 

       Although having these activities is useful for both letting your brain rest and inspiring other ideas, there is one major drawback. You have to be on constant guard against cats attempting to ensnare themselves in your warp, chew on your yarn, or attack a bag of unspun wool that still smells ever-so-faintly of sheep. 

How about you, Reds and Readers, what activities do you do to let your brain rest and recharge? 

Dana Cameron writes across many genres, but especially crime and speculative fiction. Her work, inspired by her career in archaeology, has won multiple Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity Awards, and has been nominated for the Edgar Award. Dana's Emma Fielding archaeology mysteries were optioned by Muse Entertainment and appear on the Hallmark Movie & Mystery Channel. Pandora’s Orphans: A Fangborn Collection drops on July 13, 2021, and is available for pre-order everywhere. For more information, check out www.dcle-publishing.com/pandoras-orphans.  

Dana Cameron and the Cliffhanger Ending

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Writer Dana Cameron is one of our favorite guests on JRW. She's as funny, interesting, and multi-talented as her heroines. (She is, like two of her heroines, an archeologist, but she is NOT a werewolf. Or so she says...) She is also the mistress of the cliffhanger ending, a subject dear to my heart.

DANA CAMERON:  Recently, I encountered something I'd always hoped to avoid:  an angry dental hygienist. 
    I had showed up, early, for my regular checkup, and she, the DH, came out to the waiting room, not quite swinging, but definitely riled.
    “You get in there, and you sit down!” DH said.  “I'm so mad at you!”
    She's usually really pleasant and, like I said, I visit the dentist twice a year and get there early, so I couldn't imagine what I'd done that was so bad.  I got very nervous when I saw the tray of sharp, shiny tools next to the dental chair; they looked even more sinister than usual.  I didn't like to think what the DH was capable of doing with them.
    “What's up?” I started to say, but she laid into me before I got the second syllable out.
    “How could you do that?  How could you leave Zoe hanging like that?  At the end?”
    This slowed me down, because I have a cat named Zoe (for the character in “Firefly”), and as far as I knew, hadn't left her hanging anywhere. It took me a minute to realize the DH meant my character Zoe Miller, the archaeologist (and occasional werewolf) in my first two urban fantasy novels, Seven Kinds of Hell  and Pack of Strays . At the end of Strays, I'd left Zoe in the middle of a very bad spot, surrounded by enemies who want to destroy her Fangborn Family, and then suddenly, threw a monkey wrench into the works.  I finished that book with a cliffhanger.

 I didn't undertake a cliffhanger intentionally, and certainly didn't decide to keep it lightly.  I once stood up in bed and screamed, having reached the end of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, not realizing the book is unfinished.  I knew there had to be a HEA, but to read all that and not have a wedding?  It wasn't even a matter of waiting for a sequel, because Gaskell had died before finishing the book, a century before I was born.  So I understand Narrative Interruptus.  My husband, Mr. G, still regularly asks me if the book I'm enjoying is finished, and whether the author is still alive. He was traumatized by that book too, mostly because my screaming woke him up.
    As a reader, I remember how I felt when I reached the end of Tolkien's The Two Towers and couldn't get to the library fast enough to find out what happened to Sam and Frodo.  I was lucky, coming to the Hunger Games books late, just before the third one, so I didn't have too long to wait.  I remembering wondering what could be right with the world when The Empire Strikes Back ended the way it did.  With the third episode of every season of Sherlock, I'm left wondering how I'll make it another year (or two or three!) I won't be able to bear it.  And yet, there is a deliciousness in being so involved in a story, and then so surprised by an ending that isn't exactly...complete.
    But as a writer, I want that kind of engagement.  I want a reader to be involved and be going through, at some level, what my protagonist is experiencing.  I also know that there has to be an end to a book.  As I was finishing Strays, I'd written what ended up being the first chapter of Hellbender before I realized I'd started a whole new book.  I had to leave some of the ending's resolution for the next book.  If I could have found a way to end with less drama, would I?  I don't think so.  The second book in an arc has to have tension in it.  You need that suspense. 
    Finally, I was able to reassure the DH that Hellbender was being written and that she would have her answers.  And with the launch of Hellbender last week, I hope she is pleased with how I got Zoe out of the bind and initiated the chaos of I-Day, or the “identification” of the Fangborn to the rest of the world, which is probably not ready to learn that vampires, werewolves, and oracles walk among them.
    So readers, do you have a favorite cliffhanger?  Or do you simply hate them, craving immediate closure?  Writers, to you avoid them or embrace them in a series? 
  
Whether writing colonial noir, thriller, urban fantasy, or traditional mystery, Dana Cameron draws from her expertise in archaeology.  Her fiction has earned multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards and an Edgar Award nomination.  Hellbender, the third Fangborn urban fantasy novel, is available now from 47North, and her Sherlockian pastiche, "The Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet," was published in 2014.  Dana lives in Massachusetts with her husband and benevolent feline overlords.


DEBS: Dana, we are obviously kindred souls! Firefly AND Elizabeth Gaskill? AND The Lord of the Rings?? (And yes, I do like cliffhangers. You might have guessed...)

        

Dana Cameron--Mycroft Holmes and Fangborn World

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It is always such a treat to have the multi-talented author Dana Cameron as one of

our guests on JRW. You know you can count on Dana for something fun and interesting, and when I saw the title of today's post I couldn't wait to read it! So without further ado here is Dana on:

Mycroft Holmes, Spies, and My Fangborn World

  

Recently, our own Hank Phillippi Ryan mentioned my fascination with all things Sherlockian.  Last week, at the Femmes Fatales blog, I wrote about how I came to write my Sherlockian pastiche story, “The Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet, ” and the challenges ofcombining Arthur Conan Doyle's world with my Fangborn urban fantasy 'verse.  Today, I write about spies and Sherlock Holmes's (arguably) smarter brother and how they might fit into my Fangborn universe of heroic werewolves, vampires, and oracles.

        

 Everyone has a favorite Sherlockian character or story, apart from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, of course.  I personally am most intrigued by the characters that make the biggest impact, but from the shadows.  For me, that means Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older brother and a titan in both brains and body.  Sherlock describes him to Watson at first as having a position in the British government but later reveals that “occasionally, [Mycroft] is the British government.”  Mycroft is virtually a human computer and and his specialty is “omniscience.”  Recently, I was honored to be a part of the inaugural meeting of the

Diogenes Club of Washington, D.C., a scion society  devoted to Sherlockian pursuits and named for the private club that Mycroft founded (here I'm sporting my club badge). 

           

My interest in Mycroft also stems from my infatuation with spies and spying. It was the glamorized, mythologized fictions that spoke to me first (most of my Barbie dolls were chemists or spies), but it was a paper I did in high school that sealed the deal from the non-fiction point of view when I wrote about the Special Operations Executive.  The SOE was formed at the request of Winston Churchill in 1940 to spy on and sabotage the Axis powers in Europe; the SOE was the foundation of what would eventually become MI6.  Because of their irregular and “ungentlemanly” tactics—commando skills, criminal techniques, and all-around dirty fighting were their preferred methods—and their headquarters in Baker Street, the SOE referred to themselves as the Baker Street Irregulars.

 They took their name from the original Baker Street Irregulars which, you probably know, were the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.  Sherlock Holmes needed a covert network of spies to aid his investigations through the mazes of 19th-century London.  He paid homeless children for their information and their ability to move about unseen; they were, sadly, all but invisible in the streets of the capital.  Because of these connections—Mycroft's important role as a clearinghouse of information in the government and the children's use of their criminal skills—other fiction writers have suggested that Mycroft was actually the founder of the British Secret Service and that the “M” of James Bond fame refers to his name and was passed down as a title.

          

 In my short story, “The Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet,” I combine the world of Sherlock Holmes and my own Fangborn world of superhero vampires, werewolves, and oracles.  Their own covert activities—secretly fighting evil and protecting humanity—made that a natural avenue for me to explore while writing about Sherlock's Baker Street Irregulars.  

Mycroft's role in the British government made me wonder what Britain's official stance on the Fangborn would be and his “omniscience” made me wonder what he knew about the hidden history of the Fangborn and their powers.  Finding those connections offered me endless fun mashing up these two worlds.

So, Reds and readers:  who is your favorite Sherlockian character?  Favorite story or adaptation for the screen?

Dana Cameron can't help mixing in a little history into her fiction.  Drawing from her expertise in archaeology, Dana's work (including traditional mystery, noir, urban fantasy, thriller, and historical tales) has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards and earned an Edgar Award nomination. Her third Fangborn novel, Hellbender, will be published in April 2015 by 47North.  Her most recent Fangborn short story is a Sherlockian pastiche; "The Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet" was published in October.  Her story, "The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars," featuring Pam Ravenscroft from Charlaine Harris's acclaimed Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, appears in DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse.   Www. danacameron.com

DEBS: Dana, so jealous of the badge!  But LOVE the idea of Mycroft being the originator of M!! You can certainly imagine that Mycroft in Mark Gatiss's portrayal in Sherlock. As for favorite characters, I think mine would have to be Watson as he is written in the original Conan Doyle stories, and as he's played--very true to form, I think, by Martin Freeman in Sherlock.

REDS and readers, what about you?

The Jungle Red Casting Couch. Kind of.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Last CrimeBake, or was it two ago? Jonathan and I dressed as Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

(Here's a photo of that.) We carried a Maltese Falcon, which was a (don't tell) stuffed owl we had spray-painted black. (It was a costume party, I guess I should explain. We didn't just walk around like that.)

Now, if I may predict? I predict that my dear pal and brilliant author Dana Cameron is now doing a spit-take with her morning coffee. Because she and her husband were just talking about The Maltese Falcon, and Sam and Mary. And their conversation went another way. Not, shockingly, about Jonathan and me as the leads.

Just--listen. And then--see what you think!

Recasting “The Maltese Falcon”

       by Dana Cameron

            Mr. G and I were out walking at a nearby farm, looking for signs of spring.  The discussion, there being no hawks, coyotes, or frogs in view, naturally turned to movies.

            “Okay, we're recasting 'The Maltese Falcon," I said.  “Who plays what role?”

            “What about Matthew McConaughey?” Mr. G said.  “He's got an edgy outsider look I think Sam Spade should have.”

  

            “What about Russell Crowe?  Think 'L.A. Confidential.'”

            Mr. G shook his head.  “I think of Spade as being on the coffee, cigarette, whisky, and tough steak diet.  Not getting a lot of sleep.  Getting punched or slipped a mickey on a regular basis.  Crowe is too...”

            I kept “fit,” “strapping,” and “physical” to myself. “Healthy?  Then how about Paul Bettany?”

            “Your obsession with him has to stop.” 

        “Are you kidding me?  'Master and Commander' is one of my all-time favorites!  And he's J.A.R.V.I.S in the 'Iron Man and 'Avengers' movies.  He can wear a big white shirt in a period piece while being the heroic scientific outsider and be the perfect wry yet charismatic computer interface voice.”

Photo by Natasha Baucus

  

            “And when I say 'obsession,' I mean it in the kindest, most clinical sense.”

            “Okay, okay.  Who's going to play the Mary Astor role, Mary O'Shaughnessy?  The manipulative damsel in distress?”  A few more steps, a pause to take a picture of a cow who was studying us through the fence.  “Aha!  Kristen Bell!”

            “Good one!  She can do low-down and dirty—as in 'Deadwood' and in 'House of Lies.'  And in 'Veronica Mars,' she's all kinds of smart and sweet.”

            “Right, I have one:  John Goodman for Gutman, the Sidney Greenstreet character.”

            “Oh, he did good sinister, erudite, and jolly in 'O, Brother'!” 

            We were on a roll, settling on Jon Hamm for the detective, leaving Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, up in the air, narrowed down to D.J. Qualls or Neil Patrick Harris.  I'm convinced IMDB.com is responsible for saving many relationships simply by quickly resolving arguments over who was in what.

            “You'll have to find out who's available,” Mr. G said, as if

we were wrapping up a business meeting, and our people would call their people.  

“By the way, who would you cast in Pack of Strays?" 

Photo by Gage Skidmore

   “Easy.  I'd get Mary Elizabeth Winstead for Zoe Miller.  I loved her look and attitude as Ramona Flowers in 'Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.'  Zoe's an archaeologist but she's also a werewolf,  searching for powerful Fangborn artifacts.  It makes her the ultimate outsider."

     “Sounds like a great part for Paul Bettany.”

 “I'm ignoring you.  And when my editor asked about the unreliable Adam Nichols, to get some cues for the cover art, I knew immediately.  Armie Hammer as Tyler Winkelvoss in 'The Social Network.”  When someone suggests they hire the Sopranos to beat up Zuckerberg, he says, “We can do that ourselves. I'm 6'5", 220, and there's two of me.”  That is exactly Adam's attitude.”

            
We finished the walk and it was time to move on.  “Okay, next movie.  We're remaking 'The Thin Man.'  Who gets cast as Nora?”

            “No one.  Myrna Loy is Nora Charles forever.  I love Myrna Loy.”

            “When I say 'obsession,' I mean your fixation on Myrna Loy.”

            “We're done here.”

So readers:  Who would you cast in The Maltese Falcon?  Or if you believe it should never be remade, who would play you in the movie of your life?  Leave a comment to be entered into a drawing for a copy of Pack of Strays!

HANK:  I am still searching for my Jane Ryland...so funny! (I have considered the woman in the Chico's ad. You know who I mean? And I wish it could be Annette Bening, or Rene Russo.)  And I agree about Nora--no one but Myrna.  

And Pack of Strays to one lucky commenter! 

***************** 

 Dana Cameron can't help mixing in a little history into her fiction.  Drawing from her expertise in archaeology, Dana's work (including traditional mystery, noir, urban fantasy, thriller, and historical tales) has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards and earned an Edgar Award nomination. 
Her second Fangborn novel, Pack of Strays (47North) picks up where Seven Kinds of Hell  left off.  A Fangborn short story, "The God's Games" appears in Games Creatures Play, and her story, "The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars," featuring Pam Ravenscroft from Charlaine Harris's acclaimed Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, will appear in Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse in May.
http://www.Danacameron.com