On Steampunk

I don't think I've made it a secret that I'm a little bit (read: a lot) obsessed with steampunk. I guess in part it's because my dad's an engineer and takes me on tours of steamships, and in part because I think gears and goggles are pretty freaking cool. It's to the point where I carry around my own windup clockwork-showing on-a-chain pocketwatch and made a steampunkish dress.

Oh, and writing a steampunk book.

(Well, kind of. It's more clockpunk, and also, faeries. And Czech culture.) 

From Gearfuse.com

But steampunk as a genre and as a movement kind of bothers me. It seems really...superficial. I'm being the worst kind of hypocrite when I say that, because I love all the shiny gears and corsets and stuff, but it's true. Steampunk is superficial. It's about the cool clothes! airships! clockwork creatures! machines! gears! pirates! and so forth. It's pretty and shiny and we geeks are attracted to it like Twihards are attracted to the latest paranormal romance novel.

This realization happened upon me after reading several "steampunk" novels that have been published within the last few years or so: Clockwork Heart, Leviathan, Boneshaker, Soulless, Mortal Engines, The Scar, Perdido Street Station (though the last two aren't so much steampunk as they are...weird...) ...and so forth. And it's kind of weird, but to me, the less steampunky novels (that is, ones that had some elements but were more general fantasy/weird fiction) were the better ones. 


Airborn is a great YA novel. The Scar/Perdido Street Station are favourites of mine. The others weren't bad (except for Leviathan, which caused me to lose faith in Scott Westerfield, and Mortal Engines, which are super steampunk but I can't help but adore) but they were all kind of plagued with a certain sameness. They seemed to be running on the "holy crap, STEAMPUNK!" feeling. Like someone was stuffing shiny things into our gazes. Look, mechanical wings! Oooh, giant mecha-ships! Corsets! Leviathan was the worst of the bunch - World War I became nothing more than a backdrop to lots of gears and living ships. Trivializing something like that bothered me. But they were all kind of...well, shallow. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, the two Fathers of Steampunk, had many similar elements, but they also had interesting themes and interesting commentaries on society and a whole lot of stuff that could be an essay in its own.

So, I don't know. This sameness issue isn't limited to the steampunk genre - don't we all wish people would stop writing books about the Ordinary Girl falling in love with the Supernatural Hottie? Or the Farm Boy Destined For Greatness? I know that trends happen, and once a trend is set there's not a whole lot of originality. The difference for me, at least, is the fact that steampunk has potential. A whole lot of it.  There's so much to be done with it, because it's a *relatively* new movement. It's hard to write an original fantasy book about dragons or vampires or werewolves because there are literally millions of other stories with those same elements. Steampunk's still in the toddler stage, for me.

But instead of going for that distance and trying to make a really good book, authors are satisfied with rehashing all the cool stuff. Which, on a level, I understand. Steampunk is cool. Steampunk is fun. Writing steampunk books (as I'm experiencing) is incredibly fun. I just wish people would try to make something more of it, and dig beneath the shiny layer of pretty Victorian lace and brass goggles.

I'm going to give it a shot.

Excerpt: Chiaroscuro

I've been talking about putting up an excerpt here and there of my writing for a long, long time. Well, here we go. This is one of the more recently-written bits from my novel-in-progress, Chiaroscuro. It's hard to explain the plot, but it's the story of two teenagers, Nathan and Tessa, and how they help each other out of the darkness. It's a play on the idea of this: what if your reflection didn't show who you were on the outside, but who you were on the inside? The *real* synopsis is below.

(There’s something wrong with Nathan’s reflection.)

It’s been four months since Tessa’s boyfriend, David, died, and she’s still coping with the grief. When she accidentally makes eye contact with the strange boy in the woods, though, things change. Stricken by nightmares that aren’t hers and haunted by a monster in the mirrors, Tessa realizes that there’s something dark in the woods. Something that is going to kill her. Something that needs her help…

Chapter Twenty: Chiaroscuro

I stare at him, my fingers twisting around the spiral binding of my old sketchbook. It soothes me, and I finally gather up the courage to say what I have been thinking for the last three days.

        “Let me draw you,” I say. I inhale and wait for his response.

      Nate looks confused at first, like he doesn’t understand the language I’m speaking. “Draw…?”

        “I want to draw you,” I tell him again, nodding as I pull out a handful of pencils and my sketchbook. “Please.”

        He inclines his head. “Why?”

        “I don’t know,” I mutter, unable to meet his eyes. “I just thought, you know, I haven’t been able to really draw anything in awhile, and a challenge…”

        “Sure.” He almost smiles and sits down on the floor. “Sure, okay, I guess.”

        He doesn’t get it, and I wince. “Not you,” I say quietly, taking the large handheld mirror out of my backpack. “The other you.”

        Nathan up on his feet instantly, shaking his head, and for the first time I’m a little scared. He’s so much taller than me, and the look in his eyes – blazing – makes something in my stomach twist. “No,” he says brusquely, backing away from me and moving towards the corner of the tiny room. “You can’t do that.”

        “Why not?”

        He glares at me, hunched up in the shadows like a wounded bird. “Why do you want to?”

        This time I don’t know what to say. Why would I want to draw the creature in the mirror? It’s hideous. More than that, it’s terrifying. Looking at it makes me want to run away, because there’s something wrong about it, something that sparks a deeply wound instinct to flee. This isn’t just about looks; it’s primal.

        But it’s Nathan. It’s him. That monster is him.

        Or at least a part of him. And that means something important. Not good, but important.

        “Please,” I say. “It’s the only way I can understand this.”

        Perhaps it’s the desperation in my voice or the look on my face or a million other little cues that told him that I was completely serious, but something breaks through. Nathan nods.

        “Okay,” he says. “Do it.”

        I stand up. “Come over here.”

        Nathan sits on the ground, and I hand him the mirror, then move to sit behind him. He holds it up, and we both see the monster again. It stares eerily at me – no, not it. Him. Nathan stares at me.

        “Sorry,” he mutters, and I realize that he can see the abject look of horror painted on my face.

        “It’s fine.” I flip open the sketchbook and turn to a new page. Here we go.

        Look at me!

        Yes. Don't worry. 

        I am.

        Against my will, I force myself to stare at Nathan’s reflection. I focus on details. The texture of the skin, the way light and shadows mix together in this strange little hut. The mouth. And the eyes. My pencil moves quickly.

        The eyes are Nathan’s, I realize. I never saw it before. I never looked close enough. But right in the middle of the monster, amidst the horror and hideousness, are his eyes. Nathan’s green eyes.

        It’s jarring to see such beauty, such humanity, surrounding by something crafted out of a nightmare. But at the same time, it’s absolutely hopeful. That monster isn’t just a monster. It’s Nathan’s monster, and it’s him, at least a little bit. I wonder if anyone else ever noticed that the monster in the mirror has the eyes of a human.

        I continue drawing.

        There’s an art style that I learned about a few years ago. It’s called chiaroscuro. It’s Italian. The meaning of it translates into darkness, or something similar. Instead of focusing on the lines and the structure, you look to the shadows, the intricate and delicate relationship between darkness and light. You can breathe life into your art. It’s used as a focus, as a way to indirectly direct the attention to something that may not have been seen before. I use chiaroscuro to bring all the attention to Nathan’s eyes. They are the focus of this piece of art. 

Back from Hiatus

Hey folks,

I know, I know - it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. Too long, unfortunately. It was partially because I've been busy (what as surprise) and partially because I switched email accounts before remembering that my login to this blog is one of my older emails. I had to reactivate it to get back online.

There's a lot to talk about, namely how some cool stuff has happened to me since last June (more traveling, recovering from illness) and how I'm going to be going to college next fall - I don't know where, but it's going to be in the States. :) I won't be traveling as much anymore, but I plan on keeping this blog going as a record of my reactions to America. It's going to be interesting.

There's not much else to say. I've been working hard, writing hard, and now I'm going to be blogging hard again. I hope you guys keep reading.

Cheers,
Ari