{"id":2508,"date":"2024-06-04T12:12:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T12:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/?p=2508"},"modified":"2024-06-04T17:13:48","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T17:13:48","slug":"orions-belt-fiction-interview-may-2024-carol-scheina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/orions-belt-fiction-interview-may-2024-carol-scheina\/","title":{"rendered":"Orion’s Belt Fiction Interview May 2024 (Carol Scheina)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sara Omer: In \u201cWith the City on Her Shoulders,\u201d the home city the protagonist grew up in comes to life on her, expressed in skyscraper epaulets and a graffiti-decorated jacket. The magic is so enchanting and cozy, bringing into starker contrast complex themes about place, belonging, and stereotyping. What inspired this idea of people carrying representations of their hometowns with them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carol Scheina: The story began with a Codex Writers contest in which participants write a series of flash fiction stories, each in a single weekend, based on prompts. I love the challenge of writing a story in one weekend, and the prompts are always amazing. I want to give a huge shout out to the organizers of the Codex Writers contests. Above all, I want to thank Codexian Robert Luke Wilkins, because it was his prompt that gave me both the title of my story and the mental image of someone walking around with skyscrapers on her shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next big step was to find a story to go with that image. My first, bare-bones idea for this story came when I told my husband that I wanted to capture the feeling of flying into the airport in Washington, D.C., and spotting the Washington Monument. As soon as I spot that obelisk, my heart both pounds with excitement and sighs with contentment, because I know that I\u2019m home. I was in my 20s when I first got to see the monument from the air, and the sight has never grown old. I grew up and still live in the Washington-Virginia-Maryland area, and in this story, I wanted to capture that wonderful feeling of coming home to a place that I love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoulders are a wonderful place to carry where you\u2019re from because you can wear your hometown with pride, like epaulets. But, also, shoulders can slump with shame and frustration. I\u2019ve heard so many negative things about the particular suburban area where I live, like how gangs are supposedly rampant and the schools are low performers. I\u2019ve heard people say that they would not want to raise their families here. Those things sometimes make me feel like, no matter what I say about the wonderful teachers and neighbors and environment, no one would believe me. The stereotypes are too strong. In fact, my dad used to refuse to say that he was from Washington, D.C., thinking that people would view him better if he said he was from a vague place in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I started with an image of a woman with skyscrapers on her shoulders. From there, I jumped to all of the complicated feelings I have about my hometown\u2013love, embarrassment, frustration. But, above all, I wanted the love to shine through, and I hope that it did!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO: If you were to wear your hometown, what would others see?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CS: You\u2019d see the monuments and museums of Washington, D.C. You\u2019d see the Metro subway with its glorious, honeycombed tunnels. You\u2019d see the Potomac River and its swampy, flooded banks. The bridges\u2013some old, with large statues to peer up at through the windshield, and some newer, with straight, geometric patterns. There\u2019d be traffic, oh so much traffic, with red brake lights as far as your eyes can see. So many green trees and weeds and vines that pop up in every niche and crevice. Parks and hiking trails dotting the landscape, each one an oasis of nature among the homes and buildings. Restaurants galore, allowing you to try cuisines from around the world, and lovely used bookstores to get lost in. But, above all, there would be the people. I\u2019ve known some for decades; others are there for just a visit. All of us are sharing the experience of the place together. All of that would be on my shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO: The vivid imagery in your story never overburdens your poetic prose. What advice do you have for writers on weaving lush imagery?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CS: I\u2019ll be honest, poetic writing doesn\u2019t come easy to me. In some of my early writing, I received feedback that my prose was lackluster, so I made it a point to really work on developing the skill of bringing a scene to life. I\u2019d look for places in a story where I could add more sensory details. I examined my vocabulary usage to see if I could find a better word. I\u2019d read gorgeous stories and think, \u201cHow did they bring the scene alive?\u201d Prose is something that I still work on, to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I write a story, my first drafts usually focus on capturing the action. I like to figure out what my characters are doing and where they\u2019ll end up. From there, I like to go back through the story and add in the sensory details of what my characters experience. I close my eyes, imagine myself walking in their footsteps, and write about what I would feel. What are the colors? Temperature? Sounds and smells?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the best ways I can learn whether my prose works is to have people read it. The Codex Writers group members gave me fantastic feedback on this story, as did my husband. It really helps to do a test-run of all my writing, so I know if I\u2019ve managed to make the reader imagine the same things I have, or if I need to keep tweaking the language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO: Can you recommend other work by yourself or others that have a similar dreamlike speculative examination of place like \u201cWith the City on Her Shoulders\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CS: This is kind of like trying to choose a favorite book or dessert, for so much is based on my mood at the moment. If you ask me the same question tomorrow, I\u2019d pick something completely different than I\u2019d pick today, for there are so many wonderful stories out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if I had to pick three right now, I\u2019d first go to Daily Science Fiction, which I read and studied religiously when I was first trying to figure out how to write a good flash fiction story. Through that publication, I stumbled across the story, \u201cWhen it Ends, He Catches Her,\u201d by Eugie Foster (https:\/\/dailysciencefiction.com\/fantasy\/fairy-tales\/eugie-foster\/when-it-ends-he-catches-her),<\/a>\u00a0which has stuck with me for so many years due to the gorgeous prose and lovely sense of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next story that comes to mind is \u201cThe Taste of Centuries, the Taste of Home,\u201d by Jennifer Hudak (https:\/\/www.khoreomag.com\/fiction\/the-taste-of-centuries-the-taste-of-home\/).<\/a>\u00a0That tale has also lingered with me, both for its imaginative setting but also for the way it shows the protagonist remembering a place through the memories of her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, I adore \u201cThe Ramparts, as Cold and Implacable as Love\u201d by Jess Hyslop (https:\/\/www.orions-belt.net\/archives\/the-ramparts-as-cold-and-implacable-as-love),<\/a>\u00a0with the vivid imagery battle, but also the incredible emotional power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO: What other projects do you have in the works right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


CS: I have about five stories needing revision that I\u2019m procrastinating on, and I imagine those stories are quite disappointed with me. I will get to those, I promise! I\u2019m also writing new short stories as often as I can find time. I feel like I\u2019m always trying to find a balance between my writing life and my family-work life, and I still haven\u2019t found that balance. It\u2019s like juggling, only when I catch one ball, I manage to drop another. In the meantime, I have some wonderful short stories that will be published this year. You can keep track of my writing adventures at https:\/\/carolscheina.wordpress.com\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO:  Do you write to music, and if so, what kind?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CS: I adore music, but I\u2019m also profoundly deaf. Listening to music requires that I wear my hearing aids, and it also requires a lot of focus on my part, which makes it hard to devote my attention to other things. So, when I write, I like it quiet. There\u2019s something wonderful about being able to shut out the world, and to hear nothing at all but the voices inside my head having conversations with each other. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sara Omer: In \u201cWith the City on Her Shoulders,\u201d the home city the protagonist grew up in comes to life on her, expressed in skyscraper epaulets and a graffiti-decorated jacket. The magic is so enchanting and cozy, bringing into starker contrast complex themes about place, belonging, and stereotyping. What inspired this idea of people carrying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","ph_site_tiers_settings":[[{"Price":"1.00","Tier_name":"Voyager","Tier_id":"prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"2.00","Tier_name":"Pioneer","Tier_id":"prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"5.00","Tier_name":"Cosmonaut","Tier_id":"prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"}]],"_ph_post_tiers":["prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB"],"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1178,1179,531,615,614],"class_list":["post-2508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-carol-scheina","tag-may-2024","tag-orions-belt","tag-orions-belt-interview","tag-sara-omer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}