Author: mirandasuri

Miranda Suri: writer, teacher, archaeologist, traveler.

Homeward bound

Today (assuming Delta and the weather cooperate), I’ll be winging my way home to NYC. Goodbye, Missouri!

It’s been a trip with a lot of highs and lows. Spending time with my friend Bill and his wife Mary over the last two weeks has been awesome. I even got to see my good writer friend, Brent, who lives here in the KC area. Missouri is quite beautiful right now, all verdant and lush, and KC has a plethora of yummy restaurants. So, those aspects of the trip were great.

Don’t get me wrong, the dig had its highs too, but there were some lows, my friends. Indeed, there were. The work was challenging physically, and it was quite hot, quite buggy, and quite hard not to be able to go home (or even inside) when we were done for the day. Camping sounded like it would be fun (and sometimes, when the fireflies were out and it cooled down, it was), but mostly it just made things more difficult. And we didn’t find very much. The Steed-Kisker house we’d hoped to excavate appeared to have already been destroyed by modern farming activities. So that was a bummer.

But! I have new muscles and am rocking a farmer’s tan. And I’m excited to be heading home. I miss my husband and my cat and my friends and my apartment and…well, you get the idea.

So, today I’m NYC-bound and looking forward to getting in some writing time on the plane. Bon voyage!

She Lives

Well, it’s been two weeks, hasn’t it? Perhaps the time has flown by for you, but I’ve felt every second of it. Being an archaeologist, after all, is sometimes very hard work.

To wit: I’ve spent the last 14 days troweling through soil that was either a muddy, clay-like soup or sun-baked cement, depending on the weather. In a very cruel and unobliging turn, that soil flatly refused to yield up anything of interest or cultural value (save a handful of pot sherds, a few stone tools, and a very sad remnant of a post hole). Sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles. And it wasn’t a total waste. I have muscles now. Also, I’ve been introduced to a staggering variety of ticks, spiders, beetles, and ants. Perhaps the real win, though, was the company we kept. From the volunteers who joined us ad hoc to the Army Corps folks we worked with day in and day out, we came up aces. And good company makes up for a lot.

One of the (many) nice things about being finished with our excavations is that I can get back to writing again. There was only energy enough for my body or my brain to be working out in that hot sun, so I didn’t accomplish much on the creativity front. Now, though, I’m ready to dive into revising Project Awesome before sending it to Beta readers. I’ve also got a short story ready for revisions.

First, though, I’ve still got a few days left in Kansas City. We may not have found much, but we do have to wash, process, and analyze the artifacts we turned up. There’s also a report to be written for the Army Corps. So, there’s that to be done. Soon, though, its home to Brooklyn, back to my husband and my cat and the start of a proper summer.

In the meantime, here are some photos from the dig to give you an idea of what archaeology in Missouri in June looks like 😉

Enjoy!

 

 

In which there will be camping

Come Monday morning, I’ll be putting on my archaeology hat (and, no, it isn’t an Indiana Jones fedora but a very sensible ball cap) and heading out into the wilds of Missouri on a hunt for prehistory!

I’ve posted about this upcoming project on my archaeology blog, but in brief I’ll be excavating a small native American homestead located along the margins of the Plains Village and Mississippian worlds and dating roughly AD 950-1400.

Most of my work up until now (save some stints working in New Mexico and Washington) has been in Latin America, and specifically Honduras. So this is a pretty major change of pace. No big buildings, no stone architecture, no temples, and so on. Also no cushy house with electricity and running (albeit cold) water. We’ll be camping at the site for several weeks, making friends with all the local ticks and chiggers. Yay!

There is a nearby RV park, so we’re hoping to be able to keep our mobile devices charged up and ready to go and thus provide amusing updates from the field. So, stay tuned for that 😉

Anyway, long story short…I’m off! Bum babumbum, bum, babum! Bum babumbum, bumbabumbumbum! (well, you know how it goes).

The words! They will not be stopped!

Since returning from my writing retreat in Philadelphia last weekend I have been on freaking fire. Not literally, of course, but you know!

While at the retreat I drafted a new short story that I’m kind of totally enamored with. Since getting back, I’ve revised it, written a new piece of flash fiction, reworked an older short that needed some love, and FINALLY finished the editing pass I was slogging through on one of my novels. All in one week! (and believe me, there was plenty of loafing around and watching crap on Hulu and such mixed in there for good measure). I’m feeling mighty.

It’s always stimulating to produce new work, and I really think getting the fresh material flowing provided a necessary break from editing and revising, enabling me to to return to that reinvigorated. Productive Writer is productive!

Plus, in a week I’m leaving town for two and a half weeks to camp and excavate at an archaeological site in Missouri, during which (let’s be honest) not a lick of writing is getting done. So, nice to be killing it now.

So, back to work!

Over and out.

Summer begins?

I’m leaving town tomorrow and heading to Philadelphia to spend some time with fellow writers, catch up with old friends, and eat my way through the culinary delights of the city of Brotherly Love — assuming, that is, I can get the last of my grading done. The semester is over, but like a bad rash its aftermath just won’t go away. I’ve got a couple delinquent research papers and exams still to mark and grades to submit. But soon…yes, soon I shall be free.

Summer. Much-anticipated and filled to the brim with goodness. Unfettered time to write (or in the case of this summer’s plan, revise Project Awesome). Trips to Seattle and Norway to look forward to. Even a short excavation season coming up in June and July to keep the inner archaeologist sated. Only three months, but so much awesomeness!

Yes, once it truly begins, this summer should be a delicious one.

Until then, back to the grading mines!

Reversal of Fortune

Yay! My latest publication, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, is now available to read in Fictionvale Magazine. You can purchase a digital copy (for kindle, .epub, or .pdf) for $3.99.

The story explores a near-future in which Manhattan has become a post-apocalyptic prison cut off from the rest of the world. Survivors have cobbled together a twisted game in which they vie for territory and resources, but when two little girls mysteriously appear on the George Washington Bridge the game is thrown into disarray and power shifts in a way none of the players could have imagined.

The issue of Fictionvale in which REVERSAL OF FORTUNE appears (Episode #3: A Different Outcome) revolves around the theme of alternate history and includes nine fantastic tales, in addition to mine. I hope you’ll check it out!

Getting where you’re going in five not-so-easy steps

We’re about midway through the Paradise Lost IV workshop, and I’m starting to realize that if there’s a theme to this weekend’s lectures, critiques, and discussions it’s this:  think about the long game, both in your career and in your writing.

Many of the talks and lectures have focused on structure, narrative, outlining and how to make pacing and dialogue work for you as you lay pipe toward your big finish.

How can you set things up? How can you pay them off? When & where do you want place the big reveals and redirects, and when do you give your reader a moment to take a breath? How can spoken interactions between characters function as action, advance the plot, and get the reader where they need to go? How do you make the beginning and ending of your novel echo back on each other?

In short, how do we think about structure?

This weekend’s instructors, J.A. Pitts, Melinda Snodgrass, and Walter Jon Williams are, perhaps by coincidence or perhaps by design, a great combination of guests. Their insights and remarks have dovetailed off one another in really thought-provoking ways, yet they’ve also provided distinct perspectives. Their advice, while generalizable, has also been personal and definitive. There’s something refreshing to hearing someone say, “yes, everyone has their own method, but this particular method really works, so listen up.”

Rather than zoning out during lectures and then going back to my room to surf the web or crash, I’ve found myself engrossed — the guest instructor’s remarks have stirred up ideas and insights on my current writing projects in spades. After each session, I’ve hurried back to my room to make notes on my outlines — full of new ideas to see my way through problems that had previously stumped me.

Basically, I’m getting a lot out of PLIV and enjoying the hell out the fine company at the workshop to boot.

What more can you ask for?

The Lone Star Two-Step

Or, I could title this post “On the Road Again” or “Back to Texas I go” or…you get the idea.

This weekend is the Paradise Lost writers retreat in San Antonio, Texas. I’ll be there, soaking up knowledge, participating in critiques, eating healthful cuisine (erm…scratch that last, I guess), and hanging out with friends. And, when it’s all over and I return on Monday, I am happy to report that I won’t be getting on an airplane again for at least a month and a half.

Today, though, I journey to Queens, suitcase in hand, teach, teach, teach, trundle to the airport, and then wing my way to the Lone Star State.

I’ll try to post something useful this weekend. Emphasis on try.