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Member Spotlight: Nighteyes Dayspring
For the month of November, we got the chance to talk with Nighteyes Dayspring about his writing.
Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?
The project I just finished is a story called “Mile High” I submitted to Heat, that I’m hoping to see get included in the next issue. This story follows a charter pilot on a trip to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe where he and his crew are picking up a mysterious passenger to take to New York. Jonas, the captain of the aircraft, has been paired with a new first officer he doesn’t like very much. This piece deals with the tension between Jonas, his first officer, and a hyena who catches Jonas’s eye.
I’ve got a friend who is currently training to be a pilot, and he’s been telling me about the experience, so it sparked an interest in me and served as an inspiration. I like to make stories like this as accurate as I can, so there were a lot of technical details for this story I had to conduct research on to get right. I had to run certain sections of dialogue by aviation-oriented friends to make sure they’re correct. I watched a number of different cockpit videos just to get the feeling of landing and handling a plane right. I also used a tiny bit of French dialogue to help establish the feeling of being in Guadeloupe, which I ran by our resident French speaker, Erkhyan, to make sure what Google Translate suggested was correct. Also, since Guadeloupe isn’t a place I’ve been, and it’s not on Google Street View, I also watched dash cam video shot in Guadeloupe of someone just driving around the island in order to capture the feeling of the setting.
I know some people might consider this overkill, especially for an adult story, but I feel it’s important if you are using a real place, even in a world inhabited by furries, to try and get the details right. In anything based on reality there are going to be small things you might fudge, either because you can’t find out about something or you need something to be setup a certain way for the purpose of the story, but I like that to be a conscious decision on the part of the writer.
Now the fact I called the story “Mile High?” I just couldn’t resist the word play.
What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between? How do you find that this helps and/or hurts your writing style?
I’ve always been more of a pantser than an outliner, but that’s started to change. As I’ve worked on longer work, I’m finding that pantsing just doesn’t work for me. I can’t just write a novel without an outline and clear direction. I’ve tried it twice. One time it was an abysmal failure; I will someday figure out how to fix that piece. The other time, I took a half-written novel and rushed it to completion. I’ve been working on that book, Scars of the Golden Dancer, on and off for years, beating the back half into some semblance of readability. It’s only recently reached a state where I’m ready to start shopping it around.
I think there are merits to both approaches. There is something about taking a few tidbits, sitting down and seeing where it’s going. I love doing that, but in order to get the type of stories I want to write, and produce longer work, I find I need to invest more in planning and worldbuilding. I’m sure someone out there can pants a whole novel and it will be brilliant, but that’s not me. A consequence I find with pantsing sometimes is that I’ll do that to explore an idea, and then it will click what I want it to be. This aha moment is great, but that often requires rewriting large chunks of the story in order to make it smooth and even.
What’s your favorite kind of story to write?
I like to write stories with well executed details in interesting settings. Even when I’m writing erotica, I think it’s important to make your world feel real. If I can create a setting and story as a writer where I get to explore, I can generally take the reader along with me for a fun ride. Of course, I still need good characters with their own personalities, strengths, and flaws to make the story complete. When I successfully bring together a rich setting and fun characters to write, I find the story will flow much easier. I think an element of exploration is important with writing. If I want to see what’s going to happen, if I want to be there with these characters, the reader is going feel that same passion, and they’re going to keep reading.
Like anything though, there are exceptions where I’ve focused on just the characters, letting the setting fade away some. I’ve written two stories about a couple that have yet to leave their apartment. There is a tight focus on their interactions, and while it’s outside of my typical wheelhouse, I still think it worked well.
Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?
The character I most identify with is a jackal character called Zayn. He’s the primary subject of Scars of the Golden Dancer. This project has taken me eight years to shape, but in that time, I’ve gotten to explore Zayn’s personality in great detail, and I feel a strong attachment to him. At his core, Zayn is quintessentially a survivor. In the start of the novel, he’s working as a prostitute and he’s done things to support himself that others would shy away from. This makes him a broken character, but I love that I’ve gotten to take him from his lowest point and rebuild him. I’ve never personally been as desperate as Zayn, but I know this feeling of having to rebuild yourself well. Watching Zayn work to heal, to learn to love again, has been cathartic for me, and these emotions bring back memories about parts of my youth.
The first part of his journey will be included in FANG Volume 9 in the story “Silk and Sword”, which will be out next month.
Which authors or books have most influenced your work?
It’s tough to answer a question like this discussing furry writing without mentioning Kyell Gold. Back when I was first exploring furry books, Kyell’s writing was starting to get well known, and it was a real inspiration to try achieve something like he was doing. I took a break from writing for a while, but around 2010, I got my first sale with FurPlanet, and I started seeing writing as a more serious activity. Since then I’ve met a number of writers who’ve influenced me, and that I get to beta swap with. There are so many great writers in the Furry Writers’ Guild I’ve met, I don’t think I can fairly name a few without making it a long list.
For writers outside of the fandom that most inspired me, Ray Bradbury would be at the top of that list. Bradbury wrote a lot of great stuff, and reading book like the Martin Chronicles, which is a fixup of short stories, really helped me get the confidence to start stringing my small ideas together. If someone of Bradbury’s stature could create a book out of disconnected stories, I too could start linking some of my short stories into bigger work. This is still a transition I’m going through, but I’ve kept Bradbury in mind as I’ve laid out the groundwork to build a novel series.
What’s the last book you read that you really loved?
This is another tough one. I’ve read some great stuff. I’m going to have to say Kismet by Watts Martin. It’s got a great plot, and the world building is really exciting to read about. I love the way Watts’s protagonist Gale has a deep back story that she can rely on and yet struggle against. Gale inhabits a world where bioengineering can make you an anthro, called totemics in the book, but she also inhabits a world where not everyone is happy about that. I think the way Watts investigates humanity’s struggle with what totemics represent to the future of humanity, against the backdrop of the River, space colonies built along the asteroid belt, is really exciting. He’s got a very rich world, and a great story coupled with pertinent questions about identity I think readers can really ponder as they read the book. It’s a book that explores some of same kinds of issues we currently see in the news, but it’s also a story that gives us some distance from the news of the day.
Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?
I enjoy board gaming a lot. I’m a fan of both competitive and cooperative games. My currently favorite games are Scythe, The Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Greyport, and Glory to Rome. I’m also an avid fan of music, although my tastes are quite diverse. Being a writer, I’ve got different albums for different moods. When I was working on editing Dissident Signals with Slip-Wolf, I had over a dozen albums I was using as background music for the project.
Advice for other writers?
First, read. I know everyone is busy with their life, but if you want to be a writer, you need to read. Also, don’t be afraid to take chance and try new things.
I’d like to point out, there’s a lot of writing advice out there. I think it’s critical to keep in mind you should do what works for you. The way I write may not work for you, and the way you write may not work for me. And you know what? That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. You need to find the techniques and styles that work for you. Writing has a lot of guidelines, but not a lot of hard and fast rules. Even grammar is something that has its subjective elements. People have been arguing about the Oxford comma and split infinitives since before any of us were born, and someone out there will likely be arguing about those long after we’re gone.
Where can readers find your work?
Most of my work is for sale through FurPlanet. I also maintain on my website a comprehensive list all of my published stories. My next published story is going to be “Silk and Sword”, and will be in FANG Volume 9, which is coming out at Midwest FurFest 2018.
What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom? Why write furry?
Furry helped me find who I really was. I spent my teenage and adult years in a part of the United States where you just don’t come out as gay. I know people did back when I was a teen, but I never know anyone who just went around saying they were gay. I had a friend who told me about the fandom back in High School, and the fact I could just be me without layers was something I found very appealing. Getting involved in the fandom was a slow process for me, but I’ve always loved how it has connected me with other people, without having to hide who I was.
As for writing furry, I’ve been interested in writing about animals my whole life, so once I found out about furry writing, I knew I had to try my hand at that. Even though I now have over twenty published stories under my belt, I’m still loving the genre.
It’s Not Fair Penguins Can’t Fly
An unusual new graphic novel from Fantagraphics Books: Penguins by Nick Thorburn. “Told almost entirely without words, Penguins is one of the most playfully original graphic novels in recent memory… relying on visual expression and the physical movement of his penguin characters, as well as the formal properties of sequential drawings (with penguins routinely moving within and without each page’s panel borders), Penguins is a series of interconnected short strips that, without words or human characters, does more to showcase the breadth of emotion we as humans experience than most prose novels.” It’s available now in hardcover from Amazon.
image c. 2018 Fantagraphics Books
Trailer: The Secret Life of Pets 2
Summer of 2019 we get Secret Life Of Pets 2 ... man they really did fast-track this thing.
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Magics Best Left Hidden
You may recall we told you about Patrick and Jessica Reilly, a pair of U.S. military veterans who work together as a creative team. Well here’s an update: After some successful fundraising through Patreon the first issue their black & white fantasy comic Five Realms has been released. “Join Mehan, Ronin Prince of the Mallow Clan, his best friend Gellaze, and his student Iwain as they uncover the mysteries surrounding a ‘Golden King’ buried deep within a dust-chocked canyon.” The 1st issue is available at their Etsy store and a 2nd is due this winter.
image c. 2018 Zonks Illustration
Trailer: Stuffed
Trapped in a World He Never Evolved For
Richard Fairgray is a well-known comic book artist and children’s book illustrator in his native New Zealand. (Interesting fact from his Wikipedia: Richard illustrates and animates his own works, even though he is legally blind.) His best-known work, Blastosaurus, created quite a sensation in his homeland. Now living in Southern California, Richard has re-launched his comic with the help of Paul Eiding and Golden Apple Books. From Previews: “Blastosaurus, a 6-foot-tall, mutant triceratops, aided by Tabitha Jones and Richard Green (the twelve-year-old sidekicks he never asked for) battles monsters, robots, sentient meatballs and whatever other weirdness Freak Out City can throw at him. This action/fantasy all-ages book is big, stupid fun, grounded by a real emotional core and the most human dinosaur you’ll ever meet!” And look, there’s a YouTube preview as well. Blastosaurus is out in comic shops now.
image c. 2018 Golden Apple Books
Spies in Disguise
Well, looks like we have a surprise furry movie. "Super spy Lance Sterling (Will Smith) and scientist Walter Beckett (Tom Holland) are almost exact opposites. Lance is smooth, suave and debonair. Walter is… not. But what Walter lacks in social skills he makes up for in smarts and invention, creating the awesome gadgets Lance uses on his epic missions. But when events take an unexpected turn, Walter and Lance suddenly have to rely on each other in a whole new way. And if this odd couple can’t learn to work as a team, the whole world is in peril. SPIES IN DISGUISE is an animated comedy set in the high-octane globe-trotting world of international espionage."
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Episode 48 - Shark destiny
Episode 47 - Sharks abound
The Real Pokebusters
Friends In Spite Of Everything
We had not heard of this, but evidently it’s a thing — and now it’s collected all together. “Anouk Ricard’s bold and colorful comics of this quirky, grumpy gang of pals are delightfully weird yet thoroughly realistic in their honest and hilarious portrayal of friendship. Anna, Froga, Christopher the worm, Ron the cat, and Bubu the dog continue their non-adventures with bickering, needling, cajoling, and honest friendship. No white lie goes unexposed, no small embarrassment goes unrevealed, no secret is kept, everyone’s foibles are fodder for jokes. Anna and Froga: Completely Bubu collects all five issues of the acclaimed Anna & Froga series into an accessible paperback.” It’s out now from Drawn & Quarterly.
image c. 2018 Drawn & Quarterly
FC-312 Smelling Mistake - Kota, Tol and Astro join us this week for a packed show.
Kota, Tol and Astro join us this week for a packed show.
Watch Video Link Roundup:- Statement from Blaze Fusky’s family
- Paradox was in the hospital for a few days
- SciShow werewolf myth origins
- Kansas City Police Recover Stolen Inflatable Colon
- Shades of Elysium pre-alpha build 1.4.0
- Bojack Renewed for Season 6
- Radioactive Wolves Of Chernobyl
- Florida man accused of throwing sex toy on field during Buffalo Bills’ game
- lhi audio – cadmium
- Someone superchatted LTT WAN show and asked Linus and Luke what their fursonas are
- PolarTheLion’s video for Infurnity 2018
- Decensoring Hentai with Deep Neural Networks
- Bulltaur at parade
- Pensacola Man Rampages Neighbourhood Looking to Fight
- Man Shot by Dog
- GOOD sounding cheese
- Woman who had sex with 20 ghosts is now engaged to a spirit
- Antarctic scientist ‘stabs colleague who kept telling him endings of books he was reading’
- Man uses blowtorch to kill spiders, sets parents’ home on fire
- Cops Eat Donuts After Finding Stolen Krispy Kreme Truck
- Koda Greymane – How to tell if someone’s a closet furry
- Merci beaucoup – A New and better life, thanks to the fandom
- Mfalme Lion – Job searches
[Live] Smelling Mistake
Kota, Tol and Astro join us this week for a packed show.
Link Roundup:- Statement from Blaze Fusky’s family
- Paradox was in the hospital for a few days
- SciShow werewolf myth origins
- Kansas City Police Recover Stolen Inflatable Colon
- Shades of Elysium pre-alpha build 1.4.0
- Bojack Renewed for Season 6
- Radioactive Wolves Of Chernobyl
- Florida man accused of throwing sex toy on field during Buffalo Bills’ game
- lhi audio – cadmium
- Someone superchatted LTT WAN show and asked Linus and Luke what their fursonas are
- PolarTheLion’s video for Infurnity 2018
- Decensoring Hentai with Deep Neural Networks
- Bulltaur at parade
- Pensacola Man Rampages Neighbourhood Looking to Fight
- Man Shot by Dog
- GOOD sounding cheese
- Woman who had sex with 20 ghosts is now engaged to a spirit
- Antarctic scientist ‘stabs colleague who kept telling him endings of books he was reading’
- Man uses blowtorch to kill spiders, sets parents’ home on fire
- Cops Eat Donuts After Finding Stolen Krispy Kreme Truck
- Koda Greymane – How to tell if someone’s a closet furry
- Merci beaucoup – A New and better life, thanks to the fandom
- Mfalme Lion – Job searches
I Want a Monster to Be My Playmate
Monster Mayhem is a new full-color graphic novel written and illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos. “Zoe’s favorite thing to do—besides invent and build robots — is watch classic monster movies. She has never been comfortable with kids her own age, and so she pretends she doesn’t need friends while inside she’s longing for connection. And then one day, Zoe finds a mysterious ring on her way home from school. She puts it on, gives it a twist, and — FRZAAKK! There’s a massive burst of light! The next morning, a familiar monster appears at Zoe’s window. He’s from one of her favorite kaiju movies, and he likes Zoe — he wants to be her friend. Has her secret wish been fulfilled? But it turns out that Zoe’s ring has brought more than just this friendly monster to life. More monsters have arrived, and they are hungry! Now she’ll need to reach out to other people to help her save her town from destruction. Good thing she’s a robotics genius!” Got all that? It’s available now in hardcover from Dial Books.
image c. 2018 Dial Books
Tōth: No Reason
Really, does one NEED a reason for birds? "A human to bird interface becomes a source of happiness for no reason."
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All The World Shall Be Your Enemy
How on Earth did we not hear about this coming up? Well thanks to The Nerdist we did — and just in time too, as the newly-animated Watership Down is due very soon! “The BBC and Netflix are releasing a new CG-animated version this Christmas, and in order to more accurately portray the book, it’s going to come in two feature-length installments. The cast was already all-star, with James McAvoy as refugee rabbit leader Hazel, Nicholas Hoult as the psychic runt Fiver, John Boyega as the intimidating fighter Bigwig, Olivia Colman as bereaved doe Strawberry (a gender-flip from the book), Ben Kingsley as villain General Woundwort, Tom Wilkinson as doomed elder Threarah, and Taron Egerton as the rabbit Christ-analogue El-ahrairah (meaning “prince with a thousand enemies”). But now, via an official BBC announcement, they’ve revealed even more: Peter Capaldi will play the bunnies’ seagull ally Kehaar, Daniel Kaluuya is warren destruction survivor Bluebell, and Rosamund Pike is the Black Rabbit of Inle, a death/Satan figure and counterpart to the rabbit deity Frith.” All that plus director Noam Murro, the man behind 300: Rise of an Empire. Look for it on Netflix this coming December.
image c. 2018 BBC
Halloween Stream! - we're trying to get 10k subscribers on Youtube! …
we're trying to get 10k subscribers on Youtube! www.youtube.com/user/DraggetShow Patreon: www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow www.draggetshow.com Be sure to check our website for all Things Dragget Show! Podcasts, videos, merch and more! Also, don't forget we stream the D&D sessions Sunday at 7pm Central on YouTube! Halloween Stream! - we're trying to get 10k subscribers on Youtube! …
Commercial: Ring Pop Gummy Gems
Ok, I really want to know more about this "Harewolf" brother of these witches. "We were asked to bring back our crazy Witchy sisters and their Harewolf brother for another Topps advertising campaign for out friends at Nickelodeon Creative Services, New York." https://vimeo.com/239828182
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Panique au Zoo; Une Enquête de Poulpe et Castor Burma, by Frédéric Bagères (story), Marie Voyelle (art), Jerôme Alvarez (colors) – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Panique au Zoo; Une Enquête de Poulpe et Castor Burma, by Frédéric Bagères (story), Marie Voyelle (art), Jerôme Alvarez (colors).
Paris, Éditions Delcourt, June 2018, trade paperback, €23,95 (187 [+ 5] pages), Kindle €16,99.
Fred Patten and Lex Nakashima strike again!
“Built in 1740, at the far northern end of the isle, the Canon Zoo is the oldest and greatest zoo in the world. Founded in the XVI century by the monk Sylvestre Marie, it is today managed exclusively by its occupants.
“Aimed at an instructive goal, it offers its visitors, through its presentation of natural habitats, the chance to see how they have lived, over the centuries to the present, “animals in a state of nature”.” The sign is defaced with a graffiti-scrawl saying, “Obey!”
The first pages, a general meeting in the director’s office (a tapir), establish that things are different today. (Also that the dialogue is full of French puns and double-entendres.) Something is causing some of the animals to mutate into forms that are embarrassing at best, potentially fatal at worst. The director has hired two private detectives, Octopus and Beaver Burma, to find the reason and stop it.
“Eight months ago, some employees began showing the first symptoms. I think the otters were the first.”
“What do you mean?”
“They became covered with spines.”
“Like porcupines?”
“Exactly.”
“Like ‘otter-pines?’”
“If you like. They’re incapable today of running their stand in the zoo.”
“What are they selling?”
“Balloons.”
[…]
“Next it was the turn of those that your colleague would call the ‘polar urchins’, who are living today in the canteen’s freezer.”
“Then the ‘cat-pony’ that we put into the Asian animal enclosure.”
“And the ‘oyster-constrictor’ who spends his days trying to swallow the ‘rat-engale’ trying to find its voice.”
“The affair took a nasty turn when we found the “serpent-pie-thon’ dead, of self-asphyxiation. The animals began to get scared.”
Octopus and Beaver Burma start questioning the animals in the zoo. Did the otter-pines notice anything different at the time they began growing needles? Yeah, it was right when Maurice, the oldest animal in the zoo – a dodo – retired.
Do you have any idea what’s caused these changes?
Pollution! Nuclear radiation! Allergies! Satellites! Picon beer? [a popular French beer] The ozone layer? Egyptian water! [one of the ten Biblical Egyptian plagues] Progress! Wi-Fi! Extraterrestrials! Graffitti? Black magic? The OGM? [Genetically Modified food] My Aunt Hortense! God?
“What’s next on the list?”
“Two species quarantined because their metamorphoses has ostracized them. They’re in the vivariums: the anacondoctopus and the pengoctopus.”
“Will you stop with the stupid species names?”
“I make no promises.”
The pengoctopus guesses that the zoo is built over a haunted bison grave, while the anacondoctopus is sure it’s a plot of the veterinarians, one of whom (“A charming man.”) is named Doctor Moreau.
Well, this is only up to page 25. Have a good time in the remaining 162 pages seeing all the animal combinations, figuring out who the villain is, and the motivation for the plot. I’m not a fan of Voyelle’s artwork, but Bagères’s story is very funny.
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