Howard
Short Story
I’ve just republished a short story called ‘Dear Mom . . .’ on ColonyIsland.com. This story was originally published on Goodreads.com and was done as part of a contest. I won, but only because there were just 2 or 3 entrants. The story concerns Penelope’s cousin, Lindsey Tench, and will be expanded to be half of the third book in the Tails From Colony Island series.
There is another short story with a merfolk theme which I will republish in a few days or a few weeks. It has nothing to do with Colony Island and everything to do with S.K. Munt’s Fairytail Saga. Ms. Munt held a fan fiction contest following the publication of Heads or Tails, the third novel in the series. My entry sort of violated the parameters for the contest and I really didn’t mean it as a contest entry. It was more a writing exercise dealing with a person in a very dark emotional state. In Urban Mermaid, the title character starts off in a dark emotional state and I felt that this would be good practice for me.
Nonetheless, I sent it in, more curious as to what Ms Munt would say about it than as an actual entry in the contest. S.K. Munt is a very gracious lady. The story took first prize and was published at the end of Stained Glass, the concluding story in the series.
Dear Mom may be found as a menu item under the Writing Urban Mermaid tab on Colony Island.com. You can also cut to the chase by going to https://colonyisland.com/dear-mom/. I hope that you’ll enjoy the story.
What Happened to the Front Page?
All of a sudden, our WordPress installation stopped liking the idea of a static front page. After perusing the list of issues with WordPress 4.4.1. we discovered the problem was caused by having mixed case domain names for both the WordPress and Site URLs in the general settings.
This situation was immediately corrected and now all is right with the world – or at least our wee bit of it, anyway.
So why is this post still here? Well, we auto-magically publicise our posts & pages on Facebook, Linkedin, Tumblr, Path, and Google+. Those links to this post aren’t going to go away so we decided to simply let it be so no one would be disappointed when they tried to learn just what was going on. We aim to keep our visitors happy and now you know the rest of the story.
Can an All-American Mermaid find love and happiness whilst living and working in the big city?
Now, you can find out for yourself!
The cover for Urban Mermaid by Ilsie Om
Published by Moonlight Garden Publications
An imprint of Gazebo Gardens Publishing
Renton, WA
Now Available!
ISBN
978-1-938281-72-3 Paperback
978-1-938281-73-0 E-Book
More Swag!
Just received a shipment of Urban Mermaid give-away items. It’s almost time to start the raffling off this swag. All I need to do is to learn how to use the raffle software.
By the way, it’s the coffee/tea mug that’s going to be offered to some lucky winners, NOT the pipes. My collection of well over 300 pipes is NFS. Of course, my wife has other ideas!
For those of you who may have wondered what happened to the steady stream of FAQs here on ColonyIsland,com, I’m taking a wee break whilst I attend to other things like taking down two Christmas trees. Now that Epiphany has come and gone, it’s time to pack things away for another ten and a half months.
How do mermaids breathe?
Q: How do Mermaids[1] breathe?
A: Through their nose just like everyone else.
Seriously, in the world of Colony Island, that applies mainly when they are out of the water.
Many writers and artists have speculated as to just how mermaids are able to respire[2] when they’re below the surface. Some writers have given them gills located on their necks.
Mermaid with gill slits on her torso. If you read the ‘Ask Madison’ letter entitled ‘Silly Humans’, you might understand why she appears to be calling for help.
In her Mer Tales series[3], Brenda Pandos’ description of her character’s gills implies that they are large enough to actually work as intended. Other writers have given their characters gill slits that might just sustain a goldfish but nothing much larger than that.
Recognizing there is not much available real estate on the neck of a human, some writers and artists have envisioned gill slits not unlike those of a shark, along the torso. While these may be considered to be somewhat more realistic, they will require the mermaid to either be constantly swimming or to park herself in a current with her head facing upstream when she wants to sleep. If she drifts out of that current, the mermaid is likely to suffocate unless she wakes up in time.
This concept is based on the behavior of sharks that swim constantly in order to keep water moving through their gills. An exception to this is when they mate. The male will take ahold of the female and point both of them so they are facing into the current. They are thus able to breathe while the reproductive niceties are taken care of.
At least one writer has placed the gill slits further down the mermaid’s body on the fishy end. It’s an interesting concept but at the end of the day, they will still need to either constantly swim or go to sleep facing upstream in the current.
Then, there are writers like S.K. Munt[4] who give their merfolk the ability to hold their breath for long periods of time.
Finally, there are plenty of writers who have bypassed the subject entirely and marked respiration down to plain old mermaid magic.[5] Most artists have entirely ignored the respiration problem when depicting mermaids.
In the world of Colony Island, Poseidon found he was not fond of the aesthetic resulting from gills placed on the side of the neck.[6] Instead, he decided to take a page from the amphibians’ playbook and give mermaids the ability to breathe through their skin. As long as the mermaid is in the water, she can breathe whether she has her tail on or not.[7] And as long as the mermaid’s head is above the surface – whether she’s walking on land or simply treading water – she can use her nose and lungs, just like the rest of us.
If mermaids take a deep breath before sounding, it will stay with them a good while.[8] Although they don’t really need that lung-full of air, mermaids can deliver it to a human in distress under water. This was idea was used in my short story, Dear Mom …, which can be seen on my Goodreads author page.[9]
While both oxygen and CO₂ are exchanged through the mermaid’s skin, some carbon dioxide will accumulate in the lungs and she will ‘exhale’ every now and then. This is more pronounced when the mermaid is under physical stress – such a fleeing a predator – and needs to take in as much oxygen as possible. In these situations, almost all CO₂ is expelled through the lungs.
Disclaimer
The preceding discourse concerns is how the author envisions the merfolk of Colony Island would appear and behave. His opinions and prejudices are just that; opinions and prejudices. They are not intended to defame or belittle the vision of any reader, writer, or illustrator. Sadly, there are no merfolk around to prove or disprove our ideas and speculation.
[1] This applies to mermen as well.
[2] A technical term for breathing.
[3] Some really great YA (Young Adult) fiction, if you ask me.
[4] S.K. Munt’s Fairytail Saga is quite an interesting take on mermaids and well worth the reader’s time.
[5] The concept of mermaid magic – or lack thereof in the Colony Island series – will be discussed in another FAQ.
[6] Gods can be rather picky, you know.
[7] It’s pretty hard to drown a Colony Island mermaid.
[8] There are limits, though. Eventually, the alveoli in the lungs will take up the oxygen and replace it with carbon dioxide.
[9] Eventually, it will be added to this site along with one other short story.
What is the Royston Enclave?
Q: What is the Royston Enclave?
A: In the 1950’s, the fishing industry on Colony Island collapsed because of declining fish stocks and competition from factory ships. While fishing continued to be a part of the local economy, it was on a much smaller scale. When the majority of the fleet was sold off, many of the fishermen, as well as those who depended on the industry, were left jobless.[1]
Available jobs outside the industry were few and far between on Colony Island. Since there was plenty of work to be had in nearby Royston, most of the newly unemployed moved there along with their families. Eventually, the majority of these families were able to settle in the same Royston neighbourhood.[2] In time they were joined by other families who found the daily commute a bit taxing.
Enclave members would save their swimming for weekends and their children were carpooled in to the Colony Academy. After a time, some Royston families began to enroll their children in the county’s primary schools, using the Academy only for preschool. Eventually, the members of the Royston Enclave acquired a more cosmopolitan outlook and some even left for jobs in the city. Although they didn’t live by the sea on Colony Island, they were never very far from the ocean.
[1] In many respects, the town had “lost its mojo” and declined into a depressed state of affairs.
[2] In the interest of looking after its citizens – no matter where they lived – the town of Colony Island invested in town-homes and apartment buildings to help keep the Royston merfolk together.
BookMarks
The Bookmarks are Here!
Mermaid Tails
Q: I’ve noticed that while mermaid[1] tails are depicted as fish-like, their swimming motion is up and down like a dolphin’s instead of side to side like a fish. Why is this?
A: One may think of a mermaid as:
- A woman with a fish’s tail instead of legs[2]
- A fish with a woman’s head, arms, and torso
In other words there are two halves and the human half influences the piscine half just as much as the piscine half influences the human half.
The human half gains the ability to live and breathe[3] underwater while the piscine half gains the ability to swim like all mammals that live in the ocean. The mermaid’s tail is more flexible and proportionally longer than that of many fish[4]. There are also many different ways to depict a mermaid’s tail, but that is beyond the scope of this FAQ.
One could simply say “it’s the way mermaid tails have always been depicted” and let the discussion rest. No matter how much we may wish otherwise, mermaids don’t exist. Therefore, almost any depiction is correct. Nonetheless, there does seem to be a certain convention followed when artists are depicting mermaids.
Tailfins as small as these won’t provide much in the way of propulsion.
With regard to Urban Mermaid and the entire series, Tails from Colony Island, the author envisions a ‘clean’ look. This means no pelvic fins, no dorsal fins, and no fin-skirts like Ariel and her family. Scale colouration is within a certain range of greens, grays, and silvers[5]. There are no long, curly wurly tails and no extravagant tail fins.
There are also no knee joints. This is the author’s personal preference. While it is common for artists to depict mermaid tails with ‘knees’, the author feels that it starts to look like someone in a costume. A ‘knee-less’ tail has a more flowing look to it and in the case of mermaids, more feminine as well,
The prologue to Urban Mermaid describes how Poseidon and his son, Triton, conceived of mermaids as having a variety of traits found in other marine life as well as a few attributes necessary to life on land. While it is not explicitly stated[6] in the prologue, it is implied that Poseidon is rather fond of dolphins. He apparently chose for mermaid tails[7] to mimic the morphology and swimming abilities of a dolphin whilst retaining the scales of a fish.
Like all animals, there are variations in tail length, and fin shape, as well as where the tail actually begins. For some mermaids, the scale line begins below the hips while for others, it’s closer to the waist. The curve of the mermaid’s buttocks are visible beneath her scales. The bikini area is faintly visible as well. The tail’s real flexibility begins seven to eight inches below this point.
Male and female genitalia are both internal and form part of the cloaca. The cloaca is guarded by two narrow, muscular ridges and are part of a slightly darker medial line of scales on the ventral side. This medial line ends around 12 to 16 inches below the cloaca. The scale colouration lightens until it becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the mermaid’s scales. Thus, the opening to the cloaca is difficult to discern and is therefore hidden by a kind of protective camouflage.
Finally, it should be noted that as his series progresses, the author will refine his vision of how mermaids should look. Therefore, measurements, proportions, etc. are subject to minor modifications.
For a look at how various artists have interpreted the idea of mermaid tails, check out the author’s Pintrist boards:
Disclaimer
The preceding discourse concerns is how the author envisions the merfolk of Colony Island would appear and behave. His opinions and prejudices are just that; opinions and prejudices. They are not intended to defame or belittle the vision of any reader, writer, or illustrator. Sadly, there are no merfolk around to prove or disprove our ideas and speculation.
[1] This discussion applies to mermen as well as mermaids.
[2] There have been many different ideas as to how the tail should look and where it should begin. One vision has the tail as two scale-covered legs with a fin at the end of each instead of a foot.
[3] Just how a mermaid breathes under water will be discussed in another FAQ.
[4] In many respects, it is almost eel-like in flexibility.
[5] Mermaids known as ‘gingers’ have a reddish-orange scale colouration. There is a more narrow range of colour variations than that of their green-tail cousins.
[6] It was necessary to keep the page-count down as well as avoiding an overly excruciating level of detail.
[7] A mermaid’s tail, not including the fin, is just over two to three feet longer than her legs. The main part of the tail fin itself is one foot long. A mermaid’s tail is flexible enough to curl around her like a cat’s and allows her to brush her own back or that of her mate with her tail fin. The touch of a tail fin – whether it is her own or her mate’s – on a mermaid’s back has a soothing effect.
Happy New Year
I decided to come to the surface in order to wish everyone a Happy New Year. It’s been a busy month since Urban Mermaid was released back on Saint Andrew’s Day.(Nov. 30th)
It used to be that the only time people wanted my autograph was on cheques and credit card receipts. Now they want them on copies of Urban Mermaid, too.
I’ve spent a good part of the Holidaze adding content to ColonyIsland.com. There have already been three new entries added to the FAQ page with more to come next week. Madison, from the Colony Chronicle, has supplied a new letter to a disgruntled resident and she’s hinting there may be one or two juicy ones in the coming weeks. Be sure to check out the Ask Madison tab when you have the time.
I’m starting to crank up the publicity machine. I’m planning to work with a publicist after the first of the year and Urban Mermaid will be featured in the Book Life supplement to Publisher’s Weekly. Theoretically, it’s to be the January 18th edition but it could be later.
I’ve already submitted Urban Mermaid to a book competition – Best general fiction from an emerging author at a Micro Press – and I’m considering submitting the book to Publisher’s weekly for review. Meanwhile, there’s a big box of bookmarks on its way to my Hopewell, VA residence.
I’ll be running some give-aways here at ColonyIsland.com throughout the month of January with some serious swag to be handed out towards the end of the month. I’m also scheduled to make appearances on a couple of book blogs – my own mini blog tour.
Who knows, I might even find the time to work on the sequel.
Now for a special request. At the moment, my main commercial outlet is Amazon.com. The unfortunate thing is that there is only one review associated with Urban Mermaid. Although it is a super-duper review, I could use a few more. I’ve received a good number of positive reviews – some of them quite touching – but they have yet to appear on Amazon.
If you’ve read Urban Mermaid and enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review for UM – either print or e-book – on Amazon. If you’ve already written a review but haven’t gotten around to posting it, please do so if you can. The reviews don’t have to be deathless prose, just a few sentences telling the reading public how great you think the story is.
That’s all for now.
We thank you for your support.
H.P.
What’s a morning suit?
Q: I noticed a reference to something called a ‘morning suit’ in Urban Mermaid. Are you sure it’s not a ‘mourning suit’, you know, something a guy would wear when sitting shiva? Just what the heck is a ‘morning suit’?
A: According to Wikipaedia, morning dress is the daytime formal dress code, consisting chiefly for men of a morning coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers. Peter MacPherson[1] chose dove gray morning suits so that he and his groom squad would look elegant yet fade a bit into the background. Although Penelope would have been more than happy for him to wear a white tux, Peter was not about to let anything outshine his bride on her special day[2].
While some would argue that there is nothing wrong with wearing a tux before 6:00 PM, such practices are just one more example of the decline of American civilization. In the 2015 movie, Bridge of Spies, the character played by Tom Hanks wears a morning suit whilst arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Such attire was de rigueur once upon a time but is now confined to the United States Solicitor General and deputies as well as the Marshal and Clerk of the court during all sessions of the court.
For more information on morning dress, see:
- The Wikipaedia article on Morning Dress
- The Black Tie Guide’s Informational overview of Morning Wear
[1] Peter is a product of the American Scottish community which has a penchant for trying to do things as they would be done in the U.K. where morning dress is much more common.
[2] Penelope will insist that it is their special day.
Should I let my teenage daughter read Urban Mermaid?
It all depends. How old is your teenage daughter?
Seriously, the adolescent years cover a range of levels with regard to maturity and sophistication. To quote the review of Urban Mermaid by Katie O’Sullivan[1],
“This is not your daughter’s mermaid novel.”
Urban Mermaid does not contain vast undersea cities, bands of warring mermen battling sea dragons[2], or characters with royal titles. This last bit will cause many a young adolescent to immediately lose interest.
Instead, the story deals with grown-up[3] themes of newly found love and overcoming obstacles in order to be together. There are a number of bedroom scenes but there is nothing too graphic or explicit[4].
Indeed, the best approach may be to use a bit of reverse psychology and let them read Urban Mermaid. The first bedroom scene is nine long chapters into the story. If they can remain interested through all the grown-up stuff, then they might be mature enough to read further.
[1] Katie O’Sullivan has excellent mer-stories for Young Adults in her ongoing Son of a Mermaid series.
[2] A fine example of this type of mermaid story is the Merminia series by Emm Cole.
[3] I am reticent to use the term ‘Adult’ – even with a small ‘a’ – because of the connotations which immediately come to mind.
[4] If you’re looking for hot and messy mermaid stories, I heartily recommend The Fairytail Saga by S.K. Munt.
