Category Archives: Uncategorized

March 17, 2013 · 10:05 am

No Rest for the Wicked, or Lettuce Give Thanks

Saturday was a busy day. It started out at 6:30 am with preparing two rather nice boys for human sacrifice on the altar of the Bull God. This was followed by a prophetic dream. At about 12:30 I chatted with a rather witless Minotaur, until 2:30 p.m. when I had to put away my toys, shower, and get myself properly dressed for dinner out with my old school mates.

I love writing fantasy.

I’ve been working on the ritual sacrifice scene for two days, and gradually it’s evolving into what I want it to be. The prophetic dream scene has also been on the work table for two days, and it too is evolving. The end is nigh on this manuscript, and I am beginning to chafe at the bit, just wanting it to be finished so I can get going on two other tales that I have sitting on the back burner.

But it won’t be that easy.

No, there’s no rest for the wicked. I suppose attempting to sacrifice perfectly nice characters on the altar of a dark God qualifies me as being wicked.

At least I hope so.

Irene Roth Luvaul and I have one more trip through Huw the Bard, and then he will be going to the Beta Readers. While he is being read, I will work on my two other projects for a bit, before I plunge back into prepping Huw for publication, and doing a rewrite of Mountains of the Moon.

In the meantime I’ve been writing as fast as I can, and trying to get the first draft of MOTM done, with an actual ending and everything.

Saturday night my old classmates and I dined at a nice local restaurant. It was my first big dinner event since becoming vegan and the meal I was offered was excellent and satisfying. I had a nice green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, sautéed mixed vegetables, a baked potato with salsa and guacamole, followed by a strawberry sorbet. It was a delicious meal, and I felt like I’d had a real dinner out.

The interesting thing about dining out, now that I’ve made the change to a vegan diet, is that there is a way that I can eat well without making a big ordeal out of it. I have to be proactive and take responsibility for my meals by simply calling ahead and speaking to the chef about what items on their menu might be appropriate for a person who eats no dairy or meat.

This is really a life lesson for the indie author too–we must be proactive if we want something positive to happen with our career. We must set aside time blog, and tweet, and make sure that when our author name is googled we are all over the first page that comes up. We must do this in as professional a manner as we are able, as the drunk-driving rap is probably not going to sell our books. We must establish regular habits of writing our books, writing blog posts, doing the social networking that we despise, AND we have to learn how to be our own best advertisement. Why, yes, I do just happen to have a copy of my book in my trunk. Yes, I do accept cash, checks, credit cards and jewelry. Who should I autograph this book to? Yes, I love shopping here at Safeway.

No rest for the wicked.

We can’t sit back and just hope for the best, or we might be stuck with a plate of french fries and a bowl of lettuce.

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Tagged as fantasy, humor, vegan lifestyle, writing

March 12, 2013 · 3:35 am

Body and Mind

Art Glenberg, physicist speaks on Smart Planet about how the body affects the mind and the way we view the world around us.

“Over the last decade researchers have produced striking evidence that the body, and its relationship to the environment, is completely intertwined in the thinking process. For instance, simply sitting in a wobbly chair makes us judge others’ relationships to be unstable. Wearing a white lab coat, thought to be a doctor’s coat, helps our concentration and focus. Literally washing our hands rids us of guilty feelings.

So seemingly inconsequential events have a huge influence over our emotions, thoughts, and decisions. And this, scientists say, is because our abstract knowledge comes not from some disembodied reasoning within the brain but rather from our concrete experiences interacting with the world from the moment we are born. The very structure of reason itself comes from our visual and motor systems.”

I find his observations to be so true! When I am in my office I get more actual writing done than if I am on the sofa with my laptop, with the same music and the same quiet.

I am a physical creature, formed by my environment.

I also follow TED . One of the most moving TED talks I’ve watched recently was by Shane Koyczan on being bullied, and how the opinion of other people shapes a person’s view of self. He also affirms the right of every person to be who they are and to be proud of being that person, no matter how different they are. I highly recommend you watch this talk–you will shed tears and be proud of who you are.

I am an emotional creature, formed by the casual taunts and the negative opinions of family and, sometimes, friends.

Through these two different venues, a vision of myself forms. There is the view of myself – the young adult in a shaky chair, seeing the world as being unsteady. Is it me, or is it the world? Hiding in books, finding secret refuge in filling notebook after notebook with writing fantasy tales but too embarrassed to tell anyone, because there was no way I could ever be a writer. Girls in the data entry pool should stick to what they know–key those numbers girl, they pay your rent.

Also there is the view of myself through the eyes of my parents–a too big, rather clumsy girl who spent twelve years in the public school system staring out the window, avoiding conflict and flying under the radar.

A girl who didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted to be. The girl who never quite measured up.

And yet, 59 years on, I am a different person. When the ground shifts today, I know that either the chair is wobbly or we are having another earthquake. I am comfortable with either event and will work around it.

I am still lacking in grace, but now I know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m doing it and I’m taking no prisoners. Sure, I get knocked down once in while, by a sucky review or by the sheer amount of work that one must do get your work out there when you’re an indie writer.

But now when those things loom large I pick myself off the floor and ask, “Was that another earthquake, or is my chair just shaky?”

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Tagged as adventure, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, writing

March 7, 2013 · 2:14 am

Sitting in a Starbucks

Today I am in Seattle, sitting in a busy Starbucks, working on my book. It ‘s kind of cool, blogging and working on my book on the ground floor of an office building that houses Amazon.

There is something about this rainy city that I love. It fires up my creative mind. Plus, I lived in Seattle until I was 9, and to me it has always been home.

The book is rolling along well–so well that I begrudge the time it takes to blog! The characters are occupying most of the space in my mind–to the point that I can hardly carry on a conversation without sounding like an idiot.

Designing melèes with strange creatures and putting my characters through hell and yet still finding something humorous in their situations–I’ve never had a job more rewarding. (Although, I admit it’s financially rather UNrewarding.) Still, maybe the next book will be the one!

I’m sitting here in a Starbucks, in Seattle, watching the rain and the people and loving my job. I don’t care if I’m not a bestseller and I don’t really care if I ever am. I’ve finished writing four (count them –> FOUR!) books and can all those nay-sayers say they have done that? So I’m not published by one of the Big Six. And so my books aren’t on the hot one hundred yet! I’m an indie and I do the best I can, which is all one can ask of themselves.

I am sitting in a Starbucks living my dream, writing a book. It doesn’t get much better than that!

My advice is this–do what you love, and do it to the best of your ability. Life is too short to spend most of it waiting for the right time to happen, or for someone to give you permission to live.

Find your “Starbucks” and make your life happen!

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Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, magic, vegan lifestyle, writing

March 3, 2013 · 7:52 pm

Parsifal, Wagner, and the Muse

Things are back to normal here at La Casa del Jasperson–at least, as normal as the interior of a spinning blender ever is. I strive to create a zen-like home to compensate for the strange detours life takes us on. The way my creative mind works, I need to have an orderly environment or I can’t focus on my work.

Epilepsy is disorderly in the extreme! Dealing with hospitals and life-changing events takes a toll on one’s creativity. Worrying that the new medicine won’t work, or your loved one won’t be able to tolerate the poison is terribly stressful. Thus, despite the fact that I brought my lap-top and spent the same number of hours staring at the screen this last week, I accomplished very little, other than taking my main characters a few steps closer to their doom. I managed only 3000 words for seven days of writing.

But that changed yesterday when I managed to write 1200 words in one productive hour. The reason my hour was so productive is this—> Three weeks ago, before life took the side-trip, I was suffering from a bout of writer’s block.

I’ve always known what was going to happen with this tale, but I was writing it by the seat of my pants, as usual! SO in desperation, two weeks ago I made a 3000 word outline of where I wanted the story to go, right down to the epilogue. Immediately, I was able to get the story moving again.

I know! It’s genius! I took my own advice!

During this week of worry and stress, I spent a lot of time out on Wikimedia Creative Commons looking at some of the greatest art ever collected. It is humbling to realize that these artists saw no great rewards for their work, in fact they were barely able to eke out a living at it. I came across the picture that graces todays post, Parsifal, by Hermann Hendrich. The castle in the background is exactly the sort of place my characters have found themselves. The fir trees and the remoteness of this picture gave a form to my idea, and I was more easily able to create the story of what happens next.

The interesting thing is, Hendrich got his imagination jump started by having seen the Wagnerian opera, Tannhäuser. (YouTube link here!)

Go figure–an artistic type whose muse is fired up by big, loud, epic music! Of course I was captivated. The creative process that others experience is as interesting to me as is their final, amazing product.

Today, it is 7:28 a.m. on an early spring Sunday. I am listening to loud German opera overtures via YouTube and mentally preparing to get 3000 or more words written today.

So as the world here in Olympia (the navel of the universe) gets back to normal, all will end well for my heroes…or will it…heh heh….

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Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, living with epilepsy, romance, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 22, 2013 · 5:36 am

“Spam the Vegan!” shouted the Queen. “No quarter!”

One of the things I’ve noticed on all of my blogs is the number of strangely phrased, oddly ambiguous but pleasant comments from random “people” with email addresses and links referencing pictures of “hot young high-school girls, all of legal age” in compromising situations.

Yeah, right.

Strangely enough, these comments are frequently quite garbled as if they were translated to English by an old version of Google Translator. Another interesting thing is they frequently say, (and I quote,) “I need information of this more. I have search how can I get more.” Well now, that really pertains to the conversation we were having about +Orson Scott Card and character development, doesn’t it…

And these comments are frequently addressed to much older posts, as Johanna Garth, author and blogger from Portland Oregon, has also mentioned, possibly in the hope we wouldn’t notice. (She blogs on the most interesting things, over on Losing Sanity – you should check her out!)

These enterprising hawkers of underage hookers think that if they say something nice and ambiguous I might believe that it pertains to my blog. They think I will post their comment without checking to see what sort of links they have embedded in it! Heh – heh – wrong!!! Grandma wasn’t born yesterday. The internet is my business, and I take business seriously. I’ve learned quite a bit about the wolves in sheep’s’ clothing who lurk in the dingier alleys of the old web since I first began this crazy journey.

Strangely, this barrage of spam has really escalated since I began occasionally mentioning the word “VEGAN”.

I can only assume that their antiquated version of Google Translator has interpreted that word as implying that I am a “VIRGIN” and they are kindly offering me hope that one day I will no longer be afflicted thusly.

Now, we know Grandma has lived long and enjoyed every minute of her life and with four marriages behind her and 11 grandkids she is not a candidate for sainthood. I intend to keep on enjoying life to the fullest until the universe explodes, or whatever, so party on! Play that funky music, and dance the way you feel like dancing, but don’t try to trick me into being a carrier for purveyors of sleaze.

Really, one would think that scouring the internet all day and posting random comments with sleaze-links in unknown blogs would be awfully time-consuming. The return can’t possibly be worth the effort they must put into it. All their work in trying to insinuate links to their sleazy drivel, everything from porn to cold remedies on my blog is barking up the wrong tree, because I use Akismet here on WordPress and verify every comment that slips through so that my blog doesn’t accidentally become a festering boil on society’s rump.

I also do the same on my other blogs. What fun! It’s almost humorous the lengths folks will go to get you to be an unpaid advertiser for them.

Still, at least I’m doing well enough that 6 – 12 spammers a week feel my blog posts are worth wasting their time on. Maybe it’s the same person, who knows, but hey – in this business, attention is attention, even if it’s negative attention!

I’m so happy about the extra attention that I wrote a poem:

Spam, Wonderful Spam – they know I exist, so therefore I am!

Spam, Fabulous Spam – The Nigerian Prince need MY helping hand!

Spam, marvelous spam – the meat I can’t eat as it’s not Ve-gan!

(It rhymes if you say it just right! Honest!)

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Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, Spam, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 19, 2013 · 2:57 am

The Crazy Things

My good friend, indie author Stephen Swartz, had a blog post today about creativity, music and productivity. I love his blog, DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empire, and find his dry sense of humor to be rather invigorating. He has been extremely prolific lately in getting the work out of his head and onto the paper, and I am quite impressed with his output! I’ve been more easily distracted lately by the shiny things in life.

Anyway, he was talking about the types of music that forms the soundtrack to his writing. As Stephen is also an accomplished musician, music is very important to him, and he is like me in that the right background music can improve the flow of ideas.

Now, everyone knows Grandma loves Heavy Metal, but let’s be real–Rammstein and Rainbow aren’t really conducive to a meditative state, so they are mostly for editing. And while I love John Adorney, I have a problem with some new-age music, in that it puts my brain to sleep. So I have certain playlists I pull out when its time to write. Sibelius, Mozart, Karl Orff – these great composers of classical music provide the soundtrack to Mountains of the Moon, now that we are approaching the end of the story.

In the beginning, when I first started writing Mountains of the Moon, the music that inspired me was Robert Plant’s Band of Joy album, along with Steve Martin’s ‘The Crow”. Butch Baldassari and David Schnaufer’s album, ‘Appalachian Mandolin and Dulcimer’ also figured prominently in my playlist at that time.

I know.

From Banjos and Dulcimers, to Cellos and Violins, to Stratocasters and Korg Keyboards. Throw in the occasional big choral piece like Carmina Burana and there you have the entire repertoire.

I find that at each stage in my work, a different sort of music is required. Once the structure of the story is laid out and the actual writing begins, I need light-hearted fare, sort of like the salad course at a fine restaurant. You can’t get much lighter than Steve Martin’s incredible work. Here is the link to the YouTube video of Steve Martin, Bela Fleck, and Tony Trischka playing The Crow.

During the both the initial imagining of a tale when I am world building, and also in the editing process, I need to keep on my toes. I find that Joe Bonamassa’s channel on You Tube is conducive to that.

So is this lovely YouTube channel I found with 87 (!!!) tracks for Rainbow. (I guess you know now what I listen to quite often when I am in need of inspiration.) I love YouTube!

So often random inspiration comes from my grandchildren, from my friends, and from the world in general. It never emerges out of my head the way it goes in. It always amazes me, how in the long run it’s the crazy things that spark my creativity, but the music always sustains and nurtures it.

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Filed under Books, Fantasy, Literature, Music, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Mozart, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 1, 2013 · 6:35 pm

It’s Official

It’s official – Forbidden Road is now available as a kindle download! I’ve even made a tweet:

FORBIDDEN ROAD-bk 2 in #TowerOfBones series http://amzn.to/ForbiddenRoad Sorrow, Peril and Magic in the Valley of Mal Evol!

This is where it gets strange. I have this weird feeling of being disconnected from the process, even though I am in the middle of doing it. I’ve done everything I can think of to get the word out, and now I can only hope for the best. I think people who like Tower of Bones will be curious as to where the story goes.

Writing Forbidden Road was an emotional thing in many ways. There are some serious, dramatic moments in this book. All I know is the book is done and has left the building!

Now I am taking my imagination backwards in time to finish the book Mountains of the Moon, which covers the events of forty years prior to Tower of Bones. This book is a stand-alone book as Tower of Bones was and is in many ways a comedy. Wynn, Edwin’s grandfather was a bad-boy!

Once Mountains is finished I can flesh out Valley of Sorrows. Some of the events in Valley involve John Farmer’s coming to terms with his inability to face the fate of one of Wynn’s companions, in an event he felt responsible for.

So today is the big launch, another chick has left the nest! Now I must get busy and write, write, write!

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January 24, 2013 · 6:47 pm

Imago Chronicles, Lorna Suzuki

Just like every other obsessed, fanatic reader of High Fantasy, I am always on the lookout for that one special book that presages the advent of a new classic series in the genre. In my opinion, Lorna T. Suzuki has written that book in Imago Chronicles Book One: A Warrior’s Tale.

As many of you know, I review my favorite fantasy books on a blog called Best in Fantasy, and that is where I first reviewed Suzuki’s work in 2011. I was blown away by her ability to draw you into her world and keep you there, mesmerized.

Since I began blogging on what I consider to be the best fantasy reads that come across my Kindle, I have read, on average, 4 to 6 fairly good books for every one really good book that made the blog; but ‘fairly good’ is not good enough for me to call a book ‘Best In Fantasy’. Hence, my frequent excursions back to my library of classics. In order for a book to be featured on that blog, I have to LOVE it! In ‘A Warrior’s Tale’, Suzuki has written a book that stands beside the works of my beloved heroes of modern fantasy Jean Auel, Mercedes Lackey, and David Eddings. Imago now ranks as one of my all-time favorite epic fantasy series. And now, joy of all joys! Books 1,2 and 3 have been optioned for a major motion picture trilogy!

And now the story:

In an intriguing twist, A Warrior’s Tale begins with the end. Taking shelter from a freak blizzard, Nayla Treeborn, half elf, half human and not fully either, huddles next to the corpse of a dead soldier; using his body and the now un-needed cloaks of other dead soldiers to shelter her from the killing weather. As she shelters there, she finds herself thinking about her life to that point; going back to a day when she had been a child the mental and physical equivalent of a mortal 12 year old, but was in reality 37 years of age.

Nayla’s father, a high Elf and the Steward of Nagana, Dahlon Treeborn, despises her for reasons which are not made clear in this book. He has punished her for publicly disagreeing with him; nearly beating her to death. Joval Stonecroft discovers her, dreadfully mutilated and bloody and is horrified. Healing her as well as he can, he spirits her out of the elven city of Nagana to the human city of Anshen, home of the legendary Kagai Warriors. Taking the name of Takaro, the young girl embarks upon a lifetime of training, eventually becoming the only female Kagai Warrior ever accepted into the brotherhood. When at long last she reaches womanhood, not only is Takaro fully trained in the manly arts of the warrior, but she is also a woman fully trained in the womanly arts as a spy, a courtesan and an assassin.

In book 1 of the series the main antagonist is Eldred Firestaff, a sorcerer who combines the nicer qualities of Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter) with the personal charm of Ctuchik (The Belgariad), and who is an immortal tool of evil, resurfacing every generation or so. Each time he comes back, he uses the armies of the weak Emperor of East Orien as his power-base in his eternal quest to conquer the world of Imago. However, in this first book of the series, although the battles with this slippery and long-lived villain are colorful and intense, they are almost secondary to Nayla’s personal battle for acceptance and with her own inner demons. This book is concerned with fleshing out Nayla and really whets your appetite for the rest of the tale!

As a half-caste, Takaro/Nayla ages much more slowly than humans, and much more quickly than elves. During the course of the story she outlives three of her Kagai Masters, all of whom live to be very old men. She also outlives their grandsons and their grandson’s grandchildren, yet at the end of the book she appears to be a woman of about twenty-five years of age. Her wisdom and abilities are that of a warrior at the prime of life, and she becomes the most respected of the fierce Kagai Warriors. When her father is maneuvered into asking for the finest Kagai Warrior to train his own warriors, Nayla finds herself back in Nagana, and her father is forced to suffer her presence there; a situation that is bad at best.

The world of Imago is clearly drawn, and is every bit as compelling as that of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Here we have two distinct cultures living side-by-side in peace and harmony for generations; coming to each other’s aid whenever the other is threatened. Loyalty, honor, hard-work, love and family are the central facets of the human society that Nayla/Takaro finds herself adopted into as an abused child, and these values are echoed in the society of the Elves. Within each society, the political and social divisions are clear and the differences between Elves and Men are well drawn and consistently portrayed throughout the drama that unfolds.

Suzuki is herself a master of the martial arts, being a practitioner and instructor of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu; a system that incorporates 6 traditional Samurai schools and 3 schools of Ninjutsu. As one who was once a mere grasshopper in the obscure art of Shou Shu, I fully appreciate the wisdom and experience that the master crafts into the fabric of this tale. Every element of this story evokes both the martial and the spiritual aspects of the culture of Imago; every element is vivid and believable to the reader.

With each book in this series, I was drawn deeper into this amazing and very real world of Imago. In book 2 of the series, Tales From the West we discover more about the true evil that threatens Imago, and discover who or what is behind the sorcerer Eldred Firestaff.

What I’ve learned from reading the works of indie author Lorna Suzuki is that to really craft a world and build believability you must know what you are writing about. She understands the warrior culture from the point of view of a female warrior becasue she IS a female and a warrior.

Know thy craft! Write what you want to read, know what you are writing about and readers like me will flock to read it!

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Tagged as adventure, battles, dragons, fantasy, humor, Imago, Lorna Suzuki, magic, writing

January 2, 2013 · 7:31 am

Which was that, anyway….

742px-L_Spada_Concierto_1615_Louvre As a mostly self-educated old lady, I’ve had to learn some real lessons, regarding the words ‘that’ and ‘which’. I finally managed to rid myself of the inadvertent overuse of the word ‘that’ in my writing, but in the process I find I have become a ‘which’, as opposed to a ‘witch’, which my children will tell you I have always been. Irene Luvaul, dear friend and editor on ‘Huw the Bard’ has spent many hours noting instances where I inappropriately used which instead of that.

Sigh.

I’ve spent 59 years using these two words improperly!

So, when DO we use the word that in an appropriate and defensible fashion? After all, too many that’s make the prose boring and forgettable. Some people say you must NEVER use it, but Irene says they are incorrect.

So does Grammar Girl, (Mignon Fogarty) on her awesome website for writers with questions. This website is an invaluable resource for folks like me, with some education, but no memory of what that education actually taught us.

There are instances where only that will suffice. When do we use the word that?

We use it when we have something called a ‘Restrictive Clause’. So now you want to know (as I did) what the heck THAT is!

Quote from Grammar Girl, “A restrictive clause is just part of a sentence that you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts some other part of the sentence.” She goes on to give a specific example of a restrictive clause: “Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness.” See? Not just ANY gems elicit forgiveness in this sentence, but only gems that sparkle. It is restricted to one kind of gem.

So, now we know about restrictive clauses, but what about nonrestrictive clauses? Again we turn to Grammar Girl and she says, “A nonrestrictive clause is something that can be left off without changing the meaning of the sentence. You can think of a nonrestrictive clause as simply additional information.” Again she gives the example, “Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.” The word ‘which’ isn’t really necessary, as the meaning of the sentence would not be changed if you left it out. “Diamonds are expensive, but often elicit forgiveness.” Sometimes the sentence is better without the extraneous word.

I still make a mish-mash of things as they fall out of my head and into my book, but I take comfort in knowing I am not alone! Writing is a journey, and I learn something new every step of the way.

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Tagged as adventure, Art, humor, literature, writing

December 28, 2012 · 8:42 pm

Party On!

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year! As my favorite author of all time, Charles Dickens,English novelist (1812 – 1870), wrote in his epic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

If that doesn’t describe 2012, nothing does! So, let the revels begin! I will be celebrating the New Year with a small dinner party as I finally make that commitment to go fully vegan for the 31 days of January. If I find my health improves I will stay on the vegan diet permanently. It just so happens that this group is evenly divided between carnivores and vegans with those bearing the Y chomosomes being the carnivores.

So on Dec. 31^st I will spend the day making a dinner for the husbands AND a dinner for the wives! This will be an adventure. I will make a chicken marsala, and mashed red potatoes with grilled asparagus for the men and a curry and maple sweet potato soup for the ladies, along with salads and fruit for everyone. I make my bread vegan now anyway. I will keep you all posted on my progress with this new (to me) way of eating.

So put on your party hats and bring out the noisemakers! What better way to start the New Year than to enjoy a fine dinner, a brisk game of Monopoly and the company of friends?