October 6, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A Coming Storm by Sanford Robinson Gifford

Gifford_A_Coming_Storm_1863-1880_PMA

Artist: Sanford Robinson Gifford,

Title: A Coming Storm (1863)

Date: 1863 (retouched 1880)

Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

What I love about this painting:

Gifford demonstrates his skill as a devotee of luminism and gives us the perfect view of a fine autumn day and the approaching storm. The way he contrasts the sun’s light against the ominous black clouds is true to nature, to how storms really look as they close in.

I like the way he shows the rock outcroppings, visible evidence of the hard stone of the mountains that lies beneath the lush finery of autumn foliage.

For the moment, the waters of the pond are quiet, reflecting the sky above. Rain cloaks the view of the distant valley, and soon we will feel the brunt of it. Enjoy the blaze of color while you can, as tomorrow those trees will be half-bare, and the ground will be covered in sodden tatters of red and gold.

While there appears to be some damage in the upper center, the integrity of the painting is still intact. It was retouched in 1880, but a modern retouching would likely bring it back to its original glory.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its emphasis on light and soft atmospheric effects.

Although trained as a portrait painter, the first work Gifford exhibited at the National Academy was a landscape, in 1847. Thereafter, Gifford devoted himself primarily to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the Hudson River School. He was elected an Associate of the National Academy in 1851, and an Academician in 1854.

2008 National Academy of Design controversy:

In December 2008, one of Gifford’s paintings, Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859), became part of a controversy over deaccessioning by the National Academy of Design. The Academy was a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose policy stated that member museums could not sell works of art to cover operating expenses, only to purchase superior works or to weed out inferior or redundant ones. Prior to joining AAMD, the Academy had sold two Thomas Eakins works (including his “diploma painting,” Wrestlers) in the 1970s, and Richard Caton Woodville‘s War News from Mexico (1848) in 1994. According to its former curator, David Dearinger: “When the Academy later applied to the museum association for accreditation, Mr. Dearinger recalled, it was asked about the Woodville sale and promised not to repeat such a move.”

In a 2008 sale, the Academy quietly sold Frederic Edwin Church‘s Scene on the Magdalene (1854) and Sanford Gifford’s Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859) to a private collector for US$13.5 million. The former was the Academy’s only painting by Church; the latter was its only painting by Gifford. Both had been “donated to the Academy in 1865 by another painter, James Augustus Suydam.” News of the sale was broken by arts blogger Lee Rosenbaum. As punishment for these actions, AAMD asked its other member museums to “cease lending artworks to the Academy and collaborating with it on exhibitions.” The Academy had contemplated selling additional paintings, but those plans were abandoned after being reported by Rosenbaum. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: A Coming Storm by Sanford Robinson Gifford. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Gifford A Coming Storm 1863-1880 PMA.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Gifford_A_Coming_Storm_1863-1880_PMA.jpg&oldid=803742381 (accessed October 5, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Sanford Robinson Gifford,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sanford_Robinson_Gifford&oldid=1176083433 (accessed October 5, 2023).

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October 4, 2023 · 6:00 am

#NaNoPrep: The initial setting #amwriting

If you are new to NaNoWriMo (or to writing in general), this series of posts is for you. The goal of participating in NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words on your novel in the month of November. A successful NaNoWriMo is easier to achieve if we have a preflight checklist (which can be found at the bottom of this post).

WritingCraft_NaNoPrep_101We talked about getting a start on our characters in Monday’s post. Today, we’re going to visualize the place where our proposed novel is set, the place where the story opens.

Where do you see your story taking place? In the real world? A fantasy realm? Space? An alternate dimension? Alternate Earth? Today, we’re focusing on the opening setting.

I write fantasy, and much of my work is set in an invented world. I began creating this world as the storyline for a post-apocalyptic anime-style RPG game for PC (that never went into production).

Fifteen years on, most of what I need to know about this world is canon and can’t be changed. But at the outset in 2007, all I knew was the premise of the conflict: the gods had been at war, and it involved three worlds. I needed to see how that conflict had changed the landscape because a disaster on that scale would dramatically affect the people of three worlds.

In science fiction and other genres, in series that are set in one world/universe, the word canon refers to historic and previously established events and occurrences in that reality. When something is declared impossible in the early narratives, it cannot be possible in later novels without some logical explanation.

plot is the frame upon which the themes of a story are supportedAll worldbuilding must show a world that feels as natural to the reader as their native environment. I used the forests and lowlands of Western Washington State as my template. The entire series evolved out of three paragraphs that answered the following question:

  • The “War of the Gods” broke three worlds – how did that affect their civilizations?

The War of the Gods is central to Neveyah’s religion, a trauma that shapes their lives as much as it does their world. One can never escape the visible scar, the immensity that divides the world in half: the Escarpment. It is the wound where the World of Cascadia was joined to the World of Neveyah.

Once I have a mental image of the visuals of the world I am writing, I ask myself, “Does the environment shape society?”

Since this example is set in a post-apocalyptic world, the characters live in a low-tech agricultural society. Resources are scarce.

  • How can the environment create tension in the narrative?

I want to see that raw, just-born environment when I begin writing. In the case of this world, one fundamental theme binding the narratives together is the balance of nature and how delicate it is.

Here is a quick, easy exercise in worldbuilding, one that will take less than five minutes:

  • Close your eyes and visualize your real-world environment.
  • Then, without looking around, write a word picture of it.

I am sitting on a balcony. My chair is a saucer chair, not easy to get out of but comfortable once I’m in it. Traffic on the street below is noisy, but the sun is shining, and rain is expected to move in over the next few days.

Once you have written a paragraph or two that describes your personal world, you understand how worldbuilding works. You can visualize your characters’ community and write a two-paragraph word picture of that imaginary place.

So—about the storyboard we discussed in Monday’s post. Now is a good time to start if you haven’t already done so. Here is a screenshot of the tabs on my storyboard/stylesheet that has been fifteen years in the making:

tabs of a stylesheet

Your storyboard/stylesheets will be much simpler, just one page to start out with.

If your work is set in an actual location, you should know where to find resources for appropriate slang, urban myths, and other local peculiarities. My co-municipal Liaison, Lee French, reminds us that we don’t have to immerse ourselves immediately. We just want to lay the groundwork for November, to have things handy when we start writing in earnest on November 1st.

Sci-fi writers should bookmark or list sites for any science you may need. If it takes place on a spaceship, you should have a good idea of what the ship looks, sounds, and smells like, a floorplan, and maybe consider what might power it.

Fantasy writers, if your novel is set in a made-up universe/world/town, what is the big-picture of your setting? Is the starting point near a river, forest, an ocean, or a desert? Again, you don’t have to know everything in precise detail, but you should put down some starter notes, because environment determines food and resources that may come into play later.

If you’re writing in the real world as we know it—make good use of Google Earth. Bookmark (or make a list of) the websites that offer accurate information about those places.

If you intend to add sci-fi or fantasy elements, such as zombies, magic, dragons, or future tech to our current world, you’ll want to think about the effect those elements will have on the environment. The presence of large flying predators would limit outdoor activities. Even if your dragons aren’t carnivorous, they are usually depicted as rather birdlike in appearance and habit.

dragonSeagulls are a good example of what could happen. They fly and do their business while on the wing, and sometime find enjoyment in “bombing” windshields.

That sort of package dropping from the sky could make for a startling end to the average family barbecue. Grandma’s potato salad would likely be served indoors so as to not encourage dragonly target practice.

My RPG-based world has creatures that cast certain magic as weapons or defensively. Their presence in the wild makes traveling without guards dangerous. Thus, the environment offers plot opportunities for employment.

sample-of-rough-sketched-mapSome of us (Me! Me!) will make pencil-sketched maps of our fantasy world or the sci-fi setting. I find that maps are excellent brainstorming tools for when I can’t quite jostle a plot loose. It’s a form of doodling, a kind of mind wandering, and helps me find creative solutions to minor obstacles.

But you don’t have to go to all that trouble at one sitting. Just briefly note your ideas for worldbuilding because we will come back to this and flesh out the details later. For now, all you need is the overview of the world on the day your story opens.

Previous in this series:

#NaNoPrep: creating the characters #amwriting | Life in the Realm of Fantasy (conniejjasperson.com)

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October 2, 2023 · 6:00 am

#NaNoPrep: creating the characters #amwriting

If you are new to NaNoWriMo, or to writing in general, this post is for you. A successful NaNoWriMo is easier to achieve if we have a preflight checklist (which can be found at the bottom of this post). Today, we will take an hour or so to do some pre-writing, building our main character and their sidekicks.

nano prep namesNo matter how many characters you think are involved, one will stand out. That person will be the protagonist.

Character creation crosses all genres. Even if you are writing a memoir detailing your childhood, you must know who you were in those days. You want the reader to see the events that shaped you, but not through the lens of memory. They must see the events as they unfold.

I have mentioned (a gazillion times) that I use Excel, a spreadsheet program, to outline my projects. But you can use a notebook or anything that works for you. You can do this by drawing columns on paper by hand or using post-it notes on a whiteboard or the wall. Everyone thinks differently, so we all have to find the way that works best for us. I just happen to like working with Excel or Google Sheets.

Some people use a dedicated writer’s program like Scrivener—which I find mind-bogglingly incomprehensible. No matter your method, the characters aren’t fully formed when you begin writing the first chapters. They will evolve as a result of the experiences you write for them, but you want an idea of who they are now.

The storyboard is where I brainstorm characters and plot. When I find myself floundering in the writing process, I can see where I have gone off the rails and into the weeds.

First, we want to get to know who we’re writing about. I always have a reasonably good idea of how my characters look. However, that image can drift as the first draft evolves, and brown eyes are suddenly green (yes, this did happen, but my editor is amazing).

But don’t get too detailed. Readers have their own image of beauty, so don’t force your idea of loveliness on them. General descriptions and the reactions of other characters should convey how they look. Skin tones and hair color, curly or straight, are pretty much all you need.

a storyboard is your friendOnce I know the basic plot, I make a page in my workbook with a bio of each character, a short personnel file. Sometimes, I include images of RPG characters or actors who most physically resemble them and who could play them well—but this is only to cement them in my mind.

The personnel file is laid out this way:

Column A: Character Names. I list the important characters by name and the point where they enter the story.

Column B: About: Their role, a note about that person or place, a brief description of who and what they are.

Column C: The Problem: What is the core conflict?

Column D: What do they want? What does each character desire?

Column E: What will they do to get it? This column usually remains empty until I am well into the first draft, because at this point, I don’t know how far they will go to achieve their desire.

This is an image of a Storyboard Template, created in Google Sheets which is a FREE spreadsheet program. Google Docs is also free and is a perfectly fine word-processing tool if you don’t have the money for MS Office 360 or other programs.

Google Sheets Storyboard Template Screenshot 2017-10-15 07.13.09 cjjaspNames say a lot about characters. If you give a character a name that begins with a hard consonant, the reader will subconsciously see them as more intense than one whose name starts with a soft sound. It’s a little thing, but it is something to consider when conveying personalities.

Also, I’ve said this before, but with the growing popularity of audiobooks, I suggest writing names that are easy to pronounce. It will simplify the process of having your book narrated—but again, that is your choice.

A great story evolves when the antagonist and protagonist are powerful but not omnipotent. Both must have character arcs that show personal growth or an inability to grow. For the antagonist to be realistic, this must be clearly established, so once we know who they are, they should also get a personnel file.

So first, let’s create a main character. The story will grow from her experiences, so she must be someone you want to know.

Our protagonist is Lilly. For this exercise, I chose a flower name, suggesting someone who is kind, a good friend.

Who is this person? Start with the basics: race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality, appearance/coloration.

Race: This is a post-apocalyptic world. When the survivors prepared to leave the catacombs, they divided into 50 tribes. They blended the various races and ethnicities as evenly as possible to widen the gene pool. Everyone is of mixed-race heritage, regardless of outward coloring and appearance.

Appearance and coloration: Lilly is tall and physically fit and has straight black hair, brown eyes, and dark coloring.

Ethnicity: She was born into Asgrim’s tribe, which settled in the north.

Age: 27

Gender/sexuality: This is important, as gender and sexuality play a role in my novel. A broad view of gender/sexuality is a fact of life in their culture. Lilly and Kaye are life partners.

My co-municipal liaison, Lee French, suggests you write one sentence to describe them and move on. I’m not good at one-sentence descriptions, so a paragraph is more my style.

I suggest you write what comes to mind, and don’t worry if you can’t think of anything at this stage. Once you begin writing the narrative, the characters will tell you what you need to know.

It sounds hokey, but it’s true.

Characters don’t leap onto the page fully formed. They begin to reveal who they really are as we lay down the first draft, and this is why my narratives rarely keep to the original outline.

One thing that helps when creating a character is identifying the verbs embodied by each individual’s personality. Lilly’s verbs are: fight, defend, create, care. These words tell me how she will react in any given situation.

Also, I try to identify each character’s motivation, the metaphorical “hole” in their life. What pushes them to do the crazy stuff they do? Sometimes, that loss or lack doesn’t emerge until you’re well into writing the first draft.

What we are doing is pre-writing. It helps me to have the characters in place when I begin writing a novel on November 1st. Below is a PNG image of my pre-flight checklist. Feel free to right-click and save as a PNG or .jpeg for your own use!

We have looked at steps one and two. Next up is step three: the world as it is when the story opens.

Previous in this series:

#NaNoPrep: What do I want to write? #nanowrimo | Life in the Realm of Fantasy (conniejjasperson.com)

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September 29, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight by Aelbert Cuyp 1643

Aelbert_Cuyp_-_Dordrecht_Harbor_by_Moonlight_4168Artist: Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691)

Title: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1643

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: height: 76.5 cm (30.1 in); width: 106.5 cm (41.9 in)

Collection: Wallraf–Richartz Museum 

What I like about this scene:

Aelbert Cuyp’s paintbrush tells a story. But what kind of story is he showing us?

A ship is docked beside a mill at Dordrecht Harbor. Night has fallen, and a full moon, veiled by clouds, lights the scene. On the wharf, three figures stand, talking, perhaps making a deal. What could be so important that these men must discuss it in the dark?

The moonlight casts a pale glow over the scene, casting shadows and illuminating the mist rising in the distance. It adds to the mystery of the scene, conveying a feeling of clandestine conversations.

It’s 1643. The Eighty Years War, a revolution and quest for independence is still ongoing. It’s a battle for religious freedom as well as for the rights of the Dutch people to govern themselves.

Yes, indeed … some conversations by moonlight are best kept secret.

About Dordrecht in the 17th Century:

Dordrecht (Dutch: ) historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, pronounced) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland.

During the Eighty Years’ War merchants from Dordrecht were involved in taking control and founding sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. At the end of the 17th century this led to a stable sugar refining industry in Dordrecht. This flourished in the 18th century, when Dordrecht had 16 sugar refineries, as opposed 120 in Amsterdam and 40 in Rotterdam. Dordrecht still has a few buildings purposely designed as a sugar refinery, e.g. the imposing Sugar Refinery Stokholm.

Overall, the economic importance of Dordrecht began to wane in the 18th century, and Rotterdam became the main city in the region. [1]

The Eighty Years’ War  or Dutch Revolt (Dutch: Nederlandse Opstand) (c. 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralization, taxation, and the rights and privileges of the nobility and cities.

An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster (a treaty part of the Peace of Westphalia), when Spain retained Southern Netherlands and recognized the Dutch Republic as an independent country.[2]

About the Artist:

Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp or Cuijp (20 October 1620 – 15 November 1691) was one of the leading Dutch Golden Age painters, producing mainly landscapes. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father, Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp (1594–1651/52), he is especially known for his large views of Dutch riverside scenes in a golden early morning or late afternoon light. He was born and died in Dordrecht.

Little is known about Aelbert Cuyp’s life. Even Arnold Houbraken, a noted historian of Dutch Golden Age paintings and the sole authority on Cuyp for the hundred years following his death, paints a very thin biographical picture.

His period of activity as a painter is traditionally limited to the two decades between 1639 and 1660, fitting within the generally accepted limits of the Dutch Golden Age’s most significant period, 1640–1665. He is known to have been married to Cornelia Bosman in 1658, a date coinciding so directly with the end of his productivity as a painter that it has been accepted that his marriage played a role in the end of his artistic career.

The year after his marriage, Cuyp became the deacon of the reformed church. Houbraken recalled that Cuyp was a devout Calvinist and the fact that when he died, there were no paintings of other artists found in his home. [3]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE:  Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight by Aelbert Cuyp, 1643. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Aelbert Cuyp – Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight 4168.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Aelbert_Cuyp_-_Dordrecht_Harbor_by_Moonlight_4168.jpg&oldid=782562344 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Dordrecht,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dordrecht&oldid=1169436434 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Eighty Years’ War,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eighty_Years%27_War&oldid=1177125376 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[3] Wikipedia contributors, “Aelbert Cuyp,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aelbert_Cuyp&oldid=1177164314 (accessed September 28, 2023).

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September 27, 2023 · 6:00 am

#NaNoPrep: What do I want to write? #nanowrimo

Two weeks ago, we talked about discovering our writing style. Some people plot, some write by the seat of their pants, and others are somewhere in the middle. I plot for a while and then find myself winging it. The plot goes in a new direction until I hit a wall, and then I replot until I know what has to happen. And then I let the words fly as they will.

crows-clip art clicker vector dot comEvery year I participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I sit down and write, and by doing that for two hours every day, I manage to crank out the high points of a story and get my wordcount and the “winners” certificate. A year or so later, I have connected the dots and end up with a coherent first draft that tops out at around 120,000 words.

Three years and six drafts later, it will be publishable at about 90,000 words.

For me, succeeding at getting the bare bones of a novel’s first draft written during the 30 days of November requires a bit of pre-writing—a pre-flight checklist.

I found Excel useful when I first began writing, and I use it to this day to keep my plots and background information organized. But any document or spreadsheet program will work. The aforementioned pre-flight checklist becomes my permanent stylesheet/outline for that novel.

The outline is a visual aid that keeps my stream-of-consciousness writing flowing.

Once I’m done winging it through the story and am in revisions, some scenes will make more sense when placed in a different order than originally planned. At that point, an outline allows me to view the story’s arc from a distance.

I can see where it might be flatlining. Perhaps an event should be cut entirely as it no longer works. (I always save my outtakes in a separate file for later use.)

Over the next few weeks, we’ll talk more about my process.

But first, what are we writing?

The basic premise of any story in any genre can be answered in eight questions.

  1. Author-thoughtsWho are the players?
  2. Who is the POV character?
  3. Where does the story open?
  4. What does the protagonist have to say about their story?
  5. How did they arrive at the point of no return?
  6. What do they want, and what will they do to get it?
  7. What hinders them?
  8. How does the story end? Is there more than one way this could go?

We’re starting with question number one: who are the players?

My stories always begin with the characters. They come to me, sharing some of their story the way strangers on a long bus ride might. They tell me some things about themselves. They give me the surface image they want the world to see. But as strangers always do, when I first meet them, they keep most of their secrets close and don’t reveal all the dirt. These are mysteries that will be pried from them over the course of writing the narrative’s first draft.

That little bit of sharing gives me the jumping-off point. I sit and write one or two paragraphs about them, as if meeting them for a job interview. That little word picture of the face they show the world is all I need to get my story off the ground when the real writing begins.

But before we go any further, I must ask, “What genre are we writing to?” This is important because tropes will guide the reader to see the world I envision.

Most of the time, I write a fantasy of some sort. I love alternate medieval, alternate Arthurian, and other subgenres.

Sometimes, I go nuts and write women’s fiction. I write whatever I’m in the mood to read. The story is the picture, and the genre is the frame. When selecting the frame for a picture, do I lean toward heavily carved and gilded frames, simple polished wood, or sleek polished steel?

The choice of frame depends on the picture and the room in which I intend to hang it. For my story, the frame (genre) will be determined by the reader I intend the book for. Mostly, I write for myself, so my genre is usually fantasy.

lute-clip-artCharacters usually arrive in my imagination as new acquaintances inhabiting a specific environment. That world determines the genre.

Julian Lackland, Billy Ninefingers, and Huw the Bard are alternate medieval novels because the characters live in a low-tech society with elements of feudalism. Waldeyn is an alternate world because I saw it as a mashup of 16th-century Wales, Venice, and Amsterdam with a touch of modern plumbing. I gave women the right to become mercenary knights as a way of escaping the bonds of society.

Also, I changed how religion works in that world. The church is an institution with hard and fast rules and exists to train men and women with the ability to wield magic. So, magic occurs in that world as a component of nature and spawns creatures like dragons, but they aren’t the point of those books.

Magic, dragons, and fairies are aspects of set dressing. They are the tropes readers of specific subgenres of fantasy expect, the backdrop against which the relationships and personal struggles play out.

Knowing your characters, having an idea of their story, and seeing them in their world is a good first step.

Write those thoughts down so you don’t lose them. Keep adding to that list as ideas about that world and those characters come to you.

This is how I start my pre-flight checklist for winging it through NaNoWriMo. Next week we’ll go a little deeper into the process.

Previous posts in this series:

#NaNoPrep: Discovering your writing style #amwriting | Life in the Realm of Fantasy (conniejjasperson.com)

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September 25, 2023 · 6:00 am

Conference Season #amwriting

I love writers’ conferences. I can immerse myself in the craft of writing and not feel like the odd duck. They can be expensive, but conferences help you make connections across both sides of the publishing industry, traditional and indie.

My Writing LifeYou might want to attend a conference but are worried about cost. I have ways to keep your expenses down.

If you are a regular here at Life in the Realm of Fantasy, you may have seen my two-part series on the business side of being an author. If not, and you are interested, I will put the links to those articles at the bottom of this post. In the meantime, here are some pointers for making attending a conference more affordable.

One: Join the association offering the conference because members get reduced conference fees, sometimes by as much as $100.00. Take advantage of the early-bird discount if you can. Members will often have opportunities for remote learning all year long. I belong to three writers’ associations, each offering virtual classes I can access all year.

Two: Small local events. Does your library system offer presentations on the craft of writing by local authors? These small classes will likely be free if it is a public library. If they don’t offer little seminars occasionally, suggest it to them. Perhaps they’ll be willing to ask some local authors to do such an event.

Three: Use the internet. Google “writers’ conferences in my area.” Local ones are great because you can eat food that fits your dietary needs and sleep at home. That way, you only pay for the conference itself.

Vegan_DesertsFour: Did I mention food? If you are planning to attend a large convention or conference where you will need to stay in a hotel, take simple foods that can be prepared without a stove and are filling. As I am vegan, I’m an accomplished hotel-room chef. Most coffee bars don’t offer many plant-based options. If they do, there will likely only be one to choose from, and it may not interest you. While that bias is changing, I still travel prepared.

Conferences work for me as an extension of the self-education process. Most of what I know about the craft of writing, the genres I write in, and the publishing industry as a whole are things I could only learn from other authors.

I gained an extended professional network by joining The Pacific Northwest Writers Association in 2011. Every year since then, I have attended their annual conference. Even during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, they held a virtual conference, which was an excellent example of what humans are capable of at short notice.

I attend the Science-fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Nebula Conference every year. The pandemic also inspired SFWA to move to a hybrid in-person and virtual conference, so my only cost is the conference fee itself. That cost is quite reasonable because I always take advantage of my membership and early bird discounts.

I am not a happy flyer, so a virtual conference is definitely my thing if I can’t drive there. However, since SFWA is a worldwide association of professional science fiction and fantasy authors, their conferences will also be available virtually for the foreseeable future.

I attended the Southwest Washington Writers Conference (SWWC) two weeks ago. This shindig is local enough that I can commute from my home. I was privileged to present a one-hour class on the character arc and layers of depth, Heroes and Villains – Who are they, and why should we care? I had a lot of fun talking to other writers and hearing what they struggle with. In the end, I hope what I had to say helped them through the rough spots.

This last weekend, I was in Seattle, Washington, attending PNWA’s 2023 conference. I expect the ideas and information I encountered will emerge in my posts over the next few months—after I’ve had time to distill it. Each time I’m exposed to a different way of looking at things, my creative thinking style is reshaped.

ICountMyself-FriendsI’m a small fish in a vast ocean. Attending local conferences puts me in contact with other authors and industry professionals, most of whom are successfully pursuing their craft. I meet people I don’t usually come into contact with as they hail from all over Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia.

The connections I make within the writing community often turn into friendships, which are sometimes the most valuable things I bring home from the conference.

Here are the two posts on the Business Side of the Business:

The Business Sequence for Writers, guest post by Ellen King Rice #writerlife | Life in the Realm of Fantasy (conniejjasperson.com)

The Business Side of the Business, part 2: Inventory #writerlife | Life in the Realm of Fantasy (conniejjasperson.com)

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September 22, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn in North America by Frederic Edwin Church 1896

Autumn_in_North_America-Frederic_ChurchArtist: Frederic Edwin Church  (1826–1900)

Title: Autumn in North America

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1856

Medium: oil on board

Dimensions: height: 28.5 cm (11.2 in); width: 43.1 cm (17 in)

Collection: Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

What I love about this picture:

This is a New England autumn in full color, the way autumns never are here in my part of the world. Yes, non-native trees will turn these bright shades, but the only bright red fall color in native species will be vine maples. Staghorn Sumac is a non-native plant that has become a part of our local flora, and it turns bright red also. But we do have gorgeous golds and oranges beginning to show in our native deciduous forests.

Many years it is too wet for a colorful fall, and the leaves turn a soggy brown and drop off their trees, sodden masses nearly impossible to rake.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church’s paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views. He debuted some of his major works in single-painting exhibitions to a paying and often enthralled audience in New York City. In his prime, he was one of the most famous painters in the United States. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Autumn in North America-Frederic Church.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Autumn_in_North_America-Frederic_Church.jpg&oldid=718218353 (accessed September 19, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Frederic Edwin Church,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederic_Edwin_Church&oldid=1162133197 (accessed September 19, 2023).

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September 20, 2023 · 6:00 am

Frustrations and blessings #amwriting

Microsoft has dispensed with using old traditional “straight” quotes (quotes without any curves or contours) as the default choice. Instead, it now uses curly “smart” quotes. Also, the most recent update changed my settings to Microsoft’s default choice, and I didn’t notice it for several days at least.

MyWritingLife2021Not every program or platform supports curly quotes, so those gurus who claim they are the only quotes you should use are wrong.

So, what is the problem? Why would I say such a thing? Smart quotes mess up the formatting in some files or on web pages. An example of what happens can be found here: Editing: The Problem with Smart Quotes | LinkedIn.

The most upsetting thing is this—I don’t know how many documents I messed up before I caught the problem. I have no clue which projects now sport straight quotes mingled with curly. I’ll have to resolve that document by document, using a global search and replace. It’s not the end of the world, but is inconvenient.

If you’re like me and prefer straight quotes because they’re less hassle, you will want to change the default curly quote setting in your Microsoft Office apps. Here is a link to a webpage that will walk you through the process: How to change ‘smart’ quotes to ‘straight’ quotes in Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint | Windows Central.

Epic Fails memeAnother frustration, this one of my own devising, is the mess I have deliberately created in a new project. I’d run into a wall with this story last winter, so I set it aside. Then, two weeks ago, I had the bright idea to change the viewpoint and make it present tense.

That change has injected life into the narrative. Unfortunately, it’s created a minor problem that I suspect my editor will chastise me for—verbs that somehow fell through the cracks and didn’t get changed from past tense to present. Went to goes, had to has or have—things I have spent hours on and will spend countless more when it gets out of the first draft stage.

And no matter how I comb for bloopers now, Irene will have her work cut out when she gets this mess.

The positive side of this self-imposed difficulty is the way the plot is unfolding. The words are pouring onto the paper now that my protagonist is telling the story.

One of the blessings I’m grateful for this week is a direct result of the pandemic: the fabulous people who do the shopping and deliver groceries to my door. I have never enjoyed shopping, and as I wend my way through the store, I forget what I intended to buy and bring home things I never knew I wanted. Hooray for the delivery people who bring the groceries I ordered to my door. I like this convenience so much that I even enjoy putting the food away.

Now, if only the laundry would do itself, that would immensely help.

Olympia_Farmers_Market_04We do get out sometimes, though. We have a wonderful farmer’s market in this town. The hubby and I enjoy shopping for some things when they’re in season: locally crafted jams, honey, and mustard. We don’t get down there as often as we’d like, but we always find something delicious when we do. The last time, it was a fabulous lemon raspberry jam that was to die for from a local producer, Johnson Berry Farms.

Another blessing in our life is the number of restaurants in this town. Olympia is friendly to all dietary persuasions. Every restaurant has at least one plant-based option, and so far, they have all been delicious and thoughtfully prepared. Last night, we had dinner at Cynara, near the boardwalk and the Olympia Farmer’s Market.

It’s a fancy restaurant, with a fancy menu and a fancy tab—but an occasional splurge keeps life interesting. The food there is fabulous. Greg had a lamb dish, and I had their cauliflower. Both meals were eye-candy and every bit as delicious to eat as they were to look at.

As I write this, I’m preparing to head north to Seattle for the annual PNWA Writers Conference. I attend every year, and always feel bad about leaving my husband on his own. So, this year, Greg will go with me for some downtime in the hotel. The hotel we’ll be staying at has many amenities for a man hoping for a bit of relaxation; not the least is a decent sports bar serving good food.

chefSeptember is always a month of transition. The summer weather is changing to cooler days, and leaves are turning red and yellow. The days are growing shorter, and the traffic outside our windows during rush hour is a little more frantic.

This is the month when homemade bread and crockpot soups make the house feel cozy. We’re still spending time on the balcony and finding humor in watching the shenanigans of harried commuters as their cars fly by in excess of the speed limit. But soon, the rain will move in and drive us indoors.

Not to worry—we’ll have plenty of opportunities to pass judgment on their driving skills from our window.

That’s it for today. I hope your frustrations are minor, and may your blessings far outweigh them.

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Olympia Farmers Market, Wikipedia contributors, “Olympia, Washington,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olympia,_Washington&oldid=1176094163 (accessed September 19, 2023).

 

 

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September 18, 2023 · 6:00 am

Weddings, equipment failures, industry news, and awesome sunrises #amwriting

This last week has been a productive week for writing despite the irritations. Yet, those bumps were quickly ironed out, and no one died.

R2D2ServingTeaSomething we don’t think about when we’re young and healthy is that the equipment disabled people rely on can fail. The first thing that failed this week was his little walker for getting around in indoor spaces—I’ve named it R2D2 since it’s perfect for serving drinks on the space-yacht that is our home.

R2 is ideal for getting around inside restaurants and theaters. Unfortunately, one of the screws holding the bar that keeps it from collapsing while my husband is using it lost the washer and nut, so I spent the weekend making sure the screw stayed where it was supposed to, which was distracting. Fortunately, Amazon carries bolts, nuts, and washers and ships them overnight and it is now repaired.

Then, there was assembling the paperwork for getting our will redone, this time including a durable power of attorney and an advance healthcare directive. When we had our will made twenty years ago, it was a simple thing, merely a list of our assets, rights of survivorship, and on the survivor’s death, dividing what is left equally among our blended family of five children.

This time, we had to fill out a pre-appointment questionnaire that asked questions I felt were intrusive and had no bearing on the disposition of our not-so-vast fortune.

I became a bit testy.

My husband, ever a man of common sense, talked me into a more rational frame of mind. He explained we need to ensure no random claims arise that could hold up the disposition of any $$ and intellectual properties we might leave our children.

FileDocumentSo, we had to supply dates and names of previous marriages and divorces—which, in my case, involved getting copies of three divorce decrees from the county. (I’ve had a life, and while I could have done some things differently, I don’t regret it for a moment.)

My Gramma Ethel (born in 1909) stayed with me when I was going through some hard times, watching my kids while I worked two jobs. My grandmother, bless her, was a cleaning tornado. She threw things like Christmas cards and old legal documents out when she cleaned—without asking first. These things were over and done in her mind, so why keep junk you don’t need? She hated things that took up space and gathered dust.

It was a trivial failing. Every evening, I came home to a clean house, a hot meal, and happy children. She was the best, and I valued her wisdom and unconditional love more than I can say. She still influences me in all the best ways. (Except I don’t clean house as well as she did.)

But back to equipment failures. The next one is slightly hilarious–my husband’s “ejector chair” suddenly failed to eject. Greg is 6’3” and is not overweight. But he’s a big man. Trying to get him out of the chair stuck in the reclined position was complicated and entertaining. I could hardly breathe for laughing.

Just so you know, the chair does not move when it doesn’t have power, or if the controller fails, which is what happened.

He sleeps much of the night in that chair, and it enables him to be more mobile in his daily life. But the people at the store where we purchased it came to our home and fixed it immediately, so Grandpa is back in business.

We attended our nephew’s wedding on Friday—a happy day for the family. It was beautiful, romantic, and everything a wedding should be. It was held in a local venue, a barn converted to host large gatherings. Greg and I are especially close to this nephew, as he spent part of a summer with us when his brother was seriously injured in an off-road vehicle accident, and his parents had to make an emergency trip to Oklahoma.

(Getting R2 folded and stowed in my sister-in-law’s trunk – and out again – is where the loose screw became a bit of a pain. But as I mentioned above, the wedding wasn’t held in Midsomer County, so nobody died.)

But let’s talk about sunrises—oh my goodness. One thing I love about our apartment is the view of the morning sky. Some sunrises are spectacular, and I find a reason to see every sunrise I can. This morning, clouds were moving in, and the eastern horizon was lit with crimson fire—a sight that only lasted briefly. Still, brief though it was, remembering it makes me glad to be alive.

steampunk had holding pen smallBut enough chit-chat about me. Let’s talk about writing. This week, I made headway on a first draft I had set aside a year or so ago because I was stuck at the 30,000-word point. I changed the narrative tense from close third person omniscient to first person present tense for the protagonist and third person present tense for the side characters. That change kickstarted things and the plot is unfolding as it should.

I always have several projects in the works, so when creativity fails in one, I move on to another. I have been making the loose outline for my NaNoWriMo project to finish the second half of a duology.

And finally, Greg and I will be attending the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference in Seattle on Wednesday. I attend this conference every year. I benefit from the presentations as much as the networking. I will talk more about the two conferences of this month next week.

And now for a bit of publishing industry news:

We’re all trying to get our books noticed, and sometimes the blurb on the back of the book isn’t enough, so we turn to other authors who might be willing to give us an endorsement we can print on the cover or use on our Amazon page. For an interesting article on the usefulness (or not) of author endorsements, I recommend ‘A Plague on the Industry’: Book Publishing’s Broken Blurb System (msn.com).

An excellent article on creativity and AI is AI vs human: the publishing industry’s way through the AI revolution (msn.com).

If you haven’t watched “The Other Black Girl,” you might be interested in this article: Hulu thriller ‘The Other Black Girl’ mocks publishing industry: review (msn.com).

Finally, for an article on diversity and equal representation, I heartily recommend Latino Coalition Launched to Boost Latino Representation in the Publishing Industry – Latin Heat.

So, that’s the way the week was at Casa del Jasperson. May the week ahead be filled with all the good things, and may your words flow freely! What follows is an amazing image of sunrise, found on Wikimedia Commons just for you.

Laanemaa_järv_Orkjärve_looduskaitsealal

Sunrise at Lake Laanemaa at Orkjärve Nature Reserve, Estonia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Sunrise at Lake Laanemaa at Orkjärve Nature Reserve, Estonia.  Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Laanemaa järv Orkjärve looduskaitsealal.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Laanemaa_j%C3%A4rv_Orkj%C3%A4rve_looduskaitsealal.jpg&oldid=801967887 (accessed September 17, 2023).

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September 15, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn Landscape (September) by Lucas van Valckenborch

GG_5684.tif

Artist: Lucas van Valckenborch  (1535–1597)

Title: Autumn Landscape (September)

Date: 1585

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 116 x 198 cm Rahmenmaße: 131,5 x 214 x 6,5 cm

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

What I love about this painting:

We see an entire view of ordinary autumn life in the 16th century, but better than that, Lucas van Valckenborch shows us the passage of time. He depicts the chronology of how people lived and celebrated each week of the changing season by showing us September in the Netherlands.

The way he shows us this chronology is ingenious and is a signature of his work. The early weeks of September are shown in the left foreground, with laborers bringing in the harvest. Others are working to dry and preserve foods. The colors he uses are vivid, the last shades of summer.

In the bottom to middle right, he shows us mid-September with people relaxing, feasting, bowling, and dancing. The harvest is in, and people have a little time to enjoy the last days of good weather. The colors he uses are more muted, with shades of brown dominating. The leaves are brown and falling. Yet, there is a vibrancy about it, a sense of life. People celebrate a successful harvest one last time before winter’s cold grip closes in.

In late September, people fish, and the market becomes the center of village life. People are less active, but the market draws customers. The end of September presages colder weather and hints at the beginning of winter. This is shown in cool shades of gray, as if in a black-and-white photograph.

He is known for using this trick of color to denote receding distances. But he deliberately places figures performing specific activities within those colors, showing us how people lived and the passage of their days as well as distance.

The first days of September are bright, days of plenty. Yes, we’re working hard, but we’ll be grateful for the bounty when winter comes.

We look forward to the middle of September, because once the rush of harvest is over we will party like it’s 1585.

In the distance, we know the cold dark days loom, but we are prepared. Our cellars will be full and we will hunt and fish while we can.

Lucas van Valckenborch’s body of work shows us that he was a brilliant storyteller as well as an artist. Many paintings of that time show us the poverty, but here we see the prosperity of a village during the early renaissance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom after all.

About the Artist and his work, via Wikipedia:

Lucas van Valckenborch or Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder (c. 1535 in Leuven – 2 February 1597 in Frankfurt am Main) was a Flemish painter, mainly known for his landscapes. He also made contributions to portrait painting, and allegorical and market scenes. Court painter to Archduke Matthias, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels, he later migrated to Austria and then Germany where he joined members of his extended family of artists who had moved there for religious reasons.

In their mixture of fantasy and accurate topographical details, van Valckenborch’s landscape paintings offer a view of the world and man’s relationship to it. This is particularly clear in his rocky landscapes in which the diminutive people on the winding path are reduced by the monumental cliffs. An example is the Rocky Landscape with Travelers on a Path (c. 1570, Sotheby’s 6 July 2016, London lot 3) where the distant goatherd and the silhouettes of his charges seem ant-like in comparison to the vast distance, and the vertiginous perspective of the scene. This dramatic visual depiction is clearly intended as a commentary on man’s place within the universe.

He also painted, between 1584 and 1587, a series of large pictures depicting the labours of the months, probably on commission for Archduke Matthias. These compositions, of which seven survive (five of which are in the Kunsthistorische Museum), present the various months of the year by showing the changing landscape and the traditional activities of humans during each month. It is not clear whether the five missing paintings were never painted or are lost.[4] Due to their realistic setting these compositions carry a documentary interest. The work of Pieter Bruegel the elder, who had painted a series of 6 on the times of the year, was influential on van Valckenborch. Lucas van Valckenborch moved away from the tradition of painting the landscape in three cascading distances that were rendered in three different colours: brown, green and blue for each receding plane. Rather he often left out the green tone for the middle distance. He also innovated the thematic scenes by developing them into genre scenes with a stronger narrative depth. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Lucas van Valckenborch,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucas_van_Valckenborch&oldid=1173224796 (accessed September 14, 2023).

IMAGE: Autumn Landscape (September) by Lucas van Valckenborch. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Lucas van Valckenborch – Autumn landscape (September).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Lucas_van_Valckenborch_-_Autumn_landscape_(September).jpg&oldid=618977280 (accessed September 14, 2023).

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