Tag Archives: Art

February 26, 2014 · 9:25 am

Fantasy–It’s a Mystery

My favorite books to read are, of course, fantasy. But I love mysteries too, and guess what? The best fantasy books involve a deep mystery.

In the best fantasy tales, at the outset quests are undertaken to achieve a goal against terrible odds, and the basis of that goal could be an object with a mysterious history, or it could be to kill a despot with immense power, the source of which is–a mystery.

And then, once the heroes are made aware of the whereabouts of the object (or person) they seek, the mystery deepens. Obstructions appear in their path, things that both block and enlighten them as they overcome them. With each small victory they learn something new, some random thing that might ultimately be the final clue to removing the source of power from the evil dude’s grasp, thus ending his reign of terror.

During the process of this, the heroes grow as people. Where they were comfortable in their secure, middle-class existence, or naive but worldly street-urchins, the experience of solving the mystery and enduring the hardships to arrive at the final scene changes them, some for the better, and some–maybe not.

This also happens in a great murder mystery, or a gripping political thriller. In writing classes and groups this is called the story arc, but in my opinion, it’s just the basis of good story. For authors just starting out, StoryStarter.com has a great page.

Along the way, the questers may encounter things that don’t appear in the real world we currently live in, and for me that’s part of the fun.

I grew up in a very rural area, surrounded by deep woods. We left Seattle and moved there when I was nine. Beyond the perimeter of our property lay terrifying things–bears, wildcats–things a nine-year old city-girl has no idea of how to deal with.

Daily, my sister and I walked up a 1/4 mile long dirt driveway through the forest to the school bus. A large hill was in the center, and for the first year I lived there, I hated the place more than anything. I hated the school, I hated the bus, I hated my parents for destroying my life.

Sometimes our father would have to drive us to school, if bears were in the horse pasture that bordered our property. We would drive past, and he would point out the wonders and explain that with a mother bear and her cub in the horse pasture, we had to be very careful that morning. “They’re rare, and we’re fortunate to be able to see them once in a while. It’s just the mother will see you as a danger to her cub, so no bus for you today.”

All I knew was the woods were full of danger, and my parents apparently didn’t care, because they made me walk through them daily. I did walk through them and gradually, as summer vacation loomed, I began to see the possibilities of living in a lake-house, where there was no restriction on how many days you swam.

That first summer I discovered waterskiing, and my whole point of view about living all year round in a vacation-house was changed. Over the first few months I learned to love the deep woods around us, and to know and recognize the birds and animals who grudgingly endured our noisy, selfish presence.

This personal journey from ignorance to understanding the characters go through while solving the underlying mystery is one of the most important elements of a story. It is hard to know how a character will react to a given situation, and that is the best part of writing them.

Ross Kitson’s epic Darkness Rising series is one of my favorites, because the circumstances force the characters to evolve in unexpected ways. Jeffrey Getzin’s fabulous Prince of Bryonae and his novellas featuring D’Arbignal are also good examples of how circumstances shape characters.

I highly recommend both these indie authors, if you are looking for high quality indie fantasy.

4 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Dragons, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as Art, books, D'Arbignal, Darkness Rising, deep mystery, fantasy, fiction, humor, Jeffrey Getzin, literature, magic, mystery, Ross M. Kitson, writing

February 22, 2014 · 6:33 am

Name that Kid

A Facebook friend of mine whose given name is ‘Tad’ remarked that he had never liked his name, that he had always felt more like a Christopher. I can totally relate! I was stuck with a not-too-goofy first name, Connie, which I never really liked, but my middle name…. To this day I can’t spell it with out concentrating really hard: Lieuettice.

In a way I understand my mother’s dilemma. Good names are hard to think up! My friend, Irene, is always hammering at me to give my characters names that don’t all start with the same letters…which I wish I had thought about earlier on in the Tower of Bones series (doh).

So lately I’ve had to resort to my handy list of Saxon Names. Or my list of Popular Viking Baby Names. “Come here, BRÖKK, my fine, strapping hero…put on this armor and at least look like you want to go out and wrestle a dragon….you and DAGFINNR can pillage the village when you’re done.”

So, my dilemma in my current work in progress is that two of the female characters have names that begin with the same letter. When I began writing the series, I didn’t realize the second character would become so important in the story–and now, three books into the series, I CAN’T CHANGE HER NAME! (bangs head on desk.)

But, instead of sitting here, wailing “Why, why why?” I suppose I should just get on with writing the story.

Note to self: Always name your character names that begin with different letters–there are twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, for the love of Tolstoy…and if we get into the Elder Futhark we can use all those lovely runes….

7 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Dragons, Fantasy, History, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, Elder Futhark, humor, knights, literature, Names, Runes, Tad Williams, Vikings, writing

February 15, 2014 · 4:44 pm

Ode to Writer’s Block

Ode to Writers Block

What beauty is this, that lies sleeping near my heart?

‘Tis word—and word should tumble from my pen,

Not lie locked within the chamber dark and inky.

Where hides the key to free thee from thy prison?

Oh, lovely word, spring forth from the trap that is my mind,

Set thee down upon this paper, word.

Let me hold thee, and from thee let me form the dreams,

The hopes and fantasies that fill my eyes and blind me to all but thee,

Oh word! Fill my paper with thy bounteous delight,

As you fill my head with longing, and my wastebasket with scrap.

Arts and the Muses by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1884-1889

3 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, History, Humor, Uncategorized, writer

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, books, Connie J Jasperson, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Ode, Poetry, Writers Block, writing

February 3, 2014 · 6:39 am

Mortality and Wine

Left Behind —

The twisty path that life takes us down sometimes brings us into the circle of a person we can call friend. We may meet at the home of a mutual friend, or we may meet in a writing group. Over time we get to know and like them. We look forward to seeing them; indeed, we expect to see them at certain parties, as if they were the underpinning of the entire event.

When they are suddenly taken from this life with no advance warning, you are stunned, feeling as if you were ambushed by their death.

Perhaps it was a close friend, or maybe it was a person you were only beginning to know well. Either way we are faced with a disconcerting feeling of being left behind—not that we wanted to die, but rather that we didn’t want a person we cared about to leave without us.

When a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a child dies, there are no words to describe the pain. The same goes for the death of that friend who is your other half, your ‘bestie’, your brother-in-arms.

The friend who would help you bury the body.

That loss is a tearing, shattering pain time may ease, but which always leaves a scar. Every person handles this experience in a different way. Some of us become better people through surviving a devastating personal loss, and some do not.

The death of a friend who is more than simply an acquaintance, yet not intimately tangled in your life is a different kind of loss.

It’s one we will all experience, and perhaps it’s not as profound as the loss of your best friend, but it is no less shocking and disconcerting. That death is experienced differently than if he were a friend who is a close family member.

He is someone we had known only a few years, a friend we were only beginning to really know. He is someone who is in many ways a mystery although we regularly met at parties and social events. He is someone with whom we have enjoyed long conversations over wine and cheese, shared risqué jokes, and laughed at the incongruities of life.

We had only started to walk the road of life together, only begun to know him as a traveling companion, and suddenly he is gone.

When a friend who is not yet close to you dies, a hole is left in your life, a hole filled with possibilities, packed with the prospect of what your friendship could have grown into, given more time and more parties.

Although it’s comforting to know that he touched more lives than just ours, it’s hard to realize we’ll never talk about wine with him again, never see him standing in that spot he always claimed in Nancy’s kitchen, never see him and his little dogs again.

Never hear him tease, “Vegan chili is an oxymoron,” as he serves himself at the buffet.

It’s hard to imagine him going alone into that unknowable frontier we must all eventually pass into, hard to imagine him letting go of this life when he was so vivid and filled with energy and passion for his art the last time we saw him. I will never pour a glass of wine again without thinking of our good friend who loved the craft and the art of wine-making so much, and whose wines were the source of many happy moments for many more people than just me.

His many friends are now feeling the same sense of loss and confusion I am feeling. My heart goes out to his close family and to our dear friends Michael and Nancy, intimate friends of his who are stunned and bereft; loved ones who still can’t believe he’s gone.

Patrick—our glass will always be half-full, because of the joy and companionship of good friends like you.

6 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Fantasy, Literature, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, books, Death, Friendship, Grieving, Life, Loss, vegan lifestyle, Wine, writing

January 30, 2014 · 6:52 am

Philosophy and Crafting a Tale

The Buddha once said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” I believe this to be true, and try to live my life accordingly. I am a basically happy person.

I think a certain amount of my personal philosophy finds its way into my writing. It’s only human nature to want to make the world to fit your idea of what is good and beautiful. In my worlds, good people always find themselves in bad situations, but through the drama, heartache and violence, what I hope to express is the beauty of life, the emotions that are experienced when joys are contrasted against sorrows.

If you have never felt hunger, you can never understand what it is to have plenty. In the same context, if you have never known sorrow, how can you know joy? The contrasts of life are the flavors, the textures that give it meaning.

The Buddha also said, “There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.” This is a fundamental truth for all writers of traditional fantasy fiction when devising plots, one that J.R.R.Tolkien understood quite clearly. After all, what would have been the point of Frodo and Sam going to the depths of Mordor, suffering the hardships they endured if not to destroy the One Ring and negate the power of Sauron? And why would they do this, if Sauron was not the embodiment of evil?

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we have one of the most enduring works of modern fiction. It is an epic quest where through it all, we have joy and contentment sharply contrasted with deprivation and loss, drawing us in and inspiring the deepest emotions. This use of contrast is why Tolkien’s work is the foundation upon which modern epic fantasy is built.

If I can create a tale in which the reader experiences the full gamut of human emotion, I will have done my job. The longer I am at this craft, the more I see that the rest of my life will be a training ground, teaching me new things, and widening my writing horizons everyday. With each thing I have written over the years, my work has evolved. Because the universe follows certain fundamental laws and nothing is static, my work and that of all dedicated craftsman-authors will continue to evolve.

Comments Off on Philosophy and Crafting a Tale

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, books, fantasy, fiction, Frodo, human nature, humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, literature, Lord of The Rings, Mordor, mythology, Samwise, The Buddha, writing

January 28, 2014 · 6:35 am

William Morris, Tolkien, and Modern Elves

Pauline Baynes’ map poster of Middle-earth published in 1970 by George Allen & Unwin and Ballantine Books.

Lately I have been ‘guru-ed’ to death on various different writers forums by a few indie authors, whose own work is a great deal less than stellar, harshly criticizing the quality of writing of everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Robert Jordan.

Some people–I wonder, do they even read the comments they write? I am going to tell you straight up: Tolkien did NOT use too many words in The Hobbit, and the movie was not better. Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford, he invented the elfin language and as such, we may be assured he had a moderately good grasp of the English language, and the literature of his time.

He wrote in a lyrical style, with descriptions and side quests, things that enthralled avid readers like me who understood how to set aside a day to just to enjoy a good read.

The movie, while it is awesome, exciting and great fun, bears some relation to the actual book but certainly does not chronicle it. In the book for starters, Legolas was not a character, he did not have a love interest, and neither did Kili. If you read the credits at the end of the movie, you will see it clearly says “BASED ON” the book, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The problem with the book is not in Tolkien’s writing. It is in the eye of the beholder who never learned patience, or appreciation of a well-told story.

Fortunately, we now have an emerging generation of young women who consider “Pride and Prejudice” to be their favorite book of all time, and this gives me hope. Pride and Prejudice is about manners, yes–but it is also about that intrinsic thing all great novels consider, the search for self, and underneath the trappings of fantasy, the elves and goblins, so is the Hobbit.

That quest to discover who we are and what we are capable of is what drives Bilbo to keep going, even in the face of terrible events. I have hope that if Jane Austen’s work is once again considered to be popular reading among young people, then the love of a beautifully crafted tale will never entirely disappear and the true appreciation of Tolkien’s great works will once again be celebrated.

What I frequently see in these forums see is an aggressive type of person who criticizes but lacks an understanding of what he/she is ranting about. They claim to be in writing groups, but if they are, I feel sorry for their fellow writers. These people are the carrion-eaters, the ones who will pick an author’s work to the bone, and casually dismiss it, destroying a fellow authors sense of self-worth.

What a person who writes fantasy needs to know is what the masters of the genre wrote, and what made their work classics. In other words, stop looking AT the words as disparate parts that you could write better, and read them in context. You might be surprised at what you will find!

Even Tolkien had inspiration for his works, and he freely admitted he was a great devotee of the work of William Morris, an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts and Crafts Movement. He loved Morris’s prose and poetry romances. Tolkien’s own work follows the general style and approach of Morris’s work. The Desolation of Smaug as portraying dragons as detrimental to landscape, has been noted as an explicit motif borrowed from Morris, just as countless fantasy authors borrow the modern concept of Orcs, Elves, and many other high fantasy motifs from Tolkien.

The modern image and mythology of the elf as he is written into most of today’s fantasy has been directly modeled on the elves of Tolkien’s Rivendell, whether the author knows it or not. Even the elves we find in the onslaught of urban-fantasy-romances are created in Tolkien’s image.

So, now that I’ve had my rant about internet writer’s forums and the bad apples who occasionally haunt them, you’re probably wondering what I find that is good out there? A great deal more good than bad, actually. There are an incredible number of people who are willing to be helpful to aspiring authors, and who regularly share good information. The following is a list of good forums you might want to look into.

Writers Digest

Writers Cafe

Absolute Write

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

I’ve had a lot of fun on these forums and I learned a great deal. I never respond to Trolls, because acknowledging them encourages them to think they have power. How you handle them is up to you. Do your homework, research the great literature of your genre and write because you love it.

Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The beginning of the Quenya poem Namárië written in tengwar and in Latin script, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

7 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Dragons, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, mythology, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, dragons, Elves, fantasy, fiction, George Allen & Unwin, J.R.R. Tolkien, literature, Pride and Prejudice, The Hobbit, Tolkien, William Morris, writing

January 24, 2014 · 7:30 am

Telling the Tale

I am so excited–Tales from the Dreamtime has made it into print, and is halfway through the process for being made into an Audible Book through Amazon’s ACX services. We should have a finished product before the end of February. The narrator is a wonderful reader, Craig Allen, and the way he reads my work is perfect–he instinctively understood what I was thinking when I wrote it.

There is a sense of having “made the grade” in hearing your work read as an Audible book, and a feeling of wonder. Did I really write that? Wow! It’s actually kind of good!

I’m quite pleased with how well the novella translates to being read aloud. My reader has had very few questions, and that is entirely due to it’s having been professionally edited. Irene Roth Luvaul was the editor on that book, and she is awesome, as are all the gals at Eagle Eye Editors. I actually have three manuscripts in editing with them right now–Tower of Bones is finally getting the Eagle Eye Treatment, which it should have had in the beginning. This is how you learn.

The original editing on Tower of Bones was a labor of love by my friends. It is a great example of a typical indie production, and while it’s not unreadable in its current state, it has too many words. The story has potential for greatness, and Maria Johnson at Eagle Eye is bringing that out. I have developed a leaner style of writing since that book was written, and Maria is cutting the fluff.

Also at Eagle Eye, Huw the Bard has been under the knife–the fabulous Carlie Cullen, who edited Forbidden Road is putting the polish on Huw. With this kind of continuity, I will be able to develop my author name into real brand, with as good a product as I can possibly offer.

When the good ladies at Eagle Eye are done with me, all my books will be as high quality as any published by a large publisher. This is what I have been working toward, getting my work as professional as is possible. Sometime being an indie means you were flung into the deep end of the pool, but eventually you do learn a few things.

My raw manuscripts are not really very literate. Oh, I do the best I can, but like all authors I tend to use certain phrases too often, adore clichés, and of course, there are those pesky typos that require correction. Also, in the course of my writing frenzy I stick a comma in anywhere I pause, apparently. (snorfle.)

BUT the real story today–grandma is gonna kick back and play her game, all day, and no, I don’t need any fresh air , thank you. The most awesome thing ever–Square Enix re-released Final Fantasy X, this time for the PS3, and it has been remastered. Not only that, they have created a sequel to it, Final Fantasy X-2, and released them together in a package that has been getting rave reviews.The direct sequel to Final Fantasy X, the game’s story follows the character Yuna from Final Fantasy X as she seeks to resolve political conflicts in the fictional world of Spira before it leads to war. This will be the next purchase from Amazon, since Grandma LOVES gaming as much as she loves reading.

But right now, Grandma is replaying Final Fantasy XII, so she has to go now. I will never stop playing this game–I love the characters so much. The story line is deep and rich, and the personalities of the characters are multidimensional.

Don’t touch that controller, that’s mine.

2 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Fantasy, Final Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Amazon, Art, battles, books, Craig Allen, Eagle Eye, Eagle Eye Editors, fantasy, fiction, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, humor, Maria Johnson

January 14, 2014 · 9:37 am

First we need a reader

Thanks to ease with which one can now publish a book, indie publishing is really taking off. Many people don’t even bother submitting manuscripts to the big publishers or courting agents. I think this is, in part, due to a perception in many writing groups that “my work will just be rejected, so why bother?”

Personally, I think this is wrong. People should continue submit good work to agents and publishers, because a big publisher can do great things for their authors.

I understand both sides of this argument, and I have received my share of rejections. I am an indie, and for me, this is the best way to go. But when I look back on my earlier work, I can clearly see why it was not accepted. I had no idea what a finished manuscript should look like, nor did I understand how to get it to look that way. I didn’t understand a story arc.

I didn’t understand how important it is to allow trusted readers to read your work while you are writing it, to insure it flows and sustains the interest.

Some authors call these intrepid heroes “first readers,” and others in the industry are now referring to them as “beta readers.” Many editing firms offer this service as a part of their package. I can hear you now–“My Cousin Earl looked at my story and he said, ‘That’s nice.’ So I sent it to Mud Runner Magazine and they rejected it and didn’t tell me why.”

I am sorry to tell you, but Cousin Earl may not be a good choice for this task, as he is not a true beta reader. Even though you wrote an article just jam-packed with a ton of information on the advantages of using various different types of knobby tires for off-roading, Cousin Earl will not tell you anything that may hurt your feelings. He will, however, tell his wife that their kid could write a better article on four-wheeling than you did, but he’s not going to tell you. (Unless you get too drunk on Cousin Grace’s eggnog at the family Christmas party, and accidentally knock over their Christmas tree.)

I wish I had a good response for people who say things like, “But I don’t need an editor! I just need someone to tell me if it’s good or not!” Unfortunately, my responses to such declarations are not polite, so I keep them to myself, smile and say, “That’s nice.”

You DO need to hire an editor. You need one, even if you are submitting your ms to a publisher or agent, because editors proofread, correct grammar, guide you to a good story arc. I ALSO recommend you find someone who enjoys reading the genre you are writing in to read your manuscript first before you submit it.

I have a form I send along with my manuscript. I got the questions from Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game). Orson has also written several wonderful books on the craft of writing. The form I now use is as follows:

Thank you for consenting to Beta read: _______________________. I am not asking for an edit, I am asking your opinion of the story, the characters and the action. This is a critical stage in the process as, once I have your feedback, I will make revisions to address issues of flow and send it to an editor for the final line-editing. These questions are from the article in ‘Writer’s Digest Guide to Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy’ by Orson Scott Card, a brilliant author in his own right.

Please make a note of the page number and the line number where you encountered a problem with the flow of the story.

1. Were you ever bored? Tell me where it got slow.

2. What did you think of the main character(s,) _______________________________? Of the others?

3. Was there any section where you became confused? What did you have to read twice?

4. Was there any place where the story became unbelievable?

5. What do you think will happen to the characters now?

The way you answer these questions determines the way I continue with my story. After all, I am writing for others’ pleasure, not just for my own gratification. Even if your responses tell me things that I don’t want to hear, I heed them because I want to turn out a good story and your input is my best tool for that. So in this case, bad news is good news, because I can still rectify the problem.

Don’t ask a friend who is an editor or another author to do a casual read because they are unable to resist dicing it into small shreds and making helpful suggestions as they go, even though that is not what you are looking for with a casual read. Authors and editors are passionate about the craft and have strong opinions. Don’t ask them to read casually, because they can’t do it.

Now, I admit I do have many friends who are authors and who have done some beta reading for me, and while a few tend to go into great detail about things they don’t like in areas where our personal styles and tastes differ, I still get feedback that I can use to help make a better story. This is also a service many editing firms will offer, and is a “deep beta read.”

But for simple, honest opinions as to whether you have written a good story or not, I ask a non-writer who just enjoys reading for the fun of it. For me, that person is my sister, Sherrie. She is an amazing artist, and an avid reader, who understands what she likes in book and isn’t afraid to point out where she didn’t like it.

If you have a friend who fits that bill, feel free to copy the above questionnaire to a WORD document and send it as an extra attachment along with with the PDF of your manuscript. (Of course, your ms has already been formatted with line numbers, and page numbers before you send that questionnaire, right?) See The Shape of the Beast.

Comments Off on First we need a reader

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Humor, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, beta reader, beta reading, books, Cousin Earl, Editing, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Orson Scott Card, writing

January 6, 2014 · 7:06 am

Monday, and the Room of Shame

Today, my plans are as follows (in no particular order):

1. Clean the Room of Shame (my office)

2. bake bread

3. dust for cobwebs, and sweep the front porch

4. organize kitchen a bit better (if Hell has frozen over)

5. prepare fabulous dinner for husband.

6. Connect two disparate threads in current work-in-progress.

Alas – most likely only 5 and 6 will happen. The Room of Shame gets sort of dug out and reshuffled two times a year. The last time I cleaned it, there was still fur from our late cat in some of the corners. Yum Yum (rest her little soul) died in 2008.

I might get some baking done if I get to a stopping point on my story. I love to bake, and I love fresh bread, but I am the laziest woman these days. I know that if I want to eat I must cook, but sometimes I just go with the Dave’s Killer Bread, rather than baking my own. Its vegan and good, but still home made is better.

Like writing, laundry is an ongoing process, so it doesn’t make it to a list. How do two old people make so much laundry? It’s insane. I don’t get it–I have the most modern of laundry doing appliances and still they don’t pick the clothes up and load themselves. Nor do they then fold and put the laundry away, as I think they should do. What’s up with that? It’s very frustrating.

Most likely I will remain in the room of shame, feet propped on filing cabinet, keyboard in lap, pecking away, writing fantasy tales about people who actually DO things. Perhaps Irene and I will go out for lunch. She’ll come by and pick me up and…

…but that means she’ll see the living room…

Oh-god–I have to clean the house. Gotta go!

And how do you intend to spend YOUR day?

2 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Fantasy, Food, Humor, Literature, Vegan, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, Dave's Killer Bread, dragons, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Shame, writing

December 31, 2013 · 8:01 am

2013 – Huh – Look at that!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog, which I looked at and said “Huh. Look at that.” Though it didn’t really tell me a lot, it was interesting and I loved the shiny picture (at the bottom of this page.)

But it got me to thinking about the year and what my personal favorite posts were. In looking back, I realize my favorite posts are not the ones that detailed my personal life, but are the posts dealing with the craft of writing. Still, the things we struggle with on a personal level are the things that form us as writers–me more than anyone, perhaps. They seem to have been the more popular posts, which surprises me.

For me, the year started out with a round of bad health, and in an effort to turn it around, I became vegan.

Vegans and Version Control posted 04 January 2013

That worked to a certain extent, and now a year later, I am still a Reluctant Vegan. I don’t miss meat, as it has never been that important to me, but boy do I miss the cheese. (sigh.)

Epilepsy. A scary plunge into the unknown if ever there was one. The ‘e’ word appeared 24 February 2013. I have two children who developed seizure disorders as adults, and they have each handled this frightening change in their lives differently. My daughter handles it the way she does everything–she accepts she has it, takes the medicine, and goes on with her life. Other than the first one she suffered which put her in the hospital with broken bones in her face, her seizures have been milder than my son’s. His seizures, when he has them, are severe, and he has been hospitalized three times this year. Each time, it was because he had not accepted his condition and was not obeying dr.’s orders. I am pleased to report that has changed. Sadly he is unable to drive until February 2014–but with the positive way his treatment is going it looks like he will be cleared to drive at that time. In the year since I wrote ‘The e-word‘ he has made a complete turnaround and is fully committed to managing his disease.

Hard on the heels of that major change was the acknowledgement of my dysfunctional family, and dealing with loved ones who suffer from crippling addictions. That was my emotionally draining post, Trains that Go Bump in the Night, posted 25 March 2013. That situation has also seen a major turnaround, with some really positive results. There is still a lot of pain, but the low point seemed to get my brother’s attention too. He is back on track, and with his jail time behind him and a good attitude. He is working a good recovery program, with an honest desire to be truly happy. He is doing well, and while our relationship has been forever changed by this terrible ordeal, we have mended some fences between us. I was deeply touched to discover through all of this just how many people have lost loved ones to this terrible addiction, and even more importantly, how many have regained some sort of normalcy.

If there is a Hell, Meth is the devil.

But the positive side of all of this is that because I am unable to really face the reality of my crazy existence, I managed to complete the first draft of Mountains of the Moon. YAY!!! The End Is Nigh, posted 28 March 2013 detailed the strange reluctance I felt to actually finish the book and let go of my characters. It was hard, but now the book has made it through the second draft and is in the hands of the beta readers.

Due to bad health, I spent many hours on Facebook, killing time when I should have been writing. Face book–A Squirrel Ran Through It posted on 6 June 2013.

Thanks to having surgery and being sicker than a dog for the entire summer, I also read a lot of books and blogged about them on Best in Fantasy, my weekly book review blog. I thank God for all the amazing and wonderful writers out there who fire my imagination and keep me plugging away at this craft. Someday I hope to have written a tale that is considered a “Best in Fantasy” tale–it is something to aspire to and work towards.

Over the course of the year I wrote many technical pieces, on everything from how to format your ms for print, to how to create a clickable table of contents for your e-book, to how to effectively use WORD, and how to–>oh, dear…Grandma’s sort of a know-it-all and she’s not afraid to tell you about it. Are you listening? There will be a test.

I published a novella, Tales from the Dreamtime, a small book of three short-stories which I think is some of my best work to date, short pieces though they are. I also had two short stories published in a children’s anthology, Christmas O’Clock. I was privileged to be included with some high-powered authors like Shaun Allan and Alison DeLuca, along with Irene Roth Luvaul, Mary K. Mitchell, and Nicole Antonia Carro. That is some heady company!

All in all, 2013 was a good year, with the misery being more than balanced by the joys. My suspicion is that people who don’t know what it is like to suffer don’t appreciate the true beauty of life.

It has been a hard year, true, but through it all I had the joy of grandchildren, the love of my husband, the support of my dear friends and the beauty of art and music to surround me. I have rediscovered my gratitude — both for the bounty I enjoy, and the people I am privileged to share my life with.

May your new year bring you joy and prosperity and the ability to appreciate them. May you have the good health to enjoy them, and may your imaginary friends never stop talking to you!