Tag Archives: fantasy

December 15, 2012 · 7:43 pm

Punish me no More

Paradise Lost wikimedia commons Gustave Dore PD ArtI was reminded about the book, Finnegans Wake, in a blog I regularly read.  James Joyce wrote the classic novel, and James was a man who loved words.  He loved words the way I love Ritchie Blackmore and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  He couldn’t get enough of them and when old words didn’t suffice, he invented new ones. Puns, those low class examples of verbal violence, became an art form under the pen of James Joyce.

Robert MacLean’s most recent post for his fascinating blog on morality, humor, and art, ‘The Devil’s Pleasure Garden’ is on Fellini, and Shakespeare.  He rambles though Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Fellini’s 8 ½ , and lightly touches on Luis Bunuel.  I enjoy MacLean’s morality crises – his angst has led to some of the finest blog posts on creativity out there!

MacLean also mentions James Joyce’s incredible monster-piece, Finnegan’s Wake, quoting the delicious pun “…when they were jung and easily freudened.”  I realized when I was re-reading MacLean’s blog today that the reason so many people despise puns is that for a pun to be funny one has to know what the pun is about. If a reader has never heard of Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud that pun will go right over their head. They get a sour look and say “I despise James Joyce – I don’t know what people are thinking calling him a genius.”

When people don’t understand something that makes other people laugh, they feel somehow inferior and they hate it. So my job is to not make my readers feel ignorant, and yet still write in such a way that my work is not ‘dumbed-down’.  Humor is essential, and I usually love a good pun, but since the key to enjoying a good pun is knowledge and you can’t guarantee your readers will have that knowledge, it’s best to avoid puns when writing.

But for me, humor is crucial to keeping me interested in the characters. If you are going to have your characters grimly going about their work, with nothing to brighten the mood you have immediately lost me.51EwwPIAJbL__BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-64,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_

Shaun Allan’s brilliant work, Dark Places, is a classic example of how an author can blend humor into the darkest events, and keep his readers’ eyes on his book.

I find myself injecting humor into my work, not in a calculated way, but because it naturally flows there.  Macabre humor is what keeps my family together at times—that ability to laugh at the worst times keeps us slogging through the strangest twists and turns of life. Oh, it’s a little embarrassing at times, but it gets you through it. And that is what happens with my characters. Lackland, Huw the Bard and indeed all the Rowdies rely on their sense of humor as the way to find logic in the worst of events.

In Tower of Bones, the sense of the ridiculous surfaces several times when the characters are under the most stress. Friedr is one of my favorite characters in the TOB series, as he is the most in touch with his sense of humor and his frequent lack thereof. Christoph was born with a joke falling out of his mouth, and humor is his armor.

Good grief!  I just said “one of my favorites” – all of my characters are my favorites! Even the evil ones!

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November 26, 2012 · 6:39 pm

The Descriptive Balancing Act, Maria V.A. Johnson

Today’s guest post is by Maria V.A. Johnson, poet and editor. Maria was the editor on Carlie M.A. Cullen’s novel of paranormal love and adventure, ‘Heart Search: Lost’. Maria can be found blogging at http://mariavajohnson.com. 

Maria is discussing the fine balancing act an author has when it comes to description.  For me, description is like hot-sauce. I love it, even when my lips are on fire, but I fear going over-board with it so when I am cooking, I don’t go there as often as I should.

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The Descriptive Balancing Act

One of the hardest parts about writing is getting the level of detail correct. If you don’t describe something well enough, how are the readers supposed to connect to it? On the other hand, if you describe too much they will give up reading it completely.

It has always been a balancing act, between description and plot. One thing you need to remember though is that a story should always be either plot or character driven; it cannot be driven on description. The whole point of description is to paint the scene. Think of a painting of a woman. Is it interesting if she is standing in a white canvas, nothing around her? Not really. But is it interesting if she is standing in the middle of a huge crowd, or a forest, so you can barely see her? No. An author has to try to find the middle ground, just like with that painting.

So how do you use enough description to show the scene without overwhelming it?

Step One. Focus on telling the story. You can always go back and add more detail later if it’s needed.

Step Two. Try to be realistic. Don’t put in fancy words and elaborate phrasing just because it sounds good or you think it will stun the reader with your eloquence. Look at this phrase from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011win.html

The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog, the word being a portmanteau of smoke and fog, though in LA the pollutants are typically vehicular emissions as opposed to actual smoke and fog, unlike 19th-century London where the smoke from countless small coal fires often combined with fog off the Thames to produce true smog, though back then they were not clever enough to call it that.

Now a) this sentence is way too long, which makes it difficult to follow from one end to the other, and b) you only need the first 8 words. Who doesn’t know what smog is? Who doesn’t know this author is referring to the car emissions? It is unnecessary detail. And the reference to 19th-century London? This would only be relevant if this were in a Historical Fiction novel or something similar, rather than being a throw-away comment on what real smog should be.  The author should just say “The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog,” and then move on with the story. We all know what it looks like, and those 8 words conjure enough of a picture for us to understand the scene.

Step Three. Think about your characters. How do they act, think, feel? When they do or say something can you see their personality, their motivation, their feeling behind it? You don’t need whole paragraphs to do this unless it is a scene that calls for it, e.g. when someone is crushed by grief and the emotions are overwhelming everything – including the story, sometimes all you need is a word or two. Look at this example from Heart Search: Lost by Carlie M. A. Cullen.

“I don’t know what to say,” he moaned, anguish still apparent in his tone.

The male protagonist has just accidentally hurt his partner. You can see with just a few words how much it has affected him and how he feels about it. This tells you a lot about his character, how caring and gentle he is, and how much he loves her.

Step Four. Before sending it off to an editor, give it a read through and ask yourself “Is this something I would like to read?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself why.

Four easy steps to follow towards a balanced story. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but even for the exceptions there is a rule.

The Rule. If you are going to break a rule, make sure you do it well enough that nobody cares!

Let’s look at two classic examples of this – C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien is known for his amazing scenes. Pick up The Lord of the Rings and you will find description on top of description. Even when they take up the entire page, it doesn’t feel too heavy. This is partly because of the length of the book, and partly because of the way he makes the scenes come to life. You don’t notice how long the descriptive passages are when you are lost within the world he has created.

On the south-eastern side the ground fell very steeply, as if the slopes of the hill were continued far down under the trees, like island-shores that really are the sides of a mountain rising out of deep waters.

Lewis is the exact opposite. Read The Chronicles of Narnia and you will see how little description he actually uses. The fact that this is a children’s book helps. A person’s imagination is most vivid as a child. He gives just enough detail to release the child to see the rest. He makes the reader the describer, letting them go where they want with only a little nudge. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe most things and people are described, but not until you are half-way through the final chapter do you learn anything about the four main characters.

And they themselves grew and changed as the years passed over them. And Peter became a tall and deep-chested man and a great warrior, and he was called King Peter the Magnificent. And Susan grew into a tall and gracious woman with black hair that fell almost to her feet … Edmund was a graver and quieter man than Peter, and great in council and judgement. He was called King Edmund the Just. But as for Lucy, she was always gay and golden-haired…

 

So now you know the steps to follow, you are half-way to having a decent novel which will engage your readers. Don’t forget that you should ALWAYS send it off to a professional editor – NEVER try to do it yourself!

Remember The Rule and happy writing!

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November 23, 2012 · 6:19 pm

Alison DeLuca – A Sharp Left Turn

Alison DeLuca is the well-known author of the Steampunk series, ‘The Crown Phoenix’. This series has captured my imagination since I first read ‘The Night Watchman Express’, and she has just published the third book in the series, ‘Lamplighter’s Special’.  My review of the series is posted on my book review blog, Best In Fantasy.

Alison is a master of character development.  I love each and every one of her characters, feeling as if they were my dearest friends (or in some cases enemies). The premise of the series is extremely creative, involving all the finest elements of the Steampunk genre – magic, machines and the eternal battle with dark-forces.  She manages to do this magnificently and neatly avoids devolving into formulaic kitsch as some rather popular pulp-novels have done.

Because I love her characters and their depth so much, I asked her to discuss the most unlikely and intriguing pair, Riki and Neil. Two people less like to make a romantic connection never lived, and yet their story has been one of my favorite threads in the saga.

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A Sharp Left Turn

In my first book, Crown Phoenix: Night Watchman Express, the action changes in the middle of the book. I leave Miriam and Simon on the Night Watchman train, kidnapped and heading to a sinister, unknown destination.

Simon’s friend, Neil, heads off to the mythical island of Lampala. When I wrote the book, I based the geography on the country of Madeira. Beyond that, I wanted to completely avoid any trace of colonialism in my plot. The Lampalans had to be well-off with a thriving industry and their own government.

Neil reaches the island, thanks to the mechanics of the Crown Phoenix, a quantum typewriter. He is rescued by Riki, a girl who is very thin, energetic, and quite a pain in the behind.

Her parents are well-to-do, but they cannot control Riki. She is just one of those kids who was born yelling her head off, and she hasn’t stopped since. She gets bored easily, which probably means she is very intelligent. Furthermore, she is extremely loyal. Once Riki is your friend, she will stick by you through anything.

She can hardly believe, however, that Neil doesn’t immediately fall for her:

“Well, don’t worry. When you and I get married, you’ll be rich.”

Neil shot to his feet and dropped his sandwich onto the beach below, where it was picked up by a triumphant gull. “When we what?” he repeated in a strangled voice.

“When you marry me.” Riki smiled at him and swallowed the last of her sweet roll.

He huffed, catching his breath, and finally managed to say, “Oh, no, I’m not marrying you. No-ho. Mhp-hm.”

She looked up at him in astonishment. “You mean, you don’t want to marry me? Why not?”

“Because,” he responded, “you are, without a doubt, the rudest, most ill-mannered girl I have ever met in my entire life.”

She considered this. Her eyes turned into slits. “Well,” she finally retorted, “I’ve been nice to you today.

“Maybe. However, I’m not going to marry someone whose best claim to decent behavior is that they’ve ‘been nice today’. If I ever get married at all, that is.”

Both Riki and Neil run into Kyoge, one of the King’s Guards. I based Kyoge on a painting called, “The Moorish Chief.” He is tall and strong – a superbly athletic man. His physical prowess is matched by his shrewd wits. He, like Riki, is also very loyal. When he realizes that the true ruler of Lampala is alive and hidden on the island, he risks everything to help.

When I took that Sharp Left Turn, I knew it was a risk. Instead of following the plot and main character of the first section, I followed a new train of thought and a different set of people. Why did I do it? Not to torture my readers, but instead to increase the excitement of what followed. In that, I borrowed a page from one of my favorite children’s authors, Joan Aiken. She would reach the most exciting part of a scene and go to another set of characters. It kept me reading, agog, well past my bedtime, when I was ten years old.

I’m no Joan Aiken, but I do hope that readers enjoy my side trip to Lampala. I love the island, and I adored writing the story that happened there.

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Alison DeLuca grew up on an organic farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  Her parents were British, so in the summers she went to stay with her grandparents near Dublin.

There was no stereo or TV there, so Alison, her sister, and her cousins spent the summer inventing stories and plays for each other.  “This gave me the ability to entertain myself with my own imagination in any situation,” she says. “We used to be taken to tea with great-aunts, and we were expected to sit on an uncomfortable couch and not move or say a word.  It was possible to endure it because I was watching my own little stories play out in my mind.”

After graduating from West Chester University, Alison became a teacher of English and Spanish, teaching students from kindergarten up to college level. She loved teaching, and it was with reluctance that she left the classroom to be a fulltime mom when her daughter was born.

While she was teaching and raising her daughter, Alison took every free minute she had to write.  The Crown Phoenix Series was the result.

She is currently working on the final book in the series, as well as several other projects.

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November 12, 2012 · 5:11 pm

J.D.Hughes – William the Cat

Today is day 12 of NaNoWriMo – and I’ve managed to write a total of 39,700 words since day one.  It’s been a pure stream-of-consciousness,  run-for-the-money, laying down of the basic structure of the story.  Nothing of what I’ve written is anything I would be proud to show the dog at this point, but when I’ve finished with the many vignettes which form the basic storyline, I’ll begin the task of actually writing the story. I think it will be about 60,000 words when it is fully plotted.

Then the real work begins, when I have to turn this patchwork quilt of a manuscript into a book!The finishied book will be about 130,000 words.

In the meantime, for your dining pleasure we are serving up a delicious guest-post by UK author and blogger-extraordinaire, J.D. Hughes.   J.D.’s new book ‘Northman’ is scheduled to be released on Friday, November 16th .  He has kindly allowed me to reuse a post from his blog, J.D.Hughes.

I must confess that having seen the cover, and read the pitch I am lurking, waiting to get my hands on my copy!  And now, without further ado I give you a reprise of my favorite post ever by one of my favorite bloggers:

WILLIAM THE CAT

Originally Posted on June 15, 2012 by J.D.Hughes

I am not a fan of cats.

They leave excrement in my orchard and pee on my windfall apples.

But, I have a grudging respect for William the cat. He is white, sleek – turning to a little tubbiness as he ages – but will kill anything smaller than he. That characteristic would be psychotic in a human being, but defines a cat.

I’ve never seen him pee on my apples or crap in my garden, so he is – in that catlike manner – returning my respect. Or so I like to think. If I am realistic he probably regards me as an occasional source of food and gruffly masculine tummy rubs but is indifferent to my opinion of him. He has repeatedly tried to get into my house after one successful raid. We are now engaged in a cat and man game, which he believes he will win. He is seeking to wear me down with persistence, but I have owned many dogs who knew more about persistence than any creature living or dead when it came to precise feeding and walking times, so he will be disappointed.

For some reason he has a liking for my garage and is often locked in for long periods of time. We have a thriving community of field mice to keep him entertained, but I think it may be an attempt to show me how easy my garage is. Logically, that ties in with his belief that my house will one day be his.

He has no remorse, no sense of guilt when some small creature is struggling in his jaws, little understanding or sympathy with anything living and zero interest in anything with which he has played and which has now stopped moving.

So, why do I respect William the cat?

Because he is being a cat.

It’s what cats do. He has no choice.

I respect human beings who tell the truth, help others, attempt to raise mankind from the gutter and try to behave in a kindly manner to their neighbours for a similar, but perhaps not the same, reason.

Not all humans behave like that. Some of William is built into our DNA and we occasionally behave badly towards our fellows.

The difference is that we have a choice. We can think rationally about whether it is a good idea to kill people smaller, weaker, less intelligent than, or different from, ourselves.

There are exceptions, of course. The sociopathic or psychotic personality may have no choice, but we do.

My previous post was about Truth and this is a (sort of) continuation. My belief is that there is nothing to be gained by being unpleasant or violent to strangers and that it is a part of our journey to the status of rational beings for us to be kind to people – do unto others and all that.

Of course, if they attack you with a machete then one should adopt the William attitude and either run away or get a bigger machete.

My own journey through life tells me that most people harbour few truly evil thoughts towards others. Occasionally, hatred will spring up in the fight for sex, resources or survival (perceived or real) but unless there is a continuing need for the above then it often dies away and people (mostly) play nice, or at least become tolerant.

So, as William wanders past with something furry clamped in his jaws I wonder how I would feel trapped in behaviours I cannot control, without choice and destined to repeat the same patterns, again and again.

Got to stop now. It’s 12.30pm, time for my Ploughman’s Lunch, a short walk, the BBC News, a nap at 1.27pm for exactly 21 minutes and a quick chase around the garden looking for small rodents or baby birds to eat.

Unless William has been there before me.

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Below I have posted J.D.’s biography, exactly as he sent it to me. He cracks me up!

J.D. HUGHES

A ‘sort of’ Writer, living in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England.

His new supernatural thriller for adults, NORTHMAN, begins in Anglo-Saxon England, 943 AD, moves through World WarTwo, 1943 and into the present. It is an epic story of timeless love and eternal evil but contains no vampires or werewolves.

It has something infinitely more evil.

He also has several free, dark tales (links on blog). Or on Amazon if you want in a perverse gesture of altruism to buy them.

JD has worked as a writer, director and producer of commercials, short films, corporate and music promos. Recently, he accidentally gained an MA in Film Studies and Screenwriting, whilst continuing to work as a freelance. He loves film, so enjoyed the experience and almost continued on to a PhD, but decided that it would interfere with real writing and painting the shed.

JD started writing fiction aged 11 and it has taken him until now to be competent – obviously a slow learner. Some might say that point of competency is still some way off. Despite those people, JD is determined to inflict his writing on innocent readers and will be doing so to the exclusion of all other delusions (except painting the shed) for the foreseeable future.

He apologises in advance to those who will be offended, and hopes the rest of the world will enjoy some of it.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov

 

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November 5, 2012 · 4:42 pm

On Editing part 1, guest post by Carlie M.A. Cullen

I’ve asked Carlie Cullen, author of Heart Search, and one of my editors on the Tower of Bones series to write a guest post detailing what an editor looks for when they receive a manuscript for the first editing. I also asked her to take a hitherto unedited bit of a current work in progress and to edit it for this post in the way she will when it actually goes to her sometime next year. The following is her post and the commentary.   To the left here, I’ve inserted  a screen shot of the unedited ms. At the bottom of this post is the screenshot of what the ms looks like now she’s sent it back to me.

What I hope you will all gain from this is (a) the importance of an impartial eye on your work, and (b) the understanding that criticism is a necessary part of growth.

I take each of her comments, and I analyze it with as fair an eye as I can.  Then I make the changes, but I do them my own way. I don’t do heavy descriptors, and Carlie’s own work is very descriptive. This is why we work well together. She brings out the places where I’ve skimped on the descriptors too much, and forces me to be more forthcoming with showing the emotions of the scene.

Today I bring you part one of Carlie M.A. Cullen on editing!

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Editing a raw manuscript is like dealing with an overgrown garden full of weeds; you need to cut back the long stuff before you can see the weeds choking the plants. This analogy is why editors generally do more than one round of editing, as they need to get some semblance of order to the manuscript before they can look at structure and the development of a story.

An editor has to look for a large number of things as they go through each line. As well as spelling, grammar (including correct use of tenses) and punctuation, which is the first thing I look at, there are the following:

  • ·         Sentence structure. If a sentence doesn’t flow there’s something wrong with it and an editor needs to identify what it is and give suggestions as to how to put it right.
  • ·         Consecutive sentences beginning with the same word. A couple of sentences beginning with ‘I’ for example, you can get away with, but more than that and it becomes repetitive.
  • ·         Repetition of words. This is a classic mistake every author makes and there are certain words which stick out like a sore thumb. The most common one I come across is ‘that’. In addition, I look for repetitive phrases. In the example, there is one paragraph which has ‘it will’ repeated three times.
  • ·         Dialogue. The dialogue has to be realistic otherwise the characters don’t come to life. This is more than just the actual words they say it’s also how they say it. Everybody uses contractions when they speak in everyday life (don’t / can’t / it’ll / I’m / I’ve / you’re / it’s – you get the drift) so these need to be reflected in your work. Also too many tags (he said / she said) can interrupt the flow.
  • ·         Inconsistencies. Again if we look at the example (comment C6), you will see some dialogue where Wynn is talking about seeing a firedrake and he then asks if they ‘look all fiery’. He’s already seen one so he shouldn’t be asking a question he already knows the answer to. This is just one example of how an inconsistency can occur.
  • ·         Timelines. In my first book I had an issue with a woman’s pregnancy and got the number of weeks muddled up, which thankfully, my editor picked up. An editor has to ensure the timelines are true to the story so it flows.
  • ·         Incorrect descriptive words. You will see towards the end of the example piece where the author used ‘grim smiles’. This doesn’t accurately reflect what’s happening in the story so the use of the word ‘grim’ is incorrect.
  • ·         Distinguishing ‘thoughts’ from text. Thoughts should be shown in italics to separate them from the general text and should be written in present tense, regardless of what voice is being used.

All the above is what I would normally do on a first round of editing – the cutting back of the long stuff to get to the plant-choking weeds. Then on the second round, I double check all the items above once more to ensure nothing has been missed, plus I begin the structural and developmental part of the edit. These are the sorts of things I look at:

  • ·         Imagery. A powerful analogy can help a reader picture a scene more clearly. This is where a writer can be particularly creative as using lots of clichés makes the writing boring and predictable. Also clever use of descriptive phrases can make something come alive.
  • ·         Showing not telling. This is mainly for character connection. Readers want to see expressions, gestures and mannerisms which give the character a three-dimensional quality. They want to be able to see and feel what the characters are feeling and seeing. They don’t want to be told someone is crying, they want to see the tears rolling down the cheeks and the anguish in someone’s eyes.
  • ·         Cutting extraneous text. When writing, it’s very easy to get carried away and add in all manner of superfluous detail. An editor needs to be able to isolate this extraneous text and suggest removal whilst ensuring the story isn’t compromised in any way.
  • ·         Actions reflecting character’s state of mind. Sometimes, writers give mixed messages about their characters. Their protagonist could be suffering a high state of anxiety yet their actions are portrayed as those of someone who is calm. This isn’t realistic. Therefore an editor needs to be able to identify these types of issues and suggest how to rectify the problem.
  • ·         Inflections. Think for just a moment about how people around you talk. Do they constantly talk in a monotone? When you’re out shopping and you overhear conversations, are the voices flat and devoid of any emotion whatsoever? No, and characters shouldn’t be either. By writing inflections in their voices, you are making them more rounded and real. It’s not called for in every bit of dialogue you write, but at a particularly emotive scene, whether it is anger, frustration, fear or sorrow, showing an inflection in the voice again helps the reader to connect with the characters.
  • ·         Story structure. This is where an editor looks at the story as a whole. Sometimes the starting place for the story isn’t strong enough (on the basis that you want to grip your readers early on to encourage them to continue reading). Sometimes the starting point would be better moved to another part of the book. Occasionally different P.O.V.’s (point of view) found in the same chapter can be confusing if not separated correctly. This point needs to be identified fairly early on in the editing process.
  • ·         Character development. A close look at how each character is written can reveal a great deal. Is it realistic for a character to be meek one minute and a raving psychopath the next if there is no trigger point or mention/hint of mental illness? There needs to be consistency, a journey for the character to take through the story and wild variations don’t work.
  • ·         Consistency. If a writer states in chapter two that Fred is the uncle of Lisa’s husband, he can’t be portrayed in chapter six as Lisa’s uncle. If a home is shown as being in Baltimore in chapter three, it can’t suddenly up sticks and walk to Florida in chapter twelve.

At the end of these processes and when the author has made any relevant changes, the editor has to final check the manuscript, to ensure it’s a polished gem, before it goes out for beta reading and subsequent publishing.

Thank you Carlie!  On Wednesday we will see what the lovely, colorful commentary on the finished ms above means!

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November 1, 2012 · 6:39 pm

NaNoWriMo – the first 6 hours

YES!!!  We survived the invasion of the 3 ½ foot tall Zombies. There was enough chocolate to go around, with plenty for my hubby and I to—er—examine.  But now another Apocalypse looms on the horizon.  Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo.  Now I must write 1666 words per day to have my 50,000 words by Nov. 30, 2012.  I will have no trouble. I managed to wake up at 2 a.m. and got the first 1538 words down.  Now it’s full steam ahead and no stopping for tourist distractions.

This blog will be the temporary home of eminent guest bloggers such as J.D. Hughes, Carlie Cullen, and Maria Johnson along with others as yet to be lassoed!  I can’t wait to see what they pull out of their incredibly creative minds for this!

Also, Alison DeLuca is having a blog tour for her fabulous Steampunk series, the  Crown Phoenix Series this month, and she will be visiting more than once, I hope!

So, to get you all started, these are the first paragraphs of what I did at 2:00 A.M.!

Excerpt from Valley of Shadows

The day John Farmer left home began as any typical winter day, rainy and cold. Only the day previously he’d turned fifteen making him legally an adult. His father had given him a new bow with a quiver full of arrows he’d forged especially for him, warning him to use them wisely. Other than that, nothing in John Farmer’s life had changed to mark his passage into adulthood. He still planned to try to get into town, and see Marjean Baker, if he could.  She was a friendly-girl down at the Boar’s Head tavern, and was five years his senior, but she really liked him, and he’d most definitely enjoyed her favors, the two times he’d managed to sneak off with her.

Unfortunately, he’d dallied with her too long the last time, returning home a bit too late the previous Restday, and his father discovered his secret arrangement with Marjean. John was now unlikely to get into town, unless he could figure out a way to sneak away without Wynn finding out—also unlikely as Wynn had taken to popping in and ‘checking’ on him at odd hours, making sure he was still there. His dad had even taken the precaution of hiding the saddle and bridle, so John would have to ride bareback if he did manage to sneak off.

He’d no idea why his father was so upset about such a minor thing. Unbonded men often had relationships with friendly-girls. No one thought twice about it. From what his dad’s old army friend, Jules Brendsson, said when he’d passed through Markett during Harvest, his dad had been the next best thing to a pleasure-boy as a young man, so Wynn’s attitude was hypocritical, in John’s opinion.  It’s not like I want to bond with her or anything, we’re just having fun. People expect you to have fun with friendly-girls, but Dad acts like it’s the end of the world.  

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It has a long way to go!  But it’s 30 days of straight on keying and no looking back until December 1st.  If I can just get the whole tale down from start to finish in that time, I will be able to spend the next half-year expanding on it.  Fortunately, I know these people and their world better than I know anything else right now, so I should be able to do it.

I will pop in and keep everyone posted on my progress. In the meantime I can’t wait to see what posts my friends will be making here during the month of November!

 

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October 20, 2012 · 6:10 pm

You, Me and Mr W B

Today’s guest is the well-known author, blogger and editor, Carlie M.A. Cullen, author of Heart Search, a paranormal fantasy and who hails from the UK. She has consented to give us her humorous take on that bane of all writers – Writer’s Block.  Her approach is quite zen as compared to mine!  Take it away, Carlie…

You, Me and Mr W B

The vast majority of us authors have day jobs and families, so we try and squeeze in some time when we can to write. But it’s just not that easy.

Picture the scene; you’ve had a rotten day at work so you’re feeling kind of up-tight and frustrated – angry even. When you get home you find some bills in your post box so now you have to work out which ones you can pay now and which will have to wait a week or two. Your spouse/partner is worried about money, the kid(s) and is fed up because he/she broke a favourite ornament. One of the kids is ill; they’ve got a bit of a fever and keeps throwing up, and the dog has decided to expand its’ culinary repertoire by chewing on your slippers.

After all this and having had dinner, you manage to find half an hour to sit down and write. You fire up your PC or laptop, open the relevant page and nothing. Mr Writer’s Block has taken up residence in your head and you can’t think of a single thing to write. You re-read some of what you’ve written before in the hope it’ll spark something, anything, so you can continue with your story. But what happens? Zilch, zip, nada, nothing. Before you know it, your half an hour has gone, it’s time for bed and now you’re even more frustrated.

Is it any wonder?

Our busy lives get in the way of our writing and just trying to find the time is hard enough, but when you’re worried about money, job, kids et al, it’s really no wonder so many of us suffer visits from Mr Writer’s Block, is it?

For us to be productive with our writing, we need to be able to put aside all the stresses, strains and problems thrown across our paths. We need to allow our imaginations to soar in a creative way rather than imagining what will happen if a particular bill is not paid by the due date. We need to find our zone and shut everything else out. Sounds easy, right? Like heck it is!

So how do we do it?

Preparation is key here and there are a few techniques you can use to get past it. I’m going to share three with you here.

If you’re the sort of person who listens to music when you write, put on a CD or your iPod for a good 10-15 minutes before you start and really concentrate on it. If it’s instrumental, listen to how the notes rise and fall, the harmonies created by the different instruments and think what scene the music conjures; if there are vocals, listen to the words very carefully, and try to picture the artist’s mood when they were writing it or how they would look performing it on stage. By concentrating on the music, you’re beginning to free your mind.

Another way is deep breathing relaxation exercises with a twist. Sit or lay – it doesn’t matter as long as you are comfortable – and close your eyes. Start breathing deeply then begin by thinking about your feet and mentally picture the muscles relaxing and the stress as a puff of black smoke or a black cloud which appears outside your feet as the muscles relax. Then you start working your way up your body; ankles to knees, knees to top of thighs, hip / groin / stomach area, chest, shoulders, arms and hands, neck and last of all your head. Then you picture a shape, any shape you like. It starts off small then gets increasingly larger until it fills your vision. Then you allow the shape to morph or distort itself, bending in on itself, twirling around, basically anything your mind can invoke. Now you’ve spent that time relaxing and playing with the shape, it’s pushed out the worries and let your imagination go to work.

The final one is ten minutes of free-writing, using pen and paper. Most, if not all of you are likely to know what this is, but in case you don’t I’ll explain. Pick a word, any word you like, at random. Now you just write anything which pops into your head about that word. Spelling, grammar and punctuation go out the window. You don’t even need to worry about sentence structure. You can write a list of words you associate with your chosen topic, you can write sentences. It doesn’t matter what you write, how it sounds, how arbitrary it is, the important thing is concentrating on your chosen word and just keep writing. The mere fact of you concentrating on something else has opened your mind and allowed the creative side to emerge.

After doing one of these exercises you go straight to your computer or writing pad, whichever you use and begin to write. Allow your mind free rein on your work in progress; it’s primed and ready to accept the sparks of inspiration your preparations have encouraged. It might be a little hokey at first, a little off compared to how you normally write, but that’s okay. The important thing is you’re now writing and as you progress your style, sentence structure and all the things you’re used to will materialise and ‘hey presto’ you’re back in your groove. The worst thing you can do is concern yourself with your first few lines which may not be up to your normal standard – it can always be edited later – you’re putting words on the page or screen and that’s what matters.

So the next time you’re tense and Mr Writer’s Block come knocking on your door, slam it in his face, do your chosen exercise(s) then write to your heart’s content.

>>><<<

Carlie’s approach is so much more civilized than mine!  Although, I must say, my hair-dresser, Heavenly Kevin has become quite adept at disguising the flat spot I’ve gained from banging my head on my desk!  Thank you Carlie – we’ll hear more from you in November when NaNoWriMo is in full swing and I am begging for guest posts! 

Carlie’s book, Heart Search is available at amazon.com for the amazingly affordable price of only $2.99 for the Kindle download.  I love a good tale of vampires and love gone awry!

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October 8, 2012 · 3:24 am

Heart Search Blog Tour

I am a part of something I have never done before!  I am a stop on a blog tour!  A dear friend of mine, Carlie M.A. Cullen is publishing her first book, Heart Search.  I have a ‘badge’ for my blog and everything!

Carlie, along with Alison DeLuca, is my editor.  She gently guides me through the terrible swamps and dead-end roads of writing, and was the lead editor on Forbidden Road, the soon-to-be published sequel to Tower of Bones.

Carlie’s personal style of writing is very different from mine. Her tale is thick with description and her characters are drawn from today’s urban society and set in the real world (if vampires existed).  My tales are made with people who could exist, set in a world that may exist if Roger Zelazney was right (he said that if you can imagine a world, it probably exists).

Yet I believe it is the radical difference in our personal writing style which lends dimension to my work when she has her red pen in hand.

The way we work together is this: I send her the full ms in a form that is as perfect as I can make it.  This is called making a manuscript ‘submission ready’.  When I send it to her, I have been over and over it, looking for errors and inadvertent inconsistencies, and trying to make sure there are no contradictions in the spelling of made-up names, and capitalizations.  Also, I have already done my best to make sure I have used ‘closed quotes’  for each instance of dialogue, and checked and double-checked my punctuation.  When I send this in, it is as neat and ready to go as I can make it.  I have corrected everything I can find, and can’t see where it needs improvement.

She cuts my completed ms into chapters, making sure I have not mis-numbered them (which has happened!) and sharpens her red pencil and her teeth! As she finishes each chapter she sends it back to me with her suggestions and comments in the right hand side. I return it to her with the corrections and we repeat the process.

Despite my best efforts in making it submission-ready, there will be instances of all sorts of manuscript-mayhem. It is my line-editor’s job to find these nuggets of no-no and guide me in eliminating them.  Not only will she find the contradictions and punctuation errors, she will find the instances where a word has been used either in the wrong context or is simply awkward when used in that way.  She will help me rephrase ungainly ideas in a better way, or even suggest I eliminate them as they may be redundant or not necessary.

She finds and points out the overuse of certain words, such as ‘that’ or ‘had’.  These are words we habitually use in conversation and don’t realize how frequently we say them.  When they are written and appear 6 or 7 times in one paragraph they leap out at the reader and are annoying. They are insidious to the author, because they fade into the background when the author is reading his own work.  Thus it takes the eye of the editor to guide the writer through eliminating these ‘speed-bump words’ as I like to think of them.

She does this for me in as kind and gentle a way as is possible, while still getting the job done.  She builds my self-confidence while tearing apart my cherished manuscript and reassembling it in a way which actually reads the way I always thought it did.

To go through the process of having your manuscript edited is a humbling thing.  I don’t know how a person can produce a decent book with no outside input to shine a little light in the cluttered closets full of prose that will pop up in every manuscript. A completed, submission-ready manuscript is Chaos Theory realized. It is only through the objective eye of the editor that our book is made readable.

Now, I am sure you know Carlie, too, has an editor. Her editor is the wonderful Maria V. A. Johnson, and Maria does for Carlie what Carlie does for me.  Maria is an awesome editor and Carlie is fortunate to have her to guide her through the process.

It all comes full circle.

I also work as an editor. I’ve been privileged to work with such wonderful and diverse authors as Ross M. Kitson and Shaun Allan. My role as an editor is to do for them what Carlie does for me; in essence I smooth out the rough spots and let their wonderful work shine with their voices telling their tales in their own way.

I love editing as much as I love writing.  To be an intimate part of another author’s dream is an experience I treasure. To have had the experience of being edited was exhilarating.  To see my editor’s own book finally released is nothing short of awesome – I can’t wait to read it!

Heart Search, by Carlie M.A. Cullen

One bite starts it all . . .

When Joshua Grant vanishes days before his
wedding his fiancée Remy is left with only bruises, scratch marks and a hastily
written note. Heartbroken, she sets off alone to find him and begins a long
journey where strange things begin to happen.

As Joshua descends into his
new immortal life he indulges his thirst for blood and explores his superhuman
strength and amazing new talents while becoming embroiled in coven politics
which threaten to destroy him. But Remy discovers a strength of her own on her
quest to bring Joshua home.

Fate toys with mortals and immortals alike,
as two hearts torn apart by darkness face ordeals which test them to their
limits

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