Ready for Revision

I cringe phyically that I dare say this out loud: I don't think this novel, Marks of Repentance, needs massive revisions. I'll do a little tidy up, send it out to critiquers, and they'll doubtless have different ideas. Oh well.

What I see so far:
More hints of what the antagonist is up to early in the book. Even though I had done a lot of pre-work on the novel, I didn't know he was the antagonist. I know, I know, that seems silly, but I thought I had thrown enough things in the way of the two main characters with their major cultural differences that the basis of conflict was covered. I didn't realize how important a role this man would play until over half way in.

Which brings me to the second problem. He got SO important he got two scenes in the last couple of chapters. I had to decide whether to give him two or three more, spaced out in the story, or eliminate the two he already had. I'm opting to remove his scenes. It took me most of today to list the vital information those scenes held and figure out where the information can be tucked. I think it can be done. I don't want to dilute what is essentially a love story by giving him too much screen time.

Thirdly, I found a couple of minor sub-plot threads that need tying off. Not all that many which was a pleasant surprise.

Fourth, description. This is always hard for me to work into a first draft, and I have mostly stopped trying. Now as I revise scene by scene I need to make sure I am encountering all the senses and laying clear foundations without going on and on. And on.

Fifth, the ever present doubling up of words, unclear pronouns, and all the other fun little nit-gritty stuff line by line. And commas. Sigh. I have a thing with commas.

I do believe that character motivations are clear enough (maybe too clear?) and that the plot follows a logical enough path, though it wasn't always the most obvious choice.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. I have a border guard in there with a lot of screen time. He was a demanding sort when I wrote the scene, so I need to be on guard (ha!) when I get back to him, and make sure his long story really works in the over all scheme of things. He is absolutely convinced he's the star of the show.

So, we'll see where this journey takes me...and how long it will be. I'd like to be done in a month, but I have no idea if it is remotely doable. I guess I'll just get started and see.

Christian Fantasy Blog Tour Day Two (or Five...)

Today is the last day of the Christian Fantasy Blog Tour. At least officially. For the month of May. In 2006. Rebecca Miller's blog is the starting point, if you're interested in blog hopping. The featured site is Focus on Christian Fantasy. Some of the links from yesterday's post (just below this one) are bloggers doing daily posts on the subject; others have been just popping in and out.

Two new additions that I know of are:

Bedford Review of Christian Fiction
Writing from the Edge

Christian fantasy are words that many people wouldn't put in the same sentence, but why not? I think they go together beautifully.

Karen Hancock, published author of several great Christian fantasies, has this to say about the combination.

Beth Goddard tackles the idea of magic head on. So does Rebecca Miller.

As far as I'm concerned, the question of magic was something I spent awhile working through when I began desiring to write fantasy from a Christian worldview. I have no desire to emulate Tolkien or Lewis. Great stories, but not the end-all and be-all of fantasy.

Does magic exist in today's world? And if I'm writing fantasy, does it matter if it exists here and now? I know my created world doesn't! Why can't it have different rules? But who is to say that magic doesn't exist? What *is* magic? (I look at that list of questions and decide that I am not qualified to answer any of them...)

The best place to look for guidelines is the Bible itself. Folks, some mighty strange stuff happened in biblical times by anyone's standards. We have the magicians in Pharaoh's court during the Ten Plagues (during the time Moses was asking Pharaoh to release his Jewish slaves) copying most of the miracles that Moses and Aaron performed (Exodus 7-11). There is a talking donkey (Numbers 22:21-39). There is a magician following the Philip the evangelist around (Acts 9:8-13), apparently perfectly capable of amazing those around him.

So, then, what is a miracle? I think--simplistically--that miracles are extra-ordinary things done by God, often through people but sometimes directly. And magic is extra-ordinary things done by...not God. Not God. Does that make them wrong, evil? I think that *not of God* still leaves two options: of nature and of Satan. You could argue that nature, being created by God, would not be a separate category but fall into the miracles point of view. Go ahead, argue it. I'm willing to listen!

In some secular fantasy novels magic is portrayed as a liquid, much like water in rivers and lakes. In those stories (and others) magic is portrayed as amoral; that is, neither good nor evil. It simply exists and can be used for either purpose. In our current world, I don't believe this type of magic exists, but I fail to see why it can't work in a made-up world. Like anything else in a novel, it shouldn't just be there for flavoring but because it is actually a part of the plot.

Magic that uses the power of Satan is real. In North America, we don't see a lot of overt activity of this nature. Not so in remote areas of the world, where demon activity is quite visible (to hear the stories of missionaries to those places.)

So, my understanding is that there are three types of extra-ordinary means of accomplishing things. They are literally Good, Bad, and Indifferent. I think any and all of these may be used by a writer of Christian fantasy. The main thing to keep in mind is that the power of God is stronger than the other powers.

In my soon to-be-revised fantasy novel Marks of Repentance I did not portray the use of amoral magic. There are miracles, clearly performed by Azhvah (the One True God of the land), and there is magic, clearly linked to the gods and goddesses of the surrounding nations. Will I use that criteria and only that criteria again, writing in a different world? (Obviously any new stories set in Azhvah's universe will have the same guidelines!) I'm not sure. I've started worldbuilding on an unrelated project currently titled Puppet Prince that is very very (did I mention VERY?) loosely based on Old Testament Judaism at the time of the Babylonian exile. I'll be making decisions on the magic system over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Christian Fantasy Blog Tour

Rebecca Miller over at A Christian Worldview of Fiction has set up a blog tour this week to heighten awareness of Christian fantasy. This is a subject that is very dear to my heart and I've already found a few novels I didn't know existed...and also some fellow bloggers who will be worth keeping an eye on!

The featured site is Tim Frankovich's Focus on Christian Fantasy. Tim is a reviewer of Christian books and has recently put together this focus page on fantasy.

Many of the books Tim mentions are ones I haven't read yet. In fact, I've only read one of the featured books, The Light of Eidon by Karen Hancock. I loved it and have yet to get my hands on the rest of the series.

So what HAVE I read and enjoyed in the Christian fantasy genre? Kathryn Mackel's fantasy novel Outriders is fabulous and innovative.

Ted Dekker dabbles into suspenseful fantasy in his series that begins with Black. Many of his other books are thrillers (not my cuppa :P)

An up-and-coming series for kids that I've read Book One of is Landon Snow by R. K. Mortenson.

I find it hard to separate out science fiction and fantasy sometimes as I love them both. Some favorite writers in Christian science fiction are Randy Ingermanson and Kathy Tyers.

Actually, all told this fantasy blog tour is happening at a good time for me. We have slightly more disposable income now than we used to...and I'm planning on spending a portion of it supporting the genre I love (and write in myself.)

If you're interested in the genre, here is a list of some of the bloggers that are participating in this tour:
Mirathon
Insights from Beth Goddard
Spoiled for the Ordinary
Writer Lee
All About Children's Books
Old Testament Opera
Unseen Worlds
See you on the Net
Shenandoah's Eclectic Musings
MegaWriter
The Jerkrenak's Den
Sharon Hinck
Some of these folks have posted every day this week regarding fantasy. Have a look around! Like me, you may find new books to add to the TBR pile--the pile that threatens to topple over...

Great Mother's Day camping trip :)

For some unknown reason, Picasa and Hello don't like me tonight. I had several other photos I wanted to upload and it just isn't working.

We went camping for a couple days and had a really relaxing time out along a creek in our truck and camper. The highlight of my days was catching a glimpse of this pine marten, which is rarely seen. (Hubby worked in forestry for nine years and figures he's seen three of them.)

However, I had other photos I wanted to share as well. I'll give H&P a chance to recover from their snit and try again tomorrow. Stay tuned!


The rarely seen pine marten :) 

Happy Mother's Day

My own mother will be 84 this August. I'm very thankful for her. I didn't write the following for her! In fact I didn't write it at all...

Lisa shared with me this little clip on Why We Have Mothers. I only found it on the internet in one place, and it didn't claim to be the original. I did try to track it down, though. Honest!

"Why we have moms" answers given by elementary school age children to
the following questions:

Why do we have mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the Scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1 Clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of
mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use
string, I think.

Why do you have your mother and not some other Mom?
1. We're related.
2. The doctor knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like
me.

What kind of little girl was your Mom?
1. My Mom has always been my Mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty
bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did Mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get
drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to
chores?

Why did your Mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof
ball
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the
bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home, and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause
that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Moms have magic; they make you feel better without medicine

What does your Mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your Mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of
plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid
of that.
2. I'd make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who
did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on her back.

Reading...

I'm almost halfway through the read-through of Marks of Repentance, aka Shanh's story. I'm certainly seeing things that need addressing, but all in all I really love this story still. I wrote the first draft from March to July 2005 and wanted nothing more than to keep going and write its sequel.

Somehow or other I managed to see reason and remember that getting space from a story is not likely to happen while writing sequels. As I'm reading these days I'm seeing the seeds I've planted for the sequel and the desire to keep writing in this world is reviving itself. Whether that could ever be lucrative depends entirely on how good a job I do ironing out MoR. With that in mind, I'm diving back in.

Catching up

I got Maripat's crit off to her yesterday. Today I got caught up on 2ynovel assignments.

Puppet Prince is starting to come to life. I have a map now :D and am beginning to picture the city and the palace grounds. One of these assignments was on marriage and family life, so I got to have a little fun with that. Please understand that (for the record) I am a firm believer in marriage: the one-man-and-one-woman-till-death-do-us-part kind.

But this novel is very VERY loosely based on Old Testament culture, and didn't some of them kings (like David and Solomon) have an awful lot of wives? Yup. So does my Emperor. In fact, in a flash of insight, I understood why Prince Jhonal might NOT have trouble making up his mind which of the two likely young ladies he will marry. Why not marry them both? Yeah, well, his life isn't going to work out that way, but it does give an interesting starting point. Doing some cultural style worldbuilding has been a lot of fun.

Next up: playing a bit more with the website and...TA-DA...starting the revisions on Marks of Repentance. If I'm looking forward to it half as much as I say I am, why haven't I cracked open the file yet? Might I be afraid that it won't live up to my memory of it? Nah. It must be that I need to clean other things off my desk so that I won't need to come up for air for a couple months. Yeah, right.

Just to prove I can...

I updated the look of my blog again. This seems spring appropriate. I didn't want to forget how to do it! :P

I'm busily catching up on all matter of writing odds and ends these days. If Salesman-Who-Talks had not shown up today, I would have finished Maripat's crit. As it is, I have about a chapter and a half left to go. Fun stuff.

Bird sighting at the park!

There is a little park right in the middle of our town that was built in just the last few years. There's a fancy fountain, a grassy amphitheater, and a small Japanese style garden. Hubby and I went for a walk there the other day and I had to go back with my camera because of the killdeer. I've never been this close to a distressed bird before! I've heard of the broken wing act to lure possible predators away from a nest, but this little gal acted and re-enacted it right at my feet! I've checked back and the eggs haven't hatched yet.


This mama killdeer practically attacked my feet! 


She's cheeping away in distress. 


Doing the broken wing dance. 


All to protect her nest which is just inches from the path. 

Web of Lies

Writing these occasional book reviews has been a challenging adventure for me. Not so much the writing, but the reading...

I received Web of Lies about a week ago. Most of the books I've talked about have been firsts by their authors. Not so this one. If I've counted correctly, this is the ninth title by author Brandilyn Collins,and the fourth book in her Hidden Faces series about a forensic artist, Annie Kingston.

Between Annie (who witnessed a fatal shooting) and a woman named Chelsea Adams (who is known nationally for her visions of murders which are sent to her by God), clues must be unraveled to stop a bizarre killer who uses poisonous spiders as a weapon. The real question is: are Chelsea's visions of the past, the present...or the future?

I read this book a lot faster than I'd intended to for some odd reason. :P And I sincerely hope no spiders are wandering around my bedroom tonight. If you like suspenseful books, you might want to give Brandilyn Collins a try. I'm pretty sure they don't all have spiders in them.

Could somebody send me a fantasy to review soon, please? Something other than brain-chilling suspense? Thank you.

Writerisms and other Siins

Mar passed on this link to an article by C. J. Cherryh on Writerisms and other Sins. Good information on writing well...with a veneer of humor. Go read; it's short.

You may congratulate me now

We won't be talking about False Perceptions again for a few months. Today I finished the read-through, did the final spell-check, and emailed the thing out to readers. I wash my hands off it for now. Whew.

At the moment I have no idea if it is any good. Time--and distance--will tell.

Exercise with Val...again

It was a lovely sunny spring day so hubby and I decided a bike ride was in order after church. We loaded the bikes into the back of the truck so we could ride along the dikes. I was really impressed with how good it felt.


Along the dike with the river to the left, the lake to the right. 


Here's the river. 


I'd borrowed my father-in-law's bike, which is structured to be easier on the back and neck. 

Unfortunately, not two minutes after hubby took that photo of me, he broke the chain on his bike and wound up walking back to the truck, about 2 or 3 miles. Not the workout he was looking for! Or me, either.

the never-ending story

I'm not sure why I assumed I could read through the entire 105K of False Perceptions in a day or two, cleaning up minor edits as I went. Two full days in and I have completed chapter 22 of 34. Sigh.

I have found some tremendously interesting things. I'm still killing off commas left, right, and center. I'm guessing I'm down to 20% of the original ones. Probably I've eliminated some useful ones. Grr.

Unclear pronouns have surfaced as well. What *she* are we talking about in this paragraph? How come I never noticed that I used the same descriptive word four times in two paragraphs? And best of all was discovering someone scramblinging for something. Gotta love it.

So, my patiently waiting readers. A few more days. This little whip-through pass appears to be a vital one!

Turning over a new leaf

Yeah right. It's been an entire week since I've blogged...again. I didn't even tell you all that I was going to be away for five days. Guess what? I was away for five days.

I had a great time visiting my daughter and son-in-law. Hubby was there for a couple of days as well but had to go back to work before I did. So we had our time of big city shopping and our time of visiting and movies and web-designing and all the fun stuff. Believe it or not my hubby is more game for the shopping than my daughter is! We each bought a new pair of hikers and I also got new cross-trainers...both were very necessary. Now I will have happy feet for a couple years again.

It was a nice change doing my early morning walk/run in the park near their house. It's big enough to have a pond that the city stocks with fish and a disk-golf course. There were fisherfolks and joggers and dog-walkers and cyclists and roller-bladers and no cars! So that was fun. I met back up with hubby on the way back home (where he works is about half way from my daughter's house to home) and we drove home together last night. He's gone back up for his two night shifts now.

In the past week we have had four more calves. Two were born on the tenth...happy and healthy. One on the eleventh was stillborn. Hubby wasn't home (of course...) so our neighbor came over and oversaw the maternity ward for the evening. The calf had to be pulled. And yesterday we had another live birth. So 17 births and 13 calves for the year. I've lost track of the male female ratio. It's written down at home, but...I'm not there.

I learned a lot of Photoshop and ImageReady tricks over the weekend that I'll be putting to good use with my daughter continuing to hold my hand. As soon as I have something worth showing off I'll post a link. Meanwhile it is morphing every which direction yet and many of the links don't work. Be patient. Time will come.

I've taken today to work on the web project with Maripat, but tomorrow I'm back at the writing and critting end of the job. No point in having a website if I never sell anything. Can't sell it if I don't finish it...

FINISHED!!

I just wrote THE END on the second revision of False Perceptions. Insert huge sigh of relief here. I have been working on this quite steadily for three months and I will be really glad to open a different file for awhile. Thanks muchly to Mar, Lisa and Debbie for the previous critique that led to all this work! I figure on letting it sit for a week and then doing a read through to check for glaring mistake type stuff before emailing it out to the folks who've volunteered for the next round. The novel grew from 93K to 105K which puts it in a really good range I'm thinking.

Now it's back to the novel I'm critting for Maripat, the classes I'm taking at Barnes & Noble, the 2yn class at Forward Motion (I'm behind...)...so that I can start a new revision and a new crit on May first. Yay for new beginnings!!

Black Bean Soup

I invented this recipe myself a couple of years ago because I couldn't find one that I really liked. It had to be incredibly healthy and it had to use ingredients easy to keep around. I'm not wild about cilantro and I don't like handling hot peppers. This one fits the bill.

A tip about fresh ginger: It is unrelated to powdered and is well worth keeping around. But I would hardly ever use it! I can hear that mumble from here! Cut it in half, bag it securely, and huck it in your fridge freezer door. When a recipe calls for fresh ginger, grate a little off. Don't worry about the peel; you won't get enough of it in to care about it. It grates like a charm, even frozen. I have a little micro-plane that I use for ginger and fresh garlic as well as for orange or lemon zest.

On to the recipe: just chuck it all in a big pot and simmer till done. (makes about 6 cups)

1 pint canned tomatoes
1 pint black beans
1 carrot, grated
1/2 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced (or grated, of course...)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
8 drops tobasco
salt to taste
Add water if needed for desired thickness.

This works out to about 115 calories per cup, but not a single calorie is wasted. In the world of the GI Diet, everything in it is a Green Light Food. Green light means--as in traffic--go ahead. (Yellow is caution and Red is *don't go there*.)

The basic idea of the GI Diet is that the guy has rated foods by the Glycemic Index--how fast the food will burn up in your system. I've been following it pretty completely for the past three weeks (but keeping my very Red Light morning mocha!). A couple of the ingredients in my morning shake are Yellow Light, but I decided to keep them anyway because they are both fruit. Keeping my fruit and veggie count high is important in my new little world.

Oh, you want my breakfast recipe too? Kay, here we go.

1/2 cup of old-fashioned rolled oats cooked in 1 cup of water with a sprinkle of salt.

The shake consists of 1 banana, 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, 3 ounces tofu, and enough skim milk to come to the 2 cup line. Blend. I pour some of this over my oatmeal and drink the rest. I have gotten used to the not-overly-sweet aspect of it, but even the unsweetened pineapple adds a reasonable bit of sweetness to it.

This breakfast holds me up for four hours, no problem.

I'd like to hear from you if you find these recipes/tips tasty or interesting. I'm not sure why I'm posting them right now, but it seems somebody out there may be looking for a healthy eating tip or two.

I'd sure recommend giving the GI Diet a try. For the first time in my life I am losing weight (six pounds-ish to date over three weeks). I'm also doing a Curves workout three times a week and doing the forty minute walk/run the other four mornings. I'm feeling healthier and stronger and my shoulder and neck don't seem to be reacting too negatively (nothing that doesn't simmer back down, anyway.)

Yard work

Good help is hard to find. Although I must admit to enjoying the company of the Puff-Cat outside, he is a lot of trouble. When not attacking the rake head on, he dive-bombs through the leaves and dead grass I've already pulled together sending it flying every direction. The other three cats watched from the shade of the wheelbarrow but refused to hang around after I'd gone in for the camera. Puff? He won't leave me along. He's a people addict.


Puff the Magic Kitty 

Choose your own Adventure

I tie on my cross-trainers and head south down the driveway. Which direction will I go?


Heading down the driveway 

I look right. I want a longer walk today. The road west deadends in only 3/4 of a mile.


West another day... 

East it is. But almost immediately I have to choose north or south.


Will it be north or south? 

South is in the sunshine. Sounds good.


Heading south 

Keep to the left facing traffic for one mile.


Time to turn around 

Now the ditch is on my side of the road and I can watch out for my buddy the muskrat.


The muskrat! 

Right on cue! There he is. Here is his favorite place to lose me:


The marsh in the ditch 

Time to turn back down our road.


Back on our road 

Almost home. Our house is the barn-shaped one on the right.


The farm 

We've been gone about forty minutes. Hope you enjoyed the walk!

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!

Here you go...

85K and counting

I completed chapter 28 of the Big Revision today. 27 and 28 are a little choppier; I'm trying to decide if that is okay. They certainly contain a major swell to the crest of the novel so there is a lot of action in them. I'll need to make a decision when I skim read the novel before sending it out to critters. I have a few other (minor) things to add or change during that read: things I realized could get a hint or mention in a specific spot that would set something else up a bit later. I hate to have wasted, unlinked things in there. I don't believe a whole lot in fancy dressing just for the sake of it. It all needs a purpose. With that in mind, I expect to be done this pass by Easter--maybe even next week--which will give me a bit of time to glance back through before kicking it back out the email door.

One of the projects I want to work on later in April is to start building myself a webpage. I'll be shopping for my host and url soon and have some ideas what I'll do there. I know, I know. It's scary. I'm the gal that was stymied by her BLOG for a couple of weeks. So is there some kind of reason NOT to bite off more than I can chew? :O At least I won't inflict this site on you all until there's something to see, though I expect it will be rather basic for awhile.

What kinds of things do YOU think would be good to find on an as-yet-to-be-published writer's page?

Three steps forward...

One back. It's not fair that the easy chapters to revise fly by and the nasty ones linger. Well, maybe it IS fair, cause I'd get just as sick of the good ones, I suppose. I made huge headway on Friday, revising three entire chapters that apparently, um, did not have huge problems. Today was a little different. The first scene seemed like it would be stronger from the other character's pov.

Generally speaking, in a multi-pov novel (there's four in this one), the writer has to make some choices as to which character's eyes to see each scene from. Sometimes it's easy...only one of the pov characters might be present. If more than one are present, I take a closer look. Basically I use two criteria: which character has the most to lose in this scene? And: how many scenes have gone by since I used this character's pov.

Unfortunately my original choice had been based on the second criteria, rather than the first. The confrontation took place between the antagonist, who has just gotten a somewhat tenuous grip on the thing he has always wanted, and the male main character, who helped make it happen but now regrets it. It seemed time to get into the antagonist's mind, so I used it. I think the new scene is stronger. Hopefully there are enough clues for the reader to catch that the antagonist is just using nice words to cover up, but Treyan, fresh from a joyous experience of his own, wants to believe the best in everybody. This one scene took all of today, and it isn't even a long one.

Not because it wasn't coming together but because it was simply a hecticly busy day at work, as was yesterday (when I gave up and critted three chapters instead of doing creative work). These people are coming out of the WOODWORK and they all think their floors should be done next week. They don't like hearing words like *June* or *July*. I'm actually WORKing at work these days: making phone calls, setting up appointments, placing orders, screwing up orders (yay me) and pacifying people. Probably the longest stretch either day that I could focus would be about twenty minutes before the phone would ring or the door would open.

But the revision plows on. I have my sights set to get it off to critters by the end of April. **Crosses fingers.

Please tell me you love the new look :P

I do believe I've got it this time. I spent a couple of hours this afternoon and another three this evening going through everything with a fine-tooth comb and I do believe we finally have lift-off. And now, honestly, I could do this again in an hour or two. Don't know that I will (!) but it would be possible.

Whew.

Yes, I still want to know if you see problems. I'm sure hoping not, though!

In my little world

While I wait for the planets to re-align themselves so that I can do something productive on my blog layout, I've been revising. I haven't conquered as much ground as last week, unfortunately, but I did hit a nasty chapter head-on and conquer it. Also unfortunately, it is not the last such chapter to deal with, but I've got a bit of clear space before I hit the wall again. I think. I've revised 22 chapters out of 33 to this point.

My other area of concentration right now is critting a novel by my pal Maripat. I'm only 3 chapters in (of 25) so there's a ways to go on this as well, but it's my reward after beating my head on the False Perceptions wall all day!

Even more messed up!

In trying to fix this blog thing I have screwed it up fifty-nine ways from Wednesday. At the moment, I believe it is equally unhappy in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Call me an equal opportunity kind of person. :P Apparently I didn't save that last version, thinking I already had it, but I was wrong. And it looked much uglier in between as anyone who might have tried to access Saturday evening may attest. Anyway, I'll give it another whirl in a day or two. Thanks for your patience. You ARE being patient, aren't you?

EJ, first I have to try a couple more times to screw it up on my own before I get into paying somebody to fix it! :P

FP revision clears 60K!

Yes, that's worthy of a headline. I've revised six chapters this week, each with two to five scenes. A few of those scenes got by with minor grammatical upgrades (beware the lowly comma!) but most of them got more. A couple received high end treatment including massive amounts of the original material hitting the recycle bin. And now I'm finding things AGAIN that should have been worked in earlier in the story. The villain's son plays an important role in the early chapters and in the later ones. Where is he now? He's certainly not off on a business trip. He needs to be doing what he does best, prodding his father, even though in a more limited way so as not to steal the spotlight. To be honest, changes thus far have been significant enough that I'll need a read-through at the very least before this story goes off to readers again, and hopefully I can plug in some of those bits on that quickie pass. In case you're one of my readers waiting patiently for the book, my current goal is for it to be out of my hands and into yours by the end of April.

Regarding the difficulties with viewing this blog in Mozilla Firefox, my tech team hasn't had time this week to analyze the problem. The half of my tech team that had surgery this week has no idea what's wrong, and the half that is packing for a state-to-state move isn't sure either. I don't really want to go back to blogger pink...

What do you think?

I've spent the better part of the last two and a half hours on this, and that's only counting tonight! Tina and Mar both spent much of that time helping me out with the template as well. I think there are still some tweaks to go, so if you see something odd let me know in comments and I'll sic my tech team on it! :D

The photo is one taken by my daughter.

The Return of 'Comes A Horseman'

Way back in time--approximately in November--I received a novel too late to do it justice on the day I was supposed to chat it up. However, Robert Liparulo did kind of issue me a challenge to read his first novel, Comes A Horseman even though I wanted to chicken out, not being a thriller kinda gal.

Okay, Bob. I finished it today. Yeah, I know, I took my jolly sweet time letting it get to the top of the TBR stack. After reading the first two chapters I knew I wasn't gonna keep going while hubby was working out of town. I needed to be sure somebody was in the house to keep the axe murderer off me. Chicken, I know.

Bob did a lot of things right in this novel. In fact, pretty much anything I didn't like I'll chalk up to the genre. The characters made sense. They developed, changed, grew. They had definite imperfections, ones that were important to the development of the plot.

And Liparulo certainly has heard the same advice I have: When it is all dark and your main characters know they are going to fail, keep heaping it on so they don't really stand a chance. And yet, the seeds for their eventual win had been planted early on.

There were a few bits of info I would have liked planted earlier, but perhaps word count issues forced some tightening up. For example--if you've read the book--I would have liked to see the idea of the secret hideaway in Brady's basement mentioned in an earlier scene rather than just where they NEED it. It kinda felt info-dumped in there, but it was a short info-dump so I lived through it.

Good job.

Hike in the woods

This afternoon hubby and I went for a walk up a forestry road. The lure of climbing rim-rock was more than he could deny.


up the rim-rock 

We had a good hike up (got the heart rate up, that's for sure) and came across a group of four deer watching us from the shadows. I took a lot of photos--most of them were throw-aways--and this is the best one.


Two deer 

Turning back towards the truck, this is the view out over the lake. A good afternoon.


The view the other way 

The Royal Pelter

Because the novel I am currently doing prep work for, Puppet Prince, takes place in an Emperor's household, I've been spending some time googling the various titles of the people that might show up in the story. You know, how do you address a prince: that sort of thing. Also, the various layers of servanthood. I just found the coolest tidbit from this website regarding the position of The Royal Pelter:

It is the duty of the Royal Pelter to hurl rotten fruit at anyone in the stockade, who has offended the Royal Household. As an emissary of the Court, the Royal Pelter must comport themself in a dignified manner while pelting. It is also their duty to Royal Pelter to distinguish when pelting is appropriate and when it is not.

Please excuse me while I go laugh myself silly. When I've recuperated from that, I'll have to see if I can incorporate a Royal Pelter.

Free Online Writing Classes

Did you know that Barnes and Noble University offers free courses for writers and others? They run for about six weeks at a go as near as I can figure. I've just signed up for their Grammar Fitness course that starts in April. I figure that should make all my critiquers happy. The downside to the courses is that to get the most out of them, you should purchase their textbooks which doubtless is how they make their money. My first stop, however, will be my interlibrary loan. I'd prefer to see if these are the grammar books I would like to own forever and ever amen before I plunk down my coin.

Today's chapter didn't quite get completed and I blame that on the emotional gamut the major scene runs through. Shudder. I had far too many eyes doing their thing, too many hugs, too many sighs. I needed to get a little deeper in the character's skins and get beyond that surface stuff. And you know what? It's work. Work I intend to finish tomorrow.

Are you a writer?

Are you REALLY a writer? Are there days you wonder why you do this? Days when it isn't fun and you're sure your writing stinks and the scenes don't flow? Hop on over to Maripat's blog and get yourself a pep talk. Or maybe a kick in the seat of your pants. Whichever.

All about Me

In case you've ever wondered what's up with Valerie, check out my crit group's new blog. Tuesday will be my day to post over there. Tina has prepared a list of writing prompts a mile long for those weeks when we all come up with a blank mind. We'll have to see how often that happens!

This week's entry is my life history, shortened version. Check it out if you're interested.

cleared 36K today!

I'm feeling a bit encouraged about progress on False Perceptions today. The disassembled chapter from last week was partially done. I'd gone through much of the grammar before and rearranged the scenes, but really couldn't think through refreshing the transitions to reflect the new locations. It wasn't as bad as I feared, and I was done in decent enough time to tackle the next chapter as well.

This one was labeled with big asterisks and the words FAULTY LOGIC, needs MUCH work, so my heart sank a little at turning to that page. Then I remembered that I'd already eliminated the faultiest part of the logic line from earlier chapters and things were holding up just fine without it. Even MORE logically! LOL. Anyway, got that chapter whipped into some sort of shape as well.

And still had time to do a fair chunk of reading on Maripat's novel which she FINALLY emailed me for critiquing yesterday. It is laugh-out-loud funny in places and I think it will be a pleasure to crit.

Etcetera

Calf #13 died Friday morning, making three deaths in the last week. Hubby arrived home a couple of hours later for his four days off. Of course we have had no births since he got home. Are these cows trying to punish me personally or what? I had specifically ordered the remaining five births for this weekend. (Nice try...)

It occurs to me that in the past couple of weeks my blog has turned into a farm and housing report. Is that all I've been up to? Well, no.

False Perceptions didn't gain a lot of ground this week, though. The revision sits at about 30K (out of about 95). I ripped one chapter apart this week and then couldn't quite figure out how to put it back together. That will be Monday's job. How hard can it be? (Don't answer that...)

I spent a bit of extra time on Puppet Prince in the character building section. Personalities are starting to show clearly; faces less so. A varied and interesting cast is starting to take shape and learn to interact. My constant struggle is to give PP enough attention so that it becomes fully formed, but not so much that it will demand to be written earlier than Nano.

Forward Motion has a specific area for writers under the age of 19, and I've been one of the moderators of the Young Writer's Scene board for over a year now. We periodically run classes in there, so one of the things I accomplished this week was writing first draft for the next set of classes which will be on Viewpoint and Narration. It's a four-part class and I expect to start running it Wednesday the fifteenth. I also hope to do a class on dialogue later in the spring. Maripat has run the last couple of classes so it is about my turn.

It is time for me to really start focusing on FP, though. I can't move on until it is revised and out to a new set of readers. The dangling carrot is the revision of Marks of Repentance aka known as Shann and Taafa's story. I don't know that it will be any easier to revise in actuality, but I absolutely LOVE that story which hopefully will help. It keeps beckoning to me, but I must I must I must finish FP first.

Yeah anyway, that's what life is like in my little world.

Misery on the farm

This year I have to tell you that farming is not going well. This morning before work I found a very brand newborn calf in the corral. After awhile I phoned my in-laws and asked them to check the calf. MIL phoned about 10:30 to say that the calf wasn't up and sucking yet. Usually that takes one to two hours.

I decided to go home at lunch hour to see how things were. MIL was just heading into town to buy colostrum for the calf so I changed and went out to the corral to talk to FIL. After a bit I decided to walk through the rest of the herd to check on babies and mamas, and there I found another newborn calf, but this one was dead. What is going on?

I went back to work, knowing that the struggling baby was in good hands. MIL phoned mid afternoon to say that they'd finally gotten about six ounces of the colostrum into the calf, that he'd had a hard time sucking but eventually gotten the hang of it on the bottle. They were going to have lunch and a nap and check him again later.

When I got home, I changed and went straight back out. They were gearing up for another onslaught because baby still wasn't cooperating. (You guessed it; Jim is out of town until tomorrow.) I called our good friend R who was raised on a cattle farm and he came down and gave my FIL a hand, while MIL did the hold-the-rope-and-other-stuff detail. We spent two hours with the mama haltered and tied to keep her steady (her second calf, so she's young yet) and trying to get the calf on. R got the calf in position and its mouth wrapped around a teat. No sucking. Over and over. Finally he milked out a bit, put it in the bottle, and tried that. He wouldn't suck. Eventually R took the nipple off the bottle and just poured the milk in the calf's mouth. He did swallow most of it.

He's not going to last long if he can't or won't suck. We have no idea what is going on. All the ones that have been weak or sick (or dead) have been bull calves. The heifers have all been fine. Why? WHY???

Headed back out in a couple of hours to try one more time. Is it worth it? I don't know. We still have five cows left to calve out, but now I'm dreading seeing a calf rather than being glad.

Sorry, Jean. I don't feel up to calf pics at the moment.

I have recently read Brenda Coulter's book A Family Forever.

I don't read a lot of conventional romances, whether or not they are *inspirational* (which this one is). You may recall that I read a stack of them in the fall before taking my own run at writing a romance for Nano. Brenda's previous book Finding Hope was easily the best of the lot, making me laugh out loud on several occasions, and therefore I did not want to miss the opportunity to read the newest Brenda novel: A Family Forever

When a man who's sworn to protect his dead brother's fiancée discovers she's pregnant, he marries her, convinced that God will honor his good intentions and make the couple fall in love. But can it really be that simple?

The short answer is NO! The fascinating and believable story of Shelby and Tucker's unconventional marriage begins here with a sneak preview.

You'll enjoy the read!

Possibly good news

Our septic system was approved and inspected when it went in 29 years ago, and again when we hooked up a second septic tank (for the mobile home across the yard) in 1985. Now to find out if that qualifies us as currently approved. Or not.

Farm

Calf number eleven is a bull calf and looks healthy. So far so good.

At noon I bumped into a friend who is a realtor and picked his brain over our thoughts about fixing up the farmhouse. He says regulations have changed and that if we do ANYTHING to our house, even if we don't tamper with a single water line, we will have to have our septic field analyzed and probably upgraded. The tune? Likely twenty thousand dollars. Just for...what it's already doing for free. However, if we DON'T pay to have it professionally inspected but instead (for example) sell the farm now the way it is, we are legally liable for anything that goes wrong with that septic system for as long as we both shall live.

Hung if we do, hung if we don't.

He also says we are more likely to get our money back out of a double-wide than out of renovations.

Hubby will be tickled pink to hear this news. Trust me.

I won!

IwoniwoniwoniwoniwoniwoniwonIWON! I WON! Oh, and you'd never guess that I'm excited about it, I'm sure.

What did I win? I won a download of Holly Lisle's ebook Create a Character Clinic through a contest held last week at PaperBackWriter's blog.

I have just now successfully downloaded this ebook and done a quick scan through it, and I am really excited about reading through slowly and thoroughly. I'm at just the right stage in Puppet Prince to make excellent use of Holly's resource, and I'm sure I'll find parts that will help me with revisions on *the others* as well. I'll get back to you all when I've had a closer look.

I'm particularly excited about the timing of this because I had finished reading Talyn just a couple of days previously. Reading this fat and fulfilling fantasy reminded me once again of the excellence of Holly Lisle's worlds and characters. If you like fantasy, READ THIS BOOK. If you've been wondering about whether or not you might like fantasy but don't know where to start, READ THIS BOOK. To be fair, there is sexual content in the novel; if that makes you uncomfortable, you may want to pass. The sex isn't gratuitous, however.

So a big thank you to Holly Lisle for three specific items at the moment: Talyn, Create a Character Clinic, and for being the visionary orignial developer of my favorite hang out on the Web, Forward Motion Writer's Community. Hats off to you, Holly.

In calving news

In calving news we've shot past the center line, but not without casualties. Friday night hubby and I were out at friends for worship team practice. The guys used to work together and hang out together and since Jim got the job at the mines in June, they hardly see each other any more. Anyway, long story short, we were there quite late.

Hubby checked the cows when we got home and lo and behold if we didn't have a calf, likely less than an hour old. Jim went out and checked a bit later, but the calf wasn't up. By then I'd gone to bed so he woke me to help him put the pair in the shed to warm the calf. It wasn't particularly cold, but baby was shivering. Anyway Jim came to bed about five am after finally getting the calf sucking. Usually once that has been figured out, their prognosis is good.

Calf still looked a bit better through Saturday but not like he should have been. Anyway, by the time Jim left yesterday evening back for the mines, we didn't think the calf would make it. He was dead this morning when I checked.

The weather hasn't helped, but he wasn't out in it. We had about six or eight inches of snow yesterday and then it turned to rain. The other babies all looked pretty miserable this morning and one looked like he'd rather drown than carry on but I booted him up and the last I saw as I was going out the driveway he was sucking.

Of the ten births so far, six have been heifers and four bulls. Of course it was a bull calf that died. Prices for either are similar at the other end but heifers tend to put on less weight, so we get a bit less per animal.

Some of that sunshine we had last week would be welcome again about now.

23252

I finally hit a sweet spot on the revision! I don't know how long it will last, but I thoroughly enjoyed tidying up chapter seven today. I know there are rocky spaces up ahead again, but for today, I rejoice.

Customers were polite enough today to allow me time to work on the 2yn assignment too. I'm really enjoying the prep work on Puppet Prince. It's hard to pace myself and not give too much attention to it, and yet keep the momentum going as well. Waiting until November to write the thing is going to be difficult; I can already see that. My plot is starting to complicate itself, which can only be a good thing at this stage. This week's assignment is about the characters and what their involvement is with the theme of the novel: whether they believe in it or not. My main theme turned out to be compromise, and it seems that my cast of characters have varied opinions on that. Some of them are good at compromise and some are idealistic. Some believe everyone else should compromise so long as they get what they want. They all have differing amounts of compassion (the secondary theme) as well. So far I'd say that they truly aren't the same people with different parts to play. As one of my sisses is fond of saying, "If you agree on everything, one of you is unnecessary." So far the cast is made of individuals. Loving it.

On cost of housing and renovating

Hubby and I did a fact-finding mission on Saturday regarding the pricing of modular housing. We had already decided that a fairly small and inexpensive two-bedroom unit would be adequate as we could install it over a raised basement for added square footage. It had been about five years since we'd priced these units and (surprise) they have gone up considerably.

The good thing is that with Jim's new job at the mines we could probably swing the loan to do this. The better thing is that we don't want to spend that much, even if allowed to. We have spent enough time in our marriage *poor* that we don't want to go there again, even if it means a nice new house. We'd rather eat out when we feel like it, upgrade our car in a year or two, and start thinking of travel destinations.

Having said that, our current home is still inadequate. Not only in space but in the fact that so much needs fixing, as I mentioned awhile back in a post on this subject. The large addition that we contemplated earlier will simply stretch us too far as well. Now we are looking for ways to alleviate two key space problems: the congestion in the central core of our home (where a 12x16 room contains the kitchen, dining area, stairway, and the *hall* to the living room), and the fact that there is no bathroom anywhere near the bedrooms.

We are going to have to spend some money on this house regardless. We can likely put it off for another year or two, but there is no particular benefit to doing so indefinitely. We do, however, have the time to decide how to get the maximum value for our renovation dollar.

Head over to Tambo's!

If you are a writer who finds it hard to be nasty to your characters, head over to Tam's blog and read It's About Conflict, Dammit!. )Hopefully I found the right link; if not, it's the post for Friday, February 17.) Tam sets out very clearly the difference between writing for our own vicarious fun and writing a novel that others will want to read--nay, HAVE to read. Great post.

13302

Slow and steady wins the race, so they say. Not too sure about that, but I've finally made a small amount of progress on False Perceptions this week. Last week I spent a considerable amount of time whining that I needed to insert a scene. All I knew was what the outcome of the scene had to be, but I had no idea of what the ingredients would be. I didn't want to throw something brand new in there that would open up the need for more sub-plots to tie off at the other end. I wracked my brain. Maripat asked if I'd tried free-writing through my stuck spot. Duh. I know that. I ALWAYS do that, but somehow I hadn't gotten there yet.

Then Lisa popped online; she is one of my critquers who was already familiar with the story. We tossed things back and forth for a couple of hours and found just the right scene to move forward by about five chapters. I'd already decided the scene needed moving, but I'd thought to put it in later, not earlier. With some adjustments, it works perfectly here and best of all pulls something like triple duty.

It introduces the setting in which the climax takes place close to the end of the novel, and introduces a couple of other vital concepts of how things work in the Sphere. It doesn't matter so much when that info is in there so long as it's before the climax somewhere. The main thing was that Treyan observed Cae with tousled and flower-strewn hair, hugging two children, but he doesn't know who she is yet. A very important bit, that. I got a good start on the scene yesterday and finished it off today, along with the short remaining scene to that chapter, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

That *completes* four chapters out of thirty-three, and I'm back to chapters with minor adjustments to them for awhile. I think I'll enjoy the tweaking and adjusting that is coming up; I have learned a couple of new things this week about some of my characters. I've been working with them for two years and have gone through the entire novel twice before; you'd think I would know them already. Apparently I am a slow learner.

PS, we're up to six calves and the weather is fifteen below freezing as I write, with a howling east wind. Sounds like perfect calving weather...

Happy Valentine's Day!

That's me, a day late and a dollar short.

Hubby's missed this entire set of working days due to a bad cold that has settled in his chest. He started out with a couple of days of sneezing before deciding that the cough was the more powerful weapon. It's easing off some, but he's still wiped. Now he's back to days off until the weekend, so maybe he'll have recuperated by the time he needs to head back up-country. That would be good.

On the one hand, though, it's been good to have him home for the opening days of calving season. We're up to five babies now, out of something like eighteen expected. Just tagging their ears has been the max work hubby's been up to, though baby #5 was a bull calf which adds a bit of work in the de-bulling department.

The weather has been great for calving, crispy cold overnight and sunny most days, or at least it hasn't been pouring rain or dumping snow. We won't count the couple inches last night that melted straight off.

In other news, we're examining the option of tearing down our existing house all together and replacing it with a modular. At least it would be done all in one go. It's hard to know what will make the most sense down the road, so the research isn't over yet.

George R.R. Martin

I've been reading George Martin's fantasy saga A Song of Fire and Ice for over a month now and am mid-way through book three. Book four is now out. There are days I love the series and days I am bogged down and think it will never end. Sometimes the things I love and hate are the same.

For instance, he has created a very indepth and fully functioning world. The downside? There is so much I can't even begin to keep it straight. If Martin himself has made errors on which lord flies which banner and who that lord is currently loyal to and how that differs from whom his father was loyal to, I will never know. I cannot fathom Martin himself keeping it straight with even the best database available. The amount of minutae is amazing.

There are thirteen point of view characters, and it's possible I missed some in my counting. One of them has not yet intersected any of the others, and he's killed a couple off so I guess we're down to eleven. Thankfully she is interesting in her own right, and is advancing on the rest of them. Martin does not rotate through them like clockwork, which is a good thing because their circumstances are not all equally compelling at any given moment. Unfortunately, not each character is all that compelling either. One thing Martin HAS done well, though, is title the chapters with the pov character's name and make each pov voice distinct. They do change and adapt and learn things, but their personalities remain strong and clear. A couple of these characters are not clearly either *good* guys or *bad* guys, and that keeps them interesting as well.

What would it take to write a series like this? My mind boggles at the thought. I have to admit I don't really want to write something similar. I prefer getting in less heads and having one major story to tell with a few subplots woven in. Is it because I am a lazier or newer writer than Martin? I don't think so, but some may differ, and time may prove otherwise. This is not what I aspire to.

One thing I want to do as well, however. I want my characters to be as unique. I don't want a family to have eight kids simply because that's the size of families typical for that era or its birth rate or birth control level. If a family has eight kids in one of my stories, I want it to be because eight different personalities need to interplay to bring the story to completion. A story can't afford to have a bunch of second level characters that bring nothing distinct to the table.

Anyone read this series? What did you like or dislike about it? Enquiring minds want to know.

Rewriting

It is busier at the store than it has any right to be in February. It is eating into my writing timee, by golly. My guys are starting to go crazy with it again, being as this is supposed to be the slow time of year. We nailed two jobs today and got requests for three more quotes, two of them large jobs. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time on cutomers these days. Yes, I know. That's what they pay me the big bucks for. But they hate feeling this behind, too.

In the four years I've been writing at work I've gotten pretty good at coming back and picking up right where I left off five minutes or twenty minutes before. There comes a time when my concentration is shot though. I'm not sure what exactly it takes, but a certain number of phone calls and/or customers in a shortish period of time and I'm done for. Usually I can switch to something a bit less demanding.

My primary goal these days is to progress on the revision of False Perceptions. The first chapter needed finetuning. The second chapter needed total rewriting and is *done*. The third chapter didn't exist in any form before this. I managed the first scene of it today before my concentration blew, but the second scene eluded me. I know what it needs to portray, but not what it IS. It's starting to come, I think, but of course I've got a sales rep again in the morning. The third scene planned for this inserted chapter is fairly close to together in my head. I'm looking forward to getting to chapters that *only* require revisions!

Meanwhile, the 2yn assignment this week is the first of the character building ones. I haven't written any of it down yet, but I'm starting to see it. So that's good. I also have classes to write and a crit to do and and and...

Maybe I'd better go do some of it instead of whining.

About adding on

So a few weeks or so ago I mentioned that my hubby thinks this may be the year of the addition to the house. I was a little dubious at the time, but he's starting to convince me its doable. I, in turn, have convinced him that fall would be better than spring if for no other reason than that it usually rains less in fall and we will have to rip half our roof apart. Besides, I'm not ready just any old day now.

Our house is not so much small as awkward. It wasn't ever meant to be a house. It is 16 feet wide and 36 feet long with a barn shaped upstairs and no basement. It is made of concrete block. The ceilings are low, the electrical is inadequate and the windows aren't sealed anymore. It was built as cheap as possible 30 years ago and it shows.

Truthfully, I would rather take a bulldozer to it than fix it up. I dream of larger windows, maybe even french doors. We live in the country after all. I dream of vaulted ceilings and...and AIRINESS. This isn't airy by anyone's definition.

Some rooms are adequately sized. The front 12x16 on the main floor consists of a 5x12 bathroom (the only bath) and a mudroom/laundry room/junk room. In reality, everything that *should* go in a basement is in this room, and it's the only entry. I'm not into comparing myself with the Joneses to be honest, but this is a depressing way to enter a house. The second 12x16 module is the kitchen/dining room. It also contains the sort of spiral staircase, and of course you have to walk through it to get to the third module, the living room.

Upstairs, there are decent sized bedrooms on either end and a smaller one along the hallway in the center. And a linen closet beside the stairs. The severe wall/roof angles make furniture placement upstairs challenging. Total square footage: 1152 square feet. It's not a big house by North American standards.

I shouldn't complain. Hubby's folks raised SIX kids in here through their teenage years. Two boys in the little bedroom, and four girls in the *big* end room (a bunk and a double). So when I consider that, I feel pretty silly for wanting a bigger house for me and a halftime husband!

Part of it, however, is that the house really doesn't help to make the farm saleable. Not that we're planning on selling any time soon, but still... If we don't go crazy spending money on the reno we should be able to enjoy a nicer house now and reap the benefits at resale down the road.

It occurs to me that most of the cramped feeling of the house would change if the living areas were more open to each other, had a higher ceiling, and took advantage of the great view (once you look past our cows...) The current house is to protect from the elements, not to ease indoor/outdoor living. So...what if we added a section to the east side of the house approximately doubling the current footprint? What if the current living room became the new master bedroom; the smallish window and low ceiling would be just fine in that case. The current kitchen could become the new master bath; the plumbing's mostly there already. And upstairs we could either leave the three bedrooms or turn the small one into a third (luxury!) bath. It would be directly above the new master bath so again the plumbing wouldn't pose a serious detriment. On paper, it all looks good.

I turn my attention to the new space. How should it look? Well, it should contain a main entry for company. The mudroom we now have is perfect for a farm entry but it shouldn't be inflicted on anyone else. I really dislike the current core of the house: the kitchen/ dining room/ stairway/ walk-through-to-living-room space. My ideal is a kitchen that people don't come into unless they're helping. Through traffic drives me bats. (Yes, I know, that's easily done.) So it seems logical to place the kitchen at the south end of the new space, with the dining room and then the living room flowing north from there. It puts the new kitchen back to back with the current bathroom and near the electrical panel, both of which will save some money. Another nice thing is that if the dining room and living room are more or less one room, you can expand the table as much as you want when you have dinner company; just shove over the sofa a bit if needed. The spaces can borrow from each other.

I designed it really nice that way. A great 13x10 kitchen that has many of the bells and whistles I would like without being extravagant. I was mulling over the design while I made dinner a few nights ago, thinking through the steps I would take to prepare this in the new kitchen.

You know what? I never used to watch tv, but I've started to with hubby gone so much. In our cramped space, I can stand at the sink OR stove and see the tv clearly, and I've been doing that for the past five years without really thinking of the significance of it. When hubby is watching those law and order shows with the stalkings and the bloody murder investigations, I wish I couldn't see it or hear it, but honestly, I've gotten used to the tv being right there.

I mentioned this to hubby and he nearly split a gut laughing. "The first step to curing an addiction is admitting you have a problem," he says between chortles. Thanks, hon.

I wonder what the addition plan would look like with the kitchen in the middle? I shudder. I want open space; I don't want walls. Can you build a kitchen without upper cabinets? I sharpen the pencil again and create a multitude of new sketches. (I live for sketching house plans; this is not a hardship.)

Tonight I came up with a plan (about the fifth one...) that I think I could live with. In fact, it has some fun features that I kind of like. It would be very open, although the dining room table definitely can't borrow space from the living room. But how often do we have ten people for dinner? Aprroximately never? It's more important to plan a house that works for the two of us, that would work for the mythological family with two and a half kids (maybe we should leave the small upstairs bedroom for that half kid) that may buy the farm from us in ten or twenty years.

I'll show the sketches to hubby when he's next home and if he thinks it has promise, I'll start on the detail sketches. Those are always fun! I can get a lot of entertainment mileage out of this project yet.

Retrofitting a main character

I would really like to learn to write cleaner first drafts. Revision should be for cleaning up sentence structure and clamping down on animated eyes. (My eyes can do many things: dance with joy, shoot daggers, and anything in between.) Revision should NOT be for re-creating the lead male character. In the month that I've been mulling over Treyan's flaws (of which he has too many), a few things have started to click. I even had a major revelation yesterday, which was good timing as today was the day to rewrite in its entirety his introductory chapter, the second one in the novel. Here's hoping that the new and improved Treyan really is new and improved without losing his rambunctious zest for life that made him so endearing in the first two versions.

Revising is going a little slower than I'd hope. I'm the eternal optimist I guess. It's been a bit busier at work than it ought to be in February. But being as I don't really want to revise this novel AGAIN, I'm going to take as much time as it needs now. I won't let it push me. If I work on it with whatever time I have available weekly, then it will get done when it gets done.

I've pretty much decided not to start writing the new novel, Puppet Prince, when the class gets the go-ahead in July. I'm planning to hold off until November and Nano. If each first draft novel requires two (or more) major revisions, it seems logical to allow twice as much time in a year to revise than to write. So the goal is to get this revision of FP done (hopefully its the final biggie), then to revise Marks of Repentance (aka Shann and Taafa), and THEN to revise Quest to be Queen before writing another first draft. I have some critters lined up for each of those. I have promised compensating crits as well, so once those start coming in I'll need to start taking time out daily to work on crits.

Nice and steady will win the race. Sigh.

Shades of PINK

Some of the publishing houses apparently are reluctant to mail review copies of novels to non-USA addresses, and I guess I can understand their reserve. It definitely costs more, and it also takes considerably longer for them to arrive here. I had to do some international bargaining of my own to make sure my review copies didn't dry up. In the meanwhile, this month's pick slid through the cracks. Not only did I not receive a copy but my new plan wasn't in place early enough to rectify the problem.

Still, I've read the first chapter of Marilynn Griffiths' new book, Pink. On her website Marilynn portrays herself as: Serious Faith. Serious Fiction. Serious Fun.. This book looks to be a contemporary peek at the New York fashion industry laced with romance, the first of four novels set in this venue. To quote Marilynn: Serious Fun Fiction (tm) is about girlfriends, guys, God and the giggles between life's tears. Dramatic comedy? Romantic tragedy? Call it what you like. Just have some serious fun turning the pages, okay?

Looks like a great read!

The Revision has Officially Begun

I dunno. Somehow, it just seems right that the header is in caps, you know? It's a fairly momentous occasion around here. Not that I haven't ever revised before. Not even that I haven't ever revised THIS novel before. It's more because there is a lot to be done to this story to make it (hopefully) saleable, I have a plan mostly in place, and after putting it off for a couple weeks, the Great Revision has begun.

Barely, mind you. One of the things that my critters pointed out was that a lot of my characters seemed to have names with a long *a* sound in the first syllable. That's a little embarrassing because I spent a lot of time making sure that first letters were different. But indeed, I had Cae and Treyan, the main characters, followed by Ramon (sometimes known as Ray) and Jade and Aram. That is who those people are; I've known them for two years. However, the latter three got identity upgrades today: Ryn, Jocasta, and Effrem. It's gonna be a challenge. They are who they are. It will take more than Find and Replace to really change them.

The first scene has had an upgrade. I think I covered everything on my list for this scene. My goal is to revise three chapters this week and at the moment I have no idea if that is reasonable. A fair slice of the second chapter will require extensive work. However, life without goals is kinda pointless, pun intended. So we'll see how it goes.

Playing with themes

The concept that Zette covered in the third assignment (due a week ago) was theme. I always find themes hard. I spent hours that week sifting through the bits of story idea I'd come up with in order to condense the essence into its theme. Eventually I decided that the theme of my new novel, Puppet Prince, is Tenacity: To achieve your destiny, hang onto your dreams against all odds. I then decided on a secondary theme, Compassion: The journey from selfishness to compassion results in strong leadership. Some of the other contenders at the time were destiny, purpose, free will, manipulation, choice, and wisdom.

Assignment four, due today, focuses in on the main character's goals and the conflicts that arise to keep him from simply reaching out and grabbing the goal. I've spent hours on this concept as well. It simply isn't gelling. After beating my head against the proverbial brick wall (many hours, I won't bore you...) I cast my gaze back to assignment three and the theme.

A little light came on.

I had picked the wrong theme.

The new theme is COMPROMISE: Treading the destined path through life may require a careful dance. Basically, we'd like to see life in black and white. Either something is right or it's wrong. As a Christian, I believe that is true in many areas, but the older I get, the more I appreciate the various shades of gray in relation to some issues. In an ideal, perfect, sin-free world, things would be simpler.

For the main character of Puppet Prince, Jhonal, this is equally true. He cannot simply choose the best path. What is best in one way is not best in another way. He needs to go through this story deciding on how much compromise he will be willing to sustain in order to negotiate the best deal for himself and for his people.

Already the goals and conflicts are sliding into place.

Why is choosing a theme important before you ever start writing? Do you have to do it this way? Of course not. Though I must admit I've been much more aware of themes since taking this 2 year novel course the first time two years ago. If you are building a building, whether it is a small storage shed or a mansion, you need a suitable foundation. The wrong theme is like building a great foundation, and then raising the building next to it, or across the yard. All I have done today is stuck a large hook in my theme and dragged it underneath the walls that are starting to go up. Everything should be much more secure now.

Here's hoping.

Time to focus

In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes the writer says: There is a time for everything. I'm thinking that it's getting time to focus on revising False Perceptions. No, really. I'm serious.

Hubby and I spent the better part of the past four days at a time-share condo owned by my sis and her hubby. This is the sis who has custody of her four-year-old granddaughter, so it wasn't a straight adult time. We'd hoped to do some cross-country skiing, but we had trouble deciding which 1/4" deep and eight foot long patch of snow to ski first. So many decisions. It didn't stop my great-niece, but, hey...she's four. We spent part of every day at the swimming pool though, and when my shoulder had reached its max I switched to jogging widths of the pool in chest deep water. You can't sit in the hot tub all the time. A four year old won't let you!

Other than that, we ate well and played a lot of cards. Our family game is called Hand and Foot, and it is always played guys against girls if at all possible. Because I have four sisters and we generally think alike, the girls usually win. Not so this week. Sigh. My sister and I are going to be many months living down our poor showing.

While we were gone, the sump pump that pulls water from our open well into our cistern went. There was enough water in the cistern to tide the cows through those few days, but it meant that Jim had to go buy a new pump and install it before heading back upcountry for work. Good thing we didn't spend all our money buying a time-share! ;)

So here I am back at work. I've sort of caught up on doings at Forward Motion, although I discovered a few areas that require a bit more attention. I have to study this week's 2yn lesson and do the assignment. And I do need to finish filling in plot-holes in the FP road. (If I would listen to Erin, I would throw a bunch of plot bunnies in the plot-hole and pave it over, but I'm afraid of them breeding. I think I have enough loose plot bunnies at the moment.)

Monday. Monday I will open FP chapter one and start rewriting. Really I will.

One step closer

Yesterday I finished writing the fourteen page document that outlines my plans for revising False Perceptions. This novel was written with the 2004 2yn class at Forward Motion. I revised it last summer and sent it out to critiquers, from whence it has recently returned. Shock of all shocks it isn't perfect yet. Hard to believe, I know. It seems to me I should have been able to see some of these issues for myself, but as a writer you get very close to a story and you think that certain things are clear. After all, you see them clearly in your own mind. The difference between what I see in my mind and what I type into my keyboard apparently can be quite startling. Not only that, but there were fudge areas. Did I think my readers wouldn't notice that the plot had some soft spots?

In planning this second revision, I referred back and forth between manuscript and crits thereof and broke down what needs to be changed in each scene. I'm embarrassed to think how few scenes were completely nailed and just need a minor grammar brush. Several scenes will be pretty much trashed and started over; some will sport new settings and some changes in characters. And I'm not off the hook on the 90% of the middlin' ones, either. Many of them will require extensive work as well. One of my two main characters (yo, Treyan, are you listening?) will require a personality upgrade, and two others need less extensive facelifts. A few need to be re-named.

As I went through the novel and found holes, I flipped back and forth in the revision plan to find places to plug them. However (another big surprise...) when I got to The End and read back through the plan, I see that there are still issues in there that haven't been addressed. Holes that haven't been plugged. There are less holes, and the ones remaining are smaller, but it isn't water-tight yet by any means. I've printed out The Plan so I can continue to work over it the next week, during which time I will be computer-less again for a few days.

This is not the fun part of the job. Anyone have any tips? How do YOU map out revisions?

More of same

Writing wise, I feel like a hamster on a wheel. More working on False Perception's revision plan; the novel is approximately half analyzed. Which isn't quite the same thing as half planned, unfortunately, nor the same thing as half re-written. See, I'm still complaining about it!

I'm also still complaining about trying to keep Jhonal and the rest of the cast from my newest novel, Puppet Prince, from taking over the world. Something brand new and unsullied sounds so fun right now, compared with trying to repair the obviously imperfect. Even telling myself that this one won't be a perfect first draft either does little to dampen my enthusiasm. I don't KNOW it won't be perfect, after all. Perhaps seven is the perfect number, and my seventh novel will be perfect. It's still all possible. In theory, anyway.

In other news, my hubby seems to think that 2006 is the year of the addition on the house. I'd thought we were a couple years away still, but he wants to start getting quotes and analyzing costs in hopes of a 2006 project. So I'm buckling my brain down to drawing plans, one of my favorite past-times. I'm not sure I actually believe him yet! We've talked some rough ideas over the five years we've lived here (in Canada's ugliest and least designed house and almost the smallest), but now we need to make sure we're on the same page as to what functions the new area will be best used for. I *am* excited, even while I try not to be, but then he tells me I CAN be...I'm confused, but drawing!

Life goes on

Life even goes on for hubby's grandmother, although in a different sense. She was a Christian, a believer in Jesus, and ready to go. Although there certainly were some tears at her funeral and in the days surrounding it, there also was gladness that she is through the pain and massive difficulties of increasing age.

The winter roads were passable with iffy sections. Connecting with the cousins and other relatives was a good thing. We did some shopping in the city. It was good to go, and it's very good to be home.

My main task these days is to work up a revision plan for False Perceptions. I vacillate between thinking I can do this, and being sure I can't. There is a fair bit of work, but only a few scenes (thus far) need a total rewrite. On the flip side, there are a similar number of scenes that just need a grammar brush-up to be fine. The rest require varying degrees of work. A couple of main characters need some overhauling to be consistent and sympathetic. At the moment I have gone through about a third of the novel, scanning critique notes and making lists. At this rate it will take several more days for this step, but I think it is a vital one. I may need a couple of *mulling* days afterwards to come up with a plan for implementation. Or I could be optimistic and believe that things will begin to gel before I get to the other end. :)

In the meanwhile, I have books that NEED to be read and a new novel that wants to push to the forefront. I did play with ideas some on the road trip, and have narrowed down the possible plotlines from billions to merely dozens. I have a clearer vision of my main character. And I am trying really REALLY hard not to lock myself into any specifics ahead of the class schedule. Must keep focusing on FP. MUST. (Of course, Shann and Taafa from Marks of Repentance want to come out to play, too, but they have to wait for the next revision slot.

Maybe I will do what I suggested to Maripat, and what several folks from the original 2yn class did, and that is to write the first draft of their 2yn as their Nano. It would certainly give me more revision time this year if I planned on only one first draft instead of two. Of course, I could also skip Nano... Hmm. Things to think about.

Aaack -- busy

Just a very quick update. I need to get in a habit of posting here more regularly again, but it won't be this week. My husband's grandmother died yesterday, and we'll be away for a few days to the funeral.

Meanwhile, I'm playing with my 2yn idea, which I'm loving and itching to get serious with (whoa, Val, follow the class...), and reading A Clash of Kings by George. R.R. Martin.

Three of the four critiques on my own False Perceptions are back now, and I'm in the process of creating a revision outline for the book. (That's what I worked on for most of last week.) Fixing the inconsistencies in one character looks to be my major goal, and it doesn't sound huge until you remember that Treyan is the major male main character and is in many of the scenes. And who he is affects the scenes he isn't in, as well. So while the task sounds simple enough, the execution of it is going to take awhile.

So far I've compiled information for the first seven or eight chapters out of thirty-two. Only two scenes out of all that have only grammar brushups to complete them. All the rest (and some chapters have 6 or 7 scenes) will require more work; two of them need to be completely rewritten in a different setting and with different character interaction. I had really hoped to complete the revision outline this week so that I could get into the *real* work next week, but it won't happen. This week won't have a normal routine.

Roll out the red carpet for the new year!

After almost two weeks of lolly-gagging around on my vacation (if you believe that, you'll believe anything; hang around cause I have more lies I could tell you...) I went back to work today. Work for me has a dual purpose. It's to sell flooring, organize my guys, make customers happy, provide a sounding board for sales reps and to earn that all-important paycheck. The second reason? (Yes, all the aforementioned was only one reason.) The second reason is that the flooring shop is where I write. So when I'm on vacation from the shop, I'm REALLY on vacation.

Not quite, but almost. Because I decided, after all, to sign up for the new 2yn class at Forward Motion, I had to come up with the kernel of an idea to jumpstart my own participation in the class. I spent most of my vacation *mulling* whenever I had spare time (not much). Until Sunday evening I was hammering away at an idea that just wasn't germinating. It looked like a good kernel, and maybe it IS. Maybe it just needs soaking for another year or two. Whatever its issue, it didn't want to sprout and be a novel just now.

Now, I've been reading George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones recently (and waiting, somewhat patiently, for book 2 to arrive back to the library, but I digress...) and tried to decide what I was liking and not liking about it. Too many pov characters, though their presentations at least are solid. I like the fact that Lord Stark has five kids, not because the writer needed a magical number five, but because each child has their own personality and thus serves the story in their own way. The youngest not so much yet, but I anticipate that he'll find his uses as the series carries on. I like the fact that there are several characters that I can't pin which side they're on. I suspect that the characters themselves might not know. And I enjoyed the whole medieval castles and war thing that sometimes gets over done in fantasy, but I've been avoiding it recently so it seemed new again to me. Well, not new, exactly, but not *same old* either.

And it occurred to me that while I've written a few fantasies in my day (three), none of them took place in these kinds of circumstances. Imagine that. Quests and travelers I have written in plenty, but no castles. It's time for castles, I thought on Monday morning, and threw away that dried up kernel of an idea that didn't want to sprout anyway.

So are you ready? Here's the basic premise for my next novel (2yn, and currently un-named): Being raised as a ward of the conquering king, a young prince seeks his future in the face of brainwashing by his hosts, an uncle who wants to retain his own family line as puppet kings, and recurring visions that offer him a brighter hope if only he can overcome the difficulties and hold the faith.

That's it. At this point, I have way more questions than answers. That's the fun of a new idea, I think. So many possibilities to choose from; so many paths the writer could take. It's that old *walking the tightrope in the fog* thing. You can't see where you're going, or what will grab you if you fall off. All you can do is inch forward and hope for the best. WooHoo! I'm gonna have fun inching forward with this one!

Happy 2006!

Happy 2006 

It's been a busy time over Christmas week, spending time with my husband and our son and daughter-in-law. Things are settling down now, and I'll be back to work (and starting revisions) on Tuesday.