Worldbuilding

It's been so long since I got down to serious novel planning that I've almost forgotten how. Some writers have ideas jumping up and down, begging to be written. Mine are a little more recalcitrant. I've got several novel ideas that I've worked with a bit on and off for the past couple of years, but every time I've turned my attention to them, they've stood there scuffing their feet and trying to elbow their neighbor forward.

So a couple of weeks ago I reached into their group, grabbed someone by the shirt front, and hauled him over to the examining table. Jhonal from Puppet Prince has been hanging around the longest, actually. A little over two years ago I started dreaming him up for Forward Motion's 2-year-novel program. Then I got busy revising and let him sit back for a bit. I thought I'd pull him out for Nano '06, but another novel jumped forward and grabbed hard.

And you know my tale of revisions ever since then.

So here we are, then. I've read the notes I made two years ago and set them aside. I figure that the parts that are meant to be important to the story will come to mind again.

I've discovered the problems with my initial idea that no doubt led to the story pulling back constantly. The conflict was unbalanced--too much external and not enough internal. Once upon a time Jhonal was a victim of sorts. Things happened TO him. He was a bit too nice. Isn't that sad? Writers...

Anyway I've spent my afternoon researching everything from forms of execution for traitors to the names of God. And I'm finding a new Jhonal, one who acts as well as reacts, and two young women who are complex (or at least getting that way) actors in their own right.

Yes, I think a braiding of three characters. That should be fun.

More confirmation from contests

Monday afternoon I received word that my entry to the Genesis contest (which I'd sent in in late February) is progressing to the final round. First round was judged by an assortment of published authors and experienced unpublished writers, and I got a lot of great feedback--pleasant praise mixed in with solid suggestions for improvement.

New to Genesis this year--the possibility of taking 48 hours to edit based on the feedback and send it back in for second round. I jumped at that option for two reasons. One, the feedback was too valuable not to act on! Two, I had the opportunity to add a one-page synopsis, which I'd been honing in the hope I'd be able to use it. Well, I could have sent it in the first time also, but it wasn't ready and there didn't seem to be much point.

Second round is judged by (in this case) one agent who likes Christian spec fic and one acquisitions editor who buys it for his house. I have spent the past two days poring over my pages with the help of my buddies (thanks, gang!!) and just sent my entry back out to face the firing squad.

I'm not to mention the title of the entry publicly, lest either judge come across it inadvertently. This is the same contest in which Marks of Repentance finaled last year, but did not place in the top three. Those results don't come out until mid-September, so I have plenty of time to ignore that novel and do other things.

Like start writing another one...

Complete list of finalists:

Chick lit/mom lit/lady lit: Annalisa Daughety, Tiffany Kinerson, Sara Richardson, Lynda Schab, Erica Vetsch

Contemporary Fiction: Christina Berry, Dan Case, Lynne Gentry, Jennifer L. Griffith, Jim Rubart

Contemporary Romance: Annalisa Daughety, Kathleen Haynes, Cara Slaughter, Sandra van den Bogerd, Linda Yezak

Historical Fiction: Yvonne Anderson, Lori Benton, Mona Hodgson, Christina Miller, Rachel Moore

Historical Romance: Patty Smith Hall, Myra Johnson, Allison Studer, Erica Vetsch, Karen Witemeyer

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller: Ed J. Horton, Melanie L. Jones, Janice Olson, Donna Alice Patton, Jane Thornton

Romantic Suspense: Dani Pettrey, Kelly Ann Riley, Julie Scudder, Jane Thornton, Jenness Walker

Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Allegory: (there are six finalists because there was a tie for the 5th finalist spot) Lynda K. Arndt, Valerie Comer, John W. Otte, Jim Rubart, Chawna Schroeder, Stuart Stockton

Women's Fiction: (there are six finalists because there was a tie for the 5th finalist spot) Heather Goodman, D'Ann Mateer, Sara Richardson, Linda Rondeau, Cynthia Ruchti, Kristian Tolle

Young Adult: Kasey L. Heinly, Stefanie Morris, Susan Miura, Janet Rubin, Carla Stewart

Book Tour--Amber Morn by Brandilyn Collins

Amber Morn is the fourth--and I believe final--novel in the Kanner Lake series by Brandilyn Collins. As you know, I'm normally not much for suspense--which Brandilyn does well. Her trademark is Seatbelt Suspense, if that's any indication. Still, I've read the first three books and found much to enjoy (so long as I didn't read late into the night!) I've barely started Amber Morn yet. Life has just tipped from crazy to absolutely nuts in the past couple weeks (and even more since yesterday--more on that later or tomorrow), so today it will have to suffice that I'm posting up the links and that I'll be reading the book when I have some daylight hours free!

Party Time!

Late last summer I heard about an upcoming contest hosted by Tosca Lee, whose debut novel Demon: A Memoir was released in June 2007. When announcing the contest, she said that people had begun asking her if she could put in a good word for them with her agent, Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary Agency. Tosca decided to run a contest, and Joyce agreed to look over the winning proposal. The deadline for entry was November 15.

This gave me something to shoot for when completing revisions on Marks of Repentance, which, as you may recall, I spent most of 2007 doing. The deadline pushed me through market analysis, synopsis, pitch, the whole works (thanks to everyone who helped critique these, by the way!!). When it went out my email box, I heaved a sigh of relief and turned my attention to Quest to Be Queen.

Every once in awhile I wondered what was happening with the contest, but I was very busy in early '08 and didn't have a lot of time to dwell on the proposal's fate. In late February I heard from Tosca with the grand news that my proposal was the winner! There were a few things that needed to be ironed out before the official announcement would be made. She has now posted the results on her website.

I've gotten general praise from both Tosca and Joyce, though it's far too early to tell if this win is a major step towards publication or just an entertaining and confirming side trip. Either way, I wanted to share the news with all of you!

Mostly Unstuck

My brain, that is. We haven't had THAT much snow!

The last few months--all of 2008, till recently--I've had things to focus on that pulled my attention away from the revisions of Quest to Be Queen, most notably workshop facilitating and contest things--prepping to submit and then helping to judge a category. I'd made a little progress around all that, outlining the section that needed a total rewrite, but never having time to just dive in and DO IT.

But this past week Forward Motion hosted our annual March Madness event. Entries returned, I finally had the time to focus and write. I've written a little over eight thousand words this past week and am now back into revision mode for the final chapter of the novel. Hopefully by the end of the week I can boot it out to critiquers.

Methinks it is time to write again. I've been revising for way too long now. Two novels, 14 months (shuddering).

Time for the creative juices to flow again. I hope I can remember where I put them.

Oh yeah. That's for next week. I still have a few thousand words left to run the editing eyeballs over.

Weather is something we love to hate

Who's with me on that? Last weekend (Easter), Friday was cold and windy and rainy. Saturday was sunny and fairly warm (8 degrees Celcius) which was a good thing as Hanna was taking outdoor photos at her cousin's wedding. We woke up Easter Sunday to slushy snow, but it mostly melted as it hit the ground.

The whole week has been kind of chilly for late March, but I still wasn't prepared to wake up to about three inches of the white stuff this morning. It kept coming for a few more hours, mostly melted in the afternoon, then started snowing again later.

I've heard rumors of all manner of white stuff sightings across the continent in the last week. Now really, I know *somebody* reads this blog, so if you have white stuff to report, would you pop a note in comments? Just give us a general geographic area. As for me, it's south-eastern British Columbia reporting in.

Book Tour--Betrayed!

Once upon a time a very long time ago now, I attended Prairie Bible College in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada. And in my class was a girl named Jeanette Archer, a missionary kid from Colombia, South America. At the time, she was dating a fellow by the name of Marty Windle, and I later heard that they married and went to Bolivia as missionaries in their own right.

Fast forward a whole bunch of years. My mother-in-law handed me Crossfire, a novel about a naive American girl caught up in the cocaine trade in Bolivia, and I noticed the author's name was Jeanette Windle. "Hey, I used to know this gal!" And being as I'd visited Bolivia for several months in 1980, I also 'knew' the country a little.

Jeanette writes a very tight novel. She's well acquainted with Latin America and did such a good job of writing about the Drug Enforcement Agency's work in the southern hemisphere that she's been questioned about who leaked sensitive information to her (not true). When her most recent novel, Betrayed, this time listed as by J. M. Windle, became available to the book tour, I jumped at the chance to be transported back to the jungle.

Betrayed takes place in Guatemala and deals with the coverup of the American funding of the revolution there since the second world war. Vicki Andrews' parents, photographers and journalists, were massacred along with a Guatemalan village when Vicki was just a young child. Now an adult working with children at risk, Vicki finds her way back to Guatemala just in time to meet her sister before Holly is found dead in the middle of the refuse dump. Trying to determine if Holly's death was an accident leads Vicki down the path towards her own childhood and the memories that had been buried all these years by trauma. Can she figure out what happened? And is her future linked to the country of her birth?

If you like a fast-paced suspense novel about foreign lands, you'll enjoy Jeanette Windle's deep love for Latin America and her sharp writing style.

Book Tour--On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness--Day 2

Not too many folks I know have their own page on Wikipedia. Andrew Peterson does.

Besides being the author of the featured science fiction or fantasy book for this month's tour, Andrew Peterson is a career musician living in Nashville, being both a singer and a songwriter. One of his claims to fame is that of singing several of the songs on one of the Veggie Tales videos, The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's. Knowing that Andrew is...shall we say sympathetic?...to Veggie Tales helps me understand his middle grade novel better!

Okay, so let's talk about novel openings. By now, if you've been with me for long, you know I'm not keen on prologues. What do you do when the prologue isn't one, but three? At least I knew what these prologues were about. The first was entitled A Brief Introduction to the World of Aerwiar (one page). This was followed by A Slightly Less Brief Introduction to the Land of Skree (a page and a half). And finally, An Introduction to the Igiby Cottage (Very Brief) (one page, with sketch). You wouldn't actually need any of the information found in these introductions, but they were mildly amusing.

The first chapter is entitled The Carriage Comes, the Carriage Black:

Janner Igiby lay trembling on his bed with his eyes shut tight, listening to the dreadful sound of the Black Carriage rattling along in the moonlight. His younger brother Tink was snoring in the bunk above him, and he could tell from his little sister Leeli's breathing that she was asleep too. Janner dared to open his eyes and saw the moon, as white as a skull, grinning down on him through the window. As hard as he tried not to think about it, the nursery rhyme that had terrified children in the land of Skree for years sang in his head, and he lay there in the pale moonlight, his lips barely moving.

Lo, beyond the River Blapp
The carriage comes, the Carriage Black
By shadowed steed with shadowed tack
And shadowed driver driving.

Child, pray the Maker let you sleep
When comes the Carriage down the street
Lest all your dreams be dreams of teeth
And Carriages arriving.

To wrest you from your berth and bower
In deepest night and darkest hour
Across the sea to frozen tower
Where Gnag the Nameless pounds you

At Castle Throg across the span,
A world away from kith and clan
You'll weep at how your woes began
The night the shadows bound you

Away, beyond the River Blapp,
The Carriage came, the Carriage Black
By shadowed steed with shadowed tack
The night the Carriage found you

It's no wonder that Janner had a hard time sleeping once he heard the faint thud of hooves and the jangle of chains. (etc)

As you can see, this is a tale made for reading aloud. I don't have anyone to read aloud to these days, but I can feel the rhythm in the nursery rhyme even so. But don't read it to too young a child, or one prone to nightmares!

I'm curious: what do you think of this opening? Is it something that makes you want to read more? If it does, the Amazon link for ordering On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is here.

Book Tour--On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is a fantasy novel that I believe to be targeted at middle-grade readers. The story follows the Igiby siblings, Janner, Tink, and Leeli, as they try to stay out of the grasp of the venom-dripping Fangs of Dang. The Fangs doesn't refer to their teeth, either. It's the name of the lizard-like people who have taken over the land of Skree and desperately seek the lost jewels of Anniera. For some reason the Igiby adults (their mama, Nia, and her father, Podo) seem to have something to do with these jewels, but the children are getting rather afraid. They don't think it's worth hanging onto the jewels anymore. Maybe if the Fangs of Dang get what they want, they'll leave the family alone.

Or maybe not.

Andrew Peterson has written a tale filled with strange creatures, but nothing is stranger than the Fangs themselves. They love the grossest things; in fact, Nia bribes the Fang Commander with a promise of delicious maggotloaf. Mmmm, just what we all want for dinner.

Tomorrow we'll have a look at the opening hook of the story, and see if it works or doesn't. Meanwhile, check out what the others are saying: Sally Apokedak, Brandon Barr, Jim Black, Justin Boyer, Jackie Castle, CSFF Blog Tour, Gene Curtis , D. G. D. Davidson, Janey DeMeo, Jeff Draper , April Erwin, Beth Goddard , Marcus Goodyear, Todd Green, Jill Hart, Katie Hart, Michael Heald, Timothy Hicks, Christopher Hopper, Jason Joyner, Kait, Carol Keen, Mike Lynch, Margaret, Rachel Marks, Shannon McNear, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Pamela Morrisson, John W. Otte, Deena Peterson, Rachelle, Steve Rice, Cheryl Russel, Ashley Rutherford, Chawna Schroeder, James Somers, Donna Swanson, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Robert Treskillard, Jason Waguespac, Laura Williams, Timothy Wise

Geocaching with Jim

LOL, I've sucked my husband onto Blogger! He bought himself a GPS unit a few weeks ago and has started geocaching. He decided that it would be fun to start a blog (all his own idea, really!) to keep track of the geocaches he's located. We found our first on March 16, and he posted up about it tonight to his new blog, Geocaching with Jim. He put up several photos of the area we located it as well.

He'll be posting up his second find sometime soon, because we've already found it!

Book Tour next week

I've been cutting way back on the books I've been accepting to tour, but next week we'll be having a brief look at a middle-grade fantasy novel, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.

Meanwhile, I've been keeping busy with helping judge a contest, participating in a Submission Package Workshop at Forward Motion. I'm running Quest to Be Queen through the process there, and actually making progress in finishing off the last task in the story. A few more solid days and I'll be back into revising the wrap-up. (If you remember, I had to completely rewrite one of the seven tasks in the novel).

In other news, while I have a four-day weekend coming up for Easter, it will be rather busy. Hanna and Craig will be home and there will be a family wedding and therefore lots of out-of-province relatives. Monday it looks like it would be a good time to go visit my mom, being as hubby is back to work that day. Also because the sister that leaves near my mom is in Vancouver, and Mom is getting lonely. So it won't be precisely relaxing.

Joel and Jen called last night from El Bolson, Argentina, and we talked for about an hour. What a treat! They'll be back in BC in about a month and hopefully we'll get to see them a bit before they're back into the swing of their regular life in Victoria the beginning of May.

Kitchen Backsplash!

We've been working on the kitchen renovation again lately. The main things that have gotten done are some electrical work and the tiled backsplash.

We started on the back wall here with a 2x2 mosaic. I really love how mellow it looks, and the undercabinet light provides plenty of lighting under there. This upper cabinet is where baking supplies live, with bowls and mixer (etc) in the drawers below. So having plug-ins and good lighting here will be a big treat!



Then around the corner we got a little more elaborate above the stove by insetting a decorative focus. Originally I'd planned a 2x2 copper tile to use as a border, but it was discontinued before I could order it. This gorgeous piece of slate, cut into strips, makes a lovely accent. At least I think so! This backsplash was hubby's first ever tiling project, and I think he did a great job.



There are still a couple things to do at that end of the kitchen, such as the light rail. But we'll turn our focus to the other end next, I think. More photos someday when we get another chunk done.

Oh, do note my FlyLady style shiny kitchen sink! :) I consider it clean if the only visible dishes are clean and in the dishrack.

1-2-3 Book Meme

Found this over at Tina's blog and decided to play so you'd know I'm still alive! :P

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Got it - Betrayed by J. M. Windle

Find page 123 (ooh, that's a few pages ahead of where I am not...)

Find the first 5 sentences.
That’s done

Post the next 3 sentences.
Despite a card catalog whose contents were as dusty and dog-eared as the bundles, Vicki could not see how any effective research could be done. Fortunately, several of the larger and more enduring periodicals had been transferred to microfiche. In minutes the clerk had pulled up a front-page spread dated twenty years earlier.

(Hmm, I think I know what she's looking up. I'm on page 110, after all, and have a few clues in place!)

Tag 5 people. Heh. I've seen this one around a bit, so feel free to play along if you want, or pop a pointer into comments to where you already did.

Not Blogging Much (in case you can't tell)

Things have remained really busy. The Effective Viewpoint Workshop has kept me hopping with up to 20 people participating (not everyone made it through to the end), so there have been assignments to critique and discussions to respond to. There are certainly parts that were a stretch for me--anyone who's hung out here for long knows I'm not generally a great fan of omni, for example, so it was interesting to try to teach it! The workshop ended up going deeper into every facet of viewpoint than I'd originally anticipated and I learned a lot during the month as well, as much from the participants as from the study I'd done in preparation.

In March, the baton goes back over to Margaret, who is preparing a workshop on preparing a submission package. As she provided backup for me in February, so I anticipate doing the same for her in March. Besides, I want to work on the package for Quest to be Queen, which I finally pulled out of mothballs yesterday and made a bit of progress on. I really want to finish it up and get it out to critters in March. It's soooooo close to ready; I just need a few days where I can buckle down and focus.

On the home front, hubby's new job is going fairly well. It's good to have him home every evening, and we've started (slowly) making progress on the kitchen again. Electrical takes precedence right now. A few more plug-ins in the *finished* end of the kitchen would be useful, but I'm already enjoying under-cabinet lighting.

It's been good having him home for calving this year. So far we've had six births (and lost one), eight to go. We've had way more snow this winter than average, and that's making the pasture hard for the cows to get around in. If the driveway is any indication, it's not long until the pasture also will become a mud pit. Why does brown season have to come between white season and green season? I'm so very ready for spring, but at least the snowdrops are starting to bloom against the south side of the house. They're hiding behind a snowbank, but they're there!

24 years ago this evening I was nine months pregnant. I recall cooking supper and telling hubby that I was having false labor. He asked, quite reasonably, why I thought it was false. I told him that I had no intention of being in labor for more than six hours and that the baby wouldn't be born until the next day. Hubby is certain to this day that I willed the child to be born on February 29th, but honestly--nine months pg--24 hours--how could I miss?

Sure enough, it went away, only to return in the morning. After about 80 minutes of labor, I gave birth to our second child, a boy, who has carried the dubious honor of being a Leap Year Baby all these years.

Happy Birthday to Joel

who is currently traipsing around South America with his lovely wife, Jen.

Hoar Frost

This brief essay is written in second person pov as a nod to the Effective Viewpoint Workshop we're running this month at Forward Motion



Since you started walking to somewhere, you've been dropping off your husband at work every morning--you start an hour later than he does--and, once you've parked the car behind the shop, you head out for a brisk walk. You pull your knitted headband low over your forehead and ears and tug on your fleece gloves. It's a cold one today, and you're glad you grabbed the coat that goes to your knees. It will help keep your thighs from going numb.

A damp fog settled over the valley last night, and the visibility is still low. It's not dangerous to walk, though, so long as you watch out for patches of ice. Yesterday's temperatures got several degrees above freezing, and the resulting melt-off was shocked to a halt overnight, icing over wherever it happened to be.

The air is crisp, smelling of wood smoke and frost, as you hike north on eleventh avenue, up the hill. Hoar frost graces every strand of nature. The shrub on your right has feathery fronds that reach heavenward, each minute hair delicately crisped with white. The cedar up the block, the pine across from it--each needle accentuated.

This chain link fence is utilitarian and normally slinks in the background. Today you marvel at the precision of the stark white grids, blazoning its presence. The wrought iron on the fence down the block is also covered with white crystals, giving it a fuzzy appearance.

Your cheeks and chin and nose are burning with cold, but when you cover them with your gloved hands, your glasses fog up, rendering you blind. You pause a moment, unsure of your footing until you can see again.

Your attention is caught by birds fluttering and chirping, so you hurry around the corner to see what they're excited about. You stop in awe at the sight of a mountain ash tree**, delicately painted in white frost, every twig, every clump of red berries frosted over. A bird feeder hangs from a branch, and the LBBs* are having the best time swooping from ground to feeder and back again, chittering with each other as they go.

Intended walking route forgotten, you catch a glimpse around the next corner and head over to see what new marvels await. You're so glad you did, for a majestic weeping willow stands streaming with tails of frost, hundreds upon thousands of them, each delicately outlined. In the corner of the yard, a clump of ornamental grasses at least ten feet tall has never looked as festive as it does today.

Beauty is all around you, and even though you can't wait for spring, you can't help but treasure this morning walk.

*LBBs are otherwise known as Little Brown Birds.

**Mountain Ash

Book Tour--The Shadow and Night--Day 2

The reason that the prologue is present in Chris Walley's novel is that the history of all this world matters. For twelve thousand years (can you imagine that time frame? I sure can't!) a barrier has kept Evil away from the Made Worlds.

And we're not just talking major evil here. We're talking teensy tiny baby evil. In the first chapter, Merral has a shocking suspicion about his uncle. It almost seems--though it can't be possible--that his uncle might have told a LIE! Inconceivable! People don't lie any more. They don't do any wrong. They haven't done wrong for twelve thousand years.

I pause a moment while you think about the repercussions of that premise.

Now, let's switch gears and talk about fiction. Fiction pretty much demands good guys and bad guys. We are cautioned, as writers, against making our main characters too perfect. Readers can't identify with flawless characters.

So if the premise of your novel actually DEPENDS upon a perfect world and perfect characters, what's a writer to do? In The Shadow and Night, Chris Walley chose to show the perfection. This sets up a slow beginning. It pretty much has no option at that stage.

So now, by page 485, Merral and company have engaged Evil several times. And the action is getting rolling.

I wrestle with this. I think I would have tried to send this story idea back where it came from as impossible to pull off. I'm not completely sure Chris Walley DID pull it off, but I have to say, hat's off to him for a valiant effort. This is a really tough story to make work.

And honestly, I'm sure I'll finish it in the next few days. Because now I want to. I did get another 50 pages or so read last night.

So, this is a Christian novel, but is the concept of future human perfection (outside of heaven itself) really a Christian idea? Blogger John Otte presented a Millenial Primer on his post Monday.

For folks like me, who don't hold a passionate viewpoint on End Times Theology, it was helpful to be reminded of the various theological positions. It's been a long time since my Bible School Days. My personal opinion on that is God's gonna do it how God's gonna do it. Obviously some folks are going to be wrong in their beliefs because they don't all agree. So I say, we need to be ready for whatever the future holds and let God play it out the way He will do it. (So my personal opinion boils down to...whatever...!)

Is it theologically and physically possible for evil to be banished for twelve thousand years? I don't really think so. But science fiction is all about taking the world as we know it and extrapolating with a specific bias. What if...there was a golden age? As anyone who has read the Bible can attest, it's not laid out in a tidy outline that connects all the dots. There's plenty of room for imagination. And while mine wouldn't have taken me where Chris Walley's took him, there's no reason not to go along for the ride.

Book Tour --The Shadow and Night

It must be a record for me to only have blogged twice in between book tours, but there you have it. It's been crazy busy and it ain't over yet.

So when this fat hardcover novel arrived in my mailbox I wasn't as excited as I would have liked to be. 612 pages. That's a lot of book when your head is barely above water!
Furthermore, the cover to The Shadow and Night looks very old school, like a 60s era science fiction. And yet, in the upper right hand corner it says: A fantasy in the tradition of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkein. Science fiction? Fantasy? Which is it?

The cover copy leans toward science fiction:

Imagine a future that today's generation can only dream of. A trillion people live under the gentle rule of the Assembly on over a thousand Made Worlds. Peace and stability have reigned for nearly twelve thousand years, and war and evil are merely ancient history. But all that is about to change.

On Farholme--a Made World at the edge of the Assembly--strange and troubling things are happening. Slowly, incredulously, a handful of men and women come to recognize the unthinkable: Evil has returned once more and it must be fought. Forester Merral D'Avanos and his friends are entrusted with the daunting task of confronting their world's elusive enemy.

Now isolated from the rest of the Assembly, Farholme must fight its battles alone. It falls to Merral to lead the untried forces of Farholme into war against opponents well-hidden and armed with strange powers. Yet even as he faces extraordinary and terrifying foes, Merral finds he has an unexpected enemy--himself.

Definitely science fiction. So I'm a little confused about why the hat-tip to the fantasy works of Lewis and Tolkein. Sure, lots of us read across both genres, but they aren't really the same thing, though the lines blur at times. This book isn't blurry in that way. It's sf.

I'll be honest. I had trouble getting into this story, and I'm not sure it was only because of how busy my life is. I want to talk about the basic premise of the novel tomorrow, and that's where we'll get into whether or not it could have been written any other way.

The prologue--which I'm rarely fond of--is pretty much a historical data dump from twelve thousand years before the story opens, with an omniscient, active narrator. It starts with:

Listen!

This is the tale of how, at last, evil returned to the Assembly of Worlds, and how one man, Merral Stefan D'Avanos, became caught up in the fight against it.

But to tell Merral's tale we must begin with the Seeding of the planet of Farholme in the year of our Lord 3140...(etc)

And it goes on for five pages with the history of the Assembly. Could the story be done without it? Honestly, I think it could have. I think it would have been stronger to just put us in Merral's world and reveal bits of the history as it became relevant.

That's just me. I do not know yet why I care about Merral, or even if I ever will. So I don't much care--yet--how his world came into being.

So let's skip the prologue! :P Chapter one starts like this:

Merral Stefan D'Avanos crested the snow-flecked ridge in the northeastern corner of Menaya, the vast northern continent of Farholme, and reigned in his mount. The winter's sun had just set in a great stained sphere of orange gold. He stared at the expanse of gray hills and darker, mist-filled valleys stretching northward to the ice-edged needles of the ramparts of the Lannar Crater.

Above the Rim Ranges, layer upon layer of cloud strands gleamed every shade between yellow and purple in the dying sunlight. Merral tried to absorb all he could of the sights, sounds, and smells of dusk. Down below the ridge, away to his right, crows preparing to roost were wheeling noisily around a pine tree. Far to his left, there was a moving, snuffling grayness under the edges of the birch forests that he knew was a herd of deer. Hanging in the cold fresh air was the smell of winter, new trees, and a new earth.

The beauty of it moved Merral's heart, and he raised his head and cried out with joy, "To the Lord of all worlds be praise and honor and glory and power!"

The words echoed briefly and a gust of wind out of the north dragged them away, down through the trees and bare rocks.

Silent in awed worship, he sat there for long minutes until another chill gust made him shiver, as much in anticipation of actual cold. He bent down to his horse. "Now, Graceful," he murmured, "good girl, onward."

This isn't my favorite type of opening, starting with description. And thus began several weeks of reading a bit here and bit there, when I had time because the story didn't rivet me.

NOW I am on page 440 of the aforementioned 612 and yes, I am interested in Merral and his story. It took awhile--almost 150 pages, to be honest, that I wouldn't have got through if it wasn't for the fact of a book tour coming. So tomorrow we'll talk about the book premise and whether or not the story could be told any other way. I'm not sure it could.

Meanwhile, have a look at what some of my tour-mates are saying about this novel by Chris Walley.

Brandon Barr, Jim Black, Justin Boyer, Grace Bridges, Jackie Castle, Carol Bruce Collett , CSFF Blog Tour, Gene Curtis, D. G. D. Davidson, Chris Deanne, Janey DeMeo, Jeff Draper, April Erwin, Marcus Goodyear, Rebecca Grabill , Jill Hart, Katie Hart, Michael Heald, Timothy Hicks , Christopher Hopper, Heather R. Hunt, Jason Joyner, Kait, Carol Keen, Mike Lynch, Margaret, Rachel Marks, Shannon McNear, Melissa Meeks, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mirtika or Mir's Here, Pamela Morrisson, Eve Nielsen, John W. Otte, John Ottinger , Deena Peterson, Rachelle, Steve Rice, Ashley Rutherford, Chawna Schroeder, James Somers, Rachelle Sperling, Donna Swanson, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Robert Treskillard, Jason Waguespac, Laura Williams, Timothy Wise

Yep. I'm THIS busy!

It's been a crazy week, and I'm suspecting the whole month may look this way.

At the moment the first week of the Effective Viewpoint Workshop is finishing up at Forward Motion. We've got 18 participants getting into hands-on exploration of the tools of point-of-view. So sure, we may still wind up using multiple third person past for most of our writing, but at least we will know how to make it a conscious decision instead of having only a default!

Next month Mar and I are running a workshop on query packages, including the dread synopsis. You have to be a member at FM to join in, but there's no cost.

Aside from the workshop (Monday and Tuesday there was nothing *aside* from the workshop; I practically breathed the darn thing!), I've been working on my opening scenes for the Genesis contest, both The Girl Who Cried Squid and the romance, Joy Comes in the Morning. I've got a working copy of both now and some critiques happening. The contest consists of the first fifteen pages, so that's a reasonable amount of pages to prep up.

Sadly, that's left Teagren and Quest to be Queen sitting on the sidelines. But on my walk this morning I thought through a major issue that I'd seen lurking in the background of the story and discovered a solution I think will work. Once I got to work I popped my insights into a document so that I won't forget. It could easily be a couple weeks yet before I get enough focus to deal with it in the novel itself.

Part of the problem is that the story originally came from a group of random exercises looped together. When I decided there was enough plot linking them to create a novel, I kept a few too many of the old parts. Worked great in the linked exercises, but didn't quite pull through at novel length. If I get rid of one major holdover, it frees up the ending to being something more logical. The previous version came a little forced. So now I'm looking forward to getting back to it. The cool thing is that even though I've finished revising most of the novel, it will only take a few lines tucked in here and there to twist towards the new ending.

But first I have to get my contest entries finalized and out, and keep the workshops humming. First things first!

Juggling

Things are pretty busy right now. I'm juggling crits for friends and crit partners, pokes at opening pages for contests, honing the Effective Viewpoint Workshop for Forward Motion in February (aack, just a few days till I have to have these ready!)...and wishing I had time to actually WRITE the seventh task for Quest to be Queen. Maybe next week. This one is zinging on by.

Book Tour--Auralia's Colors--Day 3

I'm always a little astonished by the Christian Science Fiction Fantasy book tours. I mean that in a good way! Folks really get into discussing whichever book is up and opinions are freely given. It shouldn't shock me anymore that not everyone agrees with me, but of course it still does.

So not everyone loved Auralia's Colors. If you click through the participant list from my Monday post, you'll see that just about everyone has an opinion or two. A few folks appear to be on vacation, but they're few and far between. So many readers had unique and interesting comments that I can't even begin to mention them all. John posted a great interview though.

One of the major things I find amusing is all the discussion about themes. It's like a treasure hunt. Folks are finding the most interesting themes under nearly every rock. And they're good themes, and when I read that the theme is about government interfering with people's lives, or about art being undervalued in society or (fill in the blank), I think, yes, that strand is definitely present in this book. I found a theme of selfishness versus freely giving, myself, in the juxtaposition of the absent queen who hoarded colors versus Auralia, who finds colors, creates beauty of them, and gives them away. And I'm curious what Jeffrey Overstreet thinks the main theme of his novel is. I don't think I've seen it said anywhere, and now I wish I had another chance to ask him the question!

Does it matter if everyone saw a different theme? Not necessarily. Because we all bring our own lives into play when we read. Our own experiences *color* how we interact with words on the page. And I really see that clearly in hopping from blog to blog, that this story meant different things to different folk.

But I do think theme is important. Very much so. As a writer, I do extensive pre-planning of my own novels. The characters and a couple of scenes rotate around in my head but until I figure out what the story is *about*, it doesn't really grow into something solid. For me, what the story is *about* usually translates into theme.

Overstreet said this in the interview I posted Tuesday:

I knew the core of the story from the beginning. The core was the question that Anne asked: "Why is it that people tend to reach an age where they fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet?" I was inspired by the fairy-tale imagery that sprang into my head. The story began to circle that question.

To me, this process, this core, sounds to me like the theme, at least by definition. His purpose was to explore imagination, to try to see the world (nature) through the eyes of someone who delighted in it.

Some folks were put off by the distance from the characters, and that's definitely a downside of omniscient point-of-view. For me, the beauty of the prose made up for that. I don't say that lightly, because I am a huge stickler for pov stuff and wouldn't have thought it possible for me to succumb to the rhythm of the language to such a degree. I see nothing in Overstreet's writing to emulate, however. That style isn't mine, but I can still appreciate the beauty in it.

The usual discussion of what makes Christian fiction Christian fiction came up again. I've been guilty of it before, but it seems to have been talked to death. Some folks (not many, but some) want each novel to have a message. A pointy message, not just an undercurrent of a theme that may not be seen by everyone. Again, I'll quote Overstreet (because he is quoting Scripture here, and it's very applicable):

I take the Psalms very literally now -- the heavens do "declare the glory of God," and the days do "pour forth speech."

Does creation step onto a soap box and preach the Four Spiritual Laws? Not so much. But it is there, enticing us, luring us into thinking about the One who created it. Nature--beauty--art--words--colors--all these things are created by God. If we are looking for God, we will find him in all those things, and those things are signposts, that if we continue to think and follow, they will lead us to the Truth. Yes, with a capital T. I'm not talking that Nature equals God. I'm saying all creation points to God.

And if someone doesn't want to see that beauty at all, doesn't want to allow beauty to turn their heart towards God, then a soapbox isn't going to help. It'll hinder, turn them away. Let us first be attracted to the beauty and allow it to lead us closer to the Light.

Wow. Okay. So that was my soapbox. And now I'm off to polish up The Girl Who Cried Squid, which really isn't a story like Overstreet's at all. But it points to the same God, for those who might be searching from a different angle.

Book Tour--Auralia's Colors--Day 2

I've appreciated debut author Jeffrey Overstreet's openness to doing interviews. He blogs at Auralia's Journal, just providing information on where on the web you catch a glimpse of Auralia, and he welcomed the chance to answer a few questions from me this past week.

Here's my new favorite quote:

Outlines are helpful,
but I am quick to remind them that they can't boss me around.
Jeffrey Overstreet

VRC: Are you any relation to country singer/ songwriter Paul Overstreet? (That question is from my husband!)

JO: No relation to Paul Overstreet... at least, not to my knowledge.

But hey, thanks for giving me an opportunity to give a shout-out to a family member! My younger brother Jason is a singer in a popular gospel group called Rescue. He's also their director, composer, and arranger. You can hear their stuff here. The guy's a superstar.

VRC: I've been listening to Jeffrey's brother's site for half an hour now and I'm loving the music. Unabashedly Christian music, and oh-so-tight. The music is arranged so that the voices are the premier instruments. Very cool! And they're looking for a high tenor vocalist/ lead singer so if you (or someone you know) fits their profile, that'd be a neat opportunity. They're based out of Gresham, Oregon.

This next question and answer are *borrowed* from this interview with Fantasy Debut blog (I didn't see the point of asking a question that I'd already seen the answer to several times, but you may not be as familiar with it so I post it here!):

FD: Please tell us about your inspiration for Auralia's Colors.

JO: Beauty can be dangerous. I was on a hike at Flathead Lake in Montana, exploring that glorious scenery with a woman named Anne. We were talking about fairy tales and imagination, and she said, "Isn't it strange how most people reach a certain age where they fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet?"

That question landed like a fish hook in my head. A story took hold and started reeling me in. I began to imagine a society in which people were burying all of their creative expression, all of the mysteries that inspired them to imagine, all of the colorful parts of their experience. Naturally, they became a culture starved for beauty. And while I imagined this, walking through that beautiful Montana landscape, I realized that I was looking over the shoulder of a character who was an artist. This character's heart was broken because of what she saw happening in that society (which is called House Abascar). So she gathered up all of the colors in the world, and even more than that, and carried them into that society to remind the people of all they were losing.

That was the beginning of ten years of work. I blame Anne, who I eventually married. I blame Montana. And I blame God, who created both Anne and Montana.

VRC: I'm in south-eastern BC not far from the Flathead. We've camped several times in the BC Flathead region and so I can almost visualize your discovery of Auralia there. Do you find that you get a lot of inspiration from nature for your writing in general? I see you've mentioned on several interviews that you feel closest to God when you're immersed in nature. This is something I strongly identify with.

JO: Growing up in Northeast Portland, where the landscape is bland, bland, bland, I was inspired by reading about nature. Many of my favorite childhood memories come from occasional family vacations to the Oregon coast. Those trips felt like emerging from a cardboard box to spend a few moments at the Grand Canyon, and then go back into the box. But on any evening, I could open J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and step into a wonderland of forests and mountains and rivers. And Richard Adams' Watership Down made me dream of a life in the country.

When I moved to Seattle, I started embracing all kinds of outdoor activity. I took an English literature course taught by Dr. Luke Reinsma at Seattle Pacific. We would get up at 4:30 a.m., drive to the mountains, start hiking before sunrise, stand on the mountaintop by 10 a.m., and study the classics there. I spent the most life-changing summer working as a housecleaner at a camp on the wooded coast of Whidbey Island. When I married Anne in '96, I started spending a lot of time in her natural habitat -- the deserts between Roswell and Santa Fe, New Mexico. I take the Psalms very literally now -- the heavens do "declare the glory of God," and the days do "pour forth speech." Sometimes I feel like I'm taking dictation from creation.

I supposed that is why Annie Dillard is one of my favorite writers now. Her sharp-eyed apprehension of nature is always inspiring.

VRC: Why is Auralia's Colors called The Red Strand--and why is the cover blue? And what makes Cyndere's Midnight The Blue Strand?

JO: The series is called The Auralia Thread for obvious reasons -- Auralia is a weaver of extraordinary colors. But the story of her artistic work in the complex and troubled world of the Expanse brings together many different characters and cultures. So it made sense to call the series "The Auralia Thread" instead of "The Auralia Chronicles" or "The Auralia Saga."

My editor at WaterBrook Press, Shannon Hill, suggested calling each book a "Strand," and I loved that idea. Auralia's Colors is the "Red Strand" for various reasons. I suppose the most obvious is that there is one particular strand of red thread that becomes important in the story. I believe that the secret to beauty in art is particularity, and Auralia's work is extraordinary in part because of her attention to subtleties and specific "ingredients."

The upcoming sequel, Cyndere's Midnight is the "Blue Strand" for several reasons as well. One would be that there is a particular hue of blue that enchants a beastly character, awakening something within him that changes a lot of lives.

VRC: Do you write from an outline? Was the process with Auralia's Colors significantly different than Cyndere's Midnight? How did you manage to spend ten years on one book? (I guess I get bored more easily than you do!) Did you have plans for the other three books from the beginning of your journey with Auralia?

JO: Outlines are helpful, but I am quick to remind them that they can't boss me around. I have a very basic idea of how a story will end, which characters are involved, and what two or three major scenes may involve. But when I start writing, I often discover new ideas that often send the story in an entirely different direction. Nevertheless, I usually end up at the place I mean to go... by some meandering route. The fun of writing, for me, is in discovering unexpected events, characters, and mysteries along the way.

It's true that I wrote my first draft of Auralia's Colors in 1996, and I've been revising it ever since. If I recall correctly, I had the whole series sketched out by 2000. I wrote 150-300-page versions of each book, and then I started rewriting them in more detailed, improved versions. Each new draft of Auralia's Colors was much different from the one before. And I've worked on many other stories as well during that time.

But yes, I spent much, much more time revising Auralia's Colors. I needed to make sure it was a firm enough foundation that it would support subsequent stories.

VRC: I too find that no matter how well I feel I know my story ahead of time (I've written seven novels so far), and how detailed my outline is, the story strays. I've sometimes said that the outline is useful to me chiefly in knowing one way I won't write the novel. Are you willing to share a summary of how the first version of Auralia's Colors was written? How did you choose which direction to take it from there with subsequent revisions? When did you find the core to the story and know you were on the right path?

JO: I knew the core of the story from the beginning. The core was the question that Anne asked: "Why is it that people tend to reach an age where they fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet?" I was inspired by the fairy-tale imagery that sprang into my head. The story began to circle that question.

It was a fairy tale at first, just a short story about a compassionate artist who carried colors into a city that did not allow them. But I became more and more curious about why a society might outlaw color. And I started investigating minor characters.

Readers kept asking good questions, so the story kept growing. They'd ask, "Why is it that way, and who made it so?" And I'd say, "I have no idea. It just is." And then I'd have to write some more, to figure out why things were that way. Wouldn't you know it, eventually Auralia herself started asking the same question to characters around her: "Why is it that way, and who made it so?"

Eventually, a 90-page novella became a 400-page monster with three sequels. Eventually I had to silence my curiosity, and make sure that I gave each of my existing characters the attention they deserved.

In the final drafts, there were some significant discoveries. I began to realize that I had been rather judgmental toward a certain character. I had taken a little too much pleasure in seeing her stumble into harsh consequences. I rewrote those passages. While the events did not change, the perspective through which we see those events changed. I want to write in such a way that we can find notes of grace in even the most horrible calamities. Because that is what I believe -- that grace is whispering in the dark, with a still small voice. If I write about darkness without acknowledging the possibility of grace, I'm being dishonest.

When I was finished, I was satisfied, because the characters seemed real to me at last. They were all broken, all capable of making mistakes, and all of them redeemable in some way. I came to care about all of them. I hope readers do too. I think I'll become a better person if I learn to love even the worst of my characters. I think if I love all of them, then readers just might love them too. And that might actually help make the world a better place, don't you think?

VRC: Loving my antagonists will make the world a better place? I'll have to think about that! (Though I see what you mean...I think...) Thanks much for your time, Jeffrey! I'm looking forward to Cyndere's Midnight coming out later this year.

Book Tour--Auralia's Colors

It's possible that I may be on record--somewhere--as saying that I don't like omniscient point-of-view. It has been suggested to me that I probably wouldn't even notice omniscient if it were well done; that it is omniscient's evil cousin, head-hopping, that I actively dislike. It's also possible that I argued the point.

It's possible that I have to eat crow.

Auralia's Colors is apparently written in a point-of-view that drifts the line between third person and omniscient and I admit I didn't give the style a lot of thought while I was reading it the first time.

Here are the first couple paragraphs:

Auralia lay as still as death, like a discarded doll, in a burgundy tangle of rushes and spineweed on the bank of a vend in the River Throanscall, when she was discovered by an old man who did not know her name.

She bore no scars, no broken bones, just the stain of inkblack soil. Contentedly, she cooed, whispered, and babbled, learning the river's language, and focused her gaze on the stormy dance of evening sky--roiling purple clouds edged with blood red. The old man surmised she was waiting and listening for whoever, or whatever, had forsaken her there.

Those fevered moments of his discovery burnt into the old man's memory. In the years that followed, he would hold and turn them in his mind the way an explorer ponders relics he has found in the midst of ruin. But the mystery remained stubbornly opaque. No matter how often he exaggerated the story to impress his fireside listeners--"I dove into that ragin' river and caught her by the toe!" "I fought off that hungry river wyrm with my picker-staff just in time!"--he found no clue to her origins, no answers to questions of why or how.

The Gatherers, House Abascar, the Expanse--the whole world might have been different had he left her there with riverwater running from her hair. "The River Girl"--that was what the Gatherers came to call her until she grew old enough to set them straight. Without the River Girl, the four houses of the Expanse might have perished in their troubles. But then again, some say that without the River Girl those troubles might never have come at all.

This is how the spark was struck.

...and the story takes off from there with Krawg's point of view, the old man who discovered her, who has a very distinctive voice as you can see from the above snippet. You can learn more about the book here or read the entire first chapter here as a .pdf file.

I'd especially like you to notice Jeffrey Overstreet's evocative use of color words. These are important because color has been banned by the queen. Even though the queen disappeared a number of years ago, the king refuses to go back on her decree out of (misplaced?) loyalty to her.

How do you ban color? Color is going to exist in nature no matter what. You can't eliminate it there. But the folk who belong to House Abascar aren't allowed to own any personal color. Instead, anything with color is confiscated by the royal house and kept in the vaults against the day when House Abascar is revered enough to release its color back to the people.

But the River Girl doesn't play by the rules. She seems able to create color out of non-color. Vivid hues that evoke the wonder of color in those that see her work. How long before Auralia's Colors are noticed by the Royal House?

Jeffrey Overstreet was kind enough to answer a smattering of random questions for me. If you're curious what we might have talked about, pop back Tuesday!

Meanwhile, other folks are also talking about Auralia's Colors this week. Check out: Brandon Barr, Jim Black, Justin Boyer, Grace Bridges, Jackie Castle, Carol Bruce Collett , CSFF Blog Tour, D. G. D. Davidson, Chris Deanne, Jeff Draper , April Erwin, Marcus Goodyear, Andrea Graham, Jill Hart, Katie Hart, Timothy Hicks , Heather R. Hunt, Becca Johnson, Jason Joyner, Kait, Karen, Carol Keen, Mike Lynch, Margaret, Rachel Marks, Shannon McNear, Melissa Meeks, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mirtika or Mir's Here, Pamela Morrisson, Eve Nielsen, John W. Otte, John Ottinger , Deena Peterson, Rachelle, Steve Rice, Cheryl Russel, Ashley Rutherford, Hanna Sandvig, Chawna Schroeder, James Somers, Rachelle Sperling, Donna Swanson, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Jason Waguespac, Laura Williams, Timothy Wise

Spacesuits and Sixguns Magazine

My friend Erin Hartshorn is the featured author in the current issue of Spacesuits and Sixguns Magazine. The e-mag's cover art was inspired by her short story Rise of Kencha.

Click on over. Pour yourself a coffee first--it'll take a few minutes to read as it's just over 5K. Well worth your time. Enjoy!

Book Tour--Christian Writers' Market Guide 2008

I'm happy to have a copy of Christian Writers' Market Guide 2008. Last year when I got the previous one I was just starting to get my toes wet in the whole agent pond and so I didn't actually use the book to full advantage (though I sure thought I would in January, BEFORE I started the revision that took most of the year!)


Now, however, I'm actively making lists. More than one kind. Not only are there publisher lists for nonfic, novels, shorts, etc--the bulk of the book, obviously--but a good bit in the resources section. A bunch of pages with agent info, more with contests, conferences, writers' clubs and workshops. Pretty much anything you might want to know. Except I thought I saw in the introduction or somewhere that they had a list of industry blogs in there somewhere and now I can't find it. Anyone tell me the page? Or is my wishful thinking too grand?! I do see that the book's author (compiler?) Sally Stuart has started a blog that I'll have to add to my sidebar. She's been doing this market guide thing for more than twenty years so she must have a clue or two what she's doing!

She calls it The Essential Reference Tool for the Christian Writer and that looks valid. It even has a cd included. I only wish the book was printed in a larger font as I find it a bit difficult to read. Course it's pretty fat so bigger print would make it unwieldy. And not everybody has my cranky eyeballs!

At any rate, if you're looking at the CBA markets, this book will give you a good idea of the playing field.

Appreciate A Dragon Day

No guff.

Google it!

Rebecca Miller talked about how author Donita Paul created Appreciate A Dragon Day to promote literacy. And she wouldn't mind if folks got more literate reading her books, of course. Here are many ways you can support Appreciate A Dragon Day using crafts or photography or baking a dragon cake. Hunt for missing dragon eggs, perhaps?

Furries Online has some good ideas of how to celebrate as well. You can download a sketch for a child to color in. And it also contains a list of famous dragons from film and literature.

I loved Puff the Magic Dragon so much I had a cat called Puff the Magic Kitty. Who didn't love the old Walt Disney Movie Pete's Dragon and the affable Elliot who gave the boy so much confidence?

Anne McCaffrey wrote the Pern books, which were my first foray into speculative fiction. Telepathic dragons bioengineered to save the planet with their life-bonded human companions. What could be better?

Dragons have been portrayed by various authors as good or evil. Others, like Wayne Batson in his The Door Within trilogy portray the dragons as amoral transportation that can be used by either side. The creator of Appreciate A Dragon Day, Donita K Paul, has a series of books called the DragonKeeper series for young adults. I've read the first two (book five is due out shortly and I believe will be featured on this blog later this spring). It's been a couple of years since I read the first two, but I remember enjoying them. Search my blog for her name, it'll come up!

So far I've only got one dragon in any of the novels I've written. His name is George (no relation to my cat!) and he is vegetarian. Needless to say, he resides in my fantasy spoof Quest to be Queen. You can't have a fantasy--at least not a spoof--without at least one dragon!

Come on, chip in! You know you love dragons. (Don't you?) Tell us about one of your favorite dragons!

Point of View Issues

I've begun prepping a workshop for Forward Motion about the issues writers face with viewpoint characters: how to pick them and how to choose the point of view style that best suits the story. In February we'll be exploring possibilities with a variety of hands-on exercises.

Meanwhile, I've been reading on the topic to prime the pump. Two renowned how-to books are Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card and Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress. I've also found a few articles on the internet. One of these is Time and First Person by Holly Lisle.

I read Holly's article for the first time last week and found it mildly interesting. She speaks in it of some of the issues she faced writing Talyn in first person. She talks about making a choice as to when in the future Talyn is telling her story from. When I first read this contemplation, I admit I didn't *get it*. I decided that Holly was over-thinking the problem but that obviously she'd done a fine job with her choices, because I loved the novel and the way she told it (alternative first person from Talyn and third person from Gair).

Today I edited the first scene of my 2006 nano novel, The Girl Who Cried Squid, which is the only novel I've written in first person. And today I *got* Holly's article.

Krin is telling her story in past tense, telling us what she did and thought and said on the day the story started. And all of a sudden--a couple of pages in--I noticed that she describes her village in present tense. I frowned. Point of view slippage? I'm usually pretty tight. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that in the *when* Krin was telling the story from, the village was just the same as it had been the night her adventures began. It hadn't changed significantly. So it's accurate for her to tell us where Bevedar IS, for example, not where it WAS.

Suddenly Holly's article made a great deal more sense! I hadn't made a conscious decision to blend tenses. In the heat of nano Day One I just wrote the thing how it came out. But now I see that Krin isn't telling us this story from a rocking chair in her old age. She's telling it to us from a point not far in the future from the end of the novel.

Once I had contemplated the description of her village, I decided to leave it in present tense and moved on to another paragraph. Lo and behold. That description was not an isolated issue! I went back to the very first paragraph which in unedited first draft read like this:

Mama and Papa were of two minds about the dance, which is why I went. Besides, everyone who mattered would be there and even though I can't dance worth a seashell, I couldn't very well skip it, could I?

Notice that everything is in past tense except I can't dance. Why? When she tells this story later on, she still can't. It's important to the story, and it doesn't change.

There were several other instances in the opening scene of about 1700 words where I *slipped* tense. I changed a couple of them, reworded some sentences so they blended better, and left a few standing. It's possible I may have to defend my choice to critters down the line--perhaps even to an agent or editor. But thanks to Holly's article and the fact that I'm writing up this workshop and thus analyzing pov issues, I understand now what my subconscious was doing in November 2006.

Teagren is Walking in a Winter Wonderland

So I was up waaaay too late last night waiting for hubby to get home from work up at the mines. The weather has been...wintry...and the visibility was lousy and he didn't get home till pushing midnight. So we talk for a bit and I head up for bed (while he unwinds with a cup of tea) and *sproing* I'm wide awake.

Teagren is tapping me on the shoulder to tell me what's wrong with her story. Not precisely what one wants to hear when at 62K of an estimated 80K revision. At 1:00 a.m no less. Quest to be Queen is set up with seven tasks that complete the quest (you can read the blurb under Projects at my website.) Teagren mentioned to me that the seventh task didn't really match the setup the reader--and heroine, apparently--had come to expect over the course of the previous six tasks.

And she's right.

The final task takes place in a part of Dhaneira called the Chilplains. Remember this is a spoof, so we HAD to have the island, the jungle, the desert, the woodlands, the plains, the mountains, and now the icy wastes. It was expected of me, and I do hate to disappoint. And while I did some really cool (haha, get that?) worldbuilding for the Chilplains that I might get to use again somewhere else should I ever set a story on a icy fantasy world--I'd have to write THAT in the summer time, I can assure you--it doesn't have the flow of familiarity that the rest of the novel has.

So, dear reader.

What are some myths, fairy tales, kids' songs, comics, cartoons, pop culture type references that include winter? I'm not looking for Santa/ Christmas stuff. I already have some abominable snowmen (yeti) that are staying, and Frosty the Snowman may show up. Or we could build a snowman in a meadow and pretend that he is Parson Brown... Jack Frost will pay a visit.

But I'm looking to you--begging you!--to help me with some brainstorming. Any random G-rated winter stuff that would be familiar to a lot of readers. Any legends about the Northern Lights that come to mind?

Teagren thanks you for your consideration.

Methods of Revision

My friend Margaret is running an intensive workshop at Forward Motion this month about the use of an outline for revising a novel (or short story).

I decided to begin work on my 2006 Nano, The Girl Who Cried Squid to take advantage of the workshop, so I've been spending time beginning the analysis of the novel's structure and how the subplots tie into the main plot. This kind of thinking hurts my head. I'm not sure why. I don't know if the whole story comes into my mind with such a whoosh (don't I wish!) that it doesn't seem to have parts, or if I'm just darn good at weaving in the subplots so well that the main plot can't stand up without them. Either way, it's hard to separate out the parts and look at them objectively.

After the revision of Marks took me the majority of last year, it occurs to me that there might be an easier way to do things. Or at least a way that keeps better track of where I've been and where I'm going. So this time around I'm trying Mar's way. I suppose it would be an improvement if I got most of the headaches out of the way at the beginning!

That's not to say I'm ignoring Quest to be Queen. That edit remains my top current priority, and I've processed nearly 7K so far this week.

I'm curious. How do you revise things? How much do you analyze and plan? Or do you just jump in and hope for the best? And how does that relate to how you wrote the story in the first place?

Goals for 2008

I went hunting my blog for my 2007 writing goals so that I could have a good laugh. It worked! The complete list is here.

To sum up, I thought I would :

1. Finish this revision pass on Quest to be Queen.
2. Complete one (or, if needed, two) passes on Marks of Repentance and GET THE THING KICKED OUT THE DOOR!
3. Write something. Maybe two somethings.
4. Revise something else if time permits. Squid?
5. Work on the recipe book project.

What of that did I actually accomplish?

1. I set aside the revision pass of Quest to be Queen and started back at it in November of '07. It isn't quite done.
2. The only thing on the list I actually completed! Marks of Repentance did, in fact, get revised. It took nine months, but I did complete a pass! It finaled in a contest and is currently out at another one, so I guess you could say I *kicked it out the door*.
3. Write something? Not so much.
4. Revise something else? Not so much.
5. Recipe book project? Decided it wasn't my passion and shelved it.

Yikes.

In the spirit of providing amusement to us all again in twelve months, what are my plans for 2008?

1. Keep sending out Marks of Repentance. After awhile, analyze whether the novel and/or the query package need another revision.
2. Complete revision of Quest to be Queen, get it out to critters and hopefully into submission in 2008.
3. Revise the opening chapters to Chloe's story (romance) and The Girl Who Cried Squid and submit both to the Genesis contest in April.
4. Revise both novels, send to critters.
5. Write something. Maybe two somethings.
6. Keep critting
7. Keep up with moderator duties at Forward Motion

Meow?

Or perhaps more like hiss, spit, and snarl.

George is our almost-thirteen-year-old cat. He's a very pampered kitty who loves to play, though he may be maturing at last. I mean, this is the first Christmas he did NOT remove and ornaments from the tree to play soccer with in the dead of night. (We always tie our tree to a hook in the ceiling since he brought the whole thing down on his head during his second Christmas season!)

He loves our open stairs, loves to play tag. He nearly always swats without claws, unless he has been provoked over and over and really is annoyed. Here he is playing with my son:



But last week his little world got a fly in its ointment. We are fostering our son's cat for the next few months while he and his wife are in South America. King George the First is Not Impressed.



The little lady, Princess Lelu, is unsure what to make of George. George is ignoring her for hours on end and then going after her with much snarling and hissing. She's spending a lot of time on the stairs because it is The High Ground from where she can see everything. (For now, we're keeping the bedroom doors closed upstairs, so there's really no place to go up above.) So he'll rush up the stairs past her, and she'll come down. But he gets bored up there pretty quick, and as soon as he comes down for another nap (or snoop!) she runs back up the stairs and sits where she can see everything. At the moment, she seems able to sit there for quite a few hours at a time.



Today is the first time they've been left home alone for more than an hour or two. I wonder how much fur will be on the floor when I get home?

Adventures in Snowshoeing Dec 30

You've seen photos of this railway trestle bridge before. It is one of our favorite places to hike and snowshoe. We also like taking the raft or canoe along the river channel in the summer.



Hubby worked hard to get this shot the way he liked it. Yay for a good macro!



This is also his shot on his new camera, a Nikon D40x.



This one I took on my three year old Fuji E500. It eats batteries and the flash is iffy, but I still like the quality of the shots I can get with it.



There he is setting up cat-tail shots.



The cat-tails were mighty cool.



And yes, we WERE snowshoeing!

Winter Fun on Boxing Day

One of the fun things this Christmas was getting snowshoes for Hanna and Craig. Once we'd found one more pair to borrow, we had enough gear for everyone to enjoy a few hours outdoors together!



Jim enjoyed trying out his new camera. He's on cross-country skis.



Here's the photo he was setting up!



I'm on skis, too. I prefer snowshoeing but no one else fits my boot size! It was a lot of fun anyway.