Sailing

I thought I'd share some of the research I've done today. Yes, there are sailing ships in Tempest!

Day 3 Marcher Lord Press

So I promised you a peek at the three books that are being released by Marcher Lord Press on Launch Day, October first. So here goes:

Hero, Second Class sounds like a book after my own heart. It is "a delightful roast of all the fantasy fiction elements we hold dear. It is said that only someone who loves something can truly lampoon it. So it is in this case. Bonds' novel is a riot.

Quest with Cyrus, our young protagonist who aspires to be a Hero. But Heroes have a guild, you see, and lots of rules. One has to pay one's dues, apprentice to a Hero in good standing, and comport oneself as befits a member of the Heroes Guild.

Cyrus is fortunate to be serving his apprenticeship during a True Crisis, during which an Arch Villain is on the loose. An ambitious hero-in-training could make quite a name for himself during such times.

Cyrus's progress toward achieving his next level in the Heroes Guild is complicated by a wise-cracking dragon, a self-narrating knight, a droll zombie, and an attractive young woman who also happens to kind of be a cat."

Here's the opening:

The Prologue
Which, Unlike Other Chapters, Has No
Pithy Subheading in Italics

Dawn poked her rosy fingers across the sky.

And promptly tore two small holes in it.

Vertis the sky god repaired the holes and scolded Dawn, sending her off to get a manicure. He took over from there, and cast the sun’s early rays into the stone-paved courtyard of Bryath Castle, the hub of Centra Mundi’s government. Blue and silver pennants flapped merrily in the gentle breeze, and the cold stones of the ancient fortress began warming in the sunlight.

You can read the entire first chapter here.

Hero, Second Class, Mitchell Bonds, Marcher Lord Press, October 2008, 620 pages, $14.99

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"The Personifid Invasion is a standalone sequel (to a previously published book) that continues to explore life in a far-future society in which death is no longer an issue, at least to those who can afford personifid bodies.

In this novel, an adult brother and sister seek their other sibling, a sister from whom they have been separated since childhood. They find her location, but despair. She lives inside a domed city that is all but overrun by interterrestrials.

Interterrestrials are beings that ancient Earthlings called demons. These "inters," as they are called, have discovered it is much easier to possess the souls of humans who have transferred into personifid bodies."

The opener:

Prologue

The life ebbed from her body and she found herself drifting.

For an instant, she was touched by the warmth and heard it calling to her. But that passed and she was wrenched from the warmth by an all-pervading chill. She twisted and turned to evade the coldness, but it did no good.

Sharp stabbing needles pierced her being, freezing fingers that trapped her and held her down. She tried to scream, but her voice was silent. Unable to see, she was thrust into a dark space and felt herself slowly unfurling, a heaviness coming over her limbs. Her eyes opened and she was blinded by white light.

“Transference complete,” said a voice, sharp and new to her ears. “Please remain as still as possible while ascertaining security of placement.”

You can read the entire first chapter here.

The Personifid Invasion, R. E. Bartlett, Marcher Lord Press, October 2008, 350 pages, $12.99

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Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy is described this way: "What if the Catholic Church (or something very like it) existed in a fantasy world in which dwelt non-human intelligent races like orcs, trolls, and elves?

At some point in such a world the leading ecclesiastics would have to wrestle with the question of whether or not these demi-humans have souls and therefore ought to be the subject of evangelization by the Church.

Summa Elvetica is the story of the young priest whom the Church assigns to investigate the matter. Along the way toward his conclusion, he falls in love with an Elven princess and finds himself in the middle of a racially motivated war."

Here's the opener:

Chapter 1

Marcus Valerius looked up from the faded Numidican manuscript in irritation. The light from the study window was growing dim. Already he’d been forced to light a candle in order to make out the obscure scratchings of the historian Quintus the Elder, whose colorful accounts of his encounters with the pagan desert tribes were as dubious as they were vivid. The imperative knocking at the door threatened a lengthy interruption, one that might cost Marcus what little daylight remained.

“Come in,” he called, resigned.

The latch creaked, and a familiar, sun-bronzed face peered around the corner of the door. It belonged to his cousin Sextus, whose brown eyes were dancing with mischief.

“This better be good,” Marcus warned him. “I was just getting to the part where the tribal chief is about to sacrifice the centurion to his devil-gods.”

You can read the entire first chapter here.

Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy, Theodore Beale, Marcher Lord Press, October 2008, 320 pages, $12.99

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So, which of these stories sound the most interesting to you? I'm undecided about the second two, but I know I must get Hero, Second Class!

Tempest progression

The past couple of days I have been trying to wrestle Tempest's outline into some sort of form that I can actually keep writing from. I had a squooshy kind of outline that was more like water-logged at the other end, but I think I've added some fiber to it and found the story's path. Or something like it, anyway. In the previous books I've written, I rarely keep to the outline, but I need it to find the general direction and to know the ONE path the story will NOT go. Like that makes sense. :p

I think it's back to that position, now, and I'll be able to take the writing life back off hold. I needed to do this before I could work on the Thinking Sideways class novel outline...or get involved in the novel crit I just agreed to do. It'll be good to get things moving again.

Day 2 Marcher Lord Press

First off, Marcher Lord Press head dude, Jeff Gerke, emailed me with a correction to my post yesterday. There are two *free* downloads for purchasing ebooks on opening day, October first. Let me quote:

The first bonus book is Into the Breach: The Marcher Lord in History and Legend. It is written by castles expert Lise Hull, author of The Great Castles of Britain and Ireland and Britain's Medieval Castles.

This wonderfully illustrated book will introduce you to the real marcher lords of history who inspired Marcher Lord Press. In its pages you learn who these men were who stood alone In the Breach against all manner of chaotic forces. What were their lives like? Why did they do it? What mark have they left on modern society?

Filled with photos and maps and compelling text, Into the Breach: The Marcher Lord in History and Legend is the perfect primer on this fascinating chapter of medieval history.

That sounds extremely interesting to me, being as I write fantasy and the concept of castles and the frontier has crossed my brain on more than one occasion. So, you purchase ONE novel, you get the above download for free. As for the book my daughter Hanna is in, here's the scoop on it:

The second bonus book is A Marcher Lord Gallery: Speculative Art by Christian Artists. And you're not going to want to miss it.

Marcher Lord Press searched far and wide for the finest professional and amateur Christian artists working in the field of speculative art. The pieces they have contributed to this book will send your imagination soaring.

There is a section featuring original pieces commissioned specifically for this book. Each artist took his or her inspiration from one of the launch list novels or from the idea of the marcher lord itself. This original work is breathtaking, and these pieces will be available only through this book for a limited time.

This section of A Marcher Lord Gallery is followed by two-page spreads featuring other speculative pieces done by each of the contributing artists. You'll discover many new artists to stoke the fires of your speculative dreaming, and you'll meet the artists themselves through short bios, photos, and links to their online galleries.

A Marcher Lord Gallery: Speculative Art by Christian Artists is available for free download on launch day with the purchase of two or more Marcher Lord Press novels.

So--I guess I'm doing this backwards, listing the prizes first! What do you have to do to qualify these downloads? Buy a book from Marcher Lord Press on launch day to get Into the Breach: The Marcher Lord in History and Legend. Buy two books and get both downloads. (You know you want the download with my kid's art in it. YOU KNOW YOU DO!!!! So stick October first in your calendar and go buy two novels that day!)

Tomorrow I'll show you the one (of the three launch novels) I'm most interested in, but for today, I want to mention the concept of the POD (print-on-demand) press.

It's had a bad rap, being linked with vanity publishing (where the writer pays the publisher to publish a book). However, POD is merely a method of printing that prevents books from being over-published, and then returned to the publisher when the books don't sell (at a net loss for everyone involved). Books are printed as they are ordered.

This publishing model may be best used for just what Marcher Lord Press is doing--a niche market that is internet savvy. I know I won't be the only one watching to see how this new small press will fare. If you're curious about the ins and outs of how this press is structured, read this.

Check out the bloggers from yesterday's post to see what folks are saying about the books, the POD model, the downloads, and about Jeff Gerke.

Website Tour -- Marcher Lord Press

If you've hung around My Little World for very long, you probably have noticed that Christian speculative fiction--in particular, fantasy--is dear to my heart. And while the market for it is growing, it's still a hard sell, both for the authors and the stores that may eventually carry the books.

It's kind of frustrating, actually. And so it is very cool that I've found a bunch of like-minded folk on the internet (many of their blog links are below) and the awareness of this niche market is growing. Without this gang of folks, I'd have missed out on a lot of great reading over the past few years.

Once upon a time a man named Jeff Gerke wrote a series of novels under the pen name of Jefferson Scott. After these were published, Jeff became an editor for a major Christian publishing house. He later switched houses to help spearhead an imprint, Realms, devoted to Christian spec fic. This didn't take off as well as hoped, so Jeff tried again with another publisher.

By this time Jeff was well known as a champion of Christian novels that were a little off the beaten path (no Amish romances for this guy!). He had also begun to believe that traditional publishing was not likely to ever meet the demand for the kind of novels he believed in. Too many variables, not the least of which is just trying to get the books all the way to the consumer who would buy it if they only knew it existed!

In 2006, Jeff began Where the Map Ends as a way to begin to consolidate information in this genre.

And on October 1, 2008, he will launch Marcher Lord Press, a POD press specifically for Christian speculative fiction. Over the next couple of days I'll be talking about the upcoming launch, but feel free to pop on over and sign up. He's giving away some great prizes!

AND last but not least, one of the featured artists in the Virtual Coffee Table Art Book is my daughter Hanna. This ebook is free with the purchase of one of the novels on launch day.

Here's what the other bloggers are saying:
Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Courtney
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Kameron M. Franklin
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Greg Slade
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
Tina Kulesa
Jason Waguespac

Looks like we have all hands on deck for this blog tour!

Third place in Genesis!

Some of you may recall that The Girl Who Cried Squid (aka Krin, or Off Beat) became a finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis contest back in spring. The results of the contest were announced Saturday at the annual conference, and my novel placed third in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Allegory category.

The finalists are:
1st: Chawna Schroeder, Metamorphosis
2nd: Lynda K. Arndt, The Song of Blood and Stone
3rd: Valerie Comer, The Girl Who Cried Squid

Last year, Marks of Repentance went to the final level but did not place, so the improvement makes me happy.

Color Me Amused

Today I'm wearing a cute burgundy short-sleeved knitted top that I paid something like three bucks for at Value Village. I hardly ever wear it, sadly, because it is one of *those* that needs hand washing and laying flat to dry. That rarely happens, so it usually lives at the bottom of my laundry hamper.

So this lady on the street corner says to me, "I love your sweater. Did you knit it?"

I laughed and said, "No, I wouldn't have the patience for something like that."

As I walked away, I wondered what she'd say if I told her I write novels? Probably something to the effect of: "I wouldn't have the patience for something like that."

I guess we pick what we want patience for!

Tempest ReOutlining

Based on what I'm learning in the Think Sideways class, I've stopped writing Tempest. Why, you may ask... Well, I can see that the outline needs some help, and there doesn't seem to be any point in waiting until I revise this novel to address the issues I'm starting to see. I'm about a third into the first draft, and I'd rather write the second two-thirds having applied all the principles I can.

I've started outlining the new novel (for the TS class), tentatively known as Jiya after the main character. About 14 scene summaries landed on the page in little more than an hour, and I'm beginning to see the shape of the story. But where a few weeks ago I felt like Tempest was suffering from the split attention, I've changed my mind.

The pendulum is starting to swing back to Tempest. At the moment she is in the best position to benefit from the class, though I'll keep doing the lessons on Jiya as well, at least at a basic level. The class will, in theory, be starting to write the new novel soon, but I don't want to set Tempest aside in order to do that. I may try splitting the time, but if that doesn't work, then Tempest comes first.

After all, she grabbed my mind quite firmly back in June and demanded her tale be told. And there's a fair bit of it left to tell.

Thinking Sideways--plotting

Tempest is continuing on. I'm trying hard to set aside my first work hour of the day to focus on this moving this story forward. Some days are quiet and my mind is clear(ish) and I get a thousand words. Other days I'm getting in the neighborhood of 600-700. I'm reasonably pleased with those days. Yesterday it was about 300, but I'd had a lot of interruptions: boss guys, customers, phone calls. At the end of the hour, I thought: I should keep going with this because I have so few words.

Did a bit of soul-searching on the concept of things I should do. The main reason I switched from a word count goal to a timed goal was because my time isn't always my own at work (go figure). Some days reaching a WC goal can take all day, and right now I have to divide my time, and not just with work duties. Tempest is a hard story to write; there is no comedy or fluff within its scenes. She is living a nasty life in a nasty place with little hope of relief, and things are still getting worse every time I sit down at the keyboard. (I'm about 1/3 of the way into the story.) If I spent all day every day on this novel, I'd get depressed.

Don't ask where it came from. I'm not a dark person. I don't like dark books. And this isn't dark in the sense of a horror story, but in its hopelessness. Because my life (thank God) is NOT hopeless, I have to struggle to immerse myself in her troubles in order to depict them, and it's not a pretty place. So, all in all, I'm glad I also have other things to think about, and why it's not a bad idea for me to be working on timed goals rather than word count.

Quite a bit of the rest of my time (around the work stuff, which is fairly busy this time of year) I'm spending on the Thinking Sideways classwork. (If you click the link in my previous post now, you'll notice that the brief window for signing up for the class is over for now.)

I can't begin to tell you how much my mind is being stretched with every week's lesson. It is being pushed and pulled and folded and then pulled some more--much like making taffy, perhaps. I'm so logic-oriented that it's amazing I write novels at all. I shouldn't be good at it. (And maybe I'm NOT good at it, but I enjoy it and have written seven of them to date, so there's obviously something in there calling me to the process!)

This week we're talking about plotting and I'm beginning to understand that I've blown off advice I've read prematurely. Holly Lisle talks about writing a Line-for-Scene outline, and I've always thought that I needed more information than that to remember what should go in that scene.

Today I've come to the sad realization that there is a difference between a focused sentence and the...junk...I write in my short paragraph or two. Because I've been writing AROUND the central issue, not being able to figure out ahead of time what the core purpose of the scene is. I can look at my scene and, I believe, tell you that it is important, that it moves the story forward. And I believe that I'm right! But I can't tell you WHY.

So I pulled Tempest back out. I just wrote a new scene this week, after all. It's still fresh in my mind. If I was having trouble figuring out a concise sentence for a vague idea of a scene for my yet-unfleshed-out novel, surely I could do better for the scene I had just written in a novel I know.

Or not.

This is a really really REALLY key concept. I can feel the importance of it. But catching a hold of it is like tackling a greased pig.

I may need something for my headache.

You are worth the time--youtube

When you need to remember why the urge to create *art* (in whatever form you define art!) drives you so much, and when you wonder if you should take the time to feed that longing, watch this (about 7 minutes):

Thinking Sideways Sign-ups Open!

Last week I posted about the writing course I'm taking, Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways.

For this week only, signups are available for the second session, which begins, I believe, in February. Looks like I'm not the only one struggling a bit to keep the pace as one of the options will be for lessons every second week, thus stretching the course to a full year rather than the six months that the first session will be completed in.

(**edited to say: The current signup is for a course that starts right away, so your first payment and first lesson would be within 24 hours. Or you can put yourself on a waiting list for later, if you prefer.)

Doesn't mean, of course, that I'll be done all the work for the course in six months. Folks are welcome to work at their own rate, just download each lesson as it becomes available and then read it (and work on it!) as you (I) get caught up.

I mentioned in the other post that I didn't expect the course to be so challenging right out the starting gate. I have a very practical mindset and wasn't expecting to get so much out of the mind-mapping aspects of early lessons. Instead, I've come to a better understanding of my brain (never a bad thing!) and am using clustering for a wider variety of problem-solving than the course even calls for. I'm really excited about the ideas I'm working with now and look forward to learning how to think sideways to include plot twists that the reader won't see coming--but still be logical.

All I can say is that it's worth every penny I'm paying for it (roughly $300 total--I pay in Canadian funds so the monthly amount varies a bit month by month.) The 12-month course will cost the same, just be spread out more.

If you'd like to kick your writing up a notch and learn new ways to create and plan projects, click through and read Holly's write up. I don't think you'll be sorry you did.

The course is touted as A Survival Guide for Career Novelists. Some folks in my session have never completed a novel. Several have been multi-published. Doesn't matter, as there are many things writers of all abilities can use.

Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer Day 2

The novel Broken Angel has a lot of viewpoint characters. I have to admit I had trouble keeping them straight. As well, several chapters were letters that Jordan Brown wrote to Caitlyn to explain what was going on. The novel opens with one such letter:

We had agreed--the woman I loved and I--that as soon as you were born, we would perform an act of mercy and decency and wrap you in a towel and drown you in a nearby sink of water.

But in the motel room that was our home, the woman I loved died while giving birth. You were a tiny bundle of silent and alert vulnerability and all that remained to remind me of the woman.

I was nearly blind with tears in that lonely motel room. With the selfishness typical of my entire life to that point, I delayed the mercy and decency we had promised you. I used the towel not to wrap and drown you, but to clean and dry you.

As I lifted your hands and gently wiped the terrible hunch in the center of your back--where your arms connected to a ridge of bone that pushed against your translucent skin--I heard God speak to me for the first time in my life.

He did not speak in the loud and terrible way as claimed by the preachers of Appalachia where I fled with you. Instead God spoke in the way I believe he most often speaks to humans--through the heart, when circumstances have stripped away our obstinate self-focus.

From this letter (I just posted about two-thirds of the letter), we move into the prologue, and from that, into the story's present.

I'm not fond of letters such as this as story-opening devices, though I must admit the opening paragraph caught my attention. Did you catch what Caitlyn's big secret was in that letter?

One of the viewpoint characters, the purely evil bounty hunter Mason Lee, was easy to keep separate in my mind from the others. I am not fond of suspense stories to start with, but Lee's character seemed cliche evil, and watching him set up his torture chamber also felt like a device to show us his depravity--not in an original way. I'm interested what other bloggers who may like suspense better than I do may have thought of Lee's presence in the story.

Sigmund Brouwer is the author of 18 novels for children and adults.

Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer

Speculative fiction covers a wide range of stories, and Brouwer's recent novel, Broken Angel, is fairly far out on the edge of suspense and intrigue for a reader like me.

This is one author's extrapolation of what might happen in the future if genetic manipulation is allowed free rein. In the future Sigmund Brouwer imagines, the country of Appalachia separates from the United States to protect its people within the confines of the Church. What happens in that land is anything but pure. Jordan Brown has fled to Appalachia to protect a child, but once she reaches puberty, he realizes that she has to return Outside--that her secret will never be safe. She has to be set free to become all she was meant to be.

Jordan makes the ultimate sacrifice to create a way for Caitlyn to escape Appalachia, to build an *underground railroad* for her with messages along the way. An agent from Outside has learned of her special characteristics and joins forces with the Appalachian government to prevent her escape.

What is Caitlyn's big secret? We'll talk about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, check out what other bloggers are saying: Brandon Barr, Justin Boyer, Keanan Brand, Jackie Castle, Karri Compton, CSFF Blog Tour, Stacey Dale, D. G. D. Davidson, Janey DeMeo, Jeff Draper, April Erwin, Karina Fabian, Mark Goodyear, Andrea Graham, Katie Hart, Timothy Hicks, Christopher Hopper, Joleen Howell, Jason Joyner, Carol Keen, Magma, Margaret, Shannon McNear, Melissa Meeks, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Nissa, John W. Otte, Steve Rice, Ashley Rutherford, Hanna Sandvig, Chawna Schroeder, Mirtika or Mir's Here, Sean Slagle, James Somers, Donna Swanson, Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Laura Williams.

Writing Workshop--Thinking Sideways

A few weeks ago I signed up for a six-month writing workshop put on by multi-published author Holly Lisle. She's the gal who founded my writing home-on-the-web, Forward Motion, and I've been following her weblog A Pocket Full of Words for the better part of six years now.

I've watched from the sidelines as she's pitched novels, sold them, written them, revised them. I've watched the misses, too. The pitches that didn't sell, the books that were hard to write. I've seen the determination and drive that characterizes Holly and her absolute willingness to be transparent with us all. I've bought several of her writing clinics from Holly Shop, and while not every one of them has clicked with me for every project, I've learned a LOT from her in various formats over the years.

When she began brainstorming a full workshop, I was intrigued, though I wasn't sure I could afford to take it as the various price points were debated. When registration finally opened at just under $300 for the six month program ($47US payable via PayPal every month), I jumped at one of the few remaining seats. And I'm so glad I did.

How to Think Sideways has been worth every penny from the very first lesson. Holly started off by looking at the things that prevent many folks from giving their all in any circumstance, writing included. From there we began clustering, which is something I've resisted doing as I just thought my brain didn't work that way. It was hard at first, but because I loved Holly's recommendation of Scrivener so much, I decided to download the free trial of Inspiration as well. It's a mind-mapping tool that allows you to associate words in any number of ways. Not only words, but many can be swapped out for clip-art and photos, to grab ahold of the more visual part of the brain.

Using the skills we had begun to learn in clustering, our next task was to *call down lightning* in the form of three viable story ideas that we would be excited to write. If you've been reading much here, you'll know I've been struggling with this for several months. And while I don't currently have THREE solid ideas, I did come up with two pretty decent ones. The fourth week taught us how to refine those ideas into something we couldn't bear NOT to write.

(Yes, this is making focusing on Tempest a bit difficult, but I'm managing some words every week there, too!)

I'm really quite excited for the next few weeks as we take those ideas and learn how to transform them into novels. So far the experience has been better than I'd hoped for, and we haven't yet begun to touch on the core reason I, at least, signed up for the course.

The core reason? The thinking sideways part. Holly's good at convoluting and twisting the plots of her stories so that they are very hard to put down. If I can begin to learn how to do that, this course will be a total success. Right now, I'm very optimistic about the five months yet remaining.

She's currently planning on repeating this workshop, and I'd encourage anyone who wants to write tighter books to consider signing up.

Merciless by Robin Parrish

Merciless is the culmination of the Dominion Trilogy by Robin Parrish. The Christian Science Fiction Fantasy blog tour reviewed book one, Relentless and book two, Fearless. I took part here and here and here.

All that to say that while I've read the first two books and enjoyed them, especially the first one, I haven't read Merciless yet. I've had it on my TBR for over a week and somehow got the dates mixed up with another book I was reading for review. Sadly, I should have read them in reverse order as it turns out the other book isn't due until next week. Sigh. That is SO like my life this week.

So, what's the series about, in a nutshell? Random people who discover they have superpowers, then find each other, and then find out where their powers came from--and why they have them. The world as we know it pretty much came to an end as Fearless closed. Merciless looks to be post-apocalyptic in nature. And the first few pages, which I've read, look to put this novel in the category of reading that is not suitable for bedtime. At least not for wimpy Vals!

You can read the first chapter here.

Haven't been posting much

I guess there are a few reasons. One is that you all don't seem to be answering much!

Life is quite randomly busy. Home is busy because there is a hyper puppy who ALWAYS needs walking and attention, a garden that needs weeding and harvesting, a daughter and son-in-law who are considerably less demanding than the puppy!--but still there. I've been going to Aquafit Tuesday and Thursday evenings as Hanna is teaching. I enjoy it, but it does shoot the whole evening all to pieces. I've got book tours coming up and almost no time to read.

There've been stressy health issues in the extended family, my own recurring back and hip pain, a hubby working too much over time, and an electrical breaker that keeps shutting off in my kitchen.

At work there's been a transient camped out between the store and the building next door (moved on, with aid, this morning), lots to juggle in ordering and freight, and it seems to have been the week for bizarre and random questions.

Writing-wise, I'm slowly getting words on Tempest, teaching a workshop at Forward Motion, and signed up for a six-month paid class offered by author Holly Lisle called How to Think Sideways. Right now it's a challenge to think at all: frontwards, backwards, let alone sideways.

I needs a vacation. How come December is so far away?

Brody Goes Camping!

A little puppy I know had a great time camping. We spent three days at Frozen Lake, a little lake site with a primitive camping site (outhouse and a couple picnic tables) in the Flathead region of BC, just on the Montana border. Two and a half hour of non-pavement driving, and roads that went from good gravel to washboard gravel to pot-holes to rocks to dirt to dirt with grass growing up the middle. Very dusty and bumpy, but good fishing at the other end. Apparently that's what it is all about!

For Brody, he just wanted to romp and play with the kazillion other dogs that met at Frozen Lake for the weekend.



I did get him to stop a couple times, long enough for a photo or two. You'll find more photos at Facebook (and my hubby's Facebook).

DragonKeeper Chronicles Day 4

Day 4, you say? Why yes. Last week the Christian Science Fiction Fantasy Blog Tour also toured DragonLight. I hadn't finished reading it yet then, so I talked about some of the earlier books in the series. But Sunday afternoon I got finished with DragonLight, and therefore the entire series of five books.

Donita K. Paul has written a great fantasy series for young adults, and I've read three of the books in the last ten days, so they're the ones most clear in my mind. (I read the first two a couple of years back.)

I have to share with you the opening paragraphs of this novel. They show quite well the light humor that Paul sprinkles throughout the tales.

Kale wrinkled her nose at the dank air drifting up from the stone staircase. Below, utter darkness created a formidable barrier.

Toopka stood close to her knee. Sparks skittered across the doneel child's furry hand where she clasped the flowing, soft material of Kale's wizard robe. Kale frowned down at her ward. The little doneel spent too much time attached to her skirts to be captivated by the light show. Instead, Toopka glowered into the forbidding corridor. "What's down there?"

Kale sighed. "I'm not sure."

"Is it the dungeon?"

"I don't think we have a dungeon."

Toopka furrowed her brow in confusion. "Don't you know? It's your castle."

"A castle built by committee." Kale's face grimaced at the memory of weeks of creative chaos. She put her hand on Toopka's soft head.

The doneel dragged her gaze away from the stairway, tilted her head back, and frowned at her guardian. "What's 'by committee'?"

"You remember, don't you? It was just five years ago."

"I remember the wizards coming and the pretty tents in the meadow." Toopka pursed her lips. "And shouting. I remember shouting."

"They were shouting because no one was listening. Twenty-one wizards came for the castle raising. Each had their own idea about what we needed. So they each constructed their fragment of the castle structure according to their whims."

Toopka giggled.

"I don't think it's funny. The chunks of castle were erected, juxtaposed with the others, but not as a whole unit. I thank Wulder that at least my parents had some sense. My mother and father connected the tads, bits, and smidgens together with steps and short halls. When nothing else would work, they formed gateways from one portion to another."

Can't you just imagine a castle built by a committee of wizards? It makes me laugh.

Thinking about the fact that this is the fifth book and that it's unlikely that anyone will read it that hasn't gone through the other four (except, perhaps, for book tours like this!), I think it's easy to see who the characters are and the current situation, and even a glimpse of how it ties to the past. We know Kale and Toopka clear from book one, but we haven't met the castle before this. We see that it's been at least five years since the end of the fourth book. And we're reminded that Toopka is from a species that is short and furry...and apparently has a bad memory!

The best part of the story for me was seeing the development of Toopka's storyline. She's wafted in and out of the previous stories, but this novel brought her to the forefront. And ironically, one of the negatives for me was the same thing--Toopka's story. Though the viewpoint characters were Kale and Bardon (as throughout the series)--primarily Kale--they had little to do in the story's climax but watch Toopka pull it all together.

Another negative for me was Gilda's story line. Gilda is a meech dragon--a superior humanoid type of dragon, and very rare. (Donita, if you're reading this--what DOES a meech dragon look like?) And whereas in DragonFire (the fourth book), I got tired of Kale whining, I found that Gilda's attitude really got on my nerves throughout DragonLight. To give credit where credit is due, Gilda learns the error of her ways and gets pulled down a peg or two, so the inclusion of this character development was purposeful.

Still, I think that the series has more positives than negatives, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend all five novels to young adult readers of either gender.

Tempest

I'm making reasonably steady progress on Tempest, though not as rapid as I'd have liked. Still, it seems that it's better to think a bit here and there than to rewrite/rewrite/rewrite. Of course I'll probably still have to! It might be that this story just didn't have as long to percolate, so there wasn't a huge build-up of words just waiting for the starting gate to open (think the rush of the first hour of Nano!). It might be that my muse is a bit reluctant, being as this is definitely a bit darker story than anything I've written previously. Or it might be that this is just the perfect pace for this story!

I'm doing in the neighborhood of a chapter a week, and they're averaging over 4K each. So if I can just keep the wheels turning, it will get itself done in a few months. That's fine.

I'd been thinking that I'd go on another round of revisions of some of my older stuff once I got rolling with this story, but it's not happening yet. I'm teaching another workshop at Forward Motion in August, and I've recently signed up for a six-month writing course put on by author Holly Lisle, How to Think Sideways. Even after only one week, I'm beginning to see that this investment is quite likely to pay off in a practical sense.

So it'll be at least September before I start revising again, and it's a toss-up still whether it will be Joy Comes in the Morning or Off Beat. Off Beat (aka Squid) has finaled in the Genesis contest, but I won't have the results of that until mid September. I'd hoped to enter Joy in the 08 contest as well, but didn't have time to revise the opening pages to my satisfaction, so I'd like to enter it in '09. A whole new category for me: romance!

And if I'm going to get chapter five written this week, I'd better get rolling!

DragonKeeper Chronicles Day 3

Yesterday I blogged about the third book in the DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul. I forgot to say that I think DragonKnight was my favorite of the four I've read so far. On Facebook, I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 while the first two earned 3s. Once again, the tour is all about DragonLight, which I haven't read yet, but I'm getting closer! I actually started it Monday evening. But today I want to talk about the fourth book, DragonFire. Sadly, this was my least favorite (2.5).

As a series develops and the characters age, they should change. And if you start with them as young teens, then progress them to young adults, it seems that they ought to become more mature. Of course they won't be perfect, but moving forward would be good. Because I read the first two books in the series two years ago, and the third book was mostly Bardon's story, I may have forgotten Kale's personality. But in the fourth book, I found her to be petulant and whiny. I didn't much like her, and I have a sneaking suspicion that if she'd had the same attitudes in the first book, I wouldn't have been as willing to keep reading.

DragonFire takes place seven years after the first book. I'd've liked to see a more mature Kale fighting personality battles a little more suited to a 20-year-old than the 13-year-old she was. (Actually, I don't remember the exact ages, but I think I'm close!) Did Mrs. Paul make the choice she did because the series are for young adults and this way, they could identify more closely? I don't know.

I'm hoping to see a more mature Kale close out the series in DragonLight. Check back in a couple weeks and see what I think once I've read the book.

Meanwhile, some of you may recall my excitement last year that four Christian fantasy authors (Sharon Hinck, Wayne Thomas Batson, Chrisopher Hopper, and Bryan Davis) toured the east coast of the USA in July. This year, for an encore, the tour has been doubled to eight authors and is on the west coast in October. I'll let you know more about it as it gets closer, but if you live anywhere from San Diego to Seattle, you'll want to keep this in mind.

Why am I mentioning it here, today? Well, Donita K Paul is one of the four additional authors for this year's tour, called Motiv8. In fact, more than half of the authors are YA authors, so if you have kids that like fantasy, you really need to plan to attend one or more of their booksignings. They put on a good show last year, and this year should be double the fun.