Yes, it’s filler
But it’s beautiful filler.
I’ve been using this poem as a touchstone for writing. Thought it would be nice to share. If you don’t have a book of Neruda’s poetry, *get one*.
Tie your heart at night to mine, love,
and both will defeat the darkness
like twin drums beating in the forest
against the heavy wall of wet leaves.Night crossing: black coal of dream
that cuts the thread of earthly orbs
with the punctuality of a headlong train
that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,
to the grip on life that beats in your breast,
with the wings of a submerged swan,So that our dream might reply
to the sky’s questioning stars
with one key, one door closed to shadow.
By: Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda Poems
LXXIX From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’
And I picked this up from Fairie Green’s blog:
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Here we go again!
This time, with a little more caution than during NaNo 2006 or NaNo2005 :-)
Thanks to some kind prodding and one *phenomenal* mental image, I’m well on my way to novel #2. Anyone who’s looked closely at this blog will have noticed the new entries on the write-o-meter will have seen that not only is This Rough Paradise now on the ticker, but I’ve even added a third for a related book (those bits are coming to me via the research for TRP).
I’m going about this one quite differently than the Nano. I’ve taken the time to do a plot outline, and character sketches, and even some synopsis-like narration. I’ve got a little schedule for it, too. This week says: complete research on names, choose a year, and finish Prologue & Chapter 1. I think I’m looking pretty good for all that, with a side of Chapter 2 if all goes well.
A little summary:
Title: This Rough Paradise
Setting: The first half of the novel takes place on a nearly deserted island off of Barbados in the late 1830s. But the backstory and second half of the novel are set in the Hebrides/Western Islands of Scotland (fictional island that is an amalgamation of Scarp, Taransay, and Scalpay). Yeah, I know. Clearances. But it’s part of the story — you’ll see!
Timeline: Early Victorian Scotland. Specific year still TBD, but probably 1838/1839. I’m still doing the research here before I commit to a specific year.
Heroine: Lady Eden MacIntyre (she might turn into a McLean or a McLeod — anyone want to offer advice about making up clans and titles that never existed in Scotland???). Daughter of a selkie and a Scottish Earl with a druidic bloodline and an ancestral altein that is accessible only to females of the blood. Eden was abandoned by her mother when she was 8, and has been forced into abandoning her own home by the interference of Earl Roderick Dorchester, member of the same secret druidic circle. Eden agreed to the marriage upon her beloved father’s recommendation of the English Earl, but soon discovered that Roderick was after one thing, and one thing only: access to the MacIntyre altein through Eden, the first daughter of the MacIntyre line in three generations. Her only hope of preventing conditions from becoming even worse for her father’s people is to disappear completely. Fortunately, her mother’s legacy makes that all too easy. As our story opens, the majority of the world believes her to be dead, and Eden is more than content to live life alone on her small island in the Caribbean, pursuing a broad swath of natural studies, both scientific and metaphysical.
Hero: Lord Gavin Dorchester. Brother of Roderick and second son of an English Duke. Gavin was born with the draconic birthmark that declared him the heir to the Dorchester line’s druidic power, but he has never been able to demonstrate his mastery of that legacy. Roderick, on the other hand, took to power like a fish to water, and as a result, Gavin has lived his entire life in the shadow cast by Roderick’s successes. Although the rest of the world sings Roderick’s praises, including their father, the Duke, Gavin sees through to Roderick’s rotten core. He’d thought himself rid of Roderick for good when the heir apparent purchased and moved to Scottish estates neighboring the MacIntyre island in preparation for marriage. While it was a mystery to many why he’d chosen a Scottish bride from the wilds of the Hebrides, Gavin merely breathed a sigh of relief at his imminent departure. Perhaps he would even be able to bring his long silent mother out of her shell. Before Gavin could make any headway, however, Roderick returned to England unwifed. When the old duke died two years later, Roderick was utterly unwilling to countenance his black sheep brother’s presence any longer. In short order, and with his mother’s health hanging over his head, Gavin found himself boarded onto a ship bound for the family’s Barbados plantation. Gavin departs bitterly, and vowing to return and avenge himself. When our story opens, we learn that nature has other plans for Gavin, in the form of a hurricane that rips his ship to shreds and washes him ashore on a seemingly deserted island.
Feast or famine
Missed Valentine’s Day, but I did see the group of great posts over on Avon’s site. One got me to thinking, though. Tessa Woodward asked readers what authors they’d like to see reprints from, and my initial reaction was a little negative (and also selfish).
On the one hand, there are new readers coming into the genre all the time — readers who *didn’t* cut their teeth on Victoria Holt, Anne Mather and Stephanie James. They also probably didn’t sneak around the library reading Rosemary Rogers, Patricia Matthews, Johanna Lindsey, and Jennifer Blake. For those readers, reprints are probably the only way those books will be picked up. Some age better than others, of course, but I’ll never forget some of those characters and situations. And I would give almost anything for a set of the Jean Plaidy fictionalized British histories. In fact, I might just have to haunt AbeBooks and start on that collection someday soon.
On the other hand, there’s such a letdown about reprints when I’m the reader on a hunt for a new good book. Now I’ve scored new Rosemary Rogers and new Jennifer Blake recently, and I got *so* excited it wasn’t even funny. I’m hording them like the “good” chocolate.
But I really hate buying something, thinking it’s new, and finding out only after I’ve got it home that not only have I read it (and probably own a copy of it), but it wasn’t even one good enough for me to remember til I was 10 pages in. I feel cheated by the publisher, and it makes me skittish of anything new by an “old” favorite. I have read *so* many books over the years that there’s just no way to remember them all while standing in the shelves at purchase time…
There’s a non-reader reaction, too. Sometimes publishers do this reprint thing right and make it really clear they are reprints. And sometimes, if I don’t already have a copy, I’ll pick one up anyway. But every time I do that, I wonder if the existence of this reprint on the shelves means that a newer author didn’t get a slot.
Does anybody out there know? Do the reprints sit on top of the normal slots that the big houses have to fill, or do they diminish an already small number of places for new voices?
Things I learned in January 2007
1. That I shouldn’t set goals about work hours — Murphy’s law is bound to strike.
I got tagged for a project job that has consumed roughly 60-90 hours a week for the last month. It has been a whirlwind, and is winding down now, but man did it ever put a dent in life outside of work!
2. That I really, really shouldn’t share writing that hasn’t sat for a week and been re-read several times. It will make me insane.
3. That I really want to write historicals, not contemporary. Corollary: I have a LOT to learn in order to be able to write historicals.
4. That book number two is forming in my brain.
5. That I’ve been tagged, but haven’t had the time or focus to follow through.
6. That writing a standalone blog is just as difficult to stick with as LiveJournal.
Anyway, my apologies for the long silence, and I’ll try to be better about posting. Once a week is my target.
Tagged!
Heh. I usually manage to avoid these things by dint of just not noticing them. But today, Lacey got me :-)
If you’re reading this and haven’t been tagged already, please consider yourself tagged!!
Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Dairy Queen ice cream slinger
2. typesetter
3. journalist
4. middle school teacher
Four places I’ve lived:
1. New Orleans, LA
2. Reston, VA (close to Washington DC)
3. Henderson, NC (an hour north of Raleigh/Durham)
4. Marietta, GA (close to Atlanta)
Four favorite foods:
1. cheese
2. olives
3. tomatoes
4. bread
Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Casablanca
2. Bringing Up Baby
3. The Princess Bride
4. Hellraiser (got you with that one, didn’t I?)
Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Veronica Mars
2. House
3. Dr. Who
4. American Idol
Four Places I’ve Traveled:
1. Moscow (and Soviet Central Asia, various) — 1-month research trip in college
2. Dublin (wish I could see more of Ireland and the UK in general)
3. The Greek Islands (included a stop in Turkey to see Ephesus)
4. Lots of Carribbean islands (cruising is my *favorite* way to travel)
Four websites I go to (almost) daily
(the truth about this category is that there’s *nowhere* I go daily, but these are my most frequented sites)
1. Livejournal
2. Nola.com
3. Newcomb lives
4. Romancing the Blog
Whoops!
An apology to everybody whose comments went into the black hole!! It seems that gmail decided mail from wordpress’s auto-mod stuff was spam, and there were a bunch of comments in moderation. I set it up so that you have to have a first post approved before the blog will post to avoid spam, and it’s working like a charm so far, but this was a flaw in the grand scheme of spam battles. All fixed now!
To Laura, Caro, CM, LaceyKaye, and everybody else: Hello, I’m truly glad to see you, and mea culpa.
*hugs*
Wow!
Better late to the party than never, right?
I’m blown away yet again by the community that’s grown up around Avon’s FanLit contest (run by the awesome FanLib folks). Not only did Avon and FanLib recognize the amazingness that is Skirbo, but they’ve taken the words of the community to heart when we complained that one winner per week wasn’t enough to represent all the wonderful creativity that the contest spawned. They’ve created a series of honorable mention awards (designed and managed by our very own Skirbo!) and posted them on the site for all to see!
You guys really need to go read them, if you haven’t already — some of the best of the best are represented here (although there are certainly even more great chapters out there than even this list represents). Do overlook the oddities of formatting and punctuation that will appear to be typos — something happened in their conversion of the chapters and all sorts of marks, like semi colons and em-dashes have turned into question marks.
From a personal point of view, I’m just tickled pink that my Chapter 6 entry was chosen for the Casanova :-) Down at the end of this post, under the hide tag, I’m reprinting the entry with a few minor edits (there were random animated body parts that made me NUTS after I posted this…), and have fixed the odd punctuation that appears on the Avon site.
While there were some aspects to the contest that I wasn’t particularly happy with, one thing I have to give Avon an A++ for is figuring out where the real value to their company lay: the reader-writer community. So few corporations really get what an interactive relationship with their customer base can mean and how it can benefit their sales and marketing. In the case of Avon, there’s the potential side benefit of creating a new path to a pool of talent, as well. They’ve kept things going with wonderful blog entries, live forums, and an email newsletter to keep everybody connected until the next event.
Bravo, Avon!!
Even better, they’ve made the novella that resulted from the contest available as an E-Book, and Eloisa James, one of the contest’s judges and a fantastic Avon author, has released an original novella, along with her notes and a wonderful letter to the community. She’s provided laignappe for her newest novel, Pleasure for Pleasure, and incorporated our darlings from FanLit right into her novella. Go read!
Now, that chapter I promised…
I did it!
Yay for Nano! I hit 50949 tonight, and typed the words “The End.”
It is far from a completed draft — missing scenes, plenty of pure garbage, and bare bones of the last 6 chapters. And chapter 1-2 need major overhauling now, and this thing needs a new title. But IT IS DONE!!!
::dances wildly::
::collapses::
See y’all in a few days. I’m bushed.
Okay, so tired happens
Even to me. I’m aiming for 35,000 tonight — wish me luck ;-). Work has just *killed* my speed, but I’m really pleased with the story that’s forming up under all the dreck. If I make 50k, it’s going to be a miracle and inclusive of a LOT more dreck. The real goal remains a full draft by 12/30 (a full draft that I’m willing to start revisions on, that is).
Not sure how well the word count is going to add up over the next several days, when my mother, sister, and two nieces descend along with some of the hub’s family. I *love* cooking, though, and am much looking forward to all of the cooking (my three boys get to do most of the cleaning).
Here are a couple of recipes in lieu of my actual participation in the ether: baked potato soup, and caramel pumpkin pie.
Edited: I cheated, and worked on two of the love scenes I’d been saving, but it worked! 36043 for the total.
Update and some goals thinking
I need to update my ticker, but I’m trying not to let myself be distracted by extraneous things. Paid work hasn’t slowed down nearly as much as it should have (which is great for the pocket book, but not so great for the writing focus). The nano site continues to be difficult to load, so I’ve just about given up going there to read the boards, but ::waves:: to everyone who pops by here. I’m thinking of all of you as I plug away.
As of today, 11/15, I am a little behind the curve mostly due to work: 25,434 words according to MS Word. I admit to a bit of deleting in there, so it’s possible that I’ve had more words than that in total, but the main bit is that I’m moving out of “beginning” and into “middle” I’m going to have to *seriously* focus this weekend to get back on track, but I really think it’s possible.
I also have a “word count” ace in the hole.
I’ve been doing something to sort of “carrot” myself, and I’m not too sure how smart it is. I’m putting placeholders in for the love scenes. Writing the UST parts, but not the more detailed parts. There is a strong sexual thread tied into this story (and yanno, I’m still not quite satisfied with their names…last names are solid, but the first names aren’t quite right as the characters develop. Serena’s close, but maybe a little too generic. Kyle is feeling further and further off base, though. Too sporty.) The reasons for this delay are sort of vague in my mind, but primarily it’s this: I tend to get really, really vivid images in my head for the love scenes. So the writing is fairly fast and somewhat explosive. But my problems in writing those scenes tend to be that I’m too generic — the sex has to be more thoroughly tied into the surrounding character arcs. So I’m making myself wait til the end, when I’m on very solid ground with the character development, to write them. I ought to be able to gauge the metaphors and incorporate the emotion in a more focused way. That’s the theory, anyhow. It’s a part of the writing that can be more pleasurable than the building block scenes, and DEFINITELY more pleasurable than dialogue (oh how I struggle with writing dialogue), and I figure I have somewhere around 7k words set aside for that purpose.
Now, about those goals…
Great reads
I’m not supposed to be doing this. Reading, that is. I’m supposed to be *writing* — and reading, while it feeds the writing process, seriously slows it down, as well.
But I couldn’t help it!! Two of the novels I ordered as a result of FanLit arrived in my mail this past week (once I figured out they were caught in the “ship together” trap at Amazon along with Anna Campbell’s April 07 release *g*). I resisted for all of 1 day before I dove in.
Swept Away, by Toni Blake, is a fantastic read. It’s part of the Avon Red line, and I’ll admit to having been curious about just what was different about Red vs. other lines. I’m honestly not sure I quite get it yet, but I think my hot meter is a bit skewed by reading so much fan fiction over the last several years. Nothing shocks me any more. And it’s harder to get my motor running, too — read a lot of good stuff, and your standards rise to a pretty high level. Toni meets the mark of heat and then some, and I have noticed that it’s harder and harder to find single titles that have the kind of heat I adore.
But you know what? The heat in this story isn’t the best reason for reading it, by far. The sex is so throughly integrated with the story and characters that I didn’t feel the beginnings of an itch to skip. In fact, the book really wouldn’t have worked without it. The thing I *really* appreciated about this novel was how thoroughly and easily Toni sucked me into her world. I wasn’t distracted by the writing, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about plot development or what-happens-next — I just read. All the way til 2 in the morning and the book was finished. Utterly satisfying read on lots of levels. I’ll be looking at future Reds, if this is an exemplar, and Toni’s on my “see it buy it” list from here on out.
What was really cool was that when I’d finished reading it, I flipped back into writer mode. She did it all with this novel, and she did it so *neatly*. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I have to say that there are some serious layers to this work. Layers that I didn’t even notice while I was reading, but that make this novel soooooo much more than just brain or groin candy. Read it. You’ll see what I mean. OH! I almost forgot to mention: I’m not big on contemporary settings and will always prefer historical or fantasy — the bar for “suspension of disbelief” is just so much higher for me when it’s contemp that it can be hard to achieve. If you’re like me on this count, read Swept Away anyhow. It’s well worth it.
Okay, I’ve procrastinated enough with this post, and I haven’t even started on the one that prompted me to hit the blog with it: Gaelen Foley’s Pirate Prince. I will boil it down to a sentence for now: *read this book*. She takes cliches and turns them on their ears, and I’m about halfway through it and had to stop and scream to the world how much I love this book. It’s not like any pirate romance I’ve ever read, and in fact, it’s not like any *romance* I can remember reading. I’ll revisit and heap more specific praise on Gaelen when I’ve finished, but right now, I’ve got to go read. Nano be damned.
But the whole thing really got me thinking: what do you like to read? What makes a romance *great* — what kinds of things do authors do that really rings your bell? It’s all about the “suck me in” in my little reader world — the writing can be “normal”, the structure can be off, the setting can be a non-favorite, the characters can be off-type for my faves, but if you’ve got me emotionally engaged, I’m putty in your hands.
Sometimes it’s the author’s writing, sometimes it’s the characterization, sometimes it’s a fantastic plot. And sometimes it’s all that and the kitchen sink, but more often, there are technical flaws present, and I’m sucked in regardless.
Not Gaelic at all, it seems…
Turns out, it’s contemporary in an off-kilter sort of way.
It’s set right-now-today, but these characters are Cajuns. Real Acadian-descended Cajuns. Not all of them, but Serena LaRose certainly is. Her family came down when the first Acadians fled the northeast, found a natural disaster waiting to happen, and the LaRue women set up shop as they’d always been intended to do. It also happens she’s the most powerful earth witch in the western hemisphere, outstripping her recently deceased mother by a good margin.
And God help the man who tries to reel her in, because the local Circle sure isn’t going to.
Kyle Boudreaux’s geneaology is a bit murkier, but he’s probably a Cajun too, if the genetics of the situation are why he’s the only Warder this side of the Atlantic with enough oomph to stand up to Ms. Serena’s willful neglect of her duty.
Oi vey! I’ve got James Dean of the warlock set running around in my head, and my leading lady is apparently Queen of Denial.
BTW — that description sounds a lot more lighthearted than the words are building up to at this point, but it sure sounds good :-)
Busy, busy
I don’t think I know how to live life un-busy…
Nano is underway, and I’m both terrified and energized. My attention isn’t as focused as I’d like, but that will improve soon.
The big project is mostly done:
FanLit Forever is a reality, thanks to Alice Audrey and a bunch of other folks. Come visit! We’ve got a writing game inspired by Avon’s FanLit contest, places to talk about other contests (like Nano), places to get serious about publication, a live chat room, and lots of other fun stuff. Come one, come all, of course. Some of it’s not visible to unregistered guests, but most of it is. Have a look, and if you like what you see, register and stay a while!
I’ve got another day and a half of serious project management work to do, then a break where I will ratchet down to one-two hours per day for a while. It will go back to a higher level at some point in late Nov. or early Dec., but right now, I get some free time (and boy can I use it!).
See you ’round the bend!
Dark, Dark My Light
I *love* it when a scene comes to me all full-featured. I’ve been noodling this nano thing for several days now, but all of the parts that have come to me have been late middle to climax oriented. And the characters. I feel as if I know them already, but they haven’t told me their names. And til now, I’ve had no opening. But here it is, fifteen minutes before I can start writing, and it’s come to me. That opening scene.
::squee::
So here I am, writing about it rather than writing it. Ho, you want to know what it is? So do I. It definitely appears to be fantasy/paranormal in nature. I’m seeing enough to know it’s quite spicy. It’s either historical, or it’s time-travel. Beyond that? Hard to say. I need to write it first to see.
Welcome to November madness.
A question for the peanut gallery:
Favorite celtic or gaelic based names for men and women? Nothing too hard to imagine pronunciation of…
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Works In Progress
Only When It Rains
This Rough Paradise
Dark, Dark, My Light
..Voices..
- Alice Audrey
- Alisa Allan
- Anna Campbell
- Ashbongo
- Beverly Kendall
- Caro Kinkead
- Courtney Milan
- Cynthia Falcon
- Daisycat
- Eloisa James
- Ericka Scott
- Fairie Green
- Gladys
- Haven Rich
- India Carolina
- Jacqueline Barbour
- Jody Wallace
- Kelly Rardon
- Lacey Kaye
- Laura T
- Lynne Simpson
- Mary Castillo
- Mary Pocock
- Merry Day
- Mint Witch
- Pam Skochinski
- Rebecca DeCourcy
- Romance Vagabonds
- Sara Dennis
- Sara Lindsey
- Sashacat
- Skirbo
- Tessa Dare
- Toni Blake
Projects