July Readingfest

While many of my fellow writing pals are off at CampNano, I'm stuck in a work schedule that leaves my creative brain fried and my fingers reluctant to go anywhere near my laptop. I did manage to get away for a long holiday weekend to take our first official family camping trip.

Other than some majorly rude and annoyingly obnoxious camp site neighbors, it was a wonderful experience. The weather was perfect. We found interesting fossil rocks, played in the sand, paddled around in a canoe and cooked food over the fire. Good stuff. I also brought a book and tried to get a little reading done.

Honestly, I did more carrying the book around intending to read it than actual reading, but having the leisure to do so did manage to rekindle the urge to read for enjoyment that had been lacking due to critiquing for the past couple years and trying to get my own writing done. Once home and the camping gear put away, I sat down and poured through the sand speckled pages. Then I picked up another and read that. I just cracked open a third. I've declared this month my Readingfest.

I'm hoping to work through some of my towering TBR pile. So far I've conquered:
The Barbarian by Judith French A good romance tale with a little lite history on the side. Other than feeling, from the amount of backstory inserted, that this was a book two, I didn't find much to distract me from enjoying the story of Alexander's wife, Roxanne, her hidden child, Ptolemy's need to outshine his dead brother, his missing bastard... oh and, of course, the hot barbarian prince who rescues her. I enjoyed the fact that this was a more mature romance in that Mr. Hottie had adopted and raised two boys on his own and both of the MCs were on their second marriage. No heaving-breasted virgins here, no sir.

For the past two days, my head has been stuck in Dark Fire by Christine Feehan. While formulaic like I've found the Carpathian series generally to be, it was still an enjoyable, quick read. Stong-willed and perpetual loner Tempest finds herself employed as the mechanic of an eccentric band, who are all secretly Carpathians (not exactly vampires). When their large, domineering bodyguard declares she is his lifemate and bonds them together, she must come to grips with kissing her loner lifestyle goodbye for all eternity. Lots of sex seems to help her adjust. The dialogue felt stiff in places and the descriptions repetitive, but overall, I wasn't complaining.

This morning, I dove into the long awaited Jacqueline Carey's Naamah's Blessing which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Having reached chapter eleven by lunch, I've already laughed and cried. It took Puss in Boots eyes and much tugging from my daughter to dislodge me from the book in order to get my motherly duties and work day going. I marvel at Carey's skill at weaving so much emotion into her characters and creating such a wonderfully detailed world. I'm sad to see another of her trilogies close but anxious to see if another will follow. More gushing on this novel when I finish it. Which will likely be tomorrow at this pace. Who needs sleep?

Reluctant Blogcation

I hadn't intended to take time off from all you fun folks, but working ten hour days, including weekends, has slaughtered my free time like a chainsaw dual in a defunct summercamp filled with half-naked, beer-drinking teens.

While I love paying my bills, I miss my writing time and wandering around on the internet. My back would prefer me sitting on the couch rather than running up and ladders and lifting heavy things. The rest of me would like that too.

I hope to be back soon!

Fill in the blank fun

I'd love to say that writing is going along as wonderfully as previously reported, but I hit a wall a week ago and am back in idea percolation mode. This mad lib, supplied by the ever lovely and talented Elena Solodow conveys my issues pretty darn well. But no, really, my MC doesn't die. Honest.

If you'd like to participate in the mad lib fun head over to her blog right now. Maybe not right now, but in a few minutes.

Dear Main Character,

Just writing to tell you how much I appreciate what you do. I know it was tough getting past that total chapter rewrite #402 last week, but you made it through.

(Just to let you know, there's another one at the climax of the novel. Hope that's all right.)

I know you said you’re really sick of me rewriting your scenes, especially when I replace the ones where you had a good time with Ms. MC and I appreciate your feedback. It's always good to hear from your characters, but I really feel that you’re stronger with these new scenes that are rife with conflict and showcase your strengths, okay?

This novel is about you defying ‘the man’ and getting the girl, plain and simple. If you feel it's not right for you, we can part ways now. I know there's a couple secondary characters who would love a promotion.

So for tomorrow's writing session, let's focus on getting past this chaos of plotpoints I’ve written us into and figure a way to bring them all together to a resounding climax. I really love the way you have an attitude with the bad guys, but make sure you don’t start that with me this time, otherwise you might get killed off a little earlier than expected.

(Oh, no. You don't die in this book. Don't worry.)

(Really, would I lie to you?)

Anyway, MC, thanks again. Always know I'm here for you, except when I have my "sudden inspirations".

Yours always,
Jean

Six Sentence Sunday: Not Another Bard's Tale 5

In this last excerpt from Not Another Bard's Tale, Ed, the Evil Overlord in disguise, has infiltrated the motley band of heros as they travel to his keep in the hopes of defeating him. Harold, the bard, has just finished a rather disparaging song about evil overlords getting killed by heros which Ed took a bit of offense to.

Harold said, "Usually the ones not loved by their mommies, some deep emotional childhood scar that twists them, bad grades in school and hanging out with the wrong crowd, that sort of thing.”

Ed’s mouth hung open and when he finally gathered the wherewithal to close it, he sputtered, “That’s not how it is at all, I’ll have you know.”

Bruce gave him an odd look. “You some sort of expert on evil overlords, Ed?”

Ed gritted his teeth and continued on his way. “Just seems like with a man so evil as Darkious Maximus, Evil Overlord Extraordinaire and Master of the Nine Darknesses, would be carved of deeper stuff than your typical evil overlord material.”

If you've enjoyed Not Another Bard's Tale, you might also enjoy my short story, The Employer, which is available in the The First Line.

Check out other fabulous SSS excerpts here.

My weekend back to nature adventure

Is it just me or does that look like a mob of Ents?

Being overwhelmed with work as I have been lately, I needed a little break from home, laundry, all those little things you see around the house that need doing when you have a spare moment and even my laptop. Actually, everyone needed a break from their computers. So, this weekend we set off on our first family camping experience.

I grew up camping. It's what we did two or sometimes three weeks out of the summer. We landed somewhere new, wandered off, made friends, stood barefoot in snake infested swamps to catch turtles, went swimming, got rained on and didn't care, built rambing sand castles for hours, and slept like the dead. Somewhere in my later teen years the camping bug was lost and road trip vacations took over.

When I had kids, we started off with the road trips. Fun getaways, but expensive. I was looking for a change, and so this year, Santa brought us camping gear. Yay Santa! I spent most of my free time last week digging through memories of what supplies we had with us when I was a kid and more than a few hours running from store to store to find the best prices on those items. Fully outfitted (I hoped), we set off for a one night dry run (close to home and a store) at our property.

We set up the tent in no time. This huge, 3 room tent gave everyone the privacy they wanted and offered plenty of room to store our stuff inside. It might not look very big here, but its 10' x 18'. That's a tent!

I did a quick check of my flower garden (filled with a the overflow from home) and found it flourishing. The Japanese iris are four feet tall!

The creek has become quite overgrown, but we did get to wake to frogs croaking, ducks quacking and what sounded like an entire aviary of birds singing. A wonderful sound to tell about later, but not so appreciated at 6am.

Breakfast over the fire. Yum!

When we weren't getting eaten alive by the rabid mosquitos, we explored. The bark had fallen off this tree to reveal generations of insect artwork.

Sadly, the trip had some work involved. The grass hadn't been mowed since last fall (my husband's job) and our stick pile had grown into a mountain thanks to multiple wind storms last year. My task was to make a dent in this:

Which I did, but only a small dent. That mountain is huge. The big logs were saved for future camping trips, but the sticks went into the fire. I might have been away from my laptop, but you know what my mind was doing while my body was chucking wood into the fire? Working through upcoming scenes. Even without my laptop, it seems I can't go a day without writing in some form or another.

The kids had fun and we accomplished a good amount of work. We had everything we needed except a bug bomb for all the mosquitos. I'll call the trip a sucess and am ready to head out for a longer trip next time. But, after all that packing, setting up, hauling sticks, breaking camp, and unpacking, I'm going to do this:

Need a warm up to start your writing day?

There's no right or wrong really and you have one word and a minute to type away. Try oneword.com and let the creativity flow.

My only wish (Who is so boring that they truly only have one wish? Really? Come on.) is that it would cut off after one minute. Like NaNo word wars, I get so busy typing that I don't notice the little message at the bottom of the screen telling me that time is up. I need constant prodding like write or die so that I pay attention. However, I do like the word prompt and the idea of the quick warm up. Stopping to read the other entries on the same word prompt just opens up a whole new distraction -- which my writing day really doesn't need. At all. No sir.

It is a neat idea though and did spark some interesting thoughts. Just don't come back and complain that I offered a new outlet for procrastination. Ignore the other responses and be productive!

Game of Thrones

So I'm a little late to the game. There's a reason though. Knowing how much I love George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books, I knew this HBO series was going to be pure visual crack. Hearing how much everyone liked it so far only make the urge to dive in worse. But I've been writing, and wrapped up in my own little world, I've been able to keep the urge for distraction at bay. Until this weekend.

After Friday off writing because of a sick husband at home and too much work to do, then a long weekend of yard work, errands, a few buckets of sweat and a lot of sore muscles, my body cried out for an excuse to sit on the couch. I sat there, chewing my lip and wringing my hands, contemplating sneaking upstairs to begin the series alone on my computer. I could watch as many episodes in a row as I wanted, when I wanted. Oh joy!

My annoying voice of reason squeaked that this was a bad idea. I needed moderation or my writing time would get swallowed by GOT episodes.

I mentioned the series to my husband, who had not read the books and knew nothing about the series. Thankfully, he offered to check out the first epsiode with me. He liked it. Now (as I set here biting my nails and flogging myself) I'm stuck waiting for him to have the time and inclination to watch the second episode. Oh voice of reason, how I hate you right now.

Maybe I could watch them and then pretend I hadn't when he gets around to having time to view them. Yes. Yes!

Ok, that would only be even more annoying than me jumping up and down on the couch naming characters, explaining everything about them during the first episode and physically restraining myself from shouting out spoilers. Best to take a deep breath, savor the first epsiode and get some writing done. Right?

Right. But I still hate you, voice of reason.

Six Sentence Sunday: Not Another Bard's Tale 4

The Evil Overlord's minions are holding a job fair. When the turn out isn't as good as expected, complaints about the lack of advertising surface. The publicity department produces a scapegoat...err...volunteer to explain their illegible 'banner'.

“How were we to know that the crows would clean them off so quickly? Do you have any idea how much time went into attaching all those corpses to the keep? Those walls are high and making words out of bodies isn’t easy! A lot of extra effort went into dotting the I’s with heads too. Though, it kind of loses the effect without the actual eyes in place.” He kicked at the stones underfoot.

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

Six Sentence Sunday: Not Another Bard's Tale 3

In this week's excerpt, we pick up just after Bruce has escaped from Jonquil, a lonely troll-fairy who just wanted to love him. Bruce didn't feel the same way.

“It tried to suffocate me in its cleavage!”

“Trolls have cleavage?” The man with the harp seemed to ponder this. “I’ll have to remember that for my ballad.”

“Maybe they call it trollage. The point is, the damned thing tried to kill me.”"

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

Welcome to the writing zone

I've officically crossed over into the writing zone. It's been a long time since I've been this deep into a novel. NaNo, my usual novel churning out time is filled with in-person meet-ups and online writerly fun. Short story and revision periods are accompanied by critiquing and chatting online with other writerly types. Full on novel writing? Well, I crawl into the back of my writing cave and turn into Gollum.

Signs you've crossed the line into the writing zone:

-You send your kid to school, knowing they don't feel well, so you can have your morning writing time. (Hey, he didn't have a fever, and wasn't throwing up or bleeding. I did tell him I would come and pick him up if he really needed me to.)

-You are a notorious do-not-disturb-before-10am weekend person but now wake up at 7am to write in silence while everyone else sleeps in.

-You have always been night writing person, but when life hands you a quiet morning schedule, you find yourself staring at a wide-awake morning writer person on the mirror. When the hell did this atrosity happen?

-You bring your kid to the money pit known as Chuck E. Cheese on a busy weekend and hand her $10 so you can have half an hour of writing time surrounded by the not quite white noise of fifty pizza-smeared kids screaming in glee. Sadly that half an hour also included turning in the tickets and five minutes of picking out trinkets. (We'll know I'm in real trouble when I sink to giving her $20.)

-And the final nail in the coffin: You are a professional procrasintator but now barely get on the internet because you'd truly rather be writing. (Sorry, all my usual procrastionation sites, I'll be back... eventually.)

Six Sentence Sunday: Not Another Bard's Tale 2

This week we meet Olga, swordswoman extraordinaire and protector of Svetlana, her sister, the chosen one of the Sheep God.

Olga took an offered sword from the crowd and approached Bruce with a gleam in her eye. Her skirts swished with each step forward. She slashed at him with all the force of a hardened swordsman.

He scrambled to block her, his wrist reverberating with the power behind her blow. Realizing she meant business, he tried to stop watching her chest bounce with each thrust, and concentrate more on making himself look less inept. He swore she tugged her blouse a bit lower just to taunt him.

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

Post Thief

Thank you, Blogger, for removing my current post with all its whacked out spacing issues you inflicted on it. Your awesomeness never ceases to amaze me. If you could magic back my post and the comments Liz and Fred were kind enough to leave, I'll cut back on my sarcasm. Maybe. (But don't bet on it, it's just who I am.)

Spring yard tour

I've still been busy writing, and am happy to report an average of 1,500 words a day. As such, I'm short on witty energy to share. Instead, I give you evidence that spring is in full bloom in my yard.

Spring wouldn't be complete without tulips

Carpet Phlox

New tulips I planted last fall.

The cherry tree is in full bloom.

The tulips have come back year after year. Gotta love that.

And the stragglers, those bulbs I find while redoing flowebeds that get thrown in a hole to see what color comes up.

Six Sentence Sunday: Not Another Bard's Tale

I'm switching SSS gears this week to a Fantasy novel full of fun. One of these days I'll get around to writing the middle of Not Another Bard's Tale, but for now, I offer you Bruce, our not-so-fearless knight, as he mets the dragon for the first time.

The dragon snatched up the seer and chewed with what appeared to be a satisfied smile. It swallowed, then picked at one of his dagger-length teeth with a claw. Bruce's silver coin fell onto the counter. The dragon’s rancid, hot breath blasted over him. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the nearest lake is, do you? I always find mystics a bit dry.”

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

Feeling productive

Despite overbooking myself for volunteer work, crazy amounts of actual work, planting our garden and an all day garage clean out project, work on the back half of Trust is still clipping along at a productive pace. Who needs sleep?

Everything is falling into place. Connections are presenting themselves that allow for further word count reduction. More description, motivation and tension is working its way in.

I start each writing session by reading the previous session's words. So far, only minor tweaking. No fits of 'OMG, this is crap!', or 'what was I on yesterday? This makes no sense'. We'll see if it all flows as nicely during the overall read through, but so far, I'm feeling positive.

Here's to hoping I didn't just jinx myself. Now, back to writing.

Six Sentence Sunday: Sahmara's Sunset 5

This this week's excerpt: In order to offer Sara protection from the rough band of men Sahmara travels with, she has claimed Sara as her own. Sara isn't exactly opposed to the arrangment.

Sara leaned forward and planted a wine flavored kiss on Sahmara’s lips.

With the haze of the quickly downed glass of wine and the rush of the swordfight, Sahmara was quite enjoying herself. Sara’s thin, delicate fingers intertwined with her own. The sound of Olando choking on his wine broke them apart at last.

“Are you all right?” Sahmara grabbed the cup from his hand and patted him on the back.

I hope you've enjoyed these glimpses into Sahmara's Sunset. I'll be moving to another project next Sunday.

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

You know you've been bit hard by the writing bug when...

It's saturday night and you're out with your husband at a packed brewery. It's filled with the sound of two hundred people talking at once. Your husband telling you how, when he comes here after work now and then, he sees crazy people taking up an entire table with their laptop and a beer while he and his friends can't find a spot to sit. And all the while you're thinking how much you'd like to be that crazy person because the chatter is a perfect white noise level and a draft beer while writing sounds wonderful. Hell, I'd even offer his friends my extra chairs as long as they'd sit somewhere else.

Six Sentence Sunday: Sahmara's Sunset 4

In this weeks excerpt: Sahamara has had pay her dues to her protector while she searches for Zane and a way home.

Half into the dream world, she tried to convince herself that it was Zane’s arm draped over her hip. The hands that had touched her in the woods had been his and his rough cheeks had been against hers. His unbound blond hair had fallen against her face as he traveled down her body, delivering kisses to every inch of her flushed skin. She could smell him, leather and oil, and breathed deep. Sahmara wanted nothing more than to feel him inside her. She moaned.

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Novels in the oven

For me novels are like that recipe you vaguely remember your dearly departed grandmother making in your childhood. You know what you want, but no one can tell you just how to put it all together. The exact taste is right there on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't quite name the ingredient you keep missing. And you need to give it time to cook. But now much time? Too much and it's overdone and dry, not enough and you've got a mushy mess of stark flavors on your hands (or fork).

I write a rough draft, add in some notes of intent for the really rough spots and toss that puppy in the subconsicious oven. (No real puppies were harmed during this post.) I turn the light on inside the oven and sit and stare. Nothing cooks when you watch it, I swear. So I walk away. I have no freaking idea when this meal is going to be done. Rushing the process just makes me bang my head on walls. So I go look for something to eat while I wait for the DING!

I eat my obligatory vegetables. I enjoy some broccoli while editing, some carrots while I read books and blogs on writing. Sometimes I munch on a salad go on critique sprees. I do enjoy my veggies, but I long for that main course. It smells so darn good. Why isn't it done yet?

I sneak a few pieces of chocolate cake while I read books for fun and catch up on the tv shows I otherise ignore. That cake is indulgently wonderful, but it's not filling.

Nothing quite hits the spot, so I sneak off with a sandwhich and write short stories. Filling yes, but still not what I'm craving.

And then it comes. A DING that fills my head and sends my fingers flying over the keyboard to find that draft I'd set aside so long ago. All that time waiting, smelling, drooling, and now I grab my fork and dive in. I can't stop eating. I must. Keep. Eating.

Once I wash the dishes and get over the stomach ache, I'll sit back and ponder if I got the recipe right this time. If I did, who knows, I might finally be ready to invite some friends to dinner.

Six Sentence Sunday: Sahmara's Sunset 3

In today's excerpt of Sahmara's Sunset, we learn that the goddess is not as benevolent and loving as the priests of Sahmara's childhood had taught.

Sahmara jerked her hand back, but the old woman held on with surprising strength.

She slid the tip of the knife against Sahmara’s finger.
Sahmara watched in horror as Reva thrust the bloody finger into her mouth and sucked at it ravenously. Her shock wore off a second later and she managed to yank her finger back from the wet, toothless maw.

Reva lapped a drop of blood from her chin with her long, red tongue. “Eager enough for my help, but so reluctant to pay?

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday entries here.

Holed up in my writing cave

I'd planned on a continuation of the rescue of Ms. Wildstar for my midweek post, but instead, I've been writing. Oh man, does it feel good. It's been a long time since I've actually been writing rather than soley editing. Since last November, actually. Too long.

After a much needed refilling of my creative well, I dived into writing a few new middle chapters for Trust. Thankfully, I left a clearly outlined plan for this section during my last round of cuts or I'd be banging my head against the wall, wondering what the heck I intended to do in the space where I deleted 13,000 words. I have to admit, outlining isn't totally evil after all.

Why delete 13,000 words? My plot needed focus in that area. Total refocus, to be exact.

It's so good to be working with these characters again. I've missed them while playing with short stories and Sahmara's Sunset.

I found that listening to the CD's I had been obsessed with at the time when I was doing one of my major rewrites that inspired this current version, has been a wonderful way to get back into the character's motives. Not that I can listen to music when I actively write, but I do do a good deal of mental writing in the car or while I'm working and that often happens when I'm drifting off into la la land with background music. Perhaps that's not such a good thing when I'm driving. Hmm.

Six Sentence Sunday: Sahmara's Sunset 2

Last week I gave you the first lines of my first fantasy novel, Sahmara's Sunset. This week, we get a hint as to how Sahmara ended up in hands of the enemy.

The hall was tainted by the metallic tang of her father’s men being put to death by Altherian swords. True to his Ma’hasi training, Zane stood in front of her, his sword at the ready. At the other end of the hall, her mother screamed as soldiers pinned her to the ground. Her Father bellowed threats while two men held him back. A third held a knife to his throat.

They kept asking her father questions, but Sahmara couldn’t understand them.

Enjoy other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Weasel attack: Eight Months early

Yeah, I know, NaNo is eight months away but I got this email last night and it reminded me of some of the raffle items I wanted to do for next year's regional events. Which then thwacked me on the head and urged me to create next year's regional logo. Since Rippy McWeasel was so popular last year, (even the newspaper reporter wanted to know more about him!), he gets a special place in this year's logo.

Working a ten and some hour day should have ended at that point, but the logo project called to me and the next thing I knew, two hours had passed, my husband had gone to bed and it was just me and Rippy hanging out on my computer like old times (last November). What do you think?

Six Sentence Sunday: Sahmara's Sunset

I've been meaning to join in the Six Sentence Sunday fun for well over a month. Every time Sunday evening rolls around I smack myself in the forehead and pledge to remember to get a post ready for the next week. What can I say, I've been a smidge scatterbrained thanks to an overwhelming workload lately. But I finally remembered!

Sahmara's Sunset was my first NaNoWriMo novel. My first fantasy novel. The novel that made me realize there was life after finishing a novel I'd been writing for years. Writing it was a very liberating and inspiring experience. I recently revisited Sahamara's Sunset as part of this year's NaNo 50k, rewriting the first half from scratch and finally creating some words I'm willing to let others see.

The first lines...

Tall grass ripped at Sahmara’s bare legs as she ran headlong across the moonlit field. She glanced over her shoulder. The shadows of her recent captors had grown distant, their voices no more than whispers on the cool wind. Sahmara slowed, not of her own volition, but because her body threatened to collapse if she didn’t. Bent low, she hid in the thick blades. Her chest heaved as she fought to catch her breath.

Victims of the Knife: The search for Ms. Wildstar

Xander peers at the slowing stream of brain jello seeping down the side desk. "Quick! Our writer must be falling asleep. We need to get to her computer to search for that Indian's story."

"Thanks for the recap." Nekar rolls his eyes.

"Sorry, I though we might need one since it's been several days since our last entry. I tried to keep it subtle and quick."

"You call that subtle?" The older man shakes his head. "Whatever. We have work to do. Gather up all pins and thumbtacks you can find. We're going to need some footholds."

Xander nods and dashes off. Nekar sits on the paper-lined path, pondering the few glimpses he's had of the computer high above them. A scrap of paper catches his attention. His heart beats faster.

Xander rushes back up the path, his arms full of colorful tacks and a few bent straight pins. "What are you smiling about?"

Nekar points to the paper. "She loved me once. Ms. MC and I, we really had something."

"Yeah, and as I recall, you ended up wanting to kill each other, and at one point, you plucked out her eyes."

"She got new ones. Better ones."

"I know, they're around here somewhere. Locked away in a box, I hope." Xander shudders.

Nekar scowls and yanks a handful of tacks from Xander's arms. He slams the first one into the side of the wooden desk at waist height. "I can't believe our writer cut me so effectively from my novel. Every single scrap of me." He rests a booted foot on the first tack and reaches up to plant another. "I added conflict, tension and some excellent fight scenes, if I do say so myself."

"You're uhh, going to run out of tacks before you get much farther. Not to mention, how are you climbing upward and inserting tacks one handed? You would have taken them all, maybe put them in a bag of some sort, or even a pocket, so you had both hands free. Ever consider that this lack of planning issue you have might be part of the reason you got cut?"

"It wasn't my lack of planning." Nekar jumps to the ground. Paper flutters away from the immediate vicinity. "It was hers. It's all her fault. If she'd used any sort of outline, she would have seen-"

"That you were unnecessary from the start?"

Nekar's face turns red and his eyes narrow. He grabs Xander and throws the lanky youth to the ground, pinning him there with his much larger form. "Ever consider that you making random insults to instigate conflict was the reason you got cut?"

"It was an innocent observation!" Xander squirms.

"That's weak. You're a weak character. That's why your here."

"Yeah, well, we're both here. And it sucks. So unless you plan on plucking my eyes out too, we should concentrate on getting up that desk and saving Ms. Wildstar."

Nekar gives him one last long glare and lets Xander up. "Fine. Get me a bag for these damned thumbtacks, Plan-ahead-boy, and let's go."

to be continued

Where did monday go?

Not only monday, but I seem to be missing the past five or so days. I've been so busy I don't even have time to be distracted from writing, let alone write anything. Too much work, oodles of kid obligations, now we've added track practice to the onslaught of driving to and fro, weasel prototype creations, work, cleaning out flowerbeds, firepits and picking up a billion sticks (ok, so I stopped counting after about fifty, but I swear it was a lot of sticks) and more work. On the plus side, my creative wells have been filled and characters are talking to me again. Maybe it's just the voices because I'm so darned tired and delusional because I'm not able to eat lunch until 3pm, but I'm happy to hear anything beyond tumbleweeds bouncing around in there. I see some suspicious looking characters milling around under my desk. Goodness only knows what they're up to, but here's to hoping I have enough time to formulate a second post this weeks so we can find out.

What is our dear writer doing?

Nekar taps his foot on the paper lined path and glares upward. "We've been standing here, waiting and waiting for a month and half. What the hell is our dear writer doing?"

"She's at her computer a lot, she'd got to be writing, right?" Xander peers above the piles of crumpled paper to the desk looming above them.

"You'd think, but no one new has arrived since that indian that took off with Ms. Wildstar meandered toward us. I think she's working and that ooze flowing down from the desk is brain jello flavored."

"She's gone?"

Nekar shakes his head. "Uh, yeah. That indian is a zombie, a free-agent. You know, not bound to stay in place, frozen, just waiting for the next scene to be written."

"Oh crap." Xander glances down the path to the spot he'd last seen Ms. Wildstar. Empty. No visible tracks in the dust.

"Exactly. Who knows where he's taken her." Nekar takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "We need to find some pages of whatever story he came from. We don't know if he's a murderer, a savage or one of those misunderstood emotional wrecks. He could have killed her by now."

"Right. Pages. But his story isn't down here. It's up there." Xander points to the faint glow of the computer high above them. "We'll have to search the hard drive. Do you know how to do that?"

"We'll figure it out together. Our writer has been falling asleep at her computer late at night. We'll wait until then and move in."

"Got it. Now, I've got to piss."

Nekar frowns at the younger man. "We don't talk about that. It's something everyone does but no one wants to read about."

"I know, but it's been six weeks. It's going to be an epic stream. I'll meet up with you later."

to be continued...

rewriting deja vu

As I waited for my car to get fixed the other day, I was trapped in a tiny waiting room with my laptop, no internet connection, and a mental decree that I wouldn't sneak over to play solitare instead of writing. I had critiques of one of my wounded short stories staring at me and a big blank space indicating where I'd left off over a month ago on my editing efforts. I didn't go back a reread anything, I just started up where I'd left off. Then there came a paragraph that several people had comments on. It needed some tweaking.

My usual method for tweaking is to read all the comments then go to a blank page, and using what I remember of the area (I hadn't read in over a month) see how I could write it differently. Then I paste the new effort in and compare the fresh one with the original. Creepy thing was, they were almost word for word. I'd managed to tighten a smidge, but that was about it. I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday but that's apparently because my brain is too busy remembering entire stories word for word. Not that I could recite it if put on the spot, but give me a keyboard and it spews out. The mind is a mysterious thing.

Dexter: my newest addiction

So I missed my usual monday post. I have an excuse. It's a good one, or not, depending on how you look at it. First, work has been absorbing all my creative juices so trying to write is like staring blankly at the monitor and drooling dust while my brain gasps and sputters. Then there's the fact that I've moved on to watching Dexter. How did I never hear of this show before? Oh yeah, I don't have the movie channel package on my already overpriced cable service.

Several writer friends mentioned that this show was made of awesome so I had to check it out while I was stuck in my brain candy binge, gathering inspiration, whatever title I give my distraction today. As in many other things, my distraction enabling friends were spot on. Since I also have a MC who is a killer, I'm finding it interesting to see how sympathetic one can be for a person who enjoys killing others. There isn't a whole lot in common between Dexter and my MC beyond that, and I've previously tried to tone down the enjoyment level of the killing as far as my novel goes. But in viewing, its still educational to watch--a good example how to keep the plot hopping and even if the MC isn't a sympathetic guy most of the time, he's damn interesting. Cops, killers, sex, a MC with serious emotional damage, drug users, relationships on all kinds of levels... lots of aspects to check out and take notes.

I admit, I'm disappointed that I called the big twist of season one early on, but that doesn't keep me from plunking myself down in front of my computer or tv every night and at lunch and during breakfast... This show is like crack. I swear. Not only is the MC a killer, but there are so many levels being juggled at once. He's works for the cops, he's in a relationship (two actually, atm), there are kids involved (not his directly) his female boss has a thing for him, his sister has as many issues as he does but of a different sort, a co-worker hates him and is on to his dark side, he's performing his own level of justice on the dregs of society and working hard not to get caught, he's got severe emotional family baggage, and now he's in NA to try to help his addiction to killing (which is rather hilarious in its comparison to drugs as far as addictions and the descriptions go) and did I mention the FBI is trying to solve his murders and his own sister and best friend are on the task force?

This is the stuff must-find-out-what-happens-next!?! plots are made of. Must take notes.

On the writing front, I'm going to be stuck in a waiting room with no internet access while my car gets fixed tomorrow for who knows how long. I'm not bringing a book and I can't work. That means I'll be trapped with my two half edited shorts that have been glaring at me for a month and some now. Eek!

My Netflix addiction continues

It's probably my fault for putting the television aside in favor of writing for so long, but now that I've unleashed the evil of Netflix streaming into my computer and TV, I can't walk away. In a few clicks I can check out entire series that I paid little attention to when they aired.

My addiction started innocently enough. Stargate Atlantis. I'd watched most of those as they aired, being the one sci-fi show I allowed myself at the time. But I'd had comments on my novel that I was too episodic, so I thought that investigating this episodic feel was a worthwhile endeavor. After I'd raced through the first season, the comment and how to fix the issue sunk in. Seeing how the episodes fit together back to back rather than once a week helped highlight my problem. Watching the other four seasons was purely out of weakness.

Farscape is limited to kid time. (Which in light of my next comment probably makes me sound like a bad mother.) I totally didn't remember the characters using 'bitch' several times in every episode. I remembered them using the made up curse words distinctively. Frell, I still use them. I guess you just can't replace bitch and get the same feeling across. Hmm. Something to ponder when using curse words, real and manufactured in writing.

My free time was getting far too Netflix-free so I decided to give Stargate Universe a try. When it aired, I was so pissed that Atlantis was axed (due to high production costs, which is the same thing that killed Farscape... which ugh, I'll rant to myself about quality sci-fi shows being cancelled. At least they actually ended both of those series.) that I didn't even give it a chance. Apparently not many people did, since it only lasted one season.

There seems to be two camps: those who didn't like the show because it was too much like a space opera (ie: the new Battlestar Galactica) and not enough like the original Stargate series which featured planet of the day and alien gun fights, and those who liked the show because it was like the dearly departed new (now old?) BSG. I'm in the BSG camp. Honestly, Universe also somewhat reminded me of my dearly departed Lost a little with all the flashbacks, visits home in other people's bodies and strangers being thrown together to survive in a hostile environment with few supplies.

While Universe had its shortfalls in cliched characters, convenient resolutions, and didn't I see this plot on BSG? moments, I missed 'good' sci-fi enough to make my way through the one and only season. It, of course, ended in a OMG who's going to die, everyone is in jeopardy ending that will never be resolved now. Darn you low ratings. If only they'd waited a while after ending both SG series to try to launch another, there may have been enough sci-fi starved people like me willing to tune in and keep it alive. Sometimes you've got to let people get thirsty instead of jumping on that hot fire. (Not necessarily five years thirsty, Mr. Martin.)

What was there to learn from Universe?

Allowing problems to be solved too conveniently does not make for compelling reading or viewing. Make those characters work, suffer and bleed for every step toward their goal.

Knowing that all the main characters will never die kind of takes the tension away. Don't allow the reader to think that you're not (wo)man enough to take someone out. I can't be heart-pounding, eyes racing over the pages, concerned enough to stay up reading until four a.m. to make sure MC makes it out alive if there's never a hint that the writer might really kill MC off.

Ending a chapter or episode with a OMG, what's going to happen next glimpse of suspense and then not capitalizing on it with the opening of the next is a big wasted opportunity for tension.

Making me hate a character and think he's the biggest ass in the universe then making me care about him by slowly revealing back story is a great way to sink your claws into a reader, but it's best to give me someone else to care about along the way or I'm going to fling the book into the fire before I get to the caring part.

Creating original characters in an established universe filled with years of hundreds of established characters seems impossible. If I find myself having the urge to include an unnumbered host of 'red-shirts' who will die or drift off with no direct impact on the rest of the characters, a techie who can fix anything once given a time limit to impending death, a commanding officer with repeated confidence issues, and/or a token awkward but brilliant kid looking for love, I shall flog myself and remember what I have learned.

Oh hallelujah!

The most wonderful news has just come to me (oddly enough in one of those tiny ads on the sidebar on facebook that grabbed my attention and whacked it over the head with a stick). George R.R. Martin's long awaited (five years in this case is long, trust me) book, A Dance with Dragons has an official release date of July 12, 2011! Really, there aren't enough exclamations points to express my excitement level right now. I've been waiting so long. Now, not only do we have the Game of Thrones coming to HBO this April, we have a new book to read!

This means I shall fling my TBR pile aside and dive back into the series to refresh myself in time for the new book's arrival. Goodbye work and family, I'll be back in a four thousand pages.

The Employer: Get your copy now!

My short story The Employer is now available in the spring issue of The First Line. Stop by in the next thirteen days and get a free pdf copy in honor of their thirteen year anniversary! Print copies are also available for purchase.

Sam has a job to do. Unfortunately, that means he's been stuck in a cave, serving a bloodthirsty dragon for the past two years. He's watched the dragon eat countless innocent people and he's filled inventory books with pages of tribute brought to appease the fire-breathing terror. Through it all, he's served his boss with devotion. But when supplicants start spouting off an odd phrase, Sam's loyalty is truly put to the test.

TBR pile: The Marriage Spell

I seem to be on a TBR pile conquering roll. Honestly, I think it's just my addictive nature toying with me after finishing all the seasons of Stargate Atlantis and now having to restrain myself to only watching Farscape episodes with my kids as part of my effort to share my love of sci-fi with them.

After an afternoon of cross country skiing--my first try at that behind busting (in more ways than one) endeavor-- with my kids, my sore body informed me that a long hot bath was in order. Long hot baths call for a book. That's where Mary Jo Putney's The Marriage Spell comes in.

A paranormal romance set in England sounded like a fun read. Wizards abound, both talented and not so much, but all are held in disdain by the snobby and politically powerful people of the upper class. When a lonely female healer wizard asks for marriage as payment for healing a mortally wounded Lord, he agrees rather than face death. As he falls in love with her he discovers he's a wizard too and now they must face a hostile society while he takes his place as Lord of his land.

As a reader, I found the book to be a lighthearted, quick read. It was also easy. Too easy for my taste. There's no thought involved in following along. There's conflict but everything is solved in a few pages and the characters, while endearing, happily barrel on to the next part of the plot.

The romance side of things was done well enough, sweet with a few warm fuzzy moments tossed in. The one thing I did applaud was the use of the title, which turned out to have a revealed meaning more literal than I'd first suspected. If you're looking for a romance read for a mindless day, this book may be for you.

As a writer, this was a major lesson in tension, or lack thereof. This book clearly illustrates that we can go far too easy on our characters. While full of what could have been tension filled scenes, they moved too quick and the solutions were too obvious to convey any real sense of danger, threat or heartpounding 'oh my god, what is going to happen next/how will they get out of this situation?' moments. There was a vague overall plot goal, but it felt more like the characters were bumbling about from one subplot to the next more often than not.

Characters spent the first half of the book not asking each other obvious questions that they logically should have asked, didn't share information with each other for random reasons that seemed darned hollow, or just never happened to though there was plenty of opportunity for conversation. Those lost opporutnities would have increased the tension level or avoided misunderstandings that led to weak plot moments.

On the plus side, this book was a breath of fresh air in the atypical female main character. She wasn't tiny, skinny, petite, beautiful, full of charm, had the waist the size of a starved twelve year old, got lost in her husband's embrace, or was snarky for the sake of having a contrary, spoiled or perky personality. She was a normal woman, of average beauty with normal doubts and a personality to match. While everyone in this book seemed to suffer from a lack of confidence in some manner of their personality, I did enjoy her character enough to see the book to the last page.

Would I read this book again? No, but I'd be willing to give the author another chance because even my favorites have a weak novel now and then.

Another TBR pile selection down

My husband and I have been watching the Tudors as time allows (all hail Netflix) and so when I reached into my TBR pile again, I aimed for Phillpa Gregory's The Constant Princess. I've always enjoyed reading about this time period and vastly enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl. This book features the story of Katherine of Aragon, the flip side of the Boleyn story.

This beautifully told tragic tale rekindled my love for Gregory's books. No need to throw the book against the wall or start any fires this time around. If only high school would have taught history with historical fiction, I would have paid so much more attention. This book chronicles the lift of Katherine from childhood as the Princess of Wales to her quest to become Queen of England. The utter certainty of her character, conviction beyond what anyone else can understand, puts this strong woman on the throne where she belongs.

As a reader, I loved, loved, loved this book. The strength of character, so artfully portrayed is amazing. Having been thoroughly introduced to Katherine, I can now only wonder how different things would have been if spoiled, selfish Henry hadn't put her aside. Gregory's solution to the question of Katherine's actual relations with her first husband, Arthur, seems a logical one and plays into the princess's ambition to become queen.

I would recommend this book to anyone currently watching the Tudors. While Katherine is portrayed as a solid and devout force to reckon with on the show, we're given little hint as to what she had to endure to get to the throne and exactly why the people love her so much. This knowledge makes her battle against the corrupt church, her husband and the woman who wants her throne so much more tragic.

As a writer, this book is a excellent example of how to portray a sympathetic, loving, yet utterly strong and determined female character. It also illustrates why it is a bad idea to have pages of italic text (hard on the eyes) and convey thoughts with quotes (so very confusing!), especially within dialogue heavy sections of the book. The title caught my eye right away and when the first use of it came up in the book, I stopped to appreciate the 'ah ha' moment. Then it was used again, and again, and again... my head hurt from the anvils raining from the sky by the time I'd finished the book. Those little things didn't diminish the love factor, though, I'd certainly read this one again.

Venturing into the TBR pile

It's been awhile since I've picked up a book for fun, mostly because I get a little out of control when I go on a reading binge. I stay up far too late, work doesn't get done, writing doesn't happen, dinner gets burned, and I'm late for everything. Just one more page. One more, and I promise I'll put it down. Yeah, right.

My TBR pile has been steadily growing and I needed to do something about it, so being around Valentine's Day and all, I allowed myself to dip into the romance pile. My hand landed on the guilty pleasure of Christine Feehan's Lair of the Lion.

I've read many of her other books, mostly of the Dark Series, and had found them enjoyable, but perhaps a bit formulaic when read too closely together. Still, the perfect book for a glass of wine and a long, hot bubble bath kind of night. Lair of the Lion was a nice change. Still sensual but without vampires of any variety. It's a twist on the Beauty and the Beast type tale with a gothic edge.

As a reader, the level of romance was satisfying and the curse to be broken led me through a fulfilling mystery. There were even a few twists I totally didn't see coming, which I always appreciate.

As a writer, the repetition of description of the characters got on my nerves. The word 'strange' was used far too many times to describe the mysterious male MC's eyes and hair. The ending of the mystery felt slightly rushed, but the romance side of the plotline ended on the perfect note, full of character and without any of the dreaded overdose of HEA-happy-sparkly-rainbows-of-eye-rolling-gag-me. On the plus side, the book illustrates a good balance of incorporating enough foreign language to offer flavor without confusion or overdoing it.

The waiting game

We write. We bleed on the pages. We wipe up the blood, format correctly and research our markets. We submit.

We wait.

We check email. We write. We check email. We go to work. We come home. We check email. We decree that we hate waiting.

We check average response times and discover we have a long time to wait. We sigh and write.

We fear rejection, but check email anyway. We feel positive, uplifted, because we had a good day, so we check email. We decree that we hate empty inboxes.

We check market websites. Responses have gone out. We check email. We sigh and write.

Days go by and the inbox remains empty. This just can't be right. We check email. It occurs to us, with a sense of dread, quelled by a sudden rush of utter optimism, murdered quickly by the second flood of dread, that we've not checked the spam folder in quite some time. We check the spam folder.

Rejected way back on day two. We decree that we hate the spam folder.

We write.

From steamroller casualty to acceptance

I am utterly pleased to announce that my short story, "The Employer", has been accepted to The First Line magazine. The steamrollers have been vanquished and a gold star has been plunked on the top of my paper.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who critiqued this story. Your suggestions made it shine. As this story was part of my November writing frenzy, I can finally say that something I wrote during NaNoWriMo has become something worthwhile!

The Employer is the third story I've written for this magazine. The first two didn't make the cut. I was drawn the idea of the first line prompt and find them quite inspiring. It's one of those shove the prompt in the back of your head, percolate it for awhile and see what the old twisted mind comes up with things. Since they post the prompts for the year well in advance, there's plenty of time to ponder.

Not only do you have to write a story that hasn't been done a billion times, you have to start it with the same first line as everyone else. The trick is to think outside the box that all the other bunches of outside-the-box-thinking creative people are thinking outside of when they read that first line. Now, if that doesn't make your head hurt, you should go write down whatever just popped into your head, because its sure to be something you can work with.

The Battle of Snowman Hill

The neighbors might have thought me slightly deranged as I wandered amidst the hastily build snowmen with a paintbrush, but really, it's nothing new. Winter has brought penguins, dogs and dragons to my yard in the past, so why not a snowman battle?

It might have been the cold medicine, or perhaps a hope to engage my laptop bound son in an outdoor activity, but the snow was right and the temperature just above freezing so I indulged my creative urges. Bundled up and fortified with hearty Sunday lunch, I headed out into the front yard.

Why not the back yard? Because my son spent about five minutes outside, not helping, and I wanted him to have a good view of what he missing out on as he sat on the couch with his laptop in the warm comfort of our home.

My daughter helped instead. Which was nice, but she's much smaller and my cold wracked lungs were well worn out by the time I'd rolled most of the six snowmen's bodies, traipsed through the previously unmarred feet of snow in the backyard to the woods at the back of our property for appendages, and slopped all of the snowmen together. But she was having a merry time gathering icicle weapons for them and I was gaining good mommy points by the minute, so I persevered.

For the record, paint doesn't last long, not in the form you first paint it anyway. Good thing I grabbed the camera the moment we were done because they're faces lost all definition within ten minutes. The blood spread nicely though. Yep, snow men bleed red. Who knew?

Fanfic attack

Ms. Wildstar nods toward the young man who has paused up the paperwad-lined path to examine an excerpt. "When did we drop into a western?"

Xander cocks his head and takes in the sight of the native american man in dusty, well-worn pants, shirt, vest and obligatory cowboy boots. "No idea. What the hell is a western?"

"Sorry, I forgot you've never technically been to Earth." Ms. Wildstar's brow furrows. "But we're on Earth, so you have. But your character hasn't, but you are right now... and you are your character." She rubs her temples. "All this thinking hurts."

Nekar slips out of the shadows. "I don't care where he's from. Does he have any weapons? These Barthromian slingshots are worthless."

"I think he has a knife. Maybe a gun." Xander sighs. "Probably only has a few bullets though. Look at him, he's got nowhere to store ammo."

"He's got pretty long, black hair. I want to go run my fingers through it." Ms. Wildstar smiles dreamily.

Nekar rips the adverb from her lips. "We don't even know this guy. Besides, I thought you were seeing Xander."

"Yeah. I thought so too." Xander glares at the wistfully gazing young woman beside him.

"But, but, he's so handsome and wild and can't you just see the social angst and emotional baggage he's carrying? I must go soothe him." She runs toward him like a horrible cliche about magnets being drawn together.

"I need to pack more emotional baggage," Xander mumbles to himself.

"Wouldn't help." Marin jumps down from a nearby pile of paper.

Nekar whips out his slingshot. "I thought you were dead."

"Hardly. Just forgotten about for awhile." He laughs at the slingshot. "No need for that. I'm just here to conveniently deliver some infodump."

"Oh. In that case, carry on." Nekar puts his slingshot away.

"Our dear creator..."

"She's making you say that, isn't she?"

Marin nods and plows on as if he can't stop. "Went through a fanfic writing binge a few years ago. I ran into that fellow in my adventure behind the desk. Must have taken him all this time to amble--those western folks like to amble, meander, and wander, you know--out here from the black void. He taught me the ways of the dustbunnies that allowed me to escape mostly unharmed. Though there's this nervous twitch thing...

A thunderous racket blasts from the almighty desktop.

"Right, moving on. She found that playing with an established world and characters allowed her to concentrate on improving other aspects of her writing, such as believable dialogue, conveying a setting, incorporating senses, and experimenting with short stories since she'd really only written novels before."

Xander leaps back into the conversation before Marin can draw another deep breath. "But if he came from a fanfic, why is he here?"

"Oh, he's not from the fanfic." Marin laughs wickedly. "He's an original character created by that thunder making puppeteer up there when she considered turning one of her fanfics into an original piece. It didn't pan out so she chalked it up to a learning experience and abandoned the project after the first chapter."

Nekar sees his own terror reflected on Xander's face. "But that means he's an incomplete character and he's been wandering around here for over a year. He's a zombie!"

"Yes, he is." Marin laughs in assorted evil adverbial ways. He leaps back up onto the paper pile and disappears.

Ms. Wildstar reaches out to pet the newcomer's hair. He turns to her, revealing vacant eyes and a seductive smile. She screams.

to be continued...

Vlog excerpt: Not Another Bard's Tale

Today, we have a special treat. Elena over at You're write. Except when you're Rong, has posted a vlog excerpt of my WIP, Not Another Bard's Tale.

Lying about defeating a dragon will come back to bite you, literally.

Bruce Gawain, knight of questionable reknown, sets off to the wall of Nok to retrieve a stolen jewel and free a village from a hungry dragon's fury. In order to finance his quest, Bruce travels with the sword-brearing Olga and her curvaceous sister, Svety, chosen one of the Sheep God. They journey to Gambreland to stake out prospective locations for Svety's Holy Mutton serving Inns, save the country by reuiniting an over-achieving Evil Overlord with his long lost son, and find the dragon's stolen treasure before it eats everyone in the village.

This NaNo Novel from 2008 is the product of my efforts to have fun with as many of the items from The Fantasy Novelist's Exam as possible with the intent to end up with a coherent story. As you see by the WIP status, that's still up for debate, but I had a darn good time writing it.

Elena did a great job picking up on the silly humor of the piece. I hope you enjoy the opening scene.


If you'd like to see your excerpt brought to life, fly your dragon over to Elena's blog.

When the angels don't sing

After a reasonably productive week of tweaking two of my short stories and sending them into submission land, I'm gearing up to get the next two ready to go. Seems I've gotten a bit lax with my submission juggling. More like I dropped all the balls and let them gather a warm coat of dust.

In wandering over one of these dusty short stories, I discovered that it just didn't quite click for me. Something isn't quite there yet. It's been through a brief round of critiquing and it was sent out into the wide world twice, but found its way back home. Darn you, trail of bread crumbs!

I like this story. It was something different for me, as I tend to write more male pov and its one of my very few fantasy shorts. I've edited, revised, tweaked, reread ten times but that certain angels singing 'Yes, this is it!' feeling I get when I'm ready to send a story out is eluding me. I'm hoping my wonderful critique group can point me in the right direction.

Children of the Leaves - When Hemina's body and her tree dwelling people are attacked by a God in need of a phsyical form, she finds that her Goddess is missing and someone has to take up the slack.

Special Guest: Chrystalla Thoma

I am very excited to announce that we have a special guest today! All the way from Cyprus, please welcome author, Chrystalla Thoma.

Jean: Hi Chrystalla. Welcome. Can you tell us a few things about yourself?

Chrys: Well, I’m Greek. *allows time for the appropriate bouzouki music to start playing and handsome Greek men to dance and smash plates* I come from Cyprus, an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, right underneath Turkey, above Egypt, and next to Syria and Lebanon. Which makes for an interesting culinary and musical culture – oriental pop, rock and Greek music, mousaka and taramosalata and hummus!

Jean: The closest I get to anything Greek is the occasional gyro or baklava binge, but handsome, plate-breaking men sounds very enticing.

Most authors love cats and live in remote houses. Are you like that, too?

Chrys: I own no cats and no house – but I do have a hybrid energy car (a Toyota Prius)! I possess herds of wild books that graze on my shelves and floor, and I’m married to the best husband in the whole world, imported from the tropics of Costa Rica. *waves at Carlos* I have lived for some years in France, England and Germany, and am now immune to foreign (i.e. non Greek) cooking. *g* As a world traveler, I am definitely a typical author.

Jean: Excuse me a moment while I protect my discarded characters from your wandering herd of wild books. While I do that, why don't you tell me about your upcoming book?

Chrys: “Dioscuri” is a modern, urban fantasy version of the ancient Greek myth. Dioscuri was the name given to the twin brothers Kastor and Polydeukes, Zeus’ sons with Leda, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal. Zeus mated with Leda in the form of a swan and she gave birth to two eggs. When they cracked, the Dioscuri emerged, along with Helen the Beautiful, the very same who allegedly caused the downfall of Troy…

Jean: I see. Break the eggs to make a story… Where is the story set? What happens?

Chrys: The ancient gods have woken again in Athens, and there is war. The two brothers fight against the monsters. When the mortal brother, Kastor, dies in battle, his immortal sibling Polydeukes takes things in his own hands and makes a dark deal with the Underworld. A deal Zeus will sooner or later discover and all hell will break loose.

Jean: *shudder* I've studied enough Greek Mythology to know that deceiving Zeus is never a good idea. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

Chrys: “Dioscuri” is coming out with MuseItUp Publishing in March 2011. You can find me and my stories here: http://museituppublishing.com/musepub/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91&Itemid=82

You can follow my ramblings about Greekness and mythology and about my stories here:
http://chrystallathoma.wordpress.com/

Thank you for having me here!

Jean: Of course, anytime! My host of discarded characters thanks you for not stepping on them during your visit.

If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading any of Chrystalla’s work, head on over to her blog and get started. My personal favorite is World of Shells. I think of that story every time I look at my daughter's hermit crabs.

Thank you for visiting, Chrystalla. Keep those great stories coming!

Relaxing

Yes, yes, I'm writing and all that, but I'm also trying to relax more this year. You know, keeping that crazy superwoman six feet underground. So far, I've been fairly sucessful.

I've found joy in critiquing again. After a thousand some crits in three years, I was getting a smidge burnt out. I stepped back last October and took a few months off. That felt darn good. Now, I'm getting back into sharing the writing wealth, reading some great stories, flogging people with rubber ducks (its a long story) and meeting writers I've not worked with before. So far, I've avoided overcommiting myself in that regard. So far.

Writing has been slow, but I've just about go my second short ready to spring into submissionland. Which is good, since that one has a January 30th cut off. Novel work is on hold at the moment during operation re-freakin-lax.

So what the heck have I been doing? Watching tv. I don't do that very often, but my evil husband signed us up for Netflix. Evil Netflix has full seasons of my favorite, long-lost tv shows. Call it reenergizing the creative juices.

My mornings are filled with episodes of Stargate Atlantis. Evening brings an episodes of Earth 2 shared with my children, which is perfect for introducing kids to Sci-fi--very famly friendly compared to much of what is out there currently. Next up in the queue: FarScape.

What a better thing to share with my kids, than my love of sci-fi tv? I have to bring them over to the geek side before they get too exicited by friends and teen stuff. I don't have much time left.

What are your favorite sci-fi shows?

Only ten days left!

All this month, Elena over at Your Write. Except when your Rong, is holding contest wherein you must write a 100 word sentence in the hopes of winning $100. The amount of the prize depends on the number of participants.

So far we're all in the running for $24. Come on people. Someone wants to win big. Join us. You know you want to spew out a hundred word monster setence too!

Check out the link above for all the current entries and visit some great writer's blogs. You just might find some new procrastination destinations... err... blogs to follow.

My 100 word offering:

Gentle blue waves lapped against Ciralia’s pale shoulders as she fluttered her long, slender arms around her in order to maintain her view of the great wooden ship with its crew of dirty, land-dwelling, dark-skinned men who were running to and fro with buckets on long ropes, throwing water on the bright orange fires that licked hungrily at the sun-drenched timbers, spreading and growing faster as if mocking their futile efforts, and she smiled knowing that their beautiful white bones would soon adorn her underwater kingdom far below the glittering surface that men foolishly claimed as part of their realm.

Things I learned by hosting a book drive

You may have caught wind of the worldwide bookdrive to benefit National Novel Writing Month that took place last October through December.

My region managed to gather roughly 2,200 books. After typing in all the ISBNs of the books recent enough to have them, about 600 were accepted to Better World Books, who will be selling our donated books on behalf of The Office of Letters and Light . A percentage of those sales will go to fund their writing programs, including NaNoWriMo. The rest of our books will be sold in a local book sale (happening in my garage) this spring. The proceeds will go toward our regional donation to OLL next NaNo season.

As the bookdriver for our region, I learned some interesting things about books, subjectivity and love.

1. Asking writers to give up their books, even for a good cause, is like asking them to pull their own teeth.

2. When picking books to donate, I discovered my bookshelves were subconsciously divided into three areas. Nostalgia (top shelf): books I keep for the memories. Love: books I will read over and over or are of a series I loyally follow. Storage (bottom shelf): books I will not read again, but I haven't found another home for.

3. There are books that many people buy and read because they are popular. I have a lot of them in my garage right now (a lot of the same books, I might add). Popular does not equal love.

4. I currently have 1,600 books in my garage just sitting there until spring that I can read. Awesome! Not that I have the time, but still...

5. Of those 1,600 books, about 10 looked interesting at first glance. That rather reminded me of this 'subjectivity' thing that we're always getting harped on about by agents and editors. The 'not right for me' phrase went through my head 1,590 times as I picked up each book to scan it. I wasn't skimming bookshelves, with only a spine to attract my attention. I had each book in my hand and had to turn it over (and, of course, spend a couple seconds skimming the blurb by habit) to locate the elusive ISBN number. I got a good look at every title and cover. Still, 1,590 books were not for me--sadly a good third of them were even genres I regularly read. And these are published books, with every tool available to grab my attention. Don't worry lonely novel submission, I love you.

6. I discovered that even if the book is free and sitting in my hands, I will very likely overlook a new author, interesting cover, snappy title and possibly awesome back cover blurb because I'm looking for names I know and trust to deliver a good story. Damn. That doesn't bode well for most of us, does it?

7. Book Regret. People will donate books and then realize they miss them and want them back. Awww. Love.

8. A room full of used books smells far more pleasing than a room filled with used clothes.

9. People leave things in books, including book marks. Lots and lots of bookmarks. Many of those were mid-book. Does this mean the reader never finshed reading? We'll never know. The most unusual thing I found was a photo of ice. It may have been an ice cave, it was hard to tell.

10. If you tell people about a book drive and remind them as often as politely possible (in person, by email, and by handing them flyers) for two and half months, some of them will follow through and deliver. However, there will always be one or two that pop up two weeks after the fact and announce they could get piles of books if they were given a few more weeks/months. Procrastination at its finest.

Thanks to all who donated! If you're looking for good books, check out Better World Books. They offer free shipping worldwide, have a huge selection, and support many non-profit literary organizations, including my favorite, NaNoWriMo. :)

To paint or write

In admiring Ian's paintings over at Views from the Bald Patch, I was urged to post some artwork of my own. I must admit that I put my painting supplies away almost twenty years ago, the oil sort anyway.

Way back in high school (we won't talk about how many years ago that was), my creative writing teacher wanted me to pursue creative writing. My art teacher wanted me to pursue art. I did my best to make both of them happy, drawing pictures for the school creative writing book and doing some writing for it.

Then there came an arts contest. All entrants could only enter one category. I could write or I could paint. Darn it. Both teachers tried their best to sway me to their cause. It came down to the fact that I personally liked my art teacher more. I painted.

I had a thing for fantastical peacocks at the time

(that floated on backgrounds and had absolutely no contact with the foreground)

I, along with the other involved students, went to the art show. I distinctly remember it being a long, awkward ride to some college in a car with my guidance counselor (our chaparone), his wife, and three other students. None of us won anything, but we all got a certificate. I have no idea where that certificate is now, but I still have my painting. It currently resides in the back of my husband's closet where it won't haunt me with the idea that perhaps I should have written something instead of painted.

It's not all sad though, I did enjoy many years of staining my carpet and clothing with paint after high school, and I still enjoy painting things, just not on canvas.

Christmas ornaments

Gargoyles

and Fairies, amongst other things.

A productive weekend

My traffic cone, duct tape and chainsaw session finally wrapped up last night, but I came through with a finished short story that should be steamroller free. The Employer is a hopefully somewhat humorous fantasy tale about Sam and one of the worst jobs I could imagine. You know, if I were stuck in a medievalish fantasy setting.

Sam has a job to do. Unfortunately, that means he's been stuck in a cave, serving a bloodthirsty dragon for the past two years. He's watched the dragon eat countless innocent people and he's filled inventory books with pages and pages of tribute brought to appease the fire-breathing terror. Through it all, he's served his boss with devotion. But when supplicants start spouting off an odd phrase, Sam's loyalty is truly put to the test.

What's the worst job you can think of if you were stuck in a medievalish fantasy setting? Yeah, I pretty much wanted to say medievalish again. I'm happy now. Carry on.

Houston, we have a problem

My entry for the 100 words for $100 blogfest is here

Don't you just hate when you write a story and think it's great, only to read it a month later and realize it doesn't work at all? Ok, maybe you like when that happens. Each to his own. Personally, I hate it, and it just happened to me.

The second short story I wrote during NaNoWriMo should have been released to the critique hounds last week. I was on track for that to happen, busy rewriting here and there and getting rid of the general NaNo issues that come with vomiting a story onto a page in the midst of a ten hour, sugar and caffine infused write-in. Then that fatal moment came.

Three quarters of the way into the story, I realized that the twist I'd prided myself on fell flat. Not just flat, but run over by four lanes of highway filled with steamrollers flat.

This realization sucked, to say the least.

What sucked almost equally was that when double-checking the guidelines for the publication I'd planned to send this to, I discovered I also had to cut at least 850 words. And the tone was a dreadfully confused mix of dark humor and just plain dark. Oh, and the submission cut off is the end of the month.

Good thing I work best under pressure. Now I'm off round up my chainsaw, duct tape, and trusty stack of traffic cones. I'm not giving up on this one yet.

But mom, they're only eight dollars

My entry for the 100 words for $100 blogfest is here

When my eight year old daughter announced that she'd love to get a hermit crab, I smiled and nodded. Like most childhood yearnings, I figured the love would pass if I gave it a little time. After all, we already have a dog and fish, and she has her own aquarium full of fish in her already cramped room.

Then, this year, she ended up getting her first grade teacher, the one that had introduced her to hermit crabs, as her third grade teacher. While this teacher no longer has the hermit crabs, I was persuaded to inquire as to the care and expense of those little shelled beasties. I was told it was easy, they were cheap and didn't smell. "Don't smell" almost sold me. However, I knew from my son's yearning for an anole (now dearly departed) at the same age, that I'd be the one that very likely ended up taking care of the new creature. I really didn't need more creatures to care for.

We wandered into pet stores over the months to pick up dog and fish supplies. Each time, I'd find her peering into the hermit crab tank.

"But mom, they're only eight dollars. I have eight dollars. Can I get one? Please, please, please?"

"No."

For her birthday, she asked for a hermit crab. She didn't get one. Months passed. For Christmas, she asked for a hermit crab. Oh, fine. After all, we already had a vacant ten gallon aquarium and greenery left from our anole adventure. How much more could an eight dollar hermit crab need?

December found me on covert missions to the pet store to price out supplies. I cleaned out our tank and santized it. I cleaned the greenery, climbing log, spray bottle and requiste, shallow stone bowl that had been up in the attic. I purchased a pre-boxed hermit crab kit for $24. Awesome. We're done.

I put everything in the tank, wrap it up all pretty and hide it in my bedroom.

Two days later, it occurs to me that this preboxed kit doesn't include the dirt all the care sheets say they need. I go back to the pet store. Hermit crab soil, $3. Oh, and they need a salt water bowl too, $8. And the sand included in the pre-boxed kit is sized for a tiny plastic tank. I'll need more, $8. They like coconut houses to hide under, $6. That's gotta be all I need. Right?

I sneak all my new stuff in the house, discreetly open the wrapping paper, put the new purchases inside and hide it in the bedroom.

Four days before Christmas it occurs to me that opening an empty tank isn't all that exciting and pet stores will be closed on Christmas. Then I envision getting to the pet store only to find they are sold out of the hermit crabs and my daughter crying. I should really get a hermit crab right now. I sigh, go back to pet store and get the $8 hermit crab. As I'm standing in line, I realize that I don't have anything for top of the tank. Duh. $12 for a screen top.

I creep back into the house, sneak into the attic to get our former cricket keeper container and run to my bedroom. I again open the wrapping paper, put the new top on the tank and close it up. Then I figure out that I'll need the dirt now for the crab to live in while we wait for Christmas. And the food. I bite back a scream, open the wrapping paper again, locate the required items and then hide the crab behind some stuff on my dresser and the tank with the other hidden presents.

Christmas morning finally comes. Squeals of delight fill the house as my daughter opens her hermit crab tank, and then box containing the crab which is soon named 'Shelly'. The tank is gleefully set up. Shelly is released. Hooray!

The next morning I am informed that, "Shelly is lonely. The care instructions say they like friends. I still have $8, can we go pick out a friend?"

At this point, everything is set up and she's got the $8. I shrug. The pet store people about know me by name now. "Sure, why not?"

The pet store only has two crabs left to choose from. She picks a rainbow shelled crab, soon to be named, 'Wiggly'.

I notice that the tank we get the crab from is nice and warm. I remember reading that humidity is important and our house is incredibly dry. If we want healthy, happy crabs, we'll need a heater. The ten gallon sized heater is $24. I bow my head and take a deep breath.

"Mom, look! We need to get a pretty shell in case they want to change shells."

Of course we do. Spare shell, $3.

"Mom, do we have salt water? The ones in the tank do."

I'd remembered to buy the bowl for the salt water, but not the solution to make it. Yet another smack the forehead moment. Bottle of salt water, $4.

"I don't think they like the powder food we have. Shelly didn't touch it."

Shelly hadn't touched it in five days. I had to agree. Bottle of pellet hermit crab food, $5. The misting bottle we had was also missing its spring and no longer sprayed. New misting bottle, $5.

$110 later, I have two happy hermit crabs, one ecstatic daughter, and I am duly reminded that nothing ever costs "only eight dollars."

100 words for $100

All this month, Elena over at Your Write. Except when your Rong, is holding contest wherein you must write a 100 word sentence in the hopes of winning $100. The amount of the prize depends on the number of participants, so write your monster sentence and join in!

And so, without further ado, I offer you my effort at a remotely coherent one hundred word sentence. Take a deep breath. Go.

Gentle blue waves lapped against Ciralia’s pale shoulders as she fluttered her long, slender arms around her in order to maintain her view of the great wooden ship with its crew of dirty, land-dwelling, dark-skinned men who were running to and fro with buckets on long ropes, throwing water on the bright orange fires that licked hungrily at the sun-drenched timbers, spreading and growing faster as if mocking their futile efforts, and she smiled knowing that their beautiful white bones would soon adorn her underwater kingdom far below the glittering surface that men foolishly claimed as part of their realm.