E Louise Bates

Winner!

2012-03-07T07:39:00.000-05:00

And the winner of the Rising:Resistance giveaway (chosen by a highly scientific method of having my kids draw numbers to narrow it down to two, and then making my husband take a break from studying Aramaic to pick the final choice) is ...

Kirsten Lopresti!

Congratulations, Kirsten! I'll try to get the book emailed to you today. I hope you love it!

Thank you to everyone who entered.

Lessons

2012-03-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

WARNING: This post has nothing to do with writing. It is, in fact, mostly bragging on my kid. Because along with being a writer, I'm a MOM, and occasional bragging on my kid goes with the territory.

These two pictures were taken the first time Joy was on the ice. She made either me or my sister carry her the ENTIRE time. Granted, she was a tiny three-year-old at the time, but still, we were SORE the next morning. She has loved watching ice skating with me ever since she was a little baby, but the reality of stepping on the ice scared her to death.

This was her third time on the ice. She didn't even want to hold my hand by then! She also insisted I show her how to bunny hop. No fear at all, and even the few times she fell, she laughed.

photo by lis hurlbut

First time on single-bladed skates, showing her sister how it's done.

And THIS is from her first day of Snowplow Sam (that's the lowest level of skating classes from the United States Figure Skating Association, by the way) in January.

And THIS is last Sunday, when she brought home a certificate stating that she'd passed all of Snowplow Sam, and is ready to start Basic 1 in the fall!

Not bad, for a little over a year. Her first-ever skating show is this Sunday, and my parents, Carl's mom, my sister and brother-in-law, and possibly Carl's sister are all coming out to watch and cheer her on. It's not just about the skating, it's about finding something she loves, overcoming her fears about it, and excelling at it.

Hmm, maybe there really IS something in here applicable to writing after all ...

Hey, have you entered the giveaway yet? If not, go, enter! What are you waiting for?

Rising: Resistance (and a giveaway!)

2012-02-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

Rising: Resistance

by Laura Josephsen

All Alphonse wants is a quiet summer at home before his final months at university. What he gets is a half-dead stranger on his doorstep and the task of delivering a package to the leader of his home country. Not long after he boards a train toward the capital, he's attacked by knights, elite soldiers of the neighboring king.

Alphonse is temporarily rescued by Mairwyn, a mechanic with a haunted past and a deep hatred of knights. Together, they attempt to carry out Alphonse's urgent errand, only to learn that if they fail, countless people will die.

And even if they succeed, they may not be able to prevent the war that lurks on the horizon.

I don't even remember, now, how I first stumbled on Laura's blog. I think maybe she had left a comment on Patricia C Wrede's blog that caught my eye? (Was that you, Laura, or am I thinking of someone else?)

At any rate, when her book Confessions of the Underworld (Otherwise Known as High School) came out, I eagerly bought it, and loved it. So when she offered me the chance to read an advance copy of Rising: Resistance, I didn't hesitate, already trusting her writing enough to know it would be good.

And it was. It was nothing at all like Confessions, even aside from the difference in genres. But it was so, so good in its own right, standing on its own merits. It certainly wasn't a light read; while there was a great deal of humor in it, it also tackled some pretty weighty stuff. Laura has talked on her blog about the difficulty of putting her characters through dark places, and after reading Resistance, I understand a little better. The important thing is, though, that her characters grow through these hard times, and even though the reader gets put through the wringer right along with them, we get to grow and develop, too.

And that's what makes a book truly stand out from the crowd, isn't it? When you, the reader, get to become a little bit of a better person, a more whole person, just by reading it. And that doesn't always happen just through tragedy - goodness knows many of the comedic books I've read have suddenly stretched me here and there before I know it. Any book that makes you care more about other human beings, about searching out deeper truths and living for something beyond yourself, is a great book.

Which is why I'm offering a giveaway (my first ever giveaway on this blog!) of an e-book edition of Rising: Resistance to one reader. Just leave a comment with a valid email address by 12:00am EST next Tuesday (March 7th), and I will randomly pick one commenter to win it. That's it! No hoops to jump through - no requirements to follow this blog, Tweet about this giveaway, or anything like that (though, of course, if you want to do any of those things, I won't stand in your way).

Good luck, and happy reading!

Should you not win the giveaway, you can buy Rising: Resistance by following any of these links:

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Paperback

Nook at Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

or check it out at

Goodreads

Transition

2012-02-26T08:25:00.004-05:00

I'm usually not good at transitions - you know, the "they walked through the woods for days. Then the adventure started again" type of phrases. I always feel like I have to fill in every detail, or I'm cheating.

But I'm getting better, and since I had to cover a four-year gap in the middle of a chapter of my Celtic MG/YA, I really needed to be concise.

This right here is quite possibly my favorite out of all the transition phrases I've ever written:

Life continued to be mildly not-fair for the next four years, at which point it took, in Cadi’s opinion anyway, a flying leap into monstrously unfair.

I'm not sure if I'll actually keep it in the final draft or if I'll end up editing it out due to it having a slightly different tone than the rest of the chapter - but for now, I'm just quite tickled over it.

How do you handle transitions?

Announcing RISING

2012-02-21T07:30:00.000-05:00

RISING

by Laura Josephsen

All Alphonse wants is a quiet summer at home before his final months at university. What he gets is a half-dead stranger on his doorstep and the task of delivering a package to the leader of his home country. Not long after he boards a train toward the capital, he's attacked by knights, elite soldiers of the neighboring king. Alphonse is temporarily rescued by Mairwyn, a mechanic with a haunted past and a deep hatred of knights. Together, they attempt to carry out Alphonse's urgent errand, only to learn that if they fail, countless people will die. And even if they succeed, they may not be able to prevent the war that lurks on the horizon.

I am so excited to let you all know about this book! Laura sent me an early copy to review, and I loved it. Tore through it in two days, reading while I was fixing supper, when I was supposed to be doing school with Joy, and so on. I just couldn't put it down.

I'm going to be doing a proper review next week - stay tuned for that - but I want to let you all know now that Rising is being released TODAY. Go forth and buy - you won't be disappointed!

Rising on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Book-1-Resistance-ebook/dp/B0079DJ3HC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329351740&sr=8-4

Rising on Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rising-book-1-laura-josephsen/1038667187?ean=2940013930056

Rising on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/132824

Rising on Amazon paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Book-1-Resistance/dp/1469904357/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329773440&sr=1-4

Rituals

2012-02-20T10:25:00.001-05:00

As Carl and I prepared our second pot of loose-leaf tea this morning, we started talking about how drinking tea really does help one get through the winter, which led me to musing about how it is the ritual involved in making tea (especially loose-leaf) that helps as much or even more than simply drinking a hot beverage.

Which led me to thinking about rituals in general, and how useful they are, and how in our quest to make life easier for ourselves, we have lost so many rituals that have helped us see and touch on the deeper meaning in life.

Tea, for one - the act of measuring the tea leaves, warming the pot, heating the water to the proper temperature, steeping for the prescribed time (and if you are fortunate enough to have a clear pot, watching the leaves expand as they steep), and then pouring the tea into your cup is far more work, true, than dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water, but the reward is so much greater.

Or cooking. Yes, it's easier and quicker (and times when it's all one can do) to tear open bags of frozen vegetables and frozen chicken, dump it all into a pot with canned tomato sauce and a can of chicken broth, but I know from experience that it is so much more satisfying to chop fresh vegetables myself, adding them to the pot one at a time, slice up the meat that I cooked myself, use fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce, and my own chicken stock. The ritual of preparing the food myself adds a depth of flavor that cannot come from anything else.

And I do realize that sometimes - often - it's all one can do to do it the easy, quick way. Hey, I keep frozen vegetables in my freezer, tea bags in my cupboard. But if one can make something a ritual, by all means, do so.

I think that applies to writing, as well. I have one story I am attempting to write out longhand. It's driving me distracted. My fingers (and wrists) have been long accustomed to typing: re-training them for long stretches of handwriting is torture. It takes longer, too - and to be perfectly honest, I just don't have that time right now for writing all my stories by hand, first, and then typing them up. So I use the computer for most of my stories, saving only one out for writing by hand. I also keep a journal, so that by choosing (out of necessity) the quicker, easier, more practical path for writing, I don't lose entirely the beauty of the ritual of pen scratching, ink flowing onto paper, hand creating what my mind sees, slowing down and enjoying the act of writing, as well as the result.

Blue February

2012-02-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much chance to think about blogging lately. Between a trip out to Massachusetts to visit Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Carl had been thinking Wheaton or Trinity, but after visiting GCTS, we're pretty sure it's Boston, not Chicago, for us in the next year), sick children, an online defensive driving course to cut our insurance costs, and trying NOT to think about my 30th birthday coming up in less than a month* ...

My head's been whirling. Oh, and I started editing the 1920s adventure-fantasy (that story is in desperate need of a title). Y'know, in my spare time. Which might explain why I'm only crawling through the editing process.

And in the midst of sickness, the littles have been impossibly cranky this month - this week especially they've had me tearing at my hair. Which proves to me that no matter how mild the winter, by the time February rolls around, we're all more than ready for spring. I recognize this crabbiness - it's the winter blues for sure. Joy buried her head in my chest this morning after getting up and refused to open her eyes or mouth for an hour straight, nodding her head when asked if she was sad and shaking it when I asked if she knew why. She's better now, but she still has no idea why she was so miserable this morning. A little while ago Gracie sprawled full length on the hall floor upstairs and gave herself over to wailing, again, for no reason. Winter blues indeed!

Right now the littles are having hot chocolate and I made myself extra-strong coffee; we will attempt kindergarten with Joy and give Gracie her alphabet flash cards to play with later; then they will play in the bathtub longer than they need to get clean; this afternoon I will let them watch their Beatrix Potter video while I attempt to get some writing or editing done - Mummy needs to tend her own needs as well as everyone else's, after all.

How is your February going? Has it been a happy winter for you, or are you ready for spring, too? Do you garden? I'm hoping to start a container garden this year for some veggies and herbs - tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers; thyme, basil, and marjoram. Yum!

*I'm really not freaking out about 30 - 29 was actually a lot harder for me to come to grips with - but it's still a big milestone, and I don't really have time to think about it with everything else right now, so instead I'll just wait until two weeks before and then start thinking about nothing else. Carl, if you're reading this - small birthday gifts every day from March 1st to 14th are perfectly acceptable.

My Story, My Child

2012-02-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

Last night I printed out the first draft of my older-young-adult historical-adventure-fantasy (seriously, don't you think I could pick one genre sometime?) so that I can look at it in physical form and mark it up for the changes I want in the second draft.

As page after page (151 single-spaced, to be exact - oy) flew from the printer, I looked at them and shook my head.

This would be so much easier if it was a collaboration, I thought. I could hand off this draft and the few notes I've already sketched out for needed changes to my writing partner, and sit back and let him or her do this next step. Then I could just polish up his/her work for the next draft!

But even as I thought it, I shook my head. Nope. Not my way. This story is my baby, mineminemine. And while there have been times when I've wished I could hand my kids off to someone, like my parents, for a few years and get them back when they are, say, eight or nine, I always knew in my heart that if a fairy godmother waved her wand and gave me that chance, I wouldn't take it. Even though my parents might do a better job, having had more experience, I still need and want to do the raising myself. It's hard work, and not fun a lot of the time, but the reward is so much greater at the end.

And so it is with my stories. The editing process might not be a lot of fun always, and it is loads more work than getting the initial idea down on paper (or computer), but even if I had the chance, I wouldn't hand it off to someone else to do. For better or for worse, this is my story. Someone else might write it better, but in the end, I am the one who has to tell it, in my own way.

Someday I might do a collaboration project with another writer. And if that happens, I am sure it will be its own uniquely rewarding experience. But for now, for this ms at least, I have to go it alone.

Just as knowing that even if I had the chance I wouldn't let someone else raise my kids (though seriously, if we lived close enough, I would NOT mind at all letting Mom and Dad watch them once a week - could I call them my beta parents?) is part of what makes me a parent, so knowing that this is my story, to tell in my own words, even with all the work involved, is part of what makes me a writer.

The Secret

2012-02-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

I have discovered a secret!

Want to hear it?

It's a good one.

It is ...

How to give your ego a healthy deflating.

What is this trick?

Give your work to someone else - someone honest - to critique.

I sent a couple of short stories to a writer friend yesterday. She sent the first one back covered in notes. Now notice - I am THANKFUL that she did that. So very, very thankful for a true assessment that was also gracious. Because how will I ever improve if I don't know where I'm falling short? And how can I ever hope to get published if my writing is not as tight and clean as possible? So thank you, Andrea, for your meticulous and honest assessment (and also for the kind words at the start about what you liked!). And thank you also for pricking my ego (not that you yourself pricked it - seeing the amount of work still required on something I thought fairly tight pricked it. Just to be clear.).

You see, it's been a little while since I've had anything fit to send to anyone for critiquing. And in that time, I'd been starting to feel pretty good - even safe - about my writing.

I'm not saying I'm suddenly thinking I'm not a good writer - but that I didn't even realize how complacent I was getting about my writing until someone else looked at it.

Self-esteem = good. Complacency = bad.

I know I am a good writer. I also know I can be a better writer. It was that latter part that, without me realizing it, had been starting to slip. And it took a 3000-word story covered in honest (and for the most part very basic grammar and phrasing) corrections to jolt me out of that and remind me that hey, this is real work, lady, and writing cleanly is just as important as creating compelling characters.

So, that is my self-discovery for the week. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some editing to do.

Influences: Susan Cooper

2012-01-24T10:43:00.001-05:00

Susan Cooper has been one of my favorite writers for oh, close to twenty years now, so I was delighted yesterday when looking over the list of ALA winners this year to see that she has been awarded the 2012 Edwards Award for The Dark Is Rising series. (Former winners include Gary Paulsen, Madeleine L'Engle, Lois Lowry, Orson Scott Card, and last year, Terry Pratchett.)

I don't remember exactly how old I was when one of my older friends recommended Cooper to me, but I know I was young enough that Dad read through the books first, just to make sure there wasn't going to be anything in them that would give me nightmares, and also so that he could talk with me about anything that might scare me in them (and why it was Dad who did that with these books, instead of Mom, I'm not exactly sure, because usually Mom was the one who did nightmare-screening for me - but it might have been when she was working, and didn't have as much time, or it might simply have been that Dad thought they looked interesting). Dad liked the first one so much he read the rest of the series for his own enjoyment, not because he was worried for me. I think it's the first series (but certainly not the last) that Dad and I both loved, instead of Mom and I. We also both loved the Arthurian connection - we're kinda both geeks when it comes to King Arthur!

The curious thing, for a nightmare-prone kid like me, is that even though they were eerie and intense, they weren't outright scary. I was certainly creeped out a few times during the reading of them (I think Greenwitch was the creepiest, for me), but not enough to trouble my dreams. I think because good, no matter how beleaguered or desperate, always triumphed in the end, even (and often especially) through the frailty and love of flawed human beings.

And Will. Short, stocky, serious Will, with the enormous loving family and the heavy burden he shouldered so ably. His friendships with Merriman, with Bran, with the Drew children, and within his own family all so different, and drawn so finely.

Merriman himself was my first introduction to a character who was both good and hard, who could be ruthless in his pursuit of the Light. The Light that burns, sometimes, that doesn't have room for softness - now, of course, that idea is commonplace, but at the time, I'd never read anything that showed that goodness doesn't always look good and can, in fact, sometimes look cruel, that looking at the big picture can sometimes mean the details get blurred.

Cooper is another of those writers whose books shaped not just my own writing, but my life. I really can't think of what sort of a writer I would be today were it not for the richness and depth of her stories. She has written many books besides The Dark is Rising series, of course (I bought Victory! for my dad for his birthday a few years ago - another one that we both loved), and I've enjoyed almost all of them, but tDiR has a special place in my heart.

Not to mention, of course, that I hold her and Lloyd Alexander between them directly responsible for my love affair with Wales, that land of magic and mystery and heroism. Which makes me think - maybe this is the year for me to pull out my Welsh language materials that I've had for an embarrassingly long time and get to work teaching myself the language. Maybe I should teach it to Joy and Grace at the same time, we three can learn together!

Or not.

Thrills

2012-01-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

I follow USBSF (United States Bobsled & Skeleton Federation) on Twitter. For a few years when I was a teenager, my dad and I spent almost every winter's weekend volunteering at various sporting events - mostly sliding (bobsled, luge, skeleton) in Lake Placid. I learned to love the sports then, especially skeleton. My favorite event was the one where I had the job of cleaning the sliders' shoes before they went down the track - any debris attached to their spikes could interfere with their starting run, and slow them down or even throw them off. I was so nervous at first that I wasn't going to do it properly, but I soon got the hang of it, and LOVED it - being there at the start with them, feeling all professional, like I was really an important part of things!

(Usually I got stuck with parking lot duty. Important, but boring.)

I even got to clean Jimmy Shea's shoes that competition - now that's not something everyone can say!

As you know, I'm a figure skater. But there is something thrilling about the sliding sports. One of my dreams is to someday go down a track on a skeleton sled. I've seen it with my own eyes - I've heard the whoosh of the runners biting into the ice - I've felt the excitement build at the start of the track as the sliders prepare themselves and then take off - I've been at the bottom when they come in, still buzzed from the adrenaline rush. And yes, I've seen enough crashes to know how dangerous it can be. I don't really care. I still want to try someday, just once.

I remembered that again today when USBSF mentioned about the sleds sounding like bullets going down the track in St Moritz. I replied to them, saying I wanted to experience that someday. They said? Absolutely must try sometime!

I don't look like your typical thrill-seeker, and there's a lot of things I won't try - I'm not even a big fan of roller coasters. But I don't know, something about skeleton, it just makes me want to throw off my inhibitions and toss caution to the wind.

(I also want to do this someday, but both my father and husband panic every time I mention it -

photo courtesy of callaurbanski.com

- so I don't talk about it much anymore.)

Do you have anything on your bucket list that seems out-of-character to people who know you? What do you think it says about us as people, our desire to seek thrills? If I ever do get that chance to ride a skeleton sled, who's coming with me? It'll be AWESOME!

Betraying Your Characters

2012-01-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

I don't usually write book reviews, but occasionally, on Goodreads, I'll leave a review if I really have something that I think is worth saying. Something positive, that is. A lifetime of having "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" ingrained into me prevents me from leaving negative reviews. If I don't like a book, I usually just don't talk about it.

Until the last book I reviewed. I gave it one star, and I left a heartfelt, decidedly un-positive review. Why? What made me feel so strongly about this particular book that I had to say something?

Some people who reviewed it said that the author betrayed her readers, but it wasn't that that left me with such a sour taste in my mouth.

The author betrayed her characters.

This was the third book in a trilogy. She had spent the first two books building up her characters in a certain way, and then, in this final book, she completely ripped them out of their old selves - the ones she still included. Some characters who had been built up in such a way as to expect them to play a major role in this book just faded from the pages. Certain relationships that had been teased at - well, I was going to say that they fizzled, but in fact, they weren't even there. And the characters that did carry over?

They were not themselves.

Not the main character, and not the secondary characters.

And the story? It was flat. I can only imagine because the author had to fight with her characters every step of the way, forcing them to conform to her vision instead of letting them be themselves, and their revenge was to make the story boring.

To me, as a writer, this is one of the worst things you can do - force your characters to act, well, out-of-character. It is a betrayal of them, and ends up being a betrayal of yourself as well, because, of course, the characters have sprung from you.

I make no secret of the fact that all of my stories are character-driven rather than plot-driven. To me, it is the characters that make the plot - people interacting with each other and with events. So perhaps I make a bigger deal of this than it really is. An improbable plot? I can shrug off with a laugh. Wrenching your characters out of themselves and turning them into puppets?

Outrage. Outrage to the point where I'm not sure I'll ever read anything new from this author again, even though I've enjoyed almost all of her other books. If her own characters can't trust her, how can I?

And so I had to vent, even to the point of leaving a negative review (sorry Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and all my aunts and uncles - sometimes you just gotta say something not-nice). (Although you will notice I didn't link to the review - you can find it if you look, but I'm not going to make it too easy. I still have some principles!)

What are the writing crimes you cannot forgive in yourself or any other author?

Dream-Maker

2012-01-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

After the fun of my sci-fi mash-up dream, and urged on by rockinlibrarian (also aided and abetted by rthstewart, who nearly made me snort tea all over my computer with her take on the animosity between Lando Calrissian and Mal Reynolds (I am so going to think "Not right, man wearin' a cape" the next time I watch Empire Strike Back, rth!)), I decided I had to start writing it down as a story. Not one for publication, or even for putting up on ff.net due to my blatant self-insert (but she's not a Mary-Sue! She is not perfect and nobody is in love with her except her off-screen husband, but she and Mal do have great fun with harmless flirting by passing insults at each other), but just a way to get some of this marvelous creativity my subconscious was providing me with down on paper.

I'm about ten thousand words in, and it's getting crazier and more peppered with cameos from other sci fi/fantasy stories with each paragraph. Mara Jade has insisted on popping in (for more than just a brief cameo, thankyouverymuch, what do you take her for?), and it's becoming very clear to me that the Doctor would never consent to being left out of a madcap adventure like this, so it is clearly my duty to get caught up on that show, since I still haven't made it all the way through the Ninth Doctor (though even the few episodes that I have seen have left me with a tendency to say "Fantastic!" just like Christopher Eccleston).

But aside from the sheer fun of this, and the marvelous outlet it has become for releasing any stress in my life, the other nice thing about this story (simply titled "fun" in my computer documents) is that is stirring up my creativity for my other writings, as well. Did you know I hadn't written one word of fiction since before Christmas, up until I started this nonsense project? Not. One. Word. (Speaking of things that ain't right.)

And then yesterday, I actually opened up my current MG WIP and skimmed it over, thinking how ready I am to get back to writing more about Cadi &co. And then I started thinking about Maia and Len (my older YA 1920s adventure-fantasy) and realized the first draft had finally settled enough that I was ready to tackle putting it into decent shape for the second draft.

Today I have to take care of some basic household chores (Carl's been helping out a lot - blessed man keeps washing dishes for me, which is marvelous, darling, thank you - but breadmaking and laundry are still two tasks that will always be delegated to me), but I'm hoping to spend some time this afternoon or evening in "real" writing, writing I might actually be able to show to the world someday.

And I will not be abandoning my "fun" story, either - I have a sneaking suspicion that this is one tale that will stretch out for many years, to be added to whenever it strikes my fancy or I am getting bored, and never quite coming to an end.

What do you do to get your creative juices flowing again? What are some science fiction or fantasy characters you would add to a crazy story like mine?

To Sleep, Perchance ...

2012-01-08T11:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't been doing anything terribly interesting this week, writing-wise or life-wise. However, apparently my subconscious is doing its best to make up for my dull life by WILD dreams.

The first night wasn't so great - it was actually more of a nightmare. Trapped on an abandoned cruise ship with a serial killer, me against him, (apparently I was a detective) me trying to catch him but feeling uneasily certain he was toying with me. Thankfully I woke up before the final confrontation. The overall tone of that dream was dark and creepy, even more than the events in it. Took several cups of tea that morning before I felt normal again!

The dream returned in a lighter fashion the next few nights - the cruise ship wasn't deserted, and it had more of a Peter Wimsey feel - still serious, but not creepy, and this time, I always had the upper hand over the killer. One night it wasn't even a murderer I was after, but a jewel thief.

Then last night - oh, I have no idea where this one came from, but I do most earnestly hope it returns, because FUN - my dream was a veritable sci-fi television mashup.

Started out in a green clearing, trees all around. All kinds of characters from sci-fi tv were waiting for their assignments from a platform at one end of the clearing (and no, I don't remember any of them clearly). I ended up being sent on a quest with Chakotay (from Star Trek: Voyager) and Mal (Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly). Now, I was myself - Louise - and had no idea why I was tagging along, but dudes, I was not complaining. Both Mal and Chakotay (naturally) wanted to be in charge, but since we'd only been given a direction to go in, no actual specifics as to what our quest was (bad planning, Management), there weren't too many problems at first.

Then we ran into a friend I know in real life, except something was weird about her, and then, as we were chatting, she told me that she'd downloaded her consciousness into an android's body because she'd been afraid of getting fat, and droids' bodies never change. And then she ended up coming along with us because she had nothing better to do.

Things got hazy after that (I think I was starting to move toward waking up) ... I remember a fight between Mal and Chakotay, and then a fight between Mal and my android friend (Mal, apparently, had a lot of anger issues to work out - though the droid friend started the second fight, and would have won it except I tried to pull them apart and accidentally dropped her off the cliff, but we figured she survived because, hey, droid bodies are remarkably resilient), and then just as we were getting close to figuring out what the point was of the quest, what we were after to begin with ...

thump thump thump little feet coming up to the bed, "I have to go potty" little voice whispered, and even though Carl got up and I was able to get back to sort-of sleep, the dream was gone.

I most sincerely hope it returns tonight - I want to figure out this quest now (and also, would like to know if I was sent for more than just taking notes and pushing droids off cliffs).

What sort of fun dreams have you been having lately?

Note: I have not watched any sci-fi shows in the last several weeks, and the only sci-fi book I've read has been A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which is more science fantasy than science fiction, nor have I been reading/watching anything related to mysterious happenings aboard a cruise ship, so I really, really have no idea where these dreams are coming from. But they are, with the exception of that first nightmare, immensely amusing to me.

Sacred Joy

2011-12-31T10:23:00.001-05:00

On the second-to-last night of 2011, I unexpectedly got the best gift of the year - two free tickets to see Stars on Ice, my favorite show in the world, in Lake Placid, my favorite village in the world. My mother-in-law, already planning on visiting for the holiday, came out a day early so she could baby-sit the littles; the friend who gave us the free tickets had two others she gave to my mother and sister, so Carl and I met Mom and Lis in the village, had dinner together (served by the Slavic version of Basil Fawlty, though he was more harried than rude, but still - Carl was the first to come up with the comparison and it was so apt), and then went to the SHOW.

It was to flip over.

(I know, groan, but come on, you don't expect me to get a picture of Ryan Bradley mid-back-flip and not come up with an excuse to use it and make a lame pun with.)

Our seats were in the bleachers, but when they did the retakes for tv after the show we were able to sneak down and take the seats of four people who had left. I pulled my camera out of my bag and just started clicking. Kurt Browning was gracious enough to do the majority of his retakes right in front of where we were sitting. My sister and I might have fan-girl squee-ed just a little.

It was a two+ hour drive back to Albany after the show - the weather was hovering between rain and ice through most of the Adirondacks, which meant we had to drive slowly. So what do two people do to keep each other awake on a late-night long drive back home? Well, my sister and I might have done more squee-ing over the likes of Kurt, Ryan, Todd Eldredge, etc, but since it was Carl and I, of course we started talking philosophy.

Philosophy of figure skating? Why, of course!

Way back in college, I wrote a paper on the debate as to whether figure skating was sport or art. My stupid, stupid English professor gave me a C, not because it was poorly written, but because he didn't think it was a real issue (note: at the beginning of the semester he told us anything was acceptable as a topic, and cited one of his favorite papers from the previous year, on "Why Blondes Have More Fun). I looked at him and said, "I am a figure skater: trust me, it is an issue."

He refused to believe me; that is the one and only C I have ever received on any assignment in an English class. And yes, it was close to ten years ago, but IT STILL RANKLES.

Anyway. Carl was asking me about my thoughts on it, and being wiser now, I wasn't so quick to jump to the defense of figure skating as sport. I told him that I couldn't really be objective on the matter, because figure skating was so much more to me than anything I could describe.

You see, when I am on the ice, just as when I am writing, I feel I am coming closer to the me I am meant to be (I know this all sounds a little "woo-woo." Sorry about that), back to the core of who I am, the Louise God intended me to be with all the baggage stripped away. Only skating and writing do that for me - nothing else. It is too close to my heart; I cannot speak objectively about it. Even when I am not skating myself, watching pure, good skating gives me an echo of that. It satisfies me in a way nothing else does, the same way that reading a brilliantly-written book satisfies me even when I am not writing myself.

And I am not a great skater, but when I am on the ice I feel like I am great. I am always pretty sure I look like this:

Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen)

Or this:

I want to be Katia Gordeeva when I grow up

And I really look like this:

True story - I got done with this spiral and told my friend who was holding the camera "That was great! My leg was really up there, my head was high, it was an awesome spiral!" She said, "uh-huh," and handed me the camera. I was shocked to see I had only achieved a straight line - but I suppose I should be thankful at least my head was up and my leg was straight. I don't always even accomplish that.

Or this:

SELL that final pose, girl!

But that doesn't matter. Not really. I do my best skating when I am all alone in a rink, with no one around to make me self-conscious. It's not a solitary act for most, but like writing, it is for me.

And that - because it is almost sacred to me - is why it brings me such joy to watch it done well. Oh sure, the eye candy is nice, too, but skating is unique and special and wondrous simply because, for me, it is an act of worship.

As is writing.

It's kind of a nice way to end the year, isn't it, making those connections and getting an unexpected chance to experience that again?

It makes me want to write more, too, and to remember more of what my writing is - not just a hobby or career, but an essential part of me, one of those elements that makes me me, and something that brings me closer to my best, my purest version of myself.

And that is the last bit of philosophizing you will hear from me until next year.

Happy New Year's, friends!

The Year of The Author

2011-12-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

I have a hard time keeping track of what books I read in a year. I start out well enough, in January and February, but by March, I've completely forgotten about writing down what books I've read. Probably because so many of them are re-reads, and it seems silly sometimes to write down that I've read Anne of Green Gables for the 500th time.

However, I did realize, recently, that I tend to have a year of an author. For the last few years, there's been one author that I've discovered, either new to me or newly-loved, and I've spent the year reading everything I can get my hands on by that author.

First it was Dorothy L Sayers, and spending the year borrowing one Lord Peter book after another from the library. I even read all the Monty Egg stories I could find. Sayers' writing still enthralls me - I find something new about it to cherish each time I re-read. And Lord Peter himself ... I have mentioned before how bitterly I resented Harriet Vane because he fell in love with her, yes? All right then. Nothing more about that really need be said. He is as human and real and swoon-worthy a hero as was ever written.

Then it was Tamora Pierce - first Kel, then Aly, then Beka. Though Pierce's tendency (as I see it) to sometimes subvert the story in favor of her point irritated me (and still does, though the more I write the more I understand that temptation, and also how easy that is to do without realizing it), I did so appreciate her strong heroines - especially Kel and Beka, who were both quieter and more sensible than many female fantasy protagonists and were not blessed with special gifts that made them stand out; it was their character and determination. I truly do love that.

This past year, it was Diana Wynne Jones. I'd read one or two of her books before last year, but 2011 was the year I fully fell in love. Also, it happened to be the year she died, which left me feeling outraged - I'd finally found out how much I loved her writing, and then she was gone, before I even had a chance to say or think "thank you." The woman who created Sophie and Howl, Chrestomanci, Cat, and so many others, and wait, what, they just barely sprang to life for me and their creator was gone? Bad timing, Louise and world!

I think I already know what author will dominate 2012 for me - another one who died shortly after I'd finally read one of her books*, though that was a few years ago.

2012 seems a fitting year to immerse myself in this author's writings, seeing as how it is the 50th anniversary of her most famous work. That work? A Wrinkle in Time, and the author is Madeleine L'Engle.

I've mentioned on here recently just how moving I found A Ring of Endless Light. 2011 (well, and 2010) was a year of a lot of personal darkness for me, and the message of hope and encouragement to persevere that rang through Vicky's experiences was just exactly what I needed, when I needed it. I sobbed my way through the last few pages - and I am not a big crier (I mean, sure I get choked up Every Single Time I read OR watch Sam's "I can't carry the Ring, but I can carry you," bit to Frodo in Return of the King, but who doesn't? I'm not made of stone, after all).

While we were visiting my MIL for Christmas, I started reading A Circle of Quiet, one of L'Engle's memoir-ish works. By the time I was a few pages in, I know this was going to be one of those books that picked me up, shook me out, and set me back down again dazed, refreshed, and seeing the world with new eyes - or old eyes that simple had too many scales on them now shaken off.

And I was right. My thinking hasn't necessarily radically changed on anything, but the book both affirmed and challenged me right where I needed it, helped me shake loose some ideas that have been weighting me down, and filled up the spaces with fresh ones. It also made me laugh, which is grand.

So now I am certain that 2012? Is going to be the year I read everything I can find by L'Engle.

(*So, the story about why it took me so long to read anything by L'Engle - when I was very young, I picked up a book from the library called The Door in the Wall, which I thought was going to be exciting, and WAS NOT. I hated it. After that, I always got that book confused with A Wind in the Door, and so transferred my loathing of that darn non-exciting children's book to anything by L'Engle. Kind of like how I never read anything by Jones for so long because I always saw cats on the covers of her books, and unless Lloyd Alexander is writing it, I have no interest in feline fantasy. It took me until I was an adult to finally brave picking up Wrinkle, at which point I realized it had nothing whatsoever to do with EVIL BORING DOOR BOOK, but it was so very different from what I had been anticipating that I wasn't sure what to make of it. Same when I finally read Wind, and it really did take me until Vicky and Ring before I could start to better appreciate L'Engle's beautiful, strange writing. The End.)

Christmas is Almost Here

2011-12-24T22:20:00.002-05:00

I wasn't going to post again before Christmas, but I saw this tonight, and it brought back happy Christmas memories for me, and it made me laugh. How could I not share it with all of you?

Besides, you know, Kurt Browning. When I want my kids to know what amazing skating is really like, I have them watch Brian Boitano, Kristi Yamaguchi, Scott Hamilton, and Kurt Browning. They don't get any better than this.

Merry Christmas, my friends!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

From our family to yours, a very Merry Christmas!

May all your holiday hopes come true.

The Hobbit Trailer

2011-12-21T07:31:00.000-05:00

The Hobbit - next December. I've been trying to contain my excitement, given my disappointment over how the LotR trilogy went, but between the casting (Richard Armitage as Thorin could not be more perfect - Martin Freeman IS Bilbo - Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug just makes me want to shriek with delight, etc etc) and now this trailer ...

Well, excitement abounds. No containing it anymore.

SQUEE!

What Books ...

2011-12-19T09:09:00.001-05:00

... are on your Christmas wish list?

I've been very naughty this year and buying most books that I want myself, as I want them, but there are a few I've managed to hold off on, just in case. These are the sorts of books that, if they don't appear under the tree, will end up in my hands (or on my computer, for e-book versions) in early January.

First! Death Come to Pemberley, by PD James. Confession: I've never actually read any of James' books, but come on, a published Jane Austen fanfic by a well-known mystery writer? How could I not want this book? The only thing that would make it better would be if it were a Persuasion mystery - can't you just see Anne and Frederick as Tommy and Tuppence (except I think Anne would by Tommy, and Frederick Tuppence), or Nick and Nora? Someone needs to write that story.

Next: all the books in the Austin Family Chronicles by Madeleine L'Engle. As I mentioned recently, A Ring of Endless Light is a book that has been a tremendous help to me whenever I get discouraged. I've actually never read any of the rest of the series, but I would like to own them, so that I might read them as slowly as I want, in order to properly savor them.

The e-book version of Shadow Magic, by Patricia C Wrede. I am an enormous Wrede fan, and when I saw that the Lyra, some of her earliest ones (and ones I've not read yet), were available as e-books ... well, let's just say I was really, really glad that I'd downloaded that Kindle app a week earlier.

Also by Wrede, I've been (im)patiently waiting for the paperback release of Across the Great Barrier - I have Thirteenth Child in paperback, and I like my books in a series to match, but hey, if someone wanted to pre-order this for me, I wouldn't complain (hint hint, Santa).

And then there's the book that I remember so fondly from my childhood, and would like to have to keep and to read to my girls: Once upon a Time in the Meadow. This story of six cousins and the bunny they rescue from the trap is sweet and heartwarming, and like I said, brings me back to my childhood as soon as I see the distinctive illustrations.

So there you have it! Not a tremendously extensive list, since, as I said, I tend to buy most of my book-fancies for myself, but enough to probably include Christmas and my birthday in a few months! (My 30th birthday - I am sososososososo not ready to think about that yet.)

What books do you have on your Christmas wish list?

Battling the Blues

2011-12-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling pretty discouraged lately. Some of it, odd as it sounds, is the weird weather. It's December; it's supposed to be snowing and cold, not spurts of warm-ish and cold-ish weather, with no snow but lots of rain. We live in upstate NY!

Then there's just been a lot of example lately, right in my face, some involving me in the middle of controversies I really wanted nothing to do with, of people's selfishness and unkindness. Yech.

And it doesn't help that we are trying not to be anxious as we wait to hear back from Carl's interview two weeks ago, to find out if we'll be moving halfway across the country in a couple of months or not.

So to combat this discouragement, I've been trying to focus on the good. Thinking about the people who helped to bring resolution to the above-mentioned controversy. Smiling at friends who have sent me notes or videos of encouragement on Twitter after I mention my discouragement. Making popcorn before noon for my littles, just because. Scheduling an appointment to get my hair CHOPPED OFF this weekend, just because I've been wanting to go short again for a while.

And trying to figure out good books to read to help fight feelings that the human race is made up of jerks.

A Ring of Endless Light, by Madeline L'Engle, is top of that list. Unfortunately, I don't own it, and can't order it in e-book form, so I can't read that until I get out to the library again.

Anne of Green Gables is always, always on that list, as are any of the books in that series, especially the first three. Wives & Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell, is one that always makes me smile. Emily of Deep Valley, by Maud Hart Lovelace, is a story I deeply love for its exploration of a girl whose dreams are thwarted by circumstance, and yet finds ways to shape those very circumstances to develop those dreams even better - AND it dares to have her fall in love with someone who is NOT her initial love interest at the beginning of the story. Shocking!

And I might re-read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, just because I love it so. Same with Lloyd Alexander's The Arkadians, or any of his books that I own.

And then there's Gaudy Night or Busman's Honeymoon, or any story featuring my beloved Lord Peter.

Wow, just listing these books off is making me feel better and more hopeful.

What are the books you turn to in order stave off discouragement and remind you of the joy and hope that does exist in this world, and in people?

In My Little Corner of the World

2011-12-08T10:47:00.001-05:00

What? Yes, of course I am working!

My new favorite spot to write is here: in the grey recliner in the corner of the living room, half-hidden by the Christmas tree but with a good view out the enormous picture window.

Although since downloading the Kindle app for Macs the other day, I've been doing less writing and more reading on my laptop. Not sure this was the best idea after all! I'm also having a terrible time not just buying any e-book that catches my fancy. Something about this instant gratification thing that is tremendously addictive, and dangerous. I have to keep reminding myself that this is real money I am spending, even if they aren't "real" (ie, paper) books.

Sigh.

But back to the writing. I really have been working, even if much of that work does look like I am just sitting and staring into space. After filling out a basic outline for the Celtic YA fantasy (and was I ever surprised to find myself working on that one again - I figured it was going to take much longer before I was ready to even look at that again, given my Frustrations with it on the last round), I've been doing much pondering about how things should go, and careful consideration of my writing style for this one (the source of much of my frustration before - no matter how much I wanted to keep a wryly humorous tone, it would insist on taking itself too seriously, and getting Grim and Depressing). I even have part of the first chapter written - and this is actually more progress than one might think, since (for me) as the first chapter goes, so goes the rest of the book. Plus I can reuse a decent amount of material from the last draft, so once I get past these new beginning bits, a lot of what is going on will be cutting-and-pasting with new (hopefully amusing) filler in between the old stuff.

I had planned to work more on my MG fantasy since finishing the first draft of the 1920s ms, but the muse stirred for this one, so I am bowing to her whims. As long as I am working on one of my plethora of unfinished projects, I'm not particularly fussy as to which one.

Especially since recently I found my research notes and partial outline for the story I had planned on writing this year, the one that got shuffled aside in favor of the 1920s story and the Celtic rewrite. Starsong, the one set in a Renaissance world with a heroine inspired by the Maya culture.

And I really, really want to start working on that one again, but with a second draft needed for the 1920s ms, a picture book to indie publish by this summer (that's the goal, anyway), a Celtic rewrite needing to be finished, and an MG fantasy impatiently reminding me that it's been the one sitting around waiting to be finished the longest ...

I am Not! Starting! Anything! New! Some people (those with sanity) would tell me this is too much as it is. And they would probably be right.

But it's fun.

Favorite Children's Books

2011-12-02T08:37:00.001-05:00

My girls are 4 and 2 1/2, and I thought I'd share some of their current favorite books, in case there are any parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/close friends who are interested in good books for very small people.

Anything by Beatrix Potter. Their current favorites are the nursery rhyme books: Cecily Parsley and Appley Dapply. They also like The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes, Jemima Puddleduck, and Mrs Tittlemouse (Grace goes around all the time saying "Sank 'oo, 'sank 'oo, mouse*," in a very credible imitation of pompous Mr Jackson).

White Rabbit's Color Book. This is one of Grandpa's stories that he keeps for the littles. Grace asks about it the entire car ride whenever we go and visit (that's four hours straight, by the way). They love learning about the mixing of colors, and I think they both (especially Grace) identify with the inquisitive White Rabbit.

Along those same lines, The Color Kittens is another favorite. I've been slowly increasing our collection of Little Golden Books; this one they like the best so far. We can't get through a day without one or both of them asking me what color comes from mixing _____ (insert any two colors of choice here), and then correcting me if I get it wrong.

Joy more than Grace loves this Classic Fairy Tales book, another one that Grandpa picked up at the used bookstore and gave us to take home. Carl reads this to them often, and Joy knows most of the stories well enough by now that she can go through it by herself and recite the stories.

Footprints and Shadows is lovely. I found it at a used bookstore and couldn't believe someone had sold it. The littles love the quiet rhythm of the words, and I get enchanted by the illustrations. It has actually inspired me to attempt more picture books, and I even have a plot simmering in the back of my brain for the next one!

Any of the books in the Stranger in the Woods series are perennial favorites, adored ever since the littles were babies. They are especially fun in the wintertime.

They are both just starting to appreciate the wacky humor of Dr Seuss. Grace loves her ABC book, and I bought Joy One Fish, Two Fish for Christmas, and this is ONE present I'm fairly certain (rap wood) she won't reject after opening.

Jan Brett is another one whose books the girls love - any and all of them. On Noah's Ark and The Owl and the Pussycat are their favorites, but now that Christmas is coming, I suspect they will want to read The Gingerbread Baby over and over (and over and over) again.

Grace is still a little young for them, but Joy enjoys Madeline and Babar, and they both like Curious George (although the first time I re-read the first book since I was a kid, last year, I was horrified at it - the Man in the Yellow Hat kidnaps George, and then George gets arrested for accidentally dialing a wrong number because the Man in the Yellow Hat just goes off and leaves him alone and loose in the apartment (AFTER KIDNAPPING HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE) ... the whole thing is dreadful. Give me Babar's communism any day).

Finally, they also both like listening to the CD of the Jesus Storybook Bible (GREAT for long car rides), and even though I find myself choking up at various stories when I try to read it aloud (Abraham and Isaac? BAWL), they also like to have it read to them by Mamma or Papa.

So there you have it! Any books little people in your life adore that I ought to look into adding to our collection?

*that translates to "Thank you, thank you, Mrs Tittlemouse."

Carl reading Winnie-the-Pooh to Joy when she was about a week old, starting what we hope is a lifetime habit of loving good stories.

Happy December!

2011-12-01T12:52:00.001-05:00

So, I didn't think I was going to do it, but ...

I made my November writing goals! With one day to spare: I wrote the last word of the first draft of my 1920s fantasy-adventure Tuesday night. And then I jotted down the main areas that need work in the next draft.

So, that is one first draft finished, and one final draft finished. I had hoped to get the first draft of my MG fantasy finished as well, but I kind of guessed that wouldn't get done. I'm writing that draft by hand, which takes way longer than typing.

And today we started Advent - our first activity of the month was "listen to Christmas music," which we are ALL enjoying (I should mention that Carl is out of town today - he gets sick of Christmas music much faster than the girls and I). And I snuck in some holiday M&M's, because what's the point in starting Advent without a bit of candy?

I'm also hoping to bake some cookies throughout this next month. What are some of your favorite Christmas cookie recipes? We have the typical sugar cookies for frosting, of course, and Carl likes cappuccino crinkles, and if the smell doesn't gag him I'll probably make peanut butter cookies (Joy has informed me that are her best favorite) ...

But I'm always in the market for good new recipes!

Has your December started well? Are you getting excited for Christmas? And please, leave me a note with your favorite recipe or a link to it!

Creeping Toward Christmas

2011-11-28T08:20:00.001-05:00

Three more days to finish my November writing goals! Three more days before we start our Advent activities! Three more days before I finally get to start listening to Christmas music!

Only three days left in November ... how did that happen?

Growing up, my family never had Christmas traditions centered around any special days - we sometimes had an Advent calendar, but not always. Some years we got our tree early in the month, some years not until Christmas Eve. We did have traditions around Christmas Eve - Lis and me shopping with Dad, going to Grandma and Grandpa's church for the special service, opening one gift each before going to bed, and listening to the rustling of tissue paper downstairs as Mom wrapped all our stocking gifts.

When Carl and I got married, we decided we wanted to implement a few more (flexible) traditions, such as always decorating on the first weekend in December. We aren't always able to pull it off (such as when we move right before Thanksgiving and don't even know where all our Christmas decorations are!), but we get our tree and start the decorating as close to that weekend as possible. This year, I'm starting Advent activities with the girls - we're getting little envelopes that I can put notes in with each day's activity - and some days, instead of an activity, there will be little candies in the envelope. If the girls enjoy it as much as I think I am going to, we'll probably try to make this another tradition.

First, though, I am going to push myself hard to get those last 5,000 words done on my 1920s ms before December 1st. I would be so pleased if I could accomplish at least one of my November goals!

Do you have special holiday traditions? Did they pass down from your families, or are they ones that you started after forming your own family? Did you accomplish (if you had any) your November writing goals?

Thanksgiving Update

2011-11-24T14:02:00.001-05:00

I wasn't going to post on Thanksgiving, but ...

In between making pie crust and preparing the pie filling, I sat down for a bit (Carl was slicing the apples for me, so I wasn't just slacking), and ended up finishing the final revisions to my picture book MS. The final draft has been sent to the illustrator, who will start work on it after Christmas.

I am so excited!

And now I get to go put together an apple pie. Yesterday I made my first-ever french silk pie and a dutch apple pie, so this is my last one for the holiday. My baby is napping, and the bigger one is helping her Oma in the kitchen. Snowy landscape outside, peaceful house inside.

I hope you, in America, are having a wonderful Thanksgiving, and you, in other countries, are simply having a marvelous Thursday.

Much joy to you all!

Book Snippets

2011-11-21T08:18:00.001-05:00

I did not start on my Shakespeare reading this week. I was going to - I had borrowed The Taming of the Shrew from the library, and sat down at the computer to skim over the summary first (my preferred way of reading Shakespeare, since otherwise I lose much appreciation for the language in trying to decipher the plot and keep all the character straight).

And considering that in my reading of the summary I decided that Petruchio was an abusive jerk that Kate should have poisoned at their wedding feast, I figured I wasn't exactly in the best mindset to read Shakespeare this week. Maybe I should start with Hamlet?

We have been plagued with mice all week long; Carl finally brought home new traps Saturday evening and we caught six - SIX - in a four-hour period. Have not seen any since, though I am planning on using a combination of peppermint oil and mothballs to keep them out until we've had a chance to talk to our landlords and find out if they want to bring in a professional to seal every crack and cranny.

So the mice might have soured my appreciation for the Bard. I certainly was not in any mood to read any Redwall books, either.

I did, however, read The Queen of Attolia, which prompted me to re-read my recently purchased copy of The Thief, because it had been a while since I read it and some of the details were a bit fuzzy. In case you are one of the few people on the planet who (like me) hasn't read this fantastic series by Megan Whalen Turner, go to your library now and start borrowing them. They are incredibly good. So good that, even though I need to be packing today for going up to my parents' for Thanksgiving, I'm still planning on making a library run to get the next two books in the series. I really, really wish I could read in the car without getting sick!

I also recently finished the Song of the Lioness quartet - I've been friends with Kel and Aly for a few years now, and recently with Beka Cooper, but I'd never been able to find all the Alanna books until we'd moved and gone to a new library. I was bitterly disappointed in the ending of the fourth book (villains NEED more motivation than just, hey, let's destroy the world for kicks, even though it's going to destroy me too), but at least it gave me enough background to read the Immortals series. Alanna will never replace Kel as my favorite Tamora Pierce heroine, though.

My writing goals are still out of reach. I have two - TWO - chapters left in my 1920s fantasy-adventure, and do you think I've been able to write them? No, because I've been scrubbing my floors and counters every other day to get rid of mouse droppings! By the time Carl's home from work and the littles are in bed, I've been able to do little more than collapse in bed or on the couch and either read YA fantasy, or watch my newly-purchased first season of Star Trek: Voyager. (Chakotay is STILL my favorite character out of the entire Star Trek canon, although Worf is a close second. Picard is right on Worf's heels as third. What can I say? I really, really like nobility, goodness, and conflict within oneself in my heroes.)

However, I am tentatively hopeful that maybe this evening, after my packing is finished, or perhaps while we're at home, in between cooking and cleaning and practicing makeup techniques with my sister, I might be able to squeeze out those 5,000 words.

Because wow, November has flown by. Can you believe it's almost December? I am starting a new tradition for our family this year - 25 days of Advent activities (or candy, on those days when my inspiration ran out) leading up to Christmas.

Christmas, my friends! It's just a little over a month away!

Are you a fan of any or all the Star Trek shows? Do you have a favorite character? What good books have you been reading lately? Can anyone tell me if I missed something crucial at the end of Lioness Rampant explaining the villain's actions and goals a little more clearly? Am I reading too much into The Taming of the Shrew? Do you have exciting plans for Thanksgiving?

Insanity With a Side of Peace

2011-11-14T08:22:00.001-05:00

Our weekend company has gone home, my house has been semi-restored to order, the only reminder of my tick bite is a tiny red dot on my back and a lingering fear of going back outside, and life is getting somewhat back to normal.

Of course, Carl is working (probably) long hours all week, making me effectively a temporary single parent, and then he's (maybe) flying out to Chicago for one day at the end of the week. And then we start getting ready for Thanksgiving. WHERE DID NOVEMBER GO???

So normal is just crazy. I think I'm starting to accept that. I love a peaceful, slow life, but that sort of life doesn't seem to love me, however hard I pursue it. And with Carl planning on going to graduate school, and then working for his PhD, and me turning toward indie publishing with at least one, if not more, books, and two little ones we intend to homeschool and also encourage to find their passion and chase it ...

Yeah. I don't think a slow life is in the books for us any time soon.

And that's okay. God knows what each of us need the most. Truth be told? If I had that slow, peaceful life, I would probably slump into laziness and slothfulness. I'm not the most driven person in the world.

The trick, for me, is finding moments of peace in the midst of the chaos. Sometimes when Joy is getting nervous and worked up, we send her to her room, not for a time-out, but just to have a bit of time alone to calm down. I need that, too. I want to find a way to be a peaceful person, even if my life is insane. And one way for me to accomplish that is snatching at moments when I can rest and restore myself.

And yes, that includes writing, because as much as it is my career choice, writing is also one of those things that restores my soul, so to speak. So, like Connie suggested on my last post, I am going to work, even this week of insanity, at finding those five to fifteen minutes of writing, each day.

It might be impossible, as I posited in that last post, to find balance, but that doesn't mean I need to stop trying.

(I apologize for all my recent posts running on a theme. Can you tell what's been on my mind lately? I'll try to think of something more original for my next post. Maybe I'll have had a chance to start reading The Taming of the Shrew and will be able to give thoughts on Shakespeare. It's a goal, at least!)

Before-bed craziness from a couple of weeks ago. I suspect we'll all start looking like this all the time by the end of this week.

No Balance

2011-11-09T08:44:00.001-05:00

Outside, the air is full of mist. A few stubborn leaves float through the air, the ground is carpeted still with reds and golds and browns. The sun is just starting to burn through the silvery sky.

It's a beautiful morning.

And all I can think, as I look out my window, tea mug in hand, is,

"How many other tiny BRINGERS OF DEATH are lurking out there?"

Monday, the littles and I spent much of the day playing outside (I even brought their small table and chairs out so Joy could do school outside). We jumped in leaf piles, chased each other around, and altogether had a glorious time.

Then yesterday, as those of you who read my Twitter account know, I felt an odd bump on my back where I couldn't see very well, asked Carl to take a look at it, and the next thing I knew, he was grabbing for the tweezers and ordering me to hold still so he could get the tick out.

Thank God for my husband's steady hands.

As soon as it was out (intact, thankfully), I slid to my knees, and thence to the floor, passing out quite neatly with my forehead pressed to the linoleum. Haven't done that since I had a few issues with anemia as a teenager.

However, the point of this post is not, despite all appearances, to gross you out with my tick horror story (though you have to admit, it's a pretty good story). No, this is all just a prelude.

The result of passing out was a massive, unshakeable headache for the rest of the day, the kind that makes it impossible to get anything accomplished. I did manage to make cookies with the littles, as an apology for not taking them outside again (NO WAY were we setting foot in the death trap known as OUR BACKYARD). And in the evening, after the littles were in bed, I did get a few more rosebuds sewn on the blanket I'm making for Joy's new baby doll. And ... that's about it.

As a result, I'm behind in writing, in cooking, in cleaning, in laundry ... you name it, I'm behind. Missing one unplanned day due to a headache makes for more massive headaches trying to scramble to catch up for the rest of the week. Some weeks might not be a big deal, but Carl's mom and sister are coming out this weekend to celebrate birthdays (Joy's and Grandma's), which means at the very least, I need food in the house for them to eat, and to get the piles of clean laundry out of the guest room and clean sheets on the bed. Sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilet might be a nice touch, too.

Which means that, again, writing gets pushed to the back burner.

It's not that writing isn't important to me, or that Carl doesn't think it worth spending my time on. It's just that there are so many other things that have to get done. My family has to eat. We have to have clean clothes. The littles have to take top priority. Joy has to do school (well, ok, it was our choice to do homeschooling instead of public school, and my choice to do preschool with her, but those were both important decisions to us that have to be followed through with now).

I can't just ignore all of those in favor for writing, as much as I'd like to with some of them. And the other projects, the sewing and quilting stuff ... well, those aren't necessary, which is why they also often get pushed to the back burner, but they do help to satisfy my creative needs, and I get pretty cranky when those are left unsatisfied.

I'm not really asking for advice here - I know that most other people have the same problems trying to balance everything. I'm mostly just trying to keep it real here. A few people have mentioned how impressive they think it is that I manage to "do it all."

I don't. The plain truth? In order to do one thing, something else doesn't get done. Just the way it is. About the only two things I can do at the same time are make bread and wash laundry, because there's enough pauses between both to balance it out. Everything else? Every day I have to pick and choose which is most important. And, sadly, most days, writing is squeezed into the cracks or left out entirely. Not because it's not important, but because things like eating food are things we literally can't live without, therefore food has to be made.

And all this with a supportive husband who helps out around the house without even being asked (as I found this morning when I saw that he had emptied the dishwasher last night without me even asking - thanks, babe)! I can't imagine trying to do this without him.

I don't have anything catchy to end this with, any pithy sentence to sum it up or words of wisdom. Just a heartfelt hope that someday, maybe, things will get easier to balance.

And an even more heartfelt hope that we get snow soon and bury all those ticks six feet under.

(Hey, I found my pithy ending sentence after all!)

Good Habits

2011-11-07T07:50:00.000-05:00

I am trying to establish the habit, both for the littles and myself, of starting out our day with a glass (or small plastic cup, in their case) of water before we have anything else. It's hard for me in the cooler months, because I love to start my day with tea (if I get up before them, I will sometimes have a cup of hot water with lemon and honey, but it's too hard to explain to them how that is different from tea and therefore not a double standard), and hard for them because ever since they started drinking anything more than breastmilk they have loved orange-juice-and-milk to begin their day.

But we're persevering. The thought of that hot tea waiting for me at the end of my glass of water, and the OJ&M for them keeps us glugging. And for me, the thought of the health benefits for all of us are a reward in themselves. The littles, of course, don't care so much about that, this is just another of Mamma's weird notions (like washing hands after we use the toilet, not throwing clothes out of the dresser drawers, and not getting out of bed at 5 in the morning. Gosh, Mom) that they have to endure. My hope, of course, is that the habit gets so ingrained that it sticks when they are grown, just like brushing teeth.

As for how this relates to writing ... well, I set myself a goal to finish at least one, preferably two mss in November. That means writing every day. Often, to be perfectly honest, I don't feel like sitting down and writing. Just like preferring to drink my tea instead of having my water first, as soon as I sit down to write, I think of the cleaning, the baking, the sewing, the reading ... everything else that I'm not doing in order to write. And while I can do that afterward, it often feels like I should be doing it first.

The first sip of water is the hardest. After that, the rest of the glass follows naturally. And that first sentence, staring at a page without a shred of inspiration? So hard. But once I force my fingers to start typing (or writing, if I'm working in my notebook), the rest comes more easily. Last night I had set myself an hour of writing before watching Once Upon A Time. At first, it was not easy. But by the time 8:00 rolled around, I didn't really want to stop - I kept the computer on my lap and typed during commercial breaks (very interesting mental exercise, btw, trying to switch my perspective back and forth between tv show and ms!).

And while it isn't always the most fun to drink a glass of water first thing in the morning, or to write a few paragraphs every day, even (and especially) on the days when inspiration is far flown from me, the habits I'm installing will, I hope, last forever, and have marvelous results for the rest of my life.

What are some daily habits you try to set for yourself, and do any of them help you when it comes to establishing routine for writing?

"She Was Only Anne"

2011-11-04T09:41:00.000-04:00

I am not a book reviewer, and this blog is not a review blog. I adore book review blogs. I just don't review very well. I have a hard time being objective, and looking at something as either well-done or poorly-done, instead of "I liked this" or "this irritated the heck out of me."

However. I am re-reading Persuasion for, I don't know, the seventh time? Tenth? I don't keep track of how often I read books, honestly. I know I started reading Austen back in my college days, and have re-read her books many times since. Sense and Sensibility is my least favorite - I would venture so far as to say I rather dislike it, mostly because all the characters are in good need of a Gibbs-head-slap - and my favorite keeps changing throughout the years. Right now, and for a few years, it is Persuasion, followed closely by Emma.

I think Anne Elliot is the best of all Austen's heroines. More depth to her character than Lizzy Bennet, more spirit than Fanny Price, more clarity of vision than Emma Woodhouse, more common sense than Cathy Morland, and more understanding and wisdom than the Dashwood sisters. I love, as I approach my thirtieth year, that she is an older heroine, and one who blossomed later in life instead of early. I love how she shows that gentleness does not equal weakness, just as Louisa Musgrove proves that spiritedness does not equal strength of character.

Captain Wentworth is, I think, a bit of a jerk. He's held a grudge against Anne for years, is deliberately rude to her, and flirts with the Musgrove girls without a care for how he might be affecting them. Yet, he is no Darcy, because we get to see him improve slowly throughout the book - not just changing after he is confronted with his faults, because he wants to be worthy of his love (I really hate the message that sends - that if you love somebody enough, you can change their character flaws. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY OUTSIDE THE MOVIE AND BOOK WORLD). He sees his flaws for himself, recognizes where he has been unjust and acted wrongly, and then moves decisively to correct himself.

And I think that's one reason why Anne and Captain Wentworth are such a good match - they loved each other as youth, were separated and grew up apart from each other, each developing into their own person, and then came back together as fully realized adults, each offering something special to the other, to help make the other complete.

Persuasion is great not just for the MCs, though. The supporting characters are all brilliantly drawn too - Mary Musgrove cracks me up with every re-reading; Admiral and Mrs Croft are delightful; Mr Elliot and Mrs Clay are just the right sort of villains - not too obvious.

Then there is the scenery, and the overall feel of the book. I almost always read Persuasion in the autumn or winter months. It is that sort of book; it feels wrong to read it when it is light and sunny out. With only a few words Austen gives us a clear picture of Kellynch, of Lyme (oh how I want to visit there someday!), and of Bath. Bath comes through even clearer in Persuasion, I think, than in Northanger Abbey.

It shows the mark of being written by an older, experienced author. The pace is calmer, the humor subtler, the tone quieter and deeper than the others. It is, I think, Jane Austen's masterpiece, and I think it a true pity that it is so often overshadowed by the brighter but shallower Pride and Prejudice.

Next up on my fall/winter reading list: Shakespeare and Elizabeth Gaskell! What are you planning on reading this month?

Welcome November

2011-11-02T10:19:00.002-04:00

Back home. It is so very weird to be back in my own house (oh, my bed never felt so good as it did last night), and not have family all around. My girls are missing their aunt and uncle, not to mention Oma and Grandpa (and GG next door), but I think they are happy to be back home. I miss everyone, too, but I do confess to a sneaking satisfaction at being chatelaine of my own establishment once more.

Although I would have been just as happy to pawn cleaning up the kitchen from mouse surprises last night off onto someone else! Thank goodness for my wonderful husband, who helped me without complaining about my finicky insistence on everything being cleaned twice over. I hate mice in the house.

Today is a day for cuddling, tea, Babar stories and Beatrix Potter DVDs, baking (in my mouse-free kitchen - we caught two last night), sewing one final birthday present for Joy (four on Saturday!) and WRITING. Oh, how I need to write. I am parched for it.

I am not doing NaNoWriMo, but I am taking November, a hopefully quieter month than October, to set myself the goal of finishing one of my mss, if not two. I slacked off a bit after writing the picture book, and then everything happened with my grandmother, and now I'm going crazy for lack of writing. Time to get cracking!

I'm not always the biggest fan of November, but I'm happy to see it this year. I'm ready for a month when the world itself is settling down and preparing to rest, when everything is calm for a few weeks. I'm ready to turn a little bit inward, to not run around so much and be so busy, but to settle in at home with my husband and my babies and my books (and notebooks) and be calm.

And now that I've said all this, of course, November will be crazy-busy in a way to make October look calm. Of course.

What are your plans for this month?

Libraries and Death Traps

2011-10-29T20:20:00.000-04:00

Thank you all, again, for your kind words on my last post. You brought a lump to my throat more than once.

We're still at my parents' until Tuesday morning; Grandma's memorial service is Monday. We're looking forward to having much of the clan gathered together for it. Even though funerals are sad, we always manage to have something of a good time just because we're together. Some of the aunts and uncles have only met my littles once or twice, so I'm happy (and slightly nervous) to introduce my small people to the larger family.

We also had Joy's fourth birthday party today; I can't wait to put pictures up on here from it. It was a woodland butterfly fairy tea party (originally, it was going to be a bird and flower and butterfly theme, but it evolved. These things happen), and even the three men involved (my husband, father, and brother-in-law) wore butterfly wings. O yes, they did. They all love Joy very much. They are also all very secure in their masculinity.

And my sister and I made sure to get them blue wings. Pink might have been carrying things a little too far.

And for a first, Joy only got one book for her birthday (and that from Carl and me). Usually books make up the bulk of her gifts. I'm sure she will get more once she receives her package from Carl's aunt, a librarian in Maine. She always sends lots of book for birthdays and holidays. We are always very happy to see presents from G-Auntie.

This is the book we got for Joy:

No, wait. Wrong one. This one:

thanks to a recommendation from Rockin Librarian (thank you!). I'm excited to see what stories Joy concocts from the illustrations.

Meanwhile, my mom, sister and I are all sick (watching the two of them trying to tack up sheets and white lights while simultaneously hacking and blowing their noses would have been funny if I weren't trying to slice vegetables without sneezing into them), and I am starting to go a little bit crazy from not writing at all in the last week plus - not since coming up here last Thursday. Family is more important, hands down, no questions asked and no regrets ... but writing is such a part of me that I'm starting to feel starved for it.

And my characters are starting to haunt my dreams. Plus last night I dreamed that I had to scale a rickety ladder and swing from a rope to get into a library's second story, not to mention crawling along the outside of the roof and breaking through a window (and was I ever pissed when I got inside and saw an escalator that led to main lobby, and I realized the librarian at the desk had sent me up the death trap way for, apparently, a lark, and then the escalators shut down because the library closed and I had to come down the same way and I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO CHECK OUT MY BOOKS), which I think is indication that my subconscious is telling me to not neglect books so much.

Or, you know, it could have been the rum in the tea last night. Whatever.

(Almost worse than the horrific ladder (I have a good head for heights, but I have always always hated ladders, and swinging from a frail rope to try to reach a roof window is not my idea of fun) was that I had found a brand-new, just-discovered Lloyd Alexander book in the children section (downstairs) and when I didn't get to check my books out, I had to leave it behind. LLOYD ALEXANDER, newly-discovered book!)

I am working on the MG rewrite, but of today, Maia of the 1920s fantasy-adventure has been chatting to me, reminding me, impatiently, that I left her in Grave Danger and she needs a chance to Prove Her Worth. She is most definitely not a helpless heroine, and she doesn't like being left a victim without a chance to take on the villain herself. So I think I need to get back to her soon. She gets very crabby when left alone for too long.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have some rum-and-tea and a box of tissues calling my name.

And some pictures of three men in butterfly wings to upload onto my computer.

We Will See You Again

2011-10-25T08:15:00.001-04:00

She went out accompanied by a blaze of northern lights, some of the most brilliant seen around here in ages. Heaven welcoming a gallant soul home with fanfare.

Even after her breathing had slowed drastically, her heart remained strong until the end. We always knew her heart was bigger and stronger than most.

Her humor was one of the last things to go when the Alzheimer's took over. Even when she was in the nursing home and couldn't even recognize Grandpa, she would try to tease the nurses and aids. They all loved her.

They were married for sixty years. Two days before she finally died, I sat and watched him hold her hand as he told us the only reason he underwent chemo and fought so hard for life through the blood clots last year was so that he could take care of her, make sure her ending was peaceful and dignified, so that he could take care of her to the end. None of his kids could speak at that point, so I managed to choke out that he had done a wonderful job of it. They were an example to us all.

Of eight kids, six managed to make it home to say goodbye, only the one in Australia and the one in Arizona not able to get back. Fully half of the grandkids were able to come. No one fought, no one argued, no one tried to make things difficult for anyone else. Everyone acted as selflessly as human beings can act. Another testimony to the love and respect everyone had for her.

The hospital nurses teared up when their weekend shift ended, knowing they wouldn't see her again alive.

There was as much laughter as tears around her bedside, as stories were shared and memories were dredged up and old jokes revived. Her fifteen-year-old grandson played his guitar, everyone sang, and her last days were filled with the music and laughter she loved so well.

She has been gone for a long time. Twelve years ago was when she was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's, at that point too far advanced to do anything but watch and pray as it slowly disintegrated the woman we all knew. The pneumonia that took her tonight was a release from that living death (twelve years is phenomenally long for Alzheimer's sufferers - most don't live more than five years), and our tears were as much joy for her as sorrow.

She is whole again now. She is free. She is rejoicing and laughing with her Lord.

It hurts, still, but this is a clean hurt, one that will heal. The pain of the Alzheimer's never went away; it would lie dormant for a time, but it was always there lurking in the background. This - already there is a peace growing from the sorrow.

We will miss her. We have missed her for years. But her legacy - the love, the laughter, the strength and faith and joy - she passed that on, not only to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but to all who knew her. I am proud to call myself her granddaughter, and you can be sure my girls will grow up knowing about what an amazing woman their great-grandmother was.

Rest in Peace? Maybe. Personally, I suspect she is singing and dancing right now.

And laughing.

Lois Elnina Bates, May 20, 1929 (I think, but I can't get a solid year out of anyone right now) - October 24, 2011

Grandma

2011-10-24T13:04:00.000-04:00

I know I've been MIA here on the blog for a while. I had great plans to write a bunch of posts this past weekend and schedule them to be published for the next couple of weeks.

Until I got the phone call Thursday that my grandmother was in the hospital with pneumonia. My sister and I spent most of that morning on the phone, with the result that she and I got up to my parents' house Thursday night, while Carl took the littles to his mom's for the weekend.

I've spent the weekend cooking and cleaning so that the aunts and uncles at the hospital have home-cooked food and a place to sleep if they need a break. In between, I've been at the hospital myself, or with Grandpa at the nursing home, or making sure my father sleeps and eats (Mom and my sister had to go to a wedding in Vermont this weekend, already planned). And occasionally (FOUR times in two days) being mistaken for my father's wife. The ones that just mistook me for Mom weren't so bad; I already knew we looked alike. The one that didn't even know Mom, and just asked Dad if I was his wife? SO NOT COOL.

Ahem. Irrelevant.

Anyway, Grandma is still in the hospital, but at this point we are just waiting for the end. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's twelve years ago; her body is fading as her mind did, only in a matter of days instead of years. I'm still at my parents' house, with the littles here with me now, and Mom and Lis back from VT, just still doing what we can for the rest of the family, and praying for Grandma.

Someday soon I'll have a post on just what a tremendous legacy she is leaving behind. But I think I'll need more sleep before that happens. Someday soon also I hope to go back to more writing-related posts.

For now, though, blogging is rather obviously low on my priority list. I love all of my friends and readers, but family is coming first right now. Of course!

I'll be back soon. I've not abandoned the blog, or all of you.

Right now though, I'm exactly where I need to be.

Grandma's senior portrait.

What We're Doing

2011-10-11T21:12:00.000-04:00

Thank you all for your encouraging comments on my last post. It is so nice when others can share in one's excitement over writing milestones. And speaking of which, my potential illustrator let me know the other day that she is working on the sample illustrations and should get them to me soon. I'm very excited to see them!

Currently Carl and I are practicing vocabulary words as he is preparing for the GRE within the next year. Graduating from an engineering school, his college English classes were not quite sufficient for this. It's quite a lot of fun for me, seeing what words I already know, what ones are familiar but I'm not entirely certain of, what ones I thought I knew but had the definition a little off on (or completely off, as when I mistook meretricious for meritorious. TOTALLY different words, BTW); and what ones are completely new. It's always good for a writer to have her vocabulary expanded - and I get to feel virtuous about helping my husband at the same time!

I've been doing writing lately, too - working mostly on the MG novel (taking a little break from the YA's) and even attempting a bit of poetry. Autumn and spring are my best times for the poetic spirit to move me!

(Carl just got stumped on "halcyon" - there's a great word, and one often used in poetry, in fact. Probably why he's never heard it before.)

(Now he's on forbearance - I said "what your wife ~~always~~ often shows you." I can't figure out why he's laughing.)

Back to the poetry. We went on a long ramble Friday afternoon that really inspired me toward some free verse. Most of it is still in my head, nothing I can share here, but it is fun to stretch my creativity in a direction it doesn't usually go.

And I've been reading - just started Mornings on Horseback. Not usually a big fan of biographies, but love reading anything about T.R., really. I disagree with almost everything he did while in office, but I admire him as a person so much, and his life was so full and rich. So far it's been a great read. It's been nice spending less time on the computer and more time in the printed word. I even find that I'm more inclined to do my writing longhand; once I start leaving the computer closed for a few things, it's easier to do so for others.

(Carl laughed - he just got "dolt," a word he might not know very well were it not for his friendship with my family and me. It's a great insult, right up there with "twit.")

And that is all the word-related happenings in my life lately! Not very much - which is probably why the blog has been so silent, too. We've been a little busy with hiking, apple picking, pumpkin painting, cookie-baking ...

Autumn is, as my Joy would say, my best favorite time of year.

Finding My Ark

2011-10-03T08:16:00.001-04:00

This has been an up-and-down week for me.

I wrote a children's picture book. WHEEE!

I got the typical "oh that's nice" response or, worse, no response at all from family and friends when I tried to share my excitement. WAHHH.

One friend immediately asked about illustrations, and we started collaborating that night. WHEEE!

Trying to figure out the best way to self-publish that offered me electronic options AND the freedom to offer print books to indie bookstores and local galleries on my own AND didn't cost the sky completely and totally freaked me out. WAHHH.

I had a beautifully positive response from the few friends who did get excited for me, and my first critique partner. WHEEE!

My husband and I had one of those conversations where no one is mad at the other, but everyone ends up feeling lousy afterward (nothing to do with writing). WAHHH.

And then I got sick.

And it's been raining for what feels like 40 days and 40 nights.

So, I'm finding an ark.

Today I'm going to wear nice clothes, bake cookies, play loud and fun music, laugh with my girls, work on sewing their skirts I cut out last week, and throw encouragement at everyone I can find, even if it is just online. I will hide myself from discouragement in joy. And hopefully when I emerge, the waters will have receded.

Just as soon as the two-year-old stops her wailing for no reason in the background.

What is your "ark" - where do you go, what do you do to rest and recover from discouragement or disappointment, or just plain blah-ness? Are you living in an area that's been getting drowned, like me, or are you one of the ones suffering from drought? If you are, I so wish I could send you some of our wet!

What Makes A Hero?

2011-09-27T08:44:00.000-04:00

In keeping with the recent post on Peter Pevensie (AKA High King Peter the Magnificent - now there's a title to live up to!), which got me thinking again about my Hero and Everyman post, and also with the start of a brand-new season of NCIS:LA this week (yes, aside from figure skating - and by the way, you will probably have to suffer through a post or two on that this winter, because that's just how I roll - the NCIS shows are the only television I really care about anymore. Although I am really, really curious about Once Upon A Time starting in October, given its fairy tale premise), I got thinking about the kind of hero that I have always been drawn to, both in literature and film (and television).

So here you have it.

The type of hero I prefer:

Sam more than Callen (NCIS:LA)

Will more than Jack (Pirates of the Caribbean) (only in the first, though, because then Will just got irritating and Jack got immensely more charming)

Faramir more than Boromir (Lord of the Rings)

Mr Knightley (or Henry Tilney) more than Mr Darcy or Captain Wentworth (Jane Austen's novels)

Etc, etc.

Not necessarily the squeaky-clean, never had any faults (like Peter) hero, but the one who isn't angsting all over the place, the one who is truly good, the one who knows what is right and strives to do it. Not so much the tortured anti-hero for me. One of my chief complaints about the LotR films was the changes they made to Boromir and Faramir's characters - how they made Boromir, the weak one, seem more heroic, and turned Faramir, who was strong and just and good, into somebody who was weak and willing to do almost anything to earn his father's approval. GRRR.

I think that's one reason I like Edmund so much in the Narnia books, because we get to see his journey from the most un-heroic beginning to a man who is confident in what is right, and acts upon it without much inner anguish or tortured questioning or intense struggles between what he wants and what he should do.

(Unless, of course, you are reading much of the Narnia fanfiction out there, where Edmund spends the rest of his life beating himself up for his temporary alliance with the Witch. GRRR again.)

Taran, from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, is another similar character - one who starts out with foolish ideas about what a hero is, and grows to be a quiet and unassuming hero of his own without even realizing it.

This applies to heroines as well, of course. I have mentioned before about my fondness for Cecy and Kate of the Sorcery & Cecilia books by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. There are two girls who are confident in what is right, and able to act upon it. Granted, their actions often stir up yet more trouble, but that just adds to the fun. And it's not over-confidence, either - don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of the smug, or even the one who never questions. I think that's why I liked Will so much in the first PotC movie - when his sense of rightness clashed with "the rules" he'd always lived by, he had to undergo a struggle to determine which was stronger - his instinct for justice, or what he'd always believed. Which made his decision in the end far more cheer-worthy.

Or Sam, from NCIS:LA - though it tore at him to break away from NCIS in last season's finale, to walk away from the structure he lived by, it was more important to help his friends (and save Hetty). If Callen hadn't walked away first, would Sam have done so? I'm not sure, but once Callen did, Sam had to back up his friend and partner.

And that is awesome stuff, and to me, the sort of thing that makes a hero (or heroine) truly interesting, and truly worth emulating.

What sort of heroes do you prefer - the tortured ones, the ones suffering from a lot of inner angst, the anti-hero like Captain Jack Sparrow, or the simpler heroes, like Sam and Faramir, etc? I think there's a lot to be said for all kinds, and I'm always interested to hear where other people differ from my preferences - it helps me broaden my writing repertoire as well as gives me stuff to chew on personally! Also, when it comes to Jane Austen heroes, am I the only one who thinks that Mr Darcy remains something of a bore even after his change, and that Mr Knightley is one of the greatest heroes in literature (I know Rockinlibrarian agrees with me on Henry Tilney's swoon-worthiness, at least!)?

Names and Naming

2011-09-24T11:03:00.000-04:00

This can't be long, because I'm on my way out the door with husband, littles, and mother-in-law, on our way to a children's museum, hurrah!

But, something Joy said the other day planted a seed for a children's picture book in my brain, and it has been growing ever since, and seems about ready to burst into full blossom.

So I need your help, friends: What would a good name be for an imaginative little boy (about six years old) with a kind heart and a mischievous grin, who calls his mother Mummy and likes to ride his bicycle?

(Peter, Jamie, George, and Johnny have all been discarded already. Just about any other name is up for grabs.)

Have at it in the comments!

Edited to Add: I've had a bit more time to think about it and look up names, so I can now offer you a list of names that stood out to me. Feel free, please, to still come up with your own, but if you prefer to pick from a list, here are, in alphabetical order,

Abel
Arthur
Clayton
Colin
David
Ellis
Felix
Finn
Gilbert
Jack
Jeffery
Julian
Lewis
Malcolm
Milo
Nicholas
Oliver
Parker
Silas
Timothy

Peter vs Peter

2011-09-20T09:58:00.000-04:00

Because sulkiness is so much more magnificent than nobility

And a hero without angst is like romance without kissing in the rain.

Don't mistake me: I think William Moseley is an excellent actor. And I thoroughly enjoyed his performance in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. And taking Prince Caspian as a movie on its own merits, apart from the book, he played his role well.

But he just wasn't - couldn't possibly be - High King Peter the Magnificent. King Peter, who tells the unsure and humble Prince Caspian (I also quite like Ben Barnes, but oh! his Caspian was almost as poor a representation of the book's character as Peter) first thing "We haven't come to take your throne, you know, but to put you in it." Who never questioned Aslan's choice in sending them back to England, then bringing them to Narnia only for a short time. Who loved deeply, and was not ashamed of it; who mourned deeply and was equally unashamed. Who was noble, and just, and courageous, pretty much everything a traditional hero of medieval literature was supposed to be - just look at Malory's King Arthur, and the knights of the Round Table, sometime.

And yes, I understand that all of those traits don't translate well to a modern-day movie-going audience. Remember my old post on Hero and Everyman? It's the Everyman most movies promote, not the Hero. Not anymore. People's tastes have shifted. And that's okay, for the most part, because Everyman is important, too - especially when, as Rockinlibrarian pointed out on that post, the Everyman does the heroic (SAM!).

But still. We could have done with less angst - or with angst over a different matter. Instead of the selfish "me me me why did Aslan send me back I was king I want to be king again why doesn't anyone take me seriously wahhhh," it could have been more along the lines of "what happened to Narnia why are these interlopers here what do you mean the beavers are extinct they were my friends Narnia is in my blood and it is hurting which makes me hurt and England is cold and unfriendly and I can't find my footing." And then, of course, he could have learned while in Narnia how to search beneath the surface to find the warmth and joy that still existed, and to decide to seek out the same in England, which is why he was suddenly fit to return to England for good, because Narnia had taught him what he needed to know.

You could even have worked in the tension between him and Caspian, if necessary - in that Peter has a hard time entrusting his land, his people (and trees, and Animals, and Others), to a descendent of those who silenced the land's song to begin with, but in time sees that Caspian is different, and puts aside his prejudices to give the young prince a chance.

Instead, we got stereotypes. Oh, we got stereotypes. And a very, very 2000s outlook from a character who lived in the 1940s. Which, I think, is what my frustration boils down to - it's all very well and good to have a relatable character, but when you start acting like those characters live in this era, but still set them in a former, you've started to skew history, and project your own way of thinking backward, and nothing infuriates me more than that.

(Well, okay, a few things do, but it's on my top ten list.)

So frustrating. Because Peter, as written, is a marvelous Hero, one to look up to, one to strive toward. After all, that was the point of the chivalric tales in medieval days, wasn't it? To give people an Ideal? And I think it's a shame that they tore that away from Peter in the movie and turned him into a sullen, resentful, bitter, stupid teenage boy.

Oh well. At least we still got this out of the whole thing:

I know it's a few years old now, but what did you think of the Prince Caspian movie? Does it bother you when movies change the inherent character of people in books? Do you think it is a mistake to impose today's values and mindsets onto characters from past eras, to make them more relatable, or is that just a natural side effect of historical fiction (movie or book)? Do you mourn the lack of Ideal in today's fiction?

YA, Or Not

2011-09-16T10:51:00.001-04:00

As I was working on my 1920s WIP the other day, I realized something important.

This is not a YA story.

The heroine and the hero, you see, have already come of age. Yes, the heroine is nineteen, but she is fully self-aware. The hero is in his mid-twenties. Both have lived through the War, both came of age during that time. This story is more about moving from young adult to fully adult, in the heroine's case, and in the hero's case - again, he's already adult, and he is more learning just some good, healthy life lessons (like, don't underestimate women - particularly one woman in particular!).

So. This puts me in a quandary. Either I make some major changes - changes that would alter the entire story (set it before the War, when they are younger? Make the house party one hosted and attended by parental figures, instead of heroine's personal friends? Keep it after the War and just have them live through it, instead of being personally involved? Somehow this is starting to sound like Muppet Babies or the like - take characters already established and just drop them in age) (did I seriously just make a Muppet Babies reference in this post?), OR I drop the entire idea of YA and just accept that this is an alternate-history adventure-fantasy, end thought.

I'm leaning toward the latter. Except I'm starting to panic, because everything that I've looked up in reference to agents and marketing etc has been YA. Are there other stories like this out there? Is there even a genre for alternate-history adventure-fantasy? (Outlander? I've never read any of the stories, but I have a vague idea those are somewhat similar) Do I go for the fantasy genre or the adventure/mystery genre? Do I cut out the fantasy along with the YA and just have it be a historical adventure?

So many questions. One of these days I'm going to write something uncomplicated.

How boring will that be!

Have you ever gotten halfway through a project and realized it's not what you had originally planned? Which is more important to you, sticking within your genre or sticking with your characters and plot? Do you think an alternate-history adventure-fantasy would have a market in the adult crowd? Did you watch Muppet Babies as a kid?

Influences: Elizabeth Enright

2011-09-13T10:31:00.000-04:00

Another one of the few non-fantasy authors who have been an enormous influence on my writing and my life, Elizabeth Enright doesn't get anywhere near the appreciation she deserves, in my opinion. Which sounds odd, considering she won a Newberry Medal for Thimble Summer. It's been my experience, however, that most people get a blank look on their faces when you mention Enright's name, and then only vague recognition comes with the mention of Thimble Summer.

I thoroughly enjoy Thimble Summer, but it can't hold a candle to my favorites of hers - the Gone-Away books. Whether it is the close relationship between a boy cousin and a girl cousin, reminding me so happily of the friendship between my cousin Zach and me, or the idea of a hidden, old-fashioned community, or (in the second book) all the fun of renovating an old house (which, having lived through, is Not Really Fun At All, but Enright made it seem fun), and moving to the country after having lived in the city ... whatever it was, the books were a delight. I especially like that, unlike so many YA and MG books, the adults are present and involved, while the children still have freedom to explore and be brave and get themselves in and out of trouble. We need to see more of that in books for young people!

Then there's the Melendy Quartet. I've written in my favorites posts about this family - Randy and Rush and the family overall. I love them. I want them to be my next-door neighbors. I want to have had Randy and Rush to adventure with as a kid, and I want them all to be my kids' friends. They are real, and delightful, and funny, and brave (and occasionally not), and ambitious, and loyal and loving.

I think what I like best about Enright's books, and her characters, is that perfect blend of realism and idealism. While the Melendy gang have marvelous adventures and impossible luck, they also feel like real people, people you could meet any day walking down the road. Same with Portia and Julian and the rest of the Gone-Away crew. As for Garnet of the wheat-colored braids, despite living in the hardest of times in American recollection, the Great Depression (a farmer's daughter, no less), there is no grimness in her; she still exudes the natural joy of childhood, mixed with a very real worry for her parents' livelihood.

Another factor that has always personally influenced my delight in Enright is the friendship that exists between boys and girls, without any romance or foolishness, just very easy and natural. Garnet and Jay and Rush and Randy are, true, brother and sister, and Portia and Julian cousins, so romance would be quite ick in their cases, but so many writers only seem to capture the squabbling side of boy-girl family relationships, or the exasperation each feels for the other. There is some of that in Enright's books, as there is in life, but there is also the deep and meaningful friendship that only comes when boys and girls are friends with each other, instead of boys only being friends with boys, and girls only being friends with girls. I love that Enright shows those sorts of friendships are possible, instead of assuming there must always be this unfathomable chasm between the two. Ugh! No wonder we have such problems with gender discrimination; it is so ubiquitous, even in children's literature!

Whenever I want to capture some of the sense of my childhood, I re-read an Enright book. And in my writing, I try to keep in mind how natural and fun her characters all are, regardless of the book's setting. When children who were created sixty, seventy, eighty years ago feel more real than children written about today, you know something has been done right!

Are you familiar with Elizabeth Enright? If so, which is your favorite book? What are some books you can think of that feature really excellent boy-girl friendships, without any hints of romance?

Obligatory Start of School Year Post

2011-09-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

"So Louise," you say, "What have you been up to lately?"

Funny you should ask!

I don't know if I've mentioned here before our plan to teach our littles at home. Our main reason for this is that both Carl and I feel that a classical education, or some form thereof, is going to give them the best tools for learning and growing their entire life. And that is not something that one can find in any public schools, or even most private. I love the holistic way classical education works, showing how everything is interconnected, I love that it teaches how to learn, instead of just imparting facts, I love, love, love that it gives them Latin at a young age so that they have a good solid base for almost any other language they want to learn in later years.

So. Yesterday I started preschool with Joy. It wasn't in our original plan to do preschool at all - I have a rather Montessori approach to schooling for really little kids, in theory at least, that they learn best through unstructured play and exploring their world.

But Joy? She gets bored with unstructured play. And she really loves doing projects, or sitting down and practicing letters, or anything of that sort. So last year I bought a few workbooks just to see if she would like them, and she ate them up. So this year I firmly put my child's individual preference ahead of my ideals and theories, and we are doing preschool. I ordered more workbooks from the same company (Kumon, in case anyone is curious - I know they don't work for everyone, but they seem practically made for Joy), bought some flashcards (which she likes almost as much as the workbooks), and typed up a weekly schedule for her. We haven't dived right into the new schedule yet, still using some of our other books (Hooked on Phonics, which she likes but doesn't find anywhere near as challenging and satisfying as the Kumon books) because I'm still missing one workbook which I thought I had but ended up having to order ...

But this isn't about my absent-mindedness, although I suspect we'll possibly have an episode like that every year. Joy is so happy to be "doing school" every day, and although I am emphatically not a natural teacher, I love seeing her blossom almost overnight with this new schedule.

I even wrote out a goal list of things I want to see Joy accomplish this year - both academic and personal, because for me, school is about so much more than just training the mind, but about developing healthy lifestyle habits as well. Which is why "explore new ideas" is one item on the list, as well as "learn to write name," "learn to count to 100," and "learn to control temper" (I suspect that one will go on the goal list Every Single Year); and "skate forward and backward" (figure skating is our PE!) is right next to "learn music" (yes, that one is vague, but I'm still not sure what we'll be doing for music. Joy insists she wants to learn banjo, but I'm thinking we might need to start with something more basic, first). Education! It's so much more than readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.

Grace, I suspect, will be my Montessori kid, which also ought to be fun, especially once I've gotten used to Joy's learning style and have to retrain myself all over again to figure out what works best for Gracie, but I am adapting as I need, and the reward of my kid's beaming face as she finishes up the last of last year's workbooks before starting the new is enough for me.

Hope this wasn't too boring for you all to read! I promise, I will do a writing-related post soon. How many of you sent your kids off to school this week, or started school at home? Were your kids excited or dreading the school year? If you do homeschool, do you follow a particular method, and if so, why? Are you super-impressed by my not-quite four-year-old's ability to mostly color within the lines?

Best Favorite Award

2011-09-04T10:31:00.000-04:00

One of the fun new phrases in our house these days, courtesy of Joy, is "best favorite." Used most recently to say, "No, the horses and the chick and the maple slushie that Aunt Lizzie bought for herself and I drank half of weren't my best favorites at the fair; the big black mama pig was my best favorite." I think this child might grow up to be a farmer.

So, today I am passing along an award that I recently won to some of my "best favorite" blogs (ooh, smooth transition, Louise!). The Liebster Award was given to me by Connie of A Merry Heart - who accompanied it by some very kind words which I am now going to have to work hard to always live up to.

The rules state that I am supposed to:

Show my thanks to the blogger who gave me the award by linking back to them.
Reveal my top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Post the award on my blog.
Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
And best of all – have fun and spread the love.

Specifically, I am supposed to pass this to blogs with less than 200 followers. Which is tricky, so I might not make it to five. Let's see how far I get ...

Cath (or Connie) of Constance Reader writes funny and smart book reviews, and is directly responsible for many of my recent reads, and the ever-growing list of TBR.

Adrienne of Bridges to Everywhere is always witty and pithy in her observations on life.

Joanna of My Meanderings not only uses her blog to showcase much of her amazing photography, she is honest and vulnerable in opening her life to her readers.

Kendall (Mrs Manz) of Manzville is another blogger whose passion and vulnerability often have left me in tears. She also happens to be someone I knew in person long before either of us started blogging, and is a dear friend.

Beth at Endless Books not only shares my love for CS Lewis and many other authors, but kindly posts homeschooling experiences that I can tuck away in my bookmarks for when I start the school journey in a couple of year.

Hey, I made it to five!

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday, filled with plenty of your best favorite people and things.

Music

2011-09-01T08:51:00.002-04:00

Thank you to those who commented on the last post! I was asking the question because I was stuck on figuring out a particular magical adventure in my MG fantasy, and I wanted to see what, if any, were some common threads that wove throughout most people's childhood dreams. There was one, too! It was ... flying, whether on winged horses, flying carpets, or just on one's own. Pretty neat, to see how much so many very different people have in common from childhood.

And now on to today's topic, which is, as the title suggests, music.

My sister and I were very fortunate, growing up. We had parents who refused to listen to, or allow us to listen to, bad music. So my childhood music memories include listening to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf; making up dances to Bach; humming John Denver along with Dad; and taking naps accompanied by songs about phonics ("Apple, apple, a,a,a") and Spanish-to-English translations of simple phrases, also set to music.

Awesome stuff.

Thanks to such a diverse and rich background musically (I don't really remember listening to much kid's music at all, except for Raffi, naturally, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the aforementioned tape with the learning songs on it - which I now have in CD form for my littles), I find that I still appreciate a wide variety of music. Different sorts for different moods or needs! I like:

Beethoven or Hayden for cleaning

Mozart-Handel-Brahms-etc. for relaxing

Bach for inspiration

And for just general listening, or if I need a specific kind of music for a specific kind of story: Owl City; Regina Spektor; Marina and the Diamonds (some); Lenka; Ingrid Michaelson; Kate Nash or Lily Allen (some); and, of course, Michael Buble.

And then there's the Celtic music I like, whether instrumental or with vocals. And thanks to growing up with a string-pickin' father, I'm a sucker for American folk music.

I'm trying to imitate that same sort of diverse background for my littles; we do have a bunch of children's music, but it is all either Raffi (EVERY kid needs to grow up listening to Baby Beluga, which my Joy freely adapts into "Heaven above and the sea below, and a little white hi-ip-po - whee, whee, whee!"), or more folk music, adapted for kids. We are big fans of Elizabeth Mitchell and Lisa Loeb! More often, they listen to whatever Carl and I are listening to - which can be anything from instrumental hymns to Brahms to Michael Buble!

Do you have music that you listen to for specific tasks? When you write, do you have music playing in the background, or do you need silence, or does it depend on the story (it does for me - some stories I need to write in silence, while some require music to put me in the proper mindset)? What sort of music did you listen to as a kid, and do you still find yourself drawn to that sort of music now?

Disclaimer: I am not associated or affiliated with any of the artists mentioned in this post; the opinions therein are my own.

Question For You

2011-08-27T21:08:00.000-04:00

I just asked this on my Facebook page, and got some great responses. Now I'm curious as to what you all would say. Here it is:

What were some magical, fantastical adventures you dreamed about experiencing when you were a kid?

I do have an ulterior motive behind the question ... but I'll wait until I get the answers before revealing it. Not to be mean, but mostly because I don't want to influence anyone in one direction or another, or lead you to answer differently than you might on your own.

So, have at it in the comments!

Shakespeare, Attempting

2011-08-25T11:06:00.000-04:00

I recently finished reading The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D Schmidt. It's not the sort of book that I usually read (which was one reason why I picked it up in the first place, actually - I like to stretch myself sometimes), but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It made me think of my parents, who grew up in that era and have shared their memories of that turbulent time with my sister and me - and my dad loved Shakespeare in high school, and my mom's always been crazy for English. So it ended up having a very familiar and comfortable feel, and I most of all appreciated that it ended on a hopeful note, unlike so many of the YA books set in that era. It acknowledged the hardships, but didn't let them control the protagonist - in fact, much of the theme woven through was how he learned how to use those very hardships to forge his own fate. Good stuff.

And, to get more to the point of this post, it inspired me to give Shakespeare another try. Because my dad loves it so, every few years I go to read another play, and if I'm lucky I get through one, and then my eyes glaze over partway through the second. I would really, most of all, like to take a class on Shakespeare (never got to that one in college - maybe someday, when I go back), to have others help me discover the themes and hidden notes, but for now, I'll just give it another go on my own.

I asked for recommendations on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, and the overwhelming vote was in favor of one of the comedies, with the Taming of the Shrew coming up over and over again (Hamlet was mentioned a couple times, too, but I think I'd like to start with something a little lighter). So I'm going to give that a go. My usual method for reading these? Find an outline online, or even the Cliff Notes, and read that first. That way, I can soak in the language and pick up the subtleties better when reading the play itself, because I'm not as distracted by also trying to figure out the plot.

So that's my plan. Hopefully I'll be able to get through more than just one this fall and winter, and maybe even develop a richer appreciation for Shakespeare - because right now, I must confess, I have a sneaking suspicion that he's overrated. Heresy, I know!

Are you a fan of Shakespeare? If so, which is your favorite play? Are there famous books, plays, or writers that you secretly (or not-so-secretly) think are overrated? What's on your reading list for fall?

Turning

2011-08-20T15:12:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning to a fog so thick that for a split second, my sleep-befuddled brain thought it was snowing because it was so white outside my window.

(Incidentally, wouldn't that be a great opening line for a story?)

The summer heat has worked its usual magic, and I find myself looking as forward to autumn and - dare I admit it? - even winter as I was to spring and summer this past March.

Autumn and spring are my favorite seasons, each in its turn. I love the awakening that comes with spring, the glorious warmth and light after an inevitably long, cold, dark winter. I love to see the world turning green, the birds returning and filling the air with song, the flowers and plants pushing up from the ground. Everything is fresh and new, and returning to life, and my soul expands with it.

It is a quieter delight that comes with the autumn. The summer has (usually) been hot enough to make me long for cooler days and crisp nights. Even if its a cool summer, I still find myself looking forward to the richness of the autumn colors, the leaves changing and the apples ripening, and soon, the snow starting to fall and all the joys that come with that.

My writing always flows so much better with the changing of the seasons. Watching life start again in the spring, as well as seeing everything settle down in autumn, both start my inspirational juices flowing. My other creative interests seek outlets then, too - usually my quilting picks up for the cooler months, while gardening and photography interest me in the spring and summer.

Our life has taken an unexpected twist this past month, and we have no idea if we will stay in this house for the next month, season, or year. But I know that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, the earth will continue to turn, and the seasons to change. There is great comfort in that, great hope. Great trust.

Do you have a favorite season? Are you happy to see summer drawing to a close, or does the very thought of cooler weather make you cringe? What times during the year are the best for your writing, or other creative outlets?

Move, Completed (Mostly)

2011-08-16T10:44:00.000-04:00

Moving is hard work.

Family is awesome.

Someday I need to write a story featuring a heroine who always is there to help her children, even when they are grown and have kids of their own, and are moving into their FIFTH place in seven years, and she's helped with every move but one (because she was in the middle of finals at the time of that one, and her daughter only had three weeks notice of the move anyway), and can organize her kids' house way better than they can, and refuses to complain, take credit, or even act like it's a big deal at all.

Oh, and a hero who, while he can't get out of his job to come help in person, calls his kids every day to see how the move is going, and sends his wife off with dire threats if she doesn't come home having spent their money on things that the kids need, want, or haven't even thought of yet.

My house (new house) is livable now, thanks to my mom. In some ways, it's even really nice, and we only moved in on Saturday. My new study is still a mess of boxes and empty bookshelves, but my kitchen is all organized, and my girls have a playroom, and my dining room table even has a tablecloth on it.

I can't imagine I'll be doing much posting in the new couple of weeks, even with all of this, but I'll at least try to get back into reading and commenting on all your blogs, and hopefully once in a while my brain will emerge from its fog of "what box did I pack that in?" and come up with a fairly reasonable topic.

My new washer and dryer come tomorrow, though, so I imagine that the next few days, at least, will be spent in doing laundry.

What's been new with you this week?

To Change, Or Not?

2011-08-09T08:09:00.000-04:00

My mom got here yesterday, and we started the painting at the new place. I'm starting to have a faint hope that we might be ready to move by next Saturday, after all!

In the midst of everything else, I glanced over my completed children's story, The Magic Garden, the other day and thought, "Why did I stop sending this out?" I remember getting negative responses from all the publishers on my first list, but then I started on the second list, and somehow just ran out of steam.

So here's my question: my heroine is eleven (I actually Tweeted and put up on FB yesterday that she was eight - uh, too many paint fumes, I guess - but I really did remember writing her as eight. I must have aged her up later and then forgotten about it), and it technically would land as a middle-grade novel, based on protagonist's age. However, I wrote it with a simpler, cleaner style than I usually do (shorter sentences, simpler vocabulary, fewer parenthesis), and it's only 18,000 words.

Ought I to stretch it out and jazz it up a bit? I could do that, easily enough - it was really, really hard for me to keep it so simple to begin with! It's a story along the lines of Edward Eager and E Nesbit's fantasies - ordinary children who discover magic practically in their backyard, and have to learn its ins and outs, and thwart it and get thwarted by it. In the end, of course, the children all learn something important about themselves.

Half Magic, by Edward Eager, is around 30,000 words. Five Children and It, by E Nesbit, is a little over 50,000. I'm thinking it might be worthwhile, once I have finished the first draft of my 1920s fantasy-adventure, to pull out The Magic Garden again and see what I can do to make it more truly MG, instead of floating in this nebulous in-between region - not truly children's, but not MG, either.

What do you think?

Do you ever find that even though you believe in a story, you have to make some cosmetic changes to make it work? Have you ever lost steam on sending out a story, only to find it a good thing later, because it helps you make it even better before you send it out to anyone else? Do you agree that the world needs more stories in the tradition of Nesbit and Eager?

True Princesses

2011-08-02T10:06:00.002-04:00

My nearly-four-year-old and I share a fascination with Princess Kate - I beg her pardon, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. We just call her Princess Kate, though.

Joy and I (and my father) happily watched as much of the Royal Wedding as we got up in time to see. Granted, most of Joy's thrills came from the horses that pulled the carriages, and with the bride's beautiful white dress. Mine came because I had adored Princess Diana as a little girl, and it felt like coming full circle to watch my daughter sit in absorbed fascination at her son's wedding.

We don't do Disney princesses around here. This hasn't been so much of a conscious decision against those sorts of princesses; we just don't do much for television or movies at all. As my girls get older, though, I am devoutly thankful that their ideas of princesses come from the likes of Princess Kate and Audrey Hepburn's Princess Anne in "Roman Holiday" (we watched that on Hepburn's birthday), rather than pale, insipid versions of fairy tales princesses.

I'm not sure whether Disney is the root or the result of the problem with how we in this culture instinctively view princesses. I do know it is a more modern way of looking at things - that "princess" is synonymous with privilege and luxury, instead of responsibility and sacrifice. A perfect example of the difference, and how much things have changed in the last hundred years, is looking at the difference between the book A Little Princess, written by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1905 (revised from a serial written in 1888), and the popular movie version that came out in 1995.

In the book, Sara's "pretend" that she is a princess starts while she is living in pampered luxury, but where it really takes effect is when everything is stripped away from her. She says, in effect (my copy of the book is in a box at the other house right now, so I can't give exact quotes), "Anyone can be a princess when she has lots of pretty things and everyone likes her. A true princess shows her worth when all that is taken away." Sara shows her true "princess-ness" by always being courteous and kind to those who constantly belittle and abuse her, by giving generously of what she still has left - namely, her imagination and story-telling abilities - to those around her, and by sacrificing her own needs to those who are less fortunate even than she ("this is one of the populace, and I'm not truly starving," she says, as she gives away her buns to the little beggar girl, in one of the most poignant and beautiful scenes in the entire book). Because of the era in which the book was written, she of course receives her reward in the end, but still, the idea is that because she was a princess when everything was dark and bad, she was raised up again to luxury and comfort.

The movie sends a different message. It's been several years since I watched it, but I remember the general idea as well as specific scenes quite plainly. From what I remember, and reviews I've read, what sets Sara apart from the other girls as a "princess" isn't so much how she behaves as her imagination. She doesn't always treat everyone with respect, as is shown in one scene where she pretends to place a curse on the school's "mean girl." In the book, Sara does have a fierce temper, but part of being a princess means she has to control it, even when she wants to box the bully's ears.

In the movie, Sara's salvation comes when all the girls put their differences aside and band together to help her. And in the end, they realize that they are all princesses at heart, if they just tap into their potential. At surface, that seems like an "awww" idea. But looking at it more deeply, it is directly opposite to the idea proposed in the book, which is that one has to work and sacrifice and love deeply to be a true princess - you are a princess if you behave the same regardless of your circumstances, instead of needing the circumstances to be just so to show you your worth.

The difference is subtle, but like I said before: I want my girls to grow up with the idea that it is how you behave to others that sets you apart, not how others treat you. Yes, dear girls, by all means grow up with princesses as examples, but let them be princesses like Sara Crewe of the book, not of the movie.

Or, as King Lune puts it in The Horse and His Boy,

"For this is what it means to be king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as there must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your kingdom."

It's not about privilege. It's about sacrificing for your people, for those you love. And that, my friends, is the noblest goal of all.

ETA: Re-reading this, I realized this could really be the companion piece to my Hero and Everyman post. Connections without even realizing it!

What are your thoughts on princesses? Are you a fan of Disney? Do you agree that it is good to have fictional role models, even princesses, so long as those role models show praiseworthy traits?

Odds and Ends and Tidbits

2011-07-30T21:15:00.002-04:00

Just a brief note with some not book-or-writing-related items:

We signed the lease on a new home this afternoon. Our official move-in date is in two weeks. In that time, I have to finish packing everything in this house (or throwing it out/giving it away, which always fills me with disquieting glee), clean this place, clean the new place, and paint at least one of the bedrooms at the new place. Have I mentioned that my children are 2 and not-yet 4? I foresee much chocolate and mead in the next few weeks.

With the upcoming move, I've discovered a new fascination with interior decorating. My first big project will be the littles' room. I have it mostly plotted out (I'm a writer! I plot everything, not just stories!), and I'm so excited to put it all into practice. I also have set myself a budget, so I'm being forced to get creative, which is fun. I thought I might do a post or two on some of my ideas - the concept, and then the reality.

This house has four bedrooms, so not only will Carl get a study, I will get a room to myself, for writing and sewing (and also a guest daybed, because company has to sleep somewhere, and I'm not terribly likely to need to use a room for writing or sewing if I'm playing hostess). After the perfect writing room at my grandmother's house, I'm even more looking forward to having a room of my own. And one of the windows looks out into the branches of a big tree!

The theme of the littles' bedroom is going to be a fairy forest. Nothing too over-the-top, and nothing Disney, but I did already pick up some vintage Cicely Mary Barker and Molly Brett postcards (oh Etsy, how I love thee) to use in decorating. And because of that, I'm rediscovering my old love of fairies. You know, the kind that are mostly disdained these days - that live amongst the flowers and ferns, and use fireflies as lanterns, and ride on rabbits' backs, and all that. It may be old-fashioned and dreadfully twee, but I really did used to believe in those sorts of fairies, and I think a small part of me always will (seriously, fireflies really are uncanny. Don't tell me you can watch them without feeling a thrill of magic).

Speaking of Etsy, my sister has also returned to her roots, so to speak, and after three college degrees is starting up her silver jewelry business again. If hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind silver jewelry is your thing (she also does gold-filled, but I don't think she has any of those pieces up for sale yet), check out her shop, Designs by Lis. I've jokingly dubbed myself her business manager, and have found that my eight years in retail gave me a surprisingly keen sense of what will sell and what won't. It's also been loads of fun helping her with this.

And finally, the littles and I all got our hair cut today. Grace's is still a mass of curls, just slightly shorter and more bouncy, but both Joy and I went for something a little more polished. And for once, both came out just as I hoped!

(I snapped the picture without warning her. She was not pleased with me.)

(I did warn her, and she looks like she's not pleased, but she cracked herself up as soon as I was done, and went on to pose for about five more pictures. She likes to tease.)

(Stacked bob! Why can't my hair look as gorgeous as my kid's?)

(Structured bob. Easy to maintain, still looks nice. Pretty much win-win. I'll probably be bored with it within a month.)

(This is me looking mildly sarcastic. I don't remember now what prompted it, but I'm sure it was Carl's fault.)

What's new with you this week, month, or any recent and upcoming period of time?

Reading at Breakfast

2011-07-25T09:22:00.000-04:00

As I got up from the table this morning to carry my plate into the kitchen, I glanced back over my shoulder. Both of the littles are sitting at the table, their breakfasts half-eaten, absorbed in Little Golden Books. I'm not thrilled that they keep forgetting to eat, but I love, love, love the fact that my almost-four-year-old and two-year-old find books so delightful that they lose track of everything else.

(Apologies for the blurriness. The lighting in my dining room isn't the best, and if I use the flash they both squinch up their eyes.)

These books I picked up at the Borders liquidation sale on Saturday. The girls had been so good about staying close to us through the crowds, and waiting for us to go through the rows of books in which there was little or no order, and besides, if Mamma and Papa are coming out with armfuls of books, shouldn't they, too?

(Admittedly, most of the books I bought were preschool workbooks to use with Joy this fall, but I did pick up a couple for myself.)

Joy helped me pick the books out, because Grace was assisting Carl with all his philosophy books. Joy chose "Baby Farm Animals" and "The Jolly Barnyard," and I snagged "The Color Kittens" because I remember reading that at my grandparents' house and I want them to delight in it, too (Hush and Brush!).

My parents used to buy my sister and me Little Golden Books at the grocery store. Not every time, but frequently as a "just because" purchase. Our grandparents and aunts and uncles helped fill our shelves with more. So far, my littles have only gotten board book versions or some of my smaller ones that I've passed to them, so these were their first picked-off-the-shelf, carry-to-the-register, read-in-the-car-on-the-way-home Little Golden Books.

And I thrill to see them, even though they can't read the words yet, already finding such happiness in these classic tales. I hope, in five to ten years, to have shelves full of Little Golden Books, just as I did when I was a girl. And maybe someday, they'll have the delight of putting one of these very same books in the hands of their child and saying,

"I loved this one when I was little."

Did you grow up on Little Golden Books? Which one was your favorite? I always love anything with illustrations by Eloise Wilkins. Does it give you a thrill to pass books that you loved as a child down to children now? Have you gone to Borders recently, and if so, did you find it as sad as I did?

Everyday Stories

2011-07-20T14:05:00.000-04:00

Adrienne made a comment on one of my recent posts about the sad dearth of ordinary stories about ordinary people - the likes of which were written by LM Montgomery, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, etc. Considering that I just recently wrote on how important fantasy is, it might seem odd that I now turn around in defense of "ordinary tales," but I truly do believe both are vital.

Fantasy can help to expand us, help us see beyond ourselves to the possibilities that exist in our dreams and imagination. Everyday stories, I think, help to ground us, and to show us the beauty and joy that comes from just living, just as we are now. Both, in their own way, show us the magic that exists all around us.

I can't imagine growing up without Anne Shirley, Betsy Ray, Garnet of the wheat-colored braids, and as I grew older, Rilla, Lizzy Bennet, Anne Elliot, and Molly Gibson. Et cetera, et cetera.

There's a big emphasis I see these days in people thinking that one has to already be special in order to do or accomplish anything special, or have a worthwhile life (running contradictory to the other popular idea, which is that "everyone is special," and which also produces laziness, but that's a topic for another time). There was a lot that I disliked in the recent movie version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but one of the things that drove me nuts the most was a tiny little throwaway line from Reepicheep, where he tells the dragon-that-was-Eustace,

"Things like this don't happen to just anybody, you know. You've got to be someone extraordinary."

(Or something like that. I don't remember the exact quote.)

It made me want to scream, right there in the theater, because that's not true and it's not how Lewis wrote Eustace. I hate that we seem to be living in a time that believes you have to be born "different," somehow, for your life to have meaning. And right now, in MG and YA lit, that "different" usually does equal mystical or supernatural.

And that, I think, it a dreadful use of the fantasy genre. I would much rather read about Anne Shirley, overcoming an incredibly difficult and mundane birth and early life to live a life of simple grace, love, and beauty (one of my all-time favorite quotes ever is from Anne of Avonlea (or is it Anne of the Island?), where she tells Gilbert her life's goal is to add beauty to the world and people's lives, that they might have some joy or hope that they wouldn't have had otherwise), then about what's-her-name from the book whose title is synonymous with dusk, who whines and mopes and finally becomes a bloodsucker in truth as well as metaphorically. What's inspirational about that, again?

And I think it will be a true shame if this generation grows up only reading books that reinforce the idea that it takes something supernatural to make you special, that you can't live a meaningful or exciting life if you don't have fangs or wings or both.

Life - just as it is, in reality - is both beautiful and exciting, and always meaningful, if we are just willing to look hard and work at it. We can't just sit back and allow life to pass us by because "we weren't born special." We don't need a prophecy told about us at birth to enable us to achieve great things.

Everyday stories, about every people living everyday lives, can be just as inspirational, and for me, at least, have been an enormous help in finding joy in life just as it is, just as fantasy helps me seek even deeper into the beauty and wonder of life.

Do you like reading "everyday stories"? What books can you think of, about ordinary people and ordinary life, have helped you develop and grow as a human being? Can you think of some recent titles in YA that are those sort of everyday stories? I'm drawing a blank, myself!

End of an Era

2011-07-15T10:39:00.000-04:00

So, unless you've been living under a rock lately (or you're my husband, who greets all my pop culture pronouncements with a blank stare and "Why would I care?"), you know that the final Harry Potter movie started this weekend.

I mentioned, half-jokingly, on Twitter a couple days ago how sick I was of Harry Potter. Then I made a joke about losing all my followers. When I checked responses later, I had two. One, from somebody whose user name was taken straight from the HP world, simply said "Goodbye." I checked. She was no longer following me.

The other, from a girl I've known since she was a baby and has grown into one of the most lovable young women I've ever met, asked anxiously if I'd read the books or anything - the idea being, I think, that only a person unfamiliar with HP could be sick of it.

I've read all seven books. I owned the first five before I needed the shelf space and donated them to my local library. I went to see the first four movies in the theater (something major for me - I'm not big on the movie theater. Unless we're talking LotR, because I saw each of those FIVE times in the theater. I was in college, okay? I did a lot of dumb things. Remind me to tell you sometime about dying my hair green. ON PURPOSE).

It's not like I hate Harry Potter (okay, well, I'm not too crazy about the character himself. Round about Book 5 I started wishing a Hippogriff would take him out). There are parts of the series I really like. I still think Prisoner of Azkaban is an absolutely brilliant book. Fred and George Weasley, all of the Weasleys really, are terrific (yes, even Percy). The humor, especially in the first few books, is delightful. The attention to detail, and connectedness between books, still blows my mind. I admire Rowling's creativity so much in building her magical world and peopling it with all the different species and creatures she did.

And I adore Emma Watson.

So I'm not being a complete curmudgeon here. I just honestly don't think the HP world is worth all the lavish devotion and hype people shower on it. The first three books, yes. The fourth one was still good, but not quite up to the standard of the first three. I hated the fifth book. Aside from Fred and George (and the occasional Ginny moment), I hated everything about it. The sixth book was better, but still disappointing. And the seventh was about on par with the sixth.

As for the movies, every single one was a disappointment. Especially the fourth, which is why I didn't bother going to see any of the ones after it. The first one was neat in a lot of ways, but it didn't come anywhere close to capturing the sheer joyous magic of the first book.

I've given a lot of thought to why the series (to me! I know many people differ from me on this matter) went downhill. It's not just that momentum is hard to maintain throughout seven books. Even though many people don't like them as much, I think everyone can agree that The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle are two of the strongest-written books in the Chronicles of Narnia. Prydain only has five books, but they got better and better with each one (Taran Wanderer, the second-to-last book in the series, is one of my favorite books of all time).

It could be the length - as each book got longer, it got harder to keep them as zestful. Or it could be the lag time between them, making it more difficult to keep up an entertaining pace. It could have something to do with the fact that they started doing the movies while the books were still being written, forcing JKR to divide her attention.

My personal suspicion, however, has to do with those incredible details I mentioned earlier. The impression I got from reading the last few books was that Rowling got so caught up in bringing all those little details from the previous books into the final ones, so involved in making everything mesh absolutely perfectly, that she lost sight of the story itself.

Maybe I'm talking through my hat here. Maybe that's not the case at all. But one of the reasons Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of the series is that the connectivity is all (or mostly) within that one story. We see things at the end that make us flip back to the beginning and say "Ohhhh." NOT flip back to book one, two, and hunt around in book five because we think we remember that but we're not sure. That's cool, but it gets exhausting for both reader and writer. Book 3 still fits snugly within the series, but it's a fine book all on its own.

The other thing, of course, is that the characters had grown from the first two, but hadn't had a chance to get locked into the more annoying parts of their personalities yet. And Hermione vs. the boggart in the DADA final was priceless!

Do you think the entire Harry Potter series was brilliant, or do you agree that the final three books didn't live up to the promise of the first four? Do you think it's possible to get too clever, and end up losing sight of your story and characters? Have you ever found your characters getting stuck in irritating mode, and not been able to break them free?

A New Story

2011-07-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

Today, the story I want to write is about a mother. A mother who is also a writer. Or a writer who is also a mother? I'm not sure which it has been, but lately, this woman has been realizing that her priorities need to shift, so that she is, in fact, a mother first and a writer second.

This is a hard shift. Writing has always been this woman's passion, ever since she was a very little girl. Her family always recognized that, and worked around it. But somehow, in getting her own family, she has slowly started to realize that children can't recognize that.

She isn't giving up writing. Never that! She's just shifting her priorities around a bit, so that more of her time is spent interacting with her children, and less is spent pursuing her own dreams. Because one's dreams have to change once one has children, don't they? These children are given to us, those of us who are gifted with them, for such a short time, and these early years especially are laying the foundation of who and what they will be as they grow into adults and venture out into the world. That is an awesome responsibility.

So, this story. I'm not sure how it ends. I know how I hope it will end: with the woman becoming both a better mother and a better writer, with the children growing up knowing their parents loved them enough to set aside their own dreams for a time, and with the stories this woman writes becoming richer through her life experiences and sacrifices. (I also hope there might be a theme running through of the husband and wife sacrificing for each other - wife taking on extra so husband can study at times, husband taking on extra so the wife can get some uninterrupted writing time when she needs it.)

The ending? It's murky, but I'm certain it's a happy one. The story? I'm writing it as I live it.

I might not be around the blogosphere/Twitterverse/whatever else as much in these next few months, maybe years. I'll still be here, writing, commenting, posting, just more infrequently, so that it takes less time away from my family. I was starting to turn increasingly to these things as a way to try to get away from my other responsibilities, and it has been made exceedingly plain to me recently that I need to shift my thinking. So I'm trying.

And my question for you today is, if you have a family, how do you balance following your passion and putting your spouse & children first? I'm genuinely curious, because balance is always something I've had a hard time maintaining! I either get sucked dry sacrificing for my family, or I just "put in my time" with them and devote my full attention to my own interests. So any experience you want to share would be greatly appreciated!

Writing Room

2011-07-06T09:27:00.000-04:00

My parents are in the midst of remodeling their house (FINALLY! After 20 years!), so this vacation we're staying at my grandmother's house, across the driveway. Granted, she's remodeling too, but she at least has three usable bedrooms. After Carl left (he has to work the rest of this week, but the littles and I are staying to play for a bit longer), I moved upstairs so Gram could have her room, with the only double bed, back.

The walls are pale fawn, the ceiling slants down on one side, there's a window overlooking the tangled trees which are currently blocking the pond, but will be trimmed back eventually. There's a little white bed and a bookcase. My very first thought, as I dumped the suitcase beside the bed, was: "This is the perfect writing room."

(My second thought was that it looked like an Anne of Green Gables room, but that's slightly irrelevant to this topic.)

I could just see myself set up at a little desk by the window, looking out at the trees for inspiration (most likely with my chin propped on my hand), and then tapping furiously at my keyboard, producing a story in the shortest time ever.

It won't happen - for one thing, there's no desk. For another, I have two littles who never let me have that much time to myself. But it was nice to imagine.

At home, I write wherever and whenever I get a few spare moments. It's one of the reasons I love my laptop so. Kitchen counter, dining room table, Carl's desk, the easy chair with my legs up on the footrest, in bed ... sometimes even on the floor. And it works, but I would love, someday, to have a room which is set aside just for writing, where everything has been planned around and is conducive to the creative process. One that I don't have to share with the main life of the family!

Do you have a room or space set aside just for writing? What does your perfect writing room look like?

Creative Distractions

2011-06-30T09:35:00.001-04:00

I saw this title as a blog prompt, and thought it a great idea. There are times when the writing just isn't working, for whatever reason, or my brain just needs a break. So what to do that still keeps the creative juices flowing, but is completely different from writing? Here are a few of my favorite non-writing creative endeavors.

Quilting. This is my biggest non-writerly hobby right now. I started back when I was a teenager, hand-sewing a baby quilt that eventually went to my best friend's first baby. I made a few more quilts, but didn't really get into it until a few years ago, when another friend whom I'd given a quilt to for her first baby called me up and asked me if I could teach her to quilt. Nothing like teaching somebody else how to do something to get thoroughly involved in it yourself! I've taken it up in earnest since, and I love it. I'm not at all artistic, and quilting gives me a great outlet to test different forms of creativity. I've even started creating my own patterns, which don't always turn out so well, but are so much more satisfying than following somebody else's. Right now I'm hand-quilting one quilt for a friend's baby, planning another (my friends seriously need to stop having babies so close to each other; I can't keep up), and hoping to get a quilt done for my little Grace, who moved to a "big girl" bed this winter, and who has been sleeping under a drab brown comforter until I can get her sunshine quilt made. Then, of course, Carl has been after me to make the quilt I've been promising him for years for our bed ... I even have all the fabric, just haven't had a chance to cut it out yet!

The first quilt I ever made - all pieced by hand!

Grace's baby quilt. I loved adding ribbons to the blocks for a touch of whimsy!

The most recent quilt I completed, made for a friend with fabric from Africa!

Cooking. This is another fairly recent discovery. A love for cooking runs in my dad's family, and apparently I inherited that gene, because I have been taking great joy in the last couple of years in finding and trying new recipes, both for baked goods and meals. My absolute favorite thing in the whole world to make is homemade bread. It always reminds me of my grandmother, who made the best bread in the world, and my mother, who never really enjoyed cooking but always made sure to have homemade bread on hand for my sister and me (we, ungrateful children, always wished we could have Wonder Bread like the other kids - until we tasted it and realized it had neither flavor nor texture, and was somewhat like eating air). Plus, there is something both soothing and stimulating about kneading bread dough. I need to get a batch whipped up today, as a matter of fact!

Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies, our favorite treat

Two loaves of french bread that melded into one during baking - they didn't look very pretty, but the taste was fine!

One of our favorite easy-but-special meals - pasta carbonara, homemade focaccia, and roasted asparagus. Delicious, especially with a glass of white wine!

Scrapbooking. I don't do this much anymore, but I would like eventually to finish both Joy and Grace's first year scrapbooks, and maybe even eventually get around to putting wedding photos in a nice scrapbook. I think once the girls are older and I don't have to worry so much about them getting into my supplies this might become more fun again!
Music. This is something else that runs through my dad's family. Unfortunately, though I inherited the love for it, I did not inherit the knack (that gene went to my sister instead, who also got the cooking gene - talk about unfair!). I can read music, and play a little on the piano and the guitar, and I took voice lessons for three years, but I'd never be considered an expert. It's still something fun I like to work at when I get the chance, though. I keep promising myself that someday I'll take piano lessons again, maybe actually memorize the bass clef properly this time around.
Photography. I'm a complete amateur at this, but I do so enjoy taking pictures, and not just of my littles! My digital SLR is a constant companion on all our family hikes and outings, and I love getting unusual shots that most people wouldn't consider. So fun!

So there you have it - I joke that I am a "Jack (Jill?) of all trades, master of none," because I have so many hobbies, and only dabble in most of them. Writing is my true passion, but I'm glad I have so many other ways to express myself!

What are some of your favorite creative distractions? Do you quilt? Have you ever become better in something because someone asked you to teach them how to do it? Do you have a sister who is disgustingly good at everything she does (love you, Beth!)? Do I have too many hobbies?

Also - do you prefer to read blogs that always post on specific days, or ones that just go up whenever the blogger feels the urge? I'm trying to decide if I should set myself a blogging schedule, or keep following my own sweet whims.

Why Fantasy?

2011-06-28T12:28:00.000-04:00

This is a reasonable question, yet one I've never really asked myself before. Why, out of all the genres out there, is it fantasy, most specifically YA fantasy, that appeals to me the most?

My bookshelves are so full that I have to stack books on top of books, and some of the books that I don't want to get rid of but rarely read (ahem *Star Wars novels*) are packed away. I'd plead for more shelf space, but Carl has hogged it all already.

On my shelves, I have a smattering of classical literature - mostly Austen, Gaskell, Dickens, and Shakespeare. I have some of the Russians - Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky - but I've never made it all the way through one of their novels. The problem is I keep picking them up when I'm either pregnant or just had a baby, and I'm already prone to depression ... not a good time to read the Russians, I have found.

There's my history books covering two shelves, the books that I gleefully claim I need for research, but really just get because history of all kinds fascinates me. Then there's my children's lit - LM Montgomery, Maud Hart Lovelace, Elizabeth Enright, Louisa May Alcott, etc.

Agatha Christie gets one entire shelf to herself (she was a Very Prolific Author), and Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, and Dorothy Gilman cover the next (none of them, alas, were as prolific as I would have liked). I do enjoy a good mystery, especially one that's not too gruesome. And if you've been reading this blog for any period of time at all you know I have an illicit love affair going on with Lord Peter.

The rest of my shelves are all fantasy, and mostly YA or MG. From Narnia to Middle Earth to Prydain to E Nesbit's England to Mossflower to Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom to the Enchanted Forest and covering a whole lot more in between.

So why? What is it about fantasy that draws me so, that makes want to read it more than anything else? What is it that makes it my default for writing? Even trying to write a simple adventure story set in 1920s England turned into an alternate history type fantasy (really have to get back to that as soon as I'm done with the rough draft of Cadi's story - Maia does not take kindly to being set aside for a time).

I never got all that into the traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy. I've read some of those sorts of books and enjoyed them, but not for writing, and I usually only borrow them from the library instead of buying them for my very own. And I'm definitely not big into paranormal or urban fantasy. I have yet to read the book-whose-title-is-synonymous-with-dusk, and vampires etc just don't really interest me terribly. Unless that vampire is Angel. Duh. Again, I have read some urban fantasy and enjoyed it, but not to the point where I ever want to buy any of the books.

So what is it about certain types of fantasy that draws me the most?

This might be an unfair post, because I don't really have an answer yet. I think it's important to ponder, though, and I suspect it boils down to something along the lines of a Lloyd Alexander quote I love:

Fantasy is hardly a way of escaping reality; it's a way of understanding it.

I think that for me, fantasy has helped me understand this "real world" better, while also allowing me to accept things which we cannot see or understand. I do still believe in fairies, you see, and that belief has helped to shape me into a better person.

And if I can be an ambassador of a magical realm to this one, then that is a task I am proud and yet oddly humbled to accept.

What are your favorite genres to read or write, and why? Do you believe that fantasy does help us to understand reality better? Do you - as Peter Pan might demand - still believe in fairies?

The Vote Is In!

2011-06-25T08:49:00.000-04:00

You guys came up with some terrific suggestions and points to consider! Between your votes and what people came up with on Facebook, Catrin and Elin were definitely the favorites for the girls, and the vote was fairly evenly split between Wynn and Gethin.

In the end, I settled on ...

Catrin for the protag! One of the biggest selling points for me for this name, which I didn't even mention on here, is that the nickname is Cadi, which I kind of love even in real life. So she is Catrin for formal occasions, Cadi everywhere else. The simplicity of it also works well for her character, I think.

Wynn for the main love interest. I hesitated a bit on this one. Some of you mentioned the concern that it sounded more like a girl's name, which troubled me as well, but in the end, I just really, really liked it for him. Sometimes you've just got to go with your gut!

And Elin for the victim/bad guy. Aside from all the other good points for this name, it is only one letter less than her original name of Elain, which makes changing it in the MS nice and simple. Never let it be said I'm not honest with you all!

So now that the fun stuff is out of the way, I just need to work on finishing the first draft of this beast, and then deciding on a title. Which will be decidedly less than fun. Titles are not my forte.

Thanks again for all your input! It was a huge help.

The Name Game

2011-06-22T08:46:00.002-04:00

So, as I mentioned in a comment on my last post, I am now considering changing the names of my characters (since their personalities have all changed anyway), stopping calling this project a "rewrite," and just think of it as a brand-new project working from the same basic premise as the original.

Which might be smart, because last night it suddenly took a sharp plot turn I hadn't seen coming, and now I'm scrambling to catch up and figure out where we're going now. I haven't had a story get this out of my grasp (and this far away from the outline) in ages. It's both scary and fun - I love that it's taken on life of its own, but I hate the uncertainty of not knowing where the heck we're going, and trying to figure out when I can make it intersect again with the outline.

Anyway. I'm keeping the Welsh flavor, because I love that culture, and because I've already done a great deal of study on it.

And here's where you guys come in: I need opinions on names!

MC Current Name: Tesni (means warmth from the sun).
New Choices: Catrin ("pure"); Efa ("to live"); Nest ("chaste"); Nerys ("lady"); Rhian ("maiden"); Tegwen ("fair and blessed").
(She is very tall and sturdy, plain features, crooked nose, muddy eyes, mouse-colored frizzy hair. She is extremely practical, with a wry sense of humor, and is self-sacrificing to a fault because she doesn't consider herself of any value at all.)

Romantic Interest Current Name: Gwyn ("white, fair, blessed").
New Choices: Wynn (same meaning as the first); Neirin ("noble"); Iolyn ("handsome lord"); Gethin (swarthy").
(He is short, stocky, curly black hair and bright blue eyes, square face. Reassuring type of person, calm and accepting of almost any situation without surprise, feels the need to do something for the world as he has lived in sheltered privilege his entire life and only recently escaped.)

MC Sister (also victim and sort of bad guy) Current Name: Elain ("fawn").
New Choices: Anwen ("very beautiful"); Elin ("moon").
(Beautiful in a traditional fairy-tale way, but weak and vapid. Is usually crying or whining.)

Those are the three main names I'm struggling with. The others I've either already chosen or don't need to settle yet.

Which would you pick? I'm also open to other suggestions, if you have them - my only stipulation is that they must be Welsh, and not modern!

Query Question

2011-06-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

Question for all you lovely people with more experience and know-how than I have:

I sent out queries to a number of agents for the original version of The Eldest Sister. With the rewrite, almost everything but the character names and basic premise has changed - tone, plot, character personalities, even the title (I currently don't have a title, but I figure time enough to figure that one out when the rewrite is complete).

If, in six months or whenever this beast is ready to pounce upon an unsuspecting world, I send queries to the same agents I queried before, do I mention that this is the same MS as before (none of them even asked for a full, so it's not like they read beyond the first ten pages-three chapters which various agencies request along with the query) only substantially changed (and hopefully improved), or just assume that they have forgotten all about the bland query letter from however many months previous?

My hunch is to not even both to mention it, but I wanted other people's opinions before making the final call. And even though I'm not nearly ready to present this to agents yet, it's never too early to start thinking about it, right?

Things I Have Learned ... From YOU!

2011-06-16T08:30:00.001-04:00

The interesting thing about working really, really hard on a writing project, is that suddenly you have no time or topics for blogging. I mean, really, how many posts do people really want to read on how this rewrite is going?

(By the way, it's going really, super well. As in, I've been at it less than a week and have over 20,000 words done. Of course, yesterday marked the first time my floors were swept in I-don't-want-to-think-how-long, and the pile of clean laundry in my laundry room is threatening to take over my house unless I start folding, and my family has been eating vegetarian for the simple reason that I never remember to take meat out of the freezer early enough in the day .... but hey. The WRITING is going great!)

One really fantastic thing with this rewrite that I do want to mention is how much the writing blogs I've started following in the last year have helped. For example? In the first version, my MC had to look at her reflection for me to feel comfortable giving her physical description.

I know. CLICHE!

I knew it was cliched even then, but it wasn't until reading a bunch of different blogs that I started to realize just how cliched it was. And, even better, how to avoid it. Now, she simply knows how she looks. Because really, how many of us need a mirror to describe how we look? I haven't looked in a mirror since leaving the house for Bible Study last night, but I can tell you right now exactly how I look:

Ash-blonde hair with lighter highlight and darker lowlights to brighten it and give it depth. Just about jaw-length, mostly one length except those front pieces that used to be bangs and I am desperately trying to lose (I TOLD the hairdresser bangs don't work for me, but she didn't listen. They never do). High, broad forehead. Dark brows that used to meet in the middle but are, thanks to tweezers and wax, mostly tamed these days. Blue eyes with long lashes that make the ever-present dark circles underneath look even darker. A blunt nose that I've always hated, even if it is a family trait. High cheekbones, one of my few claims to beauty. A mouth that is almost always smiling at least a little, and usually a lot, and mostly straight teeth thanks to my lovely orthodontist (and would be perfectly straight if I had been better about wearing my retainer after I got married, but hey, what young newlywed wants to go to bed with a mouthful of plastic?) Receding jawline that I HATE, especially when combined with my nose, because the two together make my profile look idiotic. My only comfort comes when I remember that Lord Peter Wimsey had no chin, either. Coarse skin if I don't moisturize, prone to redness when I don't wear my correcting powder, and thank goodness for modern makeup!

(I just got up and glanced in the mirror. The only things I forgot were my ears, which are unremarkable, and my glasses. I have no excuse for forgetting the latter. They are the first things I put on when I wake up, and the last I take off before bed, and I've worn them (well, not this particular pair, but glasses in general) since I was twelve.)

I've digressed here, but to try to return to my original point - the tips and tricks I've picked up from other writers, editors, deep readers, etc across the internet have helped me to be more critical in my own work, and I am tremendously thankful. I'm learning so much more than I've been able to do just on my own, especially with things such as building tension, pacing scenes, creating conflict ... I'm a fairly straightforward thinker (no tortuous mind for me, as Poirot had), and so my stories tend to happen in a straightforward manner, which equals BORING for the reader.

I'm even eliminating most of the adverbs I've always liked to add to my dialogue tags, and that's a habit I never thought I'd be able to break!

The internet can be a terrible distraction for anyone, especially writers, but the people who share their knowledge and experience through the internet? You are wonderful, and I thank you!

What are some of the best tips you've gotten from other writers on the internet? What are ways you've been able to improve your writing, that you might not otherwise have done? If you were to describe yourself without the aid of a mirror, what key element(s) would you miss, if any? Does your hairdresser ever listen when you try to tell her things about your hair?

Influences: Diana Wynne Jones

2011-06-14T08:13:00.000-04:00

Even though I only discovered her a few years ago, DWJ has ended up being an enormous influence on my writing, especially right now.

Every time I would pass her books in the store or library, I'd see the edition of one of the Chrestomanci books that has a cat on the cover, and I would think, "Ugh, feline fantasy. BORING."

(Note to publishers - if a book is not, in fact, about cats doing magic, you might not want to imply that on the cover.)

Then, in recent years, more and more of my friends started recommending her books. I was getting desperate for good YA Fantasy, since Lloyd Alexander was gone and my list of favorite authors was growing smaller and smaller. Finally, I picked up the very volume with the cat on the cover, and gave it a try.

You can imagine my indignation when I discovered this wonderfully witty, clever, pithy writer, with a delightful story that had pretty much nothing to do with cats! I felt so cheated. I could have been reading her for years, and I'd missed out just because of a dumb cover. Her twisty way of turning plots around kept me tearing through the stories, and then going back and re-reading them so I could pick up the little nuances I missed the first time around.

Even better, for me, than the Chrestomanci books was Howl's Moving Castle (I think it's that way for a lot of people, yes, no?), with the delightful Sophie who only figures out who she truly is when she's transformed into an old woman and no longer cares about society's conventions and her family's expectations.

I had already starting writing The Eldest Sister before I read DWJ, but I admit to being a little concerned about some of the superficial similarities between it and HMC. I didn't let it worry me too much, though, since TES was such a different story and different tone.

Then I re-read HMC just a few weeks ago, and realized that I would much, much rather read that than TES. The similarities were just enough to show me how far off I had gotten with my own story. And that was what prompted me to ultimately pick it up and start from scratch again, changing a few of the basics so that it wouldn't seem to be copying too much from DWJ, and determining to make it me, my voice, E Louise Bates as distinctly as all Diana Wynne Jones' books are hers.

I freely admit that I am nowhere near as witty or talented as she is, but that's okay. I have my own voice, and thanks to DWJ, I am remembering how to use it.

Deep and Fun

2011-06-10T10:59:00.001-04:00

A couple days ago, I tossed this out on Twitter:

Wondering if it's possible to rewrite my super-serious YA fantasy as more lighthearted/humorous w/out losing the deep threads. Thoughts?

The answer I received (the only one - thank you, Rockinlibrarian!) was a resounding yes, mentioning a couple writers I had already thought of, particularly Diana Wynne Jones (Lloyd Alexander was the other one that came to my mind, as soon as I wrote the Tweet).

This is the MS that I've been sending queries out on for quite a while, without even getting any requests. Not that that alone would make me change it, but when I realized that I didn't even feel like re-reading it because it was so gloomy, I thought perhaps it was time to do some serious, serious fun revamping.

The problem is, I think, that the story was mainly written when I was either pregnant or sleep-deprived from babies, and therefore had a pretty depressed outlook on life. It was great to get that out in my writing - probably kept me from going completely insane - but the end result was a very heavy story.

Some people do heavy really well. I am not one of them. My heavy was pretty much a slog through a thick and gloomy mire, with only occasional bright spots.

Worse than all this, it wasn't me. Ask anyone who knows me at all to name the first thing about me they can think of, and they will say "her laugh." I was cracking jokes in labor, for crying out loud, in between my shrieks of pain and pounding fists (I threw dignity out the door after the first ten hours). My entire family is known for causing scenes at weddings and funerals, because we cannot keep to an appropriate solemnity - in fact, something about that much solemnity makes us laugh even more.

So to write something so heavy and angst-y was just not me. Not Louise. Not, at least, the Louise I want to be. Maybe it was the sleep-deprived, exhausted, stressed Louise, but I'm trying to banish her from my life for good these days (which would be SO MUCH easier if my children would ever let me, you know, SLEEP).

But I also didn't want to lose the themes of sacrifice, grace, and love that were woven throughout the book. I didn't want to go too far in the other direction and write nothing but fluff.

My absolute favorite authors are those who make you laugh first, and then scratch your head afterward and go, "Whoa. That was deep."

It's a lot harder than just writing straight-up funny stories or straight-up deep, trying to blend the two. But when in my life have I ever done anything the easy way? And why would I start now?

I am currently two chapters in to the re-write, and already I like my heroine better. Already I like the direction the story is taking more. I like the new twist I added, because another problem with the story as it was was that it was too straight-forward, without any sneaky little bits added in, or any unexpected turns in the plot.

Yes, this means that I am re-writing from scratch one MS at the same time I am working on a brand-new story, and still researching that darn Renaissance fantasy (though in all honesty, that one is on a bit of a hiatus. I haven't cracked my history books for weeks). And yes, I am doing all of this while being a stay-at-home mom to a two year old and three (and a half, she would insist on me adding) year old.

Certifiably crazy? Possibly. But where would the fun be in being sane?

Daydreams as Scenes

2011-06-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure when it was I first realized that well over half my daydreams are not, in fact, indulgent personal imaginings, but little bits of scenes or character interactions for a story. Not even necessarily a story I'm already writing, but definitely a story. The heroine in them, though she usually wears my face and thinks in first person, is not always me, but a character (sometimes not even female). As soon as the "me" in the daydream does, says, or thinks something completely out-of-character for me, the real me (and I mean really out-of-character, not just "taking out the bad guy all by herself like I've always wanted but would never be able to do because I'm completely untrained and clumsy to boot"), I now know "Ah-ha! This is a story I'm writing in my head without knowing it. Let's see, does this fit any of my current WIP, or any of the characters in them, or is this something new I will be able to incorporate into a brand-new story someday?"

For example (this little scene played out in my head the other morning, between waking up and getting out of bed to help my littlest use the potty):

The smile was aimed directly at her, no doubt about it. She could even see his eyes twinkling as she blushed and ducked her head. When she dared peek up again, he still had that adorable grin on his face, and she couldn't keep an answering smile from her own mouth.

Then - she couldn't believe her eyes - he was walking toward her! He came to a stop right in front of her. She knew her face was cherry-red. Why, oh why, did she have to be such an abominable blusher?

"You look like someone I would like to know," he announced. "What's your name?"

Aside from the nasty tendency to blush over everything - that girl is nothing like me, not even like the me I was when I was a teenager or in my early twenties, like I'm pretty sure this girl was. Obviously, she's a character. Do I like her? Do I like him? Do I work them into a story sometime? Maybe, maybe not, but they're lurking in my brain now, and hopefully someday they, or versions of them, will be brought to light in a story.

Do your dreams or daydreams end up working their way into your stories? Do you find yourself imposing your face and voice over people in your dreams, even if they aren't you? Have I just labeled myself as hopelessly narcissistic or weird?

My Favorite Literary Couple

2011-06-01T13:51:00.000-04:00

Betsy Ray and Joe Willard are one of my all-time favorite literary couples. I love everything about them, from their first meeting in "Heaven to Betsy," to the absolutely lovely recounting of the first years of their marriage in "Betsy's Wedding."

I've wondered sometimes what makes me like them even more than most classic couples, such as, say, Anne and Gilbert

Or Elizabeth and Mr Darcy

Or even Taran and Eilonwy (a classic couple for fans of YA Fantasy)

I even like them a little bit better than Molly Gibson and Roger Hamley, which is shocking.

But there you have it. For some reason, Betsy and Joe just stand out above the rest for me. After thinking about it, I've come up with a few reasons why:

(Note: I'm not saying that none of the other couples I mentioned don't have all these traits, just not all together, like Betsy and Joe)

Joe really respects Betsy. He doesn't just adore her without thinking of her as a person, or think her perfection without recognizing her human flaws, or worship the ground she walks on without acknowledging that she has a brain. He respects her as a person, a human being, and he doesn't try to shelter, coddle, or protect her. He critiques her writing honestly, and tells her real ways she can improve it. He is fiercely competitive in the first three years of their high school writing rivalry, but it is always a friendly competition.
Although Betsy and Joe meet when they are fourteen, it is not at all certain they will end up together by the end of the series. There is an obvious attraction there, but while the reader hopes they will act on it, between their own stubbornness and outside influences, one can't be at all sure. So that, when they do end up together, there is simultaneously a sense of "Of course!" and "Whew!"
(and somewhat connected to 2) Because we get to see Betsy with SO many other boys, and Joe with at least one other girl, we are able to see even more clearly how perfect they are for each other, in contrast with all the other romances they've had.
They are neither best friends nor bitter enemies. Nor do either of them think of the other as a sibling, while the other is hopelessly in love. Thank goodness!
They don't start dating (or courting, I suppose, given the era) and immediately get engaged and then married and everything is perfect. We get to see them continue to quarrel and make up, and even to break up for a time. Things aren't perfect after they are married, either, but they meet every challenge with love and humor, and it makes them so human. In fact, everything about them is human and realistic, while still romantic enough to make the reader swoon.

So there you have it! My top five reasons why I love Betsy and Joe so much. All good things to keep in mind, for me, when writing romance between my own characters.

Who is your favorite literary couple? What are some things that you love in a literary romance, and what are some things you hate? Out of the five couples I mentioned, which do you like the best? Don't you love Vera Neville's illustrations for the Betsy-Tacy books?

A Non-Post Post

2011-05-24T09:43:00.000-04:00

I'm finding it very hard to concentrate on writing a post on writing at the moment. I'm sitting at my parents' kitchen table with my wickedly strong coffee (I can't for the life of me figure out their coffee maker - every time I make a pot, it's either dishwater-weak or undrinkabley-strong), watching my littlest make faces at me while she blows her nose on her third tissue in thirty seconds. A fresh breeze is blowing through the open windows, scented with lilacs, apple blossoms, and a faint hint of cow from the neighbor's pasture (Grace is now on her fifth tissue. I'm moving the box). Joy is still sound asleep in her little bed upstairs, worn out from a full day yesterday of playing, running, splashing in the kiddie pool, and helping on the remodel of GG's (short for Great-Gram - my grandmother) house next door.

Coming back to my old house always inspires me to write. Unfortunately, there's always so much else to do that writing tends to take a backseat. Family, house demolition, weddings, lots of space for running and playing and laughing ... sometimes real life actually IS more fun (not often, mind, but once in a while). And that's okay, too.

With that in mind, I wrap this non-post up with a quote from Kathy Tyers that I have always appreciated:

"Don't make writing your top priority. This advice runs counter to what most people will tell you -- you'll read in many places that you MUST write EVERY day -- but I'm saying that there are more important things in life. Your relationship with God comes first. The time you must spend with your family, and your attention to their needs, is also more important than any job or hobby you take up."

-Kathy Tyers

What are some ways you prioritize your time? Do you agree that sometimes writing, as necessary as it is for we writers, has to take a back burner? Do you forgive me for going without much of a post this week? Has Blogger still been acting up with allowing people to comment, or is it fixed now?

Hero and Everyman

2011-05-14T15:17:00.002-04:00

First of all, let me apologize to everyone who has posted a comment since Tuesday evening. Apparently Blogger's "hiccup" yesterday caused it to lose all comments made on Wednesday and beyond. Grr. We had some interesting stuff going, too!

And now, on to the actual post:

Watching NCIS:LA (yes, I watch both NCIS and NCIS:LA; and no, it's not just for the eye candy (although that doesn't hurt)) this week, I was struck anew at the difference between the Hero and the Everyman, and how both are vital to tell a compelling story.

Ha! Bet you didn't know one could get such revelations from NCIS, did you?

In brevis, the Hero is someone we aspire to. He or she is the one we admire, the one who shows the most praise-worthy traits, the one who gives us an example and makes us yearn to be better.

The Everyman is someone we can relate to. He or she is the one we feel akin to, we understand, we wince in sympathy, and as he or she interacts with the Hero, we get a sense of how we would interact as well. The Everyman makes the story real and personal.

Hollywood, in general, seems to get this confused. They try to make the Hero and the Everyman the same character. This might work in a few cases, but usually just ends up leaving the audience with nothing and no one to aspire to. We, as a society, need True Heroes. Tortured heroes, after a while, get old.

Many high fantasies have the opposite problem. They have the Hero with no Everyman, which leaves the audience feeling disconnected. We as humans need someone to relate to, as well.

A good example of how this works well can be seen in the Chronicles of Narnia. In Peter, we have the Hero. One of the biggest gripes you will hear from fanfic writers is that Peter is impossible to write realistically, because he has no flaws. That's not because he is a "Gary Stu,"but because he is a Hero. He's the one everyone looks up to and want to be like.

The Everyman? Well, he goes by the unfortunate name of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and when we first meet him, Lewis tells us he "almost deserved" his name. Poor Eustace is a nuisance, a pest, hates and is secretly jealous of his noble cousins, and even after he is changed still maintains his Everyman status. In The Silver Chair Trumpkin the Dwarf can't even get his name right, first calling him "Useless," and then wanting to know just how he is "Used to it." When the Prince, Puddleglum, and Eustace fight the serpent, we are told that Eustace's blow lands on the body and skitters off the scales without doing any good. He thoroughly enters into every adventure, but doesn't have any special skill that makes him unique or special.

By The Last Battle he has grown, even to the point where he can fight alongside the King (another Hero), but he is still the Everyman, just doing his best with his limited abilities. It is Jill who has the special ability to move almost unseen through the woods, Jill who rescues Puzzle, Jill who is the lone archer during that last battle, where Eustace is the first one captured and thrown in the stable. Eustace is never made a king, unlike his cousins. He is never referred to as "lord," as Digory is (and both Polly and Jill, it seems, become "Lady" without any difficulty in the matter). He is just Eustace throughout, growing into a loyal Friend of Narnia, and giving his all without ever having anything special to give.

(In case you can't tell, Eustace is my absolute favorite character from the Narnia series.)

In NCIS:LA, which started this whole train of thought, Callen and Sam act as the Heroes (Sam as the True Hero; Callen gets to be the Tragic Hero). The rest of the team is heroic in its own way, too, and it isn't until Deeks comes along from the LAPD that we get a more human character. Deeks is brave enough, and good at his job, but he isn't exactly the super-dooper expert at anything like the rest. He even looks more ordinary: scruffy, regular build, etc. Through his interaction with the team, and how he slowly integrates with them and develops his own set of skills has been one of the reasons I keep watching the show. That, and it's fun to watch things blow up.

There are, of course, a lot of ways you can play with The Hero and Everyman roles, to expand them a bit. Take Tolkein's Lord of the Rings as a classic example. There you have:

Aragorn - True Hero

Boromir - Guy who thinks he's the hero, but weakly gives in to temptation.

Faramir - Guy who also thinks Boromir's the hero (and he isn't), but doesn't give in to temptation, thus qualifying himself for the role of Lesser Hero.

Frodo - Everyman who grows into the Hero by the end. Those are also becoming more common (and one of my favorite characters to write), and are also important for humans - because we need to see that ordinary people can grow to do extraordinary things.

Sam - Everyman

Then, of course, you have Eowyn (I think Eomer comes under the Lesser Hero category), who plays a similar role to Edmund in the Chronicles of Narnia. They both start out wanting to be the True Hero, but by the end have accepted a subordinate role quite happily - Eowyn as a Healer and wife to the Steward, and Edmund as ruler equal to his sisters, and under his brother. Lucy and Susan, in CoN, have their own roles as well, of course, but those are slightly harder to define. Lucy is Inspiration, and Hero, and Joy, and Faith, and ... well, she's Lucy. Susan is more akin to Boromir (HEY - fanfic crossover with a Susan/Boromir pairing, anyone?), in that she starts out heroically but gives in to her weak points. Unlike Boromir, who dies for his transgressions, we are allowed to hope, at the end of the CoN, that Susan may yet repent and attain the role of Restored Hero.

To return to the initial idea of Hero and Everyman - I think it helps, as a writer, to define these roles. Not that your characters have to fit exactly into a mold, but in a world where anti-heroes are frighteningly popular, and the everyman, if he exists in the story at all, is either a joke or a cynic, I think it is important to remember why these types of characters are so enduring. As I said in the beginning: We need to have someone to aspire to, and we need someone to relate to. Those two desires are part of what makes us human, and it's part of what most stories, I think, are trying to tap.

After all, there's a reason why classic hero stories are classic. There's a reason why NCIS and NCIS:LA are so incredibly popular.

It's because they touch on the universal needs and desires we all share, to have a hero, and to try to grow into one ourselves, even though we are just ordinary people.

Are there other great examples of Hero and Everyman in literature or television/movies I missed? I know I only touched on a couple. Who is one of your favorite Hero characters, and one of your favorite Everyman characters? Do you think my understanding of why these characters are so important is accurate, or would you disagree? What are some other characters that are important to us as humans? And are you a fan of the NCIS shows, too?

Dialogue Difficulties

2011-05-11T08:57:00.001-04:00

I love writing dialogue.

I can write pages and pages of nothing but dialogue. Not even anything else interspersed between, just "..." he said. "..." she said. On and on, for miles. I took advantage of this with my first novel (which reads like a rip-off of every major fantasy novel ever written and therefore will never be seen in public): I wrote the first draft as though it were a play, just dialogue with occasional "stage cues." For the second draft, I went through and added to the dialogue, filled in the pencil outline with colored ink, so to speak. It worked well enough for that story, because it was so unoriginal, but I've never been able to make it work since.

So now I strive very hard to add body language, scenery, scent, emotion, everything that one needs, in between the dialogue. Sometimes I still get carried away, though, and realize that I've completely ignored plot development for half a dozen pages while I let my characters have a marvelous meandering conversation. Which is lifelike, true, but most likely boring and frustrating for anyone but myself to read. Then I have to go back and prune it down, insert clues to the plot and/or character development into the dialogue so that it has a point.

Part of the difficulty for me is that it is through conversation we get to know people - how they think, how they feel, how they react in any situation. Since I write mostly character-driven stories, rather than strictly plot-driven, conversation seems the best way to show my characters, rather than just telling the audience what they are thinking, feeling, etc. However, it is the unspoken actions, as much as the spoken, that reveal a person, and that is where I struggle.

Compare:

"I don't like being told what to do," Maia said.
"I don't particularly care whether you like it or not," Aunt Amelia replied.
"You are being unreasonable," Maia said.
"That is irrelevant," said Aunt Amelia.

Or:

Maia folded her arms across her chest and tried to appear as stern and immovable as her tiny aunt. "I don't like being told what to do."
"I don't particularly care whether you like it or not." Aunt Amelia was superbly indifferent to Maia's attempts at intimidation.
Maia uncrossed her arms and stamped her foot, forgetful of the dignity of her nineteen years. "You are being completely unreasonable!"
"That," said Aunt Amelia, a smirk lurking at the corner of her mouth despite her best efforts, "is irrelevant."

Well? Which one shows the characters better? Then add some scenery at the end:

The bees blundered drunkenly from flower to flower, unaware of the battle of wills that was raging in the center of the garden. The heady scent from the early roses tickled Maia's nose and increased her irritation with her aunt. How dare she ruin a beautiful June day like this, with the sun shining and the fluffy clouds darting playfully across the azure sky, with her unreasonable demands? It was enough to make even a saint lose her temper - and Maia was no saint. Nor did she have the wisdom of Athena, despite the marble statue looming over her shoulder that suggested otherwise.

It's not perfect, and I know many other writers could do far better - but it's getting there. Another half-dozen novels, and maybe it will come more easily to me!

Do you prefer to write dialogue or scene settings? What are some of your pitfalls you have to combat in your writing? Have you ever written a novel that was cookie-cutter imitation of whatever is popular in your particular genre? If it was fantasy, did it have a character who was half-elven? (Mine did!)

Influences: LM Montgomery

2011-05-04T08:18:00.000-04:00

I don't remember a time in my life when I wasn't acquainted with Anne Shirley. I can't quite remember now which came first, watching the movie or reading the book, but they certainly happened close together. Thankfully, the movie never ruined the book for me, and while these days I have to grit my teeth through parts of the sequel (and I refuse, utterly and completely, to ever watch the third), even knowing and loving the books as well as I do, I can still watch the movie without flinching.

This fellow might have something to do with that. Oh, Gilbert!

I've never been as big a fan of the Emily books - I adore Emily of New Moon, but the later two books of the trilogy get under my skin in parts. Frankly, Emily herself infuriates me the older she gets, as does Ilse.

However, as one who grew up in an extended family that can only properly be called a clan, with aunts and uncles and cousins galore, as well as second cousins and the like (my father is the oldest of eight; his father was also the oldest of eight, and his mother was one of five), my favorites out of all of LMM's works would have to be the Story Girl books. And not just because my sister and I watched Road to Avonlea every week on CBC when we were growing up! The books are so different from the show.

For one thing, the books didn't have him. Oh, Gus!

Ahem.

I love LMM's writing style. I even love her "purple prose." I've been writing LMM fanfiction since 2005. I started it as a bored and lonely newlywed, while Carl was at work and I needed something to distract me from my loud and inconsiderate neighbors, and the fact that I had no car or any way to get away during the day. Escaping to PEI, and a simpler time, more romantic way of life, an era I've always loved ... well, it just might have saved my sanity. It certainly brought me some wonderful friends (hi, Adrienne and Cathy!) who shared my love for LMM and her works.

Thanks to LMM, I learned how to explore different genres of writing besides just YA fantasy. I learned to play with different styles, to change my tone depending on what type of story I was writing. I learned that, as Mr Carpenter tells Emily, "pine woods are just as real as pigsties, and a darn sight more pleasant" - meaning, don't let other people force you to write ugly things just because they are "realistic." I learned how to write gentle romance (romance of any kind always having terrified me before).

I also developed a mad, passionate love affair with adjectives and rambling descriptions, which I am now desperately trying to combat. Not all influences are good!

I recently started my eleventh LMM fanfic (yes, for those of you who follow my LMM stories, that would be Gwen's WWII story). I am not exactly working hard on it, having a few original projects that are taking most of my attention, but it is growing in my brain and a little bit on paper. No matter if I ever get published, or wherever my writing takes me, I suspect I will always have some LMM story brewing on the side.

It's the least I can do to honor the woman who brought such magic to my childhood (and adulthood, if I'm honest).

Did you grow up reading the Anne books? Did you have a crush on Gilbert Blythe (or Gus Pike)? Is there a book that you have read for so long that you can't remember a time when it wasn't part of your life? Do you write or read fanfiction at all?

A Meeting Fraught With Meaning

2011-04-28T10:29:00.001-04:00

This excerpt is from the 1920s story - still untitled - that I started the other day. It features the meeting between my no-longer-boring heroine, and the hero. I have no idea if this scene will carry over to the final draft, as this story is still very much in rough draft mode, but I thought it fun enough to put up here, even in its unpolished state. It amuses, me, at any rate!

&&&&&

The man standing before her was tall. That was the first thing Maia noticed. At five foot seven, she stood taller than most women, and this man loomed even over her. She noted that he had a very determined chin, as that was at her eye level, and then she took in the rest of his appearance.

He certainly didn’t look stodgy. He was, in fact, quite handsome as he stood there in his elegant evening dress, his light brown hair scarcely rumpled at all despite the press of bodies all around. Of course, standing head and shoulders above most of the people there might have helped with that.

“How do you do, Miss Whitney?” His voice wasn’t stodgy, either, despite the polite-but-bored tone. He had a pleasant baritone, a rich, deep voice that put Maia in mind of brown velvet, or a smooth claret.

“Very well, thank you, Mr Davies,” she replied. She held out her hand, and was absurdly pleased when he shook it instead of kissing it. It was a real handshake, too, not one of those limp affairs so many men gave to ladies. His hand curved around hers securely, very nearly covering it entirely.

“Well,” Maud said brightly, “I’ll just leave the two of you to get acquainted, shall I? I must go greet some more guests. Maia, love, we’ll chat more later. Len darling, do make sure you get out to dance at some point, won’t you?”

With that, she vanished, leaving Maia feeling neatly manoeuvred.

“Quite the social butterfly, isn’t she?” Mr Davies said, eyes travelling across the sea of people.

Maia stiffened. “Maud is a splendid person. She was one of the best nurses we had in France.”

Mr Davies glanced sideways at her. His face creased into a slight smile, and Maia saw why Maud called him sweet. “I meant no offence. Being Daniel’s wife requires Maud to be a social butterfly, I imagine. She does her job well.”

Maia unbent as well. “Sorry to take you up so quick. It can be very irritating to have people always making assumptions about one, simply because of one’s social class. One reason, I suppose, why my sister has become a Socialist.”

“And are you a Socialist as well?”

“Goodness, no,” Maia said, thinking of how desperate she was to hire competent staff for the house. “Though I do admire many of their ideals, I’m afraid that they are all terribly impractical for real life.”

To her surprise, he laughed at loud at that. His laugh was as lovely as his speaking voice, ringing out above all the chatter. “Very true! Miss Whitney, I’m afraid I’ve been quite shamefully lax in my duties. Can I fetch you a drink?”

“Thank you, that would be lovely,” Maia said.

“I will be right back, then.”

Maia was impressed at how the crowd parted before him, without anyone seeming to even be aware of moving out of his way. As the people filled in the gap behind him, they started to press closer to her, as well. Instinct told her to get out before she couldn’t breathe, but she couldn’t just leave, not after sending Mr Davies to get her a drink. It would be rude to go now, to not be here when he came back.

Maia wondered if she was invisible as people swirled closer and closer, dancing, shouting, laughing, and smoking. It was the smoking that did her in finally. By the time Mr Davies returned, she was white with a green tinge and having a hard time breathing.

“Good lord, are you ill?” he inquired. If Maia had had the energy she would have shot him a disgusted look. Of course she was ill; was he blind or just stupid?

“Here you, take these,” he said, hastily passing off the two champagne glasses on a nearby dancer. The chap looked surprised, but didn’t question the unexpected gift. He downed one and handed the other to his partner, who made short work of it.

“Come with me,” Mr Davies ordered Maia. He took her arm very firmly and led her across the floor, weaving through the swirling couples until she was dizzy as well as nauseous. Just as she was afraid she was going to completely disgrace herself by being violently sick all over his tail coat, they made it to the french windows. Without letting go of her arm, Mr Davies unlatched one, led her through it to the terrace, and closed and latched in behind them.

Maia’s head started to clear as soon as she was out in the fresh air. She stepped away from Mr Davies, sinking into one of the little chairs Maud had scattered all along the terrace.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be fine in a moment. I think it was the heat and the crowd.”

“Why didn’t you just leave, then?”

“I didn’t want to be rude,” Maia stammered. Even though his face was shadowed, she could see the incredulous lift to his eyebrows. Her cheeks heated.

“Pardon me, but that seems rather foolish, don’t you think?”

Now it was anger as well as embarrassment that lent colour to her face and strength to her knees. Maia surged up. “Perhaps some people do think that good manners and common politeness are foolish. I do not happen to be one of those people.”

The abominable man chuckled! “I stand corrected,” he said, his voice thick with amusement.

Maia’s head was beginning to throb. “I shall be quite all right now. You may return to the party, if you wish.”

“Thank you,” he said with a bow. “I believe I shall.”

The minute he was gone, Maia’s legs began to tremble again. She sat back down.

“‘All this self-sacrifice,’” she told herself, “‘is a sad mistake.’”

Curiosity Killed The Cat ...

2011-04-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

... but it saves the character.

I've been getting bored with doing nothing but research, research, research, and very little writing. So the other day, just for sheer fun, I started a story set in 1920s England - an adventure-fantasy: Dorothy L Sayers meets CS Lewis, so to speak.

Or at least, that was my intention. About 6,000 words in, I noticed a deadly flaw.

My heroine was boring.

She was the eldest of three sisters (I like writing fic where the eldest is the heroine - it goes against traditional convention so well). She was the responsible one against her sisters' frivolity. She was plain compared to their beauty and charm. She was shy in society. She was ....

*snore*

If my main character was putting even me to sleep, in a story that was supposed to be frothily fun, I had a problem.

So, like any sensible person, I took the matter to Facebook (and to Twitter, but nobody responded there - my FB friends are all much better, apparently, at answering writerly dilemmas), and got some helpful tips.

I mulled them all over, looked at their examples of good heroes/heroines who were responsible yet still interesting, and came up with a definite character trait to redeem this poor girl.

Curiosity.

To get a feel for the era and tone, I've been re-reading the Lord Peter books (such terribly hard research, I know). Lord Peter is an amazingly complex character, but one trait that really makes him stand out from the crowd is his imagination and curiosity. Sayers describes his curiosity as all-emcompassing, the kind that drives him to find out where his drains lead to and unravel the emotional history of income-tax collectors.

My dad mentioned Brother Cadfael as another main character who is moral and responsible, but with an unquenchable curiosity that leads him, even as a monk, to poke his nose into everything that comes along.

Then I got thinking about others: Kate Talgarth, from the Cecy & Kate books, who might be something of a drip if it weren't for her curiosity and wit. Jane Stuart, of Jane of Lantern Hill, who really starts to shine when she moves to PEI and is able to indulge her curiosity for life. Mrs Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman, who joins the CIA as an elderly widow because she is bored, and whose interest in people gives her new zest for life. Pride & Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennet, who along with her sister Jane is the only responsible person in her entire family, including her parents, but who is also endlessly curious about people and life. Lucian, one of my favorite of Lloyd Alexander's heroes, starts out his book by nearly losing his head due to an deadly combination of responsibility and curiosity.

I could continue, but I'll spare you. I'm sure you've picked up the gist of it by now. Curiosity is both a virtue and a flaw for a character. Most human beings suffer from it to one degree or another.

I think I have a tendency, in order to keep my characters from becoming impossibly perfect and likable, to make them too drab. It's also entirely possible that as I have always been fairly responsible, and hence always labeled "boring" (or the far worse "Goody-Two-Shoes"), that my own life experiences are bleeding into my writing. Let's face, life as a stay-at-home mom to two littles brings with it plenty of need for responsibility, and not much outlet for being fun or exciting.

So this was a good reminder for me personally as well as authorially, that being responsible does not automatically equate being dull. A healthy dose of curiosity (with a sprinkling of wit and sense of fun) goes a long way toward combatting being boring.

What are some of your tricks to make a dull character start to shine? Are you a curious person? Do you think responsible is always the same as boring, in real life or in literature?

A First!

2011-04-20T08:09:00.003-04:00

I have won my first-ever blog award! Many thanks to Laura Josephsen for presenting me with this:

I see also that I have picked up a few new followers - welcome to all of you! I'm afraid real life has been creeping into my writing time lately (we are potty-training our youngest, which means I pretty well collapse into bed by 9:00 at night and don't think or stir until the littles wake me up the next morning, plus we are preparing for a week-long excursion to my parents' house while my husband travels to Chicago to visit schools), but I hope soon to get back to writing semi-interesting posts, as well as getting back into my actual MS writing.

In the meantime, I could use some opinions from you all. We are currently reading through the Winnie-the-Pooh stories at bedtime. What would you recommend for when we are finished with them? The girls are three-and-a-half and (nearly) two. Oh, and something with plenty of pictures is a must - we thought about The Wind in the Willows, but my edition has very few illustrations (though the ones it has are beautiful).

So, what would you suggest for good longer, read-over-a-period-of-weeks, bedtime stories with lots of fun illustrations for littles?

Jo March and Sundries

2011-04-16T13:03:00.002-04:00

This was going to be a post on Jo and Laurie, and why I don't think they would have been a good couple, but I've been ranting about Amy various places lately, and realized that this post needed to mostly be about Jo, with everyone else tossed in as they relate to her.

First of all:

Even though Josephine "Jo" March did not make it to my list of favorite literary heroines, she only missed it by a hair, and only because I already had twelve and couldn't justify making it any longer. And also because Louisa May Alcott's moralizing-on-the-brink-of-preachiness style of writing has such a tendency to get under my skin that my irritation with her can bleed into my feelings toward Jo.

But Jo is still an old friend, and someone I admire. Her growth through "Little Women," and then as she is seen in "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys," is both realistic and beautiful - she becomes a gracious and responsible woman without losing any of her strength, her independence, or her individuality. Watching her learn, with the help of her mother, how to control her temper has always been a favorite theme of mine throughout the first book. Watching her as a mother to her two boys, and pseudo-mother to a whole host of other children in the later books, is almost as delightful. Her struggles to accept Beth's mortality, and the strength that she lends her family during that time; her fierce rebellion against growing up before deciding to turn it to her advantage; her hatred of society's meaningless conventions ... she is a dear, our Jo.

And, of course, her friendship with Laurie. O, that controversial topic. Let me state my position right off the bat:

I do not think Jo and Laurie should have been married.

There. I said it.

Now, hold off on the pitchforks for just a moment and let me explain (then you can all come charging at me again, if you like).

I don't think Laurie ever really respected Jo enough as a person. He didn't take her seriously. He was in love with her, that much is true, but emotion alone is not enough to build a strong and lasting relationship. As Jo herself said, he would have resented her writing after a while, because it took her away from him. He would have been embarrassed by her oddities and how awkward she was in society - or worse, he would have been amused by her, and treated her like an exotic possession, to be brought out to startle polite company.

And Jo didn't take Laurie seriously, either. She never would have believed he truly meant anything he set out to do, and would have treated him with a calm condescension that would have infuriated and deflated his ambitions. She would have sensed that he relied on her as his conscience, and would have resented that. She would try to fit into what she thought he wanted her to be, and hated every minute of it, and ended by hating him.

At least, that's how I see it. They were the best of friends, but not all best friends should marry. I suppose it made more sense to me as a kid, because, you see, my best friend was a boy, and almost everyone around us assumed that we would fall in love as we got older and get married. We knew, though, that such a relationship would never, ever work, that our temperaments were too alike in crucial areas and too different in others, that the very things that made our friendship so strong would destroy us if we were ever so stupid to fall in love.

And life proved us right, as we are both happily married to other people now, and still very good friends. Ethan was, in fact, the one that introduced me to my husband, and he was best man at our wedding.

Having said all that, I still cannot forgive Amy for marrying Laurie. Or for existing, for that matter. I have never been able to get over the way she destroyed Jo's book. And I know she almost drowned/froze in the river afterward, but all that did was turn it around so that Jo was the bad guy and Amy the suffering victim. If she had killed a living pet of Jo's nobody would have let her off so easily. Jo's book was as alive to her and important as any pet could have been!

And then Europe. If she really was a good person by that point, instead of simply having all the outward appearances of goodness, she could have said to Aunt Carrol, "Thank you so much for your offer, Aunt, but Aunt March did always promise to take Jo and it isn't right that she should lose this chance just because she was having a bad day due to me forcing her to do something she didn't like and isn't good at; please take her with you instead of me." I hate how she was portrayed so sweet and good, and yet took everything Jo ought to have had, and calmly accepted it as her due. She knew that Laurie loved Jo, and had no way of knowing that Jo didn't love him, but she fell for him anyway, never once thinking of her sister bearing all the family burdens at home. Selfish beast!

I've also never really liked Professor Bhaer, though I can accept him better in the latter two books. Still, though, I get the impression that LMA tossed him in because she knew her readers would never allow her to leave Jo unmarried. Not that I wanted Jo to be alone and single all her days (UNLESS SHE WANTED TO), but the professor was just ... bland. There was nothing to him. Jo should have married someone strong, to match her, but gentle where she was sharp, and calm where she was excitable, and vice-versa. Someone with a rich sense of humor and a good view of the world. Someone - and this is very important - practical and fun, who could help her regain some of the spirit she lost during those hard years nursing Beth and after Beth died (while Amy was off in Europe stealing Laurie). Someone who viewed life as an adventure, not a philosophical treatise. Basically, she married her father, and I never liked Mr. March.

Poor Jo. She got cheated by LMA in so many ways. I can understand why so many people wanted her to marry Laurie, because of how gypped she was of a proper happy ending, but I still veer away there. Not Laurie, not a character LMA ever wrote (perhaps because she never met a man like that), but someone, somewhere, had to be a match for our beloved Jo.

And maybe he would have been able to squelch Amy, as nobody else was ever able to do!

What are your thoughts on the Jo-Laurie relationship? Did you like Professor Bhaer? Is boiling in oil too kind for Amy?

Two Giants

2011-04-09T21:16:00.000-04:00

I've been re-reading the Redwall series ever since Brian Jacques' death. Thankfully, I own all of them but the most recent, so the biggest challenge in reading them has come from trying to remember the original published order instead of the chronological order I had them in on my shelves. Thank goodness for internet resources!

With the passing of Diana Wynne Jones, I've decided to intersperse the Redwall books (and the Flying Dutchman books, which I also own) with some of hers. I was going to start re-reading the Chrestomanci books, but I don't own any of those, and somebody else at our library must have had the same idea, for the first two were checked out today when I looked. As was Howl's Moving Castle, which was my second choice.

So I'm reading Enchanted Glass right now, and I have the collection of short stories Unexpected Magic to read as well. It'll do until I can get my hands on the Chrestomanci books.

I came to Jones late - not until last year or the year before as a matter of fact. I'm not sure how I missed her as a kid - with my affection for Lloyd Alexander, E Nesbit, and others of like ilk, she would have been right up my alley.

Be that as it may, I have thoroughly enjoyed her books ever since I discovered them. Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around what's happening, and often the endings leave me feeling vaguely confused (or, in the case of Fire and Hemlock, completely and totally confused, and having to re-read the ending several times over to make any sense of it). But I like that. It's not the same frustration I feel when I read Robin McKinley, and the first half is thrilling, I get bogged down in the second, and by the end I am so in the dark I barely remember the story I'm reading at all (though oddly enough I keep going back to McKinley, so there must be something compelling about that sort of writing, too).

I like having to think while I read. I like the sense of satisfaction when I've figured out the hidden twist (I was so very tickled when reading The Game because I got it before All Was Revealed); and I like, sometimes, knowing that the writer completely pulled the wool over my eyes.

The Redwall books are my comfort books. Not only have I read them a million times, they all follow the same pattern. I know exactly what is going to happen in each one, and reading them gives me a comforting sense that everything is right with the world, and whatever isn't will work out eventually.

I'm so very, very sad that these two marvelous writers had to die at all, especially so close to each other, but I think that reading their books intertwined with each other is actually going to be very good, and very helpful for me as a writer, because it will be me a much clearer sense of their very different styles, and what each style accomplishes, and what I need to do in order to achieve a certain atmosphere for my books.

And hopefully in studying their styles I will start to break myself of my habit of over-using adjectives - something I didn't even realize I did until I was working on the last few chapters of my LMM fanfic the other day, and discovered that I peppered it with adjectives all over the place. Not too bad for LMM fic, since she was also adjective-happy, but not a habit I want to indulge in for my own writings!

Are you familiar with Jacques and Wynne Jones? What do their books do for you? What are your "comfort" books, and what are your "mind-stretching" books? Which do you prefer in the Redwall series, hares or otters? And finally, what are some of your bad writing habits that you have a hard time shaking?

Favorite Literary Families

2011-04-02T08:10:00.001-04:00

The Blythes (Meredith children) (LM Montgomery):

These were the very first families to come to mind when it came to best literary families. Anne and Gilbert are completely impossible always-loving, always-patient, always-kind, -understanding, -wise, -funny, etc, etc, parents. Of course, maybe that's not impossible when you have a Susan Baker to do all your dirty work - the disciplining, the maintaining the household, the practical day-to-day details. Heck, I want a Susan Baker! Maybe then I can finally be the fun mom I've always wanted to be.

Be that as it may, Gilbert and Anne are awesome parents, and the children are just as winsome and lovable as their parents. I confess to a special fondness for Shirley, the poor unmentioned child through the latter books, who merits only a few sentences in Rainbow Valley, and one or two lines in Rilla of Ingleside.

The Merediths are not so lucky as the Blythe children - in Rainbow Valley their mother is dead and their father is neglectful. Things have looked up for them in Rilla, but through it all they have forged a funny, kind, loving friendship between themselves that is charming. Whenever I think of great sibling friendships, I think of these two families first.

The Seven-Day Magic families (Edward Eager):

I enjoy all of Eager's families, but these two sets of siblings (and their families) especially touch me. John and Susan and their eccentric Grannie (who is AWESOME, by the way), and Barnaby, Abbie, and Fredericka with their funny and warm parents. I like that their parents/guardians are neither stupid nor unkind nor dead/otherwise absent, and that much of the magic revolves around them. Grannie gets her own adventure, with the children coming along but very definitely playing a side part; and Abbie's entire wish has to do with her father. Very, very fun families.

The Melendys (Gone-Away Lake cousins) (Elizabeth Enright):

After listing Rush and Randy among my favorite heroes/heroines, you didn't think I'd leave the rest of the family out, did you? The Melendys are such a delightful family - they bicker, make up, support each other, tease each other, and above all, enjoy each other's company - even Father and Cuffy. And when a new member of the family joins them in "Then There Were Five," it just gets even better.

As for the Gone-Away cousins ... Julian and Portia always reminded me of my cousin Zachary and me. We were inseparable as kids, getting into trouble and out of it, always finding adventures everywhere we went, even occasionally including the younger ones in our mischief. I love finding literary relationships that mirror those in my own life! Alas, Zach and I never discovered anything so wonderful as Gone-Away Lake and Aunt Minnehaha and Uncle Pin, but we had some pretty marvelous adventures of our own.

The Stanton family (Susan Cooper):

My dad is one of eight children, and reading about Will's large, loving, normal family always reminded me of Dad and my aunts and uncles. I especially appreciate how each of them has their own distinct personality, from artistic Max to motherly Barbara to vain Mary - and especially, of course, the musical genius Paul, among the others. The friendship between Stephen and Will, eldest and youngest, is beautiful, and the poignancy as it changes when Will comes more fully into his own as an Old One makes me catch my breath every time.

The Wimsey family (Dorothy L Sayers):

We don't actually see much of the Wimseys after marriage and children, but what we do is delightful. The views on parenting and individuality in children expressed in the short story Tallboys has shaped much of my own views - and this only in a few lines! But that is part of Sayers' genius, that she wraps truths up in such simple phrases and presents it so clearly that one doesn't need more words than a few (something I obviously have yet to attain, given the length of these posts). And the relationship between Lord Peter and his wife (working very hard here not to spoil the outcome of the series for those who haven't read it yet by giving away her name) is just perfect.

The Beresfords (Agatha Christie):

The marriage between Tommy and Tuppence was always described as a "joint venture," and the way that they shared in everything, from government work to parenting to running a detective agency, has always charmed me. Carl and I have taken occasionally to describing our marriage as a "joint venture" (okay, that's how I describe it, but he always agrees), and we too try to share in everything as an equal team - each with our own strengths, but always working together.

The Pevensies (CS Lewis):

Others have described the friendship between the Four far better than I could - if you really want to see why I love them so much, go read Andi Horton's Valley Verdant or Kingdoms Come ... or any of her works, really. I will content myself with saying that they each have a very special bond with each other, and it is precious to see.

The Rays (Willards) (Maud Hart Lovelace):

The Rays, with the exception of Margaret (since we had only two sisters), always reminded me of what my family might have been like had we lived back in that era and been just a little bit wealthier. Julia and Betsy bicker as children and grow up to be the firmest of friends. Their parents love them and guide them but also trust them to make their own decisions and own mistakes, and are always there to help them pick up the pieces and move along. Mr. Ray even allows the girls to join a different church when they are able to tell him why, telling them he is prouder of them for thinking it through and wanting to be part of a church than he is sad that they want to leave the church they grew up attending. In that same scene, he gives them one of the best pieces of parental advice ever: "You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say."

As for the Willards, as seen in "Betsy's Wedding," they are just fun and real, and I love, love, love reading about Betsy's trials and triumphs as a young bride!

The Marches (Bhaers) (Louisa May Alcott):

There are many things people could criticize Mr. and Mrs. March for in their parenting, but they always loved their children unconditionally and did their best to raise them according to their principles. I have always appreciated Marmee's work with Jo in learning self-control. I do not like how they always coddled Amy - but then I've never been able to forgive Amy for destroying Jo's book AND for getting to go to Europe just because Jo was having one bad day, so I would have liked to see her thoroughly squelched by her parents once or twice throughout the book. Ahem.

As for the Bhaers, the love they showered on even the most unlovable of children through "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys" is a lovely example of unconditional love. And the fact that they go about life in their own way, regardless of what society thought, is also delightful. The brotherly love between Teddy and Rob is so sweet, too.

The Fairchilds (Tuttle cousins) (Rebecca Caudill):

Not many people, I find, are familiar with the delightful books about the Fairchilds, or "Saturday Cousins," which introduces us to the Tuttles. And it really is a shame, because both families are charming. Quaint, of course, hearkening back to that "simpler era" so many nostalgically yearn toward, but with everything that still makes a good family today - loyalty, friendship, love, trust, and guidance.

That same thread, in fact, weaves through all of the families on my list here. The same traits that my family always strove toward, and that I now strive to accomplish with my own family. In many ways, I look toward parts of these families for guidance in my own journey through these difficult waters of raising children. I am so thankful that literature, through heroes, heroines, and families, has given us all something to look up to, and something to strive for.

I may never be an Eilonwy, or a mother like Anne Blythe, or a brilliant and sensitive detective like Lord Peter, but they all can provide me with guideposts along my own journey. And really, what more can we ask of these fictional friends?

And the end of my "Favorite Literary ..." series (unless you all can think of another list of "favorites" I ought to write)! Did your favorite literary family make it to my list? Who would you have added? Who would you have left off? Does anyone in the entire world actually like Amy March?

Query, Revised

2011-03-27T11:08:00.003-04:00

Thank you all so much for your words of advice and encouragement. Here, without further ado, is the revised text of The Query:

Dear Agent,
Nobody expected Tesni of Glynbach to be the one to rescue her younger sister from the evil witch - not even Tesni herself. As the eldest of three sisters, born in a land where nobody stepped outside fairy-tale convention, Tesni was supposed to hate Elain, not want to save her. But when weak-chinned Prince Aled cannot rescue his true love, it is Tesni who defies tradition and travels across the land to fulfill the witch’s five impossible tasks. With a few stalwart friends by her side, Tesni quests to collect each of the demanded magical items, seeing much that surprises her, and learning some important truths about herself. In the end, she must decide if love for her sister is enough to make the greatest sacrifice of all - to leave her home and family forever. Can happily-ever-after happen even to an Eldest-of-Three?
The Eldest Sister is my 70,000 word young adult fantasy novel. With a strong and conflicted female protagonist and a plot which highlights sacrifice and undeserved grace, The Eldest Sister is likely to appeal to readers of such authors as Lloyd Alexander, Shannon Hale, and Robin McKinley.
I have had two award-winning short stories and two poems published in the 2003 edition of Grasse Roots, the State University of New York at Canton’s literary magazine.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Louise Ayers

Better, yes or no? Personally, I think it's not only more interesting, but carries more of my authentic "voice," rather than being dull and formal. Does it make you want to read the story?

ETA: Apparently one or two people have tried to leave a comment, but nothing has shown up yet. If you've tried, I didn't delete it! Maybe Blogger just has a bug? Anyway, hopefully if you try again, the comments will go through this time.

Query Help!

2011-03-24T11:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I got the quickest rejection ever - half an hour after I sent the query (including the first five pages, as per the submission guidelines), the agent sent me a rejection. Half an hour. Did she even read it?

So, one of my good friends suggested posting my query letter up on my blog, so you, my other writerly friends, could cast a glance over it and tell me what egregious errors I've committed to receive so many, and such quick, rejections.

Just ... be gentle in your critique, please? I'm feeling a little sensitive about my writing right now

Dear [Agent],
In a land of fairy-tale conventions, Tesni has never quite fit. As an Eldest-Sister-of-Three, she can’t bring herself to hate her rabbity youngest sister Elain, nor does she have any desire to marry the sniveling Prince Aled. She plays her part dutifully, even knowing that she will be banished or killed for it in the end, for her love for family and home outweighs her desire for her own happy ending. When plans go awry, Tesni breaks tradition to embark on a dangerous and possibly deadly quest for Elain’s freedom. From the depths of the Underworld to the magical Fair Folk realm, the journey causes her to learn who she truly is.
How Tesni realizes that there are worse things than death, and decides if she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for her sister’s happiness, furnishes the story line in my 70,000 word young adult fantasy The Eldest Sister. Featuring a strong and conflicted female protagonist and a plot which layers themes of sacrifice and undeserved grace under its playful premise, The Eldest Sister is likely to appeal to readers of such authors as Lloyd Alexander, Shannon Hale, and Robin McKinley.
I attended the State University of NY at Canton, and the State University of NY at Potsdam from 2002-2004, and I have had two short stories and two poems published in Grasse Roots, SUNY Canton’s literary magazine.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,

Louise Bates

There you are, friends. Have at it (gently).

Favorite Literary Heroes

2011-03-19T09:45:00.000-04:00

As I did favorite literary heroines last week, I thought it only fair to turn my attention to the men this week! Ready? I promise, I will try to be less wordy this time around. So, without further ado, I give you ...

Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L Sayers):

I first met Lord Peter in a library in Pennsylvania, a few years after getting married. I'm ashamed to admit that, newlywed though I was, I promptly fell head-over-heels in love and have never recovered. It took me ages to reconcile myself to Harriet Vane! (Possibly partly due to the fact that the first book I read featuring her was Have His Carcasse, so I got to see all her anger and bitterness without having a clue why - which made her very unlikeable. I mean, if you're going to be Lord Peter's love interest, at least be worthy of him!) I did eventually come to accept Harriet, and amusingly enough, Gaudy Night is now one of my favorite books - one of those I would take to a desert island if I was going to be stranded there a year.

Sigh. Lord Peter. It's a good thing I met him after I got married. And a good thing my husband already knows about all my literary crushes, else this post might be slightly awkward!

Taran of Caer Dallben (Fflewddur Fflam) (Lloyd Alexander):

Taran Wanderer is another one of those books I would want to take with me to a desert island. It is the ultimate bildungsroman, a perfect coming-of-age story. I absolutely love how Alexander takes all of Taran's notions about heroism and honor and glory and turns them on their heads - and then how Taran has to do all that he dreamed about as a boy, only it has lost its appeal, and he wishes to be a simple Assistant Pig-Keeper again. I also appreciate how the one thing he wanted to be the most he couldn't quite master - because isn't that how life really is? We don't always get to live out our dreams; sometimes we have to let go of what we want the most and accept what life gives us instead.

As for Fflewddur, he is just a delight to read about. His tendency to stretch the truth because reality is so dull, his valor and nobility, his boredom with being king of such a well-run kingdom ... such a joy!

Eustace Scrubb (CS Lewis):

Don't get me wrong, I like Peter, Edmund, Digory, Caspian, Rilian, and Tirian as well - but Eustace tops them all. Perhaps because he is such an Everyman - we can't all identify with High King Peter the Magnificent, or King Caspian the Seafarer, etc, but who hasn't been an obnoxious jerk at some point in their lives? And to be redeemed from that so beautifully - not to a kingship, as with Edmund's redemption, but simply to living a better life as Eustace - is wonderful to read.

And, I like his practical outlook on life, and his occasional snarkiness even after he is un-dragoned.

Martin the Warrior (Brian Jacques):

We had Mariel among the heroines, and now Martin for the heroes. Martin is everything a hero should be - brave despite his small stature; noble; loyal; true-hearted ... he even has a secret sorrow from his past! His friendship with Gonff the Prince of Mousethieves is one of my favorite friendships in all literature (even better than Sam and Frodo, because there's no nonsense about master/servant between Martin and Gonff). Martin leaves a legacy that carries Redwall through every danger and strife. He may be a mouse, but he has the heart of a lion!

Roger Hamley (Elizabeth Gaskell):

Roger Hamley is another one of those characters I wistfully wish was real. Although he does remind me of my husband in many ways ... ahem. He is good and kind; he is loyal and faithful; he is both gentle and strong; he sacrifices his own desires over and over again for the good of others. Along with Molly Gibson, the reader learns to love him gradually over the pages of Wives and Daughters, and I, at least, always wanted to shake him for his incredible stupidity in falling in love with the charming but shallow Cynthia instead of valiant and quiet Molly!

Gilbert Blythe (LM Montgomery):

For any girl who grew up reading and loving the Anne books, Gilbert Blythe automatically became her ideal beau (I think - at least I've never met anyone who loves Anne and not Gilbert). Despite the fact that Montgomery doesn't, in fact, flesh his character out very much beyond the first book, he remains one of literature's best heroes. Anne's House of Dreams is one of my favorite books of the series, not just because it introduces Leslie Moore, who is such a rich and full character, but because of the deeper glimpses we get into Gil's character. The struggle he goes through in having to choose between the right thing and what his (and his wife's) heart wants ... he is truly a good man. And he loved Anne so faithfully for so many years, even when it looked like there was no hope - who could resist that?

Henry Tilney (Mr. Knightley) (Jane Austen):

Will I lose all credibility if I confess that I've always found Mr. Darcy rather stupid? I do, however, positively adore Henry Tilney. His sense of humor, the fact that he is not above teasing Cathy, his close friendship with his sister, his sense of honor and duty ... he is a real, three-dimensional person, and a fun one, at that.

Mr. Knightley is on here both for his goodness (he is a true gentleman) and for the fact that his love does not blind him to the flaws of his beloved. In fact, he loves her so much that he has to do everything he can to help her become the very best person she can be, even if she never loves him in return. That didn't sound very romantic to me as a kid, but now? Swoon.

Rush Melendy (Elizabeth Enright):

Rush is the ideal older brother, I've always thought. He almost always makes time for Randy, even when he is exasperated by her; he listens to her; he shares her same impetuous nature. Plus, when given a choice of anything to do by himself on a Saturday afternoon, he chooses to go see an opera. Siegried, no less, which brings back happy memories for me of staying up late on Sunday nights with my sister and parents to watch the Ring trilogy on PBS - my sister and I had never thought much of opera before then, but Wagner fascinated us. So I can identify with Rush there! I've also always like how he overcomes his reluctance to teach piano in order to raise money for the war (especially the unexpected outcome of his lessons with the school bully). He, like all of Enright's characters, is a very human, very likable kid.

Will Stanton (Susan Cooper):

At age eleven, Will Stanton discovers he is not a normal mortal boy at all, but the last-born of the Old Ones, and is thus swept into a life of danger, adventure, and sorrow. Yet through it all, Will maintains his practical outlook on life, and his humanity even when he has to make the hard, cold choices. The Dark is Rising series is one of my long-time favorites, not just for the Arthurian thread that runs through it, but for Will himself. The youngest of a large family, friend to the Pendragon, quester for the Signs, nemesis of the Dark Rider ... yet what makes him such a relatable hero is his utter normality through it all, the fact that you feel, but for the odd gift of being born an Old One, he could be anyone you know - the boy next door, maybe, or even you yourself. (And his attempts to learn the Welsh language always make me giggle, every time I read them!)

James Tarleton (Patricia C Wrede (and Caroline Stevermer):

In my heroines post, I mentioned how much I relate to Kate. Yet oddly enough, I see nothing of my husband in Thomas. Instead, he is very much a James. Almost everything about James makes me think of Carl, especially in The Grand Tour, when Kate is exhausted and weary and says how much she misses English toasted cheese, and James merely comments that she should get some rest, and then she'll feel better. That is exactly the sort of thing Carl would do. Of course, Kate thinks about how glad she is that she isn't married to James, as it would be very squelching to have a husband like that, but somehow, Carl and I get along just fine as we are.

Brother Cadfael (Hugh Beringar) (Ellis Peters):

I blame Brother Cadfael for giving me a romanticized view of monastic life in the medieval age. Not that Peters whitewashed anything (at least, I don't think she did), but Brother Cadfael made being a monk seem AWESOME. You could have close communion with God and still have a hand in everything that happened in your corner of the world. Nothing happened without Cadfael knowing about it, and certainly his understanding of grace, hope, and love were advanced far beyond his day and age.

Hugh was of a different sort, but just as terrific. As under-sheriff and then sheriff, he recognized his liege's flaws, yet stayed by him loyally. He upheld the law to the letter, and conveniently turned a blind eye to Cadfael when morality and justice didn't quite match the law. He could not go against the law himself, but he could let his friend do so without a qualm. Cadfael and Hugh's friendships is one of the best in all mystery literature, not least because it is most definitely not Holmes-and-Watson. Hugh is not the idiot sidekick, but a worthy detective and human being in his own right.

Wil Ohmsford (Terry Brooks):

The Elfstones of Shannara was the first Brooks I ever read. I got it from the library without ever having heard anything about Shannara or Terry Brooks; I picked it out based solely on the cover art and the fact that "elfstones" sounded really cool (I was young at the time!). Despite the fact that much of it was probably too old for me, I devoured it and loved it (the only other Shannara book our library had at the time was Druid of Shannara, which meant that for the next several years I bounced between both Shannara series, never knowing for sure which era each book I discovered was going to be set in, and getting completely confused until I had finally read all of them and could start setting them in order in my mind ... proof of good writing, that I didn't just give up out of frustration!). Wil, I liked not just for his part-human, part-elven heritage, which was a fairly new concept to me at the time and seemed very daring. It was his reluctance to do his part of the quest - not just because he didn't think he was worthy (although that was part of it), but because he was morally opposed to what he was being asked to do (kill), and yet it was the only way to save the world, and he the only one to do it. That battle that he went through was what really drew me in, and what kept me coming back to the Shannara books even though I could never keep straight who went where and what happened when!

Well, that wasn't quite so lengthy as the heroines. As with last week, which ones do you agree with, which ones would you have left off the list, and who would you add?

Next week, I think, will be favorite literary families (which will most likely be a much shorter list). Will your favorite be on it?