Could you imagine Harry Potter's world without Hogwarts? Would American Gods been as compelling if Shadow and Wednesday had been traveling unknown roads, unnamed places? Would Frodo and Sam's journey have been less dramatic if they hadn't crossed through Mordor?
Setting, whether it's the lush grounds of a private, magical boarding school or the vivid landscape of Americana, is, for many writers as important as conflict and climax.
Being reared, theoretically, by two great southern writers probably made me a bit biased. We southern writers are known for describing place-- those odd towns or small little cities that become essential in the progress of a story. For me, place is essential. Can you imagine a story set in New Orleans (let's say Williams' Streetcar) without the description of the hot, humid air or the sound and feel of streetcars lifting the hems of women as they walk by?
You see, setting puts your reader right in the thick of your story. Setting allows them to smell, hear, taste, feel and touch how dry the air is, how loud the trains are. Setting pulls readers from their snowy homes, huddled in front of a fireplace and forces them onto a beach, smelling the salt air, feeling the gentle spray of the tide.
The 'sense' of place influences writers. Think Faulkner and his 'A Rose for Emily.' Would Emily's attitudes been different had she not lived in Jefferson? Would her choices have been altered if she hadn't been under the constant scrutiny of her fellow townsmen?
Setting is more than just a town or city. It's much more than a home or place. Setting is time, it is the essential elements of home, whether that place is a prison or a paradise. Setting shows your readers your characters, their lives, their intentions, their way of life. In many regards, setting is the foundation on which your story is built. Without setting, there is simply plot-- a plot with no sense of purpose, no real connection.
Perhaps there are those of you that would disagree. I'm open to varying opinions. But for me when I write about alternative histories, unusual characters or mythical creatures, I know where they came from. I know what their childhoods were like, what they like to eat, what they do with their Friday nights. I know this, because I know where they got their starts. It's the where that allows me to draw attitudes, accents, opinions and intentions.
Setting simply is your story. It's the heart, the genesis of your character's life and, I think, that because it isn't all that far removed from any of our own realities, it's what makes your story alive.
What do you think? How is important is setting in your stories?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Teaser Tuesday
This is a really rough tease, something I wrote from a WIP not yet complete called "Death of Mercy"
Suggestions/edits are much encouraged!
Cheers
She felt the blade nip her breast, the raw tear of her skin breaking loose, her lungs filling before her knees sunk to crunch into the gravel. She heard the merciless sound of her thudding heart, the only sound loud and constant enough to drown out all others. In the images that skidded before her— the chaos of tussles surrounding them, lips cut and bloody, fists and knives thrown and stabbing— her eyes found him, stared into his, seeing not the indifference or flippancy, not the dark dilation of his pupil, but simply death, bidding his time, patient until the end, that confident grin telling her it was done.
He’d caught her, finally. Him, a spider, predatory and patient and she slipped into his funnel web like a willing insect, wrapped in the silky trap with little fight left in her.
There, at the finish, she found it almost funny, dying by her father’s hands. Perhaps not funny, she thought, but ironic, considering their situation. She only met him a year ago, a year to the day to be exact, but he’s known her, known of her, for a millennia.
Of course, the story doesn't start with Mercy dying. It truly started with the day she tried to kill August.
Suggestions/edits are much encouraged!
Cheers
She felt the blade nip her breast, the raw tear of her skin breaking loose, her lungs filling before her knees sunk to crunch into the gravel. She heard the merciless sound of her thudding heart, the only sound loud and constant enough to drown out all others. In the images that skidded before her— the chaos of tussles surrounding them, lips cut and bloody, fists and knives thrown and stabbing— her eyes found him, stared into his, seeing not the indifference or flippancy, not the dark dilation of his pupil, but simply death, bidding his time, patient until the end, that confident grin telling her it was done.
He’d caught her, finally. Him, a spider, predatory and patient and she slipped into his funnel web like a willing insect, wrapped in the silky trap with little fight left in her.
There, at the finish, she found it almost funny, dying by her father’s hands. Perhaps not funny, she thought, but ironic, considering their situation. She only met him a year ago, a year to the day to be exact, but he’s known her, known of her, for a millennia.
Of course, the story doesn't start with Mercy dying. It truly started with the day she tried to kill August.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
What Gives You the Urge?
Blatantly stealing this topic from Lia.
As my last 'non-Teaser Tuesday' post indicated, I wrote when I was younger. Okay, I wrote badly and some would argue that I write only marginally better today, but nonetheless, I've always written. I've been thinking a lot about my writing history this week. I was trying to remember where this inclination came from-- what made me sit down one day with pencil in hand and just write. Sadly, experiences in the aforementioned wasted, slacker, bad decisions youth relieved me of many brain cells and, for the life of me, I cannot remember when I first began to write. If memory serves, (even poorly), I was always doodling or writing down some odd character or line throughout my childhood.
I do remember who my first influence was, however. It was my mom. I recall having a Halloween poem to finish, some stupid time wasting assignment in my Reading class and I just didn't 'get' poetry. Thankfully, she did and she sat down like a woman possessed to finish the assignment for me. (That was the only time she did that...she was certainly a 'I'm not doing your homework for you' sort of mom). In any event, I watched in fascination as she scribbled on that thin piece of paper and wrote and wrote and wrote until she was satisfied. It was a funny little story and I remember thinking, "that was so cool."
As I got older, my writing experience shifted to very poorly (rhyming no less :P) pubsecent, emo poetry. I outlined a lot. I have boxes filled with notebook of WIPs or story ideas that will likely never be written. It wasn't until I was in college, much older than that sad little teenager, that I actually completed a story. For a grade. On a deadline. It was terrible, but still I did it and I like think I've gotten better, that I am no longer a slave to my emotions, rather, a slave to the muse.
Now I write because I must, because all those years of procrastination and letting my emotions force me into stories that were veiled attempts at exorcising my demons, have cultivated me, have changed me. I write because my characters want their stories told. I write because it's who I am, who I was always meant to be. I write because if I didn't, little else in my life would satisfy me. Now, I'm not speaking poorly about the relationships I have with others. I'm talking about the relationship I have with myself--the utter desperation that seems to be innately a part of every artistic person...that need to create.
As my last 'non-Teaser Tuesday' post indicated, I wrote when I was younger. Okay, I wrote badly and some would argue that I write only marginally better today, but nonetheless, I've always written. I've been thinking a lot about my writing history this week. I was trying to remember where this inclination came from-- what made me sit down one day with pencil in hand and just write. Sadly, experiences in the aforementioned wasted, slacker, bad decisions youth relieved me of many brain cells and, for the life of me, I cannot remember when I first began to write. If memory serves, (even poorly), I was always doodling or writing down some odd character or line throughout my childhood.
I do remember who my first influence was, however. It was my mom. I recall having a Halloween poem to finish, some stupid time wasting assignment in my Reading class and I just didn't 'get' poetry. Thankfully, she did and she sat down like a woman possessed to finish the assignment for me. (That was the only time she did that...she was certainly a 'I'm not doing your homework for you' sort of mom). In any event, I watched in fascination as she scribbled on that thin piece of paper and wrote and wrote and wrote until she was satisfied. It was a funny little story and I remember thinking, "that was so cool."
As I got older, my writing experience shifted to very poorly (rhyming no less :P) pubsecent, emo poetry. I outlined a lot. I have boxes filled with notebook of WIPs or story ideas that will likely never be written. It wasn't until I was in college, much older than that sad little teenager, that I actually completed a story. For a grade. On a deadline. It was terrible, but still I did it and I like think I've gotten better, that I am no longer a slave to my emotions, rather, a slave to the muse.
Now I write because I must, because all those years of procrastination and letting my emotions force me into stories that were veiled attempts at exorcising my demons, have cultivated me, have changed me. I write because my characters want their stories told. I write because it's who I am, who I was always meant to be. I write because if I didn't, little else in my life would satisfy me. Now, I'm not speaking poorly about the relationships I have with others. I'm talking about the relationship I have with myself--the utter desperation that seems to be innately a part of every artistic person...that need to create.
So, my urge comes from two places, really:
1. From those loud little buggers that shout in my mind "tell everyone about us"
2. And from that part of me, the part that is likely akin to your own, that makes the sky green, creates worlds that are foreign and frightening and brilliant-- the same one that allows you to see what others cannot, the one some call imagination, some call the inner artist.
If I didn't have either of the above, I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself. To tell the truth, even thinking on that is the scariest thing I could imagine.
What about you? Where does your urge to write, to create come from?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Teaser Tuesday
Today's little contribution comes from the first novel I wrote, (read: completed) two years ago. It "was" a vampire novel, but thanks to the ridiculous amounts of vampire fiction, television shows and films that have inundated our entire lives, I decided that this novel would have to wait several decades before seeing the light of day or would need a major rewrite without my MC's 'not so better half' being something other than yet another suave, foreign, ancient vamp.
However, I did love the detail and description in the following and since my "Post-Apocalyptic Love Story" that y'all have been reading on here needs to be edited (one of this week's goals), I thought I'd tease the story that never was.
A small bit of history: The MC is called Morrigan Mayeaux. She is a collector for a made-up university in the fictional Foutainbleu, Louisiana and she's just had a major fight with her boyfriend, Calen. She and her family's lives are in danger because she is trying to translate a very old journal that some don't want her reading. She isn't happy about the need for being protected and is even less happy that her 'boyfriend' thinks he can tell her what to do. Also, this is in first person, which I don't write anymore, so please forgive the tense.
Please read and comment!
I watched a small calico cross in front of me, pausing for a moment to survey me sitting alone in my car, before it leapt up onto the fence post at my mother’s gate. We stared at one another for a moment and it blinked, a lazy, slow motion, before it made serious work of climbing the cypress tree behind it. Distracted by my concentration on the cat’s motions, I jerked at the shriek of my cell phone ringing and cursed myself for not turning it off the moment I hung up with Sara. It had been off all day. I suspected Calen would call and I was in no mood to hear the incessant ringing if I’d left it on. I looked down at the number on the screen and closed my eyes, not eager to fight with him, but curiosity and a sheer morbid desire for torturing myself had me answering.
“What?” I said, not bothering to hide the clip in my voice.
“Where are you? Are you safe?”
I drew in a deep breath and rolled my eyes, my annoyance still too newborn and present to manage much civility toward him. “I’m fine. Was there something you needed?”
“Morrigan, where the bloody hell are you?” I could hear the anger dripping between his breaths. He hadn’t forgiven me. Fine. I hadn’t forgiven him either.
“How is that your business?” He uttered a series of irate curses in Gaelic before grunting. As I waited for the profanity to suspend, I realized that his concern may be genuine. What if his boss had learned about the translations? “Am I—is anyone in danger?”
“Perpetually, Morrigan. Tell me where you are and I’ll come and fetch you.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“You left without waiting for the guard. He told me you were gone by the time he arrived to relieve the night watch.”
The idea that I was still being minded, despite the rather horrific night Calen and I had, only served to annoy me further. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to give your employees an itinerary of my life.”
“Bloody hell, woman, can you not just tell me where you are? Are you so stubborn that you’ll risk your neck just to spite me?” He paused and I could hear the slightest hint of humor in his voice. “Why am I even asking, then? Of course you would.”
The porch light flicked on and the door opened, expelling from behind it my mother’s Jack Russell, Zeus. He darted straight for my car, growling and barking in a rapid succession that sounded much like a high pitched machine gun. I rolled up my window to block out the sound and prayed I’d neglected to mention anything about my mother and her miniature guard dog to Calen.
“I have to go. I’m expected,” I said, turning off the engine and throwing the keys into my bag.
“Morrigan, don’t you bloody well hang up.” I didn’t answer, waiting to see how thick the brogue would become. “Morrigan, I swear to sweet bloody Bridget, if you hang up, I‘ll—”
I didn’t wait for Calen to complete the threat. I ended the call and turned my cell off, leaving it in my glove compartment before I opened the door to Zeus’ growling welcome.
“Shut up, Mighty Mouse. It’s just me.” I closed the door and knelt down to Zeus’ level, letting him sniff my hand. The growl became a whine of excitement and the animal nudged at my fingers, insisting with his body that I scratch his head. I gave him a brief rub under his chin and allowed him to lick my cheek before I stood up, nodding to my mom as she watched me come up the sidewalk.
I took a breath, and a patient calm flooded through my body as I scanned the perimeter of the house. There were no lurking guards, no odd strangers hiding in wait to attack and I was quite certain not one person in this neighborhood would ask about Bowman’s journals. I was home. No matter how old I grew or how many borders I saw in the task of buying ancient relics, this house would always be home.
It was a Victorian cottage with a pitched gabled roof, a yellow exterior that reminded me of a meadow of buttercups and a porch that wrapped around like arms snuggling tight to protect the warmth within. I smiled at Zeus yapping at the calico, still circling the trunk of the cypress and took note of the fresh sod. Katrina had warranted new landscaping and my mother’s co-workers had done a superb job of ripping out the dead, bare grass and replacing it with this lush green. The old cypress had survived the breaking levees and stood as sentinel at the wide wrought iron gate that curled around the boundary of the lot. Vivid red roses dusted the outlining surface of the porch and new dogwood saplings had replaced the balding banana trees at the edges of the walkway. My mother had seen fit to uproot the concrete path and replace it with wide, red pavers staggered parallel and perpendicular. It all looked beautiful, new, alien to what I’d seen at Easter when the new flowers had yet to bloom. Despite the newness of the landscape, the old cottage remained as reassuring, as solid for the recollection it stirred in me and the buzzing hum of contentment I felt looking at it— my mother’s smile a fitting center of this tranquil picture.
She was leaning against the column on the porch, her light brown hair pulled tight behind her and minute ringlets escaping over her forehead and around her ears. She fidgeted with her collar and I took note of the thin blue cotton shirt, fraying at the hem and the faded denim capris she wore. Ah, Thursday, I thought. Her day off. It was pruning day. A dingy pair of gardening gloves lay on the step and the small garden sheers were next to them on the pavers. Despite my hesitance in seeing her, and discovering what state she may be in, I felt a quick thrill that she seemed unharmed, if not a bit pink-cheeked.
Looking down at her hand, I noted my suspicions were confirmed. My mother was never able to spend a day off relaxing without Mr. Guinness or Senõr Cuervo to keep her company. At least she had good taste in liquor, I thought. I glanced back up her body— steady, not slouching— and to her eyes— bright but not yet red-rimmed with drunkenness. Good. I had a solid three hours before she would be incomprehensible.
My mother wasn’t an alcoholic. According to her, anyway. She just liked to drink. A lot. When I was younger, she would have a glass of red for dinner and the occasional lager at parties. There had never been any coming in at four in the morning staggering and I never found her passed out next to the toilet. As I grew older and my social life obligated me and she was more frequently left alone, the amounts and consumption of her “occasional” drinks got larger in quantity. Now that I lived on my own, I had no real way of monitoring what or how much she drank. She was responsible, however. Drinking a lot was her hobby, like some of my friend’s mother’s working a knitting needle or scrapbooking their way through five hundred dollars in stickers and gel pens, but my mother wasn’t stupid about it. In twenty years, she’d missed only two days of work and that was when Katrina hit. If she loved anything more than me or her libations, it was being a paramedic.
“Lavender or lilies?” I asked, nodding to the dirty gloves.
“Lavender. They were getting so big I couldn’t see out the back window,” she said.
She downed her drink, Cuervo today, from the smell of it, and put it on the step next to her gloves. She tilted her head, examining me, and seeing that I was in one piece, she reached out and engulfed me into the pillow of her small chest. I inhaled, smiling at the way, despite the small tinge of sweat and tequila, she still smelled like rosemary and, well, just her.
However, I did love the detail and description in the following and since my "Post-Apocalyptic Love Story" that y'all have been reading on here needs to be edited (one of this week's goals), I thought I'd tease the story that never was.
A small bit of history: The MC is called Morrigan Mayeaux. She is a collector for a made-up university in the fictional Foutainbleu, Louisiana and she's just had a major fight with her boyfriend, Calen. She and her family's lives are in danger because she is trying to translate a very old journal that some don't want her reading. She isn't happy about the need for being protected and is even less happy that her 'boyfriend' thinks he can tell her what to do. Also, this is in first person, which I don't write anymore, so please forgive the tense.
Please read and comment!
I watched a small calico cross in front of me, pausing for a moment to survey me sitting alone in my car, before it leapt up onto the fence post at my mother’s gate. We stared at one another for a moment and it blinked, a lazy, slow motion, before it made serious work of climbing the cypress tree behind it. Distracted by my concentration on the cat’s motions, I jerked at the shriek of my cell phone ringing and cursed myself for not turning it off the moment I hung up with Sara. It had been off all day. I suspected Calen would call and I was in no mood to hear the incessant ringing if I’d left it on. I looked down at the number on the screen and closed my eyes, not eager to fight with him, but curiosity and a sheer morbid desire for torturing myself had me answering.
“What?” I said, not bothering to hide the clip in my voice.
“Where are you? Are you safe?”
I drew in a deep breath and rolled my eyes, my annoyance still too newborn and present to manage much civility toward him. “I’m fine. Was there something you needed?”
“Morrigan, where the bloody hell are you?” I could hear the anger dripping between his breaths. He hadn’t forgiven me. Fine. I hadn’t forgiven him either.
“How is that your business?” He uttered a series of irate curses in Gaelic before grunting. As I waited for the profanity to suspend, I realized that his concern may be genuine. What if his boss had learned about the translations? “Am I—is anyone in danger?”
“Perpetually, Morrigan. Tell me where you are and I’ll come and fetch you.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“You left without waiting for the guard. He told me you were gone by the time he arrived to relieve the night watch.”
The idea that I was still being minded, despite the rather horrific night Calen and I had, only served to annoy me further. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to give your employees an itinerary of my life.”
“Bloody hell, woman, can you not just tell me where you are? Are you so stubborn that you’ll risk your neck just to spite me?” He paused and I could hear the slightest hint of humor in his voice. “Why am I even asking, then? Of course you would.”
The porch light flicked on and the door opened, expelling from behind it my mother’s Jack Russell, Zeus. He darted straight for my car, growling and barking in a rapid succession that sounded much like a high pitched machine gun. I rolled up my window to block out the sound and prayed I’d neglected to mention anything about my mother and her miniature guard dog to Calen.
“I have to go. I’m expected,” I said, turning off the engine and throwing the keys into my bag.
“Morrigan, don’t you bloody well hang up.” I didn’t answer, waiting to see how thick the brogue would become. “Morrigan, I swear to sweet bloody Bridget, if you hang up, I‘ll—”
I didn’t wait for Calen to complete the threat. I ended the call and turned my cell off, leaving it in my glove compartment before I opened the door to Zeus’ growling welcome.
“Shut up, Mighty Mouse. It’s just me.” I closed the door and knelt down to Zeus’ level, letting him sniff my hand. The growl became a whine of excitement and the animal nudged at my fingers, insisting with his body that I scratch his head. I gave him a brief rub under his chin and allowed him to lick my cheek before I stood up, nodding to my mom as she watched me come up the sidewalk.
I took a breath, and a patient calm flooded through my body as I scanned the perimeter of the house. There were no lurking guards, no odd strangers hiding in wait to attack and I was quite certain not one person in this neighborhood would ask about Bowman’s journals. I was home. No matter how old I grew or how many borders I saw in the task of buying ancient relics, this house would always be home.
It was a Victorian cottage with a pitched gabled roof, a yellow exterior that reminded me of a meadow of buttercups and a porch that wrapped around like arms snuggling tight to protect the warmth within. I smiled at Zeus yapping at the calico, still circling the trunk of the cypress and took note of the fresh sod. Katrina had warranted new landscaping and my mother’s co-workers had done a superb job of ripping out the dead, bare grass and replacing it with this lush green. The old cypress had survived the breaking levees and stood as sentinel at the wide wrought iron gate that curled around the boundary of the lot. Vivid red roses dusted the outlining surface of the porch and new dogwood saplings had replaced the balding banana trees at the edges of the walkway. My mother had seen fit to uproot the concrete path and replace it with wide, red pavers staggered parallel and perpendicular. It all looked beautiful, new, alien to what I’d seen at Easter when the new flowers had yet to bloom. Despite the newness of the landscape, the old cottage remained as reassuring, as solid for the recollection it stirred in me and the buzzing hum of contentment I felt looking at it— my mother’s smile a fitting center of this tranquil picture.
She was leaning against the column on the porch, her light brown hair pulled tight behind her and minute ringlets escaping over her forehead and around her ears. She fidgeted with her collar and I took note of the thin blue cotton shirt, fraying at the hem and the faded denim capris she wore. Ah, Thursday, I thought. Her day off. It was pruning day. A dingy pair of gardening gloves lay on the step and the small garden sheers were next to them on the pavers. Despite my hesitance in seeing her, and discovering what state she may be in, I felt a quick thrill that she seemed unharmed, if not a bit pink-cheeked.
Looking down at her hand, I noted my suspicions were confirmed. My mother was never able to spend a day off relaxing without Mr. Guinness or Senõr Cuervo to keep her company. At least she had good taste in liquor, I thought. I glanced back up her body— steady, not slouching— and to her eyes— bright but not yet red-rimmed with drunkenness. Good. I had a solid three hours before she would be incomprehensible.
My mother wasn’t an alcoholic. According to her, anyway. She just liked to drink. A lot. When I was younger, she would have a glass of red for dinner and the occasional lager at parties. There had never been any coming in at four in the morning staggering and I never found her passed out next to the toilet. As I grew older and my social life obligated me and she was more frequently left alone, the amounts and consumption of her “occasional” drinks got larger in quantity. Now that I lived on my own, I had no real way of monitoring what or how much she drank. She was responsible, however. Drinking a lot was her hobby, like some of my friend’s mother’s working a knitting needle or scrapbooking their way through five hundred dollars in stickers and gel pens, but my mother wasn’t stupid about it. In twenty years, she’d missed only two days of work and that was when Katrina hit. If she loved anything more than me or her libations, it was being a paramedic.
“Lavender or lilies?” I asked, nodding to the dirty gloves.
“Lavender. They were getting so big I couldn’t see out the back window,” she said.
She downed her drink, Cuervo today, from the smell of it, and put it on the step next to her gloves. She tilted her head, examining me, and seeing that I was in one piece, she reached out and engulfed me into the pillow of her small chest. I inhaled, smiling at the way, despite the small tinge of sweat and tequila, she still smelled like rosemary and, well, just her.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
In Which I Begrudgingly Relive My High School Days
The following attempts to expression the REAL reason I graduated high school so very near to the bottom of my class. It would take me six long years of meaningless, dead-end jobs to realize that: 1. my childhood inclinations of being a writer, were pretty dead on and 2. that an education truly is the most important necessity in a young person's life. At 25, I began university and finished my first semester on the Dean's list.
7:25 The alarm screeches for the third time and I'm already late. (Sadly, this habit has remained somewhat unaffected over the years)
7:29 Hit the snooze again and ignore my friend's honking horn in the drive.
7:45 Mad dash to the closet, then a quick run to the bathroom for the necessaries and then bat my eyes at my poor stepfather promising he won't have to drive me anymore.
Me: "Of course, if I had my own car..."
Him: "You'd still be late. Get in the truck."
7:50 Ignore the annoying glare given to me by the school secretary who inevitably asks, under her breath 'why can't she be more like that brother of hers.' Flip the bird to snarky secretary.
8:50 Escape first hour, which, let's be honest, I couldn't even recall what had been discussed or, for that matter, what class it was. Run to my locker to gossip with my friends (who feel it necessary to lecture me about wasting her gas when I don't bother to tell her I'm running late) about why Mrs. History Teacher is wearing a too-short skirt. Ignore theories about her wanting to relive her misspent youth or how she's far too flirty with our male classmates and head to second period.
9:00 Until 11:25 Stare aimlessly into the corner of rooms or hide in the back of the Biology lab hoping I won't be called on, hoping that my plan of 'hopes and prayers' non-studying will afford me at least grades of the passable nature. Usually, I am denied or, if I'm very lucky, the teachers would forget that I fell asleep during the last half hour of testing.
11:28 Spent the entire lunch period staring at that cute 'you had better not even think about it' boy leaning against the brick wall next to the fire exit. He is tall and has full, hard to resist lips that are tempting and dangerous. Flirt pathetically then jump when alleged friends tell me to 'forget about that one, he's trouble.' Continue to flirt despite necessary and (Lord above, very accurate warnings...so begins two very long years of breaking up. Getting back together, breaking up, getting my heart broke BUT that's a story we shouldn't discuss. EVER).
11:50 It is time for gym and oh, dang, "Coach I Have No Business Wearing Shorts This Tight, I seem to have misplaced my gym uniform." HA! Wiggled out of yet another Death by Dodge ball match. While my friends limp away from the center of the gym floor and pass out on the bleachers, I give them genuinely sympathetic smiles and pull out my notebook to write yet more Pubescent Emo Poems...
I am.
You are.
Who are we?
I feel your eyes
On my---
Yeah, it was generally that level of bad. I'll not torture you further.
12: 40 - 2:00
More aimless staring, occasionally catching glimpses of Oh So Hot Desirable Bad Boy in the halls. More pathetic, obvious flirting.
2: 25 Freedom! Sweet, beloved freedom!! I sweet talk my way into a ride home from my completely put out friend and, after the necessary and oh-so-trendy hang out spot (read: the local Burger King) I am home in a parentless house. Beginning dialing Bad Boy's number. Hang up when he answers 'Sup?'
/ ridiculous high school memories.
7:25 The alarm screeches for the third time and I'm already late. (Sadly, this habit has remained somewhat unaffected over the years)
7:29 Hit the snooze again and ignore my friend's honking horn in the drive.
7:45 Mad dash to the closet, then a quick run to the bathroom for the necessaries and then bat my eyes at my poor stepfather promising he won't have to drive me anymore.
Me: "Of course, if I had my own car..."
Him: "You'd still be late. Get in the truck."
7:50 Ignore the annoying glare given to me by the school secretary who inevitably asks, under her breath 'why can't she be more like that brother of hers.' Flip the bird to snarky secretary.
8:50 Escape first hour, which, let's be honest, I couldn't even recall what had been discussed or, for that matter, what class it was. Run to my locker to gossip with my friends (who feel it necessary to lecture me about wasting her gas when I don't bother to tell her I'm running late) about why Mrs. History Teacher is wearing a too-short skirt. Ignore theories about her wanting to relive her misspent youth or how she's far too flirty with our male classmates and head to second period.
9:00 Until 11:25 Stare aimlessly into the corner of rooms or hide in the back of the Biology lab hoping I won't be called on, hoping that my plan of 'hopes and prayers' non-studying will afford me at least grades of the passable nature. Usually, I am denied or, if I'm very lucky, the teachers would forget that I fell asleep during the last half hour of testing.
11:28 Spent the entire lunch period staring at that cute 'you had better not even think about it' boy leaning against the brick wall next to the fire exit. He is tall and has full, hard to resist lips that are tempting and dangerous. Flirt pathetically then jump when alleged friends tell me to 'forget about that one, he's trouble.' Continue to flirt despite necessary and (Lord above, very accurate warnings...so begins two very long years of breaking up. Getting back together, breaking up, getting my heart broke BUT that's a story we shouldn't discuss. EVER).
11:50 It is time for gym and oh, dang, "Coach I Have No Business Wearing Shorts This Tight, I seem to have misplaced my gym uniform." HA! Wiggled out of yet another Death by Dodge ball match. While my friends limp away from the center of the gym floor and pass out on the bleachers, I give them genuinely sympathetic smiles and pull out my notebook to write yet more Pubescent Emo Poems...
I am.
You are.
Who are we?
I feel your eyes
On my---
Yeah, it was generally that level of bad. I'll not torture you further.
12: 40 - 2:00
More aimless staring, occasionally catching glimpses of Oh So Hot Desirable Bad Boy in the halls. More pathetic, obvious flirting.
2: 25 Freedom! Sweet, beloved freedom!! I sweet talk my way into a ride home from my completely put out friend and, after the necessary and oh-so-trendy hang out spot (read: the local Burger King) I am home in a parentless house. Beginning dialing Bad Boy's number. Hang up when he answers 'Sup?'
/ ridiculous high school memories.
And who did you get?
I was very pleased to have scored the following:
http://iwl.me/s/b3a26720
(Sorry, lost the code for that one)
But elated to find a second review gave me this:
Ah, me, if only either were true!
How did y'all do? If you haven't checked out I Write Like, do so, it's fun and I'd be interested to know who you all got. :P
http://iwl.me/s/b3a26720
(Sorry, lost the code for that one)
But elated to find a second review gave me this:
Ah, me, if only either were true!
How did y'all do? If you haven't checked out I Write Like, do so, it's fun and I'd be interested to know who you all got. :P
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
#teasertuesday
More for the short I'm working on. Let's call this an 'apocalyptic love story' of sorts.
Anissa had no clear memory of rain. Thick clouds of moisture and bolts of white light were mere phantom flashes from her dreams, like the dim recollection of straits and streams time had parched of water and life. She looked down at the dry, cracked surface of the empty creek and a momentary shudder took her as she saw Harding laying facedown and unconscious.
She heard the men behind her as she walked toward his body, but would not watch them. Pitiless cowards, she thought. They left Harding here to die, these men— men he’d once called brothers, men who’d followed the now cataleptic man into a mission no one could survive. He’d been their leader and Anissa thought, perhaps, leaving his thin body in the dry earth was a punishment. Judgment sent for his failures, for theirs at believing victory was at all possible.
Anissa began to brush back the dry hair from his face, but resisted. The comfort and familiarity of their bodies touching had long been lost to her. Time and survival had stolen the ease and frequency in affection and now she found herself frightened, unsure. He seemed so different to her, a foreign shape that held only slight resemblance to the man she loved. But when the closed slit that was Harding’s swollen lids opened to reveal bloodshot eyes and a labored moan released from his throat, Anissa forgot her hesitation, ignored her discomfort and touched him.
His skin felt hot, was rough, blistered and Anissa’s fingers slipped against the sweat and blood on his body, the smell of him like the burnt odor of coal and sulfur. She struggled to roll him into the pushcart and tried to forget how he’d once been, how she could never manage to bear much of his weight those drunken nights, years ago, before the skies dried and the End began its decent. She carried him home with a strength she’d never possessed, perhaps stealing what remained of his own, leeching the remnants of power left from before his mighty fall.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Guest blogger Ebony McKenna
This week, I'm honored to have Ebony McKenna guest blogging for me. I 'met' Ebony on #scribechat (why aren't you joining us? It's too much fun to miss) and she very generously agreed to gives us all her two cents on Inspiration. I hope you enjoy her wonderful post as much as I did. Don't forget to comment and pick up a copy of her wonderful novel, Ondine: The Summer of Shambles.
Thanks so much, Ebony, for playing along!
Inspiration:
Thanks so much, Ebony, for playing along!
Inspiration:
I hate to break it to you, but there is no guaranteed way to ‘get’ inspiration. It’s either going to come or it won’t. Which is a dreadful way to begin a blog on the topic because you’re all looking at me, thinking, ‘come on woman, inspire me!’
But there is a way to encourage inspiration to come your way. You have to turn the computer or laptop on, open the file, put your fingers on the keys and start typing.
If you’re not , you won’t be open to inspiration when it strikes. Or creeps up on you. Or worms its way into your heart. I’ve found time and again this habit works for me. I make a start - sometimes with no idea about what comes next - and sure enough, something eventually comes to me.
It took me about seven goes just to work out how to start this post! I wasn’t sure how to start. So I took my own advice and just started. Then when I had a decent paragraph, I knew that might go somewhere near the top and the rest might follow. How am I doing so far?
Inspiration is like snark hunting. You’re never too sure what it is, and everyone has a different idea of how crazy and dangerous it is, and you never really know what you’ve got. BUT, you have to be in the hunt in the first place if you want to get one.
Which means removing distractions where possible. Hold off on emails, twitter, facebook, bebo, myspace and all that until after you’ve written. You can check them later, as a reward for writing. (Note to self, take own advice from time to time.)
Set aside a regular time each day to write. This is a difficult thing to do, because it means being selfish. It means telling the family you need to write. It means writing for yourself - and giving yourself permission to put yourself first - ahead of even your day job, or of mopping the floors or doing the laundry or walking the dog. Work helps pay the bills, but it can sap our emotional strength. So how about writing before work, or during a lunch break or on the train too or from work?
Are there any jobs around the house you can delegate. Seriously?
In the long run, what would you like to be known for? A great writer or a great housecleaner. Because you can be one or the other, but not both.
Feeling inspired yet?
Are you inspired to get up that bit earlier, while the house is quiet, so you can get straight into it? This is not so much about inspiration as motivation, but the two go hand in hand. If you’re motivated enough to write, you’ll find the inspiration begins to find you.
Always carry a notebook and pen wherever you go, because an overheard comment, funny incident, obstacle or event can provide inspiration. Plus, if you’re daydreaming and crash into someone, you’ll have pen and paper to exchange insurance details.
E-hem!
Sometimes reading a particularly good book inspires you to want to be that good. Or, reading a particularly unworthy book might make you angry enough to do better.
Online courses are brilliant at developing craft and giving you the confidence to go on. Because along with inspiration and motivation come confidence. They’re all intertwined. Along with talent, but you can work on that too.
Another way to get inspiration - this works for me at least - is to join a critique group, whether in person or online. Being around other writers always fires me up. In the week before the meeting I usually get a lot written, and the week afterwards too, because the meeting has given me an injection of fresh enthusiasm.
But the other two weeks in the middle can be a bit ‘bleh’. This time around, I’ve managed to work through the saggy two-week torpor through sheer determination. And a steady supply of chocolate.
Lately I have become a hooked on Twitter. I’m drawn to topics like #yalitchat and #scribechat. The questions and answers are often inspiring, motivating or sometimes plain good fun. Plus, writing can be an incredibly isolating experience, but it’s nice to know there are so many others out there doing the same thing. We may be alone, but we’re all in it together.
And how could I forget the best inspiration of all - blind terror? Never underestimate its motivational and inspirational force. I have one book out there in the world, and it’s sold a few thousand copies already (in a very difficult economy, so thank you, every single one of you). But, I can’t rest. I am at the copy editing stages of the second book and I desperately want to get the third book written so I can keep up the momentum. I’ve noticed if people like a book, they want to read the next one. Right now, if you don’t mind. What do you mean it’s not written yet. Get on with it!
Ebony McKenna is the author of Ondine: The Summer of Shambles. Out now with Egmont Books UK and Publisher’s Group Canada. Book two, The Autumn Palace, will be out in March 2011. She’s currently writing book three, The Duchess of Winter.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
#teasertuesday
From something I'll likely never publish:
It began simply, the callousness of these desolate days. The winds swept with fiercer gusts, storms grew torrential and violent, the earth rattled, breaking bodies and cracking cement. When the floods left
Governments tumbled and fell. Anarchy became the strongest political platform. Men with guns and wealth became the ruthless class, stealing what they could of time, food, Champions— full circle for Anissa’s people, lands taken, rights ignored, atrocities visited upon them again and again.
The purported civilized became the desperate overlords of those they deemed inferior. The poor and the common man brawled back, forming the Resistance— former hatreds, past prejudices forgotten as the Guard rose. Blacks, Aryans, Hispanics, lower and middle classes of every race forgetting their animosity to rage against the Guard who had assumed control, who had murdered and stolen in attempts to reorganize civility to their liking.
The Resistance grew strong, small communities sharing the burden of survival, becoming phantoms saviors of the dying class, fighting against impossible cruelty, immeasurable odds. Anissa and her people stood against the threats, those seeking to destroy what they could not conquer.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Break On Through...
Scribechat is phenomenal for getting the old cogs turning in my mind. Particularly, when said cogs are inundated with technical documents and rereading books that tend to distract me, in the best possible way, of course.
Last night, during our little Twitter chat, which by the way, you should be following, the topic of breakout fiction came up. For those of you who are wondering, this type of fiction, according to Donald Maass in Writing the Breakout Novel, happens when "new work comes along and suddenly the writer's [who may have been only marginally successful prior] book vaults onto the best-seller lists or even achieves a large jump in sales."
I'll give you a few examples:
Once there was a single mother in Scotland, living on benefit, who took a train ride and 'met' a boy with a lightening bolt scar. Nearly twenty years later, said woman has sold roughly 400 million copies of her series worldwide.
And, of course, another instance is Alice Sebold, who writes 'literary fiction.' She twisted expectations and genre by telling the story of Susie Salmon, a fourteen year-old murder victim. This story, however, was told from Susie's point of view after she was murdered.
With Rowling, the publishing industry was turned upside down because she chose to tell her story from a young boy's point of view. She took Campbell and folklore conventions and placed them into the minds of the young. She pulled the boarding school story away from its past and filled it with wizards and witches and all manner of mythical folk and figures. She did this excellently and the result was literary history.
Sebold made a ghost story literary, brought Susie into the fray of critical praise and made no apologies for it. I'll say that again: she turned a ghost story into literary fiction.
Both books left their marks. Both writers wrote the stories they wanted to write, probably, the stories they had to write.
Maas says that what is at the heart of these 'breakout books' generally take publishers by surprise. There is no surefire way to predict which solitary manuscript among the thousands will leap off the shelves. There can be, I believe, a process to it. Quite simply, what could be at the center of the success of a breakout novel is word-of-mouth.
Think of this way, a hundred years ago when I was a teenager, I fell hard for a certain boy band. (Please don't ask me to name them. I could not withstand the humiliation). I watched their infinitesimal climb from mediocrity to international super-stardom. It was slow, but eventually, their first album inched up the charts and they began to warrant larger venues, win Grammies and supersede their own notions of success.
It happened, because little girls like me, with no real concept of what good music was, told her girlfriends and they told theirs and so on and so on. It happened through word-of-mouth.
Granted, I know the publishing and music industries are two very different animals altogether. Writers, sad as it may seem, don't sell out arenas (unless they happen to be that mother from Scotland) and MTV generally doesn't play clips of writers sitting at their keyboards. Still, the process is the same. Word-of-mouth can be essential in turning a great book into a best seller.
It is, as Maass says, "the secret grease of publishing...it is the engine that drives breakouts."
And how can writers, such as yours truly, who are just starting to flirt with publishing, who are just dipping their toes in the deep waters of the industry, benefit from word-of-mouth? Well, it may simply be my humble opinion, but I believe it all starts with you. It starts with me. It starts when we lift one another up. It starts when we take a vested interest in each other. It begins with networking, it begins with supporting one another in the minutest way. Chat, introduce yourself, attend conferences, but most importantly, be willing to learn from one another. Be eager to help each other out.
One day you may be in a position to give a little advice, make an introduction for someone, some writer, who helped you along your way to greatness. And that small word-of-mouth from you could be the difference between the next breakout novel and the book everyone bypasses on their way to the checkout.
"The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed."
Ray Kroc
Last night, during our little Twitter chat, which by the way, you should be following, the topic of breakout fiction came up. For those of you who are wondering, this type of fiction, according to Donald Maass in Writing the Breakout Novel, happens when "new work comes along and suddenly the writer's [who may have been only marginally successful prior] book vaults onto the best-seller lists or even achieves a large jump in sales."
I'll give you a few examples:
Once there was a single mother in Scotland, living on benefit, who took a train ride and 'met' a boy with a lightening bolt scar. Nearly twenty years later, said woman has sold roughly 400 million copies of her series worldwide.
And, of course, another instance is Alice Sebold, who writes 'literary fiction.' She twisted expectations and genre by telling the story of Susie Salmon, a fourteen year-old murder victim. This story, however, was told from Susie's point of view after she was murdered.
With Rowling, the publishing industry was turned upside down because she chose to tell her story from a young boy's point of view. She took Campbell and folklore conventions and placed them into the minds of the young. She pulled the boarding school story away from its past and filled it with wizards and witches and all manner of mythical folk and figures. She did this excellently and the result was literary history.
Sebold made a ghost story literary, brought Susie into the fray of critical praise and made no apologies for it. I'll say that again: she turned a ghost story into literary fiction.
Both books left their marks. Both writers wrote the stories they wanted to write, probably, the stories they had to write.
Maas says that what is at the heart of these 'breakout books' generally take publishers by surprise. There is no surefire way to predict which solitary manuscript among the thousands will leap off the shelves. There can be, I believe, a process to it. Quite simply, what could be at the center of the success of a breakout novel is word-of-mouth.
Think of this way, a hundred years ago when I was a teenager, I fell hard for a certain boy band. (Please don't ask me to name them. I could not withstand the humiliation). I watched their infinitesimal climb from mediocrity to international super-stardom. It was slow, but eventually, their first album inched up the charts and they began to warrant larger venues, win Grammies and supersede their own notions of success.
It happened, because little girls like me, with no real concept of what good music was, told her girlfriends and they told theirs and so on and so on. It happened through word-of-mouth.
Granted, I know the publishing and music industries are two very different animals altogether. Writers, sad as it may seem, don't sell out arenas (unless they happen to be that mother from Scotland) and MTV generally doesn't play clips of writers sitting at their keyboards. Still, the process is the same. Word-of-mouth can be essential in turning a great book into a best seller.
It is, as Maass says, "the secret grease of publishing...it is the engine that drives breakouts."
And how can writers, such as yours truly, who are just starting to flirt with publishing, who are just dipping their toes in the deep waters of the industry, benefit from word-of-mouth? Well, it may simply be my humble opinion, but I believe it all starts with you. It starts with me. It starts when we lift one another up. It starts when we take a vested interest in each other. It begins with networking, it begins with supporting one another in the minutest way. Chat, introduce yourself, attend conferences, but most importantly, be willing to learn from one another. Be eager to help each other out.
One day you may be in a position to give a little advice, make an introduction for someone, some writer, who helped you along your way to greatness. And that small word-of-mouth from you could be the difference between the next breakout novel and the book everyone bypasses on their way to the checkout.
"The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed."
Ray Kroc
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