Sunday Scribblings: Half way to a novel

Actually, I'd like to believe I'm more than halfway to my novel. Maybe two thirds of the way. But not three quarters.

I've discovered that novel writing is a deceptive sort of business. I thought I was almost done a few months ago, and I was wrong. Almost. It's a funny word. You stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and then it snaps like a rubber band and you realise no, you're not almost done. You're just not done. Almost is a lie then, a word to make me feel closer to completion than I actually am. Sometimes I need those lies so I keep going.

322 pages in Word. Currently on the fourth draft. Currently rewriting the major subplot. Always more to do, more to fix in my quest to make it better, make it all it can be so I'm all I can be when I start looking for an agent and a publisher. I need to know the novel is the best I can make it. I can't get impatient and put it out before it's done. No premature birth here. The novel must be able to stand on its own, breathe on its own and it must be independent of me if someone else is to believe it.

A very small part of me thinks I should appreciate this time of almost, this time of half way. It's the journey, not the destination the old cliche screams. But enough is enough. Half way is not all the way. Almost is not done.

The end is coming and I will welcome it with open arms.

Sunday Salon: A bit late...The Dead Travel Fast and Ink Exchange

The last time I contributed to the Sunday Salon was in March, so depending on how you look at it, I am either late for posting this Sunday just past or very late for not posting since March!

The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn


I'm a huge fan of Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey mystery series, so when I saw this stand alone book at my favourite local bookstore I was excited. The excitement lasted for a couple of chapters when for whatever reason - I'll get to that in a second - I stalled, stopped reading and put the book back on the shelf. When it came time for my recent overseas trip, I packed it, deciding to start from the beginning again. I did, I stalled yet again a couple more chapters in than the first time. I picked it up again last week and managed to get all the way through to the end. Despite all of that, this really isn't a bad book.

So what was with all the stalling on my part? The Dead Travel Fast purports itself to be a vampire book. In fact the very title is taken from Dracula, the most epic of all vampire novels (no matter what those crazy Twlight people might tell you). Things to know about me: I don't really like books about vampires. Werewolves, witches, magic wielders, supernatural powers = awesome. Vampires = not so much. I mean at the end of the day vampires are undead, they want to suck our blood and they're immortal. Everywhere that concept can be taken, it has been taken, at least to the level of my interest.

Raybourn writes beautifully - her attention to detail, her ability to describe a room, a view, a person is near flawless. This is something I struggle with as a writer so I admire it all the more in others. So perhaps it was Theodora, the protagonist, that I didn't really warm to. She wasn't horrible or cold or anything, she was just a bit bland and a bit filled with her own self importance as a serious "novelist". I also thought the lack of antagonist was irritating - there were some hints about the Count and some murmurs about the rest of the family but nothing really came to fruition until the last 20 pages when it turned out all was not as it seemed.

*little bit spoiler-ish*

And by that, I mean it turns out there may not be any vampires or anything of the supernatural after all, which leave certain events unexplained and unable to be reconciled with the rest of the book.

*end of possible spoiler*

This is a decent book, possibly more than decent if you're a vampire fan but, I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the Lady Julia Grey series.

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr


This is the second book in Marr's Wicked Lovely series. The first was all about Aislinn and Keenan, the Summer King and Queen and this one is about Aislinn's friend, Leslie, who manages to get caught up in the world of faery when she chooses to have a tattoo inked on her skin that ties her to the King of the Dark Court, Irial. Toss in a compelling attraction between Leslie and another faery, Niall, and you have the makings of a good, dark book.

There is a growing movement in YA fiction towards stark, gritty realism whether it be in the form of death, eating disorders or abuse. This book frames Leslie as someone who survived a gang rape sanctioned by her drug dealer brother. This isn't a key feature of the book and is never explored in detail (thank goodness) but that event informs all of Leslie's decisions and goes some way towards understanding why she makes the decisions she does.

Leslie's destruction at the hands of the Dark Court is hard to watch and while she manages to come out of it towards the end, her journey isn't a pleasant one, even as it makes for compelling reading.

There are some plot issues in this book - a major twist is casually dropped into character exposition when so much more could have been made of it; a few plots go nowhere (this is probably because this book is part of a series) and there is no real resolution for Leslie who moves into a sort of holding pattern, returning to a mortal life while the faeries who love her bide their time in the shadows.

I enjoy Marr's writing and I'll read the next two books in the series but I'll borrow them from the library rather than buy them.

Currently reading: Forbidden Fantasy by Cheryl Holt

Neglected

52 Sources of Inspiration

1. Journal writing
2. My puppies
3. Rainbow coloured beads in a glass jar
4. The smell of rain on asphalt
5. A really good night's sleep
6. A new gel pen
7. Dreams
8. Stationary stores
9. Payday
10. Time off from work
11. Photography
12. Other people's blogs
13. Art supplies
14. Painting
15. Cupcakes
16. Rainy days and warm blankets
17. Trip planning
18. New books arriving in the mail
19. My Ipod on shuffle setting
20. My favourite podcasts
21. Bright coloured summer dresses
22. Post it notes
23. Ribbons attached to USB drives
24. Ponytails
25. The smell of soil and freshly mowed grass
26. Warm pasta in my tummy
27. Bubble baths
28. L'Occitane products
29. A really good book
30. A really good guidebook to writing
31. Sedona, Arizona
32. New pyjamas from Frankie and Johnny
33. A long and laughter filled conversation with a friend over a good meal
34. Water, and lots of it
35. Swimming
36. A trip to the library
37. Taking my laptop to Dome after work and writing for an hour or two with a skinny cap
38. Reading books I wish I had written myself and learning from them
39. Hearing people talk with passion about what it is they want to do or are doing with their lives
40. Chalk an chalk boards, whiteboard markers and whiteboards, paints and canvas
41. The colours green and sky blue
42. Connections to my past - to family members gone, friends departed and the knowledge that I'm always moving forward and becoming a better person
43. Sleep ins on a Saturday morning
44. Perspective
45. Venice, Italy; Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland
46. Museums and galleries
47. Workshops and classes and the people I meet in them
48. People are watching, supporting and loving me, even if they can't be with me in this world
49. Money in the bank
50. Coffee
51. The beach - it calls to me like a siren
52. The knowledge that I'm already here

Exercise suggested from 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

A day like no other

I woke up early this morning, anxious and fearful.

I decided there was nothing else to do but make today a day like no other.

All of my mornings start with these two faces.

Some mornings start with pancakes.

I wrote in my journal for an hour non stop, that's it in the bottom of the photo.
Then I watched an episode on the net of 16 and Pregnant.

I went to MILKD. I never go here. I go across the street, sit at the same table in the same cafe with the same waitress. Today I went inside the trendy cafe.

I drank my skinny cap and marked assessments.
First self portrait. It's bad, but that's okay. I never take self portraits and rarely post photos of myself on my blog.


On a whim, I decided to get on the train to Fremantle.

I went to

And ate...


a yummy cheeseburger. That's my first Vonnegut on the left. I bought it in the second hand store a little bit down from Soho.

Second self portrait of the day - in the bathroom of Soho. Not much better than the first.
Then I wandered about a bit, window shopping.
Then I got on the train, where the view out the window looked like this:

Ocean, ocean, ocean.

When I got back to my stop I went here


Where the roof looks like this:

And I drank a chai latte and did more marking.

I was pretty over it at this point, so I went home and watched more episodes of 16 and Pregnant, almost blowing my monthly internet allowance 10 days shy of the next allowance and did more marking.

It truly was a day like no other.
I took risks.
Forced myself to do things I'd rather not do.
Looked at the place I live through the lens of my camera.
Got lots of assessments marked.
Found Kurt Vonnegut.

Survived another day.

Where does the wind blow?

Fate's Gate, New Zealand

The edits on the novel are kicking my ass.

Mollie Moo's ear is better. She whines when I put the ear drops in. There is nothing aggressive inside of her. She won't believe I would hurt her on purpose, so she cries to make me understand she's sad. No one loves me as totally as Mollie Moo does. I am imperfectly perfect to her. Thank God I found her.

I made it through a couple of books from the Clear Away The Clutter Read-a-thon. Not as many as I would have liked, but I made a start. Fallen was lovely, Vampire Academy was sassy. It's good to immerse myself in fiction when I'm writing. I don't understand writers who don't read when they're writing. How do they stand it?

I'm watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles, season two. I'm into it, but man is it depressing.

Where does the wind blow? The wind blows to predestination, my darling. You can see it from Fate's Gate.

Sunday Salon: Hush Hush; The Writer's Mentor

I've been absent from Sunday Salon - and from this blog in general - for a long time.

I'm back.

Hush Hush


That has to be one of the most amazing book covers I've ever seen. However, it is also the cause of the major problem I had with the book. First things first - I liked this story. It was extremely easy to read, Nora is a generally likable character, Patch is a classic bad-boy-come-good-but-still-oh-so-bad-where-it-counts, and there are some good moments of tension between the two main characters.

The Major Problem: The cover gives it all away - Patch is a fallen angel. We can SEE that before we even start reading and yet nothing is actually said about fallen angels until about two thirds into the book. That's a very looooong time to wait for a pay off.

There are some minor problems too - Nora is obsessed with Patch in an almost Bella-Edward kind of way. The parallels between Hush Hush and Twilight are easy to see - *spoiler* Patch wants to kill Nora for most of the book because the only way for him to become human is to sacrifice her. He changes his mind when he falls in love with her, of course, but not before he's almost killed her on a roller coaster and thought about stabbing her with a kitchen knife. *end spoiler* Readers of Twilight might like that sort of obsession and love/hate kill/live stuff but grown up feminists like myself find it all sits a bit awkwardly to say the least.

There is a sequel - Crescendo - due out in November 2010. I'll probably read it but like the copy of Hush Hush I read, it is strictly borrowing from the library material. With all of the above in mind though, I'd recommend it.


I borrowed this book from the local library. These days I tend to request books on my To Be Read list more than I browse around looking for likely suspects to fall off the shelves and into my hands. But that's exactly what The Writer's Mentor did. I was looking for a different book (which wasn't there) and found this one. I'm really enjoying it, hence my last two blog posts being quotes from this book. I've read a lot of books about writing in the last few years - some are excellent, some are okay and some are not so great. I burned out on hearing advice about writing six months or so ago and just got stuck into the writing. Now I'm coming out of that phase and moving into editing I'm looking for some guidance.

Ian Jackman is providing that guidance. This isn't a deep book on how to plot or build character or edit. It is a book of advice from authors intended for other authors on a wide range of topics such as inspiration, style, time and space, audience and form. I'm almost half way through and I've found some great quotes that have really helped me with my edits!

Finally, I've just started Frostbitten, the fourth book in Kelley Armstrong's Elena Michaels series. I have to be done with it by Thursday so I can start on my Clear Away the Clutter Read-a-Thon, so we'll see how it goes.

Happy Sunday!

The Writer's Mentor - Ann Douglas, Caroline Joy Adams, Elizabeth Bowen

"[Hemingway] understood...that what the writer knows but omits will show up in what he writes as a sense of unstated depth that is more powerful than any attempt to describe the indescribable can be. Good prose, Hemingway insisted again and again, must be like an iceberg, seven-eighths submerged; like dynamite packed under a bridge..."

- Ann Douglas

This idea speaks to me as I struggle to express my character's thoughts. My mind screams SHOW, DON'T TELL but perhaps equally powerful is that which I do not tell or show, that which hovers in the background. I should also give Hemingway another go - I've only ever read The Old Man and the Sea and that was a long time ago.

"Sensory details are critical to powerful writing because they can set a mood; evoke a huge array of feelings; trigger memories for both your character or your readers; and draw them into believing that they are right there, in that scene, in that moment, inside your character's mind."

- Caroline Joy Adams

I want so much for people to be inside October's mind, to feel what she feels and see what she sees. It is my greatest hope for my work.

"One cannot 'make' characters, only marionettes. The manipulated movement of the marionette is not the 'action' necessary for plot. Characterless action is not action at all, in the plot sense. It is the indivisibility of the act from the actor, and the inevitability of that act on the part of that actor, that gives action verisimilitude*. Without that, action is without force or reason. Forceless, reasonless action disrupts plot. The term 'creation of character' is misleading. Characters pre-exist. They are found. They reveal themselves slowly to the novelists perception - as might fellow traveler's seated opposite one in a very dimply-lit railway carriage."

- Elizabeth Bowen

*Verisimilitude means giving something the appearance of being true or real. I had to look that one up!

I identify with the comments here about characters and it applies to my setting too. People ask me why I set my novel in Arizona. I didn't - the novel set itself there. It say down and said "here" and I said "Okay, I can work with that."


All quotes are from Ian Jackman's The Writer's Mentor. I'm really enjoying the short pithy chapters with their delicate drops of wisdom. I highly recommend it to anyone in the editing process.

The Writer's Mentor - Peter Straub

"I don't read much horror, though I like the idea of horror, the idea of a nasty, subversive genre, the purpose of which is to upend conventional ideas of good taste, and to speak truths otherwise ignored or suppressed. I think that's really worthy."

- Peter Straub quoted in Ian Jackman's The Writer's Mentor: Secrets of success from the world's greatest writers. I totally agree with him. It's like the idea of a dirty thought hanging out in a clean mind - deliciously recalcitrant.

Clear Away The Clutter Read-a-Thon

I've joined the Clear Away the Clutter Read-a-Thon hosted by The Neverending Shelf. I'm excited because it is my first read-a-thon and my first challenge really. I read about these challenges on other people's blogs and think "I'd love to do that!" but for some reason I've never actually committed to taking part. Still, the important thing is I'm here now, ready to join in.

The read-a-thon begins 7am April 5 and ends 11pm April 11. I'm guessing those aren't my local times, but near enough is good enough. Thankfully this is one of the weeks I have a break from work so I fully intend to read, read, read without pesty work getting in the way.

Here is my list of books to be read (so far):

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (I'm halfway through and have stalled)
Swan by Frances Hayes (Again, I'm halfway through and have stalled)
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (I own all of the James Bond books and haven't read any)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (read about a quarter of this a while back but couldn't get into it)
Fallen by Lauren Kate (really excited about this one)
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mean (a re-read to get up to date for the three following books in the series that I own but haven't read)
The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman (bought on impulse a few weeks ago)

I have no idea if this is too many books or not enough. I'll be happy with any progress though and I know I can power through books easily when I focus. I've taken the advice of The Neverending Shelf and chosen a combination of longer books with a few shorter ones thrown in.

Can't wait to get started!

Where my best impulses have taken me

My Mondo Beyondo lesson for the day asks me where my best impulses have taken me.

My best impulses have taken me around the world. I have inhabited strange cities, built a life myself in a foreign country, met people who invite me to places like Jamaica to finish writing my book and actually mean it, walked under the Italian sun, found constellations in the roof of a cave, walked the path of the samurai, felt insignificant next to several of the wonders of the world and knitted my own self into the fabric of manyplaces and many different people.

My best impulses saw me sign up for a writing and yoga retreat in Guatemala. I was so sorry after I had paid for the retreat. If I could have canceled I would have. I was overwhelmed with strangeness, with change. I didn't think I could fly to Guatemala and find my way to the retreat. I did, and it was one of those decisions that just made sense. It led me to my writing self, which led me to October.

My best impulses (with help from a friend's sage advice) saw me refuse yet another corporate, soul draining job and accept a position much less secure which has supported me extremely well as I write. I remember wishing fervently that I could find a job that paid me enough to earn the sort of money I earned in a full time job but only work part time. I thought it was an impossible dream, but it is my reality now.

My best impulses put me on a plane headed for someone who is a very dear friend now. I trusted when there was no promise of anything, and though it took some years, I see how grace caught me. I see her hands on me. I see her guiding me.

It's more than I've believed in for a very long time. And my best impulses say it is enough.

Mondo Beyondo Energizers

I'm working through the Mondo Beyondo e-course with Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher.

Today it is time to list my natural energizers, the things that I always enjoy doing and the things that give me a lift in my day and a spring in my step. I decided to create a photo post for this one, and all of the images except the photos of Hopie and Mollie are taken from Google Images.

1. Dancing


2. Cleaning up


3. Writing


4. Reading


5. Yoga


6. Art and craft


7. Singing


8. Hopie and Mollie




9. The beach