(Mothers) Book Readings for the Naive & Fearless (Mothers)

(Mothers) Book Readings for the Naive and Fearless (Mothers)

Since May 8^th is/was Mother’s Day, some of you might be expecting a blog entry that ties into “mothers”. I’m sorry to disappoint you but I could think of nothing I felt I could say on the subject.

The closest I came to a subject was, “The Character of ‘Mother’ & Her Role in YA Lit”.

Sounds like a Ph.D. thesis title, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything much to write on the subject. The only interesting mother in YA lit who came to mind was the multitalented and charming chemist/mom in Madeleine l”Engle’s books (A Wrinkle in Time; A Wind Through the Door, etc) She can simultaneously give her kids advice, run an experiment and cook beef stew (in a beaker) in her garage lab for pete’s sake! And never once does she put hydrochloric acid in dinner either. Now she is one supermom!

Perhaps some of you can suggest other literary moms who are as great or quirky as she is--or else a few moms who are, uh, at the other end of the spectrum. Like all those stepmothers who are invariably nasty. I invite you to tell us about memorable mom characters in the Comments!

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In the meantime, I’m brazenly changing the subject to:

"Book Readings for the Naive and Fearless"

I participated in a book reading at a local public library back on Saturday the 16^th of April. The WRWG reading went off perfectly. In spite of heavy rain, our room was about four fifths full. Some of the people in the audience were people we didn't even know. (!) The only negative in my opinion was that afterwards when we left New Castle, the group in my car tried to drive into the Delaware River.

The reading was mutually sponsored by the New Castle Public Library, by the Delaware Council for the Arts, and by WRWG, i.e. The Written Remains Writers Guild. I've been a member of the latter since 2003. Back in the day (mid-1990's through about 2007), Written Remains was strictly a genre writers critique and mutual support group. Members tended to write mystery, speculative fiction, suspense, etc. I’m the only one who focuses on YA fantasy. Our director, Joanne Reinbold’s long term goal is to transform us into what I guess is partially a professional authors’ PR/marketing consortium. We still read and critique each others’ works. Recently we’ve begun offering membership to literary fic authors.

Justin Tyme (Joanne’s son) set up everything tech for the reading, Carol Maurer was at the book table and Ramona deFelice Long introduced us all. I read first (from “Earthbow” vol.1). Then Greg Smith read, then Weldon Burge, then Kristy Nicholls and finally Joanne. Everyone brought great pieces and everyone read -wonderfully-! My friends, Brandon and Michelle made it to the reading but, alas, a bit late. Pictures were taken. No, you do not get to see them. I was in the middle of a computer crash at home and had to rush to get ready for the reading. I was not at my best, appearance-wise. I had a chance to talk to all sorts of people once the readings were over. All-in-all, I came away with the illusion that I was a professional author.

Several readers sold copies of their books, or magazine issues in which their stories appeared. I sold one copy each of "Seabird", "Earthbow vol.1" and "Earthbow vol.2". All to a lady who is going to hate them. (I trust my “vibes” in these things. ;-P ) She came up afterwards, had me sign the books, and remarked that I had stopped reading at a point that left her wondering what happened next. (Grin. Gee. I hadn't noticed!) I hope she gives the books away to someone who will enjoy them—perhaps a niece or son.

Speaking of which, I have yet to participate in a reading where young adults were present! This isn’t so bad for my fantasy books—which are on the cusp of YA and adult. Still I would love to read to a room full of age appropriate kids.

This was the most "successful" reading in which I've ever participated. WRWG had a similar public reading a couple of years ago, held in the Greenbank Mill Museum meeting room. The audience was much smaller and consisted of virtually no one besides friends & family. The DE Council for the Arts was not involved back then. I sold nothing at that reading nor did others. AND I messed up my second reading—which I had not rehearsed.

I've also been involved in readings hosted by Broad Universe --women writers of speculative fiction-- held at several regional SF/Fantasy cons. In most these, we "Broads" outnumbered our “audience” of friends. In November 2010, the PhilCon conference committee inadvertently locked us out of our meeting room for our reading. We called the con-comm office, waited for a key, gave up, and sat in the hallway outside our room to read. Very close to the elevators, with people dodging us as they came out of the doors. In my experience, when it comes to BU readings at cons, lack of promotion and organization by the local con committees tends to ruin any chances for a good turn-out.

Right after my first book, "Seabird" was published, I tried to get a reading gig at my local Borders. I thought it was a sure thing, because I’m a local author and because a former member of Written Remains worked there. They weren't interested. The same thing happened with the local indie store, where I used to buy most of my books. Their answer? “No room” Those are all my personal experiences with public readings.

The only WRWG member who has ever had huge success with public readings is Greg Smith (adult suspense/murder, “Final Price”). He has managed to get gigs at a variety of bookstores and libraries in the area. Don’t ask me how. And please don’t ask how many books he’s sold. You really don’t want to know.

I bring all of this up for a reason. I'm curious about the experiences of YAAYNHO authors—and of course anyone reading this blog entry. How many of you have participated in public readings? How did you land them? Where were they? Did you read mostly to an age-appropriate audience or to adults?

Did the reading go well, re audience numbers, sales on the spot, or sales bumps directly afterwards? Do you think this is a viable promotional tool for YA adults or just for certain other subsets of authors? Why?

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Back to Mothers

Now if you really would like to read a blog entry & comments that have to do with Mother’s Day and real mothers, may I suggest the following very thoughtful entry:

MuseItUp Publishing (blog name)

“Harder Than I Thought” by Terri Main (entry/author)

One thing! Please leave a comment here first, before you go there. And, of course, you’ve long since bookmarked our page. Right?

http://museituppublishing.blogspot.com/2011/05/harder-than-i-thought.html?showComment=1304797562358#c7960851514697153424

My Writing “Tech” From 2011 to 1979

My Writing “Tech” From 2011 to 1979

When many of us discuss technology today, it’s most likely to be a conversation about our cell phones or cars. Aside from that kind of tech, YA Authors may discuss writing programs between themselves on occasion, or engage in the interminable argument about which is better: Microsoft or Apple. Now I have nothing new to offer on the subjects I listed, but I have a long history of writing using various bits and pieces of technology and proto-technology. Here’s a brief account from the present to the past.

(2011)

I am still using my Dell Dimension 9100 which I bought in the middle of the 2000’s. I revised my “Earthbow” (http://bit.ly/b9vDW1 ) manuscript on it, and I’ve now started revising “The Gryphon & the Basilisk” on it. Nowadays, I save to flash drives, and I save often. I don’t want to lose years of work if this computer crashes terminally. (I probably have a dozen flash drives on a long bead chain.) This Dell has already had both its hard drive and motherboard replaced, and it still runs WORD 2003 on the old XL platform. Yes, it’s positively ancient by today’s standards but I’m terrified of switching software platforms or even updating WORD. And of course I'm terrified of a permanent crash.

Somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen behind the curve in tech—not just computer tech but also sound systems, phones, Bluetooth (whatever that is) and so on. Proof? I bought my second laptop (“Piglet” because it’s so tiny) over two years ago, and its Windows Vista OS –still- has me buffaloed. I’ve even had the Geek Squad people come out to instruct me on how it works. It did little good. Occasionally, I’ll cried piteously for someone to give me all-day training on VISTA and on the laptop’s newer version of WORD--preferably at Panero’s where I could stuff my instructor full of luscious food and coffee--but, so far, no one has taken me up on this.

As I said, the desktop is beginning to show signs of its age, even with the hardware face-lift it got about three years ago. I’d buy a replacement in a snap, but I am wary of new software like Windows 7 (or whatever the latest is) and WORD 2010(?). I don’t want to have –two- computers in this house, without knowing how to use either. This does not lend itself to writing output.

(2003)

I bought my first Dell desktop in about 2003, but I continued to use the humongously clunky and heavy screen from the previous computer since that was still working and I didn’t really have the cash for a new monitor too. I used this 1^st Dell for revising my “Seabird” (http://bit.ly/bKBQ7x ) manuscript amongst other things (like computer graphics). I also scanned in many, many typewritten pages of other book manuscripts which had been hand-written beginning in 1979, then typed up a while after that.

The Dell and I worked together happily for a few years—until it gave out abruptly. Virtually anything manuscript-related that I had keyed in was on disc, so I lost nothing that was writing-related. I did lose some other files on the hard drive, including some of my graphic art.

(2002)

I was okay for the moment because I’d bought my first laptop the previous year, technically for audio file creation. I used it for writing instead when the Dell went down, until I got a replacement desk top. This early laptop was dubbed “The Elephant”. I don’t know how much it weighed but it was bunches. When a good writer friend has her computer die on her about two years ago, I gave her “The Elephant”.

(1996)

Back then, I was still working at the university library. On a Saturday afternoon, a co-worker and I drove up to the Gateway store, where I picked out the first full-fledged desktop computer of my own. I had a lot of uses planned for this one, but writing and revising my novels were kind of side issues during this period. (This was during my 1990’s writing hiatus, brought on by heavy duties in a new position at work. I did write some short stories around then, but that was because I was taking writing courses.) Anything I wrote was saved to diskette—if I thought about it.

One of my main activities with this computer was keying in my “Analyses” of Babylon 5 (http://www.slackfox.net/ ), a splendid SF show that few people watched. While I had WORD and Word Perfect software on this computer and knew how to use them from work, I didn’t have a way of creating the analyses as WORD files and then sending them by e-mail to the people interested in them. This was in the days of message boards, before the actual internet. Plain library staff were not permitted to have web pages, even once they became fairly common, so I couldn’t store my analyses on one, and point people to my page.

The only way I had to distribute these show analyses was via the B5 message board, using the –very- clunky university e-mail software, the only email software available to me. (Maybe some of you older folks will remember most U.S. university email addresses ending in “…mvs.edu”.) The email was so clunky that it didn’t have cut-and-paste, and the only way I could figure out how to correct an error was to back up to it, deleting everything between where I had stopped keying in and where the error was, and trying again.

I did key in a bit of writing stuff on the Gateway, using floppy discs for storage. And I imported many files—also on floppies--from my old word processor. I still have these floppies and I’m very glad I do or I might have lost sections of my manuscripts. (When I bought it, I made sure that my Dell Dimension had a floppy disc drive.)

(Between 1985 and 1990?)

One day I took myself up to a predecessor of Best Buy--I’ve forgotten its name--and nervously bought a Smith-Corona word processor. It was supposed to be portable, but that was largely a Fig Newton of the amalgamation.

The word processor had a small green screen recessed directly above the keyboard in which you could see perhaps the previous paragraph that you had written. I used to use it on a TV tray while sitting in one of my wing-back chairs. This made the keyboard a bit too high, so I sat on a thick pillow. The Smith-Corona was a wonder to work with at that time. I especially enjoyed the flexibility it gave me for formatting. Naturally, I saved files on floppy discs. So far as I can remember, I wrote my first draft of “The Gryphon & the Basilisk” plus a few short stories on the word processor. I used this for years, even after buying the Gateway, because writing was such a snap on it. Eventually I gave it to someone who helped me move.

(1983?)

I bought a Commodore 64, with every intention of using it to transcribe the longhand and typed drafts of “Seabird” and “Earthbow” which I had begun writing in 1979. It didn’t work out, though I tried very hard. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Commodore’s built-in word processor assumed that the user was going to be using a Commodore monitor. I was trying to use the computer with a JC Penney’s television. (Yes, Penney’s sold TV’s in those days.) Because the software didn’t know how to communicate with the television, all I could see on the screen were a couple of dozen huge letters at a time.

Eventually, I taught my mom how to play Frogger on the Commodore. I think it was the only computer game she ever played.

(1982?-1985?)

My boyfriend at the time bought me a Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter. I originally used it to type up class assignments for myself, and eventually branched out into typing up papers for fellow students. Beginning in 1980 or so, I began typing up chapters of “Seabird” etc on this typewriter.

Many of these early “Seabird” chapters (and typed chapters of later books) would later be poorly scanned into the first Dell computer, causing me no end of headaches down the road when I tried to decipher the scanned-in files. In fact, just a few months ago, I finished deciphering chapters of “The Gryphon & the Basilisk” manuscript from these scanned files, which were originally typed on the Smith-Corona. Oh, what a mess that was, but it beat keying them into WORD from handwritten sheets. Which brings us to:

(1979-1982?)

I wrote my very first drafts of “Seabird” and “Earthbow” in 9x5 spiral-bound notebooks—later to be revised and copied (in tiny writing) unto notebook paper which had 50 lines per side. Sometimes I transcribed a few hastily-written sentences off of the index cards I kept hidden in my pockets while I was at work.

(1980?)

I had something that was once considered to be a computer before the Commodore. Maybe a Tandy? It had like zero kb of RAM, and was definitely not up to running writing software. I think I got it used from someone.

It only had one program so far as I remember, and we played it on the family TV. It was some kind of aircraft landing game. You started at such and so many feet away from the landing strip and then had to control your speed, altitude, angle of descent, etc. as you came in for a landing. My family and I used to play it as a group, with a cacophony of suggestions from everyone on what to do next to whoever was at the controls.

We crashed a lot. :-)

Sherry Thompson, author of "Seabird" and "Earthbow".

Confessions

Confessions

Currently, I am assembling files for a first draft manuscript that I began in the early-mid-1980s, tentatively titled, “The Gryphon and the Basilisk”. It’s a huge Young Adult fantasy series, and large parts of it haven’t been touched since I originally wrote them out in longhand. (I began writing fantasy in 1979.)

As I’ve been slogging through this preliminary work preparatory to first revision, I’ve been struck repeatedly by lame brain errors that I used to make, way back when I first began writing. Some involve placing commas in the wrong place or just plain using too many of them. I’ve improved my punctuation. Really. However, other errors that I didn’t even know I was making back then, I still make today. And by now I should know better. So here are my Writing Confessions of 2011, in lieu of a New Year’s Resolution.

What? You thought that I would end this by resolving never to make these errors again? Sorry, but I have a more realistic view of myself than that. I just hope I catch most of my errors in subsequent revisions of G&B and future books.

1. To begin, we need look no further than the first paragraph of this blog entry. Look at it there—an adverb and beginning the sentence to boot, as if in defiance of editorial protocol everywhere. Frankly, I’ve never understood why we have adverbs if we’re not supposed to use them. But, I guess that’s just me, being logical. I used to use adverbs all over the place, but I am trying to get better. “I’m Sherry Thompson, and I’ve been off adverbs for /f/i/v/e one minutes.” (See the ‘Frankly” above?)

2. Using versions of “to be” like “was” and “were” instead of strong verbs. Poor “to be”—it’s evidently weak. Maybe that’s because no writer is allowed to exercise it. It’s so weak that even when I write about its weakness, I use “is” to describe its situation—cleverly hidden in the “it’s” above. (Oops! More adverbs.)

When I found out that “is”, “was”, “were”, etc were no-no’s, I began searching for them in my documents. I instructed WORD’s software to replace each “is” for example with “IS”. This can be problematic when you have a recurring character named AlphesIS.

I/n/s/p/i/t/e In spite of the inherent difficulties in attacking manuscript revision with all of those errors hanging out on each page, I eventually expanded the practice to help me zero in on adverbs. In that case, I told WORD to replace all examples of “ly” with “LY”. This worked fine! AssembLY, alLY, and such don’t turn up that frequentLY in my writing, so I was finalLY able to zero in on the actual errors.

3. Having conquered adverbs and versions of “to be”, I moved on to POV. Though I didn’t then know the name for it, when I first began write I was evidently using the Omniscient POV, which fell out of favor a hundred years ago. Well, I’ve always been a bit behind my time.

I’m proud to say that I’ve cut down the numbers of times I switch point of view from a half dozen times per scene to about two. I’m still working very hard on this, encouraged by a friend who wrote that my less frequent POV switches remind him of switching gears on a manual gearshift. After a while, he wrote, he got used to it! Awesome!

4. Next up was learning what goes into each paragraph and what doesn’t. Back in the 80’s, I was convinced that all dialogue was sequestered in its own paragraphs, cut off for reasons unknown from the POV paragraph of the speaker. I know better now intellectually but I still have trouble convincing my fingers to follow through and do this with the keyboard.

5. Which brings me to anatomical parts. Sorry! Not as you think. I’ve discovered that I permit parts of the body to stroll off and do their own thing—especially eyes and hands. Example: “Bill’s eyes studied her face, looking for a clue to her thoughts.” Or: “Her hand grasped his hand and gave it a squeeze.” (All the while her brain was screaming through her mouth to her hand to stop doing that!) This gets weird very quickly. Sometimes in revision, I feel like I was writing horror in my first draft.

6. Other writing errors to which I succumb regularly? I got a million of’em when it comes to regularly misspelled words.

I seem to be convinced

that “amongst” should be spelled “amoungst” (making me more British than the British),

that “about” doesn’t really need that “o” (which is a real problem since WORD doesn’t flag “abut”, and

that “inspite” really isn’t one word. (I still can’t get over this one, for some reason.)

I do this with character names sometimes too. When I was assembling the various chapters of “The Gryphon and the Basilisk”, I noticed my character “Medea” devolved later into “Media” which in turn devolved into “Melia”. Fortunately, a WORD Replace command really did work out fine for fixing this.

7. Two more and then I’ll stop. G&B is full of angst and strong emotions. However, that’s no excuse for having everyone getting teary-eyed and even outright crying at the drop of a line of dialogue. And when the characters aren’t crying, they’re sighing.

I used to work with someone who was a part-time freelance editor. After reading something of mine maybe 15 years ago, she commented that she was putting me on a diet—I was allowed no more than one sigh per chapter or story. In this much older manuscript, written decades before I knew her, I laughed at such restrictions. Or maybe I sighed over them. One of my favorite type of “dialogue tags” consisted of “Luisa sighed and commented…”

Yes, before you ask, I realize that I’d better fire up that WORD Replace once more and input, “sigh”, “abut” and numerous other no-nos.

Oh yes. I used to write “once more” frequently. I’m not sure what the attraction was.

Well, those are some of the forbidden writing choices I used to indulge in back in the early 80’s—and still do on occasion. Now it’s your turn. Don’t leave me dangling out here with all of my composition short-comings hanging out all by themselves. What typical writing errors have you overcome or are still battling?

Sherry Thompson

Seabird ( http://bit.ly/bKBQ7x )

Earthbow vol.1 (http://bit.ly/b9vDW1 )

Earthbow vol.2 (http://amzn.to/8XXrVo )

Tis the Season To Be Typing

Tis the Season To Be Typing

Reader beware! I’m throwing this together out of nothing. I’ve been otherwise occupied by a broken ankle, when I should have been prepping this blog entry.

I’m definitely a Christmassy kind of person. Years ago, I would make Christmas tree ornaments each year for friends and people I worked with. Since I had so many to make, I always began the process in mid-summer. And to get in the mood, I would play Christmas carols while I worked. I used headphones to listen, so that people didn’t think I was entirely out of my gourd.

Long after I stopped making holiday decorations—up until right now—I’ve never given up the whole mood that goes with the holidays. I love watching “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and learning—once again—how Santa got both the name Kris Kringle and Santa Claus, what made the reindeer fly, why Santa has a beard, why the toys were put into the stockings, and so on. And I love what I consider the best song in the special, “Put One Foot in Front of the Other”. Any child that is starting to not believe in Santa Claus should be good for one more year after watching that special.

I also love watching “A Christmas Carol” (the one starring Alistair Sim!), my absolute favorite Christmas film. To say nothing of “White Christmas”, “A Christmas Story”, Miracle on 34^th Street” and most recently “Elf”. Oh, I can’t forget “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “Frosty the Snowman”. I never get tired of Christmas carols and rarely get peeved or impatient by long lines in stores—except maybe the food store, but that one is a year-round vexation.

This year, Christmas activities are being outweighed by work (writing) activities since I’m housebound over the holidays. Not that people aren’t visiting or sending me cards—and I appreciate them! But normally, I would be out at church functions including Advent services and the yearly Christmas Cantata. And of course I would be standing in line, silently singing along to carols while I waited—if I could get to the stores.

Instead, I’m writing—and writing more than the average teddy bear. My “Earthbow” (http://bit.ly/b9vDW1 ) was published this year. Immediately afterward, Dave at Gryphonwood asked me what was up next. Well, it’s like this, I told him: the next up is a three volume story currently with the umbrella title of “The Gryphon and the Basilisk”. I wrote the first draft of it back in the early 80’s and the first draft was written in longhand. Over the years, I’ve hired typists to type up sections of the manuscript, and later also keyed in other sections to WORD files. Now I’m on the third volume and face eight very long chapters that I have only in the original longhand—approximately one hundred seventy (500-600 word) pages of story that need to be converted to WORD.

This Christmas really is Tis the Season To Be Typing.

When I started working on this phase of the project, I was less than enamored with it. I still am. And then I got thinking about a Christmas many years ago—just over 50 so far as I can remember. One Christmas, I asked for a typewriter for my gift. We didn’t have much money but my parents were able to find a refurbished manual typewriter to give me. (There were no electric typewriters back then.)

Very, very late Christmas Eve—or maybe closer to Christmas morning—I slipped out of my bedroom and into the living room, to see if there was a typewriter waiting for me. There was! I was so excited! I ran my fingers over the keys and finally took a shot at hitting one of them. The typewriter—as typewriters did in those days—made a loud click. Freaking for fear I’d awakened someone, I rushed back to my bedroom. And acted all surprised a few hours later.

I learned the basics of typing and soon was turning in all my school assignments typed—even some of my math homework. (Try typing multiplication and division problems and see what ‘fun’ that was.)

A short time after this, I began typing my first written story. It involved time travel and I was the heroine, working for the government on a project to go back in time and fill in bits of historical detail missing from records. That may sound dull but it was an adventure story, since my partner (a very cute boy) and I were always getting into trouble. I showed the first part to my parents. I don’t actually remember their reaction but I do remember that they were generally supportive of any project that I did.

I also worked on a pastiche (essentially fan fic) of many different horse stories I had read. My teacher found out about the latter and asked me to read snippets from it during home room. I can’t imagine what the rest of the kids thought! I still feel sorry for them because this story really wasn’t very good.

Those two attempts at writing were my last efforts until 1979 when I tackled “Seabird” (http://bit.ly/bKBQ7x ) in my early thirties and “Earthbow” (http://bit.ly/b9vDW1 ) two years later. Oddly enough, I wrote these and their sequel “The Gryphon and the Basilisk” in longhand, even though I had an electric typewriter by then. One reason I did this was that I could write anywhere I thought of an idea or a new passage, even at work.

Over fifty years after first typing in the living room at Christmas, I’m keying in parts of the G&B manuscript in the living room over the holidays. The circle is complete.

A Blessed Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!

Sherry Thompson

http://tree-lady.livejournal.com/

http://www.redroom.com/author/sherry-thompson

PhilCon, Speculative Fiction & YA Literature

This past weekend, we trekked on up to PhilCon (the speculative fiction convention which has been hosted by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society for something like 60-70 years now. Over the last few years, the con is inexplicably relocated to Cherry Hill, New Jersey but it’s still called PhilCon.

http://2010a.philcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

“We” is myself and Demaris. Demaris and I used to work together at the Univ of Del Library until I retired. Demaris does not write but is an avid reader of both YA and speculative fiction literature. She has, I believe, five grandchildren.

Peter Beagle (“Last Unicorn) was the guest of honor, and a variety of authors and editors filled the panels. The musical (“filking”) track was organized by Roberta Rogow. Filk is the folk music of the Speculative Fiction community. For more about it, see Jordin Kare’s essay at http://www.interfilk.org/interfilk/singout.htm

Or go to Interfilk’s many links, at http://www.interfilk.org/interfilk/filk.htm .

The big focus for me was the chance of a reading Friday evening, hosted by PhilCon and by the Broad Universe professional writers group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/broaduniverse/

Demaris and I brought along 8 copies of Seabird and 4 sets of copies of Earthbow vols. 1&2, in the hopes of selling them at the reading or elsewhere during the con. The “BU Rapid Fire Reading” got off to a shaky start—when we arrived at our room (located on a standard hotel floor) we found the door locked. A quick call to the front desk did know good. Eventually—halfway through our readings right out in the hallway by the elevators—someone showed up from the ConComm at let us into our meeting room.

I read a scene from Earthbow Vol.1, in which a young fighter named Coris is trying to sneak into the keepmaster’s room to steal a medicine needed by a servant who is desperately ill. He finds the meds, but then hears someone approaching the room’s door. He hides in the room, risking his life so doing. As I approached the end of the scene, one of the people in the room approaches his hiding place in order to search for a scroll. Hopelessly, Coris prepares to fight. End of scene. J

The reading stirred up some interest in my books, and we just happened to have carried books with us. I had brought regular copies of books to sell at half price, plus a few uncorrected proof copies from 2 years ago when Seabird first came out. These we put on the freebie table—and watched them snatched up over the next few hours, practically before our eyes. I also offered one set of Seabird & the Earthbow volumes to a dealer in the vendor’s hall, for free, in the hopes that he would make a sale with them and eventually choose to buy more from my publisher. I have no idea what will come of that. Frankly, I’ve tried it in the past with a couple of bookstores, but it doesn’t seem to have worked.

After most of the book business was concluded for the con, we settled down to attending panels. Yes, I’m just old-fashioned enough to believe that con-going involves actually sitting through a variety of “industry-related” panels and occasionally trying to get a question in edgeways. To me, this is a great way to network with other writers, as well as publishers, reviewers and editors. I happen to do less well networking at con parties. I’m no wallflower, but I do have trouble trying to change subjects to something about books at those parties, so I don’t try any more.

Anyway, Demaris and I went to a variety of panels—sometimes together and sometimes splitting up. We also attended Peter Beagle’s address, which was great once he was given a microphone. Later he sang and played his own songs and others during the intermission at the masquerade.

One panel that should have particular interest here was “How Scary Can Young Adult Fiction Get? – What are the allowable limits in writing for young adults?” Moderated by J Andrew World, with panelists: Patricia M Cryan, Christine Norris, and Peter Prellwitz.

The areas discussed were 1) defining YA lit, (MC is “underage”); 2) How graphically do you show any violence? How do you tell it? 3) Does the child or teen become scared for the characters or do they feel personally at risk? 4) Losing souls in Golden Compass; the little girl in Poltergeist; 5) Different for each child. Decide for child but with their feedback. 6) Do the events in the story cause some children to draw from their own experiences and reinforce that it could happen to them?

I asked a question or two during the panel and was able to follow up with Patricia afterwards. Patricia and her husband have a shop in Worcester MA, which specializes in Children’s Lit and in Comics. She has other related interests in her area. We’re now friended on FB.

In another panel, I met Jay Wile, a chemist who just happens to have an interest in YA literature. He promised to come home and order my books on Amazon. (By then I was out of copies). The great thing is that Jay actually did so, and now we’re corresponding by email.

Other panels which I found interesting were: “The Roots of Steam Punk”; “The Shift Back to Small Presses”; “How to Get Rejected”; “Career Planning for Authors”; and one I didn’t attend because I felt I knew the answer: “Is the Full Time Novelist an endangered species?”.

I attended a variety of other panels that were not related to YA fiction, plus I spent several hours singing and listening to music in the filk room. I had a great but semi-exhausting time and—for a change—came home largely with books I had purchased rather than with my own copies.

If you have any questions about any of this—shoot them at me before I forget all of the details. Warning: my memory half-life isn’t what it used to be.

p.s. I hope that some of you will consider going back to my previous post, “Beginnings and Endings and Dingles”, and maybe offering advice on what I can do with my story fragment. See http://obscurekidlitauthors.blogspot.com/search/label/dingle

Beginnings and Endings and Dingles. Oh my!

I have trouble with both the beginnings and endings of stories but, fortunately, not at the same time. Beginnings of stories are the worst—except when endings are the worst.

BEGINNINGS

We all know that we’re supposed to hook the reader immediately at the beginning of a novel. Depending on who you talk to, that hook had better happen by the 5^th page (“The First Five Pages” by Noah Lukeman), somewhere in the first paragraph, or even in the first sentence. On FB, Polly Iyer writes, “Ah, the penchant for getting all the action up front. That's what everyone wants. Like everything else these days, no patience.” I’ve read that a hook should coincide with “where the story actually begins”, but where is that? I believe it’s different for different readers and authors.

Hooks are supposed to grab the reader by being interesting—to readers. I have an ongoing problem with this. To me, -characters- are pretty darn interesting, so I want to explore them a bit in the first couple of pages of my novels. Yes, I’ve learned this is a no-no, unless one is writing a literary novel. I do YA fantasy adventure.

Once “Seabird” was nearly completed, I inserted an action-packed Prologue as a hook for the reader. Since then, I’ve heard that many novel readers skip prologues. Oh well.

In “Earthbow”—the sequel to “Seabird”—I managed some serious tension, action, and a bit of a puzzle about a page into the novel’s first chapter. Chapters 2 & 3 have fragments of tension as well, mixed in with character development. “Earthbow” has no prologue. Did I get it right? I doubt it—after all, there’s no danger to life and limb until at least the eighth paragraph.

Right now, I’m beginning to revise the sequel to “Earthbow”, which is multi-volumed and is so long I frequently refer to it as “The Book That Intends to Eat Delaware.” In my first draft—surprise, surprise—all of my tension and action was in the second chapter while the first was largely characterization. I’m trying to figure out a way to reverse the two chapters, or alternate scenes from both.

I haven’t mentioned short stories so far and for a very good reason—I only rarely come up with an idea for one. Once I actually have an idea the chances are 50-50 that the resulting story will not be publishable quality. I suppose you could say that I have more trouble with the beginnings of short stories than I do with their endings, if by that we mean that I can’t get a new short story started, no matter how hard I stare at the screen or “free-write”. On the other hand, a short story that never comes into existence can hardly be faulted for having a bad beginning.

So, who here has troubles with writing the beginnings of novels or short stories? If you do, what kinds of difficulties present themselves? How have you overcome them? Any tips you can pass on to the rest of us?

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ENDINGS

Endings give me lots more trouble than beginnings. Part of this is the fault of National Novel Writing Month. For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a yearly challenge to authors to write 50,000 words on any fiction project between November 1 and Nov 30.

I’ve participated and “won” five years since I started doing NaNo back in 2003. “Winning” in NaNo, as I said, is completing 50,000+ words before midnight on Nov. 30. The problem is what if you haven’t finished your first draft by then? What happens on Dec. 1? The correct answer should be that you continue writing but at a less frenetic pace. Er, not my answer. In my case, I take a long nap, and wake up the next Nov. 1. ;-P

Currently, I have five novels that are lacking their endings. Every one of them was involved in NaNo in some way—even the last part of “The Book That Intends To Eat Delaware.” If I stop writing a novel part of the way through, I have serious trouble picking up where I left off—even if I have a detailed outline for the rest of the book. Novel manuscripts to which you cannot guarantee complete endings do not attract publishers for some reason. I think I need professional help. Any ideas gratefully accepted!

So I sometimes have trouble writing the end of novels—do I have trouble writing the ends of short stories? Not often. On the rare occasion that I’m writing a short story I write the whole thing pretty much in one sitting. If I’m actually writing and completing a short story, you’ll know it—the sky turns a lovely shade of sky-blue-pink and you can see multi-colored stars during the day. Sometimes they sing but they’re too dignified to dance.

Is there anyone reading this who has trouble with unearthing the ends of their t/a/i/l/s/ tales? Has NaNoWriMo ever been involved? What else gave you trouble? What did you do to complete your story? Oh, it isn’t? Sorry! I’ve thought about finding a writing partner—has anyone tried that?

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Well, that’s Beginnings and Endings. That brings us to Middles and Dingles.

“Dingle” is a work-in-progress short story that’s been without a middle or an ending for almost two decades.

I liked the beginning ever since it fooled me into writing it down. I wasn’t concerned when I started—after all “Dingle” was going to be a –short- -story- so, naturally, I would come up with the rest of it as I typed.

Not so much.

“Dingle” and I could use some help. Please read what’s below and see if you have any ideas about what will happen next. If you do, please consider adopting “Dingle”. What’s more if you can turn “Dingle” into a complete story, we’ll work out some kind of ownership thing which will probably amount to me giving you my section or what’s left of it after revision. In addition, I’ll send you a copy of one of my books as a thank you.

You can write short suggestions for finishing “Dingle” in the Comments if you like. Naturally, revisions of the current paragraphs are fair game. If you write the rest of the story, please send it to me at KhivasMommy AT gmail DOT com . When my next turn comes to blog here at YAAYNHO (in three weeks), I’ll report back on any suggestions, etc that I’ve received.

Please don’t leave a poor defenseless little story part on its own. Thank you!

Sherry Thompson, author of “Seabird” (http://amzn.to/bKBQ7x ) “Earthbow vol.1” (http://amzn.to/b9vDW1 ) and “Earthbow vol.2” ( http://amzn.to/bw3UCe )

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Dingle (work in progress)

Sherry Thompson

Critter scuffed his way across the bare, unvarnished floor, sneezing at the dust he’d stirred up. It was colder today than he’d expected. He wrapped his quilted robe tighter about him, and then retied the rope belt. If Magnus didn’t come soon, he’d have to light a brazier just to keep warm. And that would attract the Night Watchers. Not something you wanted to do, when it was nearly dusk.

He shuffled over to the one window and glared down at the path. Not a sign of Magnus, ...or of anyone else. Maybe, if he went outside and yanked hard on the chain, he could get that blasted shutter to close over the window. Then, it wouldn’t matter if he lit a fire in the brazier or not. The Watchers could do a lot, but they couldn’t see through wood. At least, not the last he’d read.

Blast Magnus! Icy air was seeping in the through the window, even though it was on the lee side of the cottage. Well, that was it. Might as well go and try to close the window.

Critter thrust his dagger and sheath under the ragged rope of his belt, and crept to the door. He stood a moment with the side of his head so close to the surface that his ear kept flicking. Not a sound, except the tiny ones of his held breath and the soft whoosh of his ear fur against the rough wood. Might as well try as not.

He took a great breath, and slipped through the door as noiselessly as he was able. It seemed a shade brighter outside than it had in, but the coming of sunset was undeniable. Shivering from nervousness as much as cold, Critter scuttled to the right front corner of the cabin and peeked around it. Nothing there but the larxs bushes, their stringy leaves black and rustling in the last light of the sun. He crept between the closest one and the side wall. Merhule, the shutter chain was high! Been so long since he’d tried to close the window, he’d near forgot...

A sudden, familiar scent tickled his nose. Critter scarcely began to turn, before he found clammy skin pressed over his nose passages, simultaneous with a strong blow to his midriff. The combined assaults made all the air in his lung burst from his mouth. He choked, unable for the moment to fight back.

The ghost of a giggle blew warmly into his right ear. The grip about his midriff loosened enough for him to pull away from the hand on his nose.

“Magnus! I’ll skin you for that...”

“Not Magnus, imp. Merhule! What are you doing? Oh, the shutter.”

Critter leaned against the wall and gasped in air, as the newcomer reached up and easily pulled the shutter down and closed. Briefly, while Dingle was occupied with the task, Critter considered darting off into the darkness. But, before the thought was more than half-formed, it was already too late.

Dingle had grasped his elbow and was guiding him back toward the door.

“Waiting for Magnus, what?” Dingle chuckled deep in his throat. “Might not be coming tonight, what. Might not. Might not, at that.” He shook his head, as he closed the door between them and the outside world.

Thompson/Dingle

Dreams and Writing

“…Her view of enchanters had changed a lot in the past few days. …She sighed and, gently putting down the sleeping gryphon, returned to her room.

Just as she drifted toward sleep she thought if Harone got what he wished, in time he would be like them. He too would have that presence she felt more than saw, which Kataro had named the Semblance. It would surround him like a mantle, an aura that could disconcert, even terrify. She felt an inexplicable sense of loss.

Reflected light from the column of flame gleamed like copper on the polished-stone walls about her. Golden flashes sparkled on the pebbled floor like trapped seeds of lightning. Tongues of flame licked across the ceiling, searching for cracks in the hewn stone and obscuring it from view. She drew a step nearer and the column seemed to turn, as though aware of her approach. Threads of golden fire forked from the center of the shimmering inferno and approached her in turn. She lifted her hands, holding them out as if to clasp the exploring tendrils…

Cara awoke with a gasp, and sat up. She stared frantically at her hands, and was amazed to find they were not ash and scorched bone, but her own flesh. A presence within her seemed to flee, as though shy of her conscious thoughts. She felt its retreat and then its absence with regret and a piercing longing.

It was cool in the room, peacefully quiet. Empty. Drawing the coverlet about her, Cara lay back down.”

---- extract from SEABIRD: “Many Meetings”(chapter title, about 2/3 of the way through the book)

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Have you ever inserted dreams, visions, fragmented words from newspaper clippings or tattered billboard signs, sacred messages, half-forgotten memories, the words of seers, etc when writing stories?

Dreams and vague memories in particular can deepen the richness of character portrayal, by introducing us to aspects of the character with which she may have only a tenuous connection during most of each day. However, dreams (etc) can serve other functions—for example, setting the mood of a scene, delicately inserting back story and even furthering the plot in some cases.

In SEABIRD, teenager Cara Marshall (the protagonist) dreams so frequently that the people of Narenta come to the conclusion that she is a seer. Cara has a little trouble coming to terms with this pronouncement since she has never encountered a true seer on Earth and the Narentans themselves admit that seers are uncommon in their world. Their conflicting views on the importance of dreams add to the story’s tension, while the content of her dreams help us to learn more about Cara and about her role in the book’s plot. Cara reacts to some of her dreams with delight, others with horror or mystification, which helps strengthen the mood of various scenes and was a great tool for introducing foreshadowing.

But why so many dreams in SEABIRD? I just told you—Cara is a seer. Okay, you got me. Which came first: the idea of Cara being a seer or the compulsive insertion of dreams higgly-piggly into the first few chapters of Seabird? Yes, the latter.

SEABIRD and Cara are gifted with dreams because I think dreams are cool. In real life—whatever that is—I’ve always felt that dreams are kind of a bonus to our existence. A little bit of story that we get free of charge just by dint of sleeping. Oh, and making a tiny effort to remember the details when we wake up. Many people, of course, believe that they rarely dream but the fact is that we all do.

HOW TO REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS: The trick is taking a few minutes on awakening to try to recall what we dreamed. If you have never done this and decide to make the effort, I suggest attempting to be as non-verbal as you can be while you passively wait for impressions, visual images and sounds to return to you now that you’re awake.

What not to do? Thinking something like, “I think I dreamed about the pool guy. Now what happened after I dived into the water? Was there really a school of miniature dolphins?’ etc will only serve to obliterate the actual dream. Keep your mind blank. This part is actually fairly easy before coffee if you think of about it.

If the dream contents seem to be worth it, be sure to write them down at once! Otherwise they will fade on you, very possibly before you’ve finished measuring the coffee grounds.

What do I mean by a dream being “worth it”? Why go to all this trouble? Well, you never know where the next idea for a story may come from. Alternatively, a fragment of a dream may tell you something about a character that you hadn’t realized, or get you out of that plot hole in chapter five. If appropriate—sometimes even if not appropriate—you can try plugging part of a dream whole cloth right into one of your scenes. You always planned for that character to have hallucinations, right?

For one of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever experienced, may I suggest the following link:

http://tree-lady.livejournal.com/76811.html

Sherry Thompson, author of SEABIRD: The Narentan Tumults #1 and EARTHBOW: The Narentan Tumults #2.

Description vs Setting / Author vs Reader

Do you pay attention to descriptions in books? I don’t. Well, not always. Then again, frequently I do. It depends on who I am at the moment, and what we’re talking about. So what are we talking about?

Right about now I should be doing the dreaded, “Before We Begin, Let’s Define Our Terms. What is Description? What is Setting? What color is my hat?”

However, I refuse to do these things on the grounds that it’s boring. I would have to do stuff like look in the mirror to see what hat I’m wearing. (Author or Reader?) I would have to look up words. Scan through paper or online dictionaries. Root around inside how-to-write books like,

“The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy” by Darin Park and Tom Dullemond,
or perhaps,
“How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy” by Orso Scott Card.

Or, Google for meta-descriptions of description-writing at websites like:
Jeff Gerke’s “Where The Map Ends” (http://www.wherethemapends.com/writerstools/writers_tools_pages/tip_of_the_week.htm):
• Description, Part 1—Introduction
• Description, Part 2—The Establishing Shot
• Description, Part 3—The Full Sensory Sweep
• Description, Part 4—Comparisons


By gum, I’m not gonna do that!

Having disposed of the official definitions created by people who know of which they write, when -I- think about the building blocks of settings, I think in terms of descriptions of:
1. miscellaneous characters (Sometimes—but not always—this kind of description is really an aspect of characterization. When it is largely characterization, it doesn’t belong here so we can drop it. (Clang!)
2. a room or any kind of interior space (One type of setting)
3. an exterior space, usually part of nature. (Another type of setting)
4. “space, the final frontier” –but only if you’re a Trekkie. (Clang!)
5. objects decorating either indoor or outdoor space. Play and film set designers cleverly call this “set decoration”.


When I have my Reader Hat on, I pay far more attention to the details of internal settings like living rooms, deep wells, classrooms and belfries, than I do exterior settings. I’m particularly entranced by objects that fall under the category of set decoration.

Descriptions of the outside world usually have my eyes glazing over when I’m reading them. That practice gets me into a heap of trouble later on when it becomes important to remember that the mountain chain blocking the protagonists from their goal runs north-to-south, not west-to-east, and the characters are currently on the –west- side of the mountains. (Oh! That’s why they have to creep through the Mines of Moria! Gotcha!)

When reading another author’s physical descriptions of characters as part of setting, my Reader Hat must slip down over my eyes. For example, several chapters after beginning one of Andre Norton’s juveniles years ago, I realized that a woman I thought was middle-aged was actually in her teens. Andre may possibly have messed up but more likely, I had let my attention slip for a second and decided out of nowhere that the character had grey hair.


When I have my Author Hat on, I spend great gobs of time describing most everything. Within the limits of a given scene, if my Author hat is screwed on –really- tight, I’ll even make an effort at hitting as many of the Five Senses as possible. For instance, I –love- creating new species of trees and wild animals—the colors and textures, and even the scents and sounds. (Yes, trees make sounds and animals have scents.)

Once, I spent an inordinate amount of time on a rug. I mean, describing a rug! This random bit of piling detail on detail probably had readers thinking the rug was going to be significant in the future. Well, sorry. Not so much. (I understand when readers get put out about this kind of writing.)

Over all, I’m more likely to provide detailed descriptions of furniture, people, animals and trees than I am to mention any wall-floor-ceiling or the broad geographic layout of the land. This may come from being myopic.

Recently, I’ve been serving as a beta reader for a UK author named Malcolm Cowen. After a short interlude near the young protagonist’s home, Malcolm describes a scene in which “Mary” stands on a road with a steep drop to her left and an even steeper natural stone wall to her right. He eventually takes us up that fiercesomely slanted height. Mary finds herself in the middle of a mountainous landscape that seems to scroll on forever as our character travels through it, climbing slopes, riding down into valleys to find hidden pools beyond the bushes, turning sharply past rocky walls to find totally unexpected vistas—waterfalls, forests, villages—before her.

I was and am deeply enthralled by Malcolm’s descriptions. Why? Because waiting expectantly for the next bit of scenery to come into view around a curve or over a rise in Malcolm’s manuscript reminded me of weekend rides in the car when I was a kid—long before the Interstate. You never knew what would be around the next curve in the road, thanks frequently to the foliage blocking the view. It was always such an adventure, even when we had travelled that way many times before. The adventure of discovering settings through a door, up a staircase, and around the far side of a great tree are something we owe our readers.

I think it’s time for me to start wearing Author’s Glasses, so I’ll remember to describe the –distant- countryside.


What setting descriptions do you most enjoy reading—or do you skip right past them?

On what kind of descriptions do you focus as an author? What do you tend to ignore, in order to get on with the story or for other reasons?

Thanks for reading!

Sherry Thompson, author of the YA fantasy “Narentan Tumults” novels from Gryphonwood:

Seabird (Paperback) http://amzn.to/90QXDA
Earthbow Vol.1 (Paperback) http://amzn.to/cvK2hD
Earthbow Vol.2 (Paperback -- due out at any time)
Earthbow V.1&2 combined in electronic format http://amzn.to/aimTRk

More on Developing Characters, by Sherry Thompson

I was planning to write about Characterization for this Sunday when I discovered that Christine wrote about Character Building, last Monday (23rd). I thought about changing subjects but, seriously, Characterization is a huge and critical part of writing. So let’s see what I can do to supplement what Christine discussed.


I began telling myself stories when I was in elementary school, because I often couldn’t get to sleep at night. This went on for years. Each night, I would run through the story up to where I left off and then add to it. Occasionally, I’d get tired of my POV character—who was often myself—and try out my current story from inside someone else’s thoughts. When I did this, sometimes I found myself backtracking in my “plot” because this other character was more interested in something else that was going on, or because he or she had “arrived late” in the story and I was just plain nosy to see what she or he had been up to before walking on stage.


In the meantime, my best friends and I used to imagine time travelling—or more specifically time-snatching. We would choose someone from different historical periods and imagine ourselves as hosts and guides to them, while we showed them the wonders of 1950’s America. (blush) Poor, captive historical people! Most of the time, we tried to imagine how they would react to electric lights, television (B&W) or cars. In our view, they were always impressed.


After a while, we branched out into SF and began wondering what aliens visiting Earth would think of our world. For that, we had to come up with personalities for the aliens. Generally, the group opinion was that the aliens were not impressed with us, so this was a short-lived pastime. We went back to historical periods and resumed time-snatching.


Years later, specifically when I was in my early 30’s, I got the inspiration to write a fantasy novel—Seabird. I didn’t think about it when I started but it turned out to be a young adult book. What else was it going to be when the POV character was a teen still in high school? Cara was on her summer vacation at the beach when she was snatched to another world. At first, Cara had a lot of me in her and not much of anything else. Poor kid.


I had a few elements of my story in mind: I knew that she would be swept to Narenta after finding an intriguing seabird necklace in a boardwalk shop. That she would be told that she had an important role to play in the welfare of the Narentans. That she would absolutely refuse to fall in with the plans at first. And, finally, what terrible event would change her mind, and how the book would end. But I didn’t know much about her personality or interests, and very little about the people she would meet—with the exception of one of the villains.


I wrote for a few days and then ran dry. I prayed about it a lot. This story, though only scraps of a few plot ingredients and one character, was already important to me. Anyway, various thoughts came wandering into my brain, and a few of those thoughts reminded me of how I used to create characters when I was a kid.


I started again. Who would Cara meet? What would they be like and what would they think of her? What would she think of them? What was their place like? Was it like an historical period with which I was familiar? (Not so much to that last question: Narenta turned out to be a fairly alien alien world.)


While gong back and forth between each character’s reactions to the others and vice versa, I discovered all sorts of interesting things about the Narentans and also about Cara. For instance, she had reneged on a promise to stay home with her best friend and was carrying an unopened letter from her friend in her jeans pocket. She had a brother who was into SF movies. She had worked briefly at a stable and was a local champion at Quark Brigade. And had sort of a boyfriend but wasn’t really that interested in him. Aha! Where could I insert someone to be a romantic interest? And, hey, how come he didn’t like her at first? What was that about?


I hadn’t written for days. (I didn’t think of any of this as “writing”.) I was too busy having fun developing characters—like the various Narentans who would just assume that Cara had some kind of magical ability because some Narentans did. Or that she naturally knew how to ride a horse and use a bow. (Yes, to the first. Not even a little bit, to the second.) Cara wanted to go back to the beach—now please. Some Narentans were desperate for her to stay and rescue them, though they didn’t all agree on how she was to do that. Meanwhile the antagonists wouldn’t mind if Cara left but figured it was safer to kill her.


“Seabird” set the pattern for my characterization—and my plotting—from then on. I work out a skeleton plot and always—nearly always—make sure I have an end to the story. Then, I set the storyline aside. I begin with two or three characters and get to know them—beginning with the protagonist. I “learn” far more about them than can possibly fit into the story. I’m afraid I don’t use physical character sheets—I have the equivalent inside my head. When I can think of nothing new about a particular character, I switch to another one, usually beginning with how they react to the character(s) I’ve already developed. In the process of developing these interrelationships and everyone’s individual motives, juicy little nuggets pop into my head. Look at that! This guy plays a flute! That one’s a poet and a bad one, and his mother abandoned him when he was very young under tragic circumstances. I know the name of that person’s horse, and I know why his girlfriend gave it that name. And so on.


Eventually, I reach critical mass when it comes to the characters, and I go back to writing the story. Actually, by now, I already have some scenes scribbled down on index cards or typed up in Notepad files. My skeleton outline has put on a lot of weight, but still has room to grow. Developments in characterization don’t cease until I type “The End”.

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Here’s a couple of my favorite and more bizarre characters, and how they developed.


Khiva the stoah, from “Earthbow”. Khiva is a sentient arboreal animal. She was supposed to be in just two scenes: In the first, she surprises someone who is secretly crawling into a window and in the other she fortuitously gets a different character out of a fix. Khiva is based on my experiences living with cats and watching squirrels. Plus she has the prehensile tail of a monkey—which was needed for the plot. And she’s a chatterbox-mostly for the fun of it. That was it for her—at first.


As I wrote more and more of Earthbow, it kept getting darker and darker. Not what I had planned at all. Earthbow badly needed comic relief. I thought about bringing in another human character or making one of my protagonists more self-deprecating, but neither solution seemed to fit.


Then I remembered Khiva. I went back and thought through her character in depth, realizing in the process that she really had more going on in her furry little brain than I had given her credit for. She hates her job as a plant-gatherer for a human herbalist. She, like most stoahs as it turns out, is very into equal rights for stoahs alongside the traditional “three peoples” of Narenta. She seems self-centered if you just listen to her chatter, but she actually has a soft heart for anyone in trouble or in pain. She’s a bit vain—not that I blame her with such great fur. And she’s addicted to rosehips. Before I knew it, she was threaded throughout “Earthbow”, essential to its plot, and promises to turn up in its sequel.


Bert-and-Marsha-from-Hoboken, from “Marooned”. (Or, how not to do it.) Now I ask you, do Bert & Marsha—much less Hoboken—sound like names from a fantasy novel? I wrote most of Marooned during National Novel Writing Month, a few Novembers ago. For those of you who know nothing about it, the object of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000+ words on one novel during the month of November. I had done some (legal) prepping for the challenge before November 1st of that year, by nailing down the characteristics and motives of my two principle characters. I was busily writing away one day (1667 words per day, minimum) when I realized that the protagonist needed to hear news from a neighboring village and, without telephones or computers, that meant I needed people to arrive on the scene and be eyewitnesses.


I was so rushed with trying to reach my NaNo quota for the day that I couldn’t take time to figure out names according to my naming conventions and I hadn’t a clue what the village was called. So, Bert & Marsha strolled into the village where the main characters were and announced they had fled Hoboken. I have never characterized on the fly so much in my life. Suddenly they had three children. (Or is it two?) Marsha started acting like a real dim supermom.


Bert refused to fit the role of dad. Argh! I backtracked and stuffed Bert in jail. Why? A nameless character had attacked my protagonist the previous day, and I still didn’t know anything about that person, except that they were now in jail. “Jailbird” became Bert. Combining characters solved that problem. Ah! Marsha had arrived from Hoboken to break Bert out of jail! Outstanding! Next thing you know, I realized that Bert was not who he professed to be. Poor Marsha! And like that. Whoosh! Rush characterization for a NaNoWriMo novel is so much fun.


Bert, Marsha, and Hoboken are all still awaiting their real names—but I do know a lot about them.


Sherry Thompson – author of Seabird, Earthbow – and most of Marooned.


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Resources:

Fantasy Character Background Info (workform)

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/719846-Fantasy-Character-Background-Information

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Fiction Factor – Creating Characters (numerous articles)

http://www.fictionfactor.com/characters.html


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How to Create a Character Profile Sheet

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun98/lazy2.htm

Hi! from SherryT

Hi! My name is Sherry Thompson, and I am one of the newest members of YAAYNHO. Don’t you just love our acronym? It kind of encapsulates the two defining experiences of most of us here: 1. “Yaay! I’ve been published! and 2. Nho! Why is no one reading my book?

About myself:

I’ve been making up stories since I was in elementary school but I never wrote any of them down until 1979 when I was 33 years old. I wrote the first draft of “Seabird” in longhand. As soon as the draft was complete, I told my family that I had committed book-writing and took them all out to dinner, at which we celebrated the start of my new career. Yeah. Right. What did we know in those days.

In January 2008, almost 29 years later, Gryphonwood Press published the umpteenth revision of “Seabird”, a fantasy for older young adults. ( http://tinyurl.com/35xu8d ) The book introduces the planet of Narenta, which bears some resemblance to medieval Europe. However Narenta has three “peoples” and some fairly bizarre plants and animals. Magic exists in two forms—Alphesaic enchantment or “good” magic and sorcery or “bad” magic.

In times of crisis, young people are brought from their own planets to assist the Narentans with skills and talents that many of them do not know they possess. Recently, these young people have been found on Earth. Cara Marshall is the Outworlder in “Seabird”, and she is definitely not pleased at what’s happened to her, especially since she is in the middle of her summer vacation at the beach.

Back in 1980, while looking for a publisher, I began writing the sequel to “Seabird”, titled “Earthbow”, and followed that with additional material for the series. Gryphonwood published “Earthbow Vol.1” ( http://amzn.to/cTsAxM ) in March, and “Earthbow Vol.2” is due out in about a month. (I’m currently awaiting the proof.) Cara’s younger brother, Xander, is the Outworlder in “Earthbow”.

Dave Wood, my publisher, wants to know what I’m working on next so I guess that means he intends to publish it. ;)

So I have a publisher, and the first books have gotten some great reviews! Yaay! According to the sales stats, I just don’t have a reading public. Nho! As most of us know, that’s what happens when a small press chooses to publish our books. Small start-up presses just don’t have the money or the personnel to help publicize their books. In fact, increasingly, all publishers expect their non-A-list authors to shoulder that burden, pretty much unassisted. For me, publicizing is largely trying to maintain an online presence, sneaking my books into a couple of local book stores, and attending the occasional East Coast SF/Fantasy convention. Next up, by the way, will be PhilCon in November.

Right now, I am sorting through the humungous manuscript that I began writing as soon as the first draft of “Earthbow” was finished. Originally titled “The Gryphon and the Basilisk”, it too takes place on Narenta and will involve an Earth teen (Luisa) as the Outworlder sent for in the face of a terrible crisis. “G&B” is fated to become one of those fantasy trilogy thingies. Maybe even a tetralogy! I refer to it sometimes as “The Behemoth, or the book that intends to eat Delaware”.

I hope someone buys a copy of it some day.

SherryT KhivasMommy AT gmail DOT com