Imagining Your World

The Read ...

Finally got around to reading Scott Westerfeld's Uglies and Pretties, thanks to finding the two of them used.  Don't think I'll go scrounging for Specials.  Why?  Well, for one thing Tally, the MC, doesn't seem to learn anything from what happens to her.  She keeps making the same mistakes.  

Also, I didn't see where Westerfeld presented a well-rounded cultural setting, aka world.  Maybe from an adolescent's blindered viewpoint.  *shrug*  ...  Good point, he did generate a nice teen slang which was consistent and easy to understand from the context.

This isn't to say the books weren't well written.  But, oh so shallow.  Wait.  Does that include more than half of the American adolescent population raised on Disney?

Media Buzz ...

I'm "regressing" to print for this blog.  The New York Times Book Review, in this case.  Among the book reviews was  Packing for Mars (by Mary Roach)  by M. G. Lord  which exploded all those nice sanitized presentations of space travel.  Maybe I should have said:  exposed how grubby space travel really is.  So much for those work-a-day world space adventures written in the 50s-70s when I was actively reading science fiction.  They left out the stink.

Won't go into the scatological details, but I really wonder what the fundamentalists will think of funding space travel with NASA's attitude.  As quoted in the review:  "NASA, she learns, doesn't expect a celibate Mars crew, but one that will 'mix and match or whatever.'"  --  [which makes me wonder if the fundamentalists will stop funding for what's left of the space program.]

Then, my mind did its weird little hop-thing by comparing the space travel in the novels to traveling across the Atlantic by sea ship.  Our current astronauts are sailing below decks on a slave ship.  The novels depict the Queen Elizabeth II ... or at least the cargo freighters that ply our oceans.

The bad part:  We can't protect astronauts from space radiation yet -- which reminds me of the dangers indicated in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Endless Voyage.

A second essay in the NYT also caught my eye -- on adults reading fantasy:  The Kids' Books Are All Right by Pamela Paul.  I guess some people are still surprised that adults read kid's books and young adult books on their own, without kids as an excuse.  My mind skipped from Andre Norton to Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones, still stacked on my bookshelves.

Progress ...

Still editing Dark Solstice ... and drafted the first of Renna's tales ... and learning how to format Smashwords ... and ....   got the construction struts of my Half-Elven website up ...  Now, I'm waiting for artwork and copy-editing.  [I know better than to rely on my own editing of a final product, ... oh, that's supposed to be story.]  Nice to be back working in the Half-Elven world.

 Nicer still, I got some more debris into the recycle and filed.  I'm seeing wood on the second set of desks. 

Trivia ...

My Half-Elven blog got it's first follower!  Thank you, Steve.  ....  Or, do I have to grumble because I have to post new stuff to it?  [Yeah, I know.  Never satisfied.]  Now, I've got to figure out out to turn the background green.   

PS:  Which I did, but caused other color problems I don't like. 

Starting a New Series

The Read ...

My "cockles" were nicely warmed by the opening of Yasmine Galenorn's new series about the Indigo Court of vampiric fae -- Night Myst.  Frankly, I'm a little tired of her D'Artigo sisters.  [I'd still read them, but the competition for my time is too great at the moment.]  

The book set up might be considered a cliche -- a roaming family member (Cicely) being called home because of a death.  When Cicely returns home, she's discovers she's inherited the position of head witch in the town, and all hell's breaking  out.  Yeah, it gets off the blocks fast and keeps racing from one disaster to another.

That said, watching Galenorn set up the coming books in the series is a writing lesson in itself.  The end of the book leaves the reader anticipating several threads:

--Cecily inheriting responsibility for the safety of humans and witches in the town threatened by the Indigo Court, 

--The MC lover a captive of the Indigo Court queen, 

--A battle between two tribes of fae, one of which was supposedly destroyed by the Indigo Court,

--Not only can Cicely talk to a wind elemental by can turn into an owl which is the enemy of the queen of the Indigo Court,
--The Indigo Court of Vampiric fae out to destroy the Red Court of normal vampires, which are wickedly delicious and self-centered, the poster-people for unreliable allies. 
-- Cicely discovers her father is a fae from yet a different tribe, and

--There's a reincarnation thing going on.

 

Oh, there are some mild sex scenes and reserve partners in the wings to complicate future plots.

 

That's just what I remember from the top of my head.  I'll close my comments by thanking Galenorn for not sanitizing her vampires.

Media Buzz ...

Promoting Your Book:  The web has been busy catching my interest.  Maybe one of the most important posts I've read lately comes from Eric at Pimp My Novel -- an author's 12 Step Program.  Yay!  A nice step-by-step list of things you need to do to promote your books -- even if you hit the big time since publishers are publicizing less and less. 

I'm sort of stuck on #5 ... I skipped the agent bit on the list when I sold Taking Vengeance to WolfSinger Publications.  Laughed at the party suggestion.  I just went comatose when I got the email saying WolfSinger had accepted the novelette.  [Remember, this is super small time even if it's occupying enormous amounts of my time.]

Bureaucratic Sillyness:  I start out my day reading the New York Times.  [Actually, it's skimming the NYT.  The old man reads it.]  A recent gem was an article on how print books help avoid the "summer slump" affecting so many low income school kids, all of whom can't afford to forgot what they learned the previous year.  Seems their heads retain more if they have books to read.  Also seems, it works best when the kids pick out their own books.

With school districts cutting summer programs right and left because their tax base has evaporated, research has revealed a cost-effective solution -- give the kids books they pick out for themselves, even if the subject is "frivolous".  Hey, that might even get boys reading.

Progress ...

The site for the Half-Elven of the Far Isles is now up and under construction.  If you're curious, you can visit the site ... or the blog.  Did you guess I've put my other projects on the back burner to start another edit of Dark Solstice -- in spite of coming down with something with a fever?

Trivia ...

Got my desk cleaned off again ... Does that mean I'll start revising Voices??????  Maybe next week.  I'm still cleaning stuff -- both computer and print -- up.   The changes in Dark Solstice are minor -- so maybe I can do both.

Spinning My Wheels

The Reads ...

How do you pretend you are accomplishing something instead of spinning your wheels in the sand?  I decided to please myself and spend the weekend finishing Tamora Pierce's The Immortals series, again set in the world of Tortall during a series of medevial style magico-political wars.  

Really don't have any criticism.  Time is long gone for that.  The series was published in the 90s.  It was quite startling to see mention of CompuServ in the acknowledgments.  Pierce researched on the internet as well as the library.  A good reminder to hermit-me that even fantasy is based in the real world.

Must confess, I took some comfort in other pieces of writing (from The Realm of the Gods).  First, it had a prologue which gave me the courage to put the prologue back on Demons.  More important, Piece opened by setting the scene.

""The Stormwing sat on a low wooden perch like a king on his throne.  All around him torches flickered; men spoke quietly as they prepared the evening meal.  He was a creature of bad dreams, a giant bird with the head and chest of a man."  Did you guess this is the villain? 

Web Buzz ...

You shouldn't be surprised that I follow Tamora Pierce's blog.  Her latest discussed the eternal question of boys vs girls in YA fiction.   The title:  Dare to be Stupid.  It's worth reading by writers in all genres, I think.

Progress ...

For all my head spinning, I am making progress.  I think I've gotten all the loose ends of There Be Demons tied ... and put the prologue back on.  Why since so many dislike them?  Well, if I didn't, the arch-villain of the book doesn't appear until the second to the last chapter except as the addressee of various demonic letters.

Got my first rejection from my Demon queries.  Sent the query out last night.  The rejection was waiting in my inbox this morning.  No.  My feelings weren't hurt.  I expect this manuscript to get rejected often because the subject matter/story telling is unconventional.

Dark Solstice.  Have the revised query almost done ... and even found a few agents who haven't rejected it.  Of course, it's been so long since most of the agents have seen it and the thing have been extensively revised -- that I might just requery.  Again the story is off center.  Anyone know off hand someone interested in the grandmother rescuing a granddaughter from the villain who's plotting to usurp the ruler?

Trivia ...

I've been so wrapped up in doing websites, I haven't been doing much besides yakking at my kids on the phone.  

Telling Faster than Showing

The Read ...

My, have writing styles changed from mostly telling to showing since the 70s! 

The itch to re-read a favorite author plus get some books off my bookshelf combined to a Nora Lofts reading fest over last week-end.  A couple got quickly pitched into the discard pile, but I ended up re-reading A Wayside Tavern and Madselin, both of which I'll be keeping.

Yeah, Nora Lofts, once a very popular historical, romance, thriller author, mostly told her stories.  Yet, the two books I read moved faster than Green's Spies [on which I commented on in my last post].  Granted there was a lot of showing among the telling, but her writing moves fast for all she uses long sentences.

Part of this comes from her basically linking short stories/novelettes into books.  Maybe some of you will remember her House at Old Vine, a trilogy that followed the occupants of a house from medieval times down through the centuries to the modern salvation of the derelict house.  A Wayside Tavern follows this pattern, only it starts with the Roman retreat from Britain.

Many of Lofts' other books follow the normal novel concept of sticking to one set of characters, like Madselin, a single.  I really was going to read The Lonely Furrow triology, but couldn't find all the pieces.  

Yeah, she wrote a lot of books during her career.  Most of the ones I remember took part in the same region of England (Norfolk near Norwich and Colchester) so in one sense she took advantage of the series-writer's shorthand.  Setting up her background (stage?) and placing her characters in action.

I can imagine my critiquers remarks at my tolerance of "telling" over "showing".  The thing is Lofts sets up her characters with a problem in the first few paragraphs [plus their world], solves it, and leaves enough dangling ends for the next generation to be in hot water.

The opening of A Wayside Tavern as an example:  "'Deserted,' one of the men in the front rank said as the little settlement came into view.  Men sighed or groaned or were silent according to their nature and training.  Paulus strode forward to see for himself, and with a little sinking of the heart saw that the place certainly looked deserted, not a light showing, though within door it would now be deep dusk, and no smoke rising into the clear, frost-threatening sky."

I won't mention the differences in reading level between now and then.

Web Nonsense ...

Think I'm going to take the plunge on my own and see if I can get my Half-Elven site up.  At least I found a nice template.

Progress ...

Have been doing busy-work trying to get my agent list set up.  Time-consuming because not all fantasy agents take the same stuff.  I think I'll procrastinate this week-end and finish Tamora Pierce's immortal series.

Trivia ...

The over-grown apricot tree dropped two more apricots in last night's storm.  In contrast, it looks like it grew over five feet from the green shoots I see.  I think it's got it priorities backwards.