Happy Yule

As promised, here are a few of my favourite Christmas videos to help make the season bright.


I'm Climbing Up the Christmas Tree


Imperial March/Carol of the Bells


Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire


Little Drummer boy – David Bowie and Bing Crosby


Faith Hill – Where Are you Christmas


TSO – Christmas Eve in Sarajevo


TSO – Christmas Cannon

Happy Holiday Blogging Break

First, let me start by saying (in case you haven’t noticed) I finish the NaNo challenge with a few hundred words to spare. I did not enjoy it. In fact, I haven’t been enjoying writing anything lately, particularly blog posts, so I’ve decided to take the month of December off.

Yeah, it seems like a long break, but I have a lot to do this month, and a lot to think about. Even before NaNo began I was starting to feel stressed out, especially with the blogging, and I need to take a break before I burn out completely.

I’ll still be posting my traditional Christmas music videos, but that won’t be until closer to Christmas.

So have a Happy Holiday everyone, and see you in the New Year.

Forgotten – NaNo Novel 4th Excerpt

As you can see, I finally found a better name for my novel. It came to me a couple of nights ago and it fits the story much better. And yes, I was in bed at the time, and yes, I had to get up and forage for a pen and paper to write it down so I wouldn’t forget it. 😊

In this, my final excerpt from my story, we have Sabella reaching some ruins where she’s taken shelter for the night. Aaban is on his way back to extend the village’s invitation to join them, but he’s not there quite yet and Sabella is trying to figure out what her next move is.

Sabella woke to a rustling sound in the bushes outside of her shelter. She looked up in time to see one of the monkey-like creatures make off with the scanner, which she’d left on top of the packs.

“Hey!” she shouted, getting to her feet. “Come back here with that!”

The monkey made a chittering noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter and scurried up the nearest tree. From there he leaped to another, then another, and was soon lost to view.

“Great start,” she said in disgust. “I lose the one thing from the ship that was of some real use.”

With a sigh she turned back to her shelter, having taken several steps outside of it to chase the thief. Rooting around in the pack, she took three of the water bottles down to the river. Kneeling at the edge, she filled the bottles, then set them aside to splash the cold water on her face.

“What I wouldn’t give for a hot caffeine,” she said with a sigh, turning back to her shelter.

No sense thinking about things like that now. Her chances of ever having a coffee again were pretty slim. There were a lot of things she was never going to see again and she would do best not to dwell on them. She needed to focus on survival.

But suddenly the thought of all those long years ahead of her, all alone, were almost too much to contemplate. What had she done? She sank down until she was sitting on the ground. A tear slid down her cheek, followed by a torrent of others.

She didn’t want to be alone on this world. She especially didn’t want to die alone here. Sniffling, she swiped the tears away with her hand. But she’d certainly would die here if she didn’t get ahold of herself.

“Okay. First things first,” she said, feeling marginally better after her little outburst. “Time to take stock of what I’ve got.”

She pulled the packs towards her and opened them up. Her cursory look the night before had left her puzzled as to some of the contents. The blankets and empty bottles she understood, but she held up several metal objects, one after another. Tools, maybe? But tools for what purpose?

There were twenty-two of the foil pouches left. She’d have to be careful not to go through them too quickly. It would be a shame to have made it this far, only to starve to death. Of course there was always the fruit. She’d suffered no ill effects from it so far, but she doubted it would be a viable diet in the long term.

“Oh! This might be handy.” ‘This’ was small, metal box that held several barbed hooks. “Fish hooks, I think,” she said.

Or maybe not so happy. She’d read historical books that talked about fishing, but she had no idea how to do it herself. Hopefully she could learn. A sudden though struck her, sending her to her feet. This building she was in was not natural. Someone had to have built it. There had to be people somewhere, hopefully not too far away.

Stepping outside of the shelter, she considered it for a moment. She couldn’t climb the surrounding trees, but she’d bet she could climb up to the roof. And maybe once she was up there she could climb one of the trees that pressed against it.

It wasn’t easy. Her legs were a little shaky from all that walking over the last two days, and her upper body strength was pretty much average. But she managed to hoist herself up onto the rubble strewn roof.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t high enough to give her much more of a view than she’d had before. She could see down to the river, and a few feet along it in both directions, but in the grand scheme of things there wasn’t much else to see but trees.

Going over to one of the trees abutting the building, she put a hand on the trunk and looked up at the crown. The trunk was smooth, and there were no branches sticking out. There was no way she’d be able to climb that, even with the boost the building gave her.

With a sigh she turned away to look out at the river again. Didn’t people usually settle near rivers, or some other source of water? What would happen if she kept following the river. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would have to do.

Now all she had to do is get down from this roof.

“Well this isn’t good,” she muttered, surveying the tumbled down wall she’d climbed up.

Grumbling under her breath, she sat down on the edge, dangling her feet over the side. Then, thinking better of it, she turned around so she was facing inwards instead, backing towards the edge on her hands and knees. Carefully, she eased her legs downwards, holding onto the roof for support. Her feet made contact with the ruined wall, and she spared a glance downwards before moving her hands from the edge of the roof to the top of the wall.

She was a little off of where she’d climbed up, but this way there were some sturdy looking vines she could grab onto, which was a good thing. She was only halfway down when one of her feet slipped.

A man’s voice called out as she grabbed for a smooth brown vine. Startled, she looked up as her hand connected with the vine. As she watched in amazement, a man dropped onto the roof of the building. There was a frantic look on his face as he kept talking, and she realized the vine under her hand was moving. She transferred her look to her hand, just as the snake she’d grabbed onto bit her.

Fire shot up her arm. Sabella screamed and fell the rest of the way to the ground, snake still attached to the back of her hand. The man, moving faster than she’d ever seen anyone move, was beside her in seconds. An enormous knife appeared in his hand, and with one swipe he cut the head off the snake. Even then, he had to pry the snake’s jaws open to get her hand free.

Tossing it aside, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back into the shelter of the building. Sabella was in no shape to protest. The fire continued up her arm and she was starting to feel dizzy. Obviously the snake was poisonous – the man had probably yelled to warn her of the danger. She was too dazed to even wonder where he’d come from.

Espinela Verse Form

This Spanish form was named for Vencinente Espinela, and is often referred to as “the little sonnet.” Being a musician, he designed his form to be pleasing to the ear when recited. Here’s where it can get a little confusing.

It is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a Décima, which is a Spanish term for any ten-line stanza. However, there is also a popular song form from 15th century Spain called the Décima which consists of forty-four lines (an introductory stanza followed by four ten-line stanzas).

The Espinela has only two stanzas, with four lines in the first and six in the second for a total of ten lines. Each line has eight syllables, and it follows a strict rhyme scheme of abba/accddc.

Schematic:

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxc

I think the nickname of “little sonnet” is an apt one, it is very much like writing a sonnet. And like a sonnet, the Espinela can be written on any subject.


Evening Song

Skin still warm from the summer sun
Glimmering in the fading light
Waiting until the moment’s right
Waiting until the day is done

Waiting for that special someone
The touch, the taste, the feel of him
The bending to another’s whim
Anticipation building slow
Reach the peak and then overflow
The moment caught, too soon to dim.

Writersfest Wrap-up

A creative writing workshop will contain students whose ambitions and abilities, whose conceptions of literature itself, are so diverse that what they have in common - the desire to write - could almost be considered meaningless.
— Rachel Cusk

I think that, in principle, a workshop is such a beautiful idea - an environment in which writers who are collectively apprenticed to the craft of writing can come together in order to collectively improve.
— Eleanor Catton

Being part of the Workshop is like being part of a really big family. Everyone is so close. Everyone feels the success of others who go on to do well. Whatever happens, I will still be part of the Workshop.
— Lucy Carless

This was my fourth foray in the world of Writersfest, and I have to say that each time it’s been a little bit different.

The first time was on a package that included the workshop tickets and the hotel room. I really enjoyed the workshops and learned a lot. Unfortunately, I went with a friend and came home without one (figuratively, not literally). To this day I have no idea what happened. She wasn’t talking, and I didn’t push her to. Que sera, sera.

Then we had COVID and the lockdowns, so I didn’t go back until 2022 (in 2021 I went to a different writing retreat). I still sprang for the festival pass, but this time I went for all four days. Technically it was five, but I opted out of staying the extra night just for the one workshop (which I wasn’t really interested in anyway). Instead I paid extra to hear Guy Gavriel Kay read from his newest work (and got a signed copy for the daughter).

Because I was late calling for my hotel reservation, I couldn’t get the discount rate at the Holiday Inn, and ended up staying at the Delta (which was only a block away). The workshops were interesting and I learned a lot. The weather was beautiful and I took a lot of early morning walks along the waterfront.

My third Writersfest was in March of this year. This time it was being held at the Delta, and I did call in time for the discount on my reservation. Wow! What a difference it made in the price! The weather was a little cold and crappy, which made staying at the same place where the workshops were taking place even better.

That being said, I enjoyed a couple of the workshops but was disappointed in a couple. The rest were kind of so-so, but I still learned a lot. There were a handful of us who paid for the four-day pass, and we kind of got to know each other a bit.

October’s Writersfest was held at the Holiday Inn, and even though there was no discount offered, I booked my room there. Can we say pricy? And the room wasn’t all that great. Although I did have a tiny balcony that overlooked the water. AND it’s right at the end of Princess Street, which is a mecca for shopping magpies like me.

Like many organizations, Writersfest is having a hard time getting volunteers. One noticeable difference was they no longer did the land acknowledgement at the beginning of the workshops, and sometimes there wasn’t even anyone to introduce the facilitators.

I found a couple of workshops were more seminars than actual workshops, but they were still okay. Three of them I really enjoyed and learned from them. I skipped the Travel Writing workshop to go to a reading called Folklore, Fable, and Fantastical Females. The most disappointing workshop of them all was something called Creative Collaborations – Combining Imagery and Words. It was nothing more than a sales pitch for an independent small press who sold very pricy boxed sets of stories.

Will I be going back in the spring? Maybe, maybe not. There’s a stitching retreat which I missed last year because it was the same date, but this year I’ve already got it paid for, so it’ll depend on when the spring writersfest is.

But I’ll probably go to the fall one again. And since they’re no longer offering a hotel discount as an incentive to buy the festival pass, I will probably take a better look at the workshops being offered and pick and choose what I think will be worth my while. And if that means I have more time to sit and write in my favorite coffee shop, so be it.

There are worse things I could do with my time.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Honestly, I don’t have a word for last week. Yo-yo maybe, because it was weirdly up and down.

Monday we finally got our new fridge delivered. While it takes up the same amount of space as the loaner, it seems smaller inside. And I still don’t have room for my big stock pot in it, which means I’ll need to make my soups earlier in the day so they’ll be cool enough to bag up for the freezer later that same day. No more putting it off for a couple of days. 😊

Tuesday was a very uninspiring rainy day, with a stitch in at the library (which was the bright spot). When I got home I realized I had a poetry gathering the next night, so I spent the afternoon writing a poemwork poem.

Wednesday I started out making a big pot of chicken chowder for the father-in-law, and yes, it was cool enough to bag up for the freezer before bed. The poetry gathering ran a little long, but lots of good poetry was shared.

Thursday was a rather quiet day, perfect for indulging in some online shopping, and Friday involved a lot of in store shopping, followed by me making my Death By Chocolate cake to take with me to a small get-together to say goodbye to one of stitchers, who’s moving to Toronto.

Saturday the daughter, granddaughter, and I went on a shopping road trip, which was followed by the hubby and I doing some shopping, which was followed by another social event, this time at the father-in-law’s.

But in between all of that, I managed to catch up on my NaNo words.

NEW WORDS:
2636+466+210+1201=4513 words

Once again, a lot of time was saved by having part, if not all of my posts done ahead of time. And also once again, Monday’s post was rather heavily photo dependent. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to take a lot of photos during the crafting process.

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work, blog posting-wise.

NANOWRIMO:
Day 19 – 2617
Day 20 – 1930
Day 21 – 2977
Day 22 – 1788
Day 23 – 2087
Day 24 – 1936
Day 25 – 2559
Total for week 4 – 15,894
Total for month – 41,729

Slowly but surely I managed to catch up my words and as of yesterday I was back on track to the 50,000 word goal.

While I’m still a little apathetic about the whole thing, I’m liking the story better. However, it has become glaringly apparent to me that if I’m going to try and do anything with this novel in the future, I’m going to have to do a great deal of world building.

It would have been super helpful to have done all that before NaNo started, but I didn’t. So now I’m stumbling around trying to figure out the flora and fauna as I go along, what the customs and traditions of the people are, and what exactly they do with themselves all day.

Also, a better idea of what the layout of the land is would come in handy. So far I’ve got lots of jungle, some cliffs, and a river that is no where near where the people are, which makes no sense because wouldn’t they need a source of water close by?

Yeah. So there’s a lot of work ahead of me if I’m going to whip this up into any kind of shape to be readable. And honestly? I’m not even at the halfway point of the story itself, so it’ll be continued well beyond the end of NaNo.

You know, eventually.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish NaNo.

POETRY:
There was a poetry gathering last Wednesday night, and seeing as I skipped it the month before, I figured I pretty much had to show up. Plus I needed to pay my yearly dues 😉

So Tuesday afternoon had me trying to come up with a metaphysical poem (the poemwork for the month). In the end I did a black out poem. Actually, I did two of them. I looked up articles on metaphysics on Google copy/pasted a page of text from two different articles, and picked out the words and phrases to craft my poems.

I have to admit, I’m getting a little tired of all these forms. It doesn’t really leave me much time to write a poem just because I have something poetical to say. And while it’s all well and good to be able to learn a new form, the forms themselves don’t always lend themselves to creating an anthology.

Goal For Next Week:
Think about my future in poetry.

CRAFTING:
Tuesday was our library stitching, where I worked a bit on my kit. I really wanted to work more on my crafting this past week, but I didn’t have time because I was busy catching up on NaNo. I was a little jealous of one of my writing buddies, who was able to get some quality crafting done for Christmas last week.

But while I didn’t have time for crafting last week, I did find time to shop for crafting supplies. I got about $50 worth of beads and charms from Wish, and then I went to another site to buy an engraving tool and a bunch of engraving bits.

Oh! And there was a request for Christmas prints for a project with the stitchery group, so I donated all the Christmas prints (mostly fat quarters) in my stash, that I’ve had for years and didn’t know what to do with. Well, as any hoarder knows, as soon as you get rid of something, you’ll find a use for it.

It was just after I gave away my prints that I did the class in the folded stars. I could have used that Christmas fabric to do more stars. *sigh* As I recall, I got a lot of those fat quarters at Walmart, who was completely out of the ones with Christmas prints. So, instead I had to go all the way to Fabricland where I bought some off the bolt.

Also last week, I finally got around to stiffening my crocheted snowflakes. I used watered down mod podge and staked them all out on waxed paper covered cardboard. Worked really well too. Now all they need are strings.

Goal For Next Week:
Make some fabric stars; work on kit; work on zentangle.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and I really hope she’s going to write a sequel to it because I really want to know what happens next. Now I’ve started The Hike, by Lucy Clarke.

On the Kindle I finished The Psychic Cat Mysteries by S.M Reine, which was a series of five mystery stories from a cat’s point of view.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I swear, that new leaf of mine is off in space somewhere.

The weather has been as variable as my mood. I’m still a little tired and lethargic, so this grey, dismal November is not helping things any.

I don’t know what I’m going to be writing about for Monday, maybe something about Christmas crafts. ‘Tis the season, don’t you know.

Tuesday is a regular meeting with the stitchery group. There aren’t any classes, it’s just a regular stitch in, which means a lot of talking and a little stitching.

Unless inspiration strikes me like a bolt of lightning, I’ll be using the last of pre-written poetry posts on Wednesday. And because December’s poetry gathering is early, I really should try to start working on the poemwork.

I did do a little of my indoor gardening last week. I dumped the dead plants (five of them!) and rearranged several others. So this week I’d like get my coleus clippings planted, and repot my money tree into a bigger pot.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my blogging schedule, and my writing in general. Brace yourself – I’m taking the month of December off from writing, and that includes blog posts. I’ll be putting up an official notice next weekend, and then I’ll use my month to make some decisions . . . and some changes.

Starting in January, things are going to be very different around here.

Forced Landing – NaNo Novel 3rd Excerpt

Today’s excerpt comes in two parts. First, we have a continuation of last week’s scene, in which Sabella is still searching for a good place to camp out. Unbeknownst to her, she has a protector/observer who’s been following her, and the second scene is him making a report to his superiors.

Before she could seriously start looking [for some place to camp], the jungle began to thin a bit and she found herself in a group of tall trees, though not quite as tall as the trees in the surrounding jungle, that were laden heavily laden with a bright green fruit.

It looked delicious. “But is it safe to eat?” she wondered.

Just then, a small, furry animal swooped down from one of the tall jungle trees. It snatched up one of the fruit that Sabella only now noticed littered the ground beneath the trees, and leaped away again.

“Well, I guess that answers my question,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.

She recognized the creature as a monkey. She’d learned about them in a documentary she once watched. As she recalled, there were many different species of them, but she couldn’t have said exactly what kind this one was. He was small and brown and had an extremely long tail that if she remembered correctly, could be used almost like an extension of its paws.

Stooping down, she picked up one of the fruit, wondering as she did so what exactly it was. Not that she’d seen much fresh fruit in her life. Not since she’d been a child. The world she’d been raised on was a mix of agriculture and technology. She and her parents lived in one of the settlements at the edge of a city, more because it was more affordable than because they had any great affinity for nature.

While some of their neighbors had large gardens, her mother had no time for such nonsense, as she put it, and limited her efforts to some potted herbs to be used in cooking. Her mother was a supervising technical analyst for the Branyon Corporation, Tel-Corp’s greatest rival, which her father also worked for as an engineer. Branyon paid for their quarters, and when they’d chosen to live on the outskirts of the city, they provided them with vehicles to get them to and from work.

But none of that was important now. She hefted the weight of the fruit in her hand. It was dense, and it had a faintly sweet scent. Shrugging, she finally bit into it.

“Oh!” she said in surprise. The sweet flavor burst onto her tongue and the juice ran down her chin. The flesh was firm, a lighter green shade, and delicious. She finished it in a hurry and then stooped down for a second one. This one she ate slower, savoring the taste.

Tempting as it was to keep eating until she was full, she knew better than to gorge on fruit when her stomach was so empty. She’d make herself sick for sure, and there were no med units here. She’d have to be very careful. So instead she gathered up a dozen or so – any more and they probably would just rot before she could eat them – and stowed them in one of the survival packs.

Feeling surprisingly refreshed, she continued on, seeking some place to have a proper rest.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

As usual, the clan chiefs knew he was coming and had already gathered. He had missed the communal mid-day meal, but that was nothing unusual. Eschewing the use of the ladders, he scaled the red cliffs much like the children did, using the handholds and rocky protuberances.

“Sometimes I think you are more a child than the children,” clan chief Ebou, Aaban’s friend, chuckled.

Aaban grinned in return. “Helps keep me fit. I wouldn’t want to become soft, like you.”

“What have you to tell us,” Mohlomi said, interrupting them before they got too carried away with their jibes.

“Forgive me, Clan Chief,” Aaban said, with a bow in his direction. “It is my opinion that the woman is not a threat. Those who pursued her came and left again, believing he dead.”

“And why would they believe such a thing?” Mohlomi asked with a frown.

Aaban hesitated. “Though the small ship crashed, it was intact. However, shortly after the woman left, it exploded in such a fashion that there was little doubt there were no survivors.”

“And that was enough to persuade the others? You did not assist in the deception?”

Aaban shrugged. “I may have accidentally dropped a few pieces of tak-tak flesh and bone when I was examining the wreckage. And they may have misconstrued what they saw.”

“Hmm.” Mohlomi eyed him balefully. “May have dropped flesh and bone, eh?”

Aaban made no reply.

“Where is this stranger now?”

“She follows the river Malarrich and should reach the ruins of the temple of the old gods before day’s end.”

Mohlomi pursed his lips. “She is already almost off of clan lands. Perhaps it would be—”

“Hold!” the voice came from the entrance of the meeting chamber. Ntsebo rapped her staff against the stone floor to get their attention.

There were murmurs amongst the clan chiefs. Ntsebo rarely left her cave, people usually were required to go to her. She was the oldest member of the clans, and arguably the most powerful. She was tiny, as though a breath of wind could blow her right off the cliff face, her stark, white hair confined in a braid that hung down her back, her face seamed from her many years. She walked with a cane, and was quick to use it on those who annoyed her.

She was the Mother of the Clans, a position she’d held since the first vision came to her when she was still a child. And she would hold that position until one was born to the clans who could take her place. No one knew how old she was, and there were some who believed she had always been with the clans.

“Clan Mother,” Mohlomi said, bowing his head respectfully. “You honor us with your presence.”

She snorted. “We shall see about that.”

“Have you had a vision, Mother?”

Using her stick to shoo the nearest clan chief aside so she could take his seat, she made herself comfortable before answering. “Is that not my function within the clans, to have visions of warning or guidance?”

“And which is it that you have had,” Mohlomi asked patiently. He was used to her sharp ways and was not offended by her rudeness.

“I do not know. But I have seen a stranger, a woman. She runs, though she has done no wrong. She has come to our world by accident and will surely die here if we do not give her aid. Her death would diminish us all.”

Cameo Verse Form

For such a short little poem, there sure are a lot of rules to the Cameo. This rather interesting form was invented by Alice Maud Spokes. It is written as a single sentence of thirty-five syllables spread out over seven lines. The syllable count is 2-5-8-3-8-7-2.

There is no rhyme to the cameo, but each line should end on a strong word. Line breaks should be naturally occurring, where you would pause in speaking. The poem should be a single thought, so avoid using semicolons.

Schematic:

xx
xxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xx

This actually isn’t as bad as it first looked. In fact, it’s kind of a fun form.


spider,
busy spinning webs,
you think I don’t see you up there
but I do
and I’m about to get my broom
to ruin all your hard work
again.


lazy,
you sleep in the sun
when there are mousies to be found
and hunted,
which is the job of the housecat
and you know it, lazy thing,
not me.

Plotless Fiction – Writersfest Part VI

When I say “plotless,” I am including texts that may have a different or radical way of approaching “plot.” Can imagery, syntax, typography be plot? I guess we’ll find out.
— Stuart Ross

Going back in time, I really admire the experimental fiction of the 1960s and 1970s that B. S. Johnson, Toby McLennan, Donald Barthelme, bpNichol, and Daphne Marlatt were creating, among others. Hell, I still consider Michael Ondaatje’s greatest novel, Coming Through Slaughter, a masterpiece of innovation!
— Stuart Ross

Simply put, for me, innovation in fiction means challenging conventions, expanding boundaries, and confounding expectations.
— Stuart Ross

Day four, workshop one was probably my favorite of all the workshops. But wait, you say. What happened to day three? Well, day three started with a workshop on Travel Writing, which I skipped to go to an author event – Folklore, Fable, and Fantastical Females, a reading and conversation with Paola Ferrante, Emily Urquhart, and Anuja Varghese. It was really good, but not the sort of thing you take notes on.

The second workshop of day three was nothing more than a sales pitch for some very pricy boxed sets. Yes, the workshop was a disappointment, but I did buy three of their product. This was followed by an actual workshop on Spoken Word poetry, which isn’t really my thing, so I skipped it and went shopping.

Anyway, day four, workshop one was Plotless Fiction, facilitated by Stuart Ross. I tell you, you can never go wrong with a workshop run by Stuart Ross.

Writer, editor, and writing teacher Stuart Ross offers a relaxed, supportive workshop that explores the possibilities of fiction beyond the constraints of narrative and the artificiality of plot. In this hands-on session, you will be introduced to writers whose works push against the definitions of the story, and will produce your own short works, using a variety of enjoyable, challenging writing strategies.

Plotless Fiction is also known as Experimental Fiction, or Weird Things You Can Get Published.

When Stuart Ross says plotless, he means literally plotless, as in no plot to it. It’s like making a short story that is actually a list.

Plot in fiction is a series of things that happen in a novel. The trajectory goes up and up and up to the conclusion.

Can there be tension without plot? Yes. You can care about the characters, which creates tension. Perhaps the idea is to create a question for the reader – what will happen to the character.

Throw away the way you normally write. Experiment. The human mind is built to find stories and make connections. They will always try to make connections.

Exercise: write a series of single sentences describing various objects objectively.

A booklet sits on a black tablecloth, its pages fanned from use.
The pastry is braided and dotted with nuts.
The stack of torn pages sits haphazardly beside the more orderly stack of magazines.
The brightness from the window hurts my eyes.

Now write a series of sentences starting with “I” – each one a different person.

I like to walk the streets at night, staying in the shadows.
I am tired.
I hate the falling leaves, the longer nights, and pumpkin spice.
I need to start planning for Christmas.

Now randomly join them together.

The brightness from the window hurts my eyes. I like to walk the streets at night, staying in the shadows. The pastry is braided and dotted with nuts. I am tired. A booklet sits on the black tablecloth, its pages fanned from use. I need to start planning for Christmas. The stack of torn pages sits haphazardly beside the more orderly stack of magazines. I hate the falling leaves, the longer nights, and pumpkin spice.

Your results could be a short story, or a poem. You can put together any two lists of things.

Next we were given a separate page to write on and asked to write ten lines describing chaos. (Note, 10 hand written lines translates to 5 typed lines)

Dark, stormy clouds sweep in from the south. The lake churns, waves crashing along the shore. There’s a smell of ozone in the air as the first thunderous crash of thunder, like a sonic boom, precedes the jagged spears of lightning. Like cameras held by the paparazzi, the flashes come one after another, the thunderous timpani keeping time with the volatile storm.

Then we were asked to write ten more lines describing serenity.

The view out the window is full of serenity. The tranquil water is calm, at rest. The day has barely begun, so enjoy the peacefulness while it lasts, for it won’t last for long. The flags lay limp because there is not yet a breeze to stir them. Even the birds are at rest, anticipating the world waking up. It doesn’t last for long, but dawn giving birth to the new day is amazing.

Then we tore the pages apart, and folded one of the ten lines in half, placing it over top of the other one to create a new set of ten lines. First we have serenity on the left, and chaos on the right.

The view out the clouds sweep in from the tranquil water churns, waves crashing day has barely here’s a smell of ozone peacefulness, first thunderous won’t last for like a sonic boom, because there is jagged spears of lightning. Them Even by the paparazzi anticipating one after another, the doesn’t last for timpani keeping time with birth to the new.

Now we have chaos on the left, and serenity on the right.

Dark, stormy window is full of serenity. South the lake is calm, at rest. The along the shore begun, so enjoy the in the air as while it lasts, for it crash of thunder long. The flags lay limp, precedes the jagged not yet a breeze to stir like cameras held birds are at rest, the flashes come one world waking up. It thunderous timpani long, but dawn giving the volatile storm day is amazing.

Weird, eh?

And finally, we were given a series of newspapers, magazines, and pages, and asked to just pull random lines and string them together. This was actually kind of fun – like a reverse blackout poem, only longer. And it was interesting using different sources for the lines as well – a newspaper for one line, an advertisement for the next.

Opinion
In life, there are minor errors. The reader may perhaps wonder. Our large ensemble offers a diverse repertoire. This group currently meets on the first business Monday of each month. A firestorm of controversy over Exeter’s mishandling of sexual misconduct on the part of faculty members. According to sources, then Congressman DeSantis cultivated Trump’s support. A violent storm of hail forced Joseph to take shelter. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada said its early estimate for August pointed to an increase of 0.1 percent for the month. There is growing evidence that new mothers can help in creating a healthier bottom line. This cycle is an opportunity for corporate leaders to play.

As always, Stuart Ross’s workshop was the highlight of the retreat. The final workshop of the day was to write about food, which necessitated a change in location, but I opted to just go on home instead.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . perseverance. It took a lot of perseverance to make it through last week, I tell you what. And that cold I’ve been fighting was every bit as persistent.

My time at Nottawasaga was chronicled in my Monday blog post, and if you’re curious you can read about it HERE . By Friday night I was feeling queasy from the cold medication I was taking, and it didn’t seem to be helping anyway, so I stopped taking it. I was no better, cold wise, the rest of the weekend, but at least my head was a little more clear.

One big difference between a stitchery retreat and a writing retreat is the alone time. I guess because writers are more solitary creatures, our day starts later, ends earlier, and we have breaks in between workshops. Stitchers, on the other hand, are far more social. And despite the fact it was a more energizing atmosphere than being around most groups, I was pretty much peopled out by the end of the weekend.

NEW WORDS:
2656+1157+411+949=5,173
UP: 475 – words

The fact that I had Sunday’s post written and up on time was due to having most of it written before I left for my stitchery retreat.

Monday’s post was photo dependent, so while long, it was fairly easy to write. And of course for Wedenesday I had a pre-written poetry post. And Friday, all I had to do was find an excerpt from my NaNo. So all in all, I got off pretty easy with the blog posts last week.

Which was a good thing, because as I said before, this cold has been kicking my butt big time. I have been so tired and lethargic this past week it’s not even funny. Between the weather, my cold, and the new diabetic medication I’m on, it was a real effort to do anything, let alone any writing.

Goals For Next Week:
Kick the cold to the curb so I can get some real writing done.

NANOWRIMO:
Day 12 – 492
Day 13 – 1,034
Day 14 – 354
Day 15 – 984
Day 16 – 1541
Day 17 – 2411
Day 18 – 2452
Total for week 3 – 9,268
Total for month – 25,835

Yikes! As you can see, I fell way off the wagon as far as NaNo goes. As of yesterday, I should be at 30,000 words. Sadly, even after I got home from the retreat I had a really hard time generating any words. The NaNo mojo just wasn’t working.

The last couple of days I’ve slowly been catching up, but it’s still a bit of a struggle. And I still need to up the pace if I’m going to finish on time.

But one good thing, I figured out my ending. I gave up the whole murder/self sacrifice bit, and replaced it with an accident. A little less convoluted, but it makes better sense.

My NaNo experience this year, has got me questioning why I keep doing this. While it’s hard to resist getting caught up in the whole NaNo whirlwind, I have to ask myself what I’m getting out of it.

It’s certainly not making me a better writer, just because of the very nature of NaNo – writing quantity, not quality. So while it might make me a faster writer, for a month at least, it’s doing nothing to improve the quality of my writing. And do I really need another unfinished manuscript to add to my pile?

I still plan on finishing this year’s NaNo, or at least try to, but maybe it’s time to let go of that winning streak I’m so proud of. Because honestly, all those unfinished manuscripts are not the mark of a winner.

Goal For Next Week:
Continue to catch up my NaNo.

POETRY:
Once again it was nice to be able to dip into the pre-written poetry form well. And I have two more forms in that well, so that should take me to the end of NaNoWriMo. But that’s not to say I won’t work on more, if I get the chance. It’s kind of nice to have forms ready to go in case of an emergency.

Goal For Next Week:
Think about doing the remaining three example poems.

CRAFTING:
You know, you’d think going away for a whole weekend of stitching I would have got lots of stitching done. But the truth is, our time in the sewing room was a lot like one of our regular stitch-ins. There was a lot of socializing, and only some stitching. LOL

I did get some work done on the kit I’ve been working on, and I finished the third square of my zentangle. And I was blown away by a lot of the work around me. The ladies from the Toronto Guild were so welcoming and friendly . . . and the talent! The sheer quality of the work was mind boggling. And it was comforting to know that many of these projects have been works in progress for years.

Then Tuesday there was a regular meeting of my own stitching guild where I learned to make a Christmas star using folded fabric. It was a lot of fun, but I was still recovering from the weekend so I left right after the class, even though our time wasn’t up. But guess what Monday’s post is going to be about? 😊

Goal For Next Week:
Make more stars; work on kit; work on zentangle.

WHAT I’M READING:
Read another couple of chapters of The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and I’m kind of sad I’m getting close to the end because I’m really enjoying this book.

On the Kindle I finished The Guest is a Goner by Carly Winter, and started The Psychic Cat Mysteries by S.M Reine, which is a cute series of stories from the cat’s point of view.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Yeah, I think that new leaf I was nurturing has crawled back into it’s seed shell, waiting for me to find my focus. I don’t blame it. If there was room, I think I’d join it.

The weather has been absolute crap lately, typical for November, but it hasn’t helped me recover from my weekend away. I need to ignore the weather and start getting back on track this week.

It should be another easy week for posting. Monday’s post is pretty much a done deal. I took pictures as I was making my fabric star, not just to help me remember how to make it, but to chronicle it for the blog.

And Wednesday I’ll be able to use another of my pre-written poetry forms. Nice to have them ready to go. And of course Friday I only have to find a suitable excerpt from my NaNo novel.

Tuesday is the library for stitching, and I haven’t decided whether to take my zentangle to start a new square, or my kit because it’s better fabric to work on.

I didn’t take care of my indoor gardening last week, so it would be nice if I could find the time for it this week. I don’t know why, but my hearts on a string are starting to die. I haven’t changed anything about the way I’m looking after them, so maybe I need to look up what I should be doing differently. I also need to see how big of a pot my money tree can be put in.

But the priority for this week is going to have to be catching up on my NaNo. You’ve seen the numbers, I am seriously behind. I think the most I’ve written in one day during NaNo was 10,000 words. I could really use a day like that this week. 😊

Lot’s of stuff to do, I’m just waiting on the ambition to do it this week.

Forced Landing - NaNo Novel 2nd excerpt

In this scene, Sabella has escaped the bad guys and crashed her ship on a largely unpopulated planet. After grabbing a couple of survival packs, she blows up the ship, hoping the bad guys will think she died in the crash, and then started following a river into the vast unknown.

She spends her first night near a waterfall, and although it would make a great camp site, she’s worried it’s still too close to the crash site in case the bad guys are still looking for her. So she decides to keep going upstream along the river. She’s not able to climb the rocks the water is coming from, so she decides to go around instead.

There was the faintest of trails around the rocks, and she followed as best she could. It sloped uphill, and her calves felt the strain after only a mile or so. She wasn’t used to walking so much, although she did work out at the fitness center on a regular basis.

Suddenly, she stopped. How long had she been walking? Judging by the angle of the path, she should be above the waterfall by now, but there was no sign of the river. How could she have lost an entire river?

Remembering the hand held scanner, she pulled it out and switched it on. Damn and double damn. In her efforts to skirt around the edge of the rocks, she angled away from the river. It would take her hours to get back on track. Her shoulders sagged in disappointment.

A quick check of one of the survival packs showed no water, just empty bottles waiting to be filled. There were several foil packets with colour coding that meant nothing to her. She picked one at random and tore it open. Inside was some kind of grey paste. Making a face, she squeezed some of it into her mouth. It didn’t taste as bad as it looked, and she was sure it was nourishing, but the texture left a lot to be desired. Maybe it was meant to be spread on crackers or bread or something.

Whatever, at least it partially filled the hole inside her. Taking up her packs again – as soon as she found a place for a proper rest, she was going to have to go through the packs and take stock, maybe even reduce them down to a single pack. One last glance at the scanner, and she was ready to start out again in a new direction.

It occurred to her, after an hour or so of walking, that she hadn’t really seen any trace of animal life. There were more plants and trees than she’d ever known existed, but shouldn’t there be animals as well? There were birds, she’d heard a veritable cacophony of chirps and tweets and songs. And a couple of times she’d surprised groups of birds with her presence and they’d taken flight in a colorful flurry of feathers and squawking.

Was the lack of animals a good thing or a bad thing, she couldn’t decide. Maybe they were there, but up in the trees, or hiding in the bushes. Apparently they were more afraid of her than she was of them, although she highly doubted it. The closest she’d come to a live animal was one of the nature vids the service ran on rest days.

What would she do if ran into an animal? Being a trained linguist in no way prepared her for an introduction to wild creatures. Didn’t people use to kill and eat wild animals? And seriously, she could tell herself that there would be fish in the river, but even if she could figure out how to catch one, what was she supposed to do with it?

No, she couldn’t let these undesirable thoughts fill her head. She was beginning to freak herself out. What she needed to do was focus on getting back to the river. She needed fresh water. And if she was lucky, she’d find some fruit or roots or something to eat. If she was really lucky, one of the packs might hold a data cube of edible plants.

The sun was becoming uncomfortably warm, and she was all too aware of the insects that were buzzing around her. So far she hadn’t been bitten, but she figured it was only a matter of time. Finally, after what seemed like hours of walking, she found herself on the bank of the river again. Not that it was going to do her any good.

Sabella stood on the edge, looking down. The land had risen more than she realized. It was several feet down to the water, and no way to get down to it. She supposed, if she was desperate enough, she could just jump, but she couldn’t swim very well, and there was no way to get back up again.

With a sigh, she turned and began to follow along the top of the edge, hoping that either the land would lower again, or the river rise. Her footsteps began to drag a bit. She no longer feared the Tal-Cor men finding her, now she was worried about surviving. But surviving to do what, she hadn’t the faintest idea.

The reality of her situation was beginning to sink in. Yes, she’d escaped the Tal-Cor thugs, at least for now, but now what was she supposed to do? How was she going to survive?

“One day at a time,” she muttered under her breath. “First priority, find a new camping spot, preferably near the water.”

Trichain Verse Form

The Trichain is an invented form, credited to Lisa La Grange of Allpoetry.com. Like many invented forms, information about this one was hard to come by. And a search for the author didn’t help. So here’s what I know.

This form is stanzaic, consisting of three or more quatrains (four line verses). Each quatrain consists of three 8-syllable lines, and one 6-syllable line. It also has a somewhat unique rhyme scheme. The first three lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, but the fourth line has the same rhyme throughout the poem.

Maybe a schematic would help:

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxb

xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxb

xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxb

Is it just me, or does this make it a little tricky? Presumably you can make it as long as long as you wish. The minimum length is three stanzas. There were no suggestions of what to write your Trichain about, so it looks like you can use any subject matter you wish.

While I thought the rhyme scheme was interesting, I find having only six syllables in the last line of each verse a little jarring. Of course that could be because in my first attempt I forgot, using eight syllables instead of six, and I had to totally redo it.


Turning Seasons

One day the trees are brightly green,
the next they’re something in between
and finally they’re gone, unseen
the seasons turning here

The sky is dark, the moon is bright
the air is clear this starry night
with just a hint of winter’s bite
a start of the new year.

In bitter cold, snow turns to ice
thaws and freezes, not once but twice
the snow compacts down so concise
and soon begins to clear.

The snow is gone the rains begin
there’s mud where once the ice has been
a hint of green, still looking thin
branching out, more appear.

The sun is warm, and soon it’s hot
time to relax, devoid of thought
with all the pleasure this turn’s brought
never lasting I fear.

The sun begins to cool again
once more it’s time to reap the grain
the leaves will turn, a glowing chain
as seasons reappear.

On Metafiction – Writersfest Part V

Metafiction says something. It has to do with taking a large fiction itself and writing within it; that kind of self-reflecting writing that emerges from it can be thought of as metafictional.
— Robert Coover

If Realism called it like it saw it, Metafiction simply called it as it saw itself seeing itself see it.
― David Foster Wallace

Why do I covet metafiction so much? Why do I nurture a style that David Foster Wallace purportedly exploded in the late 1980s, that is derided by most literary theorists as passé, that people tend to agree serves no worldly, moral purpose other than to draw attention to the writer’s own navel? Because, dammit, metafiction is relevant to today.
― M.J. Nicholls

Day two, workshop three was On Metafiction, facilitated by Kevin Chong, who is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia. I don’t mind admitting I had no clue what was meant by “metafiction”. But I soon found out

Get ready to subvert convention! While most stories hope to suspend the reader’s disbelief, metafiction actively reminds the reader that they are reading a work of fiction. In this workshop, you will explore examples and discuss techniques such as talking to the reader, alluding to the process of writing the story, writing characters who are aware that they are fictional and more.

This workshop was another one with a slow start due to technical difficulties. But obviously it didn’t hold things up for long because I have lots of notes. A little spotty and often incomprehensible notes, but there were lots of them.

Mr. Chong began by telling us about his fourth novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu, which is shortlisted for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize. The book has Yu telling twelve-year-old Benny’s story, a version of himself growing up in 1980s Chinatown. Then Benny enters the story as a real person.

Jacob Queen defines metafiction as any kind of storytelling where the creator is actively trying to make the audience think about the fact that what they are experiencing is a fictional account. The term was first coined by William H. Gass in 1970.

Why do writers use metafiction? To comment on how stories shape experience. To call attention to the artifice of storytelling. To dramatize the tension of the writer’s life. We exist in two worlds at all times; we live in two realities. Sometimes you’re in both at once, and sometimes you’re in neither place.

Writing Exercise: Write a one page story about two people planning to steal a painting.

“So, what do you think?” Biff had laid the plan out carefully, going over every detail.

“I don’t know, Biff,” Joey said, shaking his head slowly. Of course everything about Joey was a little slow.

“I tell you, it’s easy pickings,” Biff said, taking a swig of the beer he’d brought with him out to the front stoop. “We can be in and out of there before old lady Krantz even knows what’s what.”

“Yeah, but stealing from an old lady?” Joey shook his head again and took a drink from his own beer. “It just ain’t right, man.”

Biff held onto his patience by a slim thread. The job wasn’t possible without Joey. “Wasn’t old lady Krantz the one who ratted you out to your wife about you stepping out with that stripper named Polly?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And your wife done left you.”

“Yeah, she did.”

“And didn’t old lady Krantz tip off Levi Goldman that you were taking extra breaks out on the loading dock?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Joey said, sitting up a little straighter.

“You lost your job over that one.”

“I sure did,” Joey said indignantly. “What’s an old lady like her doing owning a painting worth so much?”

“I don’t know, Joey.”

“I say we should take it from her and sell it. We can split the profit. What do you say, Biff?”

Biff just smiled.

Famous examples of metafiction include the French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles. The narrator becomes part of the story and offers several different ways to end the story. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde creates an alternate 1985, where detective Thursday Next chases a master criminal through the 1847 world of Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre. The movie, Stranger Than Fiction tells the tale of Harold Crick, who suddenly begins to hear an author inside his head, narrating his life. When he discovers that the author always ends her books by killing off the main character, he begins a journey to find her and change her mind.

Other books can be considered metafiction, even if they’re not described as such. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is one. The hero reads too many stories and goes mad on his quest to become a knight. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has a famous epilogue that takes place in the future. Atonement, by Ian McEwan is set in three time periods, and at the end the character reveals she is the author and has changed the ending so it’s happy.

Techniques of metafiction:
One, the author directly comments on the story, addressing the reader.
Two, the author comments on the writing process.
Three, the author interacts with the characters.

Metafiction versus Autofiction

Autofiction is a term used to describe a group of writers who blended fiction with autobiography. Some of these writers include Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner, Rachel Kusk, and Karl Ove Knausgård. Like metafiction, autofiction often uses characters who have the same name as the authors. Autofiction trades more on the distinction between truth and reality. Metafiction is more concerned about the artifice of storytelling. It features more parody and pastiche. Finally, autofiction is rarely ever plotted. It’s almost like an essay.

Writing Exercise (part two): Take your first scene and add a metafiction element to it. You could address the reader, talk about how the story differs from a “real life” account, or discuss the painting.

“So, what do you think?” After laying out all the details, there weren’t anything to think about, as far as I was concerned.

“I don’t know, Biff,” Joey said slowly. God, everything Joey did was slow, even shaking his head at me.

“I tell you Joey, it’s easy pickings.” I took a swig of my beer to keep from smacking him upside the head. We was alone out here on the stoop.

“Yeah, but stealing from an old lady?” Joey took a drink from his own beer. “It just ain’t right.”

Man, if I didn’t need him to disarm the alarm system, I wouldn’t be wasting my time with him, you know what I mean?

“Wasn’t it old lady Krantz who ratted you out to your wife when you was stepping out with that stripper?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

You can’t let guys like Joey think too much, and I’m on a roll. “And wasn’t it old lady Krantz who tipped off Levi Goldman that you was taking extra smoke breaks out on the loading dock?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So she ruined your marriage and got you fired. So what do you owe her?”

“Yeah, what do I owe that old bat.”

Finally, I got a fire lit under him. You see the smoke?

“I’ll do it!” Joey said.

I just smiled. I knew he’d cave. What about you?

Is metafiction right for you? It works for you if you want to comment on story telling or you want an immersive story. It won’t work if you want a straight forward story. But give it a try – you never know . . .

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . struggle. I was having sinus problems, which I figured was allergies, but it morphed into a sinus cold. A really, really bad sinus cold. So I spent most of my week popping sinus medication, which tends to cloud my already befuddled brain.

The weather is still pretty crappy, which I guess is really just typical for November. We’ve had a couple of hints of sun, but mostly it was grey and murky, sometimes windy. Wednesday night we had freezing rain but there was no sign of it by Thursday morning.

The cats have been weirdly affectionate lately, and it makes me wonder what’s up. I mean, they were cuddly as kittens, then kind of grew out of it, and now they’re starting to be more cuddly again. Dinsdale never gave up curling up with people (when he was in the mood) but now Khaos has been snuggling up with me when I’m in my recliner, and one night after I went to bed she curled up on my chest! None of the cats I’ve ever had has ever done that before.

NaNo has also been a bit of a struggle, but I started falling off the wagon when I came to the Nottawasaga stitchery retreat. Unlike the writing retreats, this one starts early, runs later in the day, and although we’re not chained to our stitching by any means, there’s not a lot of alone time for writing.

NEW WORDS:
2605+689+347+1057=4698 DOWN: 482 – words

Like the weather and my mood, the words have been pretty up and down lately. One week I seem to be up, the next I’ll be down. A little consistency might be nice.

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs

NANOWRIMO:
Day 5 – 1699
Day 6 – 1572
Day 7 – 1276
Day 8 – 2272
Day 9 – 628
Day 10 – 1488
Day 11 – 876
Total for week 2 – 9,811
Total for month – 16,567

I hate to admit it, but I’m still not all that keen on the story I’m working on. And I also hate to admit that it would be a lot easier to work on if I had some kind of outline. And as you can see, going on a stitching retreat in the middle of NaNo did not help my word count.

I’m also beginning to have my doubts if this story will go the distance. The beginning is more detailed than the original idea, and it’s set up nicely for the ending I envisioned. However, I’m beginning to see a few problems with the ending, such as there’s really no motivation for anyone to come back to this planet to “discover” the missing (and presumed dead) main character.

And how am I supposed to fit in the murder he’s supposed to have committed? AND the female main character is the key witness to what really happened, but she was shot and unconscious at the time. *sigh* I see many plot holes to be filled in my future.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep making the daily quota; catch up ASAP.

POETRY:
It was really helpful, having new poetry forms ready to go. All I had to do was schedule one of them to appear at the designated time on Wednesday. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. :-)

I think even after NaNo I’ll try to have a form or two ready for emergencies, like if I get called away for something and run out of time, or (like this week) I’m feeling like crap.

Goal For Next Week:
Think about doing the remaining three example poems.

CRAFTING:
Having nothing better to blog about, I really wanted to do a blog post on my woven fabric basket. But that meant I had to finish it first. So that’s how I spent my Sunday, taking pictures as I worked on it. The final picture on the post showed it woven together, but with pins still in it at the top.

Tuesday morning I finished the hand stitching around the top of my basket before going to the library for some more stitching. Everyone was suitably impressed.

Despite knowing I wouldn’t have my zentangle finished in time to make a tote bag out of it, I did do a bit more work on it as well. If I keep plugging away at it, I’ll have it ready in time for the next retreat.

Friday morning I loaded up the car, drove across town to pick up one of my guild sisters, and we hit the road for the Nottawasaga Resort for a stitchery retreat. You can read the full story on my Monday post (on my other blog).

Goal For Next Week:
Sew the brown bag; work on zentangle.

WHAT I’M READING:
I kind of stalled reading The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and the reason for this is because I was enjoying it so much that I didn’t want to take the chance of binge reading it. LOL

On the Kindle I finished Dead Even, by Patti Larson, and started The Guest is a Goner by Carly Winter.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Honestly, that new leaf of mine is probably struggling as much as I am. This cold is kicking my butt big time. But, like that new leaf, I’m hanging in there.

The fact that I didn’t spend as much time in the office as I might have liked had more to do with my recliner being more comfortable than anything else. Plus the recliner was handy if I felt a nap coming on because of the cold medication I was taking.

As much as it’s fun to get away, it’s always nice to get back home again and get back into my routines. You know, as soon as I’m able to kick this darn cold to the curb and establish my routines again.

Seeing as it’s NaNo season, I’ll probably go with one of the new poetry forms I have in my “to be used” folder. That’s what I did them for, after all. Although I’d still like to work on the example poems to go with the other forms as well.

There’s a regular meeting of the stitchery guild on Tuesday, and this time we’re being offered the choice of a class making small Christmas trees out of fabric yo-yos, or folded fabric stars. I opted for the stars.

One of the things I absolutely have to do this week is tear my office apart to look for my idea notebook. This is a large, top wire bound notebook (think oversized steno pad) that I wrote down long ideas and notes on several of my unfinished books. And I cannot find it. It’s got to be in the office somewhere, I just have to find it.

Something non-writing that needs to go on the list this week is indoor gardening. I need to get rid of three dead plants – or is it four? And rearrange the plants on top of the tall bookcase in my office. I also need to pot the coleus clippings I took from my garden. I’m impressed with how quickly they rooted. And there are a couple of plants that need to be repotted.

And, of course, I need to catch up on my NaNo. At the writing of this (late Saturday night) I’m behind by almost 2000 words. *sigh*

So, lots to do this week. Let’s just hope I find the ambition to do it all.

Forced Landing - NaNo Novel 1st excerpt

Seriously, I have got to find a better title for this thing. Even as a working title it’s bad. But I had to use something on the cover.

This excerpt is from the beginning and doesn’t really need much explaining. Bear in mind that it’s in draft form. And no, I couldn’t come up with a better name for the agent than XYZ.

They were persistent, she’d give them that much. Sabella cursed as a blip showed up behind her on the scan. She rubbed the grit out of her eyes and fought back exhaustion. If she didn’t get some proper sleep soon, she was afraid she was going to pass out, and then it would be game over. She thought she’d lost them in the nebula two days back, but she’d no sooner shut her eyes then the alarm from the scanner sounded.

A little over a week ago she’d been contemplating a change of career. Her work as a linguistics specialist provided enough credits to pay for a small apartment of her own and a few luxuries, but working for the Talarian Corporation wasn’t what she thought it would be. And when the rumors of their shady dealings started to surface, she started looking for a position somewhere else.

In fact, she’d been approached by an agent for the Federated Security Alliance to help them, undercover of course, to investigate some of the company’s dealings. While he was adamant that she not take any unnecessary risk, they were getting desperate for inside information. All she needed to do was keep her ears open.

It seemed simple enough, when he laid it out for her, and she readily agreed. To be honest, her job was a little monotonous and her skills were underutilized. And it bothered her, the rumors about some of the shadier dealings, the arms dealing to smugglers and the trafficking in human and alien slaves.

So she kept her ears open as she went about her work, and paid close attention to who was coming and going in the offices of the supervisors. Then four days ago she had been in the break room when she’d been close enough to a table full of executives discussing details of a shipment of hominids. They were speaking in Frezian, an uncommon dialect but one she was trained in. She’d edged as close as she could to them, but one of them grew suspicious and spoke to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“You are a linguist, are you not?” the man asked, voice heavily accented.

“Yes, I specialize in Cretian and Zenarii. What language were you speaking, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before,” she said, striving to show an innocent curiosity.

It must have worked, because the man muttered something under his breath and then turned away. She worked to the end of her shift, conscious the whole time of being under scrutiny and trying not to react to it. But she breathed a sigh of relief when her shift was done and she was able to leave, chatting and laughing with several of her co-workers as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

The moment she was safely in her apartment she activated the null field and then contacted the agent on the secure communicator he’d supplied her with.

“You’re sure of the day and time,” he’d asked her.

“I have an eidetic memory,” she told him. “I remember exactly what they said.”

“Good work. If we can get our people in place, we might be able to take the entire network down. But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you sure they didn’t know you understood Frezian?”

“I’m pretty sure,” she said, not sure at all. “They’d have to do a deep dive into my records to find out the truth. I’m pretty sure it was one of the languages I listed on my resume.” She was starting to get a little nervous.

“But they don’t know who you are to do that, right?”

“Well . . .” she hesitated. “We’re required to wear our ID badges. If he caught a glimpse of the one I was wearing he might have caught my employee number.”

The agent swore. “I think just to be on the safe side, I think this would be a good time to take a vacation.”

“A vacation? Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But better to be safe than sorry. I can arrange for you to go to a safe place. If something goes wrong, we’ll need you to testify. How soon can you be ready to go?”

Now she was seriously getting nervous. “I’ve got plenty of vacation time accrued, but won’t it look suspicious if I take it now?”

“Pretend you have a family emergency,” he directed. “I’ll meet you at the spaceport in 90 minutes. South entrance, bay two.”

“You’re starting to scare me, Agent XYZ,” she said.

“I’m sorry, but what you’ve stumbled on is bigger than I expected. I’ll get the take-down in motion and meet you at the space port.”

“South entrance, bay two,” she repeated.

She’d sent a message to her supervisor at work, telling her that she had a family emergency and would need to use some of her vacation time. Her supervisor messaged her back telling her to take as much time as she needed, things were slow at work right now anyway. Then she threw a few necessities – toiletries, a couple of changes of clothes – into a shoulder bag and headed to the spaceport.

The space port was always busy, day or night. As she passed through the south entrance and headed towards bay two, she couldn’t help but feel like she was being followed. She looked around furtively, but couldn’t see anyone, but the sensation of being watched didn’t abate.

The bays usually held six ships, but bay two only had one. As she approached she realized there was something lying at the base of the ramp leading to it. Something that resolved itself into Agent XYZ. She knelt beside him with a gasp.

He reached up with one bloody hand, and pressed a security disc into her hand. “Take the ship,” he gasped. “Run!”

Tigerjade Verse Form

It’s always a bit disappointing when I find a new form but find very little information about it except for the basics. A search for the creator, Jacqueline Sturge, mostly just brought up links to examples of her poem, although one link was for a poetry book she’s included in: Poetry Styles, Book 8, by Alliance Poets.

So I don’t know why this form is called a Tigerjade, but I thought it was kind of a cool name. It’s written in as many octaves (eight-line stanzas) as you wish, and has a strict syllable count (3-3-12-12-12-12-3-3) and it rhymes in couplets.

Schematic:

xxa
xxa
xxxxxxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxxxxxc
xxd
xxd

xxe
xxe
xxxxxxxxxxxf
xxxxxxxxxxxf
xxxxxxxxxxxg
xxxxxxxxxxxg
xxh
xxh

. . . and so on for however many verses you wish to make.

And that’s all the information I could find about it. A search of the name itself came up with the Tiger Jade Capital investment company, and the crassula picturata, a rather cool looking succulent better known as tiger jade.

I would imagine you can write your Tigerjade on any subject you wish, and if you want to have a little fun with it, you could center it on the page. To be honest, I didn’t like the three syllable lines any more than I did the twelve syllable ones. Three was too few, twelve was too many. But I did like that it was written in couplets.


I see stars
maybe Mars
when I look up into the brilliant night sky
we seem to be alone here and I wonder why
the universe is so large and we are so small
is there no one out there who will answer our call?
So alone
on our own

We send probes
to other globes
in hopes of finding otherworldly life somewhere
some other species with new ideas to share
and if they are willing to travel all this way
we hope they will listen to what we have to say
peace for all
man’s sangraal.

Making Word Art – Writersfest Part IV

Good cover design is not only about beauty... it’s a visual sales pitch. It’s your first contact with a potential reader. Your cover only has around 3 seconds to catch a browsing reader’s attention. You want to stand out and make them pause and consider, and read the synopsis.
― Eeva Lancaster

Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That’s what covers are for.
― Larry Correia

I always think that it's wrong to put images of my protagonists on the cover of my novels because readers can identify with characters only if they are given the chance to imagine them independently.
― Orhan Pamuk

Back to the Writersfest reports this week. 😊

Day two, workshop two was Making Word Art, facilitated by Oliver McPartin.

Are you an artist wondering how to get into book design? Are you a writer wondering how book covers are made, and who gets a say? Want to develop your own unique typography to make your work unique? Graphic designer, illustrator and artist Oliver McPartlin offers an insight into the book jacket and typography design business.

This was another more seminar than workshop, so all we could do was sit there and take notes. And I gotta be honest here, my note-taking leaves much to be desired. But we weren’t allowed to record the workshops, so now I’m stuck trying to figure out what I’m talking about. LOL

There were a few technical glitches in the beginning. Mr. McPartlin’s presentation depended on being able to run a slide show from his laptop, and no one seemed to know how to get the interface between the laptop and the projector to work. We were finally saved by one of the maintenance men who doubled as the hotel’s IT guy.

When considering cover art, you must first consider what type of book you’re working with – who the audience is, who’s going to be buying the book. You’ll need to look at the demographics, genre, comparison titles, and do an evaluation pitch for the book to come up with an author kit.

Clichés and tropes are useful to let readers know what to expect. However, people on the cover will lead to that person sticking in the reader’s mind. This is why many books only show part of the face on their cover. Some trends serve a purpose. Big type is easy to read in Amazon thumbnails. But some design trends are just trends. The end goal is to sell more books.

Who gets a say in book covers? The author, publisher, marketing department, designer, retailer, distributer . . . all input is welcome. New authors tend to be more picky about their covers. Seasoned authors tend to be more easy going.

You need to learn the language. Authors and non-designers often know when something is wrong, but not how to fix it. Take direction with a grain of salt but try to meet them halfway. Don’t get attached to your first idea – pick your battles! Showing some flexibility on an inconsequential decision might lead to more important things.

Timelines are usually a season ahead for promotional purposes. The front cover is done well in advance of the back. Things can change along the way, like last minute title changes.

The number of versions needed varies. Short story collections are the most difficult and have the most versions. You can present a bunch of concepts, but not a bunch of variations on one concept. The Carson Method (named for David Carson) is to make fifty versions and tell them to pick.

The creative process is the fun part. Read the book only as much as you need to so you can skim for imagery. Iconography is important and useful. The trick is to use it in an interesting way. Look for the book’s internal iconography, an image that jumps out at you. Make sure the image fits the content.

Draw on visual elements from the text, even if no one will ever catch it. Reflect themes using existing symbols – green for jealousy, a dove for peace, pomegranate for knowledge, a rose for love, a dying rose for death/dying/murder.

Strive for quality. Take a step back and ask yourself if it looks good or not. If not, keep going. Taste is part of the process and is cultivated by practice. Pay attention to signage, fonts, photos, and ads. Spend time in bookstores looking at covers.

Know the elements of your own style so you know what to fall back on and to keep from overusing certain ideas. Follow designers on social media. Keep a stack of design books. Stay up on font trends – what’s overused, underused, esthetically pleasing, current.

Keep a list of techniques you want to try. Spend time with your software.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . roller coaster. It may seem like a kind of strange word, but it’s fitting for the way my week was, including the weather.

When I was slacking off, I really slacked off – reading, playing games, napping – but when I mustered the energy to get doing stuff, I really went to town. So it was a pretty up and down week.

Weather-wise we seem to have had it all – wind, clouds, sun (a tiny bit), rain, snow . . . it was pretty up and down. My mood, however, pretty much stayed down. I don’t know if it had something to do with a change in my medication, or it was just me. I’m kind of hoping it was the medication, because that would make it temporary. If it’s just me, then who knows how long this mood will last?

It rained/snowed on Halloween, but that didn’t stop the 25 kids that came to our door. I was smart this year and made up bags to give out – 30 of them – and then got small bags of chips to go with them. So there’s not a whole lot of leftovers, as there was in previous years.

I was off to a slow start with NaNo. I kinda knew which idea I was going to go with, but I wanted to hedge my bets, so I was going to consult this oversized notepad I like to write longer ideas down in, only I couldn’t find it. I have no idea where it could be – I’ve gone through pretty much everything in my office, including the storage closet, but it seems to have vanished. Just like my little password book did.

And speaking of passwords . . . I did a factory reset on my Galaxy Tab E tablet (that I rarely use) and passed it on to the daughter so she could set it up for the granddaughter. Well, I’m not exactly sure why, but when I went to check my email Friday night, it wanted me to verify I was who I said I was, and to do so I had to sign into my email. The problem was, I had no clue what my password was because it was in the little password book I lost.

The next option for verification it gave me was to send a code to the Tab E, which I don’t have anymore. The third option was to send a code to my Hotmail account, which I haven’t checked in I-don’t-know-how long, and which took several tries before I got the password right. *sigh*

I did eventually get everything all straightened out, but it would have never happened if Staples hadn’t taken it upon themselves to sync my devices when I had my laptop in for a virus scan.

NEW WORDS:
2250+509+1197+1224=5,180
UP: 563 – words

Guess I had more to say than I thought last week. And the blog posts were all up early, too. I gotta tell you, it was a nice feeling to be able to relax at night instead of scrambling to get a post finished.

It made it easier to turn my attention to other things too, to read or stitch without feeling guilty. I hope this is something I can keep up in the weeks to come.

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs

NANOWRIMO:
Day 1 – 1730
Day 2 – 1651
Day 3 – 1651
Day 4 – 1724
Total for week 1 – 6,756
Total for month – 6,756

I will admit that I got off to a very slow start with NaNo this year. In fact, I was pretty lethargic about it, even on November 1. I had pretty much decided on the idea I was going to go with, but despite it’s potential, I was still pretty meh about the whole thing.

Late Wednesday afternoon I finally spent an hour searching for a name for my main character, and this was followed by working on a mock up of a cover for it so I could make my official announcement on the NaNo site.

And I will tell you for true, I hate the title and as soon as I can come up with something better I will be changing it. But so far I don’t know enough about the story to do so. It’s revealing itself slowly to me. I’m making my daily quota, but just barely. And it’s been mostly later in the day when I’m writing.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep making the daily quota; maybe try to get my words in earlier in the day.

POETRY:
Despite the fact that I had a form all ready to go, in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to go with a classic poem. I posted The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, and included a video of Vincent Price reading it.

One of my goals before NaNo started was to have a couple of forms done, or close to being done, just to have ready to use in case I needed to focus on the words for NaNo. Well, I did the example for one of the poems that I’d researched and distilled the information for, and then researched and distilled the information for another form and before I knew what I was doing, I did an example for it too!

So that makes a total of four forms ready for posting, and three that just need an example. But I gotta tell you, one of those forms is going to be more challenging than one of the coded Welsh forms!

Goal For Next Week:
Take my time getting the remaining examples written.

CRAFTING:
This week it was back to the library for stitching, where admittedly we all got more talking than stitching done. Everyone was impressed that I wore my witch’s costume.

One of the ladies brought her woven basket to work on – she was down to just having to hand sew the strips at the top down. I would like to feature mine on my Monday post, which means I’ll need to unweave it so it’s flat and take pictures. I wish I’d thought to take pictures from the beginning though.

We talked a bit about the upcoming stitching retreat – 5 of the 7 of us who were at the library were going – and settled on our car pooling. Then I’d no sooner got home than one of the driving forces behind the retreats phoned me and talked me into signing up for one in March, too. LOL

I’ve given up on finishing my zentangle sampler, but I think I’ll take it with me to the retreat (which is next weekend!) to work on. Meanwhile, I have another bag I’d started years ago. The embroidery is finished, it just needs to be sewn together.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish my basket, sew together brown bag.

WHAT I’M READING:
I’m a little over halfway through The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and I’m finding it fascinating.

On the Kindle I finished Pawsitively Poisonous, by Melissa Erin Jackson. And I’m working on Dead Even, by Patti Larson now. BUT I updated my Goodreads, and I’m showing as having read 66/50 books read for the year. Guess I’ll need a bigger goal for next year, eh?

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Well, I’d have to say that new leaf of mine is beginning to grow. Maybe not in the direction I was expecting, but it’s starting to push through.

This despite the fact that I didn’t spend as much time in my office as I would have liked, but that’s not entirely my fault. I don’t know what’s gotten into the cats lately, but they’ve been super cuddly. Khaos spent an entire day snuggled up to me in the recliner. Even after I had to gently move her so I could have a lunch/bathroom break, she was right back with me when I sat down again. Incidentally, this was the day I got all that poetry done. Maybe she’s my poetry mews?

Tuesday should prove interesting. My car needs to go in for servicing and to get the tires switched over to the winter ones. The hubby needs his car to drive his father to a medical appointment in Oshawa. There is a stitch-in at the library. Looks like I’m walking. 😊

With four poetry forms ready to go, I don’t feel the need to knock myself out writing poetry this week. Maybe I’ll start working on the hard one. After all, I’ll have four weeks before it’s needed.

I’ll finally be in a place to post an excerpt from this year’s NaNo for Fiction Friday this week. Hopefully it’ll be a decent one, although I have to say I’m not impressed with what I’m writing so far. Don’t get me wrong, with a little planning I think this story could be a winner, I just don’t have time for planning right now.

Like I said above, I’d like to get that brown, embroidered bag finished in time to take to the retreat with me, but I’ve been putting it off for twenty years now. Do I really think I’ll do it now? *shrug* Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Friday I’ll be off to the Nottawasaga Inn (pretty much in the middle of nowhere) with my guild sisters. It should be a fun time. We have to drive right by this big outlet mall on the way, and there are already plans to stop and shop – no rush to get there, right? LOL

Time for some more lists, to keep me organized. And to remind myself of what all I have to do before I leave, and all of the things I want to take with me. You know, like my lap top, so I don’t fall behind on NaNo.

Three days away from home in the middle of NaNo. Good lord, what was I thinking?

Second NaNo Excerpt

I’m still blindly trying to find my way with this year’s NaNo story, so I decided to post another excerpt from a previous NaNo.

This one was from 2017, and it’s actually the sequel to Driving Into Forever (the one I posted last week), called Lost and Found. This time, however, I reached the 50,000 word goal (actually, the final word count was 53,000+ words).

In this story, Sara (the best friend of main character Hannah from DIF) is worried when she can’t get a hold of her friend, and decides to drive out to her place to make sure she’s all right. She also ends up driving through the same interdimensional fog, and ends up crashing into a person.

The fog began to thicken as Sara turned off the highway onto the road that wound through the woods to the causeway. Unlike Hannah, she’d never liked being out in the fog, it creeped her out. But it was definitely at times like this she appreciated her Cadillac El Dorado. It may be a gas guzzler but it would stand up to anything the fog could throw at her.

She could barely see the road but she kept to a steady pace, you never knew what might be lurking if you stopped in the fog. Every horror movie Sara had ever seen flashed through her mind. The road was usually in good repair but it had been a hard winter and it felt like the pavement was being held together with potholes.

There was no worry that she strayed off the road, she’d been down it often enough she could probably navigate it blind-folded, which is what it felt like now. But it led pretty much straight to the causeway, which lead straight to the island Hannah lived on, and there were trees bordering the sides, not that she could see much of them either.

It was probably just an illusion because of the fog, but the road seemed to go on forever. Shouldn’t she be on the causeway by now? A dark shape loomed up suddenly in front of her.

“Holy crap!” Sara slammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The big car jerked to a halt and she sat there, clutching the steering wheel and gasping.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”

Did she hit whatever, or whoever that was? She should go check. Really she should. Just as soon as she could make herself let go of the steering wheel. They might be hurt. It might even have been Hannah. That ratty old Jeep she drove might have broken down and she could have been walking along the road, on her way home.

That thought was enough to make her release her death grip on the steering wheel and scramble out of the car. The fog swirled and eddied around her. It was so thick she could barely see and she kept one hand on the car until she reached the front bumper. It was disconcerting not to be able to see the road under her feet. She shuffled forward slowly, hands out in front of her to ward off anything she might run into.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

She’d always thought fog was supposed to amplify sound, this fog was so thick it seemed to muffle it.

“Are you alright? Hannah, is that you?”

Was that the sound of someone in pain she heard over there? Sara followed the sound, not sure if she was on the road or not. Her foot struck something soft; this time there was definitely a groan.

“Oh jeez!”

She hunkered down and found the form on the ground more by touch than by sight. “Oh my God, are you okay?” Frantically she ran her hands over the body, trying to determine if there were any serious injuries.

“I am so sorry! You just appeared out of nowhere. I know I was probably going a little too fast, you know, considering the fog and all, but oh my God what are you doing out here in the middle of the road anyway? Didn’t you have enough sense to move out of the way when you heard my car coming?” She was babbling and she knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.

The body started to rise under her questing hands.

“Are you sure you ought to do that? Maybe you should just stay put until we’re sure you’re alright. Is there someone I could call for you?” She patted her pockets. “Oh, damn! I must have left my cell phone at home. Do you have one with you?”

She was on the verge of checking his pockets for a phone when a thought struck her. “I don’t know if the 911 service would risk sending an ambulance out here or not. It’s probably not such a good idea to have someone else risk coming out in this fog, unless you feel you need one?”

This last was phrased more like a question and she paused for a breath, waiting for a reply. When there was none, she shrugged.

“Oh well, it shouldn’t be too far to my friend Hannah’s house. We can use her phone.” She helped him as he started to rise. “Wow, you are a tall one, aren’t you? Let me help you to my car.”

So far her victim hadn’t said a word. Sara couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. All she could tell was that he was a man, a tall man, and he felt pretty solidly built under her helping hands. He moved slowly, carefully, with her towards the car. Or least towards where she thought the car should be.

After a few minutes she halted them. Sara bit her lower lip and glanced around. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think we missed the car in this fog.”

The man mumbled something.

“What did you say?”

“Not fog, Myste.” His voice was strained.

“Well, whatever you want to call it, it’s as thick as pea soup. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a fog this thick in all my life.”

“Got to keep moving,” the nameless man told her. She had to strain to hear him. “Not safe.”

“Not safe? Well, yeah, obviously since you got hit and all, but it can’t be far to my friend Hannah’s house.” She carefully turned them around.

“Not there.”

“What’s not there?” Sara asked absently. She tried to concentrate on where they were going. They couldn’t have strayed off the road, could they?

“Hannah,” he said with a great deal of effort. “Not there, she’s with Kelvin.”

“Kelvin?” Sara stopped and turned to him. “Who’s Kelvin? You’re a friend of Hannah’s?” She peered closer at him but his features were still indistinct. “Who are you?”

“Nathan,” he answered.

She sighed in frustration. “Okay Nathan. Save your strength. We can talk once we’re out of this damned fog.”

He didn’t answer and she got the feeling it was taking all of his concentration just to stay upright. The bad feeling she’d been having was starting to grow in proportion to the thickness of the fog. There was something unnatural about this fog, it was giving her a real bad case of the heebie-jeebies. Worse than fog usually did.