What Barnum Said. Or Maybe He Didn't ...

The old saying, "There's a sucker born every minute" has for a long time been attributed to P. T. Barnum. I actually thought it was W. C. Fields, or maybe it was W. C. Fields in the role of P. T. Barnum, but it turns out I was wrong too. The line was actually delivered by David Hannum, a rival of Barnum's. He tried to scam the public with a fake archeological artifact, only to be upstaged by Barnum, which prompted the famous line.

Now, what this has to do with me is this: I'd been chatting with a friend of mine and she suggested I should start submitting my poetry because there are all kinds of markets out there and I have rather a lot of poetry. So I was looking through some of the many sites I have bookmarked and one of them was having a contest for a poetry form called the Etheree. This just happens to be a form I've never tried before, but I figured what have I got to lose? And who knows, I might even become $100.00 richer for it.

Only you have to join their community to access their contests. So for the sake of the contest I did. And then once I signed my life away I discovered that I had to upgrade to a paid membership before I could enter their contest. Which I didn't. I guess I'm not that big a sucker after all.

But still, it wasn't a totally bad experience. I discovered a new poetry form and I wrote my first poem of the new year. :-)

The Etheree poetry form is a great form for beginners or people who don't like to rhyme. The basic form is ten lines long. The first line is one syllable, the second line is two syllables, and so forth until the tenth line of ten syllables. Once you get the hang of it you also try doing it in reverse, going from ten syllables to one, or get all fancy and do the first verse going one to ten, and a second verse going from ten back down to one. You could actually have a lot of fun with it.

Ice
blankets
the trees and
grass, creating
a winter landscape
that glistens in the sun.
Listen, do you hear the chimes
from the sinuous breeze winding
its way between shards of crystal?
Winter has never sounded so lovely.

A faint but steady dripping sound instead
of crystal chimes is heard as winter
with great reluctance bows before
the advancement of the sun -
like it or like it not,
spring is on its way
and cannot be
halted for
any
one.

Write On!

So last week, on my other blog, I made some sort of rash promise that I'd start blogging more often. Specifically, that I'd blog here try to blog here once at least once a week. Obviously I'm not off to a great start, but in my defense, I was still recovering from my life de-railment courtesy of the holidays. You can read about it HERE.

Anyway, I'm finally getting back on track - a whole new track, but a track nonetheless - and this morning I was looking for something to read online while I ate my oatmeal (breakfast of champions when it's snowing outside) and I started going through my bookmarks on my laptop.

I have this bad habit of seeing something interesting and then just bookmarking it for later instead of reading it as I see it, which leads to a plethora of bookmarks. I try to have at least a semblance of order to them, so I save them to folders with names like Recipes, Crafts, Cool Stuff, Useful Stuff, Interesting Stuff ... In the Miscellaneous folder, which is a sub-folder to the Writing folder, I found a fun little link that analyzes your writing to see who you write like. Naturally, I had to try it out.

I write like
Rudyard Kipling

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

I have to confess though, the first passage I tried it told me I write like Stephanie Meyers. Really?? Good thing I was still editing that piece. Although I wouldn't mind her kind of popularity. Of course I'd take the longevity of Rudyard Kipling over the popularity of Stephanie Meyers any day.

So then I tried it a third time and got this:

I write like
Oscar Wilde

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

If you haven't tried it yourself, give it a try. And let me know who you write like. I'll even make it easy for you. Here's the link HERE

A Purrfectly Dumb Idea

Even though my granddaughter is a month shy of her first birthday, she's really into books. On the one hand, this makes me very proud. But on the other hand, she'll pick one or two favourites and I get to read them over and over and over and over. I've got the book, You're Purrfect to Me, by Sandra Magsamen, memorized. It has cat ears. :-D

Well ... rats. I was trying to insert a picture of the book here, but Blogger's being a jerk today.

Here's a link to the book itself: You're Purrfect to Me. If you're around a toddler at all, I highly recommend it. My granddaughter especially loves it when I roll the r's in purrfect. ;-)

Taking a look at some of these board books you'd think there'd be nothing to writing them, but you'd be wrong. Don't believe me? Give it a shot. Seriously!

About this time last year, a friend and I went to a Christmas bazaar where I found this cute little Christmas ornament that looked like a hedgehog. And then I got a brilliant idea - wouldn't it be neat to buy a different ornament each year and write a story about it to give to my (as yet unborn) grandchild? I'm a writer, after all. How hard could it be?

Plenty hard, as it turns out.

I've got this hedgehog, and it looks like a girl hedgehog because she's dressed kind of matronly and in Christmas fabric. Obviously, I need a Christmas themed story, but other than that I'm drawing a blank. Normally I write science fiction, fantasy, and romance - I'm a little out of my depth here.

She needs a name. She needs a purpose. She needs to do something other than sit there collecting dust on my shelf.

Wish me luck.

A Poem For Remembrance Day

Here in Canada, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is the time and date set aside for to honour those who have fallen in armed conflicts, chosen because that was when hostilities ceased during World War I. I think there are very few families whose lives have not been touched by the loss of a grandparent, parent, child, or some other relative who has served their country. There have been so many conflicts since World War I, and so many losses.

Despite the fact this year marks the 100th anniversary of the iconic Remembrance Day poem, In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae, I felt the urge to write my own poem of remembrance and I'd like to share it with you here.


Always

I remember my grandfather.
He liked to draw
and when I was very small
he taught me the proper way
to draw a pine tree.
He served
with the St. John's Ambulance
as a driver
in World War I and II.
I will never forget.

I remember my uncle.
He like to read
Louis L'Amour
and to work with
anything mechanical.
He served
as a tail gunner
in a British Lancaster
in World War II before
he became a POW.
I will never forget.

I remember my father.
He liked to work with his hands;
he loved power boats
and used to take me fishing
when I was a child.
He served
with the Canadian Armed Forces
as a Peace Keeper
in Egypt and Korea.
I will never forget.

I remember my brother-in-law.
He had a ready smile
and loved to play pranks.
He carved wood and leather;
he was an amazing artist.
He served
with the American Armed Forces
and fought in Korea.
I will never forget.

These men are my family.
I do not need
a single day
to remember them.
I will remember them
each and every day.
Always.

It's NaNoing Time!

Yes, it's that time of year again, when thousands (if not tens of thousands) of authors are seduced by the sweet, sweet lure of NaNoWriMo. That's National Novel Writing Month to those of you who are new, or live under a rock or something. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November. You can click on the above link for more details.

It's both exhilarating and terrifying.

When I first heard about this intriguing event called National Novel Writing Month, or as most people now call it, NaNo, I was a hard core dabbler in writing. I'd dabble in this, and dabble in that, write out character sketches and summaries, and dream of becoming a famous author.

NaNo is all about getting the story written. You can do as much prep work as you like, but come November 1st you need to buckle down and get to work. Sounded like fun to me! So I talked a writerly friend of mine into signing up too (it's always more fun with a buddy) and away we went. Pretty much the only things I remember from that first year was that I was working full time, gummi bears were my snack of choice, and coffee is my friend. :-)

I did not complete the challenge that first year. I made it to 33,000 words and ran out of story. However, I was far from disappointed. For one thing, I had a great time and met some really interesting people online. And for another, I genuinely liked the story I'd written. But the most important thing was, I finished it. I'd never finished a story before. And let me tell you, it was an awesome feeling.

Of course the story itself was one hot mess. This was before I realized that I was a pantser, not a plotter. But that's a post for another time. ;-)

Ironically, the friend I bullied browbeat coaxed to participate with me won the challenge with words to spare.

I didn't do NaNo the next year, but the year after that I did, and completed the challenge with words to spare. It was an awesome feeling. I wasn't going to do it the following year, but on November 1 a name popped into my head: Treasure Beaumont. And I was off and running with the longest novel I'd written to date. The following year I was one week and 10,000 words into the story when I realized this was not a book to be written quickly. For one thing, it required a lot of research. So I tabled it and started a brand new novel. And reached my 50,000 by the end of the month.

I have completed the NaNo challenge eight times, but have yet to complete one of my NaNo novels. See, with NaNo it's like that scene in Cannonball Run where the guy rips off his rear view mirrow and says, "What's behind me doesn't matter." NaNo is all about the words - good, bad, or indifferent. Just get that 50K done no matter what. You need to write 1667 words per day to complete the challenge so there's no dilly dallying to pick the right word, just put in whatever word works and fix it in January (because you'll be too exhausted in December).

This has left me with eight, count 'em, EIGHT incomplete novels. While it's true most of them have their finale where everything is nicely wrapped up with a bow, there are gaps and plot holes where I couldn't take the time to figure out what happened next so I just skipped ahead. It's not pretty.

I have two novels (not NaNos) that I want to have out before Christmas, I've already started the sequels to both of them, and I've started the first three books in a seven-book series. Not to mention the fact that my life has got a whole lot busier lately. So much so that most days I'm hard pressed to manage my daily quota of 500 words - 1667 would be out of the question. And to be perfectly honest? The last thing I need is another "not quite there yet" novel to have to fix.

Will I miss it? You betcha! There is an energy to NaNo that you will find no where else and at no other time. It can only happen in November. You become part of this world wide community of fellow writers who become friends. Even if you can't attend the write-ins or parties, you can't help but get caught up in the excitement.

But while I'll miss the sense of community, I will not miss having one more incomplete, 50,000 word novel.

Of Series and Sevens ...

For some reason, over the last couple of years, when I get a story idea it's never just for a single story, it's for a series. Or at the very least a trilogy. And apparently I'm not alone in this because I've seen a number of series crop up lately.

As a reader, there are times when I like a series and times I don't. When I find a book I really enjoy I never want it to end, and with a series it doesn't have to. At least not right away. Sometimes it's the same characters with new adventures, sometimes it's the same story with new characters. But there's no denying there's a lot of great series out there.

When you're writing a series it really does pay to plan ahead, and coming from a die-hard pantser that's saying something. But writing is nothing if not a learning experience and this is something I learned the hard way.

When I started writing An Elemental Wind I had no thoughts of taking it any further than a single novel. In fact, the working title was simply Space Opera. But it turned out that my main character, Nakeisha, was more powerful than anyone had suspected, and when the mysterious Illezie tested her, they were disappointed she wasn't "the one". But the one what? Hmm. So then I thought I should keep the main story going and started working on An Elemental Fire. At that point I knew there was going to be at least four books, one for each element, and then a fifth one that would tie them all together. But I still had no idea what that main thread was.

The breeding program introduced in Fire was originally intended to create a better, purer elemental, but the question remained, why? With An Elemental Water, which was written to be a mirror of Fire, I came up with the idea that "the One" was going to be the saviour of the Illezie home world somehow and that the breeding program had been started to create this person. But by the end of the book the story started to become more complicated and the concept of the "five who are one" was conceived. Despite there only being only four elements, I knew who the fifth one was going to be, and I finally had some inkling of why they were needed.

In An Elemental Earth we're introduced to Gra'anna, the oldest Illezie still living, and she tells us that the prophecy about "the One" had been twisted over the years, and set the ground work for An Elemental Spirit. But it wasn't until several false starts with Spirit that things finally started falling into place and I knew how my series was going to end. You have no idea what a relief that is!

Meanwhile, I had an idea for a romance trilogy I called the Wishing Star Series. It begins with three women on a getaway weekend to a cabin in the northern woods. On their way there they stop to help a little old lady getting harassed by some teenagers. Turns out the little old lady is a fairy godmother who grants them each a wish, but it has to be for something personal. While sitting around the campfire that night they see the evening star and each wish for their dream man. From there the story splits into three - one for each of them as they've each wished for very different men.

While this is a trilogy, all three stories have the same starting point which makes it much easier. And what makes it even better is that I'm working on all three of them at the same time so I can better keep track of what's going on.

However, and this is where the number seven comes in, when I started world building (because even though they're very different stories they all take place in the same mythical world), I decided that Three Realms didn't have much of a ring to it and that Five Realms sounded better. But that meant I'd have to write two more stories, one for each realm. And then somehow the Five Realms morphed into the Seven Realms, which means I'll have four more stories to write.

BUT, just to keep all these realms straight, I sat down and wrote a prologue that can be used for all of the books, and then in my Desert Realm book, the hero is relating his version of the creation myth to the heroine, so I had to actually come up with a creation myth. And it's pretty cool, if I do say so myself. I might even include it as a introduction to each of the seven books. :-D

And apparently I really like the number seven, because when Gra'anna, in An Elemental Spirit is telling her group about the prophecy and how it's become perverted over the centuries, she mentions seven keys to the Shrine of Knowledge and the seven races that were pretty much in charge of everything before the humans were evolved enough to matter.

There are seven days in the week, seven notes on the musical scale, and there are seven directions - north, south, east, west, up, and down (or if you prefer: up, down, left, right, forward, back, and center). There are seven colours in the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and indigo), seven wonders of the world, and seven continents. The world was created in seven days.

Co-incidence? I think not.

Happy First Day of Autumn!

Apparently I took the summer off from this blog, my last post was shortly after the first day of summer.

So ... did you miss me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I haven't been idle while I've been on my unintended hiatus. I've been pretty steady with the writing, and Lucky Dog is in the merciless loving hands of my editor. The cover is being designed as we speak ... I hope. I'll have to jog my cover artist's (aka the daughter) memory.

I finally figured out why I was having problems getting going on An Elemental Spirit, the final book in my Ardraci Elementals series. Every other book has featured an elemental, plus their soon to be significant other. In other words, I focused on the two main characters and everything is pretty much from their points of view. But Spirit is bringing all of these characters together, so everyone pretty much has equal billing.

However (and you knew there had to be a however coming, didn't you?) however, I finally figured out that I did have two focus figures after all: Gra'anna, the ancient Illezie who's pretty much orchestrating this all, and Kaine, the former mercenary from the as of yet unnamed race/planet who was mentioned briefly at the end of Elemental Water and who has a special role to fulfill in the upcoming events. Finally I have my focus and I can move forward.

In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.
~ L. Sprague de Camp

Excellent advice. And it's also a good idea to take a lot of notes as you go along so you're not having to keep going back to previous books for fact checking. Too bad I didn't figure it out until the end of the series. It really does pay to have at least a sketchy idea of the story arc if you're doing a whole series. De Camp's advice is definitely something to keep in mind for future use.

In fact ... I have another space series that I began many (many, many) years ago that involves the human/Kohl-trin war mentioned in my elemental books. I have the first book in the opening trilogy, and a stand alone that takes place after the war already written. But the series itself never went anywhere because I only had a vague idea of what was going on. Once I'm done with the elementals I'll be sitting down with notes, pens, and plenty of paper and figure things out.

It occurs to me that this could be why I have an easier time with my Moonstone Chronicles than my Ardraci Elementals. To be fair to myself, I didn't start out with the intention of writing a series when I wrote my first elemental book. The intention was to write a serial for my blog. But once it was finished I figured I might as well keep going and write one for each of the elements, even though I only had a vague idea of what could possibly tie them all together.

But the Moonstone Chronicles started as a short story that kind of petered out once Jessica was magicked to the magical realm. It sat for a couple of years, and then I had an attack of "what if" and wrote a multi-page back story about the magical realm and Jessica's parents, then continued on with a sketchy outline of Jessica and her story and the final, epic, confrontation with Anakaron, the evil wizard. So even though the books have kind of wandered off track from the original story arc, the back story is still solid and I know what the ultimate goal is.

I'm a panster, I prefer to write by the seat of my pants, so you'd think I'd find knowing how a story is going to end would stifle my creativity. But just because I know the ultimate goal doesn't mean I know how we're getting there - there's still plenty of room to be surprised. As Ensign Harry Kim said on Star Trek:Voyager: maybe it's not the destination that matters. Maybe it's the journey.

Something to think about.

Don't forget to check out my newly updated progress bars to the right, and join me here Saturday when I continue to talk about writing a series and also about ... the number seven. :-D