C. L. Norman

Howdy Friends. It has been a slow week of writing and watching the clock and wondering when my husband is coming home from work. He was putting in A LOT of extra hours and so I spent extra hours with the kids to give them more parent time.

Reading

I am trying out an ebook for the first time this week via the B&N eReader app for my PC. I prefer the print book still but the ebook was free and I like that price so we will see.

Writing

Speaking of ebooks, Barnes & Noble announced pubit! this week and everyone is buzzing about it at work and in my social networks. My writing group is considering trying to publish an anthology using that technology. There are a lot of things to take into consideration and decisions to make but it is still exciting all the same to have that option out there.

I submitted some stories this week and in the process I accidentally submitted the same story twice. I used the right word counts in the cover letters but the same title and the same file attachments. Seconds after hitting that send button I knew I had done it and then I panicked. How do I let them know I made a mistake and sound professional at the same time? I am such a worry wart but it was a small but good experience. I learned how to say Oops! like a professional.

Spider Tracks

Another great post by Dean Wesley Smith on Talent as a Myth. I like what he has to say about it and in fact, had already come to the conclusion that the hard work he talks about is the next skill I need to develop to continue in the writing field. My problem though comes from everyone telling me how talented I am but not believing them. My self esteem is very weak and I always think that when folks praise my writing clearly they are just being nice and they mean the opposite.

Discovered the site Adventures in Children’s Publishing and the character worksheet series. I found them interesting and while I am not sure I will actually use the sheet, I did find reading through the questions with my current MC in mind helpful.

J. A. Konrath’s press release for Shaken by Amazon got me thinking. I am still too new to this business to know all the ramifications or even be able to guess them but this is a neat development. So many changes coming down the line, it makes a writing career seem like a sandbox full of possibilities as long as one has the imagination to pursue them.

So my week went well, how was yours?

        

Salutations, friends. Hope your week went well, mine did.

Graduation

My littlest sister has graduation Magna Cum Laude from WSU with a Psychology degree. We are so proud of her and I had the pleasure of watching her walk the walk and hide from the cameras after as much as she could. I am so excited for her future and where it will go from here. So many possibilities.

Writing

I am still feeling my way to a process for the novel I want to write. I have a protagonist I adore speaking incessantly in my mind’s theater. He struts about ranting and bragging and occasionally revealing bits of his story to me. I see a little bit of a couple subplots and the start of the main one but the rest remains shrouded. This time I won’t give up. I will write and finish a novel no matter how much it sucks.

Write on the River

I attended the Write on the River writing conference for the first time yesterday and I am very glad I went. Terry Brooks was the keynote speaker. I have adored his work since I was 13 years old and I am so glad I had the opportunity to speak with him face to face. He and his wife are wonderful people.

Samuel Ligon hosted a workshop on Novels: Launches and Landings and while I have never heard of him before I greatly enjoyed learning from him. One thing that I took away from his lecture was the idea that writers need to maintain a balance between ego and failure. Ego so we have the confidence to submit and keep writing. Failure so we realize that we need to keep improving as nothing is ever good enough. I myself have a healthy dose of the failure side of things, I am working on the ego part.

Randall Platt workshopped on Character Etching. She handed out a nice poem about all the wonderful things that are accomplished only after a lot of failures. She also handed out the interview sheet she uses to get to know her characters and in the workshop we created Wendell Hopscotch, age 37, born in an abandoned fish hatchery to unwed teens. From there he only got more interesting and real and he touched something in all of us.  She also posed the question “why spend your life fighting for other peoples dreams?” A question that I feel in my soul and am looking forward to acting upon.

The last workshop I went to was given by Anjali Banerjee about Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Middle Grade novel. She taught about having your protagonist “save the cat” in the first few pages to make them redeemable and sympathetic to the reader. She also highly recommended finding a mentor that is further up the trail, they will teach you so much more than writing groups.

If things work out right next year, I hope to return. It was a wonderful experience and I recommend it to any writer, aspiring or not.

        

Good morning all. Another week is drawing to a close and it is time for my weekly post.

Happy Mother’s Day

Today is mother’s day. A day for spending time with your kids and the mothers in your life. My grade school kids have special things they have made for me and my teen daughters will hold in their attitudes long enough to mumble “happy mother’s day, mom”. It is a family day. Hope you enjoy yours.

Reading

This week I read Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris as I promised I would last week. I have to say I enjoyed it. I have heard some people complain that it is slower paced than the previous novels. I agree with this but it felt right for Sookie and Co. to have that breather. To me it feels like the lull before the storm. This book is all about family. Sookie and her brother get close again. Sam is still worried about his family and their reaction to the Great Reveal. Even Eric has some relatives come to town. There is still a lot going on but more of it has to do with relationships. There is even an appearance by Russian nobility. Fun.

I also read The Sweet Scent of Blood by Suzanne McLeod. I can’t rave about this book quite as much. It is the first in the series and all the different things that were introduced in this book were confusing in places. I did enjoy most of it and found it interesting take on vampires and fae. Also the character of Finn is a satyr and you just don’t see many satyrs in fiction these days. I like him. The vampire nobility that involve themselves with Genny’s life are darkly mysterious and their motives remain in the shadows. That said I will be reading the next one in the series. Now that I understand (or think I do) what is going on with Genny and her past, I am ready to dive forward in her world and see where things go.

Movies

I saw Iron Man 2 on Friday with my husband and two boys and I loved it. My 7 year old has dubbed it the third best movie of all time. Tony Stark has more snark than can fit in that suit and Vanko was sufficiently smart and creepy to be a worthy adversary. The action was eye-popping and fun, the way superhero action movies should be. I recommend this movie to comic fans, action fans, and comedy fans. It even has a bit of something for fans of romance.

Writing

I am still working on that “sitting down and writing everyday” thing that I need to progress further in this dream of mine. I have a conference coming up on Saturday where Terry Brooks is the keynote speaker. I have been a fan of his since I was in high school. In particular I have a soft spot for his character Allanon from the first Shannara series. Allanon had that black cloak that obscured his features and his motives wonderfully well. The first time through the books I didn’t know if he was just pretending to be a good guy or not.

 I also will be heading to a convention and participating in a writing workshop May 28th through the 31st. I found out who is critiquing my submission and now my husband is begging to pretend to be me and go. I will share with you who it is after I hear what he has to say. I can say that I am totally looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

How was your week? Are you enjoying your Mother’s Day?

        

With my top hat (10% off) on my head and a clean cup for tea in front of me, let me ask you a question:

Why is a novel like a child?

Answer: Neither comes with an instruction book.

I have always known this in a vague, intellectual way but that didn’t keep me from sitting at the back of writing panels and hoping that the authors let loose the secret method for writing a novel. I took notes and studied what they said, how they said it, and even what they wore, hoping that I could glean that little thing that would lead me through the door into novel land.

One of the things I want to hear the “right answer” for is when to do the research and/or worldbuilding for a particular project. Raising my children I wait until something comes up before doing the research. When my second daughter developed allergies to tomatoes, potatoes, and peanuts, I researched into how to help her and what to cook for her. When my youngest son took an interest in trains, I spent some time learning about trains to help him out.

When I am writing I waffle back and forth between researching before or after. If I research before, I’ll have the information that might help shape the story. If I research after the first draft is done, I won’t be researching things that I won’t need.

I am heavily influenced by school and my attitudes towards school when it comes to writing. I am determined to be ‘right’ and follow the directions and get that A. The A in this case standing for an Acceptance letter. I need to treat my process more like raising children; spend time with it, guide it in the direction I want it to go, and have fun doing it.

I am attending two conferences this month; Write on the Rivers and MisCon. I need to go into the panels looking for advice on the craft of writing and use them as opportunities to network. It is a time to make friends with my co-workers (at least someday I hope to be their coworker) and not a time to grill them about the how-to’s of writing novels.

Even if there is an instruction book out there for writing a novel, it won’t be written with me and my ideas in mind. I’ll have to write my own.

        

I attended a funeral today for a grandmother I will miss terribly. I gathered together with family I hadn’t seen in ages. Isn’t it funny (and not in a good way) how the passing of a loved one can bring folks out of the woodwork to gather together? My grandma would have loved it.

After the service I was talking to my grandfather and discovered that this particular cemetary holds the graves of a lot of his side of the family. I loved hearing him talk about it. So very interesting and almost old world feeling. A family cemetary.

Of course there are a lot more than VanHorn’s here but still it felt like I was a part of something and that was neat.

The pictures I took and am including here are of the older parts of the graveyard. There is a newer section with the flat (can I say boring without offending?) headstones. Headstones which are easy to step on as you walk through the grass and give my sisters the heebie-jeebies when they do (have to tease when I can, it is my job as a sister). These older sections with the worn stones of all shapes are sizes always capture my attention.

I look at them and I think of history and all the people who have gone before. I wonder about their lives and their deaths and who they left behind. I wonder about their stories. I wonder if anyone knows their stories still or if they have been forgotten and all that is left to remember them in this world is the stone at the head of their grave.

Morbid, much? It may sound that way but to me it is more like seeing a shelf full of dusty tomes with faded writing on the covers. I want to know what is on the pages and learn the stories contained inside. I want to know who last read and loved the story.

A stone with a name or two carved on it with some dates, maybe a caption as well, is a story waiting to happen. Of course it is also a story that has already happened but unless it is someone I know, chances are I will never know it. This is when having an imagination is a wondrous thing.

I make up stories for the cluster of stones over to my left. I see ghosts of people walking and talking for the stone standing lonely to my right. To quote a movie, “I see dead people.” And at the risk of sounding morbid again, I love it.

If I could find the time to grab my notebook and/or my laptop, I would head to the nearest interesting cemetary, one with stones old and new, standing up and flat in the grass, and use that as a place to write. Time to write in which I think of heading out to the cemetary. I would have a ready supply of names for my characters. The tactile sensations of the grass and stones and trees to ground me in the world-building. The weight of history around me to pull the stories from my soul and write them down to share with the world.

        

I grew up with five sisters and two brothers. Alone time was at a premium but I managed. In fact it is probably why I read so much. My loud and raucous family couldn’t follow me into the world I dived into between the covers of my book. I also walked to and from school every day (up hill, both ways, in the snow) and used that time to daydream. Daydream about the things I wrote about; princesses, unicorns, forced marriages, pick-pockets, etc.

These last several months as I have been struggling to write I have forgotten a key element of the process. The dreaming.

Writing is easiest when I use driving time to try out different plot ideas for my stories, when I use repetitive tasks at work for listening to dialogue between my characters, and when I use the time in the shower to figure out the minutiae of my protagonist’s daily life.

I’ve been using that time lately to worry about responsible things like the bills, and what’s for dinner, and what the kids need for school. In other words, thinking about practical real-world boring stuff. No help for writing there.

So I have to go back to daydreaming in class (if I was still in school). I need to use my alone time to dream and work on my writing. I have forgotten that using a pen and paper or keyboard isn’t the only part of the process. Dreaming and imagining is just as important.

        

I have heard writers say that being a great storyteller helps make one a good liar. If so, am I in trouble.

I have been described as “too honest” by my mother. “Brutally honest” or “blunt” by friends and co-workers. My children laugh at me when I try to lie to hide things, like presents and surprises, from them. They know when I am lying. I have found it safer to just avoid a direct answer.

Friends ask me “Does this look good on me?” and I don’t want to hurt their feelings so I try to temper a negative response with a positive aspect but I can’t lie and say “Yes, it does” if I don’t think so.

I love to make up stories though. When I am in a medium where a lie is expected, I love it. On the stage and in stories, it is ok to make things up and I go crazy. I explore things that are darker than I ever want to see in real life. I pretend to like things that I am too scared of.

I am drawn to the fantasy genre for this very reason. Everyone knows or at least believes that magic and dragons and monsters don’t exist. I tell stories set in places where these things might exist and try to make it as real as possible but I know that everyone will know it is make-believe.

So what do you think? Do storytellers have to be good liars? Or to put it the other way around do good liars make good storytellers?

        

Happy Easter, folks. In honor of the holiday here is a link to the Washington Post Peeps Show IV. I hope you enjoy it.

Reading

This week I read and adored Patricia Briggs‘ new Mercedes Thompson novel, Silver Borne.  My place of work was even mentioned briefly in it. Pacing and characters and their attitudes make this a fun read.

Writing

To put it bluntly I blew it this week. I do have the excuse of not having a day off but in reality my shifts are pretty short and so it isn’t really valid. I know in my head and my heart what I want to do but the physical act of breaking bad habits and writing regularly is much harder. I have always had issues with self motivation. Working for others, paid or not, I take the extra steps to do the job perfectly but for myself I procrastinate. Let’s see if I can do better this week.

Movies

Saturday we went to see How to Train Your Dragon with our two sons. The movie is very good; pretty to look at, easy to relate to, and laugh-out-loud funny. While it has a good message, it doesn’t beat you over the head with it. As my husband pointed out, the Vikings are very close to fantasy dwarves complete with bushy beards, stout bodies, and a love of bashing things. In the words of my 6 year old, “The best movie ever.”

        

Howdy Folks! How was your week? Do anything wild and crazy? Try that hot chocolate with the dark cherry or discover some other yummy treat?

Movies

Last Sunday I went to see The Bounty Hunter with my oldest daughter. I have to say having a kid I can drag with me to romantic comedies whenever my checkbook and time permits is very cool. As anticipated Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston had me laughing and rooting for the big kiss moment and I wasn’t disappointed.

As a side note, after seeing this movie I started brainstorming how I could write a bounty hunter story myself, in a fantasy setting, of course. You see a lot of assassins and pickpockets in fiction but not as many bounty hunters and they deserve to wear the rogue mantle too. So keep an eye out and maybe one day you will see a bounty hunter story from me.

Reading

Remember how I said I had to fix the lack of reading I’ve been doing last week? Well I did. In spades. I’ve read the thee Mortal Instruments books by Cassandra Clare and the first two Blue Bloods novels by Melissa de la Cruz.

It all started when my daughter and I stopped at the bookstore after the movies and I got her a book and me a book with the idea we would swap when we finished. I finished the first of the Mortal Instruments book by the next day and of course I had to go right out and get the next one and the next. By then my daughter finished her book and I read that one and had to get the next. I stayed up super late reading three nights this week and even though I feel a bit sleepy I feel a lot more like myself now.

I probably don’t need to tell you after all that that I thoroughly enjoyed the books. The pacing, world-building, characters and their relationships were spot on. I even have to say that the way the Blue Bloods is set up I could believe that they might exist. Makes a lot more sense than nocturnal bloodsucking pale people.

Gaming

I was suppose to run the second session of my Night Below campaign last night but Monday I decided I just didn’t have the time to work out all the conversions necessary. So instead I am going to run the Kingmaker adventure path by Paizo. The first adventure didn’t arrive before last nights session but it turned out ok as 2 players didn’t show up and another 2 were later than they anticipated. So we worked on characters, building some background and personalities, even generated birthdays. The next session should be fun.

Writing

As you probably guessed I didn’t get much writing done. Balance is not a specialty of mine. I have decided to try to participate in the #fridayflash social event on Twitter as a result. Maybe the structure of having to have something written and posted every Friday will help out poor pathetic me who spends way more time talking and writing about writing than actually doing it.

So, next Friday, if you don’t see a story posted here, feel free to beat me about the head and shoulders with a boffer weapon. I will deserve it.

Have a good week, friends.

        

Reading

I am not a big reader of media tie-in books but I occasionally dabble. This week I decided to try a Stargate SG-1 novel. I ran into the same problem that keeps me from reading those kinds of books more often. The main characters don’t seem to match up with who I think they are. On TV those character’s thoughts and motivations are open to interpretation by the viewer. In books, those thoughts are spelled out and in many cases make the character into a stranger. I may read more SG-1 novels as I miss seeing new episodes on TV but I have to go into it expecting a different cast.

Illness and Worry

My daughter got a vaccine on Monday and had an odd reaction to it. She was sick for the rest of the week and many calls went back and forth to the doctor’s office while we were figuring things out.  In reality, this ordeal was very mild compared to those I know others go through but the bottomless fountain of worry that exists in the pit of my stomach was a scary thing to live with.

Theater Flashbacks

I went to see the high school production of The Sound of Music with my daughters last night. The show was put on in the same theater I spent four years in when I was in high school. I was an orchestra and drama geek and I knew just about every nook and cranny (if it didn’t involve heights) of that theater. Being in it again last night was a trip down memory lane. I have a craving for memorizing lines, trying on costumes, and the powdery smell of stage make-up.

How was your week?