Weekly Roundup

3 DAYS TILL NANOWRIMO! It seems like yesterday that I was logging onto the newly refreshed site at the beginning of October. Where has this month gone...

So, this will be my last regular "Weekly Roundup" until the end of December/new year. NaNo will take over this blog as usual during November and then I've got something interesting planned for my Christmas Picture Countdown in December. I'll still try to post links once in a while, but I can't promise anything.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to teach writers to turn off their inner editors and allow themselves to write a really terrible first draft. Carolyn Kaufman over at Query Tracker gives her input about the first "Skeleton draft" in her article here.

But on the other hand, is NaNoWriMo for every writer? Jane Lebak thinks not and isn't doing it this year for herself. Hear her out and read her reasons though. You just might find yourself agreeing.

Once you have this novel done at the end of NaNo (or whenever you finish editing), what do you do with it? Pursue traditional publishing? Hang it all and self-publish? However, you might want to think ahead about the consequences of choosing the latter. Many agents, like Janet Reid (the famous query shark), aren't too happy about not having first bite at your novel. Janet explains why poor sales can sink any possibility of a second book.

Until Thursday and the beginning of NaNo!!

CSFF Blog Tour: The Spirit Well - The Mythology

In order to prepare for this tour I read not only "The Spirit Well" by Stephen Lawhead but also its two prequels - "The Skin Map" and "The Bone House". Perhaps if this series proceeded in a strictly linear fashion I would have been able to untangle the third book from its prequels, but that proved impossible. As such, consider this three part review to cover the whole Bright Empires Series with a special emphasis on "The Spirit Well" when I can manage it.

For today's topic I thought I would focus on the world building or mythology Lawhead has created for this series. (I shall post a spoiler warning here. Nothing sufficient to give away major plot points is written, but there are details from all three books so if you haven't read the first two, expect to be spoiled. You have been warned.)

On the surface it poses as a copy of the real world with the addition of alternate timelines, dimensions and time or "astral" travel. However, once examined closer one can see the intricate weaving of fact and fiction which Lawhead has presented us with. "Home World" as it is called is the part of the world which is a carbon copy of our own. It is supposed to be the original timeline and dimension from which all the others derive and also represents the boundary between time that can be traveled and "the absolute future" to which no one can travel. However this world is crisscrossed with ley lines which connect the dimensions. Kit's great-grandfather, Cosimos, explains it as the connecting points and lines formed by stacked soap bubbles.

This ley line idea comes from old Celtic beliefs. However, Lawhead has woven it into his world seamlessly and also into multiple cultures' mythology. In "The Spirit Well", Cassandra is introduced to the ley lines by a Native American who calls them "Ghost Roads" to the Spirit World. That it is almost impossible to distinguish where the ley lines of Lawheads's creation, Celtic myth, and the myths of Native Americans' each begin and end is a testament to Lawhead's skill as a writer.

He doesn't just restrict himself to borrowing ley lines and old myths. In book two, "The Bone House", Kit travels by accident to prehistoric times and meets cave men straight out of Evolutionary theory. Or perhaps not. Lawhead again has changed them to suit his world. He has given them back the humanity and intelligence that Evolution stripped from them and he even has introduced a key plot point through Kit's interaction with them.

In one of the flashbacks in "The Spirit Well" Lawhead takes Arthur and his son Benedict back to Ancient Egypt. Arthur is an Englishman born into the Christian tradition, however he studied with and became friends with a priest of the Egyptian god Amun. This particular flashback has Anen complaining about how the Pharaoh refuses to listen to the priests and is now promoting the worship of one new god. If you know your history, you'll recognize this new "god" as the one worshiped by the Jews and therefore Christians. However, Arthur keeps the fact that he believes in this God quiet, saying that his policy is to not impose his beliefs on the cultures he is visiting.

I think this approach can be applied to Lawhead's direction for "Bright Empires". He doesn't discard bits from other beliefs, mythologies or even "science", but chooses to embrace them and mold them to fit his world. However, though he takes this approach, one can tell the Christian undertones. I have full faith that the good guys will win and find some way to beat the bad guys, though I was quite disappointed to find that "Bright Empires" has two more books in the pipeline instead of being a trilogy. I wanted to read the end already!

But, I have reached the end of the available books and you the end of this post, unlike me, all you have to do is wait until tomorrow for part two of my review. I'll try to explain why "Bright Empires" is told in such a fragmented timeline and it works. (Versus the last book I reviewed.) So, tune in tomorrow! And while you're waiting, check out more below:

To buy the book, click here.
Or you can visit Stephen Lawhead's website or facebook page.

And don't forget to visit the other participants in the blog tour here!

Until then!

Weekly Roundup

17 DAYS TILL NANOWRIMO! (Yes, I'm going to keep doing this almost every post until NaNo starts. In fact, next week is the kick-off party for our little area! Which just might translate into more of the Kagerou's Journal serial being posted.)

So on the topic of NaNo, Matthew Wright is doing a countdown on his site with tips for NaNo novel writing. His first installment is all about plotting the hero journey.

I'm sure every writer has heard the "rule" "write what you know". However, isn't the intention behind this rule to encourage writers to write in areas they have emotional connections with? That emotion can drive a story as Stina Lindenblatt discusses in her post.

When writers can put emotion into a story it prompts a response from the reader. But how do you convey that emotion to the reader in the first place? In her post, Nanci Panuccio demonstrates how to create drama sentence by sentence.

In the publishing world, once again genre fiction is ignored at National Book Awards. This reality is something you, if you are a genre writer, will have to accept. Unless the top book awards stop turning up their noses at anything outside of the literary "genre".

Now for an interesting tidbit on the electronic ereader front. A german company, which produces a reading app for android OS phones, has announced an ereader which syncs with the app--for 9 euros (that's about $20). Now that is a low cost ereader!

Next week is the CSFF blog tour! I'll be reviewing The Spirit Well by Stephen Lawhead. Make sure to tune in here and check out the other participants' blogs during the tour as well!

Weekly Roundup

NANOWRIMO STARTS IN 24 DAYS!

Yes, that's the big news of the day, or rather of the month. As soon as I saw NaNoWriMo's tweet about the site relaunch I headed over there to set everything up. And I'm still hyping myself up about it. But, I digress. If you do know what NaNoWriMo is, get yourself over there to sign up/login and begin your prep. If you don't, you can find more information on the event at the main site but basically it's when several hundred thousand writers go mad and decide to write 50k of a novel in one month on top of everything else in their life.

Ok, now for the links. There are just a few today, but the last one will take you a while to completely read through (thereby hooking you in the process [insert evil laugh]). I've been in an editing mindset ever since this summer when I started digging into Adventure at Anwar for the rewrite/revision during Camp NaNoWriMo (And I'm in full rewrite mode for NaNoWriMo this year for the Across Time series/idea) so here are a few more links in that vein.

The Art of the Complete Rewrite by Jane Lebak

and

Write Tighter, Write Smarter by Ash Krafton

As for the final link, Robin McKinley's running a blog serial on her blog. In fact, she's been running it for almost 6 months now. Interested? Well, you can catch up on it here while waiting the next installment.

Until next time! (And enjoy the story. I know I have!)

Kagerou's Journal 1

(I've gotten very, very behind on writing this, but, here's the first small bit I have written.)
Update: You can find all parts linked here.

Day 1

I arrived in Sandpoint the morning of the Swallowtail festival as ordered by the Magnamar Lodge. As a trainee I had no choice in the matter even though I was sure the main event of the festival, the consecration of the Cathedral would be dull and uninteresting. I thought perhaps, though, I might glean a few interesting scraps of information from the gossip in the taverns and inns and resolved to spend most of my time in those locations discreetly eavesdroping.

The square outside the Cathedral was packed with people. Some hawked their wares while others hungrily eyed the feast that was laid out on a long row of tables. In one corner a brightly dressed Varisian dancer swirled her scarf while she danced. I thought I saw more than one coin disppear from a watcher's pocket into hers and not all were willingly proferred. A tall man, possibly Shoanti by the look of him, strode closer to the Varisian dancer. I was sure that he had spotted her pickpocketing as well. However, a gray cat came flying out of nowhere and landed on his head. Mayhem ensued as it hissed, spit and clawed at the dancer's pet cat while the man swatted at the cat to get it off his head. In all commotion he seemed to forget the Varisian pickpocket.

At that moment another male voice called out drawing our attention to the Cathedral steps. He introduced himself as Father Zantus, the local priest. I started digging in my pack for pen, ink and paper to take notes with on the ceremony. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary but I felt that notes would help jog my memory later on when I was writing my report.

That when I heard a strange sound. It emanated from the wagon in the right hand corner near the cathedral. To me it sounded like a dog's yelp cut short.

CSFF Blog Tour: The Telling - A Review

(Pardon for posting this a little late. A bout of sickness knocked me off my feet and computer for a few days.)



Welcome to this month's CSFF Blog tour! The book this time is "The Telling" by Mike Duran. I don't normally read supernatural suspense thrillers so this one was definitely in a genre I'm not too familiar with. But, here are my thoughts.

True to the horror/suspense genre Duran doles out the hints and clues in small doses. Even the details of the main character's, Zephaniah Walker's, face aren't totally revealed until several chapters in. I found this to be an interesting approach to take, with regard to details, because it was attempting to dangle a hook to lead readers along. True, the whole history behind the scar on Zeph's face is important to his backstory and the book's plot, however it wasn't quite the revelation that I thought it would be after being dragged along for that length of time.

The whole book was like this. Small details being trickled here or there, in a very obvious fashion I might add, leading up to an unsatisfactorily small reveal or climax. Not that the book wasn't interesting. It was a fun read and kept me reading, though I wouldn't describe it as a page turner. I'm not quite sure whether I, as the reader, should feel insulted by how obvious all the clues were or whether that was just a result of the author not being the most adept at hiding the clues. The ending was fairly easy to guess and many pieces were overly easy to connect. The fragmented nature of the book seemed to be the author's method of hiding the clues, but it didn't completely work.

If you like the genre, then I'd suggest you read it. It's fun, a fairly unique take on demons and hell, and something you can justify spending an afternoon on. However, it's not a masterpiece so don't expect masterful red herrings and twists and turns you don't see coming. To the astute reader, the ending is easily discernible from a ways off.

Want to read it? Buy here: The Telling.
Or, visit Mike Duran's website or Facebook page.

Other tour participants can be found my CSFF Blog Tour page as well as links to past tour related posts.

Disclaimer: As part of the CSFF Blog Tour I received a free copy of this book to review.

Weekly Roundup

A piece of good advice to start us off:

"Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation." - Geoff Dyer

Now for the links:

One of the ever present questions in the publishing world is how long should your manuscript be? Arthur Plotnik gives his opinion on the matter over at Query Tracker.

Also at Query Tracker, Ash Krafton gives advice on how to craft well-rounded villains and the Zen of Backstory.

While writing, how do you keep all those bits and pieces organized? Michelle Rafter's advice is especially relevant for freelancers.

So now that you've written that perfect short story, how can you lengthen it into a longer piece without filling it with fluff? Guest blogger Liese Sherwood-Fabre gives a practical 4 step method.

But, before you send it out, name check! Do all your character's names sound like they belong in the same universe? Janice Hardy shares her experiences with the name game.

Once you've sent that manuscript out and it's been accepted (yay!) and you can't go five minutes without telling someone, how do you prevent yourself from being creepy on social media while trying to promote your book?

On a final note, Megan Bostic shares 7 things she's learned so far during her career as a writer.

Until next time!

CSFF Blog Tour: The Eye of the Sword - A Review

Welcome to the August CSFF Blog Tour! This time around, the featured book is Eye of the Sword by Karyn Henley. (Doesn't the cover look great at right? And it reflects the main character and turning point in the book too. More on that below.) I decided to jump into this, my first blog tour, head first thus I ended up reading the book and crafting a review. So, without ado, I present my review of Eye of the Sword.

First, I must make something clear. This book is book 2 in what looks to me will be a fantasy trilogy. I was not able to read book 1, Breath of Angel, beforehand so I made do with summaries online. Book 3 (which I'm assuming will be titled Blood of Man due to the advertisement in the back of Eye of Sword) has not been released yet and I have no idea when it will be published.

Plot and Universe

I shall focus first on the plotline and construction of the world. This book, in my opinion, is well written and well paced. The plot is engaging and just when you think you've figured out what's going to happen, Henley throws in a twist to keep you off balance. The outward plot is fairly straightforward though. It is constructed around a quest archetype where the lowly knight must prove his worth by seeking firstly an oracle (at the king's command) and secondly the two remaining harps (at the princess' request). However, the quest could be seen as having a deeper meaning because the main character, Comain Trevin, discovers more than an oracle or harps. He discovers himself. I won't say too much more because that would give away the biggest plot twist in the whole book.

The pacing of the plot kept me eagerly turning the pages to read what happened next. The first few pages were an excellent hook, not because of surprising characters or twists, but because the universe or storyworld was well painted in a few strokes with well chosen world specific words. I don't know whether this hook would have been as effective as if I'd read Breath of Angel because the term that intrigued me was, to my knowledge, explained in the first book. But coming into the second book with no previous introduction left me curious as to how the world was built and kept me reading. I wish, though, that the author had included some form of summary of book 1. It would have helped in establishing what events had preceded book 2 and also what had been "discovered" by the characters by that point in time.

This lack of summary led to my not quite being sure of many of the universe's constructions and systems. For example, the opening pages give a list of characters and, also, the ranks of angels in this world. However, the latter was only briefly touched upon in Eye of the Sword leading me to believe that the full description of the angels was found in book 1 and Henley assumed the readers would be familiar with it. I wasn't, so I ended the book with very little enlightening as to how the system worked or was constructed. This was also true of other things mentioned like the Draks.

The Christian Perspective

Good wins over evil and the lesson of forgiveness is well expounded in this book. Therefore you can tell it was written by someone who holds to the values of Christianity. However, the part with the angels bugged me. I hate to use the word, but the only one that comes to mind is 'heretical'. I've read several stories before where the concept of angels and demons are twisted into a fantasy which doesn't mirror reality, but I never expected to see it used in a book by a Christian. It read to me like a half-hearted attempt to insert God into a fantasy world and modify Him and his angels to fit the world. I didn't like it. I wouldn't have minded as much if the author hadn't used Biblical terms to suit her fancy. If, let's say, Henley had created a different term for the angels and not claimed that that they had any relation to the angels in the Bible then I would have been perfectly fine with it. However, the angels turned into an odd fantasy device which distorted reality. This was the one sour bit in the whole book. The rest I loved.

Overall, I liked this book. I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in YA fantasy that is based in a Christian worldview. The virtues taught are of forgiveness, bravery, courage, righteousness, and the consequences of actions which are good and useful for the teaching of children. Read it, read book 1 if you feel like it, and join me in waiting for book 3. I really want to know what happens!

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book by the publisher for the purpose of reviewing it.

Book sold here: Eye of the Sword (Angelaeon Circle Series #2)
Author’s Web site
Author's Blog
Author's Facebook page

CSFF Website
CSFF Blog Tour Participants

Until next time!