anachred

Bethany Powell grew up with the marvelous and insidious opportunity to read books almost all day. Mealtimes would have been a hateful event if she weren't also rather fond of food. As her primary talents seem to be music, creating fake histories, and organizing parties she decided to pursue a career related to the only one she is consistently motivated to do: write fantasy

( In Case of Friending, Press [This]  )

Because it's always appropriate to judge a person by their bookshelves...

( Cut for Blatant Cover Images )

Etsy Buy Handmade gossamersong

I've reached the point of this book where I have room in my head for other stories to fit.
This is also the point where one is throwing cues around and hoping for an exit strategy... The significant lack of plot is going to be fixed soon, though. I just have to wait until the time zones align and then--WHAMMO.

Freedom's problems go nuclear mutant.

This is, in any case, the theory.


Today there is climbing of trees, and silver headbands. Also, reappearance of eyeliner angst.

Nano Count: 23802 (total MS count: 40387)


The greatest thing about this book is that it's full of girls--they talk all the time!
The worst thing about this book is that it's full of girls, and...

Right now, the Backlash Girls are discovering the delights of the Danger Wood training ground at their new school which include:
a fort, trip-wires, and menacing ponds.

I'm particularly proud of that trip-wire image--despite the fact that it was sheer luck I came across it. Man, I love autumn colors...


The Facts Are...
I have no neuroses to report today, nor any particular triumphs. I was up to almost
14,000 words
new since NaNo started, though. (As of yesterday.) That makes the novel a little over
30,000.
I think it's a little fat, but this is a voice-driven YA superhero story. Whatcha gonna do? She's just *talking*...


The Big Question:
To bring to writer's group or not to bring?

Down Side To Being Internet Free Most of the Day:

I have a lot more time to be thinking of all sorts of things, including things to blog about. Sorry, kids.



I've been also not watching shows so much close to bed time. This means...
having my own dreams, not based on other stories!


...My primal imagination is A BEAST.

( And tonight we feature unique funerary arrangements! )


Sometimes I don't know how I write such sane stuff, when I get a look Back There.

Okay, it's official.

Backlash Girls is the book I'm writing this month.


(Yes, this is a mini-collage for the book. Yes, Ouran's Kyoya is pertinent.)

State of the NaNo

For one thing, the other project I tried to start is just not mature yet.
(My judgment about this has been way off lately, so I'm trying to be more careful. The signs are, it still needs to wait a bit.)

And I was reading it aloud to my sister, and my brother Dan joined, both laughing enough they got hysterical, when *everything* was funny.
Which is the kind of fuel I need to keep going. I'm more of a performer than I think.


Also, my heroine and a few of the other characters have started taking on that extra dimension of life that's so important. (Sometimes you just need to keep plugging secondary characters in until you have Chemistry...) So, that's that.



Snippet:
in which superhero costuming is just concluding...

When we were done, I noticed a woman with steel curls close to her head and the expression of a vet watching us from the entry to the stairs.

“Hello Freedom,” she said. “What a perfect hero name. You're going to be sorry.”

“That I got turned into a Power? If that's a warning, you're late to the party.” I collapsed dramatically to the floor, and winced away from the construction-sign orange on my legs. “Orange. Curse you, Ena, I hate orange.”

This is Wolf...Wolf was not in my plans, but now the plans have been rewritten. (As if I wrote a plan...)

Intervention Program Status

Today I only thought about getting on the Internet 3 times instead of 15.
I did break down and use my own Internet on my own computer with my own bookmarks yesterday. I did not write a whole 2000 new words, either. But I figured it's all about moving in the right direction...


photo found searching for "november sky"

Book Report Card

I did not write on the same project today, but I decided to allow that.

Until a few years ago, my system of priorities in writing was fairly regular. I had one project that was the Main Project, and a few others waiting, including a Side Project. The Side Project  was picked up when I was stuck on the other. Occasionally, it took pre-eminence after kicking into gear and replaced the first Alpha Book as the Main Project.

I've had various theories running around each other in my head like competitive gerbils about why all my projects felt like Side Projects lately. My two courses of action have been:
- Purposefully delaying starting a book (something I've forgot to do in a while)
- Allowing myself to nominate a Beta Book


(also found under "november sky")

Stats
So, Backlash Girls is functioning as the Beta. Today I worked on that, and also wrote a 1500 word story that is probably Not A Story, but hey, tale as old as time as far as I'm concerned... (It's about the Song of Endings, in case this ever comes up.
And, hey! I wrote over 3000 words today, even if none of it counts toward a strict NaNo tally.

I'm writing this from someone else's computer. (One of the approx. 10 in the house...)

I am not being held hostage, have not broken anything, or lost my Internet service.
I have, however, decided, to revoke my connection privileges until I remember how to Write for Serious.

I'm kind of using NaNo as an excuse.
I'm not sure I'm going to be focusing on word-count so much as writing ONLY for some time every day.



Obviously, I'm going through withdrawal. I've only scribbled on two pages so far, though I did also create a bad map, racial distinctions, and
decide to make international tensions a much bigger factor in my heroine's Senior Project. I may be here every day just to whine.

But. I DIDN'T get on the Internet probably 8 times before I came out to take a break.




Current Research Roster:
Odd Girl Out: bullying among girls
Introvert Power: reclaiming the internal gifts
Blink: what we know without thinking

Two books with a sequel I grabbed as soon as I could:



I don't remember if I already reviewed The Magic Thief. Everyone who mentioned it had good things to say. I was a little hesitant, (mostly from a perverse wariness of too many people saying good things) but once I read enough of the opening, knew I'd read it to the end.

The world has intriguing dark corners, the magic is familiar, but not stale, and the hero sounds like a little boy, but not a boring one.



This book has crinkly edges of the otherworldy--in a Dr. Suess's menagerie sort of a way. It is charming not saccharine, with a sense of humor more latent than obvious. It just makes me smile. I want to have these books on the shelf for kids of my own.

I'm still reading Ottoline and the Yellow Cat and The Magic Thief: Lost. But I know they're going to be good.

Dan and I will be participating at Open Mic Night at Cappuccino Corner tonight (in Claremore), 7pm!

Plan to debut Crow Road and my Sherwood song.


I don't know if anyone on my friends list is at all interested, but thought  I'd put it out there. ^_^

"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible, for example, is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story - or humor - is to have characters accept everything that happens to them. ... 'Good improvisors seem telepathic; everything looks pre-arranged,' Johnston writes. "This is because they accept all offers made - which is something no 'normal' person would do."    ~ Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

This slightly different in angle (referring to accepting offers, in improv comedy) but is very much in line with what is said in Audition about not saying "no". Shurtleff corrects to actors who say "my character wouldn't do that".

If a character doesn't believe in love at first sight, but loves at first sight, isn't that more interesting? Doesn't that make for story?


Mulling on This

Thinking about this, I'm looking at stories, to see if this is true. Do all heroes say yes when someone else (the reader, for example) would say no?

In Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, the first part of the story is about Buran getting other people to allow her to say "yes"--and before that her father said, "I will teach my daughter chess, since I have no sons".

Frodo says "Yes, I will take the ring."
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell say, "Yes, we will revive magic together."
Eugenides says "I will steal the impossible."



( if you want to read examples from improv... )

This is the sequel to Thirteen Orphans, Jane Lindskold's fantasy where magic of ancient China has been coded into mahjong for the heirs of the Thirteen Orphans: powerful incarnations of the zodiac plus the emperor they served.

The fresh clothing of magic and the interesting background of the characters is really well served by Lindskold's ability to evoke images without bogging down into imagery. The Asian culture gives real color, and depth, too. The weak point in these books has been (to my eye) the rather wooden information-through-dialogue points. When one person shares knowledge, backstory there is no problem. When more than one person is talking about what they're doing, though, it is not fluid.

This bugs me, but not enough to pull me out of the story much.

I recommend this series, and may have to go looking for her other series' to last me until the next comes out...



Random Unfinished Short Opening:

SeBria was sitting on her duffel, looking about like every other cheap commuter in the station when o,Dickon came to pick her up. She swung up and grabbed her bag in a motion fluid enough for a wandswoman, but she was lanky and sat immodestly—he really didn't think he was going to like her kata. Didn't matter though; this was a favor to his sensei.

 

( Read (a smidge) more... )


...this story is one of the ones where I've used odd bits of Japanese culture/language to create something completely different. In this case, the overall concept of martial art and some bits of honor-language. I keep messing with this in short stories: hopefully someday I'll have a powerful enough idea to bring into a novel.

Since all my short stories still sound like Exercises in Fiction.

More Writing Philosophy from Unusual Sources

I think I'm condensing a few different statements into one idea (so I can't find the quote) but in Michael Shurtleff's Audition, he talks about when you're working with a partner who isn't working with you.

This, he says, is valuable, because the harder you have to fight to get across, the stronger the impression.


For me, this immediately clicked into writing terms. The harder the character is fighting toward or away from something, the higher the tension and drama and...ROMANCE.
(again, not in terms of love romance, but narrative romance.)

This made me go back to work on a story in the Aolon book, because of all the stories I've written, that one is tight with that fighting tension.

Maevidh's mother was angry—she could still feel it in her chest, though she had even left the city. She gritted her teeth.

I Need to Remember...

Maevidh is heir to a witch-queen. She has grown up fighting her mother--they are in each others' minds.*
She has grown up fighting physically, because they are warrior-witches.

At the start of the story, she's fighting off a soldier who claims he volunteered to be her guard, when she suspects he is a spy for her mother or someone else. She is also going to break a treaty with an empire they fought for 60 years only a few decades ago. Agents of the diplomat she both loves and hates are on the hunt for her, and even if she succeeds, she can look forward to being anathematized. Of course, she also fights herself.

It may verge into melodrama at points, but that can be fixed with a little pruning. 
The idea that the more distance there is, the harder a character will fight to get closer has clarified why this story interests me every time I look at it, though the sentences hurt. She's surrounded by people she's fighting.

In the other stories of this book, this is true as well, though not to the same extent. Not just their enemies, but the ones they want to love, and they are fighting.

I need to think about this, and try to approach stories that way again. ...Without the labyrinthine grammar.


*I think i'll need to punch up this element of horror, but I'm pretty proud of the idea as it is...



This is Balthier, my latest spinning project. He and Maevidh may have a bit in common, really...

I have a new song!

I may have posted the lyrics to this somewhere you've seen it--it's an autumn travel song. I'm really happy with the lyrics: I feel like they verge on real poetry. Doing the vocals recording I also felt like I got deep into the song and finally sang really well, too.

Crow Road (click to listen, see full info)

Slowly all the leaves fall from the oaks

A burnished nutshell brown

The wind sings sharp and the note is cold

It makes an uncanny round

 

I'm going up the crow road

Through the wastes and wood

I'm following the flight of crow

And step where no man's stood

 

 

( more of the lyric )

The door kept opening into her closet.

“...Come on, I don't have time for this,” Cyrie said, slamming it again.

                              That was the wrong attitude. She closed her eyes, tried to embrace the pursuit of Good and Romance, and smiled as she swung it open.

 

It opened on a forest. “Finally,” she muttered, and stepped in, closing the door behind her.

 

( and a bit more of the story )

 

This image is one of those that is just precarious enough,
with a tension just in the expressions that are at slight odds
(drama--romance, see even in pictures...) that it makes me
want to stare.

And it's on Etsy, advertising the feather ornament in her hair,
by charmschooldesign which is probably not strictly legal,
since the image is taken from a movie. ("Brick")
But in terms of capturing interest?

*Brilliant.*





I have a geek-love on Etsy post in the makings, some day I don't have 5 other things I'm posting about. Goblin King yarn? Bring. It. On.

I am reading Audition by Michael Shurtleff.
It's one of the books where if you are willing to think in metaphor a little, is a perfect writing book, though not about writing. Because it is about art, and about story.

"One great missing ingredient in current acting is romance. Everyone secretly wants romance, but in these harsh, "realistic" days, no one will openly admit it. ... We must be hard, to live in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era of disillusionment.
    But what has made EQUUS such a phenomenal success? Romance. And ANNIE HALL and ...  A CHORUS LINE and  STAR WARS and PIPPIN. Shakespeare's plays retain their undiminished popularity because they are ever-lasting romances. Yet most of the creators of these shows would deny that they are romances. ...Romance has gone out the window. It is time to bring it back."


I think this is a key to the more recent culture of stories.
Twilight, Harry Potter and the Various Face of Evil, The Da Vinci Code...hey, even the goth and then emo youth cultures embraced the drama of the Romance, in a fairly reactionist way.
(Since this book is from '78, as placed fairly clearly in that snippet, I am extrapolating beyond a point the author could.)

Romance being a story that is made up, that focuses on narrative be it an adventure, a journey of maturing, or an affair of the heart.


So. I'm rewriting the ending of one of the volumes of Aolon, The Epic That I Can't Name For The Life of Me. But the bones of the story keep drawing me back, because it is fairly high-scoring in the drama and romance department.

I just need to tear down the melodramatics of its adverbs and give the characters a few better lines.

so I thought you might like this...

Aaron Zenz is an illustrator. He hosts a blog of his kids' art, showcasing the zany humor of small people equipped with crayons and markers. As a 3 year anniversary, he opened up to "fan-art" of any of the pictures, and was surprised by the response.

Shannon Hale (whose blog I found this link on) said she loved how the pictures (many by other illustrators) "celebrate, not correct". That about sums it up...

Kid-Art Tributes
Gorgeous stuff in here.


***

Talking to a Chinese friend, was sent to look up Beijing's Summer Palace. The scale of the place is mindblowing, but I have a thing for bridges and autumnal tones, so here. Something pretty, from Natl. Geo...




Rounding it out, a poem snippet:

..The leaves like late butterflies
Twist and turn, falter and fall
In the outside racing, interlocking winds.

Lady & Gentleman ~ Richard Webber

This treasury expires tomorrow afternoon (Sunday) but it's awesome, so if you have a minute before then:

The Librarian

The Etsy Treasury is a collection of items by different sellers put together by an Etsy member: they're temporary to make room for the next person who wants to put them up.

If done with a new theme and an eye for aesthetic, they can be spectacular...

I'm down to only 2 queries out now--I need to send out some paper ones, research up a handful more names. This is boring, as updates go, but I thought it probably ought to be said. I have 5 rejections on the wall (whoa, Hanson ambush...) and one invisible one floating around somewhere.

Something new about this stage is being able to look at the manuscript and think, This is the best thing I can make it.

When I was talking with my mother the other day about the rejection stats, she began to bring up the possibility that I need to revise, tweak those first pages...
and without feeling defensive or guilty, I said:

No.
Those pages represent the book that it is. They are as good as I can get them by myself.

Both cool and scary to have brought a project to that point for the first time.



This guy is now looking at me on my desk.
Dear. You *know* you ought to be revising that last bit of the series.
Don't make me call Birch, now, hmm?


ozark_hoodlums was updated today, starting Chapter 2: Crime in a Land of Vigilantes