What I Did Today

I’m writing late today mostly because I got sick this morning. It’s a work-at-home day, and I’ve been working at home between trips to the bathroom. I’ll take my temp in a few minutes to see if I should worry.

However, I also wrote a synopsis for Prodigies, a novel I feel compelled to query because of the change of branding from fantasy to New Adult fantasy. It fits better there because it’s kind of a coming of age novel, with the teen protagonist having to navigate uncomfortable truths about her life.

Here’s the synopsis:

Grace Silverstein, an eighteen-year-old viola prodigy at a prestigious high school for the arts, flies to Poland to participate in an international assembly. Her hosts, including Dominika Wojcik and her young daughter Anastasja, plan to kidnap and coerce the prodigies under a flimsy mask of hospitality. Grace discovers that one prodigy, Ichirou Shimizu, has a preternatural talent for manipulating moods through his graphic designs. When the evening banquet takes on menacing undertones, Grace finds a friend and protector in Lord Mayor Przemyslaw Przybyszewski, who helps Grace and Ichirou escape from the hotel. With the help of a small handful of strangers, find an all-night pierogi place to hide in. Ichirou’s chaperone, Ayana Hashimoto, smuggles the two out of the country with the help of her mysterious accomplice. On their journey cross-Europe, Grace finds Ayana disturbing and Ichirou cute and annoying, and everyone seems to be keeping secrets. The three part ways at Copenhagen, and Grace dodges the hosts’ accomplices with the help of Ayana’s secret partner, Grzegorz Koslowski, another talented person who played most of the helpful strangers. He protects her until she catches her flight home.

Back in the US, Grace’s ordeal becomes a memory as she clings to her alma mater and takes a gap year before college. Then Ichirou and Ayana arrive from Japan to warn Grace that the foreign agents from her trip to Poland, as well as Homeland Security, close in on Grace and her compatriots. They fight with the vice president and president of the school, Estelle DeWinter and Beau Boren until they release Grace from her job with the school. Startled by the news and by Ichirou’s transformation into a tall, handsome teen, Grace has no idea why anyone pursues her, as she has no talent like Ichirou does. She goes with Ayana and Ichirou anyhow.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

While on the run, the three find refuge in a cabin secured by Grzegorz, who Ayana has not yet met; Grace will not reveal his identity. Ichirou helps Grace discover her own talent of manipulating emotions through her beloved music. Grace realizes that she has always sensed her talent, but that the acknowledgment of her ability leaves her in doubt as to the ethics behind her augmented performances. Eventually, on the way back from Lakeview to copy music for Grace to practice her talent with, the three are ambushed by a sharpshooter who shoots Grace in the chest. Grzegorz heals her, revealing his dramatic talent, and Grace is left to ponder the miracle that brought her back to life. Ichirou helps her cope by making a soothing graphics video which helps her sleep – but brings her into the space she found when she was dying. When she has recovered enough, Grace and the others discuss the costs of using their talents too often, to discover that Grace and Ichirou endanger themselves if they use their talents too much.

The four – Ayana, Ichirou, Grzegorz (called Greg) and Grace – now are on the run again. They go to an empty cafe, where they access a working group on the Dark Web with Greg’s credentials. There, they are confronted by the proprietor of the café, who identifies himself as Weissrogue, a legendary white-hat hacker. He convinces Grace to use her talent on him, because he doubts that he has ever felt sad. After she does so, Greg rages at her and runs outside. Grace follows him, and he kisses her, then pushes her away, and Grace gets the impression that Greg is deeply damaged. Ichirou balks, feeling jealousy toward Greg and Grace. When looking through the site, Renaissance Theory, the group finds that the children with talents which have been carefully schooled (such as themselves) are called Renaissance Children, and that the group from Poland pursuing them, Second World Renaissance, plans to attack the United Nations during their general assembly.

Weissrogue, whose talent is luck, follows instructions from Pzybyszewski and hides the group in the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. On the way out on the ferry, however, a Homeland Security agent attempts to accost them and is stopped by Grace’s mournful song. He jumps off the side of the boat, whose personnel rescues him and holds him until evaluated by a psychiatrist. Once ashore and settled at the hotel, Grace and Ichirou venture out and find Beau Boren, who sounds like he knows about Grace’s talent; Grace gets a bad feeling about him. Ichirou and Grace return to the room to find that Ayana and Greg are in bed together. Grace runs off and Ichirou finds here and listens to her muddled feelings. Later, the four and Weissrogue deliberate whether to get involved in stopping the group behind Renaissance Theory. They decide that they will try to stop the plans for the General Assembly, with Anastasja Wojcik acting as a fire talent who will burn the assembly hall down while the others assassinate three world leaders. Second World Renaissance will use their talents’ destructive abilities to angle for Renaissance representation at the UN.

Grace and Ichirou’s talents make the centerpiece of the plan to stop the conflagration, as they both can control moods and emotions. They decide that using their gifts to stop the conflagration and murders will require they work together on video with music to be run on the screen before the Assembly while people are filing in. They meet with a record producer on Weissrogue’s list, taken from Homeland Security, of suspected talents. The record producer, William Alden, helps them create the potent video. Grace and Ichirou discover a synergy that makes them more powerful – and more connected.

Once in New York, the group puts together their strategy, which involves Greg smuggling the video loop into the audiovisual room, Ayana and Weissrogue and Grace and Ichirou creating distraction. Although this goes successfully, the Homeland Security agent pursuing them turns off the video and kidnaps Grace and Ichirou when they try to put the video on again. Once they have persuaded the agent, Walter Adams, to help them, they run into the assembly room. They find the room occupied by members of Second World Renaissance and their soldiers. Amid the chaos, Grace sings while the others try to stop the attackers. One trains his semiautomatic on Grace, and Walter Adams shoots him to death. Greg brings him back to life, and his allegiance flips. Grace’s song, amplified by Ichirou’s synergy, moves the audience to fight against the attackers, and they are overwhelmed by numbers. Greg stops Dominika and the reluctant fire talent Anastasja from setting the curtains aflame; Dominika reveals that Anastasja is his daughter.

In the aftermath, several things are revealed: Beau Boren, President of Lakeview School, is a member of the Renaissance Theory group with hopes to deliver Grace to Second World Renaissance. Estelle DeWinter knew this and was trying to protect Grace. Przemyslaw Przybyszewski has been more than Greg’s benefactor, being involved in an anti-Second World movement. Greg and Ayana finally get together when Greg finds out Ayana is carrying his baby, and Ichirou and Grace finally admit their relationship.

Book covers

Yesterday I spent my morning making a book cover for this year’s Christmas romance, Kringle in the Dark. I can’t draw to save my life, but I can work pretty well with photos and Photoshop, which works fine with the Kringle novels. Get the rights to a picture, tweak the photo, set the photo just right. Make the back cover with cover blurb. Orient the spine title/author verbiage.

Here’s the mockup:

It was a stroke of luck getting the photo to expand to the back cover; I’m not sure I will ever be able to do that again.

“Where do you get your ideas?”

This is the question every writer gets asked. Usually the response is vague dread, because many of us don’t know on the spot where we get our ideas. The answer comes only after a good session of introspection, and at the moment the question gets asked, we can’t reflect on the question rapidly.

Over the years I’ve done this introspection, and these are the answers I’ve come up with:

From other books I’ve read. But I need to be careful not to plagairize.
From dreams/daydreaming. This is my favorite source. I often take a dream and interpret it using Jungian methods, which I call interrogating the dream.
From conversations with my husband, which often start with “What if?”
From observation. I don’t know if I’ve ever written a story entirely from observation, but scenes and characters often come from this
From what I’ve written previously. Sequels!

Sometimes I don’t have any ideas. Right now I feel like I need to write a new novel (after revising a couple) and I don’t have any ideas. Ok, actually, I have three ideas based on series I have going, but I don’t know how excited I’m getting about them. Not all ideas are workable:

One of the books would require living in Poland for at least three months to get the flavor of the place. I have no money, no knowledge of the Polish language, and no tour guide.
Another which is part of my Archetype universe, and for some reason it’s not grabbing me.
Yet another in the Archetype universe that’s too nebulous to write about.

I think I need some dreams or daydreaming right now to inspire me. My dreams last night were stupid and not worth writing about. In my dreams, an actor friend of mine got a nose job and I got really angry because he had succumbed to dominant culture beauty standards. That’s it. Unless I’m writing a warped version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, I don’t see much use in this dream.

So where do I get my ideas? Sometimes, nowhere.

In Love with Social Media

I’m having two conversations at once — one with a woman I have never met, the other with a man who is 13 hours away. These are the wonders of social media.

It’s because of social media’s ability to transcend place and time that I survive through the COVID era of distance and extreme caution. I am not an extrovert, but I love real conversations, the ones where you get beyond “how are you” and into things like culture, beliefs, and stories.

I was on social media in the 80’s, before there was social media as we know it. In college, I spent time on the PLATO system, which was mostly an educational system with functions that were used as social media as well as instructional communication. We had what we called “notesfiles” (which became Lotus Notes, and influenced later social media) which would be equivalent to Facebook’s Groups and subreddits. We had chat, known as term-talk, group chats — anything familiar to today’s social media user.

What PLATO didn’t have was a beautiful visual interface, instead having a line command interface much like pre-Windows computer; the ability to go to other sites to do research, and access to dating sites (although this is arguable; I had gone on two or three blind PLATO dates before Match.com existed. We didn’t worry about this, because were were a close-knit community, even though some of us were states away.)

Today, social media is so much more amazing than I expected it would be. Beautiful visual web pages, sites and apps that can facilitate sharing lives (Facebook), sharing pictures (Instagram), bond with video clips (TikTok), date (numerous, but I met my husband on Match.com), or become a base and despicable being (4chan).

And today I can open up the world with social media. I become just a little more cosmopolitan, vicariously.

My Wedding Anniversary

Today I have been married for 14 years. Given that I’m 57, that means I got into the game relatively late. This is not surprising, because I’ve always been a late bloomer.

I probably haven’t introduced my husband sufficiently. Richard is five years younger than me, and another late bloomer. He’s a delightful match for me, being nerdy, bookish, funny, and very tolerant of my mood swings. Here is a picture of us from our wedding. We look older now.

We got married on St. Patrick’s Day, mostly because it was the first Saturday of Spring Break for me. I’m part Irish (and part everything else in the Caucasian category) and Richard is not Irish, being biracial Chinese/German. So we made Richard an honorary Irish person. Our engagement rings are Claddagh, and our wedding rings are Celtic knotwork in honor of the wedding date. Richard laughs when anyone asks him if he’s Irish, though.

It’s been an interesting 14 years. Three job losses, one psychiatric hospitalization, one house move, and COVID. A lot of laughter, house projects, and trying out Asian restaurants. Eight cats, three dying cats to stand vigil over, both our mothers dying. Bad puns. Problems solved.

It’s been an adventure so far, which is what marriage should be. Someone to help survive the hard moments, to grow with, someone to share the good moments with, someone to grow with. I finally found this with Richard.

COVID Vaccine Part 1

Yesterday I got my COVID vaccine. Apparently in Nodaway County, MO, there are more vaccines than people who want to be vaccinated in Tier 1a and 1b right now. So Nodaway County Health opened the queue up to faculty, of which we have many. There’s a loophole, because Phase 1b includes K-12 teachers but not college professors. The loophole is that now, faculty are counted under “government”. (Which is true, as we’re at a state university. That way the vaccines don’t get wasted and the faculty are protected.

So, the shot. It didn’t hurt a bit — until I left the vaccination station, and then I felt a burning streak across my right arm. Yow! It went away quickly.

I didn’t feel any symptoms at all until I went home, and then all it was was a mild fever and a mild achiness. This morning, I have residual aches in both upper arms and upper back. Nothing bad, not nearly enough to keep me off work. (Ahh for Tiger Balm!)

So it looks like it’s going to be okay. My next vaccination is April 7th.

Aeon Timeline Review

I have a somewhat tenuous relationship with time, and nowhere does it show up more than when I’m writing. Even though I write fast-paced plots that run over a few weeks or a month, I lose track of the time and suddenly two different plot points are happening at the same time.

I used to sit with a calendar and make notes on the Scrivener file, chapter by chapter, but then I didn’t get the full picture; I had no one document where I could look at the whole timetable. And flipping back and forth between chapters makes it hard to remember the sequence.

Then I discovered Aeon Timeline, a program that helps you organize a timeline by chapters or individual events, characters involved, and other potentially important characteristics. It organizes itself around two concepts: events and entities.

Here is a screenshot of my current project:

On the left, you can see the timeline. In my case, it’s color-coded to match a template I have for romance writing. On the right, you can see an event (the one highlighted on the left). On the event side, you can see at the top the event data — title, color, and parent. I do not use ‘parent’ because it ties everything to a preceding event and my mind doesn’t function that way. Below that to the right there’s data such as participants and observers, story arc, and location. Those are used as sorting prompts, and I haven’t found myself gravitating toward that function yet.

Below is what the ‘entity’ window looks like:

This is the ‘manage entity’ window. You can add entities here (to add anywhere, click a ‘plus’ button) and edit them. I recommend using this box rather than the ‘add entity’ box because you can manage things better here. Note on the left the window will also let you define story arcs and enter different places.

Notice I don’t use the birth/death blanks because I’m not writing epic fantasy. If I ever make the unified timeline for all my novels, I could use that. (But it would be an unwieldy timeline spanning 6000 years.)

The good thing about Aeon Timeline (to me) is that I can see that timeline, and in making it, I can ‘feel’ that timeline. I often make it after writing the book in my proofreading stage. This is probably the wrong way to use it. If I set it up before, I could actually import it into Scrivener (my writing software) and the timeline would show up. Somewhere. I have to try that.

The bad thing about this is all the data entry. I feel possessed to put in all the entity data and use all the categories when developing the event, and this can be a lot of work. Being a plantser (planner/pantser) writer, I don’t know that I would know all the events before using this tool such that I could use it at the beginning. I would advise to enter what is needed and leave the other bells and whistles alone.

I’m halfway through entering my Christmas romance for the year, Kringle in the Night, as I edit it one more time to make it ready for the Christmas season. It’s helping greatly. I’ll let you know about the Scrivener integration later.

The Feeling of Living

Daylight Savings Time. And a storm. On a Sunday. I slept until 7 because the sun did not peek through my windows.

I almost stayed in bed all day. I just about asked my husband to bring me breakfast (pancakes and turkey sausage) in bed. But if I had, I would have missed Bowie Symphonic Blackstar through the speakers and the sight of the trees bending in the wind under sodden grey skies.

I have plans for today. I will work on the pre-beta reader edit on Kringle in the Night. I might binge watch Monsters Inside Me because of its medical drama and wonderful illness simulation. I can watch some Babylon 5 with my husband and gaze at the porch swing rocking wildly.

This is how I can tell I’m not depressed, because there’s something to come downstairs for. I seek out productivity. I try to make things happen in my life because that’s who I am.

It feels like Spring. It doesn’t, however, feel like Spring.

In my life, COVID banished Spring. Teaching classes from home, not going out to restaurants and the café, and missing the warm days on campus where people gathered by the pond on campus and lounged in the hammocks — none of that remained under COVID.

I didn’t go out when COVID first hit. My husband made all the trips to the grocery store because that’s his job in the particular division of labor we have. So I didn’t get to see the toilet paper shortages, the people defiantly not wearing masks, or much of the sunshine. My most vivid memory was looking out the window to see a sliver of blue above the houses. COVID, then, was a darkened corner where I sat waiting for the all-clear signal, which never came.

The restrictions have lightened up, but I still don’t trust Spring. The virus still threatens and we still stand apart from each other. The blue sky seems distant, outside the house, beyond the mask. Clusters of students once again drink and party outside their houses, but their feeling of safety is not shared by those of us who are older.

I may trust Spring again if a torrent of rain, what we called a gullywasher in my childhood, overtook my neighborhood. Sheets of rain cleansing, if not the virus, my tainted memories of Spring.

Within and Outside a Literary Universe

I’ve been having a fruitful period of revising old works in the Archetype universe. I’m almost done with the Problem Child #2 (I can finish today and give it a good second pass) and have edited the short stories that go with the world.

Almost every novel I’ve written so far has been in that universe, one indirectly. (A total of five novels.) It’s a fascinating universe, with a group of immortals known as Archetypes, tethered to the human world by their responsibility of holding humans’ racial memories so humans are less consumed by their pasts. A few of the immortals get involved with humans as their protectors; others rage against the humans and plot genocide. Most Archetypes live outside of relationships; a few stumble their way through relationships. The Archetypes are super-fertile, and must abstain from sex, but rarely they make the decision to bring other Archetypes and the half-human Nephilim into the world, for good or evil purposes.

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Within this universe, I have fit a number of genres and storylines: fantasy, romantic fantasy, and fantasy romance; Dude with a Problem, Golden Fleece; Buddy Love, Rites of Passage, Superhero.

I like writing within the universe because its characters and settings are so interesting to me. But I need a change, and I need it by Camp NaNo.