Happy Christmas Eve from The Elms

I’m sitting in the lobby of The Elms in Excelsior Springs, Missouri celebrating a very mellow Christmas Eve. Having no children or grandchildren, this is how our holidays go.

We eat at the local restaurants, we shop, we soak up local history. We got our massages yesterday (and that was marvelous!) and have had time to write. We’ve had time to relax, and heaven knows I needed that.

I’m posting my Christmas greetings to you now, because I will probably be busy watching Christmas movies tomorrow in-between writing and the buffet.

Merry Christmas!

Getting to Know My Characters

I occasionally throw my characters into other situations where they have to have a close interaction with another character. This is the way my characters teach me who they are. These also become short stories to be included in short story collections (such as Stories Within Stories, which will be out January 1st.)

For example:

What does a vision quest look like in a big city?
How do two enemies interact when one is having a very bad day?
How do two characters navigate a cultural divide?
How do a human and an immortal negotiate having a child?
How do you confront a mythical creature?

There are hundreds of ways to write these, and I’ll argue that what really determines where the story goes are the characters. Two enemies that have millennia of conflict may have a rapport. How to confront that mythical creature may depend on whether it has kidnapped your grandma — and, for that matter, whether your grandma can take care of herself.

The thing, though, is that not only do the characters make the story, but the story turns around and makes the character. I learn new things about my characters from writing these stories, especially things like their vulnerabilities and idiosyncracies. Things that make my characters real.

I need another story to write!

Staying Optimistic

I’m an author. I have self-published and sold books. I don’t have much of a following, and I don’t have the confidence-boosting event of an agent liking my work, but I’m serious about writing.

I still don’t know where writing will lead. I suppose I should assume that if my writing hasn’t gone anywhere in the five years I’ve been self-publishing, that it’s not going to go anywhere. But I’m optimistic, because the most important thing to me are the words and their meaning. Everything else is beyond my control to a great extent.

I don’t know if I believe in God, but I pray for success. I don’t specify what success looks like, because I don’t like telling God what to do. I also don’t think God is going to get me a publishing contract, but maybe They will help me see success when it’s in front of my eyes. Maybe I’ll see a new way to publicize my work. Maybe I will have a strong desire to let writing go.

My definition of success is having readers who want to read the next novel in the series. Readers whose imaginations visit Barn Swallows’ Dance or the neighborhoods of Chicago where my characters live. People who know who their favorite character is. I want people to feel welcome in my world. Maybe I can have that success.

We shall see. I will never have any success if I give up.

Author Fair

My local library is going to have an Author Fair this weekend, and I will be there. In fact, I will read an excerpt from one of the Kringle romances; I still haven’t figured out which. I’m tempted to read from It Takes Two to Kringle. In this scene, a beleaguered junior faculty member discovers that the attractive man who treated her to coffee is a Christmas fanatic who will create extra tasks for her. I’m going to have to figure this out by Saturday morning.

Author fairs are unnerving. I have never sold over three books at an author fair, because I’m an indie writer and my novels are quirky. My male leads are college professors, professional Santas, and pacifist warriors. My female leads are college professors, accountants, and former labor organizers. The immortals are not elves or angels, although they’ve been mistaken for both.

So I sit there and watch people walk by, and sometimes they stop and peruse. Sometimes I get to answer questions, and I feel like anyone could answer these questions better than me. But despite my impostor syndrome, I enjoy getting questions. I just wish I was more articulate on the “summarize the plot” questions.

So I’ll be setting up Saturday morning for a two-hour session with my books and my table trappings. Wish me luck!

A Few Minutes to Think

I’ve had a few minutes to think between final project grading and final exams, so I’ll share my thoughts:

I don’t believe in “manifesting”. God is not an ATM. But just in case I’m wrong, you’ve heard it here first: I want my niche to discover my writing. I want an engaged group of readers who can identify with the small magics of Barn Swallows’ Dance and the power of InterSpace.
On being 60: I have to accept that I’m now reminding my students of their grandmas rather than their mothers. It’s a shock to the system; I don’t feel that old. Moreover, I think it’s affecting my ability to write romance, because I’m not getting those looks anymore. You know, THOSE looks. (Not lustful, but playful. That’s just how I roll.) It’s not bothering me; it’s just weird, like I’ve lost a color in my vision (say magenta) and I barely remember having it.
If I didn’t have a third item in this list, you would feel vaguely dissatisfied. That’s because three is a magic number. It’s not universally magic, but in a list, we feel satisfied when there’s a third item. Two becomes magic because of its connection to ‘either … or’. And couples, of course.

That’s enough. It’s time for me to write for a while. But first, a cat:

In the Middle of Writing

Sorry I haven’t written! I am still caught up (and barely caught up) on NaNoWriMo, with 14,000 words left to write.

I finished editing Avatar of the Maker and, having nothing better to do, started a new novel in the Archetype series, Carrying Light.

Sage Bertinelli has been summoned by her Aunt Jeanne back to Barn Swallows’ Dance. When Sage arrives, she finds the collective, Tree-gifted and weary, debating how they will answer the twilight of the life they have known.

Forrest Gray, half-immortal, wants Sage to shelter in the safety of the collective. She, on the other hand, wants to go out into the changed world — and away from her turmoil. The two must look within and without to find the answers.

I didn’t think I would write another book so quickly after Avatar of the Maker, but NaNo calls.

I’m Done!

Ok, that was random. I’m done writing Avatar of the Maker, at least the first draft.

It needs a lot of work, enough that I don’t know where to start. At the beginning, I suppose. I think I need to make lots of notes on it and I don’t know whether to make these on paper or on electronic sticky notes. Or both; some of these notes are on the overall body of the book and others are specific. Writing a novel is hard; editing is harder.

I think I can describe the novel in one sentence: One death in this battle could kill millions.

In a paragraph: Leah Inhofer sees visions of a battle held in a dim place. Her best friend, Baird, draws her from her sheltered upbringing by his very existence as a Nephilim. They meet with Luke, a near-immortal Archetype who reels from the loss of the human patterns he carried. The battle Leah sees will happen, a battle of Archetypes. One death in this battle could kill millions of humans. Leah knows that she must act to stop the battle, at the risk of her life. She carries the responsibility as the Avatar of the Maker, who has the power to change the flow of reality.

My mind is already working on the book cover. That’s a long way from now.

Two Personal Goals

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

The prompt above leads me to two different answers. What was the hardest personal goal I’ve set to myself?

The first: In 2000, I participated in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk. To do this, I first had to raise $1000 for the organization. For the walk itself, I had to walk 20 miles a day for three days. This meant I had to train for the event by walking further every day. I started at two hours a day to a two day 13/14 mile event.

I survived the walk with a few blisters and a lifetime experience. The fundraising was the hard part, with a chunk of the money provided by Walter Cronkite. Yes, the most trusted man in America Walter Cronkite. (Anyone younger than boomers should look him up). No, I didn’t know him. But a friend of a relative of his called in a favor. Sometimes, I guess, the stars align.

The second: I wrote my first novel. I’ve been writing since third grade, when a teacher (who didn’t realize she was teaching 3rd-graders a high school curriculum) taught poetry. I remember doing well in haiku, struggling a bit with diamanté, and being totally overwhelmed with sonnets. I wrote my first published poem that year, if the classroom’s front door was a publication. I went on to write descriptions, short stories, a short play, more short stories … But never a novel. I thought I had irredeemable problems with plotting a long story.

Many many years after that, my husband is responsible for my writing my first novel. I was writing several stories around the same characters. I was almost obsessed with them. Richard said to me, “If you’re going to keep writing short stories, you might as well write a novel.” My instant response was “I can’t write a novel. I have irredeemable problems with plotting a long story (or something like that).

I started writing, and admittedly I did have problems with plotting at first. My novel read like a bunch of short stories at first, and I rewrote it three times until I came up with a result I liked. My other novels didn’t have the same fault as I learned the narrative shape of a novel. The first novel (not the first published) was Gaia’s Hands, which has been published on Kindle.

For honorable mention, I should mention learning how to drive. I didn’t learn to drive till I was 32. The first time I took drivers’ ed in high school I failed for stopping the car in the middle of the railroad tracks to check for trains. (It’s not incomprehensible if you take into account I have a learning problem with spatial and sequential relationships.) The second time, I barely passed but didn’t feel comfortable enough to drive. I learned for real at 32 with the most talented drivers’ ed teacher there ever was. There is talent involved in teaching people to drive. There’s patience, there’s talking someone out of quitting, and there’s the ability to explain things in a way that someone who processes things differently will understand.

I appreciate the goals I’ve struggled with more deeply than the ones that came easy to me. They built more of my character. They became the accomplishments I judged myself by. It’s strange, because I have a PhD and I don’t weigh that among my greatest accomplishments. My greatest accomplishments have been the hardest.

Interrogating Forrest Gray

When I have a new character for a future writing (in this case a short story), I feel compelled to have a conversation with them. To interrogate them, as it were.

I walk into the cafe, looking around for the young man I’ll meet for coffee. One of the great things about being a writer at age 60 is that you can have imaginary coffee with good looking young men.

My coffee date sits in the back corner. Not tall, and not big, he leans back in the chair reading a book. His black hair falls just past his shoulders.

He looks up and smiles as if it’s a habit of his. I know his father and his mother; it tracks. Deep brown eyes and a short nose, an oval face, the face of the Siberian aboriginals, the face of the Bering Strait Archetype’s Nephilim son.

“I was wondering when you would catch up with me.” Forrest put down the book, which I noted was on natural dyeing techniques. I had heard Forrest had apprenticed himself to Elaine and her fiber arts at the collective.

“Elaine has just forgiven me for how much fermenting Chinese indigo smells.” Forrest raises his eyebrows; he has his father’s charm and his mother’s gift with words. “Luckily, I’m not dyeing at her space; Janice found a spare corner of her barn space she’s letting me use.”

“Aasha hasn’t needed you at the infirmary lately, has she?” Forrest’s talent was the knitting of bones, of skin, and oddly the knitting of wool.

“No, but Baird had a kid — a baby goat — who had broken his toe. We fixed that up for him. Cute little kid. I’ll be honest, I don’t like using my gift, but it’s better that we have it for emergencies.”

“I’m curious,” I said. “Are you planning on staying at Barn Swallows’ Dance?”

He brushed back his hair. “I think so. I couldn’t use my talents outside, you know. I don’t know what an ordinary doctor would make of me, although I’m told we are within tolerances of human. And my mother’s here, still trying to figure out how I grew up so quickly.”

“You were born grown-up!” I grimaced at him.

“She knows that, of course. She knows she didn’t sign up for an ordinary family.”

“Does your dad still visit?” I asked cautiously.

“All the time. He’s become fascinated with Barn Swallows’ Dance, particularly in the dinner menu. And he still courts my mother, who considers him ‘not bad for a man’.” Forrest laughed. “I think they’re quite the couple despite that.”

“What do you do at the collective when you’re not fixing bones?”

“A little of everything. I’m on sheep-shearing duty, and I’m trying to figure out the alpacas. I work with Jeanne, particularly in grafting trees; we’re working on better apricots in the food forest right now. I’m trying to take over the coffee roasting from Jeanne, but she caught onto that pretty quick.”

I ask my last question, wondering how Forrest will answer. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. I am looking for something, or maybe something is looking for me. My father was never a mystic; an Archetype’s relationship with the Maker is rather prosaic. My mother, on the other hand, believes in things. Probably because she’s from Barn Swallows’ Dance. I’m just waiting, though, for it to show its face.”

A Bit of Writer’s Block

I need to go back to writing on Avatar of the Maker, as I have only written about 2000 words in the past week. I could get it written in a month if I could get 1000 words a day. The problem is that I’m not eager anymore because of the remaining part being before the big ending and after Leah’s pregnancy revelation.

What would it take to get more eager? I need to talk to Baird. Baird is one of the male protagonists (this is not a love triangle!) He’s half-human, half immortal Archetype, and he’s in love with Leah. He’s a deliberate person, and could be accused of being slow by someone who didn’t know better. He’s a marshmallow in romance parlance.

I need to find his orneriness. I need to find his edge. I need to see him be worthy opposition to headstrong Leah. This part is murky and I don’t know where to go. How frustrating.

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