quartz episode one…

April 2, 2013 2 Comments

… went out to Inboxes all over the known universe early this morning!

Rafe Grenfeld, diplomat and spy, has problems. His entire embassy’s been arrested, he’s stuck in a hostile foreign city with police looking for him, and he’s been hiding in a smelly cramped dumpster for far too long. And that’s just the first two paragraphs! To find out more, go here.

Episode Two goes up on Saturday.

***

In other news, I have the nasty cold that my boys passed around this past week. And just as I was beginning to think I’d escaped the winter sniffles that have plagued my entire family these last few months…

Here’s hoping to resume writing and blogging regularly SOON.

How are you all?

 

Share via email
Filed Under: personal, quartz, self-promotion

Quartz serial is coming soon!

March 29, 2013 7 Comments

As in, next Tuesday, April 2nd.

*gulp!*

We’ve set up a separate page and mailing list for it, which you can find here.

Aaaand, here’s the revised blurb (I can NOT stop tinkering with it, apparently!)

In order to save their world, the mages of long ago plunged it into eternal night.

Now rare veins of quartz provide light, heat, and food to a dying world. And Rafael Grenfeld has just learned that the biggest quartz pillar of them all, the legendary Tower of Light, exists. Unfortunately, his informer died before revealing its location and he’s stuck in the hostile totalitarian state of Blackstone.

Desperate to find the Tower of Light for his people, Rafe forms an uneasy alliance with the mysterious and maddening Isabella. They’re not the only ones interested in the quartz. The Shadow, chief of the Blackstone secret police, is also hunting for it. As darkness-loving demons devour souls and dangerous magical artifacts resurface, Rafe must tap into the lost powers of the mages in order to find and secure the quartz—before his world is destroyed by famine and war.

If you’re interested in receiving Quartz episodes in your Inbox, sign up here. (If you’re reading this in your feed reader or Inbox, visit the site to sign up).

Quartz RSS

Sign up here to receive each episode of Quartz in your inbox. Your email is never sold or shared.

***

Also, Sean over at Adventures of a Bookonaut interviewed on his podcast. So if you want to hear me talk about my year of trying new things, the books that influenced me, self-publishing and slow build, click on the link!

 

Share via email
Filed Under: guest post, quartz, self-promotion

Tia Nevitt on writing novellas

March 18, 2013 12 Comments

Tia Nevitt is the author of Accidental Enchantments, a series of novella-length fairy tale retellings. Her latest release, the Snow White-inspired The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, features an unusual protagonist in one of the seven dwarves–a young woman looking for her own happy ending. Today, Tia is here to share her biggest novella-writing tip.

Welcome, Tia!

Novellas are hot in eBooks right now. Now that bookbinding is no longer an issue, it is no longer cost-prohibitive to produce novellas outside of a serial publication. ePublishers love them.

A novella is considered a story that is between 15,000 and 50,000 words. Here’s a rough guideline on manuscript length classifications:

  • Up to 1000 words – Flash Fiction
  • 1000 to 8000 words – Short Story
  • 8000 to 15000 words – Novelette
  • 15000-50000 words – Novella
  • 50000 to 100000 words – Novel
  • 100000 and higher – Epic

Shorter works are often harder to write than longer works. Plenty of authors love writing novels but wince at the thought of writing short stories. They might say something like, “I meant to write a short story but it kept wanting to turn into a novel.”

Here is my number one tip on writing novella-length works.

Limit the Number of Characters

When I was writing The Sevenfold Spell, I learned that each new secondary character brought with it at least a thousand words. At the time, I was expanding it from short story to novella, so I cut a bunch of really minor characters and added two major secondary characters–Talia’s best friend (Widow Harla) and the third man in her life (Prince Andrew). Each came with a story and a purpose. The Sevenfold Spell is a tight little story, and so it ended up with a very small cast of characters.

With The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, I faced a new problem. I wanted to write a novella from the start, but I knew right away I would have to have seven dwarfs. Hmm. Seven dwarfs plus the prince, the princess and the evil queen. And I had better not make any of those dwarfs stereotypical. No one like Sneezy or Grumpy in any way.

So I ended up with ten characters, but an eleventh one wrestled his way in—the minstrel.

My characters ended up fitting the following classifications:

Protagonists – Gretchen and Prince Richard. I knew I would have parallel love stories, so I made one person from each love story the principal POV. Otherwise, I felt the story would be overwhelmed in POV changes.

Love interests – Lars and Princess Angelika – They have fewer POV scenes, but each plays a principal part.

Principal Secondary – Marta,  Johann and Rudolph – Marta is Gretchen’s mentor and matron of the dwarf farm. Johann is the minstrel and has key interactions with both Gretchen and Richard. Rudolph is a minor villain, a bully who inadvertently helps bring Gretchen and Lars together.

Minor Secondary – Gunther, Klaus, and Dieter – Gunther is the supervisor of the farm; Klaus is the youngest of the dwarfs and is often bullied by Rudolph, and Dieter is the confrontation-adverse owner of the dwarf farm.

How much of the story did each take up? Here’s a pie chart.

The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf

Character Prevelance Chart

Tia's Pie Chart

Of course, there’s a lot of overlap. All of the green and purple slices include at least one protagonist or love interest.

Since this was just a guess, I tested it. So considering that the story is about 44,000 words, I generated approximate totals for each group. It looks about right, with the possible exception of the Minor Secondary characters having a smaller portion of the pie.

Another tip I might have is to limit the number of plot twists, but I think if you concentrate on limiting the number characters, that will help more than anything else. This will give you the room that you need to develop the characters and grow it into a fulfilling story without making your readers feel short-changed.

Not even a stint in the military as an aircraft mechanic could erase Tia Nevitt’s love of fairy tales. To this day, she loves to read (and write) books that take her to another place, or another time, or both. She also dabbles in calligraphy, violin, piano and songwriting. Tia has worked on an assembly line, as a computer programmer, a technical writer and a business analyst. She lives in the southeast with her husband and daughter.

Tia’s novella, The Sevenfold Spell, won the 2012 EPIC ebook award for Fantasy.

***

 Check out The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf at the following retailers:

Carina Press – Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Google Play – Omni Lit

Audiobook Version

Magic_Mirror_Tia_Nevitt

Prince Richard is cursed. He is enslaved to the magic mirror, and must truthfully answer the evil Queen when she uses the mirror to call on  him. To keep from betraying innocents, Richard wanders the countryside and avoids people.

Gretchen has been teased all her life for being small. When she hears a tale of a hidden farm full of little people like her, she sets out to find it – and is welcomed by the mostly male inhabitants. One in particular, Lars, woos her with his gentle kindness and quiet strength.

But danger looms when Gretchen meets a runaway Princess and offers her shelter at the Little Farm. Wandering nearby, Richard instantly falls in love with the young beauty, and is compelled to tell the queen that she is NOT the fairest of  them all. Enraged, the queen vows to find the Farm and destroy it.

If either Gretchen or Richard are to have any hope of a happy ending, they must team up to break the mirror’s spell before the Queen kills them all…

Share via email
Filed Under: e-books, fairy tales, guest post

tell me about deserts

March 8, 2013 29 Comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in a hot climate (over ten years now). And even when I did, my experience was of a coastal urban environment.

Right now I’m writing a story set in a desert.

I’ve read up on real-life deserts. I’ve looked at dozens of pictures of sand dunes, barren hills and salt flats. I’ve watched videos.

But none of those gives me the sensory details I crave. What does the desert smell like? How does the wind feel on your face? What’s the light like? What sounds do you hear in the desert night?

Since I can’t just hop on a plane for some first-hand research (I wish!), I’m asking for details from some of you who might’ve experienced a desert environment. If you live in, or have visited, the American Southwest (like the Death Valley area) or any other hot desert, I’d love to know some sensory details that’ll bring the setting to life for me.

Share via email
Filed Under: worldbuilding, writing process

behind-the-scenes sunday

March 3, 2013 8 Comments

Oops. I didn’t get around to planning, writing and scheduling posts for this week. Life has been busy of late, but in a good way. So, let’s go behind the scenes and see what I’ve been up to lately.

Homeschooling

We went back to school after a week’s vacation. That required planning on my part, some of which included:

  • Find copywork sentences and passages for the olders
  • Correcting school work and ordering new workbooks as needed (math for Sir I., spelling for Miss M., phonics for the Baron)
  • Looking over the next few history chapters, picking supplementary books, and checking them out from the library
  • Choosing which science topics to cover and gathering supplies for experiments (current list includes cream of tartar, a head of red cabbage, and graduated measuring cylinders!)

And then there’s actual school time, which takes up all of the morning and an hour or so in the afternoon.

Writing

Folks, I’ve been struggling through Ironhand (working title of the Mourning Cloak sequel).

I’m a weird breed of fantasy writer. Barring a set of loosely-related short stories featuring the same character, I’ve never written a sequel. None. Zilch. Nada.

And I realized that I’m terrified of sequels. Yes, I would rather build a whole new world and bring a whole new set of characters to life than write a sequel.

Sequels come with baggage. Other people’s expectations.  The sinking feeling that you might’ve broken the story. The duh moment that you wished you’d added that one detail in book one that would’ve set everything up so well for book two. The feeling that you’re writing yourself into a corner and you can’t do a darn thing about it because the first book is already published!

Working on Ironhand was like being a rabbit running away from a big scary dog.

It wasn’t pretty. One should not get that anxious and sweaty-palmed over a scene in which characters aren’t even being attacked.

So I took some time out to write a very short story, and a few nights ago the right brain and I had a little talk. In which right brain handed me some ideas for how to finish up the Kato/Flutter story in one novella, gave me some truly scary monsters, and some helpful plot guideposts along the way.

I’m calmer now.

In other writerly news, I’ve started a fantasy novel about a girl and a pegasus for 6yo Miss M. and a sci-fi collaboration with 8yo Sir I.

O.o

Yeah, that was my reaction, too.

This and That

Things are happening with the Quartz serial! I went through the novel and divided it up into 90 episodes. I’ve polished, proofread and stuck the first four into WordPress. My tech people and I are working on figuring out how to integrate the serial into my site (current plan is to give it its own page and RSS feed). A weekly episode will run on Tuesdays, with Saturdays open for a bonus episodes (at $5 each).

I also have a very tentative production schedule for this year (always subject to change), but it includes Ironhand, a follow-up anthology to Shattered, the completion of a Kai’s book that is sitting (still) at 80K, and a Snow White-inspired novella with electricpunk elements (and no, I don’t know if electricpunk is really a word).

 

How about you? What projects are you working on?

Share via email
Filed Under: goals, homeschooling, writing process

friday this and that

February 22, 2013 2 Comments

Are you a NaNoWriMo winner planning to self-publish for the first time? My fabulous and generous cover artist, Ravven, is giving away a FULL publishing package to one deserving writer–complete with editing, proofreading, formatting, cover art, website graphics, and marketing help.

(And yes, yours truly is one of the volunteer beta readers!)

Go here to find out the details.

**

The cover for FableCroft Publishing’s One Small Step is here!

One Small Step

This anthology contains the short story “Sand and Seawater”, co-written by Joanne Anderton and me.

Our tagline–brought to you by Jo–is Dolls are creepy, read this story!

(Better tagline coming soon…)

Aussie peeps, you can pre-order a copy here (you lucky things, you!)

**

Links from around the web:

You Don’t Do Much Else Interesting and 25 Other Reasons Why No One Likes Your Art

More Insights on Sharpening Your Creative Mind

IndieReCon (posts, videos, chat replays)

Out, All of You! On fighting for your own voice

Share via email
Filed Under: cover art, creativity, linktopia, publishing, self-promotion, short stories

a tap shoe and an owl statue

February 20, 2013 19 Comments

Today I drew a tap shoe and an owl statue.

My creative (non-work-writing) goal for February is to draw every day–though at the rate I’m going, it’s more like Draw Every Other Day.

I didn’t draw much as a kid. Actually, I hated art class. I didn’t have an abundance of natural artistic talent. The disconnect between the picture in my head and the one on my page frustrated me. My Bs and Cs in art dragged down an otherwise stellar report card–which made me rather cross.

And I was slow. My art pad was filled with incomplete projects since I always ran out of time. (I’m that way with all hands-on work, including labs. I was always the last one out of lab, one of the reasons I didn’t minor in chemistry. I never finished my wooden-spoon doll with the paper mache head nor my embroidery sampler in Handwork during elementary school. And yes, it still galls after all these years!)

I would’ve rather done extra math than painted a still life.

But, secretly, I always wished I could draw well.

There were two things I didn’t understand about art when I was a kid. I don’t know if it’s because no one ever told me, or that I didn’t listen (I was stubborn, too, as well as being a loather-of-art-class).

First, you can learn art. What I thought of as talent is mainly skill. A teachable skill. No one ever taught me things like how to use my art materials, how to create depth, or the proportions of the human face. I didn’t realize that one could take art skills and break them down into smaller steps, and that an ordinary person like me could learn them.

Second, because I had it in my mind that being good at art was an innate talent–either you had it or you didn’t–I never bothered to practice it. One art class a week was not enough to make up for my lack of giftedness. If I wanted to draw well–and yes, I wanted to, still do–I should’ve been practicing.

Twenty years later, with a writing career and homeschooled kids, I’m finally squeezing it in. It’s not much, it’s not going to be consistent, but it’s still keeping the dream alive.

How about you? Do you have something that you secretly wish you could do well? Something that’s always appealed to you, but that you’ve never tried?

Share via email
Filed Under: creativity, drawing, personal

5 family read-alouds to try

February 18, 2013 Leave a Comment

You’ve been reading chapter books to your kids since your oldest was 2. You’ve read through all of the Narnia and all of the Little House books–twice. You cheered Harry on through his years at Hogwarts, went on a tour of Mr. Wonka’s amazing chocolate factory, and teared up when Charlotte died. You’ve even made it through classics like The Secret Garden and Peter Pan.

Your voice is permanently hoarse and you’ve just about run out of book ideas.

Now what?

Try one of these as your next family read-aloud:

My Father’s Dragon and sequels by Ruth Stiles Gannet

 My Father's Dragon

This series is the perfect introduction to chapter books for younger, wigglier children. The few black-and-white illustrations are appealing, the chapters are short and episodic, and the tale is wildly improbably and fun.

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

The Princess and the Goblin

This lovely fairy tale features a brave miner boy, a truthful princess, a many-times-great grandmother with rose-scented magic, and a dastardly goblin plot.

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper

The Dark is Rising

This is David’s current read-aloud with the olders. Both of us Gale parents LOVED this MG fantasy series as kids. There’s some confusion over the fact the series is named after the second book. You want to start with Over Sea, Under Stone.

And the movie adaptation sucks. Don’t bother with it.

For a more humorous fantasy angle, check out The Boggart by the same author.  A Canadian family accidentally take a boggart from Scotland back home to Toronto. Mayhem and hilarity ensue.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons

Now I’ll be the first to admit that these books aren’t superbly written (I always want to edit as I read aloud). And the whole “natives and explorers” angle might bother some folks. BUT these adventurous children–none of them teens yet–are capable, kind, courageous, and resourceful. Their parents let them go off on a sailing/camping adventure and TRUST them to not drown–and these kids live up to the responsibility. For older books, they are also refreshingly free of gender problems. Four of the six children are girls, and there’s never any indication that they are not as capable as boys.

I found these books very empowering when I was a child, and my kids do too. They’re the next best thing to running away and having their own adventures!

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes

The Moffats

 If you like the Ramona books, you’ll like the Moffats. Perfect for when you just want an old-fashioned, nostalgic read about small town families.

What are some of your favorite read-alouds? Share in the comments!

Share via email
Filed Under: kids at play, reading

you can keep your Mr. Darcy

February 14, 2013 19 Comments

I have nothing against Mr. Darcy, really. Like almost every woman out there, I enjoy the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice  but Mr. Darcy does not set my heart aflutter. I’m sure he and Elizabeth Bennet will deal very well together, but I don’t envy her good fortune. Sure, he’s rich and handsome and responsible and devoted–but perhaps a tad too boring?

No, I’d rather take a man of action, such as a dashing naval hero, like another one of Austen’s leading men: Persuasion’s Captain Wentworth.

I prefer the other adaptation of Persuasion, but this Captain Wentworth is handsomer. Yes, I'm shallow that way.

I prefer the other adaptation of Persuasion, but this Captain Wentworth is handsomer. Yes, I’m shallow that way.

Darcy inherited his wealth, but Wentworth, born with fewer prospects, earned it. And there’s just something adventurous about a man in uniform.

But a ship’s captain is bound to be away at sea for long periods of time, so perhaps one should look at self-made men in other professions. Such as North & South’s mill owner, Mr. Thornton.

Especially if he is played by Richard Armitage.

"North & South" is my favorite period drama. You should watch it. Even Richard Armitage thinks you should.

“North & South” is my favorite period drama. You should watch it. Even Richard Armitage thinks you should.

However, Mr. Thornton needs to be financially bailed out by heroine Margaret Hale at the end. Perhaps one should look at independently wealthy men again–and while we’re aiming high, how about a Duke?

Like, maybe the Duke of Salford, the titular character of Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester. Like Darcy, he is rich, well-born and insufferably proud, but he does have a great sense of humor. And the adventures he and heroine Phoebe Marlow have are laugh-out-loud funny.

Some handsome actor really needs to play Sylvester in a movie version.

Some handsome actor really needs to play Sylvester in a movie version.

However, one really doesn’t know about these literary heroes. They might have drinking problems or bad dental hygiene or rather outdated notions of what women should or should not do.

No, no. They may look good in paper and on screen, but what about the parts that were edited out? I’d rather choose a real good guy, one I can trust. Like this one:

REAL Handsome Guy with Adorable Kids

REAL Handsome Guy with Adorable Kids

Oh, wait! I already did!

To my White Knight, Chief Cheerleader, Tech Support Guy, Co-parent of three gorgeous, smart, and crazy kids, Fixer of Pipes and Broken Toys, Reacher of Objects on High Shelves, and Companion for Life–you’re the only romantic hero and leading man I want.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Share via email
Filed Under: personal, reading, TV & film

movie notes: The Hobbit and Captain America

February 11, 2013 2 Comments

The Hobbit

I was predisposed to like The Hobbit.

First, it was the movie part of the dinner-and-a-movie date that David and I had to celebrate our ten-year anniversary. To put this in perspective, David and I have gone to the movie theaters only thrice since we became parents eight years ago (the other two times for the first Transformers movie and Disney’s Tangled). And nobody wants the movie they see for their tenth wedding anniversary to be a dud.

Second, Thorin is played by Richard Armitage, who also plays Mr. Thornton in my favorite period drama, North & South.

And third, the song. This song. *shivers up my spine*

Er, now on to the movie itself.

Peter Jackson is obviously trying to solidify The Hobbit as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Not only did he bring back familiar sets and familiar music, but he added a lot of material foreshadowing the re-emergence of Sauron. A lot of moments–like Gandalf hitting his head on Bilbo’s chandelier, and the flight and fight on the bridges in the mountain–mirrored parts of LoTR.

I liked that dwarves get to be heroes, especially after Gimli was nothing more than comic relief in LoTR. I enjoyed Martin Freeman’s Bilbo much better than I did Elijah Woods’ Frodo. He has more range of expression, at any rate.

For the first time, I saw Elrond happy. I guess I can’t call him the Bitter Elf any longer…

Captain America

I saw this recently, after having watched The Avengers. I liked Captain America. I liked his unashamed patriotism. I liked his character arc from ninety-pound weakling to lab experiment to chorus girl and finally to super hero. The romance was handled with a light touch, very nice.

I was amused to see Hugo Weaving playing Agent Smith again. ;)

I wish that there had been more time to develop the characters in Captain America’s elite team of Hydra-butt-kickers. As it is, aside from Captain America’s BFF, I didn’t even know–much less remember–the names of anyone on his team.

AND I am annoyed that the ending of the movie–emotionally wrenching as it was–is based on such utter terrible PLOT FAIL. If the writers had spent more than five minutes thinking about it, they could’ve come up with a better reason for WHY Captain America HAD to crash the plane into the ice (besides, yanno, as a convenient reason to get him from WW2 to the 21st century).

As it is, I heartily agree with this “How it Should Have Ended” video:

Have you seen either or both of these movies? What did you think?

Share via email
Filed Under: TV & film
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»