I won! I really won! (Emphasis added for effect)

Now that I tricked you to get you here, it all came about out of sheer boredom.  I was cruising the internet one night, unable to write because I was simply too tired, and came across this contest. It sounded easy. They wanted a description of a building, any building, in less than 300 words. It was a test of skill to “instantly conjure a detailed and vivid image into the mind’s eye”. How hard could it be? I took a description from my finished fantasy novel, Kindar’s Cure, and slapped it into a standalone piece. Wham, bam, it’s submitted.

I didn’t win first prize. My name was listed third. No glamorous prizes. No cash. Just a free entry into another contest and another excuse for a sad desperate writer to brag.

Anyway here it is, in its entirety or see it here at Webook:

The castle at Bellmore stood alone in an open meadow. Kindar fidgeted with her reins as she studied the approach. Built at the edge of a reed-edged, natural lake, flat waters surrounded Bellmore on three sides. The fourth side contained the only entrance beyond the postern gate at the back that had to be reached by rowboat or barge. A grand courtyard bailey surrounded by heavily weathered gray stone walls and portcullis barred the approach to the keep itself which consisted of a single whitewashed tower. The first two stories of the tower offered only arrow slots, the true windows reserved for the last floor. Stone and more stone gave cold welcome, even the tile shingles were designed to prevent an assailant from using fire as a weapon.

The road to the castle was empty of soldiers or anyone else. Her horse shook his head as a butterfly fluttered around his ears, and she patted him absently. In this open area, watchers had spotted her immediately. As she rode into the arch before the portcullis, Kindar glanced up. Murder holes in the stone arch revealed soldiers, dressed in scarlet and gold, inspecting her every move. Drawn bows leveled arrows at her chest. Her hand drifted to her sword and tightened on the grip.

Chains rattled as the portcullis shuddered, then rose. She crossed into the green of the grassy bailey, waiting as soldiers spilled from outbuildings built in the walls and the keep itself. Her chin rose, but gray roof and cloudy sky blended above her, equally out of reach. Her sister could be confined anywhere.

  

Getting The Call: Guest Blogger Angie Sandro

I asked my talented friend and fellow writer, Angie Sandro, to give us a taste of her success.  She graciously wrote a post describing what it was like for her getting the call to be represented by an agent. Angie writes YA paranormal and her manuscript, Juju's Child, is currently on submission to publishers. Please check out Angie's blog for more.

Thank you for inviting me, Michelle. I am honored to be able to share how I found my amazing agent, Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

I happened to be on Joyce Alton’s YESTERNIGHT’S VOYAGE blog in which she listed a new agent who represented young adult. I clicked the link and presto, I was at LOVE YA blog reading Monica’s interview with Kathleen.

Kathleen said,” Topics of particular interest to me include reincarnation, the occult, the supernatural (not in a zombie or vampire context, more psychic, or witchy, or fey), ghosts (a scary ghost story? yes, please), and psychology.” She also disclosed that her guilty pleasures are Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl.

Hot diggidy dog! Her interests covered the various plots of all five of my manuscripts.

I was so excited. I immediately queried her and received a full request for the manuscript half an hour later. That night we emailed back and forth, and learned we had common interests in books and movies. It felt surreal. I didn’t want to get my hopes up because I’d faced rejection in past. But I liked Kathleen so much (insert whine to the heavens).

I thought, “This is a person I would like to work with forever.” And isn’t that what we all want in an agent? A partner. A friend.

By the next morning, I was losing my ever-lovin’ mind. To distract myself from refreshing my inbox every two minutes, I went on a ten mile mountain bike ride. THE CALL came while I was in the middle of the woods. I almost crashed my bike into a tree trying to dig my phone out of my tight bike shorts.

All poor Kathleen heard was screams, and finally, when I actually heard her say how much she loved Juju’s Child, and her offer of representation, she had to listen to more screams. Although, when I think back to that moment, I like to pretend I was dignified. In actuality, my brain totally shut down.

The list I had made of “things to ask if an agent offers representation” was at home while I still huddled in blissful euphoria beneath the tree that had almost decapitated me.

When I returned home, I gave Kathleen a call. We had a lengthy discussion about revisions and our ideas for improving upon the existing story after I returned home. Her revision suggestions and mine meshed. I notified the other agents who were considering the manuscript and those that I had queried, and informed them I would be making my decision in a week.

It was kind of predestined thing. Kathleen was meant to be my agent. The reason it took so long for me to find her was she wasn’t representing YA when I first started my agent search. Thank goodness, I found her because I can’t imagine being with any other agent. Not that there aren’t a whole lot of awesome agents out there, but because I feel like I’m going through this process with a friend.

http://www.marsallyonliteraryagency.com/about_kathleen.asp

http://yesternightsvoyage.blogspot.com/2011/06/interview-with-angie-sandro-newly.html

http://anjeasandro.blogspot.com/2011/05/year-of-fun-may-month-i-found-my-dream.html

More Treasure Hunt Fun

Check out J.W. Troemner's answers to the Treasure Hunt questions  here.  She has an excellent blog with all kinds of useful writing tips.

Blog Treasure Hunt

Wanna play?

Clippership or Joy Alton’s one year of blogging celebration is tomorrow, Saturday, March 24. She will be starting her treasure hunt in the morning which will travel through a variety of other blogs, including this one. The fun will continue in the evening to the big finish with a grand prize of a writing critique by Joy.

Her critiques are simply amazing.  I’m not talking just a work over of your word choice or grammar, but a full-blown plot scrutiny and evaluation of the logic of your chapters.

Check her out here at Yesternight’s Voyage.

Hunger Games

Tickets?

Check.

We got our tickets for the Hunger Games. My daughter reported that their high school cancelled a dance Friday because of the movie. Teenagers giving up a dance! Panic. Tickets could be sold out. We might have to wait another week after waiting months. My husband had the week off, and I nagged him relentlessly until he secured a set for us. Now we wait with pent up excitement for Saturday afternoon. Snacks are already packed in the giant movie purse. (I’m not paying $5 for milk duds.)  

My son introduced me to the books last summer. Anything that got my son to read had to be good. I read them in a matter of weeks. Personally, I prefer the first book though all were enjoyable. Now I’m eager to see whether the movie trumps the book or vice versa. Usually books are way better than their visual rival. No question of it. Except for Lord of the Rings, I can’t think of any case where a movie has been better.  I guess I will find out Saturday. Tune back in next week to hear my verdict.

As a writer, I noted several points of this book with interest. Places where the author broke the rules so to speak. (Though yes, you can afford to break the rules if you’ve been published before.)

Suzanne Collins didn’t dive into the whole dramatic incident until the end of the first chapter. She used small tweaks, starting in the first paragraph, to imply what was coming but held off.  That gave readers time to absorb the main character and her world, digesting and becoming invested. Many writers’ guides press that you lead off with the incident that propels your characters into chaos, which, of course, gives readers no time to care about the characters. Not the case with Hunger Games, and it is wildly successful.

Another interesting point is the lack of an antagonist you can point a finger at. There is no typical bad guy in the first book of the series, no one until the next book where President Snow takes that role. I’ve been on writing sites where they want you to detail a section about your antagonist, and if you cannot list one, your book must lack conflict. Hunger Games clearly doesn’t lack for conflict. It comes from the plot and the games themselves and not any one individual.

Just something to think about when you’re worrying about breaking rules.    

Guest Blogging

Check it out. I’m a traveling poster.  I’ve got a spot up on Angie Sandro’s blog, Oh, The Things I’ve Learned.  She asked me to wax poetic about how culture or environment can shape a writer.  Angie is a very talented writer of YA urban fantasy, who will be published soon. And big news— editors read her fantastic blog! 


Doesn't traveling poster sound more exciting than guest blogger?  At school, we call substitutes, guest teachers now. Yuck. So politically correct. 

Treasure Hunt

So Moonshade, fellow fantasy writer, has tagged me to take part in the celebration of Joy Alton’s full year of blogging at Yesternight’s Voyage. Joy is a real treasure, and the best moderator for writers around. I’ll do my best.

The rules are as follows:
1) Answer the questions on your own blog.
2) Tag three other speculative fiction blog writers to participate.
3) Each participant needs to link their blogpost with their answers back toYesternight's Voyage.
4) Leave a comment in the original post (on Yesternight's Voyage) as to why you love, write, or read speculative fiction and a link to your blog.
5) Stay tuned to Yesternight's Voyage this month for a mad treasure hunt (later on) that will connect all the participating blogs.
6) Make sure you post these rules on your blog when participating.
7) Please note that the blogging part of the treasure hunt will only run between March 6th - 19th. So have your answers posted by then. If you are posting your answers on the 18th or 19th, don't worry about tagging anyone new.

Questions:
1) Who are your favorite speculative fiction writers?

My favorite writers would have to be Brandon Sanderson, Kristen Britain, and Robert Jordan.

2) Write a two or three sentence writing prompt to inspire your readers today. (Encourage them to post their responses in your comments section.)

Writing prompt, hmmm? Imagine you were dumped in a world occupied by only five year olds with you the lone adult. What would a day be like and what would you have for lunch?

3) List three favorite industry blogs/websites that you've found helpful.

Pub Rants- lots of useful stuff

AQC- lots of fun people

Bookends- a great place to ask questions of an agent and get quick answers

4) Give us the low-down on your main character (or one of your main characters) in the story you're working on right now, regardless if it's finished or not. Describe his/her personality, situation, and what his/her biggest problem/obstacle is.

Little Bit is a shy, humble sort of girl. She’s in love without knowing it. Adventure is not really something she wants, but she gets it anyway. She is trying to find out the truth about herself and discovers her very life is a lie. The supernova of a nearby star wiped Earth’s ozone from the atmosphere. Now the sun’s radiation hits the planet unfiltered, bringing death to those who survived. Little Bit must venture out into this nightmare to get her answers.

5) What are your favorite speculative fiction movies from the last five years?

It’s so hard to think of favorite movies. I’m looking forward to seeing the Hunger Games soon. Tangled is a favorite I can watch again and again. All the Lord of the Rings from ages ago. The last Harry Potter, I think that was less than a year ago.

6) If you were suddenly thrown into another world where magic existed, what is something from the real world you'd want to take with you? (Limitations apply on energy sources and such.)

A hairbrush and contact lenses! Is that odd?

7) List the first type of these things you think of:
a) color: blue
b) number: 9
c) made-up name: Becky
d) an adjective: pussy-pants

That wasn’t too hard. Now to tag three people. Everyone is already tagged, plus no one reads my blog. Let’s see. Carla R. in hopes she will start a blog. Angie S. in hopes she hasn’t been tagged already. Brandon Sanderson in hopes he will ask to read my work. HeHe!

I look forward to the treasure hunt.

Notes on a Day

You know you’ve been accepted into their world when a group of five year old girls marches you arm-in-arm around the playground chanting “Angry Birds!” at the top of their lungs. Shrug, don’t know what it meant, but I wish I had a picture.

If I had a nickel for every shoe I tied this year or every coat I zipped. I may not be a millionaire, but it’s nice to be needed.

Tribute to Dr. Seuss

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2, I made a little piddle that goes something like this:

At the far end of the table

where the toast crumbs lack butter

and the grimy dishes gather in piles of clutter

and no speech is heard except hollow mutters

was the quarter of the Solitary Writer.

And deep behind the toast crumbs, you may see,

if you dare believe, instead of flee,

where the Writer once wrote

what dreams she dared float

before someone stole the hope away.

Who was the Writer?

And why did she work?

And why was she solitary in midnight lurks

at the end of the table where the toast crumbs lack butter?

The mouse still sets in the murk.

Ask it. It knows.

The mouse won’t speak.

Don’t left click its button.

It rests on the pad, no glutton

for devious cluckin’.

Its batteries glow on low

Don’t you know,

except for certain dull Tuesdays

in the middle of winter

when the moon casts its rays

toward the laptop’s dark screen.

Then the mouse might reveal

the fate of the Solitary Writer

before hope faded away.

It all started way back …

Such a long time ago …

Way back in the days when the agents were keen

and editors did glean

the words to forward careers most unlean.

When six figure advances appeared by the dozen

and publishers said welcome dear cousin.

That was when the glorious words first poured

onto paper and laptop, from opening lines to finishing chapters.

The bright sparkling words, volumes unmoored,

producing not tears but laughter.

And among the words, the nouns did play

before the hope did die away.

The verbs hopped and rumpled, all active by far.

With no tellerous was-ing to lower the bar.

To agents the query letters were let fly most trustful.

Until day by day, month by month

came the sickening smack by the gutful

of scabulous no’s, so disgustful.

The Writer said nothing. Just hung down her head.

No more words. No more nouns. No more verbs to be tried.

She silently faded away, the hope had lied.

Hearts of pride can only bleed.

On the screen, the curser blinked one thing …

“Read”

Until someone like you reads a whole awful lot,

It won’t be bought.

So read for the Writer. Treat her words with care.

Give them much praise. Put forth comments that dare.

Let no book lack.

Then the Writer

and all of her friends

may come back.

Tears on the Page

At a chat with fellow writers the other day, a friend mentioned that The Hunger Games almost made her cry. The five or six of us there all went on to list books or movies that had made us cry. I’m a crybaby so the list was long for me. Unsurprisingly, we agreed on a lot of titles. One other thing became pretty clear, movies have an advantage. As they say: seeing is believing. Or in this case, seeing is sympathizing. Plus, the visual art form also gets to weave in sound effects. How can you resist joining in a tear-fest you can both see and hear? Just like a yawn, see someone cry and you respond in kind. Hardly fair for writers, you might say. Writers have words on a page. Black against white.

But writing can run the gauntlet of emotion from the ultra blah, how to program your DVD player, to that tear-jerker novel you can’t put down. So how do the successful writers do it? Think about the scenes that made you cry, or maybe made you wish you could. (Come on, tough guys cry too.) They all have some things in common. The writer created a world or a character so real that it didn’t matter that none of it ever existed. Isn’t that what happened? You just wept over something that is complete fiction. It happened only in one person’s imagination. Yet, you felt for that fictional situation maybe even more than for a story you’d hear on the news. Emotional writing involves fully alive characters in a believable world.

And it should go without saying that, the character has to be a likeable character, not the antagonist. We should cheer when the villain gets theirs, not cry. Another given: the writing also has to be clean and have a good flow.

So why don’t writers try to provoke tears in every chapter? Obviously if writers killed off characters left and right, they would stop getting a proper reaction. Readers would give up on the book altogether or become deadened to being jerked around. So trauma must be a situation called for in the plot. You can’t just throw in a scene without reason and expect readers to react. It has to flow with the rest of the book and not stick out like a sore thumb. In other words: use super-emotion sparingly.

So what kinds of situations cause the most sorrow?

I can only speak for myself, but I boiled it down to a few situations I’ve noticed in multiple novels. The biggie: Anytime an animal is injured or killed, especial if a child is attached to it, look out. Think Black Beauty, or that staple of elementary school reading, Where the Red Fern Grows. Boy loves dogs, dogs die in tragic fashion. Not one, but both dogs. Tears galore. My personal record for crying is with the books by James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian. Pets put down. Yikes, those chapters still make me break down.

Next most weepy: death of a beloved favorite character. Anybody remember Beth from Little Women? You knew it was coming, but you couldn’t help yourself anyway. Another example: Tonks and Lupin from Harry Potter. They just had a baby, sob. (Hope this isn’t a spoiler, but everybody who was going to read Harry Potter has probably seen the movie.) The list could go on and on.

There is a third shorter category of tear-jerkers: when a favorite place/setting is destroyed. The place has to have a mystic kind of perfection in some fashion to make this work. In the end of Return of the King, when the Shire is burned and enslaved. The Shire represented peaceful co-existence, a utopia that didn’t go untouched and so tore your heart to see it reduced. The rampage that wrecked Hogwarts at the end of Harry Potter is another example. Hogwarts should have been a place of safety; it was a beloved castle where loyal friendships were forged. Thus the hurt to see it torn apart.

And lastly, perhaps the hardest to pull off: the heroic sacrifice. A character makes a sacrifice out of love and loyalty to protect another. (Often this doesn’t have to end in death, thank goodness.) My favorite example is in Lord of the Rings when Merry and Pippin jump out, exposing themselves to the orcs in order to draw the orcs away from Frodo. Frodo gets away, Merry and Pippin get taken. Foolish, brave little hobbits, makes me cry every time. Another probably unknown example from Patrick O’Brian’s books. The main character was sentenced (unjustly) to the pillory as a form of public humiliation. You might remember the pillory scene from A Knight’s Tale, your head and wrists are locked in place, making the victim helpless. O’Brian’s book is similar, but written before that movie came out. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of loyal sailors came to the square to protect their Captain from being pelted with garbage or slapped around while he was helpless. A real emotion scene of pride and love. And then, there’s Dobby from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can’t think about it with dry eyes. Dobby frees his friends, but takes a knife. “Here lies Dobby: A free elf.” Just try not to cry at that one.

So that’s my thoughts on the subject. I probably left out many important points as there are so many possibilities. Please feel free to list your favorite tear-jerkers in the comments, or any ideas you have for what makes a good sad scene.

Head Scratchers and Funnies

Not sure what to post as I fill time waiting on a nudge on a full. For non-writers, a nudge on a full means that an agent requested the full manuscript of my finished story, but hasn’t yet got back to me with a rejection or The Call. I waited ten weeks, and then sent a nudge email. It’s tricky, because you have to keep the nudge confident, but not cocky. You don’t want to sound whiny or needy. It’s kind of a fine line between being a pest and having the right to some closure on the whole thing.

Anyway, here are some funnies things that happened at work. I wish I had pictures to go with them. Please use your imagination.

A small girl eagerly waved me over to her line one morning before school started. She had something to show me. I expected the usual such as a much too close-up view of her gum where she lost a tooth, or the old favorite ‘it’s my birthday’, the ever amazing ‘I got a haircut’, or maybe the thrilling ‘these are my new shoes’. Instead, she pulled forth from her backpack a pink balloon. She proceeded to blow it up using only her— gasp—NOSE. Needless to say, I was enchanted with her undeniable skill and, truthfully, proud she wanted to show me. Ever tried it? She has a lot of lung power.


During a social studies lesson in the not too distant past, we were studying the fact that people live in different types of structures. The teacher began to quiz the class about what kind of homes they lived in, apartments and houses being the expected response. One little girl lived with her grandma, and she was having trouble with the question. She didn’t quite understand. “Does your grandma live in a house or an apartment,” the teacher asked. Completely straight-faced the tot replied, “My mom says grandma lives at the casino.” There you have it folks, social studies can be hilarious.


I once shared a school year with a pair of fascinating twin boys. Like a lot of twins, they were pretty small, making them even cuter. One was in my classroom and the other twin had a teacher across the hall. One day we noticed “Brian” limping. You get a lot of wardrobe problems in kindergarten. Shirts turned wrong-side out or backwards, jeans that won’t button, even (believe it or not) jeans on backwards (ouch). Of course, we see a lot of shoes on the wrong feet. This looked like a case of shoes that needed to be switched. I looked closer, trying to judge. Brian’s feet continued to puzzle. Both of his shoes curved in the same direction. How could that be? I’d never seen the like. He had on two left shoes. Brother in the other room had on two rights. Is that a case of two wrongs don’t make a right?

Veteran's Day

Say thanks today to the active service members that allow the rest of us to live uninterrupted lives. Their bravery, sacrifice, and commitment shelters this country and makes it possible to forget we’re a country at war. Thanks also to the former military men and woman, among them my husband and dad, who formed the line between us and chaos. They may have moved on to other professions, but they played their part in keeping this country great and would be the first to step forward again.

Priorities

Today I went back to work after a bad cold. The kind of cold that makes you miserable. A cold that stops up your head and leaves you with a constant cough at the same time. A cold you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, with the exception of whoever left home and gave it to you in the first place. They can have it back and to spare.

But after some medicine that started with the letter A, and then included close to the entire alphabet in the rest of the name, I’m better. Apparently if your med is not in line for a glossy T.V. commercial than the longer the name the more effective it must be. Five days it predicted until the end of suffering and five days it was.

A whole crew of first graders demanded to know where I was for two days. As soon as they learned I was sick, the interest vanished. Sickness has no glamour. I should have said I went to China, or, better yet, a Justin Bieber concert. That would have won their little hearts and made me a star. Next time.

In all my spare time at home, I didn’t write a thing. Instead I, strangely, spent my time sleeping when I wasn’t moaning. Sorry family. But it did give me time to remember some priorities. There’s the usually family, health, and work, but I was thinking about writing priorities. Just why was I writing?

Was it solely with the goal of being published? To earn gobs of money or to make myself famous? To impress my friends and relations? To entertain? For myself because it’s my passion?

I don’t think there is any one answer that fits the bill. It includes parts of all of them. It would be nice to be published, and miraculously earn gobs of money (not counting on that). I’d love for thousands to read my work. That’s the ambitious side of me. But that’s not the whole story.

I also enjoy hearing from beta readers that like my twiddle of stories. I like when people think a short is funny. If your coffee shoots out of your nose then I’ve done a good job. I also feel happiest when I’m writing. Creating. What could be better? There’s no reason I can’t accomplish all those goals, with luck and no more colds. But I’d better keep my head on straight on not make meeting them the end all of life. I’m keeping in mind what’s important. Making myself happy.