M.L. LeGette's Blog, page 49

Needing Taintor ~ Accident/Idiot

 

As I am currently bogged down with a nasty throat condition, I thought I needed a giggle.

NEW COVER!

Have I got news!

I’ve been itching to get a new cover for The Unicorn Girl and after some searching I found the super talented Ileana Hunter on Etsy. (thanktheheavensforetsy)

She just sent me her beautiful rendition of Leah and I’ve been giddily formatting the title fonts. I love how it’s turned out. The new cover is now available on Amazon and I’m still working on updating the Kindle version.

What d’you think?

New Kindle Price for Holiday Shopping

Okay, I am the first to say that I find it annoying/aggravating when companies start advertising Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving.

That’s just rude. Thanksgiving is a holiday, too. Give it some space, for crying out loud.

But I guess we all must eat our words for here I am jumping on the wagon’s bumper.

This holiday season, Unicorn Girl AND For the Kingdom are at $3. (Don’t get too excited paperback lovers. This is for KINDLE ONLY.)

Happy Reading!

 

Character Chatter — Ol’ Joe

I woke up feeling rather ‘show and tell-ish’ and thought I’d let you guys in on a character in the manuscript I’m working on. I’ve mentioned him in slight passing in a previous post, but here he is.

I love to introduce to you, Ol’ Joe:

In Quest for Milo, Ol’ Joe is a bewitched beer mug who talks, sings, whistles, and expels embarrassing noises. Toad, a young thief, spies Ol’ Joe in the wagon of a traveling fortune-teller and steals the mug, for he realizes his value. In the world of thieves, Ol’ Joe is a legend: Whoever possess the mug is the Thief Lord.

Toad’s companion, Melena Snead, is repulsed by the mug and finds him obnoxious, rude, and downright annoying to be around. But Toad harbors a deep affection for his grinning beverage glass and will not contemplate tossing him out.

In reality, Ol’ Joe is an actual beer mug that my grandfather bought a long time ago. I believe it passed into my dad’s possession when the grandparents moved out of their old home. There it rested on the top shelf of the wine cabinet, looking utterly ridiculous and startlingly out-of-place, steadily gathering dust. One evening, while cooking dinner and consuming a glass of wine, I was struck with sudden inspiration. How could I NOT include this outrageous piece of pottery in my work, and better yet, have him do what he so clearly wants: talk.

The mug now resides in my bedroom, tucked away on my bookcase. He is a fright and yet a delight. So far in my construction of his character, Joe has proven to be just as difficult as Melena finds him to be. There is much that I want to do with his character–I have big plans for the mug–but he has teasingly slipped out of my reach on more than one occasion.  Question marks still surround him. I know all that it requires is rolling up my sleeves and plowing onward in the writing, but still it would be nice if Joe could lend me a helping hand, even though he doesn’t have any.

I cry babel, babel, look at me now

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Artist – Mumford and Sons

Album – Babel

Song – Babel

Building with Books

For a while now my brother has been planning out his future home using the straw-bale method. To give a very simple, short explanation of what this is: Straw Bale houses are Eco-friendly and energy efficient. The house structure is literally straw bales stacked one on top of the other that you then cover in a clay/straw mixture, forming highly insulating walls. We’ve been experimenting with building this way with our second cool room at the farm. Even though our skill needs improving, the cool room experiment has been highly enjoyable and oddly satisfying.

To demonstrate how focused I have been on building this straw bale room, I had an entertaining dream last night:

We were all working on Ben’s house. Instead of the bales of straw being their usual size, they were the size and shape of bricks and we were stacking them up to form walls. Not surprisingly, we ran out of the miniature bales, and though my brother and mother were flummoxed as to what to do next, I had a brilliant solution: copies of my book, The Unicorn Girl.

“They’re just the right size!” I said, holding up one copy that had materialized in the house. “Once we cover them up in clay, you’ll never know the difference!”

I’m not exactly sure what this has to say about my feelings for my writing–that I would merrily use it has a building supply, but there you have it.

I was average, but I don’t mind

Artist – The Boxer Rebellion

Album – Union

Song – Spitting Fire

The Grumblings of a Gut

It’s taken me a few years of writing professionally to pinpoint my biggest weakness: Minor Plot Lines.

Okay, I guess I could say ALL plot lines give me trouble, but in the actual writing of the story, I can keep the main arc flowing in my head rather easily. I can always answer the “what’s the story about” question. There may be gaps, but I can usually weave the mental pages together from beginning to end. Mind, it just takes five minutes.

When I sit down to write, the main arc takes my primary focus and it never fails that halfway through constructing the first draft I begin to grow nettled. I become disgruntled at the first signs of the troubling sensation, located deep in my gut. In the beginning, as with all unsettling stomach problems, I opt to ignore it. “It’ll all be fine,” I tell myself. “I’ll bring Joe in at some point.” (Joe is one of the characters in Quest for Milo.) And so I keep working. Plowing onward with my head down and eyes focused on the screen, refusing to acknowledge that my gut’s grumblings are growing louder.

Ignoring ones gut for too long, however, leads to bouts of sudden gloom, pensiveness, lack of sleep, and ultimately culminates in fits of tears, wailing that I am a terrible writer and I should just stop right now. It is only after all the sniffling and moping that the fever breaks just long enough for clarity of thought. And I ask myself: “What’s wrong with Milo?”

A list appears in my brain and the sight of it is terrible enough to send me back under, but I don’t. I answer myself.

“The plot lines.”

And a startling thing happens. As if it floats down from the ceiling, an idea drifts down and lands upon my knee. It isn’t the solution to every problem on my list, but it can fix a few and better yet, it brings back a character (who I was quite fond of) that I had to cut from the very early versions of the manuscript. So I open my laptop and inspect the story with new energy.

After an evening of tinkering, this is what I did:

Moved three chapters to an earlier location.


Brought back a minor character (Izzie Groot).


May be forced to completely rewrite two chapters due to these changes.


Will be able to bring in Joe’s plot line and another plot line more stoutly, all thanks to Izzie.

Phew! My gut is feeling much better now.

 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

For those of you who really loved Catching Fire, the second in the Hunger Games series, I’m sorry, but I must speak my mind. I found the book lacking and a great disappointment.

I have a question for Collins: If you’ve got a story in your head, then why don’t you just WRITE the flippin’ thing? Really write it? Take time with it and give it its due? Your readers deserve that, ya know.

Catching Fire was one big (and uneventful) summery. Nothing happens. I didn’t feel anything. The characters don’t move forward or change. I actually found them to grow dull and tiresome, Katniss being the dullest of the lot. The pacing was truly weird. It was as if Collins hit the fast forward button just to get us to the end. And the Games? Dull. I started thinking that this 500 page book could easily be a 5 page short story that simply got puffed up with lots and lots of air. It’s floating on nothing.

I was really puzzled, too, at the plot twists. Pregnant? Forced marriage? They were jokes and fell flat on their faces. They don’t even go anywhere in the writing. They’re mentioned a handful of times to add something for Katniss to fret over and then they disappear. And the love triangle–good lord, why do writers still pull that out? I read a review recently that I totally agree with: how can you have a love triangle without conflict? I liked Peeta in Hunger Games and didn’t feel much for Gale because Gale was hardly in that book. But in Catching Fire, they both make frequent appearances and I found myself not feeling anything for either of them. In fact, I began to realize that they’re the same character. They both act the same. They both talk the same. They both feel the same blinding devotion for Katniss. How am I supposed to pick the guy I want Katniss to be with when they’re the same guy with different hair color?? And honestly, neither one of them deserve her as SHE doesn’t really love either one of them! And the shallow kissing? “Oh, Peeta, they don’t believe that we’re madly in love! I’ll kiss you some more and then they will!” Give me a break.

There is so much about this series that just does not connect with me: the writing style, the format, the characters. The first book had a plot to stand on. Catching Fire doesn’t even have that. I still plan on reading the last though my expectations in it are not high.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I haven’t been in this much of a pickle over a book since … actually, I can’t bring back a comparison. There were so many aspects about The Hunger Games that had me annoyed (the present tense and the bare bone descriptions being top of the totem pole), but I read the book at a feverish pace that has left me (and my eyes) exhausted.

Doesn’t that simple fact state that I liked the book? Yes. Yes it does. I liked it. I liked Katniss and Peeta (to be honest, I’m in love with Peeta). I’m greatly fond of Haymitch even with his troubles. The plot line is a killer–no pun intended. It is powerful. Disturbing. And most certainly worth telling. It’s the story line that sets it apart … and helps me to ignore the flaws.

Writing is subjective. There are many forms and styles and one is not better than the other. However, I do think there is a reason why most fiction is composed in past tense. It flows. It’s natural. It’s what we’re used to. Certainly using present tense made a statement. But–in my opinion–not one that helps it. The tense took me out of the story far too many times. At a point, I just ignored the ‘I say’ ‘he replies’ dialogue tags and tried to not let it bug me. I got used to it. But I still don’t approve of it.

The other big aspect of The Hunger Games that kept me scratching my head was how simplistic the writing was. There are virtually no visual descriptions. No painting. No sculpting. No time spent on trying to give the reader a full, fleshed feeling of this terrifying world. And President Snow? I kept thinking that there should be some monster behind all of this. After all, the country must be ruled by someone and the moment that he appears I get nothing. Eye color? Hair? Expression? It’s as if he was a last minute inclusion. As if right before it went to the presses, he got scribbled in. The book feels like there are just enough descriptions to move the story along.

What’s frustrating me about The Hunger Games is that I liked it. A lot. This book is good. It’s actually more than good. But I could see so much more potential hidden between its lines. This book–I suppose I should say, this series; I’ve only read the first one–could have been a staggering, electrifying example of corrupt government/dystopia for years to come. I wonder if at a point, the writing was chosen to be watered down to keep it from being as darkly depressing as it easily could have been … to keep it skimming across a deep ocean of hurt and anger and injustice. But if it could have dived below the surface … if it could have gained plump flesh around its frame … if this horrifying world instead of just the one view of a confused yet courageous young girl had been explored, then I have no doubt that this book would have become a classic for ages.