C.P. Cabaniss's Blog, page 3

Horse events and those stories that demand attention

When I visited London in 2016 I was able to go to Cross Country Day at the Badminton Horse Trials. It was the first time I had been to any part of a three-day event in person and I loved it.

In the following few days, after watching Michael Jung and Sam win the event on TV, a character popped into my head. She was fully formed and already had a name. Then another character followed and a connection was formed. A story was born in my mind. Unfortunately, that was the easy part. In the nearly three years since that event and the materialization of these characters, I have begun writing their story multiple times. It hasn’t worked out.

That does not mean I am giving up. Any time that I am in a rut with another story or walking across the pasture or just want something to make myself happy, I think of that story and those two characters, who have become friends in the months and years that have passed. There story might be taking a long time to come out, but it is there and it is forming.

Every time I attend a horse event, ride, or check out the progress of my favorite equestrians, this story pops back into my head. It’s a demanding story, but I think those are the best kind. It refuses to give up on me which in turn means that I won’t give up on it.

I was able to attend the LiftMaster Grand Prix of Eventing in Aiken SC on March 2 of this year. It was much smaller event than the ones I had attended previously (Badminton and Kentucky are two of the largest events), but I had so much fun! It was much easier to walk the little course than the sprawling miles that make up the larger events and I was able to see some of my favorite riders in action.

And while walking this little course, jogging back and forth between some good photo vantage points, those two characters and their story pounced one me once again. Soon I will begin outlining their story and delving into some research to flesh it out. Hopefully that means that I will have a first draft of it this year.

Anyway, the event was a lot of fun and I can’t wait for it to happen again next year so that I can go back. Now I need to stalk all of the horse event pages for the surrounding states so that I can go to the ones that are most easily accessible.

This is a long post to tell you that horse events are awesome and that some stories refuse to go away, even when you ignore them. Now here are some of my favorite photos that I got at the event.

Writing Update

One of my goals this year is to have at least one blog post a month and I am determined to make that happen. For February, I’m going to give you some updates on my writing.

Writing is hard and some days I don’t think I can make it work. But I think that every writer feels that, at some point, so I keep pushing through the doubts and hope that one day I will be ready to share my words with the world.

I have just finished drafting Ferris Wheel Stories #2 and hope to have release news to share with everyone very soon! This is the sequel to my novella Worlds with Ruby which was released in 2017. This one has been a long time coming, but I’m happy with where it is and glad that I didn’t try to force it when I wasn’t feeling inspired to write in this world.

I’ve begun outlining and researching for some new projects that I am very excited about. One of them is a middlegrade portal fantasy about two siblings and the other is a fantasy story inspired by the novels of Jane Austen. I am hoping to have these mostly outlined in February and then begin them in the next couple of months.

If you follow me on Instagram (@courtneysreads) then you may have seen updates about the first draft of my story Midnight Horse. I completed this draft in December and now it’s patiently waiting for me to give it a read through in the coming weeks. I want to let it sit for a while before diving back in, but I am really excited to try and fix it. I’m sure it needs a lot of work. But I love it and the characters, so I’m looking forward to the challenge!

From 2017 into the middle of 2018 I drafted another fantasy that I really want to revisit. The draft is not clean at all and I think I’m going to completely redo it. That was more like a zero draft, just a way to get things on paper, and now I want to outline it and give it the attention it deserves. I do love the characters and was having a lot of fun with it, but it needs a lot of tweaking to make it work how I see it in my mind.

So the short of it is: I am writing, I will continue to write, and I hope that I can clean some of these stories into something presentable so that you can enjoy them with me.

My Favorite Reads of 2018

2018 was a good reading year for me. I started to focus less on numbers and more on what I was reading. I still managed to read just over one hundred books, but there were very few I read just to read.

I also reread thirty-one books this year, which I was really happy about. I love discovering new things about old favorites and falling in love with a story or an author’s writing all over again.

But this post is more about favorites I discovered this year, so let’s get into it. These are in no particular order, just the books that I loved this year.

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. These were the first books I read this year and I absolutely adore them. It’s a series of short fantasy stories written for children that have nearly everything I love in a story.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. I have yet to read a Shusterman book that I did not enjoy, so this was no surprise to me. I read a few more of his books this year as well. This is a thought provoking series that asks the question “What happens when death is no longer inevitable?” Chilling and fascinating.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys. I loved this book so much that I read it twice this year and am already contemplating another read. It follows four characters as their lives converge and they board the Wilhelm Gustloff in hopes of reaching safety only for disaster to strike. Beautifully and simply written.

Animal Farm by George Orwell. This is a short and powerful story that is relevant decades after it was written. I plan to revisit this one in the future. Everyone should read this and learn from it.

Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan. I was somewhat surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Political fantasy with war and armies and insane characters tend to be a thing that I like, when I find the right ones, and this is definitely one of the right ones.

Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull. This is the second book in Mull’s middlegrade fantasy series Fablehaven, the first of which I read in 2016. While I liked the first book, the series has definitely improved and Mull is climbing the ranks of my favorite writers.

Half-Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer. Colfer has been one of my favorite authors since I started the Artemis Fowl series over a decade ago and I am trying to catch up on all of his books that I have not read. This one was excellent. The characters were brilliant, the writing superb, and the story fun.

What books did you read and enjoy in 2018? Please let me know in the comments, I would love some recommendations.

 

 

 

The Switch: Pantsing to Outlining

If you had asked me six months ago if I were a pantser or an outliner, my answer would have been an emphatic pantser. Now, however, I am starting to change my tune.

Outlining always seemed like it killed the creative process, forcing stories and characters to go where I wanted them to go rather than where they wanted to go. So instead of outlining, I would take the ideas swirling in my head, grab my computer, and start writing. It would be fun and exciting!

Then I would hit a snag and things would start to dwindle, my enthusiasm dying along with the story.

Of the three or four novel length manuscripts I’ve finished, I have not gone back to edit a single one. In fact, most of the time I try to forget about them. At first, I thought it was because the ideas weren’t good enough or I knew I had a better story in mind to work on, so why bother with the old? It turns out that wasn’t it at all.

When pantsing, I would hit a snag in the story and gloss over it, always saying I can fix that when editing. But of course that snag had a larger impact than a single scene, its poison coloring every sentence written after, changing the shape of the story until it was no longer the epic in my mind, but a mess of jumbled letters and punctuation marks. A mess that I no longer wanted to fix, because it was easier to move on.

Then I spent a year writing the first draft of my current work in progress, mostly pantsing it again, and realized that my writing style and my brain type don’t go together. At least not where longer works are concerned. I need structure, a guide that will help me deal with those pesky snags before they poison the rest of the story. And that is where outlining comes into play.

I still haven’t finished a story using an outline, but I’m working on making outlining work for me. I don’t want it to be too specific, giving me the thoughts and emotions of the characters in every scene, but I do want it to guide me through those rough patches, helping me spot them before I’m writing them so that when I do, I know how to handle them.

Each story is a brand new puzzle, bagged and boxed in my brain. It’s my job to put it together correctly. Outlining isn’t the way for everyone, but once I work out the kinks of my personal process, I think it will work beautifully.

I plan to start a series to showcase my my progress with this new journey, so let me know if that’s something you would be interested in reading about and what aspects you are most curious to see.

 

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding…

As far as the topic of this post, the title says it all.

Variations of this sentence get a lot of attention from readers on social media in the book community. I notice them a lot while scrolling through goodreads, looking at updates. Someone will post something like “Even __________ isn’t immune to the use of this sentence” or “I can’t believe that ____________ used this sentence!” or “How can you not realize you’re holding a breath? Why do writers think this makes sense?”

I think you get the idea. If you haven’t seen them, just wait. They crop up fairly regularly. And just like anything else, once it’s been pointed out to you, you notice it all the time. So if you hadn’t noticed it before reading this post, you probably will soon.

Now let me tell you why I think these sentences make sense and are ok to use.

As a horseback rider, I can’t tell you how many times I have been told by an instructor or friend not to forget to breathe. While riding, particularly in horse shows, this reminder was part of my silent mantra to myself while in the arena. Because I needed the reminder. It wasn’t that I was purposely not breathing, it’s just that in the moment my nerves or concentration or some other factor was taking precedence over this basic function. Sure, our body wouldn’t let us continue this for a prolonged period of time (we would faint before anything else happened), but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Horseback riding is just one concrete example I can personally think of where I have noticed this behavior in myself. I have many others. I’ll list a few.

While carrying heavy objects I tend to hold my breath unconsciously. My rational brain knows that this is just making the task more difficult, but for some reason I have to remind myself that holding my breath is a hindrance and not a help. I often catch myself with a held breath during any form of physical exertion, and rarely have I done it on purpose.

Just now, while writing this post, I got so caught up in what I was doing that it took me a few seconds to realize that, you guessed it, I was holding in a breath.

When I’m reading a particularly exciting part of a book, or watching an exciting/scary part of a movie, I catch myself holding in an unconscious breath all the time.

As someone with anxiety, I also notice this in situations when I’m starting to panic. Not only will breaths become short, they may cease altogether. I’ve gotten to the point when this happens that I tell myself, out loud, that I need to breathe. If I’m using my voice, I have to breathe, so it actually helps in some situations.

There are other instances I could highlight where I find myself releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, but I think the ones I have mentioned are enough to get my point across: I don’t mind this sentence because it’s real. I have firsthand experience with this sensation, so it’s only natural to expect it to show up in the books that I read and write.

So why do readers think that these sentences don’t make sense or aren’t realistic? I can’t be the only one who experiences this. I would love to discuss this further, so comment and let me know your thoughts on this topic.

 

Memorial Day Thoughts

This weekend we are celebrating Memorial Day in the United States. This holiday is designed to remember those members of the armed forces who made the ultimate sacrifice in combat. For me, this is a good time to study past events and remember those who are slipping through the cracks of time, as well as what they fought and died for.

History is something that I have always been interested in. I’m no expert, but reading and learning about things of the past fascinates and inspires me. There are so many lessons to be learned from those who have gone before.

Memorial Day is about remembering those who sacrificed themselves so that I can enjoy the freedoms that I’ve always known. Freedom is not free. It never has been and it never will be. The least I can do is remember those who have fought for me, even if they didn’t know me personally.

Today I plan to visit some local history sites to better connect with some of these individuals. If I can find a list of names to take along and read over as I’m sitting in meditation, I will do so. To me it may just be a name, but to that person and his or her family, that name was a lot more. Even if I have nothing more than that name and the images that my own mind creates, that’s still something.

It’s important to remember and share the stories of those who have gone before us. Because it we don’t, who will?

 

 

One Year Since Publication

Can you believe it’s been one year since the release of Worlds with Ruby? I certainly can’t. Where does the time go? It feels like just yesterday I was fighting with myself to actually get a story I was satisfied with, or arguing with Word to format things how I wanted, or working out the details of the cover. And now it’s been a year since it was released. Wow.

I have learned a lot over this year. Probably the biggest takeaway of the whole experience: I can do it! Things seem a lot scarier in the start. Now that I have made it happen once I know that I can do it again.

I’ve also learned to not take things too personally. The vast majority of the reviews I have received for my story are positive, but there are a few that kind of tore my story apart. And that’s ok. I told the story I wanted to tell and it isn’t going to work for everyone because nothing ever does. But I was happy with it and I was also happy that there were people who enjoyed it. The good definitely outweighed the bad and gave me a confidence boost going forward.

So all in all, my experience with Ruby has been a positive one. It was something I needed to do and I’m glad that I pushed myself and made it happen. I stepped far outside my comfort zone when I hit publish and started sending out review copies. And it was one of the best decisions I made.

If you haven’t read Ruby yet, you can purchase the story on Amazon.

Tell me about something you’ve done that was hard but worth the effort.

March 24, 2014

“There are moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life and then there are moments that you think you’ll remember for the rest of your life, and it’s not often they turn out to be the same moments.” Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

It was the final semester of my senior year of college, I was sitting in class–Modern Algebra–trying to wrap my mind around some new material, when my phone rang. I ignored the first couple of calls because I thought my sister had forgotten I was in class. But then the text came, from another sister, asking me to call her, and I was worried. What could have happened? I wondered.

Within minutes of that call, I was in my car headed home. Joe, my companion of eight years, was down and could not get up. He seemed perfectly healthy, only he was unable to get his feet underneath himself. I knew on that drive that today was the day I would say goodbye, but I tried to banish the feeling because it hurt too much to consider.

If you have ever experienced a bond with a horse or other animal, you might understand the pang I still feel in my heart every time I get to the barn and he’s not there to greet me.

Joe changed my life. He came to me in my darkest moments and taught me what it was to be happy. Though I had ridden horses my entire life, he taught me to do it well. On his back and by his side I learned how to be confident in myself. He was a patient and kind teacher, letting me make mistakes along the way. And when I needed to cry, he would stand patiently while my tears soaked withers and shoulder.

There are several moments from March 24, 2014 that are fresh in my mind. Having my phone buzz in class, holding Joe’s head in my lap through his final moments, the heart wrenching pain of knowing that this was the last time I would see him in this life. These are moments that I don’t think will ever leave me. And I don’t want them to.

While Joe’s last moments were painful because I didn’t want to say goodbye, I had eight wonderful years full of happy moments that can keep him alive in my heart forever. And that is what I try to do every day.

My main writing project right now involves many horses, and I try to use Joe’s fiery personality combined with his gentle love to bring the horses to life. I want readers to feel the bond between horse and man the way I felt that bond with Joe.

Have you ever had an animal that changed your life? I would love to hear your stories, so please share them with me.

 

 

In the Rain

I saw you in the rain

Your eyes bright and shining

that old smile on your lips

But the water never touched your skin

And then, in the blink of an eye

you slipped away

Washed out of sight

by a shower from the sky

 

Copyright 2018 by C P Cabaniss

Worlds with Ruby FREE!

Hello, All.

Long time, no see. I know, I know. I’m terrible at keeping up with this whole blogging thing. I started a new job in August and haven’t quite figured out a good balance. Writing, reading, and my horses have taken the time that I might have used for blogging. But I do hope to be a little better in the new year.

That, however, is not the reason for this post. No, this is to tell you that you can get my story, Worlds with Ruby, for free on your kindle right now until December 30!

And you can help me reach a goal! This is a short collection of connected stories that begins the Ferris Wheel Stories. It’s also the first thing that I have published, so I’m pretty proud that people have enjoyed it. My goal for this year is for it to reach 30 ratings (and a review would be nice) on goodreads before the end of the year. It’s currently at 29, so you can help me out by giving it a quick read and letting me know (in number of stars and a few words if you have time) what you thought. See? Super easy.

It should be free for kindle on all the various versions of Amazon throughout the world, but here are links to a few of them.

Amazon US.

Amazon UK.

Amazon CA.

If you decide to give Ruby a chance, I really hope that you enjoy her story.

Thanks for reading my words,

C P Cabaniss