R.L. LaFevers's Blog, page 23

Living In Our Own World

I went to hear Neil Gaiman talk a couple of weeks ago, (for a great recap of his talk, check out Sherrie Peterson's blog) and I was struck by something he said.

Someone had asked him if his characters wrote themselves, and his answer was something to the effect of, "No, but I would love to live in a world where they did." And then he had this hilarious riff about forcing them to write faster. (And boy, do I wish I could run off the cuff like that; I would have thought of that comment two hour...

Ahhh!

That sigh of relief felt around the world last Monday was me meeting one of my deadlines and getting my all day workshop behind me. For the first time in about three months my pulse slowed down from a gallop to a mere trot level and my blood pressure went down about 15 points (my doctor will be so happy!). I had made it; I had crossed two finish lines and only one to go. And the thing is, having only one deadline now feels like a cakewalk.

I find it incredibly galling or fascinating, depending...

Watch Out Bakersfield!

Here I COME! Armed and ready for an all day workshop! Can't wait!

But before I go, I wanted to share to amazing quote I discovered this week (via Kate Coombs) because they really made me aware of fantasy's long-reaching arm and I wanted you all to have a chance to mediate on them, too.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. --Albert Einstein

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come...

Treading Carefully and Raising Stakes

So one of the things I was struggling with over the last couple of weeks was unicorns. The fourth Nathaniel Fludd book centers around unicorns, and as I began to collect my unicorn lore for the the Fludd Book of Beasts, I became aware of just how tricky a thing it was that I was dealing with.

When dealing with something like unicorns, there are a number of people who adore them and their mythology (a large portion of them in the 6-10 year old girl population who will be reading the book.) Then...

Hooo-RAY!!!

Yes, that joyous shouting heard round the world today at 3:00 p.m. pst was ME! I finished the fourth Nathaniel Fludd book. Hoo-rah! I have now put it aside where it will stew and simmer for five whole days, then I'll pull it back out for a quick polish on Sunday and Monday. Then I will email it to the Best Editor EVER.

I gave myself a whole two hour break this afternoon, then began fiddling with Theodosia Four while dinner was cooking. :-) No rest for the wicked. But it feels awfully good to ...

The Queen of Napping

This afternoon, as I was contemplating just how slothful it would make me if I took a second nap of the day, I had an epiphany.

You see, everybody should have at least one area of expertise, and I've decided that mine is napping. The thing is, I'm a World Class Napper. I excel at napping sprints, long distance naps, and even endurance napping. I'm queen of them all.

The really cool thing is that being a champion napper dovetails very nicely with being a writer. It is absolutely 100% true that ...

Upcoming Workshop

Wow, I have all sorts of things I wanted to talk about craft-wise, but I have to save every d@ng word for my writing. I've definitely reached the crunch zone. My brain keeps flashing big red signs at me screaming DEADLINE! DEADLINE! while loud buzzers go off. Not pretty.

Anyway, I did want to let any of you out there in Southern California know that I'll be teaching an all day workshop over in Bakersfield on Saturday, Feb. 20. The workshop is called, Architexture, and here's the blurb:

In this ...

Designing Scenes

I thought I'd talk about designing scenes a little bit since I seem to be doing an awful lot of it lately. It's not something I do all the time, but it comes in particularly handy when I'm under a deadline and have to produce pages at a certain rate.

For me, scene design is a way of nailing down the structural support beams of a scene so that I can begin filling in around that. It's also a way for me to get a handle on what a scene is about, both internally and externally, so I don't have to w...

Progress!

Well, I finally let myself print out my WIP pages today and, by Jove!, we have a real, live manuscript! 212 pages worth. Of course, it's missing the last 50 pages, but it is very much a part of my process to have to stop and revise the whole thing at least once before writing the ending.

I also have to take a few days and design and develop the Top Secret Location and Community in which the last act takes place. I had hoped my subconscious would do all of it while I was busy occupied elsewher...

Our cat slept in our bed last night for the first time in...

Our cat slept in our bed last night for the first time in about twenty years. Up until that point, I had slept with a cat for nearly all my life. But then we had babies and kids and they took up room on the bed and sleep became oh-so-precious that knitting cats or felines who chose to nurse on one's ear at 3:00 a.m. and cost us precious sleep were just too big a liability. But last night we just thought, she's getting old, we're caught up on our sleep, what the heck.

I have to say, I had forgo...