Linda Collison's Blog, page 20

A visit from the ghost of Christmas Past

Last night the Dickensian wraith in white touched my hand and took me to the attic in my head where I keep my Christmas tree decorations and holiday memories.  In the space of a single night I experienced again my mother’s creative, nervous, angst –as well as her homemade plum pudding and red lipstick smile. I knew firsthand, my father’s patient good cheer, and the smell of Old Spice on his clean shaven cheek. More smells: The crisp scent of evergreen, the hot smell of my mother’s spotlights looking like reindeer antlers attached to her 8 mm movie camera as she captured our sleepy faces on Christmas morn.  The smell of eggnog with nutmeg.  The smell of Limburger cheese and Braunschweiger, my parents’ party food, chased down with Cold Duck amid the laughter of aunts and uncles playing cards at the kitchen table.

I remember my sisters and I, donned in our Christmas finery, hands snug in white furry muffs, going to visit our grandparents in the old blue Chevrolet, singing Jingle Bells all the way. I remember the special gifts –the dolls and doll houses, the books. I remember getting a book each Christmas: King of the Wind, Misty of Chincoteague, The Black Stallion, Nancy Drew.  One year I was thrilled to find a rock hammer under the tree –I had hinted so hard for it!  That was the year I wanted to be a geologist when I grew up.  Another Christmas I received a microscope; science was my thing.  My parents fostered my dreams and sometimes helped make them come true.

I remember the first Christmas after my mother died, at Thanksgiving.  I remember the way my father and we girls pulled together in our shared, unspoken grief. Five years later my father died –it was three days after Christmas –and we buried him on New Year’s Eve. Should auld acquaintance be forgot always brings tears to my eyes. But they’re with me still, my parents. I saw them in my dream last night. They are their best selves, eternally happy, having escaped Time.  They still foster my dreams.

I remember playing Santa Clause for my own children, and feeling all over again, the magic of Christmas Eve.  And as they grew and I became a single parent twice over, I did the best I could. A registered nurse, I worked many holidays, many Christmases, in various hospital departments, beginning in Oncology, transferring to Critical Care, and finally to the Emergency Department. I worked the night shift and the kids either stayed with a sitter, with their father, or as they got older, they stayed with friends.  All too often they stayed alone, long before they were old enough, minding themselves.  It wasn’t the best of situations but I managed to keep food in their mouths and to feed their dreams.

One Christmas a blizzard stranded me and my co-workers at the hospital. For thirty-six hours we worked without relief, until volunteers in four-wheel-drives braved the drifted roads and brought the next shift to work.  That year I was charge nurse on the Oncology unit at Denver Presbyterian Hospital. There were only two of us working that night; Shelley, the LPN, and I.  Night shifts are too often understaffed, under the mistaken belief that night shift is easier because the patients all sleep.  But the very sick don’t sleep, or if they do, it’s the sleep that precedes death.  We ran our heels off that Christmas, up and down the halls answering call bells,  delivering pain medication, chemotherapy, parental nutrition, packed cells and platelets.   It was a Christmas nightmare, yet it was real.  We did our best to bring comfort to those patients we had come to know as family.

Some of my most joyful Christmas moments spring from those lean years, those long ago, young mother years when the money ran out before the next pay check; when the car broke down or the kids needed winter coats or somebody broke their arm and needed a cast.  We never had enough money; we were among the ranks of the working poor.  Yet there were moments of comfort and moments of joy.  And everyday I came across someone in greater need.

Those years we lived on meager wages, supplemented by our dreams.

Before I was a nurse I worked as a waitress and lived on tips and had no health insurance. And got pregnant. My husband’s health insurance didn’t cover me because he hadn’t worked there long enough for me to be covered. I gave birth at home, ten days after Christmas. My youngest child, born in a mobile home on the eastern Wyoming prairie, will soon be thirty-six years old.  Times was hard then, but I’ve been blessed.

Thank you, ghost, for the dream of Christmas past.  Come visit me again some night soon, because we’ve got another thirty-six years to review.  In the meanwhile, God bless us, every one.

For the Love of the Sword, by J.M. Aucoin

Today, I’m thrilled to have author J.M. Aucoin sharing the how and the why of his writing process – and some of the nuts and bolts of writing sword fighting and fencing scenes. Or should I say, some of the finer points… When not writing about sword fights in his swashbuckling pirate fiction, Aucoin practices and studies historical fencing, and is an active stage combatant for theater and indie-films in the New England area.

For the Love of the Sword: The Art & Science of Swashbucklers

by J.M. Aucoin

I fell in love with historical fiction at the tip of a sword. I went willingly, of course. The only thing more attracted by the unknown and shiny objects than puppies and kittens are small children, and I was just that, easily enchanted by the intricate hilts of rapiers hanging at men’s sides and the glint of bare steel in their hands.

My captors were the likes of Guy William’s Zorro and Chris O’Donnell’s D’Artagan. I must’ve gone as Zorro for Halloween a good four or five years in a row as a kid. Stories of men putting life and limb on the line for a purpose greater than themselves had my full attention, especially if they wielded a rapier.

Of course, it wasn’t until college that I came up with the brilliant idea of reading the stories I loved as a small child. Swashbucklers in book form! What sorcery is this!?

I started off with Dumas’ Three Musketeers, ripped through Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood, Scaramouche, The Sea-Hawk, and The Tavern Knight. Still parched for more romanticized adventure novels, I stumbled across Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s Captain Alatriste series.

Yet, it wasn’t enough to quench my thirst for historical adventure, and I was finding it harder and harder to find swashbucklers, especially by contemporary authors. Straight up historical fiction novels were everywhere. Same with historical mysteries. They’re great stories, but, for me, it was the swashbuckler that held my heart enthralled.

I wanted more. A lot more. So I started writing my own swashbucklers, tales of men forged in blood and steel.

I love modern day action movies, where guns and C4 are as common as ponchos at a Gallagher event. But often with firearms, it’s usually kill or be killed. There’s not a ton of middle ground when it comes to firing a metal projective at someone. But with the sword there’s an entire spectrum to play with. It can be used offensively, defensively. The sword can be a weapon to kill. It can be used to just injure someone or to save a life. And in my earliest exposure to the swords and swashbuckling, it’s a weapon that can bring liberty to the oppressed and justice to the wicked and nefarious.

Not to say I don’t enjoy a good wheellock pistol, though. Man, those things are a work of art… but I digress.

Writing the Fight: What to Keep in Mind

Writing a great fight scene can be tricky and it only gets trickier the more you know about swords and period fencing. I could write a detailed action sequence in which Fighter A steps into measure and gains Fighter B’s sword on the outside line using seconde and stringering Fighter B’s blade, forcing Fighter B to perform a cavazione to the inside line, turning his hand into quarte, and thrusting with a passing step… but the average reader isn’t going to know what the heck just happened.

Then again… if my character is a fencing master in the Italian style, I might write just that. Still, there are ways to make it more accessible to the average reader.

And that’s one of the great things about swashbucklers — they make transporting readers back through time very accessible. You don’t need to know the political history of a country or understand why the Catholics and Protestants are at each other’s throats again to get a swashbuckler. Put two men in a courtyard with harsh glares, gritted teeth and cold steel, and your reader knows right away that these two aren’t likely to go grab a beer with each other afterwards.

You also can learn a lot about someone during a sword fight. How they hold the sword: do they use a traditional grip or Girard Thibault’s unorthodox grip? How they stand: are they leaning forward ready to strike like a viper, or leaning back defensively? Are they aggressive or defensive? Are they fencing masters, street thugs, sell-swords, noblemen, soldiers, or complete amateurs who don’t even know that the knuckle guard faces out and not in? Are they cool and collected or hot headed? Do they prefer large sweeping cuts or finesse blade work and thrusts?

Even the type of sword they wield can give insight into the character. A guard or blade with lots of knicks and scratches will tip a reader off that the wielder has been in plenty of scrums before, and the fact that he’s still alive notes that he’s good. Very good. A hilt with intricate metalwork, twists and curves, detailed piercework, or jewels will mark a man of quality (or at least a man of wealth). Cup-hilt rapiers were favored by the Spanish for their hand protection, meanwhile the Germans enjoyed the look and functionality of the Pappenheimer rapier. Of course, hilt types didn’t know country borders, so a Frenchman could use a cup-hilt if they (or you) prefer, but it’s a good starting point.

Time period matters, as well. Your 17th Century Frenchman isn’t going to be wielding a German longsword, and your Roman gladiator isn’t going to be carrying a spadroon into battle either.

And, of course, there are more than just swords. You have daggers, axes, cloaks, bucklers, shields, canes, whips, pistols, and found weapons like hats, mugs, candelabras, and anything else you can come up with. All that can come into play during a fight, depending on location, availability, and your character’s preference and skill set.

One-on-one fights often feel like they’re a lot longer than they are. Ask two people to sword fight for a minute and they’ll probably stop at 20 seconds. But add in a few more fighters and things get more chaotic and minutes feel like seconds. Time flies when your defending yourself against five guys with sharp swords, right?

I try to keep all this in mind when crafting my fight scenes. Like in movies and live theater, sword fights in novels should continue the story forward, allowing the personalities, emotions, and experiences of the characters to shine.

And don’t forget about the environment, too! Fighting on sand is hard. Your feet sink. Morning dew makes grass slick, and cobblestone streets aren’t very even. You character could trip if they’re not on their A-game. Environmental hazards that can play a role in the fight.

Putting Knowledge into Practice: The Jake Hawking Adventures

This summer I self-published three swashbuckling short-stories, the first of the Jake Hawking Adventures. The stories are intertwined a little, but are episodic and can be read in any order you please. Jake Hawking is more of a cerebral pirate, very much in the vein of Sabatini’s dashing hero Captain Peter Blood. He enjoys outwitting his opponents over direct combat, but he doesn’t shy from swordplay when it comes to it. Hawking is a fellow who often has his foot in two worlds — one with the gentry and men and women of privilege, and one in the violent and licentious world of pirates and smugglers — and his fighting style echoes that. His skill is technically sound but can be vicious and ruthless when needed.

In comparison, his quartermaster is the former ex-slaved, Little Queen. She’s tall, muscular, and more likely to crack someone’s skull for looking at her cross than attempt to talk her way out of a bad situation. She’s the ying to Hawking’s yang, and to help facilitate that brutality and grit, I have her using a large, mean-looking dagger and a boarding axe as her preferred weapons. They’re weapons that force her to get up close and personal with her adversaries.

Here’s a snippet of a fight from the third Hawking short-story, Little Queen’s Gambit. In it, Little Queen is fighting her recently acquainted rival, Marshall, who (unofficially) beat her in an arm-wrestling contest earlier in the night. Sometimes things just escalate to unreal scenarios, OK? I mix play-by-play of the fight with Queen’s personal experiences, emotions of recent events, and a little poetic prose for good measure.

It was just enough warning for Queen. She spun around as Marshall bore down on her with his cutlass held high over his head. Queen stepped to her right as he slashed, but she still felt the breeze from the thick blade brush by her skin. She did not dodge the second blow though, a heavy backhand from his fist across her jaw. She staggered, but righted herself in time to parry a cut from the left with her dagger. Marshal’s attack was relentless, never giving Queen an inch to settle or a moment to catch her breath. It was a far cry from when they were arm wrestling at the Dogwatch Tavern. She knew he toyed with her then, but to what extent she did not truly understand until now. His attacks flowed from one to another with the intensity of the Caribbean sun and the power of a flash flood. It took all Little Queen’s strength and instincts to keep his sword at bay. Glow from the lanterns washed over the blade and it reminded her of a wolf licking its chops.

For the first time since she escaped Barbados, Little Queen felt fear.

She caught the edge of the sword with her axe and twisted, locking the blade between its head and the wooden shaft. She rushed in, her dagger aimed for Marshall’s chest, but he grabbed her at the wrist before its tip made its mark. He leaned in, his large and crooked jaw set in a haughty, but grotesque smile. He wrenched her arm, sending the dagger clanking off the wooden deck.

The fight is a continuation of the friendly(ish) arm wrestling contest between Little Queen and Marshall, taking to a new level and with much higher stakes. Readers also learn a little more about Queen’s history during the fight and her relationship/friendship with Captain Hawking… elements that push the story forward and build the world and characters around it.

I often enjoy seeing characters cleverly get their way out of trouble, but sometimes, as Don Francisco Quevedo says often in the Alatriste series: There’s no choice but to fight. Hawking and Little Queen provide the best of both worlds when I’m writing.

En garde!

 

To learn more about Justin, visit his website & blog at www.JMAucoin.com . His swashbuckler stories are available on Amazon for Kindle , B&N for the Nook , and on Smashwords for other e-reader and web browser file types. When not writing about sword fights, he practices and studies historical fencing, and is an active stage combatant for theater and indie-films in the New England area.

 

 

How we write – a series of essays by guest authors

Linda Collison’s Sea of Words; Charting a course from imagination to publication.  If you’ve been following my blog you know what inspires me — adventure, travel, ocean passages, road trips, sail boats, history, live music, books, and other authors — to name a few of my favorite things.  You’ve read about some of my challenges (my agent stories!) and have shared in my excitement when my last few novels have been published.

In 2014 I’m going to focus more on the writing process itself.

To get things going, I’ve asked some of my writer friends to share with me how they write and why they write; I’m asking for the way they approach a sentence, a paragraph, a novel, a play.  Writers, what’s your process?  What was your big break? What advice do you have for other writers? Do you have a writing or publishing anecdote you’d like to share with would-be readers?

Readers, who is your favorite author, and why?  Let’s talk.

The first author in the series will be Justin Aucoin, who writes swashbuckling pirate fiction and is an award-winning sports blogger.  Have your grappling hooks and dirks at the ready…  Monday, December 16  we begin!

 

 

 

Looking for Redfeather Book Trailer

My first book trailer has been so much fun to make!  I wanted to recreate the speed and impromptu feel of a road trip, so I used stills and videos from my smartphone and others friends and family sent to me.  The original music was written and performed by Red Whiskey Blue, a Denver band.  Matt Campbell, is the singer and guitarist — and he happens to be my son.  The recording I used is an earlier cut, in keeping with the live music sound I wanted to achieve.

Looking for Redfeather is about coming of age on the road in the 21st century.  Chances are, I’ll edit this and/or make more Redfeather videos.  But this is my first go at it.  Like the rough draft of any story, it contains the heart, the soul, and the spirit.  And it was a blast!

YouTube Video – Looking for Redfeather Book Trailer

Red Whiskey Blue Wednesday!

It’s America, land of Black Friday madness and Red Whiskey Blue Wednesday.

On Thanksgiving Eve Red Whiskey Blue debuted their original song, Outlaw Trail, at 1515 Market Street, a trendy LoDo restaurant and bar. Written by band members Matt Campbell, John Birkey, Zac Niehues, and Patrick Simpson as the theme song for the road trip novel, Looking for Redfeather.

What’s a road trip without a sound track? And what’s a road trip novel without a theme song?

If you’re Looking for Redfeather, it’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble , or your favorite independent bookstore will order it for you.  Outlaw Trail will be the title track of a CD by Red Whiskey Blue, an all-’Merican band. Listen to the live performance on YouTube.

Check out more road trip songs that inspired Looking for Redfeather on my YouTube Redfeather playlist.

NaNoWriMo – Writing your way out of the doldrums

Today is the 17th day of National Novel Writing Month.  If you’ve entered this year’s challenge to write the first draft of a 50,000 word novel in 3o days, this is the place where you might predictably enter the doldrums.  The wind has died and you’re wallowing on a vast, empty sea.  Here’s the geographic point where many writers lose their way.  Their muse, like the wind, has deserted them.  They start to think their story isn’t very good.  Really, what’s the point?  Might as well abandon ship.

All writers have novels they haven’t finished.  It’s easy to start a novel, much harder to see it through to completion.  The doldrums, writer’s block, the, I-got-nothin’-more-to-say, have trapped many novelists – sometimes for hours, days, weeks, or years.  It’s where most manuscripts wind up, adrift in oblivion.  I’ve got a few floating out there, myself.

NaNoWriMo is the auxiliary engine that drives you out of the doldrums, to a latitude where once again the Muse blows.  Just knowing that thousands of writers all over the world are writing their stories this month might be enough to start that engine.  Send a Mayday to your support group (you do have a support group, don’t you?)  Sometimes a little encouragement from a fellow sailor is all you need.  Here are some other ways to fuel your auxiliary engine.

1. Don’t be afraid to write garbage.  Later, you can pick through the trash heap and find some gems.  The main thing is to keep writing.  Anything.  Trust me, it will lead to something.  It might actually lead to a different story altogether and you’ll find yourself heading in a different direction, toward a new landfall.  Go with it.  If you run hard aground, write these related sentences, and answer them: What I really want to write is __________.   What I’m really trying to say is ___________.  I’m writing this story because ___________.  And yes, include this in your word count!  It’s part of discovering the theme of your novel, and recapturing the drive that made you want to write it in the first place.

2. Try exploring a subplot or supporting character more fully.  This can enrich your story, or maybe lead you in new directions.  Describe your characters fully and write out their biographies in order to discover their motivations.  Even though you’ll need to cut some of this in the rewrite, the layers of complexity will remain, supporting your story like the deep blue sea beneath your boat.

3. If you haven’t already done so, skip ahead and write the ending.  The last page.  Write multiple endings.  This gives you something to write toward.

4. Use your right brain.  Get a piece of paper and chart your story.  Be creative!  There are no rules to drawing this map, but a visual of your story as a whole might help generate wind.

5. Just do it!  Follow through with your committment and finish the damn thing!  Hammer out your 50,000 words by the end of the month.  If nothing else, you have met your deadline, which is a huge part of being a writer.  Trust the process and allow the words to tumble out of your brain, down your arms, out your fingers and onto the screen or the page.  If your inner editor tells you, you suck, you need to gag her and lock her in the hold until your reach landfall with your cargo of 50k.  Then, after celebrating a successful voyage in a waterfront pub, you can drag your critic ashore and let her begin her work.  Next time, leave her ashore until you return.

There’s an enormous ocean out there, waiting to be explored.  Fair winds, writers!

My new marketing plan

Everybody should write a book.  Wait –I think they already have.  There’s too much to read these days. I can’t keep up, I can’t read half of what I’d like to, and still the words keep coming!  Everybody knows somebody who has written a book.  Can this be a good thing?

Absolutely!  It’s a wonderful thing.  Everybody can publish a book these days.  Our forbears would be amazed.

But who is going to read them all?  Who has the time or the desire?

Maybe it’s not the quantity of books we read, but the quality.  We should read what compels us.  Which may or may not be what our friends are reading or what the bloggers are blogging about.  Or what the New York Times says are the best-sellers.   Or what the ladies in the book club vote to read (which is almost never the book that I want to read, but the majority rules.)

I’m not a fast reader.  I could never be a professional book reviewer.  I like to read slooooowly, savoring every sentence.  What I like best is to read a page and then reflect on it, maybe the rest of the day.  The stack of books on my nightstand has long overflowed to the floor and continues to grow, like stalagmites, surrounding the bed.  My e-reader contains hundreds of books, quite a number of them free downloads, that I can’t possibly read, because I keep adding more.  Not to mention, all those old favorites I’d like to read again, and some of the classics I missed along the way.

I always read my favorite contemporary novelists, but sometimes their new releases disappoint me in a vague way.  Like they were trying to produce a best-seller instead of what they were compelled to write.  And then there are the new voices, what we used to call “the literary brat pack,” who are no longer brats, but old men  now.  What happened to them, I wonder?  Did they burn out on cocaine?  Did they run out of words?  No time to look them up.

I try to stay current with the new releases, but I’m hopelessly behind. Often, I start a novel, find it good, but don’t finish it.  Because it didn’t really engage me.  It didn’t speak to me, I didn’t connect with the author, or give a shit about what happened to the characters.  Sometimes I give these books another go.  Sometimes I just give them away.

As a writer, I find the surfeit of books and blogs to be daunting.  With so many people writing and publishing, who is going to read my books?  Many of my author friends voice the same sense of insignificance.  What do we do in response?  We all become social hucksters, hawking our product on facebook, twitter, tumblr, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and every other virtual street corner that pops up.  Most of us are spending way too much time shouting to the universe, READ MY BOOK!  I’LL GIVE IT AWAY IF YOU JUST READ IT AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND POST A REVIEW!  LIKE MY AUTHOR PAGE!  LIKE LIKE LIKE.  I’m guilty of this too.  It’s pathetic, really, when what I really want to do is write write write.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve managed to get myself invited to a swanky party where everyone around me is talking at the same time, and I’m trying to decide who to listen to, but nobody cares if I’m listening or not.  So I gulp my wine and make my way to the powder room.  Sometimes I go outside, looking for the little klatch of smokers, even though I don’t smoke.  Among the smokers, or in the privacy of the ladies room, I invariably run into another soul, somebody with a nicotine habit, or social anxiety, or maybe they just needed to use the toilet.  It’s in one of these places, away from the deafening din of the party,  where I often have a brief but meaningful exchange with another human being.

“Got a light?”

“Brrrr!  It’s freezing out here!”

“Excuse me, but this stall is out of toilet paper, can you hand me some under the door?”

And for a moment we are intimate.  We hear each other, we connect.

Which is what writing, for me, is all about.

These day I’m not just a writer, I’m a publisher as well.  My latest novel, Looking for Redfeather, a coming-of-age road trip story, was recently released under my own imprint, Fiction House, Ltd.  I had an agent who believed in Redfeather, but he was unable to find any of the major players in today’s publishing society who liked it as much as he did.  We had some good feedback, like, “I loved the author’s voice”, or “well-written and engaging,” but when push came to shove, there were no zombies, no S&M –there wasn’t even a body in the trunk!  The big houses he pitched it to were looking for high concept novels, the more shocking and outrageous, the better.

Like the coming-of-age movies, American Graffiti and The Diner, Looking for Redfeather is somewhat episodic and contains no special effects.  It’s just a story about some kids living their life on a typical Saturday night.  Only Looking for Redfeather takes place over two weeks instead of one night.  Spoiler:  Unlike the American road trip movies, Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise, no one dies in a fiery blaze. Ramie, Chas and LaRoux live through the book.  They don’t kill themselves and they don’t kill each other.  Yet they are changed.  The three teens, each on the run, have an experience on the road that changes them forever.  It’s called growing up.  Coming of age.

I loved these three characters, Ramie, Chas and LaRoux.  It took me nearly six years to write their story and I was not willing to forget it.  I wanted these kids to have a chance.  Their story is, in some ways, a tribute to my own children; to my nieces and nephews and grandchildren –to myself –for playing the cards that fate dealt us.  All families are fucked up, but there are varying degrees.  I think people relate to that.  I do.

In 2007 I wrote the first draft of Looking for Redfeather in thirty days, during National Novel Writing Month, which happens every November.  At the time, I was on the road promoting my first novel, Star-Crossed –nautical historical fiction Knopf had published as a young adult novel.   Star-Crossed had taken six years to complete, so writing a novel in 30 days sounded terrifying, in a thrilling sort of way.   I had to do it.  In writing the first draft so fast, I was able to capture  the exuberance of the characters and the energy of the story.  The re-writes and editing would take me another six years.  Six years seems to be my time frame.

Apparently in this brave new world authors  have to be marketers, event-planners, and sales people as well as writers.  I’m doing it, but it’s wearing me out.  I refuse to spend any more time and energy in the social media marketing scene.  I find Goodreads to be overwhelming.   I’ve got a giveaway for Redfeather on Goodreads now, but I have a feeling it won’t reach the right readers.  (sighs and shrugs) We’ll see.   Facebook is fun –but it’s mostly for looking at my friends’ grandkids and cats, and reading political rants.  I tweet, yes, but who hears me?  Who cares?

After much trial, error and a lot of wasted time, I’ve decided I’m going to market my books the same way I try to buy my food.  Locally.  I’ll market to my family and friends, and to the community –including my local independent book stores, which I, in turn, support.  Buy local, eat food in season, read local –that’s my new motto.  You’ll see me on social media, but not so much.  I’m going to avoid the big parties.  I don’t have the right clothes and I don’t know the right people.  From now on, I’m making my own party.  We’ll see who shows up.

NaNoWriMo — Let the deluge begin!

AND THEY’RE OFF!

November is National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo, for short — a  month dedicated to unleashing the tumult of ideas within a writer’s imagination and giving them form.  A month in which writers of all ages commit to writingtheir own 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  Of course you can’t write a polished novel, ready for publication, in a month, but you can write a rough draft.  The hardest thing about writing a novel is finishing the damn thing!  In NaNoWriMo you commit to finishing –and leave the rewrites for the future.  Participants upload their work to the website, as proof.  If you finish, you get a badge.  But it’s not about the badge, it’s about finishing.

Who would have known so many people are dying to write a novel?  All they needed was the challenge — and one enormous support group.  There’s an entire industry that has sprung up around this annual event hosted by the nonprofit organization started by freelance writer Chris Baty, in 1999.   You can buy books to help you organize your 30 days and give you pointers and pep talks when the going gets tough.  You can write on Wattpad, an online writers’ group — they’re even offering a cash prize based on a random drawing of finishers.

One piece of advice is to set aside an hour a day and stick to it.  Make a rough outline.  You don’t have to follow it, but it might keep you from getting lost.  Don’t try to edit what you’ve written; just keep writing and don’t look back.  Be bold!  Don’t be afraid to take chances.  You will write garbage, trust me.  But if you write fast enough about something that matters to you, you’ll discover something worth keeping.

If you want to join this year’s wave, it’s not to late to sign up (though you’ll have to write furiously to catch up.)  There aren’t too many rules.  One is, it has to be a new novel, it can’t be a work in progress.

In 2007 I took part in NaNoWriMo, and I completed a novel in 30 days.  It took me nearly six more years to get it ready for publication!  My novel, Looking for Redfeather, has just been published by Fiction House, Ltd. (my own imprint.)  This labor of love all started when I answered the challenge of National Novel Writing Month.  As chaotic as that first draft was, that’s where I captured the heart and soul of the story.

Looking for Redfeather is a contemporary, coming-of-age novel.  It’s the story of three runaway teenagers who meet up by chance on the road and go looking for an Apache named Redfeather.  It’s a literary road trip –but it’s not Jack Kerouac’s story, and it’s not your grandfather’s road trip, though one of the teens has stolen his dead grandfather’s car.

Looking for Redfeather is available in trade paperback from Amazon.  It’s available in electronic format from Smashwords, and soon, on Amazon Kindle.

Good luck to this year’s novel writers.  Believe me, I’m drafting on your amazing energy.  Keep those words coming, you only have 29 more days.

Of Littleworth?

Blogging the research behind, and the first draft writing of my novel-in-progress, The Lost Letters of Lizzie Austen.  I’m captivated by the Cheesedown farm, where Jane Austen — and her fictional sister Lizzie — were sent to be raised by Elizabeth Littleworth, wife of farmer John Littleworth, until they reached the “age of reason.”  Mrs. Littleworth might not have been a wet nurse because in a letter Mrs. Austen says Jane was weaned at three months.  So presumably the poor babes were fed some sort of animal milk or gruel from a spoon or cheesecloth.  Mrs. Littleworth was paid to take care of the Austen babies until they grew out of that awkward stage.  When exactly would that be, I wonder?  When they were no longer in nappies?  When they could walk and talk?  Think of how the babies must have bonded to the foster mother, only to be torn away again when mother decided they were managable enough to come back to the rectory!  Oh, it was a different world, was it not?  And not just a world of fancy balls, furbelows and bonnets.

This week I am reading about the Cheesedown farm, near the Deane parish, about two miles from Steventon.  And about Elizabeth and John Littleworth, who cared for the Austen children — perhaps all of them — for some period of time.  (Poor George Austen never came back home.  He was defective in some way.  Intellectually challenged?  Embarassingly different?  Too much work?   So sad they never wanted him back, though apparently the family provided for his upkeep.  George, in fact, outlived most of the Austens.  More on him, later…

Another Austen family outcast was Aunt Lenora.  Why did they exclude her?

And so I write about Lizzie Austen – the bad sister — who was  sent to the Littleworths to be looked after, and was quite forgotten.  Lizzie, of little worth.

Yes, I write the dark side of Jane Austen.   Thanks to Lesley Adkins for inspiring me!   Stay tuned…

I’m reading:

Jane Austen’s England by Roy and Lesley Adkins.

Jane Austen; A Life by Claire Tomalin

Jane Austen’s Letters.  Colledted and Edited by Deirdre Le Faye

Cheesedown, near Deane. Did Lizzie wander these fields as a young girl?

 

 

 

Looking for Redfeather available in trade paperback!

Looking for Redfeather is now available in trade paperback on Amazon!  Also available in electronic format on Smashwords!  Coming soon to Kindle…

I wrote the first draft of Looking for Redfeather in November, 2007, during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  At the time I was on the road promoting  Star-Crossed, my first published novel — historical fiction that that the New York Public Library chose to be among the books for the Teen Age – 2007.  I needed a break from the 18th century, so I wrote a contemporary, post 9/11 road trip novel about three runaway teens.  The characters are a composite of kids, both real and imagined.

The rewriting and publishing of Looking for Redfeather took six years.  Which, incidentally, is how long Star-Crossed took me to write and get published.  Laura Rennert, my agent for Star-Crossed landed me a contract with Alfred A. Knopf.  James Schiavone, my agent for Looking for Redfeather was unable to place it, and so I’ve published it under Fiction House, Ltd. — my own company.   Albert Roberts designed the fabulous cover, and Create Space provided editorial, printing, and distribution services.  Currently I’m looking into Lightening Source because they distribute to libraries and academic institutions.  It’s time consuming, because I’m also writing two other novels and working on the stage play adaptation of Looking for Redfeather.  But that’s the publishing world these days.  Hey, who needs sleep anyway?

At least my characters are alive.  Long live Ramie, Chas, and LaRoux, the three runaway teens who are Looking for Redfeather.