Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 133

The Trouble With Humans and Cats

I’m a cat person. I’ve had a number of cats over the years, with my favorite being the one in the picture, Mahasamatman, the Lord of Light, commonly known as Sam. He’s been gone for about 15 years — about as long as he lived — and I still miss him.

I say all that by way of introduction because a few weeks ago I read Natalie Angier’s report in The New York Times on a recent scientific study that found domestic cats in the U.S. kill 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals each year. Yes, that...

WWW Wednesday 3-27-13

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Little finishing, mostly in the middle of. . .

• What did you recently finish reading? Team Human, a YA novel by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan. It started out as a satire of Twilight’s less thought-out aspects, as feisty, competitive Mel is appalled when her best f...

A Padawan’s Journal #47: Q & A

With the release of THE LAST JEDI, came a minor explosion of requests for interviews. Michael can only do written ones these days since losing his voice, but he does them via keyboard. Even our editor—Shelly Shapiro (aka She Whom We Adore)—has been pressed into service answering fan questions.

I’ve been interviewed now by five fan sites and a radio program out of Philadelphia, where my daughter attends college. (Podcast will be available on Suvudu, or at the Fictional Frontiers web site). I ev...

BVC Announces Taminy, Book Two of the Mer Cycle, by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Book View Café is pleased to present Taminy, by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff.

They said Meredydd-a-Lagan was a fluke—a rebellious girl who went to the Meri’s Sea in defiance of tradition. She was no fluke. She trod the path of Taminy-a-Cuinn, the girl who sought the Meri one hundred years before.

Taminy was said to have drowned, but she did not. She became what she sought; the Meri—the Being who stands between God and Man. Now, she’s human again and back from the Sea with a purpose: to save Caraid-la...

Writing Nowaday–Crashing the End

You’re writing climax of your book. Your protagonist is facing insurmountable odds or an unsolvable problem. You already know how the protagonist will win through in the end, and he’ll do it by confronting one of his basic flaws. You’re all set!

Now go back and screw it up.

Seriously. Your ending is too smooth, too easy. The climactic moment needs to be a little more complicated, a little more difficult. The original was probably something like this:

1. Final problem rushes toward protagonist. T...

Accidental Discovery

The argument for real books against virtual books is often based on the thingness of the real book — the beauty of the binding, the pleasure of handsome design and typesetting, the sensuality of turning a paper page, the pride of ownership. I sympathize with that, but I’m a reader, not a collector — I love my books (and I have lots of them) for what’s in them. Except for a few dear, battered kid’s books that both my mother and I read as children, the physical individuality of a book is pretty...

Caress the Detail

Caress the detail, the divine detail — Vladimir Nabokov

Let it be unequivocally stated—I am NOT a detail person. When I read a Regency, I seldom notice by what title the characters address each other unless the author confuses me. When I watch a movie, I fall into the stunning vistas and the passion of the characters. I don’t notice if the background is the wrong city or state or even if the heroine loses her shoes from one scene to the next. The story is what is important to me, and as long as...

Writing Principles

I recently discovered theAerogramme Writer’s Studioalong withio9. Both have been very interesting fodder for the writerly mind. Aerogramme has been putting up a number of rules of writing, etc. Here are some they’ve cited.

Hilary Mantels 10 Rules of Writing Fiction
Joss Whedons 10 Writing Tips
Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytellings
Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing

Among others.

I’ve read a number of sources on how to write well. My favorite is probablyJohn Gardner’sThe Art of FictionandRay Bradbury’sZen...

A Padawan’s Journal #43: George McFly, a Box of Books, and Me

I’ve written a couple of blogs on when IT becomes real. The book, that is.

The truth is that a book’s reality evolves, kind of like a child’s reality. Having given birth to both books and children, I can vouch for the similarities. The essential difference, of course, is that kids are less obedient than plotlines . . . but they love you back.

Still, there’s a related “realness” that’s even more significant. At what point does one become a Real Writer? Is it when you finish a story, send it to an editor, sign a contract, finish the manuscript, cash the checks, see the cover flat . . . or have the George McFly Moment?

Those of you who have seen Back to the Future will no doubt understand what I’m talking about. It’s that moment when, in the timeline altered by his son, Marty, the ex-loser George McFly—now a successful science fiction novelist—receives his box of books from the publisher. The cover, of course, is the vision he saw when the time-traveling Marty visited his bedroom in the middle of the night in a hazmat suit, sounding like Darth Vader and urging him to take destiny (or density) into his own hands.



When I saw that movie in 1985, I was an amateur writer in the earliest days of learning my craft. I was in love with writing and the characters I was creating but clueless about what went into getting a novel published. BUT when George opened that box, I had a moment of breathless vertigo. For me, there was nothing on the screen but that box and those books. The moment was frozen in Time (ahem). I envied George McFly (with whom I share many, many painful similarities) and I wanted that MOMENT. The moment the books arrived and made me a Real Writer.

I was very pregnant with my first child at the time I saw Back to the Future, so the two experiences sort of overlapped. Would the arrival of a box of books make me a Real Writer in the same way that the birth of the already named Alex Sumner Bohnhoff make me a Real Mommy?



Nope and nope. I became a Real Mommy far earlier than Alex’s birthday. I’m not sure when—perhaps when he sprang into existence, or when I realized he was there, or when I named him (when I was 3 months along) or when I first felt him Snoopy dancing to Dire Straits.

But in the same way, I’ve come to realize that the box of books is not the measure of a Real Writer. Being a Real Writer has nothing to do with what goes on on the outside and everything to do with what goes on on the inside. As Gerald Brenan once put it “It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.” He saw being Real as a function of self-discipline and, for me, that’s a great part of Realness. But it’s more than that. Being a Real Writer involves loving the process of writing as much or more than you love the resulting box of books.

So, does that make the George McFly moment I had yesterday as I pried open my big old box of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI author’s copies any less potent? Nope. Not a bit. I oohed and ahed over the cover (which is gorgeous, IMO). I caressed the binding. I inhaled the aroma of the pages.

And I thought about George McFly and how love can make you Real.

A Padawan's Journal Entry: Patterns & Shadows

Back in December of 2008 a Star Wars novel entitled (take a very deep breath) STAR WARS — CORUSCANT NIGHTS III — PATTERNS OF FORCE was released by Del Rey through its partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd.

What? You say that title vaguely resembles a mathematical formula and you don’t do mathematical formulas?

Let me translate: It’s a Star Wars novel from the CORUSCANT NIGHTS series by Michael Reaves and the title of this, the third book in the series, is (you guessed it) Patterns of Force. The series centers on the exploits of Jedi-in-hiding Jax Pavan and his android sidekick, I-5YQ — I-Five for short (Michael lives in LA, need I say more?). I-Five was also partner to Jax's daddy, Lorn Pavan, protagonist of the New York Times bestseller DARTH MAUL: SHADOW HUNTER (also by Michael Reaves).

PATTERNS OF FORCE represents my first writing foray into the Star Wars universe. The original paperback did not have my name on it (though you will see me mentioned in the acknowledgments and my name is on the Science Fiction Book Club Omnibus version), but Michael and I co-wrote the book, which was (big old fanfare) #16 on the New York Times Bestseller list in February of 2009.

My writing relationship with Michael is, ironically and appropriately, a Jedi Master / Padawan sort of thing. He’s the Obi-Wan Kenobi to my Luke Skywalker. After being introduced to each other by teleplay writer Marc Scott Zicree (with whom I collaborated on the MAGIC TIME series from Harper-Collins) Michael and I co-wrote the Del Rey original, Mr. Twilight (available from your favorite brick & board or online bookstore), and a Batman novel (Batman: Fear Itself). We decided we made a great team. So when he asked me to collaborate with him on PATTERNS, it was a no-brainer.

Working on PATTERNS OF FORCE was fun, exciting and rewarding. Not only are the characters engaging, the story compelling, and the rave reviews from the fans gratifying, but I began to get an inside and behind-the-scenes look at the process of working in this iconic universe that was very enlightening.

For example, those of you are STAR WARS fans likely know that lightsabers come in different colors because of the type of crystal that channels the power of their emissions. But did you know that Lucasfilm allows lightsabers of only particular colors? I did not know this. Neither did Michael until he tried to give his hero, Jax, an amber lightsaber. Lucasfilm responded by patiently explaining that Jedi of the Prequel Era only have green or blue lightsabers and Sith have red. Other colors are a no-no.

“Ah,” you say, “but I saw the movies. Mace Windu has a violet lightsaber.” Yes, he does. But Mace Windu also has a friend in the business: Samuel L. Jackson, whose favorite color for things that glow just happens to be ... aw, you guessed! When Samuel L. Jackson says, “I want a violet lightsaber,” apparently even George Lucas does not argue the point.

So Michael began work on a new Star Wars novel with a much less prodigious working title than the previous one: STAR WARS — HOLOSTAR. The fans knew about this novel before the ink was even dry on the contracts due to the fact that information apparently travels through online Star Wars fandom at a speed significantly faster than light.

FANDOM IS AWE INSPIRING!

The book was ultimately published as Shadow Games, and Michael and I swung right into a new project: the fourth book in the Coruscant Nights series with protagonists Jax Pavan and I-Five.

Until next time, feed your head—read a book! And may the Force be with you.

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