Ellen Jensen Abbott's Blog, page 2

Deals and Posts!

For the month of December, my fist two books, Watersmeet and The Centaur’s Daughter, are on sale on Amazon with a nice discount. Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=45

In addition, I am a guest blogger on my friend, Jenn Hubbard’s, blog.  I wrote about winter hiking and channeling the fear I felt on one excursion into my books. Here’s the link for that one:

http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/365816.html

Guest blog: “Lost in Book Three”

Check it out at Dianne Salerni’s blog: http://diannesalerni.blogspot.com/2013/11/lost-in-book-three-ellen-jensen-abbott.html

 

Guest blog on World Building!!

I posted a guest blog today on Nancy Viau’s blog. It’s a post with tips on world building for young readers. Check it out!!

http://nancyviau.blogspot.com/

The Call of Fantasy

Below is a blog post originally posted on the AuthorsNow! website. A reader just asked me about inspiration, and I went back through my files sure that I had done some writing on this before. Here’s what I found!

We all know them—those kids who read fantasy novel after fantasy novel after fantasy novel. I was one of those kids—obsessed with the Chronicles of Narnia. I read my favorite, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, thirteen times. (I have since read it to both of my children—so now I am up to fifteen!) As a fantasy writer today, I have to acknowledge my debt to CS Lewis, and to JRR Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, another of my favorites.

At the same time, Lewis and Tolkien would be the first to acknowledge their debt to much earlier sources, such as Norse mythology. When I set out to write my debut novel, a fantasy called Watersmeet, I too went back to earlier sources: folktales, hero quests, mythology, legend. After all, what are these tales but fantasy stories? Odysseus making his way back to Ithaca—fighting the Cyclopes, Scylla, Charybdis, and the Lotus Eaters. Fantasy! Atlas with the world on his shoulder. Fantasy! Uncle Remus and the Br’er Rabbit stories. Talking animals are definitely fantasy. Scheherezade and the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Native American stories about Coyote the Trickster. All are fantasy stories. It seems almost as if from the moment language was invented, people were gathering to tell stories about monsters, magic, heroes and power beyond what we could understand.

Fantasy connects with a very deep vein. Even today, when our society is so rational, so technological, so scientific, fantasy sells—and bookstores can be open at midnight for the launch of the seventh Harry Potter book. In fact, I think the call of fantasy is even stronger now because so much mystery and magic is gone from our daily lives. It’s no wonder kids are flocking to the genre.

When I started sending out my first novel—a fantasy—the Harry Potter phenomenon was just starting. An editor read my book and had nice things to say about it, but offered no contract. (Yes, I got what we know in the writing business as a “good rejection.”) One of her comments stuck with me: “Fantasy always sells.” In fact, fantasy has been “selling” for thousands of years. As a fantasy writer today, I feel like I’m adding my own, individual voice to an ancient and ongoing conversation.

Coming on like blazes!

I have a new group of writing students this semester. We just started class on Tuesday. As I start working with them, I’ve been looking back over some of my favorite writing books–the usual like Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. But one little gem that is not just for writers is  Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of  Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland (The Image Continuum, 1993).  I love this book! Just about every line makes you stop and think or say, “Yes! That’s just right!” I’ve given it to friends in other artistic fields; a dear friend of mine who is an opera singer loved it as much as did. So  here is a teaser quotation or two to make you want to run out and check it out, if you haven’t seen it before:

“When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

And one more because I can’t resist:

“Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself. This is not the Age of Faith, Truth and Certainty.”

 

It’s in!

Here it is! (My daughter made the shrine!)

On December 17, I submitted my 300 page manuscript for the third book in the Watersmeet series! Phew! It was a tough book to write, I think because it was the third and final in Abisina’s story. I had to conclude this part of the history of Seldara which meant tying up lose ends from the two previous books. In addition, I had made all kinds of choices in Watersmeet and The Centaur’s Daughter that I had to live with. Mountain ranges were in place, villains were alive and had their own specific agenda, and characters were setting out on tasks that had to be completed–whether it fit well with where things went in book three or not!

It is a huge relief — in one way — to think about that stack of papers sitting on my editor’s desk. It’s not on my desk! Of course, there’s a lot of angst, too. What if she hates it? What if she comes back to me and says, “yeah, not so much. Start over.” (I think this is unlikely, but I suspect this is a standard fear among writers–we’re generally a wildly confident and wildly insecure group, all at the same time. Well, maybe not that confident!) It’s slated for a fall 2013 release so she should be getting it back to me very soon! If I disappear from my blog again, you’ll know why!!

(By the way, it’s currently called The Keeper. I have no idea if that title will stick….)

Deals, Deals, Deals!

This week, WATERSMEET is 65% off on Amazon–Black Friday Deals Week! AND CENTAUR’S DAUGHTER is still $3.99 on Kindle! You can get both books for a song! Start your Christmas shopping!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=br_lf_m_1000747111_pglink_prev?ie=UTF8&docId=1000747111&plgroup=1&plpage=2

Big News! Amazon’s Kindle 100!

This month, November, The Centaur’s Daughter is being featured as one of Amazon’s Kindle 100–100 Kindle books for $3.99! The Centuar’s Daughter is in the Kids and Teens section. Here’s a link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=br_lf_m_1000706171_grlink_3?ie=UTF8&docId=1000706171&plgroup=3

Working with Clay

I am currently revising my manuscript for Book 3. I love revising! Of all the tasks that go into writing a book, this is the part that I love the  most. I feel like I  have this lump of clay before me and with each revision, I refine the object I am trying to make. A little more clay here, a little texture there, smoothing needed over here, lots of clay to be dug out over here. (That last is my usual m.o. I always overwrite!)

For some people, it’s the invention of the clay that is the fun. (Okay, the metaphor starts to fall apart here, but it’s leading to something else, I promise.) This is not true for me. The invention part of writing–getting those first words, first chapters on paper– is almost physical labor, akin to hauling the clay from the riverbank where it’s formed in to the studio. Sometimes this work is painful for me. And I still have a little bit of it to do. The final scenes of this book are not written yet. For now, I’m enjoying the refining process. But in the next couple of days, it’s back to the riverbank with my shovel and wheelbarrow for a final haul of the materials that I can then craft with my hands,head and heart.

Violence? Fine! Sex? No way!

Stick with me here…First let me tell you where this question comes from. I often find myself sitting behind a table talking about books–mine and other people’s–with parents, teachers, librarians, grandparents. Often the question comes up: what age is this book appropriate for? Folks are almost never asking about reading level. Their concern is about content.

Now in Watersmeet, there is a hint of romance but no sex. There’s not even kissing. There is violence. The story is about a world in the first stages of a war. There is a monster who wants to lay waste to whole communities. There is prejudice, hatred, loss of parents. Folk fight with real weapons and folk die–not just the “bad guys.” In The Centaur’s Daughter, there is more romance, some kissing and cuddling, but no sex. The violence is equally prevalent.

So, when someone asks me what age my books are appropriate for, I usually cut right to the chase.  I say:  “There is some romance but no sex. No language. But there is some violence.”  It’s on the third point when a lot of folks wave their hands as if to say, No worries. You gave me the answer I wanted: no sex, no language. They never ask what kind of violence is involved: is it graphic, is it tortuous? They never ask if critical main characters die, the ones that a reader might really care about. Some people even say, out loud, “Oh, violence is okay.”

Part of me understands this. I’m a parent, and as a parent I do worry about the way my children will understand and make decisions around sex and relationships. Children have been “sexed up” in this generation–on TV, in movies, in their clothing choices.

On the other hand, I don’t get it. It’s okay to see people beat each other, shoot each other, kill each other, but–eeeeek!–don’t let them kiss and cuddle or even “go all the way”?  There doesn’t seem to be room in this conversation for, “Well, my MC is 17, she has been dating her boyfriend for a long time, she goes with her mother to planned parenthood to get birth control and an HIV test”–a model of responsible sex. Once sex is acknowledged, the conversation is over.

Think for a moment about The Hunger Games, a book I loved. Loads of violence. No sex. Young kids are reading it. To be fair, there has been some flap over the violence, but how much worse would it have been if Katniss and Peeta were also having sex in that cave?

Another one: Twilight. Violence. It’s about werewolves and vampires. (Yes, the hero vampires were animal eaters, but they’re an anomaly.) But, the book is praised because it’s supposed to be a metaphor for abstinence. Never mind what I would call some very questionable images of young women and what they are looking for in a love relationship.

So, I don’t get it. Sex is going to be part of every person’s life. In fact, as adults, we see sex as a healthy part of our lives. Violence is not seen as healthy.  And yet, when kids are young, we shy away from acknowledging this part of their psychology. We’re reluctant to let our kids see what can go wrong or what can go right in an intimate relationship, but we have lots of books about battles, war, weapons–my books among them.

It’s not that I think violence should be cut out of books. I just don’t understand why beating someone is seen as less of a taboo than kissing someone.