K.B. Inglee's Blog: The Shepherd's Notes, page 13

I'm Back

I don’t even want to think about how long it has been since a posted a blog here. Over the last year my internet obligations have piled up and up. One of my resolutions for this year is to be better at posting, reviewing, mentioning my friends and fellow authors on line.
Around the middle of 2013 I picked a project to work on and actually worked on it every day. OK, almost every day. But if I didn’t work on it, I knew the reason. Not only am I finishing more projects, I feel more like a writer.
Stay tuned to see if I can carry it through the next year.

The Kindest Writer Award

I’ve been attending writers’ conferences and Sisters in Crime meetings for years and years. I have met lots of writers.
I’ve never met a writer I truly couldn’t stand. I am put off by writers who push their work too hard, never say “hi,” without adding how well their book is doing and would I please read their blog, I’ll love it. Or like them on Facebook. While they are perfectly nice, they seem to be writers, not people. I can’t imagine every befriending anyone who approached me that way. Nor can I imagine discussing my writing with them.
Some of the writers I met have become my friends. Usually we hit it off right from the start and over the years our connection grew. While I value these people for their writing, I also value their friendship. We have exchanged manuscripts and frequently talk about our writing problems.
There are three I would nominate for the Kindest Writer Award. They are not my close friends but they treat me like a person rather than a reader. We hold conversations on topics that have nothing to do with writing, not because they are secretly trying to win me over, but because they are interested in more than just their own writing. They remember me from meeting to meeting, ask how things are going and give the impression that they really are there to help an up coming writer. A hug at a book signing after my husband died A personal note of congratulations on a publication. One went so far as to step away from the group she was talking to in order to say “hi” to me. I’m sure she went right back to them.
These are the writers I hope to emulate.

Sparkle

The premise of the novel appealed to me. The protagonist seemed pretty interesting. The setting is one I don't know much about, so the novel could be an excellent teacher. The book wasn't all that expensive.

So why didn't I buy it? Why didn't I even go in search of a page to read to see if I liked it?

The writing style of the author's blog turned me off. There was nothing wrong with it. The author was describing a process, and, as you might expect, went from point A to B to C. There were no grammatical errors, at least not ones that stood out. It simply didn't sparkle. There were no interesting turns of phrase, no figures of speech, not so much as a simile or alliteration. The author moved from one profession into writing, but there was no comparison of the two ways of life.

I've been thinking a lot about sparkle lately. My stories, like the writers life in the blog, tends to be A to B to C. Where is the sparkle in that?

Can I use more figures of speech? More odd turns of phrase, and especially in my case, more surprise endings? I'm sure going to try.

Moods

Last week I was really up. This week no so much. Most of my life flows along without my paying much attention to how I feel but moods have a lot to do with my writing life and what I am working on can also have a lot to do with how I feel.
I don't usually write when I am feeling good and bubbly. Those are the times I can read work by my friends, make useful comments to my critique group, and send out my work and do research. When I am feeling not so chipper, I can pull back into myself and the words come pouring out.
I chose ten stories I wrote between 1996 and 2003, for a collection. Four have been published.
The novels I wrote during that time did what they were supposed to: teach me to write.
Rereading my early work is both invigorating and depressing. I am amazed by the things I did right, like character and setting, and depressed by the things I did wrong, like plot. I tend to give away the twist too early and I ramble. So far I have eliminated characters and changed the names of others, moved parts around, tried to find a better ending.
But my heart tells me I need to be writing new stories.
Sigh….

A Weekend in the Country

Picture a doe and her faun walking by the big kitchen window in the early morning. Hear the birds singing their hearts out. Now open your computer and begin to write. How can you not be inspired?
Six of us spent the weekend in an historic house, eating, writing and drinking in the atmosphere of an eighteenth century farm and mill. We were yards from Route 1, the road that runs the length of the east coast, Ben Franklin's Post Road.
I don't know how the other five did, but I solved a problem that has been haunting me for fifteen years, how to finish the unfinishable story. One of us wrote six sentences and was thrilled that she had been so productive.
Home on Monday, I was relaxed, full of ideas, and only two pounds heavier that I was on Thursday.
Let's do it again in the fall.

Taken Down a Peg

Late last year I submitted three pieces of work.
I sent a humorous mystery story to an anthology. The editor didn’t think it was funny enough but he liked it, so he published it as a stand alone short story.
The second went to a national contest. I took second place with a cash prize.
The first ten pages of my historical novel went to a contest that offered written critiques.
OK, I was on a high from the first two, and somewhere in the deep recesses of my heart I knew something was coming to take me down a peg.
I was shocked to see that the judges who critiqued the third work seemed to think I was a beginning writer. They congratulated me on my courage in submitting my work. They gave me very low scores and told me I needed to realize that writing was rewriting. They kindly gave me a list of books that would help.
My pride in the first two accomplishments is far greater than my disappointment in the third. I will forget the scores, and take a hard look at the comments…once I recover.

How Can I Tell?

I set about editing a story I wrote in the mid 1990s. Re-reading the story made me cry. I wish that meant I thought it was a good story. I have no way of knowing if it is good or not. What made me cry is the connections the story bore to my real life and no one else reading it will have those connections. The story revolves around the very personal ramifications of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry has on a distant family. The protagonist is a seven year old girl who is destined to become a working detective in the next forty years. It will be the first in a series of stories that follow her through that career. There is a character in needs of an alias, so he chose Richard for Richard I, Coeur de Lion, but there is a real Richard. There are two historical people in the story, one a favorite of my husband, one my favorite. I have been to one of the graves, the other is in Italy, so I don't think I will ever get to see it.
Given my own emotional ties to the story, how can I ever tell if it is any good, or just a personal memory wrapped is a wisp of fiction?

Wonderful things to do

I started working as an historical interpreter about the time I started writing, so here is a list of the ten most exciting and satisfying things I have done.

1) plowed a fielded with a team of horses
2) ground cornmeal with a water powered mill
3) driven a team of oxen
4) written a movie script for the site were I worked
5) shepherded a flock of heritage sheep
6) learned to spin and weave (I already knew how to knit)
7) fired a flintlock (the owner wouldn’t let me load it)
8) cooked in a wood fired oven
9) hand stitched an 18th century farm wife outfit
10) used all of it as background for my writing

The Color of Spring

Yesterday I saw Verdi’s Macbeth at The Grand, the opera house in Wilmington. I love opera; it is so over the top. I have seen only one poorly done work here and that was years ago. The soprano was far better than everyone else and made them look worse than they were. Another time we couldn’t see The Queen of the Night from out cheap seats.
When I was tiny (maybe three or so) I saw Carmen and I can still remember the color and the brightness of the stage. I had no idea what was going on but I fell in love with it. Most of the time I listen to the Met on Saturdays, but so much of opera is visual. Good thing I have an active imagination.
Thought the story is gloomy, and lots of people die, and the colors were muted, it lifted my spirits in this dreary spring.

Translating History

I am presenting a workshop at a writers’ conference in a couple of weeks. The subject is writing historical fiction. I am always astonished that I have things to say that no one ever thought of. I hope it is the case this time as well. My real aim is to get writers thinking about balancing their writing between the actual historical reality and the minds of the readers. How much will a reader take? If you write about the Roman cop, Samus Spadus, you certainly don’t write in old Latin, but you probably don’t write in modern New York detective speak, either. Certain things about your all too appealing hero won’t fly well with a modern audience, an acceptance of slavery as normal, for one. So I am calling my session Translating History. I will let you know how it goes.