K.B. Inglee's Blog: The Shepherd's Notes, page 18
August 30, 2011
It’s an Ill Wind
Now and then I find myself in a position to understand how my ancestors lived. Last summer the pond fish died from the heat, and the corn was flattened by a micro burst. That would have meant little food for the coming winter.
Yesterday I had a good reason to miss posting this blog. No electricity. No electricity meant no coffee. Irene had flooded the building where I work and left us without most of the modern amenities.
It was built in the 1850s. In those days a computer was a person who did arithmetic. Four times I reached for the mouse to look something up. Not bad for someone riveted to a computer most days.
While I missed my coffee, and had to eat cold soup for lunch, I didn’t miss the telephone or having to deal with the money in the cash register. The building was filled with natural light, so that it was possible to see well enough in the one room that had no windows. Pens on paper worked just fine. I don’t usually bring a book, but had slipped one in my bag as I left home. I read between chores. My job was to take all the heavy stuff off the counters and put it back in the lower drawers and cabinets.
Only one clock worked, and that was at the other end of the building from my desk. I knew it was time to go home when the staff started leaving.
When I got home I decided I needed a glass of wine more than a cup of coffee.
Yesterday I had a good reason to miss posting this blog. No electricity. No electricity meant no coffee. Irene had flooded the building where I work and left us without most of the modern amenities.
It was built in the 1850s. In those days a computer was a person who did arithmetic. Four times I reached for the mouse to look something up. Not bad for someone riveted to a computer most days.
While I missed my coffee, and had to eat cold soup for lunch, I didn’t miss the telephone or having to deal with the money in the cash register. The building was filled with natural light, so that it was possible to see well enough in the one room that had no windows. Pens on paper worked just fine. I don’t usually bring a book, but had slipped one in my bag as I left home. I read between chores. My job was to take all the heavy stuff off the counters and put it back in the lower drawers and cabinets.
Only one clock worked, and that was at the other end of the building from my desk. I knew it was time to go home when the staff started leaving.
When I got home I decided I needed a glass of wine more than a cup of coffee.
August 22, 2011
Rewrite, again
I am rewriting my first novel for what feels like the eighty-seventh time. I have kept a copy of each major rewrite from the first, in which there was no murder, to this one where the murder is about a quarter of the way through. At one point I had the murder on page three, but it keeps working its way back. I need to find the proper place and keep it there.
Popular wisdom has it that the murder has to be on page one to hold the readers interest, but in most of the books I read, it comes fifty or so pages into a 200 page book.
This time I may have cheated some. There is an earlier death that has a major impact on the protagonist, but had been dealt with only as back story. In this revision, that death is the subject of chapter one. Now I have to decide how I am going to handle that particular incident as I move forward. Do I have it be the overarching plot of a series of books? Do I have the perpetrator caught and punished before the end of this book? Do I ignore it altogether?
Popular wisdom has it that the murder has to be on page one to hold the readers interest, but in most of the books I read, it comes fifty or so pages into a 200 page book.
This time I may have cheated some. There is an earlier death that has a major impact on the protagonist, but had been dealt with only as back story. In this revision, that death is the subject of chapter one. Now I have to decide how I am going to handle that particular incident as I move forward. Do I have it be the overarching plot of a series of books? Do I have the perpetrator caught and punished before the end of this book? Do I ignore it altogether?
Rewrite, again
I am rewriting my first novel for what feels like the eighty-seventh time. I have kept a copy of each major rewrite from the first, in which there was no murder, to this one where the murder is about a quarter of the way through. At one point I had the murder on page three, but it keeps working its way back. I need to find the proper place and keep it there.
Popular wisdom has it that the murder has to be on page one to hold the readers interest, but in most of the books I read, it comes fifty or so pages into a 200 page book.
This time I may have cheated some. There is an earlier death that has a major impact on the protagonist, but had been dealt with only as back story. In this revision, that death is the subject of chapter one. Now I have to decide how I am going to handle that particular incident as I move forward. Do I have it be the overarching plot of a series of books? Do I have the perpetrator caught and punished before the end of this book? Do I ignore it altogether?
Popular wisdom has it that the murder has to be on page one to hold the readers interest, but in most of the books I read, it comes fifty or so pages into a 200 page book.
This time I may have cheated some. There is an earlier death that has a major impact on the protagonist, but had been dealt with only as back story. In this revision, that death is the subject of chapter one. Now I have to decide how I am going to handle that particular incident as I move forward. Do I have it be the overarching plot of a series of books? Do I have the perpetrator caught and punished before the end of this book? Do I ignore it altogether?
August 15, 2011
Who owns a story?
Authors care a lot about who owns which rights to their stories, and they should. Can you imagine spending years developing a character only to realize you have sold that character to someone else and you can’t write about her any more? Can you imagine having to turn a publisher down because the story they wanted to publish belongs to someone else? This happens a lot, and to some well known authors.
But there is ownership and there is ownership. I sent a story to an anthology early in the year. I never got any response from the publisher and I now have reason to believe the anthology will never come out. So am I free to send it elsewhere? Not on your life. I have to withdraw it from the defunct publication first. They have no legal hold on the story and I could send it anywhere I wanted without having to notify anyone. Good manners and my reputation as a writer keep me from doing this. In time, I will contact the editor of the anthology and respectfully withdraw my story, rewrite it and send it elsewhere.
But there is ownership and there is ownership. I sent a story to an anthology early in the year. I never got any response from the publisher and I now have reason to believe the anthology will never come out. So am I free to send it elsewhere? Not on your life. I have to withdraw it from the defunct publication first. They have no legal hold on the story and I could send it anywhere I wanted without having to notify anyone. Good manners and my reputation as a writer keep me from doing this. In time, I will contact the editor of the anthology and respectfully withdraw my story, rewrite it and send it elsewhere.
August 8, 2011
Choices
Not for the first time in my dual career as shepherd and writer I have run into that bugaboo of most of us who lead too busy lives. Choices. Do I want to go to the writing event or the sheep event that are being held on the same day? I gave up going to Malice Domestic because it usually fell on the same weekend as sheering. This year I was all set to attend The New York Sheep and Wool Festival in October. Then I found out that the speaker I had suggested for my Sisters in Crime group was scheduled for that weekend. He is someone I admire, and I don’t want to miss what he has to say about writing true crime.
When it came down to it, my bank balance made the decision for me. Ten dollars for lunch or two hundred dollars for a hotel room. Let me see…
When it came down to it, my bank balance made the decision for me. Ten dollars for lunch or two hundred dollars for a hotel room. Let me see…
August 1, 2011
Good friends help…
Heat is hard on sheep. I wasn’t surprised to find a dead ram after three days of triple digit temperatures. I was surprised that he had been dead for some time before I found him. When we finally removed the poor fellow from the pasture, he was well on the way to being mush. And the temperature hadn’t dropped much.
So a writer, an archeologist and a weaver walk into this pasture to remove the body. What a great set up for a joke or a good mystery.
The chore was…well…awful. I won’t go into details. It is enough to say, you don’t ever want to do this.
As we walked down the driveway headed for our showers, the archeologist said: “Friends help friends move; good friends help friends move bodies.”
So a writer, an archeologist and a weaver walk into this pasture to remove the body. What a great set up for a joke or a good mystery.
The chore was…well…awful. I won’t go into details. It is enough to say, you don’t ever want to do this.
As we walked down the driveway headed for our showers, the archeologist said: “Friends help friends move; good friends help friends move bodies.”
July 11, 2011
The Anti-blog Blog
I have been invited to post a blog every other Tuesday at Writers Who Kill. http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com
This is a big honor for me since it means someone out there thinks I am a writer. I managed to get my introductory post written and submitted and my post for this week ready to go a couple of days early.
I started the blog here on Goodreads to see if I could do it since it looked like a must for writers. I have missed three weeks since I started.
I keep in touch with other writers and it seems that fully half of their word count if for blogs. Some of them write several blogs a week.
Does anyone read all these blogs? Is blogging taking the place of reading books? How long can I keep this up before I run out of interesting things to say?
This is a big honor for me since it means someone out there thinks I am a writer. I managed to get my introductory post written and submitted and my post for this week ready to go a couple of days early.
I started the blog here on Goodreads to see if I could do it since it looked like a must for writers. I have missed three weeks since I started.
I keep in touch with other writers and it seems that fully half of their word count if for blogs. Some of them write several blogs a week.
Does anyone read all these blogs? Is blogging taking the place of reading books? How long can I keep this up before I run out of interesting things to say?
June 27, 2011
Talking to the sheep
Maybe I have worked with the sheep too long.
We have a set of bottle fed twins who are socialized to people, but not sheep. We moved them to the best pasture with few other sheep so they didn’t have to compete with the rest of the flock for food. When I went to visits them they ran over to me and led me to the water. They showed me that while they were tall enough to reach over the rim of the tub, they couldn’t reach the water. They looked up at me and I swear they said “fix it.” I found a cement block for them to stand on so they could drink.
When my daughter Bodge went to feed this afternoon, one of our larger older ewes was missing so Bodge went searching, calling to her. She is the most dominant of the ewes, so she doesn’t have to rush to eat, she can just push the others out of the way. After a bit, she could hear hear the ewe calling back. Finally the ewe came around the corner from the ram pen, no part of which can be seen from either the pasture or the barn. Bodge swears she was laughing.
Are we anthropomorphizing them or are we learning to speak sheep?
We have a set of bottle fed twins who are socialized to people, but not sheep. We moved them to the best pasture with few other sheep so they didn’t have to compete with the rest of the flock for food. When I went to visits them they ran over to me and led me to the water. They showed me that while they were tall enough to reach over the rim of the tub, they couldn’t reach the water. They looked up at me and I swear they said “fix it.” I found a cement block for them to stand on so they could drink.
When my daughter Bodge went to feed this afternoon, one of our larger older ewes was missing so Bodge went searching, calling to her. She is the most dominant of the ewes, so she doesn’t have to rush to eat, she can just push the others out of the way. After a bit, she could hear hear the ewe calling back. Finally the ewe came around the corner from the ram pen, no part of which can be seen from either the pasture or the barn. Bodge swears she was laughing.
Are we anthropomorphizing them or are we learning to speak sheep?
June 20, 2011
Oh, for the good old days
When people see me in my period clothing they often ask if I wouldn’t rather live in the 18th or 19th centuries. My usual reply is “doctors and dentists.” I don’t mention computers. Today I would happily move back to pre-computer times. A couple of weeks ago I agreed to join the blog Writers Who Kill, posting every other Tuesday. Since I said yes, one of our laptops froze up after my husband spilled coffee on it. I dropped my own laptop and broke the screen. The computer at work was struck by a mega-virus and is off line for the time being. IT has been working with it for three days. How am I supposed to learn how to post a blog and actually get it up by tomorrow if I have to keep borrowing computers?
June 13, 2011
Why I didn’t put up a picture of a bird bottle
I have been up to my ears in authorly pursuits lately, very little of it is writing.
I am compiling manuscripts for an anthology with the unlikely name of Fish Nets. The job consists of receiving all the stories by email, keeping tack of the authors and addresses, sending out the manuscripts to be scored, compiling the scores and sending the top stories to the editor. Then every author gets a copy of the scores and comments. This is my second time through this ordeal, the first time was for Fish Tales, now on Amazon.com. Now that I sent the last score sheet out, I have a break until the editor returns the stories to me for the authors for revision. Here are some things I learned from these two experiences.
Authors are impatient. I would receive an email with a story attached once I opened the attachment and saved the story, I notified the author that I had it. Many couldn’t wait, and hours after the manuscript landed in my mail box, the author sent a second email asking if I had it.
Authors are mostly kind. Many of the emails end with the line “Thank you for taking on this job.”
No matter what you do, someone will think they could do it better. I have a great group of people standing behind me to pick up the pieces.
Don’t look for Fish Nets to appear next to Fish Tales soon, but it will be along.
The Shepherd's Notes
Combining Living History and writing historical mysteries.
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