Dee Garretson's Blog, page 7

Great Writing Advice from Kurt Vonnegut

I found these two tips from Kurt Vonnegut which really struck me:

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.(from Vonnegut’s book BAGOMBO SNUFF BOX: UNCOLLECTED SHORT FICTION)

This advice seems so simple, but is so easily forgotten. Tip 1 is most useful when writing a first draft and figuring out the characters. It’s too easy to add in a character to help the plot, but without fully fleshing out that character. I’ve been guilty of this myself. Not anymore!

And for the second tip, what a great thought to keep in mind when revising. Knowing how to revise is a long learning process, and getting the pacing right is vital, so analyzing the purpose of each sentence will cut down on unnecessary bits that drag the story down.

Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction 

Why I Encourage Beginning Writers to Write Fan Fiction

I do frequent Skype visits with classes, and often the students are working on creative writing units. As a parent and a parent volunteer in classrooms, I know creative writing isn’t easy for a large number of students. It just seems overwhelming to some to pull together characters, plot, setting and theme. That’s why I recommend new writers try their hand at fan fiction. Now, I didn’t even know what fan fiction was until about four years ago when I heard other writers discussing it. So for those of you who don’t know what it is either, here’s a brief description: Fan fiction is where you use the characters or world in an already published book or television show or movie, to write stories set in the same world or with the same characters. It’s not fiction to be published, unless the original work is out of copyright, or is something that has never been copyrighted, like fairy tales.

A writer writes fan fiction because they love the world of the story and want to see it continue. It’s also an excellent way to practice writing. Many published writers got their start writing fan fiction. The benefits of it are that a new writer doesn’t have so much to juggle. Using existing characters gives a basis. You know the character’s habits, quirks, friendships, etc., so you can focus on plot. This can take some of the pressure off. And if the world of the story is already a complicated one, like the one in Harry Potter, you can add details but don’t have to embark upon the complicated task of worldbuilding, something else that is very daunting and difficult for new writers.

So if you are a writer, child or adult, struggling with writing, why not give it a try? And keep in mind, writing only improves with practice, it doesn’t ever get worse!

Spooky Halloween Dinner for Vegetarians – Menu and Recipes

Here’s a very easy menu for a simple Halloween Dinner, vegetarian style.  And as a bonus, at the end of the post is a link to my old-fashioned ghost story you can print out and read aloud at your party to set the mood. I’m not crazy about disgusting-looking food, even for Halloween, so I chose food my family would actually eat. No pseudo-brains! Besides dessert, most of the items can be made at least partly in advance. In fact, it’s best to give yourself some time to cook both the carrots and potatoes so that there is enough time to cool them to finish the preparation.

The menu was printed out on gray textured paper with a couple of Word clip art Halloween themed pictures, and then cut in the shape of a tombstone:

The menu includes:

Dracula Salad

Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble Soup

Ghost Potatoes

Mummy Carrots

Spiderweb Cupcakes

Dracula Salad

1 bunch red-leafed lettuce (I used a spring mix, so I’ve got some green in mine.)

1/8 cup diced marinated beets per salad

1 Tablespoon diced red onion per salad

1 cut up cooked red new potato per salad

1 Tablespoon dried cranberries per salad

Arrange on plate and serve with Italian dressing, and goat cheese (if preferred.)

Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble Soup

Black Bean Soup:

3 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 can vegetable broth

1 onion, diced

5 stalks celery, diced

1 clove garlic, diced

1 tsp. celery salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. oregano

salt to taste

Saute onion, celery and garlic until softened. Place all ingredients in a large saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes. Makes 5 servings.

Ghost Potatoes

2 large baking potatoes ( choose long ones with one end more narrow than the other)

1 tablespoon butter, melted

2 tablespoons milk

4 tablespoons sour cream

4 pitted black olives

Cook potatoes in oven or microwave until softened. Let cool until you can handle them. Cut off the more rounded end and set aside for another use. With remaining piece, cut in half lengthwise so you have two ghost shapes. Scoop out potato carefully, preserving skins. Mash potato with milk and butter. Place potato back into skins, smoothing the filling flat. When ready to serve, cut olives into slices for eyes and mouth, reheat potatoes, when hot, spread sour cream on them like frosting, place eyes and mouth and serve. Makes four servings.

Mummy Carrots

4 large carrots

1/2 cup orange juice

1 package (4 count crescent rolls)

8 dried cranberries

Cut narrow ends off carrots so that you are left with pieces that are about five inches in length. (Use the cutoff bits another time.) Cook carrots until semi tender in orange juice (i cooked them for about 4 minutes in a microwave.) Let cool enough to handle. Preheat oven according to directions on the crescent roll package. For each carrot, cut one crescent roll into strips and wrap around carrot, leaving a little space near the top for eyes. Bake according to package directions. While the mummies are baking, cut the cranberries down to make the eyes. (Use the extra bits on the Dracula salad.) As soon as the carrots are done, place on a serving plate and put cranberry eyes in place. Enjoy!

I don’t have a good picture of the spiderweb cupcakes, but will try to post one soon.

Here’s a link to the ghost story, BENEATH THE LAKE: http://deegarretson.com/ghoststory.html

ALLEGIANT by Veronica Roth and Readers’ Expectations

Spoiler Alert! Don’t read this post if you want to be surprised by the book.

My thirteen-year-old daughter woke up early on Tuesday so she could start reading ALLEGIANT before school. A teenager purposely getting up early on a school day is a very telling sign of how eagerly she was awaiting this book, having loved the first two books in the DIVERGENT trilogy. She hasn’t gotten to the ending yet, and I know she is going to be both angry and disappointed.

We talk a lot about books in our house, and why authors make the choices they do. My daughter understands writers have reasons for every sentence in a story, and some of the choices a writer makes are not at all what a reader expects.

I’m looking at the choices Ms. Roth made from two different perspectives. As a writer myself, I’m all for seeing your vision through, and standing by what you set out to accomplish. I’ve fought to keep certain aspects in my books that I thought were important, and I think I made the stories stronger by doing so. I’ve had readers question why I had secondary characters die, and I know some of the readers are upset by the choices I’ve made.

On the other hand, as a parent of two voracious teen readers, I wonder how writers of middle grade and young adult fiction should deal with young readers’ expectations. My older son is reading G.R.R. Martin’s GAME OF THRONES. He’s on the third book, and he hasn’t yet reached the Red Wedding. He’s going to be horribly disappointed in that as well, but since it’s adult fiction, I’ve warned him things will not turn out as he expects.

Young adult fiction has few taboos left, and that is a good thing. Many teens are exposed to the grittiness and sorrow and death in the real world, and even if they aren’t, they need to know the world is not a happy place filled with bunnies and unicorns and rainbows. But readers read for specific reasons, and some readers choose books because they want a temporary escape from reality. That’s the reason I read. I don’t want to read something that makes me weep excessively. I don’t want to spend my time getting invested in a character only to see them die.

So what are teens expecting from this book going into it? It’s labeled as dystopian science fiction and as romance, and that sets up some expectations. Adult readers of science fiction know that stories can go in any direction, and teens probably shouldn’t expect that every YA sci fi will turn out with a triumphant main character defeating evil and moving on to a happy life. Though I have to say both my son and I prefer that kind of science fiction. Think of STAR WARS. Would the trilogy be so beloved if Luke died at the end?

ALLEGIANT is called a romance as well. Here is where the problem arises. Yes, ROMEO AND JULIET was a romance too, and a tragic one at that, but modern standards for what is and isn’t a romance have changed. We usually expect a happy ending, even if it isn’t exactly the one we envisioned. We do expect the main character to at least survive!

I’m mostly sad that I can predict this will not be a series my daughter reads over and over, as she does some of her favorites. I love seeing her in love with a book. And I’m also fairly sure she won’t want to see the movie. Maybe when she is older, she will come back to these books and understand the choices the author made. This had been a reminder for me that authors should think carefully about their readers’ expectations and make sure they know the consequences of their choices.

So I’ll just end as conflicted as I began this post. Good for Ms. Roth for writing the story she wanted to write, but I’ll sorry for the disappointed reader who waited months for this book.

What do these writers have in common? They taught me how to write.

Jane Austen, Mary Stewart and Martha Grimes

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked on school visits is what a person can do to become a writer. The easy answer is to read as much as possible, and to write, write, write. But that’s not all of it. When I first started writing, I had been a voracious reader for a long time, in fact, ever since I learned to read. I also wrote stories as a child, and as an adult, struggled to write full length novels. It wasn’t until I started studying the books I loved, that I took that big step to becoming a real storyteller. I will never stop working on my storytelling technique, because there is always more to learn, but I wanted to talk about those books that first made me understand the nature of pulling in a reader.

Mary Stewart Merlin trilogy is a set of books I reread at least once a year. The first book in the series, THE CRYSTAL CAVE, is the one I read to remind myself of Ms. Stewart’s writing techniques. She is terrific at world-building, and at bringing the reader in with all the senses. Here are a few sentences from the opening chapter:

“My mother was sitting at her loom; I remember the cloth; it was of scarlet, with a narrow pattern of green at the edge. I sat near her on the floor, playing knuckle-bones, right hand against left. The sun slanted through the windows, making oblong pools of bright gold on the cracked mosaics of the floor; bees droned in the herbs outside, and even the click and rattle of the loom sounded sleepy.”

I’ve always loved those lines because I can picture that scene so clearly in my head, it feels like I could be sitting there as well.

When I’m revising my own stories, I go back chapter by chapter and ask myself how I’ve engaged the reader’s senses. In every chapter there is a way to bring in not only sight, but at least one example of sound, scent, taste, or touch.

An author who helped me understand character development is Martha Grimes, a mystery writer who has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. I’ve read all her Richard Jury mysteries, and when I was first struggling with writing, I asked myself an important question: Why exactly do I love Ms. Jury’s books over all the other hundreds of mysteries I’d read?

She’s a master at creating characters so vivid, I want to meet them. Well, at least some of them. The Aunt Agatha in the series is the relative we all hope we never have. Her main characters, Melrose Plant and Richard Jury are both complex, interesting and unique. In the first three chapters of THE MAN WITH A LOAD OF MISCHIEF, the reader learns all about the personality, background, and character of Melrose Plant in a seamless manner woven into the plot. The next chapters switch to Richard Jury and do the same thing. I love the way she describes the secondary characters as well. Here’s her description of a local constable, Constable Pluck:

“Pluck was thin to the point of emaciation, but he had a cherubic, rosy face, made even rosier by winter’s bite, so that he looked like an apple on a stick. But he was a good man, if a bit of a gossip.”

Martha Grimes also uses subtle touches of humor, which I’ve discovered is one of the keys to what makes me love a book. For example, in later books, the constant battle between Scotland Yard Superintendent Racer and the cat that has the run of the place is a nice touch. It highlights the personality of the obnoxious Racer, and it’s fun to read as well.

Jane Austen in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE uses light touches of humor to great effect too, but for me, one of her main strengths is her ability to use dialog to both move the plot along and to establish character. I’ve always loved Mr. Bennet’s lines in the opening chapter when he’s speaking to Mrs. Bennet: “I have a high respect for you nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.” These few lines tell a reader so much about both characters and their relationship with each other.

There is a great deal of dialogue in the book and very little description of things like appearance, clothing and surroundings. I think the important lesson to take from this is that while scene setting is vital, it can also be very spare, depending on the book. Austen was writing for an audience who didn’t need much description to imagine the setting, because it was their immediate world. This is something to think about when writing a contemporary. Unless there is something unusual about the setting, great blocks of description may well slow the book down too much.

I do also have certain books that influence me for a specific writing project. DUNE  was an enormous influence on the first of the science fiction trilogy I’m working on, but that influence is enough for a whole post of its own!

So my advice to writers pared down to one sentence is “Find a book you absolutely love, and figure out exactly why you love it.”

Happy Reading!

AIR FORCE ONE- Thumbs Up, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN – Thumbs Down

Or “What I Learned about Writing from Watching Movies 1”

One question I am often asked during talks is how I made WILDFIRE RUN seem believable, even though the premise of a President’s son getting trapped at Camp David during a disaster is far-fetched, to say the least. Over the years I’ve studied many books to understand how the authors managed to make thrillers work, but I’ve also learned an equal amount from watching great movies. Analyzing movies has had a great impact on my writing. This post is part 1 of a new series on movie lessons learned for writers.

Quick Summary – In case you haven’t seen one or the other of these movies, here are the plots -

AIR FORCE ONE – While the President is aboard, Russian terrorists take control of Air Force One.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN – The President is inside the White House when a group of North Korean terrorists take over the building

Plausibility – the major factor!

Any writer of adventures or thrillers knows even if the scenarios are unlikely, they have to be somewhat believable for the reader or viewer to get fully engaged in the story.

The major flaw for me in both these stories is something too common in political thrillers – the presence of a former secret service agent turned traitor, who is crucial to the bad guys’ success. I don’t buy it. I buy that there are former secret services agents who weren’t great at their jobs, or who don’t share the same political philosophy of the presidents they protect. I don’t believe one would actively work to damage the U.S. government.

So given that each film gets one strike for lack of plausibility, why does Air Force One come out ahead? Let’s look at the other factors.

AIR FORCE ONE

1. A team of foreign journalists is allowed on Air Force One. At the time the movie came out, pre 9/11, it seemed possible, if unlikely, so maybe half a point taken away for implausibility.

2. The idea of an escape pod on the plane was probably the one plot point that stretched believability the most, but it was one of those elements where a viewer could think, “That would be a good idea!” Given that factor, another half point taken away

3. Lots of gunfire aboard that doesn’t damage the plane – I don’t know much about what a bullet hole would do to a plane’s ability to fly, but I have to believe it wouldn’t help, and there was so much gunfire, you’d think a stray bullet or two would have done some major damage. One point taken away.

4. The ending with the zip line between two planes. Totally unbelievable, but a cool scene. One point taken away, though it was fun to watch.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

1. The protective force field on the bad guys’ plane prevents it from being shot down by the U.S. military, giving it time to do lots of damage. Completely unbelievable. This wasn’t Star Wars. One point taken away.

2. The President allows the South Korean prime minister and more unbelievable, the Prime Minister’s staff to go with him into the bunker. The Secret Service allows it. Just no. One point taken away.

3. There are far fewer bad guys than good guys when the White House is first attacked, yet the bad guys prevail. The secret service agents unthinkingly run out the front door shooting at the bad guys, allowing the bad guys to simply mow them down. No. One point taken away.

4. The President orders the Secretary of Defense to give up the missile code because he still has one and he’s not going to tell. Right. One point taken away.

5. At the end, even though officials know the bad guys are all dead, the Secret Service agent helps the President walk out the front door of the White House. No one meets them until they are on the front steps. A dramatic scene, but not very uplifting, and so the ridiculous elements took away any positive from the dramatic elements. Where are the medical personnel? Wouldn’t people rush in as soon as they could? Another point gone.

I could go on, but I don’t need to. AIR FORCE ONE ends up with a negative three, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN has a negative five.

At some point, if the level of implausibility is too great, no amount of special effects or great actors can overcome the viewers’ (or readers’) disbelief.

There are other factors that weigh in too, not as important, but still worth considering.

Title

AIR FORCE ONE – A good title, probably fairly obvious it’s a political thriller

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN – An unclear title and a negative one. Olympus could mean many things. Mount Olympus? Even if a potential movie goer realizes it’s a political thriller, it sounds depressing. People watch and read thrillers because they want them to end in some sort of victory. Something that is fallen is clearly not a victory. 

Mood of the Audience

This is not something a writer can control, but knowledge of the general feelings of the population do factor in to what becomes popular and what fails. AIR FORCE ONE  came out in 1997, long before 9/11, when though we knew the world was a dangerous and scary place, we were somewhat removed from it. The bad guys in the movie don’t manage to take over the plane in the U.S.-it happens in Russia, again, very removed from the United States.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN came out this year. I, for one, felt a little sick even watching the preview and seeing the White House damaged. I remember 9/11 too well, and I was hesitant to even watch this movie because of that. Timing in publishing is important too. Sometimes readers just aren’t in the mood for a certain kind of story.

 

Level of Violence versus Character Development

There was lots of violence in both movies, but the number of minutes devoted to violence was far less in AIR FORCE ONE, allowing for more character development. I cared more about the characters in AIR FORCE ONE. And for writers, getting your readers to care about your characters has to be the number one focus of the early part of a story.  In OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, I wish a little more time would have been devoted to the character development and the relationship between the characters in the beginning of the movie. The boxing scene didn’t anything for me in terms of my view of the characters.

So in summary, here are the important elements I took away:

Keep the plot as plausible, or at least as believable as possible.

The title is important, and consequently, the cover of a book as well.

Focus, focus, focus on making your readers care about the characters.

Judge the mood of your target audience.

Coming next – The great lessons for writers in the movie WAR GAMES

 

Skeet Shooting at Camp David over the years.

President Kennedy Skeet Shooting at Camp David

Researching Camp David to write WILDFIRE RUN was so fascinating that I’m always happy now to go back and have an excuse to focus on a specific part of the place. With the release of the photograph of President Obama skeet shooting at Camp David, I wanted to bring together some bits of history. I’ve never been skeet shooting myself, but I used to go with my dad while he and his friends did. I had forgotten about it until President Obama’s made the news.

There aren’t many photos of Presidents on the skeet range at Camp David, but I think this one of President Kennedy above is fascinating. He looks far more casual than we see him in most photos, especially with his shirt untucked. Jackie Kennedy came to Camp David for the horsebacking riding with her children, but since President Kennedy had a bad back and didn’t ride, skeet shooting was one activity he could enjoy.

Prince Charles

I haven’t been able to find any photos of them at Camp David, but when Prince Charles and his sister, Princess Anne, visited the U.S. in 1970, they were taken there for “an evening of bicycing, skeet shooting, and swimming followed by hamburgers and steaks on the Aspen terrace followed by banana splits for dessert,” according to W. Dale Nelson, who wrote about the history of the place in THE PRESIDENT IS AT CAMP DAVID.

I’ve seen several photographs of Prince Charles hunting in Britain, so I assume he’s a good shot, but probably not as good as the Egyptian and Israeli security forces who accompanied Prime Minister Anwar Sadat and  to Camp David when they were meeting with President Jimmy Carter to discuss a Middle East peace accord. Carter’s former press secretary, Jody Powell, said that he remembers shooting skeet with them, but he made no mention of how everyone did in comparison to those highly trained military men.

President Eisenhower also enjoyed shooting skeet there, and was reportedly quite good at it. I haven’t yet been able to find any photos of other presidents at the range, but I assume many have taken advantage of it, especially those who were hunters. I’m going to keep looking for references and will add if I find any.

If you know a reader in the 8 to 13 year old age range who likes adventure, you can find out more about WILDFIRE RUN, set at Camp David, by going to my website:  http://deegarretson.com

Inauguration Follies and Foibles – The Roosevelt Years

Even important well-planned events can go awry, whether through forces of nature or human nature, and inaugurations are no exception. Those who remember President Obama first inauguration, may remember how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled over the Oath of Office, but there has been a long history of minor gaffes and uncomfortable moments.

Franklin Roosevelt went through four inaugurations, and with that many, it’s not surprising there were some memorable moments. At the 1941 inauguration, Roosevelt used his own two hundred- year-old family bible for the swearing in. The bible was enormous, and a Supreme Court clerk, Charles Elmore Cropley, had been given the task of holding it before and after. The poor man dropped the bible not once but twice, in full view of the crowd. For the remainder of the ceremony clutched it to his chest so it wouldn’t get away again. Mr. Cropley is the man seen facing the camera between the President and the Chief Justice.

Given the size of this bible, Mr. Cropley can be forgiven for loosing his grip on it.

Shown in the picture at the top of the post, Roosevelt’s beloved terrier, Fala, tried to join his master on the way to the Inauguration in ‘41, jumping in the car and taking up his usual spot. Much to the dog’s dismay, he was removed by a security person to make room for the Speaker of the House and a senate leader.

It was Eleanor Roosevelt who found some inaugural details very trying. Never much interested in clothes, she agreed to be photographed for LIFE magazine posing in her various outfits for the inaugural events. You can tell from her expression she in not in her comfort zone. For the inauguration in 1945, Mrs. Roosevelt was not photographed in advance. Instead, LIFE ran a photo of the dressmaker who had made the dresses for all four inaugurations. Mrs. Roosevelt still managed to be subject to indignity because the dressmaker gave LIFE all the details of the first lady’s measurements and how they had changed over the years. No one would want the details of their hip measurements in a national magazine!

And because the 1945 inauguration was during World War II, the traditional post-inaugural luncheon reflected wartime shortages. Guests were served chicken salad, unbuttered rolls and frosting-free cake. Comedian George Jessel, the luncheon’s toastmaster, asked the crowd, “How is it humanly possible to make chicken salad with so much celery and so little chicken?”

Luckily, President Obama and his guests will dine today on a much more expanded menu:

First course:

• Steamed Lobster with New England Clam Chowder Sauce

• Sautéed Spinach

• Sweet Potato Hay

Second course:

• Hickory-Grilled Bison with Red Potato Horseradish Cake and Wild Huckleberry Reduction

• Butternut Squash Purée

• Baby Golden Beets and Green Beans

• Strawberry Preserve and Red Cabbage

Third course:

• Hudson Valley Apple Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream, Aged Cheese and Honey Maple Caramel Sauce

• Artisan Cheeses

Wine:

• Tierce Finger Lakes Dry Riesling (2010)

• Korbel Natural, Special Inaugural Cuvée California Champagne

• Bedell Cellars Merlot (2009)

I’m not sure about the bison, but the rest sounds delicious.

Choosing Names from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings for Your Cat or Dog

Thoren Oakenshield and an Australian Shepherd

As major Lord of the Rings Fans, our whole family is very excited about The Hobbit. When we  recently brought a new cat into our family, we decided she needed a name from LOTR or The Hobbit. Since she is round and small with short legs, naming her after a hobbit seemed far more appropriate than choosing an elf name like Galadriel or a human name like Eowyn. But before we decided on her name (Poppy) we looked at many, many choices. Some would only work for the most elegant of cats or the most kingly of dogs, but there is a wide variety. I’m very tempted to get an Australian Shepherd just so I can name him Thoren Oakenshield. Here’s a list of names for anyone else trying to choose:

Female Hobbits

Angelica (Baggins)

Amaranth (Brandybuck)

Elanor (Gamgee)

Estella (Brandybuck)

Esmerelda (Took Brandybuck)

Gilly (Baggins)

Pansy  (Baggins)

Poppy (Baggins)

Rosie (Cotton)

Bilbo Baggins and a Norfolk Terrier

Male Hobbits

Bilbo (Baggins)

Filibert (Bolgar)

Folco (Boffin)

Fosco (Baggins)

Frodo (Baggins)

Mungo (Baggins)

Madoc  (Brandybuck)

Meriadoc (Brandybuck)

Peregrin (Took)

Pippin (Took-nickname of Peregrin)

Samwise (Gamgee)

Female Elves

Amarie

Anarie

Celebrian

Elenwe

Findis

Galadriel

Idril

Irime

Luthien

Miriel

Nellas

Elrond and a Siamese

Male Elves or Half Elves

Celeborn

Cirdan

Elrond

Elenwe

Figwit (fan-created name for elf in the movies)

Fingon

Finwe

Galdor

Gwindor

Haldir

Legolas

Lindir

Bombur and big orange cat

Male Dwarves

Balin

Bifur

Bofur

Bombur

Dain

Dori

Durin

Dwalin

Nain

Nori

Ori

(I haven’t found any choices for female dwarves.)

Faramir and an Irish Setter

Human Men

Aldor (Rohirrim)

Arador (Dunedain)

Aragorn (Dunedain)

Bard (of Dale)

Boromir (Gondor)

Faramir (Gondor)

Brego (Rohirrim)

Elendil (Second Age)

Eomer (Rohirrim)

Eradan (Dunedain)

Fengel (Rohirrim)

Gamling (Rohirrim)

Grima (Rohirrim)

Hama (Rohirrim)

Madril (only in LOTR movies)

Theoden (Rohirrim)

Thengel (Rohirrim)

Turin (First Age)

Human Women

Eowyn (Rohirrim)

Frea (Rohirrim)

Gilraen (Aragorn’s mother)

Other

Arda (Earth in LOTR)

Elanor (small star-shaped yellow flower)

Goldberry (female river spirit)

Lissuin (fragrant flower)

Nenya (Elf ring)

Tom Bombadil (Tolkien referred to him as a nature spirit)

And here’s the kitten who started this all:

Poppy

More Hobbitness: How to Make a Bilbo’s Bag End Cake: http://deegarretson.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-cake-bilbos-bag-end/

Author Skype Visits for Scholastic Book Fairs

I know my cat doesn’t look happy to be dressed up as a wolf in this photo, but I am very happy WOLF STORM is a Scholastic Book Club choice this fall. To celebrate, I’m offering free author Skype visits of 20 to 30 minutes to any school having a book fair. I tailor my Skype visits to a school’s or teacher’s particular interest. I can talk about the writing process, writing adventure books in particular, or do an introduction to the books and spend much of the time answering students’ question on whatever topics they choose. More information about WOLF STORM and my other middle grade book, WILDFIRE RUN, can be found by going to my website at http://deegarretson.com/  You can view the book trailers and read the first chapters. Feel free to contact me at deegarretson at gmail.com