Krista D. Ball's Blog, page 11

Day 1 of "Can I write a novel this week?"

The verdict: not if I keep deleting words I can't. The cats also need to stop peeing on the dog bed.

Today's beginning tally: 42,500 words

Tally as of 10am – 42, 262 words

Tally as of 10:13am and Cat #4 peed on the dog bed – 42, 448 words

Tally as of 11:00am when I broke to go out with a friend for the afternoon – 42, 846 words (after deleting half a scene)

Tally as of 6:00pm 45,000

A headache developed, so I've opted to put things aside and rest the eyes. I'm quite impressed with the progress!

Six Sunday

A little from Flying Kite, Crashing Ship. Miss Amanda Grey has finished stuffing her face with biscuits and tea (to avoid telling Colonel Lindsay to die in a fire). Now, a large object has crashed in her back yard. She insists that Colonel Lindsay go investigate with her. He's less brave about the entire adventure:

"We're in England, after all, not in the colonies."
He leaned forward. "Your bravery does you credit, but your delicate, feminine imagination cannot conceive of the horrors that could be concealed, waiting for us."
Amanda did not resist rolling her eyes. "Colonel, I doubt dragons will come flying out of it." With that and without him, she walked toward the crashed flying kite, chin held high.

If you've enjoyed the adventures of Sally and Lew crashing their time ship into Miss Amanda Grey's backyard, FKCS is available through the MuseItUp bookstore for $2.50 or for $2.99 from Amazon.

For more Six Sunday sites, check out the main website!

Can I write a novel in a week?

Highly doubtful. And I'm going to give it a try anyway.

It all started a few days ago, reading Dean Wesley Smith's blog. I should have known better. The man is like a cowboy-computer cross. 100 books? Oi. But it was his guest post elsewhere that got me really thinking. He wrote an entire novel in a week. That's right – from phone call to send, it was one week.

Now, I am not Dean Wesley Smith. For one thing, I'm on the cute side, as opposed to the rugged good looks side of the fence. Secondly, dude, that's DWS. Dude. I've seen folks make fun of him for having written Star Trek novels. These folks don't do it in my presence. He's lived my dream.

But, here's the thing. The Engineer and the Expendable Minions are going on a trip next week. Monday to Friday. I will have the house completely to myself. I have the week off work. All of the usual reasons that I could never write a lot will be removed.

I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to cheat and work on Tranquility's Grief. I already have ~41K of my ~110k novel. I have an outline. I know what's going to happen. So, let's give it a go. What's the worst that happens? I "only" write 15,000 words? I "only" write 5000 words? I figure there is no possible way to lose. And I have a lot to gain.

This is where you come in. I'm taking (virtual, non-money) bets. That's right: I'm starting a betting pool for FULL bragging rights. Think you know how many words I'll pull off next week? Add a comment. Plunk your virtual money down and let's see who's the winner!

Work in Progress – Wednesday Report

I've been seeing folks doing Wednesday updates on their work, so I thought I'd do the same. I've pulled Tranquility's Grief out of the closet and have resumed writing it. It's book 2 of the Tranquility Series (can you call it a series when you've only got 1 unpublished book in that world??). Anyway, here's the blurby thing:

After the destruction of the life she has known, Lady Champion Bethany struggles with her own internal demons while fighting for her life as war rages around her.

A little cheesy, but I'm hoping to decheese it eventually. Or, does cheese sell? I'm cool with cheese if it's selling right now!

Here is the first paragraph. It's a bit of a downer, but hey! This is generally what my drafts look like.

Bethany stared at the pre-dawn sky and wondered if she possessed enough Power to make it fall and crush her to death. After saluting the etching of male genitals that graced the outhouse's walls, she tipped back her bottle of best brandy – her last bottle, at that – and filled her mouth with the gut-warming liquid. It stung going down and her empty stomach protested, but liquor should hurt before dawn. After all, she wasn't a drunk, just someone who needed a little touch to start the day.

Hope you find it interesting.

Dwarf Hippo on the Spit

Please welcome my good friend, Chrystalla Thoma, who's talking today about some of the historical foods of Cyprus for "A Nibble of History."

Um, hippo??? I've never seen that in a fantasy novel!

Dwarf hippo on the spit and other specialties from Cyprus (a historical overview of food)

Hi Krista, thanks for having me over. As per your request, but also because I agree it's an interesting topic, I will tell you about food in Cyprus from ancient times to today.

First of all, let's place Cyprus on the map so that we are clear about the influences and the available food sources: Cyprus is a relatively big island (but smaller than Sicily) in the Mediterranean. It lies underneath Turkey, next to Syria and Lebanon, and right above Egypt. Its ties to Greece, which is directly to its west, are ancient and very strong. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots share the island (I won't go into the history of that relation here), and we share most of our dishes, with slight variations in the preparation and name.

The known history of Cyprus (new evidence is unearthed regularly) begins at about 12.000 BC. Before the earliest permanent settlements, we find caves used as dumping places for the bones from hunting and temporary camps. The island used to be very rich in fauna and very forested. Ships came from Asia Minor (nearest coast is Turkey only about 30km away) to hunt and take wood. Cyprus had unique animals, which had grown small due to their isolation on the island – dwarf elephants, hippos and even mammoth (animal dwarfism – these were also found on other Mediterranean islands). The hungry visitors wiped them out fast. The island also had deer, boar and wild goat. Only the wild goat has survived. The most traditional dish in Cyprus remains meat (in big chunks) on the spit over charcoal fire. To this day, men cook this meal called Souvla on Sundays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souvla).

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The earliest settlement we have found dates from about 10.000 BC – a Neolithic town. In that time, many towns appear. Cyprus offered not only food, but also wood for ships and plenty of copper. With time, we see the people raise pigs and goats and cultivate wheat. Wheat, olives, grapes, beans, lentils, these were and still are the staples of our diet.

Pork sausage with spices cured in red wine is typical – I remember as a kid watching the women sitting in the middle of the street (not many cars in our neighborhood back then) stuffing the long intestines and tying them off.

The Romans who kept Cyprus until it became part of the Byzantine Empire (at about 395AD) had a fish industry. They cut fish ponds in the soft rock of the shores (still there today!) and kept and raised fish for the aristocracy. The famous Garum sauce, a delicacy borrowed from the Greeks, was a sauce made from fermented fish intestines and spices or wine, which was added to almost every dish. Preference for this sauce hasn't survived to this day – in fact, it died with the end of the Roman Empire. It was a good source of protein, minerals and vitamin B, especially for the poorer social strata (it seems that it was similar to currently used Vietnamese fish sauces).

Soups with pulses dominated the diet, especially since the religious fasting demanded that no meat be consumed on most days of the year. Wild fowl and chickens and geese and a lot of fish were consumed, as well as cheese. The traditional Cyprus cheese is halloumi (hellim for the Turkish Cypriots – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloumi). For those not familiar with it, it is a very salty white cheese, kind of rubbery, flavored with mint. It is made into small slabs with are then folded, so that when you get a slice of it, it looks like a fat horseshoe. J Fried or grilled it's excellent. Anari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anari_%2...) is crumbly fresh cheese similar to ricotta which is often eaten with cinnamon and sugar, or honey and rose water. We do eat Feta, in salad, but it's not traditional here. Sorry! (Lady Bethany will never visit Cyprus now!)

Pork ham (lountza), marinated in wine, sun-dried and smoked, can keep well in the heat, as can meat also marinated in wine, cooked and then preserved in its own fat in clay pots. My grandmother used to cook such things. When they killed a pig, they also fried its fat – in its own fat – and ate it (titsirides). Nobody cared about cholesterol back then!

Meat used to be cooked in outdoor beehive ovens for many hours till it became very soft. It's still done today, but one adds potatoes and tomatoes. Pork is often cooked with wine and coriander seeds (afelia - http://www.applepiepatispate.com/main...) or with lots of cumin and onions (tavas – can also be done with lamb – http://www.chefs.com/RecipeDetails.as...).

Dry bread (paximadi – rusk), which keeps well, is still eaten today. Dishes with cooked broken wheat and onion are typical. There is an ancient dish still prepared at weddings in the west of Cyprus, called Resi, which consists of wheat and meat cooked together in huge pots for days until they become a kind of paste (http://food-easy-recipes.webseomaster...).

Olives are eaten green or black, marinated, crushed and served with garlic, preserved in brine or vinegar. We produce excellent olive oil. Recently, the ruins of an olive mill from Phoenician time (about 700 BC) were found in Dali near the capital Nicosia.

Grapes have been used for wine and distilled liquors like Zivania (a sort of grappa) – but also for a sweet pudding made of grape juice and flour, and for shoudjoukos – long sweet sausages made as follows: almonds are passed on a long thread and are dipped many times in grape juice and each time allowed to dry in the sun, until they become thick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soutzoukos). The texture is rubbery. Remember to remove the thread before biting! J

Wine is produced all over Cyprus, particularly in the mountains on very arid soils. A famous sweet wine which resembles sherry, is Comandaria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commandaria), introduced to Cyprus by the Knights of St John in 1192, when they bought Cyprus from Richard Lionheart. The ruins of the winery can still be seen.

There is a false notion that Cypriots ate very little meat in the past. True, the poor didn't have access to a lot of pork, and fish was probably expensive. But it seems they did have meat at least once a week, poultry mostly, or preserved fish, and eggs, and dairy products – unless it was a time of famine or very harsh rulers. The climate of the island is good, winters not too harsh, summers a little too dry. One big problem was the great droughts and plagues of locust flying to Cyprus from Egypt and destroying the crops.

To connect all this to stories, I do think that it's essential to know the settings to know what your characters might or might not eat. If you have a story set in a place like Cyprus, in a medieval like setting, you surely wouldn't find potatoes or tomatoes. You would probably find more eastern influence on the food than today, with dishes bearing Persian or Arabic names. No feta and not so much meat. No fresh bread every day, rather dry bread which one could soak in a soup or broth or even milk or hot wine. Salty cheese, olives and sun-dried ham, sweet fruit preserves in syrup and meat preserved in fat. The climate is very important, determining what would keep in the heat (the biggest problem), and what fresh vegetables would be available. Animals for fresh meat would be slaughtered at the end of autumn, before cold began, when they were fat. Wheat is harvested in early summer, grapes in late summer, olives in mid autumn, and different types of wild legumes in different times in the year. Collecting food still remains an activity for many people, and I can imagine that in the past it was vital. Many men still like to go hunting – quails, hares, partridges.

I think I should stop here. I love cooking (and eating!) and find food practices and traditions fascinating. I hope you have questions and comments, because I would love to discuss the topic even more!

Chrystalla is an author of fantasy and science fiction. She has published short stories in journals and anthologies, and has an urban fantasy novella coming out on March 1st with MuseItUp Publishing – about Dioscuri, Zeus's mythical twin sons.

You can read more about her writing here and here:

http://museituppublishing.com/musepub/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91&Itemid=82

http://chrystallathoma.wordpress.com/

You can find Dioscuri here:

http://museituppublishing.blogspot.com/2010/08/dioscuri-by-chrystalla-thoma-cover.html

Fast vs Slow – anyone?

I've been hearing folks lately label themselves as "fast" or "slow" writers, with regards to their annual output of publishable work. I must admit that I have no idea what the criteria for these labels are. As someone who lives and breathes the labelling of the human race (if I could, I'd label gun each and every one of you), I must know what the definitions are for both fast and slow writers.

I am disappointed at my 2010 output, for example. It was a huge year of changes in my personal life and significant adjustments all around. However, does that mean I'm a slow writer or that I just had a crummy year?

Therefore, I call upon all of you to help me label myself. What makes a person a slow or a fast writer?

Six Sunday

Here is a little bit from Flying Kite, Crashing Ship (which is on sale at Coffee Time Romance for only $2).

In the previous scene, we saw Sally and Lew's time ship crashing to earth, with no idea what time or place they would land. In this next scene, we switch to the delicate and gentile English countryside.

Well, it should be for Miss Amanda Grey if her tea companion wasn't such an ass.

An arrogant sneer spread across his face. "I do not expect a woman to understand the basics of science. Your mind is too delicate to understand such advanced concepts as flight."

She sipped her tea. Her mother always said to fill one's mouth with something to control the tongue. Hero of India or not, he was an insufferable man and she wished him out of her sight.

So..what's everyone reading?

I'm curious to see what folks are reading. Come and share!

Bad reviews, authors, and blogs

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Twitter erupted today when an author bashed a book review site that gave her book a low rating. Hardcore bashed, including a comment about how these are people who haven't written more than a grocery list. Last week, an agented writer said that writers should never write bad reviews ever because it will cause them to not get contracts.

I call bullshit.

First, I don't care if the people reading my books are writers or not. In fact, I'd argue that the largest mistake new authors (including myself) make is that we market to other authors. All of our marketing online is being pointed to the same 300 people. I want people who love reading to read my work. (One does hope that authors get included in that category by default; I don't trust a writer who doesn't love reading).

So, if a person reviews my work and hates it, I don't care that they say so. Honestly. No, really, honestly. In fact, factually incorrect reviews would annoy me far more than a negative review (i.e. let's say someone thought all of the people in Harvest Moon were white b/c I didn't say their skin colour and white is the default colour for that reader). Harvest Moon was trashed a number of times in my critique group. So was Tranquility's Blaze ("fantasy readers don't care about feminism") and Road to Hell ("this is unpublishable"). I complained to friends, let it sit for a few days, then went back at it.

Reviews are the same. I've gotten lots of great reviews for Harvest Moon.  But even the "it was ok" reviews got a thank you from me whenever I caught them. And, I mean the thanks. Someone took the time to read it and give their opinion. The least I can do is thank the person for having done it!

Would I mention a really bad review? Hmm, I don't know. If I did, it wouldn't be to trash the review but rather to discuss my process of dealing with it (if I needed to), and how I still feel the person's opinion was valid. And, if I wasn't able to do that, I promise to keep my mouth shut [image error]

Now, that brings us to the other point: Not being "allowed" to say I didn't like a book. I do know that I just landed a book review after having 3 negative DNF reviews up, so the "you'll never" advice is lost on me. I think there is some validity to it. However, I also think it waters down every single thing I say if I only ever say good things. When I say Doug Smith's Chimerascope was one of the best collections I've ever read, I meant every word of it. But, if I say that about everything I read…well, it wouldn't have had the same weight.

Likewise, when I said I shouldn't have read Claude Lalumiere's "All You Can Eat, All the Time" (from Evolve) just before supper, I meant it! It was an honest reaction from a woman who has a weak stomach about certain visuals and Claude just hit them with his story. (The best thing about it? Claude emailed me the other day and said that my little tease about his story made him laugh…he's a great guy…you should buy his latest book…/shameless sucking up).

I'm not sure where the balance point is yet for me, I admit. However, whenever I'm told that I shouldn't do something, I start asking why not. It's a personality trait that drove my mother crazy.

(And if you hated Harvest Moon and were too afraid to post a review, go ahead! I'll even come guest blog on your blog afterwards, talking about why I didn't cry myself to sleep and why I still think you're a good person. Honest. I even say this in my "request to review" email [image error] )

What writer has influenced me the most?

The final winning question comes from Eileen for Which writers influence you the most — and why?

She thought this was a dull question, but it is interesting to me. Why? Because the list of people who have influenced me is quite low. In fact, it's zero.

Now, I know that seems really strange, considering that I love reading, I love writing, and every other author out seems to have a list of authors as long as their arm that have inspired them as kids. I don't. My desire to be an author never came out of a love of a specific genre or a desire to be like someone else. It evolved from something that was within me that I stumbled upon.

In many ways, I've become a writer because I want to write the things that my sixteen self whined and complained didn't exist back then. And, on occasion, some are for the 35 year old that I am today [image error]

I've also never been a loyal read to any particular genre. Overall, I've probably read more science fiction than any other genre, though I suspect that's because of the Star Trek novels. But, other than literary and horror, I've read hundreds of books in every genre, especially early on. These days, I'm a little more pickier, but I still genre hop a lot.

I will say that the overall theme that has influenced me is every writer who has written a book solely to entertain readers. At sixteen, I didn't want to read Heart of Darkness. I wanted to read about Captain Picard popping a cap in some Klingon's ass. I wanted to read about counter-terrorists taking out the pinko commies, blowing a strip from here to Moscow and leaving a trail of panting women along the way (well, I wanted the genders reversed, but work with me here).

I love to read. I love to forget that I have deadlines, bills, children with unique needs, litter boxes, marketing, a lot of dishes. So, I want to return that literary karma and give some teenage girl who hates her life and herself six or seven hours where she can pretend to be someone else and live through them.

…And I'm going to write something it in such a way that there's no way her parents would ever let her read it, so she's totally going to sneak it home from the library. Because that's what I did. *high fives the local librarian for letting me take home Danielle Steele at 12.

Thank you everyone for such great questions! I loved them all.