S.Q. Eries's Blog, page 66

Ancient Olympic Fun Fact 26

2012 is significant in that it is a presidential election year, a leap year, and a summer Olympic year! The modern Olympics, of course, were inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics, a subject I’ve been researching for my work in progress. So in these months leading up to the 2012 London Games, I’ll be posting weekly tidbits about the original athletic festival that started it all.

Here’s this week’s fun fact:

Spectators watched standing.

Remains of the Judges Stand

Unlike ancient Greek theaters, the stadium at Olympia had no seats. Instead, everyone stood upon its grassy slopes to watch (considering the mobs of people that came to watch, it was probably more practical). The only exceptions were the Judges, who had a stand on the south side of the Stadium, and probably the priestess of Demeter, stationed at an altar on the north side. But some researchers believe that the seats were essentially honorary because the Judges should’ve been refereeing on the stadium floor during competition.

Tune in next week for more about the ancient Olympics!

Manga Review: Oresama Teacher Vol. #08

Mafuyu is a high school delinquent who wants to turn over a new leaf. So when she transfers schools, she thinks she’ll finally be able to live the life of a normal girl. There’s just one problem: her teacher  Mr. Saeki is a bigger delinquent than she is and is out to take advantage of her fighting skills!

Oresama Teacher is a shojo manga that offers humor of the silly variety. Volume 8 has recently been released, and you can read on for the review. (For those who are interested, you can click here for my reviews of earlier volumes).

Back Cover Blurb

Summer break doesn’t mean rest and relaxation for Mafuyu. She has a ton of homework to finish, but finds herself distracted when a drunken colleague shows up at Takaomi’s apartment. It’s up to Mafuyu to convince the guy that Takaomi is a good teacher, but will he take the word of an obvious delinquent?!

The RevieW

Volume 8 wraps up summer vacation with a flashback about Yui and Miyabi and an encounter with Saeki’s old college friend. The Yui/Miyabi chapter adds depth to their relationship and is also quite funny in its portrayal of the two boys not quite fitting in their middle school. The college friend chapter isn’t quite the eye-opener that the Yui/Miyabi story is, but Tsubaki-sensei drives home the fact that there is more to Saeki than he lets on.

Then it’s back to school and the battle for Midorigaoka. Miyabi, of course, isn’t going to fight by himself, and the cast expands as he calls in key members of the Student Council. This does add more girls to the male-heavy cast, but between the Student Council, the Public Morals Club, and the delinquents at Midorigaoka and at home, I’m having trouble keeping track of all the characters. It doesn’t help that, of the cast newcomers, only Kosaka actually does anything so far. Chances are though that Tsubaki-sensei will give each Student Council member a turn to cause trouble.

As to how Kosaka stirs trouble, his chosen battleground is the newly revived school festival. School festival stories in manga often revolve around a particular class or club project, but in this arc, food booths, class plays, and student cafés merely serve as background to the Public Morals Club’s efforts to safeguard the event. Kosaka though is the sly sort, and I’m curious to see how Mafuyu will beat him at his “evening vanishings” game.

In Summary

A couple more chapters of summer vacation, and then it’s back to school! Mafuyu returns to Midorigaoka for more Public Morals Club/delinquent silliness with a dash of school festival intrigue.

First published at the Fandom Post.

Call For Submissions of the Apocalyptic Kind

Hey short story writers! The publisher of Spring Fevers (the anthology that included my short story Resolution) is working on a second one.  Titled The Fall, this collection will focus on the end of the world (apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, dystopian, etc.)!

Submissions of fewer than 7,500 words in any genre except erotica are being accepted until August 17. For more details, email Elephant’s Bookshelf Press at antholsubs@gmail.com.

Ancient Olympic Fun Fact 25

2012 is significant in that it is a presidential election year, a leap year, and a summer Olympic year! The modern Olympics, of course, were inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics, a subject I’ve been researching for my work in progress. So in these months leading up to the 2012 London Games, I’ll be posting weekly tidbits about the original athletic festival that started it all.

Here’s this week’s fun fact:

Footraces began with a standing start.

Starting Sill

This stone sill is what the ancients used as a starting block. Runners would stand, their arms stretched forward, with one foot in front of the other and their toes gripping the grooves in the stone, as they awaited the signal to start.

Thanks to the archaeologists that unearthed the Olympic grounds, tourists can stand on the blocks ancient competitors once used, and they do. When we toured the site, some Greek schoolkids on a field trip were running races starting from those very blocks.

Tune in next week for more about the ancient Olympics!

First Draft for Cynisca–Done!

I’ve heard it said that because creating a novel takes so much time, it’s important to celebrate the milestones. So today I’m reporting that I’ve finished the first draft of my YA historical WIP! By the way, it took 18 months for Cynisca to get to this point, not including the months I was doing pure research.

But even though I know that capturing the story floating in my head onto paper/hard drive is an accomplishment, I’m less excited about having typed “THE END” and more distracted by the list of things-that-still-must-be-done, including:

Proofreading version 4 of Chapter 1
Reconciling the manuscript to match the revised Chapter 1
Reviewing and incorporating my critique group’s comments for Chapters 27-29

Oh, and there’s also the matter of writing my query and synopsis.

I had hoped to have the manuscript ready to query by mid-summer so it’s a little frustrating that it’s mid-June and so much remains to be done. Still, I’m in better shape than I was when I got to this point with my previous manuscript. First draft for Novel #1 weighed in at 156,000 words, which, if you know anything about publishing and word counts, is WAY WAY WAY too long for a debut work and was a bear to edit down. The first draft for Cynisca lands at 65,000 words, right within acceptable YA novel range. Plus, this time around, I got feedback from my critique group as I wrote, so I’m hoping the editing rounds will go faster.

So perhaps I’m a bit stingy with myself, constantly looking forward instead of savoring/celebrating this milestone. But I will take an extended soymilk break (I don’t drink coffee) to remember that bit of Spartan history that sparked inspiration and marvel at the fact that I’ve now got something with a beginning, middle, and end that tells the tale.

Then I’ll get cracking on the edits.

So, to the writers out there, what are your writing milestones? And how do you celebrate them?

Ancient Olympic Fun Fact 24

2012 is significant in that it is a presidential election year, a leap year, and a summer Olympic year! The modern Olympics, of course, were inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics, a subject I’ve been researching for my work in progress. So in these months leading up to the 2012 London Games, I’ll be posting weekly tidbits about the original athletic festival that started it all.

Olympic Stadium Tunnel

This week I’m sharing a photo I took during my visit to Olympia in 2006. The arch pictured above is a partial reconstruction of the tunnel leading into the ancient stadium. Judges and athletes used this tunnel to make their grand entrance into the stadium, and you can imagine the thrill of the competitors when they stepped out into the sunlight to the roars of a cheering throng.

Tune in next week for more about the ancient Olympics!

SCWBI Critiquenic and Chapter 1, Version 4.0

Last Saturday I attended my first Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators-Los Angeles (SCBWI-LA) Critiquenic. The Critiquenic, for those unfamiliar with the term, is an annual critiquing picnic (Critique + Picnic = Critiquenic). Basically, illustrators/writers of the same genre get put into groups moderated by published authors and illustrators. It’s a fun way to meet other writers, get helpful feedback in a friendly outdoor environment, and best of all, it’s FREE!

Suffice to say, it filled up FAST. Although I signed up the instant I heard about it, I was initially waitlisted. But Sue Welfringer and the other event organizers did some amazing work opening up spaces, and I got in! I don’t know how many they originally planned for, but eighteen facilitators and their groups wound up taking over the southern lawn of Roxbury Park.

Heading my YA group was Jennifer Bosworth, whose debut novel Struck was just released. In fact, she’s currently on a cross-country book tour with a few other Macmillan authors. (Considering all the stuff I’ve read about publishers not arranging tours for debut authors, I found that very cool.) She was a great moderator, and in addition to guiding the discussions and giving feedback, she was very sweet about answering our random questions. (By the way, her recommended to-bring items for the LA SCBWI conference were: notebook, layered clothing, and business cards with contact info).

The other participants in my group were wonderful, too. We had a range of ages, and though we all wrote YA, our manuscripts ran the gamut from alternate history to sci-fi to romance/legend.

So all of us had brought five pages/1250 words for critique, and Jennifer made us read our excerpts aloud before opening it up for feedback. The reading part was actually kind of scary for me. The only one that hears me read on a regular basis is my Dragon voice-recognition software, and even that hates my voice. Not to mention, the two ladies that read ahead of me had really nice voices. But I sucked it up and got through it.

Then came the critiquing part. I’d brought Chapter 1 of my WIP, which I’d just rewritten (again) based off feedback from my online critique group. And the main thing I came away with was … I need to scrap it and start all over. Again.

It’s not an awesome feeling, realizing I’ve spent two weeks writing material I can’t use. But better I learn it now than after I’ve revised the entire manuscript to match it. And my group was quite helpful in sparking thoughts as to how I should start my Chapter 1.

So I came out of Critiquenic with a heap of work on my hands. Most of my group did, but that was kind of the point, not to be satisfied with what we had but to help one another figure how to get better. And though it is a little frustrating having to commence work on Chapter 1, version 4.0, I remind myself of something Jennifer mentioned, that she rewrote Chapter 1 of Struck many times over, and that’s the kind of tenacity and dedication it takes to get a manuscript print-worthy.

Ancient Olympic Fun Fact 23

2012 is significant in that it is a presidential election year, a leap year, and a summer Olympic year! The modern Olympics, of course, were inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics, a subject I’ve been researching for my work in progress. So in these months leading up to the 2012 London Games, I’ll be posting weekly tidbits about the original athletic festival that started it all.

Here’s this week’s fun fact:

Cheaters were severely punished.

Despite having to swear a solemn oath to the king of gods, cheating did occur at the ancient Olympics. This, of course, was frowned upon, and the organizers took measures to discourage it. Not only did violators face flogging by the Whip-Bearers, but heavy fines could be imposed, especially in cases of bribery.

Fines, by the way, were used to make statues of Zeus. Called Zanes, these statues stood near the entrance to the stadium, a physical reminder to athletes and their trainers of what happened if they broke the rules.

Tune in next week for more about the ancient Olympics!

Twin Foals!! And the Limits of High-Tech

Aren’t they cute???!!! Introducing Deedee and the latest additions to Julie’s barn community!

I know, I know, this has nothing to do with writing or research, but I saw the picture and had to pass it on. Aside from the fact that they’re  ADORABLE, twin horses aren’t something you see every day.  It’s actually unbelievable that these little girls are healthy and a good size.

The really funny thing is nobody suspected Deedee was carrying twins. So when she foaled last week, it was a complete surprise despite her having had an ultrasound. According to Julie, the babies were stacked on top of each other, so only one was visible.

That last bit about the ultrasound really made me laugh. Many of my friends are having babies now, but when they wave an ultrasound and say they’re having a boy or girl, hubby and I just smile and buy something gender-neutral for the shower. Nothing against the ultrasound, we know it’s a very handy tool, but we’ve met two couples now that were expecting one and got the other. So to hear that Deedee’s scan missed an entire baby horse is just confirmation that as amazing as high technology is, it’s not infallible.

By the way, the foals have yet to be named, but the names under consideration are Unbelievable and Remarkable.

Ancient Olympic Fun Fact 22

2012 is significant in that it is a presidential election year, a leap year, and a summer Olympic year! The modern Olympics, of course, were inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics, a subject I’ve been researching for my work in progress. So in these months leading up to the 2012 London Games, I’ll be posting weekly tidbits about the original athletic festival that started it all.

Here’s this week’s fun fact:

The distinction between boys/men and colts/horses was not solely age based.

The ancient Games didn’t have weight divisions for their wrestling/boxing/pankration events, but as you’ve gathered from the previous installment, there were separate events for boys and men. It’s uncertain what the age cutoff was, but even if a youth was technically a boy, he could wind up in the men’s event if the Judges thought he was too well-developed to compete with his scrawnier peers. In fact, one of the Judges’ tasks during the month-long Olympic qualifiers was to determine what classifications young entrants fell in.

Tune in next week for more about the ancient Olympics!