Meredith R. Stoddard's Blog, page 9

Co-la breith sona dhuit, a'Mhorag!

It's Sarah MacAlpin's birthday! In honor of our girl's birthday, The River Maiden is only .99 through Tuesday. If you've been waiting to read it, now is the time. If you've already read it, tell a friend or twelve ;)

Happy Halloween everybody!

Buddy - New Short Story

I have been so heads-down working on Cauldron, that I seem to have neglected to post about the new Once and Future Short Story, Buddy. Readers of The River Maiden might remember Sarah MacAlpin's childhood friend Buddy Corbett. I have revisited the grown up Buddy to see how he remembers that magical summer when he and Sarah shared their first kiss.

I LOVED finding Buddy's voice for this story. He's an interesting character for me and his voice is so different from my own. I had a great time stepping into Buddy's skin and seeing things through his eyes.

Here's the pitch:

Just when Buddy Corbett thought his night couldn't get any worse, his brothers show up.

As the youngest of the contentious Corbett clan, Buddy has spent most of his life trying to get away from the remote mountain hollow where they all grew up. Now at the end of a long day, he can't avoid talking to them. When one of his brothers mentions their old neighbor, Maggie MacAlpin, he can't help thinking about Old Maggie's granddaughter, Sarah. She was as tough and wild as she was beautiful. And she was the first girl that Buddy ever loved.

One summer when they were barely old enough for kissing, Buddy learned just how much that love could cost them.

You can find Buddy on Amazon.

I should also point out that there is a preview of the first chapter of Cauldron at the end of the short. Just to tide you over.

Just getting to work

Imagine that you are late for work. As usually happens when you're running late, you catch every stoplight between home and your office. There's construction blocking a lane of traffic on one road and a fender bender on another. Then, just as you near the office, you get pulled over because your state inspection sticker expired YESTERDAY. That feeling you have when this happens, that choking frustration that tightens your shoulders and makes you want to scream? That's pretty much the feeling that moms who write fiction feel toward the end of every summer.

It is virtually impossible to write fiction when you are interrupted hourly with requests for snacks, shouts of video game failure and/or triumph, and sibling arguments. And that's just what happens when you're at home. There are also rides to camp and playdates, vacations and day trips. By the end of the summer, my characters' voices can be little more than a distant murmur coming from behind a closed door.

On the rare occasions did manage to overhear some of their conversations over the summer, I would scurry upstairs or hurriedly pull out my Surface to type them up only to be interrupted by cries of, "Moooooooom!" or "Stop touching me!". Suddenly the fictional voices retreated, leaving me sitting in front of Scrivener with nothing to write. So, I would jot whatever plot point I could remember on a post-it and add it to the outline on my office wall. Then, I quit trying to type things, and went low tech.

I started hand writing those bits that came to me at odd peaceful moments during the summer. I found something interesting. Handwriting seemed to cut through the distractions. Maybe it was the deliberateness of forming letters rather than pressing keys or the tactile sensation of the pen scratching over the surface of the paper. Either way, writing things out by hand turned down all the noise from outside my head. So, I've been writing in journals most of the summer.

Now that the kids are back in school and I can devote my uninterrupted days to typing up those journals and writing, I have a three point productivity plan.

One screen for writing, one for research.

Standing desk - I have converted to a standing desk using this plan and a few parts from Ikea. Why convert to a standing desk? Well, according to many people who already use them, they are productivity boosters that also have added health benefits. In my own experience, I have found that once my butt is seated in my nice, comfy office chair, I'm relaxed and more open to distractions. They live on Facebook and Pinterest. I find that when I'm standing, I'm checking things off my to do list at a much higher rate. I'm not tempted to pin a dozen patterns for knitted hedgehogs or binge watch four seasons of Call the Midwife. It's easier to stay focused. Also, it leaves more room on my desk for cats, and that makes them happy.Shut down the distractions - Sure Point #1 makes me less susceptible to temptation, but I can also remove temptation by closing the tabs on my browser that aren't related to what I'm writing. I know that sounds like such a simple thing, but it actually makes a difference. I also put my phone out of arms length and out of sight. As a mom, I can't turn my phone off. As soon as I do, the school nurse will try to call to tell me that my squirmy eight year old has fallen off her chair and bumped her head on something (Seriously, this happens almost weekly.). But I can put it aside so that it behaves like an old school phone instead of the insidious distractinator that smart phones can be.Music - I frequently write to music. I know some writers claim that they can't listen to music or can't listen to music with lyrics while writing, but I find it hard to write fiction without music. I have playlists for each of the characters who tell the story in my book. Nothing helps me summon up a character's voice quicker than the right song, whether it's old time Appalachian ballads, classic rock or Chopin. I'll even listen to music that I hate if it fits the character's voice.

Hemingway enjoying his new desktop digs.

So once the younger child gets on the school bus, I can grab myself a cup of coffee and climb the stairs to my office. I'll stand at my desk, turn up the music and get to writing.

 

Don't forget, it's the LAST DAY that you can grab The River Maiden for FREE as part of my End of Summer Promo.

 

Check out more contributions to the Get It Together Blog Hop at Alexandra Haughton's or Lindsay Emory's websites .

 

And don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway.
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Book Signing Recap and Hearty Thanks

As anyone who's been listening to me for more than ten seconds probably knows I had a book signing last Saturday at Agora Downtown Coffee Shop in Fredericksburg, VA. The signing went incredibly well, and I hope we were able to draw some new customers to this lovely shop.

Photo courtesy of Blake Rackely of Global Exposure Photography. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Global...

As my first solo book signing it was a big day for me, and my support network turned out in spades. My family stopped by including my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and even my cousin Blake who drove up from Richmond. Also, from Richmond, fellow writer and friend Mary Chris Escobar came out. Eric of course stayed with me the whole time chatting with folks and telling the story of how he discovered his wife could actually write. He also took some pictures and provided the muscle, toting the heavy box of books from the car and the considerably lighter box of books back.

A large part of the success of this signing is due to the efforts of some of the best readers an author could ask for. I'm talking about my fellow members of Virginia Outlander Fans and Outlandish National Capitol Area, which sound like a run of the mill fan groups, but are actually so much more.They're fantastic groups of incredibly supportive and diverse ladies who just happen to like the same books. This is actually true of many Outlander fan groups, especially those that started around the books. We raise money for charities, support each others professional efforts and even help each other when tragedy strikes.

The community that has sprung up around the Outlander books and show is one that Diana Gabaldon should be particularly proud of. Considering the nature of her books, the generosity and mutual support of these groups shouldn't exactly be surprising. Part of the beauty of these books is that they address the full spectrum of humanity with unflinching understanding and kindness. Even the villains get humanized eventually. These books teach us so much, but key among them is the sense of community.  

Lucky for me,  I happen to write books about subjects that are similar to those books that my friends like, namely strong, smart women and big, sensitive guys who occasionally wear kilts. It's no wonder that most of my readers are Outlander fans too. So, when I announced my book signing, admins Jenny Christensen and Ashley Gentry-Fendt in my local groups put the word out, and group members showed up some from as far away as Virginia Beach. Jenny even worked with Karen, @DougalsBeard, to plan lunch afterward at J. Brian's Taproom.

If you've ever seen a book signing by a local author with a small circulation, you've probably seen a lonely person sitting at a table trying not to look awkwardly hopeful at every person who passes by. They spend hours waiting for one person, just one, to show even a mild interest in whatever book they are selling. My pals made sure that I wasn't that person. They filled an entire room at Agora. At one point, Emjay, one of the owners of the shop said, "You have to tell me how you build your fan base. This is terrific."

I said, "Make friends with people who love the same books that you do. Then write a book that you would love to read. Odds are, they'll love it too."

I'm deeply grateful to the Outlander "fanmily" and to Diana Gabaldon for writing books that have brought so many of us together.

 

10 things I will NOT do when the kids go back to school

The kids are going back to school and that means that I can get back to a working schedule that I can be happy with. Make no mistake, I adore my children, but as an introvert with a sometimes pathological work ethic, being surrounded by chatty kids and prevented from working can be a bit crazy-making.

Since the surest way to make sure a thing won't happen or won't happen soon enough to suit me is to tell everyone about it. I'm going to try telling you what I'm NOT going to be doing come Monday in the hopes that those are the things that I actually will do.

10. I will NOT dance around the newly empty house like this. 

9. I will NOT enjoy eating lunch in the kitchen in peace and quiet. 

8. I will NOT catch up on housework or the mountain of laundry. 

7. I will NOT have a book signing on the 22nd. 

6. I will NOT step up my book marketing efforts with free offerings and giveaways.

5. I will NOT get down to recording the audio book for The River Maiden.

4. I will NOT work on refining the stories and further research for Pip.

3. I will NOT release a short story about Sarah and her childhood friend Buddy Corbett.

2. I will NOT outline the idea that I got over the summer for a book about Amy Monroe.  

1. I will DEFINITELY NOT finish the blasted rough draft for Cauldron that I have been mentally chewing on all summer.

 

 

"You're taking over our country..."

Those were the words of the man who sat through a Bible study class at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston SC and calmly waited before gunning down nine of the people that he'd just spent the last hour with. They welcomed him, without knowing him, without a reference, without questioning his right to be there, and he killed them for it.

“Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States (or its territories) without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

— Dale L. Watson Executive Assistant Director, Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Division Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Washington, DC February 06, 2002

I don't think there can be any doubt that what this young man did in Charleston meets that definition. He has admitted as much. And his words are as chilling as they are wrongheaded. "You're taking over our country." I think there are some Native American tribes who might disagree with that, at least the ones that are left, the ones that survived the genocide committed by our European ancestors.

That genocide was wrong. Slavery was wrong. History is full of things that societies have done that they shouldn't have. Are we so dense, so ignorant of the past that we have to keep doing them,  keep repeating them? Have we learned nothing?

“Domestic right-wing terrorist groups often adhere to the principles of racial supremacy and embrace antigovernment, antiregulatory beliefs. Generally, extremist right-wing groups engage in activity that is protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. Law enforcement becomes involved when the volatile talk of these groups transgresses into unlawful action.”

— Dale L. Watson Executive Assistant Director, Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Division Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Washington, DC February 06, 2002

This report was given to Congress in 2002, In 2009 then Sec. of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano was criticized by Conservatives for a DHS report, Rightwing [sic] Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. Unfortunately, that report doesn't appear to be too far off the mark. Since electing our first black president, we have seen a dramatic rise in racist rhetoric although it is often coded into things like the Birther movement and anti-immigration rhetoric. 

Those coded messages that have been allowed to become news, give cover to people who may have been keeping those feelings inside because they were told in the past that those feelings weren't acceptable. Now, the prominence and acceptance of extreme right wing rhetoric on the airwaves and the internet gives them cover. It makes them think that Rhodesian and apartheid era flags, or Confederate flags, or swastika tattoos are acceptable. We have an entire "news" channel devoted to promoting xenophobic ignorance and fear of the "other". Which just makes me wonder, who's taking over our country?

And the rest of us just shake our heads and change the channel. Jon Stewart said it best last night on The Daily Show. 

Emanuel AME Charleston, SC

Sikh Temple Shooting, Oak Creek, WI,

Jewish Community Center,  Overland Park, KS ,

Centennial Olympic Park Bombing, Atlanta, GA

Holocaust Museum shooting, Washington D.C. 

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City,

...I could go on, but you get the picture. These events didn't happen in the mid twentieth century. Kids in school probably aren't reading about these in their history classes. Because they all happened in the last thirty years.  It makes you wonder what it's going to take to get people to treat this like a real problem rather than a few isolated incidents.

The common denominator here is that these perpetrators were white Americans. In the case of the Holocaust Museum and the Jewish Center shootings the opinion makers would have us roll our eyes at the old Neo-Nazis who crawled out of their caves gun in hand. It's okay, that's not a new trend and eventually, those guys will die off right? We can call Eric Rudolph crazy because he hid out in the woods for five years. He's like the Unabomber living in the wilderness with no power or plumbing, and THAT guy was crazy. Rudolph can't be an example of a trend or anything.  

The thing is Eric Rudolph had a network of like minded people helping him. And those old Neo-Nazis that we roll our eyes at when we see them on the news or at family reunions? You know you do. We've all got that an uncle who spouts off racist garbage at the holiday dinner table. Well, they teach young Neo-Nazis who . Meanwhile the rest of us shake our heads and have another slice of pecan pie. When we see one take action that results in someone's death, we shake our heads and think, 'Damn, that's a shame.' when we should be thinking, 'Man, that guy's manifesto sounds a lot like the stuff Uncle ____ was spouting at the last church pig-picking.'

Or like the folks on Fox News, we search for every reason under the sun why this thing happened other than the actual reason. Make no mistake, if that kid in Charleston had been anything other than caucasion, he would be dead already. Instead, he'll be portrayed as a lonely kid from a broken home, so everyone can shake their heads and wonder where it all went wrong. So, our questions can be focused on family instability or, education, or mental health treatment and anything other than what we should be talking about. 

This man was a racist. And people aren't born racist even if their Neo-Nazi parents name them Adolf. They learn it. They learn it from their parents, or their teachers, or that one guy at the pig-picking/mudbog/turkey shoot/frat party. Sometimes, they even learn it from their preachers.

But the sad and ugly truth is that we, the non-racists, don't teach them otherwise. We roll our eyes and walk away or make excuses. We rationalize that those people need mental health treatment, but we assume that it's not our job to help them get it. We talk about gun control when white school children are gunned down in class, but not when black children in the city are shot on their way to school or in their own beds. If this attack in Charleston had happened anywhere other than a church, would people be this upset? Would we be talking about it this much? I don't think so. 

I could easily draw this out to the conclusion that income inequality is what makes poor white kids blame people of color for their lack of opportunity. It's the poverty of information about how our society actually works that breeds this kind of misguided hatred. But we are also guilty by not standing up to Uncle _____ and telling him that we won't tolerate that kind of talk, or by allowing police to get away with treating suspects differently based on race, or by watching teachers treat children of color differently without even realizing it. We have to call these things out. We have to be more aware. We have to stop shaking our head and rolling our eyes and stand up to those people and their hatred. 

Since last year, we've seen news story after news story of black people being abused and even gunned down by the people who are supposed to protect us ALL. They've been killed while committing minor offenses like selling loose cigarettes, attacked while walking to the store, or getting gas, or going to a pool party, and now a prayer meeting. It's leaving a lot of people wondering as Solange Knowles put it, "Where can we be safe? Where can we be free? Where can we be black?"  I would add, or Hispanic, or Native American, or Jewish, or Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Gay, Trans...?

My answer is? Over here. Right next to me. I'm not afraid of people who are different from me. I'm not worried that you're going to take my stuff. If we could all stop focusing on our differences, we'd find that we have the power to make some REAL improvement in the world around us.

 

New Availabilty

There are some exciting new changes in the availability of The River Maiden. While I'm still working on the second book, I decided to make a shift in how I sell the book.

1) The River Maiden is now available in the Kindle Owners Lending Library. This means that Amazon Prime members can borrow the ebook as part of their Prime subscription.

You can find out more information about the Kindle Owner's Lending Library here. 

2) It is also available now on Kindle Unlimited. In case you're not familiar with Kindle Unlimited, it is a subscription program that allows you to read participating books for a $9.99/month subscription.

You can find more information about Kindle Unlimited here. 

3) You can also now find the paperback edition of The River Maiden at Agora Downtown Coffee Shop in Fredericksburg, VA. This is my home town and the ladies at Agora are great about supporting local artisans and authors. If you are in or near Fredericksburg, I highly recommend checking out their shop. The coffee and baked goodies are great!

Cauldron update:

I am still working on Cauldron, although my writing time has been cut now that the kids are home for the summer. I am still making progress. 

 

 

Get out your party hats

Toss the confetti, break out the champagne. The River Maiden has officially been out for a year, and what a year it's been.  I've been heads down writing Cauldron for much of the time, but there have been some great highs of the past year. 

There was this. 

Photo credit to Trish Casey-Green 

And my first book signing that always delightful Mary Chris Escobar and Leila Gaskin .

Note the always supportive and energizing @JennyC_VA

I used NaNoWriMo to get a huge chunk of Book 2 drafted. It was my first time with NaNo. It was tough, but I probably wrote 60% of the book that month. I also proved to myself, a notoriously slow writer, that I could write 50k words in 30 days. 

I had a fantastic weekend speaking to Outlander Odysseys Williamsburg. I talked to a lot of readers and some writers this weekend. It was an honor to speak at such great event for a good cause.

17 minute video covering three day event in Colonial Williamsburg. You can catch me singing at the 6:16 mark.

And of course there was that trip to Scotland to research the coming books. 

Ardvreck Castle, important site in Cauldron.

The best part by far has been engaging with readers. Every tweet, or message that I get from a reader means to world to me and some of you have been incredibly kind and generous with your support. I'm still figuring out the marketing thing, so word of mouth has been essential. I've been lucky enough to get some great reviews on Amazon. Some readers have even given my books as gifts to others who they think will enjoy them.

So, after a fantastic year, I want to thank you all. In the next year, we'll see Cauldron and maybe Thrice Again. I can't wait until you all read what's going to happen to these characters next and for you to meet some new characters. There is a lot more to tell. 

THANK YOU ALL! KEEP READING.

Thoughts on the Outlander finale

Well, it's done. The first season of Outlander is over and I have something to get off my chest. I'm not one of those bloggers that recaps episodes every week, but I do like to write the occasional analysis, and call out the things that I think were great. I'm not here to gush about Sam Heughan (although that's easy to do) or my total girl crush on Caitriona Balfe, or how Tobias Menzies will be giving me nightmares for the foreseeable future disturbingly delicious nightmares.

Nope. I'm a writer, so I tend to keep my analysis to the creative choices that relate directly to storytelling; how well it's done and where I think it might have gone wrong. Up to now my posts about Outlander have been mainly positive. There has been some absolutely great television here. Although I have read all of the books multiple times, I am definitely NOT a book purist. I understand what adaptation means and I don't expect the show to follow the books slavishly or even directly.

As a matter of fact my favorite episode of the season, The Garrison Commander,  was a big departure from the book. While the action of The Garrison Commander may have been different from the action in the book, the main theme was completely in keeping with the character and tone of the book. It was fantastic way to convey just how twisted Jack Randall is. I felt similarly about The Wedding. Sure there were some specific things from the book that weren't there, but at it's heart it had the necessary components and it was incredibly well made. 

When you're putting together a story, you have to make choices about the focus and pace of a story. What is the story about at it's heart, and how do you convey that? When you're trying to fit an enormous book like Outlander into sixteen hours of television, you have to prioritize. What do you HAVE TO keep? What things can drop without changing the story?  Of the things that fall in between what is imperative and what it incidental, which ones are more important? On the few occasions that this season of Outlander has fallen short of my expectations, it has been in that in between zone where some things have been given priority over others, and I think the heart of the story has suffered for it. Unfortunately, the finale was one of those times. 

Diana Gabaldon has said on many occasions that this series of books is 'the story of a marriage'. It's one of the things I love about them. We follow this pair through some extreme trials and watch their bond be tested and strengthened over and over again. And yet in two particular episodes this season we have seen some aspects of the story stretched and other I think more important aspects shortened. In the finale we saw the extension of the Wentworth scenes and the extreme shortening of recovery. If you're going to call an episode, "To Ransom a Man's Soul" I expect the actual ransoming to involve more than a bit of lavender oil, a good smack and a wee chat. This scene and the aftermath of it was so fast that it frankly defied believe-ability even though Sam Heughan did his best portraying it.

Don't get me wrong. I would not have shortened the Wentworth scenes. I think those scenes were handled incredibly well and with a lot of sensitivity to the subject. Everyone involved deserves to be commended for that. However, I would have preferred to have skipped some of the inflated story-line in The Search in favor of rearranging some time to have given a better "ransom" scene. I won't compare this to the one in the book, but to the rest of the episode. We spent roughly half of this episode watching Jamie being raped and abused, broken as he says. Yet somehow he manages to snap out of his suicidal funk after one relatively brief conversation with Claire? I don't think so.  I realize that this conversation wasn't meant to make it ALL better, but his attitude does completely change, and frankly I don't think that scene contained enough confrontation or drama to prompt that kind of turn around. 

My feelings about this episode reminded me of how I also felt after watching "The Devil's Mark". In that episode there was so much time given to the drama of the trial, that there wasn't enough time to really convey the monumental choice that Claire makes to stay in 1743 with Jamie. It feels like the writers were giving priority to the immediate payoff of the sensational trial and rape scenes rather than the overall story. Look over here at this shiny instantly dramatic thing versus sticking to the heart of the story. Or maybe they were just so enamored of Tobias Menzies and Lotte Verbeek that they wanted to give them material to showcase their talents. They're both terrific and should be recognized, but not at the expense of the story. 

Then there is "The Search" where a few pages of the book gets stretched into an hour of redundant and unnecessary television that could have been covered in about 15-20 minutes without taking away from the drama of Jamie being missing. That would have freed up some time to give the proper treatment to the ransom scene. The actors are more than capable of telling that part of the story in a much more effective way. I actually feel like Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe were let down by the script in this scene. It SHOULD have been so much more. 

Make no mistake. I love the show, and I will definitely continue to watch. But I sincerely hope that as the writers are breaking down the even longer Dragonfly in Amber into thirteen episodes (three fewer than this season) that they are more careful with how they prioritize the time they spend on more important aspects of the story. 

 

...Gang aft agley (But it's really good news. I promise.)

Remember on May 5th when I said that Cauldron was 81% drafted and I laid out my writing/publishing plans for the coming months. Well, there comes a time in almost every writing project longer than a short story that a writer starts to question EVERYTHING about the project. Is this the best way to tell the story? Is that action true to the character? What is this character's motivation? Why did he say that? Where did this character come from? Have I really written THAT many words on this project? How much more of this story is there to tell? What the hell am I doing? Who's going to read this crap? Why am I here? Why are any of us here?

You get the picture. 

As I watched the word count on this project mount, I realized something. I wasn't writing the second book in the Once and Future Series. I was writing Book 2 AND Book 3. I had already moved part of my plot outline to the next book after NaNoWriMo produced a lot more than I expected. So, it wasn't too shocking to realize that there was a whole book in here that I didn't see before. 

Now, I'm not a writer who likes to tell my readers everything. In fact I usually subscribe to the Elmore Leonard school of leaving out "the parts readers skip". But I got to a point where I realized that readers weren't going to understand some of the things these characters were doing without seeing some more back story first.  If you've read The River Maiden, then you know that I'm not averse to the odd flashback or skipping around in time, but some stories should be told in there entirety. 

With that said, we now have two books where I thought there was only one. I tend to think of some components of the story several books ahead. So there are actually more than three, but we'll get to those others all in good time. 

This is all to say that the bulk of Book 2, which I am still calling Cauldron for the time being, is written. I am going to be adding some to it as I revise the story, and I'm currently plotting that out in Post-its all over the loft wall. 

The other good news is that Book 3, which has the working title of Thrice Again. is about halfway drafted. Of course this means that the wait between Book 2 and Book 3 will be considerably shorter. YAY!  

So, it's going to be an interesting summer of researching, revising, rearranging and rewriting. But the news is good. Cauldron is even closer to being done than I originally thought. Now, I'd better get back to work.