Shannon Taylor Hodnett's Blog, page 2

Idol Appreciation

 
Three of my favorite authors...  Anne RiceJK RowlingNeil Gaiman
  
Great writers make great quotes. Here's my small show of appreciation to three of the best:
    


 



paxamo,

Breaking Good 2 ~ The Infographic Version

I've been learning about infographics lately. I've always loved them, now I know how to make them and I am having way too much fun.


So this is my first attempt. I took the info from my last post and boiled it down infographic style. Let me know what you think in the comments...and as always, please share! ♥





paxamo,

Breaking Good

The best writing advice I could give or get....learn all the rules so you'll know how to break them. When I first started writing I was all about the rules and trying to follow them to the letter. Pretty soon I started realizing there were a LOT of rules. And a lot of those rules contradicted each other. It stressed me out daily until I got that key piece of advice. I was relieved that I could relax and figure out on my own which rules to follow and which to break.

There really aren't any hard & fast rules when it comes to writing for public consumption. There are certain guidelines to follow if you want people to actually read what you've written...but even those are used solely at an author's discretion.

What rules you break are up to you...but here are a few of my favorites. And why I choose to break them sometimes...or not.



1) Kill Your Adverbs

I don't know what adverbs ever did to piss people off...especially Stephen King...but they are the most hated POS (part of speech) by writers. Me, I tend to root for the underdog, so naturally I feel for the little -ly guys. But it turns out I actually like them...really, really like them!
Look, you don't want to flower up your sentences with too many adverbs...a little goes a long way. But I promise it's OK to use them. Pepper your writing with them....they are NOT salt!
The point of writing is communication with clarity, right?! So these little -ly guys can help with that. Just don't open the floodgates.


2) Do Not Start a Sentence With And or But

But what if I want to???
Many authors...many amazing authors have broken this rule, and to great effect. There are times when you don't want or need a long sentence...or you want to use two sentences to help ratchet up the drama of a scene. And so you do.

Consider the following:

She was kneeling by the water's edge, waiting for him to appear, but he never did.

She was kneeling by the water's edge, waiting for him to appear. But he never did.

The first sentence sucks. There's no dramatic pause. But the second sentence gives us that pause.
And we like it. ツ


3) Don't Write Drunk

Tell that to Earnest Hemingway. (ooh, burn!)
I personally haven't written while drunk...mainly because I don't drink. But I have written under the influence.....of meds that I'm currently prescribed. Being intoxicated lowers your inhibitions and that lets through some of your best stuff...maybe some of your worst, too. But that's why we have editing, right?
I am not saying you must write under the influence...or even that you should. I'm just saying it's allowed. It's a rule you can break. Don't let anyone tell you when you can write.


4) Don't End a Sentence With a Preposition

And yet, sometimes it's necessary to keep from sounding super archaic. Yeah, archaic plays well in YA. o_o  This "rule" is ignored so much I'm not even sure it's an actual rule anymore.

"This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put." famously quoted Winston Churchill...which drives the point home beautifully. You can try to avoid it, but don't be afraid to end your sentence with a prep. It's something you can have a lot of fun with. <winky face>


5) Show Don't Tell

Uh-oh. This one is sacrosanct. How...why would you ever want to break the golden rule of writing?!

The horror!


Just hear me out. For the most part you should follow this rule, but not everything you write about will be important enough to show. Or describe in detail. You don't want to elaborate on your character taking a shower, unless you're writing a Psycho-esque scene.
Most of everything you write will be important to the plot...you don't want to load your story with mundane info...but there will be some not-so-important happenings that you don't want to be under the magnification of "showing". It's fine to "tell" at those times.
Basically, show the important stuff, tell the rest.


I sincerely hope this has been helpful, but honestly, you don't have to adhere to any of it. Always trust your instinct...listen to your betas....create your masterpiece. ♥




paxamo,

My Wishes for 2015

Neil Gaiman is a hero of mine. His way with words is legendary, IMO. He is definitely one of the greats and I aspire to follow in his writer-ly footsteps. ツ

So I put together some of his past wishes for the coming new year....they are brilliant and capture everything I hope for everyone as well. You can find them posted here on his page.....but I've also posted them here, the print on my collage is a bit tiny. lol




May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget  to  make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.


 I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.


I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

 


paxamo,

Lonely Shadows ~ a Poem

paxamo,

Poetry

This is exactly how I read poetry...birds & flowers everywhere.




My very first piece of writing was a poem. I was four years old and I wrote about a stinkbug. Since then I've continued to write the occasional poem. I find it therapeutic in a way that any other form of writing just isn't. There is a lot of freedom in poetry...and emotion...and symbolism.

I don't share all of my poetry with the world (and this is a good thing! lol)...but I do post one of my poems now and then on my personal blog: ShanonaWriter.

Check them out if you're a poetry person like me...or if you just want to.





paxamo,

Halloween 2014

Halloween is the best holiday of the year! Hope you had a good one....and got lots of candy! ♥







paxamo,

Kids & Animals

When I was a little girl I had a dream of growing up and owning my own farm where I could take in all the stray animals everywhere...always. That was a pretty big dream for such a little girl, but I was able to get a jump-start on that dream by bringing various strays into our lives over the years. I am pretty much responsible for every pet my family's had in the past 40 years. I can't help it though...I have a HUGE soft spot for animals. For example, I'm a vegetarian. I tried going veg on and off my whole life. I never did like red meat, mostly chicken & fish. But 6 years ago I went veggie without looking back. This book was the catalyst for ending my appetite for meat forever. (thank you, John Robbins!) ♥

My mom, me, and my G-ma's chihuahua.
My crazy love for animals started before I could even talk. I loved spending time at my Grandma's farm in Checotah, OK. The goats were my favorite. ツ  My animals were my entire world growing up. They helped me through times in my life when really bad things were happening all around me. I could always depend on their love...their comfort...their cuddles. They always reminded me of what happiness felt like...and they gave it to me with lots of snuggles, silliness, and sloppy, floppy-tongued kisses. ツ

Breaking from all the happy memories, there was a time when my love for animals led to tragedy and heartbreak at my tender young age. I was about four. We lived in a trailer park in Mississippi...me, my mom, my step-dad, and Lobo...my ever-faithful German Shepherd. One day I wandered off to a neighbor's trailer. Her cat had given birth to kittens underneath the trailer just a few weeks before and I was dying to see them. It was love at first sight and I could not resist the urge to pick one up to cuddle with. I wasn't even thinking about Lobo, my big, sweet boy who protectively followed me everywhere. As nature would have it, that sweet little kitten bundle was too much for Lobo to ignore. He lunged for the kitten and I started to freak out. I yelled, "NO, Lobo! Go away!" several times and stretched my little arms to hold the kitten as high up in the air as I could........but it was no use. Lobo had the kitten in his mouth in no time at all, shaking it like a ragdoll toy. My mom arrived just in time to see what happened. She scooped me up and held me as I cried and cried. She took Lobo home and then we went to find the kitten and bury it after saying a little prayer. ♥

To this day, I feel guilty about that poor, helpless kitten and my dangerous curiosity. But I did find a way to use the experience in some small way. I took the indelible images left in my mind from that traumatic event and used them to describe the wolves devouring rabbits in my Solitary Sky Series. ツ

me & one of my GG-pa's kitties ツ
Memories of my animal-abundant childhood got me thinking about kids and their seemingly innate love of animals. How they seem to have a natural bond with all kinds of animals. And I started wondering what that bond is all about...and why do some people lose that bond as they get older?
I think it might have something to do with innocence. Children who have not yet been burdened with the responsibilities of life, or the heaviness of human existence connect with creatures who lack the same awareness. Their innocence and the purity of the love and happiness they give each other cement that magical bond....it's a really beautiful thing! ツ

Some of us...I like to call the lucky ones...maintain that bond with animals throughout their entire lifetime. The crazy cat lady....the tireless pet adoption worker....the kind-hearted foster parents....all those who try to make the world a better place for animals...and those of us who share our homes and our hearts with the animals who have become part of our family forever. ♥ 

I think we can see a return to that fragile innocence we had as children when we look into the eyes of our animals. We see it in the unconditional love they give us day after day. It's kind of a way for us to hold on to that innocence even as the world around us is filled with unkindness and tragedy. We hold fast to the purity of the love our animals share with us...and they remind us to be kind. To show kindness to everyone we meet and most importantly...to ourselves. ♥♥♥


...is all we need! ♥


paxamo,

Silly Love Song

My whole life I've loved writing. That love began at the age of 4 with my first poem about a stinkbug. In my preteen years I swore on my Go-Go's Beauty & the Beat album that I was going to become the world's youngest rockstar! I began writing my own songs at a prolific rate. At the age of nine, I wrote the following bridge:


Dreams are only visions
of thoughts running through your head
Heartbeat only rhythm
of the heart so bloody red

The song was called Heartbeat. I don't remember the rest of the lyrics, but the bridge stuck in my head all these years. They aren't stellar lyrics, but they did show a certain promise.
I never became the world's youngest rockstar...or a rockstar of any kind. But I did keep writing in various ways: high school newspaper, poetry, children's books, and now a novel...which was something I never dreamed I'd be able to do. Especially after reading the Harry Potter series. (so many words!!!) I did however miraculously manage to finish my book and now I'm working on several more. I finally feel like a "real" writer. It's not just a part-time thing I do for fun...though it is really fun. =)  But somehow in finishing that whole novel, I think I lost my lyric-writing muse.


I showed promise way back when...and wrote some decent lyrics in college...but now I try to write a song and every lyric that pops into my head sounds corny! lol They sound cheesy.....and embarrassing. It could be that I'm being a bit hard on myself...but I don't think so.
No part of writing my book stressed me out more than writing that freaking song. Well, maybe the formatting part, which was a special kind of hell. But I agonized over "Lilah's Song" and after I published the book, I promptly decided I hated it.

                                                                          

 So I embarked upon a re-write of the song to go along with the re-release of the book. And I got completely stressed all over again. I must have a twisted desire for self-punishment. lol  It was another long road, strewn with scribbles, notations, eraserand wadded up pieces of paper tossed in the trashcan.
BUT.....eventually I reached a point where I had found the right lyrics...the clouds parted and the sun shone in brilliant rays across the sky as a faraway chorus of angelic voices came together in spine-chilling harmony....the song was done. And I was happy with it!


The final product...all it needs is music...but I have zero music writing ability. Not even going there! lol


Lilah's Song
Wandering
no place home
Light in the dark
Another turned stone
On the same highway
Down a different road
Until you found me
And took all I own

This solitary sky is ours tonight
Stars dancing as we pass them by
World made for only you and I
Underneath a solitary sky

Your smile is my drug
Your laughter my breath
Inside you
Is my deathless death
Your name on my lips
Your voice in my head
Tattooed on my bones
Written in red

This solitary sky is ours tonight
Stars dancing as we pass them by
A world made for only you and I
Underneath a solitary sky


You’ll always be my reason why
Underneath a solitary sky





paxamo,

New Cover Reveal!

Solitary Sky has a shiny new cover!
The re-release is coming soon and will be announced here...until then, enjoy this absolutely amazing and stunningly beautiful new cover designed by cover artiste, Karri Klawiter ♥........and have a look at the mini-trailer I made especially for the cover reveal...good times! ツ




Here's how the back blurb reads:

My name is Lilah.

This wasn’t supposed to be my life. I had to leave home. Get far away as I could from the four walls I shared with my so-called mother.

I came to Gentian the day of my eighteenth birthday. I wanted to spend time with Gram, get through my Senior year, and graduate with my best friend, Val. My plans did not include weird, prophetic dreams…or lusting after the guy in the starring role.

But then he walked straight out of those dreams. He was real…and in that moment everything changed. I was drawn deep and held firm by his gravity—close enough to learn all his secrets. I should’ve walked away when I realized he was something more than human, but I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

I had no clue that darker secrets remained hidden. Secrets that could take away everything I never asked for…everything that now I can’t be without.


Secrets I'm afraid will end the life I’m just beginning to live.










paxamo,