Roland Clarke's Blog, page 61
March 23, 2015
The War of 1812
The Great and Powerful A to Z Theme Reveal Blogfest!
What were you taught about The War of 1812 in school? Who actually won it? Who lost? Okay it happened two hundred years ago, but for me it matters. Why?
First, it is the theme that I have chosen for this year’s A to Z Challenge in April – I was told having a theme was fun, and last year the guys that know these things were right. I took part in 2014 and now have a collection of shorts almost ready – Gossamer Flames. I also enjoyed other people’s themes, which were varied and in many cases clever.
Second, The War of 1812 is one plotline in my current WIP, “Seeking A Knife”, in which a young journalist in Texas receives a Memoir written in the war by a Royal Navy Officer. The ‘why’, the disappearance of the officer’s knife, and the death of the sender, only add to the mystery.
Third, I get a chance to give you an overview of my research into the events that mattered two hundred years ago to the people living in the United States and Canada. It might even help me find some hidden gems that I can use as I write the Memoir sections of the novel.
Early English Naval Dirk with Sheath
Your perspective on the War will change according to where you grew up and were educated, although judging by some online comments, I wonder.
The War of 1812, which lasted from 1812 to 1814, was a military conflict between the United States and Great Britain. As a colony of Great Britain, Canada was swept up in the War of 1812 and was invaded a number of times by the Americans. For the First Nations this was a chance to halt American expansionism west, and to preserve their land and culture. However, in war there are winners and losers, and often the losers are on both sides.
So join me in April and find out how the British Navy met its match, how the White House was burned to the ground, when The Star Spangled Banner was written, who the Coloured Corps were, who was Tecumseh, and who was betrayed once the conflict ended.
War of 1812 Montage from Wikipedia
Oh, and being English, I never learnt about the War of 1812, except as a theatre in the Napoleonic Wars – a theatre that was not as significant to our History teacher as the Peninsular War. Then I went to Canada, and now I’m married to an American.
Finally, this War of 1812 theme gives me the chance today to participate in this whole separate blogfest!
As the organisers say, “Two years ago A to Z participant Mina Lobo started the Theme Reveal, and we thought it was such a great idea that we made it tradition. It is now our very own, grand and festive way of rolling out our themes together!”
Finally, apologies for those that read this a month ago, when I posted a few weeks early. And my thanks to Sarah Zama for pointing out the error.
Best of luck everyone with A to Z next month.
Visit other participants by clicking here – and have fun.
March 17, 2015
Writing Tension
Today I am welcoming the first of many – I hope – guest bloggers, Eric Staggs the founder of Spectacle Publishing, who were insightful enough to publish my debut novel, Spiral of Hooves. Creating Tension is a key part of a writer’s art and getting it right, keeps readers wanting more. And without further delay, here’s Eric.
Smoke On The Water ~ Image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
What makes a real page-turner? Think about it. What is that single thing that makes you want to find out what happens next? In almost all cases the answer is anticipatory tension.
Good writers will use this technique on audiences all the time, even if the audience doesn’t know it. Here are a few examples – starting with the obvious, and then working into some you may not have thought of. Get your ratchet up the tension with some tried and true techniques, for your crime genre stories and beyond.
The Timer
Tick-tock typically gets the heart going. In film and literature, it’s usually associated with something bad. Think about all those bombs with timers, counting down ominously, whether its five minutes or fifty, or five days, the timer represents the loss of future opportunity, as well as a count down until something inevitable but unpredictable happens.
Time is the only thing we can’t change – this concept is so ingrained into audiences, it’s almost an instinct (though, new physics are telling us that time is affected by gravity and velocity, for most of us, time is time). This instinct regarding the immutable march of time is something that terrifies the human on a deep, hindbrain level. Way back in the primitive part of the human mind, we know that time is a marker, defining segments until we reach our own demise. Whew!
Your novel can’t always have a bomb-timer, well at least it shouldn’t. So, what are some other methods you can use to raise the tension? There’s really no need to vary from the tried and true method of a countdown. But sometimes you need to disguise it. Here are some non-standard timer ideas to get the creative juices flowing.
Image courtesy of hywards at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Days and Nights
The natural passage of time is expected in most narratives – but the situation becomes much more exciting when the event at the allotted amount of is dangerous. For example, in Isaac Asimov’s classic Nightfall, the timer is counting down to the moment when the planet is engulfed in darkness. For the people of a world that never sees sunset, this is a big deal – it might as well have been a bomb.
The Stars Are Right
The motivations of criminals are sometimes hard to fathom, but when they’re cultists waiting for the proper cosmological alignment, the timer can be down right world shattering. When an inevitable planetary conjunction brings murderous cultists out seeking sacrifices, the “timer effect” is in full swing.
Further Down The Road
Travel is a form of timer as well. Getting from point A to point B is often the bulk of the story (just ask those Hobbits), but travel and distance are a form of timer as well. Perhaps the best kind – the journey eats up supplies as fast as miles, the psychological cost of being on the run cannot be overstated. Refugees, escapees or even willful migration is more taxing than most characters are expecting. In the crime genre the journey often manifests as an escape or a hunt – depending upon which side of the law the protagonists fall. Making good an escape is another form of timer – will the protagonists make the rendezvous and escape the relentless lawman? Will the lawman catch the kidnapper before leaving his jurisdiction?
Vintage Train Placards ~ Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
These are just a few examples of how writers employ time and timers to elevate tension. Tension comes from expectation – realistic expectation of actual events or anticipation of the unknown – and that tension grows with delay of that expected event. Use it wisely!
Eric Staggs ( www.ericstaggs.com ) is a writer and publisher. As founder of Spectacle Publishing and Great Lakes Games, Eric works with authors at all stages in their writing careers. Learn more at his website.
March 3, 2015
Brysur Fel Morgrig ~ How Industrious Are You?
Today is the first Wednesday of March so I’m blogging as part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Whether it proves to be an industrious day, remains to be seen. But last month was.
First, a clue to the Welsh I learnt in April – I now know at least four phrases in a language that we hear all around us, if we go outside our compound.
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
Looking back, I’ve been busy all my life, but often that rushing around has been evasion. I had things to do, but often found other distractions. With my writing that can be detrimental, whether it is playing Facebook games, watching Soaps, or researching without direction.
However, in February I found some balance and managed to write a satisfying amount, mostly some of the chapters of “Seeking A Knife” featuring my Goth detective, DS Sparkle Lodge. I was even editing/rereading scenes when I started each day. The secret, for me, was not to set myself an impossible daily goal, and to treat the zero days as part of the flow.
That’s what we have to do, stand back from impossible targets and find the balance in our lives between work and play. That balancing act will vary from day to day, but over a greater period of time pan out and hopefully yield amazing results.
Maybe that isn’t the way the ants achieve great things, but there will be days when we are as “brysur fel morgrig” – “busy as ants”.
Image courtesy of SweetCrisis at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. This is my attempt to talk about my doubts and the fears that I am trying to conquer. I want to be encouraging, and by posting perhaps this is a way of saying keep striving. Visit IWSG and some other great bloggers, not all as insecure but great fun.
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG
The awesome co-hosts for the March 4 posting of the IWSG are Chemist Ken, Suzanne Sapseed, and Shannon Lawrence!
February 23, 2015
The War of 1812
The Great and Powerful A to Z Theme Reveal Blogfest!
What were you taught about The War of 1812 in school? Who actually won it? Who lost? Okay it happened two hundred years ago, but for me it matters. Why?
First, it is the theme that I have chosen for this year’s A to Z Challenge in April – I was told having a theme was fun, and last year the guys that know these things were right. I also enjoyed other people’s themes.
Second, The War of 1812 is one plotline in my current WIP, “Seeking A Knife”, in which a young journalist in Texas receives a Memoir written in the war by a Royal Navy Officer. The ‘why’, the disappearance of the officer’s knife, and the death of the sender, only add to the mystery.
Third, I get a chance to give you an overview of my research into the events that mattered two hundred years ago to the people living in the United States and Canada. It might even help me find some hidden gems that I can use as I write the Memoir sections of the novel.
Early English Naval Dirk with Sheath
Your perspective on the War will change according to where you grew up and were educated, although judging by some online comments, I wonder.
The War of 1812, which lasted from 1812 to 1814, was a military conflict between the United States and Great Britain. As a colony of Great Britain, Canada was swept up in the War of 1812 and was invaded a number of times by the Americans. For the First Nations this was a chance to halt American expansionism west, and to preserve their land and culture. However, in war there are winners and losers, and often the losers are on both sides.
So join me in April and find out how the British Navy met its match, how the White House was burned to the ground, when The Star Spangled Banner was written, who the Coloured Corps were, who was Tecumseh, and who was betrayed once the conflict ended.
War of 1812 Montage from Wikipedia
Oh, and being English, I never learnt about the War of 1812, except as a theatre in the Napoleonic Wars – a theatre that was not as significant to our History teacher as the Peninsular War. Then I went to Canada, and now I’m married to an American.
Finally, this War of 1812 theme gives me the chance today to participate in this whole separate blogfest!
As the organisers say, “Two years ago A to Z participant Mina Lobo started the Theme Reveal, and we thought it was such a great idea that we made it tradition. It is now our very own, grand and festive way of rolling out our themes together!”
Visit other participants by clicking here – and have fun.
February 21, 2015
A blank canvas…..
This is my wonderful wife and our awesomely, evolving home.
Originally posted on THE DUSKWEALD:
In a weeks time it will have been a year since Roland and I left our humble beginnings in England to begin our new adventure in Wales, UK. It has been a very interesting journey for both of us and we have both learned and grown in the last year. We have made new friends and lost old friends along the way and there are several who have stuck by us through it all. This is how our adventure started:
and how it has progressed over the last year:
Although there are some plantings, statues and garden structures it is time to do more, to finish this blank canvas and bring some colour to an otherwise dull painting.
We had a garden designer named Tilly Jones come and draw up some plans for this new garden of ours and I do have to say that I have…
View original 328 more words
February 4, 2015
Parallel Plotting Predicament
Plotting was simple with previous draft novels, even when there were two interweaving plot arcs. But how did I end up with three parallel ones? More important how should I be writing this novel?
Draft blurb for “Seeking a Knife”: Welsh Detective Sergeant Sparkle Lodge suspects that the death of a researcher is linked to the priceless 200 year-old Memoirs sent to Nadine Palmour, a Native American journalist. Is Nadine descended from the author of the Memoirs, an English naval officer, Talcott Wendell? Is the theft of his naval dirk in 1920 a cold case that has to be resurrected?
Three POVs in three separate settings, two separated by location – North Wales and Texas – and the other by historical time – the memoirs are from the War of 1812, between the USA and the British in Canada.
I recognise that there are three different areas of research, three sets of character sketches, but are three outlines that gradually weave together? I had initially planned to do all the research, character sketches, and then one interweaving outline of the whole novel. I have a rough outline so know how the novel should unfold – and a time line for the present day arcs. But the great plan hasn’t worked out beyond those elements.
My first POV character, a Welsh Goth in the North Wales Poice arrested me. Who wouldn’t want to develop a character based on Abi in NCIS? So I have her sketched out, and a few lines on those she interacts with. Worst of all I have written around 10,000 words that cover the first third of the novel from her POV.
Do I stop? Do I continue with her story, until she meets the Native American? Or should I just work on the parts that inspire me?
Pauley Perrette aka Abi
The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. This is my attempt to talk about my doubts and the fears that I am trying to conquer. I want to be encouraging, and by posting perhaps this is a way of saying keep striving. Visit IWSG and some other great bloggers, not all as insecure but great fun.
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG
The awesome co-hosts for this February 4 posting of the IWSG are Gwen Gardner, Dolorah, Sarah Foster, and M. Pax!
January 18, 2015
Bollywood Style
2014 was the year when I read more books than previous years. Two of my favorite reads were the first two parts of Susan Kaye Quinn’s Dharian Affairs Trilogy -Third Daughter and Second Daughter. In 2015 I plan to read even more and one of the highlights is sure to be First Daughter.
I’ve used Indian settings but not with Bollywood Style – maybe there is some Steampunk creeping in. Anway, I’m pleased to be supporting this week’s Bollywood Style Giveway, in which Susan is celebrating with fellow author Sonali Dev. Over to them:
Romance and Intrigue: Bollywood Style Giveaway
Something Bollywood Going On Here
Sonali Dev and Susan Kaye Quinn met in a most unusual place: Library Journal’s Top 10 E-Romance List for 2014. Sonali’s A Bollywood Affair and Susan’s Third Daughter both made the list with their Bollywood-themed romances – something that was so cool, it cried out to be celebrated!
Scroll down to win some great Bollywood-themed prizes!
Contemporary and Steampunk Bollywood Romance
[image error] A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev
Mili Rathod hasn’t seen her husband in twenty years—not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be—if her husband would just come and claim her.
Bollywood’s favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naïve village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir’s tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she’s trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Mili’s life—cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate’s elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie.
[image error] Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs #1) by Susan Kaye Quinn
The Third Daughter of the Queen wants to her birthday to arrive so she’ll be free to marry for love, but rumors of a new flying weapon may force her to accept a barbarian prince’s proposal for a peace-brokering marriage. Desperate to marry the charming courtesan she loves, Aniri agrees to the prince’s proposal as a subterfuge in order to spy on him, find the weapon, and hopefully avoid both war and an arranged marriage to a man she does not love.
Third Daughter is the first book in the Dharian Affairs Trilogy (Third Daughter, Second Daughter, First Daughter). This steampunk-goes-to-Bollywood (Bollypunk!) romance takes place in an east-indian-flavored alternate world filled with skyships, saber duels, and lots of royal intrigue. And, of course, kissing.
~*~
Romance and Intrigue: Bollywood Style
This short Q&A with Sonali and Susan talks about marrying for love and writing romance!
Q: Marrying for love is a modern, and in some ways Western, concept, but arranged marriages have a long and complicated history. How does your novel tackle the subject of arranged marriage?
Sue: Third Daughter is set in a fantasy world, but it’s a blend of cultures in the real one, including being an analog to India (both current day and some of the past). In the Dharian Affairs world, royal marriages have a history of being arranged for political purposes, but the general population of the countries marry for love. This leaves the titular Daughters with varying conflicts between marrying for duty and marrying for love – some embracing their arranged marriages, some fighting against it. The marriage dynamics of the three daughters in the trilogy (Third Daughter, Second Daughter, First Daughter) drive much of the story – along with political intrigue and skyships, of course!
Sonali: In India where I grew up arranged marriages are still very much a part of the fabric of the culture. Having said that, one of the most interesting and unique things about Indian society is how diverse it is within itself. While you still have communities and families who will give the marrying person absolutely no say in whom they marry there are those who don’t believe their parents and families have any say when it comes to whom they choose to marry or live with, and then there is the rest of the sizable population who falls somewhere between those two belief systems. In A Bollywood Affair, Mili is from a tiny village from a very orthodox family and it is perfectly natural that her family would arrange her marriage. She would expect that. It wouldn’t even strike a girl from her background that she could choose for herself. The age at which she was married isn’t usual, though, but there is a reason why her grandmother gets her married that young. As for her being in love with her husband, again, the conditioning to be devoted to your husband is so ingrained in the culture that it would be strange if someone like Mili didn’t love someone she believed was her husband.
Q: Whether set in a fantasy world or the modern one, romance is romance! There are many romance tropes – star-crossed lovers, lovers thrown together by circumstance, enemies turned lovers – what kind(s) of romance tropes does your novel contain?
Sue: My books are really a blend of romance and adventure, although the first book is a classic “lovers thrown together by circumstance” as Aniri (the Third Daughter) goes undercover in accepting a marriage proposal from the barbarian prince in the north in order to spy on him and determine if his country truly has the rumored flying machine that would upend the political dynamics in both their countries.
Sonali: Although I didn’t set out to write it that way, several readers have pointed out that A Bollywood Affair is a Worldly Rake and an Ingenue Virgin trope. And now that I think about it, there’s truth to that.
Q: Are you planning on writing more romances in this story-world? If so, tell us about it!
Sue: The Dharian Affairs trilogy is complete, but I’ve enjoyed writing in this east-Indian steampunk fantasy romance world so much, I’ve decided to do a follow-on trilogy from the point of view of a new character—a female tinker who has a grand invention that may change the world, but also is caught between the spy she might love and the spy she can’t resist. Those books likely won’t be written for a year or two, but I will cycle back to writing in this world in the future!
Sonali: The Bollywood Bride comes out next year and it’s the story of a Bollywood star who comes home to Chicago after ten years to escape a scandal in Mumbai and comes face to face with the man she betrayed for stardom. And then there are two more stories I’m working on in the same series. Which isn’t a series in terms of continuity or overlapping characters but because the stories are set in the same world and either the hero or the heroine work in Bollywood.
~*~
[image error]
Paperback of Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs #1)
The Dharian Affairs Trilogy in Ebook
2 Paperback copies of A Bollywood Affair
Handwoven Pashmina shawl from India
Sticker Henna Tattoos
Indian bangles (bracelets)
(all physical prizes are US ONLY; ebook is INTERNATIONAL)
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January 7, 2015
Wisholute or Chaos?
This is my first post of 2015 and my first Insecure Writer’s Support Group post of the year. Before I tackle the resolution chestnut, I have to introduce myself. Guess I need to update my About Me page… at some point.
Until the MonSter called multiple sclerosis swiped me down, I was a freelance equestrian journalist, and photographer. I was diagnosed with MS in January 2000 and by 2005 I retired, unable to meet any deadlines. My second wife, Juanita is now my understanding and put-upon carer, and we live in Harlech, North Wales, with a brilliant view of Snowdon.
When the MS is behaving, and my pain is calm, I write fiction. My first novel, ‘Spiral of Hooves’ was published in December 2013, and I have various projects on the go.
First Snow on Snowdon ~ Juanita Clarke
So why ‘wisholute’?
My writer friend Ailsa Abraham coined this clever word as an alternative to ‘resolution’. Don’t we all manage to fulfil just a fraction of our resolutions? In many cases, they are closer to ‘wishes’ driven by intent of some sort. Great for Insecure writers like me. So I don’t make them – well not often.
My simple ‘wisholute’ was “Find a Brit publisher and finish one tale…” by which I meant, my US publisher is great for my equestrian series, but being in the UK I would like to find a similar Brit publisher. And my insecurity kicks in when it comes to my next publishing step.
Do I chance that my ‘Gossamer Flames’ saga is worthy of beta readers? Are there any out there that will want to read it?
Should I focus instead on revising ‘Fates Maelstrom’ and re-locating it in North Wales?
Do I suppress the urge to write yet another first draft to put in the bottom oven to simmer?
Well, I’m taking part in the 100k in 100 days Challenge and have a loose strategy of edit-create-revise: on the days when I need to Blog/vent/rant etc I do; on the days when I get inspired to review one of the books I managed to read in 2014, I do; when I get the urge to bring new characters alive in ‘Seeking A Knife’, I do; and I intend to make those short stories ready for the brave beta readers out there, wherever.
And for my reading I am multi-tasking too – I have three books on the go, and just acquired one set locally, to get my head ready for that revision I mentioned.
Trouble is, that insecurity might be feeding the multi-tasking. Should that be chaos? Not if we are creating words and worlds for valued readers. As IWSG says, “Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!”
Dewy Cobweb ~ by Norman Hyett
*
The awesome co-hosts for the January 7 posting of the IWSG will be Elizabeth Seckman, Lisa Buie-Collard, Chrys Fey, and Michelle Wallace!
Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
Please visit others in the group and connect with the awesome writers out there. Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG
December 30, 2014
2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,600 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
Many thanks to all my followers, and special thanks to those who commented on my erratic posts, both here and on Facebook.
Will try to do better in 2015 despite the MonSter, which made the Christmas break tough.
May 2015 bring you all what you need to keep on reaching for those dreams.
December 2, 2014
Getting Back on Track
December lies ahead full of promises and good intentions. Behind me lies NaNoWriMo, but not a fourth successive win. Congratulations are due to all those who achieved the magic 50k words, or more, I know what you did to achieve that target.
This confession is my contribution to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group day, in the hope that there is a useful moral, and maybe some encouragement for others that tripped on the track.
My own November was more like NaughtyNoWritingMonth – from day one. A few months ago, I had great plans for NaNoWriMo, in the form of the outline for “Seeking A Knife”, an attempt to turn an old WW2 TV drama proposal into a mystery with its origin in the War of 1812.
But I abandoned that plan in about August, wondering if I could re-write one of my old draft’s instead. “Fates Maelstrom” is crying out for a relocation to Snowdonia – it will happen, one day. I had “Fates Maelstrom” down as my NaNo novel but felt I would be cheating to upload more than a short blurb.
Snowdon at Sunset by Juanita Clarke
Anyway, in October I finished writing “Storm’s Compass”, my first set of short stories, and they needed editing, prior to the critical eye of beta-readers. Another great plan. But then I got asked to ‘ghost write’ some children’s stories. I sketched out some ideas over November – scribbles that might qualify as writing. I even found a way to tie in my character, Harriet The Flying Hare. But I ground to a halt, stymied by a lack of feedback and the reluctance to be a ‘ghost writer’.
Dejected, deflected, and disillusioned, I turned to the ‘dark side’ – in fact I spent more and more time gaming. Star Wars: The Old Republic to be honest. Well they did have 12x experience until December 1st, so who wouldn’t be tempted from the path of writing.
Now I have to kick my addiction and re-focus on the important things in life… like my partner and our puppies… and accounts… and Christmas. Have I missed something?
Moral: when you need a sanity break from the word-grind, don’t let the break become a slide into the morass of reckless pleasure.
“Winter Landscape” by Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee
The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. We are meant to talk about our doubts and the fears we have conquered. Our struggles and triumphs. We try to offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visiting others in the group and connect with our fellow writers is always fun, and a chance to discover that we are not alone.
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG
The awesome co-hosts for the December 3 posting of the IWSG are Heather Gardner, T. Drecker from Kidbits, Eva E. Solar at Lilicasplace, and Patsy Collins!
