L. Nahay's Blog, page 4

Something New!

Woo-hoo!

I am going to be part of a local author book signing at my library on May 16th!

I am soooo excited. 

I've been brainstorming how best to set up my half of the table (I have to provide a tablecloth?! Holy crap....what color should I choose: red, black, white? Ooo, maybe silver. What if I choose wrong? What if I overdo it? What if I underdo it? Should I have a table runner? What should it say: RMOS, or MTB? Should I design a new banner and have something printed up? Give aways? Free candy? I will never find those book marks I made, now boxed up in storage) Decisions decisions! But it's fun. My neglected creative half of the brain is dancing. I'll get to talk to people, and maybe, just maybe, sell some more books.

 I do want MTB on a table runner as a forefront, and maybe some business cards. Small, the logo looks good. Large, or on another background, and it's really bad! That was a horrible realization. I spent last weekend searching for graphic designers to help me redo it. Found one, emailed her, and have not heard back. I honestly don't know how that whole process works, so maybe I did something wrong, or maybe it never actually got sent as it wasn't through my email. In the interim, I went back to what got me here in the first place.....I'll see if I can do it myself! 

And I did :) The updated logo looks spectacular.

I'll share soon.

Derailed

Aye. Life on this side of the internet got seriously derailed for the last several months. The moral is: be extremely careful who you rent a house from. Houses owned by companies are not as safe as one would think they'd be. Aside from being scammed, they also just outright steal your money. And there is no one who can or will help tenants. The laws are all on the side of the one who gets paid. Forget consumer protection.

Ug. It's been a tough couple months (year), but it's chugging towards better. I'm slightly houseless at the moment, but am slowly getting myself back on track.  After two months, I've taught the boys how to take the train to school, which will be cutting our daily five hour commute significantly. Blogging here is my next start. I have really missed this site!

This month, I also finally began re-attending my writers' club meetings. They're now an hour's drive away, but soooo worth it. Going has made me stop worrying just a tiny bit, enough to retrieve my writer's brain again. My first journey back, I had nothing to read, so planned on listening. And someone asked me to talk about RMOS. It had been so very long since I thought about her at all, that I couldn't really begin. I fumbled and just couldn't do it. My brain was just muck. It made me realize how lost I've really been. I went home, cleared a space, and unpacked my computer  (that was a BIG SIGH moment of relief. Of Home), though it's in a family member's basement beside the monsters' beds, so my access is extremely limited. But today is Sunday, another two weeks since I unpacked it, and I turned on the xbox upstairs, and am down here :) Writing!

I will be involved in my first ever author signing event on May 16th at the Oak Lawn Public Library (Illinois)! I am thrilled!  My year post-publication did not go as planned, and marketing was the first to get derailed. But, I want to talk about RMOS! I want to get people to read her! I've been researching and plotting and planning how best to present my tiny section of a shared table. I'm so excited. I'm going to use Booger #2 as a prop, I think. A plant to wander around the library with something fairly blaring. He's up for it.  #2's up for anything that means he's involved and he's helping. Plus, this will be his introduction. My god, the things his writer's brain comes up with. He's going to be amazing.

I've been playing with the idea of buying myself a new tablet/laptop, given my access issue. I completely detest my ten year old Inspiron netbook. It was worthless from the beginning, but was a free mini-me with this computer. My Samsung tablet is really not meant for heavy writing. I really want a Microsoft Surface. (big sigh)

It all leads to selling RMOS! Solve my computer issue, solve my housing issue!  

I also started reading again. This sounds weird, I know. But I have not been able to read anything since the holidays, since The Mess began. I've bought so many good-sounding books and end up forcing myself to read through the first chapters before giving up. I know it's not the books' faults. I know they were written well. I have just not been in the mood for stories. Mine or anyone else's. And of all the books that could have gotten me back on track, I find it funny that it's Gone Girl. I never read anything that's become the newest rage, or that's been turned into a movie already. But it's pulling me out of this funk, which trully earns it 5 stars whether I end up liking the book or not.

Anyway, I'm back, and will be posting again. Better things than this, I promise!

L.Nahay

November, Month of....

November is a big month for most writers (though what month isn't, really?). It's National Novel Writing month, and many enter this national contest (international??) and have to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, with online word count tracker tools. NYTs Bestseller books such as The Night Circus (excellent read, by the way) and Wool were begun during a NaNoWriMo contest.

I've never tried it, but I'm following several up-and-coming authors who are. It's quite amazing how many words some can write in a day! Keep on going, everyone!

I started the new book Steam at the same time that the novel contest began. Thought it'd be an interesting unofficial way to keep myself paced and see how well I do.

This is why I can't join: 
My non-NaNoWriMo count to date:
          18,000 words (typed. This doesn't count what's written in my handy-dandy notebook or scattered on bits                             of scrap paper). Only a projected estimate of 182,000 more words to go!
          3 compass symbols designed and drawn on the computer using Inkscape
          Learned a new word processing program to replace Word: Scrivener. LOVE IT!
          Toured a planetarium for research purposes
          Bought a NewsWeek magazine they printed entirely (hmmhmm) for my research purposes
          Built a world
          Drew a map on Inkscape, with lunar and solar patterns, and stars and galaxies
          Investigating other cultures' myths and beliefs
          Steampunk. MMMMMM :-)
          Compiled a visual board on Pinterest!
          Started Steam's own playlist
          Researched ships
          Filling up a new sketchbook with visuals that need ironing out: have the female main character sketched,                               started the male, have their world, and the start of their symbols going
          Bought and watched the 1940-ish Black Swan and Spanish Main. Research purposes.

Ug. Yet real life keeps seeping in. My presence is required at my day job and then I've apparently got to tend to the kids and feed them and stuff! ;-)

Weebly had this quote when I signed in today, and I love it. Googled it and read the whole letter it was taken from:

"I long to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort- and dissappointment and perseverance."
          -Vincent Van Gough


Happy November, in whichever form it is for you!

            -L

Love At First Sight

I am a sucker for a good love story.  Not the 'I am man. You. Woman. Must have sex. Sure. Call it love. I don't care' sort of deal. Uk. The real love stories, where you just fall back and exhale, whoa. I don't know, the whole process fascinates me. How does it happen so easily for some people? What makes it last? What makes it start? What a beautiful thing to be a part of.

Love at first sight. Is that really possible? Has it happened to me? Unfortunately no. To someone I know? Um, no to that too. So why do I believe there's such a thing? Well, because I want to.

It can't be all fantasy. Right?

Does love at first sight exist?

Of course, I can't just leave it at that (because I said so!, right?). So why do I believe it? My convoluted rationale is this: I have definitely experienced the opposite. Not necessarily or always hate, but an instantaneous bristle at first meeting, where you know without a doubt that there's going to be problems. It's been a sharp, absolute intuition. I've tried my damndest to prove myself wrong and convince myself that said persons were fine and normal, but my first impression always turned up correct. They were (insert negative adjective here)  through and through. Ouch, I know. But it's happened. 

Therefore, if the inverse is true.....

When I started RMOS, I was young.  Love At First Sight sort of romance made absolute sense to me. You simply do not question things like that! It's everywhere: books, movies, music. Then I got older, and I questioned the reality of it. The plausibility and chemistry of it. Come on. Seriously? Does it happen that readily, or only for time constraints in books and movies and music? A disjointed denial of relaity.  In my own work, will people buy it?

Do I?

Ha! I write fantasy. Maybe I don't really care.

Even so, I went from being the young romantic to needing more substantial reasoning, and that made me flesh out Lira's and His love story even better. Theirs was love at first sight, but there was also something deeper occurring. 

They say eyes are the windows to your soul. Is that literally love at first sight? Do our souls reside in our bodies as though our bodies were little houses? With their hands on our lower eyelids- like on the sash of a window- do our souls peek out and read the chemistry and makeup of the soul facing them? Now I have this beautiful little visual. Have you ever met or seen someone and you smile and think, they have a bright soul? People that just make you smile without saying or doing anything.

So there. That's all I need.

It's interesting, for me, to see how I rewrote RMOS  in my 20's, and again in my 30's as realities and truths and the meaning and prerequisites for love have matured. What I did not change: my protagonist's moment of love at first sight. Well, first meeting, touch, banter. It was a combination of all these things, and I gave her a whopper of an intuition just so she'd be as sure as I before I  tore  it to shreds (I apologize profusely to them for that).

My current list of favorite LAFS reads (or the holy shit, whoa sort of love story):

              The All Souls Trilogy , by Deborah Harkness. The third book is what made the series great. Strip away the vampire/witch thing and what you are left with is something endearing and beautiful. And start back at the very beginning, and it's magical.

              Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor. Holy shit, is all I can say about that one. Think it's really my absolute favorite book.  Haunting and disturbingly powerful. 

              Labor Day   by Joyce Maynard. I know. Really strange pick, but bitter and sweet.

              Red Moonglow on Snow , by me. You know I have to put it in my list. You'll see.

             The Scribe by Elizabeth Hunter. That was a whoa once it got going. Then there's book two, The Singer. The third, The Secret, comes out this winter.

Hmm. That is a really sad list. Any recommendations?

The Dryad (a short story)

THE DRYAD: a family at odds doesn't realize that they're being watched, or that this camping trip may change them.


I just published my urban fantasy short story, THE DRYAD, on Amazon :)

From Friday, September 5th to Sunday, September 7th, it'll be free!

After that, only $0.99. I can only give 5 days worth of free buys in every 3 month period, and $0.99 is the cheapest I can make it. So....get it now!

What's the point of a blog if I can't give some details? Even a short story has a story.

I think my first time camping was with my gym class in high school. Do you remember yours? Maybe you aren't an outdoor person. That's ok. That's what writers are for (haha).

Here's me, one of my first trips after moving to Colorado. I'm in Rocky Mountain National Park. Doing what? Reading :) See the book in my lap? I'm outside. No people. And a book. That was almost heaven.

More noteworthy, and relevant, however, is the first time I took the boys camping. That was powerful. Booger #1 was maybe three, #2 was approaching 2. Wow, the earth definitely called to them. Streaked with dirt and hunting bugs. In the mountains, bundled up in winter coats and hats and sleeping bags, and it was the first time they ever slept through the night. Life and other stuff has gotten in the way, so we haven't gone as much as we need to in the last couple years, but I remember that first time a lot, and regret that I hadn't started them out much sooner.

What if your attempts to teach your children are thwarted, though?Thank all that's holy that you're being watched, then ;) . In the trees, your stalkers (these stalkers) could be your best allies.

I have a thing for trees. I'm staring and taking pictures constantly. The tree on the cover is one I discovered at the Belle Meade Plantation in Tennessee. Even if I hadn't drank the really good wine from the dude with the magic voice, I'd have been stunned by this tree.  (Oh yes, dude had a magic voice. I think he must have been part fae. I'd have sat there and listened to him speak for forever. Pretty sure that's why he got wine duty. I'm not a wine person, but I drank that wine.)
Look at the roots on top of the ground! It was immediately the cover for this little short. Entitled THE DRYAD. Which is a tree spirit. Which is about trees.

Everything matters.

In THE DRYAD, my poem, And The Water, is referenced. I heard those words while driving through (trees) on the way to way-north Wisconsin. I was thinking ahead about finding time to leave a canoe group we were meeting up with and heading further way-north to see Lake Superior for the first time, and those words began calling. Lake Superior began calling. That was a wonderful whoa moment. 


If you'd like to read it in full Click here. 


Oh yes, definitely listened and escaped the group with the Boogers. Water was bitter freaking cold but I knew I had to go in (I am here). Crystal clear, too.

Not-Pretty unicorns are referenced, too :) (Pssst...Red Moonglow on Snow.....)

Are you an outdoor person? Where's your favorite spot?

Ravery's Daughter's (reblog)

Following is a reblog from an earlier post. I'm still trying to draw attention, and this is a good explanation for the series:

Red Moonglow on Snow is the first book of my new series, Ravery's Daughters. The running theme binding the books together is the bond between mothers and daughters- how they are made, and how they are broken. There is more than one way to become a mother, and that was something that had to be in there. I wanted to balance fostering and adopting and biological birth off the other, to show the beauty of each.

The series is also about the past, and how events we try to forget have a way of bleeding through the generations, altering the course of everyone's lives, until those things are acknowledged and put to rest.

Ravery is an origin. It's the first, last, and only city on the Western part (the 'wrong' part) of Home. Once purely only hills, stone by stone a city was built. This is the city where my protagonist's mother was born, the place she has tried to escape from her whole life. So much so that she denies that she is human. When Lira is brought to Ravery's ruins, she tries to do the same: to fight the truth that a place such as Ravery is where they are from. 

I watched this PBS documentary several, several years ago that was heartwrenching and tragic. An American woman- adopted from Vietnam as a child- now a wife and mother, travels back to her birth country to find her origins and her birth family. She was so staunchly clingy to her suburban, American ('white?') life, that Vietnam was an extreme shock for her. It was horrible to watch. She took it all so hard. The culture shock, the poverty, the way of life, the 'non-white'. Was she given nothing of her original culture growing up? She barely looked of Asian descent. I got a sense that it was something she tried very hard to hide. I just felt like the whole experience could have been easier for her, and Iwondered why it wasn't, why she was so afraid of being from there. She met her birth mother, and uncles and I believe siblings. But never once was she settled, or happy. She seemed to constantly search for a way out. Culturally, the children (adult) in Vietnam are responsible for supporting the parents. So when the uncles approached her with this (not wisely, but again, cultural differences) it insulted her so much that she ran shaking and crying and left right then. Again, it was heartbreaking to watch. Heartbreaking to watch the mother lose her all over again. I would love to hear that her view has since changed, that she learned that origins don't necessary threaten your life as it currently stands, or your values, or your complete sense of self. But I've never been in her shoes, so my opinion probably doesn't amount to much in the way of value.

At the time I saw that documentary, I'd already had Lira's experiences set, and it helped me delve deeper into the psychology of the very non-joyful reunion and visit to a foreign birthcountry. After seeing it, I understood the visceral fear Lira has of Ravery. It solidified my theory that life repeats until someone fixes what's wrong. While her fear and loathing are justified, her inability to accept it will cause problems for her, and her missing daughter (who yes, does get her own book).

Available Now!

My new publicity flyer! I love it!

Being Read

Thoughts tumble out as we move,
like ghosts in the air desperate
to be seen.
Loose and aimless, crying to not just be written, but read.
To be seen, 
spoken, 
heard.
Touched by eyes, by a sweep of a rapt finger.
Scenes and faces sparked to life in other minds, attached
to other perceptions and emotions,
given broader meanings, given worth.
By being written,
rooted and grown.
By being read.
                          -L.Nahay









This describes much of the reality of being a writer. Since getting RMOS published, I took a fairly extended sabatical and read. I've been reading a lot. I ended last night's book with a welcome, returned anxiety. Time to write again! RMOS #2 is crawling beneath my skin, itching to be let out. Writers are never far from paper and pen. They're scattered everywhere, so we can catch those thoughts, those scenes, those converstations and emotions before the air carries them away. I keep a variety of notebooks. I suddenly remembered- and needed- my most recent one. Enter the crisis. I moved at the beginning of the year, and hadn't a clue where I would have placed it. Wrote something of an SOS on my other blog, and panicked all night and day. Where in the world had I left it? Found it this evening- in a box I kept telling myself it couldn't possibly be in- (big, big sigh) and flipping through the pages, I rediscovered the above. Enjoy :) 

Birth of a Cover

1.
I never intended to do this myself, but I was having problems putting to words what I wanted. Decided, how can I tell someone else what to do when I am clueless about the process? I tried a few different vector programs and decided on the free Inkscape, and got to work! Once I had it figured out, I'd send it off to a graphic designer.
I knew a few things: the moon as the center, and I wanted 'Snow' to snow, in a way that made it look like the moon itself was flaking away.  I loved the blue background, but it didn't really mean anything. Also, this one is pretty plain. 2.
Moonglow! Oooo. I started learning more about my vector program, and began
playing with effects and fonts. This color is closer to ideal. 3.
With tree silhouettes? 4.
Maybe black?! I loved the contrast, the symbolism, and the blue transparency I just figured out. But it didn't give the warmth or the surrealism the book needed.
Plus, black and red is symbolic of other things to other people, and with the red moon, people would immediately think vampire or werewolf. Check out the snowflakes, though! And the perfect font! 5.
Back to blue, but with a truer blue, and an almost silvery color transitioning into it. 6.
Lighter hues, and a grey border. By now, after more research into designer options (and prices) and after seeing what I did myself, I decided to no longer use a designer. 

I loved this one for it's simplicity, the colors, and published it initially with this. 7.
Which was fine for an eBook.....except that four print proofs later, it never ended up looking like that. The moon was never round, the blues were nearly purple, and it looked dull and dreary. The text was blurry and unreadable as well. The egg-shaped moon bothered me the most. It always appeared perfectly round on my own screen. I made it lighter, worked more on the moon, changed font types, sizes, and layouts on the back, removed the border...... 8.
Still didn't work. Two different distributers!

I cried (literally) for help on a Facebook Author group and was answered by a graphic designer/author who offered to help fix my resolution issues.

What was intended as a quick, few minute fix turned into an awesome back and forth of trial and error and suggestions. Daniel showed me some beautiful ideas with texture and trees (I am in no way smarter than a graphic designer), and it was amazing to have someone provide insight, comments, and advice. His sample suggestions literally caught my breath and I just stared at my phone for an eternity, disbelieving that I was looking at my cover.

As beautiful as they were, with a picture of an actual, close-up moon, they weren't quite right. In one, he'd put some frost throughout the background. Amazing, but the story doesn't take place in winter, and I wanted a more surreal appearance as the title references a memory. He also tried trees in the background, but evergreens......which she doesn't get to until book two ;-) Trying to dismiss the trees altogether, I then remembered that I had wanted them early in the beginning.

When it snows, the sky turns a strange lilac? blue? grey? color.....much like Lira's Damn Dress....and I was struggling with how to accurately describe that to Daniel. I was sitting on the couch Christmas night, gazing through a crack in the drapes at the snowfall outside, and how the sky was exactly what I was trying to verbalize.....I could take a picture!

That's what I did. I also thought that maybe I could use snow as texture in a way that it wouldn't look like snow. I played more with the snow but didn't save those images. They came out nice, with the blue overlay, but again, not in keeping with the book itself. 9.
Doing this,  I realized I needed to keep with the theme of the book trailer and use only pictures I'd taken myself, and not stock photos, or my original vectored-moon. Maybe trees on snow? I took  several pictures of the trees lining my street, and the sky's odd hue. I'd upload them, play with the images, run back outside and take more pictures.....on repeat. 10.
No snow. At all. Got back on track.

I returned to the picture of the moon in the book's trailer, cropped him out and tinted him red, and replaced the vectored image I'd been using. The photo Daniel had provided was beautiful, but overly realistic. I wanted subtle and simple, slightly sad, nostalgic, surreal. 

Ta-duh! And that is the very short story on how Red Moonglow on Snow got her cover! Just as a funny backstory......the picture of the trees I used had a small portion of a streetlamp in it that I didn't notice. After I duplicated the picture, reversed the duplicate and combined the two to make a full cover spread, I saw, right in the center, a heart! Went through and found that streetlamp. Anyway, this was my sign from the cover gods that I'd finally gotten it right! I didn't want it obvious, but if you look on the spine right behind the first letter of my name, you'll see it. There is also the story of the back cover, but I'm trying to keep things short and sweet :) I seemed to have saved only three, so I'm going to share. Another is in a non-recognizable file type- at one time, Nightmare was prominent on the back. But people wouldn't know he's not the typical unicorn, and wouldn't take his inclusion very seriously. I am marketing this as an adult book, and not YA. I think each of us needs a grumpy, pissy unicorn at our backs every now and then. But have to let everyone else understand why, first. I just approved the print edition this morning. Should be making a purchasable appearance soon!

Year of the Horse (or Unicorn. Whichever)

"The Year of the Dragon. She’d used that phrase at the house. That’s what made Mom so withdrawn, so insistent I come here with them tonight.
May’s explanation of her culture’s beliefs- how she and I and some of the girls with us tonight were born in the year of the horse- didn’t even sway her. And Mom hates all things remotely similar to unicorns."  
New Year's Eve is a major night in Red Moonglow on Snow. It is The Night, That Night, for Lira. It gives her story its title, Red Moonglow on Snow. It is The Night He came for her, The Night their daughter was made, The Night she thought they'd finally return Home. The Night that brought on The Year of The Dragon, year 2000. 

I returned to Chicago for Christmas and New Year's in 2000. At that time, RMOS was still in its early draft stage while I was away at school. However, 7 days after New Year's, the moon was red. I couldn't believe it. Like seeing the future in a vision and then it happens. 

May, Lira's childhood friend, tries to explain the Chinese Zodiac to Lira when they're children. But Lira stayed far away from anything that didn't relate to Home. And at that time, she, like her mother, hated anything resembling unicorns.

Counting, it dawned on me last week that 2014 brings back the Year of the Horse, the sign Lira was born under. She will be 36 this coming year, and things are changing fast for all of them, bringing them all some much needed resolution. But that's far in the future past RMOS.

RMOS dissipates Lira's intense fear of unicorns (and horses). And time in Home restores her confidence and repares her sense of self, to the point where she begins to understand what May had tried to do for her all those years ago. Our cultures and their varied systems of belief cease to be so threatening.

The Chinese Zodiac cycles every 12 years. Lira was born in The Year of the Horse, 1978. That Night occured in The Year of the Dragon, 2000. The Year of the Dragon returned in 2012, and next week brings back The Year of  the Horse. Legend states that Buddha hosted a race for animals through land and water. The first twelve to make it to the finish would be featured in the new Zodiac. The Dragon finished fifth and the Horse seventh. The whys and hows are pretty interesting, but I won't detail them here.

The attributes of a Horse:           they are the nomads of the Chinese Zodiac. (Ha! How very appropriate!)
                                                                stubborn (much to her Guardians' chagrin)
                                                                possession of strength (not specifically physical)
                                                                impatient
                                                                energetic
                                                                have a tendency to fall in love hard and fast (so very true!!)
                                                                volatile (watch her aim if you piss her off- she will throw something.)
                                                                independant, while paradoxically craving closer relationships with those 
                                                                        around them (very true!)
                                                                and, perfectly quoted from Astrology.com: "Once they find some peace 
                                                                        within themselves, they can curb their wandering tendencies and learn 
                                                                        to appreciate what's in their own backyard."

Elements factor in heavily as well: 1978 was the element of Earth, adding hardworking, large perspective, and adaptability to Lira's attributes.
                                                     
To honor such an important holiday in Lira's story, I'll be marking down the ebook price to $3.99 on January 1st! Until then, you can download the first few chapters and start reading! Click here for the RMOS page with links for each ebook format.

Wishing everyone a better 2014.