Day Six {Genre} and Day Seven {Project}

As you will no doubt realize if you've seen the list of the Fifteen Day Challenge writing questions, I am taking liberties and skipping a couple of them. Day Six has to do with one's "bucket list," but I don't have one and therefore can't answer that; Day Eight is supposed to be a video about books or writing, but the only one I know of is Julian Smith's "I'm Reading a Book" and I can't stand rap. So I'm going with the questions I can answer.

day six: your favorite genre to write in

Earlier this month I wrote a post on diversity in which I pointed out the advantages of both reading and writing in many different genres to stretch the imagination. I am currently reading my father's dissertation on biblical economics, and in learning a little about the basics of Capitalism, it occurred to me that the Division of Labor encouraged by Adam Smith is today as pervasive a concept in the field of arts as it is in the field of physical labor. Authors are expected to hone their skills in one genre - something which, no doubt, earns them prestige and money. I contend, however, that although it might bring financial success and get the writer into the New York Bestseller List, it is damaging to the mind and will eventually doom the author's writing to tedious repetition.

All that to say, I like to write in several different genres. Currently I have two historical fictions and a fantasy; two of my planned novels are a time-traveling novel (science-fantasy) and a light "historical fiction" composed entirely of letters. I also have a historical fiction and a romance bumping around in my head. If forced to choose I would probably say that my favorite genre to write in is historical fiction, since in that one field there are a thousand different possibilities of time, setting, and characters. I like the research that goes into making the past come alive; I like the feeling of having created a story within history and made it authentic. And - well, I just love history and writing is the closest I can get to being there.

day seven: your current writing project

This question is an easy one for me to answer because I have a one-track mind - in this area, at least. Although I will occasionally scribble down a section in my writing notebook for another story, in general when I begin one novel I concentrate my energy on finishing it. I can't write two novels at the same time. Right now I am writing The White Sail's Shaking, my first "sea novel," set during the United States' first war with the Barbary states of North Africa. I always like a good intrigue, and that is what White Sail's is - an inner war among four midshipmen set against the backdrop of their nation's war with Tripoli.

At any level an officer's single goal is to get to the next highest, and Tip Brighton is as eager as his messmates to succeed when he first joins the Enterprize. He has always been a failure - in society as well as in his own family; that's how he ended up being dumped into the navy in the first place. But now that he is there, he means to prove himself...until he finds that the cost of success is higher than he is willing to pay.

I am roughly 90,000 words in to The White Sail's Shaking, placing me at about the two-thirds mark. The writing has been rather slow (I started this novel as my 2010 NaNo) but I am heartily enjoying this novel through all of its chaotic ups and downs and I hope it won't be the last naval fiction that I write.

Day Five {Least Favorite}

day five: the least favorite character you've written

(This is a bit like the Razzie Award, isn't it? I don't know that I would want the distinction of Worst Character.)

When on day one I struggled to produce a favorite character, I was looking over a cast of characters whom I dearly love and trying to pick out one - at most two - who I could tentatively call my "favorite." Like most writers, I even take pleasure in my villains. Christopher of The Soldier's Cross was indeed less fun to write than Jamie of Wordcrafter or Lewis of The White Sail's Shaking, but still I know him and he belongs to me, so I can be pleased with him. No, none of my villains can step in to fill this role.

I have had difficult characters in all my works so far, with the possible exception of Wordcrafter. In fact, I've discovered that I have the most trouble with female characters. Jamie and Copper, the two women of Wordcrafter, came with surprising ease to me, however, and so I would have to turn to either Fiona (The Soldier's Cross) or Marta Rais (The White Sail's Shaking). But I don't even remember writing Fiona (ah, the bliss of forgetfulness), so I would have to say that currently my least favorite character is

Marta Rais

Marta is the other main character of White Sail's. The daughter of a Syracusan actress and a British seaman, Marta is orphaned at seventeen when her mother dies of an illness and her father is reportedly killed in an engagement with a French corvette. Her survival depends on either reaching England and, hopefully, her father's relatives, or remaining in Syracuse and going to work in a theatre. She refuses to do the latter and turns all her energies toward getting to Britain, but by a twist of Providence she finds herself on an American schooner heading to a war with the Barbary states instead of a British merchant bound for England.

Marta is a hard character to write because she is a woman in a man's world, which means I have to show her vulnerability while still trying to convey her strength of character. I had the same trouble with Fiona. Women weren't meant to be running here and there without anyone to protect them, and so it is difficult to feel and write the emotions of a girl who finds herself in a situation such as this. She can't be crying all the time (Tip would go crazy, poor fellow) but neither can I pretend that she would be as cool and collected as a man when she has just been dumped into a world entirely foreign to her. There has to be a balance, and it's a difficult one to find.

Although I am 90,000 words into my novel, most of the sections that are to be from Marta's perspective have yet to be written because she is still largely an unknown. I suspect, however, that by the time I reach the final page of White Sail's I will be as fond of Marta as of the other characters, and once again I'll have no reply when someone asks me who my least favorite character is. Which is fine with me.

Day Four {Inspiration}

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." (Jack London)

day four: an author or novel that has inspired your writing style

These are all difficult questions, primarily because they seem to imply that there should be a single answer. But unfortunately, there isn't. I read and enjoy a number of authors and I daresay that they have all influenced my writing in one way or another, but there is no particular one who I can point to and say, "That person inspires me. That is what I want my writing to be like." If I had to pick one, however, it would have to be my sister

Jennifer Freitag

Jenny inspired me to start writing. For as long as I can remember she has been creating stories. Whenever we would play outside, she was the one who made up the stories we would act out (sometimes under duress; she often tried to foist it off on someone else, but that never worked). Then she got her awful hulk of a computer and would spend hours writing stories that I thought were works of genius. I would always contrive to read them, and I always adored them - with the exception of the time she killed off my favorite character and wouldn't bring him back to life no matter how hard I pleaded. I think I'm scarred for life.

Eventually I decided that I wanted to write, too. I wanted to have the same magical hold on words that she does. I wanted to be a creator, an artist, to be able to hold something up and say, "This is mine." It took me some time to be certain that I really was a writer, but I think that despite the wonderful books I have read since that time, it is still Jenny who inspires me most.

When I sat down to write this post I wasn't sure what answer I would give to the question, but there it is. The prize goes to Jenny.

Day Three {First Time}

Today is the third day of Lerowen's writing challenge (for me), but it is also the end of the giveaway for The Soldier's Cross. Using the highly sophisticated Random Number Generator, the winners are...

Eyebright (of Defective Compositions) and Katy (of Inlets and Harbors). If you two could scoot your addresses into my inbox (jeanne [at] squeakycleanreviews [dot] com), I will get your copies of The Soldier's Cross shipped out very soon. If you enjoy the book, I would love to read your thoughts in an Amazon review. Congratulations!

day three: first attempt at writing

My very first attempt at writing was little more than a kind of fanfiction of one of Jenny's early works. It stemmed from the fact that she killed off my favourite character - that happens to me a lot - and would not repent and bring him back to life though I wept piteously. Really, I was broken up. The sun was dark in my eyes. So naturally I took her story and created my own character, who just so happened to be a rather flimsy reconstruction of the character she had killed. The story was ridiculous and riddled with Mary Sues and Gary Stus; it has since been fully deleted.

But that was years ago, and we prefer not to dwell on that. Then there was another story, a kind of mystery, that flowed out of the fanfiction attempt. I suppose it was a little better, but that has also been deleted and I really don't want to compare the two. They were both early attempts. That is to say, they were both silly.

But then there was Stonehenge. Stonehenge predates The Soldier's Cross by a while, but it came trickling into my head at a time when I greatly needed it. It was something original. It was something not entirely rubbish. It was just something different from the ridiculous stories I had hitherto been trying to beat into shape - which was a bit like trying to construct something with jelly. Stonehenge did not exactly have a cohesive plot, but it was set just as the Romans were overrunning Britain and dealt with a man, a somewhat Saint Patrick-like character, who had come to bring the young Christian faith to the remote land. The main character was a young woman of one of the tribes who met the man of God and who was the only one to listen to his words. To her the stranger had no name but "the man of God"; he was an enigma, appearing at times when he was most needed and seeming more otherworldly than human.

Stonehenge is an aching kind of story, which is perhaps why I have not pursued it further. But it convinced me that I could write after all, and that if I persevered, I might be able to write something good. It was a milestone, so I doubt I will ever delete it.

Standing Stones

“A dark time is coming to this land.”

His words sounded strange, coming on such a beautiful day. The sky was clear and blue as a precious stone, the moors grey and purple with heather, the birds chirruping in the thicket. The broad-bladed grass stirred lazily in the breeze, showing silver underbellies and deep green backs as they moved; like a chieftain’s golden torc, the sun hung low in the vastness, reaching down toward the west. I thought it odd, for I had just been thinking how a day like this brought one in sight—almost in reach—of the Paradise of yore, with the gem-bright colours and the shivering expectancy that I felt pulsing in the earth beneath me. But I had learned to heed the man of God’s words, and I turned my head on the grass and looked up at him with a frown on my forehead.

He was not looking at me; as he did so often, he was staring before him intently. He held a piece of reed between his fingers and he played with it, stretching it taut and then strumming it to produce a hollow sound. Then he began to roll it, still not even affording it a glance, until he held a tapering kind of tube; at first I thought he was not even paying attention to what his hands were doing, but presently he raised one end to his lips and I saw his chest expand and heard the breath moving out from his mouth, and a deep, quivering noise, rich and wild like a voice, came from the little instrument. I lay as though paralyzed, listening to the notes falling until I recognized the melody of a psalm he liked to sing. I should have liked to pick up the words, but I did not know them well enough.

Suddenly he stopped. He looked long and hard at the reed, then laid it away and rested his arms on his knees, meshing his fingers together. “A dark time,” he continued as though there had been no pause. “The Red Crests are hungry for power, and soon they will march on Britannia. Blood will be spilled; the land will be darkened; Albion has had her time for laughter and mirth: she faces sorrow and destruction now.”

I sat up, looking about me at the warm, living stones that encircled us. “Is it because we do not worship the One true God?” I asked tentatively.

He jerked his head briefly. “It is not for me to say. Perhaps: perhaps not. I do not know the mind of God—who does?—and it is not my duty to pass judgment on this land. I only know that the dark is coming, but not why.”

“How is it that you know?”

He turned his head toward me, tipping a smile and unlacing his fingers to lay a hand against my face. “I have not always been here,” he reminded me. “Those distant lands have been my home for long years, and I have seen the ever-growing power of the Empire. God has chosen to grant her dominion for a time; many tears and much blood will be brought because of the Red Crests, but His word will also spread, and that is a far greater thing.

“As for how I know that the time will be soon,” he continued, drawing away again, “traders have passed through here, and I have spoken with them. They tell me of a new emperor—a new king—who looks to expand the borders of the Empire yet further, and they say his troops are moving across Gaul.”

“But we have always stood against the Red Crests,” I objected. “Why should now be any different?”

“Their armies are stronger now, and Britannia is weaker. Their legions have doubled; you have no battalions. No, the Red Crests will swarm over Albion like ants over their hill, and no one will be able to fruitfully stand against them.”

I was quiet. I wondered just how much would be destroyed when they came marching across the chalk: would this place, my sweetest refuge, be destroyed? Would the farm be burned? Would my father and mother and the people of the village all be killed? The day did not seem so bright anymore, and I could not hear the birds singing. “Why do you tell me of all this?” I asked quietly.

“I would have you be warned,” he returned. “I would not have you be taken off your guard. And there is always prayer.”

“Prayer for what? War seems inevitable.”

He shook his head. “None of the shadows we glimpse in the future are inevitable, bairn. What God wills, He will do, but He has in the past willed miracles. Pray for grace and strength and the courage to stand by your faith.” He paused a moment, and then added in a softer voice, “You are still very young: I would not see you uprooted.”

I stared out across the downs, but my eyes were blind to the beauty now and I saw only scarlet plumes and sandaled feet and bright, gleaming metal in the sunlight. I shuddered and realized with a pang that, whatever I had thought before, I was not brave, and the future loomed before me like a veiled monster waiting to devour me. From the merchants that passed through I had heard tales of the Red Crests’ cruelties, and as I looked down at my own slight body I wondered how I could stand them. As the fear rose to an overwhelming pitch, I did something that I had never done before: I reached across the distance between us and slipped my hand into the man of God’s. “I am afraid,” I whispered.

He tightened his grip on my hand. “I know. But courage: there is hope.”

I shook my head, hunkering down into a little miserable ball. “I cannot see any.”

“While God lives,” he said firmly, shifting his cloak over my shoulders, “there is hope. Courage.”

Day Two {Male Author}

Day two on Lerowen's Fifteen Day Challenge list deals with your favorite male author. I peered at the question and pondered the question and formulated tentative answers to the question without success. I might say C.S. Lewis, but Jenny already said Lewis and I hate to be redundant. I might say James Fenimore Cooper because his The Last of the Mohicans is one of my all-time favorite books, but currently that is the only book of his that I have read, so that might sound silly. I might say Charles Dickens, but one has to be in the right mood to enjoy Dickens. So the result?

I have no favorite male author. My favorite books are my comfort books, and they are all, I believe, written by female authors; most of the other books on my shelves are ones that I very much enjoy, but not ones that I would call "favorites." Or perhaps I have so many favorites that I can't dig through the heap to find one that I could call my really, really favorite. What I read depends on my mood, so I thought I would give my favorite male authors based on that.

for a cheerful, sunny day

Dickens. He isn't the sort of fellow you read on a gloomy winter day when you're in a gloomy winter mood, unless you like that feeling of depression and cheerlessness; but when I am feeling particularly "up," he is at least one of my favorite authors to read. He is quite verbose, which annoys some people, but I love his caustic wit and his sparkling casts of characters. The reader must trek through a great deal of darkness to reach the end, but I like that in most of his works, there's light when you come out of the tunnel.

what I have read

A Christmas Carol
The Pickwick Papers
Martin Chuzzlewit
Little Dorrit

for a rainy autumn day

C.S. Lewis. Despite my desire not to copy Jenny, I can't give a list of favorite authors without including Lewis. Again, I have to be in the right mood for him; I have to be able to handle the otherworldly longing, the mix of sorrow and joy, that threads through many of his works. I can't simply pick up Till We Have Faces any day of the week without feeling the need to cry because of the beauty and reality of the truths that Lewis paints. But it would not be true to say that C.S. Lewis is not still a favorite, because of more so than despite the painful loveliness in his books.

what I have read

The Chronicles of Narnia (7)
The Space Trilogy (3)
Till We Have Faces
The Screwtape Letters
The Great Divorce
Mere Christianity
An Experiment in Criticism

Day One {Favorite Character}

I am really and truly belated on Lerowen's challenge, I know, for which I have the excuse that my blog was booked for the first two weeks of August. However, I have been reading other people's replies and waiting eagerly for a chance to join in the fun, and since I have some free time, I'm now hustling to catch up with everyone else.

For those of you who are not aware of the 15 Day Challenge being hosted by Lerowen over at "Eat...Sleep...Write," the point is to post an answer to the question assigned to that day. This was supposed to begin on August 1 and go to August 15, but you could always be like me and pretend to have an excuse to join really late. So here is my answer to day one's question.

your favorite character you have written

This, like many of the others on the list, is a hard question. If asked several months ago the answer would have been simple enough: Justin King, my main character from Wordcrafter. But as I have progressed in The White Sail's Shaking I have grown more in love with the characters of that story, even Tip, who used to be so ornery that all I wanted to do was shake him and box his ears. I've fallen under the spell of my work in progress - and the spell was a long time in the making! - and so the answer is no longer cut and dry. Therefore, instead of being able to give the definitive answer that I'm sure the question is meant to have, I am forced to dawdle around and do a great deal of hemming and hahing before I come round to the point.

Justin

I love Justin. I think that despite my growing affection for Tip and Charlie and the rest of the White Sail's cast, Justin King will always be first simply because he is a dear. Oh, I certainly had some trouble with him; I couldn't even figure out his name in the first scene I wrote. But it wasn't the trouble that Tip gave me; Justin never sat in a corner and sulked. It was just that Justin wasn't like either Ethan Prince (Wordcrafter) or Charlie Bent (The White Sail's Shaking) and so he didn't come ambling into the story and ask if I had any tea to give him. Justin's shy, and so he took coaxing - but the coaxing paid off, and I now have a character who is, as perhaps only fellow writers will understand, a friend.

Tip

There could not be two characters more different than Justin King and Tip Brighton, which is probably what caused me so much trouble with Tip in the first place. Tip came to me with an occupation and a Christian name. Tip was a midshipman. Tip was a midshipman on the USS Constitution. Tip was a bully.

Tip did not want to be a bully. Tip did not want to be on the Constitution. Tip did not even want to tell me his last name. If you simply boil it down, Tip did not want to cooperate. And he continued to not want to cooperate all throughout November and NaNoWriMo, and, consequently, the first 50,000 words of my novel. I hated him with a passion; I wanted to hit him upside the head and then shake him and demand that he answer my questions and be a good, self-respecting character like Justin.

I don't really know when he started to shape up, but we sorted out our differences in the - well, the middle, not the end. He got his way on a few points: he is no longer a bully and I switched him to the Enterprize instead of the Constitution. And I managed to figure out his last name and get him to cooperate, or myself to cooperate with him. The more I write, the more attached to him I become.

So the result of the examination is that amid the large cast of characters I love, these main ones stand out as two of my favorites because of how juxtaposed they are to each other. They are different in background (Justin is an only child and now an orphan; Tip has a large family in which he feels unaccepted), temperament (Justin is shy and reclusive; Tip is volatile and intrusive), and friends (Justin's best friend is his polar opposite; Tip's is so close to him in temperament that sparks fly on a regular basis), and so I have poured energy into them both in different ways. I love 'em both, and I love Ethan and Charlie and Pierre and Jamie and Darkwood... Nearly all of my characters could have been in this post, really, but I have already stretched this question much farther than it ought to have gone, so I will save them for another time.