September 3, 2013

Bits and Pieces

pinterest: wordcrafter
College began last week.  There was the usual (at least I presume it's usual: it's all new to me) bustle and flurry and headache trying to get classes sorted out, dropping and adding and arranging.  At first I had no early classes, but the way things have since worked out, I now have one at 8:30.  Oh well, it's not so very bad.  There are assignments due already, which does seem just a little cruel, but as I slide now into the second week I feel I have a better handle on my schedule.

(But that may be denial.)

Inspiration for blog posts remains low.  Have I talked myself out?  It's quite possible; but then, it is also possible that I am merely in that annoying in between stage of not properly writing a novel, and so can't seem to dredge up Things to Write About.  I may have mentioned before, but my brain has three gears: editing; brain-storming; and writing.  They don't seem to mix. 

However, even without anything really serious to talk about, there are little things to share.  Today the mad dash of school and anxiety has slowed and the brain is not quite so feverish.  With homework for tomorrow finished, I have enough of a breathing space to sit down and write something to give you a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes of Scribbles

kitten-sitting

I am sitting in the bonus room of my home, watching Jenny's two kittens mill about the place and begin to get their bearings - we're keeping the little stinkers for the next three months, while Jenny is off in Scotland, and are trying to ease them gently into the routine of the place.  I'm afraid they might have heart-attacks when they do finally come face to face with our own three cats, who look like creatures from Where the Wild Things Are compared to Minnow and Aquila.  

At the moment they are being kept in isolation, and they seem to be adjusting.   Minnow is "playing the cello"; Aquila heard the vacuum cleaner running downstairs and has slunk under the bed.  It's quiet for the moment, since every time I turn on Loreena McKennitt the kittens go bug-eyed and run around as if we're being invaded by purple elephants in pink tutus.  I don't see what they can possibly have against "Caravanserai."

reading

I think I've got about a hundred books to read for classes this semester, though fortunately not all at once.  (You do, however, have to buy them all at once.  I can just hear the booksellers going "ka-ching! ka-ching!" as classes start.)  Textbooks and supplemental reading, and one very interesting little thing for history class about the development of the book itself as technology.  

In between those, I have managed to squeeze in some pleasure reading.  I picked up Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca - yes, the one it seems everybody has already read - last week and have been greedily devouring it.  Except that I got to the Big Reveal last night before bed, and had a bit of trouble getting to sleep.  I saw the twist coming, either because I am clever or because I had already read about it in someone's review.  For those of you who have read it, though, don't give any spoilers because I'm not done yet.

For lighter reading, I'm rambling along through The Hounds of the Morrigan - because sometimes a good fat fantasy is just the sort of thing one needs.  It's a bit crazy and absurd, and I haven't gotten to the overarching point yet, but the characters of Pidge and Brigit are good enough for me.  Brigit reminds me of Luna Lovegood, she's so utterly random.

"You know what it's like when you're waiting for something."
"Yes.  It's like being kept in a bag and hung up on a nail."
Pidge thought he knew what Brigit meant but he wasn't sure.

writing

Other than the assignments which are already flooding in, I've not been doing a terrific amount of writing: a little here and there in my writing notebook, a short companion piece to Tempus Regina.  The next project is being cranky, but I can't very well complain, since there would hardly be time for me to give it the attention it needed even if it weren't.  Though I don't like not writing, in this case it is probably a good thing that I have to be patient.  In the meantime, I scribble a little and work on other things.
 

August 20, 2013

The Glorification of Death

pinterest
With the first round of edits complete and the novel sent out to readers, I've moved on to the process of query-writing.  Not that any queries will actually be going out for some time yet, but it seemed like a good idea to buckle down and begin the work.  I think the current version is #3.  Getting there, getting there...

The process of researching and noting agencies is, as always, enjoyably frustrating: enjoyable because hey, books! and people to query! and frustrating because there are just so many pages to trawl through.  I am, however, beginning to memorize the agents of such bestselling novelists as Suzanne Collins, Cassandra Clare, Scott Westerfeld, and Stephenie Meyer.  And then there are the ones whose works are represented by more than one agency, and that just gets confusing.

Poking through lists of recent fantasy novels, I've also begun to notice trends.  One is that most of these books get some pretty awesome covers, and could I have a cover like that?  Why, yes, thank you, I will take the cover of Wither!  The second, though, is that dark seems to be incredibly in at the moment.  Everywhere I turn I see yet another book about the undead; about vampire-slaying; about the end of the world; about romance between a human and a devil or an angel and a devil or a SOMETHING and a devil.  Vampires are going out of vogue (Twilight is so 2005) and dystopian is in, but even in young adult novels technically labelled "fantasy," horror seems to be the overriding element. 

This is not to say that all of these are badly written.  I'm sure some of them are; I suppose some of them may very well not be.  Nor do I have what you would call an iron stomach, so perhaps I'm not qualified to judge the creepiness level of any book.  However, seeing all these books lined up in virtual rows and reading all these queries of books that sold has made me wonder where exactly the obsession with death came from.  Death is something alien to the way things ought to be and there is, or used to be, a healthy dread of it.  Now it seems to be embraced. 

I don't believe Christians ought to shy away from addressing the hard, dirty problems of the world: on the contrary, I think the attitude of treading on eggshells that believing writers adopt is part of the reason our literature is so terribly insipid.  Death is a hard, dirty problem that must be faced.  What I wonder in looking over recent publications is whether they are no longer treating it as a problem, or whether the authors are attempting to confront the problem and failing.  And I wonder, too, whether readers are not being inoculated to the issue by the prevalence of horror and skewed spiritual ideas.  If the trend continues, will it not become harder and harder to battle a problem that readers no longer imagine to be a problem?

What think you?

 
meet the authoress
I am a writer of historical fiction and fantasy, scribbling from my home in the United States. More importantly, I am a Christian, which flavors everything I write. My debut novel, "The Soldier's Cross," was published by Ambassador Intl. in 2010.
find me elsewhere
take my button

Followers

published writings






The Soldier's Cross: Set in the early 15th Century, this is the story of an English girl's journey to find her brother's cross pendant, lost at the Battle of Agincourt, and of her search for peace in the chaotic world of the Middle Ages.
finished writings






Tempus Regina:Hurled back in time and caught in the worlds of ages past, a Victorian woman finds herself called out with the title of the time queen. The death of one legend and the birth of another rest on her shoulders - but far weightier than both is her duty to the brother she left alone in her own era. Querying.
currently writing



Wordcrafter: "One man in a thousand, Solomon says / will stick more close than a brother. / And it's worthwhile seeking him half your days / if you find him before the other." Justin King unwittingly plunges into one such friendship the day he lets a stranger come in from the cold. Wordcount: 124,000 words

Bookmarks In...

Search This Blog