Giving Good Tongue

Multitasking is not for everyone and certainly not for every writer. I do not recommend it for the novice because besides the time-consuming aspect, it can be an insane roller coaster of emotions and mixed metaphors (literally).

By intervals, I am finishing a contemporary ghost story, a thriller, and a steampunk fantasy. Plus, I started to outline the NaNoWriMo novel.

Sometimes it feels like there’s an editorial director/ringmaster saying, “Immaletyoufinishbut…”

The next challenge I am immersing myself in is dialect. Dialogue needs to ring to true and that means that characters must use the exactly right words. You wouldn’t have a hippie character in a 1972 story say, “Dude, WTF?” simply because that phrase didn’t exist colloquially yet. If a contemporary character found herself in the middle of 1972, she might think exactly these words to herself – that would make the dialogue (internal in this case) perfectly reasonable.

The steampunk series includes a contemporary character transplanted to a world that includes a class system that very much resembles Victorian England. I’ve determined that the “upper class” will have a Regency feel to it – because they’d be the established “old money” types in the story. And this rule makes me happy.

I could go a little grittier Dickensian for other characters, and develop a colonial dialect for yet another set of characters. Once this is established though, it is important to stick to it for consistency and to lend credence to that particular aspect of realism within the story.

Of course, I love research (because I’m a dork). To prepare for this I’ve engaged in several different activities. The authenticity of individual moments -- scenes, images, and bits of dialogue -- is what attracts me to the process in the steampunk series.

The Internet offers a fantastic resource at Joanna Waugh’s blog (including a book of names, panoramic images and maps, a dictionary of the vulgar tongue, fashion, food, climate, and traveling facts).

Netflix gives me such gems as Downton Abbey, Upstairs, Downstairs, and a host of beautiful period dramas for my inner girlie need for drag. My own collection of dramas gives me access to the full Merchant-Ivory collection.

The Kindle Store and the Guttenberg Project bestow the words of Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Oscar Wilde.

From Audible I feast on the auditory joys of listening to Richard Armitage read two of Georgette Heyer’s novels – and believe me I have listened to them to death! Shut up, it’s for research. Yes, yes, I love the sound of his velvety voice* and melt just thinking of it, but I keep listening because when I start writing and fleshing out some of the scenes necessary to finish volume 1 in The Chronicles of Ash, I need to have the right words, slang and cadence already in my head.

The work is not a romance, I'll never master that; but the romances do several things: they establish a very specific time frame, they combine peerage and rank, they move comfortably between city and country, they quickly paint the political picture of the moment. More importantly, the romance lives and dies by dialogue because unless the story specifically covers the underbelly of polite society with all its twisted perversions, the period folks (at least on paper) gave good tongue.

Right now, I’m all about giving good tongue. It’s all about the words: the right words. Therefore, I curtsy to the music of the spoken word in order to write it better.

(I may also walk around the house with a period head piece, but you need not incorporate cosplay into your research. Still, I hear that if you wear the right costume, the part plays itself...)

* I have Sylvester, aka The Wicked Uncle and The Convenient Marriage. Eventually I'll add Venetia to my collection. I'd kill for Bernard Cornwell's The Lords of the North, but the prices for it are freaking insane. 

There's a Crisp in the Air

October always begins a happy reawakening in me. Autumn to me clears the way for soups and stews and unobstructed creativity.

This year it also includes the beginning of the end as we enter the danger zone of this prolonged period of unemployment; but I can’t despair . . . only excitedly await the transformation at the end of this journey.

Then there’s Halloween!

Speaking of Samhain, my fiend Eliseo has written an e-book about The Celtic Moon Goddess that draws on a multitude of sources and makes way for his own personal discovery on the scholarship of Celtic mythology (which is faith or origin, depending on where you stand). Download a sample of the first few chapters at Smashwords.

Then there’s NaNoWriMo!

I already have the beginning synopsis, part of the outline and started the character study for my novella, May You Grow Old and Fat (click for details published at Kali’s Temple of Doom).

There are going to be large themes to tackle here: from religion to education; from civil rights and responsibilities; greed and power and how they intermarry to create a whole new monster that eats away not only at the souls of the afflicted but also poisons the society that draws from that well.

Of course, my state of mind pretty much guarantees that because I can’t punch someone in the face right now, some characters are going to get quite a beating.

Clarity through literary atrocities: it’s cheaper than therapy.

Then it’s December! 

That means several things from my birthday to Jesus’ own, but to me it means Armitage in The Hobbit.

Somewhere between now and year’s end, I want to release The Scent of Honeysuckle (ghost story =>  Halloween: seems like a natural), finish Poetic Justice or the first installment of Chronicles of Ash. Details can be found here.

The rest is life and I’ll do as I must until it self-corrects and I can overcome.

Inspiration for Independence Day

Go to your room or, so help me, by the Macaroni Monster, 

I'll kill you where you stand!

Independence Day is a modern day fantasy about motherhood in which a woman makes one last ditch effort to bond with her teenager, and one of the vignettes in Because She Was a Woman.

* ~*~ *

We had a friend who after an acrimonious matrimony and a contentious divorce, moved cross-country to be closer to her family and raise her children with a support system. She had not intended on becoming a single mother, but then few people dream of that particular circumstance.

As with parenthood in all its forms, there were good days and bad days and days when infanticide seemed like a viable solution.

We were visiting them once, probably around Thanksgiving, and the kids had been fighting for days before our arrival and the war continued after we were settled. Finally at her wits’ end, she screamed threateningly, “If you two can’t live together in peace, I’ll just have to separate you and ship one of you off to live with your father!”

We fell silent, horrified at the severity of that statement.

The boy understood immediately that they’d crossed a line with mom and quietly retreated to his room (to think about what he had done).

The girl though, she was different. Daddy’s girl, she resented her mother for being. First she had to compete for his attention with her, but then after the divorce, that woman took her away from the love of her life. And obviously, as any Daddy’s Girl will assert, he didn’t do anything wrong. He could do no wrong!

She too retreated to her own corner room and came back out some 20 minutes later with a well rehearsed message.

“Mommy,” she said. “I believe that because I am eldest, if you are going to separate us and send one of us to live with daddy, it should be me.”

Her brother looked shell shocked. I looked from her mother to my own mother and I saw heartbreak – pure and unadulterated heartbreak. The girl, for her tweenie part, looked at her mother defiantly, ready to argue her position and unaware of the hurt she’d caused.

How could she know? In her mind she was still the center of the universe. But her universe was out of whack, because her universe was her daddy. Children are infuriating that way; sometimes well into their mid-30s…

I wonder though, how many mothers fantasize about the ultimate comeuppance for their ungrateful children. Most would never act on it, I realize. Most, in fact, despite the overwhelming urge to kill their young, simply love us and try to set us straight without committing felonies.

There are felonies in Independence Day, but not the ones you presume.

Because She Was a Woman is available at Amazon and the Kindle Store, Smashwords, and CreateSpace.

Reviving the Literary Vignette

“Life is comprised of thousands of fleeting moments. These are fleeting moments in the lives of a dozen women…” Thus begins a collection of vignettes Because She Was a Woman.

The goal of the vignettes is to have the characters and a detail or two of their day or their lives seep into the consciousness of the reader – in the way that the details come alive in the readers’ own imagination. Some of the stories and characters are there to make the reader question the status quo, to turn stereotypes on their heads, to dare to suggest that women often are far more than what they appear to be skin deep.

In How Nadine and Libby Escaped Destiny, the original story that was the seed of the collection, a child is playing outside an old trailer and her mother watches her from within as the essence of the moment unfolds. It is a sad tale with haunting images; a tragedy that aspires to a happy ending.

In Rebirth a woman discovers the joys of starting anew with the help of a friend and has a moment of complete abandon.

In Imbroglio Royale, Lana goes through the motions and keeps on going desperately trying to find “normal” after wondering when her life turned into an episode of reality television.

The Proposal explores a moment of victory in a stifling situation for Lenora.

Fair Game, based on a true story, follows Rosa as she goes on a job interview that turns out much differently than expected.

Independence Day is a modern day fantasy about motherhood in which a woman makes one last ditch effort to bond with her teenager.

The Poet is the heartbreaking tale of a woman contemplating the true meaning of ‘masterpiece’ in the middle of the apocalypse.

Not Gwen is the tale of a woman living a masked existence for one last day, an exploration of cultural identity and survival. (Click here to read my inspiration for this story.)

Promises and Expectations is the transcript of a woman’s video essay explaining why she should be approved for a special program she believes will bring her true happiness.

In Is This Love? a woman visits her mother in a convalescent home and contemplates her history, happiness, and dementia.

Child of God finds Nino dispossessed because her neighbors disapprove of her lifestyle choices.

The Next ‘It’ Couple is a study of a woman of humble beginnings reaches the pinnacle of glamour and success and meets the love of her life, but does it matter at all?

The collection is available at Smashwords and Kindle Store now. The paperback is available at CreateSpace and will soon follow at Amazon. Additional online retailers like Apple, Diesel, Kobo and Sony will follow in the coming weeks.

Embracing Freelancing

I’ve just added a professional services page at the Amapola Press website including rates for e-book formatting services to insure inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog. As an Smashwords author with a dozen fiction titles (some with images) and three non-fiction titles with linked tables of content, all in the Premium Catalog, I think I’ve proven myself quite adept at e-book formatting for Smashwords Editions.

Apparently, some authors find e-book formatting nightmarish. Personally, I think most writers complicate matters because they insist on formatting documents in ways they can read on their computers and some are still thinking about the way print books look and try to emulate that. This doesn’t work…

I have seen the endless threads on Kindleboards with new authors who after numerous attempts still have autovetter errors and simply cannot get into the Premium Catalog. I understand their frustration and I can alleviate it.

Of course, inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog allows distribution to Apple (distribution to iBookstores in 32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, WH Smith in the UK and FNAC (both powered by Kobo), the Diesel eBook Store,  eBooks Eros (operated by Diesel), Baker & Taylor (Blio and the Axis360 library service), Page Foundry (operates retail sites Inktera.com and Versent.com; and Android e-book store apps for Cricket Wireless and Asus).

Rates start at $35, with additional charges for linked TOCs/footnotes/endnotes and images.

A deposit, payable by PayPal, can be made at the Amapola Press website after project acceptance and delivery generally takes less than four days.

Indie authors may contact us through the Amapola Press website with details (contact form in Home Page). E-book manuscripts can be accepted in PDF, Word and Open Office documents – which may be uploaded to Google documents or instruction will be sent to e-mail. Final formatted e-books will then be returned by e-mail so indie authors can upload their files.

If the project requires more than one attempted submission, no additional charges will be incurred. Charges are for formatting only, and the goal is inclusion to the Premium Catalog. I guarantee it.

Be warned: If your book is filled with gross typographic errors, Smashwords will not accept into the Premium Catalog, even if the formatting is perfect. E-book formatting service does not include editing, copy editing or proofreading.

I had not intended on doing this long-term, but it looks like it’s beyond a hobby now and I have immersed myself deeply into this “experiment”. So this is me embracing it fully.

Penetrating the Formula

source: iclipart

A few years ago, a friend of mine turned me on to these sci-fi novels that shall remain nameless here. Set in space and with a female protagonist, I threw myself into the series with fervor and glee.

Soon a romantic element was introduced, and although romance is not my thing I was willing to tolerate its intrusion as long as that did not dominate the story.

To my surprise, “romance” was hardly the correct label for what passed as a relationship between these characters – especially because their carnal relations more closely resembled the legal definition of rape.

I want to blame Ayn Rand for this trend but I don’t know that she was the first to write in a rape scene and pass it off as some sort of relationship. It certainly was the first time I read such a thing. I chose to disassociate the rape scene from my reading experience and I cannot say that it ruined The Fountainhead for me, but the shock of it has stayed with me my entire adult life.

As far as the writer of the sci-fi series, I also read another of her fantasy series and she repeated this habit.

I was horrified. (And no, I will not add to the ridiculous discussion on the subject of sexual assault that passes for political discourse these days.)

Yet, as offensive and baffling as this idea was to me, what turned me off to her writing eventually was the increasingly annoying and ever more frequent and glaring typos in her books. It was like she couldn’t write that drivel fast enough for her publisher to actually copy edit the shit!

Don’t get me wrong, the stories were fun. And I suspect that they sold precisely because they were quick and fun reads. Who doesn’t love a quickie?

I bring it up because there is an ongoing conversation at Kindleboards and at countless blogs about the success of 50 Shades of Gray.

Craig Ferguson summed it up perfectly. He said he doesn’t mind sexy bits in his literature as long as what precedes it includes clever words.

The Shades of Gray series is notoriously badly written, by all accounts, and yet remains in the bestseller lists for print and e-books alike (with no signs of going limp, if you’d pardon the vulgarity).

It turns out that most readers don’t give a flying fuck. Apparently this Reading Elite that constantly complains about the quality of e-books are not the same majority who actually buys them, because only the Grammar Nazis and other writers seem to be offended by the spanking E.L. James gives the English language.

This makes me wonder whether I should deliberately allow typos and run-on sentences to remain in my work; throw in a bitch slap and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, and KA-CHING!

If only life were as easy and submissive as Anastasia Steele. Actually, that wouldn't work for me... I prefer my life to come with a little more kick. Sigh, I'll stop now.

My Brain Has Gone All Euro!

August has hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t really have an explanation for it other than I have been stunned into inaction.

All creativity has not exactly stopped but rather slowed to a quantum level. Ideas are not roiling so much as simmering.

It’s not exactly a matter of staring blankly at a white page with nothing to say but more a matter of having no desire to open the page and get started. There’s a to-do list foremost in my mind. What is missing is the drive to start checking things off.

It feels as if my brain has simply sent itself off on a late summer holiday, given up on the idea of getting anything else done and left the rest of me to hold the fort.

That’s right: my brain has gone fishin’ till autumn arrives!

In the meantime, I doodle the imagined faces of the heroines of the upcoming Because She Was A Woman, my volume of a dozen vignettes. Pictured above is my first try at The Poet, the lead character in a heartbreaking piece about love, life and poetry. I’m thinking of including the art work in the paperback version.

That’s probably the most I can manage until September arrives and my brain returns…