My way continued

I talked about the when and the where in the last posting. The next step in my way means I have to find the characters. For this book I needed a hero, a heroine and at least one villain plus characters that would be important to this story and would perhaps become important to the other stories in what I now saw as a trilogy. One thing I really need to learn is to name my characters. Some people may think this is strange but until my characters have a name I really can't write about them. Somehow the name helps me define their character. For my current book the name I chose for the heroine was Tira and that name just popped into my head. Finding the names for the other characters was more difficult. I took some of the books I have about Egypt and used the names I found there to develop character names. The hero became Kashe. Hos older brother became Pian. There was a reason for these names sunce I was injecting some Nubian influences into the characters. Tira is a young black woman and Pian is a throwback to an ancestory his father has tried to deny. Kashe's younger brother is named Namose which is a take off of an ancient Egyptian name. Of course when I began the rough draft of the story, Kashe's younger brother was his sister called Merin. The change came about during the planning of the story. I'll explain later. Now for some villains. The nomarch of Mero and his son Pian are among the less that nice characters and so are the priests of Aken Re. There are two main ones in the story. Oris and Hebu, these men have come from a different country, actually they belong to the Hyksos, the mysterious invaders of the land. One more character crept in and this was Tuten, a retired member of the nomarch's guard and Kashe's mentor. Once I had the characters there were other needed things but that will come later.

Ideas

Writers get an idea and run with it to strange and interesting places. Let me show you how this works. I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt and have used it in one book but I wanted to do perhaps a time travel using the setting of the area where I've read many books. So I thought of a number of things that would be needed. Where was easy and that led me to do reading in one of the many books I have. Actually this was kind of an encyclopedia of Egypt. One thing I learned was there were no camels in Egypt until around 1 AD. That sort of took me on a turn. I really wanted camels and horses and chariots. This was when I decided I needed to cast the story in a different Egypt or an alternate world with enough the same to make the world recoganizable. Once I had the basic research done, I was ready to plan. To plan, I need to know how my story ends. I also plan the way I'm going to get there. Not that this is carved in stone and in future posts I'll show how this happened with this story and with other stories.

Writing My Way

I'll be posting some writing tips here several times a week. When I began writing, I read every book I could find about how to write and I tried and picked a bit from this one and a bit from that book and evolved my own system, sort of. I am partly a plotter and partly a pantster. This often confuses my critique group since my early drafts are very sparse as far as detail. I'll be talking here about ideas and how they develop into stories, about the various things I need to know before I can begin writing and about the drafts I do and the lists I make. I absolutely love drafts. For me writing is sort of like painting in that I apply layers after layers until I find I can't continue to add to the story. Then I breath a sigh of relief.

More on Shape Shifters -- Why

Many people have thought of becoming an animal. I know I have. The reason for this is probably unique to each individual. What animal would you like to be. I'd opt for a cat, not a small cat but lately I've been spending some time with the large cats. Lions are group oriented and there is strength in numbers but they're not my first choice. I'm quite partial to cheetahs. In Africa, they're the smallest of the large cats and the fastest. They're also pretty. Leopards are beautiful cats but more solitary than most of the large Africal cats. They eat alone even when they have cubs. That's more aloneness than I'd like.

Now we get to the why. Why do I want to be a cat rather than some other animal? I'm not a dog person. Wolves and bears aren't my thing either. I'd choose a cheetah for all the things I'm not. Fast, pretty and predatory. That may be what attracts us to shape shifters. They can do the things we can't or won't.

Any opinions.

Shapeshifters and other weres

I'm fascinated by shapeshifting characters in books and have never written one, but perhaps one day I will. I think I prefer cats or maybe dragons but Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton have done a good job with shapeshifting dragons. At least they had a good way of showing where the extra weight went. Dragons definitely weigh more than men and women. In fact my first encounter with shapeshifters was in Andre Norton's Witch World Series books I've read time and again.

Some of my friends and critique partners write about shape shifters, Jane Toombs recently sent my a blurb about one of her shifters. Dance Of The Cedar Cat from Eternal Press is a werecat story. Sussie has been trained by her grandmother to always go though a ritual on full moon nights where she chants Finnish words and locks a little cedar cat inside a box. As an adult, she sometimes forgets--until one night, under a full moon, something mind-calls to her to strip off her clothes and come out and join him in a dance. The first time, she rushes to the little cedar cat, chants, locks it in the box, and the urge to join whatever it is out there fades. But the time comes when she answers the call--and finds out what she really is... Haven't read it yet but will download it into my reader if it's available.

Jenna Kernan is a critique partner and her shapeshifters come in various kinds. Her first one out is a bear. The book is Dream Stalker and she uses Native American myths as a background for her stories. I've heard the book in part but I haven't read the end which I will as soon as I finish a book about dragons I'm reading.

I met Sara Taney Humphries at a book signing. I didn't buy a print copy of the book but I did download it into my reader. Her shapeshifters belong to one of ten animal clans. In The Amoveo Legacy her hero belongs to the Golden Eagle clan. The woman fated to be his mate is a hybrid whose father was of the Gray Wolf clan and her mother was human. Samantha has no idea of her heritage. The story tells of the troubles they face from others who do not want them to mate. I enjoyed the book very much.

The last one I'll talk about here is a hoot. The Seattle Barista Killer by Murdoch Hughes. We share a publisher in Mundania Press. I heard about this book for several years before publication. His hero is a vegan werewolf detective named Harley. He's really only half werewolf and sort of a loner. This book quite tickled my funny bone and still does with re-reading. As a detective Harley sets out to learn who is killing baristas, young women who work in coffee bars in Seattle. A sense of smell is quite an asset for a detective.

So if anyone wants to share their shapeshifters or help me find a way to turn the large cats I love into shifters feel free to post. Janet

Dragons

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Monday, November 2, 2009

Dragons
Creatures of myth. Creatures of dreams or even nightmares. Tales of dragons are found in many cultures. Dragons of the air, the earth or the sea. All types of dragons have been imagined by men. Dragons sitting on their hoards of jewels. Dragons breathing fire to destroy towns. Dragons being hunted by valiant knights to rescue maidens or safe towns. Magic beasts. Ones engineered by science. Dragons who help and dragons who harm.

Dragons have many faces as shown in stories penned by authors.I've read many of the tales of dragons and have a number of stories on my shelves or in my ereader. Among my favorite are the dragons of Pern. Dragons who were engineered for a specific purpose. Yjamks to Anne McCaffrey for many hours of fun. Another of my favorites is Temeraire, a fighting dragon and the hero of a series of books in an alternate world by Naomi Novik. There are probably a dozen or more other dragons and writers who have brought their creatures to life.

On the shelf above my computer is a dragon collection, including one made by my oldest grandson by chance when he was doing splatter art in nursery school. There are cloth dragons, glass dragons, pens and lamps. I'm not sure the menagerie inspire me to keep writing but they have influenced two of my stories.The Dragons of Fyre is the story of dragons threatened by an evil man who sells their hides to the wizards of Fyre. A yellow dragon, the Old One, a green dragon, Verde aid the hero and heroine as they battle to save the dragons. These dragons are magical creatures but they do not flame. Their riders either physically fly on they or fly the dragons during a mind meld.

The Amber Dragon is a novella that will be released next year. Here a spoiled princess is turned into a dragon by an evil magician. To become human again, she must entice a prince to kiss her. Problem is, she has insulted all the princes in the surrounding kingdoms. She does encounter a prince transported from another world to hers. The story revolves around her attempts to gain her kiss and the prince's quest for a kingdom.

So tell me about your favorite dragons, either the ones you've read about or the ones whose stories you've told.

The Vampire as a Hero

I like to read and an enamoured of heros and sometimes heroines. The strong, the stubborn, those willing to take risks are often on my hit list. Heroines will have other times here. Today I want to speak of one hero I am not able to love.

To readers -- if you find my least likely hero one of yours make a comment telling me why you find him fascinating.

To writers -- if one of your heroes can claim this status, tell me about him. Either leave a comment here or email me and I'll let you have your say and even post a small except (PG please) that shows why he is entitled to be a hero.

I cannot give my heart to a vampire hero but I'm sure I could be convinced. To me a vampire makes the perfect villain. After all, he'd dead. In my former career as a nurse I came in contact with the dead. Their skin is cold and kind of clammy. Is this the stuff of heroes. Another thing about the dead is the flaccidity of their limbs both before and after rigor has occurred. I ask you, does a woman need a limp hero?

Then there's the blood-sucking aspect. I do not like rare meat. The taste of blood is unpleasant. As a nurse I've dealt with blood including giving transfusions for blood loss. That seems to be the reason a vampire drinks a victim's blood. Except the dead don't need transfusions. What always pops into my mind when I read of a vampire hero feeding is a leech. A creature of the swamp that fastens to an animal or a human and sucks their blood. A leech is not a pretty creature.

I am sure there are more reasons but these are the most important. So tell me why a vampire should be thought of as a hero.

Advice on becoming a writer

Years ago when I first began to dream about becoming a writer, I went to a one day writer's seminar. The main speaker was a well-known author, but after many years I can't remember his name. He said three things about becoming an author that have stuck with me for the forty years I've pursued my dream.

1. You have to wish to be an author. For me this means the dreams I had since I was a child and the stories I tried to write and seldom completed but I kept dreaming even while I pursued other goals, like becoming a nurse and being a mother.

2. You have to want to be an author. To me this means more than just the wish. This means reading other authors, reading books about how to write and most of all sending one's writings into the world. This can be hard because there is the rejection and leads to the third piece of advice.

3. You have to need to be an author. I remember him saying rejections shouldn't matter. You have to keep writing and sending things to editors. This piece of advide was about persistence and about obsession. Persistence is a writer's best friend and obsession is what drives the dream. So it all comes to a circle.

EPICON Part 3

I went to EPICON deciding to do little but of course once there, I decided to volunteer to sit at the registration desk. Enjoy this since it allows me to meet and greet people. I did not get my wish. Carol blessed me for volunteering and asked if I would monitor several of the speakers. Now I hadn't planned on going to anything except maybe the publisher's panel. so I was prepared to be semi-bored. Not bored for a minute. The first panel was run by Lorna and Larry Collins, friends from Virginia Beach. They spoke about Money, Wealth and Happiness. Not at all what I expected but things I quite agreed with, especially the part about neither money or wealth brings happiness. Wealth sort of does but it's a wealth of friends that makes one happy.
Panel I should have gone to but ended up in the bookstore selling a few books. This was Reading on the IPhone. Not that I intend to do this but the speaker, Neelan Choksi was eye-candy. Had time to talk to him later and was proud of myself being able to carry on a normal conversation.
My second monitoring gig was for a panel run by Karen Hobson, Blogging For $$$. Here I learned some interesting facts. The best amount of posts to ones blogs should be Three times a week. Sporadic will never do it. So far I've failed in this area. I also learned I should have more than one blog since I write more than one kind of material. She suggested paying for someone to set up the initial blog and use the free ones to link to the blog. At present not for me.
Now for a bit about the KeyNote Luncheon and the speaker, Penny Sansevieri, a publicist who has a million good ideas and was a very energizing speaker. I bought her book about using the internet for promotion and will start using it soon.
When I blog tomorrow, I'll be talking about the faces I put to names and a lot of old friends.

EPICON Part 2

On arriving at the restort to check in, the first person I saw was Carol. We'd met in Virginia Beach. Her first words were "Sorry it's so cold." I laughed. Coming from 17 degrees, 70 was hot. Settled and began to explore and find lunch. In Virginia Beach I was five months past a double knee replacement and walking was still not fun. The building we were in was a walk and steps to the place where food was to be found. Walking was great. Ate lunch at an Irish Pub. Potato and Leek soup. Sort of played into part of my heritage since among my 57 varieties I do have some Irish and Scot's blood. Wandered around. Not all of the shops were open but they had some neat ones and some great bargains. Back to the resort and hung out with some of the attendees. Met several people I hadn't met before. Sherry and Honey Jans are two I recall. Brain being partially dead due to the time difference. Found Marilyn and Hap and coaxed him to drag my books to the bookstore along with hers. This is a great couple. Met them at the first EPICON in Omaha and went to a great Persian restaurant while waiting to leave for the airport. Someday I'll write about the trip home a real interesting time. Books settled in and forms filled. Then dinner at a Mexican place. Great food.
Time for the Mixer. Kathy and I were almost the first ones but people began to arrive. Marilyn. Connie Crow came with her amazing machine. Then there was Helen of the Cynical Woman fame. She and I had met in Virginia beach and her darling girls. The girls stayed home with Dad. Talked to a lot of people. Had a couple of drinks and then the time change began to take effect so returned.
This year I had decided I would do no program and just attend the conference. Doesn't always work that way as you will see when I do another part.