Author: cherylmahoney

I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).

November Plans

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo2 Comments

Psychologically speaking, it’s hard to notice the absence of something–or so I’ve read.  All the same, you may have noticed that I did not post yesterday, November 1st, about National Novel Writing Month.  I’ve completed NaNoWriMo six times, including the past four years.  It’s always a lot of fun, and I’ve achieved some big writing goals.  But NaNo doesn’t fit into my writing plans this year.

I’ve been deep in revisions for my Phantom of the Opera retelling for most of the year.  I finished Book One just in the past month.  My goal was to get Book Two to beta-readers by the end of the year.  Considering Book One took much longer than I expected, that may be a lofty goal…but I’m still hopeful!

And so I’m doing my own writing goal this November.  It doesn’t make sense to track words, because revisions don’t quite work that way, so instead I want to track time.  From all those past NaNos, I’ve learned that I can do about 400 words in a 15-minute writing sprint.  Multiplying it all out, 50,000 words for NaNo takes me about an hour a day, or 30 hours in November.

My life is pretty hectic at the moment, so I’m not trying to commit to 30 hours of revising–but I do intend to do 15 hours of revising, or about half-an-hour a day.  If it goes well in November, I’ll try it again in December.

I don’t really know how far that will get me in revising–because I’ve never done this before!  But I do know that writing goals tend to be attainable if I set them, and that the muse tends to work things out.  When I set out to finish my Phantom trilogy for NaNoWriMo, with literally no idea how much of it was left, I finished it in 50,009 words–no joke!  So we’ll see if it turns out that Book Two needs thirty hours of revision.

I’ll keep posting Writing Wednesday updates, and we’ll see how this goes!

Writing Wednesday: Knowing One’s Role

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing2 Comments

I reached a big milestone recently–I finally finished (for now, at least!) revisions on the first book of my Phantom of the Opera trilogy.  I’ve gone straight on to revisions for Book Two, and will likely post about that in the near future too.  But it’s also nice to celebrate work accomplished.  I’ll likely come back to this first book for a quick read-through after I’ve done more on Book Two, making sure everything still lines up, but in substantive ways, this one is done.

So today I’m going to celebrate by sharing one of my favorite exchanges in the book.  And in some way it feels an appropriate one for Halloween too.  Meg and the Phantom speak to each other very, very rarely in the first book (this changes in Book Two!) but they are together in the final scene.  So here’s a glimpse at the very last chapter, and how each of my protagonists views their role in the story–at this point, at least.  Although, of course, they’re both wrong…

*********

He looked back over his shoulder at me, and I wished so much that I could see his face, for whatever hint his expression might have given me.  No clues revealed themselves in his perfectly calm voice as he said, “You realize, of course, that I’m the villain in this story.”

I couldn’t tell if I should take that as funny or tragic, so I half-smiled and said, “I won’t hold it against you.”  Then I shrugged, and the same impulse that had made me confess loneliness led me to add, “If you don’t hold it against me that I’m only a supporting character.”

He didn’t agree or argue, merely turned away.  He continued his silent walk a few more paces, until he could leap down into the shadows of the orchestra pit—and was gone.  I didn’t know of an exit from that spot, but I was sure there was no point in going to the edge to see if he was still there.

Blog Hop: Not Too Horrible Horror

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop2 Comments

book-blogger-hop-finalToday’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Recommend one horror novel for non-horror readers.

Well, I’m a non-horror reader, so I suppose I can recommend the very few horror novels I’ve read!  My Stephen King reading stands only at Secret Window, Secret Garden, which I read long ago after the movie came out–I remember it being pretty good, though I thought King had a cleverer ending, only the movie told theirs better.  Make of that what you will!

I’ve done a few classic horror books.  I didn’t find Stoker’s Dracula very disturbing.  A friend who read the book alone late at night disagreed though, so your experience may vary!

I think Frankenstein is considered very early sci fi, but if it can be considered horror, I did like that one very much–despite the fact that I hated Victor Frankenstein, the narrator.  One of the cleverest things I’ve seen on Facebook was a meme reading “Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the Monster.  Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster.”

Gothic is not exactly horror (ish?) but I greatly enjoy Northanger Abbey, Austen’s gothic parody.  It gets a bad rap somehow, but it’s my favorite!

And perhaps Gaston Leroux’s classic Phantom of the Opera would fall into the horror category too.  An interesting read, though more interesting through the lens of the versions that came afterwards.  I really wonder, had no one made the Lon Chaney silent Phantom, if Leroux’s book would have quietly sunk into obscurity.  But I’m glad it didn’t!

Do you have a favorite horror read to recommend for non-horror readers like me?

Blog Hop: Literary Disguise

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog HopLeave a comment

book-blogger-hop-finalToday’s Book Blogger Hop question is: If you were to dress up as a literary figure {author or character} for Halloween, who would it be?

I have dressed up as a literary figure–I was September from The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland several years ago.  Probably long enough that I could bring it out for another Halloween!  I still have the orange dress in my closet (it’s not especially attractive, unfortunately), and I periodically wear the Coat of the Green Wind.

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of dressing as Lyra, my lead character from The Storyteller and Her Sisters.  I have a blue cloak that would be period-appropriate, and it wouldn’t be too hard to find a blue medieval-ish dress.  And I’m sure I have a nice old book I could carry under one arm…

I’ve thought about other costumes, but the dilemma is to find a favorite character with a distinctive enough look to be recognizable–which is harder than you’d think.  Though no one recognized my September costume anyway!

Have you dressed as a literary figure?  Did people know who you were?

Writing Wednesday: Gabrielle’s Necklace

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing2 Comments

I’ve almost finished another rapid pass through my Phantom novel, putting in references to Meg’s sister–because I decided she did have one.  Though I’m not 100% sure that won’t change again!  But for now I’ve dropped in a few references to her sister Gabrielle, who died before the novel began, and even more references to the necklace Meg is wearing throughout the book now.

I realized this was an excellent opportunity to give Meg a tell-tale habitual gesture–and now she touches her necklace whenever she’s feeling lonely, alone or disappointed by her friends.  And perhaps the excerpt below will explain why!

*****

I wished I could talk to someone about the Phantom, really talk about the Phantom, but that someone was not ever going to be the police inspector.  He was the last person I wanted to tell about the man in the mask.

“Meg Giry knows about the Phantom,” a voice announced.  The words made me start and I turned my head to find the speaker.  Jammes, of course.  “Her mother is the Phantom’s boxkeeper.”

Enough gazes were directed towards me that Inspector Mifroid had no difficulty identifying me.  He paced closer, pencil poised above the notebook’s open page.  “Your name, mademoiselle?” He looked at me out of cold gray eyes that didn’t seem as comfortable and at ease as I had expected.  A smirk still lingered in the corner of his mouth, but the eyes were serious.  I felt myself go still and grow small under that gaze.

“Marguerite Giry,” I said, my voice sounding small too.  My hand crept up to touch my necklace.

His gaze followed my hand and he said, “With a G, of course.”

I blinked, then realized he was looking at the G engraved on the small gold disk of my necklace.  It was not for Giry.  It was for Gabrielle.  Somewhere my mother had a matching necklace with an M on it, my necklace, but I had worn Gabrielle’s ever since—well, for years.

I was as likely to tell the police inspector about Gabi as I was to tell him about the man in the mask.  So I only said, “Yes.”