As you may remember from last month, my writing group, Stonehenge, has started a group blog. I have a new post up there today, about how writing can affect reading, and how reading from the wrong mind can sometimes cause trouble… I hope you drop by to take a look!
Tag: Writing
Introducing the Twelve Dancing Princesses
Long-time readers may remember that for NaNo 2011, I wrote the first draft of a novel based around the fairy tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (or The Shoes That Were Worn to Pieces). I’ve finally completed a revision of my other major writing project, The Wanderers, and I’m now about a month into revising the princesses’ novel, The Storyteller and Her Sisters.
Since it’s rather occupying my life 🙂 how about an excerpt? You can read this post if you want more context on the fairy tale, but you don’t really need it. This is roughly Page 3 of the novel, and begins to introduce some of the principle characters…
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I think the real beginning of the story, for my sisters and me, was the day the Gate opened.
On that day, Vira, the oldest, was twenty-four. The youngest, Talya, was fifteen. I was seventeen. We are each spaced a neat year apart, except for the two sets of twins.
It was evening when the Gate opened, and though that evening proved momentous, I remember little about the day that preceded it. I assume it was the usual round of embroidery, penmanship and dancing lessons—we are all excellent dancers. Whatever we did, it had to have been inside my father’s castle. We were never allowed to leave. The day no doubt closed with supper in the banquet hall with Father. Such ran every day.
And in the evening, all my sisters were in our bedroom, brushing hair, pursuing hobbies, and chatting about a thousand different topics. Rather like most girls, I think—not that I’d had a great deal of experience with a great many girls. But I had read things.
Twelve of us shared a single bedroom, and there were days when it felt incredibly cramped. In reality it was a large room, long and with a high ceiling. There was a door at one end and a fireplace at the other, beds stretching in two rows down the length of the room. I suppose we didn’t undergo that much hardship in our living conditions—though I defy anyone to share a bedroom with eleven sisters for fourteen years and not come up with a few complaints.
Such as the problem of eternally being interrupted in the good parts of stories. Continue reading “Introducing the Twelve Dancing Princesses”
Launching Stonehenge Writers
It’s a new year, and I have exciting news to share–I’ve joined a group blog!
During 2012, I joined Stonehenge, a writing critique group with a loose focus on speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror). I’ve met many amazing people, and they’ve given me so many helpful insights about my own writing, and writing in general.
Many of us have blogs or want to have blogs. We’ve decided to pool our talents for the Stonehenge Writers blog, which officially launches today. I don’t expect it to change things around here, but I’ll also be posting about once a month on the group blog.
My first post went up this morning, on the subject of New Year’s Resolutions. Are you resolving to write in 2013? I’m sharing some suggestions that have helped me chase down my goals.
I hope you’ll come visit the new blog! There are nine of us, with diverse ideas and interests. I know I for one have a lot of fun at our in-person meetings, and learn a lot too–and I expect the blog to go pretty much the same way! 🙂
A Masked Man Walked Into a Bar…
Several weeks ago, the Blog Hop topic centered on characters from different origins meeting each other. A fascinating subject–and one I’ve played with before, as I once wrote a few friends short stories for their birthdays, centered around the idea of a group of their favorite characters hanging out in a tavern together.
Just for fun, I thought I’d share the opening of one of those stories, “Masked Men and Zombies.” I’m not sure if it will make sense to anyone but my friends, but if people are amused, perhaps I’ll share more another day. 🙂
I don’t own any of the characters in the story (except the squirrel), no copyright infringement intended, etc., etc. And by the way, this will make a lot more sense if you’ve seen this video from Eddie Izzard.
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The date was March 24th. The year was absolutely impossible to determine based on the people present. But it was definitely March 24th, in a tavern whose location is also somewhat vague. From whatever street it fronted on, in a city unknown, a man was entering. He was tall, dressed all in black, and had a vaguely menacing air. Considering this tavern, and considering the inspiration behind its population, from this description there were at least four distinct individuals this could have been. The fact that he was wearing a mask did not narrow things down.
The unidentified masked man (hereafter UMM, until we latch onto a name) strode into the tavern and crossed through the crowded room to the bar. To all appearances, there was no one at said-bar. Said-UMM slammed one black-gloved fist on the countertop and demanded, “Bartender!”
A slightly drunken pirate popped up from behind the bar. “You rang?” Continue reading “A Masked Man Walked Into a Bar…”
NaNoWriMo Day 30: Victory!
I am happy to report I “validated my novel” on the NaNoWriMo site yesterday evening–coming in at 50,050 words according to NaNo’s counter.
So at the end of the month I wound up with…
– Almost 35,000 words of The Monster and the Prince, which puts me much farther along than the 10,000 word stalled draft I had in October. I also now feel like I will be able to finish this eventually–once some ideas settle down a bit.
– One 8,000 word short-story featuring characters from my in-progress novel draft, The Wanderers. For people who have been reading excerpts this month, that’s the Sleeping Beauty one (sorry, it’s title-less…suggestions?) If I go with self-publishing for the novel, I figure a short story set after the end will have some uses–and it was enormous fun to write!
– One nearly-finished short story approaching 7,000 words, with the same characters and loose time-frame as the story above. This one’s a bit more fluff than substance, but I might be able to do something with it. I hope to finish it up by this weekend at the latest–at least a version where the characters get to solve the problem the easy way. If I made them take the hard way, I’d have the beginnings of a novel sequel. Maybe some day!
– And finally, some 2,500 words starting a short story that would fit between Chapters 1 and 2 of The Wanderers, heavily featuring Tom the talking cat, and good for promotion…when I finish it eventually.
All in all, not a straight-forward NaNo…but I’m calling that some satisfactory work done! Next project–do one last, final, really-the-last-time pass through The Wanderers for final final revisions (can you tell I’ve revised a few times?), then send it on to beta-readers for feedback.
It’s been a fun, albeit slightly exhausting month. I found that what really worked for me was getting up earlier than usual every day to write before work. Result–on my lowest day (besides today), I still wrote nearly 800 words. And by the end of the month, I’m getting tired! Oh well–time to sleep more in December. And revise that novel!
One last excerpt? Well, how about just a paragraph demonstrating how much fun it is to write short stories about characters I know well. See, Jasper has Rules, which he very thoroughly believes in. And after an entire novel playing with his Rules, it’s easy to start a short story by flinging Rules around…
It was a very stupid argument, and one that would have been largely incomprehensible to anyone listening, considering it involved a lot of throwing back-and-forth of Rules. In the twisting ways of conversations, Julie wasn’t even sure exactly how it had started. They had been talking about where to travel next, and Jasper hadn’t wanted to commit to anything. Julie had made a complaint about Rule #2 (Never make plans). The conversation had begun to escalate when she dragged in Rule #3 (Never trust a magician), just to object to on principle. There were heated references to Rule #23 made on both sides (Never underestimate the amount of damage that can be done by an idiot) and the entire thing culminated with Julie making an ill-considered remark about Jasper’s “stupid rules,” shortly after which he stalked out of the room muttering about Rule #18 (Always travel alone).
Tales of the Marvelous 