I’ve never been in a fight…
13 Oct 2011 2 Comments
…I’ve never gone deep sea diving, or survived a cave-in, or wrestled an alligator. I’m not an astrophysicist or a painter or a trucker. In fact, I could fill hundreds of pages with all the things I’m not and thousands with all the things I’ve never done.
Pictured: not me. (c/o Google Images)
One of the things I’ve found that I’m loving more and more about being a writer is the listening to of other people’s stories: mundane or exciting, as long as it’s something I’ve never done, I want to hear about it. Because I can never tell what will inspire me, what will spark off a new story. Though if it doesn’t set something off in my head, it’s not wasted, either.
Pictured: my husband's tactical academy training. (Not pictured: me)
See, no stories are wasted, no knowledge is useless. It’s only stored away for later use. And I want to hear it all. Not just the deep, meaningful, inspiring stuff. I want the disturbing, the silly, the depressing, and yes, even what you might think is boring. As long as it’s true (or you think it’s true), I’m interested. Lay it on me. Because only writing what you know is boring…
Part of the Journey
21 Aug 2011 2 Comments
I was thinking the other day about sequences of events. It’s interesting sometimes, to consider where you are now and trace it back as far as you can.
For instance, here I am, in the midst of writing a tentatively planned out five-book series. One novel done, edited, and hoping for traditional publication, and another one and a half in rough draft form.
I wrote that first novel, Gilded Shadows, as a result of NaNWriMo, which in turn was a result of Ms. Sandra Bell Kirchman’s encouragement on her forums at FantasyFic (who also published two of my short stories).
I met Ms. Kirchman via another website’s forums where I’d been posting mine and my husband’s Everquest fanfic. Obviously, I’d have never written the fanfic, nor would I ever have met my husband, if I hadn’t started playing the game, so I suppose some credit can be given to the folks at Sony, as well. Also without those stories, I’d never have met the lovely and talented Karolina Seryfin, also known as the DragonSnail, who not only provided the illustration for FantasyFic’s anthology, but created gorgeous fanart sketches for mine and John’s EQ fanfic so many years ago.
One of DragonSnail's fanart pics of my cleric, Kallysti, and her father.
I can trace further…the starting on Everquest came about due to my tabletop gaming group (GURPS & DnD, mostly, and Rolemaster later on), whom I met via a lady named Denise in geology classes at CU-Boulder. And I’d have never gone to Boulder had I not failed out of the Colorado School of Mines, where I’d never have been accepted if I hadn’t done well in high school. Which, when I think about it, can easily be traced back to my mother reading out loud with us as children and beyond.
I guess the convoluted point I’m trying to make here is that you never know where this place in your life, the one you’re at now, is going to lead. Sometimes you’re in control of events, sometimes events are in control of you, but if you keep your eyes open and pay attention, you might just end up where you wanted to be all along…even if you didn’t know where that was in the beginning. Gah, I sound like a half-arsed fortune cookie here. But yeah, sometimes (often?) the point you start from is no indication of where you’ll end up.
I mean, I didn’t know I’d love and pursue writing as I am. I started out as a geology major. If I’d been an English major, would I be where I am? I can’t say. But I haven’t regretted a single step of the journey so far.
#6 Dark
16 Aug 2011 2 Comments
This isn't a post quite like the others. It's a snippet from my second novel, Lost Sunrise. Sorry it's late. And I hope the formatting turned out all right. Word Press is acting wonky for me today. ________________________ It was pitch dark inside. Nonetheless, “Hello, Sialla,” Teryx greeted quietly as the canvas of the door flap closed behind her. “Please excuse me if I don’t get the door for you. It’s not much of a door, anyway.” “How did you know it was me?” She took one step to the side of the entrance and seated herself comfortably on the ground, legs folded before her. “Saw your outline in the doorway. Rilyn and Adarran are both taller,” he said matter-of-factly. "Oh." "I also long ago determined that what fates there were had a cruel sense of irony. So naturally they would go and send the one person I didn't want to see right now." It felt very much like he was trying to keep his tone lighthearted and easy. "I could just leave then." Sialla pressed palms to the rough dirt floor in preparation to push herself up but stopped. "Why would it be me you didn't want to see?" He laughed but it was a mirthless sound. The little bard was glad she couldn't see his face. "I want to be angry, Sialla. I need to be angry. And you?" He sighed. "You, I can't be angry with, no matter how I try." "Thanks. I think." The lull in conversation was much more comfortable than it should have been. "There's something else," Teryx finally said. She shifted where she sat. When had the ground gotten so hard? Should she tell him? Why hadn't Adarran told him? She snorted inwardly at this last: Adarran hadn't told him because Adarran didn't talk to anyone if he didn't have to. The Sunfolk diplomacy in her wanted accord; it wanted the two men to get along, to work together. In this case, telling him the truth would accomplish that, she decided. Maybe not all of it, though. He didn't need to know how sick the old woman was. "Adarran has..." she began hesitantly, leaning towards the source of his voice, "...he has reasons." "Oh yeah? I'd love to hear them. Wait, don't tell me: they're holding his family hostage, right? That's always a good one. But since those would be Seafolk, they're what? Threatening to drain the oceans and send them all running onto the land? Do tell me, Sialla." "Stop," she answered. "Why do you have to be so..." "Bitter? Am I sounding bitter, Sialla? I am so sorry," he concluded sarcastically. "I forgot we were sitting here over a nice afternoon tea, trading stories." Teryx sighed. "Just tell me why." Well, he did only say that he couldn't be angry with you, not that he wasn't angry, she thought. Sialla had no trouble keeping any thoughtless retorts in check. A heartbreaking tremor, faint but unmistakable to her musically trained ears, threaded through the man's voice and stayed any harsh reactions on her part. He was afraid. Not only afraid, she suspected, but also feeling quite betrayed by his new friend. Maybe she could alleviate some of that. In a soft, emotionless voice she told him, "They do have his mother."
#5 Coffee
07 Aug 2011 2 Comments
Thank you, Google images!
#5 Coffee
“Here, try this,” Quinn told him, passing the plain clay cup to a puzzled Tersun. The scent emanating from the ‘brew’ had been strange, to say the least. “The caravan master from Old Dominion called it ‘coffee’, if I’m remembering it rightly.”
The young Earthfolk man took a sip. Immediately, he spat it out into the dirt. “Poison?” he said uncertainly.
“They claim not,” his Mixed friend replied, “but my reaction was the same as yours…”
((I decided that any fantasy world worth creating would need coffee in it. So…there you have it!))
#4 Bugs
31 Jul 2011 2 Comments
Dragonfly, c/o Google images.
#4 Bugs
“So what do yer kin folk say about catching pixies?” Ruby’s voice drawls the line out mockingly. Ever since the time I’d drunkenly berated the gap-toothed hill folk that a lot of elves these days, including most of my family, had become, she’d relished in reminding me of my roots.
I decided to ignore her tone. I could easily remind her of her own muddy heritage or that of one of her multi-racial children roaming the streets but she was probably expecting that. Besides, this job was getting too interesting. “Well, you could buy one of those fancy traps from one of those rip-off artists on 31st Street. Those work well enough. Or you could try one of them fruity ‘magic crystal’ charms the druids on the corners foist off onto people. Those, I’ve never tried, nor do I want to. Now, my own kin folk…” I pause here. Though most days my disdain for my family knows no boundaries, still even I had to admit they had some useful tricks. “Peanut butter,” I finish.
“Excuse me?”
“Magickal or not, pixies are basically just big, sparkly bugs. And they love peanut butter. Leave a bowl of it in the woods, the stickier the better, and soon you will have more pixies than you know what to do with.”
Ruby nods and licks her crimson painted lips. “Oh, I know what to do with them.”
I’m sure she does.
((This one is a different character. That elf P.I. I mentioned in an earlier post. Abe is always fun to write 
))
#3 Beginning
24 Jul 2011 2 Comments
Okey-dokey, week 3:
#3 Beginning
At the foot of a green mountain ash he stood, silent as the stones. This was the place: indelibly burned into his memory like a firebrand, the young Earthfolk man could never forget, even if he wanted to. It was over a year ago now, that Death came to his entire tribe in the form of the human miners. He didn’t come to dwell on the event, such was not the way of the ‘Folk; he came to assure himself that the land recovered. Tersun need not have worried: new growth was, even now, springing up where the winter before the mens’ fires had scoured the forest black. Hopeful, fragile shoots began anew, wherever he cast his eyes. Perhaps it was time he let that green change mirror within himself. For every ending was merely a new beginning in disguise…
_______
One of my favorite beginnings: a picture from our wedding.
#2 Apple
17 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
I haven’t forgotten. It just seems that there’s so much to post on/update lately. I barely have time to write and/or edit as it is 
Anyway! Here’s today’s (archive, heh) little writing bit. It’s my Earthfolk brother & sister again:
Swiped by my lazy ass from Google images.
2. Apples
It had been a long day: hunting this late in the autumn months was trying. Most of the game in the area had long since migrated to lower elevations and Tersun knew the two of them would have to follow soon if they were going to survive the winter ahead. At least this day he had not come back to her empty handed, though the fire Letacci had prepared in her optimism would be used for little else but warmth this night. His sister looked up at his arrival and her face fell as she thought him empty-handed. Tersun reached into his pocket, though, pulling out one of the winter apples he’d found in his foraging and tossed the small red fruit to her and she grinned as she deftly caught it.
((Really wasn’t feeling this one but everything helps me along!)) Next week, another!
Half Control Freak, Half Psychotherapist
08 Jul 2011 5 Comments
Who is? Why, fiction writers, of course! Fantasy and sci-fi writers, especially. Or maybe it’s just me. I have been told I’m something of a control freak.
Here’s how I see it: there is no order in the world. Most people don’t seem to mind this. I do. And I can’t do anything about it, not in the real world. So I make my own.
In my world, I know what people do, what they think, what they’ve done, and what they’re going to do. I know their names, their cultures, their religions, their diets. I put those mountains in the world, I know where the wind blows, when it’s going to rain. I know everything. And you know what? I like that. I really, really like that.
I can sit down and write and for a while, the world makes sense to me. Because it’s mine. It’s my world. Even when I’m not sure what’s coming, which, as other writers can attest, happens often when one sits down and just writes. Some call that a muse, some say it’s their characters speaking to them, but I think we all know that, deep down, it’s the subconscious, floating up to give rise to thoughts and feelings that otherwise wouldn’t surface. It’s therapy. It’s good for us…well, it’s been good for me, anyway. And as a bonus, it lets me be the best control freak I know I can be.
I actually have a copy of this one hanging in my office.
(Plus, some writers totally use like, elves and gnomes and stuff to push their religious and/or political agendas. Don’t pretend you haven’t seen it. Even I’ve done a little, perhaps subconsciously, but still.)
So that’s my brain droppings for today. Don’t worry, I’ll still do another “50 Words” thing this weekend.
50 Words #1: Air
02 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
Like I promised!
1. Air
At the very top of the red cedar, where lithe branches seemed too fragile to support their leaves, let alone anything more substantial, an unobtrustive figure sat. The young scout’s surveil of the surrounding area was long over but still he sat, concealed amongst the tree’s thick growth, listening. The gentle song of the morning breeze through the leaves never failed to hold him enraptured, to give him hope for the coming day. He breathed deep, the summer air and its music filling his lungs and his heart with equal power.
(This is Tersun from my short story Kinship in the anthology. He’s also one of the main characters in my half-finished 3rd, and as yet unnamed, novel)
And nothing says “air” like the Colorado sky:
The thin air at the Rocky Mountain National Park to be exact.
Here’s the Deal: 50 Words
27 Jun 2011 2 Comments
I have this writing exercise I started doing years ago. It’s basically a list of 50 words that I proceeded to write on, usually using characters and/or situations I’d been trying to flesh out. So, for this blog, I’m going to do one of these words each week. Sometimes (bah, who am I kidding? Probably most times), I’ll cheat and just post an old one here, I have a ton. But it’s new to some of you! And at least I’ll be posting, right? Like I really want to do…
Anyway, here’s the list of those words:
The Fifty:
1. Air
2. Apples
3. Beginning
4. Bugs
5. Coffee
6. Dark
7. Despair
8. Door
9. Drink
10. Duty
11. Earth
12. End
13. Fall
14. Fire
15. Flexible
16. Flying
17. Food
18. Foot
19. Grave
20. Green
21. Head
22. Hollow
23. Honour
24. Hope
25. Light
26. Lost
27. Metal
28. New
29. Old
30. Peace
31. Poison
32. Pretty
33. Rain
34. Regret
35. Roses
36. Secret
37. Snakes
38. Snow
39. Solid
40. Spring
41. Stable
42. Strange
43. Summer
44. Taboo
45. Ugly
46. War
47. Water
48. Welcome
49. Winter
50. Wood
I’ll try to do them in order even! Starting next weekend and onward for…well, 50 weekends, I guess. Then, maybe I’ll start over if folks like them. Deal? I’ll also try to find pictures to go with them for your amusement. On that note, here’s a 7-8 year old one of (in order) my husband John, me, and our buddy (and kickass writer) Eric, at the Colorado Renaissance Festival:
