Worlds to Dream In

To celebrate the holidays, I am offering my free short story STAR SONG here on my blog.  (STAR SONG was available earlier this month at www.theSamhellion.com)   To read STAR SONG, click –>shah_song

Sorry for the delay, my children wouldn’t go to bed*g*.

Here are the links for the two brief videos with the prize drawing and then the announcement  of the winners!  I hope this way of announcing is fun and not annoying.

Thanks to everyone for posting!

First the drawing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPEZOkLwcr0

And now the winners!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvIQcm0C_JI

Thanks again!

(My blog tomorrow?  Husbands who want to be directors*g*)

Karin

Who won the autograghed copy of STARJACKED? 

I don’t know yet*g*.  This evening I will video record the drawing and will post it on youtube.

Expect the video after nine pm. 

Ah, the suspense *g*…

See you tonight!

My November Rose. This picture was taken today November 6th!

I was delighted to see my roses survived last night’s frost, and it got me thinking about roses and writers.

Roses are like writers in many ways. The ones which thrive can triumph over adversity. Roses have frost. Writers have rejection.

Rejection can kill a writer just as quickly as frost can kill a rose.  But frost and rejection are inevitable, even the lucky few who get published with their first manuscript will eventually have to face rejection.  If not, there are always bad reviews and changing markets. Publishing is a tough business.

And the world is a tough place for a rose. How did mine survive? They’re in pots up against the base of my wooden deck, which provides several feet of added warmth and a windbreak.

Our chapter mates and colleagues are our warmth and windbreakers. They help to shelter us and keep us going when the publishing world gets cold.

However, there is one way writers are very different from roses. Roses need fertilizer to flourish.  In other words, roses need bullsh*t.  

Writers don’t. We need friends and chapter mates who will (kindly) tell us how they see it. That doesn’t mean we change our work to make everyone happy, (an impossible feat anyway) it just means making sure we aren’t walking around with rose-colored glasses.

So, I hope you all persevere through the inescapable frost, and when you see me, please, mind the thorns.*g*

“…therefore  is winged cupid painted blind.”  A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream (I,i,234)

with apologies to the readers and writers who are tired of beautiful heroines and handsome heroes.  I respectfully argue that Shakespeare had it right.

The quote above is spoke by Helena whose love, Demetrius, is in love with Hermia.

Though Helena says earlier to Hermia, ‘teach me how you look.” and wishes Hermia’s looks were contagious, implying Hermia is prettier, she also says, “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.  But Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know.” (AMSND I,i, 227-228)

Shakespeare uses her monologue to give us Helena’s pov.  As a writer, I use third person, but I also want my reader to enter the skin of my characters, to feel what he or she is feeling, to see what he or she is seeing.

My heroes and heroines are stunningly attractive because they are seen through the lens of someone falling in love.

That’s my take.  What’s yours?

Frederick Douglass

“It’s all been done before” is a common complaint of writers.

I say seeds of the plots have been done, but the fruit produced depends on the writer, and each one of us is a unique creation of genetics and background that can never be copied.

I was born and grew up in Rochester, New York, so during my formative years I heard a lot about Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist.

According to some historians, Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland between Hillsboro and Cordova.  He escaped at the age of twenty by impersonating a sailor.  Having taught himself to read while a slave, he began to make a name for himself as an accomplished orator against slavery.

Impressed with the abolitionists in New York State, he went to live in Rochester and began his anti-slavery newspaper, The North Star.

Hearing about him and other well-known abolitionists who lived in New York in the 19^th century, I began to think about what it would be like to be a slave.  To have no rights over your own person, no say in where you go or what you do.  To be denied even the privilege of learning to read.  These imaginings sparked my first manuscript, a Sci-Fi Romance about a slave on a distant planet who intends to assassinate her captor.

Then I began to wonder what I would have done if I had lived in the 19^th century.  As an inveterate rule follower, I have the sinking feeling I would have relied on the rule of law rather than moral principle, but I hope I would’ve stood against slavery.  Maybe even put my life and liberty on the line and become a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad.

Many of these courageous people lived double lives, hiding their heroic actions in order to rescue hundreds of men, women, and children from one of the most degrading institutions in history.

That idea generated my second book.

Tia, the heroine in Starjacked, is a space pirate with a strict (if twisted) moral code.  She accepts slavery as a reality in her world, but works underground to free children who have been enslaved.  Rork, the hero, is an undercover operative for the Union of Planets.  All he sees is the hardened pirate she shows to the world, and he plans to bring her to justice.

Though the story I’ve written finds its basis in history, the setting and characters make it different; just as every writer is different.

Characters I’ve written about in various manuscripts range from a crippled Valayan Wanderer (modeled on gypsies) to imprisoned shape shifters who don’t know they’re shifters, but no matter how diverse the settings and plots, they all derive from history.

I have a non-writer/non-reader friend who says, “How do you come up with this stuff?”  I take it as a compliment, but deep inside I know exactly where I come up with this stuff—history.

It’s all been done before.  Hallelujah!

Let me know what influences you, or visit the Samhellion for more research related articles!

This isn't the worst thing that's happened to me, but it's not the best...

I received a couple of requests from pitch sessions at the RWA National Conference, so I hurried home and did a read through of my material, a paranormal romance manuscript that I was very happy with.  I expected to clear up any typos or missing words and submit.  What I found were three scenes which were only doing half of what they should.

At the most basic level, a scene should move the plot along.  As I’m a pantser, I use the second draft to ensure each scene is accomplishing that task.  But there’s a deeper question to ask when reviewing your scenes.  Did I take this scene as far as I could?

Whether a scene advances the internal plot or the external plot, a genre writer needs to take her scenes to the extreme.  If there’s a physical fight, and the hero loses, the consequences have to be the highest possible within the context of your plot and its place in the manuscript .  If it’s a contemporary romance, and near the beginning, he might have his eye swell shut.  At the end, he might wind up in the hospital.  If we’re talking vampires,  a fight in the beginning might make him desperate to feed, at the end he might be taken to the very edge of existence.

As I was reading my manuscript, I realized that I had let my main characters off far too easily.  I had trapped them in an area being flooded with poison gas, but the hero immediately saw a way out and took it.  I went back and had them try several other things and had him find the solution only after the gas had begun to affect them.

Now how about you?  How have you revved up your scenes?

I’m not up for an award at the Golden Heart/Rita’s on Saturday night, but I still want to dress up.  Should I wear the salwar kameez I wore for the DH’s cousin’s wedding.  Or go with a traditional evening gown?

Let me know what you think.

Should I wear this or an evening gown?