stephaniecain

What I did on my summer vacation

2013-09-22T01:37:32Z

AKA Adventures in self-publishing...

So a few weeks ago I wrote, edited, formatted, created cover art for, and published an e-book. Wednesday at 8:03 p.m. I posted that my social media and email were going dark, because I had an 8-hour challenge to complete. Sometime in the next hour I started a timer for eight hours and bought a stock photo that I just knew would fit the cover, because I loved it.

That's the cover art I ended up using, because I'd bought it and I ran out of time at the end. If I'd had another 8 hours to search stock photography sites, I might have done the cover a little differently.

Anyway. I've been working on an epic fantasy novel this summer, tentatively titled The Weather War. I know those characters, and I know several of them are good friends. I've even related a couple of "remember when" type stories in the first draft of TWW. But a couple of my favorite characters in TWW aren't getting as much screen time as I would like. Enter the 8-Hour Ebook Challenge.

Two days ago, my friend Laura sent me a link to the blog post where Joe Konrath issues the 8-Hour Ebook Challenge. I didn't have any idea what to do with it, but the notion sat in the back of my mind for a while, and I got an inkling of a plot idea.

I spent the bulk of those 8 hours writing. I drank a bottle of wine during those 8 hours (Sleepy Creek Vineyards' Three Amigos, for the curious) and listened to a heck of a lot of whalesong. Because magic whales.

Sometime around 2:30 am, I realized I really needed to wrap up the story and figure out how to format an ebook. Jane Friedman's Writing Advice Archive came in handy there. I used styles in Microsoft Word to create a filtered HTML file that I imported into Calibre. I used Photoshop Elements to create a cover, and then I spent some time figuring out Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

Not a lot of time.

Amazon KDP actually makes it really incredibly easy for the author to upload her work. So sometime between 4 and 5 am, I finished formatting and uploading the file. I stumbled off to bed and slept for the next nine hours.

When I woke up...I was a self-published author who'd already made one sale. (Okay, so it was to a friend, that still totally counts!)

"Stormsinger" is available on Kindle. Regular price is $0.99, so it shouldn't break the bank. It's 8,400 words, and it gives you a little glimpse into the kingdom of Amethir, where I anticipate hanging out for many years to come.

Stormsinger

Captain Arama Dzornaea thought she was just supposed to transport Crown Prince Vistaren Doth'Mara to meet his contracted bride. As the king's top privateer, she thinks she can handle anything. What Arama doesn't anticipate is storms out of season, an unruly stormwitch, and a strange witchery echo that puts Arama, her ship the Dawn Star, and everyone aboard smack in the middle of a mystery.

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Red-shouldered hawks

2013-01-30T00:16:58Z

The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, where I work, is situated on 3.5 acres of grass and trees in the middle of Crawfordsville, Indiana. It's a gorgeous place to work, not only because of the national historic landmark in the middle of the grounds, but because of the the trees and crazy abundance of fox squirrels. And then there are the hawks. =)

We had a pair of red-shouldered hawks nesting in a tree on the grounds last summer, and we've been hoping like crazy they would come back this year. We know it's likely, but I'm feeling more confident now because we've had one hanging around for a couple of weeks. I think it's the male, scoping his old territory and defending it from any possible invaders.

I got some good shots of him today.

Here's my set of photos on Flickr.

( And a couple shots behind the cut. )

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Restart and Reboot Yourself

2013-01-15T18:45:15Z

Prompt: Take a line from a song that you love or connect with. Now forget the song, and turn that line into the title or inspiration for your post.

The song in question is U2′s "Unknown Caller"-–a song from their No Line On The Horizon album, which constantly amazes me with its depth and emotion, not to mention awesome music. I think one of the reasons this song so strongly resonates with me is this concept: "restart and reboot yourself."

Hasn't everyone felt, at some point in life, that a reboot is needed? I know I have. And for me, I feel like 2012 was that year. 2012 was the year I started an "issue" blog (separate from my personal blogging), got a job that uses my BA in History/Creative Writing for the first time in my life, turned 36 (which one of my Facebook friends pointed out is 6-squared, which is all kinds of awesome), and revised a good portion of the novel closest to my heart–the one I'm going to spend 2013 trying to get published.

"Restart and reboot yourself–you're free to go."

Yes, that's the appeal of a reboot–freedom. A fresh start. Something new. Going back to the essence of yourself, without all the junk that gets installed and downloaded and virused up over the course of daily living. Run a health check. Delete those unused programs and habits that are just clogging up the system.

"Shout for joy if you get the chance."

Go on, do it right now. Close your eyes and give a big old whoop of happiness. "WOOHOO!" Ignore the people in the cubicles around you or sitting nearby at the coffee shop. Forget that you're on the commuter train with standing room only. Don't worry about whether the dog is going to think you've gone insane. Just smile and make a joyful noise.

Done? Did you notice how it makes you feel? You can't make a joyful noise without smiling. You can't smile–genuinely smile–without it making you feel better. I'm sitting on my bed as I type this, my two cats chasing each other. I'm not unhappy, the word I would use is probably content, but I'm also not feeling particularly joyful. Until I shout.

Isn't it crazy? Making a joyful noise makes you feel joyful. Letting out a few loud woohoos has lifted my mood from content into something that feels energized and empowered and ready to create something.

I feel like I've restarted. Rebooted.

I feel free.

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Tired of winter

2013-01-06T21:47:24Z

Really tired of it. Someday I want to live in a place where winter happens every few years. *G* The geography and climate of San Diego appeals to me, though it has far too many people. Maybe the desert. I could live in the desert.

I need to finish my novel. I also need to find a second job. I wonder if any of the gyms in town are hiring. That would give me access to a gym, which I also would really love to have. My arms are flabby, and it's starting to really bug me. LOL

Finished my first book of 2013. Patricia Wrede's The Far West, which I absolutely loved. ( Spoilers here )
Now I am going to sit and write. I really am. I mean it. >.>

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2013 Reading List

2013-01-01T18:45:53Z

So last year I read 64 books, 7 of them non-fiction. I can't seem to break that 10 non-fiction books barrier. Maybe this year. Of course, I did read a lot of white papers for work, and some of them were almost book-length. And I have been working my way through another non-fiction book for work, but I haven't finished it yet. Oh well.

2013 Reading List

The Well of Ascension - Brandon Sanderson
The Far West - Patricia C. Wrede
The Hero of Ages - Brandon Sanderson
Social Media 101 - Chris Brogan *
Kitty Steals the Show - Carrie Vaughn
The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
On Writing - Stephen King *
Keeping the Castle - Patrice Kindl
Dark and Stormy Knights - ed by P.N. Elrod
Libriomancer - Jim C. Hines
A Million Suns - Beth Revis
The Last Knight - Hilari Bell

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Just signed up for 2013 InkingItOut!

2012-12-11T01:53:52Z

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Stymied by the climax

2012-12-11T00:15:08Z

According to my novel outline, I’m 9 scenes away from finishing the novel revision. And I’m stuck at the scene that takes place right before the major showdown. I have to get Character C and Villain A to a certain physical location and set the scene for the showdown to come… And I can’t seem to find the right entry point to this scene. Character C is at the end of his rope, heartsick at what’s been demanded of him throughout the novel, and terrified of what he’s going to have to do next. And for whatever reason, I absolutely cannot find the right tone for him in this scene.

I’m going to make another attempt at the scene tonight. I spent last night setting up a new Windows 8 laptop and playing with Skype for the first time ever. (Skype scared me. It still sort of scares me, but I think I’ll get used to it.) It just occurred to me that I’ve set the computer up with almost all my necessary software–except Skyrim–without using a single disc. Technology blows my mind.

And I managed to get Christmas cards and presents in the mail today. This is an accomplishment, since last year my Christmas presents got mailed…sometime in the summer? Yeah.

So time to knuckle down and get to writing.

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Miserably sick

2012-12-04T21:56:45Z

Have a wretched, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad cold. My sore throat has been so bad it wakes me up several times a night for the past week, and then there's the cough and sinus headache. I feel run-down and miserable, but I still feel like I should be making progress on the novel. I can't seem to manage much in the way of housework or Christmas-present making, so it seems like I should at least be able to sit at a computer. But it's just so darn hard! My brain doesn't want to process things.

I worked on adding info to my series bible, but for the most part I've been doing things like catching up on Arrow on Hulu and watching movies on Amazon Prime. I was pleased to find Thor and Captain America on the free streaming for Prime members, but sadly enough, Iron Man and The Avengers aren't free yet, and I can't afford the rental price right now. They're fun movies, but I can't get into them quite as much as I get into Batman. Maybe I really am just a DC Comics girl.

I've also been rewatching Escaflowne, which was the very first anime I ever watched, courtesy of slightlyjillian. I've discovered I still like it as much as I did then, and I still adore Dryden and Gaddes, which tells me my taste in men hasn't changed in 25 years. LOL Scoundrels and sidekicks, that's my kinda guy.

But I still feel like I should be doing some writing. *sigh*

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Backstory complete

2012-11-23T04:06:31Z

I completed my backstory on Saturday, and on Sunday heard back with approval from my beta-reader. The story answered her questions, so now I have the opportunity to weave the backstory into my novel in several tiny snippets. I finished up somewhere between 21,000 and 22,000 words, which is a lot of writing to never see publication. But at the same time, it's invaluable to me, since it taught me so much about the characters and where each of them is coming from.

Of course, I'm not thinking about just ignoring those words. I'm considering the Writers of the Future contest, if I can tighten up the story enough to fit the word count. I think it's possible, because I always write really long on my first drafts of anything. That's probably a blessing, since I think it's easier to cut words than the alternative.

In the meantime, I'm back to work on the actual novel, have sent chapter 11 to one of my beta-readers, and am excited about moving forward again. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

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Hijacked by Backstory

2012-11-15T21:53:31Z

The novel revision has been on hold for a couple of weeks as I've been working on backstory for several of the characters. Not generic backstory like, "He had four brothers and two of them died and now he's the heir" or "She grew up north of the mountains and has never been in a city", but an actual event that took place three years prior to the events in the novel.

One of my beta-readers (the amazingly talented slightlyjillian) pointed out several opportunities where I could, instead of having Character A think Character B is a liar, I could have Character A flash back briefly to a specific incident that made him realize Character B is a liar. Similarly, when Character B is reflecting on what a loyal person Character C is, he could reflect on this particular incident where Character C proved his loyalty.

What has resulted is (so far) almost 15,000 words about a formative incident in the lives of five of my novel's characters. Three of them are main characters, two of them minor, and the relationships particularly between the three main characters is crucial to the outcome of the novel. In addition, I am absolutely loving this backstory and I'm hoping I can eventually turn it into something worth publication on its own, provided it won't spoil the events of the novel for people. (I don't think it will, though!)

Something I love about this backstory is that it gives me a chance to lavish a little attention on a couple of characters who only get namedropped in the novel itself. It also allows me to spend some time in a setting that was ruthlessly chopped out of the novel because the subplot that took them there was superfluous to the main action (and, frankly, my high-school attempt at a scene inspired by the Council of Elrond).

Another great thing about writing this backstory is that I'm learning new things about the characters that have been living in my head for twenty-odd years. That's always a good thing! And they're surprising me, too. I shouldn't be surprised, because their actions are entirely in character...and yet I didn't realize, for instance, that Character B had actually told Character A he would do a certain thing, before he ended up weaseling out of it. (Character A isn't necessarily wrong in thinking Character B is a liar!) And I didn't realize just how uncharitable Character A could be in his judgments of other people until I discovered that he would completely misinterpret something to fit his opinion of someone.

Anyway, it's been a great exercise, and I've been enjoying it. All the same, I'm looking forward to getting back to the actual novel revision. My goal is to finish this backstory today. I want this novel ready for submission by the end of 2012, and I'm running out of time!

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Added some lifelist birds today

2012-09-16T23:57:19Z

Went to Pine Creek Important Bird Area with the parents today. Mom and I have been meaning to get up there during the fall migration for three years now, and this year finally managed it. I'm not sure why Dad goes along on bird-watching expeditions, because he spent most of the day sitting in the car. Apparently he just likes riding around in the car with us. Anyway, we had a good time. We hiked a few miles of grassland at Pine Creek (which is not currently a creek, thanks to the drought), then drove over to Willow Slough on the state line. We added a few lifelist birds and spotted some other exciting birds.

We're getting a lot better at warbler identification, thanks to my Audubon Birds app on my iPhone. If we have a bird narrowed down but aren't quite certain, listening to the calls always cinches an ID for us.

Our lifelist birds were:
Sedge Wren (at Pine Creek)
Black-and-White Warbler (at Willow Slough)
Blackpoll Warbler (at Willow Slough)
Black-Throated Green Warbler (at Willow Slough)

In addition, at Willow Slough we saw two Great Egrets, three Sandhill Cranes, several Great Blue Herons, two Belted Kingfishers, and one Bald Eagle! Along with the remarkable birds, we also saw the usual blue jays, catbirds, crows, and of course, lots of my spirit bird, the turkey vulture. *G*

Came home, made supper, paid bills, and read a little bit of Writer's Digest. Now I need to sit down and get some writing done.

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Writing Plan - August through December

2012-08-15T22:54:18Z

August 2012
- Finish The Loyalty Factor revision.
- Finish "Blue Watch" or "Long Way Home."
- Identify markets for short story.

September 2012
- Write a short story set in Teronn.
- Begin querying agents about The Loyalty Factor.
- Submit finished short story.

October 2012
- Continue querying agents about The Loyalty Factor.
- Examine writing goals and revise if necessary.
- Decide on and plot NaNoWriMo 2012 novel.

November 2012
- NaNoWriMo 2012
- Attend at least one write-in.
- Continue querying agents about The Loyalty Factor.

December 2012
- Recover from NaNoWriMo.
- Finish NaNoWriMo novel if necessary.
- Continue querying agents about The Loyalty Factor.
- Set writing goals for 2013.

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Time-management

2012-08-07T01:13:21Z

Because I have become obsessed with the time-management side of writing, I printed out a calendar of July and marked the days I didn't write. I wanted to see if there was a pattern. And I discovered there's a pretty obvious pattern.

( Click to see my calendar )

See the pattern? Right up until I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo, my non-writing days were almost entirely centered on the weekend. To be exact, 8 out of 12, or 66.67%, of my non-writing days were either Saturday or Sunday. The remaining four days were 3 Mondays and 1 Friday. Okay, so they aren't technically weekend days, but they're just to one side or the other of the weekend.

So what happened when I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo? No idea. Intimidation, maybe? Or rebelliousness against the idea that now I have to write? I have been enjoying it so much in July, maybe introducing the additional challenge of CampNaNo in August subconsciously threatened my enjoyment?

Who knows. Anyway, I'm GOING to write tonight, dammit! The OCD side of me is protesting the outliers that are going to show up on my August map.

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Camp NaNoWriMo

2012-08-02T16:52:57Z

Just signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. No idea why, except that, hey, I wrote 32K last month, so I ought to be able to write 50K this month, right? Especially since my goal is to finish the original novel revision by August 30.

Let's hope, anyway.

Also, I'm signed up as a sponsored camper, so if I raise $50 in donations I get a nifty pen, and if I raise $100 in donations I get a nifty poster. So if y'all are so inclined to sponsor me, please click below.

http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=206981

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Writing daily...on a cyclical basis

2012-07-30T22:21:55Z

I'm a member of the inkingitout community, where we check in on a regular basis with the amount of words we've written. There are great conversation starters posted at the journal as well, and recent questions have been about the timing of our writing. Do we write on a daily basis, on a cyclical basis, etc? Where on the spectrum do we find ourselves? It really got me thinking about my writing habits.

My comment at the community got so long and so involved that I decided to post it here as a journal entry.

Let's see, I last checked in on the 25th, so from then until the 28th I wrote 2613 words. I'm at 72909 for the year.

I've been obsessively tracking my writing since 6/30 of this year, and I've noticed that I do a great job of writing daily...for 3 to 5 days at a time. Then I seem to need at least one day off, up to three days off at a time. I do feel better about myself if I write every day, but since 6/30 I've taken off the following days: 7/2, 7/7-7/8, 7/14-7/16, 7/21-7/23, and 7/27-7/29. This seems really weird to me, but over the course of a month of tracking my writing, it's pretty consistent, so apparently I have a short little writing cycle myself!

I really would prefer to be writing on a daily basis, or perhaps taking only one day off a week. But then again, despite the days off this month, this has been the most productive month for my writing, aside from NaNoWriMo, in quite some time. My total word count since 6/30 is 30,704. So I may have to just accept that this is the best way for me to be productive.

What I've discovered is that I have a hard time experiencing compelling fiction written by someone else and then writing my own fiction afterwards. For instance, three of those days I took off writing because I had been watching the Dark Knight trilogy. Another day I took off because I watched Brave. Another set of days I took off while I was reading a novel. Of course, the other side of this could be that after several days of writing, I need to experience compelling fiction written by someone else. In other words, which is the cause of the break, and which the effect? Do I stop writing because I read? Or do I read because I need to stop writing? I don't know. It's something I'll have to think about more.

My most recent days off, however, have been because I was working very intensive days at my day job, and was just frankly too exhausted to write at the end of those days, and then last night I started reading another novel that just sucked my time away from me. In no way am I complaining about the days at my day job. It's a great job, with great people, and I get to spend my time learning about history, talking about history, writing about history, and it's by far the most wonderful thing I have ever been paid to do. I look forward to going to work every week.

I just need to figure out how to have enough mental energy left to write when I get home from work. :)

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Writing progress and computer frustrations

2012-07-25T20:16:29Z

*eyes desktop warily*

My 4-year-old HP desktop is acting unhappy lately. It'll boot up, I'll start doing something, and two minutes later it just randomly shuts off and goes into the reboot cycle. O.o Or it tries to boot, then freezes and I have to do a hard reboot. *sigh* I really really can't afford to replace it right now, so I am going to sacrifice a goat later to see if that appeases it. >.> Or maybe I'll just run a few more diagnostics and pray really hard. Heh.

In the meantime, though, I've been using Rachel Aaron's method of fast writing, and I am floored with how excited I am to sit down and write every day. It's been a long time since I've felt that way, so this has basically revolutionized my life.

One thing Rachel Aaron does is track her productivity, which I had always done in a desultory sort of manner. I used a spreadsheet to track how many hours I wrote and how many words I wrote each day, but I hadn't bothered tracking much else. I do know that spending 5 hours at the Barnes & Noble cafe always means a very good writing day for me -- often between 5-8k words. But I hadn't done too much specific tracking. So on June 30 I started a spreadsheet that tracks Times (of Day) Written, # of Hours, Word Count, Words Per Hour, Location, and Medium (meaning longhand, netbook, desktop).

Since June 30 I have written for a total of 23.51 hours. In those hours, I've written 28,091 words. Most of those words have been written at home, many of them on my netbook, which has a new lease on life thanks to Xubuntu and LibreOffice. A lot of those words have also been written at Starbucks, where I go for two hours once a week to write. During that time, I've had 9 days where I was unable to write, for various reasons.

I confess, I haven't read Rachel Aaron's books, but she is officially one of my new favorite authors, simply because of what she has taught me. As soon as I have money, I plan to buy all her books.

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Writing isn't always lonely

2012-06-19T21:09:25Z

When I'm struggling through the nitty-gritty grind of squeezing out word after word, trying to get things just right on the page, it's really easy to forget there's a world out there, let alone other people who understand what I'm going through.

Then I see a post from someone like kosmickway, talking about some aspect or other of writing, and I'm reminded that Hey! I know other people who do this nitty-gritty grind of squeezing out word after word! And sometimes just talking to them helps you figure out what's blocking you, or why you're struggling, or what your character really wants, or how to portray what your character really wants.

So this is just a shout out to the many, many people who have been helpful to me over the years. Not necessarily people who get paid to put words on the page, but people who do it for the joy of it. People who like to read words on the page. People who ask smart questions. People like kosmickway, slightlyjillian, krycek_chick, severity_softly, resolucidity, Zardok the Amazing Beta Reader, and so many, many others.

Thank you, guys!

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Chapter Four...finally

2012-06-14T02:45:53Z

I finally finished chapter four and sent it off to the beta-readers. That gave me a brief sense of relief, but of course, chapter five is already underway.

Apparently having to wait at the tire repair place is good for me, or at least good for my characters, because I got the better part of a scene written there. Today was "Wild Wednesday", so Mom and I were hiking at Shades State Park and Pine Hills Nature Preserve. But I'm determined to get another scene written tonight before I sleep.

Last week I gave myself some gruesome first-hand experience to write from. I backed into the lawnmower muffler while doing yard work. I don't recommend this method to people, but now I know what a second-degree burn feels like and how it heals (or at least starts to heal, and then possibily gets infected...) I now understand why my main character, who was subjected to hot irons in the torture chamber, hates me so very, very much.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a friend, and then, if the burn isn't healing well enough, I'll be making a stop at urgent care, I'm afraid. Cross your fingers that the antibiotic ointment keeps doing its work!

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Adventures in topical blogging

2012-04-13T02:30:24Z

So I've just signed up to participate in the 100 Things blogging challenge, but I'm doing it a little bit slant. I'm using it to help launch my new topical blog, Single White Christian.

I've been, quite frankly, bitching and moaning for years about how the church underserves singles and makes us feel like second-class citizens. While I don't, at this time, feel qualified to start a singles ministry at the church I attend, I wish that one existed. I also have spent a lot of time griping about how the church doesn't seem to love people who aren't like them. I have friends who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, pagan, Jewish, atheist, and agnostic. I love these friends. I'm pretty sure Jesus loves these friends. And I hate that at many churches in America, they wouldn't be welcome. (I'm happy to say that at my church, they would.)

So I'm blogging, and I invite and welcome questions and proposals for guest posts. Let me know if you're interested. And I would LOVE to get some comments over at the blog itself, so please click the link and do some reading! :D

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Excuses post is full of excuses

2012-04-06T06:40:09Z

Okay, time to guilt myself into writing more. I meant to write a bunch last night. Instead I got sucked into the first three chapters of Love Is an Orientation by Andrew Marin. Good writing, and an amazing and excellent mission. I'm having to fight to keep myself from picking it back up to read some more tonight.

But no! No reading! Tonight I need to make a second attempt at the scene that is currently giving me trouble. It never fails to astonish me how easily some scenes pour out of the pen, while others are just a long, painful struggle for each word.

So tonight I have to get inside the head of my main villain and figure out what he wants to say to his major adversary. Who is currently within his power, and basically buying time with whatever (bruises, blood, nasty invective, etc.) he can afford to spend. It's not hard to understand what the poor good guy is feeling and thinking. The bad guy, though...

What motivates him in this scene? Besides the pure enjoyment of inflicting pain on someone he's hated for a decade? I'm just not sure yet.

So time to turn off the computer (and, more importantly, the internet), and put pen to paper and learn.

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Kickin' It Old School

2012-04-01T20:11:42Z

Chapter Three has refused to be written at the computer.

I do a heck of a lot of composition while sitting at the keyboard. I used to write longhand a lot more than I do now, but apparently Chapter Three needed to be written longhand. I cleaned out my fountain pens, discovered I'd lost my favorite one, spent three days looking for it while writing with other pens, finally found it, and wrote my way out of the first Moleskine notebook I had dedicated to this project.

Yesterday I made a VERY exciting discovery in a small town not to far from my house. Avalon Jewelry and Pens is an amazing shop with incredibly friendly and helpful owners. They're also the people who make Private Reserve Ink. So I made a visit yesterday and came home with a Chinese-made Hero 616 (something I've seen called a "workhorse" of a fountain pen) and a bottle of Black Cherry Private Reserve Ink.

Today I'm frantically typing Chapter Three in an attempt to get it to my betas before leaving on a three-day trip to Chattanooga for a quick Civil War history fix.

I'm incredibly pleased with how the pivotal scene in Chapter Three has turned out. And while it's fun to sit and type so quickly you transpose letters, there's a much more visceral thrill in trying to write fast enough to keep up with your characters when they seize the action and run with it.

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A question about world-building

2012-03-20T00:17:59Z

I'm almost 20,000 words into my epic fantasy novel revision, and I'm finally beating my head against a subject I have long dreaded.

Calendars.

Seems like an innocent enough idea, until you think about how in epic fantasy novels, the world is usually not our own. Okay, Middle-Earth was our world, in a sense. But in the quest for an authentic-sounding world, will it really be shaped like Earth? Will it have the same diameter and orbit and axis tilt as Earth? Will it have the same length of year and day? Even if the inhabitants of the world don't know anything about planets revolving and orbiting suns and what actually causes the seasons, an author has to know that stuff, in order for it to have any internal coherence.

So from the beginning of my fantasy world's existence in my mind, I've always held to an Earth-like calendar, with 12 months in a 365-day year. The month names are the same. It drives me crazy to have to learn an entirely new system in order to read a fantasy novel, and trying to figure out that Istvaharla is actually basically our January, and Furryday is the same as our Friday.

But isn't it just as frustrating to be immersed in this world where the names don't sound like ours, and there are magical creatures we don't have, but still call the months names that go back to Latin-based languages and days that go back to pagan gods?

So I started playing with the notion of a 400-day year, with 96-day seasons and 4-day holidays between each season. The 96-day seasons would divide neatly into 3 months of 32 days each that way, which means easy math and calendaring for me, but a slightly different feel for the reader. Then I renamed the months, using a standard -ien/-en ending to the name, to indicate months. But that would mean I needed to rename the days, as well. It might not matter, since I can't recall a single time I mention the name of the day, but that probably just means I have a dozen mentions in the novel that I don't remember.

By this time, I've only written 647 words today, and I'm tearing my hair out, especially since the only reason I need to do this right now is because I want to know how much time has passed since the start of the novel. I don't want to have people in chapter 2 scene 4 reacting to something that isn't actually going to happen for four more days.

So right now I'm giving up on the calendaring system and numbering things by what day of the book they happen on. Scene 1 happens on DAY 1. Scene 2 happens on DAY 6. Etc.

But I'm curious. When you read a fantasy novel, how much attention do you pay to the calendar? Do you have strong feelings either way about the date system an author uses? Why?

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Renaming a character

2012-02-27T06:37:53Z

I should have realized that renaming one of the major villains in my epic fantasy novel was going to be a lot of work.

I'm one of those people who's always set great store by names. I love to know the meaning of names. I throw in little jokes about the meanings. I play with spelling. In one novel, the characters even talk about the importance of names. (To be fair, it's in the context of why you never give your name to a fairy, so it's important to the plot of the novel. But still.) Back in my creative writing program at university, one of the compliments I consistently got was about my character names.

So I should have known, going in, that renaming this guy was going to be a bitch.

The villain's name was Robert. It's a good name, but it doesn't scream EVIL GREEDY BASTARD at me. Maybe because I have a friend named Robert...oh, and, duh--my grandfather was named Robert. What on earth possessed me to name a bad guy after my grandfather? My dad tells me he wouldn't mind, but it bothered me, and the name didn't feel right anymore.

I spent two days intensely scouring baby name books and the Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon. What sort of name did I want? Robert means "bright", so I'd never really thought about the meaning of my villain's name. So what sort of names would I find if I went looking at meanings?

Oddly enough, there aren't indexes of names that mean "betrayer" or "oppressor" or "ambitious". The indexes all list nice characteristics, like "brave" and "pretty" and "strong". I suppose no one wants to name their kid something that might make them turn out to be the next serial killer. (Though all those people naming their babies Jacob? "Supplanter," y'all. Think about that. If Stephenie Meyer had been paying attention, Jacob would have stolen the girl at the end.)

But paging through on my own, I found a name that means "to oppress", one that means "loves war", and one that means "glory". Not that glory is necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely something my villain is after. I also found a "friend of wealth", but that wasn't quite as fitting.

So I started looking at things his father might have named him. The villian's family symbol is a falcon, so I looked at names meaning "falcon". Turned out I really like one of those names, but I want to save it for one of the villain's ancestors. The villain's family is supposed to be a gatekeeper of sorts, defending the kingdom from a powerful enemy to the north. So I found names that mean "determined protector" and "nation's defender" and, yes, "brave". I really liked two of those names, and I liked the irony of naming the kingdom's betrayer something like that. The villain's family is also traditionally redheads, so I even found a name I kind of liked that meant "redhaired".

Of course, then I had to start trying out all these names. I went back and forth on three of the names in particular, but none of them quite worked. Ellard made me think of Ellery Queen every time I said it, so that was just out. (Nothing against Ellery Queen, but this isn't a mystery novel.) Ledyard is a cool name, but it sort of feels like one of those bizarro mashup relationship names, like if Logan Eckles and Edward Cullen got together. (And now that I mentioned that, I totally ship Ledyard.)

So what did I finally do? I looked down my list of names, threw out the meaning of them, played around with the spellings, and eventually picked the one closest to what I'd already had.

So Robert Perregal has officially become Rostis Perregal. Rostis, shortened from the Slavic Rostislav, meaning "glory".

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SFWC giveaway

2012-02-08T22:47:41Z

Writer's Digest is giving away a ticket to the San Francisco Writers Conference. I'm entering to win, because this is the year of the dragon, which means it's my year. :D I confess, I would be utterly unprepared to go, and I would have about a week to get ready, but hey, I'm spontaneous and love to travel, and I've never been to SF.

The contest ends Feb 10 and to enter you just have to comment to this post and spread the word via social media (except Facebook).

Of course, so far 2012 has been a bust, writing-wise. I need to get my behind in gear. I've got my NIndy group's short story week challenge coming up later in the month, but I've been spending a lot of time coasting, since pretty much all of January was taken up preparing for the trip to Trinidad & Tobago or traveling to, in, and from T&T. I've been severely lacking in discipline, and I need to fix that.

So here's hoping I win a ticket to the SFWC. With my tax return this year, I could swing the flight out and back, even if I wanted to use that money to pay a bunch of stuff off. Hey, writing is worth a sacrifice, right? :D

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ARGH

2012-02-07T06:15:40Z

What I am supposed to be doing: working on my epic fantasy novel.

What I am doing: working on the Lovefool achievement in Warcraft, reading TaleSpin fansites, compulsively checking my friends lists, and freezing my ass off.

To be completely fair to myself, I have made a lot of progress in brainstorming changes to the epic fantasy over the past three days. And my writing style does involve a lot of what my mother the cook calls "integrating time". But this is starting to get ridiculous.

...but I really do want that Lovefool achievement. I'm only three holidays away from the Long Strange Trip and master riding.

*headdesk*

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