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Watcher of the Skies: Drafted!
It’s been a while since I was able to make such an announcement–but lo! I have completed another novel. This time, it’s the follow-up (I won’t say sequel, because it’s part prequel/part standalone) to Pilgrim of the Sky. While it took much longer than anticipated, mostly due to the ungodly amount of research that was involved, I’m happy to report that I’m quite pleased with the product. It’s a more solid draft than I usually write (see: time to write) and plot-wise it’s a lot more dense. (Even Michael, who’s a surprisingly insightful and critical reader felt the same way.) How am I going to pitch this to you? It’s sort of……
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A note of appreciation to Mssr. Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
The first time I met Sam Montgomery-Blinn in person, it was 2009, and he got me very, very drunk on Fat Tire beer. Not my usual fare, but he was buying. I was nervous as hell after my first public reading, so not really arguing. I’m still not sure how I got invited to the reading that night (it included actual writers like Mur Lafferty and Jeff VanderMeer) being in such an nascent state in my writing career, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with Sam. They wanted someone else local, I suppose, so I packed up my favorite shoes and read from the novel I had been…
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Running Away Toward Myself
Running has become my escape of choice lately. I’ve mentioned before that, well, running has never been A Thing for me. I’m not exactly built to the ideal running form. Between my Eastern European, First Nation, and French-Canadian roots (the Swedish part is just entirely overwritten), tall and lithe I ain’t. I’m built closer to the earth: compact, strong, and bendy (I like to think I might be good at using a bow–haven’t tried that yet…). Until now, I’ve used that as an excuse not to run. In spite of recurring dreams where I’m running, I’d resisted. “I will never be a runner,” I said, on many occasions. “Never ever.”…
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Tying Up Loose Ends
I’m closing in on 90K with Watcher of the Skies, and I’ve been elbows deep in Pinterest and my board there. I thought I’d add it to the RSS images over there—> so you can see it. You can also visit here. My birthday present (and getting a real job present) this year was an iPad Mini, and it’s really done nothing for my Pinterest obsession. But! I figure time “researching” is still time well spent. You will see lots of waves and fish and faces. Just a little longer to go, and the book will be through draft zero.
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Happily lost in the weeds: balance and the writer’s life
Sometimes balance in the writer's life comes in odd places.
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O For a Life of Sensations
Indeed, I’ve been busy. I started the new job a month ago, and it’s been honestly quite awesome. There hasn’t been much in the way of writing, but I’m okay with that. I’ve found that it’s best to be realistic about these things. I had a brief moment of insanity where I thought that it might be a good idea to try and finish Watcher of the Skies in time for my daughter’s first birthday (marking two books since she was born) and then I laughed a while and poured myself another glass of wine. I had a visit from my best friend, Karen, all the way from Arizona. And she,…
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…a brief thought on writing alternate history
Sometimes it only takes one ripple in the water to change the shore.
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Exploring the Edges: Writing Outside the Boundaries
Write what you know may be the most hackneyed advice out there. And, well, it really isn’t that well informed. Yes, writing the things you know about–especially when you’re starting out–are safe bets. Keeping to the zone of your knowledge means that you’ll likely not be called out as a fraud and that you’ll keep going because, well, you already know about it. And as writers we have a tendency to cluster around the things that inform our existence. It’s why I wrote about New England in the beginning of Pilgrim of the Sky, even though I haven’t lived there in over a decade. It was part of my own origin…
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Lightning Strikes: From Whence Inspiration?
Sure, sure. You make your own inspiration and all that. You sit, you write, you create. I get that. It’s 90% of the equation. But what about those moments that are unplanned? I know I’m not the only writer out there that’s found profundity in hot showers or strains of music (in fact, most of the WIP fell into my brain during a shower). There seem to be situations where my brain is prone to wander unseen pathways, where I make connections in stories that, on normal writing days, just don’t seem to happen. No, I don’t believe in Muses, but there is some curious power in the workings…
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Lingering in Londinium; or, Monasteries of the Imagination
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk. — John Keats It occurs to me that it’s not just characters who choose us, but it’s places that choose us, too. When it comes to Watcher of the Skies, I had a great many plans. I thought that the first part of the book would take place in Britannia (England), an alternate history version where the Romans never left and the Angles, Frisians, Jutes, Saxons, etc., were assimilated as a servant class (those that didn’t ally with the Welsh and eventually end up part of the monarchy, that is). Then I was going to travel to the New World, to…
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Writing Through It: Depression, Anxiety, and Coping Mechanisms
We just moved. The whole house. Granted, it was only a couple of miles away. But it still sucks, it still interrupts everything, and it still makes writing just about impossible. Not that writing is always at the top of my list of things to do these days. I mean, in a perfect world it would be. But I’ve got kids and pets and family and responsibilities… and a house full of boxes. So. Many. Boxes. At this point I’m beyond the whole “write every day” thing which, when starting out, is super important. Of course. But reality? Yeah. I still don’t have a desk situation set up, so writing’s…
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“People’s dream…
“People’s dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It’s what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.” — Barbara Kingsolver It’s what you do that makes your soul.
