Know Your Bastions!

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As a writer of fantasy, it's common for castles and forts to make an appearance in my pages. So, to be able to obey the old saying "Write What You Know," it was necessary to acquaint myself with the ways of castles and all the terminology involved. But because I don't frequent actual castles often enough (those tickets to Europe are rather expensive), I do still get confused on all the "buttresses" and "baileys" and "barbicans." The terms that tend to give me the most trouble, oddly enough, are the ones I use most frequently. Either my resources are giving me conflicting information or my brain habitually remembers things backwards (which I tend to think is the case).

To keep things straight, I've provided a diagram. Our model is Penrhyn Castle in Bangor, Wales. So the next time you tour your castle and watch for baddies approaching on the horizon, you will know which part you are ducking behind and which part to shoot your arrow through:


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Progress Report, 2-15-11

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TODAY'S PROGRESS
Project: Falcons Rising
Pages Rewritten: 5
Pages Cut: 3 1/4
Bad things that happened: Kelyn drinks too much poppy wine and becomes easy prey. For whom, you ask?
Good things that happened: Still nothing (very evil laugh follows)

Side note: I have spring fever. It's 70 degrees and sunny here, and I wrote with the back door open and thought I had gone to heaven.


Art of the Week:

SHADOWLANDS
Gloria Scholik, 2010

(I love the fairy's distrustful expression!)

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Ah, yes, here we are again...

Let me back up a bit and post an update on things.

It's been perhaps two months since I've blogged here, though I have been journaling at LJ for a couple of weeks now. I think I was feeling the pressure of networking and finding something interesting to say, when I just wanted to write on the novels and keep the details to myself. I mean, only I would understand what I was saying, but no one else would have a clue about the plot/character ramblings I wanted to scribble about. And seriously, little else of note, that I would dare share in a public place, was happening. So I took a hiatus and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it's time to dive back in.

The novel project is crawling forward. I'm finding a chain reaction happening. I expected some of it, but nothing quite this dramatic. When I rewrote the first half a couple of years ago, I had changed a few details that are now adding up and causing far bigger changes in the last half. It's a pleasant surprise. I know the text, the characters, the events so well, that it's like these changes should always have been a part of the story, but just hadn't made it onto the page yet. But those changes are also able to keep my interest engaged. I wish I could describe in detail what I'm talking about, with examples, etc. but those examples just wouldn't make an impact on anyone else. You'll just have to read it when it comes out in print.

I'm also getting a bit impatient. It's February, and that stack of paper is still huge. I just want the project to be done with, so I can hold the printed and bound book in my hands and cry with relief. A decade ... that's a long time to become sure of the path this story needed to take. That's swallowing a lot of pride and saying this story is not what editors are looking for these days, but readers might like it and sod it if they don't, I have to finish the project. I've promised too many people involved that they'll receive a copy, anyway, hopefully by Christmas. I'm glad I was realistic with the deadline. It will take me all year to give the novel the attention it needs, while allowing time for short stories on the side.

Good thing is, the cover painting is finished. Well, at least the pastel part is finished. Now I've scanned it into the computer and it will take time to hide the seam between the two pages it took to paint a full wrap-around-sized pic. Also, some of the corpses' faces are too bright for being in shadow. I'll have to darken them as well, and b/c I'm not fluent in the GIMP program, this part of the project will take me a long time to finish, too.

So you see, I'm down to a nitty-gritty, driven routine. If I don't have many updates, it's because the same ol' grind is happening day in and day out.

I am keeping sane by calling it quits most days by 5 pm, eating dinner with my honey, then dungeon crawling with him in DDO. But then, going to sleep, bashed and bloodied from fighting undead and lizard creatures in the stinky sewers, my mind turns again to what I will write come morning. Meditating on it, seeing it clearly, all over again. Like I had a decade ago. Ah, the life of a mad writer.

I found this really cool update system somewhere on LiveJournal and thought I would try it out and see if it keeps me accountable to posting. I've had to customize the thing so that it works for this particular project:

TODAY'S PROGRESS
Project: Falcons Rising
Pages Rewritten: 5
Pages Cut: 1 1/3
Bad things that happened: a funeral. :(
Good things that happened: not much - it's hopeless! (evil laugh follows)

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Gift Shopping Update

Oh, dear, did we go nuts on buying gifts for Manalito. Of course we wanted to buy the biggest and most, like the Hot Wheels. At first we put into the cart the package with six cars, but on second thought had to choose the package with only three. Same with the Legos. My husband is all about Legos, so he picked out this huge scorpion creature, but we had to go with the smaller spider and medium shark. Then we went for the soccer ball and air pump. Picked up one air pump, but lo! and behold, there was a smaller one nearby. And, yes, we deflated the soccer ball, but it still wouldn't fit with all the clothes and hygiene items. *sigh* Off to the post office I go to get a second box.

We went with those flat-rate boxes and I knew shipping was going to be expensive, but I didn't anticipate quite that expensive. Yikes. That does it for anyone else receiving anything from us. Well, I guess we'll still get the nieces and nephews something. Everyone seems to be cutting back on the gift-buying this year, so there's no need to go overboard anyway. Which is a vast relief.

Expensive or not, nothing has given me more joy than to buy stuff for this child. I just wish I could bring him home with me, but I need to pray that Manalito will be a blessing to his own people, moving mountains for them, one person at a time, perhaps.

Christmas art to ponder:

Nativity (Holy Night)
Antonio Da Correggio, 1528

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Giving Thanks...

For turkey
For cake and cookies in abundance
For great story ideas
For a husband who is patient with me while I express those ideas
For 33 years filled with precious memories
For a family that made those memories possible
For Lady and Manalito, who teach me about priorities and unmerited blessings
For a country where I am still free to worship my Savior

Did anyone eat as much as I did? I feel like a butterball myself. For a couple of months I've been carefully monitoring my eating, so this weekend, I ate with impunity. Guiltless enjoyment. Now I never want to eat again. I say that every year. :D

Also, I have the privilege of buying Christmas presents for a boy in Mozambique. His name is Manalito and he's twelve, and I have no idea what 12-year-old boys want for Christmas. The necessities are easy, but what about the fun stuff? I'm recruiting my sister's help. Maybe she'll know what to do.

Regardless, a little boy on the other side of planet Earth has become precious to me. And seeing how he lives has taught me, not to feel guilty for the house I live in and the clothes in my closet and the food on my table, but to believe that we who live in this wealthy country have a primary responsibility of seeing to the needs of these children. I wish I could buy them running water, but toothbrushes and socks will have to do.

New Ideas, Rare and Precious

It's rare anymore for me to find a story idea that takes hold of my imagination and hangs on till I reach "The End." I feel like I'm floundering about, pretending to be busy with a great idea until a better one comes along. All the while, the mental tentacles are feeling around for that new inspiration. It's a murky sea, with low visibility most of the time.

So I was checking out the upcoming themes list on Duotrope the other day and came across an anthology by Dead Robots' Society that grabbed hold of one of those mental feelers and wouldn't let go. The prompt for Explorers: Beyond the Horizon is "characters forever changed by their discovery of lands and worlds beyond their own." I have rarely found a prompt more suited to my taste. Half a dozen possibilities rose amid a frenzied brainstorm session. I finally went with one and started typing. The only problem is that the word count must be under 5000 words. I have trouble keeping stories under 8000, so this will be a challenge. Even if the anthology doesn't accept the story, their prompt gifted me with the brainfood that those mental tentacles were grasping for.

Granted, I undertook this brainstorm session while sipping tea laced with cold medicine. Does anyone else find that while on cold medicine their inner critic shuts up and ideas flow? Or is that my lame equivalent of an LSD trip? Ah, well.

Here's some art to ponder:

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST WITH TWO PUPILS
by Adelaide Labille-Guiard, 1785

We don't hear about too many women painters before the modern era. But this one is a jewel. That fact that Labille-Guiard featured the two future female artists under her wing in this grand self-portrait lets us know that they were out there, creating beautiful things in the vast shadows of their male colleagues. Though I seriously doubt these women painted while wearing their finest. :D Enjoy!

(Click on the pic twice to blow it up all the way. The lady even painted the seam in that shiny dress. Fantastic)
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Art of the Week, Sci-Fi

I have neglected to post any art from the sci-fi realm. Shame on me, for there are some amazing images appealing to the techie side of humanity lurking around out there. I just found a gorgeous one by JP Targete and thought I would share. I guess this one is a little more speampunk-ish, too:

THE CAPTIVE
JP Targete, 2003

As for writing, I have an enormous stack of paper to get through in one year's time. I have to remind myself that the text is printed on only one side of the paper. Then I remember that, b/c there will be so much new material and so many changes in the details, I will have to revise twice -- at least. I'm not panicking yet. Besides, I've set my own deadline. I can move it if I want. But I've already told too many people I'm shooting for December 2011. To hell with that. It's my deadline, I can move it if I want! Nope, not panicking. Though I do need to stop blogging now and get to those revisions . . .

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