Stories and Falling Stars

I'm so pumped! Yesterday I finished the rough draft of the story inspired by the LegendFire contest prompt (can't mention the title as voting is still underway). It's been a long time since I've been this excited by a story idea and this pleased by the results. Not sure I've ever written a story this quickly either. In other words, it's been too long since I've experienced that magic that happens when the story falls together and tumbles out virtually without effort. A couple of brainstorming sessions and the thing flowed like silk. I couldn't decide which ending I was going to go with until the day before I wrote it; if I couldn't predict how it would end, likely a reader won't either.

And when the author feels this optimistic about a story, my hope is that an editor will pick up on that, too. I mean, I've written some crap stories. I knew they were crap, and they're still reeling in rejections. The only issue is that this story is 3000 words longer than what I had aimed for. 8k is an average length for my work. So while I'm not surprised, it would've been nice to keep the word count down a bit. Still, the story has meat, and that matters enormously to me. So 8k it is.

Last night was also the night for the best viewing of the meteor shower. Comet shower? Meh, whatever. So a little before midnight, my husband and I drove out to the middle of nowhere to count shooting stars. To the northeast we have terrible light pollution from OKC, but we were still able to count 17 for-sure shooting stars in little less than an hour. Others in the peripheral vision or right after a blink may have been legit too, but we didn't count those. Cows lowing in the distance, crickets and an owl, along with the wind in the high grass made for a lovely hour under the stars.

(Next writing project, while I'm slogging away on the novel revisions: another Lucien Levenger story, inspired by Sam's Dot anthology idea about Potter's Field. Whether or not I'll submit the story to them remains to be seen.)

Art of the Week, Aug 9

THE CALLING OF SAINT MATTHEW
by Caravaggio, 1599-1600

The contrast of light and dark, the realism, expressions, movement, are all reasons why Caravaggio is one of my favorite painters. (If you've not had a chance to examine this one, please expand it to full size and indulge)

His work appeals to me as a historian as well. I mean, check out the costuming. My historical fashions reference books don't come in color.

And a bizarre combination of clothing it is. Doublets and hose you might see in a Romeo and Juliet play up against what I assume is more what folks in Jesus's time might actually wear. An artist's license, I suppose.

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About writing... It's wonderful when one word inspires a great idea, the brain cooperates and runs with it, and things fall together. At LegendFire, our irreplaceable Bird is hosting a contest in our Shredder forum. The deadline for submissions is today. The entry I wrote for last year's Shredder contest has yet to go anywhere. But this year's entry is blooming like a garden. It's been a long time since I've been this excited and optimistic about a story idea. I've come to a place near the middle climax where my vision is less clear, and so I'm stalling on diving in today. Clearly. I'm blogging instead. Shame on me. Well, now that I've confessed there's nothing to be done but get to it.

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My First Blogger Award!

Wow, I always wondered what the big deal was with these awards bloggers passed around. I received my first one this week. Yay! Nicole Murray was kind enough to award me this lovely Find and Friend Award:

Apparently the goal is to pass it on to five other bloggers. Usually I don't participate in those chain-type emails and whatnot, but I don't want to break any blogging rules. In truth, I'd love to award it to everyone who managed to stumble onto my corner of cyberspace, but to start I'll just give it to the five who have been keeping tabs on my ramblings the longest:

Stephanie Thornton, whose award-winning blog revolves around her WIP, a novel about the female Egyptian pharoah, Hatshepsut.

Martin Turton, my writing friend from England who seems to have fallen off the face of the planet!

Milo Fowler, whose insightful blog focuses on the writing world.

Izzey, who posts her powerful poetry in her blog, "Life's Peculiarities," for all to enjoy.

L.T. Host, who is one of four creative and informative writers who contribute to The Secret Archives of the Alliterati

If you haven't stopped by Nicole Murray's blog, check out her gorgeous jewelry under "SalvagedBeauty" (if that's your thing. It's certainly mine), and her Wednesday WIP that includes snippets from her novel and other fiction she's working on.

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Art of the Week

I'd like to try something and see if I can stay dedicated enough to it to keep it updated.

One of my favorite past times (when I have few a moments between activities or just to chill) is to find new and exciting art. Art History I, II, and III were, I believe my favorite courses in college, and believe it or not the ones that have proven most useful since. Art is everywhere. Iconic images are plastered on billboards, advertisements, television programs. Dozens of artistic styles from ancient Celtic to Art Nouveau enhance what might otherwise be dull webpages and letterheads. Point is, I love art! I love the way every style and movement from past centuries makes a new appearance here and there. All of humanity's past creativity meshed together in a tireless, eclectic mix that both honors that past while creating something new.

Instead of paying good money I don't have to collect my favorite art, I collect art images from across the web. Granted, most of my collection to date consists of art from the fantasy genre as that's what inspires my writing to expand to strange, new horizons (a necessity, for sure), and I can't apologize for that as there are some exciting things going on in the world of fantasy art. So along with the work of more classic, more widely known artists that one might find in a college text book, I mean to present a few from our contemporary, speculative genres as well. Images to inspire, challenge, and move anyone who cares to take a look.

To begin this whole project, the following is one of my all-time favorite paintings:

NORTH WATCH by Keith Parkinson
Magazine cover, oil on masonite

I think it's the isolation, the loneliness that comes with dedication to duty, that cause this piece to move me. And, of course, having a dragon to ride to work everyday is just too cool.

Me? A Webmistress?

Like I needed another project on my hands.

But I've gone and done it now. Committed myself to learning how to build a website. A year ago, when I had to learn how to run and manipulate stuff on LegendFire, it was a matter of studying the builders very simple and straightforward code and sorta reverse engineering things when I needed to make bigger changes. That familiarized me with the basics and everything that actually made a webpage happen. I found it fascinating that changing a little bit of code would produce dramatic results on the community page. (And I haven't broken anything irreparably yet.)

Then, after all the searching and questioning I underwent this last couple of months concerning my novel projects, I decided, for many reasons, that it was high time these ugly things got into print. Well, if I'm going to publish three huge novels myself, I need all the help I can get to sell a few stray copies. Thus, the website project. It'll be nice to advertise traditional publications there as well. Next step was to browse all the templates available. None served every need I envisioned, so I downloaded the one that I felt would need the least customizing, then...

I went to the bookstore and bought a tome the size of Texas: "HTML, XHTML, and CSS for Dummies." That's me all right. I'm forcing myself not to skip any pages and take the exercises one at a time. I found that when I skipped ahead to change fonts on my template that it didn't work, so obviously I missed something vital somewhere, so back to the beginning. In other words, this has been so much fun, a practical challenge for my brain that produces visual results, and that's rewarding. Nothing like brainstorming for a plot solution and writing it out and still being uncertain if it worked right. Oh, dear. And it's been ugly work brainstorming plot solutions to novels that are a decade old. But that's another post.

A Sponsor of Compassion

An amazing and unexpected thing happened today. After church service, I walked out into the lobby and there was a Compassion Organization booth set up. I felt this overpowering draw to go check it out. The table was full of pictures of children who need sponsors. The first child I saw was of a little girl from Ecuador. Her name was Lady. My eyes were immediately blind to any other child. It was me and Lady and no one else. I picked up the package that has her picture and information in it, saw that her birthday is the same as my husband's and broke out into open tears. It was all I could do to wail quietly. Luckily, the lobby was full of people and loud chattering, so only a few noticed the state I was in. My husband didn't know what to do but rub my shoulders and look at me like I'd, well, lost it, which I had.

So we are now sponsors of a little girl named Lady who lives in Ecuador. We don't have kids of our own. I had always felt led to adopt from overseas or sponsor several children, but was leery of trusting any of these organizations. Well, today, I acted without thinking about any of that. To hell with fear of being robbed. We just went for it.

When we get the account stuff figured out, we'll receive a larger package about Lady. Then I'll start sending her letters. She's only three. She can't read or write yet, and I'm not sure that the little Spanish I know will even work, as she speaks an old Inca language. But I'm sure the translators know what they're doing. We'll be able to communicate a little bit, I'm sure. If not in words so much, then in pictures, in gifts like stickers to stick on the things she values, pages to color, postcards of the place where I live. I hope my refrigerator is soon covered in her "letters" and the pictures she draws for us. I hope that my hope will give her hope.

http://www.compassion.com/

Burnout?

Is it burnout I've been suffering? Has anyone else suffered writer's burnout? I don't think it's writer's block. Maybe it is, since I've never seen an apt definition for it, how would I know? I guess the point is that I have yet to learn to maintain my own style of writing after having jumped into the critique gauntlet. That gauntlet can be so harsh and unfavorable toward a flamboyant writing style, b/c it doesn't appeal to more minimalist writers. So I've been minimalizing my writing style, trying to make it conform to writing "rules." And now I find myself in a fix. My brain is exhausted, my inner editor has grown into a monster, and I think I'm afraid of every word I put on the page -- or don't, in many cases.

The experts say, "Write everyday." So writing continually (I haven't been able to maintain a daily writing schedule in years. That's called obligations to someone besides myself), in addition to all the above, I believe, has led me to Writer's Burnout. In other words, I've really been contemplating what's been going on inside my head for a while now (obvious, given the ponderings below), and that is my conclusion.

Still working on the Falcon Novels. I can't believe how involved I am in a book I've revised multiple times. The work of my heart. Everything else is peripheral. I don't feel burned out when I'm working on the Falcons. I'm even dreaming about the characters again. Things are on the upswing. Surely. I hope. Yes!