Well, I didn’t intend to leave, but I’m back!

I don’t know who is still here, if anybody.  Perhaps you have abandoned blogdom for facebookdom or twitterdom.

Perhaps you still keep an eye on a few blogs, and perhaps this is one of them.

The state of pooks these days is that I’ve written about 100,000 words in the past few months.  Yes, I’m writing a novel, not a screenplay.  Not just a novel, but the first of a trilogy.  Oh, and this 100,000 words is maybe 2/3rds or so of it.

I’m finding myself wanting to chronicle this process, and this is the most practical place to do that.

So yes, I’m back, and I’ll be writing about writing.  If that intrigues you, stick around.

In the meantime, I’m struggling with a plot snarl which I hope to work out over chips and salsa at the local Tex Mex joint, and will return later to play “catchup.”

How have you been? Feel free to let me know!

If you’re new?  ~waves~ Let me know that, too!

Pooks

Time out for some fantasy.

So, because my new project is a novel three novels in the fantasy genre, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy lately.  And even though my project isn’t romance, it does have a strong love story and I’ve been looking for strong fantasy love stories and so, with no further ado, what I’ve been reading lately, the good parts version.

The Rest Falls Away: The Gardella Vampire Chronicles

This is a pretty good read. It should be sexier than it is, but that’s just because I think there’s a certain expectation of a vampire novel that is billed as a paranormal romance.  It has been called a combination of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pride and Prejudice.  Well, the Buffy part is right, but the P&P? The setting is Regency London and the main character is having her first London season when she discovers she’s a hereditary vampire hunter.  Ignoring the fact that P&P wasn’t about a London season, the only thing this has in common with Jane Austen is the time period. My biggest complaints with this book are mainly some anachronisms that crop up fairly often and the fact that this book, while set in England during the Regency, doesn’t sound English.  At all.

I wouldn’t be recommending it, if it didn’t have strengths, however.  The strengths–an interesting presentation of the premise and a plot that keeps you wondering.  I said this was a romance, and it’s marketed that way, and it certainly has romance in it, but in this book you even find yourself wondering exactly who the hero is and who she is going to end up with and I like that in a book.  So, I recommend this if you just want a good, fast and entertaining read and if this sounds interesting to you. It’s the first in a series and I think there are four books now.  I’ll eventually read more, but am not in a hurry.

The Smoke Thief (The Drakon, Book 1)

This is a book that would not have attracted me by its premise, simply because I truly haven’t been into fantasy that much in the past and a race of creatures called Drakon who are dragons who can turn to smoke and to human form didn’t excite me. But oh, this is a writer whose style is lush and sensual, whose characters are lush and sensual, whose story is lush and sensual (um, I seem to be stuck here) and who knows how to create wonderful conflict between a hero and heroine that isn’t easily resolved. I loved the first book, and each book has been better. This is another that’s set in England, this time in the 18th Century, with forays into Europe, especially the Carpathian mountains. I can’t say that the author has an English voice, but her voice certainly has a richness and fantasy quality that makes up for that. Then there’s the fact that the relationships and the dangers are so compelling. Yes, the author occasionally does things that annoy me but in this case I love her books so much I forgive her and don’t even pause to be annoyed. And you might note, I wasted no time picking up the sequels in this case. I’m just saying.

Lord of the Fading Lands

The good news, I guess, is that this is a total fantasy in fantasy lands that don’t have to sound English, because this is not an English author and she doesn’t write with an English voice. But this is an extremely intense story about the last of the Feyrein (I hope I have the terminology right; I am not good about keeping track of this sort of thing) who is sometimes man and sometimes a creature that flies but (I think) is like an extremely large black cat-beast. Over a thousand years ago when his wife was killed, the Feyrein part of him (the beast) flew into a Wilding Rage and scorched the earth and killed over half the people in the land in his grief. Needless to say, they aren’t real comfortable with him around and he stays away, and has done so for, well, a thousand years. But now he’s suddenly got a Truemate–a bond that is stronger than the bond with his wife could dream of being–and, well, she’s not sure she wants to be his Truemate, all things considered, and… Well. Fantasy. Romance. Intense. Compelling. First in a series. I’m reading it now and am sure I’ll be reaching for the next to see what happens.

Also, a couple of books have been recommended to me that I now have but haven’t started reading:

Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

That doesn’t look like a fantasy to me, or at least not the kind of fantasy I’m into, but I’m told it has an angsty love story so I’ll give it a shot. Again, first in a series.

Taltos

And this one because… um, I’m not quite sure, but maybe because it has something to do with Celts and such? Again, I’m giving it a shot.

So help me out here. Have you read any of these? What did you think? Do you have other fantasy romances or fantasies with strong love stories as subplots? Give me titles, people. Give me a few details.

Especially if they’re British.  British would be a huge bonus.

So.  Anybody?

Holly Lisle’s Create A Culture Clinic

So I’m writing not just a novel (oh, no, that would be too normal) but a trilogy.

Not just a trilogy, but a fantasy trilogy that involved inventing magical worlds, meaning, detail upon detail upon detail, and I am not a detail person.

Just to be clear, I understand that, and yet, here I am, doing this crazy thing anyway.

Somebody save me.

But.

I stumbled across something that, so far, is very helpful.

Create religions and philosophies, governments and lifestyles that are different than your own, that work together, and that feel real. Avoid cliches. Begin using your new culture in your writing…. (181 pages).

I even (gasp!) read the “read this first so you’ll know how to use this book” section.

I know, me, following directions, instead of just diving in?  A rare moment, indeed.

Okay, I first dove in and started putting together my notebook to keep my notes and worksheets together but then read that section, realized I was doing it wrong (ahem) and now am doing it properly.

One of the things that “doing it properly” means is–once you get past that “read this first section”–you are supposed to skim the rest of the book and highlight, bookmark or sticky-tab only those sections that actually mean something to you for the world/culture/project you’re creating, and then come back and read those more thoroughly, skipping the rest.

I do like that approach.  Eliminates a lot of reading time on things that make no difference.  Very practical, I say.

So far it has primarily enhanced ideas I already had.  My story, for example, deals with some of the courtship rituals of the world I’m creating.  There is also a counterculture, and I knew their courtship rituals would be much looser and less structured.  This wasn’t any earth-shattering decision; it mirrors what happened in our own society during the time period. But in reading Holly’s section on “Singles” and “Pairs” it gradually dawned on me that I didn’t have to simply mirror what happened in our own society.  In creating a new world, you not only have the opportunity to shake things up and make them totally different, in my case, I was missing the opportunity to make the differences between my culture and my counterculture have meaning.  Not simply be different in the ways that are obvious and comfortable and easy for me, because they mirror reality, but make the differences more deliberate and political, and more about defiance of established rules and effort to right wrongs.

Um, this means nothing to you.  But just let me say, if you’re writing s/f or fantasy or even having to learn about an entirely new culture that already exists, and you just need a framework to keep your notes together and to help you decide what kind of research/info you need to gather?  I recommend this e-book.

$9.95 if you download it, which I did, and then printed it and put it in a binder. The real benefit here is that I can print off worksheets as I need them, as many as I need, right off my printer.

$19.95 if you prefer a bound book, in which case you will need to photocopy the worksheets.

So, has anybody else used these materials?

What do you think?

Credit where credit is due…

So, who gets credit for this great line?

“I don’t know how to kiss, or I would kiss you.

Where do the noses go?“

The screenwriter?

The novelist?

The poet?

(Serious question, by the way. I haven’t read the book nor have I seen the movie. I have, however, read the poem. More than once. In fact, I memorized it. No, I can’t spout it anymore, but perhaps it would be a worthwhile endeavor to repeat, now that I consider it.)

(I also know nothing about the Spanish Civil War or Franco or Spain. That has been long on my list of things I need to learn, but haven’t gotten around to.)

Anybody Speak French?

So, I was looking for interesting books set in the Regency time period and saw a recommendation for The Spymaster’s Lady and now I’m reading it.

It’s the kind of book with a bare-chested male model on the cover, one who has ripped his jacket and his ruffled shirt open and is staring into the distance with great fervor. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you like bare-chested male models.

But it’s also very well-written and has a firebrand of a little French heroine who is a fighter, and by that, I mean, a fighter. Oh, she’s a spy, but in the first 70 pages or so we’ve seen lots of fighting. I’m not complaining. I like her a lot.

But I’m wondering about this one thing. I don’t speak French and know nothing about how the French language is constructed, etc. Her dialogue feels very French to me; I can hear her French accent when she speaks, but then, how would I know? I don’t speak French.

The theory is that if you want to have a character’s English dialogue reflect the fact that they aren’t native speakers, you can have them use English words but in constructions that are true to that of that their native language. For example, by that theory, a Spaniard or Italian would never say, “I’d swear on my mother’s grave,” but would instead say, “I swear on the grave of my mother,” because there is no possessive in the Romance languages.

Also, you’d get rid of contractions. Or rather, you would get rid of contractions. Like that.

So, if you speak French or are moderately familiar with it, perhaps you can tell me whether the following dialogue is French in its construction?

“Most likely I did, and you are being composed and manly about it. Though it is obvious I did not break your neck, which was my great fear. I will tell you I am not sorry in the least, even if I hurt you gravely, because you should not make off with me this way. It is wholly despicable to entrap women and kidnap them with you across France and force them to wear indecent nightclothes only because you do not trust them.”

Any takers?

(I am not offering firebrand French spies in indecent nightclothes. I am asking for volunteers to assess the French-or-not-French construction. Some of you have hopeful dirty minds.)