RealityBypass

       It’s amazing how good we can get at whining. Probably because our culture tends to cater to squeaky wheels, if for nothing else than getting them to shut up and not sue us. Unfortunately, whining is a bad habit to get into, particularly for a writer. We’re also very good at whining to ourselves and convincing ourselves. I find the biggest issue for people who want to write is “But I don’t have enough time!”

    I don’t have enough time is simply code for “I’m too lazy” or “I don’t want to.” Let’s face it, the odds of becoming the next Anne Rice, Stephen King or J K Rowling is pretty slim. Being able to make a living solely off writing isn’t likely to happen. However, it makes a pretty fun hobby and a great supplemental income. But this also means that if you WANT to write,  you have to quit whining. Either this means scheduling yourself so you can’t say “But I don’t have enough time” or sacrificing other activities sometimes in order to continue writing.

       I currently work two jobs, one teaching high school and one teaching at night for extra money. I take riding lessons on the weekends, play video games on Tuesday nights and meet with friends on Saturday nights. On Sundays I go ‘hang’ with my Ma and my Grandpa. It’s a pretty busy schedule, especially when you throw in cleaning my house (ewww!) and feeding myself. Alas, I haven’t yet learned how to eat books as well as read them. Maybe one day!

       The moral of this story is… you can still find 1 - 2 hours a day to be able to write, if you make the determination that it WILL happen. Do it at dawn when you wake, an hour before bed, an hour at dinner, on your lunch break, or whatever! I don’t choose the same time every day, though that may work for you. I just set a goal of a certain word count or a certain time spent editing every day (1500 words or 1.5 hours editing as a goal, I usually do more!). On occasion you’ll have a day or two that you need to put it aside, but in general the time is there. If you want to make it…

~Kris

Hah…so much for getting a post up every day for a bit.  No excuses from me.  Not even any really good ones about monsters attacking from the closed containers in the fridge.  Nope.  And no mold monsters either.

Anyway…getting back to the review…

In my mind the biggest strength or weakness of a book is it’s characters.  I can appreciate a book that is plot focused, but I find that I have to remind myself to stay focused when I don’t have a character voice that helps me to care about what’s happening and why.  In UT and UD we’re introduced to a strong cast of characters to care about and to empathize with, from our leading protagonist on down to secondaries who we would only know for a few chapters.   Just for kicks and giggles let’s take a look at a few of them:

Connor Grey:  Connor Grey is the view point character for both UT and UD, so he’s the one we spend the most time with.  He’s a druid, which is a human with fey powers and blood.   At one time he was well on the path to becoming the High Druid, the best of the best and leader of the Druid circle in the greater Boston area.  He had it all.  Power, a place with the social elite, a nice house, cars, girls…the whole dish…until he went toe to toe with a nutty eco elf.  Now there’s a mass in Connor’s mind and he can barely sense the powers that he once used with grace.  Everything he had is lost save for a few loyal friends and a disability check that arrives on the first of each month.  The theme of falling from grace, or fallen from grace, comes up fairly frequently in Urban Fantasy and it’s well done in Connor.  He struggles with still wanting the lifestyle he lost and being ashamed of it all at once and the struggle is part of what makes him interesting. 

Stinkwort aka Joe:  Joe is a flit, basically a small fairy, who has a love for Oreos, a dislike of technology and a quick sense of humor and self.  He is Connor’s friend, not because he has to be, but because he wants to be.  It would be easy for Joe to be only a matter of comic relief, but he’s not a bumbling idiot, despite being funny.  He’s a warrior in and of himself and has important things going on in his life that Connor may or may not be involved in.  You never get the feeling that Joe is just sitting there waiting for Connor to arrive and give him something to do.  This is a common trait in the secondary characters of both UT and UD.  They live their own lives, we just happen to be seeing them when they cross over with Connor.

Meryl:  Meryl completely cracks me up.  She’s that person that we all know that says what she’s thinking and should be seen as rude, but somehow manages to make it endearing.  From her odd clothing to the dreams that she’s geased to share she’s somehow loveable, and I’m always happy to see more of her in the books.  The relationship between Meryl and Connor is a fun one and you can see the friendship shining through.  She’s ‘that girl’…the one that’s always been there, but the guy has just never noticed…yet.

Murdoch:  The stalwart friend and police presence in Boston.  I like Murdoch.  He comes from a big cooking police family and is a car slob.  He has those traces of humanity that make him believable and make him breathe on the page.  We see him in a lot of situations and he handles them with aplomb, which leaves me wondering what will happen when there’s a situation that’s beyond him?  My one complaint with Murdoch is actually his name because there are several series that feature cops with similar.  Not Del Franco’s fault exactly, but it is distracting when I first get to reading.

Keeva:   Connor’s once partner in the guild and now the head of the place herself Keeva is a woman with a lot on her plate.  She wants it all and is capable, but sometimes blinded by her own sense of what is RIGHT and never wanting to be WRONG.  I empathize with Keeva because the burden of leadership is never an easy one, and even when she’s doing the right she often ends up in the wrong.

So how do you create memorable characters?  Make them live.  Breath life and flaws and quirks and love and emotion into them.  I think Del Franco has done that beautifully.

 More thoughts later…next time…magic systems and setting.

~J 

I started reading Unshapely Things, by Mark Del Franco, about three months ago.  I’d received gift certificates to local bookstores from work and I have a policy that gift certificates can be spent on expanding my author list and trying new authors, even knowing I may hate them and the book may go to the library, the recycle pile or the regifting list.  Usually the number of books that ends up in one of the reject piles is low, because I tend to research authors before just buying, but Unshapely Things wasn’t researched.  In fact it was totally off my radar until the cover caught my eye and I read the back cover.  It was interesting enough.  A quick flip through and scanning a few pages here and there showed a pleasant writing style and I instantly found a few lines that tickled my funny bone, so the book came home with me.  It came home…I read the first three pages and then it sat on a shelf under a pile of laundry for about a month.

Poor lonely book…   Even worse to torture it with laundry.  I don’t know why it did nothing for me on that first read.  Maybe it was the position of Venus in relationship to Mars, or my own insanity, I’m not sure which, but I practiced book abandonment much to my shame.

Fast forward a month.  I’m grabbing all of the laundry in the house for a marathon laundry and cleaning session.  I need all laundry and something to read.  Hrm…there’s a book under the laundry.  It has a good looking guy on the cover and I remember the cover catching my attention.  I’m ready for a new urban fantasy.  Okay.  Give it another try. 
This time everything sizzled and much more reading than laundry got accomplished. 
Within two days I’d finished the book and by day three had put Unquiet Dreams, book two in the series, on my preorder list and here we are now having finished them both and chomping at the bit for book three which doesn’t release until next year, darn it!

So for the next few days I’m running away with the blog, I’m sure K won’t mind since she had to keep it running while I was busy getting married and playing at Disney World, to talk about my journey through these two books and what I learned on the way.

Stay tuned.

~J

       Just so you know, reading about the Apocalypse before bed will give you strange nightmares. (Even a comical Apocalypse). I read the book Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet, which I thouroughly enjoyed. The entire tone of the novel, down to the prose, is irreverent which is what we’ve come to expect from British comedy. For instance, Pestilence is replaced by Pollution as one of the four horseman (AKA Bikers) of the apocalypse, since penicillin put Pestilence out of business! Early on the antichrist is ‘lost’ by an incompetent set of Hell-nuns, a hell hound sent to Earth expecting to be named Murder or Terror ends up being called ‘Dog’ which, of course, changes him from a slavering monster into a hyperactive terrier that prefers chasing rabbits to causing the Apocalypse. A witch predicts the future, a witchhunter marries a witch, an angel learns to swear and a demon learns remorse right before they go to battle the devil himself, wing to wing and shoulder to shoulder.

          I particularly liked the interactions between Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon. While they know they should be mortal enemies, because The Ineffable Plan Says So they’re friends instead (Not that they admit it. Crowley always blames it on thousands of years of familiarity from the Garden of Eden to the 20th Century.). Both Az and Crowley, after years of working to bring about the Apocalypse, realize that they rather like Earth and their comfortable situation on it. I love how the authors give them humanistic quirks; Crowley’s love of classic cars and Az’s bookstore that is really just a place to store his books, rather than sell them. Their bickering, and subtle concern for eachother, resonates with the reader because you can relate to their friendship. They adjust to one another, learn from one another and learn to recognize how their situations are more alike than unalike.
   ~Kris

“Because you can look right through me, walk right by me and never know I’m there! Never… even… know… I’m there….” (Mr. Cellophane, Chicago)      

      Sometimes I wonder if the only person who notices me is the IRS. (Which I must admit, I’d rather wish they didn’t! AHEM.) For a long time I’ve managed to be easily forgettable, despite being 5′8″ tall and a rather outgoing person. In high school I had a tendency to be left off programs for Drama, despite putting in 20 hours a week at least! Often times award programs, if anyone was forgotten in the list it was usually me! Years later, a few class mates from high school recognized me as “Hey you were that kid who wrote the Star Trek script right?” which was a nice change, but in general I’m used to “Oh, wait, we had classes together?

      The sad thing is that it hasn’t changed much in adulthood. I have an amazing knack for being the one person whose head is cut off in pictures or whose name is conveniently forgotten on lists. In college my application to the honors college was lost twice until I finally gave up! Recently of everyone photographed for the musical promotional picture, you can only see 1/4 of my cheek if you squint at it!

      My new boss asked me the other day, “Do other people know all this about you?” and I came to the sad conclusion of “Probably not”. I’ve worked at the same job for 2 years with a small staff, and I think most of them would be hard pressed to say one thing about me. It makes me wonder if there’s something inherantly forgettable about me, or if it’s simply the fact that most people are very self-involved and thus forget MOST other people.

        I do, though, think this is one of the most basic desires of human relationships; being noticed. Knowing someone thinks about you enough to take an interest in your life and want to be involved in it and take the time to adjust their schedule to include you. It’s been a frustratingly rare thing for me. I feel like I’m always the one adjusting. Thankfully I have a few good friends I’ve kept in touch with over the years and a few I’ve reunited with who have made the effort in return, and it’s been delightful! My darling students, as well, while sometimes on the ‘loco’ side most certainly prove they notice me. I think, sometimes, the teens know more about me than most anyone in my life. It’s validating. 

My musings for the day:

          Seek out those quiet people in your life, you may be surprised just what interesting things they have to say. Or what an effect you may have on their life simply by taking the time to say Hi, what’s up with you lately? After all, you can never meet enough people, everyone has their own story and there’s a great source of inspiration waiting to be discovered.

     ~Kris

Today isn’t really about writing. It’s about life. I got accepted into the PHD program for Spanish Literature at the University of Houston. Woohoo! Of course, now that brings up those “Big Questions” we all hate so much. Where am I going to live? Where can I afford to live? Should I move back in with family or tough it out on a TA’s (teachign assistant) salary. Should I try to work full time and go to school?

My godfather has renovated his lovely little condo and is selling it for a low price. It’s a quaint 1 bedroom overlooking a park, with a nice balcony. I especially love the covered parking. However, it’s a little small for what I’m wanting and a 45 minute commute to school. The pros, of course, is my mortgage on it would be 400 dollars less than anywhere I could rent! A con? My paycheck becomes a 9 month thing if I go back to working as a TA, so it might still be rather tight. Alas and Alack…

On the good side, of course, owning is a great tax break and pretty exciting! And getting my PHD both enables me to sign things “Dr. McAlear” (or Dr. Mac as my students call me!) and would let me teach at the college level. So despite all these worries, I’m definitely excited about it. I missed getting into spirited literature discussions. So look out for reviews of Spanish novels in the near future!

Anyway today I read to the kids a devotion about ‘worrying’ and how Jesus warned us that: “Can all your worrying add a single day to your life? Of course not.” (Mt 6:27) I’m working hard at letting go of my worries, but I’ve never been very good with change! It’s funny though, writing this all out certainly helps exorcise some of the worry demons.

~ Kristen

I recently read First Rider’s Call by Kristen Britain. The book was entertaining and well written, and although it was around 600 pages long the plot was tight and I couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed her characterization. Karigan, the lead, is spunky and a little uncertain without being irritating. She shows great aptitude and skill in some areas while showing uncertainty and inexperience in others. One of my great pet peeves with heroines is when they’re perfect at everything or spend all their time whining. The other characters in the book go through believable doubt and trauma, from a hard-as-nails Captain nearly losing her mind when her powers go mad to a King suffering over the choice of a wife. I also enjoyed the suspense of the Rider’s powers waning and the ‘low magic’ setting of the novel. Magic isn’t something accepted and desired in this world, but rather something more feared. When magic starts going mad with the rise of dark forces, the effect of a magic-fearing society learning to deal with the changes creates good tension. I did have a few arguments with the plot, however. Near the end, there’s a touch of ‘deux-ex-machina’ in how the final conflict is resolved. I think Britain built up to it well with hints and foreshadowing, but it seemed almost too easy near the end. I did like, however, how it wasn’t a total victory and leaves much more for a next book. And as a bonus for a horse lover, there’s some great equine characters!

           Today I was paging through my ‘writing’ thumb drive looking for blog inspiration. While doing so I ran into some of my former writing attempts, from a rejected Star Trek script pitch to short stories that won prizes in high school and finally to my first attempt at original fiction.

            My first novel was called “The Atlantis Project”. Inspired by a fascination with Sea Quest and Star Trek, I embarked on my own science fiction adventure. I think the idea of an underwater colony and an Earth that has had to colonize the ocean’s floor is probably still a good idea, but my goodness did I love /adverbs/! (And very thinly disguised Federation of Planets plagiarism! Ah the foibles of our teenage fanfiction…) I never realized just how superflous adverbs are until I waded through my own bulky prose filled with ’strongly growling’ and ‘timidly mumbling’ heroes and heroines!

            The book, all 300 pages of it, wasn’t very good. However, it’s nice to see it’s also not terrible. I’m thinking the idea of world-governments battling for fertile ocean soil probably has a lot of potential, re-written from a fresh and more mature perspective. It’s nice to look at the ghosts of your literary past and see that the seeds of good writing are there, and also it’s nice to see how you’ve grown. So maybe the battle for the earth’s last fertile soil will one day make it back into print, minus about 10000 adverbs.

~Kris

I really enjoy travelling. I think it’s a great way to get ideas for stories and discover some fun and authentic settings for novels. I’ve tried for a long time to go one new place every year, finances permitting. This year’s adventure is going to be Alaska! My grandfather, mother, brother and I are booked on an Alaskan Cruise running from Vancouver, Canada up to Whittier Alaska.

We fly into Seattle and take a car trip up to Vancouver where we’ll be able to see the local museums, sample the local fare and enjoy the mountainous sights. From there, it’s trips through glaciars, kayaking in the ocean, tram rides up into the mountains and hopefully some sightings of the Northern Lights (if it gets dark enough). I’m told we’ll only have about 3 hours of darkness most nights in July! My hope is to get a chance to dog sled again, and maybe try some cross country skiing or perhaps I may even try ice fishing.

The writer’s moral of the story… travel when and where you can, you never know what may inspire you! Actually seeing London made all the difference in creating the setting for Whispers, you can add a touch of authentic flare. 

~Kris