As promised, here's the Amazon link for A Rumor of Real Irish Tea.
My sister called me Thursday night to tell me she'd found it. I was lazy and didn't come post it until now. (Obviously.)
I've had several people mention my first NaNoWriMo novel to me, and I'm wondering if maybe I should polish it up and put it out there as well. I told my mother three days ago that she couldn't read it to my nephews (it's a girl-book, dangit!), only to go over to my grandma's house last night and have my cousin's kids (two boys and a girl) all run up to me and say, "We really liked your Kingdom of Ruses!" Apparently their father had read them the only copy that exists beyond the confines of my house.
I haven't touched the manuscript in at least a year, but I looked over it a couple of days ago and saw a few places that needed work (and there's still that one scene that I absolutely despise but that somehow never gets changed, even when I come at it with that very intent). The nice thing is that it's self-contained, so no one finishes it and then tries to shake me down for the rest of the story. None of my other books has that distinction, and I think I will refrain from publishing anything I haven't already finished.
A Boy Called Hawk taught me that much, at least. :)
18 July 2011
07 July 2011
Just a quick procedural matter:
Sorry the thumbnail is so little, but it is a thumbnail, after all. I'm too lazy to re-size the actual cover for upload.
Anyhoo, the proof has been approved. The magic number is $14.14.
CreateSpace E-store: https://www.createspace.com/3616973
Amazon: forthcoming in the next 5-7 days (which, if it's anything like the last time, will actually be 10-ish days before I find it by some back-door method). I'll post the link when I have it.
Carry on, then.
08 June 2011
The Prometheus Institute
Oh, where to begin. The Prometheus Institute is part of the education division within the Government-Civilian Alliance. It is a self-proclaimed safe-haven for genetically gifted students and children who exhibit genius, and its mission is to protect those gifted children from exploitation by supplying them with an extensive, well-balanced education. That's what the brochure says, anyway. In reality it's a government-run boarding school/indoctrination camp.
When I was trying to decide on a name for this prestigious academic organization, I knew I wanted a mythological reference. I wanted that little oomph of pretension that says, "Hey, look at us! We must be important because our name references a tale from an ancient culture!" Greek mythology in particular lends itself to this, so I set about looking there for the perfect mythological figure. And I found him.
Prometheus is a perfect namesake for the Institute on two different levels. First, there's the well-known story where Prometheus the Titan steals away fire from Zeus and gives it to mankind. He is a hero and champion of the people. Man needed fire to survive, Zeus was withholding it out of spite, and Prometheus supplied it. This is the image that the Prometheus Institute wants to project: they bring enlightenment to their student body and thus ensure the nation's future by educating its brightest children, who might otherwise not receive the attention they deserve.
Of course, that's a very shallow, naive view of Prometheus--which brings us to the second level: Prometheus the Usurper. Prometheus is a primeval example of usurped authority and redistribution of wealth. "You don't have fire? Zeus has fire. I'll take fire from Zeus and give it to you." Fire was not his to pass around, and no matter how noble his motives were, the act reaped dire consequences: Zeus retaliated by giving Pandora and her happy little box to mankind as a follow-up gift; chaos and destruction ensued. "Prometheus" means "forethought," but obviously he didn't think that far ahead. Or, more chillingly, he did and really is a villain.
Like its eponymous hero, the Prometheus Institute usurps authority that does not rightfully belong to it. Its student body is acquired from parents whether they are willing or not, and it controls the students' fate both in their school years and beyond. It's also tortured by an angry eagle, but we won't go into that in this post.
The school was originally designed to have five campuses with sites located near New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Dallas. However, within a couple years of its founding, the administrators deemed it necessary to establish a more remote campus, which is how Prom-F ended up in Western Montana. Each of the five campuses--A, B, C, D, and F--has approximately 120 students for a combined student body of 600-ish. In addition, each student is assigned a "child-life counselor" to track his or her progress, both academic and social. At the start of events in A Boy Called Hawk, the Institute has been around for a third of a century at least.
The Prometheus principals are appointed directly by the head of the GCA, a presidential cabinet member colloquially known as the "Service Czar." They have full control over their campus and its students, and they report directly back to the Service Czar. They are as follows:
A Campus: Genevieve Jones
B Campus: Gregory Lee
C Campus: Rupert Carter
D Campus: Annemarie Legrand
F Campus: Lucian Gates
There is some not-so-friendly rivalry among them, though some get along better than others. Jones, Lee, and Gates in particular have a civil camaraderie with one another. Carter and Legrand are a bit more belligerent, probably because their respective campuses are viewed as less prestigious than the A and B campuses. The five sites are supposedly equal, with mostly identical structures ("mostly" because the dorm at Prom-F is twice as large to accommodate all the on-campus staff), but there is still a hierarchy among them that corresponds to their designated letter.
The five campuses meet in a yearly exposition, with each campus playing host in turn. This event is for those in grade 5 and higher. Students under the age of ten are not allowed to travel from Prom-A, -B, -C, and -D, except under special circumstances. That age restriction is raised to twelve for Prom-F, since most of its students were late acquisitions (six or older when they were enrolled).
I could probably go on, but this post is long enough already. In a nutshell, the Prometheus Institute is run by a bunch of power-hungry control-freaks, and it should be despised. That's not too spoilerific, is it?
Next time: Hawk West. And maybe his siblings. Depends on how much I have to say about him.
When I was trying to decide on a name for this prestigious academic organization, I knew I wanted a mythological reference. I wanted that little oomph of pretension that says, "Hey, look at us! We must be important because our name references a tale from an ancient culture!" Greek mythology in particular lends itself to this, so I set about looking there for the perfect mythological figure. And I found him.
Prometheus is a perfect namesake for the Institute on two different levels. First, there's the well-known story where Prometheus the Titan steals away fire from Zeus and gives it to mankind. He is a hero and champion of the people. Man needed fire to survive, Zeus was withholding it out of spite, and Prometheus supplied it. This is the image that the Prometheus Institute wants to project: they bring enlightenment to their student body and thus ensure the nation's future by educating its brightest children, who might otherwise not receive the attention they deserve.
Of course, that's a very shallow, naive view of Prometheus--which brings us to the second level: Prometheus the Usurper. Prometheus is a primeval example of usurped authority and redistribution of wealth. "You don't have fire? Zeus has fire. I'll take fire from Zeus and give it to you." Fire was not his to pass around, and no matter how noble his motives were, the act reaped dire consequences: Zeus retaliated by giving Pandora and her happy little box to mankind as a follow-up gift; chaos and destruction ensued. "Prometheus" means "forethought," but obviously he didn't think that far ahead. Or, more chillingly, he did and really is a villain.
Like its eponymous hero, the Prometheus Institute usurps authority that does not rightfully belong to it. Its student body is acquired from parents whether they are willing or not, and it controls the students' fate both in their school years and beyond. It's also tortured by an angry eagle, but we won't go into that in this post.
The school was originally designed to have five campuses with sites located near New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Dallas. However, within a couple years of its founding, the administrators deemed it necessary to establish a more remote campus, which is how Prom-F ended up in Western Montana. Each of the five campuses--A, B, C, D, and F--has approximately 120 students for a combined student body of 600-ish. In addition, each student is assigned a "child-life counselor" to track his or her progress, both academic and social. At the start of events in A Boy Called Hawk, the Institute has been around for a third of a century at least.
The Prometheus principals are appointed directly by the head of the GCA, a presidential cabinet member colloquially known as the "Service Czar." They have full control over their campus and its students, and they report directly back to the Service Czar. They are as follows:
A Campus: Genevieve Jones
B Campus: Gregory Lee
C Campus: Rupert Carter
D Campus: Annemarie Legrand
F Campus: Lucian Gates
There is some not-so-friendly rivalry among them, though some get along better than others. Jones, Lee, and Gates in particular have a civil camaraderie with one another. Carter and Legrand are a bit more belligerent, probably because their respective campuses are viewed as less prestigious than the A and B campuses. The five sites are supposedly equal, with mostly identical structures ("mostly" because the dorm at Prom-F is twice as large to accommodate all the on-campus staff), but there is still a hierarchy among them that corresponds to their designated letter.
The five campuses meet in a yearly exposition, with each campus playing host in turn. This event is for those in grade 5 and higher. Students under the age of ten are not allowed to travel from Prom-A, -B, -C, and -D, except under special circumstances. That age restriction is raised to twelve for Prom-F, since most of its students were late acquisitions (six or older when they were enrolled).
I could probably go on, but this post is long enough already. In a nutshell, the Prometheus Institute is run by a bunch of power-hungry control-freaks, and it should be despised. That's not too spoilerific, is it?
Next time: Hawk West. And maybe his siblings. Depends on how much I have to say about him.
30 May 2011
Emily Brent
My original intent for Emily's character was that of a rigidly disciplined military person. She was supposed to be tasked with watching over Oliver during the course of A Boy Called Hawk, where she would efficiently use her position to support his endeavors. Obviously, this character design was short-lived. I'd have forgotten it entirely if it weren't written (and struck out) in my first brainstorming notes. I like her better as the idealistic, unwitting pawn that she is anyway.
When I made that shift in her character from "empowered and entrenched in the system" to "naively going along with what everyone says to do" she became a sort of Everyman character, one that I hoped people would be able to relate to easily. I chose her name based on its popularity: "Emily" has been one of the top 10 most popular names for little girls since 1991, including a 12-year stint (1996-2007) as the #1 most popular name. What its popularity will be forty years from now, I have no clue, but given its use now, I figured that my Emily could realistically be named after her grandmothers. Yes, both of them.
Her last name, "Brent," I pilfered from a character in Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys. Bundle Brent (aka Lady Eileen) plays a relatively minor role in that novel. I'm not sure what appealed to me so much about her that I'd name a character after her, except maybe that she couldn't hold a candle to Virginia Revel. She's the average, frank and happy girl to Virginia's more elegant lady. And much as I love Virginia, there was still this sort of inner wish that Bundle could have more of a chance to play primary. (As an aside, I despise The Seven Dials Mystery, where Bundle takes center stage, but not because of her. It's because I was fairly in love with the murderer and therefore hated the twisted ending. Curse you, Ms. Christie.)
Emily's middle name is June, but she never tells anyone this because she thinks it sounds dated. She doesn't even use the initial J because she doesn't want people asking her what it stands for. Both of her parents are college professors, her mother in rhetoric/composition and her father in the health sciences. She grew up with academia as a utopian ideal, the perfect profession. There's never been any question in her mind that she too would become a professor, and her life-choices thus far have kept her on that track.
I love to ask people who have read A Boy Called Hawk what Emily looks like. I haven't received the same answer yet, even though everyone so far has described a concrete image. In truth, I tried not to give many specific descriptors for her appearance at all, because I wanted the reader's imagination to fill in those blanks. Thus, she is tidy, meticulous, and occasionally impulsive; she's very particular about what she wears and what she eats (a rigid self-discipline that was probably held over from her discarded original character concept); and, she has hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail. She thinks of herself as a normal girl, with no great pride in her face but enough self-respect to always want to look her best.
As a character, she's something of a chameleon, I guess. She doesn't like to stand out, so she becomes whatever she needs to become to fit into a situation. This is one of the reasons she (unwittingly) gets along with Oliver so well. Unlike him, her self-worth isn't wrapped up in her intelligence, so she doesn't mind playing the idiot sidekick to his boy-genius, especially if it keeps him happy. In that respect, she's a people-pleaser. She likes to meet the expectations of others, because that makes her feel successful.
I put her through a lot of trouble, but I kind of feel like she deserves it because she's so idealistically naive. She's the type of person who won't look behind the curtain to see who's controlling things from the shadows simply because she'd rather believe that everything is what it claims to be on the surface. She's honest and instinctively expects everyone else to be honest too.
At the same time, though, she's smart enough that she'll catch on eventually. The more secrets exposed to her, the more her mind opens and she comes to realize that her world is not the same bill of goods she's been sold all of her life. While others become cynical or remain intentionally ignorant, Emily reassesses and adjusts her course accordingly. I think, in that respect, she's a very pure character and someone who will make drastic changes, someday.
And that's all I have to say about her.
Next time: The Prometheus Institute
When I made that shift in her character from "empowered and entrenched in the system" to "naively going along with what everyone says to do" she became a sort of Everyman character, one that I hoped people would be able to relate to easily. I chose her name based on its popularity: "Emily" has been one of the top 10 most popular names for little girls since 1991, including a 12-year stint (1996-2007) as the #1 most popular name. What its popularity will be forty years from now, I have no clue, but given its use now, I figured that my Emily could realistically be named after her grandmothers. Yes, both of them.
Her last name, "Brent," I pilfered from a character in Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys. Bundle Brent (aka Lady Eileen) plays a relatively minor role in that novel. I'm not sure what appealed to me so much about her that I'd name a character after her, except maybe that she couldn't hold a candle to Virginia Revel. She's the average, frank and happy girl to Virginia's more elegant lady. And much as I love Virginia, there was still this sort of inner wish that Bundle could have more of a chance to play primary. (As an aside, I despise The Seven Dials Mystery, where Bundle takes center stage, but not because of her. It's because I was fairly in love with the murderer and therefore hated the twisted ending. Curse you, Ms. Christie.)
Emily's middle name is June, but she never tells anyone this because she thinks it sounds dated. She doesn't even use the initial J because she doesn't want people asking her what it stands for. Both of her parents are college professors, her mother in rhetoric/composition and her father in the health sciences. She grew up with academia as a utopian ideal, the perfect profession. There's never been any question in her mind that she too would become a professor, and her life-choices thus far have kept her on that track.
I love to ask people who have read A Boy Called Hawk what Emily looks like. I haven't received the same answer yet, even though everyone so far has described a concrete image. In truth, I tried not to give many specific descriptors for her appearance at all, because I wanted the reader's imagination to fill in those blanks. Thus, she is tidy, meticulous, and occasionally impulsive; she's very particular about what she wears and what she eats (a rigid self-discipline that was probably held over from her discarded original character concept); and, she has hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail. She thinks of herself as a normal girl, with no great pride in her face but enough self-respect to always want to look her best.
As a character, she's something of a chameleon, I guess. She doesn't like to stand out, so she becomes whatever she needs to become to fit into a situation. This is one of the reasons she (unwittingly) gets along with Oliver so well. Unlike him, her self-worth isn't wrapped up in her intelligence, so she doesn't mind playing the idiot sidekick to his boy-genius, especially if it keeps him happy. In that respect, she's a people-pleaser. She likes to meet the expectations of others, because that makes her feel successful.
I put her through a lot of trouble, but I kind of feel like she deserves it because she's so idealistically naive. She's the type of person who won't look behind the curtain to see who's controlling things from the shadows simply because she'd rather believe that everything is what it claims to be on the surface. She's honest and instinctively expects everyone else to be honest too.
At the same time, though, she's smart enough that she'll catch on eventually. The more secrets exposed to her, the more her mind opens and she comes to realize that her world is not the same bill of goods she's been sold all of her life. While others become cynical or remain intentionally ignorant, Emily reassesses and adjusts her course accordingly. I think, in that respect, she's a very pure character and someone who will make drastic changes, someday.
And that's all I have to say about her.
Next time: The Prometheus Institute
24 May 2011
Peeling the Onion: Oliver Dunn
Oliver Henry Dunn is, one could argue, the principle character of both A Boy Called Hawk and A Rumor of Real Irish Tea. (In actuality, Emily's the real principle, but her existence revolves around Oliver, so that makes Oliver the center of the universe, as it were.) When I very first imagined his character, it was as the overly arrogant antagonist to Hawk and Hummer's protagonists (Honey and Happy were more passive in my original brainstorming, I think). As the story developed, though, it did seem to become more about Oliver than the four Wests. They already had their eyes wide open, whereas he still had so much to learn. Thus, he became the more interesting character to me.
He's named after Oliver Cromwell, 1st Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. I should here note that I haven't actually read the linked wikipedia article, or anything specifically about Cromwell. That's because I named Oliver after my lingering impression of Cromwell from history learned ages past. Weird as this may sound, it was important to me not to research further than that--in my mind Cromwell was an ambiguous figure, and I didn't want to delve into whether he was good or bad. My impression of him was that of a man who believed in his cause but probably went about it the wrong way. Plus he was a killjoy because he supported shutting down all the playhouses in London (including the Globe Theatre, though this was well after Shakespeare's death). That alone made him the perfect namesake for Oliver's character.
Oliver's original surname was going to be Hill, but I scrapped that almost as soon as I thought of it. My four little protagonists had names that started with the letter H, so I tried to avoid that letter when naming everyone else. Hence, "Hill" became "Dunn" via the Old English word "dun," meaning "hill" (and the ancestor of ModE "dune"). Ten points to me for sheer stubbornness. "Dunn" with the geminate n is also OE, with a meaning of "dingy brown, dark-coloured." This may have influenced Oliver's appearance, though I don't recall doing any conscious plotting on that front. In my imagination, he was always dark-haired and sour-faced.
For his middle name, I broke the "no H" rule and dubbed him Henry. I love this name, but explaining why would take an entire post on its own. Suffice to say that "Henry" has come to represent to me someone who has far more potential than they are fulfilling. It fits Oliver very nicely. (And no, I don't personally know anyone named Henry, so that representation is not meant as a slight. I came by it honestly.)
Oliver's physical features, as I recall, are only ever noted through Emily's observation of "a pale-faced, dark-haired boy who stared sullenly back at her." He's unusually fussy about his appearance and is the type of person who'd stand in front of a mirror for hours just to get everything perfect, if he could. He likes to slick back his hair with a wet comb because he thinks it looks more grown-up. He would also be completely mortified if anyone discovered him doing this sort of fussy upkeep, because he wants everyone to think his image is inherent to him rather than something contrived.
One of his most prominent characteristics is an inferiority complex that manifests through arrogance and insults. His self-worth is centered entirely on his brains: basically, because he's smarter than everyone else, he's better than everyone else, and if he wasn't smart he'd be worthless. This has been a point of contention between him and most of his handlers throughout his Prometheus experience, mainly because he insists on seeing himself as their intellectual superior. Understandably, most of them can't take that sort of attitude from a snotty little kid.
His null-projection is further proof of his superiority and marks him as unique, but he has mixed feelings about it. He understands that he's being used by the adults, but he also has pride in being the only person they can turn to. The null-projection itself is a relatively recent development, though. It was discovered when he was six-turning-seven, and developed strongly in the year that followed. By the time he turned eight, it was full-fledged. To Oliver, it's not all that notable because he can't really control it and it doesn't really affect him. It is his "normal," so he can't understand anything beyond it. He does like the assurance that projectors can't influence him, though.
He's too young to have a love interest, but he develops a secret and suppressed crush on Emily. He'd die a thousand deaths before admitting that out loud, and really, she's more like a favorite toy than a true crush. Since he's only ten, his instinctive method of coping with his feelings is to belittle her, which he does quite frequently. That she takes his belittling so well only increases his admiration for her. As for his fellow classmates, he wouldn't call any of them friends. They're rivals for his teachers' praise and recognition. Oliver looks at all of his interactions as a competition, and he doesn't like to lose.
That competitiveness is really what fuels his pursuit of the Wests. He looks down on Hawk and Hummer because they were students of the F Campus--flunkies, in his eyes. That Hummer once trounced him in a mechanics competition doesn't help matters, since Oliver feels compelled to prove he's smarter. There's also a secret jealousy at play, though. Oliver, who has forever stood alone, resents those who have friends and family around them. True to the proverbial "misery loves company," he ultimately wants the Wests brought back to Prometheus because he's also stuck there. Deep down, he wants them to feel the same isolation and rejection that he's felt for all of his life.
I like to say that my characters are like my children. That doesn't mean I don't have favorites, though. Oliver is one that I'd love to huggle just to watch him squirm in indignation. I suppose in many ways he's an incarnation of an earlier me, so I want him to grow and develop and realize that there's more to life than how smart others might think you are. Even though I have no plans to write his story beyond A Rumor of Real Irish Tea, I can imagine the places he'll go in life and that makes me happy--because I know that someday, he will be too.
Next time: Emily Brent
He's named after Oliver Cromwell, 1st Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. I should here note that I haven't actually read the linked wikipedia article, or anything specifically about Cromwell. That's because I named Oliver after my lingering impression of Cromwell from history learned ages past. Weird as this may sound, it was important to me not to research further than that--in my mind Cromwell was an ambiguous figure, and I didn't want to delve into whether he was good or bad. My impression of him was that of a man who believed in his cause but probably went about it the wrong way. Plus he was a killjoy because he supported shutting down all the playhouses in London (including the Globe Theatre, though this was well after Shakespeare's death). That alone made him the perfect namesake for Oliver's character.
Oliver's original surname was going to be Hill, but I scrapped that almost as soon as I thought of it. My four little protagonists had names that started with the letter H, so I tried to avoid that letter when naming everyone else. Hence, "Hill" became "Dunn" via the Old English word "dun," meaning "hill" (and the ancestor of ModE "dune"). Ten points to me for sheer stubbornness. "Dunn" with the geminate n is also OE, with a meaning of "dingy brown, dark-coloured." This may have influenced Oliver's appearance, though I don't recall doing any conscious plotting on that front. In my imagination, he was always dark-haired and sour-faced.
For his middle name, I broke the "no H" rule and dubbed him Henry. I love this name, but explaining why would take an entire post on its own. Suffice to say that "Henry" has come to represent to me someone who has far more potential than they are fulfilling. It fits Oliver very nicely. (And no, I don't personally know anyone named Henry, so that representation is not meant as a slight. I came by it honestly.)
Oliver's physical features, as I recall, are only ever noted through Emily's observation of "a pale-faced, dark-haired boy who stared sullenly back at her." He's unusually fussy about his appearance and is the type of person who'd stand in front of a mirror for hours just to get everything perfect, if he could. He likes to slick back his hair with a wet comb because he thinks it looks more grown-up. He would also be completely mortified if anyone discovered him doing this sort of fussy upkeep, because he wants everyone to think his image is inherent to him rather than something contrived.
One of his most prominent characteristics is an inferiority complex that manifests through arrogance and insults. His self-worth is centered entirely on his brains: basically, because he's smarter than everyone else, he's better than everyone else, and if he wasn't smart he'd be worthless. This has been a point of contention between him and most of his handlers throughout his Prometheus experience, mainly because he insists on seeing himself as their intellectual superior. Understandably, most of them can't take that sort of attitude from a snotty little kid.
His null-projection is further proof of his superiority and marks him as unique, but he has mixed feelings about it. He understands that he's being used by the adults, but he also has pride in being the only person they can turn to. The null-projection itself is a relatively recent development, though. It was discovered when he was six-turning-seven, and developed strongly in the year that followed. By the time he turned eight, it was full-fledged. To Oliver, it's not all that notable because he can't really control it and it doesn't really affect him. It is his "normal," so he can't understand anything beyond it. He does like the assurance that projectors can't influence him, though.
He's too young to have a love interest, but he develops a secret and suppressed crush on Emily. He'd die a thousand deaths before admitting that out loud, and really, she's more like a favorite toy than a true crush. Since he's only ten, his instinctive method of coping with his feelings is to belittle her, which he does quite frequently. That she takes his belittling so well only increases his admiration for her. As for his fellow classmates, he wouldn't call any of them friends. They're rivals for his teachers' praise and recognition. Oliver looks at all of his interactions as a competition, and he doesn't like to lose.
That competitiveness is really what fuels his pursuit of the Wests. He looks down on Hawk and Hummer because they were students of the F Campus--flunkies, in his eyes. That Hummer once trounced him in a mechanics competition doesn't help matters, since Oliver feels compelled to prove he's smarter. There's also a secret jealousy at play, though. Oliver, who has forever stood alone, resents those who have friends and family around them. True to the proverbial "misery loves company," he ultimately wants the Wests brought back to Prometheus because he's also stuck there. Deep down, he wants them to feel the same isolation and rejection that he's felt for all of his life.
I like to say that my characters are like my children. That doesn't mean I don't have favorites, though. Oliver is one that I'd love to huggle just to watch him squirm in indignation. I suppose in many ways he's an incarnation of an earlier me, so I want him to grow and develop and realize that there's more to life than how smart others might think you are. Even though I have no plans to write his story beyond A Rumor of Real Irish Tea, I can imagine the places he'll go in life and that makes me happy--because I know that someday, he will be too.
Next time: Emily Brent
18 May 2011
Writing about Writing
I've probably already mentioned this somewhere, but the whole reason I started this blog was so that I could have contact information to put on the copyright page of A Boy Called Hawk. I certainly wasn't going to put my home address, and putting an email address apparently is like asking to be added to every spam list possible. Hence was born the Placeholder Blog, and I've done very little with it, mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
I'm still not sure. However, since this is a placeholder for my copyright page, I might as well populate it with information about my books. And no, I don't mean the "You can buy my stuff here!" sort of information (though you might notice the handy links on the sidebar...). I mean the "This was my creative process" sort of information, the little bits about my motivations, or character/plot elements that I used in the planning stages but that weren't necessarily overt in the book itself. I really should record that information somewhere, shouldn't I?
And with that rambling introduction, I'll get started. I'm tentatively calling this little exercise "Peeling the Onion."
Today's subject: A Boy Called Hawk
A Boy Called Hawk is the only one of my books that is commercially available, for two reasons. First, I'm terrible at the querying process. I've mailed a grand total of five cold queries in the three-plus years that I've been writing (and none within the last two). One of those actually (and miraculously) made it to the final stage of "agent reviews entire manuscript" before it lost its momentum. You'd think I would have been motivated to keep at it, but no.
Something about the process--the impending rejection, perhaps--always threw me into despondency for days or even weeks after I mailed the silly letters. Then I noticed that the same thing was happening when I planned to mail letters. So, I just... procrastinated. With each book I wrote, I thought, "You know, I really should query this out," and then didn't. A Boy Called Hawk was the one exception. Even as I was writing it, I knew I didn't want to query it. And that is the second reason it's my only published book. Since I knew I wasn't going to sell it to someone else, I had nothing to lose by self-publishing.
I think I just assumed that it would be too difficult to sell, so I didn't even bother trying. That combined with the timeline of the book itself made me want to see a print copy sooner rather than later. The plot is set forty years in the future, but books like that, in my opinion, are always most relevant to the time they were written in. It doesn't so much portray how the future really will be in forty years (one can hope), but instead makes commentary on the trends of today. Or something like that.
Basically, my thought process at the time was, "This could be totally irrelevant in two or three years," and "Hey! Coupon for a free proof copy from Createspace!"
And thus was born the little formatting adventure wherein I discovered that I enjoy typesetting a bookmore than as much as I enjoy writing it.
I had someone ask me something along the lines of, "Why that title? Hawk isn't any more prominent than the other three kids." I kind of addressed this in the author's note at the beginning of the book, but I'll add my reason here too: my whole creative process for this book began with the character of Hawk (whom I'll probably write more about in a future post). It was A Boy Called Hawk before any of his siblings were added, before the need for characters like Oliver and Emily ever even occurred to me. Plainly put, the name stuck from the very beginning. I'm pretty terrible with titles anyway, so I figured it was as good as anything else I could come up with. Sorry if it comes across as totally random.
A Rumor of Real Irish Tea, now, that was meant to be totally random.
And that's enough about that.
Next time: Oliver Dunn
I'm still not sure. However, since this is a placeholder for my copyright page, I might as well populate it with information about my books. And no, I don't mean the "You can buy my stuff here!" sort of information (though you might notice the handy links on the sidebar...). I mean the "This was my creative process" sort of information, the little bits about my motivations, or character/plot elements that I used in the planning stages but that weren't necessarily overt in the book itself. I really should record that information somewhere, shouldn't I?
And with that rambling introduction, I'll get started. I'm tentatively calling this little exercise "Peeling the Onion."
Today's subject: A Boy Called Hawk
A Boy Called Hawk is the only one of my books that is commercially available, for two reasons. First, I'm terrible at the querying process. I've mailed a grand total of five cold queries in the three-plus years that I've been writing (and none within the last two). One of those actually (and miraculously) made it to the final stage of "agent reviews entire manuscript" before it lost its momentum. You'd think I would have been motivated to keep at it, but no.
Something about the process--the impending rejection, perhaps--always threw me into despondency for days or even weeks after I mailed the silly letters. Then I noticed that the same thing was happening when I planned to mail letters. So, I just... procrastinated. With each book I wrote, I thought, "You know, I really should query this out," and then didn't. A Boy Called Hawk was the one exception. Even as I was writing it, I knew I didn't want to query it. And that is the second reason it's my only published book. Since I knew I wasn't going to sell it to someone else, I had nothing to lose by self-publishing.
I think I just assumed that it would be too difficult to sell, so I didn't even bother trying. That combined with the timeline of the book itself made me want to see a print copy sooner rather than later. The plot is set forty years in the future, but books like that, in my opinion, are always most relevant to the time they were written in. It doesn't so much portray how the future really will be in forty years (one can hope), but instead makes commentary on the trends of today. Or something like that.
Basically, my thought process at the time was, "This could be totally irrelevant in two or three years," and "Hey! Coupon for a free proof copy from Createspace!"
And thus was born the little formatting adventure wherein I discovered that I enjoy typesetting a book
I had someone ask me something along the lines of, "Why that title? Hawk isn't any more prominent than the other three kids." I kind of addressed this in the author's note at the beginning of the book, but I'll add my reason here too: my whole creative process for this book began with the character of Hawk (whom I'll probably write more about in a future post). It was A Boy Called Hawk before any of his siblings were added, before the need for characters like Oliver and Emily ever even occurred to me. Plainly put, the name stuck from the very beginning. I'm pretty terrible with titles anyway, so I figured it was as good as anything else I could come up with. Sorry if it comes across as totally random.
A Rumor of Real Irish Tea, now, that was meant to be totally random.
And that's enough about that.
Next time: Oliver Dunn
29 April 2011
ARoRIT Status Update
Widow/Orphan Control: Done
Table of Contents: Done
Author's Bio: Done
Cover: ...Stalled
I hate cover design. I really do. I have this sort of elementary-school-cardboard-cutout style, and getting everything to a semi-decent look takes a lot of time and attention to detail. I hate it.
If only I wasn't too cheap to pay someone else to do it for me.
There is something about having complete creative control over a project like this, though. I know going into it that the cover artwork is going to be ugly, so that part doesn't disappoint. It's just the actual process of buckling down and getting the cover made that's making me batty.
Well, this too shall pass.
Table of Contents: Done
Author's Bio: Done
Cover: ...Stalled
I hate cover design. I really do. I have this sort of elementary-school-cardboard-cutout style, and getting everything to a semi-decent look takes a lot of time and attention to detail. I hate it.
If only I wasn't too cheap to pay someone else to do it for me.
There is something about having complete creative control over a project like this, though. I know going into it that the cover artwork is going to be ugly, so that part doesn't disappoint. It's just the actual process of buckling down and getting the cover made that's making me batty.
Well, this too shall pass.
19 April 2011
I remember this being a lot harder.
Well, I started typesetting A Rumor of Real Irish Tea yesterday. My first time around, with A Boy Called Hawk, I think it took a couple of weeks to get everything right the way I wanted it. (That book is by no means perfect, either - every time I glance through my proof copy, it seems like I find some new little mistake I made. I'm looking at you, Capitalized-preposition-in-a-chapter-title. You gunky.)
I'm starting to get worried about this time around, though. Today is Day 2, and all I have left is widow-and-orphan control, TOC page numbers (which can't be added until widow-and-orphan control is done), and the About the Author at the end.
Seriously?
I must be forgetting something. I must be. Either that, or I'm a whole lot better at this than I thought I was (and I really don't think I am). But I've already formatted the chapter titles, put in the drop-capitals, set up all my headers and footers (I swear that alone took me three days last time, because the stupid things kept linking to one another behind my back), and inserted the front matter for the book. That last item was actually pretty easy, though, since I just pulled the copyright page straight from ABCH and changed out the three items that needed it.
I guess all the work I put into the first book is paying off. And I do have its file right there to use as a reference. It's rather nice.
Right now the page count is ~340, which puts the book probably in the $13-14 range. Maybe more, maybe less. I haven't pinpointed a final list price yet. And my deadline is still June-ish. No point in getting overly excited and moving it up, right?
:P
I'm starting to get worried about this time around, though. Today is Day 2, and all I have left is widow-and-orphan control, TOC page numbers (which can't be added until widow-and-orphan control is done), and the About the Author at the end.
Seriously?
I must be forgetting something. I must be. Either that, or I'm a whole lot better at this than I thought I was (and I really don't think I am). But I've already formatted the chapter titles, put in the drop-capitals, set up all my headers and footers (I swear that alone took me three days last time, because the stupid things kept linking to one another behind my back), and inserted the front matter for the book. That last item was actually pretty easy, though, since I just pulled the copyright page straight from ABCH and changed out the three items that needed it.
I guess all the work I put into the first book is paying off. And I do have its file right there to use as a reference. It's rather nice.
Right now the page count is ~340, which puts the book probably in the $13-14 range. Maybe more, maybe less. I haven't pinpointed a final list price yet. And my deadline is still June-ish. No point in getting overly excited and moving it up, right?
:P
05 April 2011
Somewhere on the Way to Switzerland...
Somewhere on the way to Switzerland (conveniently pictured above), A Tale of Real Irish Tea became A Rumor of Real Irish Tea, and I have to say, I like the flavor of it so much better (yes, pun intended, or at least noticed and allowed to slip by without more than a sidelong glance). I also took the time to write a draft of the summary for the back of the book instead of enjoying my usual habit of staring out the window at passing scenery. It was quite the sacrifice.
SPOILER WARNING: The following summary picks up where A Boy Called Hawk left off, so if you haven't read that book, you probably don't want to read this summary. There. I've done my duty. If you read on, you're obligated to give feedback.
(Only kidding.)
A Rumor of Real Irish Tea summary (draft):
Disgraced and distrusted, Oliver Dunn and his handler Emily have been sentenced to the Prometheus Institute's ignominious F campus. Their truant prey, the four erstwhile West children, still wander at large just beyond the grasp of the GCA, and Oliver still holds the key to their capture. To restore his reputation, he and Emily must join forces with a military general, a charming news reporter, and a know-it-all administrative assistant to corner the Wests and put their mischievous rampage to an end. Oliver is up against bureaucratic red tape, outlandish conspiracy theories, a secret, subversive organization, and the machinations of Hawk, Hummer, Honey, and Happy in this follow-up adventure to A Boy Called Hawk.
Every time I go over this, I change something else. Right now I have mixed feelings about the two lists, especially since they're back to back. I like them each individually, but I'm not sure how well they work together stylistically. I thought about just cutting the first one, but then... I didn't. It's something for me to mull over in the next few weeks.
My vagabond days should be behind me now, so it's time to get to work in earnest. My publication deadline is June-ish (you like how I'm so very specific about these things?), and right now I'm almost ready to start typesetting, so I'm still well within that time frame. Here's hoping it stays that way.
28 February 2011
Just a little random review.
I watch Asian dramas from time to time. I'll even go so far as to say that I like them more than American ones, because they have a set story line and a set number of episodes, and then they end. The actors are free to move on to other projects, and new shows get moved into the time slots, and everyone goes home happy, including the viewer, who doesn't have to invest years of her life into a series just to watch its narrative slide down the crapper in a misguided attempt to rejuvenate the story and/or audience appeal.
(I'm talking to you, series where a prominent character suddenly learned he had a ten-year-old child that he never knew about, and to you, series where the two main characters randomly discovered that they shared a half-brother. Why couldn't you just resolve the conflicts you already had going and call it quits instead of venturing that far down the road of Pointless & Ridiculous Plot Twists?)
With thisshort preface, I bring to you my latest distraction in the world of Asian dramas: My Princess, starring Kim Tae Hee and Song Seung Hun. The show is available for subtitled viewing at, of all places, Hulu.com (who knew?), and it is adorable.
(This coming from the girl who currently believes that the Disney Princesses are Satan's pawns shoved into a sparkly, homogenized packaging. Put down the tomatoes, people. Deep down in your hearts you know I'm right.)
My Princess follows the life of Lee Seol, an affable, penny-pinching college student whose main concerns are her lack of money and her one-sided crush on her history professor. Through a series of happenstances, she encounters Park Hae Young, a diplomat and the grandson of a wealthy businessman, only to learn that she is the great-granddaughter of the last Korean Emperor, and that Hae Young's grandfather is determined to restore the Korean dynasty, with her as its only living scion.
It's a standard rags-to-riches setup, the forgotten princess discovered among commoners, but My Princess introduces a number of lovely little twists to the story. Seol's father, Lee Han, didn't want any part of a restoration and died twenty years before in a car accident while trying to evade Hae Young's obsessive grandfather. Hae Young, who's been put in charge of training the fledgling princess, stands to lose his inheritance if the dynasty is actually reinstated. His fiancee, Oh Yoon Joo, projects an aura of grace and efficiency while she moves around behind the scenes to undermine, well, basically everyone. Seol, innocent and a little naive, has to navigate her way among people that want to use her and those who want to destroy her, all to claim a position that goes against her very nature.
And she does it all in such an adorable manner that I'm left giggling to myself like a fool every time I watch an episode. If that's not entertainment, I don't know what is.
Each episode is about 1 hour, 5 minutes long without commercials. The Hulu experience gives you probably another 5-7 minutes of ads, but they're in short spurts. I've only watched the first 7 episodes so far, and Hulu only has the first 13, but since the series is currently running in Korea, I trust that they will upload more of them in good time.
And just to save you a couple seconds of point-and-click, here is the link to the first episode:
My Princess, Episode 1
Tuck it away someplace safe for the next time you need to get away from the "My brother is really my aunt?!" plot twists of American dramas.
You're welcome.
(I'm talking to you, series where a prominent character suddenly learned he had a ten-year-old child that he never knew about, and to you, series where the two main characters randomly discovered that they shared a half-brother. Why couldn't you just resolve the conflicts you already had going and call it quits instead of venturing that far down the road of Pointless & Ridiculous Plot Twists?)
With this
(This coming from the girl who currently believes that the Disney Princesses are Satan's pawns shoved into a sparkly, homogenized packaging. Put down the tomatoes, people. Deep down in your hearts you know I'm right.)
My Princess follows the life of Lee Seol, an affable, penny-pinching college student whose main concerns are her lack of money and her one-sided crush on her history professor. Through a series of happenstances, she encounters Park Hae Young, a diplomat and the grandson of a wealthy businessman, only to learn that she is the great-granddaughter of the last Korean Emperor, and that Hae Young's grandfather is determined to restore the Korean dynasty, with her as its only living scion.
It's a standard rags-to-riches setup, the forgotten princess discovered among commoners, but My Princess introduces a number of lovely little twists to the story. Seol's father, Lee Han, didn't want any part of a restoration and died twenty years before in a car accident while trying to evade Hae Young's obsessive grandfather. Hae Young, who's been put in charge of training the fledgling princess, stands to lose his inheritance if the dynasty is actually reinstated. His fiancee, Oh Yoon Joo, projects an aura of grace and efficiency while she moves around behind the scenes to undermine, well, basically everyone. Seol, innocent and a little naive, has to navigate her way among people that want to use her and those who want to destroy her, all to claim a position that goes against her very nature.
And she does it all in such an adorable manner that I'm left giggling to myself like a fool every time I watch an episode. If that's not entertainment, I don't know what is.
Each episode is about 1 hour, 5 minutes long without commercials. The Hulu experience gives you probably another 5-7 minutes of ads, but they're in short spurts. I've only watched the first 7 episodes so far, and Hulu only has the first 13, but since the series is currently running in Korea, I trust that they will upload more of them in good time.
And just to save you a couple seconds of point-and-click, here is the link to the first episode:
My Princess, Episode 1
Tuck it away someplace safe for the next time you need to get away from the "My brother is really my aunt?!" plot twists of American dramas.
You're welcome.
21 February 2011
And that is a problem.
Every so often someone asks me when the sequel to A Boy Called Hawk is going to be available, and I answer (quite tactfully, I think) that it's in the editing phase. If I'm lucky, that's the end of the inquiry, and the subject is dropped for something more interesting. If I'm not lucky, the curious individual will follow up with, "And what does that mean, the editing phase?"
This is not a question I like to answer, mostly because "it's in the editing phase" is my personal code for "it's sitting in a binder under my bed." It means the manuscript is written, but that it's not ready to be formatted into a book file because I still need to scour it over for typos, malapropisms, and plot holes, as well as any little spots I feel need more or less development to make them more readable. The "editing phase" represents a mountain of detail work, and it's usually not something that I'm eager to tackle right after I've just spent several weeks conquering the mountain of detail work involved in the writing phase.
The difficulty of this phase is heightened by another little phenomenon I long ago discovered about my writing: it puts me to sleep. (I am here tempted to insert the quip about how very boring my writing must be, but if you're reading this, you already know that.) Whenever I read something I wrote, not only do I already know what's going to happen, but I already know the exact wording that's going to be used to describe it. My brain's response is something along the lines of, "Oh. You don't need me for this." And then it shuts off.
On the one hand, I never have to fear insomnia again. On the other, it makes for a very slow-going editing process (though I will admit the uncharacteristic lack of sleep deprivation is a plus). It also makes me reluctant even to drag the manuscript out from under the bed. Afternoon naps are nice when it's a lazy Sunday and you have the time to relax. They're annoying when you're trying to be productive and can't for the life of you force your eyes to focus already.
That said, A Tale of Real Irish Tea is no longer sitting idle. I figure if I slog through three chapters a day, I can have it edited in the next two weeks. Then, I can happily move on to the next phase of the project: Vacation.
I might as well count my upcoming jaunt as part of the process, right? And if everything goes according to plan, at least I'll be well-rested when I get on that plane.
(Haha. As if.)
This is not a question I like to answer, mostly because "it's in the editing phase" is my personal code for "it's sitting in a binder under my bed." It means the manuscript is written, but that it's not ready to be formatted into a book file because I still need to scour it over for typos, malapropisms, and plot holes, as well as any little spots I feel need more or less development to make them more readable. The "editing phase" represents a mountain of detail work, and it's usually not something that I'm eager to tackle right after I've just spent several weeks conquering the mountain of detail work involved in the writing phase.
The difficulty of this phase is heightened by another little phenomenon I long ago discovered about my writing: it puts me to sleep. (I am here tempted to insert the quip about how very boring my writing must be, but if you're reading this, you already know that.) Whenever I read something I wrote, not only do I already know what's going to happen, but I already know the exact wording that's going to be used to describe it. My brain's response is something along the lines of, "Oh. You don't need me for this." And then it shuts off.
On the one hand, I never have to fear insomnia again. On the other, it makes for a very slow-going editing process (though I will admit the uncharacteristic lack of sleep deprivation is a plus). It also makes me reluctant even to drag the manuscript out from under the bed. Afternoon naps are nice when it's a lazy Sunday and you have the time to relax. They're annoying when you're trying to be productive and can't for the life of you force your eyes to focus already.
That said, A Tale of Real Irish Tea is no longer sitting idle. I figure if I slog through three chapters a day, I can have it edited in the next two weeks. Then, I can happily move on to the next phase of the project: Vacation.
I might as well count my upcoming jaunt as part of the process, right? And if everything goes according to plan, at least I'll be well-rested when I get on that plane.
(Haha. As if.)
26 January 2011
Kitchen Adventures, or, "Who Let Kate in Here Again?"
"This fudge recipe is so easy!" claimed the blog. "Just a few simple ingredients, a few pulses in the food processor, and voila!"
And I, craving a chocolate fix, believed thelying rat bastard optimistic report. I suppose I am partly to blame for the debacle that followed. After all, step one did say to warm the coconut oil until it was "mostly melted," and I melted it all the way. But then, step two said to "add the melted oil" to the other ingredients, so I suppose the "mostly" flew out of my brain. Besides that, I don't think "mostly melted" oil would have had much of a different outcome.
The problem? The cocoa-and-sugar part refused to accept the oil. I even let the concoction sit for ten minutes to see if the adverse ingredients might become more ameliorated to one another. And they didn't. So I transferred the big lump to a glass measuring cup and warmed it in a water bath, in the hopes that I could get it malleable enough to allow the oil to get mixed in. It seemed to be working, but then it didn't. The spoon wasn't doing the trick. So I transferred it to a bowl and brought out the beaters... which promptly got the concoction stuck in their rungs. In final desperation, I put the lump directly in a saucepan and stuck the burner on low heat.
And waited.
And stirred.
And waited some more.
And stirred some more.
And finally, it started to loosen up. So I added a little of the oil, and it stirred in! And I added a little more. And the sugar-stuff had decided that it had had enough, that punk. So I poured the loose oil back into a cup and, in utmost irritation, brought out my secret ingredient: heavy cream. Hey, if the sugar paste isn't going to soften, it'll certainly dissolve. And it did, and it became glossy and lovely and accepted the rest of its coconut oil little by little (mainly because I added another dose of cream every time the oil stopped mixing in).
Then, the whole mixture went into a foil-lined pan and into the freezer, and half an hour later, voila!
Nothing like the original recipe.
But I still cut it up. It was just the right texture for forming into truffles, which I then rolled either in pecan pieces or cocoa powder before I got bored and just finished cutting squares. (A grand total offive six truffles I made, hahaha.)
When it comes to the kitchen, I often mess things up royally, but I do make some nice recoveries from time to time. And I got my chocolate fix in the end, so that's all that really matters.
(If I feel up to it, I'll add a picture tomorrow. If not, use your imagination.)
Edit, 3:45pm: I wasn't lazy!
And I, craving a chocolate fix, believed the
The problem? The cocoa-and-sugar part refused to accept the oil. I even let the concoction sit for ten minutes to see if the adverse ingredients might become more ameliorated to one another. And they didn't. So I transferred the big lump to a glass measuring cup and warmed it in a water bath, in the hopes that I could get it malleable enough to allow the oil to get mixed in. It seemed to be working, but then it didn't. The spoon wasn't doing the trick. So I transferred it to a bowl and brought out the beaters... which promptly got the concoction stuck in their rungs. In final desperation, I put the lump directly in a saucepan and stuck the burner on low heat.
And waited.
And stirred.
And waited some more.
And stirred some more.
And finally, it started to loosen up. So I added a little of the oil, and it stirred in! And I added a little more. And the sugar-stuff had decided that it had had enough, that punk. So I poured the loose oil back into a cup and, in utmost irritation, brought out my secret ingredient: heavy cream. Hey, if the sugar paste isn't going to soften, it'll certainly dissolve. And it did, and it became glossy and lovely and accepted the rest of its coconut oil little by little (mainly because I added another dose of cream every time the oil stopped mixing in).
Then, the whole mixture went into a foil-lined pan and into the freezer, and half an hour later, voila!
Nothing like the original recipe.
But I still cut it up. It was just the right texture for forming into truffles, which I then rolled either in pecan pieces or cocoa powder before I got bored and just finished cutting squares. (A grand total of
When it comes to the kitchen, I often mess things up royally, but I do make some nice recoveries from time to time. And I got my chocolate fix in the end, so that's all that really matters.
Edit, 3:45pm: I wasn't lazy!