Saga of a Romantic Saga

Preparing for the new season

2012-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

I've been watching reruns of the first season of Downton Abbey in anticipation of watching the second season, which begins airing on PBS next week.

Now I remember why I enjoyed this series so much the first time I saw it. It's a perfect mix of story and characters – an involving plot and characters to love/hate.

The British period sagas are all superbly made, and an education for anyone writing about the past.

– Cat

Famous Last Words?

2011-12-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

As the year draws to a close I want to say I haven't been idle, I'm working on my books. [That's the plural – I have high hopes and ambitions that the year 2012 will be my year.

Something new, something different, all to come...

––Cat

2011-11-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

And here I am, five months later. Still writing that great big romance. Well, actually there are five of them swimming around in my mind. I do have timelines for all of them. I have rough outlines for all of them. I have opening chapters, a list of plot points, and a desired ending for all of them. Now I have to choose one to complete.

I might have to do eeny, meeny, miny, mo--

Or I could be sensible and finish the one that only needs a few touch-ups.

It's hard to be sensible when so many stories are whining for attention.

To be continued. . .

Quote:
Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

--Cat

Things never change --

2011-06-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

I see this poem as an ageless warning to be prepared (well-edited) before sending our beloved kids, er, sagas into the world.

Written some 350 years ago

The Author to her Book

by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad expos'd to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Critics' hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.

~I'm off to do more editing--wash the kid's grubby hands and change her socks.

--Cat

Opening Paragraphs

2011-05-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

These are the opening paragraphs of a historical romance I'm nurturing.

Not ready yet for "prime time." I'm watering and fertilizing, picking out weeds, and praying for sun.

~ ~ ~
Where the hell was that woman? Why hadn’t she replied to his messages? Maybe this prolonged silence was her subtle reply--I don't answer to you.

Connor St. Clare tossed the customs documents he’d been studying onto the desk and strode to a window facing the back garden. Her garden.

A drift of dusky blue forget-me-nots sought sunlight from beneath untamed rhododendrons; scruffy daffodils stems, their blooms spent, lay across the path. A rampant mess, untended, unloved these past months, an accurate reflection of what his life had become. Tomorrow he'd send the gardener to prune back the overgrowth and rip out the weeds.

Pity a gardener couldn't chop through the welter of memories that sprang up inside him too easily and too often.
~ ~ ~

It's a start. I have much of the first draft finished. Ending scenes are done. I find I write endings soon after I write beginnings. Gives me a goal to work toward.

Endings, like beginnings, are subject to change.

--Cat

This and That

2011-04-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

~In the midst of editing some work I got an idea for another novel. I sketched it out in my head. Saved my work file. Closed one folder. Created a new folder. Started a new file. Entered my inspiring idea. Saved the file, etc. etc. I do not minimize my writing files any longer. Ever.

~I'm reading a novel. No, I'm plodding through it, rewriting as I read, because I feel distanced from the characters and can't sink into their story.

Nice characters, if bland. A generic plot, with a few fresh twists. Not enough, though, to keep me reading in an eager manner. 150 pages in, I'm waiting for something to happen. I skim through endless conversations among peripheral characters, some lengthy descriptions that remind me of the, "I did all this research, so you're going to learn it as well," variety.

250 pages in and the story--at last!--comes to life. I'm almost beyond caring, but I will read to the end and continue making mental notes about why this story didn't work for me.

~Quote

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
--E.L. Doctorow

--Cat

new year, new insights

2011-01-31T20:15:00.000-08:00

I watched figure skating recently and noticed the best skaters bring more than skill to their performances.

They bring emotional depth. They connect with the audience. They resonate in a way that's long remembered.

How does this relate to writing?

I remember best those novels that made the emotional connection. I was a kid staying up all night to read To Kill A Mockingbird. And some years later did the same with Gone With The Wind. I devoured works by Mary Stewart, Helen MacInnes, Frank Yerby, Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins, Taylor Caldwell, on and on . . .

I traveled the world in paperback books, relived history from the age of dinosaurs through wars and beyond, leaped into a future limited only by the writer's imagination. Much excitement, yes, but none of these books would be memorable to me if I hadn't felt an emotional connection to the characters.

How many novels did I read with pounding heart and fear that characters X and Y might not make it? [I wouldn't allow myself to check the last page.] And before it became a given that Romance novels ended happily-ever-after, I sweated through that black moment of despair along with X and Y.

I don't often relive those breathtaking moments; age has jaded me. Yet there are books I close and think, "Whew, what a read," or, more rarely, "I loved it."

I've read many books in which the characters walk through without leaving an impression. I'm not sorry I spent money on those books, I'm sorry the authors toiled for months or years on the novel and failed.

Failed with me, anyway.

Writer's quotes:

If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
--Richard Bach

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.
--Tennessee Williams

--Cat

simple message

2010-12-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

--Cat

Waiting for the storm ...

2010-11-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

Or just rain. I've watched the sky outside my office turn from lovely blue to pearl gray, while sunlight wanes and the tall cedars darken.

I've gotten further than the second chapter. Truly.
While I keep editing, here are the first three paragraphs of Chapter Two:

How quickly the body forgets the strictures imposed by society! Diana couldn't have felt more free and comfortable had she ridden naked.

Ha. Lady Godiva of the ranch, riding Paladin onto wooded trails and up grassy hills, her bare limbs kissed by a radiant sun and cooled by pine-scented breezes that swept down the Sangres.

Silly thought. More likely sunburn and blood-lusting mosquitoes would ravage her pale flesh. Not to mention a chance encounter with one of the ranch hands. No, shirts and trousers borrowed from her brother's wardrobe sufficed for her daily jaunts.

My website has undergone renovations by the talented Dee Mattia, of dmDesign. Check it out.

--Cat

Absentee writer returns

2010-10-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

I've been spending some, okay, a lot of time flitting between genres, between works in progress, like the proverbial Jane of all trades, master of none. New written words may total an impressive number, but advancement on any particular work is s-l-o-w. Time to select one of them and move forward.

Which will it be?

I could do the eeny-meeny routine and be happy with the resulting choice. But it seems sensible to work on the most nearly finished one.

And that is the much reworked and edited The Queen of Paradise Valley.

First lines of Chapter One (previously a prologue):

The rider on the hill paused at the entrance to Paradise Valley Ranch and tilted his hat forward to cut the sun's glare.

Yeah, it was a majestic sight, just like folks in town said. The broad valley stretched green and gold through aspen-clad foothills to the Sangre de Cristo Range. White-faced cattle plodded and browsed the far hills. Stables, outbuildings, corrals, horses frisking in the paddocks beyond, miles of wind-rippled hayfields . . .

A breeze fanned his cheeks. The stink of cow shit, the stink of money.

I'll post the first lines of each chapter when I reach a point at which I'm satisfied.

Quote:

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.
Pearl S. Buck

--Cat

A month plus a day flew by . . .

2010-07-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

Since I last posted. I'd like to say I've been busy writing, but that's only partially true. I had a few internet problems when the cables were upgraded, and don't you think it would have been a fine time for me to get caught up with all my projects?

Well, yes and no. I rummaged around in my old files and pulled out a story I wrote many years ago. I confess I got caught up in the story, not so much because it was a gripping page-turner, but because some of the writing was absolutely horrifying.

I didn't give in to my first impulse and shred the offensive pages. I want to keep them as a reminder that I started to write because the stories that filled my head needed to exist in concrete form. I needed them to exist.

Still do.

Quotes:

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. -- E. L. Doctorow

"Tell me a story" still comprise four of the most powerful words in English. -- Pat Conroy

When I was little, the most thrilling words in the language were, 'once upon a time.’ -- Mary Higgins Clark

--Cat

Short post about characters

2010-06-26T22:32:00.000-07:00

Got my Care Box (Amazon order) today. Good thing, for I was almost out of new reading material. Mind you, I have shelves of hard cover books, fiction and non, that I mean to read. Right now nothing beats the portability of a paperback.

~

The three female lead characters in a story I'm working on could be called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (inner, not outer ugliness).

How easy it would be to write them as stereotypes: the saint/martyr, the wicked/naughty, the cold/evil. In fact, I'll begin with the clichés and work from there to add non-typical qualities. The saint will have a dark side, the naughty will have a cause, and evil will have a weakness for puppies. Or some such.

I figure it might be easier to start this way because, though the characters themselves represent good, bad, and ugly, I need to flesh them out so they aren't too obvious.

A reader told me a female villain in my current WIP is too typically evil, so I need to give her a redeeming quality or two.

Like the main stars, supporting characters can't be throwaways. But to me stereotypes help a reader "see" walk-through minor players - a red-nosed drunk, a mustachioed bartender, a ragged urchin . . .

Now, I have characters to flesh out.

--Cat

Time lines/Outlines

2010-05-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

The first historical romance I wrote, a behemoth of 900 pages, single spaced, remains a fond memory. An abandoned fond memory.

I'll say one thing for myself as ambitious writer -- I was bold if I thought that novel might be published. I wrote with a lot of passion, a great thesaurus, and although I could tell the difference between good writing and bad, my own tended more to the purple side and exhibited a lot of ignorance about structure and plot development.

I started with every character's backstory.
At about page 200, the story began. I thought.

At page 300 the main characters finally met.

And so it went, until years later, older and somewhat wiser, I reluctantly put it down. RIP.

(I still begin each new story with backstory, but I've learned to place that part into an Outtakes folder for reference, and start where that particular story actually starts.)

I then began work on a story I'd vaguely plotted in my head. The beginning and end were clear. I wrote scenes in no particular order, planning to organize them at some point. Scenes multiplied as the story took shape, some elements morphing several times as new characters, new dramas arrived, stayed, or departed.

At some point I needed to list the scenes in order, so I created a rough point by point outline, adding one sentence prompts that would join the scenes I'd written.

This wasn't good enough. I needed a timeline to ensure that drought scene happened in summer, that blizzard happened in winter.

First off--the date the story began and a brief description of the event: example--train derails, A & B meet.

It became important to put the main characters' dates of birth in the timeline to keep track of their ages. Also, their parents and siblings, and various other characters.

Each important plot event received an appropriate date, so on it went.

Ordering my scenes became easy. Adding important ones and taking out needless ones made sense.

And I had the makings of an outline that came together out of necessity.

My timelines have all become outlines, usually after the fact.

To outline or not in advance is up to the writer, who learns what works for him/her. Here are four authors' takes on outlines:

I'm one of those writers who tends to be really good at making outlines and sticking to them. I'm very good at doing that, but I don't like it. It sort of takes a lot of the fun out.
--Neil Gaiman

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.
--Jeffery Deaver

The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.
--Ken Follett

In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.
--Peter Matthiessen

--Cat

Deja vu

2010-04-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

I may not have noticed it so much had I not read the books back to back.

Two Historical Romances by authors living in different countries, both published in 2009 by different publishers, yet the stories so similar the writers could have been following a template.

Handsome noble tortured hero - check

Beautiful determined heroine - check

Dastardly relatives in need of heroine's inheritance attempt to force her to marry a friend who will share the wealth - check

For her safety, hero must spirit heroine to his isolated country home near the ocean - check

With the love and support of heroine, hero undergoes a harrowing catharsis, meets his demons, and is cured - check

Pages of steamy love scenes - check

HEA - of course

Both books are well-written, have unique individual style, a good sense of place and time, and unobtrusive yet endearing secondary characters.

But I would have enjoyed the second book more had I not read the first, or had more time elapsed between readings.

Not the authors' faults. Not the reader's either. I guess I'll chalk this up to coincidence, and the limitations of the genre.

This all gives me pause in my own writing. One of my works in progress knowingly contains an oft-used plot device as a subplot, and my job is to twist it so it doesn't seem business as usual.

Hopefully the characters will assist me with this task.

~Where did I read that there are only five or so different plots and all the good ones are gone?

--Cat

Reading and Writing

2010-02-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading Hill Towns by Anne Rivers Siddons.

Marital midlife crisis played out against the beauties and dregs of Italy. Truly a wonderfully detailed travelogue, dense with images of Rome, Venice, Florence, Tuscany...

Siddons uses words like an artist uses paint, and the results are stunning. The main character's name is Cat -- how could I not enthusiastically partake of this book's delights?

While the reader is meant to savor the word pictures, I found myself skimming segments in order to get to the action. Wading through the pretty lettuce to get to the tomato I glimpsed every now and then, to use a silly metaphor. Gorgeous scenery does not a story make. The characters are unique, well-described, properly flawed, yet I couldn't immerse myself in their travails. Their travels, yes; oh, silly pun.

Things do happen, the main characters change, but I was left with an empty "is that all there is?" feeling?

~

What did this book teach me about writing?

--My experience reading this book was uniquely mine. It spent months on the NY Times bestseller list, so many, perhaps most readers loved it. I need to remember people get different things out of books.

--I haven't the talent for writing beautifully vivid imagery that Ms. Siddons has. My descriptions consist of a few items that would catch one's first glimpse, then I rely on the reader's imagination to fill in the rest. I find, with other writers as well, that when I stop reading to admire the writing I am pulled away from the story. Also, as an unknown I can't add pages of details at a time when publishers prefer less, not more.

--While I have read and loved literary works, I've never attempted to write one. Symbolism and metaphors abound in Hill Towns. The story itself is a well-crafted metaphor, something I could not plan in advance. My rare symbols and metaphors happen by chance (as the lettuce one above) and are usually not seen as such till much later. I write genre. Sure genre can be literary, but literary cannot, I think, be genre. Clear as mud, right?

--My stories can't meander about leaving the (genre) reader wondering when the pace will pick up. Several times I set this book down and was in no hurry to pick it up again. I want my readers to keep turning those pages.

--Backstory. The first third or so of this book is backstory, relevant to the main theme, so it needs to be there in some form. In my (genre) novels relevant backstory, which I thought was necessary to show in depth, becomes a few sentences told by one character to another, or a brief memory.

~

Writing quotes:

Learn as much by writing as by reading.
--Lord Acton

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
--Stephen King

~

--Cat

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

2009-12-30T11:21:00.000-08:00

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.
--Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Welcome 2010!
--Cat

Flashbacks

2009-11-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

The chapter I'm working on has two levels: one has the female character maintain a tough demeanor as she relates a heartbreaking event that occurred several years ago; the other level is select flashbacks of the event as she witnessed it.

The telling and the showing are intended to complement each other, not duplicate, so that between the two levels all will be clear to the reader, while the character who hears the story learns only the facts she's willing to share.

I originally showed the event in real time but when I slashed the first chapters it became part of the backstory. The event is important enough to need addressing at some point, so it became three small paragraphs of flashbacks.

Scene as originally written - 1849 words

Important parts written as flashbacks - 212 words

Ah, an economy of words, right?

Well, yes and no. The new chapter I wrote to frame those flashbacks came in at 1423 words

Net savings - 426 words. Maybe more in the next edit.

I'll keep chipping at it. Surely there's a beautiful statue in that chunk of stone.

--Cat

History / Backstory

2009-10-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

HISTORY definition

1. an account of what has or might have happened, esp. in the form of a narrative, play, story, or tale
2.
1. what has happened in the life or development of a people, country, institution, etc.
2. a systematic account of this, usually in chronological order with an analysis and explanation
3. all recorded events of the past
etc.

--Webster's Dictionary

BACKSTORY definition

1. The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative of a literary, cinematic, or dramatic work.
2. A prequel.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Kate and David are the main characters in a novel I'm simmering in a pot on the small back burner.

It's rather watery right now -- a skeletal plot, a scene or three thinly sketched, a few secondary characters needing names, ages, defining features, and a time-line that needs, well, times.

I know the events in each their lives that lead up to the important first meeting, which occurs at the beginning of the book. I know their backstories.

What I don't yet know is their histories -- what made them who they are, what shaped their attitudes, their outlooks, their hopes, dreams, fears... in other words, where they came from, their roots.

The histories will be more important to me than to the reader, for I NEED to know them inside and out in order to write their story. The reader will learn history and backstory on a need-to-know basis.

But first I need to know these things.

Quote:

Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type. Anne Lamott

--Cat (who muses while trying to amuse and often ends up bemused.)

Change in POV

2009-09-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

I was having trouble with a scene -- no matter how many times I went through it, I wasn't satisfied with the effect. It was slow, wordy, dare I say boring? Aack -- k o d (kiss of death)!

I needed a different perspective, so rewrote the scene from his point of view. And yes, it's faster, less wordy (he's a terse sort) and has an edgy sense to it, something I couldn't pin down when in her POV.

She will have many other tense scenes, but this simply wasn't one of them.

It wasn't pie-making-easy (trying to avoid cliches) to change gender POV in this scene, as specific events still need to occur. But I'm happier with the outcome, even though the characters are still in a big quagmire.

--Cat

Building Worlds

2009-07-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

While I don't read as much Fantasy as I once did, I'm reading one now, a book I've had for years and started reading, then stopped several times. I'm simply not interested enough in the story to hurry through it, and the writing is pedestrian at best.

The author, however, has done an admirable job creating the world in which this tale takes place. It's intricate and has a long history, there's magic, there's two silver moons in the sky . . . yet it's taken more than half the book for the fine points of this world to be revealed and generate a bit of must-read-on interest. Now I don't expect to know all right away, but had the characters been less stilted and the writing more compelling I would have plowed through the pages at a rapid clip.

So, the world building is well done but the story is still lackluster. I'll try to finish it before the end of this year.

~

Wikipedia has an interesting explanation of Worldbuilding. Descriptions of methods used to create these constructed worlds intrigue me:

There are two schools of thought for world-building, top-down and bottom-up, as well a combination of these two ("top-down-bottom-up"). Top-down and bottom-up design are two strategies used for information processing and knowledge ordering. These are also equivalent to "macro-to-micro" and "micro-to-macro" approaches to scale change employed in various scientific disciplines, where macro is the large scale and micro the small.[

This has all made me think -- while I do not write Fantasy, my stories are nevertheless fantasy (call it fabrication) thus I also must build a world in these stories. But unlike Science Fiction/Fantasy where the world is another planet or all occurs in a past or future time with its own set of physical laws, my world is based on the real thing and follows real history. I build a world within a world, but my built world is of the micro sort; the macro, the larger world already exists. My micro worlds, a different one for each story, are the spheres inhabited by the characters.

They aren't real but they certainly exist in my mind (and on my computer).

~

Quote:

Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
--Albert Einstein

--Cat

Keeping the Promise

2009-05-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

An editor, commenting on one of my books, said she expected the story to proceed in a different direction than it actually did.

I could have said she just didn't get it. But taking her words to heart I looked at it all through fresh eyes. And yes, that beginning chapter set up a certain scenario, a promise that was not fulfilled. The scene, though important to the story later on, was backstory--things that happened before the story properly begins.

Removing the scene was easy. (Hit delete! But I did save it to my Outtakes File.) Sprinkling key points into the story was harder, but manageable.

Will this be the answer?

Don't know, different editors, different strokes. I always keep the outtakes, just in case.

--Cat

Marking Time

2009-04-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

It's April.

My, oh my.

All research done, I added some 1200 words to my book, throwing in almost everything I learned, food, drink, music, clothing, ornaments, architecture... you get the drift.

This is the "I researched this so you have to read every word" syndrome.

I've read books where a writer does this to excess, and to me it usually slows down the pace of the story. *Unless the information is exceptionally fascinating, in which case it slaps me out of the story as my focus shifts gear. Too often I have chased after more information on these fascinating subjects, and the book I was reading gets left behind on a figurative bus stop bench somewhere.

Well, I went through and (judiciously, I hope) deleted 700 of those new words. I wanted exotic background color, not a discourse on the life and times.

And I did not want a small new subplot which magically evolved along with the exotica, starring a new and definitely extraneous character, who must now vanish, no matter how delightful, alluring, and charming she acts, hoping for a bit part in the opus.

Out the new character must go, with some small regret, to join a dozen or so others I'd written in, then out, all now standing on the sidelines, waiting patiently for that big break when they may be called back for a role in another story.

In book biz, like show biz, some of the best scenes are left on the cutting room floor.

On an unrelated note, I was typing away and a dropped letter from a word gave me a sudden creative idea. Only time will tell if the idea becomes more than a light bulb flash.

--Cat

Losing myself ...

2009-02-28T00:30:00.000-08:00

In research. Again.

I have a one-scene chapter in which the MC travels abroad. I needed local color, smells, tastes, sounds, etc.

The year is 1868, the locale is exotic, and--oh my gosh--once I began searching, I couldn't stop. Didn't want to stop, is more apt, for each intriguing page I found led to more intriguing pages.

And, as I often do, I spun off on a tangent, moving past research that I needed on to research that I simply wanted, not satisfied until I reached the end of the story, usually many years past the one I needed.

Google is a blessing and a curse for a procrastinator.

Which brings me to some quotes I found while killing time (procrastinating).

So true:

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. ~Robert Benchley

So ominous:

Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried. ~ Author Unknown

So humorous, naughty, but true:

Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself. ~Author Unknown

--Cat -- getting to work

A Picky Reader

2008-12-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

I love it when I get lost in a captivating book, so involved that I pay no attention to the constructs. Each time I pick up a book I'm ready to immerse myself into a world created by the writer.

I'm reading a romance that is superbly written. A richly detailed setting brings an era to life. The characters have depth, their individual stories are compelling.

But (there's always a but) as the plot is based on a simple premise, the reader knows from the start how it will finish. And while the interest lies in reading a grand adventure from the beginning to the end, the adventure here leaves me begging.

I don't need to have a physical chase around the country, or dangerous occurrences whipped up by evil villains. But I would like to see a villain of sorts, even if the villain is a dire situation. This book has no villain, and because the characters only have each other and themselves to struggle against, there is endless character-dwelling-on-his/her faults, should-haves, what-ifs, and plentiful woe-is-me's.

Three-quarters of the way through the book I'm still waiting for a BIG SOMETHING to happen. A surprise of some sort.

Maybe the surprise will be at the end. As I've started skimming, I'll reach the end sooner, rather than later.

--Cat

It's Christmas

2008-12-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2008

Quote:

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past,
courage for the present,
hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow
with blessings rich and eternal,
and that every path may lead to peace.

--Agnes M. Pharo

Peace and joy to all.

--Cat

Books and Westerns

2008-11-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

Hurrah! Today my Barnes&Noble order arrived.

Four books for me; one DVD set of classic Eastwood westerns for my son. (Don't tell him--it's a surprise.)

I'll surely watch those westerns again myself. Spaghetti westerns were, to me, unique visions of a West that was, or at least may have been.

When younger, I always watched western movies and have many favorites. There are some I will watch whenever they're on TV. I also read a selection of novels by Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, and others. Good guys, bad guys, shoot 'em ups, stampeding horses, much excitement--my biggest regret being there weren't many women in them, and when they existed they often died.

Then I discovered Western Romances and found a genre in which I wanted to write. Now I can create women of the Old West who not only survive, but are strong and brave, and who live happily ever after (presumably) with their strong, brave men.

I'm writing both Western and Victorian era Romances, and at the moment am straddling the 30,000 word mark on my latest western WIP.

The scene I'm working on involves the heroine getting wounded. I need to decide how badly wounded she is, and what this will mean to the progress of the story.

Oh, I do hate hurting my characters. But the story demands it, so what else can I do?

Quote:

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.
-- Louis L'Amour

Ain't it the truth?

-- Cat

Reading and Writing

2008-10-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

I began reading a new romance and found the first three pages introduced fourteen characters. Perhaps some will become important, but right now I'm confused by a mishmash of names--Duke of this, Lady that, Prince so-and-so, Countess XYZ. I'm trying to find the hero and heroine among this crowd. I know they are there somewhere, but I may not read on to find out.

I don't mind numerous characters in a book, but a barrage of names all at once makes me want to skip forward--or close the book.

~

I made a timeline for LE. Normally, I have a rough plot outline and add or subtract to it as scenes emerge.

For this one, actual dates are crucial. Although the story plays out over nine years, the main action encompasses a three week period.

I did say I was going to write this in chronological order. But I didn't like the slow way it began, so I'm back to my original plan. Now the beginning plunges into the story and gets things galloping at a fast clip.

Flashbacks will be interspersed throughout the first part, showing how life for the main characters changes from sublime to acrimonious. I need to make the flashbacks as interesting, as important as the main action, and it all must lead toward the finale.

As for that finale, I arrived at the deadly explosive (literally) climax as a natural result of preparing that timeline.

Odd detail changes may occur, but so far I'll stick to the timeline.

Quote:

Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
--Erica Jong

--Cat

Some Progress

2008-10-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

I change my desktop often. Currently I have this lovely autumn picture:

Working on the novel:

Although much happens to my characters, I needed to insert some excitement -- an action scene with danger, death, and heart-pounding fear -- halfway into Part One of LE. I believe the scenario I created will work nicely. I do have action scenes earlier in the story, not as wild, though. And I have several variants of this in Part Two, all leading up to what I hope will be a rousing ending where the heroine believes --

Ah, no. No talking about it in public before it's actually a written scene.

--Cat

My Progress Graph

2008-09-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

I discovered this nifty word meter here

Many writers use a version of this to keep track of their advancing word count and to let others see how their works in progress are coming along..

I use the total of 90,000 loosely--this is a first draft and I will add/subtract many words before I come up with a final count.

Historical Romance (Western) LE

26,095 / 90,000
(29.0%)

--Cat

Short note

2008-09-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

20,000 words and already a realignment of the bones.

The structure needed to change. Too many flashbacks explaining what and why became intrusive and interrupted the flow. Instead of a chapter about now, a chapter about then, a chapter about now ... etc, I gathered the flashbacks together and will tell the story in chronological order. Part One will be then; Part Two will be now. (now being some years later than then.)

Until the next realignment --

--Cat

Words and Villains

2008-09-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

1100 new words. Not great words, but I'm writing the skeleton here, getting the ideas down while they're hot.

What comes next? Possibly structural reorganization -- think of a realignment of the bones to ensure they're in good order. Then comes expansion -- the muscles, or the meaty bits. The kind on which a reader can chew. And finally a thin layer of flesh -- the color that makes it all look pretty.

Simplistic, I know. But I've done complicated, and for me it takes too long.

~

I was thinking of villains.

Yes, this story needs a villain. Abundant dire situations that must be overcome are not enough for these characters.

My villain PG did not spring ready-made into my mind, like some characters, mostly minor ones, often do.

He evolved. First he was just a name. -- all my characters must have a name before I can write about them -- and at that time I "saw" him. Then his reason for being came into view. The reason that first appeared was rather trite, so I dug a bit and discovered his real reason for being the villain.

So I will introduce him as having this trite motive, then at the proper time reveal the true nature that drives him.

I'll need to be careful that he isn't some cartoonish stereotype. He will be evil, but subtly so. Nothing worse than an over-the-top depiction whose very appearance screams BAD GUY! in your face.

I want a final slam-bang scene that disposes of this villain so the main characters G and C can get on with their life. It's coming to me slowly, but there's a long way to go before I get there, so I have time to plan. Or the characters have time to let me know.

--Cat

The New Work In Progress

2008-09-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've abandoned -- for a short time -- the Victorian era and begun working on my new Western Historical Romance.

I started with the barest plot, and a portion lifted from another work that would have made that other one too long. New plot points came quickly, one after another, and though I threw some out as unworkable, I estimate that I have between 2/3 and 3/4 of the storyline sketched out and ready to go. Some is on the computer; much is yet in my head.

The last portion of the novel did not appear so readily, but I have faith that when I get further into the story all will be revealed.

The story, which I'll call for now LE, is trotting along at 15,864 words, of which almost 13,000 was taken from another work. Nearly 3,000 new words. Not great, but a start. And what I think is a good foundation.

I'll probably change the plot a bit here and there -- for example, I had begun the story with the two main characters separated. I realized, though, that other factors in play would be more easy to incorporate if they were divorced. So now they are at the beginning divorced. And of course how they make their way back together through crises and pitfalls will be the story.

--Cat (getting to work)

--Listening to Spirit In The Sky by the Kentucky Headhunters (yeah!)

A reminder for balance...

2008-08-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

One thing that always irks me about certain romance novels is what I call overwritten love scenes.

I compare it to that old game Twister, where players' hands and feet are eventually directed to impossible to reach places on the board, leading to weird and wacky contortions.

Funny to see; not funny to read about.

I'm reading a western romance with a good story, nice writing. Except--those love scenes where I need to wrap my mind around blow-by-blow (ha ha) descriptions of every slight movement of body parts A to Z. Some of these are impossible to envision. As a result, I'm no longer immersed in the story, and I'm skimming the parts that are touted in some circles as the best parts of the novel.

Problem mine? Maybe. But there are many romance novels out there with love scenes in perfect balance. I'll look for those, and hopefully write a few of my own.

--Cat

Stranger than fiction

2008-07-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

Are dreams....

Although I've turned many of my dreams into stories, I don't remember ever dreaming about a character from one of my stories. Until now.

Afterward it was curious and weird, yet in dream time seemed as ordinary as water. As most dreams are.

In my book the evil woman had her life snuffed out by persons unknown.

In my dream, the hero (I didn't see him, but I know it was him) attended the funeral, then whipped out a white cell phone. This is a huge stretch, for the story takes place in the 1880s. Not only that, but the phone rings and -- you guessed it -- it was the dead woman calling from the other place.

I didn't hear what she said, and the dream went poof at that very moment.

I woke up laughing at the absurdity.

A small snip where hero Del checks for himself that evil woman Lonnie is dead:

~

Del went to the one place no one would suspect him of visiting, finding the back lane he was looking for and an unlocked window that slid open without a creak. The shadowy chamber he entered reeked of death, embalming fluid, and something even more unpleasantly familiar.

He struck a match and lit one of the fat white candles the undertaker provided for bereaved family members of his customers. A closed casket sat on a raised platform banked by masses of paper-white lilies. When he pushed up the lid, Del knew at once why the aroma in the room was so familiar–it was her perfume, the scent of wilting jungle flowers that suited her so well.

As he gazed down at cinnamon ringlets arranged on a satin cushion, at claw-tipped fingers folded upon her white-sheathed breast, he was not as surprised that she was dead as he was curious who had done it. Who had rid the world of this amoral vicious creature? Who deserved a medal?

In that moment given to speculation, he didn't hear the padding footsteps behind him until it was too late.

"Come to pay your final respects, Injun Boy?"

Before Del could turn, the stock of a rifle slammed against the side of his head, propelling him toward the casket. The last thing he saw before he slid to the floor was Lonnie's plum-colored mouth, as lush in death as it had been in life.

~

--Cat

Peopling a story

2008-06-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

Oh, I know that's not a word. I could say populating. Or creating characters. I 'm at the moment adding people to a new story.

Here's how it worked this time:
I had a concept -- a western romance
I saw the opening scene -- a posse or troopers chasing bad guys ...when the dust settled, something pastoral ....
The title came to me -- perfect, I think... SD for short
I saw both main characters, heard their names. Their stories, as the plot, are evolving
Now, two characters, though mandatory for a romance, do not the story make -- it would be over too soon if that were the case. So I need a supporting cast ... a grandpa for her, (or is he?) a husband and brother for her, killed in the war (or were they?) A buddy, an enemy, and a past love for him. A reason for throwing them together ... a good one, I think.
And some obstacles, giant ones, to keep things interesting. I have some, need more.

It's a process, different for everyone. My story ideas come fast and I need to get the skeleton built right away. The flesh will come later.

SD will take its place in the queue.

Listening to Edith Piaf sing Hymne à L'Amour -- lovely

--Cat

Boring Backstory

2008-05-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

I've temporarily set aside the epic/saga I was working on and am back to F 2. One thing I noticed I had done was bring the reader up to speed on all that had happened in F 1. So it began with all this backstory. The new story was crawling along like a slug. No movement equals boring.

I took out all the references to past events. These will still need to be addressed, but in more interesting ways at more interesting times, after the story gets rolling at a good speed.

Don't ever want to bore the reader.

So, my word count is going down instead of up. Some 600 words down. But that will soon change.

--Cat

Chapter Four - at last

2008-05-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

This one was, for some reason, harder to work with. Many things changed since I first wrote it, so I needed to accommodate them all. Took stuff out, put it in again, took others out ...

The main characters stayed the same, but one had to be renamed. Their stories stayed the same, but were retold differently.

Now, I'm not saying it's finished. I'm bound to change it again.

These are the last few paragraphs of Chapter Four:

Orlean showed no fear but nevertheless backed away from his wild-eyed attacker, out through the doors, onto the gallery that overlooked the marble-floored entry hall. Brian plunged after him, his knife slashing first air, then into the sleeve of his victim’s forearm.

“Brian Brenner!” Asa roared. “You are not on the Barbary Coast!”

Brian, growling, leaped forward again. His hair fell over his brow; he shoved it back. The Spaniard’s eyes flashed as he pulled a gun from his inside pocket. Brian lunged. Orlean fired. The bullet’s impact spun Brian toward the railing. Unable to halt his momentum, he toppled over it and tumbled to the bottom, some twenty feet below.

Forty or more people stood on the gallery, frozen in horror. No one spoke. No one seemed to breathe. Libby, her heart thumping wildly, bit back a sob, jerked free of Emery’s grip and rushed to her grandfather’s side. They stood at the railing and peered down to where Brian was lying sprawled on his back, his eyes closed. Blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder soaked his suit coat, then puddled around him, adding scarlet pools to the rose marble floor. A number of servants timidly approached. Mr. Peabody left his position by the door and bent over the body.

“He’s alive! Let’s get a doctor here. Move away, everyone! Move away!”

~

On to Chapter Five.

Listening to: Bobby Darin sing Lazy River

--Cat

Two steps forward, one ....

2008-04-21T21:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, you know the dance.

I shortened the book by 3,000 words. Then added a prologue, and inserted a scene necessary to explain a later event. Added about 800 words.

The net result is still -2200.

I'm sure I'll find more to edit out. (and add)

Quote for me to live by:

Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
--Samuel Johnson

--Cat

The times they are a-changin...

2008-04-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

No, not the old Dylan song. The times in my epic/saga.

As this is a multi-character multi-year work, I created a timeline on a spreadsheet. I've changed the order of events several times to coincide with actual occurrences, fictional occurrences, seasons, births, deaths, etc. And will no doubt need to change the dates again the further I get into sorting out my scenes.

I have the beginning, or most of Part One figured out in a satisfactory way.

Now it boils down to arranging the scenes in a sequence that makes sense. As I've changed a few things they don't work the way I originally wrote them.

It may seem a pain, but I actually like doing this.

Appropriate Bob Dylan quote:

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

--Cat

The continuing saga of ...

2008-04-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Chapter Four

It should be a slam dunk finish. The chapter is written, just needs some cleaning -- shorter sentences, fewer commas. But I found that one of the scenes should be in a viewpoint other than that of the heroine. This involves turning the scene on its ear, as this viewpoint character sees things differently. One may say she sees things through green colored glass. (A bit of envy in a story can go a long way.) She may be wrong, she may be right. We'll have to wait and see.

Quotes by Margaret Atwood

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

A word after a word after a word is power.

--Cat

Chapter Four

2008-04-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

My problems with this chapter stem from the zealous writer -- me -- who had written three separate versions, each basically showing the same events, yet each from a different character's point of view. Each might work, with a little tinkering. Choosing the right one has become a chore -- I change my mind every time I read them.

I finally picked the version that made the most sense: the scene will be in the heroine's point of view as she is the one mainly affected by the tragedy that occurs. This also gives me a chance to add depth and some surprising facets to her character.

Will it work in the end? My test reader will let me know.

--Cat

listening to Sweet Maree by the late great Steve Miller

Research

2008-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

The blessing and curse of writing a historical is, well, the history part.

Some romances are light on history, but this is fine when history does not play a big role in the story--the plot of which dictates the degree and depth of historical details necessary. When I read a romance I don't want to get bogged down in swarms of fine points meant to add ambiance/realism/richness to the story but could have been scaled back so that it doesn't plod. It's different if these are integral parts of the story. And of course a straight historical is different--the history is the story.

That said, I like enough history in a romance to firmly ground me in the time and place. I need to trust that the writer has given me a world that could have been real.

Now for my own tale of joy and woe: joy because I love doing research (but maybe too much at times); woe because my epic/saga requires lots of rummaging around to give me an overall view of the time as well as some pertinent details as they relate to the characters. I have a large cast, so do need a fair amount of these details, some which I will only mention in passing, some which will never make it to the page.

I'm writing about a place I don't live in, a time I may be familiar with from other work I've done, but not how it affects this particular place. This is a large undertaking, but I look forward to the task.

And it keeps me out of trouble.

-- Cat

Quote

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

-- Louisa May Alcott

Opus underway

2008-01-18T23:43:00.000-08:00

Whew! I finally finished transcribing my epic/saga.
I had a strange feeling of loss after, best described as tristesse, a French word for sadness, melancholy, often felt after sex. (Maybe I had too many such scenes?)

The total word count came to 314,874, not close to the "biggies" but roughly three times the average romance. I'm sure half can be cut. But some also needs to be added, so I won't know even a rough count until the edit is well underway. I may need to split it into two books, as I'm doing with FORTUNE.

Meanwhile, I'm still having fun.

--Cat

Changes

2007-12-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

In my last post, approximately one month ago, I spoke of transcribing an earlier novel from typed pages to computer files. I titled this book Saga, for it was long and involved--no, make that convoluted. When I wrote this tale I already pursued the tenet "make it bad, then make it worse."

My poor characters--I truly dragged them through hell! And I need to change the name from Saga to Epic: Part one runs close to 480 pages, nearly 150,000 words. I aim to slash that by half or more. But I still have parts two, three, and four to go, and huge dollops of trouble, pain, and heartache for the characters before they walk away together into a glorious sunset.

Will they make to the end? Will I?

Stay tuned.

--Cat

Then, and Now

2007-11-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

I recently dusted off an old manuscript. When I say old, I mean I wrote it in BC. (Before Computer), likely fifteen or more years ago. It was typed the old-fashioned way, on a typewriter, not formatted in any respectable manner, (what did I know then? for that matter I only think I know correct formatting now...) though it was at least double-spaced with numbered pages.

So I decided to finally get back to it, and that means first entering it into the computer. As of now I'm not editing a lot as I go, for it's faster to transcribe it, most warts and blemishes except the most glaring (should I say embarrassing?) included.

This romance, which I have temporarily named Saga, requires major work. Not so much to the story line, which I still think is good, but to the way it is written. I have long areas of pure exposition, in other words, tell not show. I have a number of secondary characters who are absolutely perfect stereotypes. In fact if I wanted to, I could probably make this a spoof of the genre. I even thought about doing that. For about a minute.

Yes, there is some truly cringe worthy writing. Many of my sentences are very, very long. I have POV and focus problems, and need to clarify motivations. There are a few gems, however, so all is not lost.

So far I have close to 40,000 words transcribed. I think there's at least thrice that number left. (I wrote long when I began, mainly because I over-explained and over-described.)

It's interesting in a way to look back and see mistakes, both obvious and subtle. That means I've gotten better. Doesn't it? Well, doesn't it?

Saga is one of my works-in-rotation, so I work on it in turn. I'll update any progress.

--Cat

If it's Tuesday, this must be ...

2007-11-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd work on some projects on a rotational basis, sort of like a round robin, until one takes precedence and clamors, "Me! Me!"

Today I did some work on FC, the third book in my romantic saga, the one which follows the lives of the four oldest children of the main characters of F1 and F2, now grown and ready for adventures and loves of their own. I had a general idea of each character's main story, but hadn't fleshed out any of them. Today I worked on the oldest son's story. And amazingly it came to me almost complete. I quickly made a file with a rough outline, adding to it here and there. And because his story will mesh with his brother's, that too is partially done.

The hard part is still to come: tons of research, then write the darn thing!

But I love when tales get told almost by themselves and I get a little picture of what makes these characters tick.

~

Did I say I had bizarre dreams? Well, I dreamed an agent came to visit me. Said agent was big man with a big blustering voice, traveling with a rather small assistant. He studied my bookshelves for some minutes, then asked my daughter to find a particular title for him. (my kids were young in the dream.) The other two were trying to watch tv, but couldn't hear it for his loud voice. I had expected him to talk to me about romance novels, but he kept harping upon some fantasy title I'm sure I didn't own.

Perhaps that blustering voice, or my frustration, snapped me out of the dream.

Which brings me to Fantasy novels. I was never an Elves-and-Fairies-type of reader; Tolkien doesn't work for me. I do read witches, the Anne Rice type, but not Rowling. And I've enjoyed vampire and werewolf tales -- the old ones, not the modern-day ones.

But oh! I admire those who create entire worlds that are not quite our own. Whether lower, middle, or upper earth, or in a galaxy that's far, far away from our own ken, these places exist far beyond the pages of a book.

Which bring me to this observation: creating a plausible world, whether inhabited by sorcerers with powers or regular people who've lived any time in the last four and a half billion years can be a daunting but exciting task.

I guess that's why we write.

Listening to Lady Writer by Dire Straits

--Cat

Computer fun

2007-10-08T21:51:00.000-07:00

Not.

There was a time if I mistakenly deleted a file I'd find it quickly in the recycle bin and restore it immediately. Worked well.

Now the recycle bin is protected by the newest version of Norton, and I'm unable, not to mention unwilling, to make heads or tails out of it.

Another example of taking something simple and making it too complicated to contemplate. (hey, there's a title in that!)

So I had to re-edit the file yet again.

But going back a week, I was working quite nicely and suddenly -- poof! -- the power went out. It was 9 p.m. Pitch black. I groped for the flashlight I have on my desk, knocked it over, then when I found it, couldn't turn it on. Who decided to put the button on the very bottom?

We played cards for an hour by a battery-powered lamp, then magically the power returned. Heard it was a Great Blue Heron's fault. That wily hydro company is always blaming birds. Last time it was crows on a wire.

My program, amazingly, recovered the file. However the very next evening the xxxxing computer rudely turned itself off. I still have no idea why. Alas, no recovery this time. 200 pages of edits -- gone. I gritted my teeth and did them all again.

Thought I was done but for one simple thing. I write in Word Perfect and needed to convert the file to Word for Windows. I know very little about Word, but I was ready to try. Except--except (and this is where my stupidity enters the scenario) in my haste to clean up the folder I deleted the edited file. I spent half an hour trying to find it, then gave up, edited the file again made many copies of it this time, kept them all, and finally, finally did the conversion to Word.

I still like and use Word Perfect. It's simple, and I'm familiar with it. I could upgrade, but I won't. Who knows what advancements or enhancements the makers have done to ruin it.

Some things I just have to learn the hard way.

--Cat

Long time no write ....

2007-09-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know my humor falls flat.

My writing update:

~The Queen of Paradise Valley is complete

~Fortune is complete

~Fortune 2 is plotted, but not completely fleshed out. I've written the first 5 chapters, roughly, and some scenes, possibly 10-15% of the whole.

~Fortune's Children, which will play out in the 1890s, is sketched, very roughly at this point, but I know how it starts and have a few scenes down.

~I'm also working on a contemporary mystery, working title HB.

~In the middle of all this, an idea has sprung into my mind for another romance. The main characters are vivid pictures in my mind. I know the female character's name, a bit about her past (she herself told me both these things!). I know a fair bit about the story. What I don't yet know is the year in which it's set. I'm confident it'll come to me.

~To top things off, I'm composing children's poetry, because this silly little verse goes round and round in my head.

Now I know why I have insomnia.

--Cat

Why write?

2007-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Why I Write

Someone asked me why I write.

My reply, immediately, was, because that's what I do.

I can't imagine Not Writing.

I have story ideas too numerous to count.

I even have a plan, of sorts. After novels a, b, c, there are d, e, f. Then there will be g, h, i all the way to x, y, z. Then I'll start over like they name hurricanes, alpha, beta ...

Their churning, their demands settled a bit once I gave them each their own folder, their own rough sentence or two plot summary, their own first lines of chapter one. Yet they poke at me ocasionally -- when is my turn?

Quote:

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

That Book

2007-07-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

I may be the only one, but I did not read Book 7 of that Potter boy's extraordinary life.

Nor books 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

I did read book 1. I found that J. K. Rowling had the perfect formula for children's literature--a sympathetic orphan, nasty relatives, witches, warlocks, magic school, adventure, mystery, good and evil... and so densely written that you had to read every word so as not to miss anything.

I didn't read more in the series as it just wasn't my thing.

But I loved the vision of children, young and old, lining up for each successive tome and reading--actually reading! What a terrific phenomenon. These readers would undoubtedly seek out other books, other authors, other worlds.

Great news for all writers.

And I have huge respect for Ms. Rowling. Seven blockbusters in ten years. Wow!

Obscure Word department:

Had I not read Book 1 of the Potter saga, I wouldn't have spent time looking up a word I later came across in another book. I was reading Thomas B. Costain's Below the Salt (written in 1957), a rousing tale of jousting knights, kingly intrigues, and the creation in 1215 of the Magna Carta. The word quiddity, used in the same paragraph as the word broomstick, jumped out at me. As in Quidditch, the game Harry et al play on flying broomsticks.

In Below the Salt a grumpy and drunk chirurgeon (ki-rûr'jən - an archaic term for a surgeon) sent medicine the tincture of saffron and the salt of wormwood on the business end of a broomstick to a child who, because she had the pox, was banished to a windowless shed. It was the chirurgeon who railed about quiddities, and I sought to learn more about the word.

from Dictionary.com:

quiddity \KWID-ih-tee\, noun:

1. The essence, nature, or distinctive peculiarity of a thing.
2. A hairsplitting distinction; a trifling point; a quibble.
3. An eccentricity; an odd feature.

Quiddity comes from the scholastic Medieval Latin term quidditas, "essence," from quid, "what."

From Wikipedia

Other senses:

In law, the term is used to refer to a quibble or academic point. An example can be seen in Hamlet's graveside speech found in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. "Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures" says Hamlet referring to a lawyer's quiddities.

Quiddity is the name for the mystical dream sea in Clive Barker's novel The Great and Secret Show that exists as a higher plane of human existence. It is featured as more of a literal sea in the novel's sequel, Everville and the related short story, On Amen's Shore.

Well, okay. I found it interesting. I'm going to find a place for the word in one of my novels.

-- Cat

Change of Direction

2007-06-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

I'm setting the romances aside for a while (still waiting to hear from several agents) and will spend some time working on a new novel, a mystery, one that seized my mind and refuses to let go until I get the story down.

I've created a new blog:Mystery, Suspense to track my progress and make comments on this new work.

I have not abandoned the romances, just placed the works in progress on the back burner for the time being. And will still query agents for both F and Q.

Cat

Tooting

2007-06-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

Must toot my own horn.

This has nothing to do with sagas, romance, etc.

But a humorous children's verse I wrote appears here in the online literary ezine Bumbershoot.

Must be worth a smile or two.

Cat

Blast from the Past

2007-05-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out a desk drawer and came across an envelope titled Postmarks.

Ah yes, there was a time when I planned to save every postmark that adorned my rejects.

I saved the no thanks letters and cards in a file. But saving postmarks cut from an envelope? A useless practice.

Perhaps I was hopeful it would remain a thin, rarely-used envelope. And it did remain thin, for we moved residences shortly thereafter and I discontinued the silly ritual.

I dug through the postmarks and was startled to see the year 1993. Hmm. 14 years ago. That would have made it a reject for Q. I should say Whew. There's no way Q was ready in 1993 to be published. But it did catch the eye of a respected agent. She advised me to cut it down.

I was green at the time, didn't realize her words meant to severely prune. The original novel was 145,000 words. I reduced it by 5000, sent it back. She kindly told me it needed further cuts

I was still at the stage where I believed further cuts would impact the plot--I needed all those words to tell the full story.

So I set Q aside for a while and worked on other things, romantic sagas, mysteries, poetry, whatever caught my fancy at the time. But I returned to it again, did a too-severe hack job, hated it, put half the stuff I had taken out back in, still hated it. Went on to other things again.

But I still believed in the story. If I could just shape it properly, it might work. So again, I trimmed, entire subplots had to go. Extraneous words -- out. All the main events stayed. Some I even embellished. But only a little bit.

Now Q is a lean, mean 109,000 words. Is it ready in 2007 to be published? Yes, I feel it is. Unfortunately I don't have the final say.

Quote:

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
-- Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

March 28, illustrated version

2007-03-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

I recently updated my novels excerpts on my website, replaced the chapters I had there with the beginning chapters: the first two chapters of Fortune and the first chapter of The Queen of Paradise Valley.

It's taking me a very long time to complete the site. (Still working on links, and, of course, I have no news to post.) I tell myself I'm oh-so busy. I'll get around to it soon. Maybe I will, next week, or next month, or ...

Maybe I read too much!

Reading update:

1. The History of Art, page 223. I've reached The Middle Ages.

2. Heaven's Command, page 283. The year is 1864. Brittania rules much of the world.

3. The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George, page 155. Wonderful! I'm not reading this for reference, but just because it's in my library. I hear that Showtime has a 10 part miniseries on the lusty king, The Tudors, beginning April 3. I'd love to watch it, even more after reading this review, but alas, I can't commit myself to regularly watch lengthy miniseries. I'll wait, as I did for the series Rome, to come out on DVD. And, I want to finish the book first.

4. I also read The Venus Fix, a timely thriller by M J Rose. Fast-paced action, thoughtful insights on the human psyche.

5. And I look forward to reading Disturbing the Dead, an atmospheric mystery written by my friend Sandra Parshall, her second novel, just out.

So, do I read too much? I wish I had more time to read even more.

And I truly do some writing between all the reading. I'm working on scenes for both Fortune 2 and Fortune's Children.

Listening to Penelope's Song by Loreena McKennitt

Cat

A Few Words

2007-03-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Not neglecting the blog...

I find my time limited lately, what with getting all the income tax paraphernalia together. I do the taxes for family members, file them online in an effortless manner. Once all the slips are together, that is. I look forward to the "press enter and they're off" part.

And I've been whittling my words, again. Can't seem to leave well-enough alone. I'm like that guy I once knew who couldn't pass a reflective surface without whipping out his comb and re-arranging his stylish waves.

I open the file and start combing through the words. Looking for nits, maybe?

Classical tonight --

Listening to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

And a quote:

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

--Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794) British historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. At a million and a half words, Gibbon's masterpiece is not only one of the greatest works of history ever written, but one of the longest.

(Whew! Evenso, I'd love to read it. Maybe when I have a spare five years...)

Cat

My mind at work

2007-02-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

In one of those quirks of fate, a solution to a problem I foresaw coming in F2 presented itself while I was concentrating (musing?) on something else.

I won't be at the point I need to write this scene or touch upon the problem for some time yet, but I'll place it into its logical spot in my rough outline and go on from there.

Nice to know I may have come to a far better and more realistic (given the characters) situation than the nebulous one that was floating through my brain.

Odd how the subconscious works.

I love the following quote. Now I have a word for what I do -- moodling!

Quote:

So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.

-- Brenda Ueland (1891 - 1985) journalist, editor, freelance writer, writing teacher.

Cat

A Critical Scene

2007-02-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

I needed to set aside what I was doing because a particular scene from F2 demanded explication. (Sure, that's a twenty dollar word, but it fits in this case.)

I had the scene roughed in, or roughed up as the case may be, but could not stop refining the details over and over in my mind. Time to put it all together on "paper," lest I forget.

It's a fairly long scene, involving only the two main characters A and E. I needed to break it into scene-lets so that it doesn't end up as a talking-heads-experience that bores readers to sleep. I thought I'd do this by playing up the different emotions both characters experience.

First, there's profound surprise. For both. Neither expected to see the other in this particular place.

Then A feels mild annoyance. E has stepped forth onto his tightrope. Over-stepped, he decides.

His annoyance increases as certain facts come out. Not only is she treading the rope with him, she insists on swaying it from side to side, by admitting she befriended someone he has long considered the enemy.

E responds in kind to his holier-than-thou tactics. She knows him well enough to become even more boldly aggravating.

A's annoyance becomes anger. He in turn tells E something he knows will make her furious, intending to induce her to stop playing this dangerous game.

This second surprise does fire up her temper. But as A coldly explains things to her she realizes she truly did abandon her duties and feels a terrible remorse.

E, however, is not one to weep buckets, so she soon regains her poise.

Only to lose it once more when the tightrope breaks and they both go into free-fall, giving in to the intoxicating passion both feel for one another. It's a passion stoked by anger, regret, determination, and, though neither yet admits it, love.

Quotes:

One to motivate:

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.

-- Isak Dinesen

And this because it made me smile:

If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day.

-- Anonymous

Cat

Killing Time

2007-01-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've done my revisions. Mostly. Need to reformat everything now.

Now I'm killing time with silly stuff like organizing bookmarks and favorites. And not-so-silly stuff like trying to find out why Flash/Shockwave abruptly stopped working on the IE browser. They work fine on Netscape and Mozilla. Worked till two days ago on IE, then suddenly quit. I've tried downloading new ones, followed every help suggestion I could find. But no luck.

No. Amend that. Maybe this was meant to be. What do I use Flash/Shockwave for? Playing games! IE is my default browser, the one with most of my Favorites, the one on which I play the occasional game.

Well if this isn't a clear message, I don't know what it is.

Cat -- putting nose to grindstone

Listening to Groundrush by Green Isac

What's new?

2007-01-10T21:52:00.000-08:00

Not too much.

But I did get Part One of Q organized. Won't call it finished, yet.

I had fun (not) putting the entire book into one file. Before, I had each Part in a separate file. Should have been easy to just copy Part Two and add it to the end of Part One, etc. Part One ended at page 61. Adding pages should have given me page 62 and onwards.

But the pages would not renumber. Part Two wanted to start--not at page 62--at page 80, where it had originally started. I deleted the headers, but could not get rid of the pesky page numbers.

My word processing program of choice has long been Corel's Word Perfect, and though I also have Microsoft Word, I don't use that one unless I'm under duress or it's a dire emergency.

I have in the past spent frustrating hours, even days rooting out the cause of program troubles. Not this time.

I copied and pasted all the files into a text file, then copied and pasted that into a new Word Perfect document.

Finally, it's all together. For the first time. All 432 pages.

Now I'm starting to organize Part Two.

Good thing I don't have a deadline.

-- Cat

I'm counting on this to be true.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Starting 2007 late

2007-01-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Merry and Happy.

I don't make resolutions. It's a waste. But I can make plans. Finish this, polish that, send those...

~

I haven't done much writing for nearly a month. Some reading, but of course not the books I should finish.

Before Dan Brown, before The Da Vinci Code, there was Loup Durand (1933-1996). I started his nifty thriller, Daddy, published in France in 1987, translated in 1988. It's a cat-and-mouse chase through the Europe of 1942 between an eleven-year-old genius who knows the codes to bank accounts holding millions of dollars, and the equally intelligent German agent sent by the Nazis to retrieve the information. Hairy, scary, must-read suspense. I'm 2/3 of the way through.

Also started a historical romance which will remain unidentified. Talented writer -- takes you there -- but the characters. Uh. Typical Alpha hero, arrogant to the point of being unlikable. Somewhat passive heroine. I'll finish it, but am not in any hurry.

~

I did put the Prologue and Part One of Q together in chronological order. Did some reformatting and now need to go through it all again to get the chapters right. I noticed I have some chapters that are 3 or 4 pages, others 10+. An agent once told me short chapters are reader-friendly.

That's debatable, though. Wouldn't the reader put the book down more often?

Well, I'm not going to worry about it, but will combine some of those small chapters. Hope to get Part One finished this weekend.

~

At the moment the wind is gusting hard. I hear the rose bushes like fingers tapping, then nails scraping my windows. Big trees swish, creak. The large cedars don't seem to root very deeply. I hope if they tumble they go the other direction! What a mess these windstorms make. Could it be Ma Nature''s way of cleaning her house?

Cat

Listening to: Forgive My Heart-- Nat King Cole

Working on Q

2006-12-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm still working on the dusted-off QUEEN OF PARADISE VALLEY.

The big problem -- and I've long known it was a problem -- was the jumping back and forth in years, the flashbacks that came out reading like backstory.

My poor characters ricocheted from 1879 to 1888, back to 1883, forward to 1888, back again to 1886 and forth again to 1888. This all before page 100.

So, if I knew this was a problem, why ....

I excuse myself by saying I had become immersed in something else, which is true. But I also saw Q as being told strictly that way. This was how I first conceived it. I didn't even think to change the structure.

It came as an agreeable surprise that no, I had not chiseled this into stone. I have a computer, words are fluid, I can be flexible. All I need do is rearrange the story, put it into chronological order. That backstory becomes the story. And I can play up the necessities and throw out the rest.

This may be easier than I thought.

Or not.

Cat

Very small rant

2006-12-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

A rhetorical question:

Do they no longer teach spelling and grammar in schools?

I came across the following comment made by a student who read a particular poem for his/her English Lit class:

(paraphrased)

i can truely relate to this poem....i'm sure it is what X would of said to me if he could of.

This is to me the visual equivalent of nails scraping on a chalkboard.
Well, how many present day students would know what that is?

Cat (feeling less than hopeful about the future of books and reading)

Listening to Whispers of Eternity by Mars Lasar

Between a rock and a ....

2006-11-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

That's a feeling I've had.

I set FORTUNE aside for a time as I wait to hear from agents, and have been dusting off an older work. THE QUEEN OF PARADISE VALLEY, hereafter referred to as Q, was my first written romance novel. Historical romance with a western setting, I called it.

Some time ago Q had the interest of a reputable agent. She liked the story but was concerned about the length. In a field where most such novels were 120k tops, she wanted me to considerably shorten Q, which ran to mid 140k. I cut it to 130k, which wasn't enough for her, so she sadly (I like to think) declined.

At a later time I realized that Q broke every single rule and guideline. The very first line was scenery. It began with a prologue, which (big sin) was a dream. Parts two and three were flashbacks. Terrible no-nos. The story itself did not adhere to romance novel criteria: the main characters were separated for long stretches of time; the male character is shown involved with other women.

I stopped trying to find an agent for Q and concentrated on other projects. But at a later time, I took Q out of the figurative attic and, bowing to convention decided to conform. I threw out the prologue, parts two and three, kept the main characters together more often, left out the Other Women, except by reference. Wow--I was down to 105,000 words. And I had a Historical Romance.

But . . . after letting the new version sit for a time, I now find that while I lost all that verbiage, I also lost the events that gave my characters motivation and justification for their actions, and added depth of personality. I can't just slip these in here and there as I thought I could. Scenes I called backstory were integral to the story; without them it reads choppy and chopped, a skelton without flesh.

So, I'm leaving all those no-nos in. I can probably shave off 5k words to make it a manageable 120-125k. That, however, will not address the fact the story does not fit the measurements of the typical Historical Romance.

I will therefore call Q a Romantic Saga (like F, which was never meant to be HR).

I reserve the right to change my mind at a future time.

Quote:

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

-- John Steinbeck

Cat

Yeah, I'm still around....

2006-11-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

Busy editing, revising, preparing queries, sleeping, eating, etc.

I've also been plotting F2. Not intentionally, mind you. But it's always in the back of my mind.

The idea that solves a problem I'd seen coming just happened. A character needs to be killed by order of another character. I was planning on a lost-in-the-wilderness-so-it-looks-accidental death. Now it will be a looks-like-suicide death. He even has a reason for taking his own life, tortured soul that he is. The truth will come out, but not before my main character agonizes that his suicide is her fault.

Voila--problem solved. One problem, anyway. Lots more to come.

Reading:

The History of Art - page145 Slow going, even with all the pictures, but so interesting! I'm up to the art and architecture of Ancient Greece.

Heaven's Command - page 182 I'm taking my time with this one, too. It's packed with information about Britain's rise to Imperialism during Queen Victoria's reign. Also very interesting.

Runaway - Wonderful short stories by wonderful writer Alice Munro. The nice thing about short stories (and nonfiction) is that they are easy for me to set aside for a while.

I also read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. That was one book that, once begun, I could not set aside. You know where reading fiction involves suspension of disbelief? Okay, for this one I really needed to set aside perceptions of reality. There was a place, well, places where it started to unravel for me. Think outside the box, I told myself. It's fiction. It's a thriller, a genre I don't often read. I pushed on--had to at that point. Yeah, it was a rush, a wild ride. Ought to make a dang good movie.

Listening to: Cajon Pass by Phil Keaggy

Cat

Revisions again....

2006-10-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Final revision number -- (I've lost count, but this may be the winner.)

Like a starlet gazing in anguish at her best dramatic scenes where they lie like severed limbs on the cutting room floor, I weep over the tenderly polished words I toiled to create only to carve them from the main work with hatchet, then scissors, then razor, and stand knee-deep in the bloodied slices...

A master of purple prose, I do exaggerate.

Weep may be the wrong word. Lament, maybe. Moan, surely. And groan, absolutely, when I come across some little gem that in hindsight is absolutely inappropriate or superfluous.

Much like what I've written here so far.

The results of my carving:

New page one takes the reader to the place not reached until old page nine.

New chapter one - now 5 pages. Was 11.

New part one - now 17 pages. Was 27.

Word count - now 5,906. Was 10,580

That's 4600 words gone. Words I thought I needed. Words that explained too much. Isn't it better for the reader to wonder why and read on, than to know everything and not bother?

Because I threw out so many words, I wondered if my cuts adversely affected the flow. When I read my work out loud it all sounds okay to me, so I can't trust my judgment. Luckily, I have this nifty program, Dragon Naturally Speaking that not only takes dictation like a secretary, it also reads it all back when so ordered. The voice is natural, not like that mechanical drone you hear when a machine calls to tell you that you've won a prize. So my "secretary" reads back what I've written, barely stumbling over the non-English words.

I think she deserves a raise.

Speaking of technology: I hate-hate-hate backing up my work to CD. When floppies were in style, it was easy. Only the files that changed were written over. Sure CDs and DVDs have greater capacity. But ugh, I hate using the things so much I only did back-ups once a week. Or less.

And every once in a while when the computer started up and the screen stayed blank white or blue my heart would almost stop as I pictured everything disappearing.

Today I got a 200 GB external hard drive that will automatically back up my work on a daily basis, or more often if I so desire.

Hooray!

I'm almost done revising Part Two. This won't be as easy to cut as the first. The goal is to eliminate maybe 1000 words. I'll see what I can do.

Listening to Tony Bennett sing Stranger in Paradise.

Cat

New Blog

2006-10-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

I seem to have this need to go off on tangents that have little to do with writing my Saga, the purpose of this Blog. So I have another spinoff, called My Other Blog in the link to the right. The formal title is Little Essays, Little Indulgences.

It will contain mainly indugences, little things of interest to, perhaps, only me, but things I need to write.

This should leave Saga... free for actual Saga... business.
If there ever is any.

Cat

The Thrill of Them All

2006-09-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know those words are from a song. (I Remember You by Johnny Mercer)

And this really was not the ultimate thrill, among which getting my book published certainly qualifies.

But--last Thursday, the 21st, I got to hear my name on the radio.

To explain: My niece Amanda belongs to the wonderful Langley Ukulele Ensemble. A group of talented young people, they tour the world, performing, and have released a number of CDs. Their latest CD, Classical Ukuleles, contains some of my favorite works.

Each weekday morning I listen to a (classical) music request show, Here's to You, on CBC Radio Two. Some time ago, I placed a request for Pachelbel's Canon in D by the Ukulele Ensemble. On Thursday they played my request in a fine presentation and announced my name. Twice!

Gave me chills, it did. CBC Radio is not just a local station. It's Canada-wide, coast to coast. Judging by some of the requests they get, many Americans listen. I figure a couple million or more people heard the request. And my name!

And then I wondered: is that my fifteen, well three, minutes of fame?

It was still a thrill. And according to another, much more cynical, song by Marianne Faithfull, A Thrill's a Thrill.

Cat -- listening to Snakecharmer by Ottmar Liebert

Quote:

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.

-- Danny Kaye

Small Update

2006-09-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

FORTUNE revision number 300 zillion. Or so it seems.

I've been working on this story so long and have revised it so often it bears little resemblance to the original, written by pencil on yellow lined paper. I might as well have chiseled it on stone tablets, it's that old.

Perhaps I exaggerate. The story has evolved greatly, many names have changed, each revision has, I believe, improved the book and been a learning experience.

I no longer work on plot details or character adjustments. Those might as well be carved in stone and will only change if an agent or editor insists.

The last several revisions have all had one purpose--to eliminate that which is not needed (backstory, exposition, redundancy, fluff, bits of history that are there just to prove I did my research), and to tighten what I have left.

How I hated deleting some of the history of my characters!

The thing is, the reader doesn't need to know all these gems of the past for they don't affect the story. I, on the other hand, should know what brought the characters to this point in time. So putting it all down was not a total waste. And some facts will trickle back in on a need-to-know basis.

Funny note:
Had an email rejection today to a query I sent in March. The company wanted an exclusive. I gave them till the end of April. Wrote them off in May. Back on top in June--no, that's a Sinatra song. Anyway, the email was addressed to me, Cat Dubie, but began "Dear Ms. Williams."
Good for a laugh, anyway.

Listening to: Adonais, by Patrick Bernard

Cat

T-Shirt Tales

2006-09-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

My husband found an article in the newspaper about 100 things one must do (in BC) before one dies. We discovered we've already done a few and checked them off the list. Some we will pass, such as nude bungee jumping in Nanaimo, hiking up Mount Robson, tackling the Grouse Grind--a difficult way to get to the top of Grouse Mountain when there's a perfectly good tram.

But there was one special thing he wanted to do as soon as possible--have fish and chips in Steveston. We haven't been there for some time, never dined there. Shame on us--Steveston is a unique place, closer to us than Vancouver.

Yes, that was doable. And tastily appealing.

So we wrapped up a wonderful visit with our daughter, who lives in Halifax and was here for a week with her two young ones, by heading to Steveston. This historic fishing village is still thriving:

But it has changed from the one-coffee-shop end-of-the-road spot of interest it was when last we were there into a flourishing town with great waterfront dining, plenty of small specialty stores, and several souvenir shops.

On the boardwalk, Steveston.

After a terrific meal, we ambled along the walkway and headed into a T-Shirt store. Cool Ts, many with pirate themes, many having to do with fish. We all picked one out. I could not resist a shirt with a picture of Mona Lisa, a big fish in her arms, and the words The Da Vinci Cod.

The kids had ice cream in waffle cones that were made on the spot, everyone was happy with their purchases, we left knowing we'd return.

And checked another "must do" off the list.

Back to writing.

Later, Cat

Quote:

All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.

-- Samuel Butler

The Madwoman...

2006-08-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well, not me. Not yet. But see *later, below.

Last night I played a game of Wheel of Fortune on my Game Boy (given to me in 2000 when I fractured my ankle). The puzzle answer, category Title, was The Madwoman of Chaillot. Intrigued, and because it sounded vaguely familiar, I did the Google thing and discovered it was a play written by French novelist/playwright Jean Giraudoux in 1944. I've posted excerpts from a review by Russell Hunt, Professor of English at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick:

Russ Hunt's Reviews

The Madwoman of Chaillot
by Jean Giraudoux (adapted by Maurice Valency)

~There aren't many plays about serious issues that after over a half century retain the kind of frothy brio and sheer fun that Jean Giraudoux's final masterpiece, The Madwoman of Chaillot, offers. That's not entirely because, at the time it was written, during the Second World War, western civilization was caught up in the most brutal, devastating disasters humanity had ever known, but it surely adds to our feeling that there's something special about the Countess Aurelia in her subterranean apartment, defending a society where spending your time at a cafe in the sunshine is perfectly okay. And any play written in the midst of such a cataclysm whose most memorable line is "Nothing is ever so wrong in this world that a sensible woman can't set it right in the course of an afternoon" has staked a claim to an entirely new, and possibly refreshing, way of looking at human evil.

~Now, as sixty years ago, those who will sacrifice anything for the miracle of oil and the money it generates seem to have us all in thrall, and perhaps more than ever we need a madwoman to set things right. In the words of the ragpicker, "Countess, little by little, the pimps have taken over the world."

~Giraudoux's play is often characterized as one "offering hope" during the occupation of France by the Nazis. It's a strange kind of hope: in the first act, set entirely in the sidewalk cafe, we (and Aurelia, the area's resident madwoman, the -- perhaps self-styled -- Countess) discover that a phalanx of soulless, profit-driven madmen (The Prospector, The President, and The Baron) are about to demolish the district -- the entire city of Paris -- in search of the oil they've discovered underlies it. We also see the texture of the life centered on the cafe, a kind of carefree, colorful bohemian life that one thinks Puccini's characters would have liked to live, had winter never come and food been unnecessary and tuberculosis a myth. A life much to the liking of the flower children of the late sixties and seventies (indeed, of the time when I last saw a production of the play).

~In the second act, which takes place in the cellar apartment of the "Countess" Aurelia, a plan is developed. It involves a miraculous door in her floor, leading down into an endless maze of sewers (ah, we all know about the sewers of Paris) and the help of the neighbouring madwomen (each hailing from her own district), who have to be convinced of the seriousness of the matter. It becomes clear, if it hadn't been before, that the play is prescient not only in its skepticism about capitalist money-grubbing, but also in its feminism. "But I don't understand, Aurelia," protests Gabrielle, the Madwoman of the neighbouring district of St. Sulpice, "Why should men want to destroy the city? It was they themselves who put it up." Sure enough, the plan works like a charm; not only the oil-seeking capitalists, but the phalanx of press agents following them, are lured down into the endless maze of the sewers in pursuit of the oil, never to be heard from again, leaving the Countess to tend to her cats. "My poor cats must be starved. What a bore for them if humanity had to be saved every afternoon. They don't think much of it, as it is."

~Clearly, if we're to wait for the madwomen or the flower children to rescue us from Enron and Exxon and their ilk, we'll wait a long time. If this is hope it's pretty thin stuff. In fact, though, I think what Giraudoux wanted to offer us was not hope, so much, but something to hope for: a world in which it makes sense to sit at a cafe in the sunshine and listen to the talk and the music and care for our imaginary dog.

~The Madwoman of Chaillot has been attacked as a bit of fluff, and one imagines that it may have seemed especially so in postwar Paris -- but its vitality gives the fluff a bit of life, and reminds us that there's rather more to existence than technology, energy and politics. There's a glass of wine in the sunshine and a feather boa, too.

******************

The play was made into a movie in 1969 with a wonderful cast including Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, Yul Brynner, Richard Chamberlain, Donald Pleasence, Danny Kaye, Charles Boyer. The political observer in me wants to see this. As does the nostalgist.

Cat

******************

*Later

Category: Well, if that don't beat all

I've been rolling around an idea for another sequel to Fortune, my endless saga, one set 20+ years after the first one, which would place it in the early 1890s. This sequel would involve the children of Eden and Alex, and would be called, naturally, Fortune's Children.

I already had an idea for a story for one of the daughters. Today I had one of those lightbulb moments and I "saw" the stories for the twin sons.

Why now, when F1 is still an orphan seeking an agent, when I'm not finished F2 yet and may set it aside for a while, when a contemporary mystery/suspense story is clamoring for my attention?

All I know is I need to get the ideas down before they vanish into the black hole of my mind. Whether this gets anywhere is a question for the ages.

Cat

******************

*later than later

Reading:

The History of Art -- inching along at page 101 (could this be because I'm spending too much
time on blogs and games?)

Heaven's Command -- at the moment buried beneath about 300 photographs that need to be sorted. So near but yet... (sigh)

The Pearl -- Abandoned at the half-way mark. I think I've done enough research on Victorian erotica. After a while one orgy reads like the next. The participants, or at least the author(s) sure were an enthusiastic group. Gives the expression go for the gusto a whole new meaning.

I've started reading Murder in Greenwich Village by Lee Harris. A slow beginning because it's book three of a series and there were a lot of references (which meant nothing to me) to the one before. But once I got past all that I read the first three chapters without a pause--it's that involving.

Yes, I need to get better organized. Maybe tomorrow.

Cat

Life is a movie set

2006-07-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

Nothing about writing. Just a curiosity.

A few blocks away, in the middle of suburbia, sits a lovely piece of parkland: green grass surrounded by tall cedars and spruce trees. Two months ago work crews began building two houses on this pretty spot. Watched at night by a security guard, the site seemed to harbor gold. My husband asked the guard if the city sold the park to a developer.

No, the houses were for a movie starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick. A Christmas movie, Deck the Halls is about neighbors feuding over who has the best seasonal display. The security guard added that when completed, the houses would be covered with a giant dome. And so they were, the huge dome concealing all that was happening beneath.

Remember the words cast of thousands? These days it's crew of thousands. There were dozens of trailers, trucks, buses, power generators, tents....people, people, people. Even camels, with trainers, had a special tent.

After some weeks, the dome was dismantled and we saw the decorated houses amid heaps of artificial snow. The other day we saw the snow had fallen on the big trees, the road going past, and the regular houses that were within filming distance. Kids in shorts and tank tops were stopping to pick up the snow and toss it around. On the hottest day of the year movie extras wore heavy parkas and scarves.

Driving past at night was a surreal experience. Snow fell from big bags on cranes, bright lights shone on the trees. It was a Christmas card come to life.

I'm told they'll soon be done: everything will be dismantled, the park will be a park again. All will be a distant memory.

Some pictures:

Across the road from the set.

The set.

Cat

Tylenol Dreams

2006-07-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

After a slight accident that required I get eight stitches to the head, the ER doctor told me to take Extra-Strength Tylenol.

The dreams I had!

Some were quite humorous, and I woke up laughing. But others...they spun out like a movie, a vivid, lurid, frightening, depressing movie. Oddly, at the end of the "movie" I was, in the dream, holding a script and saying to myself, "What a riveting story! An agent would not turn this down."

Yes, it crossed my mind to write the book of this "movie." No, I won't. It would be too depressing.

I haven't taken an Extra-Strength Tylenol since. (Wonder if others have this reaction or was it just me and a sore head?)

I'm much more interested in the book(s) I'm working on. FORTUNE 2 continues to crawl along. I completely revised the beginning. Hero and Heroine get cozy fairly early, but this naturally can't last. I've worked out the event that takes him away. She's not the type to sit and cry, so on she goes.

My fledgling suspense tale has feet firmly planted and should soon have legs and maybe a torso. The scenes come, one after another. I just need the time to get them down.

Summer heat, summer visitors: things that slow me down. July 19th already!

Cat

Quote:

Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.

--Leo Rosten

Mind workings

2006-07-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

I got a paper cut a few days ago. Ouch. Bled like a stuck pig. I bandaged my wound and jokingly told my husband it would probably work its way off in the night and I'd bleed to death.

He said, "How's that going to look when the cops come and I'm all covered in your blood?" [Some couples talk dirty; we talk morbid.]

I told him it happens all the time in movies and television -- someone wakes up blood splattered next to a dead body, and has no memory of how it happened. "You'd get off," I said. "Think of the great movie potential. I want Clooney to play your part. Or Johnny Depp."

I'm still mulling over actresses to play me. Have to have an Oscar winner, of course, as this movie has Academy Award written all over it. In fact, I'll write the screenplay myself, and the follow up novel. The action figures alone would net us a fortune!

Then my husband, practical guy that he is, brought my fantasy to a fall-in-the-muck end. "How are you going to do all that when you're dead?"

Hmmph.

Well, you have to laugh about things like death, otherwise we'd all be crying.

~~~

Speaking of writing about murder and death... I began a novel of romantic suspense a few years ago because I had a great opening premise and some interesting characters. Haven't gone back to it in years. But the other day I read the first part and mysteriously [magically?] the rest of the story fell into place. I have the ending, a nifty one if I say so myself, and most of the middle which just needs to be padded a bit.

This story will not leave me alone, so as I wait to hear from 3 agents on FORTUNE [one has the complete manuscript] I'm going to work on the suspense novel, see where that goes.

Cat

Listening to Titanic Lament by Gavin Bryars.

Orwell's advice to writers

2006-06-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

George Orwell - real name Eric Arthur Blair
June 25, 1903 - 1950

I came across an essay written by Orwell and was struck by how relevant these words are today. The essay is too long to post here, but here are a few paragraphs:

Politics and the English Language, 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
~
... one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

~

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

~~

Orwell was very pro-English--this was written one year after the end of WWII, and his prejudices are often apparent. I agree with much of what he states; his rules apply to writers of prose as well as political writers/journalists.

I admit I often use long words where short ones will do, because the long one seems so right. Perhaps that makes me pretentious. I can argue that it's my characters being pretentious.

What would Orwell think if he knew that computer chat rooms and cell phone text messaging have created a new version of "English" shorthand? I cringe when I see phrases like c u l8ter. Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate the beauty of words that have been condensed to their simplest forms. Or I've been programmed by years of reading to want a word to be written as a word.

~

Reading update:

I've been reading sections of The Pearl, by Anonymous, a "collection of Victorian erotica that circulated in an underground magazine known as The Pearl from July 1879 to December 1880."

(Strictly for research purposes, of course.)

Though explicit, these stories are more naughty than erotic. Think X-rated Benny Hill.

Oh those Victorians!

And that's all I have to say about it.

~

Listening to Home by Michael Bublé.

Cat

More changes

2006-06-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'm changing some of the key parts of F2.

The main character (MC) needs time to hide out from those (police, agents, angry relatives) who seek her.

I had a minor character, a young woman, rat her out simply because she was jealous.

This seems an ordinary often-used tactic in romantic novels. Worse--it was done by a shallow, lightly-developed character who never appears again.

I have another character, older, more dimensional, whose job had been to irritate the MC. Now she will be the rat. Maybe jealousy is part of the reason. But there's more to it--she truly believes she's doing the right thing. She's a more deeply developed character struggling with issues directly opposed to the lifestyle and morals of the MC. (If I do this right she'll be a sympathetic rat.)

I believe this will make this part of the story stronger for all those involved, for what she does will have far-reaching effects on a number of others.

That's the plan. For today, anyway.

Cat

This morning I'm listening to Confluence by Flamenco Guitarists Strunz & Farah

Quote:

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."

-- Elmore Leonard

Reading and Writing ....

2006-06-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

The Fyre Mirror (page 177) It's a decent story but seemed to be getting sluggish. It's picking up steam as I get closer to the end.

Heaven's Command (page 205) Still engrossing history of Queen Victoria's Empire.

The History of Art (page 78) I'm up to the Sumerians. Still at about 1000 BC. Lots to go, but enjoying it all.

I also started reading a new work by a multi-published romance author who shall remain nameless. I don't like a single thing about it. There's way too much backstory repeated more than once, much done as, "As you know Billy-Bob, when the temple raiders cursed our land, it never rained again. And you must remember how..." Now this is not from the book, but an example of its boring prose. I also don't care for any of the characters. Not even a little. The "love scenes," if one can call them that, are uninspired. I doubt I'll finish.

Whew, I can sure dish it out, can't I? I'd better ensure my own work meets my rigorous standards. Maybe a reader will find it dismally bad.

Speaking of my own work I've been making changes. I always envisioned FORTUNE as a trilogy. But I found that F2 was slow going. I had the beginning, things that happen next, and a crackling ending. But I was slogging through the things-that-happen-next part and kept wanting to write scenes from F3. So I decided to combine F2 and F3. Instead of two 350 page books I'll aim for one of approximately 500 pages. Things will move along more quickly and I'll get to those scenes that much sooner.

At least that's the plan.

Cat

Lives found in a box

2006-06-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

My Austrian-born mother pulled out a huge, ancient-looking box in the shape of a book which she received from her Hungarian mother. It was full of old pictures, documents, sketchbooks--a treasure box of lives going back to the early 1800s and even beyond.

Mom had herself never looked into the box, so as we went through it she told me the stories of these people, my ancestors. History-lover that I am, I was fascinated, and I decided to compile a family tree and maybe eventually put it on a website.

Here is a picture of one of my great-aunts:

Tessy Harrison -- the Harrison was her stage name -- was born in the late 1890s. She was a movie star (silent movies!) in Austria in the mid 1920s. Her husband was also in show business, in vaudeville, and toured through Europe and England.

So what does any of this have to do with my writing?

Well, nothing except that some of the lives found in the box were contemporaries of characters in my book. Strange thought, that.

Cat

As if I needed proof

2006-05-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

that my old synopsis was crud...

I received a reply from an agent to a query I sent in January and had already dismissed as a DNR.

The agent found the synopsis confusing and hard to follow.

(My new synopsis is much better and I was sorry she felt put off by that one.)

And she was reading it as if it were a historical romance, which has specific parameters. FORTUNE is a romantic saga. Different thing entirely.

However, having said that, she did like the sample chapters I sent and asked me to send the entire manuscript!!

My horoscope today said:

Now is the time to make solid plans related to publishing

So off it goes on Monday, with the new synopsis.

Cat

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy

Thoughts on that Code book ...

2006-05-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

Having managed to avoid discussions and all that manic media hype about the book, I finished reading The Da Vinci Code.

My comments are not on the subject matter and are made by a reader who also writes.

Whew, I felt like I did upon reading The Witching Hour by Anne Rice--as if I've read an epic history of the last 2000 years. (Rice's, dealing only with the last 400 years, was far more entertaining.) I also felt deep echoes of Umberto Eco's sprawling The Name of the Rose: history of the Church, the Inquisition, puzzles to solve, codes to decipher, a murder mystery, also much more intelligently written.

From its very first scene The Da Vinci Code screamed MOVIE. All the descriptions were exceptional. Each action scene was visual and exciting and seemed to me familiar, as if I've seen or read it, or a variation thereof, before. From the numerous correct assumptions I made as the story unfolded, I can only say that clichés abounded.

All that said, I had a hard time putting it down once I began. The plot is a clever, intricate weaving of history and myth. The writing is dense--just when I thought it might be safe to skim I realized I'd better not for I may miss something crucial. (This is the same sense I had when reading Harry Potter--skim at your own risk!)

I did stumble into a few plot holes, and I found the characters, for all their brilliance, generally uninteresting stereotypes and inconceivably dumb at times. As for the dialogue, some really silly stuff. And while I enjoyed the lessons in art, architecture, history, cryptography, they were presented in a way that seemed like a class lecture, inevitably ending in an "oh!" moment by one of the characters, a moment with which the reader is compelled to identify.

One sure thing: a controversial subject almost always guarantees huge sales. So I say, "Good for you, Dan Brown! Write on."

Cat

Another Character Bites the Dust

2006-05-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder were that saying came from?

According to The Phrase Finder

Bite the dust

Meaning

Fall to the ground, wounded or dead.

Origin

The same notion is expressed in the earlier phrase 'lick the dust', from the Bible, where there are several uses of it, including Psalms 72:

"They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him and his enemies shall lick the dust."

The earliest citation of the 'bite the dust' version is from 1750 in Tobias Smollett's 'Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane':

"We made two of them bite the dust, and the others betake themselves to flight."

So, it's safe to use in my ca 1860s novel. Except I don't. But I could. And I might.

Anyway...

The ending to FORTUNE Book 2 appeared to me, not so much in a sudden flash as in a slow evolution. I had an ending in mind, but wasn't happy with it. It was, well, bland.

You see, I need to get the main character from Point A to Point B, and she could have walked, strolled, ambled... But now she will have to run (or die).

This involves sacrificing a character, the second minor character in this book to meet his end, but I'm not so mean that neither gets to have a "final speech." One will give a deathbed confession, the other dies off-stage, but has his chance to speak his mind before he heads off to his doom. They won't dwell too long on their final thoughts -- I want drama, not melodrama.

And the ending will have tension, terror, heartache, tears, (some blood and gore, too, but not too much) all that good stuff. And of course a promise that Book 3 will bring more of the same, along with a tiny note of optimism that eventually there may be a happy ending.

The characters have to work hard to earn their happy ending. Boy, do they ever!

Cat

Quote:

Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”

-- Peter S. Beagle

The Value of Words, etc.

2006-05-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

This morning my son said he was getting the latest CD put out by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Mom (age 84) said, "What kind of music do the Silly Peckers play?"

After we all stopped laughing, my husband said, "I bet a band with that name would make the big time."

Yes, of course it would. After all, there's a group named Swollen Members. But lest we all get carried away with trashy thoughts, Mom may have meant Woodpeckers.

~ ~ ~ ~

Currently Reading:

Finally, finally I began The Da Vinci Code. The book has been sitting on my desk only about a year, after I received it as an introductory freebie for re-joining the Doubleday Book Club. I'm on page 40, too soon to have an opinion, but I'm enjoying the trip through Paris. Makes me think of a website Paris by night - a terrific 360 degree view of a legendary city.

I'm also reading Heaven's Command by Jan Morris about the rise of the British Empire. (There are two more books in this trilogy, all in my hot little hands.) Morris brings the past to life and does that rare thing -- he makes history interesting, even exciting. I'm on page 84.

I've also started reading The History of Art. I'm on page 49, still in Prehistoric Art, and expect at 4-6 pages a day this will take a long time (years?) to finish.

Last but not least, I'm also reading The Fyre Mirror by Karen Harper, the seventh in a series of Elizabethan mysteries where the royal one herself is one of the sleuths. (I'm on page 65).

I do also write.

Cat

Best sellerism is the star system of the book world. A 'best seller' is a celebrity among books. It is a book primarily (sometimes exclusively) known for it's well-knownness.

-- Daniel Boorstin

I thought it meant a male pig...

2006-04-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

Interesting research tidbit...

I have a character in Fortune 2 who is a veteran of the Crimean War, or the Russian War as it was called in those days. He isn't an old vet, for the story takes place in 1868, twelve years after the Peace was signed. He's a young vet of about 36 who plays an important role in the book, and whose life was forever changed by the War.

Although I plan only to make brief references to the battles that involved him, I needed to learn facts about the war, what caused it, who was involved, etc.

I've ordered a terrific book about the British Empire during the reign of Queen Victoria, but until I get it I've been doing research on the internet. And one word kept coming up to describe attitudes in Russia and England at the time -- chauvinism.

It had a preconceived notion about the word and thought it had more recent origins. Here's what I found:

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

chauvinism -- word derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier of the First French Empire. Used first for a passionate admiration of Napoleon, it now expresses exaggerated and aggressive nationalism. As a social phenomenon, chauvinism is essentially modern, becoming marked in the era of acute national rivalries and imperialism beginning in the 19th cent. It has been encouraged by mass communication, originally by the cheap newspaper. Chauvinism exalts consciousness of nationality, spreads hatred of minorities and other nations, and is associated with militarism, imperialism, and racism. In the 1960s, the term “male chauvinist” appeared in the women’s liberation movement; it is applied to males who refuse to regard females as equals.

So there you go -- the term chauvinism was coined as a term for excessive nationalistic fervor.
(Not unlike global attitudes nowadays, hm?)

Well, as the 19th century wars, like the wars of today, were decided upon, planned and executed by men, I see chauvinism as a man thing.

Would it be different if women were in charge? That's a whole other story, something in the realm of Mythology. Or Science Fiction/Fantasy. To some, probably, Horror.

Cat

Synopsis Update

2006-04-10T20:22:00.000-07:00

I finally have what I think is a good synopsis of FORTUNE. A turning point in the process came for me when I read an agent's guidelines for writing a synopsis. Indent each paragraph, she said. Don't double space between them.

I was double-spacing between and failed to indent. As a result my synopsis was a series of thick block paragraphs. I changed the format and -- voila -- it appears more reader-friendly and I found it easier to revise it into a summarized tellling of the story.

Whether this synopsis will help me find an agent remains to be seen.

Cat

The first draft of anything is sh*t.
-- Ernest Hemingway

Splitting the Blog

2006-04-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

I realized I had too much poetry business on the web log that I want to dedicate to my romantic saga, so I formed another blog specifically for the poetry. POESY -- I transferred the poetry posts this morning.

Small mission accomplished. Big digression from the main task which is simmering, ready to boil as we speak. Hmm -- that gives me an idea for a poem. Which I will explore elsewhere, of course.

Cat

Let's beware....

2006-03-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

So, it's the ides of March --

Just another day to the old Romans. I learned that in the ancient Roman calendar each of the 12 months of the year had an ides. In March, May, July and October, the ides fell on the 15th day. In every other month, the ides fell on the 13th.

There was nothing sinister about that date until Shakespeare aggrandized it forever in his play Julius Caesar.

Which (speaking of Shakespeare) brings me to this comment: the following quotation has been getting a lot of tv air time.

"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. " Macbeth (Act V, Sc. I)

CSI, the original, plays in reruns each night. I caught a bit of an episode the other night where Grissom, the head of the team, used the quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. Okay, he's erudite, knows his snakes, scorpions, and Shakespeare. That very same night I watched CSI NY and the medical examiner used the same quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. It stuck out like a purple, painfully swollen big toe (I'm trying not to use a cliche).

The writers of these shows probably don't watch prior episodes or read old scripts, and likely most viewers wouldn't care. (Or even notice?) This writer, who satisfies her morbid interests by watching bullets bore through brains, knives slice though muscles, and teeth get lodged in guts, DID notice.

So what does this have to do with my own writing? I'm even more conscious of re-using words and phrases and try to avoid repetition, but sometimes they sneak through. I'm not talking about "invisible" words like the, it, said, and so on, but special words that sound great used once, overdone if repeated. Take words like frisson or cynosure. The first time I read these words I had to look them up. They are perfect when placed right. But if used again in the same work it seems like lazy writing. I've read books by top-selling authors and have seen them fall into the repetition trap. Makes me cringe. Were they not edited?

Those words are the swollen big toes. They stand out, make readers stop and shake their heads, and lose what's called the fictive dream. There are lesser words that are often repeated and would sound fine in context but often appear too close together in unrelated sentences. Most readers probably don't, but I notice these.

My word processing program Word Perfect has a neat feature on one of its toolbars that searches both forward and backward for repeated words. If I'm not sure the last time I used the words slime or stinking I can easily check.

This--word repetition-- is another thing I'm looking for in my edit. So far I'm 0 for 0, but I'm only on page 55.

Cat

How can I know what I think, till I see what I say?
-- E.M. Forester

Curse of the comma and more

2006-03-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

I'm doing another quick edit because I noticed that I've been playing fast and loose with commas, inserting them (when not needed) after every phrase, clause, before every and (almost). Guess you could say I never met a comma I didn't like. Of course the comma is a necessary tool, it gives the reader a moment to pause, breathe, then continue. But too many, inappropriately placed, say pause, pause, pause, interrupting the hopefully fine flow of prose.

As for the other horrors: I am wasting too much time reading. But reading is never a waste of time. No, because reading is learning, but I think I'm on learning overload. Not from novels or research texts, but from reading of the on-line sort. Call me a blog junkie--I read writers' blogs, literary agents' blogs, political ranters' blogs, people-living-on-the-other-side-of-the-world-learning-English blogs. Then there are writers' websites, writers' forums, all packed with information......whew! I have barely time left to do what I want to do, which is write.
So as of today I'm putting a stop to my internet wanderings and will GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.

So why am I wasting more time on this blog? Well, I feel somehow connected. Maybe someone living on the other side of the world learning English is reading this. What a concept!

For another glimpse at my internet activities, check the website below, take the quiz, and smile.

Discover Your Past Life

Here's my results:

In your former life, you were a leopard
Not much is certain in life; past or present; but we know this much about you: In your last life you were a sultry leopard named Lola. You were a showgirl, with yellow feathers in your hair and a dress cut down to there. You would meringue and do the cha- cha. And one night at the Copacabana (the hottest spot north of Havana), you fell in love with Tony, the handsome bartender. Tony fought Rico (he wore a diamond) for you and won. You proved a lot of people wrong by managing to change your spots and started wearing dresses from Marks and Spencer's that were much more becoming for a married lady. The two of you grew old and happy together, joyfully dancing your lives away at the club to the soulful tunes of Barry Manilow..

Barry Manilow!!
How can you tell this quiz was developed by some geeky 20-something who has no idea what THINGS WERE REALLY LIKE? However, I always thought Manilow was given a bum rap. I liked some of his songs. Never bought any myself, but still listened and sang along.

Cat, at the moment listening to Prince sing 1999

A scene that won't let go

2006-03-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get back to work on FORTUNE 2, but a scene from F3 keeps playing in my mind. Experience has shown me I'll have no peace until I get the scene down. Here's the gist of part two of the scene, the hero and heroine having a conversation in a "he said/she said" format:

"I can't let you just walk out that door. We have a past, dammit!"
"We do. But you're married now."
"As were you at that time."
"My marriage was in name only. And unconsummated. You can't say the same--you have a daughter."
"Yes. The result of an occurrence of which I have no recollection. But I remember in fine detail every inch of your skin, every sigh you made the few times we were together."
"As do I."
"That's why I can't let you walk out."
"Then you must stop me."

That's the bare skeleton -- not much of a scene yet, not engrossing or even interesting. I will add proper pacing, flesh out the scene with setting, body language, choreography....

But first I need to choose from whose point of view this scene will be shown. Will it be more emotionally dramatic from her POV, or his? Who should the reader see from the interior, who from the exterior through the other's eyes?

Decisions, decisions. I figure I have at least a year or more before I reach this scene's position in the book.

But it helps to get it down on virtual paper.

Cat

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

-- John Steinbeck

A Tale of Four Bookstores

2006-03-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

I like to buy locally, but ...

My son gave me a $60 gift certificate from a local book store. Great, thought I. There's a book I've always wanted to own, the wonderful 1032 page History of Art by Anthony F. Janson.

First I checked the price at Amazon. They showed a regular price of $95, but their price is $59.95US. So far so very good. (Alas, Amazon Canada does not carry this book.) At B&N the list price is $125, but their special price is $90. Hmmm. Chapters.Indigo.ca has a list price of $152, but sells it for $96.75Can. Double hmmm.

I called my bookstore to see if they had it. Yes, for $155.

The writing wasn't just on the wall, it was on my computer screen! I ordered the book from Amazon. It cost $8.58 to ship. After the exchange I paid $77.46. And it arrived in 4 days! Can't ask for better service than that.

I don't want to overdo the praise for Amazon, but I've ordered many non-book items from them: obscure music CDs, movie and tv show DVDs. They've always had every one that I wanted.

I went to my local book store to use my gift certificate. I picked up a couple of mysteries, looked for a couple of romances. The romance section was pitifully small and contained various titles by the same well-known authors. When I buy paperbacks I like to get new, unknown writers, my goal in my own small way to let the writers and the publishers know there's a market for new authors. Those sitting at the top of the NY Times bestseller lists don't need one more sale, whereas Brand New Author can use a boost.

Now I'm trying to find desk space for my new tome, so I'm packing in my old Pentium 2 and getting rid of it. I have no idea why I kept it hanging around for a year taking up nearly half a desk. Nostalgia, maybe? It's heading for the garbage. No one would want that old slow thing, and I screwed it up trying to install a program update that never worked, yet at startup the computer kept whining about a missing .dll file.

Maybe next time I'll have some actual writing news to report.

Cat

Georgia On My Mind....

2006-02-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

Love that song. Love it, love it. But this is a good excuse -- if Georgia is on my mind, does that relieve me of trying to work on FORTUNE, part anything?

Thinking about it isn't enough. I need to buckle down, get the thoughts down. They're good thoughts, too. I think. Ha....

I did manage to get more pages up on my web site. That'll be it for a while. I think....

Sure do think a lot, don't I?

I'm going to do some writing tomorrow. I ..... no, I promise.

Cat

Meantime here's a neat Haiku:

A field of cotton

A field of cotton--
as if the moon
had flowered.

-- Matsuo Basho
Translated by Robert Hass

Mole eyes....

2006-02-07T20:03:00.000-08:00

That's what I felt I had this morning, the second sunny day in, it seems, a decade. Hard not to squint against all that unfamiliar brightness.

Do hope it lasts. I don't mind cloudy, rainy days. Good for writing and reading. And sleeping. But there are limits. Especially when the gloom is accompanied by a wind storm that causes power failure. Five hours on Saturday morning. Three again in the afternoon. (I finished reading a book, so the time wasn't a total waste.)

I learned something today about selling one's product that I can fine-tune to suit my own purposes as I try to "sell" my book to an agent.

A roofer came to the house to prepare an estimate for replacing the eavestroughs. His sales pitch was well-prepared -- complete, concise, professional. He knew his business, his samples were perfect. I must ensure my queries are the same.

As for my synopsis, as I had known all along -- it sucks. So the syn problem still exists. It's back to the drawing board again. I still have some queries out there, two with that particular synopsis, two with no syn, three with a shorter synopsis that doesn't have the flaws of the longer one. (I think)

We'll see what happens. But I know I need to get the synopsis right, "selling" right, before I send another round of queries.

Cat

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
-- Thomas Mann

Torturing the hero

2006-01-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, not really.

But here I am plotting F3 again. I need to lock the hero away for a few days.

Should I put him in jail? In the castle dungeon? No, too cliché. I don't want to starve or hurt him, for when he's set free (by the heroine, naturally) he has important work to do.

No, he doesn't save the world, or even the country. It's a mission of a highly personal nature and a battle he will win. But the war isn't over yet and winning it calls for much strategic planning and a fair bit of sucking up.

I think I have the perfect spot for a temporary prison. Much more comfortable than a cold stone cell. He'll fuss and fume at first, but he has a nice surprise coming.

It'll be months, maybe years before I get to that part of the book. But I, and my hero, will be ready!

Cat

Stopped by a word

2006-01-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a romance by a NY Times best-selling author I haven't read before. I found the beginning a bit slow, not terribly involving. Then I arrived at the first Big Love Scene. Things were proceeding along until I came across the word laved -- as in one of them laved the other with mouth or tongue.

Now, to me the word lave means to wash and I just can't relate this to romantic, exciting, sexy scenes. (Unless, of course, they're bathing together!)

I paused long enough to say, "Eeewwww." Need I say that the word laved yanked me out of the fictive dream? Especially when the laving takes place in the folds around the neck area, you know, those folds where sweat and grime collect...

I started skimming and realized I was doing so because there were pages and pages of too much unnecessary detail (tab A into slot B), too much purple prose, too much thinking going on by both characters when such deep pondering would not be possible given what they're doing. If ever the adage "less is more" should be applied, this is a textbook case.

I checked Amazon and found ratings evenly divided -- those who loved (diehard fans, friends and family?) and those who thoroughly disliked.

I'll reserve final judgment until I finish. But unless the plot picks up, things look bleak.

Maybe I'm getting too picky? The last romance I read affected me in a similar way, though not because of a single word. It was one of a plethora of novels published these days with the words Highland something-or-other on the cover. The hero and all his brothers, cousins, and friends spoke in a strong Scottish accent and the dialogue was so overdone it got tedious. I love that accent, but when it's spelled out so much the words often need to be re-read, slowing, stopping! the story cold. Here again less would have been more, though this book lacked other things.

One thing with both these novels -- I was bored. With the first, I want something to happen, something more than romantic scenes or characters thinking about romantic scenes. With the second, I wanted more development, of characters, of setting, and while there was what some might call an exciting plot, it seemed terribly familiar, as if I've read that tale a hundred times.

Well, who am I to say? These books were published. Mine aren't. Yet.

Cat -- off to look for overdone scenes, too much thinking when characters should be doing, and to remind myself that if I start skimming my work, so will others.

Odd, how it works

2006-01-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

The mind, that is.

A scene came to me almost complete and I had to get it down before it got lost in The Wasteland.

The problem: the scene takes place late in F3, before the semi-climax, the Big Climax, and the post-climax.

Hmm. Too many climaxes? My characters would say, no, there are never too many...
Shall I slap them now? Or douse them with cold water?

Okay, back to the writing. I got out my synopsis of F3 to add the new scene and adjust some others that have changed as a result. I came to a spot termed as ***missing plot*** because something needs to fit into that part of the story.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on the third book when I'm still working on the second. Maybe tomorrow that missing plot will find me. Or maybe next year.

Odd, how it works.

Cat

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!
-- Edna Ferber

A Lightbulb Shines in the Wasteland

2006-01-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

I had one of those "Aha!" moments.

Forgetting the synopsis for a moment (it's no fun, anyway) my inspiration came to me thus:

Thinking about my novel, I said to myself: What if ....
Well, then .... and .... would happen, and .... would follow.
It would make for a much better outcome, justify the pain I intend to inflict on the characters. The facts would not come out until FORTUNE 3, but I have to sow the seeds in F2, do some subtle foreshadowing, not so much as to give it away, but enough to keep it from seeming contrived.

Cat

"You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream things as they never were and ask, 'Why not?'"
-- George Bernard Shaw

So, really, what came first?

2006-01-04T22:21:00.000-08:00

Am I a writer because I'm a loner, or am I a loner because I'm a writer?

Do I communicate better via the written word than the spoken ones?

Yeah, surely, probably, maybe....

Though some might say I talk too much at times.

I know I've always marched to the beat of the different... (you know that old cliché) ever since I was a kid.

Okay, enough introspection. It's so boring.

My husband received a gift of the Historic Ales of Scotland, four bottles based on old Scottish recipes: originally made with seaweed, heather, pine and spruce, etc. I'm not a beer person (give me Merlot or Shiraz) but these ales were delicious. I particularly liked Ebulum - elderberry black ale, from a recipe by Druids. Lovely flavor. Got to get more of that.

Well, back to the synopsis. I've seen some omissions that should be there and will rework the thing yet again.

Sometimes I feel like the obnoxious child: "Are we there yet?"

No, the synopsis is not "there" yet.

Maybe in another mile or two.

Cat

Synopsis Blues

2006-01-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

I've been spending time studying the blog of literary agent Miss Snark where she reads synopses writers have submitted and praises or tears them apart. I've determined she likes to get a sense of what the story is about, and what the characters are about -- what makes them tick (my words).

I looked at my synopses for Fortune: 1 very short, 4 paragraphs long, 1 short, 1 page long, 1 longer, 2 pages. There's a condensed bit of story but not much about the characters. I need a longer syn -- maybe 5 pages? I'll get working on that.

Well, two days later and I'm still working on my longer syn. (New Year's Eve kind of interfered.) Oh --Happy 2006! Now it's time to buckle down. I swear, writing the book, all 145,000+ words of it, was easier than writing a synopsis.

Because I need to summarize the story, it needs to be mostly "tell" -- I'm thinking back to when I was a kid and told my stories to friends. Not much opportunity there to "show" what happens, which is a major goal for writers. I used to say "And then....", "And after that ...", "And then..." And TOLD the story as it unfolded.

Do I need to find my inner child (or some such psycho babble) to relearn how to tell the story? Nah. The ability to tell should still be there. I will write the synopsis as if I'm telling this great, wonderful story to my best friend.

Whether it will come across as a great, wonderful story, I won't know until people read it. When it's ready I'll get some astute minds at Compuserve's Books and Writers Community to have a look.

I'll get this sucker done yet!

Cat

Quote:

"What is written without effort is read without pleasure"
---Samuel Johnson

It's Moony!

2005-12-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

I wonder why we don't say it's moony when the moon is out?

We had a beautiful full moon, a cold white moon last week. The nights were clear and sharp, the frost stayed on the ground like a thin layer of snow.

Last night we visited relatives about 20km away. When we left their house it was -2C, according to the outside temperature indicator in the van. Close to home we cheered -- it hard risen to +3. But as we drove up our driveway it was once more -2. Hm.

Woke to rain this morning. No more frost. Looks like a green Christmas this year.

I'm rambling. No writing done this week as I was ironing out the glitches on my web site. All fixed.

Neat poem by Shel Silverstein:

FROZEN DREAM
I'll take the dream I had last night
And put it in my freezer,
So someday long and far away
When I'm an old grey geezer,
I'll take it out and thaw it out,
This lovely dream I've frozen,
And boil it up and sit me down
And dip my old cold toes in.

Peace and love to all-- (now I sound like an old Hippy!)
Have a warm and wonderful Holiday!

Cat

More on Research

2005-12-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

When I first planned to write FORTUNE and needed to research the time and places in my novel, we lived in a small town with a small library. I found the small biography section in the small basement of the small library and, starting with A took out every book that encompassed the years or countries in question, not stopping till I got to Z.

I soon decided to research, not only for FORTUNE, but also for the other historicals I planned to write. (Hey, I was there, wasn't I?) Which meant researching three different times and places, tons of books lugged back and forth from library to home, hundreds of pages of hand-written research notes, duly sorted into appropriate folders. (This was before I had a computer, a rather long time ago!)

After I had reams of wonderful information what did I do with it? Why I promptly set it aside and began working on a contemporary mystery series. Of course.

I did eventually write FORTUNE (and the other historicals) and have revised it about 300 times. It's been a while, 25 years since the saga was a pencil-scratched outline on loose leaf paper, since we left the small town with the small library behind.

But I still have the hundreds of pages of research and, because biographies are more personal than dry history texts, enjoyable memories of reading about other times, others' lives, others' passions.

Quotation:
It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better when I go over it and over it.
-- Jane Yolen

Cat

I'm very excited!

2005-12-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

No. I did not hear good news from an agent or publisher (I'm still waiting for that to happen!) But my web site is now up, and Dee Mattia, who designed it for me deserves great praise. She did a beautiful job. Have a look if you want: www.catdubie.com I only have my bio and some novel excerpts up, the rest is yet to come.

Nothing new in the writing front. That's to come too, I guess.

Cat

Nothing new that's good, or good that's new

2005-11-28T21:06:00.000-08:00

I had another rejection from an agent. A nice personal letter, but still a rejection. One more out there. It seems to be a given that agents shut down for the month of December. On the off chance that someone may be there after all, I'll take a chance and query a few more.

On a completely urelated topic, I love listening to internet radio when I'm on the computer. I just heard "Summer Wine" recorded by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood in 1967.

1967! Surely I wasn't even born yet. At most, I was a very small child.

Wasn't I?

Lovely quote:

Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.
- Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)

Cat