Writing is caring

By CherryX (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Something prompted me to start writing my novel* again.  Actually, a lot of somethings, including some personal experience.  But the tip of the iceberg was reading the first chapters in Notes on Life and Letters by one of my favorite authors (Joseph Conrad).  Interwoven in his discourse are two interrelated, simple points for writers:

1. Don't be pretentious.  Stay on the same level as your characters and avoid reigning over them.
2. Care about your characters.

This made me realize I am very good at liking my characters and very bad at caring about them.  Because writing is caring, and I had stopped writing.  One asks, "Why should I care?  Why should anybody care?"  That is where humility - intellectual humility, as Conrad puts it - comes in.  Be humble, and write for the sake of writing.  Don't be too lofty to immerse yourselves in your characters' world.

Putting it in a different perspective - let's say I don't care about my book that much.  But don't I care about my characters very much?  For me - who am drawn to character-driven books - this is the deciding point.  I love my characters.  Therefore, I will write their stories.

*Quasi-steampunk/alternative universe, with hints of dystopian/futuristic.  My sister has also been asking for the next installment of my Dracula retelling, so I'm going to be returning to that project, too. 

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My friend in plaid (life and times v)

(Oh, yes, I'm back already.)

• Listening to a lot of Owl City and Hvorostovsky today...trying to purge my mind from that wretched Britpop documentary we had to watch yesterday.  If anything would make me definitely not want to do drugs, it is that show, so bravo for that.
• Ten minute presentation next week, hooray.  I'm cool with public speaking, but my presentations are always dull - poor, poor audience. 
• I can't wait for Christmas.
• My sibs and I are on season 6 of Star Trek Next Generation.  We started with S3 (per recommendation of Amazon reviews), and while it became my brother's instant fave, I didn't warm up to it until the end of S3, with the appearance of the Borg in "The Best of Both Worlds".  Since then, I've been able to take it seriously and accept the new Enterprise.  In fact, I'm starting to like it better than TOS, would you believe. 
• Been reading Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables as well.  I like Holgrave and Hepzibah.  I feel like I ought to like Phoebe, too, but she's borderline Mary Sue.  At a glance, she's a lot like Hilda from The Marble Faun, but Hilda is a real loner, a little more human and credible.  It's one of those instances in which an author's character evolves and is perfected in a later version (e.g. John Thurston, Sherlock Holmes).
• I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! 

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School starts Monday

By Visitor7 [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I'm rather excited.  No, really!  This summer has been beautiful--so many little things accomplished, brilliant afternoons reading outdoors, fun get-togethers.  But overall, I feel more than ready to go back to studying and the like (well, except for waking up at 5:15 am!).  The last half year has given me so much new perspective and time to reassess things, and I know it will help me this school year.

On a bookish note, I just read some really short stories by Kafka (from ManyBooks.net).  If you have just a half hour, I highly recommend them.  The first one is actually, I believe, an excerpt from his novel The Trial.  I'm not saying I totally understand them, but the style/format is really intriguing.

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Day 18: A time when you felt passionate and alive + Day 19: A talent of yours

Whenever something happens "just like in a book".  I'm a creature of habit and favorite haunts; most of the time this is a good thing, but anything remotely like an adventure is a big deal to me.  The best ones are the little (safe) adventures that break up daily routine.

* * *

Talent...writing!  Apart from fiction, also essays, business/tech communication, and the like.  Ironically, my non-fiction writing has met with more personal success than my fiction.  But that's ok.

Olorius wrote a great post on his blog about talent--how, even if you think your talents seem inconsequential, God has given them to you so that you would put them to good use, for His glory.  In the same vein, I know I personally can get so swept up in the thoughts of "Why is this skill of mine so ineffective?", that I forget how He gives me many opportunities to use my talents, if not in the way I planned or expected.  And the most seemingly random opportunities can be much more effective than (and just as rewarding as) my laborious plans. 

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Proof, proof, proof

A number of people, including my sister and the good people at Createspace, are probably beginning to feel I'll never publish this poetry book. Today I resubmitted it, for the third time.  "It's the last time, I promise!"

Apart from page numbers, general formatting was pretty easy.  Things got unpleasant when I had to deal with the finer aspects of formatting style.  I'm happy to get free classic literature on my beloved Nook STR, and as long as there are no typos I could care less about format details.  Alas, as most people don't feel the same way, I'm trying to abide by the majority of formatting rules...

Widows and Orphans

You can imagine the surprise when my mom pointed out something called Widows and Orphans.  I must have met hundreds of these on the Nook; I am immune to them.  And logically, to me widows and orphans are preferable, as opposed to pages that aren't nice and square-looking.

Nevertheless, not to appear illiterate/unaware, I eliminated all of them, except one widow that was hard to avoid and doesn't look very offensive.  I dream of a day when square pages will become in vogue, and, indeed, if I publish a novel I may do just that.  (The negative effects are definitely more noticeable in a poem, though.)

Hyphens and Hanging Indentations

Hyphens, hyphens, more hyphens.   

Hanging Indentations are supposed to occur when a line(s) of a poem is too long.  It goes to the next line and is slightly indented.  For example, in Wordsworth's "Star-Gazers":

What crowd is this? what have we here! we must
       not pass it by;
A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky:
Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat,
Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth on Thames's
       waters float.

I thought hanging indentations were an e-book error--I didn't know they were the rule (is that funny or sad?).  So I added them.

Then I went back later and thought...you know, as my mom also pointed out, some of these hanging indents only contain one word.  And that does bug me, more than widows and orphans.  So I changed that, too (except for one, in which it would have looked worse for there to be two words).    

It's the last proof, really!  I believe it this time.  :)

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My obsession...

While (still) proofing my poetry-book, I have stumbled-across an unpleasant-trend. 

-

I absolutely adore hyphens.  Yes, I'll get rid of a bunch of them, but I love them so.  =(

What is your writing trend (or error) that you hate to part with?

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Things are happening.

Just submitted my poetry book to Createspace for review.  Within 48-72 hours (if all goes well), I'll order a proof copy.  Two weeks later, a new book may make its appearance on Amazon.

SO KEYED UP.

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The Poison of a Premise

There's a lot of hate going around these days for fairytales in their original rendition.  By that, we're talking about Cinderella, St. George and the Dragon, the Little Mermaid, etc.  Be it adult, YA, or even children's fiction, "too good" characters are to be shunned and happy endings to be scoffed at as unrealistic.  There are many reasons for this approach; we can surmise what they are and agree with many of them.  The original fairytales are cliché, idealistic, simplistic, etc.

There are paradoxes in this, however.  For one thing, the original fairytales weren't so sugary sweet, not all the way through.  The Brothers Grimm are famously grim.  Hans Christian Anderson is full of pathos.  And I remember once reading a particularly ghoulish collection of children's fairytales from Central/Eastern Europe, centered on the dragons and witches and other nice monsters which create nasty obstacles for the good characters (whom I don't remember, unsurprisingly).  Greek mythology, occasionally taking a fairytale tone, has also enough pain and sorrow to outweigh the (all too few) happy endings.

The second irony of the traditional fairytale is that most of them originate from time immemorial--that is to say, from the days of medieval and "modern" brutality, where most children lived unsheltered from harsh aspects of life.  Death, discrimination, and poor medical care were just a few of those elements.  Childhood was very short.  "Gritty realism" wasn't simply something children were taught about; they lived in it, because there was no choice about it.

Why, then, did fairytales become what they are?

In order to answer this question, we might consider the idea of an anti-fairytale, a story with a powerful anti-hero/heroine and a decidedly unhappily-ever-after conclusion.  You won't have to look far to find an example; the anti-fairytale, as a broad super-genre, has a dominant place in fiction today.  For whatever reason--sometimes good, sometimes bad--we avid, informed readers of the 20th and 21st centuries increasingly favor the anti-hero (or sometimes villain) and savor the unhappy ending.  It is the book we cannot put down, and the book we think about long after it's finished.

An anti-hero; well, there are at least three kinds of anti-hero.  They all begin as more troublesome than heroic.  They are further distinguished by the following:

1. Makes some good decisions and ultimately succeeds in life 
2. Makes mostly bad decisions and suffers the consequences.
3. Makes some life-changing bad decisions and, by some capricious bit of good luck, conquers all by the end of the volume(s). S/he either suffers no negative consequences, or overcomes them in the nick of time.  

This last type of anti-hero is very, very popular today, despite his/her lack of realism. 

Likewise, there are at least three kinds of unhappy, heartbreaking ending: 

1. Poetically just.
2. Poetically unjust.
3. Seems to have been written expressly to wring tears from your eyes and accomplish little else.  In that case, your emotional response was absolutely all the author wanted.

Emotional response!  Writing is an art, and art personifies emotion, but a book is capable of too many dimensions to hold emotion alone.  Pure emotion is closer to music, something heard and felt and diversely interpreted; but books convey very particular types of themes and attitudes, even if it is only the author telling you what emotion to feel, or, indeed, that you should feel any emotion for the story at all.  If it is a well-written book, the author usually succeeds.

What does "well-written" mean?  In this sense, it doesn't mean a good plot, or good characters, or lots of action.  Rather, it means the ability of the author to hold your interest through the sheer power of his/her style and word choice.  Newspapers are splendid examples of word choice--every journalist has studied the "right" kinds, until it becomes second nature to favor one synonym over another.  Effect or tone are sometimes given preference over accuracy.  Novelists are even better at this, in that they can use word choice more subtly, and the reader can only hope to read between the lines after many pages of lines.

The old fairytales, whatever their faults are, were more honest.  There is something so matter-of-fact in their style and format you'd think we intellectual readers of the 21st century would appreciate it.  They do not hide their meaning under word choice.  It's the premise that really matters, isn't it? 

Or is it?  If there is one strange thing about anti-fairytales, it is the concept that the premise is not nearly as important as the reader's ultimate opinion of the premise.  The author works to persuade the reader to feel a certain emotion(s) about a certain premise without allowing the reader the time/space to analyze the premise itself.  (I say analyze, not think about--you can have something on your mind for weeks without dissecting it.)  It is easy to find a novel which is precisely this kind of anti-fairytale: a twisted premise smoothed over by beautiful, brilliant prose which provokes your emotion and a certain train of conclusions the author wishes you to conclude.  A book centered on perverse, even criminal, actions that manipulates your emotions so carefully, so very carefully, turning them into toleration, acceptance, or even sympathy.

Such a book may even be considered a classic.  It's not a new idea.  But that would be the poisonous apple; that is why there is Snow White.

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A writing tip that works!

"Write at least a sentence every day. . .If you end up writing only one sentence a day, that's fine. It's better to write 3 words than to get discouraged by your own goal and write nothing at all." (source: Yuliya Geikhman)

I was desperately in need of a writing schedule.  I was so desperate, I ran a Google search.  XD

No, seriously, this works.  I tried it on one of my "lost cause" works-in-progress--a plot-driven novel with so-so characters.  This stinkin' project is 2 1/2 years old, been through a painful first-draft (2/3 written), and multiple attempts at rewrites!  But it has stubborn potential.

Anyway, I tried this tip and the book went from chapter 1 to now almost 40 book-pages.  The characters are alive and well.  I've stopped agonizing and overthinking, and started enjoying the new plot twists that come up.

I've also limited myself to just re-reading once the previous section I wrote, before I start a new section.  This works wonders as well.

And, oddly enough, I find that I end up writing tons more than just one sentence.  Even if I were to only write one good sentence, it would be way better than nothing.

I will take Saturdays or Sundays off, and gradually this will morph into a writing schedule.   There's hope for my writing career yet.  XD

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Update on my poetry book

By Hrald (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
 I've blogged about it here and there, but for those of you who missed it: my goal is to self-publish a short collection (111 pages) of poetry this summer via Amazon's CreateSpace.  The corollary is that I want to do as much of the work as possible (and save $$$), including formatting and design.  I finished the interior formatting (and my love/hate relationship with page numbers), but the cover art is threatening to put me behind schedule.  In fact, as of tomorrow, I am decidedly behind schedule.

After some research and debate, my criteria for the cover are as follows:

• It must be classy and something between classic and contemporary.
• It must appeal to both genders and preferably a wide age range (within the intended audience, poetry readers).
• It must be relatively eye-catching at full-size and thumbnail-size.  
• The title must be readable at thumbnail size.  
• I would like it to wrap around the whole book, especially since I'll likely leave the back cover blank.  Thankfully, CreateSpace provides an awesome template for the cover art, so I can design my wrap-around cover without too much anxiety.  <3
• Last and greatest, it must reflect the book's contents, at least adequately.

Now, if I were to begin all over again on a new project, I would definitely start with a blank canvas and figure out the text first.  It was irritating to not have that set-in-stone from the start.  In the last day or two, I've finally designed the title text to my happy approval, with the help of the lovely font Raleway. I'm suddenly tempted to use it for some of the interior formatting, too (but we'll see if my ambition lasts).

The artwork...I had a new idea today that I will look into tomorrow or Monday; it has to do with a photo on a different computer, though.  Up till now, I've come up with some "ok" art--clouds and such--but nothing quite right for my picky tastes.  

What are some of your favorite book covers?  What are some of your LEAST favorite book covers?

Matthew Pearl's books have splendid covers.  Vintage Classics covers are (most of them) works of art.  This set of The Lord of the Rings is beautiful (and based on Tolkien's own cover art!).  I'm afraid cover art is more important to me than it should be, but mostly because I know how unpleasant it is to get a library book with boring, embarrassing, or just horrible cover art.  Or, looking at a book and feeling like the cover is misleading.  Books with cheerful-looking cover art and depressing back cover blurbs--I feel instantly suspicious.

July 8 UPDATE:  ¡Cover art completed!  ^_^   I'm back on schedule.

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'Idle thoughts of an idle fellow'

What better way to end the day than listen to Dmitri Hvorostovsky belt out Rodrigo's death arias from Don Carlo?  (All right, that was possibly the geekiest sentence I ever wrote.  But it's so very true.)  I am obsessed with that video.  The first two lines of "Per me giunto..." (skip to 1:13) are so epically epic you just have to hear the whole thing, even if for the umpteenth time.  I'm such a sucker for the orchestral accompaniment, too. (The epicness of Mr Hvorostovsky's voice is a given.)

* * *

I registered for fall classes today.  As it turns out, I will be taking a programming class and two history classes (believe it or not, I did not plan that out--those were the only suitable morning classes).  Anyhow, that is the idea so far.  I can only take the one programming class this fall (it's the basics of the basics)--so hopefully this will help me transition to the new subject and new school. 

* * *

I've also been working on the cover for my poetry book.  It is so, so easy to criticize book covers until you try making one yourself, especially for something as abstract as poetry. And fonts...don't get me started on fonts!  Thankfully, some philanthropic artists have created Open Font License (OFL) fonts, which are free to use.  Starting with my first version of GIMP that we got--oh, probably five or six years ago--I've become more and more grateful to people who contribute to open source programs/projects (that's something I'd like to do in the future).

* * *

Just got The Brothers Karamazov from the library!

I'm almost finally done with Shackleton's South; I did finish his part of the narrative and started looking through the book of complete photographs from his journey--which are incredible for 1914-17 and a survival experience at that.  There are even some color photos!  Shackleton's leadership and his group's persistence are amazing, and it is really moving to read of all the miracles that added up to their escaping Antarctica.  I dare anyone to read the book and to still think they survived by their perseverance alone, that the 'coincidences' that saved their lives over and over again were just that, coincidences.  It couldn't have been.  Even the very end, where Shackleton frantically comes back two or three times, and finally at just the right moment the ice pack opens up so he can rescue the rest of the crew, only a few days before their rations run out--even that's just too perfect to be good luck!  Truth more unbelievable than fiction...

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Dreams coming true

You know one thing I hate about college?  The shock that comes right after spring finals (especially your last finals at a particular school).  Finals week, you study and study and get all angsty about getting an A on all of your tests or finishing your gargantuan essay or whatever.  Then you take the tests.  Then, all of a sudden, your life feels like a vacuum, totally hollow inside because your life has been bloated with studying and being a diligent student, and now there is "nothing" more to do for three months.  On top of that, if you're unsociable like me and there's suddenly no more, like, tons of people around, you get the feeling you're turned inside-out and kind of really miss the people.  It's really, really unpleasant.

However. . .

Now that I've recovered from the shock, I am in the process of formatting my poetry book for self-publishing (via Amazon/Createspace)!  My schedule is roughly as follows: Interior - 1 week, Cover Design - 1-2 weeks, Anything Else - 2 weeks, and then publishing, while simultaneously working on the book website.  Pretty excited!  I was kind of dreading the formatting, but it is actually fun to be working on what the book will really look like.  BUT THERE'S TOO MANY CHOICES.  What font?  What style of page numbers?  And again, what font?  (I'm leaning towards Georgia). 

I don't expect the book to "go viral" by any means--this is just a start, a way to learn about self-publishing and gain some self-confidence by publishing something I'm actually proud of.  If that's all I accomplish, I'll be happy.  :)

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Monday at home

• REICHENBACH FALL TONIGHT.  YES.
• I got a letter of acceptance from the IT--I'm officially a pre-computer-science major this fall.  Gratitude and mixed feelings.
• Spring quarter ends in 2 1/2 weeks.  Another dose of mixed feelings.
• Field trip to Mt Rainier in 1 1/2 weeks.
• It's almost time to get down to the nitty-gritty of publishing my poetry book.  O_O  You know, if I can tolerate the agonies of applying for university, I can most certainly do as much for my book.  Ah, the dread...

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Fantasy book helps teen survive waterfall

Read here: 'Lucky to be alive,' teen hails rescuers.  Thank God this guy is all right!

The story has been in the papers a few days, but this new article brings two things to mind:

1. Reading fantasy books is not altogether useless or un-educational.  (I never thought it was!)
2. Doing your research is always important.  An author, of course, isn't completely responsible for a reader's reaction, but whatever an author does, they should never needlessly portray misleading information that a reader might easily interpret as factual/sensible/a good idea.

I haven't read the Pendragon series, but lots of adventure books have influenced my notions of what to do in a survival situation.  Now, whether I'd remember what their advice was is another question.  : /

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Snippets of Story {may}

Whisperings of the Pen

© Kirill Vorontsov

 

It was ridiculous. Embarrassingly absurd. He looked up, as if afraid the watchman were standing in the doorway. He didn't want him to see how funny it was. Really. And nothing was half so frightening now as the idea that he must take this note seriously.

- The Infinite Now

* * *

 

“Oh well,” she repeated. She uttered it like the response to some peculiar password, at the door of some far stranger vault of burial. I was sorely tempted to laugh, though, to my defense, only a hysterical laugh without an ounce of humor, because she was so emphatically serious.

- Footnotes

* * *

He had a nice smile; he looked very kind, yet so perfectly in possession of his sanity and circumstances. He looked as if he had lived a million years and survived, breathing and breaking his world all the better for it.

- May (QOF trilogy, book 2)

* * *

Where the tears? No physical pain hurts more than this apathy is breaking my mind—where the tears? Tears that I scorned! What I would give for tears now.

- May (QOF trilogy, book 2)

* * * 

"You can't change a person. You can't stop them from changing either. All you can do is think of the things about them that haven't changed. The little things." 

- May (QOF trilogy, book 2)

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'Character Letters' & stream of consciousness

I had some time to kill in the library today, so I painstakingly located William Faulkner and delved into the beginning of As I Lay Dying.

My reaction was pretty much, Wow.  This was my introduction to the whole "stream of consciousness" style.  Faulkner basically says good-bye to all rules of grammar and narrative storytelling, and simply writes the book as he feels it, much in the way you might write a poem or a person's unique speech pattern.  Some authors always write dialogue this way, but with stream of consciousness, it's even incorporated into the description and action.

I wouldn't say it's my favorite writing style, but it is definitely extraordinary.  I would not typically read a book about subcultures and history of the Deep South, but within the first few chapters, I really felt drawn to the story and its (sometimes vulgar) characters in a kind of morbidly early mourning for their dying loved one.  There was a vivid sense of what each character was like, and their attitude to each other.  I love the idea of writing like this and am going to try it...

Related to understanding your characters, there's a new writing program/event for bloggers called Character Letters, in which you write letters based on prompts and from the perspective of your own or an existing character.  I plan on joining in sometime this month--here are the guidelines and here is the first edition--check it out!  I may just end up writing fanfiction--well, anything to break my novel-writer's block.  :)

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Monday

Spent most of today outdoors studying.  It's easy to forget how nice it is to be outside, and now I've mostly outgrown my spring allergies.  It's really the only place where you can find total concentration--indoors, I feel too distracted by other thoughts, and the internet, of course!

I have three tests this week, Tuesday through Thursday afternoon.  Sometime this week I want to really make a dent in my reading list.  I'm a couple of chapters into South, by Ernest Shackleton--first-hand narrative of his attempted crossing of Antarctica.  So far, they have not made it to the continent yet, and it's unbelievable how slow and tedious and careful they had to be, navigating the ship through the ice. Sometimes they would have to go the wrong way for miles and see the same ice berg again.  Oh, and sometimes he mentions more human aspects of the voyage, like the crew playing soccer on the ice, or naming the sledge dogs.  It's those things that make a hundred years seem not so long ago.

Writing-wise, I have added several more poems to my collection--at this rate, it will have to wait a while before getting published.  But that's all right.  I had entered some of them in a contest, and now that that's over, I realise I could be as overly kind to my poems as I am overly harsh to my novel WIP's.  But that's all right, too.  I admire artists who have confidence in their art; this is one exception in which I am (or try to be), too.  I actually love my poems, and maybe they're the best thing I've written so far (for what it's worth).

And here I'd better stop and study for that first test...  Typical me, I forgot Poli Sci was tomorrow and wrote the essay outlines for US History instead!

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Short Stories vs Novels

© Georgie Sharp
If written well, both are equally awesome.  I can't say I prefer one over the other--I've read some short stories with better characters and more depth than a novel, and some novels with plots more riveting than a short story.

However.  At this point in my life, I'm feeling nostalgic for my bookish life of ten years ago, when I devoured the Sherlock Holmes short stories and began writing short stories of my own (with a frightful attempt at the Victorian style).  I'm less and less willing to read books longer than 200 pages.  Maybe because I've never completed writing a story longer than 200 pages.  Maybe my attention span is simply shrinking (actually, that is very true).

What about you?  Do you have a preference?  And if you prefer novels, what could an author do to write short stories better?

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I should be...

Gen. Santa Anna.  "Quite a character."

...studying.  History tests are this week--Tuesday, Thursday, Friday--and I am seriously overwhelmed by the information to know.  Ex.:

Latin American History...summaries on General Santa Anna, Benito Juarez, and possibly Juan Manuel de Rosas.  And then the names/nationalities of all the dictators ("caudillos") who started out good, turned bad, and were overthrown.  And some battles.

US History...summaries on the Republic of Texas, Mexican-American War, and Abraham Lincoln.  Pre-Civil War and Civil War eras.  Not too bad.

Modern Conflicts...summaries on African conflicts and a couple of other topics we haven't covered yet.  Then about two dozen separatist movements in Africa and the Americas and probably Asia.  Then some names of political leaders.  I'll be lucky if I remember the separatist movements.

The lowest test score is dropped, but I'm one of those irrational people who attends every test and wants to earn a lowest test score of A+ (ha!).

A secondary character from the books.

As an aside, my brains are overflowing with ideas for my historical fantasy/adventure trilogy.  To be more specific, it follows the early reigns of three queens of a (fictitious) country--grandmother, daughter, granddaughter--at the very end of the monarchy.  They each have different personalities, different strengths, different people to deal with.

It's not real historical fiction, but roughly speaking, it extends from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s, though more in the psychological than literal sense.  Some might call it "alternate history", but it's not meant to replace or speculate about real history.  As an author/reader who loves anything like historical fantasy or steampunk, I've been debating on how to balance history with fantasy, even considering the coexistence of smartphones and horse-drawn carriages...  In the end, I resigned myself to a strictly historical-based setting.  For this series, at least.  ;)

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Writing again + Glimpses of Goodness, ii

See this?



This is no mere notebook.  This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn.  You owe him your allegiance.  In all gravitas, this is the rewrite of Rosamunda, my historical fantasy book.  Those papers tucked in the back cover are the first draft (2/3), saved for reference.  I've tried before several times to rewrite it, but now my writer's block is finally gone and this is the real deal.  <3

My sibs deserve some credit, by the way.  My brother gave me the "finish the books you started!" lecture that I needed, and he helped brainstorm a name for a character in the sequel (it's gonna be a trilogy!).  My sister commiserates with me when I have author's angst and listens/contributes patiently to my chatty character analysis & plot twist discussion.  And she's a fan of my steampunk protagonist.  Which book I'm also going to start working on again. <3  (I'm also going to try posting more regularly at my writing blog.)

Excuse all the hearts.



Speaking of hearts...some of my latest 'glimpses of goodness'. Yeah, weather often makes it to the list.  What can I say--I love clouds. 

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