Snow, snow go away

Who thought this whole snow thing was a good idea? I was happy to see that first snow fall in December. But now it's nearly February, and there's been some kind of storm every few days. Wednesday, it's some kind of wintry mix that turns into a snow dump. Thursday, it's a it's a Nor'easter. Saturday, it's a clipper system from Canada. Does that make it a Canadian Clipper? Maybe the Los Angeles Clippers should move to Winnipeg?

Every day, the early morning hours turn into a mess of automated phone calls from the kids' schools telling us about a closing, delayed opening or early dismissal (if they didn't call us the nigth before). Then, there I go, out onto the driveway blowing snow every which way, but invariably back into my face, before clearing the sidewalks and the accursed six metric ton packed mound of ice and snow the plow drivers so graciously crammed into the end of my driveway.

I'm ready for summer - no matter how hot it gets.

Did I mention the large swath of lawn I shovel out so that the little black pug should have a place to leave her business? Oh, yes, that's key, because pugs are not long legged, nor do they have much fur on their paws. All my efforts are wasted, though, because Tink turns out to be a mountain pug. She prefers to climb atop the 24 inches of packed snow, her toes/claws spread out wide like eagle talons as she maneuvers her way across the arctic tundra. Whereas it would be quite easy for me to clean up after her in the dug out area, she leaves me a steamy pile sitting atop a distant peak of the Himalayas. I am NOT getting my jeans soaked for that.

Which brings me to my writing.

Hey - don't judge the quality of my segue.

There hasn't been a whole lot of time for my writing because of my current work load. I entered Urban Mythos into ABNA, finished a chapter of Ghost Fishing, and am spending quality time helping out Alex Lidell (ah, the pen name) by critiquing her editor-driven revisions of Service of the Crown. As much as I might be helping her, I'm learning an awful lot about the editing process for an honest to goodness soon-to-be-published novel. It's amazing to experience the transformation of this book's story, which I read and reread along with a select group of other wonderful writers in our writing group. This is going to be a terrific novel. Okay, it already was, but it's going to be, as they say, awesome-sauce.

Wait a minute. Did somebody say more snow this weekend? 

ABNA - The Final Pitch

Thank you all so much for you excellent feedback. I think I've got what I'm looking for in my ABNA pitch. For some reason, I had it in my head that ABNA started this coming week. Fortunately, it's not for another week. Or maybe that's unfortunately? I don't know. It depends on how my Jets do today against the evil empire. It's always appropriate to be in a good frame of mind when entering a contest.

Here's the pitch after all the wonderful critiques.

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Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill uncovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. Two years since his own transformation from griffin to human, he’s been attending clandestine meetings of the city’s ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor’s office.

As other mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their kind. His initial resistance causes the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. While trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco must rescue his friends and step-mom. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio’s help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

At 80,000 words, Urban Mythos is a young adult urban fantasy novel that blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and assimilation. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and Catherine Jinks’ The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

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ABNA 2011 - Going for it

I have made up my mind. I'm going to submit Urban Mythos to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest next week (or the week thereafter). So now, I've got to tune up my pitch. I've queried it a few times, but the pitch is a little different - not much, but a bit. What do I have to lose, right?

Without further ado, I present to you the first iteration of the ABNA pitch for Urban Mythos. I would love to get your opinions, advice, critiques, comments, or jokes, so please, please, please, let me know what you think. What's the comment box for anyway?

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Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill discovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. You wouldn’t think a city kid like Zydeco would care about their plight, except he’s one of them. Two years removed from his own transformation from griffin to human, he’s been attending meetings of a clandestine support group for the city’s ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers that the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor’s office.

As other mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands that Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their local support group. His initial resistance results in the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. Still trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco decides to rescue his friends and step-mom rather than betray Octavio. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio's help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

Urban Mythos, an 80,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel, blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and fitting in with mainstream society. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and Catherine Jinks’ The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

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A Surprising Direction

I finally got my butt back into gear over the last few days of the holidays and worked on the alternate chapter one of Ghost Fishing. On a recent post, I ruminated over the style and voice of my Middle Grade WIP. This is the curse of voraciously reading the genre. I set out to write it one way because I was enchanted by the fairy-tale-ish style and voice of Frank Beddor's, Looking Glass Wars. So I wrote.

And then I set my WIP aside to pay some heed to Urban Mythos, which needed some revising based on agent feedback. While I was away from my MG-that-could, I read a few Rick Riordan books whose attitude made me smile and laugh. This gave me pause, and I wondered if my new story would be better served in a slightly more active/snarky/1st person-ish style. I'd had some success with this style before.

Therefore, I crafted a new opening, told in 1st person and with a very different style from the original. Now, I'd also spent some time outlining the plot and character throughlines before I set to work. As a result, the opening chapter had a very different opening scene than the original. Regardless of my style choice, I planned on keeping this new scene. I had a hunch - not so much a preference - just a very strong feeling that if I put the two chapter ones in front of my eleven-year-old daughter, she'd go for the newer version.

It was time to put them to the test. I sat her in front of the computer, with both versions open, and awaited her reaction.

Boy (or should I say girl?) was I surprised. Hands down - the original won. My daughter, Rachel, is not partial to this style of book. In fact, she's as comfortable with Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games, as she is with the Sisters' Grimm and the Mysterious Benedict Society.  Like I said, it's not that I felt strongly about one style versus the other, I just had a feeling. I was wrong.

As a result, I took that new first scene and rewrote it into the original version's style. In the process of doing so, I think I've arrived at a third style - which is mostly the fairy-tale feel, with a bit more attitude. This style lent itself extremely well to the scene I wrote last night. So far, I agree with Rachel's opinion. That little girl (okay - she's pretty much 5' 5" or 5' 6" so not so little, but she's still 11 yrs old) knows her stuff!

And now, fueled on some Starbucks, I'm off to write some more!

Happy New Year!

As my Nana used to say, have a healthy and a happy! And now, a 2010 video.

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

Rethinking Voice and Style

The one on the left is voice. The other guy is style.

I wrote the first two chapters of Ghost Fishing, my middle grade boy adventure, a couple of months back then got sidetracked with some other projects. When I returned to it a few weeks ago, I decided I needed to put together a somewhat coherent outline for the events that were to play out in the novel. Each chapter was to be almost its own mini adventure. At the same time, I wanted to ensure my characters were well fleshed out, unique, interesting, and had clear motivations.

While this was going on, I also decided I needed to take a fresh look at the style and voice with which I was going to write the novel. So what if I'd written a couple of chapters I might throw away. I reasoned that these were exploratory in nature. When I began conceptualizing Ghost Fishing, I'd just finished reading the first two novels in The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor's series inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The fairy-tale voice and style in these novels really struck and inspired me, and that's the direction in which I wanted to take Ghost Fishing. 

But as I began to fill in the details behind my new novel, I began to pay attention to other middle grade fiction. Some of this I read, some of this I listened to in the car. There's really nothing like listening to a good book read by a talented actor or actress. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, it was in these novels that I found other styles that equally inspired me.

Rick Riordan's, The Lost Hero reminded me of what fun I had reading the Percy Jackson novels, and although this novel isn't written in first person POV like the Percy novels, the voice and humor are all there. Eoin Colfer's, The Eternity Code, and Artemis Fowl novel, dished out the joy, cleverness, outlandishness and laughs, while sticking to third person, omniscient. Both novels share pacing, humor and heart, even though their voices are entirely different.

I dug into Will Hobbs' Ghost Canoe because, well, my novel is entitled Ghost Fishing, so I had to see what this was all about. It shares nothing with my novel or the two above. It's historical middle grade, has quite a lot of fishing, and the tone is pretty much straight forward boy adventure that reminds me of some of the novels of my very early youth. I gave Michael Spradlin's, The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail a shot. This is middle grade adventure set in the middle ages, but told in first person POV, which seemed kind of unique for something set so long ago.

Having read each of the above, I began to lean back toward what I enjoy reading most -- a fast-paced story laced with humor, told in perhaps first person POV or third person limited. The third person limited buys me the ability to get a bit deeper in other characters' heads, and there is one character in Ghost Fishing -- the impact character -- into whose head I wouldn't mind dipping. On the other hand, the benefit of staying in first person with my main character is that I can keep the impact character's story a bit more mysterious for a while.

As for the fairy tale style, I'm somewhat afraid I won't be able to carry off the style with as much humor and snappy pacing as I'd like. However, I've returned to the third book in The Looking Glass Wars series, ArchEnemy to see what inspired me to go with the fairy tale approach in the first place. Maybe I'll change my mind back again. I plan on wrapping up my initial outlining this week and jump back to the writing next week.

Oh, and for those organic writers out there -- you know who you are -- I'm not outlining the entire novel from front to back. Yes, I've done a fair bit of work on characters, overarching plot, and motivations, but my chapter outline only goes about five or six out. I like to map out where I'm going for a period of time so I can simply drive without worrying if I'm headed in the right direction. Then I'll reach a rest stop, where I'll map out the next part of the journey before I get back behind the wheel.

My Nook and I

See that device over there on the left of the page? That's a Nook Color from Barnes & Noble. It's based on the Android O/S. I got me one of those the day it came out. This is a big deal for me because I am most definitely NOT on the bleeding edge on technology purchases.

Witness this conversation between my older brother Lee and yours truly more than fifteen years ago.

Lee - "This is my computer."
Me - "I've heard Intel is coming out with a 386 chip, but you'll never need anything more advanced than the 286 you have there."

I wound up with the Nook for two reasons. One - While I purchase loads of book, I also am a huge user of the public library. The Kindle doesn't do that. Two - it's got a color touch screen (Did I mention Android O/S?) which makes it like a mini poor-man's iPad without any of the caché. I fiddled with the Nook as soon as it arrived at my house on 11/19 (was that Fedex or UPS? Can't remember.) from B&N dot com. It's slick. Pages do, in fact, turn quickly. The print is easily read. The wireless connectivity is flawless. I was enjoying it.

And then?

It sat for a couple of weeks because I was in the middle of another book - Rick Riordan's, The Lost Hero, which was for some reason taking me a long time to read, despite how much I liked it.

Now, however, I've loaded a couple of books on my Nook: Frankenstein, which I downloaded for free from Google Books - it's in the public domain; Alan Furst's Dark Star, which was one of the very few interesting e-books available for download from the virtual public library that did not have a massive waiting list. Yes - downloading e-books from your public library is NOT a gimme. There is this whole digital rights management deal. If the library purchased one e-copy of the book, then only one person at a time may download the e-book for a given loan period. This seems to result in long wait times. Also, my local public library is part of a county library system that is networked with a third party that actually offers the e-books. This means there's that many more people from all over waiting on virtual line to download an e-book.

I imagine this whole process will improve over time as more and more folks go the e-book route, and libraries stock their own e-copies of books. I'm hoping to join the NYC Public Library in a couple of weeks -- they let us New Jersey folk do so if you show up in person. They've got a massive e-book catalog. I've got a few books on my list I'll be purchasing for my Nook as well.

My new toy and me.