Monday, February 28, 2011
The Looming Darkness
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
I'm Just...Yeah
Plot Arcs & The Query
Fiona McClean is invisible—literally—which makes her the perfect thief in her father’s crime syndicate. She and her mother have tried to escape, but that’s no easy feat when her father can charm any woman into doing what he wants. Still, they try again, because all clues point to Fiona being groomed for a new role in the syndicate: Assassin. (This is the inciting incident, the trigger for yet another escape attempt.)
This time, Fiona is determined to earn her freedom at any cost. (Character arc inciting incident: Change from just wanting freedom to being desperate for it.) But that means trusting Graham, her oldest brother and her father’s flying lap dog. (Rising action: Complication.) He says fetch, and Graham shoots off to catch. How is she supposed to believe he’s on their side this time? There’s a catch. Fiona knows it, and she won’t let Graham destroy the normal life she’s building for herself. (Rising action: Obstacle.) She finally has friends, plus there’s a boy that could be even more. And without her dad’s brainwashing, she realizes her invisibility doesn’t define her like she thought, and she must find out what’s underneath. (Character arc rising action: Growth from not only wanting freedom, but to find out who she is.)
Since Graham’s acting far too suspicious, Fiona enlists her other brother, Miles, to help figure out what he’s up to. (Rising action: Trying to solve problem.) But with their father zoning in on her location (Climax), it’s looking like Fiona will have to stop hiding in more ways than one. If she wants the right to choose her life, she’ll have to fight for it. (Character arc climax: Growth from finding out who she is to wanting to fight for it.)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Don't Knock The Query
Monday, February 21, 2011
Dealing With The Demons
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Weekend Sketch Returns!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Happy Writers Society: Writing For Many And Writing For One
Writing for Many and Writing for One
As writers I think we all appreciate the power of the written word. I believe there is much truth in the saying , “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Lives, families, religions, and nations are built with words. Great works of fiction are no exception to this phenomenon. Dickens, Voltaire, Austen, Sinclair, and countless others wrote stories that highlighted societal injustices. Equal rights, child labor, government corruption, almost any social issue you can think of has been and still is influenced by the words of great fiction writers.
Other writings may contribute in seemingly smaller, but equally important ways. Entertainment to fill a dark day. Empathy from a main character, who while fictional, seems to express exactly how you feel. A conversation starter with a potential friend. A bridge builder between generations. The power and possibilities of the written word are astounding.
In general (when I’m not delusional) I aspire to share my words in the lesser ways. I hope my stories will entertain, touch, and maybe in some small way influence my readers. It seems like a small dream. My book in someone’s hand. My words, a drop of water in the sea of the published word. I work hard for this dream, crafting and editing and laboring over my writing. I read and study and spend countless hours working for the hope that my words will matter. And then I remember, my words matter now. I do not have to be published to write something meaningful. I don’t even have to write a story. A thoughtful email, a relevant poem, a blog post, an inscription in a book all have power.
I will never forget a letter my mother wrote me in high school. In it she said, “Candi, sometimes you’re that square peg and the people around you are trying to force you into a round hole. Never forget that you are perfect just the way you are.” Those words were powerful. They spoke to my fragile teenage heart. They changed me. In college a friend wrote a one line inscription in a book she gave me. It simply said, “A book about the miracles of living to a friend who has also opened my eyes to them.” I cannot tell you how good that made me feel and how much I still love that friend.
When this business gets discouraging and crazy and sometimes I wonder if anyone will ever care how much of myself and my life I’ve poured into developing my craft, I try to remember there are ways I can use my writing and love of words right now. Today. Ways that matter to the people I love. When I remember that it puts life in perspective. It lifts up my heart. It makes my all my work seem like time well spent.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Kasie, My Submission Buddy
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Read It Again
Monday, February 14, 2011
I Hate You, Valentine's Day
Friday, February 11, 2011
Happy Writers Society: Sharing Your Stories
Chapter 1
They say a witch lives in the old house under the interstate bridge. Always in the shadows, draped in ivy and sorrow, the house waits for a child too daring for his own good. And inside, the witch sits with her black eyes and toothless sneer. They say she can foresee your death in return for a lock of hair. She can make someone love you for the small price of a pinky finger. And, of course, she can kill your enemy if you give her your soul. Some people think it's only a silly tale to scare children, but it's true. Every word.
I should know, she is my grandmother after all, and right now I could steal her pudding stash for what she did to Winn Carter. “Nana! He was just talking to me!”
She sits at her large mahogany desk, a variety of feathers and animal bones arranged just so. She won’t look at me. She never does when I catch her cursing my classmates. “Josephine, my dear, his intentions were clearly impure.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What have I told you about spying on me at school?”
She frowns.
Letting out a long sigh, I sit in the throne-like chair her victims usually inhabit. “I am safe. Probably safer than most kids, what with all the charms you make me wear.” I jingle the bracelet, riddled with runes and tiny organs incased in glass baubles. I tell my friends they’re medicinal herbs. As if that’s so much better.
“I know.” She grabs her ivory cane and hobbles over to me. As she puts her hand on my shoulder, I can’t help but feel bad for scolding her. “You are just so precious to me. I cannot bear to lose you.”
“You won’t.” My mother died when I was seven—a bad curse not even Nana couldn’t undo—and ever since then I have been kept under tighter security than the President of the United States. It seemed important back then, but ten years later I just want a little wiggle room. Maybe a boyfriend. If whatever killed my mother was after me, they would have shown up a long time ago. “And you can’t give a guy a face full of pimples because he smiled at me, especially when they just appear like that. Your reputation is bad enough, and most of the town doesn’t believe you’re real.”
She cackles. It’s just how she laughs. At least I’ve never heard anything else come out when she makes a joke. Of course, her jokes are usually on the morbid side.
“Nana, I mean it. Winn is a nice guy. Get rid of the zits.”
“Oh, fine.” She plops down in her chair, the old floorboards creaking even at her meager weight. She rearranges the feathers and bones, and then holds her hand over them. In the center, a flame sparks and consumes the feathers. “There.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“In return, I need you to collect thirty spiders. I’m running low.”
The smile is no more. Should have figured. There is always a payment—the number one rule of magic. You cannot get something for nothing. Nana lives and dies by that rule, even when magic isn’t involved. “Fine.”
Before I leave her apothecary, I grab a spare jar and fish out a frog eye from the bowl by the door. Gross stuff like that has never bothered me, probably because it’s just part of the job. Ever since I was a kid, I can remember hunting for snakes, frogs, salamanders, spiders, and other creepy crawly reagents. The only thing that still gets me is the dead carcasses. They stink.
Standing at the front door, I hold out the frog eye and close my eyes. I picture the door I need; the one that leads to the ivy-covered home under the bridge. The magic pools in my hand, and I concentrate on what I desire it to do. It’s work switching doors. Usually I keep it set on the house in the heart of town—the house my friends and acquaintances think is real. It is, in a way, since it leads here just like the other house.
This door is heavy and black, with a large bronze knocker in the shape of a gargoyle. It always groans when it opens, like most things in this house do. I’ve never bothered to sneak out, since I’d have to either crack open my screeching window or tiptoe across about two hundred squeaky floorboards.
Once the frog eye dissolves, I open my eyes. The brown door is now black and old and menacing. I turn the gilded knob, and the sound of freeway traffic overhead greets me. Checking to make sure the coast is clear, I step onto the front porch. Not that many use this road anymore, since ours is the only house still standing out here and people are afraid to even speak of it.
It’s always cool under the bridge, even in the hot, humid summers. Sun gleams from either side, providing enough light to see. The tree in the yard is more moss than leaves, and the grass is thick and wet. I breathe in the air, full of dampness and magic.
That is, after all, why my great great grandmother moved here.
Normal people tend to think magic comes from inside a person. That’s partially true. Witches can store magic in their bodies, but without a source to replenish that power they lose it. Magic, real, pure magic, is in places. It seeps into the ground, grows in the plants, lives in whatever inhabits its realm.
This house, this land, is one such place that simmers with magic. And no matter what comes, we Hemlocks will never give up this place.
I don’t have to go far to find my first spider. Half the front window is covered in webs, and I pluck one from its perch and drop her in the jar. In the corner behind the rusty swing, there’s two more. By the time I step off the porch, I already have seven. The dark places under the stairs earn me eight more. I comb the ivy all the way to the back of the house until I get the rest. As I head to the front again, they struggle over each other to climb the slick glass jar. “Sorry, guys, there’s no escaping.”
“Excuse me,” someone says.
I look up from my jar, freezing in place. A man in a suit stands at the weathered iron gate, his hands in his pockets. He reeks of money, or maybe that’s just the fancy convertible that gleams even in these shadows. I take a few wary steps forward. “Yes? Do you need something?”
His eyes go wide as he takes me in. I grab the ends of my jet black hair, wondering if I have web in it. Nothing.
“What do you need?” I say again when he doesn’t answer.
He shakes his head, as if coming out of a daze. “Um, does a Carmina Hemlock live here?”
It’s my turn to be taken by surprise. Who on earth would be looking for my mother after so much time? Before I know it I’m saying, “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” he croaks. “When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“Oh.” He looks away, and for a moment I wonder if he might be fighting tears. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t like this. This isn’t Nana’s usual clientele. I should have known just by the look of him, but sometimes the rich still believe in old ways. If he’s not seeking a spell, he doesn’t belong here. “You’d better go.”
“I...” He stares at me, a strange sort of longing in his eyes. “Are you related to her? You look a lot like her.”
“Leave.” There’s something cold on the other side of the gate. Something waiting. This man brought darkness with him. There’s no way in hell I’m letting him in, even if he did know my mother. “Don’t come back.”
I take a few steps back before I dare turn, and then I run for the door.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Evil Plots & Other Fun Stuff
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Fairly Instant Gratification Q&A
You may ask whatever you want all day, and I will do my best to concoct a semi-logical answer.
Annnnd....GO!