Tag: A. Catherine Noon

  • A New Book Is Born!

    It’s hard to believe it. We wrote it, and edited it, and loved it into existence. Countless hours spent on the phone and in emails and chat, working and playing with it. We’ve created a whole world in Persis, one that is so real to me it seems as though I should be able to open a door and step into it like walking through the armoir into Narnia.

    Emerald Fire, the first in what we hope to be many novels about Persis, is available now from Torquere Press! We are very excited and pleased to bring it to you and hope you will enjoy it as much as we did.

    While a brief blurb and excerpt are available on the website, I thought I’d talk a little about the process of worldbuilding that we developed as we worked and played on this novel. I grew up reading mysteries by Phyllis A. Whitney and fantasy novels by such authors as Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony, and Ursula K. Leguin. Patricia McKillip and Steven Brust are two more of my favorites. Rachel grew up reading fantasy as well, like the Sword of Shannara and other quest novels, as well as a lot of romance like the Harlequin white-covers. We got to talking one day and wondered what it would be like to write a world of Sheikhs and Harem Girls, only where the Girls were Boys – since we write M/M romance.

    Persis is based from that concept. We looked at ancient Persia and developed our culture from there. Our two main cities are Cyrus and Darius, after two of the greatest rulers of ancient Persia – and the world. Darius I, known as Darius the Great, ruled over much of what is now Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. We wanted the settlers of Persis to know that and want to honor their ancestors. The third city, newer than Cyrus or Darius, is Reghdad and is a name we made up based on Baghdad.

    One of the first challenges we came across is one of distance: first, how far apart are these cities? Second, how long does it take to travel between them? After all, if there aren’t paved highways and modern cars, how to folks get around? (“What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”) We drew a map and estimated distances, then estimated how long each of our styles of vehicle would take to travel between the cities.
    Another challenge is how to keep everything organized as you’re developing it. We decided to write a “Concordance” for our world, in which we track everything from geopolitical relationships and macroeconomics to the Keeps and their customs of dress. It’s great fun, especially if you enjoyed learning stuff like this in school but never really figured out how to apply it in the real world. The made-up world. Persis. Whatever. You get the picture.
    We hope you enjoy the story as much as we do, and that our efforts to make it come to life are successful. Enjoy!

    Resources

    Wikipedia article on Darius I, accessed 06/11/2012

    Monty Python – Airspeed Velocity of a Swallow, accessed 06/11/2012

  • Why Big Goals Don’t Work – Baby Step Your Way To Success

    Every so often in writer circles, there is talk about goal-setting and success and word-count and other such lofty things.  I repeatedly hear writers moan, “My word count is too low.”  “I need a kick in the pants.”  “THIS month it’ll be different and I’ll write a NaNo length manuscript.”  (NaNo refers to the National Novel Writing Month held every year in November; more information at their website.)  What these goals fail to do is offer a workable way to achievement.  They’re not bad goals, exactly, just ineffective ones.  Why?

    The secret lies in why we don’t write more.  The common misconception is that we don’t write because we’re lazy, or because we’re doing other things, or because that other person got there first and there’s just no use, or because all the good stories have been told and there’s no space for us and our stories.  The reason is rarely because we are physically incapable of writing.

    I’d like to tell you an anecdote.  A professional friend of mine, under deadline for a novel (and her novels are over one hundred thousand words each), became very ill.  After hospitalization, she returned home and was given the wrong medication.  She nearly died.  Her ability to sit up at a desk at all was gone.  She could not type.  She could hardly see the monitor in front of her face.

    What did she do?

    She typed that novel, word by painful word, with one finger.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.

    If that doesn’t blow any excuse out of the water, I don’t know what will.

    What’s the lesson there?  When we have large projects in front of us, the only way to accomplish them is by one bite at a time.  One does not eat a chicken by stuffing the whole thing in one’s mouth.  One has a nibble at a drumstick.  A bite of wing.  One eats the chicken, slowly, swallowing each bite before going on to the next one.  So, too, with writing a novel.  One does not sit down in one sitting and write a novel (unless under rare circumstances).  To have sustainable growth, one gets into the habit of writing a small amount, each day, which add up to a completed manuscript.

    Next time you have the opportunity to make a large goal, why not try taking a step back and set a small one instead?  Maybe, “I’ll write 3 pages a day.”  Or, “I’ll write 1,000 words a day.”  Or even, “I’ll write 3 pages today.”  See if that unlocks some of your potential and gets you onto the page.  That way, at the end of the month, you won’t be one of the writers who laments, “Wow, I had such high hopes for this month but… [fill in the blank].”

    Tap.  Tap.  Tap.

    Write on!

  • Writer Wednesday: Business Cards – Do You Need Them?

    At a recent writing group meeting, one of the members asked me, “Do I need to get business cards?” It’s a good question, and it deserves a good answer. And that answer is not, necessarily, “Yes.”

    The first question to ask ourselves is, “Do I want business cards?” If the answer is, “Yes,” then my answer is, “Then go get them.” If we really want them, then why not get them? That would imply there’s something wrong with having them, or a worry that we might not be important enough to have them. That’s nothing to be concerned with, because there’s nothing bad that will happen if we have a business card. There are no Business Card Police that will come and arrest we if we have one.

    The next question to ask ourselves is, “Why do I want business cards?” What do we want to use them for? This leads to a philosophical question, what is a business card to be used for? It’s something we can give to others so they can contact us. The minimum we’d have on a card is our name and either a phone number or an email address, or maybe just a website. But it’s unlikely we’d give someone a card with no way to contact us and just a pretty picture and a quote (though if that’s what we want on our cards, then go for it).

    Once we know why we want them, for networking or to promote ourselves, the next question is easier: “What do I want on my business cards?” Here are the obvious ones:

    1. Our name

    2. How to contact us (be it a phone or an email address)

    Here’s the less obvious string attached to those two questions: do we want to protect our “real” identity and use a pen name? If we want to protect our identity and don’t yet want to do the work required to launch a pen name, then it’s perfectly permissible to put only our first name on the card. Be prepared for folks to be curious, but all we need to tell them is “This is what I’m comfortable sharing on a business card right now.” Most folks will accept that answer. Using whatever name they were given when they met us will lessen confusion. If we go by “Bob,” then using our internet handle of “Wicked Dog 41” will confuse people. Putting “Bob” and then “wickeddog41@yahoo” works, but make sure that folks can figure out who the heck gave them the card. Otherwise, it loses its effectiveness as a way for them to contact us – which is the whole point of the card to begin with.

    The less obvious question is a little trickier: “What else do I want on my business cards?” These can include:

    1. Our website, if we have one

    2. Our blog(s)

    3. Our Facebook or Facebook page (if we do this, get a unique username and use that instead of the alphabet soup Facebook uses in the beginning)

    4. Our Twitter name or names

    5. Our LinkedIn profile

    6. Any other online presence that we’re part of

    7. A description of who we are an what we do; for example, “Writer,” “Author,” “Creative Designer,” “Web Programmer,” etc.

    8. Some folks I’ve seen use #7 as an opportunity to put something funny or offbeat, such as “Cat Wrangler” or, simply, “Geek.” If that fits with the image we’re trying to project, then by all means, put that too.

    The next question is, “What happens if I have these cool cards and then change my mind about what’s on them?” No problem. We can print up just a few cards, if we decide to do them ourselves with templates from Avery or another similar provider; we can also get cards from somewhere like Vista Print and that’s only 250. Worst case scenario, they go into a drawer or we get creative about changing them (handwriting the changes or even printing up labels to paste over the parts that have changed).

    And the big question: “What if I’m not published yet? Can I still have cards?” Of COURSE we can. What’s the purpose of a business card? So people can contact us. We will make friends and connections on the journey to being published, and presumably, those folks would like to continue to contact us. Giving them a way to do so just makes good sense socially – otherwise we have to handwrite it, and maybe on the back of one of THEIR cards (how embarrassing, no?) Plus, if our handwriting is out of practice because of all the internet usage and typing that we do these days, it’s probably safer to give them a nicely-prepared card rather than an illegible scrawl.

    There’s no reason not to get ourselves business cards and, with a little thought, we can have fun and create a card that reflects ourselves and becomes part of the entire presentation of ourselves. Like resumes, clothing, websites, and blogs, they are simply a reflection of ourselves to the world. The more thought we put into how we want to do that, the better.

    So, the next logical question, now that we’ve cleared out the “why’s,” is “How do we get business cards?” The next thing to decide is, “Do we want to do them ourselves, or buy them?” We’ll take them one at a time.

    If we want to make them ourselves, we can use Microsoft Word or a similar program, or something like Adobe InDesign. I’m going to make the assumption that Word is the software most of us have available, so I’ll explain how to use it. Inside Word, there are templates for Labels; inside that list are a number of pre-made templates for popular business card manufacturers. The ones I use are Avery; 3M and other manufacturers have them as well. Under older versions of word, go to the “Tools” menu to get to the label function; under the new version go to the “Mailings” tab and click on Labels.

    The labels you purchase will have a number associated with them; find that number in the list and select it. Create a new document and edit it from there. We can add graphics or fancy type if we want to; however, remember that it’s more important that it’s legible than fancy. If we use a fancy font for the name, then make sure we use a simple font for the email addresses, phone numbers, etc. Make sure the person to whom we give the card can easily get a hold of us.

    If we prefer to buy cards, a great place to start is Vistaprint. If we keep our eyes peeled, Vistaprint runs regular specials for 250 cards for free. They offer a number of color schemes and graphics. There’s less flexibility than doing your own designs, but they offer a good way of designing the cards and coming up with a quality product. If we choose to, we can also load up our own graphics instead of using the free templates; doing that will cost a little more can simplify the process.

    Whatever we ultimately decide, remember that all of this is to support our writing process. As we make contacts in the industry, and make new friends, business cards can help us build our network. The more thought we put into that, the better off we are. Don’t be afraid to experiment and change cards as time goes on. Nothing is set in stone; it’s okay to have trial runs. After all, the card is simply a tool to facilitate communication.

    Have fun!

  • Monday Morning

    Jackie heard the child’s voice before he saw her a thin high call that cut through his coffee and newspaper, straight past his earbuds and Morning Edition. Pulling the left bud free, he waited a moment.

    Damn kid didn’t appear. “Crap.”

    He stuffed his paper and his iPod into his satchel and rose, joints popping. Every time, every time he came to park, he got interrupted.

    “Maxie!” The cry came again and this time, he saw the girl. Thin and dark-haired, she had tear tracks dried to her face. She was as big as a minute and twice as cute, but unhappy as hell. How the hell was Jackie supposed to help? And who the hell was Maxie?

    He squatted down so he didn’t loom over her. “Lose something, sweetie?”

    She glared at him, all suspicion and mistrust packed into a four-year-old frame. Five, tops. “My cat got out.”

    He sighed. One of those mornings. Figured. He’d just gotten to the Op-Ed page, too. “What’s she look like?”

    “He!”

    Jackie blinked. “Pardon?”

    “Maxie’s a boy!”

    Her aqua jumper had smudges of dirt and a grass stain on it, but she seemed clean enough. All fresh dirt, anyway. “How about I help you?”

    “I’m not to talk to strangers!”

    Modern kids. “Do you have a quarter?”

    “What for?”

    “Well, if you pay me a quarter, I’ll help you. Then we won’t be strangers. You’ll be my boss.”

    She narrowed her eyes, considering. He waited, not rising, though his knee ached like a sore tooth from the position. Finally, she nodded. “All right.”

    They wound their way deeper into the park and found the cat cowering under a bush. He spit when he saw Jackie, but Jackie sighed and dropped his glamour for a moment. The cat blinked and then walked out from the bush, calm as you please.

    After he saw them both back to his bench, he sat down again.

    Ah, mornings. Coffee never tasted so good. He put his earbuds back in, fired up NPR, and paged through to the Op Eds. Now if he could just find a naughty child, he’d finally get some breakfast.

  • Writer Wednesday: Daily Maintenance

    As my daily round brings me back to the first Wednesday of the month, I find that the post I intended to write has evolved. Originally I wanted to discuss writing conferences, since the RT Booklovers Convention is here in Chicago this year. While that is a fabulous thing and I’ll write about it in other places, today I wanted to downshift and return to home base. It’s easy to forget, in all the fuss and bother, that the daily round is a daily round, not a line, and that the things we thought completed come around again and again. And not just laundry or dishes.

    I’ve been working with Julia Cameron’s book Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance and find that, as is usual for Cameron’s work, many of her ideas resonate with me. In particular, one passage jumped off the page at me: “I must write. I must walk. I must pray. I must content myself with small amounts of progress. Above all, I must not binge on drama and despair.”*

    As I talk with other writers and creative people, I find that many of the folks who I talk to assume that creatives must be able to do what they do just because of who they are, because they are creative, and not because of concrete, grounding behaviors that they must invest effort, time and care on an ongoing basis. In addition, the thought process seems to progress to the idea that if we, ourselves, cannot do that kind of thing – prodigious art creation without any real grounding – then we must not be “real” artists.

    This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Regular creative output is like any other kind of output, be it legal briefs, laying bricks, or cooking and cleaning for a family of adults and children and pets. It takes energy, effort, and consistency; it also requires rest and recharge for the creator unless one wants to have an ugly breakdown. And sometimes, despite our best efforts, we end up at breakdown anyway.

    What is the lesson there?

    I think it’s just as Cameron says, above. There are several simple things that, done daily, help us stay on track. It’s like Curly says in the movie City Slickers: you have to find your One Thing (see below). You have to respect your own process enough to know what works for you, and if you don’t know, then you need to find it. I suspect, though, that you probably already know a few of them: get enough sleep, eat clean, write daily, etc. Whatever your “things” are, respect them and do them. It’s the only way I know of to get to where you’re going.

    Write On!

    *Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance, by Julia Cameron; Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, New York; 2006; page 40

  • Sustaining One’s Sense of Humor

    I have had some trying times relative to my job lately.  While it finally culminated in a satisfactory fashion and I’m no longer chained to that desk, I want to share the image that has been my inspiration for the last two months and I remind myself that I am, in fact, numinous, powerful, and smart.

    No matter what little snot-nosed punks who were in diapers when I started working say.

    So there.

    And I have one more thought to give you, before I share my image:  remember that you know what you know.  This world can be challenging, particularly as we labor to bring into being that which has never existed before.  Never forget that you are unique, and that you know things.  You may not know everything, but no one does.  You do, however, know what you know.  And that, in and of itself, is a powerful thing.

  • Deep Point-of-View or “How Do You Really Feel About That?”

    As I learn more about the old writer’s dictum, write, revise, revise, and revise; and as I get practice submitting my work to publishers, I’ve found that one of the hardest parts is when you get to the nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty “let’s clean up this sucker because we’re about to hit ‘send’ to give it to the publisher and it’s time to make sure it’s free of any dumb-dumb errors.”

    Dumb-dumb errors. Kind of like Dumb-Dumb Bullets in Lethal Weapon IV.

    But in all seriousness, I wanted to share with you my magic list of POV [point-of-view] problem words that I got when I attended a self-editing workshop put on by my editor, Tera Kleinfelter, Assistant Managing Editor at Samhain Publishing:

    • assumed 
    • considered 
    • decided 
    • felt 
    • figured 
    • heard 
    • knew 
    • realized 
    • remembered 
    • saw 
    • thought 
    • wondered 
    • worked out

    One of the challenges with writing deep point-of-view is that there are so many different definitions for it, but little concrete advice on how to do it. I have found that doing a “find” command on my manuscript for these words, then rewriting the sentence in which they occur, does wonders for deepening my POV.

    Which leads me to my next point. WHY are these POV problem words? After all, fiction is full of “He felt a shiver,” and “She wondered if he would ever get up the nerve to ask her out.” So why are these words “problems?”

    In deep POV, the objective is to get as deeply as possible into the mind of the character. The better that I, as an author, get at giving the reader the exact thoughts as though my character were thinking them without translation, the better I’m accomplishing my goal of going deep into POV. I do not profess to be an expert that this, by any means, but here’s how I understand that to work. Let’s use the “He felt a shiver,” as an example.

    What is the statement? It’s the author telling the reader what the character is feeling; it’s not the character himself doing it, nor is the author showing the reader anything. (Remember that old saw, “Show, don’t tell”?) “He felt a shiver” could apply to the President of the United States entering a room in which the President of Russia and the King of Monaco are sitting; it could be a spy entering a room in which his target is dancing with the person with whom the spy has fallen in love; it could be a serviceperson discharged from the Army after a tour in Iraq and finding out that his baby brother has been in a car accident. It doesn’t show us anything unique about the character.

    “A spasm shivered up the side of his neck, vibrating all the way into his ear and making his stomach roil with dread.”

    That tells us a lot more about the character. It’s probable, of the three examples I listed above, that it’s the serviceperson finding out about his brother. It’s unlikely that the President is going to report a feeling in his stomach as “dread,” particularly when meeting two other heads of state (although, if it is, you can use this description to “sell” the reader on WHY it’s plausible that the feeling belongs to the President). It’s unlikely it’s a spy, since a trained spy is unlikely to feel dread like that, and certainly not upon seeing the person he loves in the arm of an opponent or an enemy.

    The more directly you can describe for the reader the emotional flavor that is referred to by one of our problem words, the more deeply you are showing the reader the character and, therefore the more deeply you are getting into POV.

    Happy writing!

  • Wiley Wednesday: Life After NaNo

    Those of us who have done NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) share one thing in common, whether or not we actually completed our project or not: there’s a sense of let-down after November is over, a feeling of “what now?” Rest easy, writers; you’re not alone. There are others out there to play with, other projects to tackle, and other crazy goals to set.

    A great place to look, even if you didn’t do NaNo itself, is the “I Wrote a Novel, Now What?” section on the main NaNo site. It has several sections useful to writers of all stripes:

    Revision Advice – After the draft is done, the editing begins. There are as many ways to revise as there are to edit, and this section features excellent suggestions to make the process less painful.

    Revision Pep Talks – never underestimate the power of a good pep talk! Marathoners and long-term Weight Watchers can tell you, attitude is everything; a good pep talk can help give you a well-placed attitude adjustment.

    NaNoWriMo-style Events On the Horizon – I love this section! It is comforting, particularly in the first and second weeks of December, to find that there are others out there doing what you’re doing – or, in some cases, doing WAY more. There are blog-everyday-for-a-month people, editing people, and NaNoNotNovember folks. This is a great place to come to get ideas about where other writers hang out, and what you can do to keep up the madness of NaNo. Momentum’s a beautiful thing.

    Novel Writing Contests Without Entry Fees – This is a great way to test your mettle. Many contests out there do not require entry fees and this is a place to find many of them. Not all of them are for novels, either – the Writer’s Digest “Your Story” contest is 750 words or less – a great way to prime the pump.

    Some Thoughts on Publishing – This is a very useful section. Rather than pimping for the publishing industry, it contains links to some excellent advice sites, particularly helpful for avoiding scams.

    More OLL Goodness – Last, but not least, this is the place to come to find out what else the crazy folks at the Office of Letters and Light (the organization that brings you NaNoWriMo every year) are up to.

    Bottom line, if you love to write, there are others out there who love it too. Even if you don’t have an in-person writing group in your very own town, with the internet, you don’t have to. Writers all over the world connect and support each other every day. What are you waiting for? Get out there and write!

  • Thursday Thirteen

    Today I have pictures from a hot air balloon ride. Happy Thursday!

    Darla M Sands

    Today I have definitions from herbalism.  Enjoy!

    A. Catherine Noon

  • To NaNo or Not to NaNo

    NaNoWriMo is that annual writing frenzy that occupies many writers across the globe.  Some finish, others don’t, but what the participants know that non-participants haven’t learned yet is that it’s the writing that’s important.

    I’ve spoken to many people about NaNo in the past, and they’ve responded with statements like “Well, yeah, it’s 50,000 words, but is it any GOOD?”  They look self-satisfied as though that comment should be enough to put the silly idea to rest.

    They’re missing the point.  When you write 50,000 or more words of anything, you get better as you go on.  You learn how to sustain long-term output.  You learn how to let the words come out, whether or not you’re in the mood.  The thing about writing a novel is that it’s a long process, it’s not something you can do in a night. 

    On the other hand, it IS something that you can do whether or not you are an author yet.  It’s the process of doing it that makes you an author, not whether some external third party bonked you on the head and said “Thus I make thee an AUTHOR!”

    So, should you NaNo?

    My answer is, do you want to write a novel?

    If your answer is yes, then my answer is too.  Why?  Because making the attempt will teach you a lot about yourself.  Many writers have become addicted to the mental masturbation of telling others they’re writers, and saying they’re writers, and talking about what they’re writing; however, they don’t actually write.  It’s hard to sell a novel that you haven’t written, and all the talking in the world won’t write it for you.  The only way to become a novelist is to, well, write novels.  And the only way to do THAT, friends, is to write.

    Wish I had some magic potion for you, but I don’t.  That’s all there is to it.

    So, I ask you:  do YOU NaNo?