I'm moving this blog from here to my WordPress blog, for several reasons. It's more customisable, and my main reason for choosing blogger was ease of finding themes; I've actually found more that I like for WordPress. :P
All prior entries and comments have been imported and can be found here.
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As I won't be using this blog anymore, I've disabled comments.
See you at the new place! :)
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 9:38 AM
So I finished up the outline (after having it ruthlessly shredded by my fiance/writing partner Alan Morgan) and have started working on the actual (re)writing for Stronger than the Night.
Currently, I'm standing at:
Stronger than the Night
7466 / 100000 (7.47%)
I have some other writing to get done. I've a few articles I volunteered to write for Evolution, along with sorting out stuff for A&B.
I just need to get back into the "write every day" routine vs. the "write every other other day or two." Then again, that's still more than I've written regularly in the past, oh, couple of years, so I suppose I oughtn't complain too much... :P
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 8:09 AM
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
So I checked the email box I formerly used exclusively for submissions, as I needed to double-check rights on an article contract. I never check this box anymore, as I switched to using my main gmail account for it last spring and any submissions I had out from it, I'd queried with the new address.
Anyway, I find a rejection from an anthology I'd submitted to in 2004. The editor commented that the character's behavior was unconvincing and unrealistic. (Funny, people who read it prior to my submitting didn't think so, but whatever.)
But, that's not what bothers me. Cause even if I don't agree with it, I appreciate it when an editor takes time to comment on my work.
Closing line? "You would benefit from attending [publisher's short fiction workshop]."
Which, when I go look at it on their website, is $500.
... Excuse me?
Am I the only one who considers this trollish, near-scamming, and absolutely unacceptable? Cause, look, I don't really care when they collect my email address from submissions and put me on their mailing list for stuff like this. Usually, you can unsubscribe if you don't want to receive the info, and all's good.
But to reject a story and tell the author she should take their class? Uh. No. Sorry. Fuck off and die.
*puts another market on the do-not-submit list*
*sighs*
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 7:29 AM
(x-posted from the LJ. Originally posted 02-0-06.)
For the first time in nearly three years, I believe I can do it. Deep down, I believe.
I used to believe that I could--that I *would*--be published. That I'd manage to make it. Break out. Affect change, if even in my own quiet little way. Even a tiny pebble dropped into the waves ripples outward, after all.
I don't know exactly what happened, or maybe it was everything combined... but something in me *broke* three years ago. Cause I'd try to tell myself it was true, try to force myself to believe it, but it was like my heart was ... empty. Like where there'd once been a well of hope and determination, there was a gaping hole... the abyss.
I don't know what changed. I don't know if it was the realisation I made a few weeks ago regarding writing, or if that was only the catalyst... but I have hope again. Determination. And confidence.
I'll do it. I *know* I will... and this time it's not me parroting words in a vain effort to convince myself. I *believe* it.
And that... that feeling is euphoric.
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 7:28 AM
(x-posted from the LJ. Originally posted 01-21-06.)
So. I've been back to working on Stronger recently. This actually happened about four or five days after I made my prior entry regarding writing, but I've been busy and haven't gotten around to it. But... it's another, very large piece of the puzzle.
While working on one of the subplots, I realised I needed to reference old notes, because I couldn't quite remember what I'd originally planned. Except that said notes weren't notes; they were part of an IM transcript from January 2003. Probably a couple weeks after I'd finished Stronger, if I'm not mistaken.
Anyway. They were, unsurprisingly, conversations with Robert about Stronger, the world setting, later books, etcetera. This time, though, I noticed something I hadn't.
Usually when I brainstorm with people, they either tell me what I've got already is good, or make suggestions to improve it.
Robert didn't. Robert leapt into the story like he was part of the writing. Snippet from the logs:
Nonny says:
How would you feel about being a main or secondary character in a novel? With him as mage? *grins*
Robert says:
ANd he has the same realistic attitude to his world that I did to mine where I knew how it worked.
Robert says:
Ooh neat neat neat! You mean a few years later when he grows up and is teen magician?
Nonny says:
Yep.
Robert says:
And gets a girlfriend?
Nonny says:
Later on in the series.
Robert says:
Ooh purr!
Nonny says:
No, love, I was going to keep him single forever. /sarcasm
Robert says:
I could see his answer to 'don't cross kreshida and kreshida' being as simple as a vasectomy if he's in love with her.
Nonny says:
Oh yeah--WOW.
Nonny says:
Didn't think of that.
Nonny says:
Didn't think he'd get a lady kreshida
Robert says:
She could be human or kreshida, but if she's kreshida and that happens he'd get a vasectomy, not rely on condoms. They fail.
Robert says:
and another Queen would make the kreshida world that rough.
Nonny says:
Yep--oooooh that could almost be worth doing, though.
Robert says:
The healed kreshida magicians would still have a Dark Court and Cassandra still lead it.
Robert says:
Yeah. I don't know what your concept is but it'll be fun!
Robert says:
Gods.
Robert says:
Nonny, the parent that's kreshida -- is that another Abomination?
Robert says:
Which is kreshida? His mother or his father?
Robert says:
If it's both they hid him.
I'd never finished a full-length novel until I joined FM and brainstormed with Robert and others. The farthest I ever got before stalling out was about 30k. I wrote Sanctuary, Mercenary, Bridge of Faith, and Stronger all with that kind brainstorming.
So, what happened when it was gone? When I didn't have anybody telling me what to do?
... Yeah.
It's not that there was anything wrong with the brainstorming in and of itself. As much as I'm loathe to admit it, I probably owe him an apology, as I've accused him of sabotaging my writing (although I don't believe deliberately) in the past.
*sighs*
I wish I'd been able to figure this out before. It would've saved me years of head-pounding and heartache. But, I've made a lot of progress in a lot of ways since making these realisations. I don't think I'm out of the woods yet, not by any stretch of the imagination... but I think I'm further along than I was before.
Have the courage and be yourself,
Forget your heros, believe in yourself
Find the right way that leads you to the end,
The end of this control
Until your soul is free....right now!
-- "Believe In Yourself" / Girls Under Glass
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 7:26 AM
(x-posted from the LJ ... originally posted 01-07-06)
I think most everybody who knows me knows I've been having trouble with writing for quite some time. As in, several years, at this point. (Gods, it's hard to believe this much time has gone by.) I've been trying to figure out why for the longest time. Most recently, I'd attributed part of it to the difference in atmosphere between early Forward Motion (from the time I joined) and Evolution. IE, lack of activity, difficulty finding people to brainstorm, etc. While that's certainly a contributing factor, and something that needs to be (and is being) addressed as a matter of course, it's not the main issue.
I think I figured it out the other day.
It's kind of odd how it came about, actually. I was thinking about magic, and how I know people who are able to trust what they sense in the magical/psychic "world" without doubting themselves. I haven't been able to do that, for the most part. I talk with others, get their opinion, check it out ... basically, validation. I have trouble believing myself.
And then it struck me. I do the same thing with writing. I had the same trouble I'm having now before I joined FM and got with a group of people who gave me encouragement and support. I brainstormed Stronger with Robert and other people in BN course... and got used to that. Very used to people being there for me to toss ideas off of ... and it wasn't even that I needed alternative suggestions all the time. Sometimes it was just enough to say, "Yup, you're going in the right direction. Keep it up."
And... well. That's a problem. Because I don't, at the core, trust my own judgement. I've known for a long time that I have issues with needing permission. Even when I was a kid, I didn't dare do things for fear that I might get in trouble. I was the little girl who went to her friend's sleepover party and wouldn't want a particular TV show with them the next morning because my parents didn't let me watch it at home. And it's not just stuff like that, it was even things I knew for a fact were okay. I still have trouble with that. Like, going out on my own without Morgan telling me it's okay.
I guess I have issues with (in)dependence. And that's a hard thing for me to say, because ... well. I'm not exactly a weak-willed quiet woman here!
I just... I knew about it on the magical level. And I knew about it on the personal. And I've been working on it. But I didn't think it stretched out to my writing, too. Cause it's not like I'm not confident. To be honest, I know at least as much, if not more, than most of the other writers I hang out with ... yet I need permission/validation. I guess that's been the problem. Because before, at FM, there were people that I considered my "superiors," as it were. People I could go to, ask questions, get answers... and that's not the case at Evo. If anything, I've been put in the position of the "superior," and that's a little odd for me.
*sigh*
In a strange way, though, it's ... empowering to have made the recognition. Because knowing about it... I can change it. I couldn't when I didn't know quite what the problem was. Now that I do ... I can start to move forward again. I've been treading water these past few years and, well, I'm sick of it.
Onward!
(Should I be disturbed that I can psychoanalyse myself like this? o.O)
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 7:14 AM
I went looking for an old post of mine earlier this evening to show a friend, as I didn't feel like explaining my stance on vampire stereotypes for the thousandth time. I wrote this on Evolution over a year ago, but I like it enough and think it's relevant enough to repost. :)
~@~
Let's try the axe murderer.
Or the teen characters whose parents were obviously sleeping around with paramecium.
Wait a sec. That's an insult to paramecium, who're much more intelligent ...
To be honest, I don't read that much horror. My preferences are dark fantasy and vampire fiction rather than straight out horror, mainly because I don't tend to like common horror themes. Stephen King's Pet Semetary was good, it made me think, but it's not a book I'd want to read more than once because it was depressing, and this has been my experience with much of horror.
I've had the difference between horror and dark fantasy defined to me as this: In horror, generally speaking, the monsters are the bad guys; in dark fantasy, the monsters aren't necessarily so. I tend to write my "monsters" (vampires, weres, demons, etc.) sympathetically, and the real monsters are more often than not human. (I suppose that really ought say something about my outlook in terms of humanity. LOL!) I just cannot identify with a close-minded human character whose first reaction to something non-human is "kill."
That said, I do like books in which said character is forced to confront said viewpoint and change; Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake is a good example of this.
But, back to cliches.
I find vampire fiction to be chock-full of cliches. Most vampire fiction relies at least some on traditional vampire legends and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and while I realize a superpowered character needs some weaknesses and drawbacks ... I honestly find it a cop-out to focus soley on traditional myth.
For example, garlic and crosses repelling or actively damaging vampires. I've never understood this, because ... well, why? Just because you're undead doesn't mean you're susceptible to harm by random items, and I find the vulnerability to crosses to be, in a sense, offensive. See, why just crosses and not all religious items? Granted, you could argue that Christians view reaching for their cross as reaching to God for protection, whereas people of other religions might be likely to take a more active stance, but this doesn't really hold water. In LKH's books, her vampires were susceptible to, I believe, all religious items, as she had a scene in one of the early books where she showed people on the cop squad wearing Stars of David and miniature Torahs for protection, and mentioned that it was the belief, not the actual item, that protected them.
However. This does bring up an important question.
Why does religious faith harm vampires? Life beyond death does not imply to me lack of religion. I can't imagine that all vampires are atheists. It'd make an interesting story, or at least part of a book, to have a new vampire question religion, and perhaps have his prior God turn on him because he's no longer human. (I think I might write that, actually.)
I've also had a problem with the susceptibility to sunlight and the reliance on a coffin. Look. In most vampire fiction, you've got the clues right up in front of you and it would take an idiot not to figure it out. (Or someone who flat out doesn't believe in vampires, but that's almost a cliche in itself in terms of vampire fiction. A little bit of unbelief is fine, but if you've got strange shit going on, and all it takes is to put 2 and 2 together ... no. That's when it starts becoming character stupidity.)
There's probably a few others I'm forgetting about at the moment, but these are the biggies, in my opinion. My vampires don't have these weaknesses. The closest thing that I have to the coffin is that my world-walking vampires wear a small leather pouch around their neck, or someplace else on their person, containing soil from their home world. And there's a reason behind this. A lot of my vampires are mages, and their home soil contains blood energy, such as the soil of our planet contains earth energy. The soil doesn't affect their abilitiy to survive, simply enhances their magical ability.
Fear is fundamental in horror, and to a certain extent in dark fantasy. If the only reason the character doesn't know what the fuck is going on is because he's a moron, he loses reader sympathy and there is absolutely no fear involved. But if the common vampire clues aren't there and the characters have no reason to assume "vampire," it seems to me it's a lot scarier.
Yes, because I don't conform to the cliches, I end up with very high-powered characters. Some might say overpowered because at first glance, there aren't any heavy drawbacks. Thing is, I depend a lot on the strengths and weaknesses of personality, probably more than many other authors. Sure, you can be stronger and faster than a human, but if you're arrogant about it, you may well slip up and not realize a cunning trap. Also, you can be outwitted. Brute force isn't always the answer.
That said, I often do run my vampires as the main/side characters, and, when that's the case, I don't give them an easy out because of their advantages. I still depend just as much on personality, and there's an important factor to keep in mind: No matter how big you are, there's always someone out there bigger than you. 
I think I end up with a bigger story with a larger scope when I avoid the cliches and easy outs, and ... I have a lot more fun with it.
And I hope it's a lot more enjoyable to readers, too. 
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 1:12 AM
Saturday, October 01, 2005
I've been down with the flu all week, so really haven't been able to do much in the way of writing. *snarl*gnash*
Should probably sit down and finish reading through Stronger, though... if I can't write... dammit, I should be able to at least edit! :P
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 4:06 PM
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Okay. It's been awhile since I've updated this... must really remember that this damn thing, like, exists. :-
I've been somewhat busy recently. All right. Maybe that's a bit of an understatement.
Towards end of EvoLunacy, after realising that I wasn't going to finish plotting out To Weather the Storm in time to finish the marathon, I decided to go through my unfinished stories folder. I have a very bad habit of starting stories and losing interest in them. Usually, if I don't finish them within ... mmm ... a week or so of starting them, I don't finish them.
One specific story jumped out at me. Wings of Steel:
Cursed to flightlessness, Princess Rhuigra of Vhrika is an abomination in the eyes of her people. When her father dies, she is barred from taking her rightful place as Queen. The curse can only be broken by Death's Kiss.
Rhuigra travels to the Land of the Dead to beseech its King for his aid ... but she didn't plan on two things:
The kiss didn't work. And now she's falling for the King.
I started the story about a year ago. I left off about 2.8k into the story when I got distracted with another project and never actually got back to it. I've always loved the story, the concept, and the characters... but I didn't really know where I was going with it.
So I dusted it off and started working on it again. I figured I'd wrap it up in a couple thousaund words, no big.
7k later ...
It's 11k long. At this point, I'm pretty certain it's going to hit at least 20k. Perhaps longer. I have a number of plot points I haven't hit yet, and it's developing oddly. After it's finished, I may need to evaluate whether or not it's worth it to add scenes and subplots to bump it up to novel length. (If so, it'll be the first time I've ever done that. I've known a good few writers who work best writing a 40-60k draft and then edit in enough material to bring it up to 80k+, but I've never thought it was something I could do.)
So I'll see where that goes. I'm posting it in installments under a custom filter on my LiveJournal. (Any of y'all who're on LJ and would like to read, let me know. :) Which gets amusing, because I've apparently a good few people addicted to the story. After a couple years, I forgot how much encouragement like that helped me. I mean, it's one thing for someone to take a look at your wordcount and cheer you on and quite another for them to read what you're writing and want more. (This isn't to say that the former isn't helpful... but it's not helpful enough for me.)
(IE: Keep up the threats, guys. It works. ;)
Aside from that, I've also started working on an erotica story, tentatively titled Vesper's Call; I'm aiming at Ellora's Cave style and length, but I'm not sure quite how that will turn out. I'll have fun writing it, anyway. It's somewhat nice to actually let go and write without the outline for once--but the story is more for fun than anything else. (Not to say what I outline isn't fun... but with my usual work, I'm challenging myself, whereas this is just relaxation. And prelude to good pouncy fun with the male. ^_^)
I'm also teaching Above and Beyond, an intensive novel-writing course based on the principles of Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel, over at Evolution. While teaching the course, I'm also doing the homework with another project, as of yet untitled:
When Lucifer rebelled against Heaven ... God lost. Cast down into Hell, he is all but helpless to stop Lucifer when he sends the Christ child to bring about Apocalypse.
Except Christ rebels. Enraged, Lucifer arranges his crucifixion. The one thing he doesn't plan on: Christ's martyrdom.
Now, hundreds of years later, Lucifer has chosen another soul to act as his son, the Second Coming: Mordred.
Foreseeing his nemesis's actions, God begins gathering forces to battle Lucifer and stop Armageddon. First is his young pupil, Morgan le Fay, who acts as his voice on the physical plane.
I figure the refresher will be good for me ... and some of the things I'm including are based on the workbook exercises, which I haven't done all of. So, should definitely be interesting... and I'm really looking forward to mangling Arthurian legend. Bwahahahaha...
I'm also going to be running a workshop in October covering application of breakout principles and theory to short fiction. Cause it's entirely possible to do so, and better overall for your work. IMO.
I've also founded a weekly short story prompt community on LiveJournal, Bunny_Stew. Take a look; I'm rather pleased with how it's turning out. :)
Add to that I'm doing the usual adminny stuff over on Evo ... yeow. OK. I guess I have been busy. And considering my personal life has been interesting of late ... and that I'm going to be getting a job once we have the car on the road, given impact of said personal things ... yeah ...
*sighs*
I'm never happy unless I'm insanely busy, am I?
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 9:57 PM
This weekend, we're holding a Last-Minute Marathon over at Evolution. If you're doing the Lunacy and are behind--or just are a marathon junkie!--hop on over and join in!
(I'll be in chat most of the weekend, esp. at nights, writing my eyeballs out. This could make typing difficult. Anyone wanting to hop in with me and Word War would be muchly appreciated. ;)
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 1:54 PM
