Sneak Peek at Book 2

Brilliant idea: Put the first chapter of book 2, Eye of the Sword, as a teaser at the end of book 1, Breath of Angel. A sneak peek. Lots of books do this, so I’m surprised we didn’t think of it sooner.

So last week, I stopped down revisions halfway through book 2 and made sure the first chapter was ready for prime time. After I sent it to my editor, of course, the fine-toothed comb ran through it, and I got it back with revision suggestions. Minor and quickly done I’m glad to say. Now it’s off and running – to press, I hope. Release date still scheduled for June 21.

Meanwhile, here’s your sneak peek at the first few lines of Eye of the Sword.

“As Trevin stepped into the seedy tavern at Drywell, his hand instinctively slid toward his dagger. Not that he was daft enough to challenge the three well-muscled strangers who had cornered his younger brother. Nor did Dwin look as if he wanted to be rescued.”

The rest of the chapter will appear at the end of book 1. The full version of book 2 is due out March 2012. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First step: finish editorial revisions of book 2 (deadline March 15, 2011!).

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Read Lies, Find Truth

“The primary duty of literature is to tell us the truth about ourselves by telling us lies about people who never existed.” – Stephen King

Good fiction sneaks into the heart through the back door. As story draws us in, our walls come down, and we find ourselves living in a different world. Contemporary, historical, futuristic, or mythical and magical, good fiction sweeps us into a challenging world where we struggle with universal conflicts. Where we find truth.

I’m fascinated by the fact that different readers find different truths in the same story. Each reader brings his or her own vision to it, reads with his or her own filter. We see what we’re ready to see, hear what we’re ready to hear. Sometimes we see themes the author wasn’t even aware of. To me, that’s part of the magic of a good story.

I tell lies every day. But I also see truth through them. I hope readers will too. So … I’m off to spin the lie of the day!

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Bubba-Sized Debut

How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy debuts this week from Crystal Allen of the Elevensies. Read all about it:

 ”Thirteen-year-old LAMAR WASHINGTON is the maddest, baddest most spectacular bowler ever at  Striker’s Bowling Paradise. In addition to hanging out at Striker’s all summer, Lamar vows to change his  image from dud to stud by finding a way to make money and snag a super fine Honey. So when a crafty  teenage thug invites him to use his bowling skills to hustle, Lamar seizes the opportunity. As his judgment  blurs, Lamar makes an irreversible error, damaging every relationship in his life. Now he must figure out  how to mend those broken ties, no matter what it will cost him.”

Congratulations, Crystal! Long live your novel!

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De + Butt (No Not That Kind)

I’m talking “butt” as in “a blow or thrust with the head or horns,” a head-first kind of meaning. It comes from French “buter,” to knock against. Think of a bull, head-down, charging. Or two rams crashing into each other. Or an author heading into the publishing arena with a first novel.

Okay, maybe the bull-and-ram image is a bit too violent when it comes to authors. But that kind of “butt” is where the word “debut” comes from. Back to the French: de + buter = begin. Which has come to mean “introduce, present to the public for the first time.” So, butting in here, I offer you Kristi Cook, another Elevensie presenting to the public her first YA novel, Haven:

 ”One month into her junior year, sixteen-year-old Violet McKenna transfers to the Winterhaven School in  New York’s Hudson Valley, looking forward to new classmates who will not know her deepest, darkest  secret: strange, foreboding visions of the future. But Winterhaven has secrets of its own that run far deeper  than Violet’s. Everyone there–every student, every teacher–has psychic abilities. Soon Violet has a new  circle of friends, a new life, and maybe even a boyfriend–Aidan Gray. Only there’s more to Aidan than  meets the eye. And once she learns the horrible truth, there’s no turning back from their destiny and  common enemy–if only they confront their destiny without destroying each other first.”

Congratulations, Kristi!

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Dropped Stitches

We were knitters, me and my MFA writing group. Besides being intensely interested in our pursuit of writing, we discovered we were knitters. For our graduate gift to our advisers, we knitted winter scarves, a tribute not only to our advisers, but also to the frigid, snow-heaped Januarys we spent in Vermont.

Knitting turned out to be a real-life analogy for writing. One of the Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty, wonderful writer Carolyn Coman, once said, “Writing a novel is like knitting an argyle sock the size of a football field.” She was exactly right.

One mistakes a beginning knitter dreads is dropping a stitch. It makes a hole in the piece you’re knitting, and the hole gets bigger as the dropped stitch unravels. You have to undo the rows and go back to pick up the stitch you dropped.

The same thing happens in writing. The characters, settings, symbols, and theme(s), are knitted together in plot and subplot, forming the inner and outer arc of the story. Those threads have to weave in and out and show up logically throughout the novel. Then they have to tie together satisfactorily at the end.

I’ve been going cross-eyed for a couple of weeks, finding the dropped stitches in novel #2, Eye of the Sword. Holes had appeared, and I had to go back and deal with them. I’ve actually removed a couple of threads and woven others in differently.

How did I know a thread needed to be removed or woven in differently? When I backed off I saw the threads didn’t fit the overall pattern. Every thread has to fit as closely as possible to the pattern, the journey of the hero or heroine – their theme, their goal, their struggle.

So . . . it’s back to the argyle sock. I think I’m on the 20-yard line, nearing the goal.

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Rival Debut

Congrats to Elevensies member Sara Bennett Wealer on the release of her debut YA novel, Rival.

 

 RIVAL is a high-stakes duet between two high school seniors–once friends, now enemies–who are  preparing to go up against each other in a major singing competition. To Brooke, winning means  escaping the in-crowd for life as a professional musician. Kathryn, meanwhile, sees victory as the key to  a much-needed college scholarship. As the big day nears, each girl must face her fears about the future,  her scars from the past, and the fact that the person she hates most might just be the best friend she ever  had.

May RIVAL be unrivaled!

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Swash and Buckle

“At the start of his lessons, a student asked his swordmaster, ‘Where is the best place to be in a swordfight?’ The veteran answered, ‘Anywhere else will do.’” – Anonymous

The quotes I’ve used the past few weeks are from Swashbuckling by Richard Lane, a guide to stage combat. ‘Swash’ means swagger; ‘buckler’ is a small shield. (FYI, the book’s text is great, but most of the pictures are disappointingly dark and not helpful at all.) I’ve been reading it to help me create three fight scenes in Angelaeon novel 2, Eye of the Sword.

What I’ve learned is that any type of fight – at least on stage, screen, or pages of a novel – is a mini-story. We don’t care about the fight unless we care about the characters involved. (Fight scenes are an excellent opportunity to reveal character.)  Motivation must be believable – after all, these characters are willing to risk loss of life and limb. And a fight has a beginning, middle, and end. Sound familiar, writers? A fight is a scene, a mini-story in itself.

So it’s back to revisions for me. I’m tussling with a manuscript today, fighting to conquer an unruly draft. En garde!

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Delectable Debuts

Celebrating Elevensies again! Congratulations to Ty Roth, Chris Rylander, and Karen Mahoney on the release of their debut novels. Get a taste below:

 

 So Shelly by Ty Roth: “Until now, high school junior John Keats has only tiptoed near the edges of the  vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy Gordon Byron. That is until their mutual friend, Shelly,  drowns in a sailing accident.”

 

 

 

 

 The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets The Sopranos in this laugh-a-minute  mystery.”

 

 

 

 

 Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney: “When the darkest outcasts of Faerie abduct her best friend, Donna finally  has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by a half-fey  dropout, she races to save her friend – even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist  community fought to the death to protect.”

Enjoy!

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How Badly Do You Want It?

“Between the stages of apprenticeship and mastership there lie long and eventful years of untiring practice….Practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever increasing intensity….The way to the goal is not to be measured! Of what importance are weeks, months, years?” (Eugen Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery as quoted in Swashbuckling by Richard Lane)

What is it you want to do?

How badly do you want it?

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The Apprentice’s Question

“In life we are all apprentices; if we’re lucky, the cycle of learning never stops.” – Richard Land, Swashbuckling

I just finished an interview to be posted on June 21, the release date for Breath of Angel. The interviewer asked what surprised me about getting my first novel published. My mind ran through a list of things: so many editors and proofers and their fine-toothed combs, the edits I was asked to make – and made grrrrowling, the shock of a book cover that didn’t quite fit my novel. But as I pondered the question, I realized that one of the big surprises was how long it took to find an agent and publisher.

In 2004, I got my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I first began writing Breath of Angel (under a different title). I began pitching the novel to agents and publishers even before I graduated. It took me five years to find a great agent and another year for her to find me a publisher. All this time, I re-visioned and rewrote my novel. It was hard not to get discouraged, especially when other friends were getting published. I wondered what was wrong my novel? Why couldn’t it find a publisher?

Bingo. Right questions, apprentice. Exactly right. Now that my novel is in publishable form, I realize I was blind to the shortcomings of my story seven years ago. It wasn’t ready. I’ve learned a ton about writing novels by doing the hard work necessary to get it into shape – both before and after getting an editor.

Writing novels is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done. It’s also excruciating. One of my mentors told me that each novel teaches you how to write that novel. The next novel will have its own new set of challenges. I’m finding that to be true as I revise book two, Eye of the Sword.

Somerset Maugham said, “Only a mediocre writer is always at his best.” I am an apprentice. If I’m lucky, the learning will never stop.

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