roh morgon

~ musings of a moonlight writer

I had decided not to commit to this blogfest, especially in light of the fact that I missed the Weather Blogfest and barely made it to the Rainy Day Blogfest (you can check out my entry here if you missed it).

But then this scene came flooding into my head, and I had to write it.

When ya gotta write, ya gotta write.

So here’s my entry for Dawn Ember’s Word Paint Blogfest – be sure to visit her site to read the other entries.

This is an alternate scene from my WIP, Watcher, the story of Sunny Martin and her struggles to survive in a personal hell from which she cannot escape.

Hope it’s been a little while since you had breakfast (or lunch).

~~~~~~~~~

A red river tumbles over me, creating eddies around the angles of my body. I lift my head from the crimson flow, gasping, choking, as I struggle to escape its sticky clutches. My arms claw the air in vain, and when I open my eyes, all I can see is a wall of blood bearing down on me. As it crushes me, shoving me deeper and deeper into the thick torrent, I scream.

I’m still screaming as I climb from the coma-like sleep that the sun forces upon me every morning. The horror coursing through me is nothing compared to the hunger burning through my veins. It rips through my belly into my throat, its fiery need sending waves of agony into my very soul.

Nicolas appears next to the bed, concern etching his brow.

“Oh, Nicolas! What’s happening to me?!” I cry as I fling myself into his arms.

“Sshh, my sweet. It is just a blooddream.” He strokes my hair, as though calming a frightened horse. My body responds, as it always does to him, and begins to relax.

He eases me back, his eyes searching mine, and asks, “Haven’t you had them before?”

“No,” I whisper. “Never.”

His silence tells me this is unusual, and I can visualize the checklist in his head as he adds another item to the list of my oddities.

The hunger flashes through me, reminding me that it will never let me go. I press myself tight against his chest, and as he wraps his arms around me, I know he’ll never let me go, either.

It’s a heavy price for his love, and sometimes I wonder how long I can pay it.

~~~~~~~~~

© 2010 Roh Morgon. All rights reserved.

(special note - today is a nine-day for those who care about such things!)

It’s kinda hard to think about rain right now. It’s over 100° F  outside and temps are expected to reach 103° by this evening. Not a cloud in the sky…

But today is the Rainy Day Blogfest, hosted by Christine at The Writer’s Hole, so to help remember what it’s like to be cool and damp, I’m featuring a short excerpt from my WIP Watcher. We join Sunny just after she’s had ‘dinner’ and is feeling content for a change.

To help set the mood, here’s a quiet little piano tune by Justin St. Charles and Nine Inch Nails:

It starts to sprinkle as I run along the shoreline of Lake Cachuma. I don’t care. Being wet doesn’t bother me and neither does the cold. In fact, sometimes I find the cold invigorating. Warmth, on the other hand, is quite pleasurable, especially on the inside after a hot meal. Warm days are great too, if I can protect my skin from the direct sun, which isn’t easy. People look at you funny when you’re wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck and gloves and it’s 90 degrees outside.

Jogging back to the BMW, I catch the scent of wild pig and veer off to follow it. Pigs are tough to kill because they’re so low to the ground and their barrel-shaped bodies are difficult to grip. Their necks are short and stout – breaking them is not very feasible. And they have tusks, right near my target area. I did kill one once, though, a young adult, and I thoroughly enjoyed his buttery-sweet blood.

Scent trails are easier to follow when the weather’s damp. I detect several now and slow as the scents become stronger. Weaving through the bushes, I freeze – foraging along a marshy area are three adult females and six babies. I watch for a moment, then melt into the brush.

That is one thing I will not do. I will not kill mothers or babies – of any species.

Retracing my steps, I pick up my trail again and continue on to the car. Between the deer and my twenty-mile run, I’m finally relaxed, and I smile from the sheer joy of being in the woods.

The sprinkling has turned to rain, and I stop and lift my face to the sky. I rejoice as the drops hit and trail down my cheeks, and open my mouth to see if I can feel them on the inside as well. Rain dances across the leaves and rocks in a liquid ballet, and I listen as each drop makes its own music, creating a soft woodland symphony.

Laughing, I shake my head, flinging water off my hair to add to the concert, and take off running again.

© 2010 Roh Morgon. All rights reserved.

~~~~~~~~~

Yeah! You read that right!

But you might be asking, “Uh, third place in what?”

Miss Snark’s First Victim August Secret Agent Contest, that’s what!

The ’secret agent’ was revealed earlier this morning: Cameron McClure, of the Donald Maass Literary Agency!

I’m stunned – she is at the top of my intended submission list! I had actually planned to start querying by the end of the month.

Entrants for the contest were to submit the first 250 words of a completed novel. Submission windows were limited in both time and number of entries. A total of forty-four entries were submitted.

There were a number of great ones. I’m hoping the other winners will announce soon who they were – I’d love to visit their sites to see more of their writing!

In the meantime, I’m off to do my happy dance!

Tessa’s got another fun blog event going on! It’s a bloghop to help readers and writers introduce themselves. This is what Tessa says about it:

The Life Fantastic

Do you write fantasy stories/novels (any subgenre welcome)? Do you read/review fantasy books?  Maybe you create fantasy art?  Join the list (at the bottom of this post) and meet other like-minded creatures of the web!
~~~~~~~~~

Here’s my bit:

Paranormal. Dark Fantasy. Swords and Sorcerers. Dragons and Mythical Lands. With a sprinkling of Aliens and Other Worlds.

That’s what I love to read, and what I love to write.

I just finished reading NYT bestseller Shiver and its sequel, Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater. OMG – Stephanie Meyer, move over. New werewolves have come to town, and they’re…disturbing. Heartbreaking. Wonderful in that wolfish sort of way.  How good is all this? Linger was just released in the US. It hit NUMBER 1 on the NYT bestseller list its first week!

Check out Maggie’s website. She has two cool book trailer videos that she created and wrote the music for. They make me all shivery, just like the books. I’ll be doing a more extensive review of the Wolves of Mercy Falls series in the near future, but for now, I only have 3 words: Go. Read. Them.

OK – this blog is supposed to be about visitors getting acquainted with me. Hmm…I hate to reinvent the wheel, so if you want to know a bit about me, hit these two links:

bio

11 things about me (skip past the award stuff to get to the list)

And if you want to know what I write, here’s a taste:

The Monster’s Growl (this is a piece about a minor character from my main WIP, Watcher. He was also recently featured in Tessa’s Blogfest of Death).

I have several excerpts from Watcher posted, as well as one from my MG short story, Fur Before Feathers. You can check them out in the links at the left under “this site.”

That’s it for now. See ya around in the blogosphere.
.

~~~~~~~~~

.

Also – I just discovered I’m signed up for Lisa’s blog hop as well. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but I do recall Mr. Linky and I having a knock-down drag-out fight when I signed up on Tessa’s…so without further ado, here’s Lisa’s bloghop info:

REMINDER – Character Contest #1 ends TOMORROW (Saturday July 17) at midnight! Don’t miss out on a chance to win cool book stuff!

~~~~~~~~~

Characters. They literally make or break a story. You can have plot up the bazoo, but if you don’t have characters that entrap the readers, that suck them in and make their hearts race, you have nothing but black marks on a page.

I just finished critiquing nine stories ranging in length from 3,000 to 14,000 words (more than half of them were 10k+). These stories will be published by the Fresno Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers in our first annual anthology this fall.

So I’ve been paying extra attention to character development lately, not only in our anthology stories, but others as well.

Some stories contain dynamic characters that screech up to the reader, slam open the door, and say, “Jump in!” Then they careen down the road at madcap speed, the reader hanging on for dear life, giggling or sobbing at every turn.

In others, sedate characters stroll by, politely asking the reader if they’d like to go for a walk as they pass. The journey can be pleasant and relaxing, or a boring sedative to fall asleep with.

And sometimes the characters are confined by the writer to a park bench, only watching the events unfold around them and not even noticing when the reader asks to join them. Emotionless, unable to interact with their environment, their apathy quickly drives the reader away.

So how do you turn those wallflowers at the prom into the dancing stars that everyone admires and wants to be with? What can you do to turn them from a drab grey to vivid splashes of red, blue, and yellow?

Let ‘em speak. Give them a voice. Allow them to cringe in pain, to frown in annoyance, to grin and shout their joy. Every word, every gesture, should be used to lure the reader in and ensnare them in the web of the story. And if it’s done right – if the writer has given their characters the freedom to express themselves – the reader will be thrilled to be caught up in the silken threads of another world, far beyond the reach of their own reality.

I’d like to hear from other writers how you bring your characters to life and what advice you might have to offer for those that are learning the craft.

I recently received the Journey Support award (my very first blog award!) from Tara at Feel of Something New. Being somewhat new to the blogosphere, I wasn’t sure what the award was for, so I googled it.

The Journey Support Award is given to bloggers in recognition for their support in this crazy world of writing and trying to get published – which is really cool (thanks, Tara!). So with that in mind, I’d like to pass it along to a few folks who’ve helped me:

Chris at C. Michael Fontes, Ryan at R. Garrett Wilson, Paula at P D Wright, Roni at *Fiction Groupie*, and Janet at Janet Sumner Johnson. Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

It just so happens that Janet also gave me an award today. It’s called the Honest Scrap Award, and has a few strings attached (they’re fun ones, though!).

First of all, I just want you to say “Honest Scrap” three times out loud, real fast. Yeah, I think that’s pretty funny.

So one of the requirements of this award is that you list ten *true* things about yourself  (you know, honest crap).

The second is that you pass it along to either five or ten other bloggers (google seemed a bit confused on this).

Well, being the renegade rule-breaker that I am, I’ve listed not ten, but eleven true things about me. Typical writer – can’t cut anything.

The other rule I’m going to bend (not break) is that I’m going to wait a little while before I bestow this award on my fellow bloggers (some of who I just gave the Journey Support award to).

So, in the meantime, here is my list of Honest Scrap:

~~~~~~~~~

1)  Once drove an Amtrak train for over 100 miles – with passengers on it. No, really. Operated the accelerator, the brake, the horn – the whole shebang. The poor engineer probably lost his job (someone snapped a picture).

.

2)  Lived for two years on the base of Pike’s Peak. Only made it to the top once – on the back of a Harley.

.

3)  Love cars. Absolutely adore cars. One of my favorite things to do? Drive my little black Genesis coupe, Nine Inch Nails blaring from the stereo, windows down, no holds barred. Love curvy roads and pedal-to-the-metal. Once raced a…well, never mind. My dad reads my blog

.

4)  Another favorite thing to do? Hauling butt on my jet ski across the lake, wind ripping through my hair as the water sprays up to kiss my skin. And doing doughnuts on the ski, round and round, faster and faster, ’til I’m hysterically dizzy and nearly flung off the darn thing.

.

5)  Collector of knives and swords  – and can use them. Really. I prefer to fight with rapier and dagger.  You know, like in The Three Musketeers or The Mask of Zorro.

.

6)  Been known to fly across the country for fan-related activities. And wear costumes that my husband and I made to said gatherings (yeah, I’m a true geek).

.

7)  Owned by three mustang horses that I gentled and trained (with a little help).

.

8)  Two crazy working dogs live with me – one bred to work cattle, the other to work sheep. Own neither cattle nor sheep, but have lots of tennis balls and frisbees.

.

9)  The area surrounding my home in the Sierra Nevada foothills is so quiet at night your ears ring. Except when the owls call or the coyotes howl.  I hate the concrete and madness of cities.

.

10)  One of only a few hundred people who attended the final two shows of Nine Inch Nails last September. And yeah, I was in the pit.

.

Bonus factoid – My two kids are probably older than most of you reading this post.

~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and one last thing. Don’t forget to enter my Character Contest #1 – the deadline is Saturday, July 17.

Blogging contests.

I recently held one, and it didn’t do so well.

Truthfully? It was an epic FAIL. And that blame lies entirely with me.

Being new at this whole blogging thing, I’m still learning the ropes (like many of you).  In my recent post on successful blogging, I examined a few elements that I’ve observed in popular blogs, limiting my analysis to those by writers (we know why agent blogs are popular). This helped me to discover areas to focus on in order to improve my blogging.

Back to the contest. I contacted Roni over at *Fiction Groupie* (her blog is one I consider successful, with over 500 followers gained in less than a year), and asked her a few questions about holding contests and how to promote them. She gave me great advice and encouraged me to try again.  Janet Sumner Johnson also offered suggestions on how to spread news of the contest.

So, after consulting with the previous entrants (whose entries still count), I’ve decided to extend the Character Contest #1 deadline by two weeks.

Below is a re-post of the contest guidelines. So without further ado, read on:

~~~~~~~~~

Don’t you love it when a special character in a story refuses to leave your thoughts, even after the story is done?

I recently met one named Weyland in a short story titled “Unicorn Tapestry” by Suzy McKee Charnas.

We get to know Weyland through his therapist, Floria as she begins treatment on who she assumes is a delusional patient. A staid, aging college-professor, he maintains his distance from Floria with a cold formality. But as this spare and intense man reveals the chilling details of his life, Floria begins to question her initial diagnosis. She becomes more and more unsettled by her mysterious patient as he nimbly lays waste to her attempts to unravel his delusions. Their dance with words eventually leads to a dance with death in a spine-tingling conclusion. The end is not quite what we anticipate and leaves the reader (at least this one) thinking about it long after it’s over.

Weyland and his ‘outsider’ existence haunted me enough that I read the story twice. I visited the website of author Suzy McKee Charnas, then wrote to her to tell her of Weyland’s impact on me, and how I have a similar character (Nicolas from Watcher) who haunts me as well. She was kind enough to answer and discuss Weyland, and encouraged me with my writing.

Characters are what keep us reading. There are millions of readers out there who fell in love with Edward and Bella and went on to devour the rest of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. There are millions of others who couldn’t wait to for the next J.K.Rowling to learn what was going to happen to Harry Potter and his friends.

Well-developed characters are what I love, and what I strive for in my writing. Character development is an ongoing topic among writers and lately has been a subject of discussion on several blogs by friends in the Fresno SciFi and Fantasy Writers (FSFW) group.

Something else my friends have been doing in the blogosphere is holding contests in which the winner receives a copy of a recommended book.

I’ve been thinking about this.

And here’s what I’ve decided to do:

I’m going to hold a series of contests based on characters. Each contest will be slightly different, but they’ll all revolve around characters. I’ll be holding them every 3-4 weeks, so stay tuned to this blog.

Here’s the guidelines for Roh’s Character Contest #1:

Most readers have a list of favorite characters from stories they love. I know who mine are — I want to hear about yours.

Comment about one or more of your favorite characters and what books they are from. Each person commenting will receive one entry. The winner will be determined by a random drawing.

There’s a SECOND chance to win as well! It’s also an opportunity to stretch your literary muscles.

Describe your favorite character in your own words and what impact this character has had on your writing, or even on your life. You must include the title of the story, book, or series, along with the author’s name.

Word limit: 198 words or less (1+9+8=18, 1+8=9. I’m a nine freak, remember?).

Check out my three paragraphs above on Weyland for an example (and yes, they total exactly 198 words).

Your entry will be judged on both word craft and strength of argument. In other words, CONVINCE me. Tell me what it is about this character and its effect on you in a way that will compel me (and others) to go buy the book and read it.

Bonus points: If your word count total is a ‘nine’ (the digits add up to nine or a mulitple of nine), you will receive a second entry into the random drawing.

PRIZES:

For the random drawing, the prize will be a gift certificate from Fictionwise for an e-book of the Nebula award-winning Unicorn Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas.

For the character description, the prize is a brand-new softcover copy of Suzy McKee Charnas’ book, The Vampire Tapestries AND a $10 gift card for Borders or Barnes & Noble (winner’s choice). The prizes for this portion of the contest are restricted to residents of the continental U.S. only.

CONTEST ENDS:

This contest has been extended. The last day to enter is June 27, 2010 Saturday, July 17 (a nine-day, of course). The random winner will be drawn the following day and notified via email. The character descriptions will be judged during the remainder of the week. The winner will be selected and notified via email by July 6, July 26, 2010.

Yay! It’s finally my turn on the Absolute Write May Musical Blog Chain. There’s something to be said for being last!

Aheïla started the chain with the question, “What does your story/character(s) sound like?” She offered the following guidelines: “You can take this from any angle: what do you listen to when you write, which song summarizes your story the best, etc.”

Hmm. Well, for me, the best place to start is at the beginning.

I woke up one morning with a character in my head showing me her lonely existence on the fringes of human society. As Sunny unveiled her story, I became obsessed in the efforts to write it down. That might not sound unusual, except I’d never written anything before.

That was the beginning of a new chapter in my life, which quickly narrowed down to night after night of manic writing, generally getting only 2-4 hours of sleep before heading off to work the next day. Watcher became my life as the story poured incessantly into my head.

During that five, very unreal months, I discovered how much music – always a big part of my life – enhanced my writing. I initially wrote to wordless instrumental songs…

Well, I must confess. It was actually the Twilight score – not the popular soundtrack, but the haunting background music by Carter Burwell. It provided the eerie feel of the nonhuman creatures I was writing about, with both soft romantic interludes and violent crescendos that matched the scenes playing in my head.

Then my son introduced me to Nine Inch Nails. I was familiar with a couple of their popular songs, but though a longtime Tool fan, I’d never paid much attention to NIN. My son filled my new iPod with NIN and I discovered a depth to Trent Reznor’s music that went way beyond Closer (the ‘animal’ song).

As I was editing Watcher, I kept finding track after track of quiet and deeply emotional music by NIN. I discovered even more on the NIN remix site.

Trent Reznor, ever rebellious, makes his music available for fans to download, remix, and upload – in fact, he not only encourages it, but uploads his own remixes as well. What makes this phenomenal is that not only is it available to the public, but it’s all free as long as all the artists are credited and no one profits from it.

My ‘soundtrack’ for Watcher consists of dozens of songs and I’m constantly on the lookout for more. But what I’ve done for this post is to list the songs that are tied to a few of the more important scenes in the book. Many of them are Nine Inch Nails in origin, but there are also a few Incubus songs on this list – their mood and lyrics seem particularly suited to this story.

But before you begin, I need to add one little tidbit about some of the weirdness that entered my life while writing the story of Sunny and Nicolas.

The novel was almost complete when I discovered a song that sent chills down my spine. Why? Because the singer was singing about Nicolas – my Nicolas – who had been hammering his story at me for the last half a year. The song is called Sleeping with a Vampyre by Brigitte Handley and The Dark Shadows. It not only describes his physical appearance perfectly, but his behavior and attitude as well. It really creeped me out. Still does. Makes me wonder how many women he visits in their dreams…

You can listen to it here:

So that said, I invite you on a brief journey of Watcher through music that expresses the rollercoaster of emotions in this story. If you don’t have much time to listen to all of them, then at least listen to the theme song for Watcher. It’s called Leavin’ Hope, Still and is a Nine Inch Nails remix by Justin St.Charles. This is a sad but beautiful instrumental love song which, to me, is a perfect tribute to Sunny and Nicolas.  It’s Track #4 on the main player.

~~~~~~~~~

Be sure to check out the other participants in the AW May Musical Blog Chain. They all use and relate to music differently in their writings and offer a wonderful variety of music samples:

Fiction Groupie is holding an event called the “Let’s Talk” Blogfest. Participants sign up on her blog, then post a dialog excerpt from their WIP on their own blog.

I heard about this from Chris (one of my friends from FSFW) and immediately thought, “I have the perfect scene. I was just working on it.”

Thanks, Chris, for the heads up!

And without further ado, here is a scene from Watcher (oh, and today is a nine-day, BTW!):

~~~~~~~~~

The first thing I become conscious of is that whatever I’m lying on is not hard.  I cautiously reach out, expecting to feel air, but instead touch softness and fabric.

I open my eyes open and lift my head to look around.  A bed, my bed.  Not a tree branch.

Or maybe it is still a dream, I realize, as I turn and see Nicolas stretched out next to me, leaning on his elbow with his head propped up on his hand.

“Good morning,” he says in a low musical voice, his emerald eyes shining.

As before, words stick in my throat, unable to escape. So this must be a dream after all.

He reaches out and brushes back the hair from my face, then softly strokes my lips.

But that felt pretty real.

He shifts, then leans over and kisses me on the mouth.

Oh, this is definitely real.

I feel my body respond, and then he is crushing me to him.  He holds me tight for a long moment, then slowly releases me and leans back.  He reaches out again and starts working the tangles from my hair with his fingers.

“I was unable to comb all of these out earlier, as you were sleeping on this side.”

“You carried me off the mountain,” I croak, my voice finally breaking free.

“I did,” he says quietly as he continues to pick at my hair.

“You are here.”

“I am.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since the night you left.  A month ago.”  The pain beneath his words is unmistakeable.

“A month? I’ve been gone a month?”

It’s all a blur of mountains and forests, lakes and meadows, blood and more blood.

He purses his lips, but does not answer. His green eyes watch my face as I feel the wilderness sing in my soul.  He touches my cheek, jarring me back to the present.

“You waited here,” I whisper. “All that time. For me.”

“Yes. I could do…nothing else.” Again I hear the pain, accompanied by loneliness, and wonder how he survived.

Because the only way I did was to give myself to the blood and to the wild.

Once more it calls, and I shut my eyes and remember the colors and smells that caressed my senses, and the wind that softly brushed my skin. Life is so simple out there.  Hunt and run and swim and sleep.  No complicated emotions to manage, no one to argue with, or be disappointed in, or be embraced by, or be loved by.

My eyes grow damp as tears begin to well up beneath their closed lids.

“Sunny.”  His voice is calm and soothing. Feather-light fingers again touch my face.

Startled, my eyes fly open. Yes, he is still here. This is not a dream.

But I need to move, to stretch, to run. My body’s not used to being so still for so long. Slipping out of the bed, I back across the room, watching him. He gets up as well, and part of me starts to panic. I turn to the closet, take out a pair of  jeans and a sweater, and slip them on.  I don’t need shoes–quit wearing them weeks ago.

“I need to go,” I whisper to the floor on my way out.

“Will you come back?” he asks, his voice strained.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I take a long, slow breath. “Yes. I just need…a little more time.”

Turning, I head for the back door. As I open it, I hear him in the doorway behind me.

“I’ll be here,” he says.

I breathe deeply and step outside, inhaling the pine and other scents that make up the forest, and take off up the mountain at a dead run.

There has been discussion recently among several of my friends from the Fresno SciFi and Fantasy Writers (FSFW) about characters – character development, character-driven vs. plot-driven stories, etc.

Characters are what inspire me to write. Each of my stories started when I woke up one morning with the image or words of a character in my head. Were they the result, or aftermath, of dreams? I don’t know, because I rarely remember my dreams.

The beings I’ve written about each began as a blurry presence that solidified as I turned my attention to them. And once I opened the door in my mind to their existence, they came through, bringing their personalities, fears, needs, and quirks with them. Physical appearances came later, generally not until I actually began writing their stories.

The stories they’ve shown me played as movies in my head, revealed one scene at a time. Often I got glimpses of future scenes, but I was never quite sure where they would fall until they hit the page.  The endings were a little different. Once the story was rolling – once the character felt confident that I was telling it the way they wanted – only then they would show me the ending.

Watcher, my first story, was interesting to write. As Sunny showed me her life and I began to get a sense of her loneliness, she guided me to one of the most important scenes in her story – the first time she saw Nicolas. It wasn’t until he stepped into the story that I knew the ending.  And that was also when I realized there would be a sequel as well.

The sequel, Runner, is a work-in-progress and is only half-complete. The ending for it is fuzzy – I know the general direction the story is heading, but these two characters have a habit of throwing surprises at me as I write.  The beginning of Runner is proof – I had no warning that Sandy was about to step into the story, let alone be such a pivotal character, until she literally stepped in front of Sunny’s car.

Some of you may be rolling your eyes at how I refer to my characters – as though they are living, breathing, real beings with opinions and a say-so in the matter. But that is how I see them. To me, the only way a writer can make the reader believe a character is real, to bond with a character and care about them, is if the writer accepts them as real.

Their reality is just on another plane of existence. Whether that plane of existence is entirely in my mind, or is indeed another dimension full of cracks that its inhabitants slip through, is not something I care to dwell on. As long as my characters keep showing me their stories, I’ll keep writing them down.

And I’m betting that I’m not the first writer who halfway expects one of their characters to someday step around a corner – in this plane of existence – and say, “Hello.”

Actually, not only is reading your work aloud permissable, you should consider making it a mandatory part of your writing and editing process.

It’s part of mine. When I’m ‘combing’ through passages looking for errors, I’m also seeking rhythm and flow. The best way for me to find it is to read the passage out loud.

It surprises me how different it can sound–and how my tongue will trip over a missing word that my mind is sure was there just a second ago. Words that I used two paragraphs back suddenly shout at me, saying, “Yo! I just had my turn! Use someone else!”

Reading a paragraph out loud will help me avoid sentence structures that repeat themselves as though fired from a Gatling gun, or combinations that are singsong, morphing into some bizarre nursery rhyme.

My voice helps me to find the cadence of the scene, to rearrange words and build sentences that reflect the emotion of the moment, and my ears tell me when something just plain doesn’t work.

I never release my writing to the outer world without reading it out loud, beginning to end, multiple times. It doesn’t matter if it’s a business letter, my blog, or a fiction piece that may or may not be complete. For me, it’s the last vet check before the gate opens and the horse bearing my words races down the track.

So when I was asked if I would like to read a scene or two from Watcher during the open-mike session of a poetry reading, I had no hesitation.

It was in Davis, California, and it was at the monthly Poetry Night held on the first Wednesday of the month at the Bistro 33 on F Street.

While in town on business, I called my friend, Sharon, who is doing some editing work for me, and asked about getting together. She kindly invited me join her for dinner with a few other friends on Poetry Night, and it was then that she asked if I would like to read from Watcher.

I knew immediately that the opening cemetery scene contained enough emotion and imagery for a verbal ‘performance’ –for that is what it really is when you read your work aloud for an audience. But I was unsure of which passage to read for the second half of my five minutes of fame. I practiced a few the evening before the dinner, intending to consult with Sharon before making the final choice.

As it turned out, several of the dinner friends actually run the Poetry Night. Dr. Andy Jones and Brad Henderson are both University of California Davis literature professors and well-known local poets. The other dinner guests, besides Sharon and me, were the featured poets of Poetry Night. Susan Wolbarst and Allegra Silberstein are accomplished and published poets, and in 2010, Allegra was named the first Poet Laureate of the City of Davis.

So I was in pretty distinguished company and was suddenly more than a little intimidated by the ears and judgments of the people I would be reading to. But Sharon reassured me (she is a huge fan of Watcher) and together we made the decision on which passages I would read. One, of course, was the cemetery scene. But the other was one I had not practiced the night before. Yet it was another scene with enough vivid imagery that I felt it would read well, and so I took the chance and read it unpracticed.

But it wasn’t really unpracticed. Because when I wrote it, and during the dozens of editing sessions that I’ve subjected Watcher to, I read it out loud. Over and over again. Granted, the last time I’d read it was probably four or five months prior to Poetry Night. But it was well-vetted verbally, and I knew this horse would fly smoothly down the track.

As I listened to the poets and other performers, I blocked all thoughts of my impending time in front of the mike, refusing to give into the nervousness that I knew was lurking. And when I stepped up on the stage and began reading, I forced myself to stay calm and read slowly, and let the horse I’d trained have a little bit of rein.

The words flowed in that cadence I’d schooled them into, and the scene maintained its emotional rhythm throughout its run. And I believe the audience caught a good glimpse of Sunny’s pain as she watched her daughter place flowers on her empty grave.

I took a deep breath and turned to the marked page of the second scene. And as I began to read of falling snowflakes, fluffy cushions of downy white, and the unpainting of nature’s colorful forest canvas, I could feel Sunny’s amazement and joy, and I can only hope some of that was able to reach the audience through my voice.

As I left the stage to the appreciative sound of more-than-just-polite applause, I smiled as I realized that I had just read excerpts from a vampire novel (the dark stepchild of popular fiction) to a group of poetry lovers who likely had no idea that the subject in the scenes lived on blood.

And surprisingly, I wasn’t embarrassed by what I’d read or how I’d read it. I was proud of it, in spite of the fact that admitting I write vampire fiction is a bit embarrassing itself. And I believe I felt that way about my performance because I’ve been practicing those scenes for my own ears for well over a year now.

So not only am I suggesting you read your work aloud during both the writing and the editing phases, I recommend you look for opportunities to read it aloud for others. You may discover something important about your work, and you may find a renewed sense of faith in what you are putting on the page.

Ah – today is a ‘nine’ day. For those of you who aware of numerology, today is very fortuitous, depending on your perspective.

Now I’m not a numerologist and don’t really know much about it. So to those of you who spot flaws in my methodology, I apologize. I approach it very simply and not very scientifically, and I’m okay with that.

My special numbers are 3 and 9. The number 9 especially, because it is…3 3s!

Today is March 21, 2010 or, 3/21/2010.

When you add those numbers:

3+2+1+2+0+1+0

You get…9!

So, today is a 9.

It’s very tempting to submit Watcher today. But it’s with an editor and I need to wait until it’s ready.

Speaking of Watcher, the number 9 figures very prominently in that story. Whether we’re talking about the Council of Nine, or Sunny is checking the time and sees that it’s 4:05, the number 9 is buried everywhere throughout.

The Forbidden Doorway series revolves around 3. There’s not as many  references to 3 as there are to 9 in Watcher, but they are there.

Stay tuned for more posts on this topic. I have something special planned regarding the numbers in both series once they are published.

In the meantime, check out the dates and times of my posts. If you find any that don’t add up to 9 (date+time), let me know.

Okay. I promised myself that I would make a better effort to post more regularly on my blog, yet here it is nearly a month since my last entry.

Fail.

But is it? Yes, as far as my PR plan goes.

However, I’ve been doing exactly what writers are supposed to be doing–writing. And not only did I start a new short story for the Fresno Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers anthology, I finished it. It’s been uploaded to the FSFW forum for critique by the group and I’m supposed to be done with it until the group has reviewed it.

Well, as usual, I’ve already made minor changes to it here and there. A few word swaps, a couple additions, a little rearranging. Oh, and a title change. Guess that last one isn’t so minor.

It’s funny how a sentence that’s been absolutely fine for weeks will suddenly shout out its need for attention. It amazes me how much better a paragraph can sound with one or two word substitutions, or doing something to it as simple as trading ’s’ for ing.’ Then suddenly a passage that seemed pretty good comes alive and sparks images that dance before the eyes.

I love editing almost as much as writing. But they are very different. Writing is like creating a painting, starting with broad brush strokes and placing key elements on the canvas. As the piece evolves, the scene takes shape, the characters emerge, the conversations and events become clear.

Editing is placing the final details on the work. Faces become expressive and voices carry meaning in their tones that either emphasize or belie the words of the speaker. Situations and action draw the reader in deeper with one synonym or a single italicized word. The painting that may have started out as a blurred abstract becomes as sharp as a photograph.

And what started out as a series of prints becomes the movie that was playing in my head when I first put word to page.

At least, I hope that’s what happens. For the writer can never be sure what the reader sees or feels. And each reader perceives the work differently.

Ultimately, a writer can only hope the reader gains something from the story, whether it’s just to step out of reality for a short while or spend several moments celebrating or commiserating with a character they care about.

So as I congratulate myself on completing a story, I invite you to take a peek at a little sample. It’s called Fur Before Feathers and is part of my new young adult series, Forbidden Doorways. And hopefully you’ll be able to read the entire story by the end of the year when it’s published in the FSFW anthology, along with stories from all our other members.

I woke up this morning thinking about what a phenomenal year 2009 was for me. It was full of ups and downs, but interestingly enough, it was the downs that fueled the ups. 

The most significant thing that happened to me is that one year ago I discovered something about myself that I never expected.

I LOVE to write. Absolutely love it. Well, at least the stuff that pours into my head at 2:00am when I can’t sleep.

If you’re wondering how I could get this far in life without knowing this about myself, join the club. I’ve written plenty of stuff over the years as part of the various jobs I’ve held. But it was always what I needed to write for someone else. Technical guides, sales brochures, reports, business proposals and letters…it was always for some other purpose than my own.

And I didn’t really enjoy it. I’d struggle to make the material as professional-sounding as possible, but when something was completed all I felt was relief that the ordeal was over.

Writing fiction is different, because I’m doing it for myself. I can let the story and characters take me wherever they go and the only thing I have to worry about is typing as fast as I can and finding the time to do so. And usually the time I find is in the middle of the night. So much for sleeping.

When I close my laptop at the end of a session, the satisfaction and wonder that I feel astonishes me. Enmeshed in the warm glow of creation, I’ll crawl into bed to grab a few treasured hours of sleep before work, still wrapped up in the emotions of the characters that play out their lives in my head.

The next day when I review and edit, I frequently feel a sense of amazement that I wrote this, that these words on the screen came from me. Don’t get me wrong. I know my writing skill is not all that great, that it’s immature and in great need of further development. But occasionally I’ll look at a phrase or a scene and think, ‘Wow. That’s really good. I can’t believe I did that.’

And that’s what keeps me going. The hope that I can feel more of those moments, and that my readers will feel them as well.

Because my biggest fear in this whole new world of writing is not that I won’t get published, or that people won’t like my work.

My biggest fear is that I as a writer I won’t do justice to the characters that give me their stories. That if I fail, I’m failing them. That their trust in me is misplaced, that they chose the wrong vessel through which to tell the tales of their lives.

I just don’t want to let them down.

So I’m studying, practicing, reading, attending workshops – everything I can do to make me a better writer. I owe it to the characters in my stories because they helped me discover this precious gift of creativity that has given me a new lease on life.

Wow! A new home!

I think I can stretch my wings and do a little writing here.

But before I begin, I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to CHRIS of the Fresno SciFi & Fantasy Writers for setting this up for me. His countless hours helping me build an online presence are greatly appreciated.

Chris, you are definitely The Man. <bows down>

This format, besides looking pretty cool, will allow me to update my blog on a more regular basis.  Hopefully I can find a way to archive my older posts from my first and rather limited blog ( I did – check the archives).

But for now, I have a little rewriting to do in preparation for a 6-hr workshop with DONALD MAASS, accomplished author AND literary agent. I’m sooo excited…

Watcher Weirdness.

That’s what we started calling it after awhile. I’m not sure when the oddities actually began. They could’ve been there all along, trying, but failing, to get my attention.

The first one that I can distinctly recall happened several months after I started writing, and had to do with Sunny’s name.

I’m not sure why that name popped into my head when I was searching for a name for her. There was never any other. I tried to change it several times. After all, it seemed a pretty silly name for a creature of darkness. But she wouldn’t give it up, so I let her keep it while in the back of my mind I searched for another.

March 18, 2009, I stopped fighting it.

Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the movie Twilight, was scheduled to appear that day at a Wal-Mart in Lancaster as part of a publicity tour. She’d just released her memoirs in a wonderfully-organic little book called Twilight Director’s Notebook: The Story of How We Made The Movie.

Being an avid fan of both the Twilight book series and the movie, I made the three-hour drive to the desert city. Like several hundred other fans there, I bought my books (yes, several as gifts for friends) and dutifully waited in line for Catherine’s arrival.

It was while I was sitting in line chatting with the people around me that I saw Sunny’s name. It was printed on a Wal-Mart security badge, and hung around the neck of an attractive dark-haired young woman who seemed to be somewhat in charge. Whether she actually was or not, I don’t recall, because at that moment, the only important thing to me was – that name.

S-U-N-N-Y. Spelled exactly the way I’d been spelling it. I’ve wondered since then if it was short for Sunshine, like the character who had taken over my life.

But there it was, in big, bold letters, appearing to me out of nowhere at a time when I was most determined to change her name.

My first reaction was mild shock. But the more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed to get. Because it wasn’t just that it appeared at a time crucial to the writing of Watcher. It appeared, surrounded by vampire-lovers, at an event celebrating one of the most-cherished vampire stories ever made into book or film.

It is really odd when you think about it.

After several minutes of stunned contemplation, I just looked up into the air and said, “Alright. I get it. Your name is Sunny. I’ll stop trying to change it.”

I’m sure she was laughing at me, glad she didn’t have to beat me over the head with it. Which she kinda did.

When I tried to rationalize her name, to explain why she had such a name, I suddenly understood why that was the best name for her.

Belonging now to the night, she clung to her birth name as a reminder of her human life, to symbolize that even in darkness there can be light.

Sure wish she’d explained that earlier.

Anyhow, that is the story of how Sunny got, and kept, her name.

And, that is the first example of what I call ‘Watcher Weirdness.’

Stay tuned to the blog – I have plenty more, and some of them are really weird.

I suppose if I’m going to tell the story of telling a story, I should start at the beginning.

One year ago, in December 2008, I heard an interview with the author of a popular book series. When asked who she wrote her story for, she said she wrote it for herself.

That statement flipped a switch somewhere inside me. And so I decided to write a story for me, about beings I’d long been fascinated with – vampires.

At least I thought I was writing it for myself.

The first words to hit the page stunned me. They spoke of the pain of an undead creature as she watched a family she could no longer be part of. They went on to describe how she struggled with her violent nature, held in check only by memories of her daughter, and how she lived with the loneliness of her dangerous secret.

And so Sunny was born. She didn’t have a name then, because all I wrote that December was a one-page preface. The holidays were in full swing, my family was gathering for a long-overdue reunion, and there was no time to write. I reluctantly put her story on hold until after the first of the year. Fortunately she was content with that and allowed me to enjoy my family time.

But when January came around, Sunny came back into my life, and she brought others with her. Together they began insisting I tell their story, invading my thoughts all hours of the day as well as the night. I slept very little back then, averaging only 2-4 hours a night while still trying to hold down a full-time job.

Weekends were even worse. I’d start writing Friday night when I got home after work, recording their story until they released me to crawl into bed just before sunrise. I was usually back up by 8 or 9 Saturday morning to start again. I’d write all day, taking few breaks, and on into the night until sometime near dawn. Sunday would be a repeat of Saturday, writing almost non-stop. Fortunately, because I had to get up and go to work the next morning, they allowed me to go to bed a little earlier on Sunday nights – most of the time.

This went on for five months. At the end of May, over Memorial Weekend, I finished the end of the first draft. I still had a couple of early chapters to flesh out, but as far as I was concerned, I was done.

Sunny and Nicolas had other ideas. A week later they pushed me to continue with their story in the second book of the series. I wrote about 25,000 words before they let me stop. But they didn’t stop. Shifting their attention back to Watcher, the pressure I’ve felt to edit and prepare it for publication has been relentless.

And so it continues. I’m hoping to have all the fine-tuning for Watcher complete by the end of the year. I’ve submitted to two agents that I met at writer’s conferences, and will begin submitting to more in January if I haven’t heard anything by then.

Friends are helping me with artwork and website management. I’m slowly building my online presence, including learning how to blog. This all takes so much time, yet I can do nothing else but press forward.

Because their need to have their story known…is every bit as strong as the need they are known for.

So if anyone wants to know what it’s like to be seduced and have your life taken over by vampires, I can tell them. Because mine has, and just like in the legends, the dark gift has its good points, and its bad.