New website announcement!

I realize I haven't posted here about my new website!

Briarbook Lane is home to authors Mary W. Jensen and Elizabeth Wilcox, sisters in life and story. An enchanted escape, with book reviews, writer tools, and a fairy tale book club.

This is a new blog start for me. The website hosts three blogs: my new blog "Mary's Expression", Liz's blog "Elizabeth's Musings", and "Enchanted Garden" which is our fairy tale book club. We will be posting our thoughts on our first book club title, "Mirror Mirror" by Gregory Maguire, on June 2 and invite you to read along!

I'd love it if you came over and followed us there.

It’s a Brand New May

April is over. I challenged myself to write one new poem a day, and 26 blog posts for the AtoZ challenge. I’m happy to say that now only did I succeed, I blew it out of the water. This was my most successful poetry month. Last year I had the same poetry goal. My numbers:

Blog posts: 26

poems written: 41 (last year 19)

words of poetry written: 2512 (last year 1332)

What would I do different?

I didn’t spend much time visiting other bloggers doing the A to Z challenge. Next year I’ll interact more. I did find a few new blogs to follow, and hopefully got a few friends in return.

My own favorite posts:

C is for Chiaroscuro
F is for Fairies and Fudge
I is for Imagination
Q is for Quotes
R is for Rain
U is for Unique

Fellow bloggers who participated:

Sylvia Van Bruggen: Writer, Artist, Play Instigator
Writing Off the Edge
Untethered Realms
Writing in Wonderland

Thank you to everyone who visited, left comments, and gave support. I couldn’t have done this on my own.

Now What?

My goal is to transfer that productivity to my fiction. I’m going to keep it quite doable this month, and match my poetry. So 2500 words added to my novels.

As for blogging, I’m going to blog once a week, with updates on my poetry and fiction, as well as life in general. I hope you stay with me.

April was also a great month, as my first ever poetry book was published April 23. Chiaroscuro is available directly from SynergEbooks, and on Amazon.com and B&N.com.

A Month of Poetry

April is National Poetry Month. A month to celebrate the magic of words. The power of poetry. To celebrate, I’m going to participate in a couple different challenges.

Poetry (Photo credit: V. H. Hammer)

NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month)

Inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), NaPoWriMo is about writing poetry. I’ll be aiming for a poem a day, but life and inspiration may have other results in mind. Whether a single new poem, or a poem a day, or even more, any new poetry is a success. Here are a few places I may be pulling prompts from.

The Poetic Asides blog on WritersDigest.com has an April PAD challenge. That’s a Poem A Day. Each morning there will be a new prompt, and top poems posted to the blog for each prompt will be compiled into a book.

The NaPoWriMo site will also have prompts. A few other sites I may visit if I need more inspiration: Poetry Prompts, The Journal Prompts, and 30 Day Poetry Challenge.

A to Z Blogging

I’m also taking the A to Z blogging challenge. So each day in April (except Sundays), I will posting with a letter theme, A to Z. So check back throughout the month for new and old poems, quotes about poetry, and more.

Upcoming Writers Conference

One week from today is the Muse Online Writers Conference, an annual online and FREE conference. It goes from Oct 7 to 13. This will be my sixth year attending. Check it out! You can read more about it and my experiences in my post on the Poetic Muselings blog yesterday about the Muse Conference.

Hope to see some of you there! I’ll be attending as my usual persona, feywriter.

Stepping Stones to Being More Than an Extra

English: Stepping stones. Stepping stones in Deepdale Beck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Been making more of an effort to put myself and my work out there. Reviving my blog is one part of that. I have a poetry book I've begun submitting to publishers. And today I signed up for Writers Village University.

I need to step out of my shell. Writing doesn't have to be so lonely. There's a big community of writers out there. I merely need to put down my walls and step outside my comfort zone.

If you've been wondering some of the things I've been up to in my absence, I have been blogging over at Poetic-Muselings.net on a more regular basis.

NaNoWriMo Rebel

Last year I set a firm resolution not to participate in NaNoWriMo until I finish one of my current WIP’s. But that still hasn’t happened! So I’m going to use the community to push me to do so. Going to be a Rebel and use NaNoWriMo 2012 to finish one of my neglected novels.

And it doesn’t hurt that I found the most awesome AND gorgeous tracker to use. Check out what the talented Svenja Liv has created: http://svenjaliv.com/2012/10/nanowrimo-2012-word-trackers/

I’m using her Forest Fairy template. LOVE it!

You can find me on the official site, username Feywriter. Who else is in? What are you writing?

11 Questions and a Blog Award

*Dusts off blog so she can post shiny award*

Thank you, Heather Riffle, for the award. And the excuse to dust off my blog. Hopefully I still have some followers left after its neglect.

Now on to the fun stuff.

Rules:
-Answer the presenter’s 11 questions
-Choose 11 lucky recipients (who have fewer than 200 followers)
-Formulate 11 questions for them to answer
-Plaster the award on your blog

I’ll likely bend the second rule, but the rest I can do! Here are Heather’s questions for me:

1. Does music ever inspire your writing? Absolutely. I find Celtic music especially gets me in the mood to write fantasy. I’ve also become hooked on Radio Rivendell. Epic music for epic writing.

2. What is your favorite season? Autumn. Warm colors. Crunch of leaves. The weather is just starting to cool. The kid is back in school. The writer community comes together for The Muse Online Writers Conference, and NaNoWriMo. Fall may not be the usual time for new beginnings, but it represents MY beginning. I was born in November. So this time of year is also perfect for my blog’s revival.

3. What is your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving. I was born on Thanksgiving, and it’s a time for food and family and fun.

4. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  And why? Ooh, this is a toughie. No, actually it’s not. There’s this island I researched for one of my novels. Sylt island, the northernmost part of Germany. It never gets completely dark at night in the summer. Miles and miles of beach. The smell of the ocean. Charming villages. So very magical.

5. Cats or dogs? Why? Cats. An obvious reason, I am more allergic to dogs. They are more self-sufficient. On a more emotional level, cats are comforting, playful, always bring a smile. They tend to be cuddlers, just like me.

6. Favorite color?  What do you think it says about your personality? Purple. Purple is creativity, passion, fantasy, play, and possibility.

7. Favorite movie? Why? The Avengers. Joss Whedon + Chris Evans + great dialogue + an epic cast + action + superheroes = AWESOME

8. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Why? What a wonderful follow up to #7. LOL I would choose flight. To fly through the air, up where it’s pure, traveling wherever I please.

9. If you could time-travel, would you? Where/When would you go? And for what reason? I would travel back to when Stonehenge was in its full glory. I want to see it whole, and learn how and why it was built.

10. Favorite food? German Chocolate Cake. If dessert doesn’t count, then homemade banana muffins.

11. Who/what is your favorite character (movie, book, TV) of all time? Hard to label just one. I must have a thing for bad boys, cause the names that pop into my head are Captain Mal Reynolds (from Firefly), Leesil (assassin from The Noble Dead Saga), Matrim (from Wheel of Time), and Raistlin (from Dragonlance). No wonder the male hero of my first book is a thief!

Not sure who to pass this on to. That may have to be a future post. I hope you enjoyed my answers.

Darkness and Light: part 2

My original plan for Chiaroscuro was a 25 page chapbook. But Utah Arts Council has a writing contest with a poetry book category. So this past week I’ve been expanding it to fit the 50 page minimum. I’m at 54 pages now, and am feeling confident about my poems after my fellow Poetic Muselings gave the book a good edit.

What I’m working on now is writing a short introduction. For my high school senior paper, I wrote on Understanding the Starving Artist. I think some of the points apply here, on how tribulation and sorrow give a depth to writing that is crucial to poetry. Tempted to steal a couple paragraphs from that. The alternate is to write something new from scratch. I’ll brainstorm and work on something fresh and current for now, but if I run out of time I know I have a back up.

Contest deadline is June 29 (two days from now!). Wish me luck.

Darkness and Light

When I first started looking for themes in my poetry, I found a lot of them were on the darker side: death, pain, abuse. Of course, a lot of those were from my teenage days. You know how teenage angst can get. But I still use poetry to deal with the darkness.

So a few years ago, I decided to put these poems in a collection. At the time, I didn’t have any publishing credits, so I hesitated sending it out. It’s been sitting on the virtual shelf. Now I’m ready to take a look again, and I believe my newest poem will be a strong addition.

I’m using Scrivener to organize the poems. My title is Chiaroscuro. Focusing on the contrast between dark and light. Exploring the darkness, bringing the monsters of death and abuse into the light.

And now I have a book publication, the Lifelines anthology with the Poetic Muselings. Time to step up and try getting my own collection published.

Action Scenes

In my writing, action scenes--especially one-on-one fight scenes with no use of magic--are not my strong point. So when Authoress posted about a critique round for action excerpts, I jumped on the opportunity. Barely got in. Mine is #22 of 25. So head on over to Miss Snark’s First Victim and check out the action scenes, let me know how I did.

Looking back at 2011

My year started in upheaval. I had no sure footing, no idea where I'd be at the end of the year. I found it incredibly hard to come up with goals. I had three works in progress, so my only plan was to finish one of them.

I had plenty of time I could have used, but got too caught up in insecurities and distractions. Felt like I wasted my year away.

The surprise was getting Lifelines published. That was my writing highlight of the year.

My strengths are in grammar and world building. My weakness is not torturing my characters. The story gets too predictable, not unique or grabbing. I need to take my stories to the next level! I need to apply my poetic description to my prose, and use more story in my poetry.

If I could get a do-over, I would spend less time stressing over the unknown and put more energy into my passions. I also need to spend less time revising works in progress, and more toward actually finishing them.

Still working out goals for this year. My projects still lie unfinished. I have my first book which is calling me to revise it again, but I worry that it still wouldn't have a strong enough hook for publication. My goal is to come up with goals by the end of the week.

Wrote this as a response to Anne’s post on Poetic Muselings.

Thursday’s Tale: The Minotaur’s Staff

My local writers group, Writers of the West, is using our weekly meetings as write-ins for NaNoWriMo this month. As I am not participating in NaNo, I have been using the meetings for reading through last year’s NaNo story (still incomplete) to refresh myself on it and do some editing.

We have another meeting tonight, so the story is on my mind. And since it is a Thursday, what better time to have a Thursday’s Tale.

Without further ado, here is the opening page of The Minotaur Staff:

"Hey, Weed, I found something!"

Wesley "Weed" Larkin squinted toward Ahmed's location. Fair enough, the sun glinted off something shiny in all that sand. He pulled the rim of his fedora down, and adjusted the scarf over his mouth. This better be good. Wes stepped into the roped enclosure. As he approached Ahmed, his foot hit something harder than sand. "A structure?"

"Na'am." Yes. Ahmed pointed to the cleared spot at his feet.

Wes knelt and brushed the sand away with his hand. Metal, not stone, glinted from beneath. "This could be it. Our city of gold. Clark!" The Irishman rushed over, red hair too bright, glaring in the sun. "Get a sample of this metal. I'll need it analyzed before I can inform Danvers."

While Clark extracted some metallic flakes and transferred them to his lab tent, the rest of the team moved in to start digging. Wes wanted to know what was in that building. It could be a temple, a throne room, a nobleman's house. Hopefully with something valuable preserved inside.

He grabbed a shovel and dug in with the rest of the team. His robes were covered in sand by the time Clark hollered. Wes took off his face scarf and used it to wipe the dirty sweat from his brow as he walked back to the tents.

Clark's brow was creased, making his glasses slide down his nose. He pushed them up as he looked up from the computer. "Not gold."

Reach for the Light

As I’ve been focusing on blogging and marketing, I haven’t felt like I have energy left for writing. The first month of a new book release is the most important in getting the word out. But I am not a publicist or a marketing guru. I am a writer. I found something I wrote years ago, back when I was struggling with finishing my first book. I found inspiration in a song. I’m hoping it will inspire me again, to not forget who I am.

Song lyrics in orange, interspersed with my own thoughts at the time:

Reach for the light

Deep in the night the winds blow cold,
And in a heartbeat, the fear takes hold.

The fear can freeze me—
fear of failure, rejection, even success.

Deep in the storm, there's a place that's soft and still,
Where the road waits to be taken, if you only will.

The potential is in me,
all I have to do is find the iron will within.

The voices inside you can lead you so astray,
Believe in what you dream,
don't turn away, don't you turn away.

I must overcome the doubts that haunt me;
I’ve wanted this my entire life, I won’t give it up.

Reach for the light,
you might touch the sky.
Stand on a mountain top, and see yourself flying.
Reach for the light,
To capture a star,
Come out of the darkness and find out who you are.

I know who I am—I am a writer.
So many dream but don’t follow through.
I can never be published if I don’t finish writing the book.

Somewhere in time the truth shines through,
And the spirit knows what it has to do.

This is my purpose in life; without it, I am not complete.
Time will show my dedication. Time will bring success.

Somewhere in you there's a power with no name,
It can rise to meet the moment and burn like a flame.

My muse will lead me if I give it the chance;
I simply need to set her free.

And you can be stronger than any fear you know,
Hold onto what you see don't let it go, don't you let it go.

I’ve made it this far. I have it in me.
Nothing will stop me.

<refrain>

There's no turning back.
Your destiny is calling.
Listen to the thunder roar,
And let your heart break free.

Whether I chose this path, or it chose me, it is the path I’m meant to be on.
The thunder of my accomplishments shall roar, and my heart shall break free from fear.

Oooh, Reach for the light!

<refrain x2>

Yeah! Yes reach for the light.

If I don’t reach for the light, for my dreams, then the light may as well go out.

I will finish my book. I will get published. I will reach for the light.

** Music: James Horner. Lyrics: Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. Singer: Steve Winwood

My Expression Elsewhere

For today’s post, I direct you to Poetic Muselings. As a member of this talented poetry group, I’ll be posting regularly over there on alternating Mondays. Today I wrote about My Expression.

SAGA

Know that new writers group I wanted to start? Now that it’s been up and running for a few weeks, I’m opening it up to new people.

SAGA stands for Society for Arcane Gibberish Authors. We are a fledgling critique group for fantasy writers, started in October of 2011. This is currently a group for adult fantasy only. If you write YA fantasy and are interested in a critique group, you can still apply. If there is enough interest I will create a sub-group. There are already a couple of us with YA projects that could use the company.

We have room for three more people. Membership is capped at ten. I’ve been part of some very successful online critique groups. May be crazy for starting my own, but I wanted something small. And something less structured. We do have a forum, but no deadlines. Our own lives and writing come first. Just fellow writers grouping together for support and feedback.

If you're interested in joining, send me an email or post below. Would love to get a few new faces.

Need a Fantasy Critique Group? Look no further!

I'm considering starting up a new critique group for fantasy / paranormal writers. Looking for dedicated members that would be able to critique monthly. I've had three people express interest so far. Would be great if I could get two or three more. Open to going up to ten if there's enough interest, but no higher.

Age category: adult fiction. If you write Young Adult fantasy and are looking for a group, I do have some YA fairy tales that are itching to become books so maybe I could do a subgroup or sister group.

Still working on details. If you’re interested let me know. If I can get one more person I’ll go ahead with this.

Muse Theory

While my sick brain has a hard time forming sentences, my Muse doesn’t rest. Apparently she decided a week off was plenty. Yesterday I got some dialogue and character notes for one of my stories (better yet, one of the three I’m not focusing on…). And last night, or this morning, whatever you want to call 2 AM, I woke up from a dream and had to write down some of the images.

In my dream, the world was ending and yet the sight of a couple mermaid children playing in the water still brought joy. I couldn’t let that image go to waste.

Some say the Muse isn’t real. That it’s merely hard work and a good imagination. But moments like these make me wonder. When ideas seem to come from nowhere, or at least no where inside myself. Especially when I’m not feeling an iota of creativity in my sick slump. And somehow the Muse gets through.

I may not have the energy or brainpower to put these ideas to much use right now, but I have certainly been taking notes. Do you ever get inspired at the least likely of times?

I Write Like…

a multitude of authors. Which is to say that I write like none. After seeing Liana’s post, I plugged each of my novels into this analyzer. The results varied. I suppose that means that no two of my books are alike.

For TRINITY COVEN, my paranormal romance:

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

 

For FEY MOON, my traditional fantasy:

I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

 

For FLY WITH ME, my contemporary fantasy:

I write like
Stephenie Meyer

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

 

For RACE TO 100 DEATHS, my dark fantasy:

I write like
Anne Rice

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

 

For THE MINOTAUR STAFF, my urban fantasy:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

 

And my smallest writing sample, TWILIGHT RAIN, a portal fantasy:

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Though, interesting enough, the writers do seem to correlate to the genres of my books. So maybe the analyzer isn’t completely bunk after all. I’m not familiar with James Joyce or William Gibson, but I can see the connections for the rest.

And, I’m sure the algorithm hates me, but I ended with throwing them all in at once. So overall I write like… Anne Rice.

This is the book that never ends

I've been reading CHARACTERS & VIEWPOINT by Orson Scott Card. The part that's really helped me figure out what's wrong with my first novel is on story type. There are four types of story, summarized by MICE: Milieu (setting), Idea, Character, and Event.

"Within the first few paragraphs or pages, you tell the reader implicitly what kind of story this is going to be; the reader then knows what to expect, and holds the thread of that structure throughout the tale."

My story is apparently a Character type story, but the opening doesn't reflect that. My first version opened with a dream, which would reflect an Event story. Currently, it opens with describing the setting, culture. That's more fitting of a Milieu structure. I'm starting in the wrong place for this type of story. I need to start where Marian realizes her world has changed and she no longer belongs where she’s been. Her moment of change, not anything that has to do with the Enchanter/Fey conflict.

Cutting most of the first three chapters would also help with the problem I got with my last rejection: the opening is too slow. It will also get Marian meeting Jex sooner. Win-win. When my husband offered to read through my story again, I had no idea if I even WANTED to look at it again, let alone have a clue how to revise it. I was so sick of my story, I was ready to not just shelve it but burn it and bury the ashes. But now that I have ideas to fix it, it’s interesting again. Will I ever be done with this story??

I am a Renaissance Soul

About a month ago, I read a blog post that really spoke to me. Are You a Renaissance Soul? Use It to Your Advantage. I easily answered yes to the initial questions. Once again, I am recognizing and accepting. I took some time thinking about my answers to the rest of the questions posed, and here’s my musings.

 

How long can I work until I get antsy?

An hour at a time. Any more than that and my attention wanders. On a day to day basis, NaNoWriMo has shown me that I tend to get distracted after about two intense weeks on one project.

How would I react if I was told that I had to work on 1 thing until it gets done?

My urge would be to rebel, and every other project would seem more exciting than the one I have to do. I don’t like should and have to. I would likely have a secret project to at least make notes on.

What about 2 things? 3? 4? Find your optimal number

Four seems to stretch it. I wouldn’t be making enough progress to make it worthwhile. With two I’d still risk getting bored. So three feels like it will be a good balance.

Where do you feel the biggest sense of accomplishment/happiness/growth: starting a project, working on it, or finishing it?

Working on a project. I thrive off that sense of progress. The process of creation. Seeing my ideas come to fruition. I love the sense of discovery, all the things that surprise me despite having plotted the basic story. Starting is always hard, intimidating. Finishing may have a nice rush, but it’s accompanied by a sadness as the story is no longer new and fresh to my own eyes.

What structure will let me live in that place the longest?

After answering the previous questions, I believe I will be most comfortable working on three projects at a time. Since I have the freedom of not answering to an agent or editor, I can get away with multitasking.

 

Conclusion:

As super excited as I am about Twilight Rain, I’m going to let that one simmer a bit longer. Finish at least one of my other projects first. I have three stories that are hovering around the 30,000 words mark: Trinity Coven, Race to 100 Deaths, and The Minotaur Staff. It will be an awesome rush if I can make progress on all three of those each week. By some logic, it will take me longer to finish a WIP this way. In reality, it will be more productive to switch between projects when I get bored or stuck, rather than stress over one story and go a month or more without writing anything.