Great Advice from a Fellow Author

 I got some great advice today (well, probably me and several hundred other authors) that I wanted to share. 

Paraphrasing, it went something like this:

Don't be afraid to fall in love with writing (again). Remember why you started to write? Remember why you still write? If you're struggling, find a new idea you're passionate about, let go of your fears, and pour your heart and soul into this new book. Try to release expectations for this book and just savor and enjoy the writing process and the amazing new story. Relive the excitement and enthusiasm that got you writing to begin with. 

This seemed to be a highly respected opinion from out-of-the-blue that reinforces my decision to step back and dive into the trilogy-on-the-backburner-of-my-mind-for-many-years. To bring back to life the saga that first got me enthused about writing professionally and publishing in the first place, and yet, I just never seemed to be able to get that first novel to the publishing stage, in spite of it's nomination for a Golden Heart Award (Remember those?) and multiple writing competition wins a decade ago. 

This story (in three main parts) is a sweeping family saga in a ...in spaaaaaaace. But it's about so much more than that. It takes great swaths of history and myth from here on Earth and creates the hopefully convincing worldbuilding for the trilogy, which essentially follows three generations in a time of great change. And creates the history for all of my stories that have already been published in the Inherited Stars Universe, that came much later in the timeline.

How far have I gotten?

Well, to be honest, not far...on paper (er...computer), but I've written multiple entire passages in the current project as I knead the plot, motivations, conflict and characters in my head. The story for Gen One is written--and has won awards--but needs a bit more scrubbing before it can meet the world. I'm going to wait on the introduction, and publish all in close succession -- provided I decide to traditionally publish them at all. 

Gen Two is the story I'm mentally developing now, which will be followed by Gen Three. These are generic WIP tags for titles I'm not yet ready to announce.

Let me share just a tiny thread of a scene -- one that's actually written but not yet revised, refined or edited -- to give you a taste of the Gen Two story. Yes, it's Science Fiction -- or Space Adventure, as I prefer to label it -- but like many sci-fi settings, it probably invokes the language and social etiquette of a past age. (More on that later.) 

Tucked into the midst of her escort, Shanna approached a group of men, all clad in immaculate uniforms or festive finery. Her eyes were drawn to the one who wore an imposing uniform of pristine white, with golden stripes adorning the sleeves of an elegantly tailed jacket, his trousers delineated by a wide gamble stripe. His light hair, thick and cut in a taper, just brushed the back of his uniform’s collar accentuating broad shoulders. An ornate scabbard gleamed at his side, the grip of the sheathed sword decorated in cascading scarlet tassels. 

A commander of the King’s Guard, maybe? Or even a captain?

As her escort drew closer, he cast a glance back over his shoulder to inspect the new arrivals, and spying her, his whole body pivoted to follow his gaze. 

Shanna stopped mid-step, drawing a quick breath. “Blue!” she whispered. His hair was shorter, his bearing more regal than the friend she'd come to know. But how had she not recognized him?

His aqua eyes widened as he took her in, lavender gown and all.

“My Lady,” he whispered, and after shaking off his surprise, moved closer. “You are here in time for my reception.”

“Your reception?”

In answer, he made a sweeping gesture to the grand entrance to the Royal Quarters, where she caught sight of the large crowd milling in the main hall. A reception for what? Surely not his wedding!

“Our hunting party returned just a few hours ago.” Shanna nodded to Macalla, “My Confidante told me there was a celebration I must not miss.”

Nacondus tilted his head. “Indeed.” He gave Macalla a quick glance and a slight smile. “I am beyond pleased you decided to attend.” 

“I’m a little uncertain what it is I’m attending. You said…your reception?”

Nacondus dipped his chin slightly. “My Recognition Ceremony was held this afternoon. By tradition, a grand reception always follows.”

Shanna relaxed with some relief. “Recognition Ceremony. I don’t know what that means.” 

 

As always, I'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback on this "enthusiasm-booster project." :)

Take care and have a great week as you prepare for the holiday season.

Laurie

WORK? BUT IT'S CHRISTMAS!

 

I love Christmas, but even I think this is too much!

I’m working on a new novel. In fact, I’m working on an entirely new series, but you’d never know it by my output here in December. As the days count down to Christmas and New Year’s, I can’t find the focus to devote to building my fictional world or molding my fictional characters, putting words in people’s mouths or setting the scenes they’re in. I might as well be nine years old again, waiting for Santa to come down the chimney.

I’m a bit of a Christmas freak, you see. Things weren’t always great when I was growing up; I had a few really rough holiday seasons. There are two ways to react to that once you’re grown: turn into Scrooge and reject Christmas or decide, now that Christmas is under your control, the holidays will be the best they can be.  I took the second road.

Every year, I go all in on the decorations and the cheesy movies and the music and the sentiment. I’m trying to pull back a bit on the presents—at this age, my husband and I have everything we need, after all, and my kids just need money—but Santa and her elves do get creative with what goes in the stockings. That can include nice little goodies as well as gag gifts to make Christmas morning fun.

We’ll be traveling to see family just before the holidays, too, with a long road trip to see both daughters and the grandkids. My youngest daughter was born on the Winter Solstice, so that’s been an automatic pre-Christmas party every year since. Then we’ll have guests here at home over Christmas and New Year’s.

With all that going on, there’s not a chance in the North Pole I’ll be able to concentrate on work. I’m not the dedicated author that, say, Stephen King is, writing eight hours a day every day of the year except his birthday and the Fourth of July. But then, I’ve always believed he’s able to do that because he has wife Tabitha keeping the emotional and housekeeping home fires burning for him. He probably just pops out of his office for the Christmas dinner and presents she’s arranged, then goes happily back to work. Can’t be that way for those of us women who make the home magic happen.

But, you know, I’m not unhappy or resentful about my December hiatus. I don’t feel too guilty about slacking off during this time of joy and peace to the world. Our minds should be on something else besides the next step on the career ladder. The long, cold days of January will be upon us soon enough. Plenty of time to work then.

Cheers and Happy Holidays,

Donna

 

 

DISASTERS REAL AND IMAGINED

Nord Stream gas leak--courtesy Danish Defence.

It’s getting harder every day for science fiction writers to stay ahead of events in the real world. Predicting the future is a tricky business when climate change, swift advances in technology, pandemics, constant war and societal upheaval have become a part of our daily lives.

Right now, for example, our friends in Florida are suffering through a devastating hurricane, the worst to hit the western coast of the state in over a hundred years, while our friends in the western part of the U.S. contend with an epic drought. Both disasters have been exacerbated by climate change, which in turn has been caused by human action over time.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a different kind of environmental disaster is unfolding, almost certainly caused by direct human action on a much quicker time scale. Four leaks have been discovered in the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea that carries fuel to Europe. The leaks are spewing natural gas, releasing over half a million metric tons of methane into the ocean. Methane makes up the largest part of natural gas, and though the leaks will likely have minimal effect on local wildlife, the amount of methane released into the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of two million cars, according to Andrew Baxter, a methane expert at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Experts think the leaks are the result of sabotage of the pipeline, though they have no proof, and as yet can identify no culprit. Certainly Russia would have no motive; Putin and company have every incentive to keep the gas flowing to ensure income to support the war in Ukraine. It’s highly doubtful the Ukrainians would do it, either. They have neither the time nor the resources to mount such a mission. So far, then, it’s a mystery.

But to return to my original point, this story is eerily similar to the plot of a Norwegian science fiction/disaster film I saw a few weeks back on Hulu, titled THE BURNING SEA (2021). In this film, from the creative team behind THE QUAKE (2018) and THE WAVE (2015), and directed by John Andreas Andersen, drilling for oil in the North Sea opens fissures in the seabed, leading to disaster. Oil rigs explode! People are killed and trapped! Oil spreads over the sea, threatening coastlines from Scandinavia to Europe and Britain! The only solution is to set the oil on fire before it fouls the entire North Sea basin.

Since I love a good disaster film, no matter what its country of origin, I enjoyed THE BURNING SEA. The writing was decent, the effects were great, and the acting was more than competent. I thought the plot pretty far-fetched, of course, but now I’m wondering if it really was that far out. Yes, the current Nord Stream disaster is the result of deliberate sabotage, not an uncontrollable cracking of the seabed. And the leaks from the pipeline are of far more manageable natural gas, not oil. Still, you have to think, what if . . .?

On the other hand, we really do have more than enough to worry about. Ian is on the way north as we speak. So, excuse me while I go to batten down the hatches.

Cheers, Donna

*Information for today’s post provided by: “As fourth Nord Stream leak is discovered, here’s what scientists are saying about the environment impact,” by Anviksha Patel, Marketwatch, msn.com, September 29, 2022. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/as-fourth-nord-stream-leak-is-discovered-here-s-what-scientists-are-saying-about-the-environment-impact/ar-AA12niL1?ocid=BHEA000&cvid=08b7cc2bb5d34df7b088fc480efed81a

 

“Russian Gas Leak Could Be Environmental Disaster,” by Avi Salzman, Barron’s, September 27, 2022. https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/russia-gas-leak-environment-51664314465?mod=article_inline

 

 

 

TAXING KING OF PAIN DRAFT NEARS 'THE END'

After much longer than usual, I’m finally approaching the end of my working draft of King of Pain: Interstellar Rescue Series Book Five. The story of Thrane Hunter-turned-Rescue agent Trevyn Dar and shapeshifter Lael Saphora was a tough one to craft during a worldwide pandemic—for a lot of reasons—and it will need plenty of revision. But at least I’ll soon be able to put a tentative “The End” to the first draft. Hallelujah!

Why has this book, which will probably be the final novel in my Interstellar Rescue series, been such a bear to write? Well, I don’t think I’m the only author who has struggled during the pandemic to focus on my work. Even well-known professionals have noted how difficult it’s been to write while the world burns. (The pandemic isn’t the only disaster we’re dealing with, after all.) Fiction, like other forms of creativity, requires emotional space, which is pretty hard to come by when you’re busy thinking about lockdown, full ICUs, politics, climate change, wildfires, hurricanes, floods and all the rest of it. I’d like to think of my work as an escape to another world, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Then, too, I set myself a major challenge in several ways with this particular story. For the first time, I set the story on an alien planet, rather than on Earth or in space. Thrane is the home planet of the humanoid telepathic species I’ve introduced in previous novels, so I had a head start on developing the alien culture. Still, I’m more comfortable here on terra firma or on a starship.

My hero, Trevyn, was a good bad guy in Book Two of the series, Trouble in Mind. The alien half-brother of the hero of that book, Gabriel, he suffered under the abuse of his brutal older sibling, Kinnian, until he broke free and helped Gabriel kill Kinnian and save the heroine, Lana.

So, Trevyn is not your usual kind of alpha male hero. He’s carrying more than the normal amount of baggage—guilt, self-loathing, a fear of his family’s inherited darkness. The challenge for me as a writer is to help him carry that load without crippling his confidence. He still has to kick some serious ass, after all, and fight the good fight, too. He made a start on transforming from a bad guy to a good guy in Trouble in Mind. But in King of Pain, Trevyn finally has to overcome his past and rise above it, not just at the end of the novel, but throughout, so we can love him as the romantic hero.

My heroine, Lael, is a snowcat shapeshifter.

My heroine, Lael, too, is a challenge. I’ve never written a shapeshifting character before, though I’ve read plenty of books featuring shapeshifters. (Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changling series is one of my favorites.) I wanted to make sure to be consistent with the features of the Hinarr culture Lael comes from, the details of shifting (like, what happens with clothes and weapons?) and so on. What aspects of her character transfer to her snowcat Companion? And, how, exactly, do you translate the thinking process of a sentient, but non-speaking, creature, like the Companion, without making it sound like a Disney nature voiceover?

There will be pay-offs, of course. These two are meant to be together, like all my Interstellar Rescue couples. They meet the criteria for fated lovers, enemies to lovers and even a kind of Romeo and Juliet-type story, though with a happy ending. Trevyn and Lael are just making me work for their Happy Ever After!

In fact, they have enough problems of their own, you wouldn’t think they would need a villain to make their book life difficult. But, no, every hero and heroine need a good villain (or two). King of Pain has been a challenge in this way, too, because it started from a Big Idea. (Science fiction as a genre suffers from this problem—the concepts, or the technology, often overshadow the characters.) My Big Idea had to do with the telepathic Thranes who rule the planet and the shapeshifting Hinarr, a severely oppressed minority who lack telepathic skills. The Thranes call them “Ghosts,” due to their lack of telepathy, and consider them mentally deficient. They believe the Hinarr are inferior, useful only for menial labor, and a legitimate prey for hunting in their snowcat form.

The Hinarr, however, are no longer content to play the role of the downtrodden of Thrane. They are fighting back via an underground resistance movement, the Uprising, of which Lael is a leader.

This makes for great conflict, but only in a general way. Just like STAR WAR’s Empire needs Darth Vader, my Ruling Houses of Thrane (and the murderous Blood Legion behind them) need an actual person to embody their evil intent. That person should have goals in opposition to those of my hero and heroine. He (it happens to be a he) should have a clear motivation beyond just “power” or “hatred of the Hinarr.” Given those things, the conflict between my central characters will arise naturally.

So, yes, the Primary Ruler of Thrane, Mennon, is one villain of the book, as is a Brother of the Blood Legion named Avet Van-Del, who hunts Trevyn and Lael through most of the novel. But, as I’ve discovered in the act of writing, the biggest villain, the one who should receive the most attention, is the one pulling the strings of these lesser bad guys. And, as some critics of my last book have pointed out, when it comes time for this villain’s demise, I really have to beat him flat. My readers need the satisfaction of seeing that bad guy get his just deserts.

So, you see, I have lots to work on in the next few weeks. And that’s not even accounting for finding the right images for the cover. Or honing the dang blurb. Oy! Wish me luck!

Cheers, Donna