Its a good day, halloo, hallay!

Some days are meant to be good.

From Facebook Fairy Tales

Woke this morning with a blooded eye, wondering why I chose to punch myself in my sleep.  This later developed to a migraine . . . I have no pain, no nausea, just visual disturbance  . . . split images, venetian blind effects, sometimes barely any vision at all.  But half an hour later, with some treatment, it was all gone and I was able to sit at the computer and read emails, blogs and even do some writing.  The blogs, chiefly Nathan Bransford’s (www.nathanbransford.com) of the last three days were damned good reading giving a succinct rundown of the most recent Amazon/Macmillan problems, also a fabulous blog on the future of the e-book, digital publishing and self-publishing which I found fascinating, especially the comments from readers. I experienced some sort of vindication for flying with the independent YWO.com with my first two novels.  Mr. Bransford implied that those outside the maintream, who have had to pedal harder under water (my words), may, together with a knock your socks off ms, have the edge in this e-book battle and may indeed make an impression with the mainstream publishers. I really loved this because an agent last year basically called me out over my decision to POD with YWO.com  My confidence took a hell of a hiding, despite the fact that the year has been exciting, inspiring, full of growth in both writing and marketing.

My email also presented me with news from book-trailer brother that he has put together a rough edit for me to see.  All this without me even sitting by his side as he worked.  He said he just worked mainly from my original shot-list.  He was concerned that because I wanted to break down my images to portions thereof, that there would be distortion and loss of impact, so I have no idea if that happened or if he photoshopped, or whatever was  required and managed to pull it off.  I can’t wait to see it and he’s coming to the shack tomorrow and I get to have my first gander at it.

See, a good day!

But best was that I finally got over the hurdle, the log, the giant obstacle that has been stopping me from progressing the WIP.  It just suddenly happened.  I relaxed, I spoke from my protagonist’s mind and it gelled.  Like I say, halloo, hallay!

Mapping a world . . .

Fantasy map from Wikimedia Commons.

I visited my tiny local library today and came across a giant book (one that just fitted into my bike basket), called The Map Book edited by Peter Barber.  Published in GB in 2005, it is the quintessential history of maps and their making and has the most extraordinary collection illustrated in its pages.

I always took maps for granted: something in the glove-box of the car, something in a waterproof folder on the boat, or in the handbag if you didn’t know your way around a new city.  Something often in the front of a hist. fict. book and always in the front of a fantasy book.  Thus when I began to write fantasy, it really was the first thing I had to do: sit down and draw the geography of my world.  It was a fun excercise, took a couple of days and required raiding my son’s architectural drawing supplies and my daughter’s graphics’ supplies.  But I am only a writer and when came the time to be published, Cath McAuliffe of  www.cmdesign.com.au took on my needs and created the perfect map of my world.

But then miniature book artist Patricia Sweet from www.bopressminiaturebooks.com

Mapping Eirie

ran with the idea and created the Eirie Collection, a series of maps concealed within tiny map books.  She then developed the idea further . . . a pocket globe based on the Georgian pocket globe – a  tremendous little item the English dandy would carry in the pocket of his damask tailcoat or his breeches to show that he was up to date with all the newly explored territories of the world.  Patricia said I needed to expand my terrestrial world and while I was at it, maybe I could think up a celestial world as well, so that she could create a map chest of Eirie.  Right, says I!

There’s something almost blasphemous in creating a world.  Firstly the map has a coastal outline and then there are deserts, mountains, rivers and forests, and one assumes then that the world is peopled and one has to name those areas, knowing as the names appear, that this might be the site of a battlefield, or a that might be the site of a famine, or maybe a portal to another world, a city of souks, or a university town or a town built on canals.  And as one creates the world, the story to be written begins to take on a dimension, giving more and more ideas.  As the story progresses, I find it handy and somewhat necessary to return frequently to my maps and see whether the protagonist is heading North, South, East or West and how long would it really take to get there and what sort of terrain would he/she be travelling through?

The motivation for this post was generated by Francis Hunter’s great blog ‘Which fictional word would you live in?’ The idea of maps and mapping was a natural follow-on and I’m wondering what other fantasy  writers do when they world-build.  Does the map come first, or the world?  And how hard or easy is it for everyone?  Feel free to comment.

Luna . . .

Chasing moonbeams from Facebook Fairy Tales

Opening WordPress yesterday, I noticed a vote on Freshly Pressed, ‘to the moon again, or not.’ I voted no because I want the moon to remain pristine, untrammelled, an enigma.  I also believe that we have so much more need for the money on our own planet. But the option to vote prompted me to think how important the moon was in A Thousand Glass Flowers.

The two protagonists are mentored by a celestial spirit.  One calls her the Moonlady and the other calls her the Lady Moon. She’s of indeterminate age, has grey hair like spun sugar floss and a gown of midnight blue organza that wafts in a welkin wind, sparkling with gems as if it were a night-time galaxy.

The Moonlady

I had to find a home for her and fortuituously an old friend of mine had lived in a gracious home called ‘Killymoon.’  It’s a beautiful piece of colonial architecture, sitting remotely in the Fingal Valley of Tasmania.  And it most definitely fitted my Moonlady’s needs.  As the story proceeds, the female protagonist  speaks verse which was a part of my own childhood.  The words came via my grandmother and mother and no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t find their provenance.  Perhaps someone knows, perhaps one day someone will be able to tell me who wrote it and what the other verses are:

‘The Lady Moon came down one night,

She did, you shouldn’t doubt it.

A lovely lady dressed in blue, I’ll tell you all about it.

They hurried my sister and I to bed, and Auntie said well maybe,

That lovely moon up overhead will bring you down a baby.’

Moon lights.

The  protagonists discover a unique paperweight, and its based on one I found: a Venetian paperweight from Murano with a midnight blue sky and a field of stars in which sits a quarter moon.  It’s quite, quite lovely.

I often ask myself why the moon has held such fascination . . . just the last few nights it has been a bold ivory disc in the sky and there has been a solid reflection across the river: ‘a moonbridge, a path to the Others, or so the folk in the village would say.’

And because I have a predilection for things lunar, I bought some Chinese lanterns for the garden.  They’re solar-powered and as the night darkens so my trees become filled with a small galaxy of planets. If you look outside in the middle of the night, you can be forgiven for imaging UFO’s, or that you are floating along the Milky Way with blue moons flying past.

Blue Moons

By the way, the editing of the book trailer has begun. And yes, we are all still speaking.

Oh, and PS: Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter is one of my favourite characters. Especially in the movies . . .  wonderfully eccentric and  fey.

Nursing . . .

Hospital . . . fairy style.

No book trailer updates and no blogs for a few days, as my better half has had surgery  and needs my care and attention.

All is well.

Talk soon.

Needle in a haystack . . .

My embroidery bag

‘When I’m not writing or tweaking my computer, I do embroidery.’  This remarkably apt quote for my life comes from Lynn Abbey, fantasy writer.  I was googling quotes today and this is the one that popped up in respect of embroidery and I figured the Fates had conspired to entice me to write on my stitching.

Let’s assume the haystack of the title is the computer and all things technological.  The needle’s the thing that saves me at times of  frustration . . . I pick it up and thread it with wool or silk or whatever the latest stitching WIP requires and try to leave writing and the demands of a quasi-technological existence behind.

Not that they don’t follow me.  But words and what to do, have a habit of resolving themselves in some form or other as the needle shushes in and out of the hoop.  Certainly with the writing of the published books, the need to be the stitcher Adelina was made easier by picking up a needle and thread and feeling the craft.

Stumpwork wreath

At the moment I’m chafing at the bit, desperate to move to the next phase of the book-trailer. Brother is tied up filming for the national broadcaster, graphic designer still has the flu, and so I need to embroider to divert me. I’m stitching a baby rug for a fellow writer, SJA Turney and his wife who are expecting their first in Yorkshire in April.

There’s always a need to move away from your writing, to take a breath, to think, to immerse yourself in the sensations of other excercises.  When I think back on many of the things that my characters have done in various writings, I’ve usually been able to draw on an experience or two of my own.

Which brings me to another point and one I saw blogged about a week or so ago but can’t remember where . . . what do we authors go through for inspiration?

A question for another time perhaps.

Is a fictional world really better?

Found a wonderful blog today . . . http://franceshunter.wordpress.com (which was a meme from http://imlostinbooks.blogspot.com) where she commented on three fictional worlds in which she would like to live.  Hers were exceptional as she is a historical fiction author and had steeped herself in the worlds of her research and writing.  Equally interesting were the comments, with many opting for fantasy worlds and in particular Narnia.

Renaissance Florence

My choices were innumerable but I limited it to three.  Sixteenth century Europe as per Dorothy Dunnett’s superlative House of Niccolo series, where I must gird my loins and many other parts to put up with the conditions of the time.

The next was Green Gables. I shall never forget Anne’s reaction as Matthew drove her through the avenue of cherry blossom for the first time.  Nor any other part of Prince Edward Island as portrayed by LM.Montgomery. There’s probably dozens of others.  The Shire from LOTR and The Hobbit, Camelot from any Arthurian legend.  Sherwood with Robin . . . oh and Guy of Gisborne too as long as it’s Richard Armitage in black leathers!

But my real third has to be the fantasy world of my own creation. I have spent many hours, days, months and maybe even years compiling a memory bank of those features of the world that inspire me the most, both in terms of beauty and ugliness.  The world of Eirie is as real as our own world, with an overlay of fabled beings.  Trevallyn is wooded and green with copses, rills and dark and troubling lakes.  The Raj is a land where the Symmer wind seers the brain and marble porticos shade old men playing shatranj and women pull their saris over their heads against the dust and merciless sun.  High above Ahmadabad and Fahsi, mountains of rock and shale spill into a river as wide and self-important as the Ganges.  Then there is Veniche  . . .  she drapes herself along the darkly dangerous canals of the laguna, her decadent architecture a metaphor for life in the city.  And the Pymm Archipelago is a string of islands so different from each other, it’s as if Aine the Mother was determined to break the mould a dozen times over.

Most recently, as The Shifu Cloth reaches 52,000 words, the Han feeds me with titbits of its silk-bound existence.

In addition, if I make it to Book Five and the story of Gervais the Cartographer, my world shall be found to be round and to be so much more than just five provinces.

Being a part of fantasy worlds, as a voyeur or as a participant is the stuff that adventures are made of and I must thank Frances Hunter for sending me off on this indulgent tangent when I should be putting that book-trailer together.

More about that later.

Oh . . . and yes, family is still speaking . . . just!

Stephen Spielberg, I am not!

So here we go into the next phase of the trailer production.  How do the major movie producers do it?  The image that I have in my head is Academy quality, but of course the reality is a whole other thing.  I’ve no idea what I’m doing and can’t wait to get what I’ve done so far to my brother so that he can do the AVID thing.

After hours of playing the Wikimedia Commons tracks I  finally decided on one that I think might have the necessary rise and fall, and length, for my brother to cut around it.  Have sent to him for comment.

After that decision came the text.  I took the blurbs from both books (yes, if this works, we are doing one for The Last Stitch as well), also found some key lines and key words.  These have been sent to the graphic designer to render into the font she used on the covers and which she will then convert to PC friendly.  Lots of emails flying around.

I put the text, lines and words in linear order and then went through the filed images from Wikimedia Commons and noted which images and indeed what part of those images I wanted to use.  I compiled a very tentative shot-list out of that and against the music as I played it for the millioneth time: words in black, images and what editing might happen to the images in red.  Emailed to my brother.

At this point I am waiting for replies from the graphic designer and the producer to see what the next step is.  I realise that I could acquire the necessary software to do this myself, but I’m not technically savvy at all and have such a wonderful resource of skilled knowledge in my family, I honestly don’t see the point.  My brother will do it so much better and not lose his temper.

Needless to say, I have done ZIP on the WIP!  But never mind, sometimes business and promotion of the existing titles takes precedence.  And this is FUN!  So far.

Oh and by the way . . . family relationships are still good!

To market, to market . . .

Part of the Stream of Consciousness blog has emphasised marketing, whether it is done by the writer or for the writer by the publishing house.  With that in mind, I have decided to venture into booktrailer-dom.

The essence of book marketing!

I’m in the really fortunate position of having the right sort of family connections.  My brother is a working partner in a post-production company, my daughter is a graphic designer (in fact her company, Salt Design, did the covers of the books) and my husband is an ex-doco maker for the national broadcaster here in Australia.  Can I pull this off without fracturing the family relationship and given that I am the author of the books and have a certain idea of how I want this to be? And that I am a luddite par excellence? Heaven only knows.

But over the next few blogs I shall let you know.  In the meantime, I have been in touch with the graphic designer and she is providing the font ( a special one she bought some time ago) and making it suitable for use on a PC as she works with a Mac. She is also providing stills images from the shoot she did for the covers.  In addition I have just had five enthralling days looking for royalty-free music on the internet and finally found five tracks on the Creative Commons of Wikimedia.  These will be played and played over the next day or so against an imaginary shot-list to see which has the most rise and fall and the best tempo.

In addition, I have accessed wonderful stock images of classic art on Wikimedia and have filed them and my brother, who uses Avid software on his PC and has an Avid suite at work, will take out what ever tiny parts of those images we may decide upon and cut them into the whole.

I have also to find one or two remarkable passages from the books and key words which will be rendered into the special font and overlaid.

A fan of the books from America (www.bopressminiaturebooks.com), who has since become a kindred spirit, has designed and ‘aged’ some amazing cartography which she has contributed to the file.

All that remains is for husband and self to get a thought pattern going and translate it into a shot-list.  Brother says it will take next to no time.  When it is ready for uploading to Youtube, the excellent www.Tech for Luddites.com has given some advice on how best to manage that stage.

So here we go.  As I said . . . to market, to market . . . wish me luck!

Stream of consciousness . . .

from the inimitable Fairy Tales on Facebook

I have been sitting thinking today, working through the next phase of the WIP, trying to picture just what I want to happen.  I have an outline you see, a storyboard if you will and I tend to brainstorm at the end of a writing spell, write things down in pen, maybe a para, maybe only a word, but it helps me to move on more fluidly the next day.  So I was having one of those moments and my husband disturbed me (with a glass of wine) and I told him that I had an image in my mind for tomorrow.  I then realised that the idea that I had written two extra chapters way back before I had to leave it all on Nov 20 and which I thought I had lost, was indeed a figment of my imagination.  To be sure I had thought them up, I just hadn’t written key words or paras anywhere.  In my head the two lost chapters were there as a faint image, they just weren’t on the computer.  Does that make sense? As my husband said, I forgot to press the metaphorical ’save’ at the time.

We then went on to talk about the publishing game, and as streams of consciousness tend to do, we walked down many roads.  The POD road, which I have done and enjoyed, and which made me grow up quicker than a baby on steroids. The ‘desperately seeking agent’ road which I also travelled last year with a major Australian agent who seduced me with so-called interest, emasculated me, ridiculed me and then threw me away. The ‘mainstream publishing road’ . . . hmm, the road I hope to place a tentative toe on this year.

My husband is a media exec and he said that in electronic broadcasting which now covers podcast, radio, TV, V.O.D, Facebook ,Twitter, I-View, etc . . . the content is the thing.  Not the format but the C-O-N-T-E-N-T. In fact there is a saying: ‘Content is king.’ What surprises him I think, after watching the ease of  my POD experience, is why mainstream publishing hasn’t moved more speedily into that area.  There is so much on the internet about publishers thinking about POD, or thinking about E-Books etc.  His comment was that if the content is good enough, what the hell does the format matter ?  A good point and one I couldn’t answer, because I am a babe in the woods both as an author and a published writer.

There are those diehards who might say that because my novels are a product of POD that I am not a published writer. I would ask then: when is a carefully written story that has been professionally formatted, professionally cover-designed,  printed and then marketed and which has a small fan base, not  a published book?  I suspect its a semantic question for more experienced people in the field than I, so with that in mind I’m off to write down some key words and paras for the WIP that I hope may one day do its own bit of seduction.

The ‘But’ Days . . .

There was a great blog today from a guest blogger on Nathan Bransford:

http://blog.nathanbransford.com

Worth reading because it lists all the excuses people use not to write.  I know I’m a victim of the ‘but’ days.  There’s too much housework, I need to do some cooking, I’m needed on the farm, or worst of all . . . I can’t be bothered today!

One of the buts listed was not having a writer’s group close by and funnily, perhaps expeditiously, that is the one thing that doesn’t worry me at all.  I write in a vacuum.  No one sees my WIP until I upload the odd chapter to the forthright writer’s site YouWriteOn.com to get a feel for the development of the work.  This is better for me than a writer’s group.  None of us really know each other so the reviews are generally pretty damned honest as we aren’t afraid of stepping on toes.

Back to the vacuum then until it goes to the Consultancy in the UK who assess it. Then the really hard work of a year or more begins as they pull it apart and I have to sew it back together again.  Sometimes the critiques can reduce me to tears BUT I soldier on regardless, because I want to be A WRITER!

I want to write today too BUT . . .

Seal (or is it a selkie) swimming where we dive.

the sun shines and the water is calm and palest turquoise and it is a diving and swimming day.  Yes, okay, I’ve fallen into the trap.  BUT who cares?  Sometimes life is just for living.