Life After National Novel Writing Month—Not Losing Your Go

So, time for the final nag: Well, NaNoWriMo is finally over, did you get your 50,000 words, didja, didja, didja?

My answer: Not even close.

And while some people understandably feel like they want to throw their pens in the air in despair, (or much more expensively, their computers), I’m not feeling bad at all. No, I didn’t win a t-shirt, or a bag of candy. But my daughter’s still sharing her Halloween candy with me, and since Thanksgiving is over and I’m staring down the barrel at the holidays, the last thing I need is candy. And ThinkGeek.com is going to suck all of my drawer space for t-shirts anyway.

So what now? What does the universe look like after NaNoWriMo, after the latest greatest writing revolution. For some people, there are a bunch of new exciting novels to work on editing. For other slow-pokes like me, what was the value of NaNoWriMo?

Well, I’m 20,000 words ahead of where I would have been otherwise. For a full-time public health professional, mom, and daydreaming sci-fi watching goof-off, that’s a lot. Like most people who try to cram way too much into their day without the benefit of Hermione Granger’s Time Turner or Doctor Who’s Tardis, my typical day is that when I finally get time to pull out my story and write, instead I find myself staring into space drooling, or watching TV, or discovering twenty other things I need to do. And so for me, showing up at a restaurant with a bunch of other people who are studiously ticking away at their keyboards and urging me to join their writing sprint, is really inspiring. It gets me to focus by giving me sanctioned time to write, and taking away most of my excuses for goofing around instead. There’s only so many times I can go to get brownies at the counter, or refill my soda, or run to the bathroom. Sooner or later, I sit and I write. I start to relax and words start pouring out, and at the end of the night, I’m happy.

The other great thing about NaNoWriMo is that I have ‘permission to suck’. So I don’t need to obsess over whether or not what I wrote was ‘good’. Who cares, for now? That’s what copy and paste are for, that’s what editing is for. I was thrilled to get a book published, but one thing that I didn’t count on was the paralysis afterwards of ‘what do I do now, what if the second one’s no good?’ So while I love writing and telling stories, it started to become more about whether someone else would like it than whether or not I would. In short, I started worrying too much, the way I worry about everything else. I didn’t even realize the transition until I realized that I was getting nervous about writing. The last time I got nervous about writing was when I was preparing to defend my master’s thesis in front of a committee. While that was buckets of fun, I’m not interested in doing that again.

So the benefits of NaNoWriMo were for me:

1. I wrote more than I would have.
2. I really enjoyed writing again.

Where do we go from here? Well, the great thing about writing is that sometimes it’s kind of like trying on the jeans you kept from high school, when you’re trying to lose weight and seeing that your hard work paid off and you went down two sizes. If you were having trouble starting a novel idea, and you see that you suddenly wrote seven chapters in four weeks, you want to finish it. Good stuff picks up momentum, and so NaNoWriMo is a great creative feeding frenzy that can suck you in if you let it, and propel you through the rest of the novel you want to write. At least, that’s what I hope it will do for me. I am now in the middle of Chapter 12 of the sequel to Pazuzu’s Girl. Wish me luck, and good luck finishing up your own NaNo novels!

New Release! Pestilence by Jeani Rector

As a public health worker, I was excited to pick up Pestilence, by Jeani Rector. And I was not disappointed. Whenever I pick up a book in which disease is a big feature in the story, I often get ready to pick it apart if it’s not someone who has a background in infectious disease, because I’m kind of a jerk like that. But there wasn’t much to pick at. Ms. Rector has clearly done a lot of research, not just about the disease and its history, but about the conditions of London and the feudal system. And she does something that few authors do so well as this author does: show how all of the different conditions contributed to the perfect storm. I’m a medical anthropologist. I have little snippets of knowledge about very specific things, but I’ll confess that medieval history, names and dates, are not my forte. I struggled to stay awake in history class as soon as dates and names of people started droning from my teachers’ mouths. But if I had had a book like this when I was in school, I would have remembered every history lesson. Not only does she explain the history of the Black Death, but each of her characters was alive and engaged me in caring about what happened to them, whether that was holding my breath hoping that the heroine survives, or wanting to stab the bad guys and rub fleas all over them. She has created a living history. I would use this book to teach because bringing events to life is the best way to engage people and make them remember.

You can find out more about Pestilence at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can learn more about Jeani Rector at the Horror Zine, a very cool online horror zine. You can also like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

Ereshkigal and the Persephone Myth

One of the most fascinating characters to me in myth, Sumerian or otherwise, is Ereshkigal. For people who know me, this might seem obvious. Queen of the Underworld, zombies, dead people, ghosts. I have make-believe zombie preparedness posters in my office at work. However, my love of all things morbid and creepy is not the key reason I’m interested in Ereshkigal.

Many people do not see her as a sympathetic character. Like most other gods in mythology everywhere, she is vicious, cunning, vengeful, all of the delightful qualities of ancient gods. But if you know her whole story, suddenly, the reasons for her ruthlessness take on a different tone.

She did not begin as a dark frightening goddess of the dead. By all accounts, her story began very much like Persephone’s. She began as a young beautiful maiden sun goddess. Until she was raped, abducted, and dragged to the Underworld by a dragon named Kur, at least in one version he is a dragon. In others he is a mountain. At one point, the Underworld is referred to as Kur…Until, unlike the demure Persephone, she kicked her rapist’s ass and took over the Underworld. From this point on, the Underworld is referred to by one of her other names, Irkalla. This seemed to mark the shift in dominance. If Persephone had been depicted differently than she was, rather in the same way as Ereshkigal, it would have ended with her kicking Hades’ ass, and renaming the Greek Underworld Persephone. Ereshkigal was not going to be content with becoming the consort of some controlling jerk. She was going to take his stuff and kick him to the curb.

So basically, she starts as a rape victim, and instead of succumbing to the fate someone else was forcing upon her, decides somehow to use her circumstances to her advantage and create her own future. I don’t know about anyone else, but that is much more interesting to me than just her label as the goddess of the Underworld, it was how she got there. Like Thelma and Louise, told the Addams Family way, and with a happy ending.

Though I didn’t go into her backstory in Pazuzu’s Girl, I made a reference to it, when she told JD that she would look after his abused mother when the woman died, because she ‘understood what it was to feel powerless’.

I’m now writing a sequel to Pazuzu’s Girl, in which Ereshkigal’s origin story will be told from her point of view.

I can’t help but wonder if she were a real woman today, she would probably be jailed for doing the things she does, and then there would be protests for her by feminist groups, Facebook campaigns with her face representing women’s rights. Interesting to think of the tropes we see throughout history showing up in different ways, perceived differently in different ages.

YA Indie Carnival: Friday the 13th

Today’s YA Indie Carnival post is about none other than…Friday the 13th. Of course it is. It’s like crack to us sometime horror writers. However despite juicy movies and uses in fiction, what is the real basis for Friday the 13^th superstitions?

No one really knows. It did not show up much in references prior to the 19^th century. One speculation was that since twelve was a number indicated as complete: twelve tribes of Israel, twelve months of year, twelve hours etc, that one more may be viewed as excess and unbalanced, like having three people on a date.

Friday has often been cited as an unlucky day for travel. I do not know why. Though, I’m sure the people who are mauled in increasing numbers on Black Friday sales would probably agree that Friday, despite being the most awesome day of the workweek is not such a great day when people act like psychos. Though this misfortune can be attributed to humans who have no common sense or ethical values rather than divine influence. My husband has an aunt who was actually mugged by a woman for the mini-television she had unassumingly picked up to buy. And this was in a tiny town in upper Michigan.

For Jews and Muslims, Friday is anything but unlucky. For Jews, Friday evening is the start of the Sabbath, since our days weirdly start in the evening. And for Muslims, Friday is also the Sabbath, though I think theirs is during the day on Friday. Anyone who is a working mom will say that a day of rest is never a bad thing.

By itself, Friday was named after Frigga or Freya from the Norse pantheon. Freya was from the Vanir, a class of Norse deity with different origins than the Aesir, though what those differences were was never clear to me. She was attributed as being a love goddess. This doesn’t sound so unlucky, unless of course you’ve just been dumped. She is also attributed as being a goddess of fertility, beauty, and war. She received half of all the souls killed on the battlefield at her hall Folkvangr. This association with violence and death, could lend itself to the perception of ill fortune, especially since Nordic warriors’ goals seemed to be Valhalla, Odin’s hall, instead. I suppose if you die and the afterlife bus takes you to New Jersey instead of Hollywood, it might be cause for discontent.

I suppose that like any superstition, it depends on whose point of view you have.

See what else Freaky Friday reveals in our fellow authors’ blogs!

1.	Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series	2.	Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3.	Heather Self	4.	T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5.	Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga	6.	Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
7.	Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog	8.	K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
9.	Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series	10.	Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
11.	Dani Snell’s Refracted Light Reviews	12.	Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
13.	M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping	14.	Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
15.	Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls	16.	Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
17.	Gwenn Wright, author of Filter	18.	TG Ayer
19.	Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy	20.	Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
21.	Roots in Myth, PJ Hoover	22.	Courtney Cole Writes

And here’s What’s New! There are some exciting new releases, so get your Kindle and your bowl of popcorn ready!

New Podcast! My radio interview about Pazuzu’s Girl on Journal Jabber: Demons Got Your Tongue?

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/journaljabber/2012/04/11/demons-got-your-tongue

NEW RELEASES!

 

Soul Bound by Courtney Cole

The gods are playing games again and this time it’s going to get ugly. 

Empusa is the daughter of the goddess of witchcraft and the moon.  As a child of the moon, she has all of the ethereal lunar powers that come with it.  She is beautiful, vulnerable and strong.  But since she is cursed by her father to drink souls and mortal blood, her powers will come back to haunt her…

Brennan is the son of Apollo, the god of the sun.  As a child of the sun, he is handsome, golden, brave and strong.  He’s just learning to harness his own immortal powers, only there isn’t much time…

There’s an ugly, twisted storm brewing on Olympus and Brennan and Em are in the center of it.  Their powers are conflicting, polar opposites.  If they can’t learn to handle their abilities without killing each other, they will kill everyone in the mortal world, as well.  Time is ticking and the gods are watching.  Who will rise, who will fall and who will be left standing?

 

She escaped, but she’ll never be free. 

 

December and Lilly have got their work cut out for them. Not only are they desperately trying to figure out the identity of the Lost Soul, and track him down, they’ve also got to investigate why Powell River’s newest resident has got all of their men falling at her feet.
But when they learn that the Nephilim might be involved, it becomes clear that they’re all in extreme danger…

 

Rhoe and Ashley would never be friends.

Even if they lived on the same planet.

But, they’ll become so much more.

They’ll transfer.

THIS ENHANCED EBOOK CONTAINS LINKS

TO THE MUSIC, STORIES, PHOTOS & VIDEOS THAT

INSPIRED THE STORY.

 

A magical game of Hide n Seek begins.
Find the missing player and win.
The game resets; everyone forgets and starts to play again.

 

Seventeen-year-old Fresco Conte is an ordinary All-American kid from an upper middle-class family. He plays football. His girlfriend is a cheerleader. Life is good. Until unexplained things, scary things, start to take him over. Like surviving an accident that should have killed him. Or hearing the thoughts of the people around him whether he wants to or not. When the men in the dark blue coveralls come for him, Fresco is forced into addiction to the blue joy known as Wasteland and set free on the street, with no answers and only his hunger to keep him company.   

 

Last Stand is no more and Fresco is left to pick up the pieces. With his damaged brother Daniel stashed for safe keeping, Fresco and the old scientist Medley gather the remaining survivors and do their best to protect them. But the Garbagemen have other ideas, their leader’s goal to capture Fresco and make him one of their own.

 

DEAD RADIANCE – Book 1 in the Valkyrie NovelsFor as long as she can recall Bryn Halbrook has seen a golden aura around certain people, and it is only when her new best friend Joshua dies that she understands the glow means death. Bryn struggles to adapt to a new town and a new foster home while trying to deal with the guilt of being unable to save her friend. Until mysterious biker-boy, Aidan Lee arrives.

When Aidan unexpectedly takes off he leaves behind a shattered heart, a tonne of unanswered questions and a mysterious book that suggests Bryn is a Valkyrie. Bryn is faced with questions about Aidan’s real identity, the real reason he came to Craven, and that Odin, Freya and Valhalla just might be real.

As if accepting her new wings, new life and new home in Asgard isn’t difficult enough, Bryn is forced to find and return the precious necklace of the Goddess Freya. The only problem is – if she fails, Aidan will die.
The mystery of a Mythology is easy to enjoy. The reality is much harder to accept.

A child born of sun and moon will impart a human gift to bring forth the fall of the house of Gammen. – Hayes Prophecies

So you read the prophecy. It’s all mystical, but pretty vague. Am I right? Those three, short lines are absolutely frustrating. Lucky me, I’m the one who’s supposed to figure it out. I’m the child born of sun and moon.

Join Keira Ryan as she chases her destiny in this exciting third installment in the Midnight Guardian Series. While Keira searches, her enemies draw closer. A history of trust is tested. A promise of passion turns deadly. A surviving evil creates doubt and there’s only one way to stop it…Find the Gift.Just what do you get the spoiled gremlin queen that has everything?

Ready for a new kind of teen paranormal romance?
Also look for:
Of Sun & Moon, Book 1
Whispering Evil, Book 2
Book 4, Shadows Rising, coming Fall 2012

 

Love is irresistible.  Gravity is undeniable.

COVER REVEAL

 

Heather Self’s debut novel!

The next in the series from Fisher Amelie!

Review of Pazuzu’s Girl by The Horror Zine

I’ve been off and on the site recently, due to life getting a little nuts. I have been really thrilled to have the YA Indie Carnival, because it made me sit down and post, and discuss things that I thought about while I was running around during the day and never sat down to talk about. Writing discipline is one of the things that I think a lot of people struggle with, especially as people get more and more drawn into all kinds of distractions. Pretty soon, I look up and the whole year has gone by, when I wasn’t looking. I am very disorganized, and so making a set time to sit down and write has been crucial for me.

Everyone loves good reviews. It’s a huge boost in so many ways. If I’m having a bad day, it makes me realize that most of the things I’m obsessing about aren’t that big a deal. If I’m having a good day, well, that’s just the hot fudge on the sundae, and also a great excuse to go out and get ice cream for real. But it is also great for encouragement to keep doing what I’m doing. I think a lot of times writers feel like we work hard on something and then it goes off into ether world and gets lost. So when a source that we are fans of notices our work, it really renews determination, especially if we are embroiled in writing another one.

So, I am sitting with a huge grin on my face that will only change long enough to stuff a hot fudge sundae in it. Here is the review of Pazuzu’s Girl by The Horror Zine.

http://www.thehorrorzine.com/ReviewFolder/PazuzusGirl/Girl.html

And here is the main link, because you should really check out this zine f you love horror. It is a wealth of scary stories and terrific authors.

And here is a quote from the review: “Although technically a Young Adult novel, it is sophisticated enough to be enjoyed by adults as well. I recommend Pazuzu’s Girl for any fan of fantasy or Dungeons and Dragons; for that matter, any fan of a walloping good read.”

Goodreads Choice Awards

A terrific horror story by a fellow author is up for a Goodreads Choice Award: That Which Should Not Be, by Brett Talley. To all my fellow nerds who love the world of H.P. Lovecraft, and a good, chilling huddle-under-the-covers horror story, this is a choice read!

Never mind the Broncos! Go Miskatonic U, go!

Check out That Which Should Not Be, and cast your vote at
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11876043-that-which-should-not-be

 

 

YA Indie Carnival Featured Author: Sean Hayden

Today on the YA Indie Carnival we have Sean Hayden, author of Origins, a Demonkin novel. He has had a lot of success with this novel, and is here to share some points about the book, and some points on writing and publishing.

1. Origins is a very entertaining book in its treatment of demons and humanizing of traditional monsters. Where did your idea come from?

Sean: The idea came from watching every movie and television show imaginable about vampires with my nine year old daughter. It seemed like every time a new one came out, the first question out of her mouth was, “Daddy, how do these vampires die?” or “Daddy, how come these vampires don’t burn in sunlight?” Origins was born from these questions and  I used the fact that there could be several different breeds of vampire to answer it.

2. Many authors have a favorite character in their novels who seems to write him/herself onto the pages. Which was your favorite character in Origins, and why?

Sean: Mine? Definitely Thompson. I had  Michael Clarke Duncan in mind when I wrote his part and he was sort of born. I love that he’s a werelion and I love he’s there to stick up for Ashlyn.

3. What is your favorite portrayal of a demonic character in stories you’ve read or grown up with?

Sean: Unfortunately, growing up demons were always portrayed as these horrific nightmarish creatures. I wanted to make mine a little cooler. While Ashlyn’s father is of the giant, eat your face off, winged variety, In the subsequent novels, the readers will be introduced to a variety of them. Some will be cool suave, and debonair…others not so much. Rarely are such demonic characters portrayed and I had never come across any until Buffy and Angel came around.

4. What is next for the Demonkin novels? Do you have a specific arc that you are going to work through, like Dan Simmon’s Hyperion series, or do new developments keep unfolding to build the series? I guess what I’m asking is, in this series, are you a planner, or pantser?

Sean: The sequel, Deceptions is undergoing final edits right now and should be out within the next few months. As for planning and unfolding. I am a TOTAL Pantser. I don’t even take grocery lists to the store when I’m shopping.

5. What is the most difficult thing for you to do in writing and publishing, and how did you solve that problem?

Sean: Editing my own works. I edit part time for other people and publishers, but when it comes to my own works…I’m sort of blind. I KNOW what i was trying to say. I KNOW what I meant. Doesn’t mean it’s always correct though! ~insert huge blush here~

6. What is the most key piece of advice for new writers/authors in general, something that you see that authors can address to make them more successful?

Sean: If you’re going to go with a small independent publisher, start early building up friends on social networks. I can’t stress this enough. Having a close knit group of author friends will do more for your writing career and marketing than you could EVER hope to do on your own. I have sold ten times as many books from my awesome support group tweeting and facebooking about them than I have tweeting and facebooking about them.

That is great advice! Relationship-building is critical in so many professions. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. Thank you so much for sharing your both insight into your very well-written novel, and your advice for other writers to become successful authors.

Sean Hayden’s novel Origins can be purchased on Kindle, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble. In addition to Origins, he has also published Third Time, Lady Dorn, First Flight, and Second Chance, on both Kindle and Smashwords.

If you wish to contact Sean Hayden, you can reach him via Twitter at @shaydenFL, or on his website at 
http://www.seanhayden.org/
. His books are also available there. Visit his blog for some great writing commentary!

In addition to checking out Origins, visit Laura Elliot’s new work 13 on Halloween at  
http://laurasmagicday.wordpress.com/13-on-halloween-trailer/
, and browse through other featured authors on the following YA Carnival links!

http://www.refractedlightreviews.com
 Danny Snell’s Refracted Light Reviews

http://pattilarsen.blogspot.com
 Patti Larsen, Author of The Ghost Boy of MacKenzie House, the Hunted series, and the Hayle Coven novels.

http://courtneycolewrites.wordpress.com
 Courtney Cole, Author of Every Last Kiss, Fated, Princess, and Guardian. Also a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.

http://wrenemerson.wordpress.com
 Wren Emerson, Author of I Wish and a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.

http://laurasmagicday.wordpress.com
 Laura Elliott, Author of Winnemucca.

http://nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com
 Nichole A. Williams, Author of Eternal Eden, and the upcoming Fallen Eden. She is also participating in the Glassheart Chronicles.

http://fisheramelie.com/blog/
 Fisher Amelie, Author of The Understorey, as well as a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.

http://amyjonesyaff.blogspot.com
 Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy as well as a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.

http://thewarriorseries.blogspot.com
 T. R. Graves, Author of Warriors of the Cross.

http://ctefft.blogspot.com
 Cyndi Tefft, Author of Between

http://pjhoover.blogspot.com
 P.J. Hoover, Author of Solstice, The Emerald Tablet, The Navel of the World, The Necropolis.

http://www.aliciamccalla.com
 Alicia McCalla, Author of the upcoming science-fiction novel Breaking Free.

http://heathercashman.com/better_off_read
 Heather Cashman, Author of Perception.

http://www.abbiglines.com
 Abbi Glines, Author of Breathe, and the upcoming Existence and Vincent Boys.

http://cidneyswanson.blogspot.com/
 Cidney Swanson, Author of Rippler.

http://cherischmidt.blogspot.com
, Cheri Schmidt, Author of Fateful, Fractured, and Fair Maiden, Fire Dancer

http://www.lexusluke.com/
, Lexus Luke, Author of Manitou, The Sky People Saga, Fire Breather

http://www.suzyturner.com/
, Suzy Turner, Author of December Moon and Raven, Dragonslayer

http://kasi-kcblake.blogspot.com/
, K. C. Blake, Author of Vampire Rules, Elephant Trainer

http://hereventuality.blogspot.com/
, Gwenn Wright, Author of Filter, Ring-Leader

http://kimberlykinrade.com/
, Kimberly Kinrade, Author of Bits of You, Pieces of Me and Forbidden Mind, Prestidigitator

http://jlbryanbooks.blogspot.com/
, J.L. Bryan, Author of Paranormals series- Jenny Pox. Tommy Nightmare & Alexander Death

http://darbykarchut.com/
 Darby Karchut, Author of Griffin Rising, and soon Griffin Fire