Writerly goodness

Why I hate flying

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Now before I get too far into this post, let me preface it by saying I had an absolutely fabulous time in Michigan City with my friend Stacey Hembruff and her fiancé (now hubbie) Erik Lawrence.

For the day and a half I was there, I met Erik and his family, went to Carlson’s, a local landmark replete with car hops and brewed-on-site root beer (made me reminisce about the A&W of my childhood), went to their wonderful beach, and partied the night away at the local Elk’s lodge.

I had a blast and it made the trial and error of getting there so worth it.

Still.  I had a bit of an adventure.

Hater’s gonna hate

I’m not afraid of flying.  Sure my gut lurches a bit on take off, and when the ride gets a bit rough, I can’t read (legacy of childhood car-sickness) but I have nothing against the mode of transportation itself.  Sometimes it’s the only way to get from point A to point B.

Getting the ticket and dealing with the airline and insurance was a breeze, too.  I was actually pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.  And I was looking forward to flying with Porter, as several of my friends have and have reported that it was a great experience.

I’m the problem.  I’m a control freak.  I hate being at the mercy of someone else’s schedule.  If possible, I’d much rather drive because then if I’m late, I have no one to blame but myself.

So this is all on me 😉

My tale begins when I checked through security at the Greater Sudbury Airport.

The woman behind me turns to me as we’re collecting our belongings from the bins and says, “Is this your first time?”

Excuse me?  She went on to explain that her flight, earlier in the day, had been cancelled.  She didn’t say why and the day so far both in Sudz and in Toronto wasn’t stormy.

I should have known then that I would be in for a few unexpected delays.

The flight departed a half an hour late, and when it arrived at Billy Bishop Airport on Toronto Island, I had 15 minutes until the next boarding.  Would I make it?  Would my checked bag?  I was escorted to the lounge to await the boarding call and about when I expected to board, the announcement was broadcast that due to thunderstorms, all flights were grounded.

Okay.  I texted Stacey to let her know that I would be a bit late and she said that she and Erik were running late themselves and that all would be well.

When the boarding resumed, Porter started with flights to Boston and Newark and the boarding time was now listed 50 minutes after the original.

The boarding call was announced and the lot of us trouped down to the gate where we stood.  And waited.  Additional problems would cause another hour’s delay. We returned to the lounge and I texted Stacey again.  The issue wasn’t weather, she told me.  The skies were clear in Chicago.

The next announcement that went out was that there were weight allowance issues and that any passengers who would volunteer to wait until the next flight would receive a voucher for $250 dollars off their next Porter flight.

If I knew what would happen next, I’d have gone for the deal, but hind sight is perfect, as they say.

When we board, nearly 2 hours after we were supposed to, I noticed that the next flight to Chicago was boarding in 15 minutes. Le sigh.

When we got on the plane, it was one of the smaller ones, and it was packed to the gills.

English: Porter Airlines Bombardier Q400 landi...

English: Porter Airlines Bombardier Q400 landing at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ) in July 2008. Français : Un Q400 de Porter Airlines atterrissant à l’aéroport Billy Bishop de Toronto (YTZ) en juillet 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No wonder they had weight allowance issues.  Because of the smaller size of the plane, though, we’d have to stop for refuelling in Windsor…wait for it…for 15 minutes.  I’m willing to bet that the next flight was on the larger plane that could make the hop in a single flight.

As compensation, in addition to Porter’s usual snacks and beverages (and yes, before you ask, Porter serves actual alcohol on their flights) we were served a chicken pita sandwich, coleslaw, and Lindt chocolate.  I wished that I hadn’t purchased a late dinner in the airport lounge.

We stopped over in Windsor and flew to Chicago with no further problems.  I arrived, made it through customs and claimed my baggage.

But I couldn’t get a signal for my cell phone.  The airport had a Boing hot spot, but apparently, it can’t be used to text or email.  I tried texting Stacey again, because I didn’t know where she was, and I tried to text Phil, because I just wanted to tell him that I’d arrived safely.

I turned on the roaming and tried to latch onto some other network, but no dice.

I found Stacey, she introduced me to Erik, and we drove to Michigan City, about an hour and 15 minutes outside of Chicago.  We arrived without further incident at 11:30, 12:30 my time.  We were staying at Erik’s grandfather’s house and I tried again to find some kind of signal.  My poor phone searched and searched but couldn’t pick anything up.

After a day of travel, me by air, and Stacey and Erik by car, we were all of us pooped.  We dropped, and in the morning, Stacey texted Phil for me.

When I returned to Canadian air space, all my stored up texts were sent.

This is the way of air travel.  It must be accepted.  Still.  I had an adventure 🙂

And that’s why I hate flying.

How about you?  Do you like to fly?  Are you afraid of flying?  Or are you a control freak like me?  I’d love to hear from you.

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

Supper calls!  And tonight: True Blood 🙂

Related articles

Review of Scott Overton’s Dead Air

/ Melanie Marttila

This review is considerably overdue.  My apologies, Scott.

The Amazon blurb:

dead airWhen radio morning host Lee Garrett finds a death threat on his control console, he shrugs it off as a prank—until a series of minor harassments turns into a set of undeniable attempts on his life. The suspects are many—he’s made enemies—and the police are strangely uncooperative. The radio career he loved has turned sour, leaving behind a dwindling audience and the wreckage of his marriage. Then the friendship of a newly blind boy and the boy’s attentive (and attractive) teacher offer unexpected hope. Maybe he can make a fresh start. Maybe he can admit that he’s the source of a lot of his own problems. But when the deadliest assault yet claims an innocent victim, Garrett knows he has no choice—he has to find his persecutors and force a confrontation. The extraordinary outcome will test the limits of an ordinary man. In Dead Air career broadcaster Scott Overton creates the disturbing scenario of an ordinary man whose life is threatened by an unknown enemy.

My thoughts:

I wasn’t in love with the character of Lee Garrett. In fact, I didn’t like him much at all, but that’s exactly the way it had to be for Dead Air to be a successful thriller.

Lee Garrett has made enemies over the years, enough to fill a room with the usual suspects, and his wife left him, taking their two children.  She’s making a new life for herself while Garrett’s disillusioned and jaded and not a bit depressed.  He’s a bit of a schmuck, steeped in a good dose of self-sorrow.  Not an attractive package.

Garrett has his redeeming qualities, though.  The reasons he’s made all those enemies is because he generally tried to do the right thing and exposed their varied douchebaggery in the process.  He’s still in love with his wife, and the friends he has are the dependable kind that come through when the going gets tough.

Then he makes friends with Paul, a boy who recently lost his sight, and Candace, his CNIB counsellor.  As the relationship develops, Garrett learns a lot about himself, and how he is the author of his own misery.

He also makes a staunch ally by virtue of an act of kindness.  He even wins over the detective assigned to his case despite having been black-listed for ruining another officer’s career.

By the time Garrett exposes that act that haunts his life and underpins many of his poor decisions, I realized I liked Garrett, despite his not inconsiderable flaws.  I could even think of him as Lee 🙂

Dead Air is a novel about hard-won redemption and a fascinating character study as well as being a thriller with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing until the end.

My rating:

4.5 stars out of 5

About the Author:Scott Overton colour high res

Scott Overton hosts a radio morning show on Rewind 103.9 in Sudbury, Ontario. As a broadcaster for more than thirty years (twenty-four of them as a morning man), he knows the world he writes about in Dead Air.

To most readers, morning radio is as much a part of their breakfast routine as a hot cup of coffee. On the air, Scott has become a friend to thousands as he entertains and informs. He brings those same instincts to his writing, with clear prose and honest feelings.

His short fiction has been published in On Spec, Neo-opsis, and anthologies such as Tesseracts Sixteen, Canadian Tales of the Fantastic, and In Poe’s Shadow. He’s also a regular contributor of theatre reviews for a local newspaper.

His other passions include scuba diving and a couple of classic cars.

Writing to prompt: Amanda Socci called me a Brainiac!

/ Melanie Marttila / 12 Comments

So, first things first:

Amanda is participating, with Nina Amir, in the NaNoWriMo alternative, Write Non-Fiction in November, or WNFIN 🙂

Here’s the lovely pic:

Write Non-Fiction in November

Write Non-Fiction in November

As part of the lead up and promotion, Amanda has gone plum prompt crazy!  She’s even giving us prompt-interviews!  I think it’s a fabulous idea (that’s why she’s the Creative Idea Gal).  For those of you who may not have perused my pages, it’ll give us a chance to get better acquainted. Plus some of the answers won’t be found on my pages, so bonus info!

Here’s what Amanda posted on Wednesday.

Here are my answers 🙂

(1) Does the title of your blog, Writerly Goodness, have a special significance?

Writerly Goodness is my creative alter ego.  In my day job, I work in the corporate learning and development world, which is related to, but distinct from, the creative work I do in the evenings and on weekends.  I need to compartmentalize and separate my two working worlds and so, like a pseudo-super hero, I “change costumes” and transform into Writerly Goodness, which is also what I hope to produce 😉  I address this in a post: Do you dress for success?

I’m also an introvert.  Big time.  It’s another part of my daily transformation.  I have to put on the extrovert for my work, especially when I deliver training, and just need to hole up when I get home.  Fortunately, the interwebz give me the virtual distance to engage all my online friends and family without distress.  I haven’t written a lot about introversion yet, but I’ve just finished Susan Cain’s Quiet, and will begin to share some of the insights I’ve gained in the reading.

I joke in my welcome message that I might have a multiple personality disorder, which is more appropriately called a dissociative identity disorder, but while that is not true, I am host to other mental illnesses, most notably depression.  I actually talk about mental illness quite a bit, what experiences have contributed to my condition, how mental illness intersects with creativity, and what I’ve learned in the process of managing my depression.

Finally, Writerly Goodness has a decidedly canine aspect to her: loyal, patient, dedicated.  I can tell her to “fetch, girl!” and she will inevitably return with the words I need 🙂  So maybe WG is the embodiment of my muse?  Oooh!  Hadn’t thought of that before.  Thanks, Amanda!

(2) You write frequently about Caturday Quickies. What does that mean? What is Caturday?

Caturday emerged from a web site called I can has cheezburger?  It’s one of the original sites where LOLcats can be found (cute pictures and animated gifs of cats, or kittehs, as they’re called, with humorous captions).  The site’s mascot is a gorgeous Russian Blue with a hopeful look on his (or her) fuzzy face and with the caption that eventually became the name of the site.

Instead of Saturday, the day became Caturday.

I used to visit “I can has” every day for my feline fix, and eventually their sister-site, I has a hotdog (which gave rise to Sundog instead of Sunday in the same way) for my puppeh pick-me-up.  Eventually, I couldn’t keep up with the number of new posts in a day and realized it was more of an addiction than an entertainment.  Now, I see enough of the shared memes on social media to keep me happy.

I’m an animal lover and I used to own serve two cats. Right now, I have my dog, Nuala, but more on her in a bit.

(3) Are you inspired by your training coordinator job? Do you write about your job?

My day job intersects interestingly with my creative work.  As a writer, I always think stories should educate as well as entertain, and the things that I learn as a trainer contribute to my stories.

Also, my writing translates into instructional design.  I’m a fan of story-based instructional design (surprise, surprise) and I’ve been able to help write a course that won me and my team a Silver Award of Excellence in 2012.

More recently, my grammar Nazi nature has been able to come out and play as I’ve taught five sessions of Business Writing Made Easy to participants in two different business lines.  The second last one was a training-for-trainers version of the course, where I was introducing colleagues to the training material so they, in turn, could deliver it to other staff members.

As a training coordinator, I’m constantly writing reports, training plans, proposals, and briefing notes.  It’s completely different work than writing a story, poetry, or a novel, and my background in rhetoric (BA, Laurentian University 1995, cum laude) has come into play.

I have a category devoted to my learning and development (L&D) side: the Learning Mutt.  As you’ve been so kind as to ask me about that, I’ll write to that point more directly later on.

(4) Why do you call yourself a writing geek? Why do you call yourself a keener?

I’m a writing geek for many reasons, only a few of which I’ll mention here (don’t want to bore y’all).

I love words.  In my university years, I took several courses on the history of the language, old English, middle English, Shakespeare, and 18th Century literature (the days of the first dictionaries).  I love etymology.  I love the evolution of the language—English is such a mutt language, we’ve stolen from or been contributed to by nearly every language at one time or another.

I love the physicality of language, where the sounds are produced.  It’s different for each stage/evolution of English: back in the throat, up in the nose, forward in the mouth, up front through the teeth.

I love accents and dialects.  I love pidgin languages.

You can smell the smoke when I start thinking about words 🙂

I adore the writing process, mine and others.  Nothing makes me more #furiouslyhappy than to read the posts of other writers who share their workspaces, work habits, revision strategies, etc.  I’ve been glued to Elissa Field’s blog while she’s been writing about her revisions.  Endlessly fascinating.

I also love learning about writing.  I’m constantly doing it, even though I have an MA in English literature and creative writing.  I read craft books (and everything else I can get my hands on—I’m a book addict) and I read like a writer, looking for clues, analyzing structure, teasing out the reasoning behind creative choices.

I’ve got a subscription to Writer’s Digest Tutorials and have recently started taking courses, from Dan Blank’s Platform Building course, to a selection of Wana International webinars.

I follow Grammar Girl.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

(5) How does being an experiential learner affect your writing?

This is going to be a short one: I learn by doing.

I write, therefore I am.

The only way to improve is to write, and to write every day.

(6) You mentioned that learning and writing go hand in hand. Can you describe how you tie both into one on your blog?

I think I addressed this in my answer to question 3, above, but here’s a little more about it:

When I was back in university, I was amazed at how everything I was learning, from astronomy and biology, through philosophy and psychology, to English, music, and art, intersected in bizarre and wonderful ways.

I find this to be true with my work, as well.

Besides, if I’m going to spend most of my waking hours doing something that is not writing, it better feed my muse in some way.  I just stay open to the possibilities.  Mental popcorn.  Wheee!

(7) You list several cultural references on your blog (Ukrainian Christmas, Algonkian conference, etc.). What inspires you to write about those cultures?

I think the reference to Ukranian Christmas was probably about a friend of mine, who celebrates it, or in my discussion about how I developed my religions/spirituality for my fantasy novel.

The Algonkian Conference is actually a pitch conference that has nothing to do with the Algonquin people.  Though I may have referred to the Ojibwe and Cree nations in my discussion of how I invented some of my languages for my work in progress.

In general, I’m very open to religion and spirituality.  I was raised Christian (Lutheran, specifically) but now identify as agnostic with pagan leanings.  I don’t blog about it too much, though, because I think that both religion and spirituality are very personal things, and while I admire the devout of faith, I don’t think that anyone has the right to tell anyone else what to believe.  That is between the individual and the God of their understanding.

I think I’ll shut up now, before I offend anyone :0

(8) What is the learning mutt side of your brain? How does that impact your learning or writing?

The learning mutt is my day job personality, but it’s more than that.  It’s the part of me that watches the Discovery Channel, follows Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, and was enthralled by Commander Hadfield’s social media campaign from space.  It’s the part of me that reads.  It’s the part of me that takes courses and webinars.  It’s the part of me that wants more, more, MOAR knowledge, regardless of what it might be.

I’m a pop culture junkie, a trivia queen (maybe princess), and creative connections pop out at me from everywhere (mental popcorn mention above).

I don’t have an eidetic memory, or speed-read, or anything, but my brain just wants to fill itself with everything out there, so it is very much like a mutt: a little bit of everything goes into it.

I hope most of it stays there too, another reason I try to keep learning 😉

(9) Does your pup-child Nuala inspire your work? Have you considered writing a non-fiction book about dogs?

All of my dependant quadrupeds, feline or canine, have held special places in my heart.  My husband and I are childless-by-choice, and in a way our pets fill the place of children in our lives.

I also believe that dogs, in particular, are here to teach us how to love unconditionally.

I haven’t thought about writing a non-fiction book about dogs yet.  I don’t think I have enough experiences to fill up a book right now.

I do have an idea for a middle grade book that features a dog as its protagonist, though.  It’s kind of like a Desmond the Dog Detective meets Watership Down, with maybe just a dash of Animal Farm.

Yup, that’s the kind of thing I think up 😛

(10) Your curriculum vitae is impressive! It is also a non-traditional addition to a blog. Has posting your c.v. helped you get noticed, get writing work, be featured on other blogs?

Thank you, but actually, it hasn’t resulted in any of that good stuff.  Nobody’s even “liked” it yet.

When I started my blog, I didn’t have any books that I could promote, so I thought the CV would speak for my experience as a writer.  It was key to my application for professional membership to the Canadian Authors Association.  Maybe when I start querying, agents will start looking me up?  One can only hope 😀

I’ve since added a page to feature the two anthologies including my poetry of which the publisher still has copies to sell, but that hasn’t really resulted in much action either.  At least the publisher hasn’t let me know that he’s run out of copies, or that my page has, in any way, influenced the poetry-reading public 😉

This must be tempered with the fact that a poetry best-seller in Canada means 500 copies sold.  NeoVerse accomplished that goal, if nothing else.

Thanks for giving me this opportunity, Amanda!  This was fun!

What do the rest of you think?  Did you enjoy finding out more about me, or did it leave you cold?  Regardless, I’d love to hear from you.

And please do visit/participate in WNFIN if you are so moved.  That’s Write Non-Fiction in November with Amanda Socci and Nina Amir, just in case you forgot 😉  It’s been a while (long post, whew!).

Tomorrow: Review of Dead Air, and sommat about my trip last weekend.

Terra Luna guest post by Vikki and John Woodward

/ Melanie Marttila

Vikki and John Woodward are a married couple in Tallahassee, Florida. They are the authors of TERRA LUNA, an epic VikkiandJohnurban contemporary romance, which they have published on Amazon Kindle. Two sequels are under way, and they recently completed IN THE CAT’S EYES, a paranormal romance and thriller which they hope to publish soon.

You can buy TERRA LUNA here: http://amzn.to/1bPsfY7

You can learn more about their universe of Faeries, bagpipers and the world’s greatest scones at their blog, http://mactamicksfinestscotchltd.com/

In this guest blog post, they talk about writing together as a married couple.

_______________________________________________________________________

Vikki:

Every day I would sit in my car under a giant oak tree, and wait for my sister to finish work so I could give her a ride home. I’ve amused myself by making up and telling stories all my life, and during those weeks of sitting under that oak I made up a story about the tree: a Faerie and many other critters lived in and around it.

I started writing my story down in a notebook. Whenever my sister would finally leave work, I read her the next installment of the story. She was impressed and encouraged me to continue. I mentioned to my husband John I was writing a story about a Faerie that that had to live in two worlds: our Human one where she pretended to own the Faerie Lands (a private “wildlife preserve”) and her Faerie community, where she never fully fit in or was trusted.

Although I had never seen or heard of Little Five Points in Atlanta, Terra Luna’s Human community, when I described to John what I saw in my mind’s eye he said that L5P was exactly it. Weeks later he took me there. It was strange, because it was just as I had imagined.

I have a lot of stories and characters in my head, but it is hard for to put solid words into a story the way I’d like. John is great, really super at research and the technical stuff, whereas I provide the ideas. Honestly, my grammar and syntax need help, which John gives me. I am the creative and emotionally wise half of the team. My characters need me to write their life story and I need John to help, because honesty I could not do it without him. I can tell to my stories to anyone that would listen, but I really and truly need John to write in a comprehensive way so people can appreciate them.

John:

I used to write nonfiction, mostly articles for magazines that dealt with disability issues. I learned the mechanics of getting to the point, cutting excess, keeping the grammar good and simple and so on. I offered to help Vikki write TERRA LUNA because she needed help with the Prologue, in which a jumbo jet crashes at take off and only the baby Terra Luna survives. The scene had to be tragic and was just too sad for her. I wrote it so she could begin the main story. A few pages later, I decided that the minor character Barry Davie should be a doctor who would eventually become the hero’s best friend and deliver the heroine’s baby. That was my start as a creative contributor.

Vikki created all the major characters in our book, and half the minor ones. Nothing gets in without her approval. The final decisions about plot, descriptions and continuity are always hers. My job is to get it into the computer file. We began writing together at night, with her describing what should happen and me writing it. We switched to a system where she described to me every night what should happen next, and I would write it the next day while she was at work. Then I would read it to her in the evening, she would correct any mistakes and we would repeat the cycle. Later on I invented a few scenes of my own, to give the characters extra room to grow.

My own “growth” as a writer has mainly been a steady improvement in my skills as an editor and re-writer. We spent hundreds of hours writing TERRA LUNA — it’s an epic — but I spent almost twice as long on editing and re-writing.

TerraLunacoverWe have now finished our second book, IN THE CAT’S EYES. Whereas TERRA LUNA is urban fantasy, CAT’S EYES is a paranormal romance set in New Orleans. It started as our National Novel Writing Month book for 2012. We are currently writing the second book the TERRA LUNA series, RAVEN. We don’t know when CAT’S EYES will be published, or when RAVEN will be finished, but we are looking ahead to Labor Day Weekend, when we will join the Novel-in-Three-Days challenge and November, when we will do National Novel Writing Month again.

It’s strange that I always envisioned myself as a “writer,” but never had any plots that excited me enough to sit down and write. Vikki gave me the gift of her imagination, and that made all the difference.

 

Review of K.M. Weiland’s Dreamlander

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

I’d been meaning to get K.M. Weiland’s Dreamlander and read it for a while now.  Well, not long ago, Katie posted on Wordplay about Story Cartel, where readers can get free books in exchange for an honest interview.

I missed the deadline for her challenge, which might have won me an Amazon gift certificate (moar books!), but since I always intended to write the review up anyway, I figured I’d just carry on and post when I actually finished the book.

I don’t read as fast as I used to.  I blame it on the day job, but I have a feeling that even if I wasn’t working I wouldn’t be consuming a book a day like I used to. Besides, I wanted to savour Dreamlander.  If that doesn’t give away the nature of my review, I don’t know what will 😉

One of the reasons I was so keen was the concept: a man goes to sleep in this world and wakes up in a parallel world.

Any of you who have followed my blog for any length of time will know about my tonsillectomy trauma and the dream that I had upon my return from my second visit to the hospital.

For those of you who haven’t seen the post and don’t want to take the time to read it, here’s the short version: I had a near-death experience, and as a result, I dreamed that I had, in fact, died.  I fell asleep in one world and woke up a new person in another world.

So you can see how Dreamlander kind of fed into my life-long fascination with dreams and dreaming.

DreamlanderThe Amazon blurb:

What if it were possible to live two very different lives in two separate worlds?

What if the dreams you awaken from are the fading memories of that second life?

What if one day you woke up in the wrong world?

Only one person in a generation may cross the barrier of dreams to reach the other world—a world of war-scarred countries and fallen faiths. When a Chicago-born journalist finds himself on the far side of his dreams, he must hurl himself into battle to save a princess from her own people, two worlds from annihilation, and himself from a dream come way too true.

My thoughts:

I loved Dreamlander (did you see that one coming?).  Weiland has created a flawed protagonist in Chris Redston who wins our hearts over as he attempts to undo the damage caused by the mistakes he’s made.

Having lost his mother and one sister in a car accident he survived, and having subsequently lost his father to alcoholism, Chris is done with alternately lending his father money and bailing him out of jail.  He can’t find his focus though.  Once a talented writer, Chris finds himself blocked and unable to support himself.  Then there are these bizarre dreams he keeps having…

Chris turns out to be The Gifted, a rare man who can cross over into the land of his dreams, a very real world where he lives an alternate life.

Allara Katadin, princess of Lael and Searcher, is equally damaged.  The last Gifted who crossed over sent her world spiralling into chaos and she feels it was her fault.  She can’t trust Chris not to be the man his predecessor was, and when he initially proves her right, she shuts Chris out, not understanding that life is about taking chances and about giving second ones when it matters most.

Dreamlander is true epic fantasy, with not just one, but two worlds in jeopardy.  Chris and Allara must work together and sacrifice everything to do the right thing, even as Allara’s own people cry for her blood and that of the Gifted.

The denouement was both heart wrenching and satisfying, Weiland proving that the writer must be cruel to her characters to be kind to her readers.

My highest recommendation.

My rating:

5 out of 5 stars.

About the author:

K.M. Weiland grew up chasing Billy the Kid and Jesse James on horseback through the hills of western Nebraska, where she still lives. A lifelong fan of history and the power of the written word, she enjoys sharing both through her novels and short stories. She blogs at Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors, where she mentors other authors and shares the ups and downs of the writing life.

Now I’m off to post my review to Story Cartel, Amazon, and Goodreads 🙂

Later, ‘taters!

Caturday quickies: What I did this afternoon

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

Hi all!  I went to the local Chapters and hung out for a bit with my friend Kim Fahner, who was doing a book signing with her new writing friend Sarah Lashbrook.

Kim and Sarah talking to fans :)

Kim and Sarah talking to fans 🙂

Of course, I bought Sarah’s book, Where the Stream and Creek Collide, and asked her if she wouldn’t mind doing an interview on Writerly Goodness 🙂  Look forward to that in the coming weeks.

Of course, I had to feed my book addiction and spent $80 altogether on Sarah’s book, YA fantasy and adult fantasy novels.  In the past couple of weeks I also scavenged a pile of books from the several boxes my mom was taking to a book sale, and got the StoryBundle of ebook classic SF for a nominal donation (excellent deal – go, consume).

Yes, I read procedurals, classics, and other stuff as well as fantasy ;)

Yes, I read procedurals, classics, and other stuff as well as fantasy 😉

Did I mention addiction?

Yeah.

In other news, I’m going to take a short blogging holiday next weekend.

I’m off to a friend’s pre-wedding celebration in Michigan City, IN on Saturday.  If I was independently wealthy, I’d be going to her destination wedding, but this seemed a happy compromise for both of us.

Try not to miss me too much 😉

Next up: I’m finally finished K.M. Weiland’s Dreamlander and I’ll be reviewing that today.  I joined Story Cartel and got the ebook free for an honest interview.  This is another great ebook site I’d highly reccommend.  Free books!  ‘Nuff said 🙂  I also hope to have a guest blog coming up for you tomorrow.

Upon my return, I’ll get Sarah’s interview up and continue on my merry way.  There are a couple of fun things coming up in August: a Dala concert and a Great Big Sea concert.  I’ll be blogging those as well as keeping you up to date on the work sitch.

My current acting will be up as of August 31 and I still have no idea whether I’m heading back to my old unit (absolutely fine with me), if the pool I’m in will result in a new assignment, or if my application on an internal competition will result in something else.  I’m not good with uncertainty.

So lots of Writerly Goodness yet to come 🙂

Another great webinar with Marcy Kennedy

/ Melanie Marttila

This past week, I signed up for another WANA International webinar.

Yesterday, between 2 and 3:30 pm, Marcy Kennedy spoke on the topic of showing and telling.

First, she defined her terms and gave examples, demonstrated the difference between showing and telling, and let us know that she would not only be sharing tips for showing and for detecting when telling isn’t appropriate, but also that she would be discussing instances in which telling actually works better than showing.

She covered several telling ‘tells’ in writing and shared strategies for detecting and eliminating each.  Each of her strategies was accompanied by more examples, which was great, because it’s good to have something solid to base your own efforts on.

She also mentioned that her strategies were suggestions, or guidelines, rather than rules, per se.  There are always exceptions, and she’d be getting to those.

When it came to when telling, while I won’t give away the content of her webinar, I will share one suggestion with you: use telling in your first draft.  This was very interesting and Marcy shared her experience and how she came to this conclusion.

Marcy used to be a slow writer. Her first drafts might have emerged in nearly perfect form, but they took forever to write.  Then she decided to try tactics to write a fast first draft.  Using telling as a way to help her get her ideas down and give her a cue for where to deepen her narrative on the next draft was something she found very effective.

Overall, it was a very insightful webinar and I took away lots of good information.

I’d highly recommend Marcy’s sessions.  Visit the WANA International site to view their course calendar.  Marcy will be giving her pitch, tagline, and logline session again in the fall.  I attended that one as well. Awesome good.  She’s also a Twitter and Google+ maven, so if you want tips for the social media, look for those too!

WANA webinars are very reasonable and many are held at times convenient for the writer with a day job 🙂

I’ll also encourage you to visit Marcy’s site (linked above) and to sign up for her newsletter.  It’s good stuff!

That’s it for this week, my writing peeps.

Review of Finding Meara by Lara Schiffbauer

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Once again, I finished Lara’s book a while ago and am just catching up on some overdue reviews.

The Amazon blurb:

FindingMearaCoverTo keep her safe, twenty-six-year-old Hazel Michelli’s parents never told her she was adopted, or that her birthplace was in an alternative land where magic and monsters exist. She found out the truth the day a ferocious winged creature stole her from her Denver apartment and delivered her to Lucian, the sadistic Lifeforce magician who happens to be Hazel’s biological father.

“Dysfunctional family” takes on new meaning when she learns Lucian must sacrifice a daughter to maintain immortality and take over the Realm. When Hazel’s younger half-sister disappears just days before the Rite, Lucian moves Hazel to the top of the sacrificial short list.

Afraid, yet compelled to protect her four-year-old half-sister, Hazel races between both worlds, searching for Meara while being hunted by Lucian. Their lives, and the future of the Realm, leave her no room for failure.

My thoughts:

At the outset of the novel, Hazel (love the name, by the way, unusual and old-fashioned, but made quirky by the character) only knows that she’s lucky, so dependably lucky that she makes a comfortable living by gambling. Then something huge and hulking bursts through the door of her apartment, calls her “Meara,” grabs Hazel, and leaps off the balcony, spreading its wings to fly her to a place she never suspected existed.

The action doesn’t relent as Hazel is taken prisoner by someone named Lucian, escapes (with the help of a talking bird and a flaming cat), finds her way back to Colorado, and reluctantly enlists her friend’s help.  When an insect-like monster attacks them on the road, it is both a validation of Hazel’s bizarre story and a warning: Lucian isn’t finished with her yet.

Though unwilling to involve her parents in this strange series of events, Hazel has questions only they can answer.  Those answers change Hazel’s life forever and send her on a worlds-spanning adventure, teaching her that her luck is only the tip of her magical iceberg, and that family is worth killing for, and dying for, if it comes to that.

The author weaves a great story, with just enough quirk to please the trope-weary reader.  She moves between Boulder, Denver, and the Realm deftly, and has created a unique and charming world that both recalls childhood favourites, and provides enough romance and danger to satisfy the New Adult audience.

I also appreciate that despite the romantic potentials (small spoiler alert!), Hazel remains happily independent at the end of the novel.  The denouement felt a little rushed, but was satisfying nonetheless.

Am eagerly awaiting Lara’s next novel 🙂

My rating:

4 out of 5 stars.  Really, I wanted to give her 4.5, but I had to give her some room to grow as an author 🙂

About the Author:

Lara Schiffbauer was born and raised in the Western United States. As a child she got in Lara Schiffbauertrouble at school for talking too much and daydreaming. She believed in Santa Claus until she was in the third grade, and thought she saw angels at the Catholic school she attended.

Unwilling to lose the magic of childhood, as a teenager she spent her years reading novels that let her live in fantasy worlds where she could vicariously experience the romance and adventure sadly lacking in her everyday life. Piers Anthony, Victoria Holt, and David Eddings were some of her favorite authors.

Many years later, after obtaining a Masters of Social Work degree and growing a family, Lara decided to recapture some of the magic found in creativity. In 2010, her horror flash fiction story “The Copier” was published in the anthology Daily Bites of Flesh 2011: 365 Days of Flash Fiction. In 2011, her erotic horror story “Phantom Deposit” was published in the anthology Steamy Screams, and in February 2012 her urban fantasy short story “Bear Hug” was published online at Hogglepot. She then turned to writing novels, and her first contemporary fantasy novel, Finding Meara, was released in March, 2013.

Lara loves connecting with others! Besides spending time on Twitter and Facebook, Lara also has accounts on Pinterest and Goodreads. All social media links can be found at her website, www.laraschiffbauer.com.

The next chapter: July 2013 update

/ Melanie Marttila / 9 Comments

Just a few words here about my writing life of late.

I am continuing to revise Initiate of Stone, but at least once a week, I can’t seem to get to it after all my other responsibilities.  Then sometimes I make a choice.  This past Tuesday, for example, I chose to go to North Bay rather than taming my daily dose of the intewebz or write.  Though it was well worth it, I still felt odd not writing.

It’s an addiction now.  Healthy, but an addiction nonetheless 😉

Acceptances

Since my last update, I’ve received some good news.  The Atomy picked up two of my poems, Enhance will be accepting one of my photographs (wow!), and most recently, Sulphur will be accepting three of my poems for its next issue.

I received my contract from On Spec and am waiting to hear from their content editor on next steps (still so excited about this!).

I’ve submitted a couple of flash fiction pieces, but they’re both fairly recent stories and may need to mature (read, to be edited) before they find a home.

Writers of the Future wasn’t fond of “The Gabriel” but I have yet to recieve my personalized response.

Still waiting to hear about a few short story submissions from April, May, and June.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  I submitted the first bit of a story to Erin Brady too, and I’m curious to find out what will come of that 🙂

Just as I was linking those publications, above, I noticed that Enhance has a call out for that flashy fiction stuff!  Go see!

Conferences

This year’s CanWrite! was a success.  I certainly hope everyone got a lot of good information out of my CanWrite! blog posts.

Since I’m now a member of the program committee, which includes responsibility for the conference and the CAA literary awards, I’ll probably have some news forthcoming about next year’s conference in the future.  Watch this space 🙂

I’ve had to make a decision about When Worlds Collide in Calgary.  Though I would love to go and the line up looks great (Patricia Briggs, Robert J. Sawyer, and Angela Ackerman will be among the guests), I just can’t afford it.

The conference fee is reasonable in the extreme, but it’s the air fare and accommodation that make the event costly.  Domestic flights are quite expensive. I had my eye set on Surrey this year, so I think I’m going to stick with that conference and go to WWC next year.  I only have enough Avion points to take 2 trips anyway and one is already spoken for (a friend’s pre-wedding party) so there you have it 🙂

There’s a writing contest associated with Surrey too, so I’ll probably aim to submit something for that as well.

It’s good to keep the creative opportunities lined up and ready to rock.

Writerly Goodness

What’s everyone working on these days?  I’d love to hear from you about your creative projects!

Sundog snippets: Inside and out

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Just a quick little note to let you know that I have a new piece of furniture courtesy of my friend Kim, who’s just moved houses.

FileCabinet1This lovely file cabinet used to hold her father’s papers.

I have two metal filing cabinets in the basement, a fire-proof box, and a safety deposit box at the bank that hold all our important stuff, but I just couldn’t resist the cabinet when Kim said she wanted to sell it.

Phil and I rented a pick up truck to move it (it wouldn’t fit in our car, or my mom’s hatchback) and I spent some time yesterday afternoon polishing her up and reinserting the drawers (which we’d removed for transport).filecabinet2

This lovely’s new home is in our living room.  Sadly, there’s no room in my office for it because I have a honking desk 🙂  I’m calling her Sally, and she’ll house our DVDs, Phil’s games, and other miscellaneous stuff we’ve kept in baskets and other hidey-holes over the years.

I rearranged some of the living room furniture to make room, and Phil and I discussed last night that we’d like to get some new furniture and use Sally as the thematic piece.  We have a small house and we were going to wait until we renovated the living room to get new furniture, but the hand-me-downs we have are worn and due for replacement.

So we’re going to look into that in the fall and probably touch up the paint on the walls at the same time, pending the full reno.  For the latter, we take everything down to the studs, rewire, re-insulate, and make sure everything is safe and code-worthy.  It will probably be a while before either of us is ready to tackle that project, though.

Outside, my experiment in chaos gardening is coming along well.  The lychnis (the fuschia flowers that complement the one young clematis along the wall) and rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) have joined the party.

chaostheorycontchaostheorycont2On the other side of the garden my bergamot (bee balm) is putting forth its spidery blooms 🙂  Bergamot is one of my favourite smells.  The roses are starting to fade, and are also putting forth a lovely scent.  I have a whack of hyssop in the garden (not blooming yet) as well.  I love smelly plants!

Next up: a brief update on the writing life, and a review of Lara Schiffbauer’s Finding Meara!

Sundog snippet