Category Archives: Old Spirits

Stuck!

Posted on April 2, 2008 | Leave a comment

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I usually don’t get writer’s block. I’m not going to say I never get it, because sure as shooting, I’ll come down with a raging case next blink of my eyes, but I can’t remember having a lot of trouble writing, except once when I got into a knock-down drag-out argument with my hero who refused to do something until I pointed out to him the situation, and he finally admitted that he probably would do what I wanted him to do–but he’d be real upset with himself the next day.

There you go–I’m queen of the run-on sentence. Anyway, like I said, I don’t usually just come to a complete and grinding halt and find myself unable to write another word. I get the stupids. That’s where every word that flows out of the pen is just … stupid. The narrative is stupid. The dialog is stupid, the characters are Stupid and everything is just Stupid, STUPID, STUPID! However, this week–okay, today–it’s been rough going. I kept having to stop to figure stuff out.

It wasn’t so much that I had to stop for research, though I did need to be sure that people have to go before a magistrate to have a bail set, and that solicitors are the ones who accompany someone for bail, in England. But I could have fudged that. Left gaps till I had time to do more thorough research. (Besides, I have a source in the newsroom–Ian the Brit answers all kinds of questions willingly for me.)(And I’m going to have to break down and get a historical map of London. Sigh.)

Where I really ran into problems was when I realized I didn’t know exactly how the magic worked that I was using. I hadn’t thought things through, and I needed to. I needed to know how magicians interacted with the spirits they call, and what the morality of the magic was. That stuff was important. And I figured out that conjury was as inherently moral as sorcery, in my universe. I even had to understand the rules for heaven and hell.

I still don’t know everything about how this magic works. I need to look up some of the stuff I figured out for the previous book, but took out of the pages. I can’t find it in notes or deleted materials–I may not have typed it into the computer. In which case, I KNOW it’s in the first draft tucked away in its 3-ring binder…somewhere. I don’t think I’ve moved the binders yet. In which case, they’ll get moved down here in the next couple of weeks, when we move all our furniture to the island. But it might be here…

Anyway, it’s frustrating when I have to stop and work out stuff I really should have worked out earlier–but I sorta thought I already had. I mean, I wrote a whole book set in this universe. It just didn’t occur to me that I’d be writing about a different kind of magic in more detail than I had in the previous book. And honestly, even if I had worked out stuff about conjury ahead of time, I would still be discovering things about it as I write. I never know all the secrets till I get there. Sometimes, I do make them up. But sometimes, they just sort of…come.

All kinds of things bubble up out of that swamp, and I never know what it will be next.

Manticores have made a recent appearance…

Oh! AND, I have ridden my new red Schwinn bicycle all the way to 39th Street today!! That is 53rd Street to 39th Street, plus the two blocks from the subdivision–and back again. Farther than I’ve been able to take myself before. My knees may whine for the next few days, but I got past 45th Street, which means I rode more than 2 miles.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in bicycles, fantasy, Old Spirits, writing

Beautiful Day

Posted on March 24, 2008 | Leave a comment

Actually, it was a whole beautiful weekend. Saturday was Absolutely Gorgeous, here in island-land. A cold front blew in on Sunday, but it was still really nice. Just jacket nice, instead of shirtsleeve nice.

Oh, I have to share–I went out one day last week to walk along the beach, instead of riding the bicycle. Wore the flip-flops, since it’s been warming up, and did my usual “walk barefoot on the sand, put on flipflops to cross the jetties” trick. The weather was beautiful–just breezy enough to be cool and comfortable. But that water was COLD!!

And I didn’t even get into the water. I just walked on the wet sand. Still cold. Cold, Cold COLD!

Interesting tidbit–I was walking along and noticed swirls and waves of what looked a little like those flat-bottomed glass beads you can get at the craft stores to glue on stuff. (They had some on the wall at Tortuga’s Mexican Restaurant.) But they weren’t beads. They were little bitty, thumbnail-sized jellyfish. Every so often, a big twelve-inch jellyfish would be washed up, but mostly, there were just these waves of baby ones. I was very careful not to step on even the little ones, because those jellyfish can sting like wildfire, and I didn’t have my shoes on. There were so many of them, it was kind of hard not to step on them sometimes…

The boy and his girlfriend and the granddog came to visit and they actually went to the beach and got in the water. Brrrr! I have pictures. (Of Dolly the dog, not any people) I’ll have to download and post them.

And we all went bike riding. The fella brought the last of the bikes down from the panhandle house, so we had a bicycle for everyone. And I made it past 61st Street before the knees gave out! That may have been partly due to the fact that the seawall sidewalk was very crowded and I kept having to slow down to get around bunches of people taking up the whole sidewalk, but I rode Past 61st Street. That’s at least as far as riding past 45th Street going the other way, so I made my goal. Went out the very next day to ride again, and didn’t make it that far, so I obviously have more “building up” to do on the legs, but it’s a start…

The writing is chugging along. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, but really, I am. I guess I feel that way because I keep having to go back and fill things in. What I wrote today, I’m worried I may have to take out and condense. I feel like I ought to Know what to leave out and what to put in when I write it…but I don’t. I just throw it all in, and then have to slash and burn when it comes time to revise. Less planning, less clothing, more doing.

Onward and upward.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in bicycles, family, life, Old Spirits, the beach, writing

Adventures in Parent-land

Posted on March 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’m still tired. Went to help unpack the parents. Totally forgot sticky notes, but the sister had them at her house, so my niece made them out for the cabinets.

We worked like mules trying to get boxes unpacked and things put away, at least in the kitchen, trying to get the living room usable and the beds put together so we’d have a place to sleep. The sister and I worked. Mama was having chest pains. (She does that when she gets overworked.) The sister-in-law came over and worked too. She was the driving force to get the living room organized.

The house will be good for them, but it needs more work than I realized. For instance, the master bath was demolished for remodeling, only the remodeling never got done. So the master bath has no walls, no shower stall to go with the shower head, no floor… You get the idea. The other bath works, but it’s pretty worn. Then they had sewer trouble the day after I left to go home. And I’m worried about them being able to coordinate things and remembering to get it done. It really needs to be done as soon as possible.

My brother-in-law is disabled, so he’s home most of the time, and if the pain’s not too bad, he can make phone calls and help them out some. He was there organizing–we had to watch him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t try to move anything, though.

Downsizing will be a struggle for them–and we’ll be working on some downsizing too, I think, in the next few weeks.

Finished my character interviews this morning, so I’ll probably get back into the writing (I hope) tomorrow. This is for Old Spirits. Got to get rolling on that.

Weather’s kind of iffy to go out to the seawall today–lots of wind, clouds. Maybe even rain–can’t tell through the windows at the newsroom. Maybe just fog or mist. We’ll see how it is thirty minutes from now. I do think it’s far enough into spring that it’s safe to put all the houseplants outside if I put them under the covered porch where the wind can’t get them. I just hope the salt fog can’t get to them either. It gets to the cars every so often…

Oh! The house has azaleas outside the breakfast room window. I’ve always loved azaleas, but have never lived anywhere they would grow. I’m going to find my clippers and go out and cut some. Maybe a rose, too, if one of them looks good.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in family, fantasy, flowers and gardening, Old Spirits, writing

Stuff

Posted on March 13, 2008 | Leave a comment

My life is full of stuff. Stuff I have to do. Stuff I want to do. Stuff I want to read. Stuff I have to do something with. Stuff I have to clean or put away or fold up or…something.

I really need to start writing Old Spirits, but I have too much stuff to do. Tomorrow, I’m leaving to go meet the parents at their new house and help them get unpacked and organized. I need to remember to take lots of Post-it Notes to label their kitchen cabinets and drawers, so they can remember where they’ve put things. A large part of this move is because both of them are starting to have trouble with their rememberers. They did pretty good while it was just Mama forgetting stuff, but now Daddy’s started having trouble, so we’re happy they can move so close to one of us children. But I really need to be there to help with the unpacking.

However, going to help them means I don’t have to go to the panhandle for most of the week. It’s either a really long 12-hour drive back to our old house, or a two-day trip, and since the fella has next week of for spring break, he’s making the trek to turn the water on and get stuff ready to move the rest of our furniture to the coast. More stuff. And way too much moving. But we’re tired of camping out. I want my dresser. And my own bed. (We bought a new queen-size, which will move into the guest room, but I miss my king-size…)

Anyway, there’s a lot of traveling and a lot of moving in my future. I have confirmed that I’m going to ApolloCon, the SF/Fantasy con in Houston, in June. I will probably go to RWA National in San Francisco at the end of July (need to find a roomie). I’m still debating whether I want to go to ArmadilloCon in Austin in August. There’s a FenCon in Dallas in September, but I have to see if the dates conflict with a potential trip to New York the fella’s invited me on.

There is the possibility that Tor will have galleys/ARCs of New Blood for me to sign at the Tor booksigning in San Francisco. I’ll let you know if that pans out.

I did get all my RITA books read and judged. An interesting experience, to say the least. I read a lot of books outside my usual reading comfort level–and liked them.

Next week. The writing will begin, next week. Definitely. The fella’s out of town. I’ve caught up on all the stuff. (I think.) I can write.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in family, New Blood, Old Spirits, trips, writing

Thinking about titles

Posted on February 16, 2008 | 4 Comments

Comment from AG:

COLD IRON makes me think about faeries. cold iron is supposed to be one of the things that can really really hurt them, I guess kinda like vampires and garlic, only it hurts the good guys instead of keeping the bad guys away.

It’s only really in that context that I’ve seen “cold iron” instead of just “iron.”


Yeah. Which gives it a fantasy sound–and then you read it and there’s a twist… Maybe.

The first book is blood magic, hence NEW BLOOD, because 1. there’s a new sorceress, so she’s “new blood” in the magicians council, and 2. blood magic has been essentially lost for 300 years, so it’s new. I like that title. (Dunno if it will fly with editors.)

The second book, I want to call OLD SPIRITS, because the hero is a conjurer, so it looks at a different type of magic used in this universe (though in terms of how it mixes with blood magic). And the older a spirit the conjurer can conjure, the more powerful it is and the more magic can be worked. So I think OLD SPIRITS works for that one.

The third book, will have an alchemist, who works magic with physical elements and forces (water, metal, earth, electricity, etc.), and a wizard, who works herbal magic. I have NO clue what to call that one, which is why I thought COLD IRON might work, because there IS magic worked with iron. But there are no faeries.

Fantasy/paranormal books with “blood” in the title generally are assumed to be vampire books. This one isn’t. Not a vampire in sight. So, in that way, the cold iron reference would be a similar twist. The titles I came up with that had something referring to the wizardry sounded squishy. Iron Flowers? Deep Earth? Rooted Deep? The adjective-noun pattern doesn’t necessarily have to be followed, but it would be nice if I could…

Sometimes the titles just come (like SPIRITS–Floated up with the opening line and scene…). Sometimes I have to wrestle with them. A lot.

Mini beach report: The seagulls are growing in the black feathers on their heads. No more smudgy-white headed seagulls. They’re going back to black. Mating season is at hand.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in books, fantasy, New Blood, Old Spirits, the beach

Settling In, Not Down

Posted on February 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

I don’t think my life will EVER settle down. But I’m trying to settle in to things.

Our mattress is still on the floor, and probably will be for a week–unless the fella decides to put it on the box springs and frame on the one day he’ll be at home this week. I opened 6 boxes this morning, hunting the dryer fabric softener sheets so I wouldn’t have my underwear stuck to my socks. The cable guys came to put in my internet cable (YAY!) but basically re-wired the whole house, and they were here till about 12:50–and the new job starts at 1 p.m. I barely made it.

I typed in about 15 cutlines for “Look what I did” photos–they go in the Applause section, and mostly people mail them in. It was tough remembering all the little codes they want for the titles and this little thing and that, so I kept having to go back and put them in, but it worked. I got them all in. Hopefully, I’ll get the hang of things and be able to catch up on stuff. Still don’t really know how the phones work there, but I doubt I’ll be using them much. And tomorrow, maybe I’ll get to be myself. 😉 I’m still the girl I’m taking over for, because the computer guy has a new grandbaby. I’ll forgive him today, because I know those grandbabies are IMPORTANT!

So. I guess I’d better go finish my judging for this contest. I’m Late! I hate being late. I even worked on these while I was at Mom’s. I got them really late, because somehow, my new addy didn’t get in the system, and the entries went all the way to West Texas, then all the way back to the coast. LOoooooong Way.

Oh yeah. This was the last weekend of Mardi Gras. The island celebrates–and has for at least 80 years–though since it’s a smaller place than New Orleans, it doesn’t get quite as wild. But, after we made the son come down from college to help us move (he brought his girlfriend, too, who was great help!), we took them downtown to watch the big evening parade and have dinner. The place we went to eat wasn’t crowded, (probably because we got tired of waiting for the parade to show up and went on to eat, and everybody else was out in the street begging for beads from the balconies and getting drunk) and was very good. And we caught a good bit of the parade. And beads. I caught a few strands, anyway. This was the Knights of Momus Krewe parade, and we were standing under the Knights of Momus party balcony, so the people on the floats were all focused on throwing beads to their friends on the balcony above us. But I had some very cool dolphin beads, and caught some other neat strands. I had a hurricane. I ate fish. It was a good day all round.

Keep your fingers crossed. There is interest in New Blood. And maybe Old Spirits too. And…whatever the third book in the story might be called… Deep Earth? The third book will be about alchemy and wizardry–non-living magic (water, rock, electricity, etc.), and living, non-human magic (plants & animals). It will have two magics in it. Flowering Earth? Suggestions are welcomed. :)

→ Leave a comment

Posted in fantasy, life, New Blood, Old Spirits, pastimes, work

White Easter??

Posted on April 8, 2007 | Leave a comment


Yes, we are having a white Easter. Or we will if the snow doesn’t melt off any more. This is Texas. It’s not supposed to snow after the iris bloom. (I’ve been afraid to look at them since it got so cold today.) But it’s out there snowing.

Yesterday, we had Art Club. That’s why I had to hike over to the Methodist church. Except I didn’t hike, because I had a big casserole dish hot out of the oven to carry over. So I loaded up my car and drove the half block to the church, then I drove back and parked in my drive, and walked back to the church. Across the street, past the parsonage to the alley just beyond it, down the alley maybe 5 yards/meters and in the back door of the church. That’s how far it is. Yes, I’m a wuss. But I had to carry a big sack full of pans of rolls (Sister Shubert rolls are Teh Best!) too.

Then at the end, it had started to drizzle and was very cold, and I only had on my suit jacket, which had no buttons, and I had a lot of stuff to carry back home, so I walked home, clutching my jacket closed to stay warm, and got my vehicle, drove back, double-parked in the alley to load up, and drove back home again. Yeah, I know. I’m bad.

As the youngest of the hostesses, I appointed myself head server, running plates into the lunching ladies while Fredie Jo and Ruth and Frances served them up. (Rhenda couldn’t be there.) (And I ain’t exactly a spring chicken…) Then we ate lunch, and an artist from the little town around our county lake gave a talk about art. (Hey, it’s the Art Club.) She brought three of her Western realistic paintings and talked about composition and color and perspective and stuff. I enjoyed it a lot, because composition is something I struggle with. Of course, I prefer a more impressionistic style (I am just not a big detail person.) and I tend to do more still lifes and landscapes, but maybe there’s a story in the paintings… She said she likes for all her paintings to tell stories. And she paints horses and Indians and cowboys without any kind of reference or model!!! Needless to say, I felt totally intimidated. (sigh) These are my horse pictures–the race picture is supposed to look blurry.

Then I came home and wrote. I was really excited about getting so much writing done Thursday, and I was excited about where the story was, and about getting that much closer to the ending, so I got 5 pages written Friday. Which made me happy. Because that made 33.5 pages on New Blood for the week, and my goal was 30 pages. I’m almost through the trial. Just need to have them dismiss the charges for lack of evidence. Then we’ll be at the kidnapping.

The son is home for Easter. He wants to pick up his power tools and some other things to take back to Baylor. We went in to town this morning because he announced that he really needed some shorts (and of course wanted Mom and Dad to spring for them), and we were thinking we could get there and back before the snow got bad. (Which we did, since it isn’t snowing now at all.) But it snowed on us while we were in Amarillo–just on the side of town where the mall is.

And Penney’s was having a sale, so I bought 2 pairs of pants–they were on sale, and then if you used a Penney’s card, they’d give you more off. So I bought a T-shirt and a skirt the fella found and thought would look good on me, too. I’m getting rid of all my fat pants. I still had a few pairs I’ve been wearing, but I haven’t lost enough to go down another size, so I’m getting rid of the big ones anyway. But I needed a couple more pairs of the right size. Then we went to one of the Japanese “cook it in front of you” restaurants. I discovered that I like Monkey Balls. Still don’t like most “regular” sushi, but I liked the Monkey Balls…

And now we’re home again, and since the boy is off hanging with his friends, I’d like to pull together a little synopsis for Old Spirits. Wish me luck. :)

→ Leave a comment

Posted in New Blood, Old Spirits, painting, pastimes

Smacked in the Head

Posted on March 31, 2007 | Leave a comment

Getting smacked in the head sounds painful, but it’s not always bad.

This morning, while I was “snoozing,” waiting for the phone to go off again (I hate lunging across the king-sized bed for the alarm on the other side, so I set my phone), I was smacked in the head by The Perfect First Sentence for a new story. And I had to get up and write it down. I wrote for 30 minutes, and got 2 pages. I just love it when that happens. :)

I’ll have to make some notes and figure out further plot and stuff, but the idea’s been churning around in my subconscious for the past 3 months while I’ve been working on finishing New Blood, so it’s not hitting me cold…the hero of the new book is a secondary character in New Blood. So I’ve got him characterized, pretty much. (I originally cast Ralph Fiennes as this character, but he sorta morphed into Johnny Depp–more as he was in The Libertine than as Jack Sparrow…) I’m using the subplot I excised from NB as the main plot of the new hero’s book. I just have to learn exactly who the heroine is, and what sort of magic she’s best suited for. OH, and I came up with what I think is the perfect title. The new hero is a conjurer who works spirit magic, like the heroine in New Blood is a sorceress who works blood magic, so the new title is OLD SPIRITS. Yeah, I guess I’m excited a little bit…

I spent the day selling sausage wraps and breakfast burritos to the 2400 competitors (from 6th through 12th grade) in the judging contest the local community college sponsors. The Friends of the Library went to serve breakfast–and lunch. I ate one of each for my lunch. Yum. I had to get all my marshmallow treats for the sale made yesterday, so I could go with the fella to the estate auction in Amarillo.

The really good stuff was going up under the hammer today, so I didn’t get the cool shamrock teapot or any of the neat things–last night they were just selling the box lots. My job is to say “Oooh, that looks cool, let’s bid on that” and then sit in the chair and read my book and not look like I’m bidding. Last night, I read Her Perfect Life by Vicki Hinze–a FANTABULOUS book, and one of the Rita finalists. I’d already picked it up, and was meaning to read it when the Rita nominations came out, so that just made me read it sooner. Loved it.

We bought a box of copper stuff, and a box of boxes (mostly jewelry boxes, but there was a Silver Jubilee biscuit tin from 1935 and a really weird rawhide earring tree thing, and a cool inlaid mosaic-type box that was the one I really wanted for me), and three boxes of books that had Tarot decks in them. I read Tarot, so I wanted the boxes with the decks. And the one with Hopi legends–there was a lot of New Age-y stuff that will be good for research, and some Santa Fe art catalogs. Oh, and we got a couple of rolling file cabinet things for $10 each. Not bad. No idea where we’ll put the file box things, but… I have stuff to fill them up. And then I got to eat dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. It’s really noisy, but we like the food.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in New Blood, Old Spirits, volunteering, what I'm reading, work