I kind of hate to put a post up that will "override" the one inviting you all to come to Left Coast Crime to hear me talk on various panels (and get a chance to win one of my books FREE, or get bookmarks and pens anyhow). But I was talking with another artist about process and results, and I thought our convo was worth sharing.
She's focused on process more than results. She says she knows her art (painting sets for the theater, doing small paintings or sketches for individuals, and the like) is ephemeral, but it doesn't bother her. She writes:
"It's not the legacy but the execution, the actual doing, that gives me zen."
This is a great orientation. I somehow got the "make something that lasts and possibly outlasts you" gene. I think that when my cousins (the boys, anyway) used to take my crayon drawings and tear them up off the fridge, I got the impression that I didn't like working hard on something that there was only one copy of and that didn't even get seen by my grandmother before it got destroyed. Although I do enjoy the process of creating!
If we didn't love the process, we couldn't do it. We'd be like that raging bull guy in the construction business who can't stand his job because he has to be up on the broiling roof all day.
Writing a novel is part puzzle, part planning, part flying by the seat of your pants, and part listening for the Muse in case she decides to sing a while. The good passages in my books are when the Muse approved and began to hum. Very occasionally she busts into song ("bursts" is just not the Texan way to phrase it). Those are the great parts that people quote on Goodreads.
I have never believed the misguided advice in workshops to "kill your darlings," BTW. That would be silly. You must take out extraneous, redundant, silly, self-indulgent, incoherent, and politically incorrect stuff in the second/third/X-th pass. But your great passages, as long as they reveal character, move the story forward (or at least don't stall for
too long--if they're really philosophical and insightful and shed light on the eternal human condition), help readers visualize setting or other important images, or drop hints about the tone/mood of the book to come, should stay. Those are the true darlings, and we should appreciate them! Because all around them are our clunky old bits that we can't
improve any further, and we need the cadenced stuff for the reward.
Perhaps instead of the "kill your darlings" catchphrase (which is self-consciously clever and kind of obnoxious), they ought to say, "lose the self-indulgent parts--you know what we mean." They ought to point out that you should lose the stuff that is an inside joke, that makes you look clever when the character is not, or that is totally irrelevant to the story or to character development but is a cool factoid that you are dying to have readers know. THAT is the stuff to lose in the polishing draft stage.
I started out as a little BITTY kid wanting to be an actress, partly because I thought the actors made up their lines (I mean when it wasn't improv--on TV sitcoms and everywhere else). But then I discovered (1) I wasn't the ingenue type, but always played the character actress parts (read "old, fat, or ugly, or the harridan, or the one who has a couple of scenes of comic relief that has the audience screaming and crying, but it only lasts a couple of minutes on the stage), and (2) I had a bit of paralyzing stage fright at the most inconvenient times. So I went into the wings and started scribbling! LOL
In other news, today I got the galley proofs of APRIL, MAYBE JUNE, and the graphics and styling are AWE-INSPIRING. The book looks great! All I have to do now is read it over and see if there are any typos (which would have been introduced during editing, naturally) or glitches, check to make sure they didn't touch my commas and semicolons, and generally find any problems. By Thursday morning. That's so we can get books by the Left Coast conference. Whew!
I'd better get to reading!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
Meet me at Left Coast Crime in Monterey this March!
(Cross-posted from http://deniseweeks.blogspot.com)
Do you know how much fun readers/fans/writers' conferences are? Combine that with the paradise that is Monterey/Pacific Grove/Carmel-by-the-sea and you really have something!
.jpg)
And while you're there, you can be among the first to see my new release!
MY COVER FOR APRIL, MAYBE JUNE, WHICH LAUNCHES AT THE CONVENTION
(Note that my name tag at the convention will read "Denise Weeks/Shalanna Collins." I'm dual-boot like J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts and many, many other authors.)
I'll be attending Left Coast Crime (Calamari Crime) this year. At last, a family vacation of sorts combined with an opportunity to meet my editors in person, meet fans, and schmooze with other authors I've only known online. I am really stoked and looking forward to it.
The BIG NEWS is that we will be launching my new YA urban fantasy/adventure, APRIL, MAYBE JUNE! Even though it is not strictly a mystery, it has a mystery subplot. I'll be meeting up with Muse Harbor Press's Dave Workman, my editor on the project, and perhaps with others from the company. We have books, bookmarks, and tote bags to give away! I'll know more about the venue for this later on. It might even be held where we're staying--in a beach house!
I don't think that any of my books will make it to the list of nominees for the Lefty this year, but maybe next year. I hear that you should be fairly well-known, and I'm definitely not. Still, I voted in the awards. We'll see who makes the list.
The exciting part is that I'll be renting the aforementioned beach house for the week in Pacific Grove, about a mile away from the hotel. My family (hubby, Mama, Pomeranian, and probably one of my cousins who loves to sketch) will run around and have fun while I do the con, and then in the evenings I'll get to sightsee and visit the Aquarium and the beach. We haven't had a family vacation in YEARS. They are fighting me on it even as we speak, knowing how expensive it all is (and being a bunch of homebodies, except for the dog, who LOVES to travel, as if he were born with wheels), but I believe I can get them into the van and get us all there.
I hope to be on a panel or two. Even if I'm not, I will be available for meet-ups, book signings, and schmoozing. Watch for my totebags!
Here's the pertinent con info (that you could get from their site):
Starts - Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:00 AM
Ends - Sunday, March 23, 2014 02:00 PM
Where: Portola Hotel & Spa, Two Portola Plaza, Monterey, CA, USA
(This hotel is sold out, but they have an overflow hotel or two, including the Marriott)
Add-on:
Writing Workshop Wednesday, March 19 with Jan Burke & Jerrilyn Farmer
Would your family like to come along? There are events especially for them! *Because we know they don't want to hear about the things writers and readers like to blather on about.*
Whale Watching Tour Tuesday March 18, 2014 9:00 AM – Noon (I wish I could do this one!)
Monterey Movie Tour Tuesday, March 18, 2014 1:00 – 5:00 PM
National Steinbeck Museum Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:00 AM – 2 PM (We'll hit the museum at some point, as well as the Henry Miller Library.)
Big Sur Scenic Tour Wednesday, March 19, 2014 1:00 – 5:00 PM (I may skip something so I can go on this with Hubby!)
There are also free events and activities, of course. There's a voluntary hike of about three miles that you can take, starting on the trail behind the Portola Spa. Or just walk along the beach!
I hope to see you there. It's a lot of fun to attend your first convention.
Anyone have any convention survival tips? (Other than get your flu shot NOW, and bring your cell phone and tablet(s)?)
Do you know how much fun readers/fans/writers' conferences are? Combine that with the paradise that is Monterey/Pacific Grove/Carmel-by-the-sea and you really have something!
.jpg)
And while you're there, you can be among the first to see my new release!
(Note that my name tag at the convention will read "Denise Weeks/Shalanna Collins." I'm dual-boot like J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts and many, many other authors.)
I'll be attending Left Coast Crime (Calamari Crime) this year. At last, a family vacation of sorts combined with an opportunity to meet my editors in person, meet fans, and schmooze with other authors I've only known online. I am really stoked and looking forward to it.
The BIG NEWS is that we will be launching my new YA urban fantasy/adventure, APRIL, MAYBE JUNE! Even though it is not strictly a mystery, it has a mystery subplot. I'll be meeting up with Muse Harbor Press's Dave Workman, my editor on the project, and perhaps with others from the company. We have books, bookmarks, and tote bags to give away! I'll know more about the venue for this later on. It might even be held where we're staying--in a beach house!
I don't think that any of my books will make it to the list of nominees for the Lefty this year, but maybe next year. I hear that you should be fairly well-known, and I'm definitely not. Still, I voted in the awards. We'll see who makes the list.
The exciting part is that I'll be renting the aforementioned beach house for the week in Pacific Grove, about a mile away from the hotel. My family (hubby, Mama, Pomeranian, and probably one of my cousins who loves to sketch) will run around and have fun while I do the con, and then in the evenings I'll get to sightsee and visit the Aquarium and the beach. We haven't had a family vacation in YEARS. They are fighting me on it even as we speak, knowing how expensive it all is (and being a bunch of homebodies, except for the dog, who LOVES to travel, as if he were born with wheels), but I believe I can get them into the van and get us all there.
I hope to be on a panel or two. Even if I'm not, I will be available for meet-ups, book signings, and schmoozing. Watch for my totebags!
Here's the pertinent con info (that you could get from their site):
Starts - Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:00 AM
Ends - Sunday, March 23, 2014 02:00 PM
Where: Portola Hotel & Spa, Two Portola Plaza, Monterey, CA, USA
(This hotel is sold out, but they have an overflow hotel or two, including the Marriott)
Add-on:
Writing Workshop Wednesday, March 19 with Jan Burke & Jerrilyn Farmer
Would your family like to come along? There are events especially for them! *Because we know they don't want to hear about the things writers and readers like to blather on about.*
Whale Watching Tour Tuesday March 18, 2014 9:00 AM – Noon (I wish I could do this one!)
Monterey Movie Tour Tuesday, March 18, 2014 1:00 – 5:00 PM
National Steinbeck Museum Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:00 AM – 2 PM (We'll hit the museum at some point, as well as the Henry Miller Library.)
Big Sur Scenic Tour Wednesday, March 19, 2014 1:00 – 5:00 PM (I may skip something so I can go on this with Hubby!)
There are also free events and activities, of course. There's a voluntary hike of about three miles that you can take, starting on the trail behind the Portola Spa. Or just walk along the beach!
I hope to see you there. It's a lot of fun to attend your first convention.
Anyone have any convention survival tips? (Other than get your flu shot NOW, and bring your cell phone and tablet(s)?)
Sunday, December 1, 2013
SAMPLE SUNDAY: _Miranda's Rights_ excerpt
Today is Sample Sunday. I have a "witchy" book (think "Bell, Book, and Candle" or "Bewitched," and MAYBE even "Sabrina" with a sprinkle of "Charmed") that I need to finish. (I have the first 3/4 and the ending written--it's just a saggy part that has to connect everything that needs plumping up.) I thought it might be fun to see whether anyone would go out and read about MIRANDA'S RIGHTS.
(Don't expect the same voice or style as that of the Denise Weeks mysteries or even of my Camille's Travels. This one might seem fey-twee-OTT to those who don't like this kind of book. So it goes. Poo-tee-weet?)
MIRANDA'S RIGHTS by Shalanna Collins
PROLOGUE
The demon Asperioth felt himself being conjured just as he was finishing up a complex three-day working.
Because the first tug came when he had his hands full, he couldn't even try a countermeasure. The working was too strong, anyway; someone out there must have his Name. He rose up into the air tail-first, cursing and dropping the components for the last step of his spell as he was sucked into the vortex between the demons' realm and that of the mortals.
The feeling was like being pulled butt-first through a knothole. A too-small knothole.
He materialized in a deep-forest clearing bathed in the light of the full moon. Someone must know a little about what they were doing. His hooves crunched on pine needles; the scent turned his stomach. Looking down, he saw he stood in the center of a salt-encrusted pentagram inscribed in a double circle engraved in the soft dirt. Apparently, someone knew quite a bit.
Or had been reading up on Summoning in the occult literature.
He blinked. As his infravision adjusted to the harsh light, he could make out a petite figure. A human female stood before him with black-draped arms upraised, her toetips barely tangent to the edge of the magickal figure.
Her voice squeaked forth with a whiny nasal accent. "Asperioth, I command thee!"
She'd heard his Name somewhere, or read it in a book, he supposed. That made things tougher for him: once they knew your Name, you couldn't resist the conjuring when you were called. That was part of the reason he'd been pulled so suddenly. And unless you could fool them, you were compelled to obey. Within reason.
"What do you seek by calling me, O woman?" He boomed it out with an echo, hoping he sounded properly fearsome. Asperioth couldn't quite remember the language, the exact phrasing that he was supposed to use. It had been so long since he'd had his Name called by a mortal. "I have little time to spend here. Tell me your desire."
"I want more power." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "More power at my command without all these material components and . . . rituals." Her lips parted, revealing slightly pointed canines at the edges of her smile, and she glanced over her shoulder.
Asperioth followed her gaze to a naked human male, almost as young as she, panting on a woolen blanket behind her. The youth lay unnaturally twisted and still, as though stunned from a working. It was a sophisticated method of raising power; she was no newcomer to the Craft, nor apparently to the rules of diabolical magick.
"I could give you more power in the same way this one has given it." Asperioth beckoned, hoping he wasn’t leering too obviously. "Come hither into the center of my pentacle, and I shall grant your request."
"I am young, but not one day old, dear." She grimaced. "A demon child is not in my plans. Anyway, I've never heard of going into the pentacle with the demon."
Asperioth winced. “Please--we prefer the more correct term, ‘antiangel.’”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Asperioth spread his arms wide, then pulled them in a bit as a shower of tiny blue sparks shot from the edge of the pentacle’s central pentagon, in which he stood. “I will do you no harm and plant no seed. You will find I can give you great pleasure as I increase your power.”
She gave him a hard look. "Don't mess with me. You can give me power at my command with a single word. I want that word of power."
Well, it had been worth a try.
"All right. But within the confines of this figure, I feel cramped and uneasy. When I am made to be so, I cannot think." The pentagram seemed claustrophobically small; it was squeezing his potbelly and his rear pillows. "Rub out a line so I can come forth, and I will grant you a word which will allow you to command power in an instant."
"Forget it." She glared at him. "You're not coming out here, and I'm not coming in there. Do I look stupid? You stand right there and think fast. Just give me the word."
All right, he would give her a word. But first he had to know what it was worth to her. "What is the payment you are willing to give for each use of this word?"
She scowled, pushing her wild dark hair back behind one ear. "What are you talking about?"
So she hadn't read up as thoroughly as all that.
"I mean there is a cost for each use of the word. The power does not come from the sound of the word alone. It must be paid for by the sacrifice of some mortal component."
"Component." Her voice wavered a bit.
He paused for dramatic effect. "Your pet . . . the use of your right arm . . . your singing voice. . . ."
"Those things are not negotiable. They're too personal." She squinted into the blue light that surrounded him, as if thinking, although he doubted it was remarkably deep thinking. "What about another person?"
"That could be satisfactory." Asperioth looked at her with new respect. He had to admire her ruthlessness and her brazenness in demanding such things so confidently of a power like himself. And she was almost as free from the burden of compassion as he was. However, she should have had all her dragons in a row before Calling him. "This grows tedious. State your exact offer."
"I don't know yet. Can I state it at the time I use the word? Another person, still to be named."
"Named at the time of the casting. All right." He felt he was giving her ample exception.
But she paused. "Wait a minute--let me think if I want that, or if there's a better way." Stroking her chin as if she were an aspiring member of Z Z Top encouraging her beard, the human appeared ready to muse until Tuesday.
His own abandoned spell would be ruined, unrecoverable, if she kept him here much longer. He could feel steam rising out of both ears. "Do not anger me, mortal woman. Show the same courtesy you would use to a fellow magician, or better. You forget what I am and what you are."
"Sorry. Jeez--"
He clapped his hands over his ears before her invocation of Light could do any damage. "Please! No need for that kind of language. I have your word of power." After waiting one suitably solemn moment, he pronounced a word in the magickal tongue. Guttural and hissing all at once, it would be a challenge to her.
"Can't you give me an easier one?" She squinted at him as if things were blurring over, which would mean her hold on him was fading. She was running out of energy.
"The words are the words." He sent a hostile light out of his eyes to convince her. "They cannot be other than what they are."
"All right, all right. Say it again clearly so I can get it, and you can go."
He pronounced it once more for her, slowly, to be fair, because she had proven herself brave as well as admirably wicked. “Use it wisely. Remember the price.”
She smiled and raised her arms. “I release thee, Asperioth, and return thee to thy proper realm.”
He felt himself slipping back into his own dimension. "Thank you," he heard her calling as he clattered back onto the floor of his own workroom.
He bared his fangs in what passed for a smile. Her fatal mistake was a beginner's error. She had failed to pronounce the peace. She should have ended not with a stupid thanks, but with something like, "Depart now, and may there ever be peace between me and thee. So mote it be."
So now he had her. When she Called him next--if there was a next time--he had no obligation to comport himself with peace. "Mortals today," he muttered, picking himself up and dusting off his legs, which were sticky and covered with dried cinders from the floor. "Complete fools. But when has it ever been otherwise?"
Rhetorical question.
Chapter One
On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Miranda Callahan came awake with the certain knowledge that her best friend was casting a spell on her.
"The moon enters the house of the dragon, and Hecate works her magick on me." Miranda groaned, raising her head off the sketches for her latest cartoon panel. She'd fallen asleep at her drawing table again.
Charcoal sketches are unforgiving. The entire page was smudged like yesterday's mascara. In the gentle morning light, the new cartoon seemed particularly uninspired. Her fingers flew to her temples, where they automatically started massaging in circles.
What could be worse than waking to unfamiliar magick--except, of course, waking up in a cold bed without Alex. Which she'd cleverly avoided by conking out at her desk around three in the morning.
She had to put a stop to this enchantment, immediately. Being manipulated was never her preference, no matter how well-meaning the manipulator.
But the spell was already working on her.
This spell was benevolent, though, she'd swear. She felt optimistic, for a change, and a little buzzed, as if she'd been affected by the margaritas she vaguely remembered drinking in her dreams.
Her stomach guggled. She hadn't been spelled unexpectedly like this since her mother had semi-retired from the Craft.
Reaching toward the ceiling, she rolled her head back and forth, working at the crick in her neck. She knew she ought to be concerned, perhaps even panicky, about being magicked. As a confirmed control freak, Miranda was uneasy around witchcraft; she'd witnessed its unpredictable power too often in childhood. Yet she found that being the focus of a spell weaving its way around her moment by moment was oddly soothing. Somebody cared.
She was tempted to give in, to surrender to the euphoria that the spell wanted to build in her, maybe just a little.
"Dagnabbit, Zepp, quit it," Miranda said aloud. "Don't turn me into a frog, because I know what your idea of a great lilypad is. Isn't it bad enough having another birthday so soon?" But the spell was not to be waved away.
Sweet, misguided Zepp.
This old mock-Tudor mansion was drafty, especially up in this third-floor turret. It had been Alex's idea to add their aerie of a bedroom during the first phase of remodeling, but he hadn't realized how inadequate the cheapie brand of insulation would be. Slipping her feet into her marabou slides, she reached for Alex's brown velour bathrobe. Burying her nose in its collar, she sucked in his musky scent. She could hardly believe his "two weeks away to gain some perspective" had stretched out to seven and a half.
She doubled the robe's belt around her waist, shivering a little. Anything sprung on her without warning and utterly outside her control--such as this spell--usually made her teeth itch. Howsomever, Miranda was certain that Lynn Zepp wouldn't pull a trick like this unless the spell was intended to help, unsettling as the differences between her concept of "helpful" and Zepp's might be.
The intense aroma of bacon--with a suggestion of burning sugar, as in cinnamon toast--wafted up the turret's spiral staircase. Miranda sighed. She'd put on three pounds last week, yet she knew she'd offend her mother if she didn't eat a plateful. Cooking was Mim's passion and her current mission in life.
Mim--alias Mimetia McGaha, the "Divine Madam Mim," albeit retired--seldom practiced the Craft these days, at least not openly. Still, what Mim had learned over twenty-eight years she certainly hadn't forgotten in five. Miranda padded downstairs, confident that her mother would know what could be done about her impending ensorcelment.
As she emerged in the sunny morning room, her two orange Pomeranians rushed for her legs. She snatched up first Woofie, then his sister Amadée, and kissed each firmly on the head before setting them back down to compete for her attention. Deciding on the coy approach, she smiled at her mother. "Morning, Mamacita. Notice anything different about me?"
Mim looked up from behind the pastry island and smiled indulgently. The spot of flour on the end of her nose told Miranda that she'd been mixing up biscuits from scratch.
"Happy birthday, sweetie. Do you feel any effects from Lynn Elizabeth's magicwork yet?" Mim habitually called Zepp--along with everyone else--by first and middle names, despite Zepp's expressed preference for being called solely by her last name. Those who normally objected to this Southern-gothic practice made an exception for Mim. "She started raising power and sending a spell your way about forty minutes ago."
Miranda winced, for drama's sake. "And this didn't move you to come wake me--or, better yet, try to block the spell?"
*end of sample*
(Don't expect the same voice or style as that of the Denise Weeks mysteries or even of my Camille's Travels. This one might seem fey-twee-OTT to those who don't like this kind of book. So it goes. Poo-tee-weet?)
PROLOGUE
The demon Asperioth felt himself being conjured just as he was finishing up a complex three-day working.
Because the first tug came when he had his hands full, he couldn't even try a countermeasure. The working was too strong, anyway; someone out there must have his Name. He rose up into the air tail-first, cursing and dropping the components for the last step of his spell as he was sucked into the vortex between the demons' realm and that of the mortals.
The feeling was like being pulled butt-first through a knothole. A too-small knothole.
He materialized in a deep-forest clearing bathed in the light of the full moon. Someone must know a little about what they were doing. His hooves crunched on pine needles; the scent turned his stomach. Looking down, he saw he stood in the center of a salt-encrusted pentagram inscribed in a double circle engraved in the soft dirt. Apparently, someone knew quite a bit.
Or had been reading up on Summoning in the occult literature.
He blinked. As his infravision adjusted to the harsh light, he could make out a petite figure. A human female stood before him with black-draped arms upraised, her toetips barely tangent to the edge of the magickal figure.
Her voice squeaked forth with a whiny nasal accent. "Asperioth, I command thee!"
She'd heard his Name somewhere, or read it in a book, he supposed. That made things tougher for him: once they knew your Name, you couldn't resist the conjuring when you were called. That was part of the reason he'd been pulled so suddenly. And unless you could fool them, you were compelled to obey. Within reason.
"What do you seek by calling me, O woman?" He boomed it out with an echo, hoping he sounded properly fearsome. Asperioth couldn't quite remember the language, the exact phrasing that he was supposed to use. It had been so long since he'd had his Name called by a mortal. "I have little time to spend here. Tell me your desire."
"I want more power." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "More power at my command without all these material components and . . . rituals." Her lips parted, revealing slightly pointed canines at the edges of her smile, and she glanced over her shoulder.
Asperioth followed her gaze to a naked human male, almost as young as she, panting on a woolen blanket behind her. The youth lay unnaturally twisted and still, as though stunned from a working. It was a sophisticated method of raising power; she was no newcomer to the Craft, nor apparently to the rules of diabolical magick.
"I could give you more power in the same way this one has given it." Asperioth beckoned, hoping he wasn’t leering too obviously. "Come hither into the center of my pentacle, and I shall grant your request."
"I am young, but not one day old, dear." She grimaced. "A demon child is not in my plans. Anyway, I've never heard of going into the pentacle with the demon."
Asperioth winced. “Please--we prefer the more correct term, ‘antiangel.’”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Asperioth spread his arms wide, then pulled them in a bit as a shower of tiny blue sparks shot from the edge of the pentacle’s central pentagon, in which he stood. “I will do you no harm and plant no seed. You will find I can give you great pleasure as I increase your power.”
She gave him a hard look. "Don't mess with me. You can give me power at my command with a single word. I want that word of power."
Well, it had been worth a try.
"All right. But within the confines of this figure, I feel cramped and uneasy. When I am made to be so, I cannot think." The pentagram seemed claustrophobically small; it was squeezing his potbelly and his rear pillows. "Rub out a line so I can come forth, and I will grant you a word which will allow you to command power in an instant."
"Forget it." She glared at him. "You're not coming out here, and I'm not coming in there. Do I look stupid? You stand right there and think fast. Just give me the word."
All right, he would give her a word. But first he had to know what it was worth to her. "What is the payment you are willing to give for each use of this word?"
She scowled, pushing her wild dark hair back behind one ear. "What are you talking about?"
So she hadn't read up as thoroughly as all that.
"I mean there is a cost for each use of the word. The power does not come from the sound of the word alone. It must be paid for by the sacrifice of some mortal component."
"Component." Her voice wavered a bit.
He paused for dramatic effect. "Your pet . . . the use of your right arm . . . your singing voice. . . ."
"Those things are not negotiable. They're too personal." She squinted into the blue light that surrounded him, as if thinking, although he doubted it was remarkably deep thinking. "What about another person?"
"That could be satisfactory." Asperioth looked at her with new respect. He had to admire her ruthlessness and her brazenness in demanding such things so confidently of a power like himself. And she was almost as free from the burden of compassion as he was. However, she should have had all her dragons in a row before Calling him. "This grows tedious. State your exact offer."
"I don't know yet. Can I state it at the time I use the word? Another person, still to be named."
"Named at the time of the casting. All right." He felt he was giving her ample exception.
But she paused. "Wait a minute--let me think if I want that, or if there's a better way." Stroking her chin as if she were an aspiring member of Z Z Top encouraging her beard, the human appeared ready to muse until Tuesday.
His own abandoned spell would be ruined, unrecoverable, if she kept him here much longer. He could feel steam rising out of both ears. "Do not anger me, mortal woman. Show the same courtesy you would use to a fellow magician, or better. You forget what I am and what you are."
"Sorry. Jeez--"
He clapped his hands over his ears before her invocation of Light could do any damage. "Please! No need for that kind of language. I have your word of power." After waiting one suitably solemn moment, he pronounced a word in the magickal tongue. Guttural and hissing all at once, it would be a challenge to her.
"Can't you give me an easier one?" She squinted at him as if things were blurring over, which would mean her hold on him was fading. She was running out of energy.
"The words are the words." He sent a hostile light out of his eyes to convince her. "They cannot be other than what they are."
"All right, all right. Say it again clearly so I can get it, and you can go."
He pronounced it once more for her, slowly, to be fair, because she had proven herself brave as well as admirably wicked. “Use it wisely. Remember the price.”
She smiled and raised her arms. “I release thee, Asperioth, and return thee to thy proper realm.”
He felt himself slipping back into his own dimension. "Thank you," he heard her calling as he clattered back onto the floor of his own workroom.
He bared his fangs in what passed for a smile. Her fatal mistake was a beginner's error. She had failed to pronounce the peace. She should have ended not with a stupid thanks, but with something like, "Depart now, and may there ever be peace between me and thee. So mote it be."
So now he had her. When she Called him next--if there was a next time--he had no obligation to comport himself with peace. "Mortals today," he muttered, picking himself up and dusting off his legs, which were sticky and covered with dried cinders from the floor. "Complete fools. But when has it ever been otherwise?"
Rhetorical question.
On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Miranda Callahan came awake with the certain knowledge that her best friend was casting a spell on her.
"The moon enters the house of the dragon, and Hecate works her magick on me." Miranda groaned, raising her head off the sketches for her latest cartoon panel. She'd fallen asleep at her drawing table again.
Charcoal sketches are unforgiving. The entire page was smudged like yesterday's mascara. In the gentle morning light, the new cartoon seemed particularly uninspired. Her fingers flew to her temples, where they automatically started massaging in circles.
What could be worse than waking to unfamiliar magick--except, of course, waking up in a cold bed without Alex. Which she'd cleverly avoided by conking out at her desk around three in the morning.
She had to put a stop to this enchantment, immediately. Being manipulated was never her preference, no matter how well-meaning the manipulator.
But the spell was already working on her.
This spell was benevolent, though, she'd swear. She felt optimistic, for a change, and a little buzzed, as if she'd been affected by the margaritas she vaguely remembered drinking in her dreams.
Her stomach guggled. She hadn't been spelled unexpectedly like this since her mother had semi-retired from the Craft.
Reaching toward the ceiling, she rolled her head back and forth, working at the crick in her neck. She knew she ought to be concerned, perhaps even panicky, about being magicked. As a confirmed control freak, Miranda was uneasy around witchcraft; she'd witnessed its unpredictable power too often in childhood. Yet she found that being the focus of a spell weaving its way around her moment by moment was oddly soothing. Somebody cared.
She was tempted to give in, to surrender to the euphoria that the spell wanted to build in her, maybe just a little.
"Dagnabbit, Zepp, quit it," Miranda said aloud. "Don't turn me into a frog, because I know what your idea of a great lilypad is. Isn't it bad enough having another birthday so soon?" But the spell was not to be waved away.
Sweet, misguided Zepp.
This old mock-Tudor mansion was drafty, especially up in this third-floor turret. It had been Alex's idea to add their aerie of a bedroom during the first phase of remodeling, but he hadn't realized how inadequate the cheapie brand of insulation would be. Slipping her feet into her marabou slides, she reached for Alex's brown velour bathrobe. Burying her nose in its collar, she sucked in his musky scent. She could hardly believe his "two weeks away to gain some perspective" had stretched out to seven and a half.
She doubled the robe's belt around her waist, shivering a little. Anything sprung on her without warning and utterly outside her control--such as this spell--usually made her teeth itch. Howsomever, Miranda was certain that Lynn Zepp wouldn't pull a trick like this unless the spell was intended to help, unsettling as the differences between her concept of "helpful" and Zepp's might be.
The intense aroma of bacon--with a suggestion of burning sugar, as in cinnamon toast--wafted up the turret's spiral staircase. Miranda sighed. She'd put on three pounds last week, yet she knew she'd offend her mother if she didn't eat a plateful. Cooking was Mim's passion and her current mission in life.
Mim--alias Mimetia McGaha, the "Divine Madam Mim," albeit retired--seldom practiced the Craft these days, at least not openly. Still, what Mim had learned over twenty-eight years she certainly hadn't forgotten in five. Miranda padded downstairs, confident that her mother would know what could be done about her impending ensorcelment.
As she emerged in the sunny morning room, her two orange Pomeranians rushed for her legs. She snatched up first Woofie, then his sister Amadée, and kissed each firmly on the head before setting them back down to compete for her attention. Deciding on the coy approach, she smiled at her mother. "Morning, Mamacita. Notice anything different about me?"
Mim looked up from behind the pastry island and smiled indulgently. The spot of flour on the end of her nose told Miranda that she'd been mixing up biscuits from scratch.
"Happy birthday, sweetie. Do you feel any effects from Lynn Elizabeth's magicwork yet?" Mim habitually called Zepp--along with everyone else--by first and middle names, despite Zepp's expressed preference for being called solely by her last name. Those who normally objected to this Southern-gothic practice made an exception for Mim. "She started raising power and sending a spell your way about forty minutes ago."
Miranda winced, for drama's sake. "And this didn't move you to come wake me--or, better yet, try to block the spell?"
*end of sample*
Friday, September 21, 2012
FREE BOOK! BOOK GIVEAWAY! (etc.)
It's time for a--
BOOK GIVEAWAY!
This time around it's my new YA fantasy/adventure, APRIL, MAYBE JUNE. I'm giving away three free copies! (Assuming I get three or more comments, that is. *tap tap* Is this thing on?) I'll be doing this once a week for a while, for different novels.
If you'd like to win a free copy of APRIL, MAYBE JUNE, leave a comment with your contact information (this can be your e-mail in a cryptic format, such as ladiva AT gmail). Comment by next Tuesday, September 25th.
I'd like to hear commentary on the current state of publishing. You can say anything you like in the comment, as long as it's nice. Let's play nice (unlike the rest of the net, politics-infested as it is.
The winners will be chosen randomly from the commenters by random drawing. If I only get three comments, then you'll all WIN! You're already winners, you know--in all sorts of other ways. Thanks for reading.
I'm really interested in hearing from readers. Let me know your thoughts on the new Bounty o' Books that is out there, much of it for free on e-readers. Are we better off than we were a couple of years ago, or not? LOL
BOOK GIVEAWAY!
This time around it's my new YA fantasy/adventure, APRIL, MAYBE JUNE. I'm giving away three free copies! (Assuming I get three or more comments, that is. *tap tap* Is this thing on?) I'll be doing this once a week for a while, for different novels.
If you'd like to win a free copy of APRIL, MAYBE JUNE, leave a comment with your contact information (this can be your e-mail in a cryptic format, such as ladiva AT gmail). Comment by next Tuesday, September 25th.
I'd like to hear commentary on the current state of publishing. You can say anything you like in the comment, as long as it's nice. Let's play nice (unlike the rest of the net, politics-infested as it is.
The winners will be chosen randomly from the commenters by random drawing. If I only get three comments, then you'll all WIN! You're already winners, you know--in all sorts of other ways. Thanks for reading.
I'm really interested in hearing from readers. Let me know your thoughts on the new Bounty o' Books that is out there, much of it for free on e-readers. Are we better off than we were a couple of years ago, or not? LOL
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The Next Big Thing
I'm weary of hearing all these pundits lecturing on how This or That will bring our economy out of the "slump" and back to Greatness. There is only ONE event, IMHO, that will actually do something for us. We can't create jobs out of nothing the way they did in the 1930s because the government has spent all the money it could print on foreign wars and homeland security, and people are too scared to drive the economy by spending what little they have.
But! What has always boosted the economy before?
The Next Big Thing.
The last really big Next Big Thing, I think, was the cell phone. It got a somewhat slow start, but once people realized they could have free long distance and dump all those special-code long-distance plans, and they could be in touch from ANYwhere, suddenly the cell phone was the accessory of choice. Texting and 'net connection came along, and cross-breeds like iPhones and CrackBerries jumped into play. The cell phone is now replacing the landline in many households. The worst thing that can happen to most people is losing that phone and its list of contacts. (No one knows their own phone numbers any more, let alone the boss's and Mom's.)
The GPS has also done this on a smaller scale. Many people now either have a standalone GPS in the car or a portable unit, or their cell phones have this capability. Yellow pages and maps that fold into origami cranes in the glove compartment have fallen by the wayside, and good riddance. Most travel can be better with that little voice saying, "Make a legal U-turn at the next opportunity."
E-readers are taking over from paper books and reference materials, at least with the under-50 crowd. We are seeing many people re-buying their entire libraries in e-form. This is such a coup it's comparable to the conversion from vinyl to CD to MP3, or the videotape to the DVD to the Blu-Ray. This is a way for content providers to re-sell new versions of all the old stuff PLUS all the new stuff. Score!
We've had a steady stream of good-sized Next Big Things, I would claim. The iPad or Android Tablet is the newest. Before that, though, the MP3 player/iPod single-handedly took down the monolithic music industry and all the great old record labels. Now people don't keep a houseful of CDs or vinyl records. They have a huge hard drive or memory stick, and they swap in and out their iTunes libraries and playlists as they feel ready to. Before that, everyone had to get a laptop to replace the old desktop clunker (which was a really HUUUGE Next Big Thing that changed business forever.)
So, anyway, I claim that we will not be able to climb out of the hole we're falling into by electing any particular person or party, or by creating jobs out of nothing, or by having more foreign wars. I claim that somebody will have to create the Next Big Doodad.
Why "doodad"? It needs to be something that all of a sudden EVERYONE *HAS* to have. Something like a portable teleporter, mind-reading device, time travel doohickey, flying car, or whatnot. (Let's leave aside the horrific chaos and end-of-world stuff that would occur if everyone could suddenly read everyone else's minds or teleport in a blink to any of various teleportation stations set up around the world. We know that fistfights would break out on the street as people had a passing thought about what a big booty the woman in front of them had, and that criminals would flash in, steal stuff, and then flash far away in an instant.)
Science fiction never expected the personal computer and cell phone and so forth in their present forms, and promised us instead that we'd have robots (to clean house, to do guard duty, for all kinds of tasks) and flying cars by now. We don't have the personal rocket jet pack, but we have all kinds of doodads that we now feel we could never live without. That's what we need now.
You see, when NBD comes along, it will create jobs! People will be needed to sell the item, stores will be rented or built to have customers come in and browse models and features, help desks or customer service phone lines have to be staffed, marketing and advertising types will be there to publicize and compete, factories full of people who run the factory builds of the item will flourish, websites will be designed and browsed, a bureaucracy will build up around it all, someone will write the documentation and then that "For Dummies" version as a book . . . wow! Employment! Selling! And thus people will get jobs and have disposable income that they will go out and spend, and suddenly every sector will be rollin' again until some other crappy war or whatnot comes along to burst the bubble.
What will the Next Big Doodad be? I couldn't guess. Something to do with health would really rock, such as the Star Trek healing probes and so forth. Or maybe something to do with robotics. Where is my Rosie the Robot to do my cleaning, cooking, and household stuff? The doodad can't be TOO big and expensive, though. We will have early adopters who'll pay a thousand just to be able to have the doodad first, but soon the price will drop to $700 and then $500 as more people decide to splurge or charge it. The price will hit $250 and a Wal-Mart version will come along. Then the prices on the street will go lower than that, and everyone will have a Doodad [TM]. Get one today! All your friends have one! It's the Next Big Thing!
Anyhow . . . get to work, scientists and engineers. I think we really, really NEED the NBT to come along, and hurry its butt while it's at it. We don't need to slip-slide even further away.
Meanwhile, buy one of my books. It's good for you.
"Nine out of ten doctors recommend my books. The tenth is a quack."
But! What has always boosted the economy before?
The Next Big Thing.
The last really big Next Big Thing, I think, was the cell phone. It got a somewhat slow start, but once people realized they could have free long distance and dump all those special-code long-distance plans, and they could be in touch from ANYwhere, suddenly the cell phone was the accessory of choice. Texting and 'net connection came along, and cross-breeds like iPhones and CrackBerries jumped into play. The cell phone is now replacing the landline in many households. The worst thing that can happen to most people is losing that phone and its list of contacts. (No one knows their own phone numbers any more, let alone the boss's and Mom's.)
The GPS has also done this on a smaller scale. Many people now either have a standalone GPS in the car or a portable unit, or their cell phones have this capability. Yellow pages and maps that fold into origami cranes in the glove compartment have fallen by the wayside, and good riddance. Most travel can be better with that little voice saying, "Make a legal U-turn at the next opportunity."
E-readers are taking over from paper books and reference materials, at least with the under-50 crowd. We are seeing many people re-buying their entire libraries in e-form. This is such a coup it's comparable to the conversion from vinyl to CD to MP3, or the videotape to the DVD to the Blu-Ray. This is a way for content providers to re-sell new versions of all the old stuff PLUS all the new stuff. Score!
We've had a steady stream of good-sized Next Big Things, I would claim. The iPad or Android Tablet is the newest. Before that, though, the MP3 player/iPod single-handedly took down the monolithic music industry and all the great old record labels. Now people don't keep a houseful of CDs or vinyl records. They have a huge hard drive or memory stick, and they swap in and out their iTunes libraries and playlists as they feel ready to. Before that, everyone had to get a laptop to replace the old desktop clunker (which was a really HUUUGE Next Big Thing that changed business forever.)
So, anyway, I claim that we will not be able to climb out of the hole we're falling into by electing any particular person or party, or by creating jobs out of nothing, or by having more foreign wars. I claim that somebody will have to create the Next Big Doodad.
Why "doodad"? It needs to be something that all of a sudden EVERYONE *HAS* to have. Something like a portable teleporter, mind-reading device, time travel doohickey, flying car, or whatnot. (Let's leave aside the horrific chaos and end-of-world stuff that would occur if everyone could suddenly read everyone else's minds or teleport in a blink to any of various teleportation stations set up around the world. We know that fistfights would break out on the street as people had a passing thought about what a big booty the woman in front of them had, and that criminals would flash in, steal stuff, and then flash far away in an instant.)
Science fiction never expected the personal computer and cell phone and so forth in their present forms, and promised us instead that we'd have robots (to clean house, to do guard duty, for all kinds of tasks) and flying cars by now. We don't have the personal rocket jet pack, but we have all kinds of doodads that we now feel we could never live without. That's what we need now.
You see, when NBD comes along, it will create jobs! People will be needed to sell the item, stores will be rented or built to have customers come in and browse models and features, help desks or customer service phone lines have to be staffed, marketing and advertising types will be there to publicize and compete, factories full of people who run the factory builds of the item will flourish, websites will be designed and browsed, a bureaucracy will build up around it all, someone will write the documentation and then that "For Dummies" version as a book . . . wow! Employment! Selling! And thus people will get jobs and have disposable income that they will go out and spend, and suddenly every sector will be rollin' again until some other crappy war or whatnot comes along to burst the bubble.
What will the Next Big Doodad be? I couldn't guess. Something to do with health would really rock, such as the Star Trek healing probes and so forth. Or maybe something to do with robotics. Where is my Rosie the Robot to do my cleaning, cooking, and household stuff? The doodad can't be TOO big and expensive, though. We will have early adopters who'll pay a thousand just to be able to have the doodad first, but soon the price will drop to $700 and then $500 as more people decide to splurge or charge it. The price will hit $250 and a Wal-Mart version will come along. Then the prices on the street will go lower than that, and everyone will have a Doodad [TM]. Get one today! All your friends have one! It's the Next Big Thing!
Anyhow . . . get to work, scientists and engineers. I think we really, really NEED the NBT to come along, and hurry its butt while it's at it. We don't need to slip-slide even further away.
Meanwhile, buy one of my books. It's good for you.
"Nine out of ten doctors recommend my books. The tenth is a quack."
Saturday, June 9, 2012
I PROMISE my readers these things
I will never kill off a pet or cute little animal, never. I will very seldom kill off a cherished character or little kid--a mystery does have to have a bodycount, but you'll usually hate the deserving victim beforehand.
I will never write silly stuff that is more suited for a comic book and makes readers yell, "Come ON!!" I will never have characters who are TSTL (too stupid to live) opening a door and going unarmed down into a dark basement where they know the monster lies in wait.
I will never have a scene with incest or abuse because that pushes too many people's buttons and would trigger symptoms in those with PTSD. If these things have happened to a character of mine, it has been kept offstage (something in the character's past that is only referred to and not dramatized). If I ever find it necessary to have a scene with rape, abuse, or whatnot, I will clearly label that story or book so that those who, like myself, prefer not to read such stuff can avoid it. I don't see any reason for all the gratuitous "thrill" stuff that supposedly "pushes the envelope" and is "gritty." Authors can evoke more appropriate and enjoyable emotions in their readers, and I think we should.
I will never have my characters knocked unconscious with rocks, baseball bats, and the like, only to awaken a few minutes later, rub their heads, and stand up to pursue their assailant again (possibly with a bit of unsteadiness, but no other ill effects.) You should know that ANY blow to the head can be fatal, ANY unconsciousness is a medical emergency, and CUMULATIVE blows to the head or concussions can do lots of brain damage. One blow is likely to cause a blood clot (hematoma) and can cause cerebral hemorrhage, stroke, brain damage, memory loss, and other problems. This is extremely unrealistic stuff that you read over and over in mysteries because it's convenient for the plot, but it models some really unwise behavior and things that do not happen in real life (such as standing right back up again without any problems), and it's a terrible thing for authors to use as a convenient plot device.
I will never write "what's selling now" because I couldn't spend that much time with such a novel. I write books I would like to read, that I wished I could find when I was a child and teenager, that I have wished I could find again as an adult. You might find my books have too much description and too little action for your current taste, but not everyone eats curry and not everyone prefers chocolate to vanilla.
If you loved any of these books as a teen/youngster, you might like APRIL, MAYBE JUNE by Shalanna Collins.
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
If you loved any of these books as a teen, you might like CAMILLE'S TRAVELS by Shalanna Collins.
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom
If you loved any of these books as a child or teen, you might like DULCINEA by Shalanna Collins.
Harry Potter (and the series) by J. K. Rowling
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (and the Narnia series) by C. S. Lewis
The Worst Witch by Diana Wynne Jones
I write for kindred spirits. If you like my work, you typically REALLY LOVE my work. And that's enough for me.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Denise Weeks, mystery author, wins Dark Oak contest!
NEWS FLASH!
NOW it can be told!
No, not that prolific writer Shalanna Collins is the alter ego of author Denise Weeks. You already know that, if you have reached this blog. I'm like Nora Roberts with her alter ego J. D. Robb for mysteries. I have other news.
NICE WORK, the first novel in my Jacquidon and Chantal Carroll mystery series, has won the Dark Oak Tree mystery contest and will be published by Oak Tree Press!!
This morning I got my contract by e-mail and an agreement to sign. I've signed, and the process to publish the book is in motion. It could be a Christmas release, but we're still in the preliminary stages of planning. As you probably know, traditional publishing (which this is) moves somewhat more slowly than the small YA/fantasy press I have worked with for my books (written as Shalanna Collins) DULCINEA, CAMILLE'S TRAVELS, and APRIL, MAYBE JUNE. (Oh, and of course LITTLE RITUALS, by Denise Weeks.) But perhaps this one will surprise us and not take as long. Stay tuned.
This series is the "Snoop Sisters" humorous and non-gory/not-so-dark line. It doesn't have the angst of the MARFA LIGHTS/Ariadne French series. What it does have, I hope, is a take on cozy/traditional mystery style that will appeal to fans of the Anne George "Southern Sisters" mysteries (much missed) and witty romps like the old Helen Hayes/Ruth Gordon "Snoop Sisters" television program.
One can dream. And sometimes one's dream can come true!
The Book's Own Blog:
http://jackiesjotting.blogspot.com/
Oak Tree Press Home
http://www.oaktreebooks.com/
(They haven't announced the contest win yet, but I am told I can post about it now myself)
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