Upcoming Interview - The Will Anderson Show

I will be joining local talk show host, Will Anderson on air during his show on Wednesday, July 23. The show airs on WTKI and WEKI weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. central standard time.

We will be discussing my debut novel, Right of Succession.

Working Behind the Scenes

I know it looks like nothing has been going on since Con Kasterborous the last weekend in June, but there has been a lot happening "behind the scenes" so to speak.

Hubby and I both came down with con crud, and both girls had a bad case of hay fever that weekend. So the whole first week of July, we were all miserable. I'm thankful Hubby and the girls are back to feeling at 100%. I've had a cough and sinus issues that refuse to go away, and I woke up on July 4th almost completely deaf in one ear. Because of this, I have avoided any and all crafting, but that doesn't mean I've been idle.

My booth at last year's Homespun.

Right of Succession is Available!

Long time readers will know I've spent more than half my life working on my first full novel. I've written other things in the past nineteen and a half years, but I kept going back to Right of Succession.

Well, it's finally been finished and published!

It is available on Kindle and in paperback form. In fact, you can snag an electronic copy free from Amazon if you head over and download a copy by Tuesday, June 24.

For local folks, I'll be at Con Kasterborous this weekend, and I should have about twelve paperback copies available for purchase at my booth. (If they arrive when my publisher says they will, that is.)

Personalized, signed copies will be available through contentedcomfort.com along with all bath and body, knit, and crocheted items come mid to late July when I finish integrating my storefront with the main website. My Etsy store will stay up as a means to accept inquiries from existing customers and to direct returning customers to the main website.

If you read and enjoy, please help a new novelist out and leave a review. And as always, thanks for your support!

Frustration and Injury

I know the blog has been a bit soap heavy lately. I've been more than a little obsessed these past few weeks, to be honest. Introducing the year's new lines at Con Kasterborous has become a tradition for me, and it starts three weeks from today. I've spent virtually all of my waking time at home either designing, manufacturing, or packaging soaps.

My booth at Con Kasterborous last year.

I finally finished yesterday. Well, I finished the manufacturing the soaps at least. I still have perfumes and lotions to go for most of the fragrances, new and old.

It's been a busy few weeks.

It's a bit later than I wanted, but today's Right of Succession update is all the better for it. I've made a lot of progress in the past week!

One Year from Today

This is the time of year businesses are setting their goals for the quarter, half year, three quarters, a year, three years, and five years, so I thought it might be fun and interesting to do the same.

I'm not going to bore you with a mega post laying out specific goals for each quarter or years to come. I'm just going to fantasize a bit about where I want to be this time next year, and then I can look back come 2015 and see how I did.

So, where is Right of Succession?

I know I said Right of Succession would be published in 2013. First, I said June. Then, I said September, and then, I said just by the end of the year.

Murphy seems to be getting back at me, because it's not going to happen. I could try to rush it, rip my hair out in frustration and stress, and fall behind with Contented Comfort. But I would rather take my time and make the last three and a half chapters the best they can possibly be, even if that means not hitting publish until sometime in 2015.

Artwork from Joy's Designs showing a woman reading "Surviving Murphy."

So, Thanksgiving is coming up next week.

As has probably become obvious by now, I'm still trying to find a good balance here on the blog itself after merging The Tekaran Lady, Contented Comfort, and this blog into one as well as with my newish YouTube channel. This process will probably intensify over the next few weeks or months as I get back into posting and uploading on some kind of regular basis. Things might get a bit crazy around here for a while, so please have patience with me.

Boo Bear took advantage of everyone talking to sneak HALF a pie!

I've been brainstorming, and of course considering the time of year we're in now, a lot of what I've been thinking about revolves around the holidays. I'm currently working on a child friendly Thanksgiving tag and planning to shoot a few Sunday Sides and Suppers videos featuring a few super easy but delicious gluten free sides and desserts as I start into my holiday cooking. I'll also do a couple of writing posts and/or vlogs as I get back into working on Right of Succession and start pre-writing my next project. And, of course, there are some things I may end up co-writing with Hubby regarding homeschooling and the other change ups we've had going on the past couple of months.

Introducing Doctor Who Inspired Perfumes

The week before Con Kasterborous, I was asked if I would consider making The Bow Tie perfumes. It was something I hadn't considered up until that time because I'd designed those fragrances for men, but I told the customer I would consider adding them to the line up based on how well the scent sold to women during the convention.

By the end of the first day, I'd decided to do it. I even made a batch of The Bow Tie and Oncoming Storm perfumes that evening once I got home, but my printer ran out of ink when I tried to print the labels. Since I must meet CPSA and FDA regulations, I was forced to leave them at home when I returned for the last day of the convention.

The Bow Tie Perfume with a matching soap as reference.

Writer Fail, Lion's Club BBQ Recount, and a Rebirth

Yes, I know. I promised I'd have Right of Succession published at the end of last week. Sorry folks, I wasn't expecting the events of last week.

First, I threw my hip out of socket somehow on Wednesday morning. I couldn't sit at the desk, and it's next to impossible to type while lying flat.

I recovered from that just in time to set up for the Lion's Club BBQ Cook Off. I normally don't work events this late in the year. But it was a free booth, and I thought a tent would be enough to keep myself and the soaps from damage. I was wrong. I lost about thirty to forty sample soaps, even in the shade, and I wound up with heat stroke.

New policy: no outdoor events between mid-May and the very end of September. It's just too hot and humid here in the Tennessee Valley for items that start melting at 90 degrees.

Con Kasterborous Recap

Sorry this took so long folks. I posted the video and then forgot to make it a post here. The video is below.

Challenge Update

I've had a bit of a problem with the challenge the past few days. Almost a week ago now, I woke up ten times more tired than I was when I went to bed the night before despite plenty of sleep. It's been the same every day since.

For the whole past week I've had issues with nausea, extreme fatigue, and a sense of smell that's completely out of whack. And before anyone starts thinking I'm expecting again, I'm not. It took a couple of days for it to become evident, but I have a whopper of a sinus infection is all.

Writing Challenge One

Today's writing challenge for the Writer's Platform-Building Campaign is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long beginning with the words "the door swung open." For an extra challenge, we were to keep to exactly 200 words and end with "the door swung shut."  

Below is my entry. It's exactly 200 words long and is set in the Yekara universe a week or so before Right of Succession begins.

Ralic's Mistake

The door swung open, the well maintained hinges giving her no warning save its motion. Chantal shoved the papers she’d gathered between the pages of the tome she carried before her father entered. He was deep in conversation with his steward, giving her precious seconds to calm herself.

“Chantal,” Ralic said, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I finished my studies early, Father. I wanted to see if you’d take lunch with me,” she lied. Her heart beat in her chest like a wild thing, and she marveled neither her father nor his steward could hear it. If they knew she’d stolen records from Ralic, her father would turn her over to Eugrin for punishment, daughter or no. What would he do if he knew what she intended to do with them?

“If only I could, precious,” Ralic replied. “Unfortunately the rarity of pleasant days during transition leaves little time for rest when they come.”

“I understand, Father.” Chantal nodded slowly, trying her hardest to appear disappointed and understanding instead of giving away her relief. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

She nodded to Eugrin as she stepped into the hall, only allowing herself a secret smile as the door swung shut.

My first serial novel is up and running!

Technically speaking, I've had a novel published serially before, several years ago on The Writer's Hood, but it only got to chapter 7 before the ezine closed. So I don't count it as my first novel due to lack of completion, and it's still not ready for full publication.

Right of Succession is the first book I ever completed. I thought I was done way back in my junior year of high school, but I still had no clue what I was doing. I had a completed draft, but not a novel. Back then, the characters were flat, the writing overdone, and there were plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. I only realized this once I got into college, grew up a bit, started actually trying to submit my work, and began studying the craft.

Oh how I cringed and then laughed when I went back and looked at that first "complete" draft. I've spent the past decade or so since learning the craft and going back ever so often to nurse the book a bit more, and now it's finally as good as I can make it.

As the 2011-2012 serial novel, Right of Succession is now available to read free online. A new portion is published each Monday morning. This morning's post brings us into chapter 2, where the plot really begins to take shape. If your into science fiction and/or fantasy and haven't checked out my little diversion, now's a great time to stop by and let me know what you think.

If enough folks enjoy it, there may be hope that incomplete novel will see the light of day sometime next year.

Discovering My Audience

I must have asked myself what the hold up is on Right of Succession a thousand times over the years. I mean, I started on the thing about this time of year back when I was thirteen, and I'll be 29 in a few months.

Filled with the self-assurance of the immensely amateur, at first I was sure it was simply the time eaten up with class and homework holding back the rate I could write. Then my family bought our first computer my freshman year of college, and I began researching publishing online and participating in writers' groups. After a couple of years and many blows to the ego, I realized I had a lot to learn about writing in general, let alone readable fiction.

Then I had one of those life altering moments.

During all these years, I wrote and rewrote Succession four or five dozen times. It improved with each new draft, but something still wasn't working. Trouble was, I couldn't name the issue. So, when I came across a group looking for a new writer, I requested membership. Even though my time with them was shorter than I would have liked, I am grateful these ladies welcomed me into their group.

They called themselves the Snark Mamas. All were working on young adult novels, and they provided critiques with encouraging comments and snarky remarks alike. At the time, I was revisiting my first attempt at fiction, Ben the Unlikely, with an eye toward self-publishing a reprint of it as a middle grade novel opposed to the unillustrated short story version printed on The Writer's Hood children's page back in late 2000, if I remember correctly.

These ladies had me feeling completely inadequate. Their voices were unique and sure, and I felt I hadn't really developed my writing voice at the time. Carrie Harris had me nearly tumbling out of my chair giggling with each new chapter. Humor writing is something I've always wanted to do, but like poetry, it's largely outside my skill set. Elise Murphy and Amelia Nichols work had this quality about it that made you want to curl up next to a fire with a cup of cocoa as you read their stories. And I'm still hoping Michele Thornton's take on the Odyssey is published, so I can get it for my girls when they start studying Greek Mythology.

Over the months I was with the group, I learned more than I did in the college writing courses I took. Reading their work, their comments on my stuff, and what they had to say about each others work and discussing some issues back and forth was fun, frustrating, and educational by turns. Yet, no matter what I tried, Ben the Unlikely wasn't working. I don't remember exactly which lady brought it up. For some reason, I keep thinking it was Carrie, but I'm not sure. But she stated that while middle graders would be interested in the subject matter, Ben was at first too young and later too old for the age group to care much about him.

The comment stuck with me.

I honestly obsessed over it for a few days. Several facts clicked into place for me for the first time, and I began to realize why I had been so uncomfortable writing since I graduated college. I was writing for the wrong audience. My natural inclination runs toward the darker side of things. Now I know YA fiction gets fairly dark now and again, but some of the topics begging to be talked about in Succession especially are a bit beyond what one would find in the YA section. I'd been holding back for years, trying to cram the story into a mold it didn't fit.

I was asked to leave the Snark Mamas to make room for another YA writer after I finally found my audience. This upset me quite a bit at the time. I'd come to think of these ladies as friends. I didn't have much of a social life at the time, so loosing what little adult conversation I had at the time was a blow. (Let's be honest. Out of control pregnancy hormones probably didn't help either.) But I understood why they wanted me to step aside.

Writing for the correct audience has made all the difference.

A little over two years later, I can be more objective about it than I could then. Things have calmed down, and I'm slowly but surely getting a life again. Hubby's health, and mine, is so much better than in 2007, and it makes getting out and about as well as just thinking so much easier! I feel I've found my voice. I have a plan, and I'm working it. Succession has come a long way since I've let it bloom into what it was meant to be in the first place.

It's funny how inspiration can be so far removed from realization. When I started writing it, I was too immature to imagine the depth the story would eventually take on. Even just taking the villain. That first version of Ralic seems like a fluffy puppy compared to the one I'm envisioning now, especially after the video idea prompted character study. Advances in science have made some of the ideas I had originally more plausible given a few centuries between the present and the Galaxia's exodus from the Sol system, and they've also pushed my imagination past those original concepts.

Then the review by Editorial Anonymous pointed out an issue with my writing. I was honestly expecting more of a snarkfest when I submitted the first page to the first pages clinic. Being told my prose was still a bit purple was a relief. It was something I could fix.

I took my wordwacker to the pages, and the "something's off" feeling is gone when I read those first few chapters now. Once the e-book is done, I've a feeling I'll be querying Succession within a few months.

Unusual Way to do a Character Study

I discussed how housework acts like meditation for me and often leads to bursts of creativity on Tuesday. Today I want to talk about an instance that helped me come to the conclusions I reached.

A couple weeks ago my grandparents asked to look after the girls for a while, so I had the afternoon to myself. As I often do on days like these, I decided to get ahead on my tasks for the next day. So since we sold our stereo along with some other things and furniture when we moved, I set up the computer to use for music. I found a Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural play list on YouTube, set it to playing and went about my work.

I went through the pantry, cleaned out the refrigerator, and tended to lots of other chores while the videos played. Finally it started playing this video. I'd seen it a few days before. It's set to "Animal I Have Become" by Three Day's Grace, and it's about Angel with and without his soul intact. The inkling of an idea niggled at the back of my mind since I'd seen the video the first time, and it came to the fore while I was cleaning that day. Then the following video came on, and I was struck by a connected idea. This one is set to "I Hate Everything About You" once again, by Three Day's Grace and is about Buffy and Angel's relationship.

Both ideas were for character study/promotional videos centering around Ralic Virchow from the Yekara Series. "Animal I Have Become" suits Ralic's life perfectly. I'd never thought that much about his fall from grace before this idea, and even if I never get the chance to put together the video I plotted simply to get the notion to leave me alone, I've gained a valuable insight into his character. (Yes, the idea stuck around, nagging at me with an obsessive passion until I had a storyboard written out and tentative cast made up of friends and family. Thankfully it's left me alone for the past week.)

The second idea looks at the relationship between Ralic and Chantal. The wording isn't exactly right for their story, but the line, "I hate everything about you, so why do I love you?" sums up Chantal's sentiments rather nicely.

Will the information I've come up with because of these ideas be included in the books? Some, I'm sure, but I doubt all of it will be. Will it influence my characterizations? Yes it will. Will I say exactly what all I came up with? No.

I said this when Rowling let slip about Dumbledore's sexuality, and I'll say it again. If it's not in the books, it's not important. Well, not really, but the beauty of art is its ability to mean different things to different people. I'll keep my Yekara world book to myself, and you can have your interpretations unsullied by unpublished "cannon."

Woops....

You know, I just now realized I've been neglecting this blog.

I knew it'd been a while, because I haven't blogged at all in the past three or four months, bogged down with an e-book I'd intended to release at the turn of the year as I've been. Scatterbrained, thy name is Amanda.

Sadly, even after all that work, I have nothing to show. I was typing away on the last chapter when my hard drive died without warning. It was a quick death, and I lost everything not saved in email archives. Not that I didn't back up my work on a flash drive, but my flash drive refuses to open.

So, I've been going back to the drawing board since my computer was repaired last month. Work on RoS is on hold until I have the first draft rewritten. I'll get back to the WIP-that-wouldn't-die when I take a two month break between first draft and revision.

Returning to the Gym

I posted a few months back about a desire to do some writing exercises, but like signing up for a gym membership without writing, "Go to the Gym," on the calendar, I never got around to actually doing the exercises. I've recently begun making a daily to do list as part of the 52 Week Challenge, and I've added working on Right of Succession to the lists at least four days a week.

I was going through the built up messages left on an old, little used email address the other day, when I found a review for a story I abandoned nearly three years ago. I've mentioned in the past I have written the occasional fan fiction story in order to get in some practice with one element or another I'm having difficulty with at the time. Doing so allows me to work on the issue and get a little feedback on how I'm doing with it without devoting a lot of time to world or character building. Well, with the multiple chapter stories I worked on, I had a tendency to drop them once I'd gotten what I needed from them.

I'd almost forgotten about the stories, and this latent review led me to go back and look over this old work. In them, I found my writing exercises. There's still a lot I can do with the stories, and who knows, I might even find some new elements needing work. In any case, I have some warm ups ready to go when I sit down to the keyboard.

Besides I hate leaving anything undone.

Summer Schedule

I love the fact Hubby is able to be home with us during the summers; however, the massive change in schedules causes a bit of upheaval at first in the household. As anyone who has very young children will tell you, the slightest change in their day can cause havoc for a while. It's the same when he returns to work in the fall and after Christmas break.

We're finally beginning to settle into a summer schedule now that Hubby being home has stopped being such a surprise every morning. (I honestly think Boo thought every day was Saturday there for a while!) I'm hoping this means afternoons will be more productive for Hubby and I both.

The girls' naps were disrupted for a while, but they have begun to settle back into the routine of sharing one long nap time in the early afternoon instead of staggering it so one of them is always awake. So, we find ourselves with a two to four hour block where we can work without interruption. Therefore, we've decided to begin switching off who has the laptop and who has the main computer.

Only the main computer has internet access, and the laptop has minimal programs on it. It's mostly just for word processing, so which computer we are using largely determines which projects we can or cannot work on. (Hubby has to track down resources for some classes, but has hard copies of them for others.)

The laptop was one item stuck in a random place during the move simply to get it out of the way, and we only found it on the fourth. Since then, I've managed to cut the overwriting and rewrite the first nine and a half chapters. Now that I know where the laptop is, I plan to make much more progress toward finally putting this novel to bed.

I hope to see Right of Succession before agents by the end of summer.

Reverse Vacation: Day 5

Mom was home and preparing for a trip yesterday, so I only did a half day. Still, it was enough to add the end of chapter nine and first half of chapter ten. The total days word count was around 2000 words.

So, what was accomplished during the reverse vacation?

1. All four previously rewritten chapters were polished up and are now ready for submission once the rest of the novel is rewritten and polished as well.

2. Chapters five through nine and half of chapter ten were rewritten, and I'm talking major rewrites! Events from the end of the book were bumped up to the first half. A few things from the beginning are being slotted for later chapters. A few minor characters have had their personalities altered, and I decided to venture into the Ralic's mind for the first time. (That's a creepy place, let me tell you!)

3. Some chapters are longer now despite cutting huge swaths of purple prose because they're two or three of the old chapters. Now instead of forty-two chapters where some are just a page or two long, I anticipate about thirty to thirty-three longer, tighter, and more in depth chapters.

4. One third of the novel was reworked: almost 10 chapters and approximately 28,000 words. Will the end product top out at 84,000 words? I don't really know, but I'm shooting for at least 76,000, which is about 24,000 more than the previous version. I'm no longer trying to cram the novel into the young adult category, and it's freeing both in word count and in writing some of the darker elements.

So, what's the conclusion? The reverse vacation was a huge success in my book. I was able to kick the last of the caffeine habit. (Being able to actually nap a couple of those first days was a big part of staying off java!) I rewrote the first third of Right of Succession and mapped out what I want to do with the rest. And finally, Hubby proved he could manage the girls and the housework at least to a passable degree for a full week without ripping his hair out by the roots, if he doesn't have grading or lesson plans due at the end of said week.