It’s been a bit quiet around here, but that isn’t because I haven’t anything to say, it’s because Christmas is fast approaching and things have suddenly become hectic. As I’m sure everyone is discovering.

I’m still travelling and working. That seems to take most of my days at the moment and will continue to do so well into the future, I foresee. This time of year is extremely busy, so there’s no time for slacking off at work and surfing the net. It’s not all bad though as I’ve been diligently working on planning my trilogy during my travelling time, which is no longer a trilogy, but more on that in a moment. At present, my travel time consists of writing in the morning and reading in the afternoon. I carry a mini-laptop for one and an iPod Touch for the other. I feel quite “up with the time” and it’s brilliant.

My first ebook experience is proving to be quite satisfying. Using the iPod Touch as an e-reader has been a good experience. It’s easy and light to carry. The screen is clear to read. I haven’t experienced any adverse side affects from reading a screen rather than a book. And, of course, the book I’m reading is entertaining which always helps.

The mini-laptop is great for writing. I have loaded all my files onto a flash drive so that I can go between computers without the fear of not being up-to-date (I found I was in a state of confusion prior to adopting this method). It took a while to get used to the smaller keyboard, but I’m finding that I can type with minimal errors now.

And what about that non-existent trilogy, you ask? Well, that’s an easy question to answer.

My idea was to write a trilogy. I had three stories vaguely mapped out in my mind with a thread or two that linked them all together. However, the idea for book 3 wasn’t coming together well. In fact, it fell in a heap and refused to be sorted out, no matter how hard I tried. The plot itself was quite good, but in reality I couldn’t find a way for my character to make it all pan out the way I wanted it to. This put a huge stumbling block in my path that I was finding impossible to find a way around. Then, one morning, I woke up early and lay staring at the ceiling for ages thinking about it and realised that the story wasn’t possible and it had to be dropped. That quickly allowed me to store the second story as a possible future stand alone with other characters in another setting, which meant the trilogy was reduced to a single stand alone book.

Since making that decision, the planning is forging forward nicely. My characters have shifted in their personalities, the plot is changing continuously to fit a stand alone and I’m pleased with what I have so far.

When the days are long and roads are chosen, I’m glad everything is panning out just right for me.

In other news, the number of votes for the competition is steadily rising. There will be no more hints until later next week.

I have been building a fantasy world for the trilogy I plan to write.  Part of that research includes finding out the history of Donnington Castle in southern England.  I can’t, or won’t, tell you the reason for this research as it is top secret.  But I will say that I was overjoyed when I found this Plan of Donnington Castle.  It will make things so much easier for me.

Donnington Castle forms only part of what I’ve been doing today. The other part is looking for a suitable map that I can adopt and adapt to my needs. I’ve been searching the world for possible locations and have narrowed my choices down to two likely candidates.

The first is a map which includes Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. I like this map because it has mountain ranges separating two valleys, but it also shows the natural rivers and waterways. Better still is that fact that it isn’t spoilt by town and cities being splattered all over it. If I were to adopt this map and change it to suit my needs I would be starting out with a world that has to be realistic because it’s real! I like that idea.

The second map is an ancient world map. (It’s an impression of what the creator thought the world looked like.) With a few slight changes, no one would know that my fantasy world was based on our own world some eight hundred or so years ago. This one doesn’t show the mountains or rivers (which is unfortunate), but it does show large lakes and several towns with connecting roads, which could be quite useful. This one is also just black and white so I guess, whilst it isn’t as visual as the first map I mentioned, it will be easier to manipulate.

I could, of course, just draw something myself but the way I’m thinking about this is that if I use something that already shows mountains and rivers and towns and roads then I won’t have to worry about anyone saying, “that’s impossible, you can’t have a waterway there, because…” Besides, I’m a planner and I like visual things to inspire me along.

In my office at work there’s an old map of Sydney on the wall. It’s quite large and most visitors cannot help but stand beneath it and stare at it for the longest time. I’ve basically ignored it for eight years because I see it all day, every day. But today was different. Today, I could see a castle placed back from the coast where the racecourse used to be. All the streets went in that general direction, which seems appropriate for a village with a castle in its midst. And then there was a road that would have passed directly by the front of the castle wall and wove around and off to the west (away from the coast, the town and the castle). Could that be a trade road leading to other realms? I could imagine my characters walking down the streets of the village. I could see them pausing at the docks to watch the merchandise being carried off the boats. Some of the buildings (on the print) were the homes of important people in Australian history, but I could see other names in their spots, names of my characters. If the print wasn’t so large, I would have taken it down and scanned it. Now I think I’ll have to take a photo of it and transpose the relevant information onto my own drawing because the print inspired me and set my imagination running.

By the time I’ve finished with the maps, no one will know where they came from and how close to the real world they really are. Or maybe the real and fantasy entwine to become one magical place.

I like the sound of that.

With my recent decision to scrap a couple of projects I’ve been working on, one in particular, I’ve been thinking about what projects I’m going to concentrate on now.

Not being one for working on too many projects at a time, I’ve decided to go with two manuscripts.  One is a much loved project that has been finished, but needs replanning and rewriting – The Marlinor Trilogy.  The other is new and different to what I’ve worked on in the past – the non-fiction children’s picture book.

At opposite ends of the scale, I think that will work in my favour.  There certainly could not be any confusion between the two as they are different in every sense of the word.

The non-fiction picture book is in the first draft.  I’ve been considering ways to make it entertaining for the intended audience and will put those thoughts into action once I’ve finished the book I’m reading.  I also need to complete my research on writing proposals in order to submit the project when it has been completed.

The trilogy is a different story.  It’s complex and, although I know the characters, world and plot of book 1, I need to plot out the other two books.  I plan to start again and rebuild the characters and the world, which brings me to the reason for this post…

The author of the following quote and subsequent link claims that if you put 15 minutes aside each day for 30 days, you can build a complete world worthy of your story.  She has written a post for each day in the form of an exercise where she gives an explanation of what you’ll be doing and why and then she’ll set you a task to do.  I haven’t checked the whole 30 days, but I believe this could be helpful in putting all writers on the right track.

And if you want to build a magical world, there’s a link to some extra information at the bottom of the sidebar.

A lot of times, people want to write a novel and think “I want to write fantasy, but there’s so much world-building I would have to do– I haven’t done any of it!” As everyone signing up for NaNoWriMo or any writing challenge quickly learns, this is really the self-editor speaking; it’s another way of saying “I can’t.”

So, give yourself 7 and a half hours this month– 15 minutes a day– to build a world. It’s not going to be Perfect or Set. Why would it be? You haven’t actually written the story yet, you haven’t tested its limits. But it’ll give you something to start with, something to feel comfortable about when you start.

via 30 Days of WorldBuilding by Stephanie Cottrell Bryant

For many months I have been working on a manuscript called Mirror Image. It is a project I have always felt was worthy of telling – not only for the story itself, but for the underlying messages too. It is a manuscript I believe in and I know that, if I were to write it well, it is a story that would catch editors’ attention.

However, it is also a story that runs parallel with my own life. Whilst it isn’t the story of my son’s suicide, it closely travels the path of what my family went through. This makes it a manuscript that stirs emotions in me that I cannot control, cannot combat. And I doubt I’ll ever be in the situation to face the heartache that the manuscript puts me through when I’m working on it.

After much thought and soul searching, I have decided to put this manuscript aside…permanently. The pain it causes me isn’t healthy. The feelings it stirs in me makes me depressed, which leads to not being able to sleep and when I do…I have nightmares. In turn, the sleep deprivation causes me to feel irritable and angry towards other people. And I don’t mean just angry, I mean really, really angry – to the point of wanting to hurt someone, anyone. This isn’t my character at all and it scars me. I thought I could pull myself through it and I thought it would become easier with time, but I can’t and it isn’t. For my own sake, I have decided that I have to put my health first in the hope that my emotional strength will improve over time.

I have also decided, finally, not to tackle the manuscript I had planned and started to write called Suicide: A Mother’s Story. If I can’t write a fictitious story about suicide, there’s no way I’ll be able to write the true story.

Having given myself permission to stop, I feel somewhat relieved…and free. I didn’t realise these two manuscripts were like dark clouds hanging over me until the decision to stop was finally made. There’s no guilt, which is something I expected. I do not see the time spent on these manuscripts, especially Mirror Image, as a waste of time either. I can chalk the time up as writing practice, but more importantly I see the writing as therapy. Maybe that’s all I really needed from the manuscript. To face the emotions and torment I felt. Maybe I’ve spent the last two years working on something that has made me face my past so that I can move on to my future.

There hasn’t been much of interest for me to post about lately. Life is moving forward quickly and before I know it the end of the year will be here. In a few weeks, we intend to go away for a couple of days, inland, which I’m looking forward to for various reasons.

The books in the trilogy I’m reading are thick – over 700 pages each (except the first one, which was a little over 500 pages) – so they are naturally taking me longer to read than usual. I’m enjoying them immensely and this set has gained a place on my favourites list. Not many books make it on to that list.

My new family tree is growing steadily. Each weekend I spend at least a couple of hours transferring information from the old tree and, this time, I’m sourcing everything that is entered into the tree. I have a lot of regrets with that old tree, but at least I learned from those mistakes. With the help of DaF Genealogy (see the link in the sidebar), I’ve even managed to climb over a brick wall that had been holding me back for some years.

On the writing front, I am pleased to announce that I’ve completed the first draft of a non-fiction children’s picture book. The facts are there and now I have to make them entertaining for the intended audience (and the person reading the words to the child). I feel I have that under control. Then I’ll have to work on the proposal, which I think is going to be very difficult to write. I’ve already started doing the research and have printed out some examples. From what I’ve read, for non-fiction it is customary to send the proposal prior to writing the manuscript. However, I decided to write one of the manuscripts as an example to include in the proposal. If it helps or not, I cannot know, but that’s how I’m going to approach my submissions in this genre.

Recently, I posted on Forms of Reading and the Future and another post entitled Kindle, Sony and the iPhone. Both these posts generated a lot of traffic and I received several comments and even a couple of emails, which was wonderful.

As a result of these discussions, I did a lot of research and finally decided that buying an iPod Touch was the way for me to go. I’ve had it for a few days, and I’m still getting used to the way it works, but my first impressions are all good.

I love the fact that I have one small, light device which carries all my music, photos, contacts and event reminders all well organised and easily accessible. However, what I find really outstanding is that same small, light device also holds heaps of books – audio and ebooks – as well as games to pass the time on a very long train trip, which I do five days a week.

It’s brilliant!

So now, armed with my mini-computer and my iPod Touch, there’s no excuse as I have everything I need to get the things that are important to me done – namely writing, reading and gaming. In fact, with a forced four hours a day to concentrate on these things, I should be as productive as I can ever be…unfortunately, I’m not, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Living in a world when technology is advancing every day, I feel lucky to be able to step into the future armed with the tools that should make a blank page fill with words. Words of a story I want to write, words of a story I want to read and words of other kinds that make life more pleasant. How did we ever survive without these wonderful gadgets?

Deborah Woehr has written two inspiring posts on this topic:

1. Experimenting with the Mind Map Technique, and,
2. How to Draw a Basic Mind Map of Your Characters.

I say these posts are inspiring because they lit something creative inside me that forced me to try mind mapping in my own writing. I’ve been having trouble moving forward with my projects, so trying something different certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Due to the life issues I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve decided to put Mirror Image on a back burner for a while as I’m not mentally strong enough to deal with that manuscript at the moment. Having made that decision, I turned to my other projects and felt myself drawn back to my children’s series. It was whilst I was combing the internet looking for inspiration that I came across Deborah’s first post.

Immediately, I felt the urge to try one of the software programmes she mentions in her post and I quickly found myself stalled. I was a little annoyed by this so I returned to the internet and revised my search strings, but continued combing the internet. At this stage I found a hand drawn image that resembled a mind map. In the middle was an untitled oval which had five “arms” going in different directions. At the end of the arms, where five simple words:

1. How?
2. When?
3. Where?
4. Who?
5. Why?

With these words, or questions, freshly planted in my mind, I returned to my stalled mind map…and away I went. It was such a simple thing, but these words had a powerful effect on my mind and allowed it to “open” up at last. Finally, my mind map started taking shape and the project is moving forward at last.

Thank you, Deborah, for putting me on the right path.

Yes, the Speculative Realms anthology is on special over at Amazon. At the time of this post, it was selling at $11.19, however, I saw it for $5.88 last week, so the price is slowly creeping back to the recommended price of $15.95.

My story “Where Strength Lies” is included in the anthology. It’s about a woman who would do anything to save her young son, even go against strong mages who are determined to take him from her. But mine is only one of the stories in the book. You’ll also find a story about a young man stepping into Hell to say what he needs to say to his deceased father, but those who go to Hell are not allowed to leave and this young man isn’t even dead! Then there’s the story of the evil girls who play with the minds of the occupants of a dilapidate house in the wilderness. Not to forget the stories about the man who battles a dragon, the man who must shout when he can’t even talk to save the woman he loves, and the mage with women troubles.

If you haven’t got a copy of the anthology, then now is the perfect time to purchase a copy…while the price is low.

Mirror Image is a manuscript for adults which runs at about 90,000 words at the moment (I want the finished product to be around 100,000 words). It’s not a fantasy project, like most of my works-in-progress. This manuscript fits into the…paranormal genre, I think. I’m a little uncertain because the changes I need to make in the next edit seems to be pushing it into another genre and my mind is telling me “General Fiction”.

Some of you may have guessed by now, even though I’ve never actually said this publicly before, but the manuscript is about depression, grief and suicide. This makes it a very dark read, but these are topics I know and understand all to well having lost a son to suicide in 2006.

The first version was especially difficult to write. There is a lot of “our” story in the words and emotions. One of my readers, a person who experienced the loss with me, told me that he sobbed as he read parts of it because he could clearly see me and him going through the moment in real life. Of course he could because I was basing my words on what happened to us.

Anyway, writing the manuscript left me feeling strained and, sometimes, depressed. I shed a lot of tears as I wrote. But I forged on because I needed to write the story. It was important to me, and I felt it was important to educate other families – parents and their children – by making them all suicide aware. For these reasons, I battled through the sobs and depression and continued putting words on paper.

Now, the second (or is it the third) version of the manuscript has been completed and, as mentioned, I’ve had a couple of people read it. The reader I mentioned above encouraged me to keep things real, but the other reader (who has never experienced suicide) told me that the manuscript is too dark and depressing for “normal” (his word, not mine) people to want to carry on with. So what do I do?

I have attempted to make changes to the story. I have even gone back to the drawing board and tried to replan it from scratch. But…it’s not coming together in a way that I’m happy with. In the end I put it aside and haven’t done anything writing related since. There’s no doubt in my mind that my writing lapse has everything to do with the job feeling too big and, at the same time, the feeling that I’m loosing the essence of the story by making the changes.

The current version has six viewpoints. I know I keep going on and on about this, but it’s important! I want to explain why I have so many viewpoints and maybe the puzzle will fall into place…for you, for me.

Two viewpoints are from siblings points of view. Each are experiencing their grief differently and neither of them are coping that well. One, however, has someone who is pushing them to face the issues; whilst the other sibling is trying to get through it alone. The two viewpoints are deliberate and show the difference between having support and not having it.

One viewpoint is from a parent’s point of view. Grief is different for everyone, and the parent is also having a hard time of it. This viewpoint focuses on the grief, but moreso on the fear felt for the surviving children and how that obsession can be more dangerous than anyone can imagine.

Two other viewpoints are from friends perspectives. One viewpoint is a friend that thinks suppressing the grief is the best medicine and she takes it upon herself to not let her friend dwell on the death of her brother. The other viewpoint is a friend who knows talking about it is the best option, but she has issues of her own to overcome that won’t allow her to approach her friend in the right way. I think a majority of reading will identify with one of these viewpoints and it’s important to get a message across here.

The last viewpoint is another outsider looking in, this one believes grief is a short term problem that can be gotten over in a couple of weeks. It’s all about the attitude! Both my readers really liked the way I wrote this character, but for different reasons. And, believe it or not, you’d be surprised how many people really share this character’s point of view where grief is concerned…until they experience it themselves.

Six viewpoints and there’s a reason for every one of them. If this manuscript was published, I’d be trying to raise suicide awareness first and foremost, but I would also be attempting to tell onlookers that grief isn’t an illness which automatically fixes itself after a couple of weeks. I would be encouraging people to let the griever talk about what has happened to them and what they are feeling. I would be encouraging people to cry with the griever; it’s good to cry, it does help to know that you are allowed to cry and feel…and share. Support means to listen and cry with the person, not brushing the problem under the carpet for someone else to fix up later (because usually everyone is doing the same thing and no one cleans up the mess).

I feel passionate about the subject matter, the messages I want to give to the reader and the possibility of saving and/or helping another family that may find themselves in my situation. If I delete viewpoints, then I feel as if I’m only doing part of the job…so I’ve decided (as of this minute) that I will not delete any of the viewpoints. This story needs all of them and they will all remain. I will find another way to battle the “darkness” problem.

If you got to the end of this post, thank you for listening. Writing about the problem has definitely helped.

Whist the homefront is relatively unchanged, no worse or better, I do feel easier within myself and find my focus is once again turning towards my writing projects. For one reason or another, I’ve had a couple of weeks break from writing and now I feel it’s time to get back into it.

Due to “life” I’m not sure if working on “Mirror Image” is a good idea. It’s a dark story based on real life events and emotions and I don’t think I would be able to handle the topic at the moment. Having said that, new ideas for improving the story have been flooding in. Ideas that cannot be ignored. I guess planning the rewrite won’t be as bad as actually doing the rewrite, so I’m going with the flow for the time being.

Putting the story aside, I want to talk about how the manuscript is arranged. There are three major points to consider here:

1. The current version of the story is written from six points of view.
2. Chapters are arranged on a daily basis – this means that some chapters are quite long and others are very short.
3. The scenes within the chapters are short – swapping between point of view characters often – allowing the reader to progress through the day with all the characters.

First off, I asked myself why do I have six points of view. Can they be justified? My reply is yes they can. Three points of view are told from within the problem and three are told from outsiders looking in. It is essential to the theme to get both points of view told as that is the only way to get “the message” across; and, as most readers will relate to the outsiders points of view better than the insiders points of view, it was important to me to show those people “the other side”.

But do I really need three points of view on each side? My original intent was to show that the topic is complex and no two people react the same way – and that is the case to both the insiders and outsiders. So while the readers are looking through the eyes of the three insiders and experiencing the topic first hand (but in three different ways), they are also experiencing the outsiders reaction to what is happening (also in three different ways). With all this information offered to them in one story, I am hoping the reader will approach real life situations in a different, more informed way. And, as the writer of this story, it was important to me to get this information across to the reader because I felt it is the only way to get the whole message across.

Let’s leave that point for a moment and move on to the next one – chapter arrangement. When I wrote the first draft, there was only two chapters. The first chapter ended at the climax (consisting of approximately 450 pages) and the second chapter tied everything together (about 20 pages). I knew this wouldn’t really be acceptable to readers, but at the same time I felt the short scenes compensated for that. However, I thought better of leaving the manuscript as it was and set about finding a way of breaking the content into chapters. It was extremely hard to do until a regular reader of this website made a couple of suggestions. Hence, the daily basis chapters, which I feel work well…and in some ways could give the reader a feeling of a countdown, which would increase the tension.

Now for the third point – the scenes. For me, swapping points of view in short scenes and doing this often was perfect for keeping the reader interested and keeping the suspense at a premium. My readers of the early drafts have not complained about the short scenes or the constant swapping of point of views. There was no confusion reported either. As the writer, I felt it was an ideal way to keep the fluff out too. I realise that some readers would find this annoying though, but…being aware that I can’t please everyone, I’ll do what I think is right for the story.

That’s where the manuscript is at. Now, I must move forward. My readers didn’t complain about the format, but they did complain about other stuff which means I already know that I have to do a rewrite. Having given myself some distance from the project, I can see that what has been said is right and I’m fine with the thought of a rewrite. But I’m straying off topic.

Let’s go back to the number of points of view. Six is a lot. I thought they were necessary to get the message across, but now I’m having second thoughts. This morning, whilst thinking about the rewrite plan, I found my thoughts pondering the point of view situation again. Six points of view means six story lines. Is that two much? I think it is and it might even distract from the overall story and message, which is something I definitely don’t want.

Then I had to scold myself because I realised that I am resisting deleting some of the points of view characters because I’m attached to their storylines and the way I’ve written them. As a writer, that is a bad thing (very, very bad) and I should know better than to let this happen. Holding onto something, anything, for that reason could inevitably ruin the manuscript as a whole and I’d be a fool if I didn’t realise this. I’m lots of things, but I’m not a fool.

With this in mind, I must look at the manuscript through different eyes. What is the best thing to do? Am I bogging it down with too much happening at once? My readers tell me it’s so dark it’s depressing and I know that if I leave it this way then the message will be lost. I’m also aware that the manuscript, as it is now, was written totally for me. I needed to explore my own emotions, fears and feelings, and having done that I now need to adjust their levels to help the story flow and to help the message get through to the public. I can’t stress how important this is to me.

Now I’m thinking of dropping back to two points of view – one from the insiders viewpoint and one for the outsider. If I do it right, I’ll still be able to include the other people’s reactions, but it will be totally from a third person view point instead of first hand. My only concern with this is that the impact won’t be as strong; therefore, not allowing the reader to grasp the full message I’m trying to put across. I will not be happy with a half message. The whole reason for the story is to leave the reader knowing the facts.

I have to figure out what I’m going to do before I start planning the rewrite, because it will make a lot of difference to the characters and the plot. Only now do I realise that I’m no closer to making a decision. *sigh*