Hello, Crickets, and happy autumn to you all!

The Four Powers is chirping along, and I'm now in the middle of chapter 13.  The very talented and very persistent narrator on the poetry collection has found a way through the morass of technical issues that were plaguing him, and after a TON of effort on his part, he's finally able to get to work.  The Light at the End of the World has now joined the other books in being performed for Audible.com/ACX.com, and I couldn't be happier.  I'm very much looking forward to hearing the performances.

There's something magical about hearing words that hitherto have lived only in my head coming out of someone else's mouth.  It almost makes the books more real, and the characters more alive, then they are in the shadowy world of my cranium's interior.  Some of the performance choices might not have been my preference, but that's why it's a collaborative effort - I want some of the narrators' choices to stand, as well.

When the narrators get it right, when their tone matches the tone of my thought-voice when I was writing, it's exciting in a way that I cannot express.  Words fail me when I try to explain the emotional side of my writing.  I suppose there are some thing that can be spoken, and some which can only be felt.

I hope that if any of you are writers or creators, dear Crickets, you someday get to experience this inexpressible feeling for yourselves.  It really is more than worth the price of admission.

In Light at the End of the World, I provide Rick Buchanan's e-mail address (devilray69@gmail.com).  I was hoping that someone would try and send him a message, which "he" would respond to.  Nobody's done it yet.

Oh, well.  I'll just keep trying the whole interactive character thing.  Maybe one day there'll be an enterprising Cricket who'll try it out.

Rick has a Facebook page, too, by the way.  ;)

I amuse myself entirely too much.

In other news, the first 17 minutes of the Collected Poems audio book were sent to me.  I like his performance, but it's really too quiet.  I had to really work to make it out using my computer's speakers.  I asked him to try to boost the volume.  Hopefully he can do so.

The Four Powers is now in the middle of Chapter 10, and I was able to check two more bullet points off of the backchat.  Big Cat asked me yesterday how many chapters I thought the book would be, and I told her, "lots".  I honestly have no idea.  Most of my books run in the 26-chapter range, but I fear this one will be longer.  I'm going to predict 32 chapters.  We'll see whether I'm right or not.

Take it easy in the summer heat, Crickets.  Don't let your exoskeletons get burned by the sun.

more news from my world

Well, here it is, summer once again.  I hope all Western US Crickets are staying safe in the record heat.

The Nightchild audio book is being worked upon by the talented David Bolden, and as of yesterday, another talented gentleman, Charlie Anderson, has signed on to do the vocal honors for Collected Stories and Collected Poems.  I'm especially excited to hear his take on "Trench Rats" and "Headhunter", as well as "Tell Me No Lies."  It's so exciting to have the work come to life this way.

I'm continuing to plug away at The Four Powers, which is now halfway through Chapter 9.  Assuming that I'm roughly one-quarter of the way through the book, that leaves me hoping that I'll be finished in time to really enjoy the debut of the audio books, which should happen in October for Nightchild and November for the others.  I'm enjoying the process, and the wall next to my computer is a disgrace.  It's covered with pages and pages of notes and homemade maps, all taped to the wall with scotch tape.  Two of my cats have discovered that Mom stops writing and pays attention to them if they try to pull the pages off of the wall. One has discovered how to turn off the CPU while Mom is typing... and she managed to kill 6 pages of chapter 9 that way this past Saturday.  She'd be in real trouble if I didn't love her so much!

Anyway, Happy belated Canada Day to my Canadian Crickets, and Happy 4th of July to the Crickets of the USA.  Enjoy your summers, remember your sunscreen, keep hydrated in the heat, and I'll be in touch soon.

Love,
Mama Bug   :)

It's alive!

Nightchild is alive, specifically, and so am I, since you may have wondered.

I've signed up with acx.com to produce audiobooks of my novels.  The first up, appropriately enough, is Nightchild, the first book to see print.  The narrator is a talented gentleman named David Bolden, and I'm enjoying his performance capitally.  There are some pronunciation issues that need to be ironed out, but that's done easily enough.

I can't tell you the thrill of hearing my characters speaking, and hearing my words spoken aloud.  It's almost like I'm encountering the book for the first time, and it's a creature completely different than the one I've lived with for (::mumble::) years.  I'm so excited about this project.

I've got the other books up on acx.com, as well, soliciting narrators.  No bites yet, but if the entire experience with Nightchild goes as well as it's started, then I might offer Sacrifice to Mr. Bolden, too.

I never thought anything could happen that would make my old novel become new.  I was wrong.

As developments occur, I'll let you all know.  Until then, Crickets, be safe and sound.

I'm going to be playing the question-and-answer game with The Four Powers today.  That involves me going through what I've already written, making a "what we know" list and a list of questions brought up by events, character commentary and whatnot.  Then I try to come up with the answers to those questions so I can write them into the story.

This is what happens right about chapter 6 when I start out without a clear idea of what's happening.  I have a backchat page, which is a basic overview of the major plot points and who's where and why, but the real details come out in my Q & A.

I'm not going to lie, I really love this part of my writing.  It gives me a chance to take the toy into my hands, turn it around and look at it from all sides, and start pulling strings and pushing buttons.  It's a way to play "what if I did this" without dedicating all the time and effort into weaving something into the whole cloth of the story when I might just end up ripping it out again.

I have all these funny little guideposts and milestones in my writing.  If I start something new and get to page 5 before the first writing session peters out, then I know I'll keep going.  If it's less than that, I almost always stall.  If I get to page 15, then I'm more confident I'll finish the piece.  Once I get past chapter 3, then I know I'll finish the book.  Once I get to chapter 6, it's Q and A time.  At Chapter 10, I'm able to smell the finish line and it's just a race to see if I can keep up with the story as it gallops along.

Do any other writers have these self-imposed milestones?  Do you do the Q & A with yourself? Or are you more organized and "put together" than that, so that you already know what will happen, when and where, before you put pen to paper?

I'm curious about other people's methods of working.  If you can, please take a moment and tell me how you do it.  I'm sure every writer has his or her own process.  It fascinates me.

Oh my goodness, Crickets, so much has been happening!  I'm woefully bad at keeping you all up to date, but here's all the news from my neck of the woods.

1 - My webmistress/editor/marvelous sister and all-around good egg is finalizing the coding issues so that all of my books - including Nightchild, Sacrifice, Collected Stories and Collected Poems will be available through CreateSpace, a print-on-demand service affiliated with Amazon.com.  I can't wait to have physical proof of my work in my hot little hands!

2 - I've expanded my imprint's distribution so that my books will be available via Amazon.co.uk.

3 - I'm working on a new book, and it's up to chapter 4 (plus some addenda).  I've been posting it on my scribbling and bibbling Live Journal page, so if you're on LJ and want to friend me, look me up at http://battle-nonsense.livejournal.com/.  It's called The Four Powers, and I'm also going to be developing a Pathfinder-based role-playing game campaign setting based on it.

4 - I'm also working on a non-fiction book with a talented psychic.  Our topic is how to identify and develop your own psychic ability.  I'm excited for this new project and will keep you updated as more develops.

5 - I've been invited to help out with writing scenarios for Living Shining Jewel, a table-top role-playing game.  It's a purely volunteer situation, but any opportunity to write is a Good Thing, and the group is at least tangentially associated with Paizo.  The chance to be noticed as a writer by Paizo is a Very Good Thing.  See: The Four Powers, above.

6 - I've started sorting out some personal issues that were getting in my way, and I'm feeling good, happy, and creative.  Watch this space!

I hope all is well in your individual Cricket-doms.

Society, it seems to me, is very hung up on the idea of labels.  Our identities are made up of conglomerations of all of these words: woman, man, straight, gay, black, white, attractive, ugly, skinny, fat.  The fact is that a person is more than the sum of his or her adjectives.  There are wide swaths of personality, elements of spirit and of soul, that can't be neatly summed up into a word or two.  There are no glib descriptions that can pinpoint the "selfness" of another person.

Labels are often self-applied.  We call ourselves by the words that we hope to make fit, and if we can convince ourselves that our labels are correct, then perhaps we can convince someone else, too.  Isn't that the mindset behind affirmations?  "If you believe it, you can be it."  Pop psychology babble is condensed into a feel-good phrase that can be spouted with little effort and less thought.

Labels are dangerous and powerful things.  It's a pity when people use them to hurt one another.  Words can be beautiful, but they can also be hideous.  They can be comforting and soft, or they can be harmful.  Words can bring music into a silent room, or they can turn the sweetest song into a tortured scream.  Words contain all of the good and evil intentions that can be loaded into them, and they apply this intention with sweeping brushes, painting the landscape and everyone in it with the opinions of others.

At what point do we step outside of the labels that other people have given us and start living a life that transcends the boundaries of assigned words?  At what point do we stop caring about the words that other people paste onto us, and begin caring only for the unspeakable and unpronounceable profound truths that really  make up the core of who we are?

I don't know.  I only know that at some point in every person's life, there comes a time when you look into a mirror and say, "I am not a conglomeration of words.  I am a soul in a body and I am here for a very short time."  The time we have is too short to be consumed with concerns about what words other people want to use for us.  We don't have to listen, we don't have to believe, and we don't have to accept.  

I am a writer, but I am more than my words.  I am more than anyone's words could ever express.  And so are you.  That's the beautiful thing about humanity.  No matter how many stories are written, no matter how many movies are filmed, the basic truth about the human soul is that it is indescribable.  As Yoda says in The Empire Strikes Back, "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."  

Words, again, and from a source most people given to opinions and labeling will dismiss as trivial, but these words come closer to the truth than almost any others. We are luminous beings.  Our souls are made to shine.

Shine your lights, Crickets.  Don't let anyone else's words put you in the dark.