Weekly Wook Wecommendation

Watership Down by Richard Adams

"'All the world will be your enemy, Prince With a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.'"

In a world full of danger, wise leaders and tricks are the only ways to survive. In the bestselling classic Watership Down, the story begins when Fiver, a young, sensitive character, has a vision. He predicts the destruction of their home community, and says they must leave at once. His older brother, Hazel gathers a group of followers who believes the prophecy, and they set off on a great journey that nearly kills them all more than once. Like their culture's legendary hero, El-ahrairah, the Prince With a Thousand Enemies, Hazel becomes their leader and must escape hundreds of fierce creatures, find a safe place to settle in, and even fight against enemies of his own kind.

What makes the book unique is that Hazel, Fiver, and all the other main characters are rabbits. Not humanlike rabbits either, these are real rabbits, speaking their own language of Lapine, eating grass and vegetables, living underground, and always struggling to survive against weasels, foxes, hawks, dogs, cats, and – worst of all – humans.

The delights of Watership Down, which happens to be the name of the warren the rabbits establish, are too many to describe. The characters are rich in personality, while still being animals all the way through. Besides Fiver and Hazel there is Bigwig, a strong, fighting rabbit who believes in biting first and running later; Dandelion, who is a wonderful storyteller and knows all the legends of El-ahrairah; Blackberry, the only rabbit clever enough to understand how boats, traps, and doors work (which saves them more than once); Hyzenthlay, a female full of spirit who escapes from another, horrible, warren, run like a prison camp; and General Woundwort, the most fearsome thing they come across in all their travels.

The result is an unusual tale of heroism, drama, and excitement. These rabbits have souls and gods and poetry, they can both fight for their lives and tell jokes. Watership Down is one of those books that really change the reader, for you will never look at ordinary rabbits in the same way again.

A Victory and a Regret

The victory: Waking Echoes is now available for purchase as a print book, yay!

If you follow any of the links in this blog that I've posted to Waking Echoes, I also get a small extra slice of the money Amazon makes as the person who led you to the site. It is always wonderful when a novel comes out in print even if eBook is the more profitable format. It feels more real. I can sign it. My parents can "casually" draw the attention of dinner guests to it, lacking all the subtlety they employ as diplomats.

The regret: Waking Echoes has been published just after Eternal Press has switched printers, the "eternity" not signifying the length of business relationships - just as well; a growing company must evolve, and they've been most kind and helpful to me. This printer has a wider field of distribution and more clout in the realm of sort-of-well sellers (as opposed to bestsellers), and I am sure the higher-ups have all our best interests at heart.

However, this printer charges more for the books. The upshot is that you can get a new print copy of Halloween Romance for $7.50 and a new print copy of Bite Me for $6.95, with both eligible for free shipping, but you can only get Waking Echoes in print for $16.46 if you want free shipping or $12.36 if you wish to forgo it.

Take comfort that you do get a longer book for your money, at least 20,000 words longer, and that the Kindle edition of Waking Echoes is a mere $5.95.

Two Scams I Sort of Fell For

Among the advertisements you may see on this blog, there will likely be somebody claiming that they can get you published within 30 days or something similar. I want you to know that with outfits such as these the quality of printing will be poor, you will have almost no chance of turning a profit, and in some cases they will take your money and give you precious little in return.

Self-publishing is a legitimate form - particularly for scholarly works and other niche interests, or if you simply want a family cookbook to be bound nicely so you can distribute it at the reunion - and entirely different from a vanity press. I will use the explanation at tvtropes.org (the finest wiki in the 'Verse), as it is more eloquent and precise than I could manage on my own:

It's worth noting that there are major differences between a vanity press and a self-publisher. In self-publishing, the writer takes on the duties of editor and formatter himself, contracting with a printing firm to produce the physical book. The contract is above-board and completely honest, and the writer knows in advance that the content of his book is totally up to him. The printer doesn't promise anything it isn't going to provide, and doesn't mislead the writer by implying that it will provide more services than it will. Some self-published books also suck, of course, but many (possibly most) do not: self-publishing is especially common among niche non-fiction writers whose subject is simply too specialized for a large commercial print run to be profitable...

...Self-publishing is also very common in the developing world, where in some countries (India, most notably) more books are self-published than are published by commercial publishers. Online self-publishing has also been taking off as well, with site such as Lulu letting any aspiring author submit his manuscript, choose the printing and binding options, and printing and delivering them on demand to anyone who buys the book.

So, to be clear: self-publishing is when you spend $500 you know you'll never recover just to get your book out there. Vanity publishing is when you're cheated out of $50,000 by evil conmen who promise to make you the next J.K. Rowling. See the difference?

For the rest of the both informative and entertaining page, go here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VanityPublishing . Be warned, if you have a certain kind of mind, TV Tropes will suck you in for hours of enjoyment that won't let you get anything done.

Anyway, I nearly fell victim to one scam and fell slightly victim to another, though not to any lasting harm. Both of these were during the yearning period from age fifteen to nearly seventeen, after I wanted to get a novel published but before my mentor/fairy godmother Sally Odgers told me about Eternal Press and they accepted me (though I had to wait until my eighteenth birthday to actually sign a contract, given some of the genres EP publishes).

The first was Publish America, which claimed to have exhaustively read Halloween Romance and wanted to publish it. My father's protective and very wise decision to do a search for complaints turned up the truth that Publish America is an "author mill", which makes its money from convincing authors to buy hundreds of copies and then make no effort to sell more. They have no standards of quality whatsoever, as proved by some enterprising liebusters who deliberately wrote the worst novel they could, complete with nonsensical pages of gobbledegook. There was no harm done. I learned a little more about life.

We did lose a little money when the Children's Literary Agency agreed to represent me, and would submit Bite Me to various publishers for a small fee per mailing. It wasn't until we'd lost a hundred or so dollars with no results that it occurred to me that they could very likely not be submitting anything at all, and that a real literary agent wouldn't demand money up front. I still haven't told my mother, who spotted the fees, because I don't think it would do anything other than upset her. At least they let me terminate the relationship without getting nasty and demanding compensation.

So that's my limited experience with snake-oil sales. If any gentle readers have had similar travails, feel free to share them in the comments.

A Warm Welcome to Jane Toombs!

1. What is Sweet Hawk of Love about?

The hero, Coleman, is a man who doesn’t think he’s interested in commitment. He grows and changes as he comes to appreciate the heroine’s qualities.

The heroine, Aldis, is a woman burned by a bad marriage , now ended, and doesn’t want any part of a love relationship. She has a younger sister she believes is far more attractive and vital than she is.

The title refers to her pottery creations, which feature birds in cages.

She’s raising her dead husband’s much younger sister, Moya, in her huge old family home on the west bank of the Hudson Rive in upstate New York.

The theme of the story is how love can free you and change your concepts of life. At the end of the book, the heroine has discovered how she’s superimposed her own beliefs onto the child she’s raising and , like the pottery hawk she’s able to create at the end of the story, allow the girl to fly free, just as she, herself, is able to accept love.

2. Could you give me a short sample passage?

Moya is the young girl Aldis is raising. She was supposed to go back to boarding school, but instead turned up missing, Aldis and Coleman have been looking all over for her when they finally decide to go the local cadet academy in the town:

A graying man in an Army officer's uniform approached them. "I'm Captain Scarborough," he said. "Can I be of help?"

Aldis told him what had happened, showing him the picture of Moya she carried in her wallet, and described the clothes she'd been wearing.

"No, I haven't seen her. Let me ask our cadet officer of the day." He turned to the mess hall. "Lieutenant McCoy!"

A young cadet sprang to his feet, marched up the aisle between the tables, halted in front of the captain and saluted. "Yes, sir."

The young lieutenant frowned when Aldis showed him the picture. He hesitated and finally nodded. "I did see a girl who looked something like this."

Thank God. If only it was Moya.

"At around thirteen hundred hours," the young lieutenant went on. "I didn't think anything of it because our cadets are returning from spring vacation today. A lot of them come with their families and I thought she was somebody's sister."

"If necessary," Captain Scarborough said, "we'll search the grounds. I'll have the entire corps of cadets fall out in barracks square and assign each company an area to patrol." The captain seemed eager to send his cadets into action.

"That might not be necessary," Aldis said as an idea took hold . "Can we look in the stable area first?"

"The stables?" The captain looked surprised.

"She loves horses," Coleman put in.

The captain nodded. "A lot of our cadets do, girls especially. As a matter of fact, I suspect that's why some of them come to the academy in the first place."

Aldis mentally urged them to stop talking and get moving. Why hadn't she followed up after Coleman had told her about talking with Moya about horses? That had to be her reason for asking to transfer to Stanton. If only I'd paid more attention instead of jumping to conclusions.

"I'll be glad to show you the stable," the captain told them.

After dismissing Lt. McCoy, he led them down a road past the faculty houses and across a field dotted with equestrian jumps, some hedges and other bars laid between low uprights.

"For cavalry training," Captain Scarborough said.

The stables, an old, long, low building, was at the far side of the field. Inside the odors of horses and hay, a nostalgic smell that reminded Aldis of the time, at thirteen, when she'd begged her parents to buy her a pony. How could she have forgotten?

The captain turned on a row of four unshielded overhead lights. As they walked from one end of the stable to the other, horses whuffled and stamped their feet in their stalls. Otherwise, the stable appeared empty.

Noticing a door at the far end, Aldis asked, "Does that lead to more
stalls?"

"No, it's our tack room."

She opened the door and looked into a shadowed room redolent with the odor of leather. She saw bales of hay piled along one wall and, curled up on top of them, a dark figure.

"Moya?"

The figure rose from the makeshift bed. Aldis saw it was Moya. Aldis held out her arms and Moya ran to her.

"Oh, Aldis, I'm so glad you came." Moya hugged her so hard it hurt. "I don't want to stay here, I want to go home. Please take me home."

On the drive to the Gorman house, Moya sat in the back to the small car. Aldis, half-turned in her front seat kept an eye on her.

"I thought I'd like the academy," Moya said, leaning toward her, "but I didn't. I was there all day wandering around and all I really liked was the horses. They were fab. But somebody's always telling the cadets what to do. The older cadets give orders to the younger ones, the cadet officers give orders to the older ones, Then the instructors give orders to the officers.
It's as bad as--" she put her hand over her mouth.

"As bad as I am?" Aldis asked. "It's all right, you can say it. Now I can see I wasn't listening to you. Because I was too busy trying to make sure you had the chance I missed."

"I know you want to help me." Moya wiped the tears from her face. "That's why it was so hard for me to come right out and say anything. And maybe painting's what I want to do. I'm not sure. There are so many things I could do, so many possibilities. I might want to paint or be a vet or direct films."

3. Who do you consider your writing influences?

Mostly my father, who was a published non-fiction author who encouraged me to write stories as a child and would always say something good about my work before pointing out ways I could improve it.

I was also an eclectic reader from childhood on--didn‘t matter what it was, I read it. I was published before I joined RWA, but they’ve been a wonderful resource for meeting other authors and making friends. But I’ve made friends on the lists as well.

4. Where are you from?

I was born in California, but my mother brought me home to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when I was nine months old and I grew up there. Though I’ve lived in several areas of California, in Upstate New York, Northern Nevada and Florida, the Viking and I have come back to live where we grew up--in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness.

5. How experienced are you as an author?

My first book, a gothic titled Tule Witch, was published by Avon in 1973. In those days all gothics had no more than a kiss or two. How the world has changed. I’ve been writing ever, since so I have quite a few published books. My web site is: www.JaneToombs.com for anyone curious.

6. Is there anything else about you that you'd like readers to know?

With a writer friend of mine, Janet Lane Walters, we published Becoming Your Own Critique Partner, a book for helping aspiring authors. We tried to include what we wished we’d known when we first starting writing, but had to learn the hard way.

7. If I lived in an enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you prefer your guestroom to be like?

Since we live across the road from the south shore of Lake Superior, I’d need windows in my room with a view of a lake, an ocean, distant mountains--something that changed with the seasons. A garden outside would also be necessary, one birds and butterflies would want to visit. And because I’m no longer young, I’d want a comfortable couch and a chair such as a La-Z-Boy that adjusts. I‘m a writer, I’d need the latest in computers, printers and the like, with wireless access. Something that would play music as well, with my choice of what I like to listen to. I read more than I watch TV, but if I had a good ereader, I would not need an array of print books, since I could download what I wished to read. I’d like the room to be a suite, with the bedroom separate from what would be the writing and living room. I assume a cook is on the premises, one that is appraised of individual allergies or dislikes. One more addition. Since I can’t live without the Viking he’d have to share the suite with me--so add another adjustable chair and a TV to the bedroom so he can watch and not disturb my writing. A private bath with tub and shower is assumed. All this sounds so good, I wish I was there!

Wook Wecommendation Wednesday 2

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje

This pendant, once its shape stood still, became a mirror. It pretended to reflect each European power till newer ships arrived and spilled their nationalities, some of whom stayed and intermarried - my own ancestor arriving in 1600...and a new name with a Dutch spelling of his own. Ondaatje. A parody of the ruling language. And when his Dutch wife died, marrying a Sinhalese woman, having nine children, and remaining. Here. At the center of the rumor. At this point on the map.

Michael Ondaatje spent his childhood in Sri Lanka, but moved to England and then Canada for his adult life. One day, though, he decided to go back to Sri Lanka and find out more about his family, a bunch of rich party-lovers with English, Dutch, and Indian blood.

He has trouble telling the difference between fact and fiction in what people tell him about his family, especially his father. So he tells us everything, all the wild stories, and mixes in poems, photographs, and conversations.

We learn that his grandmother, Lalla, used to steal flowers from her friends and neighbors, so his father started growing cacti. People say his father drunkenly hijacked a train by waving a rifle and getting the driver drunk too. A man who tortured his wife's chickens was cursed and died clucking and pecking at pillows.

Eventually Running in the Family convinces us to agree with the author: it does not really matter how much is made up, as long as it is a good story. Few books will ever be as much fun.

Interview with Richard Jones

What is A Mountain Romance about?

It’s a traditional love story set in the old west of the 1880’s. A lonely cowboy, Red Holden, rescues a strong willed woman, Mattie Sharp, lost on the prairie and sparks fly. Mattie is determined to stay with Red until they reach a good sized town. Red, however, is on his way to the mountains to do some trapping and is equally determined to get rid of her as soon as possible. Add trouble with the cavalry, a dangerous outlaw and a friendly ghost and you have Mountain Romance.

Could you give me a short sample passage?

“I don’t need any help,” she told him.

“Never thought you did, ma’am,” he said as once again he lifted her in his arms. But this time he hesitated before putting her onto the Appaloosa’s back and looked into her eyes.

Mattie could feel her body warming to his touch and her heart beating wildly in her chest. Whether it be fear, exhaustion, or confusion she didn’t know, but she felt safe in this man’s arms. Safer than she’d felt in a very long time. A moment later, Red gently placed her onto the horse and walked quietly to his mustang.

Who do you consider your writing influences?

Louis L’Amour, [Sir] Arthur Conan Doyle, Tony Hillerman, Agatha Christie

Where are you from?

I was born in New Orleans, but I’ve lived in Phoenix, AZ, Covington, LA, Columbia, SC and now Nashville, TN.

How experienced are you as an author/how old are you?

I’ve been writing most of my life and if I had a nickel for every rejection slip I ever got I could’ve retired at 30. I had my first short mystery published about ten years ago and have been writing them ever since. Mountain Romance is my first romance.

I’ll be 64 years old in October which is somewhere between dirty old man and forgetting my name.

Is there anything else about you that you'd like readers to know?

I spent three years in the US Navy driving ships for Uncle Sam. I’ve worked as a salesman, adjudicator, mechanic, manager, cashier, customer service representative and a teacher of sixth grade Social Studies and Science. I'm also a professional daydreamer. I daydreamed my way through high school and college and still don't know how I graduated.

If I lived in a enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you prefer your guestroom to be like?

I’ve always been fascinated by those old English mansions built in the 1600’s. I’d like a huge four poster bed, plush leather chairs, a small desk, book case with shelves full and old wood paneling. Oh yes, and huge floor to ceiling windows that look out onto a misty moor.

What a nice gentleman. Don't you just wanna buy his book? Look at him. How can you say no to that face?

The link above will take you straight to Amazon Kindle, from which you can easily also find the paperback version if that's your preference.

From Finished to Published: Novels

I have been asked several times how long the publishing process takes and what's involved. Now, my experience is probably different than that of the full-time bestseller authors, and it is naturally different from journalism, nonfiction, and poetry. I have had a few short stories/biographical essays published in my life but I will cover that another day. Still, my hope is that others may find enlightenment in my recounting of the nitty-gritty that happens after you literally or metaphorically write "The End".

1. Trying to find a publisher. The first time I did this it took just under three years, and I got tricked by two scams (more on that in a future entry) on the way, though fortunately I didn't lose anything substantial.

Starting at age fifteen, this involved looking up possible publishers, agents, and manuscript (ms) contests by myself, getting chapters or even the whole ms printed - formatted according to guidelines - and stuffed into envelopes that themselves had a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) each so I'd get replies and returned mss, writing cover letters tailored for each publisher, and then waiting.

As mentioned in the dedication of Halloween Romance, my parents were good enough to pay for postage. Very few publishers accept electronic submissions. Eternal Press does.

Now that I am an Eternal Press author I must wait three months after my previous book has been published in order for me to submit a new one. The acquisitions editor hangs onto either the whole ms or the first three chapters, depending on length, for about a month as she goes through her immense stack of submissions (hundreds competing for just over a half-dozen spots a release day) and ponders not only whether she thinks my novel will sell, but whether I am an easy-to-work-with author full of promotional fizz and can-do spirit.


2. Yes, after all that, this is merely Step 2, unless you go the Zeno's Arrow route and subdivide the steps until you have a score of them. This is the signing of a contract, yippee! And a tax form! YAY! I don't object except as a token joke, though, because among other things taxes pay my father's salary and makes college affordable for me.

Since most EP family members never physically meet, I print two copies of each form out and sign them all. I mail them to EP headquarters where all four get signed, then two get mailed back to me.

I also fill out a form and e-mail it to a senior editor concerning vague ideas of what the cover should look like - Amanda Kelsey does a splendid job on mine; I'd love to meet her someday - what should be on the back, what should be the sample passage, to whom I dedicate this book, and other things of that ilk.


3. Editing, Round 1. My first three novels were fortunate enough to be edited by my fairy godmother, Austrialian novelist/editor/ms assessor/children's book author/poet/otherwise writing-related entrepreneur Sally Odgers. I consider her my fairy godmother because she took me under her guidance at Fanstory.com and provided tons of free help and advice simply because she liked my work. She is also the godmother to the Laconia series I've birthed, with a devotion to them that I am perpetually amazed by from someone so experienced in beginner's books.

This takes two or three weeks.


4. Editing Round 2: Electric Boogaloo. I go through it and find things she missed. I send to back to her.


5. Proofreading: The Return of the Editing. A third woman goes over it and finds things both of us missed. This takes another two or three weeks.


6. The Errata: The Editing's Revenge. I go through the whole ms with a fine-toothed comb and copy and past each typo-ed sentence onto a document, writing the corrected sentence underneath. I exhaustively labor through this for about a week, sometimes two if my classes are giving me a lot of work at the moment. Around this time I find out what the cover looks like.


7. PDF Mark I: Editing Strikes Back. I get sent the first PDF version of the book and go through the whole thing looking for formatting errors. It's too late to fix any other kind. I invariably find one or two mistakes I can no longer correct.


8. Final PDF: Countdown to Launch Day. I have a PDF I can give out up to 10 times as prizes or for reviews. Now it's time to go into heavy-duty promotion, an entirely different container of annelids.


9. Notice that there are still errors. Become unable to read my own book for what Sally says will probably be ten years. Sigh. Wait for reviews.


The funny thing is, I love every minute of the aggravation. I imagine happy parents feel the same way.

Wook Wecommendation Wednesday 1

"Book Recommendation Wednesday" is only alliterative if I pretend I'm transcribing the dialogue of someone who's just had dental surgery.

This is the first entry into what I hope becomes a weekly institution: the recommendation of two books that I happen to like. I promise you that it is my decision which Wooks to share with you, and that if there is a book - rather than a Wook - that I have posted on this blog because the author requested it, I will explicitly say so. I also promise that I have read every single Wook in its entirety.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that Amazon.com will give me a small cut of their profit from the sale of the book if you arrive at it through one of my links. However, Amazon doesn't care which books I advertise. I care. Wooks are chosen out of love, which as we know gives me such a thrill, but...love don't pay my bills. (Given the choice of which is Detroit's finest accomplishment, I would not say Ford or GM. I would say Motown.)

Without further ado, here are two Wooks for your enjoyment:



The Crock of Gold by James Stephens

The Gray Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them [the two Philosophers] the three questions which nobody had ever been able to answer, and they were able to answer them...The Gray Woman and the Thin Woman were so incensed at being answered that they married the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch them in bed, but the skins of the Philosophers were so thick that they did not know they were being pinched. They repaid the fury of the women which such tender affection...the women uttered the fourteen hundred maledictions which comprised their wisdom, and these were learned by the Philosophers, who thus became even wiser than before.

With that most eccentric passage, the most magical, odd work I have ever read begins. James Stephen's The Crock of Gold takes place in a world of Irish myth, where fairies argue with policemen, philosophers and their wives constantly battle, children are amazed to see sunlight, and young girls run off with the Great God Pan.

It's part fairy tale, part offbeat philosophical work, in which the philosophers discuss questions of why people wash their clothes, why humans cannot communicate with animals, and whether knowledge is the most important thing in the world.

The women of the story contend that happiness is the most important thing in the world, and nothing else really matters. When the philosophers are talking, other characters ask them if they will be quiet. "No, I will not," each one says, then continues.

The son and daughter of the philosophers meet leprechauns and Caitilin, a shepherdess who has fallen in love with the woodland god. The leprechauns are angry because someone following the philosopher's advice found their crock of gold, and retaliate by accusing the surviving philosopher of murdering his brother and the Grey Woman, who in fact died naturally. When the philosopher is arrested, the Thin Woman and her children must save him.

To try summing up this fantasy in a few words doesn't do it justice. The easy, natural tone, the depth of concepts in the story, and the occasional wise silliness is all too ephemeral, too special.

This is, without dispute, my favorite book. It is also the most obscure book I've ever read, so it's extremely hard trying to find someone other than my father to discuss it with. I hope I've been able to give it a little more time in a patch of sunlight.

The next book is a good deal more well known and straightforward, but my passion for it runs deep. I first borrowed it from an English teacher of mine who kept a small bookcase in her class. I took it out several times as a library book and eventually bought it. I thought it was good to bring it up now, what with my own coming-of-age story featuring a strong young woman named Taylor.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Harbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I'm not lying. He got stuck up there. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took Norman Strick to walk up the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn't dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward.

Missy Greer is only afraid of two things: exploding tires and having a baby by accident. She grew up poor, raised by her cleaning-lady mother, and wants to get as far away as possible from her hometown in Kentucky, USA.

As she drives across the country, she changes her name to Taylor, and receives a great shock when a Cherokee woman gives her a baby girl and begs Taylor to give her a better life. The girl's mother is dead and her father beats her. The woman leaves, and not knowing what else to do, Taylor takes the baby with her. She names her Turtle, because she is in a shell of hurt but clings to life, and biting turtles do not let go.

By the time her car breaks down in Arizona and she is forced to take a job as a mechanic, she is prepared to believe anything, even that beans can grow on trees. Soon her and Turtle's lives become connected to a newly divorced woman, the woman's son, and a pair of refugees from Guatemala. Taylor must face her fears and become a true adult.

It is not often that a book comes up with such a strong, likeable heroine and handles such important issues. All the characters feel like they could be real. Those who read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver will come to feel that the world is a scary place, but many of the people who live in it are very brave.

Waking Echoes Now Available!

Gentle, perhaps-imaginary readers,

I feel guilty for going so long without posting something, despite the two very problematic facts that blogging is not my style and no one seems to have been suffering in my absence. But nobody's reading because I'm not blogging because nobody's reading, and I have decided to take the important step of blogging anyway in order to break the vicious cycle.

But now Waking Echoes is out, and I have told Facebook, the Eternal Press Blog, the Eternal Press Readers loop on Yahoo, anyone who happens to visit my Google Site, all my friends, and a bunch of students at my long-ago place of study, the Vientiane International School (part of 1st grade through 4th grade; 1 faculty member both was still there and remembered me), and a hundred or so of my fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com fans. So, you know, I think if we whack this horse a couple more times it may come to life.

SO!

WAKING ECHOES

Accepting yourself can be unusually difficult. Taylor Calvin is a hardworking, intelligent high school student who’s been stretching herself a bit thin lately. This is not improved by the appearance of Tylianvornika, a ghost that claims to be Taylor from a previous life in another dimension, one she shared with her closest friends. Now Taylor must juggle daily problems that merely feel like the end of the world, along with memories and a persistent haunting concerning the actual ending of a world.

“Are you an angel?” Taylor believed strongly in angels, but never thought one would come to her.

“Again, sort of. I’m kind of a transfigured being. Did you think what happened today was a string of coincidences? They were echoes, Taylor Calvin. Your memories have been asleep, and they are awaking.”

“Can I at least know your name, kind of a transfigured being?”

The girl’s insubstantial, colorless lips smiled slightly. “I’m glad I didn’t change much.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am Tylianvornika, resident of Canyonar, which is now pretty much nonexistent. The entire universe vanished too. Kind of upsetting, really. Right now I am sleeping in my world, in the split second before I die. I have been promised that, after I die, I and my friends will be reborn into a new world passing through the test that Canyonar failed. That is, I’m you.”

“Me?”

“Today seems familiar because it happened before, but on a greater scale. I am here to tell you about the last year of your previous life—the last year of my life.” She laughed, dropping all the mystical pretension in her voice and sounding like an adolescent again. “It’s pretty exciting for me too.”

Trivia, stories, behind-the-scenes peeks, more guest blogging, interviews, and all sort of things hoped-for in the near future.

Guest Storyteller: My Father

Note from Donaya: I'm considering instead of having a guest blogger, having a guest storyteller, because I know many wonderful talented people who deserve a slice of spotlight themselves. My father, who wishes to be addressed as Veridad Haymond, has only ever written two or three creative pieces. This is by far the best and is in fact one of my favorite short stories in the world.


TO GET TO THE OTHER…SIDE

Life and Death in a Pastoral Setting


Why?

Why now? Why me?

As well ask why breathe? Why love? Why greet the morning?

Sun brightness, warmth on body, bustling society, the texture and crunch of sustenance. These are the joys of being.

But always the pull toward that other….

In youth I followed as siblings led, sometimes fleeing, sometimes reaching toward that other…

I watched in fright, in awe, in envy as the great ones crossed over, leaving only their husks behind, rustling in the afterbreeze.

I saw others taken before their time, escorted away by servants without ever tasting that other…

The Change Master is capricious, coming sometimes straight on, swerving sometimes suddenly to left, to right. A spice of uncertainty is thus added to the ritual.

Thrice now have I danced the dance, once so closely I reaped the whirlwind and my foot was lamed.

I have accepted the homage due one touched by the Master, but that lingering touch only hungers me for the fullness of that other…

When the connection is not clear, when the pull is not present, I hesitate, then continue along the parallel, the safe unthreatening limited parallel of this state. Not for now the blessed perpendicular….

But today I feel a gleam. A call, a tug. There awaits that other… And today is my day.

The Change Master approaches. Now for the dance of death.

Of death, said I? But why not of life? To wake from this pleasant but inchoate dream state, to move onward, to move beyond…

To live.

I begin to run, stretching shoulders to limber my pace, to move my crippled limb along.

The Master draws near, nearer.

Now is my moment. Now the connection is made. Now comes the pull toward that other…

As the Master enters my peripheral vision, I execute, again, that perpendicular that measures, that states our highest being.

Between? Beyond? I control the urge to fly this encounter, to flee from the new knowing.

Contact.

Explosion.

Light…



That’s why.

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The preceding meditation was inspired by many riding hours and multitudes of chickens on the rural roads of Laos. In particular, by chickens that would run alongside the road in safety and then suddenly dart in front of our vehicle, seeming to deliberately place themselves in mortal peril. This suggested to me a metaphysical answer to the immortal chicken/road riddle.

The Desire for Understanding

Among the most stereotypical of adolescent complaints is "Nobody understands me!"

On one level this is simply whining, as the amount of empathy people can have for each other, especially parents for their children, is a great deal more than the moody and frustrated are willing to admit. The human race is such a vast network of dreams and fears repeated billions upon billions of times that someone has been through something very much like your situation before.

On another level, though, there is the sad truth that as we have become a more complexly cognitive species, our ability to communicate has not kept up with our ability to think. Lacking mind-melds or some other sci-fi/fantasy ability (or at least one that has stood up to rigorous testing), we make do with the senses and the arts.

I find nothing more exquisite in life than conveying something to someone else, in all the ways it can be done - the quirk of an eyebrow, a snatch of song, a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, gentle pressure on the hand, a way of walking, alteration of behavior, the infinite majesty and versatility of words, the tone of a voice, an emoticon, the timed lack-of-speech in between each sound that bears all the meaning of the sounds themselves - but there is still an essential febrility in these things. We are waving flags at each other on a foggy night. Our consolation is making the flags bright as possible.

No matter how well I write, the stories are not in your head the way they are in mine. But oh, I am more grateful every day that they can be in your head in some form at all.

Explanation for the Title

I have very vivid and elaborate dreams. I dream in all senses, including pain, temperature, and feeling of fullness upon eating fully-tasted dream-food. Most of the time I take joy in this, though nightmares bring uncommon terror. It helps with ideas, though most of my ideas I get lying in bed waiting for sleep, rather than during it.

Over the past few months I have been dreaming in the same location that feels, unlike any other dreamscape, like something I constructed. Something that's mine in a profound sense no physical object can be. If I had a physical mansion it would belong also to the architect who designed it, and the constructors who mortared each brick in place, and the real estate agent, and the plumber, and the bank that gave me the huge loan this physical place would have cost. But this I made, every bit, as natural as breathing.

It has many, many floors. I don't know how many. There are no grand staircases, but instead a mishmash of spiral stairs, stone steps, ladders of the pull-out kind and the wood kind and the rope kind. Books line many walls. The lighting is warm. Sometimes I run into a living room like one from a house I lived in the waking world. There are many bedrooms, some what interior designers would call "vintage eclectic" with velvet hangings and lots of weird/delightful knicknacks on shelves, some clean and Asian-inspired, white sheets and bamboo and silk screens. I'm pretty sure there was a steampunk kitchen somewhere.

In the basement there's at least one fully staffed and operational bistro, and further down many flights of steps there's a canyon floor reminiscent of Bryce Canyon in Utah (or indeed may landscapes in the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico area, swept curved by water and wind). When I went to the Canyon there were lots of young people having furtive sex in the shadows; I let them because it was consensual and safe.

One night I dreamed that my Mansion had been condemned as unsafe, and oh! how we fought for it. We picketed and hunger-struck, and one of the many residents - whose faces I almost always forget upon waking - had to be dissuaded from using Molotov cocktails against the bureaucrats. We must have one. I don't know how.

I occasionally have to throw unwanted turn-ups out. Last week Tom Cruise was there and I angrily told him that John Barrowman (whom he very faintly resembles) is far sexier and manlier than he could ever be, and does the whole action-hero-thing in an order of magnitude better, despite Barrowman being an openly gay frequent star of musicals. Cruise dumped his glass full of ice water on me.

But I do bring guests from my waking life in as well. And that's why this blog is named after the Mansion - I want it to be the meeting place between me, the writer, and you, the reader. If you don't manage to access it full-bodied with your dreams, then please take the slower route of imagining it.

We are seated in a room full of comfy couches and velvet pillows. Would you like a drink? Want me to make a fireplace? Any ideas on how I should decorate?

Welcome.

I Suppose It's About Time

I've resisted having my own blog:

- I already have a Google Site, a Facebook Fan Page, a defunct Twitter account that went nowhere, and all my posting on the Eternal Press Yahoo groups. I don't want to annoy people with yammering.

- The Twitter account failed to become useful because I couldn't think of enough things I wanted to say open to the general public, though with my friends it's chatterchatter.

- I have books to edit and write, college classes/summer jobs, and the first really active social life of my late-blooming youth. Would I update enough to keep the blog viable?

HOWEVER, it's in my contract that I must overstep the bounds of modesty and shyness and promote like I'm being pummeled with hotcakes until I can sell books in a similar manner. Also I am vain enough to suppose, just a little, that my nonfiction musings away from the mask of story could actually be interesting for someone out there.

So this is a test. Stand by. This is only a test.

If you've come upon this tentative, experimental post, you are probably a fan of one of my published novels - Halloween Romance and Bite Me - or one of my many, many posted online works under various aliases, and followed a link. Or you could be someone who knows my private self, in which case I'm flattered, but please don't post anything too revealing in comments or otherwise.

Dad, I'd really prefer you give me professional space - Facebook friends is enough. More than that and I feel crowded, no matter how good buds we are and how great a parent you've been (Mom I know would find so much English reading tedious).

(Raises metaphorical eyebrow.) There are many advantages to signing your first book contract at eighteen and having a third book on the way at nineteen, such as extra attention from your peers and professors, the feeling that there is potential for even greater things, and looking really cute in the publicity photo. The drawback, though, is that I feel like everything I write has to answer to my parents. Love my parents. Don't want to disappoint them. Don't want to alarm them.

Another drawback is that I feel a bit out of place among the other EP writers, with their talk of children and careers and aging parents and other adult things. I don't post to either the Authors' or Readers' loops very often. I don't discuss writing very well with people my age either, as they feel intimidated or I can't quash feelings of detestable arrogance. It sickens me when I catch myself looking down on them because I find their characters weak or plots formulaic.

I'm taking creative writing classes next semester. My plan is to keep "Donaya Haymond", the writer, a secret identity, just as I like to maintain about 70 Facebook friends and not post openly where I live. I feel like I should have a cape.

This could be a good outlet for my writing persona. Even if no one reads this. There's a friendliness to a composition box and the dance of telling enough of your heart to the expanse without exposing it dangerously. Also I'll get to write the way I think, which is different from how I speak or tell stories. The stories have shape and filter. The speech with all but a few is watered down because my words tend to be too big for a lot of people - precocity is a real killer on communication.

Okay. Trial run. Let's see where this goes.