Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful...

You know, I am a child of the South.  I am used to having two or three snows each year and the coldest day getting all the way down to freezing, maybe. But, I have always hated three things about the South: June, July and August.  100 degree days?  Not my style. I hate sweating.  So in an effort to avoid perspiration, mosquitoes as big as my arm and always-frizzed out hair from the humidity, I moved to Ohio.

And was promptly greeted by winter.

You'd think after fifteen years in Ohio, I'd be used to winter by now.  I'm not.  I don't mind snow; having had relatively few snow days when I was a kid (except for the winter of 77-78 when we were out of school from before Thanksgiving until after Valentine's Day AND were still in school on the Fourth of July) I kind of like snow.

I do NOT like single digit temperatures.  Not at all.

We had a little bit of snow last night--just enough to blanket the yards and cover the roads. It's so cold outside that salt doesn't melt the snow; it turns it into a big slick of ice.  You'd think the road crews around here would be smart enough to realize that but--oh, no. They keep salting the ice and it freezes almost instantly.  My husband is off in Columbus today doing his Micrsoft certification school and I am stuck here, watching an endless stream of salt trucks parade up and down the hill in front of the house, refreezing the ice slick that once was a road.

I could be a spectator sport.  I could run a betting pool. Just think about it.

"Hey, Bob, what odds are you going to give me on how long it's going to take the road department to figure out the ice isn't working?"

"It's supposed to snow again Tuesday, right?  Ummmm....I'll give you 3 to 1 odds they won't figure it out for a week."

"That's a little steep? You sure about that?"

"Yep. 3 to 1; seven days."

"Done. Here's my g-note. I'll be back in a week--provided the dogs are ready to get hooked up to the sled.  Heck, I'll even buy you a beer; we can snowshoe to the Fairview."

*sigh*

You have to love sheer, dogged persistence in the face of meterological common sense.

My Mantra for 2010

"You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist." -- Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

I very rarely bother to follow the advice of other writers.  Usually, it just annoys me; every writer's journey is different, after all.  Some got their lucky break because their wife pulled a manuscript out of a trash can; others got their break because of their family's connections; still others sent out manuscript after manuscript for decades until they finally hit upon the right combination of story-agent-editor-publisher and found themselves inexplicably at the top of the field.  But Asimov's advice is one that really resonates with me.

In a nutshell, he claims that persistence is the secret of success.  If there's one thing I've got, it's persistence.

Now granted--I have had some small measure of success. And yet--I dream of more, of bigger, of prolific production of quality manuscripts that entertain the majority of people who read it.  I find that lately in my work, I'm getting bolder--I'm exploring issues and relationships and conflicts that once had no place in my creative mind.  I, who was once inordinately fond of the tropes of genre fiction, am now looking for a way to break out of them.

And still, the weary round of submissions goes on.  Every time I hit "send," I'm sending a little bit of my soul out to be examined and judged.  Now that bit of soul is twisted, warped perhaps from my comfortable, familiar world of fantasies and romance and long-dead honor into something where faith is questionable, where romance is an obstacle and where fantasies grow darker and more intimate.  Am I doing the right thing?

Who knows?

It doesn't matter.  I'll still keep working on them, wrenching them into a condition where I can sit back and say, "I trust this story on its own. Let's see what it can do."

I woke up this morning infused with a new, stronger sense of purpose.  I feel empowered, like something is waiting just around the corner for me if I have the guts to reach out and take it for myself.  I went through my works in progress briefly, analyzing them, looking at them from glasses that are no longer rose-colored, but more of a steely grey.  And you know what?

I like what I'm seeing.

So aside from the Mythos  and Covenants books, I'm going to dedicate a great deal of my focus and attention on the darkest work I've ever written. Terella is my new pet, rising in all its onyx glory to push past my other work. I think I've finally matured enough to really explore the depths of that work and the ideological horror it emerges from.  It's time to give it the attention it deserves.

If Asimov is right--if persistence is what leads to success--then well, I've got that in abundance. All the trepidation I've always felt when submitting to agents or publishers has vanished.  Now I'm looking at it as a challenge and not the soul-sucking agony I've felt in the past.  While Deception is still alive and kicking on a few desks across the country, its successor will be polished and shined until it's like obsidian--shiny, stygian and sharp.  Then we'll see if my currect instinct about my work is correct--if I'm more suited to creating the darker side of speculative fiction than the heroic side.

Back to Ring Out 2009 and Ring In 2010

Yep! I'm back.

After taking a two-month sabbatical from my online presence in order to get a lot of work (and a grandbabies' first Christmas, house buying, lots of editing and submitting) out of the way, it's time for me to return to regular blogging.

And of course, I have a lot to talk about.

First off, the second book in the Covenants gothic vampire romance series I'm co-writing with Rob Graham is in our editor's hands and should be released through Aspen Mountain Press early in 2010. As soon as I have a release date for Warding the Covenants, I'll let you know.

Secondly, my ten book Greco-Roman mythology series, entitled (oddly enough) Mythos, has been bought by my great publisher at Aspen Mountain Press.  The first book, Bride of Death, is the story of the god of the Underworld, Hades, and his marriage to Persephone.  The second book, Daughter of the Sea, relates the myths surrounding Poseidon and Amphitrite.  For these books, I've gone back to the original classical sources--Homer, Hesiod, Ovid and so forth--to relate the actual myths in a modern narrative style. Fair warning--Greco-Roman mythology is all about sex, so while these are not straight-up eroticas per se they are fairly earthy. (In other words, each story has a sex scene. Caveat emptor--these are NOT good study guides for kids unless you want them really educated.)

Third, I finally broke down and submitted my Darkshifters two-book dark fantasy series to AMP. Despite a great deal of agent interest when I was submitting it last year, Darkshifter's Empath appears to be a better fit for e-publishing than traditional big house publishing.

Fourth, we're buying a new house! Hurray!  My husband and I found a 1930 American Foursquare house in Newark, Ohio. I really love it because of the Arts and Crafts style detailing on the house--stained glass, lovely woodwork, open floor plan and a huge...freaking...gorgeous...clawfoot tub that has been meticulously restored. We figure that restoring the house will be a long term labor of love--especially the kitchen which has four...count them--FOUR...cabinets in it.  Fortunately, most of the really expensive stuff (replacement windows, roof, gutters, hot water heater, AC, wiring et cetera) has already been done. The most wonderful thing about the house? THREE bay windows. My dream of having my writing desk tucked away into a bay window in a book-lined study? Fulfilled.  Hopefully, we'll be moving in soon; we're just waiting for the seller to square away his end of the deal.

Fifth, the babies' first Christmas was fabulous. I did all my Christmas shopping online this year--it's a lot easier to enjoy the holiday season if you don't have to knock a little old lady off the one toy left on the rack.  Although at 2 months and 6 months Keelynn and Aurora were too little to get into the whole Santa Claus expectation, they had a lot of fun playing with (and chewing on) their new toys.  My husband and I had a wonderful Christmas ourselves, and between holding the babies and watching my girls enjoy their daughters' excitement, we had a fabulous time.

At any rate, keep an eye out for lots of changes.  My website Shoot the Muse! will be undergoing major changes, as will this blog.  I expect to release a minimum of 14 novels and novellas in 2010 at this time and hope it'll be even more.  Deception Enters Stage Left is still out on submission and garnering enough interest to make me cautiously encouraged, and my editing desk is getting fuller and fuller. But, if Deception doesn't find an agent, I have Terella (my dark fantasy about an amnesiac god who leads a rebellion against her own temple) ready to go out on submission and Harlequin (the second book with the Deception characters) will be ready by October.  And who knows? Maybe some other idea will strike me in between now and then. And there is a rumor...just a rumor, mind you...that a second Asphodel series is in the works. I'll keep you informed.

So happy New Year to all of you--and may you acheive your goals for 2010~! I'll still be elf killing on this blog and shooting the muse on my website, with lots of new stories to keep you entertained. Best of good fortune!

This Post Is Not About Writing

No, it isn't. This post is about babies--my baby specifically, who is being evaluated in the OB triage unit of her hospital and may be about to deliver her baby. Wow. My baby is having a baby. What the hell is that all about?

It's so terrible to see your kids in pain. All parents know this. There's a horrible feeling of helplessness that accompanies it--there's something that Mom (or Dad) can't kiss and make it feel better. It's heartbreaking and exciting all at once. My daughter, who is bright and beautiful and clever, has no clue what awaits her with labor and delivery. I don't believe in sharing horror stories and she thinks she deals better with things just walking into it blind. She may be right; I don't know. I'm one of those weird people who wants to know EVERYTHING that will happen. When I had my artificial disc replacement surgery, I went to the website of the company that manufactured the disc and watched a video of an actual surgery in progress. *shrug* I was going to be unconscious while they performed the procedure, so it didn't frighten me. I wanted to know what would be happening to my body while I was asleep.

Yep. I am weird.

With my daughter, though, I was reasonably sure how her late pregnancy and labor would go and I purposely avoided relating the stories of my labor with her. Why? Because it was HORRIBLE. Things have changed though *since my day now that I'm apparently old enough to be a grandmother* and she won't have to endure 30 plus hours of non-progressing labor without pain medications.

Thank God.

So right now, I'm alone in this waiting room. There's a stupid late night television show on the tube that no one is watching and I'm here busily typing away on my computer. It's one way to spend the time, I suppose. I'm sure I'll post something later, an update at least. If I sit in this waiting room for hours there's no telling WHAT I might post. It could be a verra verra eeeeeeenteresting night.

A Rare Day Off

Wow. What am I going to do today?

My editor's desk is cleared for the month and I have promised myself to take the rest of October off. I need to let the Greco-Roman mythology novella rest for a day or so before I revise it. Harlequin is percolating. Plague is stuck. I'm getting ready to go to Tennessee on Wednesday and then stay with my daughter until after the baby gets here.

So what am I going to do today?

Shannon is asleep; he worked overnight on a build. There's nothing on TV, unless you count the Scariest Places on Earth marathon on SyFy. (What a ridiculous name. SyFy. Marketing department-FAIL.) I've spent the last hour or so looking through real estate listings because I will find our new house soon and hopefully will be in it by Christmas.

Which, of course, is all dependent upon when the baby gets here. Have I told you her name yet? No? Audrey and her husband Wes decided on the name Aurora Elizabeth. *looks innocent* I have nothing to do with my granddaughter being named after the Greco-Roman goddess of the dawn. Honest.

Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either.

So both my granddaughters have unusual names, which I'm thankful for. Meredith and her husband Brian named their daughter Keelynn Shea. *This name I really didn't have anything to do with, but I love it.* With a name like Celina, how could I not appreciate having an unusual name? After all, my parents unwittingly named me after the Greek goddess of the moon.

See? Some things are just fated.

So, what should I do today?

If I'm blogging about it, then I already have my answer. Nothing. I'm taking the day off! I may go to the bookstore and get Jacqueline Carey's new book Namaah's Kiss. That way, I can occupy at least a couple of hours of my time tonight.

Maybe things will be more interesting later on this week.

New Plotline Brewing

Arrrrrrrgh!

Why won't the muses let me finish one story before dragging me ass-backwards into another? I'm getting kind of fascinated with urban fantasy and I'm looking for some directions in the genre that are different than a lot of the urban fantasy currently out there. Of course, there would be a romantic subplot--because I like writing romantic subplots--but for the most part, I want to write an urban fantasy with serious fantasy and horror influences.

I thought I'd start with a twenty-first century version of the plague and eliminate about 95% of the world population right off the bat--like in the first half of the first chapter. Why the plague, you ask?

*shrug*

Why not? It's my opinion that the right strain of an existing virus--the right mutation, if you will--could decimate the world population in days. Besides, I need to get rid of a bunch of people. The survivors would, of a necessity, be the hardiest of the human race. So, I'm thinking surviving the plague would enhance the inherent psychic abilities these last people possess.

Naturally, I have this Armageddon/Apacolyptic kind of plot resolution in mind. *evil grin* Oh yeah, it'll be evil. If I can torture my characters, why write? Temporary working title? Plague.

Duh.

I'm going to try to hit 25k by Sunday. We'll see if I can do it. I'm almost done with the first mythology novella for Aspen Mountain Press. I should be able to clean that up and get it to my editor fairly soon. And all of this, of course, is contingent upon Harlequin leaving me alone long enough to work on something else.

We shall see.

At any rate, I did manage to get the final versions of two books done this week and have two new submissions to work on for AMP, so we'll see how well I can balance editing and writing over the next few days. As long as Audrey (my daughter) doesn't go into labor before then, I'm off to Kentucky to stay with her until the baby is born next week.

Oh, and next week is my birthday, too. Whoop-di-doo.

So you folks get back to writing and I'll do the same. Au revoir!

Long Time, No See

Gee--sorry, folks. Real life and my parents' internet-free zone have kept me out of the loop for weeks now. Add to that heinous editing deadlines, a new manuscript that just won't shut up and the kids and you'll understand my recipe for blogging disaster.

I'll try not to let it happen again. I promise.

At any rate, it's been kind of difficult to get my head on straight lately. To begin with, Harlequin, the sequel to my urban fantasy Deception Enters Stage Left, is cranking along at supersonic speed. Last week, I wrote almost 50,000 words on the manuscript and am seriously looking at closing the first draft out within days. Naturally, because I overwrite like a check fraud fanatic, that first draft is probably going to close out at 125k plus.

Because I can edit the heck out of anything, I'm thinking I'll be able to trim at least twenty-five thousand adverbs, dialogue tags and unnecessary scenes out of it. I'm really liking the story. I'm starting to play with some new theories about where to take my spec fic work. I'm getting more drawn to fantasy worlds that are shared with our own--without getting caught up in the tropes of urban fantasy per se.

Let's put it this way: anyone who saw the movie Magic when it first came out probably came away with an active dislike of ventriloquist dummies. (I know I did.) Creepy little clown dolls? Not a big favorite since Poltergeist. Now I'm trying to do the same thing for all of those harlequin masks hanging on walls all over the world--save with a lot of commedia dell'Arte influence and a healthy dose of the American theater world to make it more fun.

And, of course, I'm spending a lot of time torturing my characters. That makes everything worthwhile.

Fifteen Minutes of Sunshine

Yep, so I'm taking my medicine.

I was actually prescribed--PRESCRIBED--fifteen minutes of sunshine per day. Now that it's pleasant outside and not nine hundred degree celsius, I'm actually going to obey my physician and leave my dungeon for a quarter of an hour everyday and sit in the sun.

I figure I can make myself productive and use the time to blog regularly. After all, I've not exactly been faithful to Elf Killing as of late; the Other Hobbies have been taking up most of my time.

Other Hobbies at this point would be editing.

Remember how happy I was last year when I got to the point that I could write full time? How excited I was that I could spend all day every day at my computer zipping out stories? Well, I got sidetracked into editing. Don't get me wrong: I like editing. I like seeing how other writers' stories come together. I like helping to make those stories a little bit better in between the writer and the reader. It's fascinating work.

*Is it my imagination, or is it getting hot out here???*

I just never thought it would be so time consuming. I read quickly--abnormally quickly. Gone With The Wind is an afternoon's recreation for me. The Harry Potter books go down like bon-bons. Editing, however, is a bit more than reading quickly. It's grammar books open on the table, looking up grammatical constructions and then coming up with a way to fix a problem. It's continuity plotlines growing on paper beside the laptop, so I can make sure that all the plots and subplots are resolved. It's a lot of note taking: what works, what doesn't, what needs to be changed and what should stay the same because it's awesome. Every pretty little white manuscript that comes my way ends up bleeding like the slow guy at the running of the bulls in Spain.

*is that a trickle of sweat? That can't be healthy.*

But the greatest thing about being an editor? It's making my writing much cleaner. I'm finding fewer mistakes in my own work now, and writing cleaner means writing quicker. What could be more awesome than that? Every writer searches for a way to make the process faster and better. I think I've stumbled on the secret. Editing frequently makes me a better writer.

*has it been fifteen minutes yet? it's awfully bright out here*

So anyway, I'm watching the hummingbirds dive bomb at the feeder. They seem to be distressed that a human is sitting so close to their food source. If they knew that I was the one that fills the darn thing, do you think they'd be a little more polite?

Well, there you go. Fifteen minutes of sunshine aka dialy blog session. Dang, it's warm out here. I can't wait until winter comes so I can be unhealthy and comfortable in my dungeon.

A Little Perspective...From a Toy

I don't watch a lot of TV. I watch my DVR. That way, when I spend the day working I don't interrupt myself to go watch a favorite show. Then, when I'm done watching the show, I delete it. Entertainment on demand and I can skip through the commercials. It's a win-win situation.

Tonight I watched a show I will not be deleting.

There was a rerun of an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition tonight about the Frisch family in Toledo, Ohio. The Frisches are an extraordinary couple who, on a fireman's salary, have adopted five kids from Haiti and three from the US . They're raising them in addition to their own three boys--ages range from 4 to 18. I'm not going to go into detail about them or the show. I'd advise you to watch the show if you can. What I am going to talk about is something one of the kids said.

EHM arranged for trucks full of donated clothes, books and toys (donated by Hasbro!) to go to Haiti to a school there. While the family was vacationing in Florida, they got to help load those trucks onto planes--a donation made in the Frisch family name. And one of the boys said, "When I was in Haiti, I was lucky to even have one toy. When my mom and dad came to Haiti, they gave me a toy. I was like so happy; I know what it feels like. I was just imagining what the other kids in Haiti will feel like today."

And I paused the recording.

It took a minute to sink in: one toy? Can you imagine that? I can't. I'm a writer and I literally cannot imagine what it would be like to only have one toy--to get that toy at the hands of a stranger and experience that joy for the first time. In a life filled with misery and fear, what must that child have thought?

So, I began to picture it in my mind.

A child in a third world country: emaciated, miserable, hot, dirty. He's crammed into a rusty tin-roofed shack with other children just like him. Sewage runs down the gutters on either side of the fly-infested track that serves as a street. He has no mother, no father. He must always worry about where his next meal will come from or whether the men with guns will come to hurt him that night. This isn't a far-fetched description. This description applies to countless children in countless towns in countless impoverished nations all over the world. Let's give this child a name.

Let's call him...you.

All of a sudden, you're holding this brightly colored toy--say it's something as simple as a plastic truck--and it has wheels. It's smooth. It's clean. It makes noises. When you roll it across the dirt that is the floor of the shack you're crowded into, it leaves little tracks in the dust. Then all of sudden, that toy opens up an imagination that has been suppressed under the horrors of everyday life. Now if that truck doesn't make the noise, you make the noise for it. You create little obstacles for the truck to drive around. You spill some water onto the dirt floor so you can have the fun of running that truck through the mud, then carefully wash the truck free of all the dirt and mud so it will be as clean and colorful and shiny as it was the first time you saw it. You run the truck up your leg, feeling the treads along your skin.

That truck, that toy, becomes the springboard for all the wonderful places your imagination can take you. Now when you play with the truck in the dirt, it's the dirt of someplace else: an imaginary place, perhaps, where you eat good food and go to school and take baths every day. A place where you sleep in an actual bed, where you have clothes that fit and a roof that keeps out the weather. That place has people--friends, maybe, or siblings to play with; a father who teaches you about life and a mother who hugs you when you're hurt. From there, you can drive the truck into the future--a bright place where you can be whatever you want and be respected for who you are.

The truck, therefore, becomes a goad to ambition. You feel free to make plans for your future--what you want to be when you grow up, where you want to be.

The dirt, the poverty, the terror and the sick loneliness of your existence disappear, even if only for a little while. And it's all because one day, a total stranger gave you your first and only toy.

It made me think. From something as small as a toy, dreams can grow. From those dreams, a life can be brought up out of hopelessness and the world as a whole can gain an individual so valuable, so wonderful, that everyone benefits by it.

From a toy.

Sometimes Research Is Tricky

...especially when people you don't expect to be anywhere near you read the tabs open on your laptop. Latest moment of horror?

Imagine if you will--a completely innocent person walking by my beat-up laptop and finding about ten windows open on demonology and exorcisms?

Ye-eah. Here's the scene:

When I'm in a working frenzy, it may look like a disaster to other people but I always know where everything is. I'm one of those really annoying people with a little bit of knowledge about a lot of stuff, and that's reflected in my library. I have books spanning a full four millennia, but sometimes they don't provide me with everything I need. Because I like to be thorough in my research, I have to look things up online--if for no other reason than to find out where to go for real (as in book form) source material. So, I was working on my modern day retelling of the Bell Witch legend. I have the two major primary sources for that legend in book form, but I needed more background material so I could set up my plot's climax.

Cue the demonlogy sites.

If you know the Bell Witch legend, you'll know why. (If you don't, here's a brief and not altogether unaccurate summary of it.) The reported activity of the Bell Witch kind of mirrors more recent reports of demonic activity. So, I needed to know not only how to determine what demonic activity would be like but also how to combat it. On tab one--a purported Satanist site. On tab two--a site with the Catholic rite of exorcism.

Cue clueless wandering and nosy human looking at my laptop while I'm occupied elsewhere:

"Celina! Are you a Satanist?"

"Um, no. I'm an agnostic."

"Then why are you trying to learn how to do a black mass?"

At this point, I looked at my computer in confusion. A black mass? You can figure out how to do that online? My first thought (as a writer) was "Cool!" My second thought was "Why would anyone look that up online?"

Of course, my third thought was "You idiot! If you hadn't of stuck your big fat warty nose into my business, you wouldn't be asking such a stupid question!"

After said clueless wandering human wandered off, however, I started to think about the whole situation. It was then that it occurred to me that if for some reason I was arrested for a crime I didn't commit and someone pulled all of the history out of my computer's hard drive, all of this could be used against me. For example--I edit erotica books and my publisher has a very successful erotica division. I pop onto a lot of sites dealing with erotica. If someone like -- oh, I don't know, my holier-than-thou sister-in-law found out about that, she would assume I was either a prostitute or addicted to pornography. Add the demonic activity research sites and suddenly, she would be able to construct a case in her mind that I was a porn-addicted prostitute who practiced Satanism.

(While watching football; most of my bookmarked sites have to do with the University of Tennessee athletic department.)

But just think about that for a moment. We've all heard cases about people accused of child pornography and the things investigators found on their hard drives. What if some bigoted attorney made a mountain out of a molehill--using things like this against a falsely accused person?

Not saying, of course, that the clueless, nosy, wandering asshat who strolled by my computer would ever be intelligent enough to even get into law school, but you never can tell. Am I worried about it? No, not really. It's just one of those things that made me think for a few minutes. And now, naturally enough, I've set up a whole section of my bookmarked pages in a folder that reads "These sites will help you convict me."

I'm such a smartass. Good thing I'm not a Satanist to boot.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To...

Way back in the day, I was a member of the Junior Classical League in Clarksville, Tennessee. My two best friends throughout school, a pair of evil twins named Ed and Jim Long, and I competed for four years for our high school and our state. Every August around this time, we were off at the National Junior Classical League convention, from which we would emerge with lots of awards.

They won more than I did.

I was a two-trick pony. I was the school expert on classical mythology and I was the mean member of our certamen team. Certamen (the latin word for battle) is the JCL version of Quiz Bowl. I was mean and I was quick, so much so that our Latin teacher Grady Warren called me Fauces.

Jaws.

At any rate, we always had a blast. I was the one who had to be constantly watched. I was such a high-strung kid that disaster invariably followed me at conventions. My freshman year, I actually made it onto the lower level certamen team (almost unheard of) and wanted to win so badly. I sprained my ankle on the second day of the convention, and when we lost to Virgina (darn them anyway) I was so upset that I limped offstage in front of the thousands of kids attending the assembly bawling my eyes out.

Yeah, I really was that kind of kid.

At any rate, I think the JCL conventions pretty much helped me to establish my self-identity in high school. I was never as quietly brilliant as the twins, but I was so flamboyantly competitive and so viciously visible that for some reason people equated me with them. I'll never forget how, after two years of coming in second in the mythology test at nationals, in my junior year I finally won it.

Everyone was so pleased that even our villainous arch-rivals from WT Woodson in Fairfax, Virginia, stood up and applauded as I accepted.

Nuts, huh?

At any rate, this evening that same Ed Long (now a Latin teacher in our hometown)posted a video from this year's National Junior Classical League convention. I was so flabbergasted watching it--it took me straight back to high school and the energy, the excitement that overwhelmed those Latin conventions. I spent a little time remembering all the great times, all the good friends I'd made there. I even spared a moment to remember how, when we went to Niagara Falls, I crossed over to the Canadian side with a couple of the chaperones (including Laura Lindsey, now married to Ed Long and a Latin teacher back home herself) for a nice dinner and how much trouble they got into because we were late for curfew.

I didn't get into trouble. I was with the chaperones. *grin* Ah, those were the days.

In case you wanted to check the video out, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKa89m8R9g The Tennessee JCL won the Spirit award for big states. Once upon a time, I too sat in an auditorium and chanted "T-E-double N-E-double S-double E-TENNESSEE!" while wearing a toga and thinking about my certamen match later that day. Once upon a time, those chaperones were worried about whatever disaster I brought instead of these kids. Once upon a time, this convention was the most important thing in my young life.

The Junior Classical League--one of the great academic testing grounds in the United States. Congratulations to all of them--and especial blessings to Grady and Dr. Kaye Warren, who have taught three generations of Latin students in Clarksville, Tennessee. I dedicated The Asphodel Cycle to these amazing teachers because if it weren't for them, Asphodel would never have come to pass.

Spare a thought for your greatest teachers today. I have, and the memory has been heartwarming.

Melding New Ideas and a New Review

First, the good news.

The Asphodel Cycle 2: The Gift of Redemption has just been reviewed by ChrisChat Reviews. The book was given a four out of four rating! Here's part of what the reviewer had to say:

"...There have been times I have felt cheated when reading a fantasy quest…Ms. Summers never cheats. Each of her books is packed with intensity and gentleness. Still she leaves you craving more.While reading "Gift of Redemption" I felt there was an underlying meaning to Tamsen's journey. There is more to her adventure and battle, she is learning her own truth, her strength of being. How does a writer capture this? This is the craft of writing, which Ms. Summers dominates..."

Zoinks! My day is full of sunshine today! You can read the rest of the review at ChrisChat Reviews.

Now for the rest of the story.

Every once in a while, someone will say something that strikes a chord with me. My husband is particularly good at this. I've been futzing around with some different story ideas for a few weeks. I'm still working on the horror stories, but an urban fantasy concept has been nagging me, a couple of Greek myths, a little bit of traditional high fantasy--and I couldn't settle on one particular idea.

Naturally, this really kind of pissed me off. So I was moping last night, (waiting for Ghost Hunters' season premiere to start) and my husband started to tell me about a dream he'd had that was bothering him. I was pretty much just pretending to listen--you wives out there know what I'm talking about--when all of a sudden something he said struck that idea bell that tolls so infrequently in my overworked head. Before I knew what was happening, we were brainstorming a story plot.

And after he went to bed, it took off. It took off the same way that Deception did; that Darkshifters and Asphodel and Terella did. I'm not going to say much about it, other than this:
Plato, in his Socratic dialogue to Timaeus, spoke of a demiurge which is an ultimate creation myth deity. In some ways, Plato's demiurge was the first benevolent god--once who wanted a world that was completely good but was hampered by the matter of Chaos that he had to work with when he formed the world. Look it up; check it out--then you might have an idea of where I'm going.

Or starting.

Whichever works.

I've never been one for dystopian novels, but this one just might come close. Oh NO! Am I turning into an intellectual in my dotage? God forbid! I've always been perfectly happy being a genre hack writer in the past...maybe I'm evolving.

Maybe it's time I did.

Oh, The Horror!

Someone asked me once how I decide what stories to write. I responded that I write what I feel compelled to write.

Interestingly enough, lately I've been compelled to write horror.

After delving into the paranormal with Deception Enters Stage Left, I find myself splitting my writing time these days between two horror stories. One deals with the return of an ancient and well-documented (in real life) poltergeist and the other deals withs an entirely fictional demonic possession. Last week, working on the possession story, I actually scared myself enough to dig out my First Communion medal.

Needless to say, I was rather pleased.

Maybe it's because I'm facing horrors in my real life that I am currently drawn to the darker side of things. My husband and I are contemplating a move back to Tennessee. Normally, that wouldn't seem to be so horrible until you consider the terrors of packing up my entire household--including all the cats--and transporting it across two states. That's a hell of a lot of kitty sedatives. It's almost enough to make me groan in horror and the thought of boxing up my library most definitely is.

I've always defined myself as a speculative fiction writer. I don't 'write what I know' so much as I write what I see in the convoluted avenues of my imagination. Lately, I've turned off the broad streets of fantasy and into the back alleys of horror and I've found that I like the detour.

But--back to fantasy for a minute. I got a great review earlier this week from Love Romances and More for The Asphodel Cycle 4: Apostle of Asphodel. In part, the review reads:

"...Ms. Summers creates complex characters that continue to grow as you read this series. All the characters, new and old, will keep your attention as you try to figure out along with Tamsen, what her objective is and if she can overcome the obstacles placed in her path. I highly enjoyed this entire series but am sincerely hoping Ms. Summers continues on with Asphodel and her great cast of characters..."

Apostle received five hearts (out of five possible) and an absolute rave! You have to love that! While it doesn't mitigate the ebony recesses of the manuscripts growing on my hard drive, it certainly goes a long way toward illuminating those fantasy worlds I love and hold so dear. You can read the rest of the review here. And who knows? Maybe I will go back to Asphodel someday--at least when I finish the fourth book of the second series. *wink*

But until then, let the horror commence.