Wednesday Words: Seed to Harvest

Good morning!

Welcome to Wednesday Words, where I share with you all a piece of what I am reading this week using Random.org. I've also decided to start adding the actual cover on this day. I think it helps with visuals. :)

Yesterday, I (sort of) began Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, the first novel in the collection Seed to Harvest. I'm only a couple of pages in, but it looks to be about two immortals. Immortals are always intriguing. :)

There are 253 pages in Wild Seed, so using Random to pick a page, it has chosen...............page 111.

There are about 29 lines on that page, so Random, do you stuff..................line 4. It's an answer to a question, so I'll add that, too.

"I will obey," she muttered, then faced him defiantly. "When will I have my own house? My own cooking fire?"

"When you've learned what to do with them."

Ouch.

What are you reading this week?

Wednesday Words: Bloodchild and Other Stories

Good morning!

I got snowed in yesterday (FINALLY!) and as it was Fat Tuesday, I'm kinda not alive yet sitting at my desk at work. But that doesn't mean you all miss out!

Welcome back to Wednesday Words, where I share with you all a piece of what I'm reading using Random.org to pick a page and some lines for me to read. Last week, most of the books I'd put on hold in the library (like 4 of 8, I think) came in, so I have begun Octavia Butler's Bloodchild and Other Stories, 2nd ed.

And even though Goodreads says there are 224 pages in this edition, there are actually 214. I wonder how they messed that up.

So, there are 214 pages in Bloodchild and other Stories, and Random has chosen...................page 12, a page from the title story, "Bloodchild"!

There are about 28 lines on this particular page, and Random has chosen......................line 9.

Now the pipe could be turned so that one half slid around the the other and a rifle could be stored inside. This wasn't our only gun, but it was our most easily accessible one.

"Bloodchild" was a pretty weird story that Octavia Butler wrote to overcome her fear of those flies in South American that lay eggs in your wounds. I liked the second story, "The Evening and The Morning and The Night," better.

What are you reading this week?

Friday Freeday: The Feels

Happy Friday!

So, I've read a lot of books in my day (who of us hasn't?), and every now and then, there is a book that just sticks into my spirit and sews itself into my soul. That's really dramatic, but that's the best way to explain it.

The first book that ever did that to me was The Outsiders back in the 7th grade, and I spent a whole half of a class period bawling my eyes out as quietly as possible when Johnny died. Then, I spent a year or two trying to write a book like it because I wanted to see more like it.

Thinking of all of the books I read between 1998 (sheesh) and now, another book didn't really touch me like that until Octavia Butler's Fledgling. Shori's hardship bled through the pages, and I was an emotional wreck through most of the story. That it was Octavia's last book before she died also left such a huge mark. I call her my spirit mother and wrote a novella that may never see daylight but continues the story with Shori's daughter Ruby. I wanted to expand on the world of which she only got to give us a smidgen, and I hope one day someone will see it and say I did well.

The next books that touched me that hard was the Enduring Flame Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. This was the first solid fantasy book I picked up from the library, and what struck me most was how different it was from the general medieval fantasy that dominates the genre. The language was genuine and modern, and the main characters, even though they were boys, were just like me in a sense. I related to them and went through their trials with them on a deep, personal level. These novels inspired me because they helped me know there is a place for my book out there, and it doesn't have to be the traditional fantasy to make it.

If you follow me on Twitter and don't have a non-stop feed (I do) so that you've seen my tweets, you know I just finished N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy and will not be reading again for another couple of days to recover. She doesn't know it yet, but she is now my spirit sister. The emotions and struggles tied into these three books definitely left their mark on me. The stories were rich and different, and complete. (PAUSE. What is The Awakened Kingdom? Oh, my God, it's a fourth book. I'm dying right now. I am now writing you all from the grave.) I've read other authors in binge-mode when I discover them, but I feel like Ms. Jemisin will be on the same level for me as Octavia Butler, a new look at writing that I understand on new levels that I didn't ever expect to reach. I'm very excited about her and reading more (Oh my God oh my God, I can't wait for payday) of her brilliant works.

Do you have any books or authors that touched you in a special way?

Hookers & Hangers (W.I.P.)

So, I liked the idea of putting up the first (hooker) and last (hanger) lines of your work to see if they're memorable or can pull a reader into the work. I wanted to try it on my current W.I.P., a tribute sequel titled Ruby. It looks like it will only hit novella length, but that's okay.

Chapter 1 Hooker: We are Ina. I had heard those words so many times as I grew up that I didn’t know we were considered different until Momma told us her past.

Chapter 3 Hanger: Later that evening, the Vetrovs' jet crashed.

Chapter 4 Hanger: "Shower before your parents smell him on you."

Chapter 5 Hooker: Just as he said, they left soon after sunset.

Chapter 5 Hanger: “I didn’t want you to live in this kind of world…We’ll have justice. I swear it.”

Chapter 6 Hooker: “And just how do you presume to discover who the culprits are this time?” Joan Braithwaite asked Momma.

Chapter 6 Hanger: “Joel filled us in,” Poppa said. “We’re going to call a Council of the Goddess.”

Chapter 8 Hooker: We received clearance to travel up to New Brunswick on the fifth day of my restriction.

I'm currently working on Chapter 8, so that's all of the eventful ones, I think. :)

Next Project: Ruby, a tribute sequel

I just noticed aspiration has a lot of different meanings.

Anyhow, I now have a critique partner and a beta reader for Save the Queen, and while I hope there aren't too many more changes I need to make on it, I'm glad to get some new eyes on this one. I was 19 when I started writing it, so finishing it at 26, of course I had a lot of growth, and after 2 years editing and revising, it's not a TOTALLY different story, but I do think it's better than when I started it. Hopefully, I can get some more beta readers, but Facebook only got me one loyal friend, whose been reading my stuff since we were in the 4th grade. I'll have to look at AQC to see where else to get readers.

And now that I'm "done" with it for now, I started working on a tribute sequel for Octavia Butler's Fledgling. It was her last published novel before she died, and I loved it. It's about a little girl who wakes up burned and skull-fractured in a bunch of ruins, basically, and when she heals and gets out into the world, she learns she's a 53-year-old vampire named Shori. She's not really a vampire, but her race was the cause of all the folklore, and she has to find out what happened to her and her family because she permanently lost her memory. I've seen mixed reviews: most people (the ones with sense *wink*) loved it. A few were extremely uncomfortable with it, and a few others were turned off by the court hearing the book turns into for the last third of the story. I personally loved everything about the book. It has action, mystery, sex (yeeaah haha); it made me happy, sad, angry. A good book takes you there, and for me, Octavia Butler usually succeeded in that anyhow.

So the sequel I started actually was derived from a series of vampire roleplays I used to do online with some friends. I played two characters, a cannibal/wendigo named Rubix and a 300-year-old vampire named Finlay "Falon" Moynahan (he was very Irish). I had begun writing stories for them and some of the other vampires that one of the guys said I could use that he created, and I'd even wrote a long backstory sequence for Falon and some shorter stories, but I knew they weren't going to see the light of day. I'm not even sure how the idea came to me to write them as Ina (the race in Fledgling), since I read the book either last year or the year before, but it was on my mind the last few months that it was a good place to put them. So, I read the book again, took notes as I did, compiled them, and started writing the story circling Shori's birth daughter Ruby as she prepares to (looking for a good word) spawn (ew) the next generation of dark-skinned Ina.

Shori isn't old enough to mate but is already bound to her mates when we are introduced to her, so I am working from scratch on those aspects, which is kind of cool, I think. I also want to use some of the Ina language, which means, of course, creating it, but I think I can do it. Butler described the alphabet, so at least I have something to work with.

I will keep working on it and see how it turns out. It's a really important piece to me, because of how memorable Fledgling is, and to keep the memory of some of my favorite roleplay characters alive.