Learning to See

Too many people tell me that they cannot write. They've forgotten, or never learned, what makes a story interesting. Remember sitting on the floor while someone read a story? Did you feel like you were part of it? Did you know there was another magical world somewhere?

Writing to make it sound real is a muscle everyone can develop. You have to learn how to see. Not just look at something, but really see it. It's like Sherlock Holmes when he said, "...you see, but do not observe."

Pick an object. Let's try a leaf. Finger it, roll it around, blow on it, study it. How do the veins move across it? What color green is it? Or is it red, yellow, and orange? Is it soft? Is it round or sharply pointed? Once you know what it looks like, try finding something the parts remind you of. Then you can write about it.

My freewrite: Leaves are such simple things, yet not. The veins trace a map over the surface, like some mindless road from an ancient land, the pattern and logic was lost long ago. The curl at its arrow tip wraps just around my little finger, a green cape with saw-toothed edges. Just where it rolls across the top of my finger, the dark green glares a white line. I let it drop, twirling back and forth on the breeze. It hits the sidewalk like the soft tap of a finger on glass, then skitters across the sidewalk before the breeze until the curl holds a long blade of glass. It hangs there, shaking, rasping against the ground, till the vengeful air whips it up and away.

A Long Time...

Wow, it's been too long. I had a stack of books I was going towrite reviews for, but I haven't had any time to do it. Know, though, I haven't been idle. I've read too many books to post, including almost a dozen Agatha Christie mysteries.

My biggest excitement is my writing. Rather, it's my preparations for writing. I've blown the dust of some old ideas, straightened then up, ironed out some kinks, and done my research. Here comes my own adaptation of Robin Hood.

I'll keep you posted as I go. So far, I've been looking into the Crusades, English history, weaponry, forestry, etc. A little more (and a wrinkle or two more to iron out) and I should be able to start writing.

I won't give away the story, but the main character is Marian...

Bookworm Strikes Again

Okay, I'm officially a word-nerd. I stayed up late last night to read the new Robin McKinley book and loved it. I think she's one of my favorite authors.

Chalice by Robin McKinley

Marisol is new and unexperienced, but she must keep her land together. As the Chalice of the Circle she binds and witnesses everything that happens in the Willowlands. Most new Chalices have been apprenticed before they must take hold of the land yet Marisol had no idea when her cellar filled with honey mead, her goats began giving milk almost too fast for her to take care of them, and her hives were literally overflowing with honey.

But she doesn't have much time to get used to her new job because the new Master is coming, he who will help rule the Willowlands is coming back from the Priests of Fire. He more Fire now than human and Marisol must bind him to the land and the people to him if thier homes are not going to be torn apart by the outblood Heir. If she fails, all of Willowlands will be lost.

Chalice is the story of a simple farm girl who must make the choice between life and death for her people and land. Will she have the wisdom to make the right choices?

The Best New Reads

The 13th Reality by James Dashner

This is my current new read and I can hardly put it down to write this. Atticus (also known as Tick) finds his life forever changed when he receives a simple yellow envelope with a challenge: Solve the clues to save many lives or burn the letter and the madness will end.

He holds out while being chased by assassins, hornets let loose in his room, and smokey-looking phantoms whose cry will turn his brain to mush, but will he live and figure out the magic words by the deadline or will he be one who fails.

Join a wild crew of characters that covers the world and beyond and defeat the horrible Lemon Lady (aka Mistress Jane) and solve the clues before Tick does.

Before Midnight by Cameron Dokey

Here's another fairytale re-write, and one of the best so far. Dokey puts a strange twist on the classic tale; the stepmother is very kind yet unhappy, not cruel. After being forced to marry Etienne de Brabant and being sent to his country estate, she tries hard to settle in and learn the staff including the young Cindrillon.

Cindrillon has been raised by the wise, old housekeeper and doesn't want to hurt her new stepmother so hides her identity. Will she betray her father, or herself? Will she make it to the ball or hide in the house, unknown? Does her father ever acknowledge her? At what of the handsome stableboy Raoul?