AWOL

Spring Break beckons and I'm actually doing a break: I'm headed into the vastness where I will probably not have any Internet connection. I know. The thought truly boggles.

On the bright side, I get to spend the week with my very best friend and mentor and compadre in various nefarious crimes. (As she is some 45 years older than I am, I try to spend as much time as possible with her since Time is not on our side. Neither is the distance factor. But friendship IS, which is what counts, you know.)

Write on, friends. I'll be checking in with you all when I get back.

Compose a Couplet

If you waxed poetic with the Day in a Sentence fun, then you're in for a treat! Dogtrax is sponsoring a Day in a Couplet over at his site.

All you have to do is dice up your day into a skillet, sizzle over medium heat, and sprinkle some writerly mojo on it. Concoct a couplet. Post it. It's that simple!

See you there!

Check Out the New Team Blog!

Several writerly friends and I are launching a team blog on April 1st. Ahem. No, it's not meant to be a huge April Fool's Joke. Seriously!

[On the other hand, Anthony Pacheco: Hack Writer is also a member, so maybe... who knows, really!]

Do sneak in for a pre-launch peek -- we're just hanging out, introducing ourselves, and taking requests. Well, Anthony is :)

Official Story:

The Adventures in Creative Writing Blog is a place where aspiring writers can come for inspiration, resources, an inside look from the trenches, and success stories. Because it is a focused team endeavor, we will do our best to offer both the published and the aspiring writer something useful, something fun, something worth writing home about.

Well, not everything, but

collaboration is cool!

Thought or Comment for RJ Anderson?

Aching to ask a question about faeries who have lost their powers? Wondering how your work can stand on its own, speaking a powerful message, without getting all preachy? Just wanna say, "hello and I wish you luck," because you're that kind of person? Well, here's your chance. If you have a thought or a comment for RJ Anderson or you just want to give her well wishes (or you just wanna rub the blarney stone, so to speak) give a shout out. Rumor has it that she just might stop by one day this week ;)

Faery Rebel: RJ Anderson Unveils the Writing Life

When I was a little girl, it didn't seem to me that writers were real people. Instead, they were otherworldly beings, touching down in our world just long enough to impart snippets of wisdom and adventure and magic. I wish I could say I've grown out of that world view, but, well, I'd be lying. And when you meet authors who reinforce such beautiful thoughts, how can you nay say them? Meet R.J. Anderson, author of Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter, and you will see exactly what I mean.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? How long did it take to finally commit to the dream?

I started writing my own stories for fun when I was eight, but it wasn't until I was twelve that I really decided I wanted to sit down and write a novel that could actually be published one day. That first book didn't make it much beyond the third chapter or so, but over the next seven years I wrote probably about half a million words of fan fiction and original short stories. I completed my first fantasy/SF novel at nineteen, and it was awful. But writing it—and especially finishing it—was a big step forward for me.

What aspect of Spell Hunter are you the proudest of?

Just the fact that it exists and is actually going to be sold in bookstores is huge for me! But as far as the story itself goes, I think I'm most pleased with the way that certain themes and… I hesitate to say "morals" because that makes it sound preachy, so maybe "ideals" is a better word… came out naturally in the course of revising the manuscript. I didn't want to force anything in there, but on the other hand, I didn't just want to write an exciting story with no depth or substance to it, so it was a relief when I realized that there actually was more going on than just "tough faery action heroine kicks crow butt, saves world, details at eleven".

What do you feel is your best writing strength?

I used to think I knew the answer to that question, and now I really don't! But a number of editors have told me they think my prose style is really strong, flows well and has a literary quality to it. Which is good to hear, because I tend to obsess about the rhythm of every phrase, the way it looks to me on the page, and sometimes have to rewrite a paragraph five or ten times before I'm satisfied. So it's nice to know I'm not totally wasting my time there!

What writing quirk of yours makes your family nuts?

When I'm really focused on writing, I tune out everything around me. So I can have a whole conversation with somebody while I'm staring at the computer, and say "uh-huh" and "yes" and "no" in all the right places, but as soon as they leave the room, I've forgotten everything they just said. Which they find very annoying when they try to talk to me about the same thing later and I just go "Huh?"

Born in Uganda, raised in Ontario, schooled in New Jersey: How have your various environments influenced your writing?

I was too young when we left Uganda to remember any of it, but I grew up hearing about it from my brothers and my parents all my life. So in the book I'm currently working on, when I was trying to decide on a foreign country for my missionary-kid hero to be coming from, I naturally thought of Uganda. Since then I've been doing a lot of research, trying to appreciate the country from the perspective of someone who's grown up there, and the more I learn about it the more I think I'd really love to go there someday!

As for Ontario, I've lived in so many different cities around the province that I've got a really good sense of how each community is different, how each one has its own character and atmosphere and history, its own kinds of stories to tell. I think that's helped me with my world-building as a fantasy author, and also given me a wide range of settings to draw on for contemporary books.

I was only in New Jersey for a year attending Bible school, but while I was there I wrote the first draft of the book that eventually became FAERY REBELS: SPELL HUNTER. The school campus had beautiful wooded grounds that I used to walk around every day, with huge old trees, a big pond, and a river with a bridge over it… all of which inspired me for settings and incidents in Knife's story.

C.S. Lewis is one of your favorite authors. How do you feel he's influenced your writing? Your world view?

Hugely. As a child my father read the Narnia books out loud to me, and that sparked my lifelong love of fantasy. Reading Lewis's essays on writing, particularly "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's To Be Said" and "On Three Ways of Writing for Children", helped me to understand something very important about writing for any audience – that you always have to let the story, the ideas and mental pictures that fire your imagination, come before anything else. You can't start with a message or a moral or even a "point" because if you do, the story will become glib and superficial; as Lewis wrote, "the only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author's mind." So when I write stories, I always start with the characters and their situation, and if anything of spiritual or philosophical significance develops naturally out of that, fine; but if it doesn't, well, I'm not going to force it in. Fiction and particularly fantasy can be wonderful for stimulating the imagination and getting the reader to think about the world in a new way, but it is a terrible medium for preaching sermons.

What advice do you have for authors seeking representation?

Firstly I always say: don't give up, no matter how many rejections you get or how frustratingly long the process takes. But at the same time, do take seriously any specific, constructive criticism you might receive, and try to learn from it. A comment like "This isn't the right manuscript for me" or "I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on this one" isn't going to tell you anything and you'll only drive yourself crazy trying to interpret it. But if you keep getting letters from agents that say things like, "Your story has an interesting concept, but I felt the characters lacked depth," or "I liked the plot, but the heroine's attitude and actions in that situation seemed unrealistic to me," then maybe character is something you need to work on.

Another crucial thing to remember is NEVER BE RUDE TO AN AGENT. Never write back some snippy, defensive letter telling them how wrong they are or how sorry they'll be that they rejected you. In fact the only thing you should ever write back to an agent who's rejected your manuscript is, "Thank you for your time and consideration." That isn't sucking up, that's just good manners, and depending on the quality of your writing it might even inspire the agent to offer you some valuable advice or refer you to another agent who would be a better match for your work. That's how it happened for me!

Thank you, Rebecca! You've been awesome, and now I'm more excited than ever to get my hands on Spell Hunter!

I enjoyed doing this interview -- thank you for coming up with such great questions!

Rescued from the Shelf: A Certain Slant of Light

I have, like most of you, piles of books. There are so many books that we don't have enough shelves for them -- even though our house is full of shelves. We have boxes of books and stacks of books and piles of books. We hoard our pennies to buy more shelves, but we always end up with more books. Somehow. Oddly. As if the universe were conspiring against us.

There are never enough hours in the day (yes, I know: a topic for an entire week of posts, debating a myriad of sides), so, of course, I've only read a portion of the books I own even though I'm always reading. Not too long ago, however, I rescued A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb from the shelf and finally devoured it.

I had originally picked out the book because of -- you guessed it -- the title. Any reference to Emily Dickinson immediately piques my interest. Secondly, the picture was intriguing: a girl with long hair mostly submerged in a bathtub with only her hands showing.

The premise -- a ghost who falls in love with the only boy who can see her -- is not that of a love story or that of teenage angst or even that of being invisible, although these elements all permeate the text. Instead, it's a novel that explores both acceptance and forgiveness, more specifically the ability to accept and forgive oneself for past failures, mistakes, missteps.

My review in a nutshell: As an English major, I enjoyed the references to literary figures woven into the text. As a writer, I appreciated the nuances of emotion, both teenage and adult, deftly unveiled through character development. As a reader, I reveled in the plot less traveled. As a teacher of teens for the past ten years, I had to admit: I've seen far too many students in Billy's predicament, with home lives in turmoil and drug and alcohol abuse constant companions. I've seen none in Jenny's, however, none who live imprisoned in some gestapo-like "Christian" household. That was the one unrealistic part, the part that felt like Whitcomb abused as some authorial soap-box of sorts. It left a metallic taste in my mouth, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book. Even though I recommend it to you now.

The Connection: A Certain Slant of Light perched on the chair next to my computer desk for a month or so before I happened to read on KatW's blog that she too was reading it. How funny that both of us picked up a book, published in 2005, and read it at the same time. I just love connections like that.

Meet Knife, a Faery Rebel

And here is the promised excerpt from Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter by R. J. Anderson. Her ability to combine vivid language with strong characters has sucked this reader into an exquisite world where faeries have lost their magic. Read, enjoy, salivate for the release date!

Although not released until April 28th, you can pre-order now from Amazon. (Don't forget: if you pre-order, you save money!)

(And friends in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, you can purchase now under the title Knife, though it has a different cover.)

***
Still clutching Paul's shirt, she gave one last kick--and felt herself shoot upward, shattering the pond's surface. She flung her head back and gulped air, then scissored her legs, propelling herself and the limp body in her grip toward the shore.

Her feet touched bottom almost at once. She stood up and dragged Paul through the shallows to the edge of the pool. His face was spattered with mud, eyes closed and mouth hanging open. Pulling him as far as she could up the shore, she wrenched him onto his side and began to pound his back. He lay motionless as she thumped him, and she feared that she had reached him too late. Then suddenly he coughed, and water gushed from his mouth.

She waited until he had stopped coughing before rolling him over again. His eyes remained closed, but when she laid a hand on his chest she could feel his breathing, ragged at first, but growing deeper. She slapped his cheeks. "Paul. Paul! Can you hear me?"

He did not respond. With her smallest finger she wiped the slime from his lashes, looking for some glimmer of consciousness beneath those lids. "Paul, please--"

His cheeks puffed out in a last, weak cough; he stirred, and opened his eyes.

"Aaaah!"

Alarmed, Knife let go of him and leaped back. Only then did she realize what had made him cry out, and she stared at her filth-spattered hands in disbelief.

"You," croaked Paul. "You're--"

"I'm big," said Knife blankly.

***
EXCERPT from pgs. 138-139 of FAERY REBELS: SPELL HUNTER (c) R.J. Anderson 2009