SECIONDARY CHARACTERS NEED ZIP - TUESDAY only not

For work, I'm writing Individual Activity Support Plans and Risk Assessments: lots and lots of them. And, in my spare time, I'm applying for jobs. You know when you see the perfect job: not a comparable job... or even a well-paid one, but the job you find totally inspirational; the job you've always wanted but didn't know exists?  I'm only allowing myself to glance over my shoulder at one of the jobs I'm applying for - I don't want it to know how much I want it. I'm working out how to sell my skilful self without resorting to grovelling or, worse still, to opting for the Oliver Twist's-eyes approach.

On the Reading front, I'm having so much fun reading Tessa Dare: yet, I rarely read Regency novels.

SHARON SHINN

On the Writing front, I'm writing the last words for Hal Longleat today. As it has been seen by Betas, this is the slightly more polished end of the first draft. I have specific revisions to do. I have been concentrating on speech patterns for Hal and the other pages. The last specific revision is to check the character development arcs for the other pages - I can't allow any saggy support characters to wobble their way around and through my MG novel ;)

DONALD MAASS: TIPS TO WRITE TO:

Secondary characters sometimes need zip.  Here’s a simple way to work on that…

71 Pick a character other than your MC.  What would your MC never, ever guess about this person?  Spring that surprise.

Zzzz...SNOOZE - A to Z CHALLENGED

Z is for Zzzzz ....
snooze.

Each post for the A to Z Challenge is the challenge I set for myself.

When he gets to Castle Haw, 
Hal can sleep too.

Z is for zzzzz snoozing. It could be that after a month of trying to get around all 2,000 linked blogs, I’m ready for some serious sleep. But, no! Z is for Zzzz because when I find a book I LOVE I forget I’m supposed to include sleep in my life.

I love being so engrossed in a book I can’t put it down. This has been so since back in the day when I sat on the window ledge, in my bedroom, reading by street light to my new spot on the sofa when the house is all quiet… except the creaking.

Books I lost sleep over:

Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

Harry Potter – all of them - JK Rowling

The Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb

Angels and Demons and Deception Point – Dan Brown

Glass Houses – Rachel Caine

The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett

Shiver – Maggie Stiefvater

Game of Thrones – all of them – George RR Martin

The Twilights and The Host - Stephenie Meyer 

The Tale of the Body Thief – Anne Rice

Divergent – Veronica Roth

HAL LONGLEAT AND THE TROUBLE WITH TRUTH

Edith’s tightened her lips. She was quiet for a moment. “The crusader asked Lord Courtney to free you from his service.”

Hal shivered, his head ached.

“All tall and brave, the crusader stood by the fireplace.” She grinned as she stepped back a pace. She planted her feet wide, chin high, placed her hands on her wide hips. In a few moves she transformed from a kitchen maid to the very image of something much more powerful. She looked nothing like Sir Ralf de Moreville, Lord of Ravendale, but Hal could see how the knight must have looked. “I made a promise to those who died so I could live!”

Even playing the character, Edith shook her head when Hal did. They both knew Lord Courtney wouldn’t be interested in promises made to dead men.

“It is a debt of honour,” she said, raising her hand until her finger pointed to the heavens. “I promised the men who saved my life that I would find and train their sons.” She deepened her voice and continued, “I must make them my pages.”

Could YOU have been gifted with the ability to identify and eliminate weak and brittle phrases from your work? To the uninitiated, these interlopers look like quality imagery.

CLICHÉ RAIDERS: REWRITE!

   Or sleep ;)

FOR Z, I CHOSE Zzzz AND CHANGED IT TO Zzzzz anyway ;) WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR Z POST?

READING - A to Z CHALLENGED

Each post for the A to Z Challenge is the challenge I set for myself.

Merlin, probably making sure
he is written into the tales of
King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table ;)

R is for READING

R is for Reading! 

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”      

both quotes from Stephen King

HAL LONGLEAT AND THE TROUBLE WITH TRUTH

Hal hid in the shadows by the stable door when everyone else crowded forward to get a better view. He was quick, and thin as a whippet, and ready to dart back inside if anyone came to find him.

All day, the wind had cut through the courtyard and bitten at Hal until hands were red and raw. When shaking didn’t work, he cupped his hands and blew to warm his fingers. Then he chewed on his a nail, rubbing the jagged edge against his tooth.

“I see you’re keeping out of the way.”

“Edith!” he said, quickly. He looked around. There was no one else there. He guessed he hadn’t heard the kitchen maid arriving over the noise in the castle courtyard. “I can't watch.”

Could YOU have been gifted with the ability to identify and eliminate weak and brittle phrases from your work? To the uninitiated, these interlopers look like quality imagery.

CLICHÉ RAIDERS: REWRITE!

•           raining cats and dogs (and hailing taxis)

•           read my lips

•           reinventing the wheel

•           resounding silence

•           right as rain

•           rings true

•           risk life and limb

•           rotten apple in a barrel, one

•           ruffled feathers

•           ruled with a rod of iron

FOR R, I CHOSE READING. WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR R POST?

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING? I NEED A RECOMMENDATION

THURSDAY STYLE

Thursday and Tuesday have many similarities, they are both days of the week, they both start with letter T,  and I'm supposed to post on them.
I was all set to hit post on Tuesday but I was all-excited about the Man Utd game that didn't go the way I hoped it was destined to go. Now, I hate football... and I will until Saturday's fixture against West Ham. I also follow the cricket, England were trying to play in New Zealand - I think it's a shame the Kiwi team didn't let them have a proper turn, so far. This has not been a good week. 

Thank goodness for reading and writing - I like both of them.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. 

Anyone can play along:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title and the author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Once is about a boy called Felix.

Once it was 1942, and Felix had to pretend he was a catholic orphan when in fact he was Jewish – and a little confused at how much the world he knew was changing.

Once is a harrowing and emotional tale about a hopeful, if naïve, little boy.

Once Felix couldn’t imagine the depths of evil that shadowed the world but, well, it never entered his head that what he was experiencing was worse than a lot of misunderstandings.

pg 149 This is why Once was followed by Then

“You know when you jump off a moving train and  Nazis shoot at you with machine guns and you see sharp tree trunks coming at you and then you hit the ground so hard you feel like you’ve smashed your head open and bullets have gone through your chest and you don’t survive even though you prayed to God, Mary, the Pope and Richmal Compton?

That’s what happened to poor Chaya”

These are Miz B's W...W...W... Wednesday questions:

What are you currently reading?

         A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

         by Ian Mortimer

What did you recently finish?

         Once 

         by Morris Gleitzman

What do you think you'll read next?

         The Raven Boys

         by Maggie Stiefvater

What are you reading? What book do you really recommend?

TEASER TUESDAY: FIRST BOOK FIRST - JOHN GREEN

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title and the author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Last week, I went out and bought The Fault in Our Stars but I didn’t want to read it. I wanted to savour preparing to read it: it’s on the shelf facing outwards so I can look at it.

I had seen and heard interviews of John Green talking about his work, and – for me – there’s nothing like an interview to send a reader out to track down a book.

Typically me, when I became fascinated by the new book, I went out to find the first.

Looking for Alaska? I didn’t know what I was expecting. What I found was more than it anyway.

I started reading all about Miles. Miles and boarding school. It was different, not the kind of boarding school story I was used to reading. Probably because this was a male writer, I thought.

All totally absorbed, I was page turning and having a wonderful time up to the point where my jaw dropped. I went back to check… but no, I hadn’t got it wrong I’d tripped up over the plot twist. I turned back and back. I re-read the whole book again up to the (can’t spoil it for you) plot turn. 

Amazingly, I hadn’t seen it coming. For the rest of the book I was wrung through the wringer, ending up as puddle.

I loved the characters, loved the writing.

LOOKING FOR ALASKA by John Green

But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.

I need to recover from “Alaska” before I read “The Fault in Our Stars” I’ve only got one heart and I need it.

WHY DO WE KEEP ASKING WHY?

TEASER, TWIST AND TIP-TOEING TOWARDS THE UNEXPECTED

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

I got all anti-frey on this book
Then I remembered it was
 written by Pittacus Lore ;)

• Share the title and the author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

THE POWER OF SIX

I wish the author was Pittacus Lore, Lorien's ruling elder. I have no trouble picturing him struggling to surviving on Earth while preparing for the war that will decide the fate of the last handful of free Loriens, and the fate of the people of Earth.

pg 11

We still share that secret, but somewhere along the way Adelina has stopped acknowledging it. Somewhere along the way the plan to bide our time until we felt strong enough and safe enough to leave has been replaced with Adelina's desire to simply stay - or her fear to leave.

As I'm sure you can all appreciate, I've been busy with work and life and writing.

Write-essential 2 - the twist in the plot - has been syphoning off my time lately.

Plot twists are essential. After vibrantly-real characters, the plot twist is the element of the story everyone remembers.

In my wip there’s a boy whose life changes unexpectedly. As one of a group, he learns new skills and gets embroiled in adventures.

There is tension in the group: animosity.

I wanted to hint that among the usual rivalries something was at play - something more extreme.

But I didn’t want to give the reader the plot twist painted in sky-high lettering at some point after chapter 3.

Rachelle Gardner, on her blog, said: "When you foreshadow, the reader usually doesn’t notice it when they initially read it. But later they might have an “aha” moment, remember it, and put two and two together.” A delicate touch is necessary if the reader isn’t consciously pick up on at first. “Often foreshadowing can’t even be detected until someone reads your novel for a second time. It’s that subtle."

My favourite plot twist came in a film. The plot twist at the end of The Sixth Sense - I didn't see it coming.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE TWIST IN FICTION OR IN FILMS?

READING: CAFE CULTURE, LITERALLY

libros buenosaires

National Literacy Trust Policy Adviser George Dugdale said:

“Literacy is at the heart of education and social justice, and in the modern world it is increasingly crucial. However, recent international comparisons have revealed worrying statistics about literacy in the UK."

My suggestion, to redress the balance, is to get books to adults, and children, in a non-threatening situation. The youngest children mimic their parents. Older ones influence their peers. Get books into Starbucks! 
Increase literacy, one latte at a time ;)

"The most beautiful thing about reading is talking about it," said Hernan Lombardi, Buenos Aires's Minister of Culture. In April of this year, a new city government scheme was created: 

• The plan was to put books on display in cafes and encourage patrons to pick them up and read them while they are there. 

• The aim was to promote literature and to encourage adults to read. The first collection chosen was the works of the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges. 

I miss Borders. Books and coffee: what a great combination. Many cafes, ranging from Betty's (deliciously quaint) Tea Rooms to the local MaccyDs provide newspapers. Imagine the scope and reach of a national scheme to increase reading by having libraries in cafes? Twitter trending on the great author debate - one author at a time. The coffee, and tea, shops of Britain - in town centres, train stations, shopping centres - all providing books to encourage reading and debate. 

 Starting one author at a time? Who would you select? 

If you are local, this event might be inspirational:

Life Stories Cafe:  True Storytelling Event 


Woolfson &Tay, a new independent bookshop, cafe, and gallery in Bermondsey Square, London SE1, has a programme of events including author talks, poetry open mics, and photo exhibits.  In December they are introducing: The Life Stories Cafe, inaugurated by poet Dorothea Smartt. 


Friday, Dec. 3   7.00 pm   £5   Bring your own wine - corkage applies.