Happy Beltane!

I've been home today for the second day in a row with a nasty UTI. I know it's nasty because it's taken three doses of antibiotic to make a dent. Usually, I see improvement in one dose. Anyway, after feeling like a truck ran over me since Saturday, I'm now improved to the point of feeling drained but able to breathe without panting and without the pain in my abdomen. Not fun.

I used the time to buy a Kindle copy of Kim Weiland's book, Outlining Your Novel. I've always thought outlines were useful, but when I would set down to create them, they'd never go anywhere, or I'd get distracted by something else and wind up not finishing it. Weiland gives an estimate of how long it takes to write a good novel outline (For her, it's 3 months.), and she gives useful tips on how to organize the planning of a novel. I've created a Novel Organization Template in my musevoices journal and have started two, one for Mindsorter and one for The Hand of Vengeance.

I haven't really progressed with either of these stories, and it's because I don't have a clear roadmap--at least for Mindsorter. For Hand of Vengeance, I'm using my characters and original plot idea from the Imperial Secrets RPG that I used to be in. I swear, that game could have been a series of novels in itself, and if no one else is writing their part of it, then, by God, I will. Something as beautiful and richly detailed as that game cannot be allowed to just die. It would be a sin.

In Pern, I'm co-writing a StarRise story with gypsy_anna and need to finish another story I was co-writing with her.

Speaking of Pern--Dave--Do you think we might get some Aerden and D'vor story action going on? I miss Aerden's best friend and his water-happy dragon. :D

Yes, you heard that right. I have found a fictional character (aside from Voldemort) who alarms Paul Graves.

The character is Rumail Deslucido from the Darkover novel, The Fall of Neskaya.

There's a scene in the opening chapters of that book in which Rumail, under the guise of assessing a boy named Coryn Leynier for a type of sickness that strikes Darkoven telepaths at puberty, does something else to him.

It involves making a midline incision in Coryn's astral body and inserting astral images of a handkerchief belonging to Coryn's mother, a strand of Coryn's hair, and a strand of Rumail's own hair, in Coryn's astral body cavity and then 'suturing' him up.

When I finished reading the scene, I thought, "Well, that was different." The little Paul in my head was whinging. "What is he doing? Why is he doing that? I do not like this at all!"

It looks to me as if Rumail is devising a way to exercise control over Coryn, but why? Judging from the chapter I'm now reading, I am about to find out.

*happy sigh* It's always fun when Paul is disturbed. :) *cackles evilly*

Little-known factoid about Paul--I based his use of legilimency on Darkover's use of the Overworld, because it makes more sense to me than the way Rowling does telepathy.

I finished Mockingjay, the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy, today. I was quite pleased with the ending. My friend gypsy_anna thinks the ending is rushed, but I am fine with it. To any teenagers disappointed that it wasn't a wildly romantic ending, all I can say is, Katniss was too messed up during most of the third book for wild romance to be even remotely realistic. This was a believable ending to her story.

But I am still not happy about the sentence fragments. *grins*

Next book: The Fall of Neskaya. My Kindle is a wonderful thing!

I decided to read the Hunger Games trilogy a couple of weeks ago when Mark and I went to see the movie. I'd heard that it was a very popular young adult series, but I'd never heard of it before, had no idea what it was about. I started reading up on the series in preparation for seeing the Hunger Games movie. Then I downloaded the books to my Kindle and started reading.

I have to say, Suzanne Collins tells a gripping story. I was riveted from page 1 and have remained so through the remaining two books. I'm on the third book, Mockingjay, now.

But the more of the books I have read, the more I am wondering how much of what I've always been told about the publishing industry is true.

I have always been told that, when you submit a book for publication, the mechanics--grammar, etc.--had better be perfect, or that will essentially be used as an excuse to decline your book unless the story is truly superior. Now, as I said, Collins has written a cracking good story.

Her books, however, are riddled with sentence fragments to a degree that is painful for me to read. Granted, she uses them only when Katniss is thinking--but they annoy me to no end because they could as easily be written as complete sentences; all Collins would have to do is insert dashes instead of periods in a few places, and she'd have complete sentences.

To me, that's not when you use a fragment. You use a fragment in dialogue, because that's how people speak. Perhaps you also use them to show stream-of-consciousness thinking, if you can do so without confusing the reader. You don't use fragments when you could just as easily use complete sentences.

I also think that the opening chapters of Mockingjay suffer because Collins doesn't use the first person point of view well. The opening chapters, in which Katniss describes District 13, suffer from a big dose of 'Tell, don't show.' The whole point of having a first person point of view is to give a book immediacy. I don't want to be told that everyone in District 13 wears the same color and style of clothing. I want to feel, in her first encounter with District 13's people, Katniss' shock at how drab and utilitarian their way of life is. I want to taste the boring food, walk around living quarters that look like everyone else's...something instead of just being told about it.

So my question is, how did The Hunger Games get accepted for publication in the first place, and why wasn't it reamed by a proofreader immediately? Collins was a bestselling author before the Katniss books; she has a whole other series that she wrote before Katniss' story. Is it just that the rules for established, bestselling authors are more lenient than those for unpublished authors? Well--yes, they are. But seriously, that many sentence fragments?!

What is this supposed to teach the teenagers reading these books? The message I'm getting is that grammar need not be bothered with. It's as if successful authors become like Gregory House--it doesn't matter what rules they break, as long as the patient lives--or the book sells. It is very difficult to argue for the importance of maintaining good grammar in the face of a book series that has earned $50 million.

I don't want to write like that--ever. I don't want to be sloppy--not about the story, the characters, or the mechanics. I want my editor, should I ever get one, to help me make my novels the best they can possibly be in all respects. I don't ever want to get so famous that editors start to think they don't have to bother correcting me because anything I write will sell.

Okay, actually, I would love to be that successful a writer, but anyway...

I'm sorry for sounding so grouchy and resentful. Frankly, I know that, for all my good grammar, Collins could probably write and plot rings around me; she really is brilliant at storytelling and use of her characters. But it's still frustrating to see so many blatant sentence fragments in print. There is a part of me that is just deeply offended by that.

Current Mood: perplexed

The ONTD (Oh No They Didn't) Community is discussing various fiction authors' opinions about the writing of fan fiction today. I'm not a member of the community, so I couldn't post there, but here are my feelings.

First off, I do write the occasional Harry Potter fan fiction story and the more frequent Pern one, so I can't exactly oppose it without being a hypocrite.

If I were a professionally-published author, it would disturb me greatly if fans wrote stories featuring my characters without my permission. There are some genres of fan fiction that I would be very offended to find my characters being used in.

I prefer Anne McCaffrey's approach: Use of my settings would be fine, but use of any of my characters would not at all be permitted. Only certain very close friends of mine, who have known me for years, would have permission to write my characters...That would be Viv, Anna, Hope, Dave, Suse, and Tricia. And there are only specific characters whom each of those friends would be appropriate for.

Except for Dave...I don't think Dave has ever read anything about my character Paul Graves, but I suspect he'd figure him out very quickly and would probably write him way better than I do. :)

Current Mood: contemplative

Having my Kindle has enabled me to go back to reading the way I used to read before I developed my cataract. Even though I had it removed, I still wasn't able to read as much as before. Now, however, I'm back to something approaching normal. I've been reading the following since last November:

Killing Lincoln - Bill O'Reilly
The Forensics of Criminal Minds
Elizabeth's Women (history)
A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
Zandru's Forge - Deborah Ross with Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Brother's Price - Wen Spencer
The Splendor Falls - Rosemary Clement Moore
Texas Gothic - Rosemary Clement-Moore
Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner - Scott Cunningham
Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl and Why You Should Too The Motley Fool and a co-author.

I'm rereading The Cloud of Unknowing and also read a book about the Jack the Ripper murders, but I can't remember the title or author.

Zandru's Forge is a book I wanted to read when I had the cataract but didn't buy because it would have taken so much effort. Being able to read it now is a good feeling. :)

I think I figured out wizarding genetics tonight!

I have been wracking my brain for years, trying to figure out wizarding genetics. It never made sense to me how one could have both muggleborn wizards and squibs. I always figured that the gene for magic was a recessive trait, which meant that it should be impossible for two wizards to ever have a squib child.

Tonight, I found out how it works. Magic is genetically inherited in two (and possibly more) ways.

I was reading about a genetic condition called Waardenburg syndrome, which causes deafness and hypopigmentation of the skin, among other things.

Waardenburg's occurs in several types, Some types of it are autosomal-recessive, which means that a child must have two copies of the gene to be affected, and children of either sex can be affected. Other types of it are autosomal-dominant, which means that a child of either sex will get Waardenburg's even if he has only one copy of the gene for it from his parents.

I haven't totally worked out the genetics, but for me, this somewhat explains the squibs and muggleborns puzzle. I don't know if Rowling knew about the genetics of Waardenburg's, but this is just amazing and wonderful to me.

If I'm right, and the gene for magic is recessive in muggleborns and dominant in squibs (who don't inherit the gene at all), then the DE are wrong. Muggleborn wizards have to be, in fact, pureblooded in a manner of speaking, since the only way they can acquire magic is if they have two copies of the gene.

Current Mood: accomplished

This was a good Christmas. :)

Mark and I and our friend Tom went to my sister Lisa's house for Christmas dinner. We were there with her family, my Dad, my cousin David, and my Grandma Gaudiano. It was a very nice dinner--not too large; just right. We got to play with Lisa's dog Samson, who is a rough-coat German Shepherd--a big dog!

I'm now at home and have read some stuff in the Harry Potter RPG I'm in and have been chatting with vdansk. I'm actually beginning to feel hungry again. (g)

I hope all of you have a truly joyous Christmas and that you're able to be with family and friends you love.

Merry Christmas!

Current Mood: peaceful

53,967 words.

*faints*

Going to bed now...

Current Mood: exhausted

So the entire Lord of the Rings story is a tale describing how to destroy...a horcrux.

*facepalms*

Current Mood: indescribable

I'm in love. I have found the works of .logospilgrim.

How can I not love essays on mysticism and Severus Snape, all in one package? I wonder if sistermagpie has read these? I can't wait until payday, when I will buy them! Alas, they are not in the Kindle. *whines*

hp_snape should read these, if he hasn't, already. I think he would appreciate them a lot.

Current Mood: enthralled

Science fiction author Anne McCaffrey died Tuesday, November 22, at age 85. She was the author of the Dragonriders of Pern series, as well as the Ship Who Sang series, the Talents series, and other very enjoyable SF books. I had the pleasure of meeting her once and found her to be a delightful person, with interesting stories to tell about her home and her writing.

McCaffrey's work has had a profound impact on my life because through it, I found Pern writing fandom and some of the very best friends ever. I have been a member of one Pern club or another since 1985. I have written numerous stories about my Weyrhealer, Aerden, at StarRise Weyr, and my brownrider, D'mir, at Fort Weyr. I have other characters, but those two are among the dearest to my heart.

Pern fans are some of the nicest, most creative people you will ever meet, and we all love to write, whether it be about Pern or our own original fiction. Sometimes, the fan stories become more real-feeling than the canon novels, simply because the fan stories are immediate, and they're about characters you have come to know and love through mutual development of them. I can't wait for NaNoWriMo to be over, so I can resume writing Pern fiction. I have missed Aerden this month; my brain has been taken over by the main character of my NaNo novel.

Anne, you will be greatly missed, but your wonderful stories and the fandom inventions will live on, and I cannot thank you enough for that.

My husband Mark has written an article about her passing. Members of StarRise Weyr might notice a familiar link.

PS: I hope you all who live in the US had a happy Thanksgiving! I'm stuffed. When I can figure out how to upload a picture from my cellphone to the computer, I'll post a photo my sister Lisa took of her rough-coat German shepherd, Samson. He's a beauty!

Your result for The Harry Potter Husband Test...

Mrs. Snape

Your perfect HP man is Severus Snape.

Take The Harry Potter Husband Test at HelloQuizzy

hp_snape

Current Mood: cheerful

1225 words for today. If I can write more this evening, I will.

Edit: As of 9:50pm, my word count for today is 1860 words.

Just to prove that I really am writing something and also because Seth cracks me up.

( Paul and Seth Chatting about Heresy )

And yes, Seth's non-answer there is significant.