A while back I mentioned I wanted to share great book covers with you since I'm basically a big, fat, judgemental, book cover snob. So, here's a beauty: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. This cover is simple, yet vibrant and the picture along with the title font can't help but create a sense of mystery and build intrigue. Flip the book over and the back is just as suited for the fantastic: solid black with electric blue feathering on the top and bottom with a strong pitch for the book. The back reads: She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair. She wasn't innocent now..." and that's all. No kudos from editors/writers/critics. Just the pitch in blue text. Great stuff and I can't wait to dive in. Book Snob: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
A while back I mentioned I wanted to share great book covers with you since I'm basically a big, fat, judgemental, book cover snob. So, here's a beauty: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. This cover is simple, yet vibrant and the picture along with the title font can't help but create a sense of mystery and build intrigue. Flip the book over and the back is just as suited for the fantastic: solid black with electric blue feathering on the top and bottom with a strong pitch for the book. The back reads: She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair. She wasn't innocent now..." and that's all. No kudos from editors/writers/critics. Just the pitch in blue text. Great stuff and I can't wait to dive in. Getting Trapped in the Gap
Like a lot of people, I go through spurts of heavy creativity followed by plateaus of blahdom. Either I'm terribly intensive, slaving away on my story and annoyingly stuck in my own head, focused on the world I'm building for Elsbeth and Burning Spirit,...or I'm not. I'm either the crazy chick from The Craft, or I'm the girl next door: someone calm and fun. The problem is that you can't really get any work done in either situation. If you're girl-next-door (GND), then you're out having coffee and not working at all, and if you're crazy-bitch-from-the-craft (CBFC) you can't be objective about your work and you, my lovely readers, get left behind.
Embracing the Fantasy Genre
There's something I've been trying to wrap my head around for going on a year now, and that is the Fantasy genre and how I come to greet it. The second I think of Fantasy I picture dragons, fairies, knights, princesses in thick gowns, goblins, days of old, and a bunch of fresh bread baking in open flame ovens. This is clearly a stereotype of the genre since so many fantastic books are Fantasy without containing any of that, and a lot of books with those features are also great and engaging.Burning Spirit - The Pitch
February, so far, has been a busy month. Between housesitting and just about everyone coming down with some kind of temporary sickness, it's been hard to keep up with the blog and talk to you. However, when things get busy, I keep writing. I keep working on my witch novel, A Burning Spirit, editing, cutting, adding, etc.. But, to be honest, when the squeeze of time happens, I'm sorry, I choose the novel over the blog. If I didn't, then I wouldn't have anything to submit to agents/publishers down the road but an idea, a first draft, and a lot of blog entries. The Name Change
In case you've been here before and suddenly your world has been turned upside down and you think you're losing your mind because this lady won't use commas fear not! It's okay. You're in the same place you used to be in when you recognized everything but now it's all very different and somehow smells better.
What am I talking about? (I don'tknow, I'munder the weather andmy spacebar is still actingup.)
Actually, I do know, I've changed the name of my blog from Confessions of a Fiction Writer to, simply put, Margaret Telsch-Williams' Blog.
While I love to write about writing, and talk about writing, and sing about writing, and dream about critiquing writing (true story), I think the old title was restricting all of the wonderful things I wanted to say to you fantastic readers all because the title of the blog told me not to. Not about writing somehow equalled, don't share.
So, tah-dah, here's the new shebang blog, just like the old one, but with more me.
Whatdya think?
What am I talking about? (I don'tknow, I'munder the weather andmy spacebar is still actingup.)
Actually, I do know, I've changed the name of my blog from Confessions of a Fiction Writer to, simply put, Margaret Telsch-Williams' Blog.
While I love to write about writing, and talk about writing, and sing about writing, and dream about critiquing writing (true story), I think the old title was restricting all of the wonderful things I wanted to say to you fantastic readers all because the title of the blog told me not to. Not about writing somehow equalled, don't share.
So, tah-dah, here's the new shebang blog, just like the old one, but with more me.
Whatdya think?
The Names of It
First, I'm sorry I've neglected you, lovely reader, with my absence. You're the apple of my eye and I promise never to do it again.
Now, last week was beyond weird, strange, boring, frustrating, and full of a lot of nothing. To be honest, I had some of the worst PMS and was working on edits. For the record:
I then cried to my sister (who lives 600 miles away) through private message about my woes and "Aunt Flow," and as a way to make myself feel better, started trash talking Flow and calling her evil names. Many messages later, there was quite an impressive collection of disgusting and vulgar nicknames for ye ol' period and I was feeling a million times happier.
Now, last week was beyond weird, strange, boring, frustrating, and full of a lot of nothing. To be honest, I had some of the worst PMS and was working on edits. For the record:
PMS + edits = a bitch about words
I then cried to my sister (who lives 600 miles away) through private message about my woes and "Aunt Flow," and as a way to make myself feel better, started trash talking Flow and calling her evil names. Many messages later, there was quite an impressive collection of disgusting and vulgar nicknames for ye ol' period and I was feeling a million times happier.
Flash Fiction: The Business of Remembering
Just a bit of flash for you. Not prompted by anything other than trying to condense a character's back story -- for my own good -- who will probably never see the light of day. Sometimes, things like this are the only thing you have left of an entire novel. Writers are weird.
The Business of Remembering
The Business of Remembering
Cynthia remembered standing in the kitchen braiding pigtails
when Grandma’s phone rang. She remembered freckles across her mom’s nose. She imagined
747s shattering over the Atlantic, and pictured freckles dissolving into bubbles
and plane fragments. Mothers existed in photos. On television children deserved
hugs. That wasn’t real life.
She might’ve steadied if her father refused the drink. Years
broke him. Empty bottles consumed counter tops. He sent the bullet from temple
to temple. No one adopts eight year olds.
Editing and Other Labor Intensive Jobs
So, I'm currently editing the first draft of la novel tentatively titled A Burning Spirit. I'm also still trying to come up with a title that sticks for longer than a few happy days. I swear I'm just going to start calling it my witchy book and then you will all know what I'm talking about without me giving it a title.
As always, I find editing to be the real meat and potatoes of "writing." There's just so much work involved and while it is work to clean up sentences that were no more birthed from you as much as they just fell out while you were on your way somewhere, I love the challenge of the job.
This witchy book, huh, you like? Anyway, this witchy book is actually the fourth novel I've written and the first that I have loved from start to finish during the writing of the first draft and I'm still in love with it now that I'm editing. While I'm no idiot, and I know damn well, this feeling might fade away by the time I'm line editing, right now it feels like momentum and potential. I still want to be in the same room with Elsbeth, the main character, and I still crush on the boys, the innocent Andrew and horrific Hopkins, for so many different reasons.
So, that's where I am: buckling down, choosing to work on my novel, and editing to make it a better tale for you to some day pick up in the store or download and really enjoy the ride whether it be on a broom, a team of black oxen, or otherwise.
As always, I find editing to be the real meat and potatoes of "writing." There's just so much work involved and while it is work to clean up sentences that were no more birthed from you as much as they just fell out while you were on your way somewhere, I love the challenge of the job.
This witchy book, huh, you like? Anyway, this witchy book is actually the fourth novel I've written and the first that I have loved from start to finish during the writing of the first draft and I'm still in love with it now that I'm editing. While I'm no idiot, and I know damn well, this feeling might fade away by the time I'm line editing, right now it feels like momentum and potential. I still want to be in the same room with Elsbeth, the main character, and I still crush on the boys, the innocent Andrew and horrific Hopkins, for so many different reasons.
So, that's where I am: buckling down, choosing to work on my novel, and editing to make it a better tale for you to some day pick up in the store or download and really enjoy the ride whether it be on a broom, a team of black oxen, or otherwise.
Judging Books By Their Covers
Although I tend to talk about writing a lot here on my blog, you may not realize I'm a major reader too. I know, I know, like a real person, right? I lay in bed at night, knees tipped to the sky, cat lying on my feet, and flip the actual pages of books or press the button to turn pages on my old school Kindle sans ads and touch screens.
I read quite a wide variety of books and I'm often in more than one book at a time. I also take advantage of my local library, which is fantastic beyond belief, for both my print and digital books to keep costs down. I'm a starving writer, I NEED my library to support my habit. Currently on my nightstand I have Shangai Girls by Lisa See, Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's comic issue #5 of Severed, The Help from Katherine Stockett, Fables: Book Three by Bill Willingham, and Tom Franklin's richly-verbed Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. In bed is the safest place for me to read since that means my child and the cats are already asleep, so my time is quiet and mine. But why do I pick up these books and what's sucking me in?
I read quite a wide variety of books and I'm often in more than one book at a time. I also take advantage of my local library, which is fantastic beyond belief, for both my print and digital books to keep costs down. I'm a starving writer, I NEED my library to support my habit. Currently on my nightstand I have Shangai Girls by Lisa See, Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's comic issue #5 of Severed, The Help from Katherine Stockett, Fables: Book Three by Bill Willingham, and Tom Franklin's richly-verbed Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. In bed is the safest place for me to read since that means my child and the cats are already asleep, so my time is quiet and mine. But why do I pick up these books and what's sucking me in?
Flash Fiction: The 22nd Coming
Thanks to Chris for today’s six word prompt:
“Traveler,
Cadence, Management, France, Gonads, and Turkish Chocolate Candy.”
The 22nd Coming
Travelers came from all over the world; their footsteps tromped a broken cadence across the desert floor. Men from France, Germany, China, even Venezuela, all to reward him with gifts of jasmine flower garlands, leather sandals, and Turkish chocolate candies in the shape of gonads.
The management team said this would be bigger than the Pitt and Aniston break-up. Sherice squealed about his PR campaign to his agent and wouldn’t let up about the necessity of having a row of seven camels in the background of the photo shoot. If this man from Kenya was going to insist he was not only the son of God, but also the sole heir to the late George Lucas fortune, then nothing could stop them from riding his coattails all the way to the bank.
Travelers came from all over the world; their footsteps tromped a broken cadence across the desert floor. Men from France, Germany, China, even Venezuela, all to reward him with gifts of jasmine flower garlands, leather sandals, and Turkish chocolate candies in the shape of gonads.
The management team said this would be bigger than the Pitt and Aniston break-up. Sherice squealed about his PR campaign to his agent and wouldn’t let up about the necessity of having a row of seven camels in the background of the photo shoot. If this man from Kenya was going to insist he was not only the son of God, but also the sole heir to the late George Lucas fortune, then nothing could stop them from riding his coattails all the way to the bank.
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