Entries tagged with writing

Entry tags:

Hi! Come elsewhere and find me!

Are you still following me here and seeing this? Thank you! That is really nice of you! And also, please understand I'm barely ever here on LJ anymore. I miss you and I do want to stay connected with you, though! So, find me elsewhere—pick a couple of these:

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mollyringle

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/writermollyringle.bsky.social

My mailing list: https://mollyringle.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe...

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writermollyringle/

Substack: https://substack.com/@mollyringle

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@writermollyringle

As thanks, here is a cute picture of my dog in the tub.

A very wet corgi

Entry tags:

What makes for one of those stories you can't stop thinking about?

My lovely and delightful author friend Melissa McTernan was one of my early readers for Ballad for Jasmine Town, and said recently that she found herself still occasionally thinking about the book, months later. Which to me is such a high compliment! And it has led me to ponder: what is it that makes a story, be it book or show or film, stick in our heads longer than usual?

Plenty of shows or books are perfectly engaging while we’re watching/reading them, but after we’re done, they drop straight out of our consciousness. We barely give them another thought.

Then there are those we can’t stop thinking about. What is it about those? What qualities make them that way?

I have more pondering to do on this, but I have a preliminary theory. These “sticky” stories are ones in which things don’t turn out entirely perfectly.

The ending might be satisfying on the whole, but there are elements that hang around to haunt us, because what happened to some characters was incredibly unfair, even tragic, and there’s no fixing it. (Except of course with fix-it fic!) Problems we want to fix, but cannot, are much likelier to linger in our heads than problems that got neatly tied off and resolved.

Ballad for Jasmine Town has more of those tragic elements than many of my books do. Without giving spoilers, there are some huge unhappy things that befall a whole lot of characters, and even with (okay, minor spoiler) restored peace as the ending mood, those events cannot be undone.

And now that I think about it, the various series for which I have become an obsessive fan have all had that quality. Lord of the Rings has the Grey Havens. BBC Merlin has le morte d’Arthur (a.k.a. That Damned Ending). The Untamed has a brutal body count that includes beloved and/or innocent characters. And so on. Much as I insist that I need sufficient lightness and fun and hope in my stories—which I do, truly!—it would seem I also need a certain amount of sadness that grips me and won’t let go, if I’m going to become a hardcore fan about it.

Frodo and Sam sad at the Grey Havens

Merlin and the dying Arthur in the BBC Merlin finale

Entry tags:

TV Tropes knows what's up with the fae

As a fandom-loving person, one of my favorite sites at which to go down rabbit holes (that saying itself being a fandom reference, of course) is TVTropes.org. Despite its name, it does not confine itself to TV shows, but encompasses all of popular culture: video games, literature, music, theatre, anime, you name it. It has accurate and often amusing names for the over 30,000 (!) tropes listed on the site, and it cross-references each one with the books, shows, etc., that contain examples of the trope. It is fantastic fun, and I can easily lose an hour there anytime.

(A quick sidenote before we continue: Tropes are not a bad thing. You’re thinking of clichés. Those are to be avoided. Tropes, however, are storytelling conventions. As TV Tropes puts it, “tropes are tools that the creator of a work of art uses to express their ideas to the audience. It's pretty much impossible to create a story without tropes.”)

Today I was browsing the site for examples of the tropes in my own books, and found a good basic one on The Fair Folk.

As usual, TV Tropes knows what's up! Their entry is spot-on for what I have learned in reading about the fae, and is more or less what I show in the Eidolonia books (Lava Red Feather Blue, and the upcoming Ballad for Jasmine Town), as well as The Goblins of Bellwater, which isn't set in Eidolonia but has a similar system.

Excerpt from TV Tropes:

"The fairies of old weren't cute little bewinged pixies who fluttered happily around humans. ...Often, they would interact with humans with no thought to the consequences of their actions, or they would be tricksters that deliberately delighted in the utter mess they made of mortal lives.... At worst, they're like serial killers with magic.

"...There actually were plenty of myths and folklore about fairies who helped humans, though they were still believed to be dangerous if angered— but then again, the belief that supernatural beings are helpful to humans that show them kindness and angry if neglected is ubiquitous in many traditional religions and folk beliefs, including Greek Mythology."

I, too, have noticed the remarkable similarity to the Greek gods, in the diverse personalities, powers, and whims of the fae. No wonder I was drawn to write about both.

Entry tags:

How to write a book (short version)

I was just talking with a writer friend about the difficulties of wrangling all the threads of a big novel, in its early stages—something we both have plenty of familiarity with. It got me looking back at my notes for Lava Red Feather Blue, which I struggled with for the first several months of trying to write it. And this note was the turning point:

--

Aug. 13, 2017

Here’s my moody trouble today and why I think I’m feeling like this isn’t as much fun as I hope: I’m giving too much thought to what people will like (tons of magic and action, nothing whatsoever to eye-roll about anywhere at all), and not enough to what I actually want to write. So what is it I want to write? Romance between these two guys. With a backdrop of this really cool magical island.

So while, yes, I need to figure out what this island’s fae-related setup is, I also need to keep my focus and the story’s heart on what I keep being most moved by: the potential of Merrick and Larkin’s relationship.

I think today I’ll get out the romance plot outline I downloaded from somewhere and try to lay out the story’s main plot points based on that. Then overlay them on the subplots of magic and setting.
--

From there on out, the notes all start lining up much more with the book as we now know it, and I got my enthusiasm back. I had to remember that while plenty of people put magic systems first in their interests (as readers or as writers), I am not such a person. I like magic systems, and I need them, but they're never the top reason I love something. Characters and their various relationships are. So there's no point in my writing something that puts the magic system as the central focus when that's not MY central interest.

Basically: figure out what you most want to write, not what you think other people will like, and put that at the absolute center of the project. Then build the rest of it around that, using that center as your immovable foundation.

Entry tags:

Not writing any more homophobia/coming-out stories, I promise.

I've gone back to this post and added the following paragraph to the beginning. I'm posting it by itself here in the hopes that it sets the record straight and reaches more readers. Thank you keeping me honest and humble out there, truly.

* * *

Just to clarify, All the Better Part of Me, the novel mentioned below about the 25-year-old bi man, is a coming-out story, but it is probably the only one I will ever write. I have since moved on to the more hopeful scenario: LGBTQIA+ characters getting to have adventures alongside the straight and/or cis characters without sexuality or gender identity being an issue—the worlds we see, for example, in Lava Red Feather Blue and Sage and King. This is the way things should be, the status quo we can aspire to. I hope books showcasing diversity, no matter who writes them, can help open up mindsets so we can get to such a world. I owe great thanks to the many people who have given feedback on my stories and thereby guided me to this decision. You're helping me learn, and I never want to stop learning, even when the process is humbling.

Entry tags:

My most Halloween-suitable books

First, a quick piece of writing news: I recently finished the first draft of Ballad for Jasmine Town, my next book! It takes place on Eidolonia, the island of fae and witches where Lava Red Feather Blue is set, but you won't need to have read Lava Red Feather Blue to understand it. Each book can be read as a standalone. The manuscript is currently incubating undisturbed for a month or so before I open it up again for revisions, but I will of course have more to tell you about it in the future.

Meanwhile: we are almost to my favorite holiday, Halloween! In my opinion the US needs more holidays where we wear costumes, roam the streets at night, and exchange chocolate free of charge. Not to mention all the spooky movies and books we treat ourselves to this time of year.

This got me thinking that I should rank the top five most Halloween-suitable books among my own writing. Here is what I came up with, and I admit I am perhaps cheating since one of them is a three-book series:

5. Sage and King – Only scary if you have a phobia about spells that turn you or your body parts into plants. Assassin magicians can be mean that way. Overall mood is fluffy and steamy, though.

4. Lava Red Feather Blue – Not too scary on the whole, except for one scene involving a dark passage through a fae-realm forest of birch trees whose purpose in life is to terrify and/or kill anyone who enters.

3. The Persephone’s Orchard series – It is about the gods of the dead, after all, and there are some cruel murders and a dash of human sacrifice. (The Bronze Age; these things happen.) But said gods are basically lovely people in my version.

2. The Ghost Downstairs – This one has several traditional creepy haunted house moments, which I personally think are some of the spookiest scenes I’ve written. But it’s also essentially sweet and romantic throughout in terms of mood.

1. The Goblins of Bellwater – To me this novel isn’t truly scary, but I would say it’s my eeriest and most unsettling book, so moodwise it’s probably the best Halloween fit.

As for films, we have so far dusted off two old favorites for weekend movie nights, both of them comedy monster movies: Tremors and Young Frankenstein. Truly delightful!

Do you have any favorite reading or viewing for Halloween season? I want to hear about your costume too!

Be well and pace yourself on the candy.

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Couple of announcements:
First, an LJ one. I can no longer access my mollyringwraith LJ. I did not lose the password; I am a good password steward and I still had it! But when I tried to get in the other week after hearing it was subject to a security hack, LJ helpfully told me the password was too old and I had to change it. Which you can only do by email verification. And the email never arrived, so probably LJ had a defunct email of mine as the contact. And their FAQ says there is no other way to recover access if the above process doesn't work. So. That is now closed to me. It might get purged by LJ; I don't know. Copy and save any posts you want to keep from it.

Other announcement:
I am mostly letting my Goodreads account go dormant, as I am tired of the toxic atmosphere there. I’m going over to Storygraph instead. Find me under mollyringle and send me a friend request! I am new there and barely have anyone added yet.

When someone saw my post on GR that announced the above, they asked, in all innocence, “Why do you find Goodreads toxic?”

Here is my answer, and know that this is the short version and I could go on and on:
The worst is the cruel, snarky tone of many of the negative reviews. They often go beyond "what didn't work for me" and well into scathing, hateful rants.

Then, the site lets you upvote reviews, so people may like those snarky ones because they find them funny, but those who disagree or find them unhelpful have no way to downvote them. So such reviews often float to the top and are the first ones people see for the book.

Also, Goodreads puts the star ratings front and center, and sometimes the mere number rating is enough to turn people off from trying a book.

And finally, Goodreads is now owned by Amazon, which has not proven itself a great friend of the publishing trade on the whole. (That’s a whooooole other long post that I don’t feel like writing. But google it if you’re curious. Lots of publishers, authors, and industry pros have spoken on the subject.)

Storygraph, meanwhile, tucks away star ratings and reviews discreetly—you have to scroll a bit to find them at all—instead putting focus on the book’s genres, subgenres, tone, style, and pacing. It also, true to its name, makes some really cool graphs and charts of your reading habits once you’ve entered the books you’ve read.

And: yes! You can import your Goodreads reading history into Storygraph. It wasn’t hard for me to do at all. (You can google that too. That’s what I did.) So please find me there! We all deserve a calmer and less toxic reading discussion experience.

Entry tags:

Misc. editing tips roundup, vol. 1

Miscellaneous editing tips: a roundup

I think I’ll post these from time to time, as I find it fun, and someone out there might find them helpful. This batch consists of tips that I originally posted as tweets over the past year or so. (My Twitter is here, if you want it.) These came from the year-long editing course I took, as well as the paid editing work that keeps me paging through The Chicago Manual of Style on a regular basis. (Hire me if you need a copyeditor or proofreader! As a painfully sensitive writer myself, I promise I try to be very kind when editing.)

• A phrase like “looked to the sky above” can usually just become “looked to the sky,” because, well, the sky is basically always above. Similarly, in “looked up to the sky,” we probably don't need “up.”

• “Nodded her head” can just be “nodded,” and “shrugged her shoulders” can just be “shrugged,” because those are generally the only body parts you respectively nod or shrug.

• Technically speaking, “Realtor” is capitalized, because it's a trademark. To get around this, you can write “real estate agent” instead.

• When you find the phrase “off of,” you can usually delete the “of.” You don’t have to step off of the path and pick some apples off of a tree. You can step off the path and pick some apples off the tree.

• This will shock most people in the academic world (and shocked me to some extent), but MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, and Merriam-Webster all agree: use lowercase for names of degrees (when spelled out) and majors. Thus, you're not pursuing your Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, but your master of science in electrical engineering. If you abbreviate it, however, that would of course be your MS. Class names are still uppercase: you took Archaeology 101 from Dr. Jones. And naturally any proper name is always uppercase; your minor in English, say.

• It's not that passive voice is WRONG in fiction; it's that it's often bland. “Smoke could be seen in the room” is grammatical, but “Smoke billowed in the room” or “Smoke suffocated the room” are far more vivid. Hit up the thesaurus for robust verbs.

• “There was” phrases can often be tightened; e.g.: “There was a sadness in his voice that worried her” can be tightened up to “The sadness in his voice worried her.”

• “However” at the start of a sentence sounds ponderous (to use Chicago Manual of Style’s delightfully accurate word). Scoot it to the middle of the sentence, in the most appropriate place, and it goes over more naturally. Compare: “Many tasks lay ahead. However, she was famished and needed to eat lunch first.” Vs.: “Many tasks lay ahead. She was famished, however, and needed to eat lunch first.”

And finally, a reassurance: when people learn I’m an editor, they often say, “Please forgive my grammar mistakes!!” The instructors of my editing course said they answer at such times, “Don’t worry, I only look for errors if you pay me,” and I love that, and I now assure you of that same sentiment.

Entry tags:

writing

Don't give up, writers!...But don't expect fame either.

On Twitter recently there was a hashtag that got going in which successful authors encouraged struggling writers to keep at it, because it took them (the successful ones) X number of years and manuscripts and rejections before they Hit It Big. And now they’re on bestseller lists! And have Netflix deals! And fan art! So don’t give up!

Normally you can count on me to be the encouraging optimist too. But in this case I feel the kinder thing to do, in the long run, is to deliver an opposing viewpoint consisting mainly of, well, I won’t say “pessimism,” but more like realistically tempered expectations.

I’ve been writing books since I was 12. (I’m now 45.) Counting just the published ones, I’ve had 12 novels or novellas published, with two excellent small presses. I have never hit a bestseller list. I have never been offered a screen adaptation deal. I am not getting fan art or fan fiction, and hardly ever fan mail. I’ve never in all these years had a royalty check big enough to cover more than one month of the mortgage. (And keep in mind royalties are paid once every three months.)

I’m now taking work as an editor/proofreader, not only because I like the work (which luckily I do), but because writing is clearly not going to bring in enough money for me to stick exclusively to that as my career. 33 years of fiction-writing experience and 12 published books is evidently not enough for me to Hit It Big, and I’ve given up on expecting it ever will.

I’m not giving up on writing, mind you. What I’m letting go of is this “work hard, work so damn hard, write every day even if you don’t want to, GET THOSE BOOKS OUT THERE” mentality. The best part of writing is the writing itself, when I am writing something I love and immersing myself in that world. So I’ll write what I love, only when I truly want to write it, and I’ll relax about the timeline. Because whatever I’m writing is probably never going to be The Next Big Fandom anyway.

You, or I, could easily look at all of the above and conclude, “Well, Molly’s writing must suck, because otherwise it WOULD have hit it big by now.” Maybe? Maybe not? Its quality is subjective. What’s true is that I worked every bit as hard as they tell you to, and it wasn’t enough. And of the many writers I know, the overwhelming majority are in the same dowdy boat as me. Very few are cruising in the yacht of the Netflix deals.

Success is not entirely merit-based, either, as you will know if you think for a few seconds about some of the books that are wildly popular. Or some of the books that deserve to be but aren’t. It’s marketing, it’s connections, it’s money, it’s whatever spark of luck and magic makes something go viral. If we all knew what that was, we would do it, obviously, but it’s largely out of our control.

Even if you work hard and write beautifully, and even if you do it for years and years, you are NOT guaranteed to land on any bestseller list or become a fandom sensation. Ever. It’s much likelier you won’t, in fact.

But I am not telling you to give up! Far from it. I’m saying: the question you should be asking yourself is not, “Am I willing to work super hard at writing in order to chase that fame and financial payoff?” The question should be, “Do I love writing enough to keep doing it even if that external success never happens?”

That’s the only question whose answer you have control over. Ask yourself that one. If it’s yes, then don’t give up. Because writing is lovely when done for that reason.

Meanwhile—think about something you wouldn’t mind doing for money. Chances are all too good you’ll need it. And with that, I must return to my editing.

Entry tags:

Guest feature: author Darlene Foster takes us to Malta!

It's been too long since I've brought on another author for Q&A, and I'm pleased to be doing so again with Darlene Foster! I met Darlene (in an online sense) through our publisher in common, Central Avenue Publishing, and she's one of the most upbeat, easygoing, fun-loving writers I know. Her Amanda Travels series is a wonderful set of books for middle-grade readers in which the young Amanda visits a new country in each book and always encounters an adventurous mystery to untangle. They're perfect for the young armchair traveler—or real-world traveler—in your life.

Author Darlene Foster

The eighth book in the series comes out this May: Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady. I got to read an advance copy of it, and was instantly longing to go to Malta and soak up the sun and stroll between the stone buildings with their artistically idiosyncratic door knockers!

Cover of Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady

Cover of Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady

Darlene was kind enough to answer some questions for me as well, so let's dive into those:

Q: When did you start writing fiction? What were your earliest stories like?

A: I’ve been telling stories since I learned to talk. My grade three teacher, Miss Roll, encouraged me to write them down. When I was twelve years old I had a short story published in a local newspaper. Called Stretch Your Food Dollar, it was about two friends having an adventure in Woolworths department store. I guess the idea of two girls having an adventure has been there for a long time!

Q: When you visit places, how much are you thinking about a possible story while you’re there? Or does the story idea come later?

A: When I visit interesting places, I am always thinking about how I could use it in a story. When I was in Malta, I kept saying to my husband, “Amanda would love it here!” I take a lot of pictures and jot down notes wherever we go. I once read that a writer never really takes a vacation as they are always looking for story ideas. I can attest that is true.

Q: What draws you to writing middle-grade fiction as opposed to stories for other age groups?

A: Some would say I have never moved past twelve myself! For some reason, I can easily relate to this age group. I think they are wonderful. Tweens are not little kids anymore but not yet terrible teenagers. They can be so astute and mature at times but still naïve and unsure of themselves at other times. It is the age when they start to assert their independence and become curious and questioning. It is my favourite age and I have no intention of growing up.

Q: I admire Amanda’s fearlessness and willing to take on adventures. Is that what you were like at her age?

A: It wasn’t what I was like, but it was what I wished I was like. I lived on a farm and we didn't travel or have a television. So my world was very narrow. I was timid, bookish, and the only adventures I had were in my imagination. So I created a character I would have liked to be.

Q: Give some advice to the aspiring travelers of the world: what are your must-bring items that lend to happier traveling?

A: The most important thing to bring is an open mind. Accept that things will be different wherever you go, the food, smells, people, climate, customs, etc. Embrace those differences and you will have an enjoyable and enriching time. Also bring a camera, a notepad, and pen. Everything will be overwhelming and you will never be able to remember it all. Pictures and notes bring it all back. I would rather look at my travel photos than watch TV.

Q: What are you writing now, or planning to write next?

A: I am halfway through writing Amanda in France: Fire in the Cathedral. Amanda will fall in love with Paris, Versailles, and Monet’s garden in Giverny. Oh, and she will get to stay in a bookstore! Wouldn't every young girl like to visit France? I know I would have loved it.

----

Darlene Foster is a Canadian author who has written the popular Amanda Travels series, featuring a spunky twelve-year-old who loves to travel to unique places where she encounters mystery and adventure while learning about another culture. Readers of all ages enjoy travelling with Amanda as she unravels one mystery after another in various countries. Darlene has won prizes for her short stories and a number of them have been published in anthologies. She has also written a bilingual book for English/Spanish readers.

Darlene grew up on a ranch near Medicine Hat, Alberta, where her love of reading inspired her to travel the world and write stories. Over the years she held wonderful jobs such as an employment counsellor, ESL teacher, recruiter, and retail manager, and wrote whenever she had a few spare minutes. She is now retired and has a home in Spain where she writes full time. When not travelling, meeting interesting people, and collecting ideas for her books, she likes to spend time with her husband and entertaining dog, Dot.

Her books include Amanda in Arabia: The Perfume Flask, Amanda in Spain: The Girl in The Painting, Amanda in England: The Missing Novel, Amanda in Alberta: The Writing on the Stone, Amanda on The Danube: The Sounds of Music, Amanda in New Mexico: Ghosts in the Wind, and Amanda in Holland: Missing in Action.

Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady will be released in the spring of 2021.

Buy links

Amazon Canada here

Amazon UK here

Amazon US here

Barnes and Noble here

Chapters/Indigo here

You can connect with Darlene on social media at the links below:

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn
Goodreads

Entry tags:

It is a book and it is out!

Guess I should advertise my own book on my own blog, a little? 😀

So yes, Lava Red Feather Blue is available as of yesterday! The above graphic is from the wonderful KinzieThings blog, who ran a fabulous review of the book.

What is the book? Well: "Sleeping Beauty, but make it gay!"

Prince Larkin, born July 27, 1773; put into enchanted sleep December 22, 1799…accidentally awakened March 18, 2020.

It’s a quest, it’s a queer love story, it’s an adventure among fae and witches, and best of all, it’s an escape from your own country.

Order now wherever books are sold! But be a noblebright hero and order through an independent bookseller for best karma: https://www.indiebound.org/buy-local/9781771681988

Reviewers are saying:
“One of the most enjoyable reads of 2020 for me!”
“Merrick and Larkin found their way into my heart immediately.”
“This book was something that I desperately needed in my life.”
“Freaking adorable.”

Whew. That's definitely enough talking about myself for one post. I better go geek out about some fandom thing. Meanwhile, here is a hedgehog in a tiny kayak, as a way of thanking you for reading this far:

Entry tags:

The new book! Lava Red Feather Blue

I haven't posted here about the new book, have I? Here is its magnificent cover!

Cover of Lava Red Feather Blue by Molly Ringle: mountains, starry sky, jewels, trees

All of you who love the idea of a m/m Sleeping-Beauty-inspired urban fantasy set in a fictional island country full of fae and witches: please go request it on NetGalley, preorder it (release date is January 5, 2021), or just put it on your Goodreads shelves to remind yourselves later.

This was the first time I've invented an entire new country for a story, so that was especially fun. I'll probably write more books set on this island, now that I've gone to the trouble of building it.

That is all. Hope you are all as well and sane as is reasonably possible in a year like this one.

Entry tags:

"Which do you choose, a hard or soft option?..."

Magic systems in fantasy! They are not all alike, as you know, but here's one of the ways to categorize them: a spectrum between "soft" and "hard" magic. Hard magic systems have defined rules on how they work, and the reader is told what they are—e.g., the four element types of bending in Avatar: the Last Airbender have certain basic limits, which is why the characters are astounded when, say, Toph invents metalbending. Soft magic is more mystical and indefinable—e.g., we don't really know HOW Gandalf does all the magic he does, or even what his limits might be; we just accept that he's a wizard and such things are unknowable to the likes of us.

I tend toward soft magic, though moderately so, in my fantasy books, because I feel like the more you give precise, quasi-scientific explanations for magic, the more it's likely to bug people who actually know science. (Also the closer it comes to being science fiction instead of fantasy.) That said, I do put limits and costs in my magic systems: the fae in The Goblins of Bellwater (and Lava Red Feather Blue), though very soft-magic in terms of having large and undefined amounts of power, must nevertheless adhere to deals they make, because that's just the rule.

I also tend toward preferring soft magic in reading, because I don't REALLY feel I need pages of detailed explanation about which material and which rule loophole and which move is the way to solve things; I'm good with a briefer and more mystical explanation. However, many readers do love the details. Neither side is wrong! It's a matter of preference—and it's also on the shoulders of us writers to be consistent within a given story, whatever slot on the spectrum we're picking.

Entry tags:

Which book? How to choose?

I asked myself something yesterday when I was trying to decide which of the many possible story ideas I should commit to working on next. I'll share it with you in case you have some decision to make, to which this line of questioning may apply.

I essentially had three story ideas revolving in my mind as main contenders for The Next Novel; we'll call them A, B, and C. (As with many writers, my problem isn't coming up with ideas, it's choosing which of my many ideas to use at a given time.) Naturally I first tried asking myself, "Which do I want to write most?", but for some reason that didn't give me a clear winner. I could justify why I might like writing each of them, or "should" try writing each of them.

So I turned it around and instead asked, "How would I feel if I learned that someone else just wrote and published this exact story, and therefore I could never write it myself?"

And that was more interesting. Because for stories A and B, it turned out I didn't mind so much. I thought, "Oh well; that might be for the best. Someone else with more expertise on subject A or subject B would probably write it better." But for story C, I felt regret at the idea of giving it up—"Aw! I could've had fun with that. I would have come up with something cool."

Thus we have our answer.

...Although don't hold me to that. I could yet change my mind.

Entry tags:

Doing nothing...except WRITING!

We all like to joke about how the majority of us lately are at home doing nothing; wearing pajamas, Netflixing, posting photos of our pets, obsessively refreshing news sites. I'm doing all of that for sure. BUT! I'm also writing! And editing. And plan to keep doing a lot more of both.

I asked myself: If I were going to die soon—a possibility that's seemed a lot more real for everyone lately—what would I wish I had done? Since I have to scratch off things like "see Italy" for now, I looked to the other items, most of which are things like:

Finish the story I'm working on
Try writing that play adaptation I was talking about
Think about the next book and decide what I most want to write in all the world, and write that

And, yeah: read delightful books and watch shows and films I've always meant to, and be extra loving with my kids and husband and pets. But not to the exclusion of creating.

Because, you know what, I probably still have a long future ahead, and you probably do too. And when quarantine finally lifts and real life rushes out the gates again, I want to emerge with lots of new finished products in hand, ready to share.

HUGE side benefit: focusing on all of the above makes me much less anxious, and I am naturally a person prone to anxiety. Especially health-related anxiety! So this is a major perk.

Take care out there, and worry less by living more. In your space. At a safe distance. :) ❤️

Entry tags:

celebrity,
writing

88 Lines About 44 Women Writers

So, I made a thing. I heard that ‘80s song about 44 women, and I decided to write…

88 LINES ABOUT 44 WOMEN WRITERS

Enheduanna was a poet

From four thousand years ago,

Sappho, too, wrote lyric lines

For lovers we may never know

Murasaki’s Tale of Genji

Might be the first novel ever,

Hildegard knew plants and music,

Mystical and wise and clever

Héloïse became a scholar,

Writing reams to Abelard,

Veronica the courtesan

Penned poems earning high regard

Aphra was a spy and playwright,

Boldly blazing cagey trails,

Marie-Catherine charmed the salons

With her retold fairy tales

Mary wrote on rights of women,

Did her gender proud and fine,

And her daughter, also Mary,

Gave the world a Frankenstein

Jane created Mr. Darcy,

Satirized society,

George’s books (or Mary Anne’s)

Show kindness and variety

Elizabeth, she loves thee, let her count the ways,

Her romance soars,

Charlotte gave us Rochester

And Jane Eyre out upon the moors

Emily is famed for Heathcliff,

Turbulent and dark and grim,

Anne wrote with more realism,

Sensible and calm and prim

Christina held a Goblin Market,

Lovely, eerie, and fantastic,

George romanced Chopin and kept her

Gender expression elastic

Harriet, with Uncle Tom,

Helped to encourage abolition,

Emily wrote eighteen hundred

Poems despite her shy condition

Louisa and her little women

Still cause us to rhapsodize,

Edith scored the Pulitzer,

The first woman to win the prize

Virginia urged a room of one’s own

For all women who would write,

Colette captivated France

As actor, novelist, playwright

Lucy Maud, she brought us Anne,

Now we all love Green Gables Farm,

Gertrude’s streams of consciousness

Challenge as they also charm

Agatha’s detectives make her

Outsell all the rest of us

Young Anne writing from an attic

Had faith in the best of us

Simone wrote of politics,

And culture, existentially,

Daphne’s stories (see Rebecca)

Gained fame exponentially

Anaïs’ journals

And erotica are wise and stirring

Flannery has Southern whimsy

With plenty of grace recurring

Harper’s Scout and Atticus

Have earned spots in posterity,

Maya told the truth of life

With starkness and hilarity

Shirley scared the hell out of us

With Hill House and other stories,

Octavia gave us a glimpse

Into the future’s trials and glories

Dorothy’s witty verse could cut you,

Every line a wicked smirk,

Gabriela taught and wrote

And earned the Nobel for her work

Mary wrote beloved poems,

Nature-loving and inspiring,

Isabel crafts magic novels,

Of her whimsy we’re admiring

Judy helped us all get through

Puberty with lessened pain,

Toni’s prose on race and life

Earns her fame; long may she reign

Ursula took us from Earthsea

To new planets far away,

Margaret’s handmaids made us shiver

May her wisdom light our way!

Women referenced:

1. Enheduanna

2. Sappho

3. Murasaki Shikibu

4. Hildegard of Bingen

5. Héloïse d’Argenteuil

6. Veronica Franco

7. Aphra Behn

8. Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy

9. Mary Wollstonecraft

10. Mary Shelley

11. Jane Austen

12. Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot)

13. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

14. Charlotte Bronte

15. Emily Bronte

16. Anne Bronte

17. Christina Rossetti

18. George Sand

19. Harriet Beecher Stowe

20. Emily Dickinson

21. Louisa May Alcott

22. Edith Wharton

23. Virginia Woolf

24. Colette

25. Lucy Maud Montgomery

26. Gertrude Stein

27. Agatha Christie

28. Anne Frank

29. Simone de Beauvoir

30. Daphne du Maurier

31. Anaïs Nin

32. Flannery O’Connor

33. Harper Lee

34. Maya Angelou

35. Shirley Jackson

36. Octavia Butler

37. Dorothy Parker

38. Gabriela Mistral

39. Mary Oliver

40. Isabel Allende

41. Judy Blume

42. Toni Morrison

43. Ursula K. LeGuin

44. Margaret Atwood

Entry tags:

Free audiobooks, cheap ebooks, and a New Year's resolution that works

Happy February!
Deals seem to be the theme of the month so far. First, thanks to The Wild Rose Press trying a big new promotion, there are LOTS OF FREE CODES for Audible, up for grabs for both UK and US users, for The Ghost Downstairs and Summer Term in their audio editions. Go claim one! And if you are willing to be so kind, a review afterward on Amazon and anywhere else you leave reviews would be much appreciated.

For those who prefer reading on screen, some of my ebooks are also currently going for only 99 cents on Kindle:

These would make great romantic gifts on the cheap for Valentine's Day, for your Kindle-reading loved ones. (The first two would, anyway. Goblins is a good choice for those friends with more twisted tastes.)

Now for my New Year's resolution that has actually been working: What I did was choose more of a theme than a resolution. My theme is a three-part one, interrelated:   

Reading, writing, editing.  

My resolution is basically: focus on doing one or more of those things for the majority of my day. If I'm doing something else—e.g., scrolling mindlessly through social media—I try to pause and ask myself, "Does this count as the reading, writing, or editing I'd like to be doing?" Generally, no, it does not, so I close that window and do one of my chosen things instead.  

The simplicity of the theme has helped me stick to it, especially given these are all activities I want to pursue anyway. I've been reading more, writing more, and am farther ahead on my editing coursework than I thought I'd be at this point in the year, so it's working!

Have you found a resolution, or a similar theme, that's gotten you into a productive groove this year? Let me know! I like hearing what works for others.  

Meanwhile, enjoy reading—or listening (which in this case counts as reading).

Entry tags:

interviews,
writing

Art you can keep vs. art you give away

Yesterday I listened to this podcast interview with Megan Whalen Turner, whose Queen's Thief series I totally adore, and she said something I have thought too:

To paraphrase, she said she's grateful she's a writer, because she can create something and give it away or sell it, yet still have it. People who make ceramics or paintings or other physical crafts have to either part with their creations or live surrounded by a sea of their art.

I am in awe of people who can make physical art like ceramics and jewelry and paintings, and am so glad they are willing to let them go to us in the wider world so we can have them. At the same time, I'm selfishly grateful that writing is my art of choice (or maybe it chose me), because I get to keep all my work and share it at the same time.

Do some art today! (And turn off social media.)

Entry tags:

Oh hi, new contract!

Hello all -

Exciting news first: there's a new book on the way! I've just signed a contract with Central Avenue Publishing (my awesome publisher for the past several books as well) for my next novel, currently titled Lava Red Feather Blue. For those who read The Goblins of Bellwater and wanted more fae, I have heard you! This one has loads of fae, including a protagonist who's half-fae, half-human. Meanwhile for those of you who read All the Better Part of Me and wanted another male/male love story, I've heard you too: this one also has that! It's set on a fictional island nation in the north Pacific, and I'll have plenty of time to tell you more about it in the coming year, but for now, you can add it to your Goodreads to-read shelf. And here's a teaser graphic with character-inspiration images.

As for news of books that are already released: I went to the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Association trade show a couple of weeks ago, where I talked up All the Better Part of Me and signed mountains of copies.

This is a show that isn't open to the public, only to registered independent bookstore owners/employees and the publishers and authors who are displaying their books. I met so many lovely bookstore folk from all over the Northwest - please do remember your nearby independent brick-and-mortar stores and go buy books from them! They work hard to build a collection their customers will love.

I'll keep the update to just that for today. But please do tell me what you're going to be for Halloween, if you celebrate it and if you feel like sharing. It's one of my favorite holidays, as you might guess from the rather large number of paranormal happenings in the books I write. Have a wonderful weekend!

Entry tags:

The shame we carry forward from youth, and the empathy of writing

[Edited to add, 12/14/2022: Just to clarify, All the Better Part of Me, the novel mentioned below about the 25-year-old bi man, is a coming-out story, but it is probably the only one I will ever write. I have since moved on to the more hopeful scenario: LGBTQIA+ characters getting to have adventures alongside the straight and/or cis characters without sexuality or gender identity being an issue—the worlds we see, for example, in Lava Red Feather Blue and Sage and King. This is the way things should be, the status quo we can aspire to. I hope books showcasing diversity, no matter who writes them, can help open up mindsets so we can get to such a world. I owe great thanks to the many people who have given feedback on my stories and thereby guided me to this decision. You're helping me learn, and I never want to stop learning, even when the process is humbling.]

“I’m a novelist, not a memoirist.” It’s what I keep saying, in defense, when people ponder, in online book reviews, whether I as a 40-something-year-old seemingly-straight demisexual woman have the right to write a novel about a 25-year-old bisexual male. Or someone from another country. Or someone with a disability I don’t have. Or any other difference you might name. I still believe that writing about people different than ourselves is the exact point and the exact job description of being a novelist, and that the empathy gained in the experience is wonderful for all of humanity. Same goes for reading novels. But, today, because it’s been on my mind, I’ll be a memoirist for a bit.

Some have said, essentially, “You don’t have the right to talk about what it’s like to be disparaged for who you are, your identity, your sexuality, because you don’t know.” But how do they know if I don’t know? Granted: right, Molly, how would they know your background when you haven’t told them? I haven’t told them because I didn’t want to talk about it, put it all on display. I didn’t want to be a memoirist; I wanted to be a novelist. Maybe I thought that was safer. Well, it clearly isn’t, in terms of being judged (nay, crucified at times), so I might as well put it out there.

In first grade—I barely remember this; I’m going by what my mom tells me—I had a teacher who was so strict she terrified me. My folks talked to the principal. They collectively decided that, since I could do the work just fine, they’d move me up into second grade. (Was there no room in other first-grade classes? I have no idea why this was the best idea. Personally I think it was a terrible decision.) Nonetheless, I got transferred to a second-grade class, to the surprise of me and the second-graders, and adjusted reasonably well and got on with life. OR DID I?

I have an August birthday, which, as you fellow summer-birthday people know, means I was already among the youngest in my grade. Getting moved up a grade meant I was now at least a year and sometimes almost two years younger than everyone else in my class. I was also physically small; always have been. I’m still only 5’2”, and I didn’t cross the five-foot mark till around ninth grade. My smallness and youth weren’t too huge a deal in elementary school, to my memory, but then came middle school.

Oh, middle school. I don’t have to tell you what it’s like. But I can tell you that it’s worse if you’re tiny, intimidated by all the suddenly-huge 7th and 8th graders around you, intimidated also by the daunting new level of academic work you’re expected to do, and it’s all made worse when you don’t have any close friends at the school. (My closest friends from elementary school went to a different middle school.) Boys who loomed over me and must have weighed twice what I did called me “Smally Molly” (so clever!), and stole my lunch tickets when I was naïve enough to leave them semi-visible in my open binder’s zippered pencil pouch, then they insisted to the teacher with wide-eyed innocence that they hadn’t done it. Popular girls stared at me and my dorky clothes as if I were a slug they’d just stepped on (I have NEVER gotten the hang of dressing fashionably), and whispered to each other and giggled. The one friend I hung out with gave in to peer pressure from a more popular girl and dumped me. I befriended a couple of fellow nerds eventually, and we three hung out at lunch, glumly relating the horrible things people had called each of us that day. Nice boys I developed obsessive crushes on eventually got tired of my leaving them cutesy shy notes and making moony eyes at them, and passed me notes that said “LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP LOOKING AT ME!!”

When I write about someone being rejected, being constantly picked on for who they are, for who they in their awkward cluelessness can’t help being, it is from personal experience, even if the details are changed.

Then came high school. Things improved! I mean…they improved compared to middle school, but…

My obsessive crushes continued, transferred to now slightly more mature boys. They were even mature enough to start being nice to me—kind of. At the end of my freshman year I started going out with a sophomore, who, because of my extra-youngness, was almost two and a half years older than me. He seemed to view me as a fixer-upper, though one he did honestly love. He’d tell me, with sympathy, that some of the other kids were wondering why I wore the same jeans all the time. And that those scabs on my arms weren’t very attractive (marks from nervously picking at my hair follicles until I gave myself constellations of tiny scabs). And I held my silverware like a little kid; had no one ever taught me better? And also, my writing was okay, but there was no way I could, like, go professional with it. Babe, grow up, he’d say.

But at least someone loved me! It was intoxicating. I still didn’t have any other real friends around—those two fellow nerds from middle school had gone to the other high school in town—so of course I improved myself to please him. Not to mention, HORMONES, hello. We were teens. Kissing and fondling each other were the wildest and most exciting activities we had ever experienced in our lives. I was learning A LOT here.

“What a slut,” another girl said about me, because I kissed my boyfriend frequently in the halls. Never mind that he was the only person on Earth I was kissing or doing anything else with—apparently being amorous at all, as a girl, meant you were a slut. For that matter, my boyfriend himself really, really didn’t like it when I started becoming friends with other guys. “He wants to get into your pants,” he’d scold, in a drama-filled argument we had over and over for basically every one of said friends. “You shouldn’t hug him.”

I couldn’t control what THEY thought, I defended. “You WANT to be sexy,” he accused. And he was right: deep down, I did want that. I didn’t want to have sex with loads of people, but I did want to be seen as sexy. Which reputable girls weren’t supposed to want. I was filled with guilt and shame, and tearfully denied his accusation.

When I write about someone being sex-shamed, scolded and put down for having sexual interests at all or even for being SUSPECTED of having sexual interests, and for being very confused about what is expected from their gender, it is, again, from personal experience. Even if the details are changed.

I broke up with that boyfriend, after way too long, after it had gone much too far into dysfunction. I blundered ahead into college and felt out of place once again, not cool enough to want to drink or smoke or party, too introverted to be social like the “fun” students, yet teased by friends in a rather sex-shamey way when I shacked up with my (new) boyfriend. I married him eventually, I kept writing, we had kids, and here we are.

But those scars—man, they still ache during certain weather. When I write novels, I’m being far more of a memoirist than I would have people believe. Even when I’m undeniably writing about people who are different than me and are undergoing specific hardships I’ve never faced, the emotions underneath are mine. Fear, isolation, grief, heartbreak, rejection, love, lust, shame, anger, confused pride.

I have this paranoid suspicion that people see my smiling author photo and read my whimsical-but-well-educated bio and think, “Yeah, I know her type. Girl who’s always gotten everything, had lots of friends in school, whose idea of a rough day was that time she got a bad perm.” I grant you, that WAS a rough day, but that wasn’t the worst of them by any means. I put all of the above out there to tell you that when I write “one of the quiet, weird kids” in my bio, I really mean WEIRD, and that it hurt, for years on end. And that when someone hates my novels and decides that what I deserve is for them to shred me and my work as if I’m no more worthy than that slug they just stepped on—yep, that does throw me right back to the popular kids slamming into me from behind and knocking me over, then breezing past snickering without pausing to help me up.

Is it worth it to keep writing novels? Absolutely. I love the writing part. The sharing part: goddamn, that’s scary. And it will never not be.