Sunday Foreign Post Roundup

1.  Edgar A. Poe's brother.  Did you know he was around past the time the boys were separated at young ages?  Ahhh...lots to learn from Undine at The World of Edgar Allan Poe!

2.  Care for a sneak peak into the WIP of author Kristi Chestnutt?  Then click here!

3.  A writing contest fit for October at Hannah Kinkade's Musings of a Palindrome.  And there are prizes, lots of prizes.

4.  Modern art meets Marie Antoinette...plus an interesting story about the French Swat equivalent, by author Cara Black.

5.  A post of gun-shaped objects.  Seriously cool for the crime writer thanks to Janet Rudolph at Mystery Fanfare.

6.  Vichy.  Is it a word that makes you sad or ambivalent?  Learn about some of France's true power in the country's victimization during WWII, posted by Cara Black. on Murder is Everywhere.

Our Map for 'Writing Around the World Week'

Author Leighton Gage headlining 'Write Around the World Week!'  Look for the writer of Brazilian mysteries' post on this South American locale on Thursday, Oct. 21st.

That week we will also travel to New Zealand, where Debbie Cowans shows us what it's like to be a Kiwi writer.  Clarissa Draper will take us to Mexico and London, and share with us why she choose to write about a city so different from her own hometown. 



Voss, Norway

 I'm also hoping to take you to Norway, the Southwest United States, Canada and Australia during that magical week in October (might be a bit longer than a week).  Look for updates in the top right corner of this blog as more and more writers/bloggers sign on.

It's a wide, wide world and blogging makes it smaller.

In other news...Nope.  Don't really have other news.  I have the house to myself Saturday morning so I'm definitely doing some writing.  Wish me well--I get distracted easily!

The Brutal Setting

"In front of them was the village green with its pond and bench, its bed of roses and hydrangea, late flowering phlox and hollyhocks.  And at the end of the common, anchoring it and the village, stood the three tall pines...There were weathered white clapboard cottages, with wide porches and wicker chairs.  There were tiny fieldstone houses built centuries ago by the first settlers, who'd cleared the land and yanked the stones from the earth.  But most of the homes around the village green  were made of rose-hued brick, built by United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution...The people who created the village had been desperate for sanctuary, hiding from a war they didn't believe in."

This beautiful description is taken from page 15 of Louise Penny's The Brutal Telling.  Penny has long been one of my favorite authors.  Her fictional village of Three Pines is a place I would love to visit.  It's a place where people know each other and come together for meals and laughter, superstition and fingerpointing.  It's a vibrant place of real, flawed people who happen to live in one of the most picturesque villages every created.

And yet from this first description of Three Pines in The Brutal Telling (book 5 in a series), one can tell something is slightly off.  Why the architecture and horticulture seem perfect and comforting, we are giving the information about the first settlers.  Three Pines wasn't begun as a vacation spot, but rather as a refuge from war, settled by those who were on the run.


Hemlocks, 1939, courtesy
Paramour Fine Arts



Penny uses setting so perfectly.  She at once creates a place you want to sink into and never leave, but of which you are also wary.  Why do so many secrets live in this place? the reader wonders. 

These books always leave me questioning if I can ever create a place so special, so magical.  And I read them as slowly as I can so I draw out the experience for as long as possible.  But I can't read them too slowly, as they don't want to be put aside!

Do you have a book or a series that is like this for you?  Is there a setting from literature to which you are drawn?  How about in writing...Have you created a magical place for your characters and your mind to go?

Around the World

Location can be so interesting in a book.  Or, it can be completely unimportant and flat.  I, for one, love reading a book in which the location is another character.

So today I am recruiting...What is interesting about where you write or live?  Why is it a great setting for a book...or why not? 

We are lucky enough to have a world of bloggers from around the world.  If any of you are interested in guest blogging for my "Writing Around the World" week (scheduled for the week of Oct. 18th), I'd love to have you!  You don't have to be from outside the U.S., but I'd love to have at least half of you from other countries.  And you can post about where you write or where you live.  The subject: why that place makes an interesting setting for a novel.  What does your location bring to a book that other cities or countries do not?

Respond here or email me at micheleemrath (at) ymail (dot) com.

Plot

I'm just going to say it: this is my biggest problem in writing.

PLOT.

There it is.  The big word.  The big structure.  The big backbone of our stories, and it's my weakness.

How can that be? you ask.  Doesn't every writer want to write b/c they have a story inside them?  Don't you come to the page with an outline in mind?

And I answer, I have asked myself all of these questions and I pray to God the answer is that there is another way.

I have lots of beginnings.  Lots of characters.  Lots of characterization ideas.  Lots of ideas in general...but no complete plots.

How do you do it?  Do you make yourself attack an outline until your plot is complete?  Do you go to a work with a fully formed beginning, middle, and end?

I'm expecting as many different ideas as there are responses, and I'm hoping to find my way in some combination of the below...For the sun is shining and the kids are in school.  The time is now.

Sunday Foreign Post Roundup

1.  Actually from the week prior, but a very good lesson for all writers and speakers of the English language.  Crystal always has the best and clearest lessons!

2.  A cat walked into a bar and said "Ouch!"  Just kidding.  This one is about diversions!  Distracted?  Let Elizabeth Spann Craig teach you how to write them well (better than this one, anyway).

3.  Simon reviews a Cinderella story.  Yep, you read that correctly--and he liked it!  Read his review and you, too, will be caught up in the story by fellow blogger/writer Michelle Davidson/Lady Glamis.

4.  An honest and funny reaction to getting The Call.  Plus, a cool cover and an exciting new release from debut YA author, Mindi Scott.

5.  Reading challenges galore!  Check out Rose City Reader's list--some she's hosting and several hosted by others.  If you're into reading, this is the link for you.

6.  A list for readers and writers of noir.  Paul Brazill brings you plenty to click through at 'You Would Say that, Wouldn't You?'

7.  Critiques--how to take the bad with the good, and how important critiques are to a writer (Jan Morrison at Crazy Jane).

8.  The Hot Word blog--each day bringing you the history behind a different word or concept.  Hosted by Dictionary.com, but really interesting.

Hear, see, feel...WRITE

Against a backdrop of constant cricket chirp, the marching band keeps time in the field beyond the woods. In my living room I sit, new jeans hugging curves and boosting confidence. They feel so crisp, so fresh. Above my head the fan breathes its continuous exhalation. Drums, horns, those standing chimes musicians hit with mallets—all come together to serenade the night. It's a lot of noise for a still house on a quiet night in a small sub-suburb. When the band music dies away, the thump of a car stereo's base is briefly heard, broken by a horn from the distant highway and the revving of a motor somewhere closer. I even hear my feet brush across the carpet, imagining the microscopic dust and fibers spraying into the air and settling down again, this time in a new place for a new adventure. A tiny bug crawls up the white baseboard beside me. It can't quite reach the top. At about halfway, it is suddenly gone--movement so quick it's like several bugs are dancing. But it's just one lonely guy trying so hard to reach the crest of the white wood, maybe hoping to touch the Pottery Barn 'Rattan'-painted wall.

Ice clinks. Cold tea slides down my throat. The glass hits the slate coaster a little too forcefully...And the band starts up again, this time led by the horns instead of the drums, a slower, more melodic tune to end my prose.

###

This piece is inspired by Jessica Carmen Bell (The Alliterative Allomorph), whom on Thursday wrote about writing with the senses.  She concentrated on the sense of touch, and this is what I wrote for her post:

I first wake up, usually with a small body nestled against mine. The soft toddler pajamas rustle as the little head snaps toward me. Soft, baby skin brushes my shoulder. Then she is gone--on to play now that Mommy has opened her eyes. And I roll over for the first time that morning. That first change of position in the breaking dawn is sooooooo good. I land on my husband's pillow and it is somehow softer, definitely cooler, and the risen puffs of the matress cushion me gently, inviting me to stay longer than I should.

Aaaah, I think I'll go to bed. :)

Do you write with your senses?  Can you write from them right now, spontaneously?
(By the way, I love pictures in my posts, but I'm intentionally not giving you any visuals today.  I hope the words paint their own picture.  Successful?)