Grace for the New Year

~~The turn of the year is always a time of introspection. Many of us look back at the past and consider our achievements and heartaches. But we also look forward and wonder what the future will bring--sometimes with trepidation and sometimes with anticipation.

~~Whatever your mood, I wish you all a Happy New Year and offer two songs for the season. The first is from Kevin Walsh of "Outlander--the Musical" fame.



~~The second is a link. Be sure to click on it, for it is an amazing rendition of the old hymn "Amazing Grace" sung by the Four Tenors while at the Coliseum.

 AMAZING GRACE

~~May grace be with you all this new year.

Scrivener, By Golly!

~~Have you read writers extolling the delights of Scrivener? To many, it's the ultimate writing tool that helps organize, combine, and link research into one easily accessible place.

~~Well, I've joined the ranks when I down loaded Scrivener for Windows in November. I'm discovering the bells and whistles now and have started moving my FRIENDLY FIRE files to it. So far, I'm creeping along with my hands out in front me in the dark, but I can see the usefulness and anticipate becoming one of the many telling you can't do without this program.

~~While I learn, I'm leaning on the info I've gathered from some writing buddies. Check out Claire's post on All the World's Our Page and Ron's post at the Books and Writers Forum.

And have a wonderful holiday season! May your celebration be bright and joyful.

Snow

~~No, we don't have early snow in Georgia, but we did have the first measurable snow fall on Christmas Day last year and I'm hoping for a repeat. So I thought I'd add to the mood with a poem from January 2008. Hope you enjoy it. ; )

Snow

Born of a meeting of opposites,
It floats as feathers on the wind.
Settling into Earth's warm embrace,
It gives its moisture away as grace.

Falling faster as time goes by
Bringing its fellows, and it flies
Obscuring our view of air and ground,
Settling ever deeper, dampening sound.

Glowing blue-white and moonlit,
Lovely to see, but chilling the feet.
 Cold and wind add their device
And it hardens and freezes into ice.

As the dawn breaks, clear and cold
A million diamonds greet the day
Glowing with the Sun's warm face,
It melts and leaves us edges of lace.

Reading the Classics

~~How long has it been since you read the classic novels? When I got my Kindle, I realized that there are a lot of old classics available for free. I know, I know, you're going to say that that's what libraries are for. But my local library has a really strong air freshener and I'm allergic to it. I've returned many books after only a few pages because of it. I'm happy to use the Kindle for my catch up reading.

~~Here's a list of some I've read lately:

• Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson (The first adult novel I read way back when I was 11.)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas the elder

~~I have the following on my Kindle waiting for me to read them:

• The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas the younger
• Anna Kaenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
• Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

~~Do you have some classics you'd like to read? What are they? Or do you find the older, slower starts hard to get into?

E-Book or Paper Book, That is the Question

~~When I read Rachelle Gardner's post, E-books vs. Real Books, I thought I'd add my two cents. I like Rachelle's assessment that it isn't an "either/or" situation, but a "both/and" one. In fact, I think that's the way of the future.

~~I've had a Kindle since May and I love it. That doesn't mean I don't love paper books, too. I sit here surrounded by a large personal library, but I'm picking up fewer and fewer of the paper books. The reason is personal, too. I have trouble holding paper books open. My wrists just get too tired. So if I'm going to read at all, it has to be an e-book. Rachelle mentioned that readers are buying more books both electronic and paper. I'm an example. I've probably bought ten times the books I would have if I were still only buying paper books. We have transfered our newspaper subscription to the Kindle, too. That's really helped with the mounds of paper we use. And it's far cheaper. ; )

~~I also have a huge list of books to purchase for my Kindle that will transfer many of my favorites from the shelves to e-ink. And that's all good for the writers. ; ) And while I'm buying e-books for all my fiction, I'm still buying writing books in paper so I can take old-fashioned notes in the margins. The last such books is Volger's The Writer's Journey. I don't think the diagrams would show up as well on my Kindle.

~~So what about you? Are you on the e-book band wagon, or are you still buying all your books in paper?

Mystery Words

~~After a week of very few words, imagine my surprise when 150 stray words popped into my head this morning. I have no clue why. They don't fit with anything I'm writing. I don't plan to write historical fiction, though that's the genre I think they would fit. The only thing that makes sense is that I did focus on European medieval history in college and my master's thesis is a biography of Blanche of Castile. But I never wanted to be Eleanor of Aquitaine.

~~Here are the mystery words:

     When I was a girl, I wanted to be Eleanor of Aquitaine. Dashing troubadours would sing love songs to me. I'd be Queen of both France and England and own the richest province in Europe. Then I learned her whole story--about the civil wars between her sons and husband and that she spent sixteen years imprisoned by her husband, Henry.

    But reading about Eleanor's life led me to her family and the little talked about daughters who married into the ruling families of the Holy Roman Empire, Toulouse, and Castile-Leon. It was among Eleanor's grandchildren that I found my true lodestone--Blanche of Castile, who married Louis Capet, destined to be Louis VIII of France. While it's true she would lose children before they were grown and her husband would die young, her life typified a woman of learning, justice, power, and grace. In Blanche, I found a guide for living life based on belief.

~~What do you think happened? And do you ever have mystery words showing up uninvited? Do they ever lead you into a new WIP?

~~There is one other bit you should know that my long-delayed SF trilogy (The Dawn and the lion)originated as a fictionalization (that's an understatement! ; ) of Blanche's life. It's moved a long way from it's origins now.

Blame it on the Season...

~~Yes, I'm still here, but I've been busy. I've been rewriting the opening of FRIENDLY FIRE (several times) for this month's exercise at Books and Writers. Add to that the painting of windows, hanging of new blinds, and all around household chaos and you have a writer with no time.

~~So I thought I'd give you a lovely shot of my mother-in-law's ginkgo tree in all its Autumn glory. And a line to describe it. Enjoy. ; )



~~Autumn's leaves--The pot of gold at the end of Summer's rainbow
Have a great Thanksgiving if you're in the States.

Revision?

~~What I know about revising a manuscript wouldn't fill a thimble. Some would say what I know about writing a draft of a novel would only fill two thimbles, but I do know good advice when I see it. Check out Tracy Hahn-Burkett's post on Writer Unboxed--"Macro-Revision: Take It One Piece at a Time" and let me know what you think about revising a manuscript.

~~Do you have any advice or ideas about how to organize the revision of a manuscript?