Pages

Friday, June 27, 2014

Celebrate The Small Things - 27 June #CTST

It's Friday and time to Celebrate The Small Things (or big things) that happened this week.

This is my first CTST post. WooHoo! I've been seeing these on Lexa Cain's blog for a couple months and finally remembered to sign up.

I mentioned in my previous IWSG posts that I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for responses on some rewrite requests. One of them finally came through: an acceptance! "In the Kappa's Garden" will appear in Spaceports & Spidersilk in July.

Lots of rain this week, which means my garden will grow and I don't have to go out in the blazing sun and water it. Peppers and tomatoes are good for your creativity. Well, maybe, I made that up, but they taste good.

Keep writing and keep hoping. What are you celebrating this week?

Want to join in the fun that is Celebrate The Small Things, sign up here.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Hey! That's My Story

North Carolina LegendsThe other day I was thumbing through a collection titled North Carolina Legends by Richard Walser. These are cool books with brief descriptions of ghosts and other strange stories from the region. Some of the titles from this collection include: “Specter at the Gold Mine,” “Mystery Ship of Diamond Shoals,” “The Witch Bride,” and “The Evil Hunter of Purgatory Mountain.” You get the idea. You usually find these books at gift shops in tourist traps. The write-ups are brief enough to fire your imagination to create your own stories based on the original without weighing you down with too many details.

Highway 24As I'm looking through, I come across a story titled “Girl at the Underpass.” Sounds like a ghost story. It is. A man on a lonely, rural road comes across a young girl in a formal dress. He stops. She tells him in a strange monotone voice that she's trying to get home. Her date to a dance had left her there. The man offers her a ride. When they reach her house, he opens the door for her to find no one in his car. Thinking she somehow slipped out, he inquires about her at the house. An old woman answers and tells him the girl is the ghost of her daughter who was killed in an automobile accident years ago.

If you're familiar with my story Highway 24, you know why I found the “Girl at the Underpass” so fascinating. The stories share the same premise: man comes across ghost-girl in a formal dress on a lonely, rural highway. Deliciously creepy, eh? Ever come across a story so similar to one of your own tales that it could have been the source?

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Word of the Week: Callow

Ever come across the word callow? It's a relatively common English surname: the actor Simon Callow and the painter William Callow. It also appears as a place name in England and Ireland: Callow, Derbyshire; Callow, Herefordshire; Callow, Shropshire; Callow Hill, Worcestershire; Callow End, Worcestershire; and Callow, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.

According to the dictionary, callow is an adjective for a young person who has not learned how to behave as an adult. It denotes someone who is immature or lacking adult sophistication. I don't think that's the meaning the surnames and place names are drawing on.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Story of the Week: Ladgarda

The Viking shieldmaiden Lagertha (1913)
by Morris Meredith Williams (1881-1973).
Ladgarda,” Christine Rains's Viking adventure story in Luna Station Quarterly, begins with an act of assistance and ends with something quite different. Set amid the various Viking kingdoms warring for control of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, “Ladgarda,” tells of the legendary shieldmaiden Ladgarda's stormy relationship with Ragnar Lodbrok.

According to the 12th-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, Ladgarda (a.k.a. Lagertha, Lathgertha, Ladgertha, and Ladgerda) was the daughter of the Norwegian king Siward. The Swedish king Freyr invaded Norway, killed Siward and placed the women of Siward's family into a brothel. Ragnar Lodbrok arrived on the scene with an army to avenge his grandfather. Ladgarda, dressed as a man but with her locks flowing down her back from under her helm, fought with Ragnar and distinguished herself with her courage and skill. Ragnar married Ladgarda after passing some trials and fathered several children with her. He later divorced Ladgarda to marry the daughter of a king.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Insecure Writer’s Support Group: Post #3

It's the first Wednesday of the month again. Time for another IWSG post.

Lately I've been doing a lot of waiting. A couple months ago I posted about some rewrite requests that I had finished. I'm still waiting to hear back on those. I'm still waiting for a handful of other story submissions. I know I shouldn't complain. The editors are busy and underpaid and no news is usually good news in the submissions game. It means they're thinking or they haven't looked at it yet. I wish I had the patience of my cats, although they don't seem to be very patient with me when they're hungry. What's worse: a quick rejection that leaves you feeling like they really hated it or a long wait leading to a rejection that dashes hopes that have risen? Maybe they're equally bad but in different ways.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

CSFF Blog Tour Day Two: Dreamtreaders

DreamtreadersToday we have the master behind Dreamtreaders, Wayne Thomas Batson, to answer a few questions about his book.

Batson: Hi, Jeff, thanks for the invitation. Nice to hang out with you for a bit.

Chapman: I've seen movies and read books in which the protagonist ventures into their own dream world or the dreams of others. What makes your vision in Dreamtreaders unique?

While I’m sure I haven’t seen all the other dream fantasy out there, the ones I have seen make the dream world seem like a very impersonal place. It’s simply an undiscovered counrty to explore or manipulate. In Dreamtreaders, the Dream Realm is deeply personal. There’s a point and a purpose to the whole thing. There are forces at work in the Dream realm for good or for ill, and the consequences of meddling with the Dream realm are serious.

Several of your series have an ancient or secret book at their center and you incorporate lengthy passages into your narrative. I'm thinking of the Berinfell Prophicies and The Door Within. Dreamtreaders has The Dreamtreader's Creed. What's behind the book-within-a-book method?

Perceptive note and very true. In fact, my Dark Sea Annals series has even more “ancient text” script than any of my other series. There are two reasons for this book-within-a-book technique: 1) having the ancient text gives readers a reason for why characters do what they do. Some of the texts are Creeds or Codes of Conduct, do’s and don’ts. Many of the text examples give backstory so that we understand, for instance, why a war fought a thousand years ago compels a character to action now. 2) the other reason is really because the ancient text examples contribute to the worldbuilding of the series. Reading ancient creeds, poems, almanacs, etc. gives you a sense that there’s a history to this fantasy world, a cultural heritage. It’s more real than fantasy.

You do a wonderful job of capturing “school life” in Dreamtreaders. Do you draw primarily on your own experiences as a student or has your time on the other side of the desk given you more insight?

First, thank you for the kind words. Honestly, my versions of “school life” come both from my experiences as a student and over 24 years of teaching. I know it’ll sound hard to believe, but I really do remember what it was like to be a middle school / high school kid. It resonates clearly in my memory, even the day to day stuff. I remember being in awe of a best friend who just oozed cool. I remember crushes. I remember teachers who were kind or not so. I remember the hard work and homework. I remember the pressure. And I remember the volatility of everything.

And, of course, I’ve been teaching middle school for so long that some of my students are married with kids old enough for me to teach. I’ve seen generations of young folks come and go. I was there for Operation Desert Storm. I was there for 911. I’ve seen every fad you can imagine. But kids are still kids. And they are in the middle of some of the most incredible adventures that life has to offer. I just hope to accurately depict a little of what goes on in that pivotal and thrilling time.

Dreamtreaders posits a three-state worldview. Are these different places or just different states of consciousness?

Ethereal, Dream, and Temporal—these are the three worlds. Each feeds and informs the other. Temporal and Ethereal are distinct places. The Dream is kind of a combination of place and state of mind. Because states of matter in the Dream are formed from the subconscious of every person alive, a kind of “group created environment,” you could also say it is a form of consciousness. Each of the three worlds has its own environment, its own beauties, and its own dangers.

Anchors play a major role in Dreamtreaders and I suspect you're making a bigger point than just getting back to the temporal world. What do anchors mean to you and your characters?

Oh, Heavens, yes! Living in America in 2014, I feel like people are adrift. In just the 24 years I’ve witnessed a catastrophic change in kids and, if I’m honest, with many adults as well. We’ve lost our grounding. We don’t stand for much of anything beyond self and so, we fall for anything. We bounce from belief to belief, philosophy to philosophy, and never really come to grips with the big issues of life.

We need anchors. I believe one anchor to be more critical than all the others: Jesus Christ. If we trust Him, His word, His promises, His goodness, then we can stand against the worst this world can throw at us. We have a foundation from which to analyze worldly messages. When lies are put in front of us, we already know the truth so well that the counterfeit sticks out like a blistered thumb. Having God as your anchor will keep you secure in the wildest wind and waves.

There are other anchors too: family, friends, honesty, bravery, etc.—all things we can count on, all things that keep us grounded. But these anchors are under assault right now. Technology is great but it’s destroying our ability to relate to each other personally. We long for “likes” on our facebook page and see how many people retweeted our wisdom or commented on our blog post, but we have trouble sitting in the same room with someone face-to-face. It’s scary out there. And being adrift is more terrifying still. It’s like floating in deep water, knowing there are likely sharks swimming below, but unable to see them or know when they might attack.

I didn’t write Dreamtreaders to communicate this message, but it became apparent that it was thematically critical to Archer and the world in which he lives. They need anchors just like we do. When they use their anchors, they are safe and secure. But when they cut free from their anchors, they drift away. And sometimes, they drift far enough away that they can no longer come back.

Thanks again, Jeff! “Anchor first; Anchor Deep.”

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of Dreamtreaders from the publisher.

To read more about Wayne Thomas Batson and his work, check out his blog at http://enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com/.

To read what other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below:
Beckie Burnham
Pauline Creeden
Vicky DealSharingAunt
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rebekah Gyger
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Jennette Mbewe
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Writer Rani
Nathan Reimer
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Steve Trower
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler

Monday, June 2, 2014

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: Dreamtreaders

DreamtreadersDreams are not all in your head, at least not in the worlds of Wayne Thomas Batson's Dreamtreaders. Batson's novel posits that like the temporal world—our wakeful reality shared with everyone else—dreams are also a shared reality. When you dream, you enter the fantastic realms of the dream world, populated with all the beings everyone's imaginations have conjured. Like the temporal world, there is good and evil in the dream world.

For most of us, dreaming is a rather passive affair. Dreams can feel real and the events excite our emotions. Sometimes we even know we're dreaming, kind of like watching a very riveting movie or horror flick in the case of nightmares. For dreamtreaders like fourteen-year-old Archer Keaton, dreams take on a whole new sense of reality. He is able to enter the dream world and act within it as if he is in the temporal world. Not only is he fully lucid, he can conjure up items and superhuman skills from his imagination. But, he is limited to twelve hours in the dream world and all that imagining can be mentally exhausting. Falling asleep in the dream or staying past the twelve-hour mark has dire consequences for one's life in the temporal world.

As I mentioned earlier, there is evil in the dream world. The center of that evil is the Nightmare Lord, a servant of Satan the text implies. The Nightmare Lord hopes to create breaches in the fabric separating the dream world from the temporal and eventually create a rift allowing the two worlds to mix. The idea is that if the worlds mix, no one will be able to tell dream from reality and the world as we know it will come to an end. Dreamtreaders are tasked with sewing up the breaches and fighting the Nightmare Lord and his minions. Archer is one of only three dreamtreaders who are led by an angel, Master Gabriel. There are also Lucid Walkers in the dream world. These are people from the temporal world who have also discovered how to have lucid dreams like the dreamtreaders.

As the story begins, Archer's world is in turmoil. He wants to take the fight to the Nightmare Lord, but Gabriel preaches caution, arguing that Archer is not ready, not experienced or strong enough. Archer's school life is also upset when a Rigby, a new boy, arrives at his school and attracts the attention of Archer's longtime friend Kara. Kara alone among Archer's friends knows of his dreamtreading. Rigby knows something about dreams as well. His uncle was a famous dream researcher. Archer and Rigby are on a bumpy collision course with dizzying changes in loyalties.

Batson does well making the dream world come alive. His depiction of life at school and at home for Archer are also convincing. Archer is an underdog at school though a hero in the dream world so it's easy to feel sympathy for him and root for him. We feel his pain as jealousy and betrayal are central themes in the novel. Rigby and Kara are also suitably realized. This is the first in a trilogy and the ending leaves no doubt we will have not seen the last of Rigby and Kara. My only complaint is with the final chapters. The ending comes quickly with loyalties switching back and forth in a dizzying fashion. I'm looking forward to the next installment of Archer's journey and wondering if forgiveness and reconcilliation will be major themes in the next volume.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of Dreamtreaders from the publisher.

To read more about Wayne Thomas Batson and his work, check out his blog at http://enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com/.

To read what other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below:
Beckie Burnham
Pauline Creeden
Vicky DealSharingAunt
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rebekah Gyger
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Jennette Mbewe
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Writer Rani
Nathan Reimer
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Steve Trower
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler