As I write this…the Academy Awards is going on.

On stage, Harrison Ford is talking about imagination. And a former exotic dancer who wrote the script for Juno (Diablo Cody) has just won the Oscar for writing Juno.

And that totally rocks!!!

But also going on is my own writing and trying to figure out some of the stuff going on in my novel. The interview is still in progress between my protagonist and antagonist.

McBad Guy has just threatened the life and wellbeing on my protagonist’s aunt. I wasn’t sure  how she was going to react to this threat. So I tossed in something that Lee Abbot would call a tank that I’ll have to fix when I merge the interview in with the rest of the book. In other words, my protagonist is wearing a wire.

And on the other side of the wire are a pair of guys listening to the bad guy threaten to hurt my protagonist’s aunt if he does not get what he wants. She turns tables on him by letting him know that the threat, and its implied confession to kidnapping her aunt, has been overheard and caught on tape. Tape that will make its way to the police…thereby making his life that much more difficult.

One of the guys on the other end of that mike is a Mentor. The other? The Love Interest.

As many of you know I’ve been working on “The Novel.”

I’ve gone back and forth with regards to what kind of story it’s going to turn out to be. There are elements of mystery…chick lit…adventure…pirate…faerie embedded within the story itself.

I have a protagonist, an antagonist, and a whole host of other characters. Some of them are friendly to the protagonist’s mission. Others? Not so much.

I have a John Doe who was killed early on in the novel. While my protagonist wants to know why, the antagonist really isn’t interested in explaining why he hired someone to kill the gentleman.

 

Sunday Morning…

I’m still trying to wake up. And I have a large cup of coffee sitting next to me.

Did I mention that the coffee cup is large? It’s big. And filled to the top with the brown stuff that should help me wake up.

Though as I’ve been thinking about the dream that woke me up…

Eleanor Roosevelt once said

“The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.”

It’s been a busy day around here at Castle Kredwyn.

Writing has been happening…cleaning and grocery store trips have also been in the works. Course I also shot a cranky email off to Senators Feinstein and Schumer for their wrongheaded decisions.

But now…I’m hungry. And since my characters have hied themselves off to the Green Man Pub for some grub, I thought that food would be a good idea.

Writers cannot work on empty stomachs…

So there I was…staring at the computer and the White Screen of Certain Doom, when I realised that I hadn’t had any coffee yet.

Then I remembered the advice column our dear Adam B pointed to. That sent me wandering over to Jennifer Weiner’s column “So You Want to Be a Novelist.” In itself, it’s very cool to get bits and pieces of wisdom from those who’ve  made it through the vaunted gates of “The Published.”

That being said, I think that her very first words pretty much sum up what I’m feeling about this whole adventure.

Follow me down the winding path…

Aiseirigh is the Name of the Ship. One of its various meanings is Awakening.

According to the Iron Oak community, it is also “a dramatic and surrealistic portrayal of death and reincarnation. It is a statement that the cycle of life includes death and from death there is again life.

Dramatic? Cycle of life? Going from static space to dynamic space and on to static space?

Where’ve I heard that stuff before?

“A vivid and memorable setting can turn a good novel into a great one” (link).

Okay…so maybe there won’t be a dead body in the office. Hell. I’m not even sure there’s a office at this point. But setting is an important element when it comes to the novel.

Novels tell a story lived by characters. These characters? They pull us into their worlds. They show us what their worlds from the inside.

Some fictional characters stick with us for a variety of reasons. Characters like the Wife of Bath, Captain Ahab, the white whale, Alice, Holden Caufield, Gandalf, Jay Gatsby, Celia Garth, Beowulf, Hamlet, and so many others inspire us to ask questions about the worlds that exist both within and around us. Some, like Rosencrantz and Guilderstern offer us bits of humor amidst the darkness and tragedy. Others, like Peter Pan, Charlotte, and D’Artagnan, offer us insight into our better angels while still others–Voldemort, Big Brother, Cardinal Richelieu remind us of the darker shadows that surround us.