The Giant Hoodie

Sneaking up behind you, tiptoeing closer and closer, lurking at your back and then looming over you like a giant hoodie . . . it’s your next novel that wants to be written. Anyone else ever have this feeling? I sure hope not.

Write on, :) 

A Pawful of Fall

"She held a pawful of Fall."

I rather like that sentence: a bit flowery, poetic, “literary” as some would say. I haven’t yet used it, so feel free to grab it. She (I picture a dog or fox or wolf) could be holding a bunch of dead leaves, a pile of detritus, a pumpkin, whatever. But it is Fall, and she’s embracing it in her paw. Perhaps she just plowed through someone’s tidy mass of raked leaves, or the compost bin, or the dying vegetable patch. Go with it and imagine what you will.

But I ramble. I’m really just wrapping up summer, rereading two of my favorite book series, and pondering NaNoWriMo in November. Yes, there’s always that pesky writing and the items on my "mundane, logistical, writing-related resolutions for 2015." I’ve finished (most of) the rewrite of Book 7 in my Animal Guild Series: Seven Secrets in the Upper Attic. I axed 1,000 words, quite a feat for me, as I suspect some of you are thinking. Heh. People can change, can’t they? This book can also be considered a stand-alone novel since it’s a tad different from the others in the series, but you won’t get all of the references unless you’ve read the others. So Seven Secrets is in the paws—I mean hands of my beta readers, and thank you, guys! I hope to publish it in 2016 as e-book and paperback.

And then there’s items 3 and 4 on my New Year’s Resolutions list: Outline the sequel to Seven Secrets, and finish outlining the novel that comes after that one, which will definitely tie in the human, animal and beetle worlds in a big way. That’s two books to outline, but if—if—I use NaNoWriMo as impetus to finish the research and outlining, it might happen. So there wouldn’t necessarily be increasing word counts (heck, who wants to write a 50,000-word outline?!), but each word will count. The camaraderie, community and excitement that is NaNo will spur me and hordes of others onward in our writings. And that’s important.

Oh, and here’s a goofy teaser for Seven Secrets, for those intrigued:

This novel, about the adventures of a group of human kids, segues into the Animal Guild world in wacky and surprising ways. A group of runaway kids, an attic, a bad guy, a strange dog, ghost hunters, fortune seekers, theatrical shenanigans, crazy chases, other stuff, and, oh yeah, magic! Just what are the Seven Secrets in the Upper Attic?

Keep reading!

The Hikum is Released!*

Hey you loyal fans!

The Hikum, Book Six in The Animal Guild Series, is now available, in keeping with item number 2 in my "mundane, logistical, writing-related resolutions for 2015." Isn’t it nice to keep some of your New Year’s resolutions? Check out the ebook on Amazon and/or Smashwords; the paperback version will be out within a few weeks via Amazon’s CreateSpace.

Readers of The Animal Guild Series—The Animal Guild, Monsters in the Territory, The Marrhob War, The Nhorn and Outcasts—will be ready for the next adventure of Corto, Renard, Guelen and Bhresh. But there may be some surprises in store, as you can tell from the cover . . . hmmm, is that a human girl on the cover? And what is that spooky thing in the lower right corner? Eeeeek! 

Here’s the Teaser, but warning: Spoiler Alert if you haven’t read the first five books in the series:

Returning to the 233rd guild, fresh from the Bhasrhob War in Kaffracuss, things aren’t exactly going smoothly for Bhresh or Guelen. Bhresh battles her father’s distrust and the Marrhob prejudice against her new-found relatives, while Guelen struggles to fit in as peaceful historian rather than as a warrior queen. But when the human child of Bhresh’s vision suddenly arrives and everyone—beetle and animal—is exposed to a deadly plague, both leaders must convince their people that there is more to the disease than meets the eye, and that beetle magic must be behind it. Can they save their people before it is too late? Find out in this sixth book of The Animal Guild Series. 

* This is actually a pun, which you’ll get when you read the book. I love puns.

As always, thanks so much for your support and encouragement. And keep on with your reading/writing adventures!

Outcasts is FREE!

Well, the title says it all. Starting tomorrow (June 9) through the following Saturday, check out the link here for the ebook Amazon special deal on Outcasts. FREE! It doesn’t get any better. And enjoy the read. 

Of course, if you purchase the paperback version of Outcasts here, you get the ebook for free, anyway, so just saying…

And here’s a sneak peak of the partial cover of The Hikum, soon to be published:

It is the sixth book in The Animal Guild Series, and it should prove an interesting read.

Thanks as always, and please keep reading and writing and everything else you all do!

Lost in Dalemark

Diana Wynne Jones: The Dalemark Quartet: Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats, The Crown of Dalemark
 

Well, wow. These four books deserve a full post, not just a little book review. I started the first book in this quartet a few months ago, then slowly spread out the enjoyment of reading the other three until I finally finished Crown a few nights ago. When I browse reviews of the quartet, many readers say that they read these when they were young and now have come back to re-read and appreciate them. I missed all of DWJ’s books when I was young (although Crown was written in the 1990s, and I certainly wasn’t young then). As mentioned in a prior post ("It Came on to Pour with Rain"), I missed out on her magic way back when, but now I get to immerse myself in it with childish delight. 

I really didn’t think the fourth book could tie up the loose ends from the first three—but it does, and with effortless ease. As with each novel, the story, the characters, the style—all are quintessential DWJ. It’s no wonder that this novel won the 1995 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. After closing Crown, I experienced a Tolkien-esque yearning: I didn’t want the series to end, I wanted to read all of the books again, I wanted to hear what happened to everyone and their descendents. This is because DWJ’s world-building is so thorough, so richly conceptualized that she makes you want to live with the characters, be their best friends, share meals with them, groom their horses, gossip with them. I just long for the world of Dalemark to be real, and to be able to flit back and forth between time periods, or to work in the Library at Hannart maintaining everyone’s family tree and history.

Part of this whole-world envelopment is illustrated in DWJ’s use of character names. Particles of names—Tan, Noreth, Amil, Moril, Mitt—mix together throughout generations or are spelled slightly differently from generation to generation. The characters wonder about the meanings, but the reader does, too, and the realizations of what names mean are clues to the plot and ultimate ending. DWJ’s use of gods’ names, also, is so vivid and mythological that the reader will be surprised, by the end of the series, to remember that they do not exist. (Or do they? :) )

There are a lot of characters, especially in Crown. I think I counted ten-plus main characters in several scenes. Many writers/readers nowadays caution not to use more than three or four main characters—but DWJ gets away with it. Sure, you have to work a bit to remember them all, but you’ll find that you want to remember them, so you’ll invest the time to concentrate. This many characters, and the convoluted, layered plot, can be difficult for adults to read, but as DWJ has stated many times, her books written for children are actually more complicated than her books written for adults because children understand them better:

“Children are used to making an effort to understand. They are asked for this effort every hour of every school day, and though they may not make the effort willingly, they at least expect it. In addition, nearly everyone between the ages of nine and fifteen is amazingly good at solving puzzles and following complicated plots . . .  I can make my plots for them as complex as I please, and yet I know I never have to explain them more than once (or twice at the very most).” (Reflections on the Magic of Writing, p.34)

Finally, I want to say that the ending of Crown was just plain lovely. Some of DWJ’s endings are bittersweet, but this one is quite satisfying. She just keeps on squeezing her plots and surprising her readers. Wouldn’t it be fabulous to have her imagination and her ability to view lives differently, to always present an unexpected jolt that makes the reader sit up and exclaim, “Flaming Ammet! I didn’t see that coming!”

DWJ, wherever you are, thanks for another wild experience. And lucky me, I’ve still got lots of your books yet to read.