Tag Archives: amwriting

Breakthroughs.

Posted on by

I’ve got some fantastic news from the world of Stormriders! Recently I completed a full chapter-by-chapter plot synopsis, to fill in any plot holes, etc. … and ended up with several new fully-developed characters AND a plot that works! 

Hooray!

Disclaimer: Please don’t worry… I headed into the writing process absolutely determined to make the plot work, and had a general idea of where I wanted my characters to go and why. However, “best-laid plans” etc. … whatever the expression is. It was a little thought, in the back of my mind, in that dark corner that all writers know about, where the doubt hides. The little thought nagging me every time I finished a chapter: “Are you CERTAIN you know where this is going?”

This was the first time I’d actually written everything down. And I mean EVERYTHING. Timelines for every single character. Travel times for distances that haven’t been used before (my folks use tall ships to get from point A to point B, crossing a huge ocean where the Midwest used to be). Motivations for why people end up where they do, and why they do the lovely or the terrible things they do. And friends, IT WORKS. It all works.

OH YEAH I ALMOST FORGOT THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE.

Conceptual cover art © Copyright 2017 by Jen Lynn Anderson. All rights reserved.

The plot worked so well for Stormriders that it morphed and evolved into this 3-book trilogy monster! Not my intention, but upon reaching the end of the synopsis I realized the fates of my MCs were left hanging. There is much more of their story to tell. And tell it, I shall!

This month is National Novel Writing Month’s “Camp NaNoWriMo” event (for those of you familiar with NaNo and recognize it in November, the founders host a spring event as well!) and I’m aiming for 2,000 words per day during the month of April. I want this story in your hands ASAP. I’m ready for it to be out there, and I can’t wait for you to read it! This chapter synopsis reaffirmed that fact.

I’m also working on a dialect manual (the Tiders speak in a creole dialect of Appalachian English, Scots English, Gaelic and pirate… oof!) because my heroine has to start speaking soon and I need to understand her if you’re going to be able to do the same. 😂 I’ll be including an annotated version of this in an appendix at the back of the book once we’re at the point of publication. I have a ton of rich material from my world-building exercises, so let me know if you’d be interested in learning more about Tider culture, and I can maybe make something happen!

For those of you who have generously donated to my Patreon: thank you so so much! Your first tangible reward, a short story set in the world of Stormriders, is currently in the editing process, and I hope to have that out to you by mid-May.

More updates to come!

If you’d like to check out my Patreon and donate to the Stormriders Publication Fund, click here.

 

BLOG HOME

Tasks (or, Un Résumé de la Vie)

Posted on by

My first task on this planet was to take a breath, and then another. And then, to fill my lungs with life and shout into the void my purpose for existing. I have not stopped since.

My second task on this planet was to obey. Mightily, I struggled with this task; heavy chains rattling a song of resistance as I fought tooth and nail against the oppressive directives of “Don’t Touch That” and “Eat Your Vegetables.” Mightily, I rebelled against the later executive orders of “Clean Your Room” and “Don’t Talk Back To Me” and “Be Back In This House One Minute Before Your Curfew.” And then, much later, from the distance of new adulthood and the separation of three hundred cell phone towers, “Be Safe And Make Good Choices.” This task has a limited shelf life, diminishing in value as the years pass, and attached is the critical conditional clause: “Unless When Confronted With Oppression Or Injustice.”

My third task on this planet was to be kind. To lift up the fallen and heal the wounded with words of strength and actions of support. The third task is the most difficult of all the tasks at times, when you are the one licking your own wounds, when you must pick yourself up after a tumble. But this task eventually takes a form much like the first. When you hold the hand of a bullied schoolmate, or sit next to the woman wearing a headscarf on the bus to shield her from verbal shrapnel, to perform this task carries the weight of indrawn oxygen.

My fourth task on this planet is to see. To open my eyes and keep them wide open. To witness the life experiences of others through a lens that does not belong to me. To stare at the bright glare of the truth, no matter how it burns through the safe protective shield of my own life experience. No matter how it hurts.

My fifth task on this planet is to listen. If you listen hard enough, you can hear music in the strangest of places. If you listen hard enough, you can hear the whispers of your childhood dreams in dark corners, revealing themselves to you again and again. If you listen hard enough, you can hear what people mean to say, even when they don’t speak out. Or even when they shout.

My sixth task on this planet is to be present. To pay attention to what is happening now, even while remembering what happened a long time ago, while imagining the happenings to come. To stand in one place, unafraid and undaunted, and be here, and belong.

My seventh task on this planet is to create. To fill the void with something other than my shouted purpose. To take beautiful things and ugly things and painful things, and forge the spark that lodges and burns recognition into someone else’s soul. To pull stories from the ether and scorch them into words onto the kindling of my notebooks. To obey the Muse. To lift up the voices, the stories, of the oppressed. To tell the truth. To hear the dreams of my own childhood whispering to me in echoes.   

This résumé will not land me a job; not in the traditional, societal sense. This particular curriculum vitae will not earn me tenure in the career field called Life; none of us live forever. But I have to wonder… in this cosmic karma machine of birth and death, work and play, waiting and doing, creating and destroying, seeking and finding, living and dying… I have to wonder if I’m hired.

 

Author’s Note: This piece originated from a writing prompt “My First Job” for the Waconia Writer’s Group, 2/12/17. (You can see how well I adhere to the concept of literalism.)

 

BLOG HOME

In this time of heartbreak and fear, keep writing.

Posted on by

file_000-25Writing is an escape for me. It is an escape for many of us who craft words into stories, and stories into experiences for others. The process of writing fiction has always been cathartic because it allows us to step outside of our own lives and into lives of our own imagining. Who doesn’t want to disappear for awhile into a world of their own making; where unemployment checks, past-due bills and the uncertain state of nation and world affairs don’t have an influence? Who doesn’t want to temporarily shed the weight of reality in favor of the soaring reach of dreams?

That is the intention, anyway.

The past few months have left me paralyzed. The past week alone has left me gasping for enough breath to scream. I, along with millions of people, have witnessed the rending of the seams of the fabric of American society, leaving behind something that is wholly unrecognizable, but nevertheless horrifying on an unfathomable scale. For me, events have flickered over my computer screen, over my TV screen, with painful speed, as I struggled as though underwater to grasp what exactly every new executive order means for me. For the people I love. For my friends of all walks of life. For millions of innocents I have never met but for whom my heart is shattering.

Since November 9th, I have written few words.

I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. But I couldn’t find them. I still don’t know whether I have. Certainly not enough for what has transpired at the hands of the new American president (I will NEVER say his name). I will say that there are some eerie parallels between certain recent executive orders and certain events that take place in my dystopian YA novel-in-progress. Looming conflicts with peoples from sovereign nations, the catastrophic decommissioning of environmental protections. A villain who is a vain, power-hungry opportunist whose primary “tragic” flaw, and obstacle, is his own malignant narcissism. But who could have predicted the real-life Resistance would be led by Teen Vogue and the park rangers? (Also, I would pay good money to read THAT story.)

I digress. I’ve reached an epiphany of sorts this week, as immigrant families were turned away at airports and as millions of people became fearful once again of losing control over their health. As women across the world grew more uncertain about the autonomy they had over planning their families. As arts programs were pushed onto the federal budget chopping block and as truth-tellers in the press… the “fourth branch of government” and the American public’s last line of defense… continued to be berated with threats and scorn from the President of the United States. As all of these travesties were legitimized by inaction from Congress, and as lies were turned into “alternative facts.” As things got as bad as we all feared, and then worse.

As scared and as heartbroken as I feel right now, I’ve realized that the one real power I have left is my voice. The ability to use it in unison with millions of others, as we reach out to our elected representatives. The ability to use it to educate the ignorant, to further the ideas of intersectional feminism, conservation, equal rights for all. The ability to reach people through storytelling, to document atrocities, to analyze, to critique… and also to set free the dream, to imagine a better world, to fight back against the terribleness of this one with the things I need to say. The words I must find. It costs me nothing to do this. It costs me everything to stop.

We can never stop.writersresist

In this time of heartbreak and fear, keep writing.logo

As people in power do their best to destroy everything we’ve built, keep writing.

As marginalized groups come under attack, find the writers among them and raise their voices up. We need their voices, now more than ever.

As we push on into this uncertain and definitely unprecedented future, keep writing.

Keep writing, my fellow word warriors.

Keep.

Writing.

 

BLOG HOME

The art of being happily alone, a “Stormriders” update, and some other miscellany.

Posted on by
Reply
File_004 (1)

No Internets mean much writings.

A solo weekend getaway would usually be considered an odd choice for me. I like people, generally. However, being bombarded with so many distractions (of political and sporting nature) this summer has not been conducive to fulfilling my commitments as a writer, and to myself. The distractions add up. With all the negativity and stress hanging around society lately, a weekend away from humans (physically and digitally) sounded like a phenomenal plan. An uncle owns a gorgeous piece of land on Little Alden Lake, a stone’s throw northwest of Duluth. And so, last weekend I ventured into the Great Northern Wild Pine Forests of Minnesota, with only my dog Layla (with the very real title of Bear Scarer bestowed upon her) in tow, and with the very real intention of disappearing from the rest of humanity for 72 hours. Minimum.

From my journal, the morning after I arrived:

Twenty-five minutes outside the city, and the pavement turns to dirt and gravel. The forest presses in on you as you take the winding road, which you begin to think is taking you into the bowels of a forest purgatory, or toward some hidden backwoods colony of survivalists; you try to ignore the banjos playing the theme from “Deliverance” in your head. You shouldn’t have started the journey after sunset… what were you thinking?
 
The moment when you are absolutely, hysterically certain you have lost your way and your fate is to be eaten by the bears, you are there. Ahead lies a little idyll of certainty in the heart of darkness. An A-frame cabin and a few outbuildings nestle between fully grown pines that soar into the black overhead. A precariously handmade stairway of stones create a path down a shaded slope to the lake. The property is surrounded by a thick ring of pine trees and underbrush, muffling the presence of the few neighbors who live there year round.

File_003 (7)

Little Alden Lake, a.k.a. The Perfect Place On Earth

You turn off the ignition and are immediately aware of the utter absence of sound. The nocturnal creepy-crawlies, momentarily disturbed by the intrusion of bright car headlights, have fallen silent. You look up, and as your eyes adjust, you see the blackness has dissolved into a cacophony of the brightest stars you have ever seen. You could swear they are only a few inches from your face, for how bright and clear they are.

Your dog’s low, uneasy growl snaps you back to earth. She stares intently beyond the circle of light from your high beams, as if she can sense something out there, waiting beyond the trees. And, then out of nowhere, the unearthly shriek of a loon warbles up from the water, echoing through the trees. Your heart jumps into your throat. You run inside. You will unpack tomorrow.

You may be thinking I was thinking I’d made a big mistake. Nothing could be further from the truth. Being utterly alone for those three days was exactly what I needed.

Some people call it recharging their batteries. I call it an exercise in focus.

File_000 (10)

Nature + wine = happy tingles. Thanks, Science.

Aside from the massive amounts of writing I was able to accomplish in the massive void left behind by the Internet, there are several moments from the weekend I can pinpoint, where I was not doing a whole lot. Waking with the morning and walking out onto the deck that faces the lake, watching Layla chase frogs in the grass, feeling the sun’s warm kiss on my skin, drinking in the scenery with my coffee, merely thinking about my novel… and I would feel this strange tingly buzz that started somewhere under my ribs and spread through my arms and legs, to my fingers and toes, flowing up my spine and prickling across my scalp.

I don’t know if there’s a word that can accurately explain that feeling (“Endorphins?” asks Science), but maybe I’ll call it the body’s reaction to the brain’s realization of pure and utter joy. Contentment. Confidence in the knowledge that when I did sit down to write, I would write and write and write. I was so happy I was tingly. Everyone should be able to feel that feeling.

So, I say, seek out the places that make you tingly. Take a break from the places that squeeze, that apply pressure, that weigh down, that pull apart. Unplug. Be by yourself for a weekend, a day, an hour even. Give yourself the space to rest, “recharge,” refocus. Let your senses take in the small things in those moments. The fluid sparkle of sunlight on the water. The surprising complexity of loon song. The squelch of mud between your toes. The hilarity of a hound dog learning what a frog feels like in her mouth (the frog survived). The late summer wind that already has a crisp bite to it, hinting of an early autumn. On a tree branch of a thousand green leaves, espying the one with a reddish tinge. How the wine in your glass tastes different as you breathe in the scent of fresh pine.

Allow yourself the pleasure of being alone.

STORMRIDERS UPDATE:

During my voluntary absence from human contact, I was able to complete the next chapter in “Stormriders.” For more information about the story, and to read the first 4 chapters free, you can visit my Stormriders page.

 NEW STUFF

While some of my other writing projects have taken a backseat to Stormriders (I’m only human, and just one!) I am still incrementally moving them forward. My Tanzania travel memoir survived its second edit, and I’m working on the specifics for getting that out into the world. Namely, to Amazon.com or not to Amazon.com. I would be appreciative of any feedback from my fellow indie authors, regarding alternative print-on-demand and e-book vendors. Which vendors are your favorites? What as worked for you, and what hasn’t?

I’ve also got a few short story ideas in my head that I will undoubtedly make available for free here, on my site, in the near future. More on that down the road!

The Power and Authenticity of Fictional Languages

Posted on by
File_000 (4)

Research! (Book cover courtesy of author Robert Hendrickson and illustrator/cover designer Cathy Rincon)

Creating a new dialect ain’t easy.

During my worldbuilding endeavors for my serial novel, Stormriders, I discovered that some of the people who lived in the World I Built spoke an interesting hodge-podge creole of Appalachian English and Pirate English vernacular. Interesting, but tricky. I’d never created a dialect before. Luckily, I have been able to research to my heart’s content because The Interwebs. And what I’m finding is fascinating!

I’ve learned that there are dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference materials out there for just about every language that exists or has ever existed on the planet. And many of those are free!

I’ve learned that Appalachian English remains the closest still-spoken dialect on earth to the language of Shakespeare (Hendrickson, 1997).

I’ve learned that Pirate English is a dialect that is actually spoken by more real-life people today that I could have imagined.

I’ve learned that creating a language, even a creole dialect of English language variations, is HARD. But as words fly out of my main character’s mouth and onto the pages of my story, it’s apparent how worthwhile the effort is.

Language brings authenticity to the world you’ve created.

World-building is one of the most enjoyable writing exercises for me. And why wouldn’t it be? Science fiction and fantasy authors the world over have created some of the most vibrant, beautiful worlds I’ve ever pictured inside my head via the words on their pages. And all of those worlds came replete with rich geographical, climatological, political, and cultural details.

I’m no J.R.R. Tolkien. Inventing a brand new language from scratch (as Tolkien did multiple times for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) is daunting in a way I can’t fully voice. Perhaps Tolkien felt similarly as he began wandering through the World He Built. Perhaps not… he was a philologist, after all.

Thankfully, for the purposes of my story and the world I’ve built for Stormriders (which takes place in a post-apocalyptic former North America), I did not have to invent a new language from scratch. But for one group, the Shoalfolk of the Carolina Shoals (a string of low-lying islands and cays that formerly comprised the Appalachian highlands, before catastrophic flooding devastated the low-lying continental United States over millennia), it felt inappropriate to neglect to honor that rich culture that, to this current day, reflects the linguistic cadences and phrasing of Elizabethan English.

In order for readers to believe in your characters, you have to be able to answer questions about every aspect of the world in which your characters were born, grew up, and have embarked upon their journeys. Language is one of those critical aspects (and I would argue, perhaps one of the most important), which can shape a culture and bring authenticity to your characters themselves, as they move through the world you’ve tirelessly imagined.

And it’s a big, big world out there, indeed.

BLOG HOME