Author's Tool #8: Stilts

Note: I did not say a thirty foot ladder, a cherry picker or some low-flying aircraft (i.e. crop-duster).

Nope, I am talking stilts.

Albeit an acquired skill most often learned by circus clowns, it is a relatively risk-free endeavor for those with balance and protective gear.

Stilts provide just the right viewpoint for a well-meaning author dedicated to plot-sense and character management.

Whether we like it or not, successful novels are never just mush-fests with our players’ emotions. Structure is needed. And an interesting though sturdy framing is what a newbie author must, must have.

Getting lost amidst the throngs of your characters not only leads to trampling of Mother/Father Pen (that would be you, author), it also prohibits you from seeing and controlling the whole picture. The traffic flow, if you will.

However, buzzing your peeps with a crop-duster tends to sever most meaningful connections between author and characters. You've got to keep your hands dirty but your mind clear.

It’s a delicate balance, and one perfect for stilts.

Just remember that headgear.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Call of the Home Stream is Strong

Please, everyone, take your seats. Do not fear, any and all co-mingling over cocktails and party sausages will resume shortly.

The promised news from yesterday’s post is here!

As reported several weeks ago, the five novels of mine which Ravenous Romance recently released the rights to have indeed found new homes.

Today, I’d like to announce that I will be joining Riverdale Ave. Books!

Not only will they be reprinting my five stray stories, they have asked me to write new books and novellas for them as well!

The quandary in which this firmly sets me will no doubt be addressed in gory, wordy detail in future posts. However, I will bottom line it for you here…

The call of the home stream (m/m romance) is strong. But when the only viable (financially-speaking) future is in the mainstream of publishing, what’s a little guppy to do?

The answer of course is to soldier on. Mainstream romance here this tiny fishy comes.

But, are short visits to known, “easier” (as in, “I’m an old hand at the strokes required there”) waters a good idea or bad?

And there lies the quandary, the temptation and the cocktail sausages.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Watch Your Head

With the new year quickly making its way down the street, lugging 12 new months and a boatload of workdays with it, I am scurrying around trying to get my house in order for the new boarders.

Hence the construction zone with hard hat requirement on my author’s website.

Hence my four-legged muse heading off to the groomer’s today, abandoning me to my dusty toils without so much as a backward glance of guilt.

Hence the brevity and rather uselessness of this post.

Tomorrow, I hope to have some actual publishing news to share with you. So there is reason for you to return.

I do hope to see you then.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Burn Pile List

As attentive readers will have noticed, I am in the throes of developing an “Author’s Tools” list.

Although “throes” might be too strong of a word since I’ve only produced two (#17, and #61b) in the last ten days. But the point is effort is being made. In my screwed up little world that is often all that really matters.

Anyhow, as I was cruising through the fog and the rain this morning to dog-sit the very best blonde Lab in the history of the world (no bias here, of course), I realized that it would be a heck of a lot easier to write a list of rejects… Tools for the Literary Trash Heap, as it were. For instance, my Dog-Sitting Anxiety.

Yes, I did say Dog-Sitting Anxiety.

The sheer stupidity of this phenomenon has made it the first life-experience to reach this soon to be infamous list.

There is nothing to learn from worrying yourself sick and sleepless over having to go feed a perfectly healthy and happy puppy you’ve loved and dog-sat for 9 years.

There is nothing literarily pertinent to glean from complete nut-hood.

Perhaps the only thing such psychiatric silliness can teach a writer is the importance of rejecting/scrapping/tossing-out-into-the-burn-pile those life experiences that stink for no other reason than to stink.

In short: you can’t learn from everything.

Sorry.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Author's Tool #61b: Dream Harvesting

I would have slapped a “Paragraph 3, Footnote #12” onto the title, but I didn’t want to put too fine a point on it so early in the proceedings.

*“Yeah, and what point is that?” an impatient, Scrooge-like character challenges from the second row, adding a “Bah damn humbug!” for emphasis.*

The point is simply this: Harvesting storylines, inspiration or characters from dreams is a magnificent, wonderful idea… but one I have as of yet to master.

This is fairly laughable.

My dream output per night can easily be tagged Extensive (bordering on the Grotesque and the Worrisome, if we’re being totally honest).

My haul of goodies each morning should be back-breaking.

My backlog of 100k novels just waiting for that final touch should be monstrous.

I should be selling fully developed novel outlines on EBay just to pay for my Prozac.

Yeah, well, no.

None of that is happening, has happened, or ever will be happening.

My dreams are not friendly. In fact, I’d label them as personal attacks. They are not transferable to any other life than mine. (Bah damn humbug, indeed.)

But just because I can’t do it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Taking your dreams and finagling them into literary stockpiles is a smart idea.

By all means, go for it!

I’ll just be popping Prozac on the sidelines.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Family: The Verb

With fatigue settling in my bones like 18^th century squatters, I am struggling to find anything enlightening to say today… But I will try. It is, after all, what I do.

*the swell of appreciation at my haughtiness/sarcasm is alarming if not totally non-existent*

In a bit of a foul mood this morning so please excuse any disagreeables I might chunk out there. Duck and cover might be a wise strategy. Employ it often.

Carrying on…

Not only did I not write a single word yesterday, I spared not a glance at my computer. (How the world didn’t end at this, I don’t know.)

I family-ed myself into something of a blurry delirium instead. Talking so much to people other than my dog, my mother or my psychiatrist is not only weird and exhausting, it’s a bit quaking on my poor psyche as well. (Think San Francisco on a see-saw.)

Anyhow, during all this family-ing I tried my best to take mental notes on the intrinsic push and pull all families weather through daily. I tried to jot down any dynamics that could be put to use in my Six Brothers project idling at the curb…

But despite these grandiose efforts, I got nothing.

Zilch.

Nada times two.

I simply came out with squatters in my bones.

How is my life real?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Courting Legacy

As a writer I can be rather full of myself sometimes.

*pauses, hopes for gasps of honest surprise and shouts of denial… receiving none, carries on with a well-timed sniffle*

Case in point: A little, bitty part of my childless self has been hoping that my Six Brothers project would serve as my contribution to the family legacy. Based on the true story of six Scots-Irish brothers on my father’s side of the family who fought in America’s Revolution, that tiny, self-important niggle of me has grand plans of cementing those men’s sacrifices in the hearts of readers around the world…

*clears throat, tumbling back to reality*

Well, I’m sure you get my meaning.

Who knows if this will ever come to fruition. Who knows if a single soul beside my agent and a few unimpressed editors will ever read their/my story. But at least the effort has been made. I comfort my uterus-less self with that.

Today, 100 years ago my grandmother on my mother’s side was born. A remarkable spitfire of a woman this world misses her warmth and her light every day.

Her name was Ann and she was magnificent.

*pauses to check the blog follower numbers one more time*

By my best calculations, this little blog of mine has well over 500 dedicated followers throughout the various mediums. Perhaps, just perhaps, even if my Six Brothers never find print, this mention of my grandmother on her 100^th birthday in this very post will contribute at least something to the family legacy.

See? Told you I was rather full of myself.

*chuckles softly*

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

Until December 26^th…

Chloe

Naysaying

As the hours continue to scurry toward Christmas with fevered, peppermint-scented breaths, I’m doing all I can to keep up with them. Failing mostly. Just ask my Six Brothers project which continues to loiter untouched on the sidelines.

Besides my much crowed about buffing up of character insights, I’ve been terribly neglectful of my next and very mammoth novel.

A naysayer would claim I’m actively finding reasons for putting off the writing of my first full-length mainstream novel.

A naysayer would charge me with cowardice above and beyond all duty.

A naysayer would grade my writerly efforts as an “F” and pen a nasty note to my parents chiding them to “Do better with your underachieving spawn.”

Well, guess what?

That naysayer would not only be wrong, he’d be getting a crap-load of coal in his stinky little stocking.

Christmas comes first and I hope with all my heart that it always will.

Until tomorrow (Christmas Eve!!!)…

Chloe

Author's Tool #17: Self-Flagellation

Just to prove that there is more than well-meaning hogwash pumping through these veins of mine, allow me to illustrate how I put yesterday’s blog to actual use.

(SIDE NOTE: For any who either didn’t read yesterday’s blog or have let it slip from their minds, a few key words might be helpful… corpse, lye, emotional clusterf**k. There, that should get you primed and ready. Off you go.)

Without going into gruesome details, my little fall-apart this past Friday had to do with a sudden stab of loneliness.

So, instead of sweeping that really messy moment under the rug and forgetting about my lapse into morbid self-pity, I have used it to add further depth to Thackary, one of my infamous Six Brothers.

Having not felt that kind of “You are cursed to be alone for the rest of eternity” self-flagellation for a while, I have picked apart the pain and jotted down some awesome notes for dear Thackary (a lone man who I identify with rather ridiculously.)

Sometimes you actually have to live through something to be able to write about it honestly. (Most of the time, this is not the case. Faking it is a tried and true literary trick that usually works out marvelously well, but sometimes…)

So, I have generously given my “pain” to Thackary.

A writer sacrifices much for their art. *smirks wryly*

Anyhow, I don’t know if this helps or not, but there you go. Use my madness as you will.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Always Scrub with Lye

Whether you choose to deem it stupidity or blaring self-awareness, I no longer sweep bad moments like yesterday’s embarrassing trip to anguish-land under the rug.

Nope, unlike in years past, I don’t try to forget the emotional clusterf**k. (I was always tripping over the giant lump of pity under the rug, anyway, so why bother?)

Instead I plop the messy experience down upon my kitchen table and with a fine tooth comb examine its corpse closely for any hidden gems of literary wisdom.

Mining the remains of gory, personal clusterf**ks, I feel, is immensely important for a writer. Pardoning the tried but true expression, it can truly be a gold mine of goodies for us prospectors of character insight.

Of course some cleaning up will be necessary.

A hardy scrubbing with lye is encouraged.

In the end, however, you just might find yourself holding the roughly hewn heart of a character right there in the palm of your hand…

But, please, remember to wear gloves. Emotional clusterf**ks always burn.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Pardon Me This Lapse

A kick in the gut by a hobnailed boot.

Loneliness has that way of hitting you. It takes you down for the count.

Internal bleeding? Check.

Scars? Yep, you betcha.

What’s worse is when it catches you unawares. Give me a little time to prepare and I can handle most spiked pummels with more than my fair share of poise and decorum.

But that ever so rare sucker shot sends me reeling.

So, as I lay here flat on my back, still winded from a particularly vicious kick last night please excuse this little blip of self-pity.

It is Christmas and I am so blessed, but even the most steely of life veterans stumbles and falls from time to time.

Until tomorrow, when this steely (though still thoroughly mad) veteran will return upright and smiling…

Chloe

Up the Banana Tree

Good news like fresh bananas likes to come in bunches.

*pauses while the wisdom of that statement ferments in your soul*

So as I was scrounging around the banana tree yesterday, it wasn’t entirely surprising to find Quiver’s cover betwixt the leaves.

And may I just say that it is piping hot.

I’m absolutely loving it, which is so particularly nice since this is most likely the last cover I’ll receive from Ravenous Romance.

I was expecting the delivery to be bittersweet but I’m tasting nothing but the sugary good stuff right now.

Scrambling up from one rung on the career ladder to the next isn’t easy, as you all well know. So it is extremely nice to have a sizzling picture of two strikingly handsome men making out to see me and my pup off to the mainstream.

No release date has been given to me yet, but I couldn’t resist sharing Quiver’s cover with you all a little early.

Have a great Friday before Christmas, everyone!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

 

When Life Surprises

Wonderful news I’d like to share with you this Thursday morning…

Do you remember those five novels whose rights had been reverted back to me from Ravenous Romance several months ago?

Well, I have just this very minute received an offer for all FIVE to be republished!!!

Details to follow once all the particulars with the publishing house and my literary agent are ironed out.

Until then, please join me and my furry, four-legged muse in a happy dance that will put even the grandest elven shenanigans to shame! Santa’s always merry and bright little helpers have nothing on me and my pup this Christmas season.

Now, please pardon me while I cartwheel.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Sky of Stray Fancies

As the Six Brothers project idles in wait for the peak of the holiday season to steamroll past, that writing itch of mine is starting to ache.

“The need to write in this one is strong, indeed,” a Yoda-like voice confirms from the heavens.

So, I’m having to force myself at night not to pick up pen and paper to follow any stray storyline drifting by. (There are a ton of such storylines clogging up my skies. All flitting and fluttering about, trying their best to coax my always wandering eye to their flight… No wonder the doctors ply me with Prozac and pat me often on my poor little head. *chuckles wryly*)

The bottom line is this: A vacation from creating/storytelling/playing-make-believe is darn near impossible for me.

As my pseudo-Yoda would say, “The writing itch in this one is nasty, indeed.”

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Time Crunch

Have you noticed how my blog postings are getting later and later as Santa gets closer to loading his sleigh?

I am shying away from blaming elf activity for my tardiness for the lone objective of remaining on Mr. Claus’s “Nice” list.

The fact that I’m still clinging to the bottom of that list at such a late date in the year is rather miraculous and I’d like to push it and see how far I can ride the good cheer before crashing and burning at the feet of a fat and peeved Kris Kringle.

*pauses, considers, winces just a little*

Have you noticed how the length of my sentences and my lack of grammatical aptitude has increased exponentially with the nearing of the big elven show time?

Blame for this lies solely on me I’m afraid. Brain cells and syntax ground rules tend to flail and go particularly dim at the sight of all these wonderfully twinkling Christmas lights. If life was up to me, I’d just plant myself in front of a gaily lit Christmas tree and gawk giddily all year long.

*pauses, considers, winces grotesquely*

Have you noticed that this post has no merit whatsoever?

Yeah. Me, too.

So without further ado, I bid you good morning.

Until tomorrow (when I WILL get this posting thing right, I promise)…

Chloe 

Show and Tell

Ok, time for a spot of hard truth…

Getting any substantial work done on the word count of my Six Brothers project from now until Christmas is nothing more than idle folly.  

In other words, it ain’t happening.

While in some dark corner of my brain I had surely known this truth for the last week or so, I was hesitant to drag it out into the light until now. (Future failures are terribly ugly beasts I usually try to fight back with a stick. Hauling them out for show and tell in front of the class is something this over-achiever tries to avoid at all costs.)

Well, everybody, meet Grunewald.

Grunewald is 7 feet and 310 pounds of bald and blatant failure on my part.

He is a grumpy, bloated sort who feasts on gingerbread cookies and my voracious self-doubt.

He enjoys sneezing, self-satisfied snorting and all manner of cavorting with his close cousin Frank (my specter of imminent failure).

Grunewald is available for adoption immediately.

Please contact the nut writing this blog for further details.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Go Ahead. Impress Me.

Oh, you should see the list of goodies I’ve dug up from my newly acquired hardback Recollections of Life on the Prison Ship Jersey. It’s amazing! (Note how the nerdiness abounds here.)

No worries though. There will be no hammering of Revolutionary War trivia at you. I will be speaking in general terms alone, so stop nervously glancing at that exit door. There will be time enough for fleeing later.

What has surprised me most in my current fever of researching are the tidbits I find myself jotting down as I read.

Instead of the cold, hard facts about the imprisonment of soldiers in the prison ships in Wallabout Bay, I’ve honed in on the actual words the former prisoner uses to describe his experience.  Such as, what the prisoners would call the ship? What did the guards, both kind and heartless, call the captured soldiers? What terms the imprisoned men used to describe areas of the hellish ship?

The cold, hard facts about how long the Jersey was or how many guns she once held have mattered little to my hungry imagination. (Usually I devour these kinds of facts like M&M’s…. you know, the more the merrier.)

But, apparently, I have actually grown as a writer. I now zero in more on contemporary impressions than numbers and specs.

I’ve finally realized that in writing a historical novel true to the historical characters doesn’t mean a reliance on history.

Hmm. Who knew?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe  

Danger Zone

Well, I’m about a quarter of the way through reading one of my much anticipated research books.

The result?

1.) A shortage of Post-It notes in the southeast United States.

2.) A plethora of ideas that has needed constant swatting down. (My Six Brothers project is already full to overflowing. Extraneous storylines, no matter how juicy, are simply not allowed.)

3.) At least five completely new novels revving their engines in my ears. (Yep. All disallowed “extraneous storylines” from above have stormed here.)

4.) Did I mention the Post-It notes thing?

It’s always dangerous to give me research to do.

I should have known better.

I can only hope Santa’s got an “in” at the Post-It notes factory.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Giving Mouth

Points of view.

How many is too many?

Please direct your responses to “Chloe Stowe: Frantic Worry Wart.”

Thank you and good day.

*seriously considers ending it there but relents with a sigh*

I’m worried, so please allow me to vent for a blogging moment.

Having never written a novel with more than three points of view, I’m a little freaked at trying to write one with at least six.

Is six ok?

Does it help that it will be the voices of three men and three women? Or does it make it even more confusing?

Am I in over my head? Or can I blame this panicking on the infamous misfiring of my brain cells? (Remember: underlying Chronic Panic Disorder here.)

Or should I just suck it up and go for it? Who gives a rat’s behind how many people are talking as long as the story they’re telling is freaking fantastic… right?

Yeah, well, excuse me while I go tear my hair out.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, the Soon-To-Be Bald

Folly Embraced

With my hardback edition of Recollections of Life on the Prison Ship Jersey clutched excitedly to my chest, I am ready to meet Thursday with the feverish gusto of a researcher too long from the tomes.

I am a rather silly human being, I know.

Oh well, I am determined to embrace my eccentricities. Perhaps a few of them will even payoff on my first full-body dip into mainstream romance?

The voracious hunger of a “I want to know it ALL!” should give me a leg-up on some of the competition… Right?

If it hasn’t come to your attention yet, I am trying very hard to defend this researching jaunt. I should be writing, but bowing to a little folly in your work shouldn’t be an altogether bad thing. Especially if said-folly could add a bit of colonial-era sparkle to the tale. (Can a 100k novel even be called a tale? Hmm, something to ponder between dusty tomes)

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Focusing That Viewfinder

Still perched on the stoop awaiting my care package of research goodies, I am happily humming to the news that the Cubs have landed free agent Jon Lester. (This is after a late night happy dance in my bedroom that included fist pumps and fangirl giggles.)

But as I doubt many of you have dropped by to hear the Shakespearian tale of the Chicago Cubs, I will now veer the conversation back toward writing. (Whether this is an improvement or not, I leave to your judgment.)

Crafting a historical novel is one thing, actually writing it is another.

I thought setting up a logical, entertaining chain of events that would buckle and climax at the appropriate times for a 100k novel would be the truly hard part.

Wrong.

Writing it has been the real bear.

Now, as the holidays have arrived and writing schedules have been scattered to the winds, I’ve had time to strategize a little on how to move forward more efficiently with the Six Brothers project.

With all the historical depth and richness available about the years of the American Revolution, I have decided to concentrate the novel’s historical core on the prisoners of war. Accuracy in this department will be key, crucial and demanding. However, by focusing it all in one area, I hope to be able to move more quickly through the actual writing of the novel while still retaining its all-important historical feel.

Let’s be frank. People and their relationships to each other haven’t changed drastically through the years. Love, hate, jealousy, generosity, faith and forgiveness are all the same, just expressed through different methods. I’ve got a ton of experience writing these emotions, so they will flow rather easily from me. The trap I’ve fall into is one of obsessive historical accuracy on all fronts, in all nooks and crannies of the book.

An impossible goal to reach.

At least for me.

So, the bulk of my detailed historical efforts will now lie with the prisoners of war. Hopefully, this strategy will limit this research nut’s OCD tendencies to more manageable levels.

Hopefully.

We’ll see.

And here end today’s rambling lecture.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Color Me Plaid

In a move that will surely flaunt my most geeky attributes, I ordered 3 books from Amazon yesterday about American Revolution Prisoners of War.

Since I am writing a novel centered around the fallout one family faces when one of their own is captured in battle and imprisoned on the infamous “Jersey,” purchasing such resources is understandable and not entirely “geeky” on its own.

However…

The level of excitement pumping through my veins as I await the books’ arrivals is truly geeky. Nerdy, even. Dare I say, dorky?

Oh yeah, that’s a big yeppers for all three supposedly less than sparkling attributes.

Color me plaid, boys.

However…

I kind of like plaid.

A little geekiness never hurt anybody with half a brain cell in their head, so I can deal.

And being somewhat of a nerd is nearly a prerequisite for writing an historical novel.

The “dork” bit I could do without but I’ve been called far worse in my day.

So, here your blogger sits anxiously awaiting the mail, sporting a grin of simply ridiculous wattage… but pity me not, dear friends. I wear my plaid proudly.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

SIDE NOTE: I’m an old timer who likes her books wearing paper and ink.  

Patience & Bliss

Riding a particularly spectacular wave of happy as my one and only sister has just received some marvelous career news, I truly have no impetus whatsoever to do much of anything.

Basking in another’s bliss is a hobby of mine, it seems.

There will be bliss of my own to find someday. I’m a patient one, so I will wait until it is my time on the professional center stage. Until then, I, my pup and my Six Brothers will plod along, happy in the borrowed sunshine.

Pardon the briefness of this post. Apparently, blogging and basking are not easy companions.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Being Open to Life's Balloons

To my honest surprise, I realized just this morning that I am rather enamored of challenges.

I thrive on them, eat them up like candy… (the fact that I almost always choke on the darn things and make a terrible mess of everyone’s life selfishly doing it, will not be discussed in today’s blog.)

Now, I realize that many, many people in this world can say they are challenge-sniffers. So it hardly makes me remarkable in any way. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.

*”There’s a point?” a mittened man in the fourth row shouts*

Yes, there is a point.

I think.

I hope.

Well, let’s see…

No matter your age, no matter your psychological make-up or how close you are to your friendly, neighborhood psychiatrist, there are always surprises to be had within yourself.

Sometimes they take digging, carefully vetted introspection or exploratory teams consisting of ice cream and good wine to find.

Sometimes they pop up out of nowhere while you’re tootling through the Alabama countryside on a dog-sitting mission. (Yep, that would be me this morning.)

The point I’m trying to make is this… Every soul is full of surprises. Close your eyes, count to ten and see what leaps out from behind your couch with balloons and streamers in hand. It could be just the surprise your heart needs.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

P.S…. Apologies to the mittened man. On further review, despite my best efforts, there really was no viable point to this blog. I’ll do better next time, I promise.

The Chaser King

To the total awe of myself and my four-legged muse, a fourth day of writing success was had yesterday on the daunting Six Brothers project.

Neither of us dare pinch the other in case this literary flow is just a figment of our very rambunctious imaginations. (The things my dog comes up with are wild, man! Really. Think a cocktail of Ludlum and Dickens with a chaser of King… Yeah, it’s a little freaky around here, sometimes.)

As I announced a few days ago, the youngest of my Six Brothers will indeed live. However, the wiggle room I’m needing to write this story truly Chloe-like (if you’ve read one of my novels, you know what I’m talking about… Think this blog, only with coherence, plot and sex) will be taken from Leo and his love interest’s subplot.

I’m hating having to cut back on the “screen time” for these two, but they both will still play crucial roles in the story. Their development as completely whole and separate entities will just be limited.

Hopefully by the time the Six Brothers is published and riding high on international Best Selling Lists (No chuckling. It could happen. Hope, like Leo, lives.) only you and I will know of this youngest brother’s struggle to exist.

Before the accolades begin to rain down upon my head, however, I have to write the darn thing. So, off to work, I go!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Breather

Riding the high of three straight days of excellent progress on the Six Brothers project, I’ve decided to take a step away from that craziness and update you on the rest of my writerly goings-on.

Apparently Ravenous Romance has had a bit of trouble with their servers the last few weeks which has delayed the release of my 17^th novel Quiver (you remember, old Book Three of “The Lion and the Steed” Series?). I’ve been told to expect a cover soon, so hopefully it will see print by the beginning of the year.

The five novels which I have been given the rights back to after years of being in print, I have delivered to my literary agent in hopes of finding them new homes. Fingers remain crossed that these men will return to the stores soon.

Wish me luck on a fourth day of literary luck with my colonial lovers. Crashing and burning, I’d really like to avoid.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Gunsmiths & Grapes

With two full days of actual “Man, this is really kind of good!” writing on the Six Brothers under my belt, I am frankly concerned that asking for a third is indeed asking too much.

Pushing that concern away for the moment, I have an announcement to make…

*the canine muse at my hip, rolls her eyes; the “Not this again” clear upon her furry countenance*

*steadfastly ignores the dog in favor of the blatant grandiosity of a drumroll…*

Leo will live!

Yep, the youngest of the Brothers Six will in fact survive to provide both guns and brawn to Fannett Township throughout the Revolutionary War!

I have it on good word that the lad is glad and appreciative of the opportunity. His significant other has also sent regards via a lovely fruit basket.

So, while I munch on a lovely apple and nibble on some lovely grapes, I wish you all a lovely Thursday.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe and her miffed muse

Clandestine

Admittedly, I was a little sneaky.

No, I didn’t resort to the donning of masks and dark, fanciful cloaks. There was no ringing the front doorbell and then scurrying in through the rear the moment their backs were turned. I didn’t even have to resort to prank phone calls in false voices.

My treachery was tiny and a little bit silly.

Approaching the Six Brothers project, I realized that I didn’t want to just walk into it like every other day. I knew I’d let myself get stuck on that monstrous outline. I’d trip over all those chapters and all those scenes and sprain something before I even wrote a single word.

So, I didn’t open my Scrivener (where all my novel pursuits lay). I instead went straight to the good old Word program, opened myself up a blank document and wrote whatever the heck I wanted.

The sneakiness actually worked.

Over 500 words of really good writing was done lickety-split. Before I knew it, two of my major characters had their personalities bloom right before my wide, unbelieving eyes. It was wonderful!

The point is this: Don’t be afraid to sneak up on your writing project and say “Boo!” Sometimes it’s just what the both of you need.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Penning the Good Morrow

Had to reintroduce myself to the lads and lasses of Fannett Township, Pennsylvania yesterday. Not surprisingly, my Six Brothers and their honeys didn’t remember their long (1 week, people!) absent author.

After a handful of “Good Days” followed by some “Good Morrows,” I departed feeling a little better about our relations.

We’ve still got some rough spots to work through, particularly the whole “I might rub out Leo” issue, but I think some inroads have been made. I’ve promised not to make any hasty decisions as to brother-whacking and they promised a little more access to their psyches (critical for a writer to really “feel” the character, I believe.)

So, today we will see if the tenuous ceasefire will hold… If I will be welcomed back into the Fannett fold… If Leo will allow me anywhere near his strapping, young, gun-smithing self.

Wish me well on my journey back to late Colonial Pennsylvania… and prepare a ransom if Leo and the boys jump me at The Harrow & Flail Tavern.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Prepare the Poor Fish

Assuming for a moment that the literary world is an actual terra firma place with rivers and valleys and whatnot, I would like to take this opportunity to issue a warning to the authorian lands.

Chloe is back!

Please prepare your carefully manicured flowerbeds to be tromped on by big, ungainly feet.

Please post advisories on the shores of your Mainstream. Clumsy, gangly, but terribly well-meaning Ms. Stowe will be splashing yet again in your calm waters. Fish may be injured.

Please alert your purveyors of weather that a tiny, ragged cloud of panic and self-doubt may indeed litter your cornflower blue skies this afternoon. No need to run and hide; cowering in a spot of brilliant sunshine will do.

All silliness aside, I do plan to start back on the Six Brothers today.

As it stands at this moment, Leo still lives. Most likely the fate of the youngest sibling will not be determined for several days yet.

Perhaps my little forced sabbatical for Thanksgiving madness will have provided the much needed kick-in-the-butt to get things truly rolling? If so, Leo will survive. I like my gunsmith and his significant other. It would be a terrible shame to lose them to Author Ineptness.

So, please, wish me and the literary world well as we again collide. (And keep an especially good thought for the poor fish.)

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Bolognese Gambit

Like a good Bolognese sauce, I am letting the Six Brothers stew on the back burner, allowing the flavors to blend and bloom.

*pauses, letting the crap settle*

Ok, so that opening line was little more than imaginatively presented bull, but I believe some credit should be given for the effort.

These hectic days of happy familial obligations, when any writing beyond this blog has been impossible, are lying heavy on my mind. Coming up with some literal rationale for my lack of craft-plying is quickly becoming a necessity.

The Bolognese Sauce Excuse was today’s winner… and wasn’t it grand?

Tomorrow, I hope to return to writing. This blog will then return to something at least pretending to be useful, educational and insightful.

So, let’s all keep our fingers crossed that on this last day of backburner stewing, nothing too important will burn, scald, crisp or turn.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe