Beneath the Rowan Tree

How do I inspire myself?

2013-03-01T11:53:00.002-08:00

When you are a professional artist or author, you have deadlines. You can’t very well tell your client or publisher that you’re just not feeling very inspired right now; that artistic genius can’t happen at the drop of a hat. You’re client or publisher won’t appreciate your seemingly snobby, arrogant attitude and you most likely won’t ever be hired again once the word gets around. You have to be pretty famous to get to make your own deadlines. Somebody like Stephen King tells his publishers when he finishes a book, not the other way around. But he’s been writing longer than I’ve been alive. I’ve been writing since I’ve been alive but unfortunately, publishers don’t generally take three pages of scribbly lines a two year old says is a story.

Although I am not a professional by any means (I’d like to be, of course), I still need to find a way to inspire myself, get my thoughts moving so that I can meet my own deadline of completing my book by the end of the year. Hopefully these tips I share will help you too!

1) I listen to music that makes me think of my main character Rowan. Evanescence, Metallica, and Dommin are the main go-to bands. The music is dark and beautiful and helps put me in the mindset of Rowan.

2) Certain movies get my brain moving. Whether it’s a psychological thriller like Mr. Brooks or a fantasy epic such as Lord of the Rings, I look for something that will catch my eyes and will make me want to write. I am very visually oriented and I often see my book as a movie playing in my head.

3) Going for a walk or being active will often get me thinking. A walk especially helps put me into an introspective mood.

I often cannot be creative with other people in the room. It is almost a hindrance when someone else is sitting next to me, no matter how quiet or unobtrusive. The only person I have been able to write with is my husband. It’s very important to have a special place to write where you can feel completely comfortable and allow you to delve into your world. Find a place that speaks to you, whether it is somewhere quiet like a library or your own living room, don’t let your creativity be hampered! Make it happen and you just might be surprised at what comes about.

Sincerely

A.M.

Origin of Valentine's Day

2013-02-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it is the wonderful and happy day that is Valentine’s Day! I thought I would share the origin of Valentine’s Day with you all and the story may not be what you thought.

There are a few different St. Valentine’s known, and with each different Valentine comes a different story. One such story is the Valentine was a Priest who was alive during the reign of Claudius II in Rome. Claudius felt that young, single men performed better in battle, possibly because they weren’t preoccupied with concerns for their wife and children at home, and he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages and was imprisoned. What a beautiful story of love!

Another possibility is that Valentine had been imprisoned for some other deed, perhaps helping Christians to escape the Roman dungeons. The man who guarded Valentine had a daughter who regularly visited him and so came to know Valentine as well. Before he was executed he sent her a note, signing it ‘From Your Valentine’. Sound familiar?

All in all, as lovely and romantic (and ghastly) those stories sound, historians believe that the Christian Church picked a holiday close to the Pagan holiday known as Lupercalia, to sort of, “Christianize” and make it simpler for the pagans to stop celebrating their holiday.

Lupercalia was celebrated on the Ides of February (the 15^th), and was a celebration of fertility. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification and then strip the skin off of the goat, dip it in blood, and go around slapping the women with the bloody skin.

…What?

Yes. They slapped the women with the blood-drenched skin of a goat. The women actually welcomed this! They believed it would make them more fertile. Whatever the reason, that is pretty gross. Interesting, but gross.

Here is the next rather interesting tidbit of information to share with your honey-bunny (or whomever you’d like); the women would then gather in the city and place their names in a large urn and then all those single men would go and draw a name from that urn. Those lucky women would then spend one year with this man. Most of these couples ended the year married and hopefully happily ever after.

So, whether you’re writing your sweetheart a love note from jail, marrying people you’re not supposed to (this goes both ways!), or you’re going around, putting your name in an urn, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Sincerely

A

All information taken from this source: http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day

How do you write a novel?

2013-01-27T22:32:00.000-08:00

I have asked myself this question many times. When I first embarked on this journey, I though it would be simple to put pen to paper, but as I quickly discovered, writing such a complex and diverse world as I have chosen to do, is not so easily done. If you have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, or the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, you understand the complexity of their worlds; the sheer amount of detail and realism that was embedded into these amazing works of fiction would make any aspiring novelist bow down in humility. If you don’t recognize the books or authors above, find them and read them.

Just to underline my point, Tolkien created entire languages to accompany Middle-Earth. He didn’t just make up a few words and call it good. He created a complete language you could actually learn if you really, really wanted to. That is mind-boggling.

That is exactly what I want. I want to boggle your mind, my dear readers. I want you to read my book(s) and become enthralled with the characters, the cultures, and the world. I want to create an entirely new place for your imagination to run freely and enjoy the new splendors that I have set about for you; I want you to experience my world as though you were truly living within it.

So, how do you write such an epic novel and not have it turn into a complete disaster with no structure, form, or fully developed characters that no one invests in because they don’t care about him or her? I have no clue. BUT I am figuring it out and I am getting help from many places. I have my wonderful husband who gives me great advice and a much needed male perspective. I have my dear friend Kayla, who is the author of the much raved about Nevermore series, who, as a published author, gives me clear insight to my characters and voice. And I have many other friends and family who are all willing to read my Book In Progress and give me honest and well thought out feedback.

I am also using a book written by Donald Maass called How to Write the Next Break Out Novel (workbook edition). This book has been extremely helpful and I have only gone through the first two exercises. However, it is detailed and incredibly thorough. The exercises provided, along with real-world book excerpts, gives a clear perspective of what to do and what NOT to do when creating a new world and developing characters.

Writing a novel is complex, whether or not you are creating a brand new world, or if you are setting it in a time or place that already has or does exist. The most important thing you can do, as an aspiring novelist, is flushing out your characters and making them believable. You want your readers to love your good guys and hate your bad guys. You want your readers to cry when a favorite character dies and jump for joy when the big bad is finally defeated. If you can evoke those emotions in a reader, you have done your job and done it well. I hope that by putting down my process and my thinking as I write my first novel (and hopefully not the last) that someone who wants to be a novelist will be helped and intrigued by my words.

Again, thank you for reading and I hope you have enjoyed your time. I will be posting more and more about my process but I also plan on posting short stories and legends of the world to come. So thank you for spending your time here and I hope you will come back!

Sincerely

A.M.

Obsessed With Rowan

2013-01-25T23:31:00.003-08:00

Rowan is a complex character, to put it mildly, and I wish I could just lay it all out right here for you, my readers, so you can see how so all-encompassing she has become. There are many trials she will face as you will find out and there are choices she will be forced to make. As you read my book, would you make the same decisions? What you be feeling, alone and cold and full of bloody thoughts?

Darkness falls upon the flower

Doom for her, this final hour

Only blood will set her free

Yet only her blood will it be

Great is the blackened tower

That sets about to destroy the flower

Shamed she is, for what is done

Yet revels in the delights of nights gone

She cannot move, this tiny flower

For rooted to the ground this hour

Love holds her where she is best

Yet hatred moves her to the test

A choice is made by one so young

To break the bonds of life not done

Keep the world in darkness here

Or set it free by her single tear

In her stead, a tree will grow

Magnificent in its glow

Protection will it offer to the flowers

If her blood doth shed this hour

Darkness falls upon the flower

Doom for her, this final hour

Only blood will set her free

Yet only her blood will it be

From Darkness Falls

How long have you been working on your novel? Oh, just a few years...

2013-01-24T13:48:00.004-08:00

I love to write. I have written hundreds of poems, a smattering of short stories, and began about five novels. The novel I am currently working on has been rewritten countless times. The story began when I was in high school which was, oh, seven years ago, as a co-writing project with a sister of mine.

 When I first began this novel, it started with a rather simple title and a fairly simple plot. Over the years the story has evolved into something more complex and the characters have come to life. This novel, I feel, will be my greatest work. I cannot wait for the novel to come to fruition and, if everything goes as planned, there will be much, much more to come about Rowan. I hope that you, my readers, will be just as excited as I am for this enticing tale and I hope to share more with you about my creative highs and lows. Please enjoy the brief synopsis below and thank you for reading.

 Darkness Falls is the shattered story of a little girl whose young life had been defined before she had ever been conceived. We follow young Rowan as she falls deeper and deeper into a world that is unforgiving and cruel, much different than her vibrant island home. Rowan is taken from her home and thrown into a slave trade known by the common people as the Noble Trade. Her only hope for rescue is her father, the captain of a merchant ship, who had been saved from the carnage while on a voyage. Unbeknownst to Rowan and her father, a dark stranger has been watching and waiting for his moment. And now, he has it.

 