The Greek Mythology Personality Test

I Am
Orpheus

0% Extroversion, 100% Intuition, 100% Emotiveness, 100% Perceptiveness

You are an artist, an aesthete, a sensitive, and someone who has never really let go of that childlike innocence. To you, all of life has a sense of wonder in it, and the story of Orpheus was written about someone just like you.

When the Argo passed the island of the Sirens, Orpheus played a song more beautiful than the Sirens to prevent the crew from becoming enticed. When his wife died, he ventured into the underworld to charm Hades but, in his naivete, he looked back becoming trapped there.

You can capture your unique world view and relate it to others with the skill of a master storyteller. Your sensitivity and creativity make you a treasure to the human race, but your thin-skinned nature and innocence can cause you a lot of disenchantment and pain. What's doubly unfortunate is that, if you try to lose those traits, you never will, and everyone will be able to tell that you're putting up an artificial shell to prevent yourself from being hurt.

Famous people like you: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mr. Rogers, Melville, Nick Tosches
Stay clear of: Icarus, Hermes, Atlas

OK. I have no idea how much meaning to invest in these things but they are fun and when I ran across this one on a post at Joely's from last summer, I just had to try it.
And I'm pleased to identify with Orpheus. He was always one of my favorite Greek divinities. The archetype of the storyteller essentially.

Take the test here.

And yes, I am still frantically scrolling through Joely's archives in anticipation of their disappearing when she transfers domain to the new host. Any second now. But I'm not nearly as frantic as I was since I am about to catch up to where I first started visiting her Friday Snippets and TT's last summer. I know I haven't read every single post between then and now but I have checked in at least once a week so I fell about caught up.

As weird as this obsession might seem, I am not sorry I spent the bulk of my time over the last 13 days at this for I've learned a lot by watching her path unfold over three years and found a lot of valuable resources which I am anxious to start applying to my own stories.

Most of all I am just so inspired. I am chomping at the bit to get going on my stories again. The most important thing I learned from Joely was the importance of discipline and believing in your dreams no matter what obstacles life throws at you.

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Monday Poetry Train #58

print for sale at art.com

An Haiku
by Joy Renee

Reading fast--
Frantic scrolling through
Fated text.

########

So this is what I've been doing with all my spare time and not so spare time for over a week--since a week ago last Thursday when Joely Sue Burkhart announced that she would, in a matter of days, be moving her blog to a new host and that her current host would not allow her to export her WP blog so she was going to let the archive die--reading the archives from the first post forward one by one.

I've been reading Joely's blog for around a year now and been in awe of her ability to juggle a full time programming job, three small children, a husband, a household, pets, and still find a way to make her dream to publish her stories come true. I discovered her through Friday Snippets last summer not long after she had made her first novella length sale to Drollerie Press. I soon picked up that she had been chronicling her writer's journey since early in 2004 and I kept meaning to delve into her archives to follow at least some of it.

Then there was the added attraction of the stories of her three daughters scattered among the posts about writing, revising, researching and submitting to contests and agents and a variety of technology related snafus. Her storytelling talents were not reserved for her fiction endeavors. Her stories of the ups and downs of running a household have a charm that reminds me of Erma Bombeck. I had already grown to love those three girls through the last year's worth of occasional posts featuring them. But when I was finally goaded into delving into the archives by the news they were about to disappear, I was astounded to discover that all three had still be pre-school, the youngest two both in diapers, when she dedicated herself to the writer's path in 2003.

More than anything, this is what I hoped to learn from her: how she managed to make it happen. I have a better idea about that now that I've read three full years of her posts. The archives started in April of 2004 and I am now in April 2007. I never expected to make it this far as the site was slated to be switched over last week sometime and ever since Monday evening a week ago I've been anxious every time I clicked on the next link that the page wouldn't be there and I'd get an error page instead. If she's been watching her stats, she probably thinks she has a stalker.

This tendency of mine to let a distraction take me into an obsession is one of the reasons I haven't made it happen for myself. I'm fairly certain Joely would not have spent twelve days reading 1200+ pages of a single blog! Including comments--where much of the story resides in the evidence that support from friends and fellow writers who cheer and chide and chomp at the bit for the next snippet from one of her stories may be one of the essential elements for a writer's success. I keep telling myself that I should take a lesson from her dedication and self-control and close the browser now and open my own story files. But I keep clicking that next link...

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Sunday Serenity 88

Beautiful flower, the purple hibiscus, no?

My Sunday this week is going to be devoted to turning the pages of a beautifully written book with that title by Nigerian born, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

I started it over a week ago and should have finished it the next day but got distracted by something I thought more urgent and then it didn't renew for me because someone else is requesting it. But by the time I learned that the library was closed until Monday and it made little sense to drop it off where it would sit in a dark box for four days anyway. So in a sense I am renting it by the day. I really want to finish it and since my major distraction is going to be unavailable for most of the day as Ed will be using my laptop, that will be my Sunday serenity.

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O'Rile Me

This speaks to why I am no longer interested all that much in being published by one of the 'big boys' aka the big publishing houses that are more than likely already folded into a multi-media monolith.

I mean really! Would you buy a book by Jeffery Dahmer on table manners for kids?

Seriously. Who would? And yet someone thought it was a good idea to produce this morality and ethics tract for kids which includes advice on interpersonal relationships by one of the most notorious bullies in all of mediadom: a man caught on tape bullying his co-workers and the guests on his show; a man who settled out of court with a co-worker who had taped him conversing with her about the interesting things he could think of using a loofah for ...

It is bad enough that the man still has a job! But seeing that the publishers are still hawking his hypocritical drek as fit for kids? That is gorge rising!

Who are the parents buying this book for their kids?

And I bet his manuscripts don't sit on an editors or agents desk for six to sixteen months while 'due consideration' is given as to whether it 'fits their current needs!'

I have no desire to share a publisher's imprint with this compost. (Um. I meant the book not the man. I think.)

Nor do I want to even bother trying to compete for the attention of those who even consider for a nanosecond that there is value in advice packaged for kids under the name and face of our nation's most iconic tantrum thrower, stalker and racist? Why would I entrust my work, into which I've poured my heart and soul and infused with the values of my spirit, into the hands of someone whose values are reflected in this shinola?

I wouldn't. I won't! I will find another way.

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Musings

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As I announced last week, I am devoting Friday posts to fiction writing. I will post snippets from my WIPs occasionally; talk about my goals and evaluate progress; muse on the process of story making; showcase websites, software, books and other products and services aimed at some aspect of a fiction writer's tasks from idea generation through final draft. And possibly on through submission, publication and marketing.

Today I'm allowing myself a rambling musing on what has been on my mind regarding my major WIP, my Fruits of the Spirit story world. I've been contemplating with intense focus for nearly a month as to why every story I set in this story world stalls out about 1/3 to 1/2 way through. The latest being Crystal's story which I was posting hot off the keyboard between Easter and early July.

I had long thought this story was to be a single, though long, multi-generational novel with a cast over 100 of which about 20 would have major POV sections, their story arcs woven together to form the story arc of the novel like strands of a rainbow. But last summer, I worked out that, just with the stories I already had going, the completed novel would clock in between 2500 and 3000 pages. Who publishes such things? And who could stand to hold it long enough to read it?

All four of my NaNoWriMo projects were based in this story world with the last one, Spring Fever, the first consciously intended to be a single stand alone novel. Previously I fudged the 'rule' that it be a start-from-scratch novel by choosing a POV character for whom I'd not yet written more than 1000 words in an actual scene and ran with their story as far as I could go in thirty days.

Spring Fever, was at first conceived to be completely free of the FOS story world but about halfway through mapping out the story I needed a supporting cast member with certain characteristics and qualifications and lo there she was over there in FOS. And besides, the theme of Spring Fever was so related to the premise of the story world. Of course once I'd let one thread in from FOS it just made sense to bring in another... and another... Sigh.

And so it goes. It is the fate of every new story idea I grab hold of for I seem to be held in a death grip by this story world. No, that is too grim of a metaphor and there is nothing grim about being in the grip of FOS. Embrace rather. Or enchantment. Yes, I've been enchanted and set to the enthralling task of braiding rainbows.

The overarching premise of the FOS stories is to give each major character a name indicating the fruit of the Spirit they represent i.e. love, joy, peace, patience, faith, hope, mercy, and so forth. There are more and I include many that are not in the familiar list in the New Testament Epistle, Galations. The idea is to put them on stage interacting with each other and other characters in conflicts that are rooted in the antithesis of the fruits of the Spirit. Often the character's main conflict is with that part of themselves that tends to exhibit the opposite of the fruit they are meant to represent.

I have found it so discouraging every time one of the stories I'm working on stalls out. I just couldn't seem to figure out what the stumbling block was. I knew the story and the characters and their arcs and the obstacles and the climax and resolution for each of them. I've got more word count in notes and outlines than I have in narrative and dialog. For nearly twenty years this story world has been more real to me than my waking life, its characters more real than my friends and family.

In desperation I was bending my husband's reluctant ear one more time this week and in an attempt to grip his attention I asked him to take what he knew about it and treat it like a programming architectural problem. I won't try to replicate the discussion from that point but after he'd drilled me about half an hour the way he used to question clients when he worked for an Internet consulting firm, eliciting what he called the 'project requirements' from me, he zeroed in on the problem. He said that there was an 'object' that was in interaction with every other object, in fact it was the only object that had that distinction and yet it was not yet clearly defined and not only that it was the principle antagonist and to top it off I had a personal aversion to it.

OK to clarify if that is possible, an object in computer programming is a graphic or a piece of code with a purpose that can be manipulated and directed by the code. Objects can call on other objects, objects can be embedded in objects and so on. I know that is a feeble explanation that will make coders cringe but it is enough I think to make the analogy plain.

What my husband was referring to as objects in my story world are the characters, the settings, the events, the crisis, the themes and etcetera. The object that he identified as the problem was the doctrinaire sect that was founded around the time of WWI and which bifurcates two or three times per generation into the present decade. Its role as antagonist is that of showcasing the antitheses of the fruits of the Spirit. For in its attempt to govern the lives and hearts of its members with carefully spelled out dogmas and rules it is fated to strangle their souls and create the very opposite of their intent to honor God and fulfill His will.

This of course, in spirit tho not in particulars, is similar to the fundamentalist sect I was raised in and began to question in the early nineties and broke with irrevocably on November 2nd 1994. Turns out this story world has been my therapy. LOL. Every POV character for which I've written scenes has to struggle against the influence this sect has on themselves and/or their loved ones. Many of them, like me, are extricating themselves from its clutches. But every time it comes time to write a scene in which the particulars of it are featured in more than an oblique way, I balk.

That is the stumbling block and apparently I have no choice, if I am determined to write these stories, to define it as carefully as I've defined the characters. And worse, I've got to write the scenes that make its detrimental influences explicit.

There are two main forces at work in my reluctance. One being the knowledge that once these stories are released to the public (and this blog counts) they are likely to be encountered by my Dad (prior to 2005) and Mother, sister, brother, several Aunts and Uncles and some twenty dozen cousins still affiliated with one version or another of the doctrines I've left behind. Of course they already know that I'm disaffected but most don't know to what extent. And it isn't so much that I fear their opinions of me once that becomes clear but that I resist inflicting the pain this knowledge is likely to cause to them.

I am also anxious about some of them attempting to match certain characters or events in the stories to real people and events in our mutual history with the sect most of us were raised in. This should not be possible since I did not base any characters on real people. Not even composites. Nor have any of the events in my stories been based on actual events. But since so many of the events are based on fairly common human dilemmas and conflicts there are bound to be a few that resemble something that happened to someone at sometime in the history of our sect.

I think I've made a great deal of progress in facing that particular aspect of the stumbling block. But there is another that is harder to face, hard even to cast casual glances at. And that is my own emotional aversion to being the creator of such a sect (even if in fantasy) and of the characters who are the true believers who, in their piousness and prettily dressed intentions, wreak such havoc on the lives of their members and surrounding communities.

And then there is the emotional baggage I still carry. But apparently the stories have been my way of working through that and if I want to continue reaping the benefits of that I must now face the demons in the inner chambers of my own soul.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is after 8AM as I prepare to post this. I started work on it over ten hours ago. When I was about 1/3 into it, my computer froze me out and I had to force a restart. Which caused me to loose several hundred words. Sometime I wonder if there are something analogous to demons plaguing me at every turn with this project. Especially when it seems I am about to make a major breakthrough. Grrrrrrrrrr.

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Book Reviews Portal

This is a post in which I am collecting the links to all the book reviews and musings on what I'm reading. Both past and future so this will be updated as needed.


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard
On Reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostovo (not really a review. I'm still working on that.)
Re: Writing Fiction a Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway (not really a review more of an ode to the text book that I've been devoted to sine 1992)
The Measure of a Man by Sydney Potier
How Bush Rules by Sidney Blumenthal
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
don't think of an elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff
After by Francine Prose
freaky green eyes by Joyce Carol Oates
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
Garrison Keillor's Homegrown Democrat
The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Republican Playbook by Andy Borowitz
The Measure of a Man by Sydney Potier
The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley. More of a reminiscence than a review. It was stimulated by my finding the artwork of Jessie Willcox Smith that illustrated the book I read as a child in the Library of Congress digital archives.
The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew--Three Women search for Understanding by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner
The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin
Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid
Perfect on Paper by Maria Murnane
The Weedkiller's Daughter by Harriette Simpson Arnow
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens
The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong
The Three Junes by Julia Glass
Brown Eyes Blue by Carolyn Meyer
Writing the Natural Way: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers by Gabriele Lusser Rico
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Boy on the Bus by Deborah Schupack
A Widow For One Year by John Irving
Our Media Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media by Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols
Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
The Cat Who Wasn't a Dog by Marion Babson
lost boy, lost girl by Peter Straub
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Dewey: A Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Wive's Tale by Lori Lansing
Lift by Kelly Corrigan


_____________________________________
I'm only going to put a few from the archives in for starters. I will have to go through the blog with a fine tooth comb to find most of them since I had a bad habit of burying book talk in posts that started out on other topics so there is seldom clues in the post title and labels have only been available a bit over a year.

The magnitude of this chore has kept me from starting it for way too long. I intended to create this one soon after I created the portal for my poetry and the one for my Fruits of the Spirit Story World last fall. Both of which are in urgent need of updating. And I still haven't put the portal links in the sidebar as I promised. *sigh*

Now there are urgent reasons for having this portal even if I can't collect all the past reviews right away. The first book giveaway last month seems to be the beginning of something--the tip of a wave that is crashing down on me. I'm exhilarated and a bit queasy because if I'm going to handle this I need to get organized. Like yesterday!

For I've been given the opportunity to host another giveaway the last week of August. This time by the author himself. And the same publicist who provided the giveaway books last month has just sent me ten brand new books to review. Oh this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

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Thursday Thirteen #98

Thursday

Thirteen

Thirteen Things About the New Kitten in Our Household

1. Her name is Flipdizzy. Often shortened to Dizzy.
2. She was named for her trademark maneuver while playing with toys--the interactive ones on strings or sticks--when we moved them in a tight circle around her she would chase them until she was too dizzy to stand up and occasionally she would anticipate where it was going to be and do a back flip that pur her in position to catch it.
3. We've seen her use this maneuver on her own tail. With less effectiveness.
4. She was a tiny stray who took shelter under the front porch and...
5. filched Sweetie's doggy food out of its cellophane wrapper in the wee hours.
6. We humans became aware of her after she accepted Merlin's invitation to come out and play:

7. Merlin and Flipdizzy are now fast friends:
8. But I think Merlin is beginning to wonder why the baby gets to run free while he is still kept on a leash.

9. One of her favorite toys is Merlin's leash:
10. She bit Merlin's ear once in the first week of their relationship--clean through, drawing blood on the inside and outside of his ear just below the tip. He screamed and boxed her ears, knocking her for a loop. Which freaked me out until I realized it barely fazed her. She was running circles around him in seconds.
11. She has more energy than ten of me.
12. She stalks and chases hummingbirds, leaping off the porch rail into the flowerbed. She hasn't caught one yet.
13. She has caught (and eaten) lots of bugs--both flying and crawling kinds. She is so adept at this we suspect it was the mainstay of her diet while she was fending for herself.

See more pictures here.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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Which Jane Austen Character Am I?

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Take the Quiz here!

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Monday Poetry Train #57

Won't you see?
It's right there! In the
Midst of things.

What? You won't
acknowledge? Then your
fate is sealed.

For you face
your fear first, before
You can cope.

To make room
for things hoped for, chase
away doom.

###

I've done something I rarely do by posting a picture I can't give proper attribute for. But it was the focus of this poem consisting of four haikus. I keep running into this image online so I'm hoping that means it is fair game. If anyone knows better or has cause to object, let me know.

The subject of the poem is also referring to an issue I've been having with my fiction writing. A great big Duh! But that's a whole 'nother post! :)

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Sunday Serenity #87

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Today I've promised use of the laptop to Ed so I'm going to get lost in daydreaming. Mostly about my FOS story world to prepare to return to work on Crystal's story. But I've also got a poem to write for Monday Poetry Train. Hmmm. Maybe I could combine the two projects?

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Weekly Geeks #13 Author Photos

From Dewey:

Your basic challenge is to post author photos.

Using the meme-like list below, post photos of authors in response. Please feel free to skip any you don’t like. You’re also free (encouraged!) to add your own, but if you do that, please be sure to indicate which are yours, so that people can credit you if they use yours.

But don’t put words/names with your photos. Ask your readers to guess your answers! If you have a book to give away, you may want to offer a prize, maybe draw a name from those readers who guess correctly.

1. Photos of your favorite author(s).
2. Photo(s) of the author(s) of the book(s) you’re currently reading.
3. Photo(s) of any author(s) you’ve met in person (even very briefly).
4. A youtube of (an) author(s) you’ve heard speak.
5. Any photo(s) you may have of yourself with an author.
6. A photo of the author of the book you’ve most recently finished.
7. Photos of the hottest author(s)!

Below I show the authors of:

2 that I am currently reading
5 that I recently read
? that are the major influences on my own writing (umm, I lost count and I'm not going to try to count them now. Psst...I added this category)

Currently Reading:

Recently Read:

Authors who have most influenced my own writing:
















WG Participants:

1. Annie 2. MizB (Should Be Reading) 3. Kim (page after page) 4. Kerry (Saving My Sanity...) 5. Marg (Reading Adventures)

6. Mysteries in Paradise 7. SmallWorld Reads 8. Alessandra (Out of the Blue) 9. Mary (This Book Is For You) 10. Confuzzled Books

11. Tasses (Holding My First Contest Ever) 12. Maree 13. jessi 14. Bybee

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Friday Forays In Fiction

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Make forays in fertile country in order to supply your army with food.
--The Art of War by Sun Tzu

For the foreseeable future, my Friday posts are going to be dedicated to aspects of fiction writing--excerpts of my own fiction when available, goals, commitments and status reports, musings on the art, craft and work habits, reviews of books about fiction writing, links to online resources for fiction writers, and surveys of the dreaded publishing aspects of submission, markets, agents, editors and promotion.

I've dedicated Fridays to this as Friday Snippets seems to have withered on the vine and lately my own fiction writing has suffered its own shriveling. I just realized that I haven't posted a new snippet of Crystal's story, Home Is Where the Horror Is, since July 4. That is essentially a month. This is what I suspected would happen if I gave myself permission to go on that fiction reading binge. My pendulum always swings too far.

When I got serious about my fiction writing again last summer under the influence of the first round of 70 Days of Sweat, my reading and especially fiction reading about dried up.

But the triple spurs of 70 Days of Sweat, Friday Snippets and NaNoWriMo 2007 really put me whole heartedly back on my true passion's path. I'm so grateful for that and for the encouragement other participants sent my way.

But now there is no community spurring me on and holding me accountable and I've let the reins go slack and my butt is sliding off the saddle. I guess I need to get back my firm grip--hands and thighs. :) With or without community.

Crystal's story has hit that stretch all my stories seem to hit between one-third to one-half way. The threads get tangled and broken and I fight the temptation to start fiddling and fixing instead of writing for the finish line. And I usually loose that fight. In fact I've never finished a book length project. The longest 'finished' story, Making Rag Doll Babies and Million Dollar Maybes, was about 16K and it, tho it can stand alone, is really part of an intended novel. Which in turn is part of my Fruits of the Spirit story world for which I've started almost as many stories/novels as I've created characters for. When I made that promise to write to the end of Crystal's story before stopping to edit or rewrite, I thought it was going to be a short story around 5K. It has topped 13K and is maybe approaching the halfway point.

If it weren't for the commitment I made to myself when I started posting the snippets of Crystal's story hot-off-the-keyboard in March to keep my focus on finishing a first draft before stopping to fiddle and fix I'd have begun fiddling with earlier scenes long ago. If it weren't for one clamoring voice, that of my fourteen-year-old niece, begging for the rest of the story, I might be tempted to drop the threads entirely for a time (weeks? years?) and wander on back (or forward) to one of the other characters in my FOS story world. But a promise is a promise. Time to get a firm grip on saddle and reins and ride/write this story to its finish line.

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freaky green eyes by Joyce Carol Oates

I was mistaken in yesterday's post about having missed all of Oates books since 1996. I had been looking only at her list of novels for grown-ups and this book was in the list for YA. But I shouldn't have needed to see the title in that list to remember as my niece is currently reading it and we had been talking about it just last weekend. I not only read this about three years ago, I wrote this tiny review at the time. It was buried in my folder of book reviews. I may have even posted it tho without putting the title in the title of the post and thus can't find it in my archives.

freaky green eyes
By Joyce Carol Oates
Harper Tempest
© 2003
341p

Genre: Literary; Young Adult; Coming of Age; Domestic violence; Psychological abuse; Mothers and daughters; Fathers and daughters

Her mother called her Francesca and her Father called her Franky. But shortly after her fourteenth birthday she discovered an alter ego she called ‘freaky green eyes’ which came into being when she was under extreme duress. ‘freaky green eyes’ rescued her from imminent rape by an older boy who hurled the sobriquet at her after she had kneed his groin and bit, kicked and scratched her way out from under him.

She took it as a badge of honor but one for an audience of one: herself. She told no one of the incident. Not even her parents. Which was probably due, more than anything else, to the fact that just then the tensions in the Pierson household were high and she could sense that both parents had enough on their minds right then. Also her mother had started spending more and more time out of the house, timing her visits home to coincide with Franky’s Father’s out-of-town stints as a famous sports castor personality.

‘freaky green eyes’ served Franky over the next year as a wellspring of courage, as a truth detector and as a source of strength and competence she had no idea she had been capable of before. And just in time too. For Franky’s family was disintegrating in a storm of violence and deceit and crafty manipulation of the children’s emotions and loyalties. Though of course not without leaving intact the careful façade that preserved the family’s social status and her father’s prestigious career and celebrity status. Not, that is, until ’freaky green eyes’ made public the lies and spoke truth to power. Thereby loosing much that hadn’t already been wrested from her but gaining her integrity and safety, at long last, for herself and her younger sister.

Though this story has been targeted at the young-adult audience, it is not written down to that audience. All staunch Joyce Carol Oates fans will recognize the gritty plot and the smooth prose.

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Thursday Thirteen #97

I discovered Joyce Carol Oates in 1980 when I saw Bellefleur in book store, read the cover and the first couple of pages and then checked it out of the library as soon as I could. Over the next twenty years I read everything that came out and caught up with previous titles as they were available in the library.

Somehow, in the last ten years I let my attention be diverted and have missed most of the titles released since We Were the Mulvaneys, the last one I read, released in 1996. I believe it isn't unrelated that this was about the time the Internet came into my life. sigh So many titles of so many favorite authors have slid under my radar since then.

Oates is one of the major influences on my own writing and has long been on my short-list of (still living) dream writing teachers to study under.

13 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Titles on my TBR list:

1. Man Crazy (1997)
2. My Heart Laid Bare (1998)
3. Broke Heart Blues (1999)
4. Blonde (2000)
5. Middle Age: A Romance (2001)
6. I'll Take You There (2002)
7. The Tattooed Girl (2003)
8. Rape: A Love Story (2003)
9. The Falls (2004)
10. Missing Mom (2005)
11. Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
12. The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007)
13. My Sister, My Love (2008)

And then of course there are these two which will soon join the others:

A Fair Maiden (Forthcoming)
The Crosswicks Horror (Forthcoming)

And this one I've already started:

The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2007)

Then there is this NF which I started last spring before the library closure and keep forgetting send for again:

The Faith of A Writer: Life, Craft, Art (2003)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Volger

The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
by Christopher Volger
(c) 1998
Michael Wise Productions (www.mwp.com)
300p

From the Preface to the second edition:

In this book I described the set of concepts known as "The Hero's Journey," drawn from the depth psychology of Carl G. Jung and the mythic studies of Joseph Campbell. I tried to relate these ideas to contemporary storytelling, hoping to create a writer's guide to these valuable gifts from our innermost selves and our most distant past. I came looking for the design principles of storytelling, but on the road I found something more; a set of principles for living. I came to believe that the Hero's Journey is nothing less than a handbook for life, a complete instruction manual in the art of being human.

The Hero's Journey is not an invention, but an observation. It is a recognition of a beautiful design, a set of principles that govern the conduct of life and the world of storytelling the way physics and chemistry govern the physical world.

Volger is a story consultant who has worked with major motion picture studios, including Disney and 20th Century Fox. He has evaluated thousands of novels and screenplays and conducted workshops. He was introduced to the ideas of Joseph Campbell in film school and saw the Hero's Journey Campbell described in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, as a practical guide to the art of storytelling as time after time it helped him diagnose what was ailing a story and supply the fix.

Shortly after going to work for Disney he wrote a seven page memo laying out the principles with examples from past and current films and distributed it to executives and colleagues for feedback. He later expanded that memo into a longer essay and began teaching courses and workshops with it from which he acquired more feedback with which he continued to expand the work that eventually became this book. Long before he set out to publish it in book form for a general audience though, his memo and essay had been circulating among the insiders of the storytelling industries around the world and among those who'd attended his workshops who spread it on to their own friends and colleagues. It had attracted an almost cultish following.

I was excited to learn about this book on a web site around the first of the year and disappointed it wasn't in our library system when I checked. I put it on my ever expanding wish list. Then a few months later saw it pop up in the new acquisitions list on the libraries web site. I got in line. My turn came three weeks ago. There is, of course, a line formed behind me and my turn was supposed to be over yesterday. I'm not quite done with it so I hung on for a day or two more. I might have finished on time if not for how much time I put into the book giveaway last week.

I was so excited when I learned about it because I am already a devotee of Joseph Campbell's work. I read The Hero With a Thousand Faces in the early nineties as I was struggling with the devastating break-up of the religious community I was raised in and my own repudiation of most of its rigorous and rigid doctrines. From that experience I know personally the Call to Adventure out of the Ordinary World, the initial Refusal of the Call, the Threshold Crossings and their Guardians and so forth.

Just as important as the stages in the Hero's path are the archetypes of the various characters encountered along the way. Mentors and Threshold Guardians. Allies and Heralds. Shadows and Shapeshifters. Below I have listed the steps of the Hero's Journey and the most ubiquitous archetypical characters.

This is not a formula. It is form though; structure. It is the DNA of story and has the ability to support as many variations on a theme as does DNA. Though a better metaphor might be skeleton with infinite adjustability in size and shape and infinite variations on how it is fleshed out and dressed up. Several steps can be compressed into a single scene or a single step can take over a hundred pages in a novel. One character can be more than one archetype either simultaneously or alternately. The enemy can be the hero's own neurosis, or character flaw. The journey can be across the room or across the universe or into the hidden recesses of the hero's own psyche.

The Hero's Journey:

1. Ordinary World--status quo
2. Call to Adventure--the Herald can be a person or event that announces an irrevocable shakeup of the status quo.
3. Refusal of the Call--excuses, fears, apathy
4. Mentor--encouragement, advice and gifts needed for success.
5. First Threshold--accepting the call and stepping onto the path
   --end of Act One
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies--acquiring the skills, tools and companions for the quest and encountering resistance and adversaries.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave--more thresholds with their guardians encountered and overcome on the way to the stronghold containing the most necessary thing--a person, object or idea needed for reestablishing balance and harmony in the world or the psyche.
8. Ordeal: a high stakes challenge. Life itself or something equally precious is on the line.
9. Reward (Seizing the Sword) the key to victory or transcendence.
   --end of Act Two
10. The Road Back--sometimes involving the Refusal of Return
11. Resurrection--acquiring the ability to live in both worlds though forever changed
12. Return With the Elixir--the boon that heals self, community or world.

Archetypes

• Hero
• Herald
• Mentor
• Allies
• Shapeshifter
• Shadow
• Trickster
• Threshold Guardians

This book is still on my wishlist. I have barely scratched the surface of what it offers. But while I'm waiting for another turn or a chance to own it, I'm going to put a re-read of Campbell's Hero high on the list of my TBR for a re-read--I'll have to order it from the library. But meanwhile I can return to delve into the depths of his four volume Masks of God--an examination of story from the most primitive myth to the most modern novels. I own those and they've been languishing on the shelf because they have no due dates to goad me.

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Monday Poetry Train #56

print for sale at art.com

Still
by Joy Renee

Still, after all this time,
our stories intertwine.
Tho the fibers may be frayed
by strains of distance and years,
never have we each other's
hearts betrayed,
nor scorned the other's fears.

Still, after all these years,
after a million tears
were shed for joy and sorrow,
there has never been a sign
trust had been misplaced. Our
soul's morrow
left steeping in the brine.

Still, after all we've shared
and all the secrets bared,
we could never dare behold
shadows stalking at our keels--
putrid slough off ancient wounds.
We withhold
awareness of such weals.

Still, after all we've been
through, having taken friend-
ship for granted, we embark
upon a desperate voyage
toward a luminous fate
to demark
the depth of our courage.

Still, after all, we're left--
our hearts gashed, seared, bereft--
with spirits aloft, soaring
'or the abyss of despair
refusing to abandon
or sink
our lives beneath such care.

#####
I posted the first three verses of this poem last week, saying I felt it was incomplete. I've added two more and now feel it comes around to closure.

This was inspired by and reflects some of the story and much of the theme of Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard

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Weekly Geeks #12 Pt 2 The Answers

Here are my answers to some of the questions I received from other WG participants in WG 12. I am holding back on all of the questions pertaining to The Historian and A New Earth as I think they both need full posts of their own and I am already working on reviews for them. I intend to incorporate my answers into those reviews and will let the questioners know when I post them.

Thanks to all who left questions and all who answered mine, some of whom I still need to visit or return to leave a comment where I stopped by to read the answers on the fly. The book giveaway ate up a lot of my time and attention this past week.

Care of Care's Online Bookclub asks:

re: The People of the Book. After reading on amazon what this is about - I wondered HOW LONG but under 400 pages is good for me. Do you feel the length was appropriate? not too long, got everything in that was needed? etc. Thx, Care

The length worked for me. I was able to read it in about five or six moderate to long sittings. But the structure of the book would allow for taking more time and taking more breaks. The protagonist of the framing story is a book conservator expert in repairing ancient books and manuscripts and preserving them from destructive elements. She can also acquire many hints about the book's history from her knowledge of the materials used in its making and the history of book making. Certain things she discovers in the ancient hagadah give clues as to where it has been in its 400 odd years. Those clues are extrapolated upon in separate stories inserted between scenes of the protagonist's 21st century story. Each of these stories read like stand alone short stories which can all be read in a single sitting. Whenever I stopped it was usually at the end of one of them. When I could resist moving ahead to the next present day scene. The framing story was a bit of a suspense story along with a tense mother/daughter relationship story and it was sometimes hard moving from a kind of cliffhanger into a brand new story in a brand new setting.

Bybee of Naked Without Books asks:

Is this the first play you've read by August Wilson? Is this part of a series? Is it a period peace? How do you feel about reading plays as opposed to reading novels?

The Piano Lesson is the first play by August Wilson I have read. As far as I know it is not part of a series. It is a period piece if you consider settings in the American depression era of the 1930's period pieces and I suppose they ought to be thought so. It is a quite different place in time with a distinct ambiance.

I am fairly new at reading plays. Other than Shakespeare that is. I have set upon the task as an exercise in learning how to write better dialog that carries its own weight in the story and how to give individual characters their individual voices.

I find all the elements of storytelling distilled to an essence just short of poetry in a play. I do think something is probably lost in not having the stage settings and the actor's voices adding pacing and nuance.

I like the quick pace of reading a play. It is a bit like watching a tennis match. I liked being able to read a complete story in a sitting too. I want to add more plays to my TBR. But I won't be giving up novels!

Alessandra from Out of the Blue asks:

I'm curious about The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman. Which was your favorite character, and why? How does the portrayal of the Amazons in this book compare to their mythological image?

My favorite character was the narrator and protagonist, Rain. But I was extremely fond of both Io her adopted sister and Deborah the priestess. As supporting cast they were well drawn and compelling.

I thought the portrayal of the Amazon culture fit well with what I remember of my encounters of them in myths but it has been awhile so I wouldn't be able to identify discrepancies or imaginary extrapolations from the 'facts' known from mythology and legend.

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Sunday Serenity #66 The Joy of Giving

Announcing the four winners of copies of Jacquelyn Mitchard's Still Summer.

What could be a better example of a moment of serenity or joy than notifying the winners of a book giveaway. Thus I've no qualms at combining the two into one post.

I need all winners to email me at joystoryATgmailDOTcom with their mailing address as soon as possible. If I don't have it by noon PST Tuesday, July 29, I will draw another name. It must be a US or Canadian address. No PO Box.

First a Reminder: Joanne at Book Zombie won the first contest Monday by identifying the giveaway book correctly. I still need your snail mail.

The drawing winners:

For Tuesday:
icedream from Reading In Appalachia

For Wednesday:
Penelope from Mama Bear Reads

For Thursday:
Carol

For Friday:
blueviolet

A great big thanks to all who participated. I so enjoyed this whole experience.

This has been a lot of fun and I hope there will be more. But I am on a learning curve here. I will have to do things differently next time. It took me 6 hours to compile the four lists and track down contact information. Which of course makes me extra grateful for those who included their @ in comments. They must be old hands at this hmmm? So next time an @ or a blog where I can leave comments to notify a winner will be required for a qualifying entry. The ironic thing is that the winners all had provided email in their comments. So the smart thing would have been to make the drawing first and then track down contact info if necessary. lol Live and learn.

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Book Giveaway--Last Day!

Still time to enter for your chance to win one of four copies of Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard.

You can enter in comments once in each of the posts between Tuesday and Friday. This one--tho it's not still Friday as I prepare to publish this--sigh. Friday's are often hectic around here.

I feel bad about that and am considering extending the 3PM Saturday deadline for qualifying comments because of my dereliction. As it is I know I'm probably not going to be ready to conduct the drawing and prepare the winner announcements that early. I don't know what I was thinking when I set it. Other than that I knew Ed and his folks would have left for the dirt track races by then.

Race day Saturday is my chore day--laundry, room clutter patrol etc. And this weekend is one of the rare ones my niece is able to be here what with her summer jobs. So tell you what, when I sit down to start the drawings as soon after 3PM PST as possible (and I will make it my first chore after Ed turns the laptop over to me as he prepares to leave) I will start with Tuesday's post and work forward doing one drawing at a time. As I begin to prepare the list of contestants for each post, I will close comments temporarily--until after the winner's announcement is posted atop this post. So if you come in after 3 but comments are still open and no winner's announcement is posted then you might still have a chance. It is this post particularly that I want to extend the deadline for as it is really unfair of me to be posting it so late that it is nearly dawn on the east coast.

I'm so sorry about that. This was my first giveaway and I'm kinda fumbling at it. I hope I get my act together better for next time. Always assuming I'm allowed a next time. :(

See Sunday's post for the poem I wrote inspired by this book. (not part of the giveaway)
See Tuesday's post for my book review
See Wednesday's post for my TT featuring info from various bios of Jacquelyn Mitchard.
See Thursday's post for a glimpse of and discussion of the hardback and tradeback book covers.

I had planned another in depth discussion of the novel for this post based on the questions I proffered all the WG participants this week for answering in their book reviews. Well it can't be in depth else or it will be noon before I publish this but I'm going to paste the questions below and give myself 30 minutes to answer what I can which means either short and sweet answers or only one or two answered.

I admit I used a boilerplate to leave these questions but I really wanted to plant these concepts with book reviewers. For as a reader who writes and a writer who reads I'm interested in the technique and art of storytelling itself:

How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

POV jumped among dozens of characters major, minor and incidental. For the most part it was handled well enough I was usually clear who was thinking/witnessing what.

How was language used to set tone and mood?

Language was matter-of-fact most of the time, moving the story's action along. But Mitchard was deft at setting a humorous tone when called for, a dreamy romantic one a couple of times, an occasional contemplative one, and many a tense, anxious one when necessary. And it was frequently necessary. She would alternate mood, playing it like a symphony of emotion on its way to a crescendo.

Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

Her prose tended toward the spare and sentences toward the simple. I mean compared to Falkner's sentences that covered pages. But she wasn't as spare as Joan Didion who favored sentences with a noun and a verb and as little else as possible. So she lands in mid spectrum really.

How was metaphor used? Were associations fresh or did they tend toward cliche? Did they add to your understanding of the theme?

Overall metaphors were sparse but when used they were fresh. I never caught a cliche unless possibly when a character would think or speak in one because it was in character for them.

What was the central or organizing theme?

Transcending one's character in the service of survival and love. Each of the women--even Janis who stayed behind for a family emergency--had to struggle with their character flaws, their internal demons--rising to the occasion (or not) in order to work out their own salvation without compromising their integrity. Mitchard's purpose I think was to write a damoselle in distress story in which the damoselles were their own heroes.

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Judging Book Covers

I ran across a new book cover image for Jacquelyn Mitchard's Still Summer. I suspect it is the image of the paperback or tradeback edition. And if so is more likely to be the cover of the book winners of the giveaway this week will receive. The hardback library copy I read has the sailboat on the cover and will probably always be the image I see in my mind when remembering this novel. Since I ordered it through the library catalog without seeing a cover image, I can't be sure whether I would have pick it up off the shelf at a bookstore before seeing Mitchard's name. I might have since I am attracted to seascape images. But I can be nearly certain that I'd have picked up the second one before knowing either title or author.

As much as I hate to admit to judging books by their covers, I know I do tend to when in a bookstore environment, stressed by unfamiliar territory, pressed for time and scanning the shelves quickly. This applies generally only to the rare impulse book buying. I've not bought a book in over a year and even then I went after one particular book to spend my Xmas gift card on. It has been over eight years since I was in a bookstore with funds to spend on a whim.

So I'm wondering how many of you are willing to fess up that you ever buy a book because of the cover?

If you are interested in a free copy of this book enter the four drawings in the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (this one) and Friday (tomorrow) posts. Just indicate you are interested in comments. I will be drawing the winners--one from each post's pool of commentors--after 3pm Saturday and then posting the winners.

See Sunday's post for the poem I wrote inspired by this book. (not part of the giveaway)
See Tuesday's post for my book review
See Wednesday's post for my TT featuring info from various bios of Jacquelyn Mitchard.

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