Creativity Friday: Creative Women’s Networking Salon postponed—and other news

Between holidays, work, and travels, our informal monthly gathering of creative women has been postponed until May. Here are the details:

Friday, May 6, 7-9:30 pm
Creative Women’s Networking Salon

Are you an artist, writer, or creative entrepreneur and practioner? Come out and meet other like-minded women for conversation, inspiration, and wine. At previous salons, we were joined by photographers, crafters, editors, designers, artists, writers, and illustrators. $5 suggested donation for refreshments.

This event takes place at:

Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio-gallery
1501 Newkirk Avenue
entrance on Marlborough Road across from Rite Aid
Brooklyn, NY 11226
directions

In the meantime, here are photos* from our last gallery event, a wonderful children’s art workshop by INKBLOTS author Margaret Peot. The kids had a wonderful time! Several of Margaret’s beautiful pieces are featured in our current exhibition, The Art of Children’s Books: Inspiration to Illustration. The exhibition is up through May. I hope those of you in the New York City area will stop by to see it!

*Photographs courtesy and copyright Bernadette Ayers. Thank you!

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As you may have noticed from this blog, things have gotten beyond busy here at the studio. This spring, I’m attempting to finish up a number of projects—not including the current draft of THE LILY MAID and the long-aborning Sacred World Oracle—as well as some book and web design jobs. I’m also going to be traveling to San Diego for the Historical Novel Society’s annual conference, and partaking in workshops for professional development.

To give me the space to do all this and more, for the time being I’m going to be ramping back a bit on gallery events. Our next tarot salon probably won’t be until this autumn, after I have a chance to catch my breath on all these deadlines. Ditto for publishing and art workshops. However, the gallery will still be open on Saturday afternoons, during special events on Fridays nights, and by appointment or by chance.

So, if you’re planning to come by to visit, I hope to see you then—and if I seem a little distracted and the studio a bit messier than usual, you’ll understand why.

• Filed under The Novel, creativity, events, studio and gallery, the world around me | 3 Responses

Publishing Monday: What is a novel bible?

Above: a worksheet from Thea’s kindergarten class—not that different from what can go into a novel bible.

To use a hackneyed analogy, writing a novel is like driving down a long, narrow country road at night. You can only see so far ahead, yet you have to moving forward and trust that the road is taking you in the right direction. Meanwhile, you’re hoping you’re not going to run out of gas. Or drive down a mud-filled ditch. “You’ll get there with this novel,” my literary agent told me after reading my latest draft. “It’s just a long process. But now you’re ready for the next step.” Her advice? Writing workshops. Critique partners. And a novel bible.

So writing workshops, check—I’m enrolled at Sackett Street, and am attending Backspace next month (thank you, kind scholarship-awarding people!). Critique partners, check—am working with two, and will have two new beta readers for the next draft later this spring.

But the novel bible? That’s another story. Initially a novel bible just seemed a fancy way to procrastinate. I can do that well enough, thank you, on my own. But due to my agent’s prompting, I’ve since come ’round. Ultimately, a novel bible is just another form of research. And you all know how much I love research.

So, what is a novel bible? Ultimately, it’s a document separate from your manuscript comprised of all of your book details:

~ Character biographies
~ Settings
~ Scene descriptions
~ Timelines
~ And anything else you might find useful—themes, symbolism, backstories, even inspirations.

While novel bibles are often created by book series authors who need to keep details consistent—think J. K. Rowling and her famed Harry Potter plot spread sheets— they’re also useful for stand-alone novels. In the case of THE LILY MAID, a novel bible is helping me deepen character development, clarify relationships, and map out plot points and motivations. But, wow, are they a lot of work! I’d say it’s taking me about half a day or more for each primary character, an hour or two for secondary. Setting up the document itself was a good two days’ work.

I’ve created my novel bible as a Word document with an indexed table of contents. (Generally speaking, I use Scrivener for outlining scenes, drafting, and compiling research materials.) Even in its unfinished state, my Word document is well over a hundred pages—and I’ve still so much more to write. But different people do things differently. Here’s how other writers have approached creating their novel bibles (aka book bibles, writing bibles, or character sheets).

Pip Hunn

L. J. Sellers

T. S. Bazelli

Natalie Whipple

As for myself, having a novel bible is already paying off. For example, I’ve discovered some unexpected details about my main character, Elizabeth: she has a small scar on her chin and a favorite piece of clothing; I’m clearer on why her relationship with her father is so conflicted, what drives her emotionally. I’m excited to see what other goodies I unearth, though I’d be lying if I denied dreading the work ahead.

Ultimately, I think novel bibles are about going deep instead of wide. This type of research comes from mining within—a decidedly different (and harder) process than reading books, searching through archives, or traveling to London.

• Filed under The Novel, creativity, publishing | 8 Responses

It’s all how you frame it—and CLAUDE AND CAMILLE giveaway

I’m back from my writer’s retreat, which was semi-successful in that I made healthy inroads into what I planned for it. My intent was to write and complete a novel “bible”* for THE LILY MAID. My agent set this task for me during our last meeting, thinking it would help clear up some character motivation issues. As usual, she was right. But little did I realize that such a project requires more than three days’ concentrated labor—I managed to set up the document formatting and begin writing the first third. Even as such, the document came to well over 25,000 words!

As usual, I was too ambitious in thinking that I’d work 24/7 since I’d be without distractions and interruptions. The reality is that writing a novel bible is hard. So distractions were needed to clear my head.

The top photograph is the view from my hotel room from where I spent my writer’s retreat. Below is what I saw on a walk outside my hotel—daffodils everywhere surrounded by wildness stung by sea water. Beautiful!

And yet, if I turned my head toward another direction, here was my view.

Monster uber-resort. Atlantic City, baby. It’s all how you frame it.

For the record, I didn’t play even a single slot machine. Gambling makes me feel queasy—publishing is high stakes enough for me. But the hotel had an amazing spa, which helped to stoke the creative muses. After all, inspiration likes fire and water and heat.

As for finishing my novel bible, I’ve set up a schedule for the rest of it. It’s going to take me probably another week or so—maybe longer. Yikes!

On a totally unrelated note, congratulations to those who won copies of Stephanie Cowell’s CLAUDE AND CAMILLE! I’ve sent each winner an e-mail with instructions on how to claim your prize. I hope you enjoy it! This generous giveaway was courtesy of Crown Books.

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*I’ll write more about what’s involved in creating a novel bible next week.

• Filed under The Novel, be-mused, giveaways and raffles, travels | 2 Responses

Publishing Monday: Good news—and AC, baby

Above are most of the research books I’m bringing with me on my latest novel writing retreat, which begins tomorrow morning. Hello, Umberto Eco and Oscar Wilde and 1880s’ Baedeckers! This time, I’m off to Atlantic City. Not that I like gambling—far from it!—but I do like cheap, luxurious mid-week hotel rooms where I can hunker down and stare at the ocean while ordering room service. Upon my return, I plan to write a guide entitled The Introvert’s Guide to Atlantic City, Or How I Went to AC and Avoided Slot Machines and Snookie.

My plan for these next three days: to finish writing the book “bible” for THE LILY MAID. My agent had given me this task when we last discussed my novel two months ago—she felt it would help me with this new draft—so time’s a-wasting. Another goal: to revise my first fifty pages anew, now that I’m armed with a new set of notes from said agent, her lovely and perceptive assistant, and two generous beta readers.

Meanwhile, I fear I’m starting to come down with laryngitis yet again. And I’m stretched out from trying to tie up all the various errands that need to be done before my departure, such as cleaning the hamster cage. (Don’t worry, Nibbles! I won’t let you down.)

But in the midst of this, I’ve had some wonderful news. My novel query for THE LILY MAID won the Backspace Query Contest for a scholarship to the Backspace Writers Conference. As part of my entry, I had to include my novel’s first two pages, so this feels like a lovely validation of where I’m going with this book. I’m really surprised—I never expected to win though, of course, one hopes to. I mainly entered the contest thinking it was a good spur for rewriting my novel synopsis, which has proved very helpful during the revision process. Anything else was icing on the cake.

So thank you, Backspace Writers Conference! I’m so pleased to be attending you.

• Filed under The Novel, be-mused, travels | 3 Responses

On Sale: Goddess Tarot HD for iPhone 4

I’m pleased to announce that Apple has just released the HD version of the Goddess Tarot app! Like the “regular” Goddess Tarot app, it’s available in a free Lite version and a paid Full version. To celebrate, the full version app is on sale this weekend for $0.99 (regular price $3.99). Now’s the time to upgrade if you’re currently sporting the non-HD version on your iPhone 4 or iPod Touch with a retina display.

You may be wondering what’s the difference between Goddess Tarot HD app and the “regular” Goddess Tarot app. The only difference are the high definition graphics which have been optimized for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch retina display from the original art and design. Otherwise, the apps are exactly the same.

So, if you have an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch with retina display, go forth and enjoy the sale!

Goddess Tarot HD app

• Filed under goddesses, iPhone apps, tarot and oracles | No Comments