Realms of the Raven

Damascus Vision
(c) 2007 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

Ryan stifled a moan and closed his eyes for a moment. It seemed like forever before his stomach returned to its accustomed place and ceased desperately seeking to evacuate his body through his nose.

Goddess, he hated it when Niall decided to transport him. A hundred years of it and it still took every bit of willpower he possessed to not puke.

Experimentally, he cracked his eyes open just a little. No sign of nausea. More confident now, he opened his eyes fully and looked around. He’d been lucky this time. He stood atop a small hill, shielded from casual view by a fairly dense group of trees.

Of course, secrecy was everything, even when Ryan was running his cousin’s errands instead of his own. At least it wasn’t the middle of a slimy pond or inside a Port-A-Potty this time. No matter what Niall said, that could not have been an accident.

A few steps took him to the edge of the trees where he could see the buildings below. One good-sized house, few small outbuildings and a large barn sat in a clearing.

He shook his head. Not at all the place he expected to find Niall’s weapon-maker. Ryan’s Tuatha cousin had spoken of the smith’s work in nearly reverent tones and kept driving home the honor bestowed by the summons. After the sixth repetition, Ryan’s eyes practically rolled back in his head. A weapon made on request was honor enough but a weapon made because of a need seen by the smith was nearly unknown. And for a half-human, yet.

Ryan looked around carefully. Nothing more threatening than some songbirds appeared interested in him. Thankful for the leather pants, heavy boots and long black leather duster, he made his way around several clumps of large purple thistles and down the hill toward the house.

The short hair at the nape of his neck stood up and a shudder ran through him at the border to the house’s clearing. Wards. Stronger and more powerful wards than he’d ever felt in his life.

“Oh man.” Maybe there was even more to this smith than Niall knew.

Hearing rhythmic clanging from the barn, he bypassed the house and headed that direction instead. Uncertain of his reception, he stopped at the threshold of the open door. A remarkably slight figure stood at an anvil, tapping steadily with a large hammer. Blows became lighter and lighter until the smith merely tapped delicately, clearly refining what looked like a spear point. Picking it up with a pair of tongs, the smith sighted along one edge, then flipped it over and sighted down the other. He adjusted something on the forge and placed the item back inside the brightly glowing center.

Ryan couldn’t see much of the man’s form but it was not the hugely muscular, strong one he’d expected. Clearly strong and skilled, the smith’s arms were narrow and sleekly chiseled, the sweat on them highlighting the flowing muscles and tendons.

A long, thick braid of red hair hung down the smith’s back. Ryan realized the smith wasn’t wearing a face shield or protective glasses.

“Welcome, Ryan.” A woman. The sacred smith was a woman?

She turned to face the door and pulled off the leather apron she wore to lay it on the nearby workbench. Wowsa. Her delicate bone structure was clearly Tuatha but it was overlaid with muscles beyond those of most. He could just see the delicate points of her ears. But a Tuatha could not stand cold iron. Weren’t her anvils and tools made of iron or steel?

She chuckled, a throaty sound that caressed him like a lover’s touch. “I can see your confusion. You may call me … Ciara. My mother was Tuatha de Danaan but my father is Creidne.”

Ryan took a moment but finally came up with the reference. “One of the smithing gods. But even he didn’t work in iron.”

She nodded and stepped closer. “But he discovered his bastard half-breed was even more talented than he. So he cursed me in a fit of jealousy. I am cursed to provide arms and armor to my mother’s people but all my magic is limited to metal. Even my sight.”

A few steps closer and she stood an arm’s length away. The sunlight fell on her face, revealing the truth of what she said. Eyes of swirled Damascus steel stared back at him.

Babes in Toyland II is now out!

You can buy it at Aspen Mountain Press.

My contribution to this HUGE holiday anthology is called Gift of the Holly King.

Blurb:
Recovering from a near-fatal accident, wiccan priestess Kayleigh Brennan has taken a leave of absence from her job to focus on recovering her health and rediscovering herself. When she discovers an ancient holly tree in a clearing behind her rented bungalow, she catches the full attention of Ilex, the Holly King. As his reign ends for the year and an ice storm moves in, will they lose each other again to the cycles of the year and of life?

Excerpt:

What a beautiful day.

Already chilly, the lack of any cloud cover was a certain sign that it would get far colder overnight. The weather had been unpredictable and there were already dire warnings that this winter would be a record breaker.

She made her way down the wooden stairs from the deck to the ground, keeping a tight grip on the railing and testing each step carefully before putting her full weight on it. The mere thought of getting hurt again made her stomach churn. She wasn’t about to risk a tumble down the steps.

The carefully groomed gravel path started at the base of the wooden stairs and meandered in swoops and curves toward the woods, following the slight contours of the yard on its way to the woods. Its organic flow made it seem like it might have always been there, despite the fact it was clearly manmade.

The crunching sound of her footsteps drew her to the brink of a different state of awareness. Her stomach gradually relaxed and her hands unclenched. Her mind stilled as she focused on her feet and the path, each slow step taken with care. Each deliberate stride pulled her deeper into her light trance.

At the edge of the grass lawn, she seemed to cross from one world to another in the space of a few steps. The light breeze rustled the few remaining leaves on the branches of the maples and oaks. The gravel path changed to a rougher trail of packed earth with a layer of leaves and needles. The trees grew thicker, larger, and nearer to the small path. The scent of the cedars was both sharp and comforting, overlying the musty and rich smell of the thick layer of decaying vegetation that filled the floor of the woods. Screened by the woods, the breeze was replaced by a quiet stillness, not even broken by the sound of birds or squirrels she’d heard in the yard.

The path was well-defined and Kayleigh continued along it, sinking a little deeper into her trance. She loved the feel of nature and the trees around her. Alone in the woods, she could have been the only person in the world, at home with the Goddess and the sense of impending Yule.

Though not a major sabbat, she’d always had a special place in her heart for the Winter Solstice and the trappings of Yule. The knowledge that she was witnessing the longest night of the year always gave her hope. The adage that tomorrow would be a sunnier day was really true.

Tugging off her gloves, she reached out to caress the wide, craggy bark of a pine tree that had to be a hundred years old. She wouldn’t even be able to get her arms around half the trunk. Fingers quickly growing cold, she stuffed them and her gloves into her coat pockets.

Her steps took her further down the path, touching bushes and dodging the few spider webs that impinged on the trail. It seemed like she walked forever — away from the loud modern world and into a timeless, primeval realm.

Her breath caught, a sense of excitement flooding through her newfound peace. A shiver traced down her spine and goose bumps rose on her arms. A presence, an ancient, inhuman sense of wisdom and power, flooded over her mental shields. It seemed somehow masculine, deeper and rougher than the feminine Goddess energy she usually felt. And it was very close.

What is out here?

A blind turn in the path, around a large maple, brought her to the edge of a clearing. The crowded woods abruptly gave way to a grassy open space with a huge holly tree in the center, flanked by two smaller holly trees.

“Goddess, where have you brought me?” Her own whispered, reverent words seemed to flow out into the still otherworld of the clearing on the fog of her breath, twisting and turning as she stood in awe of what she saw and felt.

Every instinct and training told her this was no ordinary landscape feature. This was a sacred place of some sort and it belonged to the presence she felt. The huge, ancient holly tree in the center seemed to be the focus.

The longer she looked at the tree, the more she felt a need to touch it, to be near it. The smooth bark almost glowed in shades of tans, browns, yellows and golds. The spiky leaves were a glossy, dark green and created a lush canopy that overshadowed two smaller holly trees.

The overgrown grass, yellowed from the cold fall weather, was wet. It seemed deeply wrong to just walk into the clearing. That space belonged to the presence and no matter how much she wanted to get near the huge holly, she needed to remember she was only a visitor — an uninvited one at that. A wave of tingling electric sensations ran over her skin and just under it, an eerie sensation made it clear that whatever lived here had noticed her.

You can read more about it on this page.

Buy it now from Aspen Mountain Press.

Preparation:
You need to have your collection of post-it notes and pens. I actually keep all mine in one of these clear paint cans people use for crafts. It has the advantages of looking nice, keeping them all together and clean and, best of all, the paint can is very hard for my six year old son to pry open!

Then you need to divide your storyboard into chapter squares. I use a plain old wooden yardstick and a sharpie and divide it into six inch squares. It ends up looking like this when unfolded and propped up.

Most of the time I won’t show you the full storyboard. We won’t use nearly the whole thing for my sample story and you’ll want to read the post-it notes more than you’ll want to admire the empty landscape.

Note that I don’t number the squares. I know some people do but if I have several small stories, they may all live on the same board just in different areas. If it really bothers you, feel free to number yours or use a small post-it or even a flag for the numbers.

I also seem to work best at two scenes per chapter. So each square will have two scenes in it. One of the reasons I use the size post-it notes that I do is that two sets of one large plus four small ones will fit in each square. I like to be able to see it all at a glance, if I can. I don’t like to stack them. The top half of each square is always scene one and the bottom half is scene two.

Setting Your Story Length:
Now is when you really have to decide about how long your story is going to be. This can actually be done several different ways.

Formula
If I know how long I want the story to be (or it’s required to be), I can use a formula to determine the number of chapters. The basic formula is:

Desired Wordcount / Average words per chapter = number of chapters needed

So if I wanted a 60,000 word story and I know I write about 2,500 words per chapter, I would need twenty four chapters. Always round up.

Chapter Count
If you are doing a serial, you may know that you need to have a certain number of episodes or chapters. This is how Games Coyotes Play is set up. I knew I wanted the story to run for a year, so I knew I needed twelve chapters.

Mark the Start and End
The next thing I do is mark the real start of the story - the Inciting Event. I always put it at the very beginning because I have a bad habit of trying to introduce too much backstory before the real story starts. It helps to keep me honest.

I stick a small post-it in my plot point color (it’s really lime green, despite the pics) labeled “Inciting Event” on the board.

Then I put a plot point post-it labeled “Resolution” in the last square.

Now my storyboard looks like this:

Add Midpoint
Now I find the middle of the story and put a plot point post-it labeled “Midpoint” in that square.

Add Basic Turning Points
Now, still with the plot point post-its, I add the other two turning points to create the basic story structure I use.

A “TP” post-it is placed midway between “Inciting Event” and “Midpoint”. Another “TP” is placed midway between “Midpoint” and “Resolution”.

Make Pacing Adjustments
Now I step back and look at what I have and make adjustments if I think I need to. In the case of “Games Coyotes Play”, I do need to.

This is a serial story so it has no real ongoing momentum to carry it forward. That means it can’t tolerate much in the way of lag or really slow spots. When I look at the storyboard shown in the last step, I see a lot of empty squares. Those are points the story can lose momentum.

It can also benefit from the second half of the story moving faster.

In this case, I decided that I needed to add two more turning points and shift the midpoint and the third turning point. You can see in this photo that the midpoint has shifted one chapter later and an additional “TP” is now inserted midway between the first “TP” and “Midpoint”.

The next thing was to move the “TP” after the Midpoint to a scene earlier in the story and inserted a new “TP” post-it between it and the Resolution. But in this case I put it the chapter before the resolution and also labeled it the “BM” for Black Moment.

Now when I step back and look, it’s in better balance and not too bare. This is a good start to a well-paced story.

Come back next week for the next installment and I’ll start to show the POV notes.

Comments and questions are always welome :)

Stasis Dreams
(c) 2007 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

As if from a great distance, the vague sound of voices intruded on the echoes of her dreams. Sultry, seductive dreams. Terrifying horrible dreams. But she couldn’t see anything at all, only a ceaseless black swathe of darkness.

Only the painful dreams began in darkness.

She tried to pull herself from the grip of the dream, to escape the promise of agony to come. Every bit of willpower she possessed was not enough.

Not again. She couldn’t take the pain, the torment, yet she would be forced to do so. Held immobile by unseen bonds to accept whatever was forced upon her. Yet she couldn’t accept the futility of resistance. No matter what the voices told her, she always fought. There was no honor in surrender.

No. No more. Not again.

Still the voices continued. Two, maybe three separate voices. And somehow different this time. Not as soft, not as harmonious. Not in any language she could decypher. Another voice suddenly spoke so close to her ear that she gave an involuntary twitch.

She moved? Was it some new kind or torment? She momentarily ignored the voices and struggled to think, to remember something besides the seemingly endless sequence of dreams.

There. A battle, some sort of battle. Her small exploration craft had been attacked without provocation and nearly demolished around her. There had been no time to do anything other than set off her distress beacon and lock herself into the claustrophobic stasis pod.

No one had ever been able to tell her what stasis was like. Hell, they’d not even been able to swear to the length of time it would be effective and survivable. It was a last ditch hope, that was all. If stasis resulted in dreams like hers, she’d die before she willingly entered it again.

But where was she now? Had she been rescued? It was almost too much to believe. Too much to hope for.

The voices intruded again. One sounded angry and upset, another used a tone that seemed to be universal to the soother, the peace-maker.

A sudden pressure below her jaw and a line of burning ice ran up her neck. Before she could scream, silence encompassed her mind again.

* * * *

She fought her way to the surface again. It wasn’t a dream, she was sure of it now.

Now she could feel herself breathing and taste the faint odor of life and chemicals underlying the more organic scents. Deodorizers. Recognition allowed her to push the information aside to focus on other things.

So weak. Just licking her lips was exhausting. Her lips were smooth but her tongue felt incredibly rough, almost bristly. Was this something else stasis caused?

She wanted to open her eyes but caution won out. With no idea where she was or what her situation was, secrecy might be her best hope. Hell, it might be her only hope. She listened intently, trying to sense whether anyone was near her.

After a seemingly endless time of hearing nothing more than mechanical hums and ticks, she heard distance voices. A soft woosh accompanied by a change in air pressure. She steeled herself to pretend to be unconscious and unaware. The voices ceased but rhythmic footsteps neared her.

“What is your opinion, Traisa?”

She could understand this one! A deep masculine voice spoke in a tone of voice that brooked no denial. Someone accustomed to command and being obeyed. The words were EuroStan but with a very strange accent.

“I think we should do her a favor and euthanize her.” The brittle iciness of the female voice was made more chilling by the sharp clip to her accent.

The words sank in. Euthanize? What the hell had happened to her? What shape was she in?

The higher voice continued. “Face it, Maylar. The registration on her stasis pod was to the ship of Doctor Sandra Mailings. That ship was found in pieces over 200 cycles ago. Fifteen years was the lethal limit for this kind of stasis and standard humans.”

“Well, she’s still alive, even if we don’t know why. But what the hell happened to her in there?” The man’s voice sounded almost contemplative.

“The med tests all show that if this really is Dr. Mailings, she’s not standard human anymore. She’s become part Caitoyn.”

Sandy’s eyes opened in shock, only to squint almost closed until her pupils adjusted to the bright room. Far too bright.

“She even has Caitoyn eyes.”

Introduction:
First I’ll remind anyone reading this that I’m presenting this as my own methods of writing. There are very few people who have the same approach or process toward writing and this applies even more to storyboarding. In no way is this intended to be “the one true way” to do anything.

I’ve decided to present this as a journey through a story from idea to storyboarding to beginning to write. The results will be available in my newsletter because I’ve chosen to make my newsletter story - Games Coyotes Play - my demonstration story.

I’ll be honest that I’ve done this for several reasons.

One is that most publishers don’t want you to have more than a small percentage of a story you are trying to sell already on the web. So using a new story that I want to sell would be a bad idea.

The second is that plagerism happens. More often than you want to believe and even to starting authors like me. I work hard for my stories and I want to believe it won’t happen to me - but I’m not that much of an optimist. So I had to use something that, if it were plagarized, it would perhaps be recognizable as mine by someone and wasn’t something that would directly cost me money. So if anyone sees a story that looks a lot like mine with coyote shifters and all, please turn the thief in :)

The third reason is that I began this story BEFORE I learned to storyboard and I’m feeling the lack. I need to get it settled in my own head, so this will help me too.

I’m always up to questions and comments, so don’t hold back. Hopefully this will help others and be a good exercise for me as well.

Supplies
Before I delve into the story next Wednesday, you need some supplies in order to storyboard. Here is a list of what I use.

Foam Core Board
I really like the folding presentation boards for storyboarding. They are very convenient because I can fold the two sides in, with post-it notes intact, and not worry about them getting knocked off or moved. Since I move them to wherever I’m writing and often have several stories that are storyboarded but not currently being written, I can tuck the waiting ones in the closet and unfold them when needed. I own five of these boards at the moment.

I use the white boards but I have seen some dark ones. The white ones merely reduce the number of pens I need to have and are cheaper. I also think the colors of post-it notes show up better for me.

Pens
I’m a dedicated Sharpie fan - the ink stays even when my son spills stuff on the notes. I only use black and I keep several retractable medium point black sharpies in my supply bucket.

I’m also a relatively neat writer and I don’t write LONG bits of info on the post-it notes, so that also lets me use a bolder pen. It’s easier to read from a distance, as well.

Post-It Notes
I use three different sizes of post-it notes when I storyboard. I keep about 5 of each color of the 3×3 and 1.5×1.5 notes in my storyboarding bucket but just the yellow lined ones in the 4×4 size.

There are all sorts of shades of notes out there. I happen to like the Super Sticky ones because I move my notes around a lot. The only important things are to make sure you can tell the colors apart instantly and you can read your writing on the note. After that, go with what you like.

3×3 Post-It Notes
I use 3×3 Notes for POV characters only and on them is written the scene information in the color note for whomever the POV character is. I’m a huge hater of head-hopping so this helps me keep on track.

I usually use:
- Pink = Heroine
- Blue = Hero

If I have any other POV characters, I use a different color for each one of them. But ONLY POV characters get a 3×3 note.

1.5×1.5 Post-It Notes
These are the notes I use for prompts, for plot points, for triggering items, etc.

My standards are:
- Green = Pacing/midpoint notes
- Orange = Sex

4×4 Lined Post-It Notes
These are used for making notes of character appearances, families, paranormal abilities, etc. Basically for anything that I need a quick reference for.

Yardstick
You’ll need this to mark off the foam core the first time you use each one. After that, it’s not needed.

Removable/Repositionable Tape
I keep a roll of this on hand for the occasion when I’ve moved a note a bunch of times and the adhesive refuses to work properly. Not a necessity but I nice thing to stow in the bucket.

Next Week
Next week I’ll walk through setting up a new board and then beginning to storyboard the plot points and turning points.

The concensus seems to be that people actually would like to see me demonstrate my writing process. Now whether that’s to learn something or merely to have holiday joke fodder remains to be seen. :) Maybe it’s both….

So this Wednesday, I’ll post a list of materials and things I need to have before I start and we’ll dive into the process. For the sake of reducing plagerism, I’ll probably use a free story rather than one of my contracted stories.

You’ll have to suffer without a cute logo/banner, though. My button/banner/graphics skills are very…. lame….

I was helping another author today get started using a storyboard as a plotting technique and she asked if I’ve ever considered blogging about the process as I work through a story - so it’s a real world example, with photos and such.

I know I’m not unique in using a storyboard - I learned the basics from Shelley Bradley and Naughty Nikki, then modified it for my own peculiarities. And certainly if you get five authors in a room that all use storyboarding, you’ll get six or seven opinions on how it’s done.

So is there any interest in this? If there is, I’ll turn it into the weekly Wednesday post topice. But not response here means no interest and I’ll table it :)

Let me know, it’s up to you…..

We got the cover art for the Babes in Toyland II Anthology. I know, it’s the same cover they used for last year but this year it has MY name on it! LOL

You can read an excert on my website!

Just got the cover for Babes in Toyland II, the anthology my story “Gift of the Holly King” will appear in. It supposed to release on the 30th!

Isn’t it lovely?? Click on the cover to go to the page with an excerpt to read more about my offering.