Realms of the Raven

(Archives are on the website, if you want to read the offerings of past weeks)

——————————-

Life Lines
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

“Do you ever date anymore?” Kyle’s voice sounded much too carefully casual for Alex’s taste.

“I’ll date when I find someone I want to spend time with.” Alex pulled a couple of Corona’s from the fridge, wiping them dry and popping their caps off before taking a long pull from one of them. A deep breath braced him a little, then he turned to set the second bottle on the counter in front of Kyle. Only sheer force of will kept him from blurting out a lot more than he wanted the other man to know, even if there was a hope of Kyle being able to cope with the knowledge.

Bright blue eyes glanced up from below the shaggy ash-blonde bangs, the natural curl making it look like he never combed his hair. Kyle trailed his long fingers up and down the cold beer bottle, caressing the glass like it was a lover’s skin.

Alex stepped behind the counter, hoping to hide before Kyle noticed the hard-on that ridged the front of his jeans. He’d hidden his lust for Kyle for over a year now and he didn’t want to scare the younger man away at this point.

With a heavy sigh, Kyle took a sip of his own beer, then sat it back on the counter and proceeded to pick at the edges of the label. “But you used to date, or at least have play dates. The other boys talked a lot about you.”

Lightning seemed to hit Alex in the chest. He missed having a boy but only wanted one anymore. One that was off limits forever. But what a boy he would be…

Kyle stopped picking at the paper label long enough to tug his shirt cuffs down to the top of his hands. That gesture had become a frequent one over the last few months, so much so that Kyle no longer seemed aware of doing it. The more uncomfortable he was, the more often he seemed to do it.

“I’ve just not been in the mood for play.” Alex chugged the last of his beer, hoping to cool the fire in his balls. The mere thought of Kyle’s tall body in nothing but leather cuffs and boots made his dick hard as a rock. The mental image of his friend writhing under him, reveling in the sensations Alex could lavish upon him, nearly made him come.

But it wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

Alex set his half-empty beer bottle down and took his time pulling the hair tie from his ponytail, then smoothing the escaping red strands back from his face and retying it. It bought him the time needed to get his lust back under control.

Kyle took a long swig of his drink, then a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Alex.”

He peeled the rest of the label completely off the beer bottle, then stuck it back on upside down. Smoothing it, he opened his mouth as if to say something, only to close it again.

Worry made Alex frown. Had he scared Kyle somehow? It had only been a year since Kyle’s boyfriend had gotten high on drugs and attacked him. Alex searched his memory but he’d been careful, painfully careful, to always keep their relationship that of non-threatening friendship so Kyle could heal.

After another false start, Kyle finally managed to squeak out some words. “Have I ruined your sex life, Alex?”

He couldn’t think for a moment, frozen in place by the blunt question. “What? How the hell could you ruin anything?”

Kyle played with his shirt cuffs again, tugging and straightening them. “You’re a Top but you never date, you never play, you don’t even go out to parties. I know you’re doing it for me, but I don’t want you to have a permanent case of blue balls for my sake.”

Alex gaped at him.

A sad smile curved Kyle’s lips. He lifted the beer to his lips again and his sleeves slipped back. The thick white scars on his wrist made Alex’s heart ache.

I want to thank my friend, Kaye, for being my guest today and giving us her take on writing in First Person.

Hello! I’m Kaye Chambers. I’d like to thank Maura Anderson for inviting me to talk about my favorite topic: writing.

I am a first person author. This week, in light of Tiger by the Tail, I’ve been asked a lot of first person questions and urged to blog about it. Before I get started, I’d like to point out that I’m not Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Katie MacAlister, Keri Arthur…well, you get the point. There are masters of First Person out there and they’re not me. *grins* This is simply my take on writing the hardest point of view there is.

I get asked a lot, “Why First Person? I mean, that’s breaking the cardinal rule.” The answer is easy, “Because that’s the way the story needed to be told.”

Not every story can be told in first person. First person isn’t simply taking your third person limited narrative and changing it to a single POV and substituting “I”. In fact, the best advice I can give on whether or not you should write your next project in FP is to ask if you’ve tried it in third, yet. If a story can be told in third, it should be. It’s not even up for debate. If you, as the author, can write it in third person or even picture it that way, then the character isn’t strong enough to be the single point of focus for the story.

Some stories can not be told in third person. The voice of the character is just too strong. The first manuscript I wrote in first person was started twelve times in third person before I turned to one of my writing circle friends, Colleen, in a wail, “It always ends up with ‘I’.” By the end of the first chapter, the heroine was telling the story so strongly that there wasn’t any other room for anybody else to talk. Her advice was to try it. It was the first project I ever finished. It won an award and I’ve never looked back.

Recently, Samhain Publishing published my third completed manuscript, the second in first person, Tiger by the Tail. I was somewhat shocked by the reception it has received. I love Sasha, but she’s a voice inside my head. If I hated her, we’d have a problem. I wasn’t expecting the world to slip into her skin like I do.
And that’s what makes first person special. It’s like curling up with your best friend over a cup of coffee and talking. She’s telling you a story, or ‘he’ if you’re a Harry Dresden fan, which I happen to be. When I read a good first person, I feel like I’ve made a friend when I’m done. One I’d like to visit again and again and again.

So, you’re thinking of giving it a whirl? Good! The hard part is figuring out how to pull it off. We all have our own voices as authors. In third person, how we turn a phrase is what makes us shine and what we carry with us from manuscript to manuscript. Even third person limited is told from our perspective as authors. Unlike third person omniscient, we can’t be God, but we do control the characters senses. We control what they notice at any given moment no matter how they notice it.

In first person, how your character turns the phrase is what makes them real. How do you separate your voice from theirs? You don’t. You have to trust yourself to be true to the character. It’s like role playing on a grander scale. In order to make first person truly successful, you have to put yourself aside and acquaint yourself with your character on a very personal basis. At a recent workshop I attended given by Bob Mayer, he described it as the most intimate POV as well as the hardest and most limited.

Why is it limited? Because no one else gets to see, hear, think, or define anything. Every tiny detail of your story has to be woven in through subtle details. It’s like painting a portrait. Every detail and brush stroke means something to the grander design. Some details are more obvious than others. For example, your heroine has POV rights – it’s her story – but your hero is thinking he’s going to do something rash. In third person, we’d simply give him some internal thought or dialogue or a POV shift. In first, we don’t have that luxury. We have to build all our secondary characters bold enough so she (and the reader) knows them well enough to pick up on their expressions and body language to address it to the reader. Even if she doesn’t point blank say, “I know he’s up to something,” she can note the details – he won’t meet her gaze, shifting from feet to feet, making a lame excuse to bolt out the door. Without being overt, your heroine tips the reader off to mischief.

Now, I’m also going to make a rather obvious point here about voice. As a first person author, I can’t write the same heroine under a different name with a different premise. My voice has to change according to every POV character. Even though my characters all tell their story as “I”, they aren’t the same person, so the flavor has to change with them. How do you change it? It goes back to the role playing mentioned above. Knowing your character well enough to slip your skin as a person and an author and write from their eyes is how you change your voice every time out of the box. I guess you can say it’s like being a schizophrenic who has permission to embrace the crazy side of themself. Yes, I talk to the voices in my head and let them have a turn at the helm.

This brings me to another point about why first person is so intimate. How deep is deep enough into your character? In third person, we’re allowed a little bit of a narrative filter. In first person, it’s a deal breaker. Falling into narrative telling instead of actively showing (from the POV character) will kill the tone and mood of a first person story. It’s the most common mistake. You just can’t treat a first person story like a third.

It’s another reason why first person is so limited. Until you actively try to write first person, you don’t realize just how much you, as the author, narrate a story. In my opinion, the only way you can successfully write first person is to be deep into character and trust yourself to write the scene true to the spirit of it.

A lot of authors write alternating point-of-views, switching from third to first and back again. That’s not a bad idea if you need to have the reader step back and see things differently or you need to interject plot elements that your point of view character can’t possibly know. By inserting that bit of narration, you also allow the reader to become better acquainted with other characters and other elements in the story.

I’m going to break off here and bring up another type of first person novel – alternating first person views. This opens up the field a bit. It’s adding a different narrator for elements just like using an alternating third person. I am not a fan of it. Why? Because unlike using alternating first and third, you’re not creating distance with your reader in the alternating view. In general, you open the story from the focus point of view and create that initial connection with the reader, create that bond, and then you break it and expect the reader to shift their emotional connection to the alternating persona. It doesn’t work, in general, at least not for me.

First person is like falling in love, one little bit at a time. With each scene, the reader takes that little baby step into emotional involvement. It’s why publishers print, “An Anita Blake Novel,” “A Harry Dresden Novel,” “An Aisling Grey Novel,” or a “Riley Jenson Novel” on the cover of a book. Even if you hated the author’s last book, you’re going to buy it…even if you hated the last one in the series.

Why? Because they’re our friends and we want to know what they’ve been up to.

Title: Tiger by the Tail
Author: Kaye Chambers
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
ISBN: 1-59998-919-0
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Buy it here!
Kaye’s website.

Publisher Blurb:
Alexandra “Sasha” DeStephano has long been exiled from her own kind, thanks to parents who had no wish for her to grow up in the “tiger mafia”. Now that she’s been issued an engraved invitation to appear before the society elders, she finds herself plunged into a dangerous battle for power, urged on every side to give up her birthright to make room for a new regime.

On every side, that is, except Colton Reyes, a rogue alpha. Cole plants the idea in her mind that, under the current leadership, the tiger society is headed down a one-way street to disaster. And she is their only hope.

Spurred on by a man who flips all her sexual switches, Sasha steps up to the plate-and finds herself promoted from Tiger Princess to Queen. The resulting consequences are far more than she ever imagined.

In this game of danger and intrigue, almost no one can be trusted. Cole’s best chance to protect her? Pretend to claim her as his mate.

Except pretending is the last thing on Sasha’s mind.

My Opinion:
I’ve known Kaye for a number of years and have been DYING for this book to come out. I really wanted to see how it turned out because it combines something I love (big cat shifters) with something I tend to shy away from writing myself (first person). Boy was I not disappointed!

Sasha starts out the story as an outcast, taken by her parents from Tiger society and raised outside it. But she finds herself cast in the role of a pawn in Tiger society power struggles. But Sasha is not about to passively let others play her and when she meets up with Colton, she finds there may be more at risk than merely herself. What can she and the sexy rogue tiger do to save their society?

I loved this story. I wasn’t sure what I would think because first person is often not done well and I can have trouble sort of “falling into” the story. Not the case with Tiger by the Tail. Sasha is sassy and has a real backbone. Sasha and Cole are hot together. I liked the complexity of the world and the politics but I wished we got some extra time to delve into it more. But my favorite is feeling like *I* am running in a tiger form!

I’m totally sold on the possibilities of well done first person, so much so that I’m going to give it a try too. Stay tuned on Wednesday where I’ve co-erced Kaye into writing a guest Writerly Wednesday post on writing First Person!

I really recommend this story!

You’ll all be glad (I think) to know that I got my splint off after hand surgery two weeks ago and am on my way back to normal function. This means I can type more!)

EIHWAZ	Eihwaz is the rune of steadfastness. It stands for strength, dependability, reliablity and can mean a good defense and setting achievable goals.
PERTHRO	Perthro is the rune of mystery and hidden meanings. It may stand for the paranormal, especially knowledge of future matters but can also stand for the feminine and feminine mysteries.
ALGIZ	Algiz is the rune of protection. It’s a shield that can guard and ward off evil. It can also mean you need to follow your instincts or guard positions or things you’ve achieved.

(Archives are on the website, if you want to read the offerings of past weeks)

——————————-

Mirror, Mirror
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

She blinked her eyes, reaching up to rub the grittiness of sleep from them. Finally able to see clearly, she stared into the old oval mirror, trying to force away the swirls of magic that flowed through the glass like tendrils of fog twirling in eddies and wakes. The unseen currents of power made visible.

Oh so slowly, shapes began to form in the chaos. Areas of darkness and light separated into vague forms.

She trailed her fingers along the gilded edge of the mirror’s frame and willed the image to appear. What secrets would the mirror show her this time? What faces would she see?

Color seeped into the miasma, first pale and pastel but then enriching and darkening until she realized she was looking at the back of a woman’s head with dark, curly chestnut hair pulled into an elaborate braid and entwined with sprigs of violets and baby’s breath. The mirror cleared until she could see the woman bend over, almost disappearing from view before she sat back up, shoulders hunched in a semblance of defeat. Suddenly, the woman threw what appeared to be a fancy white shoe toward the far wall.

She nearly flinched back herself with a hiss of shock. What the hell was going on? She’d never seen anything like this in the mirror before. “What’s happening?” The question was purely rhetorical, she’d long ago given up hope of any real answer. Staring as if transfixed, she smoothed her hair back from her face.

The woman in the image threw her shoulders back and stood. Now it was clear she was wearing a slender, simple white dress. She reached her arms awkwardly behind her back and fumbled for the tiny zipper. A few fumbles and she managed to get enough of a grip on it to pull it down, revealing lacy, delicate underthings.

But instead of treating what must be a wedding dress with the loving care she expected, the brown-haired woman let it drop down her body and stepped back a little before giving it what looked like a vicious kick. Just a flutter of what looked to be expensive material could be seen at the edge of the mirror before the woman turned and threw herself down onto a seat—facing the mirror at last.

The face was similar to her own – the same green eyes and slightly hooked nose—maybe she was another relative of some sort. The mirror tended to show blood relatives. The other woman’s full lips were pursed and made her look tense and unhappy and her lashes were clumped with tears, the remains of mascara staining her eyelids.

The other woman pushed her hair back with no regard for the flowers or careful pinning of her curls, dislodging some of the violets and baby’s breath. A tear traced down her cheek as she stared at her left hand, rotating the large star sapphire ring on her ring finger. Finally the sad woman worked the ring off her hand and tossed it onto the vanity, out of the mirror’s view.

“Oh, what happened?” She couldn’t stop her question. Sympathy flooded through her. “Been there, done that. You’ll be better off without him if he betrayed you!” So what if the woman in the mirror couldn’t actually hear her.

The other woman looked up and seemed to meet her eyes directly. As if they had a connection. What was going on?

The woman in the mirror looked puzzled, then shrugged and reached her hand out, flipping the mirror over to face the wall. Its focus gone, the mirror clouded over with fog again, until the surface was an even grey and she was trapped within it again, sightless and alone.

I’m thrilled to announce that my first published story, Del Fantasma: Texas Tea has WON the 2008 Fantasm Award for Best Shapeshifter (Non-Wolf) Romance!!

Check out the award winners on the award blog!

Publisher: Aspen Mountan Press
Genre: Paranormal, Coyote Clans, Del Fantasma Continuity Series
Sexuality: Male/Female
ISBN: 978-1-60168-052-5
Release Date: August 17, 2007
Length: Novella
Order from Aspen Mountain Press
Order from Fictionwise
Order from Amazon for Kindle

Photographer Lara Saunders has a lifelong secret – she can see and hear ghosts. When she was rescued from a near drowning by the ghost of a lighthouse keeper, he set her on a mission to document historic lighthouses and the lives of their keepers so they were not forgotten. Now on her third book in the series, Lara has arrived in San Diego to document the Old Point Loma Lighthouse but hasn’t counted on becoming the target of Cody Warren, the matchmaking owner of the Del Fantasma bar. Or falling in love with a handsome Park Ranger whose secret is even more strange than her own.

(Archives are on the website, if you want to read the offerings of past weeks)

——————————-

Eyes of Jade
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

Gearóid’s eyes flew open as his body convulsed, sucking in a panicked breath. The blue sky directly above him seemed painfully bright in contrast to the dense border of tree branches at the edge of his vision. He panted, disoriented and strangely out of breath. Where was he? What was going on?

He sat up abruptly and nearly fell back again when dizziness made his head swim. Heart racing with the possibility of danger, Gearóid struggled to gain control of his body. Eyes closed again, he took a few more deep breaths of air that was strangely devoid of the copper scent of the blood spilled during the battle before his dizziness subsided. The only sounds he heard were chirping birds and a few deep-voiced frogs.

He cracked his eyes open again, slowly. Thankfully the world seemed much more stable than just a few moments ago. He looked around in amazement. The clearing, surrounded by thick, old trees, had a lush layer of fallen leaves and needles on the ground. Ferns grew in abundance, mixed with other plants he didn’t recognize. Despite the light breeze that intermittently brushed over his skin, the air felt heavy with the smells of damp earth and musty, decomposing vegetation.
His bare skin.

On his feet in a leap, he was only more puzzled. His body seemed somehow heavier, alien, almost as if it were not his body at all. The difference made him unsteady for a moment, a rare occurrence since he’d begun his warrior training.

A glance down proved he was indeed naked and, though the body he saw was similar to his in shape and size, it was not what it should be. Metallic copper glimmered where his pale Sidhe skin had once been. His nipples were a dark bronze color and what little body hair he’d had was now gone as if it never existed.

In disbelief, he ran a hand over his abdomen. He could feel his fingers sliding over his skin but his belly and chest were smoother than he remembered and the scars left from the many battles he’d survived were gone as if they’d never been. Even his hand was smooth, the calluses from years of weapons practice had disappeared.

Battle? The memories flooded back in a rush. The horror of seeing Ailin fall. The vain attempt to save his best friend. Then the pain of the Milesian lance piercing through his back and emerging from his chest. He remembered dropping slowly to the ground, the sounds of battle and clashing weapons dimming as his spirit faded from the world.

Maybe this was merely a dream, a momentary awareness in the Cauldron of Rebirth? Even a foreshadowing of a possible future? He’d never heard of such a thing but he was a warrior, not a priest.

Gearóid turned, examining every part of the clearing he found himself in. No danger was apparent but it nothing was at all familiar to him. The trees, the bushes, even the small animal he glimpsed were nothing he’d seen before. It certainly wasn’t the battleground he’d died on.

The chilly breeze kicked up again and a dark shadow appeared at the edge of his vision. He jerked away and spun unsteadily, only to find he’d been startled by his own hair. Now a shiny onyx black instead of its previous pale blonde, it was still so long as to brush his ass when unbound – as it now was. His one vanity, as Ailin was always quick to point out.

His hands flew to his face and traced the features there. The scar down one cheek from his brash challenge to one of his trainers was gone. Like his body, the skin of his face seemed a bit smoother but his features were familiar at least. His ears were still gracefully pointed but the left one was now pierced through the lobe with what felt to be a metal ring. Something dangled from it but he couldn’t tell what, only that it felt long and tapered.

The sudden sound of wings beating directly overhead gave him scant warning before a large raven landed gracefully on a thick tree stump before him. The ebon bird stared steadily at him for a moment, head cocked slightly to one side. Just as he began to worry about the intelligence he saw behind the bird’s black eyes, it shimmered and grew until another form emerged.

(Archives are on the website, if you want to read the offerings of past weeks)

——————————-

Patterns
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

The lightning struck and flowed over her skin in intricate patterns of blue and white, leaving behind the smell of singed flesh and the marks of its passing. Pain struck, a fierce, sudden agony that stole her breath. The fire of torment crawled back up her body and she found the breath to scream only when the inferno consumed her.

Sandra’s eyes snapped open as she jerked bolt upright. Heart thundering in her chest, she glanced around the darkened room. Her own bedroom. Her own bed.

What the hell was going on? She’d not had this many nightmares since she was a teenager and now it kept being the same damned dream. Why was that? It wasn’t from any movie or book she remembered. She didn’t feel stressed or upset. If anything, her life was terrific – a challenging new job with a new home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She’d worked for years to get to this point, dammit.

Sandra fingers ached and she forced herself to release her death grip on the satiny cotton sheets. Hands shaking slightly, she rubbed her face and gritty eyes. Now she was awake—too damned awake for the middle of the night.

It seemed to take a monumental effort to climb out of bed and grab her robe off the back of the bedroom door. Snuggled in the warm, soft fabric, she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly despite the unseasonable warmth of the rainy night. “Feels more like Florida than Oregon.”

She laughed. Now she was talking to herself. Maybe there was more of her eccentric grandmother in her than she’d admit to.

Sandra flinched when a sudden flash of lightning lit the room like full daylight. The rain picked up, sounding like a monsoon outside the little a-frame house, pounding on the roof and windows unceasingly. Kaboom! The thunder rattled the entire house.

At least it seemed several miles away, if the old wives’ tale her grandmother had taught her was correct. One mile per second of delay, wasn’t it? That lighting had to be at least five miles away.

Another bright flash and her eyes ached from the sudden light, afterimages glowing before her. Focusing on counting the seconds, she counted only four seconds this time.

Sandra reached a hand up to rub away the lingering effects of the bright lightning and caught sight of her hand.

What the hell was on her hand?

Swirls and lines, interspersed with symbols of some sort, covered the palm of her right hand in a shimmering, opalescent blue. They slowly faded away as her eyes re-adjusted to the light spilling dimly from the open door of her bedroom.

It had to be her imagination. She looked closely and couldn’t see anything on her skin. “Man, I’m so tired I’m hallucinating.” She forced out a quiet chuckle but her stomach clenched in fear anyway.

Staring at her hand, Sandra waited for another bolt of lightning to strike. She was just too tried, nothing was there.

The sky lit up and she stared at her arm. Holy shit. Not just her hand but her entire arm was covered in the glowing, intricate patterns.

Yet another of the myths I believed before I began to write was that authors just KNEW when their writing was good or bad. They would delete the drek and save all the great parts (if they were even having so off a day that they produced drek) and would merrily get on with their fantastic story.

Yah - not so much.

When I wrote my first story, I reached a point where I was sure that I could not be a writer, this whole story sucked from start to finish and I should do the world a favor and burn it. I’m stubborn, though, and several friends I trusted read it and reassured me that it was actually pretty damned good. With some hand-holding, some kicks in the ass and some stubborn determination, I finished that story.

And, you know, when I read it over - it was pretty good!

My poor naive self thought this was it. Now that I knew I could write, I would just write merrily along and my confidence would let me know when something was good or not.

I was wrong, it happened with the next story too.

I learned, after talking to numerous other authors, that I was not alone. Most other authors go through a time that they think the current project may just be the worst thing they’ve ever written. They’ve fought the urge to delete the file, start over, even not write for a while. But, like me, they kept going anyway.

Now I call these “Intermittent Bouts of Suckitis” - a phrase I was told by the marvelous Morgan Hawke (cue fan girl moment). I can be certain that, in the process of writing every single story, I will experience at least one bout of suck-itis. It happens when I’m about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the story, like clockwork, and I still fall into doubt. Every single story.

At least now I’ve learned to stop and send it to my trusted friends and test readers and ask them what they think. So far I have never had to give up on a story though I have made revisions and changes to allow me to continue in a better vein.

These “Bouts of Suckitis” seem to be almost universal. I wish I’d known that when I started writing.