Fred Warren has a story published in the new WWC magazine Other Sheep, which definitely looks worth checking out. More details here:
http://frederation.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/story-published-pilgrimage-in-other-sheep/
A.M. Roelke scored an interview about her upcoming release, The Space Station Murders:
http://sameenassphere.wordpress.com/guest-author-blogs/a-m-roelke-2/
Jane Lebak's short space story A Rock for Christmas is now online:
http://bit.ly/glNNM9
Peculiar People are looking for submissions of a very specific nature for their collaborative Orphan Plane project, where children are sent to begin a new life in space. Open till January 9th. Details here:
http://www.peculiarpeoplebooks.com/orphan-plane.htm
The CSFF Blog Tour now has a page on Facebook:
http://on.fb.me/hn3LQv
John Otte discusses the latest movie adaptation of Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
http://leastread.blogspot.com/2010/12/voyage-of-dawn-treader.html
And here's a new review of A Star Curiously Singing by Kerry Nietz:
http://bit.ly/gm4nEa
Showing posts with label Narnia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Narnia. Show all posts
12/12/2010
8/25/2010
News for August 25th 2010
Three new clips have been released from the upcoming new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
http://bit.ly/cQ0qLj
This week the CSFF Blog Tour is doing something a bit different: everyone gets to choose whatever books they want to talk about.
Check out the list of participants here: http://tl.gd/39ts1o
Notable posts include Rebecca LuElla Miller, Chawna Schroeder, John Otte, and Fred Warren.
Alpha Redemption, the new novel by P.A. Baines, is now available for pre-order at discount from Splashdown Books. Delivery estimated a week into September.
Grace Bridges (yep, me) wrote a guest post for Book Readers Central, and if you comment there you have a chance to win a copy of Legendary Space Pilgrims:
http://bookreaderscentral.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-and-greet-monday-grace-bridges.html
http://bit.ly/cQ0qLj
This week the CSFF Blog Tour is doing something a bit different: everyone gets to choose whatever books they want to talk about.
Check out the list of participants here: http://tl.gd/39ts1o
Notable posts include Rebecca LuElla Miller, Chawna Schroeder, John Otte, and Fred Warren.
Alpha Redemption, the new novel by P.A. Baines, is now available for pre-order at discount from Splashdown Books. Delivery estimated a week into September.
Grace Bridges (yep, me) wrote a guest post for Book Readers Central, and if you comment there you have a chance to win a copy of Legendary Space Pilgrims:
http://bookreaderscentral.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-and-greet-monday-grace-bridges.html
6/28/2010
News for June 28th
The big news of the weekend is that Jill Williamson of Marcher Lord Press has won the Christy Award in the Visionary section for her fantasy By Darkness Hid. This is a huge moment in history and a step forward for independent publishing and speculative fiction alike!
Read Jill's reaction on her blog here: http://bit.ly/bU4d9P
Read a press release with a listing of all winners here:
http://ajast.com/ChristyAwards2010WinnerPR.pdf
And you can head over to Jill's Facebook page to congratulate her: http://bit.ly/bSODg1 or at the Anomaly forum: http://bit.ly/c6FCE0
Terri Main has published another short story to go with her upcoming novel Dark Side of the Moon. Read "Fireworks" here: http://darksidenovel.blogspot.com/2010/06/fireworks.html
TitleTrakk.com is running a survey on which Narnia book you would like to see made into a movie next. To add your opinion, go here: http://www.titletrakk.com/surveys-polls.htm
Read Jill's reaction on her blog here: http://bit.ly/bU4d9P
Read a press release with a listing of all winners here:
http://ajast.com/ChristyAwards2010WinnerPR.pdf
And you can head over to Jill's Facebook page to congratulate her: http://bit.ly/bSODg1 or at the Anomaly forum: http://bit.ly/c6FCE0
Terri Main has published another short story to go with her upcoming novel Dark Side of the Moon. Read "Fireworks" here: http://darksidenovel.blogspot.com/2010/06/fireworks.html
TitleTrakk.com is running a survey on which Narnia book you would like to see made into a movie next. To add your opinion, go here: http://www.titletrakk.com/surveys-polls.htm
5/24/2010
News for May 24th, 2010
Rick Copple has published an extensive article on description for writers. Check out "Describing Description Detail" at http://blog.rlcopple.com/?p=230.
New at TitleTrakk: Katie Hart gives us a look at "The Characters of Narnia":
http://titletrakk.com/articles/books/characters-of-narnia.htm
FRENZY, the final episode in the Dreamhouse Kings series by Robert Liparulo, is out now. For more information, reviews and more, go here: http://bit.ly/dj8dfA
Marcher Lord Press has published free samples on Scribd of each of the latest releases:
To Darkness Fled by Jill Williamson http://scr.bi/aa6zqs
The Word Unleashed by Steve Rzasa http://scr.bi/99ZEdY
The Superlative Stream by Kerry Nietz http://scr.bi/d0mIN1
New at TitleTrakk: Katie Hart gives us a look at "The Characters of Narnia":
http://titletrakk.com/articles/books/characters-of-narnia.htm
FRENZY, the final episode in the Dreamhouse Kings series by Robert Liparulo, is out now. For more information, reviews and more, go here: http://bit.ly/dj8dfA
Marcher Lord Press has published free samples on Scribd of each of the latest releases:
To Darkness Fled by Jill Williamson http://scr.bi/aa6zqs
The Word Unleashed by Steve Rzasa http://scr.bi/99ZEdY
The Superlative Stream by Kerry Nietz http://scr.bi/d0mIN1
3/23/2009
Midnight Diner and Narnia in Ireland
Coach Culbertson announces:The 2nd Diner is officially to print! If you've pre-ordered one, it'll show up at your door in about 3 weeks. Should be showing up on Amazon in about two weeks or so. Vampires, demons, ghosties, bad guys and good guys, the whole gamut. Pre-sales are good up until the 28th. Just remember, the Diner is mature audiences only.
But if you can't wait and need some instant gratification, I've opened up an eBook edition of the 2nd Diner over at the http://www.themidnightdiner.com . Only ten bucks.
And, if you're in the area, there's a storytelling event in Second Life's virtual West of Ireland at http://slurl.com/secondlife/West+of+Ireland/128/128/0 - today at 7pm PST, storyteller Caledonia Skytower reads part two of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. When you get there just ask for the Library. Sounds like fun!
2/06/2009
Of Narnia and Rayguns!
In movie news, Narnia fans can be very relieved that Fox has picked up where Disney left off: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will not be abandoned. More details on that here at the Narnia fan site.
Also, congrats to Ray Gun Revival on its 50th issue! You can get it here. Contents include:
The Silver Dollar Saucer by Lou Antonelli
Susie Earthshine, Space Substitute by Jeff Schnaufer
Terror Ride To Work by Robert Evans
No Remorse by George S. Walker
The Taming of the Shill - A Dean the Space Rogue Story by Andy Heizeler
Calamity's Child, Chapter Six: Rites of Passage - Dante's Fourth, by Gaslight, Part One by M. Keaton (Serial Fiction)
Thieves' Honor: Episode Five: The Game - Shooter by Keanan Brand (Serial Fiction)
Deuces Wild, Season Two by L. S. King (Serial Fiction)
This Raygun For Hire: The Great Author Affair by John M. Whalen (Serial Fiction)
2/29/2008
The Hound, the Lamp Post and the Seabird
Hi! I'm Sherry Thompson. I joined LGG just a few weeks ago, so this time I'll just introduce myself and describe how I started writing.
The Hound, the Lamp Post and the Seabird
In midsummer 1970, I was a discontented psychology grad student, halfway between a messy break-up with a long-term boyfriend and a semester in which I would take physiology with no biology since high school while teaching psych statistics. During the day, I worked fulltime at the university library and tried to make sense of the physiology text. I spent my nights fending off the Hound.
The Hound of Heaven was after me though, prodding me to make a decision about what I really believed. Glenn and I had both been agnostics. I had been exposed to Christian teachings via Sunday School from about 3rd to 9th grade and then virtually nothing. For a long time, my only response to the prodding was in bookstores where I picked up books with religious-sounding titles while on the eternal hunt for fantasy books. I had read The Hobbit years ago when I was a freshman and followed it with The Lord of the Rings. Glenn didn’t care much for fantasy and I was extremely busy, so I let my new interest drop until that summer.
Back in 1970, there was little fantasy to be had in spite of the popularity of Tolkien’s work. Lin Carter at Ballantine had reprinted a line of old titles by Lord Dunsany and Mervyn Peake. I found Lindsay’s Voyage to Arcturus in the university library. There was C. S .Lewis but, you see, Lewis was Christian and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into that whole “mess” of making decisions about things that might change my life.
I reached the point where I really had no other fantasy to choose from in our local bookstore, so I picked up all seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. (I hate having broken sets.) When I was checking out, either the cashier or a customer suggested that I begin with The Magician’s Nephew because that way I would be reading the books in chronological order. I read The Magician’s Nephew that night and was captivated by the idea of a lion singing a world into existence and by a world so bursting with life that a fragment of a lamp post buried in its soil sprang to life. A week later, I went to an evening meeting on campus and accepted Christ as my savior.
Over the following years, I read everything I could find by Lewis and followed that with everything I could find by the other Inkling, Charles Williams. I searched repeatedly for fantasy books I had missed earlier and I found a few from time to time but Tolkien was just beginning to have an impact on the publishing world and I lived in a small town with a small bookstore. Plus, this was the 1970’s B.A. (Before Amazon)
Eventually, I decided to write a fantasy story. I had written a bit before, many years earlier and mostly time travel stuff, but this would be my first attempt at an actual novel. The first step would be to “become organized” and make a list of everything that my novel should have in it.
The Daydream Novel List went rather like this:
a heroine (who would actually be me),
no elves or dragons (maybe for fear of competing with Tolkien?),
wizards, but not like Tolkien’s;
a jump from one world to another (based partially on Narnia but running back to my childhood daydreams of time travel),
the heroine would not instantly cooperate about her visit or her role (aside from Eustace, everyone visiting Narnia seemed to just follow along);
an artifact, for two reasons—1. to be mysterious here on Earth and 2. at the end to be proof that it had all been real (I disliked the insinuation that Dorothy had envisioned Oz while delirious);
heroes who rode horses and carried weapons (a leftover from my early exposure to TV serial westerns;
a really –different- setting,
a sequel with overlapping characters.
I didn’t begin with an story outline—I hated making outlines—but just plunged in with Cara finding the as yet unidentified “artifact”. Each day, my novel grew by approximately eight sheets in my 8x5 spiral notebook. Sorry about the culture shock! This was before personal computers. I had a typewriter but I couldn’t carry it around so I opted for the notebook.
After a while, perhaps a week or two, my inspiration dried up. I had taken enough English courses to realize that I didn’t know what my characters wanted or where I was heading with my plot. Plot? What plot? My list of Stuph was all on the surface. What was going on inside? Staring at the wall established the fact that the wall had cracks and the room needed painting.
Since I was still something of a new Christian, it took a while for the penny to drop and for me to pray for guidance. I asked for help and promptly went into wool-gathering mode
What did I want? What had I been looking for at the bookstore? What had I wanted when I finished The Lord of the Rings? God wanted my salvation. I wanted another good story, not necessarily LotR II but a complex fantasy world with people I could relate to. I positively –loved- The Chronicles of Narnia but technically Lewis had written it for children. What a shame he hadn’t held off on The Last Battle and written more stories bringing in older protagonists from Earth…
Oh.
I “checked in” to see if I were on the right track, and felt I had the go-ahead. Along with it, came a flood of “new ideas”, which I should have considered critical from the beginning.
The Duh List.
The new list of necessary story elements included:
an actual reason for the protagonist’s presence on this other world (aka plot);
a varied cast of characters whom I must get to know intimately;
an agnostic teen or one struggling with doubts about his or her faith;
mistakes leading to regret and feelings of guilt; eventual reconciliation;
a world just as loved and saved by God as ours and Narnia—but in a different way; with a new representation for the Second Person of the Trinity;
the awe and delight of knowing God, shown as Lewis did it. Doing this meant a lot to me. In fact, this had become nearly the whole point of the exercise;
a deeply embedded yet subtle pattern in the setting and culture showing how this world’s reconciliation with God became possible.
And then a biggie, right out of the blue: An alternate history of the church beginning after the Incarnation, Christ’s Sacrifice and His return to Heaven where the abundant miracles of the Early Church would alter over time as needs changed. Enchanters would be called to wield these miraculous powers, each as granted from God. To the casual observer (or reader) it will look like magic but it wouldn’t be.
All of this subtly hidden in plain sight so as not to spook the person I used to be. No question: I was writing for all the other doubting or agnostic fantasy-readers like my old self who needed a subtle invitation to taste and see. If fellow Christians liked the book, that would be great but I needed to help those made nearly impervious to the call, by what Lewis named the Watchful Dragons.
I almost forgot one necessary element. Learning how to write. Sigh. I continue to work on the foundation for that one. I pray that my desire to share the joy of knowing God makes up for my abysmal execution of the message.
I used various plot ideas as testing grounds for my characters, jiggery-poking different elements until I knew what path I was supposed to follow. However, I was still missing a key element. I went to the beach on vacation and while I was there I searched vigilantly until I found it—a silver necklace shaped like a soaring seabird. My artifact, and the representation of Narenta’s Savior.
Under the Mercy,
SherryT
The Hound, the Lamp Post and the Seabird
In midsummer 1970, I was a discontented psychology grad student, halfway between a messy break-up with a long-term boyfriend and a semester in which I would take physiology with no biology since high school while teaching psych statistics. During the day, I worked fulltime at the university library and tried to make sense of the physiology text. I spent my nights fending off the Hound.
The Hound of Heaven was after me though, prodding me to make a decision about what I really believed. Glenn and I had both been agnostics. I had been exposed to Christian teachings via Sunday School from about 3rd to 9th grade and then virtually nothing. For a long time, my only response to the prodding was in bookstores where I picked up books with religious-sounding titles while on the eternal hunt for fantasy books. I had read The Hobbit years ago when I was a freshman and followed it with The Lord of the Rings. Glenn didn’t care much for fantasy and I was extremely busy, so I let my new interest drop until that summer.
Back in 1970, there was little fantasy to be had in spite of the popularity of Tolkien’s work. Lin Carter at Ballantine had reprinted a line of old titles by Lord Dunsany and Mervyn Peake. I found Lindsay’s Voyage to Arcturus in the university library. There was C. S .Lewis but, you see, Lewis was Christian and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into that whole “mess” of making decisions about things that might change my life.
I reached the point where I really had no other fantasy to choose from in our local bookstore, so I picked up all seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. (I hate having broken sets.) When I was checking out, either the cashier or a customer suggested that I begin with The Magician’s Nephew because that way I would be reading the books in chronological order. I read The Magician’s Nephew that night and was captivated by the idea of a lion singing a world into existence and by a world so bursting with life that a fragment of a lamp post buried in its soil sprang to life. A week later, I went to an evening meeting on campus and accepted Christ as my savior.
Over the following years, I read everything I could find by Lewis and followed that with everything I could find by the other Inkling, Charles Williams. I searched repeatedly for fantasy books I had missed earlier and I found a few from time to time but Tolkien was just beginning to have an impact on the publishing world and I lived in a small town with a small bookstore. Plus, this was the 1970’s B.A. (Before Amazon)
Eventually, I decided to write a fantasy story. I had written a bit before, many years earlier and mostly time travel stuff, but this would be my first attempt at an actual novel. The first step would be to “become organized” and make a list of everything that my novel should have in it.
The Daydream Novel List went rather like this:
a heroine (who would actually be me),
no elves or dragons (maybe for fear of competing with Tolkien?),
wizards, but not like Tolkien’s;
a jump from one world to another (based partially on Narnia but running back to my childhood daydreams of time travel),
the heroine would not instantly cooperate about her visit or her role (aside from Eustace, everyone visiting Narnia seemed to just follow along);
an artifact, for two reasons—1. to be mysterious here on Earth and 2. at the end to be proof that it had all been real (I disliked the insinuation that Dorothy had envisioned Oz while delirious);
heroes who rode horses and carried weapons (a leftover from my early exposure to TV serial westerns;
a really –different- setting,
a sequel with overlapping characters.
I didn’t begin with an story outline—I hated making outlines—but just plunged in with Cara finding the as yet unidentified “artifact”. Each day, my novel grew by approximately eight sheets in my 8x5 spiral notebook. Sorry about the culture shock! This was before personal computers. I had a typewriter but I couldn’t carry it around so I opted for the notebook.
After a while, perhaps a week or two, my inspiration dried up. I had taken enough English courses to realize that I didn’t know what my characters wanted or where I was heading with my plot. Plot? What plot? My list of Stuph was all on the surface. What was going on inside? Staring at the wall established the fact that the wall had cracks and the room needed painting.
Since I was still something of a new Christian, it took a while for the penny to drop and for me to pray for guidance. I asked for help and promptly went into wool-gathering mode
What did I want? What had I been looking for at the bookstore? What had I wanted when I finished The Lord of the Rings? God wanted my salvation. I wanted another good story, not necessarily LotR II but a complex fantasy world with people I could relate to. I positively –loved- The Chronicles of Narnia but technically Lewis had written it for children. What a shame he hadn’t held off on The Last Battle and written more stories bringing in older protagonists from Earth…
Oh.
I “checked in” to see if I were on the right track, and felt I had the go-ahead. Along with it, came a flood of “new ideas”, which I should have considered critical from the beginning.
The Duh List.
The new list of necessary story elements included:
an actual reason for the protagonist’s presence on this other world (aka plot);
a varied cast of characters whom I must get to know intimately;
an agnostic teen or one struggling with doubts about his or her faith;
mistakes leading to regret and feelings of guilt; eventual reconciliation;
a world just as loved and saved by God as ours and Narnia—but in a different way; with a new representation for the Second Person of the Trinity;
the awe and delight of knowing God, shown as Lewis did it. Doing this meant a lot to me. In fact, this had become nearly the whole point of the exercise;
a deeply embedded yet subtle pattern in the setting and culture showing how this world’s reconciliation with God became possible.
And then a biggie, right out of the blue: An alternate history of the church beginning after the Incarnation, Christ’s Sacrifice and His return to Heaven where the abundant miracles of the Early Church would alter over time as needs changed. Enchanters would be called to wield these miraculous powers, each as granted from God. To the casual observer (or reader) it will look like magic but it wouldn’t be.
All of this subtly hidden in plain sight so as not to spook the person I used to be. No question: I was writing for all the other doubting or agnostic fantasy-readers like my old self who needed a subtle invitation to taste and see. If fellow Christians liked the book, that would be great but I needed to help those made nearly impervious to the call, by what Lewis named the Watchful Dragons.
I almost forgot one necessary element. Learning how to write. Sigh. I continue to work on the foundation for that one. I pray that my desire to share the joy of knowing God makes up for my abysmal execution of the message.
I used various plot ideas as testing grounds for my characters, jiggery-poking different elements until I knew what path I was supposed to follow. However, I was still missing a key element. I went to the beach on vacation and while I was there I searched vigilantly until I found it—a silver necklace shaped like a soaring seabird. My artifact, and the representation of Narenta’s Savior.
Under the Mercy,
SherryT
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