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Category Archives: character
#Lessons Learned from #RaphaelMontes: #Writers Don't Need to #Write a Spectacle to Have a Spectacular Ending.
Posted on December 6, 2018 by jeanleesworld
Last week's post on Alan Silvestri's score for Predator didn't have any room to touch on the bombastic ending that was Schwarzenegger vs. Alien From Unknown Planet.
Man, what a spectacle. Muscle and teeth and gutteral roars vs. creepy four-pronged jaws and lazers and bombs and stuff. Lazers! Helicopters! Green gooey blood! HUGE explosions! It's an ending that has you knocking your beer over as you cheer for Earth's Last Action Hero. Kick interplanetary ass, Arnie!
Now, what if I told you that the ending to Raphael Montes' Perfect Days is just as powerful as the Predator's time bomb?
Perfect Days doesn't end with an explosion, or aliens, or any of that. It's a novel of the thriller genre, a tale told of one man's love for a girl and the lengths to which he'll go–i.e., abduction, rape, and murder–to have her.
(Spoilers abound. I still recommend the read, if you can handle this sort of thing.)
Are you familiar with the concept of "bookending"? It's a method I recommend to my students when they don't know how to write a conclusion paragraph for an essay. You look at how you began your work, and see what element can be brought back in the end.
In short, set up in the beginning for the pay off at the end.
No, it's not easy, because for once it's a pay off you don't want readers looking for. This element needs to be something it feels like characters have walked away from, discarded, grown from, etc. Such is the case with Teo, a student on the verge of graduating med school. The book opens during one of his last classes.
Gertrude was the only person Teo liked. The other students weren't quite as at ease around her….Teo didn't want anyone to notice how good he felt there. He'd walk over to the metal table with his head down.
There she'd be, serenely waiting for him. Gertrude. …
In her company, his imagination knew no bounds. The world melted away, until he and Gertrude were all that was left. (1-2)
Teo, our main character, has forged a relationship with a corpse. Not physical, but intimate. Opening this way, Montes not only shows readers how uncomfortable Teo is around other people, but how much his imagination fills in reality for him; for instance, when another student makes a conclusion about something, Teo wants to laugh, "And if Gertrude could have heard that nonsense, she'd have hooted with laughter too" (3). Teo "knows" Gertrude, even though Gertrude is not this corpse's name. He's studied this body, and imagined all the rest. When the class–and chapter–end, so ends his time with Gertrude, and Teo is "alone again" (4). The character must now move on from this point.
So readers move on as well, and see Teo attend a party with his mother and meet Clarice, a petite free-spirit whose brief conversation leaves him absolutely smitten. He uses the university database to find her and, after another encounter, ends up striking her unconscious and taking her to the flat he shares with his mother.
He felt bad: it was the first time he had thought of himself as a villain. By stuffing Clarice in a suitcase and bringing her home, had he become a criminal? (32)
(I just had to share that line. No, this isn't asked sarcastically–Teo genuinely contemplates whether or not he's done something wrong. What a killer bit of pov.)
For the majority of the novel, Teo has Clarice locked up in two different cabins Clarice has used in the past, cabins owned by others who are used to her coming and going. At one point in the first cabin they've settled into a routine of sorts, and Teo begins to open up about his personal life.
He even mentioned Gertrude….He told her a serious [sic] of funny anecdotes about things he'd done with Gertrude. Clarice found it interesting that he was friends with a much older woman and said she wanted to meet her….It made him a little ill at ease, as he didn't want to spoil things by telling her that Gertrude was a corpse. (81)
Teo doesn't talk about Gertrude again with Clarice, and as tensions mount in Teo's determination to keep Clarice and avoid arrest, readers don't think much about Gertrude, either. Teo kills Clarice's boyfriend, rapes Clarice, and even severs her spine to prevent her escape.
Climax: Teo is driving off a ferry, certain Clarice is still unconscious in the passenger seat from the last dose of sedative. But Clarice suddenly yanks the steering wheel, and their car goes straight into a restraining wall. Teo wakes up in a hospital. Surely it's all over, with her family and police present, asking questions.
Yet there are no charges.
He asks to see Clarice, and is escorted to her room.
When Clarice looked up at him…she stared at him with unprecedented interest… "I'm sorry, but… who are you?" (253)
She couldn't remember having seen Teo before, or what had happened in the previous month or year…. She seemed truly perplexed that she was engaged. (254)
The advantage of her lack of memory was that he could tell her whatever he wanted; he exaggerated the details in order to make it all sound poetic and inevitable. (255)
As the last chapter progresses, we can't help but think Teo's won. He's successfully avoided the police and familial scrutiny. He marries Clarice, and all is as it should be.
Clarice was having fewer nightmares, although sometimes she'd still wake up acting strangely, and it was very distressing–she'd shout and break plates of food against the wall, saying they'd been poisoned. Maybe their marriage wasn't perfect, but there were much worse ones out there. (260)
Last page: Clarice is pregnant. A family! Teo's happy, and "Clarice appeared to be too" (260). Teo's overwhelmed with love when they learn they're having a girl, and is about to speak when Clarice interrupts him.
She smiled at Teo and said, "A beautiful name came to me just now. Gertrude. What do you think, my love?"
**********BOOM**********
No last-minute duel. No savior to put all things to right. But BOOM nonetheless.
First, we're left wondering about Clarice. Did she really lose her memory? She still calls him "my love." But such a name as Gertrude…oh, that does not come out of the blue. We wonder now if Clarice is no longer trying to escape, but to dominate. Perhaps she has plans of her own for Teo.
Speaking of Teo, is he going to panic and kill Clarice? He's killed his mother's dog and Clarice's boyfriend, so the act is not beyond him. He's never handled moments of Clarice's superiority well at all. Yet she's smiling at him, calling him "love." Will Teo leave his wife and unborn child lifeless as he did the corpse Gertrude at the end of the first chapter, and be alone all over again?
We do not know. We will never know.
That name, that single little element, is Montes' bookend. He took the single most vulnerable point in the Teo's life and gave it a body–a lifeless body, but a body nevertheless. And like all bodies left unburied, they come back to haunt even the most resilient of natures. By waiting until the absolute last line, Montes leaves readers in the wake of a narrative bomb: we don't know if blood will be shed, if foundations will be cracked, or if all will go on as before, with "distressing" moments that might, just might, lead to a peculiar food poisoning.
So as you work out your ending, writers, ask: What element from the opening chapters can help create a narrative bookend? Perhaps a person, a token, a place may return. It could be as monumental as a dream fulfilled, or as momentary as a single name whispered on dying lips. It all depends if you wish to leave your readers happily tired by the journey, or blinded by the bomb. Either way, they'll return to you knowing thrills are hidden in every chapter, right down to the final line.
All aboard…for the December Newsletter!
(Oh don't you think I'm done with Alan Silvestri yet. I've got a word or three to say about his score for The Polar Express.)
Subscribe so you don't miss another round-up of terrific offerings from fellow Indie creators as well as updates on my own projects. I'd be happy to share your work, too! Just contact me with your plug and I'll include it in next month's newsletter.
Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!
Posted in Blog, character, conflict, Inspiration, Lessons Learned, Plot Arc, point of view, reading, Uncategorized, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #plotting, #storytelling, #writetip, beginning, characters, Conflict, ending, Perfect Days, Raphael Montes, reading, Thriller	| 30 Replies
#writing #music: Alan Silvestri II… Silvestri Harder.
Posted on November 29, 2018 by jeanleesworld
As 2018's National Novel Writing Month draws to a close, I thought I'd offer a little music to help those entangled in face-offs and final battles. We all could use a little muscle to pull us out and onward.
What better muscles can I give you than these?
Alan Silvestri's music defined adventure during my childhood: Back to the Future, Flight of the Navigator, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit come to mind. This powerhouse of a composer knows how to carry audiences off into the air with heroic brass and whimsical strings.
I know: you're not here to start an adventure. You're here because it's time for you–and the characters of your story–to kick some villainous butt.
So let's join up with the best of the best, the men of muscle who fly across the border and walk into a guerrilla nest without flinching. Men who chew cigars, sweat through camo paint, and say lines like "I ain't got time to bleed" and sound tooootally bad-ass.
Predator isn't a scifi-action classic purely because of Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance, or only because of Stan Winston's monster creation. Silvestri's score plays a HUGE role in this story's atmosphere, too.
Arnie's military group is sent on what they think is a rescue mission deep in central America–until they find men of a previous "rescue mission" skinned and hanging from a tree. We see no evil, but we see its horror. Silvestri gives only a single, drum-like percussion, far off. An alien's heartbeat, an echo of another nature. It's never completely gone; rather, it hides in the rest of the orchestra's bursts of harmony in the brass, strings, and percussion. The music sweeps up, sweeps down, all stealth and caution….until the two minute mark. The low brass of epiphany emphasizes the characters' realization the situation is not what they presupposed.
Silvestri nails suspense with a moment when Arnold's crew sets a trap for whatever's killing them. The strings remain high, tight. No aggression in these first few moments, only fear–though no one wants to admit it. The combination of high strings and oppressive jungle makes characters and audience alike ready to snap under the pressure to wait. This moment often helps me add extra setting details to make the characters look hard for the villain as they wait for the trap to be sprung. And you'll know when the villain comes, all brass and drums.
Silvestri and violins, man…he just knows how to set them running up and down in arpeggios to quicken the heartbeat. With opening in a dissonance, we put our survival instincts into a panic. We run with the strings, and the moment they stop we skid to a halt. The brass and piano takes up the chase, hunting us, hunting the characters, both.
And climax? Ye GODS, Silvestri knows his pacing. The first minute is almost sweetly mysterious with the strings as we think we've won against the fantastic thing, this hunter. We can stand over it victorious as its strange insides are exposed to us…until the brass and piano begin. They begin a steady build, add the percussion, build. Then the strings start to run and you know you've got to get the hell out of there before evil steals your victory in death.
We all want our heroes to win the day, but we don't want it to be easy for them–there's no story without conflict. We gotta make our heroes scared. It takes some serious fear to make the final victory all the sweeter for characters and readers alike.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Last-minute call for shout-outs to go in my newsletter! I'd love to share what you're up to with my readers. Click here to subscribe my newsletter, too!
Do you have a favorite character from Tales or Fallen Princeborn: Stolen that you feel needs some extra page time? Please let me know in the comments below–maybe they'll be featured in future Tales of the River Vine!
Posted in Blog, character, conflict, Family, fiction, Heroes, Inspiration, music, Plot, setting, Uncategorized, Writer's Music, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #ListeningTo, #SoundTrackMusic, #storytelling, #writerslife, #writetip, 1987, characters, Conflict, face-off, fiction, inspire, NaNoWriMo, Predator	| 45 Replies
An #Author #Interview with @Celine_Kiernan, Part 2: #writing #characters to hook #readers of any age
Celine Kiernan's critically acclaimed work combines fantasy elements with the exploration of political, humanitarian and philosophical themes. She is best known for The Moorehawke Trilogy, a dark, complex trilogy of fantasy YA books set in an alternative renaissance Europe. In this second part of our interview, I ask Kiernan about writing characters and storytelling for a Middle Grade audience in her latest book, Begone the Raggedy Witches.
You created some amazing characters when you wrote The Moorehawke Trilogy. The trio of friends in the first book, The Poison Throne, are delightfully unique, genuine, and engaging. So much can happen in five years, especially when one changes from a child to a teen. What do you feel was the most challenging aspect of writing teenaged characters for The Poison Throne as opposed to writing them younger, or as fully-grown adults?
I didn't find it a challenge. To be honest, I just write my characters as they are in my head. I make no conscious decisions re market or target audiences or anything. A book occurs to me and I write that book.
Razi, Christopher, and Wynter of The Poison Throne
I think young characters can be tempting to write about, because it's a time of life when you're not too much tied down to the minutia of daily life (paying bills, feeding babies, getting to work on time) and so your mind can be better focused on big issues – and freer to physically engage with changing injustices. Everything is so new too – first love, first sex, first meaningful encounters with death, injustice, triumph, philosophy etc. In Resonance, however, the young characters are very much the working poor and so their minds are on how to get and keep work, how to pay the bills, how to survive in an unsympathetic society, while also battling the uncaring supernatural forces which want to use them up and discard them. In Moorehawke and also in Begone the Raggedy Witches, there are many older and middle-aged side characters which bring balance to the younger, innocent and more idealistic main characters.
Now the heroes of Into the Grey caught my attention for a different reason. Here, the protagonists are twin brothers. Being a mother of twin boys m'self, I find this particular bond both fascinating and exasperating. As a writer, what led you to select this specific kind of protagonist duo to head the story as opposed to, say, twin sisters?
Funnily enough there are a lot of twins in my books. Ashkr and Embla, the twin brother and sister, in Moorehawke; Dom and Pat, the twins in Into the Grey. Though it's never made much of in the book I also always think of Aunty and the Queen in Begone the Raggedy Witches as being twins. I also have twins in two of my unpublished novels (brothers in one, sisters in the other) It had never occurred to me before to explore why, but I do think it's probably because of my fascination with the different paths people take in life. What could be more interesting than two identical people, starting from an identical base-line, growing into individuals?
The twins in Into the Grey had to be boys as it was specifically a boy's experience of war which I needed to explore in that narrative.
Now this year you published Begone the Raggedy Witches, the first book of a new trilogy. Unlike your previous works, this trilogy is geared for Middle-Grade readers. What are the benefits—and challenges—of writing this story for a slightly younger audience?
None really, to be honest. I just approached it as I always do. There was no historical research to these books, though, I guess that's one difference. I was writing purely to explore personal and sociological themes within a pure fantasy set up. But the books didn't feel easier to write than the more historically based ones. In fact, they've taken me longer than most of my other books to complete. (Mind you, this is happening more and more – I think it's because I'm better aware of the craft now. My first draft takes longer to produce, but nowadays they're more complete and better polished than previously.)
Okay, I just have to end on the first line of Begone the Raggedy Witches, because it is KILLER:
"The moon was strange the night the witches came and Aunty died."
Ye gods, we've got time, intrigue, magic, and doom all packed into one sentence! How on earth did you create this first sentence, and do you have any tips for other writers in creating that killer hook of an opening line?
The first chapter is nearly always the last thing I write. That's not to say I have written a first chapter ( I write liner narrative, so I work from the start to the finish of every book) It's just to say that I always go back to the first chapter and refocus it so that it better leads into the narrative. By the time you get to the end of your novel you're always so much better tuned in to what the themes are, what the characters' motivations and personalities are etc. etc., the first chapter should evoke or foreshadow these things, I think. Make a promise to the reader as to what journey this novel will bring them on. Often you can't do that properly until you've taken the journey yourself. Funnily enough though, the first lines of most of my books have stayed the same through all the drafts. I can't explain why. I think it might be because they've always been the point from which I enthusiastically dived into the process of starting a new novel. That excitement and enthusiasm doesn't always last for the whole long, siege-like process, but its almost always there for the first line.
"We were watching telly, the night Nana burnt the house down.'
'The sentry would not let them pass.'
'For a moment, the Angel looked directly at him, and Cornelius's heart leapt with joy and dread.'
All these lines were bringing me somewhere. All of them were promising me something – I had no choice but to follow them onwards.
My deepest thanks to Celine Kiernan for sharing her stories and experience in the writing craft. It's an honor to speak with one whose creativity has influenced my own imagination for decades. Please check out her books & her site at https://celinekiernan.wordpress.com/. Be sure to share a review when you read her, too!
Thank you, dear readers, for buying Fallen Princeborn: Stolen!
It's still hard to believe my debut novel is out in the world. This story was born the same year as my daughter. Like Blondie, Stolen has gone through many growing pains before setting out to forge its way through the world (or elementary school–that's epic enough for Blondie). Every time I see a purchase or read a review, my soul goes runnin' through the clouds. If you haven't yet, please share your thoughts with me on Amazon or Goodreads. Your reflections mean all the world to new writers like me!
Shouting for Shout-Outs Again!
Now that we're halfway through November, I'd like to start gathering up kudos and plugs from fellow creators to share on my newsletter on the 1st of the month. If you've a book, an album, a site, or all of the above you'd like to share with new readers, please email me and I'll hook you up. 😉
Posted in #Princeborn, Author Interviews, Blog, character, creator, Fantasy, fiction, Plot, point of view, reading, Series Writing, Uncategorized, Worlds, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #Interviews, #pointofview, #writerslife, #writingtips, authors, Begone the Raggedy Witches, Celine Kiernan, character, Into the Grey, Moorehawke, Opening lines, reading	| 20 Replies
#writerproblems: #writing the cracks into the tough exteriors of #character
Posted on October 25, 2018 by jeanleesworld
My sons dress in their Transformer costumes with giggling hops. "Trick or treating!" They chime over and over, so thrilled to begin the candy feast early with a special Halloween event at the zoo. My little Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are ready to roll out against Decepticons and other devious evildoers in the name of candy.
Our exteriors say so much about us. I'm not just talking about donning the armor of alien transforming heroes, but our behaviors around other people. How we are around others can differ vastly with how we think, act, and exist in solitude. We–and our characters–are so often "more than meets the eye."
Let's consider a few examples, beginning with the well-known Katniss Everdeen of Hunger Games. The story opens with Kat being tender to her younger sister Primrose on the morning before the Reaping, when candidates are selected for the Hunger Games. When Prim's name is chosen, Kat cries out to volunteer in her sister's place. Prim tries to stop her, but Kat refuses to give in.
"Prim, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction. "Let go!" (23)
From here on out, Kat is about as gruff and curt as she can be with nearly every other character in the book. She knows what it means to hunt, starve, and lose a loved one. Kat's determined to survive for her family's sake, which means she will not let any other tributes figure out her skill set or weaknesses.
But I want to note here that Kat does have a tender heart. It's been burned, yes, but it's there, visible any time Kat's with her sister (and her eventual love interests, but blah blah on that for this post). Had Suzanne Collins merely wrote Kat as a hunter without family–that is, made Kat nothing but her tough shell–then what would Kat's motivation be? The entire tone of the narrative would change from one of survival to protect to…acceptance? Glory? Who knows?
Heroes and villains both can have these tough exteriors with the occasional crack. And cracks they must have, or again, readers will think the character nothing but the tough shell. Take two of the primary characters in The Boys— Homelander, leader of the elite superhero group The Seven who is also the primary antagonist of the series, and Butcher, leader of The Boys, the group created to keep superheroes in line.
Each has their tough exterior: Butcher can be a right bastard to people, ready to literally rip someone to shreds for being a "supe." Homelander, all posh and elegance in front of the cameras, is all too eager to make Starlight have oral sex with him in order to join The Seven. He's also gathering up all the superheros to support a takeover of the American government, all too eager to cut the corporate leash upon him with a blink of his eye lazers.
Yet this same Homelander will cry in a fetal position in the bathroom, asking himself why he can't remember ripping up human beings with his teeth. This same Butcher didn't always swing fists or revel in pain. He had a wife once. He had love once. And because Butcher once knew love, he's willing to give his fellow Boy and friend Hughie a chance to save his girlfriend Starlight before Butcher attempts to wipe every supe off the planet.
These cracks don't have to appear often. If they did, then readers and other characters aren't going to see a "tough" exterior at all. These cracks need only be visible at a few important moments for the sake of plot, conflict, or other narrative element.
Consider the classic A Christmas Carol (Yes, I know it's only October, but hey, there's ghosts in this.) The Ghost of Christmas Past has brought Scrooge to his years of apprenticeship under Fezziwig. The Ghost points at Apprentice Scrooge and the other youths praising and thanking Fezziwig and says:
"A small matter…to make these silly folks so full of gratitude…He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"
"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.
"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.
"Nothing particular," said Scrooge. (49)
See that? For a brief moment, Scrooge is no longer the "Scrooge" we saw at the beginning. The bitter miser has been replaced with a man of passion for his first employer and mentor. Only when the Ghost of Christmas Past studies him and calls attention to the crack does Scrooge seal his exterior back up again. But thanks to this moment, the Spirit and readers both know there is more to Scrooge than the opening pages suggest.
I've been thinking about these tough exteriors a good deal with my Fallen Princeborn series, especially with my latest short story, "Tattered Rhapsody." The last story in my collection Tales of the River Vine centers on heroine Charlotte: her ragged, "goblin-bent" form of broken fingers and boney limbs. Her quick words and quicker fists. Her music. Her sister. And, at last, a moment of true hope.
One of the elements within a timeless story are complete characters: not just HEROES made only of dash and daring, or VILLAINS only vile and wicked, but people. People who don an armor to protect their inner selves, who only reveal those inner selves when least expected by readers–or themselves. What hopes and fears hide behind your characters' armor? Set them alight, and let readers see–just for a moment–the cracks in the tough exterior.
Thanks so much for reading. As previously mentioned, the last short story in my collection is now available FREE on Amazon, Nook, and other outlets.
It's been so exciting to read comments and reviews from readers. If you snatched a free copy of Fallen Princeborn: Stolen during my ARC giveaway, I hope you'll share your thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads! You can share your thoughts on the short stories there, too. Seriously, every review makes a HUGE difference for these stories' visibility on the global bookshelf. Even Kirkus Reviews has some pretty sweet things to say about Stolen—click here and see!
For those waiting to purchase a copy: next week, folks. Next. Week.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Posted in Aionios Books, Blog, character, conflict, Fantasy, fiction, Heroes, Lessons Learned, point of view, This Writer's Life, twins, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #RiverVine, #storytelling, #writerproblems, #writetip, Butcher, character, Charlotte, Homelander, Katniss Everdeen, Scrooge, The Boys, The Christmas Carol, The Hunger Games, twins	| 42 Replies
#Author #Interviews: #historicalromance #writer @ShehanneMoore discusses #character development, #series #writing, #research, & starting a #smallpress #publisher
Shehanne Moore is a Scottish born author who writes gritty, witty, more risky than risqué, historical romance, set wherever takes her fancy–stories that detail the best and worst of human behaviour, as opposed to pouts and flounces. To celebrate the new release of two titles under her London Jewel Thieves series, I asked Shey to stop by and talk about how she creates such uniquely engaging characters and thrusts them into situations that promise spectacular fireworks.
Let's first begin with what you write—smart, sexy, historical fiction. You delve into various time periods with your books, such as the 9th century in The Viking and the Courtesan and the 19th century in Splendor. What process do you go through when choosing the right century for a story's setting? That is, if Splendor took place in another century, would it still be the Splendor we know?
Probably not. The stories are influenced by the time, the characters too, although they don't always abide by the constraints of them. Mind you Splendor would be a shopaholic , running up debts galore in any time because some things are timeless. She'd be having to manage everything too. So I guess a bit of both would be true. I generally stick to the Georgian/Regency period—it's a sort of genre in own right. BUT I do like to dabble and I do spend time thinking of how I will set a book physically within that period, in terms of imagery etc.. There's also things that happen when I write.
I mean there was never meant to be a Viking in The Viking and The Courtesan. That was a straight Regency. But then halfway through chapter two, the little voice whispered, 'You know that Viking story idea you have, the one you've never really got the idea for the heroine 's goal in? How about you just use it here?' Much as I want to ignore that little voice, I can't.
Such a question should mean I ask you about research, too. I know you're very passionate about your research to keep the period lifestyle true to history. What's your process in making the research phase as productive as possible?
You know people think I do a lot of research. I don't . Too much can kill a story and read like a Wikipedia cut and pastes. At the end of the day I don't want to know every detail of the time a story is set. I can read a history book for that. I want to read of the things that are universal. The things that stand the test of time. But I have always loved history, especially social history, ever since I can remember. I guess that's what I have at my fingertips when I write. And of course, I will check a historical timeline detail where it is pertinent to a character, or setting, if I want a certain backdrop.
One thing I love about all your books is that these characters are layered with feeling. They desire, they hate, they aspire, they love, they fear. Your books are so, so much more than the "meet-cute" kinds of romances out there populated by characters with little more than a single quirk each. These characters can get downright wicked, like Devorlane Hawley in Loving Lady Lazuli. How do you bring together both light and dark natures into your characters to keep your stories compelling and un-put-downable?
Now Jean, it's all right, I won't set the dudes on you and the check is in the mail. You are way too kind. I just love characters. I want to write about the human condition and let's face it sometimes it's downright ugly. Okay, Devorlane Hawley, for example, page one, is not a man you would want to meet. He's plainly gone to hell in a hand cart, is behaving outrageously and now he's come into the dukedom because his older, perfect brother is dead, he's for turfing out his sisters, his late mother's ward, installing some floozie he's scoured London to find and setting up a pleasure palace in the ancestral home. By page two/three he's noticing that his home is nothing like he remembered, it's a mess, his oldest sister is a drunk and that's needling at what humanity he has, because it's plain these years have been hard and the family have regrets. The fact is he's the family black sheep, the man who made the kind of messes we can all make when we're young. And that law-abiding, God fearing family let him go down for a crime he never committed, largely for the sake of peace. By the end of chapter one he's spotted the woman who did commit that crime and his goal instantly changes. Now he's becoming the architect of his own doom in many ways.
No-one's all bad—I think it's important to remember that when you write. But we are all flawed in some way, a bundle of contradictions, the sum and substance of our life experiences. That's what I'm trying to blend. Ultimately underneath everything Devorlane Hawley isn't a bad man. In some ways he's man interrupted by his earlier experiences– and what has shaped his life since has been hardship and brutality. So the race is on then to see if he can become the man he could be, or are the flaws going to get in the way. I spend a lot of time peering through my fingers going… I wouldn't have done that, to my characters when I write. AND I let them drive everything. I seriously never have any idea where a story is going next.
Yet another thing I dig (someday I'll learn to write questions better), particularly where the London Jewel Thieves are concerned, is that the series doesn't just revolve around one heroine; rather, each book focuses on a different character of a group. I love how these different perspectives give us a richer look into their world, as well as fresh looks at characters we've met in the other books. Which heroine came to you first? Did she bring all the other thieves with her, or did they start telling you their own stories later on?
Good question. Actually the heroine of a short story I have yet to turn into a full length, came first. The idea was there of the jewel thief gang and being forced into stealing because for one reason or another they've fallen into the clutches of the man who runs this gang. BUT Cassidy Armstrong aka Sapphire from Loving Lady Lazuli came first in terms of the writing. Originally it was a standalone but as I wrote it, and I was working the background, I thought of that short story and the whole thing just fell into place. The idea of giving the women the name of a jewel, of the Starkadder Sisterhood, and of setting the books after the gang has broken up. So it's about them having to find their feet by whatever means and keeping one step ahead when there's prices on their heads.
Lastly, congratulations on beginning your own small press! I'm so excited to see what Black Wolf Books will bring to readers—your own books, and the books of other authors. You've been writing for publishers for a number of years, but now you are both publisher and writer. How would you say your earlier experience prepared you for this change? What's been the biggest "culture shock," as it were, with donning the publisher robe?
Thank you so much Jean and ALSO for having me here today AND congrats on your own forthcoming release. Sure to be a rip along read. I have wanted to set up Black Wolf Books for about four years now but life got in the way. But I'm there now. I think the writing industry is in a constant state of flux. When I first subbed back in 2012, you still went the traddy route. Yes there were self published books but not so many, nor the same amount of tools to do it. I mean Amazon makes it so damned easy actually now. I have a lot of experience in the writing business that goes way back before 2012 and I've been able to use most of it now.
I think the biggest shock…well learning curve was formatting for ebooks and for paperback. Amazon does make it easy I just got in a flap till I mastered it. I initially paid a formatter for the print version for Splendor. I was too scared to do it, in case I messed it up. But when it came back like a dog's dinner, I stood at the foot of the mountain and told myself to get up there. That it wasn't anything like the time I took over the editing and design of a magazine and didn't know how to draw a text box…
Are you looking for submissions right now? If so, what kind and do you have
any guidelines to share?
Well we are not officially open in that I didn't want swamped. I wanted to feel my way, get out my books, and the Mr's book, before dealing with what could be an avalanche. And often I think publishers can take on way too many authors without concentrating on the ones they have. But we already have a signing of a YA author who has a trilogy. So I say to folks, contact me through my blog contact right now. And really so long as it's good, I'm not laying down all kinds of conditions.
One of the reasons I wanted to do this is that I've seen a lot of authors get raw deals, not been able to get a book out cos it's not fitting the mould, despite having books out. My aim in setting up BWB is to help authors. Believe me, I know how brutal this biz can be.
Lastly lastly I'm hoping you'll allow the little Hamstah Dudes, that precocious batch of knowledgeable cuties who share amazing author interviews & writing advice on your site, to come on over for a moment and have the last word, as they've been very good and patient all through our chat.
Many thanks to Shey for sharing her experience and stories with us! And don't worry, Hamstah Dudes–Blondie's working on a Halloween picture just for you. Hopefully I can stop by Shey's site to share it! 🙂
Shehanne still lives in Scotland with her husband Mr Shey. She has two daughters. When not writing intriguing, and of course, sizzling, historical romance, where goals and desires of sassy, unconventional heroines and ruthless men, mean worlds do collide, she fantasizes about cleaning the house, plays the odd musical instrument and loves what in any other country, would not be defined, as hill-walking.
She can also be found at
https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/
@ShehanneMoore
https://pinterest.com/shehanne
After visiting the lovely Lady Shey, I do hope you'll check out FREE fiction for some weekend reading, or my novel that's FREE with KindleUnlimited!
Posted in Author Interviews, Blog, character, conflict, Drafts, Editing & Publishing, fiction, guest author, Plot, reading, relationships, research, Series Writing, setting, Uncategorized, Writing	| Tagged #heroines, #novelseries, #storytelling, #writer, guest author, historical romance, indie publishing, Interview, Loving Lady Lazuli, research, Shehanne Moore, small press, Splendor, The Viking and the Courtesan, Writing	| 81 Replies
#writing #music: #Medea…I mean, #CraigArmstrong
Posted on October 4, 2018 by jeanleesworld
It's October.
We've got a lot to cover, folks–studying Ray Bradbury, chatting with amazing indie writer Shehanne Moore, exploring a special facet of character development, and sharing The Who's influence on my writing.
But before we go into ANY of that, let's kick off this month of "ohmygoshiamactuallypublishinganovelthsimonth" panic–I mean, excitement–with some music I've known since college, music of vital importance to my telling of Fallen Princeborn: Stolen. Music of origins mythical and mysterious…until SoundCloud yelled at me for uploading it and pointed out the proper composer.
We begin with a simple CD created to accompany my college's production of Medea. I didn't make the cast that term (not that I'm still bitter about that. I'm not. Seriously. WHY DIDN'T I MAKE THAT SHOW?!), but my roommate, herself a theater major, was the stage manager and therefore in charge of all things technical, which must have been a challenge when the director decided to get all "experimental" with stage direction, set, and soundtrack.
Because this play was to be experienced like a film, apparently.
Thankfully, my roommate knew when to pull back the soundtrack so the audience could hear the cast. Yes, I put aside my inner grumblings and attended the show. I had a lot of friends up there and behind the scenes, and I wanted to cheer them on in what had to be the toughest show performed that year.
When I think back to that performance now…I don't really remember seeing the show. I remember hearing it–my friends' cries when the children are killed, the Greek chorus chanting, the raging howl of anger and revenge…and this music. This, this choir of Latin caution, eternally building with strings and low rumblings of percussion. The sudden sweep into thunderous drums and the harmonies of battle until the last scream pierces the air–
And all is silenced.
Fast forward to New Mom Me writing whenever baby Blondie sleeps. It's National Novel Writing Month of 2010, and I'm writing what will be the first draft of Fallen Princeborn: Stolen. It's the moment when Charlotte first meets the book's villain and realizes the lethal situation she and her captured sister are in. They are surrounded. They are underground.
There is no way out.
There is no hope.
I used the music of Medea to imagine the scope of impossible escape, the cold darkness that buried Charlotte and her sister underground. You can hear it, too, in the first four minutes of this track.
But as the baddies learn, you can bloody Charlotte, but you can never break her.
I'd repeat the change in music at the 4:17 marker to watch Charlotte rise up & fight back. The music careens up out of despair and dives, talons at the ready, to draw blood and breath from every evil. Over and over I listened to this music to catch the fire, the blood, the defiance, the sacrifice.
Eight years later, despite all the changes Stolen has experienced, that scene–and its music–remain the same.
Now that I know Scottish composer Craig Armstrong wrote this score, I'm excited to wander his music and pocket a few seeds to plant for stories years in the making. What music of your youth still nurtures the storyteller within? Perhaps it's time to put on your headphones, close your eyes, and fly into the harmony of story.
~And now, a brief excerpt from Fallen Princeborn: Stolen, coming this Halloween~
Rot, age, old bones, twice-burned ashes—they choke the air like gasoline.
What Charlotte feels is cold. Lots of cold.
All she can trust is what she sees, and what she sees right now is white, brittle wood beneath her, the lavender light pulsing more intensely now from her feet and spreading out and down the tunnel.
Occasional claw marks.
One bloody handprint that begins on one root and is dragged across seven more before vanishing. It's not a big handprint. There are little traces of purple in
it too, almost like purple glitter.
Glitter. Didn't Anna have purple glitter? NO. Get your freakin' act
together, Charlie, and focus. Dad, I wish you were here.
"Charlie?" The voice is rich, deep, and kind.
And dead.
Charlotte's free hand wavers when a new breeze of gunpowder and chili wisps by. "D-dad?" The power of this place can't summon the dead. Dad's buried in holy ground far from here.
"He can also take you to your sister, if that is what you wish."
The pulse light beats faster from Charlotte, racing to catch up with her heartbeat, so damned fast, she prays Campion cannot hear it from his perch among the last of the tunnel roots. His eyes are swirling, almost glowing, as the rest of him turns still, like the living tree-bones behind him.
"After all, this place is where dreams come true."
~HEY! I'M SHOUTING FOR SHOUT OUTS!~
Shy about promotion? Me, too. So let's try and share our stuff together, hmm? I just started up the monthly newsletter From the Wilds of Jean Lee's World. It's a separate set of updates from that of WordPress. In the newsletter, I share not only updates on my own fiction, but I'll share updates on your wild creative endeavors, too! Just email me at jeanleesworld@gmail.com to snag a slot in a future edition.
Posted in Aionios Books, Blog, character, Editing & Publishing, Fantasy, fiction, Heroes, Inspiration, music, National Novel Writing Month, Plot, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer's Music	| Tagged #amwriting, #countdown, #Princeborn, #SoundTrackMusic, #storytelling, #whatsbeyondthewall, #writerslife, #writetip, #writingtips, Craig Armstrong, Fantasy, Inspiration, Medea, Music, Writing	| 34 Replies
#writerproblems: #creating #trauma in #character #histories
Posted on September 13, 2018 by jeanleesworld
Nobody cries crocodile tears quite like Bash.
"This is a SAD BIRTHDAY!" he wails, complete with a "WAAAaaaaAAAAaaaa" that could drown out a fire truck. My mother holds him, soothes him, to no avail.
Why the tears? Because "There are NO TOYS ARE PRESENTS! I WANT A TOY!"
Meanwhile, Biff sits content with his new collection of Disney Cars stories, and Blondie–who already shed her tears over the fact that today isn't her birthday–eyes the cupcakes, knowing she at least gets sugar and a race car ring out of the deal.
Despite having received toys at the party hosted by in-laws less than 48 hours ago, Bash continues sobbing until bedtime. "This was a SAD BIRTHDAY," he declares again, thoroughly traumatized.
Annoyed as I am, I can't bring myself to scold him for his meltdown. Our basement flooded two weeks before his and Biff's 6th birthday, sending the house into chaos. Everything is everywhere. Stuff's crammed into the garage, piled in the living room. There's a mattress and box spring tipped on their sides in the hallway. Decorations are somewhere in the labyrinth of tubs frantically filled as water seeped up through the seams of the house's foundation. We're all stepping on each other's toys, books, and nerves.
It's lousy.
But is it traumatic?
Sure, if you spin it right. Horror fiction's got a knack for taking anything–like a ruined birthday party–and turning it into motivation for a killing spree.
But if you're not out to birth a slasher, then what qualifies as "traumatic"?
TRAUMA : a very difficult or unpleasant experience that causes someone to have mental or emotional problems usually for a long time. medical : a serious injury to a person's body. —Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary
So often trauma is used as the seed to germinate our characters' motivations. We want our pro/antagonists compelled to act in such a manner as to drive the narrative forward. Sometimes that drive comes from the goal that lies ahead: the love interest, the home, the chance for redemption, etc.
But sometimes that drive comes from what lies behind in the histories of the characters, and what lies behind them is often traumatic.
The most popular "trauma" I find in storytelling is personal loss. Take comic books, for instance. How many become superheroes because they lost a loved one? Batman–parents. Spider-Man–uncle. Green Arrow–parents. Punisher–family. Nightwing–parents. Flash–mother. Captain Marvel–parents. Daredevil–father. The list goes on for a looooooong time.
Now I'm not saying that personal loss isn't traumatizing. I should know: I've watched grandparents waste away. I drove to the hospital thinking my father ill only to be told at the door he'd died of heart failure. Everyone else already knew, but didn't want to say anything until after I'd arrived.
Loss fucking sucks, and you're damn right it changes you.
But there is something cliche about a backstory of personal loss driving one to heroics. Must a character always become a warrior for justice when his parents are shot in a dark alley?
No. Take Jude in Holly Black's The Cruel Prince. A Fae general comes into her house, kills their parents before her eyes, then takes her and her sisters back to the land of the Fae to raise them as his own. Is Jude driven to heroics?
She kills at least two people and readies herself to kill more out of loyalty to her new Fae court. She's got the drive and calculating mind of her "new" Fae father.
Not sure what Bruce Wayne would make of that.
Trauma doesn't require death, either. Consider Starlight from the comic book series The Boys. Of all the young superheroes, it is she who's given the chance to leave her ultra-conservative group Young Americans and join the Seven, the most powerful group of heroes on the planet. She gets there, thrilled to take the last test and make a difference…
…only to discover the test is having oral sex with Homelander and two other members.
Do they force her? Use their own superpowers to render her helpless?
Starlight consents.
And for the rest of the series she has to struggle with that decision and all its consequences.
Trauma's not just about losing a piece from our lives, but a piece of ourselves. I know this first-hand. When your body becomes someone else's thing, you don't want it. You don't want to take care of it. You want it to remain separate, the real you buried in the bile churning at the bottom of your gut. You separate your soul from your body because if you don't, then your soul's as worthless as your body, as much a nothing to be spat upon and left in the alley. That separation means survival.
But survival and living with oneself are two very, very different things. Trauma, from my experience, does not inspire love.
More like the opposite.
We survive. And we hate that we survive.
Athanasius, one of the little boys in my first short story "The Boy Who Carried a Forest in His Pocket," was so desperate to flee his "survival" of an abusive home that he happily left with the first stranger he met. Fallen Princeborn: Stolen opens with Charlotte running away from an abusive home. We learn in the opening pages that she's a fighter, so much so she'd rather punch out your teeth than listen to you talk.
That drive to violence–to hurt others before they can hurt us–that's what trauma teaches us. This can easily drive a character to do terrible things to those around her. But it is also this drive that can be nurtured to make one want to defend others before they get hurt. It all depends on the character's environment when the seed of trauma is planted.
Again, there doesn't need to be some dark, extraordinary experience for a "traumatic event" with long-lasting impact. In my serialized novel Middler's Pride, Meredydd recalls a moment in childhood when an evil sorcerer attempted to curse her family's land, but was thwarted when child Meredydd interrupted the spell. Sounds pretty traumatic, running into an evil sorcerer. Yet Mer's driven, obstinate attitude was the same before and after this event. Apart from shaking hands, her body's the same before and after this event. So what drives her onward into the story's narrative?
A childhood without affection. No one abused her, killed a loved one in front of her. Heck, the girl never even broke a bone, or went a day without a full belly. But year after year of watching her step-siblings receive love and attention while she must catch scraps of love from others outside her family…that can hurt far more than any magic curse.
So consider carefully, writers, whether or not your character truly needs trauma in her past for present-day motivation. Death can make its mark, but sometimes the mark need only be a scar, a touch, a moment of undulated terror. Or perhaps it need only be the gathering of little things, subtle as water beneath the ground to eventually flood over your character, altering her nature for the better.
Or worse.
FREE on KindleUnlimited!
Posted in Aionios Books, Blog, character, creator, Editing & Publishing, Fantasy, fiction, Heroes, Plot, reading, The Middler's Pride, twins, Uncategorized, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #birthday, #creating, #histories, #Princeborn, #RiverVine, #TheBoys, #trauma, #whatsbeyondthewall, #writerproblems, #writetip, character, Middler's Pride, sons, The Cruel Prince	| 46 Replies
#writing #music: "Wallflower" by #PeterGabriel
Posted on September 6, 2018 by jeanleesworld
There comes a time when all veneers must fall.
So many of us want only our brighest, strongest, best of selves to be seen. We don't want anyone to know how broken we are. We build up the face we know others like to see on us, are comfortable seeing on us. Others wouldn't know what to do with our weak, broken selves. They'll mock our pain. They'll shrug us off, bored of us. They'll stand off to the side with limp arms, silent, waiting for us to fix ourselves so they don't have to.
But for many–me included–one cannot fix one's heart alone.
I think that's why I'm drawn to the concept of soul mates. I know not every writer, let alone the romance writer, is keen on the idea. Real and fictional young people do fall in and out of love, after all. It's happened to our friends and family, to characters like Feyre in Sarah J. Maas' court series. Or there are those like my mother, widowed, daily debating if she can risk her heart with another person when the one she'd once vowed to grow old with died before his 60th birthday.
One of the most difficult things to do–more than facing one's monsters, more than fighting one's own murderous demons–is sharing the broken parts of one's self with another soul. Your own two hands must grab hold of your ribs. Snap them open. Hold out that charred, cut, beaten thing called a heart, that thing you've done your damndest to not think about for years. It's not like you've really needed it to live. Look how far you've come without it. Isn't that enough?
You may tell yourself yes. You might yell yes time and time again to fill your ears with so many yes's it must become true.
And yet there will always be at least one echo that comes back to you:
This is where I come from when I write with the voice of my novel's heroine, Charlotte. She's been showing everyone her angry self, her superior self, her musical self for years. Those selves helped her wake up every day without screaming.
But what happens when she meets someone else who wears his own version of a "best" self, whose past is nothing but glass shards sharp enough to draw blood the moment they're touched?
I have never had much of a romantic nature–Bo can attest to that–but the orchestral music of Peter Gabriel's New Blood has a way with my imagination, inspiring it to draw the intimate moments when two at last find the courage to discard every veneer and share all that they are–not just the brightest, nicest selves, but the bloody and broken, too.
Give your characters some time alone with the piano and strings. Let the tentative build guide their hands to open themselves and share those broken pieces. And when the strings and piano swell at last, may your characters find that even the sharpest edges fit together.
And become one.
Thanks so much for reading. Check out my Books page for more on Fallen Princeborn: Stolen as well as my free fiction from the wilds.
Posted in abuse, Aionios Books, Blog, character, Fantasy, fiction, hope, Inspiration, love, music, Peter Gabriel, Uncategorized, Writer's Music, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #novel, #novelseries, #Princeborn, #RiverVine, #storytelling, #whatsbeyondthewall, #YAFantasy, Fantasy, inspire, Music, New Blood, Peter Gabriel, romance	| 28 Replies
#lessons learned in #worldbuilding for #writing #fantasy #fiction: #Uprooted by @naominovik
Posted on August 30, 2018 by jeanleesworld
When I find out an author is a big fan of MY favorite author Diana Wynne Jones, then I am required to check him/her out. 'Tis Writer's Law….or something. Shush, I did it, and I'm not sorry I did it because Naomi Novik's Uprooted has such a STELLAR first paragraph you can't help but be invested. It's not a matter of wit, or intrigue, or setting. It's the world-building within each sentence that plants the seeds of interest in readers to blossom in nearly no time at all.
Let me share the paragraph with you, and then we can break this sucker down.
Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that's not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he's still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we're grateful, but not that grateful.
No sweeping descriptions of the world. No colorful portraits of characters. Yet Naomi Novik fills this paragraph with information other authors would stretch across a dozen pages.
Our Dragon. A capitalized "d" means this isn't a typical beast. This is a title, or a name, and this Dragon thing belongs, in some fashion, to the group of which the narrator's a part.
Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes. Right here, Novik won me over. How, just how many told tales have a dragon taking a person to eat it? It's a trope, a cliche, a whatever-that-term-is. When we hear about dragons taking girls, we expect to hear about bones and death and the like. But Novik has taken this expectation, turned it on its head, and given us an entirely unexpected payoff. One sentence in, and we're being told we can't abide by the "typical" fantasy tropes.
…no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. Now we begin to get a sense of space, a little of time. Not a technological age, certainly, if stories can run rampant outside an area without correction. We're also in a larger space–the narrator didn't say "village," or "town," or even "city." If there was only one community, the narrator would have used a term to say as much. So, we can conclude we're dealing with multiple communities in this space.
We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Again, we get a sense this is not a technological era. We also begin to get a sense of our narrator–"as though we were doing human sacrifice" has this harrumphing attitude behind it. The narrator scoffs the very idea that there'd be a "real dragon" involved, let alone any sort of willful killing.
Of course that's not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he's still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. I love this sentence! We have another taste of the narrator's attitude with the "of course," treating any ignorant outsider with disdain. We also learn what "Our Dragon" is: a wizard, immortal, man. (By the way, I love how that's said: "he may be a wizard and immortal"–like this is normal. It's the narrator's normal, clearly, but the fact the narrator acts like this is the normal gives readers yet another taste of what Uprooted's world is like.) The fact that a mob of fathers could take on a wizard also gives us a sense of the narrator's respect for the men in her valley. Lastly, we learn our narrator is a girl with the "eat one of us." So, we know this is a girl that's been raised in a society that's had to offer their daughters every ten years to a wizard.
He protects us against the Wood. Hold on. Wood? What Wood? Woods are common in fantasy, sure. Sometimes they're just woods, and sometimes they harbor dangerous characters. But the narrator isn't talking about what lives in the Wood. She's talking about the Wood itself. Something about the Wood is so powerful and so dangerous that it requires a wizard's protection in order for people to live in this valley.
He protects us against the Wood, and we're grateful, but not that grateful. Okay, I just love the narrator's attitude here. Yes, she's emphasizing that the valley folk aren't willing to let their daughters be killed every ten years, but there's a quirky snottiness here I really dig. This is a girl who's not afraid to speak her mind about what sounds like a cornered life: growing up near a dangerous Wood, knowing you might be taken away from everything you know and love by a wizard for ten years. She should be happy her people are protected, and she knows it.
But she ain't exactly pleased with her potential destiny, either.
Novik grows a beautifully unique tale with Uprooted, one I'm always eager to recommend to those who love fantasy. For those who love to write other genres, I'd still recommend this book to study its craft. This first paragraph shows what can be done if one's not just thinking about establishing intrigue, or painting a scene, or introducing a character. Sometimes it takes all three elements to grow a paragraph that is truly extraordinary.
PS: I've got a new monthly newsletter to share updates on my fiction as well as other writers. If you'd like to spread the word about your work, just drop me a line at jeanleesworld@gmail.com Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.
Posted in Aionios Books, Blog, character, Editing & Publishing, Fantasy, fiction, Inspiration, Lessons Learned, music, Mychael Danna, Series Writing, setting, Uncategorized, Writer's Music, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #ListeningTo, #novel, #Princeborn, #RiverVine, #SoundTrackMusic, #storytelling, #ya, Fantasy, inspire, Music, Mychael Danna, Sweet Hereafter	| 26 Replies
#writerproblems: catching #characters
Often times writers are told to go people-watch for character inspiration. This is certainly all well and good if your senses are allowed to wander about the town, in the library, at the pub, and so on.
And then, there's parenthood.
(Yes, both Biff and Bash are missing their top two front teeth. God has a sense of humor.)
I thought for sure a trip to the North Woods would give me at least some opportunity to catch a few interesting characters. After all, this is the land of the columned white arrow signs. You better keep your eyes open for these, or you'll never know where stuff is.
This is the land of quiet waters, of river-kissing mists departing with dawn's light.
Of eagle homes hidden among the oaks and evergreens.
Unfortunately, the only eagle we spotted all week was this one:
Still, the kids were all able to find their special little somethings. Blondie found snail shells.
Bash found his grumps.
Biff found his chainsaws.
No, he didn't grab one (this time). Bo was able to keep the kids a safe distance away from the carving demonstrations at the Paul Bunyan festival.
I'm not sure what was so Paul Bunyany about it–there was no blue ox, no giant lumberjacks. Plenty of beer and football signs, though. Nothing says Wisconsin like sports and alcohol!
Just guess how many of these signs are about drinking. I dare you.
Surely a festival drawing in a wide range of tourists and locals would provide SOME opportunity for characters, right? Bo knew I wanted to walk around with my camera, so he took advantage of the chainsaws and stuffed the kids with chocolate-covered graham crackers so I could take a quick look around.
I did spot one crazy individual. Honestly, who dares wear Chicago Bears gear in Packer territory? This woman's lucky she didn't get a cow pie thrown at her back.
Biff notices my absence all too soon, and jumps over to my side of the street. Despite the lumberjack quartet trying to strum banjos and harmonies, Biff belts the theme to "Ghostbusters" at the top of his lungs and dances down the walkway. I hold up my phone to take a video of him singing, but then…oh, but then…
Who in Sam Elliot is THIS? An older man–70s, I'll say. Jeans and flannel despite summer warmth. Cowboy hat. Glasses, mustache. Baby carrier. Dog. A wide-eyed, scared-stiff, shaky little dog. In the baby carrier.
Character. FOUND.
So don't fret if you can't get out much, writers, or you're not able to let your eyes wander. Sometimes it's when our focus is distracted from the hunt that we find what we're hunting for, and then some.
Speaking of hunting, if you're looking for a wicked read to welcome Autumn, then I do hope you'll check out my debut dark fantasy YA novel, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen.
In rural Wisconsin, an old stone wall is all that separates the world of magic from the world of man—a wall that keeps the shifters inside. When something gets out, people disappear. Completely.
Escaping from an abusive uncle, eighteen-year-old Charlotte is running away with her younger sister Anna. Together they board a bus. Little do they know that they're bound for River Vine—a shrouded hinterland where dark magic devours and ancient shapeshifters feed, and where the seed of love sets root among the ashes of the dying.
You can snatch up a paperback on Amazon today! If you've got an e-reader, the online edition can be FREE via Kindle Unlimited, too.
Posted in Aionios Books, Blog, character, children, Editing & Publishing, Family, Fantasy, fiction, Images, Inspiration, Photography, Story Struggles, This Writer's Life, Wisconsin, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #SummerTime, #writerproblems, #writerslife, #writetip, #YAFantasy, characters, children, Family, fiction, Inspiration, northwoods, people-watching, Photography	| 38 Replies


The advice that I would tell parents and students is to find a college that is right for you and has what you are looking. GO and meet the people and see how people live on campus. Pick something that will make the student happy and not the parents because in the end if you dont like then you will have to go through the long process of changing schools. Also find a school that specializes in your particular field of study, because if they have a good program you will learn more and succeed in your future career. Don't follow friends or go for the fun, go for the education because that will benefit your future jobs.
The best thing about my school is the friendly people that always smile and say hi to you and the small classes. This is the best because I learn more and can interact more with the teacher when there is a small classroom and when people are nice to me that just makes my day better.
The worst thing about my school is having to attend a chapel service every week that only plays a certain kind of music. This is the worst because they do not cater to all the other types of Christian music that is out there.
My classmates are well focussed, most of the time but others are disrubtive, you just need to be careful who you sit by.
The advice I would give them when seeking a college is to know what the child wants to do as a career. They should also have the idea for what type of school experience they want. I mean do they want a private or public univeisty, secular or religious. Then to make the most of the experience I would tell the students to live on campus. To expecially live in the dorms. I made my best friends there and the time I spent in my dorm was exciting. I would also say to stay on campus during the weekends becase that is when you actually have time to hangout and talk with people. Another thing I would tell the students is not to be afraid of taliking to there professors. The proffessors are there to help them and will give good adviece. The parents need to learn that their child has grown and to trtust they will make the right decision. By encouaging the student and hopeing they make the right choice the parenet makes the expeirnece so much better.
A university committed to the Great Commission.
People here are so friendly and make students feel welcome. I have no doubts about choosing this school for its social and academic qualities. I love it and am glad that I chose California Baptist University for college.
What I enjoy most about California Baptist University is our school spirit. We are known as the "CBU Crazies," and at every sporting event we hold, our students fill the bleachers. Most - if not all - are wearing their "Crazies" shirt and are seen with face paint , posters, whistles, and enough stamina to be crazy during the entire game. I love the school spirit!
My advice would be to go with the one that your heart is set on. Also to visit the school, and if all possible stay over night and try to attend a few classes and eat in the cafeteria so that you can really get a hang of how the school is.
That my roommate freshman year would be hard to get along with.
Out of so many options, finding the right college for you is not always the easiest task. It is important to be sure you will be recieving great education from inspiring, approachable, and intelligent professors. It should be a place where you may openly ask questions and give answers. Taking a trip to see the college and attending classes is a great way to get a glimpse of what you may be entering into. It is also important to surround yourself in an environment you feel most comfortable and welcomed. It should be a place where you feel at home. Some people do not want to be far from home while many others want to be as far as they can get. Keeping in mind, you can be a far as you want even if you are only ten miles away, don't let distance be a deciding factor. Enroll into a college where you love the weather and the atmosphere surrounding it. Being there is a time in your life to have fun meeting as many friends as possible, experiencing the college life, and making the most out of everything. Get involved in every opportunity given.
I would tell them to find a college where they can feel comfortable enough to call that college their second "home". that's exactly how I feel about CBU and I would never change my experience so far for any other. I have people around me to encourage and support me as I pursue. Look for a college where you wouldn't get distracted by outside activities. there are plenty activities at CBU, but I know what my priority is and I have full support from those around me both on and off campus.
I love the community of people. Everyone here gets along so well and everyone makes an attempt to get to know each. Some many of my friends on campus feel like family. The professors here are amazing. they are willing to go the extra step to help anyone out in being able to be successful in the class. I have learned so much from this campus not just academically, but also in my social interaction. I consider CBU my second home.
It is important to find an environment specific to the student. Being comfortable in the environment in which you attend college is key. The student should be able to successfully study while enjoying themselves and their surroundings. Also, the student should have the resources and activities available to them that are most important to them.
The size, not too big or too small.


text:
From a Political Giant to a Midget
The situation in the US is as grim as it has been since 1861. Once again, it is the ancient and simple equation of good versus evil. It is extraordinary to observe the power of the media to lie and obfuscate and to thoroughly bewilder people such that they are unable to determine which is which.
The general level of IQ in the West, which has been falling since the early 20th century is now dangerously low. The household names and faces of the media are people who would have struggled to hold down a job as a janitor only fifty years ago. But the people who sit and stare at them after long, hard days of toil are exhausted. Weary, their defences are down and they cannot properly evaluate the puerile gobbledegook repeated ad infinitum.
To those who are indifferent to the Big Steal because they judge both Biden and Trump as equally bad, big government politicians. Shame on you. It is true, they are both big government supporters, but can you genuinely not discern the difference? A legitimately elected political giant has been fraudulently replaced by a criminal midget.
On this morning of the 7th January, 2021, the Republic is on its last legs and only martial law can seemingly stop the slide into an illegitimate presidency.
The situation is not just morally repugnant, it is dangerous. President Trump kept the world out of wars; nothing will be able to constrain the War Machine with Biden in the White House.
Much as I admire Trump's honesty, decency and courage, I doubt that he has the backbone necessary to invoke martial law. I also doubt that the military would oblige – what, no more wars? It is what Trump should at least try to do (possibly he has), but it may have been a step too far for a good man who simply wanted what was best for ordinary Americans.
A stolen presidential election is not without precedent in the US, but never was it done so foully, so egregiously, so overtly and with the media so wholly complicit.
Ignoring the morality, it cannot change the monetary course that the world has been on for some decades now. The collapse of the world's fiat currencies was already speeding up, but a free spending socialist presidency will ensure that it will come sooner rather than later.
The end of the American Republic will have Xi Jinping raising a glass of wine (non-Australian) in Beijing. War is imminent. Australia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines had all better lift their game. Who knows where the US military perceives its interests lie now?
2020 'the worst year ever'? Wait till you see what 2021 has in store.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
the Difference Between Ecovacs Deebot 900 and Deebot OZMO 900
2021-03-18 by Aeyo
How would you feel if you saw the Ecovacs Deebot 900 and Deebot OZMO 900 when you were shopping for a Robot Vacuum Sweeper? Can you guess the difference between them?
Ecovacs Brand
We know that Ecovacs is a relatively long-established manufacturer of hoovers and sweepers, and that their Deebot range is widely known around the world and has found its way into thousands of homes thanks to its good value for money. However, due to the company's rather crude management style, the naming of many of its products is extremely confusing, especially for the various models sold in the Chinese domestic market, the names of which are very disturbing.
In addition to the naming of the Chinese series models, there are in fact some problems with the English versions of their products. It is easy to get confused about the Deebot 900 and the Deebot OZMO 900, which many consumers at first glance think are the same machine, but in fact they are two completely different products.
Ecovacs Deebot 900
Ecovacs Deebot OZMO 900
We can see from the pictures above that there is a clear difference between the two products in terms of appearance. The biggest difference between the two is that the former does not support the wiping function, i.e. there is no water tank, while the latter has a good cleaning function and can clean the floor by wiping with a cloth while vacuuming.
The difference between the two products can be easily distinguished if you understand the difference in their names, which is "OZMO". It's a trademark that Ecovacs has applied for for their own cleaning system, called OZMO, so the Deebot 900 is the one without the mopping function and the Deebot OZMO 900 is the one with the OZMO mopping function.
OZMO Mopping System
Is this the way to introduce you to the difference between the two? In the end, it is because Ecovacs' product marketing was inadequate and they did not inform consumers of the meaning behind the trademarked names after they registered them themselves. They did not inform consumers of the meaning behind these trademarks after they registered the names themselves, and even led most consumers to believe that the presence or absence of OZMO in the product name made no difference.
As a practitioner in the industry, I would like to tell you once again, through such content, to pay attention to distinguishing between product models to avoid trouble when buying accessories at a later stage.
Categories News Tags Deebot, Ecovacs, OZMO
Summary of AliExpress Store delivery issues during the Spring Festival
TROUVER's relationship with Dreame and Xiaomi


text:
New Roland D-50
s�per crujiente
Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:38 pm Post subject: New Roland D-50
Got this a few weeks ago. Rules.
Crazy powerful digital synth from roland circa 1987. Possibly the best digital synth ever made.
Check out these incredible patches this guy made:
This guy does a pretty good demo of the more clean/shiny sounding classic factory patches which you've heard all over everything from the late 80s and 90s:
he's playing the keyboard version, the D-50. Mine is the rack version, the D-550. He makes a mistake when he says it was released in '83-'84 (maybe a translation mistake); that was the Yamaha DX-7. but everything else he says is correct. The synth architecture seems like it is based on the JX-10 (or MKS-70) which was two JX-8Ps in the same keyboard. this allowed for some interesting effects but otherwise seems like an odd frankenstein synth. The implementation on the D-50 however made much more sense. Essentially it has four oscillators of which can either be a virtual analog waveform or a PCM sample. The idea was that by combining a short attack sample with a basic waveform you could create realistic acoustic instruments. This actually works surprisingly well although it's hardly what anyone would use it for today. The neat thing is that this powerful architecture allows for quite complex sound-design.
cogito ergo sum...thing or other...
rps-10
Location: S.E. WALES
Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:49 pm Post subject:
Arggh!! should never have watched that first video, it's full of 80's flashback. Whats the riff @~3:37?? one of Jean Michel Jarre's? That is going to bug me now. Jan Hammer?
very nice sounds though!
All my LEDs are bright, the blues are bright as all hell.
mezzio13 wrote:
JJ makes sweeps look easy and effortless. His nick name should be broom.
Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:11 pm Post subject:
yeah, I was trying to figure out that one out too! I think it's some movie theme. I'm pretty sure a lot of the parts he plays there are made slightly different so he doesn't get censored.
Jean Michel Jarre definitely used one of these though. I never really listened to him before, he always seemed to me like sort of a keyboard equivalent of like steve vai. but recently I saw a video someone posted because he used almost all d-50 on his revolutions album.
way over the top cheese obviously but pretty cool. the lead sound he uses is absolutely killer.
Beyond my ken. I'm guessing you plug something into the mainframe looking device? At a wild guess keyboards, but much more than that is a mystery.
Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:33 am Post subject:
haha, yes. they just took the keys away and put it in rack mountable box. you can plug in a keyboard controller, a sequencer, or like a computer into it.
I'm a bit odd in that I find old obsolete computers and electronics to be really cool. the history of them fascinates me. but this guy is interesting because it was hugely popular in it's time, and people still use them to today because they have a really "professional" finished sound to them. also, a lot of this old digital technology is really robust and lasts forever. people still use yamaha DX-7s for this reason, they're bullet-proof.
Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:28 pm Post subject:
soundbites sound 'authentic'/ Post some sondz of yours? I wouldn't know how to employ it but love to hear how this mother is used.
Location: Glasgow, UK
Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:47 pm Post subject:
One of the nicest bits of kit I've ever sold/regret.
(keyboard version)
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:19 am Post subject:
er... don't really have anything programmed on it yet but I can record a little bit of me just messing around with it. there are a few ways to go about making your own sounds.
a.) get this:
b.) get one of these:
- MIDI Quest
- MOTU Unisyn
- D-50 Librarian - This guy made a free editor for PC.
c.) program from the front panel.
I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on editors and don't have a PC so I'll be programming from the front panel. With a little knowledge of subtractive synthesis and the manual close by it shouldn't be so hard.
here's a couple cool sounds, just messing around
http://soundcloud.com/heavystrife/messin-round-w-d-50
- factory preset "Fantasia"
- fantasia with PCM partials muted and cutoff filter opened a bit
- factory preset "Future Pad"
- future pad with some partials muted.
- factory preset "Afterthought"
- factory preset "Synth Bass" tweaked a bit
- factory preset "Intruder FX"
- factory preset "Stereo Polysynth" cutoff filter+other stuff tweaked
- factory preset "Stereo Polysynth" again
- factory preset "Spacious Sweep"
I set aftertouch to a slider on my keyboard which lets you control cutoff filter on a lot of patches. and often there's like modulation and stuff in there too. if I spent more time with it I could set it to only adjust exactly the parameters I want it to.
71Smallbox
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:16 pm Post subject:
isn't this the keyboard that they used to make the Seinfeld theme song bass line?
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:50 pm Post subject:
I dunno but it would make sense. it was frequently used for television, commercials, and movie soundtracks throughout the late 80s and 90s. I always think of seinfeld as like a mid- to late-90s show but didn't it actually start in like 1990 or something? In which case this would have been a very common studio synth at that time, the other one being the Korg M1. just about all roland keyboards from this period on have a slap bass sound like that though.
I can't think of too many famous uses of it, besides Enya lol. but Eric Sera used it all over the La Femme Nikita soundtrack.
avj
A Select Individual
Location: Detroitish.
Awesome! Mages, sorry I left you hanging in the other thread when I mentioned my interest in the D-50. I was thinking I wanted the keyboard version for the aftertouch, but I've since acquired a second Ensoniq ESQ-1 as a spare and the last thing I need is another giant board. I think the D-550 is a much better option for me now. The only bummer is, I always see plenty of D-50s in the $200 range on local CL, but I can't remember ever seeing a D-550.
Great demos. Love what this thing can do from a sound-design perspective.
For programming, one thing I've been experimenting with quite a bit is TouchOSC on an iPad (or iPhone) with iRig MIDI. You can essentially design your own interface and assign interface elements a CC#. I've made templates for the Moog Little Phatty and the ESQ-1, and it's really quite simple. There's an Android version of TouchOSC as well, but not sure what's available for MIDI I/O.
rps-10: Skip to about 19:00 here. It felt like a sound-alike of that melody to me.
REMI GREENE | BRIGHT NIGHTS | UNOBSERVABLE UNIVERSE | ROOTS AND RUINS
UlricvonCatalyst
Mages wrote:
I'm a bit odd in that I find old obsolete computers and electronics to be really cool.
You'd probably enjoy a root around in my 'retirement home' cupboard where I keep my D-110, Kawai K4R and Atari STE. I had a plug-in sampler module for the Atari at one point. State of the art, early '90s style!
My pal made most of his album (bits of which can still be heard here) using its main rival, the Amiga something-or-other.
Don't think I'd like to go back there myself, but never say never.
there is a D-50 editor available for iPad. they posted about it on the Linear Users Group but now I notice they've also spammed the D-50 ebay listings with it. looks like a kind of simplistic and underdeveloped interface but it's a real sysex patch editor not just control change messages so it could be pretty useful. a couple things I've now setup on my midi controller is tone-balance and portamento. the portamento on this thing goes to the extreme and again, it's so smooth sounding, it's amazing. you can do some real THX style pitch sweeps.
I've done a little bit of editing via the front panel, it's actually not that hard. you have to edit each partial (aka oscillator) individually but there are buttons to immediately switch between the same parameter you are editing on each partial so it's not too difficult. if you had to back in and out of a tiered menu every time it would take about 10X as long. you can also save shortcuts to menu screens you use a lot.
tips for editing on the D-550: print out the parameter reference chart so you know what you are looking at. editing envelopes is simplified if you identify the parameters that are equivalent to a simple ADSR envelope. this would be T1, T2, SusL, T5. control the overal level with the 'Depth' parameter. if you think of these as the basic starting point and the other half-dozen parameters as just extra ability, there if you need it, then it simplifies things a lot.
another feature that is interesting is the Chase function. which is kind of like midi echo. interesting uses of it arrive in the extreme settings where you can do things like play a whole melody and have it repeat over and over. it wont repeat infinitely but it will go something like 100 times in the extreme settings.
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 12:26 am Post subject:
UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
nice dude! the kawai k4 is brilliant. this demo blew me away:
I like the d-110 too. more simplified than the d-550 (in some ways, although multitimbral so more advanced in others) but still extremely capable and nice sounding to my ears. this guy's comments on vintagesynthexplorer.com had some great uses for it:
lorentz wrote:
Still got mine - haven't used it for a while. Originally used it as a bread and butter multi-timbral module, but as I got more and more gear, it ended up become a mono-synth - I'd have the same patch across the eight parts, with panning/tuning variations. Think 32 oscillator mono-synth, with resonant filters - you get the idea. It was big, very big.
The other trick was get a pad tone, turn partials 2/3/4 off, so you have a 32 voice tone, create 3 or more slight variations to LFO, TVA, TVF and pitch envelope, and assign across the 8 parts, you get a rich, lush 4 voice poly analog killer. Still worth hanging onto.
to me it seems the use of these sort of old-school MIDI setups would be live use. I've thought about getting an atari st or commodore 64 w/ midi expansion and like a cheap mini-monitor and using it as a sequencer but the cost comes out about the same as just using one of the cheap little laptops you can get now. so while very cool and I would love to play around with a setup like that, the time, energy, and money involved in obtaining and learning it is just kind of excessive for what it is.
rodvonbon
Location: Chicago, USA
Hey Mages, What are your thoughts on the JD-800?
I've been eyeing them online lately, but have never seen one in person. From everything I've read it looks like a cool rompler with a built in programmer (check out all those faders and shit). Vintage synth explorer states the sounds are based on an updated D-50. There have been a couple go for $500 and under the past few months, I've been watching them, but I'm still iffy on pulling the trigger.
JD-800 at vintage synth explorer
Life is "Pointless......but manageable"
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:09 am Post subject:
I saw one on craigslist around here recently for $350. should have got it! I really don't want a big'ol keyboard right now though. =]
I think it's a top synth though. Like the D-50 it's known as a pad machine but it's capable of all kinds of stuff. I think the JD-800 and D-50 really tower above just about everything Roland has made since (well until the last few years with the V-Synth and Jupiter-80/50). they are super-synths with vast sound crafting ability. people describe the JD and JV series as ROMplers but I'm not sure if that description ever came from a knowledgable perspective on what these sort of things can do. there are some sound modules that truly all they do is play ROM samples. however, the JD-800 is really a full blown subtractive synth that just happens to use a digital source for it's oscillators. it's little brother, the JV-80 was meant to cover more bases and so could be used as a box of preset sounds but also had a somewhat reduced synth engine built in as well (half of the waveforms on the JV-80 are instrument samples, and half are synth waveforms from the JD-800).
the relationship of Roland digital synths, is something like this:
D-50 --> MT-32 --> D-10/110/20/5
JD-800 --> JD-990 ------.
U-110/20/220 --> D-70 --| |
JV-80/880/90/1000 --> JV-1080*
*[JV-1080/2080/1010 & XV-3080/5050 & XP-50/60/80/30] --> [XV-5080/88 & Fantom workstations]
and as far as I can tell the V-Synth, Gaia, and Jupiter-80/50 are all new technology.
looking at the samples on a JD-800 you can see how they are cultivated with the intention of being used as a tool kit for creating your own sounds, not just simple samples of finished sounds. Some are raw waveforms including pulsewave variations, some are short attack transients like on a D-50, some are classic digital waveforms like you'd find on a PPG, or Fairlight style vox samples, and much more that are wholly original creations for the JD-800.
the JD-800 manual is full of great knowledge including a basic introduction to synthesis. you can tell they were trying to get people excited about hands-on synthesizers again (and I've heard of roland product demos in music stores at this time where they were trying to show how easy and fun it is to use). it looks like they took technology developed with the D-70 (which had flopped) and just tried to build the most badass synth they could. The JV-80 was a more direct evolution from the D-70; it's basically the same idea as a D-70, they just tweaked everything to be simpler.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 12:19 am Post subject:
Wow, that's a ton of info. Thanks.
It looks a bit intimidating with all the faders, but the whole reason I was looking at them is the ease of editing.
The Gaia appeals to me for the same reason. I know they're completely different from each other, I just like the hands on aspect of programming. And, while older, the JD-800 seems like a monster of a synth. Of all the demos I've watched of the stock patches it sounds very lush.
Right now I've got a Juno G expanded with an ultimate keys card, Juno DI, Poly 800 mkI and a Poly 800 mkII. I love the way each of them sound, they're all just a pain in the ass to tweak the sounds.
I'm going to keep looking and if I ever see a JD-800 go for $350 - $400 I'm going to jump on it.
others you may want to look at are korg ms-2000, roland jp-8000 or roland SH-32.
and this just came out, everyone is shitting themselves over it, arturia minibrute
it's like a next-gen roland SH-101. completely analog. $500


text:
Carolina Panthers 'cautiously optimistic' after QB Cam Newton's preseason debut ends with him in walking boot
And Washington TE Jordan Reed has another concussion, while Packers apparently dodge few bullets, including with top pick Gary
The Carolina Panthers' season momentarily appeared on the brink before it began, when QB Cam Newton suffered a left foot injury during Thursday night's preseason "dress rehearsal," which ended with the former league MVP in a walking boot.
But after initial X-rays came back negative, GM Marty Hurney chose a tone of careful optimism that his team's leader will start when the defending conference champion Los Angeles Rams visit Charlotte in Week 1.
"It's really hard to put a timeframe because it depends how he responds each day," Hurney told the team website. But as I said, we feel this has got a chance to come around quick enough where he'll be ready to play Week 1. We'll see how it goes."
Newton, 30, spent much of the offseason recovering from surgery on his right shoulder after his 2018 campaign was cut short following Carolina's postseason elimination. He appeared to suffer Thursday's injury when Patriots 345-pound DT Danny Shelton tackled him by the ankle. After receiving attention from trainers on the sideline and walking to the locker room under his own power, coach Ron Rivera confirmed Newton left the stadium and boarded the flight home in a walking boot.
The former No. 1 overall pick and NFL's Most Valuable Player in 2015, Newton posted a 94.2 passer rating — his highest since the MVP season — and career-high 67.9 completion percentage in 14 starts last season despite clearly being at less than 100 percent. But the Panthers finished 7-9 and out of the playoffs for the second time in the three seasons since their NFC title campaign.
Newton's preseason debut Thursday night was supposed to be a symbol of optimism. Instead, it could become the latest sign that playing key guys in the preseason — something a growing faction of coaches is punting on — simply isn't worth the risk.
Packers top pick exits on cart in Winnipeg, where game being played on shortened field
Rashan Gary, the ex-Michigan Wolverine selected No. 12 overall by Green Bay to headline its massive offseason defensive overhaul, exited in the second half Thursday night in Winnipeg on a cart with an apparent head/neck injury. It was Gary's second time during the game requiring medical attention. Fortunately, a Tweet from Gary's agency — RG Sports — indicates he's OK.
The Packers also saw WR Equanimeous St. Brown leave on a cart but avoid serious injury after the team confirmed he suffered a sprained ankle.
Indeed, the unfit playing conditions at IG field, which was shortened to avoid a hole in the south end zone where the original CFL goal post is located, was hardly the only unfortunate news coming from the NFL's latest botched international foray.
"Tonight's game is being played on a reconfigured field," the NFL's statement reads. "The field met the mandatory practices for the maintenance of surfaces for NFL games based on an inspection yesterday. Concerns arose today surrounding the area where the Blue Bombers' goal posts were previously located. The 10-yard line will function as the goal line at this game. In lieu of kickoffs, the ball will be placed at the 15-yard line."
Any of this sound familiar?
Remember, the league was forced to relocate its international series finale last season, with the Chiefs and Rams moving from Mexico City's Estadio Azteca to Los Angeles as the result of poor field conditions.
The NFL also canceled its 2016 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game because of an unsafe paint job.
Seriously. The world's most powerful sports league — whose biggest charge right now is supposedly player safety — has now been forced to abruptly relocate or change the rules to safely accommodate players on three different playing surfaces over the past three years. You can't make this stuff up.
Washington rules out TE Jordan Reed with (another) concussion
We wish we were making this one up. Jordan Reed, the former Pro Bowl tight end who's missed 31 of a possible 96 regular-season games with injuries in six seasons, is back in concussion protocol after absorbing a vicious helmet-to-helmet shot from Atlanta Falcons S Keanu Neal. It's at least the sixth documented concussion during Reed's football career.


Edition of 18 prints. Printed, signed and numbered by Michael Smither.
The fifth memorial drawing in the Rita Angus memorial drawings series by NZ painter and printmaker Michael Smither. Although dated 2014 this black and white print has a genesis dating back to 1970 when during Smither's tenure as the Frances Hodgkins fellow at Otago University Rita Angus died. Smither decided to take the central Otago landscape they both enjoyed and introduce it into the cruciform shape as a memorial to her. He recently became reaquainted with the original drawings and decided to make a small edition of prints similar to the "stations of the cross" based on his earlier sketches.


Eskimo once asked Bradley why monkey poets liked to torture Eskimo so much. He said, "It's because we love you!" And then he dashed back to the microphone and proceeded to read another Rumplestiltskin rant. Eskimo thinks the real reason she is easily tortured by monkeys is because she grew up surrounded only by gentle bears, wolverines and bald eagles. This is why her princess self has joined the ranks of hundreds of other women poets in Sacramento and retired to the safety of her backyard to contemplate the gently twittering fauna. Some of these delicate poetesses have penned entire treatises and odes to the fluttering winged ones. Eskimo has not gone that far. Yet. Oh what a better place than in this golden city of trees to ecouter the sweet sparrow songs. It is almost like Paris. Almost. But sometimes Eskimo misses the monkeys and their howlings, especially when they call her in monkey paws de deux and burble in baboon to her about her beautiful gibbous moons.
Here is a little Eskimo poem that both birds and monkeys love, and she hopes that they will all go out together into the beautiful spring and plant some trees.
sending secret electric blue messages to their lovers.
The wind came from the sea my father said.
pointing south like broken arrowheads.
A power of birds is a flock of birds in flight.