Author: marianlthorpe

Not content with two careers as a research scientist and an educator, Marian L Thorpe decided to go back to what she’d always wanted to do and be a writer. Author of the alternative world medieval series Empire’s Legacy, Marian also has published short stories and poetry. Her life-long interest in Roman and post-Roman European history informs her novels, while her avocations of landscape archaeology and birding provide background to her settings. As well as writing and editing professionally, Marian oversees Arboretum Press, a small publishing imprint run as a collective. Marian is currently writing Empire's Heir, the sixth title in the Empire's Legacy series.

Routines and Frustrations

It can take a long time to get back into a routine, especially when that routine is self-directed.

Since my holiday earlier in September I’m having difficulty getting back into many of my routines. I’m not writing regularly, exercising regularly, or even eating as well as I was. Now I’m away from home again, staying at my sister’s house for a while, keeping her cats company for a few days of the three weeks she and her husband are in India playing in the World Bridge Championships. (I can’t even play euchre, but the cats don’t care about that. They’re just happy to have a warm body to sleep with again, rather than just the teenager from across the street who feeds them every day.)

I’m also feeling some of the frustration all writers feel unless their book is a best-seller. While some of of my friends and family have read my work (and thank you all) others haven’t. Which is fine, too – the ones that are annoying me are those who haven’t even mentioned it to me, ever, even though they know it’s been published and a second book is in the works. I can’t work out if they are too self-centred to say ‘hey, that’s great, well done’, jealous, or, oblivious. I shouldn’t let it bother me, but sometimes it does.

I’m going to take this time – four days on my own – to re-focus, remembering why I do what I do, whether it is the writing, walking or what I choose to eat or not to eat. It’s interesting for me to observe that I am still quite easily swayed by external influences (and my own inertia) – I’m not quite as self-actualized as I thought (or at least hoped) I was. An opportunity for growth.

So I’m off for a walk…always the best thing I can do when things just aren’t right.

My Favourite Review

It’s one thing to have your book reviewed by family or friends.  It’s another to have a complete stranger review it.  Over on Kobo.com, this review of Empire’s Daughter appeared:

“A story both hard and beautiful, Empire’s Daughter handles with depth and eloquence the issues of its time. The Empire is so like a past that our culture could hold, and creates a reflection on our decisions and traditions and their impact. For all its insight it still drives a narrative of growth and action.”

It’s written by someone I don’t know at all, who had no reason to be polite or to hold back on what he/she really thought. For that reason, it’s (so far) my favourite review.

Interested in reviewing Empire’s Daughter?  You can download the e-book it for free for a limited time from www.smashwords.com for no cost, using coupon code: ML72W.

A Map of the Empire

MAPTAKE1

Here’s a map of the lands known as ‘The Empire’.  It’s perhaps 800 miles north to south, two hundred and fifty miles across. Two hundred thousand square miles in area – twice the size of the UK, about the same as France, half the size of Ontario, just a bit bigger than the Dakotas.

Note that the villages of Delle, Serra and Tirvan are shown in relation to the Road, but actually are on the coast below the Road.

What did Dickens do? The challenges of publishing-by-installment.

Publishing Empire’s Hostage in installments (www.empireshostage.com) is proving to be an interesting process.  It is reducing my procrastination considerably – the first book in the series took me over a decade to write – ok, I was working at the time, and travelling, and providing a great deal of care to my aging parents – but still!  My goal is to have the book completed by my next birthday – April of 2016 – and knowing nearly 100 people (to date) are following the installments certainly gives me incentive to write.

But I’m not a writer who maps out the entire story in detail and then writes it. While I have the general gist of the story arc in my head, things just happen.  Characters turn out not to be quite the person you expected them to be.  Questions are asked by the protagonist – and you don’t have an answer (and it’s a really important question.)  When you write and publish a book in the traditional way, when these things happen, you go back to the earlier chapters and make sure they contain appropriate foreshadowing, or just plain don’t contradict the later chapters (and rely on your editor to catch anything you didn’t.)

So far, there’s enough space between my posts and what I’m writing now to go back and make the necessary changes before the installments go public.  At some point, that may not be the case.  I haven’t quite decided how to handle it – I could go back and change the earlier installment.  I could leave it alone, or add a postscript to the installment explaining.

Charles Dickens wrote a lot of his books as installments in a monthly magazine.  I wonder how he handled this problem?

Any thoughts or advice from my readers?

thanks,

Marian

Encouraging a fellow writer

I think we all need to do this for each other as much as possible in the indie writing community!  This is a link to Dave Whaley’s site for Z:UK, his newly published book.

https://authorwhaley.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/2015-dave-whaley-the-published-author/comment-page-1/#comment-26

Britain and zombies…what more could I ask?  I’ll be reading it soon!

Procrastination

Here I am, in my best writing place, in the study carrel at the university that I’ve used on and off for thirty years.  I’m supposed to be working on Empire’s Hostage.  I have my lunch, and my coffee; I have my notes and a mug of water.  So why I am I not writing?

Well, firstly, it’s because writing is hard work, and like much hard work it’s easier to procrastinate than do it. When I do start (and I will), if I hit a flow I can write for hours; other days the whole process is excruciating, as if I forgotten who my characters are and what they are doing, or at least why they are doing it.  If that happens it’s really tempting to shut up the laptop and go home, but what I should do on those occasions is wonder if subconsciously I’m seeing a problem: maybe my plot or my character’s motivation or feelings aren’t clear. And if they aren’t clear to me, then they won’t be clear to a reader. Time to re-read what I’ve written, sometimes from the beginning, with this in mind.  This is a valid piece of the writing process, so I shouldn’t see this as wasted time.

Sometimes it’s just that my mind isn’t focused: I’m still thinking about the shopping list, or the conversation with my husband, or the car that cut me off at the intersection.  This is where I find rituals – if that’s the right word – are important; it’s why I write in the same place in this library, with my coffee at hand, when I could choose anywhere.  I actually tried a new location, large tables facing the big windows on the ground floor.  It was quiet, and I could spread out – and I couldn’t write there nearly as effectively as I can where I’m sitting now. Even the walk from the parking area I use is part of getting my mind into the right place to write.  Madeleine L’Engle once said to be a writer, one needed to be able to write anywhere.  I wish I could, but it’s just not true for me.

Writing this blog post falls somewhere between procrastination and warm-up.  It’s a form of metacognition – thinking about thinking – I’m thinking about why I procrastinate.  I could also think of it as a warm-up, or a new part of the ritual.  To be honest, I’m not sure yet.  But now I can feel my characters tugging at my mind, wanting me tell the next part of their story – so I should heed that call.  I hope it’s a day of good flow: I’ll go find out.