Author: elouisebates

goals, Life Talk

Our First Garden

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Growing up, both Carl and I moaned and whined about helping out in our family’s respective vegetable gardens (especially picking beans, O Woe and Misery!). So naturally, in the last few years, we’ve been wanting to inflict – I mean, introduce our girls to what it’s like to grow at least a portion of one’s food. We weren’t able to do it when we were living at our old place, due to having no space at all to ourselves outdoors, but here in this house, we have loads of yard, front and back. Poor soil quality, though, so we’re doing container gardens instead of planting right in the ground.

I was all for buying seedling already started, but Carl pulled for starting right from seeds, and in thinking about how much more the girls will learn when they get to see the entire process from start to finish (in the grand old homeschool tradition, we are calling this “science class” and we’ll be studying about growing things right along with watching our seeds), I capitulated.

We planted the seeds in our little black plastic starter containers on Sunday, and we have been working ever since at keeping the littles from pulling off the lid to poke and prod, checking to see if their seeds have come up yet. We planted peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, peas, carrots, marigolds, lavender, and impatiens (lavender for Grace, who wanted “pupple fwowers,” and impatiens for Joy who wanted pink flowers, and marigolds to help ward off mosquitoes), and we are all, even Carl, getting excited about watching them grow, seeing which crops work the best, and enjoying the fruit of our labors this summer.

Books, characters, critiquing, fiction, world-building

Brother Cadfael, or, What Makes a Good Series

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I think I first discovered Brother Cadfael through PBS, the series they did based on the books by Ellis Peters. It only took me a few episodes, though, before I was determined to find the books and read through them. That was years and years ago, and I have yet to read the entire series. That is not, however, due to a lack of interest; rather, I am reading them and collecting them as slowly as possible so as to prolong my enjoyment in them as long as possible.

So what is it about this mystery series, featuring a medieval monk with an adventurous past and an insatiable curiosity, that intrigues me so?

Aside from the brilliantly-drawn Cadfael himself, there are a few other reasons:

Good recurring characters: Not just Cadfael, but all the other recurring characters in the series are three-dimensional. They pursue their own lives, their own interests, have things happen to them, and interact with Our Hero very naturally.

Good side characters: These aren’t so much recurring characters as a nice bit of continuity – the goldsmith, for one, who features in one story, and then a few stories later we hear of him again in passing. Same with the corvisor’s son, and many others. Since these mysteries are all set in medieval times, when travel was difficult and most people lived and died in the same place their entire lives, this makes everything more believable, and contributes to the sense of feeling at home in Shrewsbury each time you read.

Good fleshing out of all characters: And to finish off the character studies – even the one-shot characters, the ones who only feature in one mystery and then vanish forever, are well-developed. Very few of them are flat or cardboard – in fact, that is one of my complaints about the PBS series, because they tend to reduce many of the one-shot characters to wooden caricatures instead of the real people Peters made them to be.

On to more specifics …

Good job moving from Abbott Heribert (lazy and easygoing) and Prior Robert (hard and uncompromising) to Father Radalfus: The first couple of books had the Father Abbott as a simple-hearted, simple-minded soul, easy for Cadfael to manipulate so he could do whatever he wanted in solving mysteries. In contrast, the Prior was cold, proud, and had a strong dislike for Cadfael, and went out of his way to make things difficult for the monk. Pretty stereotyped, wouldn’t you agree? But then Peters had Heribert demoted and brought in a new Abbott – Radalfus, who is clever, wise, just, uncompromising, understanding, and savvy. At times he is more than willing to give Cadfael freedom, but other times he imposes strict restrictions on him, and there’s nothing Cadfael can do about it. Prior Robert is reduced to a minor nuisance, and the entire situation is saved from mundane to clever.

Good with changing Cadfael’s helpers frequently – both introducing new sidekicks and keeping true to established canon: Cadfael tends to get novices as his helpers, and as they grow and pursue their studies, they move on, and he is supplied with a new assistant. This helps to keep things fresh and change things up without having to kill anyone off, and also makes sense given the Benedictine order. Another area where the PBS series slipped up – their Brother Oswin had the LONGEST novitiate known to man!

It’s not a perfect series – I get frustrated when book after book features a “villain” who is not truly guilty of desiring evil, but was just misguided. That works for one or two, but after a while it gets old. This was especially true in the book where a boy murdered an injured, helpless old man, but it was excused by Cadfael as “he was mad with love and grief.” Um, sorry, don’t buy that as a reason to let him escape to Wales. Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in mercy triumphing over justice, but there are limits.

There are other flaws as well, but overall, it is a thoroughly enchanting series.

And I haven’t even mentioned the best part yet! Hugh Beringar is EXCELLENT. No mere Watson to Cadfael’s Holmes (although Martin Freeman would make an awesome Hugh, but then, what role wouldn’t he be awesome in?), Hugh is clever and dangerous in his own right. He and Cadfael aren’t always on the same side – Cadfael serves the church, while Hugh serves the king and law of England – but they respect each other and work well together. And Hugh is a brilliant swordsman, too, which automatically gives him an extra 50 Points of Awesomeness.

Are you familiar with Brother Cadfael? What are some series that set up good examples of ways to keep the writing fresh and exciting for readers no matter how many books are in the series? Do you agree that, in murder mysteries of any sort, every now and then the villain HAS to be villainous?

Uncategorized

Winner!

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And the winner of the Rising:Resistance giveaway (chosen by a highly scientific method of having my kids draw numbers to narrow it down to two, and then making my husband take a break from studying Aramaic to pick the final choice) is …

Kirsten Lopresti!

Congratulations, Kirsten! I’ll try to get the book emailed to you today. I hope you love it!

Thank you to everyone who entered.

children, figure skating, goals, Life Talk

Lessons

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WARNING: This post has nothing to do with writing. It is, in fact, mostly bragging on my kid. Because along with being a writer, I’m a MOM, and occasional bragging on my kid goes with the territory.

These two pictures were taken the first time Joy was on the ice. She made either me or my sister carry her the ENTIRE time. Granted, she was a tiny three-year-old at the time, but still, we were SORE the next morning. She has loved watching ice skating with me ever since she was a little baby, but the reality of stepping on the ice scared her to death.
This was her third time on the ice. She didn’t even want to hold my hand by then! She also insisted I show her how to bunny hop. No fear at all, and even the few times she fell, she laughed.
photo by lis hurlbut
First time on single-bladed skates, showing her sister how it’s done.
And THIS is from her first day of Snowplow Sam (that’s the lowest level of skating classes from the United States Figure Skating Association, by the way) in January.

And THIS is last Sunday, when she brought home a certificate stating that she’d passed all of Snowplow Sam, and is ready to start Basic 1 in the fall!
Not bad, for a little over a year. Her first-ever skating show is this Sunday, and my parents, Carl’s mom, my sister and brother-in-law, and possibly Carl’s sister are all coming out to watch and cheer her on. It’s not just about the skating, it’s about finding something she loves, overcoming her fears about it, and excelling at it.
Hmm, maybe there really IS something in here applicable to writing after all …
Hey, have you entered the giveaway yet? If not, go, enter! What are you waiting for?
Books, philosophy

Rising: Resistance (and a giveaway!)

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Rising: Resistance
by Laura Josephsen
All Alphonse wants is a quiet summer at home before his final months at university. What he gets is a half-dead stranger on his doorstep and the task of delivering a package to the leader of his home country. Not long after he boards a train toward the capital, he’s attacked by knights, elite soldiers of the neighboring king.
Alphonse is temporarily rescued by Mairwyn, a mechanic with a haunted past and a deep hatred of knights. Together, they attempt to carry out Alphonse’s urgent errand, only to learn that if they fail, countless people will die.
And even if they succeed, they may not be able to prevent the war that lurks on the horizon.

I don’t even remember, now, how I first stumbled on Laura’s blog. I think maybe she had left a comment on Patricia C Wrede’s blog that caught my eye? (Was that you, Laura, or am I thinking of someone else?)

At any rate, when her book Confessions of the Underworld (Otherwise Known as High School) came out, I eagerly bought it, and loved it. So when she offered me the chance to read an advance copy of Rising: Resistance, I didn’t hesitate, already trusting her writing enough to know it would be good.

And it was. It was nothing at all like Confessions, even aside from the difference in genres. But it was so, so good in its own right, standing on its own merits. It certainly wasn’t a light read; while there was a great deal of humor in it, it also tackled some pretty weighty stuff. Laura has talked on her blog about the difficulty of putting her characters through dark places, and after reading Resistance, I understand a little better. The important thing is, though, that her characters grow through these hard times, and even though the reader gets put through the wringer right along with them, we get to grow and develop, too.


And that’s what makes a book truly stand out from the crowd, isn’t it? When you, the reader, get to become a little bit of a better person, a more whole person, just by reading it. And that doesn’t always happen just through tragedy – goodness knows many of the comedic books I’ve read have suddenly stretched me here and there before I know it. Any book that makes you care more about other human beings, about searching out deeper truths and living for something beyond yourself, is a great book.


Which is why I’m offering a giveaway (my first ever giveaway on this blog!) of an e-book edition of Rising: Resistance to one reader. Just leave a comment with a valid email address by 12:00am EST next Tuesday (March 7th), and I will randomly pick one commenter to win it. That’s it! No hoops to jump through – no requirements to follow this blog, Tweet about this giveaway, or anything like that (though, of course, if you want to do any of those things, I won’t stand in your way).


Good luck, and happy reading!



Should you not win the giveaway, you can buy Rising: Resistance by following any of these links:

Amazon Kindle
Amazon Paperback
Nook at Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

or check it out at

Goodreads
humor, quotes, writing

Transition

elouisebates

I’m usually not good at transitions – you know, the “they walked through the woods for days. Then the adventure started again” type of phrases. I always feel like I have to fill in every detail, or I’m cheating.

But I’m getting better, and since I had to cover a four-year gap in the middle of a chapter of my Celtic MG/YA, I really needed to be concise.

This right here is quite possibly my favorite out of all the transition phrases I’ve ever written:

Life continued to be mildly not-fair for the next four years, at which point it took, in Cadi’s opinion anyway, a flying leap into monstrously unfair.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually keep it in the final draft or if I’ll end up editing it out due to it having a slightly different tone than the rest of the chapter – but for now, I’m just quite tickled over it.

How do you handle transitions?

Books

Announcing RISING

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RISING


by Laura Josephsen

All Alphonse wants is a quiet summer at home before his final months at university. What he gets is a half-dead stranger on his doorstep and the task of delivering a package to the leader of his home country. Not long after he boards a train toward the capital, he’s attacked by knights, elite soldiers of the neighboring king. Alphonse is temporarily rescued by Mairwyn, a mechanic with a haunted past and a deep hatred of knights. Together, they attempt to carry out Alphonse’s urgent errand, only to learn that if they fail, countless people will die. And even if they succeed, they may not be able to prevent the war that lurks on the horizon.

I am so excited to let you all know about this book! Laura sent me an early copy to review, and I loved it. Tore through it in two days, reading while I was fixing supper, when I was supposed to be doing school with Joy, and so on. I just couldn’t put it down.


I’m going to be doing a proper review next week – stay tuned for that – but I want to let you all know now that Rising is being released TODAY. Go forth and buy – you won’t be disappointed!


Rising on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Book-1-Resistance-ebook/dp/B0079DJ3HC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329351740&sr=8-4

Rising on Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rising-book-1-laura-josephsen/1038667187?ean=2940013930056

Rising on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/132824

Rising on Amazon paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Book-1-Resistance/dp/1469904357/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329773440&sr=1-4

philosophy, writing

Rituals

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As Carl and I prepared our second pot of loose-leaf tea this morning, we started talking about how drinking tea really does help one get through the winter, which led me to musing about how it is the ritual involved in making tea (especially loose-leaf) that helps as much or even more than simply drinking a hot beverage.

Which led me to thinking about rituals in general, and how useful they are, and how in our quest to make life easier for ourselves, we have lost so many rituals that have helped us see and touch on the deeper meaning in life.

Tea, for one – the act of measuring the tea leaves, warming the pot, heating the water to the proper temperature, steeping for the prescribed time (and if you are fortunate enough to have a clear pot, watching the leaves expand as they steep), and then pouring the tea into your cup is far more work, true, than dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water, but the reward is so much greater.

Or cooking. Yes, it’s easier and quicker (and times when it’s all one can do) to tear open bags of frozen vegetables and frozen chicken, dump it all into a pot with canned tomato sauce and a can of chicken broth, but I know from experience that it is so much more satisfying to chop fresh vegetables myself, adding them to the pot one at a time, slice up the meat that I cooked myself, use fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce, and my own chicken stock. The ritual of preparing the food myself adds a depth of flavor that cannot come from anything else.

And I do realize that sometimes – often – it’s all one can do to do it the easy, quick way. Hey, I keep frozen vegetables in my freezer, tea bags in my cupboard. But if one can make something a ritual, by all means, do so.

I think that applies to writing, as well. I have one story I am attempting to write out longhand. It’s driving me distracted. My fingers (and wrists) have been long accustomed to typing: re-training them for long stretches of handwriting is torture. It takes longer, too – and to be perfectly honest, I just don’t have that time right now for writing all my stories by hand, first, and then typing them up. So I use the computer for most of my stories, saving only one out for writing by hand. I also keep a journal, so that by choosing (out of necessity) the quicker, easier, more practical path for writing, I don’t lose entirely the beauty of the ritual of pen scratching, ink flowing onto paper, hand creating what my mind sees, slowing down and enjoying the act of writing, as well as the result.

Books, fantasy, influences, writing

Influences: Susan Cooper

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Susan Cooper has been one of my favorite writers for oh, close to twenty years now, so I was delighted yesterday when looking over the list of ALA winners this year to see that she has been awarded the 2012 Edwards Award for The Dark Is Rising series. (Former winners include Gary Paulsen, Madeleine L’Engle, Lois Lowry, Orson Scott Card, and last year, Terry Pratchett.)

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when one of my older friends recommended Cooper to me, but I know I was young enough that Dad read through the books first, just to make sure there wasn’t going to be anything in them that would give me nightmares, and also so that he could talk with me about anything that might scare me in them (and why it was Dad who did that with these books, instead of Mom, I’m not exactly sure, because usually Mom was the one who did nightmare-screening for me – but it might have been when she was working, and didn’t have as much time, or it might simply have been that Dad thought they looked interesting). Dad liked the first one so much he read the rest of the series for his own enjoyment, not because he was worried for me. I think it’s the first series (but certainly not the last) that Dad and I both loved, instead of Mom and I. We also both loved the Arthurian connection – we’re kinda both geeks when it comes to King Arthur!

The curious thing, for a nightmare-prone kid like me, is that even though they were eerie and intense, they weren’t outright scary. I was certainly creeped out a few times during the reading of them (I think Greenwitch was the creepiest, for me), but not enough to trouble my dreams. I think because good, no matter how beleaguered or desperate, always triumphed in the end, even (and often especially) through the frailty and love of flawed human beings.

And Will. Short, stocky, serious Will, with the enormous loving family and the heavy burden he shouldered so ably. His friendships with Merriman, with Bran, with the Drew children, and within his own family all so different, and drawn so finely.

Merriman himself was my first introduction to a character who was both good and hard, who could be ruthless in his pursuit of the Light. The Light that burns, sometimes, that doesn’t have room for softness – now, of course, that idea is commonplace, but at the time, I’d never read anything that showed that goodness doesn’t always look good and can, in fact, sometimes look cruel, that looking at the big picture can sometimes mean the details get blurred.

Cooper is another of those writers whose books shaped not just my own writing, but my life. I really can’t think of what sort of a writer I would be today were it not for the richness and depth of her stories. She has written many books besides The Dark is Rising series, of course (I bought Victory! for my dad for his birthday a few years ago – another one that we both loved), and I’ve enjoyed almost all of them, but tDiR has a special place in my heart.

Not to mention, of course, that I hold her and Lloyd Alexander between them directly responsible for my love affair with Wales, that land of magic and mystery and heroism. Which makes me think – maybe this is the year for me to pull out my Welsh language materials that I’ve had for an embarrassingly long time and get to work teaching myself the language. Maybe I should teach it to Joy and Grace at the same time, we three can learn together!

Or not.

Life Talk

Thrills

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I follow USBSF (United States Bobsled & Skeleton Federation) on Twitter. For a few years when I was a teenager, my dad and I spent almost every winter’s weekend volunteering at various sporting events – mostly sliding (bobsled, luge, skeleton) in Lake Placid. I learned to love the sports then, especially skeleton. My favorite event was the one where I had the job of cleaning the sliders’ shoes before they went down the track – any debris attached to their spikes could interfere with their starting run, and slow them down or even throw them off. I was so nervous at first that I wasn’t going to do it properly, but I soon got the hang of it, and LOVED it – being there at the start with them, feeling all professional, like I was really an important part of things!

(Usually I got stuck with parking lot duty. Important, but boring.)

I even got to clean Jimmy Shea’s shoes that competition – now that’s not something everyone can say!

As you know, I’m a figure skater. But there is something thrilling about the sliding sports. One of my dreams is to someday go down a track on a skeleton sled. I’ve seen it with my own eyes – I’ve heard the whoosh of the runners biting into the ice – I’ve felt the excitement build at the start of the track as the sliders prepare themselves and then take off – I’ve been at the bottom when they come in, still buzzed from the adrenaline rush. And yes, I’ve seen enough crashes to know how dangerous it can be. I don’t really care. I still want to try someday, just once.

I remembered that again today when USBSF mentioned about the sleds sounding like bullets going down the track in St Moritz. I replied to them, saying I wanted to experience that someday. They said? Absolutely must try sometime!

I don’t look like your typical thrill-seeker, and there’s a lot of things I won’t try – I’m not even a big fan of roller coasters. But I don’t know, something about skeleton, it just makes me want to throw off my inhibitions and toss caution to the wind.

(I also want to do this someday, but both my father and husband panic every time I mention it –

photo courtesy of callaurbanski.com
– so I don’t talk about it much anymore.)
Do you have anything on your bucket list that seems out-of-character to people who know you? What do you think it says about us as people, our desire to seek thrills? If I ever do get that chance to ride a skeleton sled, who’s coming with me? It’ll be AWESOME!