This is quite the Wednesday! Not only is it the first Wednesday of the month (time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop), it's also April 2nd, which means it's time for letter B in the AtoZ blogging challenge. I couldn't figure out how to meld the two of these, so you get them both:
This is a pretty new series. Black Sun was a finalist for all the big specfic awards in 2020 and Mirrored Heavens just came out last year. It's an epic fantasy story that pulls from Native American mythologies in the world-building. The main two characters are Serapio, the Crow God incarnate, and Xiala (pronounced SHE-ah-lah), a Teek woman.
The Teek in this series are a matriarchal society renowned for their song, which can be used to magically influence and control others. The Teek put me in mind of Sirens, Mermaids, and Banshees, among other dangerous song-women of world mythologies, with a touch of Amazons, too.
Throughout the book, we learn a lot about the people and what other kinds of people believe about them. I won't spoil it for you by giving too much detail here, but it's fascinating! In fact, the world-building alone is well worth the price of admission in this series.
If I recall correctly, Xiala is in jail when we meet her at the beginning of book one because she assaulted a husband who walked in on her and his wife when they were "getting busy." She's a hard-drinking foul-mouthed, "live life to the fullest" woman, exiled from her people for reasons you don't learn until later. She's magical, and on a journey of self-discovery through a life of piracy, debauchery, and alcoholism.
Here's some images of her as imagined by Peri Celeste:
I probably couldn't keep up with her at the bar, but maybe I could get away with sipping my whiskey slowly while she pounds it back and listen with rapt fascination to her stories, both the true ones and the exaggerations. And if I had to go on a quest, she'd make a powerful ally. As for fighting her? No way. I value my life higher than that.
Now, would she want to hang out with me? I dunno. Maybe if I promised to immortalize her in story and song, she'd put up with a physically week, lightweight drinker for a while. One can dream!
Blogging from A to Z April Challenge:
B is for Bidi Bidi Bom Bom
So, if you tuned in yesterday for my Songs of my Heart post, you heard Aha Me a Riddle I Day, by Laura Love. I swear not all the songs I picked have a seemingly nonsense phrase for the title. It's just a coincidence of the alphabet that these two are in a row.
For others visiting my blog, this is a fun challenge, where we all post
26 times in April, one time for each letter of the alphabet, often on a
theme. I hope you'll check out some of the other participating blogs!
Selena Quintanilla Perez was the Queen of Tejano music in the early 1990s, right as I was moving into adulthood and becoming a Spanish teacher. As a person who didn't grow up speaking Spanish, but learned it in classrooms, music was often really hard for me to understand--definitely harder than spoken Spanish. But I could do pretty well with Selena. And it didn't hurt that she recorded some serious bops!
I still remember dancing to this one in my classroom with my students in Nome, Alaska and laughing until we cried.
If Selena had not died tragically young (she was killed by the president of her fan club), she and I would be of an age, so she's special to me for that reason, too.
Lyrics in Spanish from azlyrics and in English from lyricstranslate. (Bidi bidi bom bom doesn't exactly mean anything--it's just sort of sounds, representing the heartbeat, so it's the same in both versions)
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Cada vez, cada vez que lo veo pasar
Mi corazon se enloquece
Y me empieza a palpitar
Y se emociona, ya no razona
No lo puedo controlar
Y se emociona, ya no razona
Y me empieza a cantar
Me canta asi
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Cada vez, cada vez que lo oigo hablar
Me tiemblan hasta las piernas
Y el corazon igual
Bidi bidi bom bom
Y se emociona, ya no razona
No lo puedo controlar
Y se emociona, ya no razona
Y me empieza a cantar
Me canta asi
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Cuando escucho esta canción
Mi corazon quiere cantar así
Me canta así, me canta a ti
Cada vez que lo veo pasar
Mi corazon se enloquece
Cada vez que lo veo pasar
Y me empieza a palpitar
Así, así
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Me canta asi, me canta a ti
Cada vez que lo veo pasar
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Every time, Every time I see him pass
My heart goes crazy
And it starts to beat
And it get excited, It doesn't reason anymore
I can't control it
And it get excited,It doesn't reason anymore
and it starts to sing to me
It sings to me like this
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Every time, Every time I hear him speak
My legs tremble
And my heart too
Bidi bidi bom bom
And it get excited, It doesn't reason anymore
I can't control it
And it get excited,It doesn't reason anymore
and it starts to sing to me
It sings to me like this
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
When I hear this song
My heart wants to sing like this
It sings to me like this, I sing to you
Every time, Every time I see him pass
My heart goes crazy
Every time I see him pass
And it starts to beat
Like this, like this
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
It sings to me like this, I sing to you
Every time I see him pass
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom
Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge #AtoZChallenge a-to-zchallenge.com
Hi there AtoZ-ers! It's been a few years since I've played along with this blog hop and I'm really looking forward to it. My theme this year is Songs in my Heart. Each day, I'll feature a song that means something to me personally along with some thoughts about it.
For others visiting my blog, this is a fun challenge, where we all post 26 times in April, one time for each letter of the alphabet, often on a theme. I hope you'll check out some of the other participating blogs!
I discovered Laura Love by accident. I was at graduate school in Middlebury, Vermont with my then-toddler daughter and we attended a summer festival. Just so happens, we were there when Laura Love was performing and my daughter LIT UP when she heard this song. Danced her little feet off!
So of course, we bought the CD (because that's how you bought music back then). I really love the mix of different folk traditions that Love blends into something uniquely her own. It's not a song that makes sense on a surface level, but still connects to something emotional. Sometimes, "I should have a chat with me," too.
Okay, I'm deciding kind of late to do this, and that's probably kind of dumb, given how much I have on my plate, but it's been a few years since I participated in A to Z, and I want to, darn it, so I'm going to.
For those new to the game, in April we write a blog post for every day of the month excepting Sundays, which makes for 26 blog posts, one for each letter of the alphabet. You can do what you want with it, but I like to choose a theme.
The first time I played in 2014, I chose "evocative words" as my theme, because I'm a word nerd that way.
So, I'm happy to be back to this again. It gives me a great excuse to explore a theme that makes me happy in more detail.
This year (drumroll please), I'm going to do a song of the day. My eldest daughter has been sending me a SOTD text each day for a little while and I LOVE IT. So, each day I'll post a video of a song I like or that has personal meaning for me with a few thoughts about why. So, come by and play along in April, and see what Samantha's internal playlist is like. Maybe you'll find a new song or artist to love.
Welcome
to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the
writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the
links at the bottom of this post.
Do you suffer from Automation anxiety? (the fear that advancements in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, will lead to widespread job losses, rendering people's skills obsolete and potentially leaving them unemployed, causing significant worry and stress about the future of work.)
_________________
I've lived my entire life in a time of rapid changes in technology.
For example, in my short 50ish years on planet earth, there's been shift after shift in how I listen to music. When I was a child, we listened to the radio in the car and the radio or Mom's 45 records in the house. When I was a little older we got an 8-track player and thought we were so fancy. I was one spoiled kid when I got a transistor radio I could dangle off my bicycle handle bars to have music while I cruised the neighborhood.
By the time I was a teenager, we'd moved to cassette tapes and I had a boom box of my own as well as a walkman, portable music player with headphones. We got the fancy boom box with two tape decks so you could copy from one tape to another to make mix tapes and record music off the radio to listen to on demand. Eventually, I had a tapedeck in my car.
Later, we did the same thing but on CDs, learning to "rip" and "burn" music before it was easy to download it. A fancy car music system could handle both CDs and cassette tapes.
Then I got an iPod when they were new. So, what's that now? Six or seven different technologies just to listen to music? And all of that before I was 25 years old. We hadn't even gotten to streaming services yet.
It's natural to feel nervous about new technologies. They come with good and bad things intermixed, and someone will always try to use them to circumvent fair play and "get away" with something. It's also true that new technologies do result in changes to the job market. We're seeing that with AI already, but we're also quickly finding the limits of what the latest and greatest technologies can do. It's an industry in its infancy, and the ethics haven't been established…and about the time they are, something new will have come along.
So, all that is a longwinded way to say, "No."
I don't expend a great deal of energy worrying about AI. I try to learn enough about it to steer clear of the worst uses and take advantage of any helpful uses. I don't really believe that AI -written books and stories are going to replace human creation. It's even less likely that they can be safely relied on in business settings, where accuracy of information and subtleties of tone are so important.
There have always been scammers, cheaters, and liars, and there always will be. It's not the technology's fault. I'll just keep on creating in the ways that work for me, and try to stay abreast of new technologies well enough to be able to communicate with younger folks.
Welcome
to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the
writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the
links at the bottom of this post.
Discuss:
"Write the book you want to rewrite—because most of writing is
revising! Don’t agonize over every word in a first draft; that will only
slow you down. Just write the story. Get it onto the page. Drafting is
the stage where you capture the idea. Revising is where you figure out
how to really tell the story well." -Beth Kander, author of I Made It
Out of Clay _________________
Revision works differently for everyone. Heck, I feel like it works differently for me depending on the project. Never the same game twice.
This quote from Beth Kander sounds to me like it's advocating for what I've heard termed the "vomit draft" or "garbage draft" where you write a complete draft without letting yourself go back and revise while you're still drafting. I have quite a few writer friends and critique partners who swear by this technique.
It doesn't work for me though.
I'm more of an iterative writer, working in loops. As we've discussed here before, I'm a discovery writer, or a pantser, which means I'm not working from an outline of any sort, but just following my writing where it takes me and shaping it into an effective narrative throughout the drafts.
I write linearly for the most part, most of the time, but if I hit upon an idea that will significantly change the rest of the book, I've got a decision to make: fix it now or later.
Fix it later: Sometimes, I just pop a comment or a note into the document to remind future me to go back and change something later. That's usually if it's small and won't have a huge effect on the story, but is important to address for continuity. Something like changing a detail about a character like their name, appearance, etc. Or adding a bit that will change a particular moment in the plot, but won't spillover into the whole thing.
Fix it now: On the other hand, if it's a bigger change where it feels like it's harder to predict how that will affect the larger narrative, I might not be able to move on until I've figured out how that changes what I've already written. It all builds after all, and if this significantly alters a character, it might affect other choices they've made in the narrative and take the whole story in a new directions. So, I need to go back to the beginning and pull that thread through before I move forward again.
Now, that said, I definitely agree that, especially for a book-length work, it's important that you're invested enough in the idea to be really dedicated, because you are going to be living in that imaginary world for months, maybe even years.
It took me ten years to write the entirety of the Menopausal Superheroes series from the first page to the final "The End" and I couldn't have stayed with it without true passion about the story and the characters. It's a real commitment!
Usually, by the time I'm ready to send a book off to a publisher for consideration, it's been through three or four of those weird looping drafts I do my own, plus one or two rounds of revision based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers.
If a publisher accepts it, then it will go through at least two more rounds of revision based on editorial and proofreading feedback. Then, there's the final "spit and polish" read through in hopes of catching any little errors that made it through all of that uncorrected. By my count, that's at least eight rounds of revisions--and that's when the process goes relatively smoothly.
I have one published novel (the third in my series: Face the Change) that went through a revise and resubmit process because I tried to rush it and what I sent the first time wasn't really ready. So, that was the whole process over again. Whew!
It's definitely a lot. But I actually enjoy revision. It can be very satisfying in the same way that reorganizing a closet or spring cleaning is--you see the difference it makes and you know that life will be better now because you made the effort.
Welcome
to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's
time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop.
If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog
hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy,
ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek
behind the curtain of a writing life.
March 5 question - If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.
__________________________________________
What a fun question this month! So many possibilities.
Should I be a dog? A bird? A whale? I've often wondered what it would be like to be any number of animals. To be able to fly, or swim, or leap with their abilities. I wonder if it would be like Selkie stories, though, where there's some danger I'll forget who I used to be and just remain forever in my animal form. Then again, maybe that could be amazing.
It could be cool to be a man for a minute. To see what all this business is like from that point of view. Maybe it would help me understand what's going on with some of the males in my life…or maybe it would be more like trying to drive an unfamiliar vehicle. Maybe I'd need more than one day to try this one out.
Is one day long enough to wreak havoc in the life of one of the bigwigs in my country? How quickly could I dismantle a financial empire and turn the money to uses I believe in instead? Avoiding names, but could I take over RichDude's life for a day and fund every GoFundMe out there, give scholarships galore, spoil scientists and librarians with resources, and fund every food scarcity charity in the country for the foreseeable future? I bet my signing hand would hurt by then end of day, and boy howdy, would RichDude be in for a surprise when he took his life back over.
Welcome
to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the
writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the
links at the bottom of this post.
If you had to become one of your characters, which ones would you choose? ______________________
Oh my.
A lot of my characters live some pretty dramatic lives. They've been through things, you know? And that makes good story fodder. But I, myself, have a lovely quiet little life that is mostly low drama and I'd really like to keep it that way.
So, I don't think I'd want to be any of my Menopausal Superheroes
I don't think I'd like to take over for any of my horror characters either. They have to work too hard to survive…and some of them, um, don't.
So, I guess my best hope lies in my current Works-in-Progress: a trio of romance novellas.
Mandy, the graphic designer returning to her hometown in Never Too Late (out for Beta reading)
Abby, the punk band musician finding love while she faces the loss of her best friend in Acid Reign (with my critique partners now)
Bekah, the single-mom veterinarian facing an empty nest in the third, not yet titled novella I'm still drafting.
These are all smart, capable women in their fifties, who are all about to find love in unexpected places. I'm really enjoying writing these un-apologetically optimistic stories, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to find myself in one of their lives if I couldn't keep living the one I have now.
