April's Absolute Write Blog Chain Challenge

I love this month's challenge! It has two parts: First, describe one of your characters in 50 words or less. Second, have that character interview you! 

(Well done to the clever Orion from nonexistent books, who came up with this cute twist on the old interview.)

1. Character Description (in fifty words or less)

The Honourable Isabel Crawford is a penurious governess turned nineteenth-century sleuth. Charming when she wants to be, brutal when she must be, Isabel embodies the new woman of the Victorian Age: acerbic wit, sensible brolly, and a whole lot of moxie. Oh – and a two-shot derringer, tucked into her stocking.

That's what I'm talkin' about

 

2. Isabel interviews me, her Author.

I suppose you think you’re rather clever.

Uhm. Is that actually a question?

The scandalous death of both my parents, poverty, a menial job – that ridiculous Detective Inspector Dennehy. Really, the way you throw me into these situations at will – what are you thinking?

Well, people seem to enjoy reading it...

Is that a good enough reason to put me in constant danger? I’ll remind you that my family is English nobility, no matter that the gutter press may have it otherwise.

Oh, pish. You’ve survived so far. In fact, considering you’re “English nobility,” you’ve done better than I thought you would.

Hmph. Did you expect I would just curl up and whimper? We Crawfords are made of sterner stuff than that.

That’s the spirit!

Oh, don’t think you can flatter me now. I suppose you think you’ve a way with words, but let me tell you, I’d never read one of your novels. Your characters are ridiculous.

Ridiculous? Come on, that’s a bit extreme. Which of my characters is ridiculous?

Take that Miss Lydia Fyfe, for example. A common little trollop, and yet you have the young men falling over themselves for her. Not a chapter goes by before some idiot gentleman is making eyes at her.

Such as Detective Inspector Dennehy?

I wasn’t talking about him.

Well, you were talking about idiot gentlemen making eyes at Lydia Fyfe, so I assumed – 

Hah! The Inspector is not a gentleman.

Well, you should know. Hehehe.

(silence)

(silence)

Are you still there?

If you refuse to be civil, this discussion is over.

Sorry.

What I want to know is: when will my fortunes turn around?

Maybe they won’t. There’s no shame in being poor, you know.

Gracious – do you know anything about Victorian England?

Fine. How about, in the next book, you receive some sort of generous inheritance from a long-forgotten great aunt?

I’m listening...

Enough money to live in a comfortable style – rent a nice little cottage in, let’s say, St John’s Wood. 

No, I won’t live any further north than Bayswater Road.

Fine, a house in Mayfair. And you can have a staff of three.

I thought you said I was to live in a comfortable style. Five staff.

Four. That’s my final offer. And I’ll throw in a nice man.

(silence)

Anyone I’m acquainted with?

No; I know how much you detest all the men I’ve introduced you to so far. I’ll write a completely new man.

Oh. Well. That seems rather a waste of your writerly talents. I mean, perhaps we can tweak one of the existing fellows.  Make him a bit less, I don’t know, less rough about the edges.

Ah. 

Perhaps improve his station in life – give him a better career, that sort of thing.

Right.

But maybe not too smooth about the edges.

Alright. This is good; I feel like we’re making some headway. What shall we call this new novel?

Well, of course we’ll have to name it something to complement Unseemly Conduct and Unspeakable Acts.

Let me think: you come into money, move to St John’s Wood –

Mayfair.

...move to Mayfair, meet a charming man and have a nice life. How about we call it, Unbelievably Boring?

I see. There’s really no need to be like that.

Sorry. It’s just that no one is going to read a novel like that. Readers want tension, drama, obstacles to happiness, and all that jazz.

“Jazz”?

Sorry: all that stuff. If I give you a “Happily Ever After”, you know what comes next?

“The End”.

Right. And, just between you and me, I don’t think you’re ready for that.

Hmmm. Perhaps not.

So perhaps no mysterious old aunts kicking the bucket, just yet?

Kicking the bucket? You do have such a vulgar way of putting things.

And we’ll just keep Lydia Fyfe as she is?

I really couldn’t care less what you do with that girl.

And no smoothing Inspector Dennehy’s edges?

I have no idea why you should think I was referring to Victor Dennehy...

Sorry – my mistake. Well, I better get back to writing. I’ll see you in the second draft of Unspeakable Acts. 

Could I at least have a new hat for the sequel? The mushroom silk one has a tear in it.

I’ll see what I can do.

And perhaps I can get a superior gun? There have been several new developments in ballistics since my old derringer.

Er. I guess I’ll do some research.

Be sure that you do. Goodnight, Charlotte.

Goodnight, Isabel.

###

Hope you enjoyed meeting my lovely protagonist (or at least witnessing us argue!). While I wait for the surrealist police to come and cart me away, don't forget to check out the other participants in the April Blog Chain:

orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month's post)
Yoghurtelf - http://thefarseas.blogspot.com (link to this month's post)
COchick - http://joannchaney.blogspot.com (link to this month's post)
xcomplex - http://www.arielemerald.blogspot.com
pezie - http://www.erinbrambilla.com
aimeelaine - http://www.aimeelaine.com/blog
auburnassassin - http://clairegillian.com 

Della Odell - http://dellaodell.wordpress.com 

Juniper - http://www.katjuniper.com 

Proach - http://desstories.blogspot.com
allmyposts - http://becomingprince.blogspot.com
LadyMage - http://katherinegilraine.com
dolores haze - http://dianedooley.wordpress.com/ 

Things That Stop Me From Writing, or, How Will I Ever Get Finished?

My kittehs. They’re sooooo adorable, but sooooo distracting. Also they’re officially disturbed: one is a paper shredder, the other one climbs the curtains if I don’t pay attention to them.

The paper shredder...

...and the curtain climber. Don't be fooled, they're both evil.

My husband. Since the big earthquake, hubby’s been working from home. We don’t share an office, but boy are we good at distracting each other.  

Him: I’ve hit a roadblock with my article. 

Me: Bummer. Shall we walk down to the cafe for an espresso? 

Him: Deal.

(Repeat, several times a week)

Social Networking. Any time a new notification pops up on Facebook, Twitter. Because, you know, it might be interesting.

Writing Blog Posts. Heh. Ironic.

Reading Other People’s Blog Posts. Stop being so interesting, damn you!

Writers' Forums. Both a blessing and a curse. Occasionally I read a post that gives me a writing epiphany and I rush off to tap out another thousand words. But mostly I just weigh in on the important topics, such as arguments pro- and contra- the Oxford comma.

Hunger. I’ve officially come to hate lunch. Worst meal of the day. You can’t drink a gallon of coffee with it the way you can with breakfast; the food’s never as interesting as dinner; and apparently it’s not appropriate to accompany it with a glass of wine. Who makes up these rules, anyway?

Checking my word count. I must do this eight or nine times a day. First I check my cumulative word count. Then I check how many words I’ve written today. Then I use the calculator to figure out what percentage of my book I’ve written (this last one is particularly stupid, since I never know how long a book’s going to be until it’s finished).

Wikipedia. Seeing as I write in an era that even my grandparents didn’t see, I often need to fact-check. I start at Wiki because it provides me with a list of more reliable sources. The trouble is I often get bogged down in quagmire of interesting facts that makes up Wiki, and emerge several hours later to a house full of shredded paper and clawed-up curtains.

Robert Downey, Jr:

Enough said

Feel free to comment and add your own distractions to the list! Or to send me pictures of Robert Downey, Jr :)

Better late than never, or Better never than late?

Gentle reader,

There is a saying in German: Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige. It means “Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings,” and it was illustrated to me during the two years I lived in that lovely country. Germans tended to show up on time for, well, everything – and not, as some people would think, because they are a dull race of clock-watchers; rather, because they consider it the height of disrespect to keep others waiting.

In my own country, we adopt a far more laissez-faire attitude towards punctuality. Everyone is going to be late all the time, we reason, so who wants to get there first and be Nigel No-Mates until all the others turn up? (Of course, anyone can see the absurdity of taking this point to its logical conclusion: the first party-goer would show up three days late and have to play solitaire on his IPhone for a week before anyone else strolled in.)

However, the older I get, the more I appreciate the German attitude towards punctuality. It may be because the Teutonic respect for punctuality has rubbed off on me, but more likely it’s because I’m often the one left in the cafe, flipping through three-month-old magazines with coffee rings on them. 

He's late, he's late, for a very important date...

Of course, I don’t subscribe to the draconian idea that one should never be late. Naturally, life gets in the way now and then. And sometimes we really do get stuck in traffic/can’t find our car keys/receive a phone call just before leaving. 

A Journey of a Thousand Pages Begins With But a Single, Badly-Written Prologue...

Gentle Reader,

Last month I was invited to contribute as a guest blogger on The Writeaholic's Blog. The topic was The First Year Tally, and we writers were asked to identify the genesis of our, you know, writerness. In case you didn't catch it over at Writeaholic's, I thought I'd include my contribution today:

It was the Chinese philosopher Confucius who observed that “the journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step”. In my case, a journey of a thousand miles is more likely to begin with “forgetting to programme the address into the GPS”. I just don’t have much of a sense of direction.

Much the same can be said about my journey as a writer. I certainly never intended to meander down the writing road. Despite this, my childhood was characterised by scribbling: my first short story at age six was a farmyard saga in which a Rhode Island Red hen (named Big Mama Betty) hatched from one of her eggs a baby bull (tragedy struck when the farmer came over to investigate, and got a swift kick from the newborn). Encouraged by the success of these early efforts – it got a big red tick, and was subsequently stuck to the fridge door at home – at age ten I wrote a comic space opera. This featured the antics of the crew from the star ship Capewallader Cod – and no, I don’t know how I came up with that name. In fact, all I remember about the story was the opening scene, in which the ship’s captain awoke floating three feet above his bed because he’d forgotten to take his gravity pills. Gene Rodenberry, eat your heart out.

My starship would have had nicer drapes and an old-timey feel

As generally happens, life got in the way, and from age fifteen onwards, I probably wrote a grand totally of fifteen hundred creative words (despite what some of my grumpier professors may claim, I’m not counting University essays). Fifteen hundred words over some thirteen years amounts to a 115 words a year; about one-third of a word each day. I was not exactly slaving over a hot typewriter, Gentle Reader.

It wasn’t until 2007, when I lived in Germany, that the desire to write struck me again. To help my painfully slow progress in that delightful language, my husband (a native German speaker) would read me novels in the evening. One of these happened to be the translation of a suspense novel by a well known English-speaking author. Perhaps it was a poor translation, but I spent the entire story being irritated by the plot (in my eyes, tepid and predictable) the characters (wooden and clichéd), and the tone (saccharine and a bit preachy). Hell, I remember thinking, I could write a better novel than this. So I sat down to do exactly that.

I failed, of course. A year later, the plot of my newly-minted novel could only be described as tepid and predictable; the characters wooden and clichéd; and although the tone was neither saccharine nor preachy, I have to admit it did oscillate between ponderous and breathlessly-hysterical. But that, as our friend Confucius might say, is all part of the journey. Most of my writer friends (and yes, these days I feel I am advanced enough in writerdom to drop phrases like “my writer friends” into the conversation) view their first novel with a mixture of embarrassed affection and slight humiliation. If you, Gentle Reader, have written your first novel and it isn’t the literary equivalent of Jackass: the Movie, then you should celebrate: you’ve done better than about eighty percent of your counterparts.

But enough about you, Gentle Reader; let’s talk about me again. There I was, reading through my own shiny new novel manuscript, and all I could think was: Hell... I could write a better novel than this. And, with a dizzying sense of déjà vu, I sat down to do exactly that.

Except this time, it worked. After another eighteen months, I finished a novel which I deemed worthy of rejection by a prominent New York agent. Accordingly I sent off my query letter and the first three chapters, fully expecting a polite but firm no. And blow me down if my dream agent didn’t love the story! After reading through the whole manuscript, she offered me representation. 

And that, Gentle Reader, is where I am at the moment: still shaking my head at the journey so far, but desperately keen to see what’s around the next bend. Admittedly, much of the process for this novel is out of my hands for now, which is maddening. Whilst I would like to have a New Year’s Resolution of score a contract with a major publishing company, really the best thing I can do is to work on new projects in the meantime. Thankfully, my open-minded agent has embraced what I describe as “my trans-genre leanings”, and with her blessing I’m working on a satirical urban fantasy and a gothic Victorian thriller. 

As I mentioned, Gentle Reader, I never intended to meander down the writing road. But just look at what happens when you don’t use your GPS.

Ever a fan of reading the map upside down,

Yours,

Charlotte

Life Lessons from Ice Skating

Gentle Reader, 

One of my New Years resolutions was to start "doing more things”. I know – specific, right? What that meant was that 2011 should be the year when, instead of spending money on things, we’d start spending our money on experiences. 

So far we’ve been on a twilight cruise on the harbour (drinking wine and gawping at a cruise ship leaving port); tackling several long walks around our gorgeous area; and, on Saturday, we went skating at the local ice rink.

This, Gentle Reader, was a bolder step than it may appear. I’d not been on the ice for nigh on twenty years. Ah, you say, but it all comes back to you once you’re on the ice – it’s like riding a bicycle. 

Hah! This may be true for people who’d ever been good at ice-skating in the first place. I was never one of those children who whizzed around the ice with the self-assurance of those blessed with a low centre of gravity and a belief in their own immortality. I was the shy, insecure kind, who was likely to over-think the whole thing and end up like an upended turtle in the middle of the rink. My ice “skating” consisted more of “arm flailing, teetering and slamming into the wall in an attempt to stop myself”. Usually I’d put in about ten minutes before I tired of the whole thing and went to get a hot chocolate.

A bolder step than it may appear...

So I was, as you can imagine, fairly uncertain about the whole thing. But darn it, we had a coupon. In these recessionary times, throwing it away would be a sin.

So we presented ourselves at the ice rink, appropriately garbed in eight layers of clothes, gloves and scarves. There was a brief moment of anxiety when we entered the rink: the whole place had dimmed lights and some sort of coloured disco light effect. Decidedly teen-oriented music was blaring from the speaker system. Skaters half our age were zipping about the rink like pros. A group of tween-age girls were congregated in the middle of the vast expanse of ice, showing each other their moves (one was doing that twirly move that looks like it might be good for removing baked-on food from skillets).

Never mind: we steeled ourselves to the task. 

The next wobble came when we redeemed our chit for hire skates. The hire skates are strange beasts – they look like they’ve been carved out of plastic, and have all the style of wearing two blue buckets on ones feet. But beggars can’t be choosers. “Size mphmph please,” I told the lady, in a confident voice.

“Size what?”

“Ahem. Forty,” I whispered.

She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Show me one of your shoes.”

Meekly, I kicked of and handed her one of my sneakers, which she took in with a practised eye. “Size forty-two,” she announced grimly.

I nearly choked.

The worst part was, she was right – when I tried on the size forty-twos, they were snug. I attempted to block out the fact that she’d gone to the men’s rack to retrieve them.

Once we’d both put on our boots (and undone the knots the last users had – for some reason – left in the laces), we clomped about cheerfully for a bit, laughing merrily at the odd gait the boots forced us into. Then we visited the bathroom, seeing as the cold air in the rink was doing strange things to our bladders.

And finally, there was nothing else we could do. We had to go on the ice.

We squared our shoulders. We looked at one another. 

And we stepped onto the ice.

Oh, the hilarity. Oh, the windmilling of arms! Oh, the annoyed looks from more experienced skaters as they swerved neatly around us!

To be fair, Handsome Hubby was a lot better at it than me. He’s generally better at most things. (It’s one of the reasons I think he’ll have to wait longer to get into Heaven. No one likes a show-off.) 

We’d just managed an undignified robotic shuffle, when one of the staff zipped over to us, all shiny and irritatingly upright. “Can I help you at all?” he asked, all polite. “Do you need some tips?” I suppose they hire these people to make you feel that even differently-abled skaters are welcome at their establishment – although more likely he’s trying to avoid the rink’s insurance premiums going through the roof. 

It was at that point that I lost my balance and did that delightfully-elegant swoopy thing you do, in order to avoid landing on your butt on the ice. It involves over compensating the other way, and ending in a near-miss faceplant. “Fine,” I muttered, gazing up at him from knee-level. “How about some tips.”

So he did. And I’m sure they were good tips. Something about keeping your knees bent. Something else about walking like Charlie Chaplin.

But if he’d known me at all, he would have said this: Forget your dignity; you left that at the ticket office. Just go for it. Stop worrying about falling over – everyone falls over. Do whatever you can to make yourself go “wheeee!” 

But he didn’t. I had to discover that for myself. It took about ten minutes of windmill flailing and slamming into the wall. And suddenly I thought, well, this is dumb. I’m supposed to be having fun. And all I’m doing is worrying about not looking stupid, like some hipster teen. Why don’t I just try having fun?

And that was it: my epiphany. Why not just let myself go – and if that meant falling, so what? Falling didn’t equal failing – getting off the ice meant failing. 

Ironically, giving myself permission to fall suddenly seemed to give myself permission to succeed. I started doing it! I was gliding! I was easing around the corner! Heck, I was even manoeuvring around the guy who just upended in front of me!

Granted, I couldn’t do the spiral move or that crossover feet thing, but I was gliding about holding the hand of my Handsome Hubby! And sure, I was probably drifting along at the break-neck speed of 5km an hour, but heck, I was faster than the guy who fell over! Wheeeeee......

And because I can’t ever concentrate on the task at hand, I started musing about how ice skating is sort of a metaphor for life (bear with me here). Here’s what I came up with:

Life Lessons from Ice Skating

1. Stop worrying about looking silly. It’s holding you back.

2. Look after your knees, they’re pivotal (bom-tish). Or, as they guy from the 1990’s Sunscreen song points out “You’ll miss them when they’re gone.”

3. The faster you go, the bigger the spill. But who cares? You went faster!

4. Appropriate clothing is key. (I’ll admit some Life Lessons are more pragmatic than others)

5. It’s all a lot easier if you’re holding someone else’s hand.

6. If there’s no idiot grin plastered on your face, you’re not doing it right.

Go forth and ice skate, Gentle Reader – or whatever else it takes to freak you out! I myself have only two wishes: 1) that every weekend can be so epiphany-filled, and 2) that no one ever gives us a voucher for sky diving.

Channelling her inner Snow Queen,

Charlotte

Careful, You May Be Plagiarising God

Gentle Reader,

How many times have you quoted Bible Scriptures this week? You might be surprised. 

According to a recent book by linguist David Crystal, Christians and non-Christians alike could be unwittingly quoting the Bible when they invoke well-known but archaic phrases.

So profound has the effect of the King James Bible been on English, it seems, that a total of 257 phrases and forty new words were introduced thereby. This is in large part because the Bible was read aloud to churchgoers every Sunday, and may have been the only literature that the unschooled population had access to. Read the BBC article here.

Interesting stuff. Most of us can probably pull out a few phrases we know from the Bible (for example, my first novel attempt was called Sins of the Father, which is from the book of Exodus), but did you know about these ones:

Living off the fat of the land - Genesis 45:17-18

Like a lamb to the slaughter - Jeremiah 11:19 / Isaiah 53:7

Can a leopard change his spots? - Jeremiah 13:23

A man after my own heart - Samuel 13:14 / Acts 13:22

Letter of the law - 2 Corinthians 3:6

Apple of my eye - (I could have sworn Dean Martin came up with that one!) - Deuteronomy 2:10 / Zechariah 2:8

Twinkling of an eye  - 1 Corinthians 15:52

Out of the mouths of babes - Psalm 8:2

Bite the dust (even Freddie Mercury’s quoting the Bible) - Psalms 72: 9

At my wit's end - Psalm 107:27

Blind leading the blind - Matthew 15:14 / Luke 6:39

By the skin of our teeth - Job 19:20

(For a more comprehensive list, see Top 50 Most popular Phrases From The Bible)

So, Gentle Reader – when did you last quote Scriptures?

Feeling suddenly pious,

Charlotte

Recommended Daily Diet for a Victorian Mystery Writer

Gentle Reader, 

as any writer will tell you, mining one’s imagination for inspiration burns a heck of a lot of calories. So it stands to reason that a writer must fortify herself with good nourishing food.

This is especially true of the Victorian mystery writer, who spends a good deal of her time plunged in the depths of despair (and occasionally the depths of the Thames). What’s more, if she is to stand any chance of recreating the Victorian world on page, she must attempt to emulate it in real life – in all its ten-meals-a-day glory.

Therefore, for your edification, I present The Recommended Daily Diet for a Victorian Mystery Writer:**