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Thursday Thirteen (TT#57)

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Songs on my Playlist
I always love reading other people’s playlists because I nearly always come away with a new inspiration song to try out. I write to music, and each story has a theme song or three. :-) Some characters have their own theme too, or certain relationships. Since I’m deep in The Road to Shanhasson, book 2, “Gregar’s Book”, these songs are heavily on my mind.

1.Faith of the Heart by Susan Ashton, overall series theme song: Cause I’ve got faith of the heart I’m going where my heart will take me.

2.Kiss From A Rose by Seal, Shannari’s theme song: You became the light on the dark side of me.

3. Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams, Rhaekhar’s theme song: I would fight for you I’d lie for you Walk the wire for you Yeah, I’d die for you.

4. Behind the Crimson Door by H.I.M. Gregar’s theme song: Your love will be the death of me.

5. Secret by Heart, Gregar and Shannari’s theme song: We know it’s dangerous For us to be together How do we keep this secret.

6. Strong, Strong Wind by Heart, Rhaekhar and Shannari’s theme song for book 2: Now it would take a strong, strong wind To take me from your arms again.

7. Alone by Heart, Dharman’s theme song for book 3: You don’t know how long I’ve wanted To touch your lips and hold you tight.

8. I Didn’t Want to Need you by Heart, Shannari’s theme song

9. Desperado by the Eagles, book 3 theme song

10.What About Love by Heart

11. All for Love by Bryan Adams

12. Against All Odds by Phil Collins

13. Heartless by Heart

Any other similar songs you can recommend?

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It

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Beautiful Death Cover

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Whoa, doesn’t Deena do incredible gorgeous work? The new, different look of this cover is perfect, because this is an entirely different series and world from the rest of my work. Meet Isabella Thanatos, First Marshal of post-apocalyptic Athens.

The monsters know her as Beautiful Death.

Edited: Coming June 15, 2008 from Drollerie Press.

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At the Bottom of the Well

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

From The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron:

Art is an act of tuning in and dropping down the well. It is as though all the stories, painting, music, performances in the world live just under the surface of our normal consciousness. Like an underground river, they flow through us as a stream of ideas that we can tap down into. As artists, we drop down the well into that stream. p. 118

Years ago, I had someone discourage me from writing “in the zone.” I blogged about what the zone meant to me here, although my understanding has changed considerably since then. I deliberately and consciously gave up that rush of writing, the joy, the dream of just me and the story in the night. I slowed down and concentrated on structure and plot and characterization, all important skills I must develop as a growing writer. While my once sleek–and naive–midnight car sat along side the road, stripped, rusted and withering away under the blistering noonday sun.

Those of you who’ve read my blog since around 2005 know that I came really close to throwing in the towel. I lost that joy. I lost that sense of magic, the wonder and awe when something I included in the story purely by chance suddenly became a powerful and meaningful element to my theme. That magic was gone and I didn’t know how to get it back. Everything I touched was crap.

It took over a year, but the crawling, wounded bug that my butterfly had become finally soared with the completion of Beautiful Death, a story full of butterfly metaphors. Finishing that story put me back in my car driving on my silent, empty road at night. It was pretty rusty and beat up, but the poor old car did run. It ran enough to help me finish more stories. I used some of the craft I’d learned (while not managing to actually WRITE) and polished and edited several stories until finally, my sense of confidence had returned.

I didn’t realize that I was recovering my sense of connection (week 7) and my sense of strength (week 8 ) but that’s indeed what had happened over the past few years. I wrote and wrote some more, and my artist slowly recovered its voice. I began to write with authority. I refused to surrender my Story, my vision, no matter what that meant. However, I didn’t always have that sense of joy that I used to have. I chalked it up to innocence lost. My eyes had been opened, I couldn’t sleep any longer, and all I could do was keep moving, slow and painful as that might sometimes be.

I wasn’t always writing from the bottom of the Well.

After all, it’s rather scary in the Well. I might drown in all the darkness and emotional issues that wait down there. Only by knowing and accepting all of myself, all the emotions that I pretended I didn’t have for one reason or another, could I even find the Well. Sometimes I fell in the Well too suddenly and forced myself to face cold hard facts totally unrelated to writing. Those emotions sometimes bled into what I was writing, which was painful and scary, but also necessary. I didn’t understand why, but I knew it was important.

I go back to the positive affirmations:

My creativity heals myself and others. My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

So many things have become clearer. Now I understand why some characters and stories might have spoken more clearly to me than others. I know why I was haunted by some stories that had to be written. More importantly, now that I realize when I’m at the bottom of the Well and how I got there, I understand why Gregar is my Muse and always has been.

He lives in darkness, you see. He’s always known about the Well. With his ivory rahke gripped in his teeth, he’s been dragging me there by my throat.

Now what makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck is that accidental Well I wrote about years and years ago when Shannari faced a terrible choice (in a craptastic rough first draft of Road that shall never see the light of day again). No wonder she wanted to slide into the Well so badly.

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Fess Up Monday

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Although I’m struggling to still get up Dark & Early before work, I am getting up at least 3 days a week and getting a few hundred words before it’s time to head to the EDJ. Every hundred adds up, especially when I can add another few hundred at night. I had one huge day last week nearly 6K in one day *gulp!* but my average is slowly moving up to around 1K a day. I’d like to bump that up to 1.5K a day, though, so I can catch up with Sven. Gregar’s holding the ivory rahke to my throat, whispering Type faster, faster yet…

His book, The Road to Shanhasson, is up over 15K. Yeah, that surprises me. Here I feared that I wouldn’t have enough story to fill 90K and now… I’m making a mental tally of all the story I have to cover yet and I don’t know that I’ll make it.

This week, I’ll pull out my notes for his prequel and see if I can put together something that’s NEW that I can give away week by week in its entirety, without spoilers to the entire series, and won’t detract too much from my progress on the second book in the trilogy. Gregar’s a challenge to rein in, as I’ve hinted already. Covering his prequel and what drove him from his position as the most honored Death Rider — assassin — on the Plains to Khul’s second-status Blood without giving away his most secret heart’s desire will be quite the challenge.

I’m starting to get antsy about a contest I entered Letters in, too. I’m expecting to see a list of finalists any day, now, and if the miracle happens… My revisions aren’t finished. A final would definitely light a fire under my ass, though, so I could whip out the last few thousand I’m planning to expand that work.

It’s the last week of March. What do you hope to accomplish before you have to flip the page over to April?

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Happy Easter

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I didn’t have time to look for a cute Easter graphic today. The Easter Bunny left Enchanted for the monsters and of course stuffed and chocolate bunnies. Now we’re off to church to remember the REAL reason for Easter.

Happy Easter, everyone!

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Friday Snippet – The Rose of Shanhasson

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’ll do one last snippet from Rose. Unfortunately, I can’t share snippets from what I’m writing now (book 2, The Road to Shanhasson) without giving spoilers to the first book in the series. I do have an idea for a prequel starring Gregar that I might work on and share as I write it. Are you sick of me talking about him yet? :D

Seriously, he is my Muse. He haunts me. To be perfectly honest, he often scares me. He has no limits, and he’s a bit of a masochist as you’ll see in this snippet about 1/3 of the way into Rose.

Setup: On the ride to the Plains, Shannari’s thrashing wakes Rhaekhar up in the middle of the night. No longer breathing and unable to awaken, she’s trapped in a nightmare of Shadow.

“How can I help her?”

Gregar tucked his ivory rahke into her hand. “She needs a weapon. And she needs to bleed.”

“Nay,” Rhaekhar whispered, his entire body shaking.

“It is best if you do it, Khul.” Gregar met his gaze. His mouth twisted in that trademark smirk, but agony glittered in his dark eyes. “I would draw too much.”

She went rigid, her body vibrating from head to toe.

“Hurry, Khul.” Gregar’s voice softened and a dreamy peace smoothed the pain from his face. He cradled her hand gripping the rahke in both of his palms and lifted the blade to his chest. “A little blood will be sufficient.”

Silently, Varne offered his rahke. Rhaekhar shook his head. “Mine.”

Another Blood appeared beside them, Khul’s rahke in his hand. Rhaekhar took his rahke and lifted the wickedly sharp edge to her fragile skin. He chose the scar over her heart, the scar he wished to obliterate. Closing his eyes, he whispered a quick prayer, and then made a small incision.

Light blinded him. For a moment, he couldn’t tell where it came from. The ivory rahke in her hand glowed like a captured star, shining in the night like a beacon. In the many years he had called Gregar friend, Rhaekhar had never seen such a marvel.

Shannari took a long, shuddering breath. Her eyes flew open. And with a low, vicious cry, she buried the rahke in Gregar’s chest.

#

The dark-haired Blood with the wicked smile fell forward slowly, the knife in his chest still in her hand. Horrified, Shannari tried to pull back, but his hands gripped hers in a vise, pressing the blade deeper.

He fell on her, staring into her eyes. No surprise, no reprisals, no pain. His gaze was heavy lidded, smoldering with desire, pleasure, raw hunger, death. Blood gushed from the wound, searing her skin.

“Thank you,” Gregar whispered, his voice thick. “You honor me.”

One of the other Blood she didn’t know gently lifted his weight from her and lay him on the ground beside her. Gregar never took his gaze from hers, even as the blade slid out of his flesh. No pain flashed in his dark gleaming eyes.

His chest glowed like the knife in her hand. Light pulsed in the wound, a liquid rainbow flashing in the night. Before her eyes, the wound closed until only a scar remained. A scar over his heart to match hers.

“Oh, Lady, I didn’t mean to

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Thursday Thirteen (TT#56)

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Creative Affirmations
I’ve been reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and I really feel like some of my creative mo-jo is coming back. I wasn’t blocked, exactly, but I wasn’t nurturing my artist. I was on the slippery slope downward. Now, I write my Morning Pages and read positive affirmations every day. These are 13 that she recommends in the book that really spoke to me personally.

1. I am a channel for God’s creativity and my work comes to good.

2. My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.

3. As I create and listen, I will be led.

4. Creativity is the creator’s will for me.

5. My creativity heals myself and others.

6. I am allowed to nurture my artist.

7. Through the use of my creativity, I serve God.

8. My creativity always leads me to truth and love.

9. I am willing to let God create through me.

10. I am willing to be of service through my creativity.

11. There is a divine plan of goodness for my work.

12. My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

13. I am willing to create.

What positive affirmations do you use?

[I’m running a Book Giveaway this week but will NOT include Thursday Thirteeners in the drawing unless you voluntarily comment on the main giveaway announcement here.]

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It