Lea Ryan

This is from my friend, Lea Ryan, whose book, Pestilence Rising, is available on Smashwords and Amazon.

I beta read her book, and loved it. It's that simple.

http://authorlearyan.wordpress.com/

"The idea for Pestilence Rising started out as a simple one - two brothers. One can heal. One causes sickness.

As I made notes for the book, it became more than that. I can't remember how the God elements snuck in, but they did. The story ended up becoming this mix of people with superhuman abilities, a cult, a guardian angel and an agency devoted to keeping all the madness in check.

Each of these forces has some kind of stake in the choices the main character, Hunter, makes. They push him to work toward their own ends. And in order for him to choose a path, he basically has to become a different person. Who he is at the beginning of the story is almost incapable of functioning in regular society, let alone deciding what his destiny should be."

http://www.amazon.com/Pestilence-Rising-ebook/dp/B00F9XK1M0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381365450&sr=8-1&keywords=pestilence+rising

My thoughts on my book...

I would like to think that Charlie, or Tales of Phallusy (as I have officially dubbed it) is a tongue-in-cheek homage, a sarcastic salute, to fantasy.

I've always been a fan of fantasy, and it's pretty much the only genre I read. I love how anything goes, there are no boundaries, or, at least, there could be no boundaries, but there are, in most cases, and they're the ones that are set out by a non communicative vote. Things like, everyone being impossible beautiful, or incredible fighters with little training, or really strong in magic. If done well, it's great, but sometimes I just thought, "hmmm, really?"

My mother has said to me numerous times that writers write what they want to read. I'm not sure how valid this is for most of them, but for me, it's true. I've found that I'm most comfortable writing comedy, dark stuff, and most of all, magical stuff. I grew up reading Terry Pratchett, Phillip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones and various others, so it makes sense.

Charlie came about as an idea, just a small one that I had in 2009 and wrote down. It only said something like "Girl, beautiful and smart, been kidnapped and is stuck in an inn, making sarcastic comments."

Then she sat on my hard drive for a year, until I was reading through my work, and thought about putting her into this scenario I had bobbing about in my head. It worked and from then on I couldn't stop writing. That scene was cataclysmic for the development of the story. I wrote about 240,000 words in ten months, and that's with losing between 18,000 and 25,000 words when my hard drive broke (moral of the story, always back up).

Through various people, including my mother and the people at Warrington Wire Writers Group, I decided that it would be better if I split it in half. There was a natural break after about 100,000 words, and I'd thought to finish the book there when I was writing it, but had carried on. I'd always planned on writing two books, but now there might be three.

When writing I didn't really think about themes or what I was trying to say with this book. I just wrote. Now, having time to analyse it, and look at other materials I've written, I suppose there is a consistent theme about domination, especially over women. But at the time of writing, I was mostly, and crudely, thinking, "hur hur, big penis"...I know, I'm very sophisticated.

I didn't want this to fall into a typical fantasy book, because although I love them, I also hate them. I sort of wanted this book to acknowledge them, but put its own twist on things. It's always pointed out to me that I'm contrary. I can't help it.

I know that I love my book, and I love reading it. I hope other people do too.

Front Cover

This is what I'm thinking will be the front cover for "Pure Phallusy".

It couldn't have been done without Lyra, Jessica and Justine, who all had a hand in it, Lyra especially, with her magical artistry. Thanks to my other beta readers Colin, Lea and Sian for honest opinions.

Adjectives

I've been thinking a lot about adjectives and adverbs recently. I've been asked to read some work by two friends, and their two separate stories, and I find that I am just reading repetitions of words, fighting my way through endless adverbs and adjectives. It makes it really hard going, and really hard to dig underneath and find out what the story is actually trying to say, or what is actually happening.

Now, I use adjectives, as is clear, but do I use them too much? Am I a literary hypocrite?

I know that when I was 18 years old, I used a lot of adjectives, and I mean a lot. That was on my first book (may it remain hidden for ever more). With Charlie, or rather, Pure Phallusy, I used less in my first draft, I know I did, but I was still really harshly edited by my mum.

Seriously, whoever thinks that you cannot be edited by friends or family, think again. My mum is awesome, honest, and super mean. In a good way, but still, super mean. I'm not being biased with that either, just telling the truth. It was red line after red line, question mark after question mark, but, despite being dismayed, I knew she was right. That was the main thing that got me, I knew she was right. And in knowing that, I improved.

The next time we spoke, a week or so after I had my manuscript back, I was having to comfort her, and tell her it was all right, and that I wasn't upset or angry or hurt (hardly, anyway). She was the one upset, thinking she'd been too hard and clinical on me, and I was saying all the soothing, ego boosting things.

I know that since then, my writing has improved. I know it. I might not be a best seller, I might not have won any competitions or published any work (yet), but I know I am a far better writer for that criticism.

I attended a creative writing course a few times, and the teacher abhorred descriptions like "blond hair, blue eyes" etc, and he's passed that on to me somewhat.

So, coming back from my little digression, I've been reading my friend's work, and that's what I'm getting, "golden hair, emerald eyes, sable hair, sapphire eyes, silken skin, tiny waist, delicate hands"...And I don't know whether I'm just being a grump, or whether it could be improved.

Now, because of the efforts my mum and my creative writing teacher put in, I automatically snip out those sort of words, leaving a few in. If they were highlighted in another colour, I'd like to think there wouldn't be that many per page. Although, to test it out, I should really try it. But I'm not going to, because I've just spent three days doing that to some work, and it has utterly exhausted me.

Anyway, I do this automatically, because I'm not really very good when it comes to actually dictating the rules I know about writing, because writing is, for me, more about the feel of things. I feel when the sentence is too laboured, and the words don't fit. I'm not perfect though, which is why I need beta readers, but still, I do my writing by what my heart is telling me.

But, I think that one has to be a little accepting of being edited, and I was. The rules weren't laid out to me, but that's fine, because I didn't need them. Some people need them, and I think my friends are two of them, so I had to try and find someone much more intelligent than me to explain it to them, which is how I stumbled across this little gem.

http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/write-first-chapter-get-started/nobles-writing-blunders-excerpt

Despite what he says above, do too many adjectives make a piece of writing gratuitous? Or is it just good use of the language?

I think for me, it's definitely the former, rather than the latter.

Progress

Life is interesting at the moment.

So, the book is coming along nicely. I've gone from having a working title (Charlie), to a title that didn't fit (Begad! They made me blush!), to a title I am now very happy with, Pure Phallusy.

I've also written the blurb to go on the ebook;

    “No, it wasn’t a dream, unless I was really sick and twisted in the head.”

    Unsurprisingly, when you get kidnapped and whisked away to bizarre magical lands, things aren’t going too well. Add to that the threat of evil, multi-world dominion, a very determined secondary kidnapper (who wants to capture you from the primary kidnappers), meddling Gods and demons, and the off chance that you might fall in love in a truly awful Stockholm syndrome sort of way, and, well, you have a problem. Or rather, Charlie has a problem.

    Charlie would like to think that she handles most things with ease, that she doesn’t fall into the classic ‘helpless, beautiful, damsel in distress’ stereotype, but when there’s a humanoid penis chasing after her, intent on making her his ‘wife’, she’s willing to run and scream with the best of them. After laughing first, of course.

    Thing is, every rose has a thorn, every light casts a shadow, and for good, there is evil. There is a larger picture to see, beyond Charlie’s troubles, and unfortunately for her, she’s too embroiled within them to leave.

    Unless Charlie can find her light, and understand that her own problems are part of a greater threat, darkness will prevail.

I wanted to write a blurb that not only reflected the silly, comedic aspect of the book, which is quite strong, but also the dark side, which remains dormant, on a personal level, until close to midway in the book. I've run it past my beta reader and now friend, Lea, and she says not to change a thing with it.

I will admit that I'm surprised she said that, because this is only the first draft of the blurb, which is almost the most important thing about a book. Either I got lucky when writing it, or my skills as a writer are improving...

Now to buy lottery tickets to the Euro millions!

So, pretty happy that my idea to give myself some sort of a time frame is working. I've also managed to figure out the problem with one of my characters into something that is a lot more satisfactory. It's interesting, because now he'll have a lot more of a part to play further along in the book, so although I'd hoped to have the book ready very shortly, I'm finding that I'm wanting to add more chapters, or pieces in, from this characters perspective. And now I'm really looking forwards to writing him.


My beta readers weren't always happy with him, and his role. I mean, it sort of worked, but it didn't have any sort of strength. Not like my other characters (their words, not mine). I ran my new rewrite of his chapter along with my plans for him past one beta reader and friend, Colin, and he  liked it very much.

I have an idea for the cover now too, something that will make a sort of brand that will fit the next two books in the trilogy. I'm still working on the details, and working with an artist about them, but things are looking promising on that front.

I'm now good with the titles for the books. I always knew what the second was going to be, and I hadn't thought about the third much since it isn't written yet, but the first really was difficult. I did some brainstorming, which was how the third title popped up into my psyche, and suddenly Pure Phallusy popped in too. I don't know how I didn't think of it before, because it seems so simple and obvious. Never mind.

Aside from that, I'm halfway through my second to last edit, and my laptop is broken. Luckily nothing is lost, and I managed to get it all on my external hard drive before my laptop really threw a tantrum and blacked out. At least I can still use the boyfriend's netbook, or the grumpy old computer...

Lots more research to do, editing to work on, and things to think about.

First blog

So, this is my first blog, and at the moment, I don't think there's much to say. I'm not a comfortable blogger anyhow. Perhaps it will come with practise but who knows.

For anyone that is interested, I have created this because I am about to publish my first book on Amazon. I know that to be successful, one has to be part of the internet, like some sort of web-android thing.

Ok, so, book. At the moment I am doing last minute things, and putting myself under pressure to do them within the next week or two, because I need some sort of deadline. It's working too, because two days ago I still didn't have a title, and now I do, and I'm working on the blurb. I need to design a cover for the book, but I'm on it, I think.

So book one is now going to be called Pure Phallusy. I still need a name for the series, well, trilogy, as it stands, and don't know whether to just call the whole series Pure Phallusy, or whether it should be something like, The Adventures of Charlie etc etc etc, which is a little dull.

I still have some last checks to do on the manuscript before I format it properly to be put up on Amazon, but I'm not expecting much of a problem.

So, best get to it...