Haus of Rhi

My struggles with this current writing project have led me on an artistic journey the past few weeks. They've ranged from wood-burning projects to metaphysical reinforcements. It doesn't feel as though the creative energy is lacking this time. It is simply this powerful subject matter leaves me struggling with how best to evoke the emotions and response from the reader audience that I intend. Part of that is parsing free just what I intend. There are many times when I don't know for sure. Sandalwood malas. I think it's safe to say that each of us lives in a society or culture that has a number of forms of acceptable violence and aggression. It's called any number of things; discipline, punishment, a tradition of hazing, tenderizing the fresh meat. And really, it's a failure to communicate, right? Communication is a two-way channel along which we give and receive information. Transmission and reception; both parts carry equal import. Without it, frustration...

I am melancholy this evening. It grew from a mellow mood this morning when circumstances reminded me of the date. Silly mundane things like paying bills and doing my duty at the dayjob brought it to my attention. Today marked the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu. Shughart and Gordon will never be unseated from their Throne of Badassery, at least not in my mind. A toast of blood from a writer's cluttered workspace. I spent much of my mental energy today recognizing all the small things, all the privileges, that are encompassed by living, and growing old, that are largely taken for granted. Be they irritations, or the flaring light of sunset, or the thousand shades of sunset as fall colors blush to life in a tree. Or Mike, who's learned a new trick of rolling over and now flops on the floor like a dead fish, without prompting, at the merest scent of bacon treats. And so I am melancholy, though grateful, and offer up a toast of blood (Bull's Blood, m...

There haven't been many instances for me to catch actual butterflies in the garden. There were three of them, the other day. All adults, two of them with colors so faded and wings so damaged and battered that I was astounded they were still flying. The one I recognized from a few days prior; that time, though, it had been alone. Guess it loved the bush so much it came back and brought its buddies. Took these with a faster shutter speed and the auto-focus function engaged (the default "sports" setting on my camera) because I'm terrible at gauging these sorts of things. It reminds me of when I was young and my parents would give me their camera to take family and group photos. It was an old Kodak, 39mm with a five inch manual lens. And I was a myopic adolescent without corrective lenses. Suffice it to say the photos were always blurry and messed up. "I can't tell if the camera is focused or not." It was one of the more supremely frustrat...

I'm not a terribly avid or educated gardener. Evidence of such: a few years ago I trimmed back the juniper outside my front door--and chopped off ALL the aged berries in the process. They ended up in the trash with the rest of the yard debris. I didn't know what they were until about six months later when I was looking for a way to use juniper in a natural herbal mixture for a very specific application. I was suitably horrified. Those berries take three years to form and mature. I'm hoping for my first crop later this fall. Most of the other plants in the ground at Haus of Rhi have been foisted upon me by the matriarchal Master Gardener among my close relations. Among that number are: a T-Rex variant hosta with these gigantic leaves that gets the daintiest little lavender flowers later in the year; a butterfly bush that has started to rival my juniper and cypress bushes for girth and height; and the most recent addition last fall, a deciduous bigleaf hydrangea that I cra...

The sun was actually out the other day. Not in that dreary-gray winter sky overcast sort of way, but like that new neighbor who seems fascinating and friendly at first and quickly becomes annoying with the late partying and still managing to be up at the ass-crack of dawn on your days off. As though the sun's giving fair warning that we'll be sick to death of it in six months. However, it's winter right now (though the thermometer totally had me fooled today) and so when the sun was out, I opened all the curtains and let it come streaming through the living room window. I was not the sole beneficiary. Because it seems as though my wonderful writing mascot, Iron Mike, has developed some decidedly feline tendencies. I mean, yesterday I surprised him when I came home from work at an abnormal time. Surprised him so badly that he fell out of his bed into his food bowl , and scattered dry dog food across the kitchen floor. How'd he manage that? Well, his bed might actu...

The holidays and I have had a hardcore love/hate relationship for many years, so I tend to stay low-key from All Hallow's Eve through the beginning of the year. Sometimes it strikes an ennui in me that causes a creative lag. Not this time. It seems I've surrounded myself with enough protective energy and positive thoughts to ward off the worst of it. This beauty here is part of that! No, I didn't even wait until Yule to open my present, either. (Rhi must really learn to turn the date-stamp off on the camera so that it's easier to falsify improprieties such as this.) Bronze Dragonscale It's always a struggle for me to find pieces of jewelry I'll willingly wear. Naturally, this means the probability of finding things I don't ever want to take off is virtually negligible. Yeah well...I'm totally besotted. Meet my new beau; the dragonscale is inextricably adhered to my wrist. I'm even sleeping with it on. I've always preferred silver over ...

I have been trying to stay unplugged today. My writing related efforts have been limited to WIP research in the form of a series of tarot spreads that demanded exhaustive interpretation. Not that it was much of a demand; I looked at the cards and the meaning just flowed from me onto the pages, fitting into the characters and their situation and struggles as easily as though I'd deliberately chosen which cards went where. It's going to fill the last pages in the first giveaway notebook, and begin the second with another. Fang & Fire, Animal & Element I'm saving a blank page at the end to write a personalized note to whomever the recipient ends up being. This journal is very much a collection of tarot spreads, interpretations, discussions of the finer points of the main characters, exploration into their deeper motivations, and a smattering of raw, unedited prose -- scenes that may or may not end up in the final version of the novel when it's published. Plus...

One of the things I've learned to do as a writer is to make use of all the various senses while using descriptive prose. It drags the reader in completely, lets them submerse and engage. I've also toyed with, in certain scenes--specifically in "Blacker Than Black"--leaving out the engagement of a specific sense for a reason. It's a short sequence,  and I recall a discussion with the editor who felt the need for there to be some type of description of visual cues to ground the reader. "No," I responded. "The narrator's eyes are closed."

I spent a good chunk of my meal hour at the day job writing out a scene in the latter half of my WIP. The MC has begun feeling detached and withdrawn, at least emotionally. It could be that Zhar comes to life a little more in the process of rewriting from my notes. But something felt... not exactly off, I guess. Given events thus far, I don't think I would fault my MC for being slightly detached or emotionally withdrawn. But I needed some clarity and some structure to what is going on.

No, I'm not doing Nano. Not really. Okay, well, maybe I sort of am. But it's not like I'm going to hit 50k for the month. That hasn't happened in a long while. I am, however, not at all above shamelessly using the deadline to churn out the second half of the WIP on my desk. It's still not hit 50k yet, hovering just below that point. I'm not entirely certain what the final wordcount on it will be. Not 100k ...I don't think. One way or another, though, my goal is to have a complete first draft to edit and polish in December. For me, Nano stopped being about wordcounts a few years back. It evolved into a concept of setting a goal for myself for the month, and then reaching it. Regardless of what it is. November is probably the only month that I actually engage in this sort of structure. Mostly because attempting to force the structure of a solid story doesn't have a very nice outcome for me. I've been sitting on the same scene for a week now with...

I spent a handful of my formative years in Kentucky. Rolling hills lush and green, thick with wildlife and the endless white fences of horse farms. And beneath those hills, I also learned, lurked some of the most majestic limestone caverns in the world. Frozen Niagara is a sight everyone should get to experience once. (I'll be geeky for a moment;  Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. There's a photo gallery there.)

I have a number of "tools" I use to focus my energies on developing the plot and characters of a story arc. Scrivener is one of them. I honestly don't know where I would be without it--no, that's a lie. I'd still be one clusterfuck of a disorganized writer who trembled in fear at the thought of forming an outline. Not that I really "form" one in advance of writing. But I get a general concept in my head, and though it is often too ethereal to go down on paper or screen, it's there and Scrivener is great for creating a visual of the outline forming as I write. I am learning to see where I need to pick up the pace, and where I can spend some time drawing things out. [Side note to any of my betas who are reading this (ahem, especially you, sis, since you dabble in tarot): please do not freak out or hyperventilate.]

I've been sneaking around a great deal lately, under the radar and such. I blame my betas. In the general course of perving #soldierporn on Tumblr around the beginning of September, I stumbled upon an inspiring photograph. While it's one I've seen before, my admiration for it has many layers. Mostly for the body language of the individuals who are the focal point. The communication taking place is decidedly...intimate, although that's not unusual for military types and even less so for battle buddies. I don't have a source or credit line for this photograph. I reblogged it on Tumblr with the simple caption of .... [Body Language.] There is undeniably a great deal of that going on there. Certainly a story wanting told. Or a few, because the story that *I* have pulled out of this photograph has been rather loosely translated and thoroughly removed from the assumptions one would make looking at it. On a seemingly unrelated note, I finally ran o...

This one is safe, I swear. The weather was beautiful Tuesday afternoon, the sky a clear vivid blue. The temperature was perfect and a brisk breeze was blowing. I had a short dayjob shift thanks to my inability to say "no" when they asked me to work a release event Monday night. And so I got home at the perfect time to snap some pictures...

So. Umm. This happened yesterday... And I decided it was the perfect thing to share on a Monday morning. You should probably set your morning coffee down--and swallow--before you click past the break.

So I've set a goal to finish the WIP known as the Trunked Novel Overhaul before the end of June. That leaves me with, roughly, somewhere between 40-50k needing written, with the bit of backtracking I needed to do in order to detour around some plot-block issues I had. One of my fellow Riptide authors tweeted this morning about "Camp Nanowrimo" which, not surprisingly, I'd known nothing about because I live in a cave under a mountain most of the time. At any rate, I've signed up for the June camp . And because I'm silly and sentimental and this WIP has been with me forever, I tossed up an old sketch for the "cover art" spot: Insignis A piece inspired by one of the original characters, which has since been smooshed back into a lump of clay and recreated along with many others. The concept prevails, though. And I am acutely aware that I have less talent for drawing than I do for writing. This is here because, as I said, it's been a long ...

I figured I should offer an update on what's going on over here in the mayhem that is my Writing Corner. Well, I was feeling slumped and distinctly lacking motivational drive to work on the WIP projects that were on the top of the "To Do" list. It was that "ehhh" sensation, where as a writer or artist, it's best to step away from a project and focus on something else. Or take a break completely, a vacation from effort to rediscover some vigor. And then my dear friend, the Wielder of Claymores and Hand Grenades, sent me a catalyst of sorts.

This afternoon, the weather was warm enough, for the first time on a day off, to venture out with Iron Mike and do our walk. I still have no idea how long it is. It takes about thirty minutes. We don't walk slow. On the way back, I stopped to check the mail. Mistake. Ended up juggling two large packages along with leash and keys. Thankfully, Mike's a sensible creature and didn't trip me. At any rate, boxes!

I'm discovering what feeds my inspirations, and it's rather strange. Or maybe I just have strange tastes. Or maybe it's just a case of the creative tide shifting. These sorts of things happen when they feel like it, seriously. I can string words together in sentences all day long, and sentences into paragraphs, etc. but if it gets me nowhere fast, it's useless.

When I was a kid, I took horseback riding lessons with my older sister. It was fun. Our instructor liked making us switch mounts halfway through the lessons, so we would learn how different ones moved, learn to adjust. My sister never liked this. No two horses were exactly the same height; different legs, different carriage, different energy. To me, it didn't matter. Off one horse, on the other, picking up the gait and cadence of their stride without missing a beat. "How do you do that?" she wanted to know. And I'd just shrug. I had no idea. I just did it.