Travel Diary - Have you Heard of Herculaneum?

Welcome to my first Travel Diary post. As you might know, I recently returned from a trip to Europe and one of the places we spent a few days in was Sorrento, Italy near Naples.

 Just to orient you, here's a map.

Sorrento is a beautiful hillside city filled with vineyards and orange groves, steep winding roads and crazy drivers. And scooters. Lots and lots of scooters. Apparently there are no traffic laws for scooter drivers. They can wind in and out of traffic and down the middle of lanes going in either direction. We even saw a scooter driver with his DOG sitting at his feet! I wonder how long it too him to teach the dog to do that.

for example

Cars in Europe tend to be smaller than the average car in North American, but in Italy, cars are tiny. Really, they all just wished they were scooters. A Volkswagen Bug (the new one), I spotted in a car park looked huge and fat amongst the others.

But this post is actually about the ancient town of Herculaneum. I'm assuming most of you have heard of Pompeii? Herculaneum is the more talented but over-looked younger brother.  Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was the victim of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius August 24,79AD.

There's the culprit.

Mt. Vesuvius had been dormant for close to 800 years and most people didn't even consider it a volcano anymore.

Imagine their surprise.

 Herculaneum is smaller and in better shape than Pompeii, with most of the buildings still having roofs and petrified timber beams.
This is due to the fact that Pompeii took the brunt of the ash fall with the initial eruption. It was once believed that all of the inhabitants of Herculaneum had escaped but excavations that began in 1982 led to the discovery of  three hundred skeletons near the sea, in boathouses and boats that didn't escape the intense heat.

DH and I. Notice the modern buildings built above Herculaneum in the back ground.

A main street. This shot also shows a modern apartment in the background looking down on Herculaneum. Can you imagine this as your patio view?

Interior of a single family home. The citizens of Herculaneum were quite well off. In fact, the teeth of the skeletal remains showed that they were well nourished, eating a variety of foods, and that  the average male was 6 feet tall.

wall art

Hard to believe that this bed is almost 2000 years old! Notice that the bedrooms didn't have windows. Odd.

More wall art. Apparently this is a fresco of Hercules. The room is part of the college which was also the headquarters of a popular cult.

Do these pillars make me look short?

A panorama view of Herculaneum I borrowed from the internet.

I hope you enjoyed this introductory overview of the ancient city of Herculaneum. Next week I`ll take you to the Isle of Capri!

You Can't Hang a Novel on the Wall...

I hang out with a lot of creative people. This weekend we had a few friends over and everyone was excited to share what they or their kids were doing. We watched a video clip of a daughter who did her first story as a reporter for CBC news, we listened to a new song one of the women had just recorded. My husband showed off a song off from our eldest son's upcoming CD. We watched other artists perform songs and viewed paintings posted to an online community artist site.

I sat there watching and listening, thoroughly enjoying what other artists brought to the table.

And they had no clue about me and my art as a writer. Even though I had worked my butt off (not literally, but wouldn't that be nice?) completing the 2nd draft of my latest wip, there was nothing I could share. No way I could contribute to the impromtu creative showcase.

Singers can sing a song in under three minutes. Dancers can perform in that amount of time, too. Painters can hang their creations on the wall for visitors to admire.

But a writer with an unpublished book, not so much. It's not like I was going to start read aloud the first chapter. The inability to share your creative work (outside of beta readers who usually get to read less than publishable drafts), is one of the downsides of choosing this particular creative outlet.

I think this is why the publishing dream is so strong. Why self-publishing has a lot of appeal for some people, despite unlikely financial gains.

It's a way to "hang" your creative work on the wall.

But not all singers want an audience. Nor do all dancers. They find pleasure in hearing their voice in the shower, or dancing alone in their own living rooms.

Though I'd love to hang my novel on the wall, I also want to enjoy dancing with it alone in my living room. Success can come in many forms.

What do you think? Is writing without ever publishing still a worthy venture?

Friday Four or Five

1. Making good progress on wip. I love it when I'm truly excited about a new project. It's hard to focus on anything else.I find writing has a cycle and a rhythm. When I'm writing hard, I'm not hanging out with the on-line community as much and when writing is down, I'm there all the time! (In case you've been wondering where I've been...)

2. My last post on Publishing Time and why it's so slow seemed to strike a chord with a lot of you. Even though the number of commentors remained consistent, I had double the visitors than usual. So if you are new to my blog, Welcome!

3. I don't know about you, but it seems like my social calendar is much busier than usual. Must be summer?

4. Last Friday I mentioned I might start blogging semi-regularly on travel. I was pleasantly surprised that many of you wrote to say you would enjoy that. So, I'll post the first entry of my Travel Diary next week. I can't commit to a specific regular day, but I'll try to do one weekly, at least for a while.

5. And finally, if you're a writer, you need this person's tenacity! :)






Have a great weekend!

Publishing Time (and why it's so slow)

Eric at Pimp My Novel and Rachelle Gardner both blogged this week about the thing called "Publishing Time" or why is publishing so slow?." Eric compares it to African Time, some might compare it to Mexican Time, in so far that different cultures view time and value time in a different way.

I don't think any of us would question that agents and editors are super busy people, so I would say that the sense of slowness is really just experienced on the writer's end. We are the ones waiting for a response, they are in the process of prioritizing their responses.

I like to call it the Sister-Wives Syndrome.  One husband-several wives; one agent/editor-several clients. If you have an agent you know what I mean. If you don't, then this is a head's up for you when the time comes. You, as the writer have one relationship--you the client with your agent. One thread of importance to you.

Your agent has several threads, all like the one, the only one, that you have. So just like the husband trying to keep all the wives feeling attended to, the agent is also tending to several clients. That means he or she is reading other people's manuscripts, not just yours. Not only that, she's looking for new clients, so that means more reading.  So if you add all that reading, plus the pressure to read the latest publications coming out of the shoot, and well, have some kind of personal life, you can understand why it's taking her so long to get back to you.

And why the editor is taking so long to get back to them.

Then there are all the conferences that agents and editors go to each year,  which is actually a double whammy to the author in waiting. Not only do conferences and lead up times to conferences take away valuable reading time, time they could spend reading your manuscript, they are also making requests for new material for them to read.

Then there are the seasons: Fall and Spring are busy in publishing but things grind to a halt over the Christmas holidays and almost just as slow over the summer.


It's a miracle really, that any thing you submit gets read at all! (kidding. sort of.)

So what's my point? I guess that when you're the writer in this equation, you need to have the patience of a saint. But it helps when you understand why things feel like they're running at a snail's pace.

How about you? Are you waiting for something?

Friday Four or Five

1. I'm made it a full week--haven't touched my wip! I've been tempted but fortunately I've had a lot of research to keep me busy. My goal of waiting until June 20 is within reach. A busy weekend will help me to keep my hands off of it. I think this break is really helping me. Though I'm not actually writing or editing, I'm working the story, setting and characters in my head. I'm hoping this whole process will make the second pass a lot easier. I'll let you know.

2. Last week I commented on Kristen Lamb's views that writers should write about more than writing on their blogs  and how they should discover their other passions. I then went on to say that I didn't know what my other passions were, but, hey, here's a story about a guy I met while traveling.

Ah-ha. Maybe that's my other passion. I have done a fair bit of traveling with every intention to do a lot more. Not counting Canada, I've visited, USA, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, England, Greece and the Czech Republic.  (So, yeah, mostly Europe, but I do hope to expand my travel portfolio to other continents in the future.)

I have a few stories.  So I might write a weekly or bi-monthly Travel Diary for other lovers of travel--those who do it and those who like to live vicariously through those who do.

3. I have a busy weekend celebrating a friend's 50th, my son's 23rd and Father's day. All good to help me achieve objective in point #1.

4. Here's a great video making it's way through the blogosphere on  How to Stay Creative. All great points.



29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

Have a Great Weekend!

How To Write -- The Problem with Pacing

I'm a "tight" writer. I rarely have the problem of having over-written and therefore must go back to a bloated manuscript and cut thousands of words.

This can be a good thing, to be able write with an economy of words...but there is such a thing as too tight.

Which is why I called the recent first draft of my wip an elaborate outline.

I identified my problem. PACING.

I'm jumping from exciting plot point to exciting plot point, with no room to breath in between. Sometimes this technique is good--it keeps you on the edge of your seat. But in my case I know that I'm not establishing key elements like setting or emotional conflict as well as I could.

I decided I needed to see how other writers were dealing with pacing so I picked a book off my shelf that was on the thicker side. TWILIGHT. Despite how you might feel about Stephanie Meyer's writing style or the Twilight sage, you have to admit that she must've done something right.  Plus I knew the story very well after reading the book and seeing the movie, I wouldn't be reading it to find out what happened next. I wanted to see how she handled pacing.

First, it's easy to recall her main plot points: Bella spotting Edward in the Cafeteria; Bella and Edwards first encounter in Biology; Edward saving Bella from getting crushed; the sparkle reveal; the ball game; encounter with James and the beginning of the hunt; the escape with Alice and Jasper; James contacting Bella; her escape at the airport; the dance room scene; the rescue; the hospital; the prom.

If I had written Twilight it would've only been half as long, even while keeping all those scenes.  (And yeah, maybe Twilight could have used a bit of  thinning.)

So what did I notice?

Ms Meyers wasn't in a big rush to get Bella and Edward to meet. Bella arrives at Forks, we meet her dad, see her house, go through a day of school, meet her friends, sure she sees Edward and we find out a bit about him through her friends Jessica's eyes, but we don't actually MEET him until his unusual reaction to Bella in Biology.

My instinct would've been to open with that scene. It's the inciting incident, isn't it?

Ms Meyers didn't worry about giving us too much detail about setting. Sometimes we'd get two or three paragraphs detailing a room or forest. I tend to worry if I spend too much time describing setting, the reader will fall asleep, but actually it helps a reader to get rooted in a story if they can really see where they are and what's going on. Of course you can go overboard with description, but in my case, I can see that I error on the side of too little.

Her emotional descriptions were generous as well. We understood how Bella and her father were alike, and why it worked for them to live together, we understood her obsession with Edward, and even though we could've probably lived with fewer descriptions of Edward's eyes and the wide swath of emotion that oozed from them, we were left in no doubt about the speed and intensity at which their love affair grew.

She also didn't have a problem with a large cast. There are the kids at school, the Cullen family and a brief encounter with the reservation tribe. They all needed fair description and stage time over the course of the book.

The villain didn't arrive until the last act. That was kind of surprising. I suppose that was part of the twist, although if you paid attention to the prologue, you knew she was going to get hunted.

Speaking of prologue: it was super short. The best kind.

Knowing that Twilight was the first book of a series, I also watched for how she planted clues for book two, since I'm thinking there could be a book 2 and 3 to my wip eventually.  I wonder how much she really knew in advance about how the story with Jacob and the Quileutes tribe would evolve. Jacob Black plays a really small role in book one, with only his ominous message from his father to Bella at the prom to hint at more conflict to come.

What do you think? Do you struggle with pacing? Either too slow or too fast like me?

But I Don't Write Edgy YA....

I'm sure you're all aware of the hoopla that went on last week after a certain WSJ article (which I never read) wrote  about the possibility that YA was getting too dark.

It tossed YA authors and readers into an absolute uproar.

I'm not going to debate the merits or demerits of dark, edgy YA. I know that it serves its purpose.

BUT WHAT IF YOU DON'T WRITE DARK AND EDGY YA?


Can you still make it as a YA writer?

I think I'm a pretty decent writer. I've had two agents like my work and want to represent me, so I can't be writing complete schrot.

But twice the D and E issue has come up. Two books I sent out are commercial and trending. Both have gotten the same kind of feedback -- editors are looking for something more competitive--they want something darker and edgier.

GAH.

(To me competitive = give me the same book as those other guys--but different).

Is there no room for less than edgy in YA?  Does no one want to read something that's on the lighter side and fun?  Have we forgotten there's still a market for the younger YA market or any age teen who doesn't happen to be depressed at the moment?

Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant, and I know I'm over-stating for effect.

So tell me, is it just me?  Should I just take my light, non-edgy, butt the H. E. double hockey sticks out of YA town?

Update: I need to add a disclaimer--the historical YA ms's I've written are dark. You can't write about ww2 without being dark. I'm referring to my lighter paranormal, chick-lit offerings here.

Friday Four or Five

1. I've had a great writing week. With hubby away, and the kids all doing their own things, I've had more free space than usual. I managed to knock off a lot of words, I lost count and basically, kind of finished a first draft of my wip.  It's more like an elaborate outline. But all the main plot and subplot points are there and lots of dialogue. It feels good just to have that all mapped out. Now I'm going to let it rest---and I'm declaring it to be held accountable--until June 20. Yes, with my zeal to write this, I've neglected other things. And I really want a fresh brain when I go back to it. Then I will tackle it line by line, scene by scene until it shines, brah-ha-ha.

2. Hubby get's back tomorrow--hurray!

3. When I got back from my time in Europe, all my favorite shows had ended.  Bones, Castle, Survivor (these are the only shows I had time for and suited my schedule). I'd missed all their finales.  Fortunately, I was able to watch most of my missed episodes on line. The summer TV schedule is basically not worth watching, which is fine. Too much sunshine and fun and extra long days to enjoy.

4. I'm thinking of watching BEASTLY tonight, since it's my last night alone where I'm free to pick any movie I want without having to worry if DH will like it too. Have you seen it? What did you think? I've read the book and quite enjoyed it, but I will confess that watching Alex Pettyfer, even all tattooed up is a bit of an incentive.





Have a great weekend!

Some People Have Quite the LIfe

If you been reading Kristen Lamb's blog lately, you'll know how she believes that to be a successful blogger is to blog about things other than just writing.

She gave the example of one romance writer who also liked cooking and making wine, and that when she started writing about those things, her following increased by quite a bit. Why? Because there are more people out there interested in wine and food and writing than who are just interested in writing.

Basically, blog about all your passions, not just one.

Which is fine if you have a lot of passions. I like to eat good food and drink good wine, but I hate cooking and I'm not interested in the finer points of how or where wine is made. These are not things I could blog about.

It got me to thinking: what are my other passions? And even more importantly, should I blog about them?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

But I do have an interesting reflection to share with you. This is something that happened while I was in Romania, a country I am passionate about, on the third floor of the apartment building my DH and I were staying in.

In the shared hallway, an older man was entering a shared bathroom. (Thankfully we had our own bathroom.) He was old, old, like white hair, rail thin, bent over old.

I couldn't stop thinking about him, what his life must have been like. Chances are good that he's never been out of Romania. Permissible travel for citizens out of Romania is a relatively new thing.

I calculated that if the man was in his late eighties or nineties, he must have been around fifteen years old when the second World War broke out. Brasov at the turn of the century and the first few decades into it was an affluent city. It was actually called Kronstadt, which is German for Crown City. He'd  have childhood and early teen memories of  "the good life".

The apartment building we stayed in would have been a single family home at that time.

Then the war broke out, and all hell broke loose all over Europe. This man would've been recruited to fight at some point, and for sure by the last year or so.

After that, fifty years of communism under the rule of a cruel and ruthless dictator,
Nicolae Ceausescu.  One man destroyed an entire generation of children to aids, with his egotistical plans to fortify "Ceausescu's Children" with blood transfusions.

I went to an orphanage in 1997. I saw the children rocking in lead painted iron beds, six, eight or more to a stuffy, smelly room.

Finally, freedom (sort of) in 1989, after the people of Romania revolted and shot the dictator and his wife to death. Was this man part of that revolution?

It took many years for Romania to recover from the ravages of Communism and dictatorship, and the corruption that lasted beyond the fall of the iron curtain.

But now, there are signs of economic recovery. The downtown core of Brasov looks good, almost as good as the early years. While off the main road the former glory still exists, its just chipped and faded. But there's progress.

I just hope this man is healthy enough to get out and enjoy the restoration of his city. I wonder if he sits on the bench in the park across the street and remembers his life. Or maybe he wants to forget.

So what about you?  What are your passions? Are they something you could blog about?

Writing is a Decathlon

Writing is a Decathlon, or so Kristen Lamb says. And as much as my stress  level peaks when I read her reasons why (as apposed to, say, a marathon, which is hard enough), I have to admit that she's got a point.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, I'm going to keep it short, because Kristen says it all already and so much better than I can. If you've never heard of her before, she's become the Writing Guru of Social Media and has two best selling books on the subject plus a great blog to prove it.

So go check out her blog and her new book, WE ARE NOT ALONE, and if you comment you get a chance to win some of Kristen's valuable time!

I'm Suffering From a Language Deficiency

One regret I have in life is that I never learned a second language. I grew up in Western Canada and in those years, learning a second language wasn't given a lot of importance, a fact some might consider surprising considering Canada has two official languages, English and French.

This lack of value in learning a second language was proven by the fact that we didn't even begin to learn French in our school district until grade eight. I'm happy to say that that is no longer the case, and that not only do kids begin their French classes in primary school now, we have several French Immersion schools for those families who so choose.

I particularly felt my language deficiency when I moved with my family to Germany back in 1998. I thought I did okay with high school French, but I could not wrap my head around the Germany language.  The time for learning new languages is when you are young, as my four children quickly proved. My husband already spoke German, so I found myself to be the only one in our family of six that couldn't speak or understand it. Everyone I met while living there could speak at least two languages, often three or four. I remember one guy telling us how he struggled to learn English and how his friends thought he was stupid because he couldn't speak two languages.

He told this to me, a person who couldn't speak two languages.

In those days, Eastern Germany had only been out of communism for a decade, so most of Eastern Germans spoke Russian as a second language. Now a days, everyone speaks English. Pretty much.

I especially noticed this in Italy and Romania. Every restaurant you go to, the waiter will speak to you in English. In fact, our middle aged, grey haired, genial waiter who served us breakfast at our Italian Hotel,  welcomed us and offered us the special in English, then went to the next table and did the same thing in German and then went to the third table and did the same thing in French. And he was Italian.

I can't remember if it was the airport in Italy or Romania, but I saw the yellow pilot car from my passenger seat window. It said in large full caps: FOLLOW ME.  That's it. Just English, no other language. Each airport had all its indicator signs, including toilet signs, in its own national language and in English.

One of the first things I did when I got to Romania was go to visit the farm kids. My idea was to possibly return in the future to teach them English. Since they are delayed at learning (for differing reasons, but mostly because they were stuck on the farms) a teacher now comes daily to teach them. At first I thought teaching them English might just be an extra thing I could do to help. But now I see that knowing English is essential if they are ever going to compete in the work force. Even if they just want to get a job serving at a restaurant.

These kids were so cute and enthusiastic. I gave them a short impromptu lesson: My name is.... What's your name. They loved it!

So, I started an online TESL program. I have a year to do it before I go back again, maybe even longer, so I can take my time, which I'm happy about. I'm also taking a German language course, ( a little at a time at my own pace) which makes me sympathetic to what it feels like to try to learn a new language. It's a good mix. I don't know if I'll ever be able to speak German, but I'm going to keep trying.

How about you? Do you speak a second language? If so, are you teaching it to your kids?

Friday Four or Five

1. The first week back from any trip is always a blur of catching up: mail/bills, housework, laundry, conversations with kids, checking in with friends, grocery shopping, going back to that Hot Yoga class you missed for three weeks (eek), checking in with blogger friends, and SLEEP.

Did I mention, sleep? Well, yeah, it's been a pretty good week, and I'm starting to feel normal again and grooving with my routine.


2. I promise to tell a few tales from my travels next week, quite a few interesting things to ponder. Needed time to process before putting it out there. ( See number 1)

The Red Roofs of Brasov

3.  The weather in Europe was better. Hard to get off the plane to weather that still requires blue jeans and a sweater.

4. Despite number one, I managed to cross the 10k line of my new wip yesterday. Who-hoo! And I have a fairly open weekend so I can't wait to keep going. It's requiring some research which I'm doing as I"m going a long, so I know I'll be making some changes in the revisions as the research gets clearer, but I'm okay with that.

5. Writing makes you smarter. It just does.                 

Have a great weekend!

Just In the Nick of Time

And I'm talking about the game. Vancouver beats Boston 1/0, scoring with just 18.5 seconds left to play.

I sit in a unique position. I've lived in Vancouver and Boston. I live in Canada but was born in the USA. I have duel citizenship. Who to root for?

Well, here's where I confess I didn't even watch the game. But my kids did and I heard them cheer. Since we live in BC and all my kids were born here, safe to say, they're cheering for Vancouver. So I will too.

Yay, Canucks!

So, imagine scoring just seconds before the game ends? Nothing like coming through at the eleventh hour. That's what it feels like when you're pursuing publication sometimes. At least it's that way for me.  I've taken a lot of shots. When will I score? I must be at the end of the third period by now?

Anyone else feel that way?

Anyway, that's my brilliant way of connecting the Stanley Cup playoffs to writing.

Hey, Let Go of My Title!

I wrote this book and came up with a really clever title. Then, while browsing through the on-line e-library I came across another book with the SAME title. Dang. And it was also YA. Double dang. And it had been published. Triple dang.

So, of course I had to read it. The premise and even time frame was completely different than mine (mild phew). I loved the voice and the characters. Well, I have to say, it's a good book.

What's the book, you exclaim!? PLAYING WITH MATCHES by Brian Katcher. Here's the hook: While trying to find a date, Leon befriends a lonely disfigured girl.  Like I said, it's good. You should read it.

When I got home I had to look the author up on Goodreads, see if he's written anything else. Let me pause here to say I read three and a half books on my three week journey. Side point, I didn't stop reading the half book because it was uninteresting etc. I stopped listening to the book because the narrator's voice and the way she interpreted the characters started grating my nerves.  Has this ever happened to you? I'm chalking it up to travel irritability.

Back to Goodreads: I look up PWM and lo and behold there are ELEVEN books listed there called Playing with Matches. (Interestingly, two of them have to do with unfortunate dating experiences.)

Hum. I think I'm going to leave my title alone. At least for now.

Have you ever had someone "steal" your title?