When I talk about religion

I am working on a much longer blog post about writing for publication later this week; however, last week, I sent out a tweet that Miserere isn't about religion and my friend Glinda asked me what prompted the tweet. I wanted to answer her question but not in a flip 140 character tweet. Nothing in particular prompted the tweet--it was more like a conglomeration of issues that accumulated over a long period of time.

I think people see the word "Christian" and immediately associate the work with religion. Amazon.com helps perpetrate this fallacy by placing Miserere in the "Christian Fiction" category, which is based on computer algorithms and probably picks up the word "Christian" from the blurb.

So I thought I would clarify things for you.

When I talk about religion, it looks like this: The Book of Daniel as Apocalyptic Literature. When I talk about how religion and religious beliefs impact culture, it looks like this: Christian Dogma from the Classical Period through the Reformation: Paving the Way to Christian Apathy.

What I write for your enjoyment is fantasy, and that looks like this: Miserere: An Autumn Tale.

I'll be around later this week with a real blog post for you.

where can I find a copy of Miserere?

Where can I find a copy of your book? That is probably the sweetest question you can ask any author.

Over the last few weeks, more and more people have been asking me where can they buy Miserere.

As much as I love supporting bookstores, I've had to direct people to online resources. There is no bookstore in the county in which I live, the closest ones are in Greensboro, which is approximately twenty-four miles away. None of the Barnes and Nobles nor the Books-A-Million stores carry my novel in stock. The same is true of the independent bookstores in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Winston-Salem, three cities that are farther afield than Greensboro, but still reasonably close to my area.

So if you're looking for a copy of Miserere, here is where your instant gratification needs can be met. Just click on the link for the format of your choice.

Amazon -- Trade paperback or ebook

Barnes and Noble -- Trade paperback or ebook

Baen -- Ebook

This doesn't mean that I'm backing off my stance for support of local bookstores. I encourage everyone to use their local bookstore first. I have several reasons:

• local bookstores provide jobs and taxes
• they host events that enable authors to cultivate a deeper relationship with their readers
• they have knowledgeable staff who can help you find exactly what you're looking for

Those are just the first three that come to the top of my head. I'm sure if I thought about it a little more, I could come up with about twenty more reasons.

I can't describe what a warm and wonderful experience I've had at every local bookstore that I've had the opportunity to visit.

I can tell you about the cultural void that is left when you no longer have a local bookstore to enjoy.

So if you live near a bookstore, please, please support them.

However, if you want a copy of Miserere, to the best of my knowledge, you can only get it online.

If you see that rare creature Miserere in the wild, send me a photo and I'll post it on the blog.

writing fiction with the 1-3-1 method

In the spirit of edits, here's a blast from the past for you. It's an old post that I wrote for a writing blog I used to run. I hope you enjoy it:

English classes use the 1-3-1 method to teach students how to write five paragraph essays, but I’ve found the philosophy behind the 1-3-1 to be just as useful with writing fiction. With an essay, the writer attempts to convince a reader of a specific viewpoint. Fiction is really no different in that the writer is trying to make the reader believe in a world or person that doesn’t exist in order to illustrate a theme. Both forms of writing are about communicating viewpoints and facts to influence a reader’s thinking.

Why bother using the 1-3-1 for fiction? I’ve found that by applying a variation of the 1-3-1 method for fiction, I’ve been able to work more efficiently.

If you’ve never heard of 1-3-1 before, here’s how it works for essays:

1 – The introductory paragraph. This paragraph outlines the three points the writer intends to discuss.

3 – Generally speaking, in an essay, the writer wants to cover three points (hence the three) with one paragraph devoted to each point. The writer is by no means restricted to three points; however, more than three points can sometimes be a lot for most casual readers to remember.

1 – The concluding paragraph. This is where the writer summarizes the three points and essentially draws his or her opinion on the subject to a close.

Easy, huh?

So how do you apply it to fiction? First, don’t look at 1-3-1 as each number representing a specific paragraph like a writer would for an essay. With fiction, each number represents a technique for moving the story forward.

Chapters

Let’s look at the chapter:

1 – In every chapter, a writer needs to set the stage with setting, characterization, and conflict. Think of these three things as your introductory paragraph.

3 – Choose one, two, or three points that will move the story forward and make those points the focal issues of the chapter. For example: the first chapter should answer these questions: Who is your protagonist or antagonist? What is the conflict? What circumstances change to move the protagonist or antagonist toward their goal?

1 – The hook that will lead the reader into the next chapter. This can be one or more paragraphs that will lead your reader into wanting to immediately flip the page and see what happens next. Stephen King is the master of the end-chapter hook.

But that’s too restrictive!

Not really. If you like writing by the seat of your pants, you can make this work for you too. Write just as you normally would, then when you’re doing your edits, re-examine the chapter, and ask yourself these questions:

• Are my setting, characterization, and conflicts clear?
• Did I bombard my reader by utilizing too many plot developments?
• Do my last few paragraphs lead into my next chapter?

Outlines

I ain’t doing no stinking outline . . .

Now, now, contempt prior to investigation can cheat you if you’re not careful. Also, you may have to do a chapter-by-chapter outline as part of a submission package. It’s perfectly acceptable to go back and write a detailed outline after the novel is written. Either way you approach a chapter-by-chapter outline, the 1-3-1 can be helpful.

Here’s where you strip your chapter down to its very essence by using the same method as I listed above for chapters. Use the 1-3-1 to focus on those plot developments that move the story forward.

I’ve read several writers who advise reducing each page of the manuscript to one sentence. For example: if the chapter is ten pages, the outline of that chapter should be roughly ten sentences.

Synopsis

I ain’t doing no stinking synopsis . . .

Ahem.

Like the chapter-by-chapter outline, you may very well have to produce a synopsis for your query package. A writer can follow the same guidelines whether the synopsis is written before or after the novel is completed.

I use the three-act method for my novels, but there are many other techniques for constructing a story. No matter which method you choose, the 1-3-1 really comes in handy for the synopsis.

1 – World-building (if you write fantasy/science fiction) and introduce your main characters.

3 – The major issues that propel the plot forward. This is another place where the number three might be larger or smaller.

1 – The conclusion where the writer touches on the novel’s theme.

Here’s the beauty of the 1-3-1: if you successfully apply the 1-3-1 to your chapter, the distillation process of reducing your seventy-plus-thousand word novel into a chapter-by-chapter outline, then into a synopsis becomes easier. With the chapter-by-chapter outline and synopsis, you strip away dialogue and setting to reduce the novel to the very core of your story. By using a version of the 1-3-1 method, I’ve found that I’ve diminished the difficulty of siphoning the extraneous matter away from my story.

So what am I doing? Editing The Garden and recalling techniques that I used during my editing process with Miserere.

Be safe and for those in the neighborhood, I'll see you at ConCarolinas!

i wrote a book and a blog post and here they are ...

The Garden is officially off to the first round of beta readers. I am relieved/sad/anxious/all-of-the-above. This was a hard novel to write for a variety of reasons. I had originally intended to write something that was more like a lot of the published genre fiction people tend to enjoy. Somehow Guillermo and my boys wound up taking me in an unforeseen direction, and I followed my heart and the story.

Given that writing something different can be a real kiss of death to an author in genre fiction, we'll have to wait and see if the novel sells.

I will say this: I love this story and the guys in it.

That is all.

it's not about sex, it's about love ... and why all this matters

I know I said I would be quiet this week, working on The Garden, but a couple of things have surfaced that have me thinking, both about SFF in general and within the context of my own novel.

Last night Doug Hulick tweeted a link to Ari Marmell's blog where Ari talks about some of the reactions to Saladin Ahmed's Salon article on race in Game of Thrones (if you haven't read Saladin's post, you can find the link in Ari's post--both articles make for worthwhile reading). Then this morning, we were chatting on Twitter about the sexposition scenes in Game of Thrones and the strange reasoning that Hollywood seems to entertain--to wit: we must have sex scenes to engage our eyes while the characters divulge the boring bits of exposition.

One thing Ari talked about was stepping outside our comfort zones as authors to portray people of different races and cultures and sexual orientations. I think we should. I can only speak from my own experience in writing The Garden.

You see two of my characters of in The Garden are gay, and when I first started this novel, one of those characters was a very minor character and a very stereotypical gay man. I'm almost ashamed to admit that now, but if I don't tell you where I began, you won't truly understand how I reached this point.

This brings me to why all this chatter about race and gender is so important. While I was working on my character sketches for these characters, I happened upon some blog posts about the lack of competently rendered gay characters in novels, especially in SFF. The more I read, the more I realized that my character was exactly what these people hated to see, and they very clearly articulated why they found a lot of the gay characters offensive.

Sometime around this same period, Dark Scribe magazine did an interview with several gay horror authors (The Fear of Gay Men: A Roundtable Discussion on the New Queer), one of whom I had met online and whose work I greatly admire. I emailed Robert Dunbar, explained the situation, and Rob set up a place for me to ask questions. Then he did the most generous thing of all and asked some of the fine gentlemen who participated in the Dark Scribe interview to answer my questions.

Other members of the online gay community showed up and were very generous with both their time and their honesty. One thing they said, over and over, was that they were tired of seeing gay characters being all about sex. They said (and rightly so) that gay people are whole, complex people with many passions and many loves--that there was more to being gay than sex.

In short, they taught me many things and directed me to some wonderful resources. My character Diago went from being a frivolous stereotype to being a much darker character, but he has reason to be dark, and in that darkness, he will eventually find his light.

I don't know anything about being a gay man in the 14th century, but I do understand what it means to have people treat you badly because of who and what you are. I know what it means to be shut out of "polite" society, and all I can do is translate those feelings of loss to Diago and Miquel.

To honor all those people who took the time to answer my questions, there will be no sex in this novel. This is a story about love, and sex is not always about love. Love is about acceptance and thinking beyond yourself, and those are the themes of The Garden.

Writing The Garden has taken me way outside my comfort zone, but it's been a worthwhile journey. I've seen things and understood love from an entirely different viewpoint. Hopefully, I've translated all these things accurately, and if I haven't, I hope people will at least appreciate the fact that I tried.

Of course, if I hadn't read those posts on gay characters a few years ago, I never would have undertaken my journey the way I have, and that brings me back to why Ari and Saladin's discussions on race are important. If just one author reads these articles and takes a moment to redefine a character or situation in their own novel, then those posts are a success.

And if one author stretches his or her boundaries, then maybe more will try, and maybe, just maybe ... before you know it ... we can translate that beautiful world of acceptance into a reality.

And that is why all this matters.

cover art, contest winners, and whatnot

I've had a few questions spring up in various places and since I'm starting to see some repeats (also in various places), I thought I'd address a few of them here in one place:

Q -When will the winners for the blog tour contest be announced?

If you entered flash fiction in the blog tour contest, check back next week. We will announce winners sometime on Monday August 1. Precisely when we will announce the winners will rest primarily on the shoulders of US Air and whether they have me safely home at a reasonable time on Sunday.

Q - What about winners for the other giveaways?

Some of them have already been contacted, and I have another giveaway that does not time out until tonight. So rather than three or four blog posts, I thought I would do one and the winners will be announced soon, either tomorrow or Monday. A lot depends on my schedule and how long it takes me to transfer meds and other liquids into tiny TSA approved bottles before Friday. Tedious, true, but that's the way life works sometimes.

Q - Who did the art work and layout for Miserere?

Michael C. Hayes did the cover art for Miserere, and the good folks at Night Shade Books did the rest. Rebecca Silvers came up with the awesome cover design, and Amy Popovich did the equally beautiful interior layout and design. In my humble opinion, they came up with a stellar package for me, and I just put the words on the pages.

Q - Were you self-published before finding a publisher for Miserere?

No. While I have many online friends who choose to self-publish for their own reasons, I have never tried to self-publish. It wasn't the route toward publication that I wanted to take for a variety of personal reasons. To the best of my knowledge, Night Shade Books does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. My best advice is to go to their web site and check out their submission guidelines.

Q - I love the music in the book trailer, can you tell me where to find it.

iStock.com. The title of the track is "It's Coming."

So I'll be around as time allows and I appreciate your patience!

@Michael_C_Hayes

LEC Book Reviews calls Miserere "a fine ... debut"

He said some other very nice things about Miserere, but I can only get so much in that title line.

Truth be told, I've been scared to death, waiting on reviews for Miserere.

(OCD about the whole thing is more like it--checking, checking, checking, worriedworriedworried--which is perfectly normal or so other debut authors have assured me.)

So I'm very pleased with the review I've garnered from LEC Book Reivews. I have to be away today, but I did want to pop in long enough to share this: LEC Book Reviews: Miserere: An Autumn Tale.

new work in progress is moving again

I managed a little over a thousand words on my new work in progress last night. This brings me up to 24,000 words and the story and characters are beginning to fall into place. Pacing is always a problem for me in first drafts--it's one of those techniques that I have to feel my way through.

That and characterization.

I always know what I want my characters to be like, but sometimes events and personalities take interesting turns when I actually start writing a scene from a particular character's point of view.

Last night I wrapped up my first chapter from Miguel's point of view. The chapter took an ugly turn that I hadn't expected.

Lo siento, Miguel.

I'm afraid it only gets worse from here on out ...

In the beginning there was a veil ...

I will never forget the first time that I posted a chapter of Miserere on OWW and had a rather aggressive reviewer take the chapter apart. The reviewer took exception to two forms of symbolism that I used: the raven and the cauldron.

The reviewer stated she was sick and tired (for we are never sick without being tired) of seeing ravens presented in a negative light. She then went on to expound on the symbolism of ravens from a neo-pagan viewpoint and implied that if I wasn't such an ignorant Christian, I would understand this.

I also had a line about Rachael shoving her emotions into the dark cauldron of her heart, and that seemed to send the reviewer into another spasm of verbiage about my misunderstanding of the uses of a cauldron.

Of course, I didn't get offended, because I knew the reviewer had no way of knowing that I was once Wiccan and studied the religion during my youth. She also didn't know about my Taoist tendencies nor did she know that I'm not orthodox. I could have easily gotten offended and ranted back at her about how I knew all that but [blah, blah, blah].

I didn't.

I would like to share this:

Lucian came to me in a dream. I dreamed of a tall man with dark hair. He walked with a cane and he was a powerful sorcerer. He stood on a street and spoke to a young man, who was obviously from the late 20th or early 21st century. The boy's name was Peter, and I thought I would write a YA novel about a boy who slipped through time.

The idea settled with me while I took a writing class, but no matter how I tried, I could not make the story work from Peter's POV. My writing instructor told me to write scenes from each of my main characters' POVs and see which one worked the best. It was Lucian so Miserere shifted from a YA to an adult novel.

I've always been interested in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and other early Jewish works. Like I said, I spent my youth on Wiccan and Eastern religions, but as I got older, I wanted to better understand Middle Eastern and Western religions.

Just after the writing class, I was able to take a college course on the Old Testament. We studied the Bible as literature, and I had the best instructor, who really got us to discuss Jewish history, philosophy, and beliefs. During one class, our instructor talked about the Veil that shielded the Ark of the Covenant. As an aside, our instructor told us that Christians believed that when Jesus ascended from the cross, the Veil that shielded the Ark came down.

My corrupt imagination seized on the imagery of a veil that shielded God's glory from man, and thus was born my Crimson Veil that shields Earth from Woerld. Then I started really thinking about Woerld. I didn't want to create an ersatz religion based on a mish-mash of concepts. I wanted a mirror, a reflection of earth and its many religions; and thus was born Woerld and its bastions.

However, (and this is the point that I am slowly dithering toward) I want to be very, very clear so that everyone is on the same page with me and there are NO misunderstandings nor raised expectations and at the extreme risk of offending someone (which is getting harder and harder not to do nowadays),

BUT

Miserere is NOT Christian fiction.

I certainly don't want to discourage people (Christian or otherwise) from reading Miserere, but there is a distinct difference between the genres of Christian fiction and fantasy. Christian fiction espouses a specific worldview and the story encompasses that worldview.

I'm not giving you a Christian worldview here. I have written a fantasy that uses Christianity the same way other fantasies use Celtic and Wiccan themes as a religious basis for their characters. That's all.

Think of The Exorcist. It uses Christian themes, is heavily Catholic, but is not considered Christian fiction by any stretch of the imagination.

Ditto here.

Miserere is a fantasy, and I believe that people who enjoy reading about other worlds and magic and swords and demons will really enjoy Lucian's story. If you just give him a chance.

With all that said, I have a plan, and I'm working with the good people at Night Shade to give you a taste of Miserere. Then you can decide for yourself.

So stay tuned ... sometime over the next couple of months there will be more to come ...

Alex Bledsoe talks about Miserere

A ray of sunshine blew through my cloudy week when Alex Bledsoe told me he enjoyed reading Miserere. I have enormous respect for Alex as a writer and I am absolutely in love with his Eddie LaCrosse series that blends two of my favorite genres, mystery and fantasy. I mean major fangirl stuff here.

I was on pins and needles while he read Miserere. Yesterday, he told me he really enjoyed reading the novel and today, he sent me my blurb:

Miserere is about redemption, and the triumph of our best impulses over our worst. It's also about swords, monsters, chases, ghosts, magic, court intrigues and battles to the death. It's also (and this is the important part) really, really good.

--Alex Bledsoe, author of "Dark Jenny" and "The Sword-Edged Blonde"

Now when people ask me what my novel is about, I'm just going to quote Alex.