Products Inspired by Your Book

The Chasing Echoes Sweat Shop is underway! As I mentioned in my last post, my mother in-law and I are making crafty-type products to go along with my book in an effort to give my author's booth a more homespun feel for my upcoming mountain events.

EVERY author should do this you guys. Just for the mere fun of it. Even if no one buys any of this crap (albeit pretty crap), the process is making me fall in love with my book all over again.

So, here is what we have so far. DRUM ROLL PLEASE...........Fine, no drum roll. 

Chasing Echoes Stationery

All-occasion cards hand-stamped to represent each of the Aevos sisters. From left to right: Topaz (Fall), Phoenix (Summer), Krystal (Winter), and Aviva (Spring). Gift-packaged in a set of four with seasonal charm.

Chasing Echoes Soaps

Handcrafted organic soaps--a different scent and style to represent each of the Aevos' sisters. Scents include Topaz Apple, Aviva Gardenia, Phoenix Energy, and Krystal Rain. Each handmade soap comes gift-packaged with seasonal charm. LOVE these--they smell incredible! 

Sands of Time Charms & Trinkets

Corked glass bottles on leather cords. Each bottle contains an hourglass charm, which has "burst" to release the same substance from Taz's necklace--the Sands of Time. I'm also making figurine-versions of these with little tags or scrolls that explain the legend of the Sands of Time. Here they are so far, minus the scrolls.

 The super-sized version. Or maybe just a close-up. 

So there you have it. For the record I am NOT trying to start a business selling Chasing Echoes products. I teach for a living--that's enough of a livelihood for me. These little crafts were simply designed to add more unrefined charm to my author's booth at outdoor events, and pull away from that look of stiff professionalism that you see at a lot of author's tables. I'll post pictures of my booth all put together in a future post. Until then, I challenge any author reading this to make one "product" to go along with your book (assuming you're like me with nothing better to do over summer but indulge in this kind of nonsense). Even if you have no intention of selling or displaying said-item, do it because a) It's fun, and b) It re-lights that fire for your novel.

Entanglement

Entanglement by Dan Rix
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the second book I've read by Dan Rix. Last week I finished reading Broken Symmetry, and I enjoyed that novel so much that I immediately dove into Entanglement. I'll admit, I'm a little underwhelmed. The things that impressed me the most about Broken Symmetry simply weren't there for Entanglement. While Broken Symmetry follows a set of rules which lends authenticity to the story, Entanglement's governing rules are inconsistent, which gives the story less credibility and makes it more difficult to follow.

One of my biggest problems was the lack of adult presence in this book. It sounds like a small thing, but it was just...odd. Where were Aaron's parents throughout the story? The fact that Clive and his sidekick were able to burst into Aaron's house, breaking windows and creating a ruckus, yet neither one of Aaron's parents wake up...it's a pretty big suspension of belief. And wouldn't his parents confront their son the following day about the broken window? Wouldn't they also want to know why Aaron's car was trashed earlier in the novel? Or why Aaron is beat to hell? Aaron's parents didn't even make an appearance at his Ceremony of Halves--something that's supposed to be the biggest moment of their son's life.

It's downright bizarre. We have 17 and 18 year olds bullying each other, fighting, even killing, and yet the adults (other than a couple from the Brotherhood) are completely absent from this story with no explanation offered as to why.

There were other holes too, little areas where details were skipped. For example, in one scene Clive and Amber are on their way to their honeymoon, and in the next scene, she's paying an unsolicited visit to Aaron. How did she get from point A to point B without Clive interfering? I actually thought I had skipped a page or two, because there was simply NO WAY the insanely controlling Clive would allow his Half to drive off without him to meet his nemesis. But evidently, Clive did.

The ending was also a little bit of a let down. I'm a total fan of happy endings, and I'm glad Rix opts for them as well, but I really wanted to see Aaron and Amber pave a new path in their dystopian world by making the decision to love each other despite their obstructed clairvoyant channels. In the beginning of the novel, both characters seemed to despise the idea of halves and mourned for the days when people had the freedom to choose whom to love. This seemed to be setting up for an awesome ending of Aaron and Amber breaking the mold by loving someone who isn't their half. The epilogue hints at this possibility; it's a shame that it's not fleshed out.

Still, I have to give Entanglement three stars for a great plot concept and beautiful writing (seriously, Rix is a master of the written word. His descriptions are gorgeous). I look forward to reading more of his work. 

Closed for Summer

I hope to be back for the new school year. Have a wonderful summer!

Into the Dark (formerly Going Gray)

Into the Dark by Brian Spangler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What I loved: Going Gray (original title at time of review) gripped me from the very first sentence. This novel doesn't mess around--it dives into the story right away. The concept is exciting and intriguing--a fog that poisons/burns upon contact. The author does a great job of building intensity and fear. Truly, one wouldn't think that acid-fog would make for a scary book, but there were scenes so terrifying that I had to put the book down for a few minutes and figure out how to breathe properly again. In some ways I would classify this book as YA horror.

What I struggled with: There is very little character development, which made it difficult for me to care about the characters. The protagonist, Emily, has almost no personality. She's not brave, she's not cowardly, she's not smart, she's not shallow, she's just...there. And Peter, the love interest, feels like he was thrown in as an afterthought. He, too, has almost no personality, and the romance that develops between him and Emily is bland. Also, the characters in the mall--I understand that they're minor characters, but there was nothing to distinguish one from the other. Really, I couldn't even tell the difference between Mr. Holcomb and Ms. Parks, which is saying a lot considering they're two different genders. It was disappointing, because trapping a band of survivors in a mall presents such an awesome opportunity for interesting interactions and sub plots, but the characters were so flat that by the end of the book I honestly didn't care what happened to any of them.

Another huge minus is nothing is ever explained. The giant fog machine can't be turned off--why? Why was the machine built in the first place? (We know it was to save humanity, but from what?) The machine is very localized--why can't some military from the opposite side of the country, or the globe, nuke the thing once they realized it had backfired? How does slow-moving fog incapacitate the entire world at once? Why aren't the survivors in the mall able to get ahold of other survivors via radio and such? (Surely there are people in China or Australia who have yet to be overtaken by the fog, given that the machine is local to Emily's town). How was Emily able to walk through the fog toward the machine in the epilogue?

I think Spangler has such a cool concept for this novel, and I don't agree with reviewers who felt it was too reminiscent of Stephen King's "The Mist'--Spangler's novel is definitely its own creature. I only wish he would have given reasons to justify his premise so I didn't have to spend the whole book scratching my head, thinking "Did I miss something?" He includes a lengthy epilogue, but instead of answering questions, it brings up more.

In short: 3 stars for a fabulous concept, awesome intensity, and clever writing; minus 2 for poor character development/exposition. Maybe Book 2 will fill in the gaps? Here's hoping.

Ready, Aim, Fire

This weekend I became a certified archery instructor!

 My first time firing the Genesis bow

Mr. Bales and me with our certification cards

The class was in Wheatland, CA, which is about a seven and-a-half hour drive from where I live (eight hours plus if you figure in stops for gas and food). Clint and I, along with a teaching colleague of mine, Mr. Bales, left right after work on Friday, arrived to our motel around midnight, and started the training the next morning. 

The class was awesome. I came into the class being a tiny bit familiar with archery, but my experience was limited to the compound bow with a peep sight and scope, set at about 42 lbs. The bows we're required to use for NASP (National Archery in the Schools Program) are Genesis bows, which are also compound, but have no peep sight, no scope, and are only set to 11 to 20 lbs. So in addition to having to learn how to set up and run an archery range (including all of the safety rules/regulations), I had to learn the techniques for shooting a bow that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Did you know there are ELEVEN steps to shooting a bow? Here was the nemonic device I made up so I could remember all of the steps for the test: 

Sassy naked damsels boast proudly during an afternoon salsa routine Friday.™

Seriously, I need to trademark that baby. ;) It stands for: Stance, nock arrow, draw handset, bow handset, pre-draw, draw, anchor, aim, release, follow-through. Someone was paid the big bucks to make all that up. If I was in charge over at NASP, I'd have three steps: 

Ready. Aim. Fire.

Anyway, we were also required to learn all of the different parts of a bow, and how to do common bow repairs. It was total information overload...by the end of the training my brain felt numb. But I also came out of it on a high, because I feel like I learned SO much (I ended up scoring a 96% on my practicals, and man did it take everything out of me). At this point, I honestly think I could set up an entire archery range and run an event with confidence.

While all of this was going on, my son was participating in the Monopoly Championship Tournament eight hours away, which resulted in me doing a lot of hyperventilating, squealing, and screaming while trying to shoot targets and memorize that the top cam of the bow is called the "idler wheel." I'm dying to write more about this whole Monopoly thing on this post, but it's way too cool and special, so I think I'll save it for the next one.

Cross your fingers for me now that our grant through NASP goes through, because I really, really want to get this archery program going for the new school year!

Murder Mystery Dinner

My daughter is 15 today. 15! I'm not old enough to have a 15 year old. I'M NOT. 

Shut-up.

Anyway, she's having a Murder Mystery Dinner in our backyard. They've been at it for about an hour and 45 minutes. I'm allowed to take pictures, but she says I'm not allowed to break the 3rd wall--or is it the 4th?--some drama-term where I can't shatter the illusion of the drama they're enacting. It's like Juliet dramatically crying out "Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?" and someone else cutting in with "Hey, fifth period is almost over." 

So we agreed I would just pop in and out as an investigative reporter. Here's all that my investigative snooping has yielded so far:

Guests starting to suspect each other

Let the interrogations begin

A very suspicious dinner

It's pretty cool, actually. Every time I go out there, they're totally in character (save some giggling and laughing). There was one moment where I lit the candles on the table and Trin was all "Wow, thank you, uh, Investigative Reporter, for lighting our candles. That's so nice and...unexpected." But you know, apparently I'm both an investigative reporter and a thoughtful candle-lighter-person.

I was going to write more but Trin just burst in here saying they solved their murder! Apparently Papa Vido killed Barry Underwood because he was promised land or something... They're popping open their victory champagne now (aka: sparkling cider) and then we're doing birthday cake. The cake is an adorable, partially decapitated jackalope (made by Teri). Jackalopes are somehow related to murder mysteries, right?

--------

Just came back from singing Happy Birthday. Here are the last few pictures for the night:

That poor torched jackalope.

Happy Birthday to my little girl! The one who is now four inches taller than me and could easily kick my ass. But she's still, and always, my baby girl, and I don't care if that's a cliché, because it's true.

I Want to Write about Twitchy Boobs and Stuff

I've been thinking about quitting my blog for awhile now. And then, because my friend Mel is occasionally and freakishly psychic, she just happened to send me this article: I Gotcher Blog-Writin' Advice Right Here. She thought I might be entertained by it (which I was) but probably didn't realize how close it would hit home for me (except for she probably did). It's a long(ish) read, so let me copy/paste the two paragraphs that spoke to me the loudest:

The blogs of writers are often sad, sad things. They go largely unused, acting as empty, gutted monuments to the writer's own lack of blogging productivity. You visit a writer's blog and the last post is from June, 2012. Wind blows sand over a corpse. The comment sections are, two, maybe three people deep (and the author is one of those commenters). One of the most recent posts is a promise to post more posts, to blog more blogs, to blargh more blarghs, and that post was three years ago. Two rats chew on a third rat. The ground is salted and dead. 

Here you're saying, But an agent or a publisher says I have to blog. To which I respond, that agent or publisher is operating on bad information from five years ago. And it was bad information then. Blogging because you have to? What an execrable task. Who wants to read a blog that you feel is an obligation? I want to read something the author wants to write, not filler content meant to prop up a dead thing. This isn't Weekend At Bernie's. "HEY LOOK AT MY BLOG IT'S TOTALLY ALIVE." *waggles dead blog's sunglasses* *forces dead blog to messily eat carrots and dip*

The author of this post, Chuck Wendig, basically put words to everything I've been feeling about my own half-assed blogging endeavors (actually half-assed seems too generous. Let's go with quarter-assed). After reading Wendig's article, here's what I said to Mel:

I've been debating letting my blog go. It sucks too, because there was a time I LOVED my blog. I loved writing little posts about nothing.... Back then my blog was more personal to me. I didn't have any real readers, so I just wrote for myself, and it was cathartic and fun. Then I started writing a book, and my blog became booooooring. Like, I'm bored with it, and that's a bad sign. And now, reading this article, I feel like I really need to just say goodbye to blogging. But then a small part of me doesn't want to let my blog go because it's sort of my baby. It's been with me for six years now and has chronicled a big chunk of my life...

I don't know. I just really miss the days where I wrote pointless posts like "A Herd of Cantaloupes" and "That which is Pretty, Like Unicorns and Roaches and Stuff." Back then, I wrote because I wanted to write; because something quirky was playing in my brain and I had to get it down on paper--or screen. Case in point: Last night, it took me forever to fall asleep because my left boob had a tiny muscle spasm that wouldn't stop. I was so intrigued by the muscle twitch that I couldn't keep my hands off it, and at one point I realized that if anyone walked into the room, it would totally look like I was feeling myself up. Here it occurred to me that this is one of the stupid things that I would have blogged about in the past. But now I only blog about writer's block and word counts. This makes me sad. And makes me want to yawn.

Long story short, writing a book has turned me into a boring blogger. I started my blog way before I started writing a book--before I even knew that I was going to write a book--so back then, I wrote blog posts just to write them. It was my way of chronicling the little nuances of life--those little moments that aren't deep or important, thus forgettable and nonexistent if it wasn't for writing them down (my sister discussed this phenomenon beautifully in her "Remembering the Jelly" post).

NO MORE. I'm sick of my Bernie-blog. I'm done with obligatory blogging performed in a sad attempt to give the impression of life to an otherwise lifeless blog. 

Which means I'm no longer participating in the WIPMarathon Reports (sorry guys. *sniffle*). I will still follow the WIPMarathon Reports from others though. These are, after all, my writing comrades, and I care about the progress they're making on their WIPs. I also still plan to talk about how my novel is coming along once in awhile...but only when I feel like it, not because "it's that time." The schedule serves as great accountability/motivation, but it also serves as one big guilt-trip when I miss the deadline.

Which brings me to my next point: I'm no longer going to feel guilty if I haven't posted in a long time. Like, why should I feel bad? If I wrote in a diary only once a month, no one would care. Why should a blog be different? I mean, I understand the importance of blogging regularly if you want to gain/keep readers. But I don't care about that anymore. I'm done with strategic blogging. My few attempts at it were feeble and lacked heart anyway.

And from this point forward, if I've been MIA from my blog for 90 days straight and I come back to write a post that says "Our hen Princess Buttercup is actually a dude," and that's all my readers get, well, then, that's all they get. No more crushing sense of obligation to give more. Really, I probably won't have many readers left by this point anyway, so GOODBYE PRESSURE. 

I guess none of this makes sense, because the goals I just laid out seem to be creating a really crappy blog in which "Wind blows sand over a corpse" (Wendig). But these are the things I need to change in order to keep blogging. Period. I'd rather have a crappy blog that I enjoy writing than no blog at all.

I love my readers and I want the ones who care to stick around. But someday when I'm 80 years old, I want to remember the jelly. Not word counts. If that means losing what little readers I have left, I'm okay with that. So...*raises glass* Here's a toast to jelly (sorry, I had to say it).