Isn't it fun to Nano?

Many moons age, I think back in 2008, when I first discovered the concept of writing a novel in the 30 days of November, it sounded crazy.  But I did it, and then repeated it some more.  Now I love writing that quick and unedited 50,000 words. I know the book is a long way from finished by then. I know it has taken me at the very least, a year, to add enough more to the story, cut the things that don't work, check that I spell characters names the same all the way through, make sure my story actually follows the map, edit the spelling and punctuation and design a cover.  Still the freedom of just sitting down and telling a story, is what I love the most.

This month I am not starting from scratch, but starting at a point where I have two novels I've been working on, and adding a total of 50,000 new words to them.  I am hoping to find out why Duffy and his Aunt and sister have been thrown into the midst of storms and battles and a plague and why I have at least 7 threads going that don't seem to have a resolution yet.  I feel like my characters know more at this point than I do and are all standing around begging for my attention to their story.  Ay least seven voices in my head saying, "Pay attention, This is what happens next!"

That still isn't crazy.

Crazy are those people doing the novel in a day challenge.  50,000 words in 24 hours?

NEVER

but they keep doing it

Free on Kindle for a short time

Duffy Barkley, The protagonist of Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog, has returned in the sequel, Duffy Barkley: Seek Well.  Now 11 years old, he cannot remember the events that happened the first time that he was in Uhrlin, or a time when his Cerebral palsy was cured, or when he flew.  But those memories are breaking through and Uhrlin remembers him and is calling him back.  He can't remember why he is fascinated by Guatemala, or anything about a giant, bald, orca colored mer-woman with the voice of an angel.  But he has to seek her.


For 5 days this book is free on kindle

http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B005CQ5Z8E/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3 

and the first book in my series is only 99 cents on kindle at

 http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Remember being with a group of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a lot like the groups in all the popular stories. They were the reason people love MASH, Harry Potter, Narnia, Friends, The Lord of the Rings etc. They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again. Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything. Duffy, a 9 year old boy with cerebral palsy, survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

 

Tall Ships Visiting Crescent City

As I may have mentioned, I grew up far from the sea, near Yellowstone Park, in the lakes and Rocky Mountains and High Desert of Wyoming. I loved that area, but even as a young child, the pull of the ocean and her beaches was always on me.  I would stroll the rocky beaches at Yellowstone Lake, following the waves and watching the gulls and dream that I was Gidget, with a surfboard to ride.

NowI have lived on the Redwood Coast for 23 years, and firmly believe that old adage that says, "If you are lucky enough to live by the sea, you are lucky enough."

Last year I wrote about the section in my second book, where a ghost ship is discovered adrift in Uhrlin,
at http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/2011/09/ghost-ship.html

That mystery in Duffy Barkley: Seek Well was inspired by a couple Tall Ships which I have been lucky enough to see almost annually since 1998.

The Hawaiian Chieftain and The Lady Washington are beautiful, and dock here and do tours and stage mock battles and welcome school groups.  And I love them.  You may recognize the Lady from playing the Interceptor on the Pirates of the Caribbean or from a holodeck scene in Star Trek.

This year it was especially joyful to welcome them back, as they had to skip our harbor last spring after the Japanese tsunami destroyed all of our docks in March 2011.

I know this is my writing blog, but enough words.  Let me show some pictures of the Ships

Watching the mock battle cruise

My son works in the building on the dock

Hawaiian Chieftain passes Battery Poing Lighthouse

Lady Washington

Crab boat in the foreground, Hawaiian Chieftain in the middle

The Chiefain

The Lady is Movie Star Lovely

The Chieftain's helm is a wheel

My pirate loving son in 1998

Me and son in 1998 see ships in Old Town Eureka, CA

The Lady's Helm is not a wheel, both my boys steering

Thinking, and Giving Away Books in Paper and in Kindle

• 

    I think a lot, as I face the fact that this stage of my life has to change, and I really don't want it too, I had spent so long trying to get pregnant, and to adopt, and I loved being a mom to little kids, but when I adopted and found out I was pregnant too, it meant that they both were grown together, and after graduation in June, my husband and I will find ourselves rattling around in a much emptier house.

     It has been as a stay at home mom/writer/1/2 time substitute teacher that I defined myself, but suddenly the stay at home part is me alone while the husband and boys are out and about. At first that was a rare treat, but now it's a rut. I think I'm trying to test out my thoughts on getting back into full time teaching after 13 years away, or full time in a different job. The writing is fun, but not a money maker, some months I make as much as one day subbing, but not usually. You know, I'm depressed because the one choice I'd make in a heartbeat is to rewind time and relive the last 18, wonderful years, and I feel like I've fulfilled my goals but don't have new ones yet.

   Remember your blessings, and I'll remember mine. Hey, if you are interested in something to read, there is a free book giveaway on St. Patricks day that you can sign up for anytime before that, and one of the choices is mine.

  http://writersparty.com/contests/

  So Breathe, remember it is a beautiful world.  Have a Happy Sunday,
• Yesterday was my day of rest so except the normal firewood hauling, I did not work out. But then there was Jonathan's message this morning, if you took Saturday off, make sure you get in a work out today. I swear he knows my mind 

  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  

  

  

  Last night was bitterly cold, so the wood stove didn't really keep the house warm, and I woke up at 4:30 with my nose feeling frozen from being out from under the covers, fortunately my grandma's old quilt had the rest of me toasty warm.

  I have leftover roast beef and potatoes, carrots and onion, and leftover marinara sauce and more veggies and that is my favorite way to start a big kettle of minestrone soup, and this is sure soup weather.

  At work, I have my books on kindle on sale so For the next 5 days, my second book, Duffy Barkley: Seek Well will be free on the kindle at

  http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B005CQ5Z8E

  and the first book on kindle is always only 99 cents
  http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M

  and at school we had the funnest time on friday, there had been a contest in a k-8 school to see which class could log the most minutes reading. The second grade won, so the principal gave each second grader a can of silly string, then he climbed on the stage in front of them and allowed them to spray him, they were good aims and his whole face was covered and the fumes were thick but the laughter was thicker.

  So Good to hear kids laugh.

The Growth of a Story

When I began to tell my sons stories about Duffy Barkley and the fantasy world of Uhrlin, it was only natural to incorporate the things I knew with the things we imagined.  So I told them short stories and the stories grew longer as my children asked questions which had to develop answers.

 My love of dolphins and merpeople is one of my first memories, and as a small town, Wyoming, land locked child, I remember fighting with my mother when I was barely a toddler, angry that she hadn't named me "flipper."  I also had an intense love of Keiko, the free-willie whale who lived for a few years just north of us when my own children were toddlers, and the killer whales markings influenced the coloring I chose for my own mer-people and their Princess SeaBee.

 The lovely water of the Smith River in summer always reminded bye of living, liquid jade, and provided the first inspiration for flowstone.  Flowstone, is a colony of microscopic creatures who form a group which can be solid or liquid based on how fast they vibrate and which lives symbiotically with a tamarin like creature, forming the clothing and homes of the city of Oohline.  From a distance Oohline looks like a cluster of green grapes or a pile of glass fishing floats.  Well, finding one of those floats washed up on the beaches where  we live now is a goal like a treasure hunt.  Then one day, building sand castles with my youngest son, the castle kept crumbling and he'd scoop up and re-use the sand, and the idea of a city, where the rooms could detach and move around was born.  And the boys loved trampolines, and we thought how much fun it would be to live where the land was like a trampoline, and then we wondered if you would even walk if the land was that springy, so the tamarin, monkey like creatures began to roll up like a ball and bounce, and so did their flowstone bubble homes.

 I started sketching and painting images from the story which made me think of even more details.

I was a teacher of young children with severe handicaps, a role I grew into after being blessed with a brother with Down's Syndrome.  Most of my students had been amazingly strong, loving people who thrived with teaching and attention, and the ones I found able to express themselves had very strong opinions, so I made my main character a very opinionated 9 year old with Cerebral Palsy who hated being told "No"

 I wrote out our stories and drew a map and edited and re-edited the book, and still thought of it as a simple thing that I could share with the two boys I loved so much.  And then I printed it, and a sequel and now I find myself in the curious, wonderful position of not being the only one who knows and loves Duffy.

 I grew up by Yellowstone, so part of my fantasy land had strong ties to that amazing landscape

 but I live in the redwoods by the sea so towering first and ocean found a place there too.

 And my best friend as a child, was this chimp, named Judy after the one on Daktari, and many of the characters in Uhrlin have something of Judy in them, and something of the toddlers my children were.

Now, I am delighted to look on line and discover other people talking about my characters, and reading my books and leaving wonderful reviews on the kindle and paperback sites on Amazon.  I always wanted to be a storyteller, but i had never realized how much of myself would show up in my stories, or how much fantasy is shaped by my life.