12 Day’s of Authors December Event

http://yesterdaydaugher.blogspot.com

I’m part of the 12 Day’s of Authors December Event!

Between December 1st –31st, 11 authors are writing 500 word shorts with a winter holiday theme:  Chanukah, Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, among others.

On December 23rd, my short story will be posted. It’s about a space travel on different timelines and how that effects holiday celebrations: in this case, Winter Solstice.

Make sure you also enter the drawing, there are lots of great prizes including a paperback copy of Other Systems.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober. Good advice if not taken literally.

Dennis asked me if I wanted some tequila. We were joking around and he mentioned writing a blog post about “Writing like Hemingway.”

I said no, but umm, well here I am writing about the aftermath.

“Write Drunk, Edit Sober” is a quote that is generally attributed to Hemingway, but there is actually no credible source that he actually said it. However even Hemingway can’t remember everything he actually wrote and said.  In the Paris Review The Art of Fiction No. 21 conducted by George Plimpton

Plimpton: You once wrote in the Transatlantic Review that the only reason for writing journalism was to be well paid. You said: “And when you destroy the valuable things you have by writing about them, you want to get big money for it.” Do you think of writing as a type of self-destruction?

HEMINGWAY: I do not remember ever writing that. But it sounds silly and violent enough for me to have said it to avoid having to bite on the nail and make a sensible statement…”

So whether he said it or not, let’s breakdown “Write Drunk, Edit Sober”

Earnest Hemingway was a notorious drinker. A quick search on the internet will show hundreds of photos with him with a drink in his hand. He also was a womanizer, it’s possible that he hit his wives.  In fact, some would say his over the top lifestyle is practically a parody of what it is to be a sporting man’s man author.  I am not defending any bit of his lifestyle. This is post is simply about writing while drunk.

While certainly, Hemingway was a hard drinker, there is evidence to suggest that most of the time while he was writing he was sober.

In the same interview with Plimpton, Hemingway said “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.”

So in my opinion, it doesn’t really sound like he is drinking when he is actually writing. It sounds like he is drinking when he is NOT writing. He’s getting through the rest of the day. Here is another of Hemingway’s stories about writing and drinking:

Hemingway: “The stories you mention I wrote in one day in Madrid on May 16 when it snowed out the San Isidro bullfights. First I wrote “The Killers,” which I’d tried to write before and failed. Then after lunch I got in bed to keep warm and wrote “Today Is Friday.” I had so much juice I thought maybe I was going crazy and I had about six other stories to write. So I got dressed and walked to Fornos, the old bullfighters’ café, and drank coffee and then came back and wrote “Ten Indians.” This made me very sad and I drank some brandy and went to sleep. I’d forgotten to eat and one of the waiters brought me up some bacalao and a small steak and fried potatoes and a bottle of Valdepeñas.

The woman who ran the pension was always worried that I did not eat enough and she had sent the waiter. I remember sitting up in bed and eating, and drinking the Valdepeñas. The waiter said he would bring up another bottle. He said the Señora wanted to know if I was going to write all night. I said no, I thought I would lay off for a while. Why don’t you try to write just one more, the waiter asked. I’m only supposed to write one, I said. Nonsense, he said. You could write six. I’ll try tomorrow, I said. Try it tonight, he said. What do you think the old woman sent the food up for?

I’m tired, I told him. Nonsense, he said (the word was not nonsense). You tired after three miserable little stories. Translate me one.

Leave me alone, I said. How am I going to write it if you don’t leave me alone? So I sat up in bed and drank the Valdepeñas and thought what a hell of a writer I was if the first story was as good as I’d hoped.”

Notice here too, he is not saying he is writing and drinking. He drank brandy and went to sleep. Later he is drinking and thinking.

Now this is what really happens if I am drinking. Before people get the wrong idea (And for my mom since she is likely going to read this) I am going to explain something. I sip my shots, not toss them back. Normally when I drink, I enjoy mixed drinks better than straight shots. I am only a social drinker.

Cut up some limes, break open the salt and Dennis pours us a shot.

1st shot: I feel fuzzy though Dennis doesn’t believe I feel fuzzy a little warm–but then the guy has a hundred pounds on me. We begin watch the goofy movie Eurotrip, 2004 . Our neighbors comes over.

2nd shot. I feel a little unsteady on my feet. Dennis tells me to touch my nose with my eyes closed which I can do, HOWEVER I have to THINK to make brownies, but I know my neighbor doesn’t like walnuts, so I ask everyone how they feel about pecans. Then I made said brownies with pecans.  They turned out fine, because I was THINKING really hard about a recipe I have memorized.

At this point I feel I have been up for nine days. My eyelids are getting heavy, but I set the timer. Now the brownie timer is the shot timer. So now we had over a 1/2 hour between the second and third shot.

Third shot and brownies!

Our neighbor and Dennis talk about this new food called a cronut. My neighbor and I tried to figure out how to deconstruct a cronut so we could make them someday. They are in new York and though they will no doubt move across the country, we thought about what it might be like.

Dennis is wondering why we get fixated on thing, until our neighbor called it “hacking the cronut.”

Everyone starts talking about dinner. Honestly I’m too sleepy to sit through a meal. They call up to get a cab, then go get Mexican Food. I stay home. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I meant to see what happened if I tried to write. Then Dennis is calling me, telling me he is coming home. He brought me Carne Asada Tacos. I eat.

Now that I am awake again, the depressive effects of alcohol means I cannot feel my heart. Or my brain. Or where ever the stories and the characters and their voices come from. I become logical and colder.  I have to try to keep myself from panicking. My synapses are firing, I know it’s there, but there is no connection. I began thinking I might never be able to create again.  I feel dead inside. I feel alone. Logically I know I have a husband who loves me–and who don’t forget–just brought me tacos as proof of his devotion and also now is being very sweet to me since he knows I don’t feel quite right.

Dennis suggests I go to bed. I take the dogs outside and come inside and try to sleep. It does not come quickly. It does come once Dennis comes to bed. He mentions some movies we might watch today. I eventually fall asleep until 6:30 when Tycho wakes me up so I will take him outside. This morning, I don’t have a headache and my heart is speaking to me again.

This is what I learned:  Drinking does not make you more imaginative or creative, it turns off the “juice.” As Hemingway called it. This is why so many artists of all types drink and do drugs. Not to be more creative, but to turn it off! 

This is why I believe “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” is not meant to be taken literally at all. It means write without inhibition. Make it fun. Make it a carnival.

If  you want to emulate about Earnest Hemingway then write with confidence. Use strong words and write as concisely as possible. Finally here is the last thing to remember about being an author, even about a great Nobel Prize winning author such as Hemingway: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit, I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.” (Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934.)

Yesterday a man was shot over $2.50 USD and I was annoyed about traffic.

Dennis was running late yesterday, so I drove him to work. We got stuck in traffic on Pine Street. It’s often a bit crowded around 9:30, but it was solid traffic. We saw a valet parking attendant actually stood in traffic so a driver could pull out of his lot.

I was slightly irritated.  I think Dennis was too when he said,  “I’m just going to walk the rest of the way.”

I said okay and he hopped out of the car. I turned up 6th avenue then onto Pike so I could get out of downtown the quickest way possible. By the time I got home, Dennis discovered what happened and I got a text.

A bus driver was shot.

Here is the basics of what happened from the Seattle Times

“Three people used a rear door to board the bus, including a man in a hooded, dark-colored sweatshirt.

The driver asked the three to pay their fares, and two complied. But the man in the sweatshirt paced back and forth inside the bus, then physically attacked the 64-year-old driver.”

the rest of the article is here. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021599613_busshootingxml.html

A single zone bus fare at Peak Hours is: $2.50.

Thankfully driver is okay, he is at the hospital. Other people had injuries due to the escape and subsequent chasing down of the man who was shot by the police and died at the hospital. We will never know why the assailant went ballistic. From the article, he suffered from mental health issues.

I know this was an isolated incident. I know that Dennis would not have been on that bus because it was the 27 southbound (Dennis might have been on the 27 northbound which makes it feel somewhat close to home.)

We live in a city with over a million people. It is amazing that Seattle is as safe as it is.  More importantly when life’s little irritations get me angry, I hope I’ll remember that I don’t know what happened three blocks away.  My tiny inconvenience is not comparable to what happened.

My thoughts go out to anyone who was injured, the police officers and to the driver of the bus and the driver’s family.

Dan Thompson’s The Caseworker’s Memoirs is Free on ebook June 14th to 18th!

 It’s Dan Thompson’s blog’s first birthday! To celebrate his novella ‘The Caseworker’s Memoirs’ (ebook version) is FREE  from Friday 14th June – Tuesday 18th June!

Synopsis

Malcolm was losing touch with the world; a retired counsellor and recently widowed, he lived each day sat at his desk, watching the world pass him by. That’s until his daughter gave him a leather-bound notebook. She encouraged him to write about times long past that he shared with his loving wife, but as dreams of his previous patients take hold of him, he has no choice but to share his experiences and thoughts. This is Malcolm’s attempt to rid himself of his pent-up guilt, his emotional involvement with his former occupation, but perhaps most of all, his attempt to have a purpose in life. From the rational fear of heights to the peculiar fear of time, from the obsessive fear of terrorism to the psychological ignorance of homophobia, The Caseworker’s Memoirs is not only a tale of one man’s grief, but also the tale of seven other families that are affected by real phobias.

The links are:

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Caseworkers-Memoirs-ebook/dp/B00CAUIY7Y/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1370944798&sr=8-1&keywords=the+caseworker%27s+memoirs

US/AUS: http://www.amazon.com/The-Caseworkers-Memoirs-ebook/dp/B00CAUIY7Y/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1370944824&sr=8-1&keywords=the+caseworker%27s+memoirs

Dan Thompson is the author of The Black Petal, Life is all but a vast array of Colours & The Caseworker’s Memoirs

Website & Blog: Dan Thompson

Twitter: @dan_pentagram

Author Facebook Page: Dan Thompson

Why not check out his Goodreads page too?

Enter to win Other Systems Goodreads Giveaway!

I am giving away three paperback copies on Goodreads. Check it out only seven more days to enter!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Other Systems

by Elizabeth Guizzetti

Giveaway ends May 15, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Blog Hop! The Next Big Thing: The Martlet

We are taking a break today from the Faminelands talk so I can be part of this Blog Hop! First I want to thank the talented author Dan Thompson for nominating me to  be part of this blog hop. His next project, The Caseworker’s Memoirs, will be released in late Spring 2013, but his feature length YA Fantasy novel, The Black Petal, has no release date as of yet. Check out his post about The Next Big Thing: The Black Petal.

What is the working title of your next book?

My very next release is a graphic novel entitled Faminelands #3: Mareton’s Curse which comes out in ten days at Emerald City Comic Con, but I am going to focus on The Martlet because it is my next written novel.

Where did the idea for your book come from?

First of all, I love epic fantasy and horror, especially vampires, elves, and other mystical long-lived beings. One day, I thought about what if a being with a life span of a 1000 years might decide that it is just not enough time. And I came up with a character than was supposed to be in Faminelands an elvish nobleman who turned into a vampire. But he never fit. So I had to cut him and consider I would write about him another time. This character became Lord Roark.

Character Sketch of Lord Roark

Then I began thinking, what if the spirit is eternal, but the Universe is random. Though most inhabitants of the Universe believe otherwise, the prior life has no bearing on Resurrection. It is chance in this Universe. Your spirit might go to any one of twelve diminsions which are referred to as The Realms. Roark decides he likes being a Fairsinge nobleman, so he does not want to Resurrect.

Then Roark’s story began to develop into Kian’s story. Kian is Roark’s consort. I did know it would be a homosexual relationship, but I felt that Kian was a good counterpart to Roark. Kian and Roark love each other, so much that they would never be parted, not by death.

Them the book began to shift as the other characters came into view…Mira and Eohan. Mira is Roark’s neice and someone he can teach and love as a parent loves a child. Eohan was a colleague and Kian’s protector first and the men became friends after Roark named Kian his consort.

Then I knew it wasn’t just this one insane guy, there was four people. Four people can make anything seem almost normal…

Lady Mira as a grown woman. 

What genre does your book fall under?

I consider this epic fantasy, but there is some horror and science fiction involved.

Who would play your characters in a film?

Hugh Jackman would play Eohan. His looks are similar to how I imagined him and how he played Wolverine and his relationship with Rouge is similar to how Eohan looks at Mira during her adolescence. He is her weapons master, yet even when tasked to be a “parent”, he is still a friend.

Now the rest of the actors would have to dye their hair in tones of auburn, but Ryan Reynolds can play someone who cracks jokes while killing vampires so I think he could play Roark who cracks wise while Kian experiments on the corpses. He too can joke around with a child in the dangerous scene as he did in Blade 3.

Kian is a hardest role to fulfill because young actors are generally pretty and who ever would play him would be losing a lot of weight. Maybe Zac Efron.

For Mira we would need at least two actresses, maybe three. (She begins the novel as an infant, five year old, a prepubescent child of eleven/twelve, and then a young woman between 18-23) Emma Rigby would be a good choice as the young woman. She definitely has the look. My mom mentioned Jennifer Lawrence.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

The Martlet is an epic tale of friendship and betrayal about four assassins who play with necromancy on the side.

Will your next book be self-published or represented by an agent?

Choice C: Neither. I don’t have an agent, but I would like it to be traditionally published. I have sent it to 48Fourteen as they published Other Systems. It has not been accepted as of yet.

How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

1 month. All first my drafts take 1 -2 months, but they are in horrible shape. My entire process takes seven to nine months before I send it out to a publisher.

What other books would you compare this story to in the genre?

RA Salvatore’s The Sellswords Series: Servant of the Shard, Promise of the Witch King and The Road of the Patriarch follow the wily drow mercenary Jaxele.

Andrazej Sapkowski’s Witcher Series deals with some of the same issues, but in a completely different way.

Stan Nicholls’ Orcs books and and have about the same level of violence and humor.

Though it is horror novel: Anne Rice’s  Interview with a Vampire shows the immorality of their lifestyle pretty well.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It wasn’t a who or a what. It was a when. As I said, I had this idea for awhile. However I wrote The Martlet after I finished Other Systems and had a rough draft of Other Systems #2. Other Systems is a cerebral adventure. Abby and the crew of the Revelation is simply a survey team, not warriors. They don’t get into battles. (Readers may remember the crew runs from danger more than once.) In Other Systems #2, Ellie uses her mind to keep her from getting in trouble. Also Other Systems really deals with “good but flawed people.”

So I wanted to write a book that was a swashbuckling adventure with a quest to defeat death. The main characters kill people and steal bodies. They drink blood in order to stay young. Avarice defines them.

I wanted to see if I could write evil characters that people loved as much as they loved the characters in Other Systems. It would be challenge and I love to stretch my skills with a challenge.

So to make characters that people might want to read about, they need to be more than just cold blooded killers. The quality that they share with the readers is love: romantic, filial, and fraternal. The other attribute Roark and Mira share is a sense of duty to their family. Roark is the third born and in noble Fairsinge society the third born generally vows to live by valor to improve the reputation of their Plas (House) with deeds of service and gallantry. And since Roark’s morals are off, that is how he sees himself. He believes if he defeats death his Plas will be safe forever.

The story begins with one of Roark’s experiment gone awry. Wanting to see if it is possible, Roark, Kian and Eohan to direct a soul into the body of his elder sister’s new baby.  Orla wants to keep the baby, but her husband who has no interest in eternal life, thinks the child should be drowned in the Expanse. In a moment of sentiment, Roark suggests that he raise the child to be a Martlet to take the place of the third born son that Orla lost in battle. He does not give Orla or her husband time to argue. He takes the newborn with him and demands yearly child support payments for her upkeep.

Roark, Kian and Eohan might be evil, but they are not sadists. They are not abusive to her or anyone else–because that wouldn’t be fun to write. They dote upon her. They make it clear she must become a Martlet in order to have a place in her family. If she does not, her mother’s husband will probably kill her. This is a real threat to her well being. Mira is going through puberty before she ever steps in her Plas to take her vow as a Martlet. He believes she should join the Guild as he did and become an assassin so she can live a better life than a poor knight errant scraping by on the pitiful allowance they receive as Martlets. However Mira has seventy-five years of warrior/assassin training before her uncle allows her to do a job without himself or Eohan beside her.

The reader understands Mira’s want of love from her mother and her devotion to the uncle who raised her. And most importantly they will see why when Roark dishonored by the Guild and Eohan is turned into a zombie, Kian finds the knowledge in order for Mira can save them. They are a family unit.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

The Martlet has so many things that personally I think are fun: assassins, big ships crossing the Expanse, pirates, slavery, misdirection, zombies, helpful demons, elves, uncaring universe, true love and dimensional physics.

Check out The Martlet Webpage and/or LIKE The Martlet Facebook Page for updates!

Now for the next participant in the Blog Hop, I’m going to nominate Author, Candace Knoebel! Her award winning debut novel, Born in Flames, has had wonderful reviews and Book 2 in the Series in on its way. Check out her blog next!

250 Followers! Enter to win a copy of Other Systems!

So I planned to do this last week and then started a reading rampage, got lost in a world of other people’s creations, then went to an open mike at the Ballard Library and read the scene where Abby gets on the space elevator …and completely forgot to post this. Opps.

Regardless between my blog and twitter I now have over 250 followers.So I am going to have a random drawing for a electronic copy of Other Systems in the form of your choice: Mobi, PDF, or Epub and three awesome space wallpapers which will come to you in the form of three 1920 x 1080 jpgs at 100 dpi.

If you want to enter, all you have to do is like this post if you are a follower or follow me this weekend either on twitter (e_guizzetti) or as a reader to this very blog!

Yes any one who follows me today will be entered automatically. The contests runs today until Monday 12:01 PST.

I will contact the winner via email or on the contact page of your blog or twitter account. Random Drawing will be conducted by RandomPicker.com. I will post the name of the winner on this page.

Good Luck!