Author Archives: Amy Jane

For The Flourishing Mother.

Posted on by

I’ve always loved your blog‘s name.

It’s a meme, but as I want to do it I’ll find a way to make it belong on Untangling instead of SnowFairy. ;)

Six Quirky Things about You (Note it doesn’t define *quirky*)
Here are the rules:

* Link the person who tagged you.
* Mention the rules in your blog.
* Tell about six unspectacular quirks of yours.
* Tag a new set of six following bloggers by linking them

Anyone who’s read here long knows I’ll disobey that last edict (anyone who wants it is welcome, but I won’t make assignments).

1. One thing I’ve done all my life is make “soundtracks” to the stories in my head.

As a child this meant everything was recorded off of records– mainly Don Fransisco, Keith Green, Roar of Love, and a few others– because we didn’t have a double cassette deck.

Until my computer and iPod got out of sinc I made lists there for each project I was working on (two novels, in particular) and now I’ve got playlists on YouTube for most of my major characters.

2. I change the radio station within a few bars of intro if I know there’s a line of lyric in it that I don’t want my kids to hear.

3. I sometimes don’t trust my judgment of whether a song sounds good because music is such a whole-package experience for me.

e.g. I love this song (even though tonight was the first time I heard it) because the voice, delivery and rhythms are the stuff of my early memories. Have no idea if it’s a quality song, just know I like it.

4.  I like the Willow Tree figurines.  This one is by my computer (or, at this moment my sewing machine, which has usurped my laptop’s position of honor/usefulness):

5.  I can’t not-create.  While my computer-time was on moratorium I took on the project of making costumes for a Renaissance Faire coming up next month.  Half-way through Natasha’s indigo princess gown since yesterday afternoon.  More about that some other time.

Jay hid my laptop most of last week, along with his big computer-screen and I, obeying the spirit of the law rather than the letter, resisted looking for them.

I didn’t have my novel to peck at, and the zeal with which I dove into sewing (which I haven’t touched in literally a year) made me think of how much sewing I did before I wrote regularly.

Back when clean-up wasn’t an issue…

6.  I label my movies for what age I think my children should be before I let them watch something.  I needed a way to hold myself accountable when I want to watch something they shouldn’t see.

A Male-Centered Opening

Posted on by

I’ve been aware, almost since day-one, that having a female main character severely limits my potential audience. Attempts like these (as an alternative to a Linnea POV opening) have been the result.

“Don’t do it Captain.  I’ll report you.  You’ll lose your post.  You’ll be demoted.”

Another choking sob filtered through the heavy oak door, followed by the unintelligible garble of a woman’s voice. Tykone laid his free hand on the doorknob.  The knuckles of his left hand were nearly as white as the ivory knife-hilt his fingers gripped.

“Do you doubt me, soldier?” Rickard’s face was frosted with sweat.  “I’ll kill you myself if that thing in there doesn’t.”

“Do you think it is fear of you that stays my hand?” whispered Tykone, hating himself more with every moment he hesitated.

“Ignore him, Captain.” The voice beside Tykone reminded him of the new recruits standing watch with them.  “You are Hjalmar, and no mere soldier.  I, at least, with follow wherever you lead.”

Tykone’s eye barely registered the fury this defiance had raised in Rickard before a shattering scream dissolved his indecision.  Tykone threw his shoulder at the door.

The grunts of the men instantly beside him let him believe the crack he saw was actually widening that fast.  He dove into the room before any of the others could have fit.

Before him was the stuff of nightmares.  The body of a gargantuan snake nearly looped the room, black except for the strip of dirty yellow where its belly showed.  There was no sign of the woman.

“Sanna!” yelled Tykone.  “Sanna! Can you hear me?”

Sword drawn he lept over the shifting body, looking for the head.  Then he saw it, black and yellow, tipping up to the ceiling.  Tykone saw the feet of a young woman—one still wearing its white bridal slipper—disappearing behind the creature’s dragon-teeth.

With a scream that nearly gagged him, Tykone stumbled over black coils toward the head.  Swinging his sword as he went, Tykone was aware of a bruising ache in his shoulder, and the exclamations of the soldiers that followed his example.  None of their efforts seemed to be noticed by the great serpent.  None broke through its scales.

And then the bit I love, but haven’t decided where it belongs.  Also between Tykone and Rickard, and designed to hint at their history/subtext.

“That was always your problem, wasn’t it, Rickard?  You tried not to see what a monster might be doing—because even you are man enough to know you shouldn’t leave a woman alone to face him.”

Tykone believes his co-captain’s brother, Magnus, attacked his good friend (the protagonist), while Rickard insists she was a willing party to her *Ahem* un-planned pregnancy.

Magnus’s story is unavailable because he disappeared right after killing the girl’s father in an honor-fight over the issue.

Honoring my Mother

Posted on by

Well, in case you missed it, I was invited to give a 5-minute (re- and re-emphasized: Five-minute) talk about my mom at her church today. Mother’s Day.

I called the pastor to clarify his goals and was able to organize the following talk. It was really hard to begin, looking right at her and knowing how she dislikes being the focus, but once I started in with the actual words of the poem I was in control of my voice for the most part. Though I did have to pause a few times.

I’m here today to honor you.

I’m blessed to have this poem apply to my husband and dad, too, but this morning it’s for my mom:

These words are from the poem, “Love” by Roy Croft.

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

[And then I must change it a bit to say,]

You have done it
With a touch,
With a word,

You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

© Roy Croft (1907 – 1973).

I am proud to say my mother is my friend, and I hope she is too. Beginning when I was young, my mother’s availability, acceptance, and ability to challenge me, shaped my assumptions of how friends take care of each other.

Continue reading »

Maybe it is a series?

Posted on by

Still don’t really think so.

It’s just that I’ve started “composting” the idea of whether I could break up my current story into self-contained elements.

i.e., I need to poke around and decide if there is enough story to make the opening “Beauty and the Beast” section it’s own story, and if so whether the later adventures are also possible to disentangle from one another.

At this point I think they would still be pretty intertwined and dependent on one another. Kind of a Spiderwick series, highly interdependent, not a Redwall or Narnia type.

It would mean I’m looking at an utterly different animal, but maybe that could help work out some more kinks.

A New Reason to Love FireFox (and an endorsement of Bones)

Posted on by

So I’ve mentioned I got addicted to the show Bones on Hulu.

I didn’t mention they have a “limited commercial interruption” style of sponsorship. That basically means that the same commercial (or product) comes on at each normal commercial break.

*But* Firefox’s ad blocker blocks even those, and once we were watching together on my husband’s computer (which has AdBlock enabled) we watched nothing but show. Very cool.

DH (dear husband)’s gift to me arrived Saturday: Seasons one and two of Bones on DVD.

I’m still re-watching Season One with Jay (as we get the kids down early enough), but I’ve started watching Season Two ahead of him (since I’ve finished One already).

The direction is very different between seasons. I didn’t think I was the sort of person to notice that sort of thing, but everything from camera movement, costuming and scene-cuts has changed, so maybe it’s impossible to miss.

If you’re familiar with the Harry Potter movies it’s a little like the shift between (I think it was) movies 2 and 3, where the kids went from school-robes all the time to “normal” every-day sort of clothes.

Disclaimer: This show does require a high gross-out threshold. Glimpses of the dead are not gratuitous, but neither are they obscured or made “artistic” in any way (frankly I don’t know how that could happen, but I’ve hear some people try).

Other than the pilot the ladies are generally dressed as you’d expect self-respecting, emotionally-healthy professionals to be, and the namesake lead, while being emphatically her own woman, does not emphasize or accomplish that by being disrespectful toward men (a first in my viewing experience).

~ ~ ~

The primary selling point for this show is its characterization, and I really appreciate the way the writers have handled the someone’s-dying-every-episode element that plagues (or I think should) the conscience of every show like this.

Having established that the characters talk about significant things, the writers use them talking about the affect their work has on them and the value of every human life. Better (I imagine) than most body-a-week shows, Bones works to make each victim an individual and shows how the cases affect the lives of those working on them.

Why Does Sin Grieve God?

Posted on by

It’s not because he’s some prude or fancy-pants, holding a fluffy, lace-edged handkerchief to his nose when he pretends to smell something distasteful.

It’s because Sin is to God what Death is to us.

Actually, it would be fair to say that sin is worse than death, because those of us who are believers have the joyful expectation that we will see our loved ones again. Some of them at least.

Sin is the ultimate separation.

Indeed, the LORD’s hand is not too short to save,
and His ear is not too deaf to hear.

But your iniquities have built barriers
between you and your God,
and your sins have made Him hide [His] face from you
so that He does not listen.

Isaiah 59:1-2

It isn’t just that God doesn’t like sin. It’s also that sin builds barriers between us, and while God has made a way to remove the barrier (through his son’s voluntary death in our place) He knows not everyone will jump at that chance.

Synopses

Posted on by

I doubt anyone has noticed, but I’ve updated my Infant Novel page half a dozen times in the last 3 or 4 months.

Mostly changes to the “What’s the novel about?” question, because it’s always been cluttered and convoluted. I know you’re supposed to be able to explain your story in one or two sentences, and I’ve not figured out yet how to do that.

The 9- or 10-year-old little brother of one of these kids came over to me while the 13-year-olds were reading my first chapters and asked what the story was about. I tried to rattle off my one-sentence summary and realized it was absolutely useless.

So I went home and changed it that night. Still no better.

But I just updated it again, because (seriously) the older version was worse. And since this one made me laugh— though I suspect it will be equally opaque to most readers— I’ll post it here too.

Getting a stranger out of a bad bargain he made with Hell wasn’t the first thing on the Beauty’s mind after disenchanting her Beast, but she needed something to do while on the run from the executioner.

I am definitely open to suggestions on how to do this better.

One plus about this rendition is that the situation sounds almost humorous. Which is weird, when you think about it.

So few words and still a story!

Posted on by

From Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett, 14th Edition (1968)

“My men, yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and ten pence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill or Molly Sparks sleeps a widow!”

— John Sparks (1728-1822), before the battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777

What Kind of a Writer am I?

Posted on by

The portfolio I mentioned last week was my final for an “intermediate” creative-writing class.

I titled it The Partial Histories of Often Confused People and filled it with three poems and four short stories. Most of the stories were strongly based on real occurrences, or how I imagined reality to be from a smattering of facts I’d gleaned.

Mostly “downer” stuff for some reason.

Each of them hold hope, but they’re all very heavy. I re-read the ending of one and it actually got me choked-up.

This class was the place I first learned to consciously vary my sentence structure. The teacher called me on my repetitive tendency to start each sentence with the subject (e.g., these two sentences).

Now whenever I start a sentence not that way I’m aware that the reason is that class. I think it made me a better writer.

Here’s the teacher’s response to the work (where the title of this post comes from). It’s interesting think this is from four years ago, and I think about how I’ve changed and how I’ve stayed the same.

Well, thanks much for The Partial Histories of Often Confused People. It is a good collection and seems very Amy, standing up for what it believes in, assembling moments with no small sense of conviction.

Having said that, I’m not sure just yet what sort of a writer you’re meant to be, someone writing stories or literary nonfiction — or maybe essays that allow you more room in some ways to tackle the issues that clearly matter so deeply to you.

I’m somewhat inclined to see you in that final sense, using your training as a journalist and your affection for telling stories to create different kinds of essays.

Whatever you tackle it will be spirited. And perhaps if you go the essay route, the sense of humor you display in class will also find an outlet on paper (humor is almost totally absent in your stories, which seems odd considering how downright goofy you can be in class— that’s meant as a complement, honest).

~ ~ ~ ~

Continue reading »

April Links

Posted on by

Finding God in 5 Steps

Because 5 Things I Learned the Hard Way That I Believe Fostered the Right Disposition for Gaining a Better Understanding of God but Since I’m Just Some Fool With an Internet Connection and Not a Pastor or a Theologian You Should Take This and Everything Else I Write With a Big Grain of Salt, just felt too long.

~

I Can Live

The artist’s story of his mother leaving the abortion that would have killed him.  While completely outside my usual style of music a very intriguing and moving piece (H.T. Sarah)

~

Stuff Christians Like is already a terrific place to go for a grin, but for more of a blink-and-think than a laugh I encourage everyone to read Letting Porn Win.

~

Ten Commandments of Trying a Case

A smart evaluation of the weird J.K Rowling vs. Biggest-Fan case by Bluestocking.

~

Two writing blogs I’ve just discovered and enjoyed.

Book Therapy and So You Wanna be Published…

Their very usable writing and noveling advice makes their archives more of a trap than many blogs’.

~

And as a side note, I’m 29 today. Jay’s coming home a bit early to make a cake with the kids and we’ll have a family night.