The Writer's Voice Contest!

I've just entered The Writer's Voice contest! More information here. I'm in good company--best of luck to everyone!


Per the contest rules, here are the plot summary from my query and first 250 words of Olympus Gate:


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Plot Summary:

Annie always believed she was just another girl orphaned by the nuclear wars... until the anonymous package arrived on her doorstep. Piecing together the clues inside reveals that she was born thousands of years before in ancient Rome, and that time travel is possible. She discovers that she had a twin sister, who was murdered in 83 BCE.

When she learns of her sister's death, she realizes she has a choice—stay with the people she has known all her life or return to ancient Rome in the hope of saving her twin. What's more, Annie believes that by changing the past she could create a new future, one not destroyed by war, but that in doing so she would erase the lives of everyone she loves. Uncertain whether she is making the right choice, Annie travels back to Rome.

Now she's stuck in the past, hiding her true identity and falling for the guy who loves her twin. She can't find her sister. She can't figure out how to change the world. And as the ancient superstitions that led to her sister's death close in, she fears that she may run out of time for both.

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First 250:

Someone told me once that before the end of the world apples were available year-round.  People could go to food stores and expect to find them regardless of the season.  Earth had a lot more apple trees back then.  A lot more people too.


The few of us who survived the apocalypse made a new existence for ourselves, one in which apples are only available in autumn.  I guess we're lucky--that Helsa Labs had the foresight to build this underground facility before the bombs fell; lucky we had the technology to preserve some of our way of life; lucky we rescued enough people from around the world (myself included) to have the genetic diversity necessary to prevent extinction.


But sometimes I think about life in the old world.  As I reach for the first apple of the harvest I wonder—would I like them so much if I could eat them whenever I wanted?


My hand closes around the fruit and immediately I know exactly how it will taste—tart for a gala, but with precisely the right amount of crunch in each bite.  A bruise mars the flesh—a surface wound only.  It doesn't reach the perfect core with its three teardrop seeds.


No... I don't know for certain, but three sounds right.


I pivot to scan Helsa's cavernous dining hall for a place to sit and jump as two lanky arms drape over my shoulders, the gold-skinned fingers grasping my fruit.  The vegetable soup in my left hand sloshes over my thumb.

Research Links

The research for my current project has spanned a lot of material and topics. Since some of my online resources took a little digging to find, I figured I'd share the best links here in case they might be useful to anyone else. Most of these have to do with mid-1800s New York.

Language: The 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett

Names: Popular Names in the US from 1801 to 1999

News: Historic American Newspapers (New-York Daily Tribune from 1847)

Maps: Interactive Maps of Manhattan from the 1600s to today

Bonus: Lessons in Old Norse and the Icelandic Saga Database

Not Quite Normal

“You are almost obscenely normal, my dear. You really need to let the inner-writer-wacko out more often.” - My critique partner Ico.

Way back ages and ages ago being a writer type meant you were something like this:

A philosophizing old man.

You walked around draped in voluminous robes with one arm raised imperiously in order to appear as sophisticated as possible. These were the guys who shaped the world as we know it, for good or ill, though for the most part we tend to say “good.”

But somewhere along the way, being a writer type came to mean that you were almost guaranteed to be quirky. Maybe this state of wackiness derives from having one's head perpetually in the clouds. Maybe it stems from a need to sail against the wind. Or maybe, after so much critical scrutiny, writers simply come to the point of shrugging off the judgments of other people:

I'm beautiful in my own way, thank you very much.

But what about those of us who aren't really that quirky after all? We don't walk around quoting dead French poets or dress up in flamboyant costumes or stay up all night in our little writing den with a dozen cups of tea and then sleep the morning away.

We can still write... right? We can still be in the club?

You mean you can be artistic without acting adorably weird?

“I think it's part of your mystery that you appear normal on the surface,” Ico continued. “But underneath... you definitely have to be one of those people who only seems mostly normal.”

And maybe she's right. Maybe that's the kind of person I am. Because I am the type who walks into a room and forgets why I'm there because I've been listening to the imaginary people arguing in my head. I'm the type who has a tight little personal bubble, and everything inside it has to be just. so. My quirks aren't always the obvious kind, but if you could come take a vacation in the wilds inside my head, you wouldn't have any doubts that you'd gone some place not-quite-normal.

And that's good enough for me.

How about you other writer types? Just how “not normal” are you?

Book Recommendation: The Near Witch

This past weekend I finally got a chance to read Victoria Schwab's The Near Witch, a book I'd been hearing about for months. I really loved it, but I'm having a hard time putting together my recommendation because my normal approach doesn't quite fit this book. For The Near Witch, the answer to “What is it about?” has so many layers. So instead of going through a brief overview and then highlighting my favorite aspects, I want to talk about the three major layers.

The first is the surface plot. The book is about a girl in an isolated town who has grown up all her life with the wind and the moor and the stories of the Near Witch. For the first time in her life, a stranger comes to town, and right away children begin to disappear from their beds.

This is the plot, and it's “what the book is about,” but for me it's not really what the book is about. The plot is solid and well-crafted and entertaining, but it isn't the most important thing. Some questions never get answered, like how the town came to be so cut off or what the rest of the world is like, but those things aren't vital to the story.

Instead the story is more about a girl who is learning to fight against her society's fear of the unknown. It's about how an isolated group can turn what is “other” into a scapegoat. It's about falling in love with something wild, because love is in some ways about seeing the beauty in something that is outside of us and not in our control. The characters all work very well in the roles they fill in the story. Their relationships are believable.

But even this isn't quite what the book is about for me.

For me The Near Witch is about the wind. It can be so many different things, but this is the first book I've read that really digs deep into what the wind can do to us. The writing is gorgeous. This is one of my favorite passages: “If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn't listen, not with all your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you'd look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company.”

This is the sort of writing that evokes strong emotions in me. I know exactly what Victoria Schwab is talking about when she says this. The wind has so many depths of subtlety. So to me the book is really a love story about those depths.

I really appreciated the quality of writing throughout the book, and I even brought out my kindle's highlighter for the first time to mark a few lines. I have a feeling Victoria Schwab is one author I will come to enjoy more and more with each book she writes.

Book Recommendation: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

I've had a bit of a reading slump lately and haven't been particularly excited about most of the books I've been reading. I do recall racing through Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why last month (and it's a worthwhile book to put on the TBR list), but most of my other reads have taken a while to get through.

Until last weekend. Friday night I started Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and by the end of the day Saturday I had finished it. If you haven't heard of it, the book is about a princess who was marked at birth to “do something special” for her world, only she's starting to wonder if maybe she's missed her chance. After all, what can the fat, awkward second daughter of a minor king do to change anyone's life for the better?

Quite a lot, actually. Elisa is very determined and has a head for strategy. She's married off to another king within the first chapter, and while we get the impression that she hasn't done much with her life so far, as soon as she leaves home she makes the most of her situation. She has her share of flaws, but she always pushes herself to her limits.

Personally one of my favorite pieces of the story was the religion. Fantasy religions are often hard to make feel authentic. So often the religions invented for made-up worlds are either slightly ridiculous (taking a sarcastic view of faith) or are so wrapped up in the magic of the world that there isn't really a faith component. Now the religion portrayed in The Girl of Fire and Thorns is perhaps a little too familiar, depending on your perspective. (One of the rituals has several parallels to Communion.) But I really appreciated the authenticity of the struggles that Elisa faces in relation to her faith.

I also appreciated that the book didn't shy away from the realities of death and havoc during wartime. While the story remains positive and hopeful overall, it doesn't let everyone live simply for the sake of a happily ever after. I was glad that Rae Carson chose to make tough choices with the characters.

Which ultimately means that I'm hooked on the series and looking forward to book two. Hopefully by the time it comes out in the fall you'll have read the first one and be looking forward to it too!